Unbelievable. The McCain campaign needs to revisit Democracy 101 and pay particular attention to sessions on the Fourth Estate. From Marc Ambinder:
A senior McCain campaign official advises that, despite the gaggle of requests and pressure from the media, Gov. Sarah Palin won’t submit to a formal interview anytime soon. She may take some questions from local news entities in Alaska, but until she’s ready — and until she’s comfortable — which might not be for a long while — the media will have to wait. The campaign believes it can effectively deal with the media’s complaints, and their on-the-record response to all this will be: “Sarah Palin needs to spend time with the voters.”
Republican strategist Mike Murphy and Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan discussed Republican Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin after finishing a segment with Chuck Todd on MSNBC. Obviously, Noonan and Murphy thought they were off the air. When asked if Palin is the most qualified Republican woman McCain could find, Noonan says “it’s over” and then describes McCain’s selection of Palin as “political bullshit.”
CHUCK TODD: Mike Murphy, lots of free advice, we’ll see if Steve Schmidt and the boys were watching. We’ll find out on your blackberry. Tonight voters will get their chance to hear from Sarah Palin and she will get the chance to show voters she’s the right woman for the job Up next, one man who’s already convinced and he’ll us why Gov. Jon Huntsman.
(cut away)
PEGGY NOONAN: Yeah.
MIKE MURPHY: You know, because I come out of the blue swing state governor world: Engler, Whitman, Tommy Thompson, Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush. I mean, and these guys — this is all how you win a Texas race, just run it up. And it’s not gonna work. And –
PEGGY NOONAN: It’s over.
MIKE MURPHY: Still McCain can give a version of the Lieberman speech to do himself some good.
CHUCK TODD: I also think the Palin pick is insulting to Kay Bailey Hutchinson, too.
PEGGY NOONAN: Saw Kay this morning.
CHUCK TODD: Yeah, she’s never looked comfortable about this –
MIKE MURPHY: They’re all bummed out.
CHUCK TODD: Yeah, I mean is she really the most qualified woman they could have turned to?
PEGGY NOONAN: The most qualified? No! I think they went for this — excuse me– political bullshit about narratives –
CHUCK TODD: Yeah they went to a narrative.
MIKE MURPHY: I totally agree.
PEGGY NOONAN: Every time the Republicans do that, because that’s not where they live and it’s not what they’re good at, they blow it.
MIKE MURPHY: You know what’s really the worst thing about it? The greatness of McCain is no cynicism, and this is cynical.
CHUCK TODD: This is cynical, and as you called it, gimmicky. Yep, thanks guys.
If you missed Jon Stewart’s report on the West Virginia primary elections, you should watch it. Not only is it hilarious, but it hits squarely at the truth — why W.V. voted the way it did and media coverage of the event.
The media says the voters are racist, but they never use the word. Instead they report Clinton won with white voters overwhelming in an array of demographics. Stewart gets to the point and says what the news networks will not.
Starting at about 0:50 in the video, Stewart begins to analyze the election and illustrates it with video of three West Virginian women (extremely funny).
The best part comes at approximately 6:00 with an exchange between Chris Matthews and Terry McAuliffe.
As if the Democratic debate wasn’t enough, Good Morning America and Kate Snow did a great job of promoting "Obama is Muslim" this morning. Perfect timing for the West Virginia primary.
While I don’t always agree with Howard Kurtz, especially when he places himself in the middle and serves as a scribe rather than a critic, his criticism today of the media’s coverage of Hillary’s never-ending campaign is fitting and appropriate. As Kurtz points out, it’s far more important to continue covering Hillary than it is to focus on the two candidates who will actually be running for president.
When the press, in its infinite wisdom, decides that a race is over, the usual course is to ignore the losing candidate until the person fades from public view.
Heard a lot about Fred Thompson lately? Mike Huckabee? Rudy Giuliani? Bill Richardson? Joe Biden? Chris Dodd?
But while journalists are now treating Barack Obama as the nominee-in-waiting–to the point that no one seems to care that he’s likely to get creamed in today’s West Virginia primary–the Hillary story is still very much with us.
The media, it seems, just can’t let go.
There’s the short-term tactical story: Why hasn’t she dropped out yet? Doesn’t she watch television or read the papers? The news business has decided she’s lost. Why prolong the agony?
But more important, I believe, is the psychodrama story: Is Hillary a sore loser? Detached from reality? Determined to weaken Obama so he’ll lose and she can run in 2012? The stories get increasingly sharp-edged, increasingly speculative, as we put the senator on the couch.
And, of course, there are the legacy pieces: How did the Clintons lose control of the Democratic Party? How did she fumble away the nomination? How badly did Bill hurt her? Has their time passed?
Journalists have been in a co-dependent relationship for nearly two decades with the Clintons, who provided endlessly juicy copy, from their capture of the White House to nearly losing it, from Whitewater to Gennifer to Paula to Monica, from the last-minute pardons to Hillary’s Senate bid, to the impenetrable mystery of their marriage.
So while there’s plenty of media carping about Hillary’s refusal to exit the stage, there are plenty of journalists who want to keep her there.
The point here is how the media creates its own self-perpetuating story and the story is the coverage-of-the-coverage.
The Project for Excellence in Journalism determined in its most recent annual report, The State of the News Media 2008, that the broadcast media dedicates more time to the presidential campaign than any other news story. That’s not reporting on the issues, per se, it’s reporting on what the campaigns are doing, what they are saying, and what’s being said about the campaigns. In other words, we’re watching Insider Edition or Access Hollywood presented in a news format.
But it’s not all-Hillary-all-the-time. They do the same thing with Barack Obama, mostly on matters related to Jeremiah Wright, but will graciously yield to whatever wild tale the Hillary campaign has generated about Obama on a given day.
For a solid week, the great drama has encompassed: what will Hillary do; when will she do it; to what extent will she be the victim (or victimize); Obama must choose her as his running mate; and the uber-critical West Virginia primary. Uber-critical only because Hillary says it is. It is this week’s “game-changer.”
Challenge Hillary directly on those claims? Certainly not. Nor will she be challenged on anything else. The drama must continue.
There is no follow up on Hillary’s gas tax plan, which was her raison d’etre last week. It was so vitally important to the survival of the nation that Hillary demanded every congressional member go on the record as being “with her or against her.” It failed miserably in the eyes of experts and voters last week, but it’s not important that Hillary be challenged on the issue this week to ensure voters in West Virginia are duly informed.
Fear not, the story will repeat itself next week — just replace West Virginia with Kentucky. God forbid the press actually carry out its role as the Fourth Estate.
Not only is it heated between the two campaigns, it’s heated at CNN as well.
A fight over identity politics just broke out among the CNN Democratic pundits, Donna Brazile and Paul Begala. Mr. Begala, a Clinton supporter, accused Ms. Brazile of suggesting that Mr. Obama could win without white blue-collar voters and Latinos. And he added that Democrats couldn’t win in November by just including “eggheads.” She shot back that she was tired of the divisions, tired of people calling it “my party,” not “our party.”
“Stop the division,” she said heatedly, “stop trying to split us into groups. And she contended tha Mr. Begala’s insistence that Senator Clinton’s coalition was broader was not accurate. She became more irritated, saying she felt as though these divisions suggested “I can’t stand in Hillary’s camp because I’m black or I can’t stand in Obama’s camp because I’m a woman"
On a side note - Obama is expected to speak in Raleigh soon.
I think most are of the opinion that Clinton will win Indiana in the mid-to-low single digits; probably somewhere around five points. Obama will probably win North Carolina maybe with a high single-digit margin. Some are predicting double digits for Obama in N.C., but I’m not that confident. If that turns out to be reasonably accurate, nothing will really change tonight, other than the spin. And the media rhetoric is going to determine the prevailing winds, regardless of what either campaign says.
Unless Clinton loses substantially in both states, which is unlikely, one of the first things the elite punditry is going to start chattering is, "Why can’t Obama close the deal?" And Chris Matthews will be the first to utter those words, with Pat Buchanan parroting the same words. Following Pat’s "close the deal" yapping will be how much Jeremiah Wright has hurt Obama and he is in "real trouble."
Joe Scarborough will find any tid-bit possible, if not just make it up, to yap about what a great fighter Hillary Clinton is. And he’ll repeat it continuously for the full three hours of his show tomorrow morning.
In summary, I expect the chattering class, with the exception of maybe Rachel Maddow, to paint Obama as struggling, tired, on a losing-streak, and having no momentum.
The New York Times has published an editorial on Hillary Clinton that is the most scathing condemnation of a public figure in a major publication I believe I have ever read.
The Pennsylvania campaign, which produced yet another inconclusive result on Tuesday, was even meaner, more vacuous, more desperate, and more filled with pandering than the mean, vacuous, desperate, pander-filled contests that preceded it.
Voters are getting tired of it; it is demeaning the political process; and it does not work. It is past time for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton to acknowledge that the negativity, for which she is mostly responsible, does nothing but harm to her, her opponent, her party and the 2008 election.
If nothing else, self interest should push her in that direction. Mrs. Clinton did not get the big win in Pennsylvania that she needed to challenge the calculus of the Democratic race. It is true that Senator Barack Obama outspent her 2-to-1. But Mrs. Clinton and her advisers should mainly blame themselves, because, as the political operatives say, they went heavily negative and ended up squandering a good part of what was once a 20-point lead.
If you watched HBO’s portrayal of John Adams, Jack Rakove of the Washington Post has a superb critique today of the mini-series and appropriately provides perspective that was generally missed in the show.
The seven-part miniseries, based on Adam’s recent favorable biography by David McCullough, made for good drama and was well produced, but fell short on providing some important facts. Paul Giamatti’s performance as Adams was excellent and his superior acting indeed helped bridge some incredible gaps in history the series omitted.
For those that watched the show, and may have not been Adam’s buffs, Rakove’s piece provides insight into areas where I believed the producers relied to heavily on nuance. However, regardless of any gaps in history, or variations from fact, the show is well worth watching, especially for those that are curious about our Founding Fathers and the American Revolution.
Here’s one scene that did not make it into the epic HBO miniseries on the life of John Adams that ends tonight. It is June 23, 1775, and members of the Continental Congress accompany George Washington as he sets off to command the provisional army outside Boston. Adams rides along, then returns to his Philadelphia digs and writes in self-pity to his wife Abigail: I "must leave others to wear the Lawrells which I have sown; others to eat the Bread which I have earned — A Common Case."
Coming at the zenith of the colonists’ revolutionary fervor, two months after Lexington and Concord, this was a stunning statement. It was also classic Adams. At the very moment when selfless feelings of patriotism ran highest, he was already fretting about whether his countrymen and history would treat him fairly, whether his contributions to "the common cause" would be justly recognized.
This outburst of envy and self-doubt — one among so many — goes to the heart of our John Adams problem. Was Adams, as his admiring biographer David McCullough would have it, the one leading founder who has never received his due? Or was he his own worst enemy, succumbing to a temper and vanity unique among his contemporaries? HBO is keen to usher him into the canon, but Adams did a great deal to earn the devastating assessment that has trailed him ever since Benjamin Franklin first quipped it in 1783: "He means well for his Country, and is always an honest Man, often a Wise One, but sometimes and in some things, absolutely out of his senses."
Not sure where it all leads to yet, but just these grafs alone are enough to attract serious attention.
In the summer of 2005, the Bush administration confronted a fresh wave of criticism over Guantanamo Bay. The detention center had just been branded “the gulag of our times” by Amnesty International, there were new allegations of abuse from United Nations human rights experts and calls were mounting for its closure.
The administration’s communications experts responded swiftly. Early one Friday morning, they put a group of retired military officers on one of the jets normally used by Vice President Dick Cheney and flew them to Cuba for a carefully orchestrated tour of Guantanamo.
To the public, these men are members of a familiar fraternity, presented tens of thousands of times on television and radio as “military analysts” whose long service has equipped them to give authoritative and unfettered judgments about the most pressing issues of the post-Sept. 11 world.
Hidden behind that appearance of objectivity, though, is a Pentagon information apparatus that has used those analysts in a campaign to generate favorable news coverage of the administration’s wartime performance, an examination by The New York Times has found.
The effort, which began with the buildup to the Iraq war and continues to this day, has sought to exploit ideological and military allegiances, and also a powerful financial dynamic: Most of the analysts have ties to military contractors vested in the very war policies they are asked to assess on air.
Those business relationships are hardly ever disclosed to the viewers, and sometimes not even to the networks themselves. But collectively, the men on the plane and several dozen other military analysts represent more than 150 military contractors either as lobbyists, senior executives, board members or consultants. The companies include defense heavyweights, but also scores of smaller companies, all part of a vast assemblage of contractors scrambling for hundreds of billions in military business generated by the administration’s war on terror. It is a furious competition, one in which inside information and easy access to senior officials are highly prized.
Records and interviews show how the Bush administration has used its control over access and information in an effort to transform the analysts into a kind of media Trojan horse — an instrument intended to shape terrorism coverage from inside the major TV and radio networks.
I want to do one update before calling it quits for the night.
George Stephanopoulos gave Greg Sargent several lame excuses for his pathetic performance in the Democratic debate last night, however, I want to focus on one for now.
When I asked him whether asking about Obama’s derelict approach to his flag lapel pin risked making it look like right-wing frames were dictating the line of questioning, Stephanopoulos said:
"Sure, there’s a risk." But he added: "If you look at the fall campaign, there are some clear signals from Senator Obama’s opponents that all of these issues are going to be put together in a general argument. They all go back to that same theme."
It doesn’t get much clearer than that. Stephanopoulos admitted, in essence, there was no journalistic integrity associated with the questions asked. Instead, it was talking points developed by Hillary and wingnuts like Sean Hannity.
That’s a problem, but it’s just part of a much larger problem — the media. I’ve spent several hours digging into the media machine — trying to better understand what is behind events like last night and more importantly, what promotes the endless news cycles filled with trash like Bittergate and the Wright controversy.
I need to pull a few things together before I can actually post what I have found at this point. Therefore, I’ll be posting more on the bigger picture tomorrow.
Good journalists are rare and Arthur Foulkes of Terre Haute’s Tribune Star appears to be one of the few that are left. He actually reports what a candidate or surrogate espouses in a stump speech and contrasts the spin with reality. Really. You’ll be amazed when you read his reporting.
Mr. Foulkes’ piece today on Bill Clinton’s remarks at a Hillary Clinton rally yesterday in Indiana is literally the first piece I have read, and there have been many, where the journalist actually analyzes the full spectrum of the surrogate or candidate’s remarks and reports on the validity or accuracy of the remarks.
I have heard rumors that the Clinton’s have, at times perhaps, taken extraordinary measures to segregate the press from the Clintons and supporters. It appears to be true, but the circumstances are worse than I imagined.
Mr. Foulkes provides a shocking account of how the segregation is accomplished, at least in Clinton, Indiana. It’s quite effective. Today, Mr. Foulkes and other members of the press were put in a cage, locked in, and denied release (in spite of requests) until an official authorized their release. Kidnapping is a serious offense.
I have copied Mr. Foulkes’ entire article, which I would not even consider doing under normal circumstances. I do so only because I believe, quite seriously, this needs exposure and serves the public’s needs and interests. I will email Mr. Foulkes and request his permission. Hopefully, he will approve.
The Caucus has a piece on Sidney Blumentthal, a Clinton aide, pleading guilty to a charge of drunken driving. How, exactly, does this have any bearing on the substantive issues of the campaign, Hillary Clinton, or her qualifications to be president?
Would the Caucus report this if Clinton was not running for president?
CNN’s Bill Schneider published a piece today on Barack Obama and the Jeremiah Wright story which is an outright act of malpractice and a reprehensible attempt to keep the controversial story in the headlines.
In both reports Schneider claimed that Obama’s lead in the polls is narrowing and emphasized the negative impact the controversial story had on Obama’s campaign. Moreover, he failed to report, in either case, that while Obama had experienced a drop in polls much earlier last week, current polling indicated he had likely recovered from a progressive downward trend.
For today’s report, Schneider simply copied the first three paragraphs of last week’s report, changed the title, and provided a link to the older report for "the full story." And to emphasize the connection between Obama and his pastor, Schneider put the same picture he ran last week — portraying Obama and Wright together — in today’s piece. However Schneider obviously made a gallant effort to not appear too overstated since he put the picture on the opposite side of the page today.
After tapes of inflammatory statements made by Sen. Barack Obama’s pastor came out last weekend, it appears to have had some negative impact on the Illinois senator.
Nationally, Obama’s lead over Sen. Hillary Clinton narrowed in a poll of polls — which included CBS News, USA Today and Gallup.
The polls, taken between March 14-18, show Obama with 49 percent to Clinton’s 43 percent.
Furthermore, in today’s report, he failed to mention that recent polling showed more than 69 percent of voters said "Obama did a good job addressing the issues of race relations."
But why should Schneider and his colleagues be concerned with journalistic integrity, when CNN, and its reporters’, well-established bias, inaccuracies, and misreporting can serve their agenda, and the agendas of those they serve? I admit CNN is not on the same notorious level as FOX News, but they are not exactly outpacing all other media organizations for the most prestigious journalism awards either.
The perpetuation of the Wright story is just one example of the media’s negligent, biased, and generally inept reporting. Glenn Greenwald has superbly covered the broader, more systemic issues on numerous occasions (most recently — here, here, here, and here). While Schneider’s reporting can arguably be interpreted as biased and an intentional attempt to discredit Barack Obama, the far more important issue is not just Schneider or CNN, but the slothful, pathetic, and biased reporting done by the media in general.
Update: These are images from CNN’s site. The first image is from Schneider’s piece published today. The second image is from the piece he published Friday. Both have date and time stamps.
If you watched 
