I was just watching Eugene Robinson on TRMS - why do no journalists enter politics?

[old mark]

Could it be that they are so familiar with politicians and don't want to be one?
Mr. Robinson is certainly an intelligent, witty and personable man, who would probably be an improvement over many of our current congresspersons...yet he has never, to my knowledge, expressed any desire to run for office...in fact, I can't think of any real journalist who has expressed political abmitions...except maybe Chris Matthews...

Why?


mark

[Radical Activist]

1. Paul Simon did.

And he turned out to be one of the best.



I don't know why more don't. It takes a certain personality to run for office. It's very different than being a cynic throwing stones from the sidelines.

[MrScorpio]

2. Because American politics has, by definition, always been dirty

It's all the money that's in it.

Most politicians are required to sell their souls to get elected.

E.R. has more integrity than that.

[sandnsea]

3. Their job just as effective

A politician never has a moment down, ever. When they aren't doing their job on the floor, they're in their offices trying to look at legislation, in their district serving constituents, at civic and charity events, or fundraising. These people never rest. I get tired reading their schedules, I don't know how they do it. And take all the abuse on top of it?

Stay a journalist. A good one has almost as much influence without all the grief.

[HEyHEY]

4. As a journalist who covered politics, I'll tell you

To become part of politics, you essentially have to become part of a machine. You have to play along when things go against your conscience, you have to smile like a dimwit and shake hands, you have to be a bullshitter. Most reporters I know develop a massive contempt for such people while doing their job and would never want to be one. Plus, it's more fun to bust the SOBS.

One night in a drunken fit, I'd decided I had enough of my company at the time and texted the mayor's PR man and said "we need to talk about my entering the political field." I meant to be an aid or PR guy, the next day when he phoned, rather excited to hear it, I took it all back ASHAMED at what I had done.

It's actually such a nasty biz that I've seen many a good PR leave it cause even they couldn't take the bullshit.

[old mark]

8. HH, many years ago, I got thrown out of a bar for grabbing a former State Rep

by the neck in preparartion to punching him in the nose...he was a predatory, ignorant grasping slime in the Newt Gingrich model, one of the few worthless human beings I have actually met in my 63 years.

I read in my old hometown paper a few months ago that he had died...and that evidently over the last 25 years or so he had changed from a political hack who could not even get the endorsement of that hometown paper, who left office after one term, to be given astate patronage job and a free college education, to a man who later found a sinecure as a history professor in a community college and a softball coach for kids...he became beloved!

He was always a brainless ego driven asshole, but the memory of the public is fickle and forgiving, and he became a statesman instead of a bum, a kindly coach instead of a political freeloader...I was amazed at the sendoff he got, and I regret to this day that I never got to punch him...

I would never want to associate with people like that, and to be in a roomfull of them would make me want to puke.


mark

[HEyHEY]

11. It's fun if you're there to bust them.

My crowning achievement in the sense of what you're talking about was cussing out Rona Ambrose after she kept the press waiting for half an hour, answered no questions and fucked off.

[old mark]

14. Yeah, my dad hung out with local and county pols to do real estate deals...

He brought some home from time to time, and I grew up not liking them.


mark

[hfojvt]

5. you think Matthews is a real journalist?

is there some new definition of journalist that I have not heard of? One that means "idiot of TV who has a big mouth?"

And Eugene Robinson is not really all that either.




wait for it





yet another link to the Daily Howler
http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh021805.shtml


and another
http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh060107.shtml

[gateley]

7. Robinson won a Pulitzer, so he's doing okay. nt

[old mark]

9. From what I have seen of Robinson, I rate him highly - I think he is extremely intelligent, much

moreso than most of his colleagues on TV - I seldom read his "real" work, though, but the few times I have I have been favorably impressed...In Matthew's case, I used the term very loosely - he is more of a commentator or "personality" than a journalist.

mark

[hfojvt]

13. he's in some great company there

http://www.pulitzer.org/bycat/Commentary

Charles Krauthammer, George Will, Maureen Dowd.

Thomas Friedman in 2002 - "For his clarity of vision, based on extensive reporting, in commenting on the worldwide impact of the terrorist threat."

Seriously? He got a Pulitzer for helping to promote another reason for invading Iraq? http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/18/opinion/18FRIE.html

Based on that, you really think that a Pulitzer is some kind of evidence that the winner is an excellent writer, thinker or journalist - just like George Will? http://journals.democraticunderground.com/NanceGreggs/514

[Hekate]

6. Mostly I think it's because journalists are observers of others. We need the good ones...

I'm just saying that the temperament is likely to be different.

Hekate

[Tx4obama]

10. People think Lou Dobbs will run, but he wasn't much of a 'journalist'.

Seems like more ex-politicians 'become' TALKING HEADS.
Joe Scarborough, Ex-Gov Huckabee, Ex-Gov Palin (no way she is a journalist but she is a FoxNews contributor talking head),
Harold Ford Jr. ETC.

[HEyHEY]

12. I would like to see the opposite happen more too, actually

Get a politician that is able to be objective as a reporter, he'll know the system, know who the crooked buggers are and all that.

[ThomWV]

15. Chris Matthews is not now nor has he ever been a journalist

he is a self-serving toad with an overbearing and obnoxious croak.