THE PLANK APRIL 11, 2008
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Jamie, below, derides my citation of a New York Times story about spats between John McCain's foreign policy advisors. His objection seems to be that the story lacks on-the-record quotes. Well, sure. The story would be better with quotes like that, but quotes like that are near-impossible to get. Campaign advisors are the most skittish people in the world about saying anything. As a general rule they're reluctant to be quoted describing what the candidate ate for lunch, let alone describing his intellectual limits. So, you simply need to rely on the reporter and her editors making a fair characterization of the off-the-record discussions the sources had with her. And it's possible Elizabeth Bumiller is just making it up when she writes:
One of the chief concerns of the pragmatists is that Mr. McCain is susceptible to influence from the neoconservatives because he is not as fully formed on foreign policy as his campaign advisers say he is, and that while he speaks authoritatively, he operates too much off the cuff and has not done the deeper homework required of a presidential candidate.
But being the liberal media dupe I am, I tend to assume fabulism by New York Times to be the exception rather than the rule.
Jamie thinks the real blockbuster quote was Barack Obama's advisor Susan Rice saying that Obama "is not ready to have that 3:00 AM phone call." Jamie kindly linked to a news account that had the full context of the quote, and if you didn't click through, here it is:
Q: I’m going to ask the same question to you. Where has — Barack Obama been in a position where he has to make those kinds of decisions?
Ms. Rice: He hasn’t and he hasn’t claimed that he’s been in a position to have to answer the phone at 3 o’clock in the morning in a crisis situation. That’s the difference between the two of them. Hillary Clinton hasn’t had to answer the phone at 3 o’clock in the morning. And yet she attacked Barack Obama for not being ready. They’re both not ready to have that 3:00 a.m. phone call.
It seems pretty clear to me that Rice was not saying Obama is a lightweight. She was not even saying that both Obama and Clinton are lightweights. She was saying that neither of them have the experience of being president and responding to a 3:00 AM emergency. This is not the same thing as one's own advisors thinking you speak off the cuff and don't do your homework -- assuming, again, that Times didn't make that up.
--Jonathan Chait
10 comments
Chait v Kirchick...Man v Boy...Junkyard Dog v pup...professional v amateur...
my money is on Chait. KO, less than a one. Any takers?
btw, once again, this is more evidence that Kirchick cannot ever be trusted when he attributes the words of others. I have lost count of the times that this guy has [deliberately?] misrepresented the words of others.
- thejauntyboulevardier
April 11, 2008 at 3:16pm
What would it actually take to get Kirchick off TNR? I mean, seriously. He's the worst thing about the site. I really appreciated his exposes of Ron Paul, but that shouldn't give him free rein to sully the intellectual integrity of TNR and The Plank.
Maybe someone should give him an editor to make sure that he writes meaningful information? And that his work makes sense on any level?
- kerouac9
April 11, 2008 at 3:27pm
I can only imagine that Chat & Co. are embarrassed by Kirchick's continued presence here.
- Androscoggin
April 11, 2008 at 3:59pm
I like Kirchick balancing out the site just a tiny bit. I always take everything he says with a grain of salt and we have Chait to beat him down when he's wrong, but sometimes it's nice to get a right-of-center take on things. But only sometimes.
- rozenson
April 11, 2008 at 4:28pm
Where could they send Kirchick? Marty's already got "The Spine." "The Coccyx" maybe?
- anonevent
April 11, 2008 at 4:31pm
The thing is, when he's not engaging in Weekly Standard-style cheap distortions, or promoting conservative gay Jewish porn-star bigots, and when he works within a process with some level of editorship, Kirchick can do good work. Which is to say, I often value his contributions to the print magazine. But at least three-fourths of his online posts are crap or worse.
Nobody should mind Kirchick for staking out positions one might disagree with. That's all to the good. What I mind is the intellectual laziness and simple bad writing Kirchick exhibits when working without intensive editorial oversight.
- rhubarbs
April 11, 2008 at 4:34pm
Agree with Rhub. I really don't care about his politics one way or another; any way, if I wanted balance, I'd just watch Fox News instead of coming here. What gets me is the constant, endless, ceaseless, repetitive, whack-a-mole type distortion, quoting out context, snide remarks ... reminds of my univesity campus newspaper. It's that level of "journalism" - if not high school - that we are talking about here. It's unbecoming, it's irritating, and it's downright wasteful of everyone's time.
- icarusr
April 11, 2008 at 4:55pm
I agree with Rhubarbs. I don't mind the presence of a right-wing voice; I think it can be a valuable part of the discussion. With Kirchick's blog posts though, you often get the impression that he doesn't even bother to read the articles that he criticizes, but just scans for isolated quotes that he can turn into straw men.
- AlanSP
April 11, 2008 at 8:34pm
Rice is saying that they have equal non-3am experience, but that the difference is H is claiming she has it, Obama is not. She's right as rain on that one.
- psantillana
April 12, 2008 at 7:03am
This on-the-record quote used by Kirchick *on the same post date as Chait* (Your Democratic Congress at Work) would seem a apropos:
"One congressional source familiar with the hate crimes bill said a number of GOP lawmakers believe..."
Would Kirchick care to elaborate on the apparent difference in standards? Or has the overwhelming opinion expressed in the feedback to his article (including the rather simple demolition of his argument by actually reading the sourced article) left nothing further to tell?
I also agree with Rhubarbs that his print contributions are typically very good. However his online stuff mostly appears just lazy. Phoning it in?
- Nari224
April 13, 2008 at 9:56am