Garbage In, Journalism Out

Is Novak to blame? He's not leaking privileged information this time. If you look at the exchange on Halperin's "The Page," the campaigns are acting like there is real fire to this smoke.

Novak wrote:

"Agents of Sen. Hillary Clinton are spreading the word in Democratic circles..."

If this is indeed true, why is it that Novak is the only person reporting this story?

Logically speaking, there should be a plethora of sources able to confirm this accusation. No?

One word: Politico.

I join Joe Klein in revulsion at whatever is going on here.

And, I'm sure we'll all watch in awe as Klein digs for real news and, for instance, points out that Obama marched in support of illegal activity and did so at an event organized by those linked to a foreign government and foreign political parties:

http://nomoreblather.com/barack-obama-and-the-immigration-marches

I'm sure Joe Klein will be shocked that a U.S. Senator would serve as a useful idiot for a corrupt foreign government instead of, for instance, investigating what steps that government took to agitate their citizens to take to our streets.

And, just as Spring follows Fall, I'm sure we'll watch in awe as Klein "cross-examines" Hillary about her support for explicitly anti-American legislation:

youtube.com/watch?v=Q_l4Lawj14A

Now, let's all sit back and watch in awe as Joe Klein makes the election about the issues and shows his "bulldog" reporting skills.

Joe, what are you calling "a rumor" here... are you claiming that the story itself (about the activities of the "agents of Sen. Hillary Clinton") is merely a rumor, i.e. that Novak is repeating second or third hand gossip?

Or is it true that "agents" of Clinton are spreading the story that she has damaging information on Obama that she isn't using -- but that the information on Obama is really just a rumor.

Because if someone in a position to know told Novak that Hillary had info on Obama, then there is nothing wrong with what he is doing.

I love the way Obama's camp is handling this. Whereas John Kerry sat around for days, weeks even, while the gentle winds of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth winds whipped themselves up into a hurricane, Obama is showing that he has nothing to hide and will not back down from any fight. When Fox News ran a story about a young Obama being schooled in a radical madrassa, Obama's camp had a CNN reporter in Indonesia within a week with pictures of what turned out to be a very modern public school, shots of children in Western clothes listening to iPods, and glowing interviews with faculty and old classmates. If the Republicans-- or the Clintons-- think they can use Karl Rove's John Kerry playbook on Barack Obama, they're going to find those tactics to be both badly outdated and easily countered by a candidate who doesn't roll up into a ball when attacked.

When you're running against someone who has already written a brutally honest and unapologetic autobiography about a turbulent and oftentimes shocking adolescence (drug use, sharp language, and an initial mistrust of other races), you're dealing with someone who has already shown they do not fear and will never run from the truth. So in this election, against this candidate, either come with the truth or don't bother showing up. Barack Obama is no John Kerry.

Unfortunately, this is what political "journalism" in this country has degenerated into. Rumors get repeated, conspiracy theories are treated as being credible, and unhinged loons like Rush Limbaugh are treated as respectable commentators.

The Beltway pundit class truly is pathetic and out of touch.

I actually like Robert Novak's column. I know a lot of it is garbage, but a lot isn't. And his columns about Palestine are among the most thoughtful I've read on the subject.

I guess that now he's almost a felon, Joe feels comfortable attacking him for doing the same kind of thing the rest of the villagers do.

And I don't get the outrage. If he has credible sources, then what's wrong with this?

I think that Obama screwed the pooch on this one. Rather than do the smart thing (go to the Clinton campaign privately, and ask that they issue a blanket denial that they are holding scandalous information on Obama) he went public.

My guess -- there is a small nugget of truth to the story, but only a small nugget. After the attacks on Clinton after the last debate, some Clinton supporters probably asked if she was prepared to go negative if necessary. They get told "yes she is" (but its nothing "scandalous"-- she is ready to go negative on his record.)

This gets repeated among Hillary supporters as "Hillary has dirt on Obama that's she's not using". Novak hears this from a Hillary supporter, and writes that "agents" of Clinton have something "scandalous".

(It is especially notable that Novak used the term 'agents'... this means that it was not someone employed by Hillary, otherwise Novak would have said so.)

So...the next time Bob Novak runs a column or goes on television and says something like this, you folks will generally agree that "he's pretty accurate, mostly"?

...and Fox News does some pretty good reporting on the war, right?

This is what Bob Novak "reported" about the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth in 2004:

From the August 7 edition of CNN's The Capital Gang:

NOVAK: There's a new book out called Unfit for Command about his [Kerry's] record. I've read it all. It's coming out it'll be published soon. It is a shocking presentation of Senator Kerry's record. I just couldn't believe some of the things in there -- very carefully documented.

Margaret, these are not partisan Republicans. They're not Republicans at all. They're Naval personnel. They're not interested in [President] George [W.] Bush. One of the authors of the book told me he would have voted for John Edwards if he were nominated. Not particular Bush fans, but they just are appalled by John Kerry.

Now, I have some question whether 30 years later you should be inspecting the minutiae, the record of John Kerry, which is a very questionable record, how he got his decorations, his very short term of duty, four months of combat, one third of the time. But the fact of the matter is, he brought it on himself by concentrating at the convention and in the campaign on not his Senate record but his war record to try to bring about support from the middle and the center of the road.

Here's his Wikipedia entry

Wikipedia Rober Novak: " Swift Boat Veterans

In August 2004, after other journalists had reported on it, Novak admitted that his son, Alex Novak, is the Director of Marketing for the Swift Boat Veterans' publisher, Regnery Publishing. At the time he said that he didn't "think it relevant." Two months later Salon.com reported that Regnery's owner is also the publisher of Novak's own US$297 (annual rate) newsletter and that Novak is on the board of a foundation whose chief holdings are the stock of Regnery's parent company.[7]"

Entrenched Washington ghouls like Novak routinely take minute crumbs of truth they "overhear", bake scandal-bomb cakes, and then throw DC parties (to which everybody is invited).

Remember: Novak took a tangential kernel of reality--that Valerie Plame was secretly CIA, and that her husband was Joe Wilson--and then told an enormous lie about it (that nobody of any importance in the Bush Administration ever saw Wilson's report debunking "Saddam bought nuclear weapons material" before the war, and that the pro-Clinton Wilson got himself sent by his CIA wife on a boondoggle to discredit the Bush administration) on behalf of Karl Rove to besmirch the credibility of war opponents.

Here's more on Novak...

and some more...

I could go on like this for days...

Are you people really going to validate innuendo written by Bob Novak before going into a campaign season?
He promoted Swift Boat Veterans for Truth!

Isn't that cutting off your nose to commit suicide?

There's a rumor that there's a rumor, but it seems to be just a rumor:

http://thegarance.com/archives/987

Bob Novak's conscience is rumored to exist, but was surgically removed, and is sitting in a bell jar in Scooter Libbey's basement.

I should be very clear about this.
Joe: you are absolutely, thoroughly right about this matter.

Rumors only become news when they are confirmed, cross-checked and responded to by the target of the attack.

Thanks for saying this, even though you must know that we will hold this post up to you later when you cite unnamed, anonymous military officials as credible sources.

Well done, sir.

I'm willing to assert one thing about the original leak to Novak. There were no Democrats in the room.

You obviously haven't hung out with many Republican "journalists", otherwise you would find out lots of "journalism" about Obama being the Manchurian candidate raised in a Madrassa and indoctrinated at the ripe age of 13 to become President of the Great Satan so he he could make everyone wear burkhas.
And let's not forget that Hillary has problems of her own, namely that she strangled Vince Foster with her own hands and then ate his still beating heart. Then she went and flashed her cleavage on the Senate floor.

Uh Joe, if it's "outrageous" why are you linking to it? Now your hands are dirty too...

This morning, as I recall, I saw Novaks' column, but the column itself wasn't of as much interest as the prominantly displayed banner ad proclaiming:

"Obama Esposed!"

I clicked on it, and I was offered a chance to get the lowdown sent to me by email.

Now am I missing something? I havn't heard any of you mention this.

I noticed now, returning to the link, the banner reads "Hillary's Hypocracy: Exposed!"

Now correct me if I'm wrong, maybe I'm dense, but it really does seem to me that the hand that is stirring the cauldron in which this teapot-sized Katrina is Kim Novaks.

Now correct me if I'm wrong,

okay. You're wrong. :-)

maybe I'm dense, but it really does seem to me that the hand that is stirring the cauldron in which this teapot-sized Katrina is Kim Novaks.

The two "Exposed" reports that you refer to are put out by Human Events, which also hosts Novak's little column -- but you can find those ad all over the Human Events website (including its homepage), and I doubt if Novak authored those "exposes" (there are actually three rotating ads, the third one being for a "Free Newt" newsletter.)

3:

This morning, as I recall, I saw Novaks' column, but the column itself wasn't of as much interest as the prominantly displayed banner ad proclaiming:

"Obama Esposed!"

I clicked on it, and I was offered a chance to get the lowdown sent to me by email.

Now am I missing something? I havn't heard any of you mention this.

I wrote about it here, in response to an Obama shill

The post is down toward the bottom of the comments (control + f, searching for "stuart_zechman" will get you there faster).

I think people are getting confused about two separate issues. 1) Is there any dirt on Obama? and 2) Were theClinton people saying there was regardless of whether there is or not.

Now, I see a number of possibilities here:

a) The story is totally true...there is dirt, the clinton people were saying they have it and today's denials by the Clintons are BS
b) The story is true in that the clintons were going around saying they had something on Obama, but were really bluffing. Their intent was not to smear, but to portray Obama as someone who could be smeared in a general and thus should not be noninated.
c) Bob Novak made the whole thing up or believed a source who made the whole thing up.

There seems to be a lot of fighting between people about possibilities a and c, but I wonder if b might be closer to the truth. I don't think we have enough information to say for sure right now. Campaign statements are generally worth the paper they are written on.

I think it is logically fallacious to assume that because the source is Novak that c is the only possibility. I don't think it is intellectually honest to rule out possibilities a and b without more evidence. A bad messenger does not automatically rule out the possibility of him bearing a message with some truth.

One other think Joe I wanted to point out....you can blame journalists like novak for putting this out there, but your own outfit's "The Page" has been a major flame douser for the story today...putting it since AM at the top of the screen, something even drudge didn't do. I am not necessarily critcizing Halperin for doing so....but perhaps the two of you ought to chat if you feel so strongly about this....

I think it is logically fallacious to assume that because the source is Novak that c is the only possibility.

until you consider the other data --- or the lack of it, in this case. No one else is confirming that the story about "scandalous information" is being told by "agents" of Hillary Clinton. In other words, in order for the Novak story to be true, Hillary Clinton (and it has to be her, because the people are described as her "agents") would have had to tell at least two people to go to Novak (and no one else) and tell the story.

What is far more likely is that Novak is lying about who told him the story -- that it wasn't people who were instructed to repeat this story, but simply people who are Clinton supporters who were repeating some kind of rumor that had no real basis.

as I've suggested elsewhere, it would be very easy for someone to say "Hillary will go negative on Obama if she has to, but won't just yet" and have it wind up as "Hillary has dirt on Obama that she's not using" in two or three iterations of the story. And if the latter story was told to Novak by people who had endorsed Clinton, Novak is the kind of person who would write that "agents" of Hillary Clinton were saying that she had "scandalous information" on Obama that she was holding back on using.

And because it is apparent that Novak did not contact the Clinton campaign to confirm the story, I think its safe to assume that Novak is misrepresenting the truth to such an extent that it constitutes a lie.

BTW, does anybody actually think that there is real dirt on Obama?

Nobody I've read or commented with, not Hillary supporters, not Obama supporters, not people freaked out by the whole "nuclear" thing--nobody except Republicans, actually--believes that there's some scandalous problem in the works for Obama somewhere at all.

If the effect of this whole blow up is to actually inoculate Obama against Rovian dirty tricks, then Novakula's tactics may have backfired...

"BTW, does anybody actually think that there is real dirt on Obama?"

I don't believe any actual evidence has been presented yet. Of course, given the nature of the story, evidence is not required, because they would never use the evidence, real or not, to try and smear another candidate, even if it does exist. In fact, they seem to be denying the whole thing happened at all.

It would seem that Mr. Novak is repeating right-wing blather (this is not too uncommon) and Mr. Klein, whilst pretending to decry the practice, is also catapaulting it into the echo chamber. Meanwhile, a mass grave was discovered in Baghdad to day with scores of bodies - unidentifiable as yet - of dead women and children.

Who killed them?? What really happened? We're never going to know, because security remains terrible, there has been no political reconciliation, the benchmarks have not been met, there have been over 30,000+ U.S. casualties in this, the deadliest year of the never-ending occupation, and the current cost is at least $800 billion and counting.

And our "best" reporters are blathering on about something someone said to Novak about what the Clinton campaign might be saying about some alleged but unspecified dirt on Senator Obama...

Earth to D.C: Is anybody there?? Does anybody care??

Wait a minute. Let's flip the script around and see if this faux outrage abates:

Agents of Gov. George W. Bush are spreading the word in Democratic circles that he has scandalous information about his principal opponent for the party's presidential nomination, Sen. John McCain, but has decided not to use it.

Who among you would say a reporter should sit on a story of rumor-mongering such as that? But we can't have that kind of sleazy inside stuff attributed to the lambs of politics, the liberal Democrats.

Opposition research slipped to reporters and reported as news is one of the dirty secrets of political reporting. It's about time a reporter threw a light on it. Because you know damn well that Hillary's info will make its way into the press if Obama's poll numbers rise to levels Hillary's camp finds dangerous. At least now, when the Obama scandal makes news, we'll be prepared to ask where it came from -- and will be able to ask pointed questions to the reporter who "breaks" the story.

Not to worry.
At the end of the primary season Hillary will be on top with Obama by her side ready to win the inevitable landslide over whichever loser the GOP fields.

Joe,
The next time you are on MTP with Bobby, Timmy, and a few other pals just tell Novak he is a gasbag! You won't because you lack the guts to stand up. You will just nod in agreement with whatever Bobby, Timmy, or Tweety say.....so sad!

Thank you for this Joe. It is a real benefit to the national discourse to have journalists like you point out this sort of thing. Please continue doing it.

Fantastic ！！！Thanx，
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