Is Maureen Dowd in trouble?

The answer is yes.

Forty-three words without attribution, a poor excuse and by now, I suspect, a truth audit of her work is well underway.

Had Ann Coulter done this, the New York Times (and perhaps Ms. Dowd herself) would have hung her from the highest limb. My prediction is that Ms. Dowd will either come out and declare she knew what she was doing after all and apologize profusely within the next week, or she's finished as a nationally-syndicated columnist.

The infamous AIG party

AIG logo

The outing at issue was the type of company conference that American companies fund each year. Unfortunately, due to the timing, the issue has become a media frenzy. Even the White House couldn't resist criticism and CNN keeps blaring, "Spa treatments! Spa Treatments!"

Any large insurance company selling through independent reps holds a similar conference to reward and motivate top performers. These events are planned years in advance. They are simply a cost of doing business. Should AIG shut down incentives like this one for independent sales agents?  If so, there's no incentive for them to sell AIG products, ipso facto. I own shares of AIG, but even if I did not, my reaction to this storm would be the same. 

Obama travel files is breaking news?

Apparently, Senator Obama's passport file has been reviewed. 

OK, logical questions are by whom and why?  Also, how did the story breakers learn about it?  But I'm also trying to understand -- where is the story?

Keith Olbermann, Wikipedia

Is there some profound secret associated with Mr. Obama's public travels? What is the conspiracy they are tripping over themselves to report upon?  Moreover, why is a presidential candidate's foreign travel history somehow more privileged than a review of his tax returns?

The media is reacting as though someone has broken into the office of Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist again. Keith Olbermann at MSNBC has actually referred to this story as "jaw dropping." Please. We need much more. For the moment, my jaw is motionless.

Does Mr. Rivera know something pivotal about Candidate McCain?

Geraldo Rivera, Wikipedia

Yesterday, I watched incredulously as Geraldo Rivera interviewed Gennifer Flowers and Paula Jones on FOX. My first reaction was that I must have missed some bombshell discovery like a photograph of Senator McCain on a boat with an attractive woman in Bimini.

No we didn't miss anything like that because there has been zero evidence to support such a "smoking gun". Why would Geraldo Rivera be interviewing these women about the McCain story in the New York Times?

Unless Mr. Rivera knows something that the rest of us do not, linking the stories of these women and their affairs with Bill Clinton to the current McCain story, is poor journalism.  And if Mr. Rivera does know something more, he ought to report it.  

MEET THE LESS

Meet The Press, Wikipedia

Tim Russert remains one of my favorite television journalists of all time. He's tough, always prepared and fair to everyone he interviews. Today, however, he disappoints this fan. He has an hour with Mitt Romney and how does he use the first 24 minutes?

Mr. Russert spent the first 13 minutes discussing Romney's Mormonism and then the next 11 minutes on abortion. Here are issues, that could have dominated the interview: National Security, Healthcare Reform, Illegal Immigration, the Iraq War, Education, Tax Reform, Energy Policy, or Federal Spending Reform.

A Post-Katrina view minus revisionism

After a national catastrophe like Katrina, some voices are bellowing about indifference to the poor and racism, while a grieving nation fumbles to make sense of it all.  

Let's decry an inept response to a natural disaster, hold accountable and prosecute decision-makers who controlled resources that could have helped more of our southern citizens. We can blame those who could have executed a more efficient evacuation from what Columnist David Brooks described as, “the most anticipated natural disaster in American history.”  Let us do all of this but in the process let us also reject empty political charges that amplify the hurricane.

Contributors on the editorial pages of my local newspaper (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel) could not resist the temptation to tar the Bush administration's actions with a recent piece entitled, “A racial rift sadly revealed” (Sept. 9, 2005).  Reactionary rap singers have called the President of the United States a Racist and far left columnists are actually tying the Katrina disaster to “tax cuts for the rich.” If one whispers any dismay over a lack of  responsibility among those forewarned and able to avert Katrina but who chose to remain in the hurricane’s path, or condemn the behavior of those looting in New Orleans; someone might brand you a Racist.  

Tendencies to make accusations of racism after natural calamities is not new. In some cases, the effects can endure. In his last book, To America, Personal Reflections of an Historian (Simon & Schuster, 2002) former University of New Orleans professor Stephen E. Ambrose writes about the propensity of educators over the decades to teach American expansionism in the West as a period where we practiced systematic genocide of American Indian tribes.

Stephen Ambrose, Wikipedia

Ambrose called such explanations for the complete disappearance of Indian tribes, “totally irresponsible.” 

That our forefathers’ presided over a massive land grab, that they broke treaties, that they failed miserably to assimilate Native Americans, is all true Ambrose reminded us. Yet the only factual basis behind the total disappearance of Indian tribes occurred as Ambrose wrote,”…because of the introduction of European diseases, most of all smallpox.”

If he was alive and writing about Katrina years from now, I'd like to think that Dr. Ambrose would conclude that Crescent City tragedies witnessed in the year 2005 were caused by a devastating hurricane and bureaucratic ineptitude -- not racism.

Brokaw & Co. still in denial

Published July 12, 1996, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Perhaps it's just too much to ask, because few prominent journalists will publicly break ranks when asked to comment on the "B" word. The issue of media "bias" surfaced again. And once again, it was drowned by the voices of the renowned.

At a recent National Press Club luncheon in Washington, NBC anchorman Tom Brokaw's responses to hard questions about the Fourth Estate did little to foil skeptics. Public television's Jim Lehrer's rejoinders to the same questions were entirely different. You had to believe one man or the other.

The fodder at this event was a well-publicized survey suggesting that 89% of U.S. journalists voted for Clinton in 1992. Asked to comment on the survey, Brokaw dismissed the familiar charge of industry bias by providing an equally tired reason why he feels it just is not so.

Echoing most of his colleagues from print to broadcast and sea to shining sea, he mused, "Bias like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder." In essence, the logic is that since complaints come from interlocutors at both ends of the political spectrum, (moreover, since the Clinton White House complains) the liberal bias issue must be overblown.

Of course, extremists will always cry foul. But most Americans, by definition, fall closer to the center of the political spectrum than either extreme. What could trouble more journalists is that Americans on the whole view the media as a decidedly liberal institution.

Can this group police itself as easily as Brokaw would have us believe? Brokaw theorized that since he and others owning responsible positions still remain, it is at least partial testimony to their objective performances. I think; therefore, I am. It worked for Rene Descartes.

He reminded the audience, "Otherwise, we just wouldn't survive."

Really? If 89% of our media are indeed left-leaning, how do journalists take risks by injecting liberal sentiments before so many ideologically like-minded editors? Brokaw is a pro and few would insist that he has to trash CNN's Peter Arnett to appear fair. However, he could have given the media a bounce on the credibility meter. He could have strayed from the party line and conceded that slanted reporting occurs and yes, it often does tilt to the left.

Brokaw could have said that responsible journalists don't have personal agendas and that others who do should find another way to make a living. He didn't. Instead, Brokaw chose to decry those reporters who have become "too much news celebrities in the eyes of the public." It was an odd attempt at critical balance coming from a regular guest on David Letterman's show.

PBS news anchor and author Leherer shared the podium with Brokaw at the same event. If Brokaw's remarks gave testimony to the continuing miasma of denial among major figures, Lehrer's comments were a sorely needed tonic.

In refreshing contrast, Lehrer drew a sharp distinction between himself and the pack. "Nobody in this room has to agree with me, including Tom," said Lehrer, as he surged with contempt for the "slippage" in journalism. "Remember, we are down there with the lawyers and the members of Congress on the public esteem polls," he opined.

Most repugnant to Lehrer is the subtle coloring of the news by journalists who make it difficult to distinguish an editorial from a news report. "People have just stepped over the line...and I think a very simple solution is just to quit doing it," he asserted.

Amen. Although Lehrer stopped short of calling the nature of the "slippage" inherently liberal, he at least acknowledged that something is amiss and allowed us to ponder its origin.

The most startling development of the entire Brokaw/Lehrer news hours was the scant, but audible applause after Lehrer's carefully worded scrutiny of his contemporaries. For those not watching that day, the word scant is safely defined here as something less than 89%.