Well, that's not quite the headline or even the spin that Mike Allen and Patrick O'Connor at The Politico put on the story being put out by House Republicans, but perhaps it should be.

Confronting a dire outlook for next year's elections, House Republicans have begun to fight back with a new three-pronged strategy: painting the new Democratic majority as part of an unpopular Washington status quo, forcing Democrats to make unpopular votes on tough issues and locking arms around a new GOP issues agenda.

[...]

Brian Kennedy, communications director for House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), said the GOP plans to portray its opponents as "the same old tax-and-spend Democratic Party people remember from the 1970s."

[...]

As a third part of the strategy, Republicans will unveil an agenda after January 2008 that Boehner has described as "innovative, dynamic solutions to the challenges Americans face every day." However, the GOP leader has yet to spell out exactly what those solutions are, and the promised agenda is already months late in being formulated. [emphasis added]

It doesn't come as a terrible surprise that The Politico is as unquestioning in dealing with House Republican spin as was David Broder, who earlier this month waxed about how good of a position the National Republican Congressional Committee was. To take just one example from this rather remarkable article, Allen and O'Connor report that "[s]ome Republicans welcome the retirements because the party needs new blood" -- an asinine bit of spin that is easily cut through. Of course even if there are a few hard right conservatives alright with the prospect of moderates within the GOP caucus leaving Washington, Republicans as a whole clearly cannot be happy with retirements within their midst, which make it less and less possible for them to hold on to all of their seats let alone regain the majority.

But even leaving aside well justified criticisms of the way The Politico frames this story, look at what the reporting actually says: House Republicans don't have an agenda, and the rhetoric that they appear to be embracing is hitting Democrats for the perceived excesses of their stances during the 1970s. To begin with that second point, I don't think I'm the only voter in America who (a) doesn't remember the 1970s and/or (b) doesn't think that the Democrats' alleged stances during the 1970s are particularly germane to the debate today. Frankly, Americans are bound to care more about congressional Republicans' stubborn opposition to children's healthcare or their steadfast support for an unending war in Iraq than they will about what House Democrats were doing under Speaker Carl Albert in 1976. (Do people even remember who Carl Albert was?)

The Republicans' lack of a coherent agenda is extremely telling, as well. While it's certainly true that a party doesn't need to lay out its platform this early, particularly in a presidential cycle when the party's White House nominee is going to be setting a good deal of the agenda, it is nonetheless meaningful that House Republicans have still not yet figured out what they stand for. On one hand, they are wont to continue their old ways of unquestioningly supporting the Iraq War and playing the corrupt ways of Washington. On the other hand, there are at least a few members within their midst -- not a whole lot, but a few -- who realize that they are not in the majority specifically because the unpopularity of their views.

Now there are some within the establishment press who believe that a shift of focus on to Iran helps the Republicans, and thus perhaps abrogates a need to come up with a real agenda. Of course polling shows that Americans are unequivocally opposed to waging war against Iran, so the logic doesn't flow too well. But if the Republicans want to run on Iraq, Iran, cronyism and the evils of 1970s Democrats , I say go ahead. We shall see just how effective a strategy that is come next fall.

Update [2007-10-18 13:9:36 by Todd Beeton]: Interesting. Boehner laid out quite a clear agenda on Fox on Sunday. From his remarks, it's clear that the talking point is that they will be the "party of solutions" but take a look at what those solutions are:

I think we've got to be the party of solutions. The American people don't care who's in charge of congress. I think they're tired of all the partisan bickering and all the noise here and they want solutions. And I think you'll see our party come forward with solutions on healthcare, and how do we get high quality health insurance to all Americans, how do we insure that they have good access to healthcare, what's our answer to global climate change, how do we get to energy independence? I think we as a political party need to provide solutions to those concerns that Americans have, but solutions built on Republican principles.

In other words, their solution is to pretend to be Democrats. Maybe that trial balloon didn't go over so well so now they're reverting to reality, which is, of course, that they have no agenda whatsoever.

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Following Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's statement that the Iraq War had been lost -- a sentiment shared by most Americans and one that, unfortunately, is probably correct -- the folks at the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call (subscription required) did a little reporting to see where Reid's caucus stood on his comments. Under the headline "Caucus Stands by Reid", John Stanton writes:

Despite persistent attacks from the White House and Congressional Republicans over his stance on the Iraq War, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has continued to enjoy strong support from his colleagues and has kept his ideologically diverse Senate Democratic Caucus together even as his House counterparts have struggled to do so.

[...]

Privately, Democrats said that while Reid's comments may not get ringing endorsements from his colleagues, there is an understanding that his increasingly tough rhetoric is driven by a personal conviction.

Apparently, the White House did not like this and other reporting that showed Senate Democrats largely united on the issue of Iraq. According to a source close to Capitol Hill granted anonymity given the sensitivity of the subject, a number of reporters were called into the White House and browbeaten by administration staff, who wanted articles highlighting divisions within the Democratic ranks. Not long after, The Politico's John Bresnahan and Carrie Budoff posted the following story on the newspaper's website under the headline, "Dems fail to back Reid's 'Iraq war lost'":

Several leading Democrats said this week that they did not agree with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's recent statement that "the war is lost" in Iraq, even while they support his broader message.

But they did agree that Reid's wording was clumsy and potentially damaging. Even the Nevada Democrat himself appeared to be backing away from his remark.

By now it is becoming quite painfully clear what the modus operandi of The Politico is. Regardless of what the real story is -- in this case, that there remains a striking level of near-unanimity on the issue of the Iraq War within the Senate Democratic caucus -- The Politico is willing to piece together a few quotes and run with an administration meme that distracts from the truth.

This is not the first time that The Politico has decided to carry water for the Bush White House rather than actually striving for journalistic objectivity. For instance, just about a month after the paper went into production, it ran with a fairly baseless story that Speaker Nancy Pelosi was not living up to her promise of running an open House of Representatives -- despite the fact that, as I noted at the time, Pelosi had already allowed as many open rules on non-appropriations legislation during the first two months of the Congress as the Republicans had during the entirety of the 109th Congress. Similarly, during the period in which the Democrats were formulating their strategy for extricating American military forces out of Iraq, The Politico gave the Republicans and the Bush administration the greatest gift they could have asked for by labeling the Democratic tactics as a slow bleed, thus not only running with a White House meme but actually crafting a meme for the right wing. And these are far from the only examples.

Now is it true that when asked on the record if they would use the same words as Reid his fellow Democratic Senators would say "no"? Apparently. (Though the part about Reid distancing himself from his own statements are far from the truth.) But that obscures the greater truth of the story, which Roll Call -- a newspaper that has been in the business significantly longer than The Politico and is more dedicated to actually getting stories correct than getting their name on the cable news talking head shows -- gets correctly. The fact of the matter is that despite minor disagreements over rhetoric that may make for good copy, Senate Democrats are remarkably united on the issue of the Iraq War.

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(Posted at dKos as well, I'm trying to get as much input as I can.)

I'm attending an informal lunch with the Politico's Jim VandeHei on Monday, with about 10 other people.  He is giving a talk in the UW-Madison j-school on, I think, that afternoon and is meeting with some faculty and grad students to discuss news and new media issues over free food.  Any thoughts on good stuff to ask him about?  I'm going to stay away from Drudge, because I think Glenn Greenwald's exchange with John Harris has that pretty well covered, but any other specifics?  I haven't followed the Politico any more than generally, other than their big screw-up on the Elizabeth Edwards story, so your thoughts on this are appreciated.

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Yesterday I took to this site to denounce what I saw as an unfair slam on Democratic Speaker Nancy Pelosi that came under the guise of a front-page, above-the-fold (.pdf) news article written for The Politico by Daniel W. Reilly and Jim VandeHei. Not getting too much into the details of my complaints with the substance of the piece, I did write that "this highly opinionated piece belongs not in the news section of a paper but rather in the Op-Ed section," a sentiment I still hold today.

But this was not the only recent example of the editors of The Politico making an overly and perhaps overtly political statement on the front page of their new newspaper. The editor-and-chief of the periodical, John Harris, has the details.

With a mixture of pride and remorse, I have a confession: I am the author of the Democratic Party's "slow-bleed strategy" for ending the war in Iraq.

I had nothing to do with the details of the plan that Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.) floated two weeks ago. His plan was crafted to use the appropriations process to limit President Bush's options for mobilizing more forces in Iraq, while trying to protect Democrats from the accusation that they were abandoning troops in the field. As it happens, Murtha's idea is itself bleeding support, hit by a barrage of denunciations from people who say it does indeed amount to abandoning the troops.

In retrospect, it probably has already occurred to Murtha and his supporters that from a public relations perspective, "slow-bleed" was not the most winning description. How could they have been so stupid?

That's where I come in. "Slow bleed" is my phrase. Murtha had nothing to do with it. Neither did John Bresnahan, the reporter whose name was on the Politico story in which the "slow-bleed strategy" made its debut.

Let me first note that Harris deserves at least some kudos for being up front about his role in handing the Republicans about as big a gift as they could have wished for in their effort to keep the Iraq War rolling ahead at full steam. Not all editors would own up to their actions and decisions, particularly not so soon after the story was published.

That all being said, this admission, as well as the lead article in yesterday's issue attacking Speaker Pelosi, raise some serious questions about the intentions of the editors of The Politico. Do they want to be a solid news organization covering Congress in a meaningful and responsible way? Or are they looking to be another tabloid, the primary goal of which is to sell as many papers as possible -- even if that means allowing stories and headlines to get ahead of the reporting upon which they are based?

Regrettably, it seems to me that the latter may be the case, particularly after seeing the paper not only run with Republican talking points but actually hand Republicans talking points, on both the "slow bleed" and the "Pelosi breaks promises" stories. While I wouldn't go so far as to state that I see a political or partisan bias in their reporting at this point, I am concerned with the willingness of the organization's editors to insinuate themselves into the political debate not just through original reporting but also through flashy headlines and ledes that lead to discussions on the talking head programs on the cable news nets.

Washington doesn't need another political rag for the sake of having a political rag. But there is certainly room for more honest, thorough and (yes) at times sober reporting on the inner workings of the Congress. If the editors of The Politico is looking to fill that important role, then they have a chance to move their paper into the must-read category not only for the most hardcore politics junkies but even for those generally interested in the current events up on Capitol Hill. But if they are just looking to hastily raise their profile at any cost then they have little to no chance of upending the paradigm of political journalism for the better, as they seem to want to do.

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The Politico, the new Capitol Hill newspaper-cum-website-cum-multimedia-new s-organization, may only be about a month old, but it's already getting into the business of running half-rate hits on the Democratic leadership. Currently, one of the lead news items on the site (and I'd imagine one of the front page stories in the paper edition out in the morning) penned by Daniel W. Reilly and Jim VandeHei proclaims from its headline, "Pelosi Falls Short On Election Promises". Among other things, the article snipes at the new Democratic Speaker for the following:

• Holding only one five-day work week since Congress has been in session;
  
• Allowing just one open rule on a piece of legislation on the floor; and
  
• Seating Bill Jefferson on the homeland security panel.

Taking the second smear first, it is one that I smacked down not even three weeks ago on this site. Republicans have indeed complained that they have not been able to offer up their own alternatives to Democratic legislation and resolutions, a complaint that, on its surface, seems quite fair. But a deeper look at the issue, as I attempted earlier this month, shows that the Democrats one open rule less than a month into the current Congress matched the total number of open rules on non-appropriations legislation allowed by the Republican leadership over the entire course of the previous Congress. What's more, The Hill's Jim Snyder reports in Tuesday's edition that "a measure to update the rules governing the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. (CFIUS) [...] is expected to come to the floor under an open rule" after having been passed by House Republicans using a closed rule last year. So not only are House Democrats allowing open rules on the same issues upon which Republicans used closed rules just one year ago, they are also on track to double the number of open rules on non-appropriations legislation that the GOP House allowed -- with well over 20 months remaining in the Congress.

The other two attacks mentioned by Reilly and VandeHei in slamming Pelosi -- that the Congress has only had one five-day work week and that she seated Rep. Jefferson on a committee -- are likewise off base. To my knowledge, the Democratic House has already put in more five-day work weeks than the previous Republican House, which tended to put in about a one and a half day work week. And on the issue of "Dollar" Bill Jefferson, Reilly and VandeHei fail to mention that Pelosi stripped the Louisianian of his far more powerful and important position on the House Appropriations Committee during the last Congress, a fact that should certainly bear mentioning in any discussion about decisions about his committee placement (and he indeed needed to be placed on at least some committees, certainly in the absence of an indictment for his alleged improprieties).

And not only are these attacks largely off-base, they also are not resonating with the American public. The latest ABC News/Washington Post poll released today shows Speaker Pelosi's approval rating at 50 percent, with 31 percent disapproving. This is a slight decline for Pelosi from last month, when her approval spread was 54-25, but her current numbers are nonetheless significantly better than those currently held by President Bush (36 percent approve, 62 percent disapprove) and even the highest marks ever held by the last well-known Speaker, Newt Gingrich, whose top rating of 41 percent approval with 44 percent disapproval was achieved twice in 1998.

Yet for how important and meaningful these numbers are -- and they indeed are significant, both historically and currently -- measures of Pelosi's wide popularity within the American public are somewhat off topic. The fact is that this highly opinionated piece belongs not in the news section of a paper but rather in the Op-Ed section and, moreover, it might be warranted coming from a Republican member of Congress or a GOP activist but certainly not two reporters who profess to be non-partisan and unbiased.

Update [2007-2-27 1:10:17 by Jonathan Singer]: Of course I might also mention that Pelosi did follow through with her most notable campaign promises: passing the broad "Six for '06" agenda within the first 100 hours of the Congress.

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