So-Called Liberal Media

Dan Froomkin, writing in the Washington Post, has a survey of press coverage on the Gonzales nomination.

"What's the most important thing about White House counsel Alberto R. Gonzales, who President Bush nominated yesterday to replace Attorney General John D. Ashcroft?

That he would be the first Hispanic attorney general?

That he has been a longtime and deeply loyal friend to the president?

That he championed legal arguments that some critics say laid the groundwork for the abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison?

Clearly, all three are important. The first is neat. The second is telling. The third is horrifying, if true. All three are mentioned in pretty much all of today's major media coverage.

But what, as we say in the newspaper business, is the lead?

I parsed the first descriptive phrases of the main news stories about Gonzales by several major media organizations. Here's what they went with:

Washington Post: Longtime friend.

New York Times: Longtime political loyalist.

Los Angeles Times: Loyal friend; aggressive advocate for strengthening Bush's powers as a wartime commander.

USA Today: Bush confidant, first Hispanic.

Wall Street Journal: Son of Mexican immigrants; close, longtime adviser to Bush.

Chicago Tribune: Friend; first Hispanic.

Knight Ridder: First Hispanic; longtime friend.

CBS Evening News: Loyal longtime ally; under fire for legal arguments in war on terror.

NBC Nightly News: Mexican American; friend.

ABC World News Tonight: Friend; anything but a country-club Republican.

Associated Press: Helped shape controversial legal strategy in the war on terror; first Hispanic.

Reuters: Son of migrant workers; Bush confidant; shaper of legal opinions about prisoner treatment.

Is the whole "torture memo" issue just too complicated to get at in the lead of a story, or is it a relative non-issue? We'll have to wait until the confirmation hearings to find out.

Froomkin's conclusion shows the oddly battered mindset in the press, particularly within the Beltway. To me the point is, there won't be an issue if no one is reporting it, and there won't be noise about it during the confirmation hearings if politicians think no one cares about it. The fact that this broad swath of news sources has barely mentioned this will affect, and quite possibly determine, whether or not this is a non-issue!

Really, how hard would it be to write "Alberto Gonzales, a White House lawyer who advised the President to ignore the Geneva Convention, and told the President that he was free to order torture, was nominated today by President Bush to be the next Attorney General of the United States. Gonzales, a long-time friend and close political associate of Mr. Bush, would , if confirmed, become the first Hispanic Attorney General."? (Gee, that wasn't hard at all.)

For more detail on the "torture" story, I suggest Newsweek's coverage, which include a link to a PDF file of the actual Gonzales memo. Reading the memo itself is quite an experience. My reading suggests that Gonzales was working hard to justify a position the President had already chosen. To do this he actively dismisses counter-arguments from authorities with greater expertise in the State Department, and makes sweeping policy judgments as if they were judgments of fact.

In his speech at the announcement, Gonzales promised a "Department of Justice guided by the rule of law," a phrasing that caught my ear. "Guided by?" Mr. Gonzales, it isn't called the "rule of guidelines". We don't want you to be "guided by" the rule of law, we want you GOVERNED by the rule of law. Laws aren't suggestions! They are laws, or would be, if you weren't actively subverting them to please your political patron.

For a highly critical analysis of that memo and Gonzales, here is blogger James Grimmelmann.