April 26, 2005

4/26: I Just Called To Say ...

Yesterday Senate Min. Leader Harry Reid held a conf. call with a handful of prominent liberal bloggers, including representatives from DailyKos, TalkLeft, MyDD and The Left Coaster. Reid shared strategy with them, and they reported what they learned in posts described in detail below. Perhaps the 2 most interesting bits, if reported accurately, are 1) Reid identified nearly a dozen GOP sens. who might not go along with changing the filibuster rules, and 2) Reid said the Dems would filibuster nominee U.N. Amb. nominee John Bolton if he reaches the Senate floor.

In one way or another, plenty of coverage today has to do with filibusters or Bolton. House Maj. Leader Tom DeLay doesn't get much attention, but GOP lobbyist Jack Abramoff does. And -- in the story that will never die -- so does flaky ex-WH correspondent Jim "Jeff Gannon" Guckert.

TRACKBACKS: Inflationary Fears

Where the blog swarm is headed, who's taking part, and what they're saying:

• Moving the Bolton coverage is a New York Times story reporting that Bolton "inflated" the danger posed by Syria. Linking: Michael J. Totten; Skippy the Bush Kangaroo; War and Piece; Penndit; The Partisan Divide.

  >> Lefty Steve Clemons: "I have known a number of people who worked around John Bolton, and in mid-2003, one of these people made an off-hand comment, which perhaps should not be taken too seriously but nonetheless was chilling. He said, 'if my boss had his way, would be at war with North Korea right now.' I guess that was the moment when I realized John Bolton's potential danger in the national security establishment."

  >> National Review's Rich Lowry: "The New York Times hits Bolton on Syria today. ... Bolton is guilty of proposing going beyond the intelligence, although he ultimately didn't."

• 2 stories move some of the filibuster talk -- a Washington Post poll finding that a "strong majority of Americans oppose changing" Senate rules on filibusters, and an AP story on a possible compromise. Blogs linking to one or both: Democratic Veteran; Talking Points Memo; The Moderate Voice; Betsy Newmark; Brothers Judd

  >> National Review's Jim Geraghty, on this a.m.'s Washington Post poll: "The phrasing of the question is fascinating: "Would you support or oppose changing Senate rules to make it easier for the Republicans to confirm [Pres.] Bush's judicial nominees?" Unsurprisingly, when portrayed as a power grab, only 26 support, and 66 oppose. One wonders if the response would be different if the respondents were asked, 'Do you support a minority of Democrats preventing Bush's judicial nominees from being voted on, when a majority of senators have indicated their support for those nominees?'"

  >> Liberal Ezra Klein: "But it seems that Reid and Co. could gamble, with reasonable certainty, on killing the nuclear option. And serving Republicans with a defeat on that, right after Social Security and Schiavo, would really solidify perceptions -- and thus the media storyline -- of the right as disorganized and on a downward trajectory, while adding significantly to Democratic momentum."

• Yesterday we linked to the lefty news site Raw Story, which featured a follow-up on Gannon/Guckert. After our deadline, the liberal blogs picked up on it, big-time. Also popular is an AlterNet investigative article piecing together his move to DC. Neither story really answers what he was doing or what motivated him. Linking: The Poor Man; Eschaton; The Mahablog; FishbowlDC; Dan Gillmor; South Knox Bubba; Corrente; Suburban Guerrilla.

  >> "Digby" at Hullabaloo tries to sort out the unknowns of his move into journalism: "[H]ow, exactly, did he make a living during this period? Did someone 'meet' him and think that a man who not one person remembers ever making a political remark in this life could be a perfect blank slate? Did this man whose entire life has been spent as an office worker in dull and colorless businesses in rural Pennsylvania just suddenly have a Walter Mitty fantasy that happened to come true? Who created Jeff Gannon?"

  >> Cartoonist "Tom Tomorrow" of This Modern World: "But remember, the only thing interesting about this story is that it shows how much liberals hate gays. Or something like that."

FILIBUSTERS: Call Of The Riled

DailyKos' "Armando" reports that Reid, during the conf. call, said that "he believed that if [Senate Maj. Leader Bill] Frist had the votes in the Senate to push the "nuclear" button, he would have done so today" and that there is a "core of sane" GOP sens. "who realize the irreparable damage that would be caused by Frist's going 'nuclear.'" They "appear to be Sens. John McCain (AZ), Lincoln Chafee (RI), Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins (both ME), Chuck Hagel (NE), John Sununu (NH), Gordon Smith (OR), Lindsey Graham (SC), Dick Lugar (IN), Arlen Specter (PA), and John Warner (VA).

"Armando": As Democrats (or most of us anyway), there can be no doubt that we disagree much more than we agree with the above listed Republican Senators. But it would be wrong of us not to acknowledge and applaud the integrity, love of country and political courage these Senators are exhibiting in this situation." More: "Senator Reid also acknowledged a need to explain more comprehensively the basis for the Democratic opposition" to Bush's jud. nominees, and "assured us that the substantive case for opposing [them] will continue to be made, and in a more forceful and detailed fashion."

The Left Coaster's Steve Soto: "Senator Reid said that he has been approached by more than a few Republicans who express the hope that Reid can find a way to stop the radical power grab. .... He praised the Republicans who put their country and the constitution above their party in this situation."

MyDD's Chris Bowers writes, "the frequent reports that Reid and Democrats would 'shut the Senate down,' if Frist and the Republicans went ahead with the nuclear option are wrong. The actual plan of attack would be to 'stop giving deference'" to the GOP agenda. Bowers explains it as he understands it. On the possible compromise Biden floated this weekend, allowing most but not all judges to get a vote: "If I understood Senator Reid correctly, this is a possible compromise all Senate Democrats are looking into."

Blogs for Bush's Matt Margolis, in a post titled "Read My Lips, No Compromises": "All of these so-called compromises are bad. ... [Dems] are offering to compromise because they know they are going to lose. Bush can get all of his nominees to have their up-or-down votes without any compromise. [DE Sen. Joe] Biden and Reid have not offered any real compromises. They want the Republicans to give up on banning the judicial filibuster, in exchange for a small number of judges... Why? They want this compromise to leave them the opportunity to block any judge Bush might nominate to the Supreme Court."

BOLTON: File Under "Filibusters"?

More Soto, on the call: "One other thing that Senator Reid confirmed in this call is that if the John Bolton nomination gets to the floor, we will see Democrats filibustering his nomination."

Picking up on a report that ex-State official/Bolton colleague Frederick Vreeland submitted a letter critical of Bolton to Biden, Power Line asks who Vreeland is. They find an IHT op-ed he wrote on the '03 terrorist bombings in Morocco, and characterize it as such: "Terrorist bombings in Morocco are 'collateral damage' from America's anti-terrorist efforts. But it gets even worse: Vreeland can't talk about Morocco for four paragraphs without changing the subject to -- you guessed it -- Israel. ... Vreeland thinks that we need to listen to what Muslim extremists are "complaining about." This is precisely the tired, dead-end thinking that the Bush administration has finally put to rest."

Jonah Goldberg, at The Corner: "I really do hate tit-for-tat congressional politics. But if the Democrats really do tear down Bolton on what is, ultimately, rinky-dink nonsense then Republicans will be obliged to make the management style and office demeanor of all future Democratic nominees an issue. This will make Republicans hypocrites in the sense they think what the Democrats are doing to Bolton is wrong in the first place but will do the same thing to liberals later. But this is how Congressional politics must work. If one side establishes a new standard the other side has every right and obligation to adopt it."

ABRAMOFF: Someone Could Get Burns-ed

Lefty Swing State Project highlights the connection between Abramoff and Sen. Conrad Burns (R-MT): "What is the one thing that makes a worse scandal than an Jack Abramoff golf trip? A hunting trip." Abramoff aide Shawn Vasell "is one of the major links between" Abramoff and Burns, "having worked for Abramoff directly before and after working for Burns" as state dir.

Left in the West's Matt Singer: "Basic gist? Shawn Vasell ... was apparently in Montana last Thanksgiving and he went hunting with two brothers named Reger from Billings. One of the Reger brothers wrote up the whole account on his now-deleted website, but we got screenshots of the whole thing first." Singer writes: "This trip was illegal. If Reger reported the details accurately, multiple laws were broken. Shawn Vasell has not had a hunting permit in Montana: since '01, he "apparently shot the deer from inside a car (illegal)," and more. He writes: "This isn't just illegal. It violates many of the unwritten rules of landowner/hunter relations."

The American Prospect's Tapped finds a report by the Washington Post's Howard Kurtz from '85 that found then-College GOPers pres. Abramoff running both partisan and non-partisan outfits at the same time, and comments: "The young Howard Kurtz sounded a lot like Josh Marshall when writing about Abramoff 20 years ago; I'd be curious to hear Kurtz's reflections now, two decades later, on that new 'era of obfuscation' ushered in by Abramoff and his Reagan-era allies. Clearly, this present scandal has been a long time coming."

BLOGS VS. THE MSM: The Declining American Newspaper

Slate's Mickey Kaus, on deceptive newspaper practices: "Why don't the LAT and NYT (and Time, and Newsweek ... ) accurately disclose to their readers the date they were actually finalized (e.g. the date they were printed)? They could easily do it. The reason they don't is because readers prefer to read the latest information, and the publications want their customers to think they are getting information that's more up-to-date than it actually is. In other words, it's not just an unavoidable problem, or trivial lack of disclosure. It's conscious deception for commercial gain!"

Rocky Mountain News editor/publisher John Temple has started a blog. In one early post, Temple shares inter-office e-mails where DC bureau chief/columnist John Aloysius Farrell disagrees with columnist Dave Kopel's contention that Farrell is left-of-center. Editorial page editor Vincent Carroll also weighs in.

Ex-San Francisco Examiner reporter (before it was a free paper) Tim Porter last week wrote a post at his First Draft blog about the current state of the newsroom, "Yes, my friends in the newsroom, there's less money and there are fewer people. That's not really your fault ... But, I am sorry, my friends in the newsroom, much of the rest is your fault. ... The obdurance and avoidance endemic in newsrooms rests on a bedrock belief that the 'problems' at their newspapers are best solved with more bodies or a return to a more 'traditional'" form of journalism." He offers links to the "plenty of ideas for change out there and some very smart people pushing them."

BLOGS VS. THE MSM II: Why Aren't You Covering XYZ?

The 4/20 Blogometer noted that the WH may have been more involved in the removal of the "Denver Three" from a Bush event in CO. Late last week the liberal Carpetbagger Report updated to note that the Secret Service has begun an investigation, adding: "It's worth re-emphasizing that the thug in question dressed in a dark suit, wore an earpiece, and threatened the Denver Three with arrest if they 'did anything.' And yes, impersonating a Secret Service agent is a crime. But let's also not lose sight of the bigger picture: someone had to train and direct this guy. Just as importantly, a top Bush aide has suggested that an official working for the White House was directly responsible for the policy that led to this fiasco. Maybe now would be a good time for the national media to show some interest in this?" Colorado Luis writes, "In case you're wondering why there is so much news about the Denver Three lately, part of it has to be that they have really gotten their PR act together. I must get five e-mails a day from those guys, and they've got a website up and running" at DenverThree.org.

Right-leaning VodkaPundit's Will Collier, on the New York Sun's story about Sen. Ted Kennedy brother-in-law Raymond Reggie's informing on an ex-fundraiser to Sen. Hillary Clinton: "And what a story! It's got corruption, Kennedys, secret informants, Clintons, even weird sexual allegations. You'd think it would be the lead headline from coast to coast. But funny thing--you can't find it much of anywhere. It's nowhere to be seen at CNN.com, even on the Politics page. It's not on the front of the New York Times website, and the only mention within the site is a canned AP story. Gee, I thought the Times was supposed to be the 'newspaper of record,' with the best reporters in the world -- they couldn't even spare one of them ...? The Washington Post, allegedly the Times' biggest competitor for political news, doesn't mention the story at all. A search for 'Raymond Reggie' at WaPo gets no relevant hits. Golly, I wonder why not."

At his personal blog, The Nation's David Corn recounts getting castigated by an AIPAC lobbyist for a column Corn wrote, and notes a Washington Post report on the firing of 2 officials who may have given U.S. secrets to Israel: "That sure sounds like the scandal is reaching a combustible phase. As I noted in my first item, the AIPAC affair -- which could have serious implications for the neocons -- has been an underreported story in the Washington media. Why?"

BLOGS VS. THE MSM III: Checks And Balances

Jeff Jarvis of BuzzMachine reprints a "pretty shocking email from a journalism student at NYU": "I am writing an article on fact-checking in blogs. ... Recently, sent Gawker.com a fake tip (said I heard Moby say to a little girl, "Don't ever say that Teany [Moby's tea store] is Shitty"). They posted it in their "Reader Sitings" section. I e-mailed them and said it was fake. But they posted no correction and the fake tip is still on their site. Do you think Gawker should be held responsible for any damages against Moby? Do they have a responsibility to fact-check reader tips, do you think?"

Jarvis: "I had a very simple response to this student: 'You are responsible.' Ethically and otherwise. Gawker puts up notes from readers and clearly labels it: 'Sightings are sent in by readers.' Any reader with a two-digit IQ and any experience with this medium and the internet knows that readers can publish anything anywhere and so, caveat reader. If this would-be journalist simply asked Gawker, I'll bet they would have given an answer. Ask me about the comments here or the posts in a forum and I'll tell you quite clearly: Nothing is vetted or edited. That's obvious. But if you were a good reporter, you'd ask the question. And if you did not get an answer, you still should not resort to what you did. You lied."

Gawker Media's Lockhart Steele writes in the comments: "Gawker, to my knowledge, did not get the correction. It's our policy to correct known errors, of course, though as Jeff states, reader sightings are buyer beware. I'll add a strikethrough to the entry."

BLOGS VS. THE WORLD: Put Your Signature Where Your Rhetoric Is

Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) writes in his DailyKos diary: "I read with interest Kos's recent post where he writes that I'm someone who wants to restrict blogging. That just isn't true. I respect Kos's opinion and was sorry to read that he has that impression. For my part, I intend to be a force to make sure that vigorous and free-wheeling blogging will continue without interference."

Markos himself quotes that, adding: "I'm glad to hear that's his view," but "it's irrelevant whether Feingold wants a free-wheeling blogosphere without government interference. A federal judge has already stated that the medium must be regulated. So my message to Feingold is simple -- you've stated the importance of a free blogosphere. Now put your words in action by becoming a co-sponsor" of the Reid Act, S.678. RedState's Mike Krempasky: " I promise, this won't happen often - but Markos has shown a good bit of mettle calling on Senator Feingold to back up his pro-blog rhetoric ... with some action. Well done."

Los Angeles Times' Ron Brownstein wrote: "The Internet could allow an independent candidate to more easily identify an audience and financial base, just as it has allowed blogs like the liberal Daily Kos or conservative InstaPundit to find a community of like-minded readers. More precisely, the Internet has allowed readers to find those blogs. And because the audience mostly finds the product, rather than the other way around, the cost of entering the market is radically reduced." At the Bull Moose Blog, centrist Marshall Wittman comments: "If the two parties don't get their act together, it is indeed within the realm of possibility that the Internet could fuel a most historic insurgency in American history -- a successful cyberspace third party Presidential bid." Also picking up on this is Personal Democracy Forum.

MIDDLE EAST/TERRORISM: Second Opinions

Yesterday the Blogometer noted, right-leaning websites including Little Green Footballs pointed up the latest installment of Women's Wall Street writer Annie Jacobsen's "Terror in the Skies" series. Not long after, liberal sites picked up on the same. TalkLeft quotes an old National Review Online report with details confirming the Syrians are in a band called Mehana. A booker says: "Well, Mehana comes across not as an angry jihadi, but rather more like the Syrian Wayne Newton."

Lefty blogger "Roger Ailes" at Roger Ailes: "Earlier in the article, Nutbag Annie claimed '[n]aturally, the agents 'were not at liberty' to tell me anything about the 13 Syrian men aboard flight 327.' But then she claimed that the agents told her how the men entered the country, what visas they had, when the visas expired and whether the men were interviewed at LAX. So which is it?" (Blogometer note: As if you need to be told, this is not the real Roger Ailes.)

WHITE HOUSE '08: Pod People

Ex-Sen. John Edwards' One America Committee blog directs readers to Podcast411, which has a podcast interview with Edwards: "They discuss UNC basketball, John Edwards' favorite podcast, and much more in this discussion about podcasting."

Ex-BC'04 aide Patrick Ruffini notes that despite ex-NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani's (R) high poll ratings, the C.W. "seems to be congealing in an anti-Rudy direction" on account of "whether he could survive the conservative primary electorate." Ruffini: "I'd like to run a test for the solidly conservative blog activists who will be instrumental" in '08. Ruffini pits Giuliani against Frist, McCain and Sen. George Allen (R-VA). With a little over 200 votes counted, Giuliani far outpaves Frist and McCain, but trails Allen by just under 10 points.

SOCIAL SECURITY: Reporting? In A Column??

Righty economist Don Luskin, writes, new NYT columnist John Tierney "finally engages the Social Security debate -- and it's a whopper. After an endless parade of lies from Paul Krugman about how bad reform with personal accounts has been in Chile ... Tierney actually got on a plane and checked it out himself (Krugman, of course, never leaves his office in Princeton; he gets all the facts he needs from radical leftist websites)."

IN THE STATES: One Ring To Inform Them All

Right-leaning MN First Ring Blog -- which correctly guessed that ex-Sen. Rod Grams (R) would drop his SEN bid -- asks: "Could one of the factors in" Grams' withdrawal "be because of rumors" of Rep. Jim Oberstar's (R-08) "retirement?"The post quotes the "controversial but often accurate" Minnesota Democrats Exposed blog, whose author states: "I also heard that people in DC have heard the retirement hint from Oberstar, too. Consequently, I know that Rod Grams, who works mostly in DC and is privy to the beltway gossip, is seriously interested in running for the seat."

Pro-ex-Rep. Ed Bryant (R-TN) for SEN Blogging for Bryant lists the reasons why ex-Chattanooga Mayor Bob Corker (R) is having trouble: "Corker failed to clear the field," "Corker is stalled in the polls," "Corker is known by the Republican grassroots as a tax-raising, pro-choice moderate," " Corker is spending money early." More: "The hiring of a high-priced, big-name GOP consultant shows Corker knows he needs an image make-over. His campaign advisers may be good -- but they're not magicians."

TX lefty Charles Kuffner: "HJR6, the bill that would make gay marriage Double Secret Illegal via a constitutional amendment, passed out of the House today by a 101-26 vote. As this was a vote on a proposed Constitutional amendment, the magic number was 100, as in 100 votes to pass." The bill needed 17 Dems "to take this disgusting thing one step closer to reality. Eighteen of them shamefully stepped up." Kuffner lists their names and adds more commentary.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: The Old-Timers Think The Kids Today Have Gone Soft

Ex-Reagan aide Lyn Nofziger, at his semi-blog: "The Democrats may well be the minority party in Congress and in the country but regardless, just about everywhere one looks they have Republicans on the run." Citing the trouble with DeLay, Bolton and Bush's Social Security plans, he writes: "Too many Republicans in the House and Senate are afflicted with one or both of two problems. Either they don't believe in much of anything or they are afraid to fight for what they do believe in. Makes one wonder sometimes why one should bother being a Republican, doesn't it?"

LEST WE FORGET: Young Einsteins

Fark holds a Photoshop contest asking readers to manipulate the famous statue of Albert Einstein from the National Mall. Like usual, all entries are not all tasteful or executed with equal skill. That said, you can find them all at the previous link. Bush is best lampooned in this picture; Einstein is put into unlikely situations; and he is even inserted into scenes from Ghost and Planet of the Apes.

Posted by at April 26, 2005 12:34 PM