Daily Intel – Page 4 – Gabriel Snyder â€” Notes

Jun 22, 2012

Politico Suspends Reporter for Suggesting Romneyâ€™s Only Comfortable Around â€˜White Folksâ€™

Joe Williams, Politico’s White House Correspondent, made the remarks that resulted in his suspension during a panel discussion on Martin Bashir’s MSNBC show. Bashir suggested that Mitt Romney might be having trouble connecting with Hispanics because he rarely appears on television besides Fox. Williams responded:

Romney is very, very comfortable it seems with people who are like him. That’s one of the reasons why he seems so stiff and awkward in some town hall settings, why he can’t relate to people other than that. But when he comes on Fox and Friends, they’re like him, they’re white folks who are very much relaxed in their own company.

Not helping matters: The joke Williams tweeted about Romney’s penis. Williams’s account is currently set to private, but the colorful 140-character dispatches are available on Breitbart.com.

Politico’s founding editors John Harris and Jim VandeHei addressed Williams’s suspension in a memo to staff about their journalists’ “clear and inflexible responsibility to cover politics fairly and free of partisan bias.” They explained:

Regrettably, an unacceptable number of Joe Williams’s public statements on cable and Twitter have called into question his commitment to this responsibility. His comment about Governor Romney earlier today on MSNBC fell short of our standards for fairness and judgment in an especially unfortunate way.

Joe has acknowledged that his appearance reflected a poor choice of words. This appearance came in the context of other remarks on Twitter that, cumulatively, require us to make clear that our standards are serious, and so are the consequences for disregarding them. This is true for all POLITICO journalists, including an experienced and well-respected voice like Joe Williams.

Following discussion of this matter with editors, Joe has been suspended while we review the matter.

Brooklyn Artist Deemed Sane, Insufficiently Cynical Following Bomb Scare

Takeshi Miyakawa, the artist who was arrested when his “I Love New York” bag art installation was mistaken for a bomb, has passed a mental health exam. Miyakawa, whose sweet project landed him at Riker’s Island for five days, told NY1:

I did the installation to send a simple message. I love New York too, to people in the street. It’s such a positive and simple message. I thought it was going to work out fine. There was some misunderstanding. I’m sorry about that.

He should watch himself. Presumably gushing about wanting to share his love of the city with his fellow New Yorkers is what made the court think he might be crazy in the first place. Unfortunately,Â Miyakawa’s ordeal still isn’t over. He’s still facing charges for planting false bombs, reckless endangerment, and criminal nuisance, and is scheduled to be back in court on July 19.

Candidates Wonâ€™t Admit Theyâ€™re Running for Congress in Campaign Ads

Those running for Congress this year are faced with a problem: Tradition (and common sense) dictates that they mention what office they’re seeking in their ads. However, in the 30 or so seconds they have to win over voters, no one wants to bring up a legislative body known for its ineffectiveness, abysmally low approval ratings, and tendency to kill enjoyable Internet memes. That’s why candidates across the country are turning to a new strategy. They hope that omitting words like Congress, senator, and representative from commercials will encourage voters to elect them to take on the fat cats in some vague location where laws come from.

According to the Washington Post, this high-stakes version of Taboo isn’t limited to first-time office-seekers. Even incumbents are touting their homespun values and promising to change things in Washington, without mentioning that they’ve already had several terms to accomplish that task. For example, in a recent ad, Martin Heinrich, a candidate from New Mexico, declares that the state’s problems “won’t be solved by the powers that be in Washington,” without mentioning that he sort of is one of those powers. Heinrich has been a member of the House since 2009, and now he’s running for Senate (that detail might be easy to miss, since the word “Senate” only appears in tiny fonts at the end of the ad).

Congressional approval ratings have actually been up in recent months, but a jump from 10 percent to 17 percent isn’t all that impressive. Republican strategist and admaker Mark McKinnon tells the Post, â€œThe best and only thing candidates can do is to vigorously point out every reason why you are not like the rest of your colleagues.â€ It’s too bad that incumbents have rejected “do things that make people hate us less” as a campaign strategy.

Ann Curry on Her Way Out at Today

Months of media chatter about Ann Curry’s role on the Today Show is finally coming to a head as the New York Times reports that “secret” planning is underway to replace her after a year on the job. The secret is definitely out now, with Brian Stelter noting Curry has hired a high-profile lawyer to broker her transition at NBC, potentially to a foreign-correspondent spot.

Earlier this year, with Matt Lauer in contract limbo, New York reported on his importance to the network’s ratings amid Curry’s “rocky transition” into the co-hosting duties previously held by Meredith Viera but never quite perfected since the departure of Katie Couric in 2006. (The Times also happened to publish a huge review of Curry’s performance today, examining her “on-screen distance” and its effect on the show’s ratings problems.) Lauer signed back on for big money, but soon after, Today lost to Good Morning America for the first time in sixteen years (and then again). Curry “got her dream job, and she doesn’t want to let it go,” one source told the Times, but as with any breakup, part of her knows it’s just not working out. Today‘s 9 a.m. co-host Savannah Guthrie is already being floated as a potential replacement.

MSNBC Misrepresents Romney Speech, Invents Wawa ‘Gaffe’

Today MSNBC aired footage of Mitt Romney marveling at the Wawa hoagie-ordering process during a campaign stop in Pennsylvania, saying, “You press a little touchtone keypad â€” you touch this, touch this, go pay the cashier â€” thereâ€™s your sandwich. Itâ€™s amazing.” He’s so corny and out of touch! Except, the full three-minute clip shows that Romney was actually describing his Wawa outing as part of a metaphor about government bureaucracy. The guy may be rich, but he’s ordered a sandwich before.

The gaffe has been gaining traction today, with “Wawa” trending on Twitter and Matt Bevens, a surrogate press coordinator for the Obama campaign, remarking, “So out of touch he’s never used a gas station touchscreen.” Yet, in context, Romney was contrasting the simplicity of ordering a sandwich at Wawa with the difficulty a local optometrist had changing his address on government forms. He concluded, “People in the private sector have learned how to compete. It’s time to bring some competition to the federal government.”

On her show today Andrea Mitchell dubbed the incident Romney’s “super market scanner moment.” She’s more accurate than she realized. In 1992 George H.W. Bush was painted as out of touch after it was reported that he was “amazed” by the device at a National Grocers Association convention. He actually wasn’t looking at the standard scanner found in most grocery stores at the time, but new technology that could weigh food and read torn bar codes.

Wawa-gate is a textbook “Out-of-Context Gaffe,” plus, even without the edited footage there was enough material for a story on Romney’s awkward attempt to embrace Pennsylvania’s local cuisine. He repeatedly referred to the chain as “Wawa’s,” not “Wawa,” and used the (unimpressive) touchscreen to order a meatball hero with pickles and sweet peppers rather than a classic hoagie.

Gomorrah Filmmakers May Have Paid Off Italian Mob

Italian prosecutors are looking into it.Â

via Daily Intel http://www.vulture.com/2012/06/gomorrah-filmmakers-may-have-paid-off-mob.html

Jun 11, 2012

Is Anna Wintour Angling for an Ambassador Post in London?

An article in Saturdayâ€™s Guardian mused that Anna Wintour might be rewarded with a political appointment in return for all the money sheâ€™s raising for Obamaâ€™s reelection campaign. Namely, that sheâ€™d be named the U.S. ambassador in England, a post thatâ€™s expected to open up later this year. At first
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