Playing Telephone or Politico Gets It's Ass Handed To Them

I was pretty excited when Politico debuted. It seemed to be a non-subscription version of The Hill. Beltway reporters from mainstream venues binding together to give the viewers a real narrative of the DC machinations.

Ooops.

Yesterday Glenn Greenwald wrote:

"The Politico: Gossip rag masquerading as news organization?"

What is happening at The Politico seems clear. That newspaper is filled with super-insider Beltway types who have all sorts of friends in various Washington crevices. They are constantly chatting with one another, exchanging all sorts of speculation and gossip, and always engaged in a perpetual competition to demonstrate who is the most keyed-in to the super-inside Beltway developments.

This insecure Beltway climate produces a natural temptation on the part of the "source" to represent one's speculation as "knowledge" and to exaggerate the quality and reliability of one's information.

Doesn't sound much different than the "We All Love The Iraq War Kagans" now does it? The Politico is going to have to do some serious soul searching about it's agenda.

So far, they have initiated RNC talking points, portrayed a partisan paid campaign employee as neutral, been unable to read at a second grade level and attributed an "agreeing with Lieberman comment" to Cliff and not BC, been top-heavy on stories attacking Democrats or that nefarious "Democratic Agenda," predicted the firing of AG Gonzales, the end of the Edwards campaign, and two of their top reporters profess that Matt Drudge rules their world.

And even that bastion of Lefty Pinko Liberalism (at least according to the loony Right), the Washington Post, thinks they screwed up.

And this is just in the first two months.