I don't know anything about local politics in Fairfax County, but there seems to be something amusingly telling about The Washington Post endorsing the incumbent in every race that features one.
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20 Oct 2007 09:04 pm
Comments (20)
You may be right about Matt, P, but WaPo does a lot of fairly detailed reporting on politics and other aspects of life in the DC Metro area that don't involve national politics. Some of their best reporters are assigned to the Metro section. The Post, in fact, explicitly describes itself as a local/regional paper. Unlike the NYT, it does not, by choice, have a national distribution network.
As for Matt's comment, not sure what "amusingly telling" means, but, um, a lot of things in Fairfax County do work pretty well.
First off I think it's strange how Matt gets so many hostile blog comments, and so promptly; no other liberal blog, for reasons I can't quite determine, gets this degree of amateurish trolling. Matt has been one of the pillars of the leftosphere for a long time, and for good reason, and his commenters used to be of a piece with Atrios', Drum's, Digby's, CrookedTimbers, and so on... But since the move to the Atlantic there's a weird hostility. Maybe the wider or more diverse readership objects to jokey hipsterism or something, I don't know.
Anyway, I think "amusingly telling" is pretty clear and I am tired of people pretending not to understand what Matt means. Fairfax county -- home of half the people who manage and write for the Washington Post, and home of all the Washington interests that clearly have a stranglehold on the paper's editorial positions -- is obviously a place where the Post has an interest in preserving the patronage networks, formal and informal, that already exist.
No, I'm not one of Matt's sockpuppets.
Well, the hostility to Matt aside, I think there is this trend of a kind of national cosmopolitan elite (or maybe a majority of the middle class, I don't know) who come from one place, go to collenge in a second place, and then settle in cool city of their choice: DC, Boston, Portland (the Oregon one, though Portland, Maine, is a great small city!), Williamsburg, etc. Philly as well. And I think there is a tendency among this group, whom include some of my best friends (not that there's anything wrong with it!, and etc.), to ignore local issues. Many find it frankly uninteresting; others are true Cosmopolitans in the Appiah/Enlightenment sense -- but from a local (or localist) perspective, I think this comes across as rather insulting. From the natives' point of view, as it were.
Anyway, it's obviously a joke at WaPo's expense about the entrenched courtier class.
Ben: I understand, you're right. When I lived in Chicago (college) my roommates quickly dismissed the suggestion that we subscribe to the Chicago Tribune; we got the NY Times instead.
I just moved to DC, and the Post kind of sucks. The NYT is much better. Kind of a let down. Also, the Post editorial page is so lame.
The difference between Matt and the Washington Post is that Matt isn't endorsing anyone in the race.
If there's something "amusingly telling" that WaPo has no idea what happens in their backyard, there is also something "amusingly telling" that you don't.
I don't live in Fairfax County! I have some opinions and information about local politics in the District where I do live. I think it's unrealistic to expect people to be well-informed about local issues in places where they neither live nor work.
I live in Boston, and the Globe is just pathetic. The Herald, of course, is not fit to line the cages even of birds you plainly hate. I get the New York Times because its reporting is just so much more complete than the Globe's on national issues; and I don't get the Globe, because its local reporting is so anemic as to be pointless.
That said, I've never lived in New York and never read a 'local edition' of the New York Times, although I think I've heard it may be somewhat different. I think the Times is a very good national newspaper but if I were living in New York I'd find the local coverage of the national Times to be a distinct disappointment. But then again, a comment or two upthread suggests that the Post prides itself on its local coverage?
Believe it or not, the Globe was a much better local paper ten years ago or so; either that, or I'm getting old.
I'm her Hume Cronyn and she's my Jessica Tandy, I want candy!
So, when's the science-loving "reality-based community" going to discuss the James Watson Ritual Humiliation Ceremony now going on worldwide, anyway?
Well, gee, Steve, you do know that JDW has been world-famous as an asshole for at least forty years, and that his pronouncements on the subject of women make his recent dumb statements about Africa, er, pale by comparison, don't you?
If you want an examination of his recent statements, you might try other blogs more interested in genetics and in the politics of science, such as Pharyngula, at this link for example, and links within.
If you are actually particularly interested in Watson, and why many people think his main contribution as a researcher was the crystal structure of tobacco mosaic virus (since leaving the bench, he has been a very important figure in getting young people interested in science and in lobbying for science funding), you might read Judson's account of the discovery of the DNA structure in 'The Eighth Day Of Creation', especially the second edition (the 1996 edition, published by Cold Spring Harbor Press)
You know, anyone can pretend they are Matt just by using his name.
The Atlantic should get their IT guys on this.
The Washington Post is a worthless neo-con dishrag. I don't trust anything in it's news pages, or it's editorial pages.
Hey, c'mon guys! Stop talking about Matt's post and let's devote this thread to what Steve Sailer wants to talk about. Hey, I know, let's devote every thread on Matt's blog to Mr. Sailer's racist conspiracy theories! It's not like he has his own blog or anything, so we should help him out here as much as we can.
Matt has been one of the pillars of the leftosphere...his commenters used to be of a piece with Atrios', Drum's, Digby's, CrookedTimbers, and so on... But since the move to the Atlantic there's a weird hostility. Maybe the wider or more diverse readership objects to jokey hipsterism or something, I don't know.
For whatever it's worth, XY: I almost never read the comments anymore at the blogs you mentioned, because they've become boringly genteel amen corners. If the range of commenters' opinions here is perhaps a little wide for your liking, maybe you'd be more comfy reading all one hundred and seventy-five pats-on-the-back in Glenn Greenwald's comments section.
Things are so great right now in Fairfax County that tensions over immigration in Herndon attract national attention, residents refuse to acknowledge a growing achievement gap in its long-renowned public school system, and commuters to and from DC tough out some of the worst traffic in the country. Sounds copasetic to me. (Which isn't to say Fairfax isn't pretty damn nice on the whole, if you can afford to live there.)
Actually the Post has done a lot of great series on demographic changes in Fairfax and Loudoun. A number of Post staffers live in Arlington County and the city of Alexandria, though, which surround Fairfax but aren't under that county's jurisdiction.
This is all a bit silly. Would you expect bloggers who live and work in Greenwich Village to write knowledgeably about the political scene in Nassau County?
I live on the other side of DC from Fairfax County, and have only set foot there on 3 or 4 occasions. Apart from having the worst traffic on planet earth, it seems to be a well-kept and mostly harmless suburban area. I could not name a local politician there if you put a gun to my head.
I did notice, however, that the Post managed to endorse all the incumbents in my county during the last election cycle, despite them being a dysfunctional coalition of housing developer cronies. Since the Post is the quintessential pro-establishment newspaper, it is indeed mildly amusing to see that their bias toward incumbency extends down to the local level.
The New York Times also almost always endorses the incumbent in NYC area local elections, and local government here is not exactly well run. It seems to consist of transfering as much money from taxpayers to various well connected interest groups (mainly real estate developers and public employee unions) as possible, well spending the minimum needed on actual services to keep the economy from completely collapsing.
Comments closed November 03, 2007.
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Heads in the Sand
You don't know anything about local Fairfax County politics, and I'll bet the Washington Post doesn't either. 'Cause they spend as much time thinking about local politics as you do. If there's something "amusingly telling" that WaPo has no idea what happens in their backyard, there is also something "amusingly telling" that you don't. Let's face it- both you and WaPo think of yourselves as having a national audience, and aren't particularly concerned with the ins-and-outs of local politcs...
Posted by P | October 20, 2007 10:28 PM