Michael Scherer of Time tried to explain the concept of “Why Barack Obama Doesn’t Like to Chit-Chat with the Press Corps” — despite their obvious affection for him. The president’s first Ground Zero Mosque comments were “perfectly scripted,” he wrote, and perfectly timed, on a Friday night at a Muslim dinner celebrating Ramadan. Scherer doesn’t get that the venue could be controversial, considering Obama’s allergies to traditional Christian prayer breakfasts. But this “perfect” scenario was ruined by the White House press pool (specifically, CNN’s Ed Henry ): A reporter asked a stray question, and Obama blew all the careful planning of his staff. He varied from his initial remarks, creating a new narrative for a story the White House does not want to linger. Was he adding an asterisk to his remarks, as the Washington Post put it ? Was it a recalibration, as the New York Times put it ? In short, this is a communications disaster. The White House had to release a statement clarifying the new statement, or restatement, or whatever. The president’s opponents, who had been pushing the mosque issue for weeks as a way to get Democrats on the wrong side of the polls in an election year, came out celebrating. Liz Cheney, who can diminish just about any nuanced thought into a barbed cable news talking point , emailed Politico’s Mike Allen from her iPhone. “I guess President Obama was for the mosque before he was against it. You can quote me,” went the message. You can sense the creative tension between the lines for reporters like Scherer. They want their access to top officials, and yet in the Obama era, they very much want those top officials to achieve their “perfect” media calibrations, and not provide grist to nuance-diminishing conservative attack dogs. They think like campaign operatives — oh, shoot, Obama shouldn’t have talked to Ed Henry besides the jokes about whether he’d swim shirtless! Henry’s question was not a hardball, just an invitation for further reflection on the mosque controversy. Scherer added that a previous Obama gaffe murdered the chances for “comprehensive” immigration amnesty: Saturday’s gaffe represents the second time this year that an unscheduled chit chat with the press corps caused him big problems. In late April, he came to the back of Air Force One and said “there may not be appetite” for immigration reform, an admission dubbed by one reporter Obama’s “fatal flinch” that infuriated Senate leaders and Hispanic voters, and effectively ended any hope for the bill passing this year. Isn’t it possible that Obama didn’t fatally wound an amnesty bill, but that there really was no real public appetite for such a bill?
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Time’s Scherer Blames Press Pool for Obama’s Flipping and Flopping on Ground Zero Mosque
When people seek to build a mosque near Ground Zero, the consensus among MSNBC liberals seems to be that their exercise of First Amendment rights to freedom of religion cannot be questioned. But it was a different story at MSNBC when, hours before and blocks away from where Pres. Obama was scheduled to speak, a man exercised his Second Amendment right to bear arms. Readers will recall the case of William Kostric. He was the New Hampshire man who was part of a protest group in Portsmouth, New Hampshire in August 2009 when Pres. Obama came to town for a health care town hall. Ironically, given the mosque controversy, Kostric was standing on . . . church property. But that made no difference to the wise men of MSNBC. Host Carlos Watson was sure there must be some kind of “emergency injuntion” available to have the man removed. And Chris Matthews, in the memorable interview embedded here, got testy when Kostric tried to cite his legal rights. “I know the law,” snapped Matthews, choosing instead to query Kostric on why he was carrying “a goddam gun.” Can we expect to see MSNBC hosts subjecting the mosque-builders to similarly sharp inquiry about their motives?
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MSNBC Mosque Double-Standard: Went Crazy Over Kostric Bearing Arms On Church Property
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Tagged carlos-watson, celeb news, chris-matthews, exercise, first-amendment, kostric, legal, memorable, News, politics, pres-obama, similarly-sharp, story-at-msnbc
Was MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski just joking or was she channeling some actual frustrations with her employers at MSNBC? As Brzezinski sat in as a guest co-host of Saturday’s Today show on NBC, she repeatedly joked about admiring Steven Slater, the flight attendant who quit his job at JetBlue by erratically bailing out of his plane down the emergency chute holding two beers. While co-host Amy Robach admitted that she was “getting sick of this story,” Brzezinski had only just heard the story because she had been vacationing the past week. Reveling in her fascination with Slater, she made such declarations as, “I feel his pain,” “I think I love him,” and, “I have dreams about doing that actually.” Although at one point she referred to sometimes being annoyed at unruly airline passengers as a reason for sympathizing with him, she also twice joked about jumping out of the window of the NBC studio at 30 Rock. At the top of the show, she jokingly predicted, “I might jump out the window with a beer. You never know.” During a plug later, she mused: “Two beers, I love him. It’s my dream just to, like, right outside the window of 30 Rock. What do you think? On an escape hatch.” Below is a transcript of the relevant portion of the Saturday, August 14, Today show on NBC: AMY ROBACH: And then we’re going to show you the exclusive first video of Steven Slater- MIKA BRZEZINSKI: I love this. ROBACH: -as the JetBlue flight attendant- BRZEZINSKI: I feel his pain. ROBACH: -fed up with his job, abandoned his plane, slid down the emergency chute this week at New York’s Kennedy Airport. I have to say, as we were talking about this, I said, “I’m kind of getting sick of this story.” And you said, “What? I just heard about it.” BRZEZINSKI: No, no. ROBACH: Do you have television in Maine? BRZEZINSKI: I have dreams of doing that, actually. (LAUGHS) So no, we didn’t really watch. I did just hear about it yesterday, but I love it. ROBACH: It’s all new to Mika, but that’s good. BRZEZINSKI: I love it. ROBACH: Then you can do the story because you’re excited about it. BRZEZINSKI: I’ll do the story. ROBACH: All right. BRZEZINSKI: I might jump out the window with a beer. You never know. ROBACH: Oh, all right. … ROBACH: Back inside Studio 1A, I’m Amy Robach along with Mika Brzezinski. Lester is enjoying the weekend off. Coming up on Today, this is Mika’s favorite story. BRZEZINSKI: Yes. ROBACH: She’s new to it. (BRZEZINSKI LAUGHS) More bumpy skies for the JetBlue flight attendant. BRZEZINSKI: I think I love him. ROBACH: Yes. BRZEZINSKI: Steven Slater was arrested and charged with criminal mischief, reckless endangerment and trespassing. Now new video has been released of the escape hatch being deployed from that plane. I believe he went down that thing with a beer in his hand. We’ll see. ROBACH: I think it’s two beers. BRZEZINSKI: Two beers, I love him. It’s my dream just to, like, right outside the window of 30 Rock. What do you think? On an escape hatch. ROBACH: Might be a little dangerous. Might be a little dangerous. BRZEZINSKI: All right, maybe not. … JEFF ROSSEN: Slater hasn’t been fired just yet. He’s just suspended. He says he still wants to be a flight attendant for JetBlue. That is unlikely now, to say the very least. Airline executives, Mika, say that there’s no excuse for what he did, regardless of what the reason was. BRZEZINSKI: Mmmm. I wouldn’t mind him on my flight. I have seen- ROSSEN: You love this guy. BRZEZINSKI: -over the past couple of days, I’ve been on some nightmare flights- ROSSEN: Yeah. BRZEZINSKI: -and there have been some nightmare passengers. So do I feel bad? Should I feel bad for kind of feeling his pain? ROSSEN: Nightmare passengers. BRZEZINSKI, LAUGHING: I’m the perfect passenger. ROSSEN: No, you, no, you shouldn’t feel bad about it because I think it’s resonated with a lot of people. He’s got over 200,000 people on his Facebook fan page- BRZEZINSKI: That’s amazing. ROSSEN: -who say, “I want to do the same thing at my job.” But the prosecutors, as you heard, say this is serious. BRZEZINSKI: Yeah, he broke the law. I guess that’s the bottom line. ROSSEN: They say it doesn’t matter what happened on the plane. He broke the law. BRZEZINSKI: Jeff Rossen, thank you very much.
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MSNBC’s Brzezinski Swoons Over Wacky Flight Attendant: ‘I Think I Love Him,’ ‘Dreams’ of Imitating Him
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Tagged broke-the-law, brzezinski, celeb news, msnbc, Nbc, plane, politics, saturday
Memo to Alan Fram and Trevor Tompson of the Associated Press and two other writers who contributed to this report (“AP-GfK polls show Obama losing independents”): You should have taken the weekend off. When I saw a shorter, earlier version of the referenced AP report this morning, it didn’t mention when AP’s polling arm AP-GfK Roper had done their work. When I went to the polling home page and found that the most recent entries were from June 9-14, I figured I’d come back later and give the group time to post fresh underlying details. Little did I know that AP’s gaggle of writers were treating the June 9-14 “Poll Politics Topline” as fresh. It gets worse. It turns out that Fram, Tompson et al wasted about 875 words on a report based on polling data that gave equal weights to results from mid-June, mid-May, and mid-April. Considering the primary topic of discussion, independents’ take on the Obama presidency and performance of Congress, this AP report is laughably irrelevant — unless its primary purpose, especially given that earlier versions of the story didn’t identify when the polling took place, was to present data designed to make readers and listeners think that things are better than they really are right now for Democrats heading into the midterm elections. Here are selected paragraph from the bylined AP pair’s non-punctual piece : Independents who embraced President Barack Obama’s call for change in 2008 are ready for a shift again, and that’s worrisome news for Democrats. Only 32 percent of those citing no allegiance to either major party say they want Democrats to keep control of Congress in this November’s elections, according to combined results of recent Associated Press-GfK polls. That’s way down from the 52 percent of independents who backed Obama over Republican Sen. John McCain two years ago, and the 49 percent to 41 percent edge by which they preferred Democratic candidates for the House in that election, according to exit polls of voters. Independents voice especially strong concerns about the economy, with 9 in 10 calling it a top problem and no other issue coming close, the analysis of the AP-GfK polls shows. While Democrats and Republicans rank the economy the No. 1 problem in similar numbers, they are nearly as worried about their No. 2 issues, health care for Democrats and terrorism for Republicans. Ominously for Democrats, independents trust Republicans more on the economy by a modest but telling 42 percent to 36 percent. That’s bad news for the party that controls the White House and Congress at a time of near 10 percent unemployment and the slow economic recovery. … Both parties court independents for obvious reasons. Besides their sheer number – 4 in 10 describe themselves as independents in combined AP-GfK polling for April, May and June – they are a crucial swing group. To try winning them over, Republicans say they will contrast Obama’s campaign promises of change with the huge spending programs he’s approved. Democrats say they will warn independents that a GOP victory will revive that party’s efforts to cut taxes for the rich and transform Social Security into risky private investment accounts. … Independents trust Republicans far more than Democrats for handling national security, but give Democrats a 42 percent to 36 percent edge for dealing with health care – a potential sign that distrust over Obama’s signature issue is receding. Hope is not lost for Democrats. The AP-GfK polls show a narrow 44 percent to 41 percent overall preference for a Democratic Congress. The party is holding its 2008 edge among women and urban residents, and still splitting the vote of pivotal suburbanites and people earning $50,000 to $100,000. Let’s look at just a few relatively current data points from elsewhere relating to the Fram’s and Tompson’s topics: Trust on health care — The antiquated AP-GfK report cites a 49-39 average Democratic edge among all voters across April, May and June (at Page 26 of detailed report; not in AP’s story). A Rasmussen report based on late June polling data shows Republicans with a 51-40 edge. Even that was six weeks ago. Since then we have learned that Team Obama is arguing in court that ObamaCare’s health insurance purchase mandate is a tax after telling the country for months before the legislation’s passage that it wasn’t. There have also been instances where abortion coverage was found in high-risk pool plans in several states, which were only eliminated when the Department of Health and Human Services issued regulations doing so. This exercise proved, as if proof was really needed, that the pro-life Executive Order that supposedly won over the Stupak Stooges — er, the Stupak Six — was nothing but a charade. Trust on the economy — AP-GfK shows a 45-42 average Democratic advantage (again at Page 26 of detailed report). The same Rasmussen report noted previously is 48-39, advantage GOP . Given the wave of weak economic news in the past six weeks, it would notbe surprising to see that the Republican advantage here has increased since then. Preference in who controls Congress — AP-GfK cites a 44-41 Democratic edge. This question has been a virtual dead heat in a Wall Street Journal/NBC poll all year . The latest result based on August 5-9 polling showing a one-point Democratic lead. No AP poll would be complete without a bit of cooking. In this instance, the AP-GfK poll’s average Democratic ingredient outweighed the GOP’s by 44. Gallup’s most recent poll on the topic, admittedly a reversal from most of its results during the past several months, shows the GOP with a 2% edge in party affiliation, including “leaners.” It appears that AP-GfK polls on the topics presented every month. It would thus be reasonable to assume that it has data for July, and that in a few days it will have data for August. Thus, it’s odd that the wire service wouldn’t have simply waited a few days to give us fresher information. Or maybe someone has seen that info, and would prefer not to have to report it at all. Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com .
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AP Writers Package Months-Old Polling Data As Currently Relevant News
The Sunday New York Times lunged toward the “extreme weather caused by global warming” party line again, with a front-pager by Justin Gillis forthrightly headlined “In Weather Chaos, a Case for Global Warming.” The article was loaded with the usual gassy Gore-style greenhouse gurus – from Kevin Trenberth to Gavin Schmidt. The skeptics received a single paragraph, number 16, followed immediately by reporter rebuttal: Climate-change skeptics dispute such statistical arguments, contending that climatologists do not know enough about long-range patterns to draw definitive links between global warming and weather extremes. They cite events like the heat and drought of the 1930s as evidence that extreme weather is nothing new. Those were indeed dire heat waves, contributing to the Dust Bowl, which dislocated millions of Americans and changed the population structure of the United States. But most researchers trained in climate analysis, while acknowledging that weather data in parts of the world are not as good as they would like, offer evidence to show that weather extremes are getting worse. The Nashville flood earlier this year was largely ignored by the national press – but not today, when it figures into the liberal argument. Gillis began: The floods battered New England, then Nashville, then Arkansas, then Oklahoma — and were followed by a deluge in Pakistan that has upended the lives of 20 million people. The summer’s heat waves baked the eastern United States, parts of Africa and eastern Asia, and above all Russia, which lost millions of acres of wheat and thousands of lives in a drought worse than any other in the historical record. Seemingly disconnected, these far-flung disasters are reviving the question of whether global warming is causing more weather extremes. The collective answer of the scientific community can be boiled down to a single word: probably. The story also ended on the familiar note that carbon overload is a constantly unfolding humanitarian disaster: Certain recent weather events were so extreme that a few scientists are shedding their traditional reluctance to ascribe specific disasters to global warming. After a heat wave in Europe in 2003 that killed an estimated 50,000 people, the worst such catastrophe for that region in the historical record, scientists published detailed analyses suggesting that it would not have been as severe in a climate uninfluenced by greenhouse gases. And Dr. Trenberth has published work suggesting that Hurricane Katrina dumped at least somewhat more rain on the Gulf Coast because the storm was intensified by global warming. “It’s not the right question to ask if this storm or that storm is due to global warming, or is it natural variability,” Dr. Trenberth said. “Nowadays, there’s always an element of both.”
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Extreme Weather Again Excites Extreme Greens on the Front Page of the New York Times
President Barack Obama’s endorsement Friday night of building a mosque near Ground Zero has driven the establishment press corps to find nobility in pursuing conviction even in the face of public opposition, not something MSM journalists admired about the previous President, while suddenly becoming very concerned about protecting private property rights – all while hailing Obama’s “great global message.” “I thought the speech Friday night was a model of political courage, in the sense that he said what he believed knowing that it was going to cost him,” hailed Washington Post Associate Editor David Ignatius on ABC’s This Week with Christiane Amanpour. Picking up on Matthew Dowd’s suggestion Obama was echoing George W. Bush’s “it’s my way or the highway” attitude, Chrystia Freeland , global editor-at-large for Reuters, argued: Another way of talking about that is leadership, conviction, having your beliefs and not governing according to polls. And I think if you ask most Americans what kind of leader you want, if you ask people in the world what kind of leader do you want, you want someone who governs according to conviction….for American leaders to say in the face of, you know, some political pressure from their voters, to say actually we believe sufficiently strongly in diversity, in private property rights for our Muslim citizens, I think that’s a great global message. Ignatius, the Post’s former foreign editor and business editor and now a columnist on international affairs, backed Freeland, contending that doing what upsets Americans is good to do because it protects property right and pleases the world: I agree with that. I think that’s one of our strongest suits. As the world looks at us, if they see that the United States, even in an issue that hurts, and Ground Zero hurts, even on that issue, we still stand up for the freedom of people to dispose of their property as they want. That does count. When I travel, you travel Christiane, we hear comments about that America a lot. I think you shouldn’t minimize the benefits of saying to moderate Muslim, here you are. This upsets a lot of Americans, but we’re going to do it anyway. (Where were Ignatius and Freeland when the Supreme Court allowed eminent domain seizures of homes so local government could sell the land to developers?) In between, Amanpour worried the controversy over the mosque hurts Obama’s efforts to befriend Muslims and “so do you think it’s wise to have this huge hubbub over it, or it should just go forward, this mosque?” Amanpour fretted: I just want to ask you this, but it does go to the heart of what he’s been doing since the beginning of his presidency, reaching out not just to the Muslim world but Muslims in general. He’s made a very important first interview where he said the United States could not afford to have yet another generation of Muslims viewing it as the enemy. So do you think it’s wise to have this huge hubbub over it, or it should just go forward, this mosque? Earlier in the program, Amanpour put forward Germany’s state capitalism as a model to emulate: “The big story out of Europe this weekend is that Germany has shown stronger than expected growth over the last quarter. Laura, you were saying something about how Germany had taught and trained its workforce to compete in these situations.” From Berkely, California, Laura D’Andrea Tyson, of the President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board, asserted: “A major part of that is serious vocational training and very serious ongoing training for manufacturing workers in Germany.” She also trumpeted: “Germany manages to do this with a much higher tax rate than we do.” My previous looks at Amanpour’s This Week: From last Sunday: “ Amanpour Elevates British Journalist Who Sees ‘Culture of Hate’ in U.S., Time to Divide Up Our ‘Pie ’” Two weeks ago, reviewing Amanpour’s debut: “ Amanpour Slums to Take on U.S. Politics, Flummoxed Pelosi’s Victories Aren’t Better Appreciated ” A Friday (August 13) Daily Caller article by Caroline May, “ Amanpour’s ‘This Week’ continues to receive negative reviews as viewers express desire for Tapper’s return ,” included my assessment of Amanpour: Brent H. Baker, Media Research Center Vice President for Research and Publications speculated to The Daily Caller that Amanpour’s air of superiority has added to the poor reviews. “Viewer revulsion toward Amanpour is hardly surprising given her condescending attitude toward them,” he said. “In her first two shows, she’s acted like she’s deigning to explain the world to the uninformed rubes, aka Americans, watching, acting as if she’s slumming to help bring the world to the ill-informed Americans.” From the Sunday, August 15 This Week with Christiane Amanpour, segment with Laura D’Andrea Tyson, former New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine, Senator John Corker and Chamber of Commerce economist Martin Regalia: CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: Let me just quickly go to what you mentioned about being competitive with the rest of the world. The big story out of Europe this weekend is that Germany has shown stronger than expected growth over the last quarter. Laura, you were saying something about how Germany had taught and trained its workforce to compete in these situations. LAURA D’ANDREA TYSON: Right, well Germany has had a long-term commitment to manufacturing. And it has a very strong manufacturing base. It has a much larger share of economy in manufacturing than we do. A major part of that is serious vocational training and very serious ongoing training for manufacturing workers in Germany. And often times a German firm with German workers will retrain and use technology at home rather than offshore those jobs abroad. And I want to point out also that Germany manages to do this with a much higher tax rate than we do. I think there should be corporate tax reform. I agree with a lot of what Senator Corker and Martin Regalia [of the Chamber of Commerce] have said. But we need investment. I would say, in thinking about the share of government and GDP, something the Senator mentioned, we need to distinguish between investment spending by the government — whether it’s federal, state or local – and other spending. A dollar spent for infrastructure is different than a dollar spent for current operations. From the roundtable: MATTEW DOWD: …It feeds a broader narratively about him, which is, it’s my way or the highway. In many ways, to me, it reminds me of Bush, which is, “I don’t care what the American public is on this, I’m going say what is the right thing to do.” He’s done it on immigration in Arizona, he’s done it on this, he’s done it on health care. I think that’s the political problem he has. DAVID IGNATIUS, WASHINGTON POST. Why is that a problem for him? I thought the speech Friday night was a model of political courage, in the sense that he said what he believed knowing that it was going to cost him. The White House has stayed out of this issue knowing that it’s political poison. And I thought the President spoke to it fairly directly. This is America, people have a right to build on property that they own, even if it’s going to be a mosque near Ground Zero. I was sort of sorry that he was trying to walk it back in these more nuanced comments yesterday. CHRYSTIA FREELAND, REUTERS: I totally agree with David. And I think, you know, Matt, to the point of my way or the highway, another way of talking about that is leadership, conviction, having your beliefs and not governing according to polls. And I think if you ask most Americans what kind of leader you want, if you ask people in the world what kind of leader do you want, you want someone who governs according to conviction. And I do think this touches on, Christiane, the economic panel you had earlier. I think that it touches on in two important ways. This point about private property might seem like a parsing, but it is actually essential and I think to have the President, and we had similar comments from Mike Bloomberg, coming out and saying, actually, we believe that the rights of private property are so strong, we are not going to change them because the cosmetics are not- …. CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: I just want to ask you this, but it does go to the heart of what he’s been doing since the beginning of his presidency, reaching out not just to the Muslim world but Muslims in general. He’s made a very important first interview where he said the United States could not afford to have yet another generation of Muslims viewing it as the enemy. So do you think it’s wise to have this huge hubbub over it, or it should just go forward, this mosque? …. FREELAND: But let’s talk a little bit about the rest of the world. You know, I think that actually, the President’s comment, the comments by Mike Bloomberg are really an important message to the Muslim world. We’re talking about Pakistan later on. For these people — for American leaders to say in the face of, you know, some political pressure from their voters, to say actually we believe sufficiently strongly in diversity, in private property rights for our Muslim citizens, I think that’s a great global message. IGNATIUS: I agree with that. I think that’s one of our strongest suits. As the world looks at us, if they see that the United States, even in an issue that hurts, and Ground Zero hurts, even on that issue, we still stand up for the freedom of people to dispose of their property as they want. That does count. When I travel, you travel Christiane, we hear comments about that America a lot. I think you shouldn’t minimize the benefits of saying to moderate Muslim, here you are. This upsets a lot of Americans, but we’re going to do it anyway.
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Amanpour’s Panel Hails Obama’s ‘Courage,’ ‘Leadership’ and ‘Great Global Message’ on Mosque
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Tagged california, cosmetics, david ignatius, europe, Hollywood, islam, Obama, politics, president, publications, research
Chris Matthews this weekend winced in pain when a guest on his syndicated program said it’s actually more likely the Democrats will lose the Senate than the House in the upcoming midterm elections. As the “Chris Matthews Show” entered its final segment when guests offer their predictions, New York magazine’s John Heilemann said, “There are a lot of really smart Democratic politicos that I talk to who are actually a little bit more worried right now that it’s possible Democrats could lose the Senate more easily than they could lose the House.” Matthews interrupted with a pained expression on his face, “That’s like losing a dozen seats.” As Heilemann continued, the host once again interrupted, “Could [Sen. Barbara] Boxer lose in California?” When Heilemann said yes, Matthews grimaced, “You’re talking tsunami” (video follows with transcript and commentary): CHRIS MATTHEWS, HOST: John, tell me something I don’t know. JOHN HEILEMANN, NEW YORK MAGAZINE: You know, there are a lot of really smart Democratic politicos that I talk to who are actually a little bit more worried right now that it’s possible Democrats could lose the Senate more easily than they could lose the House. And part of it I think is because there are… MATTHEWS: That’s like losing a dozen seats. HEILEMANN: Well, it is, and I think there’s a concern about some of the quality of some of those Democratic candidates, there’s a concern about the national mood, and then there’s also some concern about the National Democratic Senatorial Committee which is not actually investing money necessarily in the wisest way according to some of the Democrats who… MATTHEWS: Could Boxer lose in California? HEILEMANN: Boxer could lose in California. And I think it’s also possible that you could see Democrats lose seats they should not lose like in New Hampshire, like in Illinois, seats they should absolutely hold that right now they’re not spending much money there. MATTHEWS: You’re talking tsunami. HEILEMANN: They could lose, yeah. Sheesh, could Matthews at least try to behave like a journalist and not show the audience how pained he is at the thought of a Democrat loss this November?
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Chris Matthews Winces In Pain When Guest Says Dems Could Lose Senate
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Tagged 2010 congressional, celeb news, House, john heilemann, national, News, politics, predictions, senate
Reigniting a political controversy, former President Bill Clinton this week contradicted the Obama White House, telling a Pennsylvania TV station that he never encouraged U.S. Rep. Joe Sestak to drop out of Pennsylvania’s U.S. Senate race – as the White House claimed in May. On Tuesday, Aug. 10, as Clinton campaigned for Sestak in Scranton, Pa., a reporter with the NBC affiliate in Wilkes-Barre asked Clinton why he was in Pennsylvania campaigning for Sestak if he had once tried to get him to drop out of the Senate race. “I never tried to get him out of the race,” Clinton replied . “I’ve never even been accused of that,” he added in response to a follow-up question. Clinton’s denial on Tuesday represents a third version of events, said Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), the ranking member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which has been looking into the matter. “You know the saying there’s three sides to every story — well, now we have it,” Issa said. In the first version of events, Sestak repeated for months that the White House had offered him an administration job in exchange for dropping his Democratic primary challenge to Sen. Arlen Specter. Specter said such an offer would legally constitute a bribe. In version two, the White House — after months of refusing to answer questions about what happened — issued a memo in May saying the White House had asked Bill Clinton to talk to Sestak about serving on an unpaid advisory panel while continuing to serve in the House. The memo, written by White House Counsel Robert Bauer, referred to discussions in “June and July of 2009” and said that nothing improper had happened. Version three came with Clinton’s denial on Tuesday. “Admiral Sestak has repeatedly said he was offered a ‘job’ in an effort to obtain his withdrawal from the Senate primary,” Issa said on Thursday. “The White House has said ‘efforts were made in June and July’ in said job as well as the admission that they ‘enlisted’ former President Clinton to make the overture. President Clinton says he ‘never tried to get Sestak out of the race.’ Who’s telling the truth?” As CNSNews.com has reported , White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs would not say what position Sestak was offered. After Bauer’s memo was issued in May, Sestak said he believed he was offered a spot on the president’s intelligence advisory board. Regarding his conversation with former President Bill Clinton, Sestak told reporters, “I heard presidential board and I think it was intel.” Bauer’s one-and-a-half memo explained that former President Bill Clinton, acting on behalf of the Obama administration, had offered Sestak an unpaid role on a presidential advisory board. According to the Bauer memo, “efforts (plural) were made in June and July of 2009 to determine whether Congressman Sestak would be interested in service on a presidential or other Senior Executive Branch Advisory Board, which would avoid a divisive Senate primary, allow him to retain his seat in the House, and provide him with an opportunity for additional service to the public in a high-level advisory capacity.” However, the memo mentions only one conversation between Clinton and Sestak. The Bauer memo said that White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel recruited Bill Clinton to offer Sestak an unpaid position on a presidential advisory board while remaining a U.S. congressman. But as a House member, Sestak could not serve on an executive branch board. As the White House Web site notes , the president’s intelligence advisory board “consists of not more than 16 members appointed by the President from among individuals who are not employed by the Federal Government .” (emphasis added) Sestak faces Republican Pat Toomey, a former congressman, in November. Crossposted at NB sister site CNSNews.com
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Clinton Denies WH Claim That He Intervened in U.S. Senate Race in Pennsylvania
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New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd said Sunday MSNBC is tearing down President Obama. More amazing than that, she was actually serious. In her ” No Love From The Lefties ,” Dowd bashed “progressives” for not staying on the President’s bandwagon. This includes MSNBC who she hysterically claimed “is trying to make its reputation by tearing down [Obama]”: One of the most disgusting things about Mitch McConnell and Jon Kyl, and now the former maverick John McCain, is that they are happy to be co-opted by the radicals in their party to form one movement against President Obama. On the Republican side, the crazies often end up helping the Republican leadership. On the Democratic side, the radicals are constantly sniping at Obama, expressing their feelings of betrayal. Fox built up a Republican president; MSNBC is trying to make its reputation by tearing down a Democratic one. Assuming you haven’t passed out from lack of oxygen during an uncontrollable fit of laughter, there’s more: The lefties came to the defense of the centrist Clinton during impeachment. Now that Obama is under attack, however, they are not coming to his defense, even though he has given more to the liberal cause than the scandal-stunted Clinton ultimately achieved. He has shepherded the biggest expansion of social programs since the Great Society and spearheaded the biggest spending program with the stimulus. But for the left (and for some economists), it was not as big as it ought to have been. Most telling was that Dowd earlier in the piece mentioned “Michael Kinsley’s maxim that a gaffe is just truth slipping out” for the Times columnist was certainly letting her readers in on just how far she’s willing to shill for the President she helped get elected. More importantly, she will publicly scold her colleagues if necessary. After all, MSNBC is still a devout Obama and Democrat supporter along with a unabashed conservative basher. That some of its hosts have on occasion in the past year expressed disappointment with the President by no means qualifies the network as tearing him down. Dowd herself has surprisingly addressed her own concerns for the current White House resident. In June, she wrote about him being “thin-skinned and controlling.” She even scolded, “Like many Democrats, he thinks the press is supposed to be on his side.” Is she the only liberal media member allowed to do so in her view, or are his plummeting poll numbers and a dismal midterm election cycle ahead changing Dowd’s mind about she and her ilk ever being honest when it comes to this President?
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Maureen Dowd Hysterically Claims MSNBC Is Tearing Down Obama
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