Today’s Good News: Refreshingly Real Reporting On Pres Candidates
The Columbia Journalism Review gives a tip of the hat to two – count em, two – news stories looking at candidates’ records and actual historical events to inform their analysis. The story was unearthed by CJR intern Adrianne Jeffries, who seems to have a bright future ahead of her. She comments: “Actual reporting and historical reality trump stenography every time.” Matt Stearns of the McClatchy newspapers looks at Clinton’s foreign policy experience directly and evenhandedly. He notes that most of it came from her years as First Lady, and that being the president’s wife is not the same as being an actual decisionmaker. However, she did do some impressive things in that role. A former aide recalls a 1999 trip to Macedonia, where refugees from Kosovo were threatening the economy. Clinton met with top Macedonian officials to thank them for helping the refugees and successfully urged the American clothing company Liz Claiborne to keep ordering from local factories it had been planning to cut orders from, saving thousands of jobs.
The other article, from the Boston Globe, looks at this business of “talking to dictators.” Patrick Buchanan notes that earlier presidents met with Joseph Stalin and Mao Tse-tung, and that none of the “dictators” Obama said he would meet with is even remotely in their league. He points out also that none of the five could possibly mount a war against the U.S. And, a coup de grace, he mentions how George Bush brought Gaddafi, “who was responsible for the Lockerbie massacre, in from the cold.”
Definitely refreshing.
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