"Biden doesn’t need a long list of derisive assaults. Just a few. I bet Trump would take the bait."

"In the first debate of the 2020 campaign, Biden took a slap at Trump when the former reality TV host wouldn’t stop interrupting: 'Would you shut up, man? This is so unpresidential.' He also referred to Trump as a 'clown' and a 'racist.' Biden was able to be sharp in his parries with Trump. Belittling him could yield the best payback."

Writes David Corn, in "Here’s How Biden Could Rattle Trump in Their First Debate" (Mother Jones).

There's always this idea of getting under the other guy's skin. Is Trump really someone you can "bait" and "rattle"? 

Here's my post from September 30, 2020, just after the first debate, "Biden tried to aggravate Trump by calling him 'man' over and over."

Is Tara Reade part of Russian disinformation?

Tara Reade just said the default crisis was a distraction manufactured to divert attention from the money being spent on supporting Ukraine, which she called a “money laundering operation.” Yes, she is actively helping Russian disinformation efforts. https://t.co/WoITayYxvy

— David Corn (@DavidCornDC) May 30, 2023

It's hard for Mitt Romney to win the Trump hater's love. So unfair!

Mr. Profile in Courage strikes again! https://t.co/l1kiYKPnxj

— David Corn (@DavidCornDC) January 11, 2019

"In 2010, President Obama’s participation in a similar televised Q. & A. session with congressional Republicans was so well received by politicos and the press..."

"... that it inspired a short-lived bipartisan campaign, called 'Demand Question Time,' to bring the British tradition to the U.S. '[T]here was something riveting and moving about political opponents squaring off for an unfettered and unmoderated discussion of the challenges that face the nation,' *Mother Jones’*s David Corn wrote. 'Though nothing was resolved in terms of policy and legislation, this was a moment of optimism.' Tuesday’s lively Oval Office photo op—a sit-down between the Democratic leaders, Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi, and President Trump and a sullen and silent Mike Pence—was perhaps the closest American politics has come to a repeat of that unusual day.... Repeatedly, in the course of the photo op, Pelosi tried to rein in the discussion... 'We came in here in good faith,' she told reporters, 'and we’re entering into this kind of a discussion in the public view.' Trump, naturally, was less perturbed. 'It’s not bad, Nancy,' he responded. 'It’s called transparency.' Trump’s surliness and Pelosi’s unease aside, the participation of public servants in public discussions about public affairs does seem healthy. It’s a wonder we’ve gone so long with so few of them."

Writes Osita Nwanevu in "Trump, Pelosi, and Schumer’s Oval Office Spat Is an Argument for More Public Debate" (The New Yorker).

Here's an article from Politico from 2010, "Left, right want Obama 'question time.'"

A politically diverse group of bloggers, commentators, techies and politicos on Wednesday will launch an online campaign, Demand Question Time, urging President Barack Obama and GOP congressional leaders to hold regular, televised conversations like the extraordinary exchange in Baltimore on Friday. Original endorsers include Grover Norquist and Eli Pariser, Joe Trippi and Mark McKinnon, Markos Moulitsas and Ed Morrissey, and many more, including Ari Melber, Katrina vanden Heuvel, Ana Marie Cox and Nate Silver. The steering committee is made up of Micah Sifry, David Corn, Mike Moffo, Mindy Finn, Jon Henke and Glenn Reynolds.

"Mother Jones magazine’s editor and chief executive acknowledged on Thursday that they investigated Washington bureau chief David Corn for inappropriate workplace behavior..."

"... warning him about touching female staffers and insensitive descriptions of sexual violence, and would now probe the allegations further in light of two emails written by former staffers in 2014 and 2015 and obtained by POLITICO."

One of the emails, written in 2015 by a former staffer outlining concerns she had heard from other women in the Washington office, said Corn, now 58, made “rape jokes,” “regularly gave [several women] unwelcome shoulder rubs and engaged in uninvited touching of their legs, arms, backs, and waists,” and “made inappropriate comments about women’s sexuality and anatomy.” The other email, from 2014, was by a former female staffer who claimed that Corn “came up behind me and put his hands and arms around my body in a way that felt sexual and domineering.”

ADDED: I guess it's just a coincidence, but clicking on my David Corn tag, I get back to 3 old posts about — of all people — Ashley Judd. (Ashley Judd is in the news lately because she's made accusations of sexual harassment against Harvey Weinstein.)

I wrote on April 9, 2013: "Secret recording of Mitch McConnell strategy session about how to go after Ashley Judd."

"Rand Paul Says Dick Cheney Pushed for the Iraq War So Halliburton Would Profit."

"As the ex-veep blasts Paul for being an isolationist, old video shows the Kentucky senator charging that Cheney used 9/11 as an excuse to invade Iraq and benefit his former company."

AND: Back in February, I said it's crucial for Rand Paul to make us feel that he's not abnormal or weird:

I like Rand Paul. He's got youthful vigor and a libertarian spirit. He can speak, and by speak, I mean he doesn't merely stay on message with excellent talking points. He seems to be speaking from a real and lively mind. He needs to convince us that it's a normal, nonweird mind.

He's losing ground today.

"No one would be in trouble over this scandal if only David Corn had the news judgment to recognize a nonstory."

Says James Taranto. The distinction between this bland chat about things Ashley Judd wrote in her memoir is nothing like the explosive conversation in Bartnicki v. Vopper, the Supreme Court case that said "a stranger's illegal conduct does not suffice to remove the First Amendment shield from speech about a matter of public concern."

[M]embers of the Pennsylvania State Education Association discussed violently retaliating against school board members who were their adversaries in collective-bargaining negotiations. A quote from the tape: "If they're not gonna move for three percent, we're gonna have to go to their, their homes.... To blow off their front porches, we'll have to do some work on some of those guys...."

In Bartnicki, Justice Stevens (joined by Justices O'Connor, Kennedy, Souter, Ginsburg, and Breyer) says there's "a conflict between interests of the highest order — on the one hand, the interest in the full and free dissemination of information concerning public issues, and, on the other hand, the interest in individual privacy and, more specifically, in fostering private speech." But: "The normal method of deterring unlawful conduct is to impose an appropriate punishment on the person who engages in it." And: "It would be quite remarkable to hold that speech by a law-abiding possessor of information can be suppressed in order to deter conduct by a non-law-abiding third party." 

Who secretly recorded the McConnell campaign?

A "longtime local Democratic operative" accuses "leaders of the Progress Kentucky super PAC" of what is, apparently, a felony.

Why was David Corn offered that secret audio of McConnell and his aides talking about how to attack Ashley Judd?

Corn, who won't reveal his source, says he doesn't know and didn't ask, but he guesses it was because he was the one who leaked the "47%" video that wrecked Romney.

Indeed, in the wake of the Romney revelation, Corn has received a mini-flood of would-be audio and video leaks about Washington figures. Some of these have looked promising, but none have become public — yet. Corn said he hasn’t been able to vet them to his satisfaction or work out terms for making them public. He has “passed” on several of the offers for a variety of reasons.

So then the question becomes: Why did Corn publish the McConnell material? He says he made sure it wasn't "faked, doctored or taken out of context," and he sought a response from McConnell, but that doesn't explain why he put effort into this material rather than all that other material in that "mini-flood" of material that now flows his way.

Corn cites "newsworthiness":

“I think voters and citizens have a tremendous right to know almost as much as possible of the elected officials who come before them and ask for their votes,” he said. “I think people can decide for themselves how outrageous [McConnell’s] behavior is, but it gives you a glimpse inside his campaign’s thinking.”

That quote doesn't explain anything at all about why this particular audio is newsworthy. It's a generic statement that would justify publishing the secret recordings of the planning sessions of every political campaign! 

There is absolutely zero particularity about why McConnell's campaign was the one Corn selected from the mini-flood of audio and video leaks that he hasn't vetted yet. One is forced to conclude that Corn wanted to get McConnell. That's a political standard, not the journalistic standard.

It's not "newsworthiness." It's partisanship.

IN THE COMMENTS: Some commenters react to this post by saying, more or less, duh, Mother Jones is partisan. They are missing the fact that the link goes to a front-page Washington Post story elevating Corn in the journalistic profession.

Secret recording of Mitch McConnell strategy session about how to go after Ashley Judd.

David Corn at Mother Jones has lots of audio clips and transcript, but he doesn't tell us who made the tape and gave it to him. Surveillance on a political campaign? If that's not bad, should we revise our opinion about the Watergate burglary?

Corn would like us to think he's got material that's quite nefarious, because "McConnell and his aides considered assaulting Judd for her past struggles with depression and for her religious views." But doesn't every campaign brainstorm about everything that could possibly be used? One campaign aide said:

The gap in the Romney "secret" video: Corn says "the recording device inadvertently turned off"...

... according to his unnamed source who, he says "noticed this quickly and turned it back one [sic]. The source estimates that one to two minutes, maybe less, of recording was missed."

Really only 2 minutes? You sure it wasn't 18 minutes? Could the name of the source be Rosemary?

Mother Jones headline: "On Israel, Romney Trashes Two-State Solution."

David Corn has more material from the secret video:

During the freewheeling conversation, a donor asked Romney how the "Palestinian problem" can be solved. Romney immediately launched into a detailed reply, asserting that the Palestinians have "no interest whatsoever in establishing peace, and that the pathway to peace is almost unthinkable to accomplish."

Romney spoke of "the Palestinians" as a united bloc of one mindset, and he said: "I look at the Palestinians not wanting to see peace anyway, for political purposes, committed to the destruction and elimination of Israel, and these thorny issues, and I say there's just no way."

The full context is also there (along with video) if you scroll down.

What do you think of the way Romney speaks in this video? Obviously, the damaging material will be picked out and exploited by his opponents. That's the way the game is played. But some people might prefer "secret" Romney to the Romney we're used to seeing. He's more direct and clear, less stammering and reticent. And he's long had a problem with seeming inauthentic. Maybe it's time to roll out The Secret Romney.

"There was no pot of gold at the end of the adult-in-the-room rainbow... and there were only so many times Lucy could pull away the football."

An unnamed former Obama aide utters one of the silliest sentences we've ever read.

The context is the third year of Obama's presidency, which "did not produce outcomes sufficient for frustrated liberals [but] mark the end of the compromiser-in-chief" as described by David Corn in his new book, "Showdown: The Inside Story of Obama's Fight to Save His Presidency."

Speaking of Corn's new book, Instapundit has a story about Corn yelling at a manager at a Barnes & Noble over the stores failure to give his book its own display.

Top ten bin Laden memes.

According to Jim Pinkerton....

"WikiLeaks Fallout: Should Hillary Clinton Resign?"

Asks David Corn.

Clinton... signed orders instructing U.S. foreign service officers to spy on the diplomats of other nations....

Diplomats are not spies (though spies do pose as diplomats)....

The administration's strategy -- as is to be expected -- is to focus on the easy-to-demonize messenger, not the hard-to-explain message. But Diplomatgate ought to be a top priority for the oversight committees of Congress....

... [O]ne can expect Clinton to dig in her heels, as the administration decries the leaker and ignores the leaks.

Do we Americans really want our President doing "Question Time"?

I wonder how that would go. Should the President be spending his time like that? Would it undermine the independence of the second branch of government? This isn't Britain, you know. I think we should be careful about getting too jazzed up about Obama's performance at the Republican retreat last week.

"The thing that made Friday interesting was the spontaneity," Axelrod said. "If you slip into a kind of convention, then conventionality will overtake the freshness of that."

Yes, the Prez would get unfresh. That is: tired. And we need him to be doing things that are not done in front of cameras. American politics is already too much of a show. That's why we ended up with Obama as President in the first place! 

Anyway, there's this petition, "Demand Question Time." David Corn, Mother Jones' Washington bureau chief, says:

"None of us are naive and believe that implementing Question Time will cure what ails our country and our political process. We do realize that if QT does become a Washington routine, politicians and their aides will do what they can to game it to their advantage. But even though there are problems with the presidential debates — which have been taken over by the political parties and a corporate-sponsored commission — those events still have value. If you want more Question Time — even if only for its entertainment value — you can saddle up with dozens (and maybe it will turn into hundreds, thousands, and millions) of your fellow Americans in calling on our elected representatives to show us their best stuff on a regular basis."

That's an endorsement? It has some value. Bleh.

"Is Obama under-performing because he’s black?"

That's an ambiguous way to put it!