Newish TNR man Timothy Noah weighs in on Politico, White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley, Obama, and reporting in general (emphasis in original):
The main problem with the Politico piece is that its central example is Daley’s mishandling of the scheduling of Obama’s jobs bill speech. Obama wanted to give it in the House of Representatives on a Wednesday and Boehner said no dice, you have to give it on a Thursday. This somehow became a two-day story and a referendum on Obama’s impotence and the House Republicans’ incivility. I don’t care about how Daley handled this trivial scheduling conflict. I care about how Daley advised Obama during the disastrously drawn-out debt-ceiling negotiations, in which Obama really did look impotent and the House Republicans looked not merely uncivil but bent on destroying the economy. But Politico has nothing on that except a passing reference to Daley cutting Senate leaders out of the loop during the negotiations. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid apparently called Obama to complain that Daley keeps him in the dark. That’s interesting.
This simply isn’t done. In one short paragraph, we have Noah pointing out the vacuity of a competitor, sure, but to me this reads as broader indictment of the Beltway style of political “reporting” in general. Noah actually seems aware of objective reality, makes not one “pox on both their houses” hedge, and points out a real point of contention between a Democratic power center (Reid) and the White House, all while noting that none of this gets covered in the “who won the day” obsessed political press and what does get mentioned is not only often plainly wrong but in a different zip code than anything approaching reality. More please.
(h/t Jason Zengerle)
Lemkin 