There’s been a dearth of Biden process stories, especially compared to Trump. What does that mean? https://t.co/N2Waif50hw
— Daniel W. Drezner (@dandrezner) May 18, 2021
Keep in mind: Drezner, author of the #Toddler-in-Chief thread/book, is a professor of international relations, not a journalist:
… The surfeit of Trump dirt raises an interesting question: Where are the stories dripping with insider details about how President Biden runs his White House?…
Let’s start with the lack of stories. The brute fact on the ground is that Biden is considerably more mature and less erratic than Trump. Biden’s staff is also clearly more cohesive and simpatico with Biden’s policy preferences than was the case with the Toddler in Chief. All else equal, the supply of bad-presidential-behavior stories should be smaller than it was in 2017.
The easy conservative narrative is that the mainstream media is in bed with the Biden administration. The trouble with that line of attack is that even GOP strategists are acknowledging that it’s really, really tough to attack Biden’s presidential style.
Stories about presidential dysfunction are likelier to emerge when an administration commits an own-goal or when an ideological faction loses a policy debate. A bad news cycle incentivizes staffers to explain to reporters how something was not their fault. Losing out on a policy decision gives some policymakers an incentive to go to the press. In the Biden White House, there has been little of the former and only one prominent example of the latter.
[The ‘prominent example’ is Larry Summers. Who should be ignored, for every possible reason.]
So there has been a virtuous circle within the Biden team. The lack of stumbles have led to fewer process stories, which in turn has reinforced a reputation of the Biden White House as a tight ship, disincentivizing further leaking…
debbie
Horrible things are not being planned, so there are no guilty consciences needing to be eased.
BruceFromOhio
Larry Summers is a policy influencer, not a policy maker.
Unless you count how he parks his car as policy-making.
MattF
@debbie: Horrible things advocated by horrible people. I used to be startled by how many horrible people there were.
NotMax
No sooner hit post and a new open thread appears. Repeating from tail end of thread downstairs, WaPo link.
Raven
It passed
Baud
Biden doesn’t talk to the media using a pseudonym or as a “White House official.”
rikyrah
???
Errin Haines ???? (@emarvelous) tweeted at 3:42 PM on Wed, May 19, 2021:
Despite approval from faculty and the tenure committee, @nhannahjones will be the first Knight Chair professor at UNC to be denied tenure by the board of trustees.
https://t.co/AmQruoaJa0
(https://twitter.com/emarvelous/status/1395117563772874759?s=03)
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Baud: nor do his daughter, whose name I can’t think of (Ashley?) or her husband, whose name I have never known.
zhena gogolia
@Raven:
Oh, wow!
zhena gogolia
@NotMax:
And I’ll repeat my eloquent comment from below: Wow.
Baud
@Raven:
What passed?
zhena gogolia
@rikyrah:
I have a feeling she’ll be snapped up by somebody.
zhena gogolia
@Baud: The 1/6 commission.
Geminid
@BruceFromOhio: Larry Summers does not seem to have any positive contributions to make to the debate about how we are going to solve our problems. He should just shut his pie hole.
debbie
@NotMax:
She was interviewed on NPR. What a powerful voice!
Mai Naem mobile
@Raven: what passed?
Also fuck Larry Summers. He’s one Clinton parasite who can just go the fuck away.
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
The House? Not much of a surprise.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: Kidney stone?
Another Scott
@Baud:
The heavy lift, as always is the Senate.
Chuck needs to dare them to vote No.
Cheers,
Scott.
zhena gogolia
@Baud:
Oh, I guess I wasn’t following closely enough. It has to get 60 in the Senate?
Nevertheless, this does put pressure on.
Baud
@Another Scott:
35 Republicans is higher than I was expecting.
prostratedragon
@NotMax: And she is here to bear witness. [Silence]
Another Scott
@Baud: Same here.
It shows again that McCarthy is a weak leader who can’t count.
Cheers,
Scott.
debbie
@Another Scott:
I am happy to take McCarthy’s failure as a small victory.
Lord Fartdaddy (Formerly, Mumphrey, Smedley Darlington Mingobat, et al.)
It truly is amazing how important simple competence is. It makes all the difference in the world.
Arclite
It’s funny how someone who is actually interested in governing and spends 50 years practicing governing is actually good at governing.
Martin
@Another Scott: 35 House GOP is more than expected. There might be some life here after all.
Have we heard what Manchin thinks of the GOP filibustering this to cover their own criminal exposure?
Mike in NC
Being “more mature and less erratic” than Donald Trump is about the lowest bar there is.
prostratedragon
Joy Reid has a segment coming up on Ms. Fletcher and the Tulsa testimony.
bbleh
So … a political story about political stories about political stories.
I guess it takes a full Professor to get that meta. Or that far into his own … um … navel.
Old Dan and Little Ann
The common meme from assholes I see is, “What I wouldn’t give for gas under $2 and mean tweets.” Fuckem.
Ajabu
@Mike in NC:
I have an eight year old granddaughter who is far more mature and extremely less erratic than TFG. So is my parrot…
Dan B
@rikyrah: Denying tenure to this amazing woman is punishment for telling racists that their myth of happy slaves rescued from darkest savage Africa is a well documented myth.
debbie
@Old Dan and Little Ann:
TFG had squat to do with low gas prices. Unless you think he intentionally allowed COVID to become pandemic.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@rikyrah: wait till Bari Weiss and Bill Maher hear about this cancellation….
Steve in the ATL
@prostratedragon: tonight’s soundtrack provided by the GAP Band!
NorthLeft12
Personally, I am blaming Joe Biden for hiring competent, and intelligent people who know how to work with other people.
It is also not helpful that Joe and all his close subordinates are decent human beings with integrity to boot!
Oh, for the return of the chaos and madness of TFG……said no sane person ever.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@debbie: I’ll admit I don’t pay much attention to the price fluctuations, but it seems to me the dip in gas prices a year ago was very short-lived
also, gas prices going up as Memorial Day weekend approaches? been so as long as I can remember
Baud
@debbie:
Under Trump, nature was HEALING!!!
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Prices are still historically low.
Redshift
@debbie:
And no need for “yes, the administration I’m part of is doing horrible things, but trust me, I’m stopping worse things” ass-covering.
(A particular peeve of mine, since there’s no evidence things got worse after “the adults” left, they just got less competent and more likely to get caught. Thanks, guys.)
Redshift
@Old Dan and Little Ann:
Apparently they’re telling each other that the cancellation of the Keystone XL is somehow responsible for the gas pipeline, so it’s Biden’s fault.
Idjits.
Ken
@debbie: I’m vaguely recalling some Republican — Bachmann? — about a dozen years ago, saying how great it was that gas prices were so low under Bush. As plenty of people pointed out, yes, you crash the economy and prices of lots of things go down, because people can’t afford them.
Though even Bush II never managed to get negative spot prices. That took TFG’s very special touch.
LongHairedWeirdo
In short, compared to Trump, Biden is an outcompetent. Of course, I’ve passed some turds that are far more competent than Trump; sure, they stink, but they’re *supposed* to, and they do it *properly*. If someone told me Trump’s farts smelled like roses, my first thought would be “ass kisser” (nice of Trump to perfume his ass before demanding kisses), but if that didn’t work, it’d be clear the man can’t even break wind competently.
Matt McIrvin
@debbie:
He did, actually–he kissed Putin’s ass which probably kept the ransomware trolls down. These guys want us to be under Putin’s thumb again.
Matt McIrvin
@Ken: There was a meme going around showing the price of gas incredibly low immediately before Obama was inaugurated. It’d only work on you if you were really motivated to forget everything that actually happened back then (including the fact that the price of gas had been sky-high right before everything crashed).
Just Chuck
@Ken:
That was Saudi Arabia’s MBS, deciding he’d start dumping oil to start a price war against US natural gas. Then the pandemic hit. Oops.
MontyTheClipArtMongoose
@Old Dan and Little Ann: this is where i leave @ultraweedhater.