Subject: Correct The Record Sunday November 30, 2014 Roundup
From: Burns Strider <[email-masked]>
To: CTRFriendsFamily <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 30 Nov 2014 14:35:31 -0500
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*​**Correct The Record Sunday November 30, 2014 Roundup:*

*Headlines:*

*Washington Post editorial board: “Benghazi debunked”
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/benghazi-debunked/2014/11/29/876ff67e-751f-11e4-bd1b-03009bd3e984_story.html>*

"Members of the Republican Party have made the Benghazi disaster even more
difficult to comprehend by advancing a series of bizarre conspiracy
theories intended to besmirch the Obama administration."

*MSNBC: “Charlie Cook: Hillary Clinton unlikely to run in 2016”
<http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/charlie-cook-hillary-clinton-unlikely-run-2016>*

“Veteran political analyst Charlie Cook said at a speech in Kansas City,
Missouri that he thinks Hillary Clinton is highly unlikely to run for
president in 2016.”

*Politico: “Deval Patrick talks 2016, Hillary Clinton”
<http://www.politico.com/story/2014/11/deval-patrick-2016-hillary-clinton-113217.html>*

“Asked about the likelihood of Hillary Clinton running in 2016, Patrick
cautioned that the assumption she’s the inevitable Democratic presidential
nominee may cause her some problems.”

*Salon: “Chuck Todd: ‘I wish we didn’t focus on the individual
personalities of journalists’”
<http://www.salon.com/2014/11/29/chuck_todd_i_wish_we_didnt_focus_on_the_individual_personalities_of_journalists/>*

NBC’s Chuck Todd: "But the history of the Democratic Party is that even
when they have a powerful front-runner, somebody nips at their heels in a
semi-significant way, so I just hesitate to make that assumption. Can I
envision the people we talk about now being that candidate? Martin
O’Malley? Not really. Bernie Sanders? Probably not. Jim Webb? He doesn’t
strike me as having the hunger to do the campaigning you need to do."

*The Hill blog: Ballot Box: “Former Clinton pollster: Hillary lacks 'new
car smell'”
<http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/225526-former-clinton-pollster-hillary-lacks-new-car-smell>*

“Hillary Clinton has lost the ‘new car smell’ she might need to win the
presidency in 2016, said Democratic pollster Doug Schoen on Sunday.”

*Articles:*

*Washington Post editorial board: “Benghazi debunked”
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/benghazi-debunked/2014/11/29/876ff67e-751f-11e4-bd1b-03009bd3e984_story.html>*

By The Washington Post editorial board

November 29, 2014, 7:22 p.m. EST

THE FOG of war is no fiction. Anyone who has ever experienced spasms of
violent conflict can attest to the draining uncertainty and bewilderment
that often come with it. When armed attackers mounted an assault on the
U.S. diplomatic facility in Benghazi, Libya, at 9:40 p.m. on Sept. 11,
2012, confusion reigned. Four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador J.
Christopher Stevens, died in the hours that followed, but the way the
attack unfolded, and why, was opaque.

Members of the Republican Party have made the Benghazi disaster even more
difficult to comprehend by advancing a series of bizarre conspiracy
theories intended to besmirch the Obama administration. At first, they
charged the White House with whitewashing a terrorist attack, then moved on
to even more outlandish claims of a stand-down of military aid to the
besieged facility or claims that the CIA was using Benghazi for running
guns to Syria.

Now, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, chaired by
outgoing Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) and with Rep. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger
(D-Md.) as ranking minority member, has published a sober report after a
two-year investigation. The report looks primarily at the performance of
the intelligence community, but it also concludes that many of the
Republican accusations are simply not true.

Rather than malfeasance or incompetence, the House intelligence committee
says that many Americans performed courageously in the attack. Officials
from State, Defense and the CIA did what they could to save lives, making
“reasonable tactical decisions about how to respond to the attacks.” After
the first assault on the facility, a team rushed from the CIA base about a
mile and a half away to help; another CIA-military team was dispatched from
Tripoli; a Predator drone was in the air above the scene in 90 minutes.
“There was neither a stand down order nor a denial of available air
support, and no American was left behind,” the panel concluded. The panel
found that there was “no evidence of an intelligence failure” prior to the
attack — the CIA did not have tactical warning that it was imminent. The
CIA base in Benghazi was collecting intelligence about groups running
weapons to Syria but was not itself running guns, the report says.

The panel confirms that diplomatic security at the Benghazi mission was
ill-prepared and that the agents knew they could not defend the compound
from an attack. The panel also criticizes the CIA’s “flawed” handling of
talking points that contributed to possibly incorrect statements Sept. 16,
2012, by Susan Rice, then U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. But the
House panel noted that even today, “significant intelligence gaps regarding
the identities, affiliations and motivations of the attackers remain.”

The House is planning yet another investigation, which will be the eighth
into these events. This seems superfluous. The big mistake in Libya policy,
the consequences of which are more apparent today than ever, was President
Obama’s refusal to support the new government’s attempt to build security
after he helped topple the nation’s longtime dictator. Unfounded conspiracy
theories on Benghazi only distract from this crucial, and largely
unlearned, lesson.

*MSNBC: “Charlie Cook: Hillary Clinton unlikely to run in 2016”
<http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/charlie-cook-hillary-clinton-unlikely-run-2016>*

By Alex Seitz-Wald

November 30, 2014, 12:12 p.m. EST

Veteran political analyst Charlie Cook said at a speech in Kansas City,
Missouri that he thinks Hillary Clinton is highly unlikely to run for
president in 2016.

Most observers consider a Clinton candidacy an almost forgone conclusion,
but Cook gave her only a 25-30% chance of entering the race to succeed
President Obama, according to the Kansas City Star.

Clinton has stumbled on the promotional tour behind her memoir “Hard
Choices”, which was released this summer, leading Cook to believe she’s
either “rusty” or “has lost her fastball.”

Previously, Cook has speculated that Clinton may be “too old” to run for
president. “How many 67-year-olds make nine-year commitments, and what
concerns have to be addressed if they do?” the 61-year-old wrote in
February.

That same month, Cook pegged Clinton’s chances of running at “maybe 70%.”
He suggested there was only about a “30% chance that she doesn’t throw her
hat in the ring.” That’s an almost perfect inverse of his current
prediction.

His new estimate counters conventional wisdom and considerable evidence.
Clinton has said publicly several times that she’s thinking about running
for president, her husband has joked about her impending run, and dozens of
friends and advisors are gearing up for a seemingly inevitable run.

While Clinton insiders insist she hasn’t made up her mind, they also say
that something something catastrophic would likely have to happen to keep
her from getting into the race. Even some in her orbit who are encouraging
Clinton not to run think she probably will. Clinton has also done nothing
to tamp down the outside groups that have sprung up to pave the way for a
future run.

Cook is the publisher of the Cook Political Report, a highly respected
nonpartisan venue of electoral prognostication, data, and analysis that’s
been a gold standard in Washington for almost 30 years.

Meanwhile, Cook said former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush has little chance of
making it out of a Republican primary, if he decides to run. “Bush has two
issues working against him to win the Republican primary for the 2016
presidential election,” Cook said at the private event in Kansas City. “One
is immigration reform, which he favors; and two, is his advocacy of
education reform.”

*Politico: “Deval Patrick talks 2016, Hillary Clinton”
<http://www.politico.com/story/2014/11/deval-patrick-2016-hillary-clinton-113217.html>*

By Jennifer Shutt

November 30, 2014, 11:43 a.m. EST

Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick says he’s not ready to launch a 2016 bid
for president, but does have a suggestion for Hillary Clinton.

Appearing on NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday, the outgoing Democratic
governor acknowledged he’s considered running for president, but isn’t
ready yet.

“I’ve thought about it, but I can’t get ready for 2016,” he said. “This is
the first elected office I’ve held, and it has been two really challenging,
fun terms… But I didn’t run for the job to get another job, just to do this
job.”

Asked about the likelihood of Hillary Clinton running in 2016, Patrick
cautioned that the assumption she’s the inevitable Democratic presidential
nominee may cause her some problems.

“I think the narrative that it’s inevitable is off-putting to regular
voters. I don’t think this is a criticism of her, but people read
inevitability as entitlement,” Patrick said. “The American people want
their candidates to sweat for the job and to make a case for why they are
the right person for the job.”

*Salon: “Chuck Todd: ‘I wish we didn’t focus on the individual
personalities of journalists’”
<http://www.salon.com/2014/11/29/chuck_todd_i_wish_we_didnt_focus_on_the_individual_personalities_of_journalists/>*

By Scott Porch

November 29, 2014, 2:00 p.m. EST

[Subtitle:] Salon talked to the "Meet the Press" host about cable news,
Hillary fatigue and his beef with media writers

In his new book, “The Stranger: Barack Obama in the White House,” Chuck
Todd digs into the day-by-day of President Obama’s White House and finds
the chief executive at times disengaged with Republicans in Congress (both
when he didn’t need them in 2009 and 2010 and when he did in the four years
since) and often inept when he did engage with them.

“They were terrible negotiators,” Todd said of the White House team that
pushed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act through Congress in 2009.
“They didn’t know how to play hardball.”

The NBC News political director and moderator of “Meet the Press” sat down
with Salon to discuss the book, the present and future Obama, the public’s
fascination with celebrity journalists, and his plan to retool and revive
NBC’s franchise Sunday show.

Did you go into “Meet the Press” with the attitude that the format was
broken and you needed to do something different?

I didn’t think the format was necessarily broken, but I thought it couldn’t
be just a better-produced cable show. I think people are worn out of the
daily news cycle. Monthly magazines are having a bit of a revival, and I’d
like to think theSunday news shows could be that for politics. I want to do
healthcare in multiple segments, do a status update, try to be less
political and less Washington about it, and I think Sunday shows have that
luxury again.

Do you think you’re already doing that, or is that a direction you want to
go?

It’s a direction I’m trying to go. When we did an Ebola show, we brought in
experts and the politicians were secondary. We had doctors — specialists in
the field. I want to do that more on big issues.

What do you think ratings for a Sunday show correlate to: the better
interviews, the better host, the topics?

I think it’s habitual. If you look at the history of all of television
news, it’s habitual. People are NBC families or ABC families or CBS
families. Tim Russert was in third place, and it took him four or five
years to catch David Brinkley. I’m really trying to keep our P.R. people
from trumpeting short-term rating success. It’s more like building a
football program; it’s a three-year plan. In three years, I’d better be in
the top spot or they should think about a new head coach.

Do you think delivering ratings are part of your job?

Yeah, whether I like it or not.

If a year from now you’re happy with the quality of the journalism and the
news division is happy with what’s going on the air but you don’t have the
ratings, then what do you have?

I assume if the quality is there that the ratings will follow. They have
followed quickly in D.C. That to me is an important metric; if Washington
cares about the show, that’s a start. If you look at the rings of opinion
leaders, that’s ring No. 1. If you’re doing a quality show, then the
ratings will follow.

My beef with media writers is that they only cover the ratings. I hope we
have the guests and are asking the questions that make news. If we have
more clips that are generated by what people are saying on the show, that
tells me we’re doing our job.

The show’s iPhone app got folded into the NBC News app. Is the digital
strategy for the show to be more a part of NBC News?

We’re trying to meld the “Meet the Press” and our politics into one brand,
which is easier to do now because I have both titles — moderator and
political director — so we’re trying to meld those two worlds together. The
gold standard in politics is the “Meet the Press” brand, so we should be
embracing the “Meet the Press” brand.

Isn’t it a little icky that corporate media companies are polling on how
much viewers like you?

Let me say this: I don’t like it when journalists become part of a story.
We have a culture in social media that wants to make journalists as big a
part of the story as politicians themselves. That’s not good. People say,
“Oh, you’re trying to insert yourself into a story.” I’m not. I’m trying to
be a conduit, to be a challenge or a devil’s advocate for the public. I
wish there wasn’t as much focus on the individual personalities of
journalists. The people we cover should be the focus.

I say this, and I’m going on “Conan” to sell my book.

I think that’s different. That’s publicity in an effort to sell a book. You
would expect to do interviews when you’re selling a book.

I guess. The journalists shouldn’t be the focal point. Whenever I have
moderated a debate, it’s just like a football game. If people are talking
about the officiating at the end of a game, that’s not good. You want
people to talk about the game. The moderator shouldn’t be the story; the
candidate should be the story.

The Washington Post said the book is “all microscope and zero telescope” in
your focus on individual White House decisions. Do you think you could have
connected the dots better, or is the Post missing the point of the book?

I wrote a book about Obama in Washington — his battle to change Washington.
It’s going to be insular. That’s the nature of it.

If we do not see evidence of another serious Democratic primary candidate
by the end of June, will that be it? Hillary is the nominee?

I guess. But the history of the Democratic Party is that even when they
have a powerful front-runner, somebody nips at their heels in a
semi-significant way, so I just hesitate to make that assumption. Can I
envision the people we talk about now being that candidate? Martin
O’Malley? Not really. Bernie Sanders? Probably not. Jim Webb? He doesn’t
strike me as having the hunger to do the campaigning you need to do.

But Democrats do like to shop. You just can’t help but wonder if someone
will have a why-not-let’s-see-what-happens kind of moment. I understand
Hillary getting in early because you’ve got to start an infrastructure and
have it ready to go because the Republicans will do whatever they can to
weaken her from the beginning. And what living American politician can wear
well after two straight years of campaigning.

I already have Hillary fatigue.

The biggest problem she has is that a ton of people in the media have
Hillary fatigue. I don’t know if the grass-roots Democrats do; eight years
ago they did, which is why they looked to Obama. People had Hillary fatigue
— really Clinton fatigue — and were looking for a new direction. Now in the
grass roots there’s some Clinton nostalgia, especially as Obama’s
presidency looks shaky. But the Hillary fatigue in the press corps is going
to be a challenge.

How does the White House talk about the popularity problem? Do they say
don’t care about popularity, that they’ve got a job to do?

They want the ratings to improve. They know better approval ratings gets
you more political capital to do things. Their post-election attitude is
that they have freedom now. They said they made a lot of decisions based on
what Senate Democrats claimed was in their own interest. For instance, the
decision not to go ahead on immigration, which I think the White House
regrets.

Do you see Obama writing a Churchill-style multi-volume history of his
White House years? Do you see him spending years bolstering his presidency,
or will he move on to other things?

I think he likes writing and will look for opportunities to do that. I
don’t expect him to write multiple books that are attempts to defend his
legacy. If he writes multiple books, they’ll be more in the Nixon style —
different topics where he has some expertise. I wouldn’t be surprised if he
became a columnist somewhere.

Writing 800-word Op-Ed columns?

I wouldn’t be surprised if he found a place where he could write a monthly
column. Who was the last president to do that — Herbert Hoover?

You got me.

I’ll put it this way: If he chose another career, I think he would be a
David Brooks.

*The Hill blog: Ballot Box: “Former Clinton pollster: Hillary lacks 'new
car smell'”
<http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/225526-former-clinton-pollster-hillary-lacks-new-car-smell>*

By Kristina Wong

November 30, 2014, 7:00 a.m. EST

Hillary Clinton has lost the "new car smell" she might need to win the
presidency in 2016, said Democratic pollster Doug Schoen on Sunday.

“The president said [last week] that the next president needs … a new car
smell, and it’s pretty hard for me to say … that she [Hillary] has a new
car smell," Schoen told radio host John Catsimatidis in an interview to air
Sunday on New York's 970 AM.

Schoen, who worked on Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign and is now a Fox
News contributor, said he expects Clinton to run, but that she will face
challenges having served in Obama's administration as secretary of State.

“The real question is how does she separate herself from Obama, yet not get
so far away from him that she alienates his base constituency?” he said.

Schoen said recent polls suggest 2016 is shaping up to be a tough fight.

A Nov. 26 poll by Quinnipiac University showed Republican Mitt Romney ahead
of Hillary Clinton 45% to 44% in a theoretical matchup. Former Florida
governor Jeb Bush trails slightly behind, at 41%.

“We’re in a real barn burner. The race hasn’t even begun, and it’s tied
ostensibly between Hillary and Mitt Romney," Schoen said.

"We’re in a statistical tie here. It’s anyone’s to be won."

Another potential challenge for Clinton is Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.),
who is gaining prominence within the Democratic Party and is seen as a
possible 2016 contender, Schoen said.

“I think she’s a strong candidate, if she runs," he said. "It's undeniable
that the Democratic political base wants the kind of populism that she's
been offering the electorate."

*Calendar:*

*Sec. Clinton's upcoming appearances as reported online. Not an official
schedule.*

·  December 1 – New York, NY: Sec. Clinton keynotes a League of
Conservation Voters dinner (Politico
<http://www.politico.com/story/2014/09/hillary-clinton-green-groups-las-vegas-111430.html?hp=l11>
)

·  December 1 – New York, NY: Sec. Clinton hosts fundraiser for Sen. Mary
Landrieu (Times-Picayune
<http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2014/11/hillary_clinton_hosting_new_yo.html>
)

·  December 4 – Boston, MA: Sec. Clinton speaks at the Massachusetts
Conference for Women (MCFW <http://www.maconferenceforwomen.org/speakers/>)

·  December 16 – New York, NY: Sec. Clinton honored by Robert F. Kennedy
Center for Justice and Human Rights (Politico
<http://www.politico.com/story/2014/11/hillary-clinton-ripple-of-hope-award-112478.html>
)

·  February 24 – Santa Clara, CA: Sec. Clinton to Keynote Address at
Inaugural Watermark Conference for Women (PR Newswire
<http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/hillary-rodham-clinton-to-deliver-keynote-address-at-inaugural-watermark-conference-for-women-283200361.html>
)