Thursday night, I was watching Anderson Cooper interview Journolister Jeffrey Toobin about the Charles Rangel scandal. Toobin downplayed the charges against Rangel, referring to them as "penny ante" stuff.
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For the record, Toobin has been named as a "hero[]" of Journolist. What's more, conservative Bill Kristol has characterized the Rangel case in similar terms.
But when Toobin did it, I had to wonder for a minute whether this was some "meme" that lefty journo-strategists wanted to sell to the American public, rather than simply thinking "Hm. Interesting."
That's the damage that Journolist has done to its participants' reputations. If I were a left-leaning journalist who hadn't participated, I'd certainly be pushing for the names of all participants to be disclosed so that my motives in offering opinions would be crystal clear.
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