It’s been a pretty quiet afternoon here in the Media Blog, but we’ll wrap it up with some interesting links, plus a video of former DNC chairman Terry McAuliffe getting a tag-team beating from Wolf Blitzer and Torie Clarke.
First off, Tim Graham has a thoughtful post over at CBS Public Eye. He billed it on the Corner as a harsh punishment for CBS, but it actually refrains from excoriating the media and instead tries to explain where conservative media critics are coming from. Obviously, Tim and I see different solutions to the problem — he is an advocate for objective journalism, whereas I’m ok with opinionated journalism but not with bias disguised as neutrality — but I think it’s good that people understand that neither Tim nor I hate the press or think of what we do as “press-bashing.”
Daniel Gross has a funny piece about the coming burst of the blog bubble. He compares it the dot-com bust in 1999-2000. Of course, that didn’t mean the end of the Internet — good companies survived and continue to thrive. As for the good blogs, they’ll either survive on their own or, like Andrew Sullivan, join up with Big Media.
And finally, for your weekend enjoyment, here’s Terry McAuliffe getting totally mauled on CNN (snippets of the transcript below).
DONALD RUMSFELD, DEFENSE SECRETARY: While the enemy is increasingly skillful at manipulating the media and using the tools of communications to their advantage, it should be noted that we have an advantage as well. And that is quite simply that the truth is on our side. And ultimately, in my view, truth wins out. […]
BLITZER: What do you think?
MCAULIFFE: Couldn’t agree more that the truth is important. I wish we’d had the truth before we actually went into Iraq and dealt with intelligence data that was properly presented. I wish the truth had come out, you know, when we know find out that Dick Cheney had authorized his chief of staff to leak information and outed a CIA operative. The truth is very important.
BLITZER: Well, we don’t know — you jumped to outing a CIA operative. The only thing he said in that affidavit was that he was authorized by superiors to leak information from a national intelligence estimate before the war.
MCAULIFFE: Which is classified information.
BLITZER: Yes, but not necessarily outing a CIA operative.
MCAULIFFE: Why is the vice president, who is his only superior, I would say — either that, or he’s going to George Bush. I don’t know who he’s going to. But his superior, Dick Cheney, authorized him to out with classified information. Why is a sitting vice president doing that?BLITZER: He’s authorized to do that, the vice president, under an executive order. He can declassify, like the president, whatever he wants.
CLARKE: He is authorized to do it. And I tell you, as many challenges as the Republicans have this year — and they’ve got many — I feel better every day. Terry is one of the leaders of the Democratic Party. And if the best they can do is have a laundry list of things they don’t like about this administration but not offer any real, tangible, substantive measures going forward, then the Republicans will do just fine.
Have a good weekend.
Video here.