Ryan Lizza's latest New Yorker story on Barack Obama's campaign contains this amusing back-and-forth between a top contender for the presidency of the United States and ... the New York Times's chief political correspondent:
I asked Obama whether he thought that journalists 'respect' Clinton for being so good at politics. 'Absolutely. I don't think that - ' he began, at which point Robert Gibbs, his communications director, interrupted to say that the correct word was 'revere.' Obama smiled and added, 'I think a classic example was when Adam Nagourney writes on the front page of the New York Times an admiring piece about how Hillary has finessed the fact that she voted for the war and gotten people to forget about it.' The article, which was co-written by Patrick Healy and published early last August with the headline 'SLOWLY, CLINTON SHIFTS ON WAR, QUIETING FOES,' was hardly admiring. When I asked Nagourney about Obama's contention, he replied in an e-mail, 'This was a very straightforward and simple story: reporting the fact that Mrs. Clinton had repositioned herself on the war in a significant way, and had done so apparently unnoticed by the press and - dare I say? - her opponents.'
"Admiring"? Here is a link to the original Nagourney-Healey Times piece. I think Nagourney wins this round.