But while the focus on the president is understandable, it risks detracting attention, and scrutiny, from the key players in Congress who, with hundreds of little decisions and deals, are driving the outcome of this debate. Those men and women aren’t celebrities, and they belong to an institution of which little is expected. But they have just as much agency, and should be held just as accountable, as the man in the White House.
Campaign Desk
01:22 PM - August 14, 2009
Overemphasizing Obama
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Streams of consciousness - Millennials expect a steady diet of quick-hit, social-media-mediated bits and bytes. What does that mean for journalism?
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“Every time the restaurant switched up its format, it got plenty of accompanying media coverage that let judges know they needed to return to see what was going on”
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Uptown Messenger – Hyperlocal news for a neighborhood in New Orleans
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A report from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism
Questions and exercises for journalism students.
Froomkin is right. You're letting him off the hook as well.
Obama wanted to avoid the micromanagement of health care reform, a major error committed by the Clintons, so he decided to let reform grow organically by allowing most of the stakeholders--single payer advocates were the glaring omission--to participate in the process and then letting Congress go forth and create health care reform. Unfortunately for him, he lost control of the message and the goal. As a result, the 5 committees in Congress have all created their own version of health care reform in the absence of a strong message.
He also committed a major error in not defining for Congress what kind of bill he would sign. Nobody still has any real idea of what kinds of reform Obama supports. Does he really support the public option? Is he willing to concede that feature and accept co-ops?
#1 Posted by AinsliePlace, CJR on Fri 14 Aug 2009 at 07:54 PM