Politico Reports Telephone Is An Awesome Game

Hey, did you know that sometimes there's something wrong with The Politico? Their objectivity has often been a point of debate around the Texas Blue offices. For instance, I might take umbrage with competing headlines one morning, like "Republicans receive endorsement from adorable puppies!" on the gossip line, and "Nancy Pelosi wants a jet made of money to fly money to money!" in the news section. Well, Politico's fast-and-dirty street stylez got them in trouble in the last few days over whether or not Harry Reid said that General Petraeus is incompetent. To bloggers!

So Politico in response runs a story that says "Here's what other people are saying about us! Join us in our live chat to see if we care about a thing like 'Context'!" Bob Geiger is beating on them mercilessly about it, Kos is taking it to Jim VandeHei, and another Kos blogger points out that Politico has a history of this sort of behavior.

The important thing getting lost in all of this is what Reid said, and how Republicans have attacked him for it. They have replaced "Stop attacking our commander in chief in a time of war!" with "Stop attacking our military leadership in a time of war!" What they don't point out is that they all openly attack Bush at will, and Bush commonly disparages or ignores what the military leadership tells him, publicly. Civilian criticism of military leadership is allowed, and should probably be encouraged in a general sense.

I would not, if I were a commanding general, listen to what Reid really thought I should do from a supply-line perspective in my battle plans. I probably wouldn't look to Joe Lieberman for overall strategy about tactical entries into hostile foreign zones. However, from a legislative body that goes to all the trouble to have committees specifically for overseeing what the military is doing, I would expect them to say "You're in charge, and this is not going well" in a case like Iraq, and maybe for them to also suggest qualitative assessments of my performance. Seems reasonable, right? Or maybe like what they're supposed to do?

So, I can barely believe it, but it seems like Republicans have run out of lies and divisive political tactics, and are now just reusing them over again for different things. To sum up: Wow, Politico. Not a stellar performance. Also, hey, Republicans: You're arguing about something out of context, and I'm not even sure you can disprove what you say Reid said that he didn't say. Try that one on for size.