Depression & Leftie Political Correspondents

"Presidential campaigns," opines Politico, "are supposed to be the greatest show in American politics — infused with big ideas and historical import." And yet, political reporters this year are depressed. They "want," Politico tells us, "the whole thing over with."

Yet another high-profile veteran campaign correspondent had his Howard Beale moment this week — mad as hell (or rather, sad as hell) and not willing to take it anymore — when Mark Leibovich lamented the devastating “joylessness” of the 2012 grind and wondered what the hell he was doing with his life.

“How am I ever going to get through it?” the chief national correspondent of The New York Times Magazine asked.

But his cri de coeur is just the latest primal scream in a campaign that is sending a whole generation of journalists to the confessional.

“This is worse than normal, a lot less fun, and it feels impossible for us to change the conversation, . . .”

Talk about self delusion. It's not that it is "impossible" to change the conversation, it is that doing so would mean addressing all of the elephants in the room. Perhaps the most revealing line of the article comes a little later when the author bemoans the absence of a campaign with "lofty notions of hope and change." Really? All of the problems we face, and the left-wing press corps is depressed because this isn't a campaign playing out on utterly meaningless soaring rhetoric?

As to the "historical import" of this election, the Politico seems oddly mystified by their inability to put their finger on it. I think I can help with that.

I don't think it an overstatement to say that America is in its most dire straits since 1860. We are at a tipping point. Another four years along this trajectory - including the systemic changes to our national fabric via the anachronistic "progressive" agenda of Obama, will deeply and irrevocably harm our nation. Objective reality is staring us all in the face. That reality includes:

- Unsustainable debt at over 100% of GDP that could destroy our nation, while Obama has put forth no plan to rein in spending. The budget proposals Obama has submitted, including most recently the 2013 budget, show ever increasing spending and debt accumulation. (And as an aside, the leftie press ought to note that, in a show of true bipartisan harmony, the budget was unanimously voted down in the House and Senate)

- Unsustainable welfare programs that are on a clear and unarguable trajectory to destroy our entire economy within one to two decades. And while Obama has seen fit to demagogue Paul Ryan's plans to reform entitlements, Obama has yet to put forth any plan of reform of his own.

- real unemployment, when you add back in those who are of working age but who are discounted in U-3 numbers as having left the workfore, that is well into double digits,

- that the majority of new jobs created in the Obama economy - 58% - have been low wage jobs.

- that the median income of Americans on Obama's watch has declined by 7.3%,

- rising energy prices,

- massive food inflation

- looming tax increases, including taxmageddon and all the new taxes associated with Obamacare,

- policies that are doing serious damage to the elderly and our children, and

- a war on religion in an effort to make the left the sole arbiter of morality in our nation.

Or perhaps the journolisters could use a handy chart to clue them in on the changes to our nation from the start of Obama's presidency to today;

In any event, there have been countless periods in living memory when the press focused on each and every one of these issues like a laser, thumping their chests with righteous indignation, but now they find themselves having to avoid them like the plague. Thus, for example, when Paul Ryan gave his speech at the RNC touching on many of the issues, what we got across the entire leftwing press was not an adult discussion of the issues, but rather "Lyin' Ryan" from Politico and a bevy of articles similarly demonizing Ryan from the NYT.

It doesn't take a psychiatrist to analyze this onset of depression in leftie political reporters. They are trying to carry the water for a President - and indeed, the entire "progressive" movement - that has completely and utterly failed. I am surprised that the cognitive dissonance they have to be experiencing hasn't caused their heads to explode.

And yet they can't quite put their finger on what's depressing them. That is denial so severe that they need to collectively see a shrink for some serious meds and padded room time. I, meanwhile, am going to a quiet place and enjoy my schadenfreude with a good beer.


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