The Media's Katrina?

The urge to forecast political outcomes is not unlike a gambling addiction, with a record that would bankrupt most Vegas high rollers. Bill Clinton's 1992 campaign compiled a video of all the pundits who had written him off. In the fall of 2000, Slate's William Saletan said candidate George W. Bush was "toast" (the preferred food item for predictions of political death). In late 2003, some columnists urged John Kerry to withdraw to spare himself a humiliating defeat by Howard Dean.

"When you have a campaign-in-disarray story, that is one of the juiciest stories in presidential politics," says Tad Devine, who was a senior strategist for Kerry and Gore. "Everyone is intoxicated by that. It's a tremendous distraction for a campaign, but voters could care less."

There is little sign that this behavior is going to change. No newspaper will run a correction saying, "The Daily Blab incorrectly reported in July that Sen. John McCain's campaign lacked a pulse, despite an absence of medical evidence." No anchor will read a statement saying, "We regret our unseemly rush to judgment about Hillary Clinton's chances." The news business corrects inaccurate titles and mangled quotes, but rarely overheated reporting.

After the 2000 election fiasco, the networks grew more careful about calling races based on exit polls. But such caution did not extend to pre-election speculation.

Marty Kaplan, a journalism professor at the University of Southern California, wrote on the Huffington Post that the mainstream media had been humiliated and that this "could be the MSM's Katrina. Political media, you've done a heckuva job."

Brokaw, who became NBC's anchor at the dawn of the cable era, says his colleagues must be wary of the demands of modern technology.

"This is the age-old curse of pack journalism," Brokaw says. "These conversations that used to be held in the bar late at night, about who's going to win or lose, now play out on the air because there's so much time to fill."

All right. While we're scraping the egg off our faces, here's the aforementioned Marty Kaplan sticking it to the MSM: "No matter what you think about Hillary Clinton, no matter how this campaign turns out, there is undeniable satisfaction in watching the pundit class being forced to eat the words of its premature obituaries. The strategists who were called morons are suddenly geniuses again. The candidate and her husband, who were the subject of such undisguised journalistic venom just 24 hours ago, are suddenly worthy of awe again. The donors who dissed her are wondering whether they can retract with impunity. The White House staffers-in-waiting who danced on her grave are hoping they said nothing incriminating on the record."

The media, of course, have to reduce everything to one thing, one event, one incident we can all argue about. Preferably with video. Gore sighing. The Dean scream. The macaca moment. So now, the entire New Hampshire primary comes down to Hillary's choked up moment in a coffee shop.

Salon's Rebecca Traister is fed up with the media:

" 'I'm not a Hillary supporter, but . . .' has been an oft-heard preamble in the five days since the New York senator's Iowa defeat, usually followed by a description of how aghast the speaker is at the treatment Clinton received from a media anxious to throw a hoedown on her political coffin. To my surprise, it's a phrase I've heard myself uttering, before launching a tirade about the premature death certificate signed by pundits for a candidate I have never really wanted to win.

"As it turns out, my sudden, almost primal defensiveness about Hillary Clinton may not have been unique, but part of a larger wave of sentiment that swept her to a surprise victory in New Hampshire on Tuesday night. Others like me, who were 'not Hillary supporters, but . . . ,' were downright mortified by the eagerness with which cable news networks, the New York Times, the Boston Globe and even her opponents felt free to declare Clinton yesterday's news. Their dismay and disgust may have been just the boost she needed to pole-vault to today's triumphant headlines, as not liking Hillary took a back seat to hating those who would summarily eject her from a race even more. On Tuesday, New Hampshire voters served up a major '[Blank] you' -- not to Barack Obama, whose numbers were terrific, and who gave a great concession speech, but to those who revealed their pent-up resentment of Hillary and showed her the door way, way too soon."