Bumiller and the McCain - Kerry background

Since Elisabeth Bumiller doesn't have the luxury of referring readers directly to the the stories she references in her story about herself and McCain on a plane, I thought I'd perform the service.

As I noted in my prior post, Bumiller's apparently impertinent question to McCain followed from the impression of journalists that McCain might have given them more information about the attempts by John Kerry to get him to consider running on the Democratic ticket for vice president.

It's worth going to the Bumiller story for her explanation.

In May 2004, in an article in The Times about prominent Democrats who wanted Mr. McCain to be Mr. Kerry’s running mate, Mr. McCain was asked by the paper whether he had ever discussed the offer of the vice-presidential spot, even casually, with Mr. Kerry. He paused for a moment and said, “No, we really haven’t.”

An article in June 2004 in The Times reported that Mr. Kerry made his first direct overtures to Mr. McCain about the vice-presidential spot about three weeks after he had locked up the Democratic nomination that March, according to a person who had discussed the matter with the two senators.

Since 2004, senior aides to Mr. McCain have readily discussed Mr. McCain’s conversations with Mr. Kerry about the No. 2 spot, but Mr. McCain has himself rarely talked about those conversations publicly. For that reason, his reply to the question at the public forum in Atlanta stood out.

(The New York Times)

"(H)is rely to the question at the public forum in Atlanta" is apparently the one from the third graph in the Bumiller story:

"So when I was approached, when we had that conversation back in 2004, that’s why I never even considered such a thing.”

I suppose it was the pronoun "we," that sent Bumiller into Perry Mason mode.

Bumiller went to the May 2004 Times, and I've reproduced the key portion of that story:

If Mr. McCain is offered the vice-presidential spot, people close to Mr. Kerry say, the request will come from the candidate himself and not through the campaign's vice-presidential vetting process.

Asked if Senator Kerry had made such an offer, Mr. McCain said no without hesitation. But asked if the two men had ever discussed it, even casually, he paused for a moment.

"No," he said finally. "We really haven't."

(The New York Times, May 15, 2004)

Recall the way Bumiller presented her questioning of McCain and you'll see the problem with relying on McCain's answer as an assurance that he never discussed the vice presidency issue with Kerry. Did the original question refer to the causal discussion of a Kerry offer of the veep slot? Or the way Bumiller apparently took it, to indicate that the two never even discussed whether or not McCain was interested?

Without the question, verbatim, you won't have the answer. And not even necessarily if you have the question in its original form, since the asker and the askee might take the question two different ways. Bumiller was playing Perry Mason based on an ambiguity.

Here is the other Times story Bumiller referenced:

Mr. Kerry, the Massachusetts senator, made his first direct overtures to Mr. McCain about three weeks after locking up the Democratic nomination in March and approached him again, in person or by telephone, as many as seven times, as recently as last week, according to one person who has discussed the issue with both.

''It was always artfully phrased, but he asked him on several occasions to serve as his running mate,'' the individual said. ''He'd say, 'I don't want to formally ask because I don't want to be formally rejected, but having said that, would you do it?' or 'I need you to do it,' or 'I want you to do it.' ''

''It was always phrased in such a way as to give both men plausible deniability,'' the individual added.

(The New York Times, June 12, 2004)

But apparently not phrased in such a way to discourage the conclusion that McCain never perceived an offer of the vice presidency as such, at least in Bumiller's mind.

McCain was right to mention the context and circumstances rather than attempt to address Bumiller's question/statement as it stood. Facts are routinely twisted in the news. Quotations are rearranged to accommodate the structure and flow of the story, and (as seen in the Bumiller story), reporters at times misleadingly present the question asked of the source.

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Fair and balanced with Elisabeth Bumiller

Journalists are objective. Supposedly, anyway.

Even when they report on their own activities they remain supposedly objective.

Take Elisabeth Bumiller, for example.

After another reporter asked whether Sen. McCain might consider John Kerry as a running mate, reciprocating the consideration Kerry gave McCain, Bumiller followed up with this:

"Senator, uh, can I ask you about Sen. Kerry? I just went back and looked at our story,uh, the Times story, and you, you told Sheryl Stolberg that you had never had a conversation with Senator Kerry about being--about vice president."

Well, it's not a question so much as a statement once we get past the first line. Bumiller's delivery makes it sound like she thinks she has caught McCain in a contradiction. That clearly seems to be the way McCain took Bumiller's approach.

Let's see how Bumiller reports it!

Later, when Mr. McCain was asked by a reporter from The New York Times about the conversation and why he said in an interview with The Times in May 2004 that he had not even had a casual conversation with Mr. Kerry on the topic, Mr. McCain displayed some of the temper that he is known for but that he has largely kept under control in this campaign.

“Everybody knows I had a conversation,” he testily told the reporter in a news conference on his plane as it headed here from Atlanta. “Everybody knows that, that I had a conversation. There’s no living American in Washington, there’s no one, and you know it, too. You know it. You know it. So I don’t even know why you asked.”

When asked to address when the conversation with Mr. Kerry occurred, Mr. McCain once again replied sharply. “No, no,” he said, “because the issue is closed, as far as I’m concerned. Everybody knows it. Everybody knows it in America.”

The issue has become a highly sensitive one to Mr. McCain, who is actively courting conservatives.

(The New York Times)

It is somewhat rare for news reporters to employ adverbs and descriptive verbs to the speech of sources. It is thought that including such terms tends to bias the reporting. Apparently Bumiller and her editor(s) at the Times did not feel the story properly conveyed McCain's nastiness without a little bit of help. Thus we have "testily" and "sharply."

If such words are necessary to convey the story, I have a suggested rewrite.

Later, a reporter tried imply that McCain had contradicted himself by asking "Senator, uh, can I ask you about Sen. Kerry? I just went back and looked at our story,uh, the Times story, and you, you told Sheryl Stolberg that you had never had a conversation with Senator Kerry about being--about vice president."

McCain, apparently astonished at the reporter's stupidity, replied that it was common knowledge the he had engaged in a conversation with McCain and said he wasn't aware of the circumstances of his alleged statement.

The reporter belatedly added that the story had been from May of 2004, and McCain condescendingly noted that he might not have had his conversation with Kerry by that time.

The reporter kept badgering McCain, but McCain declined to provide the details or timing of his "private" conversation with Kerry.

The reporter then unprofessionally asked McCain why he was so angry, including her editorial judgment as the premise of her question. McCain smiled and leaned toward the reporter, saying "Pardon me?"

The reporter, apparently thinking better of the question, said "Never mind."

The New York Times has become adept at giving itself black eyes.

Great objective reporting there, Bumiller.

Note:

I thought it somewhat significant to the overall media end of the story to note that the Fox News version of the story was largely sympathetic to Bumiller.



The anchor gives an inaccurate summary of the scenario and emphasizes the history of McCain's temper. The Fox producer she interviews, who was present during the exchange, offered context that was not apparent on any of the videos I've seen. He said that the reporters were under the impression that McCain had denied speaking directly with Kerry and interpreted Bumiller's question as an attempt to get that point clarified.

Regardless of whether that impression of the reporters and producers reasonably conforms to reality, Bumiller's question was at best a clumsy attempt to address that issue.

On this story, the reporting from Fox is no better than that of the Times.


Note: Fixed the spelling of Bumiller's first name in the post header.

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