Dobbs Praises Gravel, Criticizes CNN

[Adelante]

ABC's Jennifer Duck Reports: Mike Gravel, an underdog in the 2008 Presidential race, appeared on CNN tonight in one of his first television news appearances to discuss being "censored" by CNN and other companies sponsoring a New Hampshire debate in June.

Gravel formally announced his candidacy in April of 2006.

What could've been an awkward exchange between CNN anchor Lou Dobbs and "censored" Presidential candidate Gravel ended in Dobbs praising Gravel and questioning his own company, CNN.

Dobbs told Gravel, "I'm pulling for you." Gravel responded saying Dobbs had "a lot of guts to do that on this station " since the question of censorship lies within the company that hosts Dobb's show every night and pays Dobbs a pretty penny for commentating.

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2007/03/dobbs_praises_g.html


Mike Gravel should be supported in this. He has done a great deal for the Democratic Party and the American people. This is a guy who read 4100 pages of the Pentagon Papers into the Congressional Record. He led a five-month filibuster against Nixon and the draft during the Vietnam War. Please support Gravel's right to promote his platform along with other Dem candidates at Democratic debates everywhere.

[mikelgb]

1. Kick for the underdogs!

[efhmc]

2. It would be stupendous to get some other viewpoints once in a while.

Whether they have a chance to win or I whether I agree with them. Ross Perot was certainly right about jobs leaving the US if NAFTA was passed. He was also for a woman's right to choose. Nader has much to add to the discussion until his ego pushed him off the cliff (I will never forgive his putting bush in office by telling people that both parties were the same.) I would like to see many parties added to our election process. I think the entire thing would be much healthier.

[CGowen]

3. Lou Dobbs has acquired editorial control over his CNN show

Setting aside the packaged attempts to insult Dobbs and his growing audience, the New Yorker article does reveal the great extent to which Lou Dobbs has acquired editorial control over his CNN show. What we are seeing on Lou Dobbs Tonight is in the main what Lou Dobbs himself decides to show us.

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/12/04/061204fa_fact1
They noticed that their e-mails spiked every time they did pieces on jobs going overseas or on illegal immigration. They began talking about adding more edge to the program. “I was determined to drive the broadcast very hard on issues that affect the quality of life of most Americans,” Dobbs says. As the managing editor, he already enjoyed editorial control. He decided that he also needed more freedom to express his views, and says that he went to Jim Walton, the president of CNN Worldwide, who agreed to relax the network’s no-opinion strictures. “Take it as far as you want,” he says that Walton told him, although viewers had to be informed at the beginning of the program that it would include opinion. Walton confirms this conversation. Opinion is fine, he told me, “if it’s clearly labelled. One of the things our critics said years ago was that CNN is the same”—boring. What Dobbs is doing demonstrates that “CNN is not the same.”

[mzmolly]

4. I'm not supporting this unless they air a conservative counterpart.

We don't need another Nader assisting another Bush.

[Morgana LaFey]

5. You've got Gravel wrong, Molly

First, he's a Dem, not a Green. And that's your entire Nader argument answered right there. And of course, he's definitely not either on Bush's side or in danger of splitting the party during the Presidential election because he's highly unlikely to be on the ballot.

So, he might not be able to win (more's the pity), but like a Sharpton, he certainly will expand the topics and viewpoints among the "real" candidates, and that's extremely valuable because he's a good ole liberal and he makes incredible sense.

Here's the truth on Gravel, IMO: he COULD win, based on his positions. But he'll never get enough money to get that far.

[mzmolly]

6. Is he running as a Dem?

I thought he was running as an alternate? If he's running on the Dem ticket, I'm all for it, the more the merrier.
My apologies for the mis-understanding in this case.

[Blue_In_AK]

7. Oh, no, he's a Dem through-and-through.

[mzmolly]

8. Good, sorry about the confusion again.

Sheesh, I outta read before I comment huh? ;)

[Morgana LaFey]

12. Fomer Dem Congressman from Alaska, I think. nt

:hi:

[silvershadow]

13. Former Dem. Senator from Alaska. n/t

[SOS]

9. CNN, Fox, Hearst and the Manchester Union Leader

don't want another dark horse like Jimmy Carter in 1976 to get one minute of air time.
People might like what he says!

[FrenchieCat]

10. CNN and Fox are really the same agent, although one is covert while the other is overt.....

In the end, giant corporations shouldn't be the one running the majority of our media. Until that gets fixed, democracy in this country is only a myth and a legend. period.

[Adelante]

11. Gravel Press Release

Gravel Dismisses CNN, WMUR-TV And Union Leader Statement
Says Media Censorship Moving from Orwellian to Kafakaesque

Washington, D.C. March 19, 2007 Presidential candidate and former United States Senator Mike Gravel rejected a statement CNN, Hearst owned WMUR-TV and the Union Leader issued Friday, March 16th in justifying its censorship of Senator Gravel by excluding him from a planned debate of Presidential candidates. The Senator said, “This statement is woefully ignorant, void of sound judgment and Kafkaesque in its conclusion.” Gravel continued, “There are several points in the statement, the full text of which follows, that cannot go unchallenged. First, when the statement says that I have not demonstrated measurable public support, it reveals an abysmal ignorance of the dynamics of political campaigns that is truly hard to believe originated in such important media institutions. It is common knowledge that polling numbers at the outset of a campaign, ten months before the first of many state elections reflect little more than name recognition and are simply not measures of public support. This does not mean that other candidates do not have some public following but rather that such support has not been tested by the crucible of a long campaign in which these supporters are given a chance to assess other options. The only accurate measure of public support is election-day. Finally, for what it is worth, I have, in a recent Harris poll improved my standing from February to March and exceed, in one test, one of my rivals for the nomination who I believe has been invited to the New Hampshire debate”.

The Senator continued, “The statement said that there are literally dozens and dozens of declared presidential candidates. That is true but out of those dozens of candidates, how many are former United States Senators who have been given the stamp of legitimacy by the Democratic National Committee, SEIU, AFSCME, ABC, the Nevada Democratic Party, the Center for American Progress Action Fund etc? Only two, former Senator John Edwards and myself.

“Though this is not the only criteria for deciding the legitimacy of a candidate as other aspirants may have contributed distinguished public service as an appointed official or as an officer of an NGO or excelled as individual public figures such as Ralph Nader, the Reverend Jesse Jackson and the Reverend Al Sharpton making them eminently worthy, it is one indisputable criteria for defining a legitimate candidate.”

The Senator continued, “The statement confirmed that I had not received an invitation but said that I nor anyone else has been excluded from the debate. It went on to say that if I meet their criteria between now and the debate, I will be invited. What was Orwellian in my not meeting certain criteria which the media organizations would not divulge becomes Kafkaesque when I am now told that I have not been excluded and can still be invited if I meet this mysterious criteria. CNN, WMUR-TV and the Union Leader sent out invitations weeks ago. I did not receive one. I am told I have not demonstrated measurable public support, which, besides being a galactic misunderstanding of polling numbers ten months before an election is also a self-fulfilling prophecy since being included in the debate would provide me and any other candidate who may have not been invited an important opportunity to secure such public support.”

Senator Gravel concluded, “CNN, Hearst’s WMUR-TV and the Union Leader have been important sources of news for their listeners and readers. Why they want to deprive their audiences of differing political voices that aspire to the highest level of public service by exercising a form of insidious censorship, unbecoming a free society and a state with the motto 'Live Free Or Die' is a mystery.”

Mike Gravel, a resident of Virginia, is a former two-term Senator from Alaska with a distinguished record that includes successfully ending the military draft with a five-month filibuster, releasing the Pentagon Papers risking both prosecution and jail, playing the leading role in making the Alaska pipeline a reality, and ending nuclear testing in Alaska. He is the driving force and author of the National Initiative for Democracy, a proposal to bring the ballot initiative lawmaking process––already proven in many states as an effective and necessary check on unresponsive representative government––to the Federal level.

STATEMENT BY CNN, WMUR-TV AND THE UNION LEADER:
The three debate partners, closely following Federal Election Commission guidelines, established objective criteria to determine who we invite to the debates. Because there are literally dozens and dozens of declared presidential candidates, most of whom we have never heard of, we have to have a method of determining who is invited. Our criteria simply identifies candidates that have measurable public support for their campaign. Because Mike Gravel has not demonstrated measurable public support for his campaign to date, he has not received an invitation. But we have not excluded him (or anyone) from the debate. If he meets our criteria between now and the debate, he will certainly get an invitation.
Learn More

Gravel For President 2008
Elliott Jacobson
email:
[email protected]

phone: [phone] - O - Cell [phone]