Tool Time

Joan Walsh damns Politico with faint praise, I suppose, which sounds about right. The first couple times I came across the site, I was seriously underwhelmed at the pure fluff I encountered.

I don't want the E! channel covering politics. There are enough ninth-grade Heathers out there in poli-journo land trying to out-cat each other and figure out who next to paste up in their slambook. If I want that shit I'll just go read Perez Hilton or some such. Seriously. It's not that I'm above gossip per se, but I do expect serious people to cover serious issues in a serious (though not solemn) manner. I've got hands; I can jerk myself off.

I will say that the site looks better now than it did several weeks ago, when I last checked it out. But I can see where people would be unhappy with this sort of thing. It's a stretch, especially this early in what shouldn't even be a campaign yet. Allen's trying to make something out of nothing, and it shows, especially when Allen himself acknowledges that "[Obama's] rhetorical miscues have been more curiosities than obvious political blunders", in apparent contrast to the rather problematic verb of the article's title. One is not typically "plagued" by "curiosities" and "rhetorical miscues", unless one is trying to inflate the usefulness of one's tenuous evidentiary connections.

It's hard to fault Politico, really. They're a natural symptom of the smug, insular dynamic of horse-race journalism, whose grand priority in life is to Be Objective At All Costs. They're not bullshitting about that, either. That's why you get Dean Broder harrumphing at what is and is not acceptable discourse, that no matter how factually correct the vituperative ruffians of the blogosphere might be, he will have none of it, because it would interfere with his incessant poll-stroking and What It All Means For The Democrats.

That's how you get Andrea Mitchell lying through her teeth about what polls reported on a majority of Americans supporting the prosecution of Scooter Libby for his clear misconduct. That's how you get an editor from Time lying about the proportion of Americans who actively support the current investigations in Congress, and then lamely whinging that he said that in his capacity as a citizen. Fine. I'm a fucking citizen, too; strangely, I have yet to get an invite from Tweety in such a capacity.

And it's how you get Sunday morning circle-jerks apparently trying to help a thuggish piece of shit like Tom DeLay rehabilitate himself by getting his side of things. Great, maybe we should get Dracula's side of things while we're at it, or Henry Lee Lucas' (the only death sentence commuted by G. W. Bush as Texas governor, incidentally) side of things.

Objectivity, like civility, is nice to have, but is somewhat overrated in terms of necessity. Sometimes "objectivity" just means giving the cold, hard truth and a flat-out lie equal time. We used to count on journalists to exercise such discretion competently and professionally; now we just cross our fingers and hope they get it closer next time.

And they wonder why we don't want to pay for content anymore.

Update: Perhaps I gave Politico a bit too much benefit of the doubt, as they have apparently ingratiated themselves to Matt "80% accurate; close enough!" Drudge, who, to put it mildly, is part of the fucking problem.

This is also part of the problem, this schmoozy, boozy, self-indulgent kabuki of collegiality they indulge in periodically. Hey, assholes, politicians are not your friends. The fact that you even need to be told that explains a lot.