The big ruckus in the blogosphere today is that Journolist reporters conspired to downplay the Reverend Wright/Obama story during the campaign, and to attack and impugn anyone who didn’t play the same game. It is shocking, but unsurprising to those who have been noticing what’s been happening in the media for the last few decades.
But perceiving something is quite a different thing from having the smoking gun, and this story provides the latter. But will enough people know or care?
The difference between left and right may be (at least in this case) that the left thinks this sort of action on the part of journalists is a good thing. I mean, after all, didn’t they become journalists in the first place in order to make a difference?
The thing that surprises me most about the Journolist revelations is the openness of the particpants in creating a paper (that is, computer) trail of their machinations, complete with identifying names. Apparently they either thought what they were doing was noncontroversial, or they trusted their fellow-Journolistos to keep the transactions sancrosanct, never suspecting that one day a member would turn tail and rat.
But that day has come, and as a result we are treated to such thoughtful missives as this one from Chris Hayes of the Nation:
I’m not saying we should all rush en masse to defend Wright. If you don’t think he’s worthy of defense, don’t defend him! What I’m saying is that there is no earthly reason to use our various platforms to discuss what about Wright we find objectionable.
Spencer Ackerman of the Washington Independent [sic] responded:
It’s not necessary to jump to Wright-qua-Wright’s defense. What is necessary is to raise the cost on the right of going after the left. In other words, find a rightwinger’s [sic] and smash it through a plate-glass window. Take a snapshot of the bleeding mess and send it out in a Christmas card to let the right know that it needs to live in a state of constant fear. Obviously I mean this rhetorically.
And I think this threads the needle. If the right forces us all to either defend Wright or tear him down, no matter what we choose, we lose the game they’ve put upon us. Instead, take one of them ”” Fred Barnes, Karl Rove, who cares ”” and call them racists. Ask: why do they have such a deep-seated problem with a black politician who unites the country? What lurks behind those problems? This makes *them* sputter with rage, which in turn leads to overreaction and self-destruction.
There are also some interesting windows on the past. The Nation’s Katha Pollitt reminisces about how distateful it was to her, as a feminist and a woman, to have to whitewash Bill Clinton’s sexual offenses back in the 90s: “I am really tired of defending the indefensible.”
Not tired enough, Katha, not tired enough.
But Ackerman rallies the wearying troops, including Kevin Drum of Washington Monthly, who naively wonders:
I think it’s worth keeping in mind that Obama is trying (or says he’s trying) to run a campaign that avoids precisely the kind of thing Spencer is talking about, and turning this into a gutter brawl would probably hurt the Obama brand pretty strongly. After all, why vote for him if it turns out he’s not going change the way politics works?”
Ackerman replies:
Kevin, I’m not saying OBAMA should do this. I’m saying WE should do this.
That will keep Obama’s hands clean—and it did, at least enough to get him elected.
Today’s scandal has prompted Andrew Breitbart to write:
The only way that the media will recover from the horrifying discoveries found in the Journolist is to investigate and investigate until every guilty reporter, professor and institution is laid bare begging America for forgiveness. Will they do it?
To say that this question is almost certainly only rhetorical, and that the obvious answer is “no,” is to state the obvious. A more important question is how many Americans will even hear about this—and, if they do, how many will care. I think that most people who would care were already pretty sure that this sort of thing went on, even before the revelations of the emails, and that many of the rest would probably agree with the co-conspirators’ actions and quietly (or loudly) cheer them on.
[NOTE: The Journolist discussion in question was prompted by one of the debates moderated by Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos, during which Gibson “asked Obama why it had taken him so long ”“ nearly a year since Wright’s remarks became public ”“ to dissociate himself from them.” This relatively mild query was considered way too challenging compared to the soft pitches they were supposed to throw Obama, and it caused the resultant commotion in the Journolist ranks.
Perhaps Gibson had learned his lesson by the time he subsequently interviewed Sarah Palin; it would be instructive to read the Journolist entries in response to that performance. My guess is that it received much higher marks.]
