Patterico's Pontifications

4/27/2005

Coverage of the L.A. Press Club Event

Filed under: Blogging Matters,General — Patterico @ 10:08 pm



Many blogs have discussed last night’s fabulous L.A. Press Club event:

Hugh Hewitt has a comprehensive post, and also includes the text of his prepared remarks.

Mickey Kaus complains that none of the bloggers blogged about the event. You just need to give us some time, Mickey . . .

Quarens has a picture, where you can barely see me, off to the left.

SoCalPundit promises pictures, but hasn’t delivered — yet. (I think Hugh called him Kevin Drum! He was obviously mixing up SoCalPundit Kevin with Kevin Drum, the former CalPundit. He must have been surprised at the right-wing question that “Drum” asked.)

Flap does have pictures. The red eyes in the picture of me are due to his camera — not the wine I had. I assure you.

Mack Reed was appalled by the Times-bashing.

Kevin Roderick — who, like me, was surprised to find Hugh Hewitt inviting him to speak (but who, unlike me, wisely declined to) — has some thoughts.

Gay Patriot has a comprehensive list of people he met.

So does Cathy Seipp — who says she met me, but really didn’t, properly (which I regret — hopefully next time).

I did meet Carol Platt Liebau, who sometimes guests for Hugh Hewitt on the radio.

Justene from Calblog says her daughter was thrilled that her mom got to hear Hugh Hewitt . . . you know, the blogger.

Luke Ford has a post, though I can’t figure out how to permalink it.

Jason Apuzzo of the LIBERTAS blog has a post. Baldilocks, Vik Rubenfeld, and I enjoyed talking to his wife Govindini Murty about conservatives in Hollywood. Apparently they exist!

Other folks I met who didn’t/couldn’t blog it — and I know I am missing some — include L.A. Times editor Bob Sipchen; the pseudonymous LAPD officer Jack Dunphy and his lovely (and equally anonymous) wife; Amy Alkon; Jill Stewart; Roger L. Simon; Mark Alan Stamaty (who does the full-page Sunday Opinion comics for the L.A. Times); Brady Westwater; and (as I mentioned last night) frequent commenter Dafydd ab Hugh and his lovely wife Sachi. Old friends not already mentioned included Justin Levine, Richard (Calblog Justene’s husband), and Marc Danziger (aka Armed Liberal from Winds of Change). And probably some others that I somehow forgot.

I got to speak with all of these people (except for Cathy Seipp). Can you tell what a great evening it was?

UPDATE: Jay Rosen wasn’t there, but has a post that touches on the event.

L.A. Times Spins Controversy over Judicial Filibusters to Favor Democrats

Filed under: Dog Trainer,Judiciary — Patterico @ 7:14 am



There has been no resolution in the U.S. Senate of the dispute over the use of the filibuster to block President Bush’s nominees.

How do you figure that has been portrayed in today’s L.A. Times story on the issue?

Your choices are:

a) The Republicans have attempted to resolve matters through compromise, but the Democrats have rebuffed the offers and insisted on the right to filibuster.

b) The Democrats have attempted to resolve matters through compromise, but the Republicans have rebuffed the offers and insisted on the elimination of the filibuster.

c) Each side has made an offer of “compromise” that the other side considers unserious.

If you guessed choice “b,” you win the gold star.

Here’s how today’s article begins:

Republicans Reject Democrats’ Offer to Settle Judicial Dispute

The deal would allow votes on three nominees. But the GOP says it’s focusing on future picks.

WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans on Tuesday rebuffed a Democratic overture aimed at ending a confrontation over federal judges, saying that any agreement must include a pledge not to filibuster future nominees — especially Supreme Court nominees.

Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) offered to back away from Democratic filibusters on three of seven of President Bush’s appellate court nominees if Republicans would pledge not to change Senate rules to end the use of the parliamentary tactic to stall votes on proposed judges.

But Republicans said they were less concerned about current nominees than they were about future ones, especially with an anticipated Supreme Court vacancy this summer.

Now, that sounds like an offer by the Democrats and a counteroffer by the Republicans. More accurately, it sounds like a ridiculous offer by the Democrats, and an equally ridiculous counteroffer (described further down in the story) by the Republicans. But the story’s angle is: Republicans are rejecting compromise.

I can best illustrate what I mean by rewriting the story to reflect the opposite spin. I could easily begin the story in this way, using the same exact facts reported in the story:

Democrats Reject Republicans’ Offer to Settle Judicial Dispute

The deal would allow a change to committee procedures. But Democrats want the right to block GOP future picks.

WASHINGTON — Senate Democrats on Tuesday rebuffed a Republican offer aimed at ending a confrontation over federal judges, saying that they would accept no agreement that restricted future use of the filibuster.

Senate Majority Whip Mitch McConnell of Kentucky offered to change committee procedures in return for an end to judicial filibusters.

“There’s a lot of finger-pointing going on on both sides,” he said. “This is a way to cure that.”

But Democrats said they were less concerned about current nominees than they were about future ones, especially with an anticipated Supreme Court vacancy this summer. They insisted that Republicans pledge not to change Senate rules to end the use of the parliamentary tactic to stall votes on proposed judges, leaving the two sides at an impasse.

See the difference? That is effectively the mirror image of the spin presented in today’s story, in which Republicans are the ones portrayed rebuffing a compromise.

Why this particular spin?

I don’t know for sure. But I do know this: the spin of today’s story matches the spin that Democrats are putting on the impasse:

“Republican leaders don’t want compromise,” Reid said. “Republican leaders don’t want Democrats to have a voice in this debate. Republican leaders don’t want any check on their quest for absolute power. They want total victory.”

And so do you, Sen. Reid. You want the absolute right to block any judge that doesn’t meet your party’s preferred judicial philosophy. Even though Republicans have won the Presidency and a majority of the seats in the Senate, you don’t want them to have the ability to place judges on the bench who reflect their preferred judicial philosophy.

Lucky for you, you have found at least one newspaper happy to portray the controversy the way you’d like it portrayed.

UPDATE: I finally looked at the article in the dead trees edition of the paper (I blogged this entry from the Internet version). The article in the paper obligingly runs a photo of Harry Reid standing in front of a lectern that prominently states: “PROTECT OUR RIGHTS. STOP THE PARTISAN POWER GRAB.” It’s as prominent as the headline of the story.


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