Josh Marshall 101

Noam Cohen profiles Josh Marshall in the New York Times following Marshall’s winning a Polk Award for his coverage of the U.S. attorneys scandal. Cohen kindly quotes me at some length.

As I noted last week in a blog post for my students, Marshall’s Talking Points Memo and related sites have pioneered a new kind of investigative reporting that combines the journalistic expertise of Marshall and his crew with the decentralized knowledge of their readers.

As citizen-journalism pioneer Dan Gillmor has memorably put it, “my readers know more than I do.” Marshall has figured out how to tap into that knowledge and make sense of it.

Hail, Tito

Red Sox fans will not get better news all year than this: Terry Francona will be here for the next three to five years. Bruce Allen wraps up the coverage.

There’s something “well, duh” about saying Francona is the best Sox manager in my lifetime. After all, he’s won two World Series, and everyone else had won none. As Francona is always quick to say, he’s benefited from a lot of great moves on the part of the people above him.

But Francona’s preparation and on-field managing skills are unparalleled. His handling of players is amazing, from his ability to keep Manny Ramírez productive year after year to having Jonathan Papelbon spring-training fresh going into the post-season last fall. He’s the anti-Belichick — I don’t think Francona loves the media, but as best as I can tell he is unfailingly polite and respectful in his dealings with other people. He’s just a good, decent human being, and that comes through every time he talks.

A couple of years ago, we were all worried that Francona’s health might not allow him to enjoy a lengthy managerial career. But he seemed to be healthier last year, and now he’s signed a long-term deal. May he continue to manage the Sox for years to come.

Photo (cc) by bunkosquad, and republished here under a Creative Commons license. Some rights reserved.

Hoyt doesn’t buy it, either

New York Times public editor Clark Hoyt joins with the rest of the world in criticizing Times editors for passing along the concerns of anonymous former aides that John McCain was having sex with a lobbyist named Vicki Iseman during the 2000 presidential campaign.

Hoyt specifically disagrees with executive editor Bill Keller’s contention that sex wasn’t the point of the story, writing, “I think that ignores the scarlet elephant in the room.” And he closes with this:

I asked Jill Abramson, the managing editor for news, if The Times could have done the story and left out the allegation about an affair. “That would not have reflected the essential truth of why the aides were alarmed,” she said.

But what the aides believed might not have been the real truth. And if you cannot provide readers with some independent evidence, I think it is wrong to report the suppositions or concerns of anonymous aides about whether the boss is getting into the wrong bed.

Hoyt is absolutely right, of course. The question is why Times editors are being so obstinate. I wonder if the problem is that they know too much, and I don’t mean that in a good way. I imagine they have heard more about the sex allegations than they’ve been able to report, and thus feel more confident than they should about the story that appeared on Thursday. (I continue to think McCain’s sex life is no one’s business but his and his family’s, but that’s another matter.)

Still, we have to assume that if they had anything approaching proof, they’d let us know. And since they haven’t, the story remains an object lesson in how not to practice journalism.

McCain mishandles Times’ gift

This could have been predicted. The New York Times slimed John McCain with anonymously sourced gossip that he may have had an affair with a lobbyist named Vicki Iseman. McCain not only denied it, but went way too far, denying key elements of the legitimate part of the story regarding his efforts on behalf of Paxson Communications, a client of Iseman’s.

Now it turns out that McCain had said otherwise in a 2002 deposition. And Bud Paxson contradicts McCain’s sweeping denial as well.

Right out of the gate, McCain forgot every lesson about how to respond to a scandal — or, in this case, a non-scandal: Tell the truth. And if you’ve forgotten what actually happened, which is possible, hold your fire until you’ve refreshed your memory.

The Times handed McCain a gift on Thursday. It’s possible that McCain has handed it right back.

Torturing the law

Earlier this month, civil-liberties lawyer Harvey Silverglate had this to say on his blog at ThePhoenix.com about Attorney General Michael Mukasey’s testimony regarding waterboarding:

[A]cknowledging that the CIA’s torturers might have been acting in good faith — that they believed the lawyers when the lawyers told them certain highly coercive interrogation techniques were legal — hardly ends the inquiry. Why are these lawyers not being investigated in order to determine whether they wrote their legal opinions in good faith, or instead made up fanciful legal theories to appease the administration’s interest in taking the gloves off when it came to dealing with suspected terrorists?

And here we go, from today’s Washington Post:

An internal watchdog office at the Justice Department is investigating whether Bush administration lawyers violated professional standards by issuing legal opinions that authorized the CIA to use waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques, officials confirmed yesterday.

Mukasey had a good reputation coming in, but was craven in his confirmation hearings and has been overly cautious in his subsequent congressional appearances. It looks like we’re going to learn what he’s really made of.