Political bits
Caucuses in Washington and Nebraska and a primary in Louisiana tomorrow. (No results til late.) Maine caucus on Sunday ends 6PM.
From the Froomkin piece about Bush at CPAC.
(Politico) The NRCC scandal keeps sounding worse and worse, and the guy responsible for the fraud "was also affiliated with dozens of other Republican campaigns and leadership political action committees, some of which have already begun their own internal audits. (Dozens!!!)
(SouthernPolitics) Unsurprisingly, Obama +15 in Virginia. (SUSA) Obama +20. (This one's going to be about expectations, not winning.)
(WSJBlog) The Clinton campaign demands an apology after David Schuster says the campaign is "pimping out" Chelsea. (I don't think he meant it like that, but, for Chris Matthews alone, MSNBC owes Hillary Clinton innumerable apologies.)
(Politico) The DNC is already preparing to "define" John McCain.
(Politico) McCain has hired a PR firm to battle the right wing radio gods. "Shirley & Banister... have been helping McCain for a few weeks now placing surrogates on TV and in news stories." (That's how news gets made.)
And, one thing that's been lost in the Clinton call for weekly debates is that for each debate the candidates lose at least one day on the trail in preparation.
From the Froomkin piece about Bush at CPAC.
Bush with greeted with near ecstatic thrill. It was hard to imagine that the 1,200 or more folks crammed into the room had been up for hours staking out seats for the 7:15 a.m. speech -- because they spent so little time sitting.
"There were cheers when an aide placed the presidential seal on the podium. Cheers when the binder holding the president's speech was put in place. And chants of 'Four more years!' when Sen. Mitch McConnell introduced Bush..."
(Politico) The NRCC scandal keeps sounding worse and worse, and the guy responsible for the fraud "was also affiliated with dozens of other Republican campaigns and leadership political action committees, some of which have already begun their own internal audits. (Dozens!!!)
(SouthernPolitics) Unsurprisingly, Obama +15 in Virginia. (SUSA) Obama +20. (This one's going to be about expectations, not winning.)
(WSJBlog) The Clinton campaign demands an apology after David Schuster says the campaign is "pimping out" Chelsea. (I don't think he meant it like that, but, for Chris Matthews alone, MSNBC owes Hillary Clinton innumerable apologies.)
(Politico) The DNC is already preparing to "define" John McCain.
(Politico) McCain has hired a PR firm to battle the right wing radio gods. "Shirley & Banister... have been helping McCain for a few weeks now placing surrogates on TV and in news stories." (That's how news gets made.)
And, one thing that's been lost in the Clinton call for weekly debates is that for each debate the candidates lose at least one day on the trail in preparation.
posted by mikevotes at
2:14 PM
5 Comments:
"The DNC is already preparing to "define" John McCain.
"
See! See! I told you. :)
"The Clinton campaign demands an apology after David Schuster says the campaign is "pimping out" Chelsea."
This is another example of the coarsening of American dialog. Can you imagine Walter Cronkite or any real journalist being so coarsely brutish with language. Pathetic.
The traditional media has been chauvinistically elitist, looking down their noses and ridiculing blogs and bloggers. But I've noticed that on the air and in print traditional media has tried to blogify their language and attitudes. I don't like it. Not one bit.
By
-epm, at 3:14 PM
My first draft included the parenthetical "EPM will be pleased by this."
And, I don't think Schuster meant it as anything but a poor use of language (should a newscaster be using "pimping out under any circumstances?") but it was deifinitely bad, and he should and has apologized profusely.
But I think this pales in comparison to the semi-nightly sexism/anti-Cliton stuff spouted by Chris Matthews. If he were on Fox, the blogs would be all over him.
And, in general, it's all part of the shift to immediacy over quality, and in that quest for immediacy, quality has severely suffered.
By
mikevotes, at 4:26 PM
"My first draft included the parenthetical "EPM will be pleased by this.""
lol.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure you're right about Schuster. I guess I'm a little tired of the commentary/informality that passes as news these day. And, really, these are well paid grown ups. I just expect them to act a little more professional.
By
-epm, at 6:45 PM
I am SO glad that I don't watch t.v. In fact, it was the last campaign that made me cut the cable. So keep in mind that I get all my news from you guys (and a few other bloggers and lots of news web sites. But I don't have to listen to ANY of them. I don't even watch very many clips (I admit I watched the first Hillary shedding-a-tear clip but that was it)
By
Ptelea, at 8:13 PM
Yeah, it's gotten bad.
The thing that kills me even more than the lowering of presentation standards is the fact that the news has become predicting the future.
It's no longer a recitation of what happened. It's now a best guess of what will happen.
In some respects the news is better than ever in that there is far more information available more quickly, but at the same time we've seen the death of the goal of post WWII objectivity.
Objectivity doesn't sell.
And I finally caught a clip of the Schuster thing. It certainly wasn't intended to be as bad as it is, but it is bad. Apologies and suspension are appropriate.
By
mikevotes, at 9:27 PM
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