Rothenberg's Beat Sweetener

Now that the beat sweetener has entered our lexicon, let's look at a piece typical of its form. Stu Rothenberg ran a shockingly sycophantic editorial in last week's Roll Call brown-nosing Chuck Schumer, Barney Frank, and Rahm Emanuel:

Democrats simply have smarter, tougher, more cold-blooded voices in government at the moment. That hasn’t always been the case, and it’s certainly not inevitable. But right now, it’s true.

...I’m referring to a trio of Democrats in Washington, D.C., who epitomize the party’s current advantage — Rep. Barney Frank (Mass.), Sen. Charles Schumer (N.Y.) and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, who until recently served in the House as the third-ranking party leader.

Read the entire thing if you can stomach it. First, you'll notice that Rothenberg doesn't cite any evidence beyond that he saw Barney Frank on TV once. Why is Frank so much more impressive than his Democratic colleagues? How do we know that Schumer and Emanuel were the "architects" of 2006 Democratic Congressional victories, and that those victories didn't happen because of other factors? Is there an objective measure that we can use to determine what makes a particular political player "savvy"? If there are answers to these questions, they aren't contained in Rothenberg's piece.

Broadly, his underlying logic is flawed: Rothenberg sees Democrats prevailing in our discourse, and attributes that success to "savvy" political actors like Frank/Schumer/Emanuel. This doesn't hold up because Frank, Schumer, and Emanuel have been prominent public figures for years, and Rothenberg doesn't explain why their supposed political skill is only now leading to success. It's far more likely that current Democratic success is due to 1) power change that comes with an election, particularly the bully pulpit of the Presidency, and 2) actual change in public opinion that comes from an increased understanding of the consequences of discredited public policy. Rothenberg's piece is from the perspective of day-to-day games and strategy rather than policy choices that have consequences in elections.

It's also probably not a coincidence that the actors he chooses to glorify are some of the biggest corporate sellouts of the Democratic party. Schumer lobbied heavily for deregulation of the financial industry. Barney Frank was one of the primary authors of the weak bailout bill, which we're now feeling the consequences of (incidentally, not very "savvy"). And Rahm Emanuel... where do we even start? By fawning over these actors, Rothenberg continues a tradition where "pragmatists" are considered "smarter" or more "serious" than their "ideological" counterparts. These stories in insider publications give them credibility, and amplify their voices at the expense of progressive alternatives (ex. where are the fawning profiles of Chris Van Hollen or Howard Dean, and why aren't electoral victories attributed to them?)

Ultimately, the beat sweetener is a collective action problem among journalists. Journalism loses credibility when reporters write beat sweeteners, because it violates public trust in work that's supposed to be written in good faith. On the other hand, individual journalists have an incentive to write beat sweeteners if they feel it gets them better long-term access to information, and better stories. When political commentators like Rothenberg write illogical, unsubstantiated pieces glorifying public figures for personal gain, they need to be publicly shamed so they're less likely to do it again.