Washington Press Corps Laughs...And Laughs...And Laughs...And Laughs...
(February 16, 2007 -- 11:59 AM EDT // link // Comments (4325))

I've hauled this one out before, but it's worth another look in light of the President's press conference yesterday. So let's play compare and contrast. Ready?

From All the President's Men, page 163, depicting a press conference in the early '70s at which reporters questioned Nixon campaign director Clark MacGregor about a particularly eye-opening turn in the Watergate case:

MacGregor entered the room from the rear and walked up the middle aisle. He is a big man, six foot three inches, about 210 pounds. Arriving at the lectern, he grabbed both sides of it and gave a half-hearted smile. Because of the "unusual developments of the past few days," MacGregor said, he would be unable to answer any questions.

Clark Mollenhoff, six foot four inches and 230 pounds, Washington bureau chief of the Des Moines Register and Tribune Syndicate, rose, his face contorted with anger. Mollenhoff, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter, had briefly served at the White House as resident ombudsman charged with keeping things honest. MacGregor and Mollenhoff looked like two giants getting ready to lay clubs on each other.

"What credibility do you have?" Mollenhoff shouted. His voice was booming, and the other reporters fell silent. "What documents have you seen?" Mollenhoff demanded. "Because if you can't tell us, you have no right to stand there."

When MacGregor had entered the room, copies of his prepared statement had been handed out, so the reporters knew what was coming. Others were shouting at him now, though none as vigorously as Mollenhoff. "Why should we sit here and listen to you, why should we print a word you say?" he insisted.

When those reporters were stonewalled about something they considered important, they got angry. Now let's look at Bush's press conference yesterday:

QUESTION: Thank you, Mr. President. Sir, we've now learned through sworn testimony that at least three members of your administration, other than Scooter Libby, leaked Valerie Plame's identity to the media. None of these three is known to be under investigation. Without commenting on the Libby trial, then, can you tell us whether you authorized any of these three to do that, or were they authorized without your permission?

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, thanks, Pete. I'm not going to talk about any of it.

QUESTION: They're not under investigation, though?

THE PRESIDENT: Peter, I'm not going to talk about any of it.

QUESTION: How about pardons, sir? Many people are asking whether you might pardon --

THE PRESIDENT: Not going to talk about it, Peter. (Laughter.) Would you like to think of another question? Being the kind man that I am, I will recycle you. (Laughter.)

John.

QUESTION: Thank you --

THE PRESIDENT: You like that one? "Recycling" him. (Laughter.)

QUESTION: That took care of one of my questions, as well, sir.

THE PRESIDENT: If that's the case, sit down. Next question. (Laughter.)

Look, the questions from the Post's Peter Baker were good, and the comparison is far from perfect, because in the first instance a campaign official was being questioned, and in the second the target was the President. What's more, the advent of the Internet and YouTube means reporters' performances at press conferences are far more public and more scrutinized than they used to be -- which probably means it's inevitable that reporters will be more careful and less confrontational. This isn't reflexive White House press corps criticism.

Still, the comparison's instructive. It's a reminder that tolerance and even jadedness towards official mendacity and stonewalling have become about as pervasive and unremarkable as the air you breathe. I mean, here you have testimony saying that three of Bush's senior officials helped destroy the career of a CIA officer. The President blithely refused to say whether he authorized it. And the response is...laughter? What the hell's so funny about this?

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FLASHBACK: Brooks Predicted War Foes Wouldn't Admit They Were Wrong
(February 15, 2007 -- 2:50 PM EDT // link // Comments (134))

Oh, man -- the fun just never stops with David Brooks, does it? As noted below, Brooks illustrated our Doctrine of Pundit Infallibility, or DOPI, in his Times column today by mocking those who, unlike him, were right about the Iraq war. And now we've unearthed a truly priceless gem from Brooks' oeuvre in which he predicted that despite success in Iraq war opponents weren't going to admit that they were wrong.

Here's what Brooks wrote in The Weekly Standard back in 2003 after the Saddam statue fell:

I'm curious about how all the war opponents are going to react if things continue to go well. Sure, they opposed Saddam, they will say. They just didn't want to do anything about him. They had no practical suggestion for how to end his murderous reign and spread freedom. They were tolerant. Tolerant of tyranny. They doubted, and continue to doubt America's willingness and ability to serve as a force for good in the world. That was their crucial mistake.

I suspect they will not even now admit their errors. I doubt the people of Europe will say: We were wrong. You really are the liberators of the Iraqi people. I doubt the Arab propagandists will say: We will never spread such distortions again. We will never again be so driven by resentment and dishonesty.

Sad to say, human nature doesn't work that way. The rump 15 percent of Americans who still oppose this war may perhaps grow more bitter, lost in the cul-de-sac of their own alienation.

No, human nature doesn't work that way, as we've since discovered. Special thanks to crack TPM reporter Eric Kleefeld for the find.

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David Brooks And The Doctrine Of Pundit Infallibility
(February 15, 2007 -- 12:56 PM EDT // link // Comments (4136))

David Brooks' column in the New York Times today perfectly illustrates what can usefully be called the Doctrine of Pundit Infallibility -- or DOPI for short. Brooks writes:

Far be it from me to get in the middle of a liberal purge, but would anybody mind if I pointed out that the calls for Hillary Clinton to apologize for her support of the Iraq war are almost entirely bogus?...

Today, the liberal wing of the Democratic Party believes that the world, and Hillary Clinton in particular, owes it an apology. If she apologizes, she’ll forfeit her integrity. She will be apologizing for being herself.

Putting aside Brooks' argument about Hillary, this one sentence is worth dwelling on, because it perfectly captures our new DOPI -- pronounced "DOPEY." It shows that a pundit like Brooks, who did plenty of relentless cheerleading for the Iraq conflict, can freely operate in the full knowledge that he'll face no ridicule or derision whatsoever from valued colleagues for very visibly heaping scorn on the people who, unlike him, were right about the war.

Also amusing is the fact that Brooks says liberal Dems want the "world" to apologize to them. Actually, they want people like Brooks himself to own up in a serious way to getting it wrong. When Brooks writes a column about Hillary with this headline:

...it's hard to escape the conclusion that he's really talking about himself.

Continue reading "David Brooks And The Doctrine Of Pundit Infallibility"

House GOPers: Media Is "Liberal" Because It Reports Facts About Iraq
(February 14, 2007 -- 1:30 PM EDT // link // Comments (2133))

Okay, this is pretty great. You couldn't ask for a more perfect illustration of the emptiness of the GOP charge that the media's reporting on Iraq is "liberal" than this.

Yesterday over at Election Central we reported that GOP Reps. John Shadegg and Pete Hoekstra had sent out a letter containing a set of talking points for GOP Congressmen to use in the debate in the House this week over escalation. As we noted yesterday, the letter was pretty interesting, particularly in that it urged GOP members not to talk about escalation and instead to change the subject to the wider war on "terror."

But there's another part of the letter that I'd missed yesterday -- and it may be even more revealing in a perverse sort of way. Look at what these two leading Republicans told their GOP troops about the media:

Thanks to the liberal mainstream media, Americans fully understand the consequences of continuing our efforts in Iraq -- both in American lives and dollars. The American people do not understand the consequences of abandoning that effort or the extreme views, goals, and intentions of the radical Islamist movement that is fueling the war in Iraq and the attacks on westerners and unbelievers throughout the world.

I think that's as clearly revealing as one could want. The problem with the liberal media, according to these two top Republicans, is that it's enabling Americans to understand the consequences of the war. But the media's bias is preventing it from reporting the "consequences" of not doing what the President wants.

This is really, really interesting when you unpack it. The media is being faulted for emphasizing the factual -- that is, for reporting on the factually observable things associated with the war that are happening right now, i.e., mounting deaths and skyrocketing costs.

Meanwhile, the thing that these two Republicans are criticizing the media for not doing is interpreting the war as being "fueled" by a single "radical Islamist movement." It's not doing enough reporting on what might happen if we pull out of Iraq. The idea here seems to be that the media's "liberalism" is preventing it from interpreting the war and speculating about the future in the way conservative war supporters want the media to.

Bottom line: The media is being faulted here merely for telling the American people what the consequences of the President's war policies have been. This has long been the subtext of the GOP's attacks on the "liberal" media, but the absurdity of it has never been revealed quite so clearly.

Here It Is: Silliest Retelling Yet Of Bogus Pelosi Plane Story
(February 13, 2007 -- 4:35 PM EDT // link // Comments (59))

Sillier and sillier. Ruth Ann Dailey, a columnist for the mainstream Pittsburgh Post Gazette, has outdone many of her media colleagues on the bogus Nancy Pelosi plane story: Rather than just recycle this tall tale, she's actually gone and built a whole theory about the new Dem Congressional leadership on it. Ms. Dailey writes:

Just weeks after promising the dawn of a corruption-free, environmentally sensitive era on Capitol Hill, the new Democratic speaker rejected the 12-seat Gulfstream 3 jet that her Republican predecessor had used and asked for something much larger.

Ms. Pelosi requested the military equivalent of a 757, the most luxurious airplane available for a nonstop coast-to-coast trip. She and her staff had decided that pausing to refuel would be a security risk, having evidently forgotten they can refuel at any of the country's dozens of Air Force bases...

Certain abuses of power arise from a lazy sense of entitlement -- too much comfort from being in power too long. Republicans stumbled on this sort.

Then there are the abuses of power that arise from an aggrieved sense of entitlement denied -- injured pride from being out of power for so long, especially if you think the power in question should rightfully be yours.

This is where Democratic leaders are stumbling already. Judging from their campaign rhetoric, the only surprise is how fast it happened.

As you know already, this is pure fiction, so today I sent Ms. Dailey an email with a corrective and a few questions. Because Ms. Dailey, a delicate soul, has complained about "left wing incivility" in the past, I took care to be very, very civil:

As it happens, this account you provide is entirely false. On February 8th the House Sergeant-at-Arms released a statement saying that he, not Pelosi, had requested for security reasons an aircraft that could fly nonstop from D.C. to her California district....

So, several on the record questions: First, do you intend to issue a correction? Second, were you aware that this statement, which was reported by CNN, the New York Times and many other news outlets, had been released? Third, if you were aware of the statement, why did you repeat the false claim that Pelosi requested the larger aircraft? And if you didn't know about the statement, shouldn't basic professionalism have required you to be aware of such a critical aspect of a story that you were addressing in your column?

When she replies, you'll be the first to know. Special thanks to TPM Reader MJ for the catch.

Incidentally, if you want a comprehensive rundown on just how many media figures recycled this bogus story, Eric Boehlert's got one here. Be warned: It's pretty dispiriting.

Newsweek Still Flogging Bogus Pelosi Plane Story
(February 13, 2007 -- 10:50 AM EDT // link // Comments (592))

Can this be real? Check out Newsweek's most recent Conventional Wisdom watch:

Yes, you read it right: The mag did indeed give Nancy Pelosi a thumbs-down for the following:

Sure Hastert had military jet, but seeking bigger one (to go nonstop) makes her sound like a 757 liberal.

Memo to Newsweek's editors: You've given the leading Democrat in the House of Representatives a thumbs down for something that she didn't do. Pelosi didn't request a bigger plane at all. It never happened, people. The story has been thoroughly discredited. How is it possible that hard-working, well-meaning professionals such as yourselves don't know this?

This issue of Newsweek hit the stands not one, not two, not three, but four days after the House Sergeant-at-Arms issued the following statement saying that he, not she, had requested for security reasons a plane that can fly from D.C. to her California district:

In a post 9/11 threat environment, it is reasonable and prudent to provide military aircraft to the Speaker for official travel between Washington and her district. The practice began with Speaker Hastert and I have recommended that it continue with Speaker Pelosi. The fact that Speaker Pelosi lives in California compelled me to request an aircraft that is capable of making non-stop flights for security purposes, unless such an aircraft is unavailable.

It's hard to imagine how this could be made any clearer. It's even harder to imagine why the existence of this statement in the public domain for days and days wasn't enough to stop one of the leading newsweeklies in the land from publishing outright fiction.

Update: Perhaps the silliest example of this yet can be found here.

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Patrick Healy's Over-The-Top Coverage Of Hillary Continues
(February 12, 2007 -- 11:04 AM EDT // link // Comments (434))

This is pretty telling. Today's New York Times has an article contrasting the ways Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are addressing the Iraq war that says a great deal about Times reporter Patrick Healy's approach to covering Hillary. Healy, the lead writer of the piece, describes Hillary's approach as follows:

In these instances and similar moments in New Hampshire, Mrs. Clinton stuck to a set of talking points that she and her advisers hope will ultimately overcome the antiwar anger that is particularly strong among Democrats likely to vote in primaries. She took full responsibility for the vote, said she would not vote for military action in Iraq again, and then pivoted quickly to frame Iraq as President Bush’s war. This answer was usually met with applause.

In the same piece, meanwhile, he describes Obama's approach as follows:

In Iowa on Sunday, on his first trip there as a presidential candidate, Mr. Obama reminded voters that he had been against the war from the start and said he had offered a plan for winding down American involvement. His strong statements against the war in Iraq drew applause at each of four stops, from Waterloo to Ames.

Got that? When Hillary repeats a standard stump formulation, she's sticking "to a set of talking points." When Obama does the same thing, he's "reminded voters" of his positions. Let's be clear: The point here isn't that Hillary doesn't use talking points or that Obama does use them. Rather, the point is that all politicians are scripted and use talking points to some extent, and reporters make an editorial decision to describe some candidates and not others in such terms. In the case of Hillary, Healy makes the editorial decision to describe her as such constantly. He goes out of his way to paint Hillary as political and calculating so often that it's becoming suspect.

Just for the heck of it, I went back and looked at all the pieces Healy has written or co-wrote as lead writer about Hillary since she entered the race. Many of them go to gratuitous and even silly lengths to describe her as either choreographed, scripted or political -- to the point where it's obvious that there's a pattern at work. Examples after the jump.

Continue reading "Patrick Healy's Over-The-Top Coverage Of Hillary Continues"