Taking Rupert's Cash

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, August 3, 2007 6:52 AM

Rupert Murdoch, campaign issue?

Until now, the sturm und drang about the mogul's takeover of the Wall Street Journal has largely been limited to media types, who are understandably concerned that Murdoch might run the nation's premier financial newspaper the way he runs the New York Post.

But now that Murdoch's News Corp. has struck the $5-billion deal for Dow Jones, John Edwards is upping the ante. Edwards was the first of the Dems to refuse to debate on Fox News, which won him plaudits in the lefty blogosphere, and here's the latest:

Former senator John Edwards, who has been throwing punches at Rupert Murdoch and his Fox News Channel, demanded yesterday that the other Democratic presidential candidates return contributions from Murdoch's media conglomerate.

"John Edwards will never ask Rupert Murdoch for money -- he won't accept his money," said a statement e-mailed to supporters.

Not so fast, Murdoch's people say. His publishing unit, HarperCollins, paid Edwards a $500,000 advance -- and $300,000 in expenses -- for his 2006 book "Home: The Blueprints of Our Lives."

"We assume the senator is going to give back the money from his advance," News Corp. spokesman Brian Lewis said.

Edwards spokesman Eric Schultz said his boss donated the book payments to charity and that the expense money went to staffers and vendors. Citing the announcement that prompted Edwards's e-mail -- Murdoch's $5 billion deal to buy Dow Jones -- Schultz said, "This is about whether or not Murdoch should expand his media empire and use the Wall Street Journal to further promote his right-wing agenda."

The Edwards demand was aimed squarely at Sen. Hillary Clinton, who has received more than $20,000 from News Corp. executives, including $2,300 from Murdoch and $4,600 from company president Peter Chernin. Sen. Barack Obama has gotten $2,100 from Chernin. Lewis noted that Chernin appeared, at Edwards's request, at a 2004 fundraiser for the Kerry-Edwards ticket.

While the Edwards mailing accused Fox of trying to "demonize the Democratic Party and call it 'news,' " he has boycotted the cable channel only since Jan. 23. Before that, Edwards appeared on Fox programs 33 times.

Speaking of Murdoch, this does not inspire confidence:

"Dow Jones & Co. said on Thursday it did not know that one of the people named to protect its editorial independence after it becomes part of News Corp. (NWSa.N: Quote, Profile, Research) runs a foundation that received $2.5 million in funding from Rupert Murdoch's global media conglomerate."

The recipient is MIT professor Nicholas Negroponte, and I'm sure he'll be real independent.

The YouTube debate, meanwhile, is so last week.

I mean, who needs television in the video age?

Why not just put the whole thing online? Round up the snowman, the guy in the Viking helmet, the guy with his "baby" rifle, and anyone else who wants to quiz the presidential candidates, and have at it.

What CNN did last week was marry the interactivity of the Web to the reach of a national television network. But as we've seen with "Obama Girl" and other viral videos, the Net has a pretty incredible reach on its own. (Reality check: it reaches only those people who hang out online and not, say, my mother, who doesn't have a computer.)

A related question, whether it's on the tube or on the laptop, is how many debates these candidates are going to hold. (The Democrats debate endlessly, while the Republicans--who will face off Sunday on the Stephanopoulos show--haven't even agreed to another Anderson Cooper/YouTube extravaganza.) Isn't there a risk of overexposure? Won't they be recycling their applause lines before long? Can John Edwards risk another crack about Hillary's dress?

I raise all this because three Web sites have just announced a new cyber-debate. Arianna explains:

"In his column about the CNN/YouTube debates for the Guardian, Jeff Jarvis wrote: 'TV doesn't know how to have a conversation. TV knows how to perform.'

"I completely agree, and that's why the Huffington Post -- in partnership with Yahoo! and Slate -- is really happy to announce that we now have a date for the first-ever online-only presidential candidate mashup. The event is set for September 12. It will be moderated by Charlie Rose, and all eight Democratic candidates have agreed to take part (we are in discussions with the Republican campaigns for a GOP candidate mashup to follow later in the year).

"What's a candidate mashup? It's a new kind of campaign forum that will put you in charge of shaping exactly what kind of viewing experience you want to have -- from the questions that are asked to the way you can pick and choose the issues you want to hear about and the candidates you want to hear from.

"Here's how it will work: Charlie Rose, armed with questions you have sent in, will have a conversation with each of the candidates (more on these questions in a minute) . . .

"After the candidates have finished talking, the video will be coded and put at your disposal -- empowering you to create the candidate mashups of your choosing."

I like that part. Apparently you can punch up just the responses of Hillary and Obama and spare yourself Mike Gravel on the theory that life is too short.

Gee, I wonder why the Republicans aren't jumping at an event staged by two liberal sites with no conservative counterbalance.

Speaking of cyber-power, the big Daily Kos convention is under way, and National Review's Byron York casts a jaundiced eye in that direction:

"The turnout in Chicago shows that the Kossacks and colleagues from other activist websites have taken their place as the newest wing of the establishment in Democratic-party politics. They're not exactly the new bosses; it's not as if the unions and interest groups have disappeared, but it is true that the netroots now rank alongside them. A candidate who wants to win can no longer ignore the netroots, even if he or she would like to. Politicians like Reid and Pelosi, who not too long ago paid little attention to blogs and new activist groups, now cultivate the netroots at every opportunity . . .

"The whole point of building the Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy was to create a structure that would be in place to exploit the errors of the other side when they occurred. And Republicans have supplied the errors: Does anyone think that the Kossacks would have anywhere near the influence they wield today if the war in Iraq had gone well? With the war in its fifth year and Republicans uncertain of what their party stands for, the foundation-building that Moulitsas and his colleagues have done in the last several years is paying off. And that is why Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and all their colleagues are heading to Chicago."

By my count, it took less than 24 hours after that Minneapolis bridge collapsed into the river for this to become a partisan Beltway issue:

"Reid and other Democratic leaders went a step further, bashing Republicans for failing to pass a water resources and development act, known as WRDA on Capitol Hill, for seven years, saying that the bill was essential to investing in American infrastructure," Politico reports.

"Later, a White House spokesman rebuked Senate Democrats, saying the nation should focus on the victims and the recovery in Minneapolis. 'It's unfortunate and unconscionable that Democratic leaders in Congress are trying to use this horrific event as an opportunity to launch attacks,' said spokesman Scott Stanzel, pointing out that Bush's veto threat of the transportation appropriations bill is not related to highway funding."

Couldn't we wait until they recover all the bodies?

Newspapers have belatedly gotten interested in the unsexy topic of infrastructure:

Miami Herald: "At least 24 South Florida bridges are deficient . . . "

Boston Globe: "588 Mass. bridges 'deficient' . . . "

Detroit Free Press: "Are our bridges safe?"

Atlanta Journal Constitution: "Plenty Georgia bridges need repair"

New York Post: "84 percent of crossings are rated 'poor' or 'fair' . . . "

Not to mention The Washington Post: "Area Bridges Need Pricey Repair Work."

There's a newsroom phrase for all these stories: COULD IT HAPPEN HERE?

A GOP senator has a background lunch with some D.C. journos, and the New Republic's Michael Crowley was there:

"On Iraq, this senator said he expects that, come September and the Petraeus-Crocker report, the White House will announce 'a transition to a new approach.' He thinks that will involve a non-trivial drawdown of troops, and a returned emphasis to training Iraqi forces, though he wasn't too clear beyond that. He also said such a shift would head off any possible collapse in congressional GOP support for the war."

How long before someone outs the Mystery Senator? This happened when Maryland Republican Senate candidate Michael Steele dissed his party at a similar background meeting, before being belatedly ID'd.

A serious debate has broken out about the health plan Rudy announced this week. American Prospect's Ezra Klein says, Where's the beef?

"I'm supposed to be writing about Rudy Giuliani's health care plan today. And I would, if Rudy Giuliani had a health care plan. But Rudy Giuliani doesn't have a health care plan. What he has is a pretext with which to attack the Democrats. Indeed, just about all you need to know about Giuliani's thoughtfulness on the issue can be summed up by the following: In the speech introducing and detailing his new health care proposal, Giuliani refers to the 'Democrats' six times. 'Single-payer' is said eight times. 'Socialized medicine,' or some variant thereof, makes nine appearances. 'Uninsured' is never uttered -- not once . . .

"The New York Times headlined their story 'Giuliani Seeks to Transform U.S. Health Care Coverage,' before telling us, in the tenth paragraph, that 'Mr. Giuliani's speech offered very little in the way of specifics. He said his goal was to outline his 'vision,' with more details to come in the fall.' I guess the headline 'Giuliani Seeks to Transform One-Seventh of Economy, Couldn't Be Bothered to Offer Details on How' wasn't snappy enough?

"Failure of the press aside, let's examine this 'vision.' What Giuliani offered is this: A tax exclusion of up to $15,000 for families, and $7,500 for individuals, to help pay for health care. What Giuliani is relying on is people reading those numbers -- $15,000 and $7,500 -- without noticing that they don't denote the amount of money he's offering them, but the amount of money he's not taxing them on. And when we plug it into my magical Rudy Translation Machine (constructed with the help of friendly neighborhood economist, Dean Baker), we can watch how $15,000 can easily become . . . zero . . .

"Don't get me wrong, some families will save a few bucks. If you make $50,000, Giuliani's exclusion will save you $1,220. And if you make $70,000, you'll get a whopping $2,250. And the higher up the income ladder you go, the more our hypothetical family unit will save. Meanwhile, here's the kicker: According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, in 2006, premiums for family coverage amounted to, on average, $11,480. Giuliani's giveaway barely makes a dent."

I led off yesterday with the Vanity Fair profile of Judith Giuliani, which carries the cover line "Terror Alert." America's mayor was none too pleased, Newsday reports:

"He disliked it so much that he slipped out of his recent kinder-and-gentler Rudy campaign mode into his old fighting form from City Hall, criticizing a reporter Tuesday for even asking about it.

"To be sure, the story is very rough stuff, a scathing retelling of every not-nice thing ever written about Judith Giuliani, including that she insists on a having a separate airline seat for 'Baby Louis,' her Louis Vuitton handbag, and employs a full-time hair-stylist.

"The campaign says that stuff's just not true. Giuliani himself told reporters that he found 'enormous numbers of inaccuracies' when he scanned the article and defended his wife as the person who 'got me through September 11.'

" 'One of the terrible prices that unfortunately families pay in a situation like this is they get castigated and attacked,' he said, according to the Associated Press. 'And, usually, most reporters don't even ask about it. They actually have more dignity than to even ask about it.' "

Would this be the same Rudy who just told Charlie Rose that he accepts scrutiny of his family life because "the people in this country have 1,000 percent right to find out who I am"?

Finally, my report on the soldier originally known as the Baghdad Diarist:

The New Republic said yesterday that it has corroborated each of the allegations in an essay written by an American soldier in Iraq by checking with other members of the man's unit.

With the exception of one "significant discrepancy," for which the magazine expressed regret, the New Republic is standing behind the account of Scott Thomas Beauchamp, an Army private whose reports of petty cruelty were aggressively challenged by conservative bloggers.

The editors said they placed "great weight" on their findings, but that the Army's own investigation was "short-circuiting our efforts" because Beauchamp's computer and cellphone have been confiscated. Beauchamp, who is married to a New Republic reporter, can no longer speak to his family, and "his fellow soldiers no longer feel comfortable communicating with reporters," the magazine said.

One reported incident that produced widespread skepticism was that soldiers in a Baghdad dining hall had mocked a woman disfigured by a bomb. The editors said that three soldiers recalled that they "repeatedly saw the same facially disfigured woman," and that one of them, cited in the column, said: "We were really poking fun at her."

The mistake, acknowledged by Beauchamp, was that the conversation occurred in Kuwait, before the unit's arrival in Iraq.

The editors said two witnesses corroborated Beauchamp's account that soldiers had found and played with the skulls of Iraqi children. No such discovery was officially reported, but the Weekly Standard said a children's cemetery was located near Beauchamp's base.

One of the soldiers told the magazine in an e-mail that he could "wholeheartedly verify" the finding of the bones, and added by phone that he had seen another soldier wearing the skull on his head, as Beauchamp had reported.

Beauchamp also wrote that a soldier had used a Bradley Fighting Vehicle to run over stray dogs. A member of the unit told the magazine in an e-mail that he had witnessed the incident described by Beauchamp and described how it is done. A spokesman for the vehicle's manufacturer confirmed to the New Republic that it can be maneuvered in the way Beauchamp depicted.

Asked whether the military had hampered his inquiry, Editor Franklin Foer said: "We feel like our re-reporting has corroborated the story. But we, as a magazine, would always like to know more -- to ask everyone, every question a third and fourth time so as to pick up on any possible nuance -- and that's become impossible when the author and the subjects of the article are out of contact."

Weekly Standard blogger Michael Goldfarb seized on the mistake about the location of the disfigured woman as a "blatant lie," writing: "If this incident occurred at all, it only proves that Beauchamp was a vile creep to begin with."