“from high-level advisors to grunt-level assistants”

But which ones came from which people?

Some of the “quotes” aren’t so bad, others are damning.

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“A true friend stabs you from the front” -Oscar Wilde

I am glad someone else is picking up on this. Every time they pull this. If we would do this often enough we could kill the anonymice.

The media was controlled by the state, but the truth got out by word of mouth.

In 2003-2006, the media was pro-war, but the American people (most of whom were not lefty bloggers) figured out Iraq was a disaster anyway. The same thing happened with the war in Vietnam.

I have faith in humanity. People aren’t stupid, and they figure shit out eventually.

Only elitists think you can fool all of the people all of the time.

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“A true friend stabs you from the front” -Oscar Wilde

I just walked into my hotel room and CNN was on (10:50pm EDT) and the host, Rick Sanchez, was talking about the latest delegate count and then showed a clip from the latest “anti-Hillary” YouTube video. It was a rap song about how she should quit and “get her head out her a**.

Rick seemed to get a big kick out of the clip and the pictures of Hillary were, of course, horrible. Then he asked two other people, both black, one man and one woman, (I didn’t catch their names - damn I wish I had TIVO here) and they both were talking about how ’she’ doesn’t know it’s over. He thinks it will be over by Father’s Day and she thinks it’s going to the convention.

I was/am so pissed. Keep it up Obama supporters and MSM enablers. You’re driving voters away in droves.

Via Avedon, Atrios liked the TNR story - http://www.eschatonblog.com/2008_05_11_a…

Which just further confirms my belief that people like anonymous stories where sources “confirm” what they already believe to be true.

Complain about unsourced stories?

Bill Clinton for First Dude!!!

but then says he enjoys this one. Which goes back to my theory that we all enjoy “anonymous” sources who confirm how we see the world. But just because we happen to agree with the sources doesn’t make them any more accurate or less likely to have an agenda or be peddling bullshit.

And why does anyone care what she thinks?

There’s a story beneath the story here, and it encapsulates everything that is wrong with what is fraudulently passed off as contemporary “journalism.” Let’s dig down into the muck a bit, shall we?

Can you answer that first question? Do you know anything at all about Julie Bosman? She has a prominent position as a political reporter with the New York Times, one of the most prestigious newspapers in the world and a basic reference source for news outlets across the globe; she is frequently and prominently published there, under a single byline as well as collaboratively, closely following and opining on the presidential primaries while focusing dominantly on the Democrats. She traveled with Edwards, and after him with Clinton; she has been the Times’ inside source reporter, providing the world with a close-up and personal look at the candidates and their campaigns including the piece Lambert cites, backed by the full force and credit of “The Paper Of Record”.

That’s a lot of influence, and you don’t know one damn thing about her; do you?

Julie Bosman is a Badger. No, not literally; she went to the University of Wisconsin Madison, where she actually majored in journalism. She was so successfully badger-like that she clawed her way to the top of the body-pile, becoming editor-in-chief of the student-run Badger Herald newspaper. While in that position, she accepted a paid advertisement from arch-reactionary David Horowitz condemning any examination of the concept of reparations for the descendents of American slavery on the basis that those descendents are actually economic beneficiaries of the suffering of their ancestors.

Considerable student unrest followed, with calls for Bosman to either issue an apology for publishing the ad or to resign. She refused to do either, claiming freedom of speech; that the ad was a paid statement, rather than a staff or guest analysis or opinion piece, made for her no difference. Nor did she recognize that trading space to advance an onerous agenda for money in a student-run newspaper conferred at a minimum an acceptance on behalf of the student body that the argument advanced was legitimate. In her view, she had the authority to dictate ethical standards for the student body and she would not be cowed into submission by condemnation from the students themselves. In recognition of her defiance, the rigidly reactionary Society for Academic Freedom and Scholarship presented her with their Academic Freedom Award – which she gladly accepted.

But Julie wasn’t satisfied with small-town Mid-Western journalism, oh no; when she graduated in 2001 she cast her hungry badger eyes eastward, towards bright lights and the big city, where she could trade her journalistic bona fides for fun, fame and profit.

What she landed was a job as a gopher assistant for the inestimable Maureen Dowd. If there was anyone in all of America that an aspiring young journalist would turn to as a mentor for competence, thoroughness and sophistication in the craft, it would certainly be Dowd. But somehow that didn’t work out. After a while, Julie wanted bigger things, and the senior editors cast around for somewhere that she could be useful. What to do with an eager young beaver badger with far-right sympathies, trained by the Queen of Vapid herself in the art of character assassination? How about the Edwards campaign?

Who better, really? The last thing wanted is someone who would focus on matters of substance, on Edwards’ policy proposals for honesty in government and the concept that common citizens should be the primary focus and sole beneficiaries of governmental action. Can’t have that being discussed, someone might pay attention and Edwards could get traction. Best to cut him off at the knees, and Boseman’s right-wing framing would provide the perfect vantage point; plus, with Dowd’s tutelage, young Julie could be counted on to deliver the kind of airy, cutting, defamation that would ensure that Edwards was trivialized and rendered into a caricature rather than a legitimate candidate.

And Julie delivered. Go read her if you must, but the extensive body of work that is her Edwards campaign coverage essentially oscillates between feeling sorry for herself over the rigors of the road (with a corporate credit card in her purse) and the incessant demands on her time (imagine, having to pay attention all day long to someone as boring as John Edwards while he talks about the dangers and opportunities facing America) while finding just the right tone by which to expound on one meaningless triviality after another, falsely claiming that they represent issues of importance.

In one memorable sequence, she first complained that she was having trouble keeping up with Edwards’ “breakneck” schedule; the Edwards people were simply not leaving enough slack in the day for her to get her personal needs met. A week later she had decided to abandon trying to keep pace and leapfrogged ahead, giving her time to do her nails or whatever and then wait for Edwards to come to her. Horrifically, however, she sometimes actually had to wait because Edwards was running late due to his “breakneck” schedule; again, she wrote, the Edwards people were wasting her time!

What could a journalist do, trapped at a venue full of involved, politically aware citizens with an acute interest in the electoral process? Interview them? Well, perhaps; what could it hurt? Finally fed up, Boseman stirred herself enough to speak with one woman who was leaving an event where Edwards was late and got this dramatic quote:

“In Lebanon, N.H., Karen Swanson headed for the exit with a friend after nearly a half-hour. ‘We can’t wait anymore,’ Ms. Swanson said.

Boseman found great import in that simple statement. It became the basis for a repeated litany, that Edwards was offending voters and politicians by his scheduling. The “breakneck” schedule construct morphed into claiming that he was trying to be too many places at once, and that in turn came to mean that he was trying to be too many things to different people. Not true, of course; Edwards was, if anything, consistent to the point of repetitiousness, but what fun would there be to writing bout those boring policy issues? Much better to make up claims about how annoying the man was, about how pissed off everybody was getting because of his schedule. Boseman went so far as to claim that politicians were choosing to endorse other candidates because Edwards was too often late for his speaking engagements. If she was offended, surely so was everyone else.

But then the Edwards campaign stuttered and stalled, in no small measure because he couldn’t get his arguments covered by the media; another feather in the cap of ace journalist Julie. Surely, having taken down the human target to whom she was assigned, she would be brought back to the Home Swarm in triumph – but no. Back on the road she went, this time on the Clinton trail, her next target. Again, Julie was not pleased with her life, and again it was all the fault of the candidate.

Which brings us to now, and this little hit piece; a classic of the genre, in which Boseman again takes a collection of small and large facts and warps them into slander. Her title alleges that Clinton and her supporters have become subdued, based upon behavior at precisely three meetings with small groups. One, in rural South Dakota, is described as small and quiet. Newsflash, Julie; most of rural South Dakota – actually, most of the whole state of South Dakota – has a population density of less than 5 people per square mile. More than a handful of people in rural South Dakota is a large crowd, and the people of South Dakota are by nature quiet and reserved. Quiet, not “subdued” like slaves.

Rather than characterize the meeting as civil and calm, and take the opportunity to discuss the regional variations in American character and what that might mean for the fall campaign, Boseman instead compares it to the bizarre incident when Obama was applauded while blowing his nose. She described the applause as thunderous – it was no more than scattered – and suggests that this shows a difference in voter enthusiasm. One might as easily speculate on what it is about Obama that attracts people with a fetish for mucous.

Also cited is a living room meeting with six people, described as “a group in which reporters outnumbered supporters by at least 3 to 1.” Let’s hope it was no meore than that; 20 people in a living room is enough. We’ve got the reporter count, but nothing about what those six voters had to say, or Clinton. The third was her stopping by a campaign phone bank above a store in Salem, Oregon. Why, at any of these, would Clinton have to raise her voice; why would any of the attendees have to shout? Since when is calm, deliberate and thoughtful equivalent to “subdued”? Only in the mind of the Dowd-trained Boseman.

The fact that Clinton picked up $400K at a couple of whirlwind fundraisers got no more than a mention; that this display of substantial continued financial support might indicate that not everyone is buying the “Surrender!” imperative is not discussed, nor is there any reflection on what Clinton’s campaign persistence might say about the relative appeal of her self or her policies; it is all nothing more than a source of annoyance to Julie.

She did find time for one of her trademark quickie interviews, this one with a 29-year-old store clerk named Tim who only stuck his nose in to say he’d seen Clinton in the flesh:

“I don’t really get the point of her carrying on. If it’s done, it’s done.”

Insightful, that; just the sort of thing that would appeal to dear Julie, one twenty-something to another. Just because she didn’t have time to write anything meaningful about Clinton, or the campaign, I’m sure everyone will give her the benefit of the doubt and hope that her little one-on-one with Tim on top of the feed sacks in the back storeroom (according to an anonymous source in, ahem, a position to know) was worth the effort.

[Oh, Tim? Tim! TIM! Listen up. That rash is not from the burlap. One word – Penicillin. All’s I’m saying.]

So there you have it. The New.York.Times. deliberately sent a right-wing hack – hell, an Award-Winning right-wing hack – with a graduate degree in MoDo out to tube Edwards’ campaign, and when she finished that she got sicced on Clinton to do the same thing. If she can undermine Obama in the general, she’ll have won the 2008 Destructive Reporter Triple Crown. This is what is meant by contemporary “journalism”; it would be sad if it weren’t so disgusting. On the other hand, always instructive to watch a pro do her tricks.

Don’t you feel better, now that you’re informed?

Muy excellente!

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“Pain heals, chicks dig scars, glory lasts forever” - Shane Falco

!

You can tell its crap from the story alone: 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 == 0 for sourcing.

But I had no idea how deeply impacted the crap actually was.

[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

Nice image, Lambert. Good to know you’re OK.

This is your thread, do as you please; or do you want me to rewrite it?

Kind comments, thank you so, but with a target like Boseman the words just write themselves; wanted to dump a load on her for a long time.

… slam the title on it, and put Julie Brosnan in the tags. The advantage is, that it’s going to me much more easily retrievable by Google, shows up in the RSS feeds, gets linked to, shows up in Technorati…

Back in the day when we had a media critique, this never would have been linked to by an A list blogger, even heavily caveated as the link is. Feh.

Julie Brosnan — Joe Klein, without the redeeming qualities….

[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

The [Edit] feature on my comment has disappeared. I’ll put it up from my saved file, but this one will have to stay here unless you want to remove it.

Also, unless I’m confused, maybe you are mixed up between the TNR idiocy which Atrios linked to, and the Bosman article in NYT. If someone “A” list liked to her, we are all doomed.

… Oopsie. Just trying to get my head back in the game. The comment can and should stay. You could add a link back to the comment in the post.

[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

alters the brain waves.