Media Hangover

Why do folks with instant access to an audience labor over manuscripts? Sullivan puts it this way: "The blog is a short form. It's provisional and meandering. A book is a longer project, it requires sustained concentration on one line of argument or one central topic. I find it really hard to flip from one mode of writing to another. . . . So right now, I try not to blog at all until I have spent a few hours on the book."

If Only the Democrats Had Known

The Exponent, the student paper at Purdue University, carried a routine wire-service item that began: "Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito told senators Monday that good judges don't have an agenda." The final sentence said: "His motive for shooting John Paul in the abdomen on May 13, 1981, remains unclear."

A subsequent correction, as noted by the Web site Regret the Error, said nothing about the charge of attempted assassination. The item, the paper said, merely "contained a sentence that was not intended to be part of the brief."

On to the rest of the media world: Here's a hot story in Time. You know how Scott McClellan says the prez can't recall meeting Abramoff?

"The President's memory may soon be unhappily refreshed. TIME has seen five photographs of Abramoff and the President that suggest a level of contact between them that Bush's aides have downplayed. While TIME's source refused to provide the pictures for publication, they are likely to see the light of day eventually because celebrity tabloids are on the prowl for them. And that has been a fear of the Bush team's for the past several months: that a picture of the President with the admitted felon could become the iconic image of direct presidential involvement in a burgeoning corruption scandal -- like the shots of President Bill Clinton at White House coffees for campaign contributors in the mid-1990s.

"In one shot that TIME saw, Bush appears with Abramoff, several unidentified people and Raul Garza Sr., a Texan Abramoff represented who was then chairman of the Kickapoo Indians, which owned a casino in southern Texas. Garza, who is wearing jeans and a bolo tie in the picture, told TIME that Bush greeted him as 'Jefe,' or 'chief' in Spanish. Another photo shows Bush shaking hands with Abramoff in front of a window and a blue drape. The shot bears Bush's signature, perhaps made by a machine. Three other photos are of Bush, Abramoff and, in each view, one of the lobbyist's sons (three of his five children are boys). A sixth picture shows several Abramoff children with Bush and House Speaker Dennis Hastert, who is now pushing to tighten lobbying laws after declining to do so last year when the scandal was in its early stages.

"Most of the pictures have the formal look of photos taken at presidential receptions."

They may be nothing more than grip-and-grins, but remember how many times we had to look at that shot of Monica on the rope line, greeting her special friend? In the video age it's all about the pictures, and I trust that more than just "celebrity" magazines are in the hunt.

Washington Monthly's Kevin Drum critiques the Democrats' lobbying proposal through the prism of the coverage:

"Here are three responses from the national media to Wednesday's Democratic plan to fight congressional corruption:

"Washington Post: 'Democratic leaders from the House and Senate endorsed proposals that closely mirror Republican plans unveiled this week. . . . '

"Knight Ridder: 'The Democratic plan resembles the reform agenda unveiled by Republicans the day before. . . . '