By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, July 14, 2006; 7:46 AM
In the spring of 2001, I went up to the Hill and asked John Edwards why he couldn't just admit he was running for president.
I got the usual demurrals--"staying focused on being a good senator from North Carolina"-- even though he'd just been to Iowa. I knew, everyone knew, that Edwards was gearing up for a White House bid, but he refused to skirt the convention that you have to insist the thought has barely crossed your mind.
Which led me to formulate a rule: When they say they're not running, they are; but those who say they might run are probably looking for media attention and will opt out in the end, since if they were really running they would be forced to deny it.
What prompts these ruminations is Rudy Guiliani saying on Wednesday that he is "seriously considering" a presidential run. Those who think that the 9/11 hero would be a formidable candidate are forgetting about the 9/10 Rudy. Meaning, this is a guy who is pro-choice on abortion, pro-gay rights and moved in with a gay couple after a messy breakup with his wife that came as he was dating another woman. None of that is likely to sit well with Republican primary voters (although Giuliani would be a strong general-election candidate with appeal to Democrats if he could ever win the GOP nod).
I don't know what Giuliani, who's making all kinds of money, will ultimately do, but I suspect he'll enjoy the fruits of being a potential candidate without ultimately taking the plunge in a primary that would be very problematic for him.
Some blogosphere reaction, beginning with Nathan at Moral Contradictions :
"Big Daddy Weave has an excellent post up about how adultery is becoming more accepted. He details how both Rudy Giuliani and John McCain left their wives for different women. McCain left his wife after she raised their children while he was a POW in Vietnam and married a 25 year old woman and used her family's money to launch his career. BDW asks 'After impeaching Bill Clinton - are the Republicans ready to nominate a confessed adulterer???? Will the Evangelical-wing of the GOP support the candidacy of a cheating man???' With all this hype of saving marriage from homosexuals, maybe efforts should be focused on strengthening traditional marriage. How strong is marriage these days when folks like Rudy Guiliani have been married four times?" (Actually, I believe it's three.)
Ankle Biting Pundits sees Rudy having little chance:
"Giuliani is a true anomaly. But for 9/11, no one would be talking about his prospective presidential aspirations. That means--let's be clear--that the present Giuliani boomlet is a validation of his leadership style, not his ideology, which is decidedly 'New York' on social issues and, I can say with confidence, would never see him through to the GOP nomination."
Grumpy Old Man says the Washington Monthly notes that "three of the GOP front-runners have sexual skeletons in their closet: McCain, Giuliani, and Gingrich, and wonders how (a) the evangelical part of the GOP base and (b) the Dems, recalling the Clinton impeachment, will react. It's a fair question. To a degree, I adhere to the view that in evaluating politicians as politicians, as with artists as artists, we should separate different spheres of their lives. Picasso may not have been nice to his women, but he did some amazing paintings. Hamilton was a player, but he set the Treasury on strong foundations. Martin Luther King was, too, but he still gave a great speech."
Sometimes it only takes one determined lawmaker to provide checks and balances, as the Philadelphia Inquirer reports:
"Ending a month long dispute, Sen. Arlen Specter (R., Pa.) said yesterday that he and the White House had reached an agreement calling for some judicial scrutiny of a wide-ranging electronic surveillance program aimed at terrorists.
"Specter said a special court established in 1978 to review domestic intelligence-gathering would rule on the program's constitutionality, but not on individual cases. He said the Bush administration promised to make fixes in the program if the court found it unconstitutional."
Valerie Plame, who once tried to stay out of the spotlight, sues Dick Cheney, Karl Rove and Scooter Libby.
The plot in Connecticut may be thickening, as the New Republic's Jason Zengerle notes:
"Maybe Connecticut Republicans aren't so dumb after all. Joe Lieberman's pledge to run as an independent should he lose the Democratic primary to Ned Lamont once seemed to be a relatively risk-free proposition--in that the Republican candidate for Senate, Alan Schlesinger, was a virtual non-entity. . . .
"But now, according to Hartford Courant columnist Kevin F. Rennie (who wrote into the Hotline blog), Connecticut Republicans appear to be getting ready to dump Schlesinger. Rennie writes:
"Hounding Schlesinger off the ticket would open an opportunity for a wealthy Republican aspirant to join what could be a three way race after the August 8th Democratic primary in which challenger Ned Lamont is closing in on incumbent Joseph Lieberman. Three termer Lieberman has obtained petitions to secure a spot on the ballot as an independent should he lose to Lamont next month.Republicans are rumored to have some moguls of their own interested in jumping into the fray. Forcing Schlesinger off the ballot would be the first step.
"The excuse Connecticut Republicans are using to get rid of Schlesinger is that he apparently gambled under an assumed name at the Foxwoods Casino in the 1990s. So I guess that means Bill Bennett can give up on any plans he might have had to quickly establish residency in Connecticut and throw his hat into the ring."
Boy, things are getting heated. Dan Gerstein , a former Lieberman aide, hits back hard at criticism of Joltin' Joe from Democratic Hill aide turned blogger David Sirota:
"Now what standing and credibility does Sirota have to make either claim? Well, he spent most of his limited adult life working in Washington -- including a stint with the lone socialist in Congress -- before moving to Montana. To my knowledge, the closest he's come to spending any meaningful time in Connecticut is interviewing for a job in Joe Lieberman's Senate office (with yours truly) and in his Presidential campaign in 2003.
"Yes, that's right: the same guy who is viciously attacking Joe Lieberman as the great Satan of the Democratic Party actually sought not one but two jobs from the target of his hatred, and did so at time when all of the supposed sins that Sirota is attacking Lieberman for now were well known. The polite term for that would be chutzpah. Some one less charitable might call Sirota a fraud."
David Sirota punches back, calling Gerstein "a classic, haughty, self-important, professional election loser. . . . The fact that Gerstein would write such a lie in black and white shows the depths of the desperation Lieberman's camp has reached.
"Here's what really happened folks: In 2003, after I had just arrived at the Center for American Progress, I received inquiries from various Lieberman staffers about a press job, and whether I would come in to chat with them - and possibly the Senator - in preparation for Lieberman's presidential run. Obviously, they knew who I was and what kind of serious progressive politics I represented...
"After a few days, I decided I simply was totally uncomfortable with the concept of working for Lieberman, that his staff showed no signs that they were interested in being progressive team players, and that as a committed progressive, it would be wrong for me to go to work for Lieberman. So, via email and phone, I respectfully declined the offer to chat further with them."
"We are tempted to ask why President Bush inveighs against The New York Times for publishing leaks, but said nothing today about Robert Novak publishing leaks. Perhaps the double standard can be attributed to the fact that Novak and Rove have worked together behind the scenes, going back at least 15 years. Or the fact that the Plame leak might have deemed a 'good' leak, since it was designed to aid the administration in its defense of the case for war. But back to Rove, and my remarks at the outset about promises and plain English. After the Plame flap erupted, Bush press secretary Scott McClellan promised this, on Sept. 29, 2003: 'If anyone in this administration was involved in it, they would no longer be in this administration.' A month later, on Oct. 30, Bush himself said this: 'If somebody did leak classified information, I'd like to know it. And we'll take the appropriate action.' Well, Novak is now the latest source to say that, yes, Rove was 'involved.' Yet he remains in the administration, and Bush has declined to say anything publicly about the matter. An argument can be made that Bush is clearly in the wrong on this one -- but loyalists in the administration would dispute that, because they apparently believe that Bush is never wrong.
InstaPundit and his wife Helen interview John McCain for their Podcast. The senator does a very artful pander in explaining the chat: "Glenn is such a powerful and influential American I thought this would shore up any ambitions I might have for the presidency."
HuffPoster Michael Standaert didn't like Matt Lauer's interview with Vladimir Putin, but his real problem seems to be with the way network television works:
"First is the use of Lauer at all. This is a systemic problem in the mainstream media. Times were, as near as fifteen to twenty years ago, that major news networks would have correspondents permanently based in important foreign capitals: Moscow, London, Beijing, Paris, to name just a few. Now much of the news from abroad, like this G-8 Summit, is covered by 'face' reporters, the big name celebrity reporters making the big bucks. They parachute in ahead of the president a day or so before, set up their stories, report them, then get the hell out. We could name ten or so of these 'faces' or 'names' that get the top gigs around the globe, drop on in, report and leave, without much context or depth. They may as well be reporting from the Moon. This leads to a huge lack of involvement and knowledge about the situation on the ground, no matter how good a journalist might happen to be.
"Second, Lauer's interview with Putin falls into the trap of framing the debate about issues of freedom of expression and democracy in Russia as simply a U.S. v. Russia battle. . . . Why, for instance, didn't Lauer ask Putin ANY question about the situation in Chechnya? The question wouldn't even have to be terribly critical, but could be probing enough to be illuminating. Instead: nothing...Yes, he did touch on big issue items such as North Korea and Iran, but then this was framed in a U.S. vs. Russia context.
"But Lauer is just doing his job, and probably doing it the best he can, given his duties with the Today Show. It's the Today Show! It's a morning lifestyle program. Get your Putin interview one moment, a recipe for how to use whole-grain pasta the next."
Yes, but how is that Lauer's fault? And how is it his fault that the networks have few foreign correspondents these days? Lauer may do the cooking segments and even chat up Britney Spears, but he does very good news interviews--as does his former partner, the incoming anchor of the "CBS Evening News."
For the world's most famous head-butter, Zinedine Zidane, it's come to this: The Times of London hired a lip reader who says that Italian soccer player Marco Materazzi drew the retaliation by calling Zidane "the son of a terrorist whore." Betsy's Page is unimpressed with Zidane's post-butt explanation:
"Zidane said: 'I would like to apologize because a lot of children were watching the match. I do apologize but I don't regret my behavior because regretting it would mean he was right to say what he said.'
"What good is an apology if there is no regret. It's just words then. . . .
"Well, it's a shame that Materazzi was saying nasty things, but come on. Zidane is a grown man in a sport with lots of trash talk. I don't care what was said, no matter how atrocious, a strong man would have been able to tune out the obvious effort to provoke him, at least until the end of the game. Does Zidane think that his mother and sister are happy now that he defended their honor while dishonoring himself and harming his team?"
Finally, some foul-mouthed blogger--oh wait, it's the New York Times--ruminates on the word slut :
"'Slut'' is tossed around so often and so casually that many teenagers use it affectionately and in jest among their friends, even incorporating it into their instant messenger screen names.
"Like 'queer' and 'pimp' before it, the word slut seems to be moving away from its meaning as a slur. Or is it?...
"'Today, "slut," even "ho" -- girls use it in a fun way, a positive way,' said Atoosa Rubenstein, the editor in chief of Seventeen magazine, adding that a phrase such as 'you little slut' has become a way for girlfriends to bust each other's chops."
And to think this newspaper once waited years to allow Ms. in the paper.