Best CYA Journalism of the Day

Here's a story by Ed Pilkington of the UK newspaper, The Guardian. Pilkington traveled to Manning, South Carolina recently, to interview Alvin Greene. You know Alvin Greene - the complete nobody who somehow, without so much as a campaign or an indictment-free criminal history, managed to get himself elected as the Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate from that state. Yeah, told you you knew him.

Anyway, the story, despite being surprisingly short, actually prompted within me the stirrings of compassion for Greene. I haven't lacked for examples of Greene showing just why he is spectacularly unsuited to either role (nominee or elected official); I was already convinced of that, and I was unmoved. But the modesty of Greene's surroundings, as described by Pilkington, really drew home just how out of his league the poor guy is. Ditto his family members, who seem to exhibit a "circle the wagons against outsiders" mentality and will undoubtedly manufacture outlandish mythologies to explain his inevitable loss.

Greene is so plainly incompetent that the campaign will necessarily be a brutal and unedifying farce. This isn't baseball, no mercy rule applies - Greene must take the inevitable pummeling through November and then he gets to go home. I love political Guignol, but to enjoy the spectacle-to-come would be little more than naked sadism.

Anyway, back to my point. Most of the article prompted such reflections on the bathos of Alvin Greene. And then, toward the end, Pilkington lurches into that annoying "two sides to every story" mode that so many journalists use to appear fair-minded when, in reality, they are just covering their asses. First, he says that

South Carolina's Democratic candidate for the US senate is a mix of glaring inadequacy and raw political conviction. He repels and inspires, moments of lucidity interspersed with moments of the complete opposite.

Not so. I defy anyone to provide one genuine example of Greene being inspirational. Let's have one genuine example of Greene's lucidity. Pilkington makes it seem as though Greene's personality is manifold and subtle. This is silly fence-straddling - whatever the problem is with Alvin Greene, it isn't complexity.

Pilkington then closes with this humdinger:

Next stop will be the main election in November in which he will face Jim DeMint, the Republican senator who will deploy all the firepower of an incumbent. Greene will be outgunned, outwitted and humiliated. He will lose in a landslide.

Now where have I heard that before?

Uh, how about "only in your crazy British head"? Is the author really trying to suggest that Greene is some kind of unknown political Wunderkind in the model of Bill Clinton? I'm all for the devil's advocate, but this is simply ludicrous. Come on. Alvin Greene is not winning the election, and he is not a Wunderkind. To suggest otherwise in the face of crushing, overwhelming evidence to the contrary is just lazy narrative-mongering. Or even worse: Pilkington actually thinks there's a chance that Greene may win and he doesn't want to find himself on the outs with South Carolina's new senator. That's the first law of journalism - thou shalt cover thine ass.