At the risk of stating the obvious, one big reason the James Rosen and AP controversies have become front page news is that “the news” is a key stakeholder in the story itself. Replace ‘reporters from accredited outlets’ with ‘nihilistic hackers’ or ‘advocacy orgs’ and the tone of the coverage we’re reading, and questions we’re hearing, would be much, much different. Instead reporters are, quite naturally, behaving in both their normal journalistic capacities here and in their ancillary roles as trade association members — and so the whole thing has taken on much more valence with the press than we’ve come to expect when the DOJ is discovered taking liberties with its investigative powers.
That’s something everyone should consider the next time we learn a non-media figure has been subjected to secret, invasive federal subpoenas, etc. Until then, I’d note that in this case the coverage disparity is due in part to the fact that — to coin a recently misquoted White House official — the reporting does not reflect all relevant equities. Read More
At the end of the day, a big budget agreement that passes both the House and Senate is pretty unlikely. But before it can happen, there have to be negotiations, and before there are negotiations, Republicans have to allow themselves to negotiate.
In the Senate, what’s holding that up is an effort on the part of the tea party backed members to block formal negotiations until Democrats agree that the debt limit will be off limits — so that in the event the chambers do finalize a budget, Ted Cruz and Rand Paul and other Republicans can still demand concessions in exchange for increasing the debt limit later this year. After four years of blistering Democrats for not passing a budget, this has an unwanted downside of making the party look terrible. And now Republican frustrations with Cruz’s and Paul’s tactics are bubbling to the surface. Read More
