(Just realized Charley covered this interview this morning — sorry! Nonetheless, I find the “pond scum” remark noteworthy enough to get its own headline.)
Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. On Wednesday I posted about Gabriel Gomez’s new ad, which refers to “Dirty Ed Markey” and accuses Markey of “comparing” Gomez to Osama bin Laden and “blaming” Gomez for the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Yesterday, at the Needham-Newton Chamber of Commerce, Gomez spoke with a reporter (Tovia Smith, Boston-based reporter for NPR) and what he had to say was pretty astounding.
Transcript (best I could do):
Reporter: “You mentioned your ad, the campaign says it’s up and running now. There’s some Democrats talking about it’s a ‘sign of desperation,’ going after ‘Dirty Ed Markey’…”
Gomez (scoffing): “Ed Markey is ‘Dirty Ed Markey.’ Let me frame it this way: For a guy to come out with his first web video, to put me next to Osama bin Laden. A former Seal. Maybe he doesn’t understand, perhaps, who killed bin Laden. The Seals. All because I criticized the President. I was critical of him because they released so much classified information about that raid. And even Secretary Feinberg, uh, Senator Feinstein, came out and agreed with me. And it puts the troops in harm’s way. It not only puts the troops in harm’s way, but their families in harm’s way. Because now we know what unit conducted the raid, we know what kind of tactics, what kind of aircraft they flew in there. And even made a movie about it afterwards.”
Reporter: “So the offense was putting you side-by-side on the same screen?”
Gomez: “I don’t think there’s anything more… You know, I’ve got four young kids, and they’ve got to sit there and they’ve got to see an ad with their dad, who served honorably. Talk to anybody I served with, whether it was a pilot or as a Seal, or anybody I’ve worked with. And for him to be as dirty and low, pond scum, to…like…put me up there next to bin Laden, he’s just gotta be called what he is.”
Reporter: “And you say in the ad that he ‘blamed you’ for Newtown.”
Gomez: “Well, then he puts an ad up there, inferring basically, basically blaming me. Ed – Congressman Markey’s been around for 40 years. He knows exactly what he’s doing. OK, now he can hide behind all his lawyerly discussions about, ‘Well, I didn’t technically say this.’ It’s just like… Congressman Markey can’t defend the fact that he has not authored a single piece of legislation in the last 20 years that’s been signed by the President. But he comes back with these lawyerly explanations, you know, and all that. Well, he’s a lawyer. You see, he’s going to litigate everything. But the facts are, I’ve got the facts on my side.”
Reporter: “But the fact that he ‘blamed you’ for Newtown…”
Gomez: “Well, watch the ad.”
Reporter: “I know, I’ve seen the ad.”
Gomez: “You see that it infers it.”
Reporter: “He infers it by saying that you are against an assualt weapons…”
Gomez: “He knows what ads do. He knows, he knows what ads do. Congressman Markey’s been around for 40 years, and he knows what he’s doing.”
Reporter: “Is an assault weapons ban going to get…”
At this point another man, presumably from the campaign, says “You’re only supposed to get one question here” and Gomez walks away. The reporter asks for a follow-up and the second man tells the reporter she’s had three follow-ups and (I believe) suggests that she’s being hostile, which she disputes.
Let’s recap:
- Both the Globe and factcheck.org have said that Markey’s very even-handed ad (to which Gomez’s ad responds) is true, and Gomez’s allegations are false. Markey’s video did not “compare” Gomez to bin Laden, it showed him in a split screen with images of bin Laden that appeared in the anti-Obama video Gomez was hawking. It also showed him in a split screen with President Obama himself for an equal amount of time.
- Likewise, Markey’s ad on gun control simply showed Gomez on television, stating in his own words that he does not support a ban on high-capacity clips. “Like the one used” in the Sandy Hook massacre.
- Norman Ornstein of the conservative American Enterprise Institute says Gomez’s assertion that Markey’s an ineffective legislator is baseless: “It’s, at best, a shaky attack. I’ve watched Markey since he came to the House and I’ve written many times before that he’s one of the most effective legislators” in Congress.
- Barack Obama just got 61% of the vote in Massachusetts in November, running against our former Governor, no less. His approval rating here is still in the same range. But Gomez wants to elaborate on his criticism of Obama for the way Osama bin Laden’s killing was handled. “Please proceed,” easement granter…
- Points deducted for confusing “infer” and “imply.”
But the real takeaway for me is that Gomez, while claiming he’s the victim of dirty campaign tactics, thinks it’s OK to call his opponent “pond scum.”
Stay classy, Massachusetts Republicans…
In the boston.com story reporting the pond-scum remark, Stephanie Ebbert again repeats the mischaracterization of Mr. Markey’s ads as “negative” (emphasis mine):
Mr. Markey has not run any “negative advertising”. His advertising has presented an even-tempered contrast of the two candidates on several issues. There is nothing negative about that.
I truly resent the dishonest efforts of the Morrisey Boulevard crew to make this campaign different from what it is. They want a food fight, because food fights are easier to cover and sell more advertising.
This angle — that Mr. Markey has been running negative advertising — is a boston.com lie.
has been awful. She’s the one who rapped Markey because the ad “fails to note” that Gomez would have supported the weak background check bill that couldn’t get past a filibuster. Hello, we’re talking about an assault weapons ban and high-capacity magazine clips. We’re not talking about background checks.
Levenson has been much better, calling Gomez’s claim false and printing Markey’s concise rebuttal of the “9/11 resolutions” crap.
passes on plenty of GOP talking points. (“Is it fair to highlight Gomez’s opposition to 2 gun control measures without mentioning the one he supported?”) She just suggested Markey was trying to hide something by releasing tax returns just before Memorial Day weekend.
Harshest statement about Gomez: “How’s this for the high road: US Senate candidate Gomez calls Congressman Markey ‘pondscum.'”
In my mind, it’s an ad that focuses mainly on opponents weaknesses, and only a little on the “good” candidate’s strengths. Pretty much everybody uses mostly negative ads, because they’re perceived to be so effective. I guess it’s sort of subjective, but a good measurement is probably the amount of time spent with a grainy image of the dreaded opponent on the screen.
The Markey ads don’t do this, though, at least in my view.
The first “negative” ad reported by the Globe (“Real Choices”), is a low-key straightforward presentation of the positions taken by the two candidates on restricting assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. The cited quotes from Mr. Gomez at 0:15 and 0:22 are brief and (at least on my monitor) not “grainy”.
If this ad is “negative”, then virtually every ad offered by every candidate in every race is negative and the characterization becomes meaningless.
On the other hand, if you want an example of a genuinely negative ad, I invite you to peruse “37 years in Congress” (no, I won’t embed it). Not only does it open with an unflattering and grainy image of Mr. Markey, its text contains gems like “Dirty Ed Markey”. THAT is a negative ad.
There’s a significant difference between a critical ad and a negative ad. It’s entily possible to be critical of your opponent without being negative. All squares are rectangles, but not all rectangles are squares.
It’s perfectly fair to point out an opponent’s weakness on policy, as long as you do so honestly, as Markey’s ad does. If simply publicizing your position on an issue hurts you electorally in a certain state, that’s democracy. Voters have a right to that information. The “grainy image of the dreaded opponent” is a good marker of the true negative ad, as are exaggerated rhetoric and distortion.
Gomez calls himself a “new style republican”.
They used to call us elitists and socialists. With this new style, they don’t use those words. Instead, we are dirty and pond scum. Yes, a totally new style.
What’s the news? Mayor Menino endorses Markey for Senate.
What’s the Globe headline? “Menino praises Markey, but ‘can’t explain’ light schedule”
In case the dose of negative info about Markey wasn’t enough, the first paragraph reads, “Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino formally threw his support behind US Representative Edward J. Markey on Friday, but said he could explain neither the Malden Democrat’s string of missed votes in Congress nor his decision not to release his tax returns until the Friday of Memorial Day weekend.”
So given the headline and lead what would a reader take away? All bad things about Markey. Never mind that the famed mayor of Boston, about whom the Globe waxes elegiac, endorsed him.
How on earth did the Globe go so bad.
One thing you can’t accuse the Globe of here I think is letting editorial biases spin the news. I assume they will endorse Markey in this race.
Awful, awful, awful.
Not to mention their story (co-authored by Stephanie Ebbert) about his “large” deductions for mortgages, property taxes, travel, etc. Which, in their biggest year, hit one-sixth of Gomez’s bullshit easement deduction.
My aunt and uncle are near broke on Long Island, and their mortgage interest, property taxes, state income taxes, commuting costs, home office expenses, etc. come out to about $50,000 worth of deductions each year. It’s not particularly unusual. Especially when you’re talking about someone whose job requires huge travel, to and from DC and within the district.
wrote the Menino article. He also wrote the May 1 concern troll story, “Democrats fear reliving the 2010 race that elected Brown.” As I wrote then:
This guy’s sympathies seem pretty clear.
Brian McGrory is new on the job as editor of the Boston Globe. I wonder if we are seeing the results of this change.
I am seeing more and more “human interest” (dark-and-stormy-night) pieces and less and less hard news on the front page. More pandering and less analysis (how many more Marathon Bombing pity-pieces do we need?).
Worst of all, like today’s Ed Markey income tax story, outright mis-statements of fact:
This is flagrantly, brazenly NOT TRUE. Mr. Markey reported an annual income of $161,433. While it’s true that the marginal rate is 33%, the effective rate is much lower than that. I note that the returns themselves have not been published (yet).
Perhaps the new relationship with the Herald offers an explanation (the Globe is now printing the Boston Herald) — perhaps the cultural tradition of the Herald is transmitting itself, through some sort of mysterious osmosis (perhaps involving advertising dollars), into the content of the Globe.
Globe ran nearly 50 negative stories about EW and her heritage even though there was very little that qualified as news.
It ran several multi-thousand-word puff pieces on Brown right out of his campaign PR. One was his victim book redux. (Too bad Gomez didn’t pay attention to how effective that was) One had 11 photos of him including two playing basketball. Really.
So Christopher is right in saying, “One thing you can’t accuse the Globe of here I think is letting editorial biases spin the news.” They endorsed EW.
Anyone know a good newspaper therapist?
I hate pond scum. Gomez is probably referring to the ever present algae blooms in lakes and streams caused by excessive nutrients from fertilizers and faulty sewage treatment plants.
Unfortunately, Gomez does not address this on his issue page under the environment. In fact, the environment is not an issue. Neither is the country’s needs to repair infrastructure, like non-compliant treatment plants.
The Globe reporting had been a bit lackluster in reporting on EW. I was never a fan of the EW is this BUT….
Also, Gomez has clearly come out in favor of Keystone, while still calling himself “Green.” I’d say more black.
http://www.gomezforma.com/gabriel-gomez-im-a-green-republican-and-i-support-the-keystone-pipeline/
I think he means lacking in experience!
Today the Globe puts Markey’s perfectly normal, every-suburban-homeowner-takes-them deductions as the top story on the front page as if he did something wrong, and can’t even get marginal and effective tax rate straight.
But their editorial on the 9/11 resolutions was excellent.