Tell Me, Punditocracy, What Lower-Middle-Class Voters in Hazelton Think

I think it's become pretty clear that pundits don't know what they're talking about. They are seemingly allergic to policy, and they are interested in politics in the way that groupies are interested in rock stars. Yet there are these 24 hour news networks which have to fill time, so they get these pundits on to hear themselves talk, without standards or really even information to back themselves up. So we get streams of consciousness based on stereotypes and long-held beliefs that they pick up from random (mostly well-funded Republican propagandist) sources. Like this:

[Reuters Washington correspondent Jon Decker]: They do. And let's not forget Barack Obama bowling. You know, this cuts to "is this person real? Do they connect with me as a voter?" You know, for someone who's in a bowling league in northeast central Pennsylvania, in Scranton and Wilkes-Barre, they can't identify with someone getting a 37 over seven frames.

As Hunter notes, the day that the media collectively decided the guy running the most powerful nation had to be a decent bowler and a drunk is the day that this country went into decline. After choosing a President based on being a "regular guy" and seeing how that transpired, can we sort of never go back to that criteria ever again? Do journalists think the people are that stupid?

I'd trade our media at this point for any other media on Earth. Gambia's journalists couldn't get it this bad. Paul Waldman has the best take:

Russert and Matthews may be at the top of their profession's hierarchy, but their proletarian pose has become the standard affectation of the media elite. This Blue Collar Chic unites the allegedly neutral journalists and the conservative commentators, whether it's Peggy Noonan dismissing the "intellectuals, academics, local clever people who talk loudly in restaurants, and leftist mandarins," so distant from "a bigger America and a realer one -- a healthy and vibrant place full of religious feeling and cultural energy and Bible study and garage bands and sports-love and mom-love and sophistication and normality," or Michael Barone harrumphing about "soft America," where those pathetic liberals sip merlot and listen to NPR, in contrast to "hard America, where the real folks do the real work." The Washington journalists themselves are as elite as they come, but they know who the good guys are -- they're the residents of the small towns, whose "values" can't possibly be matched by those who live in cities; they're the people whose lowbrow tastes make them "authentic"; they're the earthy, regular Americans defined by their modest tastes in food, drink, and entertainment. The journalists may not actually know too many of these people, but they know they're there, and they know they're better than the rest of us.

This kind of stuff just makes me pull my hair out. These stuffed shirts presume to speak for people they have absolutely no connection to, and it's sickening.

UPDATE: What Jon Stewart said.