Washington Post Editors Again Refuse To Label GOP Falsehoods What They Are: False
(December 1, 2007 -- 8:01 AM EDT // link // )

You'd think that The Washington Post's editors would have been chastened by yesterday's courageous New York Times piece that aggressively fact-checked Rudy Giuliani's multiple falsehoods and called them out for what they are -- "false."

Coming just a day after WaPo's much-criticized article on Barack Obama, which recycled "rumors" that he's a Muslim without calling out those rumors as falsehoods, the Times piece was particularly embarrassing to the Post. Indeed, Post cartoonist Tom Toles relentlessly mocked his own paper yesterday for this failing.

Yet today comes more evidence that WaPo editors still are unwilling to acknowledge the concept that some assertions are "true" and others are "false," or even "lies." This morning's Post has a rather timid piece on Karl Rove's claim that the Bush administration didn't really push for a vote on the Iraq war resolution bill before the 2002 midterm elections, and that only Congress wanted this. Here's how the piece plays it:

Rove's Version of 2002 War Vote Is Disputed

Former White House aide Karl Rove said yesterday it was Congress, not President Bush, who wanted to rush a vote on the looming war in Iraq in the fall of 2002, a version of events disputed by leading congressional Democrats and even some former Rove colleagues.

Rove said that the administration did not want lawmakers to vote on a resolution authorizing the use of force against Iraq that soon because it would "make things move too fast," before Bush could line up international allies, and politicize the issue ahead of midterm elections. But Democrats and some Republicans involved with the issue at the time said yesterday that Bush wanted a quick vote.

The fresh clash over the five-year-old vote made plain how political leaders on all sides are trying to shape the history of that moment.

But again, this assertion is not "in dispute" -- it's demonstrably false. And Rove is not trying to "shape" history here -- he's trying to falsify it.

The proof of this is right out there on the public record. Here's what Bush himself said at a press conference with reporters on September 19, 2002:

QUESTION: Mr. President, are you going to send Congress your proposed resolution today? And are you asking for a blank check, sir?

THE PRESIDENT: I am sending suggested language for a resolution. I want -- I've asked for Congress' support to enable the administration to keep the peace. And we look forward to a good, constructive debate in Congress. I appreciate the fact that the leadership recognizes we've got to move before the elections. I appreciate the strong support we're getting from both Republicans and Democrats, and look forward to working with them.

This just couldn't be clearer. Bush himself sent the war resolution to Congress and demanded action before the elections. Yep -- what Rove said is false. No doubt about it whatsoever.

The WaPo article did have a bit of evidence against Rove's version of events and did make a very oblique reference to this Bush press conference. But the piece devoted one brief sentence to it and buried it way down towards the very end of the piece, even though there couldn't possibly be a piece of info more central to this story. And the paper failed to point out the obvious -- that the fact that Bush sent the reso to Congress and called for action before the midterms conclusively and unequivocally proves that Rove is lying.

As Glenn Greenwald notes, the unwillingness of news orgs to challenge GOP lies by taking that extra step and using the F-word -- "false" -- is "one of the most significant problems in how our establishment media functions." And as Times proved yesterday, when this extra step is taken, the world doesn't get knocked off its axis. Yet WaPo's editors -- perhaps out of fear, perhaps for other not particularly admirable reasons -- simply refuse to label GOP falsehoods what they are.

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Hallelujah! New York Times Does An Epic Fact-Check Of Rudy's Multiple Falsehoods
(November 30, 2007 -- 9:51 AM EDT // link // )

As you regulars know, this blog has been obsessing endlessly about the fact that the big news orgs have yet to take a genuinely tough line on Rudy Giuliani's chronic mendacity, which at this point has taken on a soaring, almost operatic quality.

But today The New York Times has come through in a big way, delivering an epic, front-page fact-check of the multiple falsehoods that have been tumbling forth from Rudy since the beginning of Campaign 2008. The piece is just devastating, saying as clearly as one could expect from the Times that Rudy is, well, full of sh-t:

In almost every appearance as he campaigns for the Republican presidential nomination, Rudolph W. Giuliani cites a fusillade of statistics and facts to make his arguments about his successes in running New York City and the merits of his views.

Discussing his crime-fighting success as mayor, Mr. Giuliani told a television interviewer that New York was "the only city in America that has reduced crime every single year since 1994." In New Hampshire this week, he told a public forum that when he became mayor in 1994, New York "had been averaging like 1,800, 1,900 murders for almost 30 years." When a recent Republican debate turned to the question of fiscal responsibility, he boasted that “under me, spending went down by 7 percent.”

All of these statements are incomplete, exaggerated or just plain wrong...

An examination of many of his statements by The New York Times, other news organizations and independent groups have turned up a variety of misstatements, virtually all of which cast Mr. Giuliani or his arguments in a better light.

Ahhhhh -- the sweet sound of real journalism.

The piece is chock-full of this sort of stuff. As you read through the piece, Rudy's multiple falsehoods topple like dominoes in the face of aggressive fact-checking. And glory be, The Times actually uses the "F-word" -- "false" -- to describe Rudy's claims. Perhaps best of all, check out how one of Rudy's supporters, GOP strategist Frank Luntz, justifies Rudy's constant dissembling in the piece:

"When he talks about New York, people see it," Mr. Luntz said of Mr. Giuliani, "and they feel it, and if a number isn’t quite right, or is off by a small amount, nobody will care, because it rings true to them."

In other words, who cares if Rudy lies -- most voters won't ever figure it out, so we're going to keep on doing it. You couldn't ask for a more perfect illustration of the Rudy team's contempt for the truth -- and the voters -- than that.

Which gives us an opportunity to pose this question yet again: When is Rudy's chronic mendacity going to become part of the pundit narrative of Campaign 2008? When is this constant dissembling going to be discussed by political commentators as indicative of large flaws in Rudy's character, just as pundits are so quick to do about Dem candidates on the strength of far less than this?

The evidence is now right there on the front page of The Times for all to see -- and as an added bonus, Rudy's own backers are confirming that they don't see a problem with his chronic fibbing. So there's simply no longer any excuse for commentators to ignore this.

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WaPo Reporter Responds To All The Criticism Of Front-Page Obama Muslim Piece
(November 29, 2007 -- 6:09 PM EDT // link // )

Okay, the Washington Post reporter who wrote today's front page article on the rumors that Obama is a Muslim has now responded to all the criticism of the piece he's been getting from readers and elsewhere today.

A number of you have written in to us to say that you had emailed the reporter, Perry Bacon, Jr., and that you had received responses from him. So I went to Bacon, and he sent over a shortened version of the statement he's been sending back to readers:

I thought the facts that 1. these falsehoods persist and 2. Obama make mentions of his time living in a Muslim country on the campaign trail as part of his foreign policy were both worth remarking. I think the story makes clear, including in the candidate's own words, he is a Christian.

Anyway, that's Bacon's response. Enter it into the record forthwith.

Update: In a chat with readers today, WaPo reporter Lois Romano addressed the controversy over the story. She observed that Obama has denied being a Muslim, adding that "airing some of this and giving him a chance to deny its accuracy could be viewed as setting the record straight."

Right, but the problem here is that WaPo, and not just Obama, should have "denied the accuracy" of the Obama-is-a-Muslim nonsense. The Obama Muslim smear is based on lies, not "rumors." Bacon in his statement above calls the Obama Muslim smears "falsehoods." But they aren't identified as such in the piece. That's what everyone is yelling about.

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CBS: Obama Is "Dogged By Muslim Rumors"
(November 29, 2007 -- 1:29 PM EDT // link // )

Just to give you a sense of how the damage can spread from a story like the ridiculous front page Washington Post piece today recycling "rumors" about Obama being a Muslim, let's take a look at the front page of CBS News' web site, which is now featuring the WaPo story as its lead:

You really have to love the guilty-looking, deer-in-the-headlights photo CBS packaged this story with here.

Look -- Obama is not "dogged by Muslim rumors." He is the victim of a smear campaign based on lies. These two things are not the same. And incidentally, to whatever extent Obama is "dogged" by these rumors, surely this will only be facilitated when news orgs like WaPo fail to make a serious effort to knock them down before printing them.

Just to be clear, CBS probably wouldn't be running with this headline if WaPo hadn't done such a bad job on today's story. It portrayed the "rumors" as being still in dispute, rather than labeling them false, and it told readers that they had only been denied by Obama and his advisers without noting that a central piece of the smear -- that he attended a madrassa -- had been called out as false by a top official at the school he attended. If the people at CBS had done a bit of googling, however, they would have learned this stuff -- and probably wouldn't have slapped this bogus headline on their front page.

It's probably too late for WaPo to fix this in any significant way. But the Post ombud could still take a good hard look at this. And as I noted below, if she doesn't, a lot of folks will be very irked, and justifiably so.

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Washington Post Recycles False Obama Muslim Rumors On Front Page
(November 29, 2007 -- 10:10 AM EDT // link // )

Updated below.

Digby and BarbinMD have already dealt heavy blows to today's reprehensible Washington Post piece that recycles the rumors that Obama is a Muslim on the paper's front page.

But I wanted to add a couple more points about the story, because it really is a top contender for the title of Worst Hit Piece of Campaign 2008.

The piece opens with the following headline:

Foes Use Obama's Muslim Ties to Fuel Rumors About Him

It's dismal enough that WaPo's free acknowledgment that these are rumors didn't stop the paper's editors from running this garbage on its front page. What's even worse is the fact that it doesn't get around to explaining the substance of Obama's denial of these rumors until the 12th paragraph.

Incredibly, this denial comes after the piece tells readers that polls show that the public is hostile to electing someone who is Muslim to the Presidency. In other words, WaPo's editors thought that public hostility towards having a Muslim President is more important for readers to know about than the niggling details about whether the subject of these rumors on the paper's front page is actually Muslim or not.

Even more absurdly, WaPo frames the denial this way:

Obama aides sharply disputed the initial stories suggesting that he was a Muslim, and in Iowa, the campaign keeps a letter at its offices, signed by five members of the local clergy, vouching for the candidate's Christian faith. Aware that his religious belief remains an issue, Obama has denied a separate charge: that he does not hold his hand to his heart during the Pledge of Allegiance. This rumor stemmed from a photo that was taken while the national anthem was being played.

WaPo is presenting this as if this is still a matter of dispute, rather than something that's already been thoroughly debunked. Also note that Obama's denial is packaged here with yet another rumor designed to portray Obama as unpatriotic.

It's hard to believe, but it actually gets worse still. WaPo tells its readers that one of the early causes of the Muslim rumor was a report in Insight magazine which said Obama had "spent at least four years in a so-called madrassa, or Muslim seminary, in Indonesia." The only rebuttal of this that WaPo offered was that Obama himself had denied this. The paper didn't bother to tell its readers that CNN actually spoke with a top official at the school who said that it wasn't a madrassa. CNN properly labled the madrassa report "false."

Yet WaPo only told you that Obama "denied" this. Man alive, that's just awful.

It really is hard to imagine how an allegedly reputable paper like WaPo let something like this happen. If WaPo public editor Deborah Howell and/or media critic Howard Kurtz don't dig into this one, a lot of folks, probably including some at the paper itself, will be mighty pissed off about it. And rightly so.

Debbie? You there?

Howie?

Update: The writer of the piece has now responded to all the criticism.

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WaPo Edit Page Says White House Outreach To Syria Might Work -- After Blasting Pelosi For Same Thing
(November 28, 2007 -- 5:27 PM EDT // link // )

This is pretty striking, even by Fred Hiatt's ever plummeting standards.

As you may recall, when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi met with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad last spring, The Washington Post editorial page was the leading institutional editorial voice against it. The paper published a widely discussed editorial, called "Pratfall in Damascus," that helped set the tone for much mainstream criticism.

The editorial blasted Pelosi for thinking that anything good could come of talking to Syria, calling the idea "ludicrous" and opining: "As any diplomat with knowledge of the region could have told Ms. Pelosi, Mr. Assad is a corrupt thug whose overriding priority at the moment is not peace..."

Now, however, the Bush administration has decided to engage Syria as part of its current Mideast initiative. And right on cue, WaPo has published a new editorial which, while pessimistic about the initiative in general, nonetheless offers modest praise of the Bush administration's invitation of that country. Here's what WaPo says about it:

The more than 50 countries and organizations that witnessed and implicitly blessed the new peace process included Saudi Arabia, which dispatched its foreign minister, and Syria, whose attendance may have opened a small crack in its alliance with Iran.

So WaPo notes here that including Syria in the proceedings might succeed in separating the rogue country from evil twin Iran, right? Well, guess what -- this is precisely the same justification that the Pelosi team offered as its reason for visiting Syria at the time.

This is how Pelosi's chief ally on the trip, Dem Rep. Tom Lantos, described the trip's rationale just before their departure:

"We are going with the clear intention of making our position crystal clear to the Syrian leadership, basically indicating that it is in their interest to return to a position where they can be part of the positive forces in this region and not be in tight alliance with Ahmedinejad's Iran," Lantos said, referring to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

So, back when Pelosi wanted to engage Syria to peel it away from Iran, she was hopelessly naive for not realizing this could never work in the hard-headed real world, Assad being a "corrupt thug" and all.

But now that the White House is engaging Syria, WaPo suddenly realizes that the engagement just might turn out to be a good idea, after all -- for the very same reason that Pelosi's team gave for their trip, earning WaPo's scorn.

Doesn't get clearer than that.

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Media Lavishes Attention On Bogus Internet Poll Showing Hillary Losing To Repubs -- And Ignores Reputable Poll Finding Opposite
(November 27, 2007 -- 11:03 AM EDT // link // )

Ladies and gentlemen, a tale of two polls.

Yesterday two polling firms -- Zogby and Gallup -- released surveys of the presidential race that offered strikingly different conclusions. The Zogby poll found that Hillary is trailing five leading GOP candidates in general election matchups. The Gallup Poll, by contrast, found that Hillary, and to a lesser degree Obama, has a slight to sizable lead over the top GOP contenders.

A couple of other things that distinguish these two polls: The Zogby one is an online poll, a notoriously unreliable method, while the Gallup one is a telephone poll. And, as Charles Franklin of Pollster.com observed yesterday, the Zogby poll is completely out of sync with multiple other national polls finding Hillary with a lead over the GOP candidates. The Zogby poll actually found that Mike Huckabee is leading Hillary in a national matchup. The Gallup findings were in line with most other surveys.

I don't need to tell you which poll got all the media attention. Do I?

The Zogby survey was covered repeatedly on CNN, earned coverage from MSNBC, Fox News, and Reuters and was covered by multiple other smaller outlets.

By contrast, I can't find a single example of any reporter or commentator on the major networks or news outlets referring to the Gallup poll at all, with the lone exception of UPI. While the Zogby poll was mentioned by multiple reporters and pundits, the only mentions the Gallup poll got on TV were from Hillary advisers who had to bring it up themselves on the air in order to inject it into the conversation.

You could argue that the Zogby poll got all the coverage it did precisely because it is out of sync with multiple other polls, and thus is news. But the truth is that the reporters and editors at the major nets know full well that the Zogby poll is bunk -- yet they breathlessly covered it anyway.

Worse, the Zogby poll was covered with few mentions either of its dubious methodology or of the degree to which its findings don't jibe with other surveys. Bottom line: The Zogby poll was considered big news because many in the political press are heavily invested in the Hillary-is-unelectable narrative for all kinds of reasons that have little to do with a desire to, you know, practice journalism.

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Lieberman Falsely Suggests Dems Never Acknowledged Any Progress In Iraq
(November 26, 2007 -- 6:58 PM EDT // link // )

You have to wonder what it would be like to be Joe Lieberman. Only seven years ago he was the Democratic Party's choice for Vice President, and enjoyed all the national attention such an honor entails. Now the only way he can get sucked up to is to go on Fox News and offer up made-to-order fibs about his former party.

Lieberman just went on Fox and gave an extended interview in which he repeatedly suggested that Dems won't acknowledge any progress of any kind in Iraq. "It’s time that everybody including Democratic candidates get off this storyline," Lieberman said.

"Lieberman Back From Iraq: Time For Dems To Admit Progress," the Fox hed says.

Lieberman is lying about the Dem position -- and the evidence is no further away than...the front page of yesterday's New York Times. In an article yesterday, the leading Dems are on record reiterating what's been their position for weeks now: They see some military progress, but note that this progress hasn't produced the political reconciliation that was the original goal of the surge.

Dems have said this again and again and again in recent weeks. Here's Obama, earlier this month:

There is no doubt that because we put American troops in Iraq, more American troops in Iraq, that they are doing a magnificent job.

And they are making a difference in certain neighborhoods. But the overall strategy is failed because we have not seen any change in behavior among Iraq's political leaders.

Here's Hillary, talking about the troops on Meet the Press in September (via Nexis):

There is no doubt that they can fulfill whatever military mission they’re given; they have. They were asked to get rid of Saddam Hussein and they did. They were asked to give the Iraqis the security for fair and free elections and they did. And they were asked to give the Iraqi government the space and time to start making these very difficult political decisions. Our military did everything it was asked to do.

And back in August, John Edwards pointed to "our military's hard-won progress in Al-Anbar province." Multiple other Dems have said stuff like this recently, too.

The key point here is that the falsehood Lieberman is telling here is critical to the GOP's last-ditch efforts to prevent support for the war from dribbling away completely. The game plan is to misrepresent what the Dem position has been, in order to (a) paint Dems as churlishly refusing to acknowledge the military's hard-won gains; and (b) conflate the military progress we've seen with the political progress that was always the goal and that still remains elusive.

Senator Lieberman, Fox News thanks you for your devoted service -- and hereby rewards you with the attention you crave.

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Top Democratic Strategist: The Only Thing That Matters In 2008 Race Is Bill Clinton
(November 26, 2007 -- 9:22 AM EDT // link // )

One thing Democrats really need is more effective surrogates to make the party's case on TV and in quotes to print reporters.

Here, for instance, is Dem strategist Donna Brazile, a frequent guest on TV chat shows and a leading bearer of the Dem message, opining to the Des Moines Register on what she views as the single most important deciding factor of the 2008 Democratic primary:

"I think it's going to come down to: Do you really want Bill Clinton back in the White House?" said Donna Brazile, who ran Democrat Al Gore's 2000 presidential campaign.

Do we really have such contempt for the voting public at this point that we actually think that Bill matters more than anything else to voters looking to decide on their candidate?

Look, you expect this kind of nonsense from David Broder and Charles Krauthammer, not from female Dem surrogates. Of course, there's a good reason for the likes of Brazile to keep saying such stuff: They know political reporters like to hear it, and will quote them if they say it. And getting quoted is the lifeblood of such folks.

Again: Poll after poll after poll after poll after poll has shown that big majorities say that Bill isn't weighing on their minds as they evaluate the candidates.

Stunningly, for some strange reason Americans persist in seeing Hillary as her own person, despite the fact that pundits keep telling them that they think the opposite. A recent WaPo poll found that two-thirds think Hillary will take the Presidency in her own direction. And a recent Fox poll found that an astonishing 72% think that if Hillary won the Presidency, the person calling the shots would be Hillary -- not Bill. Christ, even 68% of Republicans think this.

No matter -- there it is again, right there in the headline on Fox TV right now:

Does Bill Help Or Hurt Hillary?

Stop saying this. Stop saying this. Stop saying this. Nobody cares about Bill. Nobody. Only you, pundits. No one else. No one.

No. One. Cares. About. Bill. No. One. Shut. Up. Right. Now.

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