So, apparently the traveling press corps can't stand Mitt Romney. His carefully-coiffed hair and carefully-glossed answers and glibly not-quite-true statements and signs that suddenly read "CHANGE" and promises to Michigan that he'll put a chicken in every pot and that little smile that never leaves his face that we noticed during the debates early on — all of it has combined to drive the press crazy (cf. Ana Marie Cox's Twitter page). He's not fun and expansive like John McCain, holding court in the back of the Straight Talk Express (cf. John King), nor is he inspiring and galvanizing like Barack Obama (cf. Lee Cowan). He's slippery and mockable and mocked, and not, well — what's that word? Ah, yes — likable.
Okay, fine. That doesn't mean that a member of the press should heckle him at an event he is covering.
By now everyone knows about the kerfuffle — and very near scuffle, from the looks of it — that Romney got into yesterday with the AP's Glen Johnson. Johnson challenged Romney — correctly — on his claim that he didn't have lobbyists "tied" to his campaign (he was saying "tied to" as Johnson interrupted him, a phrase from which he retreated in the ensuing exchange). As everyone now knows — but can feel free to watch on the web here and here and here and here and here and here — Johnson called Romney out at the event at a Staples, saying that Romney's claim was "not true" because top Romney adviser Ron Kaufman was, in fact, a Washington lobbyist who worked on President Bush's campaign. Tussle over Kaufman's role ensued, with Romney saying he didn't run his campaign and Johnson insisting that Mitt was, essentially, full of it. Afterward, Mitt came around to where Johnson was parked on the floor with his laptop and got into it yet again in a cringeworthy exchange that has clearly been catnip for the political crowd.
Great video, yes — but great for the press? I'm not so sure. Johnson was right, and on target — but was it really his place to heckle Mitt Romney and disrupt his press event? I get the whole "reporters aren't stenographers" line (cf. David Shuster last night with me on MSNBC), but there's a wide gulf between stenography and picking a fight. Johnson made himself the story here by challenging Romney so aggressively.
Yes, but look at how much attention this has gotten! Romney's been exposed for his obfuscations and slippery half-truths! Great, fine, but is it Johnson's job to do that, that way? A Romney event being disrupted by a protester is one thing — a member of the press corps doing the same thing is quite something else. (And let's pause for a moment to reflect on how different the coverage might be if instead of the respected AP reporter Glen Johnson it was some punk kid with a videocamera and a "Stop Romney!" website. I'm just saying.)
Or, let's imagine for a moment that it was a reporter calling out John McCain for an inconsistency, or Barack Obama. Probably wouldn't happen, for a variety of reasons, but one of those reasons is that neither Obama nor McCain drive the press corps crazy, and seeing either of them thwarted doesn't elicit a secret cheer from same. I get the frustration, but isn't the press under an obligation to be as neutral to the candidates they hate as they are to the candidates they like?
The exchange made me think of Hillary Clinton — not that anyone's gotten into it with her so publicly (except for maybe Tim Russert at the Philadelphia Dem debate), just that it's pretty well-established that she has, in certain instances (to put it lightly), been covered more harshly than other candidates (cf. Chris Matthews, not only statements re: Bill "messing around" but also re: his personal feelings about her). Earlier this week, Eric Boehlert made the point that reporters covered Clinton's detailed Q&A sessions in New Hamsphire as boring/excruciating wastes of their time (if not that of voters); this after complaints that she did not do Q&As. Boehlert also pointed me to this snippet from TNR's Jason Zengerle:
I was at a dinner tonight with various political reporters who are up here to cover the happenings, and it was pretty funny how giddy/relieved they were at the prospect of a McCain-Obama general election campaign, as opposed to, say, a Romney-Clinton one. Suddenly, the next 11 months of their lives look a whole lot more enjoyable.
I'm not suggesting that Johnson's frustration with Romney wasn't legitimate — sounds like it was — nor whether it was accurate — sounds like it was, and then some. Nor am I questioning that it was part of his job to challenge a candidate on such things — it is. But, for all that Romney aide Eric Fehrnstrom is clearly a wanker for telling Johnson "don't be argumentative with the candidate" he was right to call him out for not acting professionally. There's the job you do, and then there's how you do it. On the campaign trail and everywhere else, they both matter.