They could be famous, like Carville and whats-her-name
Howard Kurtz hacks me off about every other time I read him. Sanctimonious is what he is. And biased. So anyways, I emailed his ombudsman the other day:
Dear Ombudsman
I heard recently that Howard Kurtz’ wife works for Republicans, including a stint with the California governor.
Shouldn’t he be required to disclose this, since he writes about politics?
And received this reply from a gentleman named Mike Getler getlerm@washpost.com:
That's wrong. She worked for a brief period more than a year ago in California for him. She was not married to, or living with, or in the same city as Kurtz at the time.
I thought that was fairly weak, so I did a little Googling and put together this reply:
She didn't just work for Arnold, she was his press secretary. And her association with the GOP continues.
* As recently as Saturday, On Hardball with Chris Matthews she was described as "GOP media strategist Sheri Annis...." http://www.mail-archive.com/hardball@lists.msnbc.com/msg00328.html
* In February on the same show, she was described as "a Republican media analyst."
* On July 29th, 2003, The Post described her as
"a political consultant and former aide to Schwarzenegger." http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A64967-2003Jul29?language=printer
* The right-wing Claremont Institute describes her as "Our friend Sheri Annis..." http://www.claremont.org/weblog/2003_05.html
All I'm saying is that Kurtz should disclose that his wife works for the GOP, particularly when he's writing about the GOP. Seems like a simple common-sense request to me.
In the course of writing that email, I came across one of Kurtz columns that made me want to cuss, so I wrote another email and sent it just behind the email above:
Particularly when he writes copy like this:
"I can't help but think that if some of these stories had been obtained by one of our mainstream media muckety-mucks, as opposed to Sean Hannity or the Weekly Standard, it would be treated as a much bigger deal.
"The dismissive notion that conservatives leak to outlets on the right for ideological reasons ignores the fact that liberals often do the same thing with news organizations that are either left-of-center or likely to be sympathetic to the message being peddled. Most leakers have self-serving motives. That doesn't mean the information they're peddling is marginal or bogus.
"It's little wonder that some on the right are complaining once again about media bias."
I think the reader should know of his GOP contacts.
Have I heard anything in reply? No. Do I expect to? No. Am I the first fellow to run against this brick wall? Uh-uh. I've heard several complaints about it in the blogosphere. And several weeks ago, mediawhoresonline.com made it look like
the whole thing was coming to a head. But it hasn't. Yet.
