As The Bernanke Files has repeatedly pointed out, the media, journalists, and political pundits have more of an incentive to make headlines than to be accurate. If your a logical, pragmatic critic you won't make any money and will never be famous.
Well, as it turns out politicians have similar incentives. During Barack Obama's speech to the Joint Session of Congress, South Carolina Republican Senator Wilson yelled "You lie" when the president discussed not insuring illegal immigrants. This was not an off the cuff remark. Wilson said he let his emotions get the best of him. This is ridiculous, of course. Politicians know that to get headlines these days they can do two things: give an interview on Sunday, or do something outrageous. Since we know politicians aren't giving up their Washington Party day, we can basically conclude that outrageousness is the best way to get their name out to the public. Wilson knows this and succesfully captured headlines with his outbreak.
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South Carolina is a very Republican state, so the SC politicians that recieve "bad" media attention are actually very pleased because their constituents want extreme conservatism.
ReplyDeleteProving the BBFiles point- this quote was found on the FRONT PAGE of msn and is from Newsweek (a major political punditry source).
ReplyDelete"Wilson, a rank-and-file Republican, was largely unknown nationally before Wednesday's outburst. Now's he's a trending topic on Twitter and Google..."
So of course Wilson is happier today than yesterday.
I saw that he is supposedly going to be in a really close election this next year, so perhaps that is just more of a reason to do this.
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