More details on bin Laden's escape from Tora Bora from the March 4th, 2002 Christian Science Monitor.
--Josh Marshall
Looking over various reporting on Tora Bora from the winter and spring of 2001/2002, it seems clear that most major news outlets ran stories which flatly contradict what the Bush campaign is now saying on the subject (see this earlier post for more details.)
I'd be curious whether, in reporting the Bush campaign's current denials about what happened at Tora Bora, any major news outlet has made reference to their own earlier reporting which makes it clear that, as nearly as such things can be known, what the president is saying is simply not true.
Indeed, not only is what the president's campaign is saying not true, but as the April 2002 WaPo piece, discussed here, makes clear, what Kerry is charging is backed up to the letter by the administration's own formal and informal after-action analyses and reports about the mistakes made at Tora Bora.
It's really that clear cut.
Has the Post done it? The Times? Any of the cable networks? ABC?
These aren't simply rhetorical questions. I'm terribly curious to see which if any of these news organizations has pointed out that their own reporting says that what the president's campaign is now saying is just flat out false, an attempt to pretend that something that was widely reported less than three years ago didn't even happen.
If you've got examples, please send them. And if there aren't any, why not?
--Josh Marshall
One of the key points of President Bush's <$Ad$>account of his own young adulthood is the time when a friend named John White asked Bush to help him run an inner-city anti-poverty program named PULL (Professional United Leadership League).
Bush cited the experience in his 2000 campaign biography as one of the roots of his 'compassionate conservatism'. But the president's critics in Texas have long held that he wasn't there responding to a request to help running the organization. He was actually compelled to perform community service with the organization as part of his punishment for some as-yet-undisclosed legal scrape.
Now several employees of the now-defunct organization have gone on the record with Knight-Ridder, saying that, yes, the president's story isn't true ...
But White's administrative assistant and others associated with P.U.L.L., speaking on the record for the first time, say Bush was not helping to run the program and White had not asked Bush to come aboard. Instead, the associates said, White told them he agreed to take Bush on as a favor to Bush's father, who was honorary co-chairman of the program at the time, and Bush was unpaid. They say White told them Bush had gotten into some kind of trouble but White never gave them specifics."We didn't know what kind of trouble he'd been in, only that he'd done something that required him to put in the time," said Althia Turner, White's administrative assistant.
"John said he was doing a favor for George's father because an arrangement had to be made for the son to be there," said Willie Frazier, also a former player for the Houston Oilers and a P.U.L.L. summer volunteer in 1973.
Fred Maura, a close friend of White, refers to Bush as "43," for 43rd president, and his father as "41," for the 41st president.
"John didn't say what kind of trouble 43 was in - just that he had done something and he (John) made a deal to take him in as a favor to 41 to get some funding," Maura said.
In these final high-velocity days of the campaign this fib probably won't gin up tons of interest. After all, how can it compete with the White House now trying to deny events reported on and televised live around the world not three years ago. But dozens of Washington reporters have spent years dismissing the community service story. You'd think that some of them might now pick up the phone to find out whether they'd gotten played one more time.
--Josh Marshall
More nitty-gritty details reemerging from the Memory Hole about what actually happened at Tora Bora, particularly how clear it is that OBL was there and just how he got away. This from a December 17th, 2001 piece in the Christian Science Monitor.
Choice quote: "Though Mr. Rumsfeld has said that the two dozen or so US Special Forces are helping to block exit routes, that number of US military personnel can only be considered a token of the real figure needed to cut off all the mountain passes surrounding the mountain enclave."
Is anyone going to call them on this hundredth-odd deception on one of the Sunday shows? Tim, Bob, George?
Kerry tries to make what is arguably the biggest screw-up in the war against al Qaida into a centerpiece of the last weeks of the campaign. And what's the Bush campaign's response? Lie about it. Say it never happened.
Fits the MO.
--Josh Marshall
I was not able to see the documentary ("A POW Story: Politics, Pressure and the Media") that Sinclair Broadcasting ran yesterday evening. But contrary to my (I believe well-founded) skepticism, the piece was apparently relatively even-handed. A sampling of comments from a number of right-wing sites suggests they thought Sinclair caved. And this exhaustive summary/commentary of the program from DailyKos makes it sound like the final product was -- hard as it is for me to believe -- relatively even-handed. It even included, it seems, some significant portions of Going Upriver, the Kerry-friendly documentary now in theaters.
Now, Sinclair will undoubtedly try to make out like that got a bum rap all along, like they'd planned to be fair and balanced, shall we say, from the get-go.
But that is, in a word, crap.
Sinclair planned to use their hold over airwaves around the country to turn an hour of prime-time broadcast time over to an anti-Kerry informercial put together by a group that has now merged with Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. My sense was always that they knew they'd take some hit but were willing to take it in part because of their ideological stance but even more because they thought they'd be made whole through (de)regulatory payback after a Bush victory.
But they got more than they bargained for. A lot more.
Thousands of individuals across the country started organizing a boycott of Sinclair's local advertisers -- the heart of their business. And the stock price commenced a rapid descent. I don't have at my fingertips the precise numbers. But I think the company lost something like $100 million in market capitalization, or 20% of the stocks value, in little more than a week. (ed.note: please check other sources for exact amounts).
This was then compounded by a cluster of inter-related lawsuits, which would not have been possible had it not been for the predicate created by the boycott and the related stock price drop.
Eventually, Sinclair saw the writing on the wall -- penciled in by major institutional shareholders, I suspect -- and cried 'uncle.' It was all quite a feat, seeing as it mixed together the actions of policy luminaries like former FCC Chair Reed Hundt, existing activist groups like Media Matters, the absolutely invaluable work that went into the Sinclair Boycott website and mainly an army of political junkies around the country who didn't want to see this election gamed by a gaggle of jokers in Maryland who thought they could trifle with American democracy with impunity.
--Josh Marshall
Last night when discussing the White House's truth-bending revisionism on Tora Bora, I wrote that I had been "pretty skeptical of the Bush team's revisionism on this count since the outlines of the Kerry critique have been a commonplace in national security and counter-terrorism circles for literally years."
You'll remember that what I'm referring to here as 'Kerry's critique' is the charge that the US let bin Laden get away at Tora Bora because we 'outsourced' the job to local warlords and militiaman. The Bush campaign is now calling that a lie. Dick Cheney says it's "absolute garbage" and the campaign has enlisted retired general and now Bush surrogate Tommy Franks to help back their case.
Now Steve Soto points out one more reason why I and others who've followed this story for years were so skeptical.
Look at the lede of this Washington Post article from April 17, 2002 ...
The Bush administration has concluded that Osama bin Laden was present during the battle for Tora Bora late last year and that failure to commit U.S. ground troops to hunt him was its gravest error in the war against al Qaeda, according to civilian and military officials with first-hand knowledge.
That really says it all.
And there's more.
Was bin Laden there, a claim Cheney and the Bush campaign now discount or treat as mere speculation?
Again from the Post: "Intelligence officials have assembled what they believe to be decisive evidence, from contemporary and subsequent interrogations and intercepted communications, that bin Laden began the battle of Tora Bora inside the cave complex along Afghanistan's mountainous eastern border."
The article goes on to say that though the administration had never publicly acknowledged that bin Laden slipped the noose in this way, "inside the government there is little controversy on the subject."
Then the paper quotes a government official "giving an authoritative account of the intelligence consensus," who says that, "I don't think you can ever say with certainty, but we did conclude he was there, and that conclusion has strengthened with time."
And as to the issue of 'outsourcing'?
One more time from the article ...
After-action reviews, conducted privately inside and outside the military chain of command, describe the episode as a significant defeat for the United States. A common view among those interviewed outside the U.S. Central Command is that Army Gen. Tommy R. Franks, the war's operational commander, misjudged the interests of putative Afghan allies and let pass the best chance to capture or kill al Qaeda's leader. Without professing second thoughts about Tora Bora, Franks has changed his approach fundamentally in subsequent battles, using Americans on the ground as first-line combat units.In the fight for Tora Bora, corrupt local militias did not live up to promises to seal off the mountain redoubt, and some colluded in the escape of fleeing al Qaeda fighters. Franks did not perceive the setbacks soon enough, some officials said, because he ran the war from Tampa with no commander on the scene above the rank of lieutenant colonel. The first Americans did not arrive until three days into the fighting. "No one had the big picture," one defense official said.
I quote here at length for a simple reason, to make a simple point. Though we cannot in the nature of things have absolute certainty about bin Laden's whereabouts, there is little doubt that bin Laden was there. We had a "reasonable certainty" he was there when the critical decisions were being made. And subsequent intelligence has only tended to confirm that belief. As to the issue of 'outsourcing,' the claim is unquestionably true. And it is widely believed that this was a key reason for the failure to capture bin Laden.
One might well argue, we hadn't hunted a bin Laden before. And I don't mean that flippantly. Had the Afghan tribesmen killed OBL in those hills, the decision might have seemed an inspired one, since it no doubt saved American lives. Perhaps a Gore or a Kerry administration would have made the same mistake.
What you simply cannot say is that the whole thing never happened. And yet that is precisely what the president and the vice president are now doing: Simply denying everything. Who you gonna believe? Me or your lyin' eyes?
They are, in old fashioned English, lying.
And the major news outlets covering the campaign -- as nearly as I've seen so far -- are just treating the disagreement as a he said/(s)he said in which both sides' arguments have equal merit.
Sums up the whole campaign.
--Josh Marshall
Let the harassment begin!
It's an unlovely fact. But it's a key Republican strategy, in almost every closely-contested election, to deny as many people as possible the right to vote. True enough, it's not wholly an equal opportunity affair. Voting for Republicans is generally encouraged. But since high turn-out elections almost always favor Democrats, Republicans often use a mix of voter suppression tactics to nudge the totals back in the other direction. (NewDonkey had some choice comments on this from a few days ago, which I commend to you.)
This is an ugly topic we've been writing about at TPM for years. And in tomorrow's New York Times we find what can only be called a refershingly straightforward account of how this tactic will be used ten days from now in Ohio.
The state Republican party has recruited thousands of poll watchers, to be paid $100 each, to challenge as many newly registered voters as possible. Not surprisingly, they're concentrating the poll watchers in inner-city neighborhoods of Cleveland, Dayton and other cities.
To justify these tactics, the delightful James P. Trakas, party co-chair in Cuyahoga County, told the Times: "The organized left's efforts to, quote unquote, register voters - I call them ringers - have created these problems."
Definitely give this article a read.
This is a complicated topic that we'll be returning to repeatedly and elaborating on before election day. But what's afoot right now in Ohio isn't that complicated.
--Josh Marshall
I was going to call this post, with a touch of drama, The Final Lie.
But who am I kidding? The Bush team has plenty of time to tell lots more lies between now and election day. And they no doubt will. And if, God forbid, the president wins, they'll have four more years of lie opportunities after that.
Still, this one is significant. So here goes.
In recent weeks John Kerry has been pressing the claim that the US had Osama bin Laden cornered in the mountains of Tora Bora in late 2001 but let him slip the noose in part because we 'outsourced' the job to local warlords who had little allegiance to the US and their militiamen who had little incentive to get themselves killed in a battle to the death with a bunch of hardened al Qaida terrorists.
That's a tough charge for the Bush team. And over the last week they've been claiming -- by various arguments -- that it simply isn't true.
We have no idea if bin Laden was there at all, they say. And nothing was outsourced.
On Tuesday Gen. Tommy Franks -- the former CENTCOM CINC who, remember, is now working as a Bush surrogate -- wrote a column in the Times in which he said ...
We don't know to this day whether Mr. bin Laden was at Tora Bora in December 2001. Some intelligence sources said he was; others indicated he was in Pakistan at the time; still others suggested he was in Kashmir. Tora Bora was teeming with Taliban and Qaeda operatives, many of whom were killed or captured, but Mr. bin Laden was never within our grasp.
As for 'outsourcing' Franks says that that's not true either. We were relying on locals because they knew the terrain so well and they worked in tandem with US special forces and precision air strikes.
Then on Tuesday afternoon Dick Cheney picked up the baton and said Kerry's claims were "absolute garbage. It's just not true." There was "speculation about where Osama bin Laden might have been" there. But no more.
So what's the story exactly?
I was pretty skeptical of the Bush team's revisionism on this count since the outlines of the Kerry critique have been a commonplace in national security and counter-terrorism circles for literally years.
Now al Qaida expert Peter Bergen has a new piece up on his site which makes it pretty clear that this new claim is about as factual as most things the Vice President says.
Bergen is CNN's terrorism analyst, one of the few western reporters ever to interview bin Laden in person, and he goes back to Afghanistan pretty frequently and has interviewed many of the folks who were there.
Bergen notes that at the time -- not now that the presidency is on the line, but at the time -- a Pentagon official gave a widely-quoted background briefing in which he said that there was a "reasonable certainty" that bin Laden was in fact there, a judgment based on contemporaneous radio intercepts. Bergen also discusses interviews with other witnesses and al Qaida associates that point strongly to the conclusion that he was there. "In short," says Bergen, "there is plenty of evidence that bin Laden was at Tora Bora, and no evidence indicating that he was anywhere else at the time."
Bergen also addresses the 'outsourcing' issue.
On the basic question of whether the US missed a key opportunity to bag bin Laden in Tora Bora, Bergen says Kerry's claim is not 'garbage' but "an accurate reflection of the historical record."
It's always going to be difficult to prove definitively that bin Laden was there at the time in question. But then that's part of the price of not having caught him. Most evidence points pretty clearly to the conclusion that he was there. And the consensus of experts seems to be that he was. But it's politically damaging. So the Bush campaign just says it's not true.
--Josh Marshall
Last week we brought you the news that Larry Russell, head of the South Dakota GOP's get-out-the-vote operation (Republican Victory Program) had resigned along with several of his staffers amidst a burgeoning vote fraud scandal.
The Bush campaign promptly brought Russell and several of his newly-resigned staffers to Ohio to run the get-out-the-vote effort there.
Now South Dakota officials have charged six of Russell's South Dakota staffers, including at least three he brought with him to take care of business in Ohio.
Perhaps they can push extradition back past election day.
Leave no fraudster behind (LNFB)!
--Josh Marshall
Let the Bush slime commence! Campaign Extra on the Bush campaign's hideous new ad.
Special Late-Breaking Bush Slime Update: After having watched this ad, as opposed to the still shots, I have to say that I didn't find it all that effective. I can't point to any one thing; it's just not that scary, not even that effective by the special standards used to evaluate lying right-wing slime and scare-mongering, a whole artform worthy of careful critical study.
In some ways actually, the piece typifies the administration. The entire ad is built around an entirely intentional and fairly transparent attempt to deceive viewers.
The centerpiece of the ad is the claim that "even after the first terrorist attack on America," John Kerry tried to gut spending on intelligence.
Everything about the statement and the context is meant to communicate the impression that they mean after 9/11. But they don't. They mean after the World Trade Center bombing in 1993. And even the alleged cuts they're talking about are basically a lie too, for reasons you can see here.
That really does capture the whole Bush administration right there: trying to scare people by tricking them into believing something they know isn't true.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not naive enough to believe that that kind of lie can't be effective. I just don't think it's used all that effectively in this ad. The forest motif isn't all that chilling -- though it may appeal to certain aspects of the Bush hunter-gatherer mindset. And even the wolves aren't as frightening as they might be. I'll bet even my dog Simon -- who's now bulked up to about 7 pounds -- could hold his own with these guys. At least for a while.
--Josh Marshall
Another good candidate for Karl Rove Dirty Tricks Watch.
And here I think we may have a serious contender. Someone in Columbus Ohio seems to be calling voters, impersonating an employee from the local election board, and telling folks that the location of their precincts has been changed. The recipients of the calls seem to be disproportionately elderly.
This one's right out of the Karl Rove playbook. I'm making this the top contender so far, though I'm sure there'll be many more. Of course, maybe I'm not given enough credit to Rove's Sproul operation. Have to give it some thought.
--Josh Marshall
I've always suspected that the stories about an al Qaida effort to disrupt the American election were, in a word, bogus. I even suspect that much of the heavily publicized efforts to put beefed up security and police patrols around polling stations has at least in part a political motive.
Now, you'll remember from the 9/11 commission hearings earlier this year that the National Security Advisor is, or should be, the quarterback when the country faces a heightened or imminent threat of terrorist attack. She's the one who pulls together all the various threat reports and makes sure all legs and arms of the national security apparatus are working in unison.
If this whole 'al Qaida disrupting the democratic process' is on the level then we're entering the red zone right about now. We're ten days out from the election.
So why is the National Security Advisor, Condi Rice, out hitting the campaign trail?
Think about that for a second. Is there any possible good answer? Either all the effort to hype an election day al Qaida threat is just another effort to use the White House's control over the intelligence community as a campaign asset or Rice is shirking her duties at a moment of acute national peril.
Some member of the travelling press should ask her which it is.
--Josh Marshall
I want to show you a campaign ad that is about to go into heavy rotation in swing states around the country. It's called 'He Just Doesn't Get It'. I would appreciate it a great deal if you could take just a few moments to watch it and let me know what you think.
It's a rough, jarring ad. But that's <$NoAd$>appropriate because it portrays a rough reality.
The ad is built on a stark contrast. In late March, at the Radio and Television Correspondents' Association Dinner in Washington, President Bush did a pre-scripted comedy routine about looking for Weapons of Mass Destruction.
It had pictures of him looking under the furniture in the Oval Office, poking around the grounds, and so forth, with him saying over and over, 'Those WMDs have got to be around here somewhere', or something to that effect. He chuckled as did the assembled DC bigwigs of press and politics.
(Here's David Corn discussing this rancid spectacle at the time.)
About a month later, Brooke Campbell's brother, Sgt. Ryan Campbell was killed in Baghdad during the on-going search for weapons of mass destruction.
The ad starts with the president's yuck-yuck routine and finishes with Campbell talking about her brother. It's captures a lot. And I think it could be very effective.
Click here to watch it.
Let me know what you think.
--Josh Marshall
The Alan Keyes - Barack Obama debate is on CSpan2 right now as of about 8:47 PM on the East Coast. How can you miss that?
--Josh Marshall
As recently as January of this year, says Sen. Carl Levin, Undersecretary of Defense Doug Feith misled Congress about the US intelligence community's assessement of the relationship between Iraq and al Qaida. Levin has now issued a report on Feith and will ask the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence to take "appropriate action" against him.
--Josh Marshall
You think Kerry's a heretic? How 'bout George W.? NewDonkey has the story.
(ed. note: Ed, can I just refer to you by name now rather than 'NewDonkey'?)
--Josh Marshall
Did they get this right?
A local paper in Michigan, The Herald-Palladium, reports that yesterday in a speech at Lake Michigan College, former CIA Director George Tenet said that the war in Iraq was "wrong."
--Josh Marshall
With a FOIA request, the Electronic Privacy Information Center managed to get tapes of the voice traffic between DC and Texas when Tom DeLay and his Texas pals were trying to get the FAA and the Department of Homeland Security to track down those absconded Democrats during last year's redistricting dispute.
--Josh Marshall
Hello, hello, Kerry campaign ...
AP: "The Index of Leading Economic Indicators, a widely watched barometer of future economic activity, edged lower in September for the fourth month in a row, indicating a slowing in economic growth, a private research group reported Thursday ... Conference Board economist Ken Goldstein called the September decline a 'clear signal that the economy is losing momentum heading into 2005.'
--Josh Marshall
Echoes of David.
Another disgusting attempt to impute anti-Semitism to Democrats because of their criticism of certain neoconservative administration appointees.
This time it's Ann Coulter. No surprise.
--Josh Marshall
I hear Condi Rice<$NoAd$> is taking questions on her campaign swing through the midwest. Admittedly, any self-identified TPM reader probably runs a decent chance of getting arrested if he or she tries to attend one of Condi's events.
But assuming one avoids preventative detention, how about asking her this question ...
Several days ago Abu Musab Zarqawi pledged his allegiance to Osama bin Laden. He's the deadliest terrorist in Iraq today. But according to NBC news, the US had "several chances to wipe out his terrorist operation" before the war and we didn't take him out then because that would have taken away one of our reasons for invading Iraq. Do you regret that decision?
If you read the reporting by NBC and others, it's pretty clear that the call was made by Condi herself. Ask her. I'd love to hear her answer.
She can run but she can't hide.
--Josh Marshall
Another contender for our Karl Rove Dirty Trick's Watch?
You'll remember from Josh Green's piece on Rove's tactics in the current Atlantic Monthly, Rove has a certain penchant, shall we say, for mounting whisper campaigns which suggest that whatever candidate he happens to be running against at the moment is gay.
(What is it with these Republicans and gay sex?)
Well, it seems someone in South Dakota has been sending out stickers to churches in the state that read "Vote for Daschle & Vote for SODOMY."
Maybe not Rove, of course. But perhaps some young Rove acolyte learning the ropes?
--Josh Marshall
Now, that's more like it. AP/IPSOS has Kerry over Bush 49% to 46% among likely voters.
That's within the margin of error. But almost every poll is within the margin these days. And that comes on the heels of dead-even readings among likely voters from NBC/WSJ and Pew in the last couple days.
Zogby does have Bush wobbling back to a one point lead today. And the Post still has Bush with a three point spread.
But on balance there seems to be at least a mild drift in Kerry's direction over this last week.
--Josh Marshall
The Moose is back!
See this earlier post for TPM's comments on the irreplaceable Mashall Wittmann and the return of his 'Bull Moose' blog.
--Josh Marshall
There's a buzz now about why the House Intelligence Committee still hasn't received a copy of a CIA inspector general's report which examines the Agency's performance during the run-up to the Sept. 11 attacks. Democrats suspect it's being held up until after the election. And even the Republican chairman of the Committee joined the ranking member telling the CIA to stop delaying.
Why stop there, though?
What I'd really like to see is the joint State Department-CIA Inspector General's report on the Niger forgeries that was finished a year ago.
It's got some details about Italy.
--Josh Marshall
I don't know quite what <$Ad$>to think of Pat Robertson's claim that President Bush told him there'd be no casualties in Iraq. Candor requires me to say that, as a general matter, I don't trust this guy as far as I could throw him. I certainly wouldn't put in any stock in his say-so if he were accusing someone I supported.
(Oddly enough, Kevin Drum has the best Bush-exonerating theory on this one, though I think it's a stretch.)
But in this case, it's sort of an admission against interest. Robertson's no Kerry supporter. He has no interest in hurting the president.
And even if you assume that Robertson is acting out of some sort of intra-Republican pique, he's said this before -- and not at a time when the statement would be quite so politically charged.
As Andrew Sullivan notes this evening, back in June on Hardball Robertson said ...
I felt very uneasy about [the war] from the very get-go. Whenever I heard about it, I knew it was going to be trouble. I warned the president. I only met with him once. I said, You better prepare the American people for some serious casualties. And he said, Oh, no, our troops are, you know, so well protected, we don't have to worry about that.
Having said it months ago when the stakes were much lower -- and not having been contradicted at the time -- makes Robertson's claim more plausible. As Sullivan also points out, this looser formulation also has the ring of truth. To say that the US would suffer no casualties is either a rhetorical shorthand or ridiculous on its face.
When he spoke a few months ago, Robertson's point was that President Bush was sure the war would be a painless one.
That sounds a lot like our president.
A reader (MS) brings up another point.
When trying to refute Robertson's claim, Karen Hughes told the Associated Press, "Obviously, we already had casualties in Afghanistan at the time. If you look at that, that (the comment) was not consistent with what was going on."
In other words, Hughes is arguing that the president couldn't have said such a thing because such a statement wouldn't have been consistent with the reality that everyone could see in front of them.
Need I say more?
--Josh Marshall
Back on July 1st a source first told me that Allen Raymond, the man at the heart of the New Hampshire phone-jamming scandal, had fingered Jim Tobin as one of his accomplices. (Tobin's role was reported first on TPM on October 11th.) Tobin, as we've noted earlier, was the New England regional director of the Bush-Cheney campaign until he resigned last Friday.
That's more than three and a half months ago. The Bush campaign has known at least since then. And I suspect much longer. And yet they left him in the post.
That means the campaign kept in place a man implicated in an election tampering scam that took place in the same part of the country over which the campaign had given him oversight.
What does that tell you?
Another point ...
To the best of my knowledge no political reporter covering the Bush campaign has asked a campaign spokesperson 1) when they found out about Tobin's role in the election tampering scheme and 2) why they didn't remove him from the campaign after they learned.
What does that tell you?
If anyone knows of a reporter who's asked or an article where an answer has been published, please let me know.
In other phone-jamming news, yesterday the Justice Department again went to the mat to prevent New Hampshire Democrats from gaining access to evidence about Tobin's role in the case.
--Josh Marshall
Talk about pathetic ...
I don't know how much sense there is getting into the nitty-gritty of which pol has gotten a flu shot and which hasn't. But this is pretty feeble. If you look on Drudge as of around 12:31 AM there's a big headline about the Kerry campaign hitting Cheney, Snow and Frist for getting flu shots, notwithstanding the shortage.
And then just below there's a headline: "BUT CLINTON GOT ONE."
Please.
Didn't Clinton have a quadruple bypass like about six weeks ago? And, as long as we're on the topic, isn't Clinton, like ... not on the ballot?
For myself, I don't begrudge the Veep getting a shot. He's over sixty and he has a serious heart condition. But the White House is ill-positioned to make that case since the whole point is that the Vice President is, by definition, not in good health.
--Josh Marshall
Woooooooooooooow! These Red Sox are actually going to make me believe in them again. (TPM: Boston area resident, 1992-99).
--Josh Marshall
A book I'm looking forward to reading: Looking Forward To It, Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the American Electoral Process, by Stephen Elliot.
--Josh Marshall
I've received a slew of emails over the last twenty four hours asking about the status of the Sinclair situation, and where things stand. I would refer people to the update put up yesterday on the Sinclair boycott site, which gives a good sense of where things are.
Put simply, this isn't over. Not even close.
Sinclair made a largely cosmetic retreat. They won't show 'Stolen Honor' in its entirety -- only, presumably, the most inflammatory parts, along with some padding whining about media bias.
Despite the fact that they've moved the program to Friday and later in the evening, they're still forcing most of their stations to turn over an hour of the airwaves to what seems certain to be an hourlong anti-Kerry smear just before the election.
Unfortunately, I sense they have fooled many into thinking they've backed down. But they haven't.
Anybody who is concerned about this should not be lulled into a sense that Sinclair isn't still using its control of the airwaves in many households throughout the country to game the election. To see what more you can do head back to the Sinclair Boycott website.
--Josh Marshall
More on Sproul Associates: the same MO in Pennsylvania. More lies. More getting access to venues by falsely claiming to represent other organizations.
--Josh Marshall
Over at his blog DonkeyRising, Ruy Teixeira has been running an on-going critical commentary of the Gallup poll.
Some of his criticisms I have found stronger than others. I think, for instance, that he's definitely on to something with the sharp Republican skew in the party-identification of the Gallup polls. But I wonder whether this problem skews the horse race numbers as much as Ruy says.
It's not that I disagree with his reasoning. And Ruy knows much more about public opinion research than I do. I think it's just an instinctive skepticism I have about finding arguments for disregarding polls that don't say what you want them to. Put more simply, I try to be on guard against spinning myself.
On Tuesday though Ruy came back with a further analysis of the Gallup poll which seemed to make an indisputable case that the Gallup likely voter screen clearly underrepresents minority and young voters.
One might say that minority or young voters vote less consistently than affluent whites. But Ruy shows pretty clearly that Gallup's numbers presume rates of participation that defy history and common sense.
For instance, minority representation among voters in 1996 was 17% and in 2000 it was 19.4%. Yet Gallup says it'll be 14.5% this year. That's hard to figure since, as Ruy notes, minorities are growing as a percentage of the population.
With blacks, it was 10.1% in 1996 and 9.7% in 2000. But Gallup says that it'll fall this year to 7.5%.
On young voters (18-29 year olds), it's a similar story. Young voters made up 17% of the electorate in 1996 and 2000. This year, says Gallup, they'll account for only 11%.
Finally, I would be remiss if I did not say that the demographic breakdown numbers Ruy was going on here came from Steve Soto, who has a further discussion of these demographic problems in the Gallup numbers on his website.
--Josh Marshall
This is lovely.
Click on this link and you'll go to the Ashley's Story website. It's part of an ad campaign running on conservative websites.
Ashley is a young girl whose mother died in the World Trade Center. And earlier this year, at a campaign event, she was comforted for her loss by President Bush. It's an affecting picture and I'm sure it was an equally affecting moment.
Go to the Ashley's Story website and you'll find an earth-toned montage of images about Ashley, the foundation set up in her mother's honor and more.
There's even a link you can click on to make a contribution to "spread Ashley's story."
If you click around the site a little further though you see that the money is actually for a slew of anti-Kerry attack ads.
There is an Ashley's Story ad, about how President Bush changed the girl's life. But that's just one. The other eight include the 'Surfer Dude' ad ridiculing Kerry as a windsurfer who flipflops, another -- What If -- that asks the terrifying question of what would have happened if 9/11 had happened on Kerry's watch rather than President Bush's, and a slew of others of a similar sort.
The Ashley's Story fundraiser site is actually a pitch for Progress for America Voter Fund.
--Josh Marshall
In the last presidential debate, President Bush said he wasn't taking a flu shot because of the current shortage. I can understand the politics of saying that and also the sincere motive beyond it. He probably would have been attacked if he said he was making an exception for himself.
Still, the president should get a flu shot.
Support him or not, the president is singular. Issues of fairness and equality aside, the country can't afford to have the president debilitated by the flu or the complications that can follow from it -- especially when it is easily prevented.
One might say, though with less merit, that the same may apply to Senator Kerry in these last few weeks of the campaign since such a monumental choice as voters face in two weeks shouldn't be left to the vagaries of the influenza virus.
But Congress? Their staffers? Everybody who works on Capitol Hill?
According to tomorrow's Washington Post, any member of congress or employee of congress can walk into the capitol's attending physician and get a flu shot. In theory, they're not supposed to get one if they don't qualify under the CDC guidelines. But if they walk in and ask for one, they get one. No questions asked.
On top of that, the capital physician has told every member of congress to get a shot, regardless of age or health status. The rationale is that they come into contact with so many constituents and are at particular risk.
That doesn't seem right.
I have a friend who is HIV-positive; and he hasn't been able to get a shot yet. I have a relative who is over 65 and has a serious medical condition; and he hasn't been able to get one yet either.
I wrestled for several hours over whether to post this entry because I know there's a real risk that such comments merely pander to a cheap populism. [ed.note: the timestamp on TPM entries is most often when they're begun, not when they're posted.] I don't have anything against the staffers who work up on capitol hill. I know many of them. But this seems like a double standard that can't be justified.
--Josh Marshall
Reed Hundt responds <$NoAd$>...
Dear Josh,Now we see that Sinclair is not going to run the smear "documentary" after all. Instead they are going to run something they label as news, but which according to its current description is transparently another criticism of the Kerry campaign. What are we to make of this new tactic?
First, by backing away from their previous plan, Sinclair is effectively admitting either that their advertisers want them to maintain the broadcaster tradition of providing balanced and neutrail coverage of elections ( because without that advertisers risk viewer unhappiness being directed at the advertisers), or that Sinclair in fact may face many regulatory problems in the event that it violates that tradition. That much at least is progress toward some recognition of reality at Sinclair.
Second, Sinclair calling their proposed new show news does not make it news. What in fact one may think of their broadcast can and should be judged after the fact. But since Sinclair's relationship to objectivity, as reflected in its press statements, is rather attenuated, one should suppose that Sinclair's new show may well be judged just as much a smear as the so-called documentary they apparently will no longer run. As a result, advertisers have just as much ground to be wary, and the FCC just as much basis to do its duty, and Sinclair just as much reason to feel the opprobrium of an aroused public, as was the case before this current and suspicious effort to disguise the true intentions of Sinclair.
Third, the chairman of the FCC and his White House friends have nothing to be proud of in this embroglio, but perhaps the American people can be happy that notwithstanding his implicit endorsement of the Sinclair smear, at least in the first round the public has stood up to Sinclair's unfairness with some steadfastness and coordinated purpose. On the other hand, Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein, two Democratic commissioners at the FCC, have expressed themselves forcefully on the issue of balance and fairness. The next step either for commissioners or the Chairman, if he were to come to a realization of his duties, would be to investigate immediately the applicability of equal time obligations. This must be done in a hurry, so that if the Kerry campaign were granted equal time, that time would come before, rather than after (!) the election. If the Chairman won't act, then the commissioners should and could investigate without him, and make public their own conclusions about equal time. Of course, equal time for the Kerry campaign to reach the public served by the Sinclair use of the public's airwaves is not only a matter of specific regulation but also an ethical and cultural value to which any public official is empowered to speak.
Sincerely Yours,
Reed Hundt
former FCC chairman (1993-97)P.S. The news director at Sinclair quitting is not a back page story; or it should not have been. It is telling, even conclusive evidence, of the difference between a fair culture of news reporting and the culture at Sinclair. More material for investigation.
--Josh Marshall
Day One: President Bush accuses Sen. Kerry of using "shameless scare tactics."
Day Two: Vice President Cheney says Sen. Kerry isn't "tough and aggressive" enough to stop terrorists from exploding a nuclear weapon in an American city.
--Josh Marshall
Lying about the draft.
In an interview Monday with the AP, Bush accused Kerry of scare tactics and insisted he would not bring back the military draft, even if there were a crisis with North Korea or Iran."I believe we've got the assets and manpower necessary to be able to deal with another theater should one arise," Bush said.
Then there's this from the Times ...
The chief Pentagon spokesman, Lawrence T. Di Rita, said Monday: "It is the policy of this administration to oppose a military draft for any purpose whatsoever. A return to the draft is unthinkable. There will be no draft."
Unthinkable?
Categorically, there will be no draft?
Then why do we have a Selective Service exactly? Why do we have the contingency plans <$Ad$>discussed in the Times article? The draft is always possible, depending on various possible national security threats and contingencies, particularly those that might persist for some time. That's why we have a Selective Service.
My point, as I've said previously, is not that there will necessarily be a draft or that the Bush administration is planning one or wants one. The point is that the administraiton has pursued a mix of policies that make it a very real possibility -- not because the administration wants a draft, but because they may drive the country into a position where we have no choice.
Take the president's comment to the Associated Press. We have the manpower to deal with another major theater conflict in North Korea or Iran? Really? The US military is under great strain now with current deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan. How can we possibly have sufficient manpower to handle an all-out war with North Korea and its aftermath, without pushing the all-volunteer military past its breaking point?
Through a mix of conscious policy and mismanagement, the White House has gotten us to the point where another major conflict would be quite difficult to sustain for a number of reasons. The point of a debate about a potential draft is to weigh the consequences of those policies and that record of mismanagement.
By making categorical statements that are false on their face -- i.e., there will never be a draft -- the White House is trying to avoid or cut short that debate. And that makes sense because when you have the debate on its merits, a draft does seem like a real possibility.
Voters have a right to know that, to understand the consequences of White House policies and what they're not being told about them.
Perhaps the president and his advisors really believe they'll never have to consider a draft, though I doubt it. But then this White House has a history of making bluff, confident assertions of which reality quickly makes a mockery.
Just look at Iraq.
--Josh Marshall
Like I said this morning, NBC/WSJ has Bush and Kerry tied at 48% among likely voters.
--Josh Marshall
While I was writing the post below, I got some other information on the Sinclair developments of the day. As we noted this morning, Media Matters underwrote legal action taken on behalf of Sinclair shareholders. A letter was sent to Sinclair this morning demanding that they provide equal time in their presentation for those with contrary views.
For the legalese of the matter, see this fact sheet on their website.
If Sinclair didn't make a satisfactory response by the end of business today, the letter said, Glickenhaus & Co, the firm handling the case, would seek an injunction to block the airing of the show.
This evening I spoke to David Bennahum at Media Matters. He told me that at about 3:45 PM this afternoon, Glickenhaus got a call from Vicky Evans, from the Sinclair legal department. She said that their response to the demand letter would be arriving in Glickenhaus's fax machine momentarily.
What cranked out after a few moments was the press release later distributed publicly by Sinclair, which stated that they would not be broadcasting 'Stolen Honor.'
That was their response. And Glickenhaus judged it a sufficient response that they will not be making their request for an injunction tomorrow. Here's their letter back to Sinclair.
As I said in my earlier post, I don't have great confidence that it's not going to be the same smear repackaged with a new name. But we'll see.
--Josh Marshall
As we noted earlier, this afternoon Sinclair sent out a press release in which they said that "contrary to numerous inaccurate political and press accounts, the Sinclair stations will not be airing the documentary 'Stolen Honor' in its entirety."
On that front, you'll be interested to know that some of the biased lefty rags who published this calumny were the TV listings in papers across the country. Here's the Yahoo TV listing, just by way of example.
Now, to move back to the substance of the matter, I headlined the earlier post with the question of whether Sinclair was starting to crack under the pressure. I don't think there's any question they are. But the emphasis is very much on 'starting.'
As nearly as I can figure it, from their press release, what Sinclair now plans is an hourlong special which is based largely on the material from 'Stolen Honor' but also frames this in a larger 'context' of liberal media bias and how bad it is that all the other networks haven't run 'Stolen Honor' and presumably what a rough shake Sinclair's gotten for trying to run 'Stolen Honor.' That's balance.
Read the press release and tell me if you think I've got it wrong. Don't miss CEO David Smith's comments toward the bottom.
That, to put it mildly, doesn't cut it.
Sinclair is trying to wriggle and whine out of the mess they've gotten themselves into by violating their journalistic responsibilities, and public responsibilities as holders of public broadcast licenses, by running an anti-Kerry infomercial as a news show just ten days before the election.
Smith has classified the outrage and actions Sinclair's decision has spawned as so many "misguided attempts by a small but vocal minority."
He doesn't mention, of course, that that 'small but vocal minority' includes the man whom until yesterday Sinclair considered a respectable enough fellow to have as their DC Bureau chief.
Everything we've seen from the Sinclair folks -- and, by this, I mean the executives, not its many employees around the country -- over the last ten days marks them as reckless clowns, with brass knuckles and pretty poor business men to boot.
The logical interpretation of what's happened in the last week is that they believe they'll make up for whatever losses they sustain through regulatory, or rather deregulatory, payback after the election. Their barely disguised motives have been most clearly evidenced by their manner of using their offer of 'equal time' to Kerry as a form of gleefully public extortion.
In theory, what Sinclair now describes could be a fair-minded look at Kerry's time as a Vietnam war protestor. But look who we're dealing with? Based on their track record, their claims don't give me a lot of confidence. Their latest gambit seems like a prettied up attempt at the same smear by another name.
I'd love to be proven wrong. But I'm not too hopeful.
--Josh Marshall
Sinclair cracking under the <$NoAd$>pressure?
Sinclair Broadcast Group (Nasdaq: SBGI - News) announced today that on Friday, October 22, 2004 at 8:00 p.m. (7:00 p.m. central time) certain television stations owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc. will air a special one-hour news program, entitled "A POW Story: Politics, Pressure and the Media." In order to minimize the interruption of normally scheduled programming in those markets where Sinclair owns and/or programs more than one television station, the news special will be broadcast on only one of those stations. A complete list of stations which will be airing the program and the times of such broadcasts is attached.The news special will focus in part on the use of documentaries and other media to influence voting, which emerged during the 2004 political campaigns, as well as on the content of certain of these documentaries. The program will also examine the role of the media in filtering the information contained in these documentaries, allegations of media bias by media organizations that ignore or filter legitimate news and the attempts by candidates and other organizations to influence media coverage.
Contrary to numerous inaccurate political and press accounts, the Sinclair stations will not be airing the documentary "Stolen Honor" in its entirety. At no time did Sinclair ever publicly announce that it intended to do so. In fact, since the controversy began, Sinclair's website has prominently displayed the following statement: "The program has not been videotaped and the exact format of this unscripted event has not been finalized. Characterizations regarding the content are premature and are based on ill- informed sources."
Hmmm. Inaccurate stories based on statements of Sinclair executives. Truly, where do they get these clowns?
See the rest here?
As of 4 PM Sinclair stock is off 3.54% today. It was even further down but 'rallied' over the last half hour or so.
--Josh Marshall
Release the hounds!
Media Matters for America, David Brock's new media watchdog outfit, just annouced that they've underwritten the costs of a shareholder action to force Sinclair Broadcasting to provide real equal time to balance their forced airing of the hour-long Swift Boat smear.
A demand letter just went out this morning and that's to be followed tomorrow, if no reasonable response is forthcoming, by a request for an injunction preventing the airing of the film.
Click here for all the details ...
And if that weren't enough, that's not the only lawsuit coming down the pike this afternoon.
Also, we're hearing that there are quite a few Sinclair employees at the local level who are actually hoping the boycott works.
--Josh Marshall
President Bush in Florida: "I know there are some here who are worried about the flu season. I want to assure them that our government is doing everything possible to help older Americans and children get their shots despite the major manufacturing defect that caused this problem."
Translation: We're working on getting some more shots. But the important thing to understand is that it's not our fault.
--Josh Marshall
NBC/WSJ has its new poll out tonight. And I hear it's got welcome news for Kerry. Dead even among likely voters.
--Josh Marshall
In the Concord Monitor this morning, former <$Ad$>Senator Bob Smith (R-NH) unloads a fusillade of denunciation against Jim Tobin for his role in the 2002 phone jamming case.
It is only fair to say that Smith is not without an interest or an axe to grind in this matter. You'll remember that he left and then rejoined the Republican party. And then John Sununu, the eventual Republican candidate in whose interest the phone jamming scam was perpetrated, beat him in the 2002 Republican primary, thus ending his senate career.
All that said, however, his denunciation is right on the mark.
From Mr. Smith, who once went to Washington ...
Both parties have a right to expect a fair election result even if it is not always a favorable one. Tobin also said, "It is disappointing, indeed, to see the opposition party (Democrats) manipulate the court system in a blatant attempt to influence the election."What a mind-numbing hypocritical answer that is! Who is trying to influence elections, Mr. Tobin? Please do not insult us further.
New Hampshire Democrat Party Chair Kathy Sullivan said, "The public should know Tobin's role in this, along with the roles of any other high-level GOP officials."
Kathy and I have not agreed very often, but she is absolutely correct. We need the truth now to restore confidence in the coming election. She has a right to be angry. Can you imagine the Republican outrage if the Democrats had been guilty of similar conduct? Does a party that refuses to tell the truth before Election Day deserve our vote on election day?
Exactly.
The guy who helped organize election tampering last cycle gets appointed by the Bush campaign to run their election operation this cycle. And he only resigns his post after his role becomes public knowledge rather than the inside scoop among Republican operatives and a few DOJ lawyers. That's as big an outrage as the original offense.
--Josh Marshall
The flu ...<$NoAd$>
Late this summer, at the first sign of new problems at Chiron Corp.'s long-troubled plant, the British began searching for other suppliers of flu vaccine.“When Chiron informed us of the potential problems at the end of August, we made contingency agreements,” said Alison Langley, a spokeswoman for the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency, or MHRA, the British equivalent of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Armed with essentially the same information, however, U.S. officials relied on Chiron's early assurances that only a small portion of the flu vaccine from its Liverpool plant was contaminated.
It was not until Oct. 5, when the British pulled Chiron's license, that they knew that half the U.S. flu vaccine supply had just disappeared, producing the lines and shortages that the country is now enduring.
The article goes on to point out that even if US officials had reacted as proactively as the Brits, we still would have had a more difficult time grappling with the problem.
There are a) more Americans than Brits, b) the British were relying on this one plant for a smaller percentage of their flu vaccine needs, and c) a smaller percentage of the British population gets a regular flu shot. For all those reasons combined, the US shortfall is about 45 million doses while the Brits' is probably a bit under 2 million.
Still, it seems clear that not only were we depending on too few suppliers, but that someone was asleep at the switch when the warning lights started blinking.
--Josh Marshall
Yep, like we said this afternoon, among the jobless.
Sinclair Broadcasting's Washington Bureau chief Jonathan Lieberman got canned this afternoon for denouncing Sinclair's Swift Boat stunt in an interview for this morning's Baltimore Sun.
I give this guy a lot of credit. I feel bad for him. And I really hope someone picks him up quickly.
But my strongest impression is simply the outlandish quality of this drama. It's like we're a banan