Silly New Wingnut Meme: Democrats Are The "Party Of The Rich"
(November 23, 2007 -- 3:31 PM EDT // link // )

The winger bloggers and commentators are starting to push a silly new meme: That Democrats, not Republicans, are the "party of the rich."

The basis for this? A new "study" done by the Heritage Foundation that was written up in this article in The Washington Times. The study is being touted by Drudge, PowerLineBlog, Blogs For Victory, and others.

The key data point backing up the claim is that Dems "now represent the majority of the nation's wealthiest congressional districts." The study arrives at this conclusion this way:

...the study also showed that of the 167 House districts where the median annual income was higher than the national median of $48,201, a slight majority, 84 districts, were represented by Democrats. Median means that half of all income earners make more than that level and half make less.

So 84 of 167 of the wealthier House districts are controlled by Dems. That's a hair over 50% -- supposedly proving that Dems are the new party of the "rich."

But here's what's funny about this. Right now, roughly 54% of all House districts are controlled by Dems. So in reality, the percentage of the wealthier House districts controlled by Dems is actually lower than the percentage of districts Dems control overall. What's more, the households where the median income exceeds the national average are hardly all "rich." So this chief data point just doesn't support the claim.

Another point put forth by the study is this: "If you take the wealthiest one-third of the 435 congressional districts, we found that the Democrats represent about 58 percent of those jurisdictions."

Given that the 58% here is barely higher than the 54% Dems control over all, it's pretty clear that this is statistically insignificant. Indeed, this niggling difference -- combined with the above bogus stat -- again suggests that whatever Dem gains have happened among wealthier districts just reflect overall Dem gains.

Dems may indeed have made the most marginal of gains among generally wealthier districts, due to Dem successes in the suburbs and other stuff. But so what? They gained just about everywhere else, too -- this just means that wealthier Americans, along with everyone else, have figured out that the GOP made a hash of everything and that the Dems are the better choice. And it certainly doesn't have anything to do with the small question of, you know, which party's policies best serve the economic interests of the rich. Pathetically weak stuff.

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NY Times Finally Profiles Edwards On Front Page! But...
(November 21, 2007 -- 4:02 PM EDT // link // )

The other day, New York Times public editor Clark Hoyt faulted his paper for giving short shrift to John Edwards in its campaign coverage. Hoyt noted that The Times has given lots of front-page ink to Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and chastised the paper for giving Edwards no front-page profiles this year at all.

Well, today The Times finally gave Edwards his front-page profile-style piece. And the entire piece is all about...how John Edwards and John Kerry didn't get along during their 2004 Presidential run.

One Edwards backer tells me that rival campaign operatives have been snickering about this today, with one snarking: "Is today's NYT piece supposed to be the one front page feature you're guaranteed this cycle?" It's a fair question.

Look, just to be clear, Edwards' 2004 campaign and relationship with Kerry are valid topics -- they're key parts of his record. That said, this piece just seems oddly narrow in focus and far less illuminating biographically than recent front page profile pieces on Hillary and Obama. Such as this one:

In Illinois, Obama Proved Pragmatic And Shrewd

...and this one:

In Turmoil of ’68, Clinton Found a New Voice

Edwards' front-pager today, by contrast, is:

For Edwards, A Relationship That Never Quite Fit

Again: The Edwards-Kerry topic is generally a valid one. But in light of these Hillary and Obama pieces, which sought to highlight formative, largely positive aspects of their pasts, it's really hard not to see this latest Times story as yet another middle finger to the Edwards camp.

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Publisher Of McClellan Book: Scottie Won't Implicate Bush For Lying About Plamegate, After All
(November 21, 2007 -- 1:35 PM EDT // link // )

Oh, this is just lovely. The publisher of the forthcoming book by former White House flack Scott McClellan is now walking back the idea that the book will finger President Bush for knowingly misleading McClellan about Plamegate, saying that if Bush did mislead him, he didn't do so deliberately.

As you may have heard, yesterday the news broke that McClellen was set to publish new details about Plamegate, in which he suggested that he would reveal that he was misled by Bush himself about Karl Rove and Scooter Libby's role in outing Valerie Plame.

The book's publisher, Public Affairs, yesterday posted this tantalizing excerpt from the book on its site:

The most powerful leader in the world had called upon me to speak on his behalf and help restore credibility he lost amid the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. So I stood at the White house briefing room podium in front of the glare of the klieg lights for the better part of two weeks and publicly exonerated two of the senior-most aides in the White House: Karl Rove and Scooter Libby.

There was one problem. It was not true.

I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the vice President, the President's chief of staff, and the President himself.

The suggestion here is very strong that McClellan was preparing to implicate Bush for knowingly misleading him about Plamegate in some way. Understandably, this was greeted as huge news, and generated a massive media firestorm.

But a day later, the publisher has now clarified in a new interview what the book is actually going to tell us about the President's role in this. Check out this little nugget buried in Bloomberg News' new piece on this whole affair:

McClellan doesn't suggest that Bush deliberately lied to him about Libby's and Rove's involvement in the leak, said Peter Osnos, founder and editor-in-chief of Public Affairs Books, which is publishing McClellan's memoir next year.

"He told him something that wasn't true, but the president didn't know it wasn't true," Osnos said in a telephone interview. "The president told him what he thought to be the case."

Sorry, suckers. It looks like McClellan will actually exonerate Bush for his role in Plamegate. But yesterday McClellan and his publisher posted a carefully selected excerpt designed to persuade everyone that he was going to implicate the President in it. Note the weaselly way the original statement says that Bush was "involved" in McClellan's misleading of the public.

It's very hard not to conclude that McClellan and his publisher deliberately played the media for chumps with the too-cute-by-half excerpt they posted yesterday. And it worked.

Oh, well. It was fun while it lasted.

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Robert Novak Dissembles Twice In One Sentence About His Hillary/Obama "Smear" Column
(November 21, 2007 -- 12:09 PM EDT // link // )

Let's have a little fun with perennial buffoon Robert Novak.

As you all know, Novak published over the weekend a laughably thin column alleging that "agents" of Hillary Clinton possess explosive information about Barack Obama -- but that Camp Hillary had decide not to release that info. The column sparked a furious exchange between the two campaigns, and critics far and wide denounced Novak for running such a thinly sourced item.

Well, today Novak has published another column on the controversy. And in it, he manages to fib twice in one sentence about his earlier column. Here's the key excerpt (via e-mail only):

Obama reacted with a sharp statement against Clinton's attacks, and Clinton responded with an accusation of Republican dirty tricks.

"Clinton's attacks," Novak states as fact. But Bob, there were no attacks from Clinton. There were only rumors of attacks from Clinton's "agents," and the nature of them wasn't even detailed.

Also note Novak's claim that the Hillary camp responded with an accusation of "Republican dirty tricks." This is a slick little ruse -- in reality, the Clinton campaign directly attacked Novak by name -- twice.

Oh, well. Novak is a colossal dissembler. And he's still awarded credibility by Beltway insiders, many of whom spent literally days discussing his blind item with a startling level of deference. I don't have any idea why this is.

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Hillary-Backer Carville Set To Appear On Sunday's Meet The Press -- Without Any Obama Or Edwards Backers
(November 20, 2007 -- 3:10 PM EDT // link // )

One of the stranger media phenomenons of Campaign 2008 has been the odd race to the bottom we've been seeing between Tim Russert and CNN. First Russert asked his typical "gotcha" questions at his debate. Then CNN's Wolf Blitzer praised Russert's performance as "tough." Then Wolf proceeded to deliver an equally unproductive performance as the moderator of CNN's debate.

Now there's more of this. As you recall, CNN put Hillary supporter James Carville on its debate roundup -- prompting critics to point out that the network failed to identify her sufficiently as a Hillary supporter and that the network has been giving a platform to Hillary-backing "independent" analysts for way too long.

Well, guess who is now set to appear on Meet the Press this coming weekend? Hillary supporter James Carville, of course.

The network has just confirmed to me that Carville is one of the guests set to appear this Sunday. The other guests, as of now, are Bob Shrum, Mary Matalin and Mike Murphy -- which is to say, no backer of any of the other Dem candidates.

What gives here? Aren't there any other Dems out there -- you know, neutral ones -- who are qualified to comment on this race? Given the criticism that hit CNN over this -- criticism that came from rival Dem campaigns as well as from other observers -- did Meet the Press really have to follow suit? And if the network really can't imagine a discussion of presidential politics without Carville, what about backers of the other Dems? This just gets weirder and weirder.

From what I've seen Meet the Press tends to do a quick identifier of its guests' affiliations towards the start of the show. Anyone tuning in sometime during the show might not learn of Carville's Hillary sympathies.

I've checked in with an NBC spokesperson and asked whether Carville will be clearly and repeatedly identified as a Hillary partisan, whether other Dem candidates will be represented, and if not, what the reason for this is. If I hear anything back I'll let you know.

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New Development In Bilal Hussein Case; Wingnuts Reaffirm Contempt For Rule Of Law
(November 19, 2007 -- 5:47 PM EDT // link // )

Okay, there's been a new development in the case of Bilal Hussein, the Iraqi Associated Press photographer whose detention in Iraq by the U.S. military for a year and a half without charges has become a wingnut blogger cause celebre.

For many months now, the Associated Press has long been making a straightforward case: Charge Hussein or release him. This simple demand has sparked months of fury from the Michelle Malkin brigade, which has ceaselessly defended the U.S. military's right to hold Hussein indefinitely. Now, however, there's been a new turn in the case, and the Associated Press is again fighting it:

NEW YORK The U.S. military plans to seek a criminal case in an Iraqi court against an award-winning Associated Press photographer but is refusing to disclose what evidence or accusations would be presented.

An AP attorney on Monday strongly protested the decision, calling the U.S. military plans a "sham of due process." The journalist, Bilal Hussein, has already been imprisoned without charges for more than 19 months.

A public affairs officer notified the AP on Sunday that the military intends to submit a written complaint against Hussein that would bring the case into the Iraqi justice system as early as Nov. 29. Under Iraqi codes, an investigative magistrate will decide whether there are grounds to try Hussein, 36, who was seized in the western Iraqi city of Ramadi on April 12, 2006.

Dave Tomlin, associate general counsel for the AP, said the defense for Hussein is being forced to work "totally in the dark."

A lawyer for Hussein adds that because it's possible that the military could introduce new charges at the hearing that could include classified material, it's impossible for them to put together a defense in advance. So the AP is objecting along these grounds.

The wingnut bloggers' response? It's kind of perfect, actually. Malkin appears to be suggesting that this represents some kind of vindication for her -- even though Hussein still hasn't even been charged, tried or convicted of anything yet. You really couldn't ask for a more perfect expression of her contempt for the rule of law than that.

What's more, the winger bloggers are lying pretty nakedly about the new development, too. They are now pretending that the AP's current objection is to the mere fact that Hussein is going to face trial in court at all. Michelle Malkin, for instance, writes that the AP is complaining because Hussein is going to have his "day in court," adding: "No wonder the AP now objects." Other wingers are sounding the same notes here and here.

This isn't complicated. The AP's current objection is that they still don't know what the accusations to be brought against Hussein are, so they can't prepare a defense for him. The fact that the AP was never told of the specific charges against Hussein or of the evidence of his wrongdoing has always been its objection.

Yet the wingnut bloggers -- again reaffirming their contempt for the rule of law -- are blasting the AP for wanting their guy to have an adequate defense. They want you to believe that the real reason the AP is now objecting is because the organization doesn't really want to see the evidence against him. This, even as the AP continues to ask to see this evidence, and even as the wingers themselves still defend his accusers' right to not reveal that evidence. Winger logic in a nutshell.

As I've written before, I have no idea if Hussein will end up being proven guilty of something. But the folks who are convinced that Hussein's guilty of whatever the charges against him are need to explain -- again -- why it is that they're so adamantly opposed to the idea of his having a chance to defend himself against them.

Of course, they'll probably just argue that this would be a threat to our national security in some way -- as they argue about just about everything. Stay tuned for lots more of this in the days ahead.

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NY Times Public Editor To His Own Paper: Please Give More Coverage To John Edwards
(November 19, 2007 -- 3:08 PM EDT // link // )

Since the beginning of this campaign it's been this blog's distinct impression that The New York Times has been short-shrifting John Edwards -- both in its coverage early on of Edwards' anti-poverty efforts and more recently in its devotion of far more ink to Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. This frustration is shared -- and often voiced -- by Edwards supporters, too.

Well, now the Times public editor, Clark Hoyt, has taken a detailed look at the paper's political coverage, and it appears that he agrees with part of this critique. In this week's column, which generally praises Times political coverage, he faults the paper for not giving Edwards the space his campaign deserves:

I think the call is easier on the candidates at the very back of the pack, including some whose only campaign activity is to appear in the debates. But an unusually large number of serious candidates bunched somewhere behind the front-runners are not getting major attention in The Times.

I’ll cite just one case where I don’t think The Times is paying enough attention.

In Iowa, which launched a little-known Jimmy Carter to his party’s nomination in 1976, John Edwards is close behind Clinton in the most recent Des Moines Register poll, yet The Times has given him comparatively scant coverage. Clinton and Obama have been profiled twice each on the front page since Labor Day, but Edwards not at all this year. Throughout the paper, The Times has published 47 articles about Clinton since Labor Day, only 18 about Edwards.

To be fair, it's not hard to understand why Hillary and Obama -- both mega-wattage political stars whose candidacies are potentially history-making -- tend to suck up so much of the attention. Still, those numbers Hoyt shares suggest a sharp disparity in the coverage, particularly given that Edwards is in a virtual dead-heat with the two front-runners in Iowa.

To his credit, Richard Stevenson, the editor in charge of the paper's coverage of the race, acknowledges that finding the resources to coverage of all the candidates is "frustrating," adding that it's something the paper wrestles with constantly. But he justifies the lack of Edwards coverage as follows: "I don’t track our coverage by quantity; in a qualitative sense, we’ve covered him pretty thoroughly, and there is more to come."

Right, right -- but quantity does matter. And the quantity of coverage given by the paper to Edwards has given readers the distinct impression that this is a two-person race, when it isn't. Luckily, there's still time to take a step towards getting this right, but that time is fast running out.

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"Tough" Tim Russert Refuses To Challenge Rudy's Dissembling
(November 18, 2007 -- 12:40 PM EDT // link // )

We keep hearing that Tim Russert is very, very "tough." We keep hearing that he doesn't let any craven or dissembling politician slip any malarky past him, dammit.

Except, of course, that he does -- when it's Rudy.

Take a look at this snippet from Meet the Press today, in which Russert and a panel of pundits discussed whether Bernie Kerik's legal travails will hurt Rudy:

Russert flashed the following quote from Rudy on the screen justifying his relationship with Kerik:

"There were mistakes made with Bernie Kerik. But what's the ultimate result for the people of New York City? The ultimate result ... was a 74 percent reduction in shootings, [and] a 60 percent reduction in crime..

"Sure, there were issues, but if I have the same degree of success and failure as president of the United States, this country will be in great shape."

Neither Russert nor his guests spent a second asking whether Rudy's claims were true. Russert selected this quote beforehand, so he had plenty of time to entertain this question. But he didn't -- and neither did his guests. Instead, they only discussed whether it will work politically.

And yet, as has already been thoroughly documented, Rudy's claims amount to dissembling of the wildest sort. Interpreting what Rudy said literally here, his meaning was that these stats described the success of Kerik's top-cop tenure, which lasted a mere year and a half. This is an enormous falsehood.

The most charitable interpretation of Rudy's use of stats here is that he was referring to numbers documenting the crime drop during his entire tenure. But this, too, is wildly dishonest in spirit. Meant this way, the claim is designed to blunt the damage of the Kerik stories by vaguely suggesting that Rudy's choice of Kerik, however flawed he was, played a major role in New York's crime-fighting successes -- a claim that dishonestly obscures the truth, which is that Kerik's year and a half of service had very little to do with that long-range drop.

The point is, no matter how you interpret it, Rudy's push-back demands aggressive factual scrutiny. Yet here you have a group at the top of the punditry game -- Russert, Chuck Todd, Ronald Brownstein, Gwenn Ifil, etc. -- and none of them even took a tentative step down that path. These folks are so preoccupied with whether Rudy's pushback will work that there's no mental space left to question whether it's true. The irony, of course, is that this wrongheaded focus makes it more likely that Rudy's pushback will work.

This point was driven home when, in the final downer, one of the assembled pundits says: "If he is the nominee, time will begin again, the morning after. We will begin to explore the New York record, and debate it and discuss it in a way that we haven't so far."

That's nice. "We" are going to wait until he's the nominee before exploring and debating his record aggressively? Maybe that's why no one here bothered to challenge his Kerik statement today. "We" have decided that "we" are going to wait until he's the nominee before doing this.

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