NP: John Cage, 4'33"

Rachel Maddow wants Republicans to stop simultaneously criticizing policies they're taking full advantage of. Steve Benen wants George Will to start pointing out flaws in candidates he's backing.

As much as I get the need for righteous indignation on both sides as raw fuel for the pundit-industrial complex, I still don't understand who Maddow and Benen are appealing to. Do they really think that an advocate in the left-wing bubble is going to be able to successfully shame someone in the right-wing bubble into changing their behavior? As for the wringing of hands over why they would do such a thing, or why they're not embarrassed, it's really not rocket science.

Very few people pay attention to any of this. Every politician who says one thing and does another knows this. That your average run-of-the-mill constituent even recognizes that the guy with the big stimulus check for his district is the same guy demonizing the stimulus as the road to socialism is very, very unlikely.

So "public" shaming to a homogeneous audience already on your side seems like a remarkably bad way to pretend to do something about the problem. I'm not sure what the solution is, given the entrenchment of partisan media outlets across the board, but that doesn't seem to be it.

Although, I guess that the more the political junkies are up to speed on this, the more likely it is that somebody might make an incisive and decisive campaign ad that seeks to expose hypocrisy from one's opponent. And -- at least on the left -- it may hope to narrow the enthusiasm gap. It just seems a bit too willfully oblivious to me. Or maybe I'm just that jaded.