Pundits Uniformly Ignore Rudy's Hideous Recovery-Worker Gaffe
August 14, 2007 -- 1:41 PM EST // //

Okay, readers, we've got a challenge for you: See if you can help us find pundits who have weighed in on Rudy's awful 9/11 recovery worker gaffe since he first uttered it last week.

As you know, Rudy caused a bunch of controversy last Thursday by saying that he'd spent as much or more time at Ground Zero than "most" of the recovery workers. The comments prompted an outcry and Rudy later said he'd misspoke.

Before taking a look at the pundit reaction to this, it's necessary to point out that this was an enormous misstep on Rudy's part, his worst yet. It perfectly captured the cynicism and opportunism at the core of his candidacy. It laid bare the extent to which Rudy is concocting his Churchill of 9/11 persona, as well as just how much people who had their lives directly altered by the disaster and by his performance in its aftermath loathe him for doing this. In a sane world this misstep should cut much deeper than John Edwards' haircut, since it concerned his actual performance -- and his efforts to capitalize on it -- whereas Edwards' gaffe concerned, well, a haircut.

So -- which pundits have talked about this? With the help of crack TPM intern Benjy Sarlin, here is the full list, according to Nexis and Google:

1) Margaret Carlson criticized it in passing on MSNBC,

2) Paul Krugman addressed it in a Times column

3) Local Daily News columnist Mike Lupica wrote a column about it

4) Chris Matthews made passing mention of it on Hardball, without criticizing it as a misstep

...and that's it. A grand total of two pundits mentioned this on the networks, one critically, and one national columnist. We're perfectly happy to acknowledge that we may have missed other examples; if you find any, email us at talk@talkingpointsmemo.com.

Rudy's misstep did get a good deal of traditional news coverage, some critical. But that's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about the extent to which the shapers of insider conventional wisdom declared Rudy's comments a mistake that risked hurting his campaign. Such things matter -- they have an impact on fundraising and on mainstream news coverage of the candidate, for instance. And in this case, virtually no one in the punditocracy has yet bothered to say word boo about what is clearly his worst political misstep yet.

Just for the fun of it, we put together a list of some of the national pundits and columnists who laid into Edwards in the aftermath of his haircut -- and this list doesn't do justice to the extraordinary outpouring of contempt and scathing criticism directed towards him:

Pundits:

Chris Matthews

Jack Cafferty

Tucker Carlson (repeatedly)

Glenn Beck

Bill O'Reilly

Neil Cavuto

Brit Hume

David Gregory

Norah O'Donnell

Columnists:

Maureen Dowd

Richard Cohen

Derrick Z. Jackson (The Boston Globe)

It's only been a week since Rudy's misstep, so the punditry still has time to catch up. But guess what -- it won't. As Eric Boehlert writes, when it comes to describing political missteps by Democratic and Republican candidates, there's simply no denying that there's an enormous double-standard at play. Yes, there are exceptions. Think Macaca, for example, or think of some of the rather tame denunciations of Mitt Romney's ideological gyrations.

Still, there's no way around it: The basic dynamic at play here is that Dems are guilty of hypocrisy and political calculation until proven innocent -- indeed, that any campaign trail misstep that suggests Dem hypocrisy or calculation is something to be, in a sense, celebrated by the punditry. At the same time, it's almost as if mainstream pundits feel as if there's something untoward about calling out a Republican for flip-flopping, for hypocrisy, for self-aggrandizement.

How often, for instance, have we heard from pundits that John McCain is only flip-flopping because he has to in order to appeal to GOP primary voters -- and that this isn't something he wants to do, so it's no big deal? Just try taking a deep pull on your bong and imagining pundits frequently offering such an excuse for Edwards or Hillary. You can't, can you.

This has been the basic state of play at least since Bush versus Gore, and nearly seven years and two Presidential elections later, it's happening again. Punditry: Prove us wrong. We dare you.

Update: Check out this interesting look at the extent to which bloggers, in addition to traditional journalists, kept the Edwards haircut story alive.

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