Return to Red vs. Blue - With a Vengeance

It's remarkable, though not surprising, how quickly Obama and Rahm Emanuel got back on track with Red vs. Blue politics. (I'm not sure they ever left, as the campaign promises of bipartisanship and compromise were pretty hollow.)

As this blog has argued persistently, red and blue politics is rooted in far more than campaign politics. In addition, the two parties and the media thrive off partisan conflict, so the temptation to carry that battle directly to the media was too powerful to resist for the Obama administration. The attack on Fox and talk radio are attempts to diminish the appeal of these media outlets while heightening the divisions between alternative and mainstream media.

Voters should not be fooled by this and my guess is that most independents are not. I also suspect the media see little to gain by moving the battleground away from politics to their home field. If an administration can de-legitimize one network, why not another? This is so much white noise.