All credit goes to commenter JenJen for noting this interesting little exchange between David Gregory and Governor John Kasich:
DAVID GREGORY:
Governor, you–work for Fox News. What’s the impact there? What’s the reaction there?
GOV. JOHN KASICH:
Well, it– you know, they– they have not been touched this, they have told me. And– I believe them. And– we just have to see how this all unfolds. It’s– you know, Murdoch’s fired people. He’s– you know, he’s– he’s quoted as– as– as being told that his hands in his– his– in his– his head in his hands, crying with the family that– was impacted. I mean it’s– it’s a terrible thing. And– hopefully we’ll get to the bottom of it. And it will change– it’ll change journalism.
Obviously, David Gregory made an error when Gregory said that John Kasich, the Governor of Ohio, “works for Fox News”. Gregory meant that Kasich worked for Fox News before he was the Governor of Ohio. Let’s hope that’s what he meant, anyway.
But, putting that aside, what a weird response from Kasich. The Governor of Ohio, a former Murdoch employee, just informed us that “they” (meaning Fox News employees or executives, I assume) have assured the Governor of Ohio that “they have not been touched by this”. Oh, and he also offers this: “I believe them.”
WTF kind of answer is that from a sitting U.S. governor? Why is the Governor of Ohio discussing this with his former co-workers at Fox News at all, let alone offering a preemptive defense on their behalf?
maye
Before it’s all over, we will find out that all of Murdoch’s media outlets employed legions of hackers.
maye
And I’m not envisoning James Murdoch as Gordon Liddy. If he gets arrested, he’ll spill everything.
mellowjohn
because mordoch owns the republican party?
aimai
If these people had any smitch of honor at all they’d all commit public seppuku.
aimai
bkny
they’re askeered to touch it:
On the show’s website, Fox News posts “Behind the Breaks” videos of the panel chatting during commercial breaks. In the first break, the panel — including Judith Miller, Cal Thomas and James Pinkerton — can be heard chatting about “the subject we’re not talking about today.” Thomas asked his colleagues if anyone is willing to bring up the scandal. “Sure,” Pinkerton answered jokingly. “Go ahead, Cal.” As the panel laughs, Thomas responds, “I’m not going to touch it.”
http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/fox-news-watch-avoids-news-corp-scandal-almost_b75808
ornery
Because it is a vast Right-wing conspiracy. No, really.
No, REALLY.
kay
Well, sure, and Jim Demint’s response reflects that (same transcript, desperate frightened attempt to change subject) but good lord, Demint isn’t volunteering that he discusses issues with reporters or managers at FOX.
Kasich sees no problem with vigorously defending the supposed news agency that promoted his campaign and where he was once on the payroll, and either does David Gregory.
There’s NO separation btwn Fox and government apparent in this exchange, at all.
Spiros Vondas
Mordoch? Wasn’t that Sauron’s progenitor in Lord of the Rings?
Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen
As VoldeMurdoch’s grip weakens his minions begin to emit a flood of schadenfreudilicious flop sweat.
Good God. I feel for the SOB who had to clean up after this quivering jelly. I hope they just burned the chair Gov. Kashick was sitting in ‘cos no amount of cleaner will ever completely remove the smell of fear piss.
kay
Did you check out the composition of that fair and balanced roundtable?
Big business, Fox News representative John Kasich, another coupla right wing wackos/think tankers, and one lonely advocate for the poor, who they all ignore and talk over.
Nah. They’re not completely captured. Objective news!
Joey Maloney
Shameless. Just shameless. And no reason to have to pretend otherwise.
Citizen_X
Because the Holy Trinity of the American Right is Party-Church-media. If you break that unholy alliance, the VRWC starts crumbling.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
Gawd, I hope so.
Dennis SGMM
Because they’re all members of the tribe, silly.
Scott Supak
My suggestion to anyone who’s recently suffered a public tragedy (like having your child killed): change your passwords.
Mr Stagger Lee
They don’t need a Liddy, the need a John Dean, who will for exchange of a light sentence will play Joe Valachi, sings like the Temptations and everybody doing time.
debbie
Sorry I missed that interview. Reading your excerpt, he’s certainly talking at the speed of business.
Violet
Wow, Kasich can hardly stammer out a response. Is he going to claim Gregory asked a gotcha question?
I can’t seem to tear myself away from this scandal. It’s breaking open on all fronts and it’s just delicious to watch.
Are those who work for other media companies going to take this opportunity to stick it to Fox or are they going to band together in a show of media solidarity with the Fox employees? How’s that going to work?
kay
It’s hard to get my head around how tight this little power club has become.
Newsman David Gregory asks Governor John Kasich about news agency where governor was on the payroll, and neither of them see anything wrong or unseemly with Kasich’s stuttering, embarrassing defense of said news agency.
Gregory just assumes the Governor of Ohio knows what’s up internally at Fox News! And Kasich responds, yes, he does!
Amazing.
JenJen
Glad you found it as worthy of comment and highlighting as I did, Kay!
And for the record, I LOL’d when Gregory called Kasich a Fox News employee. It’s not like he ever stopped, not really.
jwb
kay: Or it’s possible that Gregory asked the question this way in order to see whether Kasich has been in contact with the Fox people. By presuming that he has, it required Kasich to explicitly contradict him rather than go with the flow of the question. If Gregory had asked the question in a more neutral or even hostile manner, Kasich would not have been as likely to have revealed the continued close contact between himself and Fox. I know it’s hard to imagine Gregory actually practicing journalism, but maybe the US media is also beginning to smell the blood in the water.
Davis X. Machina
Those wagons don’t circle themselves, people.
Restrung
Can Fox News retroactively fire him? Then he can be arrested.
debbie
Amampour did the same thing to Obama’s budget director today. I was a bit surprised. She interrupted practically every one of his responses to her previous questions.
kay
That interview with the Guardian reporter keeps running through my head, at the end, he says, “this is really about powerful people who thought the rules didn’t apply to them”.
He meant media + political leaders + a police agency (as it turns out).
It’s fucking terrifying to listen to.
Sloegin
The answer comes easily enough if you assume David Gregory *didn’t* make an error.
Comrade Mary
A little OT (but still a touch of Ohio):
From Swampland:
Mark S.
Oh no it isn’t, you douchebag. Your tears are delicious!
As someone who has witnessed friends and family lobotomized by Fox News, this is The Greatest Story Ever Told.
kay
Thanks so much.
I actually watched the DeMint portion, which is rare for me, but I somehow missed my favorite person in the world, Governor Kasich. The stuttering looks terrible in a transcript. Hopefully it was more embarrassing and groveling heard spoken.
Martin
You know, I used to always ignore the comments along the lines of ‘what does Fox News have on these guys’, but now I’m wondering if they weren’t right all along.
kay
Cordray is scary smart, Mary, and his AG’s office in Ohio was great with consumer advocacy. We used to send our people who got ripped off there, to the web site, because they could file a claim on-line w/out paying a lawyer, and the claims were ADDRESSED quickly and PAID. He’s a good pick.
He was also a very tough prosecutor, which bankers need, obviously. A stern daddy, because they can’t show any restraint or self-control or even common sense. He’ll be good in that role.
parsimon
jwb at 20:
I’m sympathetic to this reading. Gregory’s hands are tied to some extent, but he pushes in unexpected ways. At the same time it’s no secret that he’s called upon to generate ratings by forcing commentators to make quote-worthy statements. It’s sort of cringe inducing to watch him do it when he’s clearly ignoring any and all nuance, but I have to give him credit from time to time for saying things like “That’s a programmatic response,” as he replied to Jack Lew on this morning’s program.
Elizabelle
Yeah, Cordray is a wonderful choice.
(Loved how NYTimes said Warren nomination was controversial because she was beloved of “liberals and consumer advocates”, in that order. It’s always political.
Wondering if plan is Cordray for first CFPB head, and Warren replaces during second Obama administration, if Senate changes enough to allow confirmation.
It’s sickening that Warren’s nomination was “controversial” (fake poutrage, truly) at all.
Maybe some heads rolling and shoes dropping in the wake of the Murdoch/Scotland Yard/eventually Fox News scandal will give us a Congress more responsive to the American public. The sane component, please.
Violet
@parsimon:
I really can’t stand David Gregory. He’s the very definition of an obsequious toady. He makes my skin crawl.
On the rare occasion when he accidentally commits journalism, I’ll be happy to read a transcript. I avoid him as much as possible. I wish they’d put a real journalist in that spot.
lol
Richard Cordray was also a five-time winner on Jeopardy back in the 80s.
I can’t wait to hear from Firebaggers about how Cordray is a corporate hack and Obama is a spineless coward. But hey, if their freakout makes him look more “moderate” and thus confirmed, then by all means, commence freaking out.
j
Dancin’ Dave seems to be having a lot of those Freudian slips lately.
This morning @ ~~ 6 am the local NBC News anchors did a cut-away to David Gregory so he could chat with them about what’s coming up on Meet the Press, and he went into a long tale about what the Democrats want in the debt ceiling talks and then he said “while the leaders of the country – I mean the leaders of the republican party – are looking for something different”.
Ahem, his party loyalties were on full display.
maye
No gambling taking place in this establishment:
(Reuters) – No illegal activities have taken place at Dow Jones & Co, the News Corp (NWSA.O) unit that publishes the Wall Street Journal, according to an independent panel tasked with overseeing the integrity of the newspaper.
The panel said in a statement released on Friday that none of the “London offenses or anything like them have taken place at Dow Jones.”
The committee said it was monitoring the situation and that it has been in talks with officials at Dow Jones over the phone hacking scandal that rocked Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp and led to several arrests in London.
The panel added that the resignation of Les Hinton, the Wall Street Journal’s publisher, is unrelated to activities that have taken place at the newspaper or at Dow Jones. (For a timeline of the hacking scandal hitting News Corp, click here: [ID:nL6E7IF1AG]
“Nothing has come to our attention that causes us to believe that (the) resignation of Les Hinton as publisher of The Wall Street Journal is any way related to activities at The Wall Street Journal or Dow Jones or that any of the London offenses or anything like them have taken place at Dow Jones,” the panel said in an e-mailed statement.
Rebekah Brooks, the former head of Rupert Murdoch’s British newspaper business, was arrested on Sunday in the latest twist of a phone-hacking scandal that has tainted British police and politicians and shaken the tycoon’s global media empire.
Culture of Truth
Kasich on jobs:
.
kay
Richard Cordray was also a five-time winner on Jeopardy back in the 80s.
Davis X. Machina
@lol: Why wait?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439×1508817#1508894
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102×4923895#4923989
Linda Featheringill
I have been educated in the theory that big media is in the pocket of big business, but I am surprised at how far Murdoch’s tentacles reach. And this scandal is just beginning.
If I’m shocked and surprised, how much more of a surprise would it be for the average guy on the street?
Murdoch certainly wanted to make money in the US but I really think that he’s had a political agenda all along. The politics of his minions are certainly reactionary but I wonder how far back the Old Man wants to go to.
Off the top of my head, I would guess that Murdoch is a feudal lord who has been using greedy bastards and idealistic fascists to get what he wants.
bkny
and there’s little likelihood that cordray will be confirmed. unless obama gets out there daily and demands confirmations for the dozens — or is it hundreds — of posts the republicans are holding up; and how these leaderless agencies need some directors NOW, absolutely nothing will change until the senate does. and then, watch ben nelson, put holds on .. ;-)
Violet
What will Republicans do if Rupert is too busy defending himself, his family and his empire to properly oversee the delivery of talking points, etc.? Oh, sure there’s Roger Ailes. But his hands aren’t clean and he’ll be focused on defending himself too.
I suspect the discipline of Fox News won’t hold for too long and we’ll start to see some on-air slip ups. Plus, if the future starts looking dicey at Fox News, the on-air talent isn’t going to stick around to go down with the ship. Where will they go?
It’s going to be a beautiful thing to watch.
Tonal Crow
Are there any Republicans who don’t fellate the Fox? And isn’t bestiality illegal?
Martin
Huh. Gregory should have pointed out that Kasich pronounced ‘nigger’ wrong.
TheOtherWA
This is going to get very awkward for Faux. They certainly covered the college kid who guessed his way into Sarah Palin’s yahoo email account and is now in jail.
Murdoch’s people guessed people’s 4 digit passwords on their voice mail and listened in. It’s the exact same crime.
j
@3
Aren’t the mordochs the sub-human underground dwelling ogre-like meanies from “The Time Machine”?
gwangung
Ya know….that sounds REALLY good to me. Aggressive pro-consumer behavior like that is the important thing, not just having the initials EW.
Davis X. Machina
@TheOtherWA: Brute force, using interns, or someone else who can’t say ‘no, that’s illegal.’ How long can it possibly take?
Roger Moore
I don’t think so. Most of the villagers have gigs with several media companies. They’re so used to everyone they know triple and quadruple dipping that they treat Kasich going into government the same way. If somebody can be a commentator on Fox, report for another network, and write editorials in a newspaper, why shouldn’t Kasich have to give up his job as a talking head on Fox just because he’s Governor of Ohio? Even if he has to take a leave of absence, why would he have to stop talking to his buddies there?
Citizen_X
What a sickening, smarmy shit. “Crying with the family” that they screwed.
But this bit is wonderful:
Gosh, I sure hope so! Good luck, O.J.!
PeakVT
Cordray seems like a good choice. He has no ties to the financial industry, which may mean he isn’t quite as knowledgeable as other potential candidates, but it also means he’s unlikely to identify with them in any way.
FlipYrWhig
I can’t even tell from the quotation what person has his head in his hands. There’s no agency there, just a set of gestures. Is it supposed to be that poor Rupe is miserable for having to fire people? Or poor Rupe and poor blameless fired people are sharing a moment of dismay together?
lol
kay:
It was more a follow-on to the “scary smart” comment than anything meant to be persuasive.
Cordray recruited a lot of staff from his AG office to CFPB, which sort of makes this seem obvious in retrospect.
parsimon
Violet:
Mm, as I said, I have the strong impression that he’s called upon to be the presenting face of Meet the Press, and that requires as much toeing the line as it does pushing on his interviewees. If you don’t watch the show: there’s a difference in journalistic tone between the one-on-one interviews he does with politicians and the roundtable discussion moderation he does. It’s clear in both cases that he has a time limit in which to fit various topics into the discussion; sometimes he lets things go that he might otherwise press.
I’m not sure why I sound like I’m apologizing for Gregory: I just don’t think he’s the worst out there, and he’s working with significant constraints from the higher-ups regarding ratings.
Linda
As a Buckeye-by-20-years-residence, I’m delighted that Cordray got the job. He was defeated for AG by the Republican hack Dewine, but our loss is the country’s gain. He was an excellent AG, and went after frauds and the housing racketeers with smarts and energy. He’ll do a great job, and if the Repubs have a hissy fit, it will pretty much demonstrate the Warren was not the problem, the Republican Party and its hatred of consumers is.
Davis X. Machina
@Davis X. Machina: Hmn. Links knackered. They’ve survived cut-and-paste before.
Shorter version. He went to the University of Chicago, and he’s not Elizabeth Warren.
maya
violet@42
Opportunity knocks for the fabulous furry Koch brothers, no?
Nora
I especially liked the euphemism “that was impacted.” You mean the family of the murdered teenager whose cell phone messages were deleted by Murdoch’s people so that the family had the false hope that the girl might still be alive? That kind of impact, you slimy toad?
sukabi
Kay, you’re assuming Gregory made an error with his tense of the word “works”… Kashich’s response seems like Gregory has the tense correct….
Violet
@FlipYrWhig:
It’s not supposed to make sense. It’s just supposed to create imagery that Rupert felt terrible for the family and that he’s really a good guy. That’s all Kasich was trying to do. Well, that and get off the topic as fast as possible with the least amount of damage.
Violet
@maya:
Yes, but the Koch brothers have been using Fox News to push their agenda, right? If Fox News is in disarray, they’ll have a harder time doing that. Perhaps they can buy Fox News, but so far it’s not for sale. And even if they owned it, or started their own network, do they have any background in media or news or anything of that kind? It might not be as easy as they think to do what Fox News does.
I don’t dispute that there are those out there, like the Kochs, who would like have their own spokesmouth network, but Fox News has always served that role pretty well. And Fox News may head into disarray in the near future, and discipline will be missing.
Dee Loralei
MSNBC announcing Hosni Mubarack has had a stroke and is in a coma.
scav
and a heads up for those wanting to follow the financial wedge into the heart of NI: the Serious Fraud Office begins a preliminary investigation into News International
Also noted at the Guard.
MikeJ
@Dee Loralei: I see a remake of Ebony and Ivory with Ariel Sharon.
Amir_Khalid
Latest from Grauniad livebloog:
The head of Scotland Yard has quit.
Violet
Link.
Heads are rolling. Who is next?
Edit: Amir_Khalid got there first!
Amir_Khalid
@Violet:
Yay me.
scav
News-struck corpses litter the stage indeed, although I don’t think we’re quite at Hamlet-levels yet as the King is still standing. Titus Andronicus get any votes?
beltane
Wow, I go out for an ice cream cone and the Metropolitan Police Commissioner resigns. The heads are rolling faster than I can keep up with them.
General Stuck
Drip Drip Drip
Yutsano
@Violet: I’m thinking the next few scalps come from Cameron’s government directly. Which puts the LibDems in a huge bind if they choose to hold onto the coalition too long. Poor Nicky.
beltane
Hey, Sully: This is what a Fifth Column really looks like http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/07/17/995568/-Fmr-Fox-News-Executive:-Americans-Phones-Were-Hacked?detail=hide
KCinDC
It’s disturbing that Reuters used “independent” there without scare quotes, accepting News Corp’s terminology. Here’s Eric Boehlert from 2007 on the “independent committee” farce.
Amir_Khalid
There was a juicy revelation about Paul Stephenson ahead of his resignation. He got a 20-day free vacation at a luxury health spa while convalescing after medical treatment. Former NoTW exec Neil Wallis did PR for both the spa and for Scotland Yard (formally the Metropolitan Police Service). Also, Stephenson and other senior cops from the Yard were drinking buddies with NI execs. The Yard sat on bags and bags of evidence gathered at NI in the earlier phone hacking investigations and claimed they’d conducted a thorough investigation. It looks like he might not be the only cop going down.
scav
General Stuck:
A hit to a critical artery goes Spurt Spurt Spurt first but settles down to Drip Drip Drip.
wrb
“The heads are rolling faster than I can keep up with them.”
Visions of the Gloucestershire cheese rolling contest
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOyQBSMeIhM
SiubhanDuinne
@ j – July 17, 2011 | 2:08 pm · Link
And your point . . . ?
Dee Loralei
@SiubhanDuinne: technically it’s the Morlocks, but I like J’s version better.
Amir, Happy 50th sir!You’re one of the best commenters on the blog, so many many more happy years to you.
General Stuck
scav
Good point
Amir_Khalid
@Dee Loralei:
Your kind words are a lovely birthday present. I am grateful.
SiubhanDuinne
Yes, a very happy birthday to Amir_Khalid on his 50th, and to Old King Cole on his 70th!
Dee Lorelei: I agree with you about A_K and his commentary. A very interesting and unfailingly civil individual
:: whispers so A_K doesn’t hear us and get all conceited ::
Felanius Kootea
@Comrade Mary: And what are the chances that the Republicans will allow Cordray to be confirmed?
Another slightly off-topic note: the head of Scotland Yard has resigned, which means that the NOTW scandal reaches far higher than I’d thought (I thought lower level police and that’s it) and a whole bunch of people in the London police must be shitting bricks right now.
ETA: oops many other commenters had noted the Scotland Yard head’s resignation. Next time I’ll read all the way to the end before commenting :).
Amir_Khalid
@SiubhanDuinne:
Oh, now you’re making me blush.
JGabriel
In a light essay on horror, the NY Times asks:
Which made think, “Yeah, why do we read political blogs?”
.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@kay: It’s nice that some folks outside Ohio can now know what we’ve already noticed – King John I is as dumb as a bag of hammers. As it did not even dawn on him how inappropriate that sounded.
pete
OK, now the top cop in London has quit (to avoid the appearance of … yeah, right), what’s next? Are they really going to arrest James Murdoch, as this morning’s rumor [your spellin’ may vary] had it? Or let him bleat to Parliament on Tuesday first?
I should root for Tuesday, I’m kinda busy … but what the heck, bring it on!
doofus
Martin @ 29. Me too. It’s not like this is a new story in England either. Aspects of this were reported since at least as far back as 2003. Only a crime as heinous as the hacking of the voice mail and deletion of messages on the cell phone of Molly Dowling was enough of a hook to make it the lead news. Conspiracy thrives in the dark, and it is now extremely obvious that conspiracy is in the mix.
Cermet
I note he did begin to speak some truth when he said
“Murdoch” …”as being told that his hands in his” … .
So the viper was doing the dirty shit and this asswipe says so before realizing his mistake and making that stupid follow on statement. Talk about an ass licker and that piece of shit was elected by ohio? Boy, they are not very smart.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@SiubhanDuinne: I agree with you and Dee Loralei about the birthday boy. A happy 50th to you, sir, and please keep the great comments coming.
@Cermet: In our defense he squeaked through in a 49-47% plurality win. And there is massive buyer’s remorse.
Yutsano
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):
Today’s lesson kids: third party purity voting = voting for the other guy.
Comrade Mary
Blush harder, Amir! You can do it!
Here’s something from WTFLand for you. Both of us are old enough to remember these guys; the animator was born over a decade after they broke up.
Ginger Yellow
FYI, Murdoch hasn’t fired anyone. They all resigned. Earlier in the scandal, Ian Edmonson was suspended, but that’s as proactive as News Corp got.
OzoneR
In fairness, most of the third party vote, about 2.4% of it, was for the Libertarian candidate.
Greens only got 1.5%.
Lojasmo
I feel like doing the snoopy dance.
FWIW I believe we have a 100% troll free thread here!
DPirate
He probably made friends where he used to work and keeps in touch – that is why he might discuss it with them. Also, he may have considered that if this was done in Britain, it may be done here, and he could have called someone to discuss that.
He did not offer a defense. His response looks like “innocent until proven guilty” to me. A good sentiment to see in a governor.
debbie
OzoneR
Who cares if he’s a tough populist progressive who went after the banksters…he’s not the tough populist progressive who went after the banksters that WE wanted! This means our petitions didn’t work, Obama isn’t listening to us! WE WILL NOT BE IGNORED BARACK!!!!
Tired of Right-Wing-Enabling-Pseudo-Left-Wingers
The Republican Party works for crime boss Rupert Murdoch.*
It may be polite to pretend otherwise, but, LITERALLY:
Rupert Murdoch DIRECTLY PAYS Republican Party leaders and through those paid employees, crime boss Murdoch effectively owns and controls the Republican Party (see also: Tea Party).
While it’s understandable that lemming Republican/right-wing voters can’t understand this, it’s pathetic when someone who pays even minimal attention to our American political landscape can’t figure it out.
*The right-wing parties in the UK and Australia are also international crime-boss Murdoch’s servants.
kay
It’s a defense because he misrepresented the facts and sequence of events. Murdoch didn’t fire anyone. In fact, he vigorously defended Brooks right up until it became potentially unprofitable to do so. The public show of remorse appeared only after it became impossible to defend his paper’s actions. In fact, there’s photographs on that. We saw those. He went from belligerent hostile witness to crippled with guilt and remorse in 3 days. If he were an ordinary criminal, accused, Kasich would be sneering at his sudden conversion and “come to jesus” moment.
Ms. Brooks and her boss didn’t appear remorseful until it became clear that it was a necessary PR move to do so. Murdoch stonewalled any inquiry for a week. His original position was he wasn’t going to testify.
We all saw that. A to B to C. Governor Kasich is offering a defense of his former employer that misrepresents what happened here. Why is he misleading people?
kay
Yeah, and I know I’m old-fashioned, but I think it’s probably not a good idea for reporters to be “friends” with the politicians they’re supposed to be covering. This is supposed to be an adversarial relationship. There has to be inch or two in between media and their many personal friends in politics.
Can Governor Kasich call his friends at FOX for news (like this) that isn’t revealed to the public if he’s under investigation? Great. That’s fabulous. One big happy family, right? Government and media just helping each other out. That’ll work! It just worked so well in the UK. Who do we bring in next to to this little club? The police? The prosecutor?