MSM now lifting its lid on Edwards-Hunter story

Heads-up to all those who’ve been saying only right-wing bloggers, Fox and talk radio would touch “that tabloid sleaze about Sen. Edwards fathering a ‘love child.’”

The Times, they are a changing.

Not the NY or LA Times. They’re continuing their news blackouts of the story as are most other self-described “responsible” MSM news outlets.

But the front page of today’s Raleigh News & Observer carries the headlines:

Edwards urged to address baby story
Could face snub at party convention

The story’s under the byline of The Charlotte Observer’s Mark Johnson. Here are excerpts followed by my comments below the star line.

Johnson begins - - -

Former Sen. John Edwards might have to move quickly to save his spot on the national stage.

With two weeks before their national convention, several prominent Democrats are saying Edwards must publicly address anonymously sourced National Enquirer stories that claim he had an affair with a campaign worker and fathered her baby.

Democrats gather in Denver on Aug. 25 and Edwards, as the 2004 vice presidential nominee and a presidential candidate who won delegates this year, ordinarily would be a speaker.

Instead some Democrats say convention organizers will try to avoid the lingering questions if Edwards himself doesn't talk.

"He absolutely does have to [resolve it]. If it's not true, he has to issue a stronger denial," said Gary Pearce, the Democratic strategist who ran Edwards' 1998 Senate race. "It's a very damaging thing. ... The big media has tried to be responsible and handle this with kid gloves, but it's clearly getting ready to bust out. If it's not true, he's got to stand up and say, 'This is not true. That is not my child and I'm going to take legal action against the people who are spreading these lies.' It's not enough to say, 'That's tabloid trash.' " …

Two weeks ago, after the Enquirer ran the story about the July 21 hotel liaison involving Edwards [and the child’s mother, Rielle Hunter, while a friend of Hunter’s watched their baby in another room in the same hotel, Edwards] dismissed a reporter's question in Houston and used the "tabloid trash" line. Edwards brushed off a Charlotte Observer reporter in Washington last week: "Can't do it now, I'm sorry."

His designated staffer for press contacts has not responded to e-mail requests for an interview.

No one answered a reporter who rang a buzzer at the gate of Edwards' Orange County home on Wednesday. Friends and former staffers refuse to comment now, though they helped Edwards last fall by dismissing the Enquirer story of a sexual relationship between Edwards and a campaign videographer when it initially broke.

"Sorry cannot help you on this one," wrote Jennifer Palmieri, a former top Edwards aide, in an e-mail.

The Enquirer published a story in October, citing unnamed sources, claiming that Edwards was having an affair with a woman who had filmed a series of videos during his presidential campaign. The tabloid later reported she was pregnant. Two weeks ago, the tabloid posted a story online chronicling how Edwards had visited the woman, Rielle Hunter, and their child July 21 at a Beverly Hills hotel and that the paper's reporters confronted him afterward.

Hunter posted an online statement at the time denying the October story. In December, a campaign worker for Edwards, Andrew Young, claimed paternity of the woman's then-unborn child.

Last week, though, the Charlotte Observer obtained a copy of the child's birth certificate, which did not list the father. Hunter's lawyer said only that "a lot of women do that" and that it was a personal matter between Hunter and Young.

"If there is not an explanation that's satisfactory, acceptable and meets high moral standards, the answer is 'no,' he would not be a prime candidate to make a major address to the convention," said Don Fowler of Columbia, S.C., a former Democratic National Committee chair.

Edwards' political currency, which is his value as a public speaker and advocate, declines each day the story goes unresolved, Fowler and other Democratic strategists said.

The entire Johnson/Observer story's here.

**************************************************

Comments:

Johnson and the Charlotte Observer did a lot of digging and produced an important story.

Most of it will be news to N&O readers. The paper didn’t report anything on the affair until last week and then not much in two stories it buried in the “B” section.

This past Sunday the N&O’s public editor offered readers a series of excuses for the N&O’s lack of coverage. For example, that the July 22 National Enquirer story about the Edwards-Hunter tryst at the Beverly Hilton Hotel named no witnesses.

In fact, the NE’s story named three witnesses: Edwards, Hunter and Bob McGovern, who the NE said was a friend of Hunter's who drove her from Santa Barbara to LA’s Beverly Hilton and watched the baby while Edwards and Hunter had their tryst in another room.

But I want to leave the N&O's shameful failure to report this story last year and until last week for other posts.

Back to Johnson and the Charlotte Observer’s story:

Wasn't it great to read in the story the kind of reporting you get when reporters pursue a story and dig?

It's important to learn no one “answered a reporter who rang a buzzer at the gate of Edwards' Orange County home” and that “[f]riends and former staffers refuse to comment now, though they helped Edwards last fall by dismissing the Enquirer story of a sexual relationship between Edwards and a campaign videographer when it initially broke."

That’s providing readers with critical information that helps them connect the dots.

Knowing that friends and former staffers who helped Edwards deny the story last fall are now refusing to comment enables readers to ask: What’s changed between last fall and now?

Well, for one thing a baby’s been born. And there’s DNA testing that can easily establish whether Edwards is the father.

A big hat tip to Johnson and the Charlotte Observer for their work.

As for the N&O’s running the story, I think they had no choice.

The Observer is North Carolina’s largest circulation daily. With the Observer giving the story such attention, how could the N&O ignore it?

Also, newspapers across the country are running the Johnson/ Observer story. For example, the Dallas Morning News.

Stay tuned.

The Churchill Series - Aug. 6, 2008

(One of a series of weekday posts about the life of Winston S. Churchill.)

The last two series posts concerned the abdication crisis in 1936 brought on by King Edward VIII’s determination to marry the twice-divorced American socialite Wallis Simpson.

I've said Churchill "took up the King's cause," but I've avoided saying anything more detailed about Churchill’s role in the crisis because IMO his actions and motives were complex. I don't have sufficient understanding of them to post in any detail concerning them.

What I'll do today and tomorrow is offer a few items I think bear on Churchill's actions and leave it at that.

I'll use a comment a reader made as stimulus to my items with the reader's comment in italics and mine in plain.

Winston Churchill was fanatically loyal to his friends, and to a set of ideas he held about British royalty. His wonderful mind was almost medieval in his fealty to these ideals.

He'd known the King since birth. They were close friends who'd played polo and hunted together. Before Edward became King, Churchill, like the King's family and others of his close friends, called him David when they were together.

As a young officer during WW I David, then Prince of Wales, repeatedly and insistently volunteered to serve in the trenches. The Government denied his requests for fear of the consequences should he be captured.

Despite being denied the chance to serve as a combat officer, David served as a staff officer near the front and frequently visited it at great risk to himself.

Courage was the virtue Churchill most admired in men. And, as the commenter said, "Winston Churchill was fanatically loyal to his friends."

What we've just read provides some of the explanation for why Churchill came very close to wrecking his public career by "taking up the King's cause."

More tomorrow about Churchill and the abdication crisis.

The Raleigh N&O’s “early coverage” myth

I want to respond here to parts of two comments on the thread of NY Times did not "lead" on the Duke lacrosse case.

Commenters are in italics; I’m in plain.

The role of the News & Observer in setting the table for Nifong's criminal frame of the lacrosse players has long been underplayed.

Agreed!

It’s also never been satisfactorily explained or fully examined.

The N&O itself fobs readers off with the “at first the players, their families and attorneys didn’t talk to us but once they did our coverage was just fine” myth. Sometimes the N&O adds: “And we were under deadline, too.”

You’ll find an example of the N&O’s myth-telling in the August/September 2007 edition of American Journalism Review. From "Justice Delayed," AJR’s assessment of media coverage of the case:

…[Melanie Sill, the N&O’s executive editor for news at the time the story broke and for more than a year and a half thereafter] cites challenges regarding initially taciturn players and their representatives. "The first three or four days of coverage that was a real hole in the reporting," she says. "In hindsight, we should have been much more emphatic much higher in the stories that we didn't have that other side."…

How can anyone blame the “taciturn players and their representatives” (read parents - - JinC) for the N&O’s decision to tell readers on March 25, 2006 the “scared” “young mother” was new to dancing?

The N&O knew who she was and that it had reported in June 2002 concerning her theft of the car of a man she lapped danced for at a “gentlemen’s club.”

The N&O withheld from its March 25 story the critically important news that the accuser, Crystal Mangum said the second dancer had also been assaulted at the March 13/14 party, but hadn’t reported it for fear of losing her job. Also, that the second dancer would do “anything for money.”

How can the N&O blame the players and their parents for that decision?

And how can the N&O blame them for its decision to withhold that information for 13 months; and only publish it the day following the NC attorney general’s declaration the three players whose indictments and ordeal the N&O had reported in great detail were innocent?

Just early coverage problems?

[The N&O’s] behavior early on cannot be swept under the rug.

I’m confident that during the discovery portion of the civil rights violations suits filed by the players and family members, we’ll learn a great deal about the N&O’s “behavior early on,” as well as it’s subsequent behavior such as I cited above.

When Mike Nifong is deposed, attorneys for the plaintiffs will surely ask him whether, as Ruth Sheehan claims, he was in contact with the N&O by at least March 26 and served as the anonymous source for her March 27 “Team’s silence is sickening” column.

The attorneys will press on that point because it can be an important part of demonstrating how the “Duke rape scandal” framing was presented to the public before Nifong ever spoke publicly.

If you believe AG Roy Cooper's finding that there never was any credible evidence of crimes, how did the N&O manage to publish between Mar. 24 and 27 the same elaborate false crime story Nifong began peddling on Mar. 27?

Coincidence or cooperation?

How did it happen that everyone at the N&O working on the story “forgot” to report on March 25 and for days thereafter the news the N&O had of the captains’ extraordinary cooperation with police?

And wasn’t it “lucky” for Nifong and everyone else involved in trashing the lacrosse team and attempting to frame three of its members that the N&O instead promulgated the “wall of solidarity” lie?

Without that lie, how could Sheehan have written her “Team’s silence is sickening” column?

Without that lie and Sheehan’s column, fair-minded people would’ve asked why Nifong was saying the players weren’t cooperating; and what were those Wanted and Vigilante posters all about?

Here are two important questions I hope Nifong's asked: “When did you first learn Crystal Mangum had said to an N&O reporter that the second dancer, Kim Roberts, had also been sexually assaulted at the party but hadn’t reported it for fear of losing her job? And what did you do when you learned it?”

Nifong could have heard it from the N&O back in March 2006, couldn't he?

[Duke Professor] Timothy Tyson must also be held accountable as he goes about in the next year promoting a film that is based largely on exaggerations.

An organized effort is necessary to let everyone know who this man really is.

I hope there is such an effort.

Tsyon’s conduct during Spring 2006 (spreading the lie about the players not cooperating with police and deliberately inflaming racial tensions) was every bit as reprehensible as the worst members of Duke faculty’s Group of 88.

Tyson’s recent charge, published on an N&O blog, that prosecutors in the Hart case went to trial knowing they had no evidence is prima facie false. That’s been called to his attention at the N&O blog, at Durham-in-Wonderland and here. He’s done nothing to correct the record.

IF I WAS JOHN EDWARDS AND

I was certain Frances Quinn Hunter wasn’t my baby, I'd contact Barry Scheck, Professor of Law and Director, Innocence Project, at Yeshiva University’s Cardozo School of Law.

Scheck is arguably America’s leading attorney in the area of forensic applications of DNA technology

I’d ask Scheck to help me make available in the most transparent and reliable way possible a sample of my DNA for use by a DNA testing firm he’d recommend.

I’d ask him for recommendations as to the best way to approach the baby’s mother, Rielle Hunter, to secure her cooperation in obtaining a sample of the baby’s DNA in the most transparent and reliable way possible so Scheck could arrange to have it tested by the same lab he’d recommended test my DNA.

The lab would, of course, match the DNA samples to determine whether I could be the father.

I’d ask Scheck whether once he had the lab’s report eliminating me as the father, he’d hold a news conference to make the announcement and answer reporters’ questions about how the DNA testing had been conducted. I’d be happy for the lab director to be at the news conference to answer questions.

I’d assure Scheck I’d pay all reasonable fees he and the lab charged.

I’d ask that they perform the services as quickly as possible.

What would you do if you had John Edwards’ financial resources, a public reputation to consider, and, what should matter most to you, a wife you’ve repeatedly told the public you love?

Huge Seoul Welcome for Bush

Gateway Pundit has the pictures, videos and a blogger’s post which provides a classic example of Reuters (“One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom-fighter”) News' headline bias. Story bias, too.

Be sure to visit GP here.

Also, did any of you see and hear mention on the networks' news programs of the welcome America’s President received in Seoul?

Did any of the networks mention the collapse of the “massive protest demonstrations” South Korea’s Left had planned for Bush’s arrival?

Only a few hundred hard-cores and media showed up

Name Al Gore’s hugetastic boat

Michelle Malkin has the pictures and story about Al Gore’s boat.

So what kind of boat do you think Mr. Green has?

And do you have a name for it?

Take a look at Gore’s boat here.

Hat tip: AC

The Churchill Series - Aug. 5, 2008

(One of a series of weekday posts about the life of Winston S. Churchill.)

In yesterday’s series post, I said it was tough for me to write about Churchill’s role in the abdication crisis in 1936 brought about by King Edward VIII’s determination to marry the twice-divorced American socialite Wallis Simpson.

I simply don’t know enough to post now on the matter. I’ll continue reading various accounts and hope to post soon on it.

Today, I want to share with you a reader’s comment about Churchill that is on the money and helps explain why, just about alone among the Members of the Commons, Churchill, as it was said at the time, “took up the King’s cause.”

Winston Churchill was fanatically loyal to his friends, and to a set of ideas he held about British royalty. His wonderful mind was almost medieval in his fealty to these ideals.

Perhaps the best analogy is to religious faith. Those who have it are unshakable. So was Winston.

There’s a great deal of Churchill captured in that five-sentence comment. You could write a fine, lengthy Churchill book themed on just them.

I say some more about the comment tomorrow.

An Obama-Reagan ticket?

The NY Times, NPR, the networks and other Obama news organizations told us President Reagan was just a "simple-minded Grade 'B' movie actor."

But this video makes me think Sen. Obama is going to pass on John Edwards as his Vice-presidential running mate in favor of Ronald Reagan.

What will Rev. Wright and Minister Farahkan say?

View the video and decide.



Hat tip: AC

Greensboro N&R to Edwards: "Something, anything?"

Excerpts from a Greensboro News & Record editorial today with my comments below the star line.

The N&O begins - - -

Tabloid allegations have trickled into mainstream media outlets concerning an alleged affair involving former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards and a former campaign videographer. . . .

Here is what we know: The National Enquirer has reported that Edwards, a Democrat, had the affair and fathered a child as a result. "SEN. JOHN EDWARDS CAUGHT WITH MISTRESS AND LOVE CHILD!" a headline screamed in blazing red letters two weeks ago.

Considering the source, who knows what's true? Is part of it? None of it?

Meanwhile, some bloggers have instantly assumed the reports to be correct and have wondered out loud why others haven't followed suit in excoriating Edwards as a shameless philanderer.

But fairness and common decency call for separating fact from fiction before passing any judgment, if there's any judgment to be passed.

Even though the Enquirer isn't as reckless and far-fetched as it once was, The Washington Post or New York Times it definitely isn't. Getting sued for getting things wrong still is de rigueur there - a cost of doing business.

Edwards has described the report as tabloid trash and "completely untrue," as has the woman, Rielle Hunter, 44. A former campaign fundraiser for Edwards, Andrew Young, the married father of three, stepped forward in December 2007 and said he was the father of the child, whose birth certificate still lists no father.

The Enquirer reported on July 21(It was July 22. - - JinC) that Edwards had been spotted entering Hunter's room in a Beverly Hills, Calif., hotel. When reporters confronted him, the Enquirer contends, Edwards sought refuge in a basement rest room and had to be escorted out by hotel security.

Edwards has since been cool to reporters, whose questions he avoided twice last week after a speech in Washington.

This has been a difficult story to pin down because the Enquirer is hardly a paragon of journalistic integrity. The allegations are especially sensitive because Edwards' wife, Elizabeth, is battling an incurable form of cancer.

That said, Edwards isn't helping his cause by not standing up to the charges and by playing hide-and-seek with reporters. . . .

As a man who has waged two campaigns for president and might well have been vice president, Edwards should clear the air and set the record straight.

The entire N&R editorial’s here.

**************************************************************
Comments:

As far as I know, the N&R is the first North Carolina daily to editorially call on Edwards to speak about the contents of the most recent National Enquirer reports which include events the NE said occurred at the Beverly Hilton Hotel the night of July 21/22 and, in the follow-up report, events concerning the child and money allegedly regularly paid to Hunter.

If you know of another NC newspaper that has already done so, please let me know and I’ll update.

I commend the N&R for telling Edwards he “should clear the air and set the record straight.”

The N&R is right when it says “some bloggers have instantly assumed the reports to be correct and have wondered out loud why others haven't followed suit in excoriating Edwards as a shameless philanderer.”

But I wish the N&R had also let its readers know there are many bloggers like myself who from the beginning have pointed out how easily major portions of the NE reports can be confirmed or refuted. ( NE's Edwards-Hunter tryst story's verifiable )

Has any MSM publication or station reported interviewing or attempting to interview Bill McGovern?

The NE's July 22 story reported McGovern's a friend of Hunter’s who drove her from Santa Barbara to the Beverly Hilton where he watched over the baby in one room while Edwards and Hunter had their tryst in another room?

Given the many hundreds of reporters at papers and stations in Los Angeles and Santa Barbara, why aren't we reading of at least attempts to interview McGovern?

As for “excoriating Edwards as a shameless philanderer,” so far I’ve not done that, but there may come a day when I will.

Right now I'm doing something I think is much more important.

Since I began covering the story I've been reminding JinC readers that, absent a full exposure by MSM and a full, fact-based explanation by Edwards of what the NE is reporting, Edwards is in a position where he could easily be subjected to blackmail.

I’ve been very critical of MSM for leaving Edwards in such a position and leaving Americans in the dark about it.

I've also said repeatedly I think MSM would have covered the story very differently from the beginning had Edwards been a right-leaning Republican instead of a left-leaning Democrat and favorite of the NY Times and Sen. Obama.

What do you think?

Phone conversation with N&O exec editor

I said I’d post concerning a brief phone conversation I’d had Thursday, 7/31, with Raleigh News & Observer executive editor for news John Drescher.

My call to Drescher was prompted by many emails and calls I’d been getting for days concerning what people said they were being told when they contacted the N&O to ask why it hadn’t reported anything on the John Edwards-Rielle Hunter affair. The N&O did, on 7/31, for the first time report on the affair but with few details (eg. The N&O didn’t even name Hunter) in the “B” section.

I was being contacted by everyone from JinC Regulars to people who’d read Bob Wilson’s column here or at the Poynter Institute’s Jim Romenesko’s page, a "visit daily" site for thousands, most of whom are journalists, journalism students, news executives and media critics.

What I was hearing “ran the gamut” and was often contradictory.

My call was to suggest the N&O post at statement explaining its treatment of the Edwards-Hunter affair at the newsobserver.com Editors’ Blog and refer callers and emailers there. The statement could be updated as needed.

Drescher returned my call about 8 PM. The conversation was our second voice contact. We’d had a Q&A exchange at a public forum last year at Duke Law School.

I did not take notes.

I recall the conversation as mutually civil, issue-focused and intense.

Drescher said the matter of a statement at the Editors’ Blog was now moot since the paper had published that day on the story and would be reporting on it the following day. He didn’t say and I didn’t ask what the paper would be reporting.

I said a statement was still needed because the N&O had gone so long without ever reporting on the affair.

Drescher countered that the story was “tabloid” and unsubstantiated. He said he thought the N&O’s treatment of it had been “just right.”

We went back-and-forth on that, each of us invoking points and issues that are familiar parts of “the publish/not publish” debate surrounding the Edwards-Hunter affair debate.

During a series of exchanges, each of us heard the other’s point and then quickly countered.

We came to a place in the conversation where we mutually agreed we’d heard each other; said our pieces; and should begin wrapping up.

In closing, I commended Drescher for his willingness to return readers' calls and urged him to respond as well to readers’ questions and comments at the Editors’ Blog.

Drescher noted out how time consuming that can be. He also said he conceives of the EB as a place where he and other senior editors post ideas, explain the N&O’s treatment of a particular story, etc., which the readers can them comment upon and discuss among themselves.

I said I wanted to make the case why at least some answering by editors of readers’ questions at the EB was very important but would do that at another time.

We ended the conversation with my thanking him for returning the call and his time, his telling me he saw that as part of his job, and each of us wishing the other well.

Folks, I’m sending Drescher an email with a link to this post. I’ll invite him to add anything he wishes. If he does, I’ll place what he sends here as an update and add “Update” to this post’s title.

John

The Churchill Series – Aug. 4, 2008

(One of a series of weekday posts about the life of Winston S. Churchill)

I said I’d post this week concerning Churchill and his role in King Edward VIII’s abdication crisis. Now I hesitate to do that. Here’s why:

As I read on the subject this weekend I saw some aspects of the crisis could be easily explained. For example, there was no legal impediment to the King’s marrying Wallis Simpson. Edward was free to marry the twice divorced American socialite and still remain King by right of birth and accepted ancient precedents of royal succession.

But Edward would not have been able to reign as a constitutional monarch who held the throne not only in the name of God, but of the people of Great Britain and the Dominions.

It was Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin’s strong, unqualified threat to resign rather than accede to a marriage he knew would be hugely unpopular in Britain and the Dominions (I’ve read that was the opinion of the head of every dominion state) that created what we call today, somewhat erroneously I think, “the abdication crisis.”

The King could have kept his relationship with Wallis Simpson, a relationship most in “court circles” had known about for years. Baldwin would have raised no objection. But the King insisted on marriage to “the woman I love.”

At that his First Minister would resign and so would his other Ministers.

Baldwin would then call a general election, the results of which would certainly have gone against the King.

So, assuming Edward had persisted with his marriage plans, he would’ve had to look to a hostile Parliament for his Government's Ministers.

Since almost all Polarimetry figures supported Baldwin’s position – and not because of short-term political considerations, but from deep beliefs concerning what was a suitable marriage for the Head of the Church of England and the vital importance in a constitutional monarchy of public respect and affection for the Crown – the best Edward could have hope for was a rump government.

That was the brink he was bringing his Crown and Country to; and from which he finally stepped back and abdicated.

I’ll say more tomorrow about the difficulty I have understanding and explaining Churchill’s position – really positions – during the crisis.

Reader advice is always welcome.

Another Barack Obama-Paris Hilton comparison

Just days after MSM Team Obama, including network anchors, erupted over a McCain campaign “attack ad” because it compared Sen. Barack ("The One") Obama to celebrity Paris Hilton, we learn of another Obama-Hilton comparison.

The following’s from Mark Leibovich’s Feb. 24, 2005 adulatory profile in the Washington Post with my comments below the star line.

Leibovich begins - - -

There's nothing exotic or complicated about how phenoms are made in Washington, and, more to the point, how they are broken.

"Andy Warhol said we all get our 15 minutes of fame," says Barack Obama. "I've already had an hour and a half. I mean, I'm so overexposed, I'm making Paris Hilton look like a recluse." . . .

The entire Washington Post story’s here.

******************************************************

Comments:

If you listened to Team Obama’s whines and grievances about the McCain ad comparing Sen. Obama to Paris Hilton, are you surprised to learn Obama did it first?

I learned about Obama’s comparison of himself to Hilton when I read Seton Motley's post at Newsbusters.

He got a lot more in his post. I hope you give it a look.

Apology to ABC News & Martha Raddatz

Readers Note: The posts -- Raddatz, ABC News targets of bogus claim and Update re: Bogus claim targeting Raddatz, ABC News – contain background for the apology you’ll read below.

John
________________________________________________________

To: David Westin, President
Martha Raddatz, Chief White House Correspondent
ABC News

I want to apologize to you both and to the rest of your news team for my error in linking to the bogus McCain-54 story.

Once Martha Raddatz contacted me and I fact-checked, I recognized my error and its cause.

I’d been lazy and failed to do the fact-checking I should have done before posting.

I placed an error message in the title of my post and placed a readers' alert and explanation at the head of the post.

I’ll be more diligent in the future.

Thank you both for your understanding.

Sincerely,

John in Carolina
www.johnincarolina.com

NY Times did not “lead” on the Duke lacrosse case

One of the myths that now envelope the Duke lacrosse case has the New York Times leading the media mob that trashed and libeled the Duke students on the lacrosse team while embracing the lies of Crystal Mangum and Mike Nifong. In truth, the Raleigh News & Observer led the media mob.

With that in mind, I read KC Johnson’s post concerning his participation in a Duke lacrosse case roundtable at the recent Southeastern Association of Law Schools annual conference. KC included in his post “some points presented by the other panelists.”

KC ended his summary of University of Florida Law professor Lyrissa Lidsky’s remarks thus: “Lidsky singled out the Times for criticism, noting that the mainstream media is too often like ‘sheep,’ following the Times’ lead.”

That prompted me to comment on the post thread:

Dear KC,

I gather from some of the other comments you’re now back home.

Welcome back. I hope you’ll post concerning some of your experiences in Israel.

Summarizing a part of Prof.Lidsky’s remarks, you say: “Lidsky singled out the Times for criticism, noting that the mainstream media is too often like ‘sheep,’ following the Times’ lead.”

I agree that often much of MSM does follow the NY Times like “sheep.”

But I hope Lidsky didn’t say that happened with the Duke lacrosse case. It didn’t.

The Times' first Duke lacrosse case story was published Mar. 29, 2006.

By that date, Duke had canceled the lacrosse season and the anonymous Vigilante posters and the Durham CrimeStoppers Wanted posters were circulating on campus and in Durham. The players had very good cause to fear for their safety.

But the Times did nothing to contribute to that horrific situation; and no news organization up to that time was following it like “sheep.”

Did Lidsky mention the Raleigh News & Observer’s role in the case?

I hope so.

It was the N&O’s biased, racially-inflammatory and often false coverage that led the media pack.

By Mar. 27 when Nifong first spoke publicly about the case, the N&O had already trashed and libeled the lacrosse team, and laid out the framing script Nifong foisted on the public that day and for almost a year thereafter.

By Mar. 27 most people following the case thought the Duke students on the lacrosse team were a bunch of drunken, privileged, racists; three of whom had beaten, robbed, chocked and raped a frightened “young black mother” while their teammates stood by doing nothing to stop the crimes, and then subsequently stonewalled Durham’s police and covered up for their rapist teammates.

That was all 2 days or more before the Times published its first Duke lacrosse story which was far more temperate and fair than any news story, column or editorial the N&O had published up to that date.

Are you sure that in regard to the Duke lacrosse case, Prof. Lidsky “singled out the Times for criticism, [and noted] that the mainstream media is too often like ‘sheep,’ following the Times’ lead[?]”

I hope she didn't.

John in Carolina
_________________________

KC responded: “I'm quite sure. But readers needn't take my word for it: the transcript of the proceedings will be published in the Seton Hall Journal of Sports and Entertainment Law.”
_________________________

I placed another comment on his post’s thread thanking him for his response. I said I’d follow-up with Lidsky.

Since often many months pass between a conference presentation and journal publication, I plan to ask Lidsky if I can obtain a print copy of her presentation.

I’ll keep you posted.

I’ll end with something I’ve said here before: When Mike Nifong began speaking publicly about the case on March 27, 2006 he followed “the Duke lacrosse rape scandal” script laid out by the Raleigh N&O in its coverage between March 24 and 27.

That coverage included repeatedly calling the accuser the “victim;” headlines that told readers about the woman's “ordeal” which ended finally in “sexual violence;” the promulgation of the “wall of solidarity” charge which the N&O knew was a lie; and Ruth Sheehan’s McCarthyite screed: “Teams silence is sickening.”

When was the last time a prosecutor or media mob has such a loud, false and vicious lead as the one the N&O had provided by March 27?

Brit critic: Edwards affair "'scoop' U. S. papers ignored"

Today media critic Guy Adams in Britain’s The Independent begins - - -

That old cliché about everything being bigger in America seems especially pertinent when attempting to describe the sheer scale of the crisis currently afflicting the US newspaper industry, which makes all Fleet Street's woes look like a summer picnic.

Last week, The Los Angeles Times decided to flog its historic downtown offices, on top of sacking 150 of its 870 journalists. So did The Chicago Tribune.

Almost every title in the land is now shedding staff; a hundred New York Times hacks have been offered voluntary redundancy; Newsweek recently announced cuts. It's a bloodbath out there, as US media companies attempt to claw a pound of flesh from haemorrhaging readerships.

Consider, against this backdrop of falling circulation and a failing industry, the decision of every mainstream paper in America to ignore the juiciest political story of the month (and possibly the year): the discovery by National Enquirer hacks of John Edwards, in the corridors of a Beverly Hills hotel, where his alleged mistress and alleged love child were also staying, at half past two on the morning of Tuesday, 22 July.

Since Edwards was, until recently, hoping to be president and will almost certainly have a prominent role in any Barack Obama administration, his marital integrity is a matter of public interest. It could yet become an election issue.

Yet neither the highfalutin NYT, nor the Tribune, nor even the LA Times, on whose patch the whole sordid business occurred, have yet stepped up to the plate to report it. Their old-fashioned reticence seems quaint, in this day of kiss'n'tell and chequebook journalism.

But it's also depressing: one of the reasons America's newspapers are dying is their perceived pomposity. Readers say they are too timid to rock the boat; right-wingers complain (with some justification) that they conspire to suppress damaging stories about Democrats. The general public thinks they have simply become boring. . . .

The rest of Adams’ column’s here. It’s well worth your time.

Comments - - -

Adams is right: The mainstream press has been derelict for almost a year now in not pursuing and reporting the Edwards affair story.
And he’s right that by suppressing the story, newspapers are in a process of hurting themselves.

The self-inflicted hurt will hit home once the story breaks through the MSM’s “news filter.”

When that happens, as surely it will, it won’t be public perception that newspapers “are too timid to rock the boat” that will hurt an industry already in steep decline in both circulation and public trust.

No one who’s watched America’s newspapers run fast, loud and recklessly with the Duke lacrosse, Jena 6 and “Haditha Marine massacre” lies believes the press is timid.

But it sure is biased toward the left.

And it’s not just “right-wingers” who believe that. Polls show most American’s do.

The leftward tilt of most newspapers is one reason so many of us are deserting them and moving to the “new media” where we can easily fact-check and get differing opinions.

When Americans learn the full story of the blackout of the Edwards affair, most will see the blackout as another example of MSM favoring Democrats and another reason to embrace the new media.

Message to Danvers

Your comment came in but a frame provided by AOL/Blogger that contians the key I need to post it was missing.

Those glitches happen and other comments are coming through fine.

I hope you resend if you and I always appreciate your comments.

That was especially so when you provided some first-hand perspective on events in Zimbabwe.

Best,

John

Raleigh N&O standards & the historian

Ted Vaden, public editor of the McClatchy Company’s liberal/leftist Raleigh News & Observer, today seeks to explain why the N&O was so late in reporting anything on the John Edwards-Rielle Hunter affair story.

Vaden’s column includes this:

The Edwards story -- or, maybe, nonstory -- is a good illustration of the dilemma the "mainstream media" increasingly face operating in a no-holds-barred, 24-7, instant-news environment. Newspapers and other media that once were news gatekeepers -- applying traditional standards of fact-finding and verification -- are finding themselves guarding the gate to a news corral that has been stampeded by bloggers, cable "news," talk radio and, in this case, tabloids.

I’ll comment on the N&O in regard to the Edwards-Hunter affair late this evening.

In this post I just want to pick up on Vaden’s puffery about "’mainstream media’ . . .applying traditional standards of fact-finding and verification” as they bravely defend the public from the stampeding heathen hordes of “bloggers, cable ‘news,’ talk radio and, . . . tabloids.”

There’s a very good example of McClatchy’s and the N&O’s “traditional standards of fact-finding and verification” available to you on pg. 3A of today’s Anything for Obama N&O. Across all six column and at the top of the page is the headline:

Presidents don't always live up to resume, scholars say

The story under McClatchy Newspapers' David Lightman’s byline begins:

Many undecided voters have a common concern when they size up Barack Obama: his inexperience.

"I have nothing against Obama. I just think John McCain has more experience," said Steve Viernacki, an Ashley, Pa., restaurant owner.

Experts say that such worries are overblown.

"Experience matters, but its importance is terribly overstated," said historian Robert Dallek, the author of recent books about Presidents Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon.

Presidents with sterling resumes often have turned out to be busts, usually because they lacked the key quality a good president needs: sound judgment.

The rest of the story’s here.

It reads like an Obama campaign infomercial. But I’m sure others will disagree. Some Obama supporters may even think the story isn’t respectful enough of the Senator.

But all of us who read the story through to the end will be able to agree that nowhere in the story do McClatchy and the N&O tell readers that “historian Robert Dallek” is an enthusiastic Obama supporter.

To find that confirmed and learn more about McClatchy's “traditional standards of fact-finding and verification” go to Kevin Gregory’s fine post at McClatchy Watch.

Ted Vaden's entire column's here.

Washington Post looks at it campaign coverage

Doing the looking is WaPo’s Ombudsman Deborah Howell and some WaPo staffers she references in her Aug. 3 column which begins:

Barack Obama [is] creaming [John] McCain in the number of pictures and stories published in The Post in the past two months.

First, photos.

Richard Benedetto, a retired USA Today White House reporter who teaches journalism and political science at American University, studied photos in the A section from June 4, the day after Obama clinched the nomination, to July 14.

He shared his research with me, and I expanded it to the whole paper and continued it through Friday with the aid of my assistant, Jean Hwang, photo desk assistant David Snyder and The Post's Merlin photo database.

What we found: 122 photos of Obama have been published in the paper during that time to 78 for McCain, counting tiny to big. Most of those photos ran inside the paper; most on the politics page.

The Page 1 photos are closer: Obama had nine to McCain's seven. Five of Obama's were above the fold; McCain had four. Obama also got more color photos, 72 to 49, and more large photos -- mostly those that spanned three or more columns, 30 to 10.

Folks, let’s stop here for a moment.

I bet all of you who are intelligent, fair-minded and familiar with how most MSM ombudsmen and public editors function, including the Raleigh N&O’s Ted Vaden, are saying to yourselves something like: “So far Howell and the people she’s using aren't anything like the usual spin and shuffle MSM budsmen and pub edits.”

Continuing with Howell:

McCain was behind before Obama went to the Middle East and Europe. But during his trip, Obama shellacked McCain on photos.

July 25 was the topper -- five photos from Obama's Berlin visit. To begin with, a photo of Obama before a humongous crowd dominated Page 1 -- a stunning photo worth the size. Next, on Page A6, another big Obama picture. Next, a large picture of him at the Victory Column on the op-ed page with a Eugene Robinson column.

But wait, there was yet another picture of him by the Victory Column on the Style section front and another picture inside Style of Obama talking to reporters. It was a bit much.

What we're reading is not at all like a Ted Vaden apologia pro N&O column. What about the columns your budsman or pub edit “readers advocate” writes?

Continuing with Howell:

The pictures of Obama -- in Afghanistan, in Iraq, in Israel, in Berlin and in Paris -- did just what the campaign wanted: They portrayed Obama as a world leader.

The Post also covered McCain's trip to Latin America in early July, but McCain didn't draw the crowds Obama did, and the Middle East is much more of a newsworthy hot spot than Latin America. …

The rest of Howell’s column is here.

She ends it with:

[Ed Thiede, assistant managing editor for the news desk, said that the numbers are "eye-opening. We should be more cognizant."

[But he added] the difference "reflects that Obama is new to the scene and has had more events that had more visual impact. Obama's campaign is better at putting him in situations that mean better photos," and too many of McCain's photos were static and at a podium.

Readers look at photos when they don't read stories. But Obama leads in stories since June 4, too -- 139 to 94. They were both featured in 23 stories. Again, part of this is due to Obama being the new kid and less well known.

But these kinds of discrepancies feed distrust on the part of readers, especially conservative ones, who already complain that The Post is all for Obama. Next week, I will examine the stories.

The kinds of discrepancies Howell and her team identified do “feed distrust” among conservatives as well as other fair-minded people who look to the news pages for news fair and balanced.

I’m looking forward to next week’s column.

I thank Howell and her “fact-finding team” for their work to date.

Now, Readers, it’s your turn.

John Edwards, ACORN and voter fraud

Responding to “Edwards-Hunter 3-minute video", an outstanding satirical video exposing former Sen. John Edwards hyppcracy and mendacity, an alert commenter said:

In the video, when Edwards is at his press conference and makes his "No comment" concerning the National Enquirer story of his Beverly Hilton tryst], he's standing in front of a red banner. It bears the logo of ACORN, the housing-advocacy group that is one of the big winners in the bailout bill that Congress passed and President Bush signed this week.

While ACORN is the darling of much of the hard left, it has a troubled history with respect to misappropriation of funds and voter-registration fraud.

This just emphasizes that Edwards is by his own free will a very public public figure. He wants to have a hand in setting the national agenda on matters of great moral import. Examples include: the mortgage meltdown, foreclosures, the moral hazard of lenders and borrowers, federal funding of "nonpartisan" arms of left-wing political advocacy groups.

Yet while assigning responsibility is okey-dokey on matters like these... as regards to other things... not so much.

I understand that he feels this way. But why do reporters, editors, and publishers go along? The National Enquirer as the organization that's upholding journalistic standards!?

I think the commenter and most of you know why MSM has suppressed this story: Edwards is a Democrat and favorite of the Left.

As for ACORN, here’s some of what John Fund reported last July in the Wall Street Journal - - -

… But the most interesting news came out of Seattle, where on Thursday local prosecutors indicted seven workers for Acorn, a union-backed activist group that last year registered more than 540,000 low-income and minority voters nationwide and deployed more than 4,000 get-out-the-vote workers.

The Acorn defendants stand accused of submitting phony forms in what Secretary of State Sam Reed says is the "worst case of voter-registration fraud in the history" of the state.

The list of "voters" registered in Washington state included former House Speaker Dennis Hastert, New York Times columnists Frank Rich and Tom Friedman, actress Katie Holmes and nonexistent people with nonsensical names such as Stormi Bays and Fruto Boy. The addresses used for the fake names were local homeless shelters.

Given that the state doesn't require the showing of any identification before voting, it is entirely possible people could have illegally voted using those names.

Local officials refused to accept the registrations because they had been delivered after last year's Oct. 7 registration deadline. Initially, Acorn officials demanded the registrations be accepted and threatened to sue King County (Seattle) officials if they were tossed out.

But just after four Acorn registration workers were indicted in Kansas City, Mo., on similar charges of fraud, the group reversed its position and said the registrations should be rejected. But by then, local election workers had had a reason to carefully scrutinize the forms and uncovered the fraud. Of the 1,805 names submitted by Acorn, only nine have been confirmed as valid, and another 34 are still being investigated. The rest--over 97%--were fake.

In Kansas City, where two Acorn workers have pleaded guilty to committing registration fraud last year while two others await trial, only 40% of the 35,000 registrations submitted by the group turned out to be bogus.

But Melody Powell, chairman of the Kansas City Board of Elections, says Acorn's claim that it brought the fraud in her city to light is "seriously misleading." She says her staff first took the evidence to the FBI, and only then Acorn helped identify the perpetrators. …

The entire Fund/WSJ report is here.

John Fund is one of the best investigative reporters and commenters there is. He work exposing voter fraud has been outstanding.

I’ll be linking to him often during the coming months.

Trouble accesing JinC? Stiemeter explains

Starting last evening, those of you using Internet Explorer 7 had trouble accessing John in Carolina and certain other blogs which use Sitemeter.

Some of you found ways around the problem, and a few of you helped me to work a solution from my side by about noon today.

Now the best of all outcomes: Sitemeter says its got the problem fixed for all of us. (I hope so. Fingers crossed.)

Thanks to all of you for your understanding, and an extra "thank you" to those who sent "here's how to fix it, John" emails.


Now it's all Sitemeter's - - -

Dear John,

We apologize for the problem this has caused on your website. We became aware of a compatibility issue with our SiteMeter tracking code and IE 7 (possibly IE 6) browsers that started last night.

The problem was related to some work we were doing on the backend system for our upcoming website launch.

We’ve identified and resolved two separate but related issues -

1 - IE Users viewing pages - There was a problem with users who placed their SiteMeter tracking code outside of their HTML Body Tag. Because of the changes we made this created a failure for visitors viewing sites using Internet Explorer 7.

2 - Accessing SiteMeter and Stats - Individuals trying to access or view their SiteMeter stats by clicking on their SiteMeter logo/icons were unable to gain access. This again appears to have affected only individuals using IE7.

At this time both problems have been fixed and our services are fully operational.

If you have any additional questions please let me know.

Sincerely,
Andy
SiteMeter Support

Guess who Obama’s Times blames for “injecting race”

Excerpts in italics from an Aug. 1 article (“McCain Camp Says Obama Is Playing ‘Race Card’” ) in Sen. Obama’s New York Times, with my comments in plain.

Senator John McCain’s campaign accused Senator Barack Obama on Thursday of playing “the race card,” citing his remarks that Republicans would try to scare voters by pointing out that he “doesn’t look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills.”

The exchange injected racial politics front and center into the general election campaign for the first time, after it became a subtext in the primary between Mr. Obama and Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. (all emphasis added)

The claim that this is “the first time” “racial politics” have been “injected” “into the general election campaign” is, as the Times knows, absolutely false.

Who doesn't recall Rev. Wright’s racist remarks at the National Press Club? Has anyone forgotten Sen. Obama injected race into his recent speech in Jacksonville? And who can forget Rev. Jackson, while waiting to appear on Fox News, using the N-word when criticizing Sen. Obama?

It came as the McCain campaign was intensifying its attacks, trying to throw its Democratic opponent off course before the conventions. …

The purpose of the sentence above is to begin casting the McCain campaign as the people who began the exchange.

In fact, the McCain campaign was responding to Obama's raising the race issue with his now famous claim that he's being attacked because “ he doesn’t look like all those other presidents on those dollar bills.”

Obama hasn’t said who, besides himself, has been making the dollar bill references. Maybe he heard them during his recent grand European tour.

Later in the story Obama’s Times leaves its faithful readers in no doubt as to who it wants them to believe "started things" and who “the bad guys are.”

With his rejoinder about playing “the race card,” [McCain campaign manager] Davis effectively assured that race would once again become an unavoidable issue as voters face an election in which, for the first time, one of the major parties’ nominees is African-American.

And with its criticism, the McCain campaign was ensuring that Mr. Obama’s race — he is the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas — would again be a factor in coverage of the presidential race. On Thursday, it took the spotlight from Mr. Obama when he had sought to attack Mr. McCain on energy issues.

And so goes another day of “news reporting" at Obama’s Times.

The entire article’s here.

The Churchill Series – Aug. 1, 2006

(One of a series of weekday posts about the life of Winston S. Churchill.)

Readers Note: Prompted by a readers thoughtful comments and question concerning Churchill and King Edward VIII, I'll post on their early relationship before the Prince of Wales became King, the abdication crisis and their subsequent relationship.

Now to today's post - - -

Scotland Yard’s Detective Inspector Walter Thompson, Churchiill’s principal bodyguard for many years, including all of WW II, tells us:

Mr. Churchill did not always respect the rules created for his own protection. One of my duties was to ensure that photographs were not taken of him with landmarks in the background that could be recognized

[During WW II while] he was [still] at the Admiralty, we were walking over one day to 10 Downing Street when a press photographer intercepted us. This was not a suitable place for a photograph and I waved the pressman aside.

Winston, however, had other ideas. He called to the cameraman, “Do you want to take a photograph?”

“Yes, please, sir," was the reply.

The photograph was taken and I was not pleased. I turned to Churchill and said, “I thought that photographs were forbidden here, sir?”

“Ah, well,” came the answer, with that irresistible boyish grin. “After all, he is one of God’s children, Thompson.”

By then he saw that I was not mollified, and in the garden of No. 10 he returned to the subject. “They have to do something to get a little copy, you know.”

Churchill had his share of faults, as do we all. But at his core he was just what one of his secretaries told an historian he was: "such a nice man."

I hope you all have a very pleasant weekend.

John
_________________________________________________
Ex-Detective Inspector Walter Thompson, Beside the Bulldog:The Intimate Memoirs of Chrchil’s Bodyguard. (pg. 83)

Talking to Regulars and Commenters

( A post in the old web log tradition of “notes at the end of the day” meant for those familiar with the material. Don’t look for links in this one and be ready for something that looks like it got only a quick reread. If you’re OK with all of that, read on. - - - JinC)

There’s an awful lot on the comment threads I want to comment on or bring to the main page.

Thanks to all of you who are sending in heads-up.

I’ve posted on the video (3 minute history of Edwards-Hunter affair) but not posted on another video which appears to be one of the “Webisodes” which vanished from Edwards campaign site when the news of the affair first broke. I’ll post it later tonight.

Bob Wilson’s column has caught national attention, especially from journalists and news executives.

Jim Romenesko is a widely followed news media columnist and when he posted and linked it meant thousands of his readers would see Bob’s column.

Some of those readers have contacted me. I’ve had a number of conversation I’ll write about over the weekend.

Another outcome from Bob’s column is the possibility he’ll be a guest on Bill O’Rielly’s show early next week. I’ll keep you posted.

I’ve also had a conversation with N&O exec editor for news John Drescher. It will take time to write that up and share it. I want to be fair to both of us.

I just tell you the foregoing to let you know why I’m running before the wind and not posting on some things I need to post on very soon – eg. – today’s N&O story on Edwards-Hunter.

A lot has happened regarding the bogus McCain-54 story which smeared ABC News & Raddatz. Look for a post on that tomorrow.

I've not posted this week on the Duke hoax, frame-up attempt and on-going cover-up. But I'll be back to it all very soon.

I finished reading the New Yorker article on Obama. I'll reread it and make notes this weekend. Then I'll post some comments I've not seen mentioned by anyone.

I’ve got to end now.

I’ll be back later tonight.

Thank you all who’ve made comments that are civil, thoughtful, critical but informed and in other ways contribute to this blog.

Often the best that's here is on the thread.

John

Edwards - Hunter 3-minute video

An Anon commenter sent a link to a Death By 1000 Cuts video which it says covers the "entire John Edwards Love Child Scandal from October 2007 to July 2008 in 3 minutes."

It's extremely well done and IMO captures "the essential Edwards." It works cuts of Rielle Hunter speaking about Edwards into the swift-moving narrative. The satirical use made of that is devastating.

The video ends with a few graphics concerning MSM coverage of the affair and a challenging question for the news media.

And oh yes, you will hear a mirthful Edwards refer to Hunter as "camera girl."

Thanks to Anon for sending the link. And congratulations and thanks to Death By 1000 Cuts for an outstanding video on a very important matter.

Now I hope you all give the video a look.



John Edwards, Rielle Hunter Love Child Scandal - video powered by Metacafe

Some thoughts about Elizabeth Edwards

In reporting and commenting on various aspects of the Edwards-Hunter affair, I’ve given most attention to the reluctance of the liberal MSM to cover it and the fact that left unreported by media and unexplained by Edwards, the affair leaves him vulnerable to blackmailers.

Among many aspects of the story I’ve ignored or barely mentioned is anything having to do with Edwards’ wife, Elizabeth.

But I want to share some thoughts about her today in connection with the currently unfolding story.

Many of those reporting and/or commenting on the story mention that Elizabeth Edwards has cancer, something she’s discussed publicly. Then some go on to say, “She’s dying.”

Well, so are we all. It’s just that some of us will go sooner than others.

Among those making the “quickest exits” will be some who are very healthy right now or at least think they are. But they won’t last the day.

Others, including those battling various forms of cancer - even ones considered incurable - will be here for quite a while, and do much that is good and important.

I don’t know the current state of Elizabeth Edwards’ health. Whatever it is, we can all be sure she’s facing a lot right now.

I wish her well and will keep her in my thoughts and prayers, as I'm sure almost all of you will, too.

John

The Churchill Series - July 31, 2008

(One of a series of weekday posts about the life of Winston S. Churchill.)

On the evening of December 7, 1941 Churchill and the American Ambassador, John G. Winant dined the the PM's official country home, Chequers. In his Churchill and America, historian Martin Gilbert records the following:

”I turned on my small wireless set shortly after the nine o’clock news had started,” Churchill later wrote. “There were a number of items about the fighting on the Russian front and on the British front on Libya, at the end of which some few sentences were spoken regarding an air attack by the Japanese on American at Hawaii, and also Japanese attacks on British vessels in the Dutch East Indies. …

Winant later recalled the ensuing scene. “We looked at one another incredulously. Then Churchill jumped to his feet and started for the door with the announcement, ‘We shall declare war on Japan’”

Gilbert’s account continues:

Winant added: “There is nothing half-hearted or un-positive about Churchill – certainly not when he is on the move. Without ceremony I too left the table and followed him out of the room. ‘Good God,’ I said, ’You can’t declare war on a radio announcement’

He stopped and looked at me half-seriously, half-quizzically, and then said quietly, ‘What shall I do?’

The question was asked not because he needed me to tell him what to do, but as a courtesy to the representative of the country attacked. I said, ‘I will call up the President by telephone and ask him what the facts are.’ And he added, ‘And I shall talk with him too.’”

Roosevelt and Churchill did talk. Roosevelt confirmed the attack (“We are all in the same boat now.”) and said he would ask Congress the next day to declare war. Churchill promised Britain would declare war “within the hour” of Congress’ war declaration.

A few minutes after their conversation ended, Churchill’s principal private secretary informed him the Admiralty had just confirmed that Japanese forces were attacking British bases in Malaya.
_________________________________________
Martin Gilbert, Churchill and America. (pgs. 240-244)

Why didn’t Edwards “get in front” of his scandal?

Smart politicians know when a scandal begins to break involving them, they “get out in front” and spin whatever it is the public’s about to learn.

“I’d just come in to the house. I still had my gloves on and I wasn’t wearing my glasses. My wife hollered from upstairs: ‘Quick! Put the pistachio ice cream in the freezer before it melts.’ It never occurred to me someone for whatever reason might’ve left a stack of $100s on our kitchen table.”

Former Sen. John (“I want people to know who I really am”) Edwards is a smart politician.

So how come he didn’t “get out in front” of the National Enquirer’s July 22 report about his Beverly Hilton Hotel tryst with Rielle Hunter while a friend watched their "love child" in another room in the same hotel?

People will begin asking that question in the next few days when it becomes obvious Edwards and the MSM have lost control of the story.

Nine days after the story broke, McClatchy’s Washington bureau’s put a story on its wire reporting Hunter’s baby’s birth certificate lists no father.

Other news services and networks will now be forced to report on the growing scandal.

I’ll be reporting and commenting on some of that tomorrow.

In the meantime, we can ask ourselves why Edwards went 10 days trying to pretend the Beverly Hilton tryst never happened.

Did he think he could get by with silence?

Sure, he was right to think almost all of MSM would do back-flips to avoid reporting the scandal.

But didn’t he learn anything in 2004 when Sen. John Kerry failed to get by with claims he’d released all his Navy records, never smeared our military who’d served in Vietnam, and spent that Christmas in Cambodia?

Almost all of MSM went along with Kerry, while they chased after anything in President Bush’s military background that might damage him.

But when a lot of the “new media” refused to go along with most of MSM, Kerry got exposed and so did the phony Dan Rather/CBS TANG story.

What could Edwards have been thinking?

Obama injects race. Again!

For a candidate who keeps saying he doesn’t want people bringing race into the campaign, Sen. Barack Obama sure does a lot of it himself.

The AP reports his latest:

Democrat Barack Obama, the first black candidate with a shot at winning the White House, says John McCain and his Republican allies will try to scare them by saying Obama "doesn't look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills."

Stumping in an economically challenged battleground state, Obama argued Wednesday that President Bush and McCain will resort to scare tactics to maintain their hold on the White House because they have little else to offer voters.

"Nobody thinks that Bush and McCain have a real answer to the challenges we face. So what they're going to try to do is make you scared of me," Obama said. "You know, he's not patriotic enough, he's got a funny name, you know, he doesn't look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills."…

Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit comments:

Er, all those other presidents? Isn't there just one President on the dollar bill?

And have you noticed that it's always Obama who's actually injecting race into the campaign, under the guise of warning about what those Evil Republicans will do? And is it really likely that John McCain would be out there saying "don't vote for Obama, he's black?

Yes, I have noticed.

Senator Obama's continually bring up references to those "injecting race into the campaign" reminds me of the 1960 campaign when then Vice-President Richard Nixon “promised” at a campaign appearance in the Deep South he wasn’t going to make an issue of then Senator John Kennedy’s Catholicism.

Kennedy saw right through what Nixon was doing: “I bet he'll says that at every campaign stop in the South.”

Why’s Obama using a Nixon tactic? I thought he was supposed to be like Kennedy.

The entire AP story's here.

N&O finally touches Edwards affair story – sorta

That’s the way an Anon commenter described today’s Raleigh News & Observer’s first story ever reporting on former Sen. John Edwards' affair with his filmmaker friend Rielle Hunter.

The N&O put the story in the “B” section on pg. 3 with a print edition headline: “Facing questions, Edwards evades reporters.” At newsobserver.com the story’s posted a few clicks back from the main page beneath the headline: “John Edwards ducks questions on tabloid story.”

And what about the "sorta?"

The story refers to “a former campaign videographer,” but doesn’t name Rielle Hunter.

It says nothing about the “Webisodes” she made for Edwards’ presidential campaign for which she was paid more than $100,000. The “Webisodes” were supposed to show Edwards as just “a regular fella” voters could relate to and trust.

Because the N&O didn’t mention the Edwards-Hunter “Webisodes,” it couldn’t tell readers the “Webisodes” suddenly vanished from Edwards' campaign Web site just at the time last year when the National Enquirer first disclosed the affair. (I’ve been told one of the “Webisodes” shows Edwards tucking in his shirt as he hurries to a campaign appearance before a group of teachers. And yes, I'm thinking the same thing you are.)

The N&O makes absolutely no mention of Hunter’s stays at the gated Governors Club, just a few miles from Edwards home and the N&O’s Chapel Hill office.

You'll find more examples of the N&O's "sorta" reporting in the story.

I can’t commend the N&O for finally reporting a story that’s played out for more than a year during which time Edwards was first running for President, and then angling for the Vice-Presidential spot on the Dems ticket with Sen. Obama or a Cabinet post should Obama be elected.

All that while, the N&O knew Edwards' affair, if not publicly and fully exposed, left him subject to blackmailers.

Yet the N&O choose to say nothing about the affair until the day after the publication of former Durham Herald Sun editor Bob Wilson's column here and Poynter's Jim Romenesko's posting on and linking to Wilson's column.

What a newspaper.

To give the N&O its due, its story today is strong on press efforts to get Edwards to talk about the affair yesterday. Here’s some of what the N&O reports:

…On Wednesday, Edwards apparently exited through a side area used by the kitchen staff at Washington's historic Hotel Monaco.

Edwards emerged near the rear of the hotel with two men. When approached by a reporter, Edwards said, "Can't do it now, I'm sorry" and quickly walked past.

Asked about the Beverly Hilton last week, Edwards said "sorry" and got into a waiting car with the other men. Asked twice more to address the Enquirer story, Edwards was silent until the car doors were closed. …

”Sorry” is an appropriate, if understated, descriptor of Edwards' affair and the N&O’s decision to tell readers nothing about it until today.

The entire N&O story’s here.

Coulter skewers Beverly Hilton “poverty fighter”

If you believe Monica really stalked Bill or that "something happened" that night at the Duke lacrosse party, read no further. Go directly to the liberal/leftist Raleigh News & Observer's Website here. You'll love it, especially the Editors' Blog.

The rest of you don’t want to miss Ann Coulter’s column which begins - - -

For those few Americans without an Internet connection and to whom I have not faxed the National Enquirer stories: Evidence is accumulating that John Edwards is right -- there really are "two Americas."

There's one where men cheat on their cancer-stricken wives and one where men do not cheat on their cancer-stricken wives.

To put it another way, it would appear that ambulances aren't the only things John Edwards has been chasing lately.

Last year, the National Enquirer broke the story about New-Age divorcee Rielle Hunter, formerly Lisa Druck, telling friends she was having an affair with Edwards and that she was pregnant with his "love child."

Who knew that "my father was a mill worker" could be such a great pickup line? In his defense, Edwards had to do something to kill time between giving $50,000 speeches on poverty. . . .

The rest of the column’s here.

Now today's A Little Advice column:

Don’t ever buy a used car with bullet holes in it.

Don’t trust “poverty fighters” who get $400 haircuts, even if the price includes coloring and a blow dry.

The Churchill Series - July 30, 2008

(One of a series of weekday posts About the life of Winston S. Churchill.)

If you could ask Churchill one question, what would it be?

Churchill’s official biographer, Sir Martin Gilbert, was asked that question a few years ago during an interview conducted by Canadian Broadcasting Company news anchor Peter Mansbridge.

Mansbridge prefaced his question by reminding CBC viewers that Gilbert’s written not only a multi-volume life of Churchill, but more than a dozen other Churchill books. What’s more, Mansbridge said, it’s been estimated the total of Churchill documents Gilbert’s read weigh 15 tons.

So what question would Gilbert ask Churchill?

”It would be a question he asked [in his lifetime] and I'd like to know what his answer would be. He asked a friend, ‘Do you think I spent too much energy on the German question and not enough on the Soviet question toward the end of the war?’ “

I don’t know anything about Mansbridge other than what I learned from reading a post by Canadian blogger Mike Campbell who quoted from Mansbridge's interview but we can be grateful Mansbridge followed Gilbert’s answer with the question that was on most viewers minds: “What do you think [Churchill’s] answer would be?”

Gilbert responded:

”I'd like to feel that it would be 'No,' that he did his best but he was a very self-critical person so he probably feels that he did fail in that regard.”

What Gilbert said is, we know, speculative, but it’s very informed speculation by the person now alive who “knows” Churchill best.

Now some work for all of you: If today you could ask Churchill one question, what would it be; and what do you think his answer would be?

If Presidents Obama and Ahmadinejad meet – a parody

The Dems’ presumptive presidential nominee, Sen. Barack Obama, says he’ll meet with anyone, even leaders of organizations most Americans view as terrorist.

Suppose Obama Come to Save Us is elected President, and he’s as good as his word.

So without preconditions he sits down with Iran’s President Ahmadinejad Come to Destroy the Zionist Entity.

What do they talk about?

I’m sure it won't be a plan for the destruction of the Zionist Entity.

Well then, what?

The start of this article in the Jerusalem Post might give the two leaders an idea for starting their “historic meeting.”

Iran's president on Tuesday blamed the US and other "big powers" for nuclear proliferation, AIDS and other global ills and accused them of exploiting the UN and other organizations for their own gain and the developing world's loss. ...

That's it!

Ahmadinejad: “The U. S. started AIDS.”

Obama: “That’s just what my former pastor kept saying for 20 years. Michelle and I were so impressed by him, we took our children to his church for religious instruction.

"And now you say the same thing.

"That's so cool.

"This must mean now is the time and we are the leaders.

"Let's fist bump at the start of the press conference."

The Post's entire story's here.

N. C. Editor Decries Raleigh N&O’s Edwards Affair Blackout

Robert (Bob) Wilson is a retired North Carolina journalist. For many years he was editorial page editor of the Durham Herald Sun when it was one of the Tar Heel State’s most respected newspapers. He speaks out today about the Raleigh News & Observer’s news blackout of the affair involving former Sen. John Edwards and his filmmaker friend Rielle Hunter. Edwards calls the N&O “my hometown newspaper.” - - - JinC
_____________________________________________________


When is a news story not a news story? When The National Enquirer smokes out former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards' double life.

It's been a week and a half since a squad of Enquirer reporters nailed Edwards in Los Angeles. The paper reported that Edwards visited his alleged paramour, Rielle Hunter, and their child at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, describing the public aspects of the tryst in stunning detail.

Chapel Hill resident Edwards, who made his stash as a trial lawyer, knows truth is the only defense against libel; tellingly, he has not threatened to sue the Enquirer.

Edwards has three children by his wife Elizabeth. Although weakened by incurable cancer, she has until recently gamely accompanied him on political trips, often introducing him to audiences.

As a prominent public figure with national political ambitions, elected or appointed, Edwards was, and remains, fair game for the Enquirer. In a July 22 story ( "Sen. John Edwards Caught With Mistress and Love Child" ) the scrappy king of the supermarket tabs let him have both barrels on its Web site and in its print edition.

So why haven't you read about Edwards' picaresque adventure at the Beverly Hilton in The News & Observer, his hometown newspaper, or in such news hounds as The Washington Post and The New York Times?

Because the Enquirer don't get no respect in the mainstream media, even though the tab has a record of accuracy that many a mainstream newspaper should envy.

The Enquirer often left the MSM coughing in its dust with the O.J. Simpson story a decade ago. Press critic Jack Shafer, who writes for the online journal Slate, is one of the few people with a national audience who defends the Enquirer, noting that it was preparing to reveal the Rev. Jesse Jackson's love child several years ago when Jackson got wind of what was coming down and went public to soften the impact. It worked.

Meanwhile, the liberal-leaning MSM gave Jackson a pass.

Interesting thing about Slate. The Washington Post Co. owns it. Apparently, Shafer can write about Edwards, Rielle Hunter and their love child until the cows come home -- but nary a word about Edwards' escapade has sullied the Post. Presumably, it is above such trifles.

The Washington Post, The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times (the latter forbids its staff bloggers from even mentioning the Edwards affair, much less writing about it) can do as they wish with this story, which is to blithely ignore the whole thing. No one can force them to acknowledge it.

However, it's much harder for the N&O to justify non-coverage. The Old Reliable has been a worker bee in Edwards' hive from the start of his political career, but if the paper is as fair and honest as Executive Editor John Drescher proclaims in his weekly column, his staff would be all over this story.

If nothing else, the N&O should be able to recognize as nationally significant a tragic-comic news story when it sees one. A hotel security guard interviewed by Fox News, one of the few domestic news organizations to acknowledge the story, described Edwards as fleeing in panic when confronted by Enquirer reporters at 2:40 in the morning as he was about to leave through a basement door.

The guard said an ashen Edwards scurried into a men's room, where he held out for 15 minutes while the reporters yelled questions at him. Hotel security officers later gave the shaken Edwards safe passage out of the hotel.

This was news, real and unalloyed. Still, a newspaper that downplayed a gang-related brawl Saturday night that shut down Triangle Town Center, a major shopping venue in East Raleigh, isn't likely to sling ink at a big political story, whether in Raleigh or in Beverly Hills, that doesn't mesh with its institutional liberalism.

If the mainstream media don't bestow their self-defined legitimacy on a story, it isn't news. The New York Times boasts, "All the news that fit to print." Except of course, when a supermarket tab breaks the story about a national figure who just happens to belong to a protected class: leftist Democratic politicians.

Ah, Johnny Reid Edwards, the Two Americas hardly know ye! But the one that goes to “new media” sources for its news is starting to learn about you, one tryst at a time.

Al-Qaeda shifting to North Africa

I comment below the star line following extracts from Amir Taheri’s op-ed in today’s London Times.

Taheri writes - - -

… [Al-Qaeda jihadists beaten in Iraq and] looking for new places to pursue their holy war against “Zionists and Crusaders”, ended up in Yemen, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and Thailand and helped to reignite the fires of jihad.

However, North Africa appears to have attracted the largest number of returnees.

According to the buzz in jihadist circles, confirmed by officials and analysts, a new arc of terror is taking shape in Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco and Mauritania - the five countries of the so-called Arab Maghreb in North Africa. …

By all accounts, Algeria may be facing a new round of the War against Terror as it faces mounting political and economic problems. In the first phase of the war, Algerian jihadists never used suicide tactics. In recent months they have carried out at least four such operations, indicating total adoption of al-Qaeda tactics. They have also tried to kill President Bouteflika on at least four occasions. The latest plot was uncovered last week, 24 hours before a provincial visit.

Last month the President invited Ahmed Ouyahya, the architect of Algeria's victory against the terrorists, to assume the premiership again. His return acknowledges that the policy of cuddling the Islamists, preached by the former Premier, Abdulaziz Belkhadem, has failed.
While Algeria is well prepared to face a resurgence of jihadism, Morocco, long recognised as one of the most moderate and peaceful countries in the Muslim world, may prove more vulnerable.

Visitors returning after three or four years would be struck by changes in the urban scenery. The number of al-Qaeda-style beards has grown along with the number of neo-hijab headscarves designed to identify women as partisans of jihad. Women in jeans or mini-skirts have all but disappeared from public, along with all females who favoured the colourful dress of the Berber.

One sees countless women draped in black that remind one of Hitchcock's The Birds. Jihadist propaganda is sold on the streets in stalls provided by the municipal authorities.

Fewer and fewer places serve alcohol, and parts of the main cities are becoming no-go areas for foreign tourists. Over the past year, almost 1,000 people have been arrested in connection with terrorism after attacks that claimed at least 60 lives.
Few of the jihadists come from the poor and illiterate slum-dwelling masses. Most of those arrested are graduates, often from well-to-do middle-class families.

While Algeria is well prepared to face a resurgence of jihadism, Morocco, long recognised as one of the most moderate and peaceful countries in the Muslim world, may prove more vulnerable.

Visitors returning after three or four years would be struck by changes in the urban scenery. The number of al-Qaeda-style beards has grown along with the number of neo-hijab headscarves designed to identify women as partisans of jihad. Women in jeans or mini-skirts have all but disappeared from public, along with all females who favoured the colourful dress of the Berber. One sees countless women draped in black that remind one of Hitchcock's The Birds. Jihadist propaganda is sold on the streets in stalls provided by the municipal authorities.

Fewer and fewer places serve alcohol, and parts of the main cities are becoming no-go areas for foreign tourists. Over the past year, almost 1,000 people have been arrested in connection with terrorism after attacks that claimed at least 60 lives.
Few of the jihadists come from the poor and illiterate slum-dwelling masses. Most of those arrested are graduates, often from well-to-do middle-class families.

More disturbing is that dozens were army, police and security officers. According to a senior official, the jihadists used the Army to obtain military training and the Government had to abolish the conscription system that obliged all male Moroccans to join the Army for two years. The Government has also banned military personnel from attending mosque congregations. …

Taheri’s entire op-ed is here.

*******************************************************************

Comments:

It’s no surprise al-Qaeda, beaten for now in Iraq, is shifting its attention to North Africa. We should expect many such shifts, which amount to strategic redeployments, to occur until the global war on terror is finally won.

Americans and the rest of the civilized world must remember al-Qaeda lost the battle in Iraq; the global war goes on.

Our military recognizes what Al-Qaeda’s doing as abandoning a position it can’t hold and moving terrorist-fighters into new locations where they’ll be trained and equipped for the next battles.

I didn’t include one of the most informative and worrying parts of Tehari’s op-ed. It deals with a linking of Turkish and Moroccan Muslim extremists who in both countries are putting on their “civil masks” and seeking to advance jihad through political means until such time as they’re strong enough to use force.

I hope you give Tehari’s op-ed a read.

The Churchill Series - July 29, 2008

(One of a series of weekday posts on the life of Winston S. Churchill.)

Readers Note: Yesterday, outside the series, I posted a few Churchill book recommendations, including three by one of the 20th century's greatest historians, Sir Martin Gilbert. I thought, therefore, you might be interesed to read a bit about Gilbert. So I "dusted off" the following post which first ran in Dec. 2006.

John
__________________________________________________________________

Frequent readers of this series know I often quote passages from the works of Churchill’s official biographer, Sir Martin Gilbert. I thought it might be interesting, therefore, to offer something today about Gilbert himself.

So here are excerpts from an interview a writer for an Ottawa, Canada newspaper conducted shortly after the publication of Gilbert’s Churchill: A Life.

Everyone asks Gilbert if he ever actually met Churchill. Regrettably, no. But as a schoolboy he regularly went to the House of Commons and watched him in action, and one night stood outside No. 10 ("You can’t do that now of course") when Churchill gave a dinner party on his resignation.

Gilbert had, of course, met Clementine. "I used to read chapters to her once a month. She insisted I look at all their private letters. . . . She imposed no censorship whatsoever and let anything be used. . . . She felt he was a large enough man to survive things that were not so creditable. You did not need to whitewash someone like him."

The sheer volume of their correspondence amazes even Gilbert. "When he came to Canada, in 1929, every night he would write eight or nine pages to her, and in the trenches during the war, while his fellow officers were sleeping, he would write her five or six pages every night."

Gilbert himself did not have an official assistant for years — "I couldn’t afford one" — until enough money was sprung loose for a graduate researcher on a three months’ trial. He married her.

"We both read all the documents (most of which are photo-copied because of the risk of loss). I write my next chapter and she reads it and points out anything I may have left out. Sometimes she suggests re-writing." The eighth volume is dedicated to her; the new book, to his two children. It was Suzy, his wife, who recently made a drastic alteration to Gilbert’s writing habits.

Over the years a total of 40 books, which include definitive works on the Holocaust and 12 historical atlases, Gilbert has always written longhand, in pen and ink on the right-side pages only, leaving space for alterations on the left. But two years ago when he started on Churchill: A Life, his wife presented him with a personal computer.

The entire interview is here.

Hat tip: The Churchill Centre

My favorite Obama-in-Berlin one-liner

On July 22 I posted Obama’s grand European tour hits bumps.

The short of it: Der Spiegel reported with not very well-disguised glee that the Brits and French were put out by all the attention Sen. Obama would be paying to Germany.

I took a light approach to the report and suggested tongue-in-cheek Obama Come to Save Us could soothe the hurt feelings of the Brits and French by beginning his speech with:

“Mesdames et Messieurs, Ich bin ein typical politician."

I thought that was pretty good until an Anon commenter said:

Or: “Ich bin ein Beginner.”

I haven’t seen a better Obama-in-Berlin one-liner so it’s my favorite.


What about you? Do you have one you like more?

Or do you think we shouldn't be kidding about something as serious as a major Obama campaign speech?

Could McCain benefit from Obama’s trip?

Gallup’s Frank Newport and Jeffrey Jones say, “Several observations from the just-completed USA Today/Gallup poll suggest that this is a possibility.”

The explain why. It’s all here.

Hat tip: Realclearpolitics.com

Edwards’ “hometown” N&O continues tryst blackout

Former Sen. John Edwards calls the McClatchy Company’s liberal/leftist Raleigh News & Observer his “hometown” newspaper.

Other’s here in the Tar Heel State say the N&O's Edwards’ “back pocket newspaper.”

Among other things, the “back pocket” folks point to the N&O’s complete news blackout concerning John Edwards affair with his filmmaker friend Rielle Hunter. For more about that see this post - TIMES: "EDWARDS CAUGHT IN SEX SCANDAL" - which includes excerpts from an extensive, bylined Times of London story.

Yesterday in – Raleigh N&O's Edwards-Hunter news blackout – I reported a search of the N&O’s archives going back to Jan. 1, 2004 revealed the N&O has been totally silent about the affair a good deal of which has occurred within a few miles of Edwards Chapel Hill home and the N&O Chapel Hill office.

The archives search produced only one story mentioning Hunter, a little puff piece by Edwards-friendly political reporter Rob Christensen about “Webisodes” filmmaker Hunter made for then presidential nominee candidate Edwards.

Today I went to the N&O’s political blog, Under the Dome. The N&O touts it as the place North Carolinians should go for comprehensive, up to date, tell-it-like-it-is reporting.

I searched back through every Under the Dome post going back to July 21, 2008, the day before the National Enquirer broke the story of the latest public Edwards-Hunter “Webisode” - oops - I meant episode.

Nothing on the episode.

Yet between the July 22 NE publication and today a number of news organizations - including The Times of London, Fox News, the Hartford Courant and Slate – have reported and/or commented on the story.

But as of today at 3 PM ET you'll not find at Under the Dome or anywhere else a mention of that story in John Edwards’ “back pocket” newspaper which circulates in his hometown.

Gawker on why MSM's covering for Edwards

Gawker posted this a few days ago. I meant to call it to your attention. It begins - - -

If you want an efficient, capsule summary of why you haven't read anything in newspapers or seen anything on major network news about how John Edwards ran from National Enquirer reporters in a hotel parking garage, about how he hid in a bathroom for 15 minutes, and about how he was holed up overnight with his alleged mistress and love child — an awesome, amazing story — parse these three revealing sentences from Washington Post "gossip" columnist Roxanne Roberts, in response to one of many persistent questions about the scandal in an online chat yesterday:

“The Enquirer is not going to sell papers with nuance or sensitivity. I need more reporting from a credible source before I'm prepared to pass judgment. I'm not sure Edwards is a real candidate for the VP job, but if so will have to address this one way or another.”

It's important to keep in mind, when reading this odd answer, that traditional news media used to have something of a lock on the dissemination of information, and allowed themselves to be convinced that they had a bizarre duty to filter even accurate information of interest to their audiences, and to do so in the service of reinforcing various social institutions and norms, even though their jobs, their Constitutionally-protected jobs, were to do just the opposite, to disseminate information and challenge long-cherished moral codes.

This self-shackling, this corruption of a trade, has become fundamental to American news media, and in the quote above we see Roberts concisely showcasing her own deep-seated instincts.

First, there's a dig at the Enquirer, the implication that the publication threw aside the nuanced truth to sell newspapers. This sort of reflexive swipe itself lacks nuance, and ignores history. In 1994, the Times declared that, on the OJ Simpson story, the Enquirer "stands heads and shoulders above [any other publication] for aggressiveness and accuracy."

Slate's Jack Shafer in 2004 offered support for the tabloid's standards, if not its presentation, in "I Believe The National Enquirer/Why Don't You?," noting, "if you correct for stylistic overkill, you find a publication that is every bit as accurate as mainstream media."

Granted, the supermarket tabloid has stumbled, including with a 2006 libel case involving Kate Hudson, which it lost, and a retracted story involving false allegations that Cameron Diaz was cheating. But so have plenty of other publications, many with fewer than the Enquirer's 1 million readers. …

The rest of Gawker's post’s here.

Comments:

I’ve posted before refuting the “It’s in the National Enquirer” MSM excuse for covering up a story concerning a prominent Democrat. See, for example, my post NE's Edwards-Hunter tryst story's verifiable.

How much legwork does it take to confirm with police that NE reporters filed a criminal complaint accusing Beverly Hilton Hotel security of roughing them up while protecting Edwards and spirting him out of the hotel?

What does it take to ask the police whether they’re investigating the complaint?

If yes, can they say what they’ve learned so far? Have they interviewed John Edwards, the principal witness to the alleged roughing up?

If yes, what did he say?

If the police aren’t interviewing Edwards, why not?

Folks, I’m sure you can think of many other questions reporters could ask to verify or refute the story including, “Hey, why don’t we call John Edwards and ask him some questions?”

Hat tip: Walter Abbott