Echo Chamber

Ben Smith reported at Politico on The new left-wing conspiracy, a daily conference call involving "officials from more than 20 labor, environmental and other Democratic-leaning groups".

The "8:45 A.M. call," as it’s referred to by members, began three weeks ago, and it marks a new level in coordination by the White House’s allies...

The Center for American Progress Action Fund is one of the two groups hosting the call. Jennifer Palmieri, its senior vice president for communications, described the need the calls are intended to fill.

"[CAP President John] Podesta’s and my experience was in the White House during the Clinton years, and we didn’t have a coordinated echo chamber on the outside backing us up," she said.

See Cocoon.

(via KausFiles)

Update: Jonah Goldberg at The Corner asks What About the Lapdoggery? And, Let's Not Forget the Lickspittles

Places like the Center for American Progress (allegedly "the liberal Heritage Foundation") were explicitly created to mimic what self-styled progressives believe to be the vast right-wing conspiracy (It was the same agenda that brought us Air America). In one sense, they were great at mimicking all this stuff, but like the aliens in Galaxy Quest they lacked a certain level of understanding of how this stuff works internally to these organizations. For instance, they don't seem to understand that the purpose of institutions like the Heritage Foundation is to make the White House and Congress more of an echo chamber of Heritage, not the other way around.

Or to put it another way, it's reminiscent of President Nixon hiring Donald Segretti in an attempt to develop a "Dick Tuck capability".