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TYNDALL HEADLINE: HIGHLIGHTS FROM OCTOBER 08, 2008
Following Tuesday night's second Presidential debate in Tennessee, Democratic candidate Barack Obama caught up with ABC's Battleground Bus Tour as anchor Charles Gibson traveled through Indiana. Obama's two-part Exclusive interview on ABC took up fully 43% of ABC's newshole (8 min out of 19), enough to qualify his candidacy as Story of the Day. Yet the global financial crisis still grabbed headlines. All three networks led with the coordinated decision by central banks in Europe and the Americas to cut short-term interest rates simultaneously by 0.5%. The Federal Reserve Board now charges banks a mere 1.5% rate.
TYNDALL PICKS FOR OCTOBER 08, 2008: CLICK ON GRID ELEMENTS TO SEARCH FOR MATCHING ITEMS
OBAMA GETS ON ABC’S BUS Following Tuesday night's second Presidential debate in Tennessee, Democratic candidate Barack Obama caught up with ABC's Battleground Bus Tour as anchor Charles Gibson traveled through Indiana. Obama's two-part Exclusive interview on ABC took up fully 43% of ABC's newshole (8 min out of 19), enough to qualify his candidacy as Story of the Day. Yet the global financial crisis still grabbed headlines. All three networks led with the coordinated decision by central banks in Europe and the Americas to cut short-term interest rates simultaneously by 0.5%. The Federal Reserve Board now charges banks a mere 1.5% rate.
"The financial crisis Made in America is officially a US export," declared CNBC's Carl Quintanilla, kicking off NBC's newscast, as the European Central Bank and the Federal Reserve Board joined forces with the central banks of Canada, England, Sweden and Switzerland to charge less for funds. CBS' Anthony Mason called it "an extraordinary global move" while ABC's Betsy Stark used the words "historic" and "unprecedented." She heard organ music: "economic policymakers pulling out the stops, trying things never tried before."
NBC used CNBC's global financial resources to include Michelle Caruso-Cabrera from London in Quintanilla's report and Steve Sedgewick in Reykjavik. Iceland applied to Russia for a $5bn loan to keep going: "An entire country faces economic collapse." CBS' Mason warned that "recession worries are growing" in the United States, with retail sales during September rated as "disappointing." CNBC's Quintanilla concluded with another statistic. Recessions since World War II have been preceded by an average stock market selloff of 34%. "We are just past that point now. The only question is whether this downturn is going to be average--or something worse."
ABC's Stark gave us an idea of how much money is being pulled out of the stock market: on average checking and savings accounts at banks grow by $5bn every two weeks; in the last two weeks $185bn have been stashed there. In aggregate that amounts to a $2tr smaller face value of pension funds and 401(k) account holdings over the past year. NBC assigned Mark Potter to put a human face on evaporating assets. He chose a landlord of a Florida apartment complex and a pair of retirees--a minister and a schoolteacher--in California, "troubling numbers felt very personally from coast to coast."
BARACK ON THE BUS The first part of anchor Charles Gibson's Exclusive interview with candidate Barack Obama on ABC's Battleground Bus Tour, naturally, touched on the financial crisis. Gibson's focus was on the trillions of dollars people have lost in "their stock accounts, in their pension plans, in their 401(k)s." In a sleight to John McCain, Gibson did not even mention in his catalogue of woes the bursting of the real estate housing market bubble, even though that had been the Republican's major theme the night before. Obama patted himself on the back for his temperament during the turmoil, calling himself "consistent" with "very clear principles" and offering a "measured, calm, steady response." He added: "Look! If I did not have confidence in the ability to lead the country I would not be running for President."
In part two of the interview, Obama addressed the negative attacks on him by the Republican ticket of John McCain and Sarah Palin. Referring to Tuesday night's town hall debate, Obama described himself as "surprised" that those "over-the-top attacks" were not repeated. McCain "was not willing to say it to my face." The "it" Obama was referring to was his relationship with William Ayers, the anti-Vietnam-War radical. "Why don't we just clear it up right now?" Obama asked Gibson. He called Ayers' engagement in violence "despicable." He noted that it occurred when he was eight years old. By the time they met, Ayers was a college professor. He served on a school reform board with Ayers. That board "was funded by Walter Annenberg, who had been an ambassador and close friend of Ronald Reagan." Ayers is not involved in the Obama campaign. He is not an Obama advisor. And they are not pals.
MCCAIN MAKES FEW WAVES WITH HOUSING PLAN The aftermath of the debate itself made very little news. ABC's George Stephanopoulos found Republican John McCain "especially frustrated" that his proposal for home mortgage relief did not create more buzz. Democrat Barack Obama seemed "overall very pleased" about his "tone and demeanor and manner." CBS had Wyatt Andrews file a Reality Check. He found McCain's claim of unique ownership for his mortgage relief proposal "exaggerated" and pointed out the incoherence of simultaneous plans to subsidize homeowners' mortgages and to freeze federal spending. McCain's zero-deficit plan would require $215bn in extra borrowing over four years; Obama's so-called revenue neutral fiscal policy would borrow $281bn in the same period.
TOWN HALL DEBATE CITIZENS’ MEDIA SCORECARD This is the report on the results of the Citizens' Media Scorecard we organized to Rate the Debate. It is cross-posted at Free Press, which hosted the online survey:
John McCain's supporters seemed happy with the ground rules of the second Presidential debate in Nashville. Barack Obama's supporters seemed happy with the result.
Those are the findings of the third Citizens' Media Scorecard of the Campaign '08 season. An online panel of more than 2500 volunteers was recruited by Free Press to rate the conduct of the town hall style debate by moderator Tom Brokaw, who selected questions from audience members and e-mail submissions. Brokaw's balance of issues received high marks from partisans of both candidates--and their complaints about bias were in perfect balance too.
Republican McCain has long insisted that he prefers the town hall format for political debates. And, according to the panel, his supporters share the candidate's preference. Almost half the McCain partisans (48% v 24% for Barack Obama supporters) judged the town hall format in Nashville to be superior to the moderated format eleven days ago in Mississippi.
By contrast, almost twice as many Obama supporters in the panel chose Jim Lehrer, the Mississippi moderator, over Brokaw (43% for Lehrer v 21%) in a head-to-head comparison. After the Mississippi debate 42% of Obama supporters rated Lehrer's performance as "excellent;" after the Nashville town hall Brokaw received a lower 28% "excellent" rating from Obama's fans.
Nevertheless, despite the format, Obama's supporters were more likely to say their man won in Nashville (92% v 76% in Mississippi) whereas McCain's supporters saw no improvement (84% said he won both). McCain's supporters distinguished between their candidate's performance in the foreign policy sequence of the town hall compared with economic and social policy: 92% said their man won in foreign policy, only 80% and 70% in the latter issues.
Brokaw received high praise for his choice of issues. More than half of each group of supporters (64% of Obama voters, 50% of McCain's) found them "extremely" serious and relevant. Brokaw received a "just right" rating from more than half of the members of both groups on four economic issues—housing, taxes, the financial crisis and federal spending (62%, 62%, 59% and 59%)—and two social issues—energy and healthcare (70% and 74%). He also drew praise as "just right" for his focus on war & peace, terrorism and human rights & genocide (66%, 70% and 65%).
Criticism of Brokaw mostly concerned what he omitted. A majority of both groups complained about Brokaw's lack of questioning on crime and abortion (71% and 70%). Almost all McCain supporters (92%) wanted questions on immigration; almost all Obama supporters (85%) wanted questions on poverty.
There were few complaints about Brokaw's bias towards one candidate or the other. Most of the members of each group of supporters found no favoritism (74% of Obama's, 70% of McCain's); a minority saw evidence of it and--no surprise!--it was almost always against their own man (25% and 26%). In the view of the panel, Brokaw's decision not to fact-check the candidates or challenge their spin was an omission: 83% of Obama supporters and 75% of McCain supporters wanted more of it.
Although Free Press extended outreach to all parts of the political spectrum, of the 2609 volunteers who participated in the scorecard, Obama supporters vastly outnumbered McCain's (2186 v 196), as they have in our two previous panels. To correct for that imbalance, we followed our standard practice of contrasting the ratings of the two groups rather than combining them; otherwise the Republican perspective would have been drowned out. Consisting of volunteers rather than a random sample, these results cannot be projected to the population at large.
The two groups of supporters tended to watch the debate on different outlets. MSNBC (28%) and PBS (22%) were the favorite outlet for Obama partisans. Fox News Channel was the favorite for fully half (50%) of the McCain voters in the panel. These viewing patters have held firm for all three debates to date.
Again, we need to recruit a more diverse panel for the final debate. However there were signs that, already, this second debate was delivering diminishing returns as a voter education exercise. Almost half the volunteers in the panel stated that it taught them nothing new (45% of Obama supporters, 55% of McCain's) about their opponent's views, a steep rise from the "learn nothing" numbers (29% and 37% respectively) in Mississippi.
BACK ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL The two Presidential candidates left the town hall forum and returned to the campaign trail. What a contrast in their coverage! The Democrat attracted attention to his operation; the Republican to his attitude. CBS' Chip Reid saw "the main focus" of GOP running mates John McCain and Sarah Palin as "attacking Barack Obama." NBC's Andrea Mitchell called the atmosphere at McCain rallies "rowdy," quoting Off with his Head hecklers and denunciations dwelling on Obama's middle name "Hussein." Mused Mitchell: "That kind of rhetoric is becoming commonplace, especially at Palin rallies."
Obama, on the other hand, is "becoming default," as NBC political director Chuck Todd put it, referring to his uniform lead in the polls. He "has a money advantage and he is pressing it at every turn," observed CBS' Dean Reynolds. ABC's George Stephanopoulos saw him "playing in a much, much wider map." All three ran through the list of states provided by University of Wisconsin media monitors where Obama is spending more than McCain on television advertising by orders of magnitude: North Carolina 8:1; Indiana 4:1; Florida 3:1; Colorado 2:1. Each is a state that the Republican won in 2004.
HOME LOANS John McCain may complain that his housing plan received short shrift in the post-debate coverage. Yet the underlying crisis was not ignored by the nightly newscasts. All three filed a real estate feature; CBS filed two. NBC's Michelle Kosinski surveyed the "sea of foreclosures" in Lee County Fla and found hints that the housing market had hit bottom. Sales are resuming, with many buyers skipping mortgages and paying all cash. This is what a burst bubble looks like: a brand new $275,000 home, seized by the bank from bust developer, has been bought for $80,000.
For ABC's A Closer Look, David Muir (embargoed link) told us that banks are at last beginning to volunteer to renegotiate mortgages and reduce interest rates for struggling homebuyers. His examples were IndyMac and Bank of America, with the overall rate of renegotiation six times higher than this time last year. CBS' Cynthia Bowers cited the statistic that fully 12m homeowners are not true owners at all, owing more on their mortgages than the property itself is worth.
CBS' second feature was in praise of the home mortgage lending practices of the First National Bank of Orwell in Vermont. Michelle Miller introduced us to community banker Mark Young, whose grandfather ran the same firm a century ago. It holds 400 mortgages. It insists on 20% down payment on each and has not sold on a single loan to be bundled in a securities scheme. "A commonsense approach for uncommon economic times," Miller concluded approvingly.
COME TO COURIC’S FOR DINNER The day's campaign features consisted of NBC's issues series Where They Stand, in which Jim Miklaszewski from the Pentagon walked us through the likely course of the Iraq War under either candidate's leadership. CBS anchor Katie Couric continued her Presidential Questions series with these two puzzlers: "What do you think is the best and the worst thing that ever happened to this country?" "Who are the three people who are alive you would most like to have dinner with?" Couric followed with the joke "other than me?"
Although both John McCain and Barack Obama agreed that its founding was the best thing that ever happened to the United States of America, they diverged on its focus. McCain preferred the Constitution, "a document that is still a model for the rest of the world" while Obama looked to the Declaration of Independence: "All men are created equal." What was worst? McCain named the Great Depression; Obama selected the peculiar institution of slavery "although the treatment of Native Americans oftentimes showed great cruelty"--which is a polite word for genocide.
Couric's dinner party would have the following seating: Nelson Mandela, Warren Buffett, David Petraeus, Meg Whitman, Michael Phelps and "my grandmother."
As for the Iraq War, NBC's Miklaszewski called the policy dispute between McCain and Obama "the most heated battle in the Presidential campaign" before concluding that either President would end up with a "residual force" of 50,000-or-so American troops stationed in Iraq for "15 to 20 years." The major difference between the two candidates' troop drawdowns would be that Obama's withdrawal timetable would be specific and McCain's would not be.
ON ALERT FOR TALIBAN SUBMARINES CBS decided that the dispute between the USNavy's submarine fleet and whale-loving environmentalists should be covered from the Pentagon; NBC treated it as a Supreme Court story, where a challenge to military maneuvers using full-strength sonar was heard on the grounds that the noise blows out the brains of marine mammals. NBC's Pete Williams pointed out that the sonar was being used "in the middle of a national marine sanctuary" off the Californian coast. CBS' David Martin repeated the argument that "in the middle of two wars a federal judge cannot play Commander in Chief and interfere with critical training exercises."
You might think that the "two wars" Martin was referring to were the ones in Iraq and Afghanistan, except neither group of insurgents possesses a submarine fleet that the USNavy has to protect against. You would be wrong. Martin was referring to the Korean War, warning of "the potential that a North Korean submarine might sneak up on Pearl Harbor."
HERE’S GAFFNEY Adrienne Gaffney has joined our happy band of news junkies who "watched last night night's newscasts...so you do not have to." Here are her observations on the same content Tyndall Report just monitored at Vanity Fair magazine's Culture & Celebrity blog.
"The financial crisis Made in America is officially a US export," declared CNBC's Carl Quintanilla, kicking off NBC's newscast, as the European Central Bank and the Federal Reserve Board joined forces with the central banks of Canada, England, Sweden and Switzerland to charge less for funds. CBS' Anthony Mason called it "an extraordinary global move" while ABC's Betsy Stark used the words "historic" and "unprecedented." She heard organ music: "economic policymakers pulling out the stops, trying things never tried before."
NBC used CNBC's global financial resources to include Michelle Caruso-Cabrera from London in Quintanilla's report and Steve Sedgewick in Reykjavik. Iceland applied to Russia for a $5bn loan to keep going: "An entire country faces economic collapse." CBS' Mason warned that "recession worries are growing" in the United States, with retail sales during September rated as "disappointing." CNBC's Quintanilla concluded with another statistic. Recessions since World War II have been preceded by an average stock market selloff of 34%. "We are just past that point now. The only question is whether this downturn is going to be average--or something worse."
ABC's Stark gave us an idea of how much money is being pulled out of the stock market: on average checking and savings accounts at banks grow by $5bn every two weeks; in the last two weeks $185bn have been stashed there. In aggregate that amounts to a $2tr smaller face value of pension funds and 401(k) account holdings over the past year. NBC assigned Mark Potter to put a human face on evaporating assets. He chose a landlord of a Florida apartment complex and a pair of retirees--a minister and a schoolteacher--in California, "troubling numbers felt very personally from coast to coast."
BARACK ON THE BUS The first part of anchor Charles Gibson's Exclusive interview with candidate Barack Obama on ABC's Battleground Bus Tour, naturally, touched on the financial crisis. Gibson's focus was on the trillions of dollars people have lost in "their stock accounts, in their pension plans, in their 401(k)s." In a sleight to John McCain, Gibson did not even mention in his catalogue of woes the bursting of the real estate housing market bubble, even though that had been the Republican's major theme the night before. Obama patted himself on the back for his temperament during the turmoil, calling himself "consistent" with "very clear principles" and offering a "measured, calm, steady response." He added: "Look! If I did not have confidence in the ability to lead the country I would not be running for President."
In part two of the interview, Obama addressed the negative attacks on him by the Republican ticket of John McCain and Sarah Palin. Referring to Tuesday night's town hall debate, Obama described himself as "surprised" that those "over-the-top attacks" were not repeated. McCain "was not willing to say it to my face." The "it" Obama was referring to was his relationship with William Ayers, the anti-Vietnam-War radical. "Why don't we just clear it up right now?" Obama asked Gibson. He called Ayers' engagement in violence "despicable." He noted that it occurred when he was eight years old. By the time they met, Ayers was a college professor. He served on a school reform board with Ayers. That board "was funded by Walter Annenberg, who had been an ambassador and close friend of Ronald Reagan." Ayers is not involved in the Obama campaign. He is not an Obama advisor. And they are not pals.
MCCAIN MAKES FEW WAVES WITH HOUSING PLAN The aftermath of the debate itself made very little news. ABC's George Stephanopoulos found Republican John McCain "especially frustrated" that his proposal for home mortgage relief did not create more buzz. Democrat Barack Obama seemed "overall very pleased" about his "tone and demeanor and manner." CBS had Wyatt Andrews file a Reality Check. He found McCain's claim of unique ownership for his mortgage relief proposal "exaggerated" and pointed out the incoherence of simultaneous plans to subsidize homeowners' mortgages and to freeze federal spending. McCain's zero-deficit plan would require $215bn in extra borrowing over four years; Obama's so-called revenue neutral fiscal policy would borrow $281bn in the same period.
TOWN HALL DEBATE CITIZENS’ MEDIA SCORECARD This is the report on the results of the Citizens' Media Scorecard we organized to Rate the Debate. It is cross-posted at Free Press, which hosted the online survey:
John McCain's supporters seemed happy with the ground rules of the second Presidential debate in Nashville. Barack Obama's supporters seemed happy with the result.
Those are the findings of the third Citizens' Media Scorecard of the Campaign '08 season. An online panel of more than 2500 volunteers was recruited by Free Press to rate the conduct of the town hall style debate by moderator Tom Brokaw, who selected questions from audience members and e-mail submissions. Brokaw's balance of issues received high marks from partisans of both candidates--and their complaints about bias were in perfect balance too.
Republican McCain has long insisted that he prefers the town hall format for political debates. And, according to the panel, his supporters share the candidate's preference. Almost half the McCain partisans (48% v 24% for Barack Obama supporters) judged the town hall format in Nashville to be superior to the moderated format eleven days ago in Mississippi.
By contrast, almost twice as many Obama supporters in the panel chose Jim Lehrer, the Mississippi moderator, over Brokaw (43% for Lehrer v 21%) in a head-to-head comparison. After the Mississippi debate 42% of Obama supporters rated Lehrer's performance as "excellent;" after the Nashville town hall Brokaw received a lower 28% "excellent" rating from Obama's fans.
Nevertheless, despite the format, Obama's supporters were more likely to say their man won in Nashville (92% v 76% in Mississippi) whereas McCain's supporters saw no improvement (84% said he won both). McCain's supporters distinguished between their candidate's performance in the foreign policy sequence of the town hall compared with economic and social policy: 92% said their man won in foreign policy, only 80% and 70% in the latter issues.
Brokaw received high praise for his choice of issues. More than half of each group of supporters (64% of Obama voters, 50% of McCain's) found them "extremely" serious and relevant. Brokaw received a "just right" rating from more than half of the members of both groups on four economic issues—housing, taxes, the financial crisis and federal spending (62%, 62%, 59% and 59%)—and two social issues—energy and healthcare (70% and 74%). He also drew praise as "just right" for his focus on war & peace, terrorism and human rights & genocide (66%, 70% and 65%).
Criticism of Brokaw mostly concerned what he omitted. A majority of both groups complained about Brokaw's lack of questioning on crime and abortion (71% and 70%). Almost all McCain supporters (92%) wanted questions on immigration; almost all Obama supporters (85%) wanted questions on poverty.
There were few complaints about Brokaw's bias towards one candidate or the other. Most of the members of each group of supporters found no favoritism (74% of Obama's, 70% of McCain's); a minority saw evidence of it and--no surprise!--it was almost always against their own man (25% and 26%). In the view of the panel, Brokaw's decision not to fact-check the candidates or challenge their spin was an omission: 83% of Obama supporters and 75% of McCain supporters wanted more of it.
Although Free Press extended outreach to all parts of the political spectrum, of the 2609 volunteers who participated in the scorecard, Obama supporters vastly outnumbered McCain's (2186 v 196), as they have in our two previous panels. To correct for that imbalance, we followed our standard practice of contrasting the ratings of the two groups rather than combining them; otherwise the Republican perspective would have been drowned out. Consisting of volunteers rather than a random sample, these results cannot be projected to the population at large.
The two groups of supporters tended to watch the debate on different outlets. MSNBC (28%) and PBS (22%) were the favorite outlet for Obama partisans. Fox News Channel was the favorite for fully half (50%) of the McCain voters in the panel. These viewing patters have held firm for all three debates to date.
Again, we need to recruit a more diverse panel for the final debate. However there were signs that, already, this second debate was delivering diminishing returns as a voter education exercise. Almost half the volunteers in the panel stated that it taught them nothing new (45% of Obama supporters, 55% of McCain's) about their opponent's views, a steep rise from the "learn nothing" numbers (29% and 37% respectively) in Mississippi.
BACK ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL The two Presidential candidates left the town hall forum and returned to the campaign trail. What a contrast in their coverage! The Democrat attracted attention to his operation; the Republican to his attitude. CBS' Chip Reid saw "the main focus" of GOP running mates John McCain and Sarah Palin as "attacking Barack Obama." NBC's Andrea Mitchell called the atmosphere at McCain rallies "rowdy," quoting Off with his Head hecklers and denunciations dwelling on Obama's middle name "Hussein." Mused Mitchell: "That kind of rhetoric is becoming commonplace, especially at Palin rallies."
Obama, on the other hand, is "becoming default," as NBC political director Chuck Todd put it, referring to his uniform lead in the polls. He "has a money advantage and he is pressing it at every turn," observed CBS' Dean Reynolds. ABC's George Stephanopoulos saw him "playing in a much, much wider map." All three ran through the list of states provided by University of Wisconsin media monitors where Obama is spending more than McCain on television advertising by orders of magnitude: North Carolina 8:1; Indiana 4:1; Florida 3:1; Colorado 2:1. Each is a state that the Republican won in 2004.
HOME LOANS John McCain may complain that his housing plan received short shrift in the post-debate coverage. Yet the underlying crisis was not ignored by the nightly newscasts. All three filed a real estate feature; CBS filed two. NBC's Michelle Kosinski surveyed the "sea of foreclosures" in Lee County Fla and found hints that the housing market had hit bottom. Sales are resuming, with many buyers skipping mortgages and paying all cash. This is what a burst bubble looks like: a brand new $275,000 home, seized by the bank from bust developer, has been bought for $80,000.
For ABC's A Closer Look, David Muir (embargoed link) told us that banks are at last beginning to volunteer to renegotiate mortgages and reduce interest rates for struggling homebuyers. His examples were IndyMac and Bank of America, with the overall rate of renegotiation six times higher than this time last year. CBS' Cynthia Bowers cited the statistic that fully 12m homeowners are not true owners at all, owing more on their mortgages than the property itself is worth.
CBS' second feature was in praise of the home mortgage lending practices of the First National Bank of Orwell in Vermont. Michelle Miller introduced us to community banker Mark Young, whose grandfather ran the same firm a century ago. It holds 400 mortgages. It insists on 20% down payment on each and has not sold on a single loan to be bundled in a securities scheme. "A commonsense approach for uncommon economic times," Miller concluded approvingly.
COME TO COURIC’S FOR DINNER The day's campaign features consisted of NBC's issues series Where They Stand, in which Jim Miklaszewski from the Pentagon walked us through the likely course of the Iraq War under either candidate's leadership. CBS anchor Katie Couric continued her Presidential Questions series with these two puzzlers: "What do you think is the best and the worst thing that ever happened to this country?" "Who are the three people who are alive you would most like to have dinner with?" Couric followed with the joke "other than me?"
Although both John McCain and Barack Obama agreed that its founding was the best thing that ever happened to the United States of America, they diverged on its focus. McCain preferred the Constitution, "a document that is still a model for the rest of the world" while Obama looked to the Declaration of Independence: "All men are created equal." What was worst? McCain named the Great Depression; Obama selected the peculiar institution of slavery "although the treatment of Native Americans oftentimes showed great cruelty"--which is a polite word for genocide.
Couric's dinner party would have the following seating: Nelson Mandela, Warren Buffett, David Petraeus, Meg Whitman, Michael Phelps and "my grandmother."
As for the Iraq War, NBC's Miklaszewski called the policy dispute between McCain and Obama "the most heated battle in the Presidential campaign" before concluding that either President would end up with a "residual force" of 50,000-or-so American troops stationed in Iraq for "15 to 20 years." The major difference between the two candidates' troop drawdowns would be that Obama's withdrawal timetable would be specific and McCain's would not be.
ON ALERT FOR TALIBAN SUBMARINES CBS decided that the dispute between the USNavy's submarine fleet and whale-loving environmentalists should be covered from the Pentagon; NBC treated it as a Supreme Court story, where a challenge to military maneuvers using full-strength sonar was heard on the grounds that the noise blows out the brains of marine mammals. NBC's Pete Williams pointed out that the sonar was being used "in the middle of a national marine sanctuary" off the Californian coast. CBS' David Martin repeated the argument that "in the middle of two wars a federal judge cannot play Commander in Chief and interfere with critical training exercises."
You might think that the "two wars" Martin was referring to were the ones in Iraq and Afghanistan, except neither group of insurgents possesses a submarine fleet that the USNavy has to protect against. You would be wrong. Martin was referring to the Korean War, warning of "the potential that a North Korean submarine might sneak up on Pearl Harbor."
HERE’S GAFFNEY Adrienne Gaffney has joined our happy band of news junkies who "watched last night night's newscasts...so you do not have to." Here are her observations on the same content Tyndall Report just monitored at Vanity Fair magazine's Culture & Celebrity blog.
