Jake Tapper is a hack and hardly represents "the press".

TPM is looking more and more like Hillaryis44-lite. I suppose the "muckraker" guys just can't wait for all the muck a Clinton presidency is guaranteed to bring.

Well, you have to admit that the Clintons were always good fodder for journalists, cable news, and bloggers. They're not going to be sad if the 1990s return.

An interesting development it is. Although considerably late in the game it’s somewhat reassuring to see that Obama’s rhetorical diarrhea is finally being scrutinized also by the mainstream media, in this case the ABC. The Axelrod spin disaster might have the potential to change the relationship between camp Obama and the msm to allow for less of a free ride for Obama in the coming month. (Assuming he doesn’t quit right after IA and NH that is.)

OK I just read the ABC News piece.

I don't think Jake Tapper is a hack but I don't think his story amounts to much more than gotcha! spacefiller on analyzing Obama's ads to death.

Now, I admit I'm an Obama supporter, but I'm not blind and I know how Chicago/Illinois politics works so I don't mind Obama being held to account on his ethics (I agree the Rezko deal was boneheaded), but it's kind of maddening to me how the press seems more obsessed with trying to tarnish Obama's lofty rhetoric with some hint of hypocrisy rather than looking at all of the good government policies on the candidates and looking at all of their histories on lobbyists equally.

I mean Obama and Edwards are destroying each other over who's more pure on lobbyists and PACs and 527s and meanwhile HRC gets a totally free pass on her brothers making money off of Bill's pardons and the Clinton presidential library getting funding from Denise Rich when Bill just coincidentally pardoned Marc and there were all those other ethical lapses.

Sure, Edwards and Obama aren't calling this stuff out and maybe that is all old news to the DC pundits, but that doesn't change the fact that this sort of stuff is actually useful information to the voting public trying to choose the next president and I would argue these are absolutely newsworthy matters to discuss when Hillary is running on the Clinton White House record. I mean has any reporter ever asked her if she will have different pardoning policies as president given the mess that Bill made on the way out the door? Has any White House reporter asked her if she sees any benefit to running a more open administration this time around as some might say some of the scandals or rumors floating around about her husband's term could have been alleviated by being less secretive? Has anyone asked Hillary what she learned from seeing Bill impeached and if anything stemming from that would change how she would conduct business as president? THESE ARE VALID QUESTIONS WHEN SHE IS RUNNING ON BILL'S PRESIDENCY!

A lot more valid than an ellipses in a campaign ad. That's for sure.

The ad says the Obama plan "guarantees coverage for all Americans." But the on-screen citation -- from the St. Paul Pioneer Press -- is truncated in a questionable way in comparing the proposal to those offered by Sen. Hillary Clinton and former senator John Edwards. The full quote reads: "Edwards and Clinton would require all Americans to have health insurance. Obama's plan guarantees coverage for all Americans but does not require all to have it."

"Experts say Obama's plan is 'the best,'" the narrator says, with an on-screen citation of the Iowa City Press Citizen. But the newspaper's endorsement cites no experts and is not even comparing the proposal to the Clinton and Edwards prescriptions; the Press Citizen says it is the best alternative compared to a single-payer health system.

Holy Cow! Do you mean to tell me that a political campaign has squished some nuance out of a 30 second campaign spot? Oh My God! Stop the presses! Sound the alarm! The very safety of the Republic is threatened! Thank God Howie Kurtz, the guy who thinks Michelle Malkin is misunderstood and subjected to unfair attacks, is on the story. And thank goodness he now has John Solomon close at hand to teach him how to report such an important breakings story.

As for the Tapper thing, what wasn't "fair" about it was that it was clearly yet another story presented as orginial reporting that was actually based on another campaign's oppo team's work. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with that, but I do think that when the story is "this risks putting an issue invented by another campaign back into the public eye" story is based on information from that campaign, that's part of the story and should be reported.

Speaking of which, I think it would also be worthwhile to know whether this post was the result of a "just wanted to make sure you saw these" emails that one of those rival campaigns is well-known for sending. I strongly believe that if any campaign alerts the MSM or a blog to a story by another blogger or journalist, the alert should be made part of the story. Doing so would tell the reader how the rival campaigns are trying to frame the narrative which is news in and of itself. Sadly, however, the MSM and many bloggers seem to feel that some Russert Rule of confidentiality applies to these alerts.

Greg Sargent is shameless. Days before the Iowa Caucuses this is the best he can do for an Election Central posting? How much effort does it take to find criticism of any ad by any canidate? Sargent, of course, was shopping for something negative to post about Obama, that didn't come directly from Hillary and her mudslingers.

Not much else out there Greg?

DemAC says "They sure have, many times."

Yes Hillary is asked about a lot of things often. She just doesn't every answer in a way anyone call tell what she's saying. She qualifies her statements so many times they have no substance or meaning.

Now that she is tired of equivocating, and her strategy of planting questions has been exposed, she simply doesn't take questions anymore from American voters eager to participate in the democratic process.

Hillary sounds like George Bush more and more every day. It is frightening.

I think obama's ads will have more effect on voters than the ineffective criticism of them. They will be widely noticed by people who vote and caucus---this static from greg and others is sort of an entertaining bit from a private party at this point.

I'm not for Obama, but these are really little more than trivial, marginal criticisms. The press has decided now to lean back toward Hillary a bit and pick a few nits on Obama.

The important and substantive problems with Obama have nothing to do with this sort of crap. If you want to see progressive policies from our government in your lifetime, then go read what Lambert has to say. I've never seen it put better:

http://www.correntewire.com/obama_stump_speech_strategy_of_conciliation_considered_harmful

Also, Greg, while I don't think you're biased or lazy and have generally admired your coverage at TPM-ED, I do think it's bad form to use the passive voice with this headline. "Are Criticized" tells us nothing about who's doing the criticizing, and when you add in the likelihood that these stories sprang from oppo research, it's not a very illuminating entry here.

I fear as well the dems may do it again and we'll wind up with mitt the flip or the huckster as president and lose control of the senate.

Well, if the contest is Clinton vs. Romney, I suspect she'd win. Two shameless opportunists and obvious fakes--the campaign would be a substance-free zone--but anti-Mormon bias and Romney's obvious insincerity would probably be enough for the Dem to win.

(Also, I think that if Romney's the Republican nominee, Ron Paul runs as the Libertarian and does the same service to Hillary Clinton that a previous Texan with the initials "RP" did for Bill.)

Huckabee on the other hand might well win, and I'm certain McCain would. Given a clear choice between someone who seems authentic and knows what they believe, and someone who's an obvious dissembler and triangulator, the public generally chooses the perceived straight shooter. In Huck's case, I guess he could run a sufficiently lousy campaign--or, more interestingly, that the big money chunk of the Republican coalition could sit it out or tacitly support the "Democrat" who loves her some lobbyists--to blow it.

As for Congress, I can't imagine that Clinton would cost the Dems the Senate given all the other pro-Dem trends, from fundraising to retirements. But the House, where our current margin is bigger, is another story. I'd love to see news organizations poll the districts of all the freshman Dem representatives to see how they'd do if Sen. Clinton were at the top of the ticket; you have to figure that the likes of Heath Shuler, Brad Ellsworth and Nancy Boyda are enduring a lot of sleepless nights at this grim prospect.

Greg, I would like you to do a simple analysis: count the number of headlines for your posts that are negative towards Obama and positive towards Clinton, and then count their opposite. I'm betting you will find the former outnumber the latter by a significant margin.

As I said in an earlier comment, you once linked to Hillary's OWN WEBSITE for a rebuttal to an Obama criticism. You have never returned the favor for Obama.

Finally, your boss has featured several of your anti-Obama posts, as well as featured anti-Obama posts written by himself (two ripping Obama for the comments by a campaign official re Obama being "the most scrutinized candidate in the race") on TPM's main site.

If you don't explain these discrepanices, or rebut them in any meaningful way, then your bias will have to be assumed. Unfortunately, it appears to this Obama supporter that much of the progressive blogoshpere (TPM, TAPPED, Salon and the Huffington Post) are devoted to taking down the only legitimate challenger to the least progressive candidate in the race.

Talk about splitting hairs! If these are the two biggest problems with Obama's ads, I am pleased and reassured that he is who he says he is.

I'd like to see TPM take the same fine-toothed comb to Edwards' and Hillary's ads. Heck, you don't even need that comb - a rake would pick up plenty.

He's got corporate lobbyists working for his campaign. What makes anyone believe they wouldn't be in his White House as well?

Another day another Obama slam by Greg Sargent. Hey Greg, do you have no shame? What are you going to do when Barack is the nominee? Maybe it might be time to find another job at Fox or the Corner.

In the past few days with the world events happening, people have opened their eyes abit and seen they need as a Prez and I think the tide may turn alittle bit more
to HRC.

A few comments. I agree with those who have stated earlier that TPM seems to expend a good deal of energy on negative headlines on Obama. If the worst thing happening in his campaign is a hack like Tapper doesn't like hi ad, then yes, he is in excellent shape. Tapper lost me with the histrionic, Obama wants to invade Pakistan line. As for demac, if you have ever attended an Obama campaign event, you would understand why he can't take individual pictures at these rallies. They are huge and everyone wants a picture with him. I would know, I got a picture with him early in the campaign and he was there for quite some time after the event shaking hands and taking pictures. But timing is important in campaigns. You may have noticed the NYT ran a piece on angry Edwards event attendees who were upset and walked out because he was often late. But I suppose this is better than Clinton refusing to answer any questions on the recent leg of her "conversation tour".

Kefa,
And not only that, no I think the Iowa caucus goers are punishing Obama because he’s the only candidate that’s refusing to let them have their pictures taken with him.
;-)

----------

because, dolt, if he took the time to take a picture with every person in the room who wanted one he would still be at his first campaign stop. its simple pragmatism. the guy has things to do, and reaching as many people as possible in a day is more important than some people getting a souvenir.

this kind of trivial nonsense only reinforces the idea that Obama critics do not have any real arguments to throw at him.

I just adore your sense of humor, blackstar. :-)

Both of these issues appear to be weak on the surface. The one legitimate critique was the parsing of the St. Paul Pioneer Press article, which shouldn't have been included in their ad. None of the rest of the Kurtz's points had any real substance as all were valid points to bring up. And the ABC piece just shows how desperately some people are combing Obama's message for any opening to attack.

To me, it felt like Kurtz had one 'gotcha' point to make and the rest of his article was tacked on in an effort to strengthen his one legit point.

In my opinion, Obama is on the right side of the healthcare debate. Actually, they're all on the right side, but I feel as if Obama has been the most realistic and most honest with his plans. And this honesty is exactly why parsing some news article to pick out an endorsement is a mistake.

Regardless of how much negative 527 cash flows into these early states, Obama's best weapon is his openness and his genuineness. Throw that away, and they throw away their greatest advantage in the primaries.

I encourage Obama and his people to stay on message and continue the dialog of open and honest debate that has been helping them get their message past the filters and the spin. I am an Obama supporter, and this doesn't change that at all. This was just one campaign ad error that Kurtz tried his best to make worse than it actually was (and compared to what has slipped out of the Clinton campaign, it's nothing), but hopefully Axlerod recognizes that there are plenty of legitimate endorsements of Obama, and they don't have to create one out of thin air. It didn't work for Clinton when she tried it after all.

Obama is out and about with attack robo-calls from “Dr Bob”.

Isn’t “Dr Bob” that grumpy old doctor from Scrubs?

waka waka,
Yeah, you can be sure Hillary’s paying good money to have her staff hanging out at TPM. Especially as there’s nothing politically interesting happening anytime soon. :-)

Anonymous, I agree that TPM is looking more and more like Hillaryis44-lite. I suppose the "muckraker" guys just can't wait for all the muck a Clinton presidency is guaranteed to bring.

It seems that Josh is losing editorial control. I remember the days when the truth not spin was the hallmark of TPM. I guess it is getting too big.

The first article was possibly the stupidest one I have read in a good long while. I mean, I just saw an Edwards ad that did not say anything about Universal Healthcare--OMGWTFBBQ?! HAS EDWARDS ABANDONED UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE?!

The second one I can agree with and the ad should be re-edited. Uncontexting quotes is always a bad thing in my book.

I would have to concur with Ron Robertson's response to the back and forth here, and I will refrain from pointing out the hypocracy by both the BO and HRC camps. Frankly what is distressing to me is reading a fine publication like TPM and see such juvenile name calling tolerated by the TPM staff by the same juveniles who carry comments section as if it was their own personal blog.