The Trials Of John Rowland

Former Governor John Rowland, now a former radio talk show host, may have been “guilty,” in a metaphorical sense, of using his position to advance the political interest of one particular candidate over another. It has been said that Mr. Rowland had subjected poor Andrew Roraback, at the time a Republican Party candidate for the U.S. House in the 5th District, to a severe interrogation on his radio program, formerly called “Church And State.” Since being appointed to Connecticut’s Superior Court by Governor Dannel Malloy, Mr. Roraback has moved out of the political into the less contentious judicial arena. Apparently, Mr. Roraback had suffered no permanent harm, and losing a Hartford Courant endorsement to his Democratic opponent certainly cost the socially progressive Republican Party endorsed candidate more negative votes than Mr. Rowland’s barbed questions.

Mr. Rowland’s preferred candidate for the slot, it has been said, was Lisa Wilson Foley. At the time Mr. Rowland was hard grilling Mr. Roraback, the talk show host was employed as a consultant for Apple Rehab, a business owned by Mrs. Foley’s husband. Mr. Rowland implausibly claims he was assisting Mrs. Foley’s campaign on the side as an “unpaid consultant.”

Similar impostures – though news of them may shock the willfully ignorant – have been deployed in the news business from time immemorial. Abe Lincoln came very near to fighting a duel with one of his outraged political competitors when it was discovered that editorials in a Republican paper had been written on the sly by Mr. Lincoln; actually, one of the newspaper pieces had been written by his intended wife. Because it would have been ungentlemanly for Mr. Lincoln to involve his fiancée in the quarrel, he accepted responsibility for the satires but characteristically refused to issue an apology. Eventually, the matter was settled outside the law courts, without either of the antagonist having used against each other the large military broadswords Mr. Lincoln had selected as his choice of weapon. Mr. Lincoln, who towered over his opponent, hacked off a tree branch with his sword while the two stood facing each other on Blood Island, and the display of superior reach led to an amicable resolution.

In Lincoln’s day, newspapers were outrageously partisan, little more than party organs. In our day, newspapers are slyly partisan. If subtle partisanship were a crime, Connecticut prisons would be overflowing with journalists and editorial writers.

Charlie Morse, for many years the chief political writer for the Hartford Courant and an unabashed Weicker-liker, produced tons of columns favorable to then Senator Lowell Weicker, one of the papers most pampered political pets. The Courant, during Mr. Weicker’s push for an income tax, was solidly in Mr. Weicker’s gubernatorial corner. Before Mr. Weicker had been sworn in as governor, Mr. Morse accepted an offer from Mr. Weicker to work for him while continuing to write for the paper for a few weeks. After his inauguration, Mr. Morse left the Courant and began working for Mr. Weicker. There is no indication that Mr. Morse was being paid for his fawning columns. Some writers do it for love, others for money.

The Courant, a left of center publication, supported Mr. Weicker because its editors regarded the “Maverick” Republican as a sort of Jack the Giant Killer. “Maverick” was the title of Mr. Wicker’s “fact based” autobiography, most adequately reviewed by Journal Inquirer columnist Chris Powell under the title “Mr. Bluster Saves The World.” While Mr. Weicker and the editorial board of the Courant were synergistically attached at their navels, little did the Courant understand that Mr. Weicker was not killing the giant; there were NO conservative Republicans in office in Connecticut at the time. He was killing Jack -- his own Connecticut based Republican Party.  

There are no laws criminalizing journalistic bad habits.  The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects partisan and non-partisan journalists alike. Even if the accusation against Mr. Lincoln had been correct, he easily could have won his case in court by draping across his chest the breastplate of The First Amendment – or at least that portion of it that guarantees freedom of political speech. The freedom of religious expression clause in the very same amendment is not as hotly defended by the media because modern journalism tends to be instinctively anti-clerical. Some of us who understand why a watchful media should resist authoritarian displays of power cannot for the life of us understand why the same media should be so willing to bed down with grey headed incumbents whose first term in office coincided with the arrival of Noah’s Arc on Mount Ararat. Surely in our day, incumbent politicians are much more powerful than the ministers and priests who now preside over Gary Wills’ “Bare Ruined Choirs.”

Though Mr. Rowland’s defense attorneys have focused of the charges brought against him in a motion to dismiss, the First Amendment conceivably could be brought into play as a sleeper defense during the promised Rowland trial -- “promised” because it is always possible the trial may be ditched in favor of some plea agreement never made public between Mr. Rowland’s high priced Washington attorneys and prosecutors. Neither Mr. Rowland nor Mrs. Wilson-Foley were practicing politicians at the time Mr. Rowland, essentially a journalist, allegedly “favored” Mrs. Wilson-Foley, an aspiring politician, on his radio program. This means that no political favors either way could have been exchanged for allegedly “corrupt” money received by Mr. Rowland.

It is still very early in “the judicial process.” During Lincoln’s day, matters were adjudicated in courts of law, and instructive precedents were established. Nowadays, justice itself hangs from “process” nooses. Deals are made in private between Star Chamber prosecutors and defense lawyers, and precedence is a stranger at the hidden proceedings. Grand Juries, many political commentators understand, are Star Chamber proceedings, and Grand Jury findings released to the media are always highly prejudicial. They should be taken by a truly non-partisan critical media with tons of salt.

Blumenthal’s Snippit

U.S. Senator Dick Blumenthal’s awkward false claim, made or intimated several times, that he had served as a marine in Vietnam rose out of the newspaper morgues recently after former New York Times political writer Ray Hernandez joined a Washington D.C. PR firm.

The story in the Hartford Courant, “NY Times Reporter Who Was Fed Blumenthal Vietnam Scoop Will Join DC Firm Led By One Time McMahon Adviser”, actually is a story about a story, a story twice removed.

The story concerning a move by former New York Times reporter Ray Hernandez to the Washington PR firm DCI Group was first mentioned by Politico reporter Dylan Byers in a brief story, “NYT's Ray Hernandez to DCI Group”.

The Courant story is brief enough to be included here in full:

Dylan Byers of Politico reported that former New York Times political writer Ray Hernandez is joining a Washington PR firm.

Normally the comings and goings of journalists aren’t that interesting but in this case, as Byers noted, Hernandez’ move merits a mention. Back in 2010, Hernandez broke the story that now Sen. Richard Blumenthal falsely claimed he served in Vietnam.

The story was built upon a snippet of video from an obscure event in Norwalk several years earlier. Almost immediately, people began to speculate that video was unearthed by the crack opposition research team of Blumethal’s (sic) multimillionaire Republican opponent, Linda McMahon.

Columnist Kevin Rennie wrote the following on his blog right after the Times story broke: “The Blumenthal Bombshell comes at the end of more than 2 months of deep, persistent research by Republican Linda McMahon’s Senate campaign,” Rennie wrote. “It gave the explosive Norwalk video recording to The Times.”

Ed Patru, McMahon’s 2010 media strategist, fessed up to the Connecticut Mirror. ”We got our hands on it,” Patru told @CTMirrorPaz shortly after the story broke.

Flash forward more than three years later: Hernandez is leaving the Times to work at DCI Group, a public relations firm where Patru is vice president. Coincidence?

That last word – Coincidence? – hangs in the Courant story like a hangman’s noose. Of course it’s not a coincidence, you ninny. The McMahon campaign slips to a New York Times reporter “a snippit of video” showing Mr. Blumenthal lying about his service in Vietnam; the reporter constructs a story around “the snippit of video”; the story causes Mr. Blumenthal, then running for the U.S. Senate from his perch as Connecticut’s Attorney General, a bit of embarrassment, but he barricades himself from probing reporters, asserts he several times misspoke, and  survives “the snippet of video”; later the reporter, Mr. Hernandez,  is hired by a firm whose Vice President, Mr. Patru, was a campaign advisor to Linda McMahon, the millionaire. Coincidence? The imputation is that the hiring of Mr. Hernandez by Mr. Patru is a payback of some kind. In politics, as savvy reporters well know, there are no coincidences – unless the tangle of connections involves one of “our bums,” in which case we write a story that makes reference to a “snippit of video,” while failing to mention other snippits of video and news reports that show Mr. Blumenthal either saying or brashly intimating that he served as a marine in Vietnam.

Here is the “snippit of video” cited in the Courant story:

  

The story follows on the heels of multiple reports of a claim made by Tom Foley, a Republican Party gubernatorial wannabe, that Roy Occhigrosso, gyrating between his employment at Global Strategy and communications chief for Governor Dannel Malloy, may have crossed an ethical bar when the PR firm was awarded a Malloy connected contract. Mr. Foley had invited Connecticut’s media to look into a relationship he regarded as unsavory, if legal.

The Malloy-Global Strategy connection, it would appear from multiple editorials and commentary pieces in Connecticut, none of them favorable to Mr. Foley, may have been “a coincidence.” After all, political operatives constantly shuttle between newspapers, political organizations, educational institutions and high paying PR firms always happy to have in their employ politically connected fallen stars.

Such things happen all the time. Charlie Morse, the Courant’s chief political writer, left the paper, where he had for several years written glowing accounts of the sayings and doings of then Senator Lowell Weicker, to work on the Weicker campaign for governor; Michele Jacklin, who as chief political commentator at the Courant stepped into Mr. Morse’s empty shoes, left the paper to work on New Haven Mayor John DeStefano’s campaign.

Mr. Occhiogrosso floated from Global Strategy into the Malloy administration, then retreated to Global Strategy after two years of honorable service as the governor’s flack catcher. His company rewarded Mr. Occhiogrosso with a Vice Presidency, and even today, from his perch at Global Strategy, news reporters at the Courant continue to treat Mr. Occhiogrosso as if he were a paid communications director for the embattled governor. Shortly after Mr. Occhigrosso returned to Global Strategy, his company received a lucrative contract from the Malloy administration. Nothing to see here, please move on.

Happens all the time. Nothing to see here. Please move on.

Perhaps the best report on Mr. Blumenthal’s serial misstatements concerning his service in Vietnam came from Australia. The Australian Broadcasting Company (ABC) featured Mr. Blumenthal as one of a few notable imposters in a documentary on stolen valor called “Heroes, Frauds and Imposters” (hit “play video” on the link provided here: ),” a documentary that puts Mr. Blumenthal’s misrepresentations in a proper context. That documentary, no snippit, will not be shown, it is safe to predict, anywhere in the state when the pretend Vietnam marine – like Mrs. McMahon, a Greenwich millionaire -- once again runs for office. 

The snippit averse Connecticut Commentary reported on Blumenthal’s manifest lies here.

And here.

And here.

And here 

And here.