In general, I try to avoid writing about stupid campaign coverage because there is so much of it. The vast majority of it is, in fact, stupid on some level. Some of the responsibility falls on Maureen Dowd, whose habit of imbuing impressionistic trivia with cosmic political significance now dominates both media coverage and campaigning itself in various ways. But this is noteworthy: A literal example of Dowdism in action appears in today's Wall Street Journal. Dowd has been obsessing for months about Barack Obama's slender frame and apparent desire to maintain a healthy diet as somehow prissy and elitist, rather than what it is, which is: healthy, i.e., an objectively good quality in a person and a president. The WSJ takes the Dowd meme out of the realm of pure opinion and turns it into classic, pseudo-objective newspaper claptrap:
The candidate has been criticized by opponents for appearing elitist or out of touch with average Americans. A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll conducted in July shows Sen. Obama still lags behind Republican John McCain among white men and suburban women who say they can't relate to his background or perceived values."He's too new ... and he needs to put some meat on his bones," says Diana Koenig, 42, a housewife in Corpus Christi, Texas, who says she voted for Sen. Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary.
"I won't vote for any beanpole guy," another Clinton supporter wrote last week on a Yahoo politics message board.
Why does the WSJ print this stuff? I'm not saying you can't write about candidates' diets or their body types - if it's done with some wit. This isn't.
Via Kevin Drum.
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I'm tired of it. I want news. If Obama's diet figures into his universal health care plan or if it has created a run on arugula at major markets then that might be a story. That he's skinny isn't. We noticed that a long time ago. Old news.
Thanks, Rupert Murdoch.
Check out his wrists. He'd probably have a tough time getting work on a construction site.
Whatever. I certainly don't resent him for being thin. Good on him. Oh, and I have a number of overweight friends who are all also voting for Obama.
I think it's really hard to insult American voters, at least a majority of them...