The Real Elitists Work in Mainstream Media

By David Sirota
Creators Syndicate
April 24, 2008.
<http://www.creators.com/opinion/david-sirota/matthews-vs-mcnulty.html>

If television is the nation's mirror, then no two TV
characters reflect the intensifying "two Americas" gap
better than Chris Matthews and Jimmy McNulty.

A recent New York Times profile of Matthews describes a
name-dropping dilettante floating between television
studios and cocktail parties. The article documents the
MSNBC host's $5 million salary, three Mercedes and
house in lavish Chevy Chase, Md. Yet Matthews said, "Am
I part of the winner's circle in American life? I don't
think so."

That stupefying comment sums up a pervasive worldview
in Washington that is hostile to any discussion of
class divides. Call it Matthews-ism -- an ideology most
recently seen in the brouhaha over Barack Obama's
statement about economic dislocation.

The Illinois senator said that when folks feel
economically shafted, they get "bitter." Matthews-ism
spun the truism into a scandal.

The Washington Post labeled Obama's statements
"Bittergate." Tim Russert invited affluent political
consultants on Meet the Press to analyze the
"controversy," with millionaire James Carville saying,
"I'm hardly bitter about things." Hillary Clinton
called Obama "elitist," ignoring her mansions in
Washington and Chappaqua, $109 million income, career
as a Wal-Mart board member, and legacy pushing job-
killing policies like NAFTA.

This sickening episode was topped off by ABC's Charles
Gibson, who only months ago humiliated himself by
insinuating that typical middle-class families make
$200,000 a year (95 percent make less). Last week,
while moderating a debate, Gibson segued from the
"bitter" comment into a tirade against rescinding
capital gains tax breaks, implying the proposal would
hurt most Americans. This, even though the tax cuts in
question delivered the vast majority of their benefits
to the richest 1 percent.

By downplaying inequality and couching royalism in
middle-class arguments, the Beltway elite pretend there
are not two Americas but only one: theirs.

Matthews routinely turns discussions of economic issues
into debates about tactics, and then heads home to
Chevy Chase telling himself he isn't "part of the
winner's circle." Tim Russert asks millionaires to
explain working-class struggles, and then reminds
viewers he roots for the Buffalo Bills -- as if that
proves he speaks for blue-collar America. Hillary
Clinton makes a career out of speaking for powerful
corporations, and then shows up at an Indiana bar to
decry "elitism." Gibson suggests six-figure salaries
are common, and then says the masses should worry about
rich people like him having to pay slightly higher
taxes.

In sum, economic blindness, sports symbols, beery
photo-ops and uninformed idiocy have become the
iconography of working-class solidarity that disguises
the ongoing class war.

How could this happen, you ask? How could it not?

Pop culture tells us The Cosby Show's economically
privileged family represents the ordinary black
experience, politics tells us a money-controlled
electoral system is "democratic," and pundits tell us
that aristocrat George Bush is a "regular guy."
Propaganda is ubiquitous -- and it results in Jimmy
McNulty.

He is the cop from HBO's The Wire -- the quintessential
everyman. For a time, he tries to understand politics
by watching vapid Matthews-style talk shows, but
quickly becomes frustrated. "It doesn't matter who
you've got [running for office], none of them has a
clue what's really going on," he says, lamenting that
politics treats him "like a [expletive] doormat" -- as
if the day-to-day challenges he faces are "some stupid
game with stupid penny ante stakes."

McNulty may be fictional, but McNulty-ism is a very
real reaction to Matthews-ism. When the media
responsible for explaining our world deny the existence
of the world most of us inhabit, they breed -- yes --
bitterness. And the more the Matthewses treat us
McNultys like reality is just "stupid games with stupid
penny ante stakes," the wider the gulf between the two
Americas will become.

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