And I wasn’t invited to the tryouts…
By the way, no slam intended at the participants, only at the White House for yet another belated “charm offensive.” (Was it only two months ago that I warned them about hippie punching?)
I wouldn’t have gone, but I have that Izzy Stone thing where I don’t want to socialize with the people I write about.
News of the meeting was embargoed by the White House until the beginning of the meeting.
Kind of tells you all you need to know.
“The group includes Joe Sudbay of AMERICAblog, John Amato of Crooks & Liars, Oliver Willis of OliverWillis.com, Barbara Morrill of DailyKos, and Duncan Black (aka Atrios) of Eschaton.”
If the WH thinks they can mount a charm offensive with Duncan or Joe, they are living in La-la Land. I mean, have you READ duncan’s blog lately? It’s like every morning he turns into me for a few hours.
and Sudbay has been brutally critical of the WH on gay rights, a sound thrashing every day, no quarter. Barb Morrill’s no pushover either.
comment #2 at the article is awesome: “He probably invited Oliver Willis so that Oliver could defend Obama if Duncan asked any tough questions about Obama’s failings. In Oliver’s eyes, Obama has yet to do a single thing wrong.” (not quite true anymore, but damn close).
They don’t have to make him into a fan. The purpose of a charm offensive is to neutralize the hostility and introduce an element of doubt into your position.
i don’t see that happening with either duncan or sudbay. Duncan has seemed especially angry and embittered about how badly they’ve fucked up everything. over the past couple of months, he’s been running with “if they’d only listened to me”.
i could be wrong… but I don’t think I am. he’s not a happy camper, at all.
sorry for being the comment hog, but here’s duncan’s very first post after the meeting:
“Sorry, was busy. #cocktailweeniessuretastegood #notkeepingitreal”
something tells me that, for mr. black at least, the hostility wasn’t neutralized, and an element of doubt was not introduced. well, the doubts that the WH may have wanted to introduce: he’s already got plenty of doubts, just not the kind the WH appreciates.
doesn’t sound like Joe Sudbay was corraled into the veal pen either.
Sorry, my ‘willing to be charmed’ index is at an all time low.
Transcript? To come out soon…we’re promised.
I very much want to read the transcript too, jawbone. This could be very interesting. And I agree with brendancalling about Oliver Willis and about Prof Black.
Hugh at Corrente has his analysis up of the questions and answers. Hard to tell who’s asking some of the questions (WH did not id questioners).
Transcript link at the top of Hugh’s post; word cloud further up the posting at Corrente.
VastLeft notes: Meet the new media. Same as the old media.
Susie’s comment is spot on: Confronted with the Prez in person, most of the questions softened, became deferential.
I’d say that Duncan’s the best of ’em, and by no means a cheerleader. He’s been very good on HAMP. But the questions were softballs when the metric is the state of the Union…