The love affair between John McCain and the suck-up press corps is hitting a rough patch. During a recent interview with TIME Magazine, Mr. POW nastily refused to define "honor," or to ask whether there's anything about his campaign he regrets...
... when TIME's James Carney and Michael Scherer were invited to the front of McCain's plane recently for an interview, they were ushered forward, past the curtain that now separates reporters from the candidate, past the sofa that was designed for his gabfests with the press and taken straight to the candidate's seat. McCain at first seemed happy enough to do the interview. But his mood quickly soured. The McCain on display in the 24-minute interview was prickly, at times abrasive, and determined not to stray off message. An excerpt:
What do you want voters to know coming out of the Republican Convention — about you, about your candidacy? I'm prepared to be President of the United States, and I'll put my country first.
There's a theme that recurs in your books and your speeches, both about putting country first but also about honor. I wonder if you could define honor for us? Read it in my books.
I've read your books. No, I'm not going to define it.
But honor in politics? I defined it in five books. Read my books.
During another exchange, McCain uses the Keating Five scandal to once again, play the POW card:
Jumping around a bit: in your books, you've talked about what it was like to go through the Keating Five experience, and you've been quoted as saying it was one of the worst experiences of your life. Someone else quoted you as saying it was even worse than being a POW ... That's another one of those statements made 17 or 18 years ago which was out of the context of the conversation I was having. Of course the worst, the toughest experience of my life was being imprisoned, so people can pluck phrases from 17 or 18 years ago ...
I wasn't suggesting it as a negative thing. I was just saying that ... I'm just suggesting it was taken out of context. I understand how comments are taken out of context from time to time. But obviously, the toughest time of my life, physically and [in] every other way, would be the time that I almost died in prison camp. And I think most Americans understand that.
The reporters seem genuinely shocked at the clipped, surly attitude McCain is copping with them. I guess falling out of love is no fun at all...
I just got it on good authority that starting Monday morning at 5 a.m., Don Imus will be the morning show on 940 WINZ... Nicole Sandler, who has been "holding down the fort" since P.D. Ken Charles ousted Jim Defede (Sandler was Defede's producer), was the promotions director at one point, maybe she goes back to that...
Personally, I didn't enjoy Nicole's show and found myself choosing sports talk instead (or silence ... or a CD...) But I hate to see anyone lose a gig.
Meanwhile, word on the street is that at least three names you definitely would know are no longer going to be on the air at NBC 6, which was sold to the Washington Post Company...
Tough times are afoot in the media biz, folks! Consolidation and syndication are the name of the game, and that's death for local radio and TV.
Joe Klein takes all the nice stuff back... And check the comments below his blog. The key question most seem to be asking is: if John McCain is this malevolent, this erratic, and this malleable during the election, what the hell kind of president would he be?
The Prince of Darkness strikes again (and drives away)
Crack CIA agent outer and crotchety old political columnist Robert Novak has had an interesting week so far. First, he reports that John McCain will try to upend Barack Obama's international media extravaganza by announcing his running mate, then he complains that the McCain campaign used him to try and trick the media into talking about their guy (kind of like the way Karl Rove used him to out Valerie Plame, hm? but without the treason?) and now, a quick thinking bicyclist and Politico.com catch him in a full-on hit and run:
The bicyclist was David Bono, a partner at Harkins Cunningham, who was on his usual bike commute to work at 1700 K St. N.W. when he witnessed the accident. As he traveled east on K Street, crossing 18th, Bono said a "black Corvette convertible with top closed plowed into the guy. The guy is sort of splayed onto the windshield.”
Bono said that the pedestrian, who was crossing the street on a "Walk" signal and was in the crosswalk, rolled off the windshield and that Novak then made a right into the service lane of K Street. “The car is speeding away. What’s going through my mind is, you just can’t hit a pedestrian and drive away,” Bono said.
He said he chased Novak half a block down K Street., finally caught up with him and then put his bike in front of the car to block it and called 911. Traffic immediately backed up, horns blared and commuters finally went into reverse to allow Novak to pull over.Bono said that throughout, Novak "keeps trying to get away. He keeps trying to go.”
He said he vaguely recognized the longtime political reporter and columnist as a Washington celebrity but could not precisely place him. Finally, Bono said, Novak put his head out the window of his car and motioned him over. Bono said he told him that you can't hit a pedestrian and just drive away. He quoted Novak as responding: “I didn’t see him there.”
Sure you didn't, not even after he was PASTED TO YOUR WINDSHIELD... Novak's 66-year-old victim was treated at a local hospital, and Novak got a ticket for failing to yield the right of way. Apparently, he's quite the speed demon, and was both "shaken" and "relieved' as he told the Politico reporter, "he's not dead. That's the main thing."
The jocks of the glossy magazine world have spoofed the nerds. Conde Nast's Vanity Fair has posted a mock cover showing Sen. John McCain dapping his wife Cindy, who cradles a armful of prescription drug bottles. A portrait of George W. Bush hands in the background of their fictional "house." McCain is shown resting on a walker.
BTW, Ambinder also points out that the VF jocks apparently ripped off the New York Daily News. Compare for yourself:
CBS helpfully edits McCain interview, ABC affiliate puts Dubya on the hot mic
Who says the mainstream media doesn't love John McCain? CBS has even pulled a Soviet-style edit to help him out of a major foreign policy gaffe, just the way the print press helpfully edits George W. Bush's syntax, as Countdown reported tonight and the Jed Report clarifies:
Meanwhile, the media isn't showing Dubya the love these days, with an ABC affiliate in his home state letting him all hang out at a Houston fundraiser after he asked for the cameras to be turned off ...
In its continuing attempt to appear to be an actual news channel, Fox "News" Channel has "removed" anchorperson E.D. Hill from its evening lineup, after her investigative reporting uncovered the terrorist leanings, and "fist jabs" of presidential candidate Barack Obama. (She later apologized.)
America's Pulse anchored by E.D. Hill goes away, but Hill stays with the network in a capacity to be determined. Hill has been with FNC since 1998. She co-anchored Fox & Friends for several years before moving to the 11amET hour, then launching America's Pulse.
Her slot now goes to the superbly intellectual (ahem) and not at all right wing reactionary Laura Ingram.
Surprise, surprise, it was our friendly neighborhood taper, Mayhill Fowler who caught Bill Clinton on tape calling a Vanity Fair reporter a "scumbag." Note to pols: when you see Mayhill coming, go directly to your talking points. She's wired.
Babwa Wawters reveals she nearly created a little Barack Obama of her own, back in the day:
NEW YORK (AP) — After three decades of keeping mum, Barbara Walters now says she had a past affair with married U.S. Senator Edward Brooke, whom she remembers as "exciting" and "brilliant."
Appearing on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" scheduled to air Tuesday, Walters shares details of her relationship with Brooke that lasted several years in the 1970s, according to a transcript of the show provided to The Associated Press.
A moderate Republican from Massachusetts who took office in 1967, Brooke was the first African-American to be popularly elected to the Senate. Both he and Walters knew that public knowledge of their affair could have ruined his career as well as hers, Walters says.
At the time, the twice-divorced Walters was a rising star in TV news and co-host of NBC's "Today" show, but would soon jump to ABC News, where she has enjoyed unrivaled success. Her affair with Brooke, which never before came to light, had ended before he lost his bid for a third term in 1978.
Brooke later divorced, and has since remarried. Calls to a listing for Brooke in Miami by The Associated Press were not immediately returned Thursday.
Walters is the guest of Oprah Winfrey to discuss her new memoir, "Audition," which covers her long career in television, as well as her off-camera life. On "Oprah," Walters recounts a phone call from a friend who urged her to stop seeing Brooke.
"He said, 'This is going to come out. This is going to ruin your career,'" then reminded her that Brooke was up for re-election a year later. "'This is going to ruin him. You've got to break this off.'"
Winfrey asks Walters if she was in love.
"I was certainly — I don't know — I was certainly infatuated."
"Infatuated."
"I was certainly involved," Walters says. "He was exciting. He was brilliant. It was exciting times in Washington." ...
The drama continues at my former employer. I just got it from a very good source that Lee Michaels, the former regional PD (and my one-time nemesis) has been fired (there goes your meal ticket, D...) It's not in the trades yet, but I'm not surprised. His corporate counterpart Zemira Jones, took a walk a couple of months ago.
Apparently, the company finally managed to sell its L.A. station, (then called KKBT - 100.3 The Beat, now called V100, and the station that used to employ Steve Harvey, before the Radio One folks kicked him to the curb, allegedly over remarks he made about Cathy Hughes as she sat in the audience for the BET Comedy Awards, which he was hosting. The station, which with Harvey had the number one show in the market, promptly went in the tank after that, and in 2005, Harvey jumped to Clear Channel. The rest, as they say, is history...(Cliffs Notes version: he's really, really successful...) for $137.5 million (they bought it for an eye-popping $400 million in 1999, so I'm not sure if the selling price is the good news or the bad news.) Interestingly enough, they sold the station to a religious outfit -- in this case a Mormon broadcasting company -- much like they did with our station, WTPS here in Miami...) Not everybody was feeling the move:
... one of its own the outspoken and candid Baisden took difference to yet another Black station being sold to a White owned establishment during his show on Tuesday, but before his listeners could hear his comments he was silenced by music.
No comment. I wouldn't want to be silenced by music or anything...
And yet, even as the company continues to shed stations, they've now decided to launch yet another cable TV network, on top of the ... well ... on top of TV One.
Stock quote at the open: a cool buck. Can I sell now, or should I just hold onto my handful of shares out of nostalgia?
First, they posted the ill-gotten recording of Barack Obama's closed to the press fundraiser in San Francisco, taped by an opinionated non-reporter. Now, they've got secret video on Hillary, also at a closed-door event. The Huffington Post is fast becoming the "Inside Edition" of the web.
So now, Hillary will get a taste of what it's like to be zapped by secret audio. Her offense: spouting off at Moveon.org:
At a small closed-door fundraiser after Super Tuesday, Sen. Hillary Clinton blamed what she called the "activist base" of the Democratic Party -- and MoveOn.org in particular -- for many of her electoral defeats, saying activists had "flooded" state caucuses and "intimidated" her supporters, according to an audio recording of the event obtained by The Huffington Post.
"Moveon.org endorsed [Sen. Barack Obama] -- which is like a gusher of money that never seems to slow down," Clinton said to a meeting of donors. "We have been less successful in caucuses because it brings out the activist base of the Democratic Party. MoveOn didn't even want us to go into Afghanistan. I mean, that's what we're dealing with. And you know they turn out in great numbers. And they are very driven by their view of our positions, and it's primarily national security and foreign policy that drives them. I don't agree with them. They know I don't agree with them. So they flood into these caucuses and dominate them and really intimidate people who actually show up to support me."
The audio is on the site.
For the record, I think it's just as smarmy for someone to have secretly taped Hillary as it was for Mayhill Fowler to pull the same sleaze on Barack Obama. And I think the only way that Hillary will be truly hurt by this is if there somehow are lefties in PA who haven't yet made up their minds, and I doubt that. Most of the undecideds aren't MoveOn's constituency. The main problem for Hillary is beyond PA, where MoveOn's millions will surely mount a massive campaign to take her down in subsequent states.
Arianna Huffington is having a grand old time criticizing Hillary Clinton for trying to score cheap political points on the "bittergate" non-story (which the press is continuing to flog, five days on.) Writes Arianna today:
Here's Sen. Evan Bayh, commenting on the political firestorm surrounding Barack Obama's remarks -- broken here on HuffPost's OffTheBus -- about economically-depressed small town voters: "The far right wing has a very good track record of using things like this relentlessly against our candidates, whether it's Al Gore or John Kerry. I'm afraid this is the kind of fodder they might use to harm him."
They? They? It's not the far right wing relentlessly using these comments for political gain, Senator. It's your candidate, Hillary Clinton, adopting the frames, lies, stereotypes and destructive clichés long embraced by the likes of Lee Atwater and Karl Rove. She has clearly decided that the road to victory runs through scorched earth.
The question is, if she succeeds, what kind of Party will she be left to lead? She's burning down the village to save it -- or to prove that she would make the best fire chief. But the village won't be saved; only one house will be left standing. A house with room for just two occupants. Hill and Bill.
The trouble is, scoring cheap political points is, for better or for worse, Hillary's political strategy at the moment. She is losing the campaign, and is throwing the "kitchen sink" at her opponent in an attempt to wrestle away the nomination.
The Huffington Post, on the other hand, is a multi-contributor blog purporting to also be a journalistic outfit. As such, it is perfectly legitimate to ask, as Howard Kurtz did briefly in his WaPo column yesterday, whether it is ethical for the Huffington Post to send a supposed "Obama supporter" (Mayhill Fowler) into an Obama fundraiser, for which she purportedly made a donation in order to enter, and whether having her secretly tape the procedings and post a rambling cavalcade of personal opinion bears the slightest resemblance to actual journalism.
Fowler as blogger infiltrator, OK I get that. But Fowler as crack journalist? Hm. Today, Jay Rosen, Arianna's partner in crime on the blog that originally published Fowler's story (OfftheBus,) is complaining that the HuffPo and Fowler were not credited by Tim Russert and other MSM types for her story.
... Would Russert pick up on the novelty of the situation? An Obama supporter and donor, who also wrote regular dispatches for Huffington Post's pro-am campaign news site, OffTheBus, recorded Obama's words at an April 6th San Francisco fundraiser, and then wrote about what concerned her in them. From there it exploded. Pretty good story! (As the Guardian recognized today.) Plus, it would allow Russert to sound a savvy warning: "Heads up, candidates, your supporters include bloggers and they exercise their First Amendment rights. Barack Obama found that out this week...."
Tim and his staff decided on erasure. You'd have to ask them why. Mayhill Fowler's Obama quotes were shown on screen, but Meet the Press made no mention of her, or OffTheBus, or the Huffington Post.
Huh??? So the problem isn't that Ms. Fowler, a woman squarely in Hillary Clinton's age and gender demographic, faked her way into an Obama event and then conducted what amounts to a bugging of the candidate ... and the problem isn't that her "report" contained only her personal opinins, with nary a quote from another soul who attended the event, hence, it doesn't contain any actual journalism ... the problem isn't that the Huffington Post is now orchestrating campaign "gotchas" rather than covering them ... the problem is that Fowler didn't get her 15 minutes of fame? Interesting ethics over at the Huffpo.
Not surprised to hear that Tavis Smiley has quit the Tom Joyner Morning Show over the firestorm surrounding his repeated criticisms of Barack Obama. Joyner is an Obama supporter, and he has recently become much warmer with people like Al Sharpton, who very shrewdly dropped his early attacks on Barack and became tactically neutral, and Michael Baisden, who's unabashedly pro-Obama. Here's the story:
One of Sen. Barack Obama's toughest African American critics is quitting his long association with a national radio show after facing a backlash from the program's listeners.
Tavis Smiley said yesterday he will resign in June as a twice-weekly commentator on the syndicated "Tom Joyner Morning Show" after more than 11 years with the program. He cited fatigue and a busy schedule in a personal call to Joyner on Thursday night, but Joyner indicated otherwise on his program and in his blog yesterday, writing: "The real reason is that he can't take the hate he's been getting regarding the Barack issue -- hate from the black people that he loves so much."
Smiley has taken on Obama in a series of commentaries that began as the Democrat from Illinois emerged as the party's front-runner for the presidential nomination in early January. Days after Obama's win in the Iowa caucus, Smiley warned on Joyner's show: "Don't fall so madly in love [with Obama] that you surrender your power to hold people accountable. . . . I'm not saying overlook Senator Obama, but you now better be ready to look him over."
That commentary brought a hail of critical phone calls and e-mails down on Smiley, who replied two days later on the Joyner show that he stood by his criticism. "It's all about accountability," he said at the time.
Since then, amid mounting counter-criticism, Smiley has stepped up his critiques, contending that Obama wasn't sufficiently attentive to issues involving African Americans.
He was also critical of Obama's decision not to attend an annual forum, the State of the Black Union, that Smiley hosted in February in New Orleans. Obama's rival, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, accepted Smiley's invitation to the event. When the Obama campaign offered Michelle Obama, the senator's wife, as a substitute speaker, Smiley said publicly the offer was unacceptable.
He also rebuked Obama this month for not traveling to Memphis for the 40th anniversary ceremonies marking the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., and for Obama's decision to distance himself from controversial remarks made by the Obama family's pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. ...
Roland Martin, another up and comer in the Black commentary world, has also implied that Tavis is used to getting accolades, and can't take the barbs, but it's easy to say that when you're not on the receiving end. I have sharply disagreed with and been disappointed by what has come across to me as "hateration" on Obama by Smiley (I've even reported on it.) In many ways, Tavis seems to resent the fact that Obama's "post-racial" candidacy (or his formerly post-racial candidacy) makes people like him, for whom racial politics is the stock and trade, appear less relevant.
However, I'm reluctant to jump on the "get Smiley" bandwagon, perhaps because I was doing a talk radio show in the early days of the Obama campaign, and remember defending Barack on the air against far greater and more voluminous bashing from my callers, co-host and bosses, than I heard support. I also recall that the majority of Black Americans were ardent Hillary supporters, and actually rejected Barack's candidacy until he managed to win the lily white state of Iowa. Only then did the mass of Black folk relent, and back down on the cat calls of "he's not Black enough." The only difference is, Tavis kept talking when the others jumped on the bandwagon.
Tavis, like Andrew Young and Rep. John Lewis, and God knows, BET's Bob Johnson, strikes me as a man on the wrong side of history, fighting against the furtherance of what had appeared to be their own dreams, by so doggedly resisting Barack's candidacy (Lewis excepted -- he seems to be genuinely struggling, because of the aforementioned group, he seems to be the only one who knows he's on the wrong side of history...) But Smiley's commentaries have been a highlight of the Tom Joyner show, which otherwise, I must admit I don't listen to. So in that sense, I'm sorry to see him go.
The Sunday talk shows focused, not surprisingly, on Barack Obama's "rough week," and the two things that made it less rough: his phenomenal speech on race, and the endorsement he received from Bill Richardson.
On the race issue, an interesting discussion took place on CNN's "Reliable Sources," where finally, someone addressed the issue of the media's sound bite mentality, and general ignorance on the issues of race and Black churches. The latter point was made by CBS reporter Byron Pitts, who is black, and whom Kurtz introduced at the top of the show, remarkably as having just come from church... don't believe me, believe the transcript:
KURTZ: Joining us now to talk about race, the media and the campaign, in New York, Byron Pitt, national correspondent for CBS News. In Tampa, Eric Deggans, media critic for "The St. Petersburg Times." And in Seattle, Michael Medved, host of "The Michael Medved Show" on the Salem Radio Network.
Byron Pitts, as a black journalist who just came from church this Easter morning, do you look at this furor over Jeremiah Wright's remarks differently than white journalists? Are you less offended, perhaps?
And he speaks so well, too! (eyes rolling...)
BYRON PITTS, CBS NEWS: Oh, I think so. I mean, I've been black for 47 years, I was baptized in the Baptist Church when I was 12 years old. And so Reverend Wright said why -- much of why it was offensive, those are comments I've heard in church before, and I'm mindful of the context, that I think many of my colleagues who are white, they don't have that context.
Like, I was just looking at the clip you showed. All those commentators, all those reporters, were white. They have a different life experience. They have a different context. And I think this story speaks to the lack of diversity in major news organizations, that you have people speaking from a position of ignorance, because they don't understand the black church, that can't bring the context that we as journalists are supposed to bring to a news event.
KURTZ: A good point about diversity, but in one of your reports this week, you said that critics have called Reverend Wright's sermons anti-American. That critics have called them. I mean, this is a guy who said...
PITTS: Sure.
KURTZ: ... "The government lied about inventing the HIV virus as a means of genociding (ph) his people of color," who said, "God damn America," who said, "U.S. of KKKA."
Why push it off on critics?
PITTS: Well, I think there's some people -- I mean, I think there's some people who have the position that they disagree with much of what Reverend Wright said, but for some people, there is some basis of truth. I mean, I'm mindful of, you know, during Hurricane Katrina, there were people initially in that community who thought maybe the government had blown up the levee there, because, in fact, in New Orleans history, that in fact had happened.
For many people in black America, they remember how there's a time when our government injected black men with syphilis, I believe, that those kinds of thing occur. So, one of the things I thought that Barack -- a point that he made in his speech is how you have in the church, in the black church, there's this wealth of love, compassion, and truth, and some ignorance. And it's a world that if you're a pastor, that you have to navigate that world.
After that, the St. Pete Times' media critic, Eric Deggans (whom we used to book frequently on the morning show,) helpfully pointed out that the media coverage of Jeremiah Wright's now infamous speech clips, excluded the context in which the remarks were made -- context which could easily have been provided by playing longer sections of the 20-minute sermons, or by posting the transcripts. Deggans provides the former on his blog, and as it turns out, during the most "shocking" statement -- "God damn America," Wright was actually quoting someone else. Whoops...!
ERIC DEGGANS, "ST. PETERSBURG TIMES": Well, I think the biggest problem that we have here is that people haven't actually looked at what Reverend Wright said. On my blog, the feed for "The St. Petersburg Times," I've actually put up longer clips of the two controversial speeches, the 9/11 speech, and the speech in which he said, you know, an expletive, "America."
And when you see the actual sermons, you see that he's trying to make some very explosive points about America, but he's leading up to them in a way where those statements make a little more sense. And in fact, the "chickens coming home to roost" comments he made about 9/11, he was quoting someone else. And the ABC News report that initially revealed this made it seem as if those were his words.
And you know, as much as I like Byron, you know, the reference to black men being injected with syphilis, what actually happened is that they had syphilis and they weren't treated for it by a government program. And I think one of the problems we have in this debate is that journalists are not getting to the heart of what's actually going on here, taking a step back and really explaining these issues to the American people.
KURTZ: All right.
DEGGANS: What we're doing is taking the emotional part of it and constantly putting it before people in order to gin up a conversation that may be based on false assumptions.
One of the other guests, reporter Byron Pitts, even caught useless talker Michael Medved trotting out the old "Barack is so articulate" meme, making the point that what white people fear about Rev. Jeremiah Wright is his tone of voice -- while Barack rather soothes them because he plays against type -- you know, black Americans, though born and raised here, only speak proper English as some sort of parlor trick...
Back to Eric's blog. A portion of it bears reprinting:
Because Rev. Wright deserved a better defender than I -- or, frankly Barack Obama -- have been during this nonsense. A look at these clips, which present much larger excerpts of Wright's speeches, shows that his seemingly damning statements came during passionate speeches about America's history of racial oppression and America's history of killing innocents while exacting military revenge against enemies.
One of Rev. Wright's most controversial comments -- the statements about "chickens coming home to roost" after 9/11 -- was his quote of a white ambassador speaking on Fox News Channel. Why didn't the TV news reporters tell us this?
...including the so-called "investigative reporters" among them, who claim to have easily obtained tapes of the sermons, but who couldn't be bothered to watch the entire tapes? Did they just scan forward to the offending remarks? Or did they just go by the Youtube? Either way, you'd think a "responsible" news outfit or two would see fit to make the whole sermons available, or at least the transcripts, on their websites, no? Or to seek that context themselves, rather than simply absorbing the Wright story for its horse race value? Oh wait, we're talking about the American media... Here's one of the clips (Eric posts two of them). The theme, interestingly enough, given even Barack's formulation that Wright is mired in the past, is "governments change, but God does not":
More on that white ambassador from Sam Stein at the Huffpo:
Meet the man who inspired Reverend Jeremiah Wright's now famous tirade about America's foreign policy inciting the terrorist attacks of September 11.
His name is Ambassador Edward Peck. And he is a retired, white, career U.S. diplomat who served 32-years in the U.S. Foreign Service and was chief of the U.S. mission to Iraq under Jimmy Carter -- hardly the black-rage image with which Wright has been stigmatized.
In fact, when Wright took the pulpit to give his post-9/11 address -- which has since become boiled down to a five second sound bite about "America's chickens coming home to roost" -- he prefaced his remarks as a "faith footnote," an indication that he was deviating from his sermon.
"I heard Ambassador Peck on an interview yesterday," Wright declared. "He was on Fox News. This is a white man and he was upsetting the Fox News commentators to no end. He pointed out, a white man, an ambassador, that what Malcolm X said when he got silenced by Elijah Muhammad was in fact true: America's chickens are coming home to roost."
Wright then went on to list more than a few U.S. foreign policy endeavors that, by the tone of his voice and manner of his expression, he viewed as more or less deplorable. This included, as has been demonstrated in the endless loop of clips from his sermon, bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki and nuking "far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon and we never batted an eye."
And then he concluded by putting the comments on Peck's shoulders: "A white ambassador said that yall, not a black militant, not a reverend who preaches about racism, an ambassador whose eyes are wide open and is trying to get us to wake up and move away from this dangerous precipice... the ambassador said that the people we have wounded don't have the military capability we have, but they do have individuals who are willing to die and take thousands with them... let me stop my faith footnote right there."
And yet, this contextualization of the Wright quotes will itself remain a footnote of this story, because the media, having issued a soundbite meme, rarely takes it back. So where does Rev. Wright go to get his reputation back?
schadenfreude \SHOD-n-froy-duh\, noun: A malicious satisfaction obtained from the misfortunes of others.
You've got to believe that many Republicans on the Hill, and in conservativeland, are secretly enjoying watching "Mr. Campaign Finance Reform" John McCain take incoming on the issue of ethics and cozy lobbyist ties.
You've also got to believe that Mitt Romney is burning this morning, as a truism put forth by Pat Buchanan on MSNBC last night and increasingly borne out by the circumstantial evidence, solidifies: the New York Times may have decided the Republican nomination for president by holding the McCain-Isenberg story until now, rather than running it before the New Hampshire primary.
And you've also got to believe that in a way, this is the best thing that could have happened to John McCain. It will get the right wing of the party, which really hates him, to forget their guile and go after the "liberal" media on his behalf, putting their bloggers, talk radio flaks and Fox News at his service.
That said, McCain will not escape the questions of his personal relationship with Isenberg, like it or not. Stories about sex don't fade away easily, even if the mainstream media won't touch them. Evangelical Christians just got one more reason to hang in there for Huckabee. Even worse for McCain, his press conference this morning (with his rich wife, and her prenuptial agreement, by his side...) makes it clear that he will have an even harder time escaping questions about whether he did favors for his lobbyist friend, and whether there might have been other friends, and other favors. At the least, it paints McCain right into the corner Barack Obama wants him to be in: an old politician practicing old-time politics, complete with cozy ties with lobbyists, romantic or not.
Questions are also being legitimately raised about the Times, and whether they were pushed to release a story they were sitting on because a competitor was about to run with a story of their own, alleging that the Grey Lady was sitting on the scoop. TNR responds here. And as the MSNBC crew are saying this morning, the Times had to know that their story would lead to headlines like this:
Back to the story. The Washington Post advances the NYTimes' story:
McCain's Ties To Lobbyist Worried Aides Before 2000 Campaign, Advisers Tried to Bar Her
By Jeffrey H. Birnbaum and Michael D Shear Washington Post Staff Writers Thursday, February 21, 2008; Page A01
Aides to Sen. John McCain confronted a telecommunications lobbyist in late 1999 and asked her to distance herself from the senator during the presidential campaign he was about to launch, according to one of McCain's longest-serving political strategists.
John Weaver, who was McCain's closest confidant until leaving his current campaign last year, said he met with Vicki Iseman at the Center Cafe at Union Station and urged her to stay away from McCain. Association with a lobbyist would undermine his image as an opponent of special interests, aides had concluded.
Members of the senator's small circle of advisers also confronted McCain directly, according to sources, warning him that his continued ties to a lobbyist who had business before the powerful commerce committee he chaired threatened to derail his presidential ambitions. ...
Stop right there for a second. In his presser this morning, McCain twice denied not only that he had an untoward relationship with Iseman, but also that he was ever confronted by aides, and he referred to "more than 150" staffers reporting to him on Capitol Hill, and "anonymous" sources claiming they spoke with him. Someone is lying. If it's McCain, and it is somehow proved that he WAS confronted by aides about Ms. Isenberg, than he's got a problem. Onward, to the part of the WaPo story that to my reading, contains data that's even more harmful than the entire Times article:
... Three telecom lobbyists and a former McCain aide, all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that Iseman spoke up regularly at meetings of telecom lobbyists in Washington, extolling her connections to McCain and his office. She would regularly volunteer at those meetings to be the point person for the telecom industry in dealing with McCain's office.
Concern about Iseman's presence around McCain at one point led to her being banned from his Senate office, according to sources close to McCain. Senior McCain aide Mark Salter, in an e-mail, denied that Iseman was ever barred from the office or was even a frequent presence there.
Iseman's bio on her lobbying firm's Web site notes, "She has extensive experience in telecommunications, representing corporations before the House and Senate Commerce Committees."
Her partners at Alcalde & Fay include L.A. "Skip" Bafalis, a former five-term Republican congressman from Florida, and Michael A. Brown, the son of former commerce secretary Ronald H. Brown and a former Democratic candidate for mayor of the District.
Its client list is heavy with municipalities and local government entities, which suggests that its major emphasis is on the controversial business of winning narrowly targeted, or "earmarked," appropriations. [There go those nasty earmarks...]
In the years that McCain chaired the commerce committee, Iseman lobbied for Lowell W. "Bud" Paxson, the head of what used to be Paxson Communications, now Ion Media Networks, and was involved in a successful lobbying campaign to persuade McCain and other members of Congress to send letters to the Federal Communications Commission on behalf of Paxson.
In late 1999, McCain wrote two letters to the FCC urging a vote on the sale to Paxson of a Pittsburgh television station. The sale had been highly contentious in Pittsburgh and involved a multipronged lobbying effort among the parties to the deal.
At the time he sent the first letter, McCain had flown on Paxson's corporate jet four times to appear at campaign events and had received $20,000 in campaign donations from Paxson and its law firm. The second letter came on Dec. 10, a day after the company's jet ferried him to a Florida fundraiser that was held aboard a yacht in West Palm Beach.
McCain has argued that the letters merely urged a decision and did not call for action on Paxson's behalf. But when the letters became public, William E. Kennard, chairman of the FCC at the time, denounced them as "highly unusual" coming from McCain, whose committee chairmanship gave him oversight of the agency.
McCain's campaign denied that Iseman or anyone else from her firm or from Paxson "discussed with Senator McCain" the FCC's consideration of the station deal. "Neither Ms. Iseman, nor any representative of Paxson and Alcalde and Fay, personally asked Senator McCain to send a letter to the FCC regarding this proceeding," the campaign said.
Iseman and her firm, which includes high-profile Republicans and Democrats, have also represented a number of other companies that have had issues before McCain and the commerce committee, including Univision, a Spanish-language television network. Iseman clients have given nearly $85,000 to McCain campaigns since 2000, according to records at the Federal Election Commission.
Bill O'Reilly doesn't want to lead a "lynching party" against Michelle Obama ... unless...
Meanwhile, the Factor man's producer defends O'Reilly's commentary, and gets a sympathetic hearing from this guy at Conde Nast. Question: if David Shuster had to apologize and take a two-week suspension for using the words "pimped out" to describe a Senator's daughter, why, pray tell, is it a.o.k. for O'Reilly to go up the offensiveness Richter scale about 400 times with this remark about a Senator's wife? And while I was not a member of the "fire Imus" club, the overwrought reaction to his remarks, versus those of a fellow radio / cable TV personality, looks even more absurd now.
I guess the moral of the story is, right wingers can get away with saying justaboutanything.
Finally, some cojones on the part of GE-NBC. They will not bow to the nattering nellies of NOW, nor to the intimidation tactics of Camp Clinton (who WILL attend that debate on Feb 26 thank you ... Hil needs the free media...) by firing David Shuster.
NBC insiders have told Greg Sergent of TPM that he will be back in short order (if by short order you mean after the debate) ... and I'm sure, he will be chastened...
Why has Shuster become the target of so much acrimony? Isn't this the guy who famously quit Fox News and then told the world exactly who they are?
The feminist brigade can't seriously believe that David Shuster is the worst of the worst -- on some Don Imus level of daily cruelty and abuse (and the former was doing it to be funny ...) What they clearly believe is that this story is helping Hillary among her base -- white women -- and that they will respond to it in such a way as to get her back in contention at the polls.
That calculation is cynical, highly political, and about as disengenuous as it is savvy. At the end of the day, Shustergate will probably help Hillary get her vote out, but it won't win her friends in the centrist end of the blogosphere...
Camp Hillary erupts over MSNBC's David Shuster's comment that the campaign was "pimping out" lil' Chelsea by having her call celebs, including the ladies of "The View" -- and hit the trail on behalf of her mom.
Now, Shuster has been suspended over the incident, after Camp Clinton communications director Howard Wolfson threatened during a conference call with reporters today, to boycott future debates on NBC, including one scheduled on February 26th. NBC, which also fired Don Imus (because they're actually very wimpy and P.C. reactionary ... trust me ...) issued the following Very Stern Statement:
On Thursday's "Tucker" on MSNBC, David Shuster, who was serving as guest-host of the program, made a comment about Chelsea Clinton and the Clinton campaign that was irresponsible and inappropriate. Shuster, who apologized this morning on MSNBC and will again this evening, has been suspended from appearing on all NBC News broadcasts, other than to make his apology. He has also extended an apology to the Clinton family. NBC News takes these matters seriously, and offers our sincere regrets to the Clintons for the remarks.
Both the Clinton and Obama campaigns accepted invitations from us on Thursday evening to participate in a February 26th debate. Our conversations with the Clinton campaign about their participation continue today, and we are hopeful that the event will take place as planned.
TVNewser's insiders say the suspension is temporary -- probably at least until Hil wins another primary somewhere...
Damn, the Clintons are more lethal than the Bushies when it comes to punishing reporters for having a stray thought that's displeasing to "the family"! Break some legs, why don't ya???
BREAKING NEWS: Apparently, there will be no boycott of the ladies of "The View" for allegedly mocking Chelsea's high voice, with the lifting of the boycott immediately benefiting guaranteed Republican voter Elizabeth Hasselbeck...
OK, a girl's got to have a day ... or ten ... off.
So what's been going on while I've been on birthday break?
The Republican race for president has actually become more interesting, while the Democratic race is becoming a bore. Yeah, yeah, there's Oprah and all, but since I don't watch Oprah, and I'm not in Iowa, or South Carolina (and thus didn't have one of those 18-zillion tickets to the O&O Show) I'd rather have a free basket of the grand lady's favorite things (without the taxes to pay, please.)
Meanwhile, a new CBS/NYT poll finds GOP voters even less excited by their race than I am about ours.
Democratic voters, on the whole, view their candidates considerably more favorably than Republican voters do, and are much more optimistic about their prospects next November. Mrs. Clinton is viewed favorably by 68 percent of Democrats, followed by Mr. Obama who is viewed favorably by 54 percent. Mr. Edwards is viewed favorably by just 36 percent.
By contrast, on the Republican side, Mr. Giuliani is viewed the most favorably by members of his party — and that is by only 41 percent. Mr. McCain is viewed favorably by 37 percent and Mr. Romney is viewed favorably by 36 percent. Mr. Huckabee is viewed favorably by 30 percent, but 42 percent said they didn’t know enough about him to say whether to offer a view of him, suggesting that he might be vulnerable to the kind of attacks that his opponents have already been raising against them.
Among Republicans, 76 percent of respondents said that they could still change their mind about who to support, compared with 23 percent who said their decision was firm. Among Democrats, 59 percent said they might change their mind.
Libby Bass, 67, a Republican poll respondent from Woodbine, Georgia, said in a follow-up interview that she was weary of hearing the Republicans argue with one another, and that she was not ready to make a decision. “They’re not telling us what their plans or goals are; they’re just mimicking each other,” she said. “I’m waiting to see if someone comes up with something that will change my mind.
And there is no clear leader among Republicans: Mr. Giuliani was the choice of 22 percent of respondents, Mr. Huckabee with 21 percent and Mr. Romney with 16 percent. Senator John McCain of Arizona and Fred Thompson of Tennessee each had 7 percent.
On the Democratic side, the leader, Mrs. Clinton, has the support of 44 percent of respondents, compared with 27 percent for Mr. Obama and just 11 percent for Mr. Edwards. The rest of the Democratic candidates drew 2 percent or lower.
A CBS News poll conducted in mid-October — which offered voters a choice only of Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Obama and Mr. Edwards — found Mrs. Clinton with 51 percent, Mr. Obama with 23 percent and Mr. Edwards with 13 percent.
CBS is playing up the Huckabee angle, but Mike's got some problems he might want to take to Jesus...
...and that's in addition to the fact that some RedStaters fear and loathe him on tax policy.
Huck's got issues on quarantining the gays, and the Blacks and the hemophiliacs ... you know, all those carrying the deadly plague of AIDS...
He's facing new scrutiny of his controversial push to pardon a rapist whose victim was Bill Clinton's second cousin ... mainly because he appears to have pandered to the worst elements inside Arkansas, who couldn't accept the word of anyone related to Bill Clinton that she was victimized, even when a jury did accept her word, and that of the police, and the forensics people ... you know, the people who investigate such things...
So much for Huck being the "nice" candidate.
Other excitement on the GOP side:
Apparently Mitt Romney is a super duper Christian ... who knew? And he'll work hard as president to root out the evils of secularism, wherever it rears its ugly head. He will not, however, and did not in his big speech last week, explain the magical underpants. Perhaps fellow Mormon Glenn Beck will step up to the plate on that one.
Tim Russert finally asked a lethal question of a Republican, on this Sunday's Meet the Press, after Sir Rudy of 9/11 attempted to blame the NYPD for Judy's official, taxpayer dog walking security force, saying it was they, and not he, who demanded that Rudy's gal pal get protection, and that poor Judy didn't even want it (the poor dear). To that, Russert asked this:
MR. RUSSERT: Using that reasoning, would it be appropriate for a president to provide Secret Service protection for his mistress?
Bingo. And here's Rudy's waaaaay too long answer:
MR. GIULIANI: It would not be appropriate to, to do it for that reason, Tim, and that isn’t, that, that isn’t the right way to—you know, that isn’t the right way to, to analyze it or to say this. The reason it’s done is because somebody threatens to do harm, and the people who assess it come to the conclusion that it is necessary to do this. The reality is that it all came about because of my public position, because of the fact that when people are public or celebrities these kinds of threats take place. And the New York City Police Department has rules; they applied the rules, they applied them in exactly the same way as they always apply them. I did not make the judgment. I didn’t ask for it. Judith didn’t particularly want it, but it was done because they took the view that it was serious and it had to be done this way. And it was done the way they wanted to do it.
In fact, when you get security like this—and many people think, you know, this is a great convenience. And, and this is not at all to suggest that I don’t have great respect for the processionals who do this. Honestly, Tim, I know how it gets played in the media. This is not something you would want. You would not want to have this security, because it is coming about because somebody has threatened to do terrible things to you or your family and professionals have evaluated it that way and feel you need the security. And you say to them, “Can I do this? Can I do that? Can I go here? Can I go there?” And they tell you, “No, you can’t.” So this is not something—I know how it gets played, but this is not something that anybody ever desires. I remember the first time it happened with me. I mean, the things that I liked to do, I couldn’t, I couldn’t do any more, because they would tell me “You can’t do it this way. You have to do it another way.”
Uh-huh... Here's the take from Tom DeFrank of the NYDN:
His explanation of Nathan's police car service doesn't square with Friday's Daily News exclusive report, citing multiple witnesses and a law enforcement source, that she was being protected by city taxpayers months before the affair was revealed in May 2000.
"The threats were after" their romance became known, Giuliani maintained Sunday. The only guest on Russert's "Meet the Press," Giuliani endured a withering examination of his personal character and business dealings.
To the glee of fellow presidential contenders, the Republican front-runner spent nearly an hour playing defense, attempting to deflect a flurry of questions about his relationship with indicted pal Bernard Kerik and Kerik's mistress Judith Regan, controversial corporate clients and his own tangled personal life.
"The baggage is finally starting to catch up with him," a neutral GOP c
