"So much of it has been a kind of pack journalism," says Wolff, "and I've got
this nagging feeling that the pack wasn't always doing the right thing. The Gore
press corps was all about how they didn't like him and didn't trust him...And
over here we were all writing about trivial stuff because he charmed the pants
off of us."
This sort of nonsense has been brought to the fore again during this campaign season with all the hullabaloo over John Edwards and his $400 haircut. The man has been crucified in the press for this extravagance, made to look like a hypocrite for preaching his "Two Americas" rhetoric and his dedication to fighting poverty while at the same time spending exhorbitant sums on his personal hygiene. When it was later revealed the Mitt Romney pays a "Hollywood stylist" $300 a pop to spruce up his appearance, there was nary a peep from the mainstream media; it was good for a giggle and it was gone. Even since the Romney revalation, there are still some media types piling on pretty-boy Edwards without mentioning makeup-man Mitt.
So we're faced with the question: "Why is John Edwards' haircut a bigger deal than Mitt Ronmey's makeover?" Marc Ambinder at The Atlantic Online thinks he has the answer:
The primary difference is definitional: The centerpiece of Edwards's
campaign is his anti-poverty efforts; he presents himself as a dedicated
messenger for the cause, and he likes expensive haircuts, bought a gimungous
house, etc. etc. His credibility as a messenger comes into question when he
spends money ostentatiously. (The haircut was inadvertently billed to the
campaign, a spokesman later said).
There is a difference in the political reality: fairly or unfairly, a
healthy chunk of the national political press corps doesn't like John
Edwards.
Fairly or unfairly, there's also a difference in narrative timing: when the
first quarter ended, the press was trying to bury Edwards. It's not so much
interested in burying Romney right now -- many reporters think he's the
Republican frontrunner.
Charles Pierce at Altercation has a few thoughts on that:
However, where in hell do we go with that last passage there, about how the
haircuts matter because "a healthy chunk of the political press corps" doesn't
like Edwards, and how they're staying away from a sauce-for-the-goose position
on Mitt Romney's makeovers because of their own private calculations of the
relative electability of the two candidates. OK, here's the deal. Every member
of that "healthy chunk" of the press corps should be fired. Today. This minute.
Without pay or recompense. Let them all walk back inside the Beltway from Cedar
Rapids if they have to. I value what I do. I value the work of the people in my
business who do it correctly. But, holy mother of god, these people do not do
what I do. It's OK to sneer at a candidate if you don't like him? It's OK to
create a destructive narrative out of unmitigated piffle because he doesn't kiss
your ass with the regularity you think you deserve, or because his press buses
don't run on time, or because one of his staffers was late with the Danish in
Keene? I watched a roomful of them boo Al Gore seven years ago, behavior that
would have gotten them run out of any press box in the major leagues. Do you
think one of these jamokes -- or jamokettes -- is thinking, "Maybe we should lay
off the haircut thing because of what we all did to Gore in 2000, and look how
well that worked out." Please.
Here's what I think -- the
majority of people who cover national politics believe that history is whatever
happened in the MSNBC Green Room 15 minutes earlier. I believe the campaign is
covered by people with a completely unjustified sense of their own superiority,
since not many of them understand or ever care about most of the issues, much
less the horrendous bills that are going to come due upon whichever of these
poor sods winds up with the job. I believe these people care more about their
reputation around the bar at the Wayfarer in Manchester than they do about the
interests of the people they purportedly serve. And, were I an editor, and
someone brought me a story about John Edwards' hair or Mitt Romney's skin, that
person would do it once. The second time, the lazy bastard would find himself
typing bowling agate on Wednesday night.
That sounds about right.
This whole notion that somehow if you are going to work to help the poor you must yourself be poor is perhaps the most disingeuous political argument in America today. Often times, the greatest advoates for the poor are a nation's wealthiest citizens. They have the time, connections and resources to accomplish big things. The Rockefellers, the Roosevelts, the Kennedys; all have done more for the poor than the Bushes, Giulianis and Romneys combined. Bill Gates is the latest to carry the mantle, along with Al Gore and even Bono fom U2.
Perhaps Glenn Greenwald says it best:
Many of our nation's greatest advocates for the poor -- including Robert
Kennedy and Franklin Roosevelt -- were born wealthy and lived rich lifestyles
from infancy onward. Was their "credibility" as poverty advocates undermined as
a result? By contrast, Edwards lived most of his early life in extreme poverty.
Doesn't it stand to reason that he understands those issues and has an authentic
commitment to them as a result of his own personal experiences, even if he ended
up financially successful, solely as a result of his own efforts, later in life?
Beyond that, every politician claims to understand and be devoted to the
plight of the "working family." Mitt
Romney and George Bush, born to great wealth, certainly make those
claims, even though they haven't been anywhere near "working families" since the
day they were born. Ronald Reagan was endlessly held up as the fighter for
"working families" despite his personal wealth. If Edwards' wealth makes him so
suspect when he claims to be devoted to the poor, why doesn't the in-born,
unearned wealth of Bush and Romney -- and every other non-poor politician --
make them equally suspect as advocates for "America's working families"?
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