Soon we're going to need a website that monitors the monitors (Media Matters, Factcheck, WaPo's Pinocchio's, etc.).

I don't get it.  Can't "opinion journalists" say whatever they want?  They're hired to give their opinions, after all.  Of course, some opinions are better than others, as Mr. Boehlert demonstrates.

Boehlert is correct that prior candidates in far worse competitive situations were not urged to quit. They weren't urged to quit for two reasons: they were already irrelevant, and the Internet had not yet evolved into its current status as the Flying Spaghetti Monster of politics.

Guys who have already lost and still keep puttering along are amusing, not important. So we had Jerry Brown then and we have Ron Paul now.

The Internet, meanwhile, allows ideas to be sewn, watered, and cross-bred in unprecedented numbers. The Internet is an intellectual Luther Burbank. Plenty of cross-bred plants don't survive, or they yield crummy fruit, etc. No matter. You keep mixing them up, in a medley of meddlesome Mendelism. Eureka! A mocha tree! So, if you want the occasional good, you gotta accept a lot of bad, or at least less-good, along the way.

Personally I hope Clinton stays in the race--I like the entertainment value and get to see how my man Barack handles himself before he gets to the main event. (He needs the practice, it appears.)

But if Jon Chait wants to tell her to quit, or other bloggers/reporters/pundits/noodly tentacles want to accuse Obama of being a Muslim or an America hater or the Anti-Christ, hey, have at it. I might even learn something and, even if I don't, I like to watch.

So would an opinion columnist on the sports page be out of line to argue that after going 11-17 in the first month, the Washington Nationals cannot win the NL East pennant? There's a lot of season left; it's theoretically _possible_ for the Nats to play .634 ball for the rest of the season and win 96 games.

Very well said, jhildner.

Jon Chait's predictions of an imminent Hillary demise have coincided every time with her resurrection. I used to have this urge to tell him to just STFU and let this thing play itself out, but, as Hillary supporter, I can no longer wait for  him to write his next column about how Hillary was inevitably "toast" and had to drop put for the good of the party.  After he declared Obama the inevitable winner and wrote "three essays about why Clinton must abandon her race for the White House, each increasingly petulant in tone", PA and Wrightmare happened, and Obama is looking increasingly wobbly. The "shine" and "mystique" are gone, revealing an increasingly banal and vulnerable candidate.

I believe another Chait column declaring Hillary "toast" is in the works, but considering the pattern, this time its publication will presage the third and final kamikaze reemergence of Rev. Dr, Wright, when he'll take Obama down with him for good...

I think that Boehlert has it backwards.

People like St.Chait of the Church of Obama certainly have the right to tell candidates to drop out.

The candidates however, have no right to listen to them.

Chait will always be awesome in my book. The Diary of the Deanaphobe turned CW almost as much as Ryan Lizza's George Allen article...

Cheers, John. I know these hits sometimes sting just a bit, but keep up the good work. When you begin doubting a rhetorical argument for mathematics and probability, it's only then that you're "toast."

Jonathan,

What you have been writing is not journalism, but obamalism. It is flackery, pure and simple. Outrageous, without perspective or critical capacity--simply a public relations function for the Obama campaign. "Fratricidal maniac"? "Kamikazee campaign"? Many of us here have repeatedly objected to your pandering. You have treated your position as a political journalist as an opportunity for self-indulgence and personal privlege that is reminiscent of a college newspaper. It is not surprising that your professional reputation is suffering, and calling attention to it as though it does not matter to you or to others fools no one.

"It is not surprising that your professional reputation is suffering"

PC:

I know it was written above, but sometimes things need repeating: Chait is an opinion journalist. He favors Obama. Therefore, he betrays no journalistic ethics by favoring Obama with his opinion pieces.

Now - I hate to point this out to you - but the demographic who reads this magazine (and other things printed on paper with big words) trends towards the intellectual/graduate school educated. According to every exit poll I've seen, Barack Obama crushes Hillary Clinton in the graduate school demographic by a 2-1 margin. If you can't read between the lines here, what I'm trying to say is that people who read opinion journalists like Chait in magazines like the New Republic, the New Yorker, or the elite newspapers (LA Times, NY Times, etc) tend to support Obama overwhelmingly.

Therefore, it stands to reason that Jon Chait's reputation is not suffering, but rather, his reputation is florishing. It's experiencing a renaissance. His recent writing is pushing him to the peak of his profession.

"The third and final kamikaze reemergence of Rev. Dr, Wright, when he'll take Obama down with him for good..."

::Cue sinister evil laugh, er, cackle::

Admit it, PC: You're just pissed that you didn't buy Jon Chait stock when it was low.

"According to every exit poll I've seen, Barack Obama crushes Hillary Clinton in the graduate school demographic by a 2-1 margin."

...

"Therefore, it stands to reason that Jon Chait's reputation is not suffering, but rather, his reputation is florishing."

This says very little about Chait as an opinion "journalist" but quite a lot about Obama's "graduate school demographic" for failing to get Boehlert's central point, which was so devastating to Chait's serial screed about Hillary's narcissistic opportunism in continuing her Quixotic quest, that he did not even attempt to address it. The Point, in a nutshell:  in Reagan v. Ford, Kennedy v. Carter, Hart v. Mondale, Jesse Jackson v. Jesse Jackson, the "challengers", who had won fewer delegates than Clinton has won to date, were never ever told to butt out. Therefore, the media drumbeat --played loudest by none other than Mr. "Toast" himself -- to try to force Hillary out of the race is UNPRECEDENTED in American presidential elections history. No one had asked those boys, some of whom took their fight all the way to the convention, to drop out, why then change the rules just because it is Hillary, especially since she has a better shot at winning this thing than did any of the boys who hung on until the convention, without the being told by the press to drop out? Do you see why this could not possibly be something that Chait should be proud of, or for his "graduate school demographic" to commend him for?

It should be obvious, even to Chait, that he's crossed the line and is no longer crdible. He ought to sign on with the Obama campaign rather to remain here and play "opinion journalism"....

DCS, NYC

Post-graduate demographic for Hillary.

Boehlert is absolutely correct in his assertions that it’s premature for Clinton to end her campaign.  The primary race is not yet over and there are still seven states and two territories that have not voted.  Despite a nearly insurmountable pledged delegate deficit Hillary could still legitimately win the nomination assuming the Democrats rightly allow the votes of Michigan and Florida count.

It’s unfortunate however, that Boehlert only takes TNR and Chait to task for their skewed coverage of Hillary Clinton.  I’m not sure where the editors gained their electoral ESP powers, but Clinton is hardly the first politician in a tight race to fall victim to TNR’s presumption.  Even in the most recent edition of the magazine, poor Robert Mugabe endures similar treatment.  Zimbabwe’s first vote had not even been tallied and already the editors thought it was appropriate to declare Morgan Tsvangirai the winner.  TNR, you and your fifth columnists should be ashamed of yourselves for asking Mugabe to step aside in the middle of an undecided race when the proper run-off elections haven’t even been held yet.  Why can’t you just let the democratic process run its course and allow Zimbabweans to pick their own president without misleading people about the outcome and meddling in a nation’s affairs?  

vircenter

I don't Chait's stock  can get any lower.

i don't think chait's stock can get any lower.

Yay - someone finally calls out Media Matters for the Clinton whiners they are.

If the Clinton surrogates are coming after you, you're doing something right...(or is that Wright?)

Personally, it sounds a lot more like a thinly veiled attack on an author who is continuously address Hillary's *electability* claims, and exploring the actual chances of her nomination barring some unforseen, unfortunate mishap....

ummm, could someone from IL contact Phleger and have him tie up Wright until Nov 6?

dcshungu-

I dunno. This race itself is unprecedented. I'm not sure you can compare it to those. Never in modern times have we witnessed a race like this.

Those past races occured in an age when the party convention was an actual convention where voting took place along with wheeling and dealing. It would have been absurd to ask a nominee to drop out, because they often hung around to influence the platform.

Today's party convention is meant to produce a giant positive bump for the nominee, and it's meant to be AT LEAST 3 months after all voting has ceased.

I think you have a good point that Hillary Clinton is actually fairly close compared to those other races. But mathematically, she can't do it (based on the pledged delegate metric, admitedly). If she (like Jesse Jackson or others in the past) was staying in the race to influence the platform or receive the VP slot, then that would be one thing. But her entire strategy revolves around (somehow) destroying Obama, the presumptive nominee. It's not surprising that liberal journalists, who have Democratic party interests in mind, are becoming queasy with her Presidential run.

Chiat and many TNR columnists have been saying Hillary should get out of the race since before New Hampshire. Now, that might be their right -- but shouldn't they also shoulder the consequences of such wrong-headedness? Why take these Obama cheerleaders seriously? From the second Obama took his first, tenuous lead in the race -- after Super Tuesday -- they've tried to emasculate the Super Delegates -- which are part of the party's "rules" -- while envoking the rules (can't count Michigan or Florida) when it suits their candidate. They've invoked the democracy of the popular vote, while ignoring that caucuses, where Obama has fared best, measure the will of only the most activist 3-5 percent of the party in every state. Well, the chickens have come home to roost. Now we're looking at a damaged Obama, but Obama's people -- and columnist like Chiat -- have so demonized Hillary Clinton that the party wonders what is next. God, I am sick of all of you pundits.

When the journalist becomes the story, his days as as credible source are over.

"When the journalist becomes the story, his days as as credible source are over."

Isn't that exactly when he is a credible source? Who better to provide the first-hand account? Rather, it seems that when a journalist becomes the story, there just aren't that many stories.  If it's an uneventful day, the journalist can fill the blank space on the page by talking about himself and his colleagues.  Metastories are better than no stories at all I suppose.

"It seems that when a journalist becomes the story, there just aren't that many stories."

Truly, a new height of media solipsism and self-importance--there's just nothing to report about except me! And this is argued while the Obama campaign may be at a tipping point into decline and failure.

VC sez:

"I dunno. This race itself is unprecedented. I'm not sure you can compare it to those. Never in modern times have we witnessed a race like this."

There is nothing in your post that justifies asking Hillary to drop out. Despite the fact that she could not overtake Obama in pledged delegates (a fact that has been evident for some time now), there are the superdelegates, who Mondale depended on to prevail over Hart, to consider. The whole concept of superdels would be a joke if their role were to be simply that of rubber-stamping the results of the primary contest.  Claiming that this race is different so that you can justify the ludicrous calls for Hillary to drop out is a fallacy. Nothing makes this race different other than your claim that it is. Sure, we have a black man and a woman in contention, so what? It just a sad commentary about the American democracy that some 250 years after its independence, a woman or a black having a shot at becoming POTUS is still considered an oddity. Most other democracies or non-democracies have had a woman in the highest office...

See the point?

Rhubarbs: a better baseball analogy would be that the Nats are fifteen games under .500 with 30 games to go.  As a matter of mathematics, it is possible for them to win-out while the division leader(s) goes on such a horrible losing streak such that the Nats pull out the division.  But, in the real world of baseball, you are not going to see one team win 30 straight games while another loses 30 straight games.  So yeah, if you're a sports columnist in this scenario, it's legit to say the Nats won't be making the playoffs.

So the same in terms of reporting on the hopes of one candidate winning 80% of the outstanding delegates when they are mainly allocated in CDs with even numbers -- i.e., the candidates TIE most of the time.  Theoretically possible; not going to happen.

As someone who prefers Obama but would vote for Clinton while holding my Roman Nose, I don't really mind all that much that she has bounced back, Jon Chait is one of my tnr writers but I must agree with the guy who observed that Chait has an uncanny capacity to predict yet another Clinton demise only to be followed up by her stomping the innards outta Barack in the next primary.

What bothers me most about Clinton's resurrection is that we have to suffer pccostello's unsporting I Told You So's. Yeah, yeah, you're right you germ...but stop questioning Jon Chait's journalistic credibility. So he prefers Obama. I can forgive that. He is one of the profession's best and when you can compare your CV to his - in other words, what have you done in your life of any value other than pester everyone here with your annoying Obama harping - then you can crow all you want anything.

God, if Clinton wins the nomination, will we have to suffer this fool until November?

Hey Jaunty--

I have been extremely careful not to say I told you so. And my resume (and my life) are quite fine, thank you. No need to be so personal.

The point about Chait is that his writing was merely poorly argued advocacy, and that his repetitive and vituperative arguments were baseless and destructive to an important political process. Attempting to destroy an important political process while assuming moral haughtiness deserves both censure and ridicule. He has acted in a way that is incompatible with his professional role (to the extent that journalists are professionals).

That is why some of his colleagues are complaining about the ethics and professionalism of Chait's work.

And jaount--

If Obama is the unifying candidate, why is it that his supporters are so drawn to stances of moral superiority and acts of personal invective?

I LOVE bloggers blogging about other bloggers blogging about them! And then readers commenting on it! I haven't had this much fun since my boy scout circle jerks!

I'm not crazy about Chait. I think he uses misdirection and the ever insightful, "So's your mother." far too often. That said, his status as an opinion writer gives him free license to go where ever he pleases.

superdelegates exist so that party pols don't have to run as delegates, and as such would then be guaranteed a spot on the convention floor. They were also created so that they can feel that little bit of being extra special that power grants. They were not created as a deliberative body. They represent 20% of all the delegates, this means that theoretically from day one a single candidate can start with 800 superdelegates, nearly half the way to the nomination. Does this strike anyone as being rational that before a single vote is cast one chosen candidate can be the prohibitive favorite? That alone tells you that they were never intended for such a purpose.

I promise you that in four years the process will be revamped, win or lose.

If Hillary had run a more positive campaign then she would have a far stronger case. Nobody on the Republican side asked Huckabee to drop out, and something sure as hell could have happened to 71 year old McCain. And in the interim if McCain were to drop dead (before his VP pick) it would be between Huckabee and Romney.

Now Hillary has run the risk if Obama decides he is not electable, he will simply have his pledged delegates go for Gore. This will entirely undercut her argument since there is no plausible way for her to claim to be either more electable or more experienced than Al Gore.

Arguing that Clinton should drop out or curtail her campaign makes no sense. Would that the process of selecting delegates was more straightforward this time, but who knew things would turn out as they have. We're stuck with the process and abandoning it for something else would turn the whole candidate selection into a free-for-all. Neither Clinton nor Obama has sown this one up yet, and I see no valid reason to force the issue until at least June.

I know we each have our weighting method for dirty and evil tricks on the part of one side or the other, but folks, face it, we've rarely had it so good and well-behaved, Let politics be politics and as Barry Goldwater used to say, and point with pride or view with alarm and let bygones be bygones. If supporters of either Obama or Clinton turn sour because they don't like the decision the party eventually makes and decide to stay home or vote for somebody else, it's their right. Is winning in November this year more important than learning to live with ourselves and each other as Democrats, and put personal sleights aside for the sake of party unity. We'll just have to see if we can pull that off and if we can't we can learn why and change whatever needs changing before 2012 or 2016. The nation isn't going to fall off the edge of the planet. Play the game and stop whining.

If  a journalist cannot disentangle personal bias from the who, what, when where and why of the subject, then it seems to me that a line has been crossed from analysis to advocacy.

tomeg, the main thing that has bothered me about the Clinton campaign is that when Kerry endorsed Obama, they said he is dead to Hillary. I simply can't accept a candidate who feels that way. My brother voted for Bush twice and thinks he is great, but not for a moment would I consider him "dead" to me. If Hillary could show genuine modesty, go out of her way to reach out to Obama supporters (instead of calling them Judas's or the like) I would have much more respect for her. If she had just expressed disappointment in Richardson, but still thought of him as friend, that would have knocked me over with class.

I have not seen a single instance of Obama doing the same. His campaign has never called any black sd's "uncle Toms" for instance. The worst I have seen is Jesse Jackson Jr. saying Hillary supporters should be wary of backlash against them by black voters. While this was crude it was also true, and was not personal. He never said they would not be welcome to Obama should he win.

b1462, the Plank is a blog, as is the stump and spine, as such it doesn't equal journalism.

And beyond that, TNR advocates things on its regular articles as well, it is a magazine of opinion after all. Not everything here needs be analysis. Jonathan Cohn advocates health care for everybody all the time, does that mean what he has to say is automatically suspect?

if you really want analysis about this election then it would probably be best to read European magazines because they have far less skin in the game, they have no reason to persuade or advocate since their readership can't vote.

blackton,

I was referring to Chait's LA Times and TNR articles that were the subject of Media Matters' criticism and (at least originally) of this thread.  As he indicates in the intro, Chait doesn't dispute their call.

"... I realize that Media Matters is an authority on the subject of journalistic ethics, so I won't try to question Boehlert's impartial verdict".

b1462, fair enough. I don't read the LA Times. And I will agree that TNR's cover (with Hillary looking hysterical and the caption "the voices in her head." do cross the line from analysis to out and out mockery. That would be fine with Ron Paul, for example (not that he deserves cover treatment)  or even, certainly at this point, George Bush, but not Hillary.

mockery in the blogs are fine, but not in the main articles, so I agree with your premise.