Who is Michael Kranish?
Is an operative of the Kerry campaign masquerading as a journalist at the Boston Globe?
You be the judge.
Here’s what he said about Kerry in a chat on his book earlier this year, hosted by the Globe:
We describe him as a man of restless intellect, of political ambition, and of great energy and drive, a man who thinks through issues aloud, sometimes to the consternation of aides who are wondering where he will land on an issue. We write about him as a man drawn to danger in some cases, describing how he once piloted a two-seat plane toward the Golden Gate bridge, does aerobatics, and of course who was a very aggressive skipper in Vietnam. he is a man with an innate skepticism of his government in some cases – certainly bred by the Nixon actions during war and Watergate, and evidenced by his investigation of the Iran-contra affair.
Well, obviously we as reporters don’t take a position on the campaign, so I can’t give advice. What I will say is that Kerry’s life story is a fascinating one, with all the things you would look for – dynasty, ambition, love, death, tragedy, triumph, failure. He now seeks the highest office in the land. Although I have spent years covering Kerry, I’m still interested in what this cumulative experience means as far as shaping Kerry’s character and beliefs. I have covered numerous presidential campaigns and I think many political reporters are frustrated when things get reduced to sound bites and simplistic slogans. Here we have tried something different: telling the full story, hopefully in a very fair way, and letting people learn as much as possible about the candidate.
Then how can you write the introduction to a book designed to look for all the world like a product of the Kerry/Edwards campaign, as listed below?
Also, was Kranish leaked confidential information about Dean by the Kerry campaign in December 2003 to begin the deep-sixing of the Vermonter:
By Michael Kranish, Globe Staff, 12/19/2003
WASHINGTON — As part of Howard Dean’s effort to attract companies to set up so-called “captive” insurance businesses in Vermont, he signed legislation that enabled a Bermuda-based company to establish a Vermont branch, which industry analysts said at the time could provide a tax break for the parent firm.
Dean has criticized corporations that incorporate in Bermuda for tax reasons. Yesterday, in a speech prepared for delivery in New Hampshire, Dean said, “It’s time to look behind the fiction that allows corporations to become citizens of places like Bermuda and avoid paying income taxes on their foreign income.”
In May 1999, Dean signed a bill designed to help self-owned, or “captive,” insurance companies that intended to remain offshore. The legislation, for example, allowed an offshore-based captive insurance company to set up a “branch” in Vermont as a way of complying with US labor laws. This occurred when the captive wanted to cover employee benefits, a new form of business for the captives. The branch was not in an actual building, but was an operation run by Vermont-based specialists in the insurance business.
The impact of the legislation was described this way in a 1999 publication called Best’s Review — Property/Casualty Edition: “Although a company has a property/casualty captive established offshore, it would take a tax hit under the US Employee Retirement Income Security Act for lumping the employee benefits in with the captive’s business. By creating a branch captive in the United States — in this case, in Vermont — the company would be spared the tax penalty.”
Remember that one? This was the controversy:
Howard Dean is fond of criticizing politicians who provide tax breaks to “large corporate interests,” and one of his favorite campaign lines is a blast at the Bush administration for doling out tax cuts to top executives of Enron Corp.
But during Dean’s 11 years as Vermont governor, he enacted tax breaks that attracted to the state a “Who’s Who” of corporate America — including Enron — to set up insurance businesses. Indeed, Dean said in 2001 that he wanted Vermont to “overtake Bermuda” as the “world’s largest” haven for a segment of the insurance industry known as “captives,” which refers to firms that help insure their parent companies.
But I’m saving the best for last. Kranish seems to be the one reporter in Washington who actually likes John Kerry and does not find him aloof. CS Monitor, then Globe:
“When I went back to talk to folks who knew him from St. Paul’s and Yale, I was amazed at how many not only remembered him so vividly from the time 40 years ago but many of them still are close to him today…. They would describe him, obviously, as very likeable and not aloof.”
And:
[T]his has been a rap on Kerry for a long time, and I’ve heard him joke about removing the aloof genes, or something like that. He has usually been accessible to us, doing 10 hours of interviews for our seven-part series last year, but he declined to talk to us for the book, which is based on the series.
Really now. It’s one thing to shill for a politician to help discredit his fellow Vietnam vets and to help him destroy his leading political opponent. Where I draw the line is pretending actually to like a man universally described as aloof and out-of-touch.