Can it be true that the media now don't have Sarah Palin to kick around? At least not Governor Palin. She's officially outta there. Some of her final tweets were ridiculous.

Last state twitter. Thank you Alaska! I love you. God bless Alaska....

So it's, I love you, but it's best that I leave you. That's just like a bad break-up. ("It's not you, Alaska, the problem is me....") And there was this one:

W/ kids in camper...AK is BIG/WILD/GOOD LIFE;feel freedom here

As if Palin had gone Kerouac or Merry Prankster: drop out, work is for suckers.

In any event, it seems doubtful Plain will really be gone--as in silent. As she writes--or oversees the ghostwriting of--her book, she'll certainly make various pronouncements that can fuel cable chat about her and her possible presidential ambitions. She might campaign for GOP candidates, if she can find one or two who will accept her assistance.

I wonder if she will continue to be an anti-media crusader. Bashing the elite press used to have a lot of salience with the world of conservatives and Republicans. Jesse Helms went after CBS News (and Dan Rather) for years. These days, though, the elite media just ain't what they used to be. Can anyone argue with a straight face that the United States will lose the war in Afghanistan because of how CBS reports on the war? (Much of the conservative case against the media in the 1970s and 1980s flowed from the notion that the lilly-liver liberals in the media undermined the US military effort in Vietnam.) But suggesting today that CBS News's reports on Afghanistan will affect the outcome would probably get you laughs in most quarters. (Sorry, Walter Cronkite. RIP.)

The big media has lost power and influence, and it's not the foil it once was. Palin's anti-media rants will win over those conservatives who believe that Fox News is the only accurate depiction of reality. There are millions who fall into this category, but it's not an expanding slice of the population. And it's not likely sizeable enough to support a national political effort.

Meanwhile, there surely are Paliniacs who will stand by her. Look at this message put out by TeamSarah.org:

"Sarah Palin has always been an intensely independent woman-- always true to her faith, her family and call to public service. She has provided women with a new political role model, offering a positive example of grace and poise as she deflected the barrage of baseless personal attacks on her family," said Team Sarah Co-Founder Marjorie Dannenfelser. "Her entrance onto the public stage has attracted massive numbers of Americans new to the political process. We have every confidence she will have an equal and profound impact in whatever projects she undertakes as a private citizen."

True to her "call to public service." Didn't she just bail on public service? The statement continues:

"Team Sarah members anxiously await Palin's next decision on how she believes she can best serve our nation. Governor Sarah Palin is the real deal. She is smart; she is articulate; she is strong; she is compassionate and she walks the talk. I believe the ongoing personal attacks on both Governor Palin and her family indicate that she remains a real threat to the liberal feminist political establishment," said Team Sarah Co-Founder Jane Abraham. "Despite the criticism, Governor Palin's success will endure. Team Sarah's thousands of members remain as engaged as ever on TeamSarah.org. The Governor has inspired millions, and her audience of enthusiastic support will only grow in the future."

Yes, when the economy is on its knees, the climate is changing, two wars are waging, and the health care system is sick, the most important job for Palin is to destroy "the liberal feminist political establishment." If Palin plays to this political crowd, she'll make a ton of money--books, speeches, the like--but her political career will be deader than it is at the moment.

*****
THE COWBOYS OF KABUL. Reporter Dan Schulman, my colleague at Mother Jones, has a kick-ass story out about two Texan grandparents who went from bankruptcy to raking in millions as contractors in Afghanistan. There was one little problem, though. According to the US government, they did so by fraud, using phony receipts and ghost employees. This is a twisted tale (and a solid piece of journalism) detailing a vivid example of what can happen in the Wild West bonanza of private contracting in Afghanistan. Read it here

You can follow my postings and media appearances via Twitter.

Yesterday, during the White House daily press briefing, I was pondering what question to ask. It really didn't matter because I was not called on. (I cannot complain. Press secretary Robert Gibbs pointed at me during his first briefing last week.) But one query I was considering was about background briefings at the White House. I wrote about this last week, noting that when one reporter had asked Gibbs why the White House wouldn't ID two officials who had given a background briefing regarding the executive orders on Gitmo and torture, other journalists in the White House press room chuckled and Gibbs dodged the question. Seems to me that a White House hailing transparency and accountability might want to explain its use of background briefings (during which senior officials give reporters info that the journos can cite, as long as they don't identify the officials.)

This may seem an insider-y issue. (My other questions concerned global warming and Afghanistan.) But it is symbolic. And my friend Jack Shafer, Slate's media writer, has joined the cause. On Monday, he penned (or is it tapped?) a column on the matter. He writes:

It's as close as it gets to the most MS of MSM outfits declaring, McCain's lying!

I'm referring to a news article on the front-page of Saturday's New York Times that starts:

Harsh advertisements and negative attacks are a staple of presidential campaigns, but Senator John McCain has drawn an avalanche of criticism this week from Democrats, independent groups and even some Republicans for regularly stretching the truth in attacking Senator Barack Obama's record and positions.

Though the piece uses the usual framework of he said/he said--that is, others are saying that McCain is lying--it does present the evidence that McCain's recent assertions about Obama are outrageously false. It also quotes prominent Republicans saying that McCain and running mate Sarah Palin have vigorously mugged the truth in recent days. Though the article was, no doubt, in the works for a day or two, it seems as if comic Joy Behar of The View has pushed the media along. At least, she can claim credit for beating the Times to an obvious point.

Meanwhile, the "Factchecker" column of The Washington Post has awarded McCain four Pinocchios--that's as high as its lying scale goes--for claiming Friday on The View that Palin, as governor of Alaska, did not seek federal earmarks. That's an outright falsehood. But the column felt compelled to go a step further:

Some readers have complained that I have been soft on the Democrats over the last week, while awarding a string of Pinocchios to the McCain campaign. I would like to think that this simply reflects the current state of the campaign: the McCainites have been on the offensive over the last week, tearing into Obama with a series of questionable TV ads. If you think it reflects bias on my part, there is a simple remedy: send in specific examples of Pinocchio-esque statements by Obama and the Dems, and I will check them out.

Both newspapers are essentially saying that at this stage McCain is the liar in the race. (The Post's "Factchecker" gave Palin a pass on her first week--and did not score several of her facts-challenged assertions.) No wonder the Republicans and the McCain campaign are trying to whip up a war against the so-called "Eastern media elite"--for a campaign narrative is close to being born: the fall of the Straight Talker. For the Obama camp, the question is, how best can it exploit this twist-in-the-making?

If you want to see why John McCain and his spinners might get away with their ramped-up sleaze attacks on Barack Obama, turn to page four of Thursday's Washington Post. There you will find an article headlined "McCain Camp Hits Obama On More Than One Front.". The piece begins:

Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign launched a broadside against Sen. Barack Obama yesterday, accusing him of a sexist smear, comparing his campaign to a pack of wolves on the prowl against the GOP vice presidential pick, charging that the Democratic nominee favored sex education for kindergartners, and resurrecting the comments of the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr.

And the next several paragraphs go on to describe these attacks and the consequent back-and-forth between the Obama and McCain campaigns. The piece reports,

The attacks over the first three days of this week have come at a sometimes dizzying pace. Within 24 hours, the McCain campaign released a television advertisement saying Obama favored "comprehensive sex education" for kindergartners, produced an Internet ad charging that the Democrat had referred to Palin as a pig, then concluded with another ad saying, "Obama's politics of hope? Empty words."

....McCain allies think they have succeeded in knocking Obama on his heels since he accepted his party's nomination in Denver two weeks ago.
"They really are in a meltdown," said Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.), a McCain adviser.

Only after describing the gleeful GOPers and upset Dems does the article evaluate the ads, essentially noting they were, well, crap. For instance: "The sex education ad referred to legislation Obama voted for -- but did not sponsor -- in the Illinois Senate that allowed school boards to develop "age-appropriate" sex education courses at all levels. Kindergarten teachers were given the approval to teach about appropriate and inappropriate touching to combat molestation." The piece suggests--but does not spell out--that it was a complete lie for the McCain camp to say that Obama wanted to teach kindergarteners "comprehensive sex education."

Next to the article on the hard copy of the Post was indeed an analysis of the sex education ad, noting the ad had misrepresented Obama's record and awarding it three Pinocchios (out of a possible high of four).

But here's the perennial problem: the campaign story of the day was not that McCain was lying about his opponent; it was the fight between the two candidates. Whenever the media report false charges in an evenhanded manner--A said X about B; B said X was not true--the party hurling the mud wins. And wins big. Sure, the Post's "Factchecker," Factcheck,com, and Politifact.com each rate political accusations for accuracy and fairness--and often slam a campaign for peddling falsehoods. But, it seems, campaigns dependent on sleaze can all-too-easily survive the negative reviews from these outfits.

The issue then is whether a campaign's reliance on such tactics becomes a key component of the overall media account of the election--and whether a candidate has to answer for such actions. So far McCain has not.

The current issue of Mother Jones has an essay I wrote along similar lines about how the media handle presidential prevarications. You can read it here.

This campaign is becoming ridiculous. And let's be honest: it is John McCain's fault.

Yesterday, his aides went bonkers over Barack Obama's remark that John McCain and Sarah Palin by campaigning for "change" are putting "lipstick on a pig." The McCain camp quickly arranged a conference call for reporters, during which former Massachusetts Governor Jane Swift, a Republican, accused Obama of mounting a sexist attack on Sarah Palin. (It was not an attack on McCain, because apparently he does not use lipstick.) Obama's comment, as many have pointed out, was not a chauvinist jab at Palin. He was using an expression that, again as many others have pointed out, McCain has also used on occasion.

Yet today, the McCain campaign released a web ad that quotes CBS News anchor Katie Couric ("one of the great lessons of that campaign is the continued and accepted role of sexism in American life") and that accuses Obama of mounting a sexist "smear" against Palin. (A lipstick smear?) Of course, Couric was not referring to Obama's remark. Talk about taking a statement out of context. And the ad maliciously plays Obama's lipstick comment over a headline that reads, "Barack Obama on Sarah Palin." This is nothing but deceitful.

Worse, while the McCainiacs were falsely charging Obama with sexism (playing the gender card?), they were putting out a recklessly false television ad that claimed Obama had backed legislation in Illinois to teach "comprehensive sex education" to kindergartners. A McClatchey fact-check of the ad noted this charge was without merit and absurd. The legislation had allowed local school boards to teach "age-appropriate" sex education and had provided schools the ability to warn kids about sexual predators and inappropriate touching. That is, it was designed to protect children. Yet McCain was trying to turn it into anti-Obama ammo. (Joe Klein is really upset about this.)

The McCain Mafia seems committed at throwing whatever it can at Obama: from falsehoods about taxes and earmarks (example: Palin opposed the Bridge to Nowhere) to silly and unsupported charges about sexism and sex-ed. Their strategic goal, obviously, is to keep Obama pinned down. Should the Obama campaign waste time knocking down these purposeful errors and excessive spin? That would be letting McCain shape the debate to his advantage. But if the campaign allows this stuff to hit the wall--and maybe stick--the McCain mob wins. Should it sling crap back at them? Perhaps Team Obama ought to stick to the ground game campaign manager David Plouffe has designed and not be distracted by the cable news noise. But at some point does that noise affect the ground reality? I suppose the only answer is, the Obama camp has to do it all: swat the flies, make its own case (for Obama and against McCain), and keep moving ahead.

But so much for an honorable campaign from an honorable man. Then again, given that McCain has already explicitly accused Obama of traitorous conduct (opposing a war to win an election), nothing should come as a shock. Not even abusing sex education to score points. The fortunate thing for McCain is that presidential campaigns have no true referees. Some in the media try, but the McCain camp is doing all it can to turn the election into a battle between its side and the media, a naked attempt at delegitimizing media criticism of the Palin pick and other McCain campaign moves. There is no power that can slap McCain with what he truly deserves: a time-out in a corner.

I'm still on vacation, but I cannot escape The New York Times. Thus....

One perpetual problem of the MSM was illustrated by The New York Times on Wednesday: the inability to call plainly a lie a lie. Or a liar a liar.

In an front-page article on this year's Swift Boat attack--a best-selling anti-Obama book written by Jerome Corsi--the Times defined the story as Corsi's attempt to do to Barack Obama what he did to John Kerry (with his 2004 book challenging Kerry's Vietnam War record). It did not make Corsi's demonstrably false charges the main focus of the piece. To be sure, the article did include examples of Corsi's misleading and untrue allegations. But his (presumably) purposeful mangling of the facts was not in the lead:

In the summer of 2004 the conservative gadfly Jerome R. Corsi shot to the top of the bestseller lists as co-author of "Unfit for Command," the book attacking Senator John Kerry's record on a Vietnam War Swift boat that began the larger damaging campaign against Mr. Kerry's war credentials as he sought the presidency.

Almost exactly four years after that campaign began, Mr. Corsi has released a new attack book painting Senator Barack Obama, the Democrats' presumed presidential nominee, as a stealth radical liberal who has tried to cover up "extensive connections to Islam" - Mr. Obama is Christian - and questioning whether his admitted experimentation with drugs in high school and college ever ceased.

The next paragraph noted that "significant parts" of the book have been "challenged." And the piece said, "Fact-checking [a book like this one] can require extensive labor and time from independent journalists, whose work often trails behind the media echo chamber."

Wait a minute--isn't the Times able to do such a fact-checking job? After all in 2004, the Times did publish a front-page article that thoroughly debunked the case of the anti-Kerry Swift Boaters. This piece, though, noted that Media Matters, a liberal media watchdog, has done the most aggressive fact-checking of Corsi's latest hit job. And then the Times, repeating some of Media Matters work, did report that "several of the book's accusations, in fact, are unsubstantiated, misleading or inaccurate." But it gave only two examples. (For instance, Corsi claims Obama has "yet to answer" whether he used marijuana and cocaine after college. Obama has indeed said he has not used any drugs since he was 20 years old.)

The thrust of the Times piece was the controversy over the book: Corsi makes charges about Obama; others cry foul. And calling Corsi a "gadfly" hardly captured the man who has decried Islam as a "dangerous Satanic religion," has accused John Kerry of being secretly a Jew, and who has implied that Hillary Clinton is a lesbian. (None of Corsi's more coarse observations were mentioned in the Times article. See here for more.)

The Times could have covered this story in a different fashion. Consider this alternative lead:

A new best-selling book by the co-author of the 2004 book that falsely accused John Kerry of exaggerating his Vietnam War record contains significant allegations about Barack Obama that are false, according to an extensive Times review of the charges.

The Times took the easy path. It zeroed in on the fuss over the book--and in typical he said/she said fashion allowed Corsi and Media Matters to each accuse the other of mugging the truth to serve a political agenda. But the evidence is clear: Corsi is the offender here. Certainly, the article led reasonable readers to that conclusion. But this was an instance when the newspaper of record could have served the truth more by fully concentrating on Corsi's false charges. Within this bastion of the so-called liberal media, Corsi got off easy.

Is it wrong for a journalist to be paid a modest fee by a state-supported media entity to provide on-air analysis or commentary? Is it unethical?

A recent article by Dafna Linzer and Paul Kiel that was posted by ProPublica, the new nonprofit investigative reporting outfit, suggested that it is. And the article cited me as one of several media people in possible breach of journalistic ethics.

At issue is Alhurra, the U.S. government-funded Arabic news organization and its practice of paying modest fees to reporters (and political operatives and commentators) who appear on the network. ProPublica, Kiel told me, had compiled a list of 150 or so Washington journalists, former government officials, and lobbyists who had received honorariums for being guests on the channel. And I am on the list. Also among Alhurra's paid commentators have been journalists from Politico, Roll Call, Washington Examiner, The Washington Times, The Des Moines Register, Texas Monthly, Haaretz of Israel, and the Financial Times of London.

Three times this year, Alhurra asked me to appear. The first occasion was on the night of Super Tuesday. I was in Chicago at Barack Obama's campaign rally, and Alhurra producer Julie Zann asked if I could join one of the network's correspondents on the riser in the back of the room and explain to Alhurra's Middle East audience the significance of the election results. Sure, I said. And, she added, I would get a fee, which turned out to be $300. Weeks later, Alhurra invited me to do commentary for four or five hours on the evening of the Pennsylvania primary. I sat in a small television studio by myself during this time, staring into a camera, and waiting to be told I was on air. For that work, I was paid $1000. And a few weeks ago, I appeared on an Alhurra talk show about Washington to explain the sort of journalism I practice and the recent scoops I had obtained. The payment was, I believe, $250 or so. (The pay stub has not yet been filed in my disorganized office.)

None of this was unusual. Of course, both commercial media and slightly-public-funded media (such as NPR) pay for some appearances and commentary. And, as I explained to Kiel, when he interviewed me for the ProPublica article, it is customary for foreign media outlets that are state-supported--such as the BBC and the Canadian Broadcasting Company--to compensate guests for interviews and commentary. I have received such payments in the past (regrettably, only a handful of times). Alhurra was playing by these rules.

Linzer and Kiel did not mention the BBC/CBC practice in the article.

Moreover, Voice of America, something of a sister organization for Alhurra, also compensates journalists who are guests on some of its programs. (VOA and Alhurra are both overseen by the Broadcasting Board of Governors, an independent federal agency responsible for all U.S. government-sponsored international broadcasting.) For example, VOA features a weekly showed called "Issues in the News," during which three Washington journalists gab about the top stories of the week. On the most recent edition of the program, Martin Schram, a Scripps Howard columnist moderated a conversation with Don Frederick, the political editor of The Los Angeles Times, and Tom DeFrank, the veteran Washington bureau chief for The New York Daily News.

Frederick told me he received a whopping $100 for the appearance. And Tish King, head of public affairs for VOA and the Broadcasting Board of Governors, says that was a standard fee. "If people are exerting themselves," she remarks, "we want to pay them at least something. We don't even arrange for cars for people to get here." And she defends the practice of compensating guests: VOA and Alhurra "need experts; that's what enriches the programming." (I wonder why the ProPublica piece did not make the connection between Alhurra's practice of paying guest commentators and that of VOA, even though I mentioned this to Kiel.)

ProPublica, working with 60 Minutes, and The Washington Post have each recently produced pieces that depict Alhurra as a mismanaged and wasteful organization. (See here and here.) I'm not writing to defend the network. And if it is indeed a waste of taxpayers' money, perhaps a journalist (in his or her role as a citizen) ought not to work with the operation. I had three interactions with Alhurra that told me little about the overall operation. But the matter of journalists accepting payment for providing commentary to Alhurra is not the easy gotcha the ProPublica piece implied.

The article noted that Kelly McBride, a media ethics specialist, believes that reporters damage their ability to be objective by accepting government money. (I am not a big fan of objectivity--or, that is, the he said/she said journalism practiced beneath the banner of objectivity that often muddies the truth--but I do profoundly believe in accuracy.) Linzer and Kiel cited no other media ethics specialists. But under this standard, should reporters (American or British) tell the BBC to buzz off? Would it be okay to appear on the BBC--and have one's profile boosted--and not accept money? Is it fine for an American journalist to accept money from a foreign state-supported media outfit, but not from one financed by his or her own government? And should journalists always say no to VOA?

As I mentioned to Kiel, I find this an intriguing issue. If the Voice of America (or Alhurra) is producing radio and television programs watched and heard (by whatever the number of people) in foreign countries, don't we want it to represent a full range of views? I noted that as long as I was granted complete editorial freedom to say what I thought, I saw nothing wrong in accepting a modest fee for what was in essence freelance work. ("I don't think anyone can accuse me of going soft on the U.S. government," I said to Kiel.) And I even believe there is something positive about a government-underwritten network using a journalist who has been rather critical of the current administration. Consider the message conveyed to overseas viewers--and, yes, one question is how many people actually watch Alhurra--if they see a U.S.-sponsored media organization providing a platform to the author of The Lies of George W. Bush? Would everything have been proper, from an ethics perspective, if there had been appearances but no fees? But could reporters then be accused of providing unpaid assistance to a government propaganda shop?

There usually is logic in a purist position. I suppose there's a possibility McBride might be right--though I don't see how my "objectivity" was harmed by these Alhurra appearances. (Is a journalist paid for appearing on NBC News or MSNBC tainted because the money comes from General Electric? Some citizens might suspect so, but media ethicists tend not to worry about that.) And perhaps there are some people who believe that a journalist can be bought by a government for a couple hundred bucks. But this does seem a stretch. So, no surprise, I don't view this as a black-and-white issue, and I have no misgivings about having provided paid-for commentary to Alhurra. And if Voice of America wants me to debate Bill Kristol--"George Bush: Greatest President Since Lincoln or a Reason To Adopt a Parliamentarian System?"--for broadcast across the globe, I'd be delighted to do so, with or without the $100.

Elsewhere I recently wondered whether Barack Obama is slipping. And I observed that though recent poll numbers suggest bad news for him, it's hard to suss out the connection between the campaign narrative in the national news media (Reverend Wright! "Bitter" voters!) and how voters in Indiana and North Carolina decide for whom to vote.

No doubt realizing that a viewer of cable news shows might believe that Obama has lost altitude, the Obama campaign on Friday morning sent an email to political reporters (who tend to watch cable news shows) displaying various pages in Indiana that morning. Each newspaper presented stories that come across as favorable to Obama. Here they are:

Now there are few Indianans who read each of the four newspapers. But the overall impression one would get from these reports is that Obama ain't doing too bad. It's certainly a different take on the campaign than that presented within the national political media. And far more Indianans look at these front pages than watch Hardball.

But what about those tough polling numbers for Obama in Indiana? I suppose the best that can be said is that, one way or another, they won't matter after the votes are counted on Tuesday.

AN OSCAR FOR MOTHER JONES. Well not an Oscar, but an Ellie--which is the equivalent of an Oscar in the magazine business. On Thursday night, Mother Jones, my home base, won a National Magazine Award for general excellence. That's like picking up the Best Picture prize. My congratulations to editors-in-chief Monika Bauerlein and Clara Jeffery, publisher Jay Harris, and all the staffers who put in long hours to produce the magazine. Please remember to check out our daily website.

The 4000th American GI has been killed in the Iraq war.

Such numerical milestones are damn silly. Every dead soldier counts. As does every dead Iraqi civilian--even though no one keeps accurate stats on the scores of thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of Iraqi civilians who have died because of this war. And so much of what occurs in Iraq--so many of the deaths--are barely covered by the U.S. media, which is woefully underrepresented there.

That is partly due to the cost and danger of covering the war. But writing for Columbia Journalism Review's website, Paul McLeary, a reporter who recently embedded with an Army unit in Iraq, makes a stellar point that's worth repeating at length:

Five years into the war, news organizations have understandably cut back a bit, given the immense cost of maintaining a Baghdad bureau. From life insurance for reporters to guards, armored cars (which not all bureaus have), and fortified houses outside of the Green Zone, reporting from Iraq is an incredibly expensive proposition.

But embedding with infantry units is free. Flights to Kuwait, where the Army public affairs team picks you up and puts you on a military aircraft to Iraq, and insurance still cost, but once you're embedded, your expenses end. And that's why I can't understand why every major news organization doesn't have one reporter embedded with a combat unit at all times. They won't always be able to file stories, but they can contribute a steady stream of material about the fight-and the ground-level diplomacy-being waged by young American captains, lieutenants, and sergeants. The fact that I spent four weeks in Iraq and only ran into one stringer working for an American newspaper is testament to how few reporters are out in the field. Of course, there are reporters in Iraq, and my time bouncing between combat outposts constitutes an official census; but it is significant that in every unit I was with, I was the first reporter they had seen. It was the same story back in 2006, with I embedded with the 2nd Marine Division in Fallujah.

If this were another kind of war, a conventional war in which two armies faced off along set lines, things might be different. A fight like that is easier to understand, easier to wrap your head around, than complicated counterinsurgency campaigns like the ones in Iraq and Afghanistan which involve ancient cultural and tribal equations. But understanding what the military has taken to calling the “human terrain” is what these new wars are all about, and it's this aspect of the fight that the mainstream media is doing a scattershot job in explaining to the American people.

The media (collectively) has let down the 4000 dead GIs by not doing all they can to explain fully the ever-changing context for their deaths. And the public also has not been true to those who have sacrificed all, for, as Pew studies have shown, most of the public does not follow the Iraq story closely. The media will make news out of the nice round number of American fatalities, and such stories may briefly cut through the clutter of media and everyday life. But that's not much of a way to honor the fallen.

Like everyone else in New Hampshire--reporters, campaign workers for Hillary Clinton and for Barack Obama, and ski lift operators--I thought Obama was schussing toward victory (perhaps even a double-digit--victory) in the Live Free or Die state. Howard Kurtz slaps the media silly today for calling the race so wrong. (Sometimes, Kurtz really has it easy.) But to explain--not excuse--let me note that on Election Day, all the Clinton folks in New Hampshire had the look of death on their faces. They were telling reporters that the campaign was not working. They were saying that it would have to be retooled. We were all fooled by the data that was available: the polls, the obvious passion and attendance gap between Obama's events and Clinton's. The media's big error was not misreading this information, though that was a mistake; it was overhyping the collective conventional wisdom. But that's what the media tend to do in order to win attention. Will a cable talk show host who plays it calm and cool ("we don't really know what's going to happen; the front-runner could win again; then again, another candidate might triumph") bag a bigger audience than one who bangs a drum loudly, playing up the drama and sharing sharp opinions? The same goes for bloggers and the tabloids.

In any event, I wonder how much--if at all--the media coverage of the race affected the results. Did Iowa voters decide who to vote for on the basis of what was said on Fox News or MSNBC? Did those legendary independent-minded voters of New Hampshire take their cues from the political coverage of The New York Times, Washington Post, or the New York Post? In both states, voters can obtain their information and impressions directly from the candidates. I doubt media coverage was a significant factor--though some analysts now wonder if anti-Clinton coverage motivated female voters to come to the rescue of this damsel in distress. (That is, blame Chris Matthews.)

Now for my own mea culpa. I was carried away by hope. I try not to make political predictions and mostly resisted the urge this week. But when asked, I did say a double-digit victory was possible, if not likely, for Obama. Whoops. I should have stuck to my previous, pre-Iowa skepticism. Months ago, I did the math. Women, I noted, tend to vote in greater numbers than men. If Hillary could lock up a decent-sized majority (or plurality) of the women vote, she could be unstoppable. The math was simply overwhelming--particularly in a race involving her and multiple male candidates. Obama was facing a double gender-gap: more Democratic women voting in general, and more of those women supporting Clinton. I repeated this back-of-the-envelope analysis to Obama fans. No, I was told, hope will win out.

It did in Iowa. Obama did play well there among women. But then the women came home. Why? Partly because the Clinton campaign mounted an efficient get-out-the-gals organizing campaign in New Hampshire and made sure their appeal was just right for Democratic women. And perhaps because Democratic women did not want to see Hillary Clinton, the first woman with a shot of becoming president, so easily dispatched. (I'm not going to try to factor in--or out--the near-crying episode.)

To understand Clinton's appeal to Democratic women, several male reporters I know have turned to a very particular focus group: their mothers. Several colleagues have told me that they have heard from their moms on the subject of Clinton, usually with the mother sharing a positive view of the candidate. (In other words, treat her fairly!) After the results came in on Tuesday night, my mother weighed in. She emailed me, "I sort of wanted Obama to win, but was happy that she won." But Ma was also pleased that Clinton had not won "by a landslide." See the conflict? Democratic women do have a tough choice: between that reliable warhorse (of whom they may have mixed feelings) and that inspirational new guy. In South Carolina, African-American woman will be confronted by the same--and maybe more so.

Earlier in the race, it did seem rather noteworthy that the Democratic contest could produce either the first female nominee or the first black nominee of a major party. While that remains true, the contest appears to have hit the shoals of identity politics. And, boy, there's not much more than race and gender matters that commentators and pundits like to chew on (except, of course, sex). So in the next few weeks, as gender and racial politics overtly shape and perhaps define the presidential race on the Democratic side, there ought to be plenty of opportunity for us journalists (particularly us white-guy journalists) to get something wrong again.