Andrew Sullivan goes there

It was only a matter of time before a wild rumor about the Palin family broke into the mainstream. Now the line has been crossed by Andrew Sullivan, who blogs about it at the Atlantic.com. The rumor: Sarah Palin is not the mother of young Trig Palin. The mother is actually her 16-year-old daughter, Bristol.

I strongly believe Sullivan should have laid off this. I could have linked to it yesterday, but didn't, since at that point it was only fodder for a pseudonymous diarist at the Daily Kos. This is the sort of hurtful story that reputable news organizations should check out thoroughly before injecting into the debate. I mean, come on. Does anyone think Josh Marshall hasn't been following this? Or dozens of other liberal political blogs and Web sites, including Media Nation? None of us went there, and Sullivan shouldn't have, either.

Interestingly, the Huffington Post beat Sullivan with a double-reverse flip, raising it only to tut-tut about ethical standards at the Kos.

But now, thanks to Sullivan's reputation as one of the early blogfathers and the prestige of the Atlantic, this story is, for all intents and purposes, Out There. Which news organization will be the first to debunk it? Or, uh, not?

Instant update: Sullivan is already defending himself:

The job of a press is to ask questions which have a basis in fact. Read for yourself the full chronology here. See whether you are certain there are no legitimate questions worth asking. I have claimed nothing.

Sorry, but it doesn't wash. The job of the press is to ask questions and then to present its findings to the public — or, in this case, if it found nothing, to do its best to make sure the story never saw the light of day.

If Sullivan was that worked up about about the Palin rumor, he should have e-mailed some reporters he knows and asked if they were on the case. This is the definition of a story that shouldn't be hashed out publicly.

Political gold

Let's not kid ourselves — the possibility that the Republican National Convention will be scaled back, and that John McCain will accept the nomination from the Gulf Coast, is political gold for the McCain-Palin ticket.

I'm not saying it's the wrong thing to do. I'm just saying.

Cape Cod blogger is sued for libel

A Cape Cod blogger who criticized a group of Barnstable residents for filing a lawsuit aimed at stopping a dredging project in Barnstable Harbor has himself been sued — for libel.

Peter Robbins, who describes himself on his blog as a retired homicide investigator, wrote a post this past March 11 in which he referred to the anti-dredging suit as "this, NIMBY, frivolous, malicious action is doing nothing but stalling the inevitable and costing us the taxpayers unnecessary time and money." ("NIMBY" stands for "not in my backyard.") And he identified by name the people who brought the suit, saying that "these are the people who are costing you."

I'm not going to wade in too deeply until more information becomes available. So far, the only account of the suit is this one, on the Web site Cape Cod Today, which hosts Robbins' blog. It's impossible to know precisely what constitutes the alleged libel, because Cape Cod Today publisher Walter Brooks reportedly removed "certain phrases and sentences" at the request of Paul Revere III, the lawyer for plaintiff Joseph Dugas, one of the people identified by Robbins as suing to stop the dredging project.

Presumably all parties agree that what's there now is not libelous, so there's no sense in analyzing it. What would be telling is to see what got deleted.

There are several interesting aspects to this suit, and they will be worth following as we learn more:

1. The legal liability of the lone blogger. Under federal law, a Web site such as Cape Cod Today can be considered an Internet service provider exempt from liability if it merely acts as a host for bloggers such as Robbins, and is not involved in actively soliciting, editing and publishing their work. As long as a publisher such as Brooks responds to a request to remove allegedly libelous material, he is free and clear.* That leaves the blogger in an incredibly vulnerable position.

That doesn't mean Cape Cod Today has thrown Robbins over the side of the boat. The site continues to host Robbins' blog, and Brooks himself has been calling people's attention to the suit. But the situation is very different from a reporter for a news organization getting sued, a situation that invariably leads to the organization's being named as a defendant as well.

2. The privacy of anonymous commenters. According to the Cape Cod Today report, Dugas is suing not just Robbins but also an anonymous commenter who posted under the name "noggin." The comment has been removed. Cape Cod Today requires registration before anyone can comment, which means that Brooks and company may know who "noggin" is. That, in turn, could lead to a legal battle over whether to reveal his or her identity. (Presumably "noggin" could have registered under a phony name, too, which would make tracking him or her down much more difficult, but not necessarily impossible.)

3. The role of the anti-SLAPP statute. Robbins' lawyer, Peter Morin, is quoted as saying, "This matter is a textbook example of the justification for an anti-SLAPP statute that protects the right of individuals to comment on matters of significant public concern." The term "SLAPP" stands for "strategic lawsuit against public participation." Morin is claiming that the intent of Dugas' suit is to silence Robbins and prevent him from participating in a matter of public interest. (Judith Miller — yes, that Judith Miller — has written a good piece on anti-SLAPP laws.)

This is of particularly interest to me, as I recently wrote an affidavit on behalf of a defendant in a libel case who was claiming protection under the Massachusetts anti-SLAPP law. In Massachusetts, unlike, say, California, it is not firmly established that anti-SLAPP protection extends to the media — it's aimed more at community activists.

But with small, independently owned newspapers (yes, there are some) and bloggers, the dividing line between community activism and journalism doesn't always exist. Advocacy journalism, after all, is both advocacy and journalism.

To be continued — I'm sure.

*Correction: Not exactly. See the comments of David Ardia in this update.

Photo of Sandy Neck Light in Barnstable Harbor (cc) by Mark Crosby, and republished here under a Creative Commons license. Some rights reserved.

For the bridge before she was against it

As you may have heard, Alaska's two largest daily newspapers have published editorials questioning the Sarah Palin choice. The more negative is the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, which says in part:

Most people would acknowledge that, regardless of her charm and good intentions, Palin is not ready for the top job. McCain seems to have put his political interests ahead of the nation’s when he created the possibility that she might fill it.

The Anchorage Daily News isn't quite so harsh, although this editorial does say "it's stunning that someone with so little national and international experience might be heartbeat away from the presidency."

The Daily News also confirms that stories of Palin's opposition to the "Bridge to Nowhere" are largely fictitious — and that when Palin herself said on Friday, "I told Congress, thanks but no thanks on that bridge to nowhere," she was, at the very least, leaving the most relevant facts unspoken.

"Palin was for the Bridge to Nowhere before she was against it," the Daily News reports, telling us, among other things, that her support for the project was a key issue in her successful 2006 gubernatorial campaign. After federal funding was withdrawn, she changed her mind, leading to accusations that did it in a way to attract national attention.

Let's get real: If federal funding had been withdrawn for the Big Dig, Michael Dukakis and Bill Weld would have been against it.

The Daily News also reports that Walt Monegan, the state commissioner of public safety, whom Palin fired, says both Palin and her husband, Todd Palin, contacted him about her ex-brother-in-law, a state trooper involved in a nasty divorce with Gov. Palin's sister. Monegan claims he was fired in large measure because of his refusal to get rid of the inconvenient trooper.

This would appear to contradict statements made by both Palins. And there may be e-mails.

The not-so-big get

Check out the "Meet the Press" front page right now and you will see this: "Exclusive! Tim Pawlenty."

"The media" cheer Obama (II)

More-direct evidence of how silly The Hill's item was concerning people with press passes cheering for Obama: Charley Blandy of Blue Mass Group saw my post and followed up, noting that BMG bloggers were among those wearing green press passes and cheering.

Blandy writes: "In other words, the reporter at the Hill may well have seen partisan bloggers like us, who had green press credentials, whooping and cheering for Obama. That's a problem because ... ?"

Palin favored the "Bridge to Nowhere"

Flummoxed conservatives looking for something nice to say about Sarah Palin cite her opposition to the "Bridge to Nowhere," a proposed $398 million Alaskan boondoggle that John McCain fought against. For instance, here's what New York Times columnist David Brooks said on "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer" last night:

But what he saw when he looked at her, according to the people I spoke to, is someone who fights the same fights I fight. The first gateway sort of fight that he thought they have in common was the bridge to nowhere. He's been talking about that for years. She's the one who killed it.

Wrong. As The New Republic's Bradford Plumer shows, citing reports from the Anchorage Daily News and Palin's own official statement, Palin supported the bridge at every step, and dropped it from her list of priorities only when it became clear that federal funding wasn't going to be forthcoming. In her statement, she even criticizes congressional opponents of the bridge, including, by implication, McCain:

Despite the work of our congressional delegation, we are about $329 million short of full funding for the bridge project, and it's clear that Congress has little interest in spending any more money on a bridge between Ketchikan and Gravina Island. Much of the public's attitude toward Alaska bridges is based on inaccurate portrayals of the projects here. But we need to focus on what we can do, rather than fight over what has happened.

Here's an AP report from Sept. 22, 2007, noting that Palin had withdrawn her support for the bridge because of lack of funding.

Palin's a global-warming skeptic, too

Which, as the Politico notes, puts her well to the right of John McCain. Even to the right of President Bush.

Ron Fournier on the Palin pick

Last week I criticized the Associated Press' Washington bureau chief, Ron Fournier, for writing what I thought was a dumb and partisan analysis of the Joe Biden pick. Fournier, as I noted, has an interesting history with John McCain, so I was wondering if he would be similarly harsh when writing about McCain's choice.

To Fournier's credit, his analysis of the Sarah Palin nomination is pretty tough. Granted, it would be hard for it not to be given its utter ludicrousness. But Fournier hits all the right notes, observing that McCain himself said just a few months ago that he was determined not to repeat George H.W. Bush's Dan Quayle mistake of 1988 — and making it clear that he just did.

Personally, I think Fournier is wrong about Biden and right about Palin. But he was even-handed.

Covering all the bases

Mark Halperin on the Sarah Palin pick: "John McCain's selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate will either turn out to be a brilliant way for the Republican to scramble the race in his favor — or a disastrous pick that is cast as a desperate act."

Can't disagree. (Thanks to Media Nation reader T.M.)

Palin's anti-science, anti-gay agenda

According to information dug up by Boston Globe religion reporter Michael Paulson, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin not only supports the teaching of creationism in public schools, but opposes state health benefits for same-sex partners — even to the point of supporting a constitutional amendment.

I know John McCain has said some disturbingly supportive things about teaching "intelligent design," but no one thinks he actually believed what he was espousing. Palin, on the other hand, sounds like a true believer. Off the top of my head, it also strikes me that Palin's anti-gay agenda is considerably to the right of McCain's.

Not good.

Dan Quayle in a skirt

John McCain's choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (at left in photo) as his running mate is deeply problematic on two levels.

1. It shows McCain can't adjust quickly to changing events. A woman might have made sense last week. But, right now, it looks as though Republican hopes of peeling off vast numbers of Hillary Clinton supporters are diminishing. No, Clinton voters don't have to march in lockstep with convention delegates. But whatever lingering anger there was between the Obama and Clinton camps had largely dissipated by Wednesday night.

2. It fails to address McCain's biggest weakness. That would be his age (72 today) and his history of cancer. Let me be blunt: If McCain wins, it would surprise no one if his vice president became president in a year or two. Palin is stunningly inexperienced. And before you say, "So's Obama," keep in mind that's the single biggest obstacle Obama needs to overcome. Voters are making judgments about that every day. Running mates are not generally subjected to that level of scrutiny. And it already looks like the vetting process used to select Palin was a little ragged.

If McCain really believed he needed a woman, I'm not sure why he didn't go with Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas. At 72, Sen. Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina is probably too old, but Hutchison is 65.

By far the most intelligent choice would have been former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney. Above all else, McCain needs a plausible president as his running mate. Romney's not the most popular guy in the world, and McCain plainly doesn't like him. But he would have done McCain a lot more good than I suspect Palin's going to do. And given his political and business experience, you can picture him as president.

This is not going to play well, I suspect.

More: Markos Moulitsas, who also thought of Quayle, flips the experience question on its head: "The Sarah Quayle Palin pick is an abandonment of the 'Obama is not ready to lead' attack lines. Those are dead, and to be honest, while that line didn't work for Hillary and it had limited traction for McCain, it still had some traction. That attack line is gone." He's right.

And the Outraged Liberal takes note of the corruption investigation now under way involving Palin's alleged involvement in trying to get her ex-brother-in-law fired from his job as an Alaska state trooper.

Photo (cc) by Tricia Ward and reproduced here under a Creative Commons license. Some rights reserved.

The media and the message

In my latest for the Guardian, I write that liberal commentators were wowed by Obama's speech, while conservatives would prefer to attack Obama himself.

"The media" cheer Obama

From The Hill:

Several members of the media were seen cheering and clapping for Barack Obama as the Illinois senator accepted the Democratic nomination Thursday.

Standing on the periphery of the football field serving as the Democratic convention floor, dozens of men and women wearing green media floor passes chanted along with the crowd.

Is it possible that some members of the media behaved unprofessionally? Of course. But there were 15,000 people in Denver with media credentials, and to tar "the media" with an item like this is ridiculous.

Having covered four national conventions, I can tell you that there are plenty of folks at these things from one- or two-person newsletters for farmers, accountants and the like, blatantly partisan outlets and — in some cases — organizations with no obvious tie to journalism at all. A friend of a friend comes up with a media credential, and there you go.

If you want to make the case that the mainstream media are in the tank for Obama, be my guest. But this non-item proves nothing. (Via InstaPundit.)

What will we think tomorrow?

Tonight, at least, it seems clear that Barack Obama delivered a terrific speech. How good? Not to be a weasel, but I think it's too soon to say. His decision to be his own attack dog was an interesting one. Was it smart?

There was lots of soaring rhetoric, of course, as well as more specifics than we're accustomed to hearing from him. He almost certainly got what he needed this week, despite the pundits' obsession with the Clintons.

I'll be scanning media reaction early tomorrow morning for the Guardian. Also tomorrow, I'll be on "Beat the Press" on WGBH-TV (Channel 2) at 7 p.m. for its convention wrap-up.

Go-go Gore

Remember when people used to parody Al Gore by talking ... very ... slowly? He just rushed through his brief speech like the guy from the old Federal Express commercials.

The parallels he drew between Obama and Lincoln — their relative inexperience, their opposition to popular wars, their eloquence — were a reminder that long years in office are no substitute for judgment, even if you think Obama = Lincoln is a stretch.

The wind at Obama's back

The following Michele McPhee quote — uttered within the last five minutes — is guaranteed 95 percent word-for-word:

The last time he [Obama] had a crowd this big, he blew his nose. And it was nasty, folks. What's he going to do this time? Is there going to be flatulence on the stage? And are people going to cheer?

Simply amazing.

Moving on up

Tracking polls are notoriously unreliable, but the Gallup trend is clear:

• Aug. 23-25: McCain, 46 percent; Obama, 44 percent. Gallup's take: "It's official: Barack Obama has received no bounce in voter support out of his selection of Sen. Joe Biden to be his vice presidential running mate."
• Aug. 24-26: Obama, 45 percent; McCain, 44 percent. Gallup's take: "No major change in structure of race, though Obama is doing slightly better."
• Aug. 25-27: Obama, 48 percent; McCain, 42 percent. Gallup's take: "Democratic candidate gains in Monday through Wednesday interviewing."

If these numbers are right, then it shows that all the media's hyperventilating about the convention's not being attack-oriented enough and the Clintons' stealing the spotlight from Obama is bunk.

The latest figures don't even capture voter reaction to Bill Clinton's, John Kerry's, and Joe Biden's speeches, not to mention Obama's cameo at the end of the night. And Gallup's numbers won't include Obama's own speech until Saturday.

What does this mean? It looks like Obama is going to receive a normal convention bounce. And unless McCain and the Republicans utterly blow it next week, we'll be back to a tied race when both conventions are over.

We'd all be better off watching C-SPAN.

Bitterness and hate at MSNBC

Jon Stewart's got some great clips (move it ahead to around 11:30) of the meltdown at MSNBC. It turns out that Rachel Maddow's upbraiding of Pat Buchanan has been the least of it.

One other thing I saw late last night, following Joe Biden's speech: Keith Olbermann asked Brian Williams a question about whether McCain might use his vice-presidential announcement to take away from Obama's moment. Except that he asked his question following an elaborate set-up in which he said something to the effect that he didn't want to put Williams in the awkward position of seeming partisan. Williams semi-acknowledged that some sort of conversation had taken place.

It seemed clear to me that Williams must have been complaining that he and other NBC journalists feels as though they're getting sucked into the liberal talk-show atmosphere that has led to MSNBC's rise in the ratings.

It also seems clear that Tim Russert was the only personality strong enough to keep all this backbiting from spilling over. Another reason to lament his passing.

By the way, it's mainly MSNBC, but not only MSNBC. The other night on Fox News, Brit Hume took the crossover from Sean Hannity and said — I'm sure I've got this almost word for word — I've always wanted to be on "Hannity & Colmes," if only for a moment. The contempt on Hume's face was palpable.

Kerry got the Patrick treatment

I didn't realize how few viewers had a chance to see John Kerry's speech last night. So let's see — the pundits keep telling us that the Democrats aren't attacking McCain enough; Kerry devotes his entire speech to a full-throated disembowelment of McCain; and the pundits don't let us see it. Am I missing anything?

Josh Marshall calls Kerry's "the best speech of the convention." I don't think it was quite that, but it certainly gave viewers (some viewers, anyway) the biggest helping of red meat they've had so far.

Dan Wasserman's paean to punditry

We all love Dan Wasserman (and I'm loving his new blog, Out of Line). But this is what happens when you get immersed in the spin. Wasserman's Boston Globe cartoon today makes sense if you listen to the pundits, who have been salivating over the prospect of open warfare between the Clintons and the Obamas all week. It might even make sense if you talk to disgruntled Clinton delegates.

But what, pray tell, have the Clintons actually done to undermine Barack Obama at the convention? Both Hillary and Bill gave emphatically pro-Obama speeches. Delegates have cheered the Clintons. Delegates have cheered the Obamas. HRC released her delegates to vote for Obama, then moved that Obama's nomination be made unanimous.

Is it all choreographed? Of course. Or to be more precise: It's a television show. At least according to some news reports, the two families don't like each other. But they're playing their parts. And though the Clintons may not be heartbroken if John McCain wins this November, since that would give HRC another chance to run in 2012, they don't want to be blamed for Obama's defeat, either.

Bottom line is that not a single thing has taken place at the podium, or in any of the Clintons' or the Obamas' public utterances, to support Wasserman's take. At best, he's channeling unhappy Clinton fans. At worst, he's suffering from pundit overdose.

The Joe and Beau show

Maybe I'm speech'd out, but I wasn't hugely taken with Joe Biden's address. He was good, and he certainly did what he needed to do. But there was a ragged, stop-and-start feel to it. Clinton and Kerry were better.

Beau Biden, on the other hand, couldn't have been more moving. Judging from what I saw on television, there wasn't a dry eye in the convention hall.

Funny, but I thought Bruce Springsteen was going to come out when it was announced that there would be a "special guest."

Kerry on fire

I've never seen him that impassioned on his own behalf. And if Bill Clinton was more intent on whacking Bush than McCain, Kerry made up for it. He even poked fun at himself as he ran through a litany of McCain flip-flops.

Good Jason Zengerle piece in The New Republic on Kerry's revival as one of Obama's most effective surrogates. If Biden falls flat tonight, remember: I told you so.

The Big Dog barks

The good: He defined the issues more succinctly than anyone has managed all year — restoring the American Dream at home and restoring America's image abroad. Vague, obviously, but more evocative than mere change for change's sake.

The not-so-good: He made a compelling case against Bush, who, the last time I checked, isn't running. Yes, he tied McCain to the Bush agenda, but he left the knots kind of loose.

The accidental column-ist

How stupid is this? Obama is going to be giving his convention speech in front of some faux-Greek columns, which isn't exactly new — Bush himself did it just four years ago. And have you walked around the Statehouse lately? Or ever?

But anonymous (i.e., Clinton) Democrats claim this is more proof that Obama thinks he's Zeus or something, the media are freaking out and the Republicans blasted out an e-mail about the "Temple of Obama."

Could everyone please grow up?

The clam shacks of Cape Ann

The Clam Box or Woodman's? To those of us who live on the North Shore, it is a theological question. The Clam Box, of Ipswich, slightly out of the way, with huge lines and the challenging logistics of finding a seat, is the hardcore choice. Woodman's, of Essex, spacious and fast-moving, is easier. But is easier better?

Boston Globe food critic Devra First hits Route 133 today to come up with her take on Cape Ann clam shacks. In addition to the Clam Box and Woodman's, she reviews Essex Seafood and J.T. Farnum's, both of Essex, and neither of which I've visited. First, a Boston Phoenix colleague a few years ago, has written an enjoyable feature. But who's the best?

First gives the nod to the Clam Box by a nose, and I agree — but not for the same reasons. I find the food at Woodman's and the Clam Box to be close in quality except for the onion rings, which I think are better — flakier, less greasy — at the Clam Box. First prefers Woodman's thick, heavily breaded rings. The default at Woodman's is onion rings and french fries, but they'll let you substitute their excellent cole slaw for the fries.

Despite my slight preference for the Clam Box, Woodman's generally wins out during my two or three clam-shack forays each year because it's just more convenient, especially now that they take plastic. And Woodman's serves beer.

A confession: I'm a native New Englander, I love shellfish, but I don't eat fried clams — I don't like the gritty bellies. So I generally go for fried clam strips, shrimp or scallops, and maybe once a year (or once every other year) a steamed lobster.

Good thing I just ate, or this would be making me hungry.

Photo (cc) by Peter Dutton and republished here under a Creative Commons license. Some rights reserved.

More on the Scott Beauchamp saga

Last week I linked to Spencer Ackerman's report for Radar alleging that the real scandal involving ex-"Baghdad Diarist" Scott Beauchamp was that The New Republic had failed to stand behind Beauchamp's accounts of loathsome behavior on the part of U.S. troops (himself included) in Iraq.

Today the story gets even more interesting. The blog Moon of Alabama observes that an Army sergeant who's been implicated in killing four blindfolded, handcuffed Iraqi detainees and then dumping their bodies in a canal has exactly the same name as a sergeant who had denounced Beauchamp's reporting as fiction — First Sgt. John E. Hatley.

I have no idea who or what Moon of Alabama is. But the story about the alleged murders is in today's New York Times, and all Mr. or Ms. Moon has done is connect the dots.

Still nothing on The New Republic's Web site. And a hat tip to Media Nation reader L.A., who sent me to this Laura Rozen blog item.

The speech of her life

Well, that was quite a performance by Hillary Clinton, was it not? Unlike the Mark Warners of the world, she managed to talk about herself and use that in a compelling way to transfer her personal message to Barack Obama. Also, for the first time this week the Democrats were drinking the blood of their enemies. And loving it.

I never would have imagined when Clinton first ran for the Senate eight years ago that the stilted public speaker of that campaign could grow into the accomplished, and even moving, figure that she is today.

Not to get carried away. She was not this good while she was running for president. Not even close. Like Ted Kennedy and Al Gore, to name two other examples, defeat seems to have brought out the best in her.

Patrick's television freeze-out

Gov. Deval Patrick is speaking right now — quite effectively, too. I did a quick channel flip, and discovered that he's being carried only by New England Cable News and C-SPAN. The folks at PBS, ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, Fox News and MSNBC all think they have more important things to talk about.

Instant correction: Boston's WFXT-TV (Channel 25) and WLVI-TV (Channel 56) also broadcast Patrick live. They're local stations that aren't stuck with carrying the network feed.

Unclear on the concept

The tension has been over whether the speakers should spend more time praising Obama or bashing McCain. No problem for Mark Warner — he thinks it's about him.

It's Warner, brothers

And he's d-u-l-l.

In the no-spin zone

Media Nation Jr. and a friend are blasting out heavy metal in the basement, so I'm watching the live feed on MSNBC.com and listening through earbuds. No pundits!

Maddow targets Buchanan's homophobia

If you didn't catch this on MSNBC last night, you should watch. Rachel Maddow goes off on that old homophobe Pat Buchanan for his 1992 "culture war" speech — the one that the late, great Molly Ivins said "sounded better in the original German."

Scroll ahead to 3:30 if you're in a hurry. Here's Maddow:

I hadn't planned on talking about this, but I was thinking about 1992, when I was 19 years old. And Pat, that was the year of your famous culture-war speech at the Houston convention.

And when Bill Clinton got elected that year, I remember, as not a very political person, feeling a visceral sense that, you know, I like the idea of the Clinton family being around for the next four years. I like the idea of them being on TV all the time, in the news all the time, them just being around. Because they seem likable, and, more importantly, I think that they don't hate me.

I think if they knew me, they wouldn't hate me, and they don't want an America that doesn't want me in it. I believe that they would respect me. And after the 1992 convention that year, I didn't feel that way about the incumbent president or his party.

Buchanan chose to ignore the genuine hurt and emotion behind Maddow's words, and Maddow wisely didn't push it any farther. But good for Maddow for calling Buchanan out on his hateful words aimed at gay men and lesbians — words he's never disavowed, and that he no doubt believes to this day.

Michelle Obama speaks again

I'm watching Michelle Obama speak to an Emily's List gathering on CNN.com right now. And though I liked her speech last night well enough, I find it interesting that she seems much more relaxed and natural today, without sacrificing any of the warmth she projected on the big stage.

A presidential makeover

In my latest for the Guardian, I argue that two contrasting speeches by Michelle Obama show she understands what works in Chicago doesn't work on the national stage. Unfortunately for Democrats, the Obamas' efforts to reinvent themselves risk making them seem inauthentic and leave them vulnerable to Republican attack.

Where's the bottom?

The New York Times Co. reports that ad revenues at its New England Media Group, which includes the Boston Globe (along with Boston.com and the Worcester Telegram & Gazette), were down 24.5 percent in July compared to the same month a year ago. (Via Adam Reilly.)

Poynter's very busy redesign

I'm willing to let it grow on me. But, like Adam Reilly, I find the redesign of Poynter Online, home to Jim Romenesko's media-news site, somewhat bewildering. There is a lot going on.

That said, my experience is that no one likes redesigns at first, but that they're generally fine. It's just a matter of adjusting.

Michelle Obama's speech

She was appealingly nervous and sincere. Given that she's been caricatured as Angela Davis, only less fun, all she really had to do was come across as normal and friendly. Which she did. And the girls are adorable.

Checking in with Al Giordano

I just added Al Giordano to the Media Nation links. My former Boston Phoenix colleague is always well worth reading, and I expect that will especially be the case for the rest of the campaign.

Giordano's campaign blog, The Field, is an interesting story in and of itself.

Kennedy's dramatic speech

We won't have a more dramatic moment all week than Ted Kennedy's speech. I was stunned — I figured he'd wave and say a couple of words. Instead, he delivered one of his patented stem-winders.

If his health continues to improve, it's easy to imagine his returning to the Senate next January, as he vowed to do.

Glenn Marshall resurfaces

We interrupt this week's orgy of national political news to tell you that Glenn Marshall — the convicted rapist and phony war hero who helped target Middleborough as the home for the world's largest gambling casino — continues to pull strings behind the scenes.

George Brennan of the Cape Cod Times reports that Marshall is neither forgotten nor gone from the circles of the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe, which he served as president before his past was brought to light by Cape Cod Today and the Cape Cod Times.

And just to bring this full circle: As I recently wrote here, here and here, it's ludicrous to pretend that the Spectrum Gaming report commissioned by Gov. Deval Patrick for $189,000 is an independent assessment. But there was one interesting wrinkle. Whereas Patrick has seemed less than enthusiastic about supporting a tribal casino, Spectrum warned that such a casino is inevitable.

As the great Gladys Kravitz recently observed, one of Spectrum's clients is the financier Sol Kerzner, who's the source of much of the money behind the Middleborough proposal — and thus an important guy in making Glenn Marshall an important guy.

You absolutely cannot make this stuff up.

Tell us something we don't know

I just spent, oh, the last hour and a half reading Roger Simon's dauntingly well-reported piece for the Politico on how Barack Obama managed to beat the Clinton juggernaut. (Chuck Todd was praising it on Tom Ashbrook's show this morning. Do we really believe he had time to read it?)

Like Joshua Green's Atlantic article on what went wrong with Hillary Clinton's campaign, it is full of insight and nuance. And, like Green's piece, I ultimately found it unsatisfying. Here's the problem: No one other than a political junkie is going to read such a story. And we political junkies have been living all this in real time for many, many months.

Both Simon and Green remind us of details we might have forgotten, skillfully weave a mass of information into coherent narratives and come up with some previously unreported nuggets. (Green: Mark Penn is smarter and more awful than we thought. Simon: Obama's brain-trusters actually believed they could knock Clinton out in the opening weeks of the primary season.) In the end, though, they don't do much more than tell us what we already know.

If there's one thing of value I learned from the two accounts, it's that no one should believe the Democrats would be in better shape today if Clinton had won the nomination — especially if she had won it easily, and had not had to put her dysfunctional campaign staff to the test.

OK, two. I think it's a pretty good bet that Simon and Green are going to write books about this historic campaign. At nearly 16,000 words, Simon's article is already about a quarter of the way there.

Denver? I thought they said Danvers.

For the first time since 1992, I'm not going to either major political convention. In 1996, I covered the Republicans in San Diego. In 2000, I covered both the Republicans in Philadelphia and the Democrats in Los Angeles. And in 2004, I covered the Democrats here in Boston.

I have two conflicting thoughts about my absence from both conventions this year. On the one hand, I've never understood the argument that there's nothing going on. Yes, it's true that the conventions haven't actually picked the presidential and vice-presidential nominees for many years now. But, for two weeks, the conventions are the center of the media-political universe. Why wouldn't you want to be there?

There's not much happening inside the hall. Outside, though, there are events ranging from parties thrown by various media organizations to demonstrations to substantive, issue-based get-togethers such as Arianna Huffington's counter-conventions in 2000. A reporter who's willing to keep moving can find more interesting stuff going on in a week than usually comes his way in a year.

On the other hand, if you think what's taking place on the floor is what's really important, then there's no better place to be than in front of your television, popcorn and beer at the ready. It's a TV show, so why not watch it the way it was meant to be seen?

I'm not planning to overdose on convention coverage this week or next, but I'm certainly going to catch the major speeches. And, truth be told, my colleagues in Denver will probably be watching them the same way I do — on the tube. Only they'll be in a press tent and I'll be home.

More on Fournier and the AP

Some years ago I remember reading a profile of Ron Fournier, who was then fairly new as a political reporter for the Associated Press.

It's not likely I'm going to find a link at this late date, so I'll have to rely on my memory. What I recall was his saying he'd never been all that interested in politics, an attitude he thought had helped him break some stories. He was a hard-news reporter, not a partisan.

Well, now. I want to follow up my post of earlier today, because I think Fournier's "analysis" of the Joe Biden pick is remarkable enough that we shouldn't let go of it too quickly. It's not that Fournier's anti-Obama bias is so obvious, though it is. It's that his take is embarrassingly dumb and shallow. A news analysis is an odd duck; neither a news story nor an opinion piece, it is supposed to make sense of the news. Fournier's attempt fails dismally.

Steve Stein has posted some terrific links, and I recommend the Washington Monthly item he flags. What I like about that item, written by Steve Benen, is that it gets to the heart of how lazy Fournier is to suggest that Barack Obama's choice shows a "lack of confidence" in his reformist, outsider message. As Benen notes, you could say that about any vice-presidential pick: if Obama had chosen Hillary Clinton, it would show a "lack of confidence" that he could win the women's vote without her. You get the idea. Benen also notes that Fournier nearly took a job with the McCain campaign in 2007.

Drilling down a little further, Eric Boehlert's excellent overview — which gathers everything from Fournier's inappropriately supportive e-mail to Karl Rove to his supplying McCain with his favorite donuts (ooh, sprinkles!) — links out to a Politico piece that explains Fournier's rationale for the AP's increasingly edgy, opinionated journalism. Michael Calderone writes:

Fournier is a main engine in a high-stakes experiment at the 162-year old wire to move from its signature neutral and detached tone to an aggressive, plain-spoken style of writing that Fournier often describes as "cutting through the clutter."

In the stories the new boss is encouraging, first-person writing and emotive language are okay.

So is scrapping the stonefaced approach to journalism that accepts politicians' statements at face value and offers equal treatment to all sides of an argument. Instead, reporters are encouraged to throw away the weasel words and call it like they see it when they think public officials have revealed themselves as phonies or flip-floppers.

I'm not buying it. I'm no fan of traditional objectivity and its passive reliance on official statements. But we need tough, fair, neutral reporting more than ever, and it seems to me that the AP ought to be at the forefront of providing it. With regional newspapers cutting back on their national and international coverage, this should be a chance for the AP to shine.

In an e-mail to Media Nation, Stephen Burgard, director of the School of Journalism at Northeastern University (i.e., my chairman), writes:

I read Fournier's "analysis" before checking your blog today and was independently appalled. Since when is choosing somebody knowledgeable in foreign affairs and the Senate Judiciary Committee, who balances a ticket as well, a sign of lack of confidence or weakness?

The suggestion that the confident move would be to bring in somebody inexperienced who represents the "politics of change" and "hope" is ludicrous; it's something you might expect to see in a student lefty publication, not from the AP, which is supposed to understand how presidential politics works.

I can't help remembering that the AP's Walter Mears wrote the book on the journalistic form "news analysis." In addition to writing good ones, he was able to explain what they were when done right. Not straight news stories. Not opinion pieces. But somehow interpretive in a way that shed an informed reporter's light beyond just being a stenographer of events.

Perhaps Fournier thinks he was being "intrepretive." He wasn't. Fournier may well be in the tank for McCain, but I would feel only slightly better if he were dishing it out equally to both sides. The fact is that Fournier's "analysis" is a piece of pure opinion, unsophisticated and uninformed.

It's not just that it should have been better. It's that we depend on the AP to provide us with something fundamentally different.

Photo of Fournier by Josh Hallett and republished here under a Creative Commons license. Some rights reserved.

Spinning the obvious

In an "analysis" headlined "Biden pick shows lack of confidence," Ron Fournier of the Associated Press writes:

For all his self-confidence, the 47-year-old Illinois senator worried that he couldn't beat Republican John McCain without help from a seasoned politician willing to attack. The Biden selection is the next logistical step in an Obama campaign that has become more negative — a strategic decision that may be necessary but threatens to run counter to his image.

That's because, well, Obama probably can't beat McCain without help from a seasoned politician willing to attack.

Let me lend a hand and help Fournier with what he may be writing one week from today:

For all his self-confidence, the 72-year-old Arizona senator worried that he couldn't beat Democrat Barack Obama without help from a seasoned politician willing to attack. The Romney selection is the next logistical step in a McCain campaign that has become more negative — a strategic decision that may be necessary but threatens to run counter to his image.

Any questions? Other than wondering how many brain cells Fournier fired up before putting fingers to keyboard?

David Brooks on Friday: "Biden's the one. The only question is whether Obama was wise and self-aware enough to know that."

Biden his time

Granted, the Olympics messed up the timing, and no one announces his running mate during the convention anymore. But why would Barack Obama tell everyone his choice is Joe Biden "in the wee hours of Saturday morning"?

If nothing else, we'll get to see how many Sunday talk shows Biden can hit tomorrow. There are — what — five? He can do it. The man does like to talk.

Correction TK?

The Newton Tab blog says that a Boston Globe reporter may have quoted the wrong Baker when he wrote a story about the arrest of a Newton firefighter on heroin-possession charges. Greg Reibman, who's been following this for most of the day, links to all the relevant background.

Newton Board of Alderman president Lisle Baker was originally quoted as saying that the arrest pointed to the need for mandatory drug testing of public-safety workers. But the Globe then removed the quote, at least from its online story. Baker insists he never spoke with the Globe. Supposedly a correction is going to appear tomorrow.

Good thing the Newton Fire Department is otherwise quiet. Oh, wait. A bag of pot was found inside the 62-year-old fire chief's car. The chief says he has no idea of how it got there.

Saturday morning update: Here's the correction. The Globe did reach the wrong Baker. I'm scratching my head. How is it that Mr. Wrong provided exactly the sort of quotes you might have expected from Mr. Right?

Thinking about "the religious test"

Chris Lehmann repeats an oft-heard fallacy in an interview conducted by Ken Silverstein for Harpers.org. Reacting to Barack Obama's and John McCain's appearances with evangelical minister Rick Warren last Saturday, Lehmann says:

The only important issue about Saddleback is that the Constitution specifically forbids any religious test for office, so why are you having an evangelical minister asking the two candidates about their relationship to Christ? But the people who are in charge of delivering useful information to the public about the process have no historical frame of reference. They literally don't know what they're doing.

Lehmann's right about what the Constitution says regarding a religious test, but he suggests that it somehow applies to the media and to voters. It does not. Here's the exact language, from Article VI:

The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.

That's pretty clear: the government may not establish a religious test for candidates. If Congress were to pass a law stating that only believing Christians may run for president, or that practicing Muslims may not, then that would be unconstitutional under Article VI.

If, on the other hand, a voter decides he will not consider any candidate who isn't an evangelical, that's not only his right, but it's perfectly in accord with both the letter and the spirit of the Constitution. Likewise, Rick Warren is free to invite the candidates in for a talk; the candidates are free to accept or decline; and the media are free to cover it or not.

Needless to say, this is a relevant issue, as Mitt Romney remains the subject of some speculation as to whether John McCain will choose him as his running mate. Some evangelicals have made it clear that they would object vociferously because Romney is a Mormon. That sentiment may be offensive to you and me, but it's not offensive in the least to the Constitution.

If you think about it, we've all got our religious tests. Would you vote for a so-called Christian who believes we should hasten the Apocalypse through nuclear war? Of course you wouldn't. The Constitution says such a person can run for office. It doesn't say you have to vote for him. Neither does it say the press and the public can't make an issue of his beliefs.

The Constitution is supposed to be a check on the government, not on the people.

DePetro blames it all on his wife

Former Boston radio talk-show host John DePetro, class act that he is, has decided to blame his wife for the book-cooking that resulted in his meteoric — and, as it turns out, fraudulent — climb in the Providence ratings.

"It's embarrassing all the way around," DePetro tells Alisha Pina of the Providence Journal. "I don't have a lot to add. My wife was asked to take part in a radio survey, she did and she shouldn't have. It was wrong."

Ratings for DePetro, the morning host on WPRO Radio (AM 630), had showed him zooming from 11th to fourth place recently. Now we know why. The six ratings diaries submitted to Arbitron by Kristen DePetro represented more than 3,800 listeners, according to the ProJo.

DePetro was canned by Boston's WRKO (AM 680) in November 2006 after he referred to independent gubernatorial candidate Grace Ross as a "fat lesbian." Worse than that is heard on WRKO every day, of course, but DePetro's problems were compounded by his minuscule ratings. (DePetro's bio on the WPRO Web site says that he "left Boston with much fanfare, and returns to Rhode Island as a well known name.")

Looks like he — or at least his wife — tried to fix his ratings problem in Providence, and I mean that in both senses of the word.

More from Jessica Heslam of the Boston Herald.

A media scandal that wasn't?

Remember the Scott Beauchamp scandal? Beauchamp was the soldier who wrote a series of essays for The New Republic documenting some pretty atrocious behavior involving him and his comrades who were serving in Iraq, including running over dogs and playing with a human skull.

As you may recall, Beauchamp was discredited after he admitted to "exaggerations and falsehoods." Except that Spencer Ackerman, in an explosive story for Radar, now says Beauchamp never made any such admission, and that TNR editor Franklin Foer threw Beauchamp overboard in an attempt to get the magazine's right-wing critics off his back.

Ackerman admits that there's bad blood between him and Foer, and that Foer would not be interviewed for the Radar piece. But Ackerman has a lot of on-the-record material backing up his claims. Fascinating stuff.

As I wrote for the Guardian a year ago this week, the Beauchamp scandal gave war supporters an excuse to ignore a dauntingly well-documented report on ugly behavior by American troops that had been published by The Nation.

Now it looks as though the real Beauchamp scandal may have been that The New Republic allowed his reputation to be sacrificed for no good reason.

Nothing on the TNR Web site so far.

The worst ... person ... in the world!

Keith Olbermann, if you're taking nominations for tonight's show, please consider David Davis, the principal of Ponce de Leon High School in Florida.

According to the Associated Press, when one of his students told him she was a lesbian and that she wanted him to stop her fellow students from harassing her, Davis outed her to her parents, told her to stay away from children and suspended friends who wore T-shirts supporting her.

Despite all that, folks in Ponce de Leon are reportedly wondering what it was, exactly, that Davis did wrong.

The audacity of Mother Jones (II)

Jay Rosen got an answer out of Mother Jones' Washington bureau chief, David Corn, as to why the magazine is asking the question "Is Barack Obama exaggerating when he compares his campaign to the great progressive moments in U.S. history?"

Corn points to a speech Obama gave earlier this year in which he conjured up visions of the American Revolution, Abolition, the Depression, World War II and other patriotic touchstones in order to drive home his campaign theme of "Yes we can." MoJo has since added that in the form of a blog post from February unsubtly titled "Barack Obama's Messiah Complex."

I'm not going to reproduce the Obama speech excerpts here, because you can just follow the links. But I do want to consider Rosen's three questions:

Which comes closest to your view?

1.) Sure enough, Obama in this except "compares his campaign to the great progressive moments in U.S. history" and Mother Jones caught him at it, puncturing the Obama hype. Good for them!

2.) No, Obama does not "claim that his campaign is comparable to the great progressive movements in U.S. history." Not even close. Mother Jones is engaging in the kind of audacious hype it claims to be opposing. Bad move.

3.) It doesn’t matter whether Obama actually said anything like that because his supporters believe his campaign is a movement of transcendent historical importance, and that's what Mother Jones really meant, it's just that the editors phrased it badly, attributing to the candidate claims that have been made by others about him.

Jay thinks the correct answer is #2. Strictly on a factual, non-emotional basis, I agree. But it's more complicated than that. I think the truth is #2 plus a strong dose of #3, along with at least a slight whiff of #1.

All politicians invoke great moments in American history, as Obama did. But Obama has gone farther by explicitly drawing parallels between his candidacy and those moments. It's understandable — the election of an African-American as president would rank as a stunning achievement for our race-benighted culture. But it's got nothing to do with Obama personally.

The thing is, I think Obama understands that, and I think David Corn and company understand it, too. So the question becomes why journalists would compress Obama's argument into a shallow soundbite that makes it sounds like Obama thinks of himself as a combination of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King Jr.

It's not so much that MoJo is completely wrong; it's that the magazine is being reductionist and stupid. Why?

By the way, I know Corn and have a lot of respect for him. We spent part of the afternoon on Election Day 2004 at a Starbucks near Copley Square, picking out John Kerry's cabinet for him. But to the extent that he agrees with this particular editorial decision, well, I think he's wrong.

MIT gag order has been lifted

Media Nation reader J.H. passes along word from the Electronic Frontier Foundation that the MIT gag order has been lifted. U.S. District Judge George O'Toole reportedly found that the MBTA is unlikely to prevail in its lawsuit against three MIT students and the university itself.

Background on the case here and here.

Although this is clearly better than not lifting the gag order, it's also not much of a victory for the First Amendment. The fact is that the MIT students had every right to make their presentation on flaws in the MBTA's electronic fare system, and they were not allowed to do so.

It makes a mockery of the principle that prior restraint is to be reserved only for serious issues of national security, obscenity and incitement to violence.

Kerry and Romney for vice president

In my latest for the Guardian, I try to make the case that John Kerry and Mitt Romney make the most sense as running mates for the Democratic and Republican tickets.

The audacity of Mother Jones

Mother Jones magazine asks: "Is Barack Obama exaggerating when he compares his campaign to the great progressive moments in U.S. history?"

Jay Rosen asks: "Has Obama compared his campaign to the great movements in progressive history (like civil rights?)"

Media Nation asks: Where is the evidence for Mother Jones' premise? Perhaps Obama did say such a thing, but I don't remember it. Let's have the precise language.

Update: Welcome, Huffington Post and PressThink readers. Here's my latest on the subject.

WSJ photo blog is found

Photocolumn.org has tracked down the Wall Street Journal's missing photo blog.

Maybe he meant the other confederacy

Because I'm feeling charitable this evening, I will assume that Boston Globe columnist Kevin Cullen knew better when he identified Delaware as a former Confederate state. After all, Adam Gaffin missed it, too. But not Ron Newman. (Thanks to Media Nation reader B.C.)

Credit where it's due

Looks like photocolumn.org noticed the Wall Street Journal's overly cavalier borrowing of Boston.com's "The Big Picture" last Friday, beating Media Nation to the punch by three days. And now, photocolumn notes, the Journal's version is gone. Wonder what happened?

A world without editors

Jeff Jarvis argues in his Guardian column that editors are becoming obsolete. These days, he says, we write first and edit later, often in response to what our readers tell us.

The Jarvis system works for a certain type of journalism (mainly short, bloggy-type stuff like this), but it wouldn't work for everything. I can't imagine a major investigative series coming together without deep involvement on the part of skilled editors. Then again, that's the sort of journalism most endangered in the current environment.

And it would seem to me that an editor whose intervention prevented a libel suit has just covered her salary for the next five years.

Where does Rupert get his ideas?

After Alan Taylor launched "The Big Picture" on the Boston Globe's Boston.com site earlier this year, he told an interviewer, "I know it's totally copy-able."

No kidding. Last week, the Wall Street Journal — not exactly known for its photojournalism — started a photo blog that was, well, identical to what Boston.com has been doing: a blog featuring huge photos of stories in the news and off the news.

The Journal even took the same name, "The Big Picture." If you go there now, you'll see that it's been changed to "Photo Journal." But I found last week's version in Google's cache, and I've reproduced it above. And "thebigpicture" remains part of the URL.

It's a terrific concept: huge photos, mostly from the wires, of the sort that you're bombarded with every day, but that you probably don't really notice because they're too small. "The Big Picture" invites you to look. As Melanie Lidman wrote in the American Journalism Review, "What sets his blog apart is its simplicity. Taylor lets the photos speak for themselves, one at a time, encouraging the viewer to scroll slowly down the page to take in the images."

The Journal's act blog thievery did not go unnoticed. Check out some of the comments, which, to the Journal's credit, have been left intact:

I think it's sad that a major news outlet like the WSJ lacks the creativity to come up with a blog name that isn't already in use by another newspaper.

Agreed. If you're going to lift someone else's concept the least you can do is come up with an original name for it.

You couldn't even change the name slightly? How about, "The Large Picture"? A hella-wicked ripoff, I tell ya! LOL!

"The Big Picture" is a great idea, and there's no reason other news organizations can't copy it. But for the Journal to steal the entire concept, right down to its name, without so much as a hat tip to the Globe and no original features of its own, seems like a bit much.

At least someone read the comments and changed the name.

Update: In a bit of irony, I discovered late today that I wasn't the first to report this. See "Credit where it's due."

Hazardous hiking in the White Mountains

Click on photo for slideshow

Mark Pothier's Boston Globe Magazine story on amateur hikers who get into trouble in the White Mountains inspired me to post photos from my last hike up Mount Washington, in August 2003.

My son, Tim, his friend Troy, Troy's mother and I hiked to Mizpah Spring Hut on a muggy Friday afternoon, along the Crawford Path to Lakes of the Clouds Hut on a clear, cool Saturday. The next day it was up and over Mount Washington in a cold wind. We descended via the Jewell Trail.

For me it was a nostalgia trip, because it was largely the same route I followed on my first hike up Washington, with my Boy Scout troop in September 1968 at the age of 12. Back then, you were still allowed to camp above treeline, and we pitched tents by the shore of Lakes of the Clouds under full cloud cover. (I've still got photos from our return trip the following year. I should scan them in and post them someday.)

The next day we hiked to the summit in a howling wind, surrounded by clouds and rime ice-covered rocks. My guess is that, today, our leaders would have been denounced as lunatics for taking a bunch of out-of-shape kids to the summit under such conditions. But we all came through it fine. We did have winter coats, gloves and hats, so it's not like we weren't prepared.

I was glad to see Pothier make mention of Nicholas Howe's excellent book, "Not Without Peril," which documents 150 years of fatal accidents in the White Mountains. In my much younger days I also liked to read the accident reports in the Appalachian Mountain Club's journal, Appalachia. Invariably, the victims would head up into the mountains wearing shorts, T-shirts and little else, only to be overwhelmed by winter-like conditions regardless of the time of year. Cell phones and GPSs may have increased the stupidity quotient, as Pothier writes, but it's nothing new.

Unfortunately, I never managed to hit the trail this summer. Tim and I talked about doing a five-day 50-miler in Vermont, but the summer got away from us, and then I sprained my ankle while running in a downpour a couple of weeks ago. Maybe we can get away for a couple of days during Columbus Day weekend.

Verifying that sniper shooting

Paul Bradshaw observes that the news media were quick to run with the video of a Georgian television reporter whose arm had supposedly been grazed by a Russian sniper, but none made any attempt either to verify what had happened, or to respond to skeptical commenters.

Anti-free speech round-up

The First Amendment is front and center in this morning's Boston Globe. Three stories for your consideration:

1. Paranoia and the MBTA. Friend of Media Nation Harvey Silverglate argues that the court-ordered censorship of three MIT students is rooted in post-9/11 paranoia about security. The law is aimed at computer hacking that could put people in danger; now it's being applied merely to writing about hacking, and not the sort that might endanger lives but, rather, would simply cost the T money. Silverglate concludes that "with the ghosts of 9/11 and 'national security' hovering, the students and the First Amendment didn't stand a chance." (Silverglate also blogs for the Boston Phoenix.)

2. Criminalizing symbolic speech. An Associated Press news brief reports that a Louisiana teenager has been sentenced to four months in prison for hanging nooses off the back of his truck and displaying them at a civil-rights rally on behalf of the Jena Six. Recently I challenged Peter Porcupine to find an example of a hate-crime law that criminalizes speech. Sadly, I think I've just found one. Take a look at this ABC News report on the case against the teenager, Jeremiah Munsen. There are complicating factors, and Munsen does appear to be quite the dirtball. But essentially Munsen is going to prison for his exercise of symbolic speech. "I wish we had a charge in Louisiana for aggravated ignorance," a police officer is quoted as saying. Apparently that's unnecessary; the federal hate-crimes statute will do quite nicely.

3. Teaching students they have no rights. In Knoxville, Tenn., a high-school student sued for the right to wear Confederate-flag clothing to school, a violation of the dress code. His case ended in a mistrial, according to the AP. The right of school districts to impose such codes is so well-established that this is scarcely worth a mention, except as a reminder that young people are raised and educated in an environment that's devoid of constitutional protections. We shouldn't be surprised that a majority of them grow up to oppose the constitutional rights of others, as you will see in the second entry here.

Yesterday Media Nation commenter Leslie wrote, "For us liberals to reflexively hide behind the free speech banner is too easy." I hope these three examples show that it's actually hard. Speech that we like needs no defense.

If you're going to stand up for the First Amendment, you are invariably going to find yourself standing up for kids whose actions might make it easier for people to rip off the T, or for racist teenagers from Louisiana or Tennessee. So be it.

Don't beam Alex up when it comes to Twitter

Boston Globe columnist Alex Beam mocks Twitter. I sympathize. I ignored it for as long as I could, and jumped in recently only as it became clear that it was morphing into a journalistic tool of sorts.

I have not researched the demographics of Twitter, but I think Beam might have gotten one thing wrong. He begins, "You have heard about Twitter. Maybe. It's something other people do, mainly younger people."

My brief experience is actually the opposite — Twitter is social-networking for old farts like me. I know very few students who use it. I recently asked Media Nation Jr. — a certified Facebooking, BlackBerrying, text-messaging fanatic — and he'd never even heard of it.

Maybe Twitter will go away. For the moment, though, it's something journalists need to understand.

Twitter gathering at WBUR

A handful of folks who follow WBUR Radio (90.9 FM) on Twitter gathered at the station this morning for a tour and conversation about the station's new-media initiatives. That's "Morning Edition" anchor Bob Oakes behind the glass. (God help me, the event was dubbed a "Tweet-up.")

For a Flickr slideshow of the event, click on the photo. More pictures may pop up later in WBUR's Listener Photo Project. And Gene Koo of the Berkman Center, who shot video with a Flip camera, might upload something to his blog when he gets a chance.

Looks like some of Koo's video is already available at the ConverStation, a WBUR new-media blog maintained by Ken George.

The opposite of independent (II)

Another highlight from the Spectrum Gaming Group's Web site:

Spectrum fields a full complement of experienced executives to help our casino development clients as projects move from conceptual planning to fully operational businesses. Our team of gaming professionals — with extensive experience in accounting, operations, regulation, law-enforcement, slot technology and media relations, among many other disciplines — has developed, planned and opened many casinos worldwide, and has provided clients with the tools to develop viable casino projects that will comfortably withstand governmental licensing scrutiny, attract defined gaming markets and be financially profitable.

Casino openings are extremely challenging technically, but tremendously rewarding once successfully accomplished. With its expertise in all aspects of casino gaming, Spectrum can guide its clients through this difficult process.

Gladys Kravitz has a minor bombshell in the comments.

How on earth can the Globe call these people "independent"?

The opposite of independent

If there's one thing I think we could all agree on, it's that the recently released Spectrum Gaming Group report on Gov. Deval Patrick's moribund casino-gambling proposal is not independent. So why does a Boston Globe editorial today refer to Spectrum as "an independent research firm"?

Spectum's close ties to the gambling industry were the subject of a post I wrote a couple of weeks ago. And there's more. For instance, check out the credentials of some of its top executives:

• Harvey Perkins, senior vice president, "has thirty years of casino gaming industry experience and has held high-level positions at major gaming properties in Atlantic City and New Orleans."
• Tina Ercole LoBiondo, vice president for analysis, "has worked in the casino resort industry since 1988, having held various analytical, operational and developmental roles in Atlantic City and Las Vegas, and was instrumental in the opening of three major gaming resorts."
• Bill LaPenta, director of financial analysis, "is a casino and hotel industry professional with more than 20 years of operations management and analysis experience, providing critical business decision support, planning, analysis, and performance management tools to casino hotel and resort operators."

Not everyone who holds a top position at Spectrum has a gambling background. And the two managing directors, Fredric Gushin and Michael Pollack, come from the worlds of law enforcement and government regulation, respectively.

But Spectrum officials clearly see themselves as part of the gambling industry. They may be nice people. They may sincerely believe there's a right way and a wrong way to do it, and they may be dedicated to the right way.

In reality, though, the right way is not to do it at all, and that simply isn't part of the Spectrum mindset. The fact is that Patrick hired the casino-gambling industry to report on whether casino gambling would be a good thing. The opposite of independent, in other words.

Here you go, Your Honor

U.S. District Judge George O'Toole yesterday continued the restraining order against three MIT students who had been prevented from telling what they know about security problems with the MBTA's automated fare system.

Among other things, O'Toole demanded that the students hand over a paper they wrote for class by today at 4 p.m.

Well, I don't know if this will expedite matters, but here's the slideshow (PDF) they were planning to use during their presentation in Las Vegas last weekend. Does that help?

Ridiculous. And good for The Tech for putting it online.

Tony Mazz jumps to the Globe

Two developments coming out of the Boston Globe sports department, courtesy of Adam Reilly.

In the non-surprise department, Amalie Benjamin succeeds Gordon Edes, now with Yahoo Sports, as the Globe's Red Sox beat reporter. Interesting and good that the Globe would put a woman in that high-profile slot. Even better, it represents a long-overdue generational shift. If this Wikipedia bio is accurate, Benjamin is 26 years old.

In the big-surprise department, the Boston Herald's Tony Massarotti is leaving One Herald Square to join a beefed-up Boston.com sports operation. Massarotti is a leading reason to read the Herald, so this is a huge, huge loss. It also tells me that Globe sports editor Joe Sullivan is at least as concerned about competing with the newly ascendant WEEI.com as he is with the Herald. (Sullivan is also promoting part-time copy editor Chad Finn to a new job as a sports reporter for Boston.com.)

Unless the Globe loosens its WEEI ban [see tweak below] , it also means one of the station's most recognizable voices will no longer be heard. Of course, now Massarotti can appear on New England Sports Network, a corporate cousin to the Globe.

The best news about all of this is that job creation continues at 135 Morrissey Boulevard, shifting from the print edition to the Web site.

Friday tweak: According to the Joan Vennochi column I linked to last night, as well as to a piece I wrote in April 2001, I glossed over the ban just a bit too glibly. Former Globe editor Matt Storin banned his people from appearing on "The Big Show," in the afternoon, and later extended it to "Dennis & Callahan" as well. WEEI retaliated by announcing that Globe writers had been banned from all of its programs. So it's kind of a mutual ban.

Russian sniper reportedly shoots journalist

This just in. The headline on this YouTube video is "Journalist gets injured in Georgia by the Russian sniper." Go ahead and watch — it's not particularly graphic, and the journalist was not seriously injured; it's more shocking than anything.

I have no verification or information on what this is, but it was clearly taken of a television reporter in the midst of a newscast. Toward the end, an anchor appears. This was posted on Twitter by Andrew Dunn, a journalism student at the University of North Carolina.

More: CNN, in describing the video, says, "While on-air, a reporter is grazed by a bullet and goes on to say the shot was fired from the Russian-controlled area." The source is listed as Georgia's state television service.

Beyond convention wisdom

Jack Shafer of Slate and Jeff Jarvis of Buzz Machine are both arguing that the media ought to stop covering the national political conventions.

Their reasons are obvious. The nominees have been chosen entirely through the primaries since the 1970s, so there is literally no news coming out of them except for the acceptance speeches of the vice presidential and presidential candidates. I understand the point. But I would make two counterarguments.

First, what better place is there for the three cable news networks to be? The prime-time line-ups of Fox News, CNN and MSNBC consist mainly of talk shows with a heavy political bent. The conventions give them a chance to do what they do, only at a higher level and with a larger audience. Nothing wrong with that.

Second, the conventions are filled with interesting stories, though very few of them take place inside the hall. Yes, I'd agree that having 15,000 reporters on hand to cover the same thing is nuts, but that's not what they ought to be doing. Maybe 10,000 of them ought to go home (perhaps I don't disagree with Shafer and Jarvis after all), but the other 5,000 ought to get outside and look for stories.

In 2000, I was at the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia, on assignment for the Boston Phoenix, when similar complaints arose about the news-free nature of the event. I wrote about what the media should have been covering rather than whining about the dullness of the proceedings. I'd say the same thing today.

Callahan says he had throat cancer

WEEI Radio (AM 850) morning-show co-host Gerry Callahan today confirms longstanding rumors that his months-long absence in 2007 was due to serious illness. In his Boston Herald column, Callahan writes that he was being treated for throat cancer.

Bruce Allen notes that Callahan timed his announcement to coincide with the annual WEEI-NESN telethon for the Jimmy Fund. Good move — it will raise interest and could well result in more money for the Jimmy Fund.

Media Nation is no fan of "Dennis & Callahan," with its snide putdowns of everyone to the left of Dick Cheney. But I wish Callahan well.