Shape Shifting

NPR continues trying to shape the analysis of the 2006 elections by shifting its meaning to the right. NPR's line is that voters want a non-partisan get work done Congress (see my post above on the Invisible Issue). NPR's other line is that Democrats won because they ran on a more rightwing "centrist" platform. Today Andrea Seabrook interviews Jim Matheson (D-UT), co-chairman of the Blue Dog Coalition, a group of conservative Democrats, who NPR's website claims "helped bring the Democrats to power in last week's elections."

In the report Seabrook says, "politicians from both parties are vowing to work together to get things done" and "with moderate to conservative democrats picking up seats in the house…there is a least a chance of bipartisan cooperation." At one point in the interview Seabrook also asserts, "Leaders of both parties are to the far extremes of their parties. "

The problem with this is that instead of presenting these positions as two of several debated interpretations of the elections, NPR gives them as established fact. Notice that NPR gives no coverage to the role of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, no notice of centrist candidates who got defeated, and no notice of Internet leftists. Instead we get the boring Sunday pundit spin on this very interesting election.