Howard Kurtz

In the past two days, Washington Post media reporter Howard Kurtz has been getting a lot of attention for his “scoop” about Dan Rather.

But the anecdote, published today in his book Reality Show, is old news.

In Mr. Kurtz’s book, he writes that former CBS anchor threatened to release a document to The New York Times if his now-widely-discredited National Guard story did not run on 60 Minutes.  read more »

Yesterday on "Meet the Press," a bunch of journalists rued the new landscape created by Patrick Fitzgerald and his star witness Judith Miller. Tim Russert, Gwen Ifill, Howard Kurtz—they all feared damage to professionalism, that the public might see the press as in bed with powerful officials. (Aren't they?) Even as they complained, the journalists seemed to fear their own loss of privilege. Kurtz talked about professionalism in an entitled manner. Gwen Ifill said that only a crowd inside the Beltway really cares about what Scooter Libby said or didn't say to Judith Miller.

These journalists are out of touch. They don't understand the seismic consequences of the Iraq war, which is slowly transforming our politics (beginning with the Congress). Journalists failed us in that war; Judy Miller disgraced the New York Times by carrying the water for Richard Cheney and thereby misleading a society, with the gravest consequences. In fact, you might say that Judy Miller's testimony is her most honest reporting yet about the way the Iraq war was engineered. Thank you, Judy and Scooter; now I know why the VP's tragic/literary chief of staff routinely took hours of out of his days to talk to reporters.

This trial has demonstrated the corruption of "access journalism," which these journalists like to style as "professional." The crisis of leadership that Iraq represents is also theirs. In the Information Age, they failed us by pushing this war on the basis of false information about WMD and no information about the hidden agendas. It turns out that the less access you had, the more clearthinking you were about what a bad idea it was to invade Iraq. Why does Barack Obama look so good right now? He wasn't in the Senate, that's why; he wasn't compromised. I.F. Stone and Noam Chomsky always said, it's more important to read than to go to a cocktail party.

The professional bloodletting that is happening in the Libby trial, the destruction of all those promises journalists made to the White House—this can only serve journalism right now by restoring traditional virtues of the writing business: a sense of vocation that has nothing to do with corporate salary, a sense of citizenship that has nothing to do with Meritocratic Election, and a sense of detachment that wants nothing to do with imperialistic misadventures that are bound to cause untold suffering in another part of the world.

Hillary Clinton wants to cap the number of troops in Iraq.

Barack Obama dispatched fund-raiser Jenny Yeager to raise money in New York.

Howard Kurtz said Dick Morris was "flat -out wrong" in his criticism of Obama yesterday.

Hollywood agent Ari Emanuel is having a fund-raiser for Obama.

Despite all the attention, the race is still between Hillary and everybody else, according to this piece in the Wall Street Journal [subscription].

A sneak peak at a poll of independent voters in New Hampshire indicates that John McCain's support "has collapsed."

Eliot Spitzer returned $110,000 to a casino developer.

Spitzer is expected to name Richard Daines as the state's health commissioner.

NARAL will take aim at Republican state Senate candidate Maureen O'Connell.

Critics wonder whether the mayor's proposed changes to the public school system are a sign of success or failure. Whatever it is, it's risky, says David Herszenhorn.

Here's more information about the 13 people running for the one open City Council seat in Brooklyn.

Errol Louis continues the fight against the N-word.

Con Ed could have handled last year's blackout better, according to a new report.

Tom Suozzi apologized for using lights and sirens to get to a meeting in Nassau.

And it's your First Amendment right to jump off the Empire State Building. With a parachute.

-- Azi Paybarah

The former head of the Iowa Democratic Party doubts Hillary Clinton can win that state while being "a control freak."

TNR has a piece looking at whether Barack Obama can handle the rock-star treatment [subscription].

Of the media's love affair with Obama, Howard Kurtz says "Trust me, that will change" if he officially declares his candidacy.

Alan Hevesi has been invited to testify before a grand jury considering criminal charges against him in Albany.

The effort to remove Hevesi isn't going so well.

Sam Roberts looks at the history of the governor's mansion and how Eliot Spitzer may use it.

George Pataki's last session with the legislature may include deals on civil confinement, legislative pay increases and more charter schools.

Fred Dicker reports that lawmakers will get a pay hike if they agree to Pataki's wish list.

New York Post editors don't like the city comptroller's anti-Wal-Mart stance.

And Errol Louis suggests a holiday gift if you want your 2-year-old to read.

-- Azi Paybarah

Hillary Clinton is expanding her outreach.

Kos thinks Obama wins if he runs...and unless Al Gore gets into the race.

Huffington Post thinks Obama's candidacy serves as a lesson for Hillary.

Howard Kurtz sees an anti-Hillary narrative emerging.

Mitt Romney hired a senior communication strategist.

The Sun wonders why the AP slimmed down its story about Mike Bloomberg's war on trans-fat.

The TWU is holding a mass membership meeting on December 9, their first since the strike.

The Albany County DA's lead investigator on the Alan Hevesi probe got sacked over some local politics.

Charles Barron is considering a run for Public Advocate, according to Rock Hackshaw.

At a meeting in Manhattan, James Oddo told some people to go back to Queens [link fixed].

Rudy Giuliani is having a fund-raiser.

An above is Dawn Eden of the Daily News discussing the joys of not having sex.

-- Azi Paybarah

What exactly is wrong with the Republicans?  read more »

One big price exacted by the Israel lobby is that it tries to shut down free debate when Israel's motives are questioned. This is the lesson of the furore over comments on CNN by Tom Ricks, the Washington Post's Pentagon correspondent.

Three weeks back on Howard Kurtz's show Reliable Sources, Ricks, who has just published a bestselling book about the Iraq fiasco called Fiasco, made a startling statement:

One of the things that is going on, according to some U.S. military analysts, is that Israel purposely has left pockets of Hezbollah rockets in Lebanon, because as long as they're being rocketed, they can continue to have a sort of moral equivalency in their operations in Lebanon.

KURTZ: Hold on, you're suggesting that Israel has deliberately allowed Hezbollah to retain some of it's fire power, essentially for PR purposes, because having Israeli civilians killed helps them in the public relations war here?

RICKS: Yes, that's what military analysts have told me.

KURTZ: That's an extraordinary testament to the notion that having people on your own side killed actually works to your benefit in.. terms of the battle of perceptions here.

RICKS: Exactly. It helps you with the moral high ground problem, because you know your operations in Lebanon are going to be killing civilians as well.

KURTZ: All right.

The comments drew a sharp reaction from the pro-Israel community. For instance, former Mayor Ed Koch said that they were antisemitic, for they repeated the classic "blood libel," suggesting that Jews would sacrifice children to derive benefit to their people. Or something like that.

Koch then badgered Washington Post executive editor Leonard Downie Jr. about the remarks, and then brandished Downie's response on the National Review website.

I have made clear to Tom Ricks that he should not have made those statements. Len Downie

That's too bad. Yes, Ricks's statement seems off the wall. But he stuck to it throughout the flap, telling The New York Sun "The comments were accurate: that I said I had been told this by people. I wish I hadn't said them, and I intend from now on to keep my mouth shut about it."

The danger here is that zealous devotion to Israel on the part of the American lobby causes good reporters not to even speculate about international affairs, but to portray Israel always in favorable terms. Kevin Drum made the same point last month, when he said he avoided even voicing pro-Palestinian views because folks are so touchy about the issue, and the Middle East is so complex. I.e., leave it to the experts who know everything. That's un-American: we should encourage debate, not stifle it. (Interestingly, Kurtz himself didn't find Ricks's statement preposterous. And as all the recent Israeli histories of the Six-Day War have shown, the truth about the military events takes a long time to unfold.)

It's hard to imagine any of these guys getting so bent out of shape if, say, American military tactics were impeached. A point Ricks made to me when I asked him to talk about the flap. "No thanks, I have vowed to going back to covering only Iraq, where tempers seem to run calmer."

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