Giving credit where credit is due
This is probably Tobin’s best D&C blog post in a while, maybe ever:
One of the least told stories of the Bush terms has been the failure of the press, the White House press corps most particularly, to catch on to all that he and his henchpeople have been putting out. The rationale for the Iraq war, for one. The poor post-war planning, for another. I’ve watched the Bush press conferences and have been struck by the number of softballs the esteemed group of journalists offers up. This is a presidency that has been antagonistic to openness and free inquiry from the get-go. Yet the press has never really gotten up a head of steam. Even the sensational Walter Reed story was essentially dropped after a week or so. There are a lot of causes but one is the unrelieved coziness between Washington big shots and media big shots. The recent White House Correspondents’ Dinner was pretty much a lovefest, and instead of inviting a tough satirist like Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert (whose barbs left the stuffed shirts cold last year) the reporters hired impressionist Rich Little, who had been last seen in the 1980s. Maybe next year they’ll hire Charo to tell the jokes.
Awesome. Tobin comes alive!