Exploding More “Anonymous” Harwood Hackery

I guess I’m a little “late to the party” on this, but I think I should say something about the latest dustup involving John Harwood of the New York Times (here, and I also posted here)…

Yesterday, CNBC correspondent John Harwood set off a min-firestorm on the left after he claimed that the White House views gay and blogospheric criticism of the administration’s foot-dragging on gay rights issues as part of the “Internet left fringe.” Harwood claimed that an anonymous adviser said that “those bloggers need to take off the pajamas, get dressed and realize that governing a closely divided country is complicated and difficult.”

Asked for comment, White House senior communications adviser Dan Pfeiffer emailed:

“That sentiment does not reflect White House thinking at all, we’ve held easily a dozen calls with the progressive online community because we believe the online communities can often keep the focus on how policy will affect the American people rather than just the political back-and-forth.”

Whatever you think of the White House’s record on gay rights issues or the respect it does or doesn’t have for the blogosphere, paraphrased second-hand claims from a single anonymous adviser don’t really seem like grounds for sweeping conclusions about the White House’s alleged disdain for the online community.

I would most definitely agree with that. Also, I don’t mean to totally give the Obama White House a pass here; it’s possible that Harwood is telling the truth, but as far as I’m concerned, if you can’t go “on the record” with something like this that admittedly would offend some Obama supporters, then do you have the guts to go “on the record” with anything at all?

Or here’s a rather quaint thought; if the person won’t go on the record, then DON’T SAY ANYTHING ABOUT IT, OK??

But I suppose this isn’t surprising for Harwood, who, as noted here, started copping a plea on the dreaded “liberal bias” even though it wasn’t even put as a question, looked into his crystal ball for more portents of doom and gloom for Obama here, thought that it was “remarkable” for Obama to be on the verge of victory even though he’d led for the entire contest here, and, once he was elected, accused Obama of “a course of tax increases and ambitious social engineering” here.

And lest anyone think that Harwood has it in only for Obama, here is his reaction to the infamous dress worn by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that had the male beltway punditocracy behaving like pre-pubescent schoolboys (the only event of its kind that had a stronger affect was the “wink” from Just Plain Folks Sarah Palin at her “debate” with Biden). However, I will give Harwood credit for this on the matter of Obama’s speech to the school kids.

Oh, and for the record, I don’t own a pair of pajamas. And I can claim that I’m not part of the “Internet left fringe” either; I never get invited to the meetings.