Weekend Watchdog

Bill Scher — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 22:06:07 -0700

Every Friday in our Weekend Watchdog feature, we post suggested questions for scheduled Sunday guests. You can add your own questions in the comment thread. We'll also include contact information for the shows, so we can let them know what their viewers want asked. We'll post a wrap-up here on the blog on Monday.

With the financial crisis still dominating people's concerns, here are three suggested questions that could be asked to any of this Sunday's slated guests: Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass.; Rep. Roy Blunt, R-Mo.; Former Treasury secretaries James Baker and Lawrence Summers (ABC's This Week); Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.; Gov. Bill Ritter, D-Colo.; Mayor Doug Wilder, Richmond, Va.; Rep. Adam Putnam, R-Fla.; C. Fred Bergsten, director, Peterson Institute for International Economics (CBS' Face The Nation); Gov. Jon Corzine, D-N.J.; Former Rep. Rob Portman, R-Ohio (NBC's Meet The Press); David Axelrod, campaign adviser for Barack Obama; Rick Davis, campaign adviser for John McCain; Gov. Ed Rendell, D-Pa.; Gov. Tim Pawlenty, R-Minn. (Fox News Sunday).

1. It is still unclear to what extent our government will either give money to banks in exchange for toxic assets, or buy shares in banks and claim an ownership stake on behalf of taxpayers. To what extent do you believe our government should purchase equity stakes in banks?

2. Do you believe that purchasing equity in banks will prevent us from making critical investments in infrastructure, clean energy, health care and education, when in the short-term increased deficits are appropriate during an economic recession, and in the long-term having taxpayer equity means a share in the profits when financial markets recover?

3. Why did Sen. McCain's campaign initially say that in his new plan to take over bad mortgages, "Lenders in these cases must recognize the loss that they’ve already suffered," but then drop that part of the plan, benefiting irresponsible lenders?

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Contact info for the Sunday shows

Contact ABC's This Week by clicking here

Email CBS' Face The Nation at ftn@cbsnews.com

Email Fox News Sunday at FNS@foxnews.com

Contact NBC's Meet The Press by clicking here

Remember: always be brief, polite and respectful when contacting the media, so our voices will be taken seriously.

Weekend Watchdog Wrap-Up

Bill Scher — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 06:51:35 -0700

While the Sunday shows were, true to form, heavier on the politics of the bailout than substance, it was actually one of the better days for the Watchdog.

On ABC's This Week, Sen. John McCain was asked about the need for additional economic stimulus -- albeit not as part of the bailout package.

Host George Stephanopoulos brought up Sen. Barack Obama's statement that a “stimulus plan for the middle-class, which extends unemployment benefits, adds infrastructure funding and sends money to the states to shore up their budgets” should follow passage of the bailout. Asked if he supported it, McCain said:

I am for keeping taxes low. I am for whatever steps we think we need to be taking right now. But first, let’s get this [bailout package] off the table.

After being asked a second time, McCain said:

I’ll have to look at it. But look, I’ll be glad to look at anything to help our economy. We did a stimulus package a few months ago as you well know. It had very little beneficial effect. I would like to see incentives for businesses to grow and locate. That’s lower taxes. That’s ways of making credit and funds available for them. Of course, we have to rebuild our infrastructure. I’d like to see along with that stimulus package, if it comes up, a commitment that there’ll be no earmarks.

Is he for stimulus or against? You be the judge!

I should note that the prior stimulus package was derided upon its January 2008 introduction by our own Robert Borosage for not including major infrastructure investment --- and new regulation on the teetering financial industry:

[Congressional leaders] demanded, sensibly enough, that the tax cuts include 45 million in low-income families that the president would have excluded. They demanded the president take extending his tax cuts beyond 2010 off the table. They got some help for imperiled homeowners through the Federal Housing Authority and Fannie Mae.

So only $40 billion of the $150 billion package gets squandered on business tax boondoggles. The rebates — what Jesse Jackson calls Wal-Mart gift certificates — will get handed out by August at best. It might help a bit, although if the economy is still in bad shape in August, people are more likely to be paying down credit-card debt than buying a new TV made in China.

But $40 billion isn't the largest cost. The real price is the continued misdirection of the economy and miseducation of the country.

We need what the stimulus package excludes. We need long term investment in rebuilding America — spending money on mass transit, on basic sewers and water disposal, on the electric grid, on renewable energy, on a green rebuilding of our urban areas, on schools and teachers, pre-K and affordable college. We need to stop squandering money abroad in misbegotten wars — now approaching $1 trillion spent on Iraq. We need to revive progressive taxation so at the very least hedge fund billionaires stop enjoying a lower tax rate than their secretaries. We need to develop a national strategy for the global economy, ending our addiction to oil, curbing the casino speculation that will eventually bring down the house, and balancing our trade with the mercantilist nations while capturing the new green industries of the future.

None of this, needless to say, is in the stimulus package. Instead we're taught the wrong lessons: tax cuts are good, particularly business tax breaks; lower interest rates are a free lunch; the "fundamentals," as the president constantly says, "are good."

On NBC's Meet The Press, the question of additional regulation on the financial industry received at least cursory attention during a debate between the two major party candidates in Colorado for U.S. Senate.

Host Tom Brokaw raised it with former Rep. Bob Schaffer (R):

BROKAW: Congressman, Chris Cox, who is the chairman of the SEC, said it's not the dead hand of government.

SCHAFFER: Right.

BROKAW: In effect, he said it's the blind eye of government and he now apologizes for regulations as they were deregulated not working, he said that we went voluntarily and Wall Street just didn't respond to that. That put us in the jam that we're in now and all of that grew out of a Republican culture beginning with Ronald Reagan.

SCHAFFER: Yeah.

BROKAW: So isn't it time to re-institute closer regulation of Wall Street and these financial institutions, especially in an era of warp speed and electronic trading, which is very hard to keep track of?

SCHAFFER: In some, in some areas, perhaps, with respect to transparency, with respect to certain areas of accountability, of course. But not in a way that slows or constrains the ability of the, the economy to grow. You know, the--you can trace back, however, the--to 2005, with the legislation that was considered in 2005 and again in 2007 with respect to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, where there were attempts, actually led by Republicans in the Congress, to put more controls and to put more restraints on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The blame Fannie/Freddie strategy, which as I noted last week, is the conservative blame-shift maneuver of choice.

Weekend Watchdog

Bill Scher — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 14:32:19 -0700

The proposed bailout is sure to be the main topic for all the scheduled Sunday show guests: Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill. (CBS' Face The Nation); Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. (ABC's This Week); Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and John Kerry, D-Mass. (Fox News Sunday); Former President Bill Clinton, Obama camapign advisor David Axlerod, McCain campaign manager Steve Schmidt, Rep. Mark Udall, D-Colo, and former Rep. Bob Schaffer, R-Colo. (NBC's Meet The Press).

Here are three suggested questions about progressive principles for any bailout that should be part of the discussion:

1. The economy has been off track for years before this financial crisis came to a head, with lost jobs, wages that don't keep pace with inflation, weakening infrastructure and crunched state budgets. How can we get the economy back on track if we only bail out bankers without an economic stimulus investing in projects that would put people back to work?

2. Why approve a banker bailout without a new regulatory framework that would prevent such a crisis from happening again?

3. Why help out the predatory lenders without helping the victims facing foreclosures by allowing them to renegotiate mortgages in bankruptcy court?

For more background, see The Deal That Blew Up and
With Whom Should White House and Congressional Leaders Be Negotiating?

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Contact info for the Sunday shows

Contact ABC's This Week by clicking here

Email CBS' Face The Nation at ftn@cbsnews.com

Email Fox News Sunday at FNS@foxnews.com

Contact NBC's Meet The Press by clicking here

Remember: always be brief, polite and respectful when contacting the media, so our voices will be taken seriously.

Weekend Watchdog Wrap-Up

Bill Scher — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 07:06:42 -0700

The Sunday shows strike out again, going 0-for-3 for the Watchdog.

The biggest whiff goes to Face The Nation, which allowed Karl Rove to punditize at will, as if he was a mere observer of politics. Host Bob Schieffer failed to ask him about the week's biggest bombshell, evidence that the Bush Administration forged a letter to falsely link Saddam Hussein to Al Qaeda. (Come of think out, none of the Sunday shows bothered to mention the latest Bush scandal.)

Over at Meet The Press, Tom Brokaw spent considerable time talking about the economy with Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, but the notion that increased public investment is needed to create jobs and strengthen America's competitiveness did not fall inside the accepted parameters of policy discussion.

(Though I should note that Tom Brokaw did dare utter the word "regulation" when asking about policy changes in response to the housing and credit crisis.)

Finally, on Fox News Sunday, host Chris Wallace did actually ask McCain campaign manager Rick Davis about his role lobbying to help the German-owned DHL buy Airborne Express and control 8,000 Ohio jobs which are now about to be lost. So, a point to Fox for not ignoring the issue.

However, Wallace only asked the superficial political question: "Are you and Senator McCain going to do anything to try to prevent that?" Wallace did not get into the deeper policy question:

Is consistently bending over backwards to help multinational corporations (and in Davis' case, getting paid hundreds of thousands in the process) serving the American economy?

Foreign investment, of course, is not a bad thing for America. But a system where the rules are constantly written for multinationals and never written for workers -- partly because multinational corporations can afford spend millions on lobbyists -- clearly is not building a healthy global economy.

Another idea rarely deemed acceptable in the parameters of Sunday show discourse.

Weekend Watchdog

Bill Scher — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 19:13:46 -0700

For Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson (NBC's Meet The Press): American has lost nearly 500,000 jobs so far this year, and some economic analysts expect another 500,000 will be lost before the year is out.

After eight years of failed conservative economic policy, shouldn't the Bush Administration change course and launch a job-creating public investment strategy?

For Karl Rove (CBS' Face The Nation): Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Ron Suskind published a new book with fresh evidence that the White House ordered the creation of a forged letter to fabricate a tie between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda, and that the White House had information from a top Iraqi official before the war that there were no WMD.

Without engaging in character assassination, are you able to disprove these charges?

For McCain campaign manager Rick Davis (Fox News Sunday): You lobbied on behalf of a German conglomerate that owns DHL so it could acquire Airbone Express. Now, DHL is planning on cutting at least 10,000 jobs in Wilmington, Ohio.

Do you think your lobbying work on behalf of multinational corporations has helped the American economy?

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Contact info for the Sunday shows

Contact ABC's This Week by clicking here

Email CBS' Face The Nation at ftn@cbsnews.com

Email Fox News Sunday at FNS@foxnews.com

Contact NBC's Meet The Press by clicking here

Remember: always be brief, polite and respectful when contacting the media, so our voices will be taken seriously.

Weekend Watchdog Wrap-Up

Bill Scher — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 06:12:30 -0700

Another 0-for-3 day for the Sunday shows, as they ignore the Watchdog's calls for questions on the oil shale boondoggle, the Minnesota bridge collapse, and the Justice Department political hiring scandal.

On NBC's Meet The Press, Tom Brokaw asked the Colorado and Wyoming governors a series of questions about energy prices and the environment, but oddly ignored the issue that directly impacts those states: President Bush's proposal to lift the federal ban on oil shale leasing.

But worth noting was Governor Dave Freudenthal's (D-Wyo.) explanation of his energy stance:

The [Bush administration] answer to everything is drill for oil and gas. They've ignored coal, they've ignored nuclear, they've ignored wind, and just a couple of days ago they decided that they're going to suspend all activities on solar on public lands.

What's notable? No embrace, not even a mention, of oil shale -- further evidence the Bush oil shale proposal is politically risky for his party.

On ABC's This Week Gov. Tim Pawlenty, R-Minn., was not asked about his record on infrastructure in light of his state's bridge collapse -- which has become par for the course whenever Pawlenty appears on TV.

And finally, Sen. Joe Lieberman was not asked on CBS' Face The Nation what his Senate committee on government operations will do in response to the Justice Department scandal of politicized hiring decisions. In fact, an effective media blackout of this scandal continues across broadcast television.

Weekend Watchdog

Bill Scher — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 14:35:34 -0700

Then on Monday, we'll circle back and see if our questions were asked and answered. Let's take back our media!

For Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. (ABC's This Week): Former Bush counter-terrorism chief Richard Clarke said of the new bipartisan Senate report on the use of intelligence in the run-up to the Iraq invasion: "What it says is statements by the president were not substantiated by intelligence. And then it stays statements by the president were contradicted by available intelligence. In other words, they made things up."

As a vociferous advocate of the invasion and occupation, did you make things up that were contradicted by available intelligence? Or were you ignorant of the available intelligence and misled by the Bush administration?

and

Your less-generous version of a 21st Century GI Bill garnered little support in the Senate. Now the conservative Washington Times (via Think Progress) reports that you solicited no input from veterans organizations when drafting your legislation.

Why aren't you and your allies interested in hearing from veterans when developing legislation intended to help veterans?

For Gov. Tim Pawlenty, R-MN (Fox News Sunday): The Associated Press reported last month, "Transportation officials' concerns that fixing or replacing a Minneapolis bridge [the Interstate 35W bridge] would be a 'budget buster' may have led to bad maintenance decisions before its deadly collapse," according to a report commissioned by your state's legislature.

Did you have an anti-government conservative ideology that harmed public services and contributed to the tragic bridge collapse?

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Full list of scheduled Sunday show guests, courtesy of Fishbowl DC

Meet the Press: NBC's Ron Allen, Lee Cowan, David Gregory, Andrea Mitchell, Kelly O'Donnell and Chuck Todd.

Face the Nation: Clinton communications director Howard Wolfson, Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY), Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA) and Politico's Roger Simon.

This Week: Sens. John Kerry (D-MA), Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), and a roundtable with ABC's Claire Shipman, Time's Jay Carney, George Will and Washington Post's Jonathan Capehart.

Fox News Sunday: Gov. Tim Kaine(D-VA) and Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R-MN) and a panel with Bill Kristol, Weekly Standard & Fox News, Nina Easton, Fortune Magazine & Fox News, Brit Hume , Washington Managing Editor of Fox News and Juan Williams, National Public Radio & Fox News

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Contact info for the Sunday shows

Contact ABC's This Week by clicking here

Email CBS' Face The Nation at ftn@cbsnews.com

Email Fox News Sunday at FNS@foxnews.com

Contact NBC's Meet The Press by clicking here

Remember: always be brief, polite and respectful when contacting the media, so our voices will be taken seriously.

Weekend Watchdog Wrap-Up

Bill Scher — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 07:07:19 -0700

The Sunday shows go 0-for-3 for the Watchdog, as the obsession with the Democratic Rules and Bylaws Committee largely pushed out coverage of issues.

No Clinton or Obama surrogate was asked about the upcoming vote on the Lieberman-Warner global warming bill, major legislation on a critical issue that will likely play a role in the general election campaign.

Accountability for pundits continues to be nonexistent. New York Times columnist David Brooks was not asked on ABC's This Week to back up his charge that an Obama administration would be "surrounded" by "interest groups [who] just want to take the money and patronage that has been going to Republican special interests and give it to Democratic special interests."

Finally, Scott McClellan spent much of his Meet The Press interview facing questions about his personal character, instead of questions that would help viewers take away lessons from his time in the White House, such as questions exploring his confirmations that the Iraq war was sold to the public with "propaganda."

Of course, it is appropriate to ask McClellan about the sincerity of his motivations, following his shift from Bush administration advocate to critic. But the interview was far more about the Sunday shows' interest in personal "gotcha" politics than in exploration of issues.

Weekend Watchdog

Bill Scher — Fri, 30 May 2008 16:36:32 -0700

Then on Monday, we'll circle back and see if our questions were asked and answered. Let's take back our media!

For former White House press secretary Scott McClellan (NBC's Meet The Press, ABC's This Week): You participated in the White House Iraq Group, which in your words, was "the marketing arm for selling the war to the public." What propaganda tactics were used by the White House to market the war, and how can citizens recognize such tactics in the future?

For New York Times columnist David Brooks (ABC's This Week): You recently wrote that a President Obama "will find himself surrounded by highly partisan Democratic politicians, committee chairmen and interest groups [who] just want to take the money and patronage that has been going to Republican special interests and give it to Democratic special interests."

Can you actually identify these "interest groups" and what ideas they are offering that would amount to "patronage?"

For any Clinton or Obama surrogate (see list below): Will your candidate be supporting the Lieberman-Warner global warming bill this week, or trying to strengthen it to match the plans proposed by Sens. Clinton and Obama, which require companies to fully pay for polluting public sky, generating revenue for clean energy and lower energy prices?

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Full list of scheduled Sunday show guests, courtesy of Fishbowl DC

Meet the Press: Scott McClellan

Face the Nation: Sen. Claire McCaskill and Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell.

This Week: McClellan and Clinton chair Terry McAuliffe, and a roundtable with Democratic strategist Donna Brazile, New York Times' David Brooks, Vanity Fair's Todd Purdum and George Will.

Fox News Sunday: Howard Wolfson, Communication Director for the Clinton Campaign, David Bonior, Obama surrogate and former Michigan Congressman. Power Player of the Week is Brendan Sullivan, executive director of Headfirst and a panel with Bill Kristol, Weekly Standard & Fox News, Nina Easton, Fortune Magazine & Fox News, Byron York, National Review & Fox News and Juan Williams, National Public Radio & Fox News

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Contact info for the Sunday shows

Contact ABC's This Week by clicking here

Email CBS' Face The Nation at ftn@cbsnews.com

Email Fox News Sunday at FNS@foxnews.com

Contact NBC's Meet The Press by clicking here

Remember: always be brief, polite and respectful when contacting the media, so our voices will be taken seriously.

Open Thread: Weekend Watchdog

Bill Scher — Fri, 30 May 2008 07:38:06 -0700

As the weekend approaches, it's time for the Weekend Watchdog to resume patrol!

Before we learn what politicians are scheduled to appear on the Sunday shows, what questions do you think should be asked this Sunday? What issues should not be ignored by the Beltway media establishment? What real scandals should not be pushed aside for the manufactured outrages that always seem dominate the media?

Fill up the thread with your thoughts. Contact info for the Sunday shows is below. The Watchdog will be back this afternoon with the full Sunday show guest list and recommended questions for key guests.

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Contact ABC's This Week by clicking here

Email CBS' Face The Nation at ftn@cbsnews.com

Email Fox News Sunday at FNS@foxnews.com

Contact NBC's Meet The Press by clicking here

Remember: always be brief, polite and respectful when contacting the media, so our voices will be taken seriously.