The danger of ego trumping expertiseby David Sirota
(Rahm) Emanuel is out peddling a book called "The Plan" with his friend Bruce Reed, of the corporate-funded Democratic Leadership Council. According to CBS, "They divide Washington into Political Hacks and Policy Wonks and conclude mainly that too many Hacks have had too much power." Emanuel, you may recall, is known as one of the biggest political hacks in Democratic politics - an Ultrahack if you will. He is a guy who, much like the DLC, is known for subverting policy to the whims of his own corporate politics and what he perceives to be the best way to shakedown Big Money. Perhaps even more incredible, Emanuel and Reed are peddling a book that purports to have expertise in solving major economic problems - even though the two of them were the architects of some of the key public policies that have helped destroy the economy. For example, as John MacArthur expertly documented in his book, it was Emanuel who organized regular meetings between the Clinton White House and business lobbyists to crush congressional Democratic opposition to corporate-written "free" trade deals like NAFTA. These are the same trade deals that are one of the root causes of the New York Times story today that reports workers' "wages and salaries now make up the lowest share of the nation's gross domestic product since the government began recording the data in 1947." Yet, the hackish architect of that trade policy is now running around purporting to be a policy "expert" who knows how to fix our economy.
Then there is Beinart - a guy who used his platform to advocate for the War in Iraq and berate Democrats who disagreed with him; then said he was wrong about his whole position; then published a book attacking Democrats for not being more consistently pro-war when it comes to foreign policy. Despite this embarrassing record, he continues to bill himself as a foreign policy and political "expert" in the media, even though his actual record shows him to be the opposite: a guy who, when it came to the most important foreign policy and political issue of our generation, exposed himself to be a shameless hypocrite, and, by his own admission, got it completely wrong.
Now, we can see another example of this distorted "expertise" in the new book "The Way to Win" by ABC News producer Mark Halperin and Washington Post reporter John Harris. I have not read this book, and sure, it may have some interesting stories in it. But as it relates to the point I am making, I don't even need to look at it, because it's not a book about being a journalist and COVERING races (a subject they do have expertise in), it's a book about HOW TO RUN AND WIN races - a subject they have no expertise in whatsoever. For these two to try to conflate expertise covering a campaign and expertise running a campaign is, in many ways, proof that they likely have little understanding of running a winning campaign - the very thing their book purports to have expertise in.
This is not some small issue - it's a bigger commentary. The mere fact that two journalists with no experience actually running campaigns are writing a book that purports to be a handbook for how to run and win the 2008 presidential campaign is beyond absurd - it highlights how truly out to lunch the Beltway crowd really is. Think about it - how totally divorced from reality do you have to be to have never run or worked on a presidential campaign and yet purport to be an expert in running campaigns to the point where you write a book about it? Sure, these two journalists have REPORTED on presidential campaigns - but, again, their book is not about how to report on campaigns, but, as the title says, how to win campaigns. For them to actually believe watching campaigns from the outside as reporters makes them an authority on how to run and win a presidential campaign is the equivalent of me - a guy who has no medical training whatsoever - watching my brother attend to his hospital patients, and then going out and purporting to be an expert on administering emergency room care to the point where I write a book giving tips to doctors on how to be better physicians.
Entire, and, as usual, stellar Blog at:
http://www.workingforchange.com/blog/index.cfm?mode=entry&entry=51FB346F-E0C3-F08F-9394EC5F36B6B42EDavid Sirota is fast becoming a real hero of mine. He's a truth-telling genius!
TC
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