It's always the media's fault; Robert McNamara talked about Vietnam

As The Ticket reported earlier, John F. Kennedy's secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara, died today at 93. He was a key architect of the disastrous U.S. military involvement in Vietnam who later admitted his mistakes.

In this C-SPAN archive video from 1995, McNamara discusses with Brian Lamb the role of the often-attacked media in that Southeast Asian conflict, specifically about whether the critical American press coverage caused the loss. It's worth a listen in light of subsequent events.

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Photo: U.S. Air Force

Video: C-SPAN

Washington Post cancels plan to charge lobbyists to attend 'salons'

“Appalled” and “disappointed” are among the words — at least the published ones — officials at the Washington Post are using today to describe actions by, well, the Washington Post. As the paper reports:

Washington Post Publisher Katharine Weymouth today canceled plans for a series of policy dinners at her home after learning that marketing fliers offered lobbyists access to Obama administration officials, members of Congress and Post journalists in exchange for payments as high as $250,000.

Weymouth is quoted as being “disappointed,” and Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli is the one who is “appalled.” The salon plan was reported today by Politico.

In its own story, the Post says:

Two Post executives familiar with the planning, who declined to be identified discussing internal planning, said the fliers appear to be the product of overzealous marketing executives. The fliers were overseen by Charles Pelton, a Post executive hired this year as a conference organizer. He was not immediately available for comment.

White House communications director Anita Dunn said today that The Post Co. had approached officials at the Health and Human Services Department to participate in a Weymouth dinner later this month. But, she said, "no senior Obama administration officials had accepted any invitation for the 'salon.' " 

The paper’s ombudsman, Andrew Alexander, says in a commentary, "For a storied newspaper that cherishes its reputation for ethical purity, this comes pretty close to a public relations disaster."

-- Steve Padilla

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Obama scripts town-hall meeting on health care. What would Bush say?

Remember when public opinion turned so dramatically against the Iraq war that the White House only let invited guests attend George W. Bush's out-of-town speeches?

Well it seems like the same thing might be happening to President Obama's healthcare proposal.

As the Ticket reported yesterday, Obama answered questions at a town hall at Northern Virginia Community College in Annandale, Va., about protecting the uninsured, giving consumers a public option and converting medical records from paper to digital files. The White House portrayed the town-hall meeting as one in a series of public outreach events, a way for the president to keep his finger on the pulse of public opinion, and in turn to sway Americans on the complex and contentious issue.

This morning, the Washington Post is reporting that "of the seven questions the president answered, four were selected by his staff from videos submitted to the White House Web site or from those responding to a request for 'tweets.' " And the three audience members he called on randomly? The Post says "all turned out to be members of groups with close ties to his administration: the Service Employees International Union, Health Care for America Now, and Organizing for America, which is a part of the Democratic National Committee."

None of this would surprise any good White House advance staffer. Better to control the crowd, screen the questions, anticipate the topics. And, to be fair, a college campus in a Democratic county might be expected to produce friendly questioners.

The problem is that Obama himself made an issue of transparency, promising an administration that allowed the public to see what its government was doing. In fact on Jan. 22, his first full day in office, Obama issued a series of executive orders instructing government agencies to open their files, saying, "Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency."

So, naturally, reporters jumped on the apparent discrepancy, led by veteran Helen Thomas, a thorn in the side to many a presidential administration, and CBS' Chip Reid. See what you think.

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White House press secretary Robert Gibbs, deflecting the criticism, protested that the White House was not trying to manage the questions. Thomas reminded him that the Obama administration, unlike its predecessors, calls reporters the night before a press conference to tell them they will be called on, a new way of managing the topics.

Waving off the criticism and arguing that the healthcare forum would be expansive, Gibbs asked the reporters how they could make the case that the White House is muffling dissent when "you haven't heard the questions."

"It doesn't matter. It's the process," Reid argued. "Even if there's a tough question, it's a question coming from somebody who was invited or who was screened or the question was screened."

With the president's popularity dropping from his stratospheric inaugural highs -- the latest Washington Post/ABC News poll this week found that Americans are evenly split, 48 to 48%, on how Obama is handling the deficit -- the White House may be just trying to improve his standing by controlling the optics.

Saving his healthcare plan might prove more difficult.

-- Johanna Neuman

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Inside Obama's news conference: How and why he said what he said

Did you watch President Obama's news conference Tuesday? Oh, wait, that's right. You were among the thousands following the live-blogging here on The Ticket.

Even if you did see his news conference on TV or somewhere, take a look at this video here. At least the first few minutes, through his introductory remarks.

See if you notice anything different this time. We'll tell you what it is later on.

To change the subject from "Why won't the president speak out strongly against the brutality in Iran?" the president held his fourth White House news conference, originally scheduled for the Rose Garden, but it was too muggy and might have rained on the president's remarks and what a terrible metaphor that would have created for snarky bloggers to chew on for days.

So they moved the Q&A indoors. Not to the usual, more formal East Room, but to the media briefing room where the White House press corps sits every day, each in their familiar assigned seats, like athletes by their very own lockers. Home field for the media. And its members got a little testy with the chief executive. And he got a little annoyed at them. (See the smoking and McCain responses.)

Predictably, the president started off with Iran. (Full transcript is here.) Although....

John Edwards emerges to not talk about you-know-what and who

Speaking of Republican Sen. John Ensign's just-admitted extramarital affair, another John is back.

Democrat John Edwards of the my-wife's-cancer-was-in-remission-when-I-did-it televised confession has ended his public silence. He says he's not interested in the kind of reputation rehab that other philandering pols try over time. (Think Democrats ex-Pres. Bill Who's-Its and ex-Gov. Eliot Spitzer.)

Which no doubt is why Edwards suddenly granted an interview to the Washington Post's Alec MacGillis. With, however, just a couple of caveats:

No questions about his mistress Rielle Hunter (background on right).

No questions about her baby and whether he is the father.

No questions about terminally ill wife Elizabeth Edwards' recent memoir that prompted so much public attention and sent the ex-senator off to Central America to do good things out of sight.

And no questions about the federal investigation into whether the Edwards presidential campaign illegally spent political funds on Hunter.

Other than that, fire away.

Edwards claims there are only two reasons for him to be on the planet now: to take care of "the people I love" and to "take care of people who cannot take care of themselves." Edwards says he spends time in their mansion with his wife and two younger children and will return to El Salvador next month to volunteer.

He says he takes pride in pushing both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama to talk more about poverty issues and declined to call his presidential race a mistake despite its high-wire counting on the volatile sexual affair not coming out. Unlike many observers, Edwards does not rule out a return to politics, if only as a policy advocate a la Al Gore without the melting glacier slides.

And he dismisses cynicism about his failed campaign. "It was real, 100 percent real," Edwards says. "I want them to be proud of what I stood for, and of what the campaign stood for. The stands were honest and sincere and idealistic. They were what America needed then and needs now." 

MacGillis also talks to others for their views of Edwards and his anti-poverty follow-throughs or lack thereof.

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Photo credits: Associated Press (John and Elizabeth Edwards campaigning) (top).

How Obama's team ensures his messages get delivered properly

Here are a couple of little windows into how the new Barack Obama administration is quietly selling itself in savvy ways:

First, the more obvious e-mail blast: Early today right after the White House announcement of the nomination of Mark Huckabee to the Supreme Court. Oh, no, wait. It's Mike Huckabee who got Sonia Sotomayor's first name wrong online today.

Anyway, right away into millions of e-mail boxes of last yearr's campaign supporters pinged a personally addressed message from Obama himself. Wow, the president really does multi-task like he promised. How does he have time to announce nominees, face down the grave North Korean threat, play golf and help Harry Reid raise a couple mill at Caesars Palace tonight while writing millions of e-mails?

What an amazing chief executive!

Here's what his e-mail says:

Judge Sotomayor has lived the America Dream. Born and raised in a South Bronx housing project, she distinguished herself in academia and then as a hard-charging New York District Attorney.

Judge Sotomayor has gone on to....

Robert Gibbs ring gets fed up ring with others' ringing ring cellphones

Other people's cellphones are really annoying, aren't they?

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs loves his, obviously. And his boss has his own beloved specially equipped BlackBerry. As does Michelle.

But today during the regular media briefing Gibbs had had enough of other people's cellphones going off and disrupting his official talking.

Watch the video and see what he does. Later, he suggested cotton candy would be added to the circus.

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Photo: Chris Carlson / Associated Press; Video: C-SPAN

Elizabeth Edwards answers the real questions so many have

We've had our fun here at the Ticket these past couple of years with good old Larry King. (No, he's not really old enough to have interviewed Stonewall Jackson after the Second Battle of Manassas.)

But today we have to hand it to the veteran talker. Yes, yes, it seems like every other night he's interviewing show biz cronies who died long ago. And we don't really care about families that have walked off the set of "Cops" and put on shirts for CNN. But that's King's bookers' fault.

His most recent show had Elizabeth Edwards. Now, this is not her first broadcast appearance pushing her new book, "Resilience." But it was by far her best, thanks to the suspendered one.

In his old overnight radio days, King used to tell guests that he never read their books because he wanted to ask the questions real people would ask. Last night, he seemed to have read at least part of Edwards' book about coping with adversity.

He was curious, wondering, politely pressing. He asked the questions many spectators of her husband's marital betrayal, confession, her illness and now her promotional tour would ask.

Such as, why in the world are you doing this? How are you coping with this and with a terminal illness? Aren't you worried what the children will see/think? Have you forgiven him? Are the children angry? Do you want to meet the other woman?

People watching politics often make judgments about public figures. It is, after all, a whole lot ...

So this Obama guy walks into a banquet and...(Media Laughter/Applause)

The tradition is that the president speaks and gets a chance to poke some well-written, sometimes self-deprecating fun at himself and others in the nation's capitol, while slipping in some not so subtle suck-up to the media that helps shape his image in American minds.

We had an item and some videos from the scene of Saturday night's event here earlier today.

Here's the full text of what President Obama said at the White House Correspondents Assn. dinner at the Washington Hilton:

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. Thank you, everybody. Good evening. You know, I had an entire speech prepared for this wonderful occasion, but now that I'm here I think I'm going to try something a little different. Tonight I want to speak from the heart. I'm going to speak off the cuff.  (Teleprompters rise from floor.)  (Laughter and applause.)

Good evening. (Laughter.) Pause for laughter. (Laughter.) Wait a minute, this may not be working as well as I -- (laughter.)  Let me try that again. 

Good evening, everybody. (Applause.)  I would like to welcome you all to the 10-day anniversary of my first 100 days. (Laughter.)  I am Barack Obama. Most of you covered me. All of you voted for me.  (Laughter and applause.)  Apologies to the Fox table. (Laughter.)  They're -- where are they?  I have to confess I really did not want to be here tonight, but I knew I had to come -- just one more problem that I've inherited from George W. Bush. (Laughter.)

But now that I'm here, it's great to be here. It's great to see all of you. Michelle Obama is here, the First Lady of the United States.  (Applause.) Hasn't she been an outstanding First Lady?  (Applause.) She's even begun to bridge the differences that have divided us for so long, because no matter which party you belong to we can all agree that Michelle has the right to bare arms. (Laughter and applause.)

Now Sasha and Malia aren't here tonight because they're grounded. You can't just take....

Silly John Kerry worried about online journalism, 70 million bloggers

With several print newspapers already dead in recent months, others failing or under financial threat and a crass crowd of brash, disrespectful online journalists attracting millions of readers, the jut-jawed senator from Massachusetts, John Kerry, is worried about the future of said journalism.

Why is it his business, some might ask. 

Well, for one thing, as a youngster Kerry delivered the Washington Star. That newspaper died. As an adult Democratic candidate for president five years ago, Kerry got some rough treatment from opponents and journalists both on- and offline. His campaign died. Does anyone see a pattern here?

But the contemporary reason for Kerry's journalism concern is that he chairs the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Communications, Technology and the Internet (SCSOCTATI). Which is probably a big deal somewhere. (See below Kerry talking with an apparent politics blogger.)

Except for celebrity nudity and public confessions of marital infidelity by elected people, few things are guaranteed to attract media attention more than discussions about itself. It's self-fulfilling. The press corps must be important if it's getting so much coverage from itself.

Especially in Washington, where the press seems to banquet itself quite regularly. Oh, look, there's another one this weekend! Watch for Sarah Palin. (Or Todd.)

So Kerry had a SCSOCTATI hearing this week.

Truth be told, congressional hearings often have less to do with anyone hearing anything and more to do with people talking. And talking. And talking.

As often happens, what anyone hears is actually written down long before it's said to be heard. People could save a lot of time by not saying all these words out loud; just e-mail them around for easier deletion.

Kerry's staff wrote up a bunch of words about journalism for him to be heard saying.

You'll never see any of these words in an actual newspaper these days because they take up way too much space that could be filled with lucrative advertisements, if they weren't disappearing too.

But because we don't have to buy newsprint here on The Ticket, we can waste all the space we want on staff-written words that come out of a senator's mouth. So we're publishing the entire Kerry statement below.

In short, here's what Kerry says:

Blah blah blah blah blah blah time we examine the future of journalism in the digital Information Age blah blah and what it means to our Republic and to our democracy.

Blah blah blah blah blah newspapers blah entertained us; they enraged us, but always, they have informed us.

Blah blah blah to keep the Boston Globe from closing. Blah blah The New York Times bought the Boston Globe for $1.1 billion in 1993, but the value of all Times stock is less than $800 million now. Blah blah blah whistling past the graveyard blah blah the path that lies ahead for news delivery, and how during a time of great creative destruction within the market for news delivery we might preserve the core societal function that is served by an independent and diverse news media.

Blah blah paper and ink have become obsolete blah blah the important question of whether....