August 20, 2004
PAY NO ATTENTION...:
AMBUSH JOURNALISM...OR MY EVENING WITH CAVEMAN CHRIS MATTHEWS (Michelle Malkin, August 20, 2004)
Here's a peek behind the cable TV curtain. It's not pretty.So, my publicist arranges for me to go on MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews on Thursday night to talk about my recent columns on the FBI and national security profiling and my new book. Despite the show's basement ratings, we figure it's a good opportunity to reach out to a new audience. FOX News, with whom I have a contract, has generously allowed me to appear on some competing networks to talk about the book. Thursday was the second to the last day that I could make such appearances.
A few hours before the show, a producer calls to tell me I will be on for two segments--the first topic will be the Swift Boat Veterans, the second topic will be related to the book. Fine. This is the news business. I understand the need to go with the flow and cover the hot issues of the day. I am prepared to discuss both topics.
In a pre-interview, the producer goes over general questions about Kerry's response to the Swift Boat vets, whether the charges will be an issue in the presidential debates, and the basic themes of my book and its implications for the current War on Terror. I am originally scheduled to be on with the Washington Post's Dana Milbank. This was scratched and I am informed at the last minute that the other guest will be former San Francisco mayor Willie Brown.
As I am seated at the table with Matthews, who I am meeting for the first time, he cracks a joke--and not in a well-meaning way--about how I look. (There are quite a few people who are hung up on this.) "Are you sure you are old enough to be on the show? What are you? 28?" I grit my teeth. He badgers me again with the same question. I politely answer his question and supply my age.
(I wonder how Matthews' wife, the respected TV journalist Kathleen Matthews, who hosts a show about working women, would react if informed about her husband's treatment of a fellow female journalist. I've been in the business a dozen years and would be happy to talk to Mrs. Matthews about my firsthand experience with Neanderthal chauvinism in the workplace.)
Needless to say, things went downhill, fast and loud, from there.
The best part of the whole thing was Keith Olbermann, on his own show, referring to the exchange as, Ms Malkin making a "complete fool of herself." Posted by Orrin Judd at August 20, 2004 10:13 PM
Matthews was "on vacation" (or under sedation) tonight and Andrea Mitchell hosted the show. His absence gave them a chance to replay part of the segment and have a roundtable discussion with Charlie Cook, John Fund and Tom Oliphant. From what I saw on the set-up segment by David Gregory and from the audio clips on various shows today, I thought Malkin let Matthews get her flustered and did a terrible job explaining her and the swift boat vets' position on the "self-inflicted wound" claim.
Matthews tried to steer the definition towards the idea that John Kerry shot himself, when the claim made by the vets is that Kerry threw the grenade at a rice paddy and hit a rock, causing it to blow back at him resulting in the "self-inflicted" shrapnel wound. Gregory's piece actually explained that, but Malkin never was able to get it out during her segment, leaving the audience without an idea of what she was talking about, other than the explanation Chris was trying to shove down her throat.
Between that and a rehash of the Times and Post stories, Cook and Oliphant were acting as if it was game/set/match on the issue for John Kerry. But they were far more subdued when Mitchell played the clip of the second swift boat vets ad, intermixing Kerry's 1971 comments with the recollections of the Vietnam POWs. The only thing they could do there was to spit out the "Bush is behind this" talking point and try as fast as possible to get off the subject.
(I have no doubt the media at this very moment is begging John McCain to blast the new ad the way he did the first SBV ad. But he didn't know the people in the first ad; the new one is by fellow POWs and even contains remarks by his 2000 Virginia campaign coordinator. I'd be shocked to see him offer up anything more than a general denunciation of 527 groups, as Fund did on "Hardball" tonight)
Posted by: John at August 20, 2004 10:28 PMIf McCain were to ever 'denounce' or even criticize Kerry for his remarks after coming home, the press would be beside itself (what a sight to see and hear). And Kerry would probably find a new ceiling in the electorate of about 38%. I wonder if the Democrats have ever thought of this.
Posted by: jim hamlen at August 20, 2004 10:36 PMDidn't see the episodes. The few times I've watched Matthews he comes across as a hyped up lunatic (that's why spoofing Hardball is a regular SNL skit). Oliphant is a longtime Boston Globe reporter and known Kerry sycophant. But isn't Charlie Cook a "non-partisan" analyst and handicapper of political races? If he's out there defending Kerry then that might explain why his predictions seem to skew left.
Posted by: AWW at August 20, 2004 10:44 PMIt wasn't Charlie Cook, it was Craig Crawford.
Posted by: Jana at August 20, 2004 10:48 PMYou're right. I got my poltical commentators whose names are alliterations beginning with the letter "C" mixed up. Sorry.
Posted by: John at August 20, 2004 11:16 PMMatthews is unwatchable, besides the Olympics is on, and its baseball season.
Posted by: Robert Schwartz at August 20, 2004 11:20 PMNo cable, so I'm not even tempted. But I did read Olbermann's "blog", in which he suggests that her book on the internment of the Japanese is "self-hating." Now, Malkin is Filipina, so either Olbermann is having a "they all look the same to me" moment, or he's completely ignorant of nature of the Japanese occupation of the Philippine's during WWII.
Posted by: David Cohen at August 20, 2004 11:39 PMWell, you won't get either of them confused with Catherine Crier anyway.
Posted by: oj at August 21, 2004 12:12 AMNearly everyone in the media is ahistorical, David, so I suspect it is your latter explanation that is operative.
BTW, Oliphant's daughter works for the Kerry campaign, and Oliphant previously went to bat for Kerry when the storm erupted over his medal tossing.
Posted by: Melissa at August 21, 2004 12:13 AMOJ --
You're righ about that, though judging by Olberman's remarks he might confuse Malkin with Connie Chung.
Posted by: John at August 21, 2004 1:38 AMKeith Olbermann? Why would any self-respecting citizen pay attention to the political views of a mediocre sports announcer, whose highest achievement to date was a half-funny commercial for a product I no longer remember?
Posted by: Francis W. Porretto at August 21, 2004 5:43 AMFrancis:
Mediocre sports announcer is one proven careeer path to world leadership.
Posted by: oj at August 21, 2004 8:50 AMDidn't Olberman read little league scores a while ago?
Posted by: pchuck at August 21, 2004 10:48 AMI'd have a rejoinder for that, OJ, if only Katie Couric would change the spelling of her first name...
Posted by: John at August 21, 2004 11:06 AMIt's like the blind leading the blind. You all need to watch some more Fox news so they can tell you what you should think.
Posted by: no brain followers at August 21, 2004 11:18 AMOJ: Carl Cameron.
Posted by: jim hamlen at August 21, 2004 1:31 PM