While I disagree with Amy Argetsinger’s response to the Gannon question- they should have made it a bigger story and made it easier for people to understand, because cronies in the press corps throwing softballs is far more of a threat to the way our country runs than two idiots who make it into a WH dinner- I don’t really think it is fair to pile on her (not that DougJ was) or single her out for criticism. After all, Amy Argetsinger is not an investigative journalist- she is a writer for the Style section and co-author of the Reliable Source column, which is a gossip/around-the-town/politicians as celebrity kind of thing.
Not that DougJ’s spoof questions weren’t funny in their own right, because they were, but the problem is not that Amy Argetsinger is talking about the dinner crashers, because that is what she is PAID to do- that is her beat. Mocking Amy for covering the Salahi stuff is like mocking Robin Givhan for discussing the Michelle Obama’s arms. At any rate, the real problem is not Amy Argetsinger and Roxanne Roberts, but that we have so many other alleged “journalists” stepping all over Amy and Roxanne’s turf. If I were them, I’d be pissed.
Full disclosure- I’ve had several email conversations with Amy, and she is a pleasant person as far as I can tell.
soonergrunt
This.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
To paraphrase Hunter S Thompson:
When the going gets
weirdgossipy, theweirdgossipy turn pro.MikeJ
Gannon wasn’t just a gate crasher. He was a male prostitute who was cleared by the White House, given more access than Argetsinger has, and was called on to ask questions in a press conference.
Whose dick *did* you have to suck to get into the Bush WH, and why does Argetsinger not think that a story?
Ash Can
Fair enough, but just singling out her “hmmm” remark, style writer or not, the fact that she didn’t accompany it with the sarcastic rejoinder it was begging for left both it and her open to ridicule. She could very well have been thinking at that moment, “Gee, this guy’s a jerk,” and have made the snap decision that going on to mock him wasn’t a good idea. However, her non-answer, as it stood, left the impression of “Gee, I dunno.” And that made me LOL.
bayville
It’s like ripping on Liz Smith for dispensing gossip. But Ed O’Keefe on the other hand…
Also in Defense Of Amy, she’s kinda cute.
gbear
Oooh, I’m trying hard not to do an encore of Commrade Reproductive Vigor’s comment in the Eric Erickson thread.
You do seem to know a great many pleasant and likeable people.
I will say that I like Roxanne Roberts on Wait Wait. She sounds like a pleasant and likeable person too. Funny also. And she also as informed about what’s really happeing in the news as any of the reporters who are covering the white house on a daily basis.
Keith G
Hmmm
Corey
something something Georgetown cocktail party
srv
Did you ask her out?
Mike Kay
Is she a steeler fan?
CT Voter
And this is different from regular coverage how?
schrodinger's cat
Sorry to butt-in. I have a technical question what would be the best way to add usb ports to my laptop (dell-inspiron), it has only two usb ports of which one is not working at all and the second is a bit temperamental. Do usb ports on pc card work well?
Thanks
Mike Kay
@bayville:
Oh brother. If jane hamsher wasn’t cute she’d be a ridiculous ex-hollywood producer screaming obama is a corporatist. Oh wait…
Civilian Canape Corps
OK – Don’t pile on Amy. Can we make fun of this sock puppet instead?
The president could have been assassinated. And had that happened, the Office of the White House Social Secretary would have been as culpable as the Secret Service. – Clutches Pearls.
http://wonkette.com/413031/sally-quinn-speaking-for-america-as-usual
Notorious P.A.T.
I agree, Doug’s questions were funny )
Violet
@Mike Kay:
Does she like small, sweet rescue dogs and hulking white cats?
TR
I’m confused as to why she thinks the Jeff Gannon story was just “inside baseball” that the rest of the country wouldn’t find interesting.
Seriously? A former gay porn star with salacious images all across the internet adopts a fake persona as a reporter, gets into White House briefings, and plays verbal patty-cake with the President of the United States? That’s not interesting?
The public gets interested in what the public is told about. Period.
schrodinger's cat
@Violet:
Are you calling Tunch fat? Also, you forgot to mention the tropical fish.
Violet
@schrodinger’s cat:
Can you use a hub/splitter on the good/iffy one? Something like this. Not recommending that specific one – just came up on a search. I use something like that to add ports on my laptop. Works fine. Picked it up at some computer mega-store for under $10.
Corner Stone
@bayville:
Definitions of cute are kind of like musical tastes I guess. And Lord knows I would never bag on someone else’s musical favorites, but if Amy is one of the two people pictured there…then…what time is the Orange Bowl on tonight?
Violet
@schrodinger’s cat:
Never! He just projects size.
Svensker
Yeah, well, maybe. However, AMY seems to think she is covering one of the most important stories, evah, and that it is critical to the security of the U.S. and the POTUS. You may think of her as just a silly gossip columnist, but she doesn’t see herself that way. Meh. Feh.
Did I just imagine there used to be grownups in government, in the arts, in journalism, in business?
(Get off my lawn. Grrrrrrrrr.)
Mike Kay
I’ve seen her on tee vee — tucker carlson used to have her on all the time — and her head literally rattles when she nods.
at first I thought it was some loose, noisy jewelry, but no, it turned out to be her skull.
Corner Stone
@schrodinger’s cat: I think Violet was actually going for something like this:
Tunch Smash!
Violet
@schrodinger’s cat:
I thought the fish were still on the wish list. That could be negotiated.
schrodinger's cat
@Violet: I have the one that Amazon sells and it does not work very well.
Mike Kay
@TR:
Can you imagine if it was Clinton!
There would have been breathless around the clock coverage and TWO congressional investigations, in addition to a Special prosecutor — “what did the president blow, and when did he blow it”
Broder and Sally would have been calling for resignations!!!!!11!!1!!1!
Violet
@Corner Stone:
Hee. Maybe John could dye Tunch green, just to complete the effect.
Violet
@schrodinger’s cat:
Bummer. It’s not still under warranty, is it? Might be worth trying another USB hub, just in case that’s part of the problem. They’re cheap.
Corner Stone
@Violet: Yeah, the color’s off but it was the closest thing I could find to scale.
schrodinger's cat
@Violet: No, the laptop is four years old, I just replaced the battery and everything else works well and I have it configured with all the software I need and don’t want to upgrade to a new one just yet.
Mike Kay
Richard Cohen has a new column saying Stephen Colbert AND DougJ are unfunny.
schrodinger's cat
@Corner Stone: Can you imagine what Tunch’s avatar on Pandora would be like?
schrodinger's cat
@Violet:
and authoriteh!
srv
@schrodinger’s cat: Yeah, they’ll work. Just check the amazon and cnet reviews, some are better than others.
Batocchio
Exactly. Similarly, Givhan’s piece on Hilary Clinton’s cleavage was stupid fluff – but it was a Style fashion piece. The real problem was that supposedly serious journalists treated it as the most important news of the day. “Journalists” in the Village mindset are bad sports color commentators (they generally can’t even do accurate play by play) and bad gossip columnists.
bayville
@Corner Stone:
But she smells good too.
Beauty comes in all shapes and sizes.
norbizness
I remember that I was doing an “Ask the President” re-mix when Gannon’s first embarrassing softballs broke on the scene. I remember leaving his question in verbatim, followed only by an editorial “Who the fuck is this guy? Several days later, the internet answered.
Batocchio
@schrodinger’s cat:
I’m thinking a giant cat Buddha, but more foul-tempered.
Colette
@Violet:
St. Patrick’s Day is not far off. I would love to see Green Tunch with a green beer. In fact, I think there’s a beer named after the ferocious feline.
Chuck Butcher
Amy writes in the Style section so … since it’s not her beat she needn’t get this? John, I beat nails for a living and you sure don’t write for a major paper. I don’t propose that she be strapped down and water boarded for her miss but to write it off as Style is as much of a miss. I’d say this goes to the point of who these folks are and what we can expect to get from them – as a whole – and why we get it.
John S.
Much like your retort about Erick Erickson, it seems that you have trouble being critical of people you “personally” like, regardless of the blisteringly stupid shit they say or do.
That seems to be the common beltway response, too.
“Oh I don’t think it’s fair to criticize Juan Williams for his latest tirade against Obama…I know him for years, and he’s a really swell guy.”
Corner Stone
@John S.:
Sounds like you’re saying you’re jealous you were never invited to sup quail with Karl Rove.
Ailuridae
An update on Bush-Lite versus Bush-with-a-tan:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100101/ap_on_bi_ge/us_labor_the_enforcer
No difference at all from Bush’s policies! This isn’t the change I voted for! Grayson in 2012!
TR
@norbizness:
The best part is that the question he asked looks even dumber today.
You’re right, Jeff. The economy was fine and Social Security really should have been privatized in retrospect.
The Populist
Another case in point as to why the RIGHT more closely resemble their heroes, the Nazis.
Jeff Gannon and many others were given credentials even though NONE were journalists. Sure, Obama has given creds to Ed Schultz and some bloggers but so did Bush. When you have to deny credentials to people you don’t like (anybody on MSNBC according to Dana Perino) and then you pad your journalist pool with fakes while also putting partisans in charge of PBS you are a fucking Nazi.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Ailuridae:
When refinery explosions are outlawed, only outlaws will have refinery explosions.
yoodow
@schrodinger’s cat: If you connect a USB hub to your unreliable USB port, you are going to create multiple unreliable USB ports. You would be better off getting your USB ports fixed on your laptop.
The Populist
@Ailuridae:
“No difference at all from Bush’s policies! This isn’t the change I voted for! Grayson in 2012!”
Hells yeah!
Hot Air
OT – Is this a sister site you’ve been keeping in the closet? Come on, fess up!
http://hotair.com/archives/2010/01/04/science-actually-you-can-beat-sense-into-your-kids/
Toxic Hot Air
Yecch!!! Michelle Malkin is a contributor. Great – now I have to sterilize my laptop.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@The Populist:
Whoa, dude. Back the truck up. Next week is when we compare teh Right here in the US with the Nazis. This is the first week of the new month, which means [flip, flip, checks schedule] we are doing Communism and the living dead. Then in week three we compare them with Al Queda and in week four we round off the month by comparing them with the Confederate States of America, global pandemics, English food, people who abuse animals, and the Fire Nation from Avatar, the Last Air Bender.
Try to stick to the script, huh?
ExcuseMeExcuseMe
Jeff Gannon was notable for another reason; unless the SS was royally screwing up the guest lists, there were a number of times that Gannon entered the White House on one day and wasn’t recorded as leaving until the following day.
At the time, I believe it was explained as sloppy guest entry logs.
kommrade reproductive vigor
I was going to snark on your “pleasant person” comment but then I remembered you’ve been guzzling cold meds.
licensed to kill time
@ExcuseMeExcuseMe:
Hmmmm………
Libby
Just driving by and no time to read the threads so forgive me if it’s been said, but I’ve been thinking a lot about Jeff Gannon since the non-stop partycrashergate mediafest started.
The story isn’t about his sneaking into the gaggle as a real reporter. IIRC, the visitor logs showed dozens of discrepancies on his visits to the White House. Such as showing him coming in but never showing him leaving. THAT is the story I wanted to see covered then and would still be really interested in seeing covered now. I have no interest in party crashers whatsoever. Haven’t read a thing about the Salahis outside of tweets since the second day.
Libby
Gah. I see ExcuseMe is already on this. A little front page mention here might light a fire under that storyline. Hint…
General Winfield Stuck
Sally Quinn, the DC socialite expert is on the teevee punditizing for the SS Chief to resign and her colleague Amy “DC style guru” is evaluating security threats against the President. Fanfuckingtastic!!
My head hurts.
soonergrunt
@schrodinger’s cat:
I loved this card:
Rosewill 600 PCMCIA USB card
Note–it will not power an external device such as a bus-powered hard drive.
For that, you might want:
This card assuming that one of your USB ports still works–from which it would draw the extra power to run a bus-powered device such as a small portable hard drive.
John Cole
Oh for christ sakes.
Fine. Amy Argetsinger is a hack. One of the worst writers ever. Because of her shoddy work writing a gossip column in the style pages of the Washington Post, this country is going down the shitter.
Do you all understand how stupid you sound? What next? Is it Mitch Albom’s fault that the banksters got away with murder?
onceler
Well I for one am all in favor of everyone, everywhere, being reminded of the Jeff Gannon / James Guckert story really, really often. Not just that a fake reporter got into the Press Corps, but that Bush was familiar with him, that he did gay porn, and that he was found to have *spent nights at the Bush White House*. And not just once! Who was he there visiting? How this could happen and NO ONE could even ask about it just goes to show that conservatives and liberals are not even playing the same game here.
The Gannon/Guckert story on its own would probably be enough to destroy Barack Obama’s presidency. A male prostitute stayed overnight at the White House multiple times? The end for Obama. The pundit class would simply never stop talking about it. But not only did this happen and not ruin Bush – he was never even asked about it except for the most basic aspects of how Gannon became part of the press corps, and even that was softball-city.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@onceler:
The rules were different back then:
Anything goes in.
Anything goes out!
Fish, bananas, old pyjamas,
Mutton! Beef! and Trout!
Anything goes in …
Ailuridae
@John Cole:
John, “we all” don’t sound like anything. Calm down.
I
soonergrunt
@soonergrunt: Note that the second card only pulls power from the USB on your computer. The data is handled by the card itself, and the power is only necessary for un-powered devices. Thumb drives should be fine without.
Of course, if there is no power on the USB on your computer, you’re pretty much hosed on this one.
General Winfield Stuck
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
Anything goes in
Jack Abramoff goes out
It needed a proper ending:)
JMC in the ATL
@licensed to kill time: It would be irresponsible not to speculate…
Andy K
@John Cole:
I won’t go as far as blaming Argetsinger personally, but when the WaPo- presumably the second most important/credible newspaper in the country- stoops to bringing gossip column material to the front page for weeks on end, they dumb down the national political discourse in the race to the lowest common denominator.
As for Albom…I wish everyone had read his sports columns before he wrote Tuesdays With Morrie. He’s free of blame for anything but being unreadable now.
gbear
@kommrade reproductive vigor:
I did it for you at comment #6. Sorry for spelling your name wrong.
General Winfield Stuck
Today’s the day the news died.
Bye Bye, miss American Pie
jeffreyw
French toast with sausages and eggs over easy–too breakfasty for dinner?
General Winfield Stuck
That was on ACORN and their prostitution ring.
General Winfield Stuck
@jeffreyw: LOL
jeffreyw
@General Winfield Stuck: I take that as a “maybe”?
If they're agin it, I'm all 4 it
OT – Conservatives are reaching for the smelling salts over Avatar – funny thing is nobody makes mention of the fact that the studio that funded and released AVATAR is right-winger Rupert Murdoch’s 20th Century Fox.
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-bigpicture5-2010jan05,0,5932910.story
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@General Winfield Stuck:
We gave a levy to Chevy but the Chevy was dry
General Winfield Stuck
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
I am nigh to breaking out in populist song. Won’t take much more — though my dog wants to take me out for a walk.
geg6
@Andy K:
This.
However, I also must agree with all those who have pointed out that Ms. Argetsinger, the gossip columnist, seems to have missed out on the juiciest of all gossip items she could have ever gotten. That would be the Village social implications of having gay porn stars and prostitutes visiting the White House for overnights. Apparently, Ms. Argetsinger and Ms. Quinn don’t see anything gossip worthy in that though.
JGabriel
John Cole:
{Shakes fist at the sky}
Damn you, Morrie!
.
licensed to kill time
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
She gave a Levi to the Bristol but the Levi wern’t dry
That’ll be the day lil Tripp cry
(too personal?)
Violet
@jeffreyw:
Nothing is too breakfasty for dinner. Breakfast for dinner is a fine institution.
geg6
@Violet:
Groan. Don’t get me started. My mom used to do this once a week when I was a kid. That was always the day I skipped dinner. Breakfast food is disgusting enough in the morning. Why must I be subjected to it at dinner?
Can’t understand this AT ALL. It’s just wrong.
/rant
Obviously, I am not a breakfast person. LOL!
Corner Stone
@Ailuridae: He’s mad people are picking on his ladyfriend.
Cole and Amy, sitting in a tree…
Violet
@geg6:
Breakfast for dinner nights would always be my favorite dinner. When traveling, I’ve ordered omelets or pancakes or waffles at an IHOP (or similar place) for dinner. I love breakfast food. I especially love bacon. I just couldn’t be Muslim or Jewish. Do not get between me and the pig.
Notorious P.A.T.
Absolutely. Good people can do bad things.
Ash Can
@jeffreyw: I’m with Violet. I see nothing wrong at all with breakfast for dinner. Likewise, I see nothing wrong with dinner for breakfast. A square meal is a square meal.
Notorious P.A.T.
@JGabriel:
LOL
Corner Stone
@Violet:
Nothing is better for dinner than pancakes, over easy fried eggs and some sausage patties (or bacon as you prefer), once in a blue moon.
And just let them haters hate.
Violet
@Corner Stone:
B-L-O-G(-G)-I-N-G.
licensed to kill time
@Ash Can:
Heck, I’m getting ready to go home and have lunch for dinner. I’m with you, Ash Can – food is food whenever you eat it or whatever you call it.
Mangia, mangia tutti!
geg6
@Violet:
And here is where we can come together, hold hands, and sing Kubaya.
Bacon is the perfect food. Perfectly delicious, that is. And whatever it comes with automatically becomes better food simply by being served with bacon. However, I prefer my bacon to be served with lettuce and tomato; spinach, mushrooms, and eggs; or filet mignon. You can have the omelets and pancakes. ;-)
That said, has anyone else read this interview with Paul Volcker?
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_02/b4162011026995.htm
I am especially interested in what he says about Glass-Steagall
Violet
@geg6:
Kumbaya! Bacon is excellent wherever and whenever and with whatever. I used some top quality applewood smoked bacon to make my spicy black eyed peas on New Years Day. Very nice. I’m a big fan of bacon wrapped shrimp or scallops. Seriously, I could never be Jewish. I think I hit the non-kosher trifecta with those two!
John S.
Calm yourself down, John.
Look, I obviously struck a nerve there, but I think it’s fair to say that you have a track record of letting your personal feelings for people get in the way of your objectivity. Hell, we all have that problem to some extent — it’s part of the human condition.
I just wanted to point out how stupid you were sounding in defense of someone that was being, well, pretty stupid. I’m not trying to “pile on” her, but if I were in her shoes, I would be pretty fucking embarrassed. Then again, my capacity for shame probably precludes me from being a journamilist.
jeffreyw
@Violet:
We agree, then.
Perry Como
Aww, John has a crush!
bago
By gleaming the cube I have determined that there are two threads at work here.
Thread 1:
Gossip Girl writes about Gossip — News at 11
Thread 2:
Seriously? Gossip Girl column gets talked about more than torture? Really?
Brian Griffin
@geg6: “seems to have missed out on the juiciest of all gossip items”
I honestly think it’s perhaps because some stories are so juicy that the resulting torrent would flood you right out of the room.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@geg6:
I heart me some Volker, but some of the things he says in that interview about the political system are just bullshit [note: I’ve added BW and PV tags to clarify who is speaking in the quote below]:
Now I’ll cut PV some slack – he is a very old man now and the political and ideological situation today is different from when he was at the Fed in ways which are subtle and yet highly significant, so I can understand why he just doesn’t get it. Obama has squandered much of his 1st year attempting to offer olive branches to the other side and gotten nothing in return but scorched earth political warfare and borderline treason and sedition for his troubles. PV’s bringing a heavy dose of false equivalence to the table here.
Violet
@jeffreyw:
Indeed! Sadly, I’ll be having fish and brown rice for dinner with some kind of steamed vegetable. Trying to get back in some kind of shape after the holiday food binge.
I made a creme anglaise two nights ago to go with the chocolate raspberry bread pudding I had made the night before. Seriously, I’ve got to get the eating under control.
General Winfield Stuck
I have to give Chris Mathews credit when it’s due, he is bitch slapping Buchanan;s “Obama not a war president” horseshit, and also handing some manic progressive his smarmy ass for blathering Obama doesn’t have strong beliefs. You go Tweety!!
gex
@John Cole: Frankly, I blame the artist behind the Cathy comic.
General Winfield Stuck
@jeffreyw:
Last night I had Turkey Sausage around midnight, and washed it down with 8 mini Mars Bars and a cup of coffee. I’m an Omnivore any time, day or night. So it’s a thumbs up on yer breakfadinner.
gex
@geg6: There is a bar in Minneapolis that has all you can eat bacon night on Wednesdays. Where other bars will hand out baskets of popcorn, they hand out baskets of bacon. I have yet to go, as I am worried about what I will do. I am not yet ready to know exactly how much bacon I can eat at one time.
jeffreyw
@Violet: You gotta get a camera.
freelancer
@gex:
That sounds like a class-action lawsuit waiting to happen.
media browski
Argetsinger is always high on the bland “we try real hard” defense of the worst parts of the Post’s coverage. Many attempts to even get her to *admit* a mistake was made meet with the proclamation (re little debbie for instance) that Amy knows her and thinks she’s doing the best she can.
Full disclosure: I dated her and found her insipid, unimaginative and dull. Seriously, the fact she writes for the Post was at first sexy, then rapidly distressing as I discovered what a dim bulb she is.
General Winfield Stuck
Meanwhile, back at the news ranch:
Bachmann No Longer Scared of Census
And
in other news, if I say it is.
From our useless Planets File
I am doing my part to up the game
What are YOU prepared to do~! too?
Violet
@gex:
I would be in heaven. All you can eat bacon? Genius!
@jeffreyw:
I’ve got one, but I don’t usually take pictures of my food.
schrodinger's cat
@Violet: Wow that sounds delicious. I love to cook but have no patience for baking.
jeffreyw
@Violet: [pouts]
liberty60
Speaking of alleged journalists, I read in the LA Times today a column by Mrs. Goldberg’s son, Jonah-
money quote:
“As I started to my veal-pen seat in steerage, I saw the faces of the preboarded aristocrats in business class. But before I could glare at them with proletarian rage and envy, I heard a loud bang and felt a sharp pain on the top of my head…”
Yeah- Jonah is seething with “proletarian rage”. He’s a reglar Murkin now. Also Jesus.
jwb
@gex: “I am not yet ready to know exactly how much bacon I can eat at one time.”
Who is?
Violet
@schrodinger’s cat:
Oh, I love to bake! I just try not to eat too many sweets so don’t do it that often. I was using up old bread when I made the bread pudding. Then it needed a sauce the next night, so did the creme anglaise. I love to cook.
jeffreyw: LOL! Okay, okay. The next time I make something I’ll try to remember to take a photo. I’ve just got a cheap point-and-shoot digital, so the photos wouldn’t be anything special. I am always amazed at the quality of photos I see on food blogs.
Chuck Butcher
This thread wound me up enough to see if I could start a war with some unserious Oregonians. Seriously, if W VA can produce a BJ…
The Populist
@If they’re agin it, I’m all 4 it:
The Fox TV network and films studio aren’t as conservative as their boss and his cronies at FNC.
Outside of Passion Of The Christ, I can’t think of one Conservative wet dream that has succeeded at the B.O.
AhabTRuler
@General Winfield Stuck: and an iron supplement?
ETA: New, with less confusion.
General Winfield Stuck
@AhabTRuler:
wut?
AhabTRuler
@General Winfield Stuck: Weren’t we talking about iron cookware and supplements recently?
General Winfield Stuck
@AhabTRuler:
Well yes, I don’t cook with an iron skillet but do take a daily iron supplement in the morn with some ether vit c, and on occasion eat turkey sausage at midnight. Though actually, I bought those to make dog treats, but thought Charlie ought to share is all. I guess I don’t get your point, if one was meant.
asiangrrlMN
@jeffreyw: That looks really good. However, as I am still in Taiwan, I am not jealous. As for breakfast for dinner, go for it! I usually don’t eat breakfast myself, but I do like breakfast food.
Except, and here’s where I get thrown out of the BJ community: bacon. I no like.
As for Amy, I didn’t realize that she was the Style writer. Then, ok, whatever. She can write about the crashers all she wants, but methinks she takes them a bit too seriously in order to make herself feel better about the fact that she is writing this shit.
AhabTRuler
I know those words, but that doesn’t make sense!
asiangrrlMN
@AhabTRuler: I plead the fifth.
Corner Stone
@asiangrrlMN:
***SPUTTER***
J. Michael Neal
@geg6:
He says roughly what I’ve been getting slagged for saying around here for months: Glass-Steagall just wasn’t much of a factor in the crisis. The important distinction wasn’t between commercial banks and investment banks, and there are some pretty good reasons why they should overlap. The problem was the cross-over between investment banks and non-banking activities such as active trading and prop desks on the other. This was exacerbated by the connection between the types of banks, but that wasn’t the origin of the problem. The entire investment banking world collapsing would produce a crisis even if it didn’t spread to the commercial banks.
We need to get banking separated from non-banking functions to a large degree. People need to be aware, though, that the split between them that existed until recently wasn’t a function of regulation. It existed because the existence of the major investment banks as partnerships rather than corporations produced a completely different risk appetite. When they sold off the shares to the public, that all changed. That wasn’t produced by choices in Washington, just New York.
It’s also a lot harder to separate investment banking from trading than it might sound. The entire nature of investment banking is that you might end up with positions you didn’t really want, and you have risks you need to hedge. So, you can’t simply prevent them from engaging in those kinds of activities. It needs to be more along the lines of capital requirements and constant monitoring. I wouldn’t want to be the guy who had to write the regs.
fourmorewars
Sorry if this repeats anyone else’s thoughts, but I haven’t delved into the comments yet.
But isn’t Mr. Cole’s pointing out that she covers the style beat, or whatever, rendered moot the second she decided she was perfectly competent to weigh in on the Gannon episode and its relative importance? DougJ didn’t hold a gun to her head, did he? She could’ve perfectly well plead ignorance, but there she went, full steam ahead…and, quite frankly, someone who says something as horrifically stupid as what she said should never draw a paycheck for touching a keyboard for the rest of her life:
“A guy of dubious credentials getting into the press corps is a story—and it WAS a story, just not as big a story as the Salahis, which I’d argue is both in proportion to their proximity to the president (the Salahis got a whole lot closer)… ”
She thought the Gannon controversy was about whether or not he could harm the President???!?!?
Oh, and p.s., the previous question about the relative importance, good God thank you for that, it and her response are priceless.
Yutsano
@asiangrrlMN:
I want a divorce.
Actually I can understand this. My SIL doesn’t care for it either, although I think cured pork belly in all its iterations are simply fantastic. But most stuff you get in restaurants is crap.