Borowitz on "The Great Debate"

Gibson Trounces Stephanopolous in Crucial Debate

Asks Twice as Many ‘Gotcha’ Questions as TV Rival

In what many considered a must-win contest for the two ABC News personalities, Charles Gibson handed rival George Stephanopolous a resounding defeat in last night’s televised debate.

With over ten million viewers watching, the stakes were high for the two ABC rivals to see who could pepper the candidates with the most so-called “gotcha” questions.

Gibson drew blood first, smothering the presidential candidates with so many trick questions that he immediately seemed to put Stephanopolous on the defensive.

An aide to Gibson later summed up the secret to the ABC anchor’s decisive victory: “He didn’t let the candidates talk too much, and he made sure that this debate would be about Charles Gibson and nothing but Charles Gibson.”

The clear losers: ABC News and the American public.

The Shape of the Race to Come

New York Times:

"And an experienced Democratic operative e-mailed: “Finally, I think [McCain’s] going to win. Obama isn’t growing in stature. Once I thought he could be Jimmy Carter, but now he reminds me more of Michael Dukakis with the flag lapel thing and defending Wright. Plus he doesn’t have a clue how to talk to the middle class. He’s in the Stevenson reform mold out of Illinois, with a dash of Harvard disease thrown in.”

In a close race, that “dash of Harvard disease” could be the difference."

This from William Kristol, a Harvard Ph.D., in a NYT op-ed.

I consider Kristol's column utterly worthless, and the decision to hire him a low point in the history of The Times. I've written several letters to The Times making this point in relation to particular Kristol columns. Unlike William Safire, Kristol's writing is pedestrian at best, he does no real reporting (this column is a joke), and seems utterly incapable of fresh thinking or insight on any issue. I have yet to discover a single redeeming feature. (Safire, the object of a Kissingerian wiretap during his time in the Nixon White House, had the good grace to care about personal privacy of others in subsequent years).

There are, of course, numbers of conservative thinkers and writers doing interesting, well-written, and usefully provocative stuff, who would deserve a place on the rather valuable real estate on the NYT op-ed page and provide a real service to its readership. It is said that the selection of Kristol is due to The Times' publisher, who has been on a rather extended losing streak of late. The publisher can't be fired, but maybe it is time for a nice extended vacation.

And speaking of "Harvard disease", if Obama has "a dash", Kristol is a source of mortal contagion. What a pompous windbag.

Let's focus on the issues

Barack Obama delivered a major speech on economic policy this morning. (I understand Senator Clinton also spoke this morning, but I was otherwise occupied at the time and can't speak to that here. The same analysis may well apply--this is not an anti-Hillary posting).

As is typical, the various cable news networks hyped and hyperventilated in advance of the speech, which they assured us they would cover live--stay tuned, coming soon, coming up any moment. When Obama arrived, both CNN and MSNBC were there live. (I'm told there may be a third cable network as well, but I'm fairly unbalanced on that topic.) Obama embarked on another of his efforts to talk to his Cooper Union (scene of one of Lincoln's famous speeches) audience as if they were serious and thoughtful adults, invoking Hamilton and Jefferson and debates about the proper role of government in regulating the economy and promoting the common prosperity in the early Republic. He wove together an intricate tapestry, recognizing the importance both of market incentives and of an intelligently guided, visible hand of government in promoting fair competition, transparency, and public trust. He recognized the limits of New Deal-era regulatory approaches in keeping up with a dynamic and globalizing economy and the complex instruments of contemporary finance and capital markets. Having established these themes, he began to move to the specifics...and CNN cut away. Switch to MSNBC (I may have these reversed). Another moment of speech, then another cutaway. To what? A bunch of dimwits, blathering on with insipid commentary, doubting that anything much new had been said, with an inaudible half screen of Obama moving his lips as the dolts continued their voice-overs.
These are, of course, what pass for our main sources of live information--the self-proclaimed best political teams, blah blah. The ones that devote interminable periods to highly self-important but transient and largely content- free nonsense on the horse-race and decontextualized clips from sensationalistic utterings of tertiary campaign figures. One of these networks, indeed, cut way from Obama's live speech on the American economic mess to show us--yes, can it be--yet another in the endless looping replays from the Rev. Wright's collected wit and wisdom. Unbelievable.

It has become fashionable, in these days of cant and mudslinging, to urge that candidates debate the issues. To be honest, I haven't discerned enormous differences on the wonky policy details between Obama and Clinton, and what differences there are cut in opposing directions, at least by my lights. There are differences in personality aplenty, in governing style, in political character (and I'm not referring here to sexual habits). Different Americans will reach differing conclusions on whom they would prefer to listen to over the coming four or eight years.

There has been little enough serious, substantive discussion of many of the difficult, and politically fraught and potentially perilous issues facing our nation and the world--in this campaign or in the several previous ones. Those who have chosen to address some of these issues--folks like Dennis Kucinich and Ralph Nader, for example--have been on the margins (I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader to assess the direction of causality in that relationship).

On those rare occasions when mainstream politicians do venture into serious discussions of real issues--as Obama (and perhaps Clinton) did today, it is a scandal that the so-called news networks cut away for drivel and pap. We as the public generally get what we deserve. It is time we demand better from our journalists, and express our dismay when we do not get it.

I'll try to drown today's sorrows in a repeat of the Daily Show, which is perhaps unique in making this point, day after day. Bravo, Jon Stewart!

Obsessing on rejecting, denouncing, repudiating

O'Reilly Attends Easter Services At Church Lead by Ex-Nazi

From Chris Kelly, Huff Post

The Huffington Post has learned that Bill O'Reilly -- who claims to love America -- spent Sunday at a "church" run by a former Hitler Youth named Joseph Alois Ratzinger. Ratzinger has gone to elaborate ends to hide this connection, including taking on the absurd pseudonym "Pope Benedict XVI." Which, even if it doesn't prove anything, certainly makes you think.

This shocking revelation comes only a week after Barack Obama admitted he attends a church formerly run by Jeremiah Wright, who talks smack about America, although probably less than Goebbels did.

This would all be holy water under the bridge, except for one disturbing and undeniable fact: Bill O'Reilly is a Roman Catholic, and Benedict "Joey Ratz" XVI worked for Hitler, as did Unity Mitford, whose baby sister was Jessica Mitford, who knew Maya Angelou, who knew Betty Shabazz, who was married to Malcolm X, who knew Louis Farrakhan.

Is there any place in our public discourse for men like Bill O'Reilly, who won't even repudiate their links to Louis Farrakhan? I'll give you the last word, and then cut you off in the middle of it: No there isn't. ...

Robert D. Novak: Small Shoes at Justice

washingtonpost.com:
Robert D. Novak

I first met Gonzales in 2001 when, along with other conservative journalists, I went to the White House for a background briefing by presidential counsel Gonzales on the new president's judicial nominations. I was stunned by the incoherence of the briefer. When I checked with several Republican senators, I received the same verdict. Their judgment was that Gonzales was not qualified to hold a senior governmental position.
Gonzales's handling of the crisis over the firing of U.S. attorneys set new standards for incompetence. In the midst of the furor, he agreed to address the National Press Club on May 15 (insisting on breakfast instead of the usual lunch). It was by chance the 44th anniversary of this column, and I concluded that in all those years I had never seen anything like it.

Novak, the legendary journalistic "prince of darkness", is pretty much a jerk (and a hack, and a partisan flack)in my (long time) estimation. His judgment and sense of public duty are pretty well summed up by a simple juxtaposition: he chose to out Valerie Plame as a CIA analyst to punish Joe Wilson for (and deter others from) challenging the phony Bush-Cheney case for war, while withholding this (apparently widely shared) recognition of Gonzales' incompetence, until it could do no good. Thanks a lot, Bob.

Maybe W will award him a Medal of Freedom for his mis-spent career.

Rich Pickings: Patriots Who Love the Troops to Death

Patriots Who Love the Troops to Death - New York Times: By Frank Rich

It was a rewriting of history that made the blogosphere (and others) go berserk last week over an Op-Ed article in The Times, “A War We Just Might Win,” by Michael O’Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack. The two Brookings Institution scholars, after a government-guided tour, pointed selectively to successes on the ground in Iraq in arguing that the surge should be continued “at least into 2008.”

The hole in their argument was gaping. As Adm. Michael Mullen, the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs, said honorably and bluntly in his Congressional confirmation hearings, “No amount of troops in no amount of time will make much of a difference” in Iraq if there’s no functioning Iraqi government. Opting for wishes over reality, Mr. O’Hanlon and Mr. Pollack buried their pro forma acknowledgment of that huge hurdle near the end of their piece.

But even more galling was the authors’ effort to elevate their credibility by describing themselves as “analysts who have harshly criticized the Bush administration’s miserable handling of Iraq.” That’s disingenuous. For all their late-in-the-game criticisms of the administration’s incompetence, Mr. Pollack proselytized vociferously for the war before it started, including in an appearance with Oprah, and both men have helped prolong the quagmire with mistakenly optimistic sightings of progress since the days of “Mission Accomplished.” ...

A similar over-the-top tirade erupted on “Meet the Press” last month, when another war defender in meltdown, Senator Lindsey Graham, repeatedly cut off his fellow guest by saying that soldiers he met on official Congressional visits to Iraq endorsed his own enthusiasm for the surge. Unfortunately for Mr. Graham, his sparring partner was Jim Webb, the take-no-prisoners Virginia Democrat who is a Vietnam veteran and the father of a soldier serving in the war. Senator Webb reduced Mr. Graham to a stammering heap of Jell-O when he chastised him for trying to put his political views “into the mouths of soldiers.” ...

Anyone who questions this bleak perspective need only have watched last week’s sad and ultimately pointless Congressional hearings into the 2004 friendly-fire death of Pat Tillman. Seven investigations later, we still don’t know who rewrote the witness statements of Tillman’s cohort so that Pentagon propagandists could trumpet a fictionalized battle death to the public and his family.

But it was nonetheless illuminating to watch Mr. Rumsfeld and his top brass sit there under oath and repeatedly go mentally AWOL about crucial events in the case. Their convenient mass amnesia about their army’s most famous and lied-about casualty is as good a definition as any of just what “supporting the troops” means to those who even now beat the drums for this war.

It is an astonishment to me that one who has written so often on this topic can continue to summon up the resources of passion and cogency so brilliantly displayed by Frank Rich in this (and so many other) columns. Thank you to a great journalist.

A Column Prompts a Dressing-Down

washingtonpost.com: By Deborah Howell (Ombudsman)

How did it come to this? Hillary Clinton's cleavage leading off the ombudsman's column?...

[Washington Post fashion editor Robin] Givhan won a 2006 Pulitzer Prize for criticism "for her witty, closely observed essays that transform fashion criticism into cultural criticism." She writes for Style, where staffers pride themselves on being edgy (some say snarky) and provocative. Her editors give her wide latitude to comment, and she regularly ticks off readers. ...

Givhan has frequently written about male candidates -- when former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani stopped the comb-over to hide his baldness. A 2004 piece about John Kerry and John Edwards started off: "Hair has become a central issue in the race for the presidency."

And she has caused ruckuses before, writing critically in 2005 about Vice President Cheney's appearance at a ceremony on the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz: "The vice president . . . was dressed in the kind of attire one typically wears to operate a snow blower." The same year she wrote that John Roberts's wife and children were dressed too preciously on the day his nomination to the Supreme Court was announced....

There's a bigger issue about her Clinton piece: Does this have anything to do with whether Clinton should be president? Not a thing. But do we want to read the column about her cleavage? Yes indeed. It was the most viewed story on the Web site all day. So was a recent story on John Edwards's hairdresser.

There has to be a balance in campaign coverage. Readers deserve substance, but they also want to know who these people are, about their families and their lives.

No way to avoid "cleavage" in excerpting this report. Oh well.
But are these the standards to be applied by the Washington Post's Ombuds? Inquiring minds want to know? Rubber-necking (sorry--is that a body part?) as the criterion for elite journalism?

I am a bit curious whether such a column would have run in the Times, and what the Public Editor might have said about it.

Even more interesting: The Murdoch Street Journal. But then again, Ruppert has made a separate peace with Hillary--something about government policy relating to his media interests in China? And Murdoch "journalism" can probably do better (by the WaPo Ombuds standard?) than a dot portrait of Hillary's cleavage ...

Yuk. I have to take a shower.
Your fastidious blogger.

An Open Letter to CNN from Michael Moore

MichaelMoore.com : Dear CNN:

That's why I was so stunned when you let a doctor who knows a lot about brain surgery -- but apparently very little about public policy -- do a 'fact check' story, not on the medical issues in 'Sicko,' but rather on the economic and political information in the film. Is this why there has been a delay in your apology, because you are trying to get a DOCTOR to say he was wrong? Please tell him not to worry, no one is filing a malpractice claim against him. Dr. Gupta does excellent and compassionate stories on CNN about people's health and how we can take better care of ourselves. But when it came time to discuss universal health care, he rushed together a bunch of sloppy -- and old -- research. When his producer called us about his report the day before it aired, we sent to her, in an email, all the evidence so that he wouldn't make any mistakes on air. He chose to ignore ALL the evidence, and ran with all his falsehoods -- even though he had been given the facts a full day before! How could that happen? And now, for 5 days, I have posted on my website, for all to see, every mistake and error he made....

P.S. If you also want to apologize for not doing your job at the start of the Iraq War, I'm sure most Americans would be very happy to accept your apology. You and the other networks were willing partners with Bush, flying flags all over the TV screens and never asking the hard questions that you should have asked. You might have prevented a war. You might have saved the lives of those 3,610 soldiers who are no longer with us. Instead, you blew air kisses at a commander in chief who clearly was making it all up. Millions of us knew that -- why didn't you? I think you did. And, in my opinion, that makes you responsible for this war. Instead of doing the job the founding fathers wanted you to do -- keeping those in power honest (that's why they made it the FIRST amendment) -- you and much of the media went on the attack against the few public figures like myself who dared to question the nightmare we were about to enter. You've never thanked me or the Dixie Chicks or Al Gore for doing your job for you. That's OK. Just tell the truth from this point on.

Michael Moore is the rare non-governmental figure in an effective position to push back against journalistic attacks, and is making the most of it. While I don't look to Mr. Moore as the exemplar of "fair and balanced" in any sense, CNN's preening self-regard and self-promotion deserve a takedown, and this is a good one. Best since Jon Stewart. Bring it on.

The decline and fall of Conrad Black

Slate Magazine: By Christopher Hitchens

Lady Black, the former glamour-puss Barbara Amiel, turns out to be one of these women who are insatiable. Insatiable in the Imelda Marcos way, I mean. Never mind the mammoth tab for her birthday dinner in New York, where it's at least arguable that business was discussed. Never mind the extra wings that had to be built onto her homes just to accommodate the ball gowns and shoes. What about the time she was on a Concorde that stubbornly remained on the tarmac at London airport? Irked at the delay, she telephoned the chairman of British Airways, Lord King, to demand action and—failing to get crisp service from him—announced that she would never fly the airline again. This, in turn, meant the acquisition by Hollinger Securities of a private jet for her. And this, in turn, meant the installation of an extra lavatory on the aforesaid private jet, at a cost of half a million dollars, so that Lady Black wouldn't have to be inconvenienced by the crew members coming down the fuselage to use the existing one.

It's that last touch that promotes her into the ranks once described by the novelist Joyce Cary: the people who utter what he called "tumbrel remarks." A tumbrel remark, as you may have guessed, is the sort of observation made by the uncontrollably rich that is likely to unleash class warfare. Marie Antoinette's advice on cake is the original. Barbara Bush, on the upgraded accommodations for Katrina refugees in the Houston Astrodome, is a good recent example.

A delicious bit of nastiness by Hitchens, who is very good at that sort of thing. All in the service of kicking Conrad Black, who probably deserves it.
I have nothing against "class warfare" at this level, except that it is a bit of a diversion from more important battles, for economic justice and other good things. But among self-indulgent wastes of time, for my taste (which seems to be deteriorating) it beats the celebrity slut/dimwit versions.

The Problem With Murdoch

TomPaine.com: By Bill Moyers

Of course he wasn’t the only media mogul to clamor for war. And he’s not the first to use journalism to promote his own interests. His worst offense with FOX News is not even its baldly partisan agenda. Far worse is the travesty he’s made of its journalism. FOX News huffs and puffs, pontificates and proclaims, but does little serious original reporting. His tabloids sell babes and breasts, gossip and celebrities. Now he’s about to bring under the same thumb one of the few national newsrooms remaining in the country.

But the problem isn’t just Rupert Murdoch. His pursuit of The Wall Street Journal is the latest in a cascading series of mergers, buy-outs and other financial legerdemain that are making a shipwreck of journalism. Public-minded newspapers are being dumped by their owners for wads of cash or crippled by cost-cutting while their broadcasting cousins race to the bottom. Murdoch is just the predator of the hour, the modern maestro of a financial marketplace ruled by money and moguls. Instead of checking the excesses of private and public power, these 21st-century barons of the First Amendment revel in them; the public be damned.

Judges Behaving Badly?

The Economist

A $54m lawsuit over a pair of pinstriped trousers that went missing from a Washington, DC, cleaners was thrown out by a judge this week. It had attracted worldwide ridicule. The fact that the case was brought, not by a random loony, but by a former judge has added to the sense that something is wrong not just with America's litigation laws, but with the kind of men and women Americans choose to sit in judgment over them....

“To distrust the judiciary,” said Honoré de Balzac, “marks the beginning of the end of society.” In Britain, judges are one of the most respected groups. But in America they tend to be held in low esteem, particularly at state level. For this many people blame low pay and the fact that judges are elected. In 39 states, some or all judges are elected for fixed terms. Federal judges, usually held in much higher esteem, are appointed on merit for life—as in Britain. ...

In the past, judicial candidates were banned from discussing controversial legal or political issues on the campaign trail. But in 2002 the Supreme Court ruled such bans to be unconstitutional, leading candidates to advertise freely their views on abortion and suchlike. Personal attacks have also become more common. Indeed, Sandra Day O'Connor, a former Supreme Court justice, fears that judicial elections have turned into “political prize-fights, where partisans and special interests seek to install judges who will answer to them instead of the law and the constitution.”

I'm not impressed with this or other efforts to take the "pants suit" as much of a generalizable example of anything...indeed, the performance of the trial judge in this very case was exemplary. Right now I'm mostly discouraged with the more highly paid, appointed and prestigious members of our highest court...

Building network news credibility

Los Angeles Times :

The report of the hefty fee — coming at a time when NBC Universal is undergoing companywide cost-cutting — spotlights how the television networks regularly skirt their own ban on checkbook journalism. The practice, a badly kept secret in the industry, takes many forms: free hotel rooms and entertainment while interview subjects are in New York, payment for the 'licensing' of home videos and photos to illustrate the story, and other incentives, according to industry veterans. If the costs are too egregious, often the project is shifted to a network's entertainment division, which can pay subjects through production contracts.

CBS News offered Jessica Lynch possible movie and book deals through its sister corporate divisions in an effort to land an exclusive with the former U.S. Army private in 2003. ABC News paid Steve Irwin's widow hundreds of thousands of dollars to use footage of the late naturalist in a prime-time interview with Barbara Walters last fall. (ABC executives said the license fee was necessary because Irwin's widow, Terri, owned all the footage of the 'Crocodile Hunter,' who died in September.)

This spring, NBC agreed to pay a reported $2.5 million for the rights to air a tribute concert in July marking the 10th anniversary of the death of Princess Diana. Subsequently, Matt Lauer landed an exclusive with Princes Harry and William, which aired in prime time Monday.

"It seems like there are end-runs all over the place, and they are being done in the name of competition," said Al Tompkins, who teaches broadcast ethics at the Poynter Institute, a media resource and school in Florida. "I don't know what transpired here, but what I do know is that any compensation that comes through a network — whether it's a book deal or movie deal or offering special access — none of that has any place in news.

"In the end, that is not what builds network credibility. People are not going to tune into any network based on who gets Paris Hilton. It just adds an even more unseemly element to a story that seemed like it couldn't get more unseemly."

Oh, sure it can. This is America. No limits!

Selling It: ABC Says It Was Outbid for P*ris Hilt*n Interview

New York Times: By BILL CARTER

How much is an interview with P*ris Hilt*n worth? Representatives of ABC News said yesterday that they had lost to NBC for the first interview with P*ris Hilt*n after her release from jail next week because ABC was unwilling to make a “high six-figure deal” with Ms. Hilton’s family." ...The spokeswoman for NBC News, Allison Gollust, insisted, however, that “NBC News does not pay for interviews — never have, never will.” ...

Ms. Walters told ABC executives that Ms. Hilton’s father, Rick Hilton, after getting the ABC offer last Sunday, called back Wednesday to say that the interview would go to a competitor, because at $100,000 ABC was “not even in the same galaxy” in terms of what was being offered. ...Ms. Walters told ABC executives that Ms. Hilton’s father, Rick Hilton, after getting the ABC offer last Sunday, called back Wednesday to say that the interview would go to a competitor, because at $100,000 ABC was “not even in the same galaxy” in terms of what was being offered....

Ms. Walters questioned the decision, the ABC representatives said, noting that the Hilton side previously emphasized that Ms. Hilton’s credibility was the paramount issue in the decision to be interviewed. But ABC said Mr. Hilton replied, “Nobody turns down money like this.”

An actual amount was not discussed, but Ms. Walters told ABC that based on her previous conversations with the Hilton representatives, she believed that the offer from NBC surpassed $750,000.

Selling one's (cough) "news integrity" for an interview with Paris Hilton?
Makes one proud of American capitalism.

Apparently the network news divisions pay the family for collateral production assistance (e.g., P*ris' baby pictures?), to maintain their pristine aversion to paying for the interview itself? And they crucified Bill Clinton for his excessive legalisms on what the definition of is, is? A plague on all their houses--and on the public culture they seek to satisfy.

(I guess I better not bold face or index "P*ris Hilt*n.")

Bloggers on "Palestinian TV" tactics

From Instapundit:

THEY'VE ALREADY USED AMBULANCES, so why should anyone be surprised when Palestinian terrorists use a car labelled 'TV' to stage an attack? It's all upside for them -- no significant outrage now, and maybe it'll lead the Israelis to accidentally shoot up a truck full of real reporters, which will then cause worldwide condemnation. Of the Israelis.

UPDATE: TigerHawk comments:

And when it happens that condemnation will be outrageous precisely because it is so predictable. Palestinian strategists understand the objective, which is to put the Israeli military in an impossible situation. Everybody else also understands the objective, and -- this is the big point -- everybody understands that the Palestinian strategists understand. It is one giant cesspool of known-knowns...

That's why it's hard for me to even pretend to take moralizing in this area seriously.

Just so. Must be time for another self-righteous UK vote on boycotting Israeli journalists, for something or other. Maybe that will get the wayward Brit journalist out of Palestinian captivity. (Sometimes the hypocrisy gets to me.)

Palestinian journalists slam use of 'TV' vehicle in Gaza attack

From Haaretz : By Reuters

The Palestinian journalists' union criticized militants Sunday for using a vehicle marked with a 'TV' sign to approach Gaza's frontier border with Israel and attempt to kidnap an Israel Defense Forces soldier from a position across the border. ...

News photographs showed the white armored vehicle, with "TV" in red letters on the front, at Kissufim Crossing after the attack, bullet holes in its windshield.

The Israel-based Foreign Press Association said in a statement the use of a vehicle marked with TV insignia represented "abuse of this recognized protection for the working journalist" and was "a grave development."

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, in broadcast remarks at the start of the weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem, said Sunday that the attackers used "a vehicle marked 'TV' in order to fool Israeli soldiers."

He said the gunmen had tried "to take advantage of the
special sensitivity that we have in a democratic country such as ours, to the right of the media to operate freely and independently in security-sensitive areas."

To say nothing of ambulances.

Oops! General Peter Pace to Retire as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

General Peter Pace to Retire as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff - New York Times (AP)

Pace has been in his post for six years -- a period that covers the Iraq war. Gates said that until recently, he had intended to renominate the Marine general for another two years.

I don't think so--try maybe since 2005?
Oops, sorry.

That's kind of a big goof for NYT and AP. On-line alerts have their problems!
(Since corrected)

Lies, Sighs and Politics

From The New York Times: By Paul Krugman

Look, debates involving 10 people are, inevitably, short on extended discussion. But news organizations should fight the shallowness of the format by providing the facts — not embrace it by reporting on a presidential race as if it were a high-school popularity contest.

For if there’s one thing I hope we’ve learned from the calamity of the last six and a half years, it’s that it matters who becomes president — and that listening to what candidates say about substantive issues offers a much better way to judge potential presidents than superficial character judgments. Mr. Bush’s tax lies, not his surface amiability, were the true guide to how he would govern.

Krugman lambastes the media for superficiality (to put it mildly) of its coverage, then and now.
Why do so many of us put up with (or contribute to) it?

Paul Begala on David Broder

David Broder Is a Gasbag | From The Huffington Post:

No, none of this raises Dean [of the Washington Press Corps David] Broder's hackles.

He reserves his vitriol for Harry Reid.

Why Reid? Because Reid has been one of the few politicians with the courage to speak the plain, unvarnished truth to power, and the hallmark of Mr. Broder's career has been to suck up to power. Reid calls Bush a liar. Broder can't handle the truth.

Begala should hardly be regarded as a neutral source. And there was a time--about three decades (or more) ago--that I enjoyed Broder as a commentator on American politics. That was a long time ago, and my perceptions were less jaundiced by life experience.

Sucking up to power is, of course, a much wider phenomenon, among Washington journalists and far beyond.

These Are The Final Days

The Blog | Marty Kaplan: From The Huffington Post:

It's hard to overstate the awesome discretionary power that the press has in framing a story. Deciding what to cover, and how much play to give it, and how much context to provide, and what headlines and terms to use: for reporters, producers, and editors, these are Prospero's staff. A reporter can let Matt Drudge (and thus movement conservatives) set the media agenda (as ABC News's Mark Halperin happily acknowledged), or he can let his own instincts, and shoe-leather, define what's news (as did the Boston Globe's Charlie Savage's Pulitzer-winning reporting on Bush's Congress-nullifying signing statements). A reporter can be a conduit for Republican smears (The New York Times's Adam Nagourney retailing the Edwards-as-'Breck Girl' meme), Republican lies (the Times's Judy Miller doing Scooter Libby's WMD dirtywork). and Republican Luntzism (The Politico's editor-in-chief John F. Harris alleging that Democrats themselves -- rather than the RNC -- were calling an Iraq withdrawal a 'slow bleed' strategy). Or they can do what Murray Waas and Josh Marshall do, and what Bill Moyers and David Brancaccio do, and what the reporters in Knight Ridder's (now McClatchy's) Washington bureau do, and behave like journalists, not courtiers.

If only...

The networks cancel The Cho Show.
By Jack Shafer - Slate Magazine:

When a major story like Virginia Tech breaks, viewers linger, wanting to know more. There's nothing wrong with that expectation. But having committed to going wall-to-wall with the Cho murders, the networks are too cowardly to tell viewers that only 30 minutes of essential Cho story exists, and that viewers should feel free to turn their sets off after they watch that much. Instead, the networks added soy extender and sawdust to inflate 30 minutes of solid news into a six- or seven-hour marathon.

There's a path around this quandary. In his book The Language of New Media, scholar Allen Bells reports how the BBC responded in 1930 when it was confronted with a 'shortage of news deemed worthy to broadcast.' The Beeb didn't dress up yesterday's broadcast with new comments from another expert. Instead, the announcer would admit, 'There is no news tonight.'

If only today's broadcasters were as honest.