Carville Responds To Liberal Blogosphere's Case That He Should Be I.D.'ed As Hillary Backer On CNN
(March 30, 2007 -- 6:48 PM EDT // link // )

Okay, I just got off the phone with James Carville. We spoke at length about the case being made against him by the liberal blogosphere: That as a supporter of Hillary Clinton, he should be identified as such -- rather than being identified as an independent analyst -- when he talks about the Presidential race on CNN. Particularly when he smacks Hillary's chief rival, Barack Obama.

Just to catch you up, MyDD, DailyKos, and Atrios have all been hammering Carville and CNN over these comments Carville made about Obama. He said that Obama had been "less than impressive" during a recent appearance and needed to get "up to speed" on some issues. These bloggers all argued -- pretty persuasively -- that Carville should be identified as a Hillary supporter by CNN when he goes on the air and criticizes one of her chief rivals.

When I checked in with CNN about this, CNN opted to have Carville answer the complaints. It seemed that Carville saw at least a grain of merit in the case being made here. At one point, he said: "I think that I'm gonna be cognizant that if I criticize one of the Democratic candidates," then he might mention that "I'm gonna vote for Hillary." On the other hand, Carville also said that if he brought up his voting plans every time he said something critical of her rivals, it would make for "horrible TV."

Carville also said he thought the case that he was an adviser to Hillary was overstated. "I'm not an adviser to her campaign," he said. "I'm not being paid by her campaign...I don't get paid. I'm not an adviser." Asked if he never advised the campaign in any way, Carville said: "Do I ever consult? No. I have a lot of friends [in the Hillary campaign]. I talk to them. But I have a lot of friends in the Obama campaign. And Edwards."

Carville acknowledged, though, that as a CNN analyst he shouldn't have allowed himself to be featured as the author of a fundraising letter for Hillary. "To be honest with you, my contract at CNN says I'm not supposed to raise money [for Presidential candidates]," Carville conceded. He said he'd approved a stack of letters bearing his signature without checking them closely enough. "I approved it by mistake. It wasn't Hillary's fault, it wasn't my office's fault. I signed off on a whole stack. When CNN found out about it, they called me, and I said, Call the Hillary people, tell them to take it down. Which they did." No future fundraising for Presidential candidates while a CNN analyst, he promised.

When I asked him if it was possible that he could be pushing her agenda when stating opinions that the audience would accept as neutral, he seemed to acknowledge that this was at least conceivable. "I guess I could have said, `I'm not just saying this as a Hillary person, but if you're running for the Democratic nomination, you've gotta bone up on health care,'" he said. But he added: "I'm not defined by my support of Hillary Clinton. I like her, but if she drops 5 points in the polls," he'll point it out. "This is hardly firing a U.S. Attorney for political reasons," he said.

Okay, so there you have it. I'm too tired to have an opinion about this right now, except to say it raises a bunch of interesting questions about the blurriness of the lines between "supporter," "adviser," "pundit," "independent analyst" and all sorts of other shadowy fixer-ish roles people carve out for themselves behind the scenes in official Washington. You guys have at it.

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Margaret Carlson And Chris Matthews Exchange Even More Inane On Video
(March 30, 2007 -- 11:02 AM EDT // link // )

Here's some video of the inane exchange between Chris Matthews and Margaret Carlson about ol' romping Big Dog I noted below. The great thing about the video version -- something you can't tell from the transcript -- is the way Pat Buchanan is beside himself with incredulity at just how ridiculous and transparent the poll question really was.

It's almost as if Buchanan can't really believe that three adults are sitting there on national television acting like such buffoons. Check it out:

Also check out this Atrios post on Carlson's links to Fred Thompson.

Update: Commenter Brio writes: "I don't read Pat Buchanan in the way you do. It seems to me that he is laughing because he thinks Bill Clinton hasn't learned anything--he is still the same person, so the question answers itself in his mind." Quite possibly.

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Margaret Carlson On Bill Clinton: "Only Hillary Thinks He Has Changed His Ways"
(March 30, 2007 -- 9:55 AM EDT // link // )

Okay, we have a winner! Today's Peter Pan Press Award -- which our panel of judges awards periodically to outstanding examples of childish, inane, we'll-never-grow-up political coverage or analysis -- goes to...

Margaret Carlson! And an honorable mention goes to Chris Matthews!

The duo wins our prestigious award for their silly musings on last night's Hardball. Carlson, a columnist for Bloomberg, gets it for her industrious efforts to read Hillary's mind and to speak for the entire population of the United States; Matthews earns it for suggesting that Bill's sex life is an "uncomfortable, unsavory topic" -- while raising the subject anyway.

The discussion was sparked by a USA Today poll that was released yesterday. While many of the poll's questions were unobjectionable -- it found that an overwhelming majority think Bill will do Hillary's candidacy "more good than harm" -- it also asked the following innuendo-laden question: "Do you personally believe that since he left the White House, Bill Clinton has learned his lessons from these scandals or is the same person he always was?" Wink, wink -- get it? Is ol' Big Dog still slipping that leash of his?

It's not a stretch to guess that this question was quite transparently thrown into the mix so the cable chatters could talk about Bill's sex life without quite saying that this was what they were talking about, thus earning the poll more attention. If so, it worked. Matthews gobbled it right up. Via Nexis:

MATTHEWS: And 71 percent think Bill Clinton was a good president. However, also people think that he has not learned from his past mistakes, that he is apparently still Bill. You are hiding this full number here, Margaret. Has Bill Clinton learned his lesson from past scandals? Forty two percent say he has lessened, still say same person.

Pat Buchanan, this is an uncomfortable, unsavory topic here. Let me ask you, as a Gallup person here, has Bill Clinton learned his lessons from past scandals? Citizen Buchanan, do you say still same person or he has learned his lesson?

BUCHANAN: I think Bill is pretty much the same fellow we used to know.

MATTHEWS: OK, what do you think Margaret? Margaret, you`re going to hate this question. I`m polling you.

CARLSON: Only Hillary thinks he has changed his ways.

MATTHEWS: Let me ask you, as a citizen of this county: I`m Gallop. I`m a pollster. I`ve got my clipboard here. Has Bill Clinton learned his lessons from past scandals? Has he learned his lesson or is he still the same person?

CARLSON: Let me say this, some of those people in the polls --

(CROSS TALK)

MATTHEWS: I think it`s a fun question.

CARLSON: Some people are polling two things in their mind at the same time, which is he`s still the same person, but it`s not going to hurt him.

I know, I know, it was a joke. It's still friggin' inane. Hard to know which was more ridiculous: Matthews acknowledging that this was an "uncomfortable, unsavory topic" before bringing it up anyway and even calling it a "fun" question; or Carlson's impressive mind-reading. Congrats, guys.

Update: We now have the exchange on video, where it looks even more buffoonish, if you can believe it.

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Memo To Rick Stengel From Time Magazine's Research Department Obtained!
(March 29, 2007 -- 4:14 PM EDT // link // )

Well, check out what we've just obtained: An internal memo from Time mag's research department to the mag's managing editor, Rick Stengel! How about that?

TO: Richard Stengel Time magazine Managing editor

FROM: Time magazine research department

RE: Your request for information about American attitudes towards Democratic investigations into GOP malfeasance

Dear Mr. Stengel:

Thank you for your request. We recognize, as you suggested in your earlier memo to us, that the many factual rebuttals and criticism of your recent assertion that an aggressive Democratic investigation into Karl Rove would be bad for Dems has produced on your part an urgency for some hard information about this matter. So we've endeavored to get this to you as quickly as possible.

Unfortunately, in addition to the earlier polls many have written about, there are now two new polls that support the idea that the American public is broadly supportive of aggressive Democratic investigations into GOP malfeasance, both in a general and specific sense.

First, here's a new CBS poll that finds that there's indeed broad public interest in the U.S. Attorney firings story:

The CBS News poll finds that just half of Americans are following the news about the firing of several U.S. Attorneys but 40% say Attorney General Alberto Gonzales should resign, while 25% say he should not and 35% are not sure. Among those who say they are following the story closely, 55% think Gonzales should resign.

In the judgment of our researchers, CBS' use of the "just half" language is misleading. We judge that this is a striking finding giving how technically complicated this story is. Though we can't be entirely conclusive about this, we judge that the fact that sentiment is running strongly in favor of the view that Gonzales should resign -- combined with the high public interest in the story -- strongly suggest public support for aggressive Dem probes into these matters. After all, if large numbers want him to resign and hence think he did something wrong, it's reasonable to assume they'd look favorably on efforts to uncover such wrongdoing.

Here, meanwhile, is a second poll from Pew Research, just out this afternoon, that directly addresses these questions. It says:

The Democrats' stepped-up pace of investigations has not drawn much in the way of negative reaction. Just 31% believe Congress is spending too much time investigating possible government wrongdoing, while slightly more (35%) say they are spending too little time on this, and a quarter believe that the time spent on investigations has been appropriate...

In addition, more independents say Congress is spending too little time on investigations than too much (by 39%-29%). Roughly the same number of Democrats as independents say Congress is devoting too little time to investigations.

Though this poll was highlighted by one of your blogospheric critics, our researchers judge that he was right to draw attention to it. As you can see, it says that while less than a third (31%) think too much time is being spent on investigations, a substantial majority (60%) think either an appropriate amount of time or too little time is being spent on them. Also note that more people think too little time is being spent than think too much is.

In sum, our judgment is that the vast preponderance of evidence suggests that it's difficult to sustain the view that the American people are predisposed towards a negative view of such aggressive Congressional oversight. Incidentally, if you would allow us an observation outside our role for a moment, it is also our judgment that you are nonetheless on fairly safe ground repeating your initial point, even if it's factually unsustainable, since it is unlikely to attract much attention from reporters or commentators at the big news organizations and is unlikely to be rebutted in any serious way beyond the liberal blogosphere. (Though we'd be remiss if we didn't point out that you have come under some criticism from a former Time.com writer, Andrew Sullivan.)

We hope this information has been useful to you; as always, should you choose not to use it, we will keep this memo confidential. Please let us know if we can be of more assistance.

Editor's note: As should be excrutiatingly obvious, this memo isn't real. Whether or not you find it funny, it is a gag -- a fictional invention, nothing more.

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Bush's Bungling Of Iraq War Far More "Historic" Than Congress' "Micromanaging" Of It
(March 29, 2007 -- 10:01 AM EDT // link // )

A killer editorial in today's Boston Globe about how Congress is taking a stand against Bush's war:

Bush called the House vote a "political statement" and his spokeswoman said the congressional timetables amounted to "mandating failure." She said Bush would veto any bill with a withdrawal date.

It is certainly true that the votes are an extraordinary challenge to a president carrying out a war on foreign soil. But what is more historic than the action itself is the accumulation of misguided strategies and bungled efforts on the ground -- all defended obstinately by Bush -- that led Congress to it.

The mid term elections last November were an undeniable vote of no confidence in Bush's war, and public support, by most measures, has only continued to sink. The recent House and Senate votes merely reflected this reality. Stubbornly resisting solid advice from the bipartisan Iraq Study Group and others, Bush has become increasingly isolated.

These are important points. Whenever some wingnut mouthes the talking point that Congress' interference is a "historic" micromanaging of the war, keep in mind that this action was made necessary -- and will continue to be made necessary as Congress slowly grinds this disaster to a halt -- by the real history-maker here: Bush's historic bungling of the war and his equally historic level of Presidential self-delusion about his own failure.

Remember, even Lyndon Johnson knew the end was nigh and decided not to run for a second term in 1968 amid Vietnam. But Bush will hang on to his delusions until the end and beyond. Indeed, he genuinely sounds as if he really thinks public opinion is still with him on Iraq in some way, and will probably continue to think as much long after Congress -- with or without the next President -- finally lowers the curtain on Bush's war for good.

Does The Guy Who Runs Time Magazine Read Political Polls?
(March 28, 2007 -- 1:53 PM EDT // link // )

Via Atrios, don't miss this Swampland post by Ana Marie Cox, in which she coaxes some eye-opening quotes out of Time managing editor Rick Stengel.

Makes you wonder: Does the guy who happens to run one of America's leading newsweeklies read political polls?

Stengel's been taking a bit of a hammering ever since Glenn Greenwald banished him to the blogospheric dog house over a TV appearance in which he said that it would be "bad" for Democrats if they probed Karl Rove because voters don't want this to happen. Greenwald, and then Cox, quite rightly asked Stengel how he knew this. To which Stengel replied:

In reading your reaction to my comments on Chris Matthews, I realize that I've been caught out speaking as a citizen rather than as editor of Time. Lord knows, the Democrats going after Karl Rove is "interesting" in an objective way for Time and for journalists in general. It's hard to overstate Rove's role in this administration and it would certainly create yards of headlines and good copy if the Democrats manage to get some traction. But as a citizen, I think it's unfortunate and perhaps short-sighted for Democrats to be perceived as focusing on the past rather than the future. If people see the Democrats as obsessively concerned with settling scores, that's not good for the Democrats or the country. And I would make the exact same statement about the Republicans if they were in this situation.

But, again, Mr. Stengel, the question is, What basis is there for these assertions? As I understand it, Greenwald and Cox were asking for, you know, empirical information -- otherwise known as "evidence." This reply only compounds the question. Why is there any reason to assume that people will be predisposed to see Dems as "focusing on the past" or "obsessively concerned with settling scores" if they impose oversight on the GOP after voters handed them power while saying that government corruption was a key reason for their doing so?

As luck would have it, there is actual info out there about how the public is generally predisposed towards such matters. Here's a poll by Newsweek (the competition!) from after the election saying that solid majorities support investigations into various areas of potential wrongdoing. Meanwhile, here's a CNN poll from just before the election that found that 57% thought it would be "good for the country" if Congressional Dems probed the Bush administration. And here's a Gallup poll cited by Greenwald that found overwhelming public support for the more specific question of whether Congress should investigate the Attorney Purge.

Look, Stengel can say he's speaking as a "citizen," but this citizen is also the managing editor of one of the nation's top newsweeklies, and it's kinda off-putting to learn that someone with such journalistic influence either:

(a) knows what these polls say but is not letting them interfere with his view that the American public is predisposed to see Congressional oversight in such negative terms; or

(b) uninterested in consulting said evidence to learn what folks actually think about such matters before speaking for them with the authority of, yes, Time magazine's managing editor.

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Republican National Committee Now Pushing Associated Press' Hit Piece On Obama
(March 27, 2007 -- 2:27 PM EDT // link // )

Okay, this is getting good. The Republican National Committee is now aggressively flacking to reporters the Associated Press article on Barack Obama I ranted about below. The RNC's reproduction of it just landed in my in-box.

The striking thing here is that the excerpts the RNC sent out are very similar to the entire piece itself. It's not unusual, of course, for the Republican or Democratic committees to send around different parts of articles, even ones that contain other stuff that doesn't advance the message they are trying to push. But in this case, it's not like the RNC lifted a few choice passages; rather, the RNC quoted in bulk, without removing all that much of it.

Also keep in mind that this wasn't a news piece with a central factual revelation about Obama, something that would more understandably be sent around virtually in toto if that revelation were damaging. This is an analysis piece -- and the central take is precisely the one the RNC wants reporters to see.

Take a look. Here's what the RNC has excerpted from the piece and is emailing around:

Is Obama all style and little substance?

The voices are growing louder asking the question: Is Barack Obama all style and little substance?

The freshman Illinois senator began his campaign facing the perception that he lacks the experience to be president, especially compared to rivals with decades of work on foreign and domestic policy. So far, he's done little to challenge it. He's delivered no policy speeches and provided few details about how he would lead the country. ...

[Other candidates] don't have such a barrier to prove they are qualified to be president.

The differences were on display Saturday in Las Vegas, where the Democratic candidates answered questions about health care. ...

Daniel Romo, 45, a clerk at Kaiser Permanente in Los Angeles and a member of the Service Employees International Union that sponsored the forum, left with Clinton and Edwards as his top choices. Obama did not impress him.

"I believe that he needed to know a little more about health care issues and he was just unprepared," Romo said.

David Peter, a child support case worker and member of the SEIU in Las Vegas who was also in the audience, said Obama may have been better off not participating in the forum. ...

"He wasn't prepared for it," Peter said. ...

[Obama] has downplayed the importance of the specifics at this stage, saying that it's not a lack of details that are the problem. ...

Now compare that to the original. Not all that different at all. Do you all agree that that's striking?

Just to reiterate, there's no question that we should want to see some more policy detail out of this guy, and his experience, or lack of it, is a completely valid topic. My objection to the AP piece is the gratuitousness of its central question, as well as the clear factual omissions that were necessary to shore up its central thesis. There's little question that it's precisely this gratuitousness that makes the piece so in sync with the message the RNC wants to deliver.

As I said, the fact that the RNC is sending parts of a piece around doesn't automatically guarantee that the article is unfair. But in this case, the RNC could ship large chunks of it out, including an entirely intact headline and lede, secure in the knowledge that its central analytic message was precisely the one that the RNC wanted to advance. Revealing, that.

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Associated Press Suggests Obama Lacks "Substance," Doesn't Mention The Books He Wrote
(March 27, 2007 -- 12:10 PM EDT // link // )

Glenn Greenwald takes The Washington Post's Richard Cohen to task today for blasting Obama over the most trivial of memory lapses possible -- the fact that he got the name of a magazine wrong that he'd read when he was nine years old. No, Obama didn't remember the name of a magazine he read roughly in 1970, the year the Beatles broke up and Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin died.

That was pretty dismal of Cohen, no question. Nonetheless, today's Award for Superficial Sliming -- or ASS -- goes hands down to...the Associated Press' Nedra Pickler!

The news org and Pickler win it for this piece on Obama:

It says:

Is Obama all style and little substance?

The voices are growing louder asking the question: Is Barack Obama all style and little substance?

The freshman Illinois senator began his campaign facing the perception that he lacks the experience to be president, especially compared to rivals with decades of work on foreign and domestic policy. So far, he's done little to challenge it. He's delivered no policy speeches and provided few details about how he would lead the country.

There's much more like that. But wait -- no policy speeches since the campaign started? What about this speech on March 21? What about this one on March 2? Those are both foreign policy speeches -- or doesn't that count?

Here's a speech calling for universal health care on January 25. Obama announced his exploratory committee on January 16. Perhaps the AP is suggesting that the campaign didn't "start" until his official announcement on Feb. 10. If so, laying down this marker is artificial and silly, and indeed is quite transparently designed to elicit the conclusion it did. Amusingly enough, the AP does mention Obama's health care and Iraq positions way down in the story -- without noting that Obama has indeed spoken about them at some length during the campaign. If you want to say these speeches are too short on specifics, go ahead, but that doesn't mean they're not policy speeches -- just thin ones.

Would it behoove Obama to go into more detail about his plans and policy prescriptions, and would it behoove him to do better on health care than he did over the weekend? Sure it would -- and his lack of experience is undoubtedly a valid topic. But taking things to the point where you're suggesting that the guy may have "little substance" on the strength of this stuff alone seems pretty damn thin. It's deeply superficial and stinks of the worst sort of slavishness to predetermined narratives -- today's being that Obama is a closet lightweight. Your Hack Pack at work, ladies and gentlemen.

One other point: The piece didn't mention that Obama has written several books. If you're going to question whether a guy has substance, that seems like it might have deserved a mention.

Update: It gets better. Now the Republican National Committee is aggressively pushing this AP piece to reporters. Wonder why?

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Latest Bogus Media Line: Dems Offer Voters Nothing Beyond "Only" Investigating GOP
(March 26, 2007 -- 3:19 PM EDT // link // )

It's getting harder and harder to open your newspaper or turn on your TV without hearing a variation of the claim that the Democratic Congressional majority is offering voters nothing beyond "only" investigating the GOP and the White House. Here's historian James Thurber, speaking to The New York Times's Adam Nagourney:

“If Democrats want to do well in 2008 on the House side and the Senate side, they have to show they can govern,” said James A. Thurber, director of the Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies at American University. “They have to show they can do more than investigate and push back on the president.”

Similarly, here's Washington Post columnist David Broder's latest column about the big new Pew poll:

But a word of caution is in order. There is little here that suggests voters' opinion of Democrats is much higher than it was when they lost Congress in 1994. It seems doubtful that Democrats can help themselves a great deal just by tearing down an already discredited Republican administration with more investigations such as the current attack on the Justice Department and White House over the firings of eight U.S. attorneys.

At some point, Democrats have to give people something to vote for. People already know what they're against -- the Republicans.

Here are the problems with this argument. First and most obviously, both of these commentators surely know that Dems are in fact offering much more than mere investigations -- but they reflexively asserted otherwise, anyway. In the days before Thurber and Broder issued these pronouncements, House Democrats passed binding legislation mandating withdrawal from Iraq by Fall 2008 at the latest; meanwhile, the Dem Presidential candidates all backed the idea of comprehensive reform to provide universal health care. These are only the most visible and recent examples.

You can disagree with these. You can say that the Iraq withdrawal bill won't ultimately have real-world impact. You can say that the Dems haven't offered enough health care policy details. But one thing you can't do -- unless you're willingly succumbing to the worst and most banal type of hackery -- is pretend that these things didn't happen or don't matter. They represent real policy goals that Dems are laying out -- and as such, they are things that people can be for, despite stuffy pronouncements that no such things exist. As it happens, the American public is for them. Nearly six in 10 back the Congressionally-imposed Iraq withdrawal deadline, and solid majorities back not just government-guaranteed health care, but higher taxes to pay for it.

The second problem with this emerging line is the assumption underlying it: That Dem-led Congressional probes into GOP and White House malfeasance somehow don't constitute governing. But they do: They constitute a decision by the leaders of one branch of government to use the resources and powers granted them by voters to exercise oversight over another elective branch. This is a governing choice -- one that the GOP-led Congress declined to make, and that Dems are making now. As such, it, too, is something that voters can be for, despite dismissive sneering to the contrary. No question: Congressional Dems have tons more to do if they are to prove they can govern, win lasting public trust, and build a durable majority. But that doesn't mean it's okay for commentators to reflexively repeat the thoroughly bogus claim that Dems are offering nothing beyond "only" striving to impose oversight and accountability. Choose not to be a hack, please.

Update: Glenn Greenwald highlights a poll that shows that the American people see investigations into GOP malfeasance as something to be "for" by an overwhelming margin. It finds that 72% -- nearly three out of four -- think Congress should investigate the Attorney Purge, while only 21% think it shouldn't. Yet David Broder sneeringly describes this as nothing but a "tearing down" of the GOP.

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