Where there's smoke, there's Segretti

(Cross-posted at Hullabaloo)

Digby and dday are in the Mile High City, but here's a view of the convention coverage from closer to sea level. When the news broke last week that the Clinton's formed a "whip team" to handle troublemakers, I immediately realized that any disturbance, no matter how insignificant, would be elevated to a top story. It's kind of like when there's an earthquake and all the helicopters swarm over a burning shack somewhere and people across America get the impression that all of California is engulfed in flames.

The McCain campaign is smart to put out these otherwise ridiculous Hillary Clinton ads this week. The ads may be easy to mock if you are an Obama supporter (they are easy to mock), but McCain's real target audience is his base, which means the tire-swinging press corps.

Naturally, FOX News is already leading the way by not just reporting that it's 1968 all over again, but trying to actually stir up trouble for their broadcasts. But the rest of the media appears to be receiving the message perfectly. CNN is spending most of their time this morning talking about the attempts to "paper over" the big divisions in the party. MSNBC just ran a clip of Teddy Kennedy standing with Jimmy Carter in 1980 as NBC's David Brinkley cooed, "This is awkward."

It's a well-rehearsed GOP strategy and it's going to be monumentally difficult to keep this convention from being turned into a Clinton-Obama civil war -- at least as far as it appears to everybody outside Denver this week.

UPDATE: As soon as I hit 'publish' for this post, Chuck Todd said the Clinton-Obama story "is like catnip for us." He then explained that the media will get over it soon. Yeah, right.

LATE UPDATE: In fairness to Todd, as the convention opened, he dumped cold water all over the topic by telling Chris Matthews that it's not a real story and reporters will likely look back and wonder why they wasted time on it. But wasting time, they are.

Great moments in CNN election coverage

Earlier today, CNN's Don Lemon cut to live coverage of Barack Obama giving a campaign speech. Why? Because he was talking about Reverend Wright (emphasis mine).

LEMON: Back now to Greensboro, North Carolina. Barack Obama taking questions now, talking about the Reverend Jeremiah Wright. (JOINED IN PROGRESS)

SEN. BARACK OBAMA (D-IL), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: ... to our daily lives. And people's struggles with illness and families and finances and all of things that people normally talk about.

My pastor did say -- my former pastor said some very objectionable things when I wasn't in church on those particular days. And I have condemned those outright.

I do have to remind people though that this is somebody who was preaching three sermons at least a week for 30 years and got boiled down in the -- they found five or six of his most offensive statements, boiled that down into a half an hour sound clip -- or a half-minute sound clip, and just played it over and over and over again, partly because it spoke to the racial divisions that we have in this country and had tapped into some of those divisions. I hope people don't get distracted by that.

(APPLAUSE)

Because, as I said in my speech -- as I said in my speech last week on Tuesday, we can't afford to be distracted.

You and I, we are both Christians. We come from different backgrounds. We come from different faiths. And there are misunderstandings on both sides. But we are both Christians, and even if you are not a Christian, we are both Americans. And we cannot solve the problems of America if every time somebody somewhere says something stupid, that everybody gets up in arms and we forget about the war in Iraq or we forget about the economy.

(APPLAUSE)

Or we forget about the things that are going to make a difference in our children's lives. I don't want that kind of politics. I want a politics that gets stuff done.

All right? OK.

Next, Obama took another question, this one about health care for America's seniors. Let's see how CNN covered that:

The young lady right here who was angry with me that I didn't call on her.

Go ahead.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Good afternoon, and welcome to Greensboro. Certainly hope you had a great vacation.

OBAMA: Thank you. Well, can I say this? Two and a half days is not a vacation. Two and a half days is a long weekend.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK.

OBAMA: Which is what I had. And it was wonderful. Thank you.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you. I'm B.J. Heathington (ph), and my question is, you have and all of the various candidates have continued to speak on health care, but one of the issues that we fail to forget is that the elderly care and persons with disabilities needs a special connection in this country that we are continuing forget.

Do you at this present time have a plan where you look to focus for the government to change some of these issues so that these persons can be recognized with dignity, as good servants to the community, and as taxpayers?

OBAMA: Well, let me talk about seniors. You know, the issue of elder care and seniors generally.

It starts with making sure that Social Security is here. That it was here yesterday, that it's here today, and it's here tomorrow. So, making sure that Social Security is stable is absolutely critical. There was a report recently that came out showing that Medicare will run out of money effectively...

LEMON: OK. Barack Obama in Greensboro, North Carolina, right now talking about Medicare and healthcare in the United States. But he has mentioned something that has dogged him for the last couple of weeks, and that is what he referred to -- and he made sure he referred to him as his "former pastor" -- the Reverend Jeremiah Wright of Trinity Church in Chicago, saying that he did three sermons a week for 30 years, and essentially what the media did was take five or six, or the most offensive statements, and boil them down to like a half- minute, 30-second clips. And he said, "I hope you don't get distracted by that," talking to the people there.

And also, someone asking him, "I hope you enjoyed your vacation." He was in the Virgin Islands, of course. CNN got exclusive pictures of Barack Obama on his vacation.

Do we have that? In the Virgin Islands, and so he referred to that. And he said two or three days is not a vacation.

So there you go, Barack Obama speaking there. But also, the reason we wanted to get you that is because he is talking about that controversy, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright.

"'I hope you don't get distracted by that,' talking to the people there."

Obviously not to CNN. They openly admit that they only care about this flap and they have zero interest in covering issues like health care.

Helps explain this:

Two thirds of Americans - 67% - believe traditional journalism is out of touch with what Americans want from their news.

Iowa postscript

DB's brilliant predictions were spot-on:

I will be disappointed with one party's selections and horrified by the other's. Then, I will stop thinking about Iowa.

I'm disappointed that Dodd had such a poor showing (not that I ever thought he'd come away with a significant total). But .02 percent is ugly. The AP story about his withdrawal from the race actually contains more information about him than all the previous stories about the race combined.

Even his (threatened) filibuster of the FISA bill that thwarted Harry Reid's skulduggery for the time being barely netted Dodd any press at all. The system is simply too rigged for a person like Dodd to get the kind of momentum required to make a strong showing in a presidential race. That's a shame, but one I accepted a long time ago.

Obama's win tonight -- and the Democratic turnout -- was impressive. So was his victory speech. I don't have much to add to it that hasn't been said on TV or on other blogs.

On the other side of the coin, Mike Huckabee is a terrible candidate with the right attributes to get support from a certain segment of the nation, one that might be large enough to send him to Washington.

Huckabee is grossly unqualified to be president. There's no denying it. Voting for him because of his religion or his demeanor is inexcusable. Haven't the last seven years taught the Republicans anything?

Besides, Huckabee invented the What Would Jesus Do Loophole: ("Jesus was too smart to [BE IN MY CURRENT SITUATION].")

Memo to GOP voters: You will never, ever have a beer with the next president.

And having someone like this in the White House is just too much for me to fathom:

Five days after the tornado tore through the state, [Arkadelphia, Ark., a] city of 10,000 lay in ruins. The cyclone destroyed an office building, a bank, a pharmacy and 70 other businesses. The electricity was out. The National Guard patrolled the streets. Six people were dead.

In Little Rock, GOP Gov. Mike Huckabee was reviewing a disaster insurance measure that he intended to support when he became troubled: The bill, drawing on centuries-old legal terminology, referred to natural disasters as "acts of God."

In a time of emergency, Huckabee would hold up the measure for more than three weeks to press his personal objection that the Almighty could not be blamed for the region's loss. In the process, he drew damaging headlines and created new strains in his relations with the state's legislature, the General Assembly.

Frightening.

Finally, the television media is as brutally bad as ever. The irony of all these jokers talking about how badly America seems to want change. Howard Fineman said that America wants "a whole new cast."

Yes, and that includes all of you. You don't have front-row seats; you are all part of the same sad show. Today's coverage, with a few exceptions, was agonizing and it didn't even matter what channel my TV was tuned in to. They were all equally bad.

While I'm on the topic... A special "For the love of God, Please Stop!" goes out to Anderson Cooper and CNN for the computer-generated pie chart floating over a hand-held panel and skewing and scaling with every movement, blocking out everybody else's heads.

It made me pine for the halcyon days when Soledad O'Brien shared her time with this guy.

CNN's Ticker

CNN is putting out the idea that Hillary Clinton might put her husband, Bill, on the Supreme Court.

What an interesting news flash to come out on the day of the Iowa Caucuses! Was this something that leaked from the Clinton campaign? Was it something Hillary said? Has Bill dropped some hints to CNN?

Uh, no. It's a "prediction" by conservative law professor Doug Kmiec, who worked for Reagan and Bush 41 in the OLC. You remember Kmiec... He penned a lackluster defense of the Bush administration after James Comey testified about the shenanigans in John Ashcroft's hospital room. During the Clinton years, of course, Kmiec was the champion of the "rule of law" and intense critic of executive abuse of power.

In short, Kmiec has no insight of value on Hillary's intentions. Certainly not enough for CNN to front page his "prediction." Absolutely not enough value to make this a top news item on Caucus Day.

I guess they didn't have enough stupid predictions to fill the airwaves and internets.

UPDATE: This didn't even register in my brain when I read it:

Kmiec worked in the Reagan and Bush 41 White Houses as a top lawyer, but said he has no personal or political "disdain" for Bill Clinton.

Disdain? What a joke. Trash reporting. Maybe they should have indicated in the article somewhere that the dean of Pepperdine Law School -- that is Kmiec's boss -- is Ken Starr. Actually, they shouldn't have printed this crap at all.

Shameful reporting.

UPDATE II: It's 6:50 pm ET and Wolf Blitzer just pushed this story, too -- without even mentioning Kmiec by name.

The Most Trusted Name in Propaganda

(Cross-posted at Hullabaloo)

Via Atrios, I see that CNN has given Laura Ingraham a week to get America clapping louder.

I guess we can expect the kind of hard-hitting war coverage we've already heard from Ingraham on her radio show:

INGRAHAM: Secretary Rumsfeld, I've got to tell you, when I read some of the very small stories about the Afghan elections I thought to myself, here we have about a 50 percent turnout rate in a country where we were promised unending violence, unending chaos, and yet women and young people brave the threats and they made it to the polls and you don't get any coverage of it.

[...]

INGRAHAM: One of the things that I think of course is responsible for this, the reason for this refusal to pay attention to the story, is because they'd rather focus on whatever they think is perceived problems in Katrina response, or they'll focus on the difficulty we're facing in Iraq, and on that note, I have to ask you, given everything that you know about the region, what's happening in Iraq, what do you do at the Pentagon to affect public opinion? Because these polls, one after the other, are showing ebbing support for the war. I support the war, I'm think it's worth it, and I'm frustrated that more Americans don't think it's worth it at this juncture.

[...]

INGRAHAM: Do we think, Mr. Secretary, that having a military spokesperson on the ground day in and day out, ticking off three positive pieces of news out of Iraq every day, someone that every American knows, comes to know whether it's General Casey or someone else, do you think that's something that would affect the public opinion at this point? Because I'm concerned if these numbers keep going the way they are, it's going to do damage to the President's war on terror overall and obviously his standing on other issues at home.

[...]

SECRETARY RUMSFELD: ... Obviously you're quite right, all of that effort has not overcome the negative press that is --

INGRAHAM: Something's got to change.

[...]

INGRAHAM: North Korea, I've got to say everyone thinking it was such a positive development, North Korea's commitment in the six-party talks to refrain from further pursuit of nuclear materials and nuclear processing and now they say well, we want a white water reactor, otherwise we're not going to move forward on our commitment.

What are the American people supposed to think about this?

[...]

INGRAHAM: The mistake made in 1994 not to look back, but to use it as a way of learning, a mistake of hoping for the best from North Korea just ended up kicking the can down the road, to use the line from one of your former colleagues.

[...]

INGRAHAM: Back on Iraq for a second, Mr. Secretary, the major problem outside of Iraq that would affect the future, our future success in Iraq, would it be Iran for you? I know that you talk about the people streaming across the border still, and the foreign fighters we found in Telafar a few weeks ago. But would it be Iran, and what Iran's role in all this is and would be?

SECRETARY RUMSFELD: In what sense? Would it be what?

INGRAHAM: A further danger to the situation in Iraq as it is today. What outside forces other than what we're seeing developing on the ground inside of Iraq would you point to as a problem?

[...]

INGRAHAM: And your commanders in the field now in Iraq, there are reports back to you about the progress being made. Of course Americans are greeted by headlines every day, 1900 dead, thousands more wounded, roadside bombs. But the commanders were working with the security forces. I've had a chance to talk to some of them. I hear a very different account of what is happening, very positive stories, again, and yet I don't see the stuff reported. It's frustrating to me. I can't imagine how frustrating to you it must be.

[...]

INGRAHAM: Two more questions, Mr. Secretary, I know you're on a tight schedule. Are you confident that a year from now or six months from now public opinion will move toward embracing progress in Iraq and the fact that Iraq was worth it?

[...]

INGRAHAM: You've got a press corps against you and you've got an international media who's oftentimes against you so it's very difficult.

Before I let you go, the AmericaSupportsYou.Mil charity. We continue to link it and promote it on our web site, Mr. Secretary, at a time when everyone's opening their wallets to Katrina I need to remember and remind everyone to support that web site which helps our troops, their families, and continues to just be a huge outpouring to the benefit of our men and women in uniform.

That's the entirety of her exclusive interview with the Secretary of Defense in the middle of two wars. Other than a dig at Clinton's North Korea policy, the only question was essentially "How bad is Iran?"

Everything else out of her mouth was an attack on the media for ignoring how fantastic the war is. CNN has reacted to her by giving her a prime slot... A woman who asked Rumsfeld "What are the American people supposed to think about this?"

Well done, CNN. In case her willingness to catapult the propaganda isn't obvious enough, here's how the interview ended:

INGRAHAM: Fantastic. If you need someone to be that military spokesperson over in Iraq, I'm happy to give up my microphone any time, Mr. Secretary. Any time you call I'll be happy to jump over there.


SECRETARY RUMSFELD: You're terrific, Laura. Thanks so much.

Yes, terrific is the word I'd choose, too:

Main Entry: ter·rif·ic
Pronunciation: t&-'ri-fik
Function: adjective
Etymology: Latin terrificus, from terrEre to frighten
1 a : very bad : FRIGHTFUL

You're terrific, too, CNN.

Spin the perv

Here's the difference between MSNBC and CNN: One of these news outlets seems interested in putting facts on their web page, the other puts GOP spin.



Those are the facts. This guy is sick and the GOP knew it. They were more interested in keeping it quiet than keeping kids safe.

But CNN chooses to put the Hastert-approved spin front and center:



Shocked! SHOCKED! How could he do this to us? We, the GOP leaders, we're the victims!

What a joke. No wonder CNN isn't really America's Most Trusted Name in News. They apparently don't think we can handle the facts. That's why they hire Glenn Beck and Bill Bennett. If it weren't for Jack Cafferty, there wouldn't be a reason to ever watch that network.

Unless you like to be reminded every night at 6 p.m. ET that Mexico wants to reclaim Aztlan.

It won't open a black hole, either

CNN just did a story on the unmanned aerial drones that may be patrolling the skies of Los Angeles soon. After allowing a USC law professor to suggest that the police, who do a great job in his words, might be tempted to take this technology too far in invading privacy, CNN responded with footage of killer drones in "Terminator 3" and a comforting pledge from the police that the drone will not behave similarly.

DB feels much better now. Thanks, CNN!

Fair is fair

This may be hard for some to swallow, but there's no denying that it's true: The American government and American employers have tacitly encouraged illegal immigration.

Employers have hired illegals and taken advantage of their status, while the government has sporadically and arbitrarily enforced the law. How could anyone deny that the people coming here did so without the federal government looking the other way?

Why is it important to face this fact? Because although it is entirely appropriate for the United States to decide that, as of this minute, the laws and borders will be enforced fervently, it is absurd and immoral to pretend that this seriousness of purpose began in the distant past and that people who came here to establish families and to work for the American Dream did so without any complicity from those who would punish them today.

If we recognize the contributions of the undocumented workers who have been here for some time, does that tell the world that it's OK to break the law? Lou Dobbs and others will say it does, but the truth is that this country already told them that. It is absolutely delusional to think that we can focus all the burden of this policy transformation on to a hard-working minority and somehow communicate to the world that we are the shining emblem of justice.

This government isn't suddenly telling people they can no longer jaywalk. These immigrants have established lives here. Anybody claiming to have respect for life, for families, for work... for the American Dream should have enough room in his or her heart to accept the people who are already here.

If we don't want to tell the world that it's OK to break the law, we should ask our Senators and Congressmen to stop figuring out how to change the laws so that the president isn't breaking them anymore.

UPDATE: Following up, DB would like to add that it is not hard to understand why people in Bay Buchanan's "deport them all" camp would feel no hypocrisy in taking a position that people in the U.S. illegally deserve no "reward" for being here. People like her and Dobbs aren't individually culpable for the lax enforcement of the immigration laws. To the contrary, they've been demanding tougher enforcement for years.

But they, more than anyone, should recognize that collectively, our nation has not respected its own laws. Dobbs' show would not even have its primary focus had the federal government been enforcing the laws and had American employers been hiring legal workers exclusively. It should be more clear to the people who don't feel personally responsible for the problem and who have been critical of the federal government that it is in no position to act with any legitimacy as though it believes its laws are sacrosanct.

The point is that the message, "You get rewarded for breaking the law," isn't going to be sent out by anything the government does at this point. That message has been sent for decades and the people who came here to work are here because they received it.

The only message we should be worried about sending to the rest of the world at this point is "The people with power and money in our democracy will sell out their own citizens by hiring cheap foreign labor until it becomes politically untenable, at which point they will tell the minorities working for peanuts to get the hell out."

Tougher border security and consistent enforcement of the laws is not only appropriate, but DB demands it. Treating working people with families, already in our communities, like garbage to be dragged to the curb, however...

Now, who wants ice cream?

WOLF BLITZER: At this time of holiday purchases, Christmas shopping, people going to a Wal-Mart and other stores, they see a lot of products made in China. The deficit, the trade deficit, with China this year is projected to be at $200 billion.

In other words, they're going to export to this country $200 billion more than we export to China. And that number has been escalating over these years. Is that good for the U.S. economy?

JOSH BOLTEN, WHITE HOUSE BUDGET DIRECTOR: Well, trade overall is absolutely good for the U.S. economy. Keep in mind, Wolf, that the United States is the world's largest exporter. We have a lot of jobs tied up in that. We have a lot of revenue tied up in that.

To the extent that we can import as well, the U.S. consumer gets access and U.S. businesses get access to low priced goods that help us be competitive in the long run. There's no question in my mind and in the minds of everybody in this administration that keeping an open trading system is crucial to sustaining the growth in this economy over the long run.

BLITZER: Josh Bolten, we'll leave it there. Thanks very much for joining us.

Waiter, there's a Bay leaf in my Kool-Aid

Hasn't Congress banned the kind of drugs Bay Buchanan is clearly on, and if not, for the love of god, why?

WOLF BLITZER: But, should the White House only be held up to a criminal standard? Is there a moral responsibility that some people should take for outing, if you will, the wife of Ambassador Wilson?

BAY BUCHANAN: Well, there's no-- no. A wife of an ambassador, there's nothing wrong with that.

BLITZER: But, she's a CIA operative.

BUCHANAN: Yes, but they didn't know that she was covert. It comes across now. The information appears that they weren't aware. Not even Libby was aware of this.

And so there's no mean spiritedness and deliberate attempt to hurt Joe Wilson. They were trying to get information out, Wolf, and they have a right to do that when the press was looking at them, as if they somehow were involved in sending Joe Wilson over there.

Uh, you may want to rethink that talking point, Bay.

UPDATE: Removed link to apparently bogus ABC News story.