All Blog Posts from Public Eye

If you're interested in sharpening your media criticism skills, you could do worse than running for president.

Consider Barack Obama. On Friday, in an interview with the New York Times, Obama neatly summed up the prevailing press narrative about his campaign.

“A month ago, I was an idiot,” he said, according to a story published Sunday. “This month, I’m a genius.”

The implication is that the chattering classes have reversed their opinion about Obama even though the candidate himself hasn't much changed. And while his statement may be something of an exaggeration, there's clearly some truth in it. Has Obama really become a better candidate after spending much of the campaign as a bumbler? Or does the press corps now see him that way simply because he has moved up in the polls?

The Times suggests that the press corps' change of heart is justified:

The campaign of Mr. Obama, which slogged uncertainly through a period in the late summer and fall, alarming contributors who feared that he might have missed his moment, is now brimming with confidence as he delivers a closing argument to Iowa voters. His speeches are noticeably crisper, his poise is more consistent and many supporters say they no longer must rely upon a leap of faith to envision him winning the nomination.

Perhaps – although Mr. Obama himself might beg to differ. When it comes to something as messy and difficult to measure as the performance of a presidential candidate, it's difficult to determine to what degree the media follow reality, and to what degree they creates their own. Many of the same commentators crowing about Obama's ascent are the same ones who told us Hillary Clinton was the "inevitable" democratic nominee. Now it seems she was only inevitable until she wasn't.

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In this week's installment of "From The Vault," we bring you Mike Wallace's 1970 report on the intersection of television and politics. It opens with a series of campaign ads from that era. "For better or worse," says Wallace, "television has changed the nature of the political process in the United States." Click on the video box to watch.

"I don't know if I would have advised (the candidates) to avoid free television time, whether it's on Fox or Al Jazeera."

-- Keith Olbermann, on the decision of many Democratic presidential candidates to not participate in a Fox News Channel debate. (From a report by Aaron Barnhart.)

Maybe/sorta/kinda presidential candidate Fred Thompson appeared on the “Tonight Show” last night and told Jay Leno’s chin that he was still “testing the waters.”

So we’ve got Fred Thompson still flirting, dipping his toe in the pool, formally “exploring” and sort of going steady with the idea of running for president. We’ve got Newt Gingrich still wondering if the political climate calls for his candidacy – sort of a “I’m still seeing other people” with a presidential run. What’s going on? Bloomberg? Gore? Hello?

It’s been noted by better minds than I that the presidential candidacy game has gotten out downright bizarre – if you’re a politician, you say you’re thinking about it; you say you’re gonna announce soon; then you announce. It’s the political equivalent of rinse, lather, repeat. I doubt that I was the only American who saw Bill Richardson’s official announcement and responded: “He wasn’t running already?”

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What is the sound of one voice debating? We may find out this fall.

Yesterday, Chris Dodd and Bill Richardson became the latest Democratic presidential candidates to decide that they will not participate in this fall’s Fox News Channel debate, which is co-sponsored by the Congressional Black Caucus.

According to the AP article:

The debate exodus began two months ago when John Edwards became the first candidate to announce that he would not attend the Sept. 23 debate in Detroit. A week later, Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama announced they also would not participate.

This leaves only Joe Biden, Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel as the candidates who haven’t yet backed out of the event, making America rethink whether good things come in threes. Why are the candidates voluntarily withdrawing from a chance to get their message across to the largest prime-time audience in cable news? Pressure from two online organizations – ColorForChange and MoveOn – who accuse the "Fair and Balanced" news network of being “hostile to the interests of Black America.”

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President Grant for President!

Anybody who tuned into HBO on Sunday expecting to see “The Sopranos” -- but got “Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee” instead -- might have gotten a glimpse of the future. Fred Thompson – the cause celebre celeb of current GOP politics – appeared in the drama as President Ulysses S. Grant. And now (bada bing! to those suffering Sopranos withdrawal) Thompson has announced he is unofficially making it official (maybe) and launching an investigative committee to “test the waters” about a presidential bid. He may make it officially official around Independence Day, but it all depends on how the investigating goes. Or something.

In any event, as is the case with all such pseudo-announcements, the immediate coverage follows the At Whose Expense breadcrumbs:

Thompson's candidacy could hurt [Mitt] Romney, who is trying to position himself to the right of the major candidates in the field despite his equivocations on various issues and outright position changes on others.

It's also possible that Thompson could pull support from McCain. They have similar records in the Senate, and Thompson could be seen as a fresher face. He was one of a handful of senators who backed McCain in 2000 over George W. Bush.

Giuliani could be hindered as well if Thompson grabs the attention of Republicans who are looking for a candidate to beat Democrats in the fall but are uneasy with the former New York City mayor's support for gay and abortion rights.

So there you have it, plain as day: If Thompson decides to run, it will either hurt Romney, McCain or Giuliani. (Won’t anybody think of Ron Paul?)

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Hillary Clinton’s political baggage being recycled in two upcoming books. Mitt Romney’s romantic past with his wife investigated. Not only have the debates and the rituals of presidential campaigning bloomed early this year -- does the political calendar have global warming, too? – but so has the information warfare that makes political enemies smirk and political allies shift uncomfortably in their seats.

In this week’s edition of National Journal, political writer Carl Cannon is the most recent observer to wonder publicly where the line is between Relevant and Prurient. He writes:

[The 2008 race] is a wide-open field with some 20 announced and unannounced candidates, a group replete with enough messy divorces, troubled marriages, second (and third) marriages, estranged children, cancer survivors, head cases, and binge dieters to satisfy any soap opera …The gaggle of 2008 candidates will be acting out their various pathologies in a technological environment more suited for entertainment than for serious policy discussion. YouTube, the blogs, and an unfettered cable culture did not exist in 1988 and 1992, the years that the privacy barriers came tumbling down. They do now.

The upshot is a combustible mix that is prompting political observers to wonder whether the process will dissuade good people from even bothering with politics -- or whether that has already happened.

True, there used to be a line between “reportable” and “keep this out of the papers,” but in recent years it’s gotten rubbed out. Making things even more nebulous is the fact that each one creates a political Rorschach test. If you’re a fan of Mitt Romney, than you think that Mike Wallace was unprofessional when he asked if there had been any premarital sex before Mitt and his wife tied the knot – but if you’re an Obama fan, you may not have found it inappropriate. Likewise, Bill Richardson’s supporters aren’t fans of the Albequerque reporter who asked him if he had “a bimbo problem.”

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Since Mitt Romney officially announced his run for the 2008 presidential campaign, news outlets have been (repeatedly) asking how he will approach what they deem to be his biggest campaign challenge: being Mormon.

While the Romney campaign would not confirm or deny its authenticity, the Boston Globe has obtained "an exhaustive internal campaign document" that examines that question specifically.

The Globe writes of the document:

It acknowledges that some view Mormonism as weird and lists ways Romney should defend his faith, from highlighting the way he has lived his life, rather than which church he attends, to acknowledging theological differences with mainline Christian denominations while refusing to be drawn into an extensive discussion of Mormon doctrine and practices. It also suggests Romney might soon need to address the issue head-on, perhaps as John F. Kennedy did in a 1960 speech amid concerns about his relationship to the Catholic Church.

The document appears to raise the possibility of Romney delivering such an address at George H.W. Bush's presidential library outside Houston, the same city where Kennedy gave his. Enmity toward France, where Romney did his Mormon mission during college, is a recurring theme of the document. The European Union, it says at one point, wants to "drag America down to Europe's standards," adding: "That's where Hillary and Dems would take us. Hillary = France." The plan even envisions "First, not France" bumper stickers.

Asked about the document, a Romney campaign spokesman told the Globe that "if anything, it's a compilation of political conventional wisdom." Nonetheless, it's an interesting look inside some ultra specific concerns about Romney's image. Among them, writes the Globe: "His hair looks too perfect."

Vaughn Ververs, former editor of Public Eye and current senior political editor at CBSNews.com, offers some advice to news consumers as 2008 coverage kicks off.

When Hillary Clinton made her entrance into the presidential race, you had to figure it would make a little bit of news. So it’s no surprise that last week’s Talk Show Index, produced by the Project for Excellence in Journalism, showed that the 2008 presidential race had become a major topic of conversation. We do seem to have hit warp speed in the race for the White House over the past couple of weeks with a slew of candidates jumping in on both sides of the aisle (and at least one, John Kerry, opting out.)

We’re already being bombarded with news from Iowa and New Hampshire, national horserace polling, Hollywood fundraisers and, yes, even political ads. Money, polls and ads – yep, the campaign is off and running. Even for those who aren’t political junkies, it’s a pretty exciting time. But you get the feeling we’re all going to be pretty tired of it all in short order.

That’s why I wanted to offer news consumers a few campaign ‘08 survival tips.

The Only Polls That Count: With all due respect to our national media organizations, these polls showing John McCain or Rudy Giuliani battling it out with Hillary Clinton are almost meaningless. Reflected in them is the fact that nationally recognized figures are, well, nationally recognized. It’s mildly informative that at this moment in time, Clinton appears to be capable of winning a national election and becoming the nation’s first woman president. But given her profile over the past decade, is that really news?

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Libby Juror Saga, Act Two: Rejoice, Washingtonians and news junkies -- the jury for the Scooter Libby trial has been chosen. And it after much huffing and puffing over potential jurors' potential conflicts of interest, the final pool reflects quite a wide range. In particular, it includes a former Washington Post reporter – who also happened to be a neighbor to Tim Russert and an employee under Bob Woodward. Both of those men are expected to be witnesses in the case. Other members of the jury are not so plugged in to the Washington political scene, reports the AP, such as "a travel agent who only looks at newspapers for the sudoku puzzles" and "a hotel sales agent who described herself a 'master of all things pop culture, but nothing related to current events.'"

The Candidates' Chicken And Egg Problem: Candidates not named Clinton or Obama are also getting stepped on, laments Howard Kurtz this morning. Especially people like New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson (yes, he announced this weekend) – who comes equipped with several convenient storylines, like his Hispanic heritage. "That means he should be getting as much 'would be America's first' publicity as the possible first woman president and first black president." Unfortunately, the governor "barely registers in the polls," and therefore, he barely registers among journalists, who "care only about Hillary and Obama at the moment." A political catch-22, says Kurtz: "How do you get media attention when you're nowhere in the polls, even though if you got some media attention, you'd probably rise in the polls, thereby warranting more media attention?"

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