Media Morons On Parade

by hilzoy

This has been a particularly loopy day for the media. I learned, to my amazement, that Hillary Clinton has breasts the Washington Post has the journalistic standards of a dung beetle:

"There was cleavage on display Wednesday afternoon on C-SPAN2. It belonged to Sen. Hillary Clinton.

She was talking on the Senate floor about the burdensome cost of higher education. She was wearing a rose-colored blazer over a black top. The neckline sat low on her chest and had a subtle V-shape. The cleavage registered after only a quick glance. No scrunch-faced scrutiny was necessary. There wasn't an unseemly amount of cleavage showing, but there it was. Undeniable. (...)

The cleavage, however, is an exceptional kind of flourish. After all, it's not a matter of what she's wearing but rather what's being revealed. It's tempting to say that the cleavage stirs the same kind of discomfort that might be churned up after spotting Rudy Giuliani with his shirt unbuttoned just a smidge too far. No one wants to see that. But really, it was more like catching a man with his fly unzipped. Just look away!"

So, O wise reporter, when your inner daemon wisely told you to look away, why didn't you? Inquiring minds are much more curious about that than they are about the fact that, you know, sometimes women's shirts show their cleavage, unless, of course, they show up for Senate debates in a chador, or perhaps clad from head to toe in chain mail. Given the wandering eyes and misfiring neurons of Post reporters, that might not be such a bad idea.

I'm curious, though: when are we going to see this kind of stories about men? I can see it now:

"There were testicles on display in the Senate office building today.

John McCain looked relaxed in his cream-colored linen summer suit as he outlined his new proposal for K-12 education. But there, unmistakably visible beneath his crisp tailored trousers, were the telltale bumps."

Or perhaps:

"Presidential candidates normally take care with their underwear. Get it right and the pride of a candidate's manhood will remain neatly centered, visible, if at all, as a discreet, masculine bulge; get it wrong and his manly appointments will fall into one of his pants legs, giving him a peculiar, lopsided appearance.

Somebody get the word to Mitt Romney."

I can hardly wait, she lied.

Then there's the AP story on Barack Obama...

The interviewer apparently asked Obama whether he would keep troops in Iraq to prevent a genocide. Here's his reply:

""Well, look, if that's the criteria by which we are making decisions on the deployment of U.S. forces, then by that argument you would have 300,000 troops in the Congo right now — where millions have been slaughtered as a consequence of ethnic strife — which we haven't done," Obama said in an interview with The Associated Press.

"We would be deploying unilaterally and occupying the Sudan, which we haven't done. Those of us who care about Darfur don't think it would be a good idea," he said.

Obama, a first-term senator from Illinois, said it's likely there would be increased bloodshed if U.S. forces left Iraq.

"Nobody is proposing we leave precipitously. There are still going to be U.S. forces in the region that could intercede, with an international force, on an emergency basis," Obama said between stops on the first of two days scheduled on the New Hampshire campaign trail. "There's no doubt there are risks of increased bloodshed in Iraq without a continuing U.S. presence there."

The greater risk is staying in Iraq, Obama said.

"It is my assessment that those risks are even greater if we continue to occupy Iraq and serve as a magnet for not only terrorist activity but also irresponsible behavior by Iraqi factions," he said."

As I see it, Obama is making two main points: (1) we do not, in fact, consistently deploy troops wherever a genocide threatens, and (2) the risks of bloodshed will be greater if we stay in Iraq than if we leave. I can think of a number of headlines that would accurately convey these points. This, however, is not one of them:

"Obama: Don't stay in Iraq over genocide"

I can see a whole bunch of future headlines that use this same tactic:

Edwards: Leave Iraq Even If More Troops Must Die

Clinton: Avoiding US Financial Ruin Not Good Reason To Stay In Iraq

Richardson: Iraq Withdrawal Trumps Soldiers' Sanity, Broken Army

Likewise:

Biden: I Wouldn't Start Smoking Crack Even To Cure Addiction

Dodd: I'd Love To Play In NBA, But Not Enough To Cut Off My Legs!

Invading China For No Good Reason Too High A Price To Pay For Heaven On Earth, Perpetual Peace, And Ponies For All, Say Dems

Sheesh.

The only bright spots I can see are all, oddly enough, former sportswriters. First, there's Charles Pierce on the subject of an idiotic column by the normally good Marc Ambinder. Ambinder was discussing the stupid Edwards haircut story, and wrote: "There is a difference in the political reality: fairly or unfairly, a healthy chunk of the national political press corps doesn't like John Edwards. Fairly or unfairly, there's also a difference in narrative timing: when the first quarter ended, the press was trying to bury Edwards. It's not so much interested in burying Romney right now -- many reporters think he's the Republican frontrunner." Pierce's response:

"OK, here's the deal. Every member of that "healthy chunk" of the press corps should be fired. Today. This minute. Without pay or recompense. Let them all walk back inside the Beltway from Cedar Rapids if they have to. I value what I do. I value the work of the people in my business who do it correctly. But, holy mother of god, these people do not do what I do. It's OK to sneer at a candidate if you don't like him? It's OK to create a destructive narrative out of unmitigated piffle because he doesn't kiss your ass with the regularity you think you deserve, or because his press buses don't run on time, or because one of his staffers was late with the Danish in Keene? I watched a roomful of them boo Al Gore seven years ago, behavior that would have gotten them run out of any press box in the major leagues. Do you think one of these jamokes -- or jamokettes -- is thinking, "Maybe we should lay off the haircut thing because of what we all did to Gore in 2000, and look how well that worked out." Please.

Here's what I think -- the majority of people who cover national politics believe that history is whatever happened in the MSNBC Green Room 15 minutes earlier. I believe the campaign is covered by people with a completely unjustified sense of their own superiority, since not many of them understand or ever care about most of the issues, much less the horrendous bills that are going to come due upon whichever of these poor sods winds up with the job. I believe these people care more about their reputation around the bar at the Wayfarer in Manchester than they do about the interests of the people they purportedly serve. And, were I an editor, and someone brought me a story about John Edwards' hair or Mitt Romney's skin, that person would do it once. The second time, the lazy bastard would find himself typing bowling agate on Wednesday night."

Charles Pierce: will you marry me?

And then there's Keith Olbermann. This is from his special comment last night, on the topic of the letter to Hillary Clinton in which an Undersecretary of Defense said that "Premature and public discussion of the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq reinforces enemy propaganda that the United States will abandon its allies in Iraq, much as we are perceived to have done in Vietnam, Lebanon and Somalia." Olbermann's response focusses on Bush:

"The selection of the wrong war, in the wrong time, in the wrong place — the most disastrous a geo-political tactic since Austria-Hungary attacked Serbia in 1914 and destroyed itself in the process — that had nothing to do with the overwhelming crisis Iraq has become — it isn’t Mr. Bush’s fault.

The criminal lack of planning for the war — the total “jump-off-a-bridge-and-hope-you-can-fly” tone to the failure to anticipate what would follow the deposing of Saddam Hussein — that had nothing to do with the chaos in which Iraq has been enveloped — it isn’t Mr. Bush’s fault.

The utter, blinkered idiocy of “staying the course” — of sending Americans to Iraq, and sending them a second time, and a third, and a fourth, until they get killed or maimed — the utter de-prioritization of human life, simply so a politician can avoid having to admit a mistake — that had nothing to do with the tens of thousand individual tragedies darkening the lives of American families, forever — it isn’t Mr. Bush’s fault.

The continuing, relentless, remorseless, corrupt and cynical insistence that this conflict somehow is defeating, or containing, or just engaging the people who attacked us on 9/11 — the total “Alice Through The Looking Glass” quality that ignores that in Iraq, we have made the world safer for Al-Qaeda — it isn’t Mr. Bush’s fault!

The fault, brought down — as if a sermon from this mount of hypocrisy and slaughter, by a nearly anonymous Under-Secretary of Defense — the fault has tonight been laid on the doorstep of Senator Hillary Clinton and, by extension, at the doorstep of every American — the now vast majority of us — who have dared to criticize this war, or protest it, or merely ask questions about it, or simply, plaintively, innocently, honestly, plead, “don’t take my son; don’t take my daughter.”"

And he has a suggestion for the President:

"When Civil War General Ambrose Burnside ordered a disastrous attack on Fredericksburg in which 12,000 of his men were killed, he had to be physically restrained from leading the next charge himself.

After the First Lord of the British Admiralty, Winston Churchill, authored and enabled the disastrous Gallipoli campaign that saw a quarter million Allied Soldiers cut down in the First World War, Churchill resigned his office and took a commission as a front-line officer in the trenches of France.

Those are your new role models, Mr. Bush.

Let your minions try to spread the blame to the real patriots here, who have sought only to undo the horrors you have wrought since 2002.

Let them try it, until the end of time.

Though the words might be erased from a million books and a billion memories, though the world be covered knee-deep in your lies, the truth shall prevail.

This, sir, is your war.

Senator Clinton has reinforced enemy propaganda? Made it impossible for you to get your ego-driven, blood-steeped win in Iraq?

Then take it into your own hands, Mr. Bush.

Go to Baghdad now and fulfill, finally, your military service obligations.

Go there and fight, your war…yourself."

I only wish -- at least, if we get to send Cheney there with him.

Comments

[russell]

Presidential candidates normally take care with their underwear. Get it right and the pride of a candidate's manhood will remain neatly centered, visible, if at all, as a discreet, masculine bulge; get it wrong and his manly appointments will fall into one of his pants legs, giving him a peculiar, lopsided appearance.

LOL.

Watch for this question in the next Presidential debate: "On which side do you dress?".

Go there and fight, your war…yourself.

That would weed out the really essential, existential conflicts from the bullshit ones in a hurry, wouldn't it?

"Real men nowhere, but in Sparta, real boys" -- Diogenes

Thanks -

[Gary Farber]

I certainly won't defend the story, but I will note that Robin Givhan has gotten this reaction from political bloggers at least a dozen times now, for a fashion report, over the past several years. I mean, this sort of thing is what a fashion reporter does. Apparently. It's not as if it was a political piece. Attacking fashion reporters for discussing clothes seems rather futile and pointless.

[Gary Farber]

"I'm curious, though: when are we going to see this kind of stories about men?"

Um, we had fashion reports from Robin Givhan on John Edwards' hair. This was not an improvement. But there's been no lack of attack on Al Gore's clothing, either.

I'm not fond of this stuff, but this is clearly the intersection of the fashion industry and political commentary. Questioning various aspects of this is entirely sensible and legitimate, but addressing it as if Givens isn't a fashion reporter, and without addressing the entire concept of the fashion industry, and its role in our society doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Maybe that's just me.

But it does seem fairly complicated in how it affects aspects of our society, and I suspect a considerably more sophisticated and knowledgeable analysis than this would be helpful. Generally speaking, calling people "morons" for engaging in their industry isn't educational.

[Gary Farber]

If I might be allowed an observation, I think there's a problem at times with lack of observation of context of media in the blogosphere. Treating a report by a fashion reporter in the style section of a newspaper as if it was a political story by a political reporter in a newspaper makes no sense whatever, but it happens in the blogosphere a lot, because people tend to lose or be oblivious of that context.

Or so it seems to me.

I don't mind attacks on the fashion industry, and/or the political aspects of it, or vice versa, or where these meet, or how they are inappropriately met here, or whatever, but for such a discussion to work, they have to address the premises of the fashion industry. Attacking a fashion reporter for a fashion piece for not being fair political reporting, and saying nothing more, is just incoherent and insufficient, so far as I can see.

I'd love to see a good analysis and discussion of how the intersection of fashion and politics works, but this doesn't even acknowledge that that's the topic; I find this frustrating.

[dkilmer]

She's a fashion reporter, yes. But when she won a Pulitzer, here's what they said:

"Awarded to Robin Givhan of The Washington Post for her witty, closely observed essays that transform fashion criticism into cultural criticism."

She obviously takes herself seriously. Why shouldn't one take the cultural/political aspects of her articles seriously?

[dkilmer]

"I think there's a problem at times with lack of observation of context of media in the blogosphere"

The reporter won a media award specifically for conflating two contexts. How is the blogosphere wrong for taking them at face value?

[Gary Farber]

"Why shouldn't one take the cultural/political aspects of her articles seriously?"

I never suggested Robin Givhans shouldn't be taken seriously, as it happens, and I don't mean to now. I wrote, like, stuff specifically suggesting it would be good to take this stuff seriously, and discuss it, rather than dismissing it with an epithet or so.

I may have been unclear, somehow, when I wrote that "I'd love to see a good analysis and discussion of how the intersection of fashion and politics works."

I'm reasonably sure that that indicates that I believe that "I'd love to see a good analysis and discussion of how the intersection of fashion and politics works," but perhaps I misunderstand myself.

[dkilmer]

Sorry for misrepresenting your position. Here's a retry:

"She obviously sees herself as a political reporter. Why shouldn't we treat her story as political reporting?"

Hilzoy's point seemed (to me) to be that this is bad journalism. The fashion context isn't relevant to that, as I see it.

But I do agree that a post about the intersection of politics and fashion would be good.

[Count Cant]

I've got bad news for you, hilz--

that obsession with male genitalia you were looking for?

It's already there. Don't you remember wanting to retch when Chris Matthews was going on about Bush's codpiece in the "Mission Accomplished" costume?

And then there was all of the right-wing drooling about Cheney's "package".

No, there's no lack of reportage about male genitalia.

It's just that, unlike the reportage about female breasts which is directed towards Democrats and is intended to shame women off the public stage, this reportage was about Republicans, so it was worshipful and adulatory.

So let's just remember the official press rules here:

1) Democratic personal attributes? Shameful, feminizing, unserious.

2) Republican personal attributes?
Heroic, manly, serious.

And, Gary? I think you're wrong about this:

"I think there's a problem at times with lack of observation of context of media in the blogosphere"

The rules I've just described: that *is* the context. That's the context in which an alleged "fashion" reporter is writing these calculated sneers about the appearance of the Democratic front-runner.

That context not only makes it legitimate to treat "a report by a fashion reporter in the style section of a newspaper as if it was a political story by a political reporter," it makes it obtuse and blinkered to treat it in any other way.

This is politics. The politics of attacking Democrats and attacking women in power by ridiculing their personal appearance. And the fact that even the style section is an outlet for the press's parroting of Republican talking points is part of the context, too.

[Jesurgislac]

Count: It's already there. Don't you remember wanting to retch when Chris Matthews was going on about Bush's codpiece in the "Mission Accomplished" costume?

No, I remember giggling at the blatant homoeroticism of it.

The politics of attacking Democrats and attacking women in power by ridiculing their personal appearance.

It's the same kind of politics:

The hundreds of dollars that any Presidential candidate - except for one who's totally bald - will spend on haircuts, is being used against John Edwards to claim he's effeminate. (It isn't party line to claim that Milt Romney is effeminate, so the $300 he spent on having his face powdered before going on TV is ignored.)

But because it's party line to claim that Bush is a real man, his looking good* in a flight suit, codpiece and all, becomes part of that "real man" legend, even though the ship was so close to the shore that he could have been flown to the ship in a chopper wearing his usual suit and tie.

I saw this Olbermann transcript on Crooks and Liars, and wondered if you'd blog on it:
Go there and fight, your war…yourself.

Except he'd never pass the physical requirements. Of course, these days I gather that's just a matter of picking the right doctor - one who'll ignore the habit of falling over whenever he gets drunk excited.

*I'm assuming that Chris Matthews has good judgement. I'm not a reliable judge.

[russell]

And then there was all of the right-wing drooling about Cheney's "package".

Holy cow. I missed that one, thankfully. Somehow I'm guessing a rolled up sock was involved.

Anyone remember Al Gore's Rolling Stone cover?

Thanks -

[hilzoy]

I don't think that any old story about genitalia or breasts is this kind of story. Drooling about Bush's, um, look in a flight harness isn't. This is just: oh look, we can see something, let's go on and on about it for paragraphs, and wonder what the fact that we can see it (in a more or less normal way, as those of us who (a) have breasts and (b) wear shirts can attest) says about the candidate.

[nateb]

hilzoy: "The only bright spots I can see are all, oddly enough, former sportswriters."

I don't think this is a coincidence. It's my impression that sportswriters often have a more sensible notion of objectivity than their political counterparts. They're more likely to aim for the truth than for some impoverished notion of neutrality.

[john miller]

nateb's impression of sportwriters is drastically different from my own. At least when writing about sports they tend to be the most unobjective writers I have ever seen.

They have their own little world, just like political pundits, and feel that athletes, coaches and owners owe them everything. They have the power to ruin an athlete's reputation, and if they ever feel slighted by an athlete wil not hesitate to use that power.

[ChristianPinko]

Hilzoy, didn't you get the memo? Men's bodies, perhaps especially their genitals, are heroic, virile, and strong. Women's bodies are shameful and dirty. And if the woman has the indecency to openly be a Democrat --- well, the media simply cannot overlook this assault on real American values.

[KCinDC]

Givhan did write a less than flattering fashion story about Cheney:

Cheney stood out in a sea of black-coated world leaders because he was wearing an olive drab parka with a fur-trimmed hood. It is embroidered with his name. It reminded one of the way in which children's clothes are inscribed with their names before they are sent away to camp. And indeed, the vice president looked like an awkward boy amid the well-dressed adults.

[Nell]

Marc Ambinder isn't "normally good." He's a Republican, whose beat for the last decade has been the Republican lobby shops and wingnut think tanks.

[russell]

And indeed, the vice president looked like an awkward boy amid the well-dressed adults.

Actually, my take on that was that it was just another example of Cheney saying "screw you" in his very own charming way.

Thanks -

[rilkefan]

Romney holding "Obama Osama" sign. I'm so glad I get to choose between (at least) three very serious people. Ok, Bill was a cad and something of a clown but still serious, and the D candidates this time are all adults.

[J. Michael Neal]

It's my impression that sportswriters often have a more sensible notion of objectivity than their political counterparts.

You obviously haven't listened to sportswriters claim that pitching is 75% of baseball when, not only can't they produce an argument to support that, they can't even tell you what they mean by that.

You want good sportswriters at mainstream outlets? There are Joe Posnanski, Tim Marchman, Rob Neyer and ... someone help me out here.

[Turbulence]

Gary,

It would be one thing if the fashion reporter wrote an article on Hillary because there was something genuinely newsworthy about her fashion choices; that was what happened when Cheyney wore his hunting attire to the concentration camp and it was appropriate.

However, if you look at the picture of Hillary in question, there is absolutely nothing newsworthy about it. Nothing. Zero. Zilch. Nada. I see women dressed like that every single day. There was just no rational reason for writing a story like this, except as an excuse to reinforce the Post's view that Democrats are effeminate and bad.

As I indicated before, if Hillary insisted on wearing a bright purple wig, or six inch heels or camouflage tights, then there might be a story, but there's just no there there.

[Turbulence]

I know nothing about sports journalists, but I'd like to propose a theory: maybe sports journalists just give a damn more than regular journalists and pundits.

I have trouble imagining someone going into sports journalism unless they had a real passion for their work. In contrast, one of the problems with political journalism in the US is that a lot of the journalists don't seem to care about...anything. They don't seem capable of understanding why someone would care and assume that anyone who does is crazy.

Look at how they portrayed Dean and his supporters: he's a nutbag and anyone who would actually have a house party (!) to talk about him must obviously be psychotic. Or look at how they went off on Gore and how they continue to attack him years later. Treating politics like a junior high popularity contest only makes sense if you honestly don't think any of this stuff matters.

What struck me most about Pierce's comments was the overarching belief that things mattered, and while good people might disagree about priorities, all sane people should recognize that life and death issues are actually important.