When There Is Nothing Instead of Something

Seriously, Politico, what's the deal with this? The facts, as best I can tell, are this:

Klaus Scharioth, Germany's ambassador to the United States, is trying to meet the major presidential candidates.
A guy named Frank Loy who's active in US-German issues and the Obama campaign, arranged for Scharioth to attend an Obama fundraiser without contributing to his campaign.
Politico's Kenneth Vogel heard about this, decided he smelled smoke, and thought he'd poke around for fire.

At this point, Vogel came up with absolutely nothing. But instead of not writing the story, he wrote an exhaustive account of a dozen different things that might have been improper or politically damaging about this. None of these things, however, are actually true. But rather than admit that he has no story, Vogel chose to write it up as if he's unconvered something and then -- bam! -- his story becomes the lede item on the site further implying there's something here.

4/13/07 6:06PM del.icio.us this incoming links

Comments

Clearly Obama is unserious on the issue of the annexation of Austria into the greater Reich.

Could be an appeaser!!

Posted by: Ben on April 13, 2007 06:18 PM

Good post, Matt.

Posted by: strannix on April 13, 2007 06:22 PM

This sort of story is exactly what I expected from a publication that gathered all the worst hacks among the country's political reporters.

I also expected that their absence from their former newspapers and magazines would immensely improve those publications' quality, but that hasn't yet happened.

Next, I'd like Fred Hiatt to sign on at Politico as managing editor, which would be a big stop forward (for WaPo).

Posted by: Joyful Alternative on April 13, 2007 06:23 PM

I recall Ezra writing about a similar non-story story a few weeks ago, and as best I recall the consensus was that the sunk (time) costs of investigating the non-story provided a very strong motivation for publishing it, despite its being a non-story. And if you're going to go ahead and publish the non-story, you pretty much have to pretend it's a story.

Posted by: Tom Hilton on April 13, 2007 06:24 PM

Perhaps Obama is trying to start up some madrassas in Germany. It would be irresponsible not to speculate.

Posted by: Steve on April 13, 2007 06:39 PM

I think Politico's problem isn't so much that it's a right leaning site, though the Allen-Drudge connection is obvious. Rather, the enterprise (a full-time political rag with a big staff) itself pretty much compels the production of trivial content like this German ambassador business. Unless they want to turn the rag into a real news outfit and start covering the Administration, there just isn't enough political news to warrant the size of that staff.

Posted by: Ryan on April 13, 2007 09:08 PM

Maybe "Politico" could contrast it with former American ambassador to Germany Daniel Coats?

Who said, shortly before the German Federal elections in 2002 that German government opposition to a possible Iraq war has led to "a certain doubt about the closeness of the relationship".

That’s because, he said, to be effective, diplomats need to avoid being seen as “interfering in domestic politics, which isn’t acceptable in international norms,”...

Doubtless Coats never intended to influence German voters. Perish the thought! He was just informing the German public that the Bush administration didn´t like Schroeder´s stance.

Posted by: Detlef on April 13, 2007 09:26 PM

Oh damn, Matt's getting all "meta-" on us. A post with nothing to say about an article that says nothing— it would be better if Vogel framed his article as an episode of Seinfeld, with Scharioth as the bumbling George and Obama as the elusive Elaine. Jerry is MY himself, clad in a pirate shirt. Don Imus as Michael Richards, absent but looming over the whole scenario.

Steve Sailer, rescue us with your Aryan wisdom!

Posted by: Gregorio on April 13, 2007 09:37 PM

Steve: hilarious.

And yes, great post MY. As Somerby reminds us daily, every major DEM will be slimed like this from now until the day they are no longer a candidate, by the MSM in DC, and if any of the lower-tier candidates emerge, they will be as well.

Thus, posts like this are essential to calling out the hack-narratives, in real time, that we will see over the next year. And I fear we ain't seen nothin' yet.

Posted by: Andruw on April 13, 2007 09:59 PM

My favorite part:

"If Obama wins the Democratic presidential nomination, Republicans might try to use the incident to bolster criticism he’s weak on national security and deferential to dovish countries in Europe, said University of Virginia political science professor Larry Sabato."

OHHHHH, NOOOOOOO! Ya think?

Couldn't it be said that the Republicans MIGHT try to bolster this sort of criticism, uhm...REGARDLESS of who visits Obama? I mean, this isn't exactly going out on a limb! And please note: NO QUOTATION MARKS. So who knows if Sabato said this, or anything?

These guys really are hacks.

Posted by: DCeiver on April 13, 2007 11:39 PM

The German ambassador's attendance at the Obama fundraiser is only the tip of the iceberg. I have it from reliable sources that the Chinese ambassador has visited Hillary Clinton's website on several occasions, and even clicked on and viewed one of her videos.

Posted by: mattsteinglass on April 14, 2007 02:43 AM

Someone should come up with a Solomon Award for journalism, to 'honor' the writers of stories that are much smoke and no fire, creating the appearance of scandal without any evidence of the existence of one.

It would named after the WaPo's (formerly the AP's) John Solomon, famed for his many stories in this vein, especially his long-running Harry Reid series.

Kenneth Vogel would be a fitting nominee.

Posted by: RT on April 14, 2007 07:35 AM

That's ok, with a title like "Ambassador Attends Obama Fundraiser" who's going to read it anyway? I mean, yaaawwwwnnn.

I would've thought they'd go with something at least vaguely salacious like "Cozinesses With Ambassador Raises Questions" or such like.

Posted by: Big Picnic on April 14, 2007 03:29 PM

Kudos to Politco, they have managed to combine the worst of the MSM and the blogosphere in one site. A remarkable acheivement

Posted by: AJ on April 14, 2007 03:38 PM

I don't believe the Politico ever intended to be honest or even have the slightest bit of integrity. Their mission is to cover politics with style and impact. I have no idea why someone thinks it's a good business investment to have yet another unjournalistic news entity, but hopefully the Politico's funding source is burning through cash with this joke of a new organization and they'll wither prior to 2009.

Posted by: Fred on April 14, 2007 04:05 PM

I'd get more excited about this if there weren't so many in the left wing blogisphere that do a similar thing to Obama. Yesterday at least three sites were gasping with horror at a quote from an advisor who expressed the desire that leftists invoke pride of country more often--and she's right. Why leave patriotism to the the rightists who don't understand it? Pride in what real American values, the ones the right tramples, should be part of our language. But, in any case, it was catty and petty to attack Obama for words he did not say. The day before there was a lot of heartburn because Obama said tht McCain was sincere but wrong. Here inside the world of political obsessives it is verboten to attribute sincerity to McCain but out in the real world of non-obsessive voters attributing sincerity is just good manners which makes the statement that McCain " is wrong" more powerful. I've never noticed this kind of petty flogging of a nonissue with Matt but it is pretty common on MyDD or Kos.

Posted by: wonkie on April 14, 2007 06:26 PM

Last year in Chicago, Obama marched in the MayDay IllegalImmigrationMarch.

Unbeknownst to almost everyone, the organizers of that march included *all three major MexicanPoliticalParties*. And, three key organizers of that march have *links to the MexicanGovernment*.

There's certainly a strong possibility that the MexicanGovernment used proxies to agitate their citizens who are in our country illegally. Instead of investigating that, Obama decided to help their cause.

I'm sure the media is never going to ask him about this, but maybe at some Q&A session somewhere - hopefully in as public a setting as possible - someone might ask him for his thoughts on whether that was something he should have gotten involved in. I'd say somewhere over 80% of Americans wouldn't exactly consider that a presidential move.

Text details at the link, video about this here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EiullH5jU1A

Posted by: Here's something on Obama on April 14, 2007 10:43 PM

A foreign diplomat has no business meeting with presidential wanna-be's. The Zimmermann telegram comes to mind.

Posted by: danceswithgoats on April 15, 2007 12:11 AM

Vogel used to be a political reporter in Washington state, where he specialized in lots of smoke, no fire stories.

Posted by: Ron on April 15, 2007 12:19 PM

great article, can i translate this article on my site?

Posted by: dobre programy on September 17, 2007 09:41 AM

very
nice...

Posted by: evden eve nakliyat on October 8, 2007 02:29 AM

Sohbet, Chat