Time Gives Up on the Truth

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The whole Joe Klein affair is another of the things I’m hoping to return to on Monday. But for now, take a look at their "correction."

In the original version of this story, Joe Klein wrote that theHouse Democratic version of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act(FISA) would allow a court review of individual foreign surveillancetargets. Republicans believe the bill can be interpreted that way, butDemocrats don’t.

Never mind that the entire offending paragraph remains intact:

The Democratic strategy on the FISA legislation in the House is equallyfoolish. There is broad, bipartisan agreement on how to legalize thesurveillance of phone calls and emails of foreign intelligence targets.The basic principle is this: if a suspicious pattern of calls from aterrorist suspect to a U.S. citizen is found, a FISA court warrant isnecessary to monitor those communications. But to safeguard againstcivil-liberty abuses, all records of clearly nontargeted Americans whoreceive emails or phone calls from foreign suspects would be, ineffect, erased. Unfortunately, Speaker Nancy Pelosi quashed the HouseIntelligence Committee’s bipartisan effort and supported a Democraticbill that — Limbaugh is salivating — House Republicans believe wouldrequire the surveillance of every foreign-terrorist target’s calls tobe approved by the FISA court, an institution founded to protect therights of U.S. citizens only. (Democrats dispute this interpretation.)In the lethal shorthand of political advertising, it would giveterrorists the same legal protections as Americans. Read more →

It Takes Astute Observation, Not Mea Culpas

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Mark Halperin has a hysterical op-ed in the NYT today, designed to be a mea culpa for the failures of presidential campaign journalism. Halperin reveals the reason behind the press corps’ obsession with horse race politics–they all read Ben Cramer’s What It Takes–and then admits that success in a political horse race does not necessarily equip someone to run the country.

For most of my time covering presidential elections, I shared theview that there was a direct correlation between the skills needed tobe a great candidate and a great president. The chaotic and demandingrequirements of running for president, I felt, were a perfect test forthe toughest job in the world.

But now I think I was wrong. The“campaigner equals leader” formula that inspired me and so many othersin the news media is flawed.

Wow, Mark, that’s one doozy of an insight. You mean all this horse race campaign journalism is counter-productive to choosing a good president? Who could have imagined that?!?!?!

The reason I say it’s hysterical, though, and not just pathetic, is in Halperin’s description of how he determined that he had been wrong–his analysis of the two presidents he has covered in the last sixteen years. See, Halperin describes those two presidents as both being great politicians–"wildly talented."

Our two most recent presidents, both of whom I covered while they weregovernors seeking the White House. Bill Clinton and George W. Bush arewildly talented politicians. Both claimed two presidential victories,in all four cases arguably as underdogs. Both could skillfully serve asthe chief strategist for a presidential campaign.

And then he proceeds to describe how the characteristics that made these "wildly talented" politicians made them failed presidents. Of note: he sees them both as failed presidents, Clinton and Bush. Here’s how he supports his claim that Clinton’s was a failed presidency:

For instance, being all things to all people worked wonderfully wellfor Bill Clinton the candidate, but when his presidency ran intotrouble, this trait was disastrous, particularly in the bumpy earlyyears of his presidency and in the events leading up to hisimpeachment. The fun-loving campaigner with big appetites and anundisciplined manner squandered a good deal of the majesty and power ofthe presidency, and undermined his effectiveness as a leader. What muchof the country found endearing in a candidate was troubling in apresident.

See where I’m going with this? Halperin claims that a guy who presided over tremendous economic growth, some innovative policy solutions (many of which I dislike, but admire for their pragmatism), and real success in foreign policy, had a failed presidency. He claims that a guy whose approval ratings stayed high during a trumped up impeachment "ran into trouble." Halperin clings to the Village’s caricature of the Clinton presidency all so he can claim both Clinton and Bush failed. And in the process, he ignores a great deal of hard work and policy wonkiness that, in fact, made Clinton a successful president. Precisely the kind of characteristics you’d want good presidential journalism to cover–a candidate’s comfort with the complexity of policy issues that translates into competent governance.

You see, Halperin tries hard to explain away his failures of judgment and discernment as failures of process. But in the process, he only emphasizes those failures of judgment. If Halperin really believes that Clinton and Bush experienced the same level of failure in office; if he remains ignorant of Clinton’s considerable discipline (in all matters not involving his penis) and hard work and policy acumen, then he has proved his own failures of basic observation, not a failure to cover the right topics.

With his op-ed, Halperin proves he couldn’t identify good governance if it looked him in the face. Sure, he calls for a different kind of campaign journalism. But at the same time, he proves he’s not the guy to provide it.

Read more →

Rove Is Rejected By Time

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For the record, I heartily approve of both of Newsweek’s recent pundit hires–Rove and Markos. After all, news outlets dump a lot of money to pay pundits whose predictions turn out to be wrong year after year. So why not hire two guys who at least have contributed historic innovations to elections–the guys who execute campaigns, rather than talk about doing so? Plus, there’s a wonderful bit of symmetry here. Rove, direct mail, and the Republican party represent the past. Markos, online, and the Democratic party represent the future. I even love that it pits a fat white guy from Utah against a multicultural guy living in the Bay Area.

So I’m not necessarily gleeful with the news that Time Magazine rejected Rove’s advances, at least not because it might validate the opinion that Rove was a poor choice for Newsweek. Rather, I’m curious by the terms by which Time rejected Rove.

For its part, Time magazine said nothing publicly about Rove’s arrival at Newsweek, but a well-placed source told me that Bob Barnett (every Washington literati’s favorite lawyer, including Bill Clinton) had traveled to the Time-Life building on Sixth Avenue to offer Rove’s services before Newsweek snared them. Time‘seditors apparently felt the cost/benefit analysis wouldn’t be in theirfavor if they embraced the man who has done more than anyone to Read more →

What Are Newspapers Best For?

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As you no doubt know, I appeared on a panel in Boston called "No News Is Bad News" over the weekend. It was a fascinating conference, with journalistic heroes like John Carroll and Anthony Shadid. Just as exciting, I got to meet phred, Selise, BlueStateRedHead, and others. And my own personal favorite–from my panel, at least–came when someone asked me what I would have done to prevent the Lewinsky scandal (and more importantly–picking up on a point I had made–having the press report on a topic that the majority of the country just didn’t think was important). I responded something to the effect that, "I would have liked to see the press reporting on the rise of the Scaife funded partisan press with some attention to the way it inserted stories into the non-partisan press; I would have liked to see people report on Ken Starr’s prosecutorial misconduct, and I would have liked someone to get up and say ‘It was just a consensual blow job between consenting adults.’" I think I repeated "blow job" a few times as I tend to do when you get me riled. According to phred, who was in the audience, some of the seniors in the audience gasped. At which Joe Lockhart, who was on my panel, responded, "Yeah, I can’t tell you how many times I wanted to say just that."

I then got into a fascinating conversation following John Carroll’s panel. He had said that we need to find a way to fund investigative journalists, and that blogs just wouldn’t do that. Afterwards, I agreed with him that blogs could not replace Dana Priest or Eric Lichtblau (at least not yet, though TPM’s crowd is doing a lot of the same work as Lichtblau). I also pointed out that David Carr–who has had a long simmering debate with Jay Rosen over whether bloggers could do original work and who admitted that we, the FDL team, had during the Libby trial [Big crow correction: Rosen informs me it was not Carr; I apologize for the error]–had described advising his college aged daughter aspiring to be a journalist to make sure her own writing was getting noticed on the Internet, thereby admitting the value of a reputation-based vetting system.

We need big companies to pay (and more importantly, legally protect) journalists like Priest and Lichtblau (and, just as importantly, Shadid). But do we need big media to report on culture and sports?

Which is why the two latest incidents of the NYT’s ham-handedness with blogs really resonates for me.

Boston: No News Is Bad News

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Just a reminder that I’m headed for Boston for what promises to be an interesting conference. Here’s the description:

No News Is Bad News

A freeand independent press is essential for democracy.  The press has aresponsibility to inform citizens about both the policies and theactions of the government and about credible challenges to thosepolicies and actions, to report on conditions that may require new ordifferent government initiatives, and to raise timely questions itselfabout debatable policies and the rationales presented for them.

Withthe recent controversies over the failure of the press to fully live upto its responsibilities in the runup to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, therole of the media in the outing of a covert CIA agent, the rise of theblogosphere and so-called citizen journalism, and the impact ofincreasing financial pressures on newspapers and magazines, publicconfidence in the mainstream media is at an all-time low.  What are theimplications of this for our democracy?  How might our faith in thepress be restored?

There is (free) registration,

As before, put a link below if you’re interested in get-together events associated with this.

Should Executives that Suborn Perjury Get Special Favors?

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In my opinion, the key lines from Judith Regan’s suit against the News Corp are these:

The complaint charges that one unnamed senior News Corp. executive"counseled Regan to lie and withhold information from investigators"about her acknowledged affair with former New York City PoliceCommissioner Bernard Kerik. Another unnamed News Corp. executive "advised Regan not to produceclearly relevant documents in connection with a governmentalinvestigation of Kerik,” according to the complaint.

Regan basically accuses two of Rupert’s executives of suborning perjury. But, she doesn’t provide their names. Yet. At the same time, she asks for $100 million to go away quietly.

That sure looks like a suit that will get settled quietly–at least it will if the executives in question are people Rupert would like to keep around. (Update: bmaz watches teevee so I don’t have to … and reveals one of these alleged suborners is … Roger Ailes. Yeah. I agree with bmaz–Rupert probably would like to keep Ailes around.)

That may be what happens–but it certainly begs further discussion, not least because Cathie Martin’s husband just proposed doing Rupert a huge favor. You see, News Corp is one of two intended beneficiaries  (the other is the Tribune Company) of FCC Commissioner Kevin Martin’s Read more →

Richard Mellon Scaife, “With Michael Isikoff”?

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I found this article on Richard Mellon Scaife’s newfound admiration for the Clinton’s via tristero. It’s a remarkable article, in that it frames Scaife’s purported admiration for the Clinton’s against the background of Scaife’s smear factory from the nineties, all told in a pseudo-objective omniscient third person voice.

Scaife was no run-of-the-mill Clinton hater. In the 1990s, the heirto the Mellon banking fortune contributed millions to efforts to dig updirt on President Clinton. He backed the Clinton-bashing AmericanSpectator magazine, whose muckrakers produced lurid stories aboutClinton’s alleged financial improprieties and trysts. Scaife alsofinanced a probe called the Arkansas Project that tried, among otherthings, to show that Clinton, while Arkansas governor, protected drugrunners.

The Arkansas Project largely came up empty,and most of the stories were ignored by all but the most avid Clintonantagonists. But one Scaife-backed conspiracy theory got widespreadattention. In 1993, White House aide and Clinton friend Vince Fosterwas found dead of a gunshot wound in a park outside Washington, D.C.Three official investigations concluded the death was a suicide. YetScaife dollars helped promote assertions that Foster had beenmurdered—the not-so-subtle subtext being that the Clintons hadsomething to do with it. Scaife hired Christopher Ruddy,a reporter who doggedly pursued the conspiracy theory in a Scaifenewspaper, Read more →

No News Is Bad News

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I’m going to be a panelist on a conference in Boston a week from tomorrow (Saturday). The conference is:

No News Is Bad News

A freeand independent press is essential for democracy.  The press has aresponsibility to inform citizens about both the policies and theactions of the government and about credible challenges to thosepolicies and actions, to report on conditions that may require new ordifferent government initiatives, and to raise timely questions itselfabout debatable policies and the rationales presented for them.

Withthe recent controversies over the failure of the press to fully live upto its responsibilities in the runup to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, therole of the media in the outing of a covert CIA agent, the rise of theblogosphere and so-called citizen journalism, and the impact ofincreasing financial pressures on newspapers and magazines, publicconfidence in the mainstream media is at an all-time low.  What are theimplications of this for our democracy?  How might our faith in thepress be restored?

The rest of the panelists (aside from Andy Sullivan) are journalists–many of the good ones, people like John Carroll. My panel–Political Reporting–had a conference call today which got me really excited about the conference. It should be worth attending.

There is (free) registration, Read more →

The Constitutional Right to a Press Pass

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I get asked about press passes a lot–I guess because I once had one. And the more I think about it, the more I’m raring for a constitutional challenge to the way many press passes are assigned in this country.

You see, historically, just about the only meaning of Freedom of the Press that would have made sense to our founders was freedom from having the government choose official reporters by licensing or fees or some other means. The whole reason we have Freedom of the Press is because stodgy countries in Europe were ensuring a tame press by either picking official printers, only giving licenses to their favorites, or charging a lot of money for the kind of press they didn’t like. And when those Dirty Fucking Hippie colonists rebelled against the Stamp Tax, they determined never to see something like it or the more onerous licensing on their watch.

Currently, many government agencies are discriminating against citizen-bloggers like me–or even plain old online reporters–because they don’t kill trees to circulate their work. This is changing (one of MI’s bloggers has a legislative press pass, apparently some DFH bloggers have been allowed into Federal courthouses). But not everywhere. For example, given Read more →

Protect Whistleblowers before Extending Reporter’s Privilege

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I suggested the other day that there were likely to be some unintended consequences if the reporter’s shield bill passes as is. What I didn’t say in that post is that there is a better way to encourage the free flow of information–particularly in this era when everyone can fulfill the role of journalist: enforce FISA and extend whistleblower protection. Rather than establishing a protected class of people whose protection can and has been abused to shield nasty political smears, rather than extending the privileges of a class that has already proved itself irresponsible with the privileges it has, encouraging the free flow of information at the source achieves many of the same objectives without the potential untoward consequences.

Just take the Risen/Lichtblau wiretap story as an example. If the Administration weren’t so worried about more scrutiny into their illegal wiretapping, they could easily use the new shield law, as written, to justify going after Risen and Lichtblau’s sources. After all, the bill has an explicit exception for terrorism and national security (admittedly, it would take a little linguistic juggling to be able to claim they needed the source’s identity "to prevent an act of terrorism against the United States," but such linguistic juggling is second nature for the sophists running our country). But if there were real whistleblower protection, then Risen and Lichtblau’s sources could have gone on the record and explained to us, in explicit terms, why the wiretapping was illegal, rather than having to leak it anonymously to the reporters.

POGO has a post offering another reason why whistelblower protection ought to be extended: because it’s good for business.