The Politics Thread

[Wendy]

I feel like Queen's "Another One Bites The Dust" should be the theme/anthem of this wreck of an administration.

Edited February 28, 2018 by Wendy

[JaneAusten]

I want to know how people like Maggie Haberman are any better than Michael Wolff who they all complain about. She's no better than he is. Her entire reporting on the white house is fluffing up Jared and Ivanka and making excuses for everything that goes on. At least Wolff's stuff seemed more accurate than her fluff.

[dragonflies]

Why does this NOT surprise me lol

 

 

[Juliajms]

When the lying could send you to prison.

[Vee]

 

She's done some good work, but she's also completely amoral about keeping her access. I think she still mostly knows they're all crooks and awful on some level, but her access depends on placating them and defending their stories. She will push any PR line, like this claim that Hicks always meant to leave (after five months) to keep her conduit to the WH and then, like all key staff at the Times, Haberman will passive-aggressively attack any critics. She also was very upset about Wolff because let's face it - he scooped her and her upcoming book on Trump. IMO her relationship with Trump and his administration is now partly Stockholm Syndrome - she has gone partially native. She sympathizes with too many of them.

She still gets roasted during her passionate defenses over her stories, so that's good. IIRC her father is old school NY journalism and she used to work for one of the gossip rags, she got grandfathered in. Because of her family I think she is entirely too close to the city's society set and therefore Trump to have enough objectivity and awareness of how glib she really comes off.

Edited February 28, 2018 by Vee

[Vee]

This is how she treated a very mild commentary from Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo:

 

 

Meanwhile, in The Adventures of Young Jared:

 

 

Edited February 28, 2018 by Vee

[Vee]

Topical:

 

 

[Vee]

[Vee]

Bye bye:

 

 

[DramatistDreamer]

I'm just so sick of all of these damn people in this lousy administration.

[Vee]

But wait - there's more.

 

 

[Vee]

[DramatistDreamer]

Don't forget about sleepy, or (is that now greedy?), Ben Carson.

 

 

[Vee]

The day never ends:

 

 

[DRW50]

The New York Times seems to be eternally confused about what they are supposed to be (or as some say, they just seem more confused because they are now called out by social media, which wasn't an issue until the last 5 or so years). I was reading this about their editorial page editor, James Bennet, who has gotten most of the attention for bumbles and stumbles this year. 

 

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/02/new-york-times-op-ed-crisis-james-bennet

 

The most recent (aside from Bret Stephens repeatedly Twitter bitching about people who criticize his cool kid friends at the paper...) flap involves the Times briefly hiring a woman with ties to a white supremacist.

 

https://splinternews.com/the-new-york-times-just-hired-and-maybe-unhired-a-na-1822978000

 

 

A lot of Republicans benefited from it mostly being a good year for the party. They also nominated a flawed Democrat to run against him, and I think the Democrats were hobbled by him dropping out and then coming back in.

 

Media darling Marco has also benefited from a decade of gushing press. He was supposed to their hero. He was supposed to reach young people because he listened to Tupac. He was supposed to bring in more Hispanic voters. They were still gushing over him after he made half-hearted, obviously false promises at the town hall - oh he stood up so well to criticism, and so on.

 

They'll never fully give up on him, just as they never will on other forever friends (like McCain, Romney, "T-Paw," etc.) because it means they will lose face.