Just wanted to note, for the record, a couple of things I was involved in outside this site.
Yesterday I was one of 41 journalists (I’m pretty sure the list has grown since it was first published) signing onto an open letter to ABC deploring the tone and content of the Democratic presidential debate the network sponsored on Wednesday. Given what I’ve posted here on the subject, it seemed like a natural step to take. But I do want to make it clear I was acting solely for myself, and not for TDS or its co-editors.
I also did a post at TPMCafe commenting negatively on an effort by Jamie Kirchick of The New Republic (disputed on their site by Jonathan Chait and Isaac Chotiner) to defend the proposition that Sen. Joe Lieberman’s endorsement and active campaigning for John McCain is compatible with his past protestations of loyalty to the Democratic Party. I wrote this because I thought it would be useful to hear a Joe’s-Crossed-the-Final-Line argument from someone who’s never been accused of Lieberman-hatred or TNR-hatred–particularly someone who doesn’t accept the idea that Lieberman’s been some sort of crypto-Republican all along.
2 comments on “Extracurricular Activities”
velocipede on
I think Badger missed the point. Both Clinton and Obama got questions about recent misstatement (snipers, bitterness). The problem is that about half of the less than 2 hours alloted to the “debate” were spent on these topics rather than the serious issues facing the nation.
Maybe it is too late this year, but in the future, I hope the candidates and campaigns step in and say enough is enough. How about substantial debates on real issues. Two-hours of prepared presentations and responses just on health care, for example. No “I’m gonna getcha with a gotcha questions” moderators, but instead formal debates with fixed length turns and time for rebuttals. Who needs the networks? They could be uploaded straight to the Internet.
Funny how no one seemed to care when it was Hillary being raked over the coals by the moderators during the debates.
But now that the Sainted One is getting the treatment suddenly everyone is up in arms over it.
This year’s big media narrative has been the confirmation saga of Neera Tanden, Biden’s nominee for director of the Office of Management and Budget. At New York I wrote about how over-heated the talk surrounding Tanden has become.
Okay, folks, this is getting ridiculous. When a vote in the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on the nomination of Neera Tanden was postponed earlier this week, you would have thought it presented an existential threat to the Biden presidency. “Scrutiny over Tanden’s selection has continued to build as the story over her uneven reception on Capitol Hill stretched through the week,” said one Washington Post story. Politico Playbook suggested that if Tanden didn’t recover, the brouhaha “has the potential to be what Biden might call a BFD.” There’sbeen all sorts of unintentionally funny speculation about whether the White House is playing some sort of “three-dimensional chess” in its handling of the confirmation, disguising a nefarious plan B or C.
Perhaps it reflects the law of supply and demand, which requires the inflation of any bit of trouble for Biden into a crisis. After all, his Cabinet nominees have been approved by the Senate with a minimum of 56 votes; the second-lowest level of support was 64 votes. One nominee who was the subject of all sorts of initial shrieking, Tom Vilsack, was confirmed with 92 Senate votes. Meanwhile, Congress is on track to approve the largest package of legislation moved by any president since at least the Reagan budget of 1981, with a lot of the work on it being conducted quietly in both chambers. Maybe if the bill hits some sort of roadblock, or if Republican fury at HHS nominee Xavier Becerra (whose confirmation has predictably become the big fundraising and mobilization vehicle for the GOP’s very loud anti-abortion constituency) reaches a certain decibel level, Tanden can get out of the spotlight for a bit.
But what’s really unfair — and beyond that, surreal — is the extent to which this confirmation is being treated as more important than all the others combined, or indeed, as a make-or-break moment for a presidency that has barely begun. It’s not. If Tanden cannot get confirmed, the Biden administration won’t miss a beat, and I am reasonably sure she will still have a distinguished future in public affairs (though perhaps one without much of a social-media presence). And if she is confirmed, we’ll all forget about the brouhaha and begin focusing on how she does the job, which she is, by all accounts, qualified to perform.
I think Badger missed the point. Both Clinton and Obama got questions about recent misstatement (snipers, bitterness). The problem is that about half of the less than 2 hours alloted to the “debate” were spent on these topics rather than the serious issues facing the nation.
Maybe it is too late this year, but in the future, I hope the candidates and campaigns step in and say enough is enough. How about substantial debates on real issues. Two-hours of prepared presentations and responses just on health care, for example. No “I’m gonna getcha with a gotcha questions” moderators, but instead formal debates with fixed length turns and time for rebuttals. Who needs the networks? They could be uploaded straight to the Internet.
Funny how no one seemed to care when it was Hillary being raked over the coals by the moderators during the debates.
But now that the Sainted One is getting the treatment suddenly everyone is up in arms over it.