Made of Straw

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, August 10, 2007 7:30 AM

My heart is beating just a little bit faster knowing that the Iowa straw poll, one of the grand rituals on American politics, is now upon us.

Where else can a political campaign essentially buy votes and be greeted by praise instead of prosecution?

Now I had thought the media would just ignore the straw poll after Rudy and McCain blew it off. After all, how much of a story is Romney and a bunch of second-tier types?

Apparently, I forgot it's August.

I'm not working Monday, but the Philly Inquirer's Dick Polman has saved me hours of research by writing the lead of the straw-poll story in advance:

"By busing in the most loyalists, and paying for their tickets, Mitt Romney defeated similar vote-buying strategies employed by his more modestly-financed rivals, including Mike Huckabee and Sam Brownback. But it's doubtful that this Saturday night event was an accurate barometer of anything, given the fact that, as in the past, it attracted only two percent of Republican voters statewide . . . "

Nailed it.

But wait: maybe it will have an impact, judging by this Politico item:

"From a blast email Tommy Thompson's campaign manager sent out yesterday: 'Tommy Thompson has made it clear that if he doesn't finish first or second this week in Ames, Iowa at the straw poll, he will not go on in this race.' "

Well, that would clear the way toward having only one Thompson in the race.

The Democrats faced a very different audience last night than they did in standing before union families at Soldier Field, and the Boston Globe poses the question:

"Can you be a true believer in equality for gays and lesbians without supporting same-sex marriage?

"That was the question at the heart of last night's presidential forum in Los Angeles on issues important to the gay and lesbian community, as Democratic candidates wrestled with what marriage means and tried to square that with their views on civil rights."

The Chicago Tribune captures some of the emotional exchanges:

"The leading Democratic presidential candidates struck a delicate balance Thursday evening between showing commitment to expand the rights of gay people and justifying their opposition to same-sex marriage during the campaign's first-ever televised forum focused on gay issues . . .

"Lesbian rock star Melissa Etheridge, one of the questioners, greeted former Sen. John Edwards by bluntly asking him if he was 'comfortable,' referring to a former strategist's assertion that Edwards once said he was uncomfortable around gay people.

"The former senator from North Carolina responded with nervous laughter on Thursday night, assuring the audience he was comfortable and denying as 'wrong' the report of the comment in a recently released book by Bob Shrum, a key adviser to his 2004 presidential campaign.

"Perhaps the most personal question of the evening was posed to Sen. Hillary Clinton by Etheridge, who told Clinton that she had felt personally hurt and abandoned by the Clintons after President Bill Clinton's inauguration. 'I remember when your husband was elected,' Etheridge said, calling it a 'hopeful time' for gays and lesbians. But "in the years that followed, our hearts were broken. We were pushed aside. All those great promises that were made to us were broken.' "

Hillary said they had to battle Newt and the Republicans.

The latest front-loading of the primaries--with South Carolina moving up, which will force New Hampshire to move up, which will force Iowa to move up, which means we could begin voting by next month--is welcomed by Kos:

"This would actually be fantastic. By moving their caucuses before the Christmas season, the Iowa losers would have plenty of time (over a month) to regain their footing and blunt any momentum the Iowa winner might get.

"South Carolina would grab the Jan. 22 spot, which means that NH would have to go earlier, maybe a week or two.

"Again, adding a few weeks between NH and the national primary on March [February] 5 would reduce the impact of a NH victory. SC would be the big winner, with a contest heavily contested by all the top contenders, as a bridge between NH (Iowa would be long forgotten) and the crazy-ass February 5 contests.

"It would be even better if NH moved their contest up to December as well. Then we'd have contests in NH and Iowa that would be little more than glorified straw polls, with most of the rest of America getting a real say in their nominee for the first time in a long, long time."

It's true the two small states aren't very representative. But they do force the candidates into retail campaigning.

Politicians utter all kinds of applause lines at debates, and then good reporters check the facts.

"Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, who has criticized Senator Barack Obama for saying he would rule out using nuclear weapons to root out terrorists in Afghanistan or Pakistan, made a similar comment regarding Iran last year, before she became a presidential candidate," says the New York Times.

"'I would certainly take nuclear weapons off the table,' Mrs. Clinton told Bloomberg Television in an interview in April 2006, responding to a question about how the Bush administration would try to prevent Iran from building up its nuclear program.

"Last week, Mr. Obama said it would be a 'profound mistake' for the United States to use nuclear weapons to fight terrorism in Afghanistan or Pakistan. Asked to reply, Mrs. Clinton said: 'I think that presidents should be very careful at all times in discussing the use or non-use of nuclear weapons.' "

It would be naive to take everything these candidates say at face value.

As Bush weighs a cut in corporate tax rates--not that he could get it through a Democratic Congress--Washington Monthly's Kevin Drum exclaims:

"He really is like a windup doll, isn't he? No matter what's going on in the outside world, no matter what problems we're facing, no matter what the political situation is, you pull the cord and he says 'Tax cuts!' It's like he's the Manchurian President."

Could the Thompson non-campaign be a bubble? "I don't want to rush anyone," says Josh Marshall. "But are we ready to say that Fred Thompson's proto-incipient campaign for president might not be quite ready to sweep the current crop of goofballs from the field?

"Or, isn't there a serious possibility now that this guy may never actually get into the race? If for no other reason than to salvage some of the aura of dignity upon which the lucrative acting career is based?

"Thompson tapped his third campaign manager. Which means he's now operating at a ratio of 3 managers to 0 campaigns. And I guess that means a ratio of like infinity or something like that. But let's not get distracted by that."

AT&T admits censoring anti-Bush lyrics by Pearl Jam. So much for free speech.

Also on the Fred front, Captain Ed does a bit of Internet sleuthing:

"It doesn't take long for provocateurs to crawl out of the woodwork to attack candidates, especially in stealth attacks. With Fred Thompson, they've apparently started before he officially enters the race -- and in one case, race is the operative word. Apparently hoping to confuse web surfers looking for Fred's website at www.imwithfred.com, a new site has appeared at www.imwithfred2008.com -- only this site welcomes people to the Ku Klux Klan, 'Bringing a Message of Hope and Deliverance to White Christian America!' It includes links to a variety of disgusting racist sites.

"Who would post something like this as a smear on Fred Thompson? Someone a little too stupid to cover his tracks, possibly? A DNS search gives us an answer. The domain name, registered through GoDaddy (no great shock there), belongs to: Henry Reynolds . . .

"The phone number listed on the domain record, which I won't post here, goes to an answering machine for the 'law offices of Henry Reynolds.' I left a message asking for comment on this website, and then decided to take a look through OpenSecrets and the FEC to see if Mr. Reynolds has a history of supporting Fred Thompson, or even the KKK. Actually, it turns out that a Mr. Henry Reynolds in the same zip code working as an attorney has a small record of political donations -- but in another direction:

"4/6/2005 - $500, MoveOn.org

"9/22/2004 - $500, DNC Services

"4/5/2004 - $250, John Kerry"

How 'bout that.

In the wake of the Kos convention, Time's Jay Carney is feeling misunderstood:

"One commenter reads too much into a statement I made on the panel to the effect that 'Time will always have conservative columnists.' I was asked about columnists like Bill Kristol and Charles Krauthammer, the fact that they were terribly wrong on Iraq (and, to this audience, wrong in general on most subjects) and why Time continued to publish their columns. When I said Time would always have conservative columnists, I meant, simply, that as long as there is a stable of columnists at Time, there will be some among them representing conservative political views. The fact that conservative pundits appear in Time does not make the magazine itself conservative. The reader who claims that I 'admitted Time is and always will be a conservative magazine' must be having a Gonzales moment."

Conservative bloggers are taking note of the SEC settlement involving a key Kos ally. Here's Roger L. Simon of Pajamas Media:

"Jerome Armstrong, the blogger who gave us MyDD and is a co-author of a recent book on 'people power' with Markos Moulitsas of the Daily Kos, has agreed to pay nearly thirty thousand dollars to the Security and Exchange Commission over allegations 'that Armstrong touted the stock of a software company, without disclosing that he was being paid to do so.'

"Now, as we all know, sleaze and corruption are not unique to either side of the political spectrum. But Armstrong, Kos & their netroot cronies have made a big deal out of clean government (and they should). So this kind of allegation speaks even more deeply to their ethics, as it . . . would for anyone in that position.

"Moreover, this behavior, if true, besmirches blogging in general, harming all of us who take this enterprise seriously as a criticism of the activities of mainstream media."

In the wake of the Minneapolis bridge collapse, Buzz Machine's Jeff Jarvis has a suggestion:

"Calling all New York and New Jersey news organizations: Want to enlist your audiences in a networked reporting project that will have a huge impact on government and make a difference in all their lives -- a project you couldn't do without them?

"Get your audience to report on the failures of the infrastructure around them.

"Put up a Google map (with Platial on top) and town and neighborhood wikis and ask them to pinpoint every failure of infrastructure -- or feared failure -- they see: streets that flood every time it rains, bridges that look just too damned rusty, potholes, pipes that burst, streets that don't get plowed, streetlights that don't work, signs that are missing . . . Ask them for dates and other specifics and for pictures and video. Urge them to blog their stories of frustration and bureaucracy. Use your promotional power and influence to mobilize your public.

"Then do what you do best: add journalism. Go verify what they say and tell the story of that street that closes every time it rains, of the people whose lives lose hours as a result, of the government bureaucrats who should be fixing it of the money spent on other things instead."

You gotta admit, not a bad idea.

Speaking of Google, the Post I.T. blog reports that Google News is "introducing a feature that allows comments on news stories - from the people who are mentioned in those stories. News stories and blog entries on washingtonpost.com, as well as many other blogs and sources of news, have long offered a chance for readers to chime in.

"In a test that begins this week, Google will allow comments only from the people in the story and will post those comments along side entries on Google News. As a journalist, I welcome this feedback. Often, our sources have been less than happy with stories we've written about them. And I can't tell you how many times I've heard from sources who were disappointed that some detail that came up during an interview didn't make the story."

I wonder if lots of people will take advantage of the offer.

Think all the criticism is getting to Rupert?

"Rupert Murdoch has complained that his victorious three-month battle to buy the Wall Street Journal involved fending off criticism bearing a degree of vitriol usually reserved for 'genocidal tyrants.' "

A Wall Street Journal contributor is disturbed that ordinary folks think the economy is faring worse than economic experts say. So Brian Wesbury blames the media:

"It could be that the format behind most business journalism skews perceptions and creates pessimism. To be very clear, I am not arguing that business news is purposefully biased. But what seems clear is that in the name of producing an entertaining product, and in an attempt to provide contrasting views, the true consensus of experts is rarely reported.

"A randomly selected pairing of economists from The Wall Street Journal forecasting panel would pit two rather optimistic forecasters against each other in debate. But having two economists debate about whether GDP will grow 2.1% this year or 2.4% is downright boring. As a result, the producers of business news spice things up. They arrange for debates between a bullish economist and a bearish economist. And since they can't have Messrs. Roubini and Shilling on every hour of every day, they find equity short-sellers who make a living when things turn down, or political economists who are trying to score points.

"While this is entertaining, and may bring in eyeballs, which sell commercials, this idea of 'fair and balanced' debates leaves an impression that the experts are split 50/50, when in reality it's more like 80/20, or 90/10."

At Andrew Sullivan's place, Bruce (his last name must be buried in there somewhere) is sympathetic:

"This is a pet peeve of my own and a reason why I avoid these sorts of programs. One thing that annoyed me particularly was that the producers would often put me up against some total nobody who had no clue about what he was talking about. In one case--I kid you not--I debated the minimum wage with an honest-to-God, fresh-off-the-streets homeless person. I refused to ever appear on that channel ever again and it eventually went off the air. (Incidentally, it's also annoying that bookers almost never tell you who you will debating ahead of time.)

"I don't mind debating those whose views are diametrically opposed to mine. In fact, I enjoy a good debate and have any number of friends on the left whom I would be happy to debate any time on any issue. Even though we may come to different conclusions, I know that we can probably agree on the facts and will argue along predictable lines. But too many producers find such sober discussions to be boring, so they try to liven things up by setting up debates with people who make up their own facts, argue illogically, make no effort to be consistent, and, too often, use up most of the [allotted] air time. Thus you end up wasting your own time refuting the other guy's errors rather than making your own points."

Now that's breaking news.

Britney in a fender-bender--what a shock. Will someone please take this woman's car keys away?