I never promised you a rose garden.

The house-and-garden deal raised questions about whether Mr Rezko, a property developer and fast-food restauranteur, made it possible for the Obamas to purchase a mansion they could otherwise not afford.Mrs Rezko paid the asking price for the garden but the Obamas bought the house for $1.65 million, – $300,000 less than the asking price. The sellers deny they offered the Obamas a discount on the house because the garden had fetched full price from Mrs Rezko. Mr Rezko has since been indicted for allegedly scheming to pressure companies seeking business with the state of Illinois for kickbacks and contributions to the governor Rod Blagojevich’s campaign. He goes on trial on March 3. A prosecution document filed last month alleged that a “political candidate” – identified by the Chicago Sun-Times as Mr Obama – received a $10,000 campaign contribution from what is said to be a $250,000 kickback in the corruption case. That means Mr Obama’s name could figure in Mr Rezko’s trial, although he is not accused of any wrongdoing.   

It’s a pretty complicated story, with an interesting cast of Middle Eastern-connected characters. Seems that maybe Obama was taking property investment lessons from Harry Reid.

Strangely, the NYT, ever-vigilant to the possible appearance of impropriety in a presidential candidate, seems unconcerned by this little matter.

Meanwhile (h/t MayBee), Jay Rosen demonstrates the kind of supercilious self-assurance that leads to fiaschi like this.

Actually, what I said was you are less likely to discover what failures drove the decision if you already know what they are. People enthusiastic about culture war typically know tons of things before they check into them. It is that to which I object.You sometimes seem to suffer from the mirror image of this problem. You are also less likely to discover what failures drove the decision if you’ve already decided what they couldn’t be.I propose the following hypotheses:

(A) This was an attempt to influence an election. Supporting evidence: Baquet has undeniably tried to influence elections in the past. Whoever it is at the Times who put the “Augusta National doesn’t allow women!” story on the front page for all that time clearly allows their own personal crusades to crowd out issues of both newsworthyness and profitability.

(B) The guys who wrote this story thought it was worth publishing, and the folks who published it thought it would go over with the audience, because they spend most of their time in a subculture with a very limited range of views and attitudes that they falsely believe their audience shares. That subculture happens to be pretty “liberal” by the standards of the US as a whole. Supporting evidence: too much to gather in one place, though the apocryphal Pauline Kael/Nixon voters anecdote summarizes it pretty well.

(C) They know they did wrong, and the lameness of their response is due to the Times’ (and press in general’s) unwillingness to ever admit to having made an error. Supporting evidence: your prior post on “rowbacks”.

(D) Keller’s claim to have been surprised by the reaction to this story is completely disingenuous. Supporting evidence: TNR’s claim that he sat on the story for months until the threat of being scooped by TNR forced the Times to act.None of these hypotheses should be assumed to be true. But all of them deserve serious consideration; instead you seem to go out of your way to not even think about them.
Posted by: Ralph Phelan at February 26, 2008 8:33 AM | Permalink

Listen to me: Culture war is rotting your brain. The longer you continue with it, the dumber you are going to get. Already you’ve gotten dumber, just in this thread. You have no idea what I think and where you disagree with it. You’re not actually tracking the politics of this case.

But at least you said “apocryphal.” Way to go! That’s a sign that it’s not too late.

The person who developed an obsession about Augusta (Howell Raines) was fired, but not for that, although it definitely hurt him at the Times. The post is called Rollback, not rowback. I would definitely consider “unwilling to admit a mistake” a major factor in this mess. The title of the Huffington Post version is Bill Keller: “I’m proud to stand by this story.” Times Public Editor: You Were Wrong to Run it, which highlights that refusal to admit error. In this post I made specific reference to the subculture that suffuses the profession as a factor in what happened. So much for your, “you would never consider…” charge.

Because of the culture war that is making you dumber by the day, you don’t even recognize that I am what you would call a liberal, slamming the editors of what you would call a liberal newspaper for its decision to run a story that could have been very damaging to the Republican standard-bearer and the party. I said they were wrong to publish it and that their reasons make no sense. Check it out! Look up from your script, wake up to the actual politics of the moment. Culture war is rotting your brain. But it’s not too late. The first step is to stop making yourself dumber by the post.

Look: I understand that “they wanted to throw the election,” while worthless analytically, is expressive of the rage you feel toward people in the press. I know it makes you feel like a proud solider in the thick of the fight to keep repeating it. And really, I don’t mind the sound of that. It’s like singing “we shall overcome” or something. Creates solidarity. Sing it loud, sing it proud.

No one is going to begrudge you that. In Pittsburgh it’s “We are fam-a-lee.” In Detroit, “We will, we will rock you.” In Green Bay they put cheeses on their heads. And at LGF and townhall.com they charge the press with trying to throw the election.

But that’s a creature that cannot live in the intellectual wild. It cannot survive an hour of cold inquiry. It’s not a “hypothesis.” It’s not an “idea.” It’s in the same general category with: the Jews plotted to bring about 9/11, and “Obama is a muslim.” Same level of “thought.” If you actually believed it, you would be rejoicing right now.Keller hired Clark Hoyt. He has the power to fire him tomorrow. People willing to throw an election can’t fire whistle blowers on their own staff? How crazy is that? You come here because you’re baffled by what the Times did, as we are sometimes baffled by how baboons behave when we watch them at the zoo, and you’re hoping I can offer some insights into the nature of the beast.It’s not a sin to be baffled. Like “apocryphal,” it’s a sign pointing to the way back. Take it.Oh, deep in my heartI do believeWe shall overcome some day…Posted by: Jay Rosen at February 26, 2008 9:48 AM | Permalink

No, it’s not a hypothesis, it’s not an idea, it’s an observation.  And it doesn’t live in a world of intellectual scrutiny.  It lives in a world of desire in search of justifications.  It possesses none of the rigor that he would like to ascribe to it as an inalienable property.

Like any practitioner of a Master Discourse, Mr. Rosen has a deep belief in the peculiar capacity of his craft, journalism, to convey the deep truth of the world, and a deep conviction in the fundamental purity of its practitioners.  Why the American public holds his profession in the same sort of esteem as politicians is a question that can only be answered with reference to flawed perception on its part.  Those whose opinions differ from his on this matter can be rejected out of hand as suffering from the delusion of “false consciousness.”

“Elections have consequences,” Dan Rather was overheard to mutter to himself before he broke out the TANG forgeries.  ‘Course, everyone knows the standards at the NYT are way better than that.  Don’t they?