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Braising Arizona:
John McCain, the Press and Reality
Plus: Let's Disbar Larry!

by Tamara Baker

Mon., Feb. 14, 2000 -- ST. PAUL, MINNESOTA (AmpolNS) -- Ah, the media scribes, those fickle prostitutes of sensationalism (aside, of course, from those who are being paid to actively and knowingly promote Jim Nicholson's agenda--they are by no means fickle, but stand by the GOP unwaveringly). Was it only two weeks ago that CelebCorps was in the throes in a six-month-long love affair with George Walker Bush?

Up until the New Hampshire primary, Dubya could do no wrong in the eyes of allegedly neutral and objective corporate American journalists (a note: those who would bash me for being non-neutral myself must remember that there is a difference between journalism and commentary, and that I am performing the latter, not the former. Good journalists recognize this; ynfortunately, good journalism has gone out of fashion nowadays.)

Meanwhile, Bill and Hill and Al and Tipper, hated by large chunks of CelebCorps (especially the right-wing chunk) for their refusal to shrivel up and die on command, could, and can, do no right as far as the press is concerned.

This selective boosterism made for some amusingly bad journalism, as evinced by how the press treated two pieces, one on Hillary and the other on Dubya, in the maiden issue of Talk magazine. The interview with Hillary was distorted to hell and back, with various pundits and pundettes, such as Maureen Dowd, putting words in the First Lady's mouth. It was the talk of the Op-Ed pages for weeks.

Meanwhile, nearly a month after the press lynched HRC over things she never said, we finally saw the first feeble swipes at the things that George W. Bush was quoted as saying in HIS Talk article. The swipes weren't sustained, either, even though Dubya really and truly did say things that, had ANY of them come out of the mouth of a Democrat (or any other Republican but him, for that matter), would have meant the instant end of his or her campaign (see my earlier Ampol piece for further details).

But that was then. This is now.

John McCain is the current flavor of the month, thanks to what the press calls his "accessibility" (translation: his "sycophancy"). He, much like Jesse Ventura, has a very good relationship with the national media and an absolutely rotten one with the press in his own state.

Partly this is because much of their respective local presses are aligned politically with McCain's and Ventura's respective opponents; the Arizona Republic is solidly behind GW Bush, and the St. Paul Pioneer Press, Jesse's most fervent opponent, is a Republican paper that backed GOP mayor Norm Coleman in the governor's race in 1998 (click here for an example of some recent Arizona Republic stories on a murder scandal involving McCain that the national media steadfastly refuses to cover). But mostly, it's because both gents have a history that belies their current "straight-talking" poses.

Here's what Salon's Joan Walsh, who is not a Clinton-Gore fan by any means, has to say about the self-styled "straight-talker" from Arizona:

McCain may be a work in progress (aren't we all?), evolving away from the Goldwater certainties of his early career to a kind of centrism. But the evidence of that conversion is thin. That analysis mostly comes down to this: Conservatives are dorks, and liberals are cool. McCain is a cool guy, therefore he must be a liberal. Nobody like him would try to turn back the clock on, say, abortion rights, would he?

But of course he would. Any time McCain's been given a chance to act on abortion, he's voted to curb it. As Bruce Shapiro recently described in Salon, McCain has voted to deny federal abortion funds to low-income women, prohibit abortion at U.S. military bases overseas, and he supported a rider to an international aid bill that blocked all global family-planning funding, not just for abortion. Last year, he sponsored legislation that would have made it a felony to transport a woman under 18 across state lines to thwart parental-notification laws. Of 86 votes on abortion rights issues, he voted the so-called pro-life line 82 times, according to the National Abortion Rights Action League.

It's true that last summer, while preparing for his presidential campaign, McCain told the San Francisco Chronicle that he wouldn't support efforts to overturn Roe vs. Wade because it would drive pregnant women to "illegal and dangerous operations." But he quickly backtracked on the statement, and reaffirmed his support for reversing Roe.

It isn't just with abortion that McCain's "straight talk" is actually double-talk, as Walsh points out (emphasis in the second quoted paragraph you are about to read is mine--you'll see why when you read it).

He's had a similar failure of nerve on South Carolina's Confederate flag. The first time the issue came up, the straight-talking McCain got it at least partly right: He called the flag "a symbol of slavery," though he said whether it flew or not was a decision best left to the state. Soon after that he reversed himself on this crucial issue, just as he did on Roe vs. Wade, and defended the flag as "a symbol of heritage." At the time I wondered if the Arizonan knew "heritage" was a Southern code word for rehabilitating the Confederacy, slavery and all.

Then I learned: Of course he did, because his key South Carolina strategist, Richard Quinn, is editor-in-chief of Southern Partisan magazine--kind of a Southern Living for Confederacy lovers, except for all those nasty articles about that race traitor, Abe Lincoln--and a paid consultant behind the effort to keep the flag flying. To me, McCain's keeping Quinn on his payroll is even worse than his flip-flopping on the flag itself.

Now.

Hold.

On.

New.

York.

Minute.

WHY have we not heard a single freaking WORD from the Heathers crowding the "Straight Talk" bus on this?

WHY have these McCain press groupies, the very same people who raked Al Gore over the coals over and over again for employing Naomi Wolf, not said Word ONE about John McCain employing a spiffed-up version of David Duke as his campaign advisor?

WHERE are the vicious Maureen Dowd columns attacking McCain's harboring of a racist in his campaign staff?

WHEN will McCain's national media free ride end?

American Politics Journal does not subscribe to Tamara Baker's position--we think that Larry Klayman is such a moron that we would miss covering this sick loser if he were disbarred! We say let him stay... so we can cover his professional suicide later!
Speaking of media free rides, the Insect Currently Known as Klayman is in the news again.

This time, he was trying to get some free publicity at a James Carville book-signing. Mr. Carville was autographing copies of his fine tome Stickin' (I have a copy, and it's a wonderful book, by the way), when Klayman and his entourage showed up with yet another nuisance suit to serve on yet another Clinton friend.

The Ragin' Cajun can defend himself quite well, being himself a lawyer, but I worry about the dozens of little people whose lives Klayman has made utterly miserable through his harrassment. Can't we at least try to stop this vile man who would (quite literally!) sue his own mother?

Yes, we can!

...and by taking a tactic that Larry's own Freeper buddies use and turning it against him: disbarment petitions.

Those wishing to disbar Larry Klayman should send letters and/or faxes and phone calls to the Washington, D.C., Office of Professional Responsibility. Larry has been a member of the D.C. Bar since 1977 when he worked for the Department of Justice.

Normally, petitions from persons writing from out-of-state would be ignored by a typical state OPR. But, since Mr. Klayman is a member of the D.C. Bar, he is fair game to petitioners from all fifty states.

Here's the information you need to get started:

District of Columbia
Leonard H. Becker
District Columbia Board on Professional Responsibility
515 5th Street, NW, Building A, Rm. 127
Washington, D.C. 20001
Phone: (202) 638-1501
Fax: (202) 638-0862
Filing Method: Call for form or submit a detailed letter
Anonymity: No anonymous petitions allowed

Got it? Good.

Have fun, kids!