(continued)

Winner: Pulitzer Prize–winning historian David Garrow, for his splendid review in the Los Angeles Times of Jonathan Rieder's fine new book, The Word of the Lord Is Upon Me: The Righteous Performance of Martin Luther King, Jr. Garrow reminds us that Rev. Jeremiah Wright's "God damn America" is actually quite mild compared to some of King's pronouncements: "Consider this denunciation of U.S. military behavior abroad: '[W]e are criminals in that war. We've committed more war crimes almost than any nation in the world.' Or, similarly, calling the United States 'the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today' and condemning it for creating 'concentration camps.'" Garrow's bottom line: "The real Martin Luther King, Jr., more often sounded like Jeremiah Wright than like Barack Obama."

Winner: The Washington Post, for publishing an open letter by Hu Jia and Teng Biao, which describes the incompatibility of Chinese human rights abuses and the Olympics. The letter, originally published September 10, 2007, earned the dissident a three-and-a-half-year prison sentence for "subverting state authority."

Winner: Paul Krugman for pointing out the link between Republican governance and reduced prosperity. A graph by Larry Bartels demonstrated:

1) Everyone is less wealthy under a Republican government.
2) The poor are much worse under a Republican government.

Winner: The Washington Post, for reporting that the Mortgage Bankers Association got a dose of comeuppance, as high market rates imperiled the construction of their new headquarters in downtown Washington. The association will be forced to pay millions more for the building because of the subprime mortgage crisis the brokers created.

Winner: The New York Daily News reported that souvenir sales have shot up at the now infamous Mayflower Hotel, where former New York governor Eliot Spitzer had his career-ending tryst.

Winners: Mother Jones magazine, for its comprehensive package about torture, with more than a dozen articles, including a "torture timeline"; and 60 Minutes producers Graham Messick and Michael Karzis, and correspondent Scott Pelley, for a superb piece about the "extraordinary rendition" of German citizen Murat Kurnaz, who spent four years being tortured and imprisoned by the United States government, even though there was never a scintilla of evidence that he was a real terrorist.



Winner: Mark Leibovich, for his cover story on Chris Matthews in next Sunday's New York Times magazine. Although 4,000 words longer than it should have been (it comes in at 8,109 words), it does include these attractive tidbits:

• NBC is desperate to cut Matthews' $5 million salary when his contract comes up for renewal next year.

• Chris on himself: "You can imagine what the neocons would say if I were kidnapped. They'd be like, 'See, Matthews, terrorism isn't so funny now, is it'" ... "I think I'm the only guy around who quotes F. Scott Fitzgerald on the 'Today' show" ... "By the way, have you figured me out yet? You gotta understand, it's all complicated. It's not like Tim."

• Matthews has "berated" archrival Tim Russert "to several people at NBC" and has told friends that Russert is like John F. Kennedy, while he is more like Richard Nixon.

Question for Chris: Why would you want to be known as more like Richard Nixon?

	Meet the Press (NBC–Russert)	Face the Nation (CBS–Schieffer)	This Week (ABC–Stephanopoulos)
White Men	5	2	14
White Women	1	1	3
Black Men	4	0	1
Brown Men	0	1	0
Black Women	0	0	0
Gay People	0	0	1
Arab Women	0	1	0

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One actual news tidbit from This Week: Condi Rice now appears to be actively campaigning to be John McCain's running mate.

Reporter: Richard Vanderford
Seen Something? E-mail to alert me to anything you see that warrants high praise or high dudgeon.

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Charles Kaiser is the author of The Gay Metropolis and 1968 in America. He has been media editor for Newsweek, a member of the metro staff of the New York Times, and a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, where he covered the press and book publishing. To learn more, visit charleskaiser.com.


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