Incompetent Journo-lists

The Cen­ter of Eco­nomic and Pol­icy Research decided cer­tain ques­tions are signs on incom­pe­tence namely: “Are you bet­ter off than you were four years ago?“

While the source is not clear, some­one devel­oped a sim­ple way to iden­tify incom­pe­tent news reporters. If you hear a reporter ask peo­ple in Pres­i­dent Obama’s admin­is­tra­tion, ide­ally in a bel­liger­ent tone, “are the Amer­i­can peo­ple bet­ter off than they were four years ago?,“the reporter is try­ing to tell you that they are not qual­i­fied to do their job.

The rea­son we know that the ques­tion­ers are incom­pe­tent reporters is that this is a point­less question.

I can cer­tainly under­stand the prob­lem, con­sid­er­ing this from the Hill today:

A major­ity of vot­ers believe the coun­try is worse off today than it was four years ago and that Pres­i­dent Obama does not deserve reelec­tion, accord­ing to a new poll for The Hill.

Don’t those incom­pe­tent peo­ple at the Hill know if you want to keep the sub­ject away from Barack Obama the last thing you want to talk about is how he’s done.

But CEP should be happy, there is at least one sign that “Journo-​list” ism is alive and well.Yesterday I wrote about this remark from the the Chair­man of the Mass­a­chu­setts Demo­c­rat Party:

The chair­man of the Mass­a­chu­setts Demo­c­ra­tic Party, ral­ly­ing state del­e­gates before the Demo­c­ra­tic National Con­ven­tion, today said that Sen­a­tor Scott Brown tried to por­tray him­self as “an hon­orary girl” by fold­ing laun­dry in a TV com­mer­cial tar­get­ing women voters.

Chair­man John Walsh made the com­ment in a blis­ter­ing open­ing state­ment at the delegation’s first break­fast meet­ing before the con­ven­tion kicks off Tues­day. Brown is fac­ing a stern reelec­tion chal­lenge from Demo­c­rat Eliz­a­beth War­ren, who will address the con­ven­tion on Wednes­day night.

Mind you this was not a sin­gle con­gress­man speak­ing in an inter­view. This was the Mass­a­chu­setts Demo­c­rat Party Chair­man speak­ing at a DNC break­fast to the Mass­a­chu­setts delegation.

Fold­ing Tow­els makes you an Hon­orary girl? From a PARTY Chairman!

I had just fin­ished a big post on Athiesm+ but rushed out a post on the remarks. I sent out the e-​mails con­cern­ing the post and when CNN announced that San­dra Fluke was going to be on shortly I did some­thing I rarely do, I turned it on to see what would hap­pen and how it was cov­ered and waited.

Noth­ing happened.

As Rush Lim­baugh would put it, Zip-​Zero-​Nada.

The only sign of the story was a drudge link to this Her­ald Story:

Dem chair apol­o­gizes for call­ing Scott Brown a ‘girl’

Say WHAT?

Mass­a­chu­setts Demo­c­ra­tic Party Chair John Walsh scram­bled to apol­o­gize this after­noon hours after a con­ven­tion kick­off gaffe this morn­ing when he said U.S. Sen. Scott Brown was try­ing to be an “hon­orary girl” by fold­ing laundry.

“In the excite­ment of get­ting the con­ven­tion under­way and get­ting the mes­sage out about how impor­tant it is to re-​elect Pres­i­dent Obama and elect Eliz­a­beth War­ren, I made a state­ment about Scott Brown that I regret. I apol­o­gize for that remark,” said Walsh in a statement.

Called him a girl? He didn’t call him a girl, he said that he was try­ing to be an “hon­orary girl” by fold­ing clothes. Fold­ing Clothes makes you a girl. At the Demo­c­rat National con­ven­tion with a “War on Women” theme, with San­dra Fluke speak­ing the head of the Demo­c­rat party in a state with the sin­gle high­est pro­file female can­di­date in the nation a party chair­man made a speech say­ing “fold­ing clothes” makes one an hon­orary girl and NOBODY in the press things this is a story.

Today on WCRN Morn­ing Show the Host Hank Stolz asked lis­ten­ers to call in and explain why these polls are so close, why Rom­ney has not pulled away, why there was seem­ingly no sig­nif­i­cant bounce post con­ven­tion. The answer is sim­ple. It’s elec­tion sea­son and the Journo-​list is still alive and well.

The CEP should be proud.

BTW if you don’t know what “Jouro-​list” is read this this and this

Oh and if you want to sup­port report­ing that doesn’t fit the Journo­list mold feel free to kick in.