Archive for category: Press and Media

I’ve been wavering about how much attention to give this book. In it, Norm Pearlstine, who was the editor in chief of Time Inc. when it fought Fitzgerald’s subpoena of Matt Cooper, describes the whole process of fighting the leak. Most interestingly, Pearlstine describes how he came to believe that Time had to turn over Cooper’s notes, not least because Time had no business defying an order of SCOTUS.

I’ll just make a few points about the book:

• It has an astounding number of incorrect facts. Some of the errors include: claiming the Jayson Blair scandal broke in July 2003 (Blair resigned on May 1); stating that Judy testified about her June 23 meeting with Libby at her first grand jury appearance; claiming that Woodward told Downie of his leak from Armitage, "in October 2005, a few weeks after Libby was indicted" (he told Downie before the indictment, which was October 28, far too late in October for anything to happen a few weeks later in the same month); and explaining that Fitzgerald "called a second grand jury" after the Libby indictment. I recognize these are largely nit-picky errors. But still–in a book about journalism published by a big press, can’t you Read more →

Jeebus. Yesterday’s departure press conference was unnecessarily weepy. But this is embarrassing.

The most useless speculation today in Washington is whom White House chief of staff Josh Bolten might choose to replace Karl Rove. He is genuinely irreplaceable.

The whole column is steeped in deep resentment, resentment of those Republicans who have suggested that getting rid of Rove will help the Administration.

Rove was a principal target of congressional Democrats even beforeFebruary 2005, when he became deputy chief of staff in addition tosenior adviser to President Bush.But the combination of the duties intensified the assault on him.Prominent Republicans of late have privately expressed a desire that heleave government, hoping the move might diminish the intensity of theDemocratic assault.

[snip]

Rove is one of the canniest and most successful managers in Americanpolitical history. Yet he is viewed within his own party’s ranks,especially on Capitol Hill, as part of the problem afflicting the Grand Old Party.

Which resentment Novak then turns on Bush himself. First, he portrays Rove’s departure as a surrogate for a Bush impeachment (mourn not, Bobby! We’re still counting on the impeachment itself!)

Since there will be no impeachment proceedings against the president, Rove has been the best available surrogate. Nowonder that a leading Republican has been asking around whetherferocious Democratic partisans in Congress might ease up if Rove wereno longer there to kick around.

But Novak’s resentment of Bush comes out more clearly when Novak describes how Rove took a complete loser and turned him into President.

Rove is unique, a rare political mechanic with a comprehensiveknowledge of American political history. As an obscure young campaignconsultant in Austin20 years ago, he embraced George W. Bush — who had failed in bothpolitics and business — and gave him a plan to guide him into theWhite House.

Shorter Novak: "Bush, Rove made you, you little shit. And this is the thanks you give him?"

And nobody cared?

ThinkProgress has a great compendium of mainstream newspaper editorials criticizing the weekend’s FISA debacle. Just about every major paper in the US (with the notable exception of the Wall Street Journal) has come out against the new FISA law. I’m even on the same side of this issue as Fred Hiatt, which kind of scares me.

Which means the next six months will be a test of how irrelevant the media have become. It made a difference, after all, that the media generally backed the Administration’s call to war. Which was kind of the final straw in a loss of credibility for the media. So now that the print media, at least, is almost universally on the correct side of an issue, will it matter?

Many of these editorials mention the six month sunset of the bill, which ought to present an interesting challenge for these newspapers. Can they sustain their outrage–and educate voters on the reasons for it–sufficiently to make a difference come January, when we have the opportunity to change this abysmal law?

Or has the media already lost any ability to sway public opinion?

Update: I guess this post would be an appropriate place to note that the TimesSelect Read more →

This is kind of creepy. After learning yesterday that the Administration conned the NYT out of publishing details of the domestic wiretap program by telling the NYT that there had been no significant disagreement about the program …

The first known assertion by administration officials that there hadbeen no serious disagreement within the government about the legalityof the N.S.A. program came in talks with New York Times editors in2004. In an effort to persuade the editors not to disclose theeavesdropping program, senior officials repeatedly cited the lack ofdissent as evidence of the program’s lawfulness.

[snip]

Mr. Gonzales’s 2006 testimony went unchallenged publicly until May of this year, when James B. Comey, the former deputy attorney general, described the March 2004 confrontation to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

I thought I’d review what the NYT said about Gonzales’ public claim when they reported on his testimony in February 2006. The NYT provided extensive coverage of Gonzales’ testimony, providing:

• A Lichtblau/Risen overview of the testimony (with reporting from Scott Shane, one of the authors of yesterday’s article)
• An editorial critical of Gonzales’ appearance
• A legal review of the issues surrounding wiretapping
• An article painting the Democrats as spineless
• A short article describing the normal (legal) FISA process
• Excerpts from Gonzales’ testimony

And in spite of all that attention to the testimony, the NYT didn’t mention Gonzales’ claim that there was no disagreement about the program–not once.