A Key Moment In The History Of Blogging?
(March 17, 2007 -- 10:02 AM EDT // link // )

I'm linking to this piece in the Los Angeles Times not just because it lavishes well-deserved praise on Josh, Paul and the increasingly far-flung TPM Empire, but also because it gets at a point that I've flogged on and off since this blog was born nearly a year ago.

That point is this: For all its flaws, the blogosphere is increasingly home to real live journalism, and it's only a matter of time until folks at the big news orgs accept this fact -- indeed, they'd be doing themselves a favor if they accepted it sooner rather than later.

From the LAT:

It's 20 or so blocks up town to the heart of the media establishment, the Midtown towers that house the big newspaper, magazine and book publishers. And yet it was here in a neighborhood of bodegas and floral wholesalers that, over the last two months, one of the biggest news stories in the country — the Bush administration's firing of a group of U.S. attorneys — was pieced together by the reporters of the blog Talking Points Memo.

The bloggers used the usual tools of good journalists everywhere — determination, insight, ingenuity — plus a powerful new force that was not available to reporters until blogging came along: the ability to communicate almost instantaneously with readers via the Internet and to deputize those readers as editorial researchers, in effect multiplying the reporting power by an order of magnitude...

The blogs that have captured the most attention are those that devote themselves mainly to politics and public affairs. These are almost always run by partisans of one side or the other. In that, they are nearly the opposite of the sort of coverage presented in traditional media, whose coverage at least attempts to be neutral on questions of policy.

This neutrality is a favorite target of bloggers who say that mainstream journalism objectivity disguises hidden biases of the form, if not the writer. The bloggers contend that these biases can render neutrality into bland, even neutered reporting that rewards those intent on manipulating it.

This is a key passage, and not just because I've spent a fair amount of time stepping over plants and flowers to get to TPM World Headquarters in the heart of the floral district. This is as fair a statement -- for now, anyway -- as we're likely to get in a big newspaper about the enterprise we've all agreed to call "blogging." And it gets at two points. First, the more obvious one: Blogging isn't just a challenge to journalism, it's a new kind of journalism which -- while it has tons and tons of work to do -- is starting to boast successes that are compelling practitioners of the older form to recognize its legitimacy.

More broadly -- and lest you dismiss this as overly self-hyping, keep in mind that this blog and its author had no significant role in the Attorney Purge coverage -- it's not outlandish to suppose that we'll look back at the Attorney Purge story as another key moment in the history of blogging. Perhaps we'll see it as a moment at which the perceptions of the blogosphere harbored by many professional journalists underwent another fundamental shift -- even a transformative one.

Update: Comenter JGabriel points to the extensive and in-depth coverage of the Libby trial at FireDogLake, and says:

Either story, on its own, could be portrayed as transformative, but could also easily be downplayed as an isolated incidence of excellence, the execption that proves the rule.

Together, they are far harder to ignore. It's not just in-depth pursuit of a single story that's transformative, but the emerging pattern of in-depth reporting from multiple blog sources that's truly making the unignorable case for blogs as a news media that can, at times, outperform the traditional media.

Absolutely true -- there's of course good work being done all over the blogosphere that's creating the conditions that are, little by little, transforming perceptions of this new medium. And though I intended this post to be about the maturation of the blogosphere in general, as well as about the significance of the Attorney Purge story, I should have stressed this more clearly in my first run at this.

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Obama Quote That's Upsetting Bill Clinton Unearthed
(March 16, 2007 -- 4:18 PM EDT // link // )

Okay, I think I've unearthed the Barack Obama quote that Bill Clinton is criticizing The New York Times for not giving more attention to. It's from July of 2004.

As reported below, Clinton sharply criticized The Times at a private fundraiser the other day. His gripe was that the paper spends too much time dwelling on Hillary's refusal to say her war vote was a "mistake," and not enough time on certain past Barack Obama quotations about the war. The former President didn't specify exactly which quote he was referring to, but I'm certain that I've found it. It actually ran in a Times piece about Obama from July 26, 2004 (via Nexis):

In a recent interview, he declined to criticize Senators Kerry and Edwards for voting to authorize the war, although he said he would not have done the same based on the information he had at the time.

''But, I'm not privy to Senate intelligence reports,'' Mr. Obama said. ''What would I have done? I don't know. What I know is that from my vantage point the case was not made.''

But Mr. Obama said he did fault Democratic leaders for failing to ask enough tough questions of the Bush administration to force it to prove its case for war. ''What I don't think was appropriate was the degree to which Congress gave the president a pass on this,'' he said.

Judging by what my witness told me of the former President's remarks, Clinton's thinking is this: If Obama is going to make an issue during the current Presidential campaign out of the fact that he didn't vote for the war, then more attention should be paid to the fact that Obama -- by his own admission -- didn't have to grapple with the intel that Senators such as Hillary had to deal with, and can't be certain what he would have done if he had. Clinton presumably thinks that this quote should be a part of the current dialogue -- in The Times and elsewhere -- if Obama's going to tout his early opposition to the war.

Anyway, I'm not endorsing this position. I'm merely passing along the quote for your edification and enjoyment -- and debate. Have at it.

Update: The fact that the quote appeared in the same paper Clinton's faulting for not featuring it prominently doesn't change his argument. He'd presumably like to see the quote be discussed far more often in the present by the paper. He presumably thinks it should be part of the current dialogue in the same way Hillary's refusal to term her war vote a mistake is.

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CONFIRMED: Bill Clinton Slams New York Times' Coverage Of Hillary At Private Fundraiser
(March 16, 2007 -- 11:25 AM EDT // link // )

I've just confirmed it: Bill Clinton is going after The New York Times, complaining that the paper's coverage of his wife is unfair and that the paper's giving a pass to Hillary rival Barack Obama.

I just got off the phone with someone who was present at a private fundraiser on Tuesday night where Bill Clinton was the featured guest, and he tells me that Clinton aggressively critized The Times in his speech to guests.

Specifically, Bill hammered the paper for its coverage of Hillary's Iraq stance, and faulted the paper for not covering certain aspects of Obama's position on the war.

A gossip column in the New York Post ran an item today on some of Clinton's comments at the fundraiser -- which was held at the plush apartment of mortgage exec Keith Kantrowitz -- but quoted a "source close to Clinton" disputing the account. However, I've now spoken with one guest -- someone I know and trust -- and he not only confirmed what happened, but added a lot more, too, and I have full confidence in this source.

"Clinton spoke about the Times at some length," the guest says. "He said that The Times had basically created an artificial construct on whether or not Hillary should apologize for the war. He said the paper kept pushing it."

Clinton also faulted The Times for undercovering various comments by Obama about the war, including some about the 2002 Iraq War resolution, the source says.

"He quoted Obama as saying in some other newspaper a couple years ago that he didn't know how he would have voted. He also said that Obama had said at some point in 2006 that there was very little difference between his position and Bush's position on Iraq. He said that The Times had not reported these comments prominently. It was like two minutes on how Obama was getting a free ride while the paper pursued the Hillary-should-apologize storyline...He was just upset about it. He was passionate."

Asked about these specific quotes, Clinton spokesman Jay Carson declined to comment.

A sign that the Clintons are sweating Obama? Perhaps...or does Bill have a point? Either way, it's certainly noteworthy that the former President is unhappy with the Paper of Record's coverage of his wife's Presidential campaign -- and thinks her rival is getting a pass.

Update: It turns out the quote Clinton's referring to was originally in The Times, not in another paper. Clinton presumably wants the paper to give this quote the kind of attention in the present that it's giving to Hillary's refusal to say her war vote was a mistake. He thinks it should be part of the current discussion. Again, not endorsing this position, merely reporting it.

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Associated Press: Cutting Funding Would "Undermine The Troops"
(March 16, 2007 -- 6:50 AM EDT // link // )

This is a small thing, but worth a quick note -- if only because it's another sign of just how thoroughly some have absorbed this absurd GOP talking point. Here's the Associated Press reporting on the battle between Congressional Dems and the White House over Iraq:

Democrats won control of the House and Senate in November, fueled in large part by the public's weariness with war. Yet asserting influence is tricky for Democrats. They have the power of the purse but don't want to undermine the troops.

This might have read that Dems fear being made to appear to undermine the troops, or that they fear being accused of undermining the troops. But the AP is now reporting as objective fact that cutting funding would "undermine the troops." Nice.

David Broder Rushes To GOP's Defense, Omits Key Facts To Attack New York Times
(March 15, 2007 -- 9:08 AM EDT // link // )

Okay, so today we've finally discovered what it takes to get Washington Post columnist David Broder to defy his cherished gentleman's code among D.C. insiders and go on the attack against journalistic colleagues: A story that questions the political health of the GOP.

In his column today, Broder rushes to defend the GOP against a New York Times piece from Tuesday noting that the condition of the GOP is less than perfect right now. To do this, however, Broder omitted key facts about the Times piece in a way that, to put it charitably, is highly questionable indeed.

Tuesday's Times story was a fairly straightforward report on a big poll the paper did that was full of bad numbers for the GOP. It was entitled, "G.O.P. Voters Voice Anxieties on Party’s Fate." Broder didn't like this -- not one little bit. In response, he attacked the Times, thundering:

Months before the first votes are cast in the campaign of 2008, some in the media are conducting last rites for the Republicans. The rush to bury the GOP is as hasty as it is premature....

The headline atop Page 1 of Tuesday's New York Times read, "GOP Voters Voice Anxieties on Party's Fate." It sounded like a death knell for the party that has held the White House for 26 of the past 38 years. But the evidence was thin....

I would say that the problem seems to lie in the eyes of those political observers who are impatient to judge an election that is many months, not weeks, away...the only thing we know for certain about the 2008 election is that we know none of the vital facts that will determine its outcome.

Broder accused the Times piece of sounding like the "death knell" of the GOP and said the paper's rush to judgment was premature. But -- and here's the highly questionable part -- guess what Broder didn't tell his readers: The Times piece didn't sound the death knell of the GOP at all. In fact, the Times aired exactly the same point that Broder did -- that it would be premature to use such data for a long-term prognosis -- not once, but twice. It said this:

And by a 20-point margin, respondents said that if the election were held today they would vote for an unnamed Democrat for president rather than a Republican. Such questions are hardly predictive of the outcome of an election so far away, but they do offer an insight into the health of the party today.

And it also quoted someone else making the same point:

Republican strategists said they were not surprised about the poll’s findings, though they said Republicans were too pessimistic in concluding now that the party could not win in 2008.

“People should be concerned — we’ve had a tough last year and a half or so,” said Glenn Bolger, a Republican strategist. “But if you go back in time to 1991, the Democrats had a lot of the same concerns, both about the candidates running and their possibility of winning. And it turned out pretty well for them.”

Broder was so eager to attack the Times for publishing bad poll numbers about the GOP that he snip-snip-snipped those inconvenient facts away. Snip!

It's amusing to ponder what it is that enraged Broder so much about this piece. One guess might be that in Broder's Bipartisan House of Worship no one can whisper aloud that one party is doing far better than the other, because that risks upsetting things and interrupts the priests' invocations of bipartisan rapture. Of course, when the GOP was dominant people weren't just whispering about it, they were cackling and even throwing beer cans at the shrine. And the priests didn't seem to mind so much back then.

Update: Slightly edited from original for accuracy.

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Novak Keeps Recycling Thoroughly-Debunked Falsehoods About Hillary
(March 14, 2007 -- 5:36 PM EDT // link // )

Sometimes this gig can drive one into true depths of despair.

I mean, take a look at this latest from Robert Novak, in which he cheerfully recycles a storyline that's already been torn apart and revealed to be entirely, indeed comically false.

A quick recap: The other day, Novak wrote a completely bogus column saying that you knew that Hillary Clinton and her advisers were sweating about Barack Obama because she said in an Alabama speech that she'd been "privileged" to see Martin Luther King Jr. speak in the 1960s. Novak noted that she has said elsewhere that she was a "Goldwater girl" at the time, claiming that this contradiction showed that Hillary was "reinventing her past." He even suggested Hillary's advisers had invented the anecdote out of panic over Obama.

But as this blog painstakingly showed, Hillary wrote about exactly the same anecdote in her 2003 memoir, which was published back before Obama was a U.S. Senator. So how on earth could her advisers have invented it in response to Obama? They couldn't have, of course.

Yet despite the glaring mendacity at the heart of this storyline, here comes Novak again, recycling an even more cartoonish version of the same falsehood with impunity. In his Human Events column, which was just emailed out to subscribers, he goes further:

Sen. Barack Obama seems to have Sen. Hillary Clinton right where he wants her. Her campaign is constantly reacting to what he does.

Novak then recounts the anecdote about Hillary going to see King speak, and adds:

She and her handlers are so afraid of Obama that they were implying the existence long ago of a teenager in Chicago's suburbs who never really existed.

But, again, Hillary's 2003 memoir recounted the same episode. She wrote that though she was a Goldwater girl, a liberal Methodist minister named Don Jones invited her to hear King. From page 23 of the book:

I had only vaguely heard of Rosa Parks and Dr. Martin Luther King...So, when Don announced one week that he would take us to hear Dr. King speak at Orchestra Hall, I was excited.

In this passage, she also spelled out very clearly that she was torn between the ideas of conservative and liberal figures in her life -- just as she said in the Alabama speech. So let's ask it one more time: If Hillary's advisers were so worried about Obama that they invented this story, how is it that she wrote about the same story back in 2003, before Obama was even elected to the U.S. Senate?

Again, maybe Hillary and her advisers are panicked about Obama. I have no problem believing that they are. But this Novak tale doesn't prove it. In fact, it doesn't prove anything at all, because it's thoroughly bogus. Novak just keeps makin' it up -- with impunity.

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McCain Touts His Support For Surge As Proof Of His Own Apolitical "Courage" -- In A Political Campaign Video
(March 14, 2007 -- 12:56 PM EDT // link // )

For months now, mainstream media commentators and reporters have cast John McCain's support for escalation as an act of supreme apolitical courage. They've repeatedly hailed his embrace of the "surge" as a sign of his apolitical willingness to risk losing the Presidency in order to stand up for what he thinks is right.

It would be interesting to see what these commentators make of this, then.

McCain himself is now beginning to tout his support for escalation as proof of his own courage.

Check out this campaign Web video that's now up on McCain's campaign Web site:

In the middle of the ad, McCain looks into the camera and states these key lines:

When you take a position which you know at least in the short term cannot be popular with your constituents or other Americans but you know is right, that's courage.

This is strikingly weaselly. McCain isn't saying so outright, but he's clearly talking about his support for escalation. Without saying he's talking about himself, McCain is touting his own political courage. He's touting his own apolitical willingness to take a risk in order to advocate for what he thinks is right.

But he's doing so in a political campaign web video.

My head is spinning. I need to sit down now.

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WaPo Endorses Congressional "Oversight" -- As Long As It Isn't Really Oversight
(March 13, 2007 -- 4:09 PM EDT // link // )

This is pretty artful, it must be said. Fred Hiatt's Washington Post editorial page today somehow managed to endorse the idea of aggressive Congressional oversight over the war -- while simultaneously advocating that this oversight contain absolutely no penalties, consequences or repercussions of any sort. From the editorial:

The House bill lists benchmarks for Iraqi political progress and requires that President Bush certify by July 1 that progress is being made toward them. By October, Bush would have to certify that the benchmarks all had been reached. This is something of a trick, akin to the inflexible troop readiness requirements that Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.) wanted to impose to "stop the surge."...

Congress should rigorously monitor the Iraqi government's progress on those benchmarks. By Mr. Bush's own account the purpose of the troop surge in Iraq is to enable political progress. If progress does not occur, the military strategy should be reconsidered. But aggressive oversight is quite different from mandating military steps according to an inflexible timetable conforming to the need to capture votes in Congress or at the 2008 polls.

So Congress should "rigorously monitor" the Iraqi government's progress and practice "aggressive oversight" over the White House -- as long as this oversight contain absolutely no accountability or consequences of any kind. If goals aren't met, the "military strategy should be reconsidered." But by whom? By Bush, obviously. WaPo can call this "oversight" if it wants to, but that simply isn't what the word means.

On this score, note also that the Post is slamming the House Dems' plan for having enforceable benchmarks -- again, for demanding accountability and consequences. Tellingly, WaPo leaves out an inconvenient detail: That the benchmarks proposed by House Dems are similar to ones Bush proposed himself in his speech announcing escalation. In that speech, Bush laid out goals he said the Iraqi government should meet, and added: "America will hold the Iraqi government to the benchmarks it has announced." The main difference was that the Bush approach offered no repercussions or penalties should the Iraqis fail to meet them.

Because unlike Bush, Dems are insisting on consequences for the failure to meet benchmarks -- something that, yes, could lead to a pullout -- WaPo derides them for hatching a "trick." But this isn't a trick -- it's called "oversight." Real oversight -- not the mere theatrics of it.

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WaPo Reporter: Matt Drudge Is The MSM's Assignment Editor
(March 13, 2007 -- 10:57 AM EDT // link // )

As this blog noted the other day -- channeling Mark Halperin -- the motto of the big news orgs with regard to Drudge should now be:

Matt Drudge Rules Our World -- Because We Happily Let Him Do Just That

Now we've got more proof of this. In today's Washington Post, reporter Chris Cillizza writes of Drudge the following:

Call it the Drudge effect.

Major media outlets -- especially television networks -- use Drudge as a launching pad for their coverage, a fact that any first-tier presidential campaign is well aware of. Therefore, if a rival campaign (perish the thought!) wanted to step on Giuliani's announcement by raising questions about his conservative bona fides via a well-timed leak, Drudge was (and is) the medium of choice.

Watch how Drudge is used as a news driver by the various Republican (and Democratic) campaigns as they seek to disseminate negative information about their opponents throughout the primary process.

And, remember that whether you love him or hate him, you can't ignore Drudge.

So "major media outlets" use Drudge as a "launching pad for their coverage?" Does this include The Washington Post?

There are several obvious rejoinders here. If and when the major media outlets use Drudge in this way, this is an editorial choice, not an inevitability. If as Cillizza says we know that Drudge is the primary outlet for the dissemination of "negative information" about "opponents," then this should perhaps prompt caution about using Drudge as a news "launching pad."

But all too often, it doesn't. The other day, as I documented here, Drudge posted a completely dishonest hit on Hillary Clinton's southern drawl in Alabama. Before Drudge's posting, CNN showed absolutely no interest in Hillary's drawl. But after CNN assignment editor Matt Drudge posted his command for coverage, CNN was suddenly all over it. This was CNN's choice. They didn't have to do this. They chose to. The point is, Given Drudge's track record, shouldn't his influence prompt self-examination on the part of the big news orgs about his relationship with them, rather than a shrugging acceptance of his inevitable clout?

Not to fault Cillizza -- he was only observing what he believes is inarguably a fact of modern media life. But if we're perfectly aware that Drudge is the primary sludge line for campaign oppo research, and if we're perfectly aware that some Drudge stories are massive distortions or outright falsehoods, shouldn't we be trying to figure out how to prevent Matt Drudge From Ruling Our World, rather than granting him continued domination over us while writing paeans to Emperor Drudge's glorious omnipotence? Isn't it time that the big news orgs shipped Drudge off to Elba?

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Novak's Laughably Transparent Falsehoods About Hillary.
(March 12, 2007 -- 2:48 PM EDT // link // )

Don't these guys even try anymore?

In his column today, Robert Novak builds not just an entire column, but a whole theory about Hillary's candidacy right now, on a falsehood that's so transparent that you can't even believe he attempted it. His basic take: We know that Camp Hillary is in a panic about Barack Obama because in her speech in Alabama recently she lauded Martin Luther King even though she was a self-confessed "Goldwater girl" in the early sixties.

Because we'll soon be hearing about this alleged "contradiction" a lot, it's worth a look -- and as it turns out, the whole tale Novak tells collapses into a smoldering wreck under even a moment's scrutiny. Novak writes:

While Hillary Rodham Clinton came out second best to Barack Obama in their oratorical duel at Selma, Ala., a week ago, the real problem with her speech concerned her claimed attachment to Martin Luther King Jr. as a high school student in 1963. How, then, could she have been a "Goldwater Girl" during the following year's presidential election?

For Novak, this proves that:

Hillary Clinton's road to the White House is not going as planned. Instead of a steady procession to coronation at the Denver convention, she is involved in a real struggle against credible opponents, led by Obama. No wonder she and her handlers were tempted to imply the existence long ago of a teenager in Chicago's suburbs who never really existed.

First point: Novak asserts that Hillary's speech claimed an "attachment" to King in the sixties -- but if you look at the actual speech, you'll see that she never claimed she had any attachment to King at the time. Novak simply invented this out of thin air, because it was the only way he could imply a contradiction here.

Now on to the even more ridiculous falsehood. Novak suggests that Hillary's "handlers" are so spooked by Obama that they were "tempted to imply the existence long ago of a teenager in Chicago's suburbs who never really existed." But guess what? Hillary herself told the story of the very same teenager -- way back in 2003!

In her speech, Hillary said: "As a young girl, I had the great privilege of hearing Dr. King speak in Chicago. The year was 1963. My youth minister from our church took a few of us down on a cold January night to hear someone that we had read about, we had watched on television, we had seen with our own eyes from a distance, this phenomenon known as Dr. King."

Now take a look at this passage from her 2003 autobiography, which was flagged by Media Matters in another context. Hillary wrote about the same episode, saying that though she was a Goldwater girl, a liberal Methodist minister named Don Jones invited Hillary to hear King. From page 23 of the book: "I had only vaguely heard of Rosa Parks and Dr. Martin Luther King...So, when Don announced one week that he would take us to hear Dr. King speak at Orchestra Hall, I was excited."

Got that? Novak suggests that Hillary's "handlers" were so spooked by Obama that they created a "teenager in Chicago's suburbs who never really existed." But Hillary herself wrote about the very same episode -- telling the very same story Novak says was dreamed up by Hillary's current handlers -- in a book that was published before Obama was even elected to the United States Senate!

Look, I'm not saying Hillary and her advisers aren't in a panic about Obama. They very well may be. But this anecdote doesn't show this at all. It's pure fiction, nothing more. Makin' it up.

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Eighth Paper Axes Coulter; President Of Her Syndicate Declines Interview
(March 12, 2007 -- 10:35 AM EDT // link // )

Okay, a few more updates from the Coulter wars -- and then on to other things (swear to God).

First, an eighth paper has now decided to ax Coulter: The Herald and Review of Decatur, Illinois. The paper's editor, Gary Sawyer, has offered a novel reason for this: Her column is garbage. He writes:

Coulter’s column has become a one note symphony. Every column is about how liberals can’t be believed, the New York Times is in bed with radical Muslims, the Washington Post is guilty of treason, etc. There are plenty of issues in this nation that should be discussed and we wish that Coulter would discuss more of them. Instead, her columns have become more and more frequently one issue rants.

Also, Coulter seems to adore the public spotlight a little too much, a trait she abhors in liberals. Her public comments have become more and more strident in order to gain more and more attention. Her comment about Edwards accomplished her purpose – it got her name in the news.

The decision for the Herald & Review was also based on balance. When Molly Ivins was alive she was a counter-balance to Coulter. Ivins wasn’t as acid-tongued as Coulter, but she was close, especially when the issue involved the Bush family. Since Ivins death a few weeks ago, it’s become more and more clear that there isn’t the balance there once was.

It's deeply dispiriting that we've now reached the point where anyone could see Coulter and Molly Ivins as "balancing" each other, but so be it.

Meanwhile, another update: The President of United Press Syndicate, which distributes Coulter's column, has gotten back to me with an official answer to this blog's interview request. As noted below, I emailed UPS' chief, Lee Salem, a long list of questions last week, and he subsequently indicated that he was considering answering them.

Now Salem has emailed to say that he won't be answering the questions -- because, he writes, "nothing I could share at this point about how syndication works will address the issues" I and others have raised. But the "issues" are simple: By syndicating her column, he's giving a massive megaphone to a bigot who delights in advocating the assassination of political figures and journalists and thinks news organizations (such as Salem's own) should be physically destroyed. And I genuinely wanted to know why he doesn't view this as a problem.

Update: Editor and Publisher has a rundown on editors who have decided to keep Coulter and why.