The Wired Love Letter to Mayor Pete Buttigieg

This morning, a few corners of the Right online world are chuckling about the new, ludicrously over-the-top gushing profile of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg in Wired magazine. The interview begins with a declaration that “his cabinet job requires only a modest portion of his cognitive powers,” continues with a reference to “another apse in his cathedral mind,” and gets worse from there.

Wired is a good example of how Democrats — a category that often overlaps with, but does not completely include all progressives — have the cultural advantage of ready and cooperative access to a lot of publications that aren’t really about politics. These publications can be counted on to write gushing profiles and/or carry the message for whatever political figure or cause du jour, often in a manner that the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, MSNBC, or the cable news networks just wouldn’t. The big-name, left-leaning mainstream media have their share of glaring flaws, but you just rarely see an over-the-top reference like “apse in his cathedral mind” in the Times, and somewhere around paragraph 17, you’ll usually find the “to be sure” paragraph, as in, “to be sure, Buttigieg has faced his share of unexpected headaches and setbacks during his tenure as Transportation Secretary, with critics contending . . .” etc. Most mainstream media reporting at least acknowledges the existence of the arguments from the right, even if it is only to dispute, counter, or pooh-pooh those arguments.

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Jim Geraghty

Jim Geraghty is the senior political correspondent of National Review.

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Pete Buttigieg

This morning, a few corners of the Right online world are chuckling about the new, ludicrously over-the-top gushing profile of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg in Wired magazine. The interview begins with a declaration that “his cabinet job requires only a modest portion of his cognitive powers,” continues with a reference to “another apse in his cathedral mind,” and gets worse from there.

Wired is a good example of how Democrats — a category that often overlaps with, but does not completely include all progressives — have the cultural advantage of ready and cooperative access to a lot of publications that aren’t really about politics. These publications can be counted on to write gushing profiles and/or carry the message for whatever political figure or cause du jour, often in a manner that the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, MSNBC, or the cable news networks just wouldn’t. The big-name, left-leaning mainstream media have their share of glaring flaws, but you just rarely see an over-the-top reference like “apse in his cathedral mind” in the Times, and somewhere around paragraph 17, you’ll usually find the “to be sure” paragraph, as in, “to be sure, Buttigieg has faced his share of unexpected headaches and setbacks during his tenure as Transportation Secretary, with critics contending . . .” etc. Most mainstream media reporting at least acknowledges the existence of the arguments from the right, even if it is only to dispute, counter, or pooh-pooh those arguments.