Sounding Bitter

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, April 14, 2008 9:16 AM

Barack Obama seems to have stepped in it.

This time the offending words are not his former pastor's, but his own.

He sounds condescending toward small-town Pennsylvanians.

Huffington Post blogger Mayhill Fowler-- describing herself as "over-educated sixty year-old woman with politics in my blood"--broke the story with an audiotape of his remarks at a California fundraiser.

What are the ethics, by the way, of being an Obama donor--which is how Fowler got into the closed event--and surreptitiously taping the speaker? Fowler did not respond to a request for comment. That doesn't let Obama off the hook, of course, since speaking to an audience, even a paying audience, is not exactly a secret event.

Fowler writes: "For all his soaring rhetoric, there is a dispassion about him. And yet he blends [ratiocinative] intelligence with empathetic understanding. This is a rare combination, and for many people, this aspect of Obama takes some getting used to. His Puritanical streak, moreover, while amusing to the press can be off-putting to everybody else."

What Obama said about the small-towners, as you've probably heard by now, was: "It's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

Not good. A pretty significant blunder. Plays into the worst stereotype of him as an elitist who can't connect with the working classes. The guy who bowled 37.

And yet, most people (and most journalists) know what he was trying to say. Not that small-towners are gun nuts. Or religious nuts, not from a regular churchgoer. Obama was trying to say that these folks voted on social issues, distracting wedge issues, when their real problem was economic. As he said a moment earlier, their areas have been losing jobs for 25 years, and "they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration."

Well, when you're imprecise in politics, you pay a price. Obama has played that game with John McCain's "100 years" comment. So it's little surprise that Hillary Clinton and McCain went after him, hard. But I do think journalists should try to paint a full picture here.

National Review's Jim Geraghty: "Yeah, I hate it when someone who's frustrated, and worried about their employment, say, starting January 20, 2009, decides to cling to anti-trade sentiment. You know, when they say that the U.S. should threaten to opt out of NAFTA. You know, like the guy who goes in front of union members and denounces trade deals with South Korea, and NAFTA, and CAFTA, and the Colombia Free Trade Agreement."

Big Tent Democrat: "I predict Obama gets away with it. ESPECIALLY now that Hillary is involved. Hillary Hate in the Media trumps McCain Love. See Wright, Jeremiah, so far."

Rick Moran at Pajamas Media: "The realization that Obama is an elitist who lacks a basic understanding of how the majority of Americans live and what is important to them will no doubt have far reaching consequences for his candidacy. But beyond the immediate problem for Obama's disconnect from ordinary people is the seeming contradiction between his rhetoric on the campaign trail and how he has conducted himself throughout his career in seeking to achieve high office. Ultimately, it goes back to the fundamental question we ask of all candidates.

"Who is Barack Obama?"

But the HuffPost unearths some 1991 comments by Bill Clinton with the same intent:

"The reason (George H. W. Bush's tactic) works so well now is that you have all these economically insecure white people who are scared to death."

And, about the first Bush administration:

"When their economic policies fail, when the country's coming apart rather than coming together, what do they do? They find the most economically insecure white men and scare the living daylights out of them."

Is Hillary being restrained toward Barack? In Politico, John Harris and Jim VandeHei argue:

"She and Bill Clinton both devoutly believe that Obama's likely victory is a disaster-in-waiting. Naive Democrats just don't see it. And a timid, pro-Obama press corps, in their view, won't tell the story.

"But Hillary Clinton won't tell it, either. A lot of coverage of the Clinton campaign supposes them to be in kitchen-sink mode -- hurling every pot and pan, no matter the damage this might do to Obama as the likely Democratic nominee in the fall.

"In fact, the Democratic race has not been especially rough by historical standards. What's more, our conversations with Democrats who speak to the Clintons make plain that their public comments are only the palest version of what they really believe: that if Obama is the nominee, a likely Democratic victory would turn to a near-certain defeat . . .

"Republicans will also ruthlessly exploit openings that Clinton -- in the genteel confines of an intraparty contest -- never could. Top targets: Obama's radioactive personal associations, his liberal ideology, his exotic life story, his coolly academic and elitist style."

Of course, voters in a majority of the primary and caucus states so far have disagreed.

Television has gone wild over Bill Clinton's botched attempt to defend his wife over the Bosnia fairy tale. It helps if you get the facts straight, rather than saying she told this story once, late at night, and immediately apologized.

Jake Tapper enumerates the inaccuracies:

"--Her most glaringly wrong telling of the tale, on March 17, 2008, was in the morning.

"--She actually told versions of the story several times. (And none was at night.) . . .

"--It wasn't immediate at all -- it was 11 days later, first in an editorial board meeting with the Philadelphia Inquirer/Philadelphia Daily News, then later in a press availability.

"--She never apologized.

"--It was 1996, not 1995.

"--He qualified it with 'I think,' but then-first lady Pat Nixon went to a combat zone in Saigon, Vietnam, in July 1969."

Dick Polman scolds the ex-president:

"Memo to Bill, who is imperiling his reputation as the smartest pol of his generation: When your wife is caught lying on camera, just leave it alone. Bringing it up again, and seeking to rationalize it, is the ultimate in silliness."

Marc Ambinder says Obama sometimes goes too far:

"No one in the race has more foreign policy experience than Barack Obama.

" 'And nobody has spoken out more fiercely on the issue of anti- Semitism than I have.'

"Some Obama campaign aides privately admit that their boss has a tendency to use superlatives when a comparative is called for. What's weird about Obama's peacock displays is that they're unnecessary. No one -- not even messianic Obamniacs -- believe that he has more foreign policy experience than John McCain, although many millions of voters may well come to believe that Obama's life experience in general gives him a better vantage point."

By the way, Michelle Obama took some heat for writing her Princeton thesis on the gulf between black and white, but it turns out her freshman roommate was horrified at being placed with an African American and her mother threatened to pull her from the school.

Lots of blogger reaction to this NYT piece on McCain's advisers:

"One component of the fractious Republican Party foreign policy establishment -- the so-called pragmatists, some of whom have come to view the Iraq war or its execution as a mistake -- is expressing concern that Mr. McCain might be coming under increased influence from a competing camp, the neoconservatives, whose thinking dominated President Bush's first term and played a pivotal role in building the case for war."

One adviser's quote jumped out at Jonathan Chait:

" ' He operates too much off the cuff and has not done the deeper homework required of a presidential candidate.'

"That's quite an indictment, coming from his own supporters no less!

"I mention this because McCain has made foreign policy knowledge his main line of attack against Barack Obama . . . I think this line of attack represents a huge strategic blunder for McCain. Even if it works, McCain will drive expectations for Obama's understanding of foreign policy so low that he can't help but exceed them. Indeed, the most likely outcome is that the two candidates will debate, and Obama will prove himself as knowledgeable, or probably more knowledgeable, at which point Obama will clear the bar to be commander-in-chief and McCain's best issue will be gone.

"If McCain's campaign was smart, they'd do what Republicans usually do, which is to frame the question not as one of knowledge but one of conviction-- that Democrat may have lots of book learning, but I'm the only one who understands in my gut how evil the bad guys really are."

This is a double fantasy, but Outside the Beltway has word of a poll on two unlikely tickets:

"A John McCain-[Condoleezza] Rice ticket would beat the Democratic 'Dream Ticket' of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in Clinton's 'home' state of New York, a Marist College poll shows."

The margin, in case you had to know, was 49-46.

Today's added bonus--my print column:

It's just after 10:30 Monday morning on "America's Newsroom," and Megyn Kelly has bounced from riots in Paris to storms in the Midwest, from a truck-and-train collision to a strange interview about the 1969 Manson family murders with the sister of slain actress Sharon Tate.

But the Fox News anchor doesn't seem truly animated until senior producer Tom Lowell says in her ear: "Megyn, remember the bee story? Think you can ad-lib us a tease here?"

Kelly looks into the camera and exclaims: "Imagine what happened when you're driving by that truck and out come bees! Tens of thousands of bees!"

She is causing quite the buzz herself. Four years ago, Kelly was a Washington lawyer pleading with WJLA-TV for part-time work. Now she's the co-anchor of two Fox shows, including a new 5 p.m. hour on the presidential campaign.

"When I was practicing law and had to do these 13-, 14-, 16-hour days, I was miserable," she says. Now, "you get off the set, you have that post-show high."

Most of the stars at Fox are highly opinionated men. Kelly, 37, is a former legal affairs correspondent who mostly keeps her views out of her on-air work. That may be a more circuitous path to cable stardom, but it is becoming more common.

MSNBC has given political shows in recent weeks to NBC correspondents Andrea Mitchell and David Gregory, who also fills in on "Today." CNN has given programs to former CBS correspondent John Roberts and former NBC correspondent Campbell Brown, and is tapping reporter John King as a substitute anchor. They all serve up analysis but stop short of commentary.

What makes Kelly unusual is the sheer speed of her ascent. "She has learned television news very quickly," says Bill Hemmer, her co-anchor. "She cares about the news, she studies it, and she has a wicked sense of humor. There is a chemistry that's required, this Fred-and-Ginger dance you have to perform every day on the fly."

Kelly, who grew up in an Albany, N.Y., suburb, was practicing law in Chicago -- securities law, contract disputes and the like -- when she took some journalism classes and served an internship at the NBC station in town. After moving to Washington in 2003, she reduced her legal load and persuaded WJLA, the ABC affiliate, to give her reporting assignments a couple of days a week.

Within a year, Kelly sent Fox a tape, which immediately impressed Brit Hume, the Washington managing editor, and his wife Kim, then the bureau chief.

"Here is this woman who was strikingly attractive but has tremendous air presence and a very strong voice," Hume says. "We were knocked out. It was screamingly obvious that this was someone with tremendous potential."

What's more, says Hume, "she seemed to get what we've talked about with 'fair and balanced news' . . . She came in believing there was a left bias in the news. That's not common." He quickly created an opening for her.

As a Washington correspondent, Kelly specialized in legal issues and was an early skeptic of the sexual-assault charges against the Duke lacrosse players who were ultimately exonerated. She enjoyed reporting but "thought it would be fun to have a job where you could show a little bit more personality."

Her first attempt was nervously filling in as the host of Geraldo Rivera's weekend show: "I thought, 'Oh my God, it's so cool.' " Kelly sees parallels to the lawyer's trade: giving a presentation, keeping it concise, maintaining energy and trying not to let them see you sweat.

Thirteen months ago, Fox executives summoned her to New York for a new mid-morning show that replaced "Fox News Live." Ratings are up 15 percent since then.

Did good looks play a role in the promotion? Kelly was voted a "hottie" in a contest on the Fishbowl DC Web site, and some bloggers have blathered on about her appearance, with one calling her "Leggy Meggy." YouTube features a series of videos such as "Hot Collection of Megyn Kelly" and one simply titled "Leather Boots & Skirt." On the morning show, Fox puts her on an open set that showcases her long legs.

But Kelly says success hinges on inner beauty. Still, she says, "in the industry, women have a hard time because there's an assumption that maybe you've moved up for reasons other than your mind."

Fox's morning show has what's known as a high story count, forcing anchors to race from one item to the next. Kelly recalls Lowell saying they would try launching the program as "America's Newsroom on crack," and later try a version on Valium, but "we never got off the crack."

Kelly can be a tad on the bubbly side, saying things on the air like "hiya" and "see you, guys." As a nervous flier, she told an airline safety expert last month: "You're freaking me out a little bit."

On this particular morning, Lowell tells Kelly that she may need to do an unexpected interview with Sen. Charles Schumer on the economy. During a break, Kelly e-mails a couple of financial analysts for suggested questions. But, she says, "I generally try not to know too much about complex financial news, because then you try to conduct an expert interview. Our viewers aren't experts." The interview falls through at the last minute.

In her "Kelly's Court" segment, the anchor moderates a debate over a California court ruling that parents do not have a right to home-school their children. She makes her disdain obvious in her questions, saying, "It sounds more like a court that is picking and choosing the facts it wants," before delivering her verdict: The decision "smells arbitrary" and is a "slam against home schooling."

On another day she sides with a photographer who refused to work at a lesbian wedding, saying discrimination laws don't require the woman "to sacrifice her religious beliefs in the name of social harmony."

Kelly says that "my job is to do the interviews, not be the opinion-giver," but she feels free to offer her views in these legal arguments. Occasionally, though, there are hints of her political outlook. During the weeks when Fox News was making a major issue of the offensive sermons by Barack Obama's former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Kelly told viewers it was "pretty stunning" that Wright got a cheering welcome at a Chicago church while President Bush was booed at the Washington Nationals home opener. "No respect for the president of the United States when he showed up to throw out the first pitch," she said.

Kelly, who began her television career as Megyn Kendall, explained to viewers that she was reverting to her maiden name after her divorce. When she was about to get remarried last month, colleagues showered her with gifts on the air, from balloons to a hand-painted wine glass. "I love you guys, too!" she exclaimed.

Before she went honeymooning at a Mexican villa with Internet entrepreneur Doug Brunt, the New York Times reported that she had met her man on a blind date at the Washington mezze bar Zaytinya (actually a semi-blind date; the matchmaking friend had showed her Brunt's picture).

"I don't love talking about my personal life, but you try to stay connected with your audience," Kelly says. "We try not to be these little automatons who sit there and read the news."

No Comment

Nearly three weeks after apologizing for having published a story based on fake FBI documents, editors at the Los Angeles Times are remaining silent.

After other media debacles -- Jayson Blair at the New York Times, Jack Kelley at USA Today, Stephen Glass at the New Republic, Janet Cooke at The Washington Post -- those responsible have eventually fielded questions about what went wrong. But even after last week's formal retraction of a story that accused associates of Sean "Diddy" Combs of involvement in the 1994 shooting of rapper Tupac Shakur, Editor Russ Stanton and his deputies have declined to grant a single interview with outside news organizations.

To their credit, Stanton, Deputy Managing Editor Marc Duvoisin and reporter Chuck Philips quickly apologized after the Smoking Gun Web site revealed the hoax. But the Times' own coverage has not addressed Stanton's degree of involvement or whether anyone has been disciplined. Would the paper accept such conduct from a government agency?

Pressed for comment, a Times spokeswoman released another statement in which Stanton said the paper "has taken this matter very seriously" and that the retraction and apology "speak for themselves."