Lunchtime Outrage

John Cole: Mission Accomplished

A game of connect the dots for you all.

The Politico internal memo from a little bit back:

Stories need to be both interesting and illuminating—we don’t have the luxury of running stories folks won’t click on or spend several minutes with in the paper.

a) Would this be a “most e-mailed” story?

b) Would I read this story if I hadn’t written it?

c) Would my mother read this story?

d) Will a blogger be inspired to post on this story?

e) Might an investor buy or sell a stock based on this story?

f) Would a specialist learn something from this story?

g) Will my competitors be forced to follow this?

IN MOST CASES, THE ANSWER WILL BE “YES” TO SEVERAL OF THESE QUESTIONS IF THIS IS A STRONG POLITICO STORY. If you are not certain that several of these are “yes,” you can reframe your reporting and analysis so people will say, “POLITICO is reporting…” or “The way POLITICO put it is…”

If your friends or source are buzzing about something related in any way to public affairs, don’t ask yourself WHETHER it’s a Politico story. Ask yourself HOW you can make it a Politico story, to capture built-in traffic and mindshare.

What the Politico took away from the expansive 60 Minutes interview:

His remarks came in a“60 Minutes” interview in which he was pressed by Steve Kroft for laughing and chuckling several times while discussing the perilous state of the world’s economy.

“You’re sitting here. And you’re— you are laughing. You are laughing about some of these problems. Are people going to look at this and say, ‘I mean, he’s sitting there just making jokes about money—’ How do you deal with— I mean: explain. . .” Kroft asked at one point.

“Are you punch-drunk?” Kroft said.

“No, no. There’s gotta be a little gallows humor to get you through the day,” Obama said, with a laugh.

The blogospheric reaction:

The most read section at the Politico this morning:

Mission Accomplished.

If you watched the 60 Minutes interview and you think the most important part of it was the “punch drunk” portion, you are part of the problem.

DailyKos' Susan G: WaPo writes labor story without interviewing labor

Media Matters catches a doozy:

Today's [Sunday's] Washington Post article about the Employee Free Choice Act notes "the widespread perception in Democrat-dominated Washington that there is not a level playing field between labor and business."

As if to prove the accuracy of that perception, the Post manages to devote nearly 1,000 words to the Act without ever once quoting or paraphrasing a representative of the labor movement. The Post did, however, manage to quote three CEOs and devote several paragraphs to anti-labor views ....

Tell us all again about how liberal the traditional media is....

Sully: The Price Of Torture

Michael Yon makes an important point about how deeply American decency was understood in Europe and elsewhere in the wake of the Greatest Generation:

Before I lived in Germany and Poland for about six years, the Army taught me German and some Polish. And so there were countless conversations with older Germans and Poles, and I heard earfuls of stories. The older Germans were very respectful toward our "Greatest Generation," but pretty much hated the Russians because of their brutality. The theme nearly always drifted to the very humane treatment we afforded German prisoners, while the Russians killed them off. We even had German prisoners working on farms, and after the war, many Germans returned and married American women! But the Poles didn't like the Germans or the Russians because of the very same reasons. They had been mistreated, but the Poles have great respect for America because we treated them well. Americans are extremely welcome in Poland, but that place sure is cold.

This was dinned into me too as a young European. I knew what America was, and how it was different: whatever criticisms you could have, America didn't torture. No one can say that any longer.

If you want to know why I remain incensed at Dick Cheney, this should help.

Benen: INTERROGATION MEMOS ON THE WAY?....

This should be interesting.

Over objections from the U.S. intelligence community, the White House is moving to declassify -- and publicly release -- three internal memos that will lay out, for the first time, details of the "enhanced" interrogation techniques approved by the Bush administration for use against "high value" Qaeda detainees. The memos, written by Justice Department lawyers in May 2005, provide the legal rationale for waterboarding, head slapping and other rough tactics used by the CIA. One senior Obama official, who like others interviewed for this story requested anonymity because of the issue's sensitivity, said the memos were "ugly" and could embarrass the CIA. Other officials predicted they would fuel demands for a "truth commission" on torture.

Because of an executive order signed by President Obama on Jan. 22 banning such aggressive tactics, deputies to Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. concluded there was no longer any reason to keep the interrogation memos classified. But current and former intel officials pushed back, arguing that any public release might still compromise "sources and methods." According to the administration official, ex-CIA director Michael Hayden was "furious" about the prospect of disclosure and tried to intervene directly with Obama officials. But the White House has sided with Holder.

Releasing these documents would, Newsweek concluded, "remove, at long last, the veil of secrecy about how detainees in the war on terror were actually treated."

Two weeks ago, Obama and Holder released nine Bush-era Justice Department memos, which documented many of the ways the former administration thought its counter-terrorism efforts trumped the rule of law. If the Obama administration follows up on this by releasing memos detailing the "enhanced" interrogation techniques approved by the Bush administration, it will show genuine follow-through on presidential rhetoric about transparency and accountability.

For that matter, those seeking investigations of Bush-era wrongdoing will have still more evidence to bolster their arguments.

Amanda Terkel at Think Progress: I Was Followed, Harassed, And Ambushed By Bill O’Reilly’s Producer

On March 1, ThinkProgress picked up on a story by News Hounds, which noted that Fox News host Bill O’Reilly — who has made controversial comments about rape victims in the past — was slated to speak at a March 19 fundraiser for the Alexa Foundation. The group is committed to supporting rape survivors.

Our post — which never criticized the Alexa Foundation — highlighted the fact that in the past, O’Reilly has implied that women who dress in a certain way or consume too much alcohol should perhaps expect to be raped. Here is what he said on his radio show on Aug. 2 about Jennifer Moore, an 18-year-old woman who was raped and murdered:

Now Moore, Jennifer Moore, 18, on her way to college. She was 5-foot-2, 105 pounds, wearing a miniskirt and a halter top with a bare midriff. Now, again, there you go. So every predator in the world is gonna pick that up at two in the morning. She’s walking by herself on the West Side Highway, and she gets picked up by a thug. All right. Now she’s out of her mind, drunk.

O’Reilly’s comments about Moore were part of a larger segment about the dangers of drunkenness. His other example was Mel Gibson going on a drunken tirade and yelling anti-Semitic comments. “I think it’s safe to say that if Mel Gibson didn’t get drunk, he wouldn’t be in this terrible situation he finds himself in,” said O’Reilly. “And if a young woman, 18-year-old Jennifer Moore of Harrington Park, NJ, didn’t get drunk, she’d be alive today.”

This weekend, while on vacation, I was ambushed by O’Reilly’s top hit man, producer Jesse Watters, who accosted me on the street and told me that because I highlighted O’Reilly’s comments, I was causing “pain and suffering” to rape victims and their families. He of course offered no proof to back up this claim, instead choosing to shout questions at me.

I expect O’Reilly to air this “interview” at some point this week, possibly as early as tonight. I have no expectation that he will show the entire altercation or give the entire story about what happened, so here is the full account, offering a glimpse inside the O’Reilly harrassment machine:

– The Stalking: Watters and his camera man accosted me at approximately 3:45 p.m. on Saturday, March 21, in Winchester, VA, which is a two-hour drive from Washington, DC. My friend and I were in this small town for a short weekend vacation and had told no one about where we were going. I can only infer that the two men staked out my apartment and then followed me for two hours. Looking back, my friend and I remember seeing their tan SUV following us for much of the trip.

– The Ambush: Shortly after checking into our lodgings, we emerged and immediately saw two men walking toward us calling out my name. Watters said he was from Fox News, but never said his or his companion’s name, nor did he say he was with The O’Reilly Factor.

– The Surprise Attack: Watters immediately began asking me why I was causing “pain and suffering” to the Alexa Foundation. He never gave me the context for his questions. Confused, I repeatedly asked him what he was talking about and whether he could refresh my memory, but he just continued shouting his question.

– The Evasion: I said that it was inappropriate for O’Reilly to imply that just because a woman may be drunk and/or dressed in a certain way, she should expect to be raped. Watters asked me whether I had listened to the interview (which I had) and claimed that O’Reilly had made the comments in the context of a commentary on Mel Gibson/drunkenness. When I tried to ascertain why he was attacking ThinkProgress in particular — even though other sites had also covered the story — he said that we were part of the “smear pipeline,” which also included the “Soros-funded” Media Matters. He ignored my comments when I asked if Fox News also smears people.

– Setting A Guilt Trap: Watters ended the charade by demanding that I look into the camera and apologize to the Alexa Foundation and rape victims. I told them that I don’t speak through Fox News and if someone from the Alexa Foundation would like to personally call me, I’d be happy to speak with that person.

– More Stalking: The camera man then continued to film me as I walked down the block. After a few minutes while I waited at the light to cross the street, Watters called him back and they left.

This weekend, we contacted Watters and Loren Hynes, who works in Media Relations at Fox. We have yet to receive a response from them, or anyone else at the network, on Saturday’s incident.

The main issue remains: O’Reilly should offer an apology/explanation of why, when a woman is raped and murdered, it’s relevant what she was wearing or how much she was drinking. O’Reilly never asked me for a statement nor invited me on his show before sending Watters to harass me. Since I’m a 5 ft, 100 pound woman with an opinion that he doesn’t like, perhaps O’Reilly believes I deserve to be treated this way.