Great news for "the left" -- Politics Daily's Jill Lawrence wrote us a memo!
Who is Jill Lawrence, you may ask. She is the prognosticator who declared three months ago, "It may be too soon to write a requiem for the public option, but I'm going to do it anyway..."
Surprise, surprise, she now writes, "Memo to the Left: The Public Health Insurance Option Is Dead, Get Over It."
I actually don't care that someone would question whether the public option is dead. Ezra Klein -- a smart guy -- wrote just last Friday, "The public option: Very alive or totally dead?" (He also wrote, "the story of the public option's resurgence has been a mixture of smart organizing and Senate cowardice," much appreciated by the thousands of folks who have been organizing on this issue.)
What I resent about Jill Lawrence's "memo" is that she engages in journalism without facts. Check out her main three arguments against progressives:
First, a public option could complicate passage in the House. Pelosi is trying to balance potential loss of support from anti-abortion Democrats against gains that may come from moderate "Blue Dog" Democrats who prefer the Senate bill. They like it in part because it has no public option.
I spoke with Jill Lawrence and she said this on the phone. I asked her point blank, "What yes votes turn to no votes because of the public option?" Her answer, "Well, I don't know the names."
I suggested she find them. Evidently, she couldn't. But she threw this unsupported argument out there anyway.
One could just as easily say some members of the House are more likely to vote for the bill if it has a public option. Unlike Jill Lawrence, I can name names. The Atlantic's Chris Good wrote about Rep. Scott Murphy (D-NY) -- a former "no" vote -- in his piece, "A Moderate Dem For The Public Option." When signing our House public option letter, Murphy said:
"Our nation's health care system is broken. To have real reform we need to ensure three things; accessibility, accountability, and affordability. I support this letter because the public option would help achieve all three of these goals and help to keep costs down by giving the American public a competitive option to private insurers."
Jill Lawrence's first point goes down in flames. But, she took two more stabs at it. Here's the next one:
Last night, thousands of Americans attended vigils for healthcare reform sponsored by MoveOn.org. (Photos from the New York vigil here.) The president says that a public option isn't the most important part of health care reform, but it's a make-or-break issue for his liberal base.
The relentlessly cynical and negative traditional media has talked itself into believing certain things about the fight over health care reform, whether there is any serious evidence beyond their own self-reinforcing stories or not. Unfortunately, what happens when these kind of stories are written, everyone - Congresspeople, unnamed lobbyists, unnamed administration, other journalists, progressive activists, and bloggers - then reacts to these stories, usually to reinforce their own point of view or their client's interest.
The problem is that so many of these assumptions are unproven/unknown at best, or downright mythological at worst. Having been deeply immersed in both the lasting health care fight in 1993-94 and this one today, I feel fairly confident in pointing out some of these things that most traditional media reporters seem to believe as gospel that in fact are not all certain. Let me just mention a few of the biggest:
This morning, at 11:35am EST, I'm scheduled to be on MSNBC. I was told it would be discussing the news of the day with a conservative blogger.
When I just called to find out what that news might be, they indicated it would be this piece in Politico by Ari Melber:
Barack Obama's reality-show presidency
We are now living through the first reality-show presidency.
The trends began in the early 1990s, with 24-hour cable news and reality programming, and intensified in the past few years, with the rise of celebrity culture and micro-broadcasting technology.
This is the first administration
, however, to fuse iterative, real-time lifestyle coverage with the star power of a true celebrity politician. The White House is deftly serving the huge public and media interest in President Barack Obama, not only as a leader and celebrity but also as a character in a fascinating story far beyond politics.
So far, it is working.
...This week, for example, while many wonks debated Obama's health care objectives, the media had other goals in mind. "It's the Weekend, So Obama Becomes a Soccer Dad," blared an AP headline, detailing Obama's cameo as soccer fan at his daughter's games. "At one point, after [his daughter's] team scored, the president shouted excitedly, 'Go ... go ... go ... goal,'" the article recounted. Television news programs also picked up the scene, playing loops of Obama, clad in a White Sox jacket, cheering on the sidelines.
As MoveOn's former media-issues campaigner, I definitely have some thoughts on where I'd take a conversation about the content in this piece. But, I'm curious, what points would you make?
For an entire day in September 2008, the cable news networks reported on "Lipstickgate" -- an episode that will forever be a blemish on journalism.
Today, I have to ask: Where's the media outrage over a true scandal, Arlen Specter's Cancergate? (Yes, I'm coining that term -- to describe Specter tricking the public into donating to a cancer cure website that actually funds his political campaign.)
Also today, I believe I'm first to break some news: Arlen Specter's campaign has quietly changed his "Specter for the Cure" website after initially denying it was a scandal. And I have the screenshots to prove it.
First, the back story. The hint of scandal was first dropped Sunday, May 3, in a Fort Worth Star Telegram article quoting OpenSecrets.org's Sheila Krumholz:
As an example of a misleading Web site, she cites www.Specterforthecure.com. It appears to be a fundraising site for a reform movement to help Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pa., fund programs that will seek cures for major diseases and illnesses.
Actually, it’s a fundraising arm for the re-election of Specter, who last week switched parties from Republican to Democratic.
Unfortunately, "Watchdog" reporter Dave Lieber completely buried the lead in paragraph 23, potentially dooming it to obscurity. Until...the same publication resurrected the item the next day and put it in a headline, "Arlen Specter and his confusing web site." This story elevates some important details:
A Specter spokeswoman told The Watchdog: "Specterforthecure.com is explicit throughout — including the name itself — that the site raises money for a candidate.
The same morning [Dave Lieber's original] column ran, Specter was on CBS' Face The Nation to talk about his recent defection to the Democrats. Specter took a moment to mention SpecterForTheCure.com. See if you can figure out what the site's purpose is from his remarks:
"And one of the items that I’m working on, Bob, is funding for medical research. I’ve been the spear carrier to increase medical research. And I’ve even established a Web site, Specterforthecure.com, to try to get people to put more pressure on Congress to join me in getting more funding." (Full transcript here.)
[Bold added to emphasize, ahem, lies.]
Here is a screenshot of SpecterForTheCure.com, taken yesterday (Friday, May 8) at about 5pm EST. If your mother or grandmother heard Arlen Specter on CBS and went to this site, what would they think they were contributing to?
Journalist Martin Kady II wrote a story today in the Politico that I criticized here. Here's the specific problematic passage.
Leaders of the anti-war movement are also accepting that their best hope is a symbolic vote.
We're advocating putting as many of the provisions in the first round" of the legislation, said John Isaacs, executive director of Council for a Livable World, which is part of a larger anti-war coalition led by MoveOn.org. "We recognize that ultimately the wars are going to be funded, ... that some type of supplemental will be passed.
John Isaacs denied saying that this would be a symbolic vote, and it's quite obvious that a war funding could have conditions - a timeline for withdrawal for instance - attached, obviating the point of Kady's paragraph. Furthermore, I have confirmed with Moveon that neither Eli Pariser, Nita Chaudhary, or Ilyse Hogue spoke with the Politico for this article.
I am emailing Martin Kady II to ask him which leaders of the anti-war movement he means, why he quoted a member of a different group to represent Moveon, and whether he will provide the full context of Isaacs's quote.
UPDATE: I have gone back and forth with Kady numerous times, and he will not provide me with information on which anti-war leaders he or other Politico reporters talked to, nor would he provide evidence to back up his claim about anti-war groups. Furthermore, when pressed, he changed the wording from 'leaders' to 'members' when characterizing the anti-war proponents he apparently is citing.
Ryan Grim, who helped Kady write the story, instantly sent me the full quote by John Isaacs, which, as you can see, undercuts Kady's article.
We're saying, to put it in simple terms, to put as many good provisions related to Iraq-Well, let me just step back. We recognize that ultimately the wars are going to be funded, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, that some type of supplemental bill will be passed. We also recognize that a lot of grassroots activists are going to yell at Democrats and say, 'Hey, you're funding the war. In 2006 we elected you to stop the war.' So we're advocating putting as many good provisions in the supplemental, at least the first version. For example, not only setting a deadline to bring the troops home but a ban on torture, a requirement that this upcoming U.S. Iraqi long-term security agreement goes to Congress, or so-called dwell time between deployments and so on. Plus, we don't deal with domestics-the economic stimulus package-but that's probably going to be another element."
"We're recognizing that if a bill goes to the president with a lot of provisions that we'd like to see in it, the president's going to veto the bill. Then we're saying, 'Well, okay, you take out the provisions the administration absolutely can't live with, such as a deadline for troops, but see if we can get some of the other provisions adopted, even in the second bill that the president ultimately signs.'"
Me: So leave in, like, ban on torture and long-term security?
Isaacs: Exactly.
In our correspondence, Kady marked his notes 'off the record' despite proffering no useful information and without soliciting my agreement. I found that odd to say the least. Originally I began writing about this because I was confused that anti-war groups were openly giving up on the supplemental. It turns out that they weren't, or at least that Kady did not find evidence to that effect. Now it appears that Isaacs gave a more comprehensive view of the situation, and that Kady just put Isaacs's snipped quote to tell the story he wanted to tell. I say 'appears' because I am still waiting to hear from Kady what evidence he has about the anti-war groups.
This kind of misinformation is a serious problem, and the pervasive use of conventional wisdom or the regurgitation of things that everyone just 'knows' will happen creates a situation that incentivizes infighting and disempowerment from citizens. It's no wonder the Politico loves engaging in it.
UPDATE AGAIN: Kady sent me this statement.
First, I'll concede that we could have been more clear in referring to the "symbolic" vote as relating specifically to a troop withdrawal timetable. There will likely be a vote on this, yet it will probably die on the Senate floor, and most anti-war lawmakers I spoke to admit that is the likely course this legislation will take - they simply want a vote on a supplemental with a timetable, but they realize this will not make it to the president's desk, thus making the vote symbolic. We spoke to four lawmakers from the Out of Iraq Caucus about this, as well as people involved in the anti war movement. Then I wrote the story.
As to your set of questions about who we did and did not talk to - I can't on any story provide a complete list of every person I speak to on a story - that part of the deliberative process of reporting is between a reporter and his or her sources. Like all stories, we spoke to more people than were quoted in the story, and I don't believe the story suggests we talked to MoveOn.
