THE OTHER SHOE DROPS: Updates To Previous Posts
† The Media Love Obama, But He Doesn’t Love Them Back: The New Republic reports that Barack Obama’s campaign trashed an article written by New York Times chief political correspondent Adam Nagourney in an e-mail that was sent to several pundits and political bloggers, without first giving Nagourney the courtesy of discussing their gripes:
Nagourney awoke to an e-mail from Talking Points Memo writer Greg Sargent asking him to comment on an eight-point rebuttal trashing his piece that the Obama campaign had released to reporters and bloggers like The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder and Politico's Ben Smith. Nagourney had not heard the complaints from the Obama camp and had no idea they were so steamed. "I'm looking at this thing, and I'm like, 'What the hell is this?' " Nagourney recently recalled. "I really flipped out."
Later that afternoon, Nagourney got permission from Times editors to e-mail Sargent a response to the Obama memo. But the episode still grates. "I've never had an experience like this, with this campaign or others," Nagourney tells me. "I thought they crossed the line. If you have a problem with a story I write, call me first. I'm a big boy. I can handle it. But they never called. They attacked me like I'm a political opponent." [Emphasis, The Stiletto]
But after bestowing a huge dowry on Obama, the MSM is finding out that “a pretty face don’t make no pretty heart”:
Reporters are grumbling more and more that the campaign is acting like the Prom Queen. They gripe that it is "arrogant" and "control[ling]," and the campaign's own belief that Obama is poised to make history isn't endearing, either. The press certainly helped Obama get so far so fast; the question is, how far can he get if his campaign alienates them? …
Reporters who cover Obama these days grouse that Obama's flacks shroud the campaign in secrecy and provide little to no access. "They're more disciplined than the Bush people," a reporter on the Obama trail gripes. "There was this idea of being transparent, but they're not. They're total tightwads with information." …
As tensions escalate, the risk to Obama, of course, is that reporters will be emboldened to challenge his campaign ever more aggressively.
Or to put it another way:
Don't, don't you want me
You know I can't believe it when I hear that you won't see me
Don't, don't you want me
You know I don't believe you when you say that you don't need me
It's much too late to find
You think you've changed your mind
You'd better change it back or we will both be sorry
† Legal Briefs: David Remes, who famously dropped his drawers to demonstrate how 15 Yemeni terrorists he is representing are searched for contraband by their guards at Guantánamo Bay, has announced he will leave Covington & Burling after 25 years to focus solely on human rights litigation, reports The BLT: The Blog of LegalTimes. Remes denies his decision to leave had nothing to do with his little striptease, and that he had informed Covington of his plans back in May.
[Hat Tip: The Heel, an Ivy-educated attorney with a prestigious New York firm, and occasional contributor to this blog.]
Anna Gaines, a Mexican who came to the U.S. legally and became a citizen and is gathering petition signatures for the group, tells The Associated Press: “We have to remove him before he causes any more damage to this city.”
Gordon was re-elected last year with 77 percent of the vote. American Citizens United needs to collect 24,000 valid signatures from registered voters by August 28th to force a recall election to be held.
† Updates To Previous Posts: (third item, "Après Spitzer"): NY’s State Commission on Public Integrity has concluded that four former officials in former Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s administration violated the state’s Public Officers Law by using the State Police to track State Senator Joseph Bruno’s trips via state-owned airplanes in an effort to tarnish a political foe, reports New York Law Journal:
The Commission on Public Integrity concluded that the four "misused their official positions to cause the State Police to engage in conduct that was wholly unrelated to the State Police's statutory mandate" to detect and prevent crime.
While the commission said its members recognize that politicians and their staffs routinely seek to provide to the press “negative or embarrassing information about their opponents,” the use of the police to do so here, and the misuse of the state Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) to justify it, elevated the former officials' actions into violations of the code of ethics in the Public Officers Law.
According to the commission’s report, Preston Felton (then acting State Police superintendent), Darren Dopp (former communications director), Richard Baum (Spitzer's ex-secretary) and William Howard (who was the liaison between Spitzer's office and the State Police) all ran afoul of Public Officers Law §74(3)(h) by engaging in conduct that suggests they have violated the public trust. Felton was also charged with violations of POL §74(c) and (d) for allowing police personnel to gather negative information about Bruno's travel and divulge it to the media, and Dopp was charged with violating POL §74(3)(d) for using his official position to secure unwarranted privileges from the State Police.
In addition to imposing civil fines, the commission can refer the report to local or state prosecutors, but Albany County District Attorney P. David Soares and Attorney General Andrew Cuomo have already determined no laws were broken.
The commission concluded there is no evidence Spitzer knew that Bruno's travel records were being compiled by State Police or were released in violation of the state Freedom of Information Law (FOIL), but slammed the former governor for unnecessarily prolonging the investigation with a variety of stonewalling tactics, including “spurious claims of privilege” to withhold documents.
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