Subject: ​Correct The Record Thursday February 5, 2015 Afternoon Roundup
From: Burns Strider <[email-masked]>
To: CTRFriendsFamily <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 5 Feb 2015 14:11:52 -0500
List-Id: <CTRFriendsFamily.americanbridge.org>

*​**Correct The Record Thursday February 5, 2015 Afternoon Roundup:*

*Tweets:*

*Correct The Record* @CorrectRecord: .@HillaryClinton
<https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton> said #paidleave
<https://twitter.com/hashtag/paidleave?src=hash> "helps all of us" #FMLA22
<https://twitter.com/hashtag/FMLA22?src=hash> #HRC365
<https://twitter.com/hashtag/HRC365?src=hash>
http://blogs.wsj.com/japanrealtime/2014/09/12/hillary-clinton-talks-up-paid-family-leave/
…
<http://t.co/G0RLGEgTen> [2/5/15, 12:29 p.m. EST
<https://twitter.com/CorrectRecord/status/563388835267358721>]

*Headlines:*

*Washington Post blog: Reliable Source: “Former first ladies in the house!
Hillary Clinton attends Ford’s Theater play ‘The Widow Lincoln’”
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/reliable-source/wp/2015/02/05/former-first-ladies-in-the-house-hillary-clinton-attends-fords-theater-play-the-widow-lincoln/>*

“Seems the former FLOTUS is interested in her historic predecessor: the
production focuses on the life of Mary Todd Lincoln, the enigmatic wife of
President Abraham Lincoln. Clinton, spies say, arrived with a small group
(sans Bill) and sat in the orchestra section.”

*Washington Post blog: PostPartisan: Jonathan Capehart: “Hillary Clinton’s
consolation prize for Brooklyn”
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2015/02/05/hillary-clintons-consolation-prize-for-brooklyn/>*

“The borough could lose the convention but gain the campaign.”

*Bloomberg: “Why Starbucks's CEO Is Resisting Calls For Him to Run for the
White House”
<http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-02-05/starbucks-ceo-howard-schultz-no-2016-run-for-me>*

[Subtitle:] “The Democrat says he is content to ‘see what Hillary does.’”

*Los Angeles Times: “The Envelope 'Virunga' details a complicated story of
oil exploration in Congo”
<http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/la-et-mn-virunga-20150205-story.html>*

“The film was seen by Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton at a special
screening last weekend and has already screened for the United Nations,
British Parliament, the European Parliament, on Capitol Hill and for many
of SOCO's investors; ‘Virunga’ illuminates ‘true African heroes,’ says Von
Einsiedel.”

*Slate: “NBC’s Bad Memory”
<http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/television/2015/02/brian_william_s_false_memories_of_rpg_fire_in_iraq_will_nbc_hold_its_anchor.html>*

[Subtitle:] “The network repeatedly criticized Hillary Clinton for her
false memory of ‘sniper fire.’ Will it hold Brian Williams to the same
standard?”

*Washington Post blog: In The Loop: “Scholars rank Kerry dead last in terms
of effectiveness.”
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/in-the-loop/wp/2015/02/05/scholars-rank-kerry-dead-last-in-terms-of-effectiveness/?tid=sm_tw_pp>*

“Madeleine Albright and Hillary Clinton tied for fourth at 8.70 percent.”

*Articles:*

*Washington Post blog: Reliable Source: “Former first ladies in the house!
Hillary Clinton attends Ford’s Theater play ‘The Widow Lincoln’”
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/reliable-source/wp/2015/02/05/former-first-ladies-in-the-house-hillary-clinton-attends-fords-theater-play-the-widow-lincoln/>*

By Emily Heil

February 5, 2015, 12:28 p.m. EST

Hey, isn’t that… former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, attending a
Wednesday-evening performance of the new play “The Widow Lincoln” at Ford’s
Theater?

Seems the former FLOTUS is interested in her historic predecessor: the
production focuses on the life of Mary Todd Lincoln, the enigmatic wife of
President Abraham Lincoln. Clinton, spies say, arrived with a small group
(sans Bill) and sat in the orchestra section.

*Washington Post blog: PostPartisan: Jonathan Capehart: “Hillary Clinton’s
consolation prize for Brooklyn”
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2015/02/05/hillary-clintons-consolation-prize-for-brooklyn/>*

By Jonathan Capehart

February 5, 2015, 10:37 a.m. EST

Amie Parnes of the Hill reports that the as-yet-announced presidential
campaign of Hillary Rodham Clinton will likely be headquartered in
Brooklyn. One knowledgeable Democratic strategist told me that the
consultants prefer the Big Apple’s largest borough to someplace in
Westchester because it would be easier to get to and out of. But putting
the campaign in Brooklyn would have another benefit: consolation prize.

Any day now, the Democratic National Committee will announce its choice for
its 2016 presidential nominating convention. Brooklyn, Philadelphia and
Columbus, Ohio, are the finalists. By now, you know I think Philadelphia
should get the quadrennial jamboree. I recognize the power of having
Clinton officially accept the nomination (assuming she runs and secures the
required delegates) in her home state 24 years after her ex-president
husband did the same in the Big Apple. Still, there are significant issues
with hosting the convention in Brooklyn, which is why the money is on the
City of Brotherly Love.

That’s why the leak about Clinton considering Brooklyn for her campaign
headquarters is so intriguing. The borough could lose the convention but
gain the campaign. It could dodge the bullet of the four-day convention
(and the headaches for all concerned that would entail) but bask in the
glow of a 16-month presidential operation. There are issues with putting
the campaign there, too. Being the capital of hyper-expensive Hipstervania
is one. Actually, that might be its biggest knock. That, and being the
center of action for HBO’s “Girls.” But in touting Brooklyn for the
convention, New York City Council Member Vincent Gentile gave a rationale
for why Clinton should make the borough her HQ. “One in seven Americans can
trace their roots to Brooklyn so history shows Brooklyn is at the
crossroads of our country,” he said last year. “We are a true mosaic of our
country and of the world. Clearly Brooklyn is America and America is
Brooklyn.”

Can’t argue with that.

*Bloomberg: “Why Starbucks's CEO Is Resisting Calls For Him to Run for the
White House”
<http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-02-05/starbucks-ceo-howard-schultz-no-2016-run-for-me>*

By Ali Elkin

February 5, 2015, 12:15 p.m. EST

[Subtitle:] The Democrat says he is content to “see what Hillary does.”

Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz says he does not have designs on the White
House, according to a Time cover story published Thursday.

“For his part, Schultz insists he’s not interested in running for office at
the moment and has neither the temperament to make the compromises
necessary to embark on a Democratic political career nor the desire to be a
third-party candidate. ‘I don’t think that is a solution. I don’t think it
ends well.’ ... For now, Schultz says, he’s content to ‘see what Hillary
[Clinton] does.’”

Entertainment magnate David Geffen told the magazine that he thinks Schultz
has what it takes.

“I first told Howard he should run back in 2008,” Geffen said. “We were
having a very intense conversation about things that were happening in the
country, and Howard had a strong point of view about various things ... We
both felt there was a lot of corruption in government and a lack of
conviction to put things right.”

Anti-tax activist Grover Norquist also weighed in on the possibility of
Schultz running. “'You should run for office' is what people in this
country say to you when they mean ‘I like your ideas. I wish people in
Washington thought like you did,'” he said, according to the magazine.
“That’s what Ralph Nader’s friends said to him, and when he ran, they
screamed at it and said, ‘Hey, you are funneling money away from the
mainstream of the party!'”

*Los Angeles Times: “The Envelope 'Virunga' details a complicated story of
oil exploration in Congo”
<http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/la-et-mn-virunga-20150205-story.html>*

By Janet Kinosian

February 5, 2015, 7:20 a.m. EST

When filmmaker Orlando von Einsiedel first arrived in eastern Congo to film
what ultimately became the Oscar-nominated documentary "Virunga," he'd
hoped to showcase an inspiring story of about 500 lionhearted park rangers
who risk their lives to protect UNESCO World Heritage Site Virunga National
Park — one of the world's most iconic and bio-diverse spots — and the
threatened mountain gorillas that reside within.

What he found appeared to be far more complicated — SOCO International, a
British-based oil and gas exploration company, was in the Democratic
Republic of Congo with a government concession for oil exploration beneath
the park.

The film was seen by Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton at a special screening
last weekend and has already screened for the United Nations, British
Parliament, the European Parliament, on Capitol Hill and for many of SOCO's
investors; "Virunga" illuminates "true African heroes," says Von Einsiedel.

Between poachers and a military rebellion devastating the country's eastern
region, 130 rangers have died since the mid-1990s.

"Virunga" is really several important films woven into one. What was the
initial story you arrived to tell?

I'd worked a lot in Africa as an investigative journalist, and I'd come
across incredibly inspiring people amid these rather depressing stories on
violence and injustice. "Virunga" was originally a human story about the
park rangers risking their lives to protect mountain gorillas and trying to
rebuild their country [known as Zaire until 1997] after 20 years of war and
conflict. That's the story I went there to tell.

So you knew or didn't know about SOCO International when you first started
to film?

I had no idea. But when I got there I learned very quickly of the park's
concern about the oil company and I saw that what I could contribute to the
fight was technology. In terms of the film, it started to look like three
separate films: an investigative PBS "Frontline"-type film, a National
Geographic film and a kind of war movie. This suddenly became something
that was so much bigger than anything I'd ever done before. But I always
felt they were so interrelated they had to be told together.

Park director Emmanuel de Merode, who opposes all such oil exploration, was
ambushed last year, shot four times. Is he OK?

The thing with Emmanuel — and I spent a year with him on the ground — is he
is the real deal. He is exactly what he is in the film, and his resolve is
as steel and incredible. After he was shot and nearly killed, he was back
at work in about 35 days. He's made of truly tough stuff.

Another featured ranger, Rodrigue Katembo, you say acted as an undercover
agent, really. How did you connect with him?

He said he'd been approached by people claiming to represent SOCO and was
offered money to work against the park. He quickly learned how to use the
undercover cameras and very quickly started bringing back this incredible
footage. He was also jailed for 17 days after he stopped some people [who
said they were] working on behalf of SOCO from building a radio antenna for
mobile phones inside the park; the next day he was arrested, beaten up and
tortured. He said he was told that if he ever opposed the oil exploration
again, next time he'll be killed.

[SOCO International officials could not be reached for comment, but in a
2012 Associated Press article about the situation, the company responded,
"SOCO vigorously denies any allegations of impropriety ... {and} does not
permit the giving or receiving of bribes." The company's website states
that "SOCO's operations inside Virunga National Park ceased on 22 July,
2014 and elsewhere {near Lake Edward} on 11 August, 2014."]

What have you heard from them — has there been significant pushback?

We wrote them and said here's our list of allegations. What's your
response? And they wrote us back a 20-page legal letter denying everything
and basically saying if you screen this film we reserve the right to sue
you.

Then they wrote to the festivals we were going to screen it at and said,
"If you screen this film, we believe it's defamatory and we might sue you."
And then when it first came out they wrote to loads of journalists who
reviewed it and they said, "Take the reviews down from the Internet; if you
don't we will sue you." Just incredibly aggressive.

The gorillas are so joyous and gentle in the film. Not quite what I
expected.

They are so very, very gentle. Their forest has been bombed for four or
five months repeatedly and the first humans the gorillas come across
afterward are the rangers, and rather than become angry and lash out, "What
have you been doing to us?" they just want to gently and lovingly touch
them.

What has been the rangers' response and reaction to all the attention and
awards directed at the film?

I think they understood that we were all working together to create this
tool that could show the world what was happening in the park. It's not
just to protect it for the Congolese people, but also for humanity. If this
iconic place isn't protectable, what is?

*Slate: “NBC’s Bad Memory”
<http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/television/2015/02/brian_william_s_false_memories_of_rpg_fire_in_iraq_will_nbc_hold_its_anchor.html>*

By Alec MacGillis

February 5, 2015, 12:45 p.m. EST

[Subtitle:] The network repeatedly criticized Hillary Clinton for her false
memory of “sniper fire.” Will it hold Brian Williams to the same standard?

Questions are swirling about NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams’
guarded acknowledgment Wednesday night that he had, over the years, falsely
claimed to have been in a helicopter that came under rocket-propelled
grenade fire in Iraq in 2003. But NBC itself has been mostly mum about the
matter, and MSNBC has given it only the briefest of mentions.

This is in stark contrast to the network’s coverage of a quite similar
matter in 2008: Hillary Clinton’s false claim to have arrived in Tuzla,
Bosnia under sniper fire in 1996, when coverage of her visit at the time
showed her being greeted leisurely by an 8-year-old with a welcoming poem.
From what I can tell from the transcripts at the time, Williams did not
directly address Clinton’s exaggerations on the air when they were covered
by NBC Nightly News. But his colleagues at NBC and MSNBC hammered away at
Clinton repeatedly over several weeks for her dishonesty and carelessness.
Some examples, with some especially tart comments highlighted:

*Meet the Press, March 23, 2008:*

Tim Russert: Yesterday in the column called “Fact Checker” by Michael Dobbs
in the Washington Post, Dobbs wrote this, “Clinton’s tale of landing at the
Tuzla Airport under sniper fire and then running for cover is simply not
credible. Photographs and video of the arrival ceremony combined with
contemporaneous news reports tell a very different story. Four Pinocchios,”
which is the highest you can get, which means a whopper in terms of
exaggeration.

… It’s a credibility issue, truth-telling—is this a problem for Sen.
Clinton?

Chuck Todd: Well, it’s been the nagging things about this whole campaign.
When you ask that question of honest and trustworthy, she has always
consistently scored lower than Obama. … But, I, for the life of me, haven’t
understood why they have pushed this story. They knew that somebody went
after and re-interviewed Sinbad, who was on that trip, the former
“comedian,” and I put comedian in quotes. That he was on that trip and
doesn't remember it being that harried or anything like that, and yet she
went out and retold the story. … They didn't need to retell the story
because if they had not, then they wouldn’t have gotten this four Pinocchio
thing out of the Washington Post and given the Obama campaign something to
hit them with.

*Today Show, March 25, 2008:*

Matt Lauer: So let’s talk about this trip to Bosnia March of 1996. Here’s
how Hillary Clinton described it last week: “I remember landing under
sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at
the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the
vehicles and get to our base.” Now, I still remember winning a Little
League championship single-handedly when I was 10, probably didn’t happen.
But this isn’t the Little League, this is someone running for president.
There were reporters on this trip and she’s using her experience as a
deciding factor. How could this happen?

Chuck Todd: Well, and it’s worse than that, Matt. There had been reporters
questioning her story on this a few weeks ago. One even reached out to the
comedian Sinbad, who was also on this trip, to get his recollection of it
and it differed from the first lady. So somebody didn’t scrub that speech.
It was in prepared remarks last week, and not only did she say it with
certitude, but it was in her prepared text. So this was a real sort of
bone-headed mistake on the campaign’s part at a time when everybody is
looking at everything so carefully.

Lauer: Right, and does it make people now go back and start to question
everything she said?

*Countdown, March 27, 2008:*

Keith Olbermann: Forgetting about Bosnia. The March 17 misspeak was just
she said, sleep deprivation or something. But now, two other Bosnia
misspeaks have turned up. Were they sleep deprivation, too?

Speaking of Bosnia, it turns out Sen. Clinton was speaking of Bosnia and
gunfire and danger last December. Is that sleep deprivation chronic?

*Hardball, April 7, 2008:*

Chris Matthews: That said, [for Obama to run ads about] Tuzla doesn’t
require any nastiness toward Sen. Clinton. It requires playing over and
over again a fish story that she was under enemy fire, a very elaborate
kind of story about wartime and risk and courage and survival that turned
out not to be at all true. Who would hold that against Barack? I can
imagine Mark Penn running series of ads over and over again. I can imagine
a saturation campaign. Why doesn’t he do what Hillary would do?

What’s especially striking about the comparison of the scandal over
Clinton’s Tuzla’s claims—which unquestionably wounded her already listing
campaign against Barack Obama—was that Williams made some of his false
claims about the Iraq helicopter attack directly after Clinton was slammed
over Tuzla. In a May 12, 2008 blog post, he wrote:

“A young soldier, who is, like me, from the Jersey Shore, reads my blog
entry last week during a break while on active duty in Iraq. The last time
I saw him, I was with my friend and NBC News Military Analyst Wayne
Downing, a retired 4-Star Army General. Wayne and I were riding along as
part of an Army mission to deliver bridge components to the Euphrates
River, so that the invading forces of the 3rd Infantry could cross the
river on their way to Bagdhad. We came under fire by what appeared to be
Iraqi farmers with RPG’s and AK-47’s. The Chinook helicopter flying in
front of ours (from the 101st Airborne) took an RPG to the rear rotor, as
all four of our low-flying Chinooks took fire. We were forced down and
stayed down—for the better (or worse) part of 3 days and 2 nights.”

Williams had seen what happened to Clinton just weeks earlier, yet kept
telling his own fish tale. To paraphrase one of his own NBC colleagues,
this isn’t Little League, it’s a nightly news anchor with an audience of
millions. Will he be held to the same standards to which NBC and the rest
of the media held Clinton?

*Washington Post blog: In The Loop: “Scholars rank Kerry dead last in terms
of effectiveness.”
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/in-the-loop/wp/2015/02/05/scholars-rank-kerry-dead-last-in-terms-of-effectiveness/?tid=sm_tw_pp>*

By Al Kamen

February 5, 2015 7:00 a.m. EST

Secretary of State John Kerry, working diligently on some extraordinarily
difficult foreign policy issues — China, neo-Soviet Russia, Islamic State,
Iran, etc — isn’t getting even a tiny bit of credit these days from the
tweedy, elbow-patched, wing-chair crowd.

Foreign Policy magazine this week announced the results of its 2014  Ivory
Tower survey of 1,615 international relations scholars from 1,375 U.S.
colleges.

One question they were asked was: “Who was the most effective U.S.
secretary of state of the past 50 years?

The winner? Nobel Peace Prize winner Henry A. Kissinger, who was secretary
for four years during the Nixon and Ford administrations. Since the Vietnam
thing didn’t turn out so well, the scholars must have been grading him on
openings to China and the Soviet Union when he was at the National Security
Council?

Kissinger got 32.21 percent of the vote, extraordinary in such a large
field.

“Don’t Know” came in a relatively distant second, with 18.32 percent.

James Baker — who was actually the most effective secretary in the last 50
years — came in third at 17.71 percent, just behind Dr. Know.

Madeleine Albright and Hillary Clinton tied for fourth at 8.70 percent.

George Shultz was sixth with 5.65 percent.

Dean Rusk, who served in the Kennedy-Johnson years, came in seventh at 3.51
percent.

Warren Christopher got 1.53 percent, tying Cyrus Vance for eighth place

Colin Powell was picked by 1.07 percent for tenth place.

Condoleezza Rice got the nod from 0.46 percent putting her in 11th place.

Lawrence Eagleburger came in 12th place with only 0.31 percent.

Then, dead last, is John Kerry. He also got a total of only five votes and
tied Eagleburger’s 0.31 percent, but the magazine lists him at 13th.

This is all truly odd. Loop Fans may recall Eagleburger was only secretary
of state for six weeks, from Dec. 8, 1992 to Jan. 20 1993. To be sure, he
was acting secretary for three months before that, but it’s hard to say he
left a huge diplomatic footprint.

(On the other hand, we always marveled at Eagleburger’s unerring ability to
keep from blowing himself up as he alternated an inhaler in his right hand
and a cigarette in his left.)

Odder still, the survey apparently forget that Nixon’s first secretary of
state was William P. Rogers.

Well, Kerry’s only been at Foggy Bottom for only a couple years, so he’s
got plenty of time to boost his standing. Nowhere to go but up with this
scholarly crowd.