Gotcha? You Betcha!

By Marty Kaplan

John McCain and Sarah Palin have been complaining that there's too much 'gotcha journalism' going around.

Marty's piece reminds me that this is the standard Republican response to anything they don't like: attack the messenger. Don't deal with the issue; attack the person raising the question. The Republicans are so good at it that it seems to have become second nature to them — and no one bothers to notice. They succeed when they do it since the almost always manage to change the subject. Instead of dealing with the issue raised the focus is no on whether or not the person raising the issue should be defended. Very effective. Why do we always fall for it?