Why does the White House care what bloggers think?

Greenwald disagrees with Daou’s argument that bloggers like him are the “crux of the problem for Obama.” If anything, he thinks the White House pays more attention to blogs like his, and the effect that they have on the “chattering class and media elites,” than it probably should.

“I think that bloggers can have an influence in our political discussions and how politicians are perceived and the like, but I think any explanation of the political problems of Obama that doesn’t begin and end with the economic suffering of large numbers of people is fundamentally misguided,” he told POLITICO.

“I think the reason why people are so angry at Democrats and disenchanted with Obama has very little – basically nothing – to do with what bloggers have been saying, and everything to do with the fact that there are no jobs and millions of people are having their homes foreclosed.”