Why Can’t the Press Let Politicians Have Principles?
No one—not even the love child of Horatio Alger and Ayn Rand—rivals campaign reporters when it comes to worshipping ambition. In the eyes of the press pack, all behavior in the political realm is motivated by a lean and hungry look at the next office. A prime example is how the media handled two acts of Republican apostasy this week relating to the Bush alumni network and family.
Trip Gabriel reported Monday in The New York Times that former Education Secretary Margaret Spellings had dropped her informal role as an outside adviser to Mitt Romney in an understated protest over the candidate’s policies. Spellings, who had worked for George W. Bush as Texas governor, objected to Romney’s preference for vouchers and school choice over federal accountability standards. Since Spellings is not a politician, publications ranging from Politico to National Review treated her defection as a statement of ideological principle.
That same day Jeb Bush told a breakfast for reporters sponsored by Bloomberg View that the GOP’s rightward tilt was so extreme that his father and Ronald Reagan would have trouble fitting into the modern Republican Party. While a Times story by Jim Rutenberg did refer to friends saying that Bush’s comments reflected “a man free from the constraints of electoral politics,” the standard interpretation was that the Florida governor was adroitly positioning himself for a presidential run if Romney were defeated.