What Stacy Said About Dave Weigel

Yesterday I was at Workers Credit Union at the Twin City Mall. It’s the only branch of that bank I now go to because it’s the only one that is still manned by actual human beings not behind a television screen.

While I was there a man at the counter with the teller was commenting on how like me he only goes there because there are real people. The teller commented that they are thinking of converting this branch as well. When I got to the window she said the decision hasn’t been made yet but it’s a cost issue but their branch is constantly swamped BECAUSE they are the only one with real people and actual tellers at the windows.

She seemed to miss that in terms of profitability the fact that this branch is attracting customers tells you all you need to know about if getting ridding real people is a smart move.

This came to mind instantly when I read this from Stacy McCain’s piece on our mutual friend Dave Weigel who has been suspended from the Washington Post:

 I feel obligated to point out that Dave is an actual honest-to-God reporter, the kind who goes out on the road, talks to real human beings and takes notes, rather than sitting in front of a laptop making up phony narratives about people on social media, which seems to be Taylor Lorenz’s job description.

It was the same way a dozen years ago, when some of Dave’s “friends” on the Left decided to get him fired from the Post because he had the audacity to defend Ron Paul. Some of my conservative friends were doing a sack dance over Dave’s firing, but I called him up and offered him some advice: Where you go next, make sure that a travel budget is part of the deal. He signed on with Slate a few weeks later and, sure enough, a travel budget was included. Because that’s what Dave does best, really — The Man on the Scene, in an era when every other “journalist” in America seems to spend most of their time ranting on Twitter.

There is still a need for basic shoe-leather reporting in America, and that’s what Dave Weigel is best at. So this suspension from the Washington Post ought to be seen as an opportunity for some other news organization to grab Weigel and put him to work with (a) a guaranteed travel budget and (b) a promise he’ll never be fired for RT’ing a joke.

If you want actual reporting that people would find interesting the example of Dave Weigel actually going to places and talking to people rather than just sitting and pontificating might be a clue, particularly when you see the response to Salina Zito.

Of course there is a disadvantage that Dave has in the sense that last think the left wants is either for people of the right or their own people to be seen as they are in person.

I understand why Stacy likes Dave Weigel so much…

…after this first rate piece:

The Great Recession has done wonders for the Republican Party. Two years after being tossed out of power at every level, it’s about to waltz right back in, kicking aside the corpses of Democrats foolish enough to go along with the designs of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. This is good news for most conservatives. It’s slightly worse news for a smaller group of conservatives—namely, the ones who spent the end of the ’00s explaining why a Republican comeback like this was not really possible.

This piece is absolutely classic as all those like Sam Tanenhaus who’s book did so good on Amazon but somehow can’t wrap their head around what has happened.

Of course, to the horror of the smart set, this is exactly what is happening. The conservative base looked at any attempt to answer the Democrats on policy as a cave-in to socialism. When they’re making the case for their research, Douthat and Salam acknowledge that reality. But they argue that Republicans have been using their key insights anyway and that the hot rhetoric of the GOP obscures what actually happened.

Yup all those tea party people had nothing to do with it.

Read the whole thing, but don’t be drinking while you do.

Brietbart understands how the game works better than anyone

The Weigel stuff had very little to do with Brietbart but he managed to draw aces.

First he gets Weigel to put his side out on this site:

But I was cocky, and I got worse. I treated the list like a dive bar, swaggering in and popping off about what was “really” happening out there, and snarking at conservatives. Why did I want these people to like me so much? Why did I assume that I needed to crack wise and rant about people who, usually for no more than five minutes were getting on my nerves? Because I was stupid and arrogant, and needlessly mean. Yes, I’d trash-talk liberals to Republicans sometimes. And I’d tell them which liberals “mattered,” who was a hack, who was coming after them. Did I suggest which strategies might and might not work for liberals, Democrats, and the president? Yes, although I do the same to conservatives — in February, for example, I told many of them that Scott Brown’s election hadn’t killed health care reform, and they needed to avoid dancing in the endzone, because I was aware of what liberals were saying about how to come back.

That impressed the hell out of Stacy McCain who interviewed him for the Spectator:

Especially after the 2004 election, Breitbart said, liberals realized they had “lost control of the narrative,” and began organizing projects aimed at preventing stories that hurt Democrats from gaining traction in mainstream media. Breitbart compared the Journolist “cabal” to Professor Peter Dreier’s “Cry Wolf” project that offered $1,000 fees to academics for papers pushing back against conservative policy proposals.

By exerting peer pressure within the press corps, Breitbart said, the participants in Journolist influenced reporters like Weigel to adopt their practice of treating Drudge and Limbaugh as enemies, and to suppress story angles that favored conservatives.

So Breitbart takes the blog story of the day and makes it the place where everyone HAS to go. Is he done? Not by a long shot. He follows up with the offer that can’t be accepted or can’t be refused but sure can’t be ignored:

The American people, at least half of whom are the objects of scorn of this group of 400, deserve to know who was colluding against them so that in the future they can better understand how the once-objective media has come to be so corrupted and despised.

We want the list of journalists that comprised the 400 members of the “JournoList” and we want the contents of the listserv. Why should Weigel be the only person exposed and humiliated?

I therefore offer the sum of $100,000 to the person who provides the full “JournoList” archive. We will protect that person’s privacy and identity forever. No one will ever know who became $100,000 richer – and did the right thing, morally and ethically — by shining the light of truth on this seamy underworld of the media.

Glenn Reynolds like McCain calls him a Genius. He’s right.

On the memeorandum thread the reactions are varied Johnson calls him unethical, Vanity Fair says it not possible, other pooh pooh it but Breitbart is in a no lose situation.

If someone comes forward with the items he holds a scoop and a half, but the person in question is marked for life. Breitbart will keep his name quiet but the 100,000 has to be paid somehow. Do we get 12 under 10k payments to circumvent federal reporting laws. Said 100k will have to be claimed as an expense of Brietbart and as income by the recipient. I’ll wager a half decent reporter could trace it, particularly since many would be motivated to do so.

What is more likely is that the stupid thing will be done and the list will be held onto. Breitbart gets a storyline he can come back to forever, gets 100k+ worth of publicity without spending any money and can continue to paint journolist as what he says it is. Oh the left denies it, but can’t refute it without producing the actual archives and there’s the rub.

If Breitbart is right about what was going on there (and I suspect he is) then they don’t dare release it it’s a nail in the coffin of everyone who was part of it. If Breitbart is wrong the only way they can do so is to release it but the left is not about thinking long term, the one day or maybe two story the list would produce is one or two days too many for the left and even if the left isn’t doing what was said there is likely to be at least a few more people who have said things that they really shouldn’t have. They will fight tooth and nail to cover themselves.

What is the smart thing? Klein should release the list himself. If Breitbart is wrong it proves it and becomes a one or two day story. He can even give the dough to the DNC if he wants. If Breitbart is right he should release it anyway, we of the right already distrust them, so the revelations are not going to change things much. The damage to the left is then focused during a time when the left is in trouble anyways.

As I’ve said before it is going to come out sooner or later, if the left has brains it will be sooner, but they are not as smart as Breitbart.

Latest Examiner column: No Party at the Washington Post for Dave Weigel

My latest examiner column No Party at the Washington Post for Dave Weigel is now available. A quick quote:

One could say that there is a lesson here for the Post and journalists but I think the real lesson is for conservatives in general and the tea party in particular. The mainstream media is not and never will be your friend. Until and unless the MSM print, paper or net are willing to hire people who we know are not hostile to us we should not give and they should not expect our cooperation.

Considering that he has now been hired by MSNBC it looks like this advice is pretty good.

As always you can find the archive of my examiner columns here.