Horses Mouth

TOM FRIEDMAN: WHO CARES IF I WAS WRONG ABOUT IRAQ? JUST GET MY ASSETS RIGHT.

A couple weeks ago, Radar magazine published a well-read piece pointing out that the pundits who were wrong about the Iraq war are not suffering professionally for their mistake but rather are getting richer even as Iraq sinks ever deeper into disaster. The piece observed that while New York Times columnist Tom Friedman was commanding only $40,000 per speech before backing the invasion, he's now "on top of the world."

Now Friedman has responded to Radar's piece. Friedman sent the following email to the mag:

Thanks for your piece on Radar[Online]. You got all your facts right, but one. We don't have a second home in Aspen, or anywhere else. I will need to get more things wrong to achieve that status. I think you might be referring to my in-laws' home, where we stay when we visit them. You seem to be interested in facts, so I figured you would want to know. All best, Tom Friedman

Friedman probably thought he was being funny in a cutting sort of way, but his flip and dismissive response to the important point raised by Radar -- that there's no accountability for pundits who get it wrong, even if it helps lead the country to disaster -- got me wondering about something.

Tom Friedman is among the most important interpreters of the Middle East for American audiences. They rely on him to explain and exercise sound judgment on a fraught and confusing part of the world whose affairs have more of an impact on us right now than any other region. That is a position of immense consequence. And the decision to back the invasion of Iraq was -- and will be -- the single most important decision of his career. He blew it, and right now he should feel like Bill Buckner felt after he let the ground ball dribble between his legs -- only infinitely worse, because by dint of his role as one of America's principle interpreters of the Middle East, he helped create a catastrophe that has destroyed thousands of families and will have untold consequences for many decades.

Yet has anyone seen a single sign anywhere that Friedman has ever suffered a moment's anguish or even self-doubt about this catastrophic failing? I haven't. If you've seen any, please send along. Look, there are no easy answers to the question of how -- or whether -- pundits like Friedman should be held accountable for getting it wrong, however disastrously. But how about a little self-imposed accountability? What about a hint of remorse? Friedman's email makes you wonder whether to him all this is anything more than a big fat joke. Who cares if I was wrong about the most important foreign policy decision this country's made in decades? Just get my assets right, please.

Posted by Greg Sargent at 12:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (2963)

BUSH CLAIMS THAT HIS SAYING "DEMOCRAT" MAJORITY WAS AN "OVERSIGHT" -- EVEN THOUGH HE'S DONE IT AGAIN AND AGAIN IN THE PAST.

This is kind of funny. Via Political Wire, President Bush claimed in an interview with National Public Radio's Juan Williams yesterday that his use of the term "Democrat majority" in the State of the Union speech was a mistake:

MR. WILLIAMS: By the way, in the speech, you spoke about the Democrats. You said, you congratulated the Democrat majority. And I notice your prepared text said Democratic majority. I surely think that you know that for the Democrats, they think when you say Democrat, it's like fingernails on the blackboard. They don't like it. They like you to say Democratic.

PRESIDENT BUSH: Yeah. Well, that was an oversight then. I mean, I'm not trying to needle. Look, I went into the hall saying we can work together and I was very sincere about it. I didn't even know I did it.

Really? If so, it's an "oversight" that Bush has committed an awful lot of times in the past:

President Bush, November 8, 2006:

Yesterday, the people went to the polls and they cast their vote for a new direction in the House of Representatives. And while the ballots are still being counted in the Senate, it is clear the Democrat Party had a good night last night, and I congratulate them on their victories. This morning I spoke with Republican and Democrat leadership in the House and Senate.

President Bush, November 5, 2006:

On these issues, the Democrat party has adopted a clear strategy of opposition and obstruction. Recently the House Democrat leader explained the advice she's been following since I was reelected in 2004. She said, you must take him down. That him would be me.

President Bush, October 30, 2006:

As a matter of fact, the top Democrat leader in the House made an interesting declaration. She said, we love tax cuts. But given her record, she must be a secret admirer. (Laughter and applause.)...Time and time again, when she and the Democrat Party had an opportunity to show their love for tax cuts, they voted no. If that's the Democrats' idea of love, I sure wouldn't want to see what hate looks like. (Laughter and applause.)

President Bush, October 20, 2006:

There is a difference of opinion between what we ought to be doing with your money, see. There are people in the Democrat Party who think they can spend your money far better than you can.

President Bush, October 19, 2006:

It's interesting, if you look at the history of tax cuts, the Democrat Party always -- didn't always feel the way they feel today. Back in the '60s, the Democrats understood that our economy grows when Americans keep more of what they earn, when Americans make their own decisions about how to save, spend, or invest.

President Bush, November 7, 2005:

And one area that we need to make progress on is with the Democrat Party. The Democrat Party is a free -- for many sessions was a free trade party.

It wasn't hard to find these past Bush quotes. All it entailed was going to the White House's Web site and plugging the phrase "Democrat party" into the search box. If you do that, you get this rundown. Nothing to it. Yet the Washington Post, which devoted a stand-alone story to this latest explanation by the President, apparently didn't take this elementary step and didn't share this crucial information with its readers. Instead, the paper described the phrase as a "long-standing Republican formulation."

But why not share this kind of info with readers? I just don't get it. What's the problem? It's easy and fun. Readers are grateful, too. And the White House wouldn't mind -- after all, the info is right there on its Web site.

Incidentally, anyone who wants to know why "Democrat" as an adjective is taken as a slur should read Hendrik Hertzerg's useful primer in The New Yorker.

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Posted by Greg Sargent at 12:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (2427)

KLEIN, MAN OF SUBSTANCE, DEFENDS BRODER'S SUBSTANCE-FREE ATTACK ON HILLARY.

Over at Swampland, Joe Klein responds to Atrios and Matthew Yglesias by defending David Broder's silly column attacking Hillary Clinton for not asking questions at the Senate hearing on General Petraeus. Klein writes:

I'm so pleased to have received the coveted wanker of the day award from Atrios, whose civility knows no bounds. But slightly disappointed in the Matt Yglesias post that Atrios links to, since Yglesias does have a reputation for substance over slime...

A Senate hearing is a place to ask questions, not make speeches. Since Senator Clinton has made herself one of the best-informed Democrats on military policy, especially counterinsurgency, I do believe her questions might have illuminated how difficult the belated use of these tactics will be. Finally, Matt avoids responding to the real point here--I'm really interested in the quality of questions Hillary, and all the other candidates, will ask as President. A Senate hearing is the perfect place to demonstrate she has perhaps the most essential skills a President can have--intellectual curiosity and the ability to ask the right questions.

Surely Klein has a far better grasp of what Yglesias actually wrote than he's letting on. The issue here is one of emphasis. At the hearing that Broder wrote about, lots and lots and lots of very important stuff was discussed. Different substantive points of view were offered about the single most important policy decision facing us right now. Clinton -- like many other Senators -- had lots of things to say about this very important decision.

Yet Broder -- who inhabits some of the most powerful opinion-making real estate on the planet right now -- devoted an entire column about this hearing to nothing but a minor question of theatrics. Even assuming that this criticism of Clinton's performance is valid, this failing on her part is dwarfed in importance, to put it mildly, by some of the other rather pressing and complex issues that were discussed.

What's more, Klein -- who likes to think of himself as a Man of Substance -- surely noticed that Broder didn't devote a single word of his column to analyzing what was actually being said about these issues by Hillary and others at the hearing. As I hope I showed below, it's pretty clear that Broder is far more in agreement with Hillary than he is with McCain. Surely Klein would have preferred to see Broder use all his expertise and industry to explain to his readers why he thinks Hillary is right or wrong on the substantive questions that were discussed. Instead, Broder used the occasion to get in a cheap hit and to push a facile comparison that was conjured up with the single goal of making McCain look good in comparison -- even though Broder, by all indications, disagrees with McCain on the key issue at hand.

Yes, a Senator's performance at a hearing such as this could conceivably contain a clue to what sort of President she would be, and perhaps deserves to be taken note of. But an entire column? And what about the dozens of other hearings Hillary has asked questions at? Come on, Broder's effort was just frivolous and petty nonsense -- it's not dissimilar to some of the other shallow obsessing over Hillary we're seeing even with nearly two years to go until Election Day 2008 -- and it's unsightly indeed to see a self-regarding Man of Substance like Klein defend it.

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Posted by Greg Sargent at 3:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (2629)

DAVID BRODER: MCCAIN GOOD, HILLARY BAD. WHO CARES ABOUT THEIR ACTUAL POSITIONS?

Oh, man -- you couldn't ask for a more perfect demonstration of the Beltway press' addiction to theatrics over substance than this.

In his latest column, the Washington Post's David Broder hammers Hillary Clinton for her performance at last week's Senate hearing on the nomination of General Petraeus. He faults Hillary for not asking any questions, while McCain asked a grand total of 14 of them, writing:

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York used her time to make a speech about Iraq policy and did not ask a single question of the man who will be leading the military campaign...

McCain asked Petraeus 14 questions, ranging from the political situation in Iraq to the morale of the troops to the timeline for the planned "surge." He ran out of time before he ran out of questions -- quite a contrast to Clinton....

This month Clinton began her presidential campaign, as she did her first race for the Senate in New York, by saying that she wanted to do a lot of listening. She sure wasn't listening to Gen. Petraeus. She wasn't even asking.

Broder goes on and on like this, slamming Clinton's performance as "posturing" and as (of course) "partisan." His point, obviously, was that Clinton was merely indulging in political grandstanding -- in contrast to McCain, who was so genuinely focused on policy issues that he asked more questions of Petraeus than he had time for. In other words, Hillary bad, McCain good.

But here's what's funny: There isn't a single word in Broder's column devoted to analyzing the actual content of the positions that Clinton and McCain articulated. Making this even more remarkable, it seems very clear from the available evidence -- that is, what Broder himself has written in the past -- that his own position on Iraq has much more in common with Clinton's views as expressed at the hearing than with McCain's. In other words, Broder basically agrees far more with Hillary.

Don't believe it? I went back and read another Broder column, this one from January 18, and compared it to Hillary's speech at the hearing (via Nexis). Broder agrees with Hillary that the rhetoric being directed by the White House and its allies at opponents of the "surge" is toxic. He agrees with Hillary that it's "fundamentally up to the government in Baghdad" to rein in the violence and come up with a political solution. He agrees with Hillary that the Bush administration's performance has been so bad that Congressional oversight is sorely needed. Yep, on Iraq Broder broadly agrees with Clinton on fundamentally key points.

Meanwhile, it's far from clear whether Broder agrees with McCain in any substantive way at all. As best as I can determine, Broder hasn't endorsed the "surge." And even if he has endorsed it in principle somewhere, he has labeled the current implementation of the increase, which McCain supports, as the "wrong approach."

Yet rather than offering his opinions of the actual substantive positions these two Senators expressed on the most important issue of our time, Broder instead devotes a whole column on the hearing to blasting Hillary -- and comparing her unfavorably with McCain, to boot -- based on nothing more than a few minutes of meaningless theatrics. Come on, now. Can't we do better than this?

Update: Matthew Yglesias adds more on another dimension to all this.

Posted by Greg Sargent at 12:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (2437)

POST OMBUD DEBORAH HOWELL ON JOHN SOLOMON'S EDWARDS PIECE: "MISLEADING"; "GOTCHA WITHOUT THE GOTCHA."

As promised, Washington Post ombud Deborah Howell has addressed Post reporter John Solomon's hit piece on John Edwards' home sale in her column. She's pretty tough on him:

Accurate stories can be misleading. Two recent Page 1 stories -- one on the Fairfax County libraries and the other on the sale of Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards's Georgetown house -- brought complaints that there was less there than met the reader's eye....

I kept waiting to read about the connection between the Klaassens and Edwards that would make this sale unseemly; it wasn't there. Edwards spokeswoman Jennifer Palmieri said Edwards "has never met or spoken with them; nor have they contributed to his campaign."

The story was interesting, but it was more of an item for the Reliable Source or In the Loop -- and not worth Page 1. It seemed like a "gotcha" without the gotcha.

This is a point I'd hoped Howell would make. Solomon and his editor have insisted again and again that the story didn't say Edwards had done anything wrong. But the real problem, which Solomon and his editor have refused to address, wasn't necessarily that the story said outright that Edwards had done anything wrong, but that it implied through innuendo and suggestion in various questionable ways that there was something untoward about his house deal, when there wasn't. There were other problems, too, but this was a key one.

Through its placement and tone, the story did imply that there was something "unseemly" about the deal. And as Howell suggests, this was "misleading," pure and simple. No amount of protestations that the story never said outright that Edwards did anything wrong will change that obvious fact. It was indeed "gotcha without the gotcha."

Howell says more about the piece, but for now I wanted to focus on this aspect of her analysis -- because it cuts right to the heart of the major flaw with Solomon that the Post is now saddled with. After all, this is hardly the first time Solomon has used innuendo, implication and suggestion to smear his frequently-Dem subjects. Nor was it the first time that even a cursory analysis of his "story" revealed that there was little to nothing there.

Will this chasten Solomon at all? Almost certainly not. He's got his M.O., and he's sticking to it. The key remaining question now is whether Post editors will be more careful and on their guard when looking over Solomon's efforts -- or whether they're simply incapable of acknowledging or even hearing criticism of their editing and news judgment, no matter how obviously justified that criticism is.

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Posted by Greg Sargent at 4:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (3315)

DEBORAH HOWELL SET TO WEIGH IN ON SOLOMON THIS WEEKEND. A friendly reminder: This weekend, Washington Post ombud Deborah Howell intends to address fellow Postie John Solomon's recent hit piece on John Edwards in her column. Let's hope that she's read this piece from Jamison Foser hitting on all the key points. Maybe someone should send it her way.

Posted by Greg Sargent at 11:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (3709)

TOM FRIEDMAN KEEPS DANCING THE "CONDITIONAL SHUFFLE" ON IRAQ.

It's time to coin a new phrase here at The Horse's Mouth: The "Conditional Shuffle." Or, if you prefer, we can call it the "if only dodge."

This takes place when a commentator or pundit continues to call for President Bush to do this or that in Iraq as a way to postpone acknowledging reality and the inevitable. Today, Tom Friedman dances the Conditional Shuffle all over the New York Times Op ed page.

Back in November, Friedman wrote: "We need to face our real choices in Iraq, which are: 10 months or 10 years. Either we just get out of Iraq in a phased withdrawal over 10 months, and try to stabilize it some other way, or we accept the fact that the only way it will not be a failed state is if we start over and rebuild it from the ground up, which would take 10 years. This would require reinvading Iraq, with at least 150,000 more troops...If we're not ready to do what is necessary to crush the dark forces in Iraq and properly rebuild it, then we need to leave -- because to just keep stumbling along as we have been makes no sense."

On January 10, of course, Bush announced that he was sending approximately one seventh the amount of troops that Friedman said we needed to avoid failing. Several days later -- even though he'd said very clearly that if we didn't send 150,000 troops, we should "leave" -- Friedman weighed in again, saying that he could support Bush's surge if the President did this or if the President did that.

In today's column, Friedman again says he can support the "surge" -- that is, if Bush does still other things:

Let the troop surge be accompanied and reinforced by what the Baker-Hamilton commission proposed: a regional conference that puts Syria, Iran, Jordan and Saudi Arabia around a table with Iraqis to try to stabilize the place. And that requires that America brandish carrots and sticks with all the parties. If a real regional conference doesn’t work, then Democrats who want to just set a date to withdraw will have an even stronger case because we will truly have tried everything. But let’s try everything: a surge of diplomacy, not just troops.

So before, it was basically, "if Bush doesn't send 150,000 troops, we should leave." Now it's basically, "if" we try a "regional conference" and it doesn't work, the case for withdrawal is "even stronger."

But Professor Friedman, at what point should we conclude that Bush isn't going to do any of the things you're demanding of him, no matter what the Democrats put "on his desk"? These continued calls for things that almost certainly are never going to happen -- if this, if that -- are becoming nothing more than a dodge. As in: If only Bush would do this or that, then we'd really find out whether we're doomed to fail, and hence doomed to leave.

This has become nothing more than a convenient way of postponing the arduous task of taking a real position on what we should do right now -- whether it's to withdraw immediately, set a timetable for phased withdrawal, or agree that we'll stay forever or until we achieve some sort of defined victory, whichever comes first. The key is that it's time to take a real position on this question independently of what Bush might or might not do in the future. No more of the Conditional Shuffle. No more of the "if only" dodge.

Again: How many more "if onlys" have to fail to materialize before Friedman brings himself to embrace the course that he himself said less than two months ago was our only other option?

To visit the homepage of this blog, where you can see many more posts just like this one, click here.

Update: Matthew Yglesias has more: "Once you don the Moustache of Understanding you'll realize that in order to be a Serious Person it's important that you never agree with liberals." And while you're over at his site, absolutely don't miss this great post.

Posted by Greg Sargent at 9:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (4943)

WHEN I'M WRONG, I'M WRONG. Earlier today I put up a post saying that John McCain was telling a falsehood when he said the following about the "surge" yesterday on CNN: "Overnight ratings, I understand, were slightly in favor of supporting the president's proposal." Because of McCain's use of the word "proposal," I assumed that he was referring to the speech Bush gave when he unveiled the "surge" on Jan. 10. But a rather aggressive commenter has made a persuasive case that it was instead a reference to the SOTU speech the other day, and one CBS poll does show what McCain claimed (though as plenty of other commenters pointed out, that poll has its flaws). I think it's very clear that the commenter is right, and that I was wrong. So I've taken the post down. Apologies for the sloppy error.

Posted by Greg Sargent at 4:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (3275)

WOLF BLITZER TO DICK CHENEY: "WE LIKE YOUR DAUGHTERS."

Here's a really wonderful moment from Wolf Blitzer's interview today with Dick Cheney. Wolf gingerly brings up the question of the baby that Cheney's lesbian daughter is expecting, and, well, watch:

Here's a transcript:

Q: We're out of time, but a couple of issues I want to raise with you. Your daughter Mary, she's pregnant. All of us are happy. She's going to have a baby. You're going to have another grandchild. Some of the -- some critics, though, are suggesting, for example, a statement from someone representing Focus on the Family:

"Mary Cheney's pregnancy raises the question of what's best for children. Just because it's possible to conceive a child outside of the relationship of a married mother and father, doesn't mean it's best for the child."

Do you want to respond to that?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: No, I don't.

Q: She's obviously a good daughter --

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I'm delighted -- I'm delighted I'm about to have a sixth grandchild, Wolf, and obviously think the world of both of my daughters and all of my grandchildren. And I think, frankly, you're out of line with that question.

Q: I think all of us appreciate --

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I think you're out of -- I think you're out of line with that question.

Q: -- your daughter. We like your daughters. Believe me, I'm very, very sympathetic to Liz and to Mary. I like them both. That was just a question that's come up and it's a responsible, fair question.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I just fundamentally disagree with your perspective.

Q: I want to congratulate you on having another grandchild. Let's wind up on a soft note.

No question, the guy's scary. But come on, Wolf! Backbone!

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Posted by Greg Sargent at 6:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (3919)

BREAKING: HILLARY DAYDREAMED FOR NEARLY AN HOUR!

Updated below.

Okay, we've got another winner of our Peter Pan Press Award, which our panel of judges awards periodically to outstanding examples of childish, vacuous, we'll-never-grow-up political coverage.

Check out this description of Hillary Clinton during the State of the Union address in a "color" piece by The Washington Post's Dana Milbank:

Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) barely lifted his head from the speech text in his lap and sometimes rested his finger thoughtfully on his temple. By contrast, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), seated immediately behind Obama, stared vacantly toward Bush for much of the speech, as if daydreaming. Both, however, applauded when the subject came to ethanol, a favorite in the Iowa caucuses. Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), seated near the front, crossed his leg and wiggled his toe impatiently.

It's kind of fun to ponder this one. Did Milbank watch Clinton's face for "much of the speech"? Probably not, because then he might not have seen Obama touch his finger to his temple or Kerry "wiggle his toe impatiently." The piece says at the end that two researchers helped with the reporting. Was one of them perhaps tasked with watching Clinton's face for the whole speech? And another tasked with watching Kerry's toes?

It's also amusing to note that by this description, it seems that Clinton was, for "much" of the speech, looking at the person who was delivering it. This isn't sufficiently mocking, however, so merely listening to Bush speak had to be transformed into "stared vacantly...as if daydreaming." Like, huh? This is yet another perfect example of the point made by Atrios and Somerby -- that literally no rules apply when it comes to writing about the Clintons. Is there anything at all that can persuade these people that this sort of stuff is not at all funny -- just profoundly, embarrassingly, even painfully silly?

Stop it at once, say I! Stop it at once!

Update: It gets better! A commenter notes below that on NPR this morning, Milbank offered this searching explanation for why Clinton might have been seated behind Obama during the speech:

In fact, Hillary Clinton was situated immediately behind Barack Obama, making it easier for her to actually place the knife into his back, if that’s was she was trying to do.

Was she daydreaming, or was she plotting to stab Obama in the back? I really can't keep track of all the inanities...

Posted by Greg Sargent at 3:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (3931)

OBAMA TAKES ON FOX NEWS. If this is a sign of how Barack Obama intends to deal with the right-wing media during his Presidential campaign, then I'm all for it.

Obama is aggressively going after Fox News today for pushing that smear-job report claiming that he went to an Islamic “madrassa” school as a child. The report has already been completely debunked by CNN, but Obama isn't letting up. The Senator's office has just emailed out a blistering memo targeting Fox that says the following:

In the past week, many of you have read a now thoroughly-debunked story by Insight Magazine, owned by the Washington Times, which cites unnamed sources close to a political campaign that claim Senator Obama was enrolled for “at least four years” in an Indonesian “Madrassa”. The article says the “sources” believe the Madrassa was “espousing Wahhabism,” a form of radical Islam.

Insight Magazine published these allegations without a single named source, and without doing any independent reporting to confirm or deny the allegations. Fox News quickly parroted the charges, and Fox and Friends host Steve Doocy went so far as to ask, “Why didn’t anybody ever mention that that man right there was raised — spent the first decade of his life, raised by his Muslim father — as a Muslim and was educated in a Madrassa?”

All of the claims about Senator Obama raised in the Insight Magazine piece were thoroughly debunked by CNN, which, instead of relying on unnamed sources, sent a reporter to Obama’s former school in Jakarta to check the facts.

If Doocy or the staff at Fox and Friends had taken [time] to check their facts, or simply made a call to his office, they would have learned that Senator Obama was not educated in a Madrassa, was not raised as a Muslim, and was not raised by his father – an atheist Obama met once in his life before he died.

Later in the day, Fox News host John Gibson again discussed the Insight Magazine story without any attempt to independently confirm the charges.

All of the claims about Senator Obama’s faith and education raised in the Insight Magazine story and repeated on Fox News are false. Senator Obama was raised in a secular household in Indonesia by his stepfather and mother. Obama’s stepfather worked for a U.S. oil company, and sent his stepson to two years of Catholic school, as well as two years of public school. As Obama described it, “Without the money to go to the international school that most expatriate children attended, I went to local Indonesian schools and ran the streets with the children of farmers, servants, tailors, and clerks.” [The Audacity of Hope, p. 274]

To be clear, Senator Obama has never been a Muslim, was not raised a Muslim, and is a committed Christian who attends the United Church of Christ in Chicago. Furthermore, the Indonesian school Obama attended in Jakarta is a public school that is not and never has been a Madrassa.

These malicious, irresponsible charges are precisely the kind of politics the American people have grown tired of, and that Senator Obama is trying to change by focusing on bringing people together to solve our common problems.

This is exactly the right thing to do: Take these guys on very aggressively, and above all, single out by name the people who are lying about you. Wrap their lies around their necks.

Let's hope we see lots more of this.

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Posted by Greg Sargent at 12:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (6175)

WASHINGTON POST OMBUDSMAN TO ADDRESS SOLOMON STORY IN NEXT COLUMN.

So it looks like John Solomon isn't out of trouble just yet. I've just confirmed that Washington Post ombud Deborah Howell plans to address Solomon's piece on John Edwards in her column this week.

What happened was this: TPM Reader TT emailed us to let us know that he'd emailed Howell as follows: "If you thought the strange placement of John Solomon's strange story on John Edwards merited comment in the Post's internal blog, why didn't you comment on it in your weekly column?" Good question -- and Howell replied to TT that she did in fact intend to address it this week. I emailed Howell and asked her whether she would be doing this, and Howell wrote back: "Yes."

Howell, of course, is one of the piece's in-house critics. She privately questioned the piece in that internal Post blog item. She hasn't gone public with her criticisms yet, though her item did of course subsequently get leaked a few days ago:

More than a dozen readers, both inside the newsroom and outside, were troubled by the John Edwards story on Page today. So was I. Most complainers thought that the story either wasn't worth a story or wasn't worth fronting or both. It was interesting enough to make an item in In the Loop, but not Page 1. I kept looking for the graf that would tell me that the buyers had some history with Edwards, that they were big campaign contributors, that there was some quid pro quo. Nada.

So now Howell will be making a more expansive public case -- against the piece, one presumes, but one never knows for sure -- in her column. Should be interesting.

Solomon defended himself against an onslaught of questions today in a chat with readers. It'll also be interesting to see what -- if anything -- he says if and when Howell weighs in on the piece. Anyone care to predict what she'll say?

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Posted by Greg Sargent at 3:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (4131)

JOHN SOLOMON: WHAT'S A LITTLE INNUENDO BETWEEN FRIENDS?

Washington Post reporter John Solomon has just finished up his chat with readers. Looking through his responses to questions about his hit-piece on John Edwards, the only conclusion you can reach is that he's basically saying that there's nothing wrong with publishing innuendo on the front page of the Post.

I really don't think there's any other conclusion to be reached about what he said. Solomon, after all, appeared to say repeatedly that Edwards hadn't really done anything wrong. Here are the key parts:

A frontpage story doesn't have to always find wrongdoing or lead to prosecutions. It can simply illuminate how a candidate chose to address a basic requirement of his campaign -- achieving transparency on his or her financial dealings...Once again, Sen. Edwards doesn't have to break a law or even do something wrong to ask and answer these very basic questions.

So Edwards didn't do anything wrong. But the story is justified because Edwards didn't answer "basic questions" about the transaction, Solomon says. Yet at another point, Solomon basically concedes that he didn't actually have to answer these questions yet:

Sen. Edwards hasn't filed his financial disclosure form yet. He still has some time to do that. That's where he'll fulfill his legal obligation.

So now the story is justified by the fact that Edwards didn't disclose the sellers' identity earlier than he was obliged to. In other words, his behavior wasn't quite as perfect as it might have been. That's just beyond thin.

But put that absurdity aside for a moment. Here's the key point, one that Solomon and his editor are refusing to respond to, and indeed aren't even bothering to deny: Even if the story didn't directly allege wrongdoing -- in keeping with Solomon's concession now that Edwards didn't do anything wrong -- the story very clearly implied that there was something untoward about the deal. It trafficked in innuendo and suggestion in various questionable ways. If you go back and read the story, there's simply no escaping this fact. One of Solomon's in-house critics -- ombud Deborah Howell -- has suggested this, and she's right.

Yet Solomon defends the story and its placement. As he puts it, "I have no regrets at all about the story or its play in the Post." While conceding it didn't allege wrongdoing, he's nonetheless unrepentant about the fact that it implied untoward behavior. In other words, there's nothing wrong with putting innuendo on the front page of the Post.

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Posted by Greg Sargent at 12:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (4405)

QUESTIONS FOR JOHN SOLOMON DURING TODAY'S CHAT WITH READERS.

Today at 11 A.M., Washington Post reporter John Solomon is taking questions from readers.

Here at TPM, as you know, we really enjoy having our way with old Solomon, mainly because of his history of hunting for Dems when the scent of wrongdoing is at best slight or at worst non-existent.

As you also know, the other day Solomon wrote a long front-page piece that seemed to suggest that there was something untoward about John Edwards' house sale last month, though it wasn't clear from the piece exactly what it was. There are plenty of outstanding questions about the article.

We thought a readers' chat might be a good place for readers to pose these questions to Solomon directly. So here are a few thoughts for queries that might be directed his way:

1) Many readers have complained that it isn't clear from your piece on Edwards whether he and his wife did anything untoward in selling their house. So can you clarify things by telling us in one sentence exactly what it is, if anything, that Edwards and his wife did wrong?

2) Given that not one, but two staffers at your paper -- reporter Jonathan Weisman and ombud Deborah Howell -- have criticized the piece, what is your reaction to the substance of their criticism? Do you think these in-house critics have a point, or do you think your colleagues are simply wrong about your effort?

3) In your piece on Edwards, you cited two unions who are at legal loggerheads with the buyer of Edwards' home. Your piece suggested that there was something untoward about Edwards' sale to someone battling these unions because he's courting their support for his Presidential bid. Yet an official for one of those unions didn't pass any judgment on Edwards' action. And you apparently didn't even contact the other union for comment. Isn't that an unforgivable omission for an investigative journalist at a top news org?

4) It's now known that officials at the union you didn't contact didn't see anything wrong with what Edwards did. Why haven't you done a follow-up story emphasizing this fact? And does this new info cause you to rethink the validity or news value of your piece in any way?

Anyway, those are a few suggestions for questions. Have at it, if you feel so inclined. The chat is here.

To reach the homepage of this blog, click here.

Update: More good stuff from AmericaBlog.

Update II: Here's my wrap-up on Solomon's responses to readers.

Posted by Greg Sargent at 9:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (2581)

FINALLY -- A GLIMPSE OF WHAT THE WORD "CENTRIST" REALLY MEANS.

The other day I ranted at length about the fact that the New York Times on Saturday had described a forthcoming proposal on Iraq being drawn up by GOP Senator John Warner as "centrist."

Well, now the resolution is done. It's being introduced by Warner, as well as Senators Susan Collins and Ben Nelson, as an alternative to the earlier Biden-Hagel resolution introduced last week. And the available details about the new resolution show even more amusingly just how vacuous these reflexive paeans to the political middle have become. Here's how CNN is describing the new proposal:

The resolution -- also sponsored by Armed Services Committee members Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Ben Nelson, D-Nebraska -- tones down some of the language used in a resolution introduced earlier by Sens. Carl Levin, D-Michigan, Joe Biden, D-Delaware, and Chuck Hagel, R-Nebraska, sources involved with crafting the resolution tell CNN....

A source familiar with a draft as of Friday said the word "escalation" in the first resolution -- a term coined by Democrats to describe the troop increase which Republicans consider too partisan -- has been replaced in the second resolution by "augmentation." The resolution will also express Warner's concern over sending troops into entrenched sectarian violence.

"The other resolution was a real thumb in the eye to the president, our goal is to make the same point but get 60-65 votes, not 51 or 52," said the source.

Breaking: Centrists agree that use of the word "escalation" is too mean to the President!

In essence, the new resolution avoids some of the nasty language in the Biden-Hagel one and is a bit nicer to Bush in an effort to get a larger group of Senators to sign on to it. In other words, its main features are being created simply with the goal of creating something more Senators are willing to sign, enabling them to distance themselves from escalation -- the actual impact of their resolution be damned. And though on-air commentators are already starting to make somber noises about this resolution's centrist and bipartisan nature, as well as its reach for compromise, let's be clear: This only represents the "center" of opinion in the Senate -- if that. It has nothing to do with what the American people want.

Keep this in mind: Majorities are telling pollsters that they want concrete Congressional action to block escalation. Yet a resolution that's supposed to represent some sort of middle ground, and create the possibility of compromise in the Senate, is not just non-binding, but actually holds that the mere use of the word "escalation" is too hot to handle. That's nothing short of amazing, when you step back and look at it. Indeed, Senator Warner was just on CNN, stating very clearly that the purpose of the new resolution is not to reduce the number of troops in Iraq or set a timetable for withdrawal -- two things that majorities of the American public have repeatedly told pollsters they want.

Look, the more "bipartisan" resolutions against escalation, the better. And, sure, it's good news that some GOPers are breaking ranks and taking on the White House. The point simply is that this kind of thing reveals very starkly the extent to which the political middle as a construct of D.C. elites has come completely unmoored from actual public opinion.

Posted by Greg Sargent at 4:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (3353)

NOTE TO FRED HIATT: PLEASE DON'T CHERRY-PICK FROM YOUR OWN PAPER'S POLL TO PORTRAY DEMS AS UNELECTABLE.

Bizarre. Here's what today's Washington Post had to say in a partly positive editorial about Hillary Clinton's entry into the Presidential race:

A second and somewhat contradictory issue for primary voters is the matter of Ms. Clinton's "electability": Is she such a polarizing figure, with such high negatives (44 percent in the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll, compared with 29 percent for Mr. Obama) that she would be at a disadvantage in the fall campaign? The question about Hillary Clinton may be not so much whether a woman can win the presidency but whether this woman can.

So Clinton may not be "electable" because the Post's poll shows that her "negatives" are at 44%, the editorial says. But wait -- does Post editorial page editor Fred Hiatt simply assume readers won't go and see what the poll says for themselves? Or, alternatively, does Hiatt not read them in full himself?

Let's take a look at another number in that same Post poll that also has a fair amount of relevance to the topic at hand. From the poll's full results:

23. On another subject: do you have a favorable or unfavorable impression of (NAME)?

Hillary Clinton: Favorable 54%, Unfavorable 44%
John McCain: Favorable 49%, Unfavorable 35%
Barack Obama: Favorable 45%, Unfavorable 29%

Yep, the poll also found that a sizeable majority -- 54% -- have a favorable view of Clinton. But the editorial didn't mention that niggling bit of information.

Now why would Hiatt's editorial page omit the fact that a majority views Clinton favorably from a discussion of her electability? Why would it go and cherry-pick the "unfavorable" number without sharing the favorable one? Why?

Anybody have any good guesses?

Update: To visit the homepage of this blog, click here.

Posted by Greg Sargent at 11:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (1620)

NEW YORK TIMES LABELS IRAQ PLAN "CENTRIST" -- EVEN THOUGH NO DETAILS ARE AVAILABLE ABOUT IT YET!

Updated below.

Okay, here's something you have to see. This is one of the most mindless and reflexive uses of the word "centrist" I've seen by a big news org in a very long time. Check out this headline from today's New York Times:

The headline is: "Senators to Offer Centrist Proposal on Iraq." Yet here's the funny thing: There's no way the reporters or editors who worked on this piece could know whether this plan is "centrist" or not -- because they don't yet know any details about the proposal! As the piece itself says, "aides to the three senators declined to elaborate on the proposal." So how did the paper know that this proposal will be centrist? Because two of the Senators working on it -- Republican Susan Collins and Democrat Ben Nelson -- are allegedly "centrists."

Making this whole framing all the more absurd, here's what the Times has to say about this new proposal and the political context in which it's being created:

Senator John W. Warner of Virginia is drafting a proposal on Iraq policy with two Senate centrists in an effort to provide an outlet for lawmakers uneasy with President Bush’s troop buildup but unwilling to back a toughly worded resolution opposing the new strategy.

The flurry of Iraq resolutions, coming from the political left, right and middle, raised the prospect of muddling the outcome of what Democratic leaders had hoped to keep a simple yes-or-no vote on Mr. Bush’s plan.

This is just writing on autopilot. The clear implication here is that the "toughly worded" resolution -- that is, the bipartisan Reid-Levin initiative, which condemns escalation as counter to our national interest -- represents a resolution of the "left" (presumably along with the anti-escalation initiative recently introduced by Ted Kennedy). Meanwhile, the position of the "middle" belongs to those who are "unwilling to back a toughly worded resolution" against escalation, the Times has decided.

Yet polls show not just that very large majorities oppose escalation, but more to the point, that more of those opposed to escalation are against it "strongly" than aren't. Here, for instance, is one poll finding that of the 68% against escalation, nearly three-fourths oppose it strongly. Here's another poll finding that virtually all of the 60% against escalation are "strongly" opposed to it.

Yet the "toughly worded" resolution is the position of the "left," and anything just to the "right" of that automatically gets designated as "centrist." This perfectly illustrates just how devoid of meaning and divorced from public opinion the use of the word "centrist" has become. Indeed, it perfectly captures the extent to which the tidy left-center-right spectrum has devolved into little more than a figment of the big news orgs' collective imagination.

**************************************

Update: A few commenters below have argued that the headline meant that these Senators intended to introduce a "centrist" resolution. Even if that were the case -- and I'm not at all sure that it is -- it wouldn't make the paper's use of the word any less absurd or mindless. First off, we have no idea what they intended, because they didn't divulge any real details about the proposal. More to the point, even if they had said that they intended to offer a "centrist" proposal, so what? It nonetheless isn't going to actually be "centrist" in any meaningful sense, at least as it relates to public opinion. And that's the real point here: The big news orgs shouldn't be playing the game of letting so-called Washington "centrists" define what that word means.

The larger problem here -- and this larger problem is why it might be worth obsessing a bit over headlines like this one -- is that use of the word by self-described centrists and by the big news orgs no longer has any connection to what the public thinks. It has come to mean little more than, "legitimate because it reflects the center of Washington elite opinion." If the headline was meant as these commenters think it was, it would reflect this problem more strongly, not less.

Posted by Greg Sargent at 2:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (2684)

MORE EVIDENCE THAT JOHN SOLOMON'S STORY ON JOHN EDWARDS' HOUSE SALE IS QUESTIONABLE.

Over at TPM Josh has flagged a questionable Washington Post story by John Solomon that tries to suggest that there was something untoward about John Edwards' sale of his Georgetown home last month.

Now I've got some more evidence showing that the story may be more questionable than it first appeared. It turns out that one key player in the story doesn't have any problem with what Edwards did, and what's more, it appears that Solomon may not have even contacted this key player at all before publishing.

One of the key points Solomon makes in his story is that the sale should raise eyebrows because the people who bought Edwards' home are at legal loggerheads with two unions whose support Edwards is trying to secure for his Presidential bid. The buyers, the story reports, are Paul and Terry Klaassen, the "wealthy founders of the nation's largest assisted-living housing chain for seniors."

Of these buyers, Solomon writes:

They are also the focus of legal complaints by some of the same labor unions whose support Edwards has been assiduously courting for his presidential bid.

The story points to two unions who are fighting with the couple over money their pension funds lost investing in the couple's company: the Service Employees International Union, and the United Food and Commercial Workers Union.

So do these unions have a problem with Edwards' sale? An official at the first union -- SEIU -- is quoted by Solomon way at the end of the story saying he couldn't comment on Edwards' action. According to the story, this union official said "he was unaware of the Edwards home deal and would reserve judgment on it." No official from the second union, the UFCW, is quoted.

Well, I've just gotten in touch with an official from that second union, and guess what: The official told me that UFCW doesn't see anything whatsoever wrong with what Edwards did. What's more, the official said that Solomon didn't even contact the union at all for comment on the story.

The official is Jill Cashen, a spokesperson for the UFCW. "John Solomon from the Washington Post did not contact us about his story about the sale of Edwards' home in Georgetown," Cashen told me. Nor was the person who oversees the union's pension funds -- which are at the center of the battle between the union and the couple -- ever contacted by Solomon, Cashen added.

What does the union -- which endorsed Kerry-Edwards in 2004 but didn't back Edwards in the primary -- think of what Edwards did? "Our position is that if someone has their house on the market, and they sell it to someone who wants to buy it, we don't believe that's really a relevant story," Cashen said. "He has every right to sell his house on the free market to whomever can afford it."

When I asked her if Edwards should really be doing business with a company at loggerheads with the union whose support he wants, Cashen said: "He sold his home to them. It isn't like he's creating an ongoing business relationship with them."

I think this is pretty surprising. In his story Solomon is using the fact that these unions are at odds with the buyer of Edwards' home in order to suggest that there was something untoward about what Edwards did. Yet he didn't even contact one of the unions to see if they had a problem with the sale. That's striking.

What's more, we now know officially that the union doesn't have a problem with it at all. So will Solomon do a follow-up story on this fact tomorrow?

This latest Solomon effort is even more striking when you consider Solomon's questionable history of going after Dems -- which is detailed at length here at TPMmuckraker -- not to mention the fact that now one of his Post colleagues has revealed that he thinks today's Edwards story is thin at best.

I've just emailed Solomon for comment. No word back yet.

To reach the homepage of this blog, click here.

Posted by Greg Sargent at 1:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (2709)

MEMO TO MEDIA: THE PARTY THAT'S IN DISARRAY OVER IRAQ IS THE GOP.

I wanted to make one more point about this whole question of whether Democratic disunity is hampering the party's ability to block President Bush's war policies.

For days now the media has been obsessively insinuating that those squabbling Dems are just too consumed with upstaging each other to be able to help solve the Iraq problem. For instance, as noted below, the Washington Post's Dana Milbank devoted two columns in a row to lampooning this alleged disunity, to the point where he even misrepresented quotes and withheld key info in order to tell the story this way. And Milbank wasn't at all the only reporter frolicking around in this fashion. MSNBC, the Times Caucus blog and others also went mad trying to prove -- the facts be damned -- that Hillary Clinton canceled her Iraq press conference because she was concerned about being upstaged by Barack Obama's entry into the Presidential race.

Yet while all those stories were being told, here's what was happening on the GOP side of the aisle, according to Roll Call:

GOP Struggles for War Unity

Even as a bipartisan group of Senators unveiled a nonbinding resolution Wednesday opposing President Bush’s plan to boost troop levels in Iraq by 21,500 soldiers, Republican leaders were fighting a losing battle to maintain a unified front in support of the White House and were hunkering down for what could be a months-long political storm over the Iraq War.

The tensions among Congressional Republicans spilled into the public Wednesday during a press conference by Sens. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and Joseph Biden (D-Del.) to unveil the bipartisan “surge” resolution. Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) endorsed the resolution later in the day.

But as the lawmakers were detailing the proposal, the office of Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) sent out a blistering press release accusing the sponsors of playing politics with the Iraq issue and questioning the seriousness of proposing a nonbinding resolution.

Hagel, a Vietnam veteran, bristled at the charges. “To somehow come to the conclusion that it’s a ‘lack of seriousness,’ I’m a little befuddled by the Senator from Texas,” Hagel said, adding that those who “question the motivation of someone who challenges the president ... need a little more schooling on this business.”...

Despite lobbying from President Bush, Cheney and other top administration officials, GOP leadership aides said their party is too fractured on Iraq for a unified position...“At some point twisting arms has the opposite effect. You don’t want to go around pissing off the [Ohio Republican Sen. George] Voinoviches of the world,” the aide said.

In other words, the GOP is in complete disarray over Iraq, in such a way that's creating lots of very good political theater. And this disarray is the direct result of the fact that Republicans are furiously positioning themselves because of reelection pressures and other political reasons. So when will we see oh-so-knowing "sketches" in The Washington Post of these silly, squabbling, politically-posturing Republicans? When will we hear speculation and joke-cracking about them from cable's talking heads? When will we get barbed insinuations about them from Times "bloggers"? When? When? When?

Chumps.

Posted by Greg Sargent at 9:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (2641)

DANA MILBANK OMITS KEY FACT, MISCHARACTERIZES QUOTES TO MAKE CASE THAT MULTIPLYING DEM BILLS AGAINST ESCALATION ARE...GOOD FOR BUSH.

Okay, so we have a new feature for you here at The Horse's Mouth: The Peter Pan Press Award for the most outstanding examples of childish, silly, we'll-never-grow-up political coverage. And today's winner is...The Washington Post's Dana Milbank!

Milbank wins for his column today, because it omits a key fact and mischaracterizes quotes in order to make the startling case that the proliferation of Democratic bills against escalation is...good for President Bush. As noted here below, Milbank's effort yesterday was pretty eye-opening, but today's is even more unsightly.

Milbank states his thesis as follows:

If anything, the competing proposals could strengthen Bush's hand. Though largely united in opposition to Bush's plan, members of Congress, carved up by the presidential ambitions of Clinton, Obama, Dodd, Biden and others, can't unite around an alternative.

Let's check out some of what Milbank does in order to make the case that Dems "can't unite around an alternative." First he tosses off a bunch of meaningless snark -- Joe Biden accidentally referred to Senator Levin as Senator Lugar! What a fool! Then, in reporting on Hillary Clinton's comments about the Biden-Hagel-Levin-Snowe resolution -- which declares that escalation is against our national interest -- Milbank completely misrepresents her remarks and even omits a key fact that would have gotten in the way of his effort to portray Democratic disunity. Milbank writes:

Biden's group vacated the room at 3:01 p.m. because the Clinton entourage had booked the studio. The New York senator wasted little time dismissing the Biden plan.

"I certainly will support that," she said. "But from what I've heard out of the administration thus far, I think we will eventually have to move to tougher requirements on the administration to get their attention."

But wait -- how on earth is that "dismissing" the Biden plan? Clinton said she will currently support this resolution, and added that it may "eventually" be necessary to move on to other measures. No "dismissing" at all. What's more, Milbank omits a rather critical detail: Clinton has already agreed to co-sponsor the Biden measure. From Clinton's release on the Biden bill yesterday:

I will co-sponsor the Biden-Hagel-Levin-Snowe resolution and look forward to supporting this legislation when it reaches the Senate floor.

So Clinton is "co-sponsoring" the legislation and "looks forward to supporting" it. Yet Milbank wants you to believe that Clinton was "dismissing" the legislation -- more proof that Presidential ambitions are keeping those squabbling, ambitious Dems from backing each other's measures.

Look, are Dems in perfectly unanimous agreement on what to do about Iraq? No -- nor should one expect them to be. And will Presidential ambitions lead to some dueling for attention among Dems? Of course -- and they should. This is known as debate. Have these debates produced divisions that are getting so bad that they're hobbling Dem efforts to take on Bush? There's absolutely no evidence yet that such divisions -- rather than the institutional difficulties Congress faces in confronting the President on such matters -- are the thing that's preventing Dems from blocking Bush's war policies.

If anything, the obvious conclusion from these events for now is that such dueling -- rather than helping Bush -- is leading Dems to be more aggressive as a body in opposition to Bush's war policies than they might otherwise have been. This zeal to prove otherwise -- to the point where a reporter is willing to mischaracterize quotes and omit key info -- is just deeply inane and childish. Stop it.

To visit the homepage of this blog, click here.

Posted by Greg Sargent at 10:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (2961)

MCCAIN'S ASSAULT ON MOVEON.ORG FALLS APART RAPIDLY UNDER SCRUTINY.

Paging Wolf Blitzer: Please read this the next time you feel inclined to say that John McCain "likes straight talk."

Today MoveOn launched a TV ad slamming John McCain for his escalation plan for Iraq. As Atrios noted earlier today, the McCain campaign responded to the ad with a counter-attack on the organization.

But it turns out McCain's response (surprise!) is at best unproven and at worst completely false. It certainly doesn't constitute "straight talk." Here's what McCain said:

Danny Diaz, a McCain spokesperson, responded to MoveOn's ad by telling ABC News: "MoveOn.Org is an out-of-the-mainstream organization that has a long history of airing inflammatory material, even comparing the President to Hitler. It is not surprising that a liberal group opposed to military action after September 11th would attack Senator McCain's conservative values, as well as changing strategy and securing victory in Iraq."

Did MoveOn compare the President to Hitler, and did the group oppose military action after Sept. 11, as the McCain campaign is charging?

I emailed McCain's spokesman Diaz and asked for substantiation of these two charges. For the first one -- that MoveOn compared Bush to Hitler -- Diaz sent over a quote from a January 6, 2004 article in the Washington Post. It said that "videos" appeared on MoveOn's web site comparing Bush to Hitler as part of a contest for an anti-Bush TV ad. Here's what Diaz didn't quote but also appeared in the same article (via Nexis):

The Hitler spots were among more than 1,500 submissions; MoveOn members have selected 15 finalists. The Hitler ads "lost miserably," said Eli Pariser, the fund's campaign director. Pariser said: "Anyone in the public could submit an ad."...Voter Fund President Wes Boyd said the group's officials "deeply regret" that the ads "slipped through our screening process."

So, no reasonable person could continue to pretend that the organization itself made the Bush-Hitler comparison. One down.

What about the second charge -- that MoveOn opposed military action after Sept. 11?

To back that one up, Diaz pointed to a September 21, 2001 article in the Philadelphia Inquirer. It said MoveOn founder Joan Blades claimed her group had collected 30,000 signatures since the attacks on a statement calling for "justice, not escalating violence that would only play into the terrorists' hands."

This is ambiguous at best, barring a look at the full statement. I called MoveOn and they claimed adamantly that the group hadn't opposed military action. They sent over this statement, which they said was their most forceful petition on what the U.S. should do in responding to the attacks. Here's the key part:

We, the undersigned, citizens and residents of the United States of America and of countries around the world, appeal to the President of The United States, George W. Bush; to the NATO Secretary General, Lord Robertson; to the President of the European Union, Romano Prodi; and to all leaders internationally to use moderation and restraint in responding to the recent terrorist attacks against the United States. We implore the powers that be to use, wherever possible, international judicial institutions and international human rights law to bring to justice those responsible for the attacks, rather than the instruments of war, violence or destruction.

This is not outright opposition to military action. Rather, it's a request that the U.S. and other powers avoid war "wherever possible" in pursuit of the goal of "bringing to justice those responsible for the attacks," a goal that the group clearly endorses here. What's more, MoveOn founders Eli Pariser and Joan Blades strongly denied ever opposing military action as early as December of 2004. At the time they wrote in The New Republic that "we never in fact opposed targeted military action against Al Qaeda and its Taliban backers in Afghanistan." Barring better evidence, this second McCain charge could be true, but remains unproven.

So: The first McCain charge is completely, demonstrably false. The second: Unclear, but without question as yet unproven.

One thing is clear: This statement from the McCain camp is anything but straight talk. So McCain wouldn't like it or sanction it.

Right, Wolf?

Posted by Greg Sargent at 6:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (2615)

MEDIA ALREADY SIGNALING THAT COVERAGE OF 2008 RACE WILL BE VACUOUS AND CHILDISH.

Updated below: The Note slams Milbank as "childish."

If you were hoping that the press coverage of the 2008 Presidential race wasn't going to be marred by the vacuousness and childishness that saturated the coverage of the 2004 and 2000 contests, guess what: It is.

The signs are already everywhere. Check out, for instance, the coverage of Senator Barack Obama's entry into the race yesterday. It was shot through with efforts to portray Hillary Clinton as "threatened" by Obama -- which would be fine but for the fact that these efforts were deeply, almost comically foolish. Here's the New York Times's Anne Kornblut, yukking it up on the paper's Caucus blog as she struggled to make this case:

So what does Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton think of Senator Barack Obama’s exploratory entry into the 2008 race? Or, for that matter, her very recent trip to Iraq?

As of Tuesday evening, she wasn’t saying. Brushing past reporters in the Senate, Mrs. Clinton — conspicuously talking into her cell phone; whether there was anyone on the other end of the line, or not, could not be confirmed — went into the chamber to vote, then posed for an all-ladies photograph with Diane Sawyer and female senators.

Breaking: Hillary faked cell phone call! Look, this is probably meant as a gag -- part of the paper's efforts to let its hair down and be freewheeling and "blog-like" -- but it's deeply fatuous all the same, and it's not even an isolated incident. Indeed, the press corps and cable TV went mad yesterday trying to prove that Clinton had canceled her post-Iraq-trip press conference yesterday because she was worried about being eclipsed by Obama's announcement.

The Clinton people tried to explain that the schedule change took place because a fellow member of Congress set to attend had fallen sick. But that didn't stop the Washington Post's Dana Milbank from devoting virtually an entire column to this question, skewering Clinton spokesperson Philippe Reines' explanation that the sick Congressman had stayed behind in Iraq to recover as follows:

"We knew that yesterday, but didn't have a new time for tomorrow because the members were in the air, and because the Radio & TV Gallery was closed yesterday," Reines continued in his email. "We were only able to lock it in this morning."

And we lost the phone number. And the dog ate my homework. And I think I hear my mom calling.

It was awfully early in a presidential campaign to be getting so defensive -- but such is the tone of the accelerated 2008 race.

Yep, gotta love it. The press manufactures a non-story, and then when the Clinton people offer up information about it, they are being defensive. Neat trick. And "such is the tone" of the race -- that is, the tone that Milbank and his frolicking friends are already trying to set. Look, I like a little fun in my political coverage as much as the next guy -- and sure, the Clinton and Obama camps will be dueling for attention -- but can't we inject a little wit into our coverage without being so damn babyish and frivolous about it? Am I wrong here? What do you all think?

Ah, our Peter Pan Press, at it again. And only two years to go until Election Day.

Update: Media Matters has a great rundown on more of this madness here.

Update II: Looks like ABC News' The Note agrees with our description of Dana Milbank's piece today as "childish." The Note's link to the piece was accompanied by the following blurb:

Most absurd over-the-top analysis of Clinton versus Obama: Dana Milbank's childish Washington Sketch in the Washington Post.

Posted by Greg Sargent at 9:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (6280)

PUNDIT HEAD IN THE SAND DEPARTMENT -- RICHARD COHEN EDITION.

If something happens and a pundit decides not to see it because it doesn't affirm his chosen world view of the moment, did it happen at all?

As noted below, the Washington Post's Richard Cohen writes today that things might have been different in Iraq if we'd noticed that some of the locals weren't too thrilled when an American flag was draped on the toppled Saddam statue in 2003. If we had noticed this, Cohen says, we might have had an inkling of the disaster that awaited us:

Similarly, we did not notice that in all the hoopla just before Hussein's statue in Baghdad's Firdaus Square came down in 2003, the crowd went silent after an American flag was draped over it. The crowd came to life only when the Iraqi flag replaced it. Had we noticed that, we might have learned something about Iraqi nationalism and the fleeting gratitude awarded to liberators. One minute you're a liberator, the next an occupier.

Maybe "we" -- that is, Cohen and his pundit colleagues -- didn't notice the hostility to this gesture because they didn't want to notice it. Reporters told us about it, after all -- here's what the Associated Press reported on April 9, 2003 (via Nexis):

Many said they were disturbed by "provocative" images of U.S. troops lounging in Saddam's palaces or draping the U.S. flag around the head of Saddam statue.

"Liberation is nobler than that," said Walid Abdul-Rahman, one of the three Saudis. "They should not be so provocative."

That same day, ABC News reported:

There was also, briefly, an American flag atop the statue, which was quickly replaced by . . .a flag, pre-Gulf, first Gulf War Iraqi flag. And when that flag went up in comparison to when the American flag went up, there were a lot of cheers around the square, and clapping and cheering from Iraqi citizens.

From another AP story the same day:

On Wednesday, there were signs of mixed emotion toward U.S. forces. Marines briefly covered Saddam's face with an American flag, and were greeted with silence. They quickly replaced it with the Iraqi flag, to cheers from the crowd.

But now Cohen is basically conceding that "we" -- again, he and his pundit colleagues -- didn't allow themselves to notice the ominous significance of such things amid the "hoopla" of the American victory. Why not?

Look, I understand that Cohen's using this example to make a larger conciliatory point, but still, could you ask for a more perfect expression of the willful self-delusion and refusal to see the obvious that's gripped so many pundits throughout this whole catastrophe?

After all, there was no shortage of other signs that this whole adventure was both unnecessary and headed for disaster. These signs were right in front of "our" faces -- but "we" decided not to notice them. So "we" didn't.

Posted by Greg Sargent at 4:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (8503)

RICHARD COHEN: PLEASE, MR. MCCAIN, DON'T BE MAD AT ME...

This is pretty impressive, really. The Washington Post's Richard Cohen has managed to accomplish, all in a single column, the following:

(a) He rewrites the history of the Iraq war in such a way that those who argued against it have been expunged from the record; even as he

(b) Echoes the same views as those now-expunged critics by saying that we shouldn't be in Iraq...

(c) He reveals that he thinks John McCain is completely wrong about what to do about Iraq; even as he

(d) Also demonstrates that despite disagreeing with McCain on the most important global issue of the moment, he's nonetheless absolutely terrified of criticizing him.

First let's check out Cohen's erasing of early war critics from the record. Note the constant use of the word "we":

This war has lasted longer than we expected not just because we were inept or understaffed or fired the Baathists or discharged the army -- but because we don't understand the country...Even late in the game, we didn't see it coming.

Similarly, we did not notice that in all the hoopla just before Hussein's statue in Baghdad's Firdaus Square came down in 2003, the crowd went silent after an American flag was draped over it. The crowd came to life only when the Iraqi flag replaced it. Had we noticed that, we might have learned something about Iraqi nationalism and the fleeting gratitude awarded to liberators. One minute you're a liberator, the next an occupier....

Now, of course, everyone looks like an idiot.

We? Who's we? Presumably it can't include all the people who warned at the outset of the very things that Cohen is holding up now as proof that "we" never understood what "we" were getting into. As for the claim that "everyone" now looks like an idiot, I guess we are now supposed to pretend that those who spelled out reasons for opposing the conflict at the outset simply never existed. That's convenient, isn't it?

Now check out what Cohen has to say about McCain:

I would like him -- because I do like him -- to consider whether the remedy for Iraq is not more American troops, as he insists, but fewer and fewer . . . and then none at all. Iraq is not Vietnam, but America is still America -- and we still don't know what in the world we're doing.

Please, Mr. McCain, don't be mad at me for disagreeing with you...I like you, I really do...

Recall that Cohen recently wrote that while McCain's move to the right was obviously politically motivated, "anyone who knows McCain appreciates that his call for more troops in Iraq is not, at bottom, part of any political strategy." Add that to today's simpering, fearful disagreement with McCain and it becomes clear that Cohen has completely lost any ability to assess the man in a dispassionate and rational way. When it comes to McCain, Cohen, like so many other pundits, is in intellectual captivity. He's McCain's prisoner, pure and simple. In a sane world, Cohen would recuse himself from writing about McCain, or if not, his editors would do it for him.

Let's be clear: Cohen disagrees dramatically with McCain about the single most important policy decision our nation faces today -- one that will impact thousands upon thousands of lives. Cohen occupies prized opinion-making real estate at the second most powerful newspaper in the country. Why is he tiptoeing so fearfully around a guy who holds views that -- given what the consequences of getting this one wrong are -- should draw extremely aggressive condemnation from him? What the heck is there to be afraid of?

Posted by Greg Sargent at 9:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (7493)

MCCAIN'S LATEST RUSE: IF BUSH "SURGE" PLAN FAILS, REMEMBER THAT I WANTED EVEN MORE TROOPS SENT!

Incredibly, it appears that John McCain is already laying the groundwork to subtly distance himself from President Bush's escalation plan, should it fail.

Here's how: Though full-throatedly backing Bush's plan, McCain is also starting to put out the word that he'd prefer that Bush were sending more troops to Iraq than the President has announced he'll send. This means, of course, that if escalation fails McCain may be able to dilute its impact on his political fortunes by saying success might have been possible if escalation had been carried out completely to his liking.

McCain put this new one out there over the weekend in interviews with both the New York Times and the Washington Post, letting it be known in both that he'd rather have sent more troops. This happens to be directly at odds with some of his own public statements in the past. Will he be allowed to skate on this one, too?

Here's the Times' version:

Mr. McCain embarked on a high-profile television tour announcing his support for Mr. Bush’s move. In an interview, he said he would have preferred that the White House send in even more troops, and noted that he had pressed this position on the White House, unsuccessfully until now, for more than two years.

The Washington Post lays it out even more clearly:

"There are two keys to any surge of U.S. troops," he said at a forum at the American Enterprise Institute. "To be of value, the surge must be substantial and it must be sustained."

Does the new policy meet those tests? McCain offers an equivocal answer. He said he has been assured by Army Lt. Gen. David H. Petraeus, the president's choice to take over command in Iraq, that 20,000 additional troops should be enough, but that if they are not, Petraeus can ask Bush for more.

You'd of course prefer to have direct quotes from McCain here, but given that both papers reported similar comments, it seems safe to assume that these depictions are accurate. So now we have McCain being "equivocal" about whether he thinks the President's "surge" is adequate. And McCain's so worried that it may not constitute enough troops that he's spoken about it to Patraeus, who's "assured" him that if worst comes to worst, he can "ask for more."

But hang on a second. McCain in the past has said unequivocally that he thought the right number of troops would be 20,000 -- which by the way is slightly less than what Bush has proposed sending. And not only that, but McCain has volunteered this number as being the right amount.

Here's McCain in October, 2006:

"Roughly, you need another 20,000 troops in Iraq," Mr. McCain said Friday during a visit to northern New Hampshire. "That means expanding the Army and Marine Corps by as much as 100,000 people. … It's just not a set number."

Here's McCain speaking at an appearance in January:

McCain outlined what he viewed as the minimum levels necessary to make a surge work: three to five additional brigades in Baghdad and one brigade in Anbar Province in western Iraq, a Sunni insurgent stronghold.

That would amount to between 18,000 and 27,000 soldiers, because an Army brigade consists of about 4,500 soldiers.

In other words, McCain said he viewed a number as low as 18,000 as the minimum level "necessary to make a surge work."

Though McCain has offered varying prescriptions for how many new troops should be sent, McCain has steadily presented the 20,000 number either as being what he sees as the right size of an increase or as being at the low end of what he thinks would be enough. Yet now -- while not backing off his support for Bush's proposal -- he's clearly starting to put out the word that he's equivocal about whether Bush's increase will be sufficient.

To its credit, the Post explains the politics behind McCain's latest move, suggesting that he may have "shrewdly left himself room to argue that Bush's plan for more troops was not substantial or sustained enough to ensure success." The Times, to its discredit, didn't bother offering this simple context. It's just ruse after ruse with this guy -- and let's face it, he'll probably skate on this one, too.

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Posted by Greg Sargent at 11:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (7743)