NPR's Cokie Roberts, who has been shifting ever right-ward with each passing election cycle, continues her campaign against "left-wing bloggers." This time Cokie reguritates Rebublican talking points, lauding Charles Grassley for "negotiating" with the Democrats and bemoaning the left's obsession with the public option. As she did with the election of Joe Lieberman in 2006, she bemoans the pressure that left wing groups and bloggers are putting on "vulnerable Democrats." She winds up her weekly NPR punditry by commenting that the Repubs policy of saying "NO" to everything could lead to some Repub pick-ups in the 2010 election.
With Republican polling numbers hitting rock bottom one might wonder why anyone should take Cokie Roberts' analysis at all seriously. After all, this is the same pundit who in 2006, along with her sidekick, George Will, predicted that the Ned Lamont victory over Lieberman as a "disaster" for the Democratic Senate races both in 2006 and 2008 leading to overwhelming Republican gains in the Senate. Despite being pitifully wrong on these predictions, she continues to live in the mind of her center-right world.
On Morning Edition (June 29, 2009) Roberts bemoans the left-wing groups such as Move-On.org for targeting fence-sitters, such as Mary Landrieu and Ben Nelson as being "without understanding that these Democrats could be in very bad shape" in their states if they vote for the public option. Never mind that the Repugs have offered no real options for health care reform. But the drumbeat of conventional wisdom must be beaten ever harder, all the better to marginalize progressives and contain the possibility of real health care reform. And never mind that the Repugs strategy of "NO" has so far yielded zero polling results. This is Broderism at its most callow and self-serving kind. Why anyone still thinks that NPR represents anything other than the warmed over turds of the WAPO and its stable of conventional pundits is beyond me.
I say, screw NPR. They clearly don't give a f*ck about progressive support and they certainly have little to offer in the way of informed, quality commentary. RIP NPR