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• Tuesday, April 15, 2008 10:21 PM

  We're getting a little fluffy

  Every pro-Obama article gets a whole bunch of "Gee, guess you snuck this one by Joan" or "Guess you didn't missed the Salon supports Clinton meeting" comments, which shows that the perception of bias has reached unchangeable, delusional levels, where all evidence to the contrary must be discarded. The attacks on both candidates are getting deeply angry and irrelevant. All partisanship aside, though, what is with these anecdotal articles?

  This article and Traister's article on "Obama Boys" are both such odd, small strokes of journalism - anecdotal tales about feelings that add nothing to the politics at hand. Lind's "New England theory" that charged that Obama is supported by elitists was easily the least logical piece I have read in a while - the author was constantly arriving at conclusions (Now that I have proven this...) as though they're self-evident, without making the journey to get there or allow us to come with him. It tried to show that the half-baked racial ratio theory was, well, half-baked, by offering another silly theory with equally weak, arbitrary data.

  These types of pieces are interesting in small doses, to liven up the primaries, but they should not be the bread and butter of any publication, least of all one as reputable and admirable as Salon. Where is our real political analysis? The coverage of Obama's speech on race, for example, was balanced and fascinating - but that was ages ago, in political terms.

  —spinerret Read spinerret's other letters
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