Howard Kurtz is no better than Fox News in terms of honestly analyzing politics. Both fail. They have a theory and then they look for facts to back it up, rather than looking at the facts and then producing a theory.
Al Franken's book "Liars: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right" is humorous and well worth reading, but underneath the humor the concept is simply to use a top team of Harvard researchers and have them look at the arguments and theories that right-wing pundits make.
Franken finds many ways that these pundits distort facts: taking quotes out of context, drawing conclusions that aren't supported by facts or quotes, using only partial quotes, faulty time-lines, simply stating something that is different from what the quotes actually said, and the classic bate and switch.
We would hope that Kurtz would hold his reporting to a higher standard. Unfortunately, in his February 29 article, "The Dean Campaign's Hip, High-Tech Image Hid a Nasty Civil War," he does not. The question now is, should I send this to every reporter and editor at the Washington Post. Oooh, I hate when members of the media treat the public like a bunch of morons.
Case 1: (Drawing conclusions that aren't supported by facts or quotes.)
"Behind the facade of a successful political operation, senior officials plotted against each other, complained about the candidate and developed one searing doubt.
Dean, they concluded, did not really want to be president."
In the roughly 4,000 word article, Kurtz uses only one fact to back up this claim:
"It was during this period that some senior officials became convinced that Dean wasn't serious about doing what it takes to win the White House, especially when he refused repeated requests to ask his wife, Judith Steinberg Dean, to make even an occasional campaign appearance. Dean did not respond to an interview request, but O'Connor believes he never wavered in his desire to be president."
Kurtz states that Dean did not want to be president because... he would not make his wife, who is a fulltime doctor, campaign with him. WHAT?
Case 2: (Drawing conclusions that aren't supported by facts or quotes.)
On a plane ride that spring, Dean asked Trippi about working out a contract for his salary and for his consulting firm to handle the advertising. As Trippi has recounted to several colleagues, he told Dean to deal with his partner McMahon because he didn't want a salary and wasn't doing this for the money. Dean's response, according to these accounts, was to tell another staffer that he would not give Trippi financial control of the campaign because "he doesn't care about money and I don't want anyone who doesn't care about money managing the money."
Fact A: Trippi was not working for Dean for the money.
Fact B: Dean wanted some else to handle the financing part of his campaign.
But Kurtz's conclusion is: "A pattern of suspicion and doubt had been set." WHAT?
Case 3: (Drawing conclusions that aren't supported by facts or quotes.)
This time Kurtz leads with a conclusion: "The internal struggle produced sharp disagreements about dealing with the legions of reporters who were investigating or traveling with Dean."
Kurtz's facts: "The candidate and some of his advisers came to feel under siege by the media, while some correspondents were irritated by a campaign they viewed as not ready for prime time.
Dean's often testy relations with journalists were exacerbated, several officials said, by what one who spent time on the trail called O'Connor's "contemptuous attitude toward the press."
What Kurtz actually proves here: There was a struggle between the media and the candidate.
Case 4: (Faulty time lines.)
Kurtz's prose:
"The warfare continued over Dean's message, the outsider-against-Washington-special-interests pitch that Trippi had developed in a PowerPoint presentation, tested in polls and, despite O'Connor's concerns, used to sell the candidate to major labor unions.
Dean's policy director, Jeremy Ben-Ami, declared in an e-mail: "The message of the campaign is simply no longer our campaign vs. the special interests. This is not what the governor wants to be saying -- or frankly what he ever really wanted to be saying."
Joe Drymala, the chief speechwriter who received the e-mail, resigned in protest. "I refused to believe it because I didn't want to," he said. "To believe that was to believe that Howard Dean was a fraud."
Ben-Ami said he was explaining that Dean "wanted his message to be at least equally focused on solutions and his record."
Time line fraud: Joe Drymala quit the Dean campaign "a few days after Joe did." (Drymala's post of February 21 on Trippi's "Changefor America" website.) This means that the email was sent after Trippi had left. Yet, Kurtz says, "The warfare continued..." and finished by saying "Trippi argued." This implies that this email was part of an continuous battle between Dean's "Washington" supporters and Dean's "Vermont" supporters. In reality, the email was sent after Trippi left and it was clearly not part of a warfare.
Case 5: (The classic bate and switch.)
Same section:
Ben-Ami wrote in his email: "The message of the campaign is simply no longer our campaign vs. the special interests. This is not what the governor wants to be saying -- or frankly what he ever really wanted to be saying." - The important word here is "simply" - Howard Dean wanted and always wanted a broader message than just fighting special interest groups. That is TRUE.
Ben-Ami said he was explaining that Dean "wanted his message to be at least equally focused on solutions and his record." TRUE, that is exactly what he wrote in his email.
Now, Kurtz uses the old bate and switch. "But Trippi argued that John Kerry and John Edwards had beaten them in Iowa by stealing the message." Yes, TRUE, Kerry and Edwards had beaten them in Iowa, by among other things, stealing the message. But what has that got to do with Ben-Ami stating Dean did not want to be a one-trick pony? Trippi and Ben-Ami are not contradicting themselves, they are simply talking about different subjects.