At the risk of premature chicken-counting, one thing I’m most looking forward to tomorrow night is the post-mortems from the political geniuses on the cable networks on where Republicans went wrong. Of the many things that annoyed me in the aftermath of 2004, the one that stands out is listening to pundits on TV explain how extreme and out-of-touch Democrats had become (despite winning the popular vote in the last three presidential elections and 48% of it in 2004).

And so, tomorrow, people on CNN are going to dust off the post-2004 script and switch the names around. Post-election reporting is, after all, essentially a Mad Lib. The [name of party] lost the election in [geographic area] because the party veered too far from the political mainstream. The [name of party] will probably need to reexamine itself and become more moderate on social issues.

My reaction to this was lost in a comments thread which went in a different direction:

I disagree -- you will *not* here this from the pundits tomorrow night about the Republican party, because the *Democratic* party is the *only* party which it is acceptable for the media to call "extreme." There are no Republican extremists, or right-wing extremists, only left-wing or Democratic ones.

No, you're going to hear a lot about the President's advisors (*never* the President) being "out of touch" with Americans, you're going to hear a bit about Democrats exploiting the terrible personal tragedies of the Iraq War for their (nefarious) political purposes, you're going to hear quite a bit about all politics being local (to take the onus off of Bush, despite the Democrats' successful strategy to nationalize the election), and you're going to hear about corruption and scandals, but only about individual instances and the Democrats' exploitation of them, never about the institutionalization and systematization of corruption under the Republicans.

But never, not once, will you hear from the punditry a serious criticism of the Republican Party for being ideologically bizarre and extreme.

I haven't been monitoring the media all that compulsively since the election (in fact, I spent a good portion of yesterday sleeping), but it's my impression that what I wrote was pretty accurate. I have yet to hear one of the many talking heads on CNN or MSNBC or Fox blame the Republican debacle on that party having become too conservative. In fact I've heard just the opposite, that the party wasn't conservative enough, and that the Dems won because their fielded conservative candidates.

Clearly, the punditocracy is not going to let loose of its perceptions easily. It'll take, I think, a couple of weeks for someone to break through with a new conventional wisdom that will be generally accepted, and it will then be acceptable to talk about the failure of the Republican Party to represent the views of the electorate. Unfortunately, when this happens, the old "Democrats are too liberal" meme will also make a comeback at the same time, since such "balance" is required. It won't be any truer than it used to be, there won't be any new evidence to support it, but our New! Improved!! Media doesn't actually require evidence or proof to adapt a notion as its own, as long as they can get enough of the Usual Cast of Characters to spout it on cue.