Courtesy John Althouse Cohen

One of the media herd’s most treasured storylines is to ask whether a democrat is an “elitist.” The media herd reliably trots out this storyline during presidential elections. The “cultural elitist” storyline is not to be confused with its forgivable quirky uncle the “economic elitist” storyline typically applied to republicans. A loaf of bread costs what?! The media herd literally begs to ponder whether a particular democrat is an elitist! Something as simple as Swiss cheese can cause the media herd to pounce!

Obama finally gave the media herd the opening they’ve been looking for during a San Francisco fundraising speech on April 6. Obama’s speech garners a “Herd Alert” from the mixed metaphor media alert chart. The “Pundit Media” boiled a speech that runs over 50 minutes down to the words “cling” and “bitter.” I wonder how many of the media herd listened to the entire speech? I certainly didn’t!

“Pundit Media” literally debates whether one word hurt Obama more than the other. I know! It’s crazy. Look at what influential “Pundit Media” member Charles Krauthammer said on Fox News:

“The word that is killing him here is not ‘bitterness,’ it is ‘cling,’ because it drips of condescension. They cling to guns and religion because they are too stupid to understand their own class interests. And that is his message.”

But that’s the whole point of the media herd during a “Herd Alert” – they don’t care about the event itself, they care about the storyline! I mean just look at the length of this article by Paul Farhi of the Washington Post discussing the word “elitist.” For crying out loud! This is the sort of rich source material we strive to uncover here at Media Herd. The bottom-line is that the public has been presented with a false choice once again by the media herd: Is Obama an elitist or not?