Has TPM lost it?

[deminks]

I just went surfing some of my favorite sites and what has gotten into TPM? "#weinergate", really? Story after story on their front page bashing Rep Weiner. One headline says he states that photo "could be a private picture", but when one reads what the Rep. actually said is it might be a photo of him that was manipulated. What I take that to mean is someone may have photoshopped the underwear et all onto a picture of him. I did not take that to mean that someone took his picture of himself in his underwear and sent it out. Why is that so hard to understand?

Another story makes fun of his sense of humor. "Epic scrum" Good grief.

Another story makes fun of another rep defending Rep. Weiner - Rep. Slaughter to Breitbart: Leave Weiner Alone!

Morning Jerk used them yesterday to say that even the librul media was raising their eyebrows at Rep Weiner.

What gives, TPM? Target practice for the summer interns? Chance at an exclusive interview with Breitbart? (access is precious, right? You gonna ask him where his funds come from?) You got the memo from the Chamber that libruls with grass roots must be destroyed no matter what?

I am taking them off my list, at least for a while. And shame on Rachel for asking Rep. Weiner to tell his constituents why he is not a creep. That presumes he is coming from the creep position. Flame away.

[Deep13]

1. What the hell is TMP?

:shrug:

[deminks]

2. Talking Points Memo, a usually respectable politics site.

[Deep13]

3. gotcha, thanks. nt

[Indykatie]

4. TPM is One of My Go To Political Sites

Like it or not Rep. Weiner has not handled the response to this issue very well.

[DavidDvorkin]

5. I think that one problem is the competition among such sites

The number of good-to-excellent news and commentary sites on the left keeps growing. TPM doesn't stand out the way it did a year ago, or even six months ago.

Maybe we're seeing the same thing with Web sites as happened with newspapers 100 years ago.

[patrice]

6. 1+ Nail, head. nt

[leveymg]

8. What are these new "good-to-excellent news and commentary sites on the left"?

The only real change that I've noticed is the acquisition of HuffPo by AOL, but I would hardly describe Huff as either "good-to-excellent", "on the left", or new.

[patrice]

11. Huh?

http://www.truthout.org/

http://www.thenation.com/

http://www.democracynow.org/

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/

http://www.rawstory.com/

http://www.thomhartmann.com/

http://www.democraticunderground.com/

Not to even mention all of the small local blogs out there and Twitter and things like satellite radio and roku.

.......................

Huh?

[leveymg]

12. Your statement implied NEW sites. The Nation has been around since before the Civil War.

You said, "sites on the left keeps growing. TPM doesn't stand out the way it did a year ago, or even six months ago." That implies new, like in the last 6 mos to a year.

That list you put up has not grown in years.

[hfojvt]

9. Really? What are some of the other sites?

As for the Weiner issue, it seems that some on DU are not impressed with his handling of this either. Again, I have not followed the story enough to say either way.

[leveymg]

7. Haven't heard much from TPM since the '08 election. They were a good investigative

site during the Bush-Cheney era, but it's as if they've lost their focus, and are unwilling to be critical of the Obama Administration or its policies. I saw Josh a few times on MSNBC since, but not often. Following some distinguished work, such as its investigative reporting on the US Attorneys scandal, TPM seems to have received little notice since 2007-2008. Some of his better reporters were lured away by big media, where they have also been submerged.

This points up the problem when journalists, particularly those early in their careers, who become (or are perceived to be) too much a tool of their Party's apparatus. Once they have found a voice, they must stifle it in order to stay in the good graces of the bigger players. Inevitably, the quality and interest in their publications falls. The quality of investigative work done by those who are lured into cushy corporate jobs suffers the most. Those few who hang on and maintain a sharper, critical focus, such as Empty Wheel and some of the other writers at Fire Dog Lake (FDL), are often treated as pariahs (even here at DU there's a flying squad of FDL bashers), but this latter group of stubborn iconoclasts continue to do interesting work and maintain their netroots following.

There are a couple cautionary lessons in that.

[yodermon]

10. When a politician gives an evasive answer, any journalist will keep following the story.

If Weiner gives any response OTHER than an unequivocal "That is not a picture of my crotch, full stop" then any journalist, left/right/center, Rachel & Josh included, will keep asking for an answer.

NOW: it's possible that Weiner knows full well that it's NOT a pic of his package, and is thus stringing out the media to keep up the publicity until he can issue a full blanket denial.

I'm pretty sure he HAS unequivocally denied sending the Tweet which linked to the pic, which of course is what Breitbart et. al. is accusing him of, and which clearly was done by a malicious 3rd party.

Personally I think it's interesting that the 1st thing he tweeted when he became aware of this was "my Facebook has been hacked".
He clearly knows the difference between Facebook and Twitter... yet the offending post was a Tweet, not a facebook profile update.
Is it possible that the pic was a *private* facebook picture (dumb of him if so, but he may have thought there was a level of privacy there..).. and then the breitbart lackeys hacked his FB and tweeted the pic?

[Ganja Ninja]

13. If Weiner could make a flat denial that it's a picture of his junk it would stop all of this.

The fact that he can't or won't is the problem not TMP.

[KittyWampus]

14. LOL! Yeah, a flat denial it isn't him would stop it. LOL!

Sure. That's how it works. How simple minded.

For the record, he did NOT send it. Whether it's him or not is irrelevant.

[Ganja Ninja]

15. He didn't send it but he does take photos of his own crotch.

And then somehow through no fault of his own they end up on-line.

What's his job again?

[librechik]

16. it's a problem, but why should he step into a perjury trap?

if he goes on record anywhere as saying it's absolutely not, then if it somehow turns out to be a pic of him, he is on the record "lying" That's how they got Clinton. It's a crappy Republican game they play as they merrily scalp all our best liberals.

[Ganja Ninja]

17. It's only perjury if he says it to under oath at a trial. n/t