It's Always Something

Back in the golden days of Saturday Night Live, one of my favorite characters was Gilda Radner's Roseanne Roseannadanna, who would appear as a commentator on the Weekend Update segment.

She would read a letter on some sort of current issue or event (the letter was always from the same Richard Feder in Fort Lee, New Jersey) and after a lengthy monologue in which she inevitably got away from the original subject, the character would find a way to bring everything together by saying, "It just goes to show you, it's always something."

I'm getting that feeling with John McCain and the article that appeared in the New York Times about McCain and his relationship with a young lobbyist eight years ago.

Polls show a tough fight ahead for McCain. Based on the results in the recent primaries, he's still having some problems with the right wing of his party. He needs to be using this time to patch things up with his conservative base, and he needs to be devoting a lot of attention to his choice of a running mate.

But as Roseanne Roseannadanna used to say, "It's always something."

I studied journalism in college. I majored in it as an undergraduate student at the University of Arkansas and as a master's student at the University of North Texas. I worked for newspapers for 10 years and I taught editing for four years.

And I have to say I'm very disappointed in the New York Times. The story was merely innuendo and gossip. It had no evidence of anything improper, only hearsay. In school or on the job, this kind of story had no news value, in my experience.

I can honestly say that no one I ever worked with and no one I shared a journalism classroom with believed that it was newsworthy to report something that someone said simply because someone said it.

In a business that is so concerned about being sued for libel that many newspapers retain the full-time services of attorneys who have specialized in that area of the law, it makes no sense to repeat anything that someone says without having something to back it up.

But it seems that things have changed at the New York Times.

A friend of mine who was a journalism student with me sent me an e-mail about all this. She said, "Sadly, journalism isn’t what it used to be in the 'good old days.'"

Maybe the Times has something to back up the story. I don't have to see it. But if I know that the Times has a paper trail that can prove what's been written, I'd feel a lot better about publishing it.

I feel there are a lot of gaps in the story. And that leads to gaps in the credibility of the newspaper. The Times is giving readers the opportunity to ask questions about how the article was handled. They pledge to answer questions on Friday. So use that link if you want to ask a question.

A newspaper like the Times needs to be held accountable.

On the other side of the political divide, I watched tonight's debate between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. The prevailing wisdom was that Clinton needed to do something dramatic to change the dynamics of the race. If that moment came, I must have been in the bathroom at the time.

As much as I hate to give Karl Rove credit for anything, he may have been on to something in the Wall Street Journal.

In observing Obama's vulnerability as a candidate, Rove said, "[Clinton] can agree with Mr. Obama's statement Tuesday night that change is difficult to achieve on health care, energy, poverty, schools and immigration -- and then question his failure to provide any leadership on these or other major issues since his arrival in the Senate. His failure to act, advocate or lead on what he now claims are his priorities may be her last chance to make a winning argument."

But that didn't happen tonight. And time may be running out for Clinton. Early voting has already begun here in Texas. By the time she gets around to following Rove's advice, she may have lost too many votes already.

I haven't decided how to vote in the Texas primary. But I can't help feeling that a cult seems to be developing around Obama.

I had dinner with my father tonight, and I told him it reminds me of Peter Sellers in the 1980 movie "Being There." Sellers plays a naive man who has had limited exposure to other people. He suddenly finds himself cast into the world, where he hardly says anything and spends a lot of time mimicking people he's seen on TV.

The people who come in contact with him become enamored with him, projecting a lot into what they think he says to them. At the end of the movie, without his knowledge, a movement to nominate him for president is building, and in the last scene the audience sees, he appears to be walking on water.

Now, I'm not suggesting that Obama is naive or stupid or anything like that. And I'm certainly not implying that this is the Second Coming. But over the last several weeks, I've heard words like hope and change bandied about a lot. I want details. I heard a few new details from him in tonight's debate, but not much. I'd really like to see more media scrutiny applied to his candidacy.

On the day that the New York Times' piece about John McCain made its appearance, though, I'm not too optimistic.