The Phony Second-Degree Political Scandal

Michael, speaking of second-degree scandals, how about a response from your girlfriend about her Dad actively seeking out the support and endorsement of a televangelist who professes that America was partially founded on destroying the "false religion" of Islam?

http://www.motherjones.com/washington_dispatch/2008/03/john-mccain-rod-parsley-spiritual-guide.html

Those are reasonable enough questions for separating fake from real scandals.

Another few: how close is the first-degree official to the embarrassing guy?

Has the first-degree official looked the other way, made excuses for, or refused to engage with the bad things by the embarrassing guy?

If the first degree official is tolerating the second degree official, is he doing so because he agrees with the badness, or thinks that the second degree official is somehow useful, and why?

There was Barack Obama endorsement from Minister Louis Farrakhan, who has a record of antisemitic comments. There was John McCain’s endorsement from Pastor John Hagee, who has a record of anti-Catholic comments.

To me, this is more a media story than a political one, so maybe necessarily "second-degree". But it was Tim Russert, lead bull of the MSM gnu herd who made Farrakhan a national story. I haven't seen him do the same with Hagee.

(And I believe not long ago, he tried to make Obama answerable for something Harry Belafonte said. Is it possible our Working Class Hero From Buffalo By Way of the Nantucket Shore has some issues of his own?)

Mr. Scherer,

For the love of all that is journalism. While I'm with you on the too frequent inflation of what you call "the second-degree scandal", giving equal weight to the Farrakhan-Hagee second-degree scandals is just, well, wrong.

Obama never sought Farrakhan's "endorsement", nor did he accept it. And the reason I've put the key word in quotations above is that what Farrakhan said re: Obama was not an endorsement. So, in essence, there was no endorsement to accept or reject...or denounce or renounce or repudiate or whatever. As the Senator from Illinois said, "I can't stop people from saying nice things about me."

Senator McCain, on the other hand, actively sought the endorsement of John Hagee and accepted that endorsement in person, smiling from ear-to-ear. The only thing he has said subsequently is that he doesn't agree with Hagee's statements about Catholics. Didn't see him reject that endorsement, though...you know, the one he sought and gladly accepted.

These are not apples-to-apples scenarios, and by presenting them as such, you are furthering the establishment media's (flawed) practice of trying to find balance even where none exists. While it might help you and your colleagues in avoiding ticking somebody off to the extent that you might lose your beloved access ("See, Senator McCain, I said bad stuff about Obama as well"), it's poor journalism, not that far removed from, well, disinformation.

Also, McCain got "lots of negative newspaper...and network news coverage" as a result of the Hagee endorsement? I'll admit that, for once, the press didn't ignore a "bad" news story about the Senator from Arizona. But "lots"? I don't think so.

The Hagee thing got press because McCain went to him seeking his endorsement.

All things are not equal.

Just to add: we've pointed out the false equivalence between Farrakhan and Hagee in a couple of these threads, but our comments -- oddly -- don't seen to have taken. . . .

Not to pile on or anything but equating Obama/Farrakhan with McCain’s/Hagee without noting the significant difference in the behavior of the CANDIDATES is just plain dishonest.

But I suspect you knew that......

In these cases, the public official has not in any way directly participated in the sin.

Yup....

As dishonest as it can get.

I think that trying to equate these three "secondary" scandals is a huge error. It's very simple to see why they're very different and require different levels of outrage.

1. Farrakhan's endorsement of Obama was unsolicited and Obama had repeatedly denounced Farrakhan's statements. Farrakhan had no connection to Obama's campaign. Outrage level (on scale of 10): 2

2. Hagee's endorsement of McCain was embraced. McCain expressed his pleasure to have his support. Only after several days of hounding did McCain make any qualified statement of support. Outrage level: 7

3. Ferraro's rant about Obama was unprovoked (she volunteered the comments willingly) and repeated numerous times over 10 days. She was a highly placed fund raiser for Hillary, who did not reject the comments until there was a media s---storm over them (and even then was defensive). Outrage level: 9.5

I would think the NRCC would be avoiding any spotlights, esp. on money, what with their own troubles. Heck the NRCC is *itself* corrupt, and their whole *point* is to give candidates money.

When will the NRCC do the right thing and shut itself down?

I did not give the Hagee and Farrakhan episodes equal weight. I put them in the same category and then said that in this category, everything has to be evaluated on a case by case basis. Then I gave as an example some of the questions that should be asked. There are obvious differences between Hagee's solicited endorsement and Farrakhan's unsolicited one.

My point is actually the opposite of the one some of the comments accuse me of making. When dealing with the second-degree scandal, a great deal of judgement and distinction is required.

m.

You can't call it a second degree scandal when the candidate initiates it. McCain initiated the relationship with Hagee, pursued it avidly and appeared with him.

There's a very clear distinction between that and and an unsought endorsement, just as there's a distinction between an action taken by an independent agency, like Saturday night live, and a surrogate, like Ferraro, in Clinton's case.

The lack of coverage of Hagee has been very disappointing. It's odd that you would call that out as an example.

When dealing with the second-degree scandal, a great deal of judgement and distinction is required.

No, I don't think this is a tough call at all. Hagee is clearly different from everything else in the post.

amazing.
i keep reading scherer's posts just to see if there will finally be a slight bit of integrity to them.
sadly, i'm still waiting.
as several posters have already noted, it is just plain dishonest to compare the obama/farrakhan-mccain/hagee situations without noting that mccain actively sought hagee's endorsement while obama never sought any such endorsement from farrakhan about his candidacy.
that is pretty basic reporting.
is it so difficult to state that basic fact when you right about the issue.
as others have noted, it is simply and fundamentally dishonest to ignore the difference and to pretend that the circumstances are similar at all.
also, despite the implication, the national media has pretty much ignored the mccain/hagee connection, while they've given prominent play to obama's situation.
i've watched tim russert each sunday since he ambushed obama in the debate and russert has not mentioned hagee at all.
the only mention i saw was when a guest brought him up in a brief aside, and russert's reaction was to treat it as though the guest had just stated his social security number on air.
russert did not address the quick mention of hagee and he moved away from the issue as quickly as he could.
not exactly like the grilling he gave obama.
are we ever going to get even a bit of basic honesty out of scherer.
i'm still waiting....

mr. scherer,

if you acknowledge that there are basic differences in the obama and mccain situations here in the comments, why didn't you note the differences in your initial post?
unless i missed something, you did not note any difference. and a reader without more thorough knowledge of the situations would imagine that they were more alike than dissimilar.
you owe it to readers to note those differences when you write about the issue.

Michael,

Did you get rapped on the knuckles by your bosses? Since around the time you copy/pasted Meghan McCain's propaganda for her father, your posts have steadily gone downhill. This was after a long period of extremely high quality posts beginning with when you started with Time.

Occasionally commenters would warn you to be careful about getting slapped down for showing your colleagues up with such substantive, well-written posts, but I generally took those as being fairly snarky, if amusing, comments. But now I'm starting to wonder if that wasn't exactly what has happened because you've really strayed from your former high quality of posts.

binxweimer, here is what I wrote about the differences.

"It should be a challenge to figure out how to cover the second-degree sin, since each case is different. Questions to ask: Is the second-degree sin newsworthy in its own right? Is there reason to believe that the first-degree official knew of, agrees with or otherwise participated in the second-degree sin? Does the second-degree sin actually tell us anything useful about the first-degree official?"

And to jayackroyd, I do think Hagee is a second degree scandal, by my definition. No one has claimed that McCain shares the controversial views of Hagee, as I have seen. The question is squarely about the scandal of his active association with someone who holds those views.

I would add that I wrote about the Hagee episode here: http://www.time-blog.com/swampland/2008/02/the_mccain_campaign_stumbles_o.html

My point is actually the opposite of the one some of the comments accuse me of making.

My reading comprehension is pretty good.

The sentence contruction:

There was Barack Obama.....
There was John McCain.....
There was Mike Huckabee.....

is clearly deliberately parallel.

McCain’s endorsement by Hagee
Tim Russert went gangbusters on Obama
NBC News even had Ferraro on yesterday

offers us the same structure.

If you're not trying to create the impression of equivalence between these disparate events, then you're certainly wasting a lot of effort building paragraphs designed to do just that.

Posted by Michael Scherer | March 13, 2008 2:48 PM:

I do think Hagee is a second degree scandal, by my definition. No one has claimed that McCain shares the controversial views of Hagee, as I have seen. The question is squarely about the scandal of his active association with someone who holds those views.

No one has claimed that McCain shares those views because no one is asking him about it. Did he get enough pressure to have to reject the views? Yes. Did anyone then follow up and ask why he continues to embrace the endorsement of someone who quite clearly embodies those views? Not that I'm aware of. You certainly didn't report on it during your time with the senator.

Your definition of "second degree scandal" is extraordinarily narrow if in order to avoid qualifying for a first degree scandal one only has to publicly say they don't share the beliefs of a world-class bigot who they continue to count as one of their supporters.

And it's not even as if Hagee is the only one. What about Parsley? But you don't seem to be asking the questions. Instead you group Farrakhan and Obama and Hagee and McCain into the same category and ineffectually say that we need to ask some questions about these topics without actually coming to any conclusions.

Should the questions be asked? Of course. Which makes it all the more sad that you won't ask them, you'll just talk about hoping someone asks them.

The fact that McCain actively sought the endorsement of Hagee makes it a bigger issue. But the fact that Hagee's views are significantly less extreme than Farrakhan's also should be taken into consideration.

The complaint here that everyone is bloviating about appears to be that McCain has associated and accepted an endorsement from someone who has bad ideas. Well guess what, that's the exact same thing everyone is doing the campaign finance department -- associating with and accepting money from individuals, corporations, lawyers, who all have bad ideas. This time, instead of taking money McCain is taking votes.

I agree that Hagee is not a second degree scandal, it has just been played as one.

The real reason that McCain won't do anything to disavow Hagee except to say that he doesn't agree with Hagee's anti-Catholic sentiments is that he is trying very hard to court the thousands of evangelical voters that Hagee brings to the party. That doesn't seem second degree to me.

Once again the straight talker can have it both ways -- disavow wink, wink, nod, nod (covered) but let's not mention anything else, just let the solicitation and acceptance of the endorsement stand, and those who care will be fine.

The rule much simpler to explain.
If there is a bad story involving McCain it's second degree. At the most.

OGLib nailed it. How could you possibly equate an unsolicited endorsement from Farrakan, repudiated and rejected by the candidate, with a desired endorsement of Hagee, embraced by McCain who traveled to accept the endorsement and to be photographed together?

Hey, like Scherer said, he didn't apply his questioning criteria to the examples of the scandals that he cited. It's not necessary to rain fire and brimstone on McCain when it's already been done before...on this blog.

I'm in with Peter that money definitely should be counted in this venue. To toss something at the Clinton and Obama camps: both Democratic candidates received twice as much money each than McCain did from the pharmaceutical industry, according to CNN. It doesn't take much mental hashing of the facts to see why.

http://money.cnn.com/2008/03/04/news/companies/pharma_votes/index.htm?postversion=2008030712

Note: This is not to say that I approve of McCain's coddling with Hagee. This is exactly the kind of disingenuous politicking that nearly cost him his primary bid in 2007. I'd prefer if he stopped trying to unite the wingnuts of the party with the moderates that are his strength and got on with more important issues.

It was quite unsettling for me to listen to everyone in the media jump allover Ms. Farraro comments. When the media has been talking greatly since South Carolina as to the type of voter the candidates attract. Obama mostly white men, the young, higher educated, and African-American. Clinton mostly Latinos, white women, under educated and the elderly. Many American black and white speak amongst themselves about race and gender in the voting process. Obama may think the public doesn't but they do. Now Obama pastor of his church has made some anti-American, racist and sexist remakes on the pulpit, how will he address that issue. www.abcnews.com

michael,

you still do not address the essential point, as todd and in charge correctly points out.
you equate but do not distinguish between two situations that are dramatically different.
you do nothing to provide context in this post or in the post that you linked to (which i read and commented on at the time it was posted).
you make this so complicated when it really is not: mccain sought and accepted hagee's endorsement and that raises questions.
obama received unsolicited support from an equally controversial person, and that fact may or may not even require a response.
but it is absolutely different in character.
again, why can't you simply state those facts?
i think it is obvious.
a simple statement of those facts works to the detriment of mccain, and i've seen you do everything possible to not have that happen.
by the way, i went to law school. i practiced law for a number of years. i read thousands of contracts and other legal documents with some of the most complex and needlessly dense language imaginable.
the convoluted standard you seek to establish and apply here is one of the worst things i've ever read. it compares unfavorably to all of the stupid boilerplate stuff in some of the worst contracts i've read.
it makes no sense.

why needlessly complicate what are really simple matters?

I think the disagreement here is due in part to the ambiguity of the word "degree."

While Scherer is using it in the "degrees of Kevin Bacon" sense, others are reading a tacit judgment of severity into it.

The best way to overcome this is to ditch the talk of degree and directly discuss when, if ever, guilt by association is a valid basis for criticism.

While Scherer is using it in the "degrees of Kevin Bacon" sense, others are reading a tacit judgment of severity into it.

I don't believe that's the proper distinction. Farrakhan is indeed a 2nd degree scandal in the Kevin Bacon sense because the scandal involves Farrakhan's actions, and Obama is only tangentially related to him. Nothing Obama himself did is scandalous.

McCain, however, sought out the endorsement of a known bigot, and the seeking out is an action that is itself, scandalous. Thus, it's a first-degree.

I agree totally with what Paul said above regarding the parallelism of the 3 examples Michael gave. What's worse, he makes it seem as if all 3 were blown out of proportion by a media hungry for scandals:

'With rare exception, the press errs on the side of making a big deal out of anything that can be considered a “scandal."'

'Political pros know this, which is why they keep trying to come up with more second-degree scandals to fan the flames.'

'Please let us avoid this route. There must be limits on the scope of the second-degree scandal.'

He should have claried in his post which scandals he thought were legitimate and which weren't.

As for McCain-Hagee vs. Obama-Farrakhan (how on earth could BHLnyc have an outrage level of higher than 0 for the latter, unless he was referring to the outrage toward Russert), a much more apt comparison would've been McCain-Hagee vs. Obama-Wright.

If Scherer is indeed using the "degrees of Kevin Bacon" test, he is being even more hackish than you think. (How far in credibility you have fallen, Mr. Scherer, in so short a time.)

If a candidate's personal failing (say, maybe a Spitzer-type issue) is a first-degree issue, and sought-after and warmly embraced endorsements from at least two bigoted racist anti-Semitic freaks which are not rejected but in fact touted and featured as a valuable endorsement for one's campaign, is second degree, then Obama is sixth degree, the "an obscure but unsavory person said nice things about me somewhere once in a second-tier publication but I reject and denounce it, numerous times, in debates, in the newspapers and in public" separation.

Geeez, Scherer, given your prior good work over at Salon.com I can only speculate that you are under orders from the bosses at Time to assist the McCain campaign in whatever way possible. Carney loves McCain and promotes him on TV every chance he gets. He gets visibly feverish when he waxes rhapsodic about McCain on ABC's This Week. You are doing this at the expense of your own credibility, and I can only think that you must have a couple of kids to put through college.