Media Got It Wrong All Day and Now They're Mad

Howard Kurtz, writing in his Media Notes column, talks about the seething going on in the media because of Tuesday's misdirection play that resulted in a lot of journos vetting the wrong candidate for the Supreme Court:

Did the Bush team put out misinformation on that crazy Tuesday to steer reporters away from John Roberts?

We can't answer the question definitively because the journalists involved have a Matt Cooper problem -- they promised their sources anonymity, regardless of motive. But I can tell you that some of them are ticked and feeling misled (aw, poor babies - HolyCoast).

It all could be very innocent -- the typical Beltway gossip game where reporters trade information with supposedly wired sources who don't really know but like to give the impression that they do. Then the media types blurt what they've gleaned on television and online and -- d'oh ! -- look silly when they're wrong (are they ever right??-HolyCoast).

Why would the Bushies have bothered? The deafening buzz that the president had picked Edith Clement for the high court had a bunch of reporters preparing pieces on her instead of researching the legal record of the not-much-buzzed-about John Roberts. Plus, the head fake preserved the element of surprise for Bush's prime-time announcement.

Consider: The reporters in question relied on outside Republican advisers who work closely with the White House. These advisers, at least one of whom is said to feel used, were saying it was Clement. But the administration had asked Roberts to return from London for a possible announcement the day before , on Monday. Maybe the president was just keeping his options open. But at some point Tuesday Clement got an official call saying her services would not be required -- and Bush offered Roberts the job at 12:35 -- yet the it's-Clement-chatter continued until late in the afternoon. All this may have been terribly unfair to her.

An alternate theory is that Bush, for some reason, changed his mind that day, leaving the advisers leaning the wrong way. However you slice it, the administration had a good rollout.

Hey, I reported the wrong news too, but since I'm not a hoity-toity journalist, I'm not particularly bothered if the information later turned out to be incorrect. The only thing I was really concerned about was that Bush appoint the right person to the bench, and that he did. Roberts is certainly a better candidate than Clement appeared to be.

Frankly, media messes like the one above are their own fault. In a 24/7 news cycle like we have today, there's no time for fact-checking. Everyone is so desperate to be the first on the air with important news that it's pretty easy to steer the media herd right over the cliff with a well-timed head-fake.

David Brooks is one journo who's ecstatic about the Roberts pick:

Roberts nomination, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

I love thee with the depth and breadth and height my soul can reach. I love thee freely, as men strive for right. I love thee because this is the way government is supposed to work. President Bush consulted widely, moved beyond the tokenism of identity politics and selected a nominee based on substance, brains, careful judgment and good character.

I love thee because John G. Roberts is the face of today's governing conservatism.

A little over the top, maybe, but a lot of conservatives are feeling that way today.