The GOP's High School Debate: The cool kid vs. the valedictorian

No, what we need to know is what was said and by whom. What we do not need is sophomoric and unhelpful comparisons, linked to anecdotes about how you eat out of John McCain's greasy old hands. Please, try doing some real reporting.

please post more, Michael.

The nice part about your description of superficial matters is that you make it clear that you understand how superficial it is. (Then you hit us with a substantive roundhouse punch about Huckabee!) The other posters here actually believe that what they are writing is profound insight....

keep up the good work!

While I can see why some would call your metaphor "sophomoric," I think you actually make an interesting insight into the GOP race. Also, the postscript is hilarious.

Keep it up!

Tough questions? Give me a break!! McCain isn't a straight talker. He's just a media charmer because he always makes time for you guys. He knows that if he flatters the media, they'll hide all his flaws? Crook(Keating Five)? Check!! Lying war monger? Check!! Want me to go on?

Its rare to see it laid out like this in black and white but its always been the for anyone with eyes to see.

Unfortunately the degree to which our Actual politics mirrors schoolyard politics is the degree to which the logic of picking some scrappy little country and knocking it against the wall can be regarded as serious discourse.
The degree to which taunts such as "wanting to provide therapy and understanding to our enemies" can have an actual effect on policy as if the entire Middle East is just another playground is the degree to which our entire debate over the lives of millions has been reduced to a game of chicken.

You may think that there's some insight to be gained by comparing the candidates to their High-School role equivalents and there is.

Unfortunately the lesson to be drawn is deadly serious and it points to an entire nation that has lost its ability to reason clearly.

Yes! Go on, Joe Klein's guilty conscience!

I'll help...

Married to a Budweiser distributor that promotes boxing and yet trying to outlaw ultimate fighting.

Clearly, the people hitting each other doesn't bother him...

Maybe the people hitting each other without paying him does?

Michael,

Didn't we already have this *same* choice, back in 2000?

How's that working out for you?

Bwahahaha, Atrios should have just called you a wanker of the day and left it at that, insead you get this

" Fluffernutter

Apparently Time brought Michael Scherer on board so he could write parodies of his colleagues.

At least that's the only charitable explanation I can come up with..."

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_12_30_archive.html#976700256901000188

This is beyond parody. It literally makes me nauseous to read this rubbish. If Chutzpah Joe Klein should perish from a bad restaurant meal, it must be comforting to Time-Warner-Moloch to know that Michael Scherer is ready to take his place.

do you ever ask McCain about the near-eloquence of his denunciations of torture, and the fact that he voted to authorize it (the MCA of October, 2006), after vowing to sacrifice his presidential ambitions to blocking it?

It's good to see that our political reporters view the whole process through the hyper-sophisticated lens of "Saved by the Bell."

Either that, or they conceive the reading public as a bunch of rubes who need to have the process explained through that lens.

... Mike Huckabee also fits in my mythical high school typology...

Yes, everyone fits. It's such a cliche that it's meaningless at this point to sort out the candidates as if they are high school students, thank you very much.

Ouch, Atrios nails it. I read your post twice, just to make sure you weren't writing a parody of your peers. Since it wasn't funny, I figured you were straight up but, dang, Atrios beat me to it.

I actually liked the high school metaphors, but I knew this cynical crowd would act like the mature, freshman college students and pooh pooh it.

Oh puh-leese!

Writing like this is another piece of evidence that the American democratic republic is doomed...in fact, it's probably dead already. (For a long time, I've suspected it died on 12/12/2000.)

Obviously, it's been a long time since the press was a check on the power-grabbing, authoritarian Republicans who have nothing but contempt for American democracy. "Journalists" fiddle while Republicans turn our beloved country into something along the lines of Evil Empire 2: The North American Version.

And in New York Harbor, Lady Liberty sheds a tear...but who the hell cares about her anyway? After all, she's just another whiny Frenchwoman.

Might as well just close up the old democracy shop and wait for Diebold to tell us which Republican it will be appointing as dictator.

Dear Michael Scherwer,

Will you take me to prom?

Check the box for yes or no and then have your BFF bring the note to me.

Please check yes!

HEART,

Guy who hates your metaphora.

P.S. Seriously, take me to prom! I'll blow you!

Well, I hate to turn ad hominem, but that's a pretty fey picture you have there Michael. I guess you're the guy in high school who hasn't figured out he's gay.

After reading this post, I had to scroll back to the top to see which of the ladies had written it.
Michael Scherer? Christ on a crutch!
I think dms has a point there.

Okay, you realize when liberal bloggers refer to the press as "Heathers," that it's intended as an insult?

That, yes, we're aware you're putting the candidates into high school categories and reacting to them as through you're still in high school--but implied in this is that you should stop doing it, not make the subtext into text!

Being honest about being shallow isn't a noticeable improvement over being shallow! You have a very important job to do, and it's not OK that you treat McCain with an awestruck teen reverence!

Gack.

Well, I don't know about anyone else, but comparing politics to high school cliques makes perfect sense to me, and I haven't been in high school since 2000.

They're both about the same level of maturity.

Wow! Great post! And Ron Paul is the guy in the A/V club who doesn't get that he can't hang out with the cool kids. And Guiliani is the hall monitor who runs a tight ship but still gets the chicks. And Thompson is aaaaaaooh MY GOD THIS IS THE DUMBEST POST I'VE EVER READ!!! Are you 15 years old? Did they tape you to your chair on the bus and make you watch John Hughes movies for 24 straight hours? What the hell is the matter with you?

I honestly don't know which bothers me more, the complete lack of originality in this post or the fact that the author actually seems to think he's being clever.

Reasoning by analogy is a little tricky since it involves both inductive and deductive reasoning and can only ever lead to probabilities. Most analogies are false largely because of the failings of the inductive part, the part that deals with the facts, moving from the specific to the general. If you don't get the facts right none of your deductive conclusions, moving from the general back to the specific, will be accurate as the analogy will be false in the first place.

But I think I know what Michael is trying to say.

McCain is cool (the jock), but he isn't very bright.

Romney is smart (overachiever), but he isn't cool,

Huckabee is fat, and sort of smart (he stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night.)

What Republicans need to do is decide if they want the cool stupid guy, the smart guy who no one likes, or the guy everyone feels sorry for and sort of likes.

I have a different, productive suggestion:

Mr. Scherer, please write a post in which you describe your fellow Swampland journalists with high-school analogies.

You can leave yourself out, but I suggest starting with Joe Klein.

Or you could even broaden the task and include other political reporters. How about Candy Crowley, once you finish with your fellow Swamplanders?

Thank God you can boil it all down to high school examples.

It isn't like we're electing a president or anything serious like that.

Jeezus - who are you trying to be? Maureen Dowd?

If so, you definitely have a lot of work to do.

But I think I know what Michael is trying to say.
McCain is cool (the jock), but he isn't very bright.

That would explain his braindead foreign policy views.

Michael (whoever you are):

I can't believe that you do this for a living.

"We ask him tough questions, and we try to make him slip up, but almost inevitably we come around to admiring him. He wants the challenge. He likes the give and take. He is, to put it simply, cooler than us."

This says so much more about you than it does about anything having to do with campaigns and politics.

"Do we elect the jock or the overachiever? Do we go with cool and confident, or cautious and competent?"

Spoken like someone who believes that the the outcomes of elections have no consequences for them personally beyond stuff to chatter about. How could you think that anybody cares about descriptions like "jock or overachiever"?
We're not bored out of our skulls sitting in some airplane or dentist's waiting room, you know. We came here to find out information because we give a crap about our families, our cities and our country. Who are you writing this for?

"He is the class clown with the weight problem everyone likes, who always seemed to have his heart in the right place"

Is this intentional self-parody? If it is, you have to make it much clearer that the subject of your mockery is you and not us, OK?

"He is the one who takes endless notes in every class and has a little plastic container inside his locker for all of his mechanical pencils. He will probably be the valedictorian, and he will surely disappoint you at graduation by giving a bland speech that all the parents just love. "Isn't that boy so sweet," say all the moms."

What the crap does this have to do with anything?

Michael: When you buy an HDTV, and you go online to look for reviews, do you look for pieces that tell you all about the different shades of black and beige the units come in?
Or do you want to know how sharp and precise the pictures will be, and how large the monitors of each unit are--which ones are probably worth your money?

Get the analogy?

Listen up, because I have some news for you:
We're not here to elect a f---ing homecoming queen. We're here to find out what we can about what the candidates might do, not which high school personality type they put out for your consumption. You're not F. Scott Fitzgerald Junior writing for the school paper, you're here to give us quality product reviews, so we can figure out which kind of government we can buy with our votes.

In this whole piece of nothing, I found out this:
"Romney would rather talk about the details of his health care plan and the Z visa" and "[Huckabee] wants a constitutional amendment to outlaw abortion, and he thinks gay marriage will destroy civilization.".

We don't even get actual support for those supposed facts, and we had to read until the very end of this garbage to find out that relatively old information. I honestly don't even think that Joe Klein is this idiotic, and his stuff is so corpulent and bloated that it fairly explodes with florid banality.

Michael, in all seriousness, if you don't have anything worthwhile to write about, then just shut up and don't insult us with this inane crap. Take some time to figure out how you might be useful, for God's sake. Bob Somerby and Glen Greenwald each have their own awards for this kind of vapidity. You sound like you're vying for Duncan's Wanker of the Day, but by actually, literally analogizing the primary race with a post about an adolescent clique clamoring around "the coolest kid in school", you might get Wanker of the Year (and its only January).

You sound as if you're trying to make us hate you right away...

""But I think I know what Michael is trying to say.
McCain is cool (the jock), but he isn't very bright.""

"That would explain his braindead foreign policy views."

Like wanting to occupy Iraq for another 100 years. That's really cool isn't it?

I read the first line of this post, read it again to make sure I wasn't reading it wrong, and remembered how Atrios had been predicting MSM treatment of McCain would devolve into shameless fluffing in light of the Huckabee win.

And now as if on cue, Time Magazine is telling me that John McCain "has always been the coolest kid in school." It's funny that people could somehow still bring themselves to fawn like that over such a thoroughly compromised maverick who just happens to be the last non-evangelical standing.

The coolest kid in school really shouldn't have to beg the rest of the class to forgive him for supporting comprehensive immigration reform and opposing the Bush tax cuts. Isn't flip-flopping seen as lethal in candidates other than John McCain? And what people really need to know about him is that he was not the early war critic that he claims to have been. He was saying we were on the right track and we should know in 6 months, etc.

Is this some kind of a joke?

And as much as I don't agree with Romney OR McCain we should all be so lucky as to go a high-school where the smartest kid founded a billion dollar investment firm and the jock courageously endured years of torture, and then later courageously opposed his own party's sickening support for torture.

I hate this post for many reasons, but most of all because it takes genuinely accomplished, and even remarkable, adults and reduces them to children.

It's nice to know that whatever we do with our lives, whatever we achieve, no matter how brilliant or brave, if we ever run for office we'll be described as teen-age "jocks" or "nerds" or "class clowns".

It really warms my heart that this is what our democracy has devolved into.

omg. You might be stupider than Joke Line.

Are you kidding me?

Some of us have gotten past high school. Apparently you have not. John McCain is "the coolest kid around"??

Good grief. This post is neither informative, nor clever.

Oh, wait. It is informative. You did tell us that instead of covering McCain objectively, you all sit at his feet and bask in his coolness. What does that remind me of? Oh, yeah! Isn't that exactly what you all did with Bush during the 2000 election?

Good to know.

How about if you guys stop trying to channel H.L. Menken and try to do your freaking jobs?

Seriously- can the stakes be any higher? You owe the american public thorough reporting on the candidates positions, records, and proposed policies.

I don't really give a flip whether you think they are cool or not.

@TomT...

Thank you.

I honestly loathe all of the Repubs who were highschooled in this post. I mean I realy can't stand them and don't want to see any of them in power.

But... yes... they are adults, who have earned adulthood. They've suffered to get there.

I don't want any of them to be president.

But they aren't children.

Not even metaphorically.

Well... you can bulid a metaphor about anything. This one just ain't apt.

I guess that Duncan didn't give you a Wanker award, probably because it really does seem like you're writing a parody.

He did the appropriate thing, and called you a fluffernutter, though.

Come on...tell us: is this a parody of the Villagers or did you really mean it?

Come on...tell us: is this a parody of the Villagers or did you really mean it?

Posted by stuart_zechman | January 6, 2008 12:55 AM

It's partially trolling for attention as "the new guy," partially an attempt at ingratiation, and entirely sad. But then, it's Time magazine. If they could do better, they wouldn't have been hired.

omg this guy is a douche

Joe, is that you? You can't use anonymus anymore, so did you write under the pseudonym of Michael Scherer?

Another thought. This is a plot by Swampland to make Joe Klein look good in comparison. Not working. Seems on as sophmoric level as most of Joe's posts.

Posted by Martin Gale | January 6, 2008 1:04 AM:
"It's partially trolling for attention as "the new guy," partially an attempt at ingratiation..."

So it's deliberate, but it's not self-parody...that means he really is trying to attract offense, hatred and disgust?

Is that the idea? Because we line up here to tell Klein every way possible that he can f--- himself each time he pulls his "Bill O'Reilly of Centrism" routine, this assclown Scherer goes for "teh stupid" gold?

This is bizarre, that's all I can say.

Greenwald says it best (again):

For all the talk about the complex ideological, economic and other factors that shape our horrendous political press coverage, it is always important to remember that so much of it ...is attributable to the adolescent, self-absorbed, herd-like behavior of the reporters who travel around with these candidates. Those whom they like personally -- the ones who flatter them or otherwise trigger their desire to be liked -- receive reverent coverage, while those to whom they're personally hostile receive the opposite.

"...almost inevitably we come around to admiring him...He is, to put it simply, cooler than us."

Amazing, isn't it?

Seriously, Michael Scherer, how f'ing obtuse do you have to be to post this?

Good lord, have you ever paid attention to anything in your life?

Are you hoping and praying that your picture ends up next to the entry for "oblivious" in the dictionary?

I find it hard to believe you went to high school with 6 leaky old doddering paranoid white guys.

Or, if you did, I imagine you did not relate to The Breakfast Club very well. (Or, if you were into The Breakfast Club, I assume you cast Romney as Molly Ringwald.)

The comments in these blogs only reinforce what I already knew: People on the internet are douchebags.

And you call yourselves adults.

This brought to you by 'why the heck do I bother to read the comments here anymore?'

if you were into The Breakfast Club, I assume you cast Romney as Molly Ringwald

I suspect he has indeed thought about this and has cast Romney as Philip Michael Hall and Hillary as Molly Ringwald.

We will probably learn about this in a later post -- things are going to get worse around here. I can feel it.

What kind of sicko would think McCain was cool. He doesn't like Romney because he is accomplished and he isn't? McCain's money came from his wife and not a damned thing he did on his own. That is cool? No wonder he dislikes Romney. How many kids would a smarta** McCain get killed in some unnecessary war just because he couldn't control his boorish behavior? Tonight really showed me a lot. Five of these guys are just trash. Guess which ones.

Here's how stupid this Scherer tool is:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/1/5/162345/7090/1016/431219

Honestly, you guys are taking this post too seriously. I believe this was Scherer's attempt at humor, playing up the '80's stereotypes to the hilt, poking fun at the press for how they frame their narratives (through a high school mythology). Seriously, would any self-respecting reporter state that a candidate was "too cool" for them and mean it?

I, for one, find this more entertaining than the drivel normally spewed by the press because Scherer doesn't take himself so seriously. The guy's just having fun, and zany, inaccurate analogies are entertaining when they're not meant to make a serious point.

Here's what's missing from both of your sophomoric candidate portraits: real passion.

Neither the "cool jock" nor the overly sincere geek is the type to evince any real depth of passion. Passion as in a sense of destiny, a zeal or enthusiasm for doing the right thing for our times, inspired by a compelling vision of the possibilities and pitfalls of this moment in history.

Rudy Giuliani has that kind of passion, and more. He's got real experience turning a city like New York around, fighting crime and fighting real threats to security. He's also one helluva smart guy, probably more than your so-called "valedictorian" and from where I sit he's way cooler than your "jock" choice too. Rudy knows when to be serious and get tough, and he also knows when to lighten up and have fun. He's a total human being: smart, mature, energetic and well-rounded. Not some shallow caricature of kids you knew in junior high.

Interesting that you chose not to include Giuliani in your silly contest; I guess he doesn't fit so easily into those itsy-bitsy boxes you use for conceptual categories.

Posted by mpizzle | January 6, 2008 2:00 AM:

"Honestly, you guys are taking this post too seriously."

So this is a parody of establishment political reporting, poor writing and all?

Was this just too well done (and the reality just too awful) for us to get the joke?

It's an Onion piece?

McCain was nasty and rude. Is that presidential? Romney was presidential. He didn't reduce himself to name-calling and nasty comebacks. He had the better of the evening. He talked intelligently on the subjects, defended his views, drew contrasts and didn't lower himself to the others who all took cheap shots at him - save Ron Paul. McCain is too old and too nasty to be President and he's never been an executive. Thompson puts you to sleep when he talks. Huckebee asks like goody two shoes but his nastiness was shown tonight. Guilliani is too liberal. Ron Paul makes some sense but he's not Presidential. Romney is smart, accomplished, well-spoken and a proven leader. He should be our next President.

"So this is a parody of establishment political reporting, poor writing and all? Was this just too well done (and the reality just too awful) for us to get the joke?"

I took away a parody of establishment political reporting, yes. Granted, this was based on the assumption that no serious writer would use such a silly analogy except as a joke. The best person to answer such questions, however, would be Michael.

Michael, was this post simply a joke narrative, or were you actually trying to make a serious point?

Luckily, we can trust McCain, in the event that he wins the nomination, to bring the entire Giuliani foreign policy brain trust, on board, completely intact, since McCain's point of view on the Middle East is identical to that of Giuliani.

Ah, for god's sake. What the hell is wrong with political journalists? Why are so many of you auditioning to be Maureen Dowd? (As if one isn't ghastly enough.) This isn't reporting, and it's not fricking analysis either -- except under the most charitable, low-bar definition. I don't know what your high-school experiences were like, and frankly, I don't give a sh*t, so why don't you give your lame psychologising and projections a rest and just do some straight fricking commentary?

And if you can't manage that, go write a novel or STFU.

do you like a donkey and a chameleon? while one is an ass, the other is a symbol of change.

Excellent. I have known and admired John McCain for twenty years. Your tongue-in-cheek post shows and provides for the voter more insight into the Senator than most commentators and reporters, especially those of cable TV, have offered all year. Trust me, if John reads your characterization of him, he will be smiling.

In a nation of 300 million, this is the best analysis Time Magazine can give us? This is an embarrassment.

Of course John McCain spent three years at the Hanoi Hilton so that geniuses like you would have the freedom to write this kind of drivel.

This is really sad. I usually liked reading Scherer's articles at Salon. Does Time instantly brainwash people to become stupid and vapid the moment they're hired?

Jayzus. If you can't figure out how to fluff McCain or anyone else on their actual (alleged or otherwise) accomplishments and qualities without inadvertently writing parody, can you just not write anything at all?

Please, PLEASE stop placing political reporting on high school or even college templates.

Did the cool kid in your school always call you "my friend" before he attacked you? Saint John never fails to use that "tell"
I bet he would be great to have at the poker table.

I actually liked the high school metaphors, but I knew this cynical crowd would act like the mature, freshman college students and pooh pooh it.

I didn't like the metaphor mostly because its so tired, and I think that Scherer got the casting wrong -- but other than that, I thought Scherer did a good job with it.

A far better metaphor would not be high school, but high school as portrayed in Happy Days. McCain is "Fonzi" -- the non-dangerous "chick-magnet" and faux 'rebel'. Mitt is Richie Cunningham, the guy so white that you'd need St. Bernards to find him in a snowstorm.

What I don't think that people get is that this was closer to "parody" of his peers than an attempt at serious analysis of the Republican race. It really was a critique of the media --- and he's trying to explain to us the basis for the way that the media is reporting on McCain and Romney, rather than expressing his personal feelings about the candidates.

Keep in mind that Scherer was reporting for Salon (and before that, Mother Jones). This is not someone who has been "covering the White House and Congress for Time" for the last seven years and delivering drivel. Its not someone who is in charge of coverage of Washington DC for Time, but who ignores what is going on there in favor of campaign-trail trivia.

This is someone who has NOT spent the last 10 years as part of the mainstream media elite -- and (unlike some of the folks at places like American Prospect and other "liberal" magazines) has not been reporting for Salon as if he was auditioning for a gig with the Washington Post).

In other words, please try and give Scherer a break here, and make an effort to understand what he is trying to do, rather than assume that he's just as bad as the rest of the Swampland gang.

Thank you, Mr. Scherer, for the entertaining analogies. Too bad you have so many humorless readers who are unable to express themselves without using obscenities. I guess they are in high school.

Mr. Scherer,

Back in the high school I went to whether it was the cool kid or the valedictorian if like McCain & Romney (Bush also comes to mind here)they were hypocritical, lying, mean-spirited types like these "men" we just called them as we saw them....a$%holes. But the average sheep is easily taken in by this type and what was true in high school still seems to be true now. Whereas I didn't care for this piece I can understand why so many readers and most likely journalists do....in their mindset they never left high school.

What would you compare Hillary Clinton to, or Barack Obama, or John Edwards?

Sounds to me as if you were not one of those "in-crowd" kids in High School and you still have some resentments over it.

What you don't seem to acknowledge about any of the GOP candidates are things such as the fact that McCain is a war hero, a congressman who has been serving in Washington since 1982, and really is one of the most honorable men in Washington. Romney was governor of a very liberal state and was quite successful. Huckabee was governor of Arkansas for over 10 years, was hugely successful there, and is a guy who is a true rags to riches person, coming from really the humblest roots of any candidate since Abe Lincoln.

I was not an "in-crowd" kid in High School either, but I don't resent others for whatever success they have earned for themselves. Everything that these candidates have, they have earned for themselves, not been given through some mystical system of senority and popularity.

My two cents on this issue.

If their debate had been substantive, or their campaigning in general, I'd agree with the nay-sayers, but no I think you nailed the tone of the R race exactly.

Remember 2000 people, when the country elected the guy they'd most want to have a beer with? And Al Gore, well, he's smart but he's too stiff.

We all pay when American group-think is schoolyard.

Thank you for turning my tears into laughter, Michael.

What you don't seem to acknowledge about any of the GOP candidates are things such as the fact that McCain is a war hero, a congressman who has been serving in Washington since 1982, and really is one of the most honorable men in Washington.

the most honorable man in Washington wouldn't claim to oppose torture, then endorse it... (John McCain is Arlen Specter with a war record. Both men "stand out" because on occasion they are willing to mildly criticize Bush -- but vote like the rest of the rubber-stamp Republicans).

Romney was governor of a very liberal state and was quite successful

One term... and Romney claims credit for the work done by the overwhelmingly Democratic Massachusetts legislature.

Huckabee was governor of Arkansas for over 10 years, was hugely successful there, and is a guy who is a true rags to riches person, coming from really the humblest roots of any candidate since Abe Lincoln.

Humbler than Bill Clinton --- or are we just talking about Republicans here?
I actually like Huckabee to some extent, because there is at least some part of him that is a true Christian (i.e. someone who actually follows the teachings and example of Jesus.) The problem with Huckabee is that the issues that Jesus covered don't specifically include foreign policy --- or abortion or homosexuality for that matter --- and he tends to get lost in GOP groupthink when he doesn't have specific instructions from Jesus to carry out. (He does seem to be making some progress in extrapolating Jesus's message to other policy categories, but when he makes sufficient progress to make a decent president, he'll have to switch parties.)

Everything that these candidates have, they have earned for themselves,

oh, come on. Mitt Romney? (Bill Clinton, is a true 'self-made' guy. McCain came from a family chock full of the military elite -- his father and both grandfathers were Admirals. Edwards, Rudy, and Huckabee can all be described as "self-made" -- although all were able to build on solid working-class backgrounds as foundations. Obama and Hillary are both from upper-middle class backgrounds -- as a black person and a woman respectively, both had to overcome more hurdles than someone like McCain or Romney.)

It's time to reiterate what I said upthread.

While this whole high-school comparison is sad for all the reasons everyone acknowleges, it's significantyly worse insofar as the same sort of thiinking gets applied to theories of statecraft as expressed in such phrases as "stay the course" vs "cut and run".

Juvenile posturing has so far led to tens of thousands of unecessary civilian deaths. It's not a laughing matter.

In other words, please try and give Scherer a break here, and make an effort to understand what he is trying to do, rather than assume that he's just as bad as the rest of the Swampland gang.

No, No. I seriously doubt that anyone who blogs for this site, and for this magazine, is going to ever reinforce certain stereotypes about them (the DC pundit class) that they may happen to be aware of, even in parody form--as that would acknowledge the underlying criticisms to begin with, which they will never do. Not to mention, I seriously doubt their management would approve of it either.

These people don't ever acknowledge any criticism of their work (or lack thereof), or if they do, it is dismissed no matter how correct. Joe Klein is an excellent example (see his FISA "coverage").

Juvenile posturing has so far led to tens of thousands of unecessary civilian deaths. It's not a laughing matter.

It is to the high-paid political pundit class. Everything in politics is, to them, a "trifling amusement".

Posted by mediasux | January 6, 2008 9:01 AM:

"...please try and give Scherer a break here, and make an effort to understand what he is trying to do, rather than assume that he's just as bad as the rest of the Swampland gang."

The second that he lets us in on the joke is the second I do an anti-Klein (apologize profusely).

Seriously, I would love it if this were simply too complex for my reptile brain to figure out. That would be great. I hope you're right. I hope that we'll find out.

The second that he lets us in on the joke is the second I do an anti-Klein (apologize profusely). Seriously, I would love it if this were simply too complex for my reptile brain to figure out. That would be great. I hope you're right. I hope that we'll find out.

and if I'm wrong, and the borg-assimilation process at Time is much more accelerated than I'd imagined possible, I'll be the first to admit it!

This is a satire of a Joe Klein post, right?

McCain is a short, crotchety old man who was up past Lawrence Welk time. He is nothing but a media wh*re who trades media face time for self-serving denunciations of the administration and President Bush. That is what the media wants and that's what he has given them for 7 years. He has about as much integrity as a cabbage. His grade school debate performance was enough to turn the stomachs of voters everywhere. What were his ideas? What were his experiences? If you don't have any you spout endless platitudes and go after your opponent like McCain did. Disgusting. This article is just another piece of smelly garbage added to the McCain toxic waste dump.

Paul Dirks has this exactly right:

"Juvenile posturing has so far led to tens of thousands of unecessary civilian deaths. It's not a laughing matter."

The way our hopeless political press covers politics (high school metaphors, who do want to have a beer with, etc.) has had catastrophic consequences for the country.

Hmm, so.. let's see how this works:

Joe Klein is the lecherous, insincere School Principal, who conceals goatish lust under a facade of "discussing" matters with naive freshman.

AMC is the ditzy secretary, still wearing plaid skirts and pigtails, but with delusions of grandeur because she is allowed to touch the Principal's Rolodex.

Karen Tumulty is the well-meaning schoolmarm who wants to be cool, but hasn't made much progress since the eighties.

Jay Carney is the humorless math teacher, who dresses like a "serious adult" and can't get why nobody likes lectures on calculus.

Jay Newton-Small is the cute, naive teacher brought in by Principal Klein for some perverted reason that need not be explained here.

Michael Scherer is Principal Klein's son-in-law - slimy, not very bright, but needs a job, and hey, it's only high school!

For my next analogy: Republican candidates as porn stars. You know it makes sense!

Seriously people, Lighten the F*** up. I liked the post

Posted by basilbrush | January 6, 2008 12:19 PM

Now that's parody, for those of you who want to know what it actually looks like.

Let's forget for a moment how superficial, vapid and trite this piece, and how it tells us absolutely nothing. Put that aside for a moment.

How hacky do you have to be to go back to the 'high school stereotypes' well again? At least Scherer could have spent another five minutes thinking up another tedious analogy to use. A minor league baseball team, perhaps? A WWII platoon? Employees at a roller rink? Characters on 'Deadwood'?

In addition to being stupid and irrelevant, this piece is just plain lazy.

Do you really get paid for this?

Seriously people, Lighten the F*** up. I liked the post

Posted by BC | January 6, 2008 12:25 PM

Well, now we can all rest easy. The voice of the people has spoken!

Thanks to boobs like Scherer and Klein, my kids will one day soon ask: Daddy whats Time magazine?

As a member of Joe Q Public I would like to thank you Scherer for a post full of entertaining metaphors I can relate to that lack any substance. It is what we the common people want and kudos to your magazine for always providing it. Also it makes you seem like one of us and I can relate to someone like myself.

Please in the future include more metaphors that I, as an average american citizen can relate to: NASCAR metaphors, driving to work and getting stuck in traffic metaphors, Football metaphors. Feel free to mix the metaphors too...I love football AND NASCAR!

PS: Please make sure when you try to interpret what I, as an average american, am thinking that you ignore any polling done on me and my fellow citizens and go with whatever the latest group-think narrative is amongst beltway pundits.

Thanks for that last paragraph that seeped out of you describing Huck's positions on social issues. He now has my vote for sure!

Oh, let's just all giggle along at the cleverness of the Villagers.

It IS one of those laughing matters - dear leader just loves 'em - like looking for WMDs under the sofa and not finding any, or strapping your dog to the roof of the car and driving to the food bank (in another state).

Hilarious!

It's GOT to be a joke, because as a guy who gets paid to write, I'm sure he would have written, "He's cooler than WE" if he were serious....

So, you think just the republicans are evil, Monchie? How about the war that stuck McCain in a POW prison to be tortured? You can thank JFK and Johnson for that one becoming what it did. They got some good practice in the Bay of Pigs, unilaterally trying to invade a sovereign country and getting their asses handed to them. How many Friends of Hillary have died EXTREMELY odd deaths? Why wasn't Bill more focused on getting Osama when he was told over and over the guy would attempt what he pulled off on Sept 11th?

Scherer's post is industry standard for the current media, unfortunately. The citizenry of the U.S. can't think beyond the soundbite during American (is the whole hemisphere competing?) Idol that shows them the next thing they need to be scared of in order to sell _______ (home security systems, Prilosec, Viagra, hair restoration shampoo...you fill in the blank) to TV addicts reacting to everything in their lives.

We are the greatest nation ever to come about in the history of mankind, and have the ability to fix any problem we have in short order. The problem is if we have no problems, then we need almost no government. By ending corporate welfare, and human welfare, as well as making lobbying of government officials illegal, then pulling all of our troops back onto our soil, we would very quickly become even more of an object to be emulated by other countries. I guarantee we'd have conversations about REAL issues instead of comparing candidates to quarterbacks. I don't see the Swiss invading other countries to save a nickel (or twenty) on a gallon of gas, and they've been doing pretty well for several hundred years.

Mr Scherer,

Are still in high school? Do you miss it?

Are the issues of the campaign so complex that you'd prefer to have it reduced to popularity contest?

John McCain might be cooler than you but he's definitely not cool by my understanding of the term.

erik28com: LOL.

Well, we're still waiting for that update informing us that this was a parody...

http://www.newsweek.com/id/56653

Is it just me, or is our new Klein-apprentice basically a rip-off artist as well? Take a look at the above article, and see if anything looks familiar....

Thanks so for the primary analysis from The Breakfast Club. How will you spin it next - vis-a-vis Ferris Bueller or Pretty in Pink?

I'll say this again: if he were as smart and principled as you are trying to make him out here, Time would not have hired him.

I don't know. I suspect that with all the content free drivel in Time, Stengel was probably getting reports from newsvendors that the magazine was so lightweight it was floating off the newstands into the atmosphere --- so he hired Scherer to provide a little ballast. ;-)

I guess the thing is that Scherer is aware of how ridiculous the media is. I mean, he presents the beltway media not as serious professionals, but as a bunch of immature teenagers who are desperate to get close to "the star quarterback." And he doesn't (either because he has to live with these people, or because he's honest about the impact that peer pressure has on him) try to pretend to be uninfluenced by the obvious vacuity of the media.

Now, maybe you're right --- maybe he is brain-dead enough to think its actually OK for professional journalists to completely lose their objectivity, and act like a bunch of insecure high-school students. And if that is the case we'll know soon enough (I mean, Jay Newton-Small has already shown us how bad she is).

But to me, there is a huge difference in what Scherer wrote, and this post from last night...
(link is to my comment on the post, which includes the full text of the post)

http://www.time-blog.com/swampland/2008/01/the_gop_debate.html#comment-383112

To me, that post is shocking, because it doesn't merely convey what IS happening, it does so in a way that can leave no doubt in anyone's mind that the observation is made uncritically because the writer saw nothing to criticize....

So does anyone see the irony (not to mention spite and condescension) in Scherer's paranoid bagging on Huckabee, after cribbing from Huckabee's high school mythology analogy? (See Huckabee's foreign policy comments about America as a high school archetype).

Scherer, in characterizing the media as a bunch of mindless sycophants towards the "cool crowd", is giving us no reason to take the media seriously. It's only high school all over again if we let it be that way.

Michael, grow up.

The guy who wrote this crap is the biggest jerk ever, and so is our national media. You guys are playing games with our lives. You aren't covering the campaign, you aren't telling the truth, and you all have blood on all of your hands from the year 2000 from not telling us the truth then.

Every damn one of you should be ashamed. Take that to your nice expensive hotel rooms tonight and shove that under your goddamn pillows.

Is it just me, or is our new Klein-apprentice basically a rip-off artist as well?

I think the "politics as high school" metaphor is so old, you can't really call it "stealing" from anyone -- "hackneyed" is more like it.

But I think that the Fineman piece provides us with evidence of why Scherer does not deseerve a lot of the criticism he is getting. Fineman actually, and obviously, believes that the "high school" metaphor is apt and appropriate. When he uses the word "we", he isn't talking about "the press corps", he is saying that ALL OF US, the American people, should see the presidential contest in this fashion.

But I think that the Fineman piece provides us with evidence of why Scherer does not deseerve a lot of the criticism he is getting. Fineman actually, and obviously, believes that the "high school" metaphor is apt and appropriate. When he uses the word "we", he isn't talking about "the press corps", he is saying that ALL OF US, the American people, should see the presidential contest in this fashion.

Posted by mediasux | January 6, 2008 5:53 PM

Ah, so one sophomoric driveller is a problem, but two or more sophomoric drivellers would be fine by you?

Scherer, in characterizing the media as a bunch of mindless sycophants towards the "cool crowd", is giving us no reason to take the media seriously. It's only high school all over again if we let it be that way.

true...
the question at this point is what Scherer's intent was in "giving us no reason." Is he intentionally telling us that the media sucks, or does he suck so bad that he is completely unaware of what he is "giving us."

Like I've said, I tend to think its the first option -- and I have another reason for doing so. The stereotypes that he presents us for McCain and Romney with are at odds with the public perception of the candidates, the image that the candidates are trying to project, and the image that is being reported by the beltway media.

I mean, no one that I know has every described McCain as "the star quarterback" (he's "maverick" cool, not "jock" cool.) And Romney doesn't come off as the smartest kid in the room who is hitting the books every night -- and "has little plastic containers in his locker for all his mechanical pencils." Romney is the guy who has spent his life running for Student Council president -- not studying.

To me, this suggests that what scherer is communicating is not who these candidates are, but how the press is seeing them -- and in doing so "giving us no reason to take the media seriously."

but again, I could be wrong. I just don't want to condemn someone for being something he's not.

Ah, so one sophomoric driveller is a problem, but two or more sophomoric drivellers would be fine by you?

I think you missed my distinction. Fineman used a hackneyed metaphor to tell us what WE should think about the campaign, and the candidates. I think Scherer used the same hackneyed metaphor to tell us how the MEDIA sees the campaign, and how it thinks -- and in a way that any thinking person would conclude that the media is full of superficial morons.

I think you missed my distinction. Fineman used a hackneyed metaphor to tell us what WE should think about the campaign, and the candidates. I think Scherer used the same hackneyed metaphor to tell us how the MEDIA sees the campaign, and how it thinks -- and in a way that any thinking person would conclude that the media is full of superficial morons.

Hmm.. and would you like to offer any reason for regarding Scherer as a master of irony, rather than a hack peddling the same old lazy analogies? Frankly, you sound like someone attempting to defend the indefensible. Scherer gives no sign that he is talking ironically about how the press see things. There is a certain amount of kissing up to John McCain 5.0, but nothing that indicates any disillusionment with the Press whoring after the old weasel as usual. Other than that, the trite old analogy wheezes along, and then dies a merciful death with a crude swipe at Huckabee.

Hey! so nice discussion , BUT it is NEW YEAR now,You love to try something new special? http://interracialsingleonline.com you will be surprised there...

Any chance we can ban bozos like this guy, & MoDowd, and Collins, and .. .

Michael Scherer:

Still waiting for that clarification: was this further parody of Feinman's unintentional self-parody in Newsweek, or not?

c'mon stuart -- do you really expect Mike to come right out and say "hey, sorry I didn't make it clear that I think all the people that I have to share busses and airplanes for the next 10 months are a bunch of complete morons"?

In some ways, I hope you're right about him, tho -- mostly because this is probably his introduction to you -- and unless you're right, he's not seeing you as the consistently extremely perceptive and intelligent commenter that you are.

Then again, I hope I'm right --- because if I am, Scherer will owe me big time! ;-)

@mediasux

Are you sure you are not Scherer in disguise?

@stuart_zechman

I fear that Monsieur Scherer is still trying to find a nice meaning for the word "self-parody". It may take some time....

I dropped out of high school when I was 15. Now I remember why...

Please tell me who signs your paycheck, so I can make fart noises at him whenever I see him...

Mediasux --
Anyone in the media who doesn't think their credibility is their most valuable asset -- with professionalism coming in a close second -- needs another look at Aristotle's Rhetoric. Or maybe they shouldn't; just think what kind of damage these clowns could do with that kind of insight. Rove was bad enough.

The media has a critical role in maintaining the health of our democracy. It would help a great deal if they took the job (but not necessarily themselves) a lot more seriously than they're showing with this nonsense. This is airing their dirty laundry in public. This is something they should be fixing, not just blathering about.

OMG. This would be funny if there weren't hundreds of thousands of innocent dead Iraqi civilians, the Constitution suspended, illegal spying before 9/11, torture, elections stolen through intimidation (if not fraud), cronyism (Katrina? Crandall mine?), and on and on. Bush was the cool kid in 2000, the media swooned, and look what we got.

Michael, can we fire you and get a real political reporter to cover this campaign for TIME? You just disqualified yourself as being too sophmoric and opinionated. Notice how you discredit Huckabee (by mentioning him in an update) even though Iowa Republican voters picked him as the best choice.

Have you no shame? Really, this should get you fired in any news organization worth its name.

OK,Michael, just to till you in: high school's over, you're still a dweeb, and hangin' with McCain is never going to change that. If you guys would just grow up and stop trying to relive your high school days -- with its cliques, insecurities, conformity and self-absorption -- it would do wonders for journalism, not to mention democracy.

I came back to see what happened after I left.
In my opinion, comments parsing phrases and analyzing writing styles of oh-so clever guys like this newbie are WASTING THEIR TIME.

In my opinion, we should be demanding REPORTING from these spoiled brats.

If they remember how to do it.
I have my doubts.

Michael, I see the readers here at Time are even less accepting of your journalistic hackitude than those over at Salon. Arent you glad you took this job? You and Joe Klein deserve each other. Now give us your lunch money or we'll pound you into next week...

The Reporter, Michael Scherer, Meets His Maker.

Greetings critics,

I had no idea how easy it would be to make a splash here at Swampland. (Oh, the possibilities!) Over in the letters thread to my last Rudy post, a reader names Stuart Zechman asked me directly if I could clear up whether or not I had, in fact, employed the use of sarcasm in this High School post.

I responded there, to wit:

"From the reporter:

"Hey Stuart Zechman, Thanks for the question. I would like to say I was being ironic in that High School post, but there was a blood oath I had to take when I left Salon.com for Time magazine. (The ceremony was bizarre: drinking cranberry juice from a plastic Halloween skull, singing a Britney Spears song backwards, etc.) All the irony has been cleansed from my body and mind. I am all mainstream media all the time now. If I am critical of my fellow journalists, Time Inc gives me a shock through my new ankle bracelet. It hurts.

"As for the Fineman article, I never read it until someone posted it to the letters thread. But I never presumed that I was the first to compare politics to high school. In fact, I am pretty sure that the first time I read the "cool kid" McCain thing was in David Foster Wallace's amazing Rolling Stone piece from the 2000 cycle, though it is a vague memory now."

Now that my old colleague Greenwald (and so many others) has linked to this post, I figured I would cross-post to this letters thread.

Seriously, I think most of you are right about the McCain dilemma: He is great at wooing us reporters. We must admit this. We must adjust for it in our reporting. I am trying. And I think it is important to be transparent about all of this. As for whether high school analogies, or any other absurd analogy, should be allowed in respectable MSM blogging, I will answer that question soon, in my next post, when I compare Hillary Clinton to single cell amoeba in a red plastic beer keg cup (tied to a single blue helium balloon) caught in the current as it approaches the precipice of Niagara Falls.

In the meantime, please keep the critiques coming. And keep reading. One of these days, we might even be friends. . .

You have an immense mountain of distrust and ill-will to overcome before that point is reachable. Participating in the comments is a giant leap forward in that regard.

Jim wrote: "The media has a critical role in maintaining the health of our democracy. It would help a great deal if they took the job (but not necessarily themselves) a lot more seriously than they're showing with this nonsense. This is airing their dirty laundry in public. This is something they should be fixing, not just blathering about."

First the media ignores the real, important issues, and instead compares the candidates to high school stereotypes.

Now the media compares themselves to high school stereotype - in this case, it's the fawning jockworshipper.

Next the media will ignore the candidates, and instead they will just talk about themselves.

We should just vote for the media members! Pick the one who grovels the best, or the one who has the best hairdo, or the one who works for the biggest magazine, or the one who has the most jock pals... important stuff like that.

Scherer: "Seriously, I think most of you are right about the McCain dilemma: He is great at wooing us reporters."

"us reporters?" There was no reporting in that piece -- that's the big problem. It was all projection, wishful thinking, and personality "analysis."

Michael Scherer, you've been trawled . . .
http://commenttrawl.blogspot.com/2008/01/swamp-diamonds-volume-1.html

Jack Kemp, one of the Republic father's of supply side economics, just gave his blessings to McCains plan to eliminate taxes on the wealthy while fighting a war in Iraq for the next hundred years. Kemps said both tax revenues and diplomatic goodwill should mushroom, as beaming reporters took note.

This would be OK in a high school newspaper. In Time? Not so much.

In 2004 70+ percent of Bush supporters thought WMD had been found in Iraq and Saddam was directly involved in 9/11. Why? Many reasons - lies by Bush and Cheney, lazy voters, and also because the media generally do a really crappy job. Of course, some of the media responsibility lies with organizations like Fox that make it their mission to confuse and mislead people.

I propose a litmus test - a piece of political reporting is good if it increases the number of people who vote based on accurate information about some aspect of a candidate which is relevant to performance in office. It doesn't sound like too much to ask for, but I think most reporting falls short.

Scherer: You keep having fun on that summer camp bus, and selling the voters down the river.
Enjoy the good meals and fine hotels. Above all, don't piss off your colleagues on the bus. They might freeze you out.
I don't think you could handle that.

Michael Scherer,

I think this piece was NOT a work of irony, or a "parody of your peers".

If it was a work of irony or a "parody of your peers", I think you would have cleared up the doubt sooner and less ambiguously.

Yes or no answers would be great:

1. Was this intended to be a work of irony?
2. Was this intended to be a parody of your peers?

"OMG. This would be funny if there weren't ..... elections stolen through intimidation (if not fraud), cronyism (Katrina? Crandall mine?), and on and on."

Tim, spit out the koolaid! Well, maybe we'd be better off if folks like you went ahead and swallowed it.

How on Earth do you blame Bush for what happened in the aftermath of Katrina and the Crandall collapse, or do you actually blame him for CAUSING both? How did he steal the election when every possible chance was given to the morons voting in Florida to get it right? These issues were made worse because of the lowest common denominator mentality of the government workers who set up the systems that failed, which systems were in place before these things happened.

How can you blame the media for electing this fool? They spent a HUGE amount of their time making fun of the buffoon starting as soon as he declared he was running.

I'm guessing you're one of the parents in your town who started the "no keeping score" program in the youth athletics programs. Well, you know, it's way better to learn how to lose at a young age so when your party screws up a couple presidential elections you can learn from it and do better next time. Here's the score in presidential terms starting with Nixon's first one, 7-3 their team. Better stop bitching at the ref and hire some new coaches.

The media has nothing to do with that...

To a great extent, Kennedy's endorsement of Obama falls into the same pattern of encouraging the "cool kid" over the "valedictorian," especially when the valedictorian is female.

Perhaps there have been far too many of the wrong kinds of women in Kennedy's long career as Senator for a woman to be believable as President.