My brother Dan has a good memory, and uses it to write A refresher on how the press failed the people (on Iraq) at Nieman Watchdog.
Of course, that's not the only issue on which one could make that critique, but it's certainly one of the biggest.
Update: Does this qualify as an answer to The Seth Leibsohn Challenge?
Media bias is real and pervasive. Here's a great example: McCain compounds al Qaeda gaffe by repeating for a fourth time. Does this become a big story? Is it looped on TV? Does it get half the attention something a friend of Obama's said? Nope. Nope. And nope.
Wow, CNN doesn't have much in the way of journalistic standards, does it?
CNN’s Idiot ‘is Obama really a Patriot’ Poll
Americablog calls it unforgivable.
Personally, I'd be willing to forgive if they behave decently for the rest of the campaign. Not that there's much chance of it.
I thought CNN was supposed to be better than Fox? Then again, AP's notorious far-right-leaning Nedra Pickler sunk pretty low yesterday too.
Update: Thanks to Firedoglake, you can take action against the Nedra Pickler smear factory.
Update2: Greenwald on Obama's brilliant retort.
Update 3: Well, that didn't take long, did it? CNN blows it again.
The New York Times's Jeff Zeleny has a long article about people worrying about Barack Obama's safety, In Painful Past, Hushed Worry About Obama.
In the past few days, a major Dallas-area paper ran a two inconclusive stories about the level of security at Obama's Dallas rally. These stories were supplemented by a number of blog posts all over the place, many of which include eyewitness accounts of recent Obama rallies elsewhere which also seemed to have a level of security that was at best uneven. Given all that, you might expect that when the Times does a major article on fears for Obama's security, something would be said about what happened in Dallas at the Obama rally.
You would be wrong.
Here's all that the NYT has to say on the subject of Dallas security:
Here in Dallas, those memories were raised in conversation after conversation with several of the 17,000 people who came to see Mr. Obama at a rally last week.
“Right around the corner is the John Kennedy Memorial; everyone all around me was talking about it,” said Imogene Covin, a Democratic activist from Dallas. “In the back of my mind, it’s a possibility that something might happen because he’s something to gawk at right now. But you know why I think he will be safe? He has a broad range of people behind him.”
In fact, as readers of this blog or many others, or of the Dallas-Fort Worth Star-Telegram, know “here in Dallas,” there was a lot more than “memories raised in conversation” — there were allegations by the local cops of bad security judgment. And the Secret Service's response while not totally implausible, hasn't been totally convincing either.
Should we expect better from the Times?
I suppose it's possible the NYT is being coy as a result of a request from the Secret Service not to discuss operational details, but if that were the case you would think that they could tell us so. I can't help but wonder if they just didn't know about the controversy, or if this is another example of an article going into the hopper several days before its printed and being dated by the time it sees daylight.
I've written to Mr. Zeleny to ask, but don't really expect an answer.
Related posts:
Just sent this:
Dear Mr. Hulse,
Thank you for your informative article “House Leaves Surveillance Law to Expire” in today's paper.
I was struck, however, by the following sentence, and I wonder if you could help me understand the state of play. You write, “The main sticking point is a provision in the Senate bill that provides legal immunity for telecommunications companies that, at the Bush administration’s request, cooperated in providing private data after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.”
I was under the impression that there was now substantial evidence that in fact these requests long pre-dated 9/11 (see, for example, [URL] and [URL])
You write with some authority that the issue is entirely post-9/11. Have these accounts been debunked, or is there some other reason to disbelieve them?
As I am sure you appreciate, the issue of when the requests were first made is not irrelevant to whether the administration and its enablers should get to prevent discovery as to what exactly happened.
Best regards,
Michael Froomkin
Professor of Law, University of Miami
Update: Reading Political Animal, I see something which makes me think that maybe Mr. Hulse had a good reason to write it the way he did:
The Senate version of telecom immunity in S.2248 applies only to activities taken after 9/11. There have been reports of possibly illegal NSA/telecom activities being initiated several months before 9/11, but S.2248 wouldn't apply to them. Here's the relevant text:
[A] covered civil action…shall be promptly dismissed, if the Attorney General certifies to the court that (A) the assistance alleged to have been provided by the electronic communication service provider was (i) in connection with an intelligence activity involving communications that was (I) authorized by the President during the period beginning on September 11, 2001, and ending on January 17, 2007; and (II) designed to detect or prevent a terrorist attack, or activities in preparation for a terrorist attack, against the United States….
So maybe Hulse got it just right? Note, however, that the evidence we have is also consistent with this scenario: the administration started pressuring the telcos for the wiretaps long before 9/11…but they only started cooperating afterwards.
Shorter David Brooks: I have finally achieved my ambition of writing a column as tactical and mendacious as William Safire.
Scott Horton deconstructs the NYT's spinelessness when criticized by the Administration.
And this is our best newspaper….
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