Sign up for The Media Today, CJR’s daily newsletter.
Happy Monday to all you good folks out there on the Internets. Our favorite voice of moderation in the blogosphere — the, uh, Moderate Voice — starts us off with a discussion of the head of Amnesty International USA’s embarrassing tiptoe away from his group’s earlier declaration that the military prison at Guantanamo Bay is “the gulag of our times.” Writes Joe Gandleman: “This underscores a cautionary note for groups on the right and left and politicians as well. Using labels and potent phrases is as old as politics. What’s new is the existence of news ‘cycles’ that are actually one continuous news cycle, zipping along at the speed of milliseconds — allowing all charges to be out there, instantly discussed and examined for accuracy on TV and on the Internet. And if an attention-getting charge can’t be proven to quite hold up you get this.”
The Los Angeles Times reports that “Democrats Joseph Biden and John Edwards are criticizing party chairman Howard Dean, saying his rhetorical attacks on Republicans have gone too far.” (Dean said recently, “Republicans, I guess, can do that because a lot of them have never made an honest living in their lives.”) Both Baldilocks and Patrick Carver think Dean’s big mouth will be his undoing. That seems unlikely, but there is some frustration with the chairman, even from liberal bloggers: Ezra “as partisan as they come” Klein, for one, says the pair were right to denounce Dean. “Nail them for what they’ve done, not what you think of them,” he writes. “DeLay’s corruption is proven, his criminality is not. The leadership’s myopia is obvious, their working habits are not. It’s fine for Dean to punch hard, but even the newest fighter knows you have to hit from higher ground.” An interesting aside: many of Klein’s commenters agree with him, but they think Biden and Edwards should have criticized Dean privately, not publicly.
Arianna Huffington — who knew she had a blog? — breaks down Ken Mehlman’s “Meet The Press” appearance yesterday, dubbing his tactic for dealing with questions “The E-ZPass method.” Writes Huffington: “His technique? Just repeat or slightly rephrase his talking point, and trust that [host Tim] Russert will give up, wave him on, and proceed to the next prepared question.” Huffington blames Russert for playing into Mehlman’s tactics. But she saves her best barbs for the RNC chair, who said he “respectfully disagrees” with Pat Tillman’s mother:
In fact, Mehlman said he “respectfully disagrees” a total of seven times over the course of the interview. Sometimes he respectfully disagrees with people, sometimes with a report, sometimes with numbers. Mostly, he “respectfully disagrees” with the truth.
Finally, we’re gonna indulge our inner adolescent and direct you to a screenshot from a Sunday MSNBC broadcast, posted over at Fishbowl DC. We don’t want to spoil the joke, but MSNBC committed what Garrett Graff calls “an embarrassing gaffe” in its identification of reporter Norah O’Donnell. Click here — trust us. For some reason, we’ve got a sudden urge to go watch Blazing Saddles.
–Brian Montopoli
Has America ever needed a media defender more than now? Help us by joining CJR today.
