Dan Kennedy

Chuck Turner trashes the First Amendment

Boston City Councilor Chuck Turner may or may not end up doing time. But if the indicted councilor has his way, local journalists — including Joan Vennochi of the Boston Globe, Adam Reilly of the Boston Phoenix and Joe Fitzgerald of the Boston Herald — will be subject to legal sanctions for failing to presume that Turner is innocent.

On Friday, the Herald’s Ed Mason reported that Turner had sent a letter to Gov. Deval Patrick asking that a task force be appointed that would investigate “collusion” between federal prosecutors and the media.

Over the weekend, John Guilfoil, the founder and editor of the online magazine Blast, posted the full text of Turner’s screed. In it, Turner calls for nothing less than the abolition of the First Amendment. Guilfoil, a former student of mine, writes, “Five words, Councilor: ‘Congress shall make no law.'”

Turner, in case you’ve forgotten, is under federal indictment, charged with taking cash bribes in connection with the Dianne Wilkerson case.

Tellingly, Turner cites Deuteronomy, the Quran, the Roman Code, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Fifth, Sixth and 14th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution in his argument to muzzle the press, yet makes absolutely no mention whatsoever of the First Amendment, which clearly states: “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.” (Subsequent amendments, as well as Supreme Court decisions, have broadened “Congress” to include all governmental bodies at the federal, state and local levels.)

Turner blasts columns by Vennochi, Reilly and Fitzgerald, saying they have “unashamedly proclaimed my guilt.” He also claims that Globe columnist Adrian Walker’s interview with Ron Wilburn, the cooperating government witness, is proof that the FBI’s affidavit against Turner is full of lies (not how I would interpret it). And Turner includes this tantalizing tidbit:

Even Howie Carr, self proclaimed protector of the public good and verbal slayer of public officials who betray their trust has not even mumbled one word about the fact that the US Attorney’s wire is making accusations against him.

Really? Does anyone know what Turner is referring to? The ball’s in your court, Howie.

Not to save the best part for last, but Turner closes by recommending legal sanctions against journalists who discuss “the ‘evidence’ in the court of public opinion before it has been presented in a court of law,” including:

“State legal policy should be significantly reformed to promote respect for the presumption of innocence among state officials, mass media representatives, and citizens.”
“Mass media outlets must be prohibited from spreading information that conflicts with the presumption of innocence.”

Now, let me move on to the fallacy at the heart of Turner’s proposal to round up journalists and send them to re-education camp. Yes, the legal system is required to presume that Turner is innocent unless it can be shown beyond a reasonable doubt that he is not. But the media are under no such constraints.

Turner is free to avail himself of the libel laws if he believes a journalist has said something about him that is false, defamatory and, as he is a public official, made with knowing falsity or reckless disregard for the truth. And there are circumstances in which the courts will intervene by way of gag orders on the lawyers in order to balance the First Amendment with the Sixth, which guarantees the right to a fair trial.

But this is not North Korea, or even Britain, where the press has far fewer protections than it does in the United States. (I’ve had a couple of interesting discussions with my editor at the Guardian, whose home office is in Manchester, England.) In the U.S., everyone is free to speak and write the truth as he or she sees it.

By the way, I am willing to grant Turner the presumption of innocence. Taking cash from a supplicant shows incredibly poor judgment, but let’s wait and see if it adds up to a criminal act. (Although I was unimpressed by Turner’s claim that the photo might have been doctored — a subject with which Turner has some passing familiarity.)

Regardless of whether Turner is guilty of bribe-taking, though, he has already convicted himself of holding freedom of the press in utter contempt.

Firefox versus Safari versus Blogger

So I was enjoying my trial with Safari (for reasons that I can’t quite describe, it feels a little more nailed-down than Firefox 3) when I hit a roadblock: Blogger.

I noticed a post I’d written with Safari had some weird spacing in it. When I looked at the underlying HTML, I saw that Safari inserts bracketed “div” and “/div” thingies every time you hit the RETURN key.

Why, after all these years, are Safari and Blogger still not entirely compatible? Anyway, that’s pretty much a show-stopper for me, so I’m back to Firefox, somewhat reluctantly.

Why the Globe should save “Spiritual Life”

It’s hard to believe the Boston Globe was paying freelancer Rich Barlow so much that it will save more than a pittance by letting him go (via Universal Hub). But these are desperate times, and I’m not going to argue that the Globe should keep paying him the money.

Rather, I’m going to argue that a newspaper has to appeal to many niches in order to survive, and that Barlow’s Saturday column — “Spiritual Life” — is an important niche. In Michael Paulson, the Globe has an outstanding full-time religion reporter. Could Paulson take it over? How about an intern working under his supervision?

I realize there are limits to the do-more-with-less philosophy, but dropping “Spiritual Life” entirely is going to alienate quite a few readers. It already is — just check out the comments.

In search of a crime

Jay Fitzgerald rounds up more on the matter of whether Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich broke the law simply because he wanted something in return for a Senate seat.

Everybody wants something. Some somethings are legal, some aren’t. But simply being a foul-mouthed, arrogant moron is not a crime.

Jon Keller doesn’t like Barry Coburn’s op-ed in today’s New York Times, in which Coburn takes U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald to task for his inflammatory anti-Blago rhetoric.

I think Coburn makes some good points, though. A prosecutor in a high-profile political-corruption case has enormous credibility with the public, as the charges invariably play into (often justified) cynicism about politics.

I come neither to praise nor bury Blago. But let’s calm down until we see the specifics.

Flaking out with Firefox 3

For the past month or so I’ve been using Firefox 3 almost exclusively. I’m running version 3.0.4. And though it basically works fine, it does a few things that are flaky.

Example: In just the past day or two, the typeface for stories at NYTimes.com changed, and I was not pleased. I even considered writing a post about it. But when I looked at it in Safari, it hadn’t changed. And then, when I went back to Firefox, the change for the worse had magically disappeared.

Example: I happen to like those little icons that appear next to Web-site names in my bookmarks. But the one for the Boston Globe keeps changing. It’s currently a ladybug, of all things.

Firefox works fine; these are just minor aesthetic annoyances. But aesthetics matter. Safari keeps getting better and better, and I’d like to give it an extended workout — but I can’t transfer my Firefox bookmarks to it.

Has anyone else experienced what I’m talking about?

Did Rahm blow the whistle? Did Blago break the law?

To acknowledge the obvious: the Obama team would naturally be in touch with Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich about whom it would like to see replace President-elect Barack Obama in the U.S. Senate.

The Chicago Tribune has now confirmed the liaison was incoming White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, who, the Politico reports, is not a target of U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald’s investigation.

It’s interesting that Obama aide Valerie Jarrett suddenly went from Senate candidate to high-level White House staffer. Which raises the question of whether Emanuel blew the whistle on Blago — or, having learned that Blago was up to no good, failed to alert Fitzgerald.

Assuming Blago even did anything illegal, that is. It is possible to be a complete slimeball and not break the law. Does anyone believe that horsetrading over a Senate seat wouldn’t get rough? I’ve been following this story pretty closely, and I have to confess I’m not sure where the line is.

A Senate seat in return for a large grocery bag filled with $100 bills? OK, illegal. A Senate seat in return for Obama’s “appreciation,” as Blago sneeringly put it? Legal. But how about a Senate seat in return for an ambassadorship, which is one of the goodies Blagojevich was supposedly interested in?

Sounds like politics to me.

Not worried about the Yankees

I don’t want to sound like a total Red Sox groupie here. But the Yankees, having signed CC Sabathia, now seem to be on the verge of landing A.J. Burnett as well. And wouldn’t you say both are pretty good bets to be injury-riddled busts?

Burnett’s injury history is well-known. Sabathia pitched 252 innings last year, and 240 the year before. He pitched well down the stretch before fading in his only post-season game, but that there’s a lot of innings.

Sabathia and Burnett could lead the Yankees back to the World Series. Right now, though, I’m not too worried about these signings.

Questions raised in the passive voice (III)

While the New York Times offers lazy speculation, the Washington Post’s Eli Saslow reports facts:

Long before federal prosecutors charged Blagojevich with bribery this week, Obama had worked to distance himself from his home-state governor. The two men have not talked for more than a year, colleagues said, save for a requisite handshake at a funeral or public event. Blagojevich rarely campaigned for Obama and never stumped with him. The governor arrived late at the Democratic convention and skipped Obama’s victory-night celebration at Chicago’s Grant Park.

Obama’s political mentor, Abner Mikva: “You don’t get through Chicago like Barack Obama did unless you know how to avoid people like that.”

Questions raised in the passive voice (II)

Michael Tomasky nails it in the Guardian:

So there are still some things that we legitimately have a right to know the answers to. To me, they boil down to these three:

What were the contacts between the Obama camp and the Blago camp on the senate seat issue?

Did the Blago camp say anything that sounded potentially illegal?

If “yes” on 2, did the Obama people go to law enforcement?

That’s it. Everything else is mush — the kind of nonsense journalism too often gets into about “perceptions” and “a culture” that just tar people with broad brushes. Journalism often operates only at the level of ridiculously simplistic extremes. If something isn’t completely “put behind” a person, then by cracky it must be a “scandal.” But there are a lot of things that are neither and occupy the gray space in between the poles.

In Salon, Joe Conason warns of a possible return to the Clinton era, when “the right-wing propaganda machine and their enablers in the mainstream media” spent years trying to bring down Bill Clinton. Their efforts would have fizzled entirely if Monica Lewinsky hadn’t come along late in the game.

Questions raised in the passive voice

I’d expect this crap from Michael Graham. But what’s with the New York Times?

Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich called President-elect Barack Obama “this motherfucker,” and whined that the Obama operation wasn’t willing to play along with his corrupt plans to sell off Obama’s vacant Senate seat — that is, Obama and company would only offer their “appreciation,” when what Blago really wanted was cash. And here’s what Jack Healy writes in the New York Times:

Although prosecutors said Mr. Obama was not implicated in their investigation, the accusations of naked greed and brazen influence-peddling have raised questions from some about the political culture in which the President-elect began his career.

Thus does Healy follow two crucial rules in cranking out garbage like this: use the passive voice, and darkly allude to the raising of questions.