Media Matters has some guts. Goes after Novak for blogger story.

[madfloridian]

Disclaimer: Most of you know I don't care who gets DNC chair. I really don't. I believe DFA can be built into a power house group, and I would love that. I just don't care.....so no sour grapes stuff. Maybe it is time for all us "whiners" here to unite. I will include martyrs and victims as well in that category.

Our Democrats don't seem to have much guts right now. Begala was pathetic today. This is something those of us who followed the campaign knew. Jerome of MyDD set up the blog...the original Dean blog I think. He was paid, but he had shut down his. For goodness sake, I read his work all the time at the Dean site. There were other paid staffers. Kos gave full disclosure. Begala sat there like a shill, and that is to his shame.

I remember when people used to get upset with Kos because of Dean. It was no secret, none at all. My problem is that now I am so completely suspicious of the whole system that I may be too far gone as a loyal Democrat.

Oh, people say, but quit whining...this is just politics. No, what went on the these two days since Dean announced.....is more than just politics. Trippi knew for a week that he was going to endorse Rosenberg. He chose the day Dean announced. There were always problems with Zephyr and some of the bloggers....she chose the day after Dean annnounced. Ironically she works with the blog that was hired by Rosenberg. How about that? So when are paid bloggers ok?

http://mediamatters.org/items/200501150001

"No Disclosure" Novak failed to mention that Dean bloggers had disclosed their financial relationship."

SNIP..."In announcing on the January 14 edition of CNN's Crossfire that former Vermont Governor Howard Dean's presidential campaign had hired two political bloggers "to say positive things about Dr. Dean," co-host Robert D. Novak failed to note -- when co-host Paul Begala raised the issue -- that one of the bloggers shut down his site while working for the campaign and the other fully disclosed his financial relationship with Dean. As Media Matters for America has documented, Novak himself has a history of non-disclosure, repeatedly discussing Regnery Publishing, Inc., books without disclosing that he has both personal and financial ties to the company...."

SNIP.."Novak apparently based his claims about the bloggers on a January 14 Wall Street Journal article, which was also less than forthright, saving salient but less sensational facts for near the end.

From the January 14 edition of Crossfire:

NOVAK: Howard Dean is running for Democratic National Chairman the same way he ran for president: as the squeaky clean candidate. Well, he may have been squeaky, but he wasn't so clean. Zephyr Teachout, who was head of Internet outreach for the Dean campaign, has revealed the campaign hired two political bloggers to say positive things about Dr. Dean at the price of $3,000 a month -- that's play for pay. Meanwhile, one of the great former DNC chairmen, Bob Strauss, has endorsed one of the candidates, and it is indeed former Congressman Martin Frost, who, like Strauss, is a moderate and a Texan. Will the DNC members be that smart?

BEGALA: I don't know. First, if in fact people were paid to flack Howard Dean and didn't disclose it, that's reprehensible. We talked about that earlier with Armstrong Williams and the same standard should apply to liberals.

In fact, as the Wall Street Journal reported, the Dean campaign contracted with the political consulting firm Armstrong Zúniga over a four-month period for consulting services. While Teachout claimed on her blog that Jerome Armstrong (who runs the blog MyDD.com) and Markos Moulitsas Zúniga (who runs the blog DailyKos.com) were hired as consultants "largely in order to ensure that they said positive things about Dean, the Journal noted that Armstrong and Moulitsas "said they didn't believe the Dean campaign had been trying to buy their influence." And Teachout herself said: "to be very clear, they never committed to supporting Dean for the payment -- but it was very clearly, internally, our goal."

But, while contracting with the campaign, Armstrong shut his blog down, and therefore had no prominent outlet in which to support the candidate. And both Armstrong and Moulitsas fully disclosed their financial relationship with the Dean campaign. Moulitsas, who did continue to operate his blog, wrote about it on his site as soon as the arrangement began and kept a prominent disclaimer notice on his site throughout his tenure with the campaign (example courtesy of the Internet Archive Wayback Machine......"END SNIP

[madfloridian]

1. CJR Campaign Desk is on it. "Lipstick on a Pig Award" LOPA

http://www.campaigndesk.org/archives/001242.asp

January 14, 2005
It's a Pig, Anyway You Look at It

Sometimes a story is so good, so rich in context and so revealing in detail, that it virtually leaps off the page as something special.

Other times, only by leaving out context, burying important information, and emphasizing misleading details can a reporter dress up a non-story into something that resembles a legitimate article.

They hand out Pulitzers for reporters who track down the former. Alas, William M. Bulkeley and James Bandler, the Wall Street Journal reporters responsible for the latest example of the latter, are going to have to settle for something a bit less prestigious.

Let's call it the "Lipstick On a Pig Award" -- the LOPA for short. Bulkeley and Bandler began earning their LOPA right at the outset of their piece today, called "Dean Campaign Made Payments to Two Bloggers."

And I love the ending:
SNIP.."All this is gives us reason enough to present the our inaugural LOPA to Bulkeley and Bandler for dressing up a non-story so thoroughly that it looked, at first glance, as if it actually belonged in the newspaper.

Miss Piggy may look prettier with the lipstick, but she's still got no business at the ball...."

[flordehinojos]

2. channel surfing this afternoon, I saw a three second shot of novak on CNN.

He looks old and tired. He was making a point about Dean pay-offs or donations, I am not sure which. I didn't stop to listen. But I think he may have been talking about some of what your post refers to.

[Kahuna]

3. I think this is probably a right wing distraction tactic because of..

Armstrong Williams. Paul Begala is less than uselesss. He is fond of speaking and forming judgements without having the facts. There's just no excuse for that anymore.

[DeepModem Mom]

4. kick

[Shopaholic]

5. What is it about Dean that scares the Repugs so shitless--

and why doesn't this give a clue to the Democratic "Powers-That-Be" that Dean ought to be the chair?????

[proudbluestater]

6. Why is Novak not being threatened with jail time?

He's a good one to throw freaking stones, isn't he?

Begala sucks anymore. Carville, not much better. All corporate shills.