Atrios Blog

What was it David Brooks said the other day about lefty bloggers?

As the immediate past eCampaign Director for the GOP, and the eCampaign Director for Bush-Cheney 04, I may be one of the only people who can answer this directly.
We started to build this in January of last year. The plans for the launch of GOP.com last spring included two things that have never made it to the light of day - a viral fundraising component, and a "MyGOP" functionality that would have let activists build a MySpace-like site on GOP.com. Practical reality set in, however, and killed both. The trouble with the MyGOP concept was the conflict it created with incredibly tight internal controls on message.

When we were forced to pull a Social Security Testimonials tool off the site because someone dared to use the word "private" instead of the more acceptable "personal" accounts, it became apparent that our internal tolerance for self-expression would not allow that sort of openness. Arguments that restrictions of that nature are ridiculous and hamper our ability to be effective online were met with stony silence. In the end, MyGOP went nowhere.

The perfesser.

It's the only explanation for how these things can be true simultaneously.

Every conservative on the internet is an avid hunter and they've all been shot multiple times.

Shotguns aren't really guns, just toys. You can't really hurt people with them, only animals.

It's standard hunter etiquette to yell and scream at your fellow hunters as they're stalking their prey.

The most dangerous place to be is behind the people with the guns.

And Dick Cheney was not drunk, so stop saying that.

Would it be too much trouble for the media who are downplaying Whittington's injuries to comprehend that he's been in ICU for 3 days and will be in the hospital for several days longer after that?

Pellet gun:

After difficulty getting information from Cheney's staff, ABC News learned from sources mostly outside the White House that the vice president's Secret Service contingent had notified the local sheriff an hour after the vice president accidentally shot prominent Texas lawyer Harry Whittington with a pellet gun while hunting for quail.

Pellet gun.


Pellet gun.





Pellet gun.

The key thing about the Media Matters report is how the rules have changed (or stayed the same, depending on how you look at it). From Waldman's Monthly article:

Fair play

Since the Sunday shows focus so heavily on the words and actions of the powerful, it's perhaps not surprising that the party controlling the executive branch is represented more than the opposition. That's certainly the explanation producers give for their often lopsided line-ups. "If you take everybody from the Bush administration and label them Republicans or partisans," says Carin Pratt, the executive producer of CBS's "Face the Nation," "we're a country at war, and when we can get someone from the administration [to be a guest on the show], like the secretary of state, then we get them. Republicans are in power. I bet you'd find the same thing during Clinton's administration." Betsey Fischer, the executive producer of NBC's "Meet the Press," responds much the same way. "The party holding the presidency also has a Cabinet full of major newsmaker guests that speak to U.S. policy matters," she says. "The same would be true for the eight years of the Clinton administration when the Cabinet was, by and large, filled with Democrats."

This sounds reasonable enough—except Pratt and Fischer are wrong about the Clinton years. In fact, during Clinton's second term, only 48 percent of the ideologically identifiable guests on the Sunday shows were Democrats or progressives while 52 percent were Republicans or conservatives. (Available transcripts from Clinton's first term are not complete enough to allow analysis.) And when Bush swept into town, the gap widened further. In Bush's first term, Republicans and conservatives held a solid advantage, out-talking the left by 58 to 42 percent. (Things were virtually the same in 2005, with the margin 57 to 43 percent in favor of the right). There were small differences between the shows, but all showed the same overall pattern: rough parity during the Clinton years, Republican domination during the Bush years.

Perhaps this shift is explained by the fact that we had a divided government when Clinton was president and have had one-party rule under Bush. But if that's true, how do we explain the years 2001 and 2002? For a 16-month period in which the Democrats held control of the Senate, the number of Democrats booked on the shows not only did not increase, but actually dropped further. Political power, it seems, does not always equal access to the airwaves.

You might think this balance would shift somewhat during an election year, when both parties have major candidates who make headlines and attract attention. Again, Fischer of "Meet the Press" told us directly that this should happen. "When one party has 10 contenders for the presidential nomination [as the Democrats did in 2004]," she wrote in an email, "one could expect those candidates to occupy a majority of interview time on the program." One could indeed expect that result, but one would be wrong. Despite all the appearances by Democratic presidential hopefuls—and they had a whole slew, compared to the uncontested Republican primaries—Republicans still outnumbered Democrats on "Meet the Press" in 2004, just as they did on "Face the Nation" and ABC's "This Week."

During the 2nd term of the Clinton administration Republican/Conservative voices were given serious air time. During the Bush administration left/Democratic voices were not, and this was true even during the period of divided government when the Dems controlled the Senate.

So, when Democrats are in power Republicans get heard. When Republicans are in power, Republicans get heard.

Here it is for people who are interested.


Link goes to summary, you can find the full report there.

There's a lot that's of interest in the Media Matters report which is embargoed for another 45 minutes, but Kevin Drum highlights one - the lack of anti-war Senators on the Sunday shows during the run-up to the Iraq war. Personally I think Drum's explanation - lazy bookers on autopilot - isn't all of the answer. Despite the fact that between 40-60% (or so) people were against the war depending on how the question was asked and at what time there were so few genuine anti-war voices in the media at all during that time. The lack of dissenting voices on the issue of the day speaks to something other than just lazy bookers, though I don't doubt that having Biden and McCain on speed dial had something to do with this particular statistic.


But, more generally, is there any reason for John McCain to have been on 124 times since 1997? Yes he ran for president in 2000, but aside from that he doesn't even currently hold an especially prominent committee chair.

It's been requested that people refrain from posting Olympics spoilers in the threads.

Yeah, yeah, another stupid open thread.

Yeah, yeah, another stupid open thread.

You know I really don't normally give a shit about athlete endorsement deals, but I really found this Times piece bizarre in its gleeful prediction of Michelle Kwan's professional doom.

Daily Show on Deadeye Dick.

Yah, what Stoller says. I had no position on the Hackett/Brown primary, but I saw no reason why it wasn't the perfect time/place to actually have a primary. They aren't always bad things. There isn't a lump sum of money for elections which gets eaten away which strangely seems to be a common view among people.

George Deutsch.

Typical Republican WATB.

Fortunately someone in the White House press corps had sense enough to realize that this does not make any sense:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush disclosed new details on Thursday of a thwarted al Qaeda plot to use shoe bombs to hijack a plane and fly it into a Los Angeles building, as he sought to justify his tactics in fighting terrorism.

Um, you can't hijack a plane with shoe bombs. You can blow up a plane with shoe bombs. From the gaggle:

Q Scott, I wanted to just ask a follow-up about the LA plot. Is there something missing from this story, a practical application, a few facts? Because if you want to commandeer a plane and fly it into a tower, if you used shoe bombs, wouldn't you blow off the cockpit? Or is there something missing from this story?

MR. McCLELLAN: I don't know what you're referring to about missing. I mean, I think we provided you a detailed briefing earlier today about the plot. And Fran Townsend, our Homeland Security Advisor, talked about it. So I'm not sure what you're suggesting it.

Q Think about it, if you're wearing shoe bombs, you either blow off your feet or you blow off the front of the airplane.

MR. McCLELLAN: There was a briefing for you earlier today. I think that's one way to look at it. There are a lot of ways to look at it, and she explained it earlier today, Alexis, so I would refer you very much back to what she said, what she said earlier today.

And fails.


The new journalism, where even the "facts" must be balanced.

Bush then:

But I want to tell you something -- leaks of classified information are a bad thing. And we've had them -- there's too much leaking in Washington. That's just the way it is. And we've had leaks out of the administrative branch, had leaks out of the legislative branch, and out of the executive branch and the legislative branch, and I've spoken out consistently against them and I want to know who the leakers are.

And now we have:

Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby, testified to a federal grand jury that he had been "authorized" by Cheney and other White House "superiors" in the summer of 2003 to disclose classified information to journalists to defend the Bush administration's use of prewar intelligence in making the case to go to war with Iraq, according to attorneys familiar with the matter, and to court records.

Fox follows CNN's lead, edits out applause and then... Kondracke comments on the lack of applause!