Pundits Close to Get their Dream Contest: McCain versus Obama

By Brigitte L. Nacos
The pundits, the correspondents, and the boys and girls on the bus(es) on the roll for John McCain and Barack Obama are now close to realize their dream for this election year: media darlings McCain and Obama will face each other in November. While the stars of television, print, and blogosphere rejoice, I couldn’t stop laughing when I read Jim Rutenberg’s New York Times article “Pundits Declare the Race Over,” in which he mentions Tim Russert and Walter Cronkite and the Drudge Report as if they were one of a kind. Nothing could be further from reality: Russert and Drudge are no Walter Cronkite! Nor are the other non-journalists among the fourth estate who love to call themselves “correspondent,” “journalist,” or “press.” But whether one likes it or not, today’s pundits have enormous power—because of their  perceived and real influence on the general public, on voters, and on the media-obsessed political class.

I wonder when the know-it-all guardians of our national interest will begin to second-guess their concerted efforts to demonize Hillary Clinton and their contribution to her now all but certain defeat. Soon, they will not have Senator Clinton to kick around any more to feed their constant stream of irrelevant but hyped up “breaking news” about the presidential contender they love to hate.

Without Hillary Clinton in the mix, the mainstream media and especially the cable networks' political infotainment casts will soon need to pick a Hillary substitute to keep their good-versus-evil campaign narrative going.