News Cycle

It’s always a sad day for all journalists when a newspaper folds into history. Today is the last day for the New York Sun, which is ceasing operations after six years because it could not find suitable financial backers. The Sun will pay its roughly 110 employees through November, and their health insurance would continue through Dec. 31.

Sun editor Seth Lipsky made these to the newspaper’s staff:

It is my duty to report today that Ira Stoll and I and our partners have concluded that the Sun will cease publication. Our last number will be the issue dated September 30, the first day of Rosh Hashanah. I want you to know that Ira and I, and our partners, explored every possible way to avoid having to cease publication.

We have spoken with every individual who seemed to be a prospective partner, and everywhere we were received with courtesy and respect. I tend to be an optimist and held out hope for a favorable outcome as late as mid-afternoon today. But among other problems that we faced was the fact that this month, not to mention this week, has been one of the worst in a century in which to be trying to raise capital, and in the end we were out not only of money but time.

So we are at this sad moment. It is sad for any newspaper to go out of publication, and it is particularly sad for one that is as loved as much as all of us here love The New York Sun and the readers we have won in our six-and-a-half years of publication. But I want you to know that the decision to close the paper has not been an acrimonious one. It is a logical decision following a hard-headed assessment of our chances of meeting our goal of profitable publication in the near future.

This was always a risk, and all the greater is the heroism of our financial backers. Even at the end they were offering millions of dollars if we could find the partners we needed. I don’t mind saying to you, as I have to them, that I very much regret — I will always regret — that we were not able to return to them the capital that they invested in us. Yet we have not heard a single regret from any of them on this head, which underscores the fact that it was not only for the possibility of profit that they invested in this newspaper. They invested also for other ideals, as well.

They invested in the ideal of the scoop, the notion that news is the spirit of democracy, and in the principles for which we have stood in our editorial pages — limited and honest government, equality under our Constitution and the law, free markets, sound money, and a strong foreign policy in support of freedom and democracy. They liked the way the Sun reflected the dynamism of our city and spoke for its interests in the national debate.

They invested, too, in the joy with which you illuminated the cultural life of New York, in our willingness to spring to the defense of so many who are not always defended, in the thrill of our sports coverage, the verve and warmth of our society coverage, and in our efforts to bring together a community and give it voice.

Apparently I have more pull on the Internet than I thought …

Johnathan Martin of Politico wrote in his blog late yesterday that the McCain campaign has read the reviews about Gov. Sarah Palin’s performances in the media interviews and are planning to unleash her to radio talk shows, and at the same time free her from the GOP talking points and let Sarah be Sarah.

Some excerpts from Martin’s report:

“She’s seen the reviews and heard the criticism, but she’s a fighter,” said this aide. “And now she’s in a fighting mood.”

Palin heads to McCain’s cabin in Arizona today to prepare for her Thursday debate, and while she’s there she’ll do a round of conservative talk radio interviews.

“Talk radio is a convenient, powerful and effective outlet,” said the aide.

Rush Limbaugh, who hosts the most popular radio show in the country, noted in an e-mail that he doesn’t invite guests on and alluded to his rocky relationship with the top of the GOP ticket.

“The McCain camp doesn’t trust me,” Limbaugh said.

But asked if he’d welcome a call from Palin, the conservative talker said: “Of course.”

The move to reintroduce Palin comes after much criticism for a stumbling interview she gave to CBS’ Katie Couric last week; increased conservative grousing about the campaign’s decision to roll out the GOP vice presidential nominee through high-stakes and high-profile mainstream media interviews; and the suggestion by some observers that she even drop off the ticket.

Quite the contrary, Palin, her family and aides are determined to remind voters what they so liked about the governor in the first place.

After the debate and talk radio hits, the plan is to find a way to let Palin be Palin, moving her away from the pre-fab talking points and letting the down-home daughter of Wasilla be herself.

“She wants to tell her story more, and people around her do, too,” added the source. “This is a governor very much on her toes, very much fed up with inaccuracies and fictions about her own life and career.”

To this end, Palin was far more aggressive in another interview with Couric today, this aide said

Sitting with McCain for their first joint interview a week after the widely panned sit-down with Couric, Palin interjected when the CBS anchor brought up a report about the Wasilla Assembly of God, the governor’s childhood church and one she still attends at times, seeking to pray gays away from homosexuality.

“Sarah Barracuda showed up today,” the aide said, reprising the feisty former point guard’s high school basketball nickname and one that has been largely forgotten since her post-convention cosseting.

“We’re encouraging CBS to run entire thing,” the aide said of today’s session. “Run it end to end online.”

Last week I wrote this after the first Katie Couric interview:

What the McCain campaign should do is to give her the best pre-debate education of the issues it can. Get her up to speed on foreign affairs and domestic problems. But don’t craft the answers for her. Let her develop what she is going to say in her own voice. In other words, on Oct. 2, let her be Sarah Palin.

If she’s going to be criticized for her answers (she will, MSNBC and others will dissect them syllable by syllable) she might as well give her own thoughts, and not the spin of the campaign. The McCain campaign should unleash her. She can handle Biden on her own. From what we have seen, when allowed to be herself, she can do quite well.

Now, seriously, I doubt John McCain’s campaign team is relying on my advice. But that posting has had the most unique viewers since I started this venture. About 13 percent of this blog’s total unique viewers saw that post. The second most viewed post was the video of Palin’s appearance at her former church in Wasilla, which 5 percent of News Cycle’s unique viewers saw.

Chris Matthews apparently interviewed his daughter Caroline before the debates on “Hardball” but failed to tell his viewers of his relationship with her, FishbowlDC reported yesterday. This is a Journalism 101 breach of ethics.

One tipster told FishbowlDC that “Matthews, at the asking of his daughter, instructed the producers not to name her.”

The reason this is a breech of ethics is that Matthews has a conflict of interest. His daughter had a political point to make about an organization she is a member of. Its web site was promoted during the interview. The interview under normal circumstances, while quite soft and ordinary, would have been fine, but his viewers deserve to know that she was his daughter appearing on his show to promote her political point of view.

The calls for Gov. Sarah Palin to step down from the GOP ticket has moved from the blogs to the mainstream media as journalists across the nation have been in a state of shock that she performed poorly during the interview with CBS’ Katie Couric.

Fareed Zakaria, the editor of Newsweek International, took the ball from Kathleen Parker from The National Review and published an editorial this morning demanding that the governor from Alaska remove herself from the GOP ticket because of her poor performance.

In a four-paragraph editorial, Zakaria’s thesis is that because Palin stumbled on answering Couric’s questions she is no way qualified for the office of vice president.

The problem with that thesis is that answering media questions is not what qualifies anybody for high office. If it were, we’d be in trouble with all the candidates.

Case in point: Here’s Sen. Joe Biden, well known as a gaffe machine, speaking to, ironically, Couric on how a president can respond to an economic crisis:

Now, we all know that President Roosevelt was not president when the stock market crashed in 1929 (it’s what made Herbert Hoover famous). We also know that few televisions existed in the Roaring ’20s. So is Biden out of touch for making such a ridiculous argument? Where is the media outrage that he can’t put forth a reasonable answer to a reasonable question, and therefore should step down from the campaign?

Biden isn’t the only one to misspeak during the campaign. Sen. John McCain has had his share of fumbles in front of a microphone. For instance, he proudly proclaimed at the start of the current financial crisis that if he were president, he would fire Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox for his “betrayal of trust” leading up to this past week’s financial market crisis.”

Now, in this case, the problem is that the SEC, which regulates the trading of stocks and bonds, is an independent agency outside the jurisdiction of the White House. While the president nominates and the Senate approves the SEC chairman, there is some doubt on whether a president can actually fire the SEC chair. After a few days of back-and-forth between the McCain campaign and the media about the gaffe, the GOP candidate changed his language to say he would asked for Cox’s resignation, not fire him. The media was appropriately tough on McCain, but there were no calls for him to step aside from the campaign for the good of the party.

Or how about this one?

The Spanish press was pounding the McCain campaign for at least one news cycle after the Arizona senator failed to correctly identify Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero of Spain. The reporter that spoke with McCain said that she had the feeling that McCain didn’t know what he was talking about. Some said McCain was confused in the interview, apparently thinking Zapatero was someone from Latin America who is an enemy of the United States. This interview started a minor international controversy; but there were no calls from the media that McCain step down from the campaign because he had misspoken to the press on a foreign affairs matter, which is one of his strong points.

And probably the most famous gaffe of McCain’s campaign was when Politico asked the senator how many homes he owned. “I think — I’ll have my staff get to you,” McCain said. “It’s condominiums where — I’ll have them get to you.”

He’s still taking heat for that one. But are there any calls for him to step aside? Not really.

Misspeaking in front of cameras is a bipartisan sport. Some of Sen. Barack Obama’s have been outrageous as well. For instance:

How could someone who thinks there are 58 states actually serve as president? How many electoral votes do those extra eight states give the Democrats? This is obviously a slip of the tongue, not a sign of a basic lack of knowledge about geography. But what would the media be saying if Palin made that same mistake. Tina Fey would have a field day on “Saturday Night Live.”

There were more serious missteps by Obama. Remember his statement earlier in the campaign that “Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided.”

That’s a policy statement, and it was one that gave Obama some considerable heat. He had to spend days backtracking on the statement.

Once again, CBS’ Couric was in the middle of the fray we she asked the senator: “You said not too long ago that Jerusalem should remain undivided. And then you backtracked on that statement. Does that play into the argument that some believe that someone more experienced would not have made that kind of mistake?”

Obama: “Well, if you look at what happened, there was no shift in policy or backtracking in policy. We just had phrased it poorly in the speech. That has happened and will happen to every politician. You’re not always gonna hit your mark in terms of how you phrase your policies. But my policy hasn’t changed, and it’s been very consistent. It’s the same policy that Bill Clinton has put forward, and that says that Jerusalem will be the capital of Israel, that we shouldn’t divide it by barbed wire, but that, ultimately that is a final status issue that has to be resolved between the Palestinians and the Israelis.”

This was a case where he used code words that upset many Palestinians in part of the world where people die because high-ranking officials use incorrect language. But nobody in the media started to write editorials saying that he should drop out of the race because that he was not qualified for high office because he misspoke to the media.

Here’s another case. On his trip to the Middle East, Obama proudly proclaimed that “Now, in terms of knowing my commitments, you don’t have to just look at my words, you can look at my deeds. Just this past week, we passed out of the U.S. Senate Banking Committee, which is my committee, a bill to call for divestment from Iran, as a way of ratcheting up the pressure to ensure that they don’t obtain a nuclear weapon.”

Of course, there was some press concerning this, mostly for one news cycle. Obama is not a member of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee. Obama took credit for the committee’s works as one of his deeds. And while there was some press criticism about it, there were no calls for him to step aside because of a lack of ability to speak into a microphone.

Here’s the deal. Palin had a bad interview with Couric. Her answers were not on target. But that does not disqualify her as part of the GOP ticket. An ability to speak to the press has never stopped anyone from succeeding in high office. Every politician on the planet misspeaks and stumbles on their words, usually on a daily basis.

Members of the media have the same amount of power in the presidential elections as other citizens. Each reporter, editor and commentator has one vote, just like you. Journalists do like to think they control the national dialogue. The whole Palin phenomena has been a thorn in the news media’s side. Journalists did not see her coming as a candidate, they never approved of the vetting process (because they didn’t have a chance to vet her), and she represents a segment of the populace that journalists in New York and Washington have a tough time understanding. In their collective mind, they cannot fathom a person coming out of nowhere, who holds opposite values as they do, potentially jumping in and becoming a very powerful person. In a nutshell, they never approved her. Therefore, in most journalists’ mindset, she isn’t qualified.

But, it’s not the news media’s call.

You, and everyone else who goes to the polls in November, are the only ones who gets to decide if she, or any one else is qualified. Don’t make your decision based on a candidate’s performance with the media. Judge office-seekers by their policies, their past performance in government service and their vision for the future. Those are the only qualifications you need to look at.

In the end, she’s not qualified only if the voters, not the media, say so.

FOX News reports that the House Parliamentarian has said that the bailout proposal cannot not be revisited. A new bill must be submitted, and that cannot happen until tomorrow or maybe Wednesday because House members are observing the Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashanah.

In one of the roughest days in recent memory on Wall Street, the Dow Jones industrials fell by almost nearly 700 points just as it became clear that the bailout proposal forged over the weekend would fail in the House. After recovering slightly, the Dow was again down by 700 points shortly before 3:30 p.m.

The proposal failed 228-205 as most Republican rejected as well as more than 90 Democrats.

Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index was down by 8 percent. 228-205.

President Bush told reporters that he plans to meet with his economic advisers this afternoon “to move forward.” After his statement, the Dow regain about 100 points in a matter of minutes.

Michael M. Grynbaum of The New York Times is reporting:

The fear was most pronounced in the world’s credit markets, considered gauges of anxiety among investors. Yields on Treasuries plummeted after the House rejected the plan, with the one-month Treasury note yielding virtually zero.

Banks are charging enormous premiums for short-term financing; the difference between the cost of a three-month loan from a bank, and a three-month loan from the government, rose to the widest point since at least 1984. Other lending rates stayed high.

On Wall Street, the drops were sharp and swift, catching many investors and stock strategists on Wall Street by surprise. Many had expected the measure to be passed in the House, and lawmakers in Congress had suggested as much in comments earlier on Monday.

Here is the video of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s speech, which in part is being cited as a reason why House Republicans voted against the $700 billion bailout proposal. Many saw it as a partisan attack.

Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s speech this morning (Part 1):

Pelosi’s speech this morning (Part 2):

Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) said her speech for incited partisan sentiment by blaming Republicans and the administration for the flaws in regulation and failures of oversight that she said drove the financial system to the brink of collapse.

“I know members who said ‘If I wasn’t a no before, I am now,’” Simpson told CQ.

Rep. John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) told Politico’s David Rogers that Pelosi had the votes before the speech.:

“We could have gotten it if it were not for this partisan speech that Speaker Pelosi gave,” said Rep. John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), the House minority leader.

Added Rep. Chris Shays, a Connecticut Republican who also voted for the bill: “Nancy blew it.”

“That is an absurd accusation at a time when our country is in deep economic distress,” a Pelosi spokesman fired back.

“You don’t vote on a speech, you vote on a bill.”

From Kathy Kiely and Sue Kirchhoff of USA Today:

In a stunning rebuke to President Bush, congressional leaders and Wall Street, the House rejected a $700 billion financial bailout package Monday, with a coalition of conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats refusing to grant the government sweeping powers to buy up distressed loans.

The vote was 228-205 against the measure, with one member not voting. There was broad bipartisan opposition to the measure, with more than 90 Democrats and more than 130 Republicans voting against the bill. Republicans voted more than 2-1 to oppose the bill.

The vote came even though the measure was backed by Bush and House leaders in both parties. But opponents said the package granted the U.S. government too much power and and was beyond the cost the government should pay to address the worldwide financial crisis.

Wall Street reacted immediately to the news. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell by more than 700 points at one point as the outcome became clear. After the vote, the Dow remained down by more than 550 points.

It’s noteworthy that 90 Democrats voted against this bill. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who had reportedly said earlier in the process that she needed the political cover of at least half of the House GOP. She said nothing about getting her own party on board.

Some GOP congressmen pointed to her speech this morning from the House floor where she blamed President Bush’s fiscal policies were to blame for the trouble Wall Street is in. Other Republicans would not specifically blame Pelosi, but rather that the bill did not have enough protections for the taxpayers. Some have indicated an uneasiness with the way Treasury Secretary Harry Paulson handled the bailout proocess.

There is a chance the bill could be reconsidered today. “We could take this bill back to the floor with a motion to reconsider an hout from now,” if modifications could be made to protect the taxpayers, Rep. John Shadegg (R-Ariz) said.

Details of the “Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008″ is available, and can be seen here. The bill will be introduced in the House of Representatives on Monday morning and then head to the Senate, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev, announced to reporters on Capitol Hill today. Marketwatch.com reported these details:

The legislation authorizes $250 billion immediately, with another $100 billion upon presidential certification. An additional $350 billion would also be available subject to congressional approval.

“I appreciate the leadership shown by members on both sides of the aisle, who came together to write a very good bill,” President Bush said in a statement. “This bill provides the necessary tools and funding to help protect our economy against a systemwide breakdown.”

The Treasury can use a combination of tactics to buy bad loans, focusing on mortgages and mortgage-backed securities but also including other types of loans under certain conditions. Treasury could purchase the bad debt through an auction process as well as by buying loans directly, a Treasury official said in a conference call with reporters.

The proposed legislation also allows companies to participate in an insurance program, whereby Treasury would guarantee troubled assets, charging companies a premium “sufficient to cover anticipated claims,” according to the bill.

“This bill provides the necessary tools to deploy up to $700 billion to address the urgent needs in our financial system, whether that be by purchasing troubled assets broadly, insuring troubled assets, or averting the potential systemic risk from the disorderly failure of a large financial institution,” Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said in a press release.

“I am confident this legislation gives us the flexibility to unclog our financial markets [and] increase the ability of our financial institutions to deliver the credit that will help create jobs. We are taking the steps needed to be ready to begin implementing this legislation as soon as it is signed,” he said.
The government would get a stake in companies receiving bailout funds so that taxpayer money could be recovered if those companies grow in the future, according to the bill.

The proposed legislation also requires that in five years, the president submit a proposal to Congress “that recoups from the financial industry any projected losses to the taxpayer.

Sen. Barack Obama said this afternoon that Sen. John McCain contributed nothing to the bailout compromise, and that McCain deserves no credit for helping forge a tentative agreement on the $700 billion bailout of Wall Street.

The Democrat said he made sure the proposal includes safeguards for taxpayers. Obama said he is inclined to support the bailout because it includes increased oversight, relief for homeowners facing foreclosure and limits on executive compensation for chief executives of firms that receive government help.

“None of those were in the president’s provisions. They are identical to the things I called for the day that [Treasury] Secretary [Henry] Paulson released his package,” Obama said. “That I think is an indication of the degree to which when it comes to protecting taxpayers, I was pushing very hard and involved in shaping those provisions.”

Appearing on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” Obama was asked by Bob Schieffer whether McCain deserved credit for bringing lawmakers together, Obama said “No.

“Here are the facts: For two weeks I was on the phone everyday with Secretary Paulson and the congressional leaders making sure that the principles that have been ultimately adopted were incorporated in the bill,” Obama said.

Sen, Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) had a different version of the events on Capitol Hill. Appearing on “Fox News Sunday,” Graham said McCain worked with House Republicans to achieve plan changes such as government insurance of mortgage-backed securities and a phase-in of federal aid.

“The fact is the House Republicans were not in the mix at all” until McCain arrived at the talks, Graham said. McCain “was decisive in regards to the House being involved.”

For his part, McCain passed this morning on taking credit for the bailout compromise.
He was asked on ABC’s “This Week With George Stephanopoulos,” if he deserved some praise for helping forge a deal, given his much-publicized suspension of his presidential campaign.

“I’ll let you and others be the judge of that,” he replied.

“I wasn’t going to phone it in. I’m a Teddy Roosevelt Republican. I’ve got to get in the arena. … I won’t claim a bit of credit, if that makes ‘em happy.”