NT Times ombudsman says moveon.org got improper ad rate

The kickback could come from moveon.org. It is possible.

 

Fixed.

 

here's George Wills' take on the NYT ad mess....

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/opinion/op_ed/view.bg?articleid=1034078

The American Conservative Union filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission, noting that the buyer of the ad, MoveOn.org Political Action, is a registered multicandidate political committee regulated by the mare’s nest of federal laws the multiplication of which has so gladdened the Times.

 

First of all, as I understand it, the article was included on the FEC's Web site with several other articles he wrote...it's pretty obvious he wasn't trying to deny authorship.

Also, it's "sockpuppetry" to write a scholarly article under a pen name? Damn that James Madison!

As for point No. 2, I don't exactly have my ear to the pulse of the Netroots as you do, so I'm not familiar with the grievance list of times Bush administration officials have failed to recuse themselves on conflict-of-interest issues. I imagine some of the issues that get you so worked up wouldn't look quite so bad if you weren't blinded -- as always -- by partisan fury.

Pick your five favorite Bushie conflicts of interest, and we'll talk about them. I may learn something. It'll be fun.

 

Right. Only after Guiliani pointed out, and rightly, so, that moveon.org got a huge discount.

And by the way, if there has been a thread on, say, "Bush is a crook," and I would respond "but Hillary Clinton was invovled in shady deals," I've been quickly told "Nice try ... we weren't talking about Hillary, but Bush."

So why do you feel free to change the subject from the New York Times ad department and its convoluted price structure to more Bush-bashing?

Oh, right ... the rules are different for some people.

 

A superb column, certainly less shrill than the Fenians of the world. Also, more to the point.

 

It's a moronic column because it spends no time discussing who made the decision at the NYT

 

Webster....I really have no dog in this fight, I read the column at lunch and found this thread. but I'm curious why who made the decision really matters? An employee of the NYT made the decision, so in turn the NYT made the decision.

 

Here is why -- as I see it, there are four possible reasons for the wrong rate quote:
1) Legitimate screw-up by the sales person
2) Sales person looked at the ad space for the day and made an informal promise that it would run on the requested day in order to make the sale.
3) Salesperson quoted a lower rate in order to further that sales person's political agenda.
4) A higher-up at the NYT order the lower quote in order to facilitate the anti-Bush ad running.

If it is 1 or 2 or even 3, there is no evidence of "the paper" having any bias in the lower quote. What Will does is look at the fact that the lower quote was given and assume that the NYT did so to further a political agenda. Of which there is zero evidence.

 

The point, as has been repeatedly made to you by one poster after another who knows what they're talking about is that the rules are NOT different. Giluliani got the rate because the rate was there to be gotten. (BTW, moveon has since paid the full rate. Rudy's campaign, perhaps because it's losing fundraisers by the hour, has so far declined to do so.)

And winger, I agree there's no difference between James Madison and this guy.
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/docs/spakovsky-letter/
http://www.slate.com/id/2174680/

It was a law review article -- and how many of them are pseudonymous? Go look. I'll wait -- which he put on his FEC website and then scrubbed prior to coming up for an actual vote, he being a recess appointment.
Next -- why Dick Cheney and Thomas Jefferson are the same guy.
Please put history back where you found it now, OK?

 

Where else can you obtain such a gall-injected combination of patronization and obfuscation as you get, here?

I mean, besides what we've all gotten from various and sundry White House press secretaries/stooges, over the years (with both sides of the aisle bearing their fair share of guilt, in this area).

For free, yet.

Yeah, that's entertainment.

 

The rate was there to be gotten only after moveon and the Times Ad department got called on the initial bullshit $77,000 discount. What part of this timeline do you not understand?