Salon.com > Politico http://www.salon.com Wed, 30 May 2012 06:12:34 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 The Breitbart media http://www.salon.com/2012/03/05/the_breitbart_media/ http://www.salon.com/2012/03/05/the_breitbart_media/#comments Mon, 05 Mar 2012 12:45:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=12472371 Andrew Breitbart's fingerprints are all over the majority of the partisan political Internet. The Blaze, the Daily Caller, Huffington Post, even Politico: They'd all look quite different without his influence. There was already Rush Limbaugh and Roger Ailes and Matt Drudge himself, but Breitbart was a phenomenon of the Internet age, and would not have thrived before the Web helped to destabilize the traditional press.

He intuitively understood how the media work even if he needed to invent a grand conspiracy to explain the motivations of its primary actors. He knew that if the press felt it had missed a major story from an unexpected source, it would quickly rush to be the first to publicize further material from that source in the future. He learned this from Matt Drudge, who really did become the de facto "assignment editor" of the political press following his publication of Michael Isikoff's axed Lewinsky story. The parallel right-wing press has been in existence for years, and the early conservative blogosphere organized itself around blogs from people like Michelle Malkin and Glenn Reynolds, but Breitbart was an expert in forcing their obsessions into the "mainstream."

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/03/05/the_breitbart_media/feed/ 75 9. Mike Allen http://www.salon.com/2011/12/16/9_mike_allen/ http://www.salon.com/2011/12/16/9_mike_allen/#comments Fri, 16 Dec 2011 14:30:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=10367471 Politico is everything that's wrong with political reporting and Mike Allen is its mascot. He's not the worst person there, and he's not solely responsible for the toxic culture of that depressing repository of intentionally trivial minutiae, masturbatory speculation pretending to be analysis, and über-cynical play-by-play reports on "spin" and "messaging" (that would be Jim VandeHei, who is responsible for those things), but he is its superstar.

Allen, a weird guy who refuses to, say, name his hobbies on the record to a man writing a friendly profile of him, writes what is basically a morning email newsletter full of links to various political stories, and this newsletter basically "sets the agenda" for the people who decide what constitutes important political news at the cable news channels. It is seriously 90 percent capsule summaries of day-old news articles, and what original Allen-added content there is is usually pretty banal. (When it's not aggravatingly stupid.) Sometimes he just randomly makes things up, for fun, and then those things become major national news stories for like a day, which is certainly good for Politico's traffic.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2011/12/16/9_mike_allen/feed/ 2 14. Joe Scarborough http://www.salon.com/2011/12/15/14_joe_scarborough/ http://www.salon.com/2011/12/15/14_joe_scarborough/#comments Thu, 15 Dec 2011 17:00:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=10325771 Nothing sums up everything hatable about cable news and politics and possibly America itself better than "Morning Joe," MSNBC's daily extended advertisement for Starbucks products and Joe Scarborough's odd belief that he is funny and charming.

The former Florida congressman and possibly attorney of some kind followed up his unremarkable political career by becoming a wildly successful moderate TV talker. ("Wildly successful" in terms of monetary compensation and publicity -- his show is watched by less than half the number of people who watch Fox's daily televised morning train wreck "Fox & Friends.") Joe's supposed to be some sort of maverick because he's not a doctrinaire Republican (anymore), but what he is is a totally doctrinaire member of the moderate Beltway political establishment.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2011/12/15/14_joe_scarborough/feed/ 29 Politico presents the world’s worst piece of Senate reporting http://www.salon.com/2011/11/04/politico_presents_the_worlds_worst_piece_of_senate_reporting/ http://www.salon.com/2011/11/04/politico_presents_the_worlds_worst_piece_of_senate_reporting/#comments Fri, 04 Nov 2011 14:04:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=10161768 Politico gets a gold star today for writing a story that could be used by journalism professors as a textbook example of everything that is wrong with mainstream reporting on Congress. The story is about "Senate gridlock," responsibility for which rests with "both parties."

Here's the first sentence:

Rival Democratic and Republican jobs bills failed in the Senate on Thursday, the latest sign of the partisan gridlock gripping Washington as Americans look for relief from high unemployment and a sagging economy.

"Partisan gridlock" is to blame for the failure of "jobs bills" from each party.

Which partisans, exactly?

Senate Democrats on Thursday came up nine votes short of the 60 needed to advance their infrastructure bill past a key procedural hurdle. The vote was 51-49, with all Republicans and two members of the Democratic caucus — Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) — voting no.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2011/11/04/politico_presents_the_worlds_worst_piece_of_senate_reporting/feed/ 52 Politico runs dumbest “running mate swap” piece yet http://www.salon.com/2011/10/17/politico_runs_dumbest_running_mate_swap_piece_yet/ http://www.salon.com/2011/10/17/politico_runs_dumbest_running_mate_swap_piece_yet/#comments Mon, 17 Oct 2011 16:00:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=10122664 Politico knows it must keep innovating in the field of political horse-race fanfic in order to maintain its position as the nation's leader in inane presidential campaign speculation. Last week, Bloomberg published Jonathan Alter jumping on the "Obama might replace Biden with Hillary Clinton even though everyone involved has said in no uncertain terms that that will never ever happen" bandwagon. That was Politico's beat! Rather than complain, though, Politico has decided to move on. They are now way beyond the Hillary chatter.

Take it away, former Virginia Democratic Party chairman Paul Goldman and George Mason professor Mark J. Rozell:

We like Joe and respect Hillary. But if President Barack Obama decides to follow the path of his favorite president, Abraham Lincoln, and change running mates, the insiders are buzzing about the wrong Clinton.

That’s right: a Barack-Bubba ticket is the way to go. True, if elected, Bill Clinton would become our first vegetarian veep — since he’s no longer the fast-food guy. Can a real Bubba eat tofu? And yes, he would be the first former president to hold the job, too.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2011/10/17/politico_runs_dumbest_running_mate_swap_piece_yet/feed/ 16 John Boehner totally owned Barack Obama on the phone, according to Boehner http://www.salon.com/2011/10/14/john_boehner_obama_phone/ http://www.salon.com/2011/10/14/john_boehner_obama_phone/#comments Fri, 14 Oct 2011 15:23:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=10113344 John Boehner wants everyone to know that he gave the president what-for yesterday. Boehner is a fairly ineffectual House Speaker who has on multiple occasions held important votes that he has lost embarrassingly. But while he may not be able to control his caucus, he can certainly let everyone know that he yelled at Barack Obama. That's why the Speaker's office released "an unusually detailed account" of his phone conversation with the president to the press.

The president had called Boehner to congratulate him on passing those pointless trade agreements. But Boehner wanted to talk about how Obama had accused the GOP of not having a jobs plan. That won't fly with hard-charging House Speaker John Boehner! According to Boehner's summary of how cool and in control he was on the phone, Boehner had no time for these congratulations. "I want to make sure you have all the facts," Boehner said, according to Boehner:

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2011/10/14/john_boehner_obama_phone/feed/ 27 Politico holds contest to nominate best representative of Politico’s warped worldview for president http://www.salon.com/2011/10/10/politico_awful_centirst_primary/ http://www.salon.com/2011/10/10/politico_awful_centirst_primary/#comments Mon, 10 Oct 2011 18:14:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=10106814 Politico has finally revealed itself to be a devilishly deadpan satire of idiotic Beltway thought with its "POLITICO PRIMARY," an exercise in selecting a third-party "independent" candidate for president based on the only criteria that matter: fealty to the shibboleths of the political elite. I choose to believe it's a wicked parody, because the alternative -- that Politico's Internet contest to pick America's Next Top Centrist reflects the sincere beliefs of Politico's editors -- basically means that the Washington "grown-up" political class is completely divorced from reality, not just deaf to the concerns and needs of actual non-"Morning Joe"-watching Americans but wholly ignorant of the existence of a country outside their bubble.

Jim VandeHei and famous email newsletter author Mike Allen are spearheading the campaign (which has already been unfavorably reviewed by CJR). Here, they explain why America was crying out for Politico Primary:

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2011/10/10/politico_awful_centirst_primary/feed/ 16 Farewell, third-tier candidates http://www.salon.com/2011/09/08/debate_goodbye/ http://www.salon.com/2011/09/08/debate_goodbye/#comments Thu, 08 Sep 2011 12:30:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/politics//war_room/2011/09/08/debate_goodbye Maybe the most telling moment of last night's Republican debate came not when Rick Perry said "propes" instead of "props," but when he appeared to forget Rick Santorum's name. "Let me just respond to the last individual," Perry said, as he avoided answering a question about America's persistent racial inequities. With the press-appointed "official start" of the 2012 campaign, and the first debate featuring all the universally acknowledged front-runners who are actually running, it is time for us to bid a regretful goodbye to those individuals who make the early months of the campaign fun: the third-tier fringe candidates like Rick Santorum.

You could tell when the Politico/MSNBC-sponsored debate began that the moderators wished there were fewer people onstage. Almost the first 15 minutes of the debate were spent on an argument solely involving the only two people with a shot at the nomination: Rick Perry and Mitt Romney. Brian Williams and John Harris clearly preferred addressing their serious questions to those two, and many of the questions aimed at the others onstage were about one of those two ex-governors. Poor Michele Bachmann, heretofore the only credible non-Romney candidate, seemed barely to be present. Huntsman got a lot of airtime, but he's been getting plenty of press attention this whole time.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2011/09/08/debate_goodbye/feed/ 89 Politico commenters weigh in on the White House’s historic civil rights painting http://www.salon.com/2011/08/24/politico_rockwell_comments/ http://www.salon.com/2011/08/24/politico_rockwell_comments/#comments Wed, 24 Aug 2011 21:30:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/politics//war_room/2011/08/24/politico_rockwell_comments Politico recently switched the commenting system on its blogs to one requiring a Facebook account, in order to encourage more polite discussion and discourage trolling and racism. Thankfully for fans of awful comments, they did not make the switch on the articles, a completely meaningless distinction in 2011 but one that allows us to sample the responses of the Politico commentariat to this story, about Barack Obama hanging a famous painting in the White House. The painting is Norman Rockwell's "The Problem We All Live With," and it depicts "U.S. marshals escorting Ruby Bridges, a 6-year-old African-American girl, into a New Orleans elementary school in 1960 as court-ordered integration met with an angry and defiant response from the white community."

Here, in no particular order, are some of my "favorite" Politico comments on the story.

"J.O.B.S." writes:

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2011/08/24/politico_rockwell_comments/feed/ 61 Joe Scarborough wonders where American dream went http://www.salon.com/2011/08/09/scarborough_column_2/ http://www.salon.com/2011/08/09/scarborough_column_2/#comments Tue, 09 Aug 2011 19:30:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/politics//war_room/2011/08/09/scarborough_column This is Joe Scarborough's opinion column that he wrote and that Politico paid him money for the privilege of publishing, today. It is about how the American dream is in trouble because when Joe Scarborough was a kid his parents used to drive him past rich people's houses and tell him if he worked hard he could live in a rich people house, but now the rich people houses make Joe Scarborough sad, when he drives past them (or drives into the garage of the one he himself lives in, as a rich person).

Today, I still remember those Sunday morning trips to church -- not because my parents were striking out at the inequities of a system that created such economic winners (them) and losers (us) -- but because of what my mom would say as we drove past the glorious homes of doctors, bankers and lawyers.

"You see that house, Joey?"

"Yes ma'am."

"If you work hard in school and keep fighting every day to improve yourself, you can live in a place like that when you grow up," Mom would say with admiration in her voice.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2011/08/09/scarborough_column_2/feed/ 61 Joe Scarborough is so mad at “media elites” http://www.salon.com/2011/07/12/scarborough_column/ http://www.salon.com/2011/07/12/scarborough_column/#comments Tue, 12 Jul 2011 15:50:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/politics//war_room/2011/07/12/scarborough_column Joe Scarborough has an opinion column for Politico today in which he excoriates those damned "media elites" who keep "abusing" Republicans for refusing to "cave in to President Obama's demand to raise taxes." It is just as smart and well-written a column as you are probably imagining, based on that summary:

The reviews are in, and it’s safe to say that most media elites won’t be voting for Republican candidates in 2012. Of course, most of them voted Democratic in 2010, 2008 and in every other election in modern political history. But if you’ve scanned editorial pages and news shows in recent weeks, you know that this time conservatives have really, really offended the national press corps by their refusal to raise taxes.

Memo to Joe Scarborough: You host a political morning show on a 24-hour cable news network. You are a rich former politician who lives in Washington, D.C., and you write an opinion column for POLITICO. If you're not a "media elite" than I'm not sure who is.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2011/07/12/scarborough_column/feed/ 51 The WH/Politico attack on Seymour Hersh http://www.salon.com/2011/06/02/hersh_8/ http://www.salon.com/2011/06/02/hersh_8/#comments Thu, 02 Jun 2011 13:03:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald//2011/06/02/hersh Seymour Hersh has a new article in The New Yorker arguing that there is no credible evidence that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons; to the contrary, he writes, "the U.S. could be in danger of repeating a mistake similar to the one made with Saddam Hussein's Iraq eight years ago -- allowing anxieties about the policies of a tyrannical regime to distort our estimates of the state's military capacities and intentions."  This, of course, cannot stand, as it conflicts with one of the pillar-orthodoxies of Obama foreign policy in the Middle East (even though the prior two National Intelligence Estimates say what Hersh has said).  As a result, two cowardly, slimy Obama officials ran to Politico to bash Hersh while hiding behind the protective womb of anonymity automatically and subserviently extended by that "news outlet":

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2011/06/02/hersh_8/feed/ 133 Joe Lieberman’s “strong,” “serious” legacy http://www.salon.com/2011/05/25/lieberman_strong_serious/ http://www.salon.com/2011/05/25/lieberman_strong_serious/#comments Wed, 25 May 2011 20:30:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/politics//war_room/2011/05/25/lieberman_strong_serious In a cringe-inducing Politico story about how outgoing Senator Joe Liberman is working on this "legacy" by befriending freshmen Republican senators, we learn a lot about the Washington establishment classifies reckless and irresponsible foreign policy ideas. (Hint: They do not use the words "reckless and irresponsible," except when talking about liberals who don't want to bomb people.)

Lieberman's actual political beliefs are best described as "incoherent" or "pure pettiness incarnate," but his foreign policy ideas are actually pretty easy to summarize: Constant war everywhere. This is how he describes that philosophy:

“There’s no question that, for me, it’s very reassuring to see people coming in who are in tune with the kind of foreign policy that’s based on human rights, democracy promotion, muscular foreign policy and being willing to use our military strength when we’ve had to protect our security and our freedom,” Lieberman, a Connecticut independent, told POLITICO.

Muscular! Strength! Security! Freedom! (And "human rights," unless you are a Guantanamo detainee.)

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2011/05/25/lieberman_strong_serious/feed/ 28 John Bolton: I care about things besides bombing Iran http://www.salon.com/2011/05/06/bolton_single_issue/ http://www.salon.com/2011/05/06/bolton_single_issue/#comments Fri, 06 May 2011 17:45:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/politics//war_room/2011/05/06/bolton_single_issue John Bolton, comical Republican foreign policy character actor, is in the midst of his newest and perhaps greatest performance piece, "John Bolton runs for president." Politico checks in with the Republican party's finest facial hair, who wants you to know that he's no "single-issue guy."

Bolton is, of course, a single-issue guy. His issue is bombing Iran. That is the only reason why anyone has expressed any interest in him as a candidate: He is the man who promises to bomb Iran. Every foreign policy issue of our time looks like a nail to John Bolton, and his hammer is bombing Iran.

Some Republican political appointees are representatives of the interests of various GOP-supporting major industries. Others, like Bolton or Michael Brown, are just hacks who are brought in to demonstrate the unimportance and uselessness of whatever position they are supposed to be filling. The message is, a trained chimp -- or a right-wing ideologue -- could do this government job.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2011/05/06/bolton_single_issue/feed/ 21 GOP freshmen use legislation to repay donors http://www.salon.com/2011/04/21/gop_pay_back_donors/ http://www.salon.com/2011/04/21/gop_pay_back_donors/#comments Thu, 21 Apr 2011 17:22:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/politics//war_room/2011/04/21/gop_pay_back_donors Politico's Jeanne Cummings Thursday morning reports that a number of GOP freshmen are getting the hang of the Washington game: They have already used legislation to "assist donors, protect favored industries or settle scores with their political enemies."

A review by POLITICO shows that the 87 Republican and nine Democratic House newcomers introduced 139 pieces of legislation in their first 100 days, most reflecting broad ideological themes or campaign rallying cries.

But among the piles of paperwork, nine GOP freshmen offered two distinctly different types of legislation: Targeted proposals that would assist major donors or supportive industries or bills that would hurt labor adversaries.

To list a few examples:

Rep. David McKinley, R-W.Va., introduced a bill to overturn an Environmental Protection Agency ruling that has broader implications for the mining industry, one of his political patrons -- West Virginia being mining country, after all. The bill would also help a campaign contributor, Arch Coal.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2011/04/21/gop_pay_back_donors/feed/ 22 Politico helpfully illustrates depressing absurdity of current news cycle http://www.salon.com/2011/04/18/politico_front_page/ http://www.salon.com/2011/04/18/politico_front_page/#comments Mon, 18 Apr 2011 22:45:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/politics//war_room/2011/04/18/politico_front_page Wow, the front page of POLITICO.com right now is an actual nightmare.

Trump! Palin! More Trump and more Palin! Mama Grizzly back on the prowl! Gary Busey: I'm voting for Trump! Does Sarah Palin redesigning her website mean she's running for president after all? I mean, it's possible, right? And even if she isn't, "Sarah Palin redesigned her website" certainly comes closer to resembling "news" than "Palin is determined to be noticed." (Mission accomplished!)

And this is not even including the sidebar link to "VIDEO: Obama: I wore 23 before Jordan."

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2011/04/18/politico_front_page/feed/ 31 First 2012 debate postponed until non-ridiculous candidates emerge http://www.salon.com/2011/03/30/politico_debate_postponed/ http://www.salon.com/2011/03/30/politico_debate_postponed/#comments Wed, 30 Mar 2011 15:20:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/politics//war_room/2011/03/30/politico_debate_postponed Awful news out of Washington: The first scheduled debate of the 2012 presidential campaign has been pushed back to September. Politico and NBC were joining forces to host the campaign kickoff May 2 at the Ronald Reagan library, with Brian Williams and Politico editor John Harris moderating. The debate was announced last November, with the date officially set in January. But it's nearly April, and our only official candidate is... Fred Karger. (My fave!) Oh, and maybe Jimmy McMillan.

Tim Pawlenty has an exploratory committee, giving the Republican party a grand total of one serious presidential candidate. Newt Gingrich and Michele Bachmann are expected to announce the formation of their own committees later. Maybe.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2011/03/30/politico_debate_postponed/feed/ 24 The very silly story of Darrell Issa’s spokesman scandal http://www.salon.com/2011/03/03/issa_flack_scandal_stupid/ http://www.salon.com/2011/03/03/issa_flack_scandal_stupid/#comments Thu, 03 Mar 2011 13:30:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/politics//war_room/2011/03/03/issa_flack_scandal_stupid The self-obsessed, navel-gazing Washington press corps is in a tizzy over the dismissal of a congressman's communications director (the guy whose job it was to befriend and spin and leak to members of the Washington press corps), who was fired for the crime of sharing journalists' e-mails with another journalist who is working on a book about the self-obsessed, navel-gazing Washington press corps.

The congressman is Darrell Issa. The former spokesman is Kurt Bardella. The story, and the arguments on both sides of the story, are ably summarized by Jason Linkins here. Basically, Bardella was BCC'ing Mark Leibovich of the New York Times on a lot of his correspondence with Beltway reporters and TV bookers and so forth, for use in Leibovich's forthcoming book about how those Washington relationships work. Which is mildly unethical and certainly impolite, but as Jack Shafer pointed out, so is journalism in general.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2011/03/03/issa_flack_scandal_stupid/feed/ 11 Mike Allen’s World Cup outrage: FIFA is anti-American! http://www.salon.com/2010/12/03/mike_allen_world_cup_terror/ http://www.salon.com/2010/12/03/mike_allen_world_cup_terror/#comments Fri, 03 Dec 2010 17:45:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/politics//war_room/2010/12/03/mike_allen_world_cup_terror Politico's Mike Allen is outraged that FIFA didn't pick America to host the 2022 World Cup! It is his "top story" in this morning's "Playbook," his daily newsletter of birthday greetings to people you don't know and links to news articles from yesterday. (The top story comes after a line about someone's birthday, a recap of yesterday's "D.C.'s Funniest Celebrity" contest, and two news stories from yesterday about Michael Steele and online poker.)

The worst part is, not only was America snubbed, but terrorists won. The 2022 World Cup will be held in Qatar, a tiny Persian Gulf state. Behold the wrath of Mike Allen:

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2010/12/03/mike_allen_world_cup_terror/feed/ 28 Wednesday link dump: Ambush! http://www.salon.com/2010/11/17/wednesday_link_dump_28/ http://www.salon.com/2010/11/17/wednesday_link_dump_28/#comments Wed, 17 Nov 2010 23:45:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/politics//war_room/2010/11/17/wednesday_link_dump
  • The insane New Black Panther Party thing will basically destroy the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.
  • Moe Tkacik on the Koch-funded roots of the recent anti-TSA campaign.
  • Speaking of: The government created the Meth crisis and now they'd like to effectively ban cold medicine in order to look tough on drugs.
  • And here's how Politico allows itself to be spun.

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