White House slams back at Politico with email forward

 In the wake of John Harris' "Seven Narratives That The White House Hopes Doesn't Take Root And That We Are Going To Plant Ourselves, Nanny-Nanny-Boo-Boo" article, White House wiseacres are WINNING THE EVENING with a silly email forward of their own. It's called "7 narratives politico [sic] is fighting in their efforts to get an interview with the President" and Marc Ambinder has it up over at The Atlantic.

Ambinder notes, "many on the White House senior staff dislike Politico's brand of journalism." This is probably true. But then, my experience teaches me that most of Politico's own writers dislike Politico's brand of journalism. I'm no fan myself. I'd describe Politico's brand of journalism as banality, added to Scientology, multiplied by the spasmodic frenzy of a tween who hasn't learned to displace their unfulfilled erotic needs onto emo vampires. That said, if this email forward is the best the White House can do in this feud, they need some work on their media criticism and their self-awareness.

Let's look at the White House's media warblogging, point-by-point!

1. They are more interested in readers than accuracy

In the first place, Politico is not interested in "readers" writ large. Most normal people, outside the 202 area code, remain blissfully unaware of and live full and fulfilling lives untrammeled by Politico. What Politico aims for are tony Beltway elites and deep-pocketed "influentials." These are the same readers that sustain Roll Call and The Hill, which nobody reads either.

As far as "accuracy" goes, the White House is missing the big picture, which is that every time the Politico gets something wrong, it creates an opportunity to run a correction, and call it a "Politico exclusive."