It Takes Astute Observation, Not Mea Culpas

by emptywheel

Mark Halperin has a hysterical op-ed in the NYT today, designed to be a mea culpa for the failures of presidential campaign journalism. Halperin reveals the reason behind the press corps' obsession with horse race politics--they all read Ben Cramer's What It Takes--and then admits that success in a political horse race does not necessarily equip someone to run the country.

For most of my time covering presidential elections, I shared the view that there was a direct correlation between the skills needed to be a great candidate and a great president. The chaotic and demanding requirements of running for president, I felt, were a perfect test for the toughest job in the world.

But now I think I was wrong. The “campaigner equals leader” formula that inspired me and so many others in the news media is flawed.

Wow, Mark, that's one doozy of an insight. You mean all this horse race campaign journalism is counter-productive to choosing a good president? Who could have imagined that?!?!?!

The reason I say it's hysterical, though, and not just pathetic, is in Halperin's description of how he determined that he had been wrong--his analysis of the two presidents he has covered in the last sixteen years. See, Halperin describes those two presidents as both being great politicians--"wildly talented."

Our two most recent presidents, both of whom I covered while they were governors seeking the White House. Bill Clinton and George W. Bush are wildly talented politicians. Both claimed two presidential victories, in all four cases arguably as underdogs. Both could skillfully serve as the chief strategist for a presidential campaign.

And then he proceeds to describe how the characteristics that made these "wildly talented" politicians made them failed presidents. Of note: he sees them both as failed presidents, Clinton and Bush. Here's how he supports his claim that Clinton's was a failed presidency:

For instance, being all things to all people worked wonderfully well for Bill Clinton the candidate, but when his presidency ran into trouble, this trait was disastrous, particularly in the bumpy early years of his presidency and in the events leading up to his impeachment. The fun-loving campaigner with big appetites and an undisciplined manner squandered a good deal of the majesty and power of the presidency, and undermined his effectiveness as a leader. What much of the country found endearing in a candidate was troubling in a president.

See where I'm going with this? Halperin claims that a guy who presided over tremendous economic growth, some innovative policy solutions (many of which I dislike, but admire for their pragmatism), and real success in foreign policy, had a failed presidency. He claims that a guy whose approval ratings stayed high during a trumped up impeachment "ran into trouble." Halperin clings to the Village's caricature of the Clinton presidency all so he can claim both Clinton and Bush failed. And in the process, he ignores a great deal of hard work and policy wonkiness that, in fact, made Clinton a successful president. Precisely the kind of characteristics you'd want good presidential journalism to cover--a candidate's comfort with the complexity of policy issues that translates into competent governance.

You see, Halperin tries hard to explain away his failures of judgment and discernment as failures of process. But in the process, he only emphasizes those failures of judgment. If Halperin really believes that Clinton and Bush experienced the same level of failure in office; if he remains ignorant of Clinton's considerable discipline (in all matters not involving his penis) and hard work and policy acumen, then he has proved his own failures of basic observation, not a failure to cover the right topics.

With his op-ed, Halperin proves he couldn't identify good governance if it looked him in the face. Sure, he calls for a different kind of campaign journalism. But at the same time, he proves he's not the guy to provide it.

Update: Hahahahaha! A friend sends along this poignant review of What It Takes by Matt Bai.

I remember exactly where I was sitting when I started reading “What It Takes,” Richard Ben Cramer’s 1,000-page, tiny-print history of the 1988 presidential campaign. It’s not a hard thing to remember, because I couldn’t sit anywhere else: I had mangled my knee in a touch football game, and all I could do was sit on the couch with my leg strapped into a motion machine. Like a lot of young journalism school graduates then and now, I had come to see political journalism as a lesser form of the craft, populated mostly by the effete and the unindustrious, while the real reporters were out there braving crack corners and foreign wars. “What It Takes” showed me something else entirely.

From the first unforgettable pages, when he described in minute detail the logistics needed to move George Bush, who was then vice president, out of his field box at a Texas Rangers game (accompanied by his hotheaded and ambitious son, George W.), Cramer told his obsessively reported campaign story not just from the inside, but from inside the heads of a half-dozen painfully human and complex candidates: Bush, Bob Dole, Michael Dukakis, Richard Gephardt, Gary Hart and Joseph Biden. “What It Takes” was the ultimate campaign book. [my emphasis]

Figures.

Though I wonder. Does Matt Bai fancy that his own reporting tells stories "from inside the heads" of his subjects? Is that why he got my motivations so horribly wrong (not to mention reported the facts inaccurately)? Because he thought he was inside my head but was in fact in his very own little fantasy world?

Update: PhoenixWoman is right. Krugman kicks Halperin's non-observant ass much more effectively than I.

Comments

[katie Jensen]

I remember when Clinton was in office, how angry they would get when he would compromise or do something they agreed with. It absolutely infuriated them. They accused him of "stealing" their ideas!! Well except for the part about working together to accomplish effective change. He didn't steal that. That was his. But that's the part of leadership that they fail to recognize as anything more than a pain in the ass. He was effective. And they hate it when they are exposed.

He proved for the final most devastating time, that trickle down economics was a lie.

[Beel]

The continuing "Village" problem may be the very heart of things. Check out, for example, the complete line up for Meet the Press this morning. Or the hysterics which meet the poll showing that a majority of Americans believe some people in the government had specific warnings about 9/11 in advance.

[emptywheel]

I should say, I'm not a huge fan of a lot of things Clinton did. I think he used policies that postponed the eventual resolution of our financial house of cards (though he did pay down our debt).

But I can't deny he was a successful president. Apparently, the "experts" are still doing so.

[greenhouse]

What, you mean like he, and Mr Citigroupin Rubin and Dem congress repealing Glass-Steagall?

[emptywheel]

greenhouse

Yeah, we'd be better off now if he hadn't done that, huh?

[Ishmael]

EW - yes, a lot of the solutions proposed by the Clinton Administration did rely on labor arbitraging and financial sleight of hand that had the effect of avoiding hard decisions on certain issues, but Clinton did recognize that the first priority was to get at least the federal budget in line, and then work on issues of true productivity and investment to finance the American lifestyle. Had Gore been permitted to take office in 2000, I believe that there would have been an emphasis on transforming the economy to focus of alternative energy and biotechnology as a replacement for the internet bubble that gave Clinton some room to manouever.

OT, but somewhat similar to your Matt Bai experiences. I was sent on media training this week, as part of the work I am doing on native land claim issues, and the course focussed on effective messaging for all kinds of interviews, telephone, TV, radio, print - the course was given by a real media pro, had been a reporter, spokesperson, media trainer, academic, and he really knew his stuff. After the course, I went up to the instructor and told him I thought I had learned an awful lot (and I did!) - but I was surprised that throughout this whole course on messaging, there was no mention of the internet, blogs, using social networking sites and software, etc, and I was wondering what his thoughts were on using these new media. Well, it was a real DFH moment for me! He looked at me with a benign smile, put his hand on my shoulder, with a look in his eye like I had asked him whether he preferred Captain Picard or Captain Kirk, or maybe had invited him to take part in a game of Dungeons and Dragons. He said that he wasn't sure how all this Internet stuff was going to work out, and that his personal opinion was that "it might all turn out to be a flash in the pan", and therefore wasn't putting any emphasis on it! I should add that this guy is a real pro, he trains newly elected Members of Parliament on media techniques and other high level stuff! All I can say is, I think I felt a modicum of your pain with Bai.

[P J Evans]

He said that he wasn't sure how all this Internet stuff was going to work out, and that his personal opinion was that "it might all turn out to be a flash in the pan", and therefore wasn't putting any emphasis on it!

Is he still using quill pens on parchment? Sending messages via carrier pigeon? Using chalk on slate?
Jeebus, talk about not getting it!

(I've been at a convention most of the weekend: they now do registration online and send PR via e-mail. The number of electronic devices being worn and carried was astonishing - to anyone who doesn't hang out in places like this.)

[jonno]

Halperin helped me quit TV cold turkey after a 40+ year love affair.

[Hugh]

Matt Bai is part of the up and coming generation of media weasels waiting in the wings to replace the current batch of fossils.

[Harold]

It is a strange thing that people don't change their opinions all at once, they only move over ever so slightly, shifting a little at a time, while keeping most of their opinions almost exactly as before.

The key shift here, is a big one: Mark Halperin is admitting a what internet bloggers have been pointing out for years, namely that the last 10 years of mainstream journalism have been execrable. The rest of his thinking is exactly as before,

[phred]

This editorial is yet another piece of evidence why I stopped reading the NYT awhile ago -- my blood pressure couldn't take it anymore.

I think part of the problem that the Village just can't get a grip on was addressed in Gore's book Assault on Reason. The MSM has an unhealthy obsession with "balance" that drives them to false equivalences. They just can't seem to help themselves. If someone says the sky is blue, they feel compelled to find someone they can quote who says the sky is green. In this endless quest for balance, they turn their backs on objective reality. Indeed it seems that in their "he said/she said" world view there is no objective reality, just subjective ideological opinion. We really do need better science and critical thinking education in this country that everyone must take. When you drop a brick and a marble off the leaning Tower of Pisa, they really do hit the ground at the same time, no matter what politician says the brick will hit first.

[Phoenix Woman]

EW, if you're wondering why you had to use the other clue-by-four to smack Halperin's idiotic ass, it's because Paul Krugman took yours to smack at him first:

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/11/25/on-coming-across/

Go read. It is a thing of beauty.

[On the Clock]

The only substantial failure during the Clinton presidency was the Republican coup attempt. That would have to wait until passage of the Patriot Act.

[hauksdottir]

We managed to get someone on the moon and back using a sliderule. [Amusingly, sliderule is underlined in red because the word processor fails to recognize it.] Simply because something worked in the past doesn't mean that it is the best technology. The dinosaurs that developed wings survived better than those who roared their way into extinction.

That teacher who fails to teach politicians to open their minds to new technology, whether for communication, design, fabrication is failing to give them the tools they'll need to represent or understand their constituents.

[radiofreewill]

Halperin and Bai?

"Have laptop, will suck"

There's just no way - short of these guys coming to this blog and opening their eyes - that the "Access"-Age Reporters are going to transition into Reality-based, fact-citing, story-line reporting, insight-generating Journalists - without cascading through a series of self-serving, but cloudy, Denials of Complicity.

To the subscribers of today's New Media, having the 'interpretive stenography' skills of Halperin and Bai comes across as nothing less than journalistic flatbacking, not one shred different than that paragon of Access Journalism, Judy Fucking Miller.

The Access Reporters competed with each other to signal that they 'bought' the Cheney-spin-line fantasy first, and then - when they got tapped to take dictation - they embellished on the spin - so that they might be told they could get back in line, again.

Now that the fantasy of BushCo Omnipotence is substantially separating from the concensus of the Reality Journalists, won't it be interesting to see which of the Access Journalists keep servicing the spin.

How dismal.

To make an 'unsuccessful-Presidency' equivalency argument between Bush and Clinton based on the logic that "good campaigners do/don't neccessarily make good leaders," while ignoring the effectiveness of that campaigner/leader's policies, is as bad as believing a 'threat-equivalency' argument that misses the nuclear difference between Pakistan and Iran.

Today's issues are too complex and too important for the 'fantasy stroking,' knee-pad wearing, round-mouthing Access Jounalists of the MSM.

[bmaz]

"We really do need better science and critical thinking education in this country that everyone must take." Boy, howdy; do we ever. Education is the closest thing to a magic bullet that we possess for the across the board ills we face. Fucking morons like Norquist and the tax cut/greed first Republicans are drowning that infrastructure too.

[Ishmael]

Apropos of all this discussion, did anyone see Meet the Press today? Carville, Matalin, Shrum and some other Rethug, with Russert acting like it was the f****** Algonquin Round Table - for all the "insights", they may as well have taped these guys having brunch at the Mayflower Hotel, it was all about perceptions and framing and who's hot/who's not, and not a single hard question.

[bmaz]

Regarding Russert; just exactly how the hell did he get to where he is and become so exalted? Really, wasn't he basically a political hack with a law degree who never practiced law? I mean, seriously, he is basically an earlier version of George Stephanopolis, except without the lofty accomplishments before joining the media. (And before you all start chirping, that was meant to be dripping with sarcasm).

[freepatriot]

bush and bill, equal failures ???

let's see

Hillary is the Democratic frontrunner for the democratic Nomination

and george herbert walker bush has been on television FUCKING CRYING about how georgie porgie has ruined jeb bush's chances of ever being presnit

yeah

looks like bill and george had exactly the same fucking problem

has this guy been on this planet the whole time he was writing about ???

[readerOfTeaLeaves]

Wow, what amazing comments on this thread.
So Halperin is finally realizing that a political campaign may not be the best predictor for determining how someone will run a huge government bureaucracy in a diverse society in a globalized economy.
Glad he's started to glimpse the flaws in his assumptions.

The 'money quote' for me was this by EW: he couldn't identify good governance if it looked him in the face.
Good governance is not necessarily a good 'story'. The few times that I've glimpsed it, it appeared to be mostly routine, relatively boring, and generally requires humans who can make complex calculations, sythesize huge amounts of disparate information, listen carefully, and make decisions.

How that translates into the kind of 'box office' required by the economics of current media conglomerates escapes me.
It may be worth noting that Halperin is writing this the week after Rove started at Newsweek (with a thud).

Now, if Halperin can figure out what good governance looks like , and figure out how to explain the significance of a water district budget, or examine who a candidate might actually appoint to run an agency, perhaps his writing would improve. If he can figure out 'what good government looks like' -- irrigation lines, dam turbines, FDA inspectors, cops on patrol... all the daily minutia that is required in a very complex, technically challenging society, then perhaps he'd be better able to assess who might be skilled at moving things forward.

I'm with Harold: I think this is a big deal.

[tc]

He also totally missed the point of Ben Cramer's What It Takes. What it takes to win a presidential election, we find out, is someone who is utterly willing to give up everything important to their soul.

[quake]

"sliderule" was underlined in red because it's two words, not one. See Wikipedia.

[dead last]

Boy these guys can't drop the "Clinton did it too" meme, even if it doesn't fit.

[earlofhuntingdon]

Halperin is beyond pathetic:

A hundred years after Mark Hanna and Wm McKinley and Mark Twain, seventy-five after H.L. Mencken and Will Rogers, forty-five years after a photogenic Kennedy defeated Nixon, thirty years after Nixon's dirty tricks squads, and seven years into the Cheney/Rove presidency, and Halperin is just discovering that what sells during a campaign may be diametrically opposed to what makese a good president and that it may be wrong for America?

With that level of ignorance and inability to learn from history, I suspect Halperin wouldn't pass today's test for US citizenship. He certainly should be given his walking papers as a political "journalist".

[readerOfTeaLeaves]

earlofhuffington, I'm reasonably certain that I'm at least as frustrated and fed up as most of us.
But it appears that Halperin has (finally) recognized that the work he's done to pay his bills is both: (1) fraught with error, and (2) very socially and politically damaging.

Am I angry about the damage, and his contribution? Of course.
Does he still need to gain clarity and clear the mindrot from his head? Hell, yes!

But any time people seriously examine their impacts on others (and I count myself in that category), and then publicly express, "I really blew it, but I'll try to do a more thoughtful job starting today..." That takes guts, and I suspect that Halperin had a Dark Night of the Soul before he wrote that OpEd, so at least he's trying to figure out his errors and improve.
Progress is seldom fast enough, but it's always a small miracle.
I wish Halperin well.
I hope that from 'inside the narrative' he can help rethink and reshape how we look at candidates, what is reported about them, how voters can make decisions that are more likely to produce better governance.
I think his OpEd shows a man who would now be less susceptible to being punked by K-k-k-karl Rove and his minions and their ilk.
I wish him well, for all our sakes.