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Gallagher and Crist

Okay, the new Crist story is on the New Times home page. One of the main knocks against the first story was that it used anonymous sources (whom I knew to be credible). Well, this one's got two named sources who I also believe to be credible and a videotaped sworn statement to back it up. NT is going to post the video tomorrow (Wednesday).

Also, I've already gotten a new tip regarding the source of money for the private investigator who was tracking Crist and the gay rumors. The cash came from ... drum roll, please ... the Tom Gallagher campaign. The campaign apparently gave the money to Tallahassee attorney Steve Andrews, who is named in the story, and Andrews then paid the P.I. That's what I hear anyway.

And, hey, that sounds a lot like politics.

What follows is the full transcript of last night's gubernatorial debate between Charlie Crist, Jim Davis, and Max Linn. It's, um, really long.

CHRIS MATTHEWS, MSNBC HOST: Florida, the state that carried George W. Bush into the White House and elected Jeb Bush twice for governor. A state on the move, where the economy, education, immigration and homeland security are top concerns. Whoever wants to the next president, whether its frontrunners John McCain and Hillary Clinton or possible contenders like Rudy Giuliani and Barack Obama, that person will try to win Florida. But before Florida voters play their key role in picking our next president, just eight days from now, they'll pick a new governor. And that man will lead the state that may well pick the next president. Will it be Republican attorney general Charlie Crist or Democratic Congressman Jim Davis? Their final meeting is tonight, and the stakes are great. The Florida gubernatorial debate happens right now on MSNBC.

Welcome to the second and final gubernatorial debate down here in Florida. We're in Tampa. The candidates are, from the left, attorney general Charlie Crist, U.S. Congressman Jim Davis, and the third party candidate Max Linn. Thank you all for joining us tonight. Because of a toss of the coin, Mr. Davis, you're first. There are 24,000 Floridians serving right now in Iraq. As of today, according to the Pentagon, 2,831 U.S. troops have been killed in Iraq, including 120 troops from Florida. Has this war been worth it? Are we safer now because of the decision to invade and occupy Iraq?

DAVIS: We are not, Chris, because of the way the president is handling this. As a member of Congress, I have fought to pressure the Republican leadership in Congress and George Bush to do something other than stay the course. To pressure the Iraqi government, to take responsibility for our own -- their own security, to pressure the president to work with our allies.Here in Tampa, we have MacDill Air Force Base, where both the Iraqi and Afghanistan operation are being run. And I've had to fight Secretary Rumsfeld to make sure that our troops have the body armor and support they need. Fighters had more guard and reserve in Iraq than almost any state in the country.And as governor, I will continue to speak out, to make sure that not only that we get the job done in Iraq, we get back to fighting terrorism with strong national security. Strong port security. Something I've worked on with Governor Jeb Bush here. A better job of homeland security. But the war in Iraq is not succeeding because the president wants to stay the course and we need a change.

MATTHEWS: One follow-up question, just to clarify that you say we were wrong to go to Iraq.

DAVIS: We were, Chris. And as a member of Congress, I voted to give the president the authority to proceed, based on the intelligence I had. That intelligence was faulty. So I have fought since then to try to get the president to get the job done. But he is not responding. He is simply saying stay the course. That's not the best policy for our country right now.

MATTHEWS: Mr. Crist, the same question to you with the same numbers of course, 120 people from Florida have been killed in that war over there, 2,800 altogether. And you have 24,000 fellow Floridians fighting over there. Was the war worth it? Are we safer today because of the decision to invade?CRIST: I believe THAT we are safer because of the decision to invade. And you know, great people have said before that war is hell. And truly it is. And it is not easy and freedom certainly is not free. My sympathies go out to the parents of those who have lost their lives in this conflict. It's difficult, the most difficult thing I think that I think any president would have to make a decision about.But let's understand where we are and what's really happening. We were attacked on September 11th, 2001. We were attacked in New York City. We were attacked in Washington D.C. We were attacked in Pennsylvania. I think what we've decided to do is to fight to protect Americans, to fight to make sure that the war is not here and that it is somewhere else.The president made a difficult decision, but he made the right decision. Not an easy one, a tough one. Not always popular, but not all decisions are going to be popular. What he decided to do was take the fight to them, to make sure that we're not having this fight here on our soil. We had never been attacked on our soil before but as you all know, and as I know, it happened in New York, it happened at the Pentagon, and it happened in Pennsylvania.

MATTHEWS: Time up, thank you. Let me ask the same question of Mr. Linn. You know the question, sir.

MAX LINN, FLORIDA GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE: Yes, I do. I was against the war before it started. I was against the war when it started. And I'm still against the war and now we have all the facts and the evidence to show that the American people have been

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Doing a little maintenance around here. On the Pulp's right-hand side over there, you'll see that I've finally added two new publications under the "Newspapers" heading. The first is Category305, an online newspaper started by former Miami New Timesers Rebecca Wakefield and Celeste Delgado. Go there early and often -- this is a bold venture that could pave way for the future of the media. Plus the logo art, with the palm tree reflected in the beadlets of water, is gorgeous.

I've also added Six Degrees Magazine, which operates out of Miami. It's a little pocket mag (seriously, it can fit in your pocket). Jake Smith, who happens to be one of my favorite people in this business, left New Times a few weeks back to take over as managing editor of SDM, so I'll let him explain it in his own words:

"It's a tiny magazine, quarter page, and it's distributed free in Miami and Fort Lauderdale's nicer boutiques and bars, also car dealerships and clubs - places like that. We feature a lot of big name celebrities and bands like Drew Barrymore and

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Tampa Tribune

You have to love a debate that transcends the packaged messages and shakes a little truth from the rafters and moderator Chris Matthews and Reform Party candidate Max Linn delivered that last night in the nationally televised gubernatorial match-up. And guess who paid the price?

Charlie Crist, of course.

Linn, as the Miami Herald's Mary Ellen Klas and Beth Reinhard noted in their very well-done story this morning, had the line of the night: ''I traveled to Washington and all I found was an empty chair. And I traveled to Tallahassee, Charlie, and I looked for new direction from you, and all I found was an empty suit.''

Damn that's good. And Matthews made his mark on the debate as well, at times badgering the candidates a bit. He compared Crist to Marion Berry and made Jim Davis say he wasn't a liberal. Such editorializing can cross the line, but bringing in a real personality as moderator can be very revelatory about the candidates as it was last night. To read more, the Sun-Sentinel's Mark Hollis has a sturdy story on the debate and here's the Palm Beach Post's version (by S.V. Date and Brian E. Crowley).

After the jump: Football Fatties and A Damn Good Radio Show

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From Sunday's St. Pete Times:
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"NOT THAT THERE'S ANYTHING WRONG WITH THAT: He's denied it publicly, repeatedly, and clearly, but Republican gubernatorial nominee Charlie Crist has yet to shake the talk that he's gay. There is no evidence that it's hurting his campaign, but the Crist-is-gay chatter that went on during the Republican primary has now ramped up among Democratic activists and liberal bloggers after a South Florida alternative weekly weighed in on the matter.
New Times Broward-Palm Beach did its part to "out" Crist with a recent story based on anonymous,

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Linn

Pretty average day in South Florida newspaperdom -- the Sun-Sentinel chickened out again. Linda Kleindienst wrote a front-page story about how hard it is for third-party gubernatorial candidate Max Linn to get any media despite the fact that he's a lifelong Republican and pumped more than a million dollars of his own money in the race.

Yet she didn't even report the biggest splash Linn has made to date -- namely that he announced that Republican frontrunner Charlie Crist is gay. He knows Crist personally and says the man who has publicly denied being gay told him the truth personally. (Read Julia Reischel's NT cover story to get the facts). I think that firmly establishes that the Sentinel, like most mainstream newspapers, is steering clear of the big question about Crist. Obviously I have taken the opposite tack and explained why I've done so.

Many people have asked me if I'm pissed that most mainstream media didn't pick up my Crist report last week. I tell those people, "No." I can't blame them. It's dicey. While I obviously believe that it's a very important story, it's based on sources who I knew to be credible but wasn't at liberty to name. Young GOP staffer Jason Wetherington, who has told numerous witnesses he had sex with Crist, is in denial mode and reportedly has left the state until the election is over. Bruce Carlton Jordan, whom Wetherington named as Crist's long-term partner, still hasn't surfaced, so I don't know what he's saying.

The story is getting out there, though. It's all over the Internet and Congressional Quarterly recently mentioned it. Oddly, it has this correction on the top of it now:

"Correction: An earlier version of this story appeared to imply that the New Times article was responsible for the renewed discussion of Crist's personal life, and that discussion of it played a predominant role in the decline in Crist's lead in the polls."

Strange. I would say that the article has been, contrary to the "correction," responsible for at least a good portion of the "renewed discussion," but I would agree that it didn't play a predominant role in the decline of Crist's lead in the polls.

Other than CQ, the national CW television network picked it up and splayed it on their "Daily Buzz" feature. Watching it, I must confess, made me cringe and had me thinking that the size of the story as it is right now is just about right. The segment also shamelessly ripped off the story while referring to its source only as "a Broward-Palm Beach paper." Whatever. Watch it here if you must.

After the jump: Post Ignores Another Candidate, Herald Waxes Wasserstrom, and Newspaper Nepotism

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It's so funny to read that state Rep. Mandy Dawson has endorsed Charlie Crist.

"I am encouraging everyone I know to take a look at Charlie's record and reward his brand of leadership in Florida," Dawson wrote in a press release.

Oh dear, Dawson must be back on the painkillers. Doesn't she remember the example of Chris Smith, who thought it was politically expedient to endorse Jeb Bush in 1998 only for it to have nearly kill his career (as it did a few other black politicians who did the same thing).

What's funny is that if you read Elgin Jones these days, you'd think that the black vote in Broward County is seriously shifting to the Republican. Want a laugh? Read this story about "turmoil engulfing" the Davis camp in Broward County. Yes, a major exodus of black voters!! Why he names about three of them, including crackpot pastor O'Neal "Islam Is An Evil Cult" Dozier. Elgin does some of the best reporting in Broward County when he wants to, but this ... well, let's just say that when the numbers from the black precincts come in next Tuesday, we'll see how representative these reports (which the Crist campaign has been posting on its web site) are of the truth.

Thought He Couldn't Go Lower?

The Sun-Sentinel, as it so often does, is taking a dirty local public official to task, investigating the once-popular public servant with a clear-eyed efficiency that can only be described as masterful.

Oh wait, the Sentinel never does that. So what gives?

John Holland and Scott Wyman have found that suspended Hollywood Commissioner Keith Wasserstrom took money from developer Triad Housing Partners at a time when he was trying to get Triad a deal in his own city. The Sentinel has been giving the story big play on the front page, showing the world how it is, after all, a real newspaper.

But here's the problem: Wasserstrom has already been kicked down. He's facing corruption charges and been knocked out of the job. It's so funny, because the Sentinel usually shows great deference to the ethically challenged public officials it covers. So much so that it has failed to break one great corruption story after another. But now, since Wasserstrom has already been knocked down, it's suddenly a big man, strutting around and kicking him into the ground.

Don't take that as a criticism of Holland and Wyman. Their work on Wasserstrom has been exceptional and absolutely warranted. If that newspaper got its head out of the ass of the Broward Alliance and started taking its Fourth Estate duties more seriously, there are a lot of reporters at 200 East Las Olas Boulevard (and the bureaus, can't forget the bureaus) that might be doing the same kind of work.

After the jump: Arza Calls Out His Bitch, Masilotti Exits Stage Left, and DBR Explores The Subpoena Problem

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The death penalty was made for Danny Rolling. I guess if push came to shove I'd vote to abolish state executions, because innocent people sometimes get caught up in it and most of the time it doesn't seem right to me at all. But killing that frowning moping horrow show Rolling almost makes it worthwhile. I'll admit it, I'm just glad the dude's not sucking in air on this planet anymore. It doesn't bother me that he died peacefully while his own victims died in some of the most horrific ways imaginable. It's not about revenge; it's about a little extra peace of mind. Another Death Row denizen like that is Lucious Boyd, the local funeral home scion who raped one woman after another before he started killing his victims. Some of his crimes remain unsolved (Patrece Alston) but his most horrendous act -- the brutal rape and murder of the kind and virginal Dawnia Hope Dacosta -- was well-publicized. He's on Florida's death row right now.

For a good play-by-play on the execution read the article by Marc Caputo and Stephanie Garry in the Miami Herald. Or, even better, read Michael Mayo's Dead Man Walking-turn in the Sun-Sentinel.

After the jump: Foley's Fashionable Rehab, Following Wasserstrom, and Crist's Abortion Take

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Wanted to post a couple things. Actually, wanted to post a lot of things but only have time for a couple. First a story by Kirk Nielsen in the Daily Business Review about the reversal of the $18.3 million "false light" verdict in a defamation suit against the Pensacola News Journal. God is that a relief. False light is when all the facts reported might be true, but the way they're stacked creates a, you got it, "false light." Way too subjective.

Second is this story by Jesse Leavenworth in the Hartford Courant. The Pulp is all over this little essay, which asks this intriguing question: Are newspapers losing ground to the Web because they're just so darn stuffy? I say yes, others say that stuffiness is a time-honored tradition of newspaperdom that should never be abandoned.

Channeling Atwater

Charlie Crist is a darn nice guy. This past Monday after I had finished asking him several somewhat awkward questions about allegations that he was gay, I said, "Well, I'm sure you're busy ...". A lot of candidates in the middle of a suddenly heated gubernatorial election a couple weeks from the vote would have said, "Yes I am. goodbye."

Crist said, "Well, I'm sure you're very busy, too. I know how hard it is to do the kind of work you're doing, especially when you might not be comfortable with some of the questions."

By the time I got off the phone, I felt like voting for him -- and I'm sure he has that effect on the majority of people he has contact with. The problem is that the tone of his campaign is getting farther and farther away from the personal character he displays to the world, aka his chief political strength. As last night's debate showed, it's become a balancing act between Crist the friendly Floridian and Crist the cold campaigner, the alter ego once dubbed Chain Gang

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There were stories on the new PS2 video game Bully in the Palm Beach Post and Sun-Sentinel today. And their takes couldn't have been more divergent. The Post story, by Laura Green, was about the PBC's Superintendent Art Green's take on the game:

"The game rewards everything real schools advise against. Superintendent Art Johnson is so concerned that Bully might undo the district's six-year effort at fighting bullying that he's sending a mass voice mail to parents warning that the game could harm their children. Johnson has not played the game or watched anyone else play it. And, he acknowledged, there are

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We just published this story on the New Times homepage wherein Charlie Crist, I believe for the first time, denies that he has ever had sex with a man and, more specifically, denies he had sex with two particular men who are named in the article.

I wrote the story and I know people are going to question whether I should have written it. They are going to question the use of two anonymous sources (though I know their identities) who say, separately and independently, that a young GOP staffer told them and several other witnesses that he had sex with Crist. They will question the naming of a man whom the staffer told one of those sources was the GOP gubernatorial candidate's long-time partner. They'll question whether this is journalism or just salacious gossip.

So I'll start answering. First, I believe strongly that questioning Crist about his sexuality is not only fair, but important. If he is living a public lie, it's the job of the press to expose that lie. From the Mark Foley and Jim McGreevey scandals, we're learned how damaging such lies can be. I'm not saying that Crist has anything to do with pages or will put lovers on the state payroll, just that if he's not being honest with the populace then we need to know that and try to find out how deep the deception goes.

There is also the issue of hypocrisy. Recently, Crist has become more and more outspoken about his support for an amendment to ban gay marriage and his opposition to adoption by gay couples (as Brian E. Crowley recently reported in the Palm Beach Post). If Crist is gay, I think we would all rather he win the governor's race as an openly gay Republican rather than a closeted liar. If he requires a push, then so be it.

But all these issues are moot if he's not, as so many people seem to believe, gay. It just means that it's a valid journalistic pursuit should evidence surface that suggests he is, indeed, lying. And that is what happened in this case. I didn't go looking for it; it came to me in the form of an e-mail. Then another source came forward completely independent of the first with the same basic information: That GOP staffer Jason Wetherington -- who recently worked on the Katherine Harris U.S. Senate campaign and is now working on Ellyn Bogdanoff's state senate reelection bid -- was telling people that he had sex with

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Cerrella

You can read about the Katherine Harris-Bill Nelson debate here and here, but it wasn't much to see. Nelson was, as always, predictable and plodding, the political equivalent of the old crab scuttling on the bottom of the sea. Harris, as the Sun-Sentinel noted, didn't embarrass herself, really, she just comes across as a joke.

I thought the setting of the debate was the most interesting thing about it. They sparred in the Miniaci Auditorium at Nova Southeastern University. It's a room named for one of Broward County's finest families, the Miniacis. Alfred Miniaci, the late patriarch, came to South Florida from the Bronx nearly four decades ago to ply his trade in the vending machine business. His sons, Albert and Dominick, continue the fine tradition with their company, Paramount Vending.

They're good upstanding folk who give back to the community, so never mind that the family has been mobbed up for years, starting back in New York. Forget that Dominick and Albert were in business with Johnny "Sideburns" Cerella, a Genovese crime family soldier and

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I keep hearing that people thought my last column, called The Last Transcript and supposedly including new Mark Foley IM exchanges with a page, was real. It wasn't. Here are some clues that it was a goof:

The story begins: "In an unprecedented journalistic coup ..."

Who starts a story that way? Then, before the fake transcript, I wrote, "reader discretion is strongly discouraged."

It's a joke, you.

Then the transcript is way too on the nose for Foley to have ever said it. There were lines like, "then i had to drop out of the senate race... no way florida republicans would nominate me... omigod, they hate fags!" and ridiculous exchanges like

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