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TPM and the Clinton Jingle


This morning TPM's front page links to a post by Josh Marshall, and the link on the front page reads"Bill Clinton Making Calls on Lieberman's Behalf":  

Now that's news, you think, because Bill Clinton is the past president and it is relevant that he is injecting himself into a major and controversial intra-party issue less than one week after the historic election that unambiguously establishes Barack Obama as the new big guy on campus. And so you link to the article, and you read that Josh is basing his report on a high level unnamed Democratic source, and then underneath the lead paragraph reporting on Clinton's reported shenanigans on behalf of Senator Lieberman, we read:

"I can also confirm, on the same basis, what Huffington Post has already reported, that President-elect Obama is signaling to Senate leadership and other party officials that he wants Sen. Lieberman to be in the Democratic caucus in the 111th Congress".

So what is going on here?  The primaries are over.  The general election is over.  Senator Obama is now President-Elect Obama, and clearly by any measure what Obama thinks about and does on behalf of Senator Lieberman has to at least as significant as what Bill Clinton does.  Strike that.  Let me go out on a limb and posit that what President-Elect Obama is doing for Lieberman is by any genuine measure more significant than what Bill Clinton is doing for Senator Lieberman.

Am I missing something here?  Is it just me, or does this say something about TPM and/or about TPM's founder, whom I continue to genuinely respect, and what he thinks about his readers.  No doubt all things Clinton sell, but so too do soap flakes sell when packaged correctly.

 


6 Comments

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I hear you, but it is interesting that different viewing patterns can lead to different perceptions. I never go to the TPM front page, so I didn't see this. What I did see was the unsourced bit about Obama wanting Lieberman to stay in the caucus. (That's not a defense, merely an observation. I agree with everything you wrote above.)

Here's something else—note the headlines used. In one, they used the "Fox question mark":
Will Obama Support Lieberman Staying As Chair Of Homeland Security Committee?
In the other, they didn't even bother to do that:
Bill Clinton Making Calls On Lieberman's Behalf, although they change the title on the actual article to "Friends in High Places". (In refreshing the page just now to get an additional detail, I note that they've also removed the offending headline in lieu of the less biased headline.)

Much like what's been said about their bit on the race "tightening" during the general, I think that some of this might be an intentional effort to get us riled up, although if that was the case here, you'd think it'd be on an article with comments enabled.

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Thank you for your comment Ben. Maybe this is not such a big deal, and let me say that one of the many reasons that I continue to respect Josh Marshall is that I can offer this critical post on his website without concern about being banned or about the post being deleted from up high. Still I have to say that this post is arguably related to the current highly recommended post by Artappraiser which invites discussion about the effects of the free market on moral character (although I would replace "moral character" with "journalistic discretion" in this case because I have no reason to nor what I ever suspect that Josh Marshall is somehow lacking in moral character).

www.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/artappraiser/2008/11/does-the-free-market-corrode-m.php#comment-3283253


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Ah, yes, soap flakes. You're showing your age, Bruce. :)

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It's Cider House Rules, Bruce. Whoever has the knife makes the rules.

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Josh Marshall loves anonymous sources and gossip. He also knows that pitting Clinton against Obama drew much excitement during the primaries. He figures it may still work now that the campaign is over and political blogs must seek ways to keep the fire burning.

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