May 25, 2006
5/25: What Not To Do
Our top two stories today may just highlight some right and wrong uses of the blogosphere. Brian Ross' 5/24 Blotter report on Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL) spread like wildfire through the lefty blogosphere and generated push back from the right. Eventually enough doubt was raised about the initial story that The Blotter issued an update which satisfied few. One wonders if Ross would have been as quick to launch the story on the air.
At the other end of the spectrum, ex-AG Ed Meese amplified the reach of his New York Times immigration op-ed with a 5/24 am righty blogger conference call. Not everyone on the call agreed with Meese's position, but the event assured a much broader audience for Meese's case. Opinion writers with clear legislative agendas ought to copy this tactic.
BLOGGERS VS. MSM: Blottered
Brian Ross at ABC News' The Blotter ignited a blogswarm 5/24 with a post under the header, "Officials: Hastert "In the Mix" of Congressional Bribery Investigation." The opening paragraph now reads (righty bloggers have accused The Blotter of changing their original post): "Federal officials say the Congressional bribery investigation now includes Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, based on information from convicted lobbyists who are now cooperating with the government."
Hotline's On Call reported that the DOJ quickly denied the charges as did Hastert's office.
The Blotter then offered an update: "Despite a flat denial from the Department of Justice, federal law enforcement sources tonight said ABC News accurately reported that Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert is "in the mix" in the FBI investigation of corruption in Congress. ...You guys wrote the story very carefully but they are not reading it very carefully," a senior official said. ...One focus involves a letter Hastert wrote in 2003 urging the Secretary of the Interior to block an Indian casino that would have competed with tribes represented by Abramoff. ...ABC's law enforcement sources said the Justice Department denial was meant only to deny that Hastert was a formal "target" or "subject" of the investigation. ..."Whether they like it or not, members of Congress, including Hastert, are under investigation," one federal official said tonight."
Righty bloggers weren't buying the new "in the mix" distinction at all. Confederate Yankee: "In the original article, Ross was quite careful to only say that Hastert was "in the mix," a vague, rather nebulous statement that most readers would interpret to mean that Hastert was most likely the target of a criminal investigation. Indeed, the Reality-Based Community (an oxymoron if there ever was one) seems to be exactly under that impression in their update, and the ambiguous wording is also apparently interpreted in a similar fashion at Booman Tribune, The Carpetbagger Report, and Washington Monthly, all leading liberal political blogs. But these blogs were hardly alone. Mainstream news sources such as Bloomberg were also taken in by Ross's too-perfect parsing." Wizbang: "The "in the mix" statement directly contradicts the Department of Justice statement. For Speaker Hastert to be "in the mix" of an investigation means that he has to be part of the investigation, which the DOJ flatly denied. Brian Ross appears to be standing by a story that doesn't have legs."
Riehl World View argued that if Hastert was only in the mix then the story wasn't news at all: "The Ross / ABC headline grabbing story is a non-story, perhaps fed to him by someone who wanted to take a shot at Hastert. And not even a web search was done to flesh the story out, or discover that Ross was being had. There is no news here whatsoever, other than what could have been known or assumed from reading the Chicago Tribune four months ago. In fact, there is less information - and pertinent facts omitted serve to make it appear worse than it might be."
From there, the righty accusations only got worse. The Truth Laid Bear: " Hugh Hewitt points out something I missed: that it would appear that ABC News has changed the text of the story currently on their web site since its original publication! ...So here's the first paragraphs as they appear right now (8:41pm PDT):
Federal officials say the Congressional bribery investigation now includes Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, based on information from convicted lobbyists who are now cooperating with the government. Part of the investigation involves a letter Hastert wrote three years ago, urging the Secretary of the Interior to block a casino on an Indian reservation that would have competed with other tribes.
But Hugh indicates that "Hastert's office" provided a different version. Which reminded me that I received the story, in email, from a Republican Senator's office at 3:49pm. Here's the first paragraphs of that version:
The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Dennis Hastert, is under investigation by the FBI, which is seeking to determine his role in an ongoing public corruption probe into members of Congress, ABC News has learned from high level government sources.
Federal officials say the information implicating Hastert was developed from convicted lobbyists who are now cooperating with the government.
The Truth Laid Bear concludes: "Pretty important difference! I went looking for a cached version of the original ABC News story, with no luck. But I got the next best thing, check out this screen capture of Memeorandum from just a few moments ago...It does indeed match the version I received, and does indeed contain the strong phrasing "is under investigation by the FBI." Blue Crab Boulevard also believes The Blotter changed their story and writes: "Face it ABC, you got rolled and you are trying desperately to not have to admit it."
Powerline thinks the larger problem is MSM use of anonymous sources: "Perhaps it could still turn out to be true. But, once again, the moral is, I think, that it is foolish to assume that stories based on anonymous leaks are well-founded. More likely, they are smears and slanders put out by people with a political agenda, and printed by reporters with the same political agenda." NRO's Media Blog also focuses on the leakers: "Somebody's lying. The question is, if it's the sources for those ABC News stories, will ABC reporter Brian Ross do the honorable thing and disclose their identities. Without such action, there is no incentive against leaking wild, damaging but ultimately baseless rumors from high positions in the government. There is no accountability. When leakers are not punished for disseminating false information, each leak detracts from the public's knowledge - an unacceptable situation if the justification for such leaks is the public's right to know."
Righties were quick to put ABC News in some unwelcome company. QandO: "So has ABC joined Truthout.org in getting a little ahead of the news cycle?" Commenter James Williams at The Blotter: "I think we need to start a poll to see how long before Brian Ross is forced to retract this story and join Dan Rather in "retirement" land."
The vast majority of lefty bloggers gleefully linked to the original Blotter post, including: Swing State Project, Democrats.com, AMERICAblog, Oliver Willis, Talking Points Memo, David Sirota, Booman Tribune, The Political Animal, TPMmuckraker, MyDD, and truthdig.
Some lefties did have questions. TalkLeft wasn't buying the "in the mix" distinction either: "For ABC's law enforcement sources to now say all members of Congress are "under investigation" and Hastert "isn't a formal subject" makes no sense." The Carpetbagger Report wondered why such a big story was relegated to the blogosphere: "One thing that's bugging me, though, is that ABC News reported this on their blog, but as of now, there's no mention of it on ABC News' regular news website. If the network had a blockbuster news scoop, that no other outlet seems to have, why not put it on ABCNews.com? It seems odd."
Other lefties played conspiracy theory. The Reality Based Community: "But note that this news (sourced to "senior U.S. law enforcement officials") hit the media the day after Hastert dared to criticize the Bureau. And note also that ABC supinely transcribed the leak, without alerting its viewers/readers to the obvious motivation of the FBI to dirty up one of its critics. I said the Bureau played rough. I never denied they were good at it."
HASTERT: Separation Anxiety
After deadline 5/24 more lefties defended Hastert's separation of powers claims. Matthew Yglesias at TAPPED: "Dennis Hastert and the other congressional leaders are right on the merits here. There's a reason why security for Congress (and the Supreme Court) is provided neither by the Secret Service, nor by the FBI, nor by the DC Police Department, but rather by a special Capitol Police Department (or Supreme Court PD for the SCOTUS). This is also why the Constitution stipulates that members "shall in all cases, except treason, felony and breach of the peace, be privileged from arrest during their attendance at the session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any speech or debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other place." There's a real separation of powers principle at stake here; the executive branch is not supposed to be charged with policing the behavior of the members of other branches of government. I'll shed no tears for Jefferson, but this is not unlike if the Bush administration were to use an illegal secret wiretap to catch an actual terrorist."
Fellow lefty The Reality Based Community agreed: "...there's a real separation-of-powers issue here. ...Do we really want every Congressman who criticizes the Bureau or fails to vote it more money or wider powers to have to worry about potential revenge? ...The Constitution places the authority and responsibility for disciplining Congressional misconduct squarely upon the Congress. The problem, of course, is that the Congress has been signally lax in carrying out that responsibility. If the Congress won't do its job, then the Bureau will be happy to take over."
Still, no blogger with actual legal training and the ability to site case law was buying the separation of powers argument. Libertarian Eugene Volokh at The Volokh Conspiracy: "I confess I'm pretty puzzled by Speaker Hastert's theory here. I understand that the power to arrest, search, and prosecute Congressmen could be abused by the Executive. But I take it that Speaker Hastert isn't arguing that Congressmen can't be prosecuted, or even can't be prosecuted for bribery. (Actually, Justices Douglas, White, and Brennan seemed to take the latter view in United States v. Brewster (1972), at least as to the selling of legislative acts; but they lost, and I hadn't heard of anyone trying to revive this position.) Is it that Jefferson could be prosecuted, but his office couldn't be searched? If so, what exactly is the constitutional basis for the distinction? For now, my tentative view is the same as Orin's -- there's no constitutional problem here -- but perhaps I'm missing something."
IMMIGRATION: Don't Meese This Call
Ex-AG Ed Meese followed up his 5/24 New York Timesop-ed with a righty blogger conference call that included:
- Captain's Quarters: "Gen. Meese has some interesting insight into the immigration mess, given his proximity to the Simpson-Mazzoli debacle. I have tremendous respect for his perspective, and if he says that he's getting a sense of deja vu, it behooves us to listen. I still would trade some limited normalization program for effective border security, but unless the conference committee makes some significant changes to the Senate approach, I fear we will get neither."
- Decision'08: "It's no secret to regular readers that I feel the current emphasis on immigration is a bit overblown...Meese stressed that the 'incentive' for current illegals to leave is simply the removal of the cloud of forced deportation and associated legal consequences and the right to return, legally, behind all the other people already in line. I question how much of an incentive that is, but it's certainly fair.
- Freeman Hunt: "The aim of this [the Meese plan] plan is to produce a combination of incentives and disincentives to discourage illegal immigration and encourage legal processing. By contrast, the three tier plan currently under debate in the Senate, provides for three levels of status for illegal immigrants based on work history and residency."
- Hugh Hewitt: "Meese: "I think that's always a problem as we found following 1986. In the '90s, there was very little concern for upholding the law."...Can we pause for a moment and admire the greatness of that quote from Meese on the '90s before I move on to say that he added that better technology and increased border control forces will help enforce the laws in a way we couldn't post-1986 amnesty."
- Michelle Malkin: "Meese advocates increased interior enforcement, strengthened employer sanctions...possible private sector outsourcing for a bona fide temporary worker program after immigration enforcement takes place...more local-state-fed police cooperation...amnesty vs. mass deportation is a false choice..."
- QandO: "I asked Mr Meese wouldn't it be more reasonable to streamline the legal immigration process and markedly increase our immigration quotas to sufficiently absorb the demand for peaceful migration into the US? If we accomplish this, then the question of amnesty will solve itself rather quickly, as applications for entry were processed in short order. Amnesty is mainly a problem right now because the quota is so small, while the line and the time it takes to be approved is so long. ...Mr Meese's answer was disappointing, although I think my poor phrasing and lack of follow-up was more to blame than was he. He said that he agreed that we needed to streamline our immigration process, but that we needed to do it concurrently with increased border control and internal enforcement."
- Right Wing News: "Long story short: The Senate bill is an amnesty that treats enforcement like a joke and it would be no more effective at stopping illegal immigration than the 1986 bill."
- Wizbang: "Mr. Meese acknowledged that after the amnesty law of 1986 was implemented, which called for a large increase in border security, the US government was not motivated to actually enforce its own laws. However, with the technology we have today, Mr. Meese believes that border security should be easier. Only after the border has been secured will the temporary worker program be implemented, and as a pilot program first."
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) has a "TOP 10 FLAWS WITH AMNESTY AND GUEST WORKER OF COMPREHENSIVE IMMIGRATION REFORM BILL" that is being widely linked to on the right. Daily Pundit, RCP Blog, and The Corner all link positively while fellow right Big Lizards is more skeptical: "Assuming this is true, of course; I haven't read the bill, and due to past behavior, I'm not necessarily willing to trust Grassley to stick to the truth in a debate.
Immigration remains a far bigger topic on the right, but lefties are discussing strategy on the issue. New Donkey: "By refusing to sign on to a smooth-groove path for the compromise absent some assurances about the end-game, Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid ultimately secured an agreement to cut Democrats, and members of the responsible bipartisan majority of the Judiciary Committee, into the conference committee. That's why there are enough Senate Democrats willing to keep the compromise alive. But in the end, it won't really matter if George W. Bush isn't willing to use a veto threat and every other formal power he possesses, to make the compromise law, against the will of House Republicans. And if he won't take definitive sides on immigration reform, then the whole exercise will be nothing more than another graphic illustration of the powerlessness to do good of the all-powerful Republican ascendancy in Washington."
Matthew Yglesias at Talking Points Memo doesn't want a bill from this congress: "The odds are overwhelming that six months from now there will be more Democrats in both the House and the Senate than there are today. That means that for the price of a small delay in time of passage, Democrats should be able to get a more progressive bill through in the next congress if nothing passes this year. ...Maybe the next congress would only let us get a slightly better bill or maybe it will let us get a much better bill. ...Under the circumstances, Democrats seem to have a lot of leverage and every reason to take a hard line in negotiations."
GORE: They're Just Jealous
ESPN columnist Gregg Easterbrook suggest Slate readers should see An Inconvenient Truth but still has some criticisms: "
"Broadly, An Inconvenient Truth denounces consumerism, yet asks of its audience no specific sacrifice. "What I look for is signs we are really changing our way of life, and I don't see it," Gore intones with his signature sigh. As he says this, we see him at an airport checking in to board a jet, where he whips out his laptop. If "really changing our way of life" is imperative, what's Gore doing getting on a jetliner? Jets number among the most resource-intensive objects in the world. ...This raises the troubling fault of An Inconvenient Truth: its carelessness about moral argument. Gore says accumulation of greenhouse gases "is a moral issue, it is deeply unethical." Wouldn't deprivation also be unethical? Some fossil fuel use is maddening waste; most has raised living standards. The era of fossil energy must now give way to an era of clean energy. But the last century's headlong consumption of oil, coal, and gas has raised living standards throughout the world; driven malnourishment to an all-time low, according to the latest U.N. estimates; doubled global life expectancy; pushed most rates of disease into decline; and made possible Gore's airline seat and MacBook, which he doesn't seem to find unethical. ...Gore wants to have it that the greener-than-thou crowd is saintly, while the producers of cars, power, food, fiber, roads, and roofs are appalling. That is, he posits a simplified good versus a simplified evil. Just like a movie!"
The Political Animal reviews the review: "Gregg Easterbrook complains that (1) it's boring; (2) it's annoying; (3) it's contrived; (4) it's unimaginative; (5) it's alarmist; (6) it's too detailed; (7) it promotes conspiracy theories; (8) it's hypocritical; and (9) it's morally careless. ...And that's from a guy who says he's "glad" Gore made the movie. ...You'd almost think he just can't stand the thought that Gore was right before he was."
Ezra Klein at TAPPED relates a tale from Gore's Columbia's School of Journalism days: "Josh Bearman, who took the course, remembers that "He knew more than everyone in the room. So the class basically turned against him because he was smarter than they were, and they didn't like that. We witnessed exactly what had happened on the campaign plane in the year prior." And make no mistake -- we'll see it again. It's one thing for global warming to top the agenda. For Gore to put it there, however, implicitly indicts all those who mocked or sought to stymie his crusade in the past. His success is their failure, and they'll do their damndest to stop it."
The Corner is all over Gore's Cannes trip. Jonah Goldberg does some digging to follow up on Arianna Huffington'sGore-French-existentialists-summers quote and Iain Murray links to a Competitive Enterprise Institute video on Gore's "Big Fat Carbon Footprint"
McCAIN: Josh Lyman Lives!!!
Jason Horowitz' New York Observer profile of Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) did McCain no favors in blogoland. No More Mister Nice Blog notes that in the piece McCain "criticized elements in his own party as "nativist" before lambasting the punditry of Rush Limbaugh, Lou Dobbs and Michael Savage for helping to "fuel the problem," according to two of the sources." Nice Blog comments: "Wow, that's three mistakes in one: He insulted Saint Rush and his fellow Tribunes of the People, he insulted the seal-the-borders wingnuts themselves, and he did it in commie-lib New York, playing to a crowd of bankers, socialites, and (we're told later in the article) "some Democratic names." Not a smooth move." Kathryn Jean Lopez at The Corner agrees: "A Republican who doesn't know there's a difference between Rush Limbaugh and Michael Savage will encounter problems with conservative primary voters."
Also at The Corner Mark Krikorian wasn't impressed with McCain's plans for world peace: "McCain said ""One of the things I would do if I were President would be to sit the Shiites and the Sunnis down and say, "Stop the b******t." Does this remind anyone of Perot? I've long thought that McCain is a saner version of Perot, and sees himself in the same way as a Napoleonic "man on a horse." Apart from the substance of his views, the degree to which this kind of personality attracts public support is an indicator of the health of republican self-government. I'm not optimistic."
Lefty bloggers also had fun at McCain's expense for his mideast peace plan. Ezra Klein at TAPPED quotes the same Shiites and Sunnis sit down line and quips: "Woo! That's bracing stuff! And then, after the hasty consultations with translators to make sure he actually said that, the participants would stare at him quizzically, wondering what the straight-talk solution to oil sharing, political representation, entrenched hatreds, and varying conceptions of secularism will be. So what is it? McCain demands that they "stop the bull***t." What are his next ten words?" Shakespeares Sister fills in at least the next five words: "I have the best informants in all of the blogosphere, and one of them has gotten me a copy of McCain's entire plan. If you thought "Phase One: Stop the Bull***t" was outstanding, wait until you get a load of "Phase Two: No, Seriously...I Mean It." Fellow lefty Preemptive Karma chimes in: "Classic, wonderful McCain. Who cares if it's a statement from la-la land. How can you not love it? What I loved most from this speech was McCain's jumping all over Rush Limbaugh, Lou Dobbs, and Michael Savage for helping to "fuel the problem" of ghettoizing immigrants. He actually called Republicans "nativists."
Ryan Lizza at The Plank followed up on MSM reports that McCain returned campaign cash to the notorious Wyly brothers with a statement from McCain adviser John Weaver: "After the checks were received from Sam and Charles Wyly, it was discovered through the normal vetting process here at Straight Talk America that a federal inquiry is ongoing into the two gentlemen. Once that was discovered, we have a policy internally not to accept contributions from people in that situation, so the checks were returned. And at our request they did not attend the fundraiser in Dallas."
Not officially affiliated with the former-NY mayor Giuliani Blog writes: "Two things here. 1) When did the McCain folks know they had a problem? Because news of the Wyly investigation is not exactly, um, news. It was featured in a DNC press release and in a Dallas Morning News article as far back as early June 2005. 2) The Wylys didn't just write a check. They were on the host committee. Okay, so McCain accepts the money and has to return it. Happens all the time. But the Wylys were actually co-hosts of the event, which means that Straight Talk America actively worked with them to corral checks for the event. So, McCain invites these two former enemies to raise money for him, after their dicey legal status is public knowledge. ...The white knight of campaign finance reform, the man who would compromise the First Amendment itself at the altar of ethical purity, is getting to be an awfully cheap date. This kind of hypocrisy can kill authenticity. And without conservative base mojo, "authenticity" is all McCain's got."
BLOGGER SPOTLIGHT: My Darling Clemonstine
Today the Blogometer talks to lefty Steve Clemons, who writes The Washington Note.
What is your full name?
Steven Clemons
What is your age?
43
Where did you grow up?
Kansas, Massachusetts, California, England, Alaska, Oklahoma, Washington DC, Pennsylvania, Florida, New Hampshire, Texas and Japan. I was an Air Force brat.
Where do you live now?
Washington, DC
What is your occupation? Have you ever worked on a political campaign or for the mainstream media?
Builder of think tanks, policy entrepreneur, director of foreign policy and international economic policy programs at the New America Foundation, blogger/writer/pundit...never worked for a campaign or mainstream media...though solicited by both
When did you start blogging and why?
Three reasons...First was feeling like I needed to do some intellectual and policy RD outside of the New America Foundation where I was then serving as Executive Vice President. Secondly, I had a lot of good material coming to me constantly, and I'd pass on to my pal, Josh Marshall...who was the primary force in my setting up my own blog. In fact, I got my blog running two years after Josh began kicking and nudging me to do it. Three, I like how the blog is a pliable medium...part serioius commentary, part reporting, part advocacy, and part vanity.
What has been your favorite post, or favorite story to write about, in that time?
My favorite posts were also the ones that became the most all-consuming. While I have single posts that I found personally stimulating, the whole four month block of work I did on the politics of John Bolton's nomination to the United Nations was among what I consider my favorite blogging. I also liked a post I did exposing the Republican National Committee's mailing of homophobic, high-fear literature that asserted that Democrats would 'ban the Bible' and turn certain states into bastions of homosexuality. These mailers were being sent to church parish rosters and were an indication of the social values focus that Karl Rove had orchestrated in the RNC's political campaign. I also liked one that focused on Japan's Crown Princess Masako Owada and the politics inside Japan's imperial household establishment. I got a ton of fan mail from Japanese women for that piece.
Describe your typical blogging schedule. And what is your average output?
Varies -- but usually a couple of hours a day. Try to get major thinking and posting done in early morning and then add items during the day. Sometimes, write longer thought pieces in the middle of the night.
Who is your favorite political blogger? Favorite non-political blogger?
Joshua Micah Marshall...who is a fantastic blogger and also got me into all this.
Who is your favorite mainstream media columnist?
David Ignatius, Washington Post
What is your favorite television news program, either network or cable?
Two: This Week with George Stephanopoulos and C-Span's "Washington Journal"
What MSM-produced websites (i.e. newspapers, magazines) do you visit on a daily basis?
New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Economist, LA Times, CNN, Fox News
What non-MSM websites (i.e. blogs) do you visit on a daily basis?
Talking Points Memo, Powerline, RedState, MyDD, TPM Cafe, Juan Cole's Informed Comment, Huffpost, ArmsControlWonk, Andrew Sullivan, CalPundit/Kevin Drum
How often, or do you ever, read a newspaper in its dead-tree (i.e. print) form?
rarely -- once or twice a week
How do you see the new media and old media affecting and influencing each other in the next five years?
there will be struggle over rules and norms. The old media will try to either assimilate or annihilate the new media, but in the long run, new media will evolve as the dominant platform. Vicious battles will be fought over rules, norms, and ethics in the new media...and there will be some substantial consolidation in the new media that creates market power and where size will matter...just like in the old media today. At this point, the old media still dominates the news and politics business with new media biting at its heels, but this is changing as the quality of reporting and commentary change in blogs -- and as audiences build.
THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Brain Drain
Nathan Newman at TPM Cafe notes that the upcoming Sen. bill would allow an unlimited number of nurses to immigrate to the U.S. and comments on the effect these policies have on developing countries: "The conventional wisdom is that unskilled immigration is bad and skilled immigration is better. But skilled immigration often damages the developing world and encourages the US government to underinvest in upgrading the skills of native-born workers. Right now, many of the unskilled workers in the US -- who are feeling pressure from unskilled immigration -- could be fulfilling the need for higher-paid skilled work in the US. But there are no educational slots available in US schools. ...Here's is the nasty dynamic-- the US refuses to invest in training and education of our own population, then instead leeches off the tiny investments in education done by developing countries. In the ideal, the US would be continually upgrading the skills of its own native workers, in which case unskilled immigration would be all that was needed and native workers would see little threat from immigration."
LEST WE FORGET: The War On Breakfast
ScrappleFace reports on a Sen. vote many of you may have missed but is still absolutely essential to our country's security:
(2006-05-19) - Just hours after approving two amendments that would make English the "national language" of the U.S. without affecting any of the millions of government documents now printed in Spanish, the Senate today voted 58-39 to declare English "the official muffin of Congress."
"With lots of nooks and crannies to hold the melted butter," the new amendment reads, "the English muffin has come to symbolize the glory of the Congressional lawmaking process."
While conservative critics noted that "the English muffin is not a muffin at all in the traditional sense," a coalition of Democrats and progressive Republicans managed to push the measure through.
When asked what effect the amendments would have on President George Bush's comprehensive immigration reform proposal, one unnamed Senate Republican said simply, "Toast. Rye toast."
Posted by Conn Carroll at May 25, 2006 12:30 PM
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