Common Sense Political Thought

I wrote in Curt Weldon Strikes Back:

Curt Weldon responded to the column by Tom Ferrick, Jr., in Wednesday’s Philadelphia Inquirer; see The Inquirer: Back on the Attack. I actually missed it yesterday (even though I did pick up the Inquirer), but Mike from the Able Danger blog posted it in it’s entirety.

Well, apparently the reason I missed it in the Inquirer was that it hadn’t been printed! Mr. Weldon’s response was printed in The Philadelphia Inquirer just today, March 28th, five days after he wrote it, and six days after Mr. Ferrick’s original column.

More to the point, it wasn’t printed on the normal opinion page, opposite the main editorial page, nor on the first page of the Local section, where Mr. Ferrick’s column was printed. It was at the bottom of the main editorial page, under the heading (I kid you not!)

One Reader Responds: Inquirer is out of touch with the suburbs

One reader responds? If I had just glanced at the editorial page, and seen only the title, I’d never have guess that it had been written by an area congressman, nor had any real idea what the subject of the “reader’s response” was. More, the Inquirer edited Mr. Weldon’s original in ways that might seem minor, but were, in fact, very significant in softening the impact of the congressman’s message; where Mr. Weldon said:

Mr. Ferrick’s primitive analysis of Able Danger mirrors that of his colleagues Goldstein and Mondics at the Washington Bureau. It is amazing how so many writers from the Inquirer claim to speak with authority on Able Danger, yet have never taken the time to speak with a single member of the highly talented unit tasked by the Joint Chiefs of Staff to track al-Qaeda worldwide prior to 9/11,

by the time it was printed, it had become:

The dismissal of Able Danger by Ferrick mirrors that of other Inquirer writers. It’s amazing how The Inquirer writes about Able Danger without speaking to anyone from the unit.

Were you not to have seen the original, you’d have never known to which unit Mr. Weldon referred, nor who established it, nor what its purpose was.

Of course, there’s more. Mr. Weldon’s original:

Nor does Ferrick mention the fact that five career national intelligence officials swore under oath about the cover-up that followed Able Danger’s findings,

became:

Ferrick also doesn’t explain that five career intelligence officers testified about the cover-up following Able Danger’s findings.

There’s a huge difference between “swore under oath” and “testified.” Testify has three meanings:

1 a : to make a statement based on personal knowledge or belief : bear witness b : to serve as evidence or proof
2 : to express a personal conviction
3 : to make a solemn declaration under oath for the purpose of establishing a fact (as in a court)

And the word testify does not always mean that the person was under oath.

If the editors of The Philadelphia Inquirer believe that Representative Weldon has gone off on a wild goose chase on Able Danger, they should have their reporters actually do the investigative work to prove it; if the editors have such proof, let them print it. But what they have done is to publish stories (on page A-1, no less) based more on personal attacks than actual investigative work, and then made subtle changes that have big impacts in Mr. Weldon’s response.

The editors of The Philadelphia Inquirer have not been engaging in honest, professional journalism on this story.

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UPDATE: March 29, 2006: Mike from the Able Danger blog has told me that the editors of The Philadelphia Inquirer did not edit Mr Weldon’s response, but that they told him that he was only going to be allowed 600 words, and Mr. Weldon edited it himself.

While Dana and Antimedia had speculated that the Inquirer edited down Weldon’s original letter for him and twisted his words, the truth is that they told Weldon he only gets 600 words, so he scaled down the letter himself. I had been wondering about that point since yesterday and got a confirmation from Weldon’s office this afternoon.

I had forwarded my original to Antimedia, so any fault with his story lies with me. However, Mike continued with the following:

In the meantime, Rory O’Connor alerted me to a new column by Ferrick, which I can only describe as Ferrick’s surrender:

I want to go on record as saying I am never going to tussle with U.S. Rep. Curt Weldon again….

The boiled-down version appeared on yesterday’s editorial page. I am, according to the congressman, wrong-headed, ignorant of the facts, and – above all – out of touch.

Mike and I have some differences as to what constitutes a surrender. While Mr. Ferrick’s words could be seen as a promise to lay off Congressman Weldon, they were hardly made without a couple of parting shots being taken:

Speaking of (Charlie) Sexton, he figured in another public imbroglio dealing with Weldon and his daughter, Karen.

In 2004, the Los Angeles Times did a piece that questioned lucrative lobbying/public relations contracts obtained by a firm created by Sexton and Karen Weldon. Their clients? Not the bubble gum factory, but Russian energy and defense firms and two Serbian brothers linked to the late Slobodan Milosevic, who were seeking visas to visit America, a move opposed by the State Department.

Rep. Weldon, in his role as a ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee, was also lobbying administration officials on behalf of the Russian firms and the Serbians.

As the Times reported, congressional ethics rules “do not forbid members of Congress from helping companies or others who are paying their relatives. But Weldon has brought his daughter so deeply into his official activities that they sometimes appear to be working in tandem.”

Weldon denied any conflict and asked the House Ethics Committee – an inert, spineless body – to investigate. There hasn’t been a peep from the committee on the matter since.

The Times later criticized Weldon for “ethical lapses,” adding “the appearance of conflict, of pay-to-play, is overwhelming.”

And Weldon saw nothing wrong with it? Hmmm. Who’s out of touch?

Weldon also criticized me for noting that he appeared at an event where the Rev. Sun Myung Moon was crowned “humanity’s Savior, Messiah, Returning Lord and True Parent.”

Weldon said he was not present for the evening portion of the event in which the Rev. Moon was crowned.

He was there earlier in the day to give a speech about his recent trip to Libya to meet with Gen. Moammar Gadhafi, during which the Libyan dictator personally assured him that he was no longer a supporter of international terrorism.

So, let’s see if I got this right: Weldon goes to a conference, sponsored by the Moonies, to declare that Gadhafi is now a man of peace. And he’s still bragging about it.

That’s not out of touch. That’s out of this world.

I said, in a response on Mike’s blog:

Mr Ferrick noted a claim that Mr Weldon’s daughter was so deeply intrenched in lobbying that the Los Angeles Times said thet “the appearance of conflict, of pay-to-play, is overwhelming.” Mr Weldon himself asked the House Ethics Committee to investigate the matter, and since that committee hasn’t found any wrongdoing on Mr Weldon’s part, Mr Ferrick decided that it was “an inert, spineless body.”

I just don’t quite see that as a surrender on Mr. Ferrick’s part.

Further, while Mr. Weldon edited the original himself, I am still of the opinion that the editors of The Philadelphia Inquirer were not playing this one straight. I didn’t just see the letter online, but read it in a physical copy of the newspaper itself — and by listing the “letter” as:

One Reader Responds: Inquirer is out of touch with the suburbs,

the reader is both given a misleading headline and led to believe that the author is just another reader; the attribution to Congressman Weldon is not made until a single line at the end of the article. In contrast, op-ed pieces in the Inquirer are normally given both a byline immediately below the article title, as well as a biographical paragraph if the author is someone with whom most readers would be unfamiliar. Those pieces are usually in the standard 750 word format; that a local congressman would be limited to 600 words is somewhat unusual. After all, Mr. Ferrick’s piece today took up the entire left hand column on page B-1 (front of the Local section), and was 690 words long; his original attack piece was of similar length.