Pulling the Strings

The most interesting media question around is whether an embedded reporter from Chattanooga should have planted the question that embarrassed Don Rumsfeld.

Was it underhanded or unethical for the 32-year-old journalist to have asked a soldier to ask the question during a Rummy meet-the-troops session in Kuwait?

You've probably seen the footage by now. The troops cheer as the soldier asks why they are being sent to war with vehicles that lack protective armor. The soldier's picture was on the front page of the New York Times. Maureen Dowd praised him as a "gutsy guardsman" and dismissed Rummy as a "dangerous chucklehead."

Does it diminish the power of that moment to learn that a scribe put the gutsy guardsman up to it? Here's the story as it appeared in the Chattanooga Times Free Press, with no mention of how the question came to be asked.

Fourth Estate types I spoke to yesterday were split. Some were outraged that a journalist would stage the news in this fashion. Others took a no-big-deal stance, saying obviously the troops were concerned about the lack of armored vehicles and Rummy wasn't taking questions from the press.

We know about the scheme because the reporter bragged about it in an e-mail to colleagues--not a brilliant idea if you don't want the rest of the world to know--and someone leaked it to Matt Drudge.

Here's the top of a story I coauthored for The Post:

A reporter traveling with a National Guard unit prodded one of its soldiers to ask Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld about the lack of armor for some U.S. military vehicles in Iraq, an exchange that made worldwide news Wednesday when the assembled troops cheered the question.

Edward Lee Pitts of the Chattanooga Times Free Press told colleagues in an e-mail that he and members of the Tennessee Army National Guard now in Kuwait "worked on questions to ask Rumsfeld about the appalling lack of armor" and that Spec. Thomas Wilson posed the question at his request.

President Bush and Rumsfeld both said yesterday that they welcomed the pointed questions that soldiers posed and that the concerns they raised were being addressed. The Pentagon held a briefing to make a similar point, but congressional Democrats continued to pound on Rumsfeld for his responses to the troops in Kuwait.

Two media analysts said Pitts should have disclosed his role in the story he wrote. But Tom Griscom, the paper's publisher and executive editor, said yesterday in a telephone interview that "the soldier asked the question" and could have rejected Pitts's idea.

"Because someone's in the media who's embedded with them, does that mean they don't have the same opportunity to at least make a suggestion of something that might be asked?" said Griscom, a White House communications director in the Reagan administration. "Is that what makes it wrong, because a journalist did it? hope that's not what people feel. . . That response from the troops was a clear indication that this is an issue on their minds."

In the exchange in Kuwait, carried on network newscasts and many front pages, Wilson asked, "Why do we soldiers have to dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal" to armor their vehicles "and why don't we have those resources readily available to us?"

Rumsfeld replied that "you go to war with the Army you have . . . not the Army you might want or wish to have at a later time."

Pitts, who last week wrote a story about what he terms "hillbilly armor," boasted about his role, according to the e-mail, which was leaked to the online Drudge Report. "I have been trying to get this story out for weeks," Pitts wrote.

Griscom said that today's edition of his paper will carry an explanation of Pitts's role.

Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, said that Pitts "may have emboldened soldiers to ask questions that citizens are often a little more timid about asking" and may have helped frame the question "in a more provocative way" but that there was "no sleight of hand" involved.

Alex Jones, director of Harvard University's Shorenstein media center, said Pitts's role "makes me uncomfortable" but "I don't consider this to be a setup because it was a legitimate question as far as the soldier was concerned."

Here's how the New York Times handles the flap:

"Responding to complaints by disgruntled Iraq-bound soldiers in Kuwait that they lacked armor for the vehicles, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said today that it was valuable for senior Pentagon officials to hear concerns directly from troops, but he offered no immediate changes in how the Army is reacting to the problems.

"'It's important for senior leadership to meet with the troops, talk to them, ask them questions, listen to what they have to say,' Mr. Rumsfeld told reporters traveling with him here. 'I must say I find myself not surprised at all at the kinds of things I hear.'"

Goodness gracious, the things soldiers say.

USA Today takes a larger look at the once-lionized Rummy:

"Even his own troops are challenging him.

"Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld faced unusually aggressive questioning by soldiers in Kuwait on Wednesday after he delivered what was supposed to be a pep talk. . . .

"No Bush adviser has been in the middle of more controversies.

"Rumsfeld was determined to deploy a lean, nimble force in Iraq. Now some officials, including Paul Bremer, the former U.S. administrator in Iraq, say the Pentagon underestimated the number of U.S. troops needed there.

"Rumsfeld was savaged in editorial pages across the country for failing to prevent abuses of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib. This week, newly released documents showed that the mistreatment of Iraqis by military police in Baghdad continued for weeks after a firestorm over the release of graphic photos of the Abu Ghraib abuses.

"Now his comments in Kuwait throw a spotlight on complaints that the Pentagon hasn't adequately equipped National Guard and reserve troops and has employed a 'back-door draft' to extend their tours in Iraq."

The New Republic's Noam Scheiber wonders about the political leanings of the guardsmen who challenged the Pentagon chief:

"Apart from the obvious gall of an administration sending our troops off to fight in a war of choice without adequate equipment, I think there's an interesting question here: Did most of these guardsmen vote for Bush? My hunch is yes, though I could be wrong. But, assuming I'm right, I think it's worth resisting the urge to mock these people for voting against their obvious self-interest. I don't think it's quite that simple. It's probably more accurate to say these are people who deeply believe in what they're doing, but who are also deeply dismayed that they don't have what it takes to do the job. That makes them ambivalent, but it doesn't make them idiots for voting for Bush, since he's the only candidate who genuinely seemed to believe in the same things they did. See the interview from the New York Times piece, for example:

"In an interview, Specialist Wilson [one of the guardsmen who complained to Rumsfeld] said the question he asked Mr. Rumsfeld was one that had been on the minds of many men in his unit, the 1st Squadron, 278th Regimental Combat Team. 'I'm a soldier and I'll do this on a bicycle if I have to, but we need help,' said Specialist Wilson, 31, who served on active duty in the Air Force for six years, including in the 1991 Persian Gulf war, before leaving the military, and then re-enlisting in the National Guard after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

"This, in a nutshell, is why it wasn't sufficient for John Kerry to simply point out all the mistakes the administration was making in Iraq. In order to appeal to people like this, he needed to convey a real passion for defending the country, and I don't think he ever did that."

Here on the home front, I guess Bush decided to keep the rest of the minorities in his Cabinet--an African-American, a woman, an Asian-American woman and a Democrat.

I was starting to wonder whether there would be a Democrat, since media reports had assured us that Bush would name one, maybe even to a high-profile post, and all of the available chairs were being taken.

So the president took the easiest route toward avoiding an all-Republican Cabinet. Not that the press, which got snowed by the John Snow ouster that didn't happen, was expecting it.

The Washington Post, Dec. 4: "Bush aides said they expect the departures of Treasury Secretary John W. Snow and Transportation Secretary Norman Y. Mineta."

New York Times, Dec. 6: "More, like Norman Y. Mineta, the transportation secretary, are expected to go in the next week or two."

Bzzzt! Wrong again! Mineta stays. Along with Labor's Elaine Chao, Interior's Gale Norton and HUD's Alphonso Jackson.

Now count how many stories you read about any of them in the coming years, as the press reverts to its usual disinterest in their agencies.

Wondering how Bush is going to pay for his expensive Social Security plan? Well, at the moment he's in read-my-lips mode:

"President Bush on Thursday flatly rejected a payroll tax increase to shore up Social Security, narrowing the range of options available to lawmakers to address the retirement system's long-term financial needs," says

the Los Angeles Times."Although the president said he did not want to prejudge Social Security legislation under consideration in Congress, his declaration appeared to undermine two leading proposals for overhauling the program -- both of which include an increase in the payroll tax for some higher-income workers.

"It also made it more likely that any measure Bush signed into law would rely on borrowed money and reductions in promised benefits for future retirees to finance the creation of private investment accounts and make the system financially sound."

Salon's Eric Boehlert is questioning the Kerik coverage:

"The media has been chattering excitedly away ever since President Bush appointed New York tough-guy Bernard Kerik as the new secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. Kerik's rapid, and unlikely, rise from beat cop to Cabinet-level appointee has kept Beltway journalists busy sketching Kerik's life story, one so colorful it was recently optioned by Miramax for an upcoming biopic. Despite his relatively brief, 16-month tenure as New York City police commissioner, which included surveying the World Trade Center wreckage at the side of then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Kerik has successfully positioned himself a top anti-terror guard dog.

"With Kerik's confirmation as homeland security chief all but assured on Capitol Hill, the media has fallen dutifully in line, offering almost uniformly glowing coverage -- except for the odd mention of the opportunism charges that have surrounded Kerik since his days as Giuliani's chauffeur, and brief reminders of his failed, abbreviated attempt last year to train Iraqi police officers.

"But there's one telling item from Kerik's past that has been conveniently left out of the coverage, much to his relief no doubt, as he tries to display some semblance of bipartisanship during his upcoming Senate confirmation hearings. And that was Kerik's head-swiveling attack on Sen. John Kerry during the campaign last spring, when he suggested that if the Democrat were elected president, the country would practically invite another deadly terrorist strike. It was the same blunt line of attack ('Democrats = mass death') that Vice President Dick Cheney, among others, honed during the closing months of the campaign. But Kerik was the first prominent Republican to make the charge, telling the New York Daily News on April 22, 'If you put Sen. Kerry in the White House, I think you are going to see that happen.' (Months later Kerik claimed the Daily News had misquoted him, but he never requested a correction.)

"In late July Kerik modified his stance slightly, telling CNN that a Kerry presidency would not necessarily invite another terrorist attack, but the Democrat would be weak in dealing with one if it came: 'I fear another attack, and I fear that attack with a John Kerry, Senator Kerry, being in office responding to it.'

"Yet, with Kerik headed for a Cabinet post, his ugly attack on the Democratic nominee has slipped right down the memory hole. To date, according to a search of the Nexis electronic database, only two news organizations have reprinted Kerik's shot at Kerry: USA Today and the New York Times. Not even the New York Daily News has bothered to remind readers of their earlier story."

In fairness, here's a New York Times editorial, a Washington Post report and a Richard Cohen column raising questions about Kerik.

By the way, if you missed my piece yesterday about Air America coming to Washington--and the partial comeback by the liberal radio network that most people this side of Al Franken had written off--you can catch up here.

MoveOn usually gets hit from the right, but not in this piece by Slate's Chris Suellentrop:

"MoveOn, despite all appearances, has never been about practical politics. Rather, it's an exercise in group therapy.

"There are worse things to do in life than make people feel good, but most political organizations -- especially ones that spend more than $30 million during an election and get called a left-wing Christian Coalition -- have more concrete goals. MoveOn, however, isn't an organization so much as an outlet. It's a network of aggrieved liberals, connected by the central nervous system of the Internet, and it enables its members to convince themselves they're 'doing something' when they're really not.

"To be fair, nor are they really harming anyone, either. For more than a month, Democrats have been gazing at navels and searching souls in an attempt to figure out What Went Wrong. Was it the candidate? The message? Moral values? 9/11? Karl Rove? During all that time, MoveOn hasn't come in for much of a beating, even though the group created the occasional distracting controversy for John Kerry, such as a short flap over a MoveOn ad that featured an American soldier drowning in quicksand. The New Republic's Peter Beinart did target MoveOn, along with Michael Moore, as one of the elements that Democrats needed to purge from their ranks, but Beinart, like MoveOn itself, overstates the group's importance. MoveOn doesn't merit any blame for Kerry's defeat. It just deserves to be added to the long list of Internet bubbles that were inflated by unrealistic media expectations and self-created hype.

"The analogy to the Howard Dean campaign is irresistible: lots of money, lots of buzz, not a lot of votes. Beyond the presidential campaign, only four of the 26 candidates endorsed by MoveOn won their elections this year. Since its creation in 1998, it's hard to come up with a single significant political achievement that can be credited to MoveOn. It did nothing to stop the impeachment of President Clinton, the event that galvanized the group into existence. Nor could it stop the recall of California Gov. Gray Davis, the war in Iraq, congressional redistricting in Texas, or the election of President Bush. During the presidential campaign, MoveOn received its heaviest dose of publicity for a failure of sorts, when CBS rejected its proposed Super Bowl ad. Dean was mocked for placing a distant third in Iowa. MoveOn just keeps moving on."