Howard Kurtz: Media Covering Hillary's Laugh Because It's "More Fun" Than Covering Her Iraq Stance
October 3, 2007 -- 11:15 AM EST // //
Via Matthew Yglesias, The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz has weighed in with a long piece today on the fact that the press is lavishing a huge amount of attention on Hillary's laugh.
Kurtz explains this phenomenon thusly:
The subtext here is that the media have collectively decided that the wife of the 42nd president is the inevitable nominee and a good bet to become the 44th Oval Office occupant. Lacking much of a horse race, since Clinton has maintained a 20-point national lead over Barack Obama all year, journalists are resorting to a classic general-election question: Are Americans ready to have this woman in their living rooms every night for four years? Are they comfortable with her personality? Do they like her voice?How nice. In a sense we should be thanking Kurtz here. He's done us a public service by laying bare the media's frivolity in all its inane glory. According to Kurtz, many of his colleagues are obsessing over The Laugh because examining Hillary's personality is "more fun" than examining her Iraq stance, and they've all "collectively decided" that Hillary is the inevitable Dem nominee and is all but certain to be our next President. Isn't that lovely?Plus, examining her personality quirks is more fun than deconstructing her stance on Iraq.
I understand that Kurtz was taking a gently ironic poke at his media colleagues. Still, I'd genuinely like to know what Kurtz, a media expert, actually thinks of all this. Should coverage be dictated by the fact that her laugh is a more "fun" topic than Iraq, or by the media's collective decision that Hillary "is the inevitable nominee"? Should media folks make such a decision at all? Isn't all this inanity kind of a bad thing?
I know, I know, this is all boring, earnest stuff. Still, I'm going to go out on a limb and stipulate that it matters who our next President is. But as Kurtz, the ultimate media insider, has now confirmed, to his media colleagues this is apparently just another laughing matter.
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