(January 27, 2007 -- 4:23 PM EDT // link // Comments (3315))

POST OMBUD DEBORAH HOWELL ON JOHN SOLOMON'S EDWARDS PIECE: "MISLEADING"; "GOTCHA WITHOUT THE GOTCHA."

As promised, Washington Post ombud Deborah Howell has addressed Post reporter John Solomon's hit piece on John Edwards' home sale in her column. She's pretty tough on him:

Accurate stories can be misleading. Two recent Page 1 stories -- one on the Fairfax County libraries and the other on the sale of Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards's Georgetown house -- brought complaints that there was less there than met the reader's eye....

I kept waiting to read about the connection between the Klaassens and Edwards that would make this sale unseemly; it wasn't there. Edwards spokeswoman Jennifer Palmieri said Edwards "has never met or spoken with them; nor have they contributed to his campaign."

The story was interesting, but it was more of an item for the Reliable Source or In the Loop -- and not worth Page 1. It seemed like a "gotcha" without the gotcha.

This is a point I'd hoped Howell would make. Solomon and his editor have insisted again and again that the story didn't say Edwards had done anything wrong. But the real problem, which Solomon and his editor have refused to address, wasn't necessarily that the story said outright that Edwards had done anything wrong, but that it implied through innuendo and suggestion in various questionable ways that there was something untoward about his house deal, when there wasn't. There were other problems, too, but this was a key one.

Through its placement and tone, the story did imply that there was something "unseemly" about the deal. And as Howell suggests, this was "misleading," pure and simple. No amount of protestations that the story never said outright that Edwards did anything wrong will change that obvious fact. It was indeed "gotcha without the gotcha."

Howell says more about the piece, but for now I wanted to focus on this aspect of her analysis -- because it cuts right to the heart of the major flaw with Solomon that the Post is now saddled with. After all, this is hardly the first time Solomon has used innuendo, implication and suggestion to smear his frequently-Dem subjects. Nor was it the first time that even a cursory analysis of his "story" revealed that there was little to nothing there.

Will this chasten Solomon at all? Almost certainly not. He's got his M.O., and he's sticking to it. The key remaining question now is whether Post editors will be more careful and on their guard when looking over Solomon's efforts -- or whether they're simply incapable of acknowledging or even hearing criticism of their editing and news judgment, no matter how obviously justified that criticism is.

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(January 26, 2007 -- 11:43 AM EDT // link // Comments (3709))

DEBORAH HOWELL SET TO WEIGH IN ON SOLOMON THIS WEEKEND. A friendly reminder: This weekend, Washington Post ombud Deborah Howell intends to address fellow Postie John Solomon's recent hit piece on John Edwards in her column. Let's hope that she's read this piece from Jamison Foser hitting on all the key points. Maybe someone should send it her way.

(January 26, 2007 -- 9:04 AM EDT // link // Comments (4943))

TOM FRIEDMAN KEEPS DANCING THE "CONDITIONAL SHUFFLE" ON IRAQ.

It's time to coin a new phrase here at The Horse's Mouth: The "Conditional Shuffle." Or, if you prefer, we can call it the "if only dodge."

This takes place when a commentator or pundit continues to call for President Bush to do this or that in Iraq as a way to postpone acknowledging reality and the inevitable. Today, Tom Friedman dances the Conditional Shuffle all over the New York Times Op ed page.

Back in November, Friedman wrote: "We need to face our real choices in Iraq, which are: 10 months or 10 years. Either we just get out of Iraq in a phased withdrawal over 10 months, and try to stabilize it some other way, or we accept the fact that the only way it will not be a failed state is if we start over and rebuild it from the ground up, which would take 10 years. This would require reinvading Iraq, with at least 150,000 more troops...If we're not ready to do what is necessary to crush the dark forces in Iraq and properly rebuild it, then we need to leave -- because to just keep stumbling along as we have been makes no sense."

On January 10, of course, Bush announced that he was sending approximately one seventh the amount of troops that Friedman said we needed to avoid failing. Several days later -- even though he'd said very clearly that if we didn't send 150,000 troops, we should "leave" -- Friedman weighed in again, saying that he could support Bush's surge if the President did this or if the President did that.

In today's column, Friedman again says he can support the "surge" -- that is, if Bush does still other things:

Let the troop surge be accompanied and reinforced by what the Baker-Hamilton commission proposed: a regional conference that puts Syria, Iran, Jordan and Saudi Arabia around a table with Iraqis to try to stabilize the place. And that requires that America brandish carrots and sticks with all the parties. If a real regional conference doesn’t work, then Democrats who want to just set a date to withdraw will have an even stronger case because we will truly have tried everything. But let’s try everything: a surge of diplomacy, not just troops.

So before, it was basically, "if Bush doesn't send 150,000 troops, we should leave." Now it's basically, "if" we try a "regional conference" and it doesn't work, the case for withdrawal is "even stronger."

But Professor Friedman, at what point should we conclude that Bush isn't going to do any of the things you're demanding of him, no matter what the Democrats put "on his desk"? These continued calls for things that almost certainly are never going to happen -- if this, if that -- are becoming nothing more than a dodge. As in: If only Bush would do this or that, then we'd really find out whether we're doomed to fail, and hence doomed to leave.

This has become nothing more than a convenient way of postponing the arduous task of taking a real position on what we should do right now -- whether it's to withdraw immediately, set a timetable for phased withdrawal, or agree that we'll stay forever or until we achieve some sort of defined victory, whichever comes first. The key is that it's time to take a real position on this question independently of what Bush might or might not do in the future. No more of the Conditional Shuffle. No more of the "if only" dodge.

Again: How many more "if onlys" have to fail to materialize before Friedman brings himself to embrace the course that he himself said less than two months ago was our only other option?

To visit the homepage of this blog, where you can see many more posts just like this one, click here.

Update: Matthew Yglesias has more: "Once you don the Moustache of Understanding you'll realize that in order to be a Serious Person it's important that you never agree with liberals." And while you're over at his site, absolutely don't miss this great post.

(January 25, 2007 -- 4:20 PM EDT // link // Comments (3275))

WHEN I'M WRONG, I'M WRONG. Earlier today I put up a post saying that John McCain was telling a falsehood when he said the following about the "surge" yesterday on CNN: "Overnight ratings, I understand, were slightly in favor of supporting the president's proposal." Because of McCain's use of the word "proposal," I assumed that he was referring to the speech Bush gave when he unveiled the "surge" on Jan. 10. But a rather aggressive commenter has made a persuasive case that it was instead a reference to the SOTU speech the other day, and one CBS poll does show what McCain claimed (though as plenty of other commenters pointed out, that poll has its flaws). I think it's very clear that the commenter is right, and that I was wrong. So I've taken the post down. Apologies for the sloppy error.

(January 24, 2007 -- 6:23 PM EDT // link // Comments (3919))

WOLF BLITZER TO DICK CHENEY: "WE LIKE YOUR DAUGHTERS."

Here's a really wonderful moment from Wolf Blitzer's interview today with Dick Cheney. Wolf gingerly brings up the question of the baby that Cheney's lesbian daughter is expecting, and, well, watch:

Here's a transcript:

Q: We're out of time, but a couple of issues I want to raise with you. Your daughter Mary, she's pregnant. All of us are happy. She's going to have a baby. You're going to have another grandchild. Some of the -- some critics, though, are suggesting, for example, a statement from someone representing Focus on the Family:

"Mary Cheney's pregnancy raises the question of what's best for children. Just because it's possible to conceive a child outside of the relationship of a married mother and father, doesn't mean it's best for the child."

Do you want to respond to that?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: No, I don't.

Q: She's obviously a good daughter --

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I'm delighted -- I'm delighted I'm about to have a sixth grandchild, Wolf, and obviously think the world of both of my daughters and all of my grandchildren. And I think, frankly, you're out of line with that question.

Q: I think all of us appreciate --

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I think you're out of -- I think you're out of line with that question.

Q: -- your daughter. We like your daughters. Believe me, I'm very, very sympathetic to Liz and to Mary. I like them both. That was just a question that's come up and it's a responsible, fair question.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I just fundamentally disagree with your perspective.

Q: I want to congratulate you on having another grandchild. Let's wind up on a soft note.

No question, the guy's scary. But come on, Wolf! Backbone!

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(January 24, 2007 -- 3:28 PM EDT // link // Comments (3931))

BREAKING: HILLARY DAYDREAMED FOR NEARLY AN HOUR!

Updated below.

Okay, we've got another winner of our Peter Pan Press Award, which our panel of judges awards periodically to outstanding examples of childish, vacuous, we'll-never-grow-up political coverage.

Check out this description of Hillary Clinton during the State of the Union address in a "color" piece by The Washington Post's Dana Milbank:

Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) barely lifted his head from the speech text in his lap and sometimes rested his finger thoughtfully on his temple. By contrast, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), seated immediately behind Obama, stared vacantly toward Bush for much of the speech, as if daydreaming. Both, however, applauded when the subject came to ethanol, a favorite in the Iowa caucuses. Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), seated near the front, crossed his leg and wiggled his toe impatiently.

It's kind of fun to ponder this one. Did Milbank watch Clinton's face for "much of the speech"? Probably not, because then he might not have seen Obama touch his finger to his temple or Kerry "wiggle his toe impatiently." The piece says at the end that two researchers helped with the reporting. Was one of them perhaps tasked with watching Clinton's face for the whole speech? And another tasked with watching Kerry's toes?

It's also amusing to note that by this description, it seems that Clinton was, for "much" of the speech, looking at the person who was delivering it. This isn't sufficiently mocking, however, so merely listening to Bush speak had to be transformed into "stared vacantly...as if daydreaming." Like, huh? This is yet another perfect example of the point made by Atrios and Somerby -- that literally no rules apply when it comes to writing about the Clintons. Is there anything at all that can persuade these people that this sort of stuff is not at all funny -- just profoundly, embarrassingly, even painfully silly?

Stop it at once, say I! Stop it at once!

Update: It gets better! A commenter notes below that on NPR this morning, Milbank offered this searching explanation for why Clinton might have been seated behind Obama during the speech:

In fact, Hillary Clinton was situated immediately behind Barack Obama, making it easier for her to actually place the knife into his back, if that’s was she was trying to do.

Was she daydreaming, or was she plotting to stab Obama in the back? I really can't keep track of all the inanities...

(January 24, 2007 -- 12:41 PM EDT // link // Comments (6175))

OBAMA TAKES ON FOX NEWS. If this is a sign of how Barack Obama intends to deal with the right-wing media during his Presidential campaign, then I'm all for it.

Obama is aggressively going after Fox News today for pushing that smear-job report claiming that he went to an Islamic “madrassa” school as a child. The report has already been completely debunked by CNN, but Obama isn't letting up. The Senator's office has just emailed out a blistering memo targeting Fox that says the following:

In the past week, many of you have read a now thoroughly-debunked story by Insight Magazine, owned by the Washington Times, which cites unnamed sources close to a political campaign that claim Senator Obama was enrolled for “at least four years” in an Indonesian “Madrassa”. The article says the “sources” believe the Madrassa was “espousing Wahhabism,” a form of radical Islam.

Insight Magazine published these allegations without a single named source, and without doing any independent reporting to confirm or deny the allegations. Fox News quickly parroted the charges, and Fox and Friends host Steve Doocy went so far as to ask, “Why didn’t anybody ever mention that that man right there was raised — spent the first decade of his life, raised by his Muslim father — as a Muslim and was educated in a Madrassa?”

All of the claims about Senator Obama raised in the Insight Magazine piece were thoroughly debunked by CNN, which, instead of relying on unnamed sources, sent a reporter to Obama’s former school in Jakarta to check the facts.

If Doocy or the staff at Fox and Friends had taken [time] to check their facts, or simply made a call to his office, they would have learned that Senator Obama was not educated in a Madrassa, was not raised as a Muslim, and was not raised by his father – an atheist Obama met once in his life before he died.

Later in the day, Fox News host John Gibson again discussed the Insight Magazine story without any attempt to independently confirm the charges.

All of the claims about Senator Obama’s faith and education raised in the Insight Magazine story and repeated on Fox News are false. Senator Obama was raised in a secular household in Indonesia by his stepfather and mother. Obama’s stepfather worked for a U.S. oil company, and sent his stepson to two years of Catholic school, as well as two years of public school. As Obama described it, “Without the money to go to the international school that most expatriate children attended, I went to local Indonesian schools and ran the streets with the children of farmers, servants, tailors, and clerks.” [The Audacity of Hope, p. 274]

To be clear, Senator Obama has never been a Muslim, was not raised a Muslim, and is a committed Christian who attends the United Church of Christ in Chicago. Furthermore, the Indonesian school Obama attended in Jakarta is a public school that is not and never has been a Madrassa.

These malicious, irresponsible charges are precisely the kind of politics the American people have grown tired of, and that Senator Obama is trying to change by focusing on bringing people together to solve our common problems.

This is exactly the right thing to do: Take these guys on very aggressively, and above all, single out by name the people who are lying about you. Wrap their lies around their necks.

Let's hope we see lots more of this.

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(January 23, 2007 -- 3:20 PM EDT // link // Comments (4131))

WASHINGTON POST OMBUDSMAN TO ADDRESS SOLOMON STORY IN NEXT COLUMN.

So it looks like John Solomon isn't out of trouble just yet. I've just confirmed that Washington Post ombud Deborah Howell plans to address Solomon's piece on John Edwards in her column this week.

What happened was this: TPM Reader TT emailed us to let us know that he'd emailed Howell as follows: "If you thought the strange placement of John Solomon's strange story on John Edwards merited comment in the Post's internal blog, why didn't you comment on it in your weekly column?" Good question -- and Howell replied to TT that she did in fact intend to address it this week. I emailed Howell and asked her whether she would be doing this, and Howell wrote back: "Yes."

Howell, of course, is one of the piece's in-house critics. She privately questioned the piece in that internal Post blog item. She hasn't gone public with her criticisms yet, though her item did of course subsequently get leaked a few days ago:

More than a dozen readers, both inside the newsroom and outside, were troubled by the John Edwards story on Page today. So was I. Most complainers thought that the story either wasn't worth a story or wasn't worth fronting or both. It was interesting enough to make an item in In the Loop, but not Page 1. I kept looking for the graf that would tell me that the buyers had some history with Edwards, that they were big campaign contributors, that there was some quid pro quo. Nada.

So now Howell will be making a more expansive public case -- against the piece, one presumes, but one never knows for sure -- in her column. Should be interesting.

Solomon defended himself against an onslaught of questions today in a chat with readers. It'll also be interesting to see what -- if anything -- he says if and when Howell weighs in on the piece. Anyone care to predict what she'll say?

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(January 23, 2007 -- 12:15 PM EDT // link // Comments (4405))

JOHN SOLOMON: WHAT'S A LITTLE INNUENDO BETWEEN FRIENDS?

Washington Post reporter John Solomon has just finished up his chat with readers. Looking through his responses to questions about his hit-piece on John Edwards, the only conclusion you can reach is that he's basically saying that there's nothing wrong with publishing innuendo on the front page of the Post.

I really don't think there's any other conclusion to be reached about what he said. Solomon, after all, appeared to say repeatedly that Edwards hadn't really done anything wrong. Here are the key parts:

A frontpage story doesn't have to always find wrongdoing or lead to prosecutions. It can simply illuminate how a candidate chose to address a basic requirement of his campaign -- achieving transparency on his or her financial dealings...Once again, Sen. Edwards doesn't have to break a law or even do something wrong to ask and answer these very basic questions.

So Edwards didn't do anything wrong. But the story is justified because Edwards didn't answer "basic questions" about the transaction, Solomon says. Yet at another point, Solomon basically concedes that he didn't actually have to answer these questions yet:

Sen. Edwards hasn't filed his financial disclosure form yet. He still has some time to do that. That's where he'll fulfill his legal obligation.

So now the story is justified by the fact that Edwards didn't disclose the sellers' identity earlier than he was obliged to. In other words, his behavior wasn't quite as perfect as it might have been. That's just beyond thin.

But put that absurdity aside for a moment. Here's the key point, one that Solomon and his editor are refusing to respond to, and indeed aren't even bothering to deny: Even if the story didn't directly allege wrongdoing -- in keeping with Solomon's concession now that Edwards didn't do anything wrong -- the story very clearly implied that there was something untoward about the deal. It trafficked in innuendo and suggestion in various questionable ways. If you go back and read the story, there's simply no escaping this fact. One of Solomon's in-house critics -- ombud Deborah Howell -- has suggested this, and she's right.

Yet Solomon defends the story and its placement. As he puts it, "I have no regrets at all about the story or its play in the Post." While conceding it didn't allege wrongdoing, he's nonetheless unrepentant about the fact that it implied untoward behavior. In other words, there's nothing wrong with putting innuendo on the front page of the Post.

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(January 23, 2007 -- 9:59 AM EDT // link // Comments (2581))

QUESTIONS FOR JOHN SOLOMON DURING TODAY'S CHAT WITH READERS.

Today at 11 A.M., Washington Post reporter John Solomon is taking questions from readers.

Here at TPM, as you know, we really enjoy having our way with old Solomon, mainly because of his history of hunting for Dems when the scent of wrongdoing is at best slight or at worst non-existent.

As you also know, the other day Solomon wrote a long front-page piece that seemed to suggest that there was something untoward about John Edwards' house sale last month, though it wasn't clear from the piece exactly what it was. There are plenty of outstanding questions about the article.

We thought a readers' chat might be a good place for readers to pose these questions to Solomon directly. So here are a few thoughts for queries that might be directed his way:

1) Many readers have complained that it isn't clear from your piece on Edwards whether he and his wife did anything untoward in selling their house. So can you clarify things by telling us in one sentence exactly what it is, if anything, that Edwards and his wife did wrong?

2) Given that not one, but two staffers at your paper -- reporter Jonathan Weisman and ombud Deborah Howell -- have criticized the piece, what is your reaction to the substance of their criticism? Do you think these in-house critics have a point, or do you think your colleagues are simply wrong about your effort?

3) In your piece on Edwards, you cited two unions who are at legal loggerheads with the buyer of Edwards' home. Your piece suggested that there was something untoward about Edwards' sale to someone battling these unions because he's courting their support for his Presidential bid. Yet an official for one of those unions didn't pass any judgment on Edwards' action. And you apparently didn't even contact the other union for comment. Isn't that an unforgivable omission for an investigative journalist at a top news org?

4) It's now known that officials at the union you didn't contact didn't see anything wrong with what Edwards did. Why haven't you done a follow-up story emphasizing this fact? And does this new info cause you to rethink the validity or news value of your piece in any way?

Anyway, those are a few suggestions for questions. Have at it, if you feel so inclined. The chat is here.

To reach the homepage of this blog, click here.

Update: More good stuff from AmericaBlog.

Update II: Here's my wrap-up on Solomon's responses to readers.

(January 22, 2007 -- 4:24 PM EDT // link // Comments (3353))

FINALLY -- A GLIMPSE OF WHAT THE WORD "CENTRIST" REALLY MEANS.

The other day I ranted at length about the fact that the New York Times on Saturday had described a forthcoming proposal on Iraq being drawn up by GOP Senator John Warner as "centrist."

Well, now the resolution is done. It's being introduced by Warner, as well as Senators Susan Collins and Ben Nelson, as an alternative to the earlier Biden-Hagel resolution introduced last week. And the available details about the new resolution show even more amusingly just how vacuous these reflexive paeans to the political middle have become. Here's how CNN is describing the new proposal:

The resolution -- also sponsored by Armed Services Committee members Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Ben Nelson, D-Nebraska -- tones down some of the language used in a resolution introduced earlier by Sens. Carl Levin, D-Michigan, Joe Biden, D-Delaware, and Chuck Hagel, R-Nebraska, sources involved with crafting the resolution tell CNN....

A source familiar with a draft as of Friday said the word "escalation" in the first resolution -- a term coined by Democrats to describe the troop increase which Republicans consider too partisan -- has been replaced in the second resolution by "augmentation." The resolution will also express Warner's concern over sending troops into entrenched sectarian violence.

"The other resolution was a real thumb in the eye to the president, our goal is to make the same point but get 60-65 votes, not 51 or 52," said the source.

Breaking: Centrists agree that use of the word "escalation" is too mean to the President!

In essence, the new resolution avoids some of the nasty language in the Biden-Hagel one and is a bit nicer to Bush in an effort to get a larger group of Senators to sign on to it. In other words, its main features are being created simply with the goal of creating something more Senators are willing to sign, enabling them to distance themselves from escalation -- the actual impact of their resolution be damned. And though on-air commentators are already starting to make somber noises about this resolution's centrist and bipartisan nature, as well as its reach for compromise, let's be clear: This only represents the "center" of opinion in the Senate -- if that. It has nothing to do with what the American people want.

Keep this in mind: Majorities are telling pollsters that they want concrete Congressional action to block escalation. Yet a resolution that's supposed to represent some sort of middle ground, and create the possibility of compromise in the Senate, is not just non-binding, but actually holds that the mere use of the word "escalation" is too hot to handle. That's nothing short of amazing, when you step back and look at it. Indeed, Senator Warner was just on CNN, stating very clearly that the purpose of the new resolution is not to reduce the number of troops in Iraq or set a timetable for withdrawal -- two things that majorities of the American public have repeatedly told pollsters they want.

Look, the more "bipartisan" resolutions against escalation, the better. And, sure, it's good news that some GOPers are breaking ranks and taking on the White House. The point simply is that this kind of thing reveals very starkly the extent to which the political middle as a construct of D.C. elites has come completely unmoored from actual public opinion.

(January 22, 2007 -- 11:44 AM EDT // link // Comments (1620))

NOTE TO FRED HIATT: PLEASE DON'T CHERRY-PICK FROM YOUR OWN PAPER'S POLL TO PORTRAY DEMS AS UNELECTABLE.

Bizarre. Here's what today's Washington Post had to say in a partly positive editorial about Hillary Clinton's entry into the Presidential race:

A second and somewhat contradictory issue for primary voters is the matter of Ms. Clinton's "electability": Is she such a polarizing figure, with such high negatives (44 percent in the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll, compared with 29 percent for Mr. Obama) that she would be at a disadvantage in the fall campaign? The question about Hillary Clinton may be not so much whether a woman can win the presidency but whether this woman can.

So Clinton may not be "electable" because the Post's poll shows that her "negatives" are at 44%, the editorial says. But wait -- does Post editorial page editor Fred Hiatt simply assume readers won't go and see what the poll says for themselves? Or, alternatively, does Hiatt not read them in full himself?

Let's take a look at another number in that same Post poll that also has a fair amount of relevance to the topic at hand. From the poll's full results:

23. On another subject: do you have a favorable or unfavorable impression of (NAME)?

Hillary Clinton: Favorable 54%, Unfavorable 44%
John McCain: Favorable 49%, Unfavorable 35%
Barack Obama: Favorable 45%, Unfavorable 29%

Yep, the poll also found that a sizeable majority -- 54% -- have a favorable view of Clinton. But the editorial didn't mention that niggling bit of information.

Now why would Hiatt's editorial page omit the fact that a majority views Clinton favorably from a discussion of her electability? Why would it go and cherry-pick the "unfavorable" number without sharing the favorable one? Why?

Anybody have any good guesses?

Update: To visit the homepage of this blog, click here.