Chess? Russian Roulette? Pin the blame on the Donkey?

Okay... a few days in and we have a wider perspective on l'affaire Gibbs.

There is no walk back. They want to keep hitting it. It is inside-the-beltway stuff. It involves cable-news "and others..."

This is not anything to do with looking more centrist or currying favor with Republicans. It is internal business—a straight-up division strategy within the Party (broadly defined)

"There are a small number of people on cable and elsewhere who will never be happy, who will never give the President credit for anything, and who will always look for some cardinal sin to be upset about"

"The vast majority of progressives and those on the left, whether that's bloggers or groups or what have you, do not hold those beliefs and are pushing in good faith for a better country as they see it"

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/13/gibbs-obama-still-wants-t_n_681691.html

Okay... There are a small number of liberal pundits on cable and elsewhere who are not pushing in good faith for a better country as they see it. That is a serious allegation. That is the kind of stuff I say about Sean Hannity. But the vast majority of progressives and those on the left are sincere in wanting a better America.

Chose a side. Nobody has been named yet... amnesty is still available for liberal heretics.

Since this is a strategy, not a mis-statement (note that Gibbs has kept it going for four days in what he must know to be inflammatory fashion) the question is, what's the strategy?

It is usually a poor play to mount a division campaign within the media idealogical base shortly before an election.

But this is the middle of August when nobody follows this stuff except news & opinion junkies. Perhaps in August you can have a family fight in public without average voters much noticing.

The best I can come up with is that this is working the refs before the election. (A coach or manager pitches a fit about referee unfairness early in the game in hopes of gaining favorable calls later in the game.)

Okay, if that is the play then what is the game?

Chess or Russian Roulette?

Can the WH be so deeply, utterly STUPID that anyone there thinks that this WH has the capital to intimidate or brush-back anyone on the critical left? Is anyone going to be chastened to bend over backward to offer favorable commentary now that they know the WH is disappointed with them? (Or might be, since it's all anonymous innuendo stuff.)

Can anyone in the WH be that deluded?

Probably not. I cannot believe the WH is that whacked out. This WH has no capital with the left. Whoever these terrible un-named pundits are they are going to get surlier and their more moderate "fellow travelers" are going to be pissed, not cautioned. (If, say, Rachel Maddow was named as one of the bad ones she would have a t-shirt printed to that effect and wear it every day on air. Can anyone doubt it?)

So maybe they are not just working the refs.

48 hours ago I thought the explanation that the WH is trying to fix blame on losing Congress (which they know will probably happen... these guys are pros who know that wave elections break late and hard numerically but are baked in the cake early on. Carter led Reagan in polls only weeks before the election but surely already knew he was going to lose big) was too cynical.

But it's looking more possible, cynical or not.

Or some shit like that.

-Laelth

the whole thing is so senseless... yet clearly not accidental...

there is some theory to the thing, and I am hard-pressed to explain it.

IT is called SCAPEGOATING