IN THE YEAR 2525: Krystal Ball explains gaffe culture!

WEDNESDAY, JULY 9, 2014

Part 2—Why pundits are forced to “guess:” During Campaign 2012, the Washington Post’s Philip Rucker was busy patrolling the gaffes.

Candidate Romney was visiting a Polish war memorial. At Politico, Dylan Byers described the excitement which followed:

BYERS (8/23/12): Philip Rucker, the Washington Post reporter who famously shouted "What about your gaffes!?" at Mitt Romney, arrived on the campaign's press plane yesterday with a homemade t-shirt that read, "What about your gaffes!?"

Rucker then sought Romney's signature, which he obtained.

The memorable quote came during a stop at a Polish war memorial during Romney's overseas trip...

As you may recall, the conduct produced a bit of a flap, given the nature of the site at which Rucker shouted his iconic question.

“What about your gaffes!” Young Rucker, just six years out of Yale, already had his hand on the pulse of prevailing “press corps” culture.

Yesterday, we described a channeling from the future which we received this weekend. If that channeling was correct, anthropologists in the year 2525 will regard that shouted question as an iconic moment in the coming disintegration of the American nation-state.

If that channeling was correct, anthropologists will identify so-called “gaffe culture” as one of the many mental diseases which took the American discourse down. And sure enough:

On June 17 of this very year, MSNBC’s Krystal Ball offered an unusually clear rationale for this familiar part of modern pundit culture.

Ball, a bit of a constant Clinton-hater, took to the airwaves in the first week of the new jihad against Hillary Clinton. For the full text of her commentary, just click here.

In the year 2525, anthropologists will regard Ball’s broadcast as an iconic text from the era which saw the former United States disintegrate into the 83 “smaller republics” which were sometimes called “Ron Paulsylvania.”

Let’s focus on Ball’s rationale for the “gaffe culture” which fuels our successor to news.

Tomorrow, we’ll examine the fuller sweep of Ball’s remarks. For today, consider her explanation for the focus on gaffes, which she refers to as “bobbles:”

BALL (6/17/14): As I watched [the new jihad] unfold, I began asking myself an uncomfortable question: Is Hillary Clinton our Mitt Romney?

Smart? Sure. Confident? Absolutely. Incredible resume? Without a doubt. But also kind of tone deaf and unrelatable.

I mean, be honest. Didn’t Hillary’s “dead broke” comment make you think just for a second about Mitt saying “Ann drives a couple of Cadillacs,” or that he likes firing people?

And like Mitt, after decades in public service, we still can only really speculate on what Hillary Clinton is all about.

Is she a triangulating moderate? A secret liberal? A DLC Wall Street Dem? What will she run on? What sort of president would she actually be? There’s no clues in the bland safety of her State Department record and certainly not in Hard Choices. So we can only guess through the bobbles, the accidental deviations from the script, the things that are said that didn’t come from the briefing book.

We’re told that, in the year 2525, this will be regarded as an iconic text. We don’t know if that is true. But Ball’s remarks truly do capture the soul of The Pundit Age.

By way of background: When the Clintons left the White House in 2001, they were $10 million in debt. When Clinton described that state of affairs as being “not only dead broke, but in debt,” pundits like Ball instantly saw that her comment was a gaffe.

Let’s be fair! Without question, Clinton made an unforced error, given prevailing pundit culture.

Everyone knows what politicians are supposed to say about their personal wealth. When Clinton failed to work from this script, workers like Ball, by the rules of their trade, were required to call it a “bobble.”

For that reason, one of Ball’s questions in that passage almost answers itself. When Clinton said the words “dead broke,” did that make you think of Romney’s earlier comments?

In real time, it probably didn’t! Eventually, though, people like Ball spread this comparison far and wide. If you had your cable on, then of course that thought came to mind!

(Please note: Ball even used an “invented gaffe” in that passage— Romney’s alleged statement that he likes firing people. As everyone knows, that statement by Romney was ripped from its actual context. As anthropologists will explain in the future, people like Ball have lost the distinction between actual statements by politicians and statements their tribe has dreamed up.)

In the bulk of that passage, Ball compared Clinton to Romney. Eventually, though, she explained the need for gaffe culture.

The passage which follows makes almost no sense. One day, anthropologists will apparently call it iconic:

BALL: [A]fter decades in public service, we still can only really speculate on what Hillary Clinton is all about.

Is she a triangulating moderate? A secret liberal? A DLC Wall Street Dem? What will she run on? What sort of president would she actually be? There’s no clues in the bland safety of her State Department record and certainly not in Hard Choices. So we can only guess through the bobbles, the accidental deviations from the script, the things that are said that didn’t come from the briefing book.

According to Ball, pundits are forced to “speculate” and “guess” about the secret meaning of gaffes. In the present case, they’re forced to do so because there is no other way to know what Clinton “will run on.”

Even after all these years, there’s no way to know what Clinton is all about! There’s no way to know “what sort of president she would actually be.”

That text deserves to be iconic. It stands as a monument to the oddness of modern pundit culture. Let’s ponder several statements:

There’s no way to know what Clinton “will run on?”

To state the obvious, there’s no way to know what Clinton will run on because she isn’t running yet. In fact, no one is running at this point. There is no presidential campaign under way at present.

There’s no way to know what Clinton “will run on” from her current book, Hard Choices?

There’s no way to know from her current book because it’s a book about her years in the State Department. You also can’t tell what Clinton will run on from The Old Man and the Sea.

After decades in public service, we still can only speculate on what Clinton is all about.

That statement is so odd one hardly knows how to respond. Clinton’s general outlines are fairly clear, whether you like them or not.

What sort of president would Clinton be? There are no clues in the bland safety of her State Department record?

Here too, the statement is so odd one hardly knows how to respond. If her record is characterized by “blind safety,” why wouldn’t that count as a clue to the sort of president she’d be?

In the passage we have posted, Ball gives an unusually clear rationale for the pundit corps’ prevailing “gaffe culture.” Her rationale is strikingly clear—and it makes no sense.

According to Ball, Clinton’s long record as first lady, senator and secretary of state provides no clues about the type of president she would be. For that reason, Ball is forced to divine the meaning of a trivial gaffe—a “bobble.”

If we have been correctly informed, anthropologists will come to regard this commentary as iconic—as a road map to the mental processes of our pundits in the years before the rapid decline.

This is the puzzling essence of that text:

Twenty-two years on the national stage have given Krystal Ball “no clues” about Hillary Clinton! For that reason, she has been forced to interpret the meaning of a bobble.

She’s been forced to “guess” about a campaign which hasn’t started yet!

Where do life forms like Ball come from? What explains their peculiar conduct?

Tomorrow, we’ll briefly ponder those questions as we examine the rest of Ball’s text. We’ll also ask an unpleasant question:

Why on earth do modern “liberals” tolerate conduct like this? Rather plainly, this bullshit sent George Bush to the White House. Why does this piddle persist?

Tomorrow: Ball recites the RNC’s most famous and time-honored scripts