The Washington Post has delivered 5,500 devastating words of investigative journalism. The piece is thoroughly researched, well-sourced and hard-hitting.

Is it about:

a) the Fast and Furious gun-running scandal that gave crates of grenades to Mexican gun-running criminals?

b) President Obama's relationship with Tony Rezko, a man convicted of public corruption who helped purchase the Obama family home in Chicago?

c) how Obama campaign bundlers stand to benefit from the stimulus bill and Obamacare?

d) Mitt's childhood as a prep-school prankster, bookended with claims of anti-gay bullying?

Yep, you answered correctly. So if you want 5,500 words on what a monster Mitt Romney was that one time at band camp, the Washington Post is your paper. I wanted to link to their investigative stories on Obama's time at Punahou (and Columbia and Harvard and Chicago and, uh, D.C.), but I can't seem to find them.

And what a coincidence that this story ran today, no?

Comments:


Mel Foil
Joined
Jun '10
etoiledunord

If only Mitt's classmate had been living in a Muslim country, with Barack Obama, he would've been safe from the impromptu forced haircuts that ruin lives. He would've been beaten by Islamic teachers for acting strange, but at least there would be no smirking.

Paul A. Rahe

Journolist strikes again.

Charlotte
Joined
Apr '11
Charlotte

Mollie, how on earth were you able to slog your way through a 5,500-word WaPo Politics feature story?

I think we can all agree that's the real issue here.

Mollie Hemingway, Ed.

Charlotte: Mollie, how on earth were you able to slog your way through a 5,500-word WaPo Politics feature story?

I think we can all agree that's the real issue here. · 5 minutes ago

With my mouth open and lots of grunting. My husband can vouch for this. Since I'm a media critic, I'm accustomed to reading lots of bad journalism. He says he knows it's bad when I'm aghast.

Charlotte
Joined
Apr '11
Charlotte
Mollie Hemingway, Ed. With my mouth open and lots of grunting.

There's a campaign slogan in there somewhere.

Mollie Hemingway, Ed.

Byron York tweets:

To be fair, on 8/24/08, WaPo published long Maraniss piece on Obama in Hawaii which mentioned high school alcohol, pot, cocaine use…

Maraniss: 'Some have suggested he exaggerated drug use in [Dreams]…his friends quickly dismissed that notion.'

On other hand, wasn't focus of article: about 200 words of 10,000-word article. Alleged anti-gay incident much more focus of Romney piece.

Mel Foil
Joined
Jun '10
etoiledunord

Mollie Hemingway, Ed.: Byron York tweets:

To be fair, on 8/24/08, WaPo published long Maraniss piece on Obama in Hawaii which mentioned high school alcohol, pot, cocaine use…

Maraniss: 'Some have suggested he exaggerated drug use in [Dreams]…his friends quickly dismissed that notion.'

On other hand, wasn't focus of article: about 200 words of 10,000-word article. Alleged anti-gay incident much more focus of Romney piece.

Obama was busy reducing his inhibitions. That's the approved direction these days. So, no problem there.

dogsbody
Joined
Sep '10
dogsbody

On the one hand, this piece won't influence any votes.  The liberal base will read it and have their beliefs once again comfortably affirmed--Republicans are evil, gay-bashing bullies--while the rest of the world probably won't care about what Mitt Romney might have done in high school in 1965.

On the other hand, it shows once again what we're up against.  Liberal Democrats have an army of gratis opposition researchers in the press who will comb every piece of a Republican candidate's past.  There is no comparable organization on our side, despite the growth of blogs and the strength of talk radio.

Edited on May 10, 2012 at 4:48pm
tabula rasa
Joined
Jun '10
tabula rasa

Funny how (a) - (c) concern recent events in Obama's life: two relate directly to his presidency.

Mitt's sins would be from, what, 45-50 years ago? Of course, the Dems, being the party of perpetual adolescence, would find that relevant.  

Pseudodionysius
Joined
Sep '10
Pseudodionysius

I'm surprised that there have yet to be any Romney as Repressed Hairdresser jokes.

Songwriter
Joined
Aug '10
Songwriter

tabula rasa: Funny how (a) - (c) concern recent events in Obama's life: two relate directly to his presidency.

Mitt's sins would be from, what, 45-50 years ago? Of course, the Dems, being the party of perpetual adolescence, would find that relevant.   · 18 minutes ago

TR - You are absolutely right. Infuriating, isn't it?


Joined
Aug '10
James F Strother

Despicable.  The real story line appears to be that he appears to have had a relatively exemplary record at Cranbrook.

Wait for coverage to come that will contrast his career success to that of Harvard classmates who crashed and burned.

5,500 words.

flownover
Joined
Aug '10
flownover

Wonder how long they have been sitting on this piece, how many fill-in-the -blanks spaces they were in it prior to Obama's gay thing yesterday ?

But wow what a blockbuster !! Pictures of BenGurion.....scary stuff here.

Anybody who has been to private school will recognize all those pranks as being fairly common, almost lame in comparison to what really goes on. But I guess that changed later. 

And in places like Punahou, the pranks were all politically tinged, like switching out the good buds for oregano or shaving the skegs on somebody's boogie board.

tabula rasa
Joined
Jun '10
tabula rasa

Mollie:  Thanks for reading this so I don't have to.

Aaron Miller
Joined
May '10
Aaron Miller

Mollie Hemingway, Ed.:

And what a coincidence that this story ran today, no?

Paul A. Rahe: Journolist strikes again.

Not that I believe it, but to be (unduly) fair, a foresighted journalist might have realized back when North Carolina's vote on marriage was first announced that the gay issue would be restored to national focus by the results.

Nick Stuart
Joined
May '10
Nick Stuart

Really, who's paying attention to the WaPo??

Johnny Dubya
Joined
Aug '10
Kevin Walker

I, for one, am shocked--shocked--to find out that cruel pranks occur at boys' boarding schools.

Seriously, though, I'm the least conspiracy-minded person I know, and yet I strongly suspect that the timing was no coincidence.  Journolist, indeed.

And this president was supposed to represent a new way of campaigning and governing...  I'm so disillusioned!

Douglas
Joined
Mar '11
Douglas

Do we need any further proof that the MSM... and especially outlets like the NYT and the WaPo... are nothing more than Democratic Party campaign organs? Hmm? 

The leftward tilt of the Wall Street Journal of late (a way to get the heat off of Rupert Murdoch, perhaps?) also shows the folly of not having your own print media. We really, really need a good conservative newspaper on the national level... a kind of conservative USA Today (only with much better quality writing).

James Of England
Joined
Apr '11
James Of England
Nick Stuart: Really, who's paying attention to the WaPo?? · 5 hours ago

It's being repeated in every other news source. Despite the likelihood that the haircut was a response to non-standard hair (which could still be a pretty big deal, without a gay aspect, when I was boarding in the early 90s), this is going to get extremely wide circulation, and all of it taking as read that Mitt was a homophobic bully.

Combined with the departure of Grenell (who, incidentally, confounded the... people who predicted he'd shift to Obama on Obama's marriage evolution by predictably attacking Obama), this is a terrible time for the campaign, and for the framing of the SSM issue. NC notwithstanding, this month has been a triumph for SSM, and much of the credit goes to the stupidity and bigotry of the AFA.

James Of England
Joined
Apr '11
James Of England

Mollie Hemingway, Ed.

Charlotte: Mollie, how on earth were you able to slog your way through a 5,500-word WaPo Politics feature story?

I think we can all agree that's the real issue here. · 5 minutes ago

With my mouth open and lots of grunting. My husband can vouch for this. Since I'm a media critic, I'm accustomed to reading lots of bad journalism. He says he knows it's bad when I'm aghast. · 11 hours ago

What surprised me was the overall hostility of the tone; it would have been a much better hack job if they'd made it look like one. The implications of evil were pretty well done, with stories that didn't involve Mitt woven in with stories that did in ways that implied involvement if you didn't pay attention. The overwhelming focus on what I believe Rob would call "reaction shots" was also very effective.

Still, I think that my favorite line comes from the section on how weird and alien Mitt's school was, unlike American schools. Apparently, they had cotton napkins; that detail felt like a Simpsons-esque homage to hack jobs.


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