Americans want mideast oil. We will kill thousands of civilians to get it. And the United Nations, which was set up specifically to prevent stronger aggressor nations from bombing and invading weaker nations, will once again be no more than a captive prostitute to American ambitions.
This excellent article by David Bromwich, one of many now cropping up on the subject, details the "VERBOTTEN!" subject of America's foreign policy alignment with that of Israel and the American-Israel (Jewish) lobby. This is a story that American corporate "MAJOR MEDIA" relentlessly SUPPRESSES.
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Iraq, Israel, Iran
by David Bromwich
September 4, 2007
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-bromwich/iraq-israel-iran_b_62995.html
When John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt's article on the Israel Lobby appeared in the London Review of Books, after having been commissioned and killed by the Atlantic Monthly, neoconservative publicists launched an all-out campaign to slander the authors as anti-Semites. Now that their book The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy has appeared--a work of considerable scope, carefully documented, and not just an expanded version of the article--the imputation of anti-Semitism will doubtless be repeated more sparingly for readers lower down the educational ladder. Meanwhile, the literate establishment press will (a) ignore it, (b) pretend that it says nothing new or surprising, and (c) rule out the probable inferences from the data, on the ground that the very meaning of the word "lobby" is elusive.
The truth is that many new facts are in this book, and many surprising facts. By reconstructing a trail of meetings and public statements in 2001-2002, for example, the authors show that much of the leadership of Israel was puzzled at first by the boyish enthusiasm for a war on Iraq among their neoconservative allies. Why Iraq? they asked. Why now? They would appear to have obtained assurances, however, that once the "regime change" in Iraq was accomplished, the next war would be against Iran.
A notable pilgrimage followed. One by one they lined up, Netanyahu, Sharon, Peres, and Barak, writing op-eds and issuing flaming warnings to convince Americans that Saddam Hussein was a menace of world-historical magnitude. Suddenly the message was that any delay of the president's plan to bomb, invade, and occupy Iraq would be seized on by "the terrorists" as a sign of weakness. Regarding the correct treatment of terrorists, as also regarding the avoidance of weakness, Americans look to Israelis as mentors in a class by themselves.
So a war projected years before by Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz--a war secured at last by the fixing of the facts around the policy at the Office of the Vice President--was allowed to borrow some prestige at an intermediate stage by the consent of a few well-regarded Israeli politicians. Yet their target of choice had been Iran. They accepted the change of sequence without outward signs of doubt, possibly owing to their acquaintance with the Middle East doctrine espoused by the Weekly Standard and the American Enterprise Institute--a doctrine which held that to create a viable order after the fall of Iraq, regime change in Iran and Syria would have to follow expeditiously.
To sum up this part: the evidence of Mearsheimer and Walt suggests that Israel was never the prime mover of the Iraq war. Rather, once the Cheney-Wolfowitz design was in place, the Israeli ministers who trooped through American opinion pages and news-talk shows did what they could to heat up the war fever. This war was on the cards before they threw in their lot with Cheney and Bush; by their efforts they merely helped to confer on the plan an aura of legitimacy and worldly wisdom.
But now the American war with Iran they originally wanted is coming closer. Last Tuesday, when the mass media were crammed to distraction with the behavior of a senator in an airport washroom, few could be troubled to notice an important speech by President Bush. If Iran is allowed to persist in its present state, the president told the American Legion convention in Reno, it threatens "to put a region already known for instability and violence under the shadow of a nuclear holocaust." He said he had no intention of allowing that; and so he has "authorized our military commanders in Iraq to confront Tehran's murderous activities." Those words come close to saying not that a war is coming but that it is already here. No lawmaker who reads them can affect the slightest shock at any action the president takes against Iran.
Admittedly, it was a showdown speech, reckless and belligerent, to a soldier audience; but then, this has been just the sort of crowd and message that Cheney and Bush favor when they are about to open a new round of killings. And in a sense, the Senate had given the president his cue when it approved, by a vote of 97-0, the July 11 Lieberman Amendment to Confront Iran. It is hardly an accident that the president and his favorite tame senator concurred in their choice of the word "confront." The pretext for the Lieberman amendment, as for the president's order, was the discovery of caches of weapons alleged to belong to Iran, the capture of Iranian advisers said to be operating against American troops, and the assertion that the most deadly IEDs used against Americans are often traceable to Iranian sources--claims that have been widely treated in the press as possible, but suspect and unverified. Still, the vote was 97-0. If few Americans took notice, the government of Iran surely did.
That unanimous vote was the latest in a series of capitulations that has included the apparent end of resistance by Nancy Pelosi to the next war. After the election of 2006, the speaker of the house declared her intention to enact into law a requirement that this president seek separate authorization for a war against Iran. On the point of doing so, she addressed the AIPAC convention, and was booed for criticizing the escalation of the Iraq war. Pelosi took the hint, shelved her authorization plan, and went with AIPAC against the anti-war base of the Democratic party.
This much, one might know without the help of Mearsheimer and Walt. But without their record, how many would trace the connection between the removal of Philip Zelikow as policy counselor of the state department, at the end of 2006, and a speech Zelikow had given in September 2006 urging serious negotiation and a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine? The ousting of Zelikow was a blessing to the war party, since it freed them from a skeptical confidant of Secretary of State Rice--perhaps the only person of stature anywhere near the administration whom she treated as an ally and friend. And the meaning of the change was clear when Zelikow's replacement turned out to be Eliot Cohen: a neoconservative war scholar and enthusiast, an early booster of the "surge" on the pundit shows, and incidentally a shameless slanderer of Mearsheimer-Walt ("Yes, It's Anti-Semitic," Washington Post, April 5, 2006).
From Zelikow to Cohen was only a step on the long path of humiliation that now stretched before Condoleeza Rice. When, in March 2007, amid suggestions of a renewal of diplomacy, she intimated that talks might be helpful in dealing with the Hamas-Fatah unity government (whose formation the Arab world had greeted as offering a promise of peace), she was demolished by an AIPAC-backed advisory letter bearing the signatures of 79 senators, which directed her not to speak with a government that had not yet recognized Israel. From that moment Rice was effectively neutralized.
The hottest cries for another war have been coming this summer from Joe Lieberman. He has called for attacks on Iran, and for attacks on Syria. It is as if Lieberman, with his appetite for multiple theaters of conflict, spoke from the congealed memory of all the wars he never fought. But Joe Lieberman is a stalking-horse. He would not say these things without getting permission from Vice President Cheney, a close and admired friend. Nor would Cheney permit a high-profile lawmaker whom he partly controls to set the United States and Israel on so perilous a course unless he had ascertained its acceptability to Ehud Olmert.
Yet the chief orchestrater of the second neoconservative war of aggression is Elliott Abrams. Convicted for deceptions around Iran-Contra, as Lewis Libby was convicted for deceptions stemming from Iraq--and pardoned by the elder Bush just as Libby had his sentence commuted by the younger--Abrams now presides over the Middle East desk at the National Security Council. All of the wildness of this astonishing functionary and all his reckless love of subversion will be required to pump up the "imminent danger" of Iran. For here, as with Iraq, the danger can only be made to look imminent by manipulation and forgery. On all sober estimates, Iran is several months from mastering the nuclear cycle, and several years from producing a weapon. Whereas Israel for decades has been in possession of a substantial nuclear arsenal.
How mad is Elliott Abrams? If one passage cited by Mearsheimer-Walt is quoted accurately, it would seem to be the duty of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to subject Abrams to as exacting a challenge as the Senate Judiciary Committee brought to Alberto Gonzales. The man at the Middle East desk of the National Security Council wrote in 1997 in his book Faith or Fear: "there can be no doubt that Jews, faithful to the covenant between God and Abraham, are to stand apart from the nation in which they live. It is the very nature of being Jewish to be apart--except in Israel--from the rest of the population." When he wrote those words, Abrams probably did not expect to serve in another American administration. He certainly did not expect to occupy a position that would require him to weigh the national interest of Israel, the country with which he confessed himself uniquely at one, alongside the national interest of a country in which he felt himself to stand "apart...from the rest of the population." Now that he is calling the shots against Hamas and Hezbollah, Damascus and Tehran, his words of 1997 ought to alarm us into reflection.
Among many possible lines of inquiry, the senators might begin by recognizing that the United States has other allies in Asia besides Israel. One of those allies is India; and there is a further point of resemblance. In a distinct exception to our anti-proliferation policy, we have allowed India to develop nuclear weapons; just as, in an earlier such exception, we allowed Israel to do the same. But suppose we read tomorrow a statement by the director of the South Asia desk of the National Security Council which declared: "There can be no doubt that Hindus are to stand apart from any nation in which they live. It is the very nature of being Hindu to be apart--except in India--from the rest of the population." Suppose, further, we knew this man still held these beliefs at a time of maximum tension between India and Pakistan; and that he had recently channeled 86 million dollars to regional gangs and militias bent on increasing the tension. Would we not conclude that something in our counsels of state had gone seriously out of joint?
The Mearsheimer-Walt study of American policy deserves to be widely read and discussed. It could not be more timely. If the speeches and saber-rattling by the president, the ambassador to Iraq, and several army officers mean anything, they mean that Cheney and Abrams are preparing to do to Iran what Cheney and Wolfowitz did to Iraq. They are gunning for an incident. They are working against some resistance from the armed forces but none from the opposition party at home. The president has ordered American troops to confront Iran. Sarkozy has fallen into line, Brown and Merkel are silent, and outside the United States only Mohamed ElBaradei of the International Atomic Energy Agency stands between the war party and a prefabricated justification for a war that would extend across a vast subcontinent. Unless some opposition can rouse itself, we are poised to descend with non-partisan compliance into a moral and political disaster that will dwarf anything America has seen.
Wednesday, September 05, 2007
Media Whores CNN, Fox, NBC, IGNORE Mitt Romney fundraising scandal, focus exclusively on Clinton donor.....
America's DESPICABLE media whores at it again: giving one-sided and negative coverage to minor Democrat scandals, while IGNORING even worse scandals in the Republican camp. In this case, ONE FUNDRAISER to the Hillary Clinton campaign is under suspicion for money fraud... while Mitt Romney's national finance committee CO-CHAIRMAN, Alan B. Fabian, has been charged with a 23 count indictment, including money laundering, mail fraud, and perjury!
MEDIA WHORES, they name is LIES and TREACHERY!
MediaMatters.org has the story by the numbers...
http://mediamatters.org/items/200709010002
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Romney Fundraising Scandal Ignored By Liberal Media - Clinton Gets Hammered Over Hsu
By: Logan Murphy
Monday, September 3rd, 2007
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/09/03/romney-fundraising-scandal-ignored-by-liberal-media-clinton-gets-hammered-over-hsu/
August was a disastrous month for Republicans and the Romney campaign took a huge hit when it’s national finance committee co-chairman, Alan B. Fabian was charged in a 23 count indictment, including charges of money laundering, mail fraud, perjury and obstruction of justice. It’s reported Fabian, a former Bush Pioneer, allegedly ran a scheme that netted him millions of dollars which were used to purchase beach front property and travel. The Romney campaign said they would return Fabian’s $2,300 campaign donation, but not funds donated by others through him. Fabian stepped down from Romney’s campaign shortly after his August 9th indictment — but you may not have heard much about this scandal.
However, you may have heard of a scandal involving Senator Hillary Clinton’s campaign and a less-than savory character named Norman Hsu. According to reports from the LA Times, Hsu skipped out on a 1991 plea agreement in San Mateo Co. CA, in which he was to serve three years for grand theft. Hsu, who turned himself in to authorities in CA on Friday and awaits a September 5th bail hearing, became a top Democratic fundraiser and contributor to Hillary Clinton’s campaign as well as other Democratic candidates, including Senator Barack Obama, much of which was laundered through others. The Clinton campaign has agreed to return $23,000 in campaign donations from Hsu, and Obama has agreed to donate his $2,300 donation to charity.
While both scandals hold equal potential for damage to the respective candidates involved, the media, for unknown reasons, gave Mitt Romney a pass, while devoting ample time to Hsu and the Clinton campaign. According to Media Matters, NBC, CNN and FOXNews all covered the Hsu scandal, but none of the aforementioned networks dedicated any time to the Romney/Fabian scandal that can be found in the Nexis database. More from Media Matters:
Summary: In recent days, NBC, CNN, and Fox News have all aired reports or discussed the case of Norman Hsu, who The Wall Street Journal suggested may have funneled illegal campaign contributions to Sen. Hillary Clinton. However, when Mitt Romney’s national finance committee co-chairman Alan Fabian was charged with mail fraud, money laundering, bankruptcy fraud, perjury and obstruction of justice, the three networks did not report or discuss it during programs available in the Nexis database.
MEDIA WHORES, they name is LIES and TREACHERY!
MediaMatters.org has the story by the numbers...
http://mediamatters.org/items/200709010002
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Romney Fundraising Scandal Ignored By Liberal Media - Clinton Gets Hammered Over Hsu
By: Logan Murphy
Monday, September 3rd, 2007
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/09/03/romney-fundraising-scandal-ignored-by-liberal-media-clinton-gets-hammered-over-hsu/
August was a disastrous month for Republicans and the Romney campaign took a huge hit when it’s national finance committee co-chairman, Alan B. Fabian was charged in a 23 count indictment, including charges of money laundering, mail fraud, perjury and obstruction of justice. It’s reported Fabian, a former Bush Pioneer, allegedly ran a scheme that netted him millions of dollars which were used to purchase beach front property and travel. The Romney campaign said they would return Fabian’s $2,300 campaign donation, but not funds donated by others through him. Fabian stepped down from Romney’s campaign shortly after his August 9th indictment — but you may not have heard much about this scandal.
However, you may have heard of a scandal involving Senator Hillary Clinton’s campaign and a less-than savory character named Norman Hsu. According to reports from the LA Times, Hsu skipped out on a 1991 plea agreement in San Mateo Co. CA, in which he was to serve three years for grand theft. Hsu, who turned himself in to authorities in CA on Friday and awaits a September 5th bail hearing, became a top Democratic fundraiser and contributor to Hillary Clinton’s campaign as well as other Democratic candidates, including Senator Barack Obama, much of which was laundered through others. The Clinton campaign has agreed to return $23,000 in campaign donations from Hsu, and Obama has agreed to donate his $2,300 donation to charity.
While both scandals hold equal potential for damage to the respective candidates involved, the media, for unknown reasons, gave Mitt Romney a pass, while devoting ample time to Hsu and the Clinton campaign. According to Media Matters, NBC, CNN and FOXNews all covered the Hsu scandal, but none of the aforementioned networks dedicated any time to the Romney/Fabian scandal that can be found in the Nexis database. More from Media Matters:
Summary: In recent days, NBC, CNN, and Fox News have all aired reports or discussed the case of Norman Hsu, who The Wall Street Journal suggested may have funneled illegal campaign contributions to Sen. Hillary Clinton. However, when Mitt Romney’s national finance committee co-chairman Alan Fabian was charged with mail fraud, money laundering, bankruptcy fraud, perjury and obstruction of justice, the three networks did not report or discuss it during programs available in the Nexis database.
Sunday, September 02, 2007
GENOCIDE the first priority, the Alpha & Omega of the Bush-Rumsfeld-Cheney-Wolfowitz invasion and corrupt occupation of Iraq....
In 2003, the Cheney-Rumsfeld-Bush2 admininstration reprised their roles from the late 1980's, when the Cheney-Rumsfeld-Bush1 administration (Cheney as Secretary of Defense, Bush Senior as both Vice President and foreign-policy expert in the Reagan administration, and president in his own right after 1988, and Don Rumsfeld as personal envoy from the Reagan White House to Saddam Hussein) was THE WORLD'S PREMIER SPONSOR of the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq. Not only did the United States FUND SADDAM during the entire length of the Iran-Iraq war with money ("agricultural credits" that were as fungible as cash) and equipment, but Bush Sr., Rumsfeld, and Cheney were also sponsors of Saddam's WMD program, the late 1980's rife with talk about Iraq's "WMD PRECURSOR TECHNOLOGIES" developed with the blessings of the United States, including the chemicals and equipment required to produce poison gas for the infamous attacks on Kurdish civilians and Iranian military units. Effectively, GENOCIDE WAS A BYPRODUCT, if not intended consequence, of US assistance to Saddam's regime then, and starting with the stolen election of 2000, Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld, and George W. Bush (Jr.) started reprising the role of SPONSORS OF GENOCIDE in Iraq, this time with American troops and aircraft doing the dirty work.
See "Spider's Web: The Secret History of How The White House Illegally Armed Iraq"
http://www.amazon.com/Spiders-Web-Secret-History-Illegally/dp/0553096508
#1. How the Bush-Cheney administration may have ENCOURAGED LOOTING in Baghdad and Iraq after the successful invasion in 2003, hoping to DESTROY IRAQI INFRASTRUCTURE more than US bombings had already done, in an effort to make Iraqis jobless, homeless, stateless, economically disenfranchised war refugees who, in turning to the insurgency, could be killed en masse.
http://www.thebluestate.com/2007/09/the-darkest-of-.html
#2. Contrary to US 'news' reports, Iraq civilian DEATH RATE SOARS in Summer of 2007
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003634166
#3. Family of US Marine killed by insurgents in Haditah calls Marine's massacre of 24 Iraqis in Haditha a "HEROIC ACTION"!!
Family Of Marine Killed In Haditha Slaying 'Outraged'
POSTED: 1:10 pm PST December 30, 2006
UPDATED: 1:41 pm PST December 30, 2007
http://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/10636883/detail.html
#4. http://noendinsightmovie.com/ video clip, Movie preview "NO END IN SIGHT" - how careful planning for the post-invasion rebuilding of Iraq was DISCARDED... IN FAVOR OF CHAOS !!
The Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld-Wolfowitz led INVASION and OCCUPATION of Iraq hoped to achieve its first objective - complete control of Iraqi oil and Iraq strategic territory - by KILLING AS MANY IRAQIS AS POSSIBLE. That goal was accomplished by CREATING A SITUATION OF CHAOS, disbanding the military, disbanding the police, and ENCOURAGING LOOTING. All of which led to an INVIGORATED INSURGENCY, which gave the administration the cover to CONTINUE TO DESTROY IRAQI INFRASTRUCTURE.
The huge Iraq RECONSTRUCTION programs by American companies WERE INTENDED TO BE A SHAM - like New Orleans, their first priority was to REDISTRIBUTE WEALTH UPWARDS, from taxpayers to Bush-Cheney cronies such as Halliburton corporation, a company which is STILL PAYING DICK CHENEY in "deferred stock options" which go up in value with every billion-dollar government contract that Halliburton receives but doesn't complete.
Like Vietnam, today entire swaths of Iraq are considered "FREE FIRE ZONES" where the US military has unlimited authority to kill anyone, with very little oversight, and what little oversight there is is provided only by the military itself... as for example NOT ONE OFFICER convicted of Abu Ghraib "abuse" although FEMALE PRIVATES WERE CONVICTED by US military KANGAROO COURT.
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The darkest of all suspicions about Rumsfeld's postwar strategy
Why the Administration may have purposely encouraged looting after the fall of Baghdad.
http://www.thebluestate.com/2007/09/the-darkest-of-.html
Over the last four years, I have been personally conflicted over which was more outrageously horrible: the decision to go to war in the first place, or the manner in which postwar planning was executed? Both were bad, no doubt there. But there was something said about the latter last night on HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher that jolted my emotions. Let me say that as someone that follows politics on a daily basis, I am rarely shocked. But what I heard last night personally disturbed me, and will get all of you grinding your teeth.
Remember all the looting throughout Iraq after the US invaded? Many Pentagon-types concede that the US should have done a better job protecting the Iraqi infrastructure. Well, according to former U.S. Ambassador Barbara Bodine, one of the three panel guests on the show, the Administration actually wanted there to be mass looting in Baghdad because it would help downsize government. In other words, Rumsfeld wanted to implement Ronald Reagan's limited government model in Iraq.
So I did some digging on the issue. I found a 2003 story in The Nation magazine that confirmed this strategy. It's quite disturbing that Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld would want there to be looting. But it all makes perfect sense:
As the Bush Administration becomes increasingly open about its plans to privatize Iraq's state industries and parts of the government, Bremer's de-Baathification takes on new meaning. Is he working only to get rid of Baath Party members, or is he also working to shrink the public sector as a whole so that hospitals, schools and even the army are primed for privatization by US firms? Just as reconstruction is the guise for privatization, de-Baathification looks a lot like disguised downsizing.
We need to ask ourselves what the purpose was behind Reagan's ideology? Why do conservative Washington insiders want limited government? Is it because their brand of government would be more efficient, or because the phrase "limited government" is code for selling democracy to the highest bidder?
Republican leaders want you to think that less government means less spending and more rights for you. But actually, there will be spending no matter what. It's just a question of who will be in charge. Do you want government, which is bound by disclosure laws, to do the work? Or do you want corporations, whose motives are less about spreading democracy than making a profit on Wall Street? Oh boy have we been used!
But the main idea is that Rumsfeld wanted this "limited government" model to be implemented. He tried. He failed. Now there is no end in sight.
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#2. DEATH TOLL in Iraq SOARING
AP's Count: Contrary to Claims -- Civilian Deaths Soaring in Iraq
Published: September 01, 2007
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003634166
BAGHDAD Civilian deaths rose in August to their second-highest monthly level this year, according to figures compiled Saturday by The Associated Press. That raises questions about whether U.S. strategy is working days before Congress receives landmark reports that will decide the course of the war.
At least 81 American service members also died in Iraq during August — an increase of two over the previous month but well below the year's monthly high of 126 in May. American deaths surpassed the 80 mark during only two months of 2006.
Friday, August 31, 2007
American 'Major Media" portrait of the Iraq war is entirely "CONSTRUCTED, WHITEWASHED, REDACTED" - i.e. classic propaganda.
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Brian DePalma Airs "Redacted" Iraq Images in New Film
By E&P Staff
Published: August 31, 2007
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003634107
NEW YORK Critics of the war in Iraq have long charged that the press has usually whitewashed the death and violence of the conflict by refusing to publish or air some of the most graphic images. Now a famous filmmaker -- using some of the photos that newspapers have failed to print -- is trying to do something about that.
The latest film by Brian DePalma, director of numerous well-known movies such as "Scarface," "The Untouchables" and "Carrie/" is aptly called "Redacted" and has just been shown for the first time as part of the Venice Film Festival. DePalma spoke to reporters there, saying, among other things, "Pictures are what will stop the war."
The film centers on perhaps the most horrendous known atrocity involving U.S. troops, the gang rape and murder of a 14-year-old girl and four members of her family in March 2006. DePalma had directed in 1989 a movie about a rape by U.S. soldiers of a Vietnamese girl called "Casualties of War," starring Sean Penn and the young Michael J. Fox.
"All the images we...have of our war are completely constructed -- whitewashed, redacted," said De Palma in Venice, according to press reports. "One only hopes that these images will get the public incensed enough to get their congressmen to vote against the war."
DePalma makes use of images he has grabbed from the Web, including soldiers' home videos and photos that have never appeared in print. There's also more standard documentary film footage and the use of fictionalized techniques and characters to avoid certain legal issues, making it into an unusual kind of "docu-drama."
"The movie is an attempt to bring the reality of what is happening in Iraq to the American people," he said after a screening in Venice.
"In Vietnam, when we saw the images and the sorrow of the people we were traumatizing and killing, we saw the soldiers wounded and brought back in body bags. We see none of that in this war,.
"It's all out there on the Internet, you can find it if you look for it, but it's not in the major media. The media is now really part of the corporate establishment....
"When I went out to find the pictures, I said (to the media) give me the pictures you can't publish...
"Everything that is in the movie is based on something I found that actually happened. But once I had put it in the script I would get a note from a lawyer saying you can't use that because it's real and we may get sued."
Comedian Bill Maher reports on the Iraq war situation BETTER than the Major Media 'news' whores!
Comedian Bill Maher points out the folly and insanity of the grotesquely corrupt and incompetent Bush-Cheney-US occupation of Iraq: that we HAD a Sunni strongman dictator RESTRAINING Iraq's Shiites and Iranian ambitions in the region, but that under the insane leadership of America's neo-con/neo-Confederate alliance, we Americans just HAD TO bomb a country back to the 19th Century (horse-manure in the muddy streets, anyone?) to arrest and hang said dictator (Saddam Hussein) - and now we are desperately looking around for the next messiah, oops, the next Iraqi strongman who will take us back to the good ol' days before American soldiers started DOING THE DIRTY WORK that America had delegated to Saddam Hussein and his Baath Party - until, that is, Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz (et al, ad naseum) INSERTED American troops in to Iraq to take up where Saddam had left off.
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That Tingle Means it's Working
by Bill Maher
Posted August 30, 2007
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-maher/that-tingle-means-its-wo_b_62505.html
Doesn't it set a wonderful example for democracy when leaders in this country, both Democrat and Republican, call for the ouster of the elected Maliki government in Iraq?
And now for your first lesson in elected democracy -- the coup d'etat.
Oh, and number two -- installing a CIA-backed emergency government.
But let's all see this for what it is: another excuse to buy this shitty war some more time.
The whole idea of the surge was to establish some semblance of security and provide "breathing space" so that the Iraqi leaders could make political progress. And while the military has done a better job creating pockets of security, even while overall violence is up from last summer, the political side of the equation has gone backwards. The Sunnis have left the government entirely, and an emergency summit designed at bringing them back in has failed. Half of the 36 ministries have withdrawn support for the government and don't even attend meetings. Which raises another question: how do you tell who is showing up when they're all on vacation?
So what do we do now? Try to install the Allawi government back in. That way, when General Petraeus testifies before Congress that the surge has not created an environment where political reconciliation could take place -- i.e. the surge has failed -- we'll then pretend that was because we had the wrong team in charge. But now we have the right team in charge! And you can't pull the plug now that we have the right team in charge! Just you wait and see! It's all going to turn out great! Just give us a couple more months!
And by months, I mean years.
Meanwhile, this is the kind of spin you get from the right wing, who likes to think that we're actually in control of this situation. Here's a recent National Review editorial:
"The fact is that the surge is President Bush's policy, and one that he implemented over the vociferous opposition of Democrats who thought the best strategy against al Qaeda in Iraq was to begin to leave. Now the surge has helped turn Sunni tribes against al Qaeda, advancing the goal that nearly everyone in the U.S. notionally shares of routing the terror group from Iraq."
Then, of course, there's the reality: it was the Sunnis in Anbar province who decided to create an alliance against the Al Qaeda types, and that happened before the surge even started. So we didn't do that. They did. We simply armed them, funded them, and helped them. But they're not on our side. They're on their side. They were shooting at us and blowing up our convoys just months ago. We didn't stop and suddenly realize that we're in love with each other. You're thinking of a Tom Hanks-Meg Ryan movie.
Plus, Anbar is entirely Sunni. It's like Utah for Mormons. So they don't have to deal with the Sunni-Shiite dynamic like the rest of the country. This is regular crazy Sunnis organizing against the extremely crazy Sunnis. With our guns and money. Is that the best we can do for now? Probably. Is it a long-term solution? Shit no.
So don't let them fool you with all the talk of "progress." They've simply, and for the 37th time, re-defined what "progress" means. And when we get to #65 - that more Iraqis have access to NFL Network than ever before -- I'll say, "Okay, okay. That is progress. ...Can we come home now?"
Bill Maher is the host of HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher" which airs every Friday at 11PM.
That Tingle Means it's Working
by Bill Maher
Posted August 30, 2007
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-maher/that-tingle-means-its-wo_b_62505.html
Doesn't it set a wonderful example for democracy when leaders in this country, both Democrat and Republican, call for the ouster of the elected Maliki government in Iraq?
And now for your first lesson in elected democracy -- the coup d'etat.
Oh, and number two -- installing a CIA-backed emergency government.
But let's all see this for what it is: another excuse to buy this shitty war some more time.
The whole idea of the surge was to establish some semblance of security and provide "breathing space" so that the Iraqi leaders could make political progress. And while the military has done a better job creating pockets of security, even while overall violence is up from last summer, the political side of the equation has gone backwards. The Sunnis have left the government entirely, and an emergency summit designed at bringing them back in has failed. Half of the 36 ministries have withdrawn support for the government and don't even attend meetings. Which raises another question: how do you tell who is showing up when they're all on vacation?
So what do we do now? Try to install the Allawi government back in. That way, when General Petraeus testifies before Congress that the surge has not created an environment where political reconciliation could take place -- i.e. the surge has failed -- we'll then pretend that was because we had the wrong team in charge. But now we have the right team in charge! And you can't pull the plug now that we have the right team in charge! Just you wait and see! It's all going to turn out great! Just give us a couple more months!
And by months, I mean years.
Meanwhile, this is the kind of spin you get from the right wing, who likes to think that we're actually in control of this situation. Here's a recent National Review editorial:
"The fact is that the surge is President Bush's policy, and one that he implemented over the vociferous opposition of Democrats who thought the best strategy against al Qaeda in Iraq was to begin to leave. Now the surge has helped turn Sunni tribes against al Qaeda, advancing the goal that nearly everyone in the U.S. notionally shares of routing the terror group from Iraq."
Then, of course, there's the reality: it was the Sunnis in Anbar province who decided to create an alliance against the Al Qaeda types, and that happened before the surge even started. So we didn't do that. They did. We simply armed them, funded them, and helped them. But they're not on our side. They're on their side. They were shooting at us and blowing up our convoys just months ago. We didn't stop and suddenly realize that we're in love with each other. You're thinking of a Tom Hanks-Meg Ryan movie.
Plus, Anbar is entirely Sunni. It's like Utah for Mormons. So they don't have to deal with the Sunni-Shiite dynamic like the rest of the country. This is regular crazy Sunnis organizing against the extremely crazy Sunnis. With our guns and money. Is that the best we can do for now? Probably. Is it a long-term solution? Shit no.
So don't let them fool you with all the talk of "progress." They've simply, and for the 37th time, re-defined what "progress" means. And when we get to #65 - that more Iraqis have access to NFL Network than ever before -- I'll say, "Okay, okay. That is progress. ...Can we come home now?"
Bill Maher is the host of HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher" which airs every Friday at 11PM.
Sunday, August 26, 2007
New York Whore Times discloses Lender's dirty tricks - NOW that entire industry is on rocks! Parasite whores...
In a textbook example of how the New York Whore Times WITHHOLDS information from their readers and the public as large corporations try to fleece American consumers, the Whore Times only NOW discloses the DIRTY LENDING TRICKS of Countrywide Finance corp.
LYING to the American public (or withholding relevant information until taxpayers have been forced to spend billions of dollars bailing out high-flying loan-shark executives) is what the SULZBERGER owned New York Whore Times does...
===============================================
Inside the Countrywide Lending Spree
By GRETCHEN MORGENSON
Published: August 26, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/26/business/yourmoney/26country.html
ON its way to becoming the nation’s largest mortgage lender, the Countrywide Financial Corporation encouraged its sales force to court customers over the telephone with a seductive pitch that seldom varied. “I want to be sure you are getting the best loan possible,” the sales representatives would say.
But providing “the best loan possible” to customers wasn’t always the bank’s main goal, say some former employees. Instead, potential borrowers were often led to high-cost and sometimes unfavorable loans that resulted in richer commissions for Countrywide’s smooth-talking sales force, outsize fees to company affiliates providing services on the loans, and a roaring stock price that made Countrywide executives among the highest paid in America.
Countrywide’s entire operation, from its computer system to its incentive pay structure and financing arrangements, is intended to wring maximum profits out of the mortgage lending boom no matter what it costs borrowers, according to interviews with former employees and brokers who worked in different units of the company and internal documents they provided. One document, for instance, shows that until last September the computer system in the company’s subprime unit excluded borrowers’ cash reserves, which had the effect of steering them away from lower-cost loans to those that were more expensive to homeowners and more profitable to Countrywide.
Now, with the entire mortgage business on tenterhooks and industry practices under scrutiny by securities regulators and banking industry overseers, Countrywide’s money machine is sputtering. So far this year, fearful investors have cut its stock in half. About two weeks ago, the company was forced to draw down its entire $11.5 billion credit line from a consortium of banks because it could no longer sell or borrow against home loans it has made. And last week, Bank of America invested $2 billion for a 16 percent stake in Countrywide, a move that came amid speculation that Countrywide’s survival was in question and that it had become a takeover target — notions that Countrywide publicly disputed.
Homeowners, meanwhile, drawn in by Countrywide sales scripts assuring “the best loan possible,” are behind on their mortgages in record numbers. As of June 30, almost one in four subprime loans that Countrywide services was delinquent, up from 15 percent in the same period last year, according to company filings. Almost 10 percent were delinquent by 90 days or more, compared with last year’s rate of 5.35 percent.
Many of these loans had interest rates that recently reset from low teaser levels to double digits; others carry prohibitive prepayment penalties that have made refinancing impossibly expensive, even before this month’s upheaval in the mortgage markets.
To be sure, Countrywide was not the only lender that sold questionable loans with enormous fees during the housing bubble. And as real estate prices soared, borrowers themselves proved all too eager to participate, even if it meant paying high costs or signing up for a loan with an interest rate that would jump in coming years.
But few companies benefited more from the mortgage mania than Countrywide, among the most aggressive home lenders in the nation. As such, the company is Exhibit A for the lax and, until recently, highly lucrative lending that has turned a once-hot business ice cold and has touched off a housing crisis of historic proportions.
“In terms of being unresponsive to what was happening, to sticking it out the longest, and continuing to justify the garbage they were selling, Countrywide was the worst lender,” said Ira Rheingold, executive director of the National Association of Consumer Advocates. “And anytime states tried to pass responsible lending laws, Countrywide was fighting it tooth and nail.”
Started as Countrywide Credit Industries in New York 38 years ago by Angelo R. Mozilo, a butcher’s son from the Bronx, and David Loeb, a founder of a mortgage banking firm in New York, who died in 2003, the company has become a $500 billion home loan machine with 62,000 employees, 900 offices and assets of $200 billion. Countrywide’s stock price was up 561 percent over the 10 years ended last December.
Mr. Mozilo has ridden this remarkable wave to immense riches, thanks to generous annual stock option grants. Rarely a buyer of Countrywide shares — he has not bought a share since 1987, according to Securities and Exchange Commission filings — he has been a huge seller in recent years. Since the company listed its shares on the New York Stock Exchange in 1984, he has reaped $406 million selling Countrywide stock.
As the subprime mortgage debacle began to unfold this year, Mr. Mozilo’s selling accelerated. Filings show that he made $129 million from stock sales during the last 12 months, or almost one-third of the entire amount he has reaped over the last 23 years. He still holds 1.4 million shares in Countrywide, a 0.24 percent stake that is worth $29.4 mill
LYING to the American public (or withholding relevant information until taxpayers have been forced to spend billions of dollars bailing out high-flying loan-shark executives) is what the SULZBERGER owned New York Whore Times does...
===============================================
Inside the Countrywide Lending Spree
By GRETCHEN MORGENSON
Published: August 26, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/26/business/yourmoney/26country.html
ON its way to becoming the nation’s largest mortgage lender, the Countrywide Financial Corporation encouraged its sales force to court customers over the telephone with a seductive pitch that seldom varied. “I want to be sure you are getting the best loan possible,” the sales representatives would say.
But providing “the best loan possible” to customers wasn’t always the bank’s main goal, say some former employees. Instead, potential borrowers were often led to high-cost and sometimes unfavorable loans that resulted in richer commissions for Countrywide’s smooth-talking sales force, outsize fees to company affiliates providing services on the loans, and a roaring stock price that made Countrywide executives among the highest paid in America.
Countrywide’s entire operation, from its computer system to its incentive pay structure and financing arrangements, is intended to wring maximum profits out of the mortgage lending boom no matter what it costs borrowers, according to interviews with former employees and brokers who worked in different units of the company and internal documents they provided. One document, for instance, shows that until last September the computer system in the company’s subprime unit excluded borrowers’ cash reserves, which had the effect of steering them away from lower-cost loans to those that were more expensive to homeowners and more profitable to Countrywide.
Now, with the entire mortgage business on tenterhooks and industry practices under scrutiny by securities regulators and banking industry overseers, Countrywide’s money machine is sputtering. So far this year, fearful investors have cut its stock in half. About two weeks ago, the company was forced to draw down its entire $11.5 billion credit line from a consortium of banks because it could no longer sell or borrow against home loans it has made. And last week, Bank of America invested $2 billion for a 16 percent stake in Countrywide, a move that came amid speculation that Countrywide’s survival was in question and that it had become a takeover target — notions that Countrywide publicly disputed.
Homeowners, meanwhile, drawn in by Countrywide sales scripts assuring “the best loan possible,” are behind on their mortgages in record numbers. As of June 30, almost one in four subprime loans that Countrywide services was delinquent, up from 15 percent in the same period last year, according to company filings. Almost 10 percent were delinquent by 90 days or more, compared with last year’s rate of 5.35 percent.
Many of these loans had interest rates that recently reset from low teaser levels to double digits; others carry prohibitive prepayment penalties that have made refinancing impossibly expensive, even before this month’s upheaval in the mortgage markets.
To be sure, Countrywide was not the only lender that sold questionable loans with enormous fees during the housing bubble. And as real estate prices soared, borrowers themselves proved all too eager to participate, even if it meant paying high costs or signing up for a loan with an interest rate that would jump in coming years.
But few companies benefited more from the mortgage mania than Countrywide, among the most aggressive home lenders in the nation. As such, the company is Exhibit A for the lax and, until recently, highly lucrative lending that has turned a once-hot business ice cold and has touched off a housing crisis of historic proportions.
“In terms of being unresponsive to what was happening, to sticking it out the longest, and continuing to justify the garbage they were selling, Countrywide was the worst lender,” said Ira Rheingold, executive director of the National Association of Consumer Advocates. “And anytime states tried to pass responsible lending laws, Countrywide was fighting it tooth and nail.”
Started as Countrywide Credit Industries in New York 38 years ago by Angelo R. Mozilo, a butcher’s son from the Bronx, and David Loeb, a founder of a mortgage banking firm in New York, who died in 2003, the company has become a $500 billion home loan machine with 62,000 employees, 900 offices and assets of $200 billion. Countrywide’s stock price was up 561 percent over the 10 years ended last December.
Mr. Mozilo has ridden this remarkable wave to immense riches, thanks to generous annual stock option grants. Rarely a buyer of Countrywide shares — he has not bought a share since 1987, according to Securities and Exchange Commission filings — he has been a huge seller in recent years. Since the company listed its shares on the New York Stock Exchange in 1984, he has reaped $406 million selling Countrywide stock.
As the subprime mortgage debacle began to unfold this year, Mr. Mozilo’s selling accelerated. Filings show that he made $129 million from stock sales during the last 12 months, or almost one-third of the entire amount he has reaped over the last 23 years. He still holds 1.4 million shares in Countrywide, a 0.24 percent stake that is worth $29.4 mill
Saturday, August 25, 2007
Media Whores Trivialize Democrat's appearances - and often LIE in doing so, MAKING factoid tidbits up!! Damn whores are a parasite on America....
HAIRCUTS and NECKLINES - the Media WHORES reprise their "Al Gore 'EARTH TONE WARDROBE!' bogus 'reporting' from 2000.
SEVEN YEARS OF CHRONIC LYING, and the Media WHORES are STILL addicted to the 'news' media crack of LIES and DIVERSIONARY stories - anything that diverts from reporting on the true Right-Wing corporate/fundamentalist/reactionary/war agenda in America.
----------------------------------------------------
The weekly update from Media Matters for America
Ken Jennings they ain't
Daily Howler writer Bob Somerby (among others) describes the media's relentless fascination with (Democrats') haircuts and (Democrats') earth tones and (Democrats') necklines as a focus on "trivia." As in, the cost of one of John Edwards' haircuts is perhaps interesting to some, but quite insignificant -- it is the answer to a trivia question, not something that should be considered the defining element of the man.
But over and over and over again, media treat these trivial matters -- what songs are on Hillary Clinton's iPod? What color shirt is Al Gore wearing? How much was John Edwards' haircut? What is Barack Obama's middle name? -- as deeply significant revelations about the candidates' character. We've tried -- over and over and over again -- to explain the problems with this form of campaign journalism. And we'll likely do so -- over and over and over again -- in the future.
But this week, we're struck by something else: How frequently reporters are wrong not only about the importance of these trivial matters, but about the trivia itself. They aren't Ken Jennings, racking up win after win on Jeopardy. They're more like Cliff Clavin, spouting off in the bar about a "little known fact" that is completely false.
For example: A July 22 New York Times article about candidates' clothing warned that candidates "risk becoming Al Gore in earth tones, in other words, to cite a famously lampooned misstep the former presidential candidate undertook on the advice of Naomi Wolf, then his image consultant." That was probably an inevitable line; media just love to snark about Wolf picking Gore's clothes out for him. This is classic trivia -- it couldn't possibly matter less that Al Gore wore a brown pair of pants, or that he did so on the advice of an image consultant. Indeed, since the media constantly tell us that candidates' appearances matter -- the July 22 Times article is but one of many examples -- they arguably should have considered Gore a savvy pol for seeking professional sartorial advice.
Oh, I almost forgot one little detail: Naomi Wolf didn't tell Al Gore to wear earth tones, and she wasn't an "image consultant," as the Times acknowledged in a correction on July 29.
Why it took the Times a full week to correct a claim that anybody who cares has known is false for the better part of a decade is anybody's guess. But perhaps we should just be grateful the correction eventually came. When Times columnist Maureen Dowd made the same bogus claims during the 2000 presidential campaign, her falsehoods went uncorrected. Take, for example, her November 3, 1999, column that declared "Time magazine revealed that Al Gore hired Ms. Wolf, who has written extensively on women and sexual power, as a $15,000-a-month consultant to help him with everything from his shift to earth tones to his efforts to break with Bill Clinton." Wrong and wrong again -- Wolf didn't have anything to do with "earth tones," as the Times now acknowledges, and Time magazine didn't reveal that she did. Dowd was playing trivial pursuit -- but she kept getting the answers wrong.
Now, another presidential campaign brings still more media insistence that trivial observations about candidates' clothing are somehow deeply revealing matters of great importance. After The Washington Post ran an article about Hillary Clinton purportedly showing some cleavage during a statement on the floor of the Senate, journalists rushed to defend the paper from predictable (and well-deserved) derision.
CNBC chief Washington correspondent John Harwood, for example, defended the article by suggesting that Clinton's cleavage was the result of "the calculation that goes into everything that Hillary Clinton does." Shortly thereafter, he decided he needed to defend himself, and explained his comments by invoking -- you guessed it -- Al Gore's earth tones.
Washington Post reporter Amy Argetsinger took to MSNBC to defend her paper's article. In doing so, she claimed the article was "very complimentary" toward Clinton and that it was "not critical of the cleavage display." In fact, as Media Matters for America noted, the article described Clinton's appearance as "unnerving," adding "it was more like catching a man with his fly unzipped. Just look away!"
Argetsinger went on to make a more telling false statement. Describing the article's genesis, Argetsinger said that the writer, Robin Givhan, "took note of the fact that Hillary Clinton was showing a bit of cleavage because she had been watching Hillary Clinton over the years and had noticed that she had never shown cleavage." Givhan's piece also indicated the cleavage display was a new development -- it was headlined "Hillary Clinton's Tentative Dip Into New Neckline Territory," and made much of how "surprising" it was to see "coming from Clinton."
The notion that this -- utterly trivial -- display of a little cleavage is a new and out-of-character development for Clinton is presumably the basis for the obsession many journalists have with the topic -- and for Harwood's insistence that it is the result of political calculation. It is also false. More than a year ago, for example, the National Review's Kathryn Jean Lopez noted, "Senator Clinton's blazer is a bit lowcut today" and predicted a Washington Post Style section article about the topic. She even posted a screen-capture of Clinton on the Senate floor, showing just as much (which is to say, very little) cleavage as that which inspired the current media obsession with Clinton's "calculated" neckline.
More Clinton trivia appeared in The Washington Post's coverage of the most recent Democratic presidential debate, during which Clinton said that she and her husband sent their daughter Chelsea to private school upon arriving in Washington because the Clintons had been advised that if Chelsea went to public school, "the press would never leave her alone."
The Post's Peter Baker wrote up Clinton's comments under the headline "CHELSEA'S SCHOOLING Blame the Media? Once It Wasn't So." Baker's three-paragraph report was full of snarky observations: Beginning "Ah, it was the media's fault," the report went on "Funny thing -- that's not what the Clintons said in January 1993 when they announced the decision. ... Nothing about reporters -- who, by the way, aren't exactly allowed to waltz into public schools any more than they are private schools. And who over eight years pretty much left Chelsea alone, regardless of school."
Now, the Clintons' reasons for sending Chelsea to private school are basically trivia. Neither the Clintons nor any other progressive I know of thinks private schools should be banned, so there isn't any hypocrisy at play here (though, of course, you can't expect reporters to understand that.) But whatever substantive merit there may be to exploring the Clinton's reasons, the question of what the Clintons said in January 1993 is purely trivia. Regardless of what they said when, it's hard to imagine that anybody really doubts that concern for Chelsea's privacy was a factor in the decision. That was perfectly clear to observers at the time - a January 1993 Newsweek report, for example, noted "Chelsea's privacy could be one factor" in the decision.
But Baker focused on the trivia of what the Clintons announced in January, 1993 -- according to Baker, a White House spokesman said "They chose Sidwell Friends because it's a good school." His Post colleague John Solomon declared it an "insightful catch of Sen. Clinton changing her story. ... Hillary Clinton may have had privacy in mind back in 1993 when she and her husband made the choice for Chelsea, but they didn't tell us that then, so noting it now is useful."
Well, no, it isn't particularly useful, or insightful. And it's also false to say that the Clinton's "didn't tell us" about privacy concerns "back in 1993." It's trivia, and it's wrong. In May 1993, the Associated Press reported:
Sending his daughter to a pricey private school gave her a chance to "be a normal kid," President Clinton said today. He insisted that the decision was not a rejection of public schools.
"My daughter is not a public figure. She does not want to be a public figure. She does not like getting a lot of publicity, and frankly she has more privacy and more control over her destiny where she is than she would if she were at public school," Clinton said in a two-hour "Town Meeting" broadcast on CBS.
"Back in 1993," President Clinton told a national television audience that concern for Chelsea Clinton's privacy -- her dislike of "publicity" -- was a factor in the decision to send her to Sidwell Friends. This is little more than trivia -- but it is trivia Baker and Solomon get wrong.
The defining characteristics of the 2000 presidential campaign were the media's focus on trivia over weighty matters -- Al Gore's purported fib about dog medicine received far more scrutiny than George W. Bush's lies about taxes and Social Security -- and its tendency to get even the trivia wrong. Al Gore didn't claim to have invented the Internet, he didn't claim to have discovered Love Canal, he didn't wear earth tones at Naomi Wolf's insistence.
If we're going have another presidential campaign dominated by media focus on this kind of trivia -- and, for the love of all that is good, let's not -- reporters should at least make an effort to get the answers right.
Then again, if they had the facts right about these things, there wouldn't be any reason to talk about them.
SEVEN YEARS OF CHRONIC LYING, and the Media WHORES are STILL addicted to the 'news' media crack of LIES and DIVERSIONARY stories - anything that diverts from reporting on the true Right-Wing corporate/fundamentalist/reactionary/war agenda in America.
----------------------------------------------------
The weekly update from Media Matters for America
Ken Jennings they ain't
Daily Howler writer Bob Somerby (among others) describes the media's relentless fascination with (Democrats') haircuts and (Democrats') earth tones and (Democrats') necklines as a focus on "trivia." As in, the cost of one of John Edwards' haircuts is perhaps interesting to some, but quite insignificant -- it is the answer to a trivia question, not something that should be considered the defining element of the man.
But over and over and over again, media treat these trivial matters -- what songs are on Hillary Clinton's iPod? What color shirt is Al Gore wearing? How much was John Edwards' haircut? What is Barack Obama's middle name? -- as deeply significant revelations about the candidates' character. We've tried -- over and over and over again -- to explain the problems with this form of campaign journalism. And we'll likely do so -- over and over and over again -- in the future.
But this week, we're struck by something else: How frequently reporters are wrong not only about the importance of these trivial matters, but about the trivia itself. They aren't Ken Jennings, racking up win after win on Jeopardy. They're more like Cliff Clavin, spouting off in the bar about a "little known fact" that is completely false.
For example: A July 22 New York Times article about candidates' clothing warned that candidates "risk becoming Al Gore in earth tones, in other words, to cite a famously lampooned misstep the former presidential candidate undertook on the advice of Naomi Wolf, then his image consultant." That was probably an inevitable line; media just love to snark about Wolf picking Gore's clothes out for him. This is classic trivia -- it couldn't possibly matter less that Al Gore wore a brown pair of pants, or that he did so on the advice of an image consultant. Indeed, since the media constantly tell us that candidates' appearances matter -- the July 22 Times article is but one of many examples -- they arguably should have considered Gore a savvy pol for seeking professional sartorial advice.
Oh, I almost forgot one little detail: Naomi Wolf didn't tell Al Gore to wear earth tones, and she wasn't an "image consultant," as the Times acknowledged in a correction on July 29.
Why it took the Times a full week to correct a claim that anybody who cares has known is false for the better part of a decade is anybody's guess. But perhaps we should just be grateful the correction eventually came. When Times columnist Maureen Dowd made the same bogus claims during the 2000 presidential campaign, her falsehoods went uncorrected. Take, for example, her November 3, 1999, column that declared "Time magazine revealed that Al Gore hired Ms. Wolf, who has written extensively on women and sexual power, as a $15,000-a-month consultant to help him with everything from his shift to earth tones to his efforts to break with Bill Clinton." Wrong and wrong again -- Wolf didn't have anything to do with "earth tones," as the Times now acknowledges, and Time magazine didn't reveal that she did. Dowd was playing trivial pursuit -- but she kept getting the answers wrong.
Now, another presidential campaign brings still more media insistence that trivial observations about candidates' clothing are somehow deeply revealing matters of great importance. After The Washington Post ran an article about Hillary Clinton purportedly showing some cleavage during a statement on the floor of the Senate, journalists rushed to defend the paper from predictable (and well-deserved) derision.
CNBC chief Washington correspondent John Harwood, for example, defended the article by suggesting that Clinton's cleavage was the result of "the calculation that goes into everything that Hillary Clinton does." Shortly thereafter, he decided he needed to defend himself, and explained his comments by invoking -- you guessed it -- Al Gore's earth tones.
Washington Post reporter Amy Argetsinger took to MSNBC to defend her paper's article. In doing so, she claimed the article was "very complimentary" toward Clinton and that it was "not critical of the cleavage display." In fact, as Media Matters for America noted, the article described Clinton's appearance as "unnerving," adding "it was more like catching a man with his fly unzipped. Just look away!"
Argetsinger went on to make a more telling false statement. Describing the article's genesis, Argetsinger said that the writer, Robin Givhan, "took note of the fact that Hillary Clinton was showing a bit of cleavage because she had been watching Hillary Clinton over the years and had noticed that she had never shown cleavage." Givhan's piece also indicated the cleavage display was a new development -- it was headlined "Hillary Clinton's Tentative Dip Into New Neckline Territory," and made much of how "surprising" it was to see "coming from Clinton."
The notion that this -- utterly trivial -- display of a little cleavage is a new and out-of-character development for Clinton is presumably the basis for the obsession many journalists have with the topic -- and for Harwood's insistence that it is the result of political calculation. It is also false. More than a year ago, for example, the National Review's Kathryn Jean Lopez noted, "Senator Clinton's blazer is a bit lowcut today" and predicted a Washington Post Style section article about the topic. She even posted a screen-capture of Clinton on the Senate floor, showing just as much (which is to say, very little) cleavage as that which inspired the current media obsession with Clinton's "calculated" neckline.
More Clinton trivia appeared in The Washington Post's coverage of the most recent Democratic presidential debate, during which Clinton said that she and her husband sent their daughter Chelsea to private school upon arriving in Washington because the Clintons had been advised that if Chelsea went to public school, "the press would never leave her alone."
The Post's Peter Baker wrote up Clinton's comments under the headline "CHELSEA'S SCHOOLING Blame the Media? Once It Wasn't So." Baker's three-paragraph report was full of snarky observations: Beginning "Ah, it was the media's fault," the report went on "Funny thing -- that's not what the Clintons said in January 1993 when they announced the decision. ... Nothing about reporters -- who, by the way, aren't exactly allowed to waltz into public schools any more than they are private schools. And who over eight years pretty much left Chelsea alone, regardless of school."
Now, the Clintons' reasons for sending Chelsea to private school are basically trivia. Neither the Clintons nor any other progressive I know of thinks private schools should be banned, so there isn't any hypocrisy at play here (though, of course, you can't expect reporters to understand that.) But whatever substantive merit there may be to exploring the Clinton's reasons, the question of what the Clintons said in January 1993 is purely trivia. Regardless of what they said when, it's hard to imagine that anybody really doubts that concern for Chelsea's privacy was a factor in the decision. That was perfectly clear to observers at the time - a January 1993 Newsweek report, for example, noted "Chelsea's privacy could be one factor" in the decision.
But Baker focused on the trivia of what the Clintons announced in January, 1993 -- according to Baker, a White House spokesman said "They chose Sidwell Friends because it's a good school." His Post colleague John Solomon declared it an "insightful catch of Sen. Clinton changing her story. ... Hillary Clinton may have had privacy in mind back in 1993 when she and her husband made the choice for Chelsea, but they didn't tell us that then, so noting it now is useful."
Well, no, it isn't particularly useful, or insightful. And it's also false to say that the Clinton's "didn't tell us" about privacy concerns "back in 1993." It's trivia, and it's wrong. In May 1993, the Associated Press reported:
Sending his daughter to a pricey private school gave her a chance to "be a normal kid," President Clinton said today. He insisted that the decision was not a rejection of public schools.
"My daughter is not a public figure. She does not want to be a public figure. She does not like getting a lot of publicity, and frankly she has more privacy and more control over her destiny where she is than she would if she were at public school," Clinton said in a two-hour "Town Meeting" broadcast on CBS.
"Back in 1993," President Clinton told a national television audience that concern for Chelsea Clinton's privacy -- her dislike of "publicity" -- was a factor in the decision to send her to Sidwell Friends. This is little more than trivia -- but it is trivia Baker and Solomon get wrong.
The defining characteristics of the 2000 presidential campaign were the media's focus on trivia over weighty matters -- Al Gore's purported fib about dog medicine received far more scrutiny than George W. Bush's lies about taxes and Social Security -- and its tendency to get even the trivia wrong. Al Gore didn't claim to have invented the Internet, he didn't claim to have discovered Love Canal, he didn't wear earth tones at Naomi Wolf's insistence.
If we're going have another presidential campaign dominated by media focus on this kind of trivia -- and, for the love of all that is good, let's not -- reporters should at least make an effort to get the answers right.
Then again, if they had the facts right about these things, there wouldn't be any reason to talk about them.
Thursday, August 23, 2007
CNN brown-nosing Utah mine owner... again.
CNN is so abjectly craven, so ridiculously servile, that the bodies of miners killed in the Utah coal mine have not even been recovered, when CNN's hired news readers is.... sharing compassion with Bob Murray, the mine owner whose "take down the walls" mining tactics led to the collaps of the mine in the first place.
CNN, thy name is ABJECT, SERVILE, GHOULISH WHOREDOM.
CNN Nails Mine Owner Murray... With a Big Wet Kiss
Katharine Zalesk
Posted August 22, 2007
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/katharine-zaleski/cnn-nails-mine-owner-murr_b_61498.html
When will the traditional media stop rolling out the red carpet for Utah mine co-owner Bob Murray? CNN anchor Kyra Phillips treated Murray like a hero on Wednesday, the same day the Salt Lake Tribune reported on documents that prove Murray had pushed for risky mining methods at Crandall Canyon. Risky mining methods Murray has strenuously denied employing, but which may have contributed to turning his mine into a death scene for three rescuers and six miners.
Phillips did show some grit at one point in the interview -- but not to take on Murray. Instead she stood strong in support of the job her network has done covering the story: "I can tell you right now as a journalist here at CNN, and our entire news operation, in no way shape or form have we forgotten what each one of those miners has done."
But no one has suggested that CNN has forgotten what the miners have done. The problem is that they have forgotten what Murray has done to the miners.
It took CNN 12 days, as Arianna pointed out here, to get around to questioning the safety of the Crandall Canyon mine, offering the chyron, "Safety of Rescue Operation Debated." Instead, the network has given endless air time to Murray and Richard Stickler, Bush's mine safety czar, who has offered more protection to the mining industry than to coal miners.
Phillips had the chance to ask Murray the kinds of questions that could expose dangerous mining practices -- and possibly save lives in the future. Instead, she let the interview become yet another opportunity for Murray to buff his image as the grieving surrogate father of the miners that were killed under his supervision.
Phillips ended the softball interview not by pressing Murray on the day's million-dollar question -- Did you place the recovery of more coal from your mine above the safety of your miners? -- but by asking Murray "How are you holding up?"
She then offered Murray the CNN stamp of approval, telling him: "I appreciate your time... and your honesty."
Perhaps in Phillips' lexicon, "honesty" means phony chest-beating from a mine owner looking to cover his tracks -- tracks that have contributed to the deaths of nine brave men.
John Amato has the video and the transcript at Crooks and Liars.
CNN, thy name is ABJECT, SERVILE, GHOULISH WHOREDOM.
CNN Nails Mine Owner Murray... With a Big Wet Kiss
Katharine Zalesk
Posted August 22, 2007
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/katharine-zaleski/cnn-nails-mine-owner-murr_b_61498.html
When will the traditional media stop rolling out the red carpet for Utah mine co-owner Bob Murray? CNN anchor Kyra Phillips treated Murray like a hero on Wednesday, the same day the Salt Lake Tribune reported on documents that prove Murray had pushed for risky mining methods at Crandall Canyon. Risky mining methods Murray has strenuously denied employing, but which may have contributed to turning his mine into a death scene for three rescuers and six miners.
Phillips did show some grit at one point in the interview -- but not to take on Murray. Instead she stood strong in support of the job her network has done covering the story: "I can tell you right now as a journalist here at CNN, and our entire news operation, in no way shape or form have we forgotten what each one of those miners has done."
But no one has suggested that CNN has forgotten what the miners have done. The problem is that they have forgotten what Murray has done to the miners.
It took CNN 12 days, as Arianna pointed out here, to get around to questioning the safety of the Crandall Canyon mine, offering the chyron, "Safety of Rescue Operation Debated." Instead, the network has given endless air time to Murray and Richard Stickler, Bush's mine safety czar, who has offered more protection to the mining industry than to coal miners.
Phillips had the chance to ask Murray the kinds of questions that could expose dangerous mining practices -- and possibly save lives in the future. Instead, she let the interview become yet another opportunity for Murray to buff his image as the grieving surrogate father of the miners that were killed under his supervision.
Phillips ended the softball interview not by pressing Murray on the day's million-dollar question -- Did you place the recovery of more coal from your mine above the safety of your miners? -- but by asking Murray "How are you holding up?"
She then offered Murray the CNN stamp of approval, telling him: "I appreciate your time... and your honesty."
Perhaps in Phillips' lexicon, "honesty" means phony chest-beating from a mine owner looking to cover his tracks -- tracks that have contributed to the deaths of nine brave men.
John Amato has the video and the transcript at Crooks and Liars.
Saturday, August 18, 2007
Media WHORES Dog-and-Pony show ENDANGERS mine rescue workers....
A terrific commentary by Arianna Huffington about the 'news' coverage of the Utah mine safety disaster, which, given that "the news" handling of the Utah mine disaster is the real news, crosses from being an op-ed commentary into being a genuine news article itself.
CNN, in particular, had a voracious appetite to kiss Bush administration and corporate butt during the first two weeks of the Utah mine collapse and subsequent rescue efforts. You could reliably bet and win that at the top and bottom of every hour, CNN 'news' would interview Utah mine owner Bob Murray, and present his version of events as gospel truth.
The "INVESTIGATIVE REPORTING" from CNN's talking blabber-mouths?
COMPLETELY ABSENT. As with so many other stories in America today, CNN simply WAS_NOT_ASKING TOUGH QUESTIONS.
As the Don Henley song "Dirty Laundry riffed about the news business 20 years ago "The bubble-headed bleach-blonde [news anchor] well tell you about the plane crash.... with a gleam in her eyes."
================================================
It Shouldn't Have Taken the Deaths of Three Miners to Get the Media to Focus on Mine Safety
by Arianna Huffington
August 17, 2007
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/it-shouldnt-have-taken-t_b_60894.html
So last night, suddenly, after the tragic second collapse at the Utah mine, there was a dramatic shift in the TV coverage of the story. All at once, faux folksy mining boss Bob Murray, who had been everywhere, was nowhere to be found (even sending in a junior executive to handle this morning's press conference). In his place, at long last, were actual scientists, and experts on mine safety and the workings of the Mine Safety and Health Administration. Bush mine safety czar Richard "Recess Appointment" Stickler was also absent last night, and did not appear again until this morning's press conference.
So many questions were finally being asked. Prompting one more: What took so long? Why did it take a tragic second collapse before the Murray and Strickler PR Show was finally replaced by actual journalism?
Why did it take until this morning for CNN to finally run a chyron saying "Safety of Rescue Operation Debated"? For 12 days, there was precious little debate about why the mine had collapsed in the first place, or about the safety of the rescue operation -- which was, by law, in the hands of Stickler, another "heck of a job" Bush special, a coal industry insider who couldn't even win the approval of a GOP-controlled Senate.
Coal miners, we are told, operate under a code similar to the Marines: no one gets left behind. So there is little doubt that the rescuers would have done everything in their power to try to save their fellow miners. But might last night's tragic outcome have been avoided if the media watchdogs had been asking tougher questions from the start?
What if, instead of giving endless airtime to Bob Murray, they had brought on some of the experts we saw last night and asked them questions about the chances of another collapse occurring? What if they had given us Professor Larry Grayson, who was interviewed last night by Dan Abrams on MSNBC, and other experts who could have contradicted once and for all Murray's assertion that the company had not been doing retreat mining where the original collapse had occurred? What if they had gotten Stickler on the record on this, and had him definitely say whether or not Murray was lying when he repeatedly denied the dangerous technique was being used in the Crandall Canyon Mine?
What if they gave as much airtime to the seismologists denying that the collapse was the result of an earthquake as they gave to Murray who kept repeating the bogus (and responsibility-avoiding) claim that it was an earthquake, a natural disaster, an act of god?
Might things have turned out differently? We'll never know. But we do know that a number of miners -- perhaps as many as a dozen -- had asked to be moved to a different part of the rescue operation out of fear for their safety. And that Murray had abruptly pulled Bodee Allred, the Crandall mine's safety director (and the cousin of one of the missing miners), away from the microphones when the questions Allred was being asked veered too close to the bone for Murray's comfort.
Here's a question for the media: Since when do the owners of mines -- especially owners who have been fined millions of dollars for numerous safety violations -- set the news agenda?
So here we are, 12 days after the first collapse, with three heroic rescuers dead, six others injured, and the original six trapped miners almost certainly lost forever. And, finally, we have Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman suggesting we "focus like never before on workplace safety" (the Governor had better be prepared for the wrath of Murray: when Hillary Clinton made a similar statement months ago about the importance of workplace safety, Murray attacked her as "anti-American.")
So why wasn't the focus on workplace safety the focus of the media from Day One?
It shouldn't have taken the deaths of 3 miners for those covering the story to have gotten that message.
CNN, in particular, had a voracious appetite to kiss Bush administration and corporate butt during the first two weeks of the Utah mine collapse and subsequent rescue efforts. You could reliably bet and win that at the top and bottom of every hour, CNN 'news' would interview Utah mine owner Bob Murray, and present his version of events as gospel truth.
The "INVESTIGATIVE REPORTING" from CNN's talking blabber-mouths?
COMPLETELY ABSENT. As with so many other stories in America today, CNN simply WAS_NOT_ASKING TOUGH QUESTIONS.
As the Don Henley song "Dirty Laundry riffed about the news business 20 years ago "The bubble-headed bleach-blonde [news anchor] well tell you about the plane crash.... with a gleam in her eyes."
================================================
It Shouldn't Have Taken the Deaths of Three Miners to Get the Media to Focus on Mine Safety
by Arianna Huffington
August 17, 2007
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/it-shouldnt-have-taken-t_b_60894.html
So last night, suddenly, after the tragic second collapse at the Utah mine, there was a dramatic shift in the TV coverage of the story. All at once, faux folksy mining boss Bob Murray, who had been everywhere, was nowhere to be found (even sending in a junior executive to handle this morning's press conference). In his place, at long last, were actual scientists, and experts on mine safety and the workings of the Mine Safety and Health Administration. Bush mine safety czar Richard "Recess Appointment" Stickler was also absent last night, and did not appear again until this morning's press conference.
So many questions were finally being asked. Prompting one more: What took so long? Why did it take a tragic second collapse before the Murray and Strickler PR Show was finally replaced by actual journalism?
Why did it take until this morning for CNN to finally run a chyron saying "Safety of Rescue Operation Debated"? For 12 days, there was precious little debate about why the mine had collapsed in the first place, or about the safety of the rescue operation -- which was, by law, in the hands of Stickler, another "heck of a job" Bush special, a coal industry insider who couldn't even win the approval of a GOP-controlled Senate.
Coal miners, we are told, operate under a code similar to the Marines: no one gets left behind. So there is little doubt that the rescuers would have done everything in their power to try to save their fellow miners. But might last night's tragic outcome have been avoided if the media watchdogs had been asking tougher questions from the start?
What if, instead of giving endless airtime to Bob Murray, they had brought on some of the experts we saw last night and asked them questions about the chances of another collapse occurring? What if they had given us Professor Larry Grayson, who was interviewed last night by Dan Abrams on MSNBC, and other experts who could have contradicted once and for all Murray's assertion that the company had not been doing retreat mining where the original collapse had occurred? What if they had gotten Stickler on the record on this, and had him definitely say whether or not Murray was lying when he repeatedly denied the dangerous technique was being used in the Crandall Canyon Mine?
What if they gave as much airtime to the seismologists denying that the collapse was the result of an earthquake as they gave to Murray who kept repeating the bogus (and responsibility-avoiding) claim that it was an earthquake, a natural disaster, an act of god?
Might things have turned out differently? We'll never know. But we do know that a number of miners -- perhaps as many as a dozen -- had asked to be moved to a different part of the rescue operation out of fear for their safety. And that Murray had abruptly pulled Bodee Allred, the Crandall mine's safety director (and the cousin of one of the missing miners), away from the microphones when the questions Allred was being asked veered too close to the bone for Murray's comfort.
Here's a question for the media: Since when do the owners of mines -- especially owners who have been fined millions of dollars for numerous safety violations -- set the news agenda?
So here we are, 12 days after the first collapse, with three heroic rescuers dead, six others injured, and the original six trapped miners almost certainly lost forever. And, finally, we have Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman suggesting we "focus like never before on workplace safety" (the Governor had better be prepared for the wrath of Murray: when Hillary Clinton made a similar statement months ago about the importance of workplace safety, Murray attacked her as "anti-American.")
So why wasn't the focus on workplace safety the focus of the media from Day One?
It shouldn't have taken the deaths of 3 miners for those covering the story to have gotten that message.
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Media whores IGNORE Bush GUTTING of Mine Safety administration...
The Media WHORES committ FRAUD again - WHERE in the New York WHORE Times or the Washington WHORE Post do they inform American readers that the Bush-Cheney administration has GUTTED mine safety enforcement, and put a former mine owner with a long history of safety problems.... in charge of overseeing the LATEST DEADLY MINE DISASTER in America.
The "major media" PURPORTS to be the "WATCHDOGS" of our national government and taxpayer spending.... but when they REFUSE to write relevant, timely, and hard-hitting articles on the GUTTING of safety and health programs that American taxpayers have paid, and are paying for, then the MEDIA WHORES become PARTY TO FRAUD.
--------------------------------------------------------
Mine Safety Czar Richard Stickler: Another Bush Fox Guarding the Henhouse
by Max Follmer
August 16, 2001
Mine Safety Czar Richard Stickler: Another Bush Fox Guarding the Henhouse
The man who will oversee the federal government's investigation into the disaster that has trapped six workers in a Utah coal mine for over a week was twice rejected for his current job by senators concerned about his own safety record when he managed mines in the private sector.
President George W. Bush resorted to a recess appointment in October 2006 to anoint Richard Stickler as the nation's mine safety czar after it became clear he could not receive enough support even in a GOP-controlled Senate.
In the wake of the January 2006 Sago mine disaster in West Virginia, senators from both sides of the aisle expressed concern that Stickler was not the right person to combat climbing death rates in the nation's mines.
Democrats, led by West Virginia Sens. Robert Byrd and Jay Rockefeller, and Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy, questioned the safety record of the mines Stickler ran when he was a coal company executive.
Over the course of his career in the private sector, Stickler managed various mining operations for Bethlehem Steel subsidiary BethEnergy Mines, Inc.
The Charleston (W.Va.) Gazette reported in January 2006 that three workers died at BethEnergy mines managed by Stickler during the 1980s and 1990s.
Gazette reporter Ken Ward, Jr. wrote that in the worst of the incidents, one mechanic was killed, and eight other workers were injured when the portal bus that was carrying them to the mine-shaft bottom derailed. A report later said the portal bus had not been properly maintained.
Stickler began his career as a general laborer at BethEnergy, eventually rising to manage the company's operations in Pennsylvania and Boone County, West Virginia.
He worked briefly for Massey Energy subsidiary Performance Coal in 1996 and 1997 before becoming head of the Pennsylvania mine safety office. Stickler retired from the post in 2003.
In addition to concerns about the safety record at his mines, Stickler also faced opposition from senators, union leaders and relatives of those killed in mine accidents who felt an industry insider should not oversee safety inspectors.
United Mine Workers of America President Cecil Roberts said that miners "could not tolerate" another industry executive overseeing their health and safety.
"Too often these mining executives place priority on productivity, but fail to focus on miners' health and safety," Roberts told Mike Hall at the AFL-CIO's blog in June 2006.
The wife and daughter of a miner killed at Sago wrote a letter to lawmakers that same month urging them to reject Stickler's nomination.
"Mr. Stickler is a longtime coal executive and because of his connections with the coal industry, we are concerned that his primary objectives may be solely on compliance and production, not on miners' health and safety,'' Debbie Hamner and Sara Bailey wrote in a letter quoted by the Gazette.
Bush first nominated Stickler to head the Mine Safety and Health Administration in September 2005. He received renewed attention from lawmakers following the Sago disaster. By May 2006 it was clear that Byrd and other Senate opponents would not allow Stickler's nomination to pass, and Republicans withdrew a scheduled vote on his job.
In July 2006, Labor Secretary Elaine Chao hired Stickler as a consultant and adviser, but insisted through a spokeswoman that she was not attempting to circumvent the nomination process.
In August and September of the same year, the Senate twice voted to send the Stickler nomination back to the White House.
In October 2006, Bush used a recess appointment to install Stickler -- a decision that was quickly denounced by senators from both sides of the aisle.
Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter, a Republican, told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that he "didn't think Mr. Stickler was the right man for the job." Another Pennsylvania Republican, Rick Santorum, also told the paper he was "disappointed" the White House had not let senators debate and vote on the nomination.
In a written statement Wednesday, Byrd told The Huffington Post that MSHA's response to the Crandall Canyon incident will be a test of Stickler's "worthiness to be properly confirmed by the United States Senate."
Byrd also expressed concern about the slow pace of the implementation of new mining safety laws established in the wake of the Sago disaster.
"I told Mr. Stickler about my concerns earlier this summer," he said. "Until I see better progress from MSHA, I will retain my hold on Mr. Stickler's nomination."
The "major media" PURPORTS to be the "WATCHDOGS" of our national government and taxpayer spending.... but when they REFUSE to write relevant, timely, and hard-hitting articles on the GUTTING of safety and health programs that American taxpayers have paid, and are paying for, then the MEDIA WHORES become PARTY TO FRAUD.
--------------------------------------------------------
Mine Safety Czar Richard Stickler: Another Bush Fox Guarding the Henhouse
by Max Follmer
August 16, 2001
Mine Safety Czar Richard Stickler: Another Bush Fox Guarding the Henhouse
The man who will oversee the federal government's investigation into the disaster that has trapped six workers in a Utah coal mine for over a week was twice rejected for his current job by senators concerned about his own safety record when he managed mines in the private sector.
President George W. Bush resorted to a recess appointment in October 2006 to anoint Richard Stickler as the nation's mine safety czar after it became clear he could not receive enough support even in a GOP-controlled Senate.
In the wake of the January 2006 Sago mine disaster in West Virginia, senators from both sides of the aisle expressed concern that Stickler was not the right person to combat climbing death rates in the nation's mines.
Democrats, led by West Virginia Sens. Robert Byrd and Jay Rockefeller, and Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy, questioned the safety record of the mines Stickler ran when he was a coal company executive.
Over the course of his career in the private sector, Stickler managed various mining operations for Bethlehem Steel subsidiary BethEnergy Mines, Inc.
The Charleston (W.Va.) Gazette reported in January 2006 that three workers died at BethEnergy mines managed by Stickler during the 1980s and 1990s.
Gazette reporter Ken Ward, Jr. wrote that in the worst of the incidents, one mechanic was killed, and eight other workers were injured when the portal bus that was carrying them to the mine-shaft bottom derailed. A report later said the portal bus had not been properly maintained.
Stickler began his career as a general laborer at BethEnergy, eventually rising to manage the company's operations in Pennsylvania and Boone County, West Virginia.
He worked briefly for Massey Energy subsidiary Performance Coal in 1996 and 1997 before becoming head of the Pennsylvania mine safety office. Stickler retired from the post in 2003.
In addition to concerns about the safety record at his mines, Stickler also faced opposition from senators, union leaders and relatives of those killed in mine accidents who felt an industry insider should not oversee safety inspectors.
United Mine Workers of America President Cecil Roberts said that miners "could not tolerate" another industry executive overseeing their health and safety.
"Too often these mining executives place priority on productivity, but fail to focus on miners' health and safety," Roberts told Mike Hall at the AFL-CIO's blog in June 2006.
The wife and daughter of a miner killed at Sago wrote a letter to lawmakers that same month urging them to reject Stickler's nomination.
"Mr. Stickler is a longtime coal executive and because of his connections with the coal industry, we are concerned that his primary objectives may be solely on compliance and production, not on miners' health and safety,'' Debbie Hamner and Sara Bailey wrote in a letter quoted by the Gazette.
Bush first nominated Stickler to head the Mine Safety and Health Administration in September 2005. He received renewed attention from lawmakers following the Sago disaster. By May 2006 it was clear that Byrd and other Senate opponents would not allow Stickler's nomination to pass, and Republicans withdrew a scheduled vote on his job.
In July 2006, Labor Secretary Elaine Chao hired Stickler as a consultant and adviser, but insisted through a spokeswoman that she was not attempting to circumvent the nomination process.
In August and September of the same year, the Senate twice voted to send the Stickler nomination back to the White House.
In October 2006, Bush used a recess appointment to install Stickler -- a decision that was quickly denounced by senators from both sides of the aisle.
Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter, a Republican, told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that he "didn't think Mr. Stickler was the right man for the job." Another Pennsylvania Republican, Rick Santorum, also told the paper he was "disappointed" the White House had not let senators debate and vote on the nomination.
In a written statement Wednesday, Byrd told The Huffington Post that MSHA's response to the Crandall Canyon incident will be a test of Stickler's "worthiness to be properly confirmed by the United States Senate."
Byrd also expressed concern about the slow pace of the implementation of new mining safety laws established in the wake of the Sago disaster.
"I told Mr. Stickler about my concerns earlier this summer," he said. "Until I see better progress from MSHA, I will retain my hold on Mr. Stickler's nomination."
Friday, August 10, 2007
Media whores LIE THEIR ASSES OFF about casualty rate in Iraq... because LYING and kissing-___is what they do best....
Over at the WASHINGTON WHORE POST, they earn a steady living SELLING LIES and GARBAGE INFORMATION to the American public...sort of like robber barons "treading" a common serf into the mud for the poor sod showing "insufficient respect" to his "superiors." We don't even have to find the WHORE Post's article on the latest iraq war "progress" statistics - like Republican candidate Mitt Romney, the WHORES at the Post have an INSATIABLE APPETITE for sending other people's children, and other people's money, over to the murderous quagmire that is Bush-Cheney's war.
[bonus: Here in Act 2, Scene 2 of Shakespeare's tragedy "King Lear," the exiled nobelman Kent, posing as a commoner, seeks to curse the messenger as an foul villain.
http://www.online-literature.com/shakespeare/kinglear/8/
=============================================
John Williford: Media [WHORE] collaboration ENABLES PROPAGANDA on July death rates in Iraq
by John Williford, Buzzflash.com contributor
Thu, 08/09/2007
Progressive web sites like BuzzFlash, Truthout, Daily KOS, etc. suffer by picking up headlines from wire services (AP, Reuters, etc.) and from major newspapers. Such sources often seem no more than co dependents supporting an administration addiction to lies and to propaganda, spoon fed to the press.
Most Americans get their news from electronic media, which in turn lives on wire service news, usually at the headline, knee-jerk level.
A case in point is the distorting headlines about death levels in July, 2007, implying that somehow the rates are down and thus validate the "Surge" scheme. If you Google (Iraq)(casualties)(July) as I did, you will find an overwhelmingly positive spin on deaths in July, 2007 among coalition forces. Without any attempt to cherry-pick search results, links in the search (in order) are:
U.S. troop deaths show sharp July decline - USATODAY.com
Reuters AlertNet - Civilian deaths in Iraq rise in July
Power Line: U.S. Deaths in Iraq Down in July
July U.S. deaths in Iraq lowest in 8 months - On Deadline - USATODAY.com
U.S. Death Toll in Iraq in July Was the Lowest in ’07 - New York Times
U.S. commanders encouraged by drop in U.S. deaths in Iraq - CNN.com
So, what's the REAL story, putting aside spin or omission?
Daily death rate averages:
July, 2007 = 2.87
July, 2006 = 1.48
July, 2005 = 1.87
July, 2004 = 1.87
July, 2003 = 1.53
These numbers are taken from an extensive tabulation at:
Iraq Coalition Casualties
Anyone who can spin experience over five years in the month of July into optimism is seriously afflicted with cognitive dissonance. Please help give balance by putting this message up as a Contribution or Letter, and assure that the Iraq Coalition Casualties link is added to your main page.
Regards,
John Williford
Richland, WA
[bonus: Here in Act 2, Scene 2 of Shakespeare's tragedy "King Lear," the exiled nobelman Kent, posing as a commoner, seeks to curse the messenger as an foul villain.
http://www.online-literature.com/shakespeare/kinglear/8/
=============================================
John Williford: Media [WHORE] collaboration ENABLES PROPAGANDA on July death rates in Iraq
by John Williford, Buzzflash.com contributor
Thu, 08/09/2007
Progressive web sites like BuzzFlash, Truthout, Daily KOS, etc. suffer by picking up headlines from wire services (AP, Reuters, etc.) and from major newspapers. Such sources often seem no more than co dependents supporting an administration addiction to lies and to propaganda, spoon fed to the press.
Most Americans get their news from electronic media, which in turn lives on wire service news, usually at the headline, knee-jerk level.
A case in point is the distorting headlines about death levels in July, 2007, implying that somehow the rates are down and thus validate the "Surge" scheme. If you Google (Iraq)(casualties)(July) as I did, you will find an overwhelmingly positive spin on deaths in July, 2007 among coalition forces. Without any attempt to cherry-pick search results, links in the search (in order) are:
U.S. troop deaths show sharp July decline - USATODAY.com
Reuters AlertNet - Civilian deaths in Iraq rise in July
Power Line: U.S. Deaths in Iraq Down in July
July U.S. deaths in Iraq lowest in 8 months - On Deadline - USATODAY.com
U.S. Death Toll in Iraq in July Was the Lowest in ’07 - New York Times
U.S. commanders encouraged by drop in U.S. deaths in Iraq - CNN.com
So, what's the REAL story, putting aside spin or omission?
Daily death rate averages:
July, 2007 = 2.87
July, 2006 = 1.48
July, 2005 = 1.87
July, 2004 = 1.87
July, 2003 = 1.53
These numbers are taken from an extensive tabulation at:
Iraq Coalition Casualties
Anyone who can spin experience over five years in the month of July into optimism is seriously afflicted with cognitive dissonance. Please help give balance by putting this message up as a Contribution or Letter, and assure that the Iraq Coalition Casualties link is added to your main page.
Regards,
John Williford
Richland, WA
Wednesday, August 08, 2007
Who died and made RUPERT MURDOCH god of America? Murdoch's minions SMEAR Liberal Bloggers, while giving FREE PASS to FreeRepublic.com....
During the late 1990s, when the INTERNET was a relatively new phenomena for millions of American households, the RIGHT WING HATE MACHINE quickly staked out a position at FreeRepublic.com This web site was filled with the most vicious accusations and smears that anyone could dream up against the Clintons in particular, and "librul Democrats" in general.
And by no means was the HATE agenda of FreeRepublic.com a "far right, out-of-the-mainstream" website: it was full of the most active, dedicated, and energetic viewers in all of America, people who would write not just one letter to their Congressman, but who would write an steady stream of letters to their representatives, senators, party leaders, and local editors and publishers. FreeRepublic.com had as much to do with the impeachment of President Clinton, as the New York Times' (and especially Maureen Dowd's) relentlessly SNARKY comments about Al Gore helped to make the public perceive Gore as a 'serial exaggerator" (liar) and indecisive wimp. (While, at the same time, Dowd and the WHORE Times all but gave George W. Bush a FREE PASS for his AWOL during Vietnam status; his SEC violations at Harken and other companies; his knowledge of if not role in the Texas funeral-gate scandal, his hidden DUI arrest record, and dozens of other stories that SHOULD HAVE BEEN FRONT PAGE STORIES for a candidate who claimed a "MORAL VALUES" theme.
Murdoch’s Minions Smear Bloggers
By Joe Conason at Truth Dig.
August 7, 2001
http://www.mediachannel.org/wordpress/2007/08/01/murdochs-minions-smear-bloggers/
Not so long ago, the Republican right expected to dominate American politics for generations to come. Karl Rove, “boy genius” of the GOP, believed that his generation had achieved a partisan realignment that would overturn the progressive achievements of the past century.
Now those confident predictions have crashed with the failure of George W. Bush and the rise of a new progressive politics powered by the Internet. What traditional pundits once dismissed as the unwashed peasantry of the blogosphere has risen up to donate millions of dollars, elect Democratic candidates and demand real change. Having inflicted a terrible defeat on the Republicans last year, the “netroots” progressives are preparing to achieve historic victories in 2008.
Naturally, the would-be bullies of the right have not taken this development very well. As reactionaries tend to do, they have reacted with anger and attempted intimidation.
Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News Channel has mounted a crusade against DailyKos.com, the largest progressive political website, and YearlyKos, the site’s annual blogger convention, which will take place in Chicago next month. On his nightly broadcast, Fox News sage Bill O’Reilly charged that the proprietors of Daily Kos are “hatemongers” like the Ku Klux Klan or the Nazis—and targeted JetBlue for serving as the official airline of YearlyKos. O’Reilly’s ranting and raving frightened the JetBlue suits into withdrawing their sponsorship.
Then came Weekly Standard Editor William Kristol, another Murdoch minion, who tried to frighten the Democrats away from Daily Kos. “Every Democratic presidential nominee is going to the Daily Kos convention,” he sniffed. “That’s the left-wing blogger who was not respectable three or four years ago. … Now the whole party is going to pay court to him and to left-wing blogs.” Clearly he meant to warn that the Democrats would suffer from their association with those disreputable leftists—and that the netroots are a fringe, extremist element.
The most obvious answer is to urge them both to look in the mirror. To listen to O’Reilly—who has publicly urged the destruction of San Francisco and Iran, in addition to making thousands of other equally charming remarks—is to hear corrosive hatred distilled into a nightly dose of poison. The occasional outburst on a liberal blog, almost always in the anonymous comments section, cannot compare with the daily outpouring of vitriol on Fox.
As for Kristol, he is in no position to accuse anyone else of extremism. His chief allies have long been among the theocratic evangelical rightists. For years he has provided the worst possible advice to the Republicans, habitually promoting divisive and violent policies. During the Clinton administration, he led the drive for impeachment, urging the congressional majority to ignore public disapproval. This stupidity led to a Republican rout in the 1998 midterm election.
Having failed to learn that lesson, the Republicans listened to Kristol’s intense advocacy of invading Iraq, back when he assured everyone that war would be easy and fun and that any talk of Shiite-Sunni conflict was mere “pop sociology.” Liberals can only hope that crackpots like him maintain their influence over the Republicans for a few more years, reducing the right-wing party to a permanent minority.
But are the bloggers somewhere on the opposite extreme? For those who have yet to make his acquaintance, the creator of Daily Kos is Markos Moulitsas—a U.S. Army veteran of Salvadoran and Greek extraction who grew up in the Midwest and now lives in the Bay Area with his wife and two children. He is a business entrepreneur and a serious sports fan. He also happens to be a liberal Democrat with a determination to win and occasionally a hot temper.
He and the other leading voices in the netroots seek a Democratic politics that is both pragmatic and principled. Antiwar, but certainly not anti-military, they have fostered alliances with veterans of Iraq. They avoid rigidity, dislike identity politics and apply few litmus tests. In 2006 the bloggers raised money for many of the Democrats deemed “conservative” by the Washington press corps.
In truth, the bloggers share the values of most Americans, who also want to end the war in Iraq, establish universal health insurance, reduce global warming, increase the minimum wage and preserve Social Security. It is the ideologues such as O’Reilly and Kristol whose opposition to those values locates them on the fringe, despite their loud megaphones and corporate backing. And what the Murdoch bullies prove whenever they try to stigmatize the citizen bloggers is just how much they fear a fair (and balanced) fight.
And by no means was the HATE agenda of FreeRepublic.com a "far right, out-of-the-mainstream" website: it was full of the most active, dedicated, and energetic viewers in all of America, people who would write not just one letter to their Congressman, but who would write an steady stream of letters to their representatives, senators, party leaders, and local editors and publishers. FreeRepublic.com had as much to do with the impeachment of President Clinton, as the New York Times' (and especially Maureen Dowd's) relentlessly SNARKY comments about Al Gore helped to make the public perceive Gore as a 'serial exaggerator" (liar) and indecisive wimp. (While, at the same time, Dowd and the WHORE Times all but gave George W. Bush a FREE PASS for his AWOL during Vietnam status; his SEC violations at Harken and other companies; his knowledge of if not role in the Texas funeral-gate scandal, his hidden DUI arrest record, and dozens of other stories that SHOULD HAVE BEEN FRONT PAGE STORIES for a candidate who claimed a "MORAL VALUES" theme.
Murdoch’s Minions Smear Bloggers
By Joe Conason at Truth Dig.
August 7, 2001
http://www.mediachannel.org/wordpress/2007/08/01/murdochs-minions-smear-bloggers/
Not so long ago, the Republican right expected to dominate American politics for generations to come. Karl Rove, “boy genius” of the GOP, believed that his generation had achieved a partisan realignment that would overturn the progressive achievements of the past century.
Now those confident predictions have crashed with the failure of George W. Bush and the rise of a new progressive politics powered by the Internet. What traditional pundits once dismissed as the unwashed peasantry of the blogosphere has risen up to donate millions of dollars, elect Democratic candidates and demand real change. Having inflicted a terrible defeat on the Republicans last year, the “netroots” progressives are preparing to achieve historic victories in 2008.
Naturally, the would-be bullies of the right have not taken this development very well. As reactionaries tend to do, they have reacted with anger and attempted intimidation.
Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News Channel has mounted a crusade against DailyKos.com, the largest progressive political website, and YearlyKos, the site’s annual blogger convention, which will take place in Chicago next month. On his nightly broadcast, Fox News sage Bill O’Reilly charged that the proprietors of Daily Kos are “hatemongers” like the Ku Klux Klan or the Nazis—and targeted JetBlue for serving as the official airline of YearlyKos. O’Reilly’s ranting and raving frightened the JetBlue suits into withdrawing their sponsorship.
Then came Weekly Standard Editor William Kristol, another Murdoch minion, who tried to frighten the Democrats away from Daily Kos. “Every Democratic presidential nominee is going to the Daily Kos convention,” he sniffed. “That’s the left-wing blogger who was not respectable three or four years ago. … Now the whole party is going to pay court to him and to left-wing blogs.” Clearly he meant to warn that the Democrats would suffer from their association with those disreputable leftists—and that the netroots are a fringe, extremist element.
The most obvious answer is to urge them both to look in the mirror. To listen to O’Reilly—who has publicly urged the destruction of San Francisco and Iran, in addition to making thousands of other equally charming remarks—is to hear corrosive hatred distilled into a nightly dose of poison. The occasional outburst on a liberal blog, almost always in the anonymous comments section, cannot compare with the daily outpouring of vitriol on Fox.
As for Kristol, he is in no position to accuse anyone else of extremism. His chief allies have long been among the theocratic evangelical rightists. For years he has provided the worst possible advice to the Republicans, habitually promoting divisive and violent policies. During the Clinton administration, he led the drive for impeachment, urging the congressional majority to ignore public disapproval. This stupidity led to a Republican rout in the 1998 midterm election.
Having failed to learn that lesson, the Republicans listened to Kristol’s intense advocacy of invading Iraq, back when he assured everyone that war would be easy and fun and that any talk of Shiite-Sunni conflict was mere “pop sociology.” Liberals can only hope that crackpots like him maintain their influence over the Republicans for a few more years, reducing the right-wing party to a permanent minority.
But are the bloggers somewhere on the opposite extreme? For those who have yet to make his acquaintance, the creator of Daily Kos is Markos Moulitsas—a U.S. Army veteran of Salvadoran and Greek extraction who grew up in the Midwest and now lives in the Bay Area with his wife and two children. He is a business entrepreneur and a serious sports fan. He also happens to be a liberal Democrat with a determination to win and occasionally a hot temper.
He and the other leading voices in the netroots seek a Democratic politics that is both pragmatic and principled. Antiwar, but certainly not anti-military, they have fostered alliances with veterans of Iraq. They avoid rigidity, dislike identity politics and apply few litmus tests. In 2006 the bloggers raised money for many of the Democrats deemed “conservative” by the Washington press corps.
In truth, the bloggers share the values of most Americans, who also want to end the war in Iraq, establish universal health insurance, reduce global warming, increase the minimum wage and preserve Social Security. It is the ideologues such as O’Reilly and Kristol whose opposition to those values locates them on the fringe, despite their loud megaphones and corporate backing. And what the Murdoch bullies prove whenever they try to stigmatize the citizen bloggers is just how much they fear a fair (and balanced) fight.
Saturday, August 04, 2007
Fox 'news' COORDINATED EFFORT to SMEAR 'liberal bloggers" using Gestapo overtones...
A great catch by FoxAttacks.com (click our headline)of an outstanding video by Robert Greenwald. The video captures and documents FOX 'news' at its worst - a steam of anchors and faces including Bill O'Reilly, Bill Kristol, Charle Krauthammer, and others using hateful rhetoric and inflammatory language to try to start a witch hunt against liberal bloggers, while whining about - the liberal blog's alleged "witch hunt" of conservative policies and deceptions!
"RADICAL INTERNET ASSASSINS"
"innuendos, falsehoods"
"the blogs -they're so VICIOUS, and so ridiculous"
"is this the start of a witch-hung... McCarthyism watching these people?"
"a fierce, bullying, often witless tone
"oh my goodness, some of the filthiest language I have ever seen."
"FireDogLake.com - a CONTROVERSIAL site"
"there is a witchunt on"
"the power and influence of the LEFT-WING BLOGOSPHERE is ALARMING even some liberal journalists"
"HATEMONGERS like the Daily Kos"
"one of the worst examples of hatred America has to offer"
"featuring the WORST KIND OF HATE RHETORIC..
"a vicious far-left website called the Daily Kos"
"this is HATE of the WORST ORDER...its like the Klu Klux Klan, it's like the NAZI PARTY"
And the ominous point that is undoubtably circling Karl Rove's brain 24/7/365 these day - how to SHUT DOWN the opposition free-press blogs:
"THE INTERNET CERTAINLY COMPLICATES THINGS THESE DAYS"...
Since the ENTIRE "major press/media" are now SO COWED, so complicit, so corrupt, that they CAN't EVEN ASK ROUTINE FOLLOW-UP QUESTIONS of America's president anymore, the Blogs are INDEED _THE LAST BASTION_ of independence in America...
[Example of a ROUTINE Follow up question that is ignored, CENSORED, VERBOTTEN, by America's captive, subservient, cowed and corrupted media/press whores:
"Mr. President, you launched an attack and invasion of Iraq based on your allegations that that country was somehow LINKED to Al Qaida, and to Al Qaida's terror attack on 9-11-2001... yet mere months later, you told the American people that you were 'NOT THAT CONCERNED WITH Osama bin Laden anymore.' How do you explain, on one hand, a tenuous, unproven CONNECTION to bin Laden as JUSTIFICATION FOR AN INVASION and occuption of Iraq, while you yourself say bin Laden is not a concern to you anymore??? Do you still believe as you said then that bin Laden and his organization are no longer capable of training terrorists?? And if so, how do you explain that insurgent attacks in Afghanistan UP over the past two years?"]
PS:
WHERE were these FOX 'news' GHOULS, back in the days when FreeRepulic.com was HATE CENTRAL for Clinton haters... for month after month upon year after year?
WHERE is the Democratic Party 'leadership' to point out that for 8 long years, CLINTON-HATING was a respectable and lucrative pursuit that put all of today's Right-Wing media ghoul pundits where they are today?
Friday, August 03, 2007
Media WHORES use distractive, demeaning story lines to demean and deride Democrats... Al Gore's "earth-tone wardrobe" and Hillary's "cleavage".....
Ken Jennings they ain't
The weekly update from Media Matters for America
Daily Howler writer Bob Somerby (among others) describes the media's relentless fascination with (Democrats') haircuts and (Democrats') earth tones and (Democrats') necklines as a focus on "trivia." As in, the cost of one of John Edwards' haircuts is perhaps interesting to some, but quite insignificant -- it is the answer to a trivia question, not something that should be considered the defining element of the man.
But over and over and over again, media treat these trivial matters -- what songs are on Hillary Clinton's iPod? What color shirt is Al Gore wearing? How much was John Edwards' haircut? What is Barack Obama's middle name? -- as deeply significant revelations about the candidates' character. We've tried -- over and over and over again -- to explain the problems with this form of campaign journalism. And we'll likely do so -- over and over and over again -- in the future.
But this week, we're struck by something else: How frequently reporters are wrong not only about the importance of these trivial matters, but about the trivia itself. They aren't Ken Jennings, racking up win after win on Jeopardy. They're more like Cliff Clavin, spouting off in the bar about a "little known fact" that is completely false.
For example: A July 22 New York Times article about candidates' clothing warned that candidates "risk becoming Al Gore in earth tones, in other words, to cite a famously lampooned misstep the former presidential candidate undertook on the advice of Naomi Wolf, then his image consultant." That was probably an inevitable line; media just love to snark about Wolf picking Gore's clothes out for him. This is classic trivia -- it couldn't possibly matter less that Al Gore wore a brown pair of pants, or that he did so on the advice of an image consultant. Indeed, since the media constantly tell us that candidates' appearances matter -- the July 22 Times article is but one of many examples -- they arguably should have considered Gore a savvy pol for seeking professional sartorial advice.
Oh, I almost forgot one little detail: Naomi Wolf didn't tell Al Gore to wear earth tones, and she wasn't an "image consultant," as the Times acknowledged in a correction on July 29.
Why it took the Times a full week to correct a claim that anybody who cares has known is false for the better part of a decade is anybody's guess. But perhaps we should just be grateful the correction eventually came. When Times columnist Maureen Dowd made the same bogus claims during the 2000 presidential campaign, her falsehoods went uncorrected. Take, for example, her November 3, 1999, column that declared "Time magazine revealed that Al Gore hired Ms. Wolf, who has written extensively on women and sexual power, as a $15,000-a-month consultant to help him with everything from his shift to earth tones to his efforts to break with Bill Clinton." Wrong and wrong again -- Wolf didn't have anything to do with "earth tones," as the Times now acknowledges, and Time magazine didn't reveal that she did. Dowd was playing trivial pursuit -- but she kept getting the answers wrong.
Now, another presidential campaign brings still more media insistence that trivial observations about candidates' clothing are somehow deeply revealing matters of great importance. After The Washington Post ran an article about Hillary Clinton purportedly showing some cleavage during a statement on the floor of the Senate, journalists rushed to defend the paper from predictable (and well-deserved) derision.
CNBC chief Washington correspondent John Harwood, for example, defended the article by suggesting that Clinton's cleavage was the result of "the calculation that goes into everything that Hillary Clinton does." Shortly thereafter, he decided he needed to defend himself, and explained his comments by invoking -- you guessed it -- Al Gore's earth tones.
Washington Post reporter Amy Argetsinger took to MSNBC to defend her paper's article. In doing so, she claimed the article was "very complimentary" toward Clinton and that it was "not critical of the cleavage display." In fact, as Media Matters for America noted, the article described Clinton's appearance as "unnerving," adding "it was more like catching a man with his fly unzipped. Just look away!"
Argetsinger went on to make a more telling false statement. Describing the article's genesis, Argetsinger said that the writer, Robin Givhan, "took note of the fact that Hillary Clinton was showing a bit of cleavage because she had been watching Hillary Clinton over the years and had noticed that she had never shown cleavage." Givhan's piece also indicated the cleavage display was a new development -- it was headlined "Hillary Clinton's Tentative Dip Into New Neckline Territory," and made much of how "surprising" it was to see "coming from Clinton."
The notion that this -- utterly trivial -- display of a little cleavage is a new and out-of-character development for Clinton is presumably the basis for the obsession many journalists have with the topic -- and for Harwood's insistence that it is the result of political calculation. It is also false. More than a year ago, for example, the National Review's Kathryn Jean Lopez noted, "Senator Clinton's blazer is a bit lowcut today" and predicted a Washington Post Style section article about the topic. She even posted a screen-capture of Clinton on the Senate floor, showing just as much (which is to say, very little) cleavage as that which inspired the current media obsession with Clinton's "calculated" neckline.
More Clinton trivia appeared in The Washington Post's coverage of the most recent Democratic presidential debate, during which Clinton said that she and her husband sent their daughter Chelsea to private school upon arriving in Washington because the Clintons had been advised that if Chelsea went to public school, "the press would never leave her alone."
The Post's Peter Baker wrote up Clinton's comments under the headline "CHELSEA'S SCHOOLING Blame the Media? Once It Wasn't So." Baker's three-paragraph report was full of snarky observations: Beginning "Ah, it was the media's fault," the report went on "Funny thing -- that's not what the Clintons said in January 1993 when they announced the decision. ... Nothing about reporters -- who, by the way, aren't exactly allowed to waltz into public schools any more than they are private schools. And who over eight years pretty much left Chelsea alone, regardless of school."
Now, the Clintons' reasons for sending Chelsea to private school are basically trivia. Neither the Clintons nor any other progressive I know of thinks private schools should be banned, so there isn't any hypocrisy at play here (though, of course, you can't expect reporters to understand that.) But whatever substantive merit there may be to exploring the Clinton's reasons, the question of what the Clintons said in January 1993 is purely trivia. Regardless of what they said when, it's hard to imagine that anybody really doubts that concern for Chelsea's privacy was a factor in the decision. That was perfectly clear to observers at the time - a January 1993 Newsweek report, for example, noted "Chelsea's privacy could be one factor" in the decision.
But Baker focused on the trivia of what the Clintons announced in January, 1993 -- according to Baker, a White House spokesman said "They chose Sidwell Friends because it's a good school." His Post colleague John Solomon declared it an "insightful catch of Sen. Clinton changing her story. ... Hillary Clinton may have had privacy in mind back in 1993 when she and her husband made the choice for Chelsea, but they didn't tell us that then, so noting it now is useful."
Well, no, it isn't particularly useful, or insightful. And it's also false to say that the Clinton's "didn't tell us" about privacy concerns "back in 1993." It's trivia, and it's wrong. In May 1993, the Associated Press reported:
Sending his daughter to a pricey private school gave her a chance to "be a normal kid," President Clinton said today. He insisted that the decision was not a rejection of public schools.
"My daughter is not a public figure. She does not want to be a public figure. She does not like getting a lot of publicity, and frankly she has more privacy and more control over her destiny where she is than she would if she were at public school," Clinton said in a two-hour "Town Meeting" broadcast on CBS.
"Back in 1993," President Clinton told a national television audience that concern for Chelsea Clinton's privacy -- her dislike of "publicity" -- was a factor in the decision to send her to Sidwell Friends. This is little more than trivia -- but it is trivia Baker and Solomon get wrong.
The defining characteristics of the 2000 presidential campaign were the media's focus on trivia over weighty matters -- Al Gore's purported fib about dog medicine received far more scrutiny than George W. Bush's lies about taxes and Social Security -- and its tendency to get even the trivia wrong. Al Gore didn't claim to have invented the Internet, he didn't claim to have discovered Love Canal, he didn't wear earth tones at Naomi Wolf's insistence.
If we're going have another presidential campaign dominated by media focus on this kind of trivia -- and, for the love of all that is good, let's not -- reporters should at least make an effort to get the answers right.
Then again, if they had the facts right about these things, there wouldn't be any reason to talk about them.
Thursday, August 02, 2007
Rupert Murdoch takes up where Goebbels left off - pimps WAR ,BOMBS, and Christian Nationalism for fun, profit, and empire....
How is it that the business tycoon whose most biting condemnation of anyone - union leaders, consumer activists, or any other political opponents - is "THAT PERSON IS A COMMUNIST!" gets a FREE PASS for going to Communist China to curry favor with the Communist ruling party and to strike business deals with the family and friends of those rulers?
Welcome to the INSTITUTIONAL BIASES of the American corporate media, where Bill Clinton having consensual sex with a grown woman is labeled, by millions of Americans (Clinton haters) as 'proof' of his being 'a rapist', yet when Catholic Church authorities have been proven, beyond a shadow of a doubt, to have harbored child-RAPING priests, the term "rape" is forbidden, VERBOTTEN, from the clean white pages of "major media" discourse.
This is but ONE example of how the corporate 'major media' uses WORDS to justify AUTHORTARIAN, concentration-of-wealth and -power policies, and how they use confusing, indirect, and 'soft' words to describe Republican crimes ("abuse" to mean "torture" or rape; "controversial" to mean illegal wiretaps; "conflicting stories" to mean perjurous testimony and BOLD FACED LIES; "refusing to answer a subpoenae" to mean OBSRTRUCTION OF JUSTICE, etc, etc, etc ad infinitum) while using the harshest language possible, or most demeaining story lines, to deride Democratic candidates and leaders. (See our following post)
==============================================
FOX News's Rupert Murdoch and His Love of War
by A.Alexander, Progressive Daily Beacon
August 1st, 2007
http://www.progressivedailybeacon.com/more.php?page=opinion&id=1629
Few people appear to be more enthusiastic about the senseless loss of the lives of young American military members, than does the Australian-born Rupert Murdoch. Murdoch, of course, is the owner of News Corp, which includes the Republican propaganda brands FOX News, the New York Post and soon, sadly, The Wall Street Journal.
It must be a wonderfully easy and pleasing existence for Murdoch. Much like the extremist Republican politicians he loves to support, Bush and Cheney most especially, Murdoch doesn't have any skin in the Iraq War disaster. Instead, he gets to sit upon the comfortable and safe throne of his multi-billion dollar media-corporation and egg on eggheads and their eggheaded policies of mass death and destruction. Indeed, what does FOX News's Murdoch care? He has the best seat in the house from which to watch the bombs fall and he never has to worry about blood being spattered on his fancy European-tailored suits.
It should be noted, however, that outside of Bush and Cheney, no person has more Iraqi blood on his hands than does Rupert Murdoch.
Yes, Rupert Murdoch's favorite pastime, perhaps, outside of beloved Cricket or rugby, is employing his vast media empire in a never-ending game of rah-rah cheerleading the Iraq disaster forever forward...forever and ever without end, amen!
To achieve this goal, he has employed the quasi-journalistic talents of Brit Hume and single-handedly created careers for some of America's loudest-mouthed Goebbels-like fascist Republican propagandists. That is to say, Murdoch gave legitimacy to corporate despotism and Christian theocracy via the employment of Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, Neil Cavuto, and John Gibson. Were they not war mongering cheerleaders of the first order, Murdoch would have no use for these fools and they'd soon find themselves relegated to the obscurity to which their talent qualifies them.
Murdoch loves war, because he loves the possibilities inherent within an oligarchy. War and its carnage may not be the thing that gives Murdoch a stiffy as only a double dose of Viagra can give him nowadays, but he does love the notion of corporations ruling world governments. Yes, that makes Rupert Murdoch's manhood stand proud and nothing serves the oligarchy better, nothing is more profitable than war...so Rupie's FOX News cheers on!
Rupert Murdoch may have acquired U.S. citizenship so that he could break into the lucrative American media market, but he still clings to the Australian loyalists' dreams of a royalty-like elitist class ruling the world. Oh, maybe nobody will agree to place the Queen on this global throne, but how can they halt the crowning of the Corporatist King? The corporatists make the world go-round! They are the new master at whose feet the people must be made prostrate. And by God! War and all the money it creates and all the emotion it can engender among the people ... carefully tweaked, of course, and made to turn one against the other - that is how Rupert Murdoch envisions the crowning of the Oligarchy. That is why Rupert Murdoch loves war.
Indeed, that is why the Australian-born Rupert Murdoch is so enthusiastic about the senseless loss of the lives of young American military members. It is with their blood that the likes of Rupert Murdoch, George W. Bush, and Dick Cheney intend to seal the oligarchical covenant. It is with their blood that Rupert Murdoch hopes to write the world's next dark chapter.
That is why FOX News assails all who dare question the Iraq War. Murdoch, like Bush, wants to see America's young men and women stuck in Iraq's quagmire until "victory" is secured. And, of course, the hope for victory has long since disappeared. But Rupert knows that as much as Bush does ... they don't really want victory. They want a war that lasts forever - a war through which they can all be made uber-wealthy corporate Kings.
Welcome to the INSTITUTIONAL BIASES of the American corporate media, where Bill Clinton having consensual sex with a grown woman is labeled, by millions of Americans (Clinton haters) as 'proof' of his being 'a rapist', yet when Catholic Church authorities have been proven, beyond a shadow of a doubt, to have harbored child-RAPING priests, the term "rape" is forbidden, VERBOTTEN, from the clean white pages of "major media" discourse.
This is but ONE example of how the corporate 'major media' uses WORDS to justify AUTHORTARIAN, concentration-of-wealth and -power policies, and how they use confusing, indirect, and 'soft' words to describe Republican crimes ("abuse" to mean "torture" or rape; "controversial" to mean illegal wiretaps; "conflicting stories" to mean perjurous testimony and BOLD FACED LIES; "refusing to answer a subpoenae" to mean OBSRTRUCTION OF JUSTICE, etc, etc, etc ad infinitum) while using the harshest language possible, or most demeaining story lines, to deride Democratic candidates and leaders. (See our following post)
==============================================
FOX News's Rupert Murdoch and His Love of War
by A.Alexander, Progressive Daily Beacon
August 1st, 2007
http://www.progressivedailybeacon.com/more.php?page=opinion&id=1629
Few people appear to be more enthusiastic about the senseless loss of the lives of young American military members, than does the Australian-born Rupert Murdoch. Murdoch, of course, is the owner of News Corp, which includes the Republican propaganda brands FOX News, the New York Post and soon, sadly, The Wall Street Journal.
It must be a wonderfully easy and pleasing existence for Murdoch. Much like the extremist Republican politicians he loves to support, Bush and Cheney most especially, Murdoch doesn't have any skin in the Iraq War disaster. Instead, he gets to sit upon the comfortable and safe throne of his multi-billion dollar media-corporation and egg on eggheads and their eggheaded policies of mass death and destruction. Indeed, what does FOX News's Murdoch care? He has the best seat in the house from which to watch the bombs fall and he never has to worry about blood being spattered on his fancy European-tailored suits.
It should be noted, however, that outside of Bush and Cheney, no person has more Iraqi blood on his hands than does Rupert Murdoch.
Yes, Rupert Murdoch's favorite pastime, perhaps, outside of beloved Cricket or rugby, is employing his vast media empire in a never-ending game of rah-rah cheerleading the Iraq disaster forever forward...forever and ever without end, amen!
To achieve this goal, he has employed the quasi-journalistic talents of Brit Hume and single-handedly created careers for some of America's loudest-mouthed Goebbels-like fascist Republican propagandists. That is to say, Murdoch gave legitimacy to corporate despotism and Christian theocracy via the employment of Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, Neil Cavuto, and John Gibson. Were they not war mongering cheerleaders of the first order, Murdoch would have no use for these fools and they'd soon find themselves relegated to the obscurity to which their talent qualifies them.
Murdoch loves war, because he loves the possibilities inherent within an oligarchy. War and its carnage may not be the thing that gives Murdoch a stiffy as only a double dose of Viagra can give him nowadays, but he does love the notion of corporations ruling world governments. Yes, that makes Rupert Murdoch's manhood stand proud and nothing serves the oligarchy better, nothing is more profitable than war...so Rupie's FOX News cheers on!
Rupert Murdoch may have acquired U.S. citizenship so that he could break into the lucrative American media market, but he still clings to the Australian loyalists' dreams of a royalty-like elitist class ruling the world. Oh, maybe nobody will agree to place the Queen on this global throne, but how can they halt the crowning of the Corporatist King? The corporatists make the world go-round! They are the new master at whose feet the people must be made prostrate. And by God! War and all the money it creates and all the emotion it can engender among the people ... carefully tweaked, of course, and made to turn one against the other - that is how Rupert Murdoch envisions the crowning of the Oligarchy. That is why Rupert Murdoch loves war.
Indeed, that is why the Australian-born Rupert Murdoch is so enthusiastic about the senseless loss of the lives of young American military members. It is with their blood that the likes of Rupert Murdoch, George W. Bush, and Dick Cheney intend to seal the oligarchical covenant. It is with their blood that Rupert Murdoch hopes to write the world's next dark chapter.
That is why FOX News assails all who dare question the Iraq War. Murdoch, like Bush, wants to see America's young men and women stuck in Iraq's quagmire until "victory" is secured. And, of course, the hope for victory has long since disappeared. But Rupert knows that as much as Bush does ... they don't really want victory. They want a war that lasts forever - a war through which they can all be made uber-wealthy corporate Kings.
Monday, July 30, 2007
Washington Whore Post FINALLY investigates Gonzales' long history of lying....
Gonzales's Truthfulness Long Disputed
Claims of Misstatements to Shield Bush Stretch Back a Decade
By Dan Eggen and Amy Goldstein
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, July 30, 2007; A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/29/AR2007072901327.html
When Alberto R. Gonzales was asked during his January 2005 confirmation hearing whether the Bush administration would ever allow wiretapping of U.S. citizens without warrants, he initially dismissed the query as a "hypothetical situation."
But when Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.) pressed him further, Gonzales declared: "It is not the policy or the agenda of this president to authorize actions that would be in contravention of our criminal statutes."
By then, however, the government had been conducting a secret wiretapping program for more than three years without court oversight, possibly in conflict with federal intelligence laws. Gonzales had personally defended the effort in fierce internal debates. Feingold later called his testimony that day "misleading and deeply troubling."
The accusation that Gonzales has been deceptive in his public remarks has erupted this summer into a full-blown political crisis for the Bush administration, as the beleaguered attorney general struggles repeatedly to explain to Congress the removal of a batch of U.S. attorneys, the wiretapping program and other actions.
In each case, Gonzales has appeared to lawmakers to be shielding uncomfortable facts about the Bush administration's conduct on sensitive matters. A series of misstatements and omissions has come to define his tenure at the helm of the Justice Department and is the central reason that lawmakers in both parties have been trying for months to push him out of his job.
Yet controversy over Gonzales's candor about George W. Bush's conduct or policies has actually dogged him for more than a decade, since he worked for Bush in Texas.
Whether Gonzales has deliberately told untruths or is merely hampered by his memory has been the subject of intense debate among members of Congress, legal scholars and others who have watched him over the years. Some regard his verbal difficulties as a strategic ploy on behalf of a president to whom he owes his career; others see a public official overwhelmed by the magnitude of his responsibilities.
Administration officials say Gonzales's enemies are distorting his words for political gain. The Justice Department has portrayed the criticism as unavoidable and a matter of routine misunderstanding, provoked by the attorney general's presence at a "friction point between the executive branch and Congress when it comes to national security policy," as spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said Friday.
Gonzales told senators earlier this year that allegations that he had been untruthful "have been personally very painful to me." But Gonzales's critics on and off Capitol Hill say he has had trouble with the truth for more than a decade, pointing to a controversy over Gonzales's account of why Bush was excused from jury duty in 1996 while serving as the governor of Texas.
Sen. Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.), who joined other Democrats last week in calling for an inquiry into possible perjury by Gonzales, said Friday that "most public servants -- Democratic or Republican, conservative, moderate or liberal -- seem to want to try to tell the truth. . . . With Gonzales, whatever answer fits he will tell, whether it's true or not. It almost seems pathological."
Over the past 2 1/2 years, lawmakers have accused Gonzales of dissembling on many topics, including civil liberties abuses under the USA Patriot Act and his role in reviewing aggressive interrogation tactics. After a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in February 2006, Gonzales sent the panel a six-page, single-spaced letter to "clarify" six major points of testimony, including his erroneous claim that the Justice Department had never undertaken a legal analysis of domestic wiretapping.
But scrutiny of Gonzales increased dramatically this year as a result of Democrats' aggressive investigations into the Justice Department's firings of nine U.S. attorneys in 2006. Gonzales has particularly come under fire for his shifting explanations of his role in the dismissals and for his statements that he could not recall a host of details about the firings.
At a Senate hearing in April, for example, Gonzales said more than 60 times that he could not recall events or facts related to the firings, including a final, high-level meeting in his office at which the dismissal plan was formally approved.
Democrats and some experts on the use of language say that Gonzales's gaffes are too numerous and consistent to be chalked up to misunderstandings. In most instances, his answers, or his refusals to answer, have served to obscure events that would be damaging to the administration, Gonzales or Bush.
One example involves the Terrorist Surveillance Program, which allowed the National Security Agency to monitor telephone calls between the United States and overseas in which one party had been tied to al-Qaeda. Gonzales has testified repeatedly that there was never "serious disagreement" among administration officials about the program and that an unusual visit by Gonzales to the hospital bed of then-Attorney General John D. Ashcroft was focused on "other intelligence activities."
But FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III testified last week that the NSA program was the subject of a fierce debate within the administration and was the issue under discussion during the hospital visit.
Gonzales and his aides say the differing accounts boil down to a dispute over terminology: Gonzales was referring only to the surveillance program in the precise form that was confirmed publicly by Bush.
A news account yesterday said that the legal wrangling was about an effort to mine databases for sensitive information, which was linked to the NSA program but not acknowledged by Bush. That suggests that Gonzales's description might have been technically accurate.
But others privy to details of the surveillance activities -- including several lawmakers and Mueller -- have suggested that they were all part of a single NSA program. Gonzales's critics say his distinction was a lawyerly one that stretched the bounds of the truth.
"He's a slippery fellow, and I think so intentionally," said Richard L. Schott, a professor at the University of Texas's Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs. "He's trying to keep the president's secrets and to be a team player, even if it means prevaricating or forgetting convenient things."
"This almost subconscious bond of loyalty" between the attorney general and the president "may be driving a lot of this," said Schott, who has studied relations between the executive and legislative branches of government and the role of psychology in political behavior. "It's obvious that Gonzales owes Bush his career. Part of his behavior comes from this gratitude and extreme loyalty to Bush."
Bill Minutaglio, a University of Texas journalism professor and author of biographies of Gonzales and Bush, said Gonzales kept an "extremely, extremely low profile" in the three jobs Bush gave him in the Texas government -- general counsel, secretary of state and judge on the Supreme Court -- and had little practice before he came to Washington at responding publicly to stiff scrutiny. "The grilling he's enduring right now is beyond anything he had ever experienced in his life. He was ill prepared for it," Minutaglio said.
Gonzales has irritated congressional Democrats, and a few Republicans, by saying that he is responsible for decisions made within the Justice Department but distancing himself from the process that led to the prosecutor firings. At the April hearing, he said a dozen times that he accepted responsibility. But he also has told Congress that he did not know who placed the names of prosecutors on the firing list, and he has pinned much of the responsibility on his outgoing deputy, Paul J. McNulty, who has said he was only marginally involved.
Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) told Gonzales at the hearing that much of his testimony was "a stretch," and Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) said he was "taken aback" by Gonzales's memory lapses. Last week, Sen. Arlen Specter (Pa.), the Judiciary Committee's senior Republican, warned Gonzales to review his remarks, saying: "I do not find your testimony credible, candidly."
Deborah Tannen, a professor of linguistics at Georgetown University who has written about the confrontational character of dialogue in public life, said Gonzales's responses to grilling by lawmakers are an extreme example of a rhetorical style that many politicians adopt when they get into trouble. Although accepting responsibility, she said, they "very explicitly stop short of, 'I made a mistake. I'm at fault.' "
Stephen Gillers, a professor of legal ethics at the New York University School of Law, said that Gonzales's strengths "may lie elsewhere, but they are not in management."
"The idea that nine U.S. attorneys could be fired and the head of the department is only casually in the loop -- it is preposterous that a manager would let that happen." Gillers also said he thinks that Gonzales has exacerbated his problems because "when the inconsistencies are pointed out, he refuses to back down," adding: "He is digging himself deeper and deeper into a hole."
Questions about Gonzales's willingness to shade the truth on Bush's behalf came to prominence in the 1996 episode in which Bush was excused from Texas jury duty in a drunken-driving case. Bush was then the state's governor, and Gonzales was his general counsel. If Bush had served, he probably would have had to disclose his own drunken-driving conviction in Maine two decades earlier.
The judge, prosecutor and defense attorney involved in the case have said that Gonzales met with the judge and argued that jury service would pose a potential conflict of interest for Bush, who could be asked to pardon the defendant. Gonzales has disputed that account. He made no mention of meeting with the judge in a written statement submitted to the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Research editor Alice Crites contributed to this report.
Claims of Misstatements to Shield Bush Stretch Back a Decade
By Dan Eggen and Amy Goldstein
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, July 30, 2007; A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/29/AR2007072901327.html
When Alberto R. Gonzales was asked during his January 2005 confirmation hearing whether the Bush administration would ever allow wiretapping of U.S. citizens without warrants, he initially dismissed the query as a "hypothetical situation."
But when Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.) pressed him further, Gonzales declared: "It is not the policy or the agenda of this president to authorize actions that would be in contravention of our criminal statutes."
By then, however, the government had been conducting a secret wiretapping program for more than three years without court oversight, possibly in conflict with federal intelligence laws. Gonzales had personally defended the effort in fierce internal debates. Feingold later called his testimony that day "misleading and deeply troubling."
The accusation that Gonzales has been deceptive in his public remarks has erupted this summer into a full-blown political crisis for the Bush administration, as the beleaguered attorney general struggles repeatedly to explain to Congress the removal of a batch of U.S. attorneys, the wiretapping program and other actions.
In each case, Gonzales has appeared to lawmakers to be shielding uncomfortable facts about the Bush administration's conduct on sensitive matters. A series of misstatements and omissions has come to define his tenure at the helm of the Justice Department and is the central reason that lawmakers in both parties have been trying for months to push him out of his job.
Yet controversy over Gonzales's candor about George W. Bush's conduct or policies has actually dogged him for more than a decade, since he worked for Bush in Texas.
Whether Gonzales has deliberately told untruths or is merely hampered by his memory has been the subject of intense debate among members of Congress, legal scholars and others who have watched him over the years. Some regard his verbal difficulties as a strategic ploy on behalf of a president to whom he owes his career; others see a public official overwhelmed by the magnitude of his responsibilities.
Administration officials say Gonzales's enemies are distorting his words for political gain. The Justice Department has portrayed the criticism as unavoidable and a matter of routine misunderstanding, provoked by the attorney general's presence at a "friction point between the executive branch and Congress when it comes to national security policy," as spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said Friday.
Gonzales told senators earlier this year that allegations that he had been untruthful "have been personally very painful to me." But Gonzales's critics on and off Capitol Hill say he has had trouble with the truth for more than a decade, pointing to a controversy over Gonzales's account of why Bush was excused from jury duty in 1996 while serving as the governor of Texas.
Sen. Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.), who joined other Democrats last week in calling for an inquiry into possible perjury by Gonzales, said Friday that "most public servants -- Democratic or Republican, conservative, moderate or liberal -- seem to want to try to tell the truth. . . . With Gonzales, whatever answer fits he will tell, whether it's true or not. It almost seems pathological."
Over the past 2 1/2 years, lawmakers have accused Gonzales of dissembling on many topics, including civil liberties abuses under the USA Patriot Act and his role in reviewing aggressive interrogation tactics. After a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in February 2006, Gonzales sent the panel a six-page, single-spaced letter to "clarify" six major points of testimony, including his erroneous claim that the Justice Department had never undertaken a legal analysis of domestic wiretapping.
But scrutiny of Gonzales increased dramatically this year as a result of Democrats' aggressive investigations into the Justice Department's firings of nine U.S. attorneys in 2006. Gonzales has particularly come under fire for his shifting explanations of his role in the dismissals and for his statements that he could not recall a host of details about the firings.
At a Senate hearing in April, for example, Gonzales said more than 60 times that he could not recall events or facts related to the firings, including a final, high-level meeting in his office at which the dismissal plan was formally approved.
Democrats and some experts on the use of language say that Gonzales's gaffes are too numerous and consistent to be chalked up to misunderstandings. In most instances, his answers, or his refusals to answer, have served to obscure events that would be damaging to the administration, Gonzales or Bush.
One example involves the Terrorist Surveillance Program, which allowed the National Security Agency to monitor telephone calls between the United States and overseas in which one party had been tied to al-Qaeda. Gonzales has testified repeatedly that there was never "serious disagreement" among administration officials about the program and that an unusual visit by Gonzales to the hospital bed of then-Attorney General John D. Ashcroft was focused on "other intelligence activities."
But FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III testified last week that the NSA program was the subject of a fierce debate within the administration and was the issue under discussion during the hospital visit.
Gonzales and his aides say the differing accounts boil down to a dispute over terminology: Gonzales was referring only to the surveillance program in the precise form that was confirmed publicly by Bush.
A news account yesterday said that the legal wrangling was about an effort to mine databases for sensitive information, which was linked to the NSA program but not acknowledged by Bush. That suggests that Gonzales's description might have been technically accurate.
But others privy to details of the surveillance activities -- including several lawmakers and Mueller -- have suggested that they were all part of a single NSA program. Gonzales's critics say his distinction was a lawyerly one that stretched the bounds of the truth.
"He's a slippery fellow, and I think so intentionally," said Richard L. Schott, a professor at the University of Texas's Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs. "He's trying to keep the president's secrets and to be a team player, even if it means prevaricating or forgetting convenient things."
"This almost subconscious bond of loyalty" between the attorney general and the president "may be driving a lot of this," said Schott, who has studied relations between the executive and legislative branches of government and the role of psychology in political behavior. "It's obvious that Gonzales owes Bush his career. Part of his behavior comes from this gratitude and extreme loyalty to Bush."
Bill Minutaglio, a University of Texas journalism professor and author of biographies of Gonzales and Bush, said Gonzales kept an "extremely, extremely low profile" in the three jobs Bush gave him in the Texas government -- general counsel, secretary of state and judge on the Supreme Court -- and had little practice before he came to Washington at responding publicly to stiff scrutiny. "The grilling he's enduring right now is beyond anything he had ever experienced in his life. He was ill prepared for it," Minutaglio said.
Gonzales has irritated congressional Democrats, and a few Republicans, by saying that he is responsible for decisions made within the Justice Department but distancing himself from the process that led to the prosecutor firings. At the April hearing, he said a dozen times that he accepted responsibility. But he also has told Congress that he did not know who placed the names of prosecutors on the firing list, and he has pinned much of the responsibility on his outgoing deputy, Paul J. McNulty, who has said he was only marginally involved.
Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) told Gonzales at the hearing that much of his testimony was "a stretch," and Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) said he was "taken aback" by Gonzales's memory lapses. Last week, Sen. Arlen Specter (Pa.), the Judiciary Committee's senior Republican, warned Gonzales to review his remarks, saying: "I do not find your testimony credible, candidly."
Deborah Tannen, a professor of linguistics at Georgetown University who has written about the confrontational character of dialogue in public life, said Gonzales's responses to grilling by lawmakers are an extreme example of a rhetorical style that many politicians adopt when they get into trouble. Although accepting responsibility, she said, they "very explicitly stop short of, 'I made a mistake. I'm at fault.' "
Stephen Gillers, a professor of legal ethics at the New York University School of Law, said that Gonzales's strengths "may lie elsewhere, but they are not in management."
"The idea that nine U.S. attorneys could be fired and the head of the department is only casually in the loop -- it is preposterous that a manager would let that happen." Gillers also said he thinks that Gonzales has exacerbated his problems because "when the inconsistencies are pointed out, he refuses to back down," adding: "He is digging himself deeper and deeper into a hole."
Questions about Gonzales's willingness to shade the truth on Bush's behalf came to prominence in the 1996 episode in which Bush was excused from Texas jury duty in a drunken-driving case. Bush was then the state's governor, and Gonzales was his general counsel. If Bush had served, he probably would have had to disclose his own drunken-driving conviction in Maine two decades earlier.
The judge, prosecutor and defense attorney involved in the case have said that Gonzales met with the judge and argued that jury service would pose a potential conflict of interest for Bush, who could be asked to pardon the defendant. Gonzales has disputed that account. He made no mention of meeting with the judge in a written statement submitted to the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Research editor Alice Crites contributed to this report.
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