In the New York Times and Politico, Adam Nagourney and John Harris/Jim Vandehei defend last week's Democratic debate. Nagourney quotes a letter of protest against the debate's frivolity signed by our very own Ezra and Sam, as well as frequent TAP Online contributors Dean Baker and Addie Stan. But ultimately, he believes even the sillier parts of the debate served a purpose, writing, "If nothing else, the ABC moderators gave Mr. Obama a hint of his general election campaign — and Democratic voters, trying to figure out who their strongest candidate might be, a hint of how he might weather such attacks."Harris and Vandehei are much harsher, suggesting that critiques of the debate were motivated mostly by Obama favoritism. They write, almost too cutely:The difference seems clear: Many journalists are not merely observers but participants in the Obama phenomenon.(Harris only here: As one who has assigned journalists to cover Obama at both Politico and The Washington Post, I have witnessed the phenomenon several times. Some reporters come back and need to go through detox, to cure their swooning over Obama’s political skill. Even VandeHei seemed to have been bitten by the bug after the Iowa caucus.)(VandeHei only here: There is no doubt reporters are smitten with Obama's speeches and promises to change politics. I find his speeches, when he's on, pretty electric myself. It certainly helps his cause that reporters also seem very tired of the Clintons and their paint-by-polls approach to governing.)To a point, this is true. I've written myself about usually cynical D.C. journalists pulling their children out of school to attend an Obama speech, only to hit the roof when they were denied entrance in favor of college students who'd waited in line since dawn. But I've also observed a countervailing tendency among journos -- a desire to resist the Obamania that seems to have infected so many. In short, I don't think complaints about the debate were motived primarily by sympathy for Obama, but rather by frustration over how long it took to attack real policy questions at at a time when our nation is facing such a great number of serious challenges.--Dana Goldstein
