Post-McCain "Announcement Tour" Thoughts

Ana Marie,
Why is your magazine hiring more wingnuts? First Charles Craphammer, then Bill "William the Bloody" Kristol and now Mark Halperin? What gives? Inquiring minds want to know.

When are you guys going to hire a liberal columnist? You cover the idelogical spectrum from Moderate to Conservative to Reactionary very well.

I don't think I'm alone in saying out loud that the tenor of this blog has changed considerably in the past several days.

Most of the posts have been about the primaries - which few of your readers seem to care about.

Rather than commenting on or noting the political ramifications of Moyers' show on the media, you've steadfastly ignored it.

Your magazine just hired a notorious political hack.

Maybe it's time you folks pushed back on your editors a wee bit, because their apparent direction of your efforts is destroying any appeal this blog might have had.

Seriously. Your customers are interested in other things besides McCain polishing and Jay's surrogate posts.

Foresight and consistency? Did he call for 400,000 troops at the outset? McCain sold his soul to the devil. Once you do that, you don't get it back. If he is gonna jump off the Decider's bandwagon, why should we believe him now? Are we supposed to excuse that vanity exercise a few weeks ago? His strolling through the Baghdad market.

Ana,

Do you even read the comments anymore?

Are you really not going to address the comments on the Bill Moyers' show:

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/btw/watch.html

It seems that the show lobbied some serious charges against Time Magazine, such as that your hiring criteria for pundits seems to be that they were spectacularly wrong about the Iraq war.

This hiring criteria seems to have been in place with Mark Halperin who recently stated:

"But the ability of this president, and certainly this first lady, as we write in the book, to restore some of the dignity, personal dignity to the office, has been quite an achievement in the wake of what Bill Clinton did, given the freak show environment in which we live."

Do you guys think this honestly reflects both what George Bush has accomplished and what Bill Clinton did?

Is accuracy and quality reporting a criteria for being hired at Time Magazine? Is it something you, personally, strive for?

The Swampland Blog's silence on these matters seems to show your own lack of spine on addressing some serious charges.

2000: Bush is the guy "you'd want to have a beer with".

2007: McCain is a really nice guy, even though most people, when asked, wouldn't pi*s on him or his party if they were on fire.

Here we go again! The press, with Time leading the charge, are trying to persuade the American public to vote for conservatives. Why, we're not sure - but hopefully we won't be stupid enough to fall for it again.

When will we start seeing the stories about Dubya's drinking and his possible dalliance with Condi.

Will that be Mark "Freakshow" Halperin's beat?

Or did Hugh Hewitt and Bill O'Reilly already tell him not to cover that while he was on bended knee kissing their rings?

And how soon will we see Michelle Malkin's fizzog on the righthand side of this page?

Joe Klein's conscience is pretty much on target. John McCain has criticized Bush's handling of the war --but not too harshly. He didn't want to offend the "base" --represented by such bastions of intellect and integrity as Krauthamme, Perle, and Kristol. That was --apparently --more important to him than the best interests of America, the lives of its soldiers, or the fate of actual Iraqis.

Now he wants to "fix" the war -but have you seen him explain how he will pay for it, or where the troops will come from? He may be a tragic figure --but if so, the figure is more like Willie Lohman in "Death of a Salesman"

Halberstam's ghost, I agree. This is actually the worst I think I've read from Ana. This is clearly trying to pull us back towards McCain, trying to make him the next Bush, wrong, but friendly. She's even hiding it by saying 'we are purposely leaning the other way, and yet he still has this effect on us'. Ana, I'll give this blog through Friday to actually become what it was at the beginning of the month. Otherwise, I'm gone.

Seriously, why is Time hiring Mark "the press hates the military" Halperin? Is it so wise, when more and more people are getting their news from The Daily Show, to add someone so transparently radioactive and conservative?

Kristol and Krauthammer weren't enough? You're adding to add more dissonant voices to your magazine in order to try to resonate...uh, convince the American public? After the Moyer show and this move, it's plain to me that Time lives in another dimension - one where conservatives still make sense and in which "Drudge rules your world"*.

*Actual Mark Halperin Quote

Halperin?

I can understand why you guys want to be on the campaign trail. It must smell like urine and crazy in the newsroom.

Ana, commentors here have been discussing this of late, thought it might be of some interest to you: Time's reputation, and this blog, are imploding.

So who's bright idea was it to hire Halperin? The guy has the mentality and maturity of a pre-pubescent girl writing in her diaries about her latest crush.

And please say that you'll have comments enabled for his posts, so we can smack him in the mouth every time he posts something stupid (which will be, I predict, every time he posts).

Charles Krauthammer and Bill Kristol? Was Satan too busy to write for TIME?

Tim Connor-- McCain as Willy Lohmann is plausible-- chasing a dream he was wrong ever to have had. Ana's predictions for how the coverage is going to go seem accurate. I compared McCain to Darth Vader yesterday on my heavily trafficked blog

Andrew Sullivan sees Sen. McCain "again saying what he believes" by coming out against torture on today's Fox News Sunday.

It reminds me more of the final scene of Return of the Jedi, when Darth Vader's long-assaulted last vestige of humanity leads him to rise up against the Emperor.

Actually, come to think of it, that's giving him too much credit.

Given how McCain caved when it mattered in the torture debate, I think he views his nominal anti-torture stance, like his support for the war, as part of the McCain Brand. There's ample evidence that he's willing to lie and straddle when it comes to these issues; this is merely a continuation of his empty, duplicitous (but oh-so-courageous and straight-talking!) stand.

Matt Drudge - a third-rate political hack - rules my world!

We let a partisan player tell us what to report on at Time magazine, because we know it infuriates you 'everyman' liberals. The vast majority of the public still reads what we write and consider it with equal weight simply because we are the press.

The fact that more and more people every day come to mistrust us because of our fealty to and adoration of elected officials isn't really of any concern. I mean, what are people going to do - get their insight on the news from a comedy channel or some guy writing his thoughts on the Internet?

So, take a hike - you don't make a million dollars (like me) by being wrong about which way the wind is blowing.

I see that some of the lunatics have come over from Eschaton to post their latest brainfarts.

No one cares about the day-to-day primary experiences. McCain is a loser who wouldn't even speak out to defend his own family, or to call his opponents on their outrageous, manipulative racist attacks.

Most of your readers know he's an utter embarrassment, not even remotely fit to defend our country. Let him give big, sweaty, nose-in-the-armpit hugs to George W. Bush as a private citizen.

We want to know why TIME thinks it's a good move to hire Mark "the pathetic" Halperin.

We also want a considered response to Bill Moyers' biting commentary.

So, please, no one really cares what brand of nail polish John McCain uses. Save that for smalltalk at Hitchens' next party, OK?

That doesn't mean I don't want to suck all your d*cts.

J. Cole,
If you hate it so much, why do you read Atrios?

J. Cole,
You can't even spell a man's johnson right!!

This blog started out as an interesting forum for a pair of MSM veterans plus a self-styled "unorthodox" liberal and a prominent DC blogger to engage in a relatively freeform discussion of current events with an emphasis on engaging with commenters. I was really intrigued with this and bookmarked this site.

But recently this site has turned more into a more conventional MSM attempt at dipping a toe in the blogosphere. We get dispatches instead of more natural or informal posts. It's the same kind of "On the Trail" analysis that I can get from a hundred other places and it's making even my politics junkie eyes glaze over, even though I have to admit that the Swampland bloggers at least manage to provide somewhat more original analysis than others in the press pool.

What happened? Is this just the natural result of most of the Swampland bloggers getting assigned to press pools and eating, drinking, and sleeping WH 2008 24/7? Did things get to heavy when Ana started passing along blog commenter complaints to the higher-ups? Is this related to Time's decision to add more and more conservative stars to their stable? On some level, I'm just too bored and disappointed to care.

This is a perfect springboard to begin discussing -- now, rather than later -- the psychology of press coverage.

It's been shown time and again that if candidates wine and dine the press, they get better coverage. The Bush campaign famously had much better food on their press plane and it showed in the coverage. Democrats like Gore and (Bill) Clinton had a terrible tendency to talk about issues in great detail, boring reporters who weren't smart enough to understand what they were talking about.

We need reporters and correspondants who will work against the "who would I have a beer with" line. As a matter of fact, I think I'd rather have a President I *wouldn't* want to have a beer with. I'll have a beer with that guy, and the nerd who knows the issues inside and out and will work like a dog can have my vote.

Where's the narrative that says we don't care if Al Gore blooms to the size of William Howard Taft -- if he can do the job?

McCain might be personable and approachable, and in 2000 he had a lot of our attention. But he very calculatedly went over and above the call of duty in supporting this President and this war when it was lunacy to do so. Those of us who were quite interested in McCain in 2000 will not come back -- this Iraq fiasco is partly his fault, and the 2004 re-election of Bush is partly his fault, and he cheerled for Bush for transparantly cynical motives.

Other than Chuck Hagel, I don't think there's a Republican who could get my vote this year.

A final plea: Please stop covering celebrity candidates like celebrities. There is no reason that Fred Thompson should be polling well for President, other than his TV and movie notoriety. He should be treated as such. I don't want to hear breathless media stories about how shocked we all are that he's suddenly a "frontrunner" -- people have heard of him, that's all. (And if you all would have stopped putting Barack Obama on magazine covers for so many months and writing awful speculative pieces about whether he'd run for President or not, he wouldn't be a frontrunner right now either).

Hello? Is this thing on? Can you hear me? *blowing sounds* *knocking sounds*

So basically, the columnists here at the Time blog are going to ignore all of the Bush administration scandals going on right now, ignore the Moyer television special which rips apart various MSM lowlifes (half of whom now work at Time), and ignore the fact that another GOP toady was hired to write for the magazine.

Instead we'll be "treated" to meta or process articles about what the campaigns are doing 18 months from the election. My Eyes Glaze Over.

Could be that Ricky Stengel WANTS us to all go away so this blog can sink into obscurity, and they can go merrily on their way repeating Washington GOP spin that they are all wed to.

As Glenn Greenwald wrote the other day, things are changing folks. Looks like you are fixin' to be left behind....

"I have to say that a remarkably intimate, yet expansive, community of thought seems to be forming across television, film, and the Internet. There's a rather quiet, yet intense, movement of thought and expression building. It focuses not so much on any particular ideology ("right" or "left"), but on a common, critical-mass thirst to dispel the deception, irrationality, and utter hubris that has been corroding our proud country for what seems like an eternity.

An undeniable intellectual and social confluence is rapidly gaining momentum and solidarity. This solidarity is amazingly organic, not hierarchical -- its only guide is the sixth sense of skepticism, outrage, and, yes, reason. It transcends party. It is oceanic, atmospheric. An intellectual, moral, societal, and psychological gestalt as ancient as humanity itself, kept underfoot by a long winter, but indelibly germinating once again with the thaw. "

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/

"He's impossible not to like on a person-to-person level, and, unlike most politicians, he'll talk to you on that level. He will sit with reporters until they literally have no questions left to ask. And then some. A fellow journalist on the plane to Iowa noted than he'd gotten more face time with the Senator on this one trip than he had with Cheney during the entire 2004 campaign."

Well, honey, y'all are HIS BASE. He knows it, and he's trying to regain all that love y'all showered on him in 2000.

"In the past, this tremendous access bred a certain amount of protectiveness among some journalists -- you don't want to play "gotcha" with someone who gives all the time."

It is NOT your job to PROTECT any candidate! It is your job to tell the truth about a candidate's politics and policies. When did journalists start feeling that telling the truth was playing "gotcha"? When did journalists start feeling that a candidate's time garnered them ONLY POSITIVE stories?

I dunno, maybe this has always been the case, but I recall Sam Donaldson being really aggressive, even obnoxious somethings, with his questions, but I don't recall that he was denied access. Likewise for Dan Rather way back when, and Helen Thomas didn't seem to have a problem either.

When and where did things get turned topsy turvey?

I think it's very clear that the change in tenor here has more to do with Stengel and less to do with the people actually writing on the blog.

Enough of this participatory journalism! We must resume the work of dictating what people are supposed to think!

As for Eschaton commenters...well, this blog wouldn't get half the traffic it does were it not for Atrios.

Ama:

Good questions. It's reminiscent of the sports-writers who traveled by train with the teams they covered, and ended up feeling a part of the "team" -- unwilling to file stories that may cast the players in a bad light.

Why can't the modern journalist in these circumstances understand that our ability to cast a well-informed vote shouldn't hinge on which candidate more enthusiastically plays "patty-cake" with the press corps?

Yeah, I'm pretty sure there's been a decision made that the blog format was a failure and to kind of let it die.

The implication is that the lousy press coverage we receive isn't due to any sort of "press culture;" it is very much the direct and explicit policy of the folks who edit and own the media organs in question.

I was baffled by Time's decision to expose its writers to reality in the first place; the editors now seem to have come to their senses and are winding the project down. I wasn't a Time subscriber before, and I certainly won't be now, but I'm not their target demographic -- I'm a basically informed person and therefore difficult to bamboozle.

badger: "But recently this site has turned more into a more conventional MSM attempt at dipping a toe in the blogosphere."

Just recently? It's pretty well been that way the whole time I've been reading it. It's mainly been the same "Conventional Thinking" we get everywhere else. I had hoped it would be a way for us to in the public to ask questions about the process. Not just the inside baseball type political stuff. But questions about journalism as well. However, it never really turned into that. Instead, we just get the use stuff we can get anywhere else.

The one nice thing is that there is a way for people to see there is an opposing view inside the comments. So when Jay or Joe post something stupid, you see some of the smart commenters (not me, that's for sure) pointing out all the mistakes. If someone from outside the blog world stumbled in, they could get a taste of what real opposition looks like.

That said, some days I start to think this is a huge failure.

Of course the press like "Weather Vane McCain"!

He will give them the narrative they want, when they want it. Or maybe it should be "Weather Vain McCain", or Whether, Vain McCain. Hey those all rhyme and make a great way to talk about someone who flip flops. Now that would be a fun way to talk about how McCain changes his mind on issues, wouldn't it. But don't start talking about how people are showing up at this events wearing WeatherVains on their head. That would be pushing a narrative that doesn't match the tarnished hero who embraced Bush story and was stabbed in the back.

And really, if you want to see how clearly Mark Halperin has proved his bias read Eric Boehlert's great book Lapdogs, How the press rolled over for Bush. No, of course you won't read it, he has documented facts and stuff. Who wants that?

You want those fun stories fed to you by the right wing fun smear team! What is this week's fun smear?

Why are democrat smears fun and Republican smears not? Why do you pick up the Democrat ones and not the Republican ones?

I would really hate for you start running rumors about Bush drinking again. That would just be mean. I mean you could point to all the times he slurred his words and misspoke, but unless you had a photo of a bandage on his head because he was falling down drunk (but with no witnesses) you really don't have any evidence. What you need is something like a group of people pushing for the real story about a man who is not just drunk with power, but actually drunk when he should be Presidenting. But unfortunately we don't have a group of people who are supposed to do that kind of work.

It's dead, Jim.

You like him so much that you're never going to ask him just who it was who mismanaged the war, are you?

from Broadcast News; not sure if it fits McCain or Ana Marie Cox better. So sad to see her swoon.

Goodbye

"I know you care about him. I’ve never seen you like this about anyone, so please don’t take it wrong when I tell you that I believe that Tom, while a very nice guy, is the Devil. . . . What do you think the Devil is going to look like if he’s around? Nobody is going to be taken in if he has a long, red, pointy tail. No. I’m semi-serious here. He will look attractive and he will be nice and helpful and he will get a job where he influences a great God-fearing nation and he will never do an evil thing . . . he will just bit by little bit lower standards where they are important. Just coax along flash over substance . . . Just a tiny bit. And he will talk about all of us really being salesmen. . . . And he’ll get all the great women."

it's passe to pay attention to msm except to come on and make sure little details might be mentioned. even that is a waste of time.

but, halliburton is on cspan in relation to it's billions of dollars worth of profit in IRAN! pop in to check THAT out!

follow the $$, that is one core motive for R's, other than getting access to high class tail of course! there will be dems on that client list, maybe even reporter types too, how funny will that be? 8-))

hormones RULE!

Enterprise, one to beam up.

Hiring another piece of pandering crap that got the Iraq war soooo wrong, so much for ethics and innovation. I thank my higher power for not buying this tabloid anymore.

Maynard: I agree that the posts have always had their problems (Klein's concern trolling especially), but it still had it's moments (when Ana actually passed along blogosphere criticisms to her boss, Tumulty's occasional willingness to smakc down RNC talking points.) I'm not saying that it was a Bill Moyers media utopia, but there was enough promise to keep me coming back.

I'm curious why, if you never saw those diamonds in the rough, you kept coming back?

badger: "I'm curious why, if you never saw those diamonds in the rough, you kept coming back?"

I saw some glimmers and hoped it work out in the end. I figured the higher ups saw us as the great unwashed masses. But over time the posters would see us as something better. Also, I should note that you are correct and Karen has been pretty good. I hope I've given Karen her fair share of kudos.

In the end, I'm trying to be an optimist and hope that eventually they will decide to start answering our questions and we can get an actual dialog going. This place represents the best chance we have for something like that.

I see Rick Stengel slouching low in his tufted armchair, lights dimmed, breathing as quietly as he can, wondering "have they gone yet?," sneaking a glance out through his expensive window treatments, only to see the shadows of ordinary American people can still be seen against the columns of his fine house.

"Who do they think they are?," he indignantly whispers to himself. "Why won't they go away?"

"I decide what questions get answered around here. I'm Rick Stengel, b****!"

Is there some competition going for most shrill commenter?

Word to the wise: browbeating Ana about the Bill Moyers special is unlikely to accomplish much. Word to the clueless: this post isn't an attempt to sell McCain. It's rather plainly a look at the evolving media narrative regarding John McCain -- and it's not a positive commentary.

GAG, your concern is noted.

I have no problem with Ana's pieces on McCain, though I don't see how she or others could allow him to contend -- as the WP does in that editorial -- that McCain has been "consistent" regarding Iraq.

The fact is that since 2003 he was as upbeat and optimistic about what was happening there as Lieberman. Every event signified "progress," and he was not critical of the handling of the war in a significant way, in real time.

Also, has anyone asked him to clarify his "consistent" position on pull outs from Haiti and Somalia, and his reaction to calls for a withdrawal from Iraq?

"In the past, this tremendous access bred a certain amount of protectiveness among some journalists -- you don't want to play "gotcha" with someone who gives all the time."

This is maybe the nicest face to put on it. People who aren't journalists would call it 'gullability' or 'suckerdom.'

Time Magazine: By Idiots For Idiots.

I have to say, Ann, you are finally becoming the representative of the blogosphere that I think they hired you to be, and a voice sorely lacking in the MSM. After your stock, industry reaction to Colbert and echoing of a Hillary snowjob, I had started to think you had been absorbed by the DC Borg collective. I was starting to worry that the insider soirees you were getting invited to were actually storehouses where the pod people stored your dopplegangers.

Now that you are becoming a valuable voice at table conversations where such viewpoints are usually not allowed, however, I would like to gently suggest not biting the hand that feeds you more than absolutely necessary. I know this may appeal to the irreverent, and Lord knows, Bennett and Kurtz seemed to be hired purely for the purpose of making bogus "liberal media" accusations of their parent company, but I would be just as happy if when Time & Co. offend, you not say anything that would cause you to lose your job. There is a double standard, and frankly, there are so many injustices and dishonest conservative narratives getting reinforced to fill your days exposing without criticizing your editor, etc.

So, suck up to Halperine if you must, or better yet, stay silent on his hiring, so long as you are able to continue being a rare and valuable exception to Broder/Klein conventional wisdom who doesn't fall for the McCain/Leiberman extrimism packaged as centrism. I'd rather focus on getting another dissenting voice at one of your competitors to take on the task of biting the hand that feeds you.

What is significant here is that Ann-Marie is actually talking about something that most journalists never mention, the implict access for good reporting bargain that journalists covering politicians make.

The Bush crew realized that they had made a mistake when they allowed Bush to be interviewed by an Irish journalist who promtly asked him real questions instead of the type of softballs he can rely on getting from Fox.

The thing is that it only takes one journalist in the pack to be doing this type of reporting and it keeps the rest honest.

I have no idea why anyone bothers with the WH press conferences each day or plays the WH game of never asking difficult questions for fear of never being asked again. First off everyone with sense gets their WH news from Froomkin who has never been to one of the conferences. Secondly the press secretary has to let someone ask a question. All the cowardly reporters need do is to hang back and let the bulldogs ask the savage questions, oh and make sure that Rove hasn't got the place packed with male prostitutes to ask softball questions.

"Word to the wise: browbeating Ana about the Bill Moyers special is unlikely to accomplish much."

UPDATE: Geez, guys, I haven't seen the Moyers thing. If a memo went out demanding we not comment, I'm not aware of it, and neither are other Time contributors...

Will check it out soon.

Did McCain drive the Straight Talk Express up the Hershey Highway?

Note to Pacman Jones, OJ Simpson, and Phil Spector

If you treat the media really nice they will make your case to the public using the power of the pen.

Media people make me sick.

It might be time to get out of the business if getting personal affects one's ability to objectively assess a political candidate.
The media ensured that the more intelligent, capable Al Gore did not win in 2000 by portraying him as boring, and instead pushed the theme that George Bush would be great to have a beer with. Well, gee whiz, look where that craziness got this country. And you are at it again?
Get off the bus.

Here' some advice from a reader: why do you feel the need to go on the campaign bus at all? Time and time again, your magazine been embarrassed by reporters (like Josh Marshall) who need nothing more than a computer, a brain and some integrity. There is clearly no demonstrable relationship between access and good reporting. In fact, quite often, it's just the opposite, and results in the reporters conflating their like for a candidate with their reporting.

So, yeah, it's too bad you left you computer. You, and your readers, would be better served if you stayed at home and actually reported, rather than giving us personality-based, magazine-celebrity-profile garbage masquerading as political reporting.

TIME MAGAZINE - GOING, GOING, GONE.
What do we need to read in Time? There is absolutey nothing of importance. There are no journalists at Time that have enough insight to write a good piece of journalism. A bunch of lazy conservative twits that sits down and writes about what the loyal bushies tell them to write. And you so called inatellectuals that don't have the common sense to come in out of the rain keep referring to the liberal media. What a lie!!!! Give me a break.

So, did you ask McCain how he voted on the Iraq war emergency funding bill last week?

Or maybe how he would have voted if he *had* voted.

My Uncle Clem was "impossible not to like." He would give you all the face time you ever needed or expected. He was a warrior (World War II). He always told the truth as he saw it; yeah, a real straight talker. And he was no more suited to be President than his dog Spot. Fortunately, Uncle Clem had the good sense not to run for President.

This article is a waste of bandwidth.
How many months are there before the next Presidential election?
The USA is up to its neck in a military misadventure, the executive branch is under investigation on multiple fronts for gross malfeasance, the budget deficit is insane, the President cannot assemble coherent sentences in public...and you are writing about tagging along with a Republican candidate, what, 16 months out from the election?
What's wrong with this picture?
This is why I have very little time for the mainstream media. They ignore the obvious and the serious, and instead fixate on inconsequential, content-light "gee isn't that John McCain a really swell guy" nonsense.
I changed my mind. The article is horseshit. As is Time's whole approach to measuring the importance of current events.

"Some advice from a first-time campaign correspondent: Never leave your computer on the charter. Also, invest in a broadband access card."

boy, ana, you really are some kind of hair-raising moron aren't you. And Graham is right - Time magazine is a warped and brainless place.