one pair of eyebrows raised. thats some quality sleuthing!
Mary Ann Akers--the voice of establishment Washington.
greenwald copying off my homework again. come on, glenn, do your own research.
On Tuesday of this week, Hillary Clinton wrote for a post for FireDogLake regarding a bill she has sponsored in Congress, the Paycheck Fairness Act, which is designed to "toughen the penalties for violating the Equal Pay Act." Clinton then participated in the comment section of the post, responding to questions and comments from FDL's bloggers and readers.
The following day, The Washington Post's Mary Ann Akers, wrote a piece claiming that Clinton's posting at FDL "is raising a few eyebrows in Democratic political circles." This is so, she asserts, because "in Democratic political circles [Jane] Hamsher is better known as the author of a racially offensive attack against Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.)." Akers then "reports" this:
A day after Clinton's post appeared on firedoglake.com, Democratic activists in various corners privately questioned the wisdom of the Clinton campaign in choosing to write for a blog associated with Hamsher.
Who are the "Democratic activists in various corners" complaining? She cites a grand total of two people -- one who is a "Hillary backer" who cowardly agreed to express these views only anonymously. Why grant anonymity to someone like this to do nothing more than express some sort of run-of-the-mill political criticism? Why deprive readers of knowing who that person is, to assess their importance, influence and credibility? Granting anonymity to people to spout little more than garden-variety political gossip is the sign of a reporter desperate to manufacture controversy in order to have something to write.
The only other source for Akers' sweeping claims is Joe Lieberman's personal consultant, Dan Gerstein, who receives attention only when he attacks liberal blogs, and therefore does it endlessly. Gerstein's candidate -- against whom FDL campaigned tirelessly, which just might explain his anti-FDL remarks -- is so unrepresentative of "Democrats" that his candidate was booted out of the party by his own state despite being a three-term incumbant Senator.
Predictably, the "controversy" manufactured by Akers has begun to spread. It is being touted by various gossip columnists and right-wing hacks. Now, suddenly, according this lowly chatter, Hillary is in trouble because she involved herself with FDL.
This is nothing more than the classic Fox News method at work, and it is used continuously to manufacture non-existent scandals. They find some disgruntled, neoconservative figure calling him or herself a "Democrat" -- a Tammy Bruce or Kirsten Powers or Lanny Davis -- to spout all sorts of angry criticisms towards other Democrats. Notwithstanding the fact that such individuals represent exactly nobody and are complete anomalies among Democrats (which is precisely why they're chosen), their single individualized views are then generalized to "many Democrats" or even just "Democrats" -- as in "Democratic activists in various corners privately questioned the wisdom of the Clinton campaign in choosing to write for a blog associated with Hamsher."
Dan Gerstein -- as a result of the work done by liberal blogs to defeat his career mentor, Joe Lieberman -- has transformed himself into a free-floating, embittered figure who devotes his public commentary almost exclusively to criticizing liberal blogs. Obviously, that is his prerogative. But when he does that, he is not speaking for "Democrats" or "many Democrats" or "Democratic political circles."
In fact, Gerstein is almost always seen doing nothing other than attacking Democrats and liberals, and -- unlike lazy journalists wanting to hold him up as representative of "Democratic circles" -- even Gerstein apparently does not identify himself as a "Democrat" at all. This is from his WSJ attack piece on the "obnoxious attitude of Democratic elites": "Mr. Gerstein, an independent consultant, was communications director for Joe Lieberman and a senior strategist for his presidential campaign."
Worse, Gerstein continues to be paid by Lieberman. When it comes to Gerstein's criticisms of liberal blogs, that is an obviously crucial fact which Akers -- just as by The Politico did when trying to create an anti-blog controversy in reliance on Gerstein -- inexcusably concealed from her readers. Akers (just as The Politico did) even misleadingly referred to Gerstein as "a former Lieberman spokesman."
Gerstein speaks only for himself (and Lieberman). He is so far outside of what mainstream Democrats believe that the candidate with whom he is -- by far -- most associated is not even a Democrat at all. Why would Gerstein's rantings possibly be attributed to "Democrats" or "Democratic political circles" generally?
This is to say nothing of the inane notion that there is something "controversial" about Clinton's appearance at FDL. Has Akers noticed that one of the President and Vice President's favorite venues for appearing and chatting amicably is The Rush Limbaugh Show, and that among their favorite "interviewers" is Sean Hannity? And virtually all Republican candidates make themselves available to the most extremist right-wing blogs.
By contrast, FDL is one of the most accomplished and widely respected political blogs in the country, with a daily readership of 100,000 or so highly committed Democratic activists and voters. What ought to be "controversial" is if Hillary Clinton and other candidates fail to appear in such venues to answer questions, not when they do. The day after Clinton appeared, John Kerry posted at FDL and then participated in comments as well, as have scores of the most prominent Democrats and liberal activists over the last year.
What much of this is about is a rank, transparent effort to make liberal blogs radioactive to candidates. Journalists like Akers are threatened by the fact that candidates can communicate directly with large numbers of voters without having to go through Washington Post reporters. So they manufacture blog "controversies" by seeking out completely unrepresentative aberrations like Dan Gerstein and pretend that their individual comments are representative of large factions. In reality, people like Gerstein are totally irrelevant figures who represent literally nobody (except, in Gerstein's case, non-Democrat Joe Lieberman).
Any stories about alleged "blog controversies" that rely upon Dan Gerstein as a key source are inherently unreliable and worthless. Dan Gerstein hates blogs. That is his identity. It is how he attracts attention. Whenever he criticizes blogs, it is not a story. It does not signify anything other than this.
More significantly still, Gerstein hates blogs because blogs defeated his mentor in the Connecticut primary and continuously criticized Gerstein himself. So not only are Gerstein's anti-blog views aberrational, they are also the by-product of his own personal vendetta, not any thought-out ideas or beliefs. Basing anti-blog stories on comments from Dan Gerstein would be like writing a negative profile of Patrick Fitzgerald based on interviews done with Lewis Libby and his lawyers.
FDL has a readership of 100,000 highly active, mainstream Democrats. Dan Gerstein has a constituency of one neoconservative non-Democratic warmonger Senator. When the latter criticizes the former, it signifies many, many things. But how "Democrats" or "Democratic political circles" think is not one of them.
UPDATE: After TPM's Greg Sargent, in the above-linked posts, wrote about The Politico's breach of journalistic principles (by offering up Gerstein's anti-blog commentary without disclosing that he is still a paid advisor to Lieberman), Columbia Journalism Review's Paul McLeary wrote a comprehensive piece explaining why the most basic and well-known precepts of journalistic ethics compel disclosure of Gerstein's ongoing ties to Lieberman, and why such ties are critical in assessing the "credibility" of Gerstein's obvious quite personal obsession with liberal blogs.
It's astounding that such matters even need to be explained. Perhaps Akers -- and any other journalists who want to write anti-blog stories with Gerstein as their source -- ought to read that article to see what type of "source" Gerstein is.
-- Glenn Greenwald
|
- dave 4-27-2007 1:47 am
Mary Ann Akers--the voice of establishment Washington.
- tom moody 4-27-2007 8:04 am
greenwald copying off my homework again. come on, glenn, do your own research.
On Tuesday of this week, Hillary Clinton wrote for a post for FireDogLake regarding a bill she has sponsored in Congress, the Paycheck Fairness Act, which is designed to "toughen the penalties for violating the Equal Pay Act." Clinton then participated in the comment section of the post, responding to questions and comments from FDL's bloggers and readers.
The following day, The Washington Post's Mary Ann Akers, wrote a piece claiming that Clinton's posting at FDL "is raising a few eyebrows in Democratic political circles." This is so, she asserts, because "in Democratic political circles [Jane] Hamsher is better known as the author of a racially offensive attack against Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.)." Akers then "reports" this:
A day after Clinton's post appeared on firedoglake.com, Democratic activists in various corners privately questioned the wisdom of the Clinton campaign in choosing to write for a blog associated with Hamsher.
Who are the "Democratic activists in various corners" complaining? She cites a grand total of two people -- one who is a "Hillary backer" who cowardly agreed to express these views only anonymously. Why grant anonymity to someone like this to do nothing more than express some sort of run-of-the-mill political criticism? Why deprive readers of knowing who that person is, to assess their importance, influence and credibility? Granting anonymity to people to spout little more than garden-variety political gossip is the sign of a reporter desperate to manufacture controversy in order to have something to write.
The only other source for Akers' sweeping claims is Joe Lieberman's personal consultant, Dan Gerstein, who receives attention only when he attacks liberal blogs, and therefore does it endlessly. Gerstein's candidate -- against whom FDL campaigned tirelessly, which just might explain his anti-FDL remarks -- is so unrepresentative of "Democrats" that his candidate was booted out of the party by his own state despite being a three-term incumbant Senator.
Predictably, the "controversy" manufactured by Akers has begun to spread. It is being touted by various gossip columnists and right-wing hacks. Now, suddenly, according this lowly chatter, Hillary is in trouble because she involved herself with FDL.
This is nothing more than the classic Fox News method at work, and it is used continuously to manufacture non-existent scandals. They find some disgruntled, neoconservative figure calling him or herself a "Democrat" -- a Tammy Bruce or Kirsten Powers or Lanny Davis -- to spout all sorts of angry criticisms towards other Democrats. Notwithstanding the fact that such individuals represent exactly nobody and are complete anomalies among Democrats (which is precisely why they're chosen), their single individualized views are then generalized to "many Democrats" or even just "Democrats" -- as in "Democratic activists in various corners privately questioned the wisdom of the Clinton campaign in choosing to write for a blog associated with Hamsher."
Dan Gerstein -- as a result of the work done by liberal blogs to defeat his career mentor, Joe Lieberman -- has transformed himself into a free-floating, embittered figure who devotes his public commentary almost exclusively to criticizing liberal blogs. Obviously, that is his prerogative. But when he does that, he is not speaking for "Democrats" or "many Democrats" or "Democratic political circles."
In fact, Gerstein is almost always seen doing nothing other than attacking Democrats and liberals, and -- unlike lazy journalists wanting to hold him up as representative of "Democratic circles" -- even Gerstein apparently does not identify himself as a "Democrat" at all. This is from his WSJ attack piece on the "obnoxious attitude of Democratic elites": "Mr. Gerstein, an independent consultant, was communications director for Joe Lieberman and a senior strategist for his presidential campaign."
Worse, Gerstein continues to be paid by Lieberman. When it comes to Gerstein's criticisms of liberal blogs, that is an obviously crucial fact which Akers -- just as by The Politico did when trying to create an anti-blog controversy in reliance on Gerstein -- inexcusably concealed from her readers. Akers (just as The Politico did) even misleadingly referred to Gerstein as "a former Lieberman spokesman."
Gerstein speaks only for himself (and Lieberman). He is so far outside of what mainstream Democrats believe that the candidate with whom he is -- by far -- most associated is not even a Democrat at all. Why would Gerstein's rantings possibly be attributed to "Democrats" or "Democratic political circles" generally?
This is to say nothing of the inane notion that there is something "controversial" about Clinton's appearance at FDL. Has Akers noticed that one of the President and Vice President's favorite venues for appearing and chatting amicably is The Rush Limbaugh Show, and that among their favorite "interviewers" is Sean Hannity? And virtually all Republican candidates make themselves available to the most extremist right-wing blogs.
By contrast, FDL is one of the most accomplished and widely respected political blogs in the country, with a daily readership of 100,000 or so highly committed Democratic activists and voters. What ought to be "controversial" is if Hillary Clinton and other candidates fail to appear in such venues to answer questions, not when they do. The day after Clinton appeared, John Kerry posted at FDL and then participated in comments as well, as have scores of the most prominent Democrats and liberal activists over the last year.
What much of this is about is a rank, transparent effort to make liberal blogs radioactive to candidates. Journalists like Akers are threatened by the fact that candidates can communicate directly with large numbers of voters without having to go through Washington Post reporters. So they manufacture blog "controversies" by seeking out completely unrepresentative aberrations like Dan Gerstein and pretend that their individual comments are representative of large factions. In reality, people like Gerstein are totally irrelevant figures who represent literally nobody (except, in Gerstein's case, non-Democrat Joe Lieberman).
Any stories about alleged "blog controversies" that rely upon Dan Gerstein as a key source are inherently unreliable and worthless. Dan Gerstein hates blogs. That is his identity. It is how he attracts attention. Whenever he criticizes blogs, it is not a story. It does not signify anything other than this.
More significantly still, Gerstein hates blogs because blogs defeated his mentor in the Connecticut primary and continuously criticized Gerstein himself. So not only are Gerstein's anti-blog views aberrational, they are also the by-product of his own personal vendetta, not any thought-out ideas or beliefs. Basing anti-blog stories on comments from Dan Gerstein would be like writing a negative profile of Patrick Fitzgerald based on interviews done with Lewis Libby and his lawyers.
FDL has a readership of 100,000 highly active, mainstream Democrats. Dan Gerstein has a constituency of one neoconservative non-Democratic warmonger Senator. When the latter criticizes the former, it signifies many, many things. But how "Democrats" or "Democratic political circles" think is not one of them.
UPDATE: After TPM's Greg Sargent, in the above-linked posts, wrote about The Politico's breach of journalistic principles (by offering up Gerstein's anti-blog commentary without disclosing that he is still a paid advisor to Lieberman), Columbia Journalism Review's Paul McLeary wrote a comprehensive piece explaining why the most basic and well-known precepts of journalistic ethics compel disclosure of Gerstein's ongoing ties to Lieberman, and why such ties are critical in assessing the "credibility" of Gerstein's obvious quite personal obsession with liberal blogs.
It's astounding that such matters even need to be explained. Perhaps Akers -- and any other journalists who want to write anti-blog stories with Gerstein as their source -- ought to read that article to see what type of "source" Gerstein is.
-- Glenn Greenwald
- dave 4-27-2007 9:38 pm