Macsmind laments an imbalance in attention to non-Larry Craig imbroglios this week:
Now on the same day that this story broke two other stories broke which contained absolute bombshells to both Hillary Clinton and the Democrat Party in general. The first was the fact that George Soros’s defunked America Coming Together received the third largest fine in FEC history for voter fraud during the 2004 election. The other news of course - which hasn’t been told completely - is the growing campaign scandal involving several democratic candidate for president - including Hillary Clinton.
Both stories were just about knocked off the page by the Craig story and the obvious question was who behind the witholding of the story - again for two months - as almost to emerge the minute anti Hillary Clinton or anti democratic stories unfold.
First I’d like to point out, these stories (plus the not-so-distant Vitter revelations) mark another example of a cliché that isn’t necessarily wrong: Republicans can’t have sex, and Democrats can’t have money.
Second, he’s not wrong — the Hsu story might have been observed as a sign for Democrats that a Hillary Clinton administration could be scandal-ridden like her husband’s (well, not exactly like). And the left accuses Republicans of election-stealing enough that the Soros group’s financial misdeeds could have been pundicized, and bore greater scrutiny. Instead it seems to have only bored.
In fact, this this IceRocket trend chart showing comparative mentions almost makes the above observations sound understated:
Indeed the GOP gay no-sex scandal carried the week, and while that may be unfair, it certainly isn’t surprising. While there may well be solid examples of liberal-leaning reportorial and editorial decisions to be found throughout all this coverage, one also cannot deny the human drama of Craig’s unraveling career is more compelling than improprieties by non-electeds. In a tabloidy way, of course. After all, sensationalism is a troubling media bias, too.
P.S. Less than a year ago, this blog defended Sen. Craig against rumors very similar to his Minneapolis bust. Whoops! But based on the evidence at the time, no apology is necessary. A whisper campaign that turns out to be right is still a whisper campaign. A named source would have been a different story.
P.P.S. Mickey Kaus has a point about what Soros did and didn’t do. What he didn’t do was anything that conservatives and libertarians think should be illegal. What he did do was run afoul of existing FEC regulations. But conservatives have lost those battles, at least for now. What should be done is to change those laws, not excuse Soros for breaking them.
Breaking: AP says Craig is out. And you know what I mean.
Who Was the First White House Blogger?
You know that HBO special where actor Robert Wuhl knocks down popular misconceptions about American history in a classroom setting? Well, that’s what we’re doing here, because of an assertion contained in this morning’s techPresdent Daily Digest. All right, hit the lights:
That’s enough, turn them back on.
I’m not surprised tP’s Micah Sifry believes that Graff was the first blogger credentialed to attend briefings at the White House. After all, Graff announced at the time that he’d been approved, got leading lights of the political and tech blogospheres to help write the legend, and subsequently proclaimed himself a figure of historical interest. Today, it’s the first thing he mentions in his speakers bureau listing.
It’s a good line. I can see why he ran with it.
The problem is, Graff was not the first accredited blogger at the White House. I know this because the real first blogger is my good friend and former colleague Eric Pfeiffer, then employed as a blogger by National Review Online. Pfeiffer sought and obtained credentials to cover the White House press briefings, and on March 1 he covered that morning’s gaggle with Scott McClellan in a post appropriately titled “Notes from the Gaggle.” Graff’s credentials weren’t approved until three days later.
This isn’t the first time I’ve brought this up — in fact, at the time I pointed it out to WashingtonPost.com’s Dan Froomkin, who followed up in a column some weeks later:
That’s true enough — squeaky wheels get the grease, and self-promoters get the column inches. Yet others called foul at the time, arguing that professional status and a corporate-designed website disqualified one from being “a blogger”:
Froomkin also tried to draw a distinction between Pfeiffer working for a magazine vs. Graff working for a media site. I’m not sure I go in for these careful distinctions. They did the same kind of work for websites more alike than different, neither of which allowed for comments. So it makes for an interesting debate, but not too interesting, because that “credentialed” condition actually matters — neither were the first to report from the White House in blog format.
That distinction goes to non-journalist and non-Washingtonian Rex Hammock, a veteran of the technology and business blogosphere, who wrote about a private meeting with President Bush in February 2004 — more than a year before Pfeiffer (and was also covered by Froomkin). He wasn’t credentialed, but obviously some would say that qualifies him all the more.
I have no illusions that this post will retire the myth of Garrett Graff as the first blogger credentialed to the White House; it’s been repeated too many times in too many outlets in the past two years. I don’t know him personally and don’t wish him a lot of trouble over this. But at the same time, I don’t think it’s fair to keep crediting him with a milestone he didn’t reach first.