Atrios Blog

Pathological

Let me just echo Garance's post on contemporary romance. One certainly can't generalize over the entire population, but certainly within my experience the notion that men are uncomfortable dating women who are more successful than them just doesn't hold up. On the other hand, Dowd's writing on gender relationships more generally ring a bit more true than do her writings about romance.

...adding: Though I suppose it's the case that "marrying the secretary" is common in round 2 of the marriage game and people in my peer group haven't, for the most part, hit the age when that is common. I just don't see it happening as much.

What a horrible thing to have to write. But he does address one of my pet peeves - the unbalanced roundtable. More generally I don't think journalists should be on roundtables at all! What's the point of putting people who aren't really supposed to have opinions in a format where they're supposed to express opinions. As I've written before all they're capable of doing is recycling conventional wisdom which may or may not really be true. It's made worse by the pairing of journalists and pundits/operatives, but even without that it's just a ridiculous format for reporters to participate in.

I think it's great when journalists, say, go on CNN to discuss a particular news story they've written, but they degrade their craft and confuse people about what they're supposed to be doing when they position themselves as something they claim not to be - pundits.

One of the obvious contradictions in our contemporary discussion of Democrats is that the scribes who obsess the most about needing to be seen as "tough" are the ones who generally tell Democrats to run away from every fight. I have no position on the Brown/Hackett race in Ohio but this is refreshing:

“That’s low politics, punk!” a heavy-set man sneers as he marches toward the poll.
Hackett wheels around. “Pardon me?”
“You know, that radio ad that says, ‘You don’t know Schmidt.’” He’s talking about one of Hackett’s attack ads against Republican Jean Schmidt. The man spews a stream of epithets, and Hackett lets out a crybaby whimper: “Waaaaaaa!”
“What’s that, punk?” the big man growls.

A TV crew is setting up nearby, but Hackett doesn’t seem to care. “What’s your fuckin’ problem?” the candidate snaps. “You got something to say to me? Bring it on!” Hackett, all 6 feet 2 inches of him, is nose to nose with the heckler. “Problem?” he taunts. The man turns around and storms away.

“These guys in the Republican Party adopted this tough-guy language,” Hackett tells me, still steamed, an hour later. “They’re bullies. They’re offended when somebody takes a swing back at them.”

The point isn't that every politician needs to be Paul Hackett, the point is that you get points for being tough and standing up for yourself and what you believe in by, you know, being tough and standing up for what you believe in.

Froomkin writes about Time magazine's journamalism:

Media Matters , the liberal media watchdog Web site, raises an interesting point about Time Magazine's coverage of the Valerie Plame affair.

Back in this October 2003 story, the magazine reported: "White House spokesman Scott McClellan said accusations of Rove's peddling information are 'ridiculous.' Says McClellan: 'There is simply no truth to that suggestion.'"

It is now clear that several reporters and editors at Time knew very well that McClellan's statement was false.

Media Matters writes: "But despite that knowledge, they participated in the publication of an article containing that quote, with no indication that it was untrue. They participated in the publication of that article, which, in reporting that 'Rove was initially accused by Wilson of being the man behind the leak,' implied that Rove was no longer under suspicion -- even though they all knew that Rove was, in fact, [Matt] Cooper's source."

Is there any excuse for a news organization to print a statement that they know is untrue, without at least trying to clue their readers into the truth? That seems to defeat the central purpose of journalism.

So what should Time have done? One option might have been to go to Rove and say: We know McClellan isn't telling the truth. You either need to tell us the truth, on the record, or tell him the truth.

What if Rove had refused? One option might have been to go to McClellan and tell him that they had reason to think his statement was not accurate.

And if McClellan brushed them off? They should have stopped at nothing until they found a way to report what they knew to be the truth.

Another issue is why there's been so little discussion of this issue. Maybe we can fit it into one of the blogger ethics panel sessions.

Newsweek:

More recently, Cuellar made some Democrats furious when a photo was published showing President Bush grabbing Cuellar’s cheeks at the State of the Union. After liberal blogs posted the photo, Rodriguez’s campaign has raked in the cash, more than $70,000 from online donors, according to ActBlue, a Democratic online clearinghouse.

“He has pissed off every single Democrat [in Washington],” Rodriguez said in an interview. In fact, campaign-finance records show that at least 10 current members of Congress have donated to Rodriguez’s campaign, while not a single one has given to the incumbent Cuellar. “That never happens,” Rodriguez added.

Roll Call:

Rodriguez raised $168,882 last year to finish 2005 with a measly $43,071 in cash on hand, compared to Cuellar, who raised $660,237 and banked $293,833.

But the Rodriguez campaign claims it brought in around $85,000 in January, not to mention the additional $30,000-plus it collected last week after a couple of liberal Web logs featured Cuellar’s friendly moment with Bush as the president exited the House chamber after delivering the State of the Union.

A wee more than $30,000 now. Anyway, you can help here.

You listen.

Nora Ephron on all the man-love John McCain inspires.

Obviously something more than we're being told:

Claude Allen, President Bush's principle domestic policy adviser, has resigned. A White House spokesman told the Chicago Tribune that Allen wanted to spend more time with his family.

Republicans who know Allen are uncertain why he stepped down so suddenly. Late last week, he was in good spirits as he briefed allies and surrogates about the President's State of the Union message. On Tuesday, he attended a conference in PA on the president's faith based initiative.

Allen enjoys a warm relationship with moral conservative groups in Washington. As a senior political appointee at the Department of Health and Human services, he was the administration's point person on abstinence initiatives.

Jeebus probably doesn't like me enough for the obvious reason that the point person on abstinence initiatives would resign.

Time to fire Karen Hughes.

Pat Robertson.

Feingold on the Royalists in our midst.

Glenn Greenwald will be on NPR's to the point opposite Pajamaline's Assrocket.

This is a bit of a repeat, but the fuller story deserves to be read.

Joshua Claybourn.

If you live in Connecticut, make sure you sign up...

Debate coverage:

Rodriguez, bringing heat to a campaign that until last week had seemed sluggish, aggressively sought to portray Cuellar as too conservative for District 28, which sweeps from San Marcos to San Antonio's South Side to Laredo.

"Cuellar has sold out on the people of the 28th District," said Rodriguez, who lost to Cuellar in a bitter Democratic primary two years ago. "Henry Cuellar has not been there for the people of our district."

The former four-term congressman is looking to capitalize on the unexpected jolt of attention and contributions his campaign got last week from a widely circulated photograph of President Bush embracing Cuellar before the State of the Union speech.

Cuellar defended his first year in office as productive and in the interest of South Texans. He won approval of six amendments last year, which he contended was more legislation than Rodriguez had managed in eight years on Capitol Hill.

Cuellar said the public is tired of angry partisanship and that he's been effective because of his bipartisan approach.

You can help defeat the wanker Cuellar here.

Process:

There are many things about this statement that are bullshit. I don't have to lay them all out for you. But I would like to expound on one aspect of this statement that drives me crazy: it's a process answer.

A process answer is saying what "we should say" instead of just saying it. Nothing drives me more nuts than a politician who talks process instead of engaging voters directly. In this instance it's a backstab equal to anything one of those run-at-the-mouth strategists says to the NY Times to boost his cool factor among the mediatarts. He's positioning hemself as a "reasonable" centrist on national security, but he clearly has nothing to offer on the subject at hand so he just talks about what "we should be doing."

CUT THEIR MICS!

Yeah, yeah, another stupid open thread.

Yeah, yeah, another stupid open thread.

Yeah, yeah, another stupid open thread.