The story unfolded cryptically, sensationally, in the tabloid style that has chronicled so many starlet meltdowns and hospitalizations.
Dziok’s departure triggered a debilitating medical episode that landed the congresswoman in urgent care. “Within 24 hours she was in the hospital,” a former aide says.
The medical drama is of course Michele Bachmann’s, which became big, breaking news when Jonathan Strong of the right-leaning The Daily Caller published an anonymously-sourced piece under the headline “Stress-related condition ‘incapacitates’ Bachmann; heavy pill use alleged.”
He breaks the suspense in the eighth paragraph of the story:
The Minnesota Republican frequently suffers from stress-induced medical episodes that she has characterized as severe headaches. These episodes, say witnesses, occur once a week on average and can “incapacitate” her for days at time. On at least three occasions, Bachmann has landed in the hospital as a result.
It takes another paragraph for the condition to be called what it is: a migraine headache, a condition which Sheryl Gay Stolberg’s story in The New York Times told us, affects 36 million Americans, or 12 percent of the population.
That doesn’t prevent Strong from making the most of the material he has gotten from his two anonymous former Bachmann staffers, quotes which again read like something from the tabloids or a teenager’s diary.
When she gets ‘em, frankly, she can’t function at all. It’s not like a little thing with a couple Advils. It’s bad,” the adviser says. “The migraines are so bad and so intense, she carries and takes all sorts of pills. Prevention pills. Pills during the migraine. Pills after the migraine, to keep them under control. She has to take these pills wherever she goes.
Eventually, Strong gets around to what the Bachmann campaign says, which is that the candidate suffers from occasional migraines but is not incapacitated, nor driven to rampant pill-popping by them.
The mainstream media was quickly on the case—and soon enough part of the story, too. The Michele-has-migraines story got even bigger when a tussle, reported by Time’s Michael Crowley, took place between Bachmann’s security detail and ABC investigative reporter Brian Ross, who was in pursuit of the story.
Does this story really deserve an investigative unit? Or front page play in The Des Moines Register? (Politico points out this paper’s coverage, key to Bachmann’s chances in Iowa, may matter most.)
The Daily Caller’s story certainly warrants criticism (Salon’s Alex Pareene does a fine, fine job of this; as does Joel Meares in his July/August CJR piece on The Daily Caller’s sensationalist genre), but the broader, de-sensationalized coverage it sparked about Bachmann’s history of migraines is fair and in fact, important.
Bachmann is running for President, a public office that demands that an individual be accountable and on-the job at all times, whether it be for an afternoon security briefing or that ominous 3 a.m. phone call.
If Bachmann periodically needs to be locked in a quiet, dark room for half the day to deal with her headaches, as Politico reported (again by an anonymous source), this is an important fact for voters to consider. As is the fact that Bachmann’s migraines have caused her to cancel appearances and miss congressional votes in the past. Politico’s Kasie Hunt and Molly Ball did the work The Daily Caller failed to, reporting today that, due to migraines, Bachmann missed two votes in May 2010 and eight more that July.
If anything, this coverage is merely occurring earlier than in other years; scrutinizing candidates’ ‘fitness’ for President has frequently been part of the discussion during the general election. In 2008, both President Obama and John McCain—albeit under timed and limited conditions—released their medical records. There was particular media hype around the health of 72-year-old McCain because of his age and history of melanoma.
Prior to that, Bill Bradley was scrutinized for irregular heart beat and in 1972, vice presidential candidate Tom Eagleton was pressured out of the race because of his history of depression and shock therapy treatments.
While few have viewed Bachmann as a viable contender for the White House, her poll numbers show that for now she should be taken seriously.
I wondered how CJR was going to dance around the Daily Caller's scoop so soon after Joel Meares' weak attempt at marginalization of the site. One subtext, apparently not grasped by CJR staffers for the obvious reason, is that right-leaning sites have better sources in the conservative half of the polity than even the mainstream media - certainly superior to the clueless NY Times, which is always predicting disaster in its 'analysis' pieces for the GOP unless it starts agreeing with the NY Times - and thus have to be read, if you want to know what's going on in our politics. The lazy MSM was thus impaired in grasping what kind of trouble the Democrats were courting in 2009-10 until it was too late. Too busy mourning 'the lion of the Senate' Ted Kennedy, idolizing Obama, and painting the latter's health care plan as all sunshine and lollipops.
So CJR offers Erica Fry's tortured rationalization - yes, well . . . it is news, possibly important . . . but on the other hand it's from a right-leaning site that doesn't think like us . . . evolved New Yorkers . . . and good urban media folk would rather grow another nostril than admit that the right-leaning media has anything on the ball. So the Caller is criticized (with support from a left-wing site with some history of being fact-challenged, Salon) for . . . overstating the importance of Bachmann's ailment. As if a lot of liberal-activist journalism doesn't overstate the significance of their 'scoops', including (I suspect elementary research would show) Salon. Fry even criticizes the Caller for a story it didn't yet write, the one glommed onto by Politico. If you are not in sympathy with the journalistic Left, you'd better be perfect to a degree not demanded of that side of politics by CJR, said to be a journalism review instead of a training site for Media Matters.
So go on treating TPM's 'scoop' about the perfectly legal Bush era dismissal of U.S. Attorneys as a big story, though it has gone (if memory serves me) approximately nowhere of importance in subsequent politics, either in the courts or at the ballot boxes. It's always grim fun to watch CJR search for a non-ideological fig leaf in its regular attacks on conservative media vs. its wimpiness (true white liberals!) in systematic resources devoted to scrutiny of the lazy and cliche-ridden MSM. In the real world, Fox and O'Keefe and the rest have shaken up mainstream journalism much more than the left-wing 'alternative' media did in my youth.
PS: When is CJR going to get around to a hatchet job on Groseclose's new study of the partisanship of orthodox political journalism, anyway? I'm looking forward to the 'non-partisan' extreme criticism of his finding that our political journalism is distorted by its partisanship toward the left.
#1 Posted by Mark Richard, CJR on Wed 20 Jul 2011 at 09:14 PM
Sorry about 'perfect to a degree', an oxymoron. Let's say that conservative media had better out-work liberal media in the quality and importance of its product. I remember (in the context of conservative vs. liberal news coverage) Susan Sontag's 1981 declaration that one would have learned more that was true and essential about the Soviet Union during the Cold War by reading the Reader's Digest than by reading The Nation. Hey - doesn't Victor Navasky help run CJR, come to think of it?
#2 Posted by Mark Richard, CJR on Wed 20 Jul 2011 at 09:20 PM
"So go on treating TPM's 'scoop' about the perfectly legal Bush era dismissal of U.S. Attorneys as a big story, though it has gone (if memory serves me) approximately nowhere of importance in subsequent politics, either in the courts or at the ballot boxes."
You're such a hack.
That story lifted the veil on the litmus and loyalty tests the Bush administration was putting all of its ministries through, which was illegal because you should not discriminate based on political belief nor should you dismiss based on political purpose. It was at least as big a political story as Nixon's sunday night massacre.
3 of the attorneys fired were done so based on their reluctance to bring up politically motivated voter fraud charges against democrats. 1 of them was fired to make room for a Rove, vote suppression specialist, 2 of them were fired based on their high profile prosecutions of Republican corruption. The subsequent investigations were politicized and laughable. Alberto Gonzales resigned in toady disgrace after committing an unpardonable sin.
He made John Ashcroft look good.
We also learned that the Bush Administration and the Christian right were funneling holy warriors into government from Pat Robertson's university and passing over more qualified candidates from better institutions to do so. Imagine for a moment, just a moment, if the Liberals started following any of these tactics half as far as the conservative "mayberry machiavelli " scum bags took them. Would the impact be "nowhere of importance in subsequent politics, either in the courts or at the ballot boxes"?
You trivialize real scandal and emphasize trivia. You are like the anti-particle of journalism.
#3 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Wed 20 Jul 2011 at 11:01 PM
Wow, fast turnaround. And late on Wednesday evening. In an uncertain world, it's good to have reliable and predictable elements in life, among which are Thimbles' quick responses on CJR threads.
As I pointed out, TPM's hyped 'scandal' involving the Bush dismissal of Bush-appointed U.S. Attorneys was legal (which you acknowledge by not mentioning that aspect) and went nowhere politically. Anyone whose vision is not affected by ideological blinders recognizes that the Daily Caller ran with a 'scoop' at least as splashy as TPM's, which was much praised by the predictables at CJR.
Gee, the 'anti-particle' of journalism? At least your abuse shows signs of rising above the usual lack of wit or imagination, Thimbles. Since I'm not a journalist, I'll put your comment in the category of the other non-sequitors that comprise most of your dissertations.
The myster remains . . . Eric Boehlert? . . . a relative of Paul Krugman? . . . an employee of Media Matters or some other Soros operation? . . .
#4 Posted by Mark Richard, CJR on Thu 21 Jul 2011 at 12:50 PM