Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone: The Whore Factor

[JudyInTheHeartland]

The Whore Factor

December 2, 2008 3:33 PM

The choice of Hillary Clinton as Barack Obama's Secretary of State is one of those mighty wind-generating news items that will keep pundits busy for days or even weeks; like a lot of campaign reporters, however, I'm suffering from Hillary fatigue after last year and find myself with absolutely no opinion at all about that head-scratching nomination.

The Barack-watching business has begun to take steps in a nervous direction for other reasons, however. Obviously the big question about Obama, after his election, was just exactly how much "change" he was going to bring about — would he bring in people who actually can do the job to work in his government, or would he hire the same old whores to man the ship? I know several reporters who are either officially or unofficially on "Whore Factor" duty, watching the rapidly kaleidoscoping transition picture and keeping track of the number of known whores and ghouls who for some reason have been invited to befoul the atmosphere of the next administration.

Obviously there has been some dire news on that front already. When Obama picked Tom Daschle to be the HHS Secretary, I nearly shit my pants. In Washington there are whores and there are whores, and then there is Tom Daschle. Tom Daschle would suck off a corpse for a cheeseburger. True, he is probably only the second-biggest whore for the health care industry in American politics — the biggest being doctor/cat-torturer Bill Frist, whose visit to South Dakota on behalf of John Thune in 2004 was one of the factors in ending Daschle's tenure in the Senate.

But in picking Daschle — who as an adviser to the K Street law firm Alston and Bird has spent the last four years burning up the sheets with the nation's fattest insurance and pharmaceutical interests — Obama is essentially announcing that he has no intention of seriously reforming the health care industry. And I know that lots of public policy people are hailing this pick, saying Daschle is perfect for the job ("His new leadership position confirms that the incoming Obama administration has made health care reform a top and early priority for action in 2009," Ron Pollack, the director of Families USA, told reporters), but when they say that I think they mean the following: "Out of all the bought-off Washington whores who could have been given this job, Daschle is the best one. His fake reform will go the farthest in its approximation of actual action than the fake reform of any other possible whore-candidate." Actually that probably sums up the ideological profile of Obama quite well generally — but that's another story.

http://www.rollingstone.com/blogs/taibbiunbound/2008/12/the-whore-factor.php#more

[dana_b]

1. damn!

why don't they tell us how they really feel?!

[Kdillard]

2. Ouch.

[Mass]

3. Taibbi is calling somebody a whore. I guess it takes one to know one\nt

[Uzybone]

4. Taibbi is one of those zero-sum folks

He will attack on dems and Obama with the same fervor he attacked Bush and McCain. To him they are nothing but topics that he can write "shocking" things about.

[FrenchieCat]

6. I remember when he did this expose on Gen. Clark back in 2004.....

while posing as a volunteer. Talked about how Clark's eyes looked like those of a turtle or something like that. He was writing for the Nation then, and it was a horrid piece of fiction, that was generally a hit piece. After that, I never cared for the man. He seemed to have redeemed himself somewhat during this election, but I guess it was just temporary.

[PassingFair]

14. Never mind that he is right.

Democrats and Republicans are not TRIBES
that we have to "belong" to in order to
survive.

The "gamesmanship" of Washington and the
"two-party system" has very nearly destroyed
our country.

Men like Jeffords, Chaffee and Hagel have
broken with their "tribes", while we continue
to feed and care for gollums like Lieberman.

He SHOULD attack those in positions of power
when they are working to the detriment of
the people, and towards the enrichment of the few at
the top of the corporate/war machine hill.

[beachmom]

15. He is the most cynical reporter I have ever read or seen.

And his view on Kerry was that he wasn't cool enough. I mean, Mr. Cynical claims to be all about substance and true progressivism, but then he knocks people for not being MTV enough.

Whatever. He can be amusing, but is best taken in small doses.

[Writer]

19. Matt Taibbi is a whore himself - a tool for "shock ya" journalism.

Fuck him.

[truedelphi]

29. With King Paulson running our country, we need people like Taibbi to keep

The rest of us from staring at Obama like he is the long lost knight on a white (er, balck) horse.

Obama is business as usual, while Paulson is business as unusual.

We the taxpayers should be stopping this crook Paulson from raping the elderly and disabled on Social Security, the few workers left from losing their jobs, the young from losing the chance to finance their colelge years, parents who are trying to support their families etc., and quit believing that Obama is making sense in his senseless picks for Cabinet and other critical posts.

[Metta]

5. I find it troubling that Obama is picking people who seem to go against what he campained for and

certainly against his humanistic image. I hope otherwise.

[FrenchieCat]

7. I think that you should tell the Obama transition team just that.....

Here is the contact link: http://change.gov/page/content/contact/

[SwampG8r]

13. i did and have

for the last 2 weeks i have been writing them and asking why the would use so many who worked so actively against him and all i have gotten back were form letters thanking me for my input

[FrenchieCat]

8. Perhaps folks concerned like Taibbi is about Dashle

should join the health Care discussion forum set up over at change.gov

It started several days ago, and 3,500 comments were submitted.


Join the Discussion: Former Sen. Daschle responds on health care
Tuesday, December 2, 2008 12:18pm EST
More than 3,500 reader comments later, we’re excited to report on the success of our recent community discussion on health care, the first open conversation of its kind on Change.gov.

Members of our Health care Transition team, including former Senator Tom Daschle, were eager to dig in to the comments and find out more about the issues and concerns that drove the community conversation online.
http://change.gov/newsroom/entry/join_the_discussion_daschles_healthcare_response/

Thus far, there have been 1,831 comments in reference to the 12/2 noon post.....

[Uzybone]

9. This is awesome, thanks for posting it n/t

[OneBlueSky]

10. "Tom Daschle would suck off a corpse for a cheeseburger." . . .

Matt Taibbi sure has a way with words, don't he? . . . :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

"Out of all the bought-off Washington whores who could have been given this job, Daschle is the best one. His fake reform will go the farthest in its approximation of actual action than the fake reform of any other possible whore-candidate."

[ellie]

11. I heart Matt Taibbi

almost as much as Nate Silver.

[ClarkUSA]

12. Matt Taibbi, like his father, is a loose cannon of the first order who drops word bombs for effect.

That's his tired ol' "Fighting The Machine" schtick.

[KittyWampus]

16. He's nothing more than a Hunter Thompson wannabe

[ClarkUSA]

17. Exactly.

And boy, does he fall short!

[Writer]

18. MATT TAIBBI: PROOF THAT ANY MOTHER FUCKER WITH AN AGENDA CAN BE A "JOURNALIST"

Suck on this, Matt.

[Radical Activist]

20. The sad part is that

some people will take every word of this article at face value because they're eager to see proof of Obama moving right. Later in the article the guy attacks Obama for the views of someone who he says Obama THOUGHT about appointing to something. Not even an actual appointment. An appointment he may have just considered is enough to declare Obama a failure. Keep grinding that axe Taibbi.

[JamesA1102]

21. Taibbe his nothing more than Hitchens without the accent or

drinking problem.

[Teaser]

22. This is some weak ass shit

Matt just can't bring it anymore. Sad, really.

[DevonRex]

23. Ick. Just ick. Somebody needs to tell him that he doesn't need

to use such foul images to make his point. I'm not opposed to strong language. I use it myself. This goes way beyond using strong language, though.

I couldn't possibly care less about what his point actually was. And I'll probably relegate him to my list of folks with no credibility.

[Beacool]

24. Daschle is a whore?

The instructive things one learns at DU........

:eyes:

[DevonRex]

25. Just curious. Did you find the article as icky as I did?

There might have been a valid point or two in there but I discounted the entire thing because of hte ick factor.

[Beacool]

26. Yep, he may have made some valid points about Daschle,

but his style is over the top and off putting. Though I must admit that this quote was quite funny:

"In Washington there are whores and there are whores, and then there is Tom Daschle. Tom Daschle would suck off a corpse for a cheeseburger."

:7

[Jim Lane]

27. Interesting that the negative reactions are almost all ad hominem attacks on Taibbi

Radical Activist, in post #20, actually came to grips with the substance of what Taibbi wrote. The rest of the criticism is just mudslinging.

For example, I don't see one post that explains why Daschle is a good pick for HHS. I've heard (elsewhere) the argument that Daschle is the best person to get Obama's health-care program through Congress, but that doesn't address Taibbi's qualms about the substance of that program.

[mountainvue]

28. Jesus Christ. Someone's cranky.