Dan Kennedy

Patrick’s unfortunate NYT close-up

If you’re the governor of Massachusetts, this is not how you want to be featured on the front page of the New York Times.

“Early Dazzle, Then Tough Path for Governor” is the headline. The story, by Abby Goodnough, portrays Gov. Deval Patrick as becalmed, going nowhere because of his defeat on casino gambling and a general sense of malaise stemming from early missteps over his Cadillac and office drapes.

Patrick sounds as though he’s going to keep pushing casinos, and he criticizes House Speaker Sal DiMasi for killing his proposal. “We’re going to keep working on it until we get a Democratic [sic on the uppercase “D”; I do believe Patrick was referring to governance, not the party] process that’s functioning,” Patrick is quoted as saying. Well, now. If Patrick hasn’t learned that there is overwhelming consensus against casinos and the social ills they bring, then he’s learned very little. This doesn’t bode well for the rest of his term.

Discussion of the Times story has already begun at Blue Mass. Group. And though BMGers are generally pro-Patrick, the first few commenters seem to be relishing the governor’s troubles.

The Outraged Liberal today offers some sharp analysis, noting that the Boston Herald’s ongoing coverage of DiMasi’s predeliction for golfing with well-connected friends, backing state contracts for political allies and supporting more revenue-losing tax breaks for the film industry may prove more important than the Times’ one-day embarrassment of Patrick. The O.L. writes that “the net effect is a steady drip of stories no politician can relish.”

Jon Keller, whose otherwise fine blog still lacks permalinks, offers some withering thoughts on the realities now facing Patrick and on the Times’ reliance on Steve Crosby — chief of staff to what Keller calls the “Titanic”-like administration of Jane Swift — to make the best case for Patrick. Keller writes:

Patrick tells the Times: “I have a better idea this year about who to trust and who not to, and you better believe that’s helped.” Really? Of whom does he speak? The key cabinet member who’s being allowed to run wild with inside power-plays and other clumsy blundering that threatens to make hash of years of progress in a crucial policy area? The aides he’s becoming notorious for not listening to? Sal? Maybe Patrick can’t trust him, but he should have known that going in. The real question is: can he beat him at his game?

Overall, not a good media day for Patrick or DiMasi.

McCain and his media admirers

Neal Gabler has a first-rate analysis in today’s New York Times on the media’s love affair with John McCain. He writes:

Seeming to view himself and the whole political process with a mix of amusement and bemusement, Mr. McCain is an ironist wooing a group of individuals who regard ironic detachment more highly than sincerity or seriousness. He may be the first real postmodernist candidate for the presidency — the first to turn his press relations into the basis of his candidacy.

Though McCain is hardly what you would call a staunch, steady conservative, he is, in fact, deeply conservative about most issues, including reproductive choice, same-sex marriage and, most notably, foreign policy and the war in Iraq. Yet reporters, and even liberal commentators, Gabler notes, choose not to believe him, because his view of how the world works is essentially in line with that of culturally liberal journalists.

My own sense about McCain is that though he cares deeply about foreign policy, everything else to him is just politics. I do get the feeling that, if he’s elected president, his domestic agenda will essentially be defined by expediency.

The media’s relationship with the candidates will be crucial this fall, especially if Hillary Clinton — detested by many journalists — somehow wins the Democratic nomination. Can the press fairly cover a race when it loves one candidate and loathes the other? If past performance is any indication, you would have to say “no.”

Hillary Clinton’s Bosnia lie

In my latest for the Guardian, I predict a renewed media assault on Hillary Clinton following revelations that she lied — not misspoke — about her 1996 trip to Bosnia.

Shameless update: I just did an interview with ABC radio in Australia about this. When’s the Australian primary, anyway? Also, I’m leading Real Clear Politics at the moment.

Murphy on why he flipped

State Rep. Charles Murphy, D-Burlington, one of several House members identified by the Herald the other day as having flipped from pro- to anti-casino after being awarded leadership positions by House Speaker Sal DiMasi, provides some details over at Blue Mass. Group.

Murphy says casino opponents plied him with information. “Like most of my colleagues, I read it all,” he writes. The fiends!

Fading ombudsmen

It’s been nearly two years since Boston Globe ombudsman Richard Chacón left to take a job with Deval Patrick’s gubernatorial campaign. Chacón remains with Patrick, and the Globe remains without an ombudsman.

Though the Globe has not, to my knowledge, abolished the position, it seems unlikely that a new internal watchdog is going to be designated at a time when the news staff is shrinking and good journalists are walking away seemingly every week. After all, if you pay an ombudsman, you can’t pay someone else. Nor are the Globe’s financial problems unique.

Which is why I was intrigued by this piece in Advertising Age by Simon Dumenco headlined “Is the Newspaper Ombudsman More or Less Obsolete?” Dumenco writes in praise of New York Times public editor (i.e., ombudsman) Clark Hoyt, but adds: So what? We live at a time, Dumenco argues, when bloggers and the ubiquitous Jim Romensko do a far better job of holding the media to account than an ombudsman can. Besides, he says, ombudsman columns are boring.

“Maybe it’s not me, and maybe it’s not really even Hoyt,” Dumenco writes. “Maybe it’s the very idea of the public editor/ombudsman — a position whose time may have come and gone.”

My reaction: Not so fast. Dumenco’s probably right that the ombudsman movement is fading due to financial pressures. The Web site of the Organization of News Ombudsmen is so moribund that it links to Chacón’s predecessor, Christine Chinlund, who gave up that role in 2005. But though bloggers certainly do much to hold the media to account, something important will have been lost as well, and that is the loss of an authoritative, inside voice.

I could point to numerous examples, but let me suggest one recent piece by Hoyt, in which he blasted the Times for its report that some former anonymous aides to John McCain were worried nine years ago that he might have, maybe, well, you know, been having sex with an attractive lobbyist many years younger than he. Everyone on the planet was ripping the Times for that story. But it was Hoyt’s column that was the show-stopper — not because it was better than all the other commentary, but because it came from inside the paper.

Then, too, a good ombudsman bases his or her columns not just on commentary, as bloggers generally do, but on reporting. Yes, in Boston, the Phoenix has a long tradition of media critics who report pretty thoroughly on the Globe, the Herald and other media organizations. (My disclosure is in the right-hand rail.*) But though Globe staffers have never been required to cooperate with the ombudsman, they’re certainly encouraged to in a way that’s not necessarily the case with respect to the Phoenix or Boston magazine.

And as former Globe ombudsman and former Phoenix media columnist Mark Jurkowitz has told me, the ombudsman’s column is actually the tip of the iceberg — most of the job consists of politely handling reader complaints about everything from smudgy ink to the cancellation of a favorite comic strip. This is basic customer service, and no blogger is going to do that.

I’d like to see every serious, 24-hour news operation in Boston have an ombudsman. Why stop at the Globe? But, barring an unexpected return to financial health, it’s not likely to happen. It’s too bad.

*Whoops. No, it’s not. OK, I was the Phoenix’s media columnist from 1994 to 2005.

Bare-knuckles do-gooder

In today’s Boston Herald, Casey Ross shows how hard House Speaker Sal DiMasi went at casino-gambling supporters — to the point of awarding lucrative leadership positions to six legislators who had supported expanded gambling in the past. Four voted “no” last week, and the other two missed the vote.

Naturally, those who were interviewed by Ross deny there was any quid pro quo. But let’s say there was an understanding. It would be too cavalier to dismiss it with a “so what?” But this is the way the legislative game has been played for so long that I can only be amused at the outrage over DiMasi’s use of strong-arm tactics to stop something that would be of incalculable harm to the state.

The danger now is that some of these same legislators seem to think they’ll get their way in pushing through slot machines at the state’s race tracks. Let’s hope not. For now, though, I think DiMasi deserves credit for using his muscle for the greater good.

Jon Keller on the casino vote

WBZ-TV (Channel 4) political analyst Jon Keller on Gov. Deval Patrick, House Speaker Sal DiMasi and the casino vote:

The governor and other casino advocates lobbied hard for their position, using the same bag of tricks available to the speaker, everything from one-on-one meetings between legislators and a governor who could, if he chose, make their lives miserable back in their districts, to the profane strong-arm tactics of organized labor, who openly threatened to try to unseat legislators who didn’t toe their line. Nothing wrong with any of the above, that’s how it’s done. DiMasi and company just did a better job of it than Patrick et al.

No kidding. The anti-casino forces won this fight fair and square.

Sex and the prosecution thereof

Given former New York governor Eliot Spitzer’s reckless behavior, it was probably inevitable that he was going to get caught at some point. But the New York Times today reports that the federal investigation into his assignations with prostitutes was wildly disproportionate. David Johnston and Philip Shenon write:

The scale and intensity of the investigation of Mr. Spitzer, then the governor of New York, seemed on its face to be a departure for the Justice Department, which aggressively investigates allegations of wrongdoing by public officials, but almost never investigates people who pay prostitutes for sex.

You were surprised?

And while I’m at it, where does ~~Charles~~ Carl [Globe correction TK] McGee go to get his reputation back? McGee, a high-ranking Patrick administration official, was arrested in Florida recently and charged with having sex with a 15-year-old boy. Now prosecutors are saying, oh, never mind.

You can’t read this

Well, as you can see, I’m plowing through the Globe online right now. And I’m wondering, what were they thinking? This looked like a good design decision when I saw it in the print edition earlier this morning. But good grief — who thought it would look good on the Web? Sorry. I’m not reading it. I’m not sure I could if I wanted to.

Update: Now fixed, as Philocrites notes in the comments.

Misplaced criticism of DiMasi

A Globe editorial today is really unfair in the way it portrays House Speaker Sal DiMasi’s “lobbying tactics” in defeating Gov. Deval Patrick’s casino proposal. The editorial says of DiMasi:

He does not support the introduction of slot machines at the racetracks — a wise decision, because the model has more negatives and doesn’t generate the kind of jobs and revenues associated with destination casinos. Yet while lobbying House members to kill the casino bill, he promised at least three legislators that he would not block their attempts to bring a racetrack slots bill to the House floor. And this from the leader who predicted Tuesday that casinos would “cause human damage on a grand scale.”

How obtuse can you be? DiMasi allowed the casino bill to come to the floor, where it died a natural death, assisted by DiMasi and state Rep. Dan Bosley, D-North Adams, a recognized expert on the false promises and social ills of casino gambling.

Now certain legislators want a “racino” bill to come to the floor so they can go on record as voting for it, thus pleasing racetrack operators in their districts. That’s fine. As the editorial points out, DiMasi opposes slot machines at casinos, and we can be reasonably sure that a bill allowing them won’t pass.

What’s laughable about the editorial is the inconsistency. DiMasi gets criticized for using his influence to defeat a casino bill that he had allowed to come to the floor. And then he’s criticized for supposed hypocrisy over racinos because — you guessed it — he’s going to allow a bill to come to the floor.

Sounds to me like DiMasi is being perfectly consistent. House members get to vote on controversial legislation. And DiMasi, as speaker, gets to let his members know where he stands. It’s called democracy.