Lemkin

Both Sides Not Equally at Fault →

TNR’s Timothy Noah has a nice piece up detailing polls that show the general public largely gets that it’s the GOP being more obstructive, more extreme, and (even among Republicans) ultimately less popular and more deserving of being shown the door. But then Noah writes the funniest thing I’ve read in a while:

I hope the “objective” press reports these findings accurately, and doesn’t bend itself into a pretzel trying to portray this poll as mere generalized disgust with partisan bickering in Washington.

What color is the sky in your world, Tim?

"She’s not young enough or pretty enough to be the wife of a President. And besides, she has cancer."

— Newt Gingrich, disgraced former Speaker and loving husband, describes his first wife in a Katharine Q. Seelye profile. Ladies and gentlemen, your next GOP frontrunner.

(Source: tnr.com)

"On the domestic side, both Democrats and Republicans have really made it very difficult for the president to be anything like a chief executive. This has led to a kind of frustration."

— Bill Daley, White House Chief of Staff. This is why they fail.
Anyone, and I mean anyone who holds this opinion, much less speaks of it to a journalist of any stripe, should resign immediately or have been fired long ago. You think this is frustrating Bill? You think “your” side is equally to blame? Then go the fuck home. You are part of the problem and we’ll get nothing truly worthwhile done until everyone who thinks like you has long since left the scene.

(Source: tnr.com)

Don't mince words, Tim →

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)