Howard Kurtz gets it partly right today in his Media Notes column for the Washington Post when he scribbles apropos the "who's up? who's down?" story in Iowa today:
If you've ever watched reporters ask a struggling candidate day after day--"Why are you losing? Do you have any hope of catching up? Are you considering dropping out?"--you know how difficult it can be for said candidate to project any kind of message.It's hard to avoid the sense that, at least subconciously, the press wants to winnow the Braun-less, eight-man field to a more manageable two or three. It's hard for reporters to walk and chew eights sticks of gum at the same time.
This oddly parallels Saletan's gripe: Gosh, a race this close is confusing! It's much too complicated for our readers to understand. It's hard for reporters to report on two narratives at once. Where Kurtz draws the right moral from this difficulty -- that a little mockery of the press is in order -- Saletan concludes that democracy is threatened by the sinister machinations behind the "complicated process" in Iowa.
In fact, as the Talking Dog caustically observes, the Iowa caucus process "is a fuck of a lot more open than the smoke-filled rooms and smoke and mirrors George W. Bush used to acquire his party's nomination" and, indeed, his entire presidency.
Posted by Chris at January 19, 2004 09:55 AM