I wrote about a dominant figure at the end of an era https://t.co/9VFhXD8pHp
— Ben Smith (@benyt) November 9, 2020
To be honest, were *I* Maggie Haberman, I’d have been a lot more suspicious of ‘(No Longer) #BuzzfeedBen’, the man Dean Baquet hastily hired in the wake of Smith’s much-circulated hit piece on… Dean Baquet. But it seems they’re old friends, fellow miscreants in the newsbeat trenches, so…
Of course, Haberman — and her NYTimes bosses — couldn’t resist what must’ve seemed like a victory lap! But when you read the piece, well… those sneaky barbs:
… That was the beginning of the end of one of the most astonishing runs in the history of American journalism. Ms. Haberman has been, for the last four years, the source of a remarkably large share of what we know about Donald Trump and his White House, from the Mueller investigation to his personal battle with the coronavirus to his refusal to accept defeat. She’s done more than a story a day, on average, and stories with her byline have accounted for hundreds of millions of page views this year alone. That’s more than anyone else at The Times…
Politics used to be covered as a kind of a sport, but it doesn’t feel like that anymore. (John King of CNN was jeered for calling vote counting “fun” on election night.) And despite the television glamour and lucrative book contracts that flooded in for reporters in the Trump era, the real work of reporting is painstaking and exhausting: getting people, one by one, to tell you things they should not, and then telling your readers about them.
Ms. Haberman was particularly well-suited for this journalistic moment because of her sheer relentlessness and hunger, and her lack of smug self-satisfaction. She seems to need to prove herself every day. She texts while she drives, talks while she eats, parents while she reports, tweets and regrets it, doomscrolls. She hates Twitter so much she stepped back from the platform in 2018 and wrote an Op-Ed about it, and then started tweeting again. (Relatable!)…
… I learned to report from Maggie — and to fear her — in City Hall in New York, where she was a reporter for The New York Post, and where she first covered Donald Trump. When I arrived in 2001, Ms. Haberman cut a striking figure there: She wore a leather jacket and smoked cigarettes on the building’s iconic front steps, chatting with the cops.
But she did her real work in Room 4a, in the basement, where the junior reporters for the tabloids and assorted other misfits like me were relegated, downstairs from the legendary main press room, Room 9. Room 4a was a cluttered office with mismatched desks and, once, a squirrel. I sat facing her and every morning watched her routine, which was terrifying. First, she picked up the competing newspaper, The Daily News, and leafed through for stories she wished she’d broken, deducing who had been the source of each one. Then, she called the sources — she already knew them well, of course — and chatted in a friendly way, before telling them she felt genuinely betrayed that they hadn’t gone to her, that she was worried she’d be in trouble with her boss for getting beaten and, honestly, that she was incredibly angry at them…
She’s often the only one able to reliably confirm facts in Mr. Trump’s chaotic and dishonest orbit. She was also under his skin: He attacked her personally on Twitter and sparred with her in person, but kept giving her interviews until last year. This Oct. 19 he tweeted directly to her about his confidence in winning the election and his “BOFFO” rallies…
Her most recent Bad Tweet came on Oct. 14, when she pasted in a quote from a New York Post article on photos and documents the paper said it had taken from the hard drive of a laptop purportedly belonging to Hunter Biden. She’d intended to raise an eyebrow at the mention of F.B.I. involvement — suggesting they hadn’t found the information serious and, perhaps, a hint as to where Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani got the information. Democrats interpreted her tweet as simply promoting a story whose origins were shadowy. “MAGA Haberman” trended. She sent a round of frantic texts to friends asking if she’d screwed up, and ultimately deleted the tweet.
Mr. Trump’s own Twitter account is mostly hidden behind warnings these days. The president, though, will go. And Ms. Haberman is not going to move to Washington to join the new White House team, she said, but instead anticipates covering some blend of the new administration and the enduring Trump orbit from New York. She hopes that she’ll break more news, and worries that she’ll lose her touch. “I’m dispensable,” she said, an assertion that Times editors would take issue with…
Smith’s piece was only released last night, and it’s already drawing unfavorable attention. Of course the NYTimes is not going to be swayed by a bunch of vulgar social media abuse, especially abuse directed at a ‘beloved’ legacy hire, but I can’t imagine this is going to help Haberman’s search for a new sinecure…
it is incredibly inappropriate for any media institution, almost all of which failed seriously in their coverage of Trump, to give itself a celebratory handjob in print now.
— James Palmer (@BeijingPalmer) November 9, 2020
For the record, ethical journalists treat their sources as human beings who should be protected and listened to, not people who can be manipulated into a scoop and bullied away from other journalists
— Zack Kopplin (@ZackKopplin) November 9, 2020
The NYT is a "legacy" publication in the same sense of the word as in the phrase "legacy admission" pic.twitter.com/VkXus8HAAn
— Zoomcock Archivist (@canderaid) November 9, 2020
The New York Times bears clear and direct responsibility for Trump’s election in 2016.
They have never even acknowledged their mistakes and the cost let alone atoned for them.
Now they’re heaping praise on themselves for having profited wildly from their failures.
— The Hoarse Whisperer (@TheRealHoarse) November 9, 2020
mapaghimagsik
Good riddance to bad trash
The Moar You Know
Oh, for five minutes with her, her damnable employer, and a wood chipper.
Gin & Tonic
Clyde was a good reporter and is a very good writer.
I devoutly hope that if/when Mags goes to the WH on Jan 21 and finds her access revoked, somebody from the press office says “sorry, who are you again?”
Jeffro
I’m sorry, her *lack* of smug self-satisfaction???
Oh that’s right, until trumpov leaves office, we’re still technically in Bizzaro-world
ugh
comrade scotts agenda of rage
Reason #1,473 why no one should subscribe to the FTFNYT. It’s a parallel reason why I stopped giving NPR money.
Slightly related, just saw this Twitter exchange between Bill Kristol and Ari Fucking Fleischer:
Elizabelle
She is such a hack.
And Baquet is a weak man who is the catspaw for the Sulzbergers. Got to keep those advertisers happy. It is the Sulzbergers who fomented the Clinton Derangement Syndrome and the emails, emails, emails.
Mary G
The “she was only joking” excuse for tweeting the Hunter Biden laptop story is a bald-faced lie right up there with one of Twitler’s demands for 20 more years of the presidency.
p.a.
@Gin & Tonic:
Not just her. Will be interested to see how Biden admin treats Fox & OANN.
Joe’s talking the “let’s all get along” talk, but he was there and saw the reaction as Obama frittered away resources early on assuming yertle MIGHT OCCASIONALLY put the US’s interests above his party’s. Hope he doesn’t really think Senate collegiality is going to give him any benefits.
Elizabelle
Haven’t read the article. Does it prominently mention that Mommy Haberman was associated with — or even one of — Trump’s PR flacks?
The Times is so goddamned dishonest.
BUT: they are smart enough to have some good columnists (Krugman, Michelle Goldberg, many more) to make the dreck (Brooks, Bret Bedbug Stephens) go down easier. They also put up op eds by outside writers that are about 70 plus % good, with the occasional horrifying one. (To be fair, the WaPost gives real estate to the occasional deplorable published WRT op eds.)
The FTF NY Times’ political desk is whack. A lot of the rest of the paper is very good.
I do not trust their political take on … anything. Just read around it.
rp
This is beyond bizarre. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a publication print a glowing profile of one of its current employees for the employee’s ongoing work for that publication. I could see a profile of a former employee who just came out with a best selling novel or something, but this is like something from the Onion or Clickhole. And that’s not even getting into the specific issues with Haberman’s reporting.
?BillinGlendaleCA
The New York Times is garbage.
Splitting Image
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
It’s a minor sin compared to the children in cages and the thousands of unnecessary Covid deaths, but fuck Trump for putting me in the same political faction as Bill Kristol.
Kay
@rp:
I think it’s weird too and it’s none of my business but I think media people spend too much time talking about media and themselves.
I feel like half of it is reporting and the other half is reporting on reporting. They should try to get that to 99/1. It’s called shop talk because it’s supposed to stay there.
germy
germy
Kay
I think the perfect NYTimes story is that Amy Chozick, the NY Times reporter who did a horrible job covering Clinton, then wrote a book about covering Clinton.
It wasn’t enough that she sold us shit once. She repackaged it and sold it again. It’s positively Trumpian.
Kay
Look at the date. They agreed ahead of time what the coverage would look like.
I think it’s weird that such a prestigious newspaper has a decades-long obsession with bashing Hillary Clinton. It’s handed down like an heirloom. Some of these people aren’t even old enough to have taken part in the 90’s Clinton bashing. They take the baton from the one prior.
Kathleen
@Mary G: Thinking exact same thing. She got caught.
germy
@Kay:
I’ve always had the impression that they see their biggest audience as each other. It’s like a big Algonquin Round Table, but without the wit or talent.
We’re just the uninteresting onlookers who are supposed to reach into our pockets to support their lifestyles.
NotMax
If it walks like a sycophant and talks like a sycophant….
ALurkSupreme
Not getting out of the boat.
Frankensteinbeck
Followed by a list of examples that it is still covered as a kind of a sport.
SiubhanDuinne
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
If anyone had told me just a few years ago that I’d be applauding and cheering Bill Kristol — Bill Fucking KRISTOL, FFS — I’d have thought they were delusional.
Hildebrand
Haberman propped up Trump and his ghastly progeny – and for that, she should be hounded out of civil society for the rest of her days. Time for some good, old-fashioned ostracism, a nice lovely bit of exile from which she never returns, as an example to other potential ‘journalists’ of her ilk.
Kay
@germy:
The Hunter Biden thing was 5 minutes of Hunter Biden followed by 2 weeks of media talking about their role in the Hunter Biden thing.
I just think they have to recede a little. The work is supposed to speak for itself, right?
I love newspapers and I buy them. I don’t buy them to read about their profession.
NotMax
@Frankensteinbeck
Are you intimating hog calling is not a sport?
//
Fair Economist
@rp:
They know she’s been carrying water for Trump since he announced, and they know Biden’s campaign knows. They’re trying to spread disinfo so they can claim she’s being mistreated when she gets the treatment she’s earned.
Barbara
I mostly don’t read Maggie Haberman. It’s obvious that she is a mouthpiece for whichever of Trump’s children she has remained close to, most likely Ivanka, along with whoever Ivanka signals should talk to Haberman.
What does interest me is that I have not heard hide nor hare from Bill Barr. He seems to have vanished from the public eye. The last news stories precede the election, not counting Gingrich’s unhinged demands that he start arresting people counting votes.
Frankensteinbeck
Hmmm. I’m not really close to the ground on this right now, but I’m seeing signs that the MAGA reaction to losing right now is disbelief. Not “How could that happen?!” or “We won’t accept it!” disbelief, but “Yeah, right. Trump won and you know it,” disbelief. Like, I guess they think that any day now everyone will see that this was just a counting mistake pushed by a biased media, and the final numbers will be for Trump?
Barbara
@Frankensteinbeck: It’s the narrative they seeded by trying to undermine the legitimacy of voting by mail. The undisputed difference in the popular vote makes no impact whatsoever. These are people who ardently believe that they deserve their disproportionate influence.
rp
@SiubhanDuinne: It’s interesting to think about Kristol, Frum, Rubin, Nichols, et al and their support for the war in Iraq. At the time, I hated those people (with good reason) for being bloodthirsty warmongers. They said they were spreading democracy, but I thought they were liars. I still think they all had catastrophically bad judgment about Iraq, but, in retrospect, I think it’s clear that at least a few of them truly thought they were the good guys and doing something positive for the people of Iraq. IOW, they might have been hopelessly naive, but they had principles. So perhaps Trump has been useful in sorting the people with whom we can have honest disagreements from the hateful partisans.
Frankensteinbeck
@Barbara:
They’ve got a Hell of a shock coming. I think this might go a roundabout path and become a good thing. By dragging out the denial phase, the anger phase is going to be less abrupt and intense. I never expected much violence, but this kind of wake-up should reduce it compared to a sudden loss.
hueyplong
Good lord. I expect a lot of fecal material during the interregnum, but Through The Looking Glass-like, fulsome praise of Maggie Fucking Haberman is just… man, I don’t know.
Guess we’ve got to be prepared for literally anything. My bingo card has Guilfoyle offering a lap dance to Carlson and I fully expect to be putting a stone on that square. In fact, the absence of news on that front will be taken as confirmation here.
Frankensteinbeck
@rp:
My impression, and I haven’t been following so closely that I would argue if someone said I’m wrong, is that the red line for Rubin was hypocrisy. The Republican Party used to be good at fig leaves of reasonableness. With Trump they turned flat 180s and fought vehemently for things they said they hated five minutes ago. That was what she couldn’t stand, and it made her reevaluate conservative positions – and find them wanting.
geg6
I have had a NYT subscription (free, through my University because I’m not paying for that fucking rag) for at least 20 years. I have yet to read a single article by this hack. And the fact that they are profiling her and lauding her in their own pages is just another reason not to read anything by their political desk. They are just horrible.
NotMax
@Frankensteinbeck
Introspection is not on their dance card.
;)
Ian
This is a crime, no?
geg6
@rp:
I totally agree. I don’t want just one party here. I would prefer for there to be a competition between honorable and adversarial parties. I eagerly await competing with them. Just as soon as the facists have given up.
hitless
@rp: Rubin and Boot in particular have embraced anti-racism in their writing which I think separates them somewhat from the rest of that group. That’s a step beyond just opposing a corrupt and incompetent administration. It’s interesting to see.
NotMax
@hueyplong
Live, on air. With a countdown clock preceding it.
//
Ken
Varies by state. It may even be mandatory in the Dakotas.
kindness
I’ve gone from despising Maggie H to not caring about her back to despising her again and now I’m back at I don’t give a shit about her because she is worthless to me. Maggie is rubbish and I won’t go spending my precious energy around her at all. Until she pisses me off again.
Kay
@Frankensteinbeck:
I went to an (outdoor) event yesterday with some fancier members of MAGA nation in attendance and they were completely resigned to losing.
hueyplong
@kindness: Maggie’s usefulness to anyone will be done when the best she can do is to write columns about the unfair suffering of criminal defendant Ivanka who by then will have separated from the mannequin.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
The NYT been doing a good job on COVID reporting, but damn if on politics they if don’t come across as in a life or death struggle with Politico over who is Tiger Beat on the Potomac.
NotMax
@Kay
“That’s the way the crooky crumbles.”
//
Wapiti
@rp: There were people pushing for the Iraq war because they were pro-Israel. When Trump backed the torch-carrying crowd who were shouting “Jews will not replace us”, some had to reevaluate their politics.
JPL
Qanon lady, Marjorie Greene was convinced to move to a safe district. She was going to run against Karen Handel in the primary. They thought that Handel had a better chance against McBath. Since Greene had an affair with two people at the same time, I assume it won’t be long before she finds a new play mate. My personal favorite would be Kevin McCarthy.
WaterGirl
@Barbara: Barr is probably busy shredding. He’s probably wily enough to realize the if he has his minions do the shredding, the materials might be hoarded for the new administration, or the shredding request might leak out.
Baud
@Frankensteinbeck:
I suppose they are in the same shock we were in in 2016. Hard to analogize since, unlike 2016, the winner was projected to win.
NotMax
@JPL
“That Louie Gohmert is so-o-o-o dreamy.”
//
/ewww
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@rp: Apparently the media is so addicted to dick sucking that they are issuing male reproductive organs to the women folk now.
Omnes Omnibus
@Barbara: I think Barr may be smart enough to have seen the writing on the wall and decided that he would go only so far but no further on Trump’s behalf. I don’t think it should save him though.
WaterGirl
@Ian: Hands free? Probably not illegal.
hueyplong
@Wapiti: Cville meant Rubin wouldn’t be going back. Guessing she’ll be on our team, irritating us about foreign affairs but otherwise mainly scolding GOP headliners for being inhuman.
Unless or until her heartthrob Mitt runs again.
Yutsano
@geg6:
The fascists won’t give up. The Orange Fart Cloud got them so close to enacting white hegemony. The next time around it’s going to be even more oppressive especially if they still have the Supreme Court. We’ll still have to stay vigilant. Unfortunately pretty much forever.
JPL
@NotMax: ooh.. A match made in shit sty. They could raise campaign cash, by mud wrestling.
JPL
@Yutsano: Maggie will then be on CNN defending them.
Barbara
@Omnes Omnibus: My overall take is that he wants a soft landing at a large law firm, which will be less likely if he goes all Newt Gingrich over the election results. Or at least he will have many fewer options, and he doesn’t want to represent cranks and deadenders. Looking for easy consulting relationships and BOD appointments.
Aleta
Reading the ‘Room 4a every morning’ story, I realize she always wanted to be used by sources. That’s how she defined her corner of the job from the beginning. Her work goes well with the NYT’s willingness to act as propaganda for Iraq war. Why did the NYT decide to do a promotion piece full of bias on their own journalist, a strange move? Just like her administration sources (incl. Ivanka and Jared’s team) she desperately needs a makeover to separate from her service providing propaganda for them. So the piece itself is produced as light, engaging distortion and evasion because that instead of apologies is what they do.
Sure Lurkalot
I canceled the NYT this summer after 25 years. I miss the Food section and Cooking app, the puzzles and the Sunday mag most, along with some decent op-ed writers, but not enough to respond to their very cheap offers. It was the cost too…it got up to $600 per year. I had to call every few months and threaten to quit to get some 4 or 8 week reprieve.
Frankensteinbeck
@Kay:
You provide an excellent view of the MAGA situation on the ground, thank you. I’m going to tentatively put the deniers in the ‘frothy tip of the wave’ category, like Twitter lefties.
WaterGirl
@hueyplong: Cville?
Omnes Omnibus
@Barbara: Yeah, I think we are more or less of the same mind here. I think he has already limited his options, but that is his problem not mine.
Yutsano
@WaterGirl: Charlottesville.
Gin & Tonic
@WaterGirl: Charlottesville.
Gin & Tonic
@Omnes Omnibus: Guy is 70. Why doesn’t he just sit on his porch and play with his grandkids? I’ll never understand this.
p.a.
@hitless:
Are they Jewish? Couldn’t ignore Charlottesville et al. Some others, apparently, can. “I’ll be safe…”
ETA: shouldn’t have skipped to end ?
mapaghimagsik
@Kay: Yeah, its these little lines that got crossed that emboldened Trumpistan to leap over them and realize there were no repercussions.
mrmoshpotato
I’d have more respect for the FTFNYT If they wrote a piece entitled “WWWWAAAAAHHHHHH! We won’t have Dump’s fat, orange, fascist ass to suck anymore!”
My reaction to that would be, “At least they were honest at the end. Fuck ’em!”
JPL
@Sure Lurkalot: The crossword can be purchased as a stand alone.
rp
@Wapiti: That’s too simplistic. Israel plays a role, but it’s not the deciding factor, especially since lots of pro-Israel, pro-Bibi types are Trump supporters.
mrmoshpotato
@Kay: Bastards.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Barbara: That, and I get the vibe from Barr he is part of some Imperial Presidency group, that’s a bit like the Neo-Cons with their Forever War agenda. Barr’s group merely seens Trump as a useless idiot they can exploit, they got some of their imperial presidency agenda done, now it’s time to bail .
NotMax
@Gin & Tonic
Can almost hear the bedtime stories.
“And the first two pigs were able to retire in wealth after suing their contractors for shoddy construction. The end.”
Omnes Omnibus
@Gin & Tonic: Some people have no other interior identity than their work.
WaterGirl
@Yutsano: Thank you! All I could come up with was Carville, and I couldn’t see any connection.
mrmoshpotato
“WWWWWAAAAAHHHH!!!! Stop spamming our bullshit “election fraud” hotline! We changed the number. Here’s the new one.”
The Trump trash mobster crime family are so, so very stupid.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@p.a.: Some factions of the GOP have been always racists (the No Nothings) and others have a intense dislike for racism (after all, black people’s money is just as green to the Corporatists)
pacem appellant
Never forget Judy Miller. Ceterum NYT delenda sunt.
pacem appellant
@JPL: I have books of crosswords edited by Will Shortz and I am told the crossword app is really good, but I like doing my xwords on printed on dead trees and marked with graphite.
Frankensteinbeck
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
The problem is, the racists provide 95% of the Republican votes. There is a Republican Party without the aristocrats. There is not one without the racists.
mrmoshpotato
@Yutsano:
A billion times this.
And remember the ONLY thing trash like Rick Wilson and the Lincoln Project hated about Dump was his stupid, loud, overtly racist/misogynist mouth.
geg6
@Yutsano:
Oh yes, in case I wasn’t clear, I never expect them to.
The Moar You Know
@Kay:
Talked to one yesterday at the guitar shop, no-talent asshole with a six thousand dollar Paul Reed Smith guitar, meeping hysterically about how everything is “going communist”. I upbraided him, saying America was the greatest nation on earth and we have always risen about our challenges to be the best, and we were going to get through “all this” and what the hell was his problem, didn’t he think America was the best?
I got an honest answer. Turns out they really don’t. Which fit in with what I already knew. Republicans love being losers. It’s where they can spew their disgusting claims of being victims WHILE OWNING EVERYTHING which is their favorite place to be in. Way better than being in charge and responsible for stuff.
JMG
@Kay: As a newspaper person for 30 years, you’re absolutely right. People care about the stories, they don’t care about how you got it, why you did it, or for that matter, you at all.
NotMax
@mrmoshpotato
1-888 LIES R US
:)
hueyplong
@WaterGirl: Cville = Charlottesville. Tipped off some UVA background there.
Lapassionara
@Baud: the difference is both Clinton and Obama accepted that Trump had won. Here Trump is contending that he won, and he is being aided and abetted by the likes of Graham and Cruz. I don’t know how we move forward when 40% of the country is delusional.
Baud
@The Moar You Know:
Excellent response.
Dmbeaster
@hitless: Boot was genuinely horrified to discover that the Dem talking points about GOP racism were true. He talked about this openly. Its too bad that he was blind for so long, but its a big leap to acknowledge this. And he was a major Iraq war turd.
Barbara
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: He is, essentially, a Dominionist. Don’t ask me why anyone would be so intent on having the equivalent of the Pope as a leader in our government, but this is what people I know who have worked with him tell me.
Kay
@The Moar You Know:
They were telling me the economy would go bad, which is what they always say when the Democrat wins.
We had a kind of funny thing though. I was watching the results really closely, like I do, and after the “blue mirage” in Ohio started to ebb I got nervous because it looked like Trump would stay the same in OH, which doesn’t bode well for PA. I was texting with a local Democrat at that time and she asked and I texted back “absolute disaster”, which she told everyone yesterday. Texting is dangerous for me because I text like…fleeting impressions :)
I scared her to death and I’m sorry for that.
geg6
OT, but it always is projection with these people:
https://www.politico.com/states/new-jersey/story/2020/11/09/man-featured-at-giuliani-press-conference-is-a-sex-offender-1335241
mad citizen
Haven’t been on twitter much to read the losers’ comments (and I don’t seek them out but they sneak in threads I want to read), but two anecdotal pieces of evidence from my local Next Door app my wife’s nephew’s instagram post is that they seem to be proud of “70 million votes and not one single city destroyed by riots” and “see you in court”. They still seem to be in their fantasy world. Apparently some Americans were shooting off celebratory fireworks Saturday night at the nearby reservoir which led to a political Next Door thread
Will be very interested in the outcome of the voter suppression robocalls from last Tuesday–Texas, Florida, other swing states.
Baud
@Lapassionara:
As with all things, one step at a time.
Kay
@JMG:
They already have a whole subset of “media criticism”. Isn’t that enough?
Baud
@The Moar You Know:
They’re mimicking in a perverse way what they see as the message of historically disenfranchised people fighting for equality.
sdhays
The boostering of Haberman reminds me of Brian Williams. Andy Lack at NBC decided that NBC had invested so much in making Brian Williams a media star, that they needed to keep giving him millions of dollars and time on television, regardless how many crazy lies he had told. Haberman’s the same. The FTFNYT has invested a lot in making Haberman “a name”, and now her contacts in the Very White House are soon going to be useless, they need to promote her for covering Biden. Or whatever else they’re going to find for her to do.
I wonder how the Biden White House will handle the media going forward. Will they show preference to the Washington Post, which has actually distinguished itself and quietly give Maggie the cold shoulder? Or will they try be nice?
Kay
@geg6:
The scariest part of Giuliani is not that he was a mayor but that he was a US Attorney.
Good Lord. NOT a lot of rigor there.
germy
Ben Carson tested positive for COVID-19 this morning.
He was at the election night party at the White House.
Miss Bianca
@Kay: Kind of like how most American theater reflects the concerns of middle-class white people like their audiences and becomes endlessly self-referential (how many more plays do we need about actors and theater, fer Crissakes?).
One of the reasons, I’m sure, that Hamilton made such a splash – it was actually *about* something! And didn’t put white people front and center in the casting!
Kay
@sdhays:
I suggest they be nice. Fighting with these people is dumb and a distraction. Obama would have been better served promoting his health care plan rather than attacking Fox. I couldn’t stand Gibbs. I thought his belligerence was counterproductive. It just doesn’t get you anywhere and people (I think) perceive it as insular- an insiders game.
germy
@sdhays:
Maybe they’ll send her on cletus safaris.
geg6
@germy:
Good. I’m happy every time one of these mother fuckers get it.
Baud
@mad citizen:
The cops did catch some domestic terrorists before they could do some harm.
hueyplong
@germy: The first, but not the last, of those. I had forgotten he exists.
geg6
@germy:
Heh. That would be the perfect thing. And what come down. Instead of sucking up to Jarvanka, she can spend her time interacting with the common clay of the Midwest…you know, morons. Very fitting.
Ken
@Kay: That was thirty years ago. Maybe Giuliani was more competent back then.
Which reminds me, anyone laying odds on whether Trump’s lawyers try to claim he’s incompetent to stand trial once the charges start dropping? Or whether his offspring start proceedings to snatch his assets on the same basis?
germy
@geg6:
Maybe he’ll order all new furniture for his hospital room.
Baud
@germy:
Heh.
Kay
@Miss Bianca:
It seems especially insane there, because the thing itself is about successfully creating an illusion. People want to be fooled. They show up specifically in the hopes they can suspend their disbelief. NOT knowing what’s going on backstage means it’s a success.
D Gardner
@geg6: Since they started hiding the bylines behind the link to the story, I play a game now where I try to discern by the headline if the story is likely from Mags or Peter Baker, another execrable POS on their staff.
patrick II
I would like to thank Pfizer for holding off the announcement of their 90% effective vaccine until after the election.
NotMax
@germy
Dear Secretary Carson,
Wear a mask. Practice distancing. Avoid gatherings.
It’s not brain surgery.
//
geg6
@D Gardner:
I just ignore the whole political desk. I read some opinion and lots of the cultural stuff. Forget the rest of it. It’s garbage.
Baud
@patrick II:
Who would have guessed Big Pharma would have more integrity than Comey?
PJ
@Kay: There are good reporters out there, who write about the stories, and not themselves. But too many reporters are enamored of themselves as public figures and celebrities. They love television appearances, podcasts, and, above all, Twitter, because, while they may reference current events or a story they worked on, above all, it’s about them.
I understand that in a world with no job security and, too often, scant financial recompense for solid journalistic skills, many journalists feel the need to build their “brand”, which must be, by necessity, much bigger than any and all of the stories they write, but it feeds and grows their egos, which impedes their ability to have a good perspective on the value of what they are reporting and how they are reporting it. The nature of social media like Twitter also means that the more active they are on it with worthless hot takes, the more they gain the esteem of their peers, which as we can see from this NYT profile of Haberman, also boosts their brand.
Haberman isn’t the worst example of this, but she does things like uncritically retweet the NY Post article spreading the disinformation about Hunter Biden in part because she thinks it will please her fellow journalists to dump on Bide, but also because she thinks it will please Trump.
I don’t think she actually likes Trump, but she needs him to like her at least enough to keep her access. Her reporting on Trump has implicitly supported his policies and behavior, because, to maintain that access, she refuses to write anything that might offend him, like reporting on his thousands of lies, his childishness, his narcissism, and the terrible damage he does. She needs access, because, in her mind, that gives her scoops (to be later published in a book, after the newsworthiness, and the ability for the public to act on the news, has passed), and scoops enhance her brand. AS A JOURNALIST, HER FUCKING JOB IS TO WRITE THE TRUTH ABOUT TRUMP, IN ALL OF HIS HORRIBLENESS, BUT NEXT YEAR, HABERMAN WILL HAVE A MILLION DOLLAR BOOK DEAL BECAUSE SHE REFUSED TO DO SO.
In short, the incentives in modern journalism are all fucked up, and work against getting relevant, important news to the public in a timely manner.
Yarrow
This is interesting. I guess military people don’t like being called losers and suckers after all. Maybe having bounties on their heads and having the administration do nothing about it wasn’t a popular strategy?
Kay
Ha! He’s referring to Ken Starr refusing to accept the results of the election.
patrick II
In other news, it appears that White House spokesman Jason Miller has been taking money under the table (from Steve Bannon no less) while pretending to earn just $23,500 a year which reduces his child support payment to $500 a month. How low do you have to be to stiff your own kid? Trump administration low. Everyone one of these guys is a different variety of scum.
Baud
@Yarrow:
Exit polling still sucks, but if people are going to use them, this is definitely something we should talk about.
J R in WV
@Kay:
Prestigious newspaper that published its first adoring piece on Mr. Adolph Hitler in 1922, and it last adoring piece on his mountain-top Bavarian Alpine hide-away in 1938… that prestigious newspaper? Sucking fascists off since 1922? That one?
With the Moscow bureau chief who couldn’t find a genocidal deliberate famine in Ukraine?
While they do good reporting on subjects [science, entertainment, style, food…] other than politics, their political reportage is treasonous in the extreme. Deliberately so!
Punchy
@Lapassionara:I don’t know how we move forward when 40% of the country is delusional.
You dont. Cant run a country when ~47% of the populace literally believes in a completely alternative reality. Their world is whatever Fox tells them it is.
Barbara
@Miss Bianca: I think that “writerly” and “actorly” concerns will always be disproportionately highlighted in theater and film because — Doh — that’s who creates plays and movies. Having said that, it’s still possible to get a diversity of voices so that at the very least the formulas that we often see (e.g., coming of age stories) reflect different backgrounds. It’s also possible to have a diverse cast with whatever resonance or depth that adds to a given production. Directors do this all the time with Shakespeare, so, for instance, I saw a production of MacBeth with the plot centered in an unnamed but likely African country with a despot as the lead. A lot of times these changes fall flat, but this one was pretty thrilling.
When I saw Betrayal in New York City, like a thousand years ago but actually just last year, the very conflicted wife was played by Zawe Ashton, who is dark skinned (don’t know her background). Did it make a difference? I don’t know, but probably, given the class assumptions I might have made were the actress more like the woman on whom the character is likely based, Antonia Fraser, or someone like her.
PJ
@Gin & Tonic: Money.
Kay
@patrick II:
It’s horrible he did this but really where is the state child support agency? They’re absolutely ruthless with Wal Mart workers. If he’s reporting 23,500 he’s voluntarily underemployed, fraud aside. They don’t even have to get to the fraud.
Ken
Hey, Shakespeare started it. And at least they aren’t about a young gay man trying to make a career as a playwright in New York City. The catalogs seem to have more of those than are strictly warranted.
PJ
@Dmbeaster: I am still leery of Boot, but he is a Russian immigrant, and that background can blind, or at least obscure, one to the racism that one who is born here can see clearly.
patrick II
@Baud:
Hillary.
Kay
@patrick II:
The whole “bad father” analysis of the Trump people interests me. I bet there’s something there. It’s this thread that keeps showing up.
zhena gogolia
@geg6:
Same here.
Jeffro
@hueyplong: It’s funny, I have been hesitant to use ‘Cville’ this past year here until I realized all the locals do it all the time.
(still getting used to “RI-O” and “RI-VANNA”, though) ;)
Chyron HR
@mrmoshpotato:
Lara sounds desperate. I guess she realized nobody’s going to pay her to be Eric’s wife if his dad isn’t President.
Ken
Someone should remind Starr that there’s a lawsuit against Trump for making false statements, where the evidence includes a semen-coated dress. That’s right in his wheelhouse, isn’t it?
Enhanced Voting Techniques
I am totally convinced the reporters leading the Hillary bashing were demanding she have sex with them and she slapped them down so all the mean girl stuff thew wrote about like she is a lesbian. As we saw with Trump, just a lot of so called elites are overgrown teenage bois.
Ruckus
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Not even worth wrapping garbage in….
Ken
Unlike Comey, they’re restricted by the trial protocols. They could not make any announcement until the case numbers showed efficacy. (And even so, this is still just a press release; they need another month to get the final numbers, as I understand it. I’m waiting for Derek Lowe’s analysis.)
If Trump is to be (dis)credited for anything, it’s for creating the runaway spread that made the efficacy obvious. You couldn’t run a trial like this in New Zealand, or Taiwan, or China, or…
Oklahomo
Ooops…looks like the election night partay at the White House is a superspreader event: Ben Carson positive
The Moar You Know
@Ken: It’s up. (you gotta look in “in the Pipeline” as it hasn’t been tagged as a COVID-19 post yet). This is unmitigated good news. The efficacy of the Pfizer vaccine is far better than we could have hoped for.
J R in WV
@Jeffro:
OK, now, help me out… what the F’k do these things mean, please, in plain English???
Ken
I must drop this classic Onion article here.
The only time I’ve been jarred by such casting was at a production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, where Maggie was Black and the other actors were white. The actress was excellent, but given the setting (place, time, and society) of the play, I just kept getting pulled out of it.
VeniceRiley
I’m not worried about rube rwnj magas. I’m worried about elected and appointed magas who consume the same media exclusively. I consider them a domestic and natsec threat. they’re so propagandised they should never be near a lever of power.
J R in WV
@Oklahomo:
My only question now is did Carson catch it there, or was HE a super-spreader there that night? I guess also, how many super-spreaders were there that night?
So two questions in the end… oh, wait, is that three? Never mind, no math any more! ;~)
gwangung
@Ken: There’s a big thick wad of plays about dysfunctional upper class white families who gather for a weekend at their luxury house on the water. They’re called “white people by the water” play and there many parodies of them.
sdhays
@Oklahomo: Any idea which Senators, if any, attended? I know Moscow Mitch has been avoiding the Very White House since August because he knew it was a time bomb waiting to go off.
hueyplong
When are the Qanon types going to go all “Et tu, Big Pharma” to Pfizer for shitting on Trump? They immediately denied any relationship of their vaccine to the administration.
Citizen Alan
@rp: Further complicating matters is that there are two types of Israel supporters in the GOP. First, there are those (Jewish or no) who genuinely support Israel and want to see it protected and flourishing. But then, there are the Evangelicals who blindly support Israel because of Biblical prophecy which states that Israel must expand back to its Old Testament borders and all the world’s Jews must return there. Because only then will Jesus come back and exterminate nearly all of them.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@geg6: It’s sure intresting how peodphiles turn up again and again with Trump.
Oklahomo
@sdhays: All I’m seeing is a rehash of Mark Meadows being there. But if they packed a bunch of maskless people into that party, that’s going to bite. And you gotta love this part: “He is in good spirits and feels fortunate to have access to effective therapeutics which aid and markedly speed his recovery.” Too bad more people don’t have access to effective therapeutics.
Jeffro
@J R in WV:
Here in Cville, there is a ‘Rio Road’ and a ‘Rivanna River’. My brain wants very much to pronounce those as ‘Ree-oh Road’ and ‘Rih-vanna River’, but the locals pronounce them as ‘Rye-oh Road’ and the ‘Rye-vanna River’. It takes some getting used to!
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Ken: The real stress test will be if the vaccine is effective at a Trump rally. The Phrama needs to show the vaccine will work even in the most horrific of circumstances.
WereBear
@Kay:
Totally. TOTALLY.
Show me a wingnut male and I’ll show you a guy who says, “My daddy beat me and I turned out all right.”
Yes, they did. And no, you didn’t.
Bobby Thomson
@Mary G: It reminds me of the “do you mean we did something . . . illegal?” in Haldeman’s The Ends of Power.
Yarrow
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Said this multiple times – an enterprising reporter could make a list of everything Republicans/QAnon accuse Democrats of and then go looking for those things in Republican/QAnon circles. It’s always projection so they’re giving everyone a roadmap.
Bobby Thomson
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: that was just a lack of vetting, consistent with everything else about that event.
Citizen Alan
@Ken:
I’m fascinated by the thought of how people would react to an all or even mostly white production of Hamilton.
Suzanne
@Jeffro: Mr. Suzanne is from the Bay Area, and he commented on how everyone there pronounces “Los Gatos” as “lahs gattus”. Fucken ridiculous.
I used to live in Tucson, where there is a Medici Drive. I heard multiple people pronounce it “muh-DEE-see”.
piratedan
@Suzanne: don’t even get me started on…
La Canada (La-Ca-Nyah-dah) and La Cholla (La Choy-ya) being attempted by those not native around here
geg6
@WereBear:
Yep. Every single one of them that I know well came from a totally fucked up family. Every one.
Suzanne
@piratedan: FWIW, I pronounced those correctly every time.
”Ina” was also difficult for people.
Jeffro
@Suzanne:
@piratedan: those are great! LOL
My mom grew up in Vienna, Illinois and now lives in Vienna, Virginia…pronounced completely differently, of course.
Amir Khalid
@Jeffro:
In Austria, homeland of otmar the jackal, they spell it Wien and pronounce it veen.
Sloane Ranger
Slightly OT but Esper’s just been fired, by Twitter natch.
rikyrah
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
As Kay has told us…their political coverage is GARBAGE ?
Amir Khalid
@Sloane Ranger:
Esper was going to be gone before February anyway, even if Trump didn’t sack him. And he may be surprised that Trump waited this long. He’s probably not surprised, though, that Trump sacked him in the showiest way possible, instead of just having someone type a date on his resignation letter.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@piratedan: La Canada-Flintridge is pronounced La Can-yada Flintridge.
Bill Arnold
Is anyone else a bit disturbed at Trump’s new acting Secretary of Defense? Not the person we want when there has been open talk in the RW swamps about Trump using the Insurrection Act to keep power.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assistant_Secretary_of_Defense_for_Special_Operations_and_Low-Intensity_Conflict
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_C._Miller
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Bill Arnold: Considering the way the military went for Biden, no. I mean that would be Peak Trump to screw the Praetorians first, then attempt a coup to the laughter of the ghost of Napoleon the III .
EthylEster
Thanks, Ben Smith, for letting me know that you are perhaps a bigger hack than Haberman.
Working at Politico is one tell.
Soprano2
My husband’s Halloween costume this year was his dress blues with a pin that said “Sucker/Losers for Biden”. Stopped a lot of Trump bullshit coming his way, kind of hard to argue with a combat vet in his dress blues that he really should support Trump.
Soprano2
Plus, I think every Democrat who goes on TV should start mentioning Marjorie Greene and that other QAnon-believer who got elected to Congress as “the young new face of the Republican Party”. Be sure to drop a couple of the most horrifying things they believe, like that Oprah is in a ring of pedophiles that kills children and drinks their blood. Every.Single.Time. If Republicans want to make it sound like all Democrats are “the Squad”, we should make it sound like all Republicans are linked to QAnon.
Bookeater (formerly JosieJ)
@Kay:
Giuliani has always (well, until his brain turned to tapioca) been good at choosing competent underlings—and then claiming credit for their work.
Emma from FL
@Bill Arnold: He talks about it but IMO he won’t do it. There would be hell to pay and he is at base a coward.
Patricia Kayden
Facts.
Frankensteinbeck
@Bill Arnold:
And now the new guy ALSO has to tell Trump that the military won’t save his ass. But truthfully, that’s probably farther than this actually goes. This is the narcissist who didn’t get his way lashing out at his minions and allies. He cannot fail, so he must have been failed. He can’t hurt his opponents, so he’ll hurt everyone in immediate reach.
Frankensteinbeck
Adding: “You! If you’d shot those protestors everyone would see how tough I am and I would have won the election!” rather than “If you won’t stage a coup for me, he will.”
LongHairedWeirdo
@The Moar You Know: I can’t help but imagine the police bursting in, as you’re spraying her, and her employer, with the pulp from a collection of bad headlines fed into the wood chipper, and you make good your escape while the police stop laughing.
BruceFromOhio
This is why I fucking hate hate hate the ‘print’ media in this country, except for David Farenthold at WaPo. That the author felt the need to write this, and that it was fucking published AT ALL are emblematic of all that is wrong, so horribly wrong, with the FTFNYT.
Off to smash all the glass in my mind.
leeleeFL
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: I think, perhaps, that Mr. Kristol has come over to the Dark Side forever!
i must admit, it is delicious to see people such as Bill Kristol, JRub, S. E. Cupp, David Frum, and Steve Schmidt write from my side of the Divide! tRump hath wrought a Miracle he never intended.
leeleeFL
@rp: My thoughts as well. If they remain allies, we can honestly say this is how realignments happen! Strange bedfellows, indeed!
Elizabelle
The FTF NYTimes did not open the Ben Smith story on Maggie Haberman up to reader comments.
That … is rather telling.
NY Times did open Smith’s previous four media columns to reader comments. Maybe they just do it really late? Or maybe …. they don’t want to listen to their readers on the subject of Maggs? She has gotten flamed by readers before.
Uncle Cosmo
Here’s a wild-arsed guess: He’s working with GOP members of the state legislatures in AZ, GA and PA, to hammer out the texts of resolutions to be proposed and passed when the legislatures for each state meet to certify Presidential electors.
Doocey in AZ and Kemp in GA, as good little Thuglicans, do nothing to block this.
Governor Wolf of PA (a Democrat) attempts to veto the resolution.
The issue is immediately referred to the Extreme Court, which finds that Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution reserves certification of electors to the legislatures of the several states “in such manner as they choose” (with no mention of the Governors), which supersedes any and all requirements of 3 U.S. Code §6, and by a 5-4 vote (Roberts, seeing his legacy go to shit, dissenting) upholds the legislatures’ actions.
On January 6, 2021, Congress meets in joint session to certify the results. The Democratic majority in the House rejects the three states’ slates of Trump electors. The GOP-controlled Senate (with sitting VPOTUS Pence casting the tiebreaking vote if necessary) does not.
And the Fascist Era of US History begins.
** “Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress….”
J R in WV
@Jeffro:
Rye-O and Rye-vanna are pretty funny. I don’t know if I could say those as the natives do… IN SE Ohio there is a town named Rio Grande, with the same Rye-o… home of Bob Evans Farm.
In Kentucky there is a town, now a suburban neighborhood of Louisville, spelled Versailles, normally pronounced as Ver-say if you mean the French Palace outside Paris. But in KY it is pronunced Ver-Sails as it is spelt in Ky-ainglish. Never VerSay. No one would know where that is at all.
JustAnotherHi
@?BillinGlendaleCA: shoutout to Glendale CA. Grew up there & still in SoCal ;)