Month: January 2009
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When mixed metaphors attack!
NPR’s Andrea Seabrook makes English teachers cry during a story on the rumor about GOP senator Judd Gregg being appointed Commerce Secretary: You could almost feel the pipe dreams wafting through the Capitol today.
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Headlines that embarrass my current home
From The Durham News, a free paper distributed by the News and Observer here: Call us the ‘City of Butter,’ because we’re on a roll Um, no.
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The ascension of the partisan presidency
Richard Skinner, a visiting assistant professor of political science at Bowdoin College, sent me his new Political Science Quarterly piece “George W. Bush and the Partisan Presidency” (sub. req.), which does a nice job of synthesizing the evidence that the relationship of presidents to the party system has changed in the contemporary era. The traditional
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Obama honeymoon watch V
Back in December, I predicted that Barack Obama’s approval ratings could go as high as the low 70s by his inauguration. He didn’t quite get there, but his approval is in the low- to mid-60s after a week in office. These are still striking numbers. For instance, Obama’s initial Gallup approval rating of 68 percent
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NYT inauguration mind-reading
On Sunday, Jim Rutenberg of the New York Times described coverage of Abraham Lincoln’s first inaugural, writing, “Then, as now, the Washington press corps seemed to revel in the search for meaning in every facial tic or expression of its subjects.” This week, his newspaper did the same sort of mind-reading in its coverage. A
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False hype of Bush’s 2004 victory
It’s infuriating to me when political journalists lack the most basic understanding of quantitative data. For instance, I just heard a podcast of an NPR story about President Bush’s political legacy in which Mara Liasson referred to “the president’s decisive re-election victory in 2004.” But as many people (including me) pointed out at the time,
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Inaugural temporary toilet coverage
Inaugural coverage officially jumped the shark yesterday with the publication of a McClatchy story investigating the “mystery” of why portable toilets at the event got less usage than expected: Among other things, the inauguration of President Barack Obama was “the largest temporary toilet event in the history of the United States,” an official of Don’s
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Jim Rutenberg on journalism circa 1860
It’s rare to see reporters cite specific examples when criticizing their fellow journalists. That’s why Jim Rutenberg’s target of criticism in today’s New York Times Week in Review piece today was so amusing: Then, as now, the Washington press corps seemed to revel in the search for meaning in every facial tic or expression of
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Field experiments in the 2008 campaign
Back in April, I hailed the founding of The Analyst Institute as a sign of the experimental revolution that is taking place in campaign tactics. On Friday, Pollster.com’s Mark Blumenthal reported on a press briefing by TAI’s Todd Rogers describing the “record use” of experiments in 2008 by Democratic campaigns who were seking “to figure
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When politicians’ names attack!
Dignity alert — the mayor of Pittsburgh held a press conference to pretend to change his name from Ravenstahl to Steelerstahl: To understand the depth of feeling here for the Steelers, consider the news conference Wednesday morning at the Allegheny County Department of Court Records. There, Pittsburgh’s mayor, Luke Ravenstahl, filled out a Verified Petition