Journalism, again!
I hope you will all read this and share it with anyone you know in Ohio. It’s about the person who is running to un-seat Sherrod Brown.
I don’t publish this incautiously. I know some will say this column is petty, or partisan. It’s not about that. It’s about me being a journalist with exclusive access to information about a candidate for statewide office. I’d publish it no matter which party he represented. I can say that I’ve been at this work for many years, and I’ve never received anything remotely similar from Sherrod Brown. Or Mike DeWine. Or Rob Portman, John Glenn or George Voinovich.
No, this is about Moreno the person, not Moreno the Republican. When he found himself facing the national crisis of an attempted assassination of a former president, his immediate response wasn’t to remain calm and wait for the facts. He didn’t become pensive or unifying. He jumped to a preposterous conclusion and went on the attack.
Letter from the Editor (the whole thing)
Former Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson liked to say that the true measure of a leader comes when they face a crisis, and he would know, having handled more than a few.
Leading was easy when times were good, he’d say. A crisis tests a leader’s steel and ability to make sound decisions under stress.
Former car dealer Bernie Moreno wants to be your leader in Ohio. The Republican is asking for your vote in his battle to supplant Democrat Sherrod Brown in the U.S. Senate.
With Moreno’s effort and Jackson’s adage in mind, I offer the following for your consideration.
I went on vacation at Walt Disney World last month with my wife, our children and grandchildren. We had planned it for a year, and one of my goals was to completely break free of my job for a week to immerse myself in the joy of being together. I disconnected my work email from my phone and turned off my notifications. I left texting intact, though, for family communication on days we went our separate ways.
The first day of the vacation was July 13, which also was the day someone tried to assassinate former President Donald Trump. That’s a national crisis if ever there was one. No one wants our country to be a place where elected officials – former or current – are assassinated. Such attempts undermine our sense of national security and, with many, cause us to re-examine our national discord. Many politicians responded with messages of unity.
Even though I was disconnected, I knew about the assassination attempt soon after it happened. I am a news guy after all. But I was in the Magic Kingdom with grandkids. My focus was their joy and wonder. Some time later, I checked my phone and saw a message had arrived at 8:18 p.m., exactly two hours and seven minutes after the assassination attempt. It was from Moreno.
When “journalists” like you labeled Trump another Hitler and claim there will never be another election or that America ends if he’s re-elected, what did you think was going to happen?
Again, this is barely a couple of hours after the attempt. No one had a clue yet about the would-be assassin’s motive or, or even, his identity. The nation was in shock that such violence had occurred once again and wanted details about Trump’s condition. But Moreno picked that moment to send the above text.
Before I go further, I should mention a previous exchange I had with him. A couple of years earlier, on our Today in Ohio podcast, I was talking about Moreno as a candidate for Senate in the race that ultimately sent JD Vance to Washington. This was in the early days of the campaign, before Moreno had abandoned many of the principles for which Northeast Ohio knew him, before we realized how desperate he was for Trump’s approval. I marveled on the podcast that Moreno, who once urged Republicans to accept the 2020 election results, completely reversed himself and called the 2020 election stolen. I likened his reversal to the behavior of 1930s Nazis, who knew the truth about Hitler but kept standing by him for their political gain. Moreno found the comparison offensive, which might explain why he sent me a text mentioning Hitler.
Regardless, here I was, vacationing in Walt Disney World with news of the assassination attempt fresh in my head, reading a text from Moreno saying it was my fault.
I responded at 9:13:
Yeah, Bernie. Stick with the fascist playbook. Try to blame the journalists.
And I put my phone away.
The next day, I saw that Moreno had followed up with a barrage of messages deep into Saturday night. At 9:21 p.m. came:
You own this. Thanks to you I now have to take extra care to protect my family. I hope you get lots of money for your click bait crap.
At 9:49:
YOU OWN THIS!!! Apologize to your readers for your rhetoric. Anything short of that shows how shallow and hollow you are as a man.
He sent two more messages that, for some reason, he unsent before I could read them. Too offensive? Too mild? Only he knows, but Apple’s messaging app recorded their arrival and deletion.
At 10:08 p.m. he was still at it, texting me a social media link of someone criticizing the media for accusing Trump of inciting violence.
He finished up at 12:39 p.m. the next day with a link to a column I wrote about Trump – one that was popular across the globe – and this message:
Resign. You’re a disgrace to your profession.
I never responded again. One, I was on vacation, and two, I have found the best response to unhinged messaging is to ignore it. I regularly receive unhinged messages, which seem to get sloppier the later they arrive in the night.
Normally, I would have let Moreno’s messages fade into the background without thinking about them again, as I do with most offensive messages I receive. In this case, I keep returning to the fact Moreno seeks your vote. Part of my job is to inform the electorate about candidates. For three weeks, I’ve been nagged by a feeling that my duty here is to share his texts?
I don’t publish this incautiously. I know some will say this column is petty, or partisan. It’s not about that. It’s about me being a journalist with exclusive access to information about a candidate for statewide office. I’d publish it no matter which party he represented. I can say that I’ve been at this work for many years, and I’ve never received anything remotely similar from Sherrod Brown. Or Mike DeWine. Or Rob Portman, John Glenn or George Voinovich.
No, this is about Moreno the person, not Moreno the Republican. When he found himself facing the national crisis of an attempted assassination of a former president, his immediate response wasn’t to remain calm and wait for the facts. He didn’t become pensive or unifying. He jumped to a preposterous conclusion and went on the attack.
Which brings me full circle, back to Frank Jackson’s adage about how leaders show their mettle in a crisis.
Read Moreno’s messages again.
Is this how a leader should respond to a crisis?
I’m at [email protected]
Any other journalism this week that you would like to report?
Otherwise, open thread!
Baud
NYT reporters would have saved that for the book!
karen marie
One or two of the “reviews” of Trump’s “press conference” mentioned that he looked “haggard.”
I bet a nickel he’s taking Ozempic.
cmorenc
Doubt the editorial will result in Moreno losing any voters previously inclined to vote for him, but OTOH he won’t likely be picking up any genuine undecided voters either with his MAGA-ish abrasive behavior.
BR
Looks like a (possibly fake) hack of the Trump campaign happened. The way they’re responding to it makes me think someone inside the campaign wanted to change the narrative, not that it really happened.
bbleh
Perhaps Moreno was confusing Quinn, who made a remark about Nazis, with JDVance, who called Trump “America’s Hitler.”
lamh47
ooooh…did ya’ll see Chump campaign was hacked!
Baud
@lamh47:
Hillary has had 8 years to learn to code.
Steve LaBonne
Sadly I can’t help wondering how long the suits at Advance Publications will put up with Quinn. I hope I’m wrong to worry.
Baud
@BR:
How are they responding?
M31
lol those mails came from an AOL account
hahahaha why is that so funny
BR
@Baud:
They’re being way too forthcoming about it, saying “we’ve been hacked, it was Iran, etc.” I suppose it’s possible that they did get hacked but they clearly don’t see it as a bad thing.
Baud
@BR:
I guess we’ll see if any scandalous recipes have been leaked.
ETA: the Iran thing is almost certainly an opportunistic lie.
Sure Lurkalot
@lamh47: Trump campaign hacked? With all those crypto buying tech wizards supporting his candidacy, it’s unpossible his data operation isn’t as tight as a tire lug nut. Fake news!
Jacques
@karen marie: I wonder what the side effects of Ozempic and Adderal are for a fat, elderly man with dementia? <<shudder>>
M31
sounds like someone inside the campaign is trying to get rid of Vance?
I guarantee that the Vance “vetting book” is just a bunch of google searches and previously published campaign stuff from Ohio, and not actual research. Like did the Trumpies actually send someone to research Peter Thiel? I mean, ewww. Maybe they researched Thiel’s bank balance, though, and that was enough.
Citizen Alan
Reading Quinn’s publication of Moreno’s crazy-pants texts makes me think of that toad Tim Russert, who testified under oath that he considered every single communication with a political figure to be “off the record” unless the person said otherwise.
BTW, whatever happened to Lil’ Luke, Russert’s nepo-baby.
KatKapCC
@Baud: You know, what’s kind of crazy to me about the way so many reporters seem to WANT Trump around for book-deal purposes is that they don’t seem to think that being around to witness and document the first woman president would also be good fodder for the bestsellers lists. Just as with Obama, this would be a massive thing to witness. When I think back to big events that I wasn’t around for, like the moon landing, I just think, wow it must have been amazing to see that happen. I feel like young kids now might feel that way about us having watched Obama get elected, and future generations would feel similarly about Harris. But reporters seem to feel very ho-hum about it. They’re so odd.
Baud
@Citizen Alan:
Odd, but as long as he applied that rule to everyone….
I don’t know where he is now.
Another Scott
@M31:
+1
Never give a known liar the benefit of the doubt.– DSquaredDigest
Cheers,
Scott.
TBone
@Baud: 😆😎
zhena gogolia
@Baud: Absolutely!
I’m glad I’m a subscriber to the CPD, although I don’t get around to reading it.
I wish more journalists would do this.
zhena gogolia
@lamh47: Oh, boy, a dossier!
zhena gogolia
@KatKapCC: That would take work.
TBone
@Another Scott: 👍
It’s merely another effort to grab attention playing the victim is my speculative guess. I don’t really care enough to look any further (unless additional treason comes to light as a result)…
Baud
@TBone:
When almost getting shot to death doesn’t work….
Mike E
Olympic gold medal basketball ain’t beanbag, heh.
Baud
@Mike E:
We were lucky to get past Serbia.
hueyplong
If the Trump campaign says something that is true, it’s inadvertent.
TBone
In local news, hubby just told me that he saw some fucking guy on our town’s Rails to Trails bike route with a pistol and holster strapped to his bicycle 😡 a lot of parents and kids use that flat, lovely trail.
Meme posted by fElon Skum:
TBone
@Baud: 🎯 bingo!
Mike E
@Baud: yeah, as a Yugo-American I felt like I had won the gold after that game!
Shalimar
@lamh47: Dossier could be anything. “He’s a cuddly teddy bear, and Iowans will love his butter Hitler sculptures.”
Jeffg166
@karen marie: He will do anything if he thinks it makes him “look good”.
He’s a 78 year old man who did nothing to try to stay in shape. An injection isn’t going to make him young again.
He does look exhausted. Sleepless nights and nightmares about Kamala turning the key on his cell laughing maniacally will do that.
Baud
@TBone:
Can’t wait for Kam to extradite him to UK.
M31
@Jeffg166: looks exhausted, but not because he’s busy or working hard or anything
TBone
@Baud: 🤣
M31
@Another Scott:
oh yeah, ‘hacked’ I’ll believe it when the Iranians prove it
until then it’s just another pity party invitation and they never have any good snacks
Baud
Ozempic can’t be happy to have Trump as the face of their product.
Bill Arnold
@lamh47:
That an AOL(email) account used to send documents to Politico is a nice touch.
ETA the blame of Iran by the Trump campaign spokeshenchperson, without providing evidence, is also amusing.
Another Scott
@Bill Arnold: So that’s what RFK, jr, has been up to…
:-/
Cheers,
Scott.
hueyplong
Robert John Barron?
Baud
Well, if they’re claiming a hack, the FBI will investigate. AOL will be getting a call.
Baud
@hueyplong:
Heh.
M31
I want Iran to disavow the whole thing and say “how could we harm the Trump campaign any more than they are already doing?”
Baud
@M31:
“We want Trump to win.”
TBone
Texas Tribune
https://crooksandliars.com/2024/08/tx-gov-require-public-hospitals-collect
jonas
@KatKapCC: Yeah, Kamala would be the first female president, but she’d just spend most of her time yammering on about policy this, tax reform that, Congress these. Total snoozefest! Nothing getting set on fire. No cabinet members resigning in disgust at her incompetence. No threatening to bomb Mexico. No aides leaking continually about what a shitshow everything is.
What’s the fun in that? It’d be like getting busted down from broadcasting a WWE smackdown tournament to covering competitive darts.
Bill Arnold
@Another Scott:
Just going by the politico report, even if the Trump campaign IT operation has full internet traffic logs (unlikely), attribution would be as difficult as usual, as long as the persons involved used decent OPSEC.
TBone
https://crooksandliars.com/2024/08/out-race-dark-brandon-still-punching-trump
West of the Rockies
@karen marie:
Is he losing weight? Can’t say he looks heavier, but nor would one say he has slimmed down.
jonas
“Iran, if you’re listening….”
M31
actually, a serious question, here’s Trump’s guy, Cheung, saying “These documents were obtained illegally from foreign sources hostile to the United States,”
if they were obtained illegally by foreign sources, but then sent to a media outlet, is the media outlet doing the illegal obtaining? That’s what the quote implies, but I’m remembering my Pentagon Papers and I don’t think that’s the case
I mean, it’s a Trump guy, what are the chances he’s spouting nonsense out of his butthole for propaganda purposes?
Kay
Chanting “we’re not going back” waiting to get into the Harris rally in Vegas.
I have never seen Democrats chant in unison BEFORE a rally before in my life.
Kay
I saw this on social media
i am not in Vegas :)
M31
oh no they leaked JD Vance’s entire browsing history
ethanallan.com
ashleyfurniture.com
wayfair.com
scotchguard.com
upholsterycleaners24hr.com
Baud
@M31:
Heh.
VeniceRiley
@KatKapCC: right? It’s fobsmackinfly stupid on their WHytpart.
jonas
@M31: Cheung is a particularly despicable lying sack of MAGA shit and nothing he says should be believed until confirmed by multiple other independent sources. My initial reaction is that this is always the go-to response when someone or some organization has fucked up on social media or online — “I never sent those dick pics! I was hacked!” Yeah, right.
It’s not inconceivable that some foreign entity was probing around the Trump operation looking for weaknesses or whatever and hit a little bit of paydirt, if you can call it that, but until we have more information, I’m going to go with Trump’s Razor and just assuming it was an inside job by an IT contractor who wasn’t paid or something.
Harrison Wesley
@Baud: Has he claimed an Ozempic gold medal yet?
BR
@Kay:
Finally with “We’re not going back” and “Mind your own damn business” we are back to the level of “Yes We Can” — simplicity and captures the mood.
JaySinWA
@M31: Couching my remarks carefully, I’ll add that Brooke Binkowski tells us couch jokes are counter disinformation.
https://www.wonkette.com/p/hey-so-that-couch-fucking-thing-i
HT https://bsky.app/profile/brooklynmarie.bsky.social/post/3kzexiqdw622m
Frankensteinbeck
@KatKapCC:
It would require work.
That’s not a trite, hyperbolic answer, by the way. Haberman got her information by going to the White House, hanging out and chatting with people. She didn’t have to look up anything. She didn’t have to verify anything or track down that one staffer who could be persuaded to leak. All she had to do to get juicy insider details that nobody could pry out of the Biden administration at all was… sit on a couch and be friendly.
Another Scott
@Mike E: This seems to be a full tackle game at the moment.
:-/
Cheers,
Scott.
montanareddog
I doubt very much the Russians hacked the campaign’s IT operation; I am sure they have enough agents embedded to get any information they want anyway. But it could be them ratfucking Vance because they see him as a drag on T34xFFG’s re-election campaign.
Jager
We bought a new 1999 Mercedes AMG C43 at Chambers Motorcars in Boston. It was a great experience, and then Bernie Moreno became the GM. In short, he began charging the customers and staff for coffee, he got rid of the free Saturday carwashes for customers, and no more loaner cars. He nickel-and-dimed the customers and treated his staff like shit.
A good GM at any car store will meet new clients, have a conversation, thank them for their business, give them his card, and tell them to call him personally if they have any problems or questions. Not Bernie!
Bernie Moreno was an arrogant, dismissive prick to everyone. In other words a perfect republican senator.
catclub
Yes! I have that link bookmarked! I think another thing they said was “They will lie about anything.”
Bill Arnold
@JaySinWA:
Like many of us, she was greatly amused by the AP fact check that bravely tried to “debunk” the couch-fucker story. They deleted it, so here’s an archive link. (I want the full story on that AP piece, someday.)
[1] AP FACT CHECK – No, JD Vance did not have sex with a couch (MELISSA GOLDIN, July 24, 2024, archive.ph link)
M31
@JaySinWA: that Binkowski article is brilliant, and has some especially delicious turns of phrase in it, lol
Geminid
@M31: I would like to see Iran hint that they were behind the hack even if they weren’t. The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps has vowed revenge for the drone strike Trump ordered that killed General Soleimani. He was a charismatic and revered figure and the IRGC wil not forget his assassination.
I’ve read that Pompeo and Bolton still have enhanced security protection because of this. Maybe Trump will ask for more now. I do not favor an Iranian drone-strike on any of these guys, but I don’t mind seeing them sweat some. They did plenty worse things than killing that general.
M31
@Geminid: If they did do it (which I doubt) I hope they release the actual phishing email which worked, I’m sure it was something like “click here for Protocols of the Elders of Zion After Dark Free Bitcoin Starter Pack”
Geminid
@M31: I don’t know much about the world of computer hacking, but Iran has an educated populace of 85 million that skews young, so the IRGC and other Iranian entities ought to have the human resources they need for these operations.
SiubhanDuinne
@M31:
In particular, distinguishing between misinformation and disinformation is enormously useful.
Sister Golden Bear
@KatKapCC: There’s something different about Harris vs Trump and our media courtiers, can’t quite put my finger on it. /s
wjca
@Geminid: Iran has the talent, certainly. So do Russia abd China. Likewise Ukraine, most of Europe, India, Japan. And, of course, we do as well.
So no end of possible suspects. Just a question of who might have had the motivation.
Unless, that is, they weren’t hacked at all. It will be amusing if it was a disaffected staffer. (Perhaps TCFG is saving money by stiffing the campaign staff on their wages? He’s done dumber things….)
Sister Golden Bear
@M31: If the media merely receives stolen documents it’s been traditionally covered by the First Amendment. What got Assage charge was that he actively solicited/encourage others to steal documents.
karen marie
@West of the Rockies: I have no idea. I try to look at pictures of Trump as rarely as I can manage. I have a thing in my browser that changes pictures of him into pictures of kittens. The question popped into my head because of the description of him being “haggard,” suggesting more saggy skin than usual.
MagdaInBlack
@JaySinWA: Just came from reading that. Thank you for posting it.
Geminid
@wjca: Yes, an internal leak seems the more likely. That’s embarrassing though, and it’s easy to pin the blame on the Villain of the Day.
It beats blaming the Russians, that’s for sure. Few people would believe that the Russians needed to employ hacking technology to find out what the RNC is up to.
sdhays
I’ll believe they’ve been hacked when I read Chris LaCivita’s recipe for spaghetti o’s on WikiLeaks.
BigJimSlade
@Baud: LOL!
M31
@Sister Golden Bear:
thank you! that’s pretty much what I thought
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@Sister Golden Bear: This does represent an important distinction. I wonder if it matters whether the documents in question are classified in terms of “not solicited but received anonymously.”
sdhays
@jonas: How often do you get to document the demise of a republic and an empire? And do it with as much effort as writing up the rumors from the gossip mill?
sab
@Steve LaBonne: Meanwhile, I happily pay my subscription.
Chris T.
@karen marie:
People have different reactions, but: I’m on it for type 2 diabetes and it doesn’t give me any particular problems other than slowed-down digestion (which is very good for my overall blood sugar and A1C). It’s important to eat a bit earlier so that I don’t have stomach issues while sleeping.
I have no idea what combining it with all the stuff Trump is on would do, though.