The Anxiety Liberalism of Peter Daou
ShareBlue has only been live for 11 days and already it has two of the most ridiculous articles ever published this election season.
Both are by Peter Daou, the site’s founder.
September 10:
R.I.P. Political Journalism (1440–2016)
Here, Daou argues that political journalism has breathed its last because of negative coverage of Hillary Clinton.
Why 1440? Gutenburg press, baby.
Well done, assholes. You killed print.
It takes Daou about 30 seconds to destroy his entire thesis.
Daou:
For the sake of argument, let’s assume that 1440 — the year Gutenberg introduced his printing press — is the dawn of modern journalism. 576 years later, abysmal and unjust coverage of the first woman in a quarter millennium with a viable shot at the American presidency threatens to demolish the credibility and legitimacy of mainstream political journalism.
Already we’re jumping all over the place. First it’s “modern journalism.” Then it’s “mainstream political journalism.” Not to mention the fact that Gutenburg’s press was used to print the bible, not journalistic endeavors…. a better analogy might be political graffiti.
Still, none of this matters because the very next line, leading off the second paragraph of this thousands word piece says:
Perhaps “R.I.P. political journalism” is a premature title.
Didn’t stop you from putting in the headline, Peter. Although journalism is dead so I assume headline accuracy is the first casualty, or something.
The rest of the article is heavy on cherry picked quotes and liberally sprinkled with links to Peter’s own (unverified) twitter account.
September 11:
Hillary Clinton’s feat of strength obliterates months of health conspiracies
So I want to be really clear here with what Daou’s arguing to his audience.
According to Daou, Clinton’s “feat of strength” is getting pneumonia and not taking bed rest for a few days, instead pushing herself to the point of publicly collapsing in public.
This is the Hail Mary pass. It’s not that she is sick, or weak, no. It’s that she is stronger than you shall ever, ever know and if you use that for political gain (outside of Daou and his friends) then history will judge you harshly, my friend.
The beginning of the article is very revealing in how it deals with what happened this morning. After Clinton left the ceremony and was seen fainting, Daou and co said it was extremely hot out (it was in the 70s) and that’s why she overheated.
Once the cause of the collapse was revealed as pneumonia, the pivot was made to Clinton’s feat of strength by campaigning while ill.
So- with that in mind, read the lede to Daou’s story:
September 11 was a wild day in campaign 2016. After Hillary Clinton overheated and became weak at a 9/11 ceremony, an ugly feeding frenzy ensued that capped weeks of increasingly shrill conspiracy-mongering about her health.
However, by the end of the day, the tables had turned on her detractors after it was revealed she was maintaining a grueling work schedule while battling pneumonia
It’s a pretty impressive feat of mental gymnastics to fit in both stories used over the past twelve hours to explain Clinton’s fainting spell.
The rest of the article — I’m not kidding — is just Daou embedding tweets he and his allies made about the situation.
56 days, y’all. 56 days.
Update: As this story was going to file, I noticed Nick Mullen came through earlier with an exclusive email from Clinton’s doctor that puts the matter of Clinton’s health to rest:
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