Media and Memes

Earlier today someone alerted me to this article about John Edwards' time at Fortress Investment Group.

Democrat John Edwards said Tuesday he worked for a hedge fund between presidential campaigns to learn about financial markets and their relationship to poverty — and to make money, too.

In an interview with The Associated Press, the former North Carolina senator said his yearlong, part-time position with Fortress Investment Group helped his understanding of the connection, but he has more to learn.

While I do not buy Edwards' line about working at a hedge fund to understand poverty - it would have been fine if he said he was doing it to pay the rent - I do not think there is anything immoral or contradictory about working at a financial institution that is not making things worse for people. It is not inherently hypocritical for a Democrat to make money or be pro-business. Many Democrats are for certain regulations and may be skeptical of big business' motives, but I do not know a single one who is anti-business.

But this is besides the point. What strikes me as far more interesting is how the media treats Edwards as well as Democrats more broadly. Since the media paints Democrats as pro-tax/anti-business/blah-blah-blah black & white memes, the media treats anything Democrats do that does not jibe with those memes as hypocrisy. To paraphrase Digby (I cannot find the post right now), a Democrat who makes lots of money at a financial firm? Now that is a story. However, a Republican who works at a financial institution or big business and does not care about poverty? Nothing new to see here folks, move right along. Get it? It is quite a nice gig the Republicans have going, and the media praises Republicans when Republicans say something that makes Republicans look like they care, e.g. "compassionate conservatism." It is the same thing with the haircut. Laura Bush had a $700 haircut, but there was no "gotcha!" press about it. However, John Edwards, who grew up dirt poor, is immediately painted by the media as a hypocrite (and effeminate, but that is a somewhat different issue).

It demonstrates how shallow the press is. Instead of doing actual reporting or adjusting their prior conceptions to provide a more realistic, if nuanced, understanding of how the world and people are, they usually revert to high school clique understandings and he-said-she-said pieces, especially when it comes to those weak, hypocritical Democrats (one of their favorite memes). That is by far the more interesting story here and it speaks volumes about the media that will never cover it.