Kurtz: Can African-American women objectively cover Michelle Obama?
Kurtz: Can African-American women objectively cover Michelle Obama?
In his column today, Washington Post media reporter Howard Kurtz devotes his column today to the question of: “Does Race Play a Role in Coverage?” He readily admits that “no one raises questions when an Irish American male reporter covers a pol named Murphy,” but that doesn’t stop him from writing a 1,600-word article raising questions about black women:
Rachel Swarns of the New York Times and The Washington Post’s Robin Givhan were among those herded behind the rope Monday. They and the other main beat reporters — Newsweek’s Allison Samuels, Darlene Superville of the Associated Press and Politico’s Nia-Malika Henderson — have something in common: They are all African American women. [...]
Whether racial and gender identification produces a gauzier, more favorable portrayal of Obama is perhaps too early to judge.
As Adam Serwer observed, “You would never ever see a media critic like Kurtz questioning the ability of white men to cover other white men objectively, or for that matter the ability of white men to cover women or people of color, despite the fact that if newsroom coverage were to be affected, it would be by the prevailing cultural biases of the better represented population in the newsroom.”
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Bye-Bye Ali Frick.
Bye-Bye Ali Frick.
ThinkProgress recently bid farewell to our dear friend and colleague, Ali Frick. For nearly two years, Ali passionately devoted her energy to delivering consistently interesting, insightful, and high-quality posts for ThinkProgress. Around the office, she was always brimming with exuberance, driven in equal parts by her strong desire for progressive reform and her anger at right-wing distortions and lies. A look at some of her greatest hits:
Right-Wing Apoplectic Over Pixar’s WALL-E: ‘Malthusian Fear Mongering,’ ‘Fascistic Elements’ [Link]
REPORT: Why Bush’s ‘Enhanced Interrogation’ Program Failed [Link]
McCain Takes Bold Stance On Torture: ‘We Cannot Ever Torture Any American’ [Link]
Freshman Rep. Cao: ‘I Hope That The GOP Will Not Tolerate’ Extreme Anti-Immigrant Rhetoric [Link]
‘El Rushbo’ Endorses Himself For President: I Have ‘The Qualifications’ As Clinton’s ‘Real Co-President’ [Link]
Chris Matthews Stumps Right-Wing Radio Host: ‘Tell Me What Chamberlain Did?’ ‘I Don’t Know’ [Link]
O’Reilly creates a ninth day of Hanukkah. [Link]
G. Gordon Liddy On Sotomayor: ‘Let’s Hope That The Key Conferences Aren’t When She’s Menstruating’ [Link]
Rep. Culberson Offers Incoherent And Illogical Stance On Gay Marriage [Link]
Ali will be attending Yale Law School in the fall. We wish her the best of luck in the next chapter of her life. She’ll always be (the most spirited) part of our team.
ThinkFast: July 2, 2009
ThinkFast: July 2, 2009
The U.S. economy lost a larger-than-expected 467,000 jobs in June, according to a new Labor Department report out this morning. Unemployment rose to 9.5 percent, the highest rate in 26 years.
“Spending by lawmakers on taxpayer-financed trips abroad has risen sharply in recent years,” according to a Wall Street Journal analysis, “involving everything from war-zone visits to trips to exotic spots such as the Galápagos Islands.” This travel spending “is up almost tenfold since 1995, and has nearly tripled since 2001.”
In the first major push in the U.S. military’s new counteroffensive strategy, “[t]housands of Marines and hundreds of Afghan troops moved into Taliban-infested villages with armor and helicopters early today” in Helmand province. The goal “is to clear insurgents there before the nation’s Aug. 20 presidential election.”
The U.S. military is reporting that “insurgents have captured an American soldier in eastern Afghanistan.” The soldier, missing since Tuesday, “wasn’t taking part in the major military operation launched in the southern Taliban stronghold of the Helmand River Valley.” Capt. Elizabeth Mathias said the military is using “all our resources to find him and provide for his safe return.”
Last night on MSNBC’s Countdown, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) urged the 60 members of the Democratic Caucus to support cloture on legislation that would reform the nation’s health care system. “I think the strategy should be that every Democrat, no matter whether or not they ultimately end up voting for the final bill, is to say we are going to vote together to stop a Republican filibuster,” he said.
ThinkFast: July 1, 2009
ThinkFast: July 1, 2009
75 percent of Americans who have been “pushed into personal bankruptcy by medical problems actually had insurance when they got sick or were injured.” Many experts say that fixing the health care system won’t mean “simply giving everyone an insurance card.” Too many Americans “already have coverage so meager that a medical crisis means financial calamity.”
The pharmaceutical lobby group PhRMA and the consumer health care advocate group Families USA are launching today a “multimillion-dollar national television advertising campaign to urge lawmakers to pass quality, affordable health care reform.” Watch the ads here.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates is looking at way to make the law prohibiting gays from serving openly in the armed forces “more humane” until Congress eventually repeals it. “One of the things we’re looking at is, is there flexibility in how we apply this law?” Gates said.
Chief Justice John Roberts succeeded in leading the Supreme Court on a “patient and steady move to the right” this term. While the court took “mainly incremental steps in major cases,” Roberts’ “fingerprints were on all of them, and he left clues that the court is only one decision away from fundamental change in many areas of the law.”
National Security Adviser Gen. Jim Jones told U.S. military commanders in Afghanistan last week that the Obama administration wants to focus on carrying out a strategy for “increased economic development, improved governance and participation by the Afghan military and civilians in the conflict.” “The piece of the strategy that has to work in the next year is economic development,” Jones told Bob Woodward.
Palin wrote an e-mail to friends pretending to be God: ‘Trig’s Creator, Your Heavenly Father.’
Palin wrote an e-mail to friends pretending to be God: ‘Trig’s Creator, Your Heavenly Father.’
In a new article in next month’s Vanity Fair by Todd Purdum, former McCain presidential campaign aides unload on former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, calling her a “Little Shop of Horrors,” a “diva,” and a “whack job.” The exposé also reveals that Palin, in an e-mail to her friends announcing the birth of her baby Trig, pretended to play God:
When Trig was born, Palin wrote an e-mail letter to friends and relatives, describing the belated news of her pregnancy and detailing Trig’s condition; she wrote the e-mail not in her own name but in God’s, and signed it “Trig’s Creator, Your Heavenly Father.”
Also, Purdum reports that Palin lied about not having insurance to show “she could empathize with uninsured Americans.” Palin insisted that in her early years of marriage, she and husband Todd did not have coverage, when in fact they had catastrophic coverage. Palin “insisted that catastrophic insurance didn’t really count and need not be revealed.”
ThinkFast: June 30, 2009
ThinkFast: June 30, 2009
“Nearly three-quarters of all Americans support the plan to withdraw most U.S. combat troops from Iraqi cities and towns, even though most believe that the troop movements will lead to an increase in violence in that country,” according to a new CNN/Opinion Research poll. “This plan has widespread bipartisan support,” says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland.
Iraqi Interior Minister Jawad Al Bolani writes in the Washington Post today that while the withdrawal of U.S. troops from major Iraq cities “must provide some relief to many Americans, whose sacrifice has been extraordinary,” “none of us can be lulled into believing that Iraq is a ‘mission accomplished.’” “June 30 is not an historical endpoint,” but “the beginning of a highly uncertain chapter in Iraqi democracy.”
The health insurance lobby plans to hold more than 75 townhall and other events around the country this week to rally their supporters on health care reform. “We have really ramped up our efforts to engage the health plan community,” said Robert Zirkelbach, a spokesman for AHIP. “We are encouraging health plan employees from across the country to get involved, reach out to their Member of Congress, talk about what they do and the value they’re adding to the health care system.”
The House Intelligence Committee approved legislation meant to strengthen congressional oversight of sensitive intelligence matters. The committee “proposed doing away with provisions that allowed a president to limit disclosure of sensitive intelligence activities to the ‘Gang of Eight.’” Instead, the committee “gave each intelligence committee, rather than the president, the legal authority to limit briefings to its own members.”
Bernard Madoff was sentenced to the maximum 150 years behind bars, one of the stiffest penalties ever given for a white-collar crime, which averages out to a year in prison for every $333 million Madoff cost investors. “The penalty sparked a burst of applause in a courtroom packed with victims of the fraud,” while the judge labeled Madoff’s Ponzi scheme “extraordinarily evil.”
Iraqis jubilantly celebrate U.S. troop withdrawal.
Iraqis jubilantly celebrate U.S. troop withdrawal.
U.S. forces handed over formal control of Iraq’s major cities today (it is already Tuesday in Iraq), “a defining step toward ending the U.S. combat role in the country.” In celebration, Iraqis launched fireworks and “thousands attended a party in a park [in Baghdad] where singers performed patriotic songs. … Loudspeakers at police stations and military checkpoints played recordings of similar tunes throughout the day, as Iraqi military vehicles decorated with flowers and national flags patrolled the capital.” Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who had called the withdrawal a “great victory,” declared June 30 a public holiday. Some scenes of celebration around the country:
ThinkFast: June 29, 2009
ThinkFast: June 29, 2009
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his supporters have “begun to use his disputed victory in this month’s election to toughen the nation’s stance internationally and to consolidate control internally.” The government declared its intention to prosecute some of Mir Hossein Mousavi’s advisers, arrested some Iranians who work at the British embassy, and broke up an “opposition gathering.”
The first military coup in Central America since the end of the Cold War occurred over the weekend, when “President Manuel Zelaya of Honduras was ousted by the army on Sunday, capping months of tensions over his efforts to lift presidential term limits. … Soldiers stormed the presidential palace in the capital, Tegucigalpa, early in the morning…waking Mr. Zelaya and putting him on a plane to Costa Rica.”
In a new secret Justice Department memo, the Obama administration has “determined that detainees tried by military commissions in the U.S. can claim at least some constitutional rights, particularly protection against the use of statements taken through coercive interrogations.”
President Obama yesterday praised the House for passing a bill to address climate change on Friday, calling it an “extraordinary first step,” adding that he hoped the move will “prod” the Senate to act. However, citing the global economic crisis, Obama urged the Senate to strip a provision that imposes tariffs “on imports from countries without systems for pricing or limiting carbon dioxide emissions.”
Defying the Obama administration’s call for a settlement freeze, the Israeli Defense Ministry today announced that it has “approved construction of 50 new homes at a West Bank settlement as part of a plan for 1,450 housing units.” However, Israel said Sunday that it “would be open to a complete freeze of settlement building in the West Bank for three to six months as part of a broad Middle East peace endeavor.”
ThinkProgress on C-Span this morning.
ThinkProgress on C-Span this morning.
ThinkProgress editor-in-chief Faiz Shakir will be a guest on C-Span’s Washington Journal this morning at 7:30 am ET. Feel free to tune in if you’re awake.
House passes American Clean Energy and Security Act.
House passes American Clean Energy and Security Act.
In a 219-to-212 vote this evening, the House passed the American Clean Energy and Security Act, which will “for the first time put a price on carbon emissions” in the U.S. In the final minutes of the debate, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) threatened to obstruct the bill by reading 300 pages of amendments, but eventually relented and read only a few sentences from selected portions. Progressive Media compiled a video detailing the major arguments both for and against the bill. Watch it:
Despite promises that Republicans would rally against the bill, several members defected to support it, including Reps. Dave Reichart (R-WA), Mike Castle (R-DE), Mary Bono Mack, Mark Kirk (R-IL), Leonard Lance (R-NJ), Frank LoBiondo (R-NJ), Chris Smith (R-NJ), and John McHugh (R-NY). 44 Democrats voted against the legislation. Reps. John Lewis (D-GA) and Pat Kennedy (D-RI) both returned to the floor for the first time after tending to significant health issues to support the legislation.
ThinkFast: June 26, 2009
ThinkFast: June 26, 2009
The House is likely to vote today on the American Clean Energy and Security Act which would, “for the first time, put a price on carbon emissions” in the U.S. If passed, the law would “reduce emissions to 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020” using a cap-and-trade system. Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is still whipping votes in favor of the legislation.
Despite a veto threat from the White House and against the wishes of Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Congress yesterday “moved forward with plans to build more Lockheed Martin F-22 fighter jets.”
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is calling the U.S. combat troop withdrawal from Iraqi cities by June 30 a “great victory” making a comparison to “the rebellion against British troops in 1920.” But also, “the Americans are going along with it, symbolically and substantively.”
At a DNC fundraiser with gay and lesbian donors yesterday, Vice President Biden reiterated the administration’s commitment to fighting for LGBT issues. “I don’t blame you for your impatience,” he said, addressing recent tensions on these issues. According to the White House pool report, Biden drew “repeated standing ovations” when he promised to repeal DADT, enact a ban on workplace discrimination, and push for adoption rights for all.
Iranian opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi yesterday “issued a rare attack on supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, accusing him of not acting in the interests of the country, and said Iran had suffered a dramatic change for the worse.” The move indicates that Iran’s “political rift is far from over.” “I am not prepared to give up under the pressure of threats or personal interest,” Mousavi said.
ThinkFast: June 25, 2009
ThinkFast: June 25, 2009
President Obama is set to meet with congressional leaders in both parties today “to begin laying the political groundwork for sweeping immigration legislation.” While lawmakers are looking for Obama to use his political capital to push the issue, White House aides say that Obama “does not intend to get out in front of any proposal until there is a strong bipartisan commitment to pass it.”
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad assailed President Obama today, claiming that “Obama made a mistake” in condemning the crackdown in Iran. “We were not expecting Mr. Obama” to “fall into the same trap and continue the same path that Bush did,” said Ahmadinejad. At the same time, opposition leader Mir Hussein Moussavi said he would “not back down.”
The White House announced yesterday “that it had withdrawn invitations to Iranian diplomats to attend Fourth of July festivities at U.S. embassies around the world.” “July 4th allows us to celebrate the freedom and the liberty we enjoy,” White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said. “Freedom of speech. Freedom of religion. Freedom to assemble peacefully. Freedom of the press. So I don’t think it’s surprising that nobody’s signed up to come.”
Venezuela and the United States yesterday said that “they will restore their ambassadors more than nine months after President Hugo Chavez expelled the U.S. envoy in his final diplomatic bout with the Bush administration.”
The U.N.’s high commissioner on human rights, Navanethem Pillay, yesterday “appealed to the Obama administration to release Guantanamo Bay inmates or try them in a court of law, and said officials who authorized the use of ‘torture’ must be held accountable.” “People who order or inflict torture cannot be exonerated, and the roles of certain lawyers, as well as doctors who have attended torture sessions, should also be scrutinized,” Pillay said.
Will Republicans ‘Ask Questions’ Of Sanford, Rather Than ‘Circle The Wagons For One Of Our Tribe’?
Will Republicans ‘Ask Questions’ Of Sanford, Rather Than ‘Circle The Wagons For One Of Our Tribe’?
After days of speculation and misinformation, South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford (R) today admitted that he had spent the past week in Argentina — not on the Appalachian trail, as his staff originally told the press — with a woman with whom he has been having an affair.
As the New York Times notes, the press conference “began rather oddly, with Mr. Sanford rambling about his love for the Appalachian trail, his exhaustion from a legislative battle over the federal stimulus and a need to get away from the public eye.” Sanford, who is married and has four children, eventually admitted that he has been having an affair with an Argentine woman. He also announced that he would be resigning as head of the Republican Governors Association. Watch it:
While serving as a U.S. congressman, Sanford was incredibly critical of his colleagues’ marital misdeeds, including the affairs of former congressman Bob Livingston and President Bill Clinton:
“The bottom line, though, is I am sure there will be a lot of legalistic explanations pointing out that the president lied under oath. His situation was not under oath. The bottom line, though, is he still lied. He lied under a different oath, and that is the oath to his wife. So it’s got to be taken very, very seriously.” [Sanford on Livingston, CNN, 12/18/98]
“We ought to ask questions…rather than circle the wagons for one of our tribe.” [Sanford on how the GOP reacts to affairs, New York Post, 12/20/98]
“I think it would be much better for the country and for him personally (to resign). I come from the business side. If you had a chairman or president in the business world facing these allegations, he’d be gone.” [Sanford on Clinton, The Post and Courier, 9/12/98]
“The issue of lying is probably the biggest harm, if you will, to the system of Democratic government, representatives government, because it undermines trust. And if you undermine trust in our system, you undermine everything.” [Sanford on Clinton, CNN, 2/16/99]
Sanford has also been an opponent of same-sex marriage, saying in 2004, “As Jenny and I are the parents of four little boys, we’ve always taught our kids that marriage was something between a man and a woman.” [The Post and Courier, 2/11/04]
There will be an effort to impeach Sanford, a Republican strategist with ties to South Carolina tells me. "He's going to have to resign. It's South Carolina." His rivals in the state legislature were among those fanning the flames of "Where the hell is he?"questions yesterday.
ThinkFast: June 24, 2009
ThinkFast: June 24, 2009
The White House may be indicating to Senate allies that it is open to dropping the public plan option as part of a health reform deal. Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND), who has been pushing a proposal to replace the public plan with regional cooperatives, said chief of staff Rahm Emanuel indicated Obama is “open to alternatives.”
Vice President Cheney has “signed a book deal with a conservative imprint of Simon & Schuster” and will reportedly receive at least $2 million in the arrangement. Cheney’s book is expected to come out in spring 2011, a few months after President Bush’s memoir. He said that he has no plans to write “a screed” against liberals.
“An airstrike believed to have been carried out by a United States drone killed at least 60 people at a funeral for a Taliban fighter in South Waziristan on Tuesday, residents of the area and local news reports said.” If the details of the attack, which remain sketchy, are verified, “the strike could be the deadliest since the United States began using the aircraft to fire remotely guided missiles” at the tribal areas of Pakistan.
Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) called yesterday for President Obama “to come up with a comprehensive immigration plan this year, saying a directive from the White House is the only way to push the complex issue forward.” “What we need is not another photo op at the White House. What we need now is a plan from the president,” said Cornyn, adding that “the president doesn’t write legislation, but he does have the bully pulpit.”
Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said yesterday that “‘neither the system nor the people will submit to bullying‘ over the results of the disputed presidential election, which he has given a powerful supervisory body an additional five days to review.” “Everyone should respect the law. … We will not step an inch beyond the law: our law, our country’s law, the Islamic Republic’s law,” Khamenei said.
ThinkFast: June 23, 2009
ThinkFast: June 23, 2009
This week, Obama and his allies are “launching a public relations blitz to bolster the case for health care reform,” resulting in a “huge burst of health care cheerleading before Congress breaks for the July Fourth recess at the end of the week.” White House aides remain hopeful that “that floor consideration in the Senate and House can be completed next month, as originally planned.”
52 percent: Americans who give President Obama “high marks for his response to the crisis in Iran,” according to a new ABC News/Washington Post poll. Thirty-six percent disapprove of how he is handling the situation. When it comes to Obama’s “handling of foreign affairs in general,” 61 percent approve while 32 percent disapprove.
Iran’s Guardian Council today “ruled out the possibility of nullifying the country’s disputed presidential election that returned hard-liner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to power, saying it could find no evidence of any ‘major’ irregularities.” The council’s spokesman said most of the irregularities occurred before the election, “which he suggested were outside the scope of the Guardian Council’s authority.”
After having been reported missing, South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford’s whereabouts have been determined. His staff said late Monday that the governor is hiking on the Appalachian Trail. Neither Sanford’s office nor the State Law Enforcement Division had been able to reach Sanford since he left the mansion Thursday in a black Suburban SUV. His last known location was near Atlanta late last week.
At 12:30 PM today, President Obama will hold his fourth domestic press conference “as he seeks to re-focus the political debate amid criticism of his approach to the ongoing protests in Iran and lingering doubts about the state of he economy and the viability of his health care reform proposal.” A senior White House official told The Washington Post that Obama wants to “address the questions directly.”
ThinkFast: June 22, 2009
ThinkFast: June 22, 2009
Iran’s Guardian Council, which is charged with certifying the election, admitted that “the number of votes cast in 50 cities exceeded the actual number of voters.” “The discrepancies, the most sweeping acknowledged so far by the authorities, could affect some three million ballots of what the government says was an 85 percent turnout numbering 40 million voters.”
Politico reports that Republican senators are disappointed that Judge Sonia Sotomayor “isn’t serving as the political lightning rod some in their party had hoped she would be.” Sen. John Thune (R-SD) said, “She doesn’t have the punch out there in terms of fundraising and recruiting, I think — at least so far.”
According to the latest NYT/CBS poll, 72 percent of Americans support creating a public health insurance option, and 57 percent are willing to pay higher taxes to cover all Americans. “Half of those questioned said they thought government would be better at providing medical coverage than private insurers, up from 30 percent in polls conducted in 2007.”
Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the new U.S. commander in Afghanistan, said over the weekend that “he would sharply restrict the use of air strikes…in an effort to reduce the civilian deaths that he said were undermining the American-led mission.” McChrystal said he would only allow their use in firefights with the Taliban to “prevent American and other coalition troops from being overrun.”
Welfare rolls “are climbing across the country for the first time since President Bill Clinton signed” reform legislation. According to a WSJ/National Conference of State Legislatures survey, 23 of the 30 largest states, “which account for more than 88% of the nation’s total population, see welfare caseloads above year-ago levels.” The biggest increases are in states with some of the worst jobless rates.
CNBC’s Larry Kudlow defends corporate greed in debate with TP’s Faiz Shakir.
CNBC’s Larry Kudlow defends corporate greed in debate with TP’s Faiz Shakir.
Last night on CNBC, ThinkProgress editor-in-chief Faiz Shakir debated CNBC host Larry Kudlow about a front-page story in the Wall Street Journal which revealed that the CEOs of banks receiving government bailout money are expensing travel on private jets for personal vacations. “I think it’s great because I want to stimulate the economy,” Kudlow said of taxpayer-funded private jet trips by bank CEOs. “I want to help the resorts. … I’m glad the CEOs are going around. I just wish they’d take me with them.” Faiz responded:
I do have a problem when they’re taking taxpayer money. Larry, you hate paying taxes. I understand that. But if there’s one thing you hate more than paying taxes, it’s seeing those taxpayer dollars go to waste. And that’s what’s going on here.
Watch it:
House GOP rush to a microphone to criticize Obama immediately following passage of Iran resolution.
House GOP rush to a microphone to criticize Obama immediately following passage of Iran resolution.
With a 405-to-1 vote, the House passed a non-binding resolution expressing support for the pro-democracy demonstrators in Iran. Despite the unobjectionable text of the resolution, the manner in which Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) promoted the resolution in recent days left no doubt that his motive was to score political points. As further evidence that House Republicans were playing politics with this resolution, Pence and a host of his conservative colleagues lept to the microphones immediately after the resolution was passed to bash President Obama and sing the praises of Ronald Reagan. Watch a compilation:
Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) was the only no vote, while Reps. Brad Ellsworth (D-IN) and David Loebsack (D-IA) voted present. Sens. Joe Lieberman (R-CT) and John McCain (R-AZ) plan to introduce the same resolution in the Senate.
ThinkFast: June 19, 2009
ThinkFast: June 19, 2009
“In his first public response to days of protests, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, sternly warned opponents [today] to stay off the streets and denied opposition claims that last week’s disputed election was rigged, praising the ballot as an ‘epic moment that became a historic moment.’” “The Islamic republic state would not cheat and would not betray the vote of the people,” he said.
Google announced that it would add Farsi, or “Persian,” to its Google Translate service. “The company said it hoped the service, which it rushed because of the turmoil in Iran, would be used by people inside and outside of that country to communicate and stay abreast of events.” The service is available here.
Speaking at a Democratic fundraiser last night, President Obama addressed critics of his health care reform proposal. “I sincerely hope that there are members of both parties who will participate in reform,” Obama said, “But for those who simply criticize without offering new ideas of their own, I have to ask — what’s your answer?”
The Washington Post’s Ezra Klein reports that the latest outline of the Senate Finance Committee’s health care reform proposal does not mention a public plan option “anywhere in the document.” Klein calls the proposal “comprehensive incrementalism” that is neither “radical” nor “root-and-branch reform.” The Wonk Room’s Igor Volsky calls it a “nothing burger proposal.”
“Sen. John Ensign helped his mistress’s husband get two jobs during the time the rising Republican senator acknowledges carrying on an extramarital affair, an Ensign spokesman said Thursday.” Ensign also gave his mistress, Cindy Hampton, a pay raise in both of the two positions in which she worked for Ensign. Additionally, the NRSC “made twice-monthly payments, generally $500 apiece, to Brandon Hampton,” Hampton’s son.
Perino laughs at idea of Fox News getting unprecedented access to the Bush administration.
Perino laughs at idea of Fox News getting unprecedented access to the Bush administration.
Appearing on the Washington Times’ America’s Morning News radio show today, former Bush press secretary Dana Perino jumped on the conservative bandwagon and criticized ABC News’ upcoming special “Questions for the President: Prescription for America.” Asked by right-wing host Melanie Morgan what the reaction would be if Fox News had similar access at the Bush White House, Perino laughed and said that “there are a lot of double standards“:
MORGAN: I just keep wondering, you know, what would be the reaction of these same people in the mainstream media if President Bush had allowed, say, Fox News to turn over their entire broadcast from the Blue Room at the White House.
PERINO: Well, you know…
MORGAN: Hahaha, I think we both know the answer that question.
PERINO: Yeah, look, I think there are a lot of double standards. Both, maybe you know, from the right and the left. And so I try not to use it as an excuse or a grudge.
Listen here:
As ThinkProgress noted earlier today, the Bush administration regularly gave Fox News “unprecedented access” to the White House, allowing the network to produce hagiographic documentaries for both President Bush and Vice President Cheney. Who was press secretary when those documentaries aired? Dana Perino.
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