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Things I Learned Last Night
From a reliable source:
- The president really is a compassionate guy.
- Whatever explains the unwillingness of the White House press corps (Dana Millbank excepted) to call a spade a spade, it's not a failure to recognize that the spade is, in fact, a spade. Seek out structural explanations.
July 3, 2004 | Permalink
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» Why Oh Why Can't We Have a Better Press Corps? from Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal (2004)
Matthew Yglesias asks why we don't have true headlines and leads, like "President Defends Iraq War by Making S*** Up": matthew: Bush Hatin': Why do I hate George W. Bush? Let me count the ways. Or, rather, let me just count one. In response to the SSCI... [Read More]
Tracked on Jul 13, 2004 1:32:33 PM
» Why Oh Why Can't We Have a Better Press Corps? from Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal (2004)
Matthew Yglesias asks why we don't have true headlines and leads, like "President Defends Iraq War by Making S*** Up": matthew: Bush Hatin': Why do I hate George W. Bush? Let me count the ways. Or, rather, let me just count one. In response to the SSCI... [Read More]
Tracked on Jul 13, 2004 3:00:37 PM
» Gift Basket
from Tom Jamme's Blog
Sweet Blessings, a new Christian-based online shop featuring cookie bouquets, candy bouquets and gift baskets, opens with a campaign to donate a portion of all profits to Habitat For Humanity. The devastation of hurricanes Katrina and Rita, while not a... [Read More]
Tracked on Oct 6, 2005 9:40:12 PM
Comments
Matt-
No comments on this?
http://willwilkinson.net/flybottle/2004/07/incredulous-stare.html
Also, you gotta tell us whatever it is you heard...
Posted by: PM | Jul 3, 2004 12:04:22 PM
What could be so earth shattering...? Is there a Whataburger being built near the Capitol?
Posted by: j.scott barnard | Jul 3, 2004 12:06:25 PM
SPILL!
Keef
Posted by: keef | Jul 3, 2004 12:10:12 PM
Guys, MY was clearly referencing Josh Marshall's last pre-vacation TPM post from a few weeks ago:
"You may have noticed a slight down-tick in the frequency of posts of late. And that’s for a few different reasons. But a principal one is that I and several colleagues have been working on a story that, if and when it comes to fruition --- and I’m confident it shall --- should shuffle the tectonic plates under that capital city where I normally hang my hat."
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_06_13.php#003068
I assume this is the usual MY sardonic wit, and not a dig at Josh for promising something big that might go nowhere.
Posted by: Haggai | Jul 3, 2004 12:21:36 PM
This is funny, I believe Matt's statements because he has proven himself to be a trustworthy and honest writer.
On the other hand, when tools such as Drudge say that high ranking Democrat officials know that Hillary is going to take over the world next week, or that Kerry is having an affair with a gay teenager from France, I just laugh. Sometimes, I proceed to cry, at the sorry state of American journalism.
Posted by: trewq | Jul 3, 2004 12:22:03 PM
I really did hear something that really is interesting, but this isn't the Drudge report, so I'm not going to report something just because I heard it and it's interesting. I'm not going to publish unverified derogatory rumors about people. I will try and see if there's some way of finding out whether or not it's true.
Posted by: Matthew Yglesias | Jul 3, 2004 12:37:53 PM
I hear the occasional thing which is likely true but which I cannot confirm. If only I had drudge's ethics.
Posted by: Atrios | Jul 3, 2004 12:51:34 PM
What about all that goat stuff, Atrios?
Posted by: asdf | Jul 3, 2004 1:01:19 PM
Bow I think Tacitus when he said this was just kidding Josh. Do Marshall and Yglesias know the same tectonic rumour? Or are they different rumours?
What could Matt hear that would be important, he would doubt, and that will never ever come out. Everything comes out. This is a fun and interesting post. I think MY is finally becoming acclimated.
Compassionate, my aching butt. No offense.
Posted by: bob mcmanus | Jul 3, 2004 1:05:26 PM
What? Don Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney are lovers? I knew it!
Posted by: abb1 | Jul 3, 2004 1:17:48 PM
Things it could be:
1. Rumsfeld seeks the discipline he so badly needs, but everyone is afraid to help him.
2. Cheney has another family he hides in caves in Maryland.
3. Laura Bush is seeking divorce.
4. George H.W. Bush has overt business and family ties to both Hinkley's Reagan assassination attempt and JFK's assassination.
5. George W. Bush feels bad about this but hasn't quite connected the dots and is afraid his mommy will be mad and Jesus will spank him.
6. The administration is scheduling an invasion of Cuba and Venezuala in October from Haiti and Gitmo.
7. Someone died at Marvin Bush's house in McLean last October.
8. Robert Novak isn't a journalist.
Posted by: Howard Beale | Jul 3, 2004 1:27:43 PM
Does it involve frogmarching?
Posted by: P.B. Almeida | Jul 3, 2004 1:27:58 PM
Try this: Plame investigation < possibly simmering scandal X < X-Files? You can hint a little more without Drudgery.
Posted by: Sean Flaherty | Jul 3, 2004 1:30:45 PM
Or maybe we need to start interpreting Matt more literally. Perhaps a significant geological fault, comparable to the San Adreas, has been detected that runs from W. Virgina out to the Atlantic straight through the district, and that seismic detectors are predicing a 9.4 to commence any day now.
Posted by: P.B. Almeida | Jul 3, 2004 1:31:46 PM
I think it is something to do with the sources of Cheney's blood supply.
Posted by: fear is the mind killer | Jul 3, 2004 1:41:11 PM
If Bush is actually a compassionate guy he is a better actor than Brando. Everything about his personality oozes selfish, privileged, pitiless indifference.
And I never doubted that the press knew a spade was a spade. Many of them may be lazy and shallow, but they aren't blind. It's certainly possible that the established power structure has made it difficult to report honestly. But, the sheer lack of fine subversive writing, one of the hallmarks of truly great reporting in repressive times, tells me that the problem is more a matter of the structure of the reporter's cojones than anything else. There are ways of telling stories and ways of telling stories, you know what I mean?
And please don't tell me they're trotting out those old rumors about Cheney and Rummy from the Ford administration. From what I heard it was just that one time and it was only experimental.
Posted by: digby | Jul 3, 2004 1:44:34 PM
It's old news, guys. I covered it a year ago.
Posted by: Zizka | Jul 3, 2004 1:47:42 PM
I wonder if this rumor concerns the issue Mark Kleiman referred to in February
Tiny URL to Kleiman's post:
http://tinyurl.com/2cjpl
"The same is true about a very serious, recent, non-sexual report about GWB's personal life, which I have heard from two good sources, which is credible on its face, and which, if true, directly bears on his fitness to be President.
Since I'm about as far from well-plugged-in to White House gossip as it's possible to be without joining a Trappist monastery, I have no doubt that if I've heard it, every reporter in Washiongton has heard it."
I'd sure like to hear it. I'd like it better if it were true.
Keef
Posted by: keef | Jul 3, 2004 2:00:09 PM
Perhaps MY is implying that Bush is compassionate because he's refusing to fire an employee (say Powell or Cheney or Rummy) who's sick (mentally, physically, spiritually). Maybe the press won't report on the incompetence of this officer because they dislike the likely successor or perhaps fear a succession crisis.
Keep in mind, we still don't know which drunken fool blabbed the codes to Chalabi. Perhaps it was one of the above.
Posted by: Opinionator | Jul 3, 2004 2:33:32 PM
I think I know at least what keef and Kleiman are talking about. I've always suspected the same thing, if I'm guessing correctly. Yes, it would be huge. And I would have to call up an old friend to say I told you so, since in 2000 I said this could send a Bush Adminstration down in flames.
Posted by: cool blue reason | Jul 3, 2004 2:34:03 PM
One more theory:
Maybe MY is saying that Bush is so wounded by the horrors he's created, he's being medicated for mental illness. This would explain his bizarre behavior of the previous months, followed by his remarkable lucidity since the Reagan funeral. They finally got him on the proper meds.
Posted by: Opinionator | Jul 3, 2004 2:40:40 PM
I watched him on c-span today for a few minutes, he was making a speech somewhere. He looked OK: lying and spinning about the tax cuts as usual. Didn't look any more mentally ill than he always does. I thought this level of mental illness has already been accepted as adequate.
Posted by: abb1 | Jul 3, 2004 3:04:39 PM
"Structural explanations?"
Matt, you've been co-opted. You're making excuses for dishonest journalism.
Posted by: Bernard Yomtov | Jul 3, 2004 3:25:06 PM
President Bush has became a Moonie and has signed over his inheritance to the Rev. Dr. Moon. Bush the Smarter has found out about it and is preparing to disinherit him.
As we speak, a dozen Moonie hit squads are headed for Kennebunkport and other areas frequented by the elder Bush. Barbara Bush is thought to be helping them.
Meanwhile, Cheney is being debriefed and reprogrammed by his alien masters from Zorc on their their mothership, which is docked at its usual place at the undisclosed location. The Zorcons do not look kindly on Moon's anti-trinitarian heresy.
Jeb, who has always resented his idiot brother.... actually, that part is unsubstantiated.
Posted by: Zizka | Jul 3, 2004 3:51:30 PM
Is it always wrong to pay for news stories?
How do we protect newsworthy whistle-blowers?
What if, in a two party system, party A were more willing than were party B to reward news damage -- either true news or false -- to the opposing party?
If there's money from the bad guys to damage the good guys, but none the other way around, how can the good guys win?
Posted by: dubois | Jul 3, 2004 4:00:39 PM
