CBSNews.com: Your former colleague Howard Wolfson argued that you all unintentionally paved the way for Palin by exposing some of the unfair media coverage that Hillary Clinton received. And, therefore, a lot of the media may now be treating Sarah Palin with kid gloves. Do you agree with that?
Mark Penn: Well, no, I think the people themselves saw unfair media coverage of Senator Clinton. I think if you go back, the polls reflected very clearly what “Saturday Night Live” crystallized in one of their mock debates about what was happening with the press.
I think here the media is on very dangerous ground. I think that when you see them going through every single expense report that Governor Palin ever filed, if they don’t do that for all four of the candidates, they’re on very dangerous ground. I think the media so far has been the biggest loser in this race. And they continue to have growing credibility problems.
And I think that that’s a real problem growing out of this election. The media now, all of the media ”” not just Fox News, that was perceived as highly partisan ”” but all of the media is now being viewed as partisan in one way or another. And that is an unfortunate development.
CBSNews.com: So you think the media is being uniquely tough on Palin now?
Mark Penn: Well, I think that the media is doing the kinds of stories on Palin that they’re not doing on the other candidates. And that’s going to subject them to people concluding that they’re giving her a tougher time. Now, the media defense would be, “Yeah, we looked at these other candidates who have been in public life at an earlier time.”
What happened here very clearly is that the controversy over Palin led to 37 million Americans tuning into a vice-presidential speech, something that is unprecedented, because they wanted to see for themselves. This is an election in which the voters are going to decide for themselves. The media has lost credibility with them.
Update: This comment from Glenn Reynolds is apt here:
As Andrew Breitbart said on PJTV last night, it’s almost impossible to overstate the extent to which the Democratic Party and the Big Media are one and the same these days.
Was CBSNews.com serious when it asked, “And, therefore, a lot of the media may now be treating Sarah Palin with kid gloves”? If these are kid gloves, I’d hate to see the work gloves.
Penn is right in this instance. Palin is getting close scrutiny and harsh criticism which has not been aimed at Obama or Biden.
Yeah, [url=http://newsbusters.org/blogs/p-j-gladnick/2008/09/13/abc-news-edited-out-key-parts-sarah-palin-interview]kid gloves.[/url]
I found this interview one of the best lately, for both what it said and discretely left unsaid. Penn is potentially going to be marked in history the campaign strategist for the only [i]winning[/i] Democratic presidential campaign in 2008. Too bad the convention didn’t see it that way.
I’m a conservative voter, so my two cents may not count. Obama peaked in the spring and lost most of the later primaries. Superdelegates flocked to Obama and then were afraid to leave him when he started losing. If McCain had chosen a VP who didn’t energize the conservative base, Obama might still have skated through with an easy win. As it is, conservatives and women are pumped about Palin, and it’s a horse race. All the media’s efforts may not be enough to turn this around again for Obama. Many people consider media treatment of Palin offensive and demeaning.
Senator Obama has been treated with kid gloves from the get go. The Senator didn’t know the Bush doctrine and the purpose and function of the joint chief of staff, yet the press never hyper ventilated once. I haven’t heard one media type condemn the McCain attack ad where McCain is criticized for computer use when McCain can’t becuase of a war related disability. That Senator Obama sure knows how to take the high road!
Matt- I’d watch out about the Bush Doctrine. Some would say there is nothing of the sort, while others say there have been 4 versions thereof. Like Mr Munroe might not recognize his Doctrine if he were alive today, GWB probably would wish whatever version is being discussed in the press could be different here and altered there. As it might well be altered in the remainder of this term.
#5 my last is appropriate for your post as well. The fact that Obama (or Palin) could not identify a shifting target doesn’t mean a whole lot. The Talking Heads think that what they think something is, is what it is in everyone elses’ minds. That wasn’t true since the USSR collapsed, and even then wasn’t much true in the Soviet Union then.
“Did anyone here NOT know who Biden, McCain or Obama was before Palin’s pick?” Actually, no (especially Sen Obama who has not been on the national stage that long). Of course, I know their names, but if you’re not “into” politics, you don’t really start looking at the election until the late summer/fall. And I haven’t heard Sen. Obama or Sen Biden or Sen McCain asked by ABC the same type of questions that Gov. Palin was asked, and I certainly fault the network for editing out much of her substantive answers to create an impression they seemed to want (and don’t even get me started on Charles Gibson’s manner towards her!)
Yes I was. In one of the Debates with Clinton Senator Obama thought it refered to preconditons for meeting with heads of state. On the JCS Obama stated when he took office he would order the JCS to tell the General s to formulate a plan to remove the troops from Iraq. The JCS serve in and advisory role for the President, they are not involved with operational command. I hope the links work. abcnews.com/politicalradar/2007/07/obama-clinton-w.html – 70k,oregonlive.com/forums/usatwar/index.ssf?artid=65756 – 8k
I lost all respect for the integrity of the interview media after watching Ted Koppel ambush Dodger VP Al Campanis, who as a courtesy was a last minute fill-in. Campanis somewhat clumsily tried to explain the lack of minority managers in baseball by noting the difficulty for the many stars to start over in minor league management. Koppel immediately twisted that into meaning that minorities lacked the capacity to manage. The resulting furor cost Campanis his job. The American media sat silent before this travesty, with the sole exception of Mike Royko.
Sadly, recent events have only confirmed that with few exceptions the interview media are interested in self-glorification, not truth.
Below is a summary from Neal Boortz:
When it comes to Sarah Palin, we’ve been through the specifics on this Bridge to Nowhere cr*p. In fact, the Democrat Party in Alaska acknowledges that it was Sarah Palin who finally scrapped the bridge. That website, by the way, disappeared for a while, until pressured to re-post the page (which they did, only at a different address). But just as a little side note … guess who DID vote for the Bridge to Nowhere. Barack Obama and Joe Biden. Why doesn’t the media bring THAT to your attention. Even when given a second chance to shift the funds to Katrina relief programs, Obama and Biden still voted for the Bridge to Nowhere. While John McCain did not end up voting on the amendment, he is on record opposing the earmark.
When it comes to Sarah Palin’s record of reform … let’s just look at earmarks, since this is something that Palin and her Senate opponents have in common. Before Sarah Palin’s time as governor, the state of Alaska used to request over 100 earmarks each year to be secured by Alaska’s congressional delegation. When it came time for Sarah Palin to request her earmarks for the first time as governor … she slashed that number by half, requesting 54 earmarks. The next year, Palin cut that number AGAIN down to just 31 earmarks. Of those 31 earmarks, 27 of these are continuous or were previously appropriated. When Palin entered the governor’s office, the total amount of quests averaged $550 million a year. That number has been reduced to less than $200 million now that Palin is in office. And it would only continue to decline. One of Palin’s stated goals as Governor is to ask Congress for no more than a dozen earmarks for her state. On top of all that, Palin insisted that each earmark requested by the state of Alaska demonstrate an important federal purpose and public support. Whenever possible, Palin wants to have earmarks only if they can be matched by state or local budgets. And her administration is currently re-examining previous decisions on transportation earmarks … the Alaska Department of Transportation is conducting an audit to determine the status of every single one of its recent earmarks.
Let’s go ahead and take a look at Barack Obama’s earmarks in the Senate. In just three years, Barack Obama has requested over 300 earmark projects totaling $740 million. For the 2008 fiscal year alone, Obama requested 112 earmarks. Sarah Palin? 31.
Just a little something for you have mulling around in your brain as Obama gets all huffy about earmark spending. Sarah Palin actually cuts earmarks, Barack Obama says he supports earmark transparency and then requests almost $1 billion of your tax dollars to be spent on pork projects. Sarah Palin reduces the number of projects, reduces the costs, calls for projects that will only serve the nation as a whole, investigates previous earmark spending … and yet she is the one “lying.”
Hey Matt, when did she claim she “never supported it”? She claimed to have killed it, which she did.
If you can’t come up with her words saying what you claim, we’ll know who’s the one lying.
About the only thing I can agree with, Matt, is that Penn wrecked Clinton’s campaign. Her husband helped with that, too, which makes me wonder why Obama is accepting Bill’s help now. Could be a Trojan horse.
My point is that the media plays gottcha politics all the time and it can be done by both sides. During the Senator Obama’s interview O’Reilly , Oreilly asked about raising taxes. Senator Obama (I’m paraphrasing) said “we have some waitress over here who needs our help you make all this money….”. The press never questions the constitutionaly of this maneuver or the purpose of taxing. Giving should be a personel thing and not open to criticism, however when Biden only gives about $400.00 a year why isn’t the press asking? When we look at Obama and Biden’s tax records it seems they want to be very generous with other peoples money! Isn’t that a little more important?
I can’t get the links to work. Sorry I apologize. I google and get the appropriate hits but can’t link them and in some cases the page has moved.
Innaccurate, Matt. The Palin-bridge motif is one. I actually have no problems with politicians changing their minds so long as they can give reasonable explanations for having done so. It is quite true that Palin didn’t “kill” the earmark. However, the money still went to Alaska, now as a line-item in the state budget for the bridge rather than a required earmark. When she took office, she decided that money could be spent on projects of far more value to Alaskans, and directed the money elsewhere, so the statement that she finally “killed” the project is correct.
With reference to the sex-ed for kindergarten: Obama inserted and voted for an amendment which calls for sex education to extend K-12 instead of a later grade. The bill expressly calls for information on sexual matters and HIV prevention to be given to “all grades.” No, there’s no statement from Obama on condoms for kindergartners, but the bill says what it says. Practically speaking, this kind of thing is used to allow pro-same-sex propaganda in the lower grades, rather than explicit sexual talk. I object to this, and so do many others.
I am aware that Alaska, and Palin’s city, gets earmarked money. She has requested substantially less, year to year, in her governorship than previous administrations. She went to Kuwait. Did she say she’d been to Iraq as a serious claim, and not as a slip of the tongue? The “troopergate” thing appears to be seriously overhyped. It’s being investigated in Alaska at her request.
Political campaigns involve hyperbole and charges and counter-charges. Saying she’s a deliberate liar is pretty strong and not supported by the facts. I’d like to think disagreements could avoid personal invective. Granted, you dislike Palin’s politics and I dislike Obama’s. I’ll vote for the candidate who is relatively more conservative and you’ll vote for the liberal. He’s only relatively liberal if we count his own recent changes of opinion and policy. I don’t think Obama is the devil incarnate, I just think he’s wrong on issues.
I’ve now found a report on the Palin/Iraq item. In her interview with ABC, she said she went to Kuwait and stopped to see wounded troops on the way home. Campaign aides, not Palin, said that she had gone over the border into Iraq, which is incorrect. The campaign has corrected the report to say that she went to Kuwait and up near the border but not into Iraq. Campaign misstatements corrected within a reasonable time should be given a pass for both sides. If they’d continued for weeks to claim a visit to Iraq then we’d have a different deal.
RE:” The difference between Obama, Biden, and Palin on this subject is that she’s claiming she never supported it, when she clearly did.
Matt, Can you please provide the quote where she said she never supported it? Thanks
RE: “her claim that she visited the battlefield in Iraq…” Matt, you now admit you’re wrong about that; but hey, I suppose we could give you the same benefit of the doubt you give Gov. Palin and say “That’s … sorry to say it … lying.”
And re: the kindergarten sex ed issue, I heard an audio of an interview with Obama about that a few days ago where he said he personally thinks it’s a good idea. Maybe you missed that, huh.
An interesting perspective, Matt. I still think it is unfortunate that politicians have to be represented, mutually, as liars and slime. I doubt very much that a politician with an 80% approval rating in her own state can be as mendacious as you represent. I think we are reading competing information sources.
I would oppose the sort of program that you describe with reference to kindergarten programs, actually. He has also, I believe, been quoted as supporting the reading of “Heather has two mommies” sorts of materials in early grades. In general I prefer that primary grades get appropriate class supervision and leave the sex education of any variety out of it. “Age-appropriate” can cover a lot of things that parents might find objectionable. An opt-out is not good enough; why teach questionable material in the first place?
McCain has been one of the prime objectors to earmarks over the course of his career. Weaning state governments off of the gravy train, if tried, is going to take a long time. Everybody looks at it as free money when it’s not, of course. His anti-pork stand is one of the really good things about him, among other things on which I disagree with him.
Probably we can go back to reading political blogs and leave off here, though.
[i] This elf agrees with Katherine’s last sentence. [/i]