"WaPo to MSNBC: 'Is The Recession Over?'" That was headline in TV Newswer, recounting The Washington Post's admiring coverage of the MSNBC party at the Radio-Television Correspondents Dinner on Friday night.
The recession is over in DC, of course--heck, there never was a recession inside the Beltway. And General Electric is one of the reasons for the permanent boom in Washington.
GE is a leading rent-seeker from the federal government. GE needs the feds to do lots of things for it: bail out GE Capital, for one, and also to finance the purchase of various energy tools and technologies that GE makes and licenses. In addition, GE needs Uncle Sam to create a heavy regulatory environment, including "cap and trade" legislation, that will make GE's products even more valuable.
So it's no surprise that GE is increasing its presence in DC, even as its media cat's paws, most notably MSNBC and NBC, do the work of buttering up government officials, especially Barack Obama and other top Democrats. And at MSNBC in particular, Obama-olatry has reached cult proportions.
While this sort of servile politics is an old story, it doesn't end well. In ancient Rome, all the action was in Rome. So if you were ambitious you made your way to the imperial court, to bask in the wealth of the emperor. Yes, all the wealth was plundered or stolen or extracted from slave labor, but it was fun for the aristocrats and other swells on the make. The same was true for the royal court of the Sun King, Louis XIV. The pleasuredome he built for himself in Versailles was built for the nobility, as well. They were all expected to join him there, living it up--so that he could keep an eye on them.
And now the same thing is happening in DC--the federal government is getting richer and richer, and it expects ever more lavish parties held in its honor. And MSNBC came through, that's for sure. As the pic above, from the WP shows, MSNBC wasn't above tooting its own horn, but the real it was blowing was Washington's.
Of course, the rest of the country is on its own.
