In Which My Boss Responds to My Email

His logic astounds me.

I didn't turn my books back to the library in time. That's all in the past now. Give me more books please.

Sure I murdered a family of four. Can we just move on now. No use crying over spilt milk.

I tried to rig elections, and use the justice department to go after democrats on a partisan basis. I fired the attorneys who wouldn't play ball. There are important issues we need to address now so let's move beyond it.

As Greenwald and others have noted, the media really hates the concept that the whole system can be corrupted. One or a few people are supposed to be the scapegoats, and we are supposed to pretend that this fixed the problem.

Rick Stengel just exemplified this philosophy. I really wish people in the inner city who allegedly shoplifted in the past had Stengel advocating for them in front of the local D.A.s

Again with the weasel words.

If people see the Democrats as obsessively concerned with settling scores, that's not good for the Democrats. If people see the Democrats as providing reasonable oversight that's been missing for six years, that *is* good for the Democrats. For any statement you make about how "the people" may feel on an issue, you can come up with a plausible-sounding statement describing how they might feel the other way.

If Rick himself thinks this is simply settling scores, he should say so. If he knows that public opinion sees this as simply settling scores, he should say so and cite the poll. But if he's taking his personal opinion and passing it off as a (good faith, of course) warning to the Democrats about what "people" might think, that's just dishonest.

Rick -- don't feel that you should muzzle your citizen's thoughts. You get paid because your personal citizen's thoughts are interesting. Just don't pretend they're anything else.

Rick: "If people see the Democrats as obsessively concerned with settling scores, that's not good for the Democrats or the country."

I call bullshit. Maybe unintentional, but still a load of Mainstream Republican talking points crap.

It carries the implicit assumption that the Dems investigation is strictly about payback for previous elections, and previous slights.

However, it's becoming more and more apparent as this story unfolds that the US Attorneys scandal is just as much about the Republican attempts to manipulate the *2008* elections as it is about any past crimes.

And Karl Rove is decidedly involved in that aspect of this scandal.

I'm confused, this is called a response?
He's taking what we've said is false, and claimed it to be true even more, unless "speaking as a citizen" means speaking from a purely personal opinion, and not claiming the opinion of the citizenry.

I know you won't be able to get more out of him, but he's just saying the same thing he did on Chris Matthew's.

maybe it's the way the line breaks, but I could easily take "And I would make the exact same statement about the Republicans if they were in this situation." as "And I would make the exact same statement about the Republicans, if they were in this situation."

Something seems fishy, but honestly, I'm not a reporter, so I can only speculate. My apologies to all reporters who think their job is to speculate, like Stengel.

And if Democrats are seen as obsessively ferreting out well-hidden and ferociously defended Administration secrets regarding *obstruction of justice* (USAs like Carol Lam possibly fired for investigating Republicans a bit too well) and *abuse of power* (USAs like McKay and Iglesias possibly fired for refusing to take part in pretextual investigations and indictments of Democrats) -- two of the three grounds of impeachment approved against Richard Nixon, lest we forget -- then that is probably *not so bad* for the Democrats and in any event is *vital* for the nation's democratic governance.

Sheesh. Does Stengel not understand that there are reasons to suspect underlying crimes were committed here? Not just "didn't tell Congress the whole truth" underlying crimes, but "tried to pervert the entire everloving political system" kind of crimes? And he calls it SETTLING SCORES???

Ok. I want to see evidence of "exact same statement about Republicans" produced.

What statements did Rick make about travelgate, filegate, christmas card gate, Socks' fan mail gate. I know these aren't equal crimes. Heck Socks seemed like a shady character to me. Did the boss demand that Dan Burton stop using congressional resources to determine how Socks' mail was being handled?

Or not?

It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open one's mouth and prove the point.

TPMCafe
Media Matters
Huffington Post
Oliver Willis............All better than Time

Wow.

So Mr Stengel, "citizen", doesn't have a problem with the US Department of Justice being used in attempts to influence elections? I'm told there was a time when people regarded such tampering with our democratic process as a national problem, not a partisan one. I'd like to think that US citizens, whatever their political leanings, would view elections as sacrosanct, and trying to prevent and correct them a matter of civic duty, rather than partisan "score-settling". But I guess I'm a wooly-minded romantic.

My own feeling is that if those are Mr Stengel's views as a "citizen", he's not really fit to vote. He doesn't understand the responsibility and importance of the voting franchise enough to participate in it. I guess it's up to others to decide if he's fit to be in charge of a current affairs magazine, and those people are more concerned with Dunn&Bradstreet and Morgan, Stanley than with Lock, Hume, Montesquieu, Madison, Jefferson and Hamilton.

What a shameful excuse for a "citizen" Mr Stengel is. And as a journalist. I do have some stock in TimeWarner. If Mr Stengel views his duties as a corporate manager the same way he views those as a citizen, and his bosses approve, maybe I oughta dump that stock.

(PS, personal to Mr Stengel: Rick, the petulant saracasm of the last sentence? Joe Klein salutes you, wherever he is. I imagine George W Bush would give you little wink for that too.)

rnrd2000: Exactly, but how many of those people do you see on Teh Tweety Show, CNN and the Meet The Press roundtables?

Wow, that is just ever so cute.

Mr. Stengel plays the naughty little boy -- I was caught out -- and then shifts seamlessly into the stern father-figure to scold his cheeky daughter.

Of course, it's not as a citizen that he's invited to speak on Chris Matthews' show, but as a Time editor. And of course, he knows this, and Ms. Cox knows this. And that is the role in which he furrows his brow and tries ever-so-mightily to view this politics nonsense as a fungus in the sparkling restroom stall where he goes to do his business.

I have a longer comment to make and will do so later, but if he's gonna hang out on TV and make comments not as ME of Time, but as a private citizen, the frickin' label under his name shouldn't read ME of Time.

Does Stengel get that Monica Goodling is the WH liason for the DoJ, that she's the link between Gonzalez & Sampson at DoJ and Jennings & Rove at the White House?

And that she's taking the 5th Amendment?

What is he thinking? Is he thinking?

"Settling scores". Oy vey.

I can just see him circa 1973 saying, "It was just a couple of low-level hacks who broke into a Democratic office. I'm sure the President had nothing to do with it..."

"If people see the Democrats as obsessively concerned with settling scores, that's not good for the Democrats or the country."

I for one want Democrats to investigate and get to the truth of every last unanswered question about what this administration has been up to for the past 7 years. Republicans may see that as "settling scores", but then settling scores is what mobster-types do.
.

"But as a citizen, I think it's unfortunate and perhaps short-sighted for Democrats to be perceived as focusing on the past rather than the future."

That's interesting. Stengel uses the same elision that Carney used in his piece introducing "the Edwards question." In each case, the writer holds a certain position and elides that into a position that is held by some unnamed others ["average Americans," for Carney; not even winked at by Stengel] — and that is presumed to be a threat to the democrat or democrats.

If Stengel and Carney are just thinking aloud — apart from the values or merits of their positions — why hide behind these projected others? [Not to mention the fact that neither writer tells us how he arrives at an understanding of the presumed position of these unnamed others.]

Bah.

What's striking is the Mr. Stengel is able to convince himself that he can appear in national media as something other than the Time's editor. His email also seems to abrogate the role the media (read: Time) has in determining whether the Democrats are preceived as "settling old scores" or in upholding their responsibility, as the majority party in Congress, to oversight.

It seems intellectually dishonest to me, but what do I know?

Hmmm. Obviously, it didn't say "Rick Stengel, Citizen" in the caption as he spoke. It said "Rick Stengel, Time", where he is the managing editor.

And by the way, even as citizen, from his high school Citizenship 101 class he should know it is the job of the congress to oversee. If they let corruption go, they're not doing their job. It's not *their* fault the 4th estate has been asleep at the switch and hasn't brought any of this out previously over the past few years.

And he left out one other thing. Glenn Greenwald *schooled* him. School school schooled him!

i>But as a citizen, I think it's unfortunate and perhaps short-sighted for Democrats to be perceived as focusing on the past rather than the future.

As a citizen, I am so effin sick of pravda level "journalism" and gross lies from Republican apologists. Mr. Stengel, your side has not yet been able to clear the record.

Here's one of many cases where Republicans focsed investigations on a long ago minor and fabricated scandal instead of on obstruction of justice at the highest levels and you ate it up. Liar.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,983961-1,00.html

Stengel is basically making himself sound profoundly unprofessional here.

So he wasn't aware that, in one of the most public of forums (a Sunday bobblehead show), he de facto represents his professional and institutional persona.

I guess all the chummy yuk-yukking in the studio made him think he was just talking to his buddies at the corner bar (or "tavern," as Klein calls it).

The whole point of speaking in your professional rather than private role is that, quite literally, your own private political views are no more interesting or better informed than anyone else's.

But if you're a journalist, you're supposed to be worth listening to because you're privy to information that the rest of us are not. And clearly, we know that's not the case, because he's "so not interested."

How unprofessional and just what is this man's job title.......Holy crap!! If the "citizens" of this country are left in the dark as to the depths of this administration's corruption, the direction this country is headed is not a place we will want for our children. We stumpled and let this band of "royalists" take us down a road that we, as a nation of "citizens," do not want to be on. He just doesn't get it.....personally!!!

May I go on the cable pundit circuit as "masculine_monica_nyc, citizen" in Stengel's place next time?

Yes, it would be unfortunate "if people see the Democrats as obsessively settling scores". I wonder if anyone around here knows anyone who has a direct impact on how stories are presented to the public, and who are in a position to provide a full factual and historical accounting of a given issue, free of any arrant speculation as to what might motivate an aggressive investigation of stuff that admittedly happened in the past but not necessarily so long ago that it ought to be consigned to the dustbin of history.

Does anyone around here know somebody like that?

Ana,
I just posted this on another thread before I realized you had posted this blog:

"I'll bet that Stengel HOPES no one "in the real world" paid much attention to him on Sunday. I would loooooooove to know how or if the attention he is garnering on the Internet is affecting him. Did he look a little sheepish when he found out the video was posted on Greenwald's site? Has he yet admitted he was a damned fool for saying what he said?"

Wow!!!
How wrong was I to expect this guy to feel a wee bit of humiliation!?!?

Has Stengel looked at the three-minute video Greenwald has posted? Lordy, I hope he would change his song and dance if he took a look-see.

"But as a citizen, I think it's unfortunate and perhaps short-sighted for Democrats to be perceived as focusing on the past rather than the future. If people see the Democrats as obsessively concerned with settling scores, that's not good for the Democrats or the country."

GEEZ! How short-sighted is Stengel?!?! He STILL doesn't get it that the American citizens expect Congress to do oversight! What is this with "obsessively concerned with settling scores"?
Is the guy nuts? Does he NOT have any inkling how much the Bush Regime has perverted our democracy?

Ana, honey, you need to seek employment elsewhere even if you are reduced to selling pencils on the street corner. This guy is definitely a zero in the brains department. I would have no respect whatsoever for him and would find myself snarling at him when he looked my way.

By the way, could you ask Stengel what's going to be on the cover this week?

I have "Weeping Jesus" in the office pool, since apparently Time is now competing with Human Events for the kitsch religion market.

It was the weekend, he must have been out on a day pass or something.......

Here is Stengel credulously repeating republican talking points about Hillary's PRIVATE financial dealing years before Bill became president. Note how loudly he complains about the Republicans facing backward (NOT). But of course that was about something important like the President's wife's possible involvement in a real-estate deal in which she LOST MONEY instead of a minor issue of the Attorney General firing prosecutors who are investigating corruption in the CIA.
You people are revolting.

--
The records also reveal that Mrs. Clinton had at least 14 meetings on what regulators have described as a fictitious property deal called Castle Grande. Mrs. Clinton has told RTC investigators that she does not recall working on the transaction. According to the billings, Mrs. Clinton met repeatedly with Seth Ward, the father-in-law of Webster Hubbell, former Associate Attorney General now serving time in federal prison for bilking the Rose Law Firm. Ward, say investigators, was a sham purchaser of the 1,000-plus-acre plot south of Little Rock because the only security Madison required for the loan was the land itself. A computer printout among the billings reveals that Mrs. Clinton drafted an option agreement for Ward to sell part of the project back to Madison for $400,000.
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"I wonder if anyone around here knows anyone who has a direct impact on how stories are presented to the public ..."

On the other hand, we shouldn't overstate the case. How many people read "Time" magazine or watch Tweety, anyway? And how frequently does Drugde's service as assignment editor draw from "Time"? Perhaps we arrogate to the writers of this blog and "Time" more influence than they have, apart from their role as catapultors of already existing propaganda.

"Next time I'm on Chris Matthews.." Jesus Christ.
Nobody good ever begins a sentence with that phrase.

"I think it's unfortunate and perhaps short-sighted for Democrats to be perceived as focusing on the past rather than the future. If people see the Democrats as obsessively concerned with settling scores, that's not good for the Democrats or the country."

Concern troll!

masculine_monica:

This is Time magazine. In four months, every dentist's office in America will be abuzz with this stuff.

Ana Marie, you mean your story due isn't about what Rick said on the Chris Matthews show?

Clearly, you aren't efficiently achieving a unique synergy between your stories and your blog posts. Its all content that must be leveraged on a variety of publishing platforms. So get to posting pictures from your cellphone already!

This error in your ways must be because your superiors didn't convey the best practices in the McKinsey & Co. study to you. All that money spent on reinventing Time and yet still a failure.

Ding Ding Ding... JGabriel wins the jackpot...

"However, it's becoming more and more apparent as this story unfolds that the US Attorneys scandal is just as much about the Republican attempts to manipulate the *2008* elections as it is about any past crimes."

Yes. This is more about fixing 2008 for the Republican'ts, not as much about losing 2006.

"This is Time magazine. In four months, every dentist's office in America will be abuzz with this stuff."

That's a fair point, mikeg. But with media saturation and portable distractions, how many of those "Time" magazines get read, really?

I dunno.

God, it has to suck for you to work for someone who is basically a boil on the backside of journalism.

My condolences.

Call it The Curse of Mike Allen. Every place he hangs his shingle becomes a dumpster for GOP talking points. Washington Post, Time, politico.com.

He's the Typhoid Mary of our national discourse.

Mr Stengel,

Please outsource your reporting to Talking Points Memo and FiredogLake from here on out.

Your unwillingness to even attempt comprehending the issue and/or disdain for the American public is disturbing.

I honestly used to consider Time magazine an authoritative place for news less than a decade ago. From here on out, I will give all of my money to news outlets such as Talking Points Memo where they care about the news and assume we can comprehend more than Anna Nicole Smith and Scott Peterson.

Sincerely,
Mark

"Meanwhile, the next Time I'm on the Chris Matthews show, I'll muzzle the citizens' thoughts."

Did you notice that Rick didn't acknowledge here that he has the facts all wrong, according to polls, on what the public wants from this investigation?

He's not a journalist at all. He's not reporting events. He's just saying what he thinks is cool or dorky - according to the Republican playbook.

It doesn't matter whether Stengel was speaking as a citizen or a journalist. He's a lousy example of both.

I don't want Democrats or Republicans to engage in pointless tit-for-tat payback. But there is a mountain of evidence that the White House was caught implementing a plan to replace U.S. attorneys who investigated Republicans too aggressively and/or refused to prosecute Democrats on bogus charges.

I also don't want Democrats to go after Karl Rove for the sake of going after him. But there is substantial evidence that he was up to his eyeballs in the U.S. attorney fiasco, implemented a scheme to use the General Services Administration for political purposes in blatant violation of the Hatch Act, and, of course, revealed the name of a covert CIA agent to get revenge on her husband.

I don't know which is worse — that the managing editor of Time magazine doesn't think the Democrats should investigate these matters or that he doesn't have his best reporters investigating them already.

So a truce and pinky shake? Let's let bygones be bygones. If you guys want to make an extragovernmental e-mail communication system where you can practice the balck arts and disinfrachise voters with bogus and partisan voter fraud witch hunts based on ancedotes passed around on Free Republic it's cool with me. Because I'm looking to the future yo! All that other stuff is so 8 weeks ago.

My condolences on working for a concern troll.

boy is the coy ingenue versus crusty editor act a honking pile of mule droppings. somebody pls get the hook out.

and who the hell reads time magazine anymore unless britney spears is on the cover?

The attorney purge happened only a few months ago! And only became public knowledge a few weeks ago!

What is this? Anything that happened more than a week ago is beyond the statue of limitations? Or beyond some super-short sell-by date? Or beyond Stengel's stunted attention span?

I realize it's risky for Ana to make fun of her boss in public, but this guy is just crying out to be ridiculed. Go ahead, Ana! You can get another job. Make fun of him! He might be afraid to fire you after already making such a public fool of himself.

Please, please don't anybody rock Ricky's boat. Ricky's world is just fine and don't mess with it. Smug and secure. Well, smug and maybe very insecure. Change is the threat. Go with the flow.

Somewhere Ricky can find a think tank, a lobbyist, a pollster, a round table that will support his view. How is Time's growth? Hiring more staff to keep up with the growth?

Don't muck up citizen Ricky's pursuit of happiness with such things as justice and liberty for all.

What annoyed me watching that video clip was the complete lack of any authentic outrage on the part of the various media figures. Their instincts are so dulled that no amount of corruption can generate any emotional reaction beyond cynical amusement. That's what I found so appalling in all of Matthew's guests in that discussion. When the attorney general is lying to congress, people should be angry.

It's good that he responded finally (it's his job after all), but wtf? Does he truly only see this in terms of Democrats going after Rove? only as a partisan political game? How sad is that? And how can he speak of being a "citizen" at all if he doesn't consider what that means? And this takes the cake: "And I would make the exact same statement about the Republicans if they were in this situation."

Um...was he asleep for the 90s?

Weird--and sad. Again, quite a nose for news he's got. I guess we should be happy he didn't say "Drudge rocks my world" or something. Is this how he would have responded to Watergate? Iran-Contra?

Also--"citizens" don't get to go on tv and pontificate. He wasn't invited on Matthews because he's just a random guy.

I'm late in the game here, but first of all...

Holy media dinosaur, Batman!

It's worse than I thought.

Basically he's saying that he has vetoed Jay Carney's mea culpa to Josh Marshall.

That's not speaking as a citizen, it's speaking as a republican. What exactly has this administration done to prove they don't deserve having every loose thread pulled by the democrats and the media? Maybe if the country were humming along like the daddy party grown ups promised you could understand why the media elite would cut them some slack, but seriously, would the dreaded "constitional crisis" (that's actually a sign of a healthy democracy) make things any worse?

OT - Did anyone else listen to the Fresh Air on credit card companies today and find yourself discovering a whole new group of villains to despise?

Hey Rick:

Since you're new to blogs let me fill you in on some net jargon. You are what is known around the blogs as a "concern troll".

Concern trolls seem to be a strictly right wing phenomenon. Their schtick is to pretend to be concerned for lefties and to give them "sincere" advice about how they are hurting themselves with their current position and would really be oh so much better off adopting the right wing position instead.

Concern trolls are now familiar enough to have a name. BTW: That kind of crap doesn't fool anyone any more, if it ever did.

BTW: "BTW" means "by the way" in bloggish.

"If people see the Democrats as obsessively concerned with settling scores, that's not good for the Democrats or the country."

And I wonder what would make people "see" things that way, Mr. Stengel.

Ana, we're all sorry you and Karen have to work for this moron.

And it was just in 2002 that Time declared "The Year of the Whistle-Blowers" -- "... In a year that saw our trust in American institutions tested so severely, what better way to capture that news than to profile three ordinary people who in extraordinary ways tried to restore confidence in business and government? ..." -- http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1003967,00.html

Dear Mr. Stengel:

Three questions:

1. How do you know that it's all in the past?
2. Are you saying that people should never be investigated for things that they did in the past?
3. And if that's not what you're saying, then what are you saying?

Rick Stengel is an extremist.

A recent poll in USA Today states that 72 percent of Americans thinks Congress should --investigate the involvement of White House officials in this matter. This raises the question of why Rick Stengel is so far outside the mainstream.

Rick Stengel is an extremist in his political views and obviously biased in the way he does his job at Time Magazine.

What an incredibly stupid thing for Rick Stengel to think.

"Interesting in an objective way"? How about interesting in a most-egregious-abuse-of-power-in-the-history-of-the-American-presidency way?

Is Rick at the cocktail party? That sounds like the weenies talking.

Here is what Stengel's statement sounds like it you remove the Republican talking points and replace them with something resembling common decency:

In reading your reaction to my comments on Chris Matthews, I realize that I've been caught out speaking as a citizen rather than as editor of Time. Lord knows, the Republicans firing prosecutors who went after corrupt Republicans and also firing prosecutors with the integrity not to file false charges against Democrats is "interesting" in an objective way for Time and for journalists in general.

It's hard to overstate the administration’s corruption and it would certainly create yards of headlines and good copy if it got some traction. But as a citizen, I think it's unfortunate and perhaps short-sighted for Republicans to be perceived as trying to rig elections. If people see the Republicans as obsessively concerned with trying to corruptly hold onto power, that's not good for the Republicans or the country. And I would make the exact same statement about the Democrats if they were in this situation.

Meanwhile, the next time I’m on Chris Matthews, I’ll muzzle my citizen’s thoughts.
And, Ana, don’t you have a story due?

Best, Rick

In Latin, "finis pendit pendulum." The end hangs on the beginning. The actions of this Adminstration has implications for our civil rights and our civil justice system for years to come. It determines the direction of our democracy, and to *not* question that is a dereliction of Congressional duty in the most fundamental sense.

So injustice has a statute of limitations? We are talking about an administration that is systematically destroying the Constitutional underpinnings of our nation. They see the Justice department as nothing more than the handmaidens of their political operation, a means to pursue bogus investigations and disenfranchise poor and minority communities under the guise of "voter fraud" and to use the US attorneys as a means to that end.

So is it settling scores when the Justice Department goes after decades-old civil rights murders?

Or does the pursuit of justice as a constant struggle not remain an obligation of all of us?

Mr. Stengel has the luxury of priviledge to poo-poo that. Others are not so fortunate.

"3. And if that's not what you're saying, then what are you saying?"

I think he's saying "if the Democrats manage to get some traction", then it's a political fight, "and it would certainly create yards of headlines and good copy."
I think since he sees it as "Democrats vs. Rove", then something would have to happen to Rove for it to really be a story? But if that happens, it would also just be more of "the Democrats as obsessively concerned with settling scores ... not good for the Democrats or the country", according to that email, no?

Don't know if this has been brought up in the many comments in Ana and Karen's many posts about this matter; but a few weeks ago New York Magazine did an article which detailed how Stengel became managing editor of Time. It described a memo that Stengel wrote which apparently went over big-time with his bosses: I read this at the time and just about gagged:
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