I’m too tired to go all medieval on @peterbakernyt & @maggieNYT’s odd and bad piece on the Trump curse on those reckless enough to work for him, but the TL:DR is that they have a failed theory of their subject/beat which turns decent reporting into crap stories...
2/ E.g. They never dive into if the problems Trump’s aides have w. their own mediocrity and unethical/illegal habits—and that the Trump curse is that those are the people he is most likely to hire. I.E.: Flynn’s problem wasn’t scrutiny; it was criminal behavior...
3/ and then there is the reflexive need to establish equivalence, asserting Reagan and Clinton admins saw analogous criminality and attrition. More true of Reagan than Bill, by far (Iran-Contra, anyone?) But no evidence, numbers, examples offered for either...
4/ That’s what I mean by a failed theory of the beat. Consistently, these reporters have seen in Trump an extreme version of DC business as usual, which leads to stories like this, in which the radically not normal reality of Trump and the 2018 GOP gets sanitized....
5/ The result is this kind of incoherent story: they recognize that Trump is monstrous (lots of quotes to that effect) but they never quite realize what gives his monstrousness it’s field of action: shitty humans & a congressional GOP that enables, even encourages him/them.
6/ Finally, this isn’t just Baker and Haberman’s theory of the White House beat; it’s clearly that of @nytimes’ editors as well. That’s why despite individual excellent examples of coverage, the Grey Lady remains a real hit/miss — at best —guide to the apocalypse. /fin
