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Andrew Breitbart of BigGovernment.com has stopped being subtle about hinting he has another scoop on order for next week. It's apparently not another ACORN story. Patterico speculates about what it is. ...
P.S.: Breitbart's a friend of mine, though I have some fundamental disagreements with him. I'd like to think I'd like him even if he weren't the kind of guy whose good side you want to stay on--because you have a feeling you and everyone you know might be working for him one day. (He has lots of entrepreneurial energy.) But I didn't realize he'd have the course of events all planned out like Hari Seldon in Foundation. ...
P.P.S.: There have been some few-bad-apples, look-who's-acccusing defenses of ACORN around the web. I dunno. ACORN has always seemed one big bad apple to me.** Everything I've learned or read about them suggests they're not an outfit to be trusted--trusted with voter registration duties' for example. Does anyone think ACORN isn't out to register Dems and elect Dems (or people further to the left)? Would you trust them to deliver your elderly Republican grandmother's absentee ballot? ACORN also conspicuously organized to resist welfare reform after the big 1996 reform law was signed by President Clinton. I'm amazed that any national Democrat who claims to have learned any of the lessons of Clintonism, or even wants to be elected from a non-Berkeleyesque district, would have anything to do with them.
**--Other organizations that produce the same reaction: Fox News, UBS. ... 12:54 A.M.
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Good Neil Lewis NYT story on John Edwards today--not much news that a Carolina TV station, the National Enquirer and even kausfiles didn't have more than a month ago, except this fabulous nugget (from Ex-Fall Guy Andrew Young's book proposal):
Mr. Young says that he assisted the affair by setting up private meetings between Mr. Edwards and Ms. Hunter. He wrote that Mr. Edwards once calmed an anxious Ms. Hunter by promising her that after his wife died, he would marry her in a rooftop ceremony in New York with an appearance by the Dave Matthews Band.
The book proposal also has Edwards conspiring with trial lawyer Fred Baron to conceal the Hunter story, even asking Baron "if he could find a doctor who would falsify a DNA report." ... Lewis missed the sex tape, though! ... P.S.: While John Edwards' ongoing agony about whether or not to tell the truth is riveting, he is rapidly becoming the Prinz von Anhalt of the Democrats**--a spectacle, but he won't be making policy in the near future. The more relevant angle is the complicity or lack thereof of Edwards' aides--and his wife--in constructing the Twin Edifices of BS with which the campaign attempted to snow the press. Jennifer Palmieri, Mudcat Saunders, Jonathan Prince and Elizabeth Edwards are still potential players in the party, after all. What did they know and when did they know it?*** Of course, they're also still potential future sources for the New York Times, which may make aggressively questioning their accounts a less urgent prirority for the paper. But maybe Andrew Young can fill us in. ...
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**-- ...whom we nominated for Vice President in 2004. Whoops.
***-- My impression is that the truth about Edwards and Hunter was well-known around Edwards HQ. During the campaign I was contacted by two non-campaign people who questioned whether I should push the story, but who checked with their friends in the Edwards camp and came back and told me they were surprised to learn that the allegations were true. ... 12:06 A.M.
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"'I'll sue you for defamation!' is the toothless wonder of the legal world," declares a confident and defiant HuffPo blogger. But is it really toothless? ... Background: Sarah Palin's attorney suggests that an Alaskan blogger has been defaming the Governor, and is threatening to sue not only the blogger but also "those who republish the defamation, such as Huffington Post, MSNBC, the New York Times and the Washington Post." I would have thought that this threat was decidedly non-toothless--that if a blogger really was publishing something defamatory about Palin (or anyone**), and if HuffPo or the NYT published the blog on their web sites, they'd be on the hook for defamation just as if they'd published an article by one of their own reporters.
That was before I learned about Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996. It's imprecisely worded, but if it really does immunize HuffPo and Gawker and even Slate or the NYT, etc --by requiring any libel plaintiff to recover damages from the actual original blogger, as some cases suggest--that would change a lot from what I thought I learned in law school. The changes go way beyond defanging Palin. I'm obviously way behind thinking about this, but off the top of my head, here are some of the possible ramifications:
a) It would be great for blogging, because it would mean lawyers for big journalistic outfits (like the Washington Post, which owns Slate) won't require blogs to be edited. In fact, they won't want the blogs to be edited, lest that be interpreted as implicating the big journalistic outlet itself in any libel. "Curation" is for co-defendants!
b) Most bloggers themselves are probably poor enough to be judgment-proof, although some HuffPo bloggers might have deeper pockets than HuffPo itself;
c) It means unverified undernews would now have a prominent, semi-official, de facto-sanctioned home, namely judgment-proof blogs on big news sites;
d) Are they really going to apply this to organizations that pay freelance bloggers for their submissions? If not, the statute might protect HuffPo (which usually doesn't pay bloggers) but not Slate (which pays me). But does this paid/unpaid line really make sense, since readers don't necessarily know who's paying what to whom when evaluating a blog's credibility? Is HuffPo all that different from Slate? And I don't want to give my editors another reason to cut my salary to zero. ...
e) What about repeating these protected-by Sec. 230-but-unverified blog allegations in the core MSM? If actual reporters working for actual traditional news outfits can then relay 'the fact that Judgment-Proof Blog X is reporting Y rumor'--despite the traditional rules saying news outfits couldn't do this, but hey, why cut them out of the new vibrant "diversity of political discourse"?--we've really entered a new world. Not that there's necessarily anything wrong with it. ...
But I find it difficult to believe that the broad web-site-protecting reading of Section 230 will hold up--it's a mere statute, remember. Congress can amend it. Is Congress really going to let average citizens get libeled by blogs on the New York Times web site without being able to sue the New York Times? ... On its face, the statutory provision, which protects "interactive computer services and other interactive media," appears intended more to protect outfits like American Online than traditional newspapers that host blogs or even new hybrid journalist/blogging/activist outfits like HuffPo. When Congress sees how that phrase has been interpreted, it may (as they say) revisit the issue. ...
**--Sure, public figures like Palin would have to show "actual malice," as defined in New York Times v. Sullivan. But that's not always impossible to do. ... 2:21 A.M.
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The "Savonarola of Sullivan's Island": Was he in love with the Latina hottie or with the "unashamedly navel-gazing culture of Argentina itself?" ... 12:11 A.M.
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Chooch On the Horizon? What happens to Chrysler if FIAT, its putative savior, fails to acquire Opel from GM this week? Was FIAT counting on Opel to fill some of the obvious gaps--mid-sized cars and larger--in Chrysler's weak lineup? The best U.S. car GM makes--the Camry-fightin' Chevy Malibu--started as an Opel design, remember. ... 2:07 A.M.
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Product placement is everywhere these days. ... 12:18 A.M.
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Is there a campaign to tarnish poor Anderson Cooper? First this negativity in the LAT. ("Cooper's ratings have been in sharp decline ...") Today, a suspiciously similar item in the New York Post's Page 6 ("ratings have plunged") that cherrypicks Cooper's worst days. TV Newser has a less excited take, noting
Year-to-date, Cooper is flat in the ratings. In 2008, AC360 averaged 1,194,000 Total Viewers. Year-to-date 2009, he's averaging 1,199,000 (through May 3). ...
It is true that AC360 is shedding viewers from its Larry King Live lead-in ...
Still, flat is not so good! If Cooper falls further, how does Visionary CNN Chief Jonathan Klein not fall with him? ... P.S.: If Klein has done anything at the network, aside from promoting Cooper, keeping his own name in the papers, and sneeringly spinning CNN's declining numbers, I forget what it was. Oh right: He's skillfully positioned CNN as the boring, nonpartisan network in an exciting, partisan time. ... 12:12 A.M.
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Monday, May 25, 2009
Buried Lede of the Day: From the tenth graf of a May 7 WSJ article on furniture retailer Design Within Reach:
Just getting people into stores can be difficult at a time when self-indulgent shopping has lost its allure, says Jim Taylor, vice-chairman of Harrison Group, a market research firm. Dr. Taylor has just completed a consumer study for American Express Publishing that suggests the wealthy no longer really enjoy shopping. What's more, their new, less-materialistic lifestyles are "a lot of fun," he says. "Our happiness scales are up this year for the first time in years." [E.A.]
Is that really true? If so, a big deal, no? ... And why? Perspective? Lower status anxiety? Lower Iraq anxiety? Obama? The power of schadenfreude? ... It's a thumbsuckers' playpen. ... 2:07 A.M.
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Ben Sheffner illustrates Nick Denton's possibly-tragic misunderstanding of American libel law. ... But is linking to Gawker's libel itself libelous, even if the purpose of the link is to show how libelous it is? [What about linking to Sheffner's linking?--ed That's OK under the Two Degrees of Libel rule, which I just made up] ... 2:05 A.M.
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Ezra Klein warns that if nothing is done to control the cost of health care, in 20 years we'll be spending 26.7% of our GDP on it. Is that all? I was thinking the figure would be much higher. ... P.S.: I suppose it depends on what we get for 26.7% of GDP. But if expensive medical advances added a year or two to my life, I'd be happy to fork over a quarter of my income. Wouldn't you? ... P.P.S.: The Obamist Party Line on universal health care--that we have to scare everyone into thinking we need it to control costs--has always seemed ill-advised, given that we've never been able to control health care costs before. And it plays into conservative arguments that liberals really want to meddle in medical decisions and ultimately deny treatment. Now it turns out the O.P.L. health cost scare stats aren't really even that scary. ... Why don't Democrats instead push to provide everyone with health care using the argument that ... everyone needs health care? ... Just a thought. ... 2:03 A.M.
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Monday, May 18, 2009
Clark** Hoyt's Sunday pooh-poohing of the "game changer" affair (the accusation that the NYT killed a story on illegal ties between Obama and ACORN because it might have affected the election) fails to satisfy in several respects: 1) The explanation for why the Times killed its reporters "pursuit of the Obama angle" is a bit squishy. According to Hoyt, the publication of an October, 2008 Times article on "impermissible political activity by Acorn," filled the paper's need. But that story, as Powerline points out, didn't tackle the highly-charged Obama connection; 2) Hoyt tells us what the times reporter, Stephanie Strom, says she didn't tell her source--"she does not believe she ever used the term 'game-changer.'" But he never gives Strom's account of what she did say.
Let's assume what's obvious: The story wasn't close to a game changer. Let's also agree that even if Strom did tell her source what the source says she said--namely that the paper didn't want to print "a game-changer for either side that close to the election"--it might not mean all that much. Reporters tell sources things all the time to gracefully explain why they're being dropped. The real reason might be something else--like that the reporter doesn't believe the source is sufficiently credible, in which case it's easier to give a fake reason.
But here's the thing: Are you really confident that the NYT wouldn't spike an anti-Obama story in the waning days of the election out of fear--conscious or semi-subconscious--that it might badly hurt him? I had a revealing argument with a politically sophisticated friend--call him "Max"-- when the "game changer" charge first surfaced. Max's argument: Suppose it were a scandal sufficiently big to sink Obama. Any red-blooded Times reporter would be proud to publish it and tack Obama's scalp to the wall. To have taken down a presidential nominee--that would be a professional achievement, maybe a Pulitzer. They'd be high-fiving in the newsroom.
I think my friend is right about the culture of the newsroom--about 45 years ago. As for today, I think he's living in a dreamworld. Even if the Times had published such a story, Times reporters would certainly not have high-fived the colleague who'd cost Obama the election. Not after two terms of Bush. And I have no faith the paper would even have published it (before allowing the reporter to slink out of the building). In part, that's because I have no faith that I'd publish it. The old adversarial ethic--I play my role and let the system take care of the moral consequences--rightly went mostly out the window with the ascension of the Sixties cohort.
In part it's because, if there's one major change Pinch Sulzberger has presided over at the Times, it's the end of the pretense that his reporters have to be ashamed of their strong political beliefs. And we know, in the case of the Times, what those beliefs mostly are. ...
Update: Strom's source seems to be twittering. ...
**--Name error fixed [Thx to reader K.R.] 5:34 P.M.
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Will Obama rescue John Edwards by replacing the U.S. Attorney who is investigating him? ... If he does, will Josh Marshall kick up a fuss about it? ... [Thanks to alert reader R.H. ... See also Insta] ... 5:33 P.M.
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Friday, April 3, 2009
Undernews Alert: Big-Story-If-True Division: 1) The NYT-ACORN "game changer" story [Now on O'Reilly-ed And even Hot Air isn't quite convinced. Update: More here.]. ... I note that the reasons reporters give to sources for killing a story sometimes play to the sources' preexisting beliefs about press bias, and those reasons are sometimes not the real reasons the story was dropped. (It's easier to say "my editors are such Democrats" than "I'm not sure I believe you"). But would I be shocked if the Times chose not to pursue a story that might have damaged Obama? No. The allegation resonates with the Raines/Torricelli spike incident. ... 2) Are there "side letters" proving "that AIG never intended to pay out on any of its [credit default swap] contracts"? ... 2:34 P.M.
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When will elite right-wing opposition to the war in Afghanistan emerge in public? It's out there. ... Watch for the 'Bush avoided escalating this war because he knew it was a quagmire' meme. ... 2:33 P.M.
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