In his “Stories I’d like to see” column, journalist and entrepreneur Steven Brill spotlights topics that, in his opinion, have received insufficient media attention. This article was originally published on Reuters.com.
1. A scorecard on presidential aloofness:
Mark Knoller is the award-winning, long time CBS News White House correspondent famous for keeping count of everything that goes on in the White House, such as presidential press conferences, speeches, visits to various states, and even golf outings. Memo to Mark or anyone else who wants to put some meat on the bones of all the reports about how President Obama — whose charm offensive on Capitol Hill has dominated last two weeks’ headlines — has until now been so unusually disengaged with Congress: Can you do a comparison of how many times before his recent flurry of congressional encounters President Obama has met with members of the House and Senate? It could include a sub-category of one-on-one sessions, and compare Obama’s record, if possible, with the stats for presidents going as far back as you can. (Maybe Bob Caro can help you even get the LBJ numbers.)
A tally of one-on-one phone calls would be great, too.
2. Black Friday at the patent office?
Saturday morning at 12:01 marked a key deadline in the world of intellectual property. Under a change in patent law passed in September 2011 and scheduled to take effect on Saturday, March 16, 2013, rules governing new applications for seemingly the same inventions will shift from giving priority to whoever first invented a claimed invention to whoever first filed a patent application for it. It’s complicated, but this is a drastic change in patent law and means that anyone claiming a patent who is worried about competing claims would have a huge leg up by filing the application as soon as possible beginning on March 16.
Patent law has become a multi-billion dollar legal sweepstakes. So was the patent office flooded over the weekend? Was there a run up to March 16 equivalent for patent lawyers to the black Friday holiday rush for retailers?
3. Dealing with DC corruption:
On Friday, the Washington Post reported that a grand jury had been convened to hear federal prosecutors’ evidence against New Jersey Democratic Senator Bob Menendez, who is under a cloud following reports that he interceded on behalf of an ophthalmologist friend who gave him plane rides to and lodging at the doctor’s vacation home in the Dominican Republic and contributed $700,000 to a campaign fund for senate Democrats that Menendez ran. Menendez is charged with interceding with State Department officials to protect a security contract a company owned by the doctor had with a Dominican port agency, and with prodding senior Department of Health and Human Services officials to cut off an investigation regarding hundreds of thousands of dollars the doctor allegedly overbilled Medicare.
Here’s what’s more disturbing about the article than the senator’s possible misconduct: The Post accurately reported that, “Federal bribery laws require proof that a politician received something of value with the express purpose and understanding that it was to influence his or her official action.” As Stewart Brand, a lawyer who specializes in defending politicians on corruption charges explained to the Post, “You must show an absolutely direct nexus between the thing of value and the intent and the official act….Unless you have a wiretap or direct evidence of an official saying, ‘I’ll do this for that,’ it’s too hard to show that.”
In other words, favoritism toward a huge donor without proof of an explicit quid pro quo is not going to land a politician in prison. In terms of our high standards of proof beyond a reasonable doubt before we convict someone, that may make sense. But it’s a pretty poor standard when it comes to the people we entrust to run our country.
That request to Mark Knoller says more about you than it would tell us anything about the president, Mr. Brill. What possible thing do you seek to prove with such a request? A confirmation of your obvious bias and dislike of the president? Have you ever made such a request about how many phone calls and lunches and visits to Congress by George W Bush? I doubt it. What exactly are you trying to "prove"?
It isn't exactly a secret that President Obama holds you in the press in disdain, and rightfully so. As Politico observed "The president’s staff [and the news-consuming public] often finds Washington reporters whiny, needy and too enamored with trivial matters or their own self-importance.." And it shouldn't be surprising that the public and probably Barack Obama holds the US Congress in a similar vein.
I'll tell you something from outside your conservatively-biased bubble. Ordinary people do not find the president "aloof." Try this: 50 Photos Of Obama With Babies. Or, go watch the end of any speech before the public, either during the campaign or an official speech. He plows into the crowd to shake hands and greet as many people as he can. They most definitely don't find him "aloof." That's nothing but rightwing spin that you have naively fallen for.
I'd advise you to shake yourself out of that beltway spin before you really embarrass yourself. Though I am an admirer of your epic reportage on health care costs, it appears that you have become enamored of your own self-importance. All that reporting, but your analysis of it sucked. It was way off, straight out of the American Enterprise Institute. So that's two instances where you have proved yourself to be nothing but a rightwing shill.
#1 Posted by James, CJR on Tue 19 Mar 2013 at 09:32 PM
Mr. Brill demonstrates his ignorance with this request. I would hope that Mr. Knoller has actual reporting to do.
Does Mr. Brill want the number of times Mr. Obama was rebuffed by Republican House and Senate members? Would he like to know how many were invited to the White House for social occasions -- such as the Wednesday evening cocktail hour -- but opted instead to hang with the Club For Growth? Or who made which snarky comment in the driveway of the White House before a battery of microphones, without the common courtesy of getting off your host's property before you trash the food, the drink and company? Or how about the number of times the recipient of a Presidential phone call pretended to be asleep, in the john or otherwise so indisposed that he or she couldn't get it together enough to pick up the phone? Perhaps Mr. Brill would like to know how many times certain GOP golfers chose to stay home rather than be seen in the company of "that guy" in the White House?
Either way, it is a another in the long line of Beltway media fails that the so-called "charm offensive" is what is considered as news. I supposed it's easier to report the fluff and not the facts.
"Can you do a comparison of how many times before his recent flurry of congressional encounters President Obama has met with members of the House and Senate? It could include a sub-category of one-on-one sessions, and compare Obama’s record, if possible, with the stats for presidents going back as you can?"
#2 Posted by Jade, CJR on Sat 23 Mar 2013 at 08:34 PM