Ok. I'll freely admit that Adam Nagourney's crap journalism pisses me off. Almost as much as Maureen Dowd's "opinions." But this hit piece is the worst I've seen from Nagourney since the halcyon years of burying a hatchet in Al Gore's back, or John Kerry's face.
Nagourney's calling his piece For Democrats, Questions Over Race and Electability
But Nagourney's "journalism" consists of little more than rehashing "conventional" wisdom and anti-Obama memes.
The most journalistic meat that Nagourney can muster is this pithy gem:
Although some polling evidence hints at the depth of racial attitudes in this country and the obstacles Mr. Obama faces winning white voters, it has historically proved challenging to measure how racial attitudes factor into voter decisions. (Respondents do not tend to announce to pollsters that they will not vote for a candidate because he or she is black.)
"some polls" (unnamed of course -- god forbid anyone should have a chance to independently assess those "some polls" by naming them -- or for that matter saying whether they are polls from the 1970s, 80s, 90s or 00s. Let alone where they were taken, etc. etc.)
A good part of the piece is taken up with rehashing "scandals" or "conventional wisdom."
For instance:
It is the question that has hung over Senator Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, and it loomed large on Tuesday night after his loss to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton in Pennsylvania: Why has he been unable to win over enough working-class and white voters to wrap up the Democratic nomination?
And:
Complicating things even further are the high-profile episodes that have rattled his campaign.
His remark at a private fundraiser in San Francisco about bitter blue-collar workers "clinging" to guns and religion was the kind of assertion that would be damaging to a candidate of any race. Inflammatory statements by Mr. Obama’s former pastor, Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., who is black, have been seized on by Republicans to present Mr. Obama as unpatriotic. An advertisement released by Republicans in North Carolina on Wednesday included that portrayal.
The statement by Mr. Obama’s wife, Michelle, that "for the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country," has been invoked by Republicans in an effort to portray Mr. Obama as culturally unlike the people he is asking to vote for him, a historically potent line of attack.
Someone tell me why the NYT pays Nagourney for this crap...