Scott Walker should be flattered, really, that so many of our nation’s political reporters have taken time away from their jobs to instead write advice columns just for his own personal edification.
These reporters have lots on their plate when it comes to keeping the public abreast of what their elected officials are doing. Exploring and explaining the gubernatorial or senatorial records of presidential candidates is no easy task. Yet much of our political media has set aside this job of informing the public, and instead they have dedicated their column inches to telling Walker that he’s not playing their media game well enough.
Walker has been surging, as expected, in the early stages of the 2016 Republican presidential race. This surge has justly brought more media scrutiny upon him. There’s plenty to ask Walker about: What would he do about Obamacare? Were his battles against the unions really just about rewarding corporate donors? What about the time Walker appointed an apparently underqualified 27-year-old to a top state job, when that appointee’s father happened to be a top donor and a corporate lobbyist?
Nope. Our political press has been too busy asking him about evolution and President Obama’s patriotism and religion. Walker understands that no real person actually cares what he thinks about these things. Accordingly, he’s tried to avoid talking about them. He’s been clumsy in trying to brush the questions aside, and now his artless dodges are the biggest story in political news.
When two Washington Post reporters asked Walker if Obama is a Christian, he responded by pointing out it was an odd question — first because it involves mind-reading, and second because it bears no relevance on being governor or president.
“I don’t know,” Walker said. “I’ve actually never talked about it or I haven’t read about that. I’ve never asked him that. You’ve asked me to make statements about people that I haven’t had a conversation with about that. How [could] I say if I know either of you are a Christian?”
This answer became the headline in the Post’s piece: “Gov. Scott Walker: ‘I don’t know’ whether Obama is a Christian.”
By my count, the Post has carried 18 stories on this.
Nobody has come close to showing how Walker’s answer reflects a character flaw, or demonstrates anything else bearing on his policy views or his competency to be president. As Walker put it in that same interview: “This is a classic example of why people hate Washington and, increasingly, they dislike the press. The things they care about don’t even remotely come close to what you’re asking about.”
At most, Walker’s bad answer showed that he needs to improve as politician. More precisely, he needs to get better at handling pointless questions from the media.
Think for a moment about the perversity of a political media obsessed with haranguing politicians into becoming better at dealing with the political media. If your coverage of politics rests heavily on saying who is good at “staying on message” and dancing around unenlightening trap questions, then you are actually doing the opposite of journalism. You aren’t trying to coax honesty and transparency out of politicians. You’re coaching them how to be dishonest and opaque.
In campaign season, a huge portion of political coverage focuses on pointless gaffes — a politician saying something poorly. Journalists often justify this coverage by covering the meta-story: How is Romney handling this latest flap? How deftly is Obama dealing with Biden’s misstep?
There’s plenty of meta-reporting going on with the Walker-Christianity thing. Chuck Todd at MSNBC justified his coverage of the story by saying, “you got to be nimble if you’re running for president, do you not?”
There’s at least some room for this sort of meta-reporting, in the industry publications of politicians. If you’re a political consultant or a politician yourself, it’s very relevant to know who is nimbly handling the press and how.
If you’re a voter, though, this meta-media is basically useless.
Timothy P. Carney, The Washington Examiner’s senior political columnist, can be contacted at [email protected]. His column appears Sunday and Wednesday on washingtonexaminer.com.
