the First Draft

the reality you didn't hear

ABC feels bad about the Dean scream. That's just fucking great. That doesn't help anybody: not Dean, not anybody with an ounce of interest in a legitimate democracy. The press is quick to howl about slights against its power, and rises up in righteous indignation at the thought that democracy could function without it, but is somehow surprised that lazy reporting has any effect. This isn't news! People have been working to understand how tv shapes politics since Nixon lost to Kennedy, and it's always the same thing over and over: the press shits on somebody, wrings its hand about it for a month afterward, then reverts a day after that.

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