Reply #194: Yep, that was it [View All]

An article by Adam Nagourney in the NYT. No friend to any Democrat. And you're right, it did great political damage, mostly because Lieberman tore into the story big-time, and the rest of the media played and replayed it. And because relatively few read the original. Like you, they just heard the fall-out.

That's not a slam on you--none of us can read everything that's printed. We do well to follow the people or issues that really matter to us. But it gives enormous power to a corporate media that consolidates and regurgiates and makes the call on what is news and what isn't. So we all succumb to their manipulation to some extent. And we ALL live with the consequences.

But in this particular case, it was sound-bite journalism with a political agenda. One remark taken out of context and turned into the headline. If you read the whole article, it was pretty clear where Clark stood and that he was talking about how Kerry and Gephardt voted on the IWR. Nagourney even wrote the conversation out of sequence to leave precisely the impression he wanted. And like you said, it didn't help that when Clark realized he was in trouble, THEN he called for his press secretary and not before. But he had specifically said "Dean was right" about opposing the IWR, and that was before Mary Jacobs interceded.

A more experienced pol might not have made the mistake of responding to what was essentially a hypothetical situation (altho they all seem to get caught on that at some point--it must be pretty hard to avoid) and I doubt any of them would have put themselves in the position of that sort of interview in the first place. Jacobs has taken some hits for letting it happen, bur from what I hear, Clark is the one who had insisted on a completely open relationship with the media, because he believes in that sort of transparency.

Still, it's a damn shame that our candidates, and elected officials, can't afford to be caught alone with a reporter or to speak frankly with them without every word screened by a professional public relations specialist. If there were a different standard of behavior, maybe we wouldn't end up with a pResident who can get away with being totally shielded from any real interaction with the media.