This paragraph from First Read, demonstrating the severe disfunction of political reporting, needs to be quoted at length:
Still, McCain performed very well, and the reviews seem to back that up. Obama also did well given the venue and much of the subject matter. (Although his “above my pay grade” answer on life begins has generated a lot of discussion, how else was a pro-choice politician going to respond to this?). Nevertheless, Obama spent more time trying to impress moderator Rick Warren (or not to offend him), while McCain seemingly ignored Warren and decided he was talking to folks watching on TV. The McCain way of handling this forum is usually the winning way. Obama may have had more authentic moments but McCain was impressively on message.
Think about this for a second. John McCain showed up to a forum, blew off the moderator's questions, and responded with monologues tangentially related to the subject at hand. That's fine, it's his campaign, except that afterwards reviewers say this is a good thing. But this makes no sense. Unless you are interviewing someone for the position of White House press secretary, you wouldn't tolerate this sort of behavior in a job interview.
Elsewhere Alan Wolfe makes a good point. Warren's forum, for all its flaws, was significantly more substantive than any of the last few debates in the Democratic primary. There was no section of horserace questions on the latest campaign gossip.
I think it is now safe to say that political reporting a profession bears more responsibility for the coming apocalypse than mid-twentieth century physicists*. Thoughts?
*Like because of the Bomb.
Posted by: Corvus9 | August 18, 2008 at 11:09 PM