More Dishonest Hackery from the Partisan Media
By Leon H Wolf Posted in War — Comments (38) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Not that this is exactly shocking news by this time, but our "good friends" from the Partisan Media have been caught with their anti-Bush bias showing again. They have decided that Bush is guilty of illegally spying on American citizens, and absolutely nothing will dissuade them from reporting that story - not even adverse testimony from a friendly witness. As I already confessed, I have a hard time mustering legitimate shock when the media exhibits partisanship these days, but seldom has their agenda been so transparent or completely unmasked.
Last Thursday, radio host and fellow blogger Hugh Hewitt had liberal law professor Cass Sunstein on his radio program. The entire interview is devastating for liberals who gleefully believe that they've finally found a legitimate reason to impeach Bush, but one segment of the interview stuck out at me in particular, and it was the part when Hugh began asking Sunstein about the media's coverage of this story:
HH: Professor Sunstein, have you ever been contacted by mainstream media about this controversy?
CS: A lot. Yeah.
HH: And have you spent a lot of time trying to walk the reporters through the basics?
CS: Yes.
HH: Who's contacted you, for example? The New York Times?
CS: Well, I wouldn't want to name specific ones. It's a little bit of confidentiality there, but some well known ones. Let's just say that.
HH: Let me ask. Have you been quoted in any papers that you've seen?
CS: I don't think so.
What this means for the story below the fold:
UPDATE by Leon H: After I completed the text of this story, I found that Professor Sunstein's take also made it into an opinion piece for the LA Times. Still zilcho on the actual news coverage of the story.
UPDATE [12/27/05 02:06:00 EST by Leon H]: A commenter notes this reference in the LA Times, which is probably what Sunstein himself referred to as the only mention of his analysis in the news.
The first thing I decided to do was to check the accuracy of Sunstein's statement. First I Googled Cass Sunstein Bush wiretaps, seeking to cast a wide net around papers that might have carried any story quoting Cass Sunstein on this topic. This search produced literally one result, this week's Krauthammer piece which the Seattle Times printed just today. A LexisNexis search of "Cass Sunstein" and "wiretaps" yielded five results - a CQ transcript unrelated to the current story, two reproductions of the Krauthammer column (WaPo, and the Deseret Morning News out of Salt Lake City), a piece at Slate magazine covering the blog coverage of the story, and a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette story which actually quotes Professor Sunstein. In other words, Professor Sunstein has been contacted, in his own words, "A lot" by the mainstream media - whereas exactly one media outlet saw fit to use any of his quotes. And I'm being generous here, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette column at issue (I cannot find a link directly to the column outside of Lexis, if one of our commenters could produce it, I would be grateful) appears to be taken verbatim from a Sunstein's original statement on the matter that was posted on the University of Chicago faculty website. Therefore, unless you are willing to give the mainstream media the benefit of the doubt (and who is, anymore?) exactly zero mainstream media outlets have used any material or quotations from Cass Sunstein on the wiretapping issue, despite Professor Sunstein's assertion that "a lot" of them have contacted him to ask his opinion on this story.
And there is no reason really to believe that Professor Sunstein is lying about this. As much as I disagree with Professor Sunstein on a great many issues, I simply could not see him inventing such a story out of whole cloth. Further, it fits perfectly with what has been the media's entire strategy on this story, or indeed any story that might be hostile to Bush - seek out generally credible but hostile voices to sensationalize the story and lend weight to the story.
Which brings us to the point of this entire post. Let me be clear: I agree with Cass Sunstein about virtually nothing. I think his views on jurisprudence and the Constitution are absolutely abhorrent. And so, if I wanted to know the truth of a Constitutional issue, Cass Sunstein wouldn't be nearly the first person I'd call. However, because he is a liberal, and because he takes a position that would generally be at odds with the position of the Bush administration, he is the first person the media often calls to get the "truth" of a Constitutional issue. And, it seems to me that if Cass Sunstein is such a constitutional expert that the media will rush to him to get his opinion on every constitutional issue that arises, they ought well to print that opinion even if that opinion happens to be that Bush is not, in fact, a criminal.
Now, I won't pretend that I've printed every single quote from every source I've ever contacted for a story/paper - or even that I've included a single quote from every person I've contacted. As anyone who's interviewed live humans for a basic High School research paper can attest, some people are simply uninteresting or have nothing relevant to say on a particular topic - but it's hard to see how the legal opinion of someone as highly quoted as Cass Sunstein, which is very much apropos to the subject at hand, would fall under that classification. Or perhaps, if we are to seek a more innocouous explanation for this phenomenon, Sunstein's commentary merely got edited out for the sake of space. However, it stretches the bounds of credibility to suggest that each and every single one of the writers who contacted Sunstein edited out his opinion out of mere concerns for column inches, rather than the fact that his opinion is that what Bush did was basically okay.
It is even more suspicious when one finds the somewhat less credible (though no less liberal) Erwin Chemerinsky quoted in Newsday ("it's breathtaking and enormously disturbing,") the LA Times ("it may be completely illegal"), and, as Lexis tells us, the New York Times ("a Fourth Amendment violation," and "[the Administration's arguments] are weak to the point of being frivolous"), as well as an entire op-ed in the Ft. Lauderdale Sun Sentinel (subtly titled, "Bush Ignores Constitution in Wiretapping"), reprinted in the Durham Herald-Sun ("Again, Bush ignores the Constitution"), and The San Diego Union-Tribune ("The President Ignores the Constitution").
I am admittedly not an objective observer - but if I were, I might be tempted to ask how it is that "a lot" of reporters contacted the liberal law professor Cass Sunstein, who was of the opinion that the Administration's arguments were "plausible" and not in violation of the law, and not a single one of them reprinted an actual quote from an interview with him. I might further be tempted to ask how it is that Erwin Chemerinsky, best known for his play-by-play of the O.J. Simpson trial, is reprinted on a repeated basis, and even given an entire op-ed column space in numerous newspapers.
There is, literally, only one rational conclusion that can be drawn from these facts. The media had a story they wanted to print that would hurt Bush, and anything that did not fit in with that particular story was discarded as irrelevant or incorrect. Again, it's not the sort of thing that is surprising, necessarily, but it is shocking in its transparency, in this case. Thus, I find myself agreeing with Professor Sunstein for the third time this year (an all time record) when he comments thusly on the media coverage of this case:
HH: Do you consider the quality of the media coverage here to be good, bad, or in between?
CS: Pretty bad, and I think the reason is we're seeing a kind of libertarian panic a little bit, where what seems at first glance...this might be proved wrong...but where what seems at first glance a pretty modest program is being described as a kind of universal wiretapping, and also being described as depending on a wild claim of presidential authority, which the president, to his credit, has not made any such wild claim. The claims are actually fairly modest, and not unconventional. So the problem with what we've seen from the media is treating this as much more peculiar, and much larger than it actually is.
Let's see how long they can prolong the hysteria - because it seems right now that the public, for one, isn't buying it.
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More Dishonest Hackery from the Partisan Media 38 Comments (0 topical, 38 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
Did you read the post? I already mentioned those.
And, somewhat less than Chemerinsky, et al are getting right now.
For the link to the LA Times story. I've updated the post.
I should've read further and seen that the Slate / Krauthammer pieces were already picked up. Though given the Slate piece, it does appear that "el zilcho" means something different in your dialect than in mine.
There are other constitutional experts that disagree with sunstein.
As has been stated in other posts, it appears this may be headed for the supremes.
Im not sure what it matters how the coverage is handled in the media, the court doesnt take its cues from the NY times.
If everyone is worried how the president will come out in the polls over this issue,all he has to do is another "fireside" chat.
The impeachment ploy, is much ado about nothing. I dont believe the dems are that stupid, after watching where a partisan impeachment attempt led last time.
But the issue still remains, is it proper to do domestic spying without a warrant. And that will be answered in the courts.
Do try to stay on topic. Leon posted something about Cass Sunstein's opinion being virtually un-noted in the mainstream media. You responded that the issue is whether "is it proper to do domestic spying without a warrant."
That is the issue for another thread. The issue for this thread is Leon's post topic.
Thanks.
A caller on Hugh Hewitt's show made a great observation the other day. The
Democrats are obsessed with destroying George Bush even if they have to destroy
themselves in the process just like captain Ahab in Moby Dick. The
Democrats will be looking for impeachment even if it alienates the 61 million
voters who voted for Bush in 04. I do think the Democrats are dumb enough to
do this.
The montra for 06 will be Bush Lied People Spied™
This is such an emotional topic, then couple that with the biases displayed by the various networks, what can we expect? This is a tough one to discern.
Raymond B
www.voteswagon.com
No, it means the same thing, it just means that I don't consider "Slate" to be part of the mainstream media. They should be proud.
the go to guy for issues like this? Why do you think it is unusual not to quote some particular person? With what frequency is Sunstein usually quoted?
I don't know the name Chicago law professors off the top of my head. Googling his name turns up slightly more pages than my own, nobody quoted me in the paper. Should I be upset?
has done op-eds for the NY Times, so is credibility a variable,good for one issue, not good for another. If that's the case then we have a situation where a story is constructed not reported, shaped with a particular end in view. An end in view presupposes an agenda, an agenda, a bias. Can we expect a roundup of the usual zombies to solemnly deny this?
Just did a brief LexisNexis search, and over the last two years, he's been quoted in 436 articles/NPR segments/what have you.
Is one of the foremost constitutional scholars in the country, if he does say so himself.
He helped co-write one of the three most-used texts for 1L Con Law; he's one of the guiding lights of constitutional liberalism; and no one on this side of the aisle, at any rate, doubts his influence, even if we think he's pretty well wrong.
How does that compare to, say, Erwin Chemerinsky or others, who, I gather, you think has/have been over-quoted?
Chemerinsky has been quoted, in the same time period, 675 times. However, a cursory review of the two men reveals that Chemerinsky is more often quoted in sources like The Frontrunner, whereas Sunstein makes the dailies. There is also the "OJ Factor" to take into account when discussing Chemerinsky.
Compared to other professors of his stature, ideology, Sunstein does quite "well," - Laurence Tribe has 383, Suzanna Sherry 83, Jack Balkin 98. Lawrence Lessig gets 562, but those numbers are inflated because he is also a tech law/patent guy and also near to silicon valley.
Geoffrey Stone, Bruce Ackerman, and misspellings of "Laurence" Tribe.
I am a former student of Sunstein's, and he is not exactly the go-to guy in this area. Nuts and bolts statutory law was never his thing.
Bruce Ackerman - 302
Geoffrey Stone - 162
"Lawrence" Tribe - 51
Given that a major contention in the midst of this whole fight is that the program is a violation of the Fourth Amendment, and also the extent of the Executive Branch's "inherent" authority under Article II, and also the question of whether FISA is constitutional if it did actually make the President's actions illegal, it makes Sunstein's expertise on point.
Which is why, according to him, "a lot" of media folks contacted him about this story.
While I am at it, is Erwin Chemerinsky a nuts-and-bolts statutory guy? Can you explain why he is given column space all over the country to expound on why the NSA program violates the Constitution?
He's the best known liberal law professor in the Pacific Time Zone. That's all I can think of.
None of this is really the kind of Con Law that Sunstein writes about or teaches. Take a look at his publications list.
Among the Chicago faculty, this is much more Stone's and Alschuler's turf. Or Posner.
Transferred to Duke either last year or this.
... that when reporters seek an expert to comment on a constitutional issue, they'll make esoteric distinctions between qualifications and won't prefer to contact those who've already made public statements on the issue?
Most reporters are not able to make those fine distinctions -- they're much more likely to look at the pool of commentators who've already made statements on the issue and to seek further comment from those that buttress the story angle they've already chosen to pursue.
Seriously, I don't have a problem with newspeople not quoting Cass Sunstein. Frankly, I wish they'd do less of it overall. The problem I have is when "a lot" of reporters call Sunstein for his opinion on a particular topic, then conspicuously avoid printing it when it doesn't fit their preconceived notion of a story. If he is not a go-to guy, don't call him in the first place, is my perspective. It's a bit late to say, ex post, that you're not going to print Sunstein because this isn't his area of law, when you've already called him asking his opinion on this area of law.
And also, there's still no valid reason why Chemerinsky should get so much more press time.
That the larger point is that "a lot" of reporters contacted Cass Sunstein, whereas apparently one included his opinion in their story. Chemerinsky, by way of contrast, is absolutely everywhere. It seems as though (and you can dispute this, if there is an interpretation of the facts that I'm missing) Sunstein's opinion is being systematically disfavored over Chemerinsky.
on that, though my experience is not enough to speak authoratively.
I've been quoted a couple of times in newspapers and questioned a few times more (esoteric physics fluff pieces). Each time there is such a piece me and my colleagues joke with each other about who got quoted and who should have been quoted. Usually the quoted person is whoever can explain what we do in the most simple way (also means the least informative) and most exciting way (also means misleading).
Trying to figure out who gets quoted and why is an interesting, difficult and probably pointless (because it is hard to say anything conclusively) exercise.
On this particular story, this will be an interesting topic to revisit a little further along in the story's lifetime.
Is that Chemerinsky and Sunstein have wildly different interpretations of the same set of facts - so therefore, it's not just a matter of who can explain the situation more clearly or simply, it's who can explain it correctly in the eyes of the media. Now, while Sunstein is quoted a little less often than Chemerinsky in the normal order of things, among Con Law professors in this country, he is among the most quoted, as you must be to get quoted more often than once every other day in a major newspaper in this country.
how is the reporter to know that Sunstein is going to throw them a curve without interviewing him? They have a sense that Sunstein is one of a set of reliable liberal sources and couldn't possibly agree with the evil Bush.
So the reporter simply employs the standard MSM approach; if it doesn't agree with the slant, oops I mean the 'direction', of the article then down the old memory hole goes the interview.
The MSM has noted those who feel that what the president did was correct, including constitutional scholars, former members of the clinton administration, etc.
I was taking his thread to mean that the debate would be almost over had the msm been quoting sunstein more often, and I just disagree.
This is what makes constitutional law so interesting....it is not cut and dry.
Unless they want to impeach him too . . . and put Dennis Hastert in the White House.
we think that even the Dems can't be that crazy doesn't mean they aren't :-)
They didn't have brains enough to evacuate ahead of a hurricane. They are more
than capable of taking themselves all the way over the cliff. They are obsessed
with revenge against Bush for beating in thm in last three elections. As Hugh's
caller dramatized the words of Melville:
"I'll chase George Bush around Good Hope, and 'round the horn, and 'round
Perdition's flames until he spouts black blood and rolls fin out."
Deeply troubled, by the domestic spying accusations against Bush, but news like this is making me wonder how much of the complete picture I am really getting from the media. Not that I was anywhere close to trusting them 100%, but it is good to see situations like this highlighted, so we can know that perhaps the other side (argument wise, not ideologically) is being supressed.
He lectured for Bar/Bri. So nearly every California law school graduate has listened to him. For certain reporters, this means they probably had to sit through his lectures multiple times.
Is because Chimerinski is predictablly liberal across the board. He is also a very smart guy. He can make any position sound very reasonable if you don't present the other side.
"domestic spying". It's the gathering of foreign intelligence.
I've found that the large majority of the Constitution is very "cut and dry". The only times it doesn't seem to be cut and dry is when a person or group try to determine what the founding fathers "really" meant when what they wrote doesn't agree with what that person or group
"want" it to mean. As an example I would site is Article One of the Amendments to the Constitution.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;..." No law respecting means that Congress cannot make any law showing or requiring deferential regard of one religion over another. It's plain english but we are all aware of the myriad of "translations" various groups use to suit their beliefs. At this point in our history the political left wants this to mean that G-D's name, his holidays and pretty much any mention of him be removed from all things government or considered public. How could it possibly be construed that that is what the founding fathers meant considering ALL of their references to G-D, religion, faith etc. I wonder if people realise exactly how much prayer to G-D went on on a daily basis in Government during those times? When the Houses met they began and ended with prayer as did the Supreme Court and a huge number of governmental functions, celebrations etc. It's the freedom OF religion not FROM religion. How can those who fight to get G-D out of public life, because they feel religios beliefs are being forced on them, not see how their actions are themselves trying to FORCE their beliefs on others? The constitution is very much like the Bible in that people try to translate it to suit their needs or the current times. Such actions are why we have so many different doctrines within Christianity and Islam etc. You can't protect such freedoms by
saying you only have these freedoms at certain times under certain conditions with limits to that freedom set so as not offend those who may believe differently. For in the end if we end up with the Congress creating a law limiting the free practise or expression of religion or religious beliefs then they would be in violation of Article One. I will probably be sorry I used this particular example but in the end I believe that when it comes to the constitution we need to endevour to take it at face value and look at it as if it is cut and dry or we will end up legislating ourselves out of existance.
Krauthammer has it in the NY Daily News, and probably wherever else he's syndicated.
I don't know if Slate counts, but they're on it.
Here's Sunstein in some "actual news coverage" from the LA Times.
It's definitely no less coverage than I'd expect a single law professor's views to get in the media. Somewhat more, in fact.