A Gun Nut

When we wrote last week about the ridiculous press release put out by the New York State Rifle and Pistol Association claiming that David Yassky lost his run-off primary race for New York City Comptroller because he was a proponent of gun control we got the predictable stream of unpublishable screeds and a few comment arguing with our reasoning.

Putting aside the venom, several people wrote to say that Yassky had made gun control an issue in this race, one stating that Yassky had made it a “central issue of his campaign.” Others repeated that assertion in arguing we were off-base.

So since we like to deal with demonstrable facts here let’s cut to the chase. Here are the scripts for Yassky’s four TV spots:

#1 “Know Me”

YASSKY: I’m David Yassky. You don’t know me but I’m going to save you money.

I’ll get rid of government waste and stand up to the special interests.

It’s what I’ve always done.

I worked with Chuck Schumer to pass the Brady Law and the Assault Weapons Ban.

On the Council, I closed tax loopholes for luxury housing developers.

Sued Exxon Mobil to clean up our water.

And I put the entire City Budget online because it’s your money.

As Comptroller, I’ll demand accountability. The buck will stop with me and I will watch every penny.

#2 “Behind”

YASSKY: Behind every dollar that government wastes is a child without a textbook, or a senior without a hot meal.

And behind every budget loophole is a special interest that benefits.

That’s why I put the entire City budget online so taxpayers can see how our money is being spent.

As Comptroller, I’ll demand accountability and results for every dollar, and eliminate waste and sweetheart deals with tough audits of City agencies.

I’m David Yassky. The buck will stop with me and I’ll watch every penny, because it’s your money.

#3 “Endorse”

NARRATOR: For Comptroller, the New York Times endorses David Yassky as the candidate “most suited to do the job, with skill, intelligence, and independence.”

The Times praises Yassky’s work on affordable housing, gun control, and for putting the City budget online.

Democrat David Yassky for Comptroller.

#4 “Marty”

SCRIPT—“Marty.”

MARKOWITZ: Brooklyn’s got the best. Junior’s, Nathan’s, Cake Man Raven, Yassky.

WOMAN: Yassky? What’s a Yassky?

MARKOWITZ: David Yassky. Running for City Comptroller. He’s my guy.

NARRATOR: Democrat David Yassky. In the Council, he closed tax loopholes for developers, sued Exxon Mobil to clean up Greenpoint, and put the City budget online because it’s your money. As Comptroller, Yassky will demand accountability with tough audits of City agencies. The buck will stop with him and he’ll watch every penny.

WOMAN: Wow, we’ll take a Yassky.

MARKOWITZ: Me too.

MARKOWITZ: Brooklyn’s got the best. Junior’s, Nathan’s, Cake Man Raven, Yassky.

WOMAN: Yassky? What’s a Yassky?

MARKOWITZ: David Yassky. Running for City Comptroller. He’s my guy.

NARRATOR: Democrat David Yassky. In the Council, he closed tax loopholes for developers, sued Exxon Mobil to clean up Greenpoint, and put the City budget online because it’s your money. As Comptroller, Yassky will demand accountability with tough audits of City agencies. The buck will stop with him and he’ll watch every penny.

WOMAN: Wow, we’ll take a Yassky.

MARKOWITZ: Me too.

Sure enough when we wrote that there was no mention of gun control in the papers or TV coverage of this race we failed to recognize that there was a mention — actually two — in the ads Yassky put on local cable channels. Fair enough. We were wrong. But isn’t it true that the first mention is really just a way to point up his endorsement from wildly popular New York Senator Chuck Schumer? And isn’t the second one of several items the New York Times mentioned in their editorial endorsement of Yassky? It’s quite a stretch to say he made gun control a “central issue of his campaign.”

The truth is none of the people writing in addressed this from our last post:

And follow the logic: If “the citizens of New York City have delivered an unambiguous rebuke to the gun control movement” then Sen. Chuck Schumer should be in deep doo-doo. He’s up for reelection in 2010. So how are his poll numbers holding up? According to the Marist Poll last month 6 in 10 New Yorkers think he’s doing an excellent or good job — just 13% think he’s doing a poor job.

Please answer this question before you send out another round of “Yassky-lost-because-of guns” missives.

And while you’re at it explain to me, if gun control was a “central issue” in a very low turnout election in which every political pro will tell you organized labor backing is the only guarantee of victory, how it is that Bill de Blasio running for Public Advocate on the very same day, won. Unlike Yassky, de Blasio got a pretty fair amount of ink and airplay for airbrushing out a gun necklace on his daughter’s neck from a campaign flier. Remember that de Blasio was Hillary Clinton’s first campaign manager and has always supported Mike Bloomberg’s anti-gun crusades.

If Yassky lost because of guns, then Bill de Blasio should have lost for the same reason. But wait. He won, didn’t he. Facts are stubborn things.

Daily News uber-blogger-reporter Liz Benjamin was in the courtroom today for yet another hearing with Supreme Court Justice Thomas McNamara on the “Who’s in Charge of the Senate” case. You’ll recall the Dems and Republicans have been in McNamara’s court seemingly every couple of hours for the past few days with the same result: McNamara tells them to go act like adults, figure out a compromise, and let the court deal with court stuff.

So when he adjourned today’s hearing with the same sentiment someone laughed. Out loud. And reporters took note. Now Liz has fessed up:

I have to confess that it was me who laughed audibly from the back of the courtroom when the judge said he was adjourning this matter yet again. That sparked the following response from the bench.

“The laughs that I hear are understandable. And I’ll be honest with you, coming out here today and going through this ritual is not something that I’m really getting enjoyment out of.”

“However, given the importance of what we’re dealing with and the resolution of which, in my opinion – I’ve expressed this throughout this entire proceeding – is best left to people of another branch of government despite the understandable reaction I think I have an obligation personally…and in the function of my job to allow the process to continue in a manner if I feel that progress is being made and if the system that I represent is not being abused.”

McNamara warned – again – that he is, “at some point,” going to reach a moment when he will “do my job,” adding: “But with the hope of a resolution that could be reached by the parties, I am willing to allow it to continue to go forward.”

Ha hahahahahahaha. Kudos to Liz for both admitting she was the “guilty” party and for doing the right thing: Laughing at the pathetic circus that 62 men and women elected and paid to legislate have instead created. The judge should take a hint from Liz and laugh in the faces of the lawyers and their clients. “Screw you! Fix it yourselves!” That’s the quote we’d like to see.

UPDATE

Apparently the judge agrees with us. McNamara finally ruled and now the real fun begins. Bipartisan compromise. I kinda miss Joe Bruno right about now…

Keith Olbermann

Orginally posted 3/29, updated 4/11

Hey if the New York Post can write great, if somewhat misleading headlines, why can’t I?

The equation that liberal Keith and conservative Bill were essentially separated at birth may not apply in all ways but in at least one they are equal: Both are blowhards who seem almost incapable of admitting mistakes.

(Each has one major exception to this: Olbermann famously wrote the “Mea Culpa” essay for Salon in 2002 about his experience at ESPN and O’Reilly admitted in 2004 he was wrong in believing President Bush’s claims about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq).

The latest incident involves a bizarre Olbermann attack on a supposedly fake Twitter account set up in his name that the acerbic host claimed was set up by one of his enemies at Fox News. A week and a half ago Olbermann did is usual over-the-top routine on Twitter and made it his “Worst Person in the World” for the alleged transgression. But it turns out almost no part of the story was true and Olbermann and MSNBC refuse to respond.

Red State summarizes all this here and a post on Daily Kos confirms a key part (that NBC set up the Twitter account for Olbermann and had staffers post to it — see item #5). It seems that Olbermann went on a rhetorical rampage without doing much, if any, checking to see if his claims were true.

Olbermann apparently got almost everything wrong:

• The Countdown Twitter account was not a fake  — and in fact there were two of them. Here’s Twitter founder Biz Stone’s Tweet on the matter:

Funny story about the @keitholbermann account—MSNBC was running it and Keith didn’t know when he called us the Worst in the World (D’oh!) 5:22 PM Mar 24th from web

• The man he accused of setting it up is not a Fox News stooge but a very critical former employee who sounds much more like somone Olbermann would quote instead of slime.
• It’s hard to set up a Twitter account (“I’m not on Twitter. I tried to sign up last summer but abandoned the project.”).
• And that the “junk email” Olbermann claims tipped him off was actually junk email. It was, apparently, a invite to follow someone on Twitter which would have been familiar to any Twitter user has Olbermann actually shown it to one.

One unremarked part of this story is how little coverage it has gotten from obvious Olbermann fans like the HuffPo. After an initial report showing video of Olbermann’s rant there has been no follow up. Can you imagine what the liberal netroots would say if the shoe were on O’Reilly’s foot?

The point is not that the liberal or conservative netroots and media are one-sided and sometimes right or wrong — that goes without saying — but that partisans who believe only they speak the truth are dangerously deluded and add nothing to helping people understand what’s really going on in the country and world.

Get Real is all about casting a skeptical eye on our nation of loudmouths. This is why.

UPDATE

Well it took some time but Keith finally admitted he was wrong. Sort of. It’s obviously incredibly painful for him. Like giving birth to a hippo. Watch and see for yourself. I’m thinking this doesn’t really deserve a Mea Ciulpa….

Note: this is video contains the Olbermann “response” and was produced by Caleb Howe of the ActiCons blog.

News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch

As much as we love to reward those who own up to their mistakes it’s a little hard to take Rupert Murdoch’s mea culpa over the NY Post Chimp-Obama cartoon at face value. Here’s what he wrote in an item place in a small box at the bottom of Page 2 in Tuesday’s Post.

“As the Chairman of the New York Post, I am ultimately responsible for what is printed in its pages. The buck stops with me. Last week, we made a mistake. We ran a cartoon that offended many people. Today I want to personally apologize to any reader who felt offended, and even insulted. Over the past couple of days, I have spoken to a number of people and I now better understand the hurt this cartoon has caused. At the same time, I have had conversations with Post editors about the situation and I can assure you – without a doubt – that the only intent of that cartoon was to mock a badly written piece of legislation. It was not meant to be racist, but unfortunately, it was interpreted by many as such. We all hold the readers of the New York Post in high regard and I promise you that we will seek to be more attuned to the sensitivities of our community.”

Why it took six days for someone in charge at the Post to apologize is a valid question and one the paper’s PR folks have not answered for Get Real yet. But it’s probably a fairly simple case of following the money.

Al Sharpton is meeting with the FCC in Washington tomorrow to discuss the waiver the agency granted Murdoch that allows him to own two TV stations (Channels 5 and 9) and a newspaper (Post) in a single market in violation of Federal law. In the wake of the cartoon Sharpton said he wanted to go not after the newspaper but after the corporate parent and the license waiver was a major benefit to News Corp.

So Rupe’s mea culpa is likely tinged with more than a bit of practicality. Still, at least he said it.

The other mea culpa comes from me. Back at the end of January on the heals of several polls testing what New Yorkers thought of Governor Paterson I wrote: “Pundits be damned, the public is NOT blaming Paterson for the Caroline Kennedy fiasco (and) Paterson is still widely popular, and all things being equal, he is not in a particularly tough position for a campaign that will begin a year from now.”

I continued after noting that one poll showed Paterson to be essentially tied with Andrew Cuomo in a hypothetical primary: “Oooo delicious, right? Not so fast. Andrew Cuomo has clawed his way back to respectability after primarying Carl McCall in 2002 thus earning what looked to be the everlasting enmity of African-American (and plenty of other) Dems who thought it mighty uncool for the brash young scion to try and keep New York from possibly electing it’s first black Governor. So what’s he gonna do now that he’s in (almost) everyone’s good graces? Take on New York’s actual first black Governor? Not on your life unless top African American politicos like Rangel, Sharpton, and some guy named Obama throw Dave over the transom. If that happens there won’t be a primary because Paterson will resign or find himself Ambassador of [insert obscure country here].”

Well, fast-forward one month and Jay doesn’t look so smart any more. A new Siena Poll shows just how badly things have gone from not-so-bad to meltdown. In this survey Paterson’s favorables are now down to 40% with his unfavorables at 47%. The damage is in the suburbs (34%-55%), among women (35%-48%), and worst for him, among Democrats (44%-41%).

Put another way only one quarter of registered Democrats say they would vote for him in 2010 and in that hypothetical primary Cuomo now would beat Paterson 53% – 27%. When Siena then ran hypothetical general election matchups with Rudy Giuliani as the Republican candidate (which some very smart observers believe is a very unlikely prospect for the now wealthy jet-setting former Mayor and failed Presidential candidate) against Paterson or Cuomo, Giuliani handily beats Paterson but Cuomo handily beats Rudy.

So…I was wrong, or at least premature in January to say Paterson was not in a tough position for 2010. He has spent the last month mired in ineffectiveness making his Caroline-Gillibrand kerfuffle look like a stroke of managerial genius. As I noted in January Democrats — especially prominent African American Democrats — will need to make the first move but if Paterson’s performance in the polls is not better by the fall watch the Rangels and Sharptons of this world very closely.

If they move an “irresistible” offer of an ambassadorship to East Wintogia won’t be far behind.

IBO Director Ronnie Lowenstein (NY Times)

Mea Culpa! Apparently after all those years of a President who couldn’t think of a single mistake he’d made and corporate executives who couldn’t find a failure they wouldn’t reward, mea culpa’s are back.

Earlier this week New York City’s Independent Budget Office released it’s annual “how we would fix this screwy city budget if we could” report (Budget Options for New York City). It contained dozens of ideas for how the city could save hundreds of millions by changing some big and small things about the way the city does business.

One of those ideas involved cutting the city’s contribution to the pension plan for workers at “private cultural institutions” which sounded like a pretty good idea. After all why should the curator at the Met have a taxpayer-funded pension? The IBO estimated changing that policy would save about $25 million a year.

But they goofed. And Thursday they admitted it:

“In IBO’s ‘Budget Options for New York City’ released yesterday, we presented an option entitled Eliminate Pension Payments for Employees of Private Cultural Institutions (page 27). We estimated that this action would save $25 million annually. In fact, the Cultural Institutions Retirement System also includes employees of dozens of child care centers in the city. While the city’s payment to the Cultural Institutions Retirement System will be about $25 million this fiscal year, $17 million will be for the pensions of child care workers. That means the savings from eliminating the city’s pension contribution for cultural institution employees would be $8 million.”

Kudos to the IBO for fessing up and doing so pretty fast.

Plus even $8 million bucks is something. Mayor B? Whaddya think?

Oh, and one more. MSNBC host Keith Olbermann did his own mea culpa too. This one over his gleeful reporting about that the boss of arch-rival Fox News allegedly told analysts on a conference call earlier in the week.

The original transcript showed News Corp CEO Rupert Murdoch saying his has ”never been a company that tolerates facts.” That of course was too delicious for Olbermann to pass up. Unfortunately it turned out the transcript was wrong.

To his credit Olbermann admitted he’d screwed up — or at least that the transcript company had screwed up and he’d repeated their error.

Hey. It’s something.

President Barack Obama

Having just wrapped up a round of radio interviews with stations around the country it looks like the proverbial “Is the honeymoon over?” story is gaining traction. The cumulative effect of a badly marketed (and some say badly devised) stimulus plan coupled with his nominees’ tax problems is that Barack Obama has used up a fair amount of his political capital in a few short weeks.

Of course Obama started with more political capital than any President since FDR so he’s still got plenty of it and his mea cupla yesterday (“I screwed up”) was the perfect antidote to the start-up troubles his Administration has faced. His admissions of mistakes coupled with his acceptance of responsibility is the kind of thing Americans have forgotten people in power actually do.

Remember George W Bush was famously unable to think of any mistakes he had made as President when asked  at televised prime-time news conference in April 2004 what his biggest error had been. And Bill Clinton “did not have sex with that woman.” In Japan executives resign in disgrace when their companies lose money and have to lay people off. In America passing the buck is a time-honored way to the top and failure (especially on Wall Street) is a surefire way to make a fortune.

So what a refreshing change for the President to fess up. But it won’t help keep the honeymoon alive if Obama doesn’t move quickly to restore voters’ faith in him and his party.

Democrats have rebounded by being the party of 1) competence and 2) the working man/woman. When several of Obama’s nominees are discovered not to have paid taxes it undercuts those central themes. If Tom Daschle really didn’t know about the taxes he owed, is he competent to reinvent America’s health care system? And how close to the working folk can Democrats and the Obama White House be when those unpaid taxes were for the use of a privately-supplied limo? That’s what Republicans are supposed to get caught doing!

Obama still enjoys a deep well of support with Americans even if polls show his approval ratings have now come down into the range of mere mortals. A majority of Americans want him to succeed because his failure will be their failure. But their patience is not unlimited.

The nominee problems (if they are over) will be quickly forgotten because right now — and for the foreseeable future — it’s the economy stupid. The stimulus bill (why didn’t they call it a jobs bill? PR 101 folks!) will take time to kick in so the next few weeks are more important to Obama than he may realize. If the American people begin to believe that Obama can NOT turn this economy around then the honeymoon will, at that point, be over. The clock is ticking.

Tom Daschle

When you’re up and your opponent’s on his back the last thing you do is give him a hand. But that’s just what Barack Obama has done for Republicans.

After wracking up a historic win over John McCain and leading his party to big, increased majorities in the Senate and House, Obama has squandered some of his political mojo on one of the oldest White House stumbling blocks — nominees.

When it was just Bill Richardson and some ongoing, not particularly noteworthy investigation, it was manageable. Richardson withdrew and the storm passed. But on this Wednesday, just a few weeks into his first term in office, Obama faces choppy waters that are his (or at least his staff’s) own doing.

First, his pick for Health Secretary, Tom Daschle, withdrew his name. Then his choice to oversee the reinvention of government, Nancy Killefer, did the same. Both falling on their swords over unpaid taxes.

Coincidentally (perhaps) Obama was scheduled to do the network rounds, sitting with the five network anchors Tuesday afternoon to talk up the stimulus bill. Instead the big play was on Daschle’s withdrawal. Smartly Obama sucked it up admitting, “I’ve got to own up to my mistake, which is that ultimately it’s important for this administration to send a message that there aren’t two sets of rules. You know, one for prominent people and one for ordinary folks who have to pay their taxes.” There’s something new and refreshing…. For that entirely uncharacteristic (in a modern President) admission we give a Presidential Mea Culpa!

Tom Daschle may have seemed like the perfect choice to lead Obama’s health care reform push — after all Daschle knew Congress inside out and wasn’t the biggest problem with Bill Clinton’s health care plan that he (and Hillary) didn’t really consult Congress in crafting it? But in picking the consummate insider Obama went against the central tenet of his campaign — “changing” Washington.

Sure the Obama team’s vetting process obviously isn’t as Grade A as we’ve been lead to believe. Sure Daschle’s mistake (not paying income tax on the imputed income of the use of a limo) was probably totally understandable. Sure Daschle (the former Senate Majority Leader) seemed well on his way to Senate confirmation despite the tax issue. And sure, as the Boston Globe pointed out, none of this is new. But that’s all beside the point.

Americans may believe Los Angeles is the land of artifice but Washington isn’t far behind. What matters in DC is perception — not fact. And the growing perception now (courtesy of a reinvigorated GOP) is that Obama is maybe not so different from every other politician — that he, like Bush-Clinton-Bush-Reagan-etc before him, is just another politician who will say anything to get elected but in the end will do all the venal, slightly corrupt things that politicians do.

Obama still has an incredible amount of good will built up with the American people and he still has a solid majority of Democrats in Congress working with/for him. Nothing that Richardson, Daschle, Killefer, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, or Attorney General Eric Holder has done or alleged to have done would disqualify them from getting elected to Congress if the past is any guide. But Obama set a higher bar and the Republican pseudo-populist narrative — Obama wants to give away your tax dollars while surrounding himself with people who don’t even bother paying taxes themselves — has taken root as a result.

The biggest question now is whether this distraction is enough to seriously derail the stimulus bill and whether Americans, so desperately worried about their jobs and the economy, really care about the partisan charges and counter-charges that make Washington both familiar to it’s inhabitants and repulsive to the rest of us.

Obama and Roberts do it again.

So usually we bestow a Mea Culpa on someone who admits he or she screwed up. U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Roberts definitely screwed up in his first Presidential swearing-in reading the words of the oath wrong and making Barack Obama look screwy as well. Roberts didn’t exactly hold a press conference to talk about it — and frankly it was no big deal.