Foley Charges Partly Vindicated By Critic

There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea -- T.S. Elliot

Kevin Rennie, a Harford Courant columnist, is regarded by some in politics as the Torquemada of Connecticut commentators – especially in matters of what one might call political ethics. Many politicians have felt his bite and winced.

After an appearance on WFSB’s “Face the State” with Dennis House, Tom Foley, who is expected in the near future to announce his bid for governor on the Republican Party ticket, had much to wince at.

In the most recent Rennie column, Mr. Foley was still mercilessly flailed – “Foley served a dog's breakfast to viewers in his return as a candidate for governor. Foley was a flailing amateur. He's been unable to provide proof for some of his allegations, despite claiming they met some journalistic standard that lives a solitary life in Foley's head” – but into this whipping crept a softer tone.

One of Mr. Foley’s supposed boneheaded allegations was that the relationship between Governor Dannel Malloy’s former media liaison and flack catcher, Roy Occhiogrosso, and Connecticut crony capitalist head of state was unseemly, profitable to them both and unethical under the standard of ethics embraced by Jesus Christ -- even though the bi-profitable relationship was perfectly legal. A transcription of Mr. Foley’s remarks may be found here at “Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes From A Blue State.”

In the course of his “Face the State” interview, Mr. Foley noted that he was relying on multiple reliable sources who wished to remain anonymous, after which he spoke the fatal words: “But these are all things that have been told to me by more than one reliable source, and so it meets a journalistic standard.”

The intake of breath among Connecticut scriveners was audible from New London to Hartford. One could smell brimstone in the air: Who does he think he is, Woodward or Bernstein? These were the two renowned reporters who, relying at the beginning of their investigation chiefly on a single reliable source, “Deep Throat,” finally shoved Tricky Dick Nixon off the political stage? “Deep Throat” remained anonymous for decades after the Nixon putsch, finally outing himself just before he kicked the bucket.

The gauntlet thrown down to Connecticut’s media by Mr. Foley – just investigate this stuff – has now been taken up in part by Mr. Rennie.

And the result is a softer, more gentle Rennie:

“This is state government, so there's always money to be found for friends, no matter what the condition of the economy. I overstated the case last week when I wrote that the contract to Global Strategies had been awarded by competitive bid (emphasis mine).

“Three insiders at Access Health CT invited three public relations companies to submit proposals for the lucrative contract. They did not open the process to the many firms that could meet the basic requirements of a public relations contract whether with innovative or stale ideas. The insiders included former Enfield Democratic state Rep. Kathleen Tallarita, Access Health CT's head of government relations and communications. In 2012, Tallarita became the rare suburban legislator to lose her seat in a party primary.”

This sort of thing happens frequently in Connecticut politics: Backs are scratched; friends are rewarded, enemies punished. Good investigative reporters occasionally uncover dubious, possibly unethical practices when a gored enemy plops a story on their desks. These sources are generally given protective anonymity as the reporter turns over a few rocks and examines the hitherto undisclosed swarm of ethical muck beneath them.

In a one party state, the possibility of such disclosures is markedly reduced. And there is no reporter in the state who does not now know that Connecticut has crossed the bar: The state’s entire U.S. Congressional Delegation is solidly Democratic; the Democratic Party boasts in Mr. Malloy its first Democratic governor in more than two decades; the state’s General Assembly is solidly Democratic. We know from the history we do not wish to repeat that the one party state is more successfully corrupt than the state that has an active two party system in which political power is evenly and justly shared. It’s what you think you know for certain and don’t that kills you. In a one party state the rocks are larger and more immovable.

Moving the rock that seals the tomb requires a media that is unflinchingly non-partisan, alert, energetic and courageous.

Robin Hood Comes To Westport

On the first bright day after a series of mercilessly hot days in Connecticut, beaches were closed at Burying Hill and Sherwood Island State Park to accommodate the One Percenter In Chief.

At the Weinstein's million dollar mansion, President Barack Obama said he thought Ann Hathaway was the best thing in Dark Night Rises: “She's spectacular. I got a chance to see Batman, and she was the best thing in it. That's just my personal opinion."

And the teleprompter failed. As reported in the Stamford Advocate, “Joanne Woodward sat at a table wearing beige, with glasses perched atop her head. The president twice mistakenly referred to her as Joan.” The President did manage to carry away millions from the guests, who paid about half a million a head to hear him refer to Republican opponent Mitt Romney as the anti-Robin Hood.

Peal Keehan was pleased with the president’s visit, which interrupted an apology:

"Pearl Keehan, who swims past Weinstein's home with its Olympic-sized pool at high tide nearly every day, said she once scolded a man who brought his dog to Burying Hill and later learned it was Weinstein. The 73-year-old Westport resident said she planned to invite Weinstein for a swim before the fundraiser to make up for it, but the beach was shut down."

Mann’s Malloy

Ted Mann has written for the Day of New London a multipart opus on the Malloy administration that purports to be an inside look at the “malloyalists,” Mann’s term for the Brights surrounding Connecticut’s first Democratic governor in 20 years.

The difficulty with all such accounts is that embedded journalists tend to be stage managed by the principal actors in the drama. And the malloyalists are energetic stage managers. George Bernard Shaw was no admirer of autobiographies; they were all self-serving, carefully edited to show the hero of the piece in the best light. To the extent that a putatively objective piece of political drama approaches autobiography, it will be practically useless. A biography of Napoleon written by his butler might be useful, Shaw thought. But autobiographies – not so much.

An account of the Napoleonic years written by Madam DeRemusat, Lady in Waiting to the Empress Josephine, Napoleon’s cast-off wife, is useful to historians precisely because the lady, she who could not be stage managed, was not one of Napoleon’s most ardent admirers.

“Tell the truth,” Emily Dickensian said, “but tell it slant.” Truth be told, every truth is told slant, but it matters greatly who is slanting it. Would a biography of Napoleon written by Lord Nelson be more truthful than an autobiography written by Napoleon? Better to stick with the butler.

Among American journalists, Bob Woodward of Watergate fame is perhaps best known for writing embedded accounts of various administrations.

In a recent speech at the Organization for International Investment’s annual dinner at D.C.’s Ritz-Carlton Hotel on Thursday, Mr. Woodward told the crowd that former Vice President Al Gore was not the best conversationalist at table.

“Now, sitting next to Gore is taxing,” he said. And milking the laughing crowd, Mr. Woodward added, “In fact, it’s unpleasant.” Then Mr. Woodward, who had been criticized in some of his writings for making up conversations – to add verisimilitude to his narratives – tossed a bit of beef to the crowd.

He had asked Mr. Gore how much the public knew about what went on in the Bill Clinton administration, to which Mr. Gore responded, “About one percent,” a response that made Mr. Woodward feel “icky,” according to a report in The Hill.

“I kind of died inside and have to confess to having an unclean thought.”

Pressing on, Mr. Woodward asked Mr. Gore how much Americans would know if the former VP had written a memoir.

“Two percent,” said Mr. Gore, causing Mr. Woodward’s icky meter to implode.

There is some reportage in Mr. Mann’s account so far that will cause some eyebrows to arch. One includes an incident involving Mr. Malloy and Speaker of the House Chris Donovan. Mr. Donovan threatened to upset Mr. Malloy’s best laid budget plans by altering an understood arrangement concluded between the Malloy administration and the Democrat dominated legislature. The Malloy administration was operating on the assumption that it had a free hand to insist on further spending cuts should its deal with the unions fall apart, at which point a call came in from “Brendan Sharkey, the House majority leader, with a distressing message relayed from Chris Donovan himself.”

The House leadership, by which we are to understand Donovan, was now proposing “they tweak the language of the agreement. They want the budget bill to say that all its contents -- all those tax hikes, all the spending reductions -- are contingent on a deal with the unions,” a politically unpalatable move on the part of Mr. Donovan, who appears in Mr. Mann’s piece as a fervent pro-union politician, in opposition to Mr. Malloy, an uber-democrat who invariably has the best interests of Connecticut in mind.

In news accounts at the time, Mr. Donovan took great care to suggest that his role in the Malloy-SEBAC struggle was minimal and without consequence. Apparently, this was not true in the retelling. SEBAC is the State Employees Bargaining Agents Coalition authorized to represent unions in contractual arrangements.

Two of the malloyalists are stunned that Donovan seems incapable of understanding the political implications of the tweek. One malloyalist tells Mr. Donovan, “In my view, that is the worst-case nightmare of what it means to have Democratic government. The one thing we absolutely have to avoid, because we'll get ridden out of town on a rail, is turning over control of the budget to the state employee unions."

Mr. Donovan, now running for the U.S. House in the 5th District, very likely will be endorsed by the astonished malloyalists. They’ve had the use of him as a union foil, and in a few months the Speaker’s undemocratic attempt to thwart both the legislature and the governor will be discreetly forgotten by all except, one hopes, Mr. Malloy’s Boswell, Mr. Mann.

Blumenthal And The Blame Game

A bingo moment occurred in a stinging rebuke to modern journalism written by Richard Hanley, a journalism professor at Quinnipiac, printed in the commentary section of "The Connecticut Mirror":

“The Connecticut press corps did not notice Blumenthal's occasional inconsistencies with his own record as it raced to reproduce news releases trumpeting victories over Big Tobacco and MySpace, among many others, on behalf of Connecticut citizens. To be sure, the dispersed locations of the remark, generally offered during rubber-chicken-and-cold-peas talks around a state with one hundred and sixty nine towns covered less and less by statewide media, made it difficult to detect moments when Blumenthal strayed from his record. Still, the media needed to be as aggressive with Blumenthal as they ordinarily are when covering other elected officials.”

Connecticut’s press has for a long time been drugged on Blumenthal’s press releases, spectacularly failing to exert what some critics of politicians call “due diligence.”

Bob Woodward of Watergate fame made a similar point on MSNBC’s Morning Joe” program hours before Blumenthal appeared in a presser to answer the charge made in a New York Times front page story in which Blumenthal said – unambiguously, plainly, proudly – that he had served in Vietnam.

Not true.

Why, oh why, Woodward wondered, had Blumenthal’s misspeaks and clever deceptions not been noticed by a print media that traditionally was used to fact checking every utterance of politicians, including pedestrian claims such as the politician’s middle name, the name of his wife, and whether or not he served in Vietnam.

The most plausible answer to the question is the old, safe retort: How could we be expected to know? If Blumenthal knew he did not serve in Vietnam – and he certainly must have known this -- why would he not be excessively cautious to avoid saying in the presence of Woodward’s fact checking reporters that he did serve in Vietnam?

The damaging claims were not made in editorial conferences with editorial board members who were intimately familiar with Blumenthal’s sterling record as an attorney general, as represented in his frequent press releases, many of them printed almost verbatim as they were submitted by Blumenthal without burrowing too deeply into court records, affidavits and depositions.

It is not possible to make a “mistake” about service in Vietnam. It may be possible to misspeak, Blumenthal’s alibi. But even in that case, why, oh why, would Blumenthal, or the keepers of his public persona, not be anxious to correct reports that just might, way on down the line, positively harm one’s future political prospects?

Does anyone doubt that Blumenthal’s claim of service in Vietnam, embarrassingly caught on tape, has put his reputation in harm’s way?

The jokes are just beginning. Best line so far is from Howie Carr: "...even Jane Fonda spent more time in Vietnam than he did."

At the same time Blumenthal appeared at a noonday presser along with his decorative background of supportive veterans, the state Supreme Court ruled that Secretary of State Susan Bysiewicz did not meet statutory requirements to run for attorney general, effectively ending her bid. A finding is still pending concerning a notorious list compiled by Bysiewicz that might show the secretary of state had used her office for questionable political purposes. That finding will be made by Blumenthal, whose judgment has now been seriously compromised. A caller to the Dan Lavallo’s “talk of Connecticut” radio show speculated that Bysiewicz might usefully replace Blumenthal in his bid for U.S. Senator Chris Dodd’s seat because “she’s now available.” It’s only a matter of time before the comedy is picked up by faux news shows and late night comedians.

The psychology lying behind Blumenthal’s messy affair is puzzling. Why dance so merrily on the edge of the volcano?

Why do they do it? Had the press been a little more vigilant, catching Blumenthal’s misspeakings, the attorney general might have had a more peaceful night’s rest on Tuesday – two days before the opening of the Democratic nominating convention.