Cat Fight Between New Republic's Julia Ioffe and Lawrence O'Donnell

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New Republic Senior Editor Julia Ioffe tore Lawrence O'Donnell to pieces in her column. Ioffe has reported from Russia for three years. O'Donnell doesn't let Ioffe's superior knowledge in Russia politics get in the way of his narrative of Vladimir Putin having Godlike powers. Ioffe explains in her column.

* Vladimir Putin is not omnipotent. He does not control everything that happens in the Russian Federation, a vast and often inhospitable landmass that spans 10 time zones. * Similarly, Barack Obama does not have total control over the minutiae of the United States of America. * Putin does not orchestrate, he reacts. Putin is no chess player. He is a knee-jerk, short-sighted little tyrant. Don't give him credit where credit isn't due. * Americans, especially Americans who have never been to Russia, overestimate the abilities of both Putin and the Russians. Because, I mean, come on. Tank! * The Russians did not create the Snowden situation; Julian Assange and the U.S. government did. Assange insinuated himself into the situation and sent Snowden to Ecuador (the country granting him asylum) through Russia (his great friend). * The Obama administration trapped Snowden in Russia. The U.S. unsealed the charges before it had Snowden in custody, revoked his passport, then downed the plane of the president of a sovereign state over other sovereign states because it thought Snowden was on board. The only place, by design, where Snowden could go was back to the U.S. Where he was charged with espionage, for which the maximum punishment is death. Russia is a brutal place where whistleblowers are harassed and killed, but Russia, unlike the U.S., has no death penalty. And it is only because the Russians made a stink about it, that Eric Holder was forced to come out and assure the Russians that Edward Snowden won't be put to death. This happened over a month after Snowden's arrival in Moscow, and after the charges of espionage were unsealed. * If a Russian Edward Snowden ended up in JFK Airport, there is no way in hell we'd turn him over to the Russians. Not in a hundred years, and not ever. * You can't back Putin into a corner and leave him no options. If you are a world leader worth your salt, and have a good diplomatic team working for you, you would know that. You would also know that when dealing with thugs like Putin, you know that things like this are better handled quietly. Here's the thing: Putin responds to shows of strength, but only if he has room to maneuver. You can't publicly shame him into doing something, it's not going to get a good response. Just like it would not get a good response out of Obama. * The Obama administration totally fucked this up. I mean, totally. Soup to nuts. Remember the spy exchange in the summer of 2010? Ten Russian sleeper agents—which is not what Snowden is—were uncovered by the FBI in the U.S. Instead of kicking up a massive, public stink over it, the Kremlin and the White House arranged for their silent transfer to Russia in exchange for four people accused in Russia of spying for the U.S. Two planes landed on the tarmac in Vienna, ten people went one way, four people went the other way, the planes flew off, and that was it. That's how this should have been done if the U.S. really wanted Snowden back. * However, the decision to blow off the Moscow summit was a good one. See yesterday's post. * I am not a Putin apologist. I think he and his people do bad things, like kill people and fleece the country for its wealth. But neither do I think he's oppressing the Russian masses. He is their most extreme and natural, their most post-Soviet manifestation. There.

European countries view the death penalty differently than the United States. Putin would have received grief domestically if Snowden was sent back to the United States to be executed. Putin cares more about his poll numbers than the United States justice system. Putin doesn't have a love for whistleblowers. Putin just doesn't need the grief.

Ioffe made an important point of the United States forcing Bolivian President Evo Morales' plane to land in Austria is important. Putin would have looked weak if he gave up Snowden after the Bolivia incident. Vladimir Putin never wants to appear weak. Ioffe pointed out that Putin would only give up Snowden if he could save face. The United States never provided that option. It didn't help with the heavy-handed language coming from members of Congress. Of course, Donnell didn't want to hear nuance, so he yelled over Ioffe. That explains why Ioffe will likely never appear on O'Donnell's show again.

My main beef with O'Donnell is not that he wouldn't let me make these 11 points—because, let's face it, that's not what the TV is for—but that he did exactly the same shit Russians did to me when I was in Russia. They assumed that the U.S. and its government was one sleek, well-functioning monolith, that Obama was omnipotent, and that everyone in the world, including other important (and nuclear!) world leaders, act and must act as Russia demands it should, using Russian foreign policy calculus, and with only Russian interests in mind.

Sound ridiculous? Believe me, it sounds just as insane in reverse. The problem is that this was not in the ranting comments section, but was coming from the host of a prime time, national television show. And if you don't have the good sense and education or, hell, the reporting experience to know better, then just let the guests you invited on speak.

Otherwise, don't waste my fucking evening.

Amen.

The New York Times/ McCain Scandal

The John McCain extramarital affair scandal does not rage my outrage meter. That is a matter for Cindy McCain. The fact that McCain voted to impeach Bill Clinton and then have had a relationship with Vicki Iseman is standard hypocrisy in American politics. We live in a culture that cast shame on people for honestly discussing sexual issues. The public craves Jerry Springer and can't explain to their children the dangers of STDs. People are paying more attention to what John McCain's penis is doing than is horrible positions on Iraq and the economy.

What is newsworthy is McCain hiring criminal defense attorney Bob Bennett to intimidate The New York Times from publishing details of McCain's relationship with lobbyist Vicki Iseman. The Times only went public because The New Republic was working on their own story. It is amazing how the once mighty Times is getting pushed around by the Right. TNR published Gabriel Sherman piece on how the McCain camp kept The Times from publishing the story.

What happened? The publication of the article capped three months of intense internal deliberations at the Times over whether to publish the negative piece and its most explosive charge about the affair. It pitted the reporters investigating the story, who believed they had nailed it, against executive editor Bill Keller, who believed they hadn't. It likely cost the paper one investigative reporter, who decided to leave in frustration. And the Times ended up publishing a piece in which the institutional tensions about just what the story should be are palpable.

The Times bad handling of holding onto the story made reporters leave.

It was at about that time, amidst flurries of rumors swirling about the looming Times investigation, that the Times' McCain beat reporter, Marc Santora, abruptly left the campaign trail after covering the senator for four and a half months, frustrated by the McCain rumors. A rising star at the paper, Santora had been working grueling hours, joining the 2008 election coverage straight from a reporting assignment in Baghdad. As the campaign headed to South Carolina, the site of McCain's defeat in 2000, Santora emailed the Times' deputy Washington editor, Richard Stevenson, to vent about how the rumors were dogging him on the campaign trail, and left the McCain beat on January 10. "The last thing I wanted was to be a pawn in this thing," Santora told me. "I was exhausted, there were a lot of rumors flying around. I thought the best thing for me to do was take a break."

Santora wasn't the last casualty of the process. Two weeks ago, in early February, Marilyn Thompson, one of the four reporters working on the McCain investigation quit the Times. Thompson had been a staffer at The Washington Post for 14 years, until 2004. She had spent just six months at the Times and recorded only four bylines before accepting an offer to return to her former employer as an editor overseeing the Post's accountability coverage of money and politics. According to sources, Thompson became increasingly dispirited with the delays, and worked around the clock through the Christmas vacation on the piece, only to see the investigation sputter. Declining to comment on the investigation itself, Thompson told me her decision to return to the Post "was an opportunity to go back to the place that has been a home to me." (Thompson celebrated her byline during her last week at the Times. Her final day at the paper is tomorrow.)

The investigative reporters felt they had the McCain story nailed. Executive editor Bill Keller wouldn't go to bat for his employees. He told them to keep working on the story. Keller published a watered-down version that McCain defenders are having a field day poking holes through. Keller's defense is hysterical.

"Our policy is, we publish stories when they are ready. 'Ready' means the facts have been nailed down to our satisfaction, the subjects have all been given a full and fair chance to respond, and the reporting has been written up with all the proper context and caveats."

Keller didn't want to be in the hot seat. He watered-down a story that was publicly floating around since December. The result was another major journalism scandal for The Times. Where does The Times find such horrible editors?

Martin Peretz Channels Ann Coulter

Lindsay Beyerstein points out the latest piece of bile from Martin Peretz. He has the audacity to go after Mariane Pearl: the wife of slain Wall Street Journal foreign correspondent Daniel Pearl.

There's a tacky story on today's "Page Six" in the New York Post about Mariane Pearl -- yes, the widow of Daniel -- and her conflicts with the Wall Street Journal. It's about money and celebrity and Mariane's desires to use the Journal as the instrument of her fame. You see, when Muslim terrorists kill your husband it's only fair to profit off his death. Wasn't that a clause in Daniel's insurance policy?

There was something that bugged me about Peretz's post. The hatefulness is standard issue Peretz. His quote reminded me of something I read somewhere. I then remembered Ann Coulter made a similar attack against the 9-11 widows known as the Jersey Girls.

These broads are millionaires, lionized on TV and in articles about them, reveling in their status as celebrities and stalked by grief-arazzies. I have never seen people enjoying their husbands’ death so much.

Peretz and Coulter feel it is their patriotic obligation to spit venom at those that have been personally victimized by terrorism. They are so emotionally insecure that they need to go after women that have questioned America's post-9-11 national security. Years from now, people will read the vicious things Peretz and Coulter wrote and wonder just how fucked up these Bush apologists are.

Lindsay accuses Peretz of being sexist. I'm not going to argue the point. I just think that is the beginning of his problems. Peretz tells everyone within shouting distance he is a diehard Democrat. He ran a publication that's specialty is bashing Democrats and producing Left-wing haters such as Michael Kelly, Andrew Sullivan, and Mickey Kaus. His publication had fact-check problems with Stephen Glass, Ruth Shalit and Scott Thomas Beauchamp that could be spotted by a high school editor.

Peretz has long ties to the American Enterprise Institute, publicly defended the convicted Lewis "Scooter" Libby, accused Jimmy Carter of being an Anti-Semite and a list of misdeeds goes on. Any respectable would of had Peretz removed for his conflict of interests and turning the New Republic into a money-losing laughing stock. Washington operates under a different set of rules. No other major American publication would let a former publisher run blog posts that makes Instapundit seem civil.

Eric Alterman's article of Peretz and the TNR horror show is worthy of reading.

A big thanks to Eric Alterman for linking to this post.

Draft Spencer Ackerman

I left this comment at the Political Whore blog. It is awaiting moderation. Creative Loafing's Sarasota branch is looking for an editor. I recommended Spencer Ackerman.

"Another Florida media job opening, this time at CL."

How about Spencer Ackerman? I know how you appreciate the talent New Republic produced. (Can we hear a shoutout for Gregg Easterbrook) Ackerman was another twentysomething associate editor. TNR had good experiences when Andrew "Bell Curve" Sullivan promoted Stephen Glass and Ruth Shalit to that position. Tell Eason to make the offer. I'm sure CL pays more than Josh Marshall.

I am officially starting the draft Spencer Ackerman to Creative Loafing movement. I'm sure Franklin Foer will give a good reference. I'm sure he's gotten over Ackerman wanting to skull fuck him.

Garcia would go into a panic attack if he had Ackerman for his editor. He has a disdain for TNR and the magazine's penchant for promoting inexperienced young staffings to editors. Which is why I left the comment.

In case people are wondering, I don't want CL to hire Ackerman. That would be insanely stupid. I have progressive blogging friends whom are friends with him. I might get trashed for this post.

Seriously, Ackerman started a blog that's whole sthick was to trash TNR and sent a threatening email to his boss. Why does TNR keep hiring Ivy League kids with no journalism experience? The New York Times and Washington Post hire award-winning journalists from regional newspapers. TNR might want to try that.

The Weekly Standard Has No Shame

Bill Kristol of the Weekly Standard maintains the fiction that American soldier Scott Thomas Beauchamp is the creation of New Republic editors. Kristol's reasoning is that TNR hates America and the military. This op-ed is shameless in so many ways.

But what is revealing about this mistake is that the editors must have wanted to suspend their disbelief in tales of gross misconduct by American troops. How else could they have published such a farrago of dubious tales?

Spencer Ackerman is a noted TNR basher. He was fired from the magazine. Ackerman writes that Kristol's anti-soldier assertion doesn't pass the laugh test.

Whatever disagreements I've had with Frank (Foer), I know from experience that he does not assign, approve or edit stories to cast aspersions on the military. Even subconsciously, he would not express any eagerness to publish Thomas's story for anything remotely approaching that reason. Kristol is wrapping himself in the mantle of people much braver and nobler than himself (and myself) to disguise his enormous strategic misjudgment. He's crying a river of crocodile tears. And he knows that the motives he's ascribed to TNR's editors are complete bullshit.

Beauchamp is real. He is with the 1/18 Infantry, Second Brigade Combat Team, First Infantry Division. The Pentagon has taken away his laptop. He is also married to a TNR staffer. All of this can be easily confimed. Which makes this passage in Kristol's op-ed all the more vile.

Since the Nation has held this view of every American war (except when we were fighting side-by-side with Stalin's Soviet Union), and loves nothing more than accounts of American war crimes, its story is no surprise. At least they interviewed real soldiers on the record. The New Republic, in its July 23 issue, takes a different tack. Its slander of American soldiers appears to be fiction presented as fact, behind a convenient screen of anonymity.

Kristol then has the audacity to talk about journalism ethics.

We at THE WEEKLY STANDARD are well aware that editors make mistakes. We have made our share.

The Weekly Standard was so wrong on this story. They never bothered to fact-check the existence of Scott Thomas. They were only interested in discrediting the Thomas Scott articles because it hindered their neoconservative support of the Iraq war. That's all this was ever about.

Meet the TNR Iraq Blogger

It's amazing how much time the Right spent trying to scream that the soldier who wrote under the pseudonym Scott Thomas didn't exist. The Weekly Standard and the National Review lead the charge. It didn't matter that they had no actual evidence or did no responsible investigative reporting. Ideology and pro-Iraq war support came first.

Now Scott Thomas has come forward and revealed his real identity as Scott Thomas Beauchamp.

I am Private Scott Thomas Beauchamp, a member of Alpha Company, 1/18 Infantry, Second Brigade Combat Team, First Infantry Division.

My pieces were always intended to provide my discrete view of the war; they were never intended as a reflection of the entire U.S. Military. I wanted Americans to have one soldier's view of events in Iraq.

It's been maddening, to say the least, to see the plausibility of events that I witnessed questioned by people who have never served in Iraq. I was initially reluctant to take the time out of my already insane schedule fighting an actual war in order to play some role in an ideological battle that I never wanted to join. That being said, my character, my experiences, and those of my comrades in arms have been called into question, and I believe that it is important to stand by my writing under my real name.

Will the Weekly Standard and National Review stand by their writing or just pretend that the controversy they started never happened? I'm betting on the latter. Both publications should of had a major editorial review of how they wrote such factually inaccurate articles. Instead, they attack a soldier they claimed never existed here and here. Real classy.

Other lefty bloggers share their thoughts.

"That's just crazy. All these people need to stop," writes Matt Yglesias. "They need to apologize to the people at TNR who've wasted huge amounts of time dealing with their nonsense."

The Right bitches about the "liberal media." People would take their complaints more seriously if they didn't have tv and radio host throw on-air temper tamtrums and print journalists that posted corrections. Instead, they have a noise machine.

Shakes makes a great point.

Which is why I think we should hold Foer and TNR to some account. It was obvious how all this would play out. Any of us on the Left who share the stories of antiwar soldiers, or soldiers just telling the ugly truth of war, need to be prepared. Better prepared than that, anyway.

The rightwing noise machine will attack. It's not important if the Right makes a valid point. What they want to make of is that people don't hear the other side make valid points. They want you to believe it's a shiny happy people world.

Mel Sembler Stands Behind Lewis Libby

It's interesting to see who is a member of Lewis "Scooter" Libby's defense trust. The list contains a who's who of neoconservatives. Two members strike my interest.

The most shameless member is Martin Peretz. He is best known as the edotor of The New Republic. The speciality of TNR is being a pro-Democrat magazine that attacks Democrats. My favorite member is St. Petersburg resident Mel Sembler. He is known to longtime Pushing Rope readers for having his discarded penis pump put on sale on Ebay by Richard Bradbury. Bradbury did this in protest to the physical and mental avbuse he suffered in the teen program Save Our Society from Drugs. The program is run by Sembler's wife Betty. The Semblers sued Bradbury for putting the penis pump on Ebay.

Libby has some intertesting friends. That might explain why Scooter wrote his bizarre Japanese novel The Apprentice. Here is a choice paggage.

"The man called out to the others that the deer was still warm. He asked if they should fuck the deer"

That's not a question one gets asked everyday.

Why New Republic Is Still Useless

The bizarre logic (hey, that Iraq war was a good idea) of the New Republic continues. James Forsyth makes the argument that the Democrats shouldn't try to win the midterm elections. His reasoning is so Republicans can win the White House in 2008. You can't beat that tactically brilliant logic.

Yes, it would be strange for Democrats to root against their own party this fall; and there are plenty of reasons a Democratic victory this year could bolster the party heading into 2008. But in one crucial respect a Republican victory this November could dampen the odds that a Republican will succeed Bush in the White House. Consider that the GOP has three potential candidates for 2008--Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, and Condoleezza Rice--with 50-percent-plus approval ratings from Democrats, Republicans, and independents alike. The Democrats have none. An opponent with these kinds of numbers would be more or less impossible to defeat. But if Republicans maintain their majorities, it becomes far more likely that Democrats will not have to face one of these candidates--or if they do, that the GOP candidate's moderate credentials, and hence his or her crossover appeal, will have been severely damaged before the general election.

Condoleezza Rice and Rudy Giuliani don't have a chance in hell of getting the Republican nomination. Conservatives aren't going to vote for a black or a New York City candidate who is pro-choice. Rice hasn't even showed signs that she is running. How Forsyth views Rice as a potential "electoral savior" for a party intolerant of civil rights is unexplained. The Christian Right has a deep distrust of McCain. They won't forgot his "don't pander to them" comments in 2000.

``Neither party should be defined by pandering to the outer reaches of American politics and the agents of intolerance, whether they be Louis Farrakhan or Al Sharpton on the left, or Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell on the right,'' McCain, who has appealed to independent and Democratic voters, said in speech to about 1,500 people at Cox High School.

McCain is doing a lot of pandering to Falwell now. It may be too little too late.

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