MSM paper spins spy story: Update 1

(The N&O news story referenced here can't be accessed using The N&O's archive. The paper is available at most public libraries in Eastern and Central North Carolina. You can also find the story using Lexus/Nexus.)

Yesterday I posted regarding an Oct. 6 Raleigh's News & Observer front page story that ran under the headline:

Ex-aide to Cheney accused in spy case

With a NY Times reporters' byline, The N&O reported that Leandro Aragoncillo, an FBI intelligence analyst who once worked as a military aide in the White House has been accused by the government of passing secret government documents to current and former officials in the Philippines.

Readers were told the FBI "has expanded (an) espionage investigation to determine whether Leandro Aragoncillo,...had improper access to classified information while working in Vice President Dick Cheney's office."

Only in the middle of the fifth paragraph did The N&O tell readers that Aragoncillo had worked in Vice President Al Gore's office, also.

And nowhere in the story did The N&O tell readers that Aragoncillo had been cleared to work in the White House during the Clinton administration; had worked as an aide to Gore for 19 months; and that the FBI feared the spying may have started in June 2000, well before Cheney became Vice President.

So why the headline:

Ex-aide to Cheney accused in spy case

And why, since Aragoncillo worked as a Gore aide for 19 months, something the FBI has known for years, was The N&O reporting only that the FBI was investigating his "improper access to classified information while working in Vice President Dick Cheney's office?" Did The N&O's journalists really believe the FBI wasn't looking into what Aragoncillo did during his time as a Gore aide? Was the FBI really saying only what The N&O was reporting?

I promised to follow up today and report. Here it is:

1) I spoke by phone with a spokesperson for the FBI and identified myself as a blogger. I asked whether the FBI was investigating only Aragoncillo's work as a Cheney aide. How about Gore? "We don't comment on the scope of current investigations," the spokesperson said.

Follow up questions elicited the same answer.

2) Read The N&O for Oct. 7. On pg. 3, a follow up on the spy story.

Headline: Another man facing charges in spy case

Among other things, The N&O told readers:

The FBI also is looking into whether the analyst, Leandro Aragoncillo, 46, a former Marine, passed along secret information taken from the White House when he worked in Vice President Dick Cheney's office.

The N&O made no mention of Aragoncillo's service as a Gore aide.

3) Read The N&O for Oct. 8. On pg. 24, another follow up on the spy story.

Headline: Reports not espionage, Philippine ex-president says

Here's the fifth paragraph:

The FBI is looking at whether Aragoncillo, 46, also took classified information about the Philippines from the White House when he worked for Vice Presidents Al Gore and Dick Cheney from 1999 to 2002.

Interesting paragraph, isn't it?

Question: Does anyone really believe the FBI has only now begun investigating what Aragoncillo did during his time as a Gore aide?

There's so much about The N&O's reporting of this story that needs further examination.

I plan to follow up Monday with N&O staffers and others.

A case of possible spying shouldn't be a vehicle for spin and liberal bias.

More about The N&O's news bias

Scott Pierce at Right in Raleigh is asking Raleigh's News & Observer questions it doesn't want to answer.

Why isn't The N&O reporting the illegal activities of close associates of liberal Democratic Senator Charles Schumer of New York? Those activities include credit card information theft. Why, Scott wants to know, this latest news blackout that's so much like The N&O's news blackout of the Air America scandal story until overwhelming reader demand forced it to run at least a "buried inside" story?

There's lot's more that Scott is asking about. He has a post on N&O headline bias. Can you imagine headline bias in The N&O? It's the paper with a Fairness and Accuracy policy, right?

Well, you won't have to imagine The N&O's headline bias if you visit Scott's blog.

Go to Right in Raleigh and just keep scrolling. Besides lots about The N&O, you'll learn something of what former FBI director Louis Freeh is saying about former President Bill Clinton. It will upset the folks who like to say, "Clinton rocks."

Keep asking those questions Scott. Who knows, maybe someday the far-distant N&O owner, California-based The McClatchy Company, will decide to give Raleigh and environs a better newspaper with a real Fairness and Accuracy policy that translates into fairness and accuracy in The N&O. Can anyone imagine that?

MSM paper spins on spy story

(The N&O news story referenced here can't be accessed using The N&O's archive. The paper is available at most public libraries in Eastern and Central North Carolina. You can also find the story using Lexus/Nexus.)

On Thursday, Oct. 6, Raleigh's News & Observer ran a front page story under New York Times reporter Eric Lichtblau's byline. It begins:

An FBI intelligence analyst who once worked as a military aide in the White House is accused of passing secret government documents to current and former officials in the Philippines.

The FBI said Wednesday night that it has expanded a New Jersey espionage investigation to determine whether Leandro Aragoncillo, charged last month with spying for the Philippines, may also have had improper access to classified information while working in Vice President Dick Cheney's office several years ago.

So the FBI is saying "it has expanded (an) espionage investigation to determine whether Leandro Aragoncillo,...had improper access to classified information while working in Vice President Dick Cheney's office." Read on. You'll see why.

Aragoncillo, a U.S. citizen who was born in the Philippines, was charged Sept. 12 with passing classified information to government officials in Manila.

The charges filed against Aragoncillo, 46, of Woodbury, N.J., relate only to classified information that officials say he took from FBI computers after joining the agency in 2004.

But the investigation is widening, government officials said, because he had worked for several years before joining the agency as a Marine in the vice president's office under both Al Gore and Cheney. A former administration official said that Aragoncillo had briefly worked as an aide in Cheney's office, as a holdover from Gore's staff. Military aides frequently rotate through those offices and usually hold security clearances.

Let's stop right here. The N&O says in the middle of the fifth paragraph that he also worked for Vice President Gore. That's a surprise. No N&O mention of Gore before that. It was all Cheney.

Why? Aragoncillo worked in Gore's office before he worked in Cheney's office. That means he was first investigated and cleared to work at the White House during the Clinton administration. But The N&O doesn't mention that anywhere in its story.

And since Aragoncillo worked as a Gore aide for 19 months, something the FBI has known for years, why is The N&O reporting only that the FBI is investigating his "improper access to classified information while working in Vice President Dick Cheney's office?"

Surely the FBI is investigating his activities while he was a Gore aide. I'll say more about that part of The N&O's reporting in a post tomorrow.

For now, I'm more than a little skeptical of the way The N&O is reporting on an FBI statement.

There's more readers need to ask about the fairness and accuracy of The N&O's Oct.6 story.

Its headline, for instance. Would any of you be OK with a headline such as:

Ex-aide to Gore accused in spy case

No, it isn't fair, is it. It links Aragoncillo only to Gore, and makes no mention of his time with Cheney.

How about this headline:

White House spying began in Clinton years, FBI fears.

It's true the FBI fears Aragoncillo was spying in the White House by June, 2000. Readers would certainly want to know when spying began in the White House. But The N&O couldn't use this headline because it never mentions the FBI's fear.

What about this headline:

Ex-aide to Cheney accused in spy case

Are you thinking "Ex-aide to Cheney.." would be at least as unfair as "Ex-aide to Gore..." so let's scratch it?

Are you also thinking we should scratch the headline because it ignores Aragoncillo's coming on board at the White House during the Clinton administration; and gives no clue that he served there for 19 months, during which time the FBI fears he began his spying?

Are you asking why I even brought up the "Ex-aide to Cheney..." headline?

Good question. I brought it up because it's the one The N&O used:

Ex-aide to Cheney accused in spy case

See for yourself. The N&O's front page, Oct. 6.

Why did The N&O go with such a headline and run the story "framed" as it was?

If you're thinking liberal news bias, The N&O will tell you there's no bias in its news columns because it follows what it proudly calls its Fairness and Accuracy policy.

The policy is designed to prevent any of The N&O's liberal trending toward far-Left editorial partisanship from spilling over into its news columns.

I think the policy works about as well as the New Orleans levees did during Katrina.

But The N&O is very satisfied with its policy.

If you'd like to learn more about the policy, email The N&O's executive editor for news, Melanie Sill.

Her email: msill@newsobserver.com

Remember, I'm posting tomorrow by 5 PM Eastern on other aspects of The N&O reporting on the Aragoncillo spy case. Before then, I'll try to learn more about what the FBI has actually said.

You may want to do some Internet searching of your own.

In Buchanan post I failed to say something important

Yesterday morning I posted:
__________________________________________

Pat Buchanan: Anyone remember 2000?

Regarding White House Counsel Harriet Miers' SCOTUS nomination, Pat Buchanan says:

In a decision deeply disheartening to those who invested such hopes in him, Bush may have tossed away his and our last chance to roll back the social revolution imposed upon us by our judicial dictatorship since the days of Earl Warren.

Reading that paragraph you might almost forget that in 2000 Buchanan pushed ahead with his third-party presidential candidacy which he knew would cost then Governor Bush votes, and very possibly hand the election to then Vice President Gore.

Now he talks of "our" last chance.

Buchanan has never demonstrated much self-awareness.
_____________________________________________________________

What I said in the post stands.

But I failed to deal with something very important.

In May, 1954, Chief Justice Earl Warren, on behalf of a unanimous U. S. Supreme Court wrote the Brown v. Topeka Board of Education decision declaring segregation in our public schools unconstitutional.

For decades afterwards, an awful lot of people who spoke of "judicial dictatorship since the days of Earl Warren," had Brown v. Topeka at the top of their "dictatorship" list. Many wanted to "Impeach Earl Warren." Some proclaimed: "Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever"

Today, most critics of Chief Justice Warren and the court under his leadership agree that in Brown v. Topeka he wrote well, and for an America whose Constitution enables it to act judicially to right great wrongs.

Nowhere in Buchanan's op-ed did he qualify his statement about "judicial dictatorship since the days of Earl Warren" in any way, and I didn't call that to readers' attention.

I should have. I'm sorry I didn't.

Pat Buchanan: Anyone remember 2000?

Regarding White House Counsel Harriet Miers' SCOTUS nomination, Pat Buchanan says:

In a decision deeply disheartening to those who invested such hopes in him, Bush may have tossed away his and our last chance to roll back the social revolution imposed upon us by our judicial dictatorship since the days of Earl Warren.

Reading that paragraph you might almost forget that in 2000 Buchanan pushed ahead with his third-party presidential candidacy which he knew would cost then Governor Bush votes, and very possibly hand the election to then Vice President Gore.

Now he talks of "our" last chance.

Buchanan has never demonstrated much self-awareness.

A few thought on Miers

Foremost for me is that SCOTUS nominee Harriet Miers receive what her conservative critics have been demanding for all the President's other judicial nominees: A full and fair hearing, followed by an up or down Senate vote.

She's ridiculed by both Kos and Pat Buchanan. In my book, that's 2 points in her favor.

George Will gives his ruling

George Will tells us today what he thinks is the real problem with White House Counsel Harriet Miers' nomination: President Bush just isn't qualified to make Supreme Court nominations.

Here's part of what Will says:

(Bush) has neither the inclination nor the ability to make sophisticated judgments about competing approaches to construing the Constitution. Few presidents acquire such abilities in the course of their pre-presidential careers, and this president particularly is not disposed to such reflections.

I regularly read Will's columns, even when he's most pontifical. I usually take something of value from them.

But today all I could think of was the fellow who said, "How dare those sorts of people build a carwash across the street from my club?"

On Miers: A blogger asks key questions

At Betsy’s Page, she posts today on aspects of the Miers nomination.

Among other things, she wants President Bush:

to answer the question about what specifically (Miers) has said or done that gives him that assurance that she is the type of judge that he said he would nominate. I don't want generalities that she is someone who won't legislate from the bench, but some example that proved to Bush that she is indeed that sort of person. I feel like I'm grading one of my student's essays which is full of nice generalizations about history with no specifics to support those generalizations. If there is some way that the Senators in her hearings can get at that, I would very much like to hear her answers.

You’re not alone, Betsy.

Betsy also examines some of the who, what and whys of the extraordinary public attention being paid to Miers religious beliefs, church attendance, etc. She wonders whether some conservatives and members of the Bush administration aren’t encouraging the attention. She asks whether others of us are “squeamish about this sort of public scrutiny of a nominee's personal religious beliefs.”

Yes, put my name down in the “Strongly Squeamish” column. I'm sure many of your names will be there, too.

Betsy asks rhetorically:

Do we really want judges who would base their decisions on their religious beliefs any more than we want them to base their decisions on their political beliefs?

It looks like some people do so long as the judges’ religious beliefs are the same as theirs.

Do you find it hard to believe some of the conservatives now reassuring each other about Miers based on her religious beliefs were just this past Spring excoriating Senator Schumer for suggesting federal appellate court nominee William Pryor’s religious beliefs might influence his decision-making?

Read Betsy’s post here.

This kind of criticism of Miers bothers me

A number of bloggers have made thoughtful criticisms of Harriet Miers' qualifications for SCOTUS.

Then there's this criticism today by Michelle Malkin:

Another grating phrase I keep hearing from the few diehard Bush supporters trying to salvage this nomination is that she "opened doors" for women. All well and good. But I repeat: This tells us nothing about Miers' judicial philosophy or temperament. We need strong conservative intellects on the court. Not bellhops.

Malkin's criticism isn't helpful; not least because it tells us more about Malkin than Miers.

A law professor says this about DeLay

Here's what blogger and law professor Glenn Reynolds says about the latest DeLay indictment:

A NEW TOM DELAY INDICTMENT: Conspiracy and money laundering are vague crimes, easy to allege, hard to prove, and often used by overreaching prosecutors who want to put heat on someone. One would hope that Delay's legal problems would encourage other legislators to tighten up statutes and reduce prosecutorial discretion on such matters, but I suspect that such hopes would be in vain.

Attorneys often say you can get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich.

"Old" Miers and "Young" Roberts

We've been hearing it ever since the President nominated her.

Harriet Miers at age 60 is "old." Why didn't Bush nominate someone "young" like our new 50 year old Chief Justice John Roberts?

A “young” person like Roberts will serve on the SCOTUS so much longer than the "old" Miers, assuming she's confirmed.

But wait a minute; don’t women have a longer life expectancy than men? Sure they do.

For white women and men the ages of Miers (60) and Roberts (50), the average life expectancy is somewhere between 5 and 7 years greater for women, depending on your source.

Take the middle figure 6. Miers at 60 has a life expectancy the same as a white male age 54.

That being the case, than in terms of expected years of service on the SCOTUS, Miers expected service is only 4 years less than that of Roberts.

And all of that assumes good health and safety for both through decades; blessings that no statistical table can assure to any of us.

So maybe we can put the age issue aside, and move on to other, more important considerations concerning Miers.

If we did that, I'd be willing to bet our new Chief Justice would rule in our favor.

What do you think?

Will Gallup really not answer the questions?

Most of you know I've posted twice on a Gallup poll report of blacks and whites' responses to questions concerning the Katrina aftermath.

The first post, Gallup's reporting raises questions, is here. The second post, Gallup's response raises serious doubts, is here.

In reply to the second post, Gallup Senior Editor and the report's author, Lydia Saad, sent the following email last Friday, Sept. 30:
_______________

Hi John,

Message received. I'm writing under a deadline today, so I won't be able to look into this until early next week, but I promise to do so.

Not sure whether I will submit another post, but I will give it full consideration.

Thank you.
Lydia
__________________________

After thinking about Saad's reply this weekend and today, I decided to send her the following email today, Monday, Oct. 3.

Dear Lydia,

I was surprised you are not sure whether you will answer the questions I asked. Since the questions are fact-based on Gallup's own poll results, and I'll publish your answers in full, what's the problem?

How can Gallup not answer these questions:

Why did Gallup's report headlines and lead paragraphs give no hint that your polling revealed such huge biracial differences as whites more than twice as likely as blacks to have an unfavorable opinion of Mayor Nagin and more than three times as likely as blacks to view the looters as criminals?

Given such findings, wasn't Gallup wrong when it reported in the lead sentence of the second paragraph: "Aside from Bush, whites and blacks have similar perspectives on how various entities handled themselves in the Hurricane Katrina disaster?"

The questions are important. They're supported with data from Gallup's polling and report. And they're salient to Gallup's reputation for accuracy and fairness.

If you leave the questions unanswered, as you did in your first response, who can doubt the conclusions reasonable people will reach?

Sincerely,

John
www.johnincarolina.com

Senate stories that made me smile

Blogger Steven Bainbridge reminds us of an unforgettable statement Sen. Roman Hruska (R-Neb.) made while defending President Nixon's SCOTUS nomination of Harold Carswell.

Here's how the late Paul Duke, long-time reporter and host of Washington Week In Review, recalled the event for a National Press Club audience:

Some years ago, I was in the Senate press gallery when Roman Hruska, a nice old solon from Nebraska, came in. He came in to be interviewed about a Supreme Court nominee named Harold Carswell, who probably was the worst nominee ever proposed for a seat on the Supreme Court. One of my colleagues asked the senator how he could support such a mediocre man. And Senator Hruska replied, dead serious, "There are a lot of mediocre people, and they're entitled to a little bit of representation, too."

I recall years later a press group voted Hruska the Senate's "Dumbest Member." The news understandably upset Hruska. Before his staffers could stop him, he publicly denounced those who had selected him and denied he was the dumbest Senator.

Sen. Frist, Nominee Miers, and our best friends

The AP reports Sen. Bill Frist said this about SCOTUS nominee Harriet Miers:

"With this selection, the president has chosen another outstanding nominee to sit on our nation's highest court. Ms. Miers is honest and hard working and understands the importance of judicial restraint and the limited role of a judge to interpret the law and not legislate from the bench." — Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn.

Now reread Sen. Frist's statement, which I've changed only slightly:

"With this selection, the president has chosen another outstanding nominee to sit on our nation's highest court. (Name of best friend here) is honest and hard working and understands the importance of judicial restraint and the limited role of a judge to interpret the law and not legislate from the bench." — Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn.

Frist's statement works for my best friend. How about yours?

UPDATE: Oct. 3, 1 PM

Law professor Steven Bainbridge lays out the case against Miers nomination point-by-point. You don't need to be a lawyer to understand everything he's saying.

Most conservative bloggers who are speaking out are either disappointed, angry, or both, with most of the anger directed at President Bush for what's seen as his failure to appoint any one of many qualified jurists. Many fear Miers will be "another Souter." Michelle Malkin has a roundup.

Marshall Manson at comfirmthem.com reminds readers Miers opposed the adoption by the ABA of a statement endorsing abortion on demand. He ends: "I urge everyone to take a breath and hang on until we learn more."

The N&O editorials:Sometimes just laugh

At Scott Pierce's always interesting Right in Raleigh blog we find this post which ends in a question reflecting Scott's appreciation for irony and humor.

Durham: Vincent Brown is running for mayor of Durham. The N&O printed a 9 paragraph editorial outlining his previous misdeeds and recommending that Durham voters not elect him. Nowhere in the piece did they mention Brown's political affiliation. Wonder why.

You wonder why, Scott?

Well, you mustn't have been here about 6 years ago when we learned that the number of people then regularly reading editorial page editor Steve Ford's editorials was identical to the number of eagles nesting at Jordan Lake: 22.

Since then Ford, bless him, has worked hard to increase his readership.

And he's been very successful.

The latest N&O reader survey, completed just an hour ago, reveals an average N&O weekday editorial readership of 51. Sunday readership averages 57, and sometimes goes as high as 60.

Ford naturally wants to keep those numbers up, something you and I as bloggers can understand.

So, Scott, maybe Ford's setting up a mystery for his readers. They'll wonder about Brown's party affiliation and keep reading his editorials hoping someday he'll tell them.

People who regularly read N&O editorials really are that way, Scott. Trust me. I know some of them.

Posts later today and some good stuff now

By early evening, I'll have a post up documenting more of the liberal trending toward far-Left news bias at Raleigh's News & Observer.

Also, a post containing a response I received from Gallup's Senior Poll editor to my second post questioning one of its poll reports: Gallup poll report raises serious questions.

If you missed the following two recent posts, I encourage you to take a look at them. One's serious, the other's fun.

First: The N & O unknowingly "plays its readers for fools about those Wake County test scores"

Even those of you who have a very low opinion of The N&O may be surprised by its latest unintended revelation of just how bad a newspaper it really is.

The second post is short and just fun, It's been linked to by a number of blogs.
A little sympathy for Senator Schumer.

Best,

John

CIA Director Goss and Valerie Palme 1, 2, 3.

(UPDATE: Tom Maguire at Just One Minute is doing his usual fine job of keeping us up on Palme/Wilson/Rove/Cooper/Miller/Fitzgerald et al matters. He's posed some interesting questions today, Oct. 7. But I'd still like someone to answer the two questions below. If I can't get CIA director Goss to do it, I hope Tom will.


Regarding Valerie Palme, the CIA employee sometimes described as “a covert operative whose cover was blown by Bush administration officials”:

1) No one disputes that for at least the last 6 years, Palme has commuted by car from her home in Washington, D. C. to CIA headquarters in nearby Langley, VA.

2) Does the CIA actually allow its covert operatives to make a daily commute to headquarters for 6 years?

3) After commuting to work each day for 6 years, does the CIA believe Palme had any cover left to be blown?

I hope CIA Director Porter Goss answers these questions. I'd hate to have to wait for a Bob Novak column.