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Obama aide Anita Dunn, who started the White House war against Fox, is leaving her post. ... Meanwhile, Obama will give an interview to Fox's Major Garrett. ... Did Fox win? ... Or was it an October fundraising ploy all along? ... If Obama won, his communications shop certainly knows how to magnanimously make it look like he lost. ... Is that what Sun Tzu would do? ... 11/13 Update: Dunn a) declares victory on her way out the door("People took a step back and said, ‘Hmm, am I really wanting to go chase those stories?’”) b) lobs a few more shells c) suggests she had a White House pre-clearance to launch the war ("White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs and perhaps even the president himself gave her the green light," says Sam Stein.) d) says “There are no confirmed television interviews in China," where the Major Garrett interview was reported to be planned. Won't that make it a bit embarrassing if it happens? ... P.S.: Still looks like a retreat to me, even if I agree with Dunn's underlying premise--that Fox News is in essence a different sort of animal from even MSNBC. ... 6:20 P.M.
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BriarPatch.org: From ABC's Note:
MoveOn.org is launching a round of TV ads this week targeting Democratic House members who voted against the health care bill over the weekend.
Thirty-nine Democrats voted against the bill, though MoveOn is starting by targeting only six fiscally conservative "Blue Dog" Democrats: Rep. Mike Ross, [D-Ark.]; Rep. Jason Atlmire, D-Pa.; Rep. Glenn Nye, D-Va.; Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va.; Rep. Larry Kissell, D-N.C..; and Rep. Heath Shuler, D-N.C. ...[snip]
A spokesman for the group said MoveOn plans to spend $500,000 on the ads, which come as liberals seek to pressure moderate Democrats in the Senate to support President Obama in his quest for health care reform.
Alert reader T. emails:
If you were a Democratic House Member from a relatively conservative district (especially if you've already taken a bad vote on cap and trade) how much would you pay MoveOn to come into your district and publicize your vote where you stood up to Pelosi and Obama on government-run health care?
True. But doesn't MoveOn know this? They still get to look tough, and raise money. Conservative Dems get to triangulate. It's win-win. ... 7:41 P.M.
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A very pretty mid-50s FIAT with a body by the late Elio Zagato. Note subtle grille graphics. ... 7:41 P.M.
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Three quick points about the Fox War before it ends:
1) I argued that I have no faith that Roger Ailes didn't take direction from the Bush White House. The most sophisticated response I've gotten is, in effect, 'Sure he did. But you don't think Rick Kaplan at CNN took direction from the Clinton White House?' I don't know about Kaplan. But Kaplan only ran CNN for three years or so--just passing through. Roger Ailes pretty much is Fox News. The network has never existed without him.
2) Still, David Axelrod's central argument, that because Fox is not really a 'news organization' other media should "not follow their lead" doesn't make sense. You don't have to be an independent "news organization" to break a story. The Democratic National Committee could break a story--that is, disclose the information that demonstrated something newsworthy had happened (say, that a presidential aide signed a Truther petition). The March of Dimes could break a story.The Scientologists could break a story. Joe's Garage could break a story. And Fox can break a story. The traditional, independent "news media" will follow the leads they think are real stories. They don't follow only the ones that come from "news organizations." How was Axelrod going to stop that?
3) If it was all about fundraising, and Obama is winding down the war, does that mean it wasn't working as a fundraising theme? Or that it worked so successfully the Dems don't need any more money? Or just that fundraising season is mostly over for 2009?
Update: Jonah Goldberg, more in sorrow than in anger! ... Time to call in reinforcement, from Reader G, a conservative:
I saw it with my own eyes! Brit Hume's Special Report did indeed try mightily to carry the WH's water on Miers and especially, comprehenisive immigration reform. No question about it.
P.S.: Still awaiting Stephen Spruiell's extensive "dossier" of Fox's "dissents from the Bush White House." ... 1:28 A.M.
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Shouldn't doctors give patients waiting to see them little hand-held beepers or vibrating devices like those some crowded restaurants give you when you're waiting for a table? That way you could wander around nearby instead of staying in the unventilated waiting room filled with coughing, sneezing people. ... 1:32 A.M.
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Walter Shapiro: "John Corzine by all estimation is going to be reelected Governor of New Jersey." Really? "By all estimation"? You giving odds with that? I'll take them. Depends on the Daggett vote, no? And the night is young. ... P.S.: Don't forget the Incumbent Rule. ... Update: Maybe Daggett's vote won't fade. Could he pull a Ventura and actually win? Mark Blumenthal clinically examines on this non-crazy possibility. Andy Pettitte's arm is in the algorithm! ... Backfill: Shapiro made the case for betting on Corzine here. .. I may be biased by memories of an incident recounted by Fred Siegel and Dan DiSalvo:
Supporters of public sector union power have developed a rationale for the government employees' gold-plated perks. The argument is that public employees are the vanguard of the working class. As such, the benefits they achieve will eventually have to be matched by private sector employers. As Carla Katz, the leader of New Jersey's Communications Workers of America, explained to Paul Mulshine of the Newark Star-Ledger, reformers embrace "the progressive theory that unless you create a substantial wage and benefits package that reflects good jobs and the ability to have a middle-class life style, there will be a perpetual race to the bottom."
Katz not only represents thousands of state employees, she is also the richly rewarded former girlfriend of New Jersey governor Jon Corzine. Katz's influence on Corzine became clear in 2006 when the impassioned governor spoke to a Trenton rally of roughly 10,000 public workers and shouted out: "We will fight for a fair contract." Corzine was of course management in that situation, not labor. [E.A.]
New Jersey taxpayers, who now have to pay for the resulting union pay and benefit packages, must be unusually forgiving. ... .4:15 P.M.
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How to Fill the Empty Hours After Health Care? Nate Silver writes:
It's becoming increasingly likely that regulation of the banking and financial sector is liable to be the issue that dominates the first half of 2010. Why? Well in the first place, it's badly needed ... [snip] In the second place, it's not clear what else the Obama administration will do on the domestic policy front, once the health care issue gets resolved. Although the unpopularity of the cap-and-trade program is greatly exaggerated -- most polls in fact show it receiving a plurality or narrow majority of support -- the swing districts in 2010 tend to be big carbon emitters. Immigration reform, likewise, is liable to be a less favorable issue for the Democrats in 2010 than it will be in 2012, when we'll have a younger, more diverse electorate in which Hispanics play a larger role as swing voters. EFCA -- the White House's support for which has always been questionable -- almost certainly isn't going anywhere. Movement on gay rights issues is a possibility, but is more dependent on the White House's willpower than its bandwidth. A second omnibus stimulus bill is probably out of the question, although certainly there will be piecemeal efforts -- extended unemployment benefits, greater investments in transportation infrastructure -- that the White House will pursue. Still, for a hard-working White House, that leaves plenty of time on the table for a big-ticket item, and that item will probably be banking reform. [E.A.]
Banking reform. Not "card check" (EFCA). Not "comprehensive" illegal immigrant legalization. Not even "cap and trade." Banking reform. ... And the more time it takes up, the better! ... I'm less worried about my vote for Obama every day. ...
P.S.: But will immigration really be a more "favorable" issue for the Dems in 2012, when they will probably have a smaller margin in the House? Maybe Silver is saying they'll have more incentive to bring it up--their swing district freshmen will already have lost--even if passage will still be difficult. ... Card check, on the other hand, will be both harder to pass and less advantageous to bring up, no? ...
P.P.S.: I still think the issue that "dominates the first half of 2010" is likely to be ... health care. At least the first half of the first half of 2010. We're talking about what happens after that. ... 4:15 P.M.
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National Review Not Guilty So Fox Not Guilty Too! National Review 's Stephen Spruiell defends Fox against the charge that it is an instrument, not of conservatism but of the Republican Party and (for much of the past decade) the Bushes.
I grow so tired of this smear. National Review gets this kind of thing all the time. Last year, Jonah compiled a nice summary of our dissents from the Bush White House. One could compile a similar dossier in defense of Fox News, but I'm afraid it wouldn't matter. [E.A.]
Oh, go ahead! ... It will be a mighty thin dossier, at least if it doesn't include issues (like Harriet Miers and immigration) where Roger Ailes' network initially, and disconcertingly, appeared to toe and try to hold the Bush line before eventually acceding to its viewers' opinions and allowing dissenting conservatives to express themselves. ... 4:15 P.M.
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"Howard Kurtz, Missing in Action:" The Left is now on the case of the Biggest Conflict of Interest in Journalism. Writes Michael Massing:
Young people have embraced [Jon Stewart's] show precisely because he’s willing to take on cable news in a way our top media reporters are not. And not just Fox. Last week, “The Daily Show” offered a brilliant expose of the superficiality and hollowness of the journalism practiced on CNN, showing how its anchors allow partisan spokesmen to make all kinds of ridiculous claims without challenge. “We’ll have to leave it there” was the stock response of CNN interviewers to the ludicrous talking points of their guests.
You’ll almost never see Howard Kurtz scrutinize CNN in that way. Of course, he’s employed by the network.
4:58 P.M.
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The official what-we-tell-reporters reasons for the White House War with Fox don't quite add up. If the attempt is to get the MSM not to follow Fox stories--well, they weren't following FOX stories before (see ACORN). If the attempt is to keep FOX "off balance," the White House campaign is instead giving FOX extra life. If the attempt is to triangulate-- isn't triangulation is supposed to make you look sensible and moderate? This is making the White House look a bit hysterical, coming just when health care reform seemed a quiet "fait accompli."
Maybe it's all about raising money from the base by riling it up. It's late October, after all. Dems (and Dem consultants) need dollars. And those campaign fundraising dollars haven't been "materializing as much as expected." Just a thought. ... One clue: Does the FOX War last much past Election Day, or does it mysteriously wind down? ... 3:06 P.M.
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How I Got That Exclusive: What if they proved that 1950's nuclear testing increased cancer among boomers and only Walter Shapiro showed up at the press conference? ... 4:51 P.M.
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As Nate Silver notes, the Washington Post decided to heavily promote a poll showing voter support for a public option "even though public opinion has been fairly steady on the issue for months." But I can't see anything wrong with the question itself, or the general pro-government shift the poll suggested.
Question 10, however--highlighted by Ezra Klein--looks catastrophically flawed:
10. Which of these would you prefer - (a plan that includes some form of government-sponsored health insurance for people who can't get affordable private insurance, but is approved without support from Republicans in Congress); or (a plan that is approved with support from Republicans in Congress, but does not include any form of government-sponsored health insurance for people who can't get affordable private insurance)? [E.A.]
Isn't Medicaid is a "form of government sponsored insurance for people who can't get affordable private insurance"? Medicare also covers some of those people, if they're over 65. Lots of state programs for near-poverty families might be considered "government sponsored" health insurance.
Many people might reasonably read this question as asking whether they thought Republican support was important enough to eliminate Medicaid and Medicare and SCHIP, which may be why the alternative that didn't do this got such strong support (51 to 37). Those numbers seem worthless when it comes to illuminating the current debate. (What does "sponsor" mean, anyway? Promote? Subsidize? Control? Run? Even if you put Medicaid aside, is this the famous "public option" they're talking about or just the subsidized health insurance exchanges?) ... [Thanks to reader T.A.] 1:18 A.M.
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First Rough Draft of kf: Some readers may understandably be confused by my posts about Fox. On the one hand, I seem to be saying Fox is ideological and unbalanced but, hey, that's the wave of the future, and as a lifelong opinion journalist I'm not that bothered by the prospect of living in a universe populated by such outfits (The New Republic, MSNBC, the New York Times, DRUDGE). On the other hand I find myself agreeing with the White House, and Jacob Weisberg, when they argue Fox is different from even those other non-balanced news enterprises--that it's "not a news organization."
I guess there are two distinct axes on which you can judge press organizations--actually, there are many more than two (see below), but two are important here: 1) Neutrality--Are they attempting to be "objective," trying to serve the "public interest" in some balanced way, or are they ideologically (or otherwise) driven in a way that inevitably colors their coverage--what topics they pick, what 'experts' they rely on, etc. 2) Independence--Whether they are biased or generally neutral, can somebody--a political party, a Mafia family, a government-- tell them what to do?
I think it's pretty clear MSNBC and the NYT and Breitbart.tv are not neutral. They all have an agenda and they pursue it. But they are independent. The Obama White House can't tell Bill Keller what to do. They can't tell Keith Olbermann what to do. (They can suck up to him, and it will probably work, but that's a different issue.) Breitbart is for sure independent--I can't see anyone telling him what to do.
I think Fox is also not neutral (which, again, doesn't bother me) but it's also not independent (which does). This isn't because it's owned by Rupert Murdoch--moguls are, typically among the more independent sorts. It's because it's run by Roger Ailes. I have zero faith that Ailes is independent of the Republican party or, specifically, those Republicans who have occupied the White House recently--the Bushes. As I said, I think if Karl Rove called Ailes in 2003 and said "We don't want so much coverage of X" it's extremely likely that X would not be covered on Fox. A ... suggestive example of Fox's loyalty is the debate on immigration, in which Ailes' network initially seemed to try valiantly--against the beliefs of most of its audience--to push the Bush White House line in favor of "comprehensive" legalization (while brushing aside its viewers' views).
It's certainly possible, in theory, to have a faux news organization that pretends to be an ordinary, ideologically biased journalistic outlet but that, at the top, is actually taking orders from Moscow, or from Kennebunkport. That news organization might have lots of viewers and money and White House press passes and some great on-air correspondents--it's not as if you could rip off their masks to uncover the alien underneath, like in V. ABC's Jake Tapper would refer to it as "one of our sister organizations." But that's not what, ultimately, it would be about. It would be different in nature, just like Organizing For America would be different in nature if it decided to buy some cameras and cable time and start reporting the news.
Here are some other measures you could use when classifying media outfits:
3) Accuracy--Are they committed to not telling untruths?
4) Fairness--Do they try to present all sides, even if it's only to take on an opponent's best argument (as opposed to his worst)?
5) Discipline--Do they tolerate dissenting voices within the organization--even when those voices are effective? Will they assign major stories that will cut against their interests and arguments?
6) Willingness to Suppress: You can have a commitment to accuracy, even a commitment to going out and finding and publicizing the truth for its own sake--but what happens when that commitment collides cataclysmically with your other, ideological purpose? The New York Times has a high commitment to accuracy, for example--and it's so big it almost has to be relatively tolerant of individual deviation. But would it endanger the Democrats' Senate majority by printing a series of damaging exposes of a leading Democratic Senator shortly before an election? The Times answered that one for us in 2002.
Note, first, that these are all sliding scales. Only a few media enterprises print what they know to be untruths, but many more sometimes run with very suspiciously sourced stories. Some organizations tolerate lots of dissent, some very little. Some are wildly unfair, some occasionally give an idea of the strongest competing arguments. I suppose even Pravda in the Brezhnev era had its little moments of internal rebellion. But it's also possible to put some organizations at one end of the spectrum and some at the others.
Second, I'm not arguing that any of these additional qualities--aside from extreme inaccuracy (#3)--are essential for a media enterprise to play a valuable role in the national debate. The idea of the First Amendment isn't that everyone will be fair. It's that everyone will be free, and out of it all the voters will come to their own conclusion about what's fair--right? Likewise, you can have a terrific national debate between ten magazines none of which publish dissenting views in their pages. And I'm pretty sure I wouldn't pass the suppression test if you framed the hypothetical right. Suppose on October 25th, 2008 I'd discovered, without doubt, and with documentation, that Barack Obama cheated on his taxes. Would I publish it? Probably not. I think Bill Keller would publish it way before I would. Would Marty Peretz publish something true that had a high probability of leading to the destruction of the State of Israel? I have my doubts! That doesn't make The New Republic not a "news" organization.
But I do think independence is essential to be a legitimate player in the new, emerging non-objective press world. If you're independent, there's always a chance you'll change your mind. At the least, you have to make fresh calculations about your views and interests, which means that in a free society there will be a steady proliferation of nodes of thought. If you're independent, Obama's press secretary Robert Gibbs has a shot at convincing you--even if you're conservative, even if you're wildly biased, even if your organization is almost dictatorial in structure. Even if you're Rupert Murdoch! But not, I think, if you're Fox.
Update: Maguire is unconvinced.
I can suggest a better place to look for signs of Fox's fealty to Bush - how did they handle the conservative rebellion in early 2006 over both Harriet Miers and the Dubai port deal? If Fox was truly in the tank for Bush, as opposed to holding a conservative point of view, they would have tilted in favor of Harriet and Dubai. Did they? [E.A.]
My impression is they did--on Miers, anyway. ... Samples:
MORT KONDRACKE, EXECUTIVE EDITOR, ROLL CALL: Well, you know, I trust the president. I trust the president to know this person that he's known for 10 years, and what her mind is and how she thinks. And he thinks she is strong and all that.
When various conservatives say, "Oh my God, you know, we're scared that she's going to turn into David Souter" -- as I said yesterday, I don't think that's going to happen.
--Fox News All Stars, Oct. 4, 2005
BRIT HUME: Needless to say, our colleague, Mr. Will, lacks enthusiasm for Harriet Miers, as does Bill Kristol, Charles Krauthammer, Laura Ingraham, and the former Justice Department lawyer John Yu, not to mention David Frum. What do they all have in common? Well, they're products of the most prestigious Eastern schools.
Some observations on whether there is in all of this a whiff of elitism in the air from Fred Barnes, a graduate of the University of Virginia, as indeed I am, Mort Kondracke, a graduate, I'm afraid to say, of Dartmouth, and Mara Liasson, a graduate, dare I say it, of Brown University.
All right, folks. What about it? Is there a bit of elitism in all of this?
FRED BARNES, EXECUTIVE EDITOR, "THE WEEKLY STANDARD": Well, there may be snobbery even.
(CROSSTALK)
HUME: Snobbery even? Snobbery even? Go ahead, Fred.
--Fox Special Report, October 5, 2005
7:11 P.M.
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Attention, "Fait Accompli" Brigade: This chart seems to be going in the wrong direction for health care reform, even if you discount the lopsided FOX poll (for Nate Silverish reasons--they only get the big support/oppose question after asking a series of spoiling questions). ... P.S.: Does this suggest that the much-derided insurance industry study (suggesting premiums would rise after reform) had an impact? ... It could also reflect increased dissent on the left, from public-option supporters, as hinted by the new WaPo survey. (See, for example, question 13.) ... 9:55 P.M.
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On Sunday, William Kristol argued it was "reckless" for Obama to delay surging in Afghanistan while he waits to see how legitimate our "Afghan partner" will be:
If the president issued the order now, he could always delay or revoke it later, if the political situation seemed truly insupportable....
Why do I get the feeling that if Obama ordered a surge of troops today and revoked it in two weeks, Bill Kristol would be among the first to savage him for being indecisive and prone to sudden reversal? There's a virtue in making the decision once, and then being able to stick with it, as Kristol surely knows. ... P.S.: I would suspect Kristol of adding his bad faith argument so he'd have three bullet points, but he already had his three. So no excuse! ... P.P.S.: Won't Kristol's post--which sneers that the White House had "failed" to improve the election process--look awfully silly if Obama's delay turns out to force Karzai to accept a cleaner runoff? ... 10:21 P.M.
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Gawker got hold of the first few words of ex-President Clinton's private twitters, including this entry:
Twitter / Bill Clinton: John Edwards ... why did you ...
You'd think Clinton, of all people, would know that answer to that one. ...
Update: In a slyly invisible, joke-ruining revision, Gawker's Anthony De Rosa now says the twitters were probably captured from the account of a Bill Clinton imposter. ... P.S.: Is De Rosa the new night guy or the new ex-night guy? ... 10:50 P.M.
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Odd sloppiness in Monday's big N.Y. Times story with possible dirt on GOP N.J. gubernatorial candidate Chris Christie:
1) The Times writes that
interviews with federal law enforcement officials suggest that Ms. Brown [to whom Christie had loaned $46,000] used her position in two significant and possibly improper ways to try to aid Mr. Christie in his run for governor. [E.A.]
Motive is very hard to prove. The Times doesn't come close to showing that Brown was trying to aid Mr. Christie's run for governor if (as alleged) she a) supervised a FOIA request by the Corzine campaign of her and Christie's travel records and b) argued for making a big corruption arrest before Christie left office. In (a), she might have been trying to cover her own a--, since the FOIA request included her own records, no? In (b), maybe she just thought her friend and boss (rather than his successor) deserved to get full props for his hard work. I suppose the facts do "suggest" that Brown was trying to aid Christie's political run, but it's still a weird, easily abused way to write a lede. The first arrests at the Watergate suggested that the White House was a lawless operation headed by a crook who was trying to spy on his Democratic rivals, but I don't think that's how Woodward & Bernstein's nut graf read. The allegation about Brown's motive was hardly necessary to make a good story--all the Times had to say was that in both cases Brown seems to have taken actions that actually helped Christie's campaign.
2) In its tour of anti-Christie accusations, the Times refers to
reports that [Christie] discussed a run for governor with Karl Rove in 2006 led Democrats to assert he had violated the Hatch Act, which forbids candidates from “testing the waters” for a run for office. [E.A.]
The Hatch Act forbids candidates from "testing the waters"? There's your story! A whole lot of politicians are going to jail if that's the case. But maybe the Times "computer assisted reporting team" should hit the keyboards to find out what the Hatch Act says first. (And is talking to Karl Rove "testing the waters"?)
3) "$20,000 in mileage reimbursements during his seven-year tenure" is less than $3,000 per year--not that much. Even if it does include $79 to see a Mets game.
It would be wrong of me at this point to mention the famous Howell Raines Spike (of reports damaging to Democratic New Jersey Senator Robert Torricelli when he was running for reelection) as evidence that the NYT is trying to elect Dems in New Jersey. It certainly "suggests" that! But we're in the age of partisan media and if the NYT wants to try to elect Dems the way Fox wants to elect GOPs, that's their right. ...
P.S.: If you believe the Feiler Faster Thesis, this story was dropped way too soon. Plenty of time before November 3 for Christie to change the narrative. But maybe in New Jersey Feiler is slower. ... 10:52 P.M.
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