WaPo political reporter Chris Cillizza felt some need this week to offer an unsolicited mea culpa for repeatedly reporting that former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) would not challenge each other in a White House bid in 2016.
But oh boy was he wrong.
And he wants to get to the bottom of just why he was wrong.
If nothing else, this is a great way for Cillizza to beat any critics to the punch of twanging him for making what is now an obviously humongous error in judgement that he says he repeated again and again in print and on TV.
It’s hard to imagine why Cillizza felt he had to set out on a grand expedition to publicly understand the error of his ways––although it’s not like navel gazing is anything new in self-absorbed Washington.
The headline is big, bold and perfectly self-punishing. (Does Cillizza have a ping pong paddle that he hits himself with at home?)
A Washington journalist noted to The Mirror, “I don’t understand why he wrote this. He made a reasonable prediction. It was wrong. Anybody in this business gets some predictions wrong. It’s really only a problem if you are wrong as often as Dick Morris or are obviously pulling your predictions out of your ass. A lot of people thought they wouldn’t both run at the same time. It may still turn out that Rubio can’t raise enough money with Bush in the race. I don’t understand why he is writing this apology.”
Here’s how Cillizza went about his redemption tour.
“When I screw something up, I like to try and figure out why,” he wrote. “It’s a service [I hope] to readers and, selfishly, it helps me try not to make the same mistake again. So, I reached out to virtually every Republican consultant I knew with Florida ties in search of answers to two questions: 1) Was the idea that Rubio and Bush wouldn’t run against one another ever right and 2) If it was, what changed?”
CNN’s GOP analyst Ana Navarro had the funniest answer.
“Hell if I know,” she told him.
In examining whether Bush and Rubio ever had a connection so strong that it would preclude them from challenging each other, Cillizza learned a few things.
“The truth is we don’t know the truth,” he wrote after quoting a few anonymous sources. “And, to the extent anyone does know whether Jeb and Marco ever talked about not running against one another or even believed that the other wouldn’t run if he did is now lost forever amid what we now have: A race with both men in it.”
He also explained that running for president of the United States is nothing like calling shotgun in a car ride.
Chris Cillizza, for the act of unnecessary self-flagellation, you’re having the worst week in Washington.
Congrats, or something.