Glenn Kessler
Encyclopedia
Glenn Kessler is a veteran diplomatic correspondent who writes the popular "Fact Checker" column for The Washington Post
, in which he examines the truth behind political and diplomatic rhetoric.
and the author of The Confidante: Condoleezza Rice and the Creation of the Bush Legacy. The book, which revealed new details on the making of Bush administration’s foreign policy, was described as “brilliantly reported” by the New York Times Book Review and generated news articles and reviews in two dozen countries around the world.
Kessler's reporting played a role in two foreign policy controversies during the presidency of George W. Bush
. He was called to testify in the trial of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, in which he was questioned about a 2003 telephone conversation with Libby in which the name of Valerie Plame
, a CIA operative, might have been discussed. (Libby recalled they had discussed Plame; Kessler said they did not.) Meanwhile, a 2004 telephone conversation between Kessler and Steve J. Rosen
, a senior official at American Israel Public Affairs Committee
(AIPAC), was at the core of the AIPAC leaking case.
The federal government recorded the call and made it the centerpiece of its 2005 indictment of Rosen and an alleged co-conspirator; the charges were dropped in 2009.
The Wall Street Journal
called Kessler "one of the most aggressive journalists on the State Department beat." Kessler, a specialist on nuclear proliferation
(especially in Iran
and North Korea
) and the Middle East
, wrote the first article on the North Korea nuclear facility being built in Syria
that was destroyed by Israeli jets. He was immediately attacked for spreading neoconservative propaganda but his reporting turned out to be correct and apologies were later offered. In a lengthy article, Kessler also revealed the Bush administration's internal decision-making that led to the Iraq war. He traveled with three different Secretaries of State -- Colin Powell
, Condoleezza Rice
and Hillary Rodham Clinton
-- and for several years wrote a blog about his experiences on those trips. An article he wrote on apparent tensions between Rice and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld
during a 2006 trip to Iraq was later denounced by Rumsfeld as "just fairly typical Washington Post stuff."
Kessler joined The Washington Post in 1998 as the national business editor and later served as economic policy reporter. Kessler also was a reporter with Newsday
for eleven years, covering the White House
, politics
, the United States Congress
, airline safety and Wall Street
. His investigative articles on airline safety led to the indictments of airline executives and federal officials for fraud, prompted congressional hearings into safety issues and spurred the federal government to impose new safety rules for DC-9 jets and begin regular inspections of foreign airlines. He won the Premier Award from the Aviation Space Writers Association and the investigative reporting award from the Society of the Silurians.
At Newsday, Kessler shared in two Pulitzer Prizes given for spot news reporting.
.” Advocates on both the right and the left have criticized him for some of his rulings, and he is regularly denounced as being either a liberal or a conservative. Yet other readers have praised him for apparently even-handed treatment of both parties.
Kessler gave Four Pinocchios to Mitt Romney
for claiming President Obama went on an “apology tour” overseas, but he also has regularly given as many as Four Pinocchios to Democrats for attacks on the House Republican plan for Medicare. A writer for the New York Times said that Kessler’s analysis of Obama’s statements on the Israel-Palestinian conflict should be “should be required reading this week for those wishing for a clearer understanding.”
A columnist for the Wall Street Journal attacked the whole idea of awarding Pinocchios as akin to movie-reviewing, saying “the ‘fact check’ is opinion journalism or criticism, masquerading as straight news. The conservative-leaning Power Line
political blog devoted three articles to critiquing one of Kessler’s articles, calling him a “liberal reporter,” and noting that “these ‘fact-checkers’ nearly always turn out to be liberal apologists who don a false mantle of objectivity in order to advance the cause of the Democratic Party.” Kessler’s awarding of Four Pinocchios to GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain
for comments he made on Margaret Sanger
and the founding of Planned Parenthood
was also criticized by opponents of abortion.
The liberal-leaning Talking Points Memo
took Kessler to task for giving Four Pinocchios to a Democratic web petition on Medicare
, saying the errors he allegedly made “were not just small misses, but big belly flop misses.” The Obama White House issued a statement titled “Fact Checking the Fact Checker” after Kessler gave Obama Three Pinocchios for statements he made on the auto industry bailout. The Democratic National Committee
released a statement denouncing “Kessler’s hyperbolic, over the top fact check of the DNC’s assertion that Mitt Romney supports private Social Security accounts.”
In a letter to Power Line, Kessler wrote: “I have no political convictions but to the truth....Don’t assume my politics, because either from the right or left, no one really has any clue. I am strictly nonpartisan—which, to some people, appears to be the most irritating thing of all.”. Politico has reported that Kessler "sometimes struggles with his own measure of truth or 'truthiness,' the Pinocchio...but that it offers him a measure of consistency and is defined in a way that avoids presuming that someone intended to mislead. The obvious truths and falsehoods are relatively easy to assign, but the area in the middle can be hazy. “'Two and three Pinocchios, that gets difficult,' he said.”
, with his wife and three children.
Kessler is a great-grandson of Jean Baptiste August Kessler, who was largely responsible for the growth and development of the Royal Dutch Shell
(Shell Oil Company
) and a grandson of Geldolph Adriaan Kessler, who helped create the Dutch steel industry. He was born in Cincinnati, where his father, Adriaan Kessler, was an executive at Procter & Gamble
, and he attended high school there and in Lexington, Kentucky
.
Kessler is a 1981 graduate of Brown University
and received a Masters of International Affairs in 1983 from the School of International and Public Affairs
at Columbia University
.
The Washington Post
The Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...
, in which he examines the truth behind political and diplomatic rhetoric.
Career
Kessler is a member of the Council on Foreign RelationsCouncil on Foreign Relations
The Council on Foreign Relations is an American nonprofit nonpartisan membership organization, publisher, and think tank specializing in U.S. foreign policy and international affairs...
and the author of The Confidante: Condoleezza Rice and the Creation of the Bush Legacy. The book, which revealed new details on the making of Bush administration’s foreign policy, was described as “brilliantly reported” by the New York Times Book Review and generated news articles and reviews in two dozen countries around the world.
Kessler's reporting played a role in two foreign policy controversies during the presidency of George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
. He was called to testify in the trial of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, in which he was questioned about a 2003 telephone conversation with Libby in which the name of Valerie Plame
Valerie Plame
Valerie Elise Plame Wilson , known as Valerie Plame, Valerie E. Wilson, and Valerie Plame Wilson, is a former United States CIA Operations Officer and the author of a memoir detailing her career and the events leading up to her resignation from the CIA.-Early life :Valerie Elise Plame was born on...
, a CIA operative, might have been discussed. (Libby recalled they had discussed Plame; Kessler said they did not.) Meanwhile, a 2004 telephone conversation between Kessler and Steve J. Rosen
Steve J. Rosen
Steven J. Rosen served for 23 years as one of the top officials of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee . He is regarded as an influential and controversial figure in the "pro-Israel movement", often singled out in writings critical of AIPAC...
, a senior official at American Israel Public Affairs Committee
American Israel Public Affairs Committee
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee is a lobbying group that advocates pro-Israel policies to the Congress and Executive Branch of the United States...
(AIPAC), was at the core of the AIPAC leaking case.
The federal government recorded the call and made it the centerpiece of its 2005 indictment of Rosen and an alleged co-conspirator; the charges were dropped in 2009.
The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal is an American English-language international daily newspaper. It is published in New York City by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corporation, along with the Asian and European editions of the Journal....
called Kessler "one of the most aggressive journalists on the State Department beat." Kessler, a specialist on nuclear proliferation
Nuclear proliferation
Nuclear proliferation is a term now used to describe the spread of nuclear weapons, fissile material, and weapons-applicable nuclear technology and information, to nations which are not recognized as "Nuclear Weapon States" by the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons, also known as the...
(especially in Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
and North Korea
North Korea
The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea , , is a country in East Asia, occupying the northern half of the Korean Peninsula. Its capital and largest city is Pyongyang. The Korean Demilitarized Zone serves as the buffer zone between North Korea and South Korea...
) and the Middle East
Middle East
The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...
, wrote the first article on the North Korea nuclear facility being built in Syria
Syria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....
that was destroyed by Israeli jets. He was immediately attacked for spreading neoconservative propaganda but his reporting turned out to be correct and apologies were later offered. In a lengthy article, Kessler also revealed the Bush administration's internal decision-making that led to the Iraq war. He traveled with three different Secretaries of State -- Colin Powell
Colin Powell
Colin Luther Powell is an American statesman and a retired four-star general in the United States Army. He was the 65th United States Secretary of State, serving under President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2005. He was the first African American to serve in that position. During his military...
, Condoleezza Rice
Condoleezza Rice
Condoleezza Rice is an American political scientist and diplomat. She served as the 66th United States Secretary of State, and was the second person to hold that office in the administration of President George W. Bush...
and Hillary Rodham Clinton
Hillary Rodham Clinton
Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton is the 67th United States Secretary of State, serving in the administration of President Barack Obama. She was a United States Senator for New York from 2001 to 2009. As the wife of the 42nd President of the United States, Bill Clinton, she was the First Lady of the...
-- and for several years wrote a blog about his experiences on those trips. An article he wrote on apparent tensions between Rice and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld
Donald Rumsfeld
Donald Henry Rumsfeld is an American politician and businessman. Rumsfeld served as the 13th Secretary of Defense from 1975 to 1977 under President Gerald Ford, and as the 21st Secretary of Defense from 2001 to 2006 under President George W. Bush. He is both the youngest and the oldest person to...
during a 2006 trip to Iraq was later denounced by Rumsfeld as "just fairly typical Washington Post stuff."
Kessler joined The Washington Post in 1998 as the national business editor and later served as economic policy reporter. Kessler also was a reporter with Newsday
Newsday
Newsday is a daily American newspaper that primarily serves Nassau and Suffolk counties and the New York City borough of Queens on Long Island, although it is sold throughout the New York metropolitan area...
for eleven years, covering the White House
White House
The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...
, politics
Politics
Politics is a process by which groups of people make collective decisions. The term is generally applied to the art or science of running governmental or state affairs, including behavior within civil governments, but also applies to institutions, fields, and special interest groups such as the...
, the United States Congress
United States Congress
The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....
, airline safety and Wall Street
Wall Street
Wall Street refers to the financial district of New York City, named after and centered on the eight-block-long street running from Broadway to South Street on the East River in Lower Manhattan. Over time, the term has become a metonym for the financial markets of the United States as a whole, or...
. His investigative articles on airline safety led to the indictments of airline executives and federal officials for fraud, prompted congressional hearings into safety issues and spurred the federal government to impose new safety rules for DC-9 jets and begin regular inspections of foreign airlines. He won the Premier Award from the Aviation Space Writers Association and the investigative reporting award from the Society of the Silurians.
At Newsday, Kessler shared in two Pulitzer Prizes given for spot news reporting.
Controversies as Washington Post Fact Checker
As Washington Post Fact Checker, Kessler rates statements by politicians, usually on a range of one to four Pinocchios. If the statement is truthful, the person will get a rare “GeppettoGeppetto
Mister Geppetto, a fictional character, is the creator of Pinocchio in the 1883 novel, 1940 film and subsequent versions.Geppetto may also refer to:...
.” Advocates on both the right and the left have criticized him for some of his rulings, and he is regularly denounced as being either a liberal or a conservative. Yet other readers have praised him for apparently even-handed treatment of both parties.
Kessler gave Four Pinocchios to Mitt Romney
Mitt Romney
Willard Mitt Romney is an American businessman and politician. He was the 70th Governor of Massachusetts from 2003 to 2007 and is a candidate for the 2012 Republican Party presidential nomination.The son of George W...
for claiming President Obama went on an “apology tour” overseas, but he also has regularly given as many as Four Pinocchios to Democrats for attacks on the House Republican plan for Medicare. A writer for the New York Times said that Kessler’s analysis of Obama’s statements on the Israel-Palestinian conflict should be “should be required reading this week for those wishing for a clearer understanding.”
A columnist for the Wall Street Journal attacked the whole idea of awarding Pinocchios as akin to movie-reviewing, saying “the ‘fact check’ is opinion journalism or criticism, masquerading as straight news. The conservative-leaning Power Line
Power Line
Power Line is an American political blog, providing news and commentary from a conservative point-of-view. It was originally written by three lawyers who attended Dartmouth College together: John H. Hinderaker, Scott W. Johnson, and Paul Mirengoff...
political blog devoted three articles to critiquing one of Kessler’s articles, calling him a “liberal reporter,” and noting that “these ‘fact-checkers’ nearly always turn out to be liberal apologists who don a false mantle of objectivity in order to advance the cause of the Democratic Party.” Kessler’s awarding of Four Pinocchios to GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain
Herman Cain
Herman Cain is a candidate for the 2012 U.S. Republican Party presidential nomination.Cain has a background as a business executive, syndicated columnist, and radio host from Georgia. He served as chairman and CEO of Godfather's Pizza from 1986 to 1996...
for comments he made on Margaret Sanger
Margaret Sanger
Margaret Higgins Sanger was an American sex educator, nurse, and birth control activist. Sanger coined the term birth control, opened the first birth control clinic in the United States, and established Planned Parenthood...
and the founding of Planned Parenthood
Planned Parenthood
Planned Parenthood Federation of America , commonly shortened to Planned Parenthood, is the U.S. affiliate of the International Planned Parenthood Federation and one of its larger members. PPFA is a non-profit organization providing reproductive health and maternal and child health services. The...
was also criticized by opponents of abortion.
The liberal-leaning Talking Points Memo
Talking Points Memo
Talking Points Memo is a web-based political journalism organization created and run by Josh Marshall, journalist and historian covering issues from a "politically left perspective,". It debuted on November 12, 2000...
took Kessler to task for giving Four Pinocchios to a Democratic web petition on Medicare
Medicare
Medicare may refer to any of several publicly funded health insurance programs:*Medicare *Medicare *Medicare - See also :*Medicaid*Medicare Australia*Medicare Resources - China*Medicare Rights Center - United States...
, saying the errors he allegedly made “were not just small misses, but big belly flop misses.” The Obama White House issued a statement titled “Fact Checking the Fact Checker” after Kessler gave Obama Three Pinocchios for statements he made on the auto industry bailout. The Democratic National Committee
Democratic National Committee
The Democratic National Committee is the principal organization governing the United States Democratic Party on a day to day basis. While it is responsible for overseeing the process of writing a platform every four years, the DNC's central focus is on campaign and political activity in support...
released a statement denouncing “Kessler’s hyperbolic, over the top fact check of the DNC’s assertion that Mitt Romney supports private Social Security accounts.”
In a letter to Power Line, Kessler wrote: “I have no political convictions but to the truth....Don’t assume my politics, because either from the right or left, no one really has any clue. I am strictly nonpartisan—which, to some people, appears to be the most irritating thing of all.”. Politico has reported that Kessler "sometimes struggles with his own measure of truth or 'truthiness,' the Pinocchio...but that it offers him a measure of consistency and is defined in a way that avoids presuming that someone intended to mislead. The obvious truths and falsehoods are relatively easy to assign, but the area in the middle can be hazy. “'Two and three Pinocchios, that gets difficult,' he said.”
Personal life
Kessler lives in McLean, VirginiaMcLean, Virginia
McLean is an unincorporated community and census-designated place in Fairfax County in Northern Virginia. The community had a total population of 48,115 as of the 2010 census....
, with his wife and three children.
Kessler is a great-grandson of Jean Baptiste August Kessler, who was largely responsible for the growth and development of the Royal Dutch Shell
Royal Dutch Shell
Royal Dutch Shell plc , commonly known as Shell, is a global oil and gas company headquartered in The Hague, Netherlands and with its registered office in London, United Kingdom. It is the fifth-largest company in the world according to a composite measure by Forbes magazine and one of the six...
(Shell Oil Company
Shell Oil Company
Shell Oil Company is the United States-based subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell, a multinational oil company of Anglo Dutch origins, which is amongst the largest oil companies in the world. Approximately 22,000 Shell employees are based in the U.S. The head office in the U.S. is in Houston, Texas...
) and a grandson of Geldolph Adriaan Kessler, who helped create the Dutch steel industry. He was born in Cincinnati, where his father, Adriaan Kessler, was an executive at Procter & Gamble
Procter & Gamble
Procter & Gamble is a Fortune 500 American multinational corporation headquartered in downtown Cincinnati, Ohio and manufactures a wide range of consumer goods....
, and he attended high school there and in Lexington, Kentucky
Lexington, Kentucky
Lexington is the second-largest city in Kentucky and the 63rd largest in the US. Known as the "Thoroughbred City" and the "Horse Capital of the World", it is located in the heart of Kentucky's Bluegrass region...
.
Kessler is a 1981 graduate of Brown University
Brown University
Brown University is a private, Ivy League university located in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. Founded in 1764 prior to American independence from the British Empire as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations early in the reign of King George III ,...
and received a Masters of International Affairs in 1983 from the School of International and Public Affairs
School of International and Public Affairs
The School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University is one of the most prestigious graduate schools of public policy in the world. Located on Columbia's Morningside Heights campus in the Borough of Manhattan, in New York City, the School has 15,000 graduates in more than 150...
at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
.
External links
- Glenn Kessler's official website
- Glenn Kessler's "The Fact Checker" column
- Washington Post articles by Glenn Kessler
- The Confidante: Condoleezza Rice and the Creation of the Bush Legacy (St. Martins Press, 2007)
- New York Times Book Review of The Confidante
- Description of Kessler's testimony in the Libby trial
- Video of interview/discussion with Glenn Kessler by Daniel DreznerDaniel DreznerDaniel W. Drezner is currently a professor of international politics at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, the author of several books, the author of many Op-Ed pieces in major publications, a blogger, and a commentator.In 2005, he was denied tenure by the University of...
on Bloggingheads.tvBloggingheads.tvBloggingheads.tv is a political, world events, philosophy, and science video blog discussion site in which the participants take part in an active back and forth conversation via webcam which is then broadcast online to viewers... - Article on Kessler's role in Rosen-AIPAC case