Dianne Feinstein, maverick - Dem, Ill

It’s been a busy couple days for Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.).

On Monday, Feinstein — the incoming chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee — put out a statement in which she criticized the choice of Leon Panetta to run the CIA, saying, “My position has consistently been that I believe the Agency is best-served by having an intelligence professional in charge at this time.”

Tuesday, Feinstein spoke with both President-elect Barack Obama and Vice President-elect Joe Biden,  her office released a new statement in which she took a more neutral position, but still didn’t offer Panetta her support. “I have been contacted by both President-elect Obama and Vice President-elect Biden, and they have explained to me the reasons why they believe Leon Panetta is the best candidate for CIA Director,” she said. “I look forward to speaking with Mr. Panetta about the critical issues facing the intelligence community and his plans to address them.”

Then, shortly after that, she was making news, once again for publicly disagreeing with her public’s leaders. This time, the difference was over Roland Burris, Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s choice to fill Obama’s Senate seat. Feinstein now says Burris should be seated if and when he’s able to get Illinois’ secretary of state to give him the signature necessary to make his paperwork official. “The question, really, is one in my view of law,” the senator said, according to Politico. “And that is, does the governor have the power to make the appointment? And the answer is yes. Is the governor discredited? And the answer is yes.

“Does that affect his appointment power? And the answer is no until certain things happen.”

As Josh Marshall observes, Feinstein probably has her legal analysis right. That doesn’t make her public dissent on the Burris question any less embarrassing for Majority Leader Harry Reid, though.

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New TSA Uniforms Trigger a Rash of Complaints - Barack Obama

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Entertainer-turned-politician Al Franken declared victory in Minnesota’s U.S. Senate race yesterday, just hours after a state panel charged with overseeing the recount of nearly 3 million ballots certified that the Democrat had received 225 more votes than Republican Sen. Norm Coleman.

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Move along, folks, the Lieberman hanging’s canceled by Obama executive order - Obama,Barack

The new White House chief of staff-designate Rahm Emanuel is a Chicago-style representative known for his tough politics, his tough language and the occasional unfriendly finger gesture.

But just weeks before the start of the historic Barack Obama administration, the last thing the boss-elect wanted was a public hanging of Connecticut’s sort-of Democrat Sen. Joe Lieberman for his outspoken support of the Republican ticket of John McCain and Sarah Palin the last several months.

There was some support for revenge (Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid) among those (Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid) who wanted to slice away Lieberman’s committee chairmanship of Homeland Security and membership on the important Armed Services Committee with McCain and Hillary Clinton.

It was the Democratic Party, you may remember, that started this fight by supporting an insurgent primary challenger of Lieberman in 2006 over the senator’s support of the Iraq war in general and the Bush administration’s troop surge in particular.

The insurgent won the primary but was blown away in the general, where Lieberman ran as an independent and drew on his longtime statewide name recognition as a former attorney general and senator who suits the state’s moderate-to-conservative Democratic mind-set. And the Republicans tacitly supported Joe by putting up a nobody and not supporting him.

So jolly Joe returned to the Senate and the Democratic caucus, where his vote was the leverage that gave the party the 51 votes necessary to control that body.

It’s one thing to support the war. It’s another, however, to support Republicans, which Lieberman did big time, even speaking in prime time at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul.

With a newly-enlarged Democratic majority now, Joe’s lone vote is less important. It came time to take him to the woodshed during this week’s brief congressional session before another vacation. But how would that look as a pre-inaugural first step for a new administration pledged to change the way Washington doesn’t work?

So Lieberman keeps his Homeland chairmanship, his Armed Services membership and loses a minor subcommittee chairmanship, which is like detention for a week. And life goes on.

Lieberman told reporters he appreciated colleagues’ respect for his "independence of mind."

"That’s who I am," said the 2000 Democratic party vice presidential nominee.

The overwhelming majority of Democrats in the caucus wanted to keep Joe on, Reid said, looking like he was not a member of that overwhelming majority but got the word from Chicago. "It’s all over with," he said.

A little rump-session drama that may give an inkling of the Obama-Emanuel style to come. (For an entertaining video of a roast of Emanuel and his kick-em-between the legs political style, click here and see what Obama had to say about him way back in 2005.)

– Andrew Malcolm

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Photo credit: Chris O’Meara / Associated Press

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Evening Buzz: Obama’s History-Making Choice - Obama,Barack

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Guilty: Coulter’s latest book filled with falsehoods - Obama,Barack

Media Matters for America hasexamined a copy of author and syndicated columnist Ann Coulter’s newbook, Guilty: Liberal”Victims” and Their Assault on America,which Media Matters obtained inadvance of the book’s release, and presents a sampling of thebook’s numerous falsehoods, including misrepresentations ofthe sources she cites. These falsehoods come on awide-ranging list of subjects including her defense of the claims made againstSen. John Kerry (D-MA) by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth during the 2004presidential campaign; her assertion that “Fox News has never been caughtpromoting a fraud”; her claim that President-elect Barack Obama wasreferring to Gov. Sarah Palin when he said “you know, you can put lipstickon a pig; it’s still a pig”; and attacks she makes against New York Times columnist Frank Rich. Coulter has announced that sheis scheduled to appear on the January 6 broadcast of NBC’s Today to promote Guilty.

Media Matters has alsodocumented that Coulter made numerous inflammatory and offensive commentsin Guilty.

Below are examples of the numerousfalsehoods in Guilty.

Liberals’ purported”praise[]” for hoaxers for staging hate crimes

Coulter claims that two black students who engaged in a hoaxby hanging a black doll from a noose were”immediately praised” by “liberals,” but the sourcesshe cites do not support this claim. Coulter writes:

In 1997, at Duke University,a black doll was found hanging by a noose from a tree at the precise spot wherethe Black Student Alliance planned to hold a rally against racism. Two blackstudents later admitted they were the culprits and were immediately praised forbringing attention to the problem of racism on campus. Which is why I’mthinking about knocking over a liquor store to focus attention on the problemof big-city crime.

Rather than “institutionalracism,” what we are witnessing is “institutional racialhoaxism” committed by liberals. [Page 10]

Coulter cites two articles to back up her assertion that thestudents were “immediately praised,” neither of which support sucha claim. One of the sources Coulter cites is a January 8, 1999, Chronicle of Higher Education article,which does not report that the students were “praised” but ratherthat “[s]ome classmates defended the two students.” The solestudent quoted in the article discussing the incident criticized both thestudents and the university:

Some classmates defended the twostudents, whose names were not released. In a letter to The Chronicle, Duke’s studentnewspaper, Worokya Diomande called the act “tasteless,” but said”the idea behind the act … is being overlooked.”

“The idea is that theuniversity has not changed,” wrote Ms. Diomande, who graduated lastspring. “Blacks are allowed to be enrolled here, but the idea is theequivalent of the transition from field slave to house slave.”

Coulter’s other source for her claim that the studentswere “immediately praised” is a January 31,2000, article in The Weekly Standard(accessed from Nexis), which cites the Chroniclearticle in writing that “some at Duke defended the act, claiming ithigh-lighted the problem of race relations on campus.”

Fox News Channel

OnPage 15, Coulter writes, “Fox News has never been caught promoting afraud — unlike CBS (Bush National Guard story), ABC (tobacco industry report),NBC (exploding GM trucks), CNN (Tailwind), and MSNBC (Keith Olbermann).”In fact, as Media Matters has documented, onseveral occasions since 2004, Fox News has issued a retraction and apology forairing a news report that repeated false information, one of which led FoxNews’ Vice President for News John Moody to reportedlywarn staff in January 2007 that “seeing an item on awebsite does not mean it is right. Nor does it mean it is ready for air onFNC.”

Onthe April 24, 2007, edition of Fox &Friends, co-hosts Steve Doocy and Brian Kilmeade repeatedas fact an online parody news report of a school prank that included fabricatedquotes attributed to the superintendent. Doocy issued an on-air retraction andapology during the May 16, 2007, edition of Fox& Friends First, but the superintendent brought suit against theFox News Channel, Doocy, and Kilmeade. In a June 3, 2008, decision dismissingthe lawsuit, U.S. District Court Judge D. Brock Hornby wrote:

The facts in this case — a morning cable news showderisively reporting events and statements obtained unwittingly from an onlineparody — should provide grist for journalism classes teaching research andprofessionalism standards in the Internet age. But First Amendment principlesdeveloped long before the Internet still provide protection to the gulliblenews program hosts against this public official’s claims for defamation andfalse light invasion of privacy. Poetic justice would subject the defendants tothe same ridicule that they accorded the plaintiff. But in real life, theaggrieved school superintendent must be satisfied with their later retraction and a professional reputation sullied lessthan theirs.

The lawsuit was filed by Leon Levesque, a schoolsuperintendent in Lewiston, Maine. According to TheAssociated Press, “[t]he case was an outgrowth of an April 2007 prank inwhich a middle school student tossed a slab of leftover Easter ham onto a tablesurrounded by Somali Muslim youngsters, knowing the Muslims would beoffended.” Freelance writer Nicholas Plagman later publisheda fabricated news reportabout the incident at Associated Content in which he attributed numerousmade-up quotes to Levesque, including one in which Levesque was alleged to havesaid: “These children have got to learn that ham is not a toy.” Onthe April 24, 2007, edition of Fox &Friends, Doocy and Kilmeade reported on Plagman’s story as though itwere fact and repeated several of the made-up quotes attributed to Levesque. Indiscussing the parody report, Doocy repeatedly asserted: “We are notmaking this up.” Indeed, when Kilmeade asserted: “You know, I hopewe’re not being duped,” Doocy replied, “We’re not being duped. I’ve lookedit up on a couple of different websites up there.”

Doocy has also retracted his false assertionon the January 19, 2007, Fox & Friends,that Barack Obama “spent the first decade of his life, raised by hisMuslim father — as a Muslim and was educated in a madrassa.” According tothe washingtonpost.com blog The Sleuth,Moody subsequently “issued this missive to staff in his daily editorialnote on Jan. 23 [2007]: ‘For the record: seeing an item on a website does notmean it is right. Nor does it mean it is ready for air on FNC.’ ” Moodyalso criticized the hosts of Fox &Friends in a January 29, 2007, NewYork Times article, saying,”The hosts violated one of our general rules, which is know what you aretalking about. … They reported information from a publication whose accuracywe didn’t know.”

Further, on October 1, 2004, Fox News issued a retraction andan apology for a news story writtenby chief political correspondent Carl Cameron that falsely attributed quotes toSen. John Kerry (D-MA) in an attempt to ridicule him over a purported manicure.

John Kerry and the Swift Boat Veterans forTruth

Coulter advances several falsehoods about Kerry in defendingthe Swift Boat Veterans for Truth,an organization which spread numerous falsehoods and smears regarding Kerry’smilitary record in the six months leading up to the 2004 presidential election.

Membership of Swift Boat Veterans

Coulterwrites that “nearly three hundred veterans who served with Kerry said hewas lying about his war record [Page 109]” and also states: “Only14 Swift Boat Veterans sided with Kerry, while 294 sided with O’Neill.Let’s see, would it be more difficult to get 14 people to tell the samelie or to get 294 people to tell the same lie? [Page 99]” But contrary toCoulter’s assertion, among the roughly 300 she referred to, who signed a lettercritical of Kerry, were people who subsequently admittedthey had no firsthand knowledge of the claims they made; who contradicted their statements opposing Kerry both before and after they madethem; and who reportedly saidthey joined with the Swift Boat Veterans not because they believed Kerry had”l[ied] about his war record” but because they disapproved ofKerry’s subsequent statements opposing the Vietnam War.

Retractions by Swift Boat Veterans

Coulterfalsely claims that “the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth weren’tforced to retract any part of their story. [Page 100]” In fact, theorganization alteredits website’saccount of the December 2, 1968, mission for which theU.S. Navy awarded Kerry his first Purple Heart three days after Media Matters noted thatthe account was inconsistent with that of the group’s star witness — retiredRear Admiral William L. SchachteJr., who claims he was the commander on that mission.

Accordingto Schachte, Kerry did not deserve the award because the “skimmer” hesupposedly commanded that night did not receive enemy fire, and Kerry’s woundwas the result of Kerry’s own improper use of an M-79 grenade launcher. But inan April 2003 interview with The BostonGlobe, “Schachte described the action as a ‘firefight’ and saidof Kerry: ‘He got hit,’ ” the Globereported on August 28, 2004.According to the Globe, Schachte”did not challenge Kerry’s Purple Heart” during that interview.

Theoriginal version of the account onthe Swift Boat Vets website begins:

The action that led to John Kerry’s first PurpleHeart occurred on December 2, 1968, during the month that he was undergoingtraining with Coastal Division 14 at Cam Ranh Bay. While waiting to receive hisown Swift boat command, Kerry volunteered for a nighttime patrol missioncommanding a small, foam-filled “skimmer” craft with two enlisted men [emphasis added].

As Media Matters documented, this description matchesKerry’s own account, as well as the account of Patrick Runyon and William Zaladonis, two enlisted menwho have stated that: (1) Schachte was not on the skimmer; (2) Kerry was incommand; and (3) Runyon and Zaladonis were the only other people besides Kerryon the small craft.

Theupdated version of the Swift BoatVets account — now consistent with Schachte’s version of events — reads:

The action that led to John Kerry’s first PurpleHeart occurred on December 2, 1968, during the month that he was undergoingtraining with Coastal Division 14 at Cam Ranh Bay. While waiting to receive hisown Swift boat command, Kerry volunteered for a nighttime patrol mission on asmall, foam-filled “skimmer” craft underthe command of Lt. William Schachte. The two officers were accompanied by anenlisted man who operated the outboard motor [emphasis added].

Severalother Swift Boat Veterans made statements during the 2004 presidential campaign that were inconsistent with theirprevious accounts, or subsequently reportedly retracted comments they madeduring that campaign, including:

• John O’Neill. Unfit for Command (Regnery, 2004), co-authored by Swift Boat Veterans forTruth co-founder John O’Neill, asserted that “Kerry was never inCambodia during Christmas 1968, or at all during the Vietnam War” because”[a]reas closer than 55 miles from the Cambodian border in the area of theMekong River were patrolled by PBRs, a small river patrol craft, and not bySwift Boats.” However, as Media Mattersnoted, according to White Houserecordings, in 1971 O’Neill told President Richard Nixon that he himself hadbeen in Cambodiaand answered in the affirmative when Nixon asked if it had been on a swiftboat.

• Alfred French. In the first Swift Boat ad, then-Clackamas County(Oregon) seniordeputy district attorney Alfred J. French announced: “I served with JohnKerry. … He is lying about his record.” In preparation for the ad,French signed a sworn affidavit for the Swift Boat Veterans asserting thatKerry had received his Purple Heart “from negligently self-inflictedwounds in the absence of hostile fire.” The affidavit French signed declared, “I do hereby swear,that all facts and statements contained in this affidavit are true and correctand within my personal knowledge and belief“(emphasis added).

  Butin an interview with The Oregonian,French admitted he was “not awitness” to the events surrounding Kerry’s medals and that hisinformation came secondhand from “friends.”

• George Elliott. In an April 12,2004, article, USA Today reported that Lt. Cmdr. George Elliott, Kerry’sdivision commander, said of the actions for which Kerry received a Silver Star:”This was an exemplary action. There’s no question about it.” Elliottsubsequently appeared in a Swift Boat ad in which he asserted that “JohnKerry has not been honest about what happened in Vietnam,” and, accordingto an August 6, 2004, Boston Globearticle, “sign[ed] an affidavitthat suggests Kerry did not deserve the Silver Star” which the Swift BoatVeterans gave to the Globe“to justify assertions in their ad and book.”

  Butin an interview with the Globefor that August 6, 2004, article, Elliott said that his involvement in theKerry attack was “a terrible mistake” and said, “I’m the one introuble here. … I knew it was wrong. … In a hurry I signed [an affidavit]and faxed it back. That was a mistake.” The Globe further reported that “Elliott said he regrettedsigning the affidavit and said he still thinks Kerry deserved the SilverStar.”

  Finally,in an August 7, 2004, article, the Globe reported:
  

  Elliott released another affidavit yesterday backingaway from his comments this week to the Globe, saying the reporter, MichaelKranish, misquoted him.

  Globe Editor Martin Baron released a statement saying”the Globe stands by the article. The quotes attributed to Mr. Elliottwere on the record and absolutely accurate.”

  In 1996, when Kerry was running for Senate reelectionand faced questions about the circumstances in which he shot the Viet Congfighter, Elliott came to Boston and defended Kerry, saying he deserved theSilver Star.

  In yesterday’s new affidavit, Elliott said, “hadI known the facts I would not have recommended Kerry for the Silver Star simplyfor pursuing and dispatching a single wounded Viet Cong.” He added,”I do not claim to have any personal knowledge as to how Kerry shot thewounded, fleeing Viet Cong.”

Media coverage of Swift Boat Veterans

Coulteralso suggests that the media ignored the allegations of the Swift BoatVeterans, writing, “The only way they could have gotten less attention wouldhave been to be interviewed on Air America Radio. [Page 101]” In fact, asMedia Matters senior fellow EricBoehlert wrote in Lapdogs: How the Press Rolled Overfor Bush (Free Press, May 2006):

By the time the Swift Boat story had played out, CNN,chasing after ratings leader Fox News, found time to mention the Swift BoatVeterans for Truth –hereafter, Swifties — in nearly 300 separate newssegments, while more than 100 New York Timesarticles and columns made mention of the Swifties. And during one overheated12-day span in late August, the WashingtonPost mentioned the Swifties in page 1 stories on Aug. 19, 20, 21(two separate articles), 22, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, and 31. [Page 177]

Boehlertfurther wrote:

[I]n the month of August, 2004, NBCnetwork news alone covered the Swift Boat story on August 8, 15, 19, 20, 22,23, 25, 26, and 29. CBS covered the story on August 8, 22, 23, 24, 25 26 and30, while ABC devoted airtime to it on August 6, 8, 9, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 25,and 26. Some of the networks, using different morning and evening newsprograms, returned to the topic several times in one day. For instance onAugust 23, CBS reported on the Swifty controversy four different times, whichof course, represented four more times than the CBS News division reported onquestion surrounding Bush’s Guard service during the entire 2000 campaign. [Page 189]

Kerry’s Bronze Star

Coulteralso falsely suggests that no witnesses supported Kerry’s account thathis convoy came under enemy fire during the March 13, 1969, actions for whichhe was awarded the Bronze Star. Coulter wrote:

Larry Thurlow was the Swiftee who, according to the Times’s account, “earned amedal for bravery in a gun battle he accused Mr. Kerry of concocting.”But Thurlow didn’t think he had won his medal for coming under enemy firefor the simple reason that there had been no enemy fire. What happened was thefirst boat in the five-boat convoy, PCF-3, hit a mine that blew up the boat andtossed the sailors into the water. The Swiftees fired on the shore as aprecautionary measure, but stopped when they realized there was no return fire.That is according to eleven crew members and three commanders on that mission– or all living commanders, except Kerry. [Page 105]

Coulterprovided no citation for her claim that “eleven crew members and threecommanders on that mission” agreed with her description of “[w]hathappened.” In fact, several crew members on the convoy boats have statedthat the convoy did come under enemy fire:

• The crew of Patrol Craft Fast 94 (PCF-94). Ina 2008 letter to Swift Boat Veterans funderT. Boone Pickens debunking the group’s “lies,” Del Sandusky,Fred Short, David Alston, Michael Medeiros, and Eugene K. Thorson –Kerry’s crewmates on PCF-94 during the Vietnam War — wrote that”[t]he innuendo that Kerry ‘put himself in’ for his BronzeStar Medal on a mission where there was no hostile fire, is completelydisproved … by all of the other crew members who were actually on theboat in this ambush.”

• Jim Rassmann. In an August 10,2004, Wall Street Journal op-ed, Rassmann wrote:
  

  I came to know Lt. John Kerry during the spring of1969. He and his swift boat crew assisted in inserting our Special Forces teamand our Chinese Nung soldiers into operational sites in the Cau Mau Peninsulaof South Vietnam. I worked with him on many operations and saw firsthand hisleadership, courage and decision-making ability under fire.

  On March 13, 1969, John Kerry’s courage andleadership saved my life.

  While returning from a SEA LORDS operation along the Bay Hap River, a mine detonatedunder another swift boat. Machine-gun fireerupted from both banks of the river [emphasis added], and a secondexplosion followed moments later. The second blast blew me off John’s swiftboat, PCF-94, throwing me into the river. Fearing that the other boats wouldrun me over, I swam to the bottom of the river and stayed there as long as Icould hold my breath.

  When I surfaced, all the swift boats had left, and I was alone taking fire from both banks. To avoid theincoming fire [emphasis added], I repeatedly swam under water aslong as I could hold my breath, attempting to make it to the north bank of theriver. I thought I would die right there. The odds were against me avoiding theincoming fire and, even if I made it out of the river, I thought I’d becaptured and executed. Kerry must have seen me in the water and directed hisdriver, Del Sandusky, to turn the boat around. Kerry’s boat ran up to me in thewater, bow on, and I was able to climb up a cargo net to the lip of the deck.

  But, because I was nearly upside down, I couldn’tmake it over the edge of the deck. This left me hanging out in the open, aperfect target. John, already wounded by the explosion that threw me off hisboat, came out onto the bow, exposing himself to the fire directed at us fromthe jungle, and pulled me aboard.

• Robert E. Lambert. An August 26,2004, Mail Tribune (Oregon) article reported that Lambert,”a crew member on swift boat PCF-51″ during the March 13, 1969,action, said of Thurlow, his commanding officer, “He and another officernow say we weren’t under fire at that time. Well, I sure was under theimpression we were.” The Mail Tribunealso reported that Lambert “doesn’t plan to vote for JohnKerry” and quoted him referring to Kerry’s “opposition to theVietnam War once he returned to the states” as “absolutelyreprehensible.”

• Wayne D. Langhofer. In an August22, 2004, article, The Washington Post reported:
  

  Until now, eyewitness evidence supporting Kerry’sversion had come only from his own crewmen. But yesterday, The Postindependently contacted a participant who has not spoken out so far in favor ofeither camp who remembers coming under enemy fire. “There was a lot offiring going on, and it came from both sides of the river,” said Wayne D.Langhofer, who manned a machine gun aboard PCF-43, the boat that was directlybehind Kerry’s.

  Langhofer said he distinctly remembered the”clack, clack, clack” of enemy AK-47s, as well as muzzle flashes fromthe riverbanks. Langhofer, who now works at a Kansas gunpowder plant, said he wasapproached several months ago by leaders of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth butdeclined their requests to speak out against Kerry.

• Jim Russell. In an August 23,2004, article, the Post reported:
  

  In Colorado,Jim Russell, who participated in Swift boat operations when Kerry did, wrote aletter to the editor of the Telluride Daily Planet to angrily dispute the claimthat Kerry was not under enemy fire when he rescued Jim Rassman from the water,a feat that brought Kerry a Bronze Star and Purple Heart.

  “I was on No. 43 boat, skippered by Don Droz,who was later that year killed by enemy fire,” Russell wrote in theletter. “Forever pictured in my mind since that day over 30 years ago [is]John Kerry bending over his boat picking up one of the rangers that we wereferrying from out of the water. All the time we were taking small arms firefrom the beach; although because of our fusillade into the jungle, I don’tthink it was very accurate, thank God. Anyone who doesn’t think that we werebeing fired upon must have been on a different river.”

Coulteralso writes that during the actions for which he was awarded the Bronze Star,”Kerry had nothing to do with saving the boat that had been hit because– again according to the accounts of all three living commanding officers,except Kerry — Kerry fled on his boat the moment the first boat hit a mine[Page 105].” But Coulter’s suggestion that Kerry’s boat fled whilethe other boats remained is inconsistent with Rassmann’s firsthand account and with theaccount of Kerry’s actions in his Bronze Star citation. Rassmannstated: “[A]ll the swift boats had left, and I was alone taking fire fromboth banks,” before Kerry returned to rescue him from the water.

Kerry’s “home-movie camera”

Coulter writes that Kerry “carrie[d] a home-moviecamera to war in order to reenact combat scenes and tape fake interviews withhimself” during his tour in Vietnam [Page 100]. Coulter wasrepeating a discredited charge previously made byInternet gossip Matt Drudge and subsequently echoed by The New York Timesand numerous cable and radio outletsduring the 2004 presidential election. Drudge’s report cited a 1996 Boston Globe article, Unfit for Command, and Retired Air ForceLt. Col. Robert “Buzz” Patterson’s book, “RecklessDisregard: How Liberal Democrats Undermine Our Military, Endanger Our Soldiers,and Jeopardize Our Security (Regnery Publishing,2004). But in his September 7, 2002, column, the Times’ current executive editor andthen-columnist Bill Keller took up the issue of Kerry’s wartime films anddebunked the reenactment charge, which he wrote that he believed at first:”[R]elying on a report in the usually dependable Boston Globe, I mocked him for pulling outa movie camera after a shootout in the Mekong Delta and re-enacting theexploit, as if preening for campaign commercials to come.”

Contrary to Coulter’s assertion that Kerry”carrie[d] a home-movie camera to war in order to reenact combat scenesand tape fake interviews with himself,” after spending 40 minuteswatching the movies Kerry shot in Vietnam, Keller wrote:

The first thing to be said is thatthe senator’s movies are not self-aggrandizing. Mr. Kerry is hardly in thefilm, and never strikes so much as a heroic pose. These are the souvenirs of a25-year-old guy sent to an exotic place on an otherworldly mission, who boughtan 8-millimeter camera in the PX and shot a few hours of travelogue, most of itpretty boring if you didn’t live through it.

Keller also wrote that, according to the Swift Boat Sailors Association,”a group of veterans who manned” the kind of riverboat that Kerrycommanded, “lots of enlisted men did the same.” Keller further wrote:”Senator Max Cleland has hours of film from his service in the First AirCavalry, which he has had edited into a three-minute meet-the-senatorvideo.”

As Media Mattersdocumented, a July 30, 2004, New York Times article reporting on theDrudge charge noted that “people who have viewed his [Kerry's] film fromthe war have said they have seen no re-enactments,” but the paper did notreport that Keller had been among those “people.”

Kerry and LexisNexis

After detailing retractions Kerrypurportedly made in response to the Swift Vets’ claims, Coulter writes:”By contrast, the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth weren’t forced toretract any part of their story. There’s a reason it was Kerry — and notthe Swift Boat Veterans — who told the WashingtonPost, ‘I wish they had a delete button on LexisNexis’[Page 100].” But contrary to Coulter’s suggestion, Kerry did notmake that comment to the Post inresponse to the Swift Boat Veterans’ claims. The Washington Post article which Coulter cites for thequote was a profileof Kerry published on June 1, 2003, and Kerry was not referring to LexisNexis’documenting falsehoods, but to its documenting his having “be[en] a littlebrash when I first got into politics”:

Kerry stepped into the crowd,planting his big hands on workingmen’s shoulders, quizzing students about theirmajors, telling a woman about the time his daughter’s pet frog jumped on hisnose. He waved, hugged, guffawed and sat knee to knee with a grandmother.Boland said: “This guy’s not personable? What a phony issue.”

Yet it has been an issue, especiallywith journalists, all the way back to yellowing newspaper clips of 1971, whichdescribe Kerry in such terms as “slick,” “too pretty,”"ambitious,” “opportunistic.”

John Norris, Kerry’s state directorin Iowa, saidhe isn’t worried: “The East Coast press uses the word ‘aloof.’ It’s beenan asset, because Iowans come with low expectations.”

Kerry appreciates the irony.”I’ll say thank you to every journalist who wrote [expletive] articlesabout me,” he joked. Then he added, “I plead guilty to being a littlebrash when I first got into politics. Iwish they had a delete button on LexisNexis.”

Conservative columnist Kathleen Parker’sPalin criticism

Coulter took conservative columnist Kathleen Parker out ofcontext to suggest that Parker made only stylistic criticisms against Gov.Sarah Palin when Parker called for Palin to withdraw as the vice-presidentialnominee. In fact, Parker criticized Palin for what Parker said was a lack ofsubstance. Coulter wrote:

Meteoric rises are available to anyRepublican who claims to be disgusted with the Republican Party for one oranother reason. The heretofore unknown Kathleen Parker was the media’sfavorite Republican in 2008, after she called on Sarah Palin to withdraw fromthe campaign on the grounds that: She “filibusters. She repeats words,filling up space with deadwood.” This might not have been manifestlyinsane if Palin’s Democratic counterpart had been anyone other than JoeBiden — who filibusters, repeats words, and achieves a personal coup everytime he merely fills space with “deadwood,” rather than one of hisusual deranged pronouncements. [Page 114]

Coulter’s suggestion that Parker’s’criticism of Palin was limited to style rather than substance is false. Infact, in the syndicated column Coulter cited, Parker wrote, “Palin filibusters. She repeats words,filling space with deadwood. Cut theverbiage and there’s not much content there [emphasis added].”Parker further wrote:

If BS were currency, Palin couldbail out Wall Street herself.

If Palin were a man, we’d allbe guffawing, just as we do every time Joe Biden tickles the back of his throatwith his toes. But because she’s a woman — and the first ever on aRepublican presidential ticket — we are reluctant to say what is painfullytrue.

Lipstick on a Pig

Coulter devotes four pages of Guilty [173-176] to discussing her false assertion that”Obama himself compared Palin to a pig and then denied doing so.”In fact, Obama’s September 9, 2008, statement, “you know, you canput lipstick on a pig; it’s still a pig,” did not refer to Palin, butrather to how a “list” of Sen. John McCain’s policies were, accordingto Obama, no different from President Bush’s. Obama did not mention Palin in atleast the 65 words preceding his “lipstick on a pig” comment, as Media Matters noted. Moreover,the expression “lipstick on a pig” is common political rhetoric– Obama had reportedly used the expression in the past, and McCain used it in2007 in reference to Sen. Hillary Clinton’s health-care proposal.

Former acting Massachusetts Gov. Jane Swift — a national memberof the McCain campaign’s “Palin Truth Squad” — falselyaccused Obama of making “disgraceful comments comparingour vice presidential nominee, Gov. Palin, to a pig,” but later backtracked on herassertion, saying that she “can’t know” if Obama’s comment “wasaimed at Governor Palin.”

Frank Rich’s column on “JeffGannon”

Coulter misrepresents a quote by New York Times columnist Frank Rich aboutformer Talon News “Washington Bureau Chief” Jeff Gannon –whose real name, James Guckert, was uncovered bybloggers in February 2005 — to assert: “The entire scandal that FrankRich complained was not getting enough attention was that Gannon was a gayRepublican [Page 200].”

Coulter writes: “Another story that the mainstreammedia denounced the mainstream media for ignoring was the Jeff Gannon mysteryscandal. It was a mystery scandal because it was a mystery why it was ascandal. In 2005, Frank Rich bitterly complained that the ‘ ‘JeffGannon’ story was getting less attention than another media frenzy –that set off by the veteran news executive Eason Jordan.’ ” Shecontinues:

Rich, who became qualified tocomment on U.S. foreignpolicy, national security, and presidential politics after spending a childhooddancing his favorite numbers from Oklahoma! in his mother’s panties and thenspending twelve years reviewing theater for the New York Times, attacked Gannon for not being a “realnewsman.” Not only that, but, Rich breathlessly reported, there were”embarrassing blogosphere revelations linking [Gannon] to sites likehotmilitarystud.com and to an apparently promising career as an X-rated$200-per-hour ‘escort.’ ” In Rich’s estimation, $200 anhour was way too much to pay a male escort who wasn’t Latino. Now, ifthere’s anybody in this world who knows what a real man is, it’sFrank Rich. But as for knowing what a real newsman is, that’s anotherstory. [Page 198]

But Rich did not say that the scandal consisted of Gannon’s “embarrassingblogosphere revelations” or his status as a “gay Republican.”Rather, Rich focused on the fact that Gannon was a “fake[]“journalist. In the February 20, 2005, column to which Coulter refers Rich wrote:

[F]or nearly two years the WhiteHouse press office had credentialed Mr. Guckert, even though, as Dana Milbankof The Washington Post explained on Mr. Olbermann’s show, he “wasrepresenting a phony media company that doesn’t really have any such thing ascirculation or readership.”

How this happened is a mystery thathas yet to be solved. “Jeff” hasnow quit Talon News not because he and it have been exposed as fakes butbecause of other embarrassing blogosphere revelations linking him tosites like hotmilitarystud.com and to an apparently promising career as anX-rated $200-per-hour ”escort [emphasis added].”

Rich added: “If Mr. Guckert, the author of Talon Newsexclusives like ‘Kerry Could Become First Gay President,’ is yetanother link in the boundless network of homophobic Republican closet cases,that’s not without interest. But it shouldn’t distract from the real question– that is, the real news — of how this fake newsman might be connected to aWhite House propaganda machine that grows curiouser by the day.”

Rich continued: ” ‘Jeff Gannon’ is now atleast the sixth ‘journalist’ (four of whom have been unmasked sofar this year) to have been a propagandist on the payroll of either the Bushadministration or a barely arms-length ally like Talon News whilesimultaneously appearing in print or broadcast forums that purport to be realnews.” Rich went on to discuss Armstrong Williams, Karen Ryan, andAlberto Garcia and wrote: “Such ‘reports,’ some of whichfound their way into news packages distributed to local stations by CNN, appearedin more than 50 news broadcasts around the country and have now been deemedillegal ‘covert propaganda’ by the Government AccountabilityOffice.

Media Matters has documented several instances inwhich Gannon lifted text directly from Republican materials and sources.

From Frank Rich’s February 20, 2005, New York Times column:

”Jeff Gannon’s” real name is JamesD. Guckert. His employer was a Web site called Talon News, staffed mostly byvolunteer Republican activists. Media Matters for America, the liberal press monitorthat has done the most exhaustive research into the case, discovered thatTalon’s ”news” often consists of recycled Republican National Committee andWhite House press releases, and its content frequently overlaps with anotherpartisan site, GOPUSA, with which it shares its owner, a Texas delegate to the2000 Republican convention. Nonetheless, for nearly two years the White Housepress office had credentialed Mr. Guckert, even though, as Dana Milbank of TheWashington Post explained on Mr. Olbermann’s show, he ”was representing aphony media company that doesn’t really have any such thing as circulation orreadership.”

How this happened is a mystery thathas yet to be solved. ”Jeff” has now quit Talon News not because he and ithave been exposed as fakes but because of other embarrassing blogosphererevelations linking him to sites like hotmilitarystud.com and to an apparentlypromising career as an X-rated $200-per-hour ”escort.” If Mr. Guckert, theauthor of Talon News exclusives like ”Kerry Could Become First GayPresident,” is yet another link in the boundless network of homophobicRepublican closet cases, that’s not without interest. But it shouldn’t distractfrom the real question — that is, the real news — of how this fake newsmanmight be connected to a White House propaganda machine that grows curiouser bythe day. Though Mr. McClellan told Editor & Publisher magazine that hedidn’t know until recently that Mr. Guckert was using an alias, Bruce Bartlett,a White House veteran of the Reagan-Bush I era, wrote on the nonpartisanjournalism Web site Romenesko, that ”if Gannon was using an alias, the WhiteHouse staff had to be involved in maintaining his cover.” (Otherwise, it wouldbe a rather amazing post-9/11 security breach.)

By my count, ”Jeff Gannon” is nowat least the sixth ”journalist” (four of whom have been unmasked so far thisyear) to have been a propagandist on the payroll of either the Bushadministration or a barely arms-length ally like Talon News while simultaneouslyappearing in print or broadcast forums that purport to be real news. Of thesesix, two have been syndicated newspaper columnists paid by the Department ofHealth and Human Services to promote the administration’s ”marriage”initiatives. The other four have played real newsmen on TV. Before Mr. Guckertand Armstrong Williams, the talking head paid $240,000 by the Department ofEducation, there were Karen Ryan and Alberto Garcia. Let us not forget thesepioneers — the Woodward and Bernstein of fake news. They starred in bogusreports (”In Washington,I’m Karen Ryan reporting,” went the script) pretending to ‘’sort through thedetails” of the administration’s Medicare prescription-drug plan in 2004. Such”reports,” some of which found their way into news packages distributed tolocal stations by CNN, appeared in more than 50 news broadcasts around thecountry and have now been deemed illegal ”covert propaganda” by theGovernment Accountability Office.

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Ticket Replay: 3 papers endorse McCain; coincidentally, they’re kicked off Obama’s plane - Obama,Barack

This weekend The Ticket is republishing some items of particular interest from the past political season. This one appeared here originally on Sept. 31, 2008:

The Barack Obama for president campaign has kicked off its campaign plane three newspaper reporters.

The campaign says it was a tough decision deciding to boot the working reporters for the New York Post, the Dallas Morning News and the Washington Times. But, they say, there are only so many seats on the plane that the spunky new Christian Science Monitor politics blog calls "O-Force One."

And somebody had to go for these last few campaign days.

It’s probably just a simple coincidence that all three newspapers recently endorsed Obama’s Republican rival, Sen. John McCain, for the White House job.

"It feels like the journalistic equivalent of redistributing the wealth," quipped John Solomon, executive editor of the Times, which lost its seat after three years of travel with the candidate and just 72 hours after endorsing McCain.

That newspaper’s website this afternoon headlined a report that Obama spent nearly $700,000 in U.S. campaign donations just on staging and lights for that Berlin victory rally last summer and those 200,000 Germans who can’t vote over here. Gee, you could dress more than four Republican vice presidential candidates with that much money.

What’s not to like in that news for the Obama campaign?

The Dallas paper reported no evidence its plane departure was political. Think about it: Why would a political campaign take retribution on reporters for a decision made by their publication’s separate editorial boards? The publications, after all, pay their own way on the charters.

That would be a cheesy hardball — and quite possibly counterproductive — Chicago kind of thing for a frontrunner to do, especially one on a national unity ticket. A candidate’s organization would have to reflect an enormous ego and over-confidence to pull something like that.

Next thing you know such a campaign might urge supporters to clog a radio station’s phone lines or e-mail boxes just because it gave air-time to an Obama critic.

And it’s certainly not the kind of hands-across-the-aisle, bipartisan change we need and/or can believe in a national capital that could use a large dose of both.

True, the Obama campaign has buttoned itself up from most press access, apparently fearing some kind of late-minute gaffe that might threaten its lead in most polls.

A reporter could choose to travel instead on the Joe Biden plane, plenty of seats there, and perhaps really exciting, except the old-time senator who ad libbed that Hillary Clinton might have been a better Democratic VP pick coincidentally hasn’t done a media availability since right after the Republican convention in early September.

Amazingly, as Howard Kurtz points out, two seats did suddenly open up on the Obama campaign plane this weekend to accommodate Ebony and Essence magazine reporters. Another coincidence.

–Andrew Malcolm

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Ticket Replay: Obama-backer Oprah bans Sarah Palin from her TV show - Barack Obama

This weekend The Ticket is republishing some items from the recent 2007-08 political season. This one originally appeared in this space on Sept. 5, 2008. (Sarah Palin has still not been on the Winfrey show):

Oprah Winfrey, the billionaire TV talk-show diva who is supporting the Democratic presidential nominee, says she will not allow the Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin on her daily show, which is widely viewed by women.

The 44-year-old Palin is the first female nominee on a Republican presidential ticket in the party’s 164-year history, though she is little-known outside Alaska, where she was elected a reform governor in 2006.

Palin, a former high school basketball star and beauty pageant contestant, is the mother of five, an outdoorswoman and part owner in her husband Todd’s commercial fishing business.

This past year Oprah endorsed Barack Obama for president. It was the first time she became publicly involved in politics.

Oprah emceed numerous rallies for the freshman Democrat senator in key caucus and primary states, drawing large crowds, donations, media coverage and many new volunteers. She also hosted a lucrative fundraiser at one of her homes, near Santa Barbara. But she has so many we can’t count ‘em.

Oprah’s political involvement, as noted previously by…

…The Ticket, hurt her in TV ratings, though she remains clearly the most-watched such show.

Many commentors on Ticket items expressed resentment that Winfrey, who made her fortune off appealing to women, would desert the first serious female candidate to vie for her party’s nomination, Hillary Clinton, another Democrat, in favor of a male candidate, Obama. She also did not have Clinton on her program during the campaign.

TMZ, the widely-read celebrity website, asked Winfrey about having Palin on her program to describe her life and views to other American women.

In a post earlier today, TMZ said Winfrey replied, "There has been absolutely no discussion about having Sarah Palin on my show."

According to TMZ, Winfrey also said: "At the beginning of this presidential campaign when I decided that I was going to take my first public stance in support of a candidate, I made the decision not to use my show as a platform for any of the candidates."

Winfrey also said she would "love" to have the Republican candidate on her show, but only after the Nov. 4 election, which pits the Illinois Democrat Obama against Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain.

Winfrey has had Obama on her program two previous times, in January 2005 and again in the fall of 2006 shortly before he announced his presidential candidacy.

What do Ticket readers think? Is this fair? Would you watch an Oprah show with Palin and/or Obama? Do you still watch Oprah’s program in the first place?

– Andrew Malcolm

Photo credits: Associated Press

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Ticket Replay: Joe Biden’s history lesson off by 4 years, 1 president, but otherwise dead-on - Dem, Ill

This weekend The Ticket is republishing some items from the past political season. This one appeared here originally on Sept. 12, 2008. Biden and the Obama ticket would seem to have survived these gaffes:

When Barack Obama took Joe Biden to be his lawfully vetted running mate, the freshman Illinois senator took the veteran Delaware senator loose lips and all. And Republicans took note.

The same day Obama tapped Biden, the famously verbose Delaware senator who’s been in in the Senate since Obama was 11, the Republican National Committee launched a website to monitor Biden’s future gaffes. But with so much attention focused on the shooting star of the GOP’s vice presidential nominee, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, and watching for her first big mistake, less attention has fallen on Biden’s accumulating missteps.

During his first several weeks as the Democratic vice presidential candidate, Biden did a surprisingly good job of keeping his foot out of his mouth. Sure, he slipped occasionally (like the time he asked a crowd to welcome his running mate "Barack America" to the stage. Or the time he said "Hillary Clinton is as qualified or more qualified than I am to be vice president of the United States of America"). But they’re not the sort of bungles that start wars.

Now, however, the honeymoon appears over.

Biden has blundered badly several times in the past several days, often on issues relating to the economy.

He’s been caught contradicting his running mate, which is among every political ticket’s Ten Commandments of no-no’s.

And on one occasion, he got his facts wrong. With voters closely watching and worrying about the financial crisis, these inconsistencies could have consequences come Nov. 4, now less than six weeks away.

And they distract badly from the message the Obama campaign is trying to push on John McCain (namely, that the Arizona Senator is out of touch on the economy).

Biden made one mistake last week, when NBC’s Meredith Vieira asked him whether the federal government should bail out ailing….

…insurance corporation AIG. Biden said no, the same position his old colleague John McCain took.

That would have been fine, except for the little fact that Obama had already endorsed the bailout, saying that he would not "second-guess" the government’s attempt to save AIG. This morning, "Today’s" Matt Lauer called Obama out on the contradiction. Obama patiently but firmly suggested Biden should have waited to respond.

A few days later, Biden had audiences cringing when he acknowledged on ABC’s "Good Morning America" that the wealthy would pay higher taxes if Obama was elected president and that doing so would be "patriotic." He repeated the remark again on the campaign trail, and soon after, the Republicans were out with a TV spot deriding Biden and Obama for being tax-and-spend Democrats.

And last night, in an interview with “CBS Evening News,” Biden misspoke when he told anchor Katie Couric that today’s leaders should take a lesson from the history books and follow former President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s response to a previous national financial crisis.

Declared Biden: “When the stock market crashed, Franklin D. Roosevelt got on the television and didn’t just talk about the, you know, the princes of greed. He said, ‘Look, here’s what happened.’”

What’s wrong with that, some might ask?

Well, for starters Republican Herbert Hoover was president when the stock market crashed in October 1929. Second, Roosevelt didn’t take office until four years later. And, not to be picky, but there were also no televisions in use at the time. Radio was Roosevelt’s favored medium.

Biden has made non-economic goofs as well. In last night’s interview with Couric, he called one of his own campaign’s TV ads "terrible."

"I didn’t know we did it and if I had anything to do with it, we would have never done it," he said, referring to a commercial that mocked