The Politico delivers another key political scoop

April 16, 2007

The truth is, I want to like The Politico. I like the idea of an online team of experienced political journalists breaking stories, updating developments, offering valuable insights, and doing it all in a quick, blog-like style of reporting. There was a niche and The Politico set out to fill it. I was vaguely optimistic when it got started.

And it’s been disappointing me ever since.

I won’t bother dredging up every error of fact and/or judgment The Politico has made in its short tenure, but it’s items like this one, published this afternoon, that are the most disappointing. Beneath a photo of John Edwards, Ben Smith writes:

How much, you ask does it cost to look like that?

Well, John Edwards’ campaign for president spent $400 on February 20, and another $400 on March 7, at a top Beverly Hills men’s stylist, Torrenueva Hair Designs….

Edwards’ campaign also spent money at two spas: Designworks Salon in Dubuque, and Pink Sapphire in Manchester.

C’mon, Politico. Haircuts? We’re already at the stage at which candidates’ haircuts are worth covering?

I suppose one could note that Laura Bush recently got a $700 haircut, which seemed to generate almost no attention at all, but what’s the point? There’s no reason to even bother. Haircut prices aren’t interesting or important.

At least, they shouldn’t be.

And speaking of The Politico, the online mag ran an item late last week about some alleged controversy in which Klaus Scharioth, Germany’s ambassador to the United States, met Barack Obama through an intermediary who who’s active in US-German issues. Scharioth attended an Obama fundraiser, but only as a guest — he didn’t contribute a dime.

The Politico’s Kenneth Vogel did a little digging, found nothing scandalous, but wrote a story pointing to some ambiguous controversy anyway. Matt Yglesias explains the problem.

At this point, Vogel came up with absolutely nothing. But instead of not writing the story, he wrote an exhaustive account of a dozen different things that might have been improper or politically damaging about this. None of these things, however, are actually true. But rather than admit that he has no story, Vogel chose to write it up as if he’s unconvered something and then — bam! — his story becomes the lede item on the site further implying there’s something here.

Dear Politico,

Please improve. Quickly.

Sincerely,
The Carpetbagger Report

A scoop is a very accurate way of decribing Politicos’ stories. Just like I have to scoop up after my three dogs during their morning walks. Both the Poltico and I end up with one big bag of scoop when all is said and done.

  • The Politico could just look to the Republicans in power and find an authentic scandal under every single rock they turn over instead of having to work so hard scrutinizing the Democrats so intently and then having to invent faux controversies.

    They should just rename the publication “The Partisanico” and put the motto on the masthead “All the Democratic smears that will fit in print.”

  • I was talking to someone who knows the situation with the papers on the Hill (Roll Call, The Hill, The Politico) and they said that the papers is giving away (either really or close enough to count) ads and has only been able to lure some people away with salaries twice what they are making. All this means is that their salaries budget is very high and they aren’t bringing in much from advertisement . Add to that – the paper seems to be free – which means less money from selling copies.

    The person I was talking to didn’t seem to understand what their business model or the editorial policy was.

  • I agree; So far the contributions from Politico seem to be highly partisan and very pro right. I think MSM likes Politico because they can say “this is what the blogs are saying”. MSM seldom report what most of the progressive blogs are saying until the story grows so large that it becomes an eight hundred pound gorilla.

  • We worry about global warming, the right-wing worries about haircuts. You gotta admire their persistent obsession with the trivial—sorta. It’s easier than reality.

  • Their search engine is pretty bad too. Try it sometime, do a search on “John Edwards”. You get a bazillion hits on any story with either word in it, starting with the least relevant.

    Vogel’s hit piece on Obama elicited the following vomit from a wingnut:

    Stealth Muslim for President – I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. The evidence shows that in all likelihood a vote for Barack Hussein Obama is a vote for a Madrassa trained stealth Muslim candidate. Or, if you want to take a non-PC look at the church he apparently is affiliated with he can’t possibly truthfully claim not to be a black power racist. Either way, I believe Barack Hussein Obama to be far more dangerous than Mrs. Clinton.

    They just can’t help themselves. They eat the crap Rush spews, and this is what we get.

    Idiots.

  • I like the idea of an online team of experienced political journalists….

    And exactly what is TPM? Chopped liver?

  • Next on Politico:

    “Next on our hard hitting twelve part series on the Democratic Presidential Hopefuls, Democratic Candidates admit to having sex… with their spouses!”

  • What was the first thing the wrong wing bobbleheads hit Pelosi with when she first got the speakership? Her wardrobe. As if that mattered.

    Now they’re going after Edwards’ hair. That won’t get them very far either, and makes me wonder why they bother. If they’re trying to be taken seriously in the real-world community, this is not the way to go about it.

    And why should I call the Politico staff wrong wing bobbleheads? Well, when they stop using White House tactics and talking points as the basis of their articles, I’ll call them something else.

    Until then, the label stays.

  • #7 Chas. M

    You got it. I thought of TPM immediately. The impact of this totally free press is yet to be totally felt. I suspect that the coming of the blog will someday rank with the invention of the printing press. If we can keep them. Authoritarians of all kinds have to hate them.

  • I’m insulted.

    “How much, you ask does it cost to look like that?”

    Well, actually, no, I don’t ask. It doesn’t even occur to me. Who gives a hoot? John Edward’s looks don’t concern me, really, though I have noticed, I guess, that he’s got a kind of goofy smile, but it never occurred to me to wonder if, or how much, he paid to look the goofy way he does. And I have to say it’s pretty insulting to my intelligence to suggest I would.

    It’s bad enough Ben Smith wondered, but where the hell does he get off suggesting it was his readers’ question?

    A better question is, how much does it cost to be as stupid as Ben Smith?

  • It’s all part of the Ann Coulter “John Edwards is a faggot” campaign to demean and diminish Edwards. “Real men” aren’t supposed to care about how they look and *certainly* don’t spend $400 on haircuts at “top Beverly Hills hair stylist” or go to spas. Obviously the guy lacks masculinity, is consumed with vanity, and is too self-absorbed to be taken seriously. While his wife is battling cancer, he’s in the spa, etc., etc., Nasty.

    Will they devote this much space and energy to actually discussing Edwards platform and views?

  • A lot of us wanted Politico to be something better, but it isn’t and I hold no hope that it ever will be. These aren’t just mistakes they’ve been making, this is unprofessional and reflects badly on management. Either they hired the wrong people, or didn’t take the right steps to straighten things out after the first disaster, or don’t care — or this is their vision of what Politico should be. None bode well for the future.

  • Politico and its ilk have something in common: Concentrating on inconsequential items as “news,” instead of what truly affects the well-being of America, the world, and its citizens. They make a mockery of true, objective, journalism. Is their form of “journalism” taught in Journalism courses in today’s colleges and universities? If so, it’s to the detriment of our society and nothing to be proud of.

  • (Alas for the Politicos, some psycho in Virginia trumped their ace, but this haircut story was surely intended to be a Matt Drudge special.)

  • Dear Politico: may all you uncreative typists masquerading as “journalists” die lingering, painful deaths of socially-unacceptable diseases, alone in the dark and the cold, where you are left as a result of your Republican bullshit.

  • The truth is, I want to like The Politico. I like the idea of an online team of experienced political journalists breaking stories, updating developments, offering valuable insights, and doing it all in a quick, blog-like style of reporting… And it’s been disappointing me ever since.

    I think you answered your own question. The Politico sucks BECAUSE it’s veteran political journalists. It’s the work of veteran journalists that chased us off to the blogs.

    I would be optimistic if going online allowed the Politico reporters to finally break free and do the kind of reporting that their mainstream publications were too timid to touch, but as it is it’s just the same old hacks in a different medium, do what they do that makes me despise them so much.

    It’s not the medium; it’s the message folks. Or at least the freedom to present the message the veterans can’t or won’t.

  • Didn’t Bush give The Politico a “spontaneous” plug in a White House press conference when he asked the news organization affiliation of their attending reporter? I smell a Rove.

  • good one bubba.

    TPM is taking these morons to town. Can you imagine TPM wasting their time with scoops about haircuts?

    Maybe Politico’s best sources are all in the hairstyling industry.

  • I spent a half a minute reading the comments on Politico under the ‘hair piece’. There must have been a troll bus sent over from little green footballs.

    Truly idiots with fake outrage over the price of the cut: “he says he’s for the little guy but he’s not! 400 bucks, see?” and “if republicans did this it would be news for months!” (forgetting, of course, Laura’s $700 -hair helmet)

  • They’ve truly jumped the shark for me.

    It’s Drudge with a slicker interface. Jeff Gannon should be writing for them. There is zero doubt that they are a Rove op.

  • On one issue of The Politico last week, all four front page stories were about GOP presidential candidates. There’s subtle bias, and then there’s explicit, we-don’t-care favoritism. The Politico has long since crossed the line to the latter.

  • Just as it isn’t news when a Democrat has an affair because Democrats don’t claim to be the party of morality, it isn’t news when the party of teh rich gets a 700 dollar haircut.

    When John Edwards gets a 400 dollar haircut, it WOULD be newsworthy since he talks endlessly about “the two Americas” and one might well ask which he considers himself a part of forking over almost 30 times as much money for the same thing Joe SixPack buys.

    By the sounds of things, the Politico dropped the ball in not bringing the hypocrisy to light. If Dennis Kucinic, Mike Gravel, or Bill Richardson shell out 400 bucks for their hair, that’s news too, not only because they’d be hypocrites, but cuz they got ROBBED.

  • Remember when they had a hissyfit over Bill Clinton getting a haircut on Air Force One? They have NOTHING better to do, or go after, than trivia.

    But, as an aside (from a retired hairdresser)…you have to admit that the Democrats have way better hair than the Republicans.

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