In a recent issue of the New York Observer, Sidney Blumenthal helps explain how he has become the least respected political journalist in Washington. “I am not a reporter,” Blumenthal declared. “I don’t believe that the accumulation of isolated fact upon fact yields some sort of pure truth, capital T.”
The admission comes as no surprise. Consider some of the examples offered up by the Observer’s Robert Sam Anson in what is among the most devastating profiles in memory. In 1992, Blumenthal “urged other reporters to desist from writing anything that could jeopardize Mr. Clinton’s chances.” What about telling the truth? a fellow journalist wondered. Blumenthal’s answer: “It doesn’t matter. This is too important.”
At the New Yorker, where he moved after the election, Blumenthal was widely suspected of tipping off the administration when his colleagues planned to write unflattering pieces about the Clintons — a couple to whom he had grown close ever since the three were introduced at (where else?) Renaissance Weekend. Blumenthal’s reputation as a duplicitous Clinton shill grew so strong that Michael Kelly, the New Yorker’s Washington bureau chief, barred him from entering the magazine’s D.C. offices.
On a recent Monday night, a play by Blumenthal called This Town opened for its first and only night at the National Press Club. It’s set in the White House press room, where a group of bumbling reporters tries to bring down the president by manufacturing a ridiculous scandal about his dog. Needless to say, the press comes off as inept and malicious, the administration as honorable and blameless.
Afternoons at the DMV have moved more quickly than the tedious two-hour production, which featured a lackluster cameo appearance by none other than outgoing labor secretary Robert Reich. Few of the jokes were funny; many of the one-liners seemed as hackneyed as the play’s title. As Sidney Blumenthal is not the first to demonstrate, propaganda hardly ever makes good art.
