{"id":10530,"date":"2007-04-16T16:40:28","date_gmt":"2007-04-16T20:40:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/10530.html"},"modified":"2007-04-16T16:40:28","modified_gmt":"2007-04-16T20:40:28","slug":"the-politico-delivers-another-key-political-scoop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/the-politico-delivers-another-key-political-scoop\/","title":{"rendered":"The Politico delivers another key political scoop"},"content":{"rendered":"

The truth is, I want<\/em> 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.<\/p>\n

And it’s been disappointing me ever since.<\/p>\n

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<\/a>, published this afternoon, that are the most disappointing. Beneath a photo of John Edwards, Ben Smith writes:<\/p>\n

How much, you ask does it cost to look like that?<\/p>\n

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….<\/p>\n

Edwards’ campaign also spent money at two spas: Designworks Salon in Dubuque, and Pink Sapphire in Manchester.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

C’mon, Politico. Haircuts<\/i>? We’re already at the stage at which candidates’ haircuts are worth covering? <\/p>\n

I suppose one could note that Laura Bush recently got a $700 haircut<\/a>, 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.<\/p>\n

At least, they shouldn’t be.
\n
\nAnd speaking of The Politico, the online mag ran an item<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

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<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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<\/i> 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<\/i> and then — bam! — his story becomes the lede item on the site further implying there’s something here.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Dear Politico, <\/p>\n

Please improve. Quickly.<\/p>\n

Sincerely,
\nThe Carpetbagger Report<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10530"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10530\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}