By Dan Kennedy • Tracking the future of local news and other passions since 2005
It seems like a political lifetime ago, but it was only last month that the media were flagellating themselves for having ignored the National Enquirer’s (accurate) reporting about John Edwards’ extramarital affair.
Now the Enquirer is going after Sarah Palin and her family. Should the media dive in and try to verify the Enquirer’s claims? Or should they stay silent and risk being made fools of once again? I’m not sure — but that’s the question I try to answer in the Guardian.
Long ago, a young farmer and a haberdasher from Missouri, he followed an unlikely path — he followed an unlikely path to the vice presidency. And a writer observed, “We grow good people in our small towns, with honesty and sincerity and dignity,” and I know just the kind of people that writer had in mind when he praised Harry Truman.
— Sarah Palin in her convention speech, Sept. 3, 2008, comparing her qualifications for the vice presidency to those of Harry Truman.
Boys, if you ever pray, pray for me now. I don’t know whether you fellows ever had a load of hay fall on you, but when they told me yesterday what had happened, I felt like the moon and stars and all the planets had fallen on me.
— Harry Truman, speaking to reporters on April 13, 1945, upon learning that Franklin Roosevelt had died and he had ascended to the presidency. Truman was serving in his second term as a U.S. senator when FDR chose him to be his third-term running mate, and had won plaudits for his work as chairman of a committee that investigated military waste during World War II.
[O]n January 20, when John McCain and I are sworn in, if we are so privileged to be elected to serve this country, will be ready. I’m ready…. I have the confidence in that readiness and knowing that you can’t blink, you have to be wired in a way of being so committed to the mission, the mission that we’re on, reform of this country and victory in the war, you can’t blink.
— Sarah Palin, Sept. 11, 2008, responding to Charlie Gibson’s question asking her whether she was ready to be president of the United States.
Robert Ambrogi has posted a 36-page section of the report ordered up by the Boston City Council as part of its crusade to get out of having to comply with the state’s open-meeting law.
It’s hard to make out and I haven’t had a chance to go through it yet. But Ambrogi’s comments are on the mark, especially with respect to the councilors’ argument that the law impinges upon their own First Amendment rights:
How does that saying go about the devil reading the Bible to his own ends? That was all I could think of as I read a report arguing that the First Amendment gives Boston city councilors the right to conduct the people’s business behind closed doors….
The … premise is that this “prohibition” on private speech between public officials violates their free-speech rights. That is the most extreme contortion of the First Amendment I’ve ever heard or read.
Ambrogi concludes with a hope that councilors will send the report “straight to the circular file.” But that’s only going to happen if the press and the public pressures them to do so.
The original Boston Herald story made it pretty clear that some influential members, including president Maureen Feeney and former president Michael Flaherty, think weakening the public’s right to know is a neat idea.
What struck me about David Filipov’s account in today’s Boston Globe of his first visit to Ground Zero is that he still can’t bring himself to write about his father’s death on Sept. 11, 2001.
That’s what his piece is purportedly about; but it isn’t, as he instead interviews a security guard, two young women from Kazakhstan, a student — anyone, really, who pulls him away from his grief.
It’s a moving piece, because it’s a reminder of how difficult Filipov and thousands of others still find it to come to terms with what happened on that day.
The online version includes a link to a Filipov piece that was published in the Globe on Oct. 11, 2001, which he filed from Afghanistan.
Driving to work this morning, I started thinking about how much it seemed as it did seven years ago — clear and cool, a perfect September day. It’s become a cliché, but it’s the truth: Just as all people in our parents’ generation know exactly where they were and what they were doing on Dec. 7, 1941, so will all of us remember what happened seven years ago today.
Department of Defense photo by Denise Gould.
Kevin Ring, a former lobbyist for the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe, has pleaded not guilty to federal charges of conspiracy, obstruction of justice and fraud, according to Stephanie Vosk of the Cape Cod Times.
Ring, who used to work for convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff, helped the tribe with its application for federal recognition, a key to its bid to build a giant gambling casino in Middleborough.
None other than former tribal council president Glenn Marshall, who stepped down after it was revealed he was a convicted rapist who had lied about his military record, once testified to Ring’s good name.
The charges against Ring do not may involve his dealings with the Mashpee. [Update: The charges refer to a “Massachusetts tribal client” that may well have been the Mashpee tribe.]
Cape Cod Today has more.
This front page is too weird for me to be sure, but I think Rupe’s sticking up for Obama. Here’s the story.
The man Sarah Palin appointed to run the Wasilla police department thinks that forcing rape victims to pay for their own forensic tests is just a swell idea. He said so himself a little more than eight years ago.
Anchorage Daily News reporter George Bryson writes that former Alaska governor Tony Knowles, a Democrat who took part in a news conference yesterday, charged that a law passed by the state legislature to outlaw that loathsome practice was aimed solely at Wasilla, where Palin was mayor at the time.
“There was one town in Alaska that was charging victims for this, and that was Wasilla,” Knowles is quoted as saying. Bryson continues:
A May 23, 2000, article in Wasilla’s newspaper, The Frontiersman, noted that Alaska State Troopers and most municipal police agencies regularly pay for such exams, which cost between $300 and $1,200 apiece.
“[But] the Wasilla police department does charge the victims of sexual assault for the tests,” the newspaper reported.
It also quoted Wasilla Police Chief Charlie Fannon objecting to the law. Fannon was appointed to his position by Palin after her dismissal of the previous police chief. He said it would cost Wasilla $5,000 to $14,000 a year if the city had to foot the bill for rape exams.
This should be appalling to any decent-thinking person, needless to say. But working-class women who supported Hillary Clinton — one of the prime demographics the Palin pick is aimed at attracting — really ought to take a close look at their new hero’s record.
And please note that Knowles’ accusation, though it is a partisan attack, is backed up by facts reported by Palin’s hometown newspaper at the time this outrage was unfolding. There is no excusing or explaining away such reprehensible conduct.
Adam Reilly has a terrific post on a highly problematic piece put together by FactCheck.org, Annenberg’s normally reliable, nonpartisan debunker of lies and spin. Under the excited title of “Sliming Palin,” FactCheck presents five stories it says the media have gotten wrong about Sarah Palin.
Sliming? There’s nothing personal in there — it’s all on policy and politics, and it includes some errors that have been corrected and some differences in interpretation.
Sliming it isn’t, and the folks at FactCheck ought to think about why they’ve bought into the false construct that the mainstream media (as opposed to, say, Daily Kos and the National Enquirer) are, well, “sliming Palin.”
The Boston City Council, having been found in violation of the state’s open-meeting law earlier this year, has come up with an all-too-typical response. According to Boston Herald reporter Ed Mason, council members today will take up an 80-page report that it commissioned urging the state to exempt them from the law.
Council president Maureen Feeney tells Mason that the law presents “challenges” and is “confusing.” Before I go any further, you should know that the law does nothing more than require governmental bodies such as the city council to conduct the public’s business in public, and to provide adequate notice of when its meetings will take place.
Councilor Michael Flaherty is quoted as saying that the law creates a “chilling effect,” claiming, “You can’t even have a conversation with colleagues in the hallway or in a session.” That’s an interesting observation. The law says that a quorum — that is, a majority — of members cannot discuss official business outside the context of a legal, publicly announced meeting.
If Flaherty had said, You can’t even have a conversation in the hallway with six or more colleagues about city business, that would be accurate. It would also underscore the absurdity of his complaint.
The law doesn’t even require public meetings when there is a good reason for them to be held behind closed doors. Various exceptions are allowed, most typically to discuss contract negotiations and lawsuits.
Any journalist, community activist or public watchdog who’s spent any time dealing with municipal government will tell you that the open-meeting law ought to be strengthened, especially with regard to punishing violators.
The law is a burden only to public officials who think the public is a burden.
Steve Waldman of Beliefnet, who’s far more learned and sensible on the subject of religion than I am, takes a close look at Sarah Palin’s religious pronouncements and places a few of them in the “scary” category.
In particular, Waldman singles out Palin’s request that people pray that a natural-gas pipeline would be built. “Saying a particular public policy is God’s will is far over the line, considerably beyond anything that George W. Bush ever said,” Waldman writes. “It means the advocate is impervious to argument, and critics are going against God’s will.” No kidding.
My earlier post on the subject.