Bloggers Gone Wild, Stop Paying Attention…

I realize that this isn’t terribly important, but I feel that it’s worth mentioning because it is indicative of the frenzy taking place on the internet lately vis-a-vis Clinton/Obama and serves as a reminder to all to be wary of what you read.

Eric from TPM (an overall great source) posted the audio for a Clinton campaign policy call that was held earlier today.  The call was a policy only call and was intended to discuss the unveiling of Clinton’s breast cancer policy; it’s pretty clear that this was not the frequently held strategy call.  Despite this, Eric makes a largely unsupported inference, writing:

The daily Clinton campaign conference call, usually consisting of the daily slam against Obama followed by a freewheeling Q and A, took an unusual form this morning.

Instead, the call was purely about policy, focusing exclusively on questions about Hillary’s new initiative on breast-cancer awareness — perhaps because the campaign is determined not to have to answer any more questions about Mark Penn’s departure.

As someone that sits in on these calls and has been recording them with regularity before it became the hip thing to do, I take umbrage with the unbelievably inaccuracy in Eric’s post.  This isn’t the first policy call that the Clinton campaign has held.  Today’s policy call was very similar in format and tone to previous policy calls.  Granted, the fact that the campaign didn’t have its typical call to discuss the state of the race, is certainly worth noting.  But, the suggestion that things were radically different on today’s call because of Penn’s resignation is just completely baseless.  Moreover, it generates confusion amongst readers/listeners, by glossing over distinctions that would otherwise be relevant.  Yes, the Clinton campaign failed to hold its state of the race call today to avoid questions about Penn.  But, no, today’s call is not something completely out of place.  Unfortunately, even good sources like Donklephant in a frenetic attempt to keep up with the pace of coverage neglected to analyze TPM’s conclusion and consequently reiterated a completely false suggestion.

I am truly beginning to wonder just how many people are paying attention anymore.  I recognize the perils of blogging and the strong desire to keep up with the pack.  But, it’s also worth noting that truly good content takes hours of research and fact checking (JW’s backgrounder on Penn’s history is a good example of the kind of blogging that needs to occur more frequently).

Anyway, I just wanted to clear up the confusion created by TPM.  As a side note, you can listen to all of the campaign conference calls and read the accompanying press release for context at 2008Central.net [LINK].