The mainstream media in the USA is now, and has been,
since calling Barak Obama the winner in the presidential
race, spinning the 2008 election as a coat tail effect/top
down affair to weaken the vast loose net US progressive which
has propelled the Democrats in the congress and Obama
to victory, seeking to force Obama and his party to the
right in a not so unpredictable turn of events, but which may
have a huge impact on politics and public policy for some
time, as those running the US mainstream media are
afraid of this movement which carried out a guerrilla action
knocking down the most powerful political machine since
Tammany Hall, and this has been a machine so powerful
as to make Tammany Hall seem like nothing by comparison.
Tammany Hall was only a local machine, this neo con dominated
GOP one is national big league gang of criminals.

In this case, as in many others the "liberal" mainstream media
which doesn't really exist, is quick to get into its spin mode,
calling the election an Obama coat tail effect/top down affair,
the better to undermine a genuine, grass roots progressive
movement gaining so much steam that it knocks down the rulers of
the body politic in a bottom up rejection of neo con insane,
failed, and morally bankrupt policies which Norman Solomon,
a great progressive had called for. His wish has been the
American people's command at least to the degree they could
perceive some way to do this. Pouring the equivalent of Castor
Oil into body politic to cure it of the highly fatal neo constipation.

FAIR, a progressive media watch dog group has documented
time and again, specifically in the cases of the 1992 presidential
race and the 2006 midterm election, very notoriously pressed for
the Democrats to move to the right after both those victories, spinning
both those Democratic victories as being the result of the power of
the "center," which these same media elite put over on the right,
then push the Democrats to keep on moving to the right, which is
has become an article of virtual mainstream media theological
truth is where elections just have to be won. The facts actually
show time and again the winners have to take care of the base
constituencies.

FAIR has tried to counter this constant spin with its radio program
CounterSpin. But the mainstream media is the giant with deep
pockets putting out its tons of hot air, fiction, and propaganda for
the super rich and status quo which it is so much a part of.

Enter the internet with freer access to a new technology to enable
progressives to counter fiction and propaganda with facts, and
the mainstream media becomes more than a bit concerned.

Here again the US mainstream media is spinning again on how
this election result was all about Obama's cautiousness, "centerism,"
and other "lovely virtues" of the same media elites, but this time
especially stressing the "coat tail effect/top down affair" which
this election definitely wasn't, and even the same mainstream
media coverage election night contradicts it. These media types
called for or projected substantial or big net gains for the Democrats
in the US House of Representatives at the latest starting at about
7 PM central time, with the presidential race still too close to call
for another roughly two or more hours, thus the lack of coat tail
effect unless a reverse one going from down the ticket upwards
and being a bottom up affair.

As a rule a coat tail effect comes into play when the top of the
ticket takes rest of the ticket nationally in a national election
to victory. 1964 with Lyndon B Johnson, and the same media
establishment media elites calling him the winner practically as
the coverage election night began and saying it would be huge.
It was 22 points. The same media elites wouldn't project the
number of US House seat gains for the Democrats with real
precision until later in the night. This is coat tail effect. 1980
also comes to mind on the opposite end of the spectrum with
these media elites calling the presidential race for the Gipper
not the late into the night, and then projecting a more exact
figure on his party gains in US House races later in the night.
The Gipper won with about 10 points. Obama, like Franklin
D Roosevelt in his fourth race in 1944 won by seven points
and with 53% of the total popular vote.

The internet has helped to bring together disparate elements
of this loose net progressive movement, bringing down the
rulers of US political system and even challenging the rulers
of the US mainstream media itself, and thus being something
which is really "scary" for these US media elites. The corruption
of power has manifests itself in this attempt to snatch defeat from
jaws of victory by framing the 2008 election as nothing more
than a coat tail effect/top down affair and anointing Obama,
as the king of the progressive movement, though Obama hasn't
sought it, to provide the US media elites with the opportunity to
be enablers for the those political ruling elites the American
people have just soundly repudiated from coast to coast.

With the neo con side carrying on their "holy war" agaisnt
those on the liberal and progressive end of the spectrum.
It's time US progressives think along the following lines.
As Winston Churchill said in the dark days of the Second
World War after a key victory for his side, "We have victory,
victory at last. . ." "No this is not the end nor even the beginning
of the end, but it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning. "

Martin Luther King Jr once said, "The arc of the moral universe is
long, but it bends towards justice." But Dr King couldn't foresee
or maybe he could that the arc of the US mainstream media is
short like its memory, but it bends towards hot air, which it's
filled like a hot air balloon with, but it blows hardest at election
time and right after to huff and puff and blow progressives'
houses of victory down and force politics to the right.