On The Ninth Congressional District (The Dividing Factor)

(ScreenCap: TFC) Revised

UPDATE (8/7): Watching Good Morning Memphis, Ernie Freeman called Musurlian "rude"--and he was not. Reporter Curtis Jay said Musurlian was trying to push his way past Cohen's aids--he did not.

Most importantly, Cohen basically slandered all Armenians in America--or "those people"--as being terrorists.

ON WREG:

During the altercation, a person working for Cohen called police. "They're male. Two males who are threatening the Congressman," the man said on the phone.

So, who will be the first to get the 911 call?

And isn't "threatening" an overstatement? At no point, did Musurlian--or even the WREG cameraman who was also stopped at the door and recorded that call--threaten to do harm to Cohen.



UPDATE: According to Politico, EMILY's List has chastised Tinker for her attack ads--and as an unrelated, but related, result Tinker removed her latest ad from YouTube.

Whatever.

Also, to show how dependent Cohen has become on national media, a CA excerpt:

Those ads brought Tinker took another blast when MSNBC's Keith Olbermann named her tonight as his "Worst Person in the World," a regular over-the-top satire on his program.

The Cohen campaign quickly sent out a release pointing out that Olbermann had said the KKK ad has "a very disturbing meaning."

"It has no place from a Democratic candidate, nor a Republican candidate, nor a white candidate, nor a black candidate. It is shameful," Olbermann said.

So, isn't Cohen the same person who said that outsiders should stay out of the race? I guess that depends on who is supporting him.

BTW: Olbermann calls Tinker a "Congresswoman." Does he even fact check?

Flyer.

UPDATE: According to Fox13, Musurlian pressed charges against Cohen for shoving him.

Not a good press day for him. Here are some points to take from the video:

1) Cohen is extremely comfortable with the local media. He has to be in order to invite them to his home.

2) He lost his cool in the presence of reporters that he thought would take his side verbatim or more importantly probably wouldn't show video that put him in an unflattering light.

3) Also, after his outburst, he probably expected the local media to regurgitate his side of the story without question--which, to their credit, they didn't for the most part.

4) Cohen has become an national figure and this incident shows how his actions on a larger scale can have repercussions locally.

5) It shows how offensive Cohen can be with his off-the-cuff remarks.

6) And lastly, lest Cohen thinks everyone loves him unequivocally, he needs to think again. And people think Barack Obama is presumptuous.

The CA updated:

Cohen has often spoken of his pride in stopping the resolution, saying that during his Congressional trip to the Middle East that he specifically asked Gen. David Petraeus, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, about the ramifications of passing a resolution that Turkey vowed would cause it to cut off all aid to the U.S. effort in Iraq.

“I’m proud of what I did,” Cohen said. “Gen. Petraeus, when I went to Baghdad, I asked him what his position was on the Armenian resolution and he said, ‘I am glad you brought that up. That would be very devastating to our troops.’ The Turks are our friends in NATO, they allow 8,000 trucks a day through Turkey into Iraq to serve our troops with supplies and needs. Those trucks could be stopped and the Turks are very serious about that. They allow us to use our airbase.

“’He said, ‘That would be really devastating to our mission.’ While I am against the mission of the Iraq war, I am for protecting our troops. And to pass that resolution would have been irresponsible and the Congress saw that. President Carter and President Clinton both opposed it because they said we shouldn’t be doing that to upset the Turks.

“Determining what happened in history when it is a foreign nation and something we had nothing to do with is not the job of the United States Congress. It’s a job for historians. The bottom line is at this time in 2007 and 2008 and possibly in 2009 it is the last thing to throw in the face of one of our few allies in the Middle East.”

This isn't quite a Catch-22. I mean, there are parties who believe that Turkey can be held accountable for the genocide and still remain a partner in the Iraq War. An unstable Iraq is really not in Turkey's best interest--resolution or not. So his stance has holes in it.

Musurlian also appeared on The Mike Fleming Radio Program this afternoon.

UPDATE (8/6): Cohen is no friend of Armenian activists.

Well, according to the Commercial Appeal, Cohen got into a pushing match with one activist/journalist who followed the media inside of his home for a press conference about the Tinker ads. An excerpt:

Peter Musurlian of Globalist Films in Glendale, Calif., followed a reporter from The Commercial Appeal into Cohen’s Overton Park home, where the Congressman had invited local media to respond to a commercial from Nikki Tinker, his 9th Congressional District opponent in Thursday’s Democratic Primary, that Cohen labeled as “more mudslinging.”

When members of Cohen’s staff realized who the cameraman was – he had followed Cohen around on Tuesday night at National Night Out neighborhood events – they told him he was not invited and asked him to leave.

Musurlian refused, saying he deserved a place in the open press conference, and continued arguing before Cohen got off his couch and angrily told Musurlian to leave, accusing him of trespassing into his private home without invitation.

Then Cohen said, “You come outside, I’m going to talk to you. I’ll give you an interview.” When Musurlian retreated to the threshold, Cohen put both hands on his arms, forced him from the house and shut the door.

Musurlian's bio. (On an interesting note, the breaking news story was on the CA's homepage but it's no longer there. UPDATE: It's back.)

WREG: The man says he supports Tinker. Fox13: The RAW VIDEO! WMC. (It's Glendale, not Berndale.)

A NOTE: To understand Armenian anger at Cohen, he is working against a resolution that would take Turkey to task for what is being called the 1915 Armenian Genocide, in which more than 1.2 million Armenians were killed by the Ottoman empire. The resolution has met with resistance because members of Congress feel that it would alienate Turkey, which the U.S. needs for the war in Iraq. A quote from 2007:

“I’ve got the compassion for the people, the Armenians that are fighting for their ancestors,” said Representative Steve Cohen, a Tennessee Democrat who visited Iraq this month. “But these are real-life situations, and sometimes your heart has to give in to your head and do what makes sense for your country.”

More angst. Is this a Catch-22 for Cohen, who is seriously anti-war in Iraq?

UPDATE (8/6): While Walter Bailey is staunchly defending the errant Forrest ad (Fox13), the Tinker campaign launched a new attack ad, entitled "Religious Liberty."

Set to the backdrop of a classic children's prayer, the ad attacks Cohen as a hypocrite for showing up in churches and offering praises while he voted against allowing school prayer when he was a state legislator in 1997.



Tennessee Student Religious Liberty Act of 1997. Hmm, is it a smart move? Well, it's definitely an improvement over the Forrest ad.

Still, it's even more risky because someone will accuse Tinker of anti-Semitism even though the ad doesn't mention Cohen's religion at all. Still, it says "our churches," which could be construed as a slight but that's still a reach that says more about the person making that connection than the ad itself.

I'm just sayin, is Cohen a Teflon candidate? I think not.

(ScreenCap: WMC) Originally posted 8/3; Click the conversation for more.

UPDATED (8/5): Walter Bailey is advising the Tinker campaign, which explains the ad that's catching so much flak.

And just when you think that the Commercial Appeal is going to scrutinize Cohen's ads, it doesn't. Sigh.

An excerpt:

In his two most recent campaign commercials, 9th District Congressman Steve Cohen spends valuable seconds of airtime explaining a most mundane electoral process.

"You need to ask for a Democratic ballot on Thursday to vote for me," he says in the latest, created especially to run on Comedy Central's satirical late-night show, "The Colbert Report." He said the same thing in another spot, "Greatest Honor," and Memphis radio listeners have heard Cohen provide instructions in even greater detail.

In his attempt to run up votes in the Democratic primary contest against Nikki Tinker, Joe Towns Jr. and two other candidates, Cohen is not being subtle in urging those who might not normally request a Democratic ballot to do so and vote for him.

"The most obvious thing is there is no Republican in the general election," said Jerry Austin, Cohen's campaign manager. "That's the point. Basically, for Republicans in the 9th District, this is their general election for Congress."

The Tinker campaign continues to charge that it is Cohen's campaign, and not hers, that is pushing race-obsessed angles. While the Cohen campaign pushes its belief that Tinker is, as Austin has put it, "Running a one-note campaign: Vote for the black woman."

So to recap, Cohen is ONLY giving party PSAs. Right? And if the media believes that, his campaign manager can see more than just race.

Tha MATT.

UPDATED (8/4): Fox13 focused on Tinker's Bailey ad. The station also plans to interview the three major candidates in the Democratic primary; Nikki Tinker was first tonight. (The unedited interview.)

ORIGINAL POST (8/3): U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen opened a Pandora's box with last week's House resolution that apologized for slavery and Jim Crow, and, as the Commercial Appeal noted Saturday and explored more today, the first unrelated, but related, attack ad from the Nikki Tinker for Congress campaign has been making waves.

The ad features former Shelby County Commissioner Walter Bailey criticizing Cohen for failing to support his 2005 drive to remove the vestiges of the Confederacy (i.e. the Nathan Bedford Forrest statue and grave on Union) from local parks.

And since Gen. Forrest was involved in the Ku Klux Klan, the ad dutifully shows flashes of a KKK rally--an undeniable example of the "virulent racism" mentioned in Cohen's resolution.

The ad was set to start airing on Friday, according to the CA.

So, has it? If not, why not?

The CA and WMC have both reported on the ad but the CA hasn't linked to it and it's unclear if WMC has allowed it to run as a commercial. Is that because of the subject matter? (Update: WMC confirmed that it has aired the ad.)

The ad is not even featured on Tinker's scant and barely-updated Web site. Is that the result of lazy Web skills, backlash and/or second-guessing?
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Let's rewind for a sec to 2005, when Bailey, Cleo Kirk and Julian Bolton were fighting against term limits that prevented them from running again. As a true red herring before the curtain fell, Bailey started huffing about the parks dedicated to folks with Confederate ties and pushed unsuccessfully to whitewash that aspect of the city's history. He focused on the Forrest statue; Cohen, then a member of the Center City Commission, voted not to remove it. (On another note, when did that park become 'Medical Center' park?)

With that in mind, revisiting Bailey is another recycled issue for a campaign that, in and of itself, is recycled and struggling for freshness when it shouldn't be.

I'm just sayin, though I understand the opening that Cohen's resolution gave the Tinker campaign to show how out of touch he might be, the Confederacy topic is just as much of a non-issue for whites and blacks as that apology.

(On the Confederacy issue, leave the Forrest statue and grave alone. It's detestable that anyone would argue for whitewashing that aspect of the city's and the South's history. Yes, Gen. Forrest owned slaves but so did others, including some free blacks. Most importantly, Gen. Forrest rebuked the violent ways for which the Klan became notorious. He tried to disband it. Give the man some redemption credit where it's due. We could learn something.)

But I digress.
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Given that politics is a local sport, I'm continually disappointed by the lack of blow-by-blow accounts and scrutiny of nuances.

While so much energy is being vested in Tinker's ads, there's little attention paid to Cohen's.

He touts bringing high paying jobs to Memphis but the unemployment rate casts some serious doubts about that and raises even more questions about what Cohen--or any Congressional figure, for that matter--can really do to prevent companies from leaving Shelby County for other places like DeSoto County.

He touts adding more cops but there's a shortage of qualified and available officers.

He touts his creation of The Med but the hospital is in dire straits.

And it's important for the media to ask him these questions because he is, after all, the incumbent and likely will be for some time.
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I wish that was because he simply has more experience but that's not the case.

In a tight race, Cohen will always have problems, which is one reason why he's thankful for state Rep. Joe Town's head-scratching and base-diluting campaign.

I just want Cohen to be Cohen, not some person who is continually trying to prove just how much of a black woman he is.

Because the more he tries, the more he divides the very district he represents.

*Tha MATT. (For the record, Tinker's ad doesn't link Cohen to the KKK. It does question Cohen's stance on an issue involving the Confederacy, which isn't synonymous with the KKK either.

To a larger point, though, will every criticism of Cohen by a black person who doesn't agree with him be dismissed as race-baiting? If so, that's really divisive and dangerous.