Horses Mouth

This is as transparently bogus a tactic as you can imagine. Yet you see it being used to a surprising degree by traditional media people who certainly know better. In fact, it's a tactic that is apparently now considered acceptable by writers at The New York Times.

In his column today, for instance, Bob Herbert smacks the Clintons for their racial comments. He writes that "the Clinton camp knows what it's doing," and observes that "the benefits" of these "lowlife tactics" are "real," then adds:

Consider, for example, the following Web posting (misspellings and all) from a mainstream news blog on Jan. 13:

“omg people get a grip. Can you imagine calling our president barak hussien obama ... I cant, I pray no one would be disrespectful enough to put this man in our whitehouse.”...

The electorate seems more polarized now than it was just a few weeks ago, and the Clintons have seemed positively gleeful in that atmosphere.

Sorry, this is thoroughly bogus -- it's indefensible, in fact. You want to hit the Clintons for what they or their surrogates actually said? Fine -- that's totally legit. But resorting to the quotation of a single blog comment like this to score points is straying deep into Michelle Malkin territory. It's kind of surprising to see so rank a tactic on display on the august Op ed page of The Times.

Herbert isn't even the first Times writer to play around with this sort of thing, by the way. A couple weeks ago, public editor Clark Hoyt wrote a piece decrying the paper's hiring of Bill Kristol as a columnist. That's good, but then Hoyt had to go and quote a single nasty email to edit page editor Andy Rosenthal:

Rosenthal's mail has been particularly rough. ''That rotten, traiterous [sic] piece of filth should be hung by the ankles from a lamp post and beaten by the mob rather than gaining a pulpit at ANY self-respecting news organization,'' said one message. ''You should be ashamed. Apparently you are only out for money and therefore an equally traiterous [sic] whore deserving the same treatment.''

Come on, now. It's time to retire this tactic. Indeed, it's not an overstatement to say that this is something that belongs in the style manual. This guilt-by-association trick isn't genuinely informative in any way. It's about scoring points, pure and simple. Really, it's as cheap as it gets. It says far more about the user of the tactic than it does about the target. It has no place in the opinion pages of The Times or anywhere else.

The comments section is temporarily disabled and is currently undergoing repair. This blog's homepage is here.

Posted by Greg Sargent at 11:27 AM | Permalink

Two questions about this coverage: First, when the heck will it stop being news every time Bloomberg lobs his self-serving and ultimately meaningless criticism at the presidential candidates and at Washington political leaders? And second, when will actual poll numbers shedding light on public opinion about an indy run enter the coverage and the media conversation about this?

The first question arises in light of this post by Digby, which points us to yet another piece in The New York Times about yet another speech that Bloomberg has now given criticizing Washington leaders. Bloomberg's argument: Politics is bad. But really, why is this news? He has done this countless times already, always in the same droning platitudes.

Look, the reason the big news orgs see Bloomberg's constant criticism of Washington leaders as newsworthy is because it "fuels speculation" about his presidential run. But Bloomberg has been "fueling speculation" about this for months. Barring an actual entry into the race, is there any point at which this stops being worthy of coverage?

Meanwhile, Atrios points us to this fun post by Chris Bowers pointing to new polling of voter attitudes towards Bloomberg. Bowers concludes that Bloomberg is "less popular than the top three Democrats and the top three Republicans running for President right now. He even has lower overall favorables than Ron Paul."

Of course, Bloomberg is hardly known across the country and $100 trillion worth of ads could change things a bit. Nonetheless, as luck would have it, there are other numbers out there that shed light directly on public attitudes towards an indy run. A recent Gallup Poll probed these questions in some detail, and found that 84% think there's already a candidate running or the White House right now who would make a "good president," while a solid majority of 58% feels that one or more candidates has "good ideas for solving the country's problems."

These numbers run directly counter to Bloomberg's self-serving critique of the presidential candidates, as does Gallup's conclusion:

"The American public does not appear to believe it is important or necessary for an independent candidate outside of the traditional two major parties to step into the race in order to save the nation."

The comments section is temporarily disabled and is currently undergoing repair. This blog's homepage is here.

Posted by Greg Sargent at 2:33 PM | Permalink

This prompted a number of you to write in and ask why it is that Donna Brazile is still on the network, given her positive commentary about Barack Obama and her criticism of the Clintons on race. It's a fair question.

Brazile, for instance, recently hit Bill as follows:

"For him to go after Obama using 'fairy tale', calling him a kid, is an insult," she said. "As an African-American, I find his words and his tone very depressing."

"Obama represents reconciliation, while Hillary represents equal rights, civil rights and human rights for all," Brazile said. "You have a champion who's been on the front line and you have someone like Obama who has successfully navigated American politics without using race as an issue."

"I am calling on them both to let the moment pass," she said. "Instead of attacking each other, let's attack the problems we face as Americans, like poverty and the 47 million Americans without health care."

So I'm not seeing that there's any issue here with CNN keeping Brazile, though I'm happy to be persuaded otherwise.

The comments section is temporarily disabled and is currently undergoing repair. This blog's homepage is here.

Posted by Greg Sargent at 10:14 AM | Permalink

I'm also told that this move came after the Obama campaign repeatedly complained to high level officials at CNN about the presence of Carville and Begala on the network.

After I reached him today and pointed out that he hadn't been on CNN in some time, Carville confirmed to me that the network had told him that he wouldn't appear until the Dem primary is resolved.

Sam Feist, CNN's political director, also confirmed the decision to me. "As we got closer to the voting, we made a decision to make sure that all the analysts that are on are non-aligned," Feist said, adding that the decision had been made around the start of December. "Carville and Begala are two of the best analysts around and we look forward to seeing them on CNN plenty of times in the future, once the nominating process has ended."

Feist pointed out that a few other analysts aligned with campaigns of both parties had been told the same, and added that aligned analysts would only be appearing in contexts where they were acting as campaign surrogates. Carville did appear on Larry King on Jan. 9 as a surrogate.

Carville and Begala's presence on CNN has led to criticism for the network in the past. A few months ago the liberal blogosphere roundly condemned CNN for presenting them as neutral observers without identifying them clearly and frequently as Hillary supporters. In response to the criticism, CNN started identifying them as Hillary backers.

It appears that the Obama campaign may have kept up its criticism of their appearances, however. Asked about the Obama camp's protest, Feist said: "We get advice from all the major campaigns about who should or should not be on CNN. If we listened to all of their advice, then there would be very few commentators left to put on television."

Interestingly, not everyone at CNN appears to agree with this decision. "People inside CNN are surprised," one person involved with CNN programming told me. "No other network buckled to this political pressure. CNN has removed from its lineup top analysts who know about the national political scene." Not an argument that will find much sympathy in the lib blogosphere, perhaps, but worth noting.

Anyway, interesting stuff.

The comments section is temporarily disabled and is currently undergoing repair. This blog's homepage is here.

Posted by Greg Sargent at 7:11 PM | Permalink

Or maybe she didn't.

I just can't tell. I wish Patrick Healy of The New York Times would be straight with me on this question.

Healy has turned in this dispatch about a Hillary campaign appearance yesterday:

It wasn’t quite the Howard Dean Scream of 2004, but Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton has never sounded like this before.

At the end of a rally here in northern New Jersey on Wednesday night, Mrs. Clinton implored a nursing home banquet room packed with people to come out and support her in this state’s Feb. 5 primary.

“Will you help me?” Mrs. Clinton yelled to cheers. And then, in an increasingly frenzied tone, she bellowed:

“Will you help me?” … “Will you help me?”

Six times in all.

She didn’t cap it off with a shrieking “Yeeeee-ahhhhh!” the way Mr. Dean memorably did after naming state after state that he hoped to win after his defeat in the Iowa caucuses.

One is tempted to conclude that what's really at play here is a desire to see another Dean Scream moment. This possibility is very difficult to fathom. Was the last one really all that exciting?

Don't answer that.

The comments section is temporarily disabled and is currently undergoing repair. This blog's homepage is here.

Posted by Greg Sargent at 10:14 AM | Permalink

That's the headline that the wingnut website Newsmax.com put on this AP story about Obama's redoubled efforts to convince folks that he's actually a Christian. The AP's original hed said that Obama's working to correct the "misconception" that he's a Muslim.

But in Newsmax's telling, it's "breaking" news that Obama says he's not a Muslim. I know this is only Newsmax, but this somehow captures a sad larger truth about where we are -- and about what Obama will face should he become the nominee. After all, the fact that Obama says he's not a Muslim -- let alone the fact that he isn't actually one -- probably is news for far more people than we'd care to imagine.

The comments section is temporarily disabled and is currently undergoing repair. This blog's homepage is here.

Posted by Greg Sargent at 5:01 PM | Permalink

While he was on his defensive spiel, Obama also urged people to ignore "crazy" rumors that he was Muslim, not Christian, or ever failed to recite the Pledge of Allegiance or take his oath to uphold the Constitution.

Maybe Broder missed that whole flap. Or maybe I'm just mis-remembering or something. Oh, well. We soldier on.

The comments section is temporarily disabled and is currently undergoing repair. This blog's homepage is here.

Posted by Greg Sargent at 12:36 PM | Permalink

The piece reported that Obama had had a "testy exchange" with New York Times reporter Jeff Zeleny on a South Carolina ropeline, after Obama had been asked whether Bill Clinton was getting "in his head." The whole tone of the story implied that Obama had had a very confrontational moment with Zeleny. Here's the key ABC reporting, with the language implying confrontation in bold:

"I am trying to make sure that his statements by him are answered. Don't you think that's important?" Obama shot back, while walking away.

When Zeleny yelled a follow up question suggesting the Illinois senator had not answered the question, Obama fired back angrily, "Don't try cheap stunts like that."

Obama then walked away and shook hands with the mass of voters that surrounded him.

A few minutes later, Obama came back and confronted Zeleny again.

"I will answer your question though off the record, would you like to talk off the record?" Obama asked. Zeleny refused to go off the record and then motioned toward the gaggle of TV cameras gathered around him.

If the ABC piece initially linked to any video of the moment, I didn't see it -- I'm pretty certain it didn't. Subsequently ABC and Fox News posted video. If you watch it, you can't escape the conclusion that ABC badly mischaracterized what actually happened:

The only remotely defensible characterization here is possibly ABC's claim that Obama "shot back" with his first answer, and even this seems tenuous.

More broadly, it's clear that the tone of the exchange wasn't anywhere near as acrimonious as ABC claimed it was. When Obama said, "don't try cheap stunts like that," he was smiling -- he certainly didn't "fire back angrily."

ABC also mischaracterized the exchange about talking "off the record." ABC's telling implied that Obama did something very bizarre -- he offered to talk off the record in front of a gaggle of TV cameras! But if you watch the vid, it's hard not to see Obama's comment as a sardonic reference to the huge press presence there. "You want to talk off the record for a second? It's hard to do," Obama said, gesturing at all the cameras with something approaching a grin.

By packaging a story implying a sharp confrontation with that headline about Bill "getting in Obama's head," ABC strongly implied that Bill is getting in Obama's head and rattling him. But the video plainly shows that the event doesn't support that storyline.

By the way, I'm hardly blameless here. Yesterday I did a post over at Election Central on this ABC story that carried the headline, "Obama Gets In Verbal Tussle With Reporter." The post characterized the exchange as a "row." We featured the story on TPM's front page before we'd seen the video. But our descriptions -- which were based on ABC's reporting of the episode -- also mischaracterized what happened.

Anyway, this is a really bad one.

The comments section is temporarily disabled and is currently undergoing repair. This blog's homepage is here.

Posted by Greg Sargent at 10:28 AM | Permalink

As you know, the big news orgs have been lavishing tons of coverage on Michael Bloomberg's flirtation with an independent run for president. Reporters have given a great deal of ink to Bloomberg's argument that the major candidates in both parties aren't offering real solutions to our problems. And pundits such as David Broder have repeatedly argued that the public shares such sentiments and would be receptive to an independent run.

So here's the question. In future stories and commentary about this, will these same big news orgs and pundits make any mention of the fact that new polling suggests that this notion may be -- how do we say this politely -- pure bullshit?

Over on his blog, Greg Mitchell flags a new Gallup Poll that probes these questions in some detail. The poll, which surveyed roughly 2,000 adults, finds:

* A startling 84% of respondents think there's a candidate running who would make a "good president."

* Nearly three in four -- 72% -- say that the candidates are talking about issues they "really care about."

* A solid majority -- 58% -- feel that one or more candidates has come up with "good ideas for solving the country's problems," a finding that runs directly counter to Bloomberg's frequent and self-serving criticism of the other candidates.

Gallup's conclusion? "The American public does not appear to believe it is important or necessary for an independent candidate outside of the traditional two major parties to step into the race in order to save the nation." That couldn't be clearer. Are you there, Dean Broder?

Look, I'm sure that if they tried, folks could come up with other polls that show that the public could be receptive to such a candidacy -- polling is like that. Nonetheless, this data really does deserve to be in stories about this going forward, because it sticks a very sharp skewer into all the puffed up Broderesque and Bloombergian boilerplate we keep hearing about this stuff. That rushing sound you hear is the sound of platitudes deflating.

The comments section is temporarily disabled and is currently undergoing repair. This blog's homepage is here.

Posted by Greg Sargent at 1:10 PM | Permalink

Worth keeping an eye on.

The comments section is temporarily disabled and is currently undergoing repair. This blog's homepage is here.

Posted by Greg Sargent at 9:20 AM | Permalink

Jerusalem Post columnist Calev Ben-David has now weighed in on the whole affair in a column confirming that he'd seen Dowd in Jerusalem. He comes down squarely against The Times:

Last week, I dropped by the press room at the Dan Panorama Hotel, set up to accommodate the White House reporters traveling with US President George W. Bush. An old friend who works in Washington pointed out, among the journalists present, the noted New York Times columnist, Maureen Dowd, who sat there busily typing away.

I expressed surprise at seeing her here in Jerusalem - especially since just an hour earlier I had read her latest piece on the New Hampshire primary, which described firsthand the scene just the previous night at Hillary Clinton's campaign headquarters, and was datelined Derry, N.H.

I'm not the only one who noticed the discrepancy - within hours, the blogosphere was buzzing about Dowd's miraculous ability to be in two places at once. The Times sprang to her defense, pointing out she had been in Derry earlier in the week, had used an assistant to provide the color at the Clinton HQ, and brushed off her use of a New Hampshire dateline.

"This is a complete invention, this controversy," Times editorial page editor Andrew Rosenthal told The New York Observer, adding: "Datelines are kind of an anachronism. It's a little bit of an affectation."

If that's the case, though, why use a dateline at all, especially on a column where it's not really necessary? The problem with Dowd's piece was not that she wrote it in Jerusalem, but that it was deliberately written and presented in a manner to deceive the reader into believing that she had been present in New Hampshire on primary night.

At this point, people all across the political spectrum have come down against The Times on this one. Indeed, I'm not sure who's defending the paper, aside from a handful of its editors and reporters.

The comments section is temporarily disabled and is currently undergoing repair. This blog's homepage is here.

Posted by Greg Sargent at 9:58 AM | Permalink