Jonathan Alter has had enough of James Carville not being a team player and boosting Sen. Barack Obama and he has a working theory that centers around a cynical, quasi-conspiratorial view of the Carville-Matalin marriage.
From an August 27 Stumper blog post at the Newsweek Web site.
John McCain is the least popular person at the Democratic convention. But if bad-mouthing by Obama forces is a way to keep score, James Carville, the ragin' Cajun, is a close second.
[...]
No one should expect Carville to be an Obama cheerleader. That wouldn't be good TV anyway. But Carville was totally misreading the mood of the convention, as the overwhelmingly pro-Obama roll call showed. And the question is why.
The Obama campaign is already furious at Carville's wife, Mary Matalin, for editing and pushing "The Obama Nation," Jerome Corsi's bestselling hatchet job. (Matalin has her own conservative publishing imprint.) Obama supporters don't want to be quoted on the subject, but they believe that Carville and Matalin are looking at the demise of their long-running, lucrative road show if Obama wins. In effect, this takes their strange cross-party act to a new level--one that is angering a lot of convention-goers. It's one thing for Mary to work for President George H.W. Bush and Dick Cheney; it's another for his wife to participate in the Swift-Boating of the Democratic nominee (Corsi co-wrote the book, "Unfit for Command," that sunk John Kerry with a fusilade of falsehoods in 2004).
I've always liked James, but the contradictions of his life have finally caught up with him.
Yes, you read correctly. Alter offers to readers, without criticism, the notion that Matalin and Carville are an act, a political marketing gimmick bent on nothing but self promotion and money-making, and that Carville has sold his political soul for the sake of that gimmick.
What's more, Alter entertains a decidedly unfeminist sensibility by suggesting that Carville should have forbade his wife from her campaign work in 2004.
Oh the things that devotion to Obama will do among the media.
—Ken Shepherd is Managing Editor of NewsBusters
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Alter is somebody you want
August 27, 2008 - 22:34 ET by bigtimerAlter is somebody you want to just go away...no matter how it is done...you just get rid of him.
He's a filthy dirty piece of work.
"America isn't the problem...America is the solution." ~ Rush Limbaugh
I'd be careful if I were the Democrats...
August 27, 2008 - 22:40 ET by Saint ZeroCarville's got more bite than all of them. I'd put money on him over most of those stuffed shirts anyday. He's fierce.
Carville gets dissed
August 27, 2008 - 22:52 ET by easygoerWhile flipping through channels last night(Tuesday) I caught this on CNN:
CARVILLE: The ungraciousness of this entire thing from the
Republicans is truly remarkable. Here we are, we're looking at a
moment, an emotion, or anything and then you go through and you nitpick
something and say gee, they didn't say this or they didn't do that.
A few moments later came the classic retort:
ALEX CASTELLANOS, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: It's not exactly a high bar
for Hillary tonight. But I got something I never thought I'd never hear
tonight and that's James Carville giving us a lesson on social graces.
The fact is that
August 27, 2008 - 22:53 ET by Captain RepusThe fact is that Alter-the-dome is right about this. The Carvilles are among the hoard of political 'expert strategists and journalists' who earn their living a couple of hundred bucks at a time showing up on cheap cable talk shows to repeat their talking points.
Unfortunately for Alter, he and all of his cable talk show whores, expecially from NewsWeek are exactly the same thing. They get paid as amateur journalists by their regular employer and earn taco money for their kids from these bomb-throwing cheap shows. Of course in Alter's case he might be saving up his money so he can replace the skunkhair rug he use to wear until his head outgrew it.
Once again, why the blurb
August 27, 2008 - 23:21 ET by jdhawkOnce again, why the blurb on Carville? Does any conservative really care what the dimocrats think of another dimocrat that just doesn't happen to like the current left wing socialist bent on growing government and taxing us into oblivion.
This is just a wast of time . . .
What did Alter expect?
August 28, 2008 - 07:25 ET by FishFace222What did Alter expect? Carville has always been a Clintonite and always will be. The Clintoons are about themselves only so it's not surprising that 'Ville is not in Obama's camp.