"Even When the GOP Loses, It Wins/Think the Senate deal is a resounding defeat for Republicans? Think again."

 That is the headline of an editorial in The Nation.

[I]n the war of ideas, the Senate deal is but a stalemate, one made almost entirely on conservative terms. The GOP now goes into budget talks with sequestration as the new baseline, primed to demand longer-term cuts in Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. And they still hold the gun of a US default to the nation’s head in the next debt ceiling showdown.

Surrender? Any more “victories” like this and Democrats will end up paying tribute into the GOP’s coffers.

I'm surprised to read this, because I thought what I was observing — to the extent that I did not avert my eyes — was the liberal media doing the Democratic Party's work of declaring victory.* I'm interested in seeing The Nation peel off from that strategy. It's all propaganda of one kind or another, but the strategies of propaganda interest me. It's boring when they all do the same thing, which is the  main reason I had my own personal shutdown during the shutdown.

Key line: "The GOP may be bearing the brunt of the public’s rage, but anger is also directed at Washington and government generally." The Democratic Party and its supporters in the media mostly had the strategy of blaming the GOP. Get people mad and then: Be mad at those guys. But stirring up anger is a problem:

1. There are a lot of people like me who turn away and refuse to listen when someone is directing us to be angry. Those ugly people over there are going to solve their problem whether I monitor their argument or not.

2. Then you have the kind of people who actually do take direction to the point where they become inflamed with anger. Do these hotheaded folks pay attention to the details of why these nasty people as opposed to those nasty people were more responsible for the thing they were induced to feel angry about?

Examine that key line again: "The GOP may be bearing the brunt of the public’s rage, but anger is also directed at Washington and government generally." There are 2 clauses, and if the second clause is the stronger proposition — which is likely — then the GOP came out ahead.
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* Yesterday, I almost ended my personal shutdown to do a post based on the old saying "Declare victory and get out." Do you know the origin of that phrase?

During the Vietnam war, [U.S. Senator from Vermont George] Aiken is widely believed to have suggested that the U.S. should declare victory and bring the troops home. Actually, what he said was that "the United States could well declare unilaterally ... that we have 'won' in the sense that our armed forces are in control of most of the field and no potential enemy is in a position to establish its authority over South Vietnam," and that such a declaration "would herald the resumption of political warfare as the dominant theme in Vietnam." He added: "It may be a far-fetched proposal, but nothing else has worked."

Anyone who knows what happened when we got out of Vietnam should be skeptical of propaganda in the form of declaring victory. Frankly, I'm surprised anyone attempts the "declare victory and get out" type of statement. In my book, it's on the list of things not to say, right after "I am not a crook."

"'New York Times' to New York Democrats: Get Over That 'Hope and Idealism.'"

Headline at The Nation for John Nichols's column decrying the NYT endorsement of Christine Quinn in the mayoral race.

"[I]f the justices don’t rule in favor of gay marriage, it is the Court that will look bad."

Writes Nan Hunter in The Nation, "judging from the press coverage of the briefs."

This perception is an incredible achievement, a brilliant exercise in political framing by the lawyers and legal organizations behind the two cases, who mobilized the amicus show of force. The business brief and the Republican brief, especially, are clearly designed to provide political cover for the Court’s five conservative Justices.

"This perception" — refers, I think, to the way the Court will look in the future if it doesn't rule in favor of gay marriage. This conditional appearance of badness is "an incredible achievement," something that has already taken place. Whose achievement is it? Who is doing the perception? We, the people, presumably. But Hunter does not mean to say that those doing the perceiving have achieved This Perception. She must intend to give credit for the "incredible achievement" to those who have placed This Perception in the minds of the people.

Hunter seems to credit the lawyers who wrote the briefs, but how did the "brilliant exercise in political framing" leap from the briefs into the public's mind? It was the "press coverage of the briefs." The briefs were raw material for the journalists. It is the journalists who performed the "political framing" that created the incredible achievement of This Perception — the journalists, including Hunter, right here, telling you what to make of the raw material generated by lawyers on the anti-gay marriage side. She wants you to know their stuff is "political cover," even as she delights in the "political framing" accomplished by the lawyers on the side she likes. It's all political. Isn't that marvelous? Incredible! Brilliant!

But if it's all political, shouldn't the judiciary restrain itself and allow the political branches of government to go where they will? Implicit in Hunter's cries of delight is the belief that the Court longs for public approval and with The Perception in place — it's there, believe it, all the journalists say it's there — the Justices know there are 2 possible futures, the one where Court looks good and the one where the Court looks bad.

Brilliant!