I’d understand publishing this if there was some plausible way to paint Campbell Brown as a nonpartisan moderate or whatever, but there’s not. She’s Dan Senor’s fucking wife. If you want to call me sexist, I’d say the same thing if the Times published something like this from Todd Palin.
PLANNED PARENTHOOD has a large target on its back. At no time in the organization’s history has it faced such a concerted Congressional challenge to its agenda. But most worrisome is the organization’s shrinking number of defenders, and Planned Parenthood has only itself to blame. It has adopted a strategy driven by blind partisanship, electing to burn bridges instead of building them. That strategy is damaging, and possibly imperiling, its mission
Fuck you, New York Times. You stay afloat because hippies like me pay for a subscription even though we could read you for free.
And then you throw this shit in our faces as if it was the height of seriousness.
Fuck you.
Update. A good response from Washington Monthly via commenter Alison.
Update. Reader S (who alerted me to this) writes:
That’s probably the issue for me– why print this at all? Star-struck, that’s all I can figure for NYT’s motive. There was a Simpsons episode years ago that had Bart and Lisa writing “Itchy and Scratchy” episodes: “Itchy’s a barber–Scratchy walks in and sits down– Itchy finds a bottle of flesh-eating ants–and the episode writes itself!” So, start with a piquant base of upitty Planned Parenthood bra-burners, fold in some hurt Republican fee-fees, shovel in dudgeon to taste. Separate two free-range “both sides do it” and add the Dem part; reserve the Repub part for use in 2013. Smother the whole damn thing in amnesia, do not add a grain of salt, place in a lukewarm oven, and before you can say David Broder, this urinal cake is baked.
The Dangerman
Dan Senor sure hopes so.
Odie Hugh Manatee
I detect that Campbell is concerned about SGK and how its ‘image’ has been damaged. What Campbell is angling for is casting PP as the one who has done the damage, blunting the fact that wingers are the ones who are attacking PP. Campbell Clown is yet another partisan hack pretending to be nonpartisan to fool people into her line of thinking.
It isn’t news any more, it’s outright propaganda.
MattR
I love the pivot she does from pointing out that abortion services are a small percentage of what Planned Parenthood does to looking at Planned Parenthood’s actions solely as they pertain to abortion.
Davis X. Machina
In other words, Cet animal est très méchant. Quand on l’attaque, il se défend.
There’s High Broderism, and then there’s Broderism high enough to bounce radio signals off of it, for long-range communications.
schrodinger's cat
Who names their child Campbell? Did they like the damned canned soup that much?
Odie Hugh Manatee
@The Dangerman:
Don’t blame me, I’m dsylecix!
MattR
I also absolutely loved this quote from Sen Collins. “Why should I try to make their case in the Republican caucus? I can’t answer my colleagues when they say to me that Planned Parenthood is just a political party, because it is true.” Yeah, why should she advocate for something she believes in if some other people who support that issue are being a bunch of meanies?
General Stuck
That article ought to get an award for being so blissfully pig ignorant it made me laugh so loud, it skeert the dawg.
Alison
Kathleen Geier on weekend duty at Political Animal had a nice response to this pile of crap.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2012_06/concern_troll_of_the_day_campb038138.php
El Cid
What? No mentions of their propensity to burn bras and force schoolchildren to perform Wiccan witchcraft ceremonies?
Elizabelle
Appalled at the Times’ not better identifying Campbell Brown.
Inexcusable.
At least, now Ann Romney can write any op ed she likes and be identified as “a wife, mother and MS sufferer. Now with 80% more dancing horse.”
rikyrah
yeah, how dare Planned Parenthood not be nice to the muthafuckas that want to SHUT THEM DOWN.
I don’t know what’s going on in their silly minds.
fuck this bitch.
Davis X. Machina
@schrodinger’s cat: “Campbell” is an englished version of cam and béal, ‘crooked mouth’ — in other words, a liar.
Maude
Why was this even published?
I keep asking why the NYT has an op ed page full of drooling idiots.
Violet
Well, this part is true at least. The rest is horseshit.
Elizabelle
@schrodinger’s cat:
People in the American South.
Home to daughters named Porter, Cabell, Douglas, whatever variant on the esteemed family name.
Mind you, the dog might be named Sally or Betsy.
texascowgirl
One day media outlets like the NYT and CNN will realize that they aren’t losing conservative readers and viewers anymore, they are losing liberal readers and viewers now.
Fuck them all.
El Cid
I like the fantasy notion that there are these multi-billion dollar publication enterprises who scour the nation (and world) for the most well-informed, best arguing, skilled and dedicated and talented writers and then proudly review their output to ensure the very finest newspaper commentary possible.
That’s not what happens, at least not systematically and not with regularity.
Either that, or the writers assembled for the New York Times and Washington Post et al are indeed the actual best, and all the people we think we read on blogs or hear on the radio 9or the imaginary column we compose in our heads) which are so much better, more informed, better argued, and better written are just very, very successful computer simulations.
Violet
Are comments allowed on that piece of crap op-ed? I’m not going to give the NYT a hit and look, but for those that have, if comments are allowed, how are they running?
General Stuck
OT
This is curious. Gallups daily poll on Obama job approval rarely moves all that much, at or near half and half. But today, there was a huge leap, and from a three day rolling average, that leap was likely from yesterdays polling having an even bigger spike. With all that is going on right now, it bears watching for a continuation, or it could be just a one day anomaly.
JGabriel
DougJ @ Top:
I used to have a modicum — not a lot, just a modicum — of respect for Campbell Brown until she married Señor Señor.
.
Violet
Are you going for another Moore Award nomination? I think this might have a good chance.
JGabriel
@schrodinger’s cat:
Maybe they did drugs with Warhol?
.
Nellcote
The Brown/Senor nuptuals happened during Hurrican Katrina. That’s where all the missing WH staff was.
David Koch
They. Publish. This. Shit. To. Placate. Wealthy. Wingnut. Advertisers.
Violet
@schrodinger’s cat:
From Wikipedia:
It’s her second middle name. Why she uses it instead of Alma or Dale, who knows. It’s certainly not uncommon to use a mother’s surname as a child’s middle name.
Her dad is (was?) a Democrat.
Violet
Hmmm…from that same Wikipedia entry on her:
I’ve seen talk that Ann Curry, who replaced Meredith Vieira, might be on the way out. I wonder if they’ll dredge up Campbell Brown to fill her spot.
kay
The piece is factually incorrect, by commission.
She deliberately and carefully left out the fact that the GOP House member voted to defund Title X completely.
He voted for the Tea Party appropriations bill, which zeroed out Title X funding. THEN he introduced the PP “protection”, to cover his ass in a swing district.
The bill was big news, in 2011. The New York Times covered it.
She left that part out.
Nellcote
@Violet:
Because her track record at CNN is so smashing?
El Cid
@kay: Pffft. You libruls just can’t let go of ancient history, can you?
I mean, 2011? That’s like, I don’t know, an eternity ago. How could we even have any accurate records of what went on in those primitive days so long ago.
CW in LA
@rikyrah: It’s rather like how, in the wake of Prop. 8, the LA Times spent months editorializing that, while of course they supported marriage equality, they were deeply, deeply concerned that the LGBT community was being insufficiently civil to the people who wanted them stripped of their rights if not dead.
Violet
@kay:
Well, of course she did. Outside of the obvious fact that she’s selling wingnut talking points, it’s also an editorial, a vehicle focused on how she feels about the issue. Why let pesky things like facts get in the way of her deep, deep concern.
kay
@El Cid:
Clever, huh? She doesn’t tell readers that he voted to defund the entire Title X program, but skips right to the part where he takes the imaginary money for Title X that he just voted against appropriating, and makes sure PP gets some!
President Obama saved Title X.
5 million poor people depend on it.
What’s funny is, not even the GOP House member is THAT dishonest. He says he voted to defund Title X to “keep the government running”
Violet
@kay: She’s a dishonest shill and the NYT should be ashamed they allowed her to spew her drivel across the pages of their paper.
Kay Shawn
What part of “Planned Parenthood” can Soupy not understand? She’s effectively arguing that unless PP betrays their core mission and values then they are partisan and uncooperative, and undeserving of respect or support. Keep paintin’ that target, Cream of Mushroom.
kay
@Violet:
It’s lousy political analysis. PP has a swing district with a vulnerable GOP incumbent. Should they fund him or the guy that votes with them 100% of the time?
PP isn’t in the business of providing political cover for the tiny, wealthy pro-choice faction of the GOP. They’re advocates. They push for 100%, as they should.
Dave
The weirdest was the part about how Campbell Brown goes to all of Planned Parenthood’s concerts and sometimes literally walks right past the stage and dressing rooms, but Planned Parenthood has never acknowledged her or offered her a beer.
Valdivia
someone linked to this earlier in the comments and I just couldn’t get past the title. What is up with the Times?
John Weiss
@Violet: Violet, it should be clear by now what the ‘Grey Lady’ has become. She is indeed a dishonest shrill. Sadly, the NYT is reduced to this; perhaps she works on the cheap.
PG
Yeah, that was pretty concern-trolly. But that’s not what this post was really about.
Campbell Brown is drastically more famous than Dan Senor. I had to Google his name to figure out why it was problematic for her to be married to him. There is no reason, other than Handmaid’s Tale style “OfDan” thinking, to identify her as his wife in her biographical blurb at the end of the op-ed. It makes about as much sense as identifying her as the daughter of former Louisiana Insurance Commissioner and Secretary of State, and convict, James H. “Jim” Brown.
It is incredibly sexist in itself to compare Campbell Brown to Todd Palin. If he weren’t married to Sarah Palin, no one in the Lower 48 would know who Todd is. He is, to put it bluntly, a nobody based on his own accomplishments (unless you really really care about dog-sledding or whatever it is that made him famous in Alaska). If you don’t know about Campbell Brown’s accomplishments prior to marrying Dan Senor, then at least check her Wikipedia page first.
If it sounds like I’m taking this personally, I am. I’m married to a Republican. He doesn’t tell me what to think or write, and I don’t tell what to think or write. Hell, we first “met” each other arguing on blogs. I am genuinely concerned, not concern-troll concerned, if my views are going to be treated as suspect and generated by my husband.
The real hypothetical to consider is not whether you’d have this same reaction if Todd Palin published an op-ed. It’s whether you think Dan Senor needs to have Campbell Brown’s name appended to everything he does. If not, then sorry, YOU’RE BEING SEXIST.
Lyrebird
@Davis X. Machina: Touché.
I hope this op-ed backfires, big time.
The SGK debacle helped remind most people that they have or know someone who has gone to PP and gotten help they needed (from cancer screening to STD screening to, ya know, family planning, hey!) when that help wasn’t available to them anywhere else.
Detecting treatable and life-threatening diseases, incl preventing the spread of communicable ones, this is partisan HOW EXACTLY??????
Nemo_N
If only liberals were nicer to conservatives.
bk
@PG: HE’S AN ADVISOR TO ROMNEY. (As long as you’re going to shout).
Yutsano
Assumes facts not in evidence. Unless she is a slut and uses birth control. After all, she should have 6 children by now.
ReflectedSky
Why are you giving money to the New York Times? Seriously, why? To what purpose? It’s cruddy, biased, and treats its lower than senior executive staff very poorly. If you wish to subsidize families of great wealth, you have other options.
Also, what @PG said. Campbell Brown doesn’t need to be married to whoever for that piece to be scandalously biased, dishonest, and fundamentally incompetent — although as propaganda, it’s quite competent, I guess.
Hill Dweller
As the Washington Monthly piece pointed out, this is Brown’s second op-ed in five weeks. I could maybe understand if her first op-ed was good, but it wasn’t.
Why is Brown afforded the opportunity? Is someone with the Willard campaign calling in a favor?
Lyrebird
@PG: I think I hear where you’re coming from — did you read the Washington Monthly link, though? And I think there are stricter disclosure rules for any possible connection between a press outlet and a campaign. For CB’s earlier op-ed, specifically criticizing Obama’s policies, they absolutely should have identified the possible conflict of interest, imnsho.
Jon
What’s the source of the outrage here? Hasn’t the NYT always been the mouthpiece of the 1% that are just too genteel to say what the WSJ page says? Kennedyesque noblesse oblige and all that? In other words, say you’re for the little guy, but not for him enough to raise your voice and make a fuss.
Quit acting like the NYT or any of these other SCLM outlets are what they are.
I don’t think these outlets are as influential as anyone thinks they are and they won’t be for much longer anyway. You’re reading this site, right?
PG
@bk: So what? Did she mention Romney or Obama at any point in that op-ed? My husband is currently volunteering for a Republican congressional campaign. So again, anything I think about politics must have been pre-approved by my lord and master and should have his name somewhere in it?
Jon
@PG: No, but are you writing an opinion piece? If David Pflouffe’s wife wrote an op-ed wouldn’t Howie Kurtz scream if there wasn’t a disclosure on the bottom?
Don’t try and use a feminist excuse for an argument against a feminist position. How Republican of you.
PG
@Lyrebird: Agreed on anything where she talks about Obama or Romney, she should have to disclose. And she did. “(I should disclose here that my husband is an adviser to Mr. Romney; I have no involvement with any campaign, and have been an independent journalist throughout my career.)”
You can decide that it’s BS, but it is a disclosure. And she should be allowed to voice an opinion, even a stupid one, about Planned Parenthood without identifying as OfDan.
Jon
@ReflectedSky: The fact that she’s married to someone doesn’t necessarily mean anything, but it shouldn’t inoculate them against any kind of charge of a conflict of interest.
So, we should take Laura Bush (or Michelle Obama) as an uninterested observer in politics? Really? … Really?
karen marie
@Violet: She probably started using it when she went into TV.
Alma Brown? Eww.
Dale Brown? Eww.
Campbell Brown. Much better ring to it.
Jon Stewart’s given name was Jonathan Stuart Leibowitz, Marilyn Monroe was Norma Jeane Mortenson, and Bob Dylan was Robert Zimmerman.
It’s a show biz thing.
PG
@Jon: I don’t currently write opinion pieces for any publication, but if I did, yeah, if my op-eds had nothing to do with the campaign for which my husband volunteers, it’d be pretty F-ed up to demand that his name be included. I do write letters to the editor that get published occasionally, and so far no one has demanded to know my spouse’s name. I have ethics, so if it were relevant I’d disclose it. But we little women are allowed to talk about stuff that’s irrelevant to our husbands without bringing our husbands up.
You can be pro-choice without being a feminist. (Not 100% on whether the reverse is possible — feminist without being pro-choice — but *especially* men can be pro-choice without being feminist. Very easy.)
Elizabelle
I remember when Campbell Brown was a local TV correspondent in Richmond, VA.
She went to Regis College, a Jesuit school in Denver, CO.
Her dad is way more interesting. Democratic politician, insurance commissioner. Spent 6 months in Club Fed for lying to the FBI, but sounds like his heart is in the right place.
FWIW: His wiki entry identifies his daughter far better than the NYTimes did.
Was that so hard?
jl
@PG:
” So again, anything I think about politics must have been pre-approved by my lord and master and should have his name somewhere in it? ”
No. But if your husband rose to have some material interest in the campaign, like getting paid, you would have a conflict of interest re any op-ed you wrote, and you would need to disclose it. Same if you were on a Democratic campaign for pay and your husband wrote on op-ed. He should disclose his relation to you, even if he disagreed with your candidate and supported the Republican.
You have a point about the tone of some of the post, but I think you miss the substantive point.
Brown should have disclosed her connection to Senor. If Brown were still working for a network and Senor wrote an op ed about media coverage of politics, especially it it concerned Brown’s network, Senor should disclose his relationship with Brown.
Edit: and those are the standard rules. I have to disclose potential conflicts of interest in my work that I would find insulting if I felt it reflected on my integrity, but there are rules for disclosing conflicts of interest.
Jon
@PG: Nonsense. This post, as behind the times (no pun intended) as it is, is not about Ms. Brown. It is about the NYT’s lack of standards in regards to whom it allows its precious and allegedly influential space.
Precisely why her stupid opinions get such billing is exactly the point. One wonders when the opinion is so stupid why it is there. And avoiding even the appearance of such a conflict should be on the editors’ minds.
But making that call is only OKIYAR.
Mike in NC
Just stop paying your good money to the NY Times, Washington Post, The Atlantic, and all the other shit corporate media outlets.
Jon
@PG: Again, nonsense. You are turning this into a “little woman” issue when you should be quite aware that the reverse may just as well be true. Mr. Sebelius’s opinion on health care may be interesting, but to deny it even raises the question of a conflict of interest is head-in-the-sand denialism.
Redshift
@kay:
The cult of High Broderism requires that both sides are equally to blame, and everything can be solved by adopting a position that is halfway between the two parties. Acknowledging the fact that one of the parties has committed itself to uncompromising opposition to many things is by definition “being partisan.”
If you talking about Republicans, of course. The NRA doing the same thing would be applauded for their effective politics.
Elizabelle
@PG:
Thou doth protest too much.
What JL said. Mr. Campbell Brown being paid by the Romney campaign is a material fact, and should be disclosed.
PG
@Jon: And Dan Senor does what in relation to Planned Parenthood that makes him relevant to Brown’s opinion?
You’re now stretching it to the point that if Mr. S is an adviser to a political figure, *anything* to do with politics is relevant to Mr. S and thus he must be noted in Ms. B’s op-ed that never mentions the political figure. Do you really think that James Carville’s bios included his wife? If there’s one that does (where he’s not talking about being married to his political opposite nor does he mention anyone for whom she currently or formerly works), please link.
jl
@Redshift: yeah, that was my thought too. Why target Planned Parenthood on this? If Brown wanted to make a general point, she should have discussed other advocacy groups. But she didn’t. She would be implying that Planned Parenthood is more partisan than the NRA, ALEC, national Chamber of Commerce? Really? That’s a stretch and a half.
PG
@jl: I will say you are correct if you can point to something written by Senor — according to Wikipedia, “He is also published frequently by The Wall Street Journal, and has authored pieces for The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New York Post, and The Weekly Standard” — that had no reference to his wife’s current or former employers nor anything on which she’d worked directly (such as Katrina coverage), but his bio included “married to Campbell Brown.”
Otherwise, it’s a double standard.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@PG:
She’s the wife of a freaking Rmoney adviser, everything that she talks about that has a political angle should be prefaced with that.
IOW, just about everything that she opens her mouth to opine about.
jl
@PG:
” Do you really think that James Carville’s bios included his wife? ”
They should, but I would not be surprised if they don’t.
I have to report all my research grants, public and private, big and small, on anything I submit that has slightest relationship to any work I am doing. Theory being, that if I said anything displeasing to some funder, I might get cut off.
But, I am not a big media celeb, or political operative, so I have to follow rules. Sad day for me.
PG
@Elizabelle: It’s a material fact when Brown is discussing Obama or Romney. And as I noted, *she disclosed it then*, in the actual text of the op-ed. If she’s trying to hide her marriage, she was doing a piss-poor job of it. However, if she’s talking about Planned Parenthood, unless her husband’s advising has something to do with PP, he is totally irrelevant.
I would really like to live in a world where I’m allowed to have a participatory role in public life that doesn’t have the ol’ ball-and-chain’s name attached. That’s kinda part of the reason some women — like me, and apparently Campbell Brown — don’t change our names when we get married.
Yutsano
@PG: It’s called full disclosure. Campbell Brown and/or the NYT has an obligation to at least let her readership know that she has an affiliation that could colour her opinion. Otherwise that potential conflict of interest undermines her credibility when the disclosure comes after the fact. Sexism has nothing to do with it.
Elizabelle
@PG:
Funny.
I was wondering how papers dealt with Carville-Matalin, but erased that out of my comment.
However, your assertions do not pass the smell test.
And maybe Dan Senor should be identified as someone who has a spouse who works (worked?) for a major network.
David Gregory’s wife worked, for megabucks, for Fannie Mae, if memory serves …
Yutsano
@PG:
Where?
PG
@jl: I appreciate your taking a larger perspective on this, but I’m a little confused by this comparison. What does disclosing your own financial interests have to do with whether you need to have your spouse’s name attached to any political statement you make if your spouse is an adviser to a candidate?
Campbell Brown is someone who is really quite famous in her own right. Much more famous in the world of media and politics than her husband. Why does it make sense that when she opines on something outside her husband’s bailiwick (I’d be more inclined to call for disclosure if she’d been writing about the Middle East even if she somehow never mentioned the presidential candidates), she must note that she’s married to Dan Senor?
MattR
@PG: Do you think it is to the Romney campaign’s advantage if the public views Planned Parenthood as a blatantly partisan organization thereby minimizing the damage of any future criticism of the Romney campaign by Planned Parenthood?
(EDIT: Let me add this one – If you were an advisor to the Romney campaign and were worried about criticism of your candidate from Planned Parenthood, wouldn’t you try to discredit them as a reflexively partisan organization ?)
Marc
Another good response: cancel your NYT subscription and tell them why instead of rewarding them with your money.
PG
@Yutsano: In this oped: “Obama: Stop Condescending to Women,” in the 11th paragraph when she first mentions Romney, she says, “But Mitt Romney will never be confused with Rick Santorum on these issues, and many women understand that. (I should disclose here that my husband is an adviser to Mr. Romney; I have no involvement with any campaign, and have been an independent journalist throughout my career.)”
That op-ed? Also crap! But the fact that Brown is a terrible “voice for women” does not mean that she’s OfDanSenor.
PG
@Elizabelle: What assertions don’t pass the smell test?
Glad to see people are wondering. Anyone got a link demonstrating that Carville was held to a standard of having his wife’s name attached to his every political utterance?
karen marie
@PG: Except that being a Republican is not your husband’s employment whereas being Mitt Romney’s “advisor” is Brown’s husband’s employment. If your husband was, let’s say, an organic, free-range chicken rancher and you were a food writer, you don’t think it would be dishonest for you to write about how great organic, free-range chicken is without disclosing your husband’s business?
Elizabelle
@PG:
re your comment 66: maybe the disclosure would be less vital were Campbell Brown writing an article about, say, dog grooming or hang-gliding.
An article about Planned Parenthood, frequent Republican target and an organization Mitt Romney — from whom her husband derives income (or influence) — has promised to defund?
Material.
PG
@MattR: It possibly is to their advantage. It’s possibly also to their advantage if Brown talks about having had a good religious conversion experience when she married (she converted to Judaism for Senor), because it makes the idea of converting at marriage (as Ann did for Mitt) less creepy sounding. There are loads of opinions Brown can express that may redound to Romney’s benefit somehow.
angler
Who says we pay for their content?
PG
@karen marie: Is Senor actually employed (in the sense of “he’s filing a W-2”) by the Romney campaign? I’m currently a fellow of a civil liberties organization, but it’s a volunteer position, I don’t get paid.
Mnemosyne
@PG:
Given that Mitt Romney is campaigning on a platform of removing all government funding from Planned Parenthood, I can’t figure out how writing an op-ed about how horrible Planned Parenthood is for fighting to keep their funding is completely unrelated to Brown’s husband’s work of trying to defund Planned Parenthood.
Sure, if Brown was writing an op-ed about something completely unrelated to Senor’s candidate’s positions, you might have a point that there’s no reason to include information about Senor. But when she’s writing op-eds that support Senor’s candidate’s official campaign position, that’s when people start to wonder if Brown is an unbiased party here.
karen marie
@PG: Keep digging. The only one you’re convincing is yourself, if that.
Campbell Brown wrote a political op-ed slamming an organization which Republicans (her bread and butter) oppose. Her failure to disclose her relationship with that shit sammich known as the Romney campaign is dishonest. Granted, given the level of dishonesty in the op-ed itself, that failure is kind of small beans.
MattR
@PG:
I would imagine that no newspaper would print such an op-ed out of the blue. They would only bother if the topic became part of the national conversation. In that case, like in this one, there should be disclosure of her indirect connection to the Romney campaign so the readers can decide for themselves how unbiased her opinion is.
PG
Uh oh, all these liberals who could stand to get close enough to Dan Senor to see him marry Campbell Brown:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/09/fashion/weddings/09vows.html
John Dickerson and (unless he was there *as* press) Frank Bruni.
The more I read about Brown, the more she annoys me, and yet I still can’t shake the thought that she’s allowed to talk about politics without saying “as I was told to say by my husband, Dan Senor, possibly-paid possibly-not adviser to Romney.”
Yutsano
@PG: She’s still required to disclose her spousal affiliation. She doesn’t get a free pass for eternity after disclosing once. Again: it undermines her credibility, not her personhood. You’d have a point if she were writing a food article and she had to say something then. In a political piece I fully expect a disclosure of that nature.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@PG: Where I work, if my wife worked at a company that competed against mine, or worked for a company that is or might supply a good or service to my company, I would have to disclose that to my company. So yes, she should have to disclose her marriage to a Romney advisor because that fact can influence the reader’s view of how the opinion piece should be received. It goes like this:
1. If Campbell Brown wrote a story about dogs, would knowing that her husband is a Romney advisor change the outlook of her story? No.
2. If Campbell Brown wrote a story about how it is actually humane to carry a dog on top of a car, would knowing that her husband is a Romney advisor change the outlook of her story? Yes, because it could be perceived that she is trying to influence those who know about Romney’s history.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@PG:
You don’t get to tell us what we can criticize and what we can’t. I know you wingers are all about control but you don’t get to define what’s right and what isn’t. Your saying that as long as she isn’t talking about Rmoney and Obama then disclosure isn’t necessary is totally disingenuous. She is talking about political issues and her ‘coverage’ is tilted in a direction that favors her party and their candidate.
If you want to be ignorant then be my guest, I won’t be joining you.
Upper West
I will never forget Dan Senor trying to explain (on Bill Maher?) how the US military lost $10 billion in cash brought in on pallets on a plane. “Shit happens,” Mr. Senor very unconvincingly said.
Mnemosyne
@PG:
He’s probably filing a 1099 and not a W-2 but, yes, Dan Senor is currently being paid giant gobs of money to work for Romney’s campaign. You don’t hold press conferences on a candidate’s behalf if you’re not working for them. If Romney wins, Senor would probably be hired to work at the Romney White House.
So, yes, one wonders if Brown has a conflict of interest here. Not “her husband wrote the op-ed for her ’cause she’s a stupid woman” but “is she trying to advance her husband’s political career?”
El Cid
@PG: I think that it’s reasonable to propose that a major, nationally significant newspaper include an identifier for any opinion column writer for someone whose spouse is a prominent adviser for a current Presidential campaign.
The devil surely lies in the details — under which circumstances should a spouse’s work or other activities always be mentioned, when never, and when better to disclose than not disclose. Such as, how close to a political candidate must a spouse be to rate a disclosure?
If that’s seen as insulting to female spouses when they are column authors, that in itself is quite belittling.
Disclosing something which could very likely be seen by readers as a conflict of interest (with the sort of reference so often seen when an article identifies someone as a former CEO or whatever when this relationship may affect how readers view the impartiality of the comments) when someone’s spouse has arguably current political interests will not necessarily be seen by the column author as crushing, hurtful, humiliating, or unjustified.
I’m sure many women would see such a mention as the procedural disclosure it typically is. As long as it appears to be a justified and standard professional disclosure, with identifiable rules applied and under reasonably broad application, why would someone wanting to — not being forced to, but volunteering to and probably being paid to — write an opinion column in the New York Times be insulted?
Is it a situation analogous to a staff writer? The New York Times‘ Joe Nocera disclosed his fiancee’s employer in his writing on the NCAA and how student athletes are treated and should be paid, and this situation appears to be a more tenuous link to a conflict of interest than a spouse who is helping lead one party’s Presidential campaign.
George F. Will’s wife became a paid adviser for the Rick Perry campaign — would it be bizarre to expect that this potential conflict of interest never be mentioned, even though Will is much better known than his wife?
Sure, given the choice, I’d much prefer people encountering Brown’s shitty column to see it as such based on its horrible content.
But I don’t think it’s bizarre, unusual, or sexist in any way to think that her spouse’s prominent role for a current Presidential candidate might be worth mentioning to readers.
Besides, Campbell Brown is not only well known, she’s well known for working for a news network, and surely would be grown up enough to recall the various debates over conflict of interest issues within the media organizations she worked for.
If a (current or former) CNN program host were to feel surprised and insulted that his or her spouse’s role in a Presidential candidate’s campaign might be disclosed (disclosed, not trumpeted, not headlined, not used to reject a column) in an op-ed which appears to touch upon politically controversial issues, now that would seem strange to me.
PG
@Mnemosyne: But pretty much every candidate for federal office has a position on most things worth writing an op-ed for the NYT about. The candidate my husband supports is opposed to the PPACA. The Washington Post has published a letter-to-the-editor I wrote supporting health care reform. Should that letter have included “PG, New York City (PG’s husband is a volunteer for the campaign of — —)”?
karen marie
@PG: He makes a living pushing Republican bullshit. He’s a “top advisor.” I don’t know whether he’s paid or not. Are “top advisors” who spend lots of time speaking for a candidate usually paid? You have a working knowledge of the Google, same as me, I presume.
Your refusal to acknowledge the inappropriateness of Brown’s disclosure failure is puzzling. Why are you so invested in defending this behavior?
Also too, you don’t think she was invited to have her little op-ed published on the basis of her own gravitas, do you?
PG
@karen marie: How are Republicans her bread and butter? Has anyone figured out whether her husband even gets paid to advise Romney? (I’m pretty sure that she made a lot of money at CNN, and her husband made a lot of money in finance. I don’t think politics is what keeps food on their table.)
Dave
@PG: No one thinks Campbell Brown wrote her op-ed under the sway of her husband. I think the assumption is that she wrote it of her own accord, full of her own dishonesty and smarm, to help her husband and the sleazy dude he works for. I would allow that she’s a thoroughly independent shitbag.
Doesn’t mean she’s not in league with her shitbag husband, and it isn’t sexist to suggest as much.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@PG:
It has nothing to do with being told by her husband to write the story. It has to do with her possibly having a conflict of interest in writing the opinion piece she wrote. If her sister was a campaign advisor for Romney instead of her husband, she should have to disclose that.
Dave
@PG: Fuck the candidate your husband supports.
PG
@karen marie: If you read my comments, you’d understand exactly why I’m invested in it: because I’m a woman who is outspoken on politics, married to a man who works for candidates with whom I disagree. I’d like to have my opinions evaluated for their own merits or lack thereof. Is that not a good reason for a woman to care about whether even a crap op-ed writer like Campbell Brown is allowed to talk about politics without “OfDan” attached?
Mnemosyne
@PG:
I’m getting the feeling you don’t understand what a conflict of interest is. It doesn’t mean that you and your husband have different (conflicting) opinions. It means that there is a reason to believe that you want a specific outcome to a matter and pretend to be impartial while supporting that outcome.
If, for example, you wrote that letter to the editor to the Washington Post calling for the repeal of PPACA and extolling the virtues of the candidate that your husband is working for without revealing that your husband volunteers for that candidate, that would be a very clear conflict of interest.
PG
@Mnemosyne: Um, that link provides no indication of giant gobs of money. I followed it expecting to see the Romney campaign’s spending disclosures, and it had nothing of the sort. Since you’re are convinced without evidence beyond “he’s spending lots of time on the campaign, ergo he’s getting paid” (my husband just spent as much time this weekend working on a campaign as that conference call took, and he ain’t getting paid a damn thing), I have no reason to assume better evidence exists.
karen marie
@PG:
In re whether Senor is a paid advisor, see above.
When you are writing an op-ed for publication in the NY Times which expresses opinions in line with your husband’s candidate’s opinions, yes, you need to disclose the relationship.
Mnemosyne
@PG:
Really? Now you’re going to claim that even though Senor works for Romney, it’s not a big deal because he can’t be making that much money from it, so there would be no reason for Brown to try to advance his political career?
I don’t think you realize how big the hole you’re digging for yourself is.
MattR
@PG:
How much does this matter? If he is getting paid, it definitely makes the conflict greater. But even as a volunteer there is a potentical conflict of interest that should be disclosed.
MattR
@PG:
How much does this matter? If he is getting paid, it definitely makes the conflict greater. But even as a volunteer there is a potentical conflict of interest that should be disclosed.
PG
@El Cid: Did Will mention his wife’s position in everything he’s written about politics since his wife took the position? Or did he limit the disclosure to when he was talking about his wife’s employer or his political opponents?
As I’ve already noted, twice now, Brown already has disclosed her husband’s advising position, in the possibly-even-crappier op-ed she wrote for the Times last month. So the standard of “never” already has been surpassed. What’s being demanded is that she disclose it Every.Single.Time she talks about any issue on which Mitt Romney has a position. She has to talk about it if she talks about equal pay, because Romney has a position. She probably has to talk about it if she talks about her irregular period and how it was treated with contraceptive-similar medication, because Romney has an opinion on whether that should have to be covered by religious employers.
karen marie
@PG:
In re whether Senor is a paid advisor, see above.
When you are writing an op-ed for publication in the NY Times which expresses opinions in line with your husband’s candidate’s opinions, yes, you need to disclose the relationship.
If instead of her husband, Senor was her father or her son, she should also disclose the relationship. The need to disclose has nothing to do with the fact that she is female but that she has a relationship that could account for her expressing a particular opinion.
PG
@El Cid: Did Will mention his wife’s position in everything he’s written about politics since his wife took the position? Or did he limit the disclosure to when he was talking about his wife’s employer or his political opponents?
As I’ve already noted, twice now, Brown already has disclosed her husband’s advising position, in the possibly-even-crappier op-ed she wrote for the Times last month. So the standard of “never” already has been surpassed. What’s being demanded is that she disclose it Every.Single.Time she talks about any issue on which Mitt Romney has a position. She has to talk about it if she talks about equal pay, because Romney has a position. She probably has to talk about it if she talks about her irregular period and how it was treated with contraceptive-similar medication, because Romney has an opinion on whether that should have to be covered by religious employers.
jl
@PG: A person’s own material interests, those of a spouse, or immediately family members need to be disclosed. Material interests include money compensation, investments, ongoing or recent relationship with anyone who has provided you with considerations of real value. When I submit finished reports or articles, or grant applications, I even have to disclose other grants and applications for money or anything valuable that are submitted, but I have no idea whether they will be approved or funded.
Edit: I am an academic, so have to observe stricter rules than people submitting op-eds. But an immediate family member or spouse that is employed by someone who could have an interest in what you say, that is universal.
I also have to take a damn training session on conflict of interest every couple of years, so I get the rules banged into my head periodically
Mnemosyne
@PG:
So, just checking — your husband is spending his volunteer time holding press conferences and answering questions on behalf of his candidate just like Senor is? When members of the press have a question about one of the candidate’s stances, your husband is the campaign’s official spokesperson and receives calls from the press?
It’s not the amount of time devoted. It’s whether or not you are an official spokesperson who is presented to the press as representing your candidate’s views. So I take it that your husband is one of his candidate’s official spokespeople?
If not — if your husband is doing the usual campaign volunteer stuff of calling potential voters, doing voter registration, going door-to-door, etc. — then he ain’t doing what Dan Senor does for Romney. That’s like claiming I was an official Obama spokesperson when I did a few get-out-the-vote calls for him in 2008.
Dave
“Campbell Brown is married to Romney strategist Dan Senor.”
Holy shit, I just reproduced the patriarchy with a factual statement.
MattR
@@PG:
I hate to be the one to break it to you, but you don’t get everything you want in life. If someone you are close to gets involved with politics then everytime you talk about politics in a public forum you have a responsibility to disclose that information. Is it unfair to you? Yes. But not doing so would be unfair to your audience.
karen marie
@PG: I’m flattered that you should read my responses and exclude all the others, but every question you pose to me has already been answered by others in the thread.
@PG: Why does Senor need to be on Romney’s payroll for Brown to have a conflict here? Do you think Senor is acting as an advisor for his health? His entire career has been to act as an advisor in one form or another. He stands to gain enormously if Romney wins, as others above have pointed out, as does Brown.
PG
Gah, sorry about double-posts.
The money matters because that’s the comparison people keep raising. E.g., noting that Joe Nocera’s wife is employed by Boies Schiller. (Wish I were, excellent firm!)
If Boies Schiller wins on these cases where Nocera is arguing they should win (and these often are “won” as settlements, not going to a jury, so swaying what the other side thinks is public opinion, can matter for fear of jury), then Nocera’s wife will probably benefit. Law firms generally dispense more generous bonuses to all attorneys and staff if the firm has made more money that year. So Nocera is making a statement that could affect his income in a far more direct way than whether people whose opinions are easily swayed by crap opeds change their vote to Romney based on that. It’s not tenuous at all. I would never write publicly about anything related to a case my husband’s firm works on — even a case on which he did zero work — because he could benefit financially from the outcome. The ethical obligations when there’s a financial benefit are much more stringent than just “He’d like to see his guy win.”
The other comparison people raise, which I’ve already agreed would require disclosure and noted that when it happened, *Brown* *disclosed*, is “you wrote that letter to the editor to the Washington Post calling for the repeal of PPACA and extolling the virtues of the candidate.” When Brown said that Romney wasn’t as much of a misogynistic dick as Santorum (I’m paraphrasing), she disclosed that her husband advised Romney. So if that’s actually your standard, she’s met that standard.
jl
Also, the corporate media is so corrupt, seems like they flout the rules all the time.
PG
@karen marie: Um, see above where I note that link proves squat about whether Senor is getting paid anything, much less the claimed “gobs of money.” (Curious: what do you think is “gobs of money” to a finance dude? From what I’ve seen, even corporate lawyer money is peanuts to those guys.)
kay
What’s interesting to me is, in terms of what lying propogandists choose to lie about, is Campbell Brown has now twice been dishonest on the issue of the GOP defunding Title X.
The Planned Parenthood stuff is misdirection, because Title X funding that goes to PP will of course not be there if Brown’s Party win elections, and (successfully) zero out Title X.
Why is it so important to Republicans like Brown to mislead women on Title X?
It’s a program for poor women. They aren’t reading op ed columns from wealthy media personalities in the NY Times. Mary Matalin also goes into spit-flecked fury when Republicans defunding Title X is mentioned.
It’s just odd.
Cluttered Mind
@PG: If this were almost any other situation I’d agree with you, but she’s not married to just any Republican working on just any campaign. Dan Senor is an advisor to one of the two people who is going to be on the ballot in the fall for President of the United States. Even if Campbell Brown were a former U.N. secretary-general, a billionaire businesswoman, or hell, even a former U.S. president herself, I would still want her husband’s work disclosed on anything she wrote that was remotely related to anything in politics. You can’t seriously argue that this is unconnected to the Romney campaign. He’s running for President. EVERY political issue everywhere in the country is connected to him on some level. If Dan Senor were helping some tea party guy running for Congress then I would agree that his work doesn’t merit disclosure, but that is not at all the case here. Even if this were Dan Senor’s first job out of high school and Campbell Brown was, well, Campbell Brown, this connection deserves to be disclosed. And I’d say exactly the same thing if their genders were reversed. It has nothing to do with sexism.
ETA: Everything I said applies whether he’s getting paid or not, or hell, even if he’s paying Romney to listen to him.
Fade222
Right, because it’s Planned Parenthood that has been needlessly partisan. All of that standing up for the constitutional rights of women and providing them access to essential health services. It’s not like they’ve been a victim of a coordinated assault by a gang of theocrats, dedicated to returning America back to the joys of the 19th century.
PG
@Mnemosyne: I did the same stuff you did for Obama. My husband is well beyond that: he’s part of the campaign staff meetings, he drafts communications, etc. But he doesn’t get paid. (Frankly, the candidate couldn’t afford his hourly rates.) People can be important in a campaign for directing strategy on particular issues where they are knowledgeable and the candidate isn’t (e.g. Senor on the Middle East) without getting paid. I know Ezekiel Emanuel was an adviser regarding health care reform during that process. I would not presume to say he was paid, because I don’t know if he was, and I know that he gets paid pretty well at his regular job. (I’ve personally put money in his pocket because I had to buy his books in college for bioethics classes.)
PG
@Dave: This candidate writes “stand up for you” as “stand-up for you.” Cracked me up, but I’m a mean critic on punctuation.
karen marie
@PG: But by your standards, Brown was wrong to have disclosed her relationship in the first instance. If it was appropriate that she disclosed in the first instance, why is it not appropriate in the second? Do you think that everyone who read this op-ed read the first one?
If you and your husband stand to benefit financially, either directly or indirectly, in a manner that is different than a disinterested citizen, yes, you have an obligation to disclose every single time.
PG
@Cluttered Mind: So when Bill Clinton writes about anything in politics, the bio *always* includes “married to Obama Administration Secretary of State Hillary Clinton”?
If it always does, I hereby concede the argument.
AxelFoley
@PG:
And it is duly noted.
Mnemosyne
@PG:
Is your husband an official spokesperson who makes statements to the press on behalf of his candidate? Yes or no?
karen marie
@PG: I don’t know why you think Senor is a “finance guy.”
jl
@PG:
‘ So when Bill Clinton writes about anything in politics, the bio always includes “married to Obama Administration Secretary of State Hillary Clinton”? ‘
I think so. Maybe I’m just bitter because I have to follow the rules, and I have had submissions returned because I forgot something (Edit and somebody spotted it).
Carville, Big Dawg, HRC after she resigns, Brown, Senor, all of them need to say what their spouses and family members are up to. IMHO.
But is it any surprise? Look at how often the NYT and WaPo ignore their own rules for using anonymous sources unless there is compelling reason to hide the identity.
They don’t care.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@PG:
Wouldn’t that be nice? It would be a great world where you could say “I am writing this article without taking into account my husbands interests” and everyone believe that it’s true. But that’s not how the world works. And it has nothing to do with you being female and him being male. It has to do with 1) the human tendency to skew stuff in our favor whether we knowingly do it or not, and 2) the human tendency to not trust people who fail to disclose relationships that are potential conflicts of interest due to (1).
The influence being talked about is not that your husband is writing for you, any more than Dan is writing for Campbell. It’s that a reasonable person could assume that she there is a potential conflict of interest because she is married someone working for the Romney campaign. It’s a fact that must be taken into account when reading her opinion.
Tim Connor
I used to pay for the New York Times. Now I refuse to do so. I will not enable their shoddy pandering.
PG
Googled “Bill Clinton oped.”
First hit was a piece for the NYT in April 2010 regarding how we recovered from Oklahoma City. Bio line: “Bill Clinton, the founder of the William J. Clinton Foundation, was the 42nd president of the United States.”
Hit #2: piece from the NYT in November 2010 regarding peace in the Middle East. Pretty relevant to his wife’s work, you’d think. Bio line: “Bill Clinton, the founder of the William J. Clinton Foundation, was the 42nd president.”
Next hits: Palin and Rove complaining about seemingly innocuous opeds.
Hit from WaPo oped, January 2010, on helping post-earthquake Haiti: “The writer was the 42nd president of the United States and is the U.N. special envoy for Haiti.”
Apparently Bill Clinton can write about *foreign* *policy* all year long, and no one expects his bio line to mention his wife and her little bitty job dealing with that area.
If anyone can point me to a post by DougJ on how the NYT should have disclosed Bill’s affiliation with his wife, and her affiliation with Obama’s foreign policy, I will apologize meekly for suggesting that DougJ was being sexist in this post.
Mnemosyne
@karen marie:
Well, come on, Senor worked for a finance firm for 2 whole years out of his 20-year career. Clearly he’s more tied into finance than that whole “politics” thing he did for the other 18 years of his career.
Though it does amuse me when people are apparently oblivious to the revolving door between companies like the Carlyle Group and Washington DC insiders. Does anyone really think that senior mouthpiece Dan Senor was crunching numbers for them rather than lobbying Congress on their behalf?
Mnemosyne
@PG:
What office is Bill Clinton’s wife currently running for?
PG
@karen marie: According to your own link: “Daniel Samuel Senor, known as Dan Senor (/ˈsiːnər/; born November 6, 1971), is a founding partner of Rosemont Capital LLC, and Rosemont Solebury Capital Management. … From 2001 to 2003, he was an investment professional at the Carlyle Group.[4]”
Please explain how those are not finance jobs.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@PG:
Has your husband disclosed your relationship to him to his campaign. The reason I ask is this: Say, hypothetically, you have written an article that takes a position against the candidate your husband is supporting. Now, you don’t disclose your relationship, and your husband does not tell the campaign of his relationship to you. One of the other staff members on the campaign sees your article and figures out your relationship and then tells the candidate. What’s he going to think about your husband not disclosing your relationship? What if your husband’s candidate lost? Do you not think your husband’s reputation would suffer, not for being married to you, but for not disclosing a potential conflict of interest?
PG
@Mnemosyne: I don’t think this campaign has anyone designated as a paid spokesperson. My husband does *write* statements for public release. He doesn’t like to speak publicly so he doesn’t do that. Is the metric here that if you’re putting the words in the candidate’s mouth, you don’t need to be mentioned by your spouse every time she talks politics, but if you speak the words yourself, you do?
karen marie
@PG: Wow, I’m not surprised you’re married to a Republican. You really are not very bright, are you?
PG
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): Yes, he’s paranoid about disclosure like that, so he’s probably told them every public detail of my political life and encouraged them to Google me in case he missed anything. I think he takes that sort of thing well beyond where it needs to be. It’s precisely because I would like to have the freedom to voice my opinion on *issues* — not on specific candidates with whom he is affiliated — without having to tag on “OfPG’sHusband” that I am standing up for Campbell Brown’s or James Carville’s or Bill Clinton’s right to voice opinions without saying the spouse’s name.
Except, oh yeah, it’s only Campbell Brown who gets compared to a nobody like Todd Palin, as though people only know her name because of whom she married.
Mnemosyne
@PG:
You have no idea what the difference is between a campaign staffer and a campaign spokesperson is, do you? Believe it or not, yes, there is a difference between being a speechwriter and being a campaign spokesperson.
Tell you what — have your husband call the local newspaper and say he’s making an official statement on behalf of the campaign. He can even do it using one of the speeches he wrote for the candidate. Let us know what happens when the campaign finds out that he represented himself to the press as a campaign spokesperson.
PG
@karen marie: I can spot an ad hominem as the sign of someone who has run out of worthwhile arguments!
GxB
Hey everyone! I found this great new pastime! It’s cheap and easy to do with items everyone should have around the house. Are you read to play? Well let’s get started!
First get a hand-held hammer, you can also use any firm solid object of roughly the same weight, say a meat tenderizer, or rolling pin, a brick, or landscaping block, heck even a small caliber handgun will do in a pinch. You have something like that? Well good!
Next grasp the hammer (or other chosen implement) firmly in your dominant hand (i.e. the hand you write with.) Finally strike yourself repeatedly with said implement about the head until you lose consciousness.
See!! Great Fun!! Plus it is far more constructive than say trying to explain very basic concepts of integrity and forthright honest disclosure to a obstinate trolling ignoramus.
Hay-suse, Jerry and Moe Howard – You’ll probably suffer less brain damage* also too.
(apologies if you honestly are engaging in this conversation and through some miracle are deriving some form of personal development*…)
[* NotIndendedToBeAFactualStatement]
PG
@Mnemosyne: It would always be a problem to misrepresent yourself. Do you think disclosure rules changes between someone’s being a speechwriter and someone’s being a spokesman? Try calling your local paper and having them state the difference in obligations.
Re: Hillary Clinton’s not running for office, yeah, neither is Dan Senor. I thought the whole argument was that if your spouse is working for a political candidate, you must disclose your marriage and your spouse’s role. Why the moved goalposts for the Clintons?
kay
I also love that we’re stuck with Campbell Brown and Dan Senor forever, apparently.
Iraq wasn’t enough, Katrina wasn’t enough, we’re going to be subjected to the career aspirations of these two geniuses for the rest of our lives.
MattR
@PG:
I don’t think that was what DougJ was going for with the Todd Palin example. In fact, I’d say one of the major reasons for the outrage is that the average reader has no idea who she’s married to or what he does (which would obviously not apply to Todd Palin or either of the Clintons)
Baud
@kay:
So what you’re saying is that Title X is unconstitutional.
Mnemosyne
@PG:
If you’re even asking this question, you have NO clue how political campaigns work. At all.
Again, people aren’t saying that Brown should disclose that she’s married to Senor because Senor happens to work for the Romney campaign. We’re saying she should disclose it because Senor is a spokesperson for the Romney campaign. If he was just a random campaign volunteer, no one would give a shit.
You mean other than the fact that only someone who went into a coma in 1990 and just woke up would be unaware that Bill and Hillary Clinton are married, and that Bill Clinton is a former US president and Hillary Clinton is the current Secretary of State?
Try picking a couple that is slightly less famous. Hey, how about Campbell Brown from CNN and former Bush Administration official Dan Senor?
karen marie
@PG: You are pretty exasperating and, as I said before, either deliberately obtuse or, as I said more recently, not too bright. You pick.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Mnemosyne:
I’m beginning to think that this is Campbell herself…lol!
karen marie
@Odie Hugh Manatee: It certainly would explain a lot.
PG
@MattR: So what was he going for? If the comparison was meant to be to someone in Brown’s position (famous media figure married to lesser-known working on a presidential campaign), someone in this thread already mentioned George F. Will and Mrs. What’s-her-name’s work for Perry. Except that comparison wouldn’t make DougJ’s point, since Will did not proceed to mention his wife’s work for Perry in every non-baseball column he wrote from November 2011 onward. Did DougJ complain about that?
PG
@Mnemosyne: I asked, “Do you think disclosure rules changes between someone’s being a speechwriter and someone’s being a spokesman?”
You non-answered, “If you’re even asking this question, you have NO clue how political campaigns work. At all.”
I have a good friend in the White House press pool. I’ll ask him, since you aren’t interested in answering the question.
karen marie
@PG: You seem to think that if everyone doesn’t comply with a rule all the time the rule is just thrown out the window. Good to know.
The prophet Nostradumbass
Next up, PG will argue about the difference between outsourcing overseas and offshoring.
PG
@karen marie: Can you point to where the rule (“if your spouse works on a campaign, this fact must be disclosed in *every* pronouncement you make about politics; just in the first piece you write for a publication, or every time you refer to the campaign or its opponent, is not enough”) is complied with *at* *all*? Or where people have demanded it where the “you” is a woman and the spouse is a man?
Mnemosyne
@PG:
Please do. Perhaps his response will clue you in to why it was such a foolish question. Though I doubt it.
gorram
@PG:
As some one mentioned before, I don’t think you realize what disclosing a conflict of interest means or what it’s point is. After all, what exactly is the risk of a person picking up an editorial by Bill Clinton on, say, the NRA, complaining that it was backing exclusively GOP candidates, and saying, “Clinton is clearly impartial and completely unconnected to President Obama, his administration, and his campaign.”
I like to believe people aren’t that stupid, but if you really think so, I’ll say that such a disclosure would be necessary.
MattR
@PG: I think DougJ picked out the first husband of a female Republican operative that he thought of. I don’t think he thought much deeper than that. I also have no idea if he knew who George Will is married to. I know I didn’t.
PG
@The prophet Nostradumbass: Nah, I gotta go write a complaint to sue some cops for beating up and tasering an unarmed, non-fleeing black man during a traffic stop. You have fun though!
Odie Hugh Manatee
@PG:
See ya later Campbell! :)
GxB
@PG: Yeah I got that mission in “Grand Theft Auto: Vice City” too. Drag that the cut scene can’t be skipped…
Mnemosyne
@karen marie:
After all, Republicans are well-known to be such ethical people who are careful to avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest. Just ask Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, currently deciding the Supreme Court case about PPACA, and his wife Ginni Thomas, who founded a Republican organization trying to kill PPACA. No conflict of interest there, no sirree. Anyone who says otherwise is just a sexist trying to ruin poor Ginni Thomas’ career.
AxelFoley
CampbellPG must be a Republican. Dems aren’t this damn persistent and the Rethugs never give up.Jewish Steel
@PG: Forgive my impertinence, but if you are a liberal why on earth would you marry a Republican?
shortstop
@gorram: She certainly does seem to be having trouble grasping the difference between “disclosing” and “repeating what the whole world already knows,” and she repeatedly conflates “writing anything whatsoever about politics” with “taking a position which stands to directly benefit the writer and/or members of her immediate family.” If I were inclined to suspicion, I’d wonder whether this continual inability to comprehend these simple concepts is powered by a glaring lack of personal ethics.
karen marie
@PG: How much have you had to drink tonight? Perhaps you’d like to explain why it is that you are so deeply invested in this? Did someone hurt your fee-fees by telling you that your opinion didn’t count because you were “just” someone’s wife? You keep trying to make this all about Campbell being female when none of it has anything to do with her gender — not her opinion and not her failure to disclose. And again, I ask, how does the failure of some people to disclose make it reasonable to negate the necessity to disclose relevant relationships?
And why are you refusing to read the comments of others and responding only very selectively to mine? I’m starting to think you have a victim complex going on, because you sure are not making sense. Even if you are Campbell Brown.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@PG: Yeah, we’ll, I’m scheduled to be coronated as Emperor of the Galaxy tomorrow.
karen marie
@The prophet Nostradumbass: I guess I’ll see you there, for the pictures at least. I’m being crowned Queen of Everything I Can See From Here.
Jewish Steel
@shortstop: Were you complaining about fireworks earlier? My dog is a wreck too. A police car pulled over last night while I was walking the other two dogs and asked me if I had seen any fireworks in the neighborhood. I think he was surprised at my vivid and precise description of where I suspected the offenders were.
To cap it off I busted out another neighbor for burning stuff in an outdoor fireplace. The smoke travels about 40 feet up in the air and then settles in a thick fug around my house. It’s against our city ordinance but no one thinks it applies to them.
MattR
@Jewish Steel: There were fireworks by me last night as well, though they were far enough away that my dog did not care and they seemed to be pretty high quality so I assumed they were professionally done (and sanctioned). Maybe related to a graduation of some sort.
GxB
@karen marie: I think “PG” is looking up cheat codes for GTA:VC about now. But on a hunch I’d say your nick is the only obvious female name and “PG” is probably a 60 year old man whose “typing with one hand the whole time” if you get my meaning.
Apologies if it comes across too crude, but that was some industrial strength trolling going on and I couldn’t just sit there anymore and watch it. Apologies to all if my post @138 was a bit harsh – I just thought between Kola Noscopy, M_C and a few other epic trolls indigenous to this place would have you all a bit less receptive to their games.
shortstop
@Jewish Steel: ugh. All these incendiary devices are the worst of summer, eh?
asiangrrlMN
@AxelFoley: I heart you, boo.
This disgusting piece of shit needs to STFU. PP is doing its stated mission despite unprecedented attacks on it by Republicans. She SAYS they have a target on their back, and then goes on to tut tut about how they are hurting Republicans’ precious widdle feelings.
I have news for Campbell Brown, we are not your mama’s liberals. We’re not gonna snivel and back down and try to make nice. You get in our face? We’re gonna get the fuck in yours. I was positively gleeful in helping take down Komen for the Cure, and I would do it again in a heartbeat.
It’s typical Republican projection to whine about how meeeean PP is being when they (Republicans) are the actual bullies.
Dixie Chicks. Seems apropos.
Jewish Steel
@MattR & shortstop: Poor Spencer (my basenji mix). He’s on prozac and that helps a little. His Thundershirt helps too. If I didn’t know any better I’d say he has PTSD from his stint in Nam.
shortstop
@Jewish Steel: The Thundershirt helps Clementine–at least, it takes the edge off– if we get it on her early enough. That works for predicted thunderstorms, but not so much for random explosions. Poor thing also hates all loud metallic sounds, which is unfortunate since we live in the middle of a large city. It kills us to see her scared as often as she is. We’re working with a trainer, but it’s two steps forward, one step back most of the time.
karen marie
@GxB: No apology necessary,
shortstop
By the way, for someone who frets deeply that someone may think she should be identified as “Of(Husband’s Name)” on anything she writes,
PG has certainly selected an odd Twitter handle.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@karen marie:
But can you see Russia from there? I hear that nothing is more important than being able to see Russia.
Alison
@shortstop: Bwahahaha this shit is hilarious https://twitter.com/pgofhsm/status/217098175486509056
Yeah, we’re totally going Gilead on her and Campbell here. Okay, player.
pattonbt
@PG: Keep flailing away.
Google actual and appearance of conflict of interest (COI) definitions. Read it, dwell on it, understand it and then come back and let us know what you have learned.
No one is saying CB might not full well believe every piece of garbage she is spewing. What people are saying is that there is definitely an appearance of COI based on her relationship to a well known advisor to the theoretical head of the Republican Party who, as a party, have a vested interest in , if not destroying, then crippling, Planned Parenthood as an organization (which some of what CB is writing about puts them in a potential bad light, potentially bolstering those R positions). Others here are going straight to actual COI.
As an auditor (yes, I am an auditor), COI is huge and it is always important to maintain evidence of ones independence. One way of doing so is disclosure. It still will not remove all doubts about potential COI, but at least the reader / regulator (or whomever) has more information at their hands to assess whether there is actual COI or not.
For me, given her now 2 preferential Op-Ed spots in the NYT both concern trolling D’s, if not outright trying to discredit D leaning organizations / ideals, I think her CB’s COI has gone from appearance to actual. But thats my read. She still needs to disclose either way IF she wants to try and retain any shred of her independence on any and all issues political.
Everything she writes on anything political for eternity should have the disclaimer first and foremost about her husband given his livelihood being on the Repulican teet. Unless of course she just comes out and becomes a R pundit, then no need to disclose anymore.
Seriously, though, you really need to read up on conflict of interest to understand what everyone is trying to explain to you. You really are way, way, way off base on this one. Not even close.
pattonbt
@PG: Now you’re just being willfully obtuse and, frankly, about as stupid as one human can be. Hopefully, you’re just having a playful go, because if you’re not, do you struggle breathing?
Please, seriously, do some reading on conflict of interest. This isn’t a made up argument or area of study. It’s real. And there are rules. And there are reasons for those rules. Please, do yourself a favor, read.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@Alison: I liked this one, too.
Yutsano
@Alison: Why does PG make the Margaret Atwood cry?
Alison
@The prophet Nostradumbass: LOL, yeahl. For one thing: “self-declared”? Well…yeah. I declare myself to be a feminist. Is it somehow less meaningful than if someone else declares me to be one?
And FFS, being the (staunch, loud and proud) feminist I am, I fucking hate when people try to make something about feminism when it isn’t. If the roles were reversed here, if Campbell Brown were the Romney campaign person and Den Senor were writing the op-eds, I’d feel the same fucking way about the need for disclosure. It has nothing whatever to do with her gender, and this feminist is fucking insulted that someone is trying to distill down into an I Am Woman, Hear Me Bloviate thing.
karen marie
@Alison: Wait, what?
bob h
She’s also morphed into a bit of a moo. I wonder how Dan likes that.
Lyrebird
late conclusion 1: There are a lot of dem fine lawyers in this crowd!
late conclusion 2: GIVE TO PP what/when I can.
(…and continue hoping that Bloomberg doesn’t get the chance to clue in Romney a bit about what a bad plan it is to attack PP…)