Michael Kruse on Maggie Haberman

I think the feelings behind the performance are rooted in “any reporter who gives Donald Trump an inch without cross-checking him into the boards is aiding the enemy.” There’s a Good Side and a Bad Side, moral clarity, etc.

I admit I’m jaded. I don’t like Trump, didn’t vote for him, and simply, admittedly don’t care very much about the constant drama swirling around him, including whatever Maggie Haberman should have done, but didn’t.

 

I’m not necessarily granting she’s as credulous as you say, but, if she were, she wouldn’t be unusually more credulous than reporters who are credulous toward left-leaning politicians. The difference is…it’s OK to be credulous and deferential to the good people.

 

Agreed. The White House press corps are courtiers and stooges and access junkies.

That said, Trump would seem to demand a special - in fact, historic - level of scrutiny and skepticism, would he not?

Especially from someone this profile puts forward as a knowing local with an insider's insights into Trump and his psyche.

 

Trump has received historic levels of scrutiny and skepticism. If not sufficiently from Haberman, then so many many others.

This isn’t a press corps turning a blind eye the way it did, for two decades, to Harvey Weinstein. There is no Trump rabbit trail that has not been followed and no despicable person (John Bolton) that hasn’t tried to score political points out of opposing Trump on one thing or another.

 

I'm posting about the Haberman we meet in Kruse's profile.

 

I never thought Maggie Haberman was as interesting as the East Coast media industrial complex made her out to be and that profile only confirms my thought.

 

Blame her guidance counselor for not being interesting.

 

Finally got around to reading this with work slowing down a bit. A truly incredible profile. Kruse is so good. Also, a very thorough defense of Haberman's work as a reporter, which should be transparent to anyone who followed her work even casually during the Trump Administration.

 

Haberman was interviewed by Bob Schieffer on a podcast early in the Trump administration. She's known Trump for a couple decades. She said Trump used to call her "good Maggie" and "bad Maggie," depending on what she reported that day. With a character like that, there's no chance that relationship hasn't been compromised over the years. That holds for any reporter, not just Maggie Haberman. The Lee Elia reference is dead on.

 

True enough. There are stenographers and then there are cheerleaders. Judith Miller poked everyone's eyes out wth her pompoms.

 

Saw her interview with Colbert last night. Nothing special, though she was a quiet, bemused good sport when Colbert took shots at the dotard. She was there to sell a book, which meant not revealing very much about its contents, which are already being quoted and referenced across the media spectrum.

I wanted him to ask her why she held this things back for a book, but that wasn't going to happen.

He had a copy of the book -- it's 500 pages long.

I started reading "Rage" by Woodward a few years ago, but quickly the dotard's present day imbroglios outpaced the intrigue and insight of Woodward's previous reporting. As such, I'll settle for getting the gist of the Haberman book from outtakes, figuring I'll be halfway through this tome when Trump's literally lighting copies of the Constitution on fire at rallies.