Month: May 2008

What’s Up Down There?

by digby

I think we all knew that these Gitmo trials were less than just, but they seem to be turning into full blown Kangaroo Courts — with The Pentagon calling the shots and changing the rules at will.

I know the press is consumed with defending themselves against the false accusations that they fell prey to group think, laziness and patriotic fervor in the run up to the war so they don’t have time to get into this trivia, but this seems like a really good story for somebody if they can get to the bottom of it:

The Defense Department was mum Friday on the reasons for the abrupt removal of a Guantánamo war court judge who had threatened to suspend the trial of Canadian captive Omar Khadr in a showdown with the controversial prison camp.

Khadr’s lawyers were notified without explanation Thursday that the military judge, Army Col. Peter Brownback III, had been replaced by a new Army judge arriving at the commissions amid a surge in Pentagon prosecutions.

Air Force Capt. André Kok, spokesman for the Office of Military Commissions, said in a statement the sudden switch was the result of it was “a mutual decision between Col. Brownback and the Army that he revert to his retired status when his current active duty orders expire in June.”

Marine Col. Ralph Kohlmann, a military judge, is the chief judge for military commissions. Thursday, he said he was assigning U.S. Army Col. Patrick Parrish to replace Brownback.

Khadr’s lawyer, Navy Lt. Cmdr. William Kuebler, in turn notified the media that Brownback “has been relieved of further duties in the case.”

Brownback had presided over the tribunal’s proceedings against the Canadian, who was captured as a teen in Afghanistan in July 2002.

Khadr’s case has been on track to be one of the first to trial at the U.S. Navy base in southeast Cuba. Khadr, the son of an alleged al Qaeda financier, is accused of throwing a grenade that fatally wounded a U.S. Special Forces soldier.

Military prosecutors had been pressing Brownback to set a trial date, but he has repeatedly directed them first to satisfy defense requests for access to potential evidence. At a hearing earlier this month, he threatened to suspend the proceedings altogether unless the detention center provided records of Khadr’s confinement.

This is an interesting twist, since Brownback was featured heavily in the Hamdan case:

Clad in traditional Yemeni attire of a flowing white robe called a jilbab over which he wore a suit coat and a patterned white shawl, Mr. Hamdan spoke briefly in Arabic in response to questions from the presiding officer of the panel, Col. Peter E. Brownback III. Mr. Hamdan said, according to the translation provided, that he understood his right to a lawyer and was satisfied with Commander Swift’s representation but thought he should have a second lawyer, something Commander Swift told the court he had requested many times.

Much of the morning was taken up with Commander Swift’s efforts to portray Colonel Brownback as incapable of serving impartially because of extensive contacts with senior Pentagon officials who helped set up the military tribunals. Colonel Brownback, who came out of retirement to serve on a tribunal, seemed annoyed at Commander Swift’s request that he step aside and said he would forward it to the Pentagon. By the end of the day Commander Swift had challenged the suitability of four other panel members.

Commander Swift said that Colonel Brownback should be disqualified because he said at a July 15 meeting with some lawyers that he did not believe Guantánamo detainees had any rights to a speedy trial. Colonel Brownback sharply denied making the remark.

But hours later at the conclusion of the day’s proceedings, Commander Swift stunned Colonel Brownback when he said he had just learned that an audiotape of the meeting existed and he would like to include it in his request that Colonel Brownback be disqualified. Colonel Brownback covered his face with his hands for several moments and then agreed to have the tape recording included.

Here’s a little tid-bit from Michael Froomkin at the time:

Asked by the defence whether he believed the orders establishing the military commission were lawful, Colonel Brownback paused, and to the surprise of some observers, said: “I choose not to answer that question at this time.” Asked again by the military prosecutor, Commander Scott Lang, Colonel Brownback replied that he had “a duty to comply” with any order, even if it was “questionable”.

It sounds to me as if Brownback has an interesting tale to tell. He’s clearly been a mixed bag for civil libertarians on these cases, but his abrupt dismissal and history of clashes with the Pentagon indicates that he has a complicated view. I wonder if anyone can get him to tell it. The Canadian and Australian papers seem to be following these Gitmo stories in much more detail than here at home. (Not that that indicts the American press who have always done a terrific job, as we all know.)

In case you’re wondering, the case from which Brownback was removed is this:

Mr. Khadr was 15 when he was captured after a gun battle in Afghanistan in 2002. His Canadian and U.S. defence lawyers, along with myriad human-rights and legal groups and Canadian opposition politicians, have said he should be treated as a child soldier and not be subjected to the U.S. military commissions system in Guantanamo Bay.

Mr. Khadr faces several charges stemming from the Afghanistan battle, including murder. Now 21, he faces the prospect of life in prison if convicted.

Life in prison for a 15 year old Afghan boy who allegedly fought the Americans during the early months of an invasion of his home country. I guess it’s better than being shot dead, but that’s about it.

More here from human Rights watch. And here, from the ACLU.

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Mining The Harbor

by dday

We’ve been talking quite a bit about how Bush-Cheney will leave little landmines inside the government, codifying their vision of radical executive power, a hollowed-out set of regulatory agencies and a civil service dedicated to a deeply conservative vision. In a fantastic new article, the very first by the best hire the New York Times has made in the past decade, Charlie Savage (on this one he was aided by Robert Pear), we get another example of this in the area of regulatory rules changes.

The Bush administration has told federal agencies that they have until June 1 to propose any new regulations, a move intended to avoid the rush of rules issued by previous administrations on their way out the door.

The White House has also declared that it will generally not allow agencies to issue any final regulations after Nov. 1, nearly three months before President Bush relinquishes power.

Sounds harmless, right? Why would this provoke any outcry?

While the White House called the deadlines “simply good government,” some legal specialists said the policy would ensure that rules the administration wanted to be part of Mr. Bush’s legacy would be less subject to being overturned by his successor. Moreover, they said, the deadlines could allow the administration to avoid thorny proposals that are likely to come up in the next few months, including environmental and safety rules that have been in the regulatory pipeline for years.

So there are two rationales at work here. The deadline of tomorrow would make it virtually impossible to impose rules changes that have been sorely needed for years and on which the Administration have been dragging their feet. Some examples include the Labor Department updating construction safeguards and standards that industry and labor have already agreed to. They may have prevented crane accidents like the one we saw in New York City yesterday. Another example is a needed Department of Agriculture rule to put more stringent requirements on genetically modified crops.

The flip side to this is that getting rules changes completed outside the 60-day window for regulations to take effect after issuance will stop the future President’s ability to postpone or revise them. And since official secrecy is a hallmark of the Administration, even finding out what these rules changes are will be a tortuous process for a new chief executive.

And what are some of those rules?

Rick Melberth, the director of regulatory policy for OMB Watch, a nonpartisan government watchdog group, predicted that the administration, in keeping with its longstanding skepticism about regulation, would make it a priority to complete rules that relax regulations on industrial pollution and other burdens on business.

Mr. Melberth also predicted that the administration would be willing to invoke the exception for “extraordinary circumstances” to allow rules that give businesses more flexibility than Mr. Bush’s successor might, especially if the next president is a Democrat.

“They get to define emergency,” Mr. Melberth said.

“On other things, they could do ‘Sorry, we can’t do anything on this’ ” because of the deadline, he added.

This is about the White House implementing and locking in their agenda to the bitter end, along the same principles of deregulation and laissez-faire capitalism that has put the entire economy in turmoil and put lives at risk from enivronmental decay and overall health and safety. The only figure outside the Administration quoted in the article praising the plan is a vice president of the US Chamber of Commerce. Just so you know where this is headed.

There’s nothing all that insidious about this – the President can make rules changes whenever he wants. But the modus operandi for the final months of the Administration is clear: preserve as much of their agenda as possible, codify it, make sure the successor can’t change it, and make sure there are enough malefactors installed throughout the government so that a Democratic President can be endlessly undermined. That and covering their own asses through things like immunity legislation in FISA is really all they’re concerned about.

performance bonds

Off To Denver

by dday

Let me be the first to congratulate Digby for getting credentialed to the 2008 DNC. It’s richly deserved. I’ll be there as one of the representatives for Calitics, and through the state blogger program we’ll actually be seated on the floor with the California delegation. So between us, there’ll be non-stop convention coverage!!! Because, you know, that’s exactly what we do here.

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The Other First 100 Days Priority

by dday

As Digby mentioned, Barack Obama at a fundraiser said that a priority of his first 100 days would be to scrutinize all executive orderspassed by George Bush and overturn those which he and his advisors deem unconstitutional. This is crucially important – as The Poor Man notes, the Cheney Administration has set little traps and landmines inside the government to ensure that radical executive power survives, and an Obama Administration, in order to be successful, will need to at least partially root out the garbage and the rot that will crop up to undermine his Presidency.

But Obama had another answer to the question of how he would fill out his first 100 days. He said that he’d get his health care plan moving. “We need a bill…by March or April to get going before the political season sets in.”

That’s particularly astute, as Ezra Klein notes. One problem with the Clinton health care debacle was that it took so long to get around to it, while the Administration had their honeymoon period tied up with NAFTA and gays in the military. Obama appears to recognize the need to act quickly on the potential mandate for change in the biggest domestic policy challenge facing the country.

For those of us into the politics of this issue, that timetable is big news. Doing health care quickly is crucial. You can’t lose your momentum. You can’t get bogged down in the endless unknown events and unexpected crises of a presidency. You need a strategy and you need momentum and in order to preserve those things, you need to move […]

That time spent dithering was time that enemies of the plan spent organizing. The rest, as they say, is history. Last night, Obama said he’s uninterested in repeating it.

I know that a lot of people have concerns about Obama’s plan, and I share them to an extent. But acting quickly and getting a plan through that goes a good bit of the way toward reform is far better than waiting around and ending up attaining nothing. Like Obama, I believe that if we were starting from scratch, single payer would absolutely be the way to go, and any reform movement ought to see whatever is passed as part of a gradual shift to that goal, mindful of the fact that dislocating a major industry of 3 million people and their jobs is not something that can be done with a snap of the fingers without a major shock to the economic system. And I think that Obama is willing to let the process play out and have the lawmakers who will craft the bill get the leeway they need to improve upon his program within the broad goals that he’s set out – lower costs, mandating all children with coverage, and an affordable option for everyone without pre-existing conditions (UPDATE: This may have been unclear: Obama’s plan stops insurers from denying coverage based on pre-existing conditions).

The entire country wants this, make no mistake. A recent survey in Nebraska – Nebraska – showed that 94% favor affordable, quality coverage for all and 75% would agree with mandating coverage, because they’ve experienced the current system and they really don’t like it:

Other findings published in “Nebraskans on Health Care Issues”:

* 31 percent of the people surveyed said they had postponed or skipped medical services in the past year to save money.

* 31 percent said they had problems paying for medical services in the past year, including 26 percent of insured Nebraskans.

* 18 percent spent at least $5,000 on health care last year.

Among the state’s more than 200,000 uninsured people:

* 76 percent had trouble paying for a medical service last year.

* 66 percent postponed or skipped care to save money.

* 40 percent were denied health care coverage.

There is a real desire to reform the health care system, which I believe can be translated into a bottom-up movement that any member of Congress who wants to keep his job will have to listen to. This is a hopeful time but it’s going to take a lot of hard work, not to mention that little election in November. And if Obama does get in, he’d better hope he has his evangelist Teddy Kennedy in the well of the Senate helping him close the deal.

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Lapdogs

by digby

It quite amusing watching these members of the press dance on the head of a pin trying to sell us on the idea that they didn’t actually kiss George W. Bush’s ass for nearly six years before it finally became too unfashionable to do so. They are acting as if this has never been brought up before and they must defend their honor.

Sorry guys. Scotty is just saying what everybody who pays attention to this stuff already knew. Remember this?

Abandoning their traditional role of public watchdog, the MSM for years meekly adopted a gentlemanly tone more reminiscent of the Eisenhower era than what was to be expected at the dawn of the twenty-first century when the press’s investigate zeal, displayed during the Clinton era, appeared unmatched. The forces behind the news media’s dramatic mood swing, which conveniently coincided with Bush’s first presidential run, were many. Key factors included the consolidated media landscape in which owners were increasingly — almost exclusively — multinational corporations; the same corporations anxious to win approval from the Republican-controlled federal government to allow for even further ownership consolidation. The press timidity was also fueled by the Republicans’ tight grip on Congress and the White House, mixed with the GOP’s love of hardball, and the MSM’s natural tendency to revere Beltway power. Not to mention the deep-pocketed Republican media noise machine, created decades ago in an effort to denounce and distract the MSM. The timidity was also driven by Beltway careerism; by media insiders who understood that despite the cliché about the liberal media, advancement to senior positions was actually made doubly difficult for anyone with a reputation for being too far left, or too caustic toward Republicans. On the flip side, that same Beltway career path rewarded journalists who showed a willingness to be openly contemptuous of Democrats. And there are many eager to do so.

Part of that seemed to be visceral. News gathering is not supposed to be a popularity contest, but it was obvious journalists simply don’t like or respect prominent Democrats such as Al Gore, John Kerry, Howard Dean, and Nancy Pelosi, and the coverage reflected that. And while the MSM might have respected President Bill Clinton’s legendary political skills, much of the D.C. press flashed an odd, personal contempt for him, even before the Monica Lewinsky scandal came to light. The stunning stick-to-itiveness the press displayed in flogging the phony Whitewater real estate scandal, for example, illustrated a deep desire among journalists to try to find wrongdoing — real or imagined — inside the White House. It was a desire that evaporated upon Bush’s arrival in Washington, D.C.

And even when the press periodically awoke from its slumber to cover one of the Bush administration’s high-profile blunders, reporters inevitably retreated back into their shell, nervous that their questions to the White House had been too rude. A perfect example came in February 2006 when, in one of the most absurd events in recent White House history, Cheney shot a man during a hunting accident and then failed to inform the public or the press for nearly twenty-four hours. Even White House aides privately conceded Cheney and his office had completely mismanaged the situation. The White House’s uncommunicative spokesman Scott McClellan came under days’ worth of attacks from reporters who were trying to get to the bottom of the strange, inconsistent, and secretive tale. By midweek, Bush loyalists in the conservative press, like Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly, right-wing syndicated columnist Robert Novak, and press-hating blogger Michelle Malkin, began their predictable attacks on the MSM, insisting journalists were blowing the story out of proportion and unfairly attacking the White House. Instead of dismissing those barbs as obvious attempts at damage control, journalists by week’s end gathered on CNN’s Reliable Source to fret about how the news media had been “whining” about the Cheney story, and guilty of “overkill.” It was the type of nervous hand wringing that rarely took place within the Beltway press corps during the 1990s.

Fearful of being tagged with the liberal Scarlet L by an army of conservative press activists who, having codified their institutional rage against the MSM, stood determined to strip the press of its long-held influence, Beltway journalists throttled way back, and made a mockery out of the right-wing chestnut about the MSM pushing a progressive agenda. And in November 2005, Bob Woodward, the former star sleuth, came to symbolize the press’s stunning U-turn from attack dog to lapdog.

Is that not clear enough? This was published two years ago. The fact that they are now having a little fit because Scott McClellan accuses them of not doing their jobs just proves the point. The only people the press ever listens to are Republicans.

Update: The McClatchey team who got the story on Iraq right post a scathing indictment of their brethren here. Hogwash, hogwash, hogwash indeed.

Update II: Greenwald has a great interview about what happened with Phil Donohue.

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Priorities

by digby

If elected president, Democratic White House hopeful Barack Obama said one of the first things he wants to do is ensure the constitutionality of all the laws and executive orders passed while Republican President George W. Bush has been in office. Those that don’t pass muster will be overturned, he said. During a fund-raiser in Denver, Obama — a former constitutional law professor at the University of Chicago Law School — was asked what he hoped to accomplish during his first 100 days in office. “I would call my attorney general in and review every single executive order issued by George Bush and overturn those laws or executive decisions that I feel violate the constitution,” said Obama

Obviously, he can’t actually overturn laws, but he certainly can overturn executive orders, so this is good news. If we can get him to promise to make all this stuff public it would be even better news. I have no doubt that we will see a much more transparent and open administration. But part of the new transparency must be telling the public what was done in their name.

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Unreliable Narrators

by digby

From what I’ve read around the sphere this morning, Jessica Yellin made quite a statement last night about her former bosses at ABC or MSNBC news influencing the coverage of the run up to the war. I’m sure you’ve already heard about it. (If you haven’t, just read down the page.)

I don’t know specifically which network she was discussing, but let’s just say it’s likely to be MSNBC since we all wrote about MSNBCs egregious coverage at the time and covered those who spoke out, few though they were. The pressure from those at the top of that network has been known for ages. It was never clear whether this was done for political reasons, business reasons or out of sheer cowardice, but it was obvious from the beginning, no matter how much Chris Matthews protests otherwise, that they were on the same page as the administration in the run up to the war and in the character assassination of dissenters.

Lately, MSNBC has taken a different tack, which many of us on the left are celebrating. Shows like Keith Olbermann’s, while late to the party, did help bury the corpse of the Bush administration in the last couple of years and Obama supporters are thrilled to have open advocacy for their chosen candidate on a major news network. But there is danger in this as well, particularly if our side comes to depend upon the kindness of news organizations that operate on the basis of what’s in political fashion at the moment.

Isaac Chotiner, a fervent Obama supporter, brought up the possible downsides of this kind of advocacy the other day:

Two weeks ago, on the night of Barack Obama’s big win and narrow loss in the North Carolina and Indiana primaries, respectively, I turned my television set to MSNBC, as I normally do on election nights. It was early in the evening, and Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann were discussing the first exit polls that were trickling in. Considering that the exit polls in these contests have been–to say the least–a bit unreliable, I assumed that they weren’t going to put much stock in the numbers. Just two weeks earlier, I had watched MSNBC’s coverage of the Pennsylvania primary, where an excited Matthews practically gave the state to Obama, only to acknowledge later that Clinton had easily won. Surely, Matthews and company were not going to make the same mistake again.

They didn’t–but only because the exit polls, predicting a good night for Obama, happened to be right; the coverage itself was exactly the same. And this was only the latest example of the network’s undeniable Obama favoritism. David Shuster’s comment about the Clintons’ “pimping out” their daughter, Chelsea, was clearly boneheaded, but, as Clinton campaign spokesman Howard Wolfson pointed out, it caused such a stir among Clintonites because it highlighted the rest of the network’s anti-Hillary coverage. Now, that’s not to say that their slant has been bad for business; to the contrary. And it has certainly made for some enjoyable television–Matthews is often supremely engaging (who, after all, does not enjoy watching someone exclaim that seeing Obama speak gives him a “thrill going up my leg”), and however withering he can be, Olbermann is frequently hilarious. But the network’s coverage has helped create a bubble around Obama supporters that in the end is neither healthy nor desirable. In fact, MSNBC’s bias has actually hurt the Illinois senator. After all, it was the Obama cheerleading from MSNBC (among others) that helped lead to Clinton’s New Hampshire comeback. And even if you think (as I do) that the Clintons have made too big of a deal out of the “sexist” and “unfair” portrayal their candidate has received in the press, if you watch enough MSNBC, you realize that their claim isn’t without truth. How could you believe otherwise when Olbermann, with his trademark hauteur, told Hillary that “voluntarily or inadvertently, you are still awash in this filth [of the campaign],” or when Matthews took such self-evident glee in trouncing Clinton in between the Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primary? Similarly now, by mocking Clinton’s decision to stay in the race, Olbermann has only bolstered her argument that “the boys” are trying to push her out. And finally, on a number of primary nights, but most notably in Pennsylvania and Ohio/Texas, MSNBC has become so excited by early exit polls that it has raised expectations that Obama ultimately could not live up to.Now, the question of whether the network’s coverage is healthy for Obama supporters is a little more subjective. If you are someone who gets his international and “hard” news elsewhere, MSNBC is particularly appealing. I increasingly started watching the channel last year because of its political focus, and for the novelty of seeing outspoken liberals on television. How often does one hear a news anchor rant against the corruption of Bush’s Washington, after all? As the campaign progressed, however, it became clear that neither Matthews nor Olbermann could stand Hillary Clinton. This, I must admit, I found appealing, too–especially because I agreed with the hosts that some of the Clinton campaign’s tactics have been either ridiculous or dirty or both. Still, a downside quickly surfaced. Shuster’s “pimping” remark and Matthews’s crude (even if somewhat accurate) comment about the Monica Lewinsky scandal being a boon for Hillary’s political career were notable precisely because they had nothing to do with policy or ideology. It wasn’t as if Shuster and Matthews and Olbermann were siding with Obama on the issue of individual mandates. Rather, by giving “the personal” precedence over “the political,” the network was using Hillary Hatred to fuel its coverage in a similar fashion to how Fox News uses Democrat Hatred to excite its viewers. But there is a distinction here that makes MSNBC’s agenda almost more disquieting than Fox’s. With Fox, I have to believe that most people know they’re watching something that approximates GOP talking points (seeing an analyst like Paul Begala spin for Hillary on CNN doesn’t really stick, either; everyone knows he’s an apparatchik). With MSNBC, however, the bias is much harder to pin down. Does it stem from a personal vendetta? Sexism? Corporate diktat? Who knows? If an Obama presidency were to bomb in a way similar to George W. Bush’s (unlikely, sure, but I’m speaking hypothetically here), it’s difficult to imagine that MSNBC would treat Obama as reverentially as Fox still does Bush. (In fact, I could see an issue like press access leading to a break between the channel and President Obama even if he thrives in office.) Conservatives have ably chipped away at the press’s credibility these past few years, with disturbing results; now–consciously or not–with their aggressive, intra-Democrat side-taking, MSNBC is doing the same thing.Dangerously, too, MSNBC’s coverage can lead to a perverse sort of cognitive dissonance in viewers like, well, me. Throughout the primary process, I often found myself much more bullish on the Illinois Senator’s chances after watching MSNBC than I had any reason to be. After Obama’s Iowa victory, for instance, I remember hearing Matthews’ description of a giant “wave” of Obamamania sweeping across the nation; surely, the race was over. Likewise, during the month of February, when Obama won eleven straight primaries, I recall watching the network and occasionally convincing myself that Clinton was certain to drop out before Texas and Ohio because her chances had become so diminished. The problem here is that when supposedly “straight” news anchors phrase questions in leading ways, and report one campaign’s spin as if it were fact, it distorts what is actually going on in the campaign–even for those of us who make a living obsessing over and writing about politics. And when anchormen themselves shill for Obama, the distinction between his talking points and the truth grows even blurrier still. So, as much as I find MSNBC entertaining, their creation of a parallel, pro-Obama universe is the type of thing I’d expect of Fox. That’s when I know it’s time to change the channel.

Cable news, MSNBC particularly, has been a major contributor to all the sturm and drang of this campaign. One of the main sources of frustration among the Obama supporters has been the notion that it’s been obvious to everyone for months that the race is over, and yet Clinton refuses to quit. But that hasn’t been obvious to Clinton voters (who are highly unlikely to be MSNBC viewers at this point) since she is still winning primaries. There is a disconnect with the greater public on this that the cable networks have exacerbated, much to the chagrin of the Obama voters who are anxious to call the race and get on with it and the Clinton voters who are furious at the coverage of their standard bearer and are digging their heels.

I realize that this seems ridiculous to most Obama supporters who view the press’ take on this as being correct, and I don’t particularly blame them. (Indeed, I’m crossing my fingers that MSNBC’s positive coverage doesn’t disintegrate as soon as their nemesis is gone and they are forced to choose between Barack and the manly flyboy.) But to the loathed minority of people like me, who don’t particularly love or hate either primary candidate, all this still makes MSNBC as unreliable as it was in the run up to the war. As Chotiner points out, since their friendly Democratic bias seems to stem from an idiosyncratic, personal basis, they are not behaving with any more journalistic integrity than they ever were, it’s just that their corruption is benefiting our side this time.

I have always been one of those who felt that the country would be better off if we just had a news media that did its job. I didn’t want our “own” network, so much as I wanted a functioning press corps. But if it was decided that the only thing to do was create a balance, I would have hoped it would be because of ideological sympathy, as Fox is, not because it is the latest fashion subject to change at the whim of a fickle public. The thing to remember is that it was only a very short time ago that MSNBC was using the same arguments they are today to impeach a president, help the Republicans steal an election, flog Bush’s war as hard as possible, firing reporters and pundits who refused to adhere to the party line.

If they help Democrats beat McCain in the fall I won’t be crying about it. But I won’t be cheering either, since it’s only a matter time before the next shiny object is waved in their faces and it’s very likely that it will not be something that accrues to our benefit. These people are still bad for our politics.

Update: According to Greenwald, Yellin confirms that she was referring to MSNBC.

Yellin clarifies in a post today that her comments “involved [her] time on MSNBC where [she] worked during the lead up to war” and that she was referring to “senior producers.” She says that “many people running the broadcasts wanted coverage that was consistent with the patriotic fever in the country at the time.” That, of course, is the same network that fired Ashleigh Banfield and Phil Donahue, and where David Gregory, Tom Brokow, Brian Williams and Tim Russert all now insist that they performed superb journalism in the run-up to the war.

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I have little doubt that they would be telling the truth if they denied what Yellin reported last night. People like Williams, Gibson and Gregory don’t need to be told to refrain from reporting critically about the war and the White House because challenging Government claims isn’t what they do. And amazingly, they admitted that explicitly yesterday. Gibson and Gregory both invoked the cliched excuse of the low-level bureaucrat using almost identical language: exposing government lies ‘is not our job’

Enthusiastic Puppets

by dday

I didn’t pay a ton of attention to the fallout over Scott McClellan’s scathing new book because it’s not like he has an image worth rehabilitating, and I figure he’s already sold enough books based on the hubbub. And anyway, there isn’t a lot that’s new there. As the Bush Reelect eCampaign Director Mike Turk said in his Twitter feed:

Feeling for Scott McLellan. Nice getting savaged for saying what everyone knows to be true anyway.

The midlevel operatives have all come to this conclusion about Bush, just like 80% of the country. Lying us into war, running the country like it were a campaign, deception in the CIA leak case – this isn’t groundbreaking stuff.

But two things about the book are revealing. Well, actually, two things about the reaction to the book.

First is that, as I expected, conservatives are throwing the mother of all hissy fits in response to this. The wingnut blogosphere is blaming the messenger as they always do, attacking McClellan as a liberal, a liar, a charlatan trying to sell books, and claiming they never liked him anyway.

The White House is perhaps even more spittle-flecked than the bloggers, calling McClellan “disgruntled” and even a traitor.

But I don’t think this book release would be getting the kind of attention it has if McClellan didn’t include some choice words for the media. Note to self – that’s the way to get a book on the best-seller list:

If anything, the national press corps was probably too deferential to the White House and to the administration in regard to the most important decision facing the nation during my years in Washington, the choice over whether to go to war in Iraq.

The collapse of the administration’s rationales for war, which became apparent months after our invasion, should never have come as such a surprise. . . . In this case, the “liberal media” didn’t live up to its reputation. If it had, the country would have been better served.

Now he’s pointed the finger at the almighty PRESS. He’s accused them of not living up to their responsibilities. So the press, naturally, had to push back. One way is to line up a cavalcade of Bush supporters to trash McClellan and damage his credibility. But because they’re sensitive about their conduct during the war, among the most shameful in history, they had to defend themselves from these charges. It was quite remarkable:

Yesterday was actually quite an extraordinary day in our political culture because Scott McClellan’s revelations forced the establishment media to defend themselves against long-standing accusations of their corruption and annexation by the government — criticisms which, until yesterday, they literally just ignored, blacked-out, and suppressed. Bizarrely enough, it took a “tell-all” Washington book from Scott McClellan, of all people, to force these issues out into the open, and he seems — unwittingly or otherwise — to have opened a huge flood gate that has long been held tightly shut.

Network executives obviously know that these revelations are quite threatening to their brand. Yesterday, they wheeled out their full stable of multi-millionaire corporate stars who play the role of authoritative journalists on the TV to join with their White House allies in mocking and deriding McClellan’s claims. One media star after the next — Tom Brokaw, David Gregory, Charlie Gibson and Brian Williams, Tim Russert, Wolf Blitzer — materialized in sync to insist that nothing could be more absurd than the suggestion that they are “deferential, complicit enablers” in government propaganda.

David Gregory was particularly amusing in defending the White House press corps, even though his own questions are in the public record, questions like “should we capture Saddam or just kill him?” The press was completely cowed by the Bush Administration, willing to reprint their propaganda and unwilling to challenge the most basic assumptions about the cause for war. This is in part because a lot of media figures are incredibly stupid and can’t even judge praise from insult:

Potomac, MD: McClellan needs to get over himself. The nerve of blaming the media for their failures in the run-up to the War. Elisabeth Bumiller so eloquently explained how things work the night before the Iraq War started, 4,000 dead American soldiers ago: “it’s live, it’s very intense, it’s frightening to stand up there. Think about it, you’re standing up on prime-time live TV asking the president of the United States a question when the country’s about to go to war. There was a very serious, somber tone that evening, and no one wanted to get into an argument with the president at this very serious time.”.

Anne E. Kornblut: That’s a good point. (I’m a huge Bumiller fan)…..

But the other part of this is much more insidious. There were massive amounts of corporate pressure to grease the skids for war with Iraq. Contrary opinions were not allowed on television, or if allowed were countered by multiple pro-war views. The corporate bosses wanted to capitalize on what they viewed as a patriotic fervor in the nation by hyping war. This is well-known. Phil Donahue was fired from MSNBC as a result of his antiwar stance despite being the most popular show on the network. And Ashleigh Banfield spoke out about this censorship in public shortly after the war began, and was instantly consigned to the scrap heap of history.

And everyone else knew their place. But yesterday, discussing the book, Jessica Yellin went off the reservation and told the truth about the media conduct during the war – and the corporate pressure.

Cooper: Jessica, McClellan took the press to task for upholding their reputation. He writes “the national press corps was probably too deferential to the White House and to the administration in regard to the most important decision facing the nation during my years in Washington. The choice of whether to go to war in Iraq…the ‘liberal’ media didn’t live up to its reputation. If it had, the country would have been better served.” Dan Bartlett, former Bush advisor, called the allegation “total crap.” What’s your take? Did the press corps drop the ball?

Yellin: I think the press corps dropped the ball in the beginning when the lead up to war began, uh the press corps was under enormous pressure from corporate executives, frankly, to make sure that this was a war that was presented in a way that was consistent with the patriotic fever in the nation and the President’s high approval ratings and my own experience at the White House was that the higher the President’s approval ratings, the more pressure I had from news executives, and I was not at this network at the time, but the more pressure I had from these executives to put on positive stories about the President. I think over time….

Cooper: You had pressure from news executives to put on positive stories about the President?

Yellin: Not in that exact…they wouldn’t say it in that way, but they would edit my pieces. They would push me in different directions. They would turn down stories that were more critical and try to put on pieces that were more positive. Yes. That was my experience.

I hold very few hopes for Yellin’s future at CNN. Bravo to her for telling the truth.

I’m sure that this is a one-day story, and the press will consider the matter concluded, in their favor, and move on. But people know this in their bones. The coverage did nothing to enlighten and only to heighten the frenzy over invasion. This was William Randolph Hearst getting his Spanish-American War all over again, and these blowhards can’t come to terms with it because their whole world would come crashing down. They were puppets, enthusiastic puppets for an imperialist agenda. And they have to live with that forever.

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With Friends Like These

by digby

Long time conservative activist Richard Viguerie once wrote this:

Sometimes a loss for the Republican Party is a gain for conservatives. Often, a little taste of liberal Democrats in power is enough to remind the voters what they don’t like about liberal Democrats and to focus the minds of Republicans on the principles that really matter. That’s why the conservative movement has grown fastest during those periods when things seemed darkest, such as during the Carter administration and the first two years of the Clinton White House.

Conservatives are, by nature, insurgents, and it’s hard to maintain an insurgency when your friends, or people you thought were your friends, are in power.

He isn’t taking any chances that McCain might pull this out. Look at his website called ultimatejohnmccain.com.

Conservatives need to face reality. If John McCain ever was a conservative, he has not been one for many years. It’s been at least a decade and a half ago since he veered off the conservative path. In 2000, he blamed us for his defeat and for the unfair treatment he received in that campaign, and it appears that he decided to teach us a lesson. Based on reality – not false hopes – each of you needs to make a decision, as a conservative, on whether and how much to support Senator John McCain. You have to decide whether to contribute to his campaign and whether to work your heart out to elect him. You have to decide whether you will work for him wholeheartedly, or just vote for him grudgingly because, although he’s bad, he’s not as bad as the Democratic candidate

They never held Junior to this kind of test. They let him run around saying “I’m a uniter not a divider” and telling everybody about how he was a “compassionate” conservative. These hardcore movement conservatives really don’t want to win this one.

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