Politico blows kisses to Charles Krauthammer
May 20, 2009 3:00 pm ET by Eric Boehlert
Because pundits on the far-right who write nasty things about Democrats and important and influential. That's simply how the Beltway press works.
So of course, Politico sends a reporter to visit Krauthammer in his corner D.C. office in order to write up a gushing profile about how influential Krauthammer's (robotic) dissents about Obama have become. (Conservatives email his columns around!) To write up this fantasy that Krauthammer has somehow emerged as a clarion voice. That the Fox News talker and Iraq war cheerleader is a "a coherent, sophisticated and implacable critic of the new president."
Oh brother.
The headline really gives the game away:
Obama's biggest critic: Krauthammer
First, the declaration is a joke because the entire GOP Noise Machine has been uniformly critical of Obama this year. There is very little variation from the talking points. They attack everything he does. So how and why would Politico possibly select Krauthammer as somehow being particularly influential. (Politico doesn't point to any of Krauthammer's work that's in any way distinguishable from the avalanche of over-excited Obama critiques launched by the right.) It's not possible to distinguish a voice in that GOP pundits crowd because they're pretty much all saying the exact same thing. Period.
Second, note the stated assumption that whoever is "Obama's biggest critic" is automatically a big deal; is somebody the press needs to pay attention to and to flatter in media profiles.
Here's a neat trick. Go dig through Nexis and see if you can find any mainstream media profile from May of 2001, that toasted "Bush's biggest critic." I'm almost sure no such profile exists because the press, in spring of 2001, didn't care about Bush's liberal critics. They didn't take those people seriously. But in May 2009, "Obama's biggest critic" garners a Beltway valentine.
How silly is this Krauthammer piece? Read this passage as Politico tries to explain why Krauthammer is (supposedly) the new Master of the Anti-Obama Universe [emphasis added]:
But the key to Krauthammer’s appeal is the clarity of his opposition to Obama, which began soon after a December 2006 column in which he urged Obama to run for president and guaranteed that he would lose.
Got that? Krauthammer stands out among Obama haters (my term) because he guaranteed Obama would lose in 2008. Krauthammer never saw last year's landslide election coming--was sure Obama would lose--and yet just months later the Politico rushes in to toast his brilliance.
Again: Wrong about Iraq, wrong about the 2008 campaign. But according to Politico, Krauthammer's at the top of his game.
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They are nothing more than a glorified corporate lobbying ground.
Carolyn Kay
MakeThemAccountable.com
How much of an percentage would you need to call it a landslide.
How much did Shrub need to declare a mandate?
If Major Judd's electoral machine elect's his nephew Bob as County Sherriff 80% to 5%, is that a landslide, Or some other more colorful geological catastrophy?
That's a landslide. It really hurts your credibility when your first post here is a ridiculous objection to a reasonable statement.
It is really low of you to question my credibility over a perfectly logical and acceptable question.
I'm seeing these kinds of attacks on many sites, and I'm starting to get seriously worried. Any slight questioning of the rightness and greatness of a certain party is attacked viciously and hatefully.
It's not going to help either Obama or the progressive movement in the long run.
Carolyn Kay
MakeThemAccountable.com
Boehlert’s claim that “the press, in spring of 2001, didn't care about Bush's liberal critics” is ridiculous. If it’s true that no “biggest” Bush critic had been crowned by that time, it’s nonsense to assert he didn’t have vociferous opposition. So many liberals had simply rejected his legitimacy that it would have been hard to name a single king or queen of anti-Bush disdain.
What's more, early on, the Politico piece compares Krauthammer to “the kind of leader of the opposition that economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman represented for the left during the Bush years.” Boehlert sets out to expose media bias in Politico, but what's most clear in this bungled critique is his personal loathing for Krauthammer.
Of course, the notion that there’s a “biggest” Obama critic is questionable and merely a manufactured news peg. But given the scope of his proposals, no matter where you stand, it’s not surprising that Obama’s ambitious agenda is galvanizing opposition.
Truly surprising is that Obama lover (my term) Boehlert misses the biggest news item in an otherwise ho-hum Politico piece mainly of interest to the politically obsessed: Joe Klein’s reprehensible and irrational claim that Krauthammer is wrong on Iraq because he’s wheelchair bound and can’t see it for himself. Beethoven wrote the Ninth Symphony when he was completely deaf. And “seeing things for himself” hasn’t stopped Joe Klein from remaining a second-rate commentator and first-class bigot.
*That’s* media that matters, but Boehlert is too committed to a playground shouting match to hear when something truly notable and offensive gets said.
Boehlert’s claim that “the press, in spring of 2001, didn't care about Bush's liberal critics” is ridiculous. If it’s true that no “biggest” Bush critic had been crowned by that time, it’s nonsense to assert he didn’t have vociferous opposition. So many liberals had simply rejected his legitimacy that it would have been hard to name a single king or queen of anti-Bush disdain.
What's more, early on, the Politico piece compares Krauthammer to “the kind of leader of the opposition that that economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman represented for the left during the Bush years.” Boehlert sets out to expose media bias in Politico, but what's most clear in this bungled critique is his personal loathing for Krauthammer.