All Blog Posts from Public Eye

CBS White House correspondent Jim Axelrod – you might remember him as the fellow labeled "defeatist" by then-White House press secretary Tony Snow – was involved in another tense exchange last week, this time with Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.

According to the Examiner article "Pelosi, Reid Take On Reporter":

CBS White House reporter Jim Axelrod mentioned to Pelosi that, come November 2008, the number of American troops in Iraq likely will be the same as in November 2006, when Democrats were swept into power. Then, he asked, “How do you view your stewardship of Congress as anything other than a failure to make the president change course?”

Pelosi was instantly taken aback. “What a lovely objective question on the part of the press!” she remarked.

And the blog world exploded with headlines like "Pelosi Shocked by CBS's 'Failure' Hardball from the Left ..." and "Nancy Pelosi Accuses Reporter of Bias"

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You remember those Bugs Bunny cartoons where he'd stick a cork or something in Elmer Fudd's rifle and it would backfire into Fudd's face? We've seen the political version of that in Washington, DC this week.

In the three days since they originally took out a full-page ad in the New York Times deriding General David "Betray Us?" Petraeus, MoveOn.org is still the big media story of the week, nearly eclipsing the General's testimony. (Simply while writing this post, it's been covered on two of the three cable nets.)

It's a textbook case of media blowback, with the ad having given supporters of the "surge" a certain amount of rhetorical cover, or at least an opportunity to shift the focus of the discussion from the streets of Baghdad to the well-known activist group and bugaboo of the right.

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The "Evening News" was the only nightly newscast to cover the Pelosi plane dustup last night. You can watch the story by clicking in the video box at left.

It's hard to get a sense yet of how big the story will turn out to be. The gist is this: House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi is being criticized for requesting an airplane larger and fancier than that used by her predecessor, Dennis Hastert. Pelosi says that she only wants an airplane that can fly between her home state of California and the District of Columbia without refueling, and that the size of the plane doesn't matter. Here's ABC's Jake Tapper's fairly comprehensive rundown of the issues at hand.

The story has been pushed hard by the conservative Washington Times, which got it through leaks from officials within the Bush administration, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. It has slowly worked its way into the mainstream media: It got some play on the morning shows today, and it made the front page of the Los Angeles Times this morning.

National Review Online's David Frum writes that he has "an uneasy feeling that the conservative press may have overhyped this story about Nancy Pelosi's airplane request."

The problem, he writes, is that we don't yet know what Pelosi requested. "If she really and truly did ask for her own personal Boeing 757, as many stories and much radio commentary have implied, well yes obviously that would be a huge scandal. But I keep being struck by the exact phrase in these articles: that she asked for 'access' to a transcontinental plane. If she asked only that she get similar transport to that which was provided to Speaker Hastert, but with larger fuel capacity that could take her nonstop across the continent…then that's a very different matter."

Interestingly, White House spokesman Tony Snow had this to say: “This is a silly story and I think it’s been unfair to the speaker.” Pelosi told Fox News that the Department of Defense is distorting the story to get back at her for her opposition to the war and her criticism of former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. She also said that she would fly commercial if necessary.

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The Skinny Today: Facial expressions are taken very seriously on State of the Union night. Plus, Scooter Libby is being sacrificed, says his lawyer. The Skinny is Hillary Profita's take on the top of the news and the best of the Web.

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Let's just get this point out of the way: Nancy Pelosi is probably getting more positive coverage than she otherwise would because she is a woman. You think she'd get all those flattering profiles if she wasn't the first female speaker of the House of Representatives? It's sure hard to imagine. Just ask Newt.

And Pelosi, ever the politician, knows as much. Remember the scene at her swearing in, when Pelosi surrounded herself with kids? The photo-op wasn't an accident – it was designed to reinforce the idea that the new speaker is a mother and grandmother. (As a friend of mine noted, the House chamber that day looked a bit like romper room.) The fact is, the press corps loves these kinds of breaking-the-glass-ceiling stories, and Pelosi is going to milk that fact for all its worth.

After all, we're now at the moment where many Americans are deciding what they think of Pelosi, and their initial impressions are likely to stick. Republicans want people to think of Pelosi as a "San Francisco liberal," not a sympathetic grandmother, but they haven't been able to get much traction – yet. Not that the Democrats have either. According to a CBS News poll released yesterday,
"[m]ore than seven in 10 Americans are undecided or haven’t heard enough about Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat and the first woman Speaker of the House, to have an opinion of her." Pelosi will be one of the leading faces of the Democratic Party for the foreseeable future, and both sides are desperate to define her before people make up their minds about Pelosi and, by extension, her party.

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A compendium of the week's finest quotations, from the nation's newspapers and beyond.

"It's almost counter to the essence of the place for the majority and minority to share responsibility for legislation."
--Ross K. Baker, a political scientist at Rutgers University, regarding House Democrats' move to pass its 100-hour agenda without deliberating with the GOP

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"Some of you are broke, plenty of you are conservative, quite a few of you are young and 20 percent of you are not white. A few of you even watch 'Fear Factor' …"
--NPR's Brooke Gladstone, describing the not-so-average NPR listener, according to a recent audience survey

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"Bannockburn Elementary School in Bethesda is suburban Washington's Lake Wobegon, Garrison Keillor's fictional hamlet where every child is above average."
--The Washington Post, describing the gifted education program at one of Montgomery County, Maryland's public schools

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The Skinny Today: Cue the "Rocky" theme as Democrats take over Congress. Plus, 2007 brings more personnel changes; and NPR listeners are indeed 173% more likely to buy Volvos. The Skinny is Hillary Profita's take on the top of the news and the best of the Web.

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The Skinny Today: Joy to the world, the 110th Congress begins today. And the irony of Democrats' proposed ethics reforms is not lost on newspapers. Also, Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte will become deputy secretary of state and Home Depot CEO Robert Nardelli is ousted, in exchange for a $210 million severance package.

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You might say that what's a bit dry about watching the House floor on C-SPAN (other than the actual people talking) is that the cameras in place – which are operated by government employees – are limited in their scope. That means, for example, that cameras don't pan the floor for reaction shots, but offer tight shots of the lawmakers who are speaking or wide shots as votes are being called. For those behind the cameras in television news, that's particularly frustrating.

As Al Kamen notes in today's Washington Post, C-SPAN recently asked incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi if the new Congress (which she has said will be "the most honest, most open and most ethical Congress in history," Kamen notes) would consider adding more cameras to allow more liberal visual access to the chamber. C-SPAN chief Brian Lamb argued in a letter to Pelosi that the current system is "an anachronism that does a disservice to the institution and to the public."

Pelosi denied the request in a letter, writing that the current system should remain: "Under the current practice, every word spoken in an exchange between Members or between the Chair and a Member is broadcast live. This programming informs the American people and ensures an accurate historical record. It has served the American people and the House and Senate well since the advent of televised proceedings nearly 30 years ago."

After an editorial in USA Today yesterday opposed that decision, and Pelosi was invited to write an opposing view to the editorial (which she declined), her office told the paper that "she intends to meet with Lamb soon to discuss a possible compromise."

USA Today's argument in favor of greater camera access suggested that such a move could have some practical impact: "Perhaps there'd be less blatant arm-twisting and deal-making on the floor during close votes, such as the 2003 roll call on the Medicare prescription drug benefit that lasted three hours instead of the customary 15 minutes. Perhaps members would be less likely to doze or read magazines while colleagues are debating. And perhaps lawmakers would be less inclined to deliver stemwinders to empty chambers if they knew their lack of an audience would be apparent."

As for the opposing view, Donald Wolfensberger, former staff director of the House Rules Committee and current director of the Congress Project at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars,
argues in USA Today that Pelosi "is right to reject the request."

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You might say that what's a bit dry about watching the House floor on C-SPAN (other than the actual people talking) is that the cameras in place – which are operated by government employees – are limited in their scope. That means, for example, that cameras don't pan the floor for reaction shots, but offer tight shots of the lawmakers who are speaking or wide shots as votes are being called. For those behind the cameras in television news, that's particularly frustrating.

As Al Kamen notes in today's Washington Post, C-SPAN recently asked incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi if the new Congress (which she has said will be "the most honest, most open and most ethical Congress in history," Kamen notes) would consider adding more cameras to allow more liberal visual access to the chamber. C-SPAN chief Brian Lamb argued in a letter to Pelosi that the current system is "an anachronism that does a disservice to the institution and to the public."

Pelosi denied the request in a letter, writing that the current system should remain: "Under the current practice, every word spoken in an exchange between Members or between the Chair and a Member is broadcast live. This programming informs the American people and ensures an accurate historical record. It has served the American people and the House and Senate well since the advent of televised proceedings nearly 30 years ago."

After an editorial in USA Today yesterday opposed that decision, and Pelosi was invited to write an opposing view to the editorial (which she declined), her office told the paper that "she intends to meet with Lamb soon to discuss a possible compromise."

USA Today's argument in favor of greater camera access suggested that such a move could have some practical impact: "Perhaps there'd be less blatant arm-twisting and deal-making on the floor during close votes, such as the 2003 roll call on the Medicare prescription drug benefit that lasted three hours instead of the customary 15 minutes. Perhaps members would be less likely to doze or read magazines while colleagues are debating. And perhaps lawmakers would be less inclined to deliver stemwinders to empty chambers if they knew their lack of an audience would be apparent."

As for the opposing view, Donald Wolfensberger, former staff director of the House Rules Committee and current director of the Congress Project at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars,
argues in USA Today that Pelosi "is right to reject the request."

Read full post…