Dr. Melissa Clouthier writing about An Indictment Of Right Leaning Journalism By Ben Domenech:
Here’s the nutshell: The Left-leaning journalism investigates the right. The Right-leaning journalism provides commentary and (and Ben doesn’t say this, but I am) when they do rarely investigate, investigates the right after being given oppo research by someone on their own side…..
So much of the investigative work is being done by bloggers and they are under-funded and often over-worked.
One thing Ben doesn’t mention is how the right-leaning DC journos don’t want to be hated. They hang out with other journalists and want to be included. The social pressure in DC is liberal. Always.
Journalists are people (most of them). They want to be liked, included and respected. The way to be a skunk at a garden party is to criticize Democrats or investigate them.
Note also: bloggers and commentary from outside DC tends to be a lot more strident, and, I’d like to add, truthful. That social pressure isn’t there. It’s difficult to write about friends.
That’s what so infuriates me. We pile on and investigate ourselves, and in some cases just regurgitate Democratic talking points.
A good example is Tim Carney’s post at The Washington Examiner insisting that Newt Gingrich was a lobbyist even though Carney admits that Gingrich was not a lobbyist as defined by the law.
This whole focus on lobbying and lobbyists is nonsense Democratic talking points. Mitt Romney‘s campaign has hired them and received substantial contributions from them, so all the Romney supporters who think that Newt’s alleged non-lobbying lobbying is a negative should prepare for it to come around to their candidate.
Petitioning government for redress is a constitutionally protected right. The issue is not whether Newt Gingrich or any other candidate lobbied or hired lobbyists, but whether there was anything improper about the way it was conducted.
Stop playing the Democrats’ game.
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Comments
I recall Jonah Goldberg at NR saying in effect that ‘of course the media is bias BUT what can we do, we just need to get smarter, more articulate speakers’. The Conservative beltway pundits never, ever take into consideration that they so often enable bad journalism because they are too concerned with maintaining their VIP membership into the Liberal media club.
In the fifty years since the founding of the WF Buckley Club who inside the Washington beltway has successfully stood atwhart Liberalism yelling stop?
Cannot win in the area of ideas when persistently occupied with enabling the opposition to destroy you.
There is reason why Andrew Breitbart’s Big sites are growing in influence.
the whole cain sex charges are a perfect example of this.
C’mon, Prof…
Saying Carney’s piece is off-base because of a technical reading of the law is like saying O.J. was not a murderer because he was acquitted. You know that there is the law and there is reality MANY times.
Dealing with reality is a good thing.
Lobbying is NOT a dirty word. The NRA, Heritage Foundation, etc. are lobbies. IFFFFF Newtie was lobbying IN FACT, step up to it. It isn’t a disqualifier, and facing the facts is not a bad thing.
The converse certainly IS.
Are there any left wing lobbies? Dealing with reality is a good thing, you know.
Tons, Smoke.
BTW, that whooshing sound…??? That was the point passing unmolested over your head.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/28/us/politics/obama-bundlers-have-ties-to-lobbying.html
I guess it all depends on what
“is is”“lobbying is”.K Street and lobbying in general have never seen such a hay-day as under the Obami.
As PREDICTED…which is no great trick with fascist economics such as Obama favors.
When you remove normal market competition, you are left with supplication as a business model.
Professor, you’re becoming aggressively defensive and over the top on this.
The Left has been doing what they do for decades. That fact has already been factored into the mix.
I myself would be interested in the distinction between “consultant” and “lobbyist.” Newt called himself the former but not the later. He also stated he received $300,000 when in fact he earned $1.8M from Freddie Mac. Not bad for a “historian.”
Newt’s a bright guy but he has some baggage. Would you prefer we not vet our candidates and leave it to Obama?
It seems your point is that there is no distinction between a situation in which an individual’s actions clearly meet a statutory definition of proscribed conduct and a situation in which the individual’s alleged actions clearly do not.
You’re right – that’s way too sophistimicated for me.
So is being honest.
I take that as an admission that you can’t or won’t defend your shoddy analogy.
You can take your dishonest straw-man, LYING depiction of my position and cram it sideways…
And anyone who can read knows you for who and what you have chosen to be.
Sucks being you.
I’ll take that as a confirmation – and a magnificent example of projection.
Think the point is that gasping like a shocked maiden aunt when we hear the dread word “lobbyist” is playing right into the Left’s hands. Of COURSE politicians are going to have ties to lobbyists- talking to politicians is what lobbyists do. And as the Prof pointed out, talking to elected officials to try to get them to see things your way (petitioning for redress) is a constitutional right.
Need to start simply ignoring the Left/MSM when they start shrieking “LOBBYIST!” Just like all their other tactics (race card, etc) they only apply it to their opposition, never to themselves. Don’t LET them make such a big deal of what is, in the end, a normal and predictable thing.
I’m no lawyer and don’t know the ins and outs of lobbyists. But it is not the petitioning that is the problem, it is the “pay to play”. Petitions should not have cash attached (directly or indirectly). There should be citizen signatures, easily done in the internet age.
The question I have is, how does influence peddling work, exactly? I assume there are no printed receipts for the quid pro quo’s. And how do former politicians still have clout? Is it just an “honor system” of payback for past (dishonorable to the citizens) favors? Surely a lot of people know details, but are in on the game. Is the whole system made of “hear, see, speak no evil” deranged monkeys?
Doctors were supposed to quit taking vacations and the like as reward for selling certain drugs. It was found that even taking a free meal had influence. Yet our laws and subsidies seem to be wholly written on a pay to play basis. Dem’s and Repub’s trade off “looking the other way” moments with each other, as I see it. (eg. You slide this into the fine print on page 1250, and I’ll slip this into page 2150, we can both claim ignorance.)
I guess the actual transactions are behind closed doors, perhaps involving drugs and prostitutes if Elliot Spitzer is any indication. Was Newt really paid for advice, or did he have channels of clout he was selling?
(I’m still leaning toward Newt for his ability and record of stating the conservative case (not for his white hair), and certainly Obama is sold out to union money, but lobbying isn’t just petitioning, is it?)
Meh. If you’re going to hold getting chummy with a lobbyist against a politician, then you’re gonna have to vote “None of the Above.”
I’m NOT saying that the “pay to play” business is fine and dandy. We should keep our eyes open, be aware of what’s going on with our elected representatives. I mean WE too- holding officials accountable is our responsibility as citizens; expecting them to police themselves (honestly and without bias by the ruling party, whichever it is) is just naive.
For president it doesn’t seem we have a chance to go “cold turkey” from the DC playahs to a Palin, or someone perceived as pure. We might even be concerned that Newt doesn’t have ENOUGH big money that is already backing him. Perhaps the question is … who are the quiet big money people that are backing Perry and Romney, and do we need them?
The sleeping giant, We the people, is still awakening. WE are still in negotiation with the old regime, and probably have to have a “transitional” candidate/president, that still represents old influence, but begrudgingly gives “We the people” a better seat at the table.
Massive investigations can come later, after rebuilding congress a little more than we could do in 2010. ABO is current priority .. and it still looks like Newt or Mitt.
The point of Carney’s article was Newtie’s statement that he had not lobbied, and the truthfulness of that statement.
He made a fact-based case that Newtie HAD in fact done what anybody (honest) would consider lobbying in the non-statutory world of plain meanings.
Now, those putative facts can be refuted…or not.
And, for the record, what he recited had nothing to do with the Freddie/Fannie consulting.