Politico Reporter Plays Fast and Loose with Anti-War Organizer's Words

Posted by Matt Stoller, Open Left at 1:41 PM on April 26, 2008.

Journalist Martin Kady II wrote a story today in the Politico that I criticized here.  Here's the specific problematic passage.

Leaders of the anti-war movement are also accepting that their best hope is a symbolic vote.

We're advocating putting as many of the provisions in the first round" of the legislation, said John Isaacs, executive director of Council for a Livable World, which is part of a larger anti-war coalition led by MoveOn.org. "We recognize that ultimately the wars are going to be funded, ... that some type of supplemental will be passed.

John Isaacs denied saying that this would be a symbolic vote, and it's quite obvious that a war funding could have conditions - a timeline for withdrawal for instance - attached, obviating the point of Kady's paragraph.  Furthermore, I have confirmed with Moveon that neither Eli Pariser, Nita Chaudhary, or Ilyse Hogue spoke with the Politico for this article.

I am emailing Martin Kady II to ask him which leaders of the anti-war movement he means, why he quoted a member of a different group to represent Moveon, and whether he will provide the full context of Isaacs's quote.

UPDATE:  I have gone back and forth with Kady numerous times, and he will not provide me with information on which anti-war leaders he or other Politico reporters talked to, nor would he provide evidence to back up his claim about anti-war groups.  Furthermore, when pressed, he changed the wording from 'leaders' to 'members' when characterizing the anti-war proponents he apparently is citing.

Ryan Grim, who helped Kady write the story, instantly sent me the full quote by John Isaacs, which, as you can see, undercuts Kady's article.

We're saying, to put it in simple terms, to put as many good provisions related to Iraq-Well, let me just step back. We recognize that ultimately the wars are going to be funded, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, that some type of supplemental bill will be passed. We also recognize that a lot of grassroots activists are going to yell at Democrats and say, 'Hey, you're funding the war. In 2006 we elected you to stop the war.' So we're advocating putting as many good provisions in the supplemental, at least the first version. For example, not only setting a deadline to bring the troops home but a ban on torture, a requirement that this upcoming U.S. Iraqi long-term security agreement goes to Congress, or so-called dwell time between deployments and so on. Plus, we don't deal with domestics-the economic stimulus package-but that's probably going to be another element."

"We're recognizing that if a bill goes to the president with a lot of provisions that we'd like to see in it, the president's going to veto the bill. Then we're saying, 'Well, okay, you take out the provisions the administration absolutely can't live with, such as a deadline for troops, but see if we can get some of the other provisions adopted, even in the second bill that the president ultimately signs.'"

Me: So leave in, like, ban on torture and long-term security?

Isaacs: Exactly.

In our correspondence, Kady marked his notes 'off the record' despite proffering no useful information and without soliciting my agreement.  I found that odd to say the least.  Originally I began writing about this because I was confused that anti-war groups were openly giving up on the supplemental.  It turns out that they weren't, or at least that Kady did not find evidence to that effect.  Now it appears that Isaacs gave a more comprehensive view of the situation, and that Kady just put Isaacs's snipped quote to tell the story he wanted to tell.  I say 'appears' because I am still waiting to hear from Kady what evidence he has about the anti-war groups.

This kind of misinformation is a serious problem, and the pervasive use of conventional wisdom or the regurgitation of things that everyone just 'knows' will happen creates a situation that incentivizes infighting and disempowerment from citizens.  It's no wonder the Politico loves engaging in it.

UPDATE AGAIN:  Kady sent me this statement.

First, I'll concede that we could have been more clear in referring to the "symbolic" vote as relating specifically to a troop withdrawal timetable. There will likely be a vote on this, yet it will probably die on the Senate floor, and most anti-war lawmakers I spoke to admit that is the likely course this legislation will take - they simply want a vote on a supplemental with a timetable, but they realize this will not make it to the president's desk, thus making the vote symbolic. We spoke to four lawmakers from the Out of Iraq Caucus about this, as well as people involved in the anti war movement. Then I wrote the story.

As to your set of questions about who we did and did not talk to - I can't on any story provide a complete list of every person I speak to on a story - that part of the deliberative process of reporting is between a reporter and his or her sources. Like all stories, we spoke to more people than were quoted in the story, and I don't believe the story suggests we talked to MoveOn.