Ezra's 7: Introduction

Ezra Klein wrote a great post today responding to Politico's silly story about narratives Obama fears...well, he was responding to the White House response, but he was mostly bashing Politico's focus on ephemera and gossip at the expense of substance. It's an excellent post, and not just because it's nice to political science. In fact, I wrote him a note praising the post. Then John Sides wrote a brief post at the Monkey Cage flagging it, and I wrote a comment there commending John for bringing Ezra's work to the attention of political scientists.

...and then, alas, I started thinking. Ezra gives a list of seven stories that Politico fears. He's a great blogger, and he's able to keep things concise...but it started gnawing at me that while each of his seven items is a major improvement over the way that most political stories are told, there's a bit more to most of them. So, here goes: seven response posts to his list of seven items. Heavy on the first three, because those are in areas I'm much more familiar with (if any media scholars are reading, feel free to email suggestions to me), but I think I have something to say about each of them. Ready? Let's go.