Yes, We're Still Here...
April 29, 2008 -- 10:19 AM EST // link //

Many of you have written in to ask about the status of The Horse's Mouth and the delay in relaunching it. So here's a quick update.

First off, my sincerest apologies for not updating you sooner. The truth is that after putting the blog on hiatus, I discovered that it was rather nice to have a break from posting here while simultaneously running TPM Election Central. I needed the breather, frankly. So I let that hiatus drag on for much longer than I expected to. This is the sole reason for the delay in starting up again.

So here's what's going to happen. The blog will be reborn soon, but this time, it will be part of TPM Cafe, rather than being a stand alone blog. There are several reasons for this which I will share when the blog is back up and running, but the bottom line is that the posts will be tagged, making them available in one place, so your reading experience won't change. And there will be comments, too.

I'm reluctant to put a time frame on when this will happen, but it should be done within the next several weeks, perhaps when the crush of election news slows down a bit. Apologies again for the long delay in updating you.

-- Greg Sargent

Horse's Mouth On Brief Hiatus
March 6, 2008 -- 10:41 AM EST // link //

Note to faithful readers: This blog is taking a very short break while we resolve a number of technical and other issues associated with its makeover, which is being hashed out and is imminent.

We may do occasional posts here as circumstances warrant, but for the (very) short term it's basically shuttered.

Many thanks for your patience, and we'll be back in business before you know it...

-- Greg Sargent

Just a couple quick notes on this. As I noted here yesterday, in many ways the question of whether the press is "tougher" on one candidate or the other is beside the point. Rather, the question we should be asking is whether the press is fair to both candidates -- indeed, to all of them. But the Hillary campaign framed the question this way for its own obvious reasons (they want the press to start bashing Obama). So this is how the debate has unfolded.

What's more, in the above tally, some people obviously have more nuanced positions than either "agree with Hillary" or "disagree with Hillary." But for the purpose of getting a sense of which way opinion is breaking on this question, I took the liberty of slotting people into either category as best I could.

Finally, as the above shows, it's worth noting that whichever side you take here, the Clinton camp's repeated accusations have had the salutary effect of generating a pretty vigorous debate on the question, flawed as it is. It remains to be seen, of course, whether the debate will anything more than get media figures to start "getting tough" on Obama in a manner that's as trivial and inane as much of the media bashing of Hillary has been.

At any rate, it's pretty clear that opinion is breaking heavily in the direction of the Hillary campaign on this.

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-- Greg Sargent

It's Not About "Toughness." It's About "Fairness."
March 3, 2008 -- 3:49 PM EST // link //

Both Glenn Greenwald and Digby today weighed in on the question of whether the media's been harsher on Hillary than on Obama -- and they both answered with a resounding Yes.

But both of them also add a crucial dimension to the discussion that's been absent thus far: The key point that media "toughness" is a vapid, almost meaningless term that doesn't get at the core problem here.

Greenwald, for his part, says that he agrees that Hillary "has borne the far greater brunt of media hatred and hostility over the last year." He adds that when media figures "start talking about how they have to subject Obama to `scrutiny,' too, they don't mean that they're going to re-evaluate the trashy, vapid coverage they applied to Clinton and start examining his record, his positions, his views, etc." Instead, he predicts, they'll do the same to Obama that they did to Hillary.

Meanwhile, Digby, in an email to Greenwald, writes: "It's a fact that Clinton has received much harsher treatment than Obama." She suggests that media people will reach exactly the wrong conclusion about their own failings: "Instead of reevaluating their bias against Clinton and examining their sexism in general, they are now going to rectify matters by going after Obama on a bunch of irrelevant, superficial stuff to `make up' for their transgressions."

Exactly right. The key question here isn't, or shouldn't be, whether the press has been "equally tough" on both candidates. Rather, the question is whether the press has been equally fair to them. The question is whether both candidates have been treated with similar measures of professionalism, judiciousness, even sanity.

And the simple truth is that they haven't. Though I agree with Matthew Yglesias' argument that the picture isn't completely clear cut, and I agree with Greg Mitchell's case that the media could suddenly shift gears and write a Hillary-comeback narrative, in a very broad sense the press and punditry's treatment of Hillary has often been unfair on a very fundamental level, sometimes pathologically so. No other candidate has had to endure the amount of media smut that's been hurled her way. No matter who you support, the quality of the coverage of Hillary is not a state of affairs anyone should be happy about.

And this brings me to a point I've been meaning to make here. Those who insist that Hillary deserves fair treatment from the media have been subjected to a tremendous amount of abuse by a tiny and unrepresentative minority of Obama supporters who see such a demand as nothing but Hillary shilling, or "Shillary," as they like to put it.

But as Greenwald and Digby both note, it's not hard to imagine that should Obama become the nominee, he may find himself subjected to the same sort of media treatment, if not quite in degree, that Obama supporters defended when it was directed at Hillary. If and when Obama supporters start griping about this, as they should, then the complaints directed at those insisting on fair treatment of Hillary will in retrospect look shortsighted indeed.

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-- Greg Sargent

Halperin Gets It Right On Frank Rich/Maureen Dowd Anti-Hillary Jihad
March 2, 2008 -- 11:51 AM EST // link //

Time magazine's Mark Halperin today hits on a point this blog has been obsessing over a bit lately: The fact that the week-in-week-out anti-Clinton jihad being waged in tandem by the Terrible Two of the Times Op ed page, Maureen Dowd and Frank Rich, has become mind-numbingly tedious and predictable.

As Halperin puts it, in a droll reference to their columns today...

Another Sunday, Another Round Of Anti-Clinton Shots From Rich And Dowd

Yeah, seriously. Here's another way to put it:

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Halperin rightly notes that the Times Terrible Two took "their usual jabs at the New York Senator."

You really have to wonder what Times editors think about this. It can't make them happy to see someone like Halperin, the ultimate Beltway media insider, lampooning the predictability that now reigns on their illustrious Op ed page. Aren't they a bit concerned about this?

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-- Greg Sargent

As regular readers know, this blog is sympathetic to the claim that in the broadest possible sense, much media coverage and punditry is unfair to Hillary on a very fundamental level and is tougher on her than on her rivals. This claim was advanced recently by the Hillary campaign itself -- a fact that doesn't necessarily render the claim false, incidentally -- prompting an instant outpouring of scorn from top-shelf commentators.

Maureen Dowd, for instance, had a grand old time mocking the claim, snarking: "It is only because of the utter open-mindedness of the press that Hillary can lose 11 contests in a row and still be treated as a contender."

Well, it looks like much of the public is able to see the obvious, even if Dowd and her cohorts won't. Check out what Democratic primary voters think of this matter, according to this week's New York Times poll:

Compared to the way the news media have treated other candidates, have the news media been harder on Hillary Clinton, easier on Hillary Clinton, or have they treated her the same as other candidates?
Harder 48%
Easier 8%
Same 43%

Meanwhile, only 13% say the press is tougher on Obama. Now, a couple quick caveats. Yes, the Hillary camp's media bashing is a strategy. And no, Hillary isn't merely a passive victim of bad coverage -- her campaign is partly to blame for her media travails, too. Also, it would be more illuminating if a pollster asked if people see the media as unfair to Hillary, rather than just asking if they think the press is harder on her, as this poll does.

Nonetheless, these numbers are noteworthy. The fact that the press is tougher on her should be plainly obvious to anyone who's paying even the most cursory level of attention to what's happening, and it's good to see that sizable chunk of the voters can see this, even if many pundits continue to pretend that it isn't the case.

Update: Some readers point out that a larger number -- 51% -- think the coverage has been the same or easier on her. I don't think this diminishes the larger point here. Nearly four times as many respondents (48%) think the press has been harder on Hillary than think it has been harder on Obama (13%).

What's more, it's still eye-opening that nearly half of Dems say the media's been harder on Hillary -- it's a far larger proportion than among the pundits, who rarely if ever acknowledge this to be the case. That's the main point here.

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-- Greg Sargent

Author Of Infamous "Blog Rage" Piece Says Bloggers Are Real Journalists
February 29, 2008 -- 3:24 PM EST // link //

Via Romenesko, the executive editor of WashingtonPost.com, Jim Brady, has offered up some extremely sensible thoughts about the relationship between bloggers and the traditional media:

“I think the argument about bloggers vs. journalists has been over for years,” said Jim Brady, executive editor of Washingtonpost.com. “We’ve all co-existed just fine for a while now, and the truth is, the distinction is less relevant every day. There are thousands of journalists who now blog, and there are lots of bloggers who are trained journalists.”
“I don’t think readers care whether what they’re reading is in a blog or not. What they care about is whether they trust the source of that information, whether it’s a mainstream site or a pure blog.”

It's true that bloggers and journalists are starting to learn to co-exist quite nicely, and indeed, the distinction is losing relevance every day, as Brady says. But I'm not flagging this merely because Brady's right. Rather, I'm noting it because Brady's thoughts are particularly interesting in the context of a now-forgotten piece of ancient history that took place all the way back in 2006.

Specifically, I'm talking about the fact that Brady was for a time one of the Great Villains of the blogosphere. I don't remember the particulars of it now, but there was some fracas involving WaPo Ombud Deborah Howell that resulted in Brady being hit by one of the fiercest blogswarms of this millennium.

In response, Brady wrote an infamous piece, entitled "BLOG RAGE" (caps in original) in which he shared his feelings about having been "mugged by the blogosphere." Though there was a bit of positive stuff about the blogosphere in the piece, it was widely panned as a kind of reactionary anti-blog manifesto.

Anyway, in light of that history, Brady's welcome remarks about the eroding distinctions between journalists and bloggers seemed significant, or at least worthy of a quick Friday afternoon mention.

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-- Greg Sargent

Silly Suck-Up-To-Drudge Moment Of The Day
February 29, 2008 -- 10:56 AM EST // link //

As noted below, this blog bestows the much-coveted Silly Suck-Up-To-Drudge Moment Of The Day Award when circumstances warrant -- when, for instance, journalists deliberately tailor their copy to get linked by Drudge or when they give him gratuitous plugs or overstate his influence in some grotesque way.

And today's award goes to...

The Telegraph's Toby Harnden!!!

He gets the honor for writing the following:

He remains an elusive, mysterious figure but the internet pioneer is arguably the single most powerful journalist -- though his detractors even deny that is his occupation -- in the world.

Yep -- Drudge is the most powerful journalist "in the world." More powerful than New York Times executive editor Bill Keller, Times edit page editor Andy Rosenthal, Washington Post chief Len Downie, WaPo edit page editor Fred Hiatt, CNN president Jonathan Klein, Fox News chief Roger Ailes, the editors of Time and Newsweek, the top executives and producers at all the major networks, etc., etc...

And, as always, those hailing Drudge's "power" are the very same people who are giving him that power by pretending that his reporting is in any way valid. Harnshaw, for instance, writes the following about Drudge and his silly "scoop" that Hillary staffers had "circulated" a picture of Obama in Somali garb...

By the end, he had become Hillary Clinton's weapon of choice against Mr Obama.

Right, but Hillary's campaign denied that this happened, and there's no evidence whatsoever that this happened beyond confirmed-fact-inventor Drudge's word for it, Mr. Harnshaw. You grant him this power by pretending that what he reported is confirmed truth.

Needless to say, Mr. Harnshaw's story got its Drudge link.

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-- Greg Sargent

Poll: Huge Majority Thinks Internet Is Having "Positive Impact" On Journalism
February 28, 2008 -- 4:40 PM EST // link //

Updated below.

It's a common blogospheric refrain that the American public is way ahead of the commentators on key political questions. Well, it turns out that the public might also be way ahead when it comes to judging the value, impact and significance of the Internet and blogosphere, too.

Via Romenesko, John Zogby has a very interesting new poll out that probes public attitudes towards the Internet and its relationship to the traditional news media. Check out these numbers:

* Web sites are seen as a "more important source of news and information than traditional media outlets." Eighty-six percent say Web sites are an "important" news source, compared to 77% who picked television and 70% who picked newspapers. Obviously, traditional news outlets also have online presences, so the meaning of this breakdown isn't terribly clear cut, but it's noteworthy.

And get this -- some 38% said blogs are an "important" source of news. That's less than the others, and the study also finds that almost no respondents pick blogs as their "primary" news source. But the fact that nearly 40% say blogs, as opposed to Web sites, are an "important" news source seems surprisingly high.

* A whopping 77% see "citizen journalism" as important for the future of journalism, and a solid majority of 59% see blogs as vital to its future, too. While those numbers are lower than the 87% who see "professional journalism" as key, those are still striking.

* And finally, three in four, or 75%, think the Internet has "had a positive impact on the overall quality of journalism."

We all know that the Internet and blogosphere have their share of failings. But these numbers suggest public attitudes that really are at odds with the barbarians-are-at-the-gates critique of the Internet and blogs you heard for so long from certain journalistic wise men, though that critique is getting tougher to sustain and you're hearing less and less of it lately.

Somewhere, David Broder is grumbling.

Update: It's worth noting that this is an online poll, but the numbers are still significant. They suggest a real and growing base of support for the idea that the Internet and blogs are having a salutary effect on journalism and are as credible or more so than traditional media. And the numbers on blogs and citizen journalism are particularly striking.

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-- Greg Sargent

Fox News Falsely Claims That Weatherman Bill Ayers Was Obama's "Mentor"
February 28, 2008 -- 11:20 AM EST // link //

One thing to keep a lookout for when watching the emerging wingnut-slime-machine assault on Barack Obama is efforts to build a superstructure of lies on top of a foundation of a few inconsequential facts.

This sort of stuff has the potential to be effective, because once people accept the germ of truth within the assault, they're at risk of believing the grotesque falsehoods that sprouted from it. The wingers are very good at doing this, as we've seen again and again.

Here, for instance, is a "report" on Fox News, by radio host John Batchelor, on Obama's alleged ties to Bill Ayers, a former member of the Weather Underground who has been unrepentant about the bombs set by the group. The germ of the story -- that Obama has some sort of relationship with him -- is true. But look at how creatively Batchelor embellishes the whole tale...

You see, in Fox's telling, now Ayers is Obama's "mentor" and he and fellow Weather Underground member Bernadine Dohrn were "principals" on his first campaign for state senate. Also note how Batchelor slyly slips in the reference to September 11th, an obvious effort to connect the bombing by Obama's "mentor" to the terrorism that brought down the towers.

Now, far be it from me to question Batchelor's reporting abilities. But none of this additional info is sourced in any way. And it hasn't been reported anywhere, either. This has been looked into pretty exhaustively, and what's been reported thus far is that Obama met with Ayers and Dohrn in 1995; Obama served with Ayers on the board of an anti-poverty group; Ayers donated $200 to Obama's 2001 state senate campaign; and the two men are " friendly."

If Ayers were really Obama's "mentor" someone would have attested to this by now. And if Ayers and Dohrn had been "principals" on his campaign you'd think there would be a record of it somewhere. This is fiction, pure and simple. But it's the kind of fiction that has the potential to get folks saying, hey, didja hear Obama's tight with some America-hating dude who blew up a bunch of stuff? The guy was Obama's mentor, or something...

At any rate, get ready for eight months of this sort of garbage. It's going to get a lot uglier than this.

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-- Greg Sargent

Could Hillary Camp's Attacks On Press Bear Some Fruit?
February 27, 2008 -- 5:05 PM EST // link //

Yesterday I argued that Hillary's new strategy -- attacking the press as rooting for her defeat -- ran the risk of making things worse for her by making the campaign look frustrated and in search of a scapegoat, something that spooks supporters and donors.

But now I think it's fair to ask whether the strategy is also bearing at least a bit of fruit.

The full force of Camp Hillary's assault on the media really became public yesterday morning. Since then, CNN ran a lengthy segment on the Hillary campaign's gripe that Obama is getting largely "rock star" treatment from the press.

Just a few minutes ago, CNN ran another lengthy segment, this one about Jeremiah Wright, the recently retired pastor at Obama's church who lavishly praised Louis Farrakhan. The piece had a pretty tough chyron:

What Obama's Pastor Said
Jewish-American Concerns

During the segment, Wolf Blitzer noted that Obama "faces questions about his level of support for Israel from some American Jews." Tough scrutiny -- if not on this precise topic -- is exactly what the Hillary campaign has been asking for from the major news orgs, of course.

To be clear, the points I raised yesterday about this approach still stand. And obviously, a couple CNN segments is hardly enough to judge whether Camp Hillary's bash-the-press strategy will work in any meaningful sense. Even if it did work to some degree, it seems unlikely that it would alter the outcome of the contest.

Still, you have to wonder whether CNN would have aired these segments at these lengths, or with this sort of tone, if Hillary advisers hadn't spent so much time of late stamping their feet over the media's alleged softness on Obama. Someone at CNN seems to be listening, and responding accordingly.

Update: It's worth recalling that CNN has proven pliant in the face of such criticism before. When the Obama camp complained to CNN about its use of Hillary supporters James Carville and Paul Begala as on-air analysts, the network banned them except in outright surrogate situations.

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-- Greg Sargent

Maureen Dowd: Only Reason Hillary Is Still In Race Is Because Of Media's Benevolence
February 27, 2008 -- 10:35 AM EST // link //

So Maureen Dowd's column this morning bashed Hillary yet again, in terms strikingly similar to what we've heard already in many of her recent columns.

Yawn. So, so, so boring. I repeat: Just try to imagine what The New York Times could accomplish if they took Dowd's premiere-columnist salary and invested it elsewhere.

But put that aside for a sec. I wanted to flag a line in the column that perfectly encapsulates top-shelf pundit elitism at its finest. Referring to Hillary's new strategy of bashing the press coverage, Dowd writes:

Beating on the press is the lamest thing you can do. It is only because of the utter open-mindedness of the press that Hillary can lose 11 contests in a row and still be treated as a contender.

Right, so according to Dowd, the only reason we're still conducting this presidential race is because she and her fellow media cohorts are benevolently holding off on crowning Obama the winner. That's just so lovely and generous of them, isn't it?

Actually, the real reason Hillary is being still treated as a contender is because millions upon millions of voters in two very big states haven't gone to the polls yet. I know, it's highly unlikely that she'll mount a comeback, to put it charitably. But still -- is it okay if we wait for those poor voters to have their say before we kick off the celebrations of her loss?

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-- Greg Sargent

Hillary Spokesperson Blasts Reporters For Using Drudge As Their "Assignment Editor"
February 26, 2008 -- 5:18 PM EST // link //

In this morning's Washington Post, Dana Milbank has a sketch that mocks Hillary spokesperson Phil Singer for lambasting reporters at a breakfast yesterday.

Singer was ticked because the press was following Matt Drudge's story about Hillary's staffers allegedly spreading a pic of Obama in a turban:

Before the breakfast crowd had a chance to digest that, they were served another, stranger course by Clinton campaign spokesman Phil Singer. Asked about an accusation on the Drudge Report that Clinton staffers had circulated a photo of Barack Obama wearing Somali tribal dress, Singer let 'er rip.
"I find it interesting that in a room of such esteemed journalists that Mr. Drudge has become your respected assignment editor," he lectured. "I find it to be a reflection of one of the problems that's gone on with the overall coverage of this campaign."...
The brief moment explained everything about the bitter relations between Clinton's campaign and the media: Singer taunting the likes of Broder, who began covering presidential politics two decades before Singer was born...

Milbank thinks the observation that reporters used Drudge as an "assignment editor" yesterday is strange and amounts to a taunt. But isn't it basically true? Mark Halperin openly says Drudge "rules our world," doesn't he?

Let's review. Yesterday Drudge ran an item saying that unnamed Hillary "staffers" had "circulated" the photo. Drudge didn't say who the staffers were or what level they occupy in the campaign. Drudge didn't say whom the photo was circulated among. It was just "circulated." This has no meaning. If one of Hillary's lowliest staffers emailed the pic to another lowly staffer, Drudge's description would still apply.

Based on the strength of confirmed-fact-inventor Drudge's word and nothing else, the Obama camp attacked Hillary for dirty politics. But even before Obama released their statement, reporters were asking about the Drudge story -- even though it didn't really say anything with any meaning.

By the end of the day, all the major news orgs were carrying this story (as was TPM Election Central). Even though Camp Hillary belatedly denied it. Even though no evidence ever emerged beyond Drudge's word that it had happened. And even though Drudge hadn't even alleged anything clear-cut at all to begin with.

Is the fault partly the Hillary campaign's? Absolutely. They waited way too long to deny the story. You could argue that the Camp Hillary denial wasn't absolute -- but again, what exactly were they supposed to be denying? And let's face it -- no matter how forceful or early the denial had been, all the news orgs would have run with it, anyway. Even Milbank's WaPo colleague, Chris Cillizza, yesterday opined that the Obama camp attacked Hillary precisely because they could count on the networks to run the story based solely on Drudge's word.

Does this performance count as using Drudge as your assignment editor?

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-- Greg Sargent

**John Solomon's Washington Times Presents The Next Obama Smear: Military "Fears" Him**
February 26, 2008 -- 12:57 PM EST // link //

Updated below.

Here's some more proof, as if you needed it, that our old pal John Solomon isn't exactly having a salutary impact on the journalism at The Washington Times, as his former colleagues assured us he would.

Today's edition of WashTimes rolls out a fresh and newly-minted Obama smear, one we haven't seen before:

Military Fears "Unknown Quantity"
Members of Washington's military and defense establishment are expressing trepidation about Sen. Barack Obama, as the Illinois senator comes closer to winning the Democratic presidential nomination and leads in national polls to become commander in chief.

Guess how many "members of Washington's military and defense establishment" are quoted saying that they fear this "unknown quantity":

Exactly one. And that one person is a retired Air Force Lieutenant General who doubles as a Fox News analyst.

The piece does quote an Obama ally conceding that senior officers view him "skeptically," and for all I know maybe some members of the military establishment somewhere do view Obama with trepidation. But this piece falls far short of demonstrating anything like the "fear" that it claims military members are experiencing.

What's more, this suggestion in the hed that he's widely feared as an "unknown quantity" comes from a single anonymous source. And it gets even worse than this. The piece quotes a Pentagon official saying anonymously that an Obama win in November "will give the Arab street the final victory, the best optics, and the ultimate in bragging rights. They win. We lose."

Doesn't get much lower than that.

Is it really possible that such gutter journalism tactics would be signed off on by such a great journalist, as Beltway types keep calling Solomon? Shocking, I tell you.

Update: The irrepressible Instaputz has a truly hilarious Solomon memo. And Media Matters nails the above story for another bit of clownish misleading.

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-- Greg Sargent

Bill Kristol Previews GOP Attack On Obama: He Thinks He's Better Than You
February 25, 2008 -- 11:30 AM EST // link //

Let it be noted that Bill Kristol's column is not entirely useless. Today's effort, for instance, neatly offers us a preview of what Barack Obama will face from the GOP attack machine and its media enablers this fall, should he become the Dem nominee.

Kristol manages the neat trick of wrapping up not one, but two highly dubious anti-Obama smears into his first few grafs -- the bogus flag-pin patriotism story and Michelle Obama's claim that she's really proud of her country for the first time.

That's to be expected, of course. But what interests me is the overarching theme he uses to tie them together: They both show, he suggests, that haughty and elitist Obama thinks he's better than you and the average Joe. We saw these exact same attacks lobbed relentlessly at Al Gore in 2000 and John Kerry in 2004, of course.

Kristol reaches this "conclusion" by pointing to Obama's claim that he stopped wearing the flag pin because it "became a substitute" for "true patriotism." This, Kristol said, was tantamount to Obama saying that "he was too good" to wear the pin...

Barack Obama is an awfully talented politician. But could the American people, by November, decide that for all his impressive qualities, Obama tends too much toward the preening self-regard of Bill Clinton, the patronizing elitism of Al Gore and the haughty liberalism of John Kerry?
It’s fitting that the alternative to Obama will be John McCain. He makes no grand claim to fix our souls. He doesn’t think he’s the one everyone has been waiting for. He’s more proud of his country than of himself.

Consider yourself warned. Presuming Obama wins the nomination, the Dem will be cast among other things as haughty, patronizing, effete, and disdainful of traditional American values, unlike his salt-of-the-earth GOP opponent, who doesn't presume to be better than you. Sound familiar?

Speaking broadly, in 2000 and 2004 the traditional news orgs and pundits were more than happy to play along with this bogus narrative. Will it happen again? For all sorts of reasons the media dynamic may prove different this time around. Obama is far more rhetorically dexterous than either Gore or Kerry. There's a more robust liberal web presence hitting back at this sort of media nonsense than there was four years ago. And there are plenty of signs that many media figures are far more enamored of Obama than they were of either of his predecessors.

Nonetheless, this is a hint of what's coming, and our elite journalistic institutions and top-shelf media figures have proven more than happy to play along with it before. So Obama needs to be ready for it.

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-- Greg Sargent

Times Public Editor: Paper Shouldn't Have Published Suggestion Of McCain Affair
February 24, 2008 -- 11:55 AM EST // link //

In his column today, New York Times public editor Clark Hoyt gets it right on the paper's big McCain article, arguing that the paper shouldn't have suggested the possibility that he'd had an affair with that female lobbyist without evidence as to whether it actually happened:

The article was notable for what it did not say: It did not say what convinced the advisers that there was a romance. It did not make clear what McCain was admitting when he acknowledged behaving inappropriately — an affair or just an association with a lobbyist that could look bad. And it did not say whether Weaver, the only on-the-record source, believed there was a romance. The Times did not offer independent proof,..
A newspaper cannot begin a story about the all-but-certain Republican presidential nominee with the suggestion of an extramarital affair with an attractive lobbyist 31 years his junior and expect readers to focus on anything other than what most of them did. And if a newspaper is going to suggest an improper sexual affair, whether editors think that is the central point or not, it owes readers more proof than The Times was able to provide.

Hoyt also asked the same question posed below on this blog: Why not run the story without the sexual dimension?

I asked Jill Abramson, the managing editor for news, if The Times could have done the story and left out the allegation about an affair. “That would not have reflected the essential truth of why the aides were alarmed,” she said.
But what the aides believed might not have been the real truth. And if you cannot provide readers with some independent evidence, I think it is wrong to report the suppositions or concerns of anonymous aides about whether the boss is getting into the wrong bed.

This was always the problem here. The issue was never whether the individual facts, as rendered in the article, were accurate or not. Rather, it was that it's simply impossible to report that aides believed that there might have been an affair without basically alleging that it happened, particularly in the context of a white hot presidential race.

If the paper is going to report that people worried that a politician might have had an improper romantic relationship, readers -- and the paper's subject -- deserve also to be given evidence, one way or the other, as to whether the affair actually happened or not. If such evidence is unattainable, or can't be presented to readers for whatever reason, then going there at all is plainly very hard to defend.

But Abramson and Times executive editor Bill Keller, who are sticking by the story, seem to disagree with this simple point. Mystifying indeed.

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-- Greg Sargent

**Paul Krugman Says He Was "Censored" By New York Times!**
February 22, 2008 -- 5:36 PM EST // link //

Hey, whaddaya know! It looks as if there is a level of snarkiness that is considered out of bounds for The New York Times Op ed page!

Over on his blog, Paul Krugman reveals today that the paper told him he couldn't use the following lede on his column on last year's State of the Union Address:

“Before the State of the Union address, there had been hints and hopes that President Bush would offer a serious plan to reduce our dependence on imported oil. Instead, however, he took refuge in alcohol.”

"I'm almost never censored at The Times," Krugman writes.

I note this not to defend mockery of human tragedies such as alcoholism, but merely to note that this shows that the paper's editors will, if they feel like something a columnist says is out of bounds, step in and intervene. This strikes me as highly newsworthy, mainly because no such intervention seems to have occurred when Maureen Dowd wrote demented lines such as this of Obama the other day...

Just like Hollywood starlets, he works out religiously and he can make a three-course meal out of a Nicorette.

...or this about Al Gore in 1999...

Al Gore is so feminized and diversified and ecologically correct, he's practically lactating.

To be clear, it's understandable that the editors would step in and say that making fun of W.'s problem constitutes going too far. The question, though, is why these depraved Dowdisms -- while perhaps not in the same category as the line about Bush -- don't also count as going too far. After all, they're such glaring insults to taste and decency that they merit an intervention, too, if only for the sake of the readers.

As Digby lamented the other day, there seems to be nothing that will get Times brass to take Dowd gently aside and say it's time to bag it with this sort of stuff. But now we know that there is a line somewhere that can be crossed, however. What a relief!

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-- Greg Sargent

The "No One Is Contesting The Facts" Dodge
February 22, 2008 -- 1:03 PM EST // link //

This is worth one more look, because you hear this journalistic defense constantly, whether the topic is Dems or Republicans. Call it the "no one is contesting the facts" dodge.

In a chat with readers today, New York Times managing editor Jill Abramson defended the big McCain-lobbyist story by saying this:

During the long process of our reporting on the story, we attempted, time and time again, to persuade our sources to go on the record and let us use their names. Again, there are named sources in the story but some sources continued to insist on maintaining the cloak of anonymity. As we neared publication, both the editors and the reporting team once again tested the veracity of these sources to make sure every fact in the story was accurate. We were all fully satisfied.

Right, but the issue is not simply whether the individual facts, as rendered in the article, were accurate. Rather, the question is whether certain facts in the story should have been reported at all in their current form.

Let's be as clear as possible about this. Here are some key "facts" from the article:

Convinced the relationship had become romantic, some of his top advisers intervened to protect the candidate from himself...according to two former McCain associates, some of the senator’s advisers had grown so concerned that the relationship had become romantic that they took steps to intervene.

Even if this info is 100% true, there's still a problem here: The inclusion of the fact that some advisers worried that McCain might have had an affair suggests the possibility that he had an affair without settling the question of whether he actually had one or not.

This is the core issue. If you are going to report such anonymous worries about a possible romantic relationship, readers deserve a real effort to settle the question of whether it actually occurred. If you can't settle that question -- or if you can't share what you know its answer to be -- then suggesting that it might have happened is highly questionable. While it makes sense to evaluate such decisions on a case by case basis, this one was a clear call. So, no, saying that all the facts as rendered in the article were accurate just isn't a defense.

I'm bringing this up again because it's a line you hear constantly, and it's a dodge. And with that, this blog is finished with this topic.

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-- Greg Sargent

Times Editors And Reporters Taking Reader Questions About McCain Story
February 22, 2008 -- 9:34 AM EST // link //

Via Romenesko, this is noteworthy: The editors and reporters who worked on the big and controversial McCain story that ran in The Times yesterday are taking questions about the piece from the public.

Good. We've obviously seen plenty of instances lately of reporters and editors taking reader questions, but here you have the members of the team who put this piece together making themselves available to answer questions about the article.

Here's what I would ask:

* If the paper is going to report that anonymous sources were worried that McCain might have had an affair, isn't it incumbent on the paper to come closer to establishing whether or not it actually happened, and share the evidence one way or the other with readers? If the paper is unable to establish whether or not it actually occurred, isn't it irresponsible to simply report that anonymous sources say it might have happened?

* The New Republic reported yesterday that in December Times executive editor Bill Keller told the piece's reporters that he was holding the piece because he could not secure documentary proof of the affair. Is this true? If so, what changed since then? Given that the article contained no such proof, why did he then decide to run the piece?

* Why include any mention of the affair at all? Couldn't the piece have run without this element? Would the piece been diminished in any way without it? Indeed, mightn't the piece have been stronger without it, since the anonymously sourced suggestion of a romantic affair served as a distraction from the arguably more important dimension of the piece -- i.e., the reporting on the politician-lobbyist relationship and the broader pattern at play here?

* Didn't inclusion of badly sourced intimations about an affair make it easier for McCain -- and the Republican National Committee -- to attack the piece and try to discredit what was valid and solid in it? Does Keller now regret including the affair stuff?

You can ask your questions right here.

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-- Greg Sargent

**Readers Comment On Times McCain Story**
February 21, 2008 -- 5:52 PM EST // link //

I hope to do more of this when the comments section is up and running. Here are a couple of reader emails on the big New York Times piece on McCain and the Lady Lobbyist:

TPM Reader LB:

I think it's entirely possible that there is more to the story than the Times felt it could publish, but strong possibility is not certainty, and especially after his last run for the presidency was destroyed by a whisper campaign of lies and innuendo, I think it's doubly important not to risk causing essentially the same thing happening to him again. Not to mention that those of us who were incensed by the unconscionable way the Times dogged the Clintons and helped to damage Bill Clinton's presidency by publishing innuendo and half-truths should not rejoice to see the same thing done to someone else, even if it's someone from the opposition.
Frankly, I don't care whether or not McCain had an extramarital affair 8 years ago. That's his business, and his wife's, and that of the other woman involved. I do care whether friendship or an affair or any other undue influence caused him to act to benefit a lobbyist or her clients in a way he otherwise would not have. If the Times (or any other media outlet) has publishable hard evidence that any personal relationship with Ms Iseman has resulted in McCain's giving undue consideration to her firm's clients, then they should say so. If they have not, then they should shut up about it until they do.

I'd agree that fairly or not, bad memories of the Bill-impeachment stuff -- and of the role of the traditional news orgs, the Times included, in that whole circus -- drove some of the irritation with the piece.

Meanwhile, TPM Reader RS agrees that tossing in the allegations about the affair only distracted from the lobbyist-politician side of the story:

While I was watching MSNBC this morning, while Scarborough and Buchanan were just foaming at the mouth about the Times and the sex angle, David Gregory and even Chris Matthews were actually trying, gingerly, to focus on the substantive corruption angle. This is a pivotal moment: it can prove to be the opening that's been sorely needed to get people to look at the real McCain, or it can be the nail in the coffin of any attempt to get people's eyes open.

Reader emails have decidedly tipped in the direction of criticism of the piece.

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-- Greg Sargent

About Bill Keller's Defense Of McCain Story
February 21, 2008 -- 1:55 PM EST // link //

Updated below.

Times exec editor Bill Keller has a statement out defending the story about John McCain's relationship with a lobbyist:

"On the substance, we think the story speaks for itself. In all the uproar, no one has challenged what we actually reported. On the timing, our policy is, we publish stories when they are ready.
" 'Ready' means the facts have been nailed down to our satisfaction, the subjects have all been given a full and fair chance to respond, and the reporting has been written up with all the proper context and caveats. This story was no exception. It was a long time in the works. It reached my desk late Tuesday afternoon. After a final edit and a routine check by our lawyers, we published it."

The notion that "no one has challenged" what was "actually reported" is worth a look, since it's the sort of defense you hear often. It's basically a dodge. The issue here isn't that the individual facts, as rendered here, are questionable. The story reports that unnamed former advisers were concerned that a romantic relationship might be going on, and thus intervened, but even if this is factually true, what does it prove about whether the affair happened or not?

The problem is that it's basically impossible to report something like this without also suggesting that an affair has taken place. Given the nature of such explosive allegations, it seems fair to ask that before suggesting something like this, a news org should establish something beyond the fact that unnamed advisers were concerned that it might be happening. Maybe the paper had established more but couldn't report it. But if you can't present some kind of solid evidence, one way or the other, as to whether such a thing happened, than you should be reluctant to suggest the possibility at all.

Indeed, according to a piece just posted by The New Republic, this lack of solid enough evidence was precisely why Keller held off on publishing the story:

In late December, according to Times sources, Keller told the reporters and the story's editor, Rebecca Corbett, that he was holding the piece in part because they could not secure documentary proof of the alleged affair beyond anecdotal evidence. Keller felt that given the on-the-record-denials by McCain and Iseman, the reporters needed more than the circumstantial evidence they had assembled to prove the case. The reporters felt they had the goods.

What changed between then and now? The piece has none of the "documentary proof" that Keller reportedly wanted in December. Presuming TNR is right, the most charitable possibility is that the proof was brought to Keller but the paper couldn't report it. But this leaves readers at sea and again raises questions as to whether it made sense to go there at all.

In a way, the piece might actually have been stronger if the allegations of an affair were left out and it had focused only on the allegations of an improper lobbyist-politician relationship, where there seems to be real meat to the story. Tossing in the allegations of a romantic affair without including more solid evidence just diverts everyone's focus and distracts from some of the real issues the story raised.

*************************************************************

Update: Time's Michael Scherer has a very sane take on the story, and Ana Marie Cox adds a bunch of interesting detail about the back-story here.

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-- Greg Sargent

**About That Times Story On McCain's Relationship**
February 21, 2008 -- 10:45 AM EST // link //

Let's try a little experiment. Let's take the meat of the big New York Times story and substitute the words "Dem Presidential Hopeful" for "John McCain":

Early in Senator Dem Presidential Hopeful’s first run for the White House eight years ago, waves of anxiety swept through his small circle of advisers.
A female lobbyist had been turning up with him at fund-raisers, visiting his offices and accompanying him on a client’s corporate jet. Convinced the relationship had become romantic, some of his top advisers intervened to protect the candidate from himself — instructing staff members to block the woman’s access, privately warning her away and repeatedly confronting him, several people involved in the campaign said on the condition of anonymity.
When news organizations reported that Mr. Dem Presidential Hopeful had written letters to government regulators on behalf of the lobbyist’s client, the former campaign associates said, some aides feared for a time that attention would fall on her involvement.
Mr. Dem Presidential Hopeful, 71, and the lobbyist, Vicki Iseman, 40, both say they never had a romantic relationship. But to his advisers, even the appearance of a close bond with a lobbyist whose clients often had business before the Senate committee Mr. Dem Presidential Hopeful led threatened the story of redemption and rectitude that defined his political identity.

If these words had appeared on the front page of The New York Times, wouldn't we all be yelling and stamping our feet about "panty sniffing" and condemning the use of anonymous sources who suggest a possible affair that may or may not have happened and wasn't directly alleged by anyone?

That's a sincere question. Wouldn't we?

After all, the above grafs appear to constitute the meat of this story. The gist of it seems to be that according to anonymous sources, eight years ago McCain's aides intervened in a relationship between him and a female lobbyist that may or may not have been sexual, and may or may not have constituted improper influence peddling, because they were worried that something untoward might be happening and were concerned about what her appearances with him in public looked like.

This is basically the core allegation here, and it's wrapped up in layers of implication about McCain's tone-deafness when it comes to appearances and about his history providing precedent for alleged questionable behavior vis a vis influence peddling in this case.

The suggestion that the relationship might have been sexual, which is made at the top and towards the end of the story, basically amounts to an allegation that anonymous sources said there was concern that the relationship might have become romantic. Anonymous sources say McCain acknowledged behaving "inappropriately," but the story doesn't say how. Again: How would we react to this if it were written about Senator Dem Presidential Hopeful?

Former McCain aide John Weaver is quoted on the record saying that he met with the woman, but his quotes are inconclusive as to what it was specifically about her conduct that worried McCain advisers.

To be clear, there very well may be much more to the story that is yet unknown. As Josh wrote last night, the story reads as if it had the meat lawyered out of it, and it's perfectly possible that The Times went with this because it knew lots more that it couldn't report. And as Mark Kleiman notes, more reporting by the AP is showing that there may be some meat to the lobbying side of the story.

But if you merely evaluate the words that are on the page of The Times, when it comes to the question of any affair you can't help but conclude, as Matthew Yglesias did, that they just didn't have or couldn't share the goods on an alleged romantic relationship and thus shouldn't have gone there.

*******************************************************************

Update: Times exec editor Bill Keller responds to all the criticism of the story.

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-- Greg Sargent

Will Obama Camp Respond To Wingnut Slime Machine And O'Reilly's "Lynching" Comment?
February 20, 2008 -- 5:33 PM EST // link //

As you may have heard by now, Bill O'Reilly used the words "lynching" and "Michelle Obama" in the same sentence. This, needless to say, wasn't very nice. Here's the quote, courtesy of Media Matters:

"I don't want to go on a lynching party against Michelle Obama unless there's evidence, hard facts, that say this is how the woman really feels. If that's how she really feels -- that America is a bad country or a flawed nation, whatever -- then that's legit. We'll track it down."

The O'Reilly comment was a response to Michelle's claim the other day that her husband's candidacy have made her "really proud" of this country for the first time.

That O'Reilly would traffic in the rank and the despicable is dog bites man, of course. The real question is, Will Michelle Obama or the Obama campaign respond to this?

In addition to O'Reilly, Michelle's comment has had the wingnut machine running on all cylinders for around 24 hours or so, pumping slime of a particularly vile shade of green in her direction. This is, of course, only the merest hint of what the Obamas will face should he become the nominee. Yet there's been no counter-attack or clarification from her until this afternoon, when Michelle said this...

Is this really going to do it? Look, I recognize that the question of whether to engage in a public argument about racially charged comments, such as those by O'Reilly, is a particularly tricky calculus for the Obama camp. And the Obamas have a primary to win right now. But really, it would be nice if the Obama team proved that they're willing to hit back against the wingnut slime merchants -- hard.

I mean, O'Reilly used the word lynching when talking about Michelle. Here you have a perfect opening for Michelle or a designated surrogate to deliver a toughly-worded -- and simultaneously high-minded -- response that nails O'Reilly directly between the eyes for his ugliness and pillories his wingnut colleagues for their phony piety and counterfeit patriotism. Remember how effectively Elizabeth Edwards made hash of Ann Coulter when she called John a "faggot"?

The Obamas obviously have the rhetorical dexterity to do something like this and more. If they did, it would go a long way towards taking the steam out of questions being raised by their rivals as to whether they have what it takes to survive a general election. Seems like a missed opportunity. Of course, even if this wasn't quite the right moment, there will be plenty more such opportunities ahead.

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-- Greg Sargent

No One Will Listen To John Harris And Jim VandeHei, Part 973
February 20, 2008 -- 11:21 AM EST // link //

I'm going to keep doing this again and again as circumstances warrant. Sorry.

A couple months ago The Politico's John Harris and Jim VandeHei published an extraordinarily sensible mea culpa about political coverage. In it, the duo offered this simple and inarguable guideline:

As far as what’s bad, there is generally one good answer to excesses and hype in political journalism: Respect the voters. That means waiting to find out what they really think.

Today, the Associated Press' Ron Fournier blithely ignored this very sound advice:

After 10 consecutive defeats — including a heartbreaker in tailor-made Wisconsin on Tuesday — Hillary Rodham Clinton can't win the nomination unless Obama makes a major mistake or her allies reveal something damaging about the Illinois senator's background. Don't count her out quite yet, but Wisconsin revealed deep and destructive fractures in the Clinton coalition.
It's panic-button time.

She can't win unless this or that happens? Look, it's all well and good to point out that Hillary's coalition is cracking and to suggest that she's in real trouble. But millions of people still have yet to go to the polls. There are at least two head-to-head debates ahead. Yes, things look exceedingly bleak for her. But is it really true that the only conceivable way she can win is if Obama commits a huge flub or the Clinton camp digs up an Obama scandal?

Come on, now. Anything can happen in politics. Fournier's pieces always note at the bottom that he's spent nearly two decades covering politics, so if there's anyone who should know this, it's him.

So let's bag the pronouncements about what can't happen, if only out of respect for the voters. There's simply no reason not to extend them the respect of letting them have their say.

Harris and VandeHei are among the most respected journalists in the business. Why won't anyone listen to them?

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-- Greg Sargent

Politico's Roger Simon Defends Story On Hillary And Pledged Delegates
February 19, 2008 -- 3:25 PM EST // link //

The most-debated story of the day in political circles is this one in The Politico by Roger Simon reporting that the Hillary campaign is plotting to flip Obama's pledged delegates to her side.

The story was prominently featured on Mark Halperin's The Page and on Drudge this morning, and Hillary has already taken hits in the liberal blogosphere here and here.

The Hillary campaign is adamantly denying the story. But in several emails to me, Simon defended his reporting.

On the face of it, the story's sourcing looks pretty thin. Here's how it opens:

Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign intends to go after delegates whom Barack Obama has already won in the caucuses and primaries if she needs them to win the nomination.
This strategy was confirmed to me by a high-ranking Clinton official on Monday.

This is unequivocal: The Hillary campaign has settled on this as a "strategy," a high-ranking Clinton official confirms, according to Simon. But here are the only two direct quotes from any Clinton official in the story:

“I swear it is not happening now, but as we get closer to the convention, if it is a stalemate, everybody will be going after everybody’s delegates,” a senior Clinton official told me Monday afternoon. “All the rules will be going out the window.”

...and...

If, however, after the April 22 Pennsylvania primary the pledged delegate count looks very close, the Clinton official said, “[both] sides will start working all delegates.”

This seems quite a bit less definitive than the story's lede. Here you have a single anonymous Hillary adviser predicting that if this results in a stalemate, both sides will chase each other's delegates -- not that a particular strategy has been settled on by the Hillary camp.

I asked Simon if the official had said anything other than these quotes to indicate that a "strategy" had been settled upon, as his lede reported as fact. Simon declined to say, but pointed to this graf in the story, the suggestion being that Camp Hillary had been offered a chance to deny the story but didn't:

Clinton spokesman Phil Singer told me Monday he assumes the Obama campaign is going after delegates pledged to Clinton, though a senior Obama aide told me he knew of no such strategy.

The problem, of course, is that from this text we don't know what Singer was asked. So I asked Simon whether he had given Singer a chance to directly deny the story's central allegation. He replied: "Yes, absolutely. It was very direct."

So, presuming this is true, here's where we are. We know that an anonymous Clinton adviser predicted that if this results in a stalemate, both sides would fight for each other's pledged dels. Simon took that to mean that the Clinton camp had evolved a "strategy" to do this, and took some form of this notion to Singer, who didn't deny it, and instead tried to turn it back on Obama.

So yes, this stuff was worth sharing with readers in some form. But it seems clear that more reporting would have cleared up key questions, such as how seriously this idea was taken by the Hillary campaign or at what levels it was discussed.

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-- Greg Sargent

Memo To Media Figures: The Presidential Race Isn't Being Conducted To Entertain You
February 18, 2008 -- 11:52 AM EST // link //

WaPo's Howard Kurtz has a pretty good rundown of how lopsided and imbalanced the press coverage of Hillary has been this cycle, and I wanted to flag this little nugget that he slips in at the end of the piece...

While few in the media world will say so out loud, a Hillary collapse ("The Fall of the House of Clinton," as a Weekly Standard cover put it last month) is a more dramatic outcome than a win by the woman originally depicted as inevitable. But there is considerable danger in writing that story prematurely.

I'm glad Kurtz is warning his colleagues not to write the story of Hillary's demise in advance. But this suggestion that media insiders think a Hillary loss is a "more dramatic outcome" than any other is crying out for comment.

I mean, the presidential race isn't being conducted to provide drama and amusement for members of the media. It's being waged to pick the next president. You know, most powerful person in the world, critical moment in history, finger on the nuke button, environment in crisis, all that boring and earnest stuff.

While Kurtz doesn't say so directly, he's clearly floating the notion that a key thing driving some media figures and their editorial choices is a preference for the Fall of Hillary narrative. To be clear, this isn't to knock Kurtz, He's the ultimate D.C. media insider, and it's good to have someone suggesting -- from inside the belly of the Beltway media beast -- that this is part of the media dynamic at play here.

It shouldn't be, of course, but as Atrios has repeatedly noted, press coverage is determined to a lopsided degree by whichever narrative is deemed more entertaining by members of the media. It's just one of the many ugly realities we keep having to deal with in cycle after cycle.

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-- Greg Sargent

When Editors Do Bad Things To Decent Copy
February 18, 2008 -- 8:45 AM EST // link //

The other day I noted that New York Times reporter Kit Seelye had stuck a wholly gratuitous plug for Matt Drudge into one of her stories. I asked whether this was yet another example of reporters giving Drudge a plug in hopes of getting linked on his site.

It turns out, though, that an editor stuck the reference in. TPM Reader CR emailed Seelye the other day to ask for a response to the Drudge question, and Seelye emailed back this (which she signed off on my posting):

Thanks for asking. I happen to agree with (most of) what Mr. Sargent says, and had he asked, he would have learned that an editor inserted the Drudge reference into my story.
Sincerely,
Kit Seelye

This is a fair response, and it hits on one of the problems with doing this kind of blogging. To do it, you need to be able to presume that people wrote the words that are under their bylines. But of course you can't really presume this, since layers of editors constantly stick their hands into the mix and so forth. On the other hand, it seems like too much to have to verify that a given reporter wrote every word under his or her byline every single time you blog about a piece.

The possibility that folks will take a hit for bad things done by editors is just one of the hazards of the profession. At the same time, in order to approach this stuff fairly, we really do need to keep in mind that much of the journalism brought to you by the big news orgs is the result of collaborative efforts.

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-- Greg Sargent

Unrepentant Matthews Calls On Hillary To Fire "Kneecappers" In Hillary's Press Shop
February 15, 2008 -- 11:45 AM EST // link //

Relations between MSNBC and the Hillary campaign just continue to get worse and worse.

Yesterday I reported here that top Hillary advisers had repeatedly expressed their grievances to MSNBC about Matthews' on-air treatment of Hillary. Now Matthews appears to have responded.

The Huffington Post's Sam Stein has a great catch: In what may be a middle-finger aimed directly at the advisers who have been privately complaining about him, Matthews went on the air this morning and basically called on Hillary to fire the "kneecappers" in her press office...

Matthews: "What she has to do is get rid of the kneecappers that work for her -- these press people who's main job seems to be...going after the press...I think her press relations are lousy...human reaction to intimidation is, `Screw you.'" HuffPo's full report, with more transcript, is here.

A couple of quick points on this. First, should Matthews really be going here? Is he really going to complain about the Hillary camp's pushback against MSNBC in recent days? They primarily objected to David Shuster's suggestion that they had "pimped out" Chelsea -- a comment that is pretty clearly indefensible. What's more, Matthews himself apologized for some of his own less-than-gallant remarks about Hillary recently.

I happen to think that the Hillary campaign's aggressive campaign against Shuster was over the top in some key ways. But it seems ill-advised, to put it charitably, for Matthews, of all people, to be denouncing the Hillary camp's objections to his and Shuster's remarks. It makes it fair game to question whether there was all that much to his apology and to ask whether he thinks Shuster's remarks are objectionable. Come to think of it, maybe someone should ask him this stuff.

At any rate, Matthews has clearly decided to ratchet up the hostilities with Hillary's press people, perhaps partly in response to their aggressive behind the scenes campaign against him. I'm trying to get a response to this from the Hillary press shop. I'll keep you posted.

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-- Greg Sargent

Sources: Top Hillary Advisers Have Repeatedly Complained To MSNBC About Chris Matthews
February 14, 2008 -- 3:06 PM EST // link //

Yesterday I speculated that the Hillary campaign's allegation of a pattern of sexist remarks at MSNBC -- a charge that was made in response to reporter David Shuster's "pimped out" remark about Chelsea -- was primarily driven by anger at Chris Matthews.

In making these charges, the Hillary campaign has always been careful to avoid mentioning Matthews by name, but political insiders believe he is who Hillary advisers were talking about, even if it hasn't been confirmed by them.

I've now confirmed that this is the case. And that's not all: Hillary's advisers, it turns out, have repeatedly taken their grievance with Matthews directly to the network.

Several sources familiar with the discussions tell me that top Hillary advisers have repeatedly lodged private complaints directly to MSNBC about Matthews' on-air conduct. They have complained to MSNBC about Matthews' less-than-chivalrous remarks about Hillary, such as this one, as well as coverage of Hillary that they view as unfair.

Among those Hillary advisers who have made private complaints like these to the network are Mandy Grunwald and Howard Wolfson, sources tell me. Meanwhile, Ann Lewis, a longtime Hillary adviser who is her director of women's outreach, declined to comment on the discussions, calling them "private conversations."

Anyway, this should settle it: As dumb and clueless as Shuster's "pimp" remark, this was never really about him. The Clinton campaign, while genuinely upset about what Shuster said, lashed out at the network because they were primarily irked by Matthews' conduct, and were sending a message to MSNBC that it's time that Matthews muzzle himself.

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-- Greg Sargent

MSNBC Spokesperson: Shuster Will Not Be Fired And Will Return To Network
February 13, 2008 -- 3:09 PM EST // link //

Updated below.

Over at TPM Election Central I just reported that Hillary had agreed to a Feb. 26th debate on NBC after threatening to boycott the network's debates in the wake of MSNBC reporter David Shuster's "pimp" remark about Chelsea.

This naturally prompted the question: What does this mean for Shuster, who was suspended from MSNBC for the remark and has been in limbo ever since Hillary publicly suggested that his suspension wasn't enough?

Well, it turns out that he won't be fired and will be coming back to the network. Asked about Shuster's fate, MSNBC director of communications Alana Russo tells me this:

"He remains on suspension indefinitely, but he will not be fired and will be returning to MSNBC."

This suggests, I think, that MSNBC wants to wait until after the debate with Hillary is safely over before bringing Shuster back. Also, it bears pointing out that however crude and dumb Shuster's remark was, this was never primarily about him. It was about Chris Matthews.

A great deal of grievance had already been built up between MSNBC and the Hillary camp over Matthews' less-than-chivalrous treatment of Hillary on the network. In denouncing Shuster's remark, the Hillary campaign has chastised the network in general for the tone of its political coverage and pattern of sexist remarks. And though Camp Hillary has always been careful not to name Matthews, this is primarily who they were talking about.

But the Hillary camp just wasn't going to take on Matthews publicly. Shuster was an easier target. So it was Shuster's remark that gave the Hillary camp the opening they need to finally pull the trigger and go after the network in hopes that Camp Hillary's high-profile criticism -- and the attendant media attention -- would send a message to MSNBC that it was time for Matthews to cool it with the anti-Hillary broadsides.

At any rate, it looks as if Shuster will survive this. Whether it will have an impact on Matthews and the network's coverage generally is another question.

*****************************************************************

Update: Over at The Huffington Post yesterday, Rachel Sklar made a convincing case that Shuster is little more than a scapegoat for Matthews' ongoing shenanigans.

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-- Greg Sargent

Unhinged: Six Of Last Seven Columns By Maureen Dowd And Frank Rich Bashed Hillary
February 13, 2008 -- 10:00 AM EST // link //

It's kind of striking that Maureen Dowd's last four columns in a row, and two of Frank Rich's last three, all bashed Hillary. I mean, the duo has gotten so utterly predictable that even The Times's editors must be dimly aware of it.

It's really not an overstatement to say that their columns at this point read as if the two -- who have a long journalistic history together -- are just writing for each other.

Given the astronomical salary the paper's two marquis political columnists must be pulling down, you'd think that they would feel a bit of an obligation to offer something a tad more original than the same old obsessive and borderline unhinged Clinton bashing week in and week out. It's just "Billary, Billary, Billary," as the two keep putting it with such startling originality. So boring. One can only imagine what the paper could accomplish with that money if they invested it elsewhere.

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-- Greg Sargent

Breaking: Another Writer Demands Real Evidence Of Bill And Hillary's "Race Card" Playing
February 12, 2008 -- 11:36 AM EST // link //

Well whaddaya know. I've just found another person asserting that maybe -- just maybe -- we should have something approaching conclusive evidence before alleging that the Clintons hatched a dastardly and bigoted scheme to "blacken" Obama and provoke a white backlash.

Via Krugman's blog, here's what The Atlantic's Clive Crook, an Obama supporter, has to say about this:

I find the idea that the Clintons have "played the race card" -- which is now established as one of the stylised facts of this election -- hard to understand. It is never defended in detail...
Can it seriously be contended that the Clintons thought to advance their campaign (yes, “their” campaign) by alienating black support -- that the crushing defeat in South Carolina is something, as Morris seems to believe, they actually sought? The idea is ridiculous.

It's good to see Crook hitting on what think is a key point: The alleged playing of the "race card" is now established fact. It's not easy to pinpoint when something crosses the line from selected narrative to accepted truth -- it's a bit like trying to specify when a person passes from adolescence into adulthood -- but that has clearly happened here.

Then Crook gets downright freaky. He actually insists on asking whether the individual pieces of evidence allegedly proving that the Clintons played the race-card actually prove that the Clintons played the race card. He concludes:

Some commentators accused Bill of playing the race card when he called Obama's account of his position on the Iraq war a "fairy tale". How so? What did that have to do with race? And does Hillary's comment about King, the only instance Morris bothers to offer, even qualify? She merely said that getting the job done required a can-do president as well as an inspiring and visionary champion. And so it did. I cannot see that this subtracts anything from King's stature, or that it was intended to. Whatever its merits, this is the Clintons' old theme, not a sinister new one: if elected, she would hit the ground running, whereas the inexperienced Obama would be out of his depth. It took a hyper-sensitive press to turn that comment into a racial slur...
I think the press played the race card, not the Clintons.

There are, of course, other pieces of evidence proffered to back up the Billary-race card thesis, as I detailed here yesterday, But the truth is, while it's of course possible that hardball political players like the Clintons could have hatched such a nefarious scheme, the case just hasn't been made convincingly enough to warrant such explosive charges.

And it's good to hear someone like Crook saying so. By my count there's now roughly half a dozen people making these points. It's a veritable movement! It's unstoppable!

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-- Greg Sargent

Krugman, His Op-ed Colleagues, And The "Clinton Rules" Of Punditry
February 11, 2008 -- 4:51 PM EST // link //

Updated below.

Paul Krugman keeps saying what (most) others won't say -- today he points out the bizarre degree to which it's become completely acceptable for pundits to state as outright fact that the Clintons are operating purely from evil motives:

What’s particularly saddening is the way many Obama supporters seem happy with the application of “Clinton rules” — the term a number of observers use for the way pundits and some news organizations treat any action or statement by the Clintons, no matter how innocuous, as proof of evil intent.

The key word there is "proof," and Krugman is exactly right. But which pundits is he talking about here? Well, he could very easily be talking about his fellow Times columnists. As Kevin Drum notes, Frank Rich had a surprisingly unhinged column yesterday in which he asserted as fact a nefarious plot on the part of the Clintons to "scare off white voters":

But once black voters met Mr. Obama and started to gravitate toward him, Bill Clinton and the campaign’s other surrogates stopped caring about what African-Americans thought. In an effort to scare off white voters, Mr. Obama was ghettoized as a cocaine user (by the chief Clinton strategist, Mark Penn, among others), “the black candidate” (as Clinton strategists told the Associated Press) and Jesse Jackson redux (by Mr. Clinton himself).

Here you see the "Clinton rules" reigning supreme. Putting aside Rich's seeming claim to mind-reading skills -- the Clintons "stopped caring" what blacks thought? -- the three episodes alluded to simply aren't conclusive in the way Rich claims.

Penn did bring up the word "cocaine," but only after the host of the show had spent literally minutes talking about Obama's drug use. The "black candidate" reference was made by anonymous strategists, and the quote alluded to was almost laughably inconclusive. And the Jesse Jackson comment had multiple interpretations.

But Rich strings these all together and concludes that they prove a grand plot by the Clintons to "ghettoize" Obama. Nor is Rich the only Times columnist to throw around such charges with abandon; Bob Herbert has played this ugly game, too.

I want to be as clear as I can about this. It's conceivable that the Clintons had hatched such a grand scheme. The Clintons are hardball political players who leave nothing to chance. But the evidence, as it stands now, simply doesn't support such an elaborate and conspiratorial reading. Something approaching conclusive evidence should be required before such enormously controversial allegations are tossed around.

But here's the real point: When it comes to the Clintons, many pundits have simply stopped requiring themselves to adhere to the most basic evidentiary standards. It has become acceptable, even normal, to say whatever the hell you want about the Clintons, and if you insist on anything approaching real evidence, you're just a party-pooper. The "Clinton rules" governing punditry about them are that there are no rules. Yep -- Krugman was talking about his own colleagues.

Update: Over at The Atlantic, Clive Crook addresses the Billary race-card allegations with a great deal of much-needed common sense.

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-- Greg Sargent

Silly Suck-Up-To-Drudge Moment Of The Day
February 11, 2008 -- 12:32 PM EST // link //

That's the name of a new feature that we'll be running on this blog as circumstances warrant.

The idea is that to a far greater degree than you might think, reporters go out of their way to find fake reasons to give plugs to Drudge -- and even at times tailor their own work -- specifically to get linked on his site.

This morning, in a piece piece that touched on the timing of the departure yesterday of Hillary campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle, New York Times reporter Kit Seeyle managed to throw a bone to Drudge with this mystifying line:

Some Clinton advisers rued the timing, noting that Matt Drudge referred to the switch on his Web site as the departure of the campaign’s “top Latina” — an emphasis on Ms. Doyle’s ethnicity that Mrs. Clinton does not need as she heads toward a Texas primary on March 4 and tries to court the state’s large Hispanic vote.

Why the gratuitous plug for Drudge? After all, this is hardly going to be any more damaging to Hillary among Latinos because Drudge made this point, unless he has a huge Latino readership I didn't know about. More broadly, it seems pretty silly to use Drudge headlines as a way of gauging whether something Hillary did is politically savvy or not. He's obviously always going to put the worst spin on most things Hillary.

But hey, if the intention was to give Drudge a plug, it worked. Seelye's story has been the lead on his site all morning -- even though it's hard to find anything in it that you couldn't find in about a hundred other articles.

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-- Greg Sargent

**John Solomon Era Officially Begins At Washington Times!**
February 8, 2008 -- 12:32 PM EST // link //

I'd been waiting for the right moment to declare the John Solomon era officially underway at The Washington Times, and thankfully, that moment has arrived with this lead story today:

Hillary still in bed with '96 scandal
Nearly one in five "HillRaisers," the elite big-money fundraisers for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential campaign, have ties to the 1990s fundraising scandal that tarnished her husband's presidency by offering Democratic donors sleepovers in the Lincoln Bedroom and other perks inside the White House.
Forty-nine of the Clintons' Lincoln Bedroom guests are among the 250 HillRaisers listed on Mrs. Clinton's campaign Web page, who have pledged to gather, or "bundle," at least $100,000 in donations. Some have promised to raise $1 million or more for the 2008 campaign, the most costly in U.S. history.

Hillary is "in bed" with a Clinton-era scandal! That must mean that we have another scandal on our hands, right?

Well...that's not really clear. The story never says that this is wrong or that it's any more noteworthy than any other campaign's roster of large contributors. Nor is anyone quoted saying this, either. There's some criticism of the original Lincoln Bedroom affair, which sprays the scent of scandal around a bit. But nobody says Hillary should not take money from these people or is even quoted negatively linking the original story to the present in any way.

The piece does, however, make it vaguely sound like some kind of wrongdoing has occurred. And that's the rub. What you're seeing here yet again is Solomon's undeniably impressive skill at taking available facts and arranging them in such a way that they sound like an investigative scoop. This sort of virtuosity is what WaPo public editor Deborah Howell was referring to when she criticized a previous Solomon special as a "gotcha without the gotcha."

Anyway, the Solomon era is officially underway at WashTimes. This blog would have been remiss if it had let this journalistic milestone pass without raising a glass in celebration.

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-- Greg Sargent

Mystery Of The Missing Dowd Snark -- Solved!
February 7, 2008 -- 7:03 PM EST // link //

Updated below.

For a couple of days now some reporters and bloggers have been debating the Mystery of the Missing Dowd Snark. And I've solved the mystery -- sort of.

The whole thing started with Dowd's column yesterday about the Hillary-Obama battle. In the dead tree version, she wrote this cutting line about Obama:

Just like Hollywood starlets, he works out religiously and he can make a three-course meal out of a Nicorette.

This line ticked a lot of people off, and rightly so, because it brought back some bad memories of Dowd and her cohorts feminizing other male Dem presidential candidates (see Edwards, "Breck Girl" John).

But then, mysteriously, the offending line disappeared from the online version of Dowd's column. This prompted some sharp questions here and here as to why this happened. As Digby asked: "Did her editors finally step in and say she'd gone too far? Can we hope for more?"

This question has been debated a bit in some journalistic circles today. And I thought it was an interesting one, not least because as unlikely as it sounded, it's seductive to imagine that someone did gently suggest that it's time to stop with this sort of nonsense. So I checked in with a Times spokesperson, who emailed over this response from Times editorial page editor Andy Rosenthal:

"Maureen revised her column between editions to update it with new information on an election night. Because new material went in, some older material had to come out."

Judging by this answer, no editors did any intervention; this was about space; there was no recognition that this went too far and that it's time to bag this kind of stuff. Oh, well. Still, one has to ask -- was this really cut for space? Is there a space issue on the Internets? Hmmm.

Update: In retrospect, I think I was wrong to raise the question of whether there is a space issue on the Internets. As a number of readers have suggested, Rosenthal did clearly say that she revised it "between editions," meaning print editions. I plead fatigue last night.

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-- Greg Sargent

The Tweety Effect Lives! Women's Group Using Chris Matthews' Buffoonery As Fundraising Tool For Hillary
February 7, 2008 -- 1:29 PM EST // link //

Here at TPM we've spent a fair amount of time chronicling the "Tweety Effect" -- that is, the fact that Chris Matthews' less-than-chivalrous on-air treatment of women may have inadvertently been driving women into the Hillary camp.

As you may recall, Matthews got a lot of women -- and men, too -- annoyed when he said of Hillary: "The reason she's a U.S. Senator, the reason she's a candidate for President, the reason she may be a front-runner, is her husband messed around. That's how she got to be Senator from New York. We keep forgetting it. She didn't win it on the merits." He's got a whole history of this sort of thing.

Well, here's some more evidence that the Tweety Effect is alive and well! The feminist group Emily's List just sent out a fundraising appeal on Hillary's behalf. Check out this line:

We've seen how far pundits like Chris Matthews will go to define Hillary on their terms. We've fought back against the gender stereotypes that keep popping up again and again.
But it's not going to stop just because we want it to. The only way Hillary can talk to voters unfiltered is if she has enough money to deliver her message of change straight to the grassroots.

So great. Matthews' buffoonery is now helping raise money for Hillary's candidacy! It'll be interesting to track how much this appeal brings in. I'll keep you posted on that.

Meanwhile, here's the Matthews vid that got the latest round of anti-Matthews criticism off the ground...

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-- Greg Sargent

Obsessive, Unhinged Punditry
February 6, 2008 -- 8:02 PM EST // link //

Paul Krugman, commenting on this post below pointing to WaPo writer Eugene Robinson's faulty prediction that Super Tuesday would prove a "repudiation" of Bill Clinton, sums up exactly what's wrong with this sort of stuff:

Attempts by pundits to make Super Tuesday into a referendum on Bill Clinton failed. People seem to have voted based on what they thought of the candidates. How novel!

The key word there is "attempts." I was arguing with a friend about this whole Bill question, and he pointed out that there are legit questions to be asked about Bill's role in a Hillary presidency. Totally agreed. The issue here is one of degree -- the trouble with much of this punditry about Bill is the obsessive and unhinged quality it takes on at times.

For instance, WaPo's Richard Cohen endorsed Obama yesterday, and rather than say a single syllable about why he thinks Obama would make a good president, he submits ... Bill Clinton as one of his primary reasons driving this all-important choice. Meanwhile, Robinson predicted that the votes cast by millions of people across the country with all sorts of divergent interests and motives would be all about repudiating ... someone who isn't in the race.

As Krugman says, what we're really seeing here is attempts by opinion-makers to make the race all about Bill. There's nothing wrong with asking questions -- or even worrying -- about what role Bill would play in a Hillary administration. The problem here is this desire for the race to be all about him, even though the voters keep rejecting this view of things. It's a warped view of the race and it warps the dialog in a big way. And there's no sign that it's going to stop anytime soon.

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-- Greg Sargent

Is Obama Being Hurt By MSNBC And His Other Media Worshippers?
February 6, 2008 -- 4:40 PM EST // link //

In light of last night's results, it's time to ask that question.

In the days before the voting yesterday an extraordinary amount of good press rained down on Barack Obama. And no network has done more to push absurdly over-the-top story-lines favorable to Obama than MSNBC has.

The network took the lead in pumping the Ted Kennedy endorsement into an event of truly cosmic significance. Chris Matthews repeatedly hailed Obama as a kind of cross between Jesus, JFK, and Muhammad Ali. One commentator after another predicted that Bill Clinton's antics would mortally wound Hillary's candidacy. In a perfect set-up to the pratfall that followed, The Washington Post's Eugene Robinson went on MSNBC and flatly predicted that last night's results would be a "repudiation of Bill Clinton." Like, not.

Obviously such good press has its advantages. But there's a very clear downside, too. What was a solid night for Obama in many ways ended up falling way short of the hype that had been built up around it. As Congressional Quarterly's Craig Crawford aptly put it, this actually hurts Obama:

The chattering crowd's frenzy for this man only raises expectations that he cannot meet. As a result, what was otherwise not too shabby a night for Obama on Super Tuesday came across like a public relations defeat because so much more had been expected.

Indeed. As Crawford points out, last night Tom Brokaw went on MSNBC and chastised his colleagues for getting so far ahead of themselves. “Once again,” Brokaw intoned, “in all of our conventional and collective wisdom, we were wrong.” Taylor Marsh rightly noted that Brokaw was "babysitting" his MSNBC colleagues.

Indeed, is it an overstatement to say that the real loser last night was MSNBC? It's easy to read last night's results as basically a repudiation of the network. And not just because so many of the network's predictions proved a bust. The results repudiated the style of punditry that MSNBC traffics in, perhaps more so than any other network this cycle -- the constant speculation, the borderline-pathological obsession with Bill Clinton, the embarrassing Obama worship, the refusal to let the voters have their say.

What will make MSNBC -- and like-minded colleagues -- stop with this stuff? At this point, multiple journalistic worthies have pleaded for sanity. Brokaw did this just last night. And The Politico's John Harris and Jim VandeHei -- two highly-respected journalists -- recently published a long mea culpa about political coverage, concluding that the "answer to excesses and hype in political journalism" is to "respect the voters. That means waiting to find out what they really think."

Nobody is listening to these people, though. So here's a thought. Maybe the MSNBC folks and others like them can be induced to stop this sort of stuff for Obama's sake?

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-- Greg Sargent

No One Will Listen To John Harris And Jim VandeHei
February 5, 2008 -- 11:07 PM EST // link //

Why won't anyone at The Washington Post listen to former Post reporters John Harris and Jim VandeHei? The other day, the duo, who are now at The Politico, made an extraordinarily sane suggestion as to how we can all improve political coverage. They wrote:

As far as what’s bad, there is generally one good answer to excesses and hype in political journalism: Respect the voters. That means waiting to find out what they really think.

Yes! Let the voters decide what they think! Very good idea. But alas, no one at The Post will listen to them.

The other day, Post columnist David Broder ignored their advice. And tonight, Post writer Eugene Robinson went on MSNBC, before anyone had any sense of what the Super Tuesday results would be, saying that the results would constitute a big "repudiation" of Bill Clinton:

EUGENE ROBINSON: Hillary Clinton emerges from this evening on her own, basically. because having Bill Clinton at her side is not working.
JOE SCARBOROUGH: It's really hurting her.
ROBINSON: It’s hurting her. I think this will end up -- this evening will end up being a repudiation of Bill Clinton.

Will it? I guess we'll find out. Hasn't happened yet.

I don't understand this. Harris and VandeHei are among the most respected in the business. Why won't anyone -- their former colleagues, no less -- listen to them?

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-- Greg Sargent

WaPo's Richard Cohen: Today, I'm Casting My Vote -- Against Bill Clinton
February 5, 2008 -- 1:02 PM EST // link //

One thing that's good about the fact that the voting is upon us is that it's forcing pundits to come clean about what's been driving their commentary about the Clintons for so long. Case in point: Richard Cohen in The Washington Post today.

Before, Cohen and David Broder and other pundits had the option of concealing their disdain for Bill by couching it in predictions about how the American public, as opposed to them, would ultimately judge Bill a liability to Hillary's candidacy. But in his column today, Cohen endorses Obama, which forces him to reveal what he actually thinks. And he writes:

The fact is that as a politician, Hillary Clinton is a creature of her husband...He remains, as Wordsworth might put it, too much with us. He was a good president with bad associations -- beginning with Jim McDougal of Whitewater fame and ending with Marc Rich of pardon infamy. Bill Clinton has a tropism for the faintly corrupt, and his wife has more than a tropism for him. He would stalk her presidency as he has her campaign, and when she vows that she alone would rule the White House, she is talking personnel, not marriage. It ain't the same.
So I vote, as I must, for Obama and against Hillary.

And there you have it: A top columnist at the second most influential broadsheet in the country is basing his choice between Hillary and Obama largely on ... Bill! And the man isn't even running for President. Cohen is so put off by the thought of the mere presence of Bill anywhere near the White House again that he has let this specter determine his choice between two other highly accomplished adults for the post of leader of the free world.

Making this even more striking, Cohen doesn't have a single word of praise for Obama anywhere in the column explaining his choice at this rather critical juncture in our history. Instead, this is all about Bill. Oh, sure, Cohen does murmur some criticism of Hillary's war vote, too, but since Cohen also supported the war, this can't have impacted him all that much.

Make no mistake: This is all about Bill. Cohen is casting his vote today -- against Bill Clinton. I suppose we shouldn't be surprised, really.

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-- Greg Sargent

Media Weeps With Joy Over Hillary's Latest "Tears" Moment
February 5, 2008 -- 9:42 AM EST // link //

Updated below.

Newsday reporter Glenn Thrush, a good friend of mine, deftly captures in one sentence the ridiculousness of the media's response to Hillary's new teary emotional moment yesterday:

Clinton's eyes -- red from a cold -- welled up, and she wiped them as reporters craned to record a possible tear that never dropped.

They craned to record the tear? Well, that's understandable, of course. No journalist could afford to miss such big political news, particularly on the eve of the voting that could decide the next President. That would be a firing offense.

All snark aside, perhaps we should be thankful. To my knowledge the three major networks didn't all lead with The Tear last night, as they did the last time Hillary publicly experienced an emotion that caused her eyes to water for approximately two seconds.

Meanwhile, assorted pundits wept hot tears of joy at having been granted another chance to seize on a trivial and ultimately meaningless moment to insinuate that Hillary's inner Lady Macbeth was on display yet again. Predictably, the Hardball gang obsessed over the moment, with Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson telling Chris Matthews that Hillary's tears are caused by "an impending primary. It just breaks her down."

Wow. Really, how did we get to this point? How did our discourse sink to such levels of absurdity and self parody? What happened?

***********************************************

Update: Obviously, the "what happened" is intended as a lament, not as a literal question. The answer to that question as I understand it is -- I hope -- the daily subject of this humble blog.

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-- Greg Sargent

Another Poll Shows That Bill Hasn't Hurt Hillary Among Dem Primary Voters
February 4, 2008 -- 10:37 AM EST // link //

Yesterday I noted that contrary to the narrative selected by many reporters, pundits and commentators, a new Pew poll had some numbers suggesting that Bill hadn't hurt Hillary among Dem primary voters nationally. Now along comes another poll that finds this even more clearly.

Before looking at the numbers, let's remember that in the days after the racial dust-ups involving Bill, the claim that Bill had jumped the shark and damaged Hillary in her battle with Obama was repeated so often that it morphed from speculation into absolute fact in the mouths of many pundits.

Now, in addition to yesterday's Pew poll, we have the new CBS/New York Times poll, which asks Dem primary voters the following:

Does Bill Clinton's involvement in Hillary Clinton's Presidential campaign make you more likely to support Hillary Clinton, less likely, or doesn't it make a difference to you?
More likely 18%
Less likely 12%
No difference 70%

This is pretty clear, isn't it? Seventy percent say he makes "no difference." What's more, if you compare these numbers to the last New York Times polling on the question, it becomes even more clear cut. In January 13% said Bill made them "less likely" to support Hillary. Now that number is actually down one point.

A caveat: The number of voters who said Bill makes them "more likely" to support her has dropped significantly, from 39% in January to 18% now. What this suggests is that all the bad press has perhaps made Bill less of an asset than he was before. That's certainly noteworthy. But all those respondents have gone over into the "indifferent" column. So these numbers clearly contradict the tsunami of punditry telling us that his latest escapades are hurting her among Dems.

A couple other points. First, these numbers are principally concerned with Dem primary voters. It's perfectly possible that all the bad press that's hit Bill could hurt Hillary among independents and Republicans, as these polls both suggest. But the general election is nine months away. Right now I'm talking about all the punditry insisting that Bill has hurt Hillary against Obama -- meaning among Dems.

And on this score, one more eye-opening number. Central to much commentary about this stuff is the notion that Bill's recent antics have "reminded" voters that Bill will have an outsize role in a Hillary presidency. But guess what? Dem primary voters just aren't listening to this "reminder," according to the Times poll:

If Hillary Clinton becomes President, do you think Bill Clinton will have too much influence, to little influence, or about the right amount of influence on the decisions Hillary Clinton makes as President?
Too much influence 22%
Too little influence 6%
About the right amount 65%

Why won't Chris Matthews and David Broder talk about these numbers?

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-- Greg Sargent

Memo To Pundits: New Poll Finds That Number Of Dems Who Like Idea Of Bill Back In White House Hasn't Budged
February 3, 2008 -- 12:35 PM EST // link //

Hmmm. It'll be interesting indeed to see if these new poll numbers get any play from all the pundits who said that Bill recent escapades have created a liability for Hillary against Obama.

A new Pew poll was relesed today, and it's the first survey I've seen that deals with these questions since the racial dust-ups prompted pundits and commentators to assert that -- finally, definitely, really this time, no really -- Bill is dragging Hillary's candidacy down.

The poll asked respondents whether they "like or dislike the idea of Bill Clinton back in the White House." Guess what percentage of Dems said they "like" this idea?

Sixty eight percent -- exactly the same percentage that answered this way back in October of 2007. The number of Dems who said they "dislike" this idea is now at 12% -- a statistically insignificant two points higher than October 2007. The poll also finds that Bill's "favorability rating also has not slipped from where it stood in late December."

Even more interesting, despite the roar of commentary denouncing Bill for playing the race card, the poll also finds that Bill's favorability rating among blacks has remained stable at 79%.

Now, because this blog strives to be as fair-minded as possible, it also bears noting that the percentage of voters in general who dislike the idea of Bill returning -- as opposed to just Dems -- has in fact gone up by a single digit margin. More independents say they're uncomfortable with this prospect, the poll says. So one could point to these numbers and say that perhaps Bill's antics could damage Hillary in a general election. This could be problematic.

But as for whether Bill is hurting Hillary against Obama, as multiple pundits have been asserting, there's simply no evidence yet that this is happening. Is it possible that this is what's going on? Anything's possible. But Bill's numbers remain stable among Dems, which seems like a decent enough indicator, to say the least.

Sorry.

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-- Greg Sargent

The Zombie Quote Lives On...And On...And On...
February 2, 2008 -- 9:25 AM EST // link //

The original bogus ABCNews/Drudge quote of Bill Clinton allegedly saying he wants to "slow" our economy pops up yet again! And -- one more time, everybody -- it's not the blogosphere spreading it, but a traditional news org.

From Investor's Business Daily...

Slow The Economy? Chill, Bill
The Environment: As a touted effect of global warming melts under the glare of science, Bill Clinton says we must slow the economy to save the earth. How's that again? Hillary, call your husband...
In a typically verbose speech, he put forth his idea of what the U.S. and other industrialized nations need to do: "We just have to slow down our economy and cut back our greenhouse gas emissions 'cause we have to save our planet for our grandchildren."

Now Bill supposedly said we "must" slow the economy. Except, of course, that he didn't say this at all. The story just keeps on mutating into ever more grotesque and unrecognizable forms, with that absurd out-of-context quote as its life-force.

This pretty conclusively proves, as I said, that the inclusion of the full context and video far down in the original ABC piece just isn't a defense at all. Once that quote was torn out of context and placed high up in ABC's story, it was destined to live forever.

And with that, this blog is done with this topic.

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-- Greg Sargent

Yes, We're Still Here...April 29, 2008 -- 10:19 AM EST // link //

Horse's Mouth On Brief HiatusMarch 6, 2008 -- 10:41 AM EST // link //

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Most Media Observers Side With Hillary Campaign Claim That Press Has Been Harder On HerMarch 4, 2008 -- 12:15 PM EST // link //

It's Not About "Toughness." It's About "Fairness."March 3, 2008 -- 3:49 PM EST // link //

Halperin Gets It Right On Frank Rich/Maureen Dowd Anti-Hillary JihadMarch 2, 2008 -- 11:51 AM EST // link //

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Poll: Nearly Half Of Dems Say Media Is Harder On HillaryMarch 1, 2008 -- 11:10 AM EST // link //

Author Of Infamous "Blog Rage" Piece Says Bloggers Are Real JournalistsFebruary 29, 2008 -- 3:24 PM EST // link //

Silly Suck-Up-To-Drudge Moment Of The DayFebruary 29, 2008 -- 10:56 AM EST // link //

Poll: Huge Majority Thinks Internet Is Having "Positive Impact" On JournalismFebruary 28, 2008 -- 4:40 PM EST // link //

Fox News Falsely Claims That Weatherman Bill Ayers Was Obama's "Mentor"February 28, 2008 -- 11:20 AM EST // link //

Could Hillary Camp's Attacks On Press Bear Some Fruit?February 27, 2008 -- 5:05 PM EST // link //

Maureen Dowd: Only Reason Hillary Is Still In Race Is Because Of Media's BenevolenceFebruary 27, 2008 -- 10:35 AM EST // link //

Hillary Spokesperson Blasts Reporters For Using Drudge As Their "Assignment Editor"February 26, 2008 -- 5:18 PM EST // link //

John Solomon's Washington Times Presents The Next Obama Smear: Military "Fears" HimFebruary 26, 2008 -- 12:57 PM EST // link //

Bill Kristol Previews GOP Attack On Obama: He Thinks He's Better Than YouFebruary 25, 2008 -- 11:30 AM EST // link //

Times Public Editor: Paper Shouldn't Have Published Suggestion Of McCain AffairFebruary 24, 2008 -- 11:55 AM EST // link //

Paul Krugman Says He Was "Censored" By New York Times!February 22, 2008 -- 5:36 PM EST // link //

The "No One Is Contesting The Facts" DodgeFebruary 22, 2008 -- 1:03 PM EST // link //

Times Editors And Reporters Taking Reader Questions About McCain StoryFebruary 22, 2008 -- 9:34 AM EST // link //

Readers Comment On Times McCain StoryFebruary 21, 2008 -- 5:52 PM EST // link //

About Bill Keller's Defense Of McCain StoryFebruary 21, 2008 -- 1:55 PM EST // link //

About That Times Story On McCain's RelationshipFebruary 21, 2008 -- 10:45 AM EST // link //

Will Obama Camp Respond To Wingnut Slime Machine And O'Reilly's "Lynching" Comment?February 20, 2008 -- 5:33 PM EST // link //

No One Will Listen To John Harris And Jim VandeHei, Part 973February 20, 2008 -- 11:21 AM EST // link //

Politico's Roger Simon Defends Story On Hillary And Pledged DelegatesFebruary 19, 2008 -- 3:25 PM EST // link //

Memo To Media Figures: The Presidential Race Isn't Being Conducted To Entertain YouFebruary 18, 2008 -- 11:52 AM EST // link //

When Editors Do Bad Things To Decent CopyFebruary 18, 2008 -- 8:45 AM EST // link //

Unrepentant Matthews Calls On Hillary To Fire "Kneecappers" In Hillary's Press ShopFebruary 15, 2008 -- 11:45 AM EST // link //

Sources: Top Hillary Advisers Have Repeatedly Complained To MSNBC About Chris MatthewsFebruary 14, 2008 -- 3:06 PM EST // link //

MSNBC Spokesperson: Shuster Will Not Be Fired And Will Return To NetworkFebruary 13, 2008 -- 3:09 PM EST // link //

Unhinged: Six Of Last Seven Columns By Maureen Dowd And Frank Rich Bashed HillaryFebruary 13, 2008 -- 10:00 AM EST // link //

Breaking: Another Writer Demands Real Evidence Of Bill And Hillary's "Race Card" PlayingFebruary 12, 2008 -- 11:36 AM EST // link //

Krugman, His Op-ed Colleagues, And The "Clinton Rules" Of PunditryFebruary 11, 2008 -- 4:51 PM EST // link //

Silly Suck-Up-To-Drudge Moment Of The DayFebruary 11, 2008 -- 12:32 PM EST // link //

John Solomon Era Officially Begins At Washington Times!February 8, 2008 -- 12:32 PM EST // link //

Mystery Of The Missing Dowd Snark -- Solved!February 7, 2008 -- 7:03 PM EST // link //

The Tweety Effect Lives! Women's Group Using Chris Matthews' Buffoonery As Fundraising Tool For HillaryFebruary 7, 2008 -- 1:29 PM EST // link //

Obsessive, Unhinged PunditryFebruary 6, 2008 -- 8:02 PM EST // link //

Is Obama Being Hurt By MSNBC And His Other Media Worshippers?February 6, 2008 -- 4:40 PM EST // link //

No One Will Listen To John Harris And Jim VandeHeiFebruary 5, 2008 -- 11:07 PM EST // link //

WaPo's Richard Cohen: Today, I'm Casting My Vote -- Against Bill ClintonFebruary 5, 2008 -- 1:02 PM EST // link //

Media Weeps With Joy Over Hillary's Latest "Tears" MomentFebruary 5, 2008 -- 9:42 AM EST // link //

Another Poll Shows That Bill Hasn't Hurt Hillary Among Dem Primary VotersFebruary 4, 2008 -- 10:37 AM EST // link //

Memo To Pundits: New Poll Finds That Number Of Dems Who Like Idea Of Bill Back In White House Hasn't BudgedFebruary 3, 2008 -- 12:35 PM EST // link //

The Zombie Quote Lives On...And On...And On...February 2, 2008 -- 9:25 AM EST // link //

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Yes, We're Still Here...
April 29, 2008 -- 10:19 AM EST // link //

Horse's Mouth On Brief Hiatus
March 6, 2008 -- 10:41 AM EST // link //

Most Media Observers Side With Hillary Campaign Claim That Press Has Been Harder On Her
March 4, 2008 -- 12:15 PM EST // link //

It's Not About "Toughness." It's About "Fairness."
March 3, 2008 -- 3:49 PM EST // link //

Halperin Gets It Right On Frank Rich/Maureen Dowd Anti-Hillary Jihad
March 2, 2008 -- 11:51 AM EST // link //

Poll: Nearly Half Of Dems Say Media Is Harder On Hillary
March 1, 2008 -- 11:10 AM EST // link //

Author Of Infamous "Blog Rage" Piece Says Bloggers Are Real Journalists
February 29, 2008 -- 3:24 PM EST // link //

Silly Suck-Up-To-Drudge Moment Of The Day
February 29, 2008 -- 10:56 AM EST // link //

Poll: Huge Majority Thinks Internet Is Having "Positive Impact" On Journalism
February 28, 2008 -- 4:40 PM EST // link //

Fox News Falsely Claims That Weatherman Bill Ayers Was Obama's "Mentor"
February 28, 2008 -- 11:20 AM EST // link //

Could Hillary Camp's Attacks On Press Bear Some Fruit?
February 27, 2008 -- 5:05 PM EST // link //

Maureen Dowd: Only Reason Hillary Is Still In Race Is Because Of Media's Benevolence
February 27, 2008 -- 10:35 AM EST // link //

Hillary Spokesperson Blasts Reporters For Using Drudge As Their "Assignment Editor"
February 26, 2008 -- 5:18 PM EST // link //

**John Solomon's Washington Times Presents The Next Obama Smear: Military "Fears" Him**
February 26, 2008 -- 12:57 PM EST // link //

Bill Kristol Previews GOP Attack On Obama: He Thinks He's Better Than You
February 25, 2008 -- 11:30 AM EST // link //

Times Public Editor: Paper Shouldn't Have Published Suggestion Of McCain Affair
February 24, 2008 -- 11:55 AM EST // link //

**Paul Krugman Says He Was "Censored" By New York Times!**
February 22, 2008 -- 5:36 PM EST // link //

The "No One Is Contesting The Facts" Dodge
February 22, 2008 -- 1:03 PM EST // link //

Times Editors And Reporters Taking Reader Questions About McCain Story
February 22, 2008 -- 9:34 AM EST // link //

**Readers Comment On Times McCain Story**
February 21, 2008 -- 5:52 PM EST // link //

About Bill Keller's Defense Of McCain Story
February 21, 2008 -- 1:55 PM EST // link //

**About That Times Story On McCain's Relationship**
February 21, 2008 -- 10:45 AM EST // link //

Will Obama Camp Respond To Wingnut Slime Machine And O'Reilly's "Lynching" Comment?
February 20, 2008 -- 5:33 PM EST // link //

No One Will Listen To John Harris And Jim VandeHei, Part 973
February 20, 2008 -- 11:21 AM EST // link //

Politico's Roger Simon Defends Story On Hillary And Pledged Delegates
February 19, 2008 -- 3:25 PM EST // link //

Memo To Media Figures: The Presidential Race Isn't Being Conducted To Entertain You
February 18, 2008 -- 11:52 AM EST // link //

When Editors Do Bad Things To Decent Copy
February 18, 2008 -- 8:45 AM EST // link //

Unrepentant Matthews Calls On Hillary To Fire "Kneecappers" In Hillary's Press Shop
February 15, 2008 -- 11:45 AM EST // link //

Sources: Top Hillary Advisers Have Repeatedly Complained To MSNBC About Chris Matthews
February 14, 2008 -- 3:06 PM EST // link //

MSNBC Spokesperson: Shuster Will Not Be Fired And Will Return To Network
February 13, 2008 -- 3:09 PM EST // link //

Unhinged: Six Of Last Seven Columns By Maureen Dowd And Frank Rich Bashed Hillary
February 13, 2008 -- 10:00 AM EST // link //

Breaking: Another Writer Demands Real Evidence Of Bill And Hillary's "Race Card" Playing
February 12, 2008 -- 11:36 AM EST // link //

Krugman, His Op-ed Colleagues, And The "Clinton Rules" Of Punditry
February 11, 2008 -- 4:51 PM EST // link //

Silly Suck-Up-To-Drudge Moment Of The Day
February 11, 2008 -- 12:32 PM EST // link //

**John Solomon Era Officially Begins At Washington Times!**
February 8, 2008 -- 12:32 PM EST // link //

Mystery Of The Missing Dowd Snark -- Solved!
February 7, 2008 -- 7:03 PM EST // link //

The Tweety Effect Lives! Women's Group Using Chris Matthews' Buffoonery As Fundraising Tool For Hillary
February 7, 2008 -- 1:29 PM EST // link //

Obsessive, Unhinged Punditry
February 6, 2008 -- 8:02 PM EST // link //

Is Obama Being Hurt By MSNBC And His Other Media Worshippers?
February 6, 2008 -- 4:40 PM EST // link //

No One Will Listen To John Harris And Jim VandeHei
February 5, 2008 -- 11:07 PM EST // link //

WaPo's Richard Cohen: Today, I'm Casting My Vote -- Against Bill Clinton
February 5, 2008 -- 1:02 PM EST // link //

Media Weeps With Joy Over Hillary's Latest "Tears" Moment
February 5, 2008 -- 9:42 AM EST // link //

Another Poll Shows That Bill Hasn't Hurt Hillary Among Dem Primary Voters
February 4, 2008 -- 10:37 AM EST // link //

Memo To Pundits: New Poll Finds That Number Of Dems Who Like Idea Of Bill Back In White House Hasn't Budged
February 3, 2008 -- 12:35 PM EST // link //

The Zombie Quote Lives On...And On...And On...
February 2, 2008 -- 9:25 AM EST // link //