Win Or Lose: Media Matters

22 May 2005 |permalink | email article

Once each month ABC News’ Political Unit gathers a representative sample of what it calls the Gang of 500 into a back room - it is often at Capitol Hill’s Bistro Bis - to discuss “the state of play in American politics.” Nobody has yet called it the Fifth Estate, an elitist counterpart to the Fourth Estate—meaning mainstream media: newspapers, TV, radio and magazines. But this gaggle helps establish an informal agenda for shaping American political coverage. Yesterday, the Gang assembled over brunch at Lauriol Plaza. There was plenty for the MSM bunch to munch over. I’m just a simple blogger, but here’s my out-of-the-beltway-take on the state of play.

Let’s start with the Republican’s chilling “nuclear option,” the judicial nominations debate in which the zeal of the majority party threatens to crush the minority party, thus damaging the American system of checks and balances. Think about Sen. Rick Santorum’s comparison of his Democratic colleagues to Hitler. You have to wonder whether, despite the faith-based cover profile on him in Sunday’s NYT Magazine, the absolutist Santorum qualifies as a serious 2008 presidential candidate. My hopeful prediction is that moderates in both parties will reach a last minute compromise to avert a fatal political meltdown.

Which party will control Congress after the 2006 elections? Recent polling data, and last week in the Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, shows disapproval of Congress’s performance higher than any time since 1994, the year that Democrats lost power on Capitol Hill. The reckless tactics of the White House and the leadership on the Hill show the GOP losing altitude with voters. Respondents said they want Democrats, by a 47%-40% edge, to control Congress after the 2006 elections, the party’s best showing since the WSJ/NBC survey first asked the question in 1994. 

For me, politics starts in print, and the headlines in recent days are not very reassuring about the President’s experiment with democracy, notably in the New York Times: “Generals Offer Sober Outlook On Iraqi War.” A Baghdad University survey cites public confidence in the new government falling from 85% to 45%. Will American forces remain in Iraq for a generation?
The stunner is Tim Golden’s must-read, two-part series in the New York Times, last Friday and yesterday, detailing inmate atrocities at the detention center in Bagram, Afghanistan. It more than matches the notoriety of Abu Ghraib in treating Iraqi prisoners - a scandal that will endure for decades. Golden’s potential Pulitzer-Prize entry has been slow to stream through MSM. But when it does the buck ultimately will stop in the Oval Office, not the Pentagon.

Finally, there are the shocking photos showing Saddam Hussein, a prisoner of war, wearing only underwear in his cell. That’s led to a proper Bush administration investigation. The photos made their way to tabloids in London and New York. Despite ethical concerns, major media have correctly shown the photos. Did the American military leak these photos, as hinted? Or, was it a covert special operation aimed at Arab and Muslim public opinion as a psychological tactic to humiliate Muslim men in every conceivable way—with Saddam as the poster monster?

Point—Counterpoint:

I liked the anti-extremist reaction of The New York Times’ columnist David Brooks to the Newsweek retraction story about U.S. guards flushing a Koran down the toilet at Guantanamo. The conservative ex-Newsweek reporter ripped the left for getting into a frenzy that “the story is probably true even if Newsweek is retracting it.” He blasted the right, in the person of influential blogger Austin Bay, for writing that the coastal media “presumes the worst about the U.S. military. . . always make that presumption.”

Editor & Publisher has a heated exchange, published May 17, between White House reporters at a briefing with Scott McClellan. The tension, building for weeks, began with a focus on Newsweek and its reporter, Michael Isikoff, became a demand by reporters that more of the single-source, anonymous background briefings be put on the record. Another must-read, along with Frank Rich’s column Sunday.

Pro Football Politics:

NFL owners meet in Washington this week to hear the league’s analysis of the competing stadium concepts in the Los Angeles area which has been without professional football since the Raiders and Rams left after the 1994 season. The word is that by week’s end the field will be narrowed to two or three sites - the Coliseum, Rose Bowl and Anaheim, but with Carson out. The Coliseum, despite over a decade of political bad feelings between the league and its city, county and state management - is more than partially in the game. The NFL would follow the same plan in L.A. as in Cleveland, where it built a brand new stadium for the Browns after the franchise moved to Baltimore as the Ravens. No L.A. taxpayers’ money would be involved.

The New Orleans Saints remain the favorite transfer prospect. The team has a 90-day window to leave after the 2005 season, while paying an $81-million penalty. If they don’t go, the team must stay until 2010 in New Orleans. If they pull out next year, where would the Saints play in the fall of 2006 until the new Coliseum is ready in 2008 or 2009? The late Walter O’Malley said “no way” when the disgruntled Rams once wanted to move to Dodger Stadium. Would new Dodger owner Frank McCourt bite this time? A few very rich L.A. businessmen - and maybe a billionaire or two - would each acquire a few points in the franchise.

California:

Arnold Schwarzenegger, his political clout sagging, made fundraising sorties over the weekend to Florida, Texas and Illinois. Together with swings to include New York and Washington, the governor will get the bulk of his millions outside the state for a special election in California this November. The theory is there is a national thirst for his star power - read Ronald Reagan. How untarnished the action hero’s star is may not be what he thinks. The San Francisco Chronicle’s Carla Marinucci quotes the University of Virginia’s Larry Sabato: “What Republicans fail to realize is that he will have no impact whatsoever on the (2008) presidential campaign. And they will be surprised, once he’s gone, of how little trace remains of him.”

The Democratic race to challenge Arnold just got more interesting. State Controller Steve Westly, the former eBay vice president elected to his first public office three years ago, has just pumped $10 million of his estimated $100 million worth into a still-undeclared campaign. That’s a blow to State Treasurer Phil Angelides who hoped, with Attorney General Bill Lockyer bowing out, to rally the field around his candidacy. He had $14 million on hand in December and since has raised an additional $825,000.

Mayor-Elect Antonio Villaraigosa

A fragment from my blog—go to www.latimes.com/mayor/blog for the full text—appeared as part of the L.A. Times’ Sunday Opinion experimental page yesterday: “Becoming the overnight numero uno star in national Latino politics is dandy, but real change starts with shaking up the entrenched spoils system that has engulfed City Hall since the 1930s.” Frank Shaw set the tone in 1938 when he became the first mayor of a major American city to be recalled.

Villaraigosa predictably said he will have a diverse administration, but will not name a completely new slate of city commissioners. His priorities are the major commissions, airport, police, and water and power boards, where the lobbying juice is. How many of the scores of commissioners who served under the last three mayors - Bradley, Riordan and Hahn - will the mayor-elect retain after he takes office July 1? It may be revealing about real change.

Read ‘em And Weep

“We. . . look forward to that meeting with the governor to remind him of his own roots as an immigrant.”

Bishop Richard Garcia of the Sacramento Roman Catholic Diocese, one of many religious leaders demanding a meeting with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Catholic, to discuss his statements and policies involving undocumented immigrants. Bishop Gabino Zavala of the Los Angeles Archdiocese, said the governor’s comments went against “the grain of American values.”

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