Today's brilliance from Dan Froomkin:

[DesEtoiles]

There are two basic ways to cover a presidency. One is to report the rhetoric, track the political ups and downs, and circulate the spin.

The other is to watch what the president is actually doing and report on the results.

...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/linkset/2005/04/11/LI2005041100879.html

[longship]

1. Recommended and kicked

Here's some more context:

There are two basic ways to cover a presidency. One is to report the rhetoric, track the political ups and downs, and circulate the spin.

The other is to watch what the president is actually doing and report on the results.

There's a lot of the former, and remarkably little of the latter kind of coverage.

Reporting on results can take a lot of work, and the aforementioned rhetoric often gets in the way of a clear analysis. For instance, how much was President Bush personally responsible for taking the country to war under false pretenses, or for the botched response to Hurricane Katrina? To hear the White House tell it, it wasn't really his fault.