All Blog Posts from Public Eye

Did you know political operatives have legacies?

I didn’t. I thought presidents and statesmen and stateswomen had legacies, not consultants. Now I know I was misguided thanks to a front page story in The Washington Post headlined,“Midterm Vote May Define Rove’s Legacy.” Good to know that the hometown paper of politics and government is keeping its eye on the prize the week before the election. Real insiders know aides are more important than principals, and priniciples.

Not to be thoroughly snarky, I will say that the Post’s Sunday Outlook section had an interesting, candid piece called "Where We went Wrong” by former Republican majority Leader Dick Armey. “Republican lawmakers forgot the party's principles, became enamored with power and position, and began putting politics over policy,” Armey wrote. “Now, the Democrats are reaping the rewards of our neglect -- and we have no one to blame but ourselves.”

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I wrote a piece this morning called "Is This Column." It may be of interest to Public Eye Gazers as it deals neuroscience and social science research into the ways we process political information. Students of bias will find it relevant, I hope.

The Anchoress, a frisky friend of Public Eye made some interesting points about the column, giving me a chance to expand a few points, rather informally. Some of the other comments are interesting in all kinds of ways that I won't bore you with, or get myself in trouble over.

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For those who pay close attention to the much-plowed ground of the Bush administration’s rhetoric in defense of the Iraq war, there’s actually some new news in a terrific piecetoday by Scott Shane of The New York Times. There’s also something in the story for techies.


Shane reports that there’s a new player in the administration, Dr. Peter D. Feaver, a political scientist who studies public opinion and war. The Times says Feaver was a key architect of the president’s speech at Annapolis last week.

There could be no doubt about the theme of President Bush's Iraq war strategy speech on Wednesday at the Naval Academy. He used the word victory 15 times in the address; "Plan for Victory" signs crowded the podium he spoke on; and the word heavily peppered the accompanying 35-page National Security Council document titled, “Our National Strategy for Victory in Iraq."


Although White House officials said many federal departments had contributed to the document, its relentless focus on the theme of victory strongly reflected a new voice in the administration: Peter D. Feaver, a Duke University political scientist who joined the N.S.C. staff as a special adviser in June and has closely studied public opinion on the war.


Despite the president's oft-stated aversion to polls, Dr. Feaver was recruited after he and Duke colleagues presented the administration with an analysis of polls about the Iraq war in 2003 and 2004. They concluded that Americans would support a war with mounting casualties on one condition: that they believed it would ultimately succeed.


That finding, which is questioned by other political scientists, was clearly behind the victory theme in the speech and the plan, in which the word appears six times in the table of contents alone, including sections titled "Victory in Iraq is a Vital U.S. Interest" and "Our Strategy for Victory is Clear."

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Ragging on reporters is turning into a complicated racket.



Case in point: a story in today's edition of The New York Times about Howard Kurtz of the Times' archrival, The Washington Post.



Consider this: you are now reading an item in a media blog about a story in a newspaper about a reporter who writes about the media for another newspaper and talks about the media for another network.



If you care to comment in my entry, you will be commenting about an item in a media blog about a story in a newspaper about a reporter who writes about the media for another newspaper and talks about the media for another network.



If I respond to your post, I will be…. You get the picture.



It is easy and tempting to merely make fun of this kind of gazing at a navel-gazer's navel-gazing. But wait: I may have a point beyond comedy!



As self-involved as the Times' piece on Kurtz and this little piece right here may be, it all adds up, I am beginning to believe, to something like a free market, checking-and-balancing press police system that may -- may -- benefit the reporting business at a time when economic market forces are all scary.

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In a column I wrote yesterday on Terrell Owens, the Philadelphia Eagles' bad boy wide receiver, I glanced on an angle that's puzzled and perturbed me for awhile: why doesn't the conventional press cover sports and entertainment more?



I think most people would disagree with my premise and argue not only does the press cover sports and entertainment way too much, but that coverage is integral to the tabloidization of the news. Cases in point: O.J. Simpson, Michael Jackson, and Janet Jackson. And both morning and primetime shows are filled with celebrity interviews and profiles. The counter-argument continues that sports and entertainment have their own devoted media and press corps and the main sections of newspapers and television hard news broadcasts ought to stay away.



While all that is true, what is missing from the mix is (to use the "s" word) serious coverage of sports and entertainment. After all, the average American individual watches 4 hours, 32 minutes hours of television a day. A day! As an influence, even a basic ingredient, of American life it is unparalleled. Yet how much reporting, analysis or even opinion journalism is there about those four and a half hours a day -- the economics, effects and even composition of them? Zippo.

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I just interviewed Andrew Heyward and then Sean McManus. The full post will be up soon. Well, pretty soon.

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If there's one thing that I feel guilty about never addressing in my column , it's the great retirement ripoff. Luckily, Time magazine just did a cover story called, funnily enough, "The Great Retirement Ripoff" (unluckily, it's a pay site, so this link only goes to a tease). What a great idea.



There has obviously been a counter-revolution in American commerce that has permitted, even encouraged many corporations to renege on promises made to employees and the annihilation of the once ubiquitous expectation that work pensions would substantially help fund retirement. It is hard stuff to understand, much less make for interesting writing. So I haven't tackled it yet. There is also the conflict of interest problem: my employer changed its pension rules during my tenure here in ways that hurt my financial interests. (Note to Public Eye community: is that a substantial conflict of interest? Or trivial?)

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Malcolm Gladwell, the living monument to the bond between clear writing and clear thinking, has a brilliant -- I mean it -- piece in the October 10 issue of The New Yorker. Looking at the history of admissions at Harvard and Yale, Gladwell makes a fancy, brainy argument that really these colleges are brands and their admissions policies are best understood as marketing. I bought it.

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If you’re interested in the metaphysics of Public Eye (and who isn’t?), we can steer you to two very interesting discussions that are going on other blogs. Over at BuzzMachine, Jeff Jarvis and his readers are debating our worth on the planet. The jury seems to be out.



And from a rather different perspective, the Anchoress posted a thoughtful discourse on our virtues and vices and is hosting a conversation about listening and civility. The Anchoress is a new treat for me, a very smart, authentic voice from a female, conservative and Catholic perspective.

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Anyone considering a career in buying, selling or renting propaganda really should take a look at the Government Accountability Office reports on how the Department of Education bought commentary from pundit (sort of) Armstrong Williams and peddled phony news stories. GAO basically found these stunts were illegal ploys to distribute “covert propaganda.”



William Bennett’s inane and hurtful gaffe and Judith Miller’s saga may be getting all the press, but I think this is a more important story.

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