(February 9, 2007 -- 1:51 PM EDT // link // )

HOWARD KURTZ DROPS BALL ON PELOSI PLANE STORY. Here's another bad one on Nancy Pelosi and the bogus plane story, courtesy of the Washington Post's Howard Kurtz:

Nancy Pelosi asked for a bigger (and far more expensive) plane because the one she was using couldn't make it to the West Coast without a refueling stop. Hastert didn't have that problem getting to Illinois.

Pelosi may be right on the substance, but the symbolism is awful. She insists she didn't ask for the plane, but if a military flight is needed, she wants a nonstop to San Francisco. The average voter will be left with an image of her flying around on a jumbo jet in the lap of luxury....

Pelosi has gone on the offensive, saying that Pentagon officials leaked the dispute for partisan reasons and that the negotiating was done not by her but by the House sergeant-at-arms. The flap made the network newscasts last night, although Tony Snow pointedly declined to pile on, calling the story "silly."

But...but...but...it wasn't just Pelosi who said that the "negotiating" was done by the House sergeant-at arms. The sergeant-at-arms himself attested to this! He did so in a statement yesterday -- and he did more than just say he was "negotiating"; he said he had requested the plane. I know Kurtz was in column mode here, but isn't this kind of critical information? Particularly in a column looking at media coverage of this tale? And if Kurtz is going to say that Pelosi "insists she didn't ask for a plane," how can he simultaneously state as fact that "Pelosi asked for a bigger (and far more expensive) plane"? Proof, please.

Here's the real question: Given the fact that Pelosi has been getting pummeled for days on this non-story, how could any self-respecting reporter or editor see the sergeant-at-arms' statement and not either make it the lede or feature it very prominently in his or her story? Wouldn't basic fairness dictate that?

As a matter of fact, a couple of news orgs did do this (thanks to commenters for sending these in). Here's CNN's headline and lede:

House security chief: Pelosi didn't ask for plane; I did

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi did not request a larger plane for personal use to travel cross-country without stopping, Bill Livingood, the House sergeant at arms, said Thursday.

Livingood said the request was his, and he made it for security reasons.

And here's NBC's:

House sergeant-at-arms ordered Pelosi plane

WASHINGTON - The Air Force transport plane decried by Republicans as an extravagance for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was requested by the House sergeant-at-arms as a matter of security, he said Thursday.

“I regret that an issue that is exclusively considered and decided in a security context has evolved into a political issue,” Bill Livingood said in a news release.

See? That's how it's done. Yet as noted below, the New York Times put this info in the twelfth paragraph, the Associated Press also in its twelfth (after quoting two GOP "critics"), and the L.A. Times put it in its last two paragraphs. Just awful.

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(February 9, 2007 -- 9:44 AM EDT // link // )

WHY WON'T MEDIA JUST SAY THAT PELOSI PLANE STORY IS FALSE?

Why is the media so reluctant to use the "F" word -- that is, the word "false"? The Pelosi plane story is false. Why won't the media just say so? "False." It's not a hard word to write or say.

One of things that's seriously puzzling about the big news orgs, and the political media in particular, is that it's crowded with self-regarding professionals who presumably went into this racket because they had some sort of sense of themselves as wanting to become truth-seekers. Yet here they are in the grip of self-imposed conventions which dictate that you should be reluctant to say flat out that a story's false when it is in fact just that.

Case in point: Today's dismal coverage of the bogus Nancy Pelosi plane story. This tall tale holds that Pelosi "requested" a larger and more luxurious plane than her predecessor, something which allegedly shows that Pelosi's a luxury-loving San Francisco liberal. The wingnut media and GOP members of Congress alike have been pushing the story for days. But the story's false: Yesterday the House sergeant-at-arms released a statement saying that he had for security reasons requested a plane that could fly nonstop to her California district. He made the request. She didn't. Story false.

So let's check out today's coverage. Here's today's Associated Press headline:

This headline is entirely inaccurate. It says straightforwardly that the GOP is hitting Pelosi for something she did do -- request the plane -- when she in fact didn't do this. What's more, the AP piece says that "reports swirled" yesterday that she'd requested the bigger plane, without stating explicitly where these "reports" were coming from -- that is, the wingnut media and her GOP rivals. Finally, the revelation that proves the story bogus -- the fact that the House sergeant-at-arms made the request -- doesn't come until the twelfth paragraph, long after quotes from not one but two GOP "critics." This is just dismal.

The other coverage? The Times's piece today doesn't get around to sharing this critical info until the twelfth paragraph. The L.A. Times piece today was even worse; incredibly, the paper's "news coverage" of the flap said she "sniped" at her "critics," and didn't include the vital info until the last two grafs. Needless to say, none of this coverage said outright, or even indirectly, that the story was false; none of it even explained explicitly that the sergeant-at-arms' statment appeared to contradict and discredit the criticism.

Why not? Do unspoken conventions dictate that doing this is a no-no? Not necessarily. The Times, for instance, recently allowed itself to do this, putting the following headline on the false story about Barack Obama allegedly attending a Muslim school as a child:

Feeding Frenzy For a Big Story, Even if It's False

See? The big news orgs can do this. What's bizarre, as today's awful coverage of the Pelosi story shows, is the reluctance to do it, the reluctance to even do it with a euphemism like "discredited" or "inaccurate." It's even more bizarre when you consider the reason many journalists are supposed to have gone into this biz in the first place.

Update: Here's another bad one, from Howard Kurtz.

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(February 8, 2007 -- 5:15 PM EDT // link // )

BREAKING: WHITE HOUSE AND PENTAGON AT ODDS OVER INTERPRETATION OF MILITARY LEADERS' TESTIMONY!

Okay, maybe not quite, but this is funny. Yesterday Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Marine Corps Gen. Peter Pace testified before Congress, saying that they didn't think Senate debate of the anti-escalation resolution hurt troop morale. The news orgs played the story as such, playing up fact that the two men's assertions went counter to GOP claims that Congressional debate undercuts the troops and emphasizing the fact that Gates and Pace were saying that such debate isn't a bad thing, after all.

Today the White House communications shop blasted out an email questioning that interpretation of the event, and insisting that the more important aspect of the story was a few quotes from the two military leaders about Congressional funding of the war. The missive blared:

It turns out, however, that the way the news orgs played the story is supported by none other than the Department of Defense. Here's how the Defense Department's own official in-house news service, the American Forces Information Service, played the story:

Note that the DOD news service's headline is: "Debate on Iraq Strengthens U.S. Democracy, Defense Leaders Say." And if you check out the DOD service's full story, you'll see that the thing emphasized in the White House's missive -- the question of Congressional funding -- is completely downplayed, and gets only a couple of buried sentences. Meanwhile, the DOD service's account heavily emphasizes the fact that the two military leaders were saying that Congressional debate about Iraq isn't a bad thing and even gives plenty of space to the idea that the troops don't see it as undercutting them.

Kind of fun, that.

(February 8, 2007 -- 10:42 AM EDT // link // )

WHY IS JOE BIDEN HELPING JOHN MCCAIN DISSEMBLE ON ESCALATION?

Okay, at this point there's little doubt that John McCain has succeeded in pulling off his latest ruse: He's managed to change the official narrative from "President Bush gave me my surge and now the Iraq war is all mine" to "I always wanted more troops than Bush is sending, so if the surge fails it's not entirely my fault."

So fine -- McCain's managed to fool the compliant media into rewriting the story his way. But here's a question: Why the heck is Democrat Joe Biden helping him do it, too? Check out what Biden said in an interview with New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd:

Aren’t Americans going to be angry at a Senate that’s bending itself into a procedural pretzel, rather than seriously tackling the future of Iraq?

“They are going to be angry,” [Biden] agreed. “Republicans are trying to avoid embarrassing the president. If you took a secret ballot, I’d be dumfounded if 20 senators thought sending 21,500 troops made any sense.” He said John McCain wouldn’t think it made sense either “because he has called for sending many more.”

Joe, Joe, Joe, Joe, Joe, Joe, Joe! Come on! Assuming you're quoted accurately here, you're helping McCain dissemble. The notion that McCain doesn't think it makes "sense" to send 21,500 more troops to Iraq because "he has called for sending many more" is completely bogus. This is the storyline that McCain has been pushing since President Bush unveiled his escalation plan, in order to distance himself from it in case it fails.

Apologies for repeating myself here, but here's proof: Before Bush revealed his plan, McCain himself said unequivocally that a lower number than Bush subsequently proposed -- 20,000 -- would be enough. Back in October, McCain said: "Roughly, you need another 20,000 troops in Iraq." The important point here is that McCain volunteered this number as the right amount well before Bush unveiled his plan. McCain did roughly the same thing on another occasion, again volunteering a similar sum as the right amount before Bush revealed his proposal.

But now McCain wants you to believe that he always wanted many more sent. And Biden's out there actually saying that McCain doesn't think it makes sense to send 21,500 troops when he himself originally proposed a lower number. It's horsecrap. Look, there's literally nothing that will get many of our commentators to stop obediently telling the story McCain's way and start showing some basic skepticism about the man. But why should Biden -- a Democrat who actually hopes to be running against him, or at least will presumably back the Democratic nominee against him -- let himself be taken by McCain's ruse, and worse, help him push it, too, even casually? It's just dopey.

(February 7, 2007 -- 12:21 PM EDT // link // )

MEMO TO MEDIA: RUDY WAS FOR "PARTIAL BIRTH" ABORTION BEFORE HE WAS AGAINST IT.

Now that Rudy Giuliani is trying to sell himself to social conservatives, the question is this: Will the media hold him accountable for his inconsistences on the live-or-die social issues that they care about?

Case in point: Rudy's views on what opponents call "Partial Birth Abortion." The other night Rudy appeared on Fox's Hannity and Colmes, giving his first key interview since the news broke that he was basically in the race.

Here's what Rudy said about the partial birth ban in the interview:

HANNITY: Partial birth?

GIULIANI: Partial birth abortion? I think that's going to be upheld. I think that ban's gonna be upheld. I think it should be. I think as long as there's a provision for the life of the mother then that's something that should be done.

HANNITY: There's a misconception that you support a partial birth abortion.

GIULIANI: Well, if it doesn't have provision for the mother then I wouldn't support the legislation. If it has provision for the life of the mother then I would support. And I do.

But here's what Rudy said about the issue on CNN on December 2, 1999, when he was preparing a Senate run against Hillary Clinton (via Nexis):

[GARY] TUCHMAN: Giuliani was then asked whether he supports a ban on what critics call partial-birth abortions, something Bush strongly supports.

GIULIANI: No, I have not supported that, and I don't see my position on that changing.

Here's what Rudy said on CNN on February 6, 2000 (via Nexis):

BLITZER: If you were in the Senate and [President Clinton] vetoed, once again, the [ban on the] so-called partial-birth abortion procedure, you would vote against sustaining that against the -- in favor of the veto in other words, you would support the president on that.

GIULIANI: Yes. I said then that I support him, so I have no reason to change my mind about it.

BLITZER: All right. So the bottom line is that on a lot of these very sensitive issues whether on guns, abortion, patients' bill of rights, taxes, you are more in line with the president and by association, with Mrs. Clinton, than you are against them.

And here's what Rudy said on ABC News on February 6, 2000:

[GEORGE] WILL: Is your support of partial birth abortion firm?

Mayor GIULIANI: All of my positions are firm. I have strong viewpoints. I express them. And I--I do not think that it makes sense to be changing your position....

The version of the ban that Rudy opposed back then contained the provision for the life of the mother that Rudy is now saying is a prerequisite for his support of it. Maybe he's changed his mind. Either way, it'll be interesting to see if the media takes note of stuff like this.

Can there really be room in this Presidential race for not one, but two straight-talking Republicans?

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(February 7, 2007 -- 10:14 AM EDT // link // )

TOM FRIEDMAN CALLS FOR WITHDRAWAL FROM IRAQ! BUT...

As loyal readers of this blog know, I've been doing my best to keep track of New York Times columnist Tom Friedman's dance of what I'm calling the "Conditional Shuffle" on Iraq. The Conditional Shuffle is when a leading opinion maker says he'll support President Bush's escalation if Bush does this or that or when a pundit says we'll need to pull out if Bush doesn't ever do the things he's demanding. It's become a convenient game designed to postpone the need to take a real position, and Friedman's been doing a whole bunch of that lately.

Well, today Friedman edges a bit closer to calling for withdrawal. But he shows he's still got a bit of that Conditional Shuffle left in those dancing feet of his. In today's column he calls for a pullout by Dec. 1:

So how do we get leverage? The first way to do that is by setting a firm date to leave — Dec. 1. All U.S. military forces are either going to be home for Christmas 2007 or redeployed along the borders of Iraq, away from the civil war...O.K., boys, party’s over: we’re leaving by Dec. 1.

But...

But at the same time, we have to impose a tax that creates a floor price of $3.50 a gallon for gasoline — forever. This is also about leverage. It says to all the parties: we are going to conserve enough gasoline and spur enough clean alternatives to fossil fuels that no matter what you all do in the Middle East, we will not depend on you for energy...Once we’ve set a date to leave by and a gas price to live by, we, for the first time, will have choices in Iraq.

As best as I can parse this, Friedman is saying he supports withdrawal by Dec. 1 if it's packaged with this gas tax. But what if this gas tax never materializes? Then what?

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..."

Bush, of course, has since declared that he's sending over approximately one-seventh of the amount of troops Friedman says we need in order to avoid failure. Yet since then Friedman has again and again stopped short of calling for us to do what he himself was our only other option -- that is, "leave."

One more time: How long do we have to wait before we can conclude that the gas tax is never going to happen? And does -- or will -- Friedman support pulling out by Dec. 1 without this gas tax that's almost certainly never going to happen?

(February 6, 2007 -- 11:07 AM EDT // link // )

WASHINGTON POST EDITORIAL BOARD: LET'S STAY IN IRAQ FOR "YEARS TO COME."

There was a funny little moment today on the Washington Post's editorial page. Its editorial on the Senate debate over Iraq says:

The most overtly political posture may be that of Hillary Rodham Clinton, who petulantly called on President Bush and Congress to "end this war" -- whatever that means -- before the next president takes office, presumably so that it will not trouble the administration she hopes to lead.

Having established that the phrase "end this war" has no meaning, the Post then proceeds to say that even though we're probably not going to succeed in Iraq, and indeed things may get worse, we should nonetheless stay there for "years," anyway:

What all this suggests is that, however much Ms. Clinton or other senators might wish it, the war in Iraq will not end before the next president takes office. Mr. Bush's surge is unlikely to produce a breakthrough toward peace; in fact the violence may continue to worsen. All the same, the United States may not be able to withdraw from Iraq without triggering worse consequences than those that might arise from remaining. In short, the country needs a strategy for defending its interests in Iraq for years to come.

There you have it: Staying in Iraq for an indefinite period -- for "years to come" -- without any sense of how or whether our objectives can be accomplished, and even though we'll probably have less and less success, is somehow a meaningful suggestion. But the suggestion that we "end this war" -- which in reality is a clearer policy statement than whatever it is the Post is advocating here -- is simply said to have no meaning, so there's no need to even discuss it.

In other words, we're just staying, and that's all there is to it, so we'd better come up with a strategy. How's that for serious opinionmaking?

(February 5, 2007 -- 3:47 PM EDT // link // )

NEW YORK TIMES MISLEADS READERS TO PORTRAY KERRY AS SAD-SACK LOSER.

This is a bad one. The New York Times has a long piece today that is ostensibly about John Kerry's efforts to reintegrate himself into the Senate now that he's decided not to run for the Presidency. But the piece is really one long, taunting shriek at Kerry: "Nyah, nyah, you're a loser!"

Indeed, so eager is the piece's writer, Mark Leibovich, to make the case that Kerry is a pathetic sad-sack "also-ran" that he basically misleads readers in order to do so. Leibovich writes:

Mr. Kerry ratified his status as Dead Candidate Walking in an emotional speech on the Senate floor two weeks ago. “We came close, certainly close enough to be tempted to try again,” Mr. Kerry said, referring to his 2004 campaign.

Only two colleagues attended his announcement, Senator Edward M. Kennedy, a fellow Massachusetts Democrat, and the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada (another, Senator Ken Salazar, Democrat of Colorado, walked in late). “I have concluded this is not the time for me to mount a presidential campaign.”...

His announcement could have been a dignified valedictory moment. But the enigmatic Mr. Kerry is often misunderstood, and several news reports said he had cried when saying he would not run; in fact, he choked up earlier in his speech when talking about an Army captain he had met in Iraq who had been killed.

No matter, the photo of Mr. Kerry breaking down ran prominently in the Drudge Report and elsewhere. It buttressed the notion of John Kerry as the forlorn loser who had finally bottomed out.

This passage is very misleading. The clear implication is that the fact that "only two Senators" were at the announcement should be taken as a sign that Kerry is a pathetic figure. But let's remember what actually happened that day. If you recall, there was virtually no advance notice that Kerry was going to deliver this news on the Senate floor. The news broke on CNN at around 1 P.M., only hours before Kerry spoke, and was only attributed to anonymous sources. It wasn't announced beforehand. Clearly, then, many Senators may not have even known that Kerry's announcement was coming, let alone that they should "attend" it. They likely would already have had other business scheduled for that afternoon. Hence, there would have been no reason for lots of Senators to have been there.

Framing it this way -- as if the fact that "only two Senators" were at the announcement had any significance at all -- is deeply misleading, and tells the reader more about the reporter's zeal to portray Kerry in that light than it does about the event itself.

Secondly, this passage actually appears to suggest that Kerry's speech was misrepresented in news reports because Kerry is "enigmatic" and is "often misunderstood." The absurd implication of this is that this misrepresentation was somehow his fault -- he doesn't make himself clear enough.

Seriously, there's tons more to object to in the piece. Its primary point is simply that Kerry is a big fat loser. Read it and see if you don't agree. This is a performance that can only be described as undignified. But then again, lots of snide throwaway lines -- things that sound vaguely like school-cafeteria-level taunts -- have been snaking their way into the Paper of Record's political coverage of late.

Update: Don't miss Eric Boehlert's take on the media's misreporting of Kerry's "tears."

(February 5, 2007 -- 12:29 PM EDT // link // )

JOE KLEIN: MCCAIN'S BEEN "ENTIRELY CONSISTENT" ON IRAQ WAR.

Joe Klein writes:

McCain, whether you agree with him or not, has been entirely consistent about the war. I disagreed with him about going to war in 2003, agreed with him about the need for more troops until last summer, when it became plain that we had no reliable ally in Iraq, and I disagree with him now. We're well past the point where a minimal, exhausted U.S. military force can bring stability, by itself, to Iraq. I admire McCain's honorable willingness to take this unpopular position into the 2008 election...which makes it even more disappointing when the Senator slides into political calculation, as he does when he challenges those who oppose the escalation to cut off funding for the war.

Let me be civil about this: With the utmost respect, sir, you're quite mistaken. McCain has not been "entirely consistent" about the war. In fact, he's been quite inconsistent in two key areas: First, in the amount of additional troops he's said are required in Iraq; and second, in his assessments of how the war's been going over the past couple years.

First, troop levels. Ever since President Bush unveiled his escalation proposal, McCain has been saying that he's "worried" that the 21,500 troop increase might not be enough and has been saying that he would have preferred to send more. But here's the thing: Before Bush unveiled his proposal, McCain himself actually volunteered that he thought a lower number than that would be enough.

He said very clearly back in October: "Roughly, you need another 20,000 troops in Iraq." Again, McCain himself volunteered that number. He did the same thing on another occasion. You can't volunteer a number that you say you think will work and then turn around and say that you're worried that a larger number might not work and that you actually wanted to send more than that larger number. That's not consistent at all.

Second, McCain's been quite inconsistent in his assessments of our progress in Iraq. The other day, for instance, McCain "grilled" General George Casey at a Senate hearing, blasting Casey by saying that over the past two and a half years, "things have gotten markedly and progressively worse" in Iraq.

But even a cursory bit of research shows that this criticism from McCain was completely inconsistent with his own past statements. During the same period that McCain said saw things get "markedly and progressively worse," McCain himself repeatedly offered optimistic assessments and even said several times that things were improving in Iraq. You can't say that things are getting better in Iraq before Election Day and then turn around after the election and say that things got markedly and progressively worse during the same time period. That's not consistent, either.

Look, Klein can go ahead and call McCain "honorable" and say that he's been consistent in that he supported the war before, and still does today. But that's holding the bar way too low. The fact is that on the above questions -- both of which are extremely important ones -- McCain has blatantly contradicted himself and has shown himself to be capable of political opportunism of the rankest sort. Is there no inconsistency or self-contradiction glaring enough to get pundits to stop presuming consistency and integrity on McCain's part?

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