What is Up with CNN's Carol Costello? She Owes Us More on the "Daddy's Roommate" Story or Owes Ed Koch an Apology

In this interview with former New York Mayor Ed Koch, CNN anchor Carol Costello goes after Koch and the New York Times on the story that then Wasilla Mayor Sarah Palin sought ways to possibly ban books at the local public library.

Costello says that CNN has disproved the story and that the New York Times was wrong. Was Costello up to date on the latest?

This was from a page one profile of Palin by Jo Becker, Peter S. Goodman and Michael Powell in yesterday's New York Times:

The new mayor also tended carefully to her evangelical base. She appointed a pastor to the town planning board. And she began to eye the library. For years, social conservatives had pressed the library director to remove books they considered immoral.

"People would bring books back censored," recalled former Mayor John Stein, Ms. Palin's predecessor. "Pages would get marked up or torn out."

Witnesses and contemporary news accounts say Ms. Palin asked the librarian about removing books from the shelves. The McCain-Palin presidential campaign says Ms. Palin never advocated censorship.

But in 1995, Ms. Palin, then a city councilwoman, told colleagues that she had noticed the book "Daddy's Roommate" on the shelves and that it did not belong there, according to Ms. Chase and Mr. Stein. Ms. Chase read the book, which helps children understand homosexuality, and said it was inoffensive; she suggested that Ms. Palin read it.

"Sarah said she didn't need to read that stuff," Ms. Chase said. "It was disturbing that someone would be willing to remove a book from the library and she didn't even read it."

"I'm still proud of Sarah," she added, "but she scares the bejeebers out of me."

CNN can't just diss a story and say it's not true in an offhand way interviewing Ed Koch.

Where is the CNN story stating that the pressure that Palin allegedly exerted to have Daddy's Roommate removed from the shelves of the Wasilla Public Library was fabricated?

The New York Times offered witnesses. Is CNN saying that they are lying? Do they communicate this through a chatty response to Ed Koch?

Carol Costello said that CNN found that story to be false -- but I find nothing in CNN's archives to show that that is the case.

New York Times correspondent Michael Powell is not a fabricator or spin artist. Ironically, the last time I saw Michael Powell was in CNN's Grill in Denver.

Carol Costello needs to give us an update. She spent a lot of time knocking back Koch for his take on the New York Times piece.

She either owes us more of the story from CNN -- or she owes Koch and the rest of us an apology.

-- Steve Clemons publishes the popular political blog, The Washington Note

Comments

[dbm1966]

Thanks for reportng this. Costello spoke with such conviction that the story about banning books was disproved by CNN. I go to CNN.com every day for news and don't recall seeing such a report. I don't recall seeing such a report anywhere. She was tough on Mayor Koch for sticking to his guns and saying that he believed the New York Times, and it did not retract the story. He did very well. Given her repeated statement that this story was not true, I think she owes her viewers an explanation for why she made such a statement without what appears to be any basis in fact.

[maxfax]

Costello is all about her, not about the story and telling the truth.

She should be fired.

[Gould123]

Cnn bias is showing again, and always! Get use to it in this election!

[imajoebob]

I was very disturbed watching CNN on Sunday (Sep 14). They did a number of "analyses" of the campaign, and almost every one used a distinctly conservative - though not neocon - journalist, and paired them with an overt pro-McCain writer or pundit. There was absolutely no semblance of balance. And the guy they had on Saturday night/Sunday with his special program on race was just as slanted.

I'm used to the mid-day talking heads on MSNBC (lipstick pitbulls, as it were), but it's a really puzzling turn for CNN.

[dc2nm]

I REALLY miss Tim Russert. There is no one in the media asking the fair, hard-hitting questions he asked of both sides. There is no journalist out there that knows the facts.

[Gould123]

DiDo dc2nm!

[jaymax4]

She can be off sometimes, though we shouldn't slam her. Give her a chance to collect the facts and bring them out, which I hope she will do, if only for her own credibility.

[WFV]

Just what we need, America: a politician with a closed mind who feels she already knows what she needs to know and isn't open to new/additional information.

So we trade the cowboy hat for a beehive. Is this change? No, it's more of the same.

[Palmz]

So you bring guests on and when they make statements (or try to make statements) you don't give them a chance because it does not align with your organization's viewpoint?

"CNN is better that the NY Times"

I could make a joke here but, It's Carol. Who cares what she thinks?

[FreedomFries]

CNN just announced that their "proof" that the censorship story was false is buried in a shipping container in Iraq with multiple WMD's and their integrity.

[contemporarymom]

Are you kidding me? CNN in support of Repubs you guys are crazy.

Wolf Blitzer can't say anything positive about any repub without gritting his teeth and spitting it out.

I'll agree CNN has lost credibility, most trusted? Hardly, when the National Enquirer is reporting that a candidate who had recently run for Prez was possibly spending campaign monies to cover an affair, then most trusted is a load of garbage.

CNN might be playing "hardball" now only because they feel in the end it will help Obama. They've asked better tougher questions of Sara only because of their hatred then they have ever, ever thought of asking Obama.

[Alterion]

Palin shows very limited knowledge of the isssues. That's not a problem for me - she can always learn what she needs to know.

What really scares me about her is when she says, 'You can't blink', and I don't know how many times she says, 'We can't second guess..'

So... you're going to make a decision without being fully informed, and then not second guess it?

Politicians should have the willpower to second guess themselves - no its not 'Strong' to never question yourself, its weak and dangerous.

[herhonor]

"That's not a problem for me - she can always learn what she needs to know. "

you can't be serious!!! a person needs to already in their head: the Constitution, most of the CFR (or at least the critical parts), the chain of command (how,who what where and why) and a fair history of the world and this country. Palin has 50 days to learn what it has taken a lifetime for the other candidates (and the rest of us) to learn. This WhiteHouse isn't a tech school with OJT. Palin conceivably could be president , say , Nov 30th 2008 (God forbid)

[eft]

I'm wondering why no one has listed these kinds of occurrences on her wikipedia entry? I'd think it'd be especially relevant since she's a journalist. Isn't that analogous to... say... something like omitting plagiarism from the Jayson Blair entry?

[dcree77]

Someone removed it. When Sarah Palin was first announced, there was an entry regarding allegations that she attempted to ban books in the public library.

[spectacularbid]

i had never heard of carol but she is clearly a mccain lackey. what an embarrassment to cnn.

[vincealy]

Hell that interview was fair and balanced compared to the advertising job they did with the candidate profiles . Just listen to the music. CNN really has become the PR firm for Palin; disgusting.

[fuzzywuzzy6]

I saw "Sarah Palin Revealed" yesterday on CNN. One of the male reporters was glowing so much he looked like a teenybopper reading Tiger Beat. When the former mayor, a Christian, Mr. Stein, was asked to criticize Palin, he simply smiled, shook his head, and said, "No." There have been reports of repubs going out to stifle criticism of Palin. Maybe Stein was just being circumspect or was afraid of reprisals.

It was hardly a balanced look at Palin and did not cover her policies. It covered her days on the hs basketball team, her entry into the beauty pageant. It did mention that she went to 5 or 6 schools before getting a journalism degree. She started out as a tv sports reporter,the went on to news. Then it covered her political progress.

No in-depth look at her frightening religious beliefs and how they would affect any decisions regarding political action, civil rights for religious and racial minorities, when she thinks the world will end, the right for women to choose in certain strictly medical situations involving horrible diseases which are terminal and often quite painful that the child may be born with.

This was a puff piece, the sort one would read while waiting at a supermarket check-out counter. Sarah Palin revealed? Playboy could have done a better job with its Playboy Bunny profiles.

[FogBelter]

It's called propaganda Steve, whether the story was true or not doesn't matter ... she's paid to read copy, and support the editorial line of CNN.

[Marcospinelli]

A reporter who wrote the article for The Frontiersman in 1996 now says Emmons told him Palin did mention three books that she wanted removed from the shelves.

Paul Stuart is semiretired, though he still occasionally contributes articles to a weekly paper, the Mountain Ear, in Conway, N.H., where he lives.

Stuart told PolitiFact that in a conversation with Emmons after his article ran, she listed three titles. He said he could recall only two, and initially said they were I Told My Parents I"m Gay and I Asked My Sister. We looked for these titles; they don"t appear to exist.

"Mary Ellen told me that Palin asked her directly to remove these books from the shelves," Stuart said. "She refused."

Asked later if the first book could have been Pastor, I am Gay, a controversial book written by a pastor who lives just outside Wasilla, Stuart said that was it.

Howard Bess, author of Pastor, I am Gay and former pastor of Church of the Covenant in nearby Palmer, recalls that his book challenging Christians to re-examine their ideas about and prejudices against gays and lesbians was not well received in Wasilla when it was published in 1995 " the year before Palin was elected mayor.

Virtually every book store in Wasilla refused to sell it.

Bess said he gave two copies to the Wasilla Library, but they quickly disappeared. So he donated more copies.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/704/