Anyway when the government changed, these journos seemed incapable of coping. After having the same network of routine go-to people for 11 years I think they had no alternative way to fuinction. Incapable of independent analysis, the only way they could get a story was to quote others and they had internalised the belief that the conservatives were the legitimate authority figures. Consequently for months after the election, any government initiative was analysed and interpreted according to the comments of conservatives.

The transition has been gradual. There are still a few Murdoch News Ltd hacks who are little more than shills for the conservatives (and like Allen get very whiny about bloggers) but a new generation of reporters is slowly establishing a relationship of mutual dependency with the current government. If Labor stays in power for 11 years I’m sure the same thing will happen in reverse when they finally get kicked out.

The comments in question are personal opinions lacking any official standing and absent the identity of their author, they lack any significance whatsoever.

We had this same phenomenon in Australia for a while when a conservative government got kicked out after 11 years. Not only the conservative politicians but also the media continued to behave as if the old mob was still the legitimate administration and nothing could validly be said or done unless they endorsed it. It’s only now, 18 months after the change of government, that the media has started to comprehend that all its old anonymous sources are has-beens and nobody wants to read their opinions about anything any more.

“Not ideal, but better than making readers wonder what the official Bush view is.”

Pardon me, how can an anonymous critic be credited with the “official Bush view”? To be “official” doesn’t someone with the proper administration credentials need to go on record with their name included?!

Facts …you would think that facts would always be the truth, the complete truth with no room to equivocate, shade or otherwise manipulate. Facts are facts …not facts according to you or facts according to me …just facts, a piece or pieces of information that cannot be viewed in another light …in another way.

Facts are absolutes. Lies, half truths, etc., are not facts no matter the source, anonymously spoken or not. So why worry about Mike Allen’s source. His or her name is irrelevant. Undoubtedly, the next words out of the “source’s” mouth will be shaded another way to meet the needs of the source’s then audience.

Science and math are the only methodologies that provide a medium for communicating “facts” between people …the only purveyors of absolute, repeatable facts. Everything else has some degree of opinion attached.

Best regards,

BB

The problem is that his source used that sense of importance as leverage to be able to make his remarks anonymously – which allows him to make **** up without scrutiny, and completely outweighs whatever benefit there was to having both sides represented. mr. allen was used, his article subverted into an opinion piece. The only remaining question was whether he realizes it or not. I have thoughts on that, one certainly thinks he could have found someone else to comment on the record, but I’ve spent too much work time already

Sorry, Mike, but you can’t get off by blaming readers for giving your post only a cursory glance. The placement of the quote in the context of the post is not the issue. The issue is granting anonymity to a Bush official in these circumstances.

He says it’s better to grant anonymity than not to have any take from the Bush team at all, but that’s a false choice.

Allen could have simply moved on and found someone else to give the Bush administration’s take. There are plenty of former Bush administration officials getting their two cents in today. The real issue for Allen most likely was: Will another Bush official give me a quote this juicy? And so he granted the anonymity on that basis, because he’s interested in driving traffic to his site. Pretty much par for the course for Allen, who comes from the horse-trading journalistic culture of Newsweek.