Month: June 2013

Just don’t lie about your personal use of legal drugs …

by digby

Why am I featuring yet another picture of a baseball player I have always loathed on this blog, you ask? Well because, once again, it seems that the only thing you aren’t allowed to lie to congress about is your personal use of steroids. That will get you prosecuted.  Other than that, it’s anything goes.

The Atlantic reports:

When the Treasury Department inspector general for tax administration appeared before a House Appropriations subcommittee hearing on June 3, he did not shy away from introducing a highly politicized framework for understanding the Internal Revenue Service’s actions in targeting conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status.

“This is unprecedented, Congressman …. During the Nixon Administration, there were attempts to use the Internal Revenue Service in manners that might be comparable in terms of misusing it,” J. Russell George, the George W. Bush appointee who leads the IG’s office, told the committee in the closely watched hearing.

“I’m not saying that … the actions that were taken are comparable, but I’m just saying, you know, that the misuse of the — causing a distrust of the system occurred sometime ago. But this is unprecedented,” he continued.

It seemed a needlessly inflammatory statement. The impartial investigator within the Treasury Department had just, unprompted, introduced the historic specter of presidential involvement in directing abusive tax treatment of White House enemies, despite a total lack of evidence that such a thing had occurred under President Obama, according to his own findings thus far. It was the first mention of Nixon at the hearing, albeit delivered with a deliberative caveat. He wasn’t saying, he was just saying, you know?

Now comes news that the inspector general might not be the impartial arbiter he successfully presented himself to be in releasing the May audit report, “Inappropriate Criteria Were Used to Identify Tax Exempt Applications for Review.”

We know now that the IRS did not target just the Tea Party but also used other screens such as “progressive” and “occupy” to alert them to groups that might be overtly political. And that logically means that it’s not rational to even imply that this was some sort of Nixonian plot to punish the president’s opponents.

Read the rest of the article to see that this isn’t a non-partisan scandal, however. It would appear that the allegedly independent Inspector General went before congress and performed as Darryl Issa’s personal house boy and blatantly misrepresented facts which he surely knew he was misrepresenting.

But don’t worry, he’s in good company.  The NSA chief can lie without repercussions, why shouldn’t he be able to as well?  It’s not like they’re hiding their own personal use of legal drugs or anything important…

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Villagers are big money stakeholders in the perpetuation of endless war

by digby

My complaint about the Village, especially the Village media, is usually one that’s based on what appears to be a cliquish, insider culture made up of privileged power brokers and wealthy celebrities (and the wannabes of both categories) who live in a social and professional bubble and who arrogantly assume their elite values reflect the values of the average, middle class American.

But it’s more than that, isn’t it? It’s about money too, big money. Lee Fang points out one especially egregious example from just this week: the notorious David Gregory interview with Glenn Greenwald on Meet the Press:

There are problems here with both the messenger and the message.

First, the message. In fact, the Obama administration has one of the worst records of any president’s in terms of prosecuting leaks and whistleblowers. Moreover, Snowden had virtually no legal protections as a member of an intelligence agency contractor (Booz Allen Hamilton). In These Times reported that “as part of last year’s Whistleblower’s Protection Enhancement Act, rights for whistleblowers were enhanced for many categories of federal employees, but intelligence employees were excluded from coverage under the act. Likewise, intelligence workers—both federal and contract employees—were excluded from whistle blower protections offered to military contract employees under the most recent National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).”

But [Mike] Murphy himself has a stake in this debate that arguably ought to have been disclosed. Though Murphy was introduced only as a “Republican strategist,” he is also the founding partner of Navigators Global, a lobbying firm that represents one of the NSA’s largest contractors. Disclosures show that Navigators Global represents Computer Sciences Corp. (CSC) on issues before Congress. For at least a decade, CSC has won major contracts from the National Security Agency (NSA). Murphy’s firm has lobbied on behalf of CSC for bills that would expand the NSA’s reach, including the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act or CISPA, which passed the House of Representatives earlier this year. As the Center for Democracy and Technology noted, the “legislation is being billed as an expansion of a collaboration between the National Security Agency (NSA) and major ISPs dubbed the Defense Industrial Base Pilot.”

As Americans continue to debate the revelations raised by Snowden, few lawmakers have raised the potential for abuse when powerful spy technology is outsourced to private contractors. Rather than focusing on the issue of the sprawling surveillance state or its legions of private contractors, many in the media seem intent on only discussing the personality or motives of Edward Snowden. While Murphy’s misleading assertion about whistleblower protections was challenged briefly by NBC’s Chuck Todd, his claim obscures the facts of the story.

The incestuous corruption of the beltway culture runs very deep. And it’s a big part of the problems we face as a country.

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QOTD: Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg

by digby

“Congress approached the 2006 reauthorization of the VRA with great care and seriousness. The same cannot be said of the Court’s opinion today. The Court makes no genuine attempt to engage with the massive legislative record that Congress assembled. Instead, it relies on increases in voter registration and turnout as if that were the whole story. See supra, at 18–19. Without even identifying a standard of review, the Court dismissively brushes off arguments based on “data from the record,” and declines to enter the “debat[e about] what [the] record shows” … One would expect more from an opinion striking at the heart of the Nation’s signal piece of civil-rights legislation.

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The good old days

by digby

In light of the Supreme Court striking down the voting rights act, it has never been more obvious that the right wing faction is taking us back to the good old days of the 1950s. Here’s a look back at what it is they miss so much:

National Review editorial, 8/24/1957, 4:7, pp. 148-9:

The most important event of the past three weeks was the remarkable and unexpected vote by the Senate to guarantee to defendants in a criminal contempt action the privilege of a jury trial. That vote does not necessarily affirm a citizen’s intrinsic rights: trial by jury in contempt actions, civil or criminal, is not an American birthright, and it cannot, therefore, be maintained that the Senate’s vote upheld, pure and simple, the Common Law.

What the Senate did was to leave undisturbed the mechanism that spans the abstractions by which a society is guided and the actual, sublunary requirements of the individual community. In that sense, the vote was a conservative victory. For the effect of it is–and let us speak about it bluntly–to permit a jury to modify or waive the law in such circumstances as, in the judgment of the jury, require so grave an interposition between the law and its violator.

What kind of circumstances do we speak about? Again, let us speak frankly. The South does not want to deprive the Negro of a vote for the sake of depriving him of the vote. Political scientists assert that minorities do not vote as a unit. Women do not vote as a bloc, they contend; nor do Jews, or Catholics, or laborers, or nudists–nor do Negroes; nor will the enfranchised Negroes of the South.

If that is true, the South will not hinder the Negro from voting–why should it, if the Negro vote, like the women’s, merely swells the volume, but does not affect the ratio, of the vote? In some parts of the South, the White community merely intends to prevail on any issue on which there is corporate disagreement between Negro and White. The White community will take whatever measures are necessary to make certain that it has its way.

What are the issues? Is school integration one? The NAACP and others insist that the Negroes as a unit want integrated schools. Others disagree, contending that most Negroes approve the social sepaation of the races. What if the NAACP is correct, and the matter comes to a vote in a community in which Negroes predominate? The Negroes would, according to democratic processes, win the election; but that is the kind of situation the White community will not permit. The White community will not count the marginal Negro vote. The man who didn’t count it will be hauled up before a jury, he will plead not guilty, and the jury, upon deliberation, will find him not guilty. A federal judge, in a similar situation, might find the defendant guilty, a judgment which would affirm the law and conform with the relevant political abstractions, but whose consequences might be violent and anarchistic.

The central question that emerges–and it is not a parliamentary question or a question that is answered by merely consulting a catalog of the rights of American citizens, born Equal–is whether the White community in the South is entitled to take such measures as are necessary to prevail, politically and culturally, in areas in which it does not predominate numerically? The sobering answer is Yes–the White community is so entitled because, for the time being, it is the advanced race. It is not easy, and it is unpleasant, to adduce statistics evidencing the median cultural superiority of White over Negro: but it is fact that obtrudes, one that cannot be hidden by ever-so-busy egalitarians and anthropologists. The question, as far as the White community is concerned, is whether the claims of civilization supersede those of universal suffrage. The British believe they do, and acted accordingly, in Kenya, where the choice was dramatically one between civilization and barbarism, and elsewhere; the South, where the conflict is byno means dramatic, as in Kenya, nevertheless perceives important qualitative differences between its culture and the Negroes’, and intends to assert its own.

National Review believes that the South’s premises are correct. If the majority wills what is socially atavistic, then to thwart the majority may be, though undemocratic, enlightened. It is more important for any community, anywhere in the world, to affirm and live by civilized standards, than to bow to the demands of the numerical majority. Sometimes it becomes impossible to assert the will of a minority, in which case it must give way, and the society will regress; sometimes the numberical minority cannot prevail except by violence: then it must determine whether the prevalence of its will is worth the terrible price of violence.

The axiom on which many of the arguments supporting the original version of the Civil Rights bill were based was Universal Suffrage. Everyone in America is entitled to the vote, period. No right is prior to that, no obligation subordinate to it; from this premise all else proceeds.

That, of course, is demagogy. Twenty-year-olds do not generally have the vote, and it is not seriously argued that the difference between 20 and 21-year-olds is the difference between slavery and freedom. The residents of the District of Columbia do not vote: and the population of D.C. increases by geometric proportion. Millions who have the vote do not care to exercise it; millions who have it do not know how to exercise it and do not care to learn. The great majority of the Negroes of the South who do not vote do not care to vote, and would not know for what to vote if they could. Overwhelming numbers of White people in the South do not vote. Universal suffrage is not the beginning of wisdom or the beginning of freedom. Reasonable limitations upon the vote are not exclusively the recommendations of tyrants or oligarchists (was Jefferson either?). The problem in the South is not how to get the vote for the Negro, but how to equip the Negro–and a great many Whites–to cast an enlightened and responsible vote.

The South confronts one grave moral challenge. It must not exploit the fact of Negro backwardness to preserve the Negro as a servile class. It is tempting and convenient to block the progress of a minority whose services, as menials, are economically useful. Let the South never permit itself to do this. So long as it is merely asserting the right to impose superior mores for whatever period it takes to effect a genuine cultural equality between the races, and so long as it does so by humane and charitable means, the South is in step with civilization, as is the Congress that permits it to function.

William F. Buckley lives.

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How the very wealthy stay in power and corrupt exhausted politicians

by David Atkins

The Sunlight Foundation has compiled a new report on the donations of the ultra-wealthy in elections, summarized at Mother Jones by Andy Kroll.

A few of the highlights:

In the 2012 election cycle, 28 percent of all disclosed donations—that’s $1.68 billion—came from just 31,385 people. Think of them as the 1 percenters of the 1 percent, the elite of the elite, the wealthiest of the wealthy.

That’s the blockbuster finding in an eye-popping new report by the Sunlight Foundation, a nonpartisan transparency advocate. The report’s author, Lee Drutman, calls the 1 percent of the 1 percent “an elite class that increasingly serves as the gatekeepers of public office in the United States.” This rarefied club of donors, Drutman found, worked in high-ranking corporate positions (often in finance or law). They’re clustered in New York City and Washington, DC. Most are men. You might’ve heard of some of them: casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Texas waste tycoon Harold Simmons, Hollywood executive Jeffrey Katzenberg…

The median donation from the 1 percent of the 1 percent was $26,584. As the chart below shows, that’s more than half the median family income in America…

The 28.1 percent of total money from the 1 percent of the 1 percent is the most in modern history. It was 21.8 percent in 2006, and 20.5 percent in 2010…

For the 2012 elections, winning House members raised on average $1.64 million, or about $2,250 per day, during the two-year cycle. The average winning senator raised even more: $10.3 million, or $14,125 per day…

Of the 435 House members elected last year, 372—more than 85 percent—received more from the 1 percent of the 1 percent than they did from every single small donor combined.

I tend to agree with Chris Hayes that the biggest problem with our culture stems less from money in politics directly than it does with an insular, self-reinforcing culture among elites that is driving institutional failure across all facets of society, not just politics.

That said, it certainly doesn’t help that whatever power there is in campaign donations to sway votes, the top 1 percent of the top 1 percent are exercising more and more of that power.

Finally, it’s important to note that the corruption of this kind of money in politics isn’t limited to morally crooked politicians taking legal bribes in order to enjoy the rotted fruits of power. There is plenty of that, of course, but that level of hyper-cynicism is usually reserved for those who haven’t seen the process play out up close and don’t know many politicians on a first-name basis.

As with most things in life, the truth is far murkier. In my experience, most politicians are human like the rest of us: flawed, idealistic, sometimes petty, sometimes awesome and generous people. They want to do well in their job, and they want to be able to come home and spend time with their families and hobbies. Most of the politicians I know are cool people with big hearts who are in politics for the right reasons. They tend to have bigger egos than most, but I tend to see bigger egos in the corporate world than the political world.

Money in politics has a nasty influence, but it’s not what one might think at first. The problem is that raising money is an awful, exhausting dehumanizing process that sucks time, energy and idealism from anyone who engages in it. And to be successful in politics, you have to spend at least 3-4 hours a day on average just raising money. Anyone who works in non-profits has seen this firsthand in their world, too.

What ends up happening is that exhausted politicians are expected to live in a fishbowl taking barbs and arrows from all sides, smiling and shaking hands with hundreds of people while being experts on every issue. Then they get confronted by that proverbial lobbyist with the briefcase of $100,000 to be spent for or against them, and go with the flow not because it means chomping cigars in the Bahamas, but because to refuse the lobbyist means three more weekends away from the spouse and kids gladhanding unpleasant people and hosting rubber chicken dinners to make up for it. And if you think politicians in safe districts are immune, you’d be wrong: the safe ones are expected to raise boatloads of money to send to the leaders of their respective chambers for various reasons. Those who raise the most cash tend to see their bills sail through the appropriate committees. Those who don’t raise the cash tend to feel cold shoulders from their colleagues and watch their bills mysteriously stall. If you’ve ever taken a shortcut at work because it’s 6pm on a Friday night and you just want to go home, you know the most corrupting aspect of money in the political system.

The worst part? It’s wrong, it’s fixable, and fixing it would improve the lives of just about everyone in politics except for the consultants. But those who have made it to the top of the mountain worry that any changes might disadvantage them by altering the system they have learned to conquer. It’s a classic collective action problem that won’t be solved except by massive popular pressure.

The super-rich know this, too. It’s in their interest to keep the big money flowing into the system. After all, to the top 1 percent of the 1 percent, it’s pocket change they barely notice.

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Yay!

by digby

“Crated and captured!”

The male red panda that escaped from Smithsonian National Zoo overnight was nabbed Monday afternoon in Adams Morgan, a zoo spokeswoman said.

Word came back from the panda hunt about 2:15 p.m. that Rusty, who is less than a year old and is about the size of a raccoon, had been captured.

He was not seen in his enclosure at 7:30 a.m. Monday, and the zoo sounded a “Code Green” alert for an escaped animal at 8 a.m.

An intense search ensued. The zoo gates were closed temporarily as the search began but were reopened at 9:45 a.m. after he eluded authorities, spokeswoman Pamela Baker-Masson said.

“We have been searching all morning,” she had said earlier. “It is most likely that he has not really left the vicinity. He would have to have some very strong motivation to leave the area.”

But around 2 p.m., a passerby spotted the fugitive, near 20th and Biltmore streets, just south of the zoo, snapped and tweeted his picture and reportedly called the zoo. Rusty was quickly apprehended by zoo staff.

I knew twitter and facebook were good for something …

Michael Hastings on access journalism

by digby

Just saying.

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Turns out those IRS agents just hated everybody

by digby

Ooops:

The Internal Revenue Service’s screening of groups seeking tax-exempt status was broader and lasted longer than has been previously disclosed, the new head of the agency said Monday.

An internal IRS document obtained by The Associated Press said that besides “tea party,” lists used by screeners to pick groups for close examination also included the terms “Israel,” ”Progressive” and “Occupy.” The document said an investigation into why specific terms were included was still underway.

In a conference call with reporters, Danny Werfel said that after becoming acting IRS chief last month, he discovered wide-ranging and improper terms on the lists and said screeners were still using them. He did not specify what terms were on the lists, but said he suspended the use of all such lists immediately.

“There was a wide-ranging set of categories and cases that spanned a broad spectrum” on the lists, Werfel said. He added that his aides found those lists contained “inappropriate criteria that was in use.”

Well hell. They weren’t a bunch of Obamabots trying to persecute the Tea Party for partisan gain after all. They were just idiots.

There are two ways to fix this. The first is to get rid of the rather silly “social welfare group” designation altogether. Or we can hire enough IRS employees to look at every application individually without any screens or filters at all. I’d prefer we fix our political system so that there’s less need for any of these outside groups that are trying to hide their donor lists from public view. But until that happens, maybe we could unfurlough some federal employees and put them to the task with clear rules and plenty of help.

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A rightwing 1950s PSA about income inequality can teach us a lot

by David Atkins

While doing some research on income inequality, I came across this little noticed 1955 PSA on income inequality in America. It was produced by the “National Education Program,” an institution created by conservative red-baiter George S. Benson. The whole thing is worth a watch:

There is an entire book’s worth of social and economic analysis to be gleaned from careful study of this bit of propaganda compared to our current situation.

The first key point to note is how hilariously overt and campy is the propaganda about the American capitalist system. The supposed shock of a “British socialist” that Americans can actually buy food at supermarkets is a sign of just how ignorant policymakers supposed Americans to be about standards of living around the world. Modern viewers are far too sophisticated for such simplistic jingoism, and far too cognizant of the flaws of the system.

The second important point to note is that while the paeans to the beauty of free markets and capitalism could have come directly from the mouth an Austrian economist, they were being delivered about an America that despite the horrors of racism, sexism and homophobia prevalent in the 1950s, was far more socialist in its distribution of wealth than it is today.

Which brings us to point number three: the remarkably even distribution of wealth shown in America starting around minute 4:30 of the video. Benson the anti-communist felt the need to defend the American system not by pointing to its comparative freedom, but by pointing to its comparative justice and proper distribution. Compare those relatively even figures to those of America today:

Wealth in the 1950s was far more evenly distributed than it is today. That’s no surprise, of course. But what should shake us somewhat is the fact that hardcore conservative activists ranting against socialism and communism back in the 1950s were compelled to defend the virtues of the American system by pointing to its equitable distribution of wealth. Not even Benson dared to begin blathering about Objectivist fantasies. Modern conservatives, by contrast, don’t even try to defend the justice of the system because it is so obviously unjust. They have been forced to shift to plainly immoral, sociopathic arguments straight out of Atlas Shrugged to justify the predations of modern free market economics.

The reality of modern income inequality in America makes the final statement of the 1950s PSA darkly ironic:

The truth about the distribution of wealth under American capitalism makes Karl Marx the world’s worst prophet. Marx, the socialist founder of capitalism, prophesied that under capitalism wealth would be concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer, while the great majority of people would suffer increasing poverty. The fact is that American capitalism has set a new standard for human welfare. And if we keep its basic principles strong and vigorous in the years ahead, the opportunity of every American for a still-better living standard will certainly be enhanced. And perhaps even the disciples of socialism and communism will comes out of their shadowy pipe dreams and join us in the march for human progress.

Communism may well have been a pipe dream. But it’s equally obvious that the old vision of free market capitalism as a pathway to general, equitable economic justice has also failed. It was the New Deal and dreaded “socialism” that created the very conditions of which the old conservatives bragged.

Yet the world is still so fearful of making the same mistakes of old communist regimes, and political leaders so bought off by the interests of financial elites, that few are daring to step forward and imagine what a just 21st century economic system would look like. Instead, income inequality continues to grow not just in the United States but all around the world–making a mockery of all those who mocked Marx’ predictions.

International corporate power has destroyed the ability to nations to stand up to the grinding labor arbitrage of global capital. The plutocratic class can pick and choose where it lives and who shall manufacture the goods from which it profits. Machines are increasingly doing the work humans used to do, a trend that will rapidly accelerate in the years ahead. The old neoliberal model of capitalism’s rough edges softened by safety nets is no longer working.

But that doesn’t mean a new model for social and economic justice isn’t waiting around the corner to be seized by those with the courage to do so.

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“News is what somebody somewhere wants to suppress; all the rest is advertising.”

by digby

Jesus H. Christ

A prominent business journalist suggested Monday that The Guardian’s Glenn Greenwald should be arrested for reporting on leaks detailing top secret surveillance programs run by the National Security Agency.

Andrew Ross Sorkin, a financial columnist for the New York Times and a commentator for CNBC, said on-air that he’d “almost arrest” Greenwald along with NSA leaker Edward Snowden, who fled Hong Kong for Russia on Sunday in the hopes of ultimately receiving asylum in Ecuador.

“I would arrest [Snowden] and now I’d almost arrest Glenn Greenwald, the journalist who seems to be out there, he wants to help him get to Ecuador or whatever,” Sorkin said.

Well at least he said “almost”.

Uh, Wall Street sources? I’d be a little bit careful about talking to this person in the future. He’s clearly not a journalist and will sell you down the river the minute a government prosecutor decides to put you in the government crosshairs. True, the government has shown no desire to prosecute any of you for anything. But you never know — some rogue Attorney general might decide to make an example of you. Your good friend Sorkin here is a very good … patriot.

I’m just going to post this from the Press Freedom Foundation, which even defends sell-outs like Andrew Ross Sorkin, even though they don’t deserve it:

Meet the Press host David Gregory caused a stir on Sunday when he asked Glenn Greenwald, “To the extent that you have ‘aided and abetted’ [Edward] Snowden, even in this current movement, why shouldn’t you, Mr. Greenwald, be charged with a crime?” Greenwald is the Guardian journalist at the center of the recent NSA reports that have sparked a nationwide debate about the country’s ubiquitous surveillance and secrecy systems. (He is also on our board of directors.)

Greenwald’s response to Gregory should be listened to in full, but his main point is worth further reflection: “if you want to embrace that theory, it means that every investigative journalist in the United States who works with their sources, who receives classified information, is a criminal.”

We’ve written many times about the importance of leaks and the First Amendment right to publish government secrets, but ironically, no one demonstrates Greenwald’s point better than Gregory himself. Literally minutes before, in the same segment, Gregory explained what government officials told him about a secret FISA court opinion from 2011 that ruled some of NSA’s surveillance unconstitutional.

GREGORY: With regard to that specific FISA opinion, isn’t the case, based on people that I’ve talked to, that the FISA opinion based on the government’s request is that they said, well, you can get this but you can’t get that. That would actually go beyond the scope of what you’re allowed to do, which means that the request was changed or denied, which is the whole point the government makes, which is that there is actual judicial review here and not abuse. Isn’t this the kind of review and opinion that you would want to keep these programs in line?

The contents of that opinion are still classified, and in fact, just last week, the Daily Beast called FISA court opinions some “of the most highly classified documents inside the U.S. government.” Does David Gregory think he should be charged with a crime for talking to sources, asking questions about classified information, and then reporting what he learned?

Gregory defended his question after the fact by saying Congress is having this “debate” about whether Greenwald should be prosecuted. In reality, there is no debate. One Congressman, Peter King, who has repeatedly and recklessly called for the prosecution of various journalists over the last decade, said Greenwald should be charged with a crime based on alleged comments that Greenwald never made. No one else in Congress has called for any reporters to be prosecuted as part of the recent NSA revelations.

More worrying than Gregory’s question, however, was the insinuation that Greenwald’s reporting isn’t journalism. “The question of who’s a journalist may be up to a debate as to what you’re doing,” Gregory said in response to Greenwald’s answer. He also defended himself later in the show, saying, “There’s a question about [Greenwald’s] role in this, The Guardian’s role in all of this.”

There are serious implications to questioning the status of journalists based on their opinions. Was Edward R. Murrow not a journalist when he reported on, and advocated against, the McCarthy witch hunts in the 1950s? What about when Walter Cronkite advocated, on CBS Evening News, for the end of the Vietnam War? Should his subsequent reports, perhaps influenced by his opinion, not be considered journalism?

When Sen. Claire McCaskill questioned Greenwald’s agenda in reporting these stories, Greenwald didn’t deny it. He responded, “Yes…we have an “agenda” – it’s called “transparency” – the same [agenda] Obama/2008 said he had.”

The reality is that there aren’t any journalists on earth that do not naturally have opinions on the subjects they cover. Some choose to hide those opinions behind the veil of “objectivity” as much as possible, others do not.

But regardless of one’s choice of reportage, no journalist loses his or her “objectivity” by defending the principles of transparency or the protections afforded to them under the First Amendment. Indeed, it is built into their job description.

Pulitzer Prize winner Barton Gellman, who reported on PRISM for the Washington Post and has access to some of the Edward Snowden’s documents, put it succinctly: “My advocacy is for open debate of secret powers,” he said. “That’s what journalists do.” As the 19th century British publisher Lord Northcliffe once said, “News is what somebody somewhere wants to suppress; all the rest is advertising.”

The First Amendment was written to enable that adversarial spirit, to protect the journalists who report on the government’s secrets, and to preserve a transparency safety-valve for citizens when their government fails to inform them of actions done under their name.

Journalists endanger their own rights when they don’t stand up for others in their profession, regardless of their point of view. If Glenn Greenwald were ever prosecuted, there would be nothing stopping the Justice Department from going after journalists like David Gregory next.

Oh no.  Villagers like David Gregory and his ilk are perfectly safe. They would never write or say anything the government didn’t expressly tell them to write or say. Their job is to be its servants not its adversaries.

I think Andrew Sullivan’s piece on this is excellent:

Glenn’s role in this was at first passive. Snowden contacted him, not the other way round. He then did what any non-co-opted journalist would do – and examined the data independently, with other independent journalists and published the truth. He’s a role model, not a target.

So why would a journalist like Gregory ask such a question?

Two theories:

First, underlying a lot of this, is the MSM’s fear and loathing and envy of the blogger journalist. Notice that Gregory calls Greenwald a “polemicist” – not a journalist. The difference, I presume, is that polemicists actually make people in power uncomfortable. Journalists simply do their best to get chummy with them in order to get exclusive tidbits that the powerful want you to know.

Second: ask yourself if David Gregory ever asked a similar question of people in government with real power, e.g. Dick Cheney et al. Did he ever ask them why they shouldn’t go to jail for committing documented war crimes under the Geneva Conventions? Nah. Here’s a question Gregory asked of Petraeus during the Obama administration:

Presumably, US forces and Pakistani officials are doing the interrogations, do you wish you had the interrogation methods that were available to you under the Bush administration to get intelligence from a figure like this?

Notice the refusal to use the word “torture”. Note the assumption of the premise that torture actually provides reliable intel. Note also Petraeus’ polite dismissal of the neocon question. Gregory has asked this question before:

Can you address my question? Did harsh interrogation help in the hunt for bin Laden?

Again, note the refusal to use the word torture. That would be awkward because Gregory is a social friend of Liz Cheney (Gregory’s wife worked with Cheney’s husband at the law firm Latham & Watkins). Who wants to call their social friend a war criminal? Notice also this classic Washington discussion by Gregory on torture. It’s entirely about process. There is no substantive position on something even as profound as war crimes. The toughest sentence: “This is a debate that’s going to continue.” Gregory is obviously pro-torture, hides behind neutrality, and beats up opponents with one-sided questions.

It just hasn’t occurred to him that the only place for Dick Cheney right now is jail.

I don’t think he could ever believe he should be. What’s a little torture among villagers?

Update: Glenn Greenwald explains to Greg Sargent why the idea he was in cahoots with Snowden before he took the job at Booz Allen is bullshit.

Maybe we can all put away our kerning manuals for a minute and get back to whether or not it’s ok if the US government is spying on everyone because: terrorists. And hey, maybe we can even take a look at why they have declared war on whistleblowers and journalists and have instituted programs to make federal workers inform on each other. I know it[‘s not as much fun, but it really is important.

Update II: More from Greenwald, appearing on Jake Tapper’s show earlier today:

TAPPER: Fox News Channel’s James Rosen encouraged his leaker to give him documents and set up what he thought was a secret way to e-mail him. I’m not going to launch any accusations at you, Glenn, but did you do anything beyond what James Rosen did in terms of communication with Snowden?

Did you work with him to get him a job at Booz Allen?

Did you advise him on how to transfer the documents?

GREENWALD: The reason I’ve been reluctant to answer that question up until this point is because the theory on which those questions are based – and I’m not suggesting you’re embracing it, but you’re – you’re referencing the theory that others have embraced – is really quite pernicious, that if you’re a journalist and you work with your source and in – and in cooperating with them and in obtaining documents that you think ought to be released to the public that somehow that’s called aiding and abetting. I call that investigative journalism. There is no investigative journalist on the planet who doesn’t work cooperatively with their sources in order to obtain the information they need to inform their readers.

That said, um, not only did I not do more than Mr. Rosen was accused of doing by the Justice Department when he was called a co-conspirator, I did much, much less. I didn’t even know where Mr. Snowden worked or what his name was until after he was on – in Hong Kong with the documents.

We had some preliminary communications with him about how to communicate, uh, secretly, um, in a way that would be secure, um, but other than that, nothing.

And so anybody who wants to raise this insinuation against me, against “The Washington Post,” Bart Gellman or anybody else that we somehow aided and abetted Mr. Snowden, anyone who wants to even raise that, let alone claim it, um, ought to be compelled to point to specifics or point to evidence to support that accusation, because there is none.

Otherwise, it – it’s just reckless insinuation and shouldn’t be tolerated.

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