Tag: Talking Points Memo

Reid and McConnell on verge of agreement for dramatically scaled back filibuster deal.

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From the Globe …

Swartz and his lawyers were not looking for a free pass. They had offered to accept a deferred prosecution or probation, so that if Swartz pulled a stunt like that again, he would end up in prison.

Marty Weinberg, who took the case over from Good, said he nearly negotiated a plea bargain in which Swartz would not serve any time. He said JSTOR signed off on it, but MIT would not.

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From The Oregonian, chip on their shoulder gun owners ascend new heights of awesome …

Police say two men openly carried assault rifles in the Portland’s Sellwood area to demonstrate their 2nd amendment rights and “educate the public”.

Steven M. Boyce, of Gresham, and Warren R. Drouin, of Medford, both 22, were spotted by officers about 1:50 p.m. Wednesday near Southeast 7th Avenue and Spokane Street and have concealed handgun licenses, said Sgt. Pete Simpson, a Portland Police Bureau spokesman. They were not arrested because the rifles remained on their backs, he added.

Officers warned the duo that the sight of their rifles would generate 911 calls, but neither man seemed concerned, Simpson said. No shots were fired.

In addition to numerous 911 calls, the two sent at least one school into lockdown. But among the many other hilarious and horrific things about this story is the one thing that’s right out there in plain site, namely, that this was perfectly legal. Boyce and Drouin both have up to date concealed carry licenses and the assault rifles are legal weapons. So there was nothing the police could do.

Now, even most people who support the idea that basically any law-abiding citizen should be able to get a license to carry around a handgun probably get that this is not a great idea. After all, for other things beside carrying weapons there are disturbing the peace ordinances that give police some ability to intervene if people are doing normally legal things in a way that creates havoc or public disturbances.

But guns, in many cases, seem to have more rights than you or I.

[Photo Credit: Shutterstock]

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A number of media reporters have now followed up with reports about the Times switcheroo. And the answer from the Times is that it was part of the normal editing process and the preference for on-the-record quotes over blind quotes. The specific response we got from Eileen Murphy, spokesperson for the Times, reads as follows …

As reporting went on during the day yesterday, we were able to flesh out the story, add more context and get more sources on the record, which is obviously what we prefer. Having said that, we stand by the reporting in all versions of the story.

Peter Baker, who replaced David Sanger as the lead byline, told Buzzfeed, “It’s just normal journalism — as more reporting comes in, you improve the story. On the record Republican criticism beats anonymous Republican criticism.”

But this is a weak answer which at least dodges what I see as the key question about the piece.

On the record quotes are always to be preferred to blind or background quotes. But the real issue is the utility of the quote in question. One quote in the original Times piece had some former Bush advisor willing to crap on Romney with a good quote. That doesn’t add that much really since lots of people were willing to crap on him yesterday. And it’s always easy to snark behind a blind quote. So there may be some rationale for revising out that quote.

But that’s not the big change in my opinion.

The original piece included a quote from someone the Times called “one of Mr. Romney’s senior advisers” explaining their rationale for their broadside Tuesday night. This wasn’t a critic with a blind quote. It was the Romney campaign itself, seemingly someone very high up in the organization, explaining their actions.

“We’ve had this consistent critique and narrative on Obama’s foreign policy, and we felt this was a situation that met our critique, that Obama really has been pretty weak in a number of ways on foreign policy, especially if you look at his dealings with the Arab Spring and its aftermath,” one of Mr. Romney’s senior advisers said on Wednesday. “I think the reality is that while there may be a difference of opinion regarding issues of timing, I think everyone stands behind the critique of the administration, which we believe has conducted its foreign policy in a feckless manner.”

The first part of that quote makes the advisor seem callow, frivolous, and shabby. We’ve had the critique out there, “this was a situation that met our critique”, and that was good enough for us. We just let fly.

That sounds like the Romney campaign describing itself pretty much as its critics described it through yesterday. That had a standing critique, a crisis blew up that seemed like it could fit, and well … that was good enough for them, without any sense of whether they should go full-bore attack during an international crisis, get the facts straight or find out what had actually happened.

In other words, in addition to falsifying key facts they appeared to react to the crisis with a purely political calculus.

In the edited version of the Times piece, as Politico’s Dylan Byers notes, that quote is replaced by an on-the-record quote from policy director Lanhee Chen …

Mr. Romney’s camp was surprised by the blowback. “While there may be differences of opinion regarding issues of timing,” Mr. Chen said, “I think everyone stands behind the critique of the administration, which we believe has conducted its foreign policy in a feckless manner.”

As you can see, the second portion is identical. So it really sounds like the blind quote was from Chen as well.

Regardless, though, replacing a revealing off-the-record quote from the campaign with a self-serving on-the-record quote does not amount to good journalism.

I think the totality of the edit merits that verdict as well. But this particular revision makes that very clear.

via Talking Points Memo http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2012/09/about_the_times_piece.php?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Talking-Points-Memo+%28Talking+Points+Memo%3A+by+Joshua+Micah+Marshall%29

CNN just released a new presidential poll showing a tight 2 point margin for President Obama going into the Republican convention. I’d say the even bigger story is down in the details. This is the first poll that CNN has released with “likely voters” — just like Fox’s most recent poll did. If you look at the number for registered voters it’s a 9 point Obama margin.

What that means is that President Obama has actually gained a bit of ground (obviously within the margin of error) on last week’s eye-popping poll showing him with a 7 point lead over Mitt Romney. But it also shows that turnout and propensity to vote are going to be the whole game going into November.

Likely voter screens almost always provide some GOP edge. But 7 points is an extremely large one for a presidential contest.

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Social conservative Bryan Fischer says the person who’s really being raped is Todd Akin.

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