This is all you need to know.
From a Salon (Premium) article on Fox, Murdoch, tabloids, and the political discourse these days:

[Progressive politicians and Democrats] repeatedly underestimate the voter's capacity to support measures contrary to the voter's good simply because they are packaged in an entertaining way. They cannot fashion responses to naked charlatanism because they don't take it seriously enough as a political force. They don't understand that it doesn't matter if Bill O'Reilly is really a blue-collar hero as long as he can play one on television. They repeatedly are surprised by how seductive is the fakery of the carnival midway, even though that's how Rupert Murdoch got rich enough to afford a Newt Gingrich of his very own.

And a bit more on the Confidence Men theme, by Joshuah Micah Marshall (of Talking Points Memo), in this Washington Monthly article.

posted by Quiddity at 8/23/2002 08:35:00 PM