Tag Archives: wall street journal

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jerry brown’s “investigations” are campaign stops

It must be campaign season. How else do you explain Jerry Brown’s recent fascination with investigations and allegations announced with lots of media in tow and advantageously timed to benefit traditional Democratic constituencies and issues? There is no doubt that the Brown campaign committee and political advisors are strategically planning the roll-out of official attorney general “investigations” to maximize public attention and perception. But what is most troubling about Jerry Brown’s use of the Attorney General’s office to campaign for his return to the governor’s mansion is that his cavalier press conferences, media interviews and announced investigations are only chasing Democratic political issues while ignoring real public safety concerns. Brown has turned the Attorney General’s Office into a political machine with subpoena power — and Republicans and their allies are the target.

In the month of April alone, Brown has launched investigations to embarrass Sarah Palin, aggressively promote union membership, clear ACORN of criminal activities, play catch-up on the Wall Street scandal by trumping up charges against Wall Street giant Moody’s, go after an oil company politically active in defeating California’s new green house gas emissions law, and grab headlines on issues ranging from home foreclosures to former child star Corey Haim’s death. In just one month, Brown has shown that his race for governor starts by using his legal office to help traditional Democratic allies beat back their opponents. The tactics Jerry Brown is using and the public position he is abusing leaves the public with no other choice but to ask Brown to give up his position as the top law enforcement official in California if he is to run an honest campaign for governor.

Brown has promoted his investigation of Sarah Palin’s speech at California State University Stanislaus nationwide in an attempt to raise campaign money from Democrats across the U.S. By using the Attorney General’s office to investigate the Democrat’s favorite villain, Brown has turned the AG’s office into his political fundraising operation. It just isn’t credible for Brown to suggest that Palin’s speech contract deserves the scrutiny of the top law enforcement agency in California – no matter what the details of the contract are. Brown’s hyperbolic and emotional rants on the issue just don’t pass the straight-face test.

Brown has also taken aim at a Texas based oil company that recently launched an initiative in California to stop a state greenhouse gas bill from taking effect in 2012. Valero is leading the challenge to AB 32, an anti-business bill passed in 2006 that will force California businesses to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 25% with costly mandatory caps beginning in 2012. With environmentalists and union leaders aggressively supporting AB 32, Brown has gone after their opponent, Valero, who is trying to overturn the law by taking the controversial issue to the people through a statewide ballot initiative.

http://www.sacbee.com/static/weblogs/capitolalertlatest/2010/03/valero-oil-firm.html

This month, Brown also launched various “investigations” of construction companies that union leaders love to hate. The California Labor Federation, a consortium of 1,200 unions, has been a loud vocal supporter of Brown’s campaign and Brown has happily returned the favor. This is no unbiased union doing the due diligence work of its union members. The union’s website uses the same verbiage as the Brown campaign and covers the same messages, including the exact same lame charges leveled against Brown’s opponent. The obvious quid-pro-quo support appears with Brown’s multiple “investigations” launched against construction companies who don’t support union rules, including two drywall contractors this month alone. The message is clear – either you help Democrats and their allies, or you face possible “investigations” from AG Brown.

http://www.calaborfed.org/index.php/site/page/california_labor_federation_endorses_jerry_brown_for_governor

http://ag.ca.gov/newsalerts/release.php?id=1898

http://ag.ca.gov/newsalerts/release.php?id=1889&&

Another recent target is Moody’s Corporation, the Wall Street rating agency. Why Moody’s? Look no further than Brown’s own press release, which reads: “Moody’s is one of the most profitable companies in the country. It had the highest profit margin of any company in the S&P 500 in the years leading up to 2008 – higher than Google or Microsoft…” In a lame — and late — attempt to seize headlines by grabbing a piece of the Wall Street scandal, Brown launches a political “investigation” of a Wall Street giant to support the latest Democratic talking points.

Brown’s cavalier language when talking about his recent “investigations” is so outrageous and laced with mis-information and unfounded charges that his characterizations are best left on the political stage. The over-the-top language should not be used by methodical and factual law enforcement officials. In an all-out final push to restore his political family’s glory and return to the Governor’s office, Brown has turned his current Attorney General’s office into an aggressive partisan shop where supporters’ favor is curried through subpoenas and innuendos. The business community is being bullied by Brown and his team through Chicago-style politics. If Jerry Brown wants to restore California to its golden days, then he should start by stepping down as attorney general and giving the citizens confidence that the highest law enforcement official in the state will not also be running for governor at the same time.

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this is unbelievable…..but typical

did you see this story? after 10 months of hearing about john edwards’ affair, the national media finally got around to doing the story when edwards admitted it! how can the editors at the new york times and the washington post justify this?? the new york times ran a frontpage story roughly 6 months ago claiming to have proof that john mccain was having an affair – and when the story ran – there was no hard evidence but anonymous sources saying it was so. so what gives when there are rumors that john edwards was having an affair? why not investigate even? could it be that the editors of the new york times are all partisan democrats? you can’t make this stuff up! combine the clear editorial bias with the snooty east coast attitude of looking down on tabloids and you have the reason for 10 months of silence…..read below:

http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB121841411983828503.html?mod=special_page_campaign2008_leftbox

Mainstream Media Notes Enquirer Scoop
By RUSSELL ADAMS and SHIRA OVIDE
August 11, 2008
Page B7
For most of the 10 months since allegations of former Sen. John Edwards’s extramarital affair appeared in the National Enquirer, the story was marginalized, partly because much of the media has a dismissive attitude toward the publication that broke it.
They ignored the story at their peril, forgetting that amid the unflattering celebrity photos and overblown headlines, the Enquirer, a supermarket tabloid owned by publisher American Media Inc. has a track record of scoops, including some about politics. And this time it found an unlikely ally: a group of Internet voices driven less by political ideology than by a view of the mainstream press as out of touch. The Enquirer, a supermarket tabloid, has a track record of scoops, including some about politics, and has at times forced the mainstream press to play catch-up.
The Enquirer, which has been reporting the story for nearly a year and which first published it last October, was vindicated Friday when Mr. Edwards admitted to the affair to Walt Disney Co.’s ABC News. (Mr. Edwards has denied other elements of the Enquirer’s reports, including that he is the father of the woman’s child.) News of the former Democratic senator’s admission subsequently was splashed across most major newspapers. It was the first time many of those publications, including The Wall Street Journal, had weighed in on the topic.
Not so in the blogosphere, where a stable of voices on sites such as Washington Post Co.’s Slate, Huffington Post and Drudge Report had recognized the possibility that the story might be true and questioned the old guard’s inaction. Unlike previous scandals fueled by partisan politics, this one blurred political lines. It was the left-leaning Huffington Post that began investigating the relationship between Mr. Edwards and the woman, Rielle Hunter, around the time the first Enquirer story was published last year.
“New media really helped keep this story alive,” the Enquirer’s Editor in Chief David Perel said. He added that the online voices that propagated the story aren’t as willing to dismiss the Enquirer’s story as “tabloid trash,” as Mr. Edwards is.
Traditional media’s late arrival to the Edwards story stemmed in part from skepticism about the Enquirer, which isn’t taken seriously as a Washington opinion-maker. Indeed, the Edwards news didn’t even get top placement on the cover of the latest issue.
Still, the Enquirer has at times forced the mainstream press to play catch-up, even in the political field typically dominated by more established media outlets. It was the first publication to unearth a photo of Donna Rice sitting on the lap of then-presidential candidate Gary Hart, who was forced to drop out of the 1988 presidential race.
Of course, the paper pays for many of its headline-grabbing interviews and it has had to settle numerous lawsuits, two factors that often have cast doubt on its credibility. In 2004 American Media settled a lawsuit with former U.S. Congressman Gary Condit over stories linking him to the disappearance and death of Chandra Levy.
John Drescher, executive editor of the News & Observer, said the Enquirer’s mixed track record gave him pause. The Raleigh paper had reporters tracking the Edwards story for months, but it and fellow McClatchy Co. paper the Charlotte Observer only began publishing their accounts ten days ago, when editors were satisfied they had confirmed the events to their satisfaction. “The way we treated it was as a tip, but there’s no question that we treated it differently because it was in the Enquirer,” Mr. Drescher said. “I think that’s appropriate.”
The Enquirer makes no apologies for its tactics, including the practice of paying sources, even splashing “We’ll pay big for your celebrity gossip” across its pages every week. It paid a source in reporting the John Edwards story, said David Pecker, American Media’s chairman and chief executive.
The Enquirer’s weekly circulation of just more than one million, while robust, is a long fall from its 1970s peak of more than five-million copies, reflecting the challenge of staying relevant at a time when celebrity coverage has gone mainstream.
And while ad pages are up at many of its publications, the Boca Raton, Fla.-based publisher faces a tough road financially. It said in its latest securities filing in June that if it doesn’t refinance at least $389.5 million of debt by Feb. 1, “we may have to liquidate assets, seek protection from creditors or may be unable to continue as a going concern.”

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profile of richard grenell

http://newsmax.com/kessler/Richard_Grenell_at_un/2008/08/11/119512.html

U.S. Spokesman at the U.N. Makes His Mark
Monday, August 11, 2008 2:35 PM
By: Ronald Kessler

In February 2006, both The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times ran editorials saying that John Bolton, America’s ambassador to the United Nations, was right to reject sham proposals to reform the United Nations Human Rights Commission.
Noting that some of the world’s most abusive regimes hold seats on it, the Times called the commission “disgraceful.”
The paper even applauded Bolton’s refusal to go along with a “shameful charade” to make cosmetic changes in the commission.
The New York Times is normally a cheerleader for the United Nations and a critic of the Bush administration, not to mention then U.S. Ambassador John Bolton.
“It was a coup for Ric Grenell,” says Maggie Farley, who covers the United Nations as bureau chief for the Los Angeles Times.
Since 2001, Grenell has been the U.S. spokesman at the United Nations, a position officially called “director of communications and public diplomacy for the U.S. permanent representative to the United Nations.”
“He had both The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times saying that Bolton was right and Secretary General Kofi Annan was wrong,” Farley recalled, noting his ability to reach out to the media.
Working Behind the Scenes
Grenell is a not exactly a household name; he stays in the background and works diligently behind the scenes to make his bosses look good as he promotes and protects America’s reputation. The longest-serving U.N. spokesman, Grenell has advised four U.S. ambassadors — John D. Negroponte, John C. Danforth, John R. Bolton, and Zalmay Khalilzad the current U.S. ambassador — on the formulation and articulation of U.S. policy at the United Nations.
Grenell has a no-nonsense approach – he quickly responds to attacks against the United States. That has raised some hackles among reporters who see the United Nations as a perfect launch pad for anti-American diatribes.
Still, many of the most respected reporters who cover the United Nations and State Department view him as a breath of fresh air who makes their jobs easier while getting the U.S. message out to the world. In that respect, many of them say, the White House press office could take a few lessons from Grenell.
Few outside the media grasp how much a good public relations person can shape coverage. Reporters are human, and if they are given respect and attention, they are more likely to be open to the official line. If they are ignored or simply “fed” a story, they often take it out on the agency or person they are covering.
“Ric Grenell is one of the sharpest press officers I’ve dealt with,” James Rosen, Washington correspondent for Fox News, tells Newsmax.
“He knows the policy underlying the talking points, the personalities, and the issues. He also understands the black-is-white, up-is-down bizarro world that the United Nations can sometimes become. Ric can be exceptionally helpful to an honest reporter — when he wants to be . . .
“The U.S. government is lucky to have him.”
Grenell looks younger than his 41 years. He’s articulate, well dressed, and comes across as poised as a veteran politician. In fact, before arriving at the United Nations, Grenell earned his stripes in the political world.
He worked on several political campaigns, then served as press secretary on Capitol Hill to then Congressman Mark Sanford — who went on to become South Carolina’s governor — and Congressman Dave Camp of Michigan.
From Washington he moved on to Albany and served as a spokesman for New York Gov. George Pataki. Later he joined San Diego Mayor Susan Golding as her press secretary.
Despite his media background, Grenell said dealing with the press at the United Nations offered different challenges.
“The U.N. press corps viewed themselves as international civil servants,” Grenell told Newsmax. “They certainly were journalists, but they viewed themselves differently than the press corps of Washington. They saw themselves as helping the world’s poor and needy. They were friends with Secretary General Kofi Annan, and they felt it was their job to trumpet the obscure reports produced by him and the U.N. They weren’t, for example, looking at how the billions of dollars were spent at the U.N.”
As aggressive reporters for Fox News, The New York Sun, and a few other news outlets arrived on the scene, “The press corps began to have a fight among themselves,” Grenell remembers.
“The old deans of the U.N. press corps immediately started talking loudly about those who were rocking the boat. And what really irritated me at this point was those old deans of the press corps not only were upset that people were rocking the boat and doing stories that they weren’t supposed to do, but they dismissed these people as not really true journalists. It was that elitist attitude of, You just don’t know the world, and we do.”
So, Grenell says, he focused on helping “those journalists who wanted to act like journalists.”
Instead of deferring to The New York Times and Washington Post, Grenell began pushing his staff to go online, blog, start MySpace and Facebook pages, and reach out to the new media.
“I’m not from the East Coast, and I don’t think like an East Coast press person,” Grenell says. “I don’t naturally think The Washington Post and New York Times are the be-all, end-all. I understand it’s all about digital media.”
Farley of the Los Angeles Times confirms, “Ric was very aware of the online presence of new media like The Huffington Post and Slate, and he made sure the news was accessible to them.”
Normally, government spokesmen confine themselves to passively working with the daily press. But Grenell made a point of reaching out to editorial writers, including those at The New York Times.
“I was doing monthly editorial writers’ calls with our ambassador to update the editorial writers, even at medium-size papers,” Grenell says. “When you have a conference call with the ambassador to the U.N., these people get very connected into what we are doing.”
At least once a week, Grenell checks in with two editorial writers at The New York Times. Such proactive work often pays dividends, as it did when the Times ran its Feb. 26, 2006 editorial, “The Shame of the United Nations.”
“When it comes to reforming the disgraceful United Nations Human Rights Commission,” the editorial said, “America’s ambassador, John Bolton, is right; Secretary General Kofi Annan is wrong.”
“Nobody could believe it,” recalls Farley.
Receptive to All Press Reps
Keeping in mind the need to convey to the rest of the world what America stands for, especially in the wake of Sept. 11, Grenell has cultivated the Arab press.
“All of the Arab bureau chiefs are integral to what we are doing here at the U.S. mission, and so I befriended them and really reached out to them, socialized with them,” Grenell says.
“I joined them on domestic trips sponsored by the State Department, so that I could encourage these Arab journalists to see more of America and understand that America is more than just Washington and New York.”
Grenell took them not only to Chicago, Denver, and Kansas City, but also to Las Vegas.
“Ric strongly defended his government’s position but always gave me the informational tools I needed to build a comprehensive and meaningful picture of that position for my audience,” says Abderrahim Foukara, bureau chief of Al-Jazeera Satellite Channel.
“On many occasions, he arranged for me to hear that position from the horse’s mouth, in one-on-ones with those representatives, whatever the issues may have been. This is extremely significant in light of the difficulty that some of my colleagues experienced in getting that kind of access to people and information in Washington.”
Raghida Dergham, senior diplomatic correspondent at the pan-Arab newspaper Al-Hayat, says she never felt like a second-class citizen because her publication is not American.
“Ric Grenell changed the tier system and understood that he served American policies best at the U.N. though dealing with the international press as equal to the American press,” she says.
Grenell uses the carrot and the stick: If he feels certain reporters are not interested in doing an honest story, he shuns them.
“When we’re dealing with reporters who are biased from the beginning, and who don’t allow us to speak our mind and explain our policies, then that’s a vicious cycle,” Grenell says.
And if a reporter gets a story wrong, he tells him.
“I fully believe that it is my job to follow the story to the end,” Grenell says. “If a reporter writes a story that is erroneous, I feel that it is my responsibility to the public to correct the record as much as possible.”
Grenell says his job is to get the story out; he only has a limited number of ways to do that.
“I ask myself every day, ‘Am I getting the story out? Am I explaining our policy enough?’” he says.
As noted in the Newsmax story “Dana Perino: Press Job Like Herding Cattle,” President Bush’s approach is to present his message publicly in speeches and press conferences. Bush believes this approach minimizes leaks.
When it comes to the press, the White House has been known as a buttoned-down operation, often unwilling to feed the media even harmless tidbits that would make their stories more colorful and help to tame snarky reporters.
If Grenell differs in his approach from the more traditional White House press operation, that has not raised eyebrows at the White House.
“They recognize that New York is a different place and that the U.N. press corps is a huge challenge,” he says, “so they have given me a long leash.”
Ronald Kessler is chief Washington correspondent of Newsmax.com.

© 2008 Newsmax. All rights reserved.

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