DeLong Smackdown Watch!
Matthew Yglesias defends Karen Tumulty:
Matthew Yglesias / proudly eponymous since 2002: I have to say, I think Brad DeLong's being kind of unfair to Karen Tumulty. The people who cover political campaigns for a living haven't done a ton to earn the benefit of the doubt, but the fact remains that the SEIU/CAP health care event was boring. Nothing happened, no news was broken, and we learned basically nothing about the candidates. I would be interested in hearing about Barack Obama's health care plan except he... doesn't have one. I see no particular reason to hear about the fact that he doesn't have one....
Dennis Kucinich's health care proposal actually deserves some serious coverage, but placing in the context of a presidential campaign in which he's not a serious factor just ensures that this won't happen....
All in all it was dull. Less because it was, in The Politico's headline to a pretty good summary, "More Than You Wanted to Know About Health Care" than that it was considerably less than someone genuinely curious about this would want to know, while also being much more than those who don't really care about the issue will want to know...
Comments:
I thought Jim from Portland OR made a good point over at Ezra's in this thread. The Dem candidates' views on health care are far more similar than they are different, and trying to comb through the minutiae of details distinguishing them is both boring and counterproductive. Posted by: br on March 25, 2007 08:00 PM...
I agree that I am not predisposed to give Karen Tumulty the benefit of any doubt. The most prominent image of Karen Tumulty I have in my mind's eye is of her saying:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4605173/TUMULTY: Well, you remember, though, when Al Gore was running, somebody actually had to coach him on clapping...
If that is your baseline image, it is hard to give a charitable interpretation to:
Re: Nevada Health Care Forum--Tumulty's Take - Swampland - TIME: Okay, after three very intense hours (plus) onstage moderating this health care forum, I really needed a massage and a margarita. Not in that order.... I suspected that my colleagues in the press filing center weren't entirely thrilled at spending a Saturday in Las Vegas this way, and it was confirmed when this e-mail appeared on my Treo as I prepared to go onstage: "In the press file. We have taken a vote. We don't want to write about health care. Please adjust accordingly. xoxo." But that was my mandate, so I swallowed my butterflies, communed with my inner wonk and forged ahead...
