PressThink: "Nice and Collegial and Relaxed:" Four Scenes From Tony Snow's First Meet with the Press

"Nice and Collegial and Relaxed:" Four Scenes From Tony Snow's First Meet with the Press

We're discussing them in the comments. What do you think is going on?

Snow has been on the job since Monday, but was waiting to hold his first televised briefing—taking advantage of a week when Bush was on the road most days—to practice and begin educating himself on a dizzying array of policy positions.
On Friday, he scheduled his first informal back-and-forth with the press, an informal, off-camera session called the “gaggle” which White House press secretaries typically hold in the mornings as a sort of warmup for The Big Dance _ the formal White House daily news briefing.

Snow had announced that he was moving the gaggle to his West Wing office from the theater-like White House briefing room, in hopes of making it more of a casual, intimate conversation.

But it got under way several minutes early. And though the press secretary’s quarters are among the more spacious in the West Wing, the room quickly filled to overflowing _ so that many reporters were stranded, unable to hear or ask questions, in the hallway outside.

From Tony Snow’s First Press Gaggle, May 12, 2006

Full Transcript

Scene One…

QUESTION: I noticed this week a more aggressive use of the “Setting the Record Straight” technique. It’s a device that has existed in the past. Is it just more was needed this week, or is there a change in attitude?

TONY SNOW: No, there’s not a change in attitude. What we’re going to do with “Setting the Record Straight” — and, by the way, after consulting with some of our colleagues in here, what we’ll do is we will also let you know in advance when we’re going to put one out, especially if it has to do with things that you’ve written or done is one of these things, and try to make it strictly factual.

So in any event, this is a practice that I think has been ramping up in previous weeks and suddenly it’s like, “Snow is here, this must be a change.” It’s not really a change; it’s a continuation of something that the Press Office has been doing. But I want to do this in a genial and collegial manner.

QUESTION: How are you going to make this administration more credible?

TONY SNOW: I’m not going to answer questions about credibility, other than to say that I’m eager to be here and I’m happy to be working with you.

QUESTION: Are you ever going to — always going to tell the truth?

TONY SNOW: Yes.

Scene Two…

QUESTION: Different subject. Four lawmakers, senior lawmakers say that they sent a letter to President Bush on Russian WTO negotiations — opposing, basically, Russia’s entry. Are you aware of that?

TONY SNOW: No, and I will apologize as the new kid on the block. I am certainly not going to get myself into — for today, I’m not going to handle international issues or currency issues. I do not wish to set off global tempests — (laughter) — because I, frankly, just don’t know enough on those. I will be happy to get back to you.

As a matter of fact for gaggle purposes, if somebody can take notes on some of these things, I’ll try to get back to you on it. But I just don’t know the answer.

QUESTION: I’d like — this was 9:00 a.m., then it was pushed back to 9:30 a.m., and then I walk in at 9:20 a.m., and it’s already well underway.

QUESTION: Do not do that again.

QUESTION: This isn’t good.

TONY SNOW: Well, this is — it’s my fault. And it had to do with vagaries of the schedule today, and I apologize, period.

QUESTION: Because we’ve missed half of it. This is the first one you’re doing, and I just feel like —

TONY SNOW: Well, I apologize. That’s just flat my fault.

QUESTION: Can everybody get a gaggle — can everyone get a gaggle emailed to them?

QUESTION: Can we get a transcript?

TONY SNOW: Yes. And what we will try to do, I will make this a lot more predictable and regular, you’ve got to give me a little forbearance.

QUESTION: I was here, sitting out here in the hallway. I can’t even hear any of this conversation.

TONY SNOW: Okay, well, I’ll tell you what we will do then is we will move it back into the Briefing Room. I had this wonderful idea that this would be nice and collegial and relaxed, but it obviously at this point is just a mess. (Laughter.) So rather than doing that, we will go back to gaggling in the Briefing Room, and then as numbers dwindle, we may think of bringing it back here.

Scene Three…

QUESTION: Since it’s your maiden voyage, tell us, do you have direct access with the President every day? I mean, have you made some certain rules for yourself?

TONY SNOW: Well, I think the President makes the rules, but, yes, I’ve been granted access. My predecessors all had what was called “walk-in” access. But I have access to the President, yes.

QUESTION: What about the briefings — you’re talking about the gaggle — what about the briefings? We’re hearing a whole bunch of different things about the briefings. Are the briefings—

TONY SNOW: Okay, thank you for that. The question is, are we going to stop televising briefings and all that. I haven’t made any decisions. The briefings will continue as they have in the past. If there are any changes made in the briefings, I will do that in full consultation with you guys. I’m not going to wave a wand and change things. I have a feeling the televised briefings are not something that you can undo.

But, look, I want to make this office as effective as possible getting information to you. We’ll find out the best ways of doing that. But rumors of the televised briefings demise are greatly exaggerated.

Scene Four…

QUESTION: Tony, what has the White House — what’s the White House position on this report that the Justice Department investigation into the NSA program was blocked because people couldn’t get security clearance? Was that —

TONY SNOW: Dana, I’m going to toss that to you, because you’ve got a better brief on that. You don’t mind if I do that, do you?

MS. PERINO: That’s fine. The Justice Department has spoken to their office of professional responsibility. I think that they put out a statement I think last night, or on Tuesday night, when it was first reported back.

QUESTION: (Inaudible.)

MS. PERINO: Excuse me?

QUESTION: Louder.
QUESTION: We can’t hear any of the discussion.

TONY SNOW: I’ll tell you what, I’ll speak up. You’ll forgive me, but I’ll just — I will do the talking points on this because, again, as the new kid on the block, I’m not fully briefed into everything, but here it is.

“The Justice Department has, in fact, spoken about the issue. Only those involved in national security with specific need-to-know are given details about the classified program. That includes several more members of Congress on the intelligence committees. The TSB has been subject to extensive oversight. The review includes a scrutiny of the NSA inspector general, who, unlike the office at the Department of Justice, is specifically charged with overseeing the lawfulness of employee actions.”

I hate to read from a sheet of paper, but that’s —

QUESTION: Is there some effort to say — this is highly unusual, that these people wouldn’t be granted security clearance —

TONY SNOW: I’m not going to — as a lawyer, I’m not going to argue with legal experts.

MS. PERINO: There’s a very limited number of people who are fully briefed on that program.

QUESTION: We’re not asking you — isn’t it peculiar that Justice Department lawyers cannot get security clearance to look into the NSA?

TONY SNOW: Honestly, I can’t answer the question.

QUESTION: Why?

TONY SNOW: Because I don’t know enough about it.

QUESTION: Can you find out?

TONY SNOW: Yes, I can find out.

Posted by Jay Rosen at May 13, 2006 1:00 AM Print

jaw:

When I do, someone points it out pretty quickly.

Never made an error like that one though.

Biggest error I made came with an 800,000 - 1,000,000 circulation. But it was a technical matter (I transposed Series I and EE bonds).

Made another error on the technical details of solo 401(k)s a year or so later, when they were coming out. Actually, I misunderstood what an advisor said and paraphrased her. So I blew that one big time. Both instances received a correction. I still feel bad about both of them, but especially the second. To this day I wince.

About a year and a half ago, I made another error in a newsletter on the techicalities of how Coverdell accounts were allocated when students are considered for Financial Aid for education under the federal system. I checked it out in a couple of texts and with a couple of experts' articles to be sure. But the Department of Education had changed its policy a couple of months before.

My fact checker and I routinely monitor financial sites, the NASD, SEC, and the IRS for regulatory changes. But this change came out of the DOE -- which we didn't realize was on our beat. It should have been. We both missed it, sent it to a compliance editor who also missed it, sent it to the client, a nationally known insurance company, whose marketing department also missed it, got the approval, published a newsletter, and blew the fact.

Believe me, I'm sensitive to this. And I think we had the best fact-checker in the business on that one and we still blew it.

But these errors don't rise to the level of cultural illiteracy category.

"Purple Star" rises to that level.

Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at May 13, 2006 3:06 PM | Permalink

RE: The Dow was down 120 points today, prompting Fox News’ David Ruder to suggest it was because USA Today made “the country less safe” by running its story on NSA’s data mining.

But Fox News host Brenda Butler disagreed, saying that Wall Street would “not going to let some puny, little traitor, some leaker who went ahead and compromised our national security, take down this, take down our market, take down our country.”

"The market" does not move on news. News is noise (trademark-Lee Adler at Capital Stool dot com) Nothing is sillier than the habit, a habit of thought, to ascribe market averages moves to some specific news item. All such are stories. Stories meant to satify the tellers beliefs but having no basis in reality. People love stories.

Never mind that the story told here is silly without even considering it's causal relationship to the market that day. As one wag summerized, terrorists were relieved and heartend to discover their conversations were subject to illegal, not legal evesdropping. It makes all the difference in the world to them, so goes this tale.

The market moved up/down today because (insert your story here) is an old tradition and one without any merit. It's all BS. Total unmitigated stool. 'The market' moves on the availibility of liquidity, ie. money, in the financial system on a daily basis and on the relative position of outsiders vs insiders. The latter meaning how The Street can best maximize their own profits at the expense of their customers. This has never been so true as now. Program trading, trading in big lots now accounts for 58% of all NYSE trading and more than a quarter of that is for the Wall Street firms own accounts.

I know it is totally impossible to disabuse people of the idea that news 'causes' market moves. Such is the nature of the human mind, always seeking a simple explaination for complex events. On any given day several competing explainations for 'the markets move' are offered up to a credulous public by an ignorant newsreader or simple minded commentator or worst of all a propogandist like Mr.Ruder. Every time you hear such a summary do yourself a favor and repeat this in your mind. Bullshit bullshit bullshit.

Posted by: rapier at May 13, 2006 5:19 PM | Permalink

I just read Paul McLeary's article at CJR Daily. Its primary focus is the WH response to the AP story about Army Guard/Reserve recruitment numbers (headline: "Army Guard, Reserve Fall Short Of April Recruiting Goals").

Per McLeary:
The White House guns, under the command of new press secretary Tony Snow, wasted little time in shooting back that "The Army National Guard, Air Force Reserve, And Marine Corps Reserve All Have Exceeded Or Achieved Their Year-To-Date Recruitment Goals."

That's great, but there's a little problem: The AP never said anything about yearly recruitment goals, only the missed goals for the month of April. Nowhere in the rebuttal does the White House mention the April numbers, but instead, the release switches the issue to year-to-date goals and numbers. So the White House is, essentially, complaining about a story that was never written, while making it look like the AP got something wrong...

...it's already clear that Snow is both more nimble and more adept than the shambling McClellan. But he has yet to show that he's any more correct.

Steve claims the White House is "avoiding facts," but it seems to me that it is the AP that is guilty of fact-avoidance. If April numbers are down, but year-to-date recruitment is good, then where were the AP stories reporting the better-than-expected numbers in Jan-March?

Of course, that good news for the Administration went unreported by the AP in those months, and went unmentioned as context for the current report. A quick Lexis-Nexis search revealed that the UPI did report a March 12 story, "Army National Guard recruiting is up." But AP carried no such story.

So, in addition to AP's bias-by-omission, CJR Daily compounds the error by missing the relevant context, thereby burying the lede:

The AP never said anything about yearly recruitment goals, only the missed goals for the month of April.

Posted by: Neuro-conservative at May 13, 2006 11:54 PM | Permalink

Judging by the CJR piece, the "Setting the Record Straight" missives are official White House press releases so they are not simply e-mails to the news organizations as a previous journalistic account led me to believe. They do very much remind me of Republican National Committee talking points.

Whatever else it may do, this tactic is surely a new inflection of the tone and self-presentation of the presidency. I suspect that previous administrations felt that it was more appropriate to maintain a division of labor between the RNC and the White House in deference to the office of the presidency. How does this integration of RNC campaign-type same news-cycle feedback reposition the White House in the shifting media landscape?

Given that five of these have been sent out in just the last three days and Snow seemed so remarkably underprepared for his first gaggle even with the one week postponement, should we begin to wonder if Tony Snow, like Steve Lovelady, spent all his time on the flurry of "Setting the Record Straight" press releases, and thereby effectively missed preparing for his own debut? It seems this may be an important part of how his job description differs from that of McClellan.

Apparently Snow's miscalculation of prep time for the gaggle was even farther off the mark than his predictably failed experiment with holding the gaggle in his office. I'm guessing he's figured that much out by now himself.

It is surely too early to say with any certainty, but the fact that Snow's talking points were every bit as lockdown as McClellan's, even if delivered with considerably more panache, suggests to me we might consider reading Snow and "Setting the Record Straight" as not only continuous with rollback, but an expansion of the operation--perhaps we might call it Full Spectrum Rollback?

Posted by: Mark Anderson at May 14, 2006 12:52 AM | Permalink

But it can be hard to figure what is OT here.

Jaw, I can fault Jason for being Johnny One-Note as regards the military, but step back a bit. I come here occasionally for the metacommentary he quite often elicits. It's an important issue for a blog entitled "Press Think": specifically, what use is the Press? And having answered that from theoretical constructs, there's the followon question: what use is the Press we have?

Every time Steve Lovelady sighs and explains once again, with the patience of Job, that it doesn't matter in any way whether or not the Press got it right, that their task is to get the message out without being distracted by fiddlin' details like the difference between a PFC and a Field Marshall, and every time Sisyphus indignantly declares that if you really examine the absolutely vital relevant details the Press got it right after all, the answer to the second question becomes clearer. It is none whatever -- and the question and answer may very well be the root cause of the decline in circulation, and the resultant weakness that allows manipulation.

If facts don't matter, if indefeasible ignorance and the resulting error are irrelevant, if on any subject (military or otherwise) the Press is not only free but Obliged by Higher Duty™ to dispense its Wisdom without reference to objective reality -- well, I can get that from Uncle Ed, or from Rufus down at the coffee shop, or from my own crack-brained theories, and not have to pay subscription fees or put up with the resultant junk mail. The Pope is entitled to speak ex cathedra on a strictly limited group of narrow subjects. Four years at Columbia does not produce a Journalist whose word is TRVTH regardless of circumstances, and anyway I can get declarations of TRVTH, free, from any cocksure two-a-penny fanatic; why should I pay Pinch -- and, through him, Professional Journalists™ -- for them?

Jason is annoying, even to me, and I agree with him most of the time. But he seldom fails to generate amusing comments from people who consider themselves to be defending their profession, but are in reality vehemently declaring its irrelevance. It's a most becoming subject for a Press Think to consider.

Regards,
Ric

Posted by: Ric Locke at May 14, 2006 3:17 PM | Permalink

Concerning reading the tea leaves from the four vignettes posted from Tony Snow…

I agree with Lovelady and Anderson that the key straw in the wind, to mix a metaphor, is Setting the Record Straight.

This latter attitude towards the press, as has been stated at PressThink repeatedly already, belongs to a broader tradition, that of the Bully Pulpit -- using the White House to address the nation at large, supporters, independents and opponents.

The Setting the Record Straight tactic is one that belongs the rhetorical practice of campaigning not governing -- the discourse of spin doctors, talking points and war rooms, where the primary political discourse is one of opposition not persuasion.

This is not to say that Presidents past have not talked on the governing mode and the campaigning mode simultaneously. It is merely to agree with Anderson that the conventional division of labor would be for the RNC to Set the Record Straight and for the White House to rise above the fray and not to be seen (in public at least) as entangled in nitpicking fights with CBS News on Medicare or AP on enlistments.

Accordingly, just as interesting as Snow talking about Setting the Record Straight is the President’s decision to make a primetime TV address to the nation tomorrow, a decision that falls squarely into the Bully Pulpit tradition of White House public relations.

These two tidbits side by side suggest that the White House is experimenting at this stage rather than has settled on one PR strategy or another.

Posted by: Andrew Tyndall at May 14, 2006 6:57 PM | Permalink

"New kid on the block" and "I don't know but I'll find out" seem fine for an initial dry run, but can't last. More significant are the obfuscating talking points and the "Setting the Record Straight" responses which spread confusion. He seems like a charmer who has the ability to befuddle people for a while -- a page out of the Ronald Reagan play book. However, as with Reagan, facts never amount to much more than weapons at hand, while stories and anecdotes had long term impact. "You guys don't have the facs right; here's the compelling story," may become the MO.

Posted by: wflicker at May 13, 2006 2:19 AM | Permalink

He strikes me as a much, much smarter, more articulate and charming man who, so far, still has basically the same job description as McClellan. I get the impression that the same staff are probably still writing talking points in pretty much the same obfuscatory, noncommunicational language. He is vastly more professional and less gratuitously insulting. I'll believe he's bringing something else when I see it.

The expanded "Setting the Record Straight" operation does bring militant Fox/GOP committee conservatism to the White House press operation. It seems that the White House "correction" of ideological deviation on the part of the press and broadcast media now becomes part of the object of press coverage in a gray area somewhere between e-mails to reporters/news organizations and official press releases. This is a relatively innovative tactic, the consequences and stakes of which I'm not sure I quite understand yet.

Posted by: Mark Anderson at May 13, 2006 2:35 AM | Permalink

Jaw writes:

"The NY Times is hardly the problem; if in the eyes of its readers, it loses credibility, they will stop reading it, and it will soon perish."

Jaw, I hardly think you are that naive,- John Moore.

Moore, this is the ultimate in incompetent paraphrasing. That should be village idiot that you need to address.

Posted by: jaw at May 13, 2006 2:42 AM | Permalink

A newspaper is complex business, and to say that it sinks or swims on its credibility, especially in this age where most metropolitan dailies have virtually no competition, is ridiculous. The NYT has local competition, but not in the niche of "serious news."
That would be the last age Moore, where there was a circulation monopoly for local readership. In the Internet age, everybody is the the NYTimes's competition, other newspapers, TV networks, cable networks, blogs.

Posted by: jaw at May 13, 2006 2:50 AM | Permalink

Mark, Snow probably is smarter than McClellan, but I'm not sure that's an advantage; it can lead one down the path of temptation. On the insult front, it's early days yet. I've not seen his show, but from reading the transcripts I get the impression he has a pretty well developed snark module, and I don't know that he'll hold up any better when, or if, he starts getting beat on.

Jay, I can understand how moving the gaggle would have seemed a good idea in terms of changing the turf dynamics, but on the logistical front I can't imagine why he wouldn't think his first gaggle would draw a full house.

Posted by: weldon berger at May 13, 2006 4:54 AM | Permalink

Meta-commenting note (with tags showing):

When blockquoting, italicizing, or other formating of multiple paragraphs use consecutive breaks ... <br /><br /> ... to separate paragraphs.

Do not use line breaks and/or paragraph tags ... <p>

Posted by: Sisyphus at May 13, 2006 9:05 AM | Permalink

wflicker: "You guys don't have the fac[t]s right; here's the compelling story," may become the MO.

"Nobody heard what you said." Lesley Stahl's Fable About Reagan and the Press.

Where's Our Fox News?

Washington Post columnist Richard Morin (via Political Wire) reported this week on a recent study by a couple of economists that found that watching Fox News may have palpable effects on one's voting patterns -- an effect that in the macro may have helped change the results of at least one close election.

Jay Rosen:

This is the sandbox, this is the playground. This is patty-cake with factoids. (And the 15 percent, as well as the 5, are factoids.)

Too Little, Too Late:

Yet, even as conservative foundations were pouring tens of millions of dollars into building hard-edged conservative media outlets, liberal foundations kept repeating the refrain: “We don’t do media.” One key liberal foundation explicitly forbade even submitting funding requests that related to media projects.

What I saw on the Left during this pivotal period was an ostrich-like avoidance of the growing threat from the Right’s rapidly developing news media infrastructure.

Posted by: Sisyphus at May 13, 2006 10:27 AM | Permalink

John Moore from the previous thread:

Polls show that media credibility is way below Bush's approval rating. Is the Grey Lady dead yet?

The media and the Grey Lady must be the same thing in your mind, then. That is probably how they teach set theory at Liberty University. For someone who claimed to be an expert at 'pulsing blackboxes', we have to assume that you are being intentionally sly there. With such clever wordplays and logic, no wonder red america was calling your talk show in droves.

So, you might ask yourself why the liberal/left/whatever world cannot field a successful national talk radio show, when the conservatives have a whole bunch.

Precisely what I was trying to get at; you guys go to your talk shows and leave the Times and AP alone. I like them fine the way they are. In return, (speaking for myself) I promise to stay away from Limbaugh et al; I have zero appetite for a daily diet of real and imagined enemies to lash out at, and wouldn't miss the toxicity one bit.

Posted by: village idiot at May 13, 2006 11:35 AM | Permalink

About the White House's expanded "Setting the Record Straight" operation:

"This is a relatively innovative tactic, the consequences and stakes of which I'm not sure I quite understand yet." -Anderson, above

I heartily agree. I think its impact will vary directly with how well publicized the information conveyed by the operation becomes. With frequent releases, aggressive fact-checking of our dominant media and wide awareness, the "Setting the Record Straight" operation has significant potential to help balance the tilt of this administration's press coverage.

But if "Setting the Record Straight" is limited to press releases posted to the White House website, and perhaps e-mailed to allies in the Administration and Congress, I'm afraid that won't be enough.

Posted by: Trained Auditor at May 13, 2006 12:13 PM | Permalink

village idiot: I promise to stay away from Limbaugh et al; I have zero appetite for a daily diet of real and imagined enemies to lash out at, and wouldn't miss the toxicity one bit.

Would you promise to stay away from PressThink as well?

Would you take your Limbaugh-like appetite for regurgitating your "daily diet of real and imagined enemies to lash out at" with you?

(Speaking for myself) I wouldn't miss the toxicity one bit.

John Moore:

I'm going to ask a personal favor. Let it go. Don't engage. Leave it on the previous thread. It's bait.

Posted by: Sisyphus at May 13, 2006 12:25 PM | Permalink

And this drivel (via thinkprogress) is what apparently passes for expert commentary at FOX. I am waiting for the disciples of 'Markovitz' to express outrage and debunk this reactionary crap with the same trigger-happy alacrity as was done with Jamie McIntyre's perceived faux pas re the M249 SAW.

The Dow was down 120 points today, prompting Fox News’ David Ruder to suggest it was because USA Today made “the country less safe” by running its story on NSA’s data mining.
But Fox News host Brenda Butler disagreed, saying that Wall Street would “not going to let some puny, little traitor, some leaker who went ahead and compromised our national security, take down this, take down our market, take down our country.”

Posted by: village idiot at May 13, 2006 12:29 PM | Permalink

Despite efforts to the contrary, if you guys succeed in turning it into a Limbaugh lovefest, yes.

Posted by: village idiot at May 13, 2006 12:39 PM | Permalink

Don't know anything about David Ruder, but he was expressing a theory - one possible explanation for the selloff. That's a lot different from CNN's false assertion of fact.

Does his theory hold water? Some, but not much.

There is a precedent for stocks sliding on security concerns. And if it's true that the President said that the country is less safe, then that would explain some of the slide (though I doubt 120 points of it. The explosion of a Nigerian oil pipeline probably accounts for more.) Going back a few years, for example, Clinton sent biotech stocks tumbling by 14% after stating that scientists should have open access to research on the human genome.

At any rate, there is nothing the USA Today reported that was not already known to be occuring. It was even written into the law. The NSA phone records monitoring story has been out since Clinton was in office. An efficient market theorist would expect next to no effect from the USA Today story.

The thing is, efficient market types don't last very long on talk shows - a HUGE problem with TV financial journalism, which tends to worship active traders, and foster books like Maria Bartiromo's "Use The News" to perpetuate the laughable idea that a small investor can outgun institutions while he pays a broker's commission, bid/ask spreads, and other hidden trading costs with every sell and every buy order he places (No wonder brokerage houses sponsor these shows!)

Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at May 13, 2006 1:28 PM | Permalink

The gaggle in Snow's office. It's not as though 90% of the group got in the room. I guess it's a lot to ask for the press secretary to be able to estimate crowds and space, but when the move only fit half the press corps, that is a wide miss.

From Milbank: The new kid seemed to wrestle with how far he could go without getting in trouble. Asked about National Guard troops on the border, Snow began an answer but then paused. "Uh, well," he said, pausing, again, "I won't get ahead of my brief on this."
Snow's bosses in the White House needn't worry: The guy does know how to draw the curtains. Sipping from a paper coffee cup with the presidential seal, Snow had an arsenal of no-comments when asked about the NSA: "Can't confirm or deny. ... I will reiterate the points he made yesterday. ... You'll have to ask General Hayden. ... You'll have to ask the folks on Capitol Hill. ... I can't comment. ... You will have to ask the Senate committee."

Can't confirm or deny is a rule of engagement reporters understand. In the end, it doesn't transmit much more information, but Snow has a more palatable arsenal of no comments than Scotty's on going investigation or robotically repeating talking points.

Posted by: jaw at May 13, 2006 1:32 PM | Permalink

John Moore:
I'm going to ask a personal favor. Let it go. Don't engage. Leave it on the previous thread. It's bait.

Posted by: Sisyphus at May 13, 2006 12:25 PM | Permalink

Sisyphus: It is interesting how you took the bait but were imploring John not to. The holier-than-thou is quite telling, or perhaps this is your style of 'meta-baiting'?

Posted by: village idiot at May 13, 2006 1:34 PM | Permalink

At any rate, there is nothing the USA Today reported that was not already known to be occuring. It was even written into the law. The NSA phone records monitoring story has been out since Clinton was in office. An efficient market theorist would expect next to no effect from the USA Today story.
The thing is, efficient market types don't last very long on talk shows - a HUGE problem with TV financial journalism, which tends to worship active traders, ....

I have to admit, there are some redeeming qualities about you, Jason.:-)

Posted by: village idiot at May 13, 2006 1:38 PM | Permalink

Jason:

At any rate, there is nothing the USA Today reported that was not already known to be occuring. It was even written into the law.

Is this the law you were referring to?

Your contention is quite strongly disputed here.

Posted by: Mark Anderson at May 13, 2006 2:02 PM | Permalink

Unbelieveable:

From the New York Times' Correction page:

An article and a picture caption yesterday about the funeral of Sgt. Jose Gomez of Queens, who was killed on April 20 in Iraq, referred incorrectly to the Army representative who comforted his mother. She was a sergeant first class — an enlisted woman, not an officer. The article also misstated the name of a service medal that a general presented to Sergeant Gomez's mother. It is a Purple Heart, not a Purple Star.

That's what I get for not bothering to read O'Donnell's article.

And that's how bad the New York Times has become.

You still think it's just a copydesk error?

How many layers of editing and fact checking did this howler survive?

How many times do you guys need your noses rubbed in the mess you made on the carpet before you stop excusing away the ignorance of newsroom staffs and finally realize you have a problem?

Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at May 13, 2006 2:04 PM | Permalink

Jason,
Congress seems to have explicitly banned a data-mining program almost indistinguishable from what we are now hearing about from the NSA. It's hard to imagine Congress explicitly banning anything well-known to already be quite as legal as you claim.

Of course, congress does periodically discuss passing legislation directly stating that they explicitly deny to Bush authority he arrogates to himself in defiance of the clear intent of previous legislation.

Why they imagine a legislative order to a president (short of impeachment and conviction) insisting he stop ignoring the stated intent of the legislature would provoke anything beyond derisive laughter is a mystery I have yet to hear a satisfactory explanation for.

Posted by: Mark Anderson at May 13, 2006 2:16 PM | Permalink

Jason provides us a different version of you're not normal with you don't know military weapons.

3. The New York Times must select its staffers from among people who don't care to drive their own cars to work. That's another pretty narrow group of people.

Statements like this are too absurb or comical to address.

Now he's find his new 16 words on the NSA case.
We already knew the NSA was conducting monitoring of domestic phone records at some level, dating back to the Clinton years. Then providing a link to Echelon, which captured international information. The USAToday story detailed domestic, unwarranted data collection.

Jason's red herrings are too tempting. But he ends up hi-jacking the thread with nonsense like that or McIntyre and the SAW or the E&P story on journalism bias.

And he's back on the NYT photo cutline.

Posted by: jaw at May 13, 2006 2:18 PM | Permalink

And now Jason, it would be interesting to hear your comments on what motives the FOX team may have had in weaving the overarching, right-wing 'NSA leakers are traitors' theme into their analysis of stock price movements even though the linkage between the two is so obviously tenuous.

And the next step might be to demand FOX for a retraction of the misleading comments, and compare if such retraction is as easily forthcoming as it presumably was when you obtained it from the Times.

Posted by: village idiot at May 13, 2006 2:28 PM | Permalink

Thanks, Jay.
I was concentrating on the pathetic and disingenuous White House PR releases trying to rebut specific stories -- reminiscent of the RNC's rapid response team in 2004 -- so I missed Snow's debut, and didn't realize that it was so full of howlers.
God, that's just pathetic.
It would almost be better (for the White House) to go back to McClellan or some other chubby little spokesbot.

Posted by: Steve Lovelady at May 13, 2006 2:28 PM | Permalink

Jason, reporting, cutline, who cares?

I mean the mistakes are regrettable, but they're not central to the story. This is written by a metro general assignment reporter.

You know there are errors in front page stories, sports stories, business stories, style stories. Errors are human. Your examples of press woes are nothing but ankle biting.

Posted by: jaw at May 13, 2006 2:35 PM | Permalink

At any rate, there is nothing the USA Today reported that was not already known to be occuring. It was even written into the law. The NSA phone records monitoring story has been out since Clinton was in office.

Excerpted from the April 6th, 2006 testimony during the House Judiciary Committee Oversight Hearing on the ‘United States Department of Justice.’

SENSENBRENNER: [...] Mr. Attorney General, in early February, I sent to you an oversight letter requesting detailed information on the NSA terrorist surveillance program. The department's responses provided much substantive information on the legal basis for the program. However, there was one question at the center of this committee's jurisdiction over the program that was not answered adequately. This question related to the legal debate preceding the implementation of this program, and was prompted by reports that some high-level officials involved in the discussion over the legality of the program who did not agree with its legal basis. Your response in the letter was, quote, "The president sought and received the advice of lawyers in the Department of Justice and elsewhere before the program was authorized and implemented. The program was first authorized and implemented in October 2001."

(Emphasis added.)

April 6th, Hearing

March 24th letter

Posted by: nedu at May 13, 2006 2:38 PM | Permalink

I'm on the side of accuracy, jaw. You're not. If you can't advocate for accuracy as a journalist, you might as well hang up your cleats.

Is there any level of ignorance you won't try to defend or explain away?

This isn't a matter of mixing up details on a technical matter. This error, even more than the officer vs. sergeant error, belies a fundamental deficit in her cultural fund of information - and that of everyone who looked at the story before it was published.

You should not have seen this error show up in a high school newspaper - much less the New York Times.

Though where I come from, most high schoolers are better informed about the military in general than the New York Times newsroom staff.

Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at May 13, 2006 2:43 PM | Permalink

I'm for accuracy, but I'm on the side of bounds of reason. Errors are not acceptable, but when they are made, they are corrected as the Times did here. But errors don't always go to motive or incompetence.

You on the other hand have decided the press is incompetent, especially on military reporting. So any or every error you will use to reinforce your tiring, tiring point.

Spare us your outrage. I'm sure you've never made an error on your blog.

Posted by: jaw at May 13, 2006 2:50 PM | Permalink

Congress seems to have explicitly banned a data-mining program almost indistinguishable from what we are now hearing about from the NSA.

Mark,

The page isn't exactly a model of clarity. Nevertheless, I don't think you can say that without knowing the specific contents of the classified annex referred to in the document. Congress restricted something - but specified that the restriction did not apply to whatever was described in the classified annex.

I think your link is an interesting find - and it establishes that Congress did express some privacy concerns as a matter of record and law. But without knowing the contents of the document, I think it's inconclusive.

I'm open to correction, though, as I don't obsess over this stuff. I tend to rely on lawyer sites.

Was riding a stationary bike this morning watching FOX news in a circle jerk discussion of the issue and I just had to turn it off. Every single one of the panelists was less informed than I was, on the left and right. And I'm not up on the law, except for the contents of Ch. 121, and that just within the last day -- and FISA.

And people still misrepresent FISA.

Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at May 13, 2006 2:51 PM | Permalink

From wikipedia:

The Information Awareness Office (IAO) was established by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the research and development agency of the United States Department of Defense, in January 2002 to bring together several DARPA projects focused on applying information technology to counter transnational threats to national security. The IAO mission was to "imagine, develop, apply, integrate, demonstrate and transition information technologies, components and prototype, closed-loop, information systems that will counter asymmetric threats by achieving total information awareness". Following public criticism that the development and deployment of these technologies could potentially lead to a mass surveillance system, the IAO was defunded by Congress in 2003.

Posted by: village idiot at May 13, 2006 3:05 PM | Permalink

If this thread becomes village and jaw and Mark Anderson (and Steve and Dave) arguing with Jason and Aubrey and Moore (and neo and whomever) over assertions made to correct assertions made about their previously incorrect assertions, then I am going to shut the thing down as useless. I am telling you to cool it. Don't you care that you're crowding out all other voices, all other subjects?

The "dialogue" you are conducting is not worth anything, besides being repetitive in the extreme and off topic. It's taking over the forum and I can't have that. Where did you get the idea that you must respond every time someone puts a worm on a hook and dangles it in front of your face? It's silly. It's narcissistic. I bid you to stop without assigning blame to yourself or anyone else.

People can and they most definitely will say outrageously incorrect and mis-reasoned things in comment threads. They can and will describe their entirely disputable observations as indisputable. It's routine. Get a clue: You can't stop them. The idea of "calling them on it" is mostly bull. Calling them on it is just an invitation to more.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at May 13, 2006 3:16 PM | Permalink

I suspect the stock market fell 120 points because the big funds unloaded telecom stocks in the realization that AT&T, Bell South and Verizon and who knows how many unnamed others were about to get slapped with lawsuits seeking hundreds of billions of dollars in damages for compliantly loading all of our phone records into government trucks.
One suit alone filed in Manhattan yesterday seeks as much as $50 billion in civil damages from Verizon on behalf of customers.
More realistic perhaps is the estimate of Orin Kerr, a former federal prosecutor now teaching at George Washington who told the Times that his readings of the relevant statutes put the phone companies at risk for at least $1,000 per person whose records were handed over without a court order.
"This is not a happy day for the general counsels," he said. "If you have a class action involving 10 million Americans, that's ... $10 billion."
Even these days, a $10 billion charge is more than just a hiccup for mammoth communications company.
No wonder Tony Snow wants to keep this one at arm's length.

Posted by: Steve Lovelady at May 13, 2006 5:48 PM | Permalink

Enron went bankrupt. That wasn't news, that was financial reality. Sort of like your dead when you have the heart attack, not when your obit appears. Also, one stock does not a market make nor was Enron a one day story. It played out over about two months as I recall. Coinciding approximately with the general market decline yes. Was one casual of the either? If that's your story and it makes you happy stick to it if you want.

......and then there is the post above. OMG. Prove my point for me why don't you. As if 'the market' even thought of such things. Lawsuits years down the road without a chance in hell of succeeding. In any case such were never mentioned in the mainstream bussiness press, that comes later.

Later we might see stories about this and how it means trouble for the telecoms. If so you must look at it on what I call a forensic basis. Meaning if the Wall Sreet touts start warning how this is going to be negative for the telecoms it will be done for the purpose of driving prices down so they can buy it. Eventually a crecendo of negativity will arrive and at that peak the stocks will rocket higher.

It isn't the news. It is the management of the news and the maufacturing of perceptions thru the news that counts. News is noise.

As long a liquidity is rising so will stocks. During Greenpans tenure M3 rose at a 9.5% average annual rate. During the same period stocks rose at exactly a 9.5% annual rate. Now there is your cause and effect.

Posted by: rapier at May 13, 2006 6:26 PM | Permalink

Jay,

Dave McLemore has the right idea:

If we get bogged down in a military-media question best suited for CounterColumn, then come on over to my place and let me have it between the eyes.

I'll fire up the barbecue and keep a couple of 12 packs in the cooler. Hope you guys like Guinness.

That way, we can discuss the cancer afflicting the media, while PressThink can contemplate the acne.

Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at May 13, 2006 7:06 PM | Permalink

"Enron went bankrupt. That wasn't news, that was financial reality. Sort of like your [sic] dead when you have the heart attack, not when your obit appears. Also, one stock does not a market make nor was Enron a one day story. It played out over about two months as I recall. Coinciding approximately with the general market decline yes. Was one casual [sic] of the either [sic] ? If that's your story and it makes you happy stick to it if you want." -- rapier

How cute.

I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, rapier, and presume that you meant "you're" when you wrote "your," "causal" when you wrote "casual" and "other" when you wrote "either."

And yes, that's my story and I'm happy to stick to it. When you have the heart attack you're dead. When you show up in the obituary column, you're news.

Posted by: Steve Lovelady at May 13, 2006 7:16 PM | Permalink

Getting back to the subject at hand (after our brief diversion into the vagaries of the stock market), here's Elisabeth Bumiller of the Times reporting on Tony Snow:

"Mr. Snow, the new White House press secretary, showed that being a talking head for Fox News, his previous job, was a lot different from being a talking head for the president of the United States. At a raggedy morning briefing, Mr. Snow also displayed characteristics not widely associated with the Bush White House; he admitted mistakes, apologized to reporters and said flatly that he did not know the answer to several questions."

Yes, Elisabeth, but did he actually explain any policy decisions ?

Ummm, no. "He admitted mistakes, apologized to reporters and said flatly that he did not know the answer to several questions."

How pathetic is that ? A press reduced to thanking God for small favors.

I fear Snow may be on to something.

Posted by: Steve Lovelady at May 13, 2006 7:38 PM | Permalink

[I]t appears Rove is in trouble now.

Two snips from the underlying rumor (which has been flying around teh intarwebs for a few hours now):

• [...] high level sources with direct knowledge of the meeting said Saturday morning.

• An announcement by Fitzgerald is expected to come this week, sources close to the case said.

Might be news if there's some confirmation. But indictments are unsealed in open court.

Posted by: nedu at May 13, 2006 8:44 PM | Permalink

"If we get bogged down in a military-media question best suited for CounterColumn, then come on over to my place and let me have it between the eyes."

Makes sense to me. Thanks for the suggestion.

I cannot make sense of Snow's performance, myself. He did not seem to me ready for what he was doing. But if you are empowered to speak for the President of the United States you cannot meet the press on the record unless you're ready, because the consequences of a serious mistake are very large. Just look at:

TONY SNOW: Well, at this point the President is supporting Alphonso Jackson.
QUESTION: "At this point"?

TONY SNOW: Look, again, you're getting me ahead of my brief. I don't know any more than I've told you.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at May 13, 2006 9:14 PM | Permalink

Honestly, I couldn't care less if Snow picked the wrong venue for the press gaggle. Yes, he should have expected a bigger crowd of spectators. But your OP portrays a White House Press Corps that acts like a bunch of self-important clucking hens with feathers far too easily ruffled.

I also think that if the Administration thinks a prominent news outlet errs on a fact, or misrepresents things, they have an obligation to "set the record straight."

Now, the reader, or news consumer, can decide to buy the Administration's argument, or reject it. But their argument should be part of the conversation, and be entered into the public arena.

When journos take offense to this, well, they are demonstrating awfully thin skins. They are not above criticism, and freedom of expression runs both ways.

Hopefully, if the Administration sticks up for itself better on the facts, these folks will be a little more careful in there reporting.

Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at May 13, 2006 9:38 PM | Permalink

The law on Bush's spooks choosing to spy on each of us doesn't make it illegal for the government to ask for phone records. Rather, it makes it illegal for phone companies to divulge them.

As the NYT reports today, "The Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 was passed when cellphones and the Internet were emerging as new forms of communication. Section 2702 of the law says the providers of "electronic communications … shall not knowingly divulge a record or other information pertaining to a subscriber or customer … to any government entity."

Companies that violate the law are subject to being sued and paying damages of at least $1,000 per violation per customer.

Adios, phone companies.

Posted by: Steve Lovelady at May 13, 2006 9:40 PM | Permalink

Hopefully, if the Administration sticks up for itself better on the facts, these folks will be a little more careful in there reporting.
Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk

Ah, there's the rub, Jason. So far, they're avoiding "the facts."

http://www.cjrdaily.org/politics/white_house_goes_on_offensive.php

Posted by: Steve Lovelady at May 13, 2006 9:48 PM | Permalink

Is it up? Is not a downturn in April newsworthy? Or is the reality recruitment in the guard is overflowing as it would need to be to do the overload of work assigned to it? I'll expect numbers.

Posted by: George Boyle at May 14, 2006 12:12 AM | Permalink

Everyone is familiar with the failing campaign, politician, agency, administration, or political party that takes comfort in believing that nothing is fundamentally wrong, and therefore nothing much has to change. "We're just not doing a very good job of communicating our accomplishments."

It's tempting to describe a policy problem, a leadership problem, a strategy problem as a public relations problem, because then everyone can keep their job, keep their assumptions, keep doing what they have been doing, but more of the country will warm to it because it's being communicated better.

It's like firing the manager when the team on the field sucks, only more cosmetic. If Tony Snow becomes the instrument of that sentiment within the Bush White House he is cooked. The people who should be the most worried about this are Republicans still hoping for something from the current group in power.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at May 14, 2006 12:28 AM | Permalink

Care to comment on the substance of the WH /AP flap, Jay? Specifically, what it says about the Press? Or are you changing the name of the blog to BushThink?

Posted by: Neuro-conservative at May 14, 2006 12:47 AM | Permalink

I think it's fine for the White House to make the point that facts left out of the AP story would alter the view of the April figures, as long as the White House doesn't charge the AP with being inaccurate because it wasn't.

But I wouldn't place any great weight on this as a "strategy." I don't think it accomplishes anything. It has one benefit: the rabid right that still wants to see put downs of the press will smile and nod and cheer for more.

Tuesday (first briefing) is going to be fun.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at May 14, 2006 12:59 AM | Permalink

For the record, the WH did not charge that the AP story was inaccurate. The WH response described the AP story as "misleading." Based on my comments above, I think that is a fair description.

Posted by: Neuro-conservative at May 14, 2006 1:08 AM | Permalink

These guys are all they got.

It is likely the full court press is on to demonize the press in advance of what's coming down the pike between Rove's indictment and November ... which will likely be a tsunami of bad news for this administration and its allies.

And, perhaps unrelated, the bombing of Iran.

Posted by: Richard B. Simon at May 14, 2006 1:30 AM | Permalink

...So it turns out that the 22 suicides out of 120,000 soldiers deployed for Iraq last year is 15.3% lower than the 23 per 100,000 rate expected of 20-34 year-old males in the population at large.

That's right - despite the pressures and dangers of wartime service, the separation from family and loved ones, and the ubiquitousness of handy weaponry, the Army is doing a better job of suicide prevention than the rest of the country.

And what's the headline from the AP?

"Report: Suicidal Troops Sent Into Combat."

The AP reporter didn't bother to compare the Iraq suicide rate with the population at large. I had to do that for him.

Surprised an editor passed that through, but my experience is with montlies, not dailies. Still, I'd rather read it tomorrow right than read it today wrong.

Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at May 14, 2006 4:34 AM | Permalink

"The AP reporter didn't bother to compare the Iraq suicide rate with the population at large. I had to do that for him."

I don't think that's a fair comparison. Expected? The population at large has nothing to do with it as lives aren't on the line in normal everyday life as "a whole." The recruiting process is supposed to filter out this sort of personal flaw. You're an apologist with yet another false analogy fallacy.

Posted by: George Boyle at May 14, 2006 11:37 AM | Permalink

"Nowhere in the rebuttal does the White House mention the April numbers, but instead, the release switches the issue to year-to-date goals and numbers."

Shifting the burden. Almost every argument they have is fallacious.

Posted by: George Boyle at May 14, 2006 11:42 AM | Permalink

Jay Rosen: I think it's fine for the White House to make the point that facts left out of the AP story ...

Facts left out, indeed. But by the AP?

Compare the story linked by CJR Daily with this one at Sacbee.

Same AP writer? Same date? Same story?

Did you notice the absence of links to the actual data and sources in the AP stories, the WH response, and at CJR Daily?

DoD Announces Recruiting and Retention Numbers for April
U.S. Army Recruiting Command goals

Trust me journalism?

Does anyone else notice the similarities in the rhetoric of press critics/defenders and WH critics/defenders?

Posted by: Sisyphus at May 14, 2006 11:57 AM | Permalink

Haven't read the article yet ... but recruiting is a very seasonal thing. April's always a slower month. The high school seniors have generally figured out what they want to do, committed to college plans by that point, or are focused on graduating and are putting off the decision until "after graduation."

Recruiters quotas don't change. They are expected to average two per month. But if they got four in March, nobody's too worried if they only get one, or none, in April.

You'll see another spike when these guys get back from basic training and AIT and brag to all their buddies about how they got to drive a tank.

Then there's another round of phone calls, another round of appointments and referrals, and the seasonal cycle begins anew.

So I'd look at year-ago numbers. But goals and benchmarks change within the year - as do economies. The economy is strong and grads have a lot of options - which is a tougher recruiting environment than when employment is at 8 percent.

You really can't tell anything except over the course of a year. A one month blip is just statistical noise.

Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at May 14, 2006 12:53 PM | Permalink

Big picture (while avoiding hooks and worms):

Normal recruitment by the military has no news value; On the other hand, shortfalls are the first whiffs of a potential draft. Sort of like in an economy that has to live or die by the housing sector, normal home sales have no information value to the markets, but the first whiff of weakness even if it only one data point, is big news. I don't need to know about good weather, but I want to be on the alert for early signs of a hurricane; think probability multiplied by the value of the outcome.

Posted by: village idiot at May 14, 2006 2:20 PM | Permalink

Jay, it's been about 24 hours since you've asked some participants to cool it.

I've counted 28 posts, and only 4 that I can clearly see on Snow and Rollback.

Calling out outrageously incorrect and misreasoned assertions is bull; but many are called, but few choose to abstain.

The false assertions flow like spam. But it can be hard to figure what is OT here. Is the CJR/WH/AP military recruiting stuff OT or not OT? It does have elements of rollback.

Posted by: jaw at May 14, 2006 2:30 PM | Permalink

"Does anyone else notice the similarities in the rhetoric of press critics/defenders and WH critics/defenders?"

It's up is downism. It's your facts aren't legitimate when it's clear they are. The story is about a downturn in that month. AP wire feeds are edited for length by the individual papers.

Posted by: George Boyle at May 14, 2006 3:34 PM | Permalink

Caution to Sisiphus: bait - proceed to next post.

The appearance (at least) of impartiality is a sine-qua-non of a reporter's existence. The right recognizes this as a weakness and has been following a strategy of provokement by waging a war of attrition on reporters that they view as being unsympathetic to their cause. They do this by continually instigating scurrilous attacks on Press integrity. Needless to say, the Press (reporting side of it) is not in a position to repel these allegations with the force they deserve, for fear of being seen as a participant in a partisan fight. As a result, these mostly baseless attacks are left unanswered, and accumulate over time in the public psyche, causing serious (and sometime irreparable) damage to one of the four pillars of our system of governance.

Even my untrained eye can spot many such Limbaugh-inspired, Powerline-propagated, attacks in Pressthink's comments section recently. While there are many among Pressthink's readers that see through the deceptions, there are probably many others, given the popularity of the blog, that just take most of what appears here at face value. To leave these allegations unanswered to the extent they are scurrilous, detracts from the mission of Pressthink, and inadvertently aids the right in its aim of neutering the free Press.

Posted by: village idiot at May 14, 2006 3:35 PM | Permalink

Ric Locke: ... and every time Sisyphus indignantly declares that if you really examine the absolutely vital relevant details the Press got it right after all ...

LOL. Been a while, Ric.

I'm afraid I'm unaware of my own indignant declarations, tho'. At least the ones you've described as "the Press got it right after all."

Could you help me out with that one?

Posted by: Sisyphus at May 14, 2006 3:42 PM | Permalink

Absence of links in a print story? The data look correct to me and anyone sure can go to the Defense site and check if they want to, so why is this portrayed as hiding something? It's this false "conspiratorial pressthink" that delegitimitizes everything critics say.

Posted by: George Boyle at May 14, 2006 3:44 PM | Permalink

SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT: JASON'S MISLEADING SUICIDE STATISTCS

Jason, the appropriate comparison for suicide rates in the military is with historical data for suicide rates in the military. For instance, the suicide rate for soldiers deployed to Iraq and Kuwait in 2003 was 17.3 per 100,000. It dropped substantially in 2004, and in 2005 it's back up to around 18 per 100,000 (couldn't find an exact figure).

For the active duty Army as a whole, the rate has increased from 9.1 per 100,000 in 2001 to 13.1 per 100,000 in 2005.

And of course all of that is misleading in some senses as well. But not as misleading as your comments.

Posted by: weldon berger at May 14, 2006 3:46 PM | Permalink

Trying to recharacterize the debate on military suicide rates:

The mains thrust of the story does not even seem to be one of suicide prevention by the military; it seems to be about how the military violated its own rules on such soldiers (the sub-heading says it clearly),

U.S. military violated own rules on mentally ill troops, newspaper finds

and consequently, on how this could result in harm to themselves and their fellow soldiers.

“I can’t imagine something more irresponsible than putting a soldier suffering from stress on (antidepressants), when you know these drugs can cause people to become suicidal and homicidal,” said Vera Sharav, president of the Alliance for Human Research Protection. “You’re creating chemically activated time bombs.”

Posted by: village idiot at May 14, 2006 4:14 PM | Permalink

Uh ... suicide bombers?

Posted by: Richard B. Simon at May 14, 2006 4:25 PM | Permalink

Richard,

I just kinda, sorta doubt that on Tuesday, Tony Snow will address presidential concerns about the human missile gap.

Posted by: nedu at May 14, 2006 4:51 PM | Permalink

What use is the press we have ... and the question and answer may very well be the root cause of the decline in circulation, and the resultant weakness that allows manipulation. - Ric Locke

Ummm, Ric, I can only speak for my own modest little empire, but so far in 2006 CJR Daily's page views looks like this:

January: Up 11% from December.
February: Up 8% from January
March: Up 12% from February.
April: Up 9% from March.
Year-to-date: April's traffic exceeded December's by 46%.
And May is going to widen that lead.

Given that the size of our target audience -- journalists, those who love them, and those who hate them -- is steady state at best, we're pretty happy with that performance.

Might be time to rethink that "declining circulation" chestnut.

Posted by: Steve Lovelady at May 14, 2006 7:19 PM | Permalink

The hypothesis being tested here is whether Snow’s arrival signifies a continuation of Rollback of the press (albeit by more telegenic and articulate means) or a reversion to the tactic of treating the press as a vital interlocutor in the process of government.
This latter attitude towards the press, as has been stated at PressThink repeatedly already, belongs to a broader tradition, that of the Bully Pulpit -- using the White House to address the nation at large, supporters, independents and opponents.
The Setting the Record Straight tactic is one that belongs [to] the rhetorical practice of campaigning not governing -- the discourse of spin doctors, talking points and war rooms, where the primary political discourse is one of opposition not persuasion. -- Andrew Tyndall

Andrew, you, in what is fast becoming a fetid swamp of bile, are a breath of fresh air.

Keep the oxygen coming.

Posted by: Ann Kolson at May 14, 2006 7:31 PM | Permalink