Liberal Media <3 Maverick McCain!

The media has been in love with John McCain for years, and there is simply nothing he could say or do to change that. He's their big maverick teddy bear. In this clip, as her MSNBC colleagues continue to verbally fellate him, Rachel Maddow attempts to interject those pesky things called facts...



...Which, of course, is met with confusion and derision by her colleagues.

In a blog post previewing his newest book, 'Great American Hypocrites: Toppling the Big Myths of Republican Politics', Glenn Greenwald sums up this phenomenon-

"The Right has perfected the art of creating mythical cults of personality around their leaders. They are strong, courageous, honor-bound, protective, morally upstanding salt-of-the earth Everyman-warriors -- contemptuous of elitist prerogatives, and oozing traditional masculine virtues and cultural normalcy. As important, if not more so, is the corresponding character demonization of liberals, Democrats and a growing group of miscellaneous right-wing opponents -- those weak, subversive, conniving, appeasing, gender-confused, elitist freaks, whose men are as effeminate and cowardly as their women are angry, threatening and emasculating."

Bingo, that's the narrative in a nutshell. We saw this in 2004 with Bush and Kerry, in 2000 with Bush and Gore, and in many other elections big and small before that going back to the Reagan years, when this new brand of politics emerged. All perpetuated by our good friends in the liberal media.

Compare the McCain love in the above clip with this Chris Matthews clip, discussing the problems that Sen. Obama faces in his campaign-

"[C]an Obama woo more regular voters -- you know, the ones who actually do know how to bowl -- and finish off Clinton for good?

....

[H]ow's he connect with regular people? Does he? Or does he only appeal to people who come from the African-American community and from the people who have college or advanced degrees?

Regular people = the mythical Joe Sixpack who wanted to have a beer with George Bush rather than stuffy nerdman Al Gore. Black people and people with an education = not regular people. Thanks, Chris!

It's going to be a really long year.