August 21, 2004
Hmmmmmm......
An interesting tidbit re John Kerry's FEC suit against the Swiftvets:
(April 7, 2004) John Kerry has hired an Internet-savvy Democrat to run his presidential campaign's online communications, a move that raises new questions about the link between his campaign and the independent groups that run TV ads on his behalf.Zach Exley, the director of special projects for the MoveOn PAC, is going to the Kerry campaign to become its director of online communications and organization.
Exley also worked during the Democratic presidential primary for Howard Dean, helping Dean set up his web-based organization.
Since Kerry became the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee in early March, the MoveOn PAC has spent more than $2.5 million on TV ads that attack President Bush.
But under the new campaign-finance law, those efforts cannot be coordinated with the Kerry campaign.
A MoveOn statement said Exley and the staff of all MoveOn entities have agreed that they will not be in contact through the election period to avoid the appearance of coordination, "even though federal election rules permit some forms of communication."
Of course, we got that from our evil Sith Masters at Bechtelhalliburtoncarlylegroupilluminatiskullandboneskennebunkportjaycees, all in the service of the Amerikan Empire of Bushitlermcsmirky the chimp.
UPDATE: Needless to say, Rusty's Sandcrawler is all over this story like model airplane glue strands on a dungeon and dragons player's nostrils....
An old fashioned Fisking of the Boston Globe
The Holiday in Cambodia story has finally metastisized for John Kerry.
What's been interesting in following this is story is how the dynamics of media feeding frenzies are changing, courtesy of the blogosphere. Blogs are emerging as incubators capable of keeping stories alive, sorting out and winnowing the facts, and by nature of the story being out there, forcing major professional media to cover it whether they ultimately want to or not. Ask Trent Lott. Better yet, ask the NYU School of Journalism, which has this summary of the Harvard's Kennedy School study, “Big Media” Meets the “Bloggers" about the role of blogs in being reactive forces to keep stories alive until they get traction:
Still, the Post editors didn’t think much of Lott’s remarks as news, and they tried to confine Edsall to a paragraph or two. He had to write his 660-word story and show it to them before they could see any real news in it. This is where prominent webloggers like Josh Marshall, Atrios, Glenn Reynolds, but also others entered in. They and their readers (200,000 people at most) were a back-up alert system, another sphere where the story could circulate, register with people, and provoke a response. Reactions and rumblings from across the blogs were thus a kind of proxy for public reaction that had not been able to emerge.But the blogs got only temporary custody of a story that originated in a small corner of the national press on December 6th, and became big news on December 10th, with just a few days (Dec. 6-9, 2002) for the blogs to operate as bridge narrator. "For the most part," Atrios says in the study, "the influence of blogs is limited to the degree to which they have influence on the rest of the media. Except for the very top hit-getting sites, blogs need to be amplified by media with bigger megaphones."
A key point. Weblogs may continue to exert some influence on the news, but it won't come by grabbing the attention of the broader public, gaining major traffic, or displacing the national press as a news source. Political blogs need the press; they are parasitic on the flow of news. They can still have an effect, however, by debating the mainstream news mind, correcting for errors and blind spots, further sifting and refining the flow. And by activating passions and commitments long ago driven from daily journalism, blogs force news through the argument test, which in this case showed that Lott had few defenders, Left or Right. That was news too.
The Web legend about Trent Lott's demise says “the blogs kept the story alive,” and this is basically accurate, but it misses why journalism needed weblogs for that.
So, is Atrios right? Is the influence of blogs limited to the degree which they have influence on the rest of the media? I think the answer is clearly yes at this point.
Case in point is Kerry and the Swift Vets, and this article from today's Boston Globe, the inhouse organ of the Kerry presidential campaign.
Headline: MEDIA BUZZ AIDED ANTI-KERRY EFFORT
First of all, it would have been interesting to see such a headline on an article in the Globe when Farenheit 9/11 was released, something like "MEDIA BUZZ FROM LEFT-WING "DOCUMENTARY" MAKER AIDING ANTI-BUSH EFFORT: HITLER TOO AIDED BY "DOCUMENTARY" ABOUT 36 OLYMPICS, PARTY RALLY" but I digress.
As the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth previewed another ad to air next week, a survey released yesterday said their first controversial attack on John F. Kerry's war record reached more than half the nation with the help of a media buzz created by talk radio and cable news.
I'd like to take the opportunity to introduce the reporter, "Media Critic" Mark Jurkowitz (yes, that's his real name) to Glenn Reynolds: Mark, here's Glenn. He's been hard at work on this story during his lunchbreaks doing stuff that they don't teach at the fancy J-Schools now, like research (you know, going to the library and looking stuff up). What's been behind the surge on talk radio and cable news I would bet is sites like Instapundit, and as the study above indicated about the Trent Lott Affair blogs were "where the story could circulate, register with people, and provoke a response" has become even more true. But it's not just circulating and registering, it's the incubating: the photo showing the Congressional Record version of Kerry's Cambodia speech I think was what crystalized this for many people. Scrolling through Instapundit's archives of the past two weeks shows how the story has incubated and matured up to this point.
The first spot, which began airing Aug. 5 and ran only in West Virginia, Ohio, and Wisconsin, triggered a counterattack on several fronts this week. On Thursday, Kerry accused the veterans of doing President Bush's campaign's "dirty work." A front-page story in yesterday's New York Times raised questions about the credibility of Kerry's accusers.
Notice the passive-voice mention of the New York Times (which, by the way, Jurkowitz fails to mention, is the owner of the Boston Globe). "A front-page story in yesterday's New York Times raised questions about the credibility of Kerry's accusers." Notice no mention of an inquiry at all into the credibility of the accusations, because even now the Kerry campaign is in a "modified, limited hang-out" mode about Kerry's signature story of being in Cambodia on Christmas Eve, 1968--a story used again and again as a political club by the Senator---as being a complete fabrication. The strategy used here is akin to how the press reports salacious sex scandals by reporting not on the allegations themselves, but by reporting about the scandal itself. That way, they are "above" the fray. What's different here is that they are reporting on the "scandal" without touching on the allegations themselves: is what they have to say true? Is there any substance to the charges? Is it even worth investigating? Given the scrutiny with which similar types of charges were covered against President Bush about his military service, doesn't objectivity compel it? Or, does the press simply want Kerry to win?
And yesterday, the Kerry campaign filed a complaint against Swift Boat Veterans for Truth with the Federal Election Commission, claiming the group is illegally coordinating inaccurate ads with the Bush campaign.
Ahh, so campaign finance reform WAS about supressing campaign speech, not just about purging the temple of American politics from the dirty corruption of Mammon. Thought so.
Notice the key part about this, though: inaccurate. Has the NYT or its Boston Globe affiliate investigated that? Notice the reporting style here: raise questions about the credibility of the accuser, ignore the substance of the claims. Sounds like they've been consulting with Kobe Bryant's lawyers.
Despite the questions about the veterans group's motives and methods, a poll released yesterday by the University of Pennsylvania's National Annenberg Election Survey discovered a remarkable ripple effect for what survey director Dr. Kathleen Hall Jamieson characterized as "an ad that barely aired."
First, notice the slack-jawed tone of fear in the article: the ad barely ran and it reached half the respondents in a national poll with adverse results for their guy. Zoot alors!
Here's the key phrase: Despite the questions about the veterans group's motives and methods.... In other words, Despite our best efforts. We've undermined their credibility, now why won't the charges go away? How is this story getting out if NPR is ignoring it?
"In a lot of echo chambers, the echo is louder than the sound that made it in the first place," said Robert Thompson, director of the Center for the Study of Popular Television at Syracuse University.
Nothing to see here folks, move along...
In a Globe interview, Jamieson said the media became preoccupied with the ad at a time "in which there isn't a lot of other political news. The competing stuff on cable is Laci Peterson and Michael Jackson, and the political people wanted something to talk about. . . . It had conflict, it had pictures, you've got drama."
It's only a story, you see, because there's nothing else on tee-vee now.
Chuck Todd, editor in chief of The Hotline, an online compendium of political news, remarked on the staying power of the flap over Kerry's war record. "Every day we've published since August 4 we've had a story [titled] 'Vietnam,' " he said. "Yesterday was day 15."
Actually, its been Day 215, since John Kerry--who, to steal from James Taranto, you might have heard served in Vietnam--won the Iowa Caucus. Kerry made the 4 months and 11 days he served in Vietnam the centerpiece--hell, the ONLY piece--of his convention. Twenty years in the Senate? Moi? Mike Dukakis' Lieutenant Governor? Ummmm, not ringing a bell. Must have been that other Kerry. Kerry told his detractors to "BRING. IT. ON!" and the men he accused of being a bunch of war criminals thirty three Aprils ago have done just that. And John Kerry is going to court to try and stop them (after they went to court to try to get Kerry to stop using war-time pictures of them, implying their support of the candidate).
Michael Harrison, publisher of Talkers magazine, which tracks the talk radio industry, called the controversy over the ad and Kerry's war record "a major part of the election 2004 election story. You have a lot of conservative hosts on talk radio, many of them backing Bush claims . . . It blends into the discussion of the election. It's part of the number one topic."
Again, it's the center of the election right now because that's what Kerry made it to be. "Reporting for duty" anybody? Anybody? Bueller? Here's what we had to say about this back on February 19th:
I think Terry Mac made a terrible mistake by making the first issue of the general election be on the Bush/National Guard issue, as he always couched it in terms of John Kerry's "chest full of medals." The problem with that statement is the most memorable picture of Kerry is of him testifying before the Senate in 1971.
But this is the ground he chose for the fight, not his career in the Senate.
Yesterday, the veterans upped the ante by rolling out another ad as part of a $600,000 buy that will begin airing Tuesday in three states where "Kerry has touted his military service," according to the group's spokesman, Sean McCabe. The spot features several veterans harshly criticizing Kerry's 1971 Senate testimony about atrocities that occurred in Vietnam. A statement quotes Admiral Roy Hoffman, founder of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, saying, "What John Kerry did made Jane Fonda look like a Red Cross volunteer. It was terribly demoralizing."
Again, don't take Mark Jurkowitz's word for it, decide for yourself: here's the ad, here's the script.
The Kerry campaign responded with a statement condemning "another ad from a front group funded by Bush allies that is trying to smear John Kerry. The newest ad takes Kerry's testimony out of context, editing what he said to distort the facts." The campaign also released records that it says indicate that two of the principals in the ad "are Republican activists . . . It's no wonder the Bush campaign refuses to condemn this smear."
First of all, this isn't a smear: it's a vicious hard ball to the head. But a hardball isn't by definition a smear: a smear would be going and finding the greiving mother of the wounded Viet Cong guerilla Lt. (JG) John Kerry leaped from his Swift Boat to shoot, at close range, and asking how she felt when she got the news. Heck, it wouldn't matter if you actually found her, you could find the symbolic representation of the grieving mother crying over her lost son and exploit that for your political purposes. All in service of the greater truth, right?
Second of all, what about the Kerry campaign's coordination not only with MoveOn.org, but also Michael Moore?
What does this all add up to?
In terms of the story itself, critical mass has been attained. The story cannot be contained now, and will develop until the charges are fully explored or those bringing the charges completely implode. Such is the nature of feeding frenzies.
But what this story points to is the larger issue of how blogs are changing the way the news is reported, as well as the failures of the larger professional media to live up to its own self image.
In the famous Pentagon Papers case New York Times v. United States Justice Potter Stewart wrote:
In the absence of the governmental checks and balances present in other areas of our national life, the only effective restraint upon executive policy and power in the areas of national defense and international affairs may lie in an enlightened citizenry--in an informed and critical public opinion which alone can here protect the values of democratic government. For this reason, it is perhaps here that a press that is alert, aware, and free most vitally serves the basic purpose of the First Amendment. For without an informed and free press there cannot be an enlightened people."
Except here it is the New York Times and the Boston Globe which is trying to exercise prior restraint not in the name of national security, but to protect the prospects of their chosen candidate. It is not a press that is alert, aware, and free, vitally serving the basic purposes of the first amendment. That job is increasingly being done by the unpaid and amateur (in the best, classic sense of the word) citizen bloggers.
More Bad News for the Kerry Campaign
The Boston Globe reports that the economy and job growth in Massachusetts is surging.
Olympic Update!
US Men's Basketball loses to Lithuania.
For some reason, sports journalists still refer to them as "The Dream Team."
What should they really be called?
The Llamabutchers present the Top Ten Names for the US Men's Olympic Basketball team:10. The Plump Chumps9. The "Show me the money!" Honeys
8. The Brat Pack
7. The Four-Corners No-offense
6. The "Phelps aint fit to polish my Escalade" Sport-oes
5. Naismith's Nightmares
4. The Excuses Papooses
3. The Tame, Lame Blame Game Crew
2. The French Army
and the number one nickname for the US Men's Olympic Basketball Team of 2004:
1. The Washington Generals (the team that always gets embarassingly whupped by the Harlem Globetrotters)
Team slogan: We put the "ASS" in EMBARRASSMENT!
Make up your freakin' mind!
In the same edition of the Joong Ann Daily (an English language South Korean newspaper):
The United States has rebuffed an appeal from South Korea to delay the forthcoming withdrawal of a third of U.S. troops from the peninsula, the Ministry of National Defense said yesterday.
Defense officials from Washington and Seoul concluded two-day talks yesterday on the future of the U.S. troops in Korea. The force reduction and the closure of the Yongsan Garrison including the transfer of the Seoul-based U.S. forces to new bases south of capital were the two main agenda items of this week's Future of Alliance Talks.
"Because the reduction of U.S. troops in Korea will be carried out in line with the GPR, the United States expressed difficulties in adjusting the size and schedule of the planned forces cut," the Defense Ministry said. GPR refers to the Global Defense Posture Review, the U.S. plan to redeploy its forces around the world.
Under the plan, Washington already announced the withdrawal of 12,500 American soldiers from the peninsula by the end of 2005, including the 3,700-strengh combat team that has departed to Iraq. The United States has been maintaining roughly 37,000 troops here.
At the talks, South Korea reportedly asked the United States to delay the troop cut until 2007, but the proposal was turned down.
"We told the United States more time is needed to complete the plan to spend $11 billion to beef up U.S. capabilities," a Defense Ministry official said. "We also said that transfer of some missions from the U.S. to South Korean troops won't conclude until the end of 2006."
Despite such appeals, the United States said it would stick to the original schedule of force reductions by the end of next year, the official said, but leaving room for further negotiations on the schedules of pulling out particular mechanized units.
Seoul has been alarmed that the planned withdrawal of U.S. firepower, such as multiple rocket launchers, may weaken the deterrence against North Korea.
Aside from military shifts on the U.S. mainland, the peninsula will be the first place to experience the transformation of the U.S. army, Richard Lawless, Pentagon's chief negotiator for the South Korea-U.S. defense talks, said.said.
"Yankees Go Home NOW!"
Photos take aim right at AmericaNoh Soon-taek is an activist who speaks with his photographs. Mr. Noh, 33, has used his camera as a weapon to expose what he sees as the absurdities of Korean society in the turmoil of modern history. His primary interest is the division of the two Koreas, and the role of the United States on the peninsula.
In a photo exhibition titled "Smells Like the Division of the Korean Peninsula," Mr. Noh presents 36 black-and-white photographs taken in his home country, which he dubs "Republic of Komerica."
In stark, black-and-white photographs, Mr. Noh finds a different shade of Korea's reality. One of the photographs on display features Panmunjeom as seen from a new angle, with U.S. soldiers in the foreground, backs to the camera. Mr. Noh says in a caption that while South Korean soldiers think the Americans watch the North Koreans, they don't recognize that they're the ones being watched over. In a film that depicts a children's picnic at the War Museum, Mr. Noh photographs carefree kids with the museum in the background, writing, "Why do we have to commemorate a war, not peace? The War Museum today again swallows children."
Mr. Noh, who works at a leftist monthly magazine called Mal ("Words"), is politically anti-American, but that doesn't mean he hates Americans. What he's opposed to is a Pax Americana, an empire with supremacy over the world. He wants as many U.S. citizens as possible to visit his exhibit, in much the same way that millions of Americans have seen Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11." In October, Mr. Noh will hold a joint photo exhibition in New York on the topic of the U.S. Army both in Korea and Japan.
"I don't want so many parts of our reality to be real, like the division of the country and South Korea's dependence on the United States," Mr. Noh said. "But sadly enough, the public is only given a fabricated reality. Once we get over the ignorance, there are so many things to learn.
Yes, like how ignorant you are. Pax Americana: that's why there are so many famous North Korean dissident photographers and documentarians who are free to show their art showcasing the problems in the glorious workers paradise of North Korea, such as............. oh yeah, that's right, there aren't any. Nor are there any from the glorious workers paradises of Vietnam or Cuba, for that matter. But in America and South Korea, you can't swing a dead cat at an art opening without hitting one (sure, often they are a part of the wait staff, but art is only appreciated after the artist is dead, non?). Hmmmmmm, tell you something about the differences between North Korea, Vietnam, and Cuba and the USA and South Korea? No? Then boy does Markos Zuniga has a website for you!
The Dream Team moves closer to the Gold
And by the "Dream Team" I mean of course the Iraqi Soccer team.
Check out this article from the IHT though for a good laugh:
raq beat Australia 1-0 in the quarterfinal of the Olympic soccer tournament on Saturday to move within sight of a medal, maybe even the gold. . In one of the most amazing achievements in Olympic history, a soccer team that can’t play any games on home turf because of the daily violent conflict in its country is one game away from the Olympic final in Athens. . Emad Mohammed scored the only goal of the game in the 64th minute at Iraklion and, in the semifinal, the Iraqis will face either Paraguay or South Korea, who faced each other later Saturday at Thessaloniki. . A goal four minutes from the end of extra time by AS Roma defender Cesare Bovo gave Italy a 1-0 victory over Mali while the other quarterfinal between Argentina, hot favorite for the gold, and Costa Rica also kicked off later. . The only goal at the Pankritio Stadium came following a corner. Mahdi Karim headed the ball down to Mohammed who hooked the ball in with an overhead kick. . The goal set off jubilant celebrations among more than 1,000 Iraqi supporters, hundreds of whom had been chanting and waving flags since an hour before kickoff. . A year ago, Iraq’s soccer federation had been disbanded, the team had no facilities and no cash and the nation’s Olympic status had been suspended by the International Olympic Committee. . Reinstated by the IOC in February, Iraq played catchup to get its athletes to Greece and its soccer players qualified not only for the Olympics but also for the Asian Cup in China. . They got there under the guidance of inspirational German coach Bernd Stange. But he was forced to quit three months ago facing death threats if he ever returned to Iraq and was replaced by Adnan Hamad. . They still couldn’t play on home turf because of the continued bloody conflict back in their own country and had to survive financially on handouts from other federations and the proceeds of friendly games.
That's right, they are there in spite of those damned Amerikans and their Furher Bushitlermcsmikychimp and his dread Sith masters at Hallibechtelharkencarlylegroup.
Of course, since the IHT is staffed by professional journalists, and therefore don't have access to Google like we laypersons who never went to J-school, there's no mention at all of the tortue of Iraqi Olympic athletes, particularly soccer players, by Uday Hussein, former president of the Iraqi Olympic Committee, who kept a special torture chamber at the Olympic HQ. Because, after all, only the dirty Amerikans are capable of such things.
Rosie the Riveter Goes to Riyadh
From today's Arab News:
JEDDAH, 21 August 2004 — Efforts are under way to establish women-only projects with the support of private and public agencies to employ70 , 000qualified Saudi women, according to Ahmed Al-Mansour, deputy minister for labor affairs.
He pointed out that Saudi businesswomen own about15 ,000companies, which account for 43 percent of registered businesses in the country. He estimated the number of registered businesswomen at2 ,400.
“The establishment of the new projects will help solve the growing unemployment problem among Saudi women,” Al-Madinah Arabic daily quoted Mansour as saying. At present only5 . 5percent of an estimated4 . 7million Saudi women of working age are employed.
Meanwhile, Labor Minister Dr. Ghazi Al-Gosaibi has instructed labor offices throughout the Kingdom to open special sections for women. The directive follows a Cabinet decision urging all government departments to open women’s sections.
Saudi Arabia now allows women to obtain commercial licenses, a move that would encourage businesswomen to invest their huge bank deposits in industrial and other projects. The government also allocated land for industrial projects to employ women.
Nahid Tahir, a senior economist at the National Commercial Bank, described the Cabinet’s decision as a pragmatic one. “This decision will certainly reduce social and economic pressures on men, who are no longer capable of meeting family needs due to a drop in personal income,” she said.
Hussa Al-Aun, vice chairperson of the Women’s Consultative Council in the Makkah region, said the Cabinet decision would encourage women to invest some of the at least SR 15billion which they have in bank deposits.
Al-Aun said a Saudi investment company has signed a deal with two Chinese and Malaysian firms to establish the country’s first women’s industrial city in Jeddah at a cost of SR 375million.
Covering an area of 600, 000square meters, the new facility will have 83 factories. The two foreign firms will operate the city and train10 , 000women for two years.
Al-Aun, who has been campaigning for the women’s industrial city for the past seven years, said the new facility would be launched with female Asian workers, adding that trained Saudi women would replace the Asians later.
Plans are under way to establish an industrial training institute for women in Jeddah at a cost of SR3.4 million. Fatma Al-Aidarous, director of the project, said the institute was planned to train Saudi women in manufacturing readymade dresses.
“At present most women working in this sector are foreigners because of the lack of qualified and trained Saudi women,” she pointed out. Aidarous described the institute as first of its kind in the Kingdom, adding that it will train12 , 000young Saudi women.
And I'm sure they'll be constructing time machines in the industrial city, so to make easier the trip back to the ninth century.