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The Spectacle Blog
As someone who’s long had a not-so-secret journalistic-blogger crush on Jennifer Rubin, I am especially interested in a new Ben Smith piece published in Politico.
Rubin, says Smith, is Rick Perry’s “worst nightmare.” Why, from her perch at the Washington Post, the prolific Rubin has written 60 columns about Perry, eight of them on Tuesday alone! Here’s a sampling of the “Rubin treatment.” This from an Oct. 25 post.
The real question regarding Perry is whether he is fit for office… Perry is playing the role of a Texas A&M frat boy, not a contender for leader of the free world and commander in chief. Can such a person be taken seriously?
This is not a problem, by the way, that his staff can fix. This goes to the candidate’s character and judgment. If such a person would stoop to birtherism and secession, and let anti-religious bigotry go without condemnation, where does it stop?
“Almost any other reporter,” writes Smith,
or even partisan blogger, might have pulled a punch on the man who seemed, for a moment, likely to be her party’s presidential nominee, and perhaps the next president. But Rubin, 49, who published her first piece of journalism in 2007 after a career doing legal work for Hollywood studios, makes no pretense of either formal neutrality or party loyalty.
Rubin’s “caustic and single-minded” assault on Perry has not gone unnoticed by the Perry campaign.
“It’s just a very high level saturation bombing from our perspective,” says one anonymous Perry “ally” quoted by Smith. “It’s just duck and cover.”
As the late great Robert Novak put it, “You’re either a source or a target.” Rubin sees Novak and raises him. In her eyes, you’re both a source and a target.” And I, for one, say bravo.
Right-leaning journalists such Rubin, myself and our colleagues here at the American Spectator are not political partisans. Instead, we are partisans for the truth. We are biased in favor of conservative ideas and conservative public-policies. However, we carry no water for GOP pols and party apparatchiks. And so, when they err, we say so.
Jennifer Rubin gets this better than most; and, for that reason, she leads the pack and sets the pace. And we in the conservative movement are fortunate to have her.
This doesn’t mean that I always agree with Rubin, because I don’t. But I respect her, and I value her work, even when we disagree.
View all comments (15) | Leave a comment
More Blog Posts by John R. Guardiano
http://spectator.org/blog/2011/10/26/why-i-have-journalistic-blogge
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Ken (Old Texican)| 10.26.11 @ 4:56PM
Kiss my butt.
M.McC| 10.26.11 @ 10:24PM
Curious about something, Ken. You say Perry's good as gov. Good man. Etc.
How about his campaigns in Texas? Good in debates? Thinking on his feet? Avoiding gaffes? Am wondering about his shoot from the hip style. Possible it plays in Texas but flops nationally? Curious to hear your thoughts.
Ken (Old Texican)| 10.26.11 @ 4:57PM
and kiss her butt too.
Ken (Old Texican)| 10.26.11 @ 4:59PM
Bye the way, wordsmith, the term is err.
Snarky McSnarksalot| 10.26.11 @ 6:20PM
By the way its "by" not "bye" and you mite wont to be more care full when your criticalizing some won elses wordifying if you no watt amine.
mensamensa| 10.27.11 @ 2:10AM
Snarky Cantspellalot
">."
Buydaweigh, it's spelled "nodamean".
Paul McGrath| 10.26.11 @ 5:31PM
The problem with Perry, and I've been thinking about this a lot, is that he's just a bit too picture-perfect. The Texas A and M frat-boy comment is not innaccurate, but I think more to the point, the guy has never suffered any travails. He's never had his hair mussed, he's never been fired from a job, or lost sleep over the fact that he HAD to fire a guy, he's never been unjustly overlooked for a job, he's never sweated a mortgage payment, he's never been cold, he's never been hungry, he's never spent any time with the lower levels of society and learned how to understand and commiserate with them: in short, life has been too easy for him. He hasn't been challenged, and maybe more to the point, he hasn't challenged himself enough.
There are some people in the world who are very smart, or very rich, or both, but who still come across as a regular guy. Like Reagan, or, well, Romney. Perry does not come across as a regular guy. If I were to run into him at a bar, I'm pretty sure he'd ignore me. I'm not important enough.
Occam's Tool| 10.26.11 @ 10:46PM
I'm sorry---this guy grew up with tenant farmer parents. Look,I don't love Perry absolutely---I ABSOLUTELY DESPISE his views on illegal immigrants and college in state tuition for them, as an American citizen who lived in Texas for 8 years while going to school and NEVER qualified for instate tuition, and who has two Hispanic kids that he adopted legally and expensively.
However, Perry did not have it easy growing up. Romney was born to wealth and privilege, not Perry.
Either of these two candidates would have my vote over Obama. Politics is the art of the possible.
Jeff Powell| 10.26.11 @ 5:58PM
Not everyone is so taken with Rubin: http://www.redstate.com/erick/.....opponents/
I suspect we will discover where Rubin's real sympathies lie if someone other than Romney is nominated.
Butch| 10.26.11 @ 7:45PM
Rubin carries water--for Romney. And by quoting her, you are carrying it too, for TAS, I guess. Too bad.
mensamensa| 10.27.11 @ 2:14AM
Jennifer Reuben carried Cripsy Creme Christie's water when she schmeared a real conservative named Steve Lonegan in 2009.
She was a real moderate then and she hasn't changed much neither.
Rosie| 10.27.11 @ 7:54AM
I used to enjoy reading Jennifer Rubin when she blogged at Commentary. Her morning wrap ups were great and the discourse with the other contributors was a cut above the rest, because they kept her honest. Her move to WaPo has been a fiasco. She has gone rogue - I rarely read her.
Casey Abell| 10.27.11 @ 9:40AM
"Instead, we are partisans for the truth."
Hey, give yourself a nice pat on the back. Jennifer Rubin is an occasionally interesting writer who tends to natter on and on and on. She posts maybe 89 times a day when two or three times would do nicely. She forgets that if she pounds Perry 89 times, people just tune out.
By the way, she did offer a clever putdown of Cain's idiotic web ad:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....#pagebreak
"This is more akin to 'Little Fockers' or an unwatchable experimental theater production in which you feel pity for the actors." That's a snappy line.
But I'm afraid she'll slug the anti-Cain message into the ground. By the time she's finished, I may even have a little sympathy for the clueless Herm.
linda| 10.27.11 @ 10:07AM
This time she's hard for Romney. Last time she was all about Guiliani. She hearts lib Republicans. No surprised.
William R| 10.27.11 @ 10:20AM
Rubin with out a doubt is an Israel Firster. She's very unpatriotic.