June Madness

1. What David Campbell said (in also taking aim at the accompanying slideshow):

@davidc7: This is what’s wrong with political campaign coverage. It’s ‘horse race journalism’ in snaps.

2. Building on David’s point, if (televised) sports is an opiate of the masses, what better graphic to employ (just after the NBA finals) to also distract the electorate from the real issues?

3. Given how the layout of the brackets (and scale of the faces) contradicts how a bracket is supposed to look, and because we normally read, and therefore order things left-to-right, top to bottom, the clustering here — before a vote is cast — starts to gin up the corporate media meme that Romney and Hunstman are the (white) men to beat.

4. And if you do honor the way brackets really do work, this arrangement also fixes into place the establishment’s dream scenario setting up an eventual showdown between “moderate” Mitt vs. the far right/unacceptable Bachmann.

(photo: LEFT, FROM TOP: CHIP SOMODEVILLA; ADAM DEAN / BLOOMBERG; BILL CLARK / ROLL CALL; IDA MAE ASTUTE / ABC (ALL VIA GETTY IMAGES). RIGHT, FROM TOP: MARK WILSON / GETTY IMAGES; STEVE POPE / GETTY IMAGES; MICHAEL IVINS / EPA; SPENCER PLATT / GETTY IMAGES; HYUNGWON KANG / REUTERS).