Kirsten Gillibrand in NYTimes

Nathaniel Brooks for The New York Times

An Albany International Airport worker greeted his new congresswoman, Kirsten Gillibrand, with her mother, Polly Rutnik, and her son, Theo, 3.
Frenetic Start in Congress for One Democrat, Class of ’06

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. — When Kirsten Gillibrand was elected to Congress this past November in a tide of Democratic victories, she soon learned that her campaigning was not over.

This political novice found herself in a precarious position: a Democrat trying to represent an overwhelmingly Republican district extending into the state’s North Country, a onetime Manhattan lawyer in a place of factory and mill workers, dairy farmers and retired military veterans.

Now, even as the congratulatory letters continue to trickle in, she often looks like a candidate who is still on the run. Ms. Gillibrand, 40, spends virtually every free moment scurrying back from Washington to her district to attend town hall gatherings, meet-and-greets at local malls and — yes, already — a fund-raiser.

That frenetic pace reflects her uncomfortable reality: that her victory last fall, like the success of Democrats nationwide, may have been an aberration that could be undone with a swing in the mood of the electorate or by formidable opposition.

Politically, the first term is typically when House incumbents are most at risk of defeat. And Kirsten Gillibrand is among the most vulnerable of this group. Even her closest advisers acknowledged during last year’s campaign that her odds of winning were slim, given that she was facing a four-term Republican incumbent in a district where Republicans outnumbered Democrats by roughly 80,000.

Gillibrand was criticized in a recent post on firedoglake for her middle of the road positions and constant fundraising; I don't think people understand just how conservative and Republican her district is. Having grown up there, I do.

More from the NYTimes article on the district:

The passion the war arouses in her district was illustrated at that meeting. A constituent rushed up to her and loudly warned her not to support any of the resolutions that Democrats were considering to express disapproval of Mr. Bush’s proposed troop buildup in Iraq.

Pointing directly at Ms. Gillibrand, the man, Dave Browner, told her that many lives were at stake. “You’re in the big leagues now,” he said, his voice rising. “Any resolution will put our troops in danger.”

Then, as he turned and began storming off, Ms. Gillibrand did something that seemed to disarm him: she gently held him by the arm and thanked him for his thoughts. But ultimately, she did not commit to a position.

(As it turned out, on Feb. 16 she voted for a nonbinding resolution denouncing the president’s plan but including two simple clauses expressing support for the troops.)

Roots in the District

Such passions typify the 20th Congressional District, a bedrock Republican area that encompasses dairy farms, stretches of Adirondack State Park and the northern counties of exurban New York City, including Columbia and upper Dutchess, areas that have increasingly drawn New York commuters and second-home buyers.

I'm not sure if this is good news or not for Gillibrand (I no longer trust the Grey Lady after they withheld information about Bush Administration lawbreaking before the 2004 election, and then there's Judy Miller and the Clinton attacks of the 1990s) but the Times says this article is part of continuing series:

The Freshman
Settling In
This is the first article in a series that will chronicle Kirsten Gillibrand’s first year in Congress.

Deleted Again

Last night when I got in, I read about the NYTimes hatchet job on Hillary & Bill Clinton. Sex lives of the rich and famous, front page news.

For Clintons, Delicate Dance of Married and Public Lives

Someone pointed out that there's a blog on the Times called "The Empire Zone", where you could leave comments about the article.

Now, if the Clinton's sex lives are front page news because she's a policymaker and likely presidential candidate, aren't there other important and influential people who should get this treatment? One came to my mind immediately.

So I left this comment on the Empire Zone:

Thanks for the update on the Clinton marriage. It's important to know how public figures lead their private lives, and how that influences their decision making process.

In that vein, I would ask that the Times report on the following questions:

What were Judith Miller and Scooter Libby doing at the St. Regis? Each other?

What was Judith Miller doing with her officer in Iraq?

Did Judith Miller and Ahmad Chalabi have any sexual quid-pro-quo for the WMD lies he fed her?

Enquiring minds want to know.

Thank you to the New York Times for making clear the corporate media's downward slide to the sewer.

Now, I knew this would get deleted. Especially when I wrote "Each other?". Never speculate about a fellow journamalist like Judy the Mattress and her active sex life. Anonymously sourced speculating about relationships is only appropriate where Democrats are involved.

My comment had to be deleted, but this helpful poster, telling readers how to get around the $50 a year TimesSelect wall, made the no-need-to-delete cut.

#

If you are worried that you will miss Krugman, you can get his articles online 99% of the time simply by copying the first line of his article, and then pasting it into the search box at technorati.com.

Comment by You won't miss Krugman — May 24, 2006 @ 12:05 am

Sheesh.

Fuck the Times

Yesterday I thought about going out & picking up the Sunday New York Times, which I do on occasion for a day of culture immersion. Arts & Leisure, the magazine & the puzzle, Week In Review, etc.

And then I thought, fuck the Times. They withheld the story that (King) George Bush was violating the 4th Amendment during the 2004 election. While I was giving money to John Kerry and John Edwards, and arranging to fly to Florida to monitor a polling place so what happened in 2000 didn't happen in 2004, the New York Times decided to put their finger on the scale and withhold critical information. They may as well have stolen my political contributions out of my pocket.

So fuck the Times. They don't get any more of my money. Fuck them. Fuck Times Select. Fuck Judy Miller and Elisabeth Bumiller and all the other incompetent "journalists" living in the Bushco tank, breathing the fetid Bushco air and spewing filthy Bushco lies.

I Just Want a Little Frogmarching for Christmas

Byron York in National Review today:

Will Rove be Indicted?
As rumors fly, here is what is known at this point.

This part is hilarious:

Still, it's possible Fitzgerald will forge ahead, in part because his much-publicized, two-year investigation has so far produced relatively meager results. After intense probing, and working with virtually unlimited power and discretion, the hard-charging prosecutor has succeeded in indicting one person, Libby, although not for an underlying offense, and disrupting or marring the careers of journalists Judith Miller, Cooper, Woodward, and, most recently, Time's Viveca Novak. Some Fitzgerald watchers find it difficult to believe that he will close up shop and go home with a record like that.

Now, how exactly has Fitzgerald "disrupt[ed] or marr[ed]" the careers of Judith Miller (who went to jail to protect a source she ... couldn't remember, after royally screwing up the WMD/Iraq story), Cooper (what, it screwed up his life to get subpoenaed?), Woodward (revealed for the Bushco court stenographer he is) or Novak (revealed confidential information to a source then lied to her editors about it).

Oh, that's right, he hasn't.

And Byron? When a prosecutor indicts someone for obstruction of justice, it's because they've obstructed investigation into the underlying offenses. If there hadn't been obstruction, the prosecutor would have been able to indict on the underlying offenses. Duh.

Frogmarching, soon, I think.

She Really Was Embedded

According to Editor and Publisher, summarizing a Vanity Fair article on New York Times reporter Judy (Judas) Miller due out next week, she

.... "had built a reputation for sleeping with her sources," had dated one of [NYTimes Publisher] Sulzberger's best friends, Steve Ratner, "and had even, for a time, shared a vacation home with Sulzberger," whatever that means.

Ewwww.

Treason's Greetings, Judas! I'm sure you'll enjoy this little holiday gift of an article.

Judy In Time(s) Out

The NYTimes gives us its long-awaited "explanation" of the Judas Miller saga:

The Miller Case: A Notebook, a Cause, a Jail Cell and a Deal

I put explanation in quotes because there ain't much there there. No mention of how the earlier, June meeting with Libby was discovered by Fitzgerald, no discussion of the "aspens connected by the roots" letter, and more importantly, Judas

[S]pent 85 days in jail for refusing to testify and reveal her confidential source, then relented. On Sept. 30, she told the grand jury that her source was I. Lewis Libby, the vice president's chief of staff. But she said he did not reveal Ms. Plame's name.

And when the prosecutor in the case asked her to explain how "Valerie Flame" appeared in the same notebook she used in interviewing Mr. Libby, Ms. Miller said she "didn't think" she heard it from him. "I said I believed the information came from another source, whom I could not recall," she wrote on Friday, recounting her testimony for an article that appears today.

So if she couldn't recall which source told her "Valerie Flame"'s name, what source was she protecting?

I don't get it.


The Times also gives us Judas's own account (btw, Raw Story reporting that she is taking an "indefinite leave of absence, effective immediately"):

A Personal Account
My Four Hours Testifying in the Federal Grand Jury Room

This line from her fanciful, pretentiously written story gives me hope:

Before the grand jury, Mr. Fitzgerald asked me questions about Mr. Cheney.

If this were a game of Clue, I'd be guessing the Big Dick in the Oval Office with a w(h)ig and a chimp.

Rain, Rain, Go Away

Not much to say today. It's raining. I got my hair cut. Had to replace a mount on my rear tire ($169). It's still raining.

Karl Rove begged not be indicted today, for four hours. The New York Times still isn't talking. Rumor has it that Judith Miller may resign. Good riddance. Josh Marshall asks a couple of interesting questions: What did Harriet Miers know about the Plame outing and the subsequent cover-up? What does she know about what the President knew?

Still waiting for the Bush Administration's traditional post 5:00 p.m. Friday news dump, calculated to draw as little attention as possible to bad news.

No photo ops for Bushie today. Guess the White House didn't like seeing the word "staged" used so much by the MSM.

Hey, did I mention that I'm going to England next week, for two weeks? Whee-hoo!

Publication of this blog will be suspended until November 1st.

Maybe by the time I return it will have stopped raining.

Sue Judy Miller: Criminals Shouldn't Profit

This letter was published in the Elkhart Truth (Indiana):

Jailed reporter shouldn't profit

Judy Miller, the New York Times reporter who spent 85 days in jail for criminal contempt for failing to provide the name of a source who divulged the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame, has reportedly inked a $1.2 million book deal.

Many incidents revolving this case cause an eyebrow to raise.

First, the "leak" is attributed to Mr. Bush's senior political strategist, Karl Rove. Now the focus has shifted to I. Lewis Libby, Mr. Cheney's chief of staff. Hmmm, is Mr. Libby simply an administrative scapegoat (and hence, sacrificial) to protect Mr. Rove?

Additionally, Ms. Miller used unreliable and gullible reporting practices when she announced that Iraq was developing WMDs. She was then reckless (some would say criminal) in reporting the name of an active CIA operative. And now she is reportedly going to profit from her story.

I believe the state of New York needs to sue Ms. Miller under the Son of Sam laws, which prohibit criminals from profiting from their criminal actions.

Or maybe she can come up with yet another scapegoat to take the fall.

KEVIN EGELSKY

Elkhart

I second that emotion.

Will The Traitors Go Frogmarching In, Hurrah, Hurrah?

From thinkprogress:

Kristol: “One or More Indictments in the Next Three Weeks”

Weekly Standard Editor Bill Kristol on Fox News Sunday:

Criminal defense lawyers I’ve spoken to who are friendly to the administration are very worried that there will be one or more indictments in the next three weeks of senior administration officials, just looking at what Fitzgerald is doing and taking him at his word, you know, being a serious prosecutor here. And I think it’s going to be bad for the Bush administration.

Someone like Bill Kristol doesn’t get information like this by accident. It’s being fed to him so, if there is an indictment, he can prepare the base. Towards the end of the segment, Kristol got started, saying, “I hate the criminalization of politics.”

The best way to stop the criminalization of politics is to get the criminals out of politics.

I heard Jeffrey Toobin on CNN last week say that the only person who would spend time in jail is Judy Miller. That's before Judy, Judy, Judy found her other notebook, with the notes from her June conversation with Scooter.

Funniest line of the week in Blogtopia? Jane Hamsher of firedoglake:

Of all the amazing discoveries. She's the fucking Indiana Jones of dust bunnies, that one.

Where Are the War Correspondents?

Did you catch Martin Scorsese's film on Bob Dylan on public TV? It was great stuff, especially the first episode. You can read a good review in the Guardian: Scorsese's stately four-hour Dylan biopic reveals a man who makes every word count.

The most striking piece of the film to me was a brief segment with Joan Baez singing a protest song while they showed footage of Morley Safer in Vietnam. Safer is smoking a cigarette and walking among the American soldiers and the crying and weeping Vietnamese. His cameraman shoots the soldiers holding up their Zippo lighters to the straw roof of the villagers' hut. Morley narrates: the soldiers are torching the hut because shots had been fired out of it towards them. Cut to women and children and old men weeping in a ditch. Four men, naked from the waist up and hooded, are marched away in chains by the soldiers, because, Morley tells us, they can't answer questions in English.

This was what was coming in to people's living rooms in 1965 and 1966 and 1967 and 1968. Why aren't we getting coverage like this now? Is the media totally cowed by the government? Why aren't war correspondents standing at the checkpoints in Iraq filming as the American soldiers flag down civilian cars and sometimes shoot the occupants? If the government won't let them do it openly, are there any real journalists willing to do it covertly?

Where are our brash young war correspondents?

And the corporate media holds up Judith Miller as their embodiment of a courageous journalist. What a crock of s**t.

Informed Speculation About Judy Miller

Jane Hamsher at Firedoglake: It's Miller Time!

Arianna Huffington: Miller Walks: The Plot Thickens

emptywheel at The Next Hurrah: I may not know why a caged bird sings--but I've got my guesses

Principles, Shminciples, She Wants to Go Home

Judith Miller Out of Jail

According to the Times, Libby "had made clear that he genuinely wanted her to testify." But the Times account, published tonight, revealed that Libby and his lawyers asserted that they had given his waiver a year ago--and then again ten days--but Miller did not accept it, saying she feared it was coerced.

Joseph Tate, an attorney for Libby, said to the Washington Post today, "We told her lawyers it was not coerced. We are surprised to learn we had anything to do with her incarceration."

So let me get this straight. They gave her the A-OK to testify a year ago, and she's been in jail bleating about journalistic principles? Diva.

And it was Scooter Libby, not Traitor Karl.

Can't wait to hear her grand jury testimony.

Let's hope Traitor Karl is the ham sandwich Prosecutor Fitzgerald is gunning for.

Judy Miller's unwavering devotion to journalistic principles? What a joke. She'll be singing like a bird tomorrow. Journalism is dead. All hail the corporate media.

Traitor Karl at his Repulsive Worst

Did you, like me, scoff when Arianna Huffington announced her celebrity group blog?

Nobody's laughing anymore. It pays to have correspondents who get into the best parties.

Rove Off The Record On Katrina: The Only Mistake We Made Was Not Overriding The Local Government...

Karl Rove, President Bush's top political advisor and deputy White House chief of staff, spoke at businessman Teddy Forstmann's annual off the record gathering in Aspen, Colorado this weekend. Here is what Rove had to say that the press wasn't allowed to report on.

On Katrina: The only mistake we made with Katrina was not overriding the local government...

On The Anti-War Movement: Cindy Sheehan is a clown. There is no real anti-war movement. No serious politician, with anything to do with anything, would show his face at an anti-war rally...

On Bush's Low Poll Numbers: We have not been good at explaining the success in Iraq. Polls go up and down and don't mean anything...

On Iraq: There has been a big difference in the region. Iraq will transform the Middle East...

On Judy Miller And Plamegate: Judy Miller is in jail for reasons I don't really understand...

On Joe Wilson: Joe Wilson and I attend the same church but Joe goes to the wacky mass...

In attendance at the conference, among others were: Harvey Weinstein, Brad Grey, Michael Eisner, Les Moonves, Tom Freston, Tom Friedman, Bob Novak, Barry Diller, Martha Stewart, Margaret Carlson, Alan Greenspan, Andrea Mitchell, Norman Pearlstein and Walter Isaacson.

Yes, repulsive Karl actually said those things while bodies, barely alive and mostly dead, were being pulled from houses in New Orleans.

Were intrepid "journalists" Tom Friedman, Bob Novak, Margaret Carlson or Andrew Mitchell going to tell you about this little soiree? About what was said while they were schmoozing with the man behind the curtain? Nope.

Journalism is dead. Long live the corporate media. Thank God for blogtopia (yes! skippy invented that term!)

Judy, Judy, Judy

Why this journalist thinks that Judy Miller should go to jail

[] Judy Miller's actions in recent years -- a pattern that includes this case -- have been the very antithesis of what we think journalism is and should be all about. Ultimately, the heart and soul of real journalism is not so much protecting "sources" at any cost. It is, rather, living up to the 19th Century maxim set forth by Peter Finley Dunne, that journalists should comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.

That is why the ability of reporters to keep the identity of their true sources confidential is protected by shield laws in 31 states and the District of Columbia (although not in federal courts). Without such protections, the government official would not be able to report the wrongdoing of a president (remember "Deep Throat," the ultimate confidential source?), nor would the corporate executive feel free to rat out a crooked CEO. The comfortable and corrupt could not be afflicted.

But the Times' Judy Miller has not been afflicting the comfortable. She has been protecting them, advancing their objectives, and helping them to mislead a now very afflicted American public. In fact, thinking again about Watergate and Deep Throat is a good way to understand why Judy Miller should not be protected today. Because in Watergate, a reporter acting like Miller would not be meeting the FBI's Mark Felt in an underground parking garage. She would be obsessively on the phone with H.R. Haldeman or John Dean, listening to malicious gossip about Carl Bernstein or their plans to make Judge Sirica look bad.

Lesser Frogmarch

New York Times Reporter Is Jailed for Keeping Source Secret

Hard to feel great sympathy for Judith Miller. She should have been frogmarched off the premises of the New York Times once they realized how biased her reporting was leading up to the war in Iraq. Instead they published a wimpy 'ooh, we were wrong, sorry' piece without even mentioning that the majority of their 'we were wrong' articles were written by Miller. (for a dissection of the Times non-mea culpa mea culpa, read Alexander Coburn's "Maybe We Did Screw Up...a Little")

Will her good friend Ahmed Chalabi come to visit her in jail? Bob Novak-ula? (When I was a kid, he was "No Facts", of "Errors and No Facts", but since his old partner Rowland Evans retired he's become even more sinister.)

Now those are a couple of guys who should be in jail.

A girl can dream, can't she?

Rove Crime: Perjury?

Via Atrios, TalkLeft has a good discussion of what Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald may be trying to get with those reporter's notes:

What Does the Government Really Want from Miller and Cooper?

Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald has stated in court pleadings that he already knows the identity of Judith Miller and Matthew Cooper's sources regarding the senior white house official who leaked the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame to Robert Novak.

Miller did some reporting for a story but never wrote an article. She has maintained she intends to go to jail rather than reveal her source -- though Fitzgerald has indicated in court filings that he already knows that official's identity.

So, why is it so necessary for them to provide the information?

As the Wapo article suggests, the investigation has moved from one involving the identity of the White House official to one involving perjury - i.e., a cover-up. The source may have been questioned in front of the grand jury and lied.

Knowing the identity of the source is not enough for a perjury conviction. There must be two witnesses to the perjurious statement. Telephone records would not be enough, because they only provide the number dialed, not the identity of the person speaking. Matthew Cooper's and Judith Miller's e-mails and notes may provide that corroboration.

Two witnesses to get Rove for perjury. Because he said this:

I don't know who the White House official is, but the higher up he is, the more likely the prosecutor would want two live witnesses, not just documents, to support a perjury charge. What do you think of this possibility, from American Prospect in 2004?

Rove also adamantly insisted to the FBI that he was not the administration official who leaked the information that Plame was a covert CIA operative to conservative columnist Robert Novak last July. Rather, Rove insisted, he had only circulated information about Plame after it had appeared in Novak's column. He also told the FBI, the same sources said, that circulating the information was a legitimate means to counter what he claimed was politically motivated criticism of the Bush administration by Plame's husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson.

President Clinton was suspended from the practice of law by the State of Arkansas for five years for perjury, and disbarred by the Supreme Court. And his perjury had nothing to do with the workings of government, or intelligence, or national security.

As Joe Wilson has been hoping, “[W]e can get Karl Rove frogmarched out of the White House in handcuffs." Would there be a perp walk more sweet for Democrats?

Disinformation

The 2004 Falsies Awards: Remembering the people and players responsible for polluting our information environment.

Interesting list of media foibles in 2004. But where is the New York Times Ahmed Chalabi-loving Judith Miller? Bob (Traitor) Novak? The media's fawning coverage of the Swift Boat Liars? Bill O'Reilly buying back the tapes of his you-say-loofah I-say-falafel conversations? Actually, Faux News Channel alone could fill an entire Top Ten list.

Inquiring minds want to know.