With each and every passing day, the craven and arrogant neo-cons and neo-confederates who drive the US media narrative (especially the New York Times and Washington Post, which both determine what network TV/cable 'news' coverage will focus on) sound more like the Nazi Party in pre-war (and pre-deathcamp) Germany: convinced of their moral superiority, convinced of their economic and technological superiority, convinced of their military superiority, yet they still must rely on deceptions and distortions to achieve their goals.
In this case, both the AIPAC neo-cons and the business-baron neo-confederates are CONTEMPTUOUS of international treaties and agreements - witness the Kyoto accords, Article 5 of the UN Charter, Israel's illegal nuclear arsenal, THE GENEVA ***ing CONVENTIONS - yet they will HIDE behind "UN SANCTIONS!" as they prepare (in relentless bang-the-drums for war coverage)for A FIRST-SRIKE NUCLEAR WAR.
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The Words None Dare Say: Nuclear War
George Lakoff
02.27.2007
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/george-lakoff/the-words-none-dare-say-_b_42260.html
"The elimination of Natanz would be a major setback for Iran's nuclear ambitions, but the conventional weapons in the American arsenal could not insure the destruction of facilities under seventy-five feet of earth and rock, especially if they are reinforced with concrete."
--Seymour Hersh, The New Yorker, April 17, 2006
"The second concern is that if an underground laboratory is deeply buried, that can also confound conventional weapons. But the depth of the Natanz facility - reports place the ceiling roughly 30 feet underground - is not prohibitive. The American GBU-28 weapon - the so-called bunker buster - can pierce about 23 feet of concrete and 100 feet of soil. Unless the cover over the Natanz lab is almost entirely rock, bunker busters should be able to reach it. That said, some chance remains that a single strike would fail."
--Michael Levi, New York Times, April 18, 2006
A familiar means of denying a reality is to refuse to use the words that describe that reality. A common form of propaganda is to keep reality from being described.
In such circumstances, silence and euphemism are forms of complicity both in propaganda and in the denial of reality. And the media, as well as the major presidential candidates, are now complicit.
The stories in the major media suggest that an attack against Iran is a real possibility and that the Natanz nuclear development site is the number one target. As the above quotes from two of our best sources note, military experts say that conventional "bunker-busters" like the GBU-28 might be able to destroy the Natanz facility, especially with repeated bombings. But on the other hand, they also say such iterated use of conventional weapons might not work, e.g., if the rock and earth above the facility becomes liquefied. On that supposition, a "low yield" "tactical" nuclear weapon, say, the B61-11, might be needed.
If the Bush administration, for example, were to insist on a sure "success," then the "attack" would constitute nuclear war. The words in boldface are nuclear war, that's right, nuclear war -- a first strike nuclear war.
We don't know what exactly is being planned -- conventional GBU-28's or nuclear B61-11's. And that is the point. Discussion needs to be open. Nuclear war is not a minor matter.
The Euphemism
As early as August 13, 2005, Bush, in Jerusalem, was asked what would happen if diplomacy failed to persuade Iran to halt its nuclear program. Bush replied, "All options are on the table." On April 18, the day after the appearance of Seymour Hersh's New Yorker report on the administration's preparations for a nuclear war against Iran, President Bush held a news conference. He was asked,
"Sir, when you talk about Iran, and you talk about how you have diplomatic efforts, you also say all options are on the table. Does that include the possibility of a nuclear strike? Is that something that your administration will plan for?"
He replied,
"All options are on the table."
The President never actually said the forbidden words "nuclear war," but he appeared to tacitly acknowledge the preparations -- without further discussion.
Vice-President Dick Cheney, speaking in Australia last week, backed up the President.
"We worked with the European community and the United Nations to put together a set of policies to persuade the Iranians to give up their aspirations and resolve the matter peacefully, and that is still our preference. But I've also made the point, and the president has made the point, that all options are on the table."
Republican Presidential Candidate John McCain, on FOX News August 14, 2005, said the same.
"For us to say that the Iranians can do whatever they want to do and we won't under any circumstances exercise a military option would be for them to have a license to do whatever they want to do ... So I think the president's comment that we won't take anything off the table was entirely appropriate."
But it's not just Republicans. Democratic Presidential candidate John Edwards, in a speech in Herzliyah, Israel, echoed Bush.
"To ensure that Iran never gets nuclear weapons, we need to keep ALL options on the table. Let me reiterate - ALL options must remain on the table."
Although, Edwards has said, when asked about this statement, that he prefers peaceful solutions and direct negotiations with Iran, he has nonetheless repeated the "all options on the table" position -- making clear that he would consider starting a preventive nuclear war, but without using the fateful words.
Hillary Clinton, at an AIPAC dinner in NY, said,
"We cannot, we should not, we must not, permit Iran to build or acquire nuclear weapons, and in dealing with this threat, as I have said for a very long time, no option can be taken off the table."
Translation: Nuclear weapons can be used to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons.
Barack Obama, asked on 60 Minutes about using military force to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons, began a discussion of his preference for diplomacy by responding, "I think we should keep all options on the table."
Bush, Cheney, McCain, Edwards, Clinton, and Obama all say indirectly that they seriously consider starting a preventive nuclear war, but will not engage in a public discussion of what that would mean. That contributes to a general denial, and the press is going along with it by a corresponding refusal to use the words.
If the consequences of nuclear war are not discussed openly, the war may happen without an appreciation of the consequences and without the public having a chance to stop it. Our job is to open that discussion.
Of course, there is a rationale for the euphemism: To scare our adversaries by making them think that we are crazy enough to do what we hint at, while not raising a public outcry. That is what happened in the lead up to the Iraq War, and the disaster of that war tells us why we must have such a discussion about Iran. Presidential candidates go along, not wanting to be thought of as interfering in on-going indirect diplomacy. That may be the conventional wisdom for candidates, but an informed, concerned public must say what candidates are advised not to say.
More Euphemisms
The euphemisms used include "tactical," "small," "mini-," and "low yield" nuclear weapons. "Tactical" contrasts with "strategic"; it refers to tactics, relatively low-level choices made in carrying out an overall strategy, but which don't affect the grand strategy. But the use of any nuclear weapons at all would be anything but "tactical." It would be a major world event - in Vladimir Putin's words, "lowering the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons," making the use of more powerful nuclear weapons more likely and setting off a new arms race. The use of the word "tactical" operates to lessen their importance, to distract from the fact that their very use would constitute a nuclear war.
What is "low yield"? Perhaps the "smallest" tactical nuclear weapon we have is the B61-11, which has a dial-a-yield feature: it can yield "only" 0.3 kilotons, but can be set to yield up to 170 kilotons. The power of the Hiroshima bomb was 15 kilotons. That is, a "small" bomb can yield more than 10 times the explosive power of the Hiroshima bomb. The B61-11 dropped from 40,000 feet would dig a hole 20 feet deep and then explode, send shock waves downward, leave a huge crater, and spread radiation widely. The idea that it would explode underground and be harmless to those above ground is false -- and, anyway, an underground release of radiation would threaten ground water and aquifers for a long time and over wide distance.
To use words like "low yield" or "small" or "mini-" nuclear weapon is like speaking of being a little bit pregnant. Nuclear war is nuclear war! It crosses the moral line.
Any discussion of roadside canister bombs made in Iran justifying an attack on Iran should be put in perspective: Little canister bombs (EFP's -- explosively formed projectiles) that shoot a small hot metal ball at a humvee or tank versus nuclear war.
Incidentally, the administration may be focusing on the canister bombs because it seeks to claim that the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002 permits the use of military force against Iran based on its interference in Iraq. In that case, no further authorization by Congress would be needed for an attack on Iran.
The journalistic point is clear. Journalists and political leaders should not talk about an "attack." They should use the words that describe what is really at stake: nuclear war -- in boldface.
Then, there is the scale of the proposed attack. Military reports leaking out suggest a huge (mostly or entirely non-nuclear) airstrike on as many as 10,000 targets -- a "shock and awe" attack that would destroy Iran's infrastructure the way the US bombing destroyed Iraq's. The targets would not just be "military targets." As Dan Plesch reports in the New Statesman, February 19, 2007, such an attack would wipe out Iran's military, business, and political infrastructure. Not just nuclear installations, missile launching sites, tanks, and ammunition dumps, but also airports, rail lines, highways, bridges, ports, communications centers, power grids, industrial centers, hospitals, public buildings, and even the homes of political leaders. That is what was attacked in Iraq: the "critical infrastructure." It is not just military in the traditional sense. It leaves a nation in rubble, and leads to death, maiming, disease, joblessness, impoverishment, starvation, mass refugees, lawlessness, rape, and incalculable pain and suffering. That is what the options appear to be "on the table." Is nation destruction what the American people have in mind when they acquiesce without discussion to an "attack"? Is nuclear war what the American people have in mind? An informed public must ask and the media must ask. The words must be used.
Even if the attack were limited to nuclear installations, starting a nuclear war with Iran would have terrible consequences -- and not just for Iranians. First, it would strengthen the hand of the Islamic fundamentalists -- exactly the opposite of the effect US planners would want. It would be viewed as yet another major attack on Islam. Fundamentalist Islam is a revenge culture. If you want to recruit fundamentalist Islamists all over the world to become violent jihadists, this is the best way to do it. America would become a world pariah. Any idea of the US as a peaceful nation would be destroyed. Moreover, you don't work against the spread of nuclear weapons by using those weapons. That will just make countries all over the world want nuclear weaponry all the more. Trying to stop nuclear proliferation through nuclear war is self-defeating.
As Einstein said, "You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war."
Why would the Bush administration do it? Here is what conservative strategist William Kristol wrote last summer during Israel's war with Hezbollah.
"For while Syria and Iran are enemies of Israel, they are also enemies of the United States. We have done a poor job of standing up to them and weakening them. They are now testing us more boldly than one would have thought possible a few years ago. Weakness is provocative. We have been too weak, and have allowed ourselves to be perceived as weak.
The right response is renewed strength--in supporting the governments of Iraq and Afghanistan, in standing with Israel, and in pursuing regime change in Syria and Iran. For that matter, we might consider countering this act of Iranian aggression with a military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities. Why wait? Does anyone think a nuclear Iran can be contained? That the current regime will negotiate in good faith? It would be easier to act sooner rather than later. Yes, there would be repercussions--and they would be healthy ones, showing a strong America that has rejected further appeasement."
--Willam Kristol, Weekly Standard 7/24/06
"Renewed strength" is just the Bush strategy in Iraq. At a time when the Iraqi people want us to leave, when our national elections show that most Americans want our troops out, when 60% of Iraqis think it all right to kill Americans, Bush wants to escalate. Why? Because he is weak in America. Because he needs to show more "strength." Because, if he knocks out the Iranian nuclear facilities, he can claim at least one "victory." Starting a nuclear war with Iran would really put us in a world-wide war with fundamentalist Islam. It would make real the terrorist threat he has been claiming since 9/11. It would create more fear -- real fear -- in America. And he believes, with much reason, that fear tends to make Americans vote for saber-rattling conservatives.
Kristol's neoconservative view that "weakness is provocative" is echoed in Iran, but by the other side. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was quoted in the New York Times of February 24, 2007 as having "vowed anew to continue enriching uranium, saying, 'If we show weakness in front of the enemies, they will increase their expectations.'" If both sides refuse to back off for fear of showing weakness, then prospects for conflict are real, despite the repeated analyses, like that of The Economist that the use of nuclear weapons against Iran would be politically and morally impossible. As one unnamed administration official has said (New York Times, February 24, 2007), "No one has defined where the red line is that we cannot let the Iranians step over."
What we are seeing now is the conservative message machine preparing the country to accept the ideas of a nuclear war and nation destruction against Iran. The technique used is the "slippery slope." It is done by degrees. Like the proverbial frog in the pot of water - if the heat is turned up slowly the frog gets used to the heat and eventually boils to death - the American public is getting gradually acclimated to the idea of war with Iran.
First, describe Iran as evil - part of the axis of evil. An inherently evil person will inevitably do evil things and can't be negotiated with. An entire evil nation is a threat to other nations.
Second, describe Iran's leader as a "Hitler" who is inherently "evil" and cannot be reasoned with. Refuse to negotiate with him.
Then repeat the lie that Iran is on the verge of having nuclear weapons --weapons of mass destruction. IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei says they are at best many years away.
Call nuclear development "an existential threat" - a threat to our very existence.
Then suggest a single "surgical" "attack" on Natanz and make it seem acceptable.
Then find a reason to call the attack "self-defense" -- or better protection for our troops from the EFP's, or single-shot canister bombs.
Claim, without proof and without anyone even taking responsibility for the claim, that the Iranian government at its highest level is supplying deadly weapons to Shiite militias attacking our troops, while not mentioning the fact that Saudi Arabia is helping Sunni insurgents attacking our troops.
Give "protecting our troops" as a reason for attacking Iran without getting new authorization from Congress. Claim that the old authorization for attacking Iraq implied doing "whatever is necessary to protect our troops" from Iranian intervention in Iraq.
Argue that de-escalation in Iraq would "bleed" our troops, "weaken" America, and lead to defeat. This sets up escalation as a winning policy, if not in Iraq then in Iran.
Get the press to go along with each step.
Never mention the words "preventive nuclear war" or "national destruction." When asked, say "All options are on the table." Keep the issue of nuclear war and its consequences from being seriously discussed by the national media.
Intimidate Democratic presidential candidates into agreeing, without using the words, that nuclear war should be "on the table." This makes nuclear war and nation destruction bipartisan and even more acceptable.
Progressives managed to blunt the "surge" idea by telling the truth about "escalation." Nuclear war against Iran and nation destruction constitute the ultimate escalation.
The time has come to stop the attempt to make a nuclear war against Iran palatable to the American public. We do not believe that most Americans want to start a nuclear war or to impose nation destruction on the people of Iran. They might, though, be willing to support a tit-for-tat "surgical" "attack" on Natanz in retaliation for small canister bombs and to end Iran's early nuclear capacity.
It is time for America's journalists and political leaders to put two and two together, and ask the fateful question: Is the Bush administration seriously preparing for nuclear war and nation destruction? If the conventional GBU-28's will do the job, then why not take nuclear war off the table in the name of controlling the spread of nuclear weapons? If GBU-28's won't do the job, then it is all the more important to have that discussion.
This should not be a distraction from Iraq. The general issue is escalation as a policy, both in Iraq and in Iran. They are linked issues, not separate issues. We have learned from Iraq what lack of public scrutiny does.
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Washington Whore Post LOVES right-wing HATE talking points...
We can hardly improve on Eric Boehlert's takedown of the Washington Post infatuation with Right-Wing HATE talking points, even if we use selective highlighting. Read the full article to get the Post's ongoing...
...OBSESSION with FIFTY MONTHS of "GLARING IGNORANCE, UNHINGED LOATHING, HABITUALLY BOTCHED policy issues, and BEING WRONG about Iraq in EVERY CONCEIVABLE WAY."
<< BEING WRONG about Iraq [and the world, and US wars, and two stolen US presidential elections, and the serial, chronic lies if not crimes coming out of the top level of the US government] IN EVERY CONCEIVABLE WAY, with a losing streak dating back more than 50 straight months >> ought to be the new byline of the Washington WHORE Post.
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<< As Paul McLeary noted at CJR Daily: "It really takes a talented writer to paint conservative commentator Michelle Malkin as the voice of reason. ... But the Washington Post's Howie Kurtz ... manages to do just that." >>
<< It would be one thing if Malkin were currently enjoying her victory lap -- if she'd been dead-on about Iraq and about the defeatists on the left who didn't have the foresight to back a wildly successful invasion of Iraq. But, of course, she's not. Malkin is the field general for a squad of bitter pro-war dead-enders who lash out online against anyone who dares speak the truth about the war. She has been wrong about Iraq in every conceivable way, with a losing streak dating back more than 50 straight months. The consequences for having habitually botched the most important policy issue of the last decade? She's taken to lunch by a Washington Post reporter (the same reporter Malkin once derided as incompetent), who then splashes a friendly profile in the paper while carefully refusing to inform readers about Malkin's glaring ignorance and unhinged loathing. >>
The Washington Post's crush on right-wing bloggers
by Eric Boehlert
Mon, Feb 26, 2007
http://mediamatters.org/columns/200702270003
Under normal circumstances, the recent lunch at at a Filipino cafe in Washington, D.C., between Washington Post media writer Howard Kurtz and right-wing blogger Michelle Malkin would have been an awkward affair. Kurtz was there to profile Malkin for the paper's Style section, yet Malkin in her writings had made it clear she despises the mainstream media and holds the Post in contempt. ("Washington Post Sinks To A New Low," read a Malkin blog entry on July 22, 2005.) She has written that the paper's managing editor displays an "anti-American mindset" and has specifically singled Kurtz out for being a dishonest and incompetent reporter.
Talk about tension. The lunch and the subsequent feature could have set off some real fireworks with Kurtz not only defending his work and the Post's reputation, but pressing Malkin hard to explain her wild and often fact-free allegations against journalists. Instead, the profile, which skated over Malkin's anti-media rants as well as her loathing of the Post, was published as a Valentine's Day week mash note, presenting Malkin as a pugnacious, on-the-rise pundit who has her liberal critics up in arms.
As Paul McLeary noted at CJR Daily: "It really takes a talented writer to paint conservative commentator Michelle Malkin as the voice of reason. ... But the Washington Post's Howie Kurtz ... manages to do just that."
Even Malkin's fellow GOP bloggers were cooing over the Post's treatment. The profile was "reasonably balanced and well worth reading," wrote Power Line. Trust me, that's an extraordinary compliment coming from bloggers whose hatred for journalists, and journalism, know no bounds.
The Post's soft spot for conservative media players is well-known. Last year the paper lovingly profiled Fox News' openly partisan anchor Brit Hume and announced, "He speaks deliberately, unhurriedly, making his points with logic rather than passion." And in 2005 the paper equated factually challenged talker Rush Limbaugh with award-winning late-night satirist Jon Stewart.
But I think it's time to acknowledge what has blossomed into one of the Beltway's most dysfunctional media liaisons: the love-hate relationship between The Washington Post and right-wing bloggers. The Post loves the bloggers, but the bloggers hate the Post.
I don't know if the Post's cozying up is part of an overt effort to shed the "liberal media bias" charge, or if Post news execs actually believe the online GOP bomb-throwers represent an interesting and important piece of today's political dialogue. But for whatever reason, the Post has gotten into bed with the right-wing bloggers again and again. It's time the Post ended this ill-conceived romance. It's also time for the Post to show influential liberal bloggers a little love.
This is not a new problem at the Post. The news organization's warped mind-set regarding GOP bloggers was advertised last year when washigntonpost.com inexplicably hired Ben Domenech to be a columnist. The move was supposed to give the site more political "balance," with Domenech hired to counter the washingtonpost.com writing of columnist Dan Froomkin, a veteran journalist who writes insightfully, and often critically, about the Bush White House.
Domenech is not a serious writer and doesn't really pretend to be anything more than a name-calling partisan. (The twentysomething bragged about the fact that he wasn't a journalist.) He'd labeled Coretta Scott King a "communist," and attacked Teresa Heinz Kerry as an "oddly shaped egotistical ketchup-colored muppet." The hiring quickly imploded when it became apparent Domenech had a plagiarism problem.
The whole media meltdown was hugely embarrassing for the company, and it should have sent up lots of red flags for how it deals with, and often celebrates, right-wing bloggers. But as the Post's loving look at Malkin proved, the Post's crush remains hot and heavy.
Like Domenech, Malkin is not a serious person. In fact, she's ambitiously unserious, and her work is treated accordingly by most people in senior positions within the mainstream media (except at Fox News and the Post). That's because her daily blog is built on a foundation of hatred that literally knows no bounds -- namely, Malkin's unbridled, name-calling disdain for Democrats, peace activists, journalists, immigrants, and Muslims. Yet inside the Post newsroom, or more specifically, at the Post Style desk, Malkin is seen as a rising media star worthy of focused, fawning attention.
It would be one thing if Malkin were currently enjoying her victory lap -- if she'd been dead-on about Iraq and about the defeatists on the left who didn't have the foresight to back a wildly successful invasion of Iraq. But, of course, she's not. Malkin is the field general for a squad of bitter pro-war dead-enders who lash out online against anyone who dares speak the truth about the war. She has been wrong about Iraq in every conceivable way, with a losing streak dating back more than 50 straight months. The consequences for having habitually botched the most important policy issue of the last decade? She's taken to lunch by a Washington Post reporter (the same reporter Malkin once derided as incompetent), who then splashes a friendly profile in the paper while carefully refusing to inform readers about Malkin's glaring ignorance and unhinged loathing.
See, GOP warbloggers can't lose. If they'd been right about Iraq, The Washington Post surely would have toasted them. But even after they continually make fools of themselves prognosticating all sorts of falsehoods about the war, The Washington Post still toasts them. As for the articulate bloggers on the left who opposed the war from the outset and who insisted the White House had not made a coherent case for launching a pre-emptive war? The Post could care less about them. Then again, the Post editorialized relentlessly in favor of the war and was proven just as wrong as the Malkins of the world. So perhaps the newspaper is simply embarrassed and doesn't want to honor, let alone acknowledge, the liberal bloggers for fear it would simply highlight the paper's own glaring foreign policy incompetence.
The Post's treatment would be more palatable if the newspaper had an open-door policy regarding bloggers and wrote loving stories about those on the left and the right. The problem is, the Post only has eyes for far-right bloggers, and it consistently gives the liberal netroots the cold shoulder.
Bloggers the Post won't touch
Where, in the last two years, has the Post's Style section run a feature on Markos "Kos" Moulitsas Zuniga, whose DailyKos.com is the most popular political blog in the world? Where was the feature on progressive wunderkind organizer Matt Stoller, one of the forces behind the widely read MyDD website? Or pioneers like Eric Alterman (a Media Matters for America senior fellow) and Josh Marshall, who were among the first to establish progressive outposts online? Or John Amato, who revolutionized political blogging by posting video clips on his Crooks and Liars website, which, according to one recent survey, was the 10th most-linked-to political website in the world? Or Jane Hamsher, who founded influential firedoglake.com, and who's been leading a team live-blogging the Scooter Libby trial? Or Duncan Black (a Media Matters senior fellow), whose hugely popular blog, Eschaton, remains an online must-read? Or John Aravosis, the progressive activist who runs AMERICAblog and just a few weeks ago forced the candy giant Mars to yank online Snickers ads after Aravosis and others tagged them as anti-gay? (Full disclosure: I know most of those bloggers on a personal basis.)
Here's a for-instance. Progressive blogger Glenn Greenwald last year wrote a New York Times bestselling book, How Would a Patriot Act?, critiquing the Bush administration's abuse of executive privilege. His popular and insightful political blog, Unclaimed Territory, just recently moved over to Salon.com, where its influence continues to grow. Let's start the clock ticking and see how long it takes (if ever) for the Post to invite Glenn Greenwald out to lunch in order to write up a flattering profile of the rising progressive blogger. I doubt it will ever happen, in part because over the last two years Greenwald has been mentioned in grand total of two articles in the Post, compared to the 12 articles that have mentioned Malkin over the same time period.
Bottom line: At the Post, Bush bloggers matter, liberal ones do not. (Arianna Huffington, who last year launched The Huffington Post, stands out as lone exception to the Post rule. Of course, Huffington was an established media star before she started up her hugely successful website that's helped transform the political landscape.)
The one lengthy Post feature of a liberal blogger that I can find from the last 24 months was a page-one piece from April 2006 when the Post shadowed lesser-known blogger Maryscott O'Connor, who writes at My Left Wing. The Post portrayed O'Connor as a Bush-hating lunatic. Key phrases from the article: "angry," "rage," "fury," "angriest," "outrage," "crude," "loud," "crass," "inflammatory," "attack."
I understand that most online progressives have been critical of the Post and that it's difficult for journalists to write about, and indirectly publicize, people who have nitpicked their work. But, of course, any criticism progressives have lodged against the Post is positively dwarfed by the relentless, almost daily barrage of unhinged attacks the paper is subjected to by conservative bloggers such as Malkin who, instead of getting frozen out by the Post, are embraced by the newspaper.
The Post's glaring double standard was perfectly, and predictably, captured in the Malkin feature, which gave an overview of her career and focused on how nasty Malkin's critics were. "They'll ridicule my looks, ridicule my ethnicity, go after my family," the 36-year-old blogger complained.
The piece was a whitewash, plain and simple. For instance, there are scores of serious people who have written extensively about Malkin's out-of-control hate speech that doubles as insight at her blog. (Critics who never bother to write about Malkin's looks, ethnicity or her family -- the topics just aren't that interesting.) Kurtz, though, couldn't find any of them to interview. He could find only one-time war supporter Andrew Sullivan, who tsk-tsked Malkin's critics for being too nasty, and the West Coast editor for the political humor site Wonkette, who was asked about a digitally altered photo of Malkin that the website posted. That's the tiny little net the Post threw out to help give readers context about Malkin and her controversial work.
What the newspaper left unsaid about Malkin was that she recently wrote, "[M]any in the American media ... have a vested interest in exaggerating the violence as much as possible," and that she's referred to the Associated Press as "The Associated (with terrorists) Press."
It's the absolutely central point about Malkin that the Post neglected -- Malkin claims journalists covering Iraq are either (or both) cowards and siding with the terrorists who are trying to kill Americans. As her fellow warblogger Charles Johnson at Little Green Footballs puts it with a headline he routinely uses, "The Media Are the Enemy." Yet the Post profile politely omitted any reference to Malkin's repugnant claim that journalists are terrorist-sympathizer traitors. Of course, if that point had been spelled that out in print, and certainly if the Post had allowed others to comment on Malkin's wild, press-hating accusation, Washington Post readers all across the Metro would have wondered, why on earth is the newspaper treating a fringe radical figure like Malkin so seriously?
In order to avoid that obvious, albeit uncomfortable, question, the newspaper shifted the focus to Malkin's critics (they're so mean), without ever really explaining what Malkin's hateful, factually challenged rants were and why they generate such heat.
The Post also gave just a passing reference to Malkin's 2004 book, which defended the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II. The Post left unmentioned the fact that the entire thesis of Malkin's book represented a stunning flip-flop for the author. In a May 2000 syndicated column, Malkin wrote, "The government has apologized and provided cash compensation to victims who were forced into camps. There is no denying that what happened to Japanese-American internees was abhorrent and wrong." (Emphasis added.)
The Post decided that glaring flip-flop was irrelevant to profiling Malkin's work.
Then again, Malkin's arguably more famous for the things she gets wrong, as opposed to what she gets right. As the Post politely put it, "Malkin's campaigns have had mixed results." Which is sort of like saying the Titanic failed to reach its destination. Here's a brief list of Malkin's recent lowlights:
During the 2004 campaign, Malkin appeared on MSNBC's Hardball and insisted that the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth were alleging that John Kerry shot himself on purpose while serving in Vietnam. Her slanderous appearance caused a media stir, since the Swifties had never made that accusation against Kerry. The following day, while blogging and appearing on C-SPAN, Malkin lied repeatedly about her Hardball showdown.
In early 2005, during the Terri Schiavo right-to-die controversy, Malkin embraced a dubious conspiracy theory and ridiculed The Washington Post for weeks. Malkin, who posted about the topic incessantly, was certain Post reporters had fabricated a key report about the infamous Schiavo "talking points memo" written and distributed by the GOP. In her April 1 post belittling the "Schiavo talking points memo mess," Malkin continued her attack on The Washington Post and demanded the daily start publishing a laundry list of retractions for its fraudulent coverage of the Schiavo memo. (Incredibly, Kurtz gave the bloggers a platform inside the paper to air their baseless allegations against the Post.) Malkin's claims were proven to be untrue when an aide to a Republican senator confessed to writing the Schiavo memo.
In April 2005, Malkin was leading the charge (i.e. "raising troubling questions") in accusing a Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer with the Associated Press of working in concert with Iraqi insurgents to stage the public assassination of a Baghdad election worker. (The photog was tipped off by terrorists, Malkin claimed.) The allegations were proven to completely fictitious.
In October 2005, after a depressed University of Oklahoma engineering student blew himself up 100 yards away from a packed football stadium, Malkin hyped the story by linking to fellow bloggers who suggested the student, Joel Henry Hinrichs III, had an Al Qaeda connection. Malkin also complained the mainstream media were covering up the real facts in an effort to "whitewash radical Islam out of the news." Scores of law enforcement agencies quickly confirmed the terrorism conspiracy theory was pure fiction.
Last summer, Malkin led yet another angry charge against The New York Times after its Travel section, in a puff piece about an exclusive Maryland vacation town, published photos of weekend homes owned by then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney. Based on nothing more than a conspiratorial hunch, Malkin and company shrieked that by running the photos the unpatriotic Times had (deliberately) emboldened Al Qaeda and endangered the lives of Rumsfeld and Cheney by showing terrorists where the men lived. In truth, the Times received Pentagon approval to run the innocuous photos. Said Rummy's own flack: "I'm a little confused about why this has caused such an uproar." Join the club.
In January, Malkin experienced a particularly humiliating setback. For months, Malkin had been pushing a far-fetched media "scandal" by accusing the Associated Press of manufacturing a "phony" and "bogus" Iraqi police source who was reporting false stories about the daily carnage inside Baghdad. She claimed the phony AP source proved that all of the AP's Iraq reporting was suspect. (Malkin and company cling to the notion that the situation in Iraq is not as bad as biased journalists make it out to be.) In January, the Iraqi government confirmed the police source's existence, thereby ruining Malkin's press-hating conspiracy theory. (The Post remained silent when Malkin's Jamil Hussein allegation imploded.)
Let's face it -- if a liberal blogger ever stitched together a record of sloppy, Keystone Kops-style obfuscation the way Malkin has, Post editors wouldn't even know how to spell the blogger's name, let alone be interested in profiling them. And who would blame them? Any overexcited dolt can randomly make stuff up on the Internet, or link to others who do. Apparently, the fact that Malkin does that like clockwork and that it, in turn, gets people upset is newsworthy in the eyes of Washington Post editors.
Two years ago this month, Kurtz noted, "Many bloggers are careful and thought-provoking, others partisan or mean-spirited." The question is: Why has the Post has made a conscious decision to champion mean-spirited bloggers like Malkin at the expense of the thought-provoking ones?
...OBSESSION with FIFTY MONTHS of "GLARING IGNORANCE, UNHINGED LOATHING, HABITUALLY BOTCHED policy issues, and BEING WRONG about Iraq in EVERY CONCEIVABLE WAY."
<< BEING WRONG about Iraq [and the world, and US wars, and two stolen US presidential elections, and the serial, chronic lies if not crimes coming out of the top level of the US government] IN EVERY CONCEIVABLE WAY, with a losing streak dating back more than 50 straight months >> ought to be the new byline of the Washington WHORE Post.
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<< As Paul McLeary noted at CJR Daily: "It really takes a talented writer to paint conservative commentator Michelle Malkin as the voice of reason. ... But the Washington Post's Howie Kurtz ... manages to do just that." >>
<< It would be one thing if Malkin were currently enjoying her victory lap -- if she'd been dead-on about Iraq and about the defeatists on the left who didn't have the foresight to back a wildly successful invasion of Iraq. But, of course, she's not. Malkin is the field general for a squad of bitter pro-war dead-enders who lash out online against anyone who dares speak the truth about the war. She has been wrong about Iraq in every conceivable way, with a losing streak dating back more than 50 straight months. The consequences for having habitually botched the most important policy issue of the last decade? She's taken to lunch by a Washington Post reporter (the same reporter Malkin once derided as incompetent), who then splashes a friendly profile in the paper while carefully refusing to inform readers about Malkin's glaring ignorance and unhinged loathing. >>
The Washington Post's crush on right-wing bloggers
by Eric Boehlert
Mon, Feb 26, 2007
http://mediamatters.org/columns/200702270003
Under normal circumstances, the recent lunch at at a Filipino cafe in Washington, D.C., between Washington Post media writer Howard Kurtz and right-wing blogger Michelle Malkin would have been an awkward affair. Kurtz was there to profile Malkin for the paper's Style section, yet Malkin in her writings had made it clear she despises the mainstream media and holds the Post in contempt. ("Washington Post Sinks To A New Low," read a Malkin blog entry on July 22, 2005.) She has written that the paper's managing editor displays an "anti-American mindset" and has specifically singled Kurtz out for being a dishonest and incompetent reporter.
Talk about tension. The lunch and the subsequent feature could have set off some real fireworks with Kurtz not only defending his work and the Post's reputation, but pressing Malkin hard to explain her wild and often fact-free allegations against journalists. Instead, the profile, which skated over Malkin's anti-media rants as well as her loathing of the Post, was published as a Valentine's Day week mash note, presenting Malkin as a pugnacious, on-the-rise pundit who has her liberal critics up in arms.
As Paul McLeary noted at CJR Daily: "It really takes a talented writer to paint conservative commentator Michelle Malkin as the voice of reason. ... But the Washington Post's Howie Kurtz ... manages to do just that."
Even Malkin's fellow GOP bloggers were cooing over the Post's treatment. The profile was "reasonably balanced and well worth reading," wrote Power Line. Trust me, that's an extraordinary compliment coming from bloggers whose hatred for journalists, and journalism, know no bounds.
The Post's soft spot for conservative media players is well-known. Last year the paper lovingly profiled Fox News' openly partisan anchor Brit Hume and announced, "He speaks deliberately, unhurriedly, making his points with logic rather than passion." And in 2005 the paper equated factually challenged talker Rush Limbaugh with award-winning late-night satirist Jon Stewart.
But I think it's time to acknowledge what has blossomed into one of the Beltway's most dysfunctional media liaisons: the love-hate relationship between The Washington Post and right-wing bloggers. The Post loves the bloggers, but the bloggers hate the Post.
I don't know if the Post's cozying up is part of an overt effort to shed the "liberal media bias" charge, or if Post news execs actually believe the online GOP bomb-throwers represent an interesting and important piece of today's political dialogue. But for whatever reason, the Post has gotten into bed with the right-wing bloggers again and again. It's time the Post ended this ill-conceived romance. It's also time for the Post to show influential liberal bloggers a little love.
This is not a new problem at the Post. The news organization's warped mind-set regarding GOP bloggers was advertised last year when washigntonpost.com inexplicably hired Ben Domenech to be a columnist. The move was supposed to give the site more political "balance," with Domenech hired to counter the washingtonpost.com writing of columnist Dan Froomkin, a veteran journalist who writes insightfully, and often critically, about the Bush White House.
Domenech is not a serious writer and doesn't really pretend to be anything more than a name-calling partisan. (The twentysomething bragged about the fact that he wasn't a journalist.) He'd labeled Coretta Scott King a "communist," and attacked Teresa Heinz Kerry as an "oddly shaped egotistical ketchup-colored muppet." The hiring quickly imploded when it became apparent Domenech had a plagiarism problem.
The whole media meltdown was hugely embarrassing for the company, and it should have sent up lots of red flags for how it deals with, and often celebrates, right-wing bloggers. But as the Post's loving look at Malkin proved, the Post's crush remains hot and heavy.
Like Domenech, Malkin is not a serious person. In fact, she's ambitiously unserious, and her work is treated accordingly by most people in senior positions within the mainstream media (except at Fox News and the Post). That's because her daily blog is built on a foundation of hatred that literally knows no bounds -- namely, Malkin's unbridled, name-calling disdain for Democrats, peace activists, journalists, immigrants, and Muslims. Yet inside the Post newsroom, or more specifically, at the Post Style desk, Malkin is seen as a rising media star worthy of focused, fawning attention.
It would be one thing if Malkin were currently enjoying her victory lap -- if she'd been dead-on about Iraq and about the defeatists on the left who didn't have the foresight to back a wildly successful invasion of Iraq. But, of course, she's not. Malkin is the field general for a squad of bitter pro-war dead-enders who lash out online against anyone who dares speak the truth about the war. She has been wrong about Iraq in every conceivable way, with a losing streak dating back more than 50 straight months. The consequences for having habitually botched the most important policy issue of the last decade? She's taken to lunch by a Washington Post reporter (the same reporter Malkin once derided as incompetent), who then splashes a friendly profile in the paper while carefully refusing to inform readers about Malkin's glaring ignorance and unhinged loathing.
See, GOP warbloggers can't lose. If they'd been right about Iraq, The Washington Post surely would have toasted them. But even after they continually make fools of themselves prognosticating all sorts of falsehoods about the war, The Washington Post still toasts them. As for the articulate bloggers on the left who opposed the war from the outset and who insisted the White House had not made a coherent case for launching a pre-emptive war? The Post could care less about them. Then again, the Post editorialized relentlessly in favor of the war and was proven just as wrong as the Malkins of the world. So perhaps the newspaper is simply embarrassed and doesn't want to honor, let alone acknowledge, the liberal bloggers for fear it would simply highlight the paper's own glaring foreign policy incompetence.
The Post's treatment would be more palatable if the newspaper had an open-door policy regarding bloggers and wrote loving stories about those on the left and the right. The problem is, the Post only has eyes for far-right bloggers, and it consistently gives the liberal netroots the cold shoulder.
Bloggers the Post won't touch
Where, in the last two years, has the Post's Style section run a feature on Markos "Kos" Moulitsas Zuniga, whose DailyKos.com is the most popular political blog in the world? Where was the feature on progressive wunderkind organizer Matt Stoller, one of the forces behind the widely read MyDD website? Or pioneers like Eric Alterman (a Media Matters for America senior fellow) and Josh Marshall, who were among the first to establish progressive outposts online? Or John Amato, who revolutionized political blogging by posting video clips on his Crooks and Liars website, which, according to one recent survey, was the 10th most-linked-to political website in the world? Or Jane Hamsher, who founded influential firedoglake.com, and who's been leading a team live-blogging the Scooter Libby trial? Or Duncan Black (a Media Matters senior fellow), whose hugely popular blog, Eschaton, remains an online must-read? Or John Aravosis, the progressive activist who runs AMERICAblog and just a few weeks ago forced the candy giant Mars to yank online Snickers ads after Aravosis and others tagged them as anti-gay? (Full disclosure: I know most of those bloggers on a personal basis.)
Here's a for-instance. Progressive blogger Glenn Greenwald last year wrote a New York Times bestselling book, How Would a Patriot Act?, critiquing the Bush administration's abuse of executive privilege. His popular and insightful political blog, Unclaimed Territory, just recently moved over to Salon.com, where its influence continues to grow. Let's start the clock ticking and see how long it takes (if ever) for the Post to invite Glenn Greenwald out to lunch in order to write up a flattering profile of the rising progressive blogger. I doubt it will ever happen, in part because over the last two years Greenwald has been mentioned in grand total of two articles in the Post, compared to the 12 articles that have mentioned Malkin over the same time period.
Bottom line: At the Post, Bush bloggers matter, liberal ones do not. (Arianna Huffington, who last year launched The Huffington Post, stands out as lone exception to the Post rule. Of course, Huffington was an established media star before she started up her hugely successful website that's helped transform the political landscape.)
The one lengthy Post feature of a liberal blogger that I can find from the last 24 months was a page-one piece from April 2006 when the Post shadowed lesser-known blogger Maryscott O'Connor, who writes at My Left Wing. The Post portrayed O'Connor as a Bush-hating lunatic. Key phrases from the article: "angry," "rage," "fury," "angriest," "outrage," "crude," "loud," "crass," "inflammatory," "attack."
I understand that most online progressives have been critical of the Post and that it's difficult for journalists to write about, and indirectly publicize, people who have nitpicked their work. But, of course, any criticism progressives have lodged against the Post is positively dwarfed by the relentless, almost daily barrage of unhinged attacks the paper is subjected to by conservative bloggers such as Malkin who, instead of getting frozen out by the Post, are embraced by the newspaper.
The Post's glaring double standard was perfectly, and predictably, captured in the Malkin feature, which gave an overview of her career and focused on how nasty Malkin's critics were. "They'll ridicule my looks, ridicule my ethnicity, go after my family," the 36-year-old blogger complained.
The piece was a whitewash, plain and simple. For instance, there are scores of serious people who have written extensively about Malkin's out-of-control hate speech that doubles as insight at her blog. (Critics who never bother to write about Malkin's looks, ethnicity or her family -- the topics just aren't that interesting.) Kurtz, though, couldn't find any of them to interview. He could find only one-time war supporter Andrew Sullivan, who tsk-tsked Malkin's critics for being too nasty, and the West Coast editor for the political humor site Wonkette, who was asked about a digitally altered photo of Malkin that the website posted. That's the tiny little net the Post threw out to help give readers context about Malkin and her controversial work.
What the newspaper left unsaid about Malkin was that she recently wrote, "[M]any in the American media ... have a vested interest in exaggerating the violence as much as possible," and that she's referred to the Associated Press as "The Associated (with terrorists) Press."
It's the absolutely central point about Malkin that the Post neglected -- Malkin claims journalists covering Iraq are either (or both) cowards and siding with the terrorists who are trying to kill Americans. As her fellow warblogger Charles Johnson at Little Green Footballs puts it with a headline he routinely uses, "The Media Are the Enemy." Yet the Post profile politely omitted any reference to Malkin's repugnant claim that journalists are terrorist-sympathizer traitors. Of course, if that point had been spelled that out in print, and certainly if the Post had allowed others to comment on Malkin's wild, press-hating accusation, Washington Post readers all across the Metro would have wondered, why on earth is the newspaper treating a fringe radical figure like Malkin so seriously?
In order to avoid that obvious, albeit uncomfortable, question, the newspaper shifted the focus to Malkin's critics (they're so mean), without ever really explaining what Malkin's hateful, factually challenged rants were and why they generate such heat.
The Post also gave just a passing reference to Malkin's 2004 book, which defended the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II. The Post left unmentioned the fact that the entire thesis of Malkin's book represented a stunning flip-flop for the author. In a May 2000 syndicated column, Malkin wrote, "The government has apologized and provided cash compensation to victims who were forced into camps. There is no denying that what happened to Japanese-American internees was abhorrent and wrong." (Emphasis added.)
The Post decided that glaring flip-flop was irrelevant to profiling Malkin's work.
Then again, Malkin's arguably more famous for the things she gets wrong, as opposed to what she gets right. As the Post politely put it, "Malkin's campaigns have had mixed results." Which is sort of like saying the Titanic failed to reach its destination. Here's a brief list of Malkin's recent lowlights:
During the 2004 campaign, Malkin appeared on MSNBC's Hardball and insisted that the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth were alleging that John Kerry shot himself on purpose while serving in Vietnam. Her slanderous appearance caused a media stir, since the Swifties had never made that accusation against Kerry. The following day, while blogging and appearing on C-SPAN, Malkin lied repeatedly about her Hardball showdown.
In early 2005, during the Terri Schiavo right-to-die controversy, Malkin embraced a dubious conspiracy theory and ridiculed The Washington Post for weeks. Malkin, who posted about the topic incessantly, was certain Post reporters had fabricated a key report about the infamous Schiavo "talking points memo" written and distributed by the GOP. In her April 1 post belittling the "Schiavo talking points memo mess," Malkin continued her attack on The Washington Post and demanded the daily start publishing a laundry list of retractions for its fraudulent coverage of the Schiavo memo. (Incredibly, Kurtz gave the bloggers a platform inside the paper to air their baseless allegations against the Post.) Malkin's claims were proven to be untrue when an aide to a Republican senator confessed to writing the Schiavo memo.
In April 2005, Malkin was leading the charge (i.e. "raising troubling questions") in accusing a Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer with the Associated Press of working in concert with Iraqi insurgents to stage the public assassination of a Baghdad election worker. (The photog was tipped off by terrorists, Malkin claimed.) The allegations were proven to completely fictitious.
In October 2005, after a depressed University of Oklahoma engineering student blew himself up 100 yards away from a packed football stadium, Malkin hyped the story by linking to fellow bloggers who suggested the student, Joel Henry Hinrichs III, had an Al Qaeda connection. Malkin also complained the mainstream media were covering up the real facts in an effort to "whitewash radical Islam out of the news." Scores of law enforcement agencies quickly confirmed the terrorism conspiracy theory was pure fiction.
Last summer, Malkin led yet another angry charge against The New York Times after its Travel section, in a puff piece about an exclusive Maryland vacation town, published photos of weekend homes owned by then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney. Based on nothing more than a conspiratorial hunch, Malkin and company shrieked that by running the photos the unpatriotic Times had (deliberately) emboldened Al Qaeda and endangered the lives of Rumsfeld and Cheney by showing terrorists where the men lived. In truth, the Times received Pentagon approval to run the innocuous photos. Said Rummy's own flack: "I'm a little confused about why this has caused such an uproar." Join the club.
In January, Malkin experienced a particularly humiliating setback. For months, Malkin had been pushing a far-fetched media "scandal" by accusing the Associated Press of manufacturing a "phony" and "bogus" Iraqi police source who was reporting false stories about the daily carnage inside Baghdad. She claimed the phony AP source proved that all of the AP's Iraq reporting was suspect. (Malkin and company cling to the notion that the situation in Iraq is not as bad as biased journalists make it out to be.) In January, the Iraqi government confirmed the police source's existence, thereby ruining Malkin's press-hating conspiracy theory. (The Post remained silent when Malkin's Jamil Hussein allegation imploded.)
Let's face it -- if a liberal blogger ever stitched together a record of sloppy, Keystone Kops-style obfuscation the way Malkin has, Post editors wouldn't even know how to spell the blogger's name, let alone be interested in profiling them. And who would blame them? Any overexcited dolt can randomly make stuff up on the Internet, or link to others who do. Apparently, the fact that Malkin does that like clockwork and that it, in turn, gets people upset is newsworthy in the eyes of Washington Post editors.
Two years ago this month, Kurtz noted, "Many bloggers are careful and thought-provoking, others partisan or mean-spirited." The question is: Why has the Post has made a conscious decision to champion mean-spirited bloggers like Malkin at the expense of the thought-provoking ones?
Sunday, February 25, 2007
Who needs Soviet Commissars? Washington Post's Len Downie agrees with Stalin: it's not who votes, it's who COUNTS THE VOTES that is important...
THIS is how they do it.... THIS is how the Rethuglican Party wins elections, and the Bush-Cheney White House continues to be snyonymous with CORRUPTION, FRAUD, TORTURE, illegal spying, lies-to-war, and all the other sins and crimes of the Bush-Republican administration, despite in-the-cellar 20-30% approval ratings:
THEY CONTINUALLY get "SOFT" press/media coverage from the corporate media, most fundamentally the WASHINGTON POST and NEW YORK TIMES, which determine what CNN, ABC, and the other media networks will devote their short 2-5 minute on-air stories to.
In this case, Mr. Len Downie junior's Washington Post implies "NO PROBLEM HERE!" despite EIGHTEEN THOUSAND NON-VOTES for a Congressional seat in an off-year CONGRESSIONAL ELECTION (no presidential vote) for Katherine Harris' old House seat in Florida.
NOTE here (in the article, click our headline link) the SCARCITY of details or substance in this "report," which is little more than a textbook case of a PROPAGANDA HEADLINE with just enough text to fill out the headline. Much of that text is merely the names of those involved in the superficial inquiry into those 18,000 missing "undervotes," as they are called by those who analyze elections. This Post/AP article DOESN'T EVEN MENTION the word "undervote," and certainly doesn't mention that 18,000 undervotes is statistically improbable and a multiple, many times over, of the 100 or 200 "undervotes" typical of similar congressional races in other Florida districts and counties.
The Post and the Republican propaganda machine understands that it is HEADLINES that often shape viewer's opinons, even those, such as this one that completely misleads readers and is completely divorced from fact. NO OTHER DISTRICT or county in Florida had anywhere near 18,000 non-votes in a congressional (off-year) election... but the ATROCIOUS Washington POST "spins" that simple fact into an outright and complete lie.
As Stalin is reputed to have said, "IT'S NOT WHO VOTES that counts... it is WHO COUNTS THE VOTES that is important."
Len Downie Junior's Washington Post: turned the Clinton's overnight guest list, "LINCOLN BEDROOM!" into a SYNONYM for SCANDAL.... turns EIGHTEEN THOUSAND COMPUTER-STOLEN VOTES into "NO PROBLEM HERE, MOVE ALONG, MOVE ALONG."
That is at least the THIRD important US election - 2000, 2004, and 2006... with vote results that defy logic, statistical probability, or common sense. As well, the vote count for Senator and Vietnam combat war veteran/amputee Max Cleland's 2002 Georgia senate reelection campaign, and the vote count for former Vice President Walter Mondale's 2002 senate campaign (in stead of the tragically deceased Senator Paul Wellstone, killed along with his wife, his daughter, 3 close campaign aides and 2 pilots in an unexplained aircraft crash) also lost STASTICALLY ANOMALOUS vote counts.
That is to say, EVERY national election since November of 2000 has had at least one or more suspicious vote totals, and Mr. Downie and the Washington Post agree with Stalin and the Republican Party: "IT'S NOT WHO VOTES THAT COUNTS, IT IS WHO COUNTS THE VOTES."
========================================
Voting Machines Found Not at Fault in Florida Election
Associated Press
Saturday, February 24, 2007; Page A08
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/23/AR2007022301728.html
TALLAHASSEE, Feb. 23 -- An audit of touch-screen voting machines at the center of a dispute in a congressional election found no evidence of malfunction, Florida's secretary of state said Friday.
The audit was conducted after more than 18,000 ballots were cast in Sarasota County without a selection in the District 13 congressional race in November between Republican Vern Buchanan and Democrat Christine Jennings. Buchanan was the certified winner by 369 votes, but Jennings sued, alleging that the machines malfunctioned.
Third-party voter advocate groups, along with Jennings, have been asking to examine the machines' source code or programming chips to find out whether they malfunctioned. The audit report released Friday said an independent study of the source code of the machines used in the election found no evidence of malfunction.
"Governor [Charlie] Crist and I are committed to ensuring that every Floridian's vote is counted, and I am confident that the race in Sarasota County was fair and accurate," Florida Secretary of State Kurt Browning said in a statement about the official audit report.
Buchanan was seated in Congress in January, but Jennings has yet to concede the race.
Jennings spokesman David Kochman said in a statement that the audit was flawed.
New York Times and Washington Post Should Be Brought Up on War Crimes charges...
<< PESHAWAR–Those who invaded Iraq claiming it had weapons of mass destruction and have been blaming Iran and Syria for the murderous mess in Iraq, are also THE SAME PEOPLE NOW BLAMING Pakistan for the mess in Afghanistan.
They say Pakistan is aiding and abetting the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Maybe it is. But U.S. President George W. Bush and Afghan President Hamid Karzai have offered little or no proof. >>
More to the point, in relentless, continuing 'news' and editorial articles, the TIMES and POST push and demand that the BUSH-CHENEY White House be given a BLANK CHECK for prosecuting the "war on terror" however they see fit.. including an ILLEGAL INVASION of Iraq (then an almost disarmed country in terms of fielding an army capable of attacking any neighboring countries), TORTURE, MASSIVE SPYING on American citizens, and a continuing effort to put TAX CUTS FOR BILLIONAIRES ahead of the welfare (much less competent leadership) of US troops and forces in the field.
Thus the POST and NY TIMES have ENCOURAGED AL QAIDA in Iraq, ENABLED Al Qaida in Afghanistan, and greatly weakened America's ability to form alliances and a coordinated, world-wide, law-enforcement (as opposed to military) effort to reduce future terror attacks... while granting a "TERRORISTS SHOT WHILE TRYING TO ESCAPE!" blank immunity for the Bush-Cheney administration's serial failures and criminal conduct.
[note: "Terrorists shot while trying to escape!" was standard press coverage in Nazi Germany in 1941 and 1942 of the round-up and mass execution of entire villages (most often Jewish) in German occupied Eastern Europe and Russia during the early years of the German invasion of Russia during WWII.]
(to see the full article, click our headline-link)
________________________________________________
Pakistan fed up with U.S. and allies on Afghanistan
Pakistan tired of hearing it's not doing enough on Taliban and Al Qaeda, says Haroon Siddiqui
Feb 25, 2007
http://www.thestar.com/opinion/article/185202
PESHAWAR–Those who invaded Iraq claiming it had weapons of mass destruction and have been blaming Iran and Syria for the murderous mess in Iraq, are also the same people now blaming Pakistan for the mess in Afghanistan.
They say Pakistan is aiding and abetting the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Maybe it is. But U.S. President George W. Bush and Afghan President Hamid Karzai have offered little or no proof.
THE AMERICAN MEDIA [as always, led the the NEW YORK TIMES and WASHINGTON POST] are running a parallel campaign, hurling a more serious allegation, that the Pakistan army is extending logistical help to the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Most such stories are based on unnamed sources.
The New York Times, which in the pre-Iraq war days carried phony WMD stories, is back practising the same sort of discredited journalism.
---------------------------------------
Note: The Pakistan ISI (secret police) was there at the CREATION of what would become the Taliban during the Mujahadeen "Freedom Fighter" resistance to the Communist Red Army (Russian/Soviet) invasion of Afghanistan in 1980. After the retreat of the Red Army from Afghanistan, and the collapse of the Soviet Union, Pakistan's ISI continued to play a leading role in funding the Taliban, which used bin Laden's Arab al Qaida volunteers as SHOCK TROOPS to; a.) keep local Pushtuns in the Taliban in line; and b.) as shock troops in battles against the Northern Alliance and other opponents, the Al Qaida volunteers would be held in reserves as battle lines became established, and then bin Laden's men would be directed to the point in the battle that would overwhelm the opposition. From 1980 on, and during the Soviet invasion with US blessings, it was SAUDI BILLIONS that funded the Muhahadeen and Pakistan support for the Afghan resistance - with considerable supplies donated by communist China, as well. Pakistan was the trans-shipment point (supply line) for the equipment of war, and Saudi Arabia and other Arab states the financiers.
9-11 and the US invasion of Afghanistan not-with-standing, that is STILL the strategic picture in Afghanistan to this day... The Pakistanis are allied with their traditional Sunni allies, the PUSHTUNS, and the most cohesive and organized group within the Pushtun tribe is the Taliban. (Much as the local Patriot militias carried the American revolution at Lexinton and Concord and dozens of other battles, especially in the South.)
The NEW YORK TIMES and WASHINTON POST are probably correct: MILLIONS to finance the Taliban - AND AL QAIDA - _ARE_ flowing through Pakistan. Yet the Post and Times FAIL, REFUSE TO cover the larger picture: namely SAUDI/ARAB SUPPORT for the SUNNI INSURGENTS in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
Like the Bush-Cheney administration, the TIMES and POST prefer BOMBS and WARS to an informed public and a rational prosecution of "the war on Terror," and thus end up sounding like the pre-WWII Nazis justifying the invasions of Poland, Czechoslovakia, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, and Russia "in defense of the homeland."
Saturday, February 24, 2007
Washington Post's editors & publishers... who love DISINFORMING and MISINFORMING American citizens and voters....
Editorial Editors of the Washington Post...
(click headline link for url)
Editorial Board
Fred Hiatt
Editorial Page Editor
Jackson Diehl
Deputy Editorial Page Editor
Autumn Brewington
Op-Ed Editor
(click headline link for url)
Editorial Board
Fred Hiatt
Editorial Page Editor
Jackson Diehl
Deputy Editorial Page Editor
Autumn Brewington
Op-Ed Editor
Cowardly, treacherous Washington Whore Post spins 18,000 computer-stolen votes in Fla. District 13 as "no evidence of malfunction"
The WHORE editors and publisher of the Washington Post LOVE COMPTER-STOLEN ELECTIONS.
Free, fair, and verifiable elections, meet the age of computerized vote fraud and lying, cowardly, propaganda, media conglomerates... and the thieves who run them.....
<< The audit was conducted after more than 18,000 ballots [EIGHTEEN THOUSAND BALLOTS] were cast in Sarasota County WITHOUT A SELECTION [for] in the District 13 CONGRESSIONAL RACE in November between Republican Vern Buchanan and Democrat Christine Jennings. Buchanan was the certified winner by 369 votes, but Jennings sued, alleging that the machines malfunctioned. >>
Note: THIS was a MIDTERM CONGRESSIONAL ELECTION; and the percentage of NO-votes (called "undervotes" by election analysts and statisticians) was COMPLETELY OUT OF LINE with neighboring and similar districts, precincts, and counties in Florida.
THE AP's FAILURE to mention this STATISTICAL ANOMALLY is a GROSS CASE OF MISREPORTING, a "failure to mention" that is the American whore media's typical PROPAGANDA FUNCTION: "NO PROBLEM HERE, MOVE ALONG, MOVE ALONG."
The WASHINGTON POST's FAILURE to EXPLAIN THIS HUGE ANOMOLY - _THOUSANDS_ of voters in one county NOT voting for a Congressman or Congresswoman, when neighboring counties had immensely smaller "undervote" counts - is a MASSIVE DERELICTION OF journalistic DUTY, a gross case of CRAVEN CORRUPTION, putting pursuit of profit and POWER ahead of honest reporting.
=======================================================
Voting Machines Found Not at Fault in Fla. Election
Associated Press
Saturday, February 24, 2007; Page A08
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/23/AR2007022301728.html
TALLAHASSEE, Feb. 23 -- An audit of touch-screen voting machines at the center of a dispute in a congressional election found no evidence of malfunction, Florida's secretary of state said Friday.
The audit was conducted after more than 18,000 ballots were cast in Sarasota County without a selection in the District 13 congressional race in November between Republican Vern Buchanan and Democrat Christine Jennings. Buchanan was the certified winner by 369 votes, but Jennings sued, alleging that the machines malfunctioned.
Third-party voter advocate groups, along with Jennings, have been asking to examine the machines' source code or programming chips to find out whether they malfunctioned. The audit report released Friday said an independent study of the source code of the machines used in the election found no evidence of malfunction.
"Governor [Charlie] Crist and I are committed to ensuring that every Floridian's vote is counted, and I am confident that the race in Sarasota County was fair and accurate," Florida Secretary of State Kurt Browning said in a statement about the official audit report.
Buchanan was seated in Congress in January, but Jennings has yet to concede the race.
Jennings spokesman David Kochman said in a statement that the audit was flawed.
Free, fair, and verifiable elections, meet the age of computerized vote fraud and lying, cowardly, propaganda, media conglomerates... and the thieves who run them.....
<< The audit was conducted after more than 18,000 ballots [EIGHTEEN THOUSAND BALLOTS] were cast in Sarasota County WITHOUT A SELECTION [for] in the District 13 CONGRESSIONAL RACE in November between Republican Vern Buchanan and Democrat Christine Jennings. Buchanan was the certified winner by 369 votes, but Jennings sued, alleging that the machines malfunctioned. >>
Note: THIS was a MIDTERM CONGRESSIONAL ELECTION; and the percentage of NO-votes (called "undervotes" by election analysts and statisticians) was COMPLETELY OUT OF LINE with neighboring and similar districts, precincts, and counties in Florida.
THE AP's FAILURE to mention this STATISTICAL ANOMALLY is a GROSS CASE OF MISREPORTING, a "failure to mention" that is the American whore media's typical PROPAGANDA FUNCTION: "NO PROBLEM HERE, MOVE ALONG, MOVE ALONG."
The WASHINGTON POST's FAILURE to EXPLAIN THIS HUGE ANOMOLY - _THOUSANDS_ of voters in one county NOT voting for a Congressman or Congresswoman, when neighboring counties had immensely smaller "undervote" counts - is a MASSIVE DERELICTION OF journalistic DUTY, a gross case of CRAVEN CORRUPTION, putting pursuit of profit and POWER ahead of honest reporting.
=======================================================
Voting Machines Found Not at Fault in Fla. Election
Associated Press
Saturday, February 24, 2007; Page A08
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/23/AR2007022301728.html
TALLAHASSEE, Feb. 23 -- An audit of touch-screen voting machines at the center of a dispute in a congressional election found no evidence of malfunction, Florida's secretary of state said Friday.
The audit was conducted after more than 18,000 ballots were cast in Sarasota County without a selection in the District 13 congressional race in November between Republican Vern Buchanan and Democrat Christine Jennings. Buchanan was the certified winner by 369 votes, but Jennings sued, alleging that the machines malfunctioned.
Third-party voter advocate groups, along with Jennings, have been asking to examine the machines' source code or programming chips to find out whether they malfunctioned. The audit report released Friday said an independent study of the source code of the machines used in the election found no evidence of malfunction.
"Governor [Charlie] Crist and I are committed to ensuring that every Floridian's vote is counted, and I am confident that the race in Sarasota County was fair and accurate," Florida Secretary of State Kurt Browning said in a statement about the official audit report.
Buchanan was seated in Congress in January, but Jennings has yet to concede the race.
Jennings spokesman David Kochman said in a statement that the audit was flawed.
Friday, February 23, 2007
Poverty - DEEP POVERTY - up 26% since Bush stole White House. Media whores don't care..
U.S. economy leaving record numbers in severe poverty
By Tony Pugh
McClatchy Newspapers (MCT) 2-22-07
http://www.bradenton.com/mld/bradenton/news/politics/16760637.htm
WASHINGTON - The percentage of poor Americans who are living in severe poverty has reached a 32-year high, millions of working Americans are falling closer to the poverty line and the gulf between the nation's "haves" and "have-nots" continues to widen.... The McClatchy analysis found that the number of severely poor Americans grew by 26 percent from 2000 to 2005....
By Tony Pugh
McClatchy Newspapers (MCT) 2-22-07
http://www.bradenton.com/mld/bradenton/news/politics/16760637.htm
WASHINGTON - The percentage of poor Americans who are living in severe poverty has reached a 32-year high, millions of working Americans are falling closer to the poverty line and the gulf between the nation's "haves" and "have-nots" continues to widen.... The McClatchy analysis found that the number of severely poor Americans grew by 26 percent from 2000 to 2005....
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Media Whores DELIGHT in RIPPING OFF Americans. Wall-to-wall Anna Nicole coverage bleeds into--- Britney's haircut coverage!
We can't even describe our horror at the WHORE MEDIA's continuing obsession with... a dead multi-millionaire bimbo blonde, and another, still living, publicity-craving bimbo blond.
For an example, the other day we were at the bank, where for at least 20 minutes coverage of the Anna Nicole Simpson court circus was aired by a major network, piped into a bank's TV screen as background noise for those stuck waiting in line. Two hours later, at a take-out restaurant, the Anna Nicole court circus was STILL dominating news coverage in twenty-minute chunks. Then yesterday, MSNBC discussed the Anna Nicole circus for over ten minutes, then 4 minutes of commercials, then two minutes on health care... then another 4 or 5 minutes spent dwelling on Britney Spears' blond-to-bald haircut! That is, out of nearly a half hour of TV coverage, MSNBC delivered TWO MINUTES of anything remotely close to "news" that would affect its viewers, while devoting nearly 28 minutes to celebrity gawking and commercials!
And the amazing thing is, to judge by the advertisements - often for luxury cars and investment brokerage firms - MSNBC is targetting an upwardly mobile, financially secure, one would guess informed audience!
OVER TWENTY MINUTES of CELEBRITY GAWKING and advertisements, and the usual cursory two-minute blurb on health care costs DOUBLING in the next 7 years!
Perhaps Matt Taibbi is correct... perhaps we American citizen-consumers truly are stupid sheep, who deserve to be shorn of our taxes, pensions, savings, health-care, investments, and jobs by the Enron-Halliburton wrecking crew, if not of our lives by the "bomb a Muslim nation to protect Mommie" crew.
============================================================
Maybe We Deserve to Be Ripped Off By Bush's Billionaires
by Matt Taibbi
Feb 21 2007
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/5641
"Now, after she shaved her head in a bizarre episode that culminates a months-long saga of controversial behavior, it's the question being asked by her fans, her foes and the general public: What was she thinking?"-- Bald and Broken: Inside Britney's Shaved Head, Sheila Marikar, ABC.com, Feb. 19
What was she thinking? How about nothing? How about who gives a shit? How's that for an answer, Sheila Marikar of ABC news, you pinhead?
I'm not one of those curmudgeons who freaks out every time that Bradgelina moves the war off the front page of the Post, or Katie Couric decides to usher in a whole new era of network news with photos of the imbecile demon-spawn of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes. I understand that we live in a demand-based economy and that there is far more demand for brainless celebrity bullshit than there is, say, for the fine print of the Health and Human Services budget.
But that was before this week. I awoke this morning in New York City to find Britney Spears plastered all over the cover of two gigantic daily newspapers, simply because she cut her hair off over the weekend. To me, this crosses a line. My definition of a news story involves something happening. If nothing happens, then you can't have "news," because nothing has changed since the day before. Britney Spears was an idiot last Thursday, an idiot on Friday, and an idiot on both Saturday and Sunday. She was, shockingly, also an idiot on Monday. It will be news when she stops being an idiot, and we'll know when that happens, because she'll have shot herself for the good of the planet. Britney Spears cutting her hair off is the least-worthy front page news story in the history of humanity.
Apparently, from now on, every time a jackass sticks a pencil in his own eye, we'll have to wait an extra ten minutes to hear what happened on the battlefield or in Congress or any other place that actually matters.
On the same day that Britney was shaving her head, a guy I know who works in the office of Senator Bernie Sanders sent me an email. He was trying very hard to get news organizations interested in some research his office had done about George Bush's proposed 2008 budget, which was unveiled two weeks ago and received relatively little press, mainly because of the controversy over the Iraq war resolution. All the same, the Bush budget is an amazing document. It would be hard to imagine a document that more clearly articulates the priorities of our current political elite.
Not only does it make many of Bush's tax cuts permanent, but it envisions a complete repeal of the Estate Tax, which mainly affects only those who are in the top two-tenths of the top one percent of the richest people in this country. The proposed savings from the cuts over the next decade are about $442 billion, or just slightly less than the amount of the annual defense budget (minus Iraq war expenses). But what's interesting about these cuts are how Bush plans to pay for them.
Sanders's office came up with some interesting numbers here. If the Estate Tax were to be repealed completely, the estimated savings to just one family -- the Walton family, the heirs to the Wal-Mart fortune -- would be about $32.7 billion dollars over the next ten years.
The proposed reductions to Medicaid over the same time frame? $28 billion.
Or how about this: if the Estate Tax goes, the heirs to the Mars candy corporation -- some of the world's evilest scumbags, incidentally, routinely ripped by human rights organizations for trafficking in child labor to work cocoa farms in places like Cote D'Ivoire -- if the estate tax goes, those assholes will receive about $11.7 billion in tax breaks. That's more than three times the amount Bush wants to cut from the VA budget ($3.4 billion) over the same time period.
Some other notable estimate estate tax breaks, versus corresponding cuts:
* Cox family (Cox cable TV) receives $9.7 billion tax break while education would get $1.5 billion in cuts
* Nordstrom family (Nordstrom dept. stores) receives $826.5 million tax break while Community Service Block Grants would be eliminated, a $630 million cut
* Ernest Gallo family (shitty wines) receives a $468.4 million cut while LIHEAP (heating oil to poor) would get a $420 million cut
And so on and so on. Sanders additionally pointed out that the family of former Exxon/Mobil CEO Lee Raymond, who received a $400 million retirement package, would receive about $164 million in tax breaks.
Compare that to the Commodity Supplemental Food Program, which Bush proposes be completely eliminated, at a savings of $108 million over ten years. The program sent one bag of groceries per month to 480,000 seniors, mothers and newborn children.
Somehow, to me, that's the worst one on the list. Here you have the former CEO of a company that scored record profits even as it gouged consumers, with gas prices rising more than 70 percent since January of 2001. There is a direct correlation between the avarice of oil company executives and the increased demand for federal aid for heating oil programs like LIHEAP, and yet the federal government wants to reward these same executives for raising prices on the backs of consumers.
Even if you're a traditional, Barry Goldwater conservative, the kinds of budgets that Bush has sent to the hill not only this year but this whole century are the worst-case scenario; they increase spending generally while cutting taxes and social programming. They commit taxpayers to giant subsidies of already Croseus-rich energy corporations, pharmaceutical companies and defense manufacturers while simultaneously cutting taxes on those who most directly benefit from those subsidies. Thus you're not cutting spending -- you're just cutting spending on people who actually need the money. (According to the Washington Times, which in a supremely ironic twist of fate did one of the better analyses of the budget, spending will be 1.6 percent of GDP higher in the 2008 budget than in was in 2000, while revenues will be 2.6 percent of GDP lower). This is something different from traditional conservatism and something different from big-government liberalism; this is a new kind of politics that transforms the state into a huge, ever-expanding instrument for converting private savings into corporate profit.
That's not only bad government, it's bad capitalism. It makes legalized bribery and political connections more important factors than performance and competition in the corporate marketplace. Beyond that, it's just plain fucking offensive to ordinary people. It's one thing to complain about paying taxes when those taxes are buying a bag of groceries once a month for some struggling single mom in eastern Kentucky. But when your taxes are buying a yacht for some asshole who hires African eight year-olds to pick cocoa beans for two cents an hour ... I sure don't remember reading an excuse for that anywhere in the Federalist Papers.
I also don't remember reading much about this year's budget. It was a story for about half a minute when it came out two weeks ago. It barely made TV newscasts, and even when it did, only the broad strokes made it on air. There was some fuss about the Alternative Minimum Tax and a mild uproar over the fact that the 2008 budget failed to account for estimates of the costs for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But overall, the budget was a non-starter as a news story. As it does every year, it takes a back seat to hot-button issues like gay marriage, the latest election scandal, etc. Already, the 2008 election presidential campaign has gotten far more ink than the 2008 budget. As entertainment, bullshit politics always triumphs over real politics.
Here's the thing about the system of news coverage we have today. If the Walton family, or Lee Raymond, or the heirs to the Mars fortune actually needed the news media to work better than it does now, believe me, it would work better. But they have no such need, because the system is working just fine for them as is. The people it's failing are the rest of us, and most of the rest of us, apparently, would rather sniff Anna Nicole Smith's corpse or watch Britney Spears hump a fire hydrant than find out what our tax dollars are actually paying for.
Shit, when you think about it that way, why not steal from us? People that dumb don't deserve to have money.
For an example, the other day we were at the bank, where for at least 20 minutes coverage of the Anna Nicole Simpson court circus was aired by a major network, piped into a bank's TV screen as background noise for those stuck waiting in line. Two hours later, at a take-out restaurant, the Anna Nicole court circus was STILL dominating news coverage in twenty-minute chunks. Then yesterday, MSNBC discussed the Anna Nicole circus for over ten minutes, then 4 minutes of commercials, then two minutes on health care... then another 4 or 5 minutes spent dwelling on Britney Spears' blond-to-bald haircut! That is, out of nearly a half hour of TV coverage, MSNBC delivered TWO MINUTES of anything remotely close to "news" that would affect its viewers, while devoting nearly 28 minutes to celebrity gawking and commercials!
And the amazing thing is, to judge by the advertisements - often for luxury cars and investment brokerage firms - MSNBC is targetting an upwardly mobile, financially secure, one would guess informed audience!
OVER TWENTY MINUTES of CELEBRITY GAWKING and advertisements, and the usual cursory two-minute blurb on health care costs DOUBLING in the next 7 years!
Perhaps Matt Taibbi is correct... perhaps we American citizen-consumers truly are stupid sheep, who deserve to be shorn of our taxes, pensions, savings, health-care, investments, and jobs by the Enron-Halliburton wrecking crew, if not of our lives by the "bomb a Muslim nation to protect Mommie" crew.
============================================================
Maybe We Deserve to Be Ripped Off By Bush's Billionaires
by Matt Taibbi
Feb 21 2007
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/5641
"Now, after she shaved her head in a bizarre episode that culminates a months-long saga of controversial behavior, it's the question being asked by her fans, her foes and the general public: What was she thinking?"-- Bald and Broken: Inside Britney's Shaved Head, Sheila Marikar, ABC.com, Feb. 19
What was she thinking? How about nothing? How about who gives a shit? How's that for an answer, Sheila Marikar of ABC news, you pinhead?
I'm not one of those curmudgeons who freaks out every time that Bradgelina moves the war off the front page of the Post, or Katie Couric decides to usher in a whole new era of network news with photos of the imbecile demon-spawn of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes. I understand that we live in a demand-based economy and that there is far more demand for brainless celebrity bullshit than there is, say, for the fine print of the Health and Human Services budget.
But that was before this week. I awoke this morning in New York City to find Britney Spears plastered all over the cover of two gigantic daily newspapers, simply because she cut her hair off over the weekend. To me, this crosses a line. My definition of a news story involves something happening. If nothing happens, then you can't have "news," because nothing has changed since the day before. Britney Spears was an idiot last Thursday, an idiot on Friday, and an idiot on both Saturday and Sunday. She was, shockingly, also an idiot on Monday. It will be news when she stops being an idiot, and we'll know when that happens, because she'll have shot herself for the good of the planet. Britney Spears cutting her hair off is the least-worthy front page news story in the history of humanity.
Apparently, from now on, every time a jackass sticks a pencil in his own eye, we'll have to wait an extra ten minutes to hear what happened on the battlefield or in Congress or any other place that actually matters.
On the same day that Britney was shaving her head, a guy I know who works in the office of Senator Bernie Sanders sent me an email. He was trying very hard to get news organizations interested in some research his office had done about George Bush's proposed 2008 budget, which was unveiled two weeks ago and received relatively little press, mainly because of the controversy over the Iraq war resolution. All the same, the Bush budget is an amazing document. It would be hard to imagine a document that more clearly articulates the priorities of our current political elite.
Not only does it make many of Bush's tax cuts permanent, but it envisions a complete repeal of the Estate Tax, which mainly affects only those who are in the top two-tenths of the top one percent of the richest people in this country. The proposed savings from the cuts over the next decade are about $442 billion, or just slightly less than the amount of the annual defense budget (minus Iraq war expenses). But what's interesting about these cuts are how Bush plans to pay for them.
Sanders's office came up with some interesting numbers here. If the Estate Tax were to be repealed completely, the estimated savings to just one family -- the Walton family, the heirs to the Wal-Mart fortune -- would be about $32.7 billion dollars over the next ten years.
The proposed reductions to Medicaid over the same time frame? $28 billion.
Or how about this: if the Estate Tax goes, the heirs to the Mars candy corporation -- some of the world's evilest scumbags, incidentally, routinely ripped by human rights organizations for trafficking in child labor to work cocoa farms in places like Cote D'Ivoire -- if the estate tax goes, those assholes will receive about $11.7 billion in tax breaks. That's more than three times the amount Bush wants to cut from the VA budget ($3.4 billion) over the same time period.
Some other notable estimate estate tax breaks, versus corresponding cuts:
* Cox family (Cox cable TV) receives $9.7 billion tax break while education would get $1.5 billion in cuts
* Nordstrom family (Nordstrom dept. stores) receives $826.5 million tax break while Community Service Block Grants would be eliminated, a $630 million cut
* Ernest Gallo family (shitty wines) receives a $468.4 million cut while LIHEAP (heating oil to poor) would get a $420 million cut
And so on and so on. Sanders additionally pointed out that the family of former Exxon/Mobil CEO Lee Raymond, who received a $400 million retirement package, would receive about $164 million in tax breaks.
Compare that to the Commodity Supplemental Food Program, which Bush proposes be completely eliminated, at a savings of $108 million over ten years. The program sent one bag of groceries per month to 480,000 seniors, mothers and newborn children.
Somehow, to me, that's the worst one on the list. Here you have the former CEO of a company that scored record profits even as it gouged consumers, with gas prices rising more than 70 percent since January of 2001. There is a direct correlation between the avarice of oil company executives and the increased demand for federal aid for heating oil programs like LIHEAP, and yet the federal government wants to reward these same executives for raising prices on the backs of consumers.
Even if you're a traditional, Barry Goldwater conservative, the kinds of budgets that Bush has sent to the hill not only this year but this whole century are the worst-case scenario; they increase spending generally while cutting taxes and social programming. They commit taxpayers to giant subsidies of already Croseus-rich energy corporations, pharmaceutical companies and defense manufacturers while simultaneously cutting taxes on those who most directly benefit from those subsidies. Thus you're not cutting spending -- you're just cutting spending on people who actually need the money. (According to the Washington Times, which in a supremely ironic twist of fate did one of the better analyses of the budget, spending will be 1.6 percent of GDP higher in the 2008 budget than in was in 2000, while revenues will be 2.6 percent of GDP lower). This is something different from traditional conservatism and something different from big-government liberalism; this is a new kind of politics that transforms the state into a huge, ever-expanding instrument for converting private savings into corporate profit.
That's not only bad government, it's bad capitalism. It makes legalized bribery and political connections more important factors than performance and competition in the corporate marketplace. Beyond that, it's just plain fucking offensive to ordinary people. It's one thing to complain about paying taxes when those taxes are buying a bag of groceries once a month for some struggling single mom in eastern Kentucky. But when your taxes are buying a yacht for some asshole who hires African eight year-olds to pick cocoa beans for two cents an hour ... I sure don't remember reading an excuse for that anywhere in the Federalist Papers.
I also don't remember reading much about this year's budget. It was a story for about half a minute when it came out two weeks ago. It barely made TV newscasts, and even when it did, only the broad strokes made it on air. There was some fuss about the Alternative Minimum Tax and a mild uproar over the fact that the 2008 budget failed to account for estimates of the costs for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But overall, the budget was a non-starter as a news story. As it does every year, it takes a back seat to hot-button issues like gay marriage, the latest election scandal, etc. Already, the 2008 election presidential campaign has gotten far more ink than the 2008 budget. As entertainment, bullshit politics always triumphs over real politics.
Here's the thing about the system of news coverage we have today. If the Walton family, or Lee Raymond, or the heirs to the Mars fortune actually needed the news media to work better than it does now, believe me, it would work better. But they have no such need, because the system is working just fine for them as is. The people it's failing are the rest of us, and most of the rest of us, apparently, would rather sniff Anna Nicole Smith's corpse or watch Britney Spears hump a fire hydrant than find out what our tax dollars are actually paying for.
Shit, when you think about it that way, why not steal from us? People that dumb don't deserve to have money.
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Washington Post, NYTimes yawn at President's bold-faced lie "I will demand resignation of anyone involved in outing an undercover CIA operative"
The president is a liar: his pledge "to demand the resignation of anyone in my administration involved in leaking an undercover CIA operative" was a bold-faced lie when he made that pledge shortly before the 2004 presidential campaign.
We Americans live in a "through the looking glass" nightmare where radical right-wing Republicans can make President Clinton's overnight guest list at the White House into a huge, headline dominating SCANDAL ("the Lincoln bedroom SCANDAL!"), but when the President of the United States is caught, repeatedly, BOLD FACED LYING about matters vital to national security - including SABOTAGING an entire undercover CIA operation designed to monitor WMD programs, by "outing" one of the undercover agents and thereby "outing" the entire cover organization (Brewster-Jennings co.) - the Washington Post and New York Times and all the lesser media respond with a big yawn.
Republicans: can turn Democratic party NON-scandals into blaring-headline scream marathons....
Democrats: can not even preserve the voting rights of disenfranchised voters; can not even investigate the 9-11 debacle without the 9-11 widows doing the heavy lifting; can not demand investigations into easily manipulated computerized voting machines; can not demand answers from the White House regarding serial and systematic lies to war; and can't even work up any OUTRAGE over the President and his chief political advisor being caught, red-handed, in the routine sort of SMEARING effort that was typical of every one of Karl Rove's electioneering campaigns.... except this time, in merely making FALSE POLICE REPORTS accusing Democratic opponents of planting a bug, the president and his chief political officer sought to INTIMIDATE, DISCREDIT, and SMEAR an outspoken critic by "OUTING" a working, undercover member of a CIA's counter-proliferation organization, Brewster-Jenning's Energy Consultants co.; which was actually a CIA front for counter-proliferations spying.
HERE are the members of the president's staff who were DIRECTLY INVOLVED in "shopping" undercover CIA spy VALERIE PLAME WILSON's name around to Washington area journalists and reporters, in the hopes that Ms. Plame's name would soon because almost as well known as Monica Lewinky's name was at the height of the REPUBLICAN IMPEACHMENT efforts against President Bill Clinton - a task the Bush-Cheney White House and their staffers clearly succeeded in.
=============================================
All these President's men leaked CIA agent's name
BY JAMES GORDON MEEK
NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/wn_report/story/499053p-420743c.html
WASHINGTON - Any staffer proven to have leaked CIA officer Valerie Plame's identity "would no longer be in this administration," former White House spokesman Scott McClellan promised in September 2003.
But three years later, President Bush hasn't sacked anyone, even though the perjury trial of Lewis (Scooter) Libby - which resumes today - shows at least 10 other top officials blabbed about the spy whose job as a covert agent was classified as an official government secret.
Vice President Cheney
When Libby reminded his boss the vice president that he learned about Plame from him, Cheney tilted his head quizzically and said, "From me?"
Karl Rove
Bush's top political mastermind told reporters Robert Novak and Matt Cooper about Plame.
Richard Armitage
The former deputy secretary of state gossiped about Plame to Novak, and marveled to Watergate icon Bob Woodward, "How about that?"
Ari Fleischer
Bush's former spokesman got immunity before admitting he told reporters John Dickerson and David Gregory about Plame. Reporter Walter Pincus said Fleischer told him about her, too.
Dan Bartlett
Fleischer claimed Bush's counselor blurted out to him on Air Force One in July 2003 that Plame "worked at the CIA."
Robert Grenier
The top CIA official overseeing Iraq operations got nervous over Libby's pestering and later "felt guilty" about telling Cheney's chief of staff about Plame.
Bill Harlow
The CIA spokesman told Cheney flack Cathie Martin.
Cathie Martin
She told Cheney and Libby about Plame.
Marc Grossman
The No. 3 at the State Department also told Libby about Plame.
We Americans live in a "through the looking glass" nightmare where radical right-wing Republicans can make President Clinton's overnight guest list at the White House into a huge, headline dominating SCANDAL ("the Lincoln bedroom SCANDAL!"), but when the President of the United States is caught, repeatedly, BOLD FACED LYING about matters vital to national security - including SABOTAGING an entire undercover CIA operation designed to monitor WMD programs, by "outing" one of the undercover agents and thereby "outing" the entire cover organization (Brewster-Jennings co.) - the Washington Post and New York Times and all the lesser media respond with a big yawn.
Republicans: can turn Democratic party NON-scandals into blaring-headline scream marathons....
Democrats: can not even preserve the voting rights of disenfranchised voters; can not even investigate the 9-11 debacle without the 9-11 widows doing the heavy lifting; can not demand investigations into easily manipulated computerized voting machines; can not demand answers from the White House regarding serial and systematic lies to war; and can't even work up any OUTRAGE over the President and his chief political advisor being caught, red-handed, in the routine sort of SMEARING effort that was typical of every one of Karl Rove's electioneering campaigns.... except this time, in merely making FALSE POLICE REPORTS accusing Democratic opponents of planting a bug, the president and his chief political officer sought to INTIMIDATE, DISCREDIT, and SMEAR an outspoken critic by "OUTING" a working, undercover member of a CIA's counter-proliferation organization, Brewster-Jenning's Energy Consultants co.; which was actually a CIA front for counter-proliferations spying.
HERE are the members of the president's staff who were DIRECTLY INVOLVED in "shopping" undercover CIA spy VALERIE PLAME WILSON's name around to Washington area journalists and reporters, in the hopes that Ms. Plame's name would soon because almost as well known as Monica Lewinky's name was at the height of the REPUBLICAN IMPEACHMENT efforts against President Bill Clinton - a task the Bush-Cheney White House and their staffers clearly succeeded in.
=============================================
All these President's men leaked CIA agent's name
BY JAMES GORDON MEEK
NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/wn_report/story/499053p-420743c.html
WASHINGTON - Any staffer proven to have leaked CIA officer Valerie Plame's identity "would no longer be in this administration," former White House spokesman Scott McClellan promised in September 2003.
But three years later, President Bush hasn't sacked anyone, even though the perjury trial of Lewis (Scooter) Libby - which resumes today - shows at least 10 other top officials blabbed about the spy whose job as a covert agent was classified as an official government secret.
Vice President Cheney
When Libby reminded his boss the vice president that he learned about Plame from him, Cheney tilted his head quizzically and said, "From me?"
Karl Rove
Bush's top political mastermind told reporters Robert Novak and Matt Cooper about Plame.
Richard Armitage
The former deputy secretary of state gossiped about Plame to Novak, and marveled to Watergate icon Bob Woodward, "How about that?"
Ari Fleischer
Bush's former spokesman got immunity before admitting he told reporters John Dickerson and David Gregory about Plame. Reporter Walter Pincus said Fleischer told him about her, too.
Dan Bartlett
Fleischer claimed Bush's counselor blurted out to him on Air Force One in July 2003 that Plame "worked at the CIA."
Robert Grenier
The top CIA official overseeing Iraq operations got nervous over Libby's pestering and later "felt guilty" about telling Cheney's chief of staff about Plame.
Bill Harlow
The CIA spokesman told Cheney flack Cathie Martin.
Cathie Martin
She told Cheney and Libby about Plame.
Marc Grossman
The No. 3 at the State Department also told Libby about Plame.
Sunday, February 18, 2007
Cowardly Washington Post attempts JURY TAMPERING, intimidation of prosecutor, OBSTRUCTION of JUSTICE in Libby trial...
Former Senate staff member BRENT BUDOWSKY writes an open letter to WASHINGTON POST EDITOR ROBERT KAISER, taking Mr. Kaiser and the Post to task for ATTEMPTING TO INFLUENCE the JURY in the **PERJURY TRIAL** of Lewis "Scooter" Libby, former Assistant Chief of Staff to President Bush and Chief of Staff to Vice President Dick Cheney.
The Cowardly, craven WASHINGTON POST's duplicity and lies are measured in TAXPAYER BILLIONS and the blood, guts, and spattered brain-tissue of thousands of American combat veterans from the debacle of the IRAQ WAR that the Post was HEAD CHEERLEADERS FOR..... just as the cowardly, craven WASHINGTON POST was once HEAD CHEERLEADERS for the KEN STARR INVESTIGATION and IMPEACHMENT of President BILL CLINTON on charges of..... lying about a consensual affair!
While Iraq may be thousands of miles away, and the war also seems thousands of miles away, the COWARDLY, CRAVEN EDITORS of the Cowardly Post have NO PROBLEM SEPARATING the LIES of the BUSH ADMINISTRATION from their FRONT PAGE COVERAGE... just as, until this week's special report on WOUNDED, TRAUMATIZED, and NEGLECTED TROOPS at Walter Reed Army hospital, the COWARDLY, CRAVEN POST had NO PROBLEM IGNORING those troops, a mere two or three dozen blocks from the Post's offices.
THANKS! Washington Whore Post, for making the "LINCOLN BEDROOM SCANDAL!" and "WHITE HOUSE TRASHING SCANDAL!" and "TRAVEL OFFICE SCANDAL!" front page news leading to (and driving) the IMPEACHMENT of President Bill Clinton - while not only are you willing to LIE to help the Bush White House win re-election in 2004, but you are now flagrantly trying to INTIMIDATE A FEDERAL PROSECUTOR and TAMPER WITH A SITTING federal JURY to arrive at an outcome that further legitimizes the Bush-Cheney White House's war on critics and the US Constitution.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Sunday, 18 February 2007
Brent Budowsky: Dear Editor, Washington Post
See also: "Barbara Comstock Named Washington Post Editor?," By Pachacutec, FireDogLake blog
:::::::::::::::
From Brent Budowsky
February 18, 2007
To: Robert Kaiser, Washington Post
Mr. Kaiser, I am forwarding below the note I wrote to Messrs. Graham and Hiatt about Outlook's Victoria Toensing piece today.
With all due respect, I have long admired your work, but that piece today was the most egregious attempt at jury tampering that I have ever seen in this or any other town.
I spent six years at the core of the group writing the CIA Identities Law with its original sponsor, Senator Lloyd Bentsen. Setting aside my great differences with both Editorial and Op Ed pages at the Post on this case and Iraq in general, this piece was different. It was a clear attempt to influence the jury, after the defense rested and before the jury is given the case.
I predict the Judge will not be a happy camper, but beyond this, the piece was a shameless attempt to present a nullification defense to the jury, by an officer of the court who has worked for the Departement of Justice. It is attempt to bypass the judge and jury and present arguments to the jury, through the Post, that would not be admissable for law or fact, which also included factual inaccuracy.
This is the functional equivalent of the Post editorial board and the Libby defense team standing outside the jury room, handing the jurors leaflets, ignoring the judges instructions, and handing the jurors inadmissable evidence and telling them to vote not guilty.
I believe the Post owes its readers an alternate viewpoint, presented with the same visibility as Ms. Toensing's piece, though the ridiculing artwork will not be necessary and the tone of prosecution is more worthy of a second tier blog than the paper of record for this Capital.
Frankly, sir, from the beginning of this case, the Post opinion sections have never respected the fact that America has brave men and women serving in the intelligence community.
That their lives can be endangered by these leaks whether felonious or not. That distortions of intelligence that these leaks furthered did grave harm to our national security. That at a minimum the men and women who risk their lives for intelligence deserve the same honor, integrity and respect deserved by those who wear our uniform.
I am astonished that someone of your stature would approve what is an aggressive and obvious attempt at jury tampering, that your fact checkers would permit factual inaccuracy, and that anyone at the Post would use tones of ridicule and derision more akin to an internet blog post than the Washington Post.
You owe your readers an alternate opinion, you owe those who serve our country in intelligence far more respect and honor, you owe the judge and jury a trial without attempts to influence the verdict, and you owe the great tradition of the Washington Post a higher standard consistent with the highest standards of American journalism.
Please consider this, Mr. Kaiser. Whatever the politics of the Post, when these identities are published real intelligence officers can be compromised, real sources of American intelligence information in foreign lands are either compromised or lose their trust and refuse to help, real people can die, and real intelligence is lost.
We live in a city, Mr. Kaiser, that has already been targeted for one major terrorist attack on 9-11, and is no doubt on a target list for a WMD atttack at some point in the future.
You owe an obligation to your community, as well as integrity, honor, truth and the rule of law. You have a right to your opinion, but I suspect none of you have intelligence or military experience to assess the damage done by these leaks to those who serve, and obviously have no respect for the legal process which you attempt to influence through ex parte arguments aimed at
the jury through the paper.
If nothing else, I would hope you pay some deference to those who do have experience in military and intelligence affairs, and make an honest attempt to understand the damage these leaks do, to those who serve. It is the moral equivalent of those who perpetrate these leaks shooting an American Marine in the back while he or she serves in Iraq. Real lives are lost. When we wrote the law, not one of us ever dreamed the law, which was meant to be applied to enemies of America, would be embroiled in debates about those who wear White House badges or press passes from America's great newspapers.
As Ms. Toensing knows, the content of her piece has nothing to do with the charges at trial. This is what is known as a nullification defense, which should be offered at trial by defense counsel, under the rules of evidence, not offered by a partisan attorney writing with the imprimateur of a former Justice Department attorney, under the letterhead of Washington's paper of record.
This letter is on the record and I request that you publish it.
Sincerely,
Brent Budowsky
Former Legislative Assistant to Senator Lloyd Bentsen. Member of the
Advisory Council of the Intelligence Summit.
:::::::::::::::::
Ed. Note: Mr. Budowsky is also a contributing editor to Fighting Dems.
The Cowardly, craven WASHINGTON POST's duplicity and lies are measured in TAXPAYER BILLIONS and the blood, guts, and spattered brain-tissue of thousands of American combat veterans from the debacle of the IRAQ WAR that the Post was HEAD CHEERLEADERS FOR..... just as the cowardly, craven WASHINGTON POST was once HEAD CHEERLEADERS for the KEN STARR INVESTIGATION and IMPEACHMENT of President BILL CLINTON on charges of..... lying about a consensual affair!
While Iraq may be thousands of miles away, and the war also seems thousands of miles away, the COWARDLY, CRAVEN EDITORS of the Cowardly Post have NO PROBLEM SEPARATING the LIES of the BUSH ADMINISTRATION from their FRONT PAGE COVERAGE... just as, until this week's special report on WOUNDED, TRAUMATIZED, and NEGLECTED TROOPS at Walter Reed Army hospital, the COWARDLY, CRAVEN POST had NO PROBLEM IGNORING those troops, a mere two or three dozen blocks from the Post's offices.
THANKS! Washington Whore Post, for making the "LINCOLN BEDROOM SCANDAL!" and "WHITE HOUSE TRASHING SCANDAL!" and "TRAVEL OFFICE SCANDAL!" front page news leading to (and driving) the IMPEACHMENT of President Bill Clinton - while not only are you willing to LIE to help the Bush White House win re-election in 2004, but you are now flagrantly trying to INTIMIDATE A FEDERAL PROSECUTOR and TAMPER WITH A SITTING federal JURY to arrive at an outcome that further legitimizes the Bush-Cheney White House's war on critics and the US Constitution.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Sunday, 18 February 2007
Brent Budowsky: Dear Editor, Washington Post
See also: "Barbara Comstock Named Washington Post Editor?," By Pachacutec, FireDogLake blog
:::::::::::::::
From Brent Budowsky
February 18, 2007
To: Robert Kaiser, Washington Post
Mr. Kaiser, I am forwarding below the note I wrote to Messrs. Graham and Hiatt about Outlook's Victoria Toensing piece today.
With all due respect, I have long admired your work, but that piece today was the most egregious attempt at jury tampering that I have ever seen in this or any other town.
I spent six years at the core of the group writing the CIA Identities Law with its original sponsor, Senator Lloyd Bentsen. Setting aside my great differences with both Editorial and Op Ed pages at the Post on this case and Iraq in general, this piece was different. It was a clear attempt to influence the jury, after the defense rested and before the jury is given the case.
I predict the Judge will not be a happy camper, but beyond this, the piece was a shameless attempt to present a nullification defense to the jury, by an officer of the court who has worked for the Departement of Justice. It is attempt to bypass the judge and jury and present arguments to the jury, through the Post, that would not be admissable for law or fact, which also included factual inaccuracy.
This is the functional equivalent of the Post editorial board and the Libby defense team standing outside the jury room, handing the jurors leaflets, ignoring the judges instructions, and handing the jurors inadmissable evidence and telling them to vote not guilty.
I believe the Post owes its readers an alternate viewpoint, presented with the same visibility as Ms. Toensing's piece, though the ridiculing artwork will not be necessary and the tone of prosecution is more worthy of a second tier blog than the paper of record for this Capital.
Frankly, sir, from the beginning of this case, the Post opinion sections have never respected the fact that America has brave men and women serving in the intelligence community.
That their lives can be endangered by these leaks whether felonious or not. That distortions of intelligence that these leaks furthered did grave harm to our national security. That at a minimum the men and women who risk their lives for intelligence deserve the same honor, integrity and respect deserved by those who wear our uniform.
I am astonished that someone of your stature would approve what is an aggressive and obvious attempt at jury tampering, that your fact checkers would permit factual inaccuracy, and that anyone at the Post would use tones of ridicule and derision more akin to an internet blog post than the Washington Post.
You owe your readers an alternate opinion, you owe those who serve our country in intelligence far more respect and honor, you owe the judge and jury a trial without attempts to influence the verdict, and you owe the great tradition of the Washington Post a higher standard consistent with the highest standards of American journalism.
Please consider this, Mr. Kaiser. Whatever the politics of the Post, when these identities are published real intelligence officers can be compromised, real sources of American intelligence information in foreign lands are either compromised or lose their trust and refuse to help, real people can die, and real intelligence is lost.
We live in a city, Mr. Kaiser, that has already been targeted for one major terrorist attack on 9-11, and is no doubt on a target list for a WMD atttack at some point in the future.
You owe an obligation to your community, as well as integrity, honor, truth and the rule of law. You have a right to your opinion, but I suspect none of you have intelligence or military experience to assess the damage done by these leaks to those who serve, and obviously have no respect for the legal process which you attempt to influence through ex parte arguments aimed at
the jury through the paper.
If nothing else, I would hope you pay some deference to those who do have experience in military and intelligence affairs, and make an honest attempt to understand the damage these leaks do, to those who serve. It is the moral equivalent of those who perpetrate these leaks shooting an American Marine in the back while he or she serves in Iraq. Real lives are lost. When we wrote the law, not one of us ever dreamed the law, which was meant to be applied to enemies of America, would be embroiled in debates about those who wear White House badges or press passes from America's great newspapers.
As Ms. Toensing knows, the content of her piece has nothing to do with the charges at trial. This is what is known as a nullification defense, which should be offered at trial by defense counsel, under the rules of evidence, not offered by a partisan attorney writing with the imprimateur of a former Justice Department attorney, under the letterhead of Washington's paper of record.
This letter is on the record and I request that you publish it.
Sincerely,
Brent Budowsky
Former Legislative Assistant to Senator Lloyd Bentsen. Member of the
Advisory Council of the Intelligence Summit.
:::::::::::::::::
Ed. Note: Mr. Budowsky is also a contributing editor to Fighting Dems.
Saturday, February 17, 2007
WP whores "DEMOCRAT's IMAGE PROBLEM" - as LIBBY TRIAL details LYING, OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE, and "OUTING" of CIA agent by Bush White House!
Dems Risk Image Woes Over Iraq War Moves
By JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS
The Associated Press
Friday, February 16, 2007; 10:36 AM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/16/AR2007021600550.html
WASHINGTON -- Democrats face a host of risks as they move toward more substantive steps to tie President Bush's hands with funding restrictions on the Iraq war.
Leaders are wary of allowing the more intense anti-war activists to define the party's image.
Simmering divisions within the ranks over how soon to move _ and how far to go _ could quickly diminish a tactical victory this week on a resolution criticizing Bush's conduct of the war.
"There are those in our caucus who would rather we not do anything, and there will be people who want to see us extricate ourselves overnight. We'll have to balance those interests," said Rep. James Clyburn of South Carolina, House Democrats' chief vote-counter. "We're not going to sit anybody out, but we will have to decide how to weigh those things."
Senior House Democrats will huddle next week during a congressional break to plot strategy on their next move, which will be seeking to restrict some of Bush's Iraq war spending by establishing high readiness and equipment targets for troops and requiring those targets be met first.
Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania, tasked by Democrats to direct the next step, says his approach "stops the surge, for all intents and purposes," and would "force a redeployment _ not by taking money away, by redirecting money."
Former Rep. Martin Frost, D-Texas, said Democrats have made a "very clear point" this week by putting the House on record against Bush's troop buildup and now must be careful not to overplay their hand by seeking to cut off funding or limit deployments right away.
"They don't want to be a scapegoat for the Bush administration's failures," Frost said. "This is Bush's war, and there should be no confusion about whose war it is, and Democrats should not set themselves up to have that done to them."
Frost said he did not want to "prejudge" Murtha's effort to restrict funds, but cautioned that Democrats should not yield to intense pressure by outside anti-war groups for swift action to end the conflict.
Democratic leaders "will have to decide how to deal with the anti-war groups in the months ahead," Frost said.
Murtha's effort appears crafted to hamper Bush's strategy without opening Democrats to the charge that their party is abandoning troops in harm's way.
That could be a difficult argument to make, however, some analysts say, given that Bush and Republicans are determined to paint Democrats as eager to choke off funding.
"The first step was the easy one. The real puzzle is the next step," said William Galston, a former Clinton administration aide. "A straight up-or-down funding discussion is a loser for Democrats, and if they're smart, they will not allow the issue to be posed in that way."
Privately, some Republicans concede that Democrats have a chance to tie Bush's hands without paying a political price if they carefully handle an upcoming debate on the president's request for nearly $100 billion in additional money for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Republicans would be hard-pressed to reject measures that shift funds or place conditions on spending, such as those envisioned by Murtha, they said.
"As long as (Democrats) can tamp down on the Kuciniches of the world and they are modest in what they try to do, they can hit it out of the park," said one former senior House GOP aide, referring to Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, a critic of the invasion of Iraq.
Still, the small but vocal band of lawmakers led by Kucinich who are pushing for an immediate cutoff of war funding and withdrawal of troops could pose a problem. Democrats could suffer politically if the party is perceived by the public as being too quick to pull the plug on the mission.
An AP-Ipsos survey conducted Monday through Thursday, released on Friday, shows that 53 percent of Democrats favor cutting funding for additional troops while only 38 percent of the general public favor it.
The poll also shows that while a majority of Americans remain opposed to Bush's troop buildup, support for sending more troops has grown from 26 percent in early January to 35 percent.
Many moderate Democrats are wary of doing anything that would affect troop funding. Republican officials say they are already planning to target vulnerable House Democrats who go back on campaign pledges not to cut war spending.
"It will either create major problems for them when they run again, or it will create major problems for their leadership when they're trying to hold their caucus together on" Murtha's proposal, said Jessica Boulanger, a spokeswoman for the House Republicans' campaign committee.
Most Democrats say there are more opportunities than risks for their party in the Iraq debate, arguing that the public supports their push to change the course of the war and impose more accountability on Bush's handling of it.
"There are many more risks for Republicans," said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., the head of his party's campaign committee. "On the whole, the Democratic Party is doing what America wants."
Privately, however, some Democrats concede they will have to steer a careful course to avoid being demonized and divided on Iraq.
"There's tension between those who want to end the war immediately and cut off funding and those who aren't there," one senior House official said. As for Murtha's proposal to use benchmarks to control war spending, lawmakers are "getting there," the official said. "I'm not sure they're there yet."
By JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS
The Associated Press
Friday, February 16, 2007; 10:36 AM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/16/AR2007021600550.html
WASHINGTON -- Democrats face a host of risks as they move toward more substantive steps to tie President Bush's hands with funding restrictions on the Iraq war.
Leaders are wary of allowing the more intense anti-war activists to define the party's image.
Simmering divisions within the ranks over how soon to move _ and how far to go _ could quickly diminish a tactical victory this week on a resolution criticizing Bush's conduct of the war.
"There are those in our caucus who would rather we not do anything, and there will be people who want to see us extricate ourselves overnight. We'll have to balance those interests," said Rep. James Clyburn of South Carolina, House Democrats' chief vote-counter. "We're not going to sit anybody out, but we will have to decide how to weigh those things."
Senior House Democrats will huddle next week during a congressional break to plot strategy on their next move, which will be seeking to restrict some of Bush's Iraq war spending by establishing high readiness and equipment targets for troops and requiring those targets be met first.
Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania, tasked by Democrats to direct the next step, says his approach "stops the surge, for all intents and purposes," and would "force a redeployment _ not by taking money away, by redirecting money."
Former Rep. Martin Frost, D-Texas, said Democrats have made a "very clear point" this week by putting the House on record against Bush's troop buildup and now must be careful not to overplay their hand by seeking to cut off funding or limit deployments right away.
"They don't want to be a scapegoat for the Bush administration's failures," Frost said. "This is Bush's war, and there should be no confusion about whose war it is, and Democrats should not set themselves up to have that done to them."
Frost said he did not want to "prejudge" Murtha's effort to restrict funds, but cautioned that Democrats should not yield to intense pressure by outside anti-war groups for swift action to end the conflict.
Democratic leaders "will have to decide how to deal with the anti-war groups in the months ahead," Frost said.
Murtha's effort appears crafted to hamper Bush's strategy without opening Democrats to the charge that their party is abandoning troops in harm's way.
That could be a difficult argument to make, however, some analysts say, given that Bush and Republicans are determined to paint Democrats as eager to choke off funding.
"The first step was the easy one. The real puzzle is the next step," said William Galston, a former Clinton administration aide. "A straight up-or-down funding discussion is a loser for Democrats, and if they're smart, they will not allow the issue to be posed in that way."
Privately, some Republicans concede that Democrats have a chance to tie Bush's hands without paying a political price if they carefully handle an upcoming debate on the president's request for nearly $100 billion in additional money for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Republicans would be hard-pressed to reject measures that shift funds or place conditions on spending, such as those envisioned by Murtha, they said.
"As long as (Democrats) can tamp down on the Kuciniches of the world and they are modest in what they try to do, they can hit it out of the park," said one former senior House GOP aide, referring to Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, a critic of the invasion of Iraq.
Still, the small but vocal band of lawmakers led by Kucinich who are pushing for an immediate cutoff of war funding and withdrawal of troops could pose a problem. Democrats could suffer politically if the party is perceived by the public as being too quick to pull the plug on the mission.
An AP-Ipsos survey conducted Monday through Thursday, released on Friday, shows that 53 percent of Democrats favor cutting funding for additional troops while only 38 percent of the general public favor it.
The poll also shows that while a majority of Americans remain opposed to Bush's troop buildup, support for sending more troops has grown from 26 percent in early January to 35 percent.
Many moderate Democrats are wary of doing anything that would affect troop funding. Republican officials say they are already planning to target vulnerable House Democrats who go back on campaign pledges not to cut war spending.
"It will either create major problems for them when they run again, or it will create major problems for their leadership when they're trying to hold their caucus together on" Murtha's proposal, said Jessica Boulanger, a spokeswoman for the House Republicans' campaign committee.
Most Democrats say there are more opportunities than risks for their party in the Iraq debate, arguing that the public supports their push to change the course of the war and impose more accountability on Bush's handling of it.
"There are many more risks for Republicans," said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., the head of his party's campaign committee. "On the whole, the Democratic Party is doing what America wants."
Privately, however, some Democrats concede they will have to steer a careful course to avoid being demonized and divided on Iraq.
"There's tension between those who want to end the war immediately and cut off funding and those who aren't there," one senior House official said. As for Murtha's proposal to use benchmarks to control war spending, lawmakers are "getting there," the official said. "I'm not sure they're there yet."
Washington Post, NY Times whore pro-Bush spins on war, lying, obstruction of justice....
On a day when the Congress provided a long overdue rebuke - a "non-binding resolution" against the Bush White House's determination to escalate the Iraq war.... and Senate Republicans had to rely on the FILIBUSTER to OBSTRUCT even debate on the war in that Senate body; the WASHINGTON POST and NEW YORK TIMES predictably COME RUSHING TO BUSH's assistance, offering up their typical whitewash of events and downplay of public outrage over the administration's abysmal leadership and underhanded political tactics.
First, the Dean of the Washington Press corpse, DAVID BRODER, writes his oh-so respectable editorial, "Bush Regains his footing." What does Broder care that the LIBBY TRIAL proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that not only did President Bush and Vice President Cheney ORCHESTRATE the "outing" of an undercover CIA operative (Mrs. Valerie Plame Wilson) in an effort to discredit and intimidate her husband, but that Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney, and their ENTIRE senior White House staff worked furiously TO OBSTRUCT JUSTICE by lying to the FBI investigation into that very illegal "OUTING," in an attempt to hush the facts before the 2004 outcome.
WE REMIND the august Mr. Broder that Bill Clinton was IMPEACHED for "lying," and investor Martha Stewart was CONVICTED, _not_ for "insider trading" of a stock over which she had zero control, but of "lying" to FBI prosecutors.
Not only did the Bush-Cheney White House illegally "out" an undercover CIA operative, but they _systematically_ LIED and OBSTRUCTED JUSTICE in an effort to win the 2004 election.
THAT's FINE with Mr. Broder and his superiors at the Washington Post.
Next, the Post publishes an op-ed by resident neo-con apologist HOWARD KURTZ about MICHELLE MALKIN, a Right-Wing instigator only slightly less insipid and racist than than MICHAEL SAVAGE and ANN COULTER:
Kurtz writes:
<< Plenty of folks find Malkin's rhetoric overheated as well. "The donkey party," she wrote last fall, "is led by thumb-sucking demagogues in prominent positions who equate Bush with Hitler and Jim Crow, call him a liar in front of high school students and the world, fantasize about impeachment and fetishize the human rights of terrorists who want to kill me. Put simply: There are no grown-ups in the Democrat Party." >>
Well, President Bush IS a liar - as recounted immediately above - and more to the point, the WASHINGTON POST had NO problem calling former President Clinton "A LIAR," and giving voice (editorial space, and screaming front-page headlines) to EVERY Republican leader in 1998 who demanded PRESIDENT CLINTON's IMPEACHMENT - for "lying"!
Finally, over at the Sulzberger-owned neo-con NEW YORK TIMES, the Times publishes this misleading headline (at least on their on-line site): "IRANIAN WEAPONS IN IRAQ."
ONLY on further inspection, do you see that the blaring statement is under a pale "Q. & A." headline
Clearly, the NEW YORK TIMES believes that the United States has more right to supply BILLIONS in arms and weapons to Israel, than Iran has to supply any weapons to their fellow Shitte co-religionists in Iraq. But more to the point... WHERE IS THE NEW YORK TIME's OUTRAGE at the Bush administration looking askance at SAUDI FUNDING of insurgents ("terrorists") in Iraq - the very INSURGENT TERRORISTS who have been killing US troops at every opportunity??
Answer: NO WHERE TO BE FOUND. Just as the New York Times and Washington Post REFUSE to make VOTE MACHINE FRAUD, missing billions of taxpayers funds, the entire trillion-dollar Bush-Republican deficits, Vice President Cheney's CONTINUING PAYMENTS from Halliburton corp. while Cheney oversees the US government giving huge contracts to Halliburton... and likewise, the POST and TIMES DOWNPLAY the Bush family's TIES TO ENRON, other war-profiting companies. and the SAUDIS who are funding Sunni terrorists in both Iraq and Sudan - all at the expense of taxpayer billions, and the blood and lives of our combat soldiers.
The New York Times and Washignton Post: RELENTLESSLY MAKING molehills out of Bush-Republican SCANDALS, and MOUNTAINS ouf of Democratic NON-scandals.
('The White House "TRASHING" scandal' was AN ENTIRELY MANUFACTURED SCANDAL without ONE SINGLE photograph of evidence, while the Post and Times efforts to make the "LINCOLN BEDROOM" into a "MAJOR SCANDAL" now seems farcical, if the affects were not so deadly serious.)
NY Times: "IRANIAN WEAPONS IN IRAQ" misleading story:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/16/world/middleeast/17answers.html
Washington Post's HOWARD KURTZ portrays race-baiting right-wing anti-Constitution jihadist MICHELLE MALKIN as an innocent bystander:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/15/AR2007021502065_pf.html
Washington Post's old grey whore DAVID BRODER _ignores_ evidence from Libby trial that Bush White House orchestrated the EXPOSURE of an undercover CIA agent, then LIED to FBI agents investigating the crime, then OBSTRUCTED JUSTICE of the on-going investigation - all those CRIMINAL efforts by the Bush White House in hopes the WASHINGTON POST and other newspapers would give the adminstration a FREE PASS on the scandal past the November 2004 election...
Bush Regains His Footing
By Washington Post resident whore DAVID BRODER
Friday, February 16, 2007; Page A23
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/15/AR2007021501271.html
Bonus: the British "ECONOMIST" magazine cover portrays black, bat-winged US B2 bomber over map of Iran with issue headline "IRAN NEXT STOP?" in Bush/neo-con march to expanding wars....
First, the Dean of the Washington Press corpse, DAVID BRODER, writes his oh-so respectable editorial, "Bush Regains his footing." What does Broder care that the LIBBY TRIAL proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that not only did President Bush and Vice President Cheney ORCHESTRATE the "outing" of an undercover CIA operative (Mrs. Valerie Plame Wilson) in an effort to discredit and intimidate her husband, but that Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney, and their ENTIRE senior White House staff worked furiously TO OBSTRUCT JUSTICE by lying to the FBI investigation into that very illegal "OUTING," in an attempt to hush the facts before the 2004 outcome.
WE REMIND the august Mr. Broder that Bill Clinton was IMPEACHED for "lying," and investor Martha Stewart was CONVICTED, _not_ for "insider trading" of a stock over which she had zero control, but of "lying" to FBI prosecutors.
Not only did the Bush-Cheney White House illegally "out" an undercover CIA operative, but they _systematically_ LIED and OBSTRUCTED JUSTICE in an effort to win the 2004 election.
THAT's FINE with Mr. Broder and his superiors at the Washington Post.
Next, the Post publishes an op-ed by resident neo-con apologist HOWARD KURTZ about MICHELLE MALKIN, a Right-Wing instigator only slightly less insipid and racist than than MICHAEL SAVAGE and ANN COULTER:
Kurtz writes:
<< Plenty of folks find Malkin's rhetoric overheated as well. "The donkey party," she wrote last fall, "is led by thumb-sucking demagogues in prominent positions who equate Bush with Hitler and Jim Crow, call him a liar in front of high school students and the world, fantasize about impeachment and fetishize the human rights of terrorists who want to kill me. Put simply: There are no grown-ups in the Democrat Party." >>
Well, President Bush IS a liar - as recounted immediately above - and more to the point, the WASHINGTON POST had NO problem calling former President Clinton "A LIAR," and giving voice (editorial space, and screaming front-page headlines) to EVERY Republican leader in 1998 who demanded PRESIDENT CLINTON's IMPEACHMENT - for "lying"!
Finally, over at the Sulzberger-owned neo-con NEW YORK TIMES, the Times publishes this misleading headline (at least on their on-line site): "IRANIAN WEAPONS IN IRAQ."
ONLY on further inspection, do you see that the blaring statement is under a pale "Q. & A." headline
Clearly, the NEW YORK TIMES believes that the United States has more right to supply BILLIONS in arms and weapons to Israel, than Iran has to supply any weapons to their fellow Shitte co-religionists in Iraq. But more to the point... WHERE IS THE NEW YORK TIME's OUTRAGE at the Bush administration looking askance at SAUDI FUNDING of insurgents ("terrorists") in Iraq - the very INSURGENT TERRORISTS who have been killing US troops at every opportunity??
Answer: NO WHERE TO BE FOUND. Just as the New York Times and Washington Post REFUSE to make VOTE MACHINE FRAUD, missing billions of taxpayers funds, the entire trillion-dollar Bush-Republican deficits, Vice President Cheney's CONTINUING PAYMENTS from Halliburton corp. while Cheney oversees the US government giving huge contracts to Halliburton... and likewise, the POST and TIMES DOWNPLAY the Bush family's TIES TO ENRON, other war-profiting companies. and the SAUDIS who are funding Sunni terrorists in both Iraq and Sudan - all at the expense of taxpayer billions, and the blood and lives of our combat soldiers.
The New York Times and Washignton Post: RELENTLESSLY MAKING molehills out of Bush-Republican SCANDALS, and MOUNTAINS ouf of Democratic NON-scandals.
('The White House "TRASHING" scandal' was AN ENTIRELY MANUFACTURED SCANDAL without ONE SINGLE photograph of evidence, while the Post and Times efforts to make the "LINCOLN BEDROOM" into a "MAJOR SCANDAL" now seems farcical, if the affects were not so deadly serious.)
NY Times: "IRANIAN WEAPONS IN IRAQ" misleading story:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/16/world/middleeast/17answers.html
Washington Post's HOWARD KURTZ portrays race-baiting right-wing anti-Constitution jihadist MICHELLE MALKIN as an innocent bystander:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/15/AR2007021502065_pf.html
Washington Post's old grey whore DAVID BRODER _ignores_ evidence from Libby trial that Bush White House orchestrated the EXPOSURE of an undercover CIA agent, then LIED to FBI agents investigating the crime, then OBSTRUCTED JUSTICE of the on-going investigation - all those CRIMINAL efforts by the Bush White House in hopes the WASHINGTON POST and other newspapers would give the adminstration a FREE PASS on the scandal past the November 2004 election...
Bush Regains His Footing
By Washington Post resident whore DAVID BRODER
Friday, February 16, 2007; Page A23
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/15/AR2007021501271.html
Bonus: the British "ECONOMIST" magazine cover portrays black, bat-winged US B2 bomber over map of Iran with issue headline "IRAN NEXT STOP?" in Bush/neo-con march to expanding wars....
AEI think-tank: Exxon billions $$ power neo-con madness which fuels Bush administration Jihad against US Constitution... and unlimited wars....
AEI: The Root of Bush’s Right-Wing Ideology
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/02/15/aei-bush-white-house/
Today, President Bush delivered a speech on Afghanistan at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a conservative think tank in Washington, D.C. AEI and the Bush administration are deeply entwined, something Bush admitted during his speech. “I admire AEI a lot,” Bush said. “After all, I have been consistently borrowing some of your best people. More than 20 AEI scholars have worked in my administration.”
Below are a few examples of the people and ideas that AEI has shared — or tried to share — with the Bush White House over recent years:
– Escalation. President Bush’s escalation plan is based on a report by AEI scholar Frederick Kagan. CNN reporter Suzanne Malveaux said of AEI’s influence on Iraq policy: “One conservative policy group that has the president’s ear and is influencing his thinking is the American Enterprise Institute.”
– The Cheneys. Dick Cheney served as AEI Senior Fellow from 1993-1995, and his wife Lynn currently serves as Senior Fellow studying education and children. “Both Lynne and I have a long history with the American Enterprise Institute, and we value the association,” Vice President Cheney said in 2005.
– Bomb Iran. “We must bomb Iran,” AEI Resident Scholar Joshua Muravchik wrote in an op-ed for the Los Angeles Times. Muravchik called for an “air campaign against Tehran’s nuclear facilities”
– Richard Perle. Perle has been at AEI since 1987, and currently serves as a Resident Fellow. A leading neoconservative, Perle was a fierce proponent of regime change in Iraq. He served as Chairman of the Defense Policy Board from 2001 to 2003.
– John Bolton. Served as Senior Vice President of AEI before coming to the Bush administration. Bolton currently serves as a Senior Fellow at AEI. “There is no such thing as the United Nations,” Bolton said. “If the U.N. secretary building in New York lost 10 stories, it wouldn’t make a bit of difference.”
– Climate change inaction. AEI offered $10,000 to climate change deniers to speak out against the recent IPCC climate change study.
– Karl Zinsmeister. Worked for 12 years at the American Enterprise magazine. He became Bush’s top domestic policy adviser, but only after he admitted to padding his resume.
– Social Security privatization. AEI has long been a vocal supporter of Social Security privatization.
– Greg Mankiw. A visiting scholar at AEI, Mankiw served as Bush’s chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers from 2003 to 2005. In 2004, Mankiw said the outsourcing of U.S. jobs overseas was “probably a plus for the economy in the long run.”
– John Yoo. Currently a visiting scholar for AEI, and a former deputy assistant attorney general in the office of legal counsel of the Department of Justice. Yoo authored the infamous torture memo that argued interrogation techniques only constituted torture if they are “equivalent in intensity to…organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death.”
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/02/15/aei-bush-white-house/
Today, President Bush delivered a speech on Afghanistan at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a conservative think tank in Washington, D.C. AEI and the Bush administration are deeply entwined, something Bush admitted during his speech. “I admire AEI a lot,” Bush said. “After all, I have been consistently borrowing some of your best people. More than 20 AEI scholars have worked in my administration.”
Below are a few examples of the people and ideas that AEI has shared — or tried to share — with the Bush White House over recent years:
– Escalation. President Bush’s escalation plan is based on a report by AEI scholar Frederick Kagan. CNN reporter Suzanne Malveaux said of AEI’s influence on Iraq policy: “One conservative policy group that has the president’s ear and is influencing his thinking is the American Enterprise Institute.”
– The Cheneys. Dick Cheney served as AEI Senior Fellow from 1993-1995, and his wife Lynn currently serves as Senior Fellow studying education and children. “Both Lynne and I have a long history with the American Enterprise Institute, and we value the association,” Vice President Cheney said in 2005.
– Bomb Iran. “We must bomb Iran,” AEI Resident Scholar Joshua Muravchik wrote in an op-ed for the Los Angeles Times. Muravchik called for an “air campaign against Tehran’s nuclear facilities”
– Richard Perle. Perle has been at AEI since 1987, and currently serves as a Resident Fellow. A leading neoconservative, Perle was a fierce proponent of regime change in Iraq. He served as Chairman of the Defense Policy Board from 2001 to 2003.
– John Bolton. Served as Senior Vice President of AEI before coming to the Bush administration. Bolton currently serves as a Senior Fellow at AEI. “There is no such thing as the United Nations,” Bolton said. “If the U.N. secretary building in New York lost 10 stories, it wouldn’t make a bit of difference.”
– Climate change inaction. AEI offered $10,000 to climate change deniers to speak out against the recent IPCC climate change study.
– Karl Zinsmeister. Worked for 12 years at the American Enterprise magazine. He became Bush’s top domestic policy adviser, but only after he admitted to padding his resume.
– Social Security privatization. AEI has long been a vocal supporter of Social Security privatization.
– Greg Mankiw. A visiting scholar at AEI, Mankiw served as Bush’s chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers from 2003 to 2005. In 2004, Mankiw said the outsourcing of U.S. jobs overseas was “probably a plus for the economy in the long run.”
– John Yoo. Currently a visiting scholar for AEI, and a former deputy assistant attorney general in the office of legal counsel of the Department of Justice. Yoo authored the infamous torture memo that argued interrogation techniques only constituted torture if they are “equivalent in intensity to…organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death.”
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
Eric Boehlert COMPILES media whores SMEAR-campaign against Speaker Pelosi...
LYING to help the Bush administration DESTROY America's DEMOCRACY is what the MEDIA WHORES do - they are paid, professional LIARS, as this compilation proves. Like the "White House Trashing 'scandal'!" of accusations thrown at the departing Clinton-Gore staffers in January 2000 _without_one_photograph_of_evidence, this is an ENTIRELY FABRICATED STORY propagated by MEDIA WHORES for ONE PURPOSE: a white-collar LYNCHING of Democratic Party officials and leaders.
WHY DON'T YOU MEDIA WHORES put ONE-HALF as much energy into the "FRAUDULENT computerized VOTING MACHINES degrade America's democracy" story (Diebold, ES&S, & Sequoia industries voting machines use software with code-verification, and audit standards that WOULD NOT PASS routine state electronic gambling machine inspections) AS YOU PUT INTO YOUR LITTLE "Speaker Pelosi insists on gilded chariot" story???
========================================
The Pelosi smear: Stupid - but kind of entertaining
by Eric Boehlert
Feb 14 2007, 2007
http://mediamatters.org/columns/200702130007
God bless Chris Wallace, the Fox News talker who last week was momentarily truthful enough to provide us with some genuine insight.
On Friday, Wallace appeared on Fox News to promote the upcoming edition of Fox News Sunday, and the host was going down the lineup of stories he and his guests were going to address. "We will be talking about politics, about Iraq, and 'Planegate'; 'Pelosi One,' " he said referring to the controversy that erupted last week over allegations that the new Democratic Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi (CA), had demanded access to the military equivalent of a 757 to fly her back and forth between Washington, D.C., and her San Francisco home. With a smirk on his face, Wallace added, "[It's] a great little story. Stupid -- but it's kind of entertaining."
Stupid -- but kind of entertaining. Have more honest words ever been spoken by a high-priced D.C. pundit? In fact, I'm nominating "Stupid -- but kind of entertaining" to be not only the unofficial tag for the pointless, overblown Pelosi story, but also to be the unofficial motto for the entire Beltway press corps that's increasingly uninterested in substance and more concerned with stagecraft and personality. It's a press corps that goes weak in the knees for stories that are stupid -- but kind of entertaining.
And last week MSNBC was positively swooning over the Pelosi story. On Thursday, MSNBC News Live host Chris Jansing promised viewers the network would "talk about this all day long." She wasn't kidding. MSNBC addressed the story seven times that morning: 9:03, 9:24, 9:59, 10:51, 11:03, 11:10, and 11:45; and nine times that afternoon: 12:00, 12:26, 1:16, 1:22, 1:33, 1:58, 2:12, 2:21, and 2:43.
That's no joke. According to TVEyes.com, those are the times on February 8 that MSNBC news anchors discussed which airplane Pelosi might fly in during her next trip home to San Francisco. And if news had not broken later that afternoon that celebrity Anna Nicole Smith had died (a story that quickly swamped the cable news landscape), my guess is the MSNBC mentions of the Pelosi plane story would have continued indefinitely.
It wasn't just the frequency of the coverage, it was the substance. Or the lack thereof. The freedom with which reporters and pundits who covered the Pelosi story for ABC, CNN, MSNBC, the Associated Press, and Los Angeles Times, among others, simply made stuff up has to concern anybody who is interested in journalism, anybody who sees political reporting as more than a game. Because it's becoming increasingly clear that lots of D.C. journalists no longer take their jobs seriously. (NBC, CNN, and MSNBC were among the mainstream media outlets that used suggestive "size matters" references when covering the Pelosi plane story last week. Get it?) The Pelosi brouhaha simply represented the latest, most glaring example of the at-times nonexistent standards by which Beltway newsrooms now function.
CNN's Reliable Sources host Howard Kurtz on Sunday wondered if the press had been "snookered" by the story. This is the same Howard Kurtz who hyped the Pelosi story last week at Washingtonpost.com. ("This Air Pelosi story is gaining altitude.") More importantly, nobody was snookered. There was nothing confusing about the facts of the story. The truth is the press propagated the phony Pelosi story because the press wanted to. That point is crucial in terms of understanding the sad state of political journalism today.
For several days last week, the press had the option of simply ignoring the contrived controversy, or at least downplaying the Beltway silliness for what it was, a manufactured attack on Pelosi by frustrated Republicans. Once journalists bought into the premise that it was newsworthy, they could have then covered it honestly by pointing out that the claims Republicans were making against Pelosi -- that she demanded special air treatment -- were entirely false. But lots of journalists consciously decided not to do that, and instead trafficked in misinformation and used purposefully vague language in order to help sustain the story. Because they wanted to, because the story was stupid -- but kind of entertaining.
It wasn't until the White House late last week stepped in and labeled the tempest "silly" that the story began to deflate. Think about it: I was only when powerful Republicans announced the story was unfair to a Democrat that journalists began to back off, and not when the facts showed that the story was unsupportable.
As for context, the Beltway press corps apparently no longer has much use for it. During a newscast last Thursday, ABC's Good Morning America jumped directly from news that four U.S. Marines had been killed in Iraq to details about the phony Pelosi story. For ABC news execs, the two stories were essentially equivalent.
Then again, can you really blame reporters for losing perspective over a story as dynamic and riveting as the Speaker's travel plans? It was, they insisted, a "hot controversy" (CBS) and "the talk of the town" (ABC). It had "Washington buzzing" and had ignited a "firestorm of criticism" (CNN).
In truth, the story was a simple and rather transparent smear effort. The conservative Washington Times, relying on leaks from the administration and the Pentagon, first floated the story that Pelosi was asking for carte blanche access to military planes. The background on the story was that following the attacks of 9-11, the White House decided the speaker should travel in a military plane, which is what Rep. J. Dennis Hastert (R-IL.) did while speaker. Hastert flew in a relatively small plane, since he only had to travel to Illinois. In order to travel to California without having to stop and refuel, Pelosi would have to fly in a larger plane.
Republicans then took the vaguely embarrassing Washington Times story and juiced it by inserting hollow allegations that the press, instead of vetting, simply echoed as fact. One key falsehood was that Pelosi not only demanded a larger plane but that she specifically requested use of the military's C-32, which comes complete with a private bed, an entertainment center, and a crew of 16. Not true. Pelosi never asked for a larger plane, nor did she ask for the C-32. It was the House of Representatives'
Republican-appointed Sergeant at Arms, Bill Livingood, who requested the Pentagon give Pelosi a larger plane because he thought it was important for security reasons that when possible she fly nonstop to California.
Another key GOP angle of attack was that Pelosi not only wanted a larger plane, but she wanted it in order to fly her friends and contributors around. In other words, Republicans launched pre-emptive allegations of ethical wrongdoing. That's a nifty trick. And honestly, is there a single journalism student in the country given that set of facts -- a partisan politician attacks his opponent based on what his the opponent might do -- who would then treat the story as a pressing news event? I doubt it. Yet the Beltway press did (emphasis added):
"Republicans charge that she's trying to abuse the privileges of office." [McClatchy Newspapers, 2/8/07]
"Some Republicans have argued that Pelosi could offer trips to top political donors." [The Associated Press and McClatchy Newspapers, 2/8/07]
"Critics have assailed her request, saying she wants the bigger plane so she can have parties at 30,000 feet with her family and cronies." [Los Angeles Times, 2/9/07]
Beltway journalists love to mock Democrats
The Pelosi story was reminiscent of the pointless 2001 press frenzy over the number of gifts the Clintons accepted as they left the White House. And about Bill Clinton's haircut on Air Force One that allegedly caused delays for everyday travelers at Los Angles International Airport. And how environmentalist Al Gore, we're told, wasted precious river water in order to produce a campaign photo-op. And how Sen. John Kerry (D-MA.) advertised his elitist tendencies by ordering green tea at a restaurant during a 2004 campaign stop.
All those stories were ... stupid -- but kind of entertaining. Meaning, they were completely trivial pursuits that focused exclusively on image and portrayed prominent Democrats as power-hunger hypocrites, which is a news angle that remains a Beltway evergreen. Journalists adore the Democrats-are-hypocrites narrative so much that they often refuse to allow the facts get in the way of the storyline. (The Washington Post published nearly 50 references to the Clinton haircut in 1993, despite the fact government aviation records later confirmed not one single passenger was delayed at LAX.) The recent Pelosi plane commotion simply carried on that unfortunate tradition.
For instance, the CBS Evening News, keying off the flawed work of The Washington Times, reported on Feb. 7, that "the new Speaker of the House is apparently asking for a big travel upgrade" and "is reportedly asking for a much bigger jet." Apparently? Is reportedly? How difficult would it have been for CBS to confirm whether Pelosi made the request or not? My hunch is CBS didn't want to know; that way it could play dumb and prop up with the story with an "apparently" and "reportedly." In other words, the story worked a lot better -- it could be justified as news -- if CBS didn't know the actual facts.
Keep in mind, this story of marginal interest only worked if Pelosi had in fact demanded a larger, more luxurious plane than her predecessor in order to fly her and her pals around the country. The fact is, she never made that request. It's true that Republicans made that claim against Pelosi. But journalists are supposed to report facts, not amplify phony partisan allegations. Here's a sampling of news outlets that failed to report the facts.
ABC
Hari Sreenivasa, host of ABC's Inside the Newsroom, announced, "House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has asked for the use of a larger military airplane than her predecessors that can fly to her home district in San Francisco without having to stop and refuel."
- Not true. Pelosi never asked for a larger plane.
David Wright, reporting for Nightline, informed viewers that Pelosi would be flying "chartered flights" back to San Francisco.
- Not true.
Jake Tapper reported for ABCNews.com that "House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has asked for the use of a larger military airplane than her predecessors that can fly to her home district in San Francisco without having to stop and refuel."
- Not true.
Geoff Morrell, a host for ABC News Now, reported, "It seems House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is not getting the plane she's requested from the Pentagon."
- She never made a request.
Associated Press
"Republicans are taking issue with the size of the plane Pelosi has requested. Pelosi had asked for access to a C-32 plane, a military version of the Boeing 757-200." [2/9/07]
- Not true.
Boston Herald
"Her first reaction when the talk show circuit started to buzz about her demanding a military plane large enough to take her cross-country without refueling was that she wouldn't settle for anything less than male speakers had gotten." [2/10/07]
- Pelosi made no such demand.
CBS
"House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's request for a larger military jet is proving to be a political firestorm."
- Pelosi did not make that request.
CNN
Lou Dobbs insisted Pelosi "wants the U.S. Air Force for personal accommodation" and "whenever she sees fit."
- Neither allegation was true.
Dobbs announced, "House Speaker Nancy Pelosi apparently wants regular access to military aircraft for flights, not only for herself, but also members of her family and the Californian delegation." [2/1/07]
- Not true.
At week's end, Lou Dobbs This Week aired a wrap-up piece about the controversy. The report never once mentioned that Hastert had used military planes while speaker, and never once mentioned the House Sergeant of Arms had confirmed that he was the one who asked the Pentagon for a larger plane for Pelosi. In other words, after misleading viewers all week about the plane story, Lou Dobbs, rather than correcting its errors, instead made sure during its final Pelosi report to leave out the two most essential facts.
Meanwhile, on February 7, CNN's Anderson Cooper also misstated the facts: "Some Republicans objecting to her request for an Air Force C-32, the military equivalent of a Boeing 757."
- Pelosi never requested a C-32.
Los Angeles Times
"Critics have assailed her request" for a bigger plane. [2/9/07]
- Pelosi made no such request.
MSNBC
Tucker Carlson: "Speaker Pelosi has asked the White House to provide her, as well as her family, friends and staff, with full-time access to military aircraft for trips back and forth to San Francisco, or anywhere else she feels like going." [2/5/07]
- Not true.
Slate
"[T]he speaker requests permission to fly home on a plane that is bigger than former Speaker Dennis Hastert's." [2/9/07]
- The request did not come from the speaker.
Washingtonpost.com
"Nancy Pelosi asked for a bigger (and far more expensive) plane because the one she was using couldn't make it to the West Coast without a refueling stop." [2/13/07]
- Not true.
Appearing on CNN and discussing the Pelosi plane story on Sunday, conservative blogger Glenn Reynolds casually fabricated the fact that Pelosi's staff had specifically demanded a plane big enough for her entourage, with Reynolds stressing that the use of "entourage" by the Pelosi camp was an unfortunate word choice. Of course, nobody connected with Pelosi's office ever used the word "entourage" when discussing the plane story last week. Reynolds simply made it up.
That's be expected from partisan, right-wing bloggers like Reynolds who long ago walked away from any sort of consistently factual debate about the day's events. The more disturbing fact is that so many members of the mainstream media last week also passed their time purposefully playing dumb about the Pelosi story, which they loved because it was stupid -- but kind of entertaining.
_______
About author A senior fellow at Media Matters for America, and a former senior writer for Salon, Boehlert's first book, "Lapdogs: How The Press Rolled Over for Bush," was published in May.
WHY DON'T YOU MEDIA WHORES put ONE-HALF as much energy into the "FRAUDULENT computerized VOTING MACHINES degrade America's democracy" story (Diebold, ES&S, & Sequoia industries voting machines use software with code-verification, and audit standards that WOULD NOT PASS routine state electronic gambling machine inspections) AS YOU PUT INTO YOUR LITTLE "Speaker Pelosi insists on gilded chariot" story???
========================================
The Pelosi smear: Stupid - but kind of entertaining
by Eric Boehlert
Feb 14 2007, 2007
http://mediamatters.org/columns/200702130007
God bless Chris Wallace, the Fox News talker who last week was momentarily truthful enough to provide us with some genuine insight.
On Friday, Wallace appeared on Fox News to promote the upcoming edition of Fox News Sunday, and the host was going down the lineup of stories he and his guests were going to address. "We will be talking about politics, about Iraq, and 'Planegate'; 'Pelosi One,' " he said referring to the controversy that erupted last week over allegations that the new Democratic Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi (CA), had demanded access to the military equivalent of a 757 to fly her back and forth between Washington, D.C., and her San Francisco home. With a smirk on his face, Wallace added, "[It's] a great little story. Stupid -- but it's kind of entertaining."
Stupid -- but kind of entertaining. Have more honest words ever been spoken by a high-priced D.C. pundit? In fact, I'm nominating "Stupid -- but kind of entertaining" to be not only the unofficial tag for the pointless, overblown Pelosi story, but also to be the unofficial motto for the entire Beltway press corps that's increasingly uninterested in substance and more concerned with stagecraft and personality. It's a press corps that goes weak in the knees for stories that are stupid -- but kind of entertaining.
And last week MSNBC was positively swooning over the Pelosi story. On Thursday, MSNBC News Live host Chris Jansing promised viewers the network would "talk about this all day long." She wasn't kidding. MSNBC addressed the story seven times that morning: 9:03, 9:24, 9:59, 10:51, 11:03, 11:10, and 11:45; and nine times that afternoon: 12:00, 12:26, 1:16, 1:22, 1:33, 1:58, 2:12, 2:21, and 2:43.
That's no joke. According to TVEyes.com, those are the times on February 8 that MSNBC news anchors discussed which airplane Pelosi might fly in during her next trip home to San Francisco. And if news had not broken later that afternoon that celebrity Anna Nicole Smith had died (a story that quickly swamped the cable news landscape), my guess is the MSNBC mentions of the Pelosi plane story would have continued indefinitely.
It wasn't just the frequency of the coverage, it was the substance. Or the lack thereof. The freedom with which reporters and pundits who covered the Pelosi story for ABC, CNN, MSNBC, the Associated Press, and Los Angeles Times, among others, simply made stuff up has to concern anybody who is interested in journalism, anybody who sees political reporting as more than a game. Because it's becoming increasingly clear that lots of D.C. journalists no longer take their jobs seriously. (NBC, CNN, and MSNBC were among the mainstream media outlets that used suggestive "size matters" references when covering the Pelosi plane story last week. Get it?) The Pelosi brouhaha simply represented the latest, most glaring example of the at-times nonexistent standards by which Beltway newsrooms now function.
CNN's Reliable Sources host Howard Kurtz on Sunday wondered if the press had been "snookered" by the story. This is the same Howard Kurtz who hyped the Pelosi story last week at Washingtonpost.com. ("This Air Pelosi story is gaining altitude.") More importantly, nobody was snookered. There was nothing confusing about the facts of the story. The truth is the press propagated the phony Pelosi story because the press wanted to. That point is crucial in terms of understanding the sad state of political journalism today.
For several days last week, the press had the option of simply ignoring the contrived controversy, or at least downplaying the Beltway silliness for what it was, a manufactured attack on Pelosi by frustrated Republicans. Once journalists bought into the premise that it was newsworthy, they could have then covered it honestly by pointing out that the claims Republicans were making against Pelosi -- that she demanded special air treatment -- were entirely false. But lots of journalists consciously decided not to do that, and instead trafficked in misinformation and used purposefully vague language in order to help sustain the story. Because they wanted to, because the story was stupid -- but kind of entertaining.
It wasn't until the White House late last week stepped in and labeled the tempest "silly" that the story began to deflate. Think about it: I was only when powerful Republicans announced the story was unfair to a Democrat that journalists began to back off, and not when the facts showed that the story was unsupportable.
As for context, the Beltway press corps apparently no longer has much use for it. During a newscast last Thursday, ABC's Good Morning America jumped directly from news that four U.S. Marines had been killed in Iraq to details about the phony Pelosi story. For ABC news execs, the two stories were essentially equivalent.
Then again, can you really blame reporters for losing perspective over a story as dynamic and riveting as the Speaker's travel plans? It was, they insisted, a "hot controversy" (CBS) and "the talk of the town" (ABC). It had "Washington buzzing" and had ignited a "firestorm of criticism" (CNN).
In truth, the story was a simple and rather transparent smear effort. The conservative Washington Times, relying on leaks from the administration and the Pentagon, first floated the story that Pelosi was asking for carte blanche access to military planes. The background on the story was that following the attacks of 9-11, the White House decided the speaker should travel in a military plane, which is what Rep. J. Dennis Hastert (R-IL.) did while speaker. Hastert flew in a relatively small plane, since he only had to travel to Illinois. In order to travel to California without having to stop and refuel, Pelosi would have to fly in a larger plane.
Republicans then took the vaguely embarrassing Washington Times story and juiced it by inserting hollow allegations that the press, instead of vetting, simply echoed as fact. One key falsehood was that Pelosi not only demanded a larger plane but that she specifically requested use of the military's C-32, which comes complete with a private bed, an entertainment center, and a crew of 16. Not true. Pelosi never asked for a larger plane, nor did she ask for the C-32. It was the House of Representatives'
Republican-appointed Sergeant at Arms, Bill Livingood, who requested the Pentagon give Pelosi a larger plane because he thought it was important for security reasons that when possible she fly nonstop to California.
Another key GOP angle of attack was that Pelosi not only wanted a larger plane, but she wanted it in order to fly her friends and contributors around. In other words, Republicans launched pre-emptive allegations of ethical wrongdoing. That's a nifty trick. And honestly, is there a single journalism student in the country given that set of facts -- a partisan politician attacks his opponent based on what his the opponent might do -- who would then treat the story as a pressing news event? I doubt it. Yet the Beltway press did (emphasis added):
"Republicans charge that she's trying to abuse the privileges of office." [McClatchy Newspapers, 2/8/07]
"Some Republicans have argued that Pelosi could offer trips to top political donors." [The Associated Press and McClatchy Newspapers, 2/8/07]
"Critics have assailed her request, saying she wants the bigger plane so she can have parties at 30,000 feet with her family and cronies." [Los Angeles Times, 2/9/07]
Beltway journalists love to mock Democrats
The Pelosi story was reminiscent of the pointless 2001 press frenzy over the number of gifts the Clintons accepted as they left the White House. And about Bill Clinton's haircut on Air Force One that allegedly caused delays for everyday travelers at Los Angles International Airport. And how environmentalist Al Gore, we're told, wasted precious river water in order to produce a campaign photo-op. And how Sen. John Kerry (D-MA.) advertised his elitist tendencies by ordering green tea at a restaurant during a 2004 campaign stop.
All those stories were ... stupid -- but kind of entertaining. Meaning, they were completely trivial pursuits that focused exclusively on image and portrayed prominent Democrats as power-hunger hypocrites, which is a news angle that remains a Beltway evergreen. Journalists adore the Democrats-are-hypocrites narrative so much that they often refuse to allow the facts get in the way of the storyline. (The Washington Post published nearly 50 references to the Clinton haircut in 1993, despite the fact government aviation records later confirmed not one single passenger was delayed at LAX.) The recent Pelosi plane commotion simply carried on that unfortunate tradition.
For instance, the CBS Evening News, keying off the flawed work of The Washington Times, reported on Feb. 7, that "the new Speaker of the House is apparently asking for a big travel upgrade" and "is reportedly asking for a much bigger jet." Apparently? Is reportedly? How difficult would it have been for CBS to confirm whether Pelosi made the request or not? My hunch is CBS didn't want to know; that way it could play dumb and prop up with the story with an "apparently" and "reportedly." In other words, the story worked a lot better -- it could be justified as news -- if CBS didn't know the actual facts.
Keep in mind, this story of marginal interest only worked if Pelosi had in fact demanded a larger, more luxurious plane than her predecessor in order to fly her and her pals around the country. The fact is, she never made that request. It's true that Republicans made that claim against Pelosi. But journalists are supposed to report facts, not amplify phony partisan allegations. Here's a sampling of news outlets that failed to report the facts.
ABC
Hari Sreenivasa, host of ABC's Inside the Newsroom, announced, "House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has asked for the use of a larger military airplane than her predecessors that can fly to her home district in San Francisco without having to stop and refuel."
- Not true. Pelosi never asked for a larger plane.
David Wright, reporting for Nightline, informed viewers that Pelosi would be flying "chartered flights" back to San Francisco.
- Not true.
Jake Tapper reported for ABCNews.com that "House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has asked for the use of a larger military airplane than her predecessors that can fly to her home district in San Francisco without having to stop and refuel."
- Not true.
Geoff Morrell, a host for ABC News Now, reported, "It seems House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is not getting the plane she's requested from the Pentagon."
- She never made a request.
Associated Press
"Republicans are taking issue with the size of the plane Pelosi has requested. Pelosi had asked for access to a C-32 plane, a military version of the Boeing 757-200." [2/9/07]
- Not true.
Boston Herald
"Her first reaction when the talk show circuit started to buzz about her demanding a military plane large enough to take her cross-country without refueling was that she wouldn't settle for anything less than male speakers had gotten." [2/10/07]
- Pelosi made no such demand.
CBS
"House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's request for a larger military jet is proving to be a political firestorm."
- Pelosi did not make that request.
CNN
Lou Dobbs insisted Pelosi "wants the U.S. Air Force for personal accommodation" and "whenever she sees fit."
- Neither allegation was true.
Dobbs announced, "House Speaker Nancy Pelosi apparently wants regular access to military aircraft for flights, not only for herself, but also members of her family and the Californian delegation." [2/1/07]
- Not true.
At week's end, Lou Dobbs This Week aired a wrap-up piece about the controversy. The report never once mentioned that Hastert had used military planes while speaker, and never once mentioned the House Sergeant of Arms had confirmed that he was the one who asked the Pentagon for a larger plane for Pelosi. In other words, after misleading viewers all week about the plane story, Lou Dobbs, rather than correcting its errors, instead made sure during its final Pelosi report to leave out the two most essential facts.
Meanwhile, on February 7, CNN's Anderson Cooper also misstated the facts: "Some Republicans objecting to her request for an Air Force C-32, the military equivalent of a Boeing 757."
- Pelosi never requested a C-32.
Los Angeles Times
"Critics have assailed her request" for a bigger plane. [2/9/07]
- Pelosi made no such request.
MSNBC
Tucker Carlson: "Speaker Pelosi has asked the White House to provide her, as well as her family, friends and staff, with full-time access to military aircraft for trips back and forth to San Francisco, or anywhere else she feels like going." [2/5/07]
- Not true.
Slate
"[T]he speaker requests permission to fly home on a plane that is bigger than former Speaker Dennis Hastert's." [2/9/07]
- The request did not come from the speaker.
Washingtonpost.com
"Nancy Pelosi asked for a bigger (and far more expensive) plane because the one she was using couldn't make it to the West Coast without a refueling stop." [2/13/07]
- Not true.
Appearing on CNN and discussing the Pelosi plane story on Sunday, conservative blogger Glenn Reynolds casually fabricated the fact that Pelosi's staff had specifically demanded a plane big enough for her entourage, with Reynolds stressing that the use of "entourage" by the Pelosi camp was an unfortunate word choice. Of course, nobody connected with Pelosi's office ever used the word "entourage" when discussing the plane story last week. Reynolds simply made it up.
That's be expected from partisan, right-wing bloggers like Reynolds who long ago walked away from any sort of consistently factual debate about the day's events. The more disturbing fact is that so many members of the mainstream media last week also passed their time purposefully playing dumb about the Pelosi story, which they loved because it was stupid -- but kind of entertaining.
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About author A senior fellow at Media Matters for America, and a former senior writer for Salon, Boehlert's first book, "Lapdogs: How The Press Rolled Over for Bush," was published in May.
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