Matt Yglesias

Politico’s Anonymous Sources Slam Barbara Boxer’s “Abrasive Personal Style”

Just Another Shrill Harpy (Wikimedia)

I used to think that US Senate Barbara Boxer was an experienced legislator with a solid progressive record on the issues. But then I read this Politico article in which various anonymous people criticize her “abrasive personal style” and “outspoken partisan liberal” demeanor. Big trouble! And then I got to thinking, I recall having read similar critiques of Judge Sonia Sotomayor. And Hillary Clinton as a presidential candidate and now as Secretary of State has been subjected to similar criticism. Nancy Pelosi, too.

You’ve really got to wonder what the deal is with the Democratic Party that every woman who comes forward into a position of power and influence is a shrill, castrating harridan. I mean, what are Democrats thinking? What poor judgment! Doesn’t everyone know that politics is a business in which the only people who get ahead are soft-spoken sweethearts like Rahm Emanuel and Chuck Schumer? Somehow male politicians have managed to figure this out. What’s stopping the women?

Politico Ponders War With North Korea

Maybe it’s just me, but it does seem to me that if Politico wants to run an article hyping a dubious poll indicating that a majority of the public favors starting a war with North Korea that they might want to devote some coverage to the issue of the possible consequences of such a war.

After all, insofar as people do favor such a step, it’s almost certainly because they don’t understand what it might entail. But a war could easily involve the deaths of millions of people and the destruction of one of the world’s largest cities. South Korea, with American assistance, would undoubtedly prevail in such a conflict but the price paid in blood would be extremely high and the impact on the global economy could be extremely grave. Meanwhile, the world would be left with the very thorny question of what to do with the post-war DPRK. In some very narrow sense of what a “politico” might care about, these issues don’t matter. But even in pretty crass political terms, public opinion would clearly be much more impacted by reaction to the actual consequences of military action than to whatever kind of weird push polling Rasmussen wants to do.

Greed is Not a Defense

I found Ezra Klein’s defense of Politico to be pretty weak stuff.

Ezra’s main point is that coverage that’s utterly trivial and that poisons public understanding of crucial issues that effect the lives of billions of people is rewarded by the market, and that Politico does a good of delivering on coverage that’s utterly trivial and that poisons public understanding of crucial issues that effect the lives of billions of people. This is true, but it seems more like a rationalization for bad behavior than a reason to do it. These are hard times for the journalism business, but that doesn’t mean that people in the media should stop holding each other to any kind of reasonable standards of quality and responsibility. I don’t think the existence of a market economy should be seen as giving everyone ethical carte blanche to totally ignore the welfare of their fellow citizens when going about their business.

The Case of the Million Dollar Cabin

John McCain owns a 20 acre vacation property in Arizona worth over $1 million where he’s going to spend the week of the Democratic Convention. Or as Jonathan Martin puts it “the candidate is now at his cabin in Sedona, which he’ll make his base of operations as the spotlight focuses on Obama.” Admittedly, rich people who vacation in Maine have a tendency to call their summer homes “cabins” no matter how lavish they get, so it’s hardly as if McCain and/or Martin are being unique in this regard but it’s still a bit absurd.