The Haircut That Wouldn't Die!

(creepy background music)

Marc Ambinder trying to have it both ways: John Edwards' haircut was a legitimate news story; Mitt Romney's make-up is not.

The primary difference is definitional: The centerpiece of Edwards's campaign is his anti-poverty efforts; he presents himself as a dedicated messenger for the cause, and he likes expensive haircuts, bought a gimungous house, etc. etc. His credibility as a messenger comes into question when he spends money ostentatiously. (The haircut was inadvertently billed to the campaign, a spokesman later said).

There is a difference in the political reality: fairly or unfairly, a healthy chunk of the national political press corps doesn't like John Edwards.

Fairly or unfairly, there's also a difference in narrative timing: when the first quarter ended, the press was trying to bury Edwards. It's not so much interested in burying Romney right now -- many reporters think he's the Republican frontrunner.

Does anyone besides me (and a host of others, to be perfectly candid) see a whole lot wrong with this?

The Edwards haircut, which came from a Republican oppo source, is a legitimate news story because a large chunk of the political press corps doesn't like Edwards. Mitt's make-up bills are not news because he's the Republican frontrunner. Is this American journalism at its finest, or what? Reporters no longer report the news, they create it based on their personal/ideological likes and dislikes.

(I'm very happy to report that Ambinder gets thoroughly trashed in the comments to this post. Way to go.)

Scott Lemieux at TAPPED also gets it:

Fairly or unfairly? Granting that Ambinder isn't quite endorsing it, I'm amazed that anyone can see the question of whether or not reporters should use their reporting not to inform readers but to irresponsibly indulge their petty superficial prejudices about the individual candidates as a fairly debatable proposition. This open press corps contempt for Gore defined campaign 2000, and personally I think there are a lot of dead soldiers and Iraqis who think that what a president will actually do in office is more important that his or her suits and haircuts.

I wrote on this way back in April, with a particular focus on the role of Adam Nagourney and NYT in propagating this story. There's also been a thread running at EA Forums that has been quite instructive: it began with a repeat of the mantra, and then people got indignant when some history of this story was pointed out and started accusing the pointing-outers of partisanship (no big surprise there). It's been an interesting discussion overall, ranging from the appropriateness of the price of Edwards' haircuts to the role of the press in distorting the campaign (although why anyone should think that unsupported blanket generalities are OK as long as you accuse everyone of malfeasance is beyond me).

And no post is complete without reference to Digby's comments:

This is exactly this kind of thing that makes people like me laugh when I get lectured by professional journalists about "objectivity" and "ethics." At least I put my political biases up front. These phonies hide behind a veil of journalistic conventions so they can exercise their psychologically stunted desire to stick it to the BMOC, or the dork or whoever these catty little gossips want to skewer for their own pleasure that day. Please, please, no more hand-wringing sanctimony from reporters about the undisciplined, unethical blogosphere. Their glass houses are lying in shards all around their feet.

Each time they've pulled this puerile nonsense in the last few years, it's resulted in a mess that's going to take even more years to unravel. And they learned nothing, apparently, since they are doing exactly the same thing in this election. If the press really wants to know why they are held in lower esteem than hitmen and health insurance claims adjusters, this is it.

I just take this whole thing as yet another smoking gun on the complete breakdown of responsible journalism in America, even in those outlets that Rupert Murdoch doesn't own.

For for the love of Pete, to use "the political press doesn't like Edwards" as justification for this kind of farce? Gimme a break!

Breaking News:

Hillary Has Tits!

There is one sentence in this story about her speech. Not what she said, mind you, just that she was speaking on the Senate floor.

Can the country recover?

Update:

A certain dumpy law professor in Wisconsin is right on it.