Ann Althouse complains about the Washington Post’s going after prospective Republican presidential candidates for what are pretty flimsy reasons:
The attack on Walker is low, because it uses the terms “union” and “labor” without specifying what I think must always be specified to be fair: Walker’s reforms were about public employee unions. The Walker article is absurdly emotive and sentimental, larded with quotes from nice people who are bewildered and sad. You have to read to paragraph 5 to get the first indication that Walker’s law only had to do with the special problem of public unions, whose collective bargaining is not with private management, but with the government, the representatives of the people, not any commercial operation.
and
The low blow for Jeb is a shot at his wife.
In 1999, Columba Bush… was detained and fined by federal customs officials for misrepresenting the amount of clothing and jewelry she had bought while on a solo five-day shopping spree in Paris…. Jeb Bush said the first lady had misled customs officials because she did not want him to know that she had spent about $19,000 on the trip….
What’s wrong with a rich woman spending $19,000 shopping when she’s gone to Paris by herself?
I know battlespace preparation when I see it. The WaPo isn’t sure who the Republican candidate will be in 2016 so they’re going after all of them just in case.
It seems to me that complaining about how much designer women’s clothing costs (when they’re spending their own money) is pretty feeble. Who cares?
I think Bush’s wife is fair game, as he has held her up as an exemplar of the immigrant experience. He’s made her a prop, so it’s okay to check out whether or not she’s a plastic baby or the real thing.
Marrying well is somehow hypocritical? Have you ever read a Horatio Alger novel?
I don’t know. Some of Michelle Obama’s frocks have cost more than that and it’s not being taken as a challenge to her authenticity.
I honestly don’t care about who spends what on what. The part of this that interests me, the only thing presently interesting about the 2016 race, is all of the advance battlespace preparation.
It looks like just another (illegal, I believe she admitted) immigrant coming here and spending someone else’s money. In other words, not exactly Sergei Brinn.
For that matter, she’s no Giselle Bundchen, who’s worth more than her husband, IIRC.
Columba got the MRS degree that some American woman could have had!
It’s called journalism. Spouses get examined, within reason. She was caught lying to customs. If a story is written with the idea of introducing Jeb Bush and his family to a national audience, should that be omitted? Complaints about the Walker story are even more dubious. Policies are run through, along with their effects. If you think having your candidate’s policies be examined at the ground-level is a matter of ‘getting someone’ the problem isn’t the media it’s the candidate. It’s not the media’s fault that what works in Wisconsin may not work elsewhere.
What the media might actually be worried about is that what works in WI might spread to other interested states. They don’t want that to happen, especially when Walker seems to be discussing the options of WI becoming a RTW state. Oh the terror!
I also believe almost everything is fair game for the media during interviews, press conferences, and question-answer events. Even loaded questions extends a political official or a candidate’s opportunity to demonstrate their openness and honesty in responding to a full range of topics. I also think such a no-holds-barred format should extend to the president and first lady as well.
Policies are run through, along with their effects.
The problem is that the media is ‘running through’ that policy in a decidedly deceitful manner, ignoring the most important point.
99% of the country isn’t paying attention. The only people paying attention are those who are into politics or are politically motivated (ie. they already drank one side’s kool-aid.) I don’t think any of this really matters much.