"Low-level employees were asked to perform duties they described as demeaning, like washing her dishes or other cleaning — a possible violation of Senate ethics rules, according to veterans of the chamber."

I'm afraid I must do a third post on the NYT article "How Amy Klobuchar Treats Her Staff."

I just want to focus on the subject of a U.S. Senator asking low-level staff to do cleaning and the journalism of calling it "a possible violation of Senate ethics rules, according to veterans of the chamber."

Why can't we have better reporting? Who are these unnamed people who make vague statements about ethics rules? Is this good journalistic ethics? What makes someone a "veteran of the chamber"? Could you be more specific?! Did you find out how little cleaning tasks like collecting coffee cups and rinsing them out are handled by other Senators?

It strikes me as unfair to waft "a possible violation of Senate ethics rule" without telling us what the rule is or committing to exposing and casting aspersions on all the Senators who ask staff to clean things.

If low-level staff think this kind of work is demeaning, let's talk about that. If there's no specific rule against assigning them cleaning tasks and there should be, then make a rule. Don't mobilize a fake rule for the purpose of taking down a candidate that you want out of the way.

For a while, I've had a tag "NYT pushes Kamala," where I've been collecting evidence of my hypothesis, and this post gets the tag. Does Kamala Harris have staff who are asked to do things like clear away coffee cups? Please check that for me and apply the same standard of newsworthiness and sneering at her if she does, because I think you're trying to clear away Amy to help Kamala.

And by the way, that's not going to help Kamala. Quit acting like she needs help, and quit pre-destroying her competition. Kamala could fail, and Kamala fans might need Amy.

And, NYT, you'd better make sure none of this coverage is sexist. Why am I hearing about the woman who expects her staff to clean up after her? Is it because the male Senators never do such things or is it because — on some level of consciousness — you expect a woman to do the cleaning?

ADDED: Full disclosure: I said last December, "I'm just going to be for Amy Klobuchar." That was based on my desire for someone competent and normal. I see the NYT article as a deliberate attempt to make her seem abnormal — that is, to destroy what I see as the best thing about her.

AND: From Tim Nicolai on Twitter:

Some great journalists wrote the Amy Klobuchar pieces. People are attacking the pieces because they say these stories "never get written about other politicians" (particularly men). I checked to see if that was true. A thread....

Go to the link for the examples. Nicolai identifies himself as a "Democratic activist and fact-checker." At the top of his Twitter page is this "pinned" tweet from January 19th (that is, he's choosing to flaunt this tweet):

ALSO: I read one of the articles Nicolai linked to, "Congressman Pushes Staff Hard, or Out the Door." That's from 2008. Wouldn't it be funny if the Congressman who "pushes staff hard" was Anthony Weiner? It was!

It started as a routine conference call. But at some point during the call, Representative Anthony D. Weiner became furious....

Two weeks later, Mr. Graff, a Navy veteran, became the latest of a sizable number of staff members who have resigned after an abbreviated stint with Mr. Weiner, a Democrat who represents parts of Brooklyn and Queens.

“I push people pretty hard,” said Mr. Weiner, who acknowledged getting upset at Mr. Graff. “And there are, from time to time, staffers who don’t take to it or just don’t like being pushed that hard. But I really regretted him leaving. He was a marine. I’m like, ‘How bad is this?’ It’s even worse than boot camp.”