Sanctuary From the Facts?

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, November 30, 2007 7:57 AM

The Rudy-Romney dustup was great television as the two men went toe to toe over immigration. But I want to dwell for a moment on the substance.

Giuliani did talk about welcoming illegal immigrants when he was mayor. Whether New York was a sanctuary city or not, he recognized the need for illegal workers to be able to report crimes, and to educate the 70,000 kids of illegal workers. Now, for obvious reasons, he tries to sound less sympathetic to illegal immigration.

Mitt didn't do much to crack down on sanctuary cities in Massachusetts, either, and while he touts winning federal approval for his state police to go after illegals, that took effect two weeks before he left office.

Huckabee was asked how he could allow college scholarship for the kids of illegal immigrants. He explained that the kids had to have been in the school system all their lives, have A-plus averages and be applying for citizenship. When Romney criticized that stance as a waste of taxpayers' money, Huck said: "In all due respect, we are a better country than to punish children for what their parents did."

Whatever your views on immigration, here's my point: Governors and mayors have to deal with real-world problems. The 12 million illegal immigrants in this country (some of whom were granted amnesty in 1986 by the sainted Ronald Reagan, when the problem was much smaller) aren't going anywhere. They are so embedded in our society that some of them wound up taking care of Mitt Romney's lawn.

I understand the outrage at those who broke the law to sneak into this country. But it's easier to criticize the problem from a stage than to run states and cities that are teeming with illegals.

It's like the debate over taxes. Virtually every governor who's in office long enough raises them at some point, as Huckabee did, while cutting them at other times, depending on the heating and cooling of the economy. (Yes, even Reagan raised taxes.) Then an opponent comes along and denounces them as tax-hikers. But virtually all governors are constitutionally required to balance their budgets. They don't have the option of printing money like the folks in Washington.

The NYT, by the way, has a big piece on Rudy's mayoral claims. Money graf:

"All of these statements are incomplete, exaggerated or just plain wrong. And while, to be sure, all candidates use misleading statistics from time to time, Mr. Giuliani has made statistics a central part of his candidacy as he campaigns on his record."

Ever wonder what it's like spending a day trailing Hillary around New Hampshire? My report on the candidate and the press is here.

Turning now to the controversy over CNN's YouTube debate, here is what I've pieced together:

CNN expressed regret yesterday for allowing a Hillary Clinton adviser to ask a question at Wednesday's Republican presidential debate, even as controversy swirled about two other questioners who have declared their support for Democratic candidates.

Retired Brig. Gen. Keith Kerr, who asked why gays should not be allowed to serve openly in the military, is a member of Clinton's steering committee on gay and lesbian issues, something her campaign disclosed in a news release in June.

"Had we known that, we probably wouldn't have used the question," said David Bohrman, CNN's Washington bureau chief, who produced the debate. He added that "you could spend hours Googling everybody. What we cared about was that he was real." CNN deleted Kerr's question from a rebroadcast of the debate.

The New York senator's campaign said in a statement that "Gen. Kerr is not a campaign employee and was not acting on behalf of the Clinton campaign."

Kerr, a Californian who said he became openly gay after 43 years in the military, was one of 5,000 people who submitted videotaped questions through YouTube. CNN also placed Kerr in the St. Petersburg, Fla., audience, where he followed up by calling the current "don't ask, don't tell" policy "destructive."

Moderator Anderson Cooper acknowledged the error involving Kerr after Bill Bennett, the conservative author and radio host who is a network contributor, raised it during a post-debate discussion. Bennett said yesterday that his radio producer e-mailed him information from a National Review blog.

"It shouldn't have ever happened," Bennett said. "You've got to vet that sort of thing."

On CNN's "American Morning," Kerr said he has done nothing for the Clinton campaign and that the video was "a private initiative on my own." He also said he has supported Republicans.

Bohrman said network staffers, struck by Kerr's "very powerful" question, verified his military service and determined from federal records that he had made no campaign contributions. He said CNN never spoke to Kerr and had Google, which owns YouTube, bring the retired general and about a dozen other questioners to the debate because their videos were likely to be used, although no decision had been made.

CNN teamed with YouTube in July for a Democratic debate that marked the first such use of citizen-submitted videos. The Republican debate was delayed because of candidate concerns about the format.

Bohrman said the network rejected "quite a few" questioners who were found to have public ties or donations to other candidates. He said the network's goal was to avoid "obvious Democratic 'gotcha' questions."

Another YouTube questioner, a Texas woman who identified herself as "Journey," asked what the punishment should be for women who have abortions and the doctors who perform them, if the procedure were made illegal. After the debate, she posted another YouTube video criticizing the candidates' responses -- while wearing a "John Edwards 08" T-shirt.

A third questioner, David Cercone, asked the candidates whether they would accept the support of the Log Cabin Republicans, a gay organization.

In a profile on Sen. Barack Obama's Web site, Cercone wrote about "why I support Barack Obama: He is a leader who inspires me with his sincerity, his earnestness, and his vision for change."

Conservative bloggers, some of whom deride CNN as the "Clinton News Network," ripped the network yesterday. At InstaPundit, Glenn Reynolds wrote: "Once again, CNN demonstrates an inexplicable failure to background-check pro-Hillary questioners." Scott Johnson of PowerLine wrote that "CNN has shown itself unable or unwilling to act as an honest broker."

James Joyner at Outside the Beltway, said: "If lone bloggers can vet these people in less than half an hour, surely CNN's crack journalistic team should have been able to do so between the time they selected the pool of questions and the airing of the debate?"

Bohrman said he had no problem using questioners who have voiced support for other candidates as long as they are not donors or formally affiliated with any campaign. "We bent over backwards to be fair," he said. "We're not perfect. But we tried extremely hard."

Here's some more reaction. Captain Ed is less exercised than some of his conservative colleagues:

"Bad journalistic practices? Definitely yes. But does that negate the questions themselves? I don't think so. The CNN/YouTube format closely parallels that of the traditional town-hall forum. For the most part, attendees do not get vetted at these events either, nor should they. After all, while a primary usually involves voters of one party, the entire nation has a stake in the selection of the nominees. If Hillary Clinton held a town hall in my community, I should have an opportunity to question her about her positions on issues without pledging a loyalty oath to do so.

"The questions asked don't seem particularly outrageous."

Fred Barnes says the whole thing stunk:

"This debate not only was mortifying to the candidates. It also should have been embarrassing to the viewers, especially Republican voters who might have been watching.

"I don't know if the folks who put the debate together were purposely trying to make the Republican candidates look bad, but they certainly succeeded. True, the candidates occasionally contributed. For the first few minutes, Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney continued their debate over their records on immigration and did so with the kind of intensity that this trivial matter didn't warrant. These are two fine candidates who have only themselves to blame for looking petty.

"But it was chiefly the questions and who asked them that made the debate so appalling. By my recollection, there were no questions on health care, the economy, trade, the S-chip children's health care issue, the 'surge' in Iraq, the spending showdown between President Bush and Congress, terrorist surveillance, or the performance of the Democratic Congress.

"Instead there were questions--ones moderator Anderson Cooper kept insisting had required a lot of time and effort by the questioners--on the Confederate flag, Mars, Giuliani's rooting for the Boston Red Sox in the World Series, whether Ron Paul might run as an independent for president, and the Bible."

At the New Republic, Noam Scheiber gives Romney and Rudy mixed grades:

"I thought Romney hit the right note on immigration, at least from the perspective of GOP voters. His response to Giuliani's accusation that he operated a 'sanctuary mansion'--a reference to having illegal aliens do some work around his house--was persuasive. It does seem a bit much to suggest, as Rudy did, that you should be responsible for whether or not a contractor you hire might be employing illegal aliens--or, as Romney put it, that you should demand papers from anyone who looks a little different or speaks with an accent.

"Romney also seemed to get the better of the exchange with Mike Huckabee over making (non-citizen) children of illegal immigrants eligible for state-funded college scholarships. Huckabee offered what I thought was a wonderful, humane defense of the program--about not punishing kids for their parents' crimes, about how you'd rather have people get educations than not, etc.--but I suspect that's a step too far for most GOP primary voters. Romney's point about how Huckabee might have had great intentions, but that doesn't make it right, will probably resonate . . .

"Romney's weakest moment by far was his attempt to square his previous comments on gays in the military--that he looks forward to a day when they can serve openly--with his rightward turn on social issues. He seemed caught off guard by the question, and his response--that this is not the time to consider it--sounded like the worst of both worlds . . .

"Giuliani, as I mentioned, seemed a little over the top during the 'sanctuary mansion' attack. He also did a lousy job fielding a question about gun control--leading with the point that local governments should be able to impose some common-sense restrictions, which the gun crowd hears as code for taking their firearms away."

A new wrinkle in the Rudy/Judi story, from ABC:

"Well before it was publicly known he was seeing her, then-married New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani provided a police driver and city car for his mistress Judith Nathan, former senior city officials tell the Blotter on ABCNews.com. 'She used the PD as her personal taxi service,' said one former city official who worked for Giuliani."

Dick Polman isn't buying Rudy's attempt to explain away the original Politico story on the allocation of security costs for the mayor and his gal pal (what the New York Post dubs his "TRYST FUND"):

"What the documented evidence strongly suggests is that Rudy was tomcatting with his extramarital lover on the taxpayer's dime, and trying to cover his tracks. He and his security team repeatedly took summer visits to Southampton, the Long Island town where future third wife Judith Nathan had an apartment - there are few indications in the records that he was visiting Southampton on official business - and all the security costs were subsequently squirreled away in the budgets of obscure city offices.

"Anyway, [Anderson] Cooper asked if the squirreling was true. Rudy replied: 'First of all, it's not true. I had 24-hour security for the eight years that I was mayor. They followed me everyplace I went.' . . .

"His first sentence was a lie. The squirreling was true - because, as the Politico story made clear, the fiscal watchdogs in the city comptroller's office discovered the squirreling and tried to get some answers from the mayor. But the watchdogs were repeatedly stonewalled . . .

"The Huck got off easy . . . Perhaps Mitt and Rudy were concerned that, by assailing him, they would risk ticking off Huckabee's growing corps of religious conservative supporters. The result was that Huckabee was able to praise his own record as an Arkansas governor ('I have a great record on fiscal conservatism'), without being challenged on the facts. Huckabee bragged last night, for instance, that 'I cut 90 taxes' as governor, leaving out the fact that he also raised 21 taxes during his tenure, and presided over a net tax hike at the end of his tenure. But nobody on stage bothered to point this out."

CBN's David Brody, who's widely read on the right, likes Mike:

"It was Mike Huckabee who may have had the best night. Put aside the issues for a moment. Don't you get the sense that Huckabee comes across as an extremely effective communicator?

"Whether you agree with him or not, it seemed like every issue he talked about Wednesday had a well thought out, coherent argument behind it. When he speaks, the tone and words flow harmoniously. I mean his answer about the Bible being the word of God came across as humble, accurate and inclusive. Hard to do. On a question about 'What would Jesus do' when it comes to the death penalty, Huckabee's answer was heartfelt conflict yet strong. And then this line of the debate: 'Jesus was too smart to run for public office!'

"Even on the tricky question of whether he'll accept the endorsement of the gay Log Cabin Republicans group, Huckabee said that he needs all the help he can get. So sure he'll accept but won't change his position on same sex marriage. He even said he wants to be that group's President and everybody's President. Good answer, right? Or how about the line about space exploration when he said, 'Maybe Hillary can be on the first rocket to Mars.' "

That was the one line that struck me as a little harsh.

Are rumors about Obama a front-page story? TPM's Greg Sargent unloads on a Washington Post piece headlined "Foes Use Obama's Muslim Ties to Fuel Rumors About Him":

"Look -- Obama is not 'dogged by Muslim rumors.' He is the victim of a smear campaign based on lies. These two things are not the same. And incidentally, to whatever extent Obama is 'dogged' by these rumors, surely this will only be facilitated when news orgs like WaPo fail to make a serious effort to knock them down before printing them.

"Just to be clear, CBS probably wouldn't be running with this headline if WaPo hadn't done such a bad job on the story. It portrayed the 'rumors' as being still in dispute, rather than labeling them false, and it told readers that they had only been denied by Obama and his advisers without noting that a central piece of the smear -- that he attended a madrassa -- had been called out as false by a top official at the school he attended."

I can't understand why the story didn't mention that the official at the Indonesian elementary school alleged to have been a madrassa--according to an unsourced story in the conservative online magazine Insight--had told CNN it had always been a public school and not a religious school.