Obama needs to at least have the patina of bipartisanship. If the moderate Republicans watch their fellow centrists on the other side of the aisle resist their own base, they have even less of an incentive to meet the president in the left's unrealistic sense of the middle. Full Story »
Posted by Derek Hawkins
Here's a perfect example of an article that has all the elements of a finely written piece, including live-links, quotes and solid sourcing; yet, I can hardly agree with the conclusions. So, as to it being good journalism as it applies to Opinion there is no question. However the conclusions were premeditated, inasmuch as the writer took many liberties in deciding what others meant by what they said.
Gerstein puts ideas in others mouths. Where Obama is quoted as talking about reducing in-fighting - it was clear that he was referring to elected members of Congress ... not activists. This is laced throughout the article whereby Gerstein has disingenuously contorted actual occurrences to suit his goal and substantiate his title. Again - even the premise is indisputable, however he didn't need to perform a major circumnavigation of the truth (by giving us his version of what others said) in order to prove his point.