Another Self-Inflicted Wound for the Elitist Media

As the fevered reaction of the left to the Tucson shootings emerged not moments after the news hit the wires, I suspected that the left would, overreach is not the word, repulse the American public at large. They have certainly done that but they have compounded the mistake by strengthening their most hated rival, Sarah Palin. Clearly the left knows nothing of war-gaming, Sun Tzu not being high on their reading lists. When dealing with an opponent who you believe is weak strategically, you allow that opponent to make mistakes, confirming your view and strengthening your position. Clearly the wrong thing to do is to give your opponent easy opportunities to appear strong, contravening your view thereby strengthening them and weakening you. The MSM, or EJM as I like to call them, has done just that. They've given Palin an easy opening to look strong - calm, mature, measured and reasonable - when they needn't have done so, and they degraded their strategic stance, that Palin is hopelessly weak - inflammatory, immature, unpredictable, and irrational. Classic blunder. With each passing day, the MSM/EJM lets its power and influence in society slip away with these childish blunders.

UPDATE: Towering intellectual, Jim Clyburn, hasn't read his Sun Tzu either. (BTW, where are the feminists given Clyburn's chauvanistic "there, there, pretty little lady" routine? Oh, I forgot, stupid question.) Meanwhile, trained psychologist Charles Krauthammer posits a levelheaded analysis.

UPPDATE: Now it's clear to me that we have another Roveian plot of political jujitsu on our hands...the putatively respectable pages of the WaPo host a lecture on civil discourse by ... wait for it ... Al Sharpton. I'm telling you, the left needs to get itself exactly what it thinks Rove is/was, a sort of all-powerful, Grand Wizard of strategy and plots. That way they could rein in these awful mismatches of execrable characters weighing in on pressing topics.

UPPPDATE: Wow, the MSM/EJM keeps tripping over giant cinderblocks of stupidity that they have carefully laid down in their own path...in what has to be the silliest analysis of this whole sordid affair, Amy Walter and Michael Falcone claim that Sarah Palin has managed to make this story about her. Defending yourself when people who hate you deep in their soul attack you with a vicious, scurrilous accusation built on nothing...that's making it about you? Leaking credibility...drip...drip...drip...

UPPPPDATE: The good professor has some thoughts on the Palin issue here. Slipped right by me that Palin is generating substantial earnings for herself for essentially draining the MSM/EJM of its small reservoirs of remaining credibility: they come at her, she lands a cut increasing the bleeding (i.e. by traffic-copping Obama's bus right over Krugman's pavement splayed body), and she likely sells more books or TV ads. That's pretty much a dream job, wouldn't you say? For me that's somewhere between professional beer taster and quarterback for the New York Giants.