Some critics have pointed out that past Presidents such as FDR and JFK governed with far more severe maladies. This is true, but only after keeping their conditions secret from the public. They also did it with help: when these Presidents were suffering too much, someone else, someone not elected as president, was calling the shots. (Woodrow Wilson’s wife was essentially in command for 18 months after he suffered a stroke.)
The coverage has also been called sexist, a charge that has shot around the female Twitterverse and blogosphere. Noreen Malone outlined the argument on New York magazine’s website:
Migraines happen to be overwhelmingly a woman’s problem, and (though Bachmann’s are supposedly stress-triggered), they are often linked to both menstruation and menopause—unavoidable biological side effects of being a woman. And so, just by the nature and associations of migraines, the story serves as a reminder of the cave-man argument from way back against women holding office—that they might be undone by their hormones in moments of great stress.
This criticism seems to be getting well ahead of the message, introducing subtexts that simply don’t exist in the coverage. As Malone notes, Bachmann links her migraines to stress and—the Times’s Stolberg confirms this bit from The Daily Caller—wearing high heels.
Whatever the cause, and whatever one’s gender, a health condition that has kept a prospective presidential candidate from doing one’s job in the past has a place for serious, sober treatment and examination in the press. The Daily Caller deserves credit for the scoop, even while its reporting inspires rightful outrage.
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