David Sirota on what it takes for the Beltway media to label someone a Serious Policy Thinker, using Rep. Nancy Johnson (R-CT) as a perfect example:

“In her 12 terms in Congress — the longest tenure in the state’s history — [she] has earned a reputation as a serious policy thinker on health care and social programs.”
The Times, of course, doesn’t tell us who she’s “earned” this reputation from, only that she’s supposedly “earned” it. In lieu of a source on this characterization, we can only assume that it is the Times’ reporter that considers her a Serious Policy Thinker on health care and social programs. And that begs the uncomfortable question - what objective facts can a Washington reporter cite in justifying calling someone like Johnson Serious?

Let’s see - first and foremost, Johnson has long been among the top House recipients of pharmaceutical and health care industry campaign cash. For instance, in 2002 she was the #1 recipient of drug industry cash, in 2004 she was #3 and in 2006 she’s #3 as well. So we now know that’s one of the metrics to being considered a Serious Policy Thinker by Washington reporters: being a lawmaker who is among the top recipients of campaign cash from and most reliable legislative shill for the industries he/she is supposed to be regulating.

Second, Johnson was the author of the atrocity known as the Medicare Part D bill - you know, the one that has led to mass confusion among Medicare recipents; seniors falling into a donut hole and being cut off from coverage; and out of control, budget-busting price gouging by the pharmaceutical industry.

So now we know another metric of being considered a Serious Policy Thinker in Washington: being a lawmaker who authors legislation that becomes a national poster child for government waste, fraud, mismangement and abuse, but that hands over billions to the industries that sprayed down that legislative author in campaign cash.

Finally, we ought to also remember that someone’s status as a Serious Policy Thinker is never endangered when they publicly embarrass themselves and show themselves to be an idiot or a deliberately dishonest liar on empirical grounds. So, for instance, now that Johnson is airing an I-can’t-watch-this-without-laughing-and-crying-at-the-same-time television ad asking her constituents to reject the basic laws of the universe that govern space and time, the Times ignores that, and simply reminds us that she’s a Serious Person.

Out in the real world, Serious People are those who actually manage to do things right. You know, they actually succeed in their endeavors, and aren’t openly, proudly and happily engaging in selling out their responsibilities and their morals to the highest bidder.

But then, Washington isn’t the real world. On economics, Serious Policy Thinkers in Washington are those who push policies that have destroyed the middle-class, and then get up in front of an elite audience and hold court as an expert on alleviating international poverty. The people to be attacked as Unserious by the Beltway Elders are those who dare to defy the money-drenched political process and instead work to represent the vast majority of Americans by pushing for a reform of our trade, labor and wage laws.