Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

DOD Payola

I think that CNN just reported that the DOD paid hundreds of “writers” to write for fake web sites. We’re not sure just who is involved though. (Wanna guess?)

My stars. Can it be true? Our government is using propaganda to influence foreigners? Say it ain’t so. Somebody get Jeff Jarvis some smelling salts, stat. He’s going to swoon the minute he hears about this…

Here’s the story:

Pentagon sites: Journalism or propaganda?

From Barbara Starr and Larry Shaughnessy

CNN

WASHINGTON (CNN) — The U.S. Department of Defense plans to add more sites on the Internet to provide information to a global audience — but critics question whether the Pentagon is violating President Bush’s pledge not to pay journalists to promote his policies.

The Defense Department runs two Web sites overseas, one aimed at people in the Balkan region in Europe, the other for the Maghreb area of North Africa.

It is preparing another site, even as the Pentagon inspector general investigates whether the sites are appropriate.

The Web sites carry stories on subjects such as politics, sports and entertainment.

Information warfare

The sites are run by U.S. military troops trained in “information warfare,” a specialty than can include battlefield deception.

Pentagon officials say the goal is to counter “misinformation” about the United States in overseas media.

At first glance, the Web pages appear to be independent news sites. To find out who is actually behind the content, a visitor would have to click on a small link — at the bottom of the page — to a disclaimer, which says, in part, that the site is “sponsored by” the U.S. Department of Defense.

“There is an element of deception,” said Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism. “The problem,” he said, is that it looks like a news site unless a visitor looks at the disclaimer, which is “sort of oblique.”

The Pentagon maintains that the information on the sites is true and accurate. But in a recent memo, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz insisted that the Web site contractor should only hire journalists who “will not reflect discredit on the U.S. government.”

The Defense Department has hired more than 50 freelance writers for the sites.

Some senior military officers have told CNN the Web sites may clash with President Bush’s recent statements. “We will not be paying commentators to advance our agenda,” Bush told reporters on January 26. “Our agenda ought to be able to stand on its own two feet.”

Bush made those comments after it came to light that the administration had paid several commentators to support U.S. policies in the U.S. media.

Many Democrats have called for an end to what they call administration propaganda within the United States.

But many lawmakers view the rules for handling information overseas as a separate issue.

On Thursday, Lawrence Di Rita, the principal deputy assistant secretary of defense for public affairs, asked the Pentagon inspector general to examine Defense Department activities, including the Web sites in question, to see that they fall within the guidelines Bush laid out.

Di Rita said the department wanted “to make sure that we are staying well within the lines, and I believe we are.”

Rosenstiel said there is a reason why rules exist to separate journalism from government information. “Anytime that the government has to assure you, ‘Believe me, take my word for it, I’m telling you nothing but the truth,’ you know you should be worried,” he said.

According to Powerline, it’s CNN who is guilty of propaganda:

When Eason Jordan, chief news executive at CNN, groundlessly slanders the American armed forces by accusing them of “targeting” journalists for assassination, one could reasonably wonder whether he was engaged in journalism or propaganda. Many have also been wondering when the news side at CNN–as opposed to the public relations side–would start reporting on Jordan’s incendiary speech in Davos.

A reader pointed out that earlier today, CNN finally did address the issue of journalism vs. propaganda. You might think they’ve finally broken their silence about Mr. Jordan. But no! It’s the Pentagon CNN is accusing of putting out propaganda

[…]

There you have it: CNN spreads misinformation about the American military; but when the military tries to defend itself against misinformation, it’s “propaganda.” And, while it’s perfectly OK for CNN’s top newsman to “reflect discredit on the U.S. government,” CNN criticizes the Defense Department because DOD prefers not to do the same. This is the topsy-turvy world of the mainstream media.

Hohkay. Except, you know, government propaganda is a slightly different animal, isn’t it? The DOD is perfectly within its rights to put up a web site defending against misinformation. But these web sites are designed to look like “news sites” that are giving unbiased information. Call me crazy, but that just doesn’t seem like an upfront operation.

And it certainly will be interesting to see who these taxpayer funded “freelance” writers are, won’t it?

And whatever stupid thing Eason Jordan said, it doesn’t really fit the term “propaganda” very well. I’m sure they’ll say (absurdly) that it reflects the hatred of all things military in the liberal media, but unless there is a systematic intention to portray the military as assasinating journalists, then it’s really more of an off the cuff remark than actual propaganda. And, you know, it’s really hard to take seriously anyone who decries propaganda when Republican mouthpieces like Rush Limbaugh are out there spewing eliminationist rhetoric about liberals to 20 million ditto-heads all day long.

Modern Scalawags

Let’s face facts. The extremely dishonest approach that the Republicans are taking to bring African Americans on board with their privatized personal retirement plan is just downright racist. I’m sure that the creationist right believes that the fact black men don’t live as long as whites is God’s intention but the truth is that they wouldn’t die younger if it weren’t for poverty, disease and crime which are immoral reasons in a rich country such as ours. It’s bad enough that this is happening today, but the administration is selling the idea as something that will continue for at least the next forty years as a selling point for destroying social security. It’s is another case of their outrageous pomo up-is-downism.

Farhad Manjoo has written a definitive piece on this issue for Salon (cute day pass today) in which he points out that the slack jawed media has gulped down the entire meme and is regurgitating it whole:

The idea that blacks are being cheated by Social Security could prove to be a powerful rhetorical weapon for Republicans. Already, the media is falling for the story line. CNN, for example, broadcast a heart-tugging story Thursday that focused on the plight of the dependents of African-Americans who die young. The network interviewed Barbara Haile, a black woman whose husband died of cancer in 1997. He was 50 at the time of his death; through payroll taxes, he’d been contributing to Social Security for about 30 years. But because he hadn’t reached retirement age, neither he (nor his dependents) were eligible to receive any money from Social Security.

Under the Bush plan, conservatives say, Haile would have been eligible to receive the money that her husband had been collecting in his “personal account,” invested in the stock market. Because blacks (especially black men) have lower average life expectancies than whites (especially white women), the current system is unfair to them, Republicans contend, and private accounts would be a boon for them. Although CNN did interview supporters of the current system, the emotional upshot of its report was clear: Social Security screws poor black people and President Bush wants to help them out.

There’s another side to this,too:

Anti-Social Security agitators such as Stephen Moore, who heads the Free Enterprise Fund, have taken to calling Social Security a “massive income redistribution program” that sucks money out of African-Americans’ pockets and spits it out to whites.

Agitator is the right word. The African American constituency isn’t going to fall for this nonsense. They’ve been handed this kind of flim-flam many times before and they are much too savvy to trust rich white men who try to dazzle them with BS. This stuff goes back a long, long way. Despite the fact that the history of reconstruction has been rightly revised to show that the “scalawags” of the era were not all despicable opportunists as they had been portrayed by southern apologists, it is true that there were southerners who used the newly freed slaves for their own political and profitable enterprises. Many African Americans may have been naive enough to believe their phony pitch one hundred years ago, but they aren’t naive anymore. Stephen Moore is spitting into the wind if he thinks black Americans can’t see through his little shuck and jive.

And they also aren’t idiots. They know that grandma needs that check:

In a Social Security briefing paper, Shelton declares that “almost 80 percent of African Americans over age 65 depend on Social Security for more than half of their income, and more than half rely on it for 90 percent or more of their income.” Basically, he writes, “without the guaranteed Social Security benefits they receive today, the poverty rate among older African Americans would more than double, pushing most African American seniors into squalor and poverty during their most vulnerable years.”

But the main problem with the Republicans’ argument that private accounts would be better for blacks than the current system is not that it’s economically wrong. It’s that it’s gravely pessimistic. As the president took pains to point out in his State of the Union address, Social Security reform won’t affect today’s generation of retirees; it will benefit today’s young people, who will retire 30 or 40 years from now. By that reasoning, conservatives are conceding that blacks will die young not only now but 40 years from now. Apparently, they aren’t concerned about working to ensure that young African-Americans live as long and healthy lives as today’s young white people.

Of course, that’s because the main purpose of this phony sales pitch isn’t really to gain the support of African Americans at all. These modern scalawags hope to gain the support of a few African Americans so that they can use their image to portray their plan as helping poor people.

This is racist on a number of levels, not the least of which is that the Bush administration has made a fetish of portraying themselves as “compassionate” toward the poor with images of adorable black children and high level tokenism. They know very well that the African American community is the most reliably Democratic constituency in the nation. They are not actually making a play for their votes. Their bogus imagery is racist because it has no substance in policy terms and is actually aimed at white suburban voters who mistrust the southern red-neck edge that defines the sound of the modern GOP.

This Social Security marketing campaign, however, takes it to an unprecedented level. The Republicans are trying to convince their suburban white voters that because blacks tend to die young from social causes (which they don’t intend to fix,) they will be “helping” poor blacks if they vote for a privatization scheme (that will cut their guaranteed benefits.) It just doesn’t get any more cynical than using white Americans’ compassion to hurt black Americans — or perhaps using phony white compassion to excuse hurting black Americans. This is low, even for them.

Here’s a little Rovian epistemic relativism for all those staunch Republican southern heritage and new confederacy types to have fun sorting out:

Today’s Republicans are modern scalawags who use blacks to get rich northern white votes. And just like the bad old days, you poor white fellas are going to get screwed too. Which side are you on, boys?

Breathe In A Big Ole Whiff ‘O Freedom ‘N Liberty

In one hearing that led up to Monday’s decision, Judge Green attempted to see how broadly the government viewed its power to hold detainees. Administration lawyers told her, in response to a hypothetical question, that they believed the president would even have the right to lock up “a little old lady from Switzerland” for the duration of the war on terror if she had written checks to a charity that she believed helped orphans, but that actually was a front for Al Qaeda.

Mr McBobo

Tom Tomorrow has his number.

Road Trip

For those of you who are cocooned in the urban conclaves of the Blue state liberal elite, here’s an interesting film series on Truthout by talented guerilla filmmaker Chris Hume (who I knew in a former life) called “Red State Roadtrip.”

Seeing as the Red States cover a lot of ground, many of you liberal Red Staters might get a kick out of it too. This country is incredibly diverse yet we are all so familiar…

A Bold New Plan

May I just make one little observation that seems to have escaped those who believe that Democrats should offer an alternative to the Preznit’s Personal Privatized Individual Retirement Account Security plan? We already are offering an alternative. It’s called Social Security. And we have reams of data about how well it works and how well the experts believe it is going to work in the future.

If the Democrats were as willing as Republicans to present a competing discourse to the public and call it “reality” we would simply take Roosevelts plan with all the added tweaking over the years and present it as our “bold, new” alternative saying that it will cover all retirees AND we will be able to add in death benefits and disability payments too! And you won’t have to do anything but let your employer deduct the same amount its already deducting from your check! This is the step forward we’ve been waiting for! We’ll call it… Super Social Security 2.0.

I think our “alternative” is very marketable. After all, we have 45 million customers right now. Let’s just let them tell the nation how much they like it and propose that everybody should get the same thing. Our new and improved Super Social Security is the innovation everybody’s been waiting for. Order yours today.

IOKIYAR

This pearl clutching about Bush being booed last night is hilarious. The following incidents don’t even discuss the 1998 SOTU when the Republicans were in the midst of their witch trial and a large contingent refused to attend. The president received fellatio and was, therefore, too tainted to be in the presence of the little old lady circle jerk and tatting society known as the GOP. Those who bothered to come booed him.

1999: Republicans Booed Clinton’s Entrance Many Republican lawmakers gave him a cool, though not impolite, reception. There were a smattering of boos when Clinton first entered the House chamber, but they were quickly drowned out by applause. Some Republicans barely applauded, or refused at all to clap. House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Texas) and U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Texas) were conspicuously silent. [Boston Herald, 1/20/99]

1998: Republicans Booed Clinton’s Medicare Proposal

Clinton’s health-care initiatives, chiefly in the form of a medical bill of rights, found support on both sides, especially his attack on managed-care health-care plans. … Clinton’s proposal to expand Medicare to allow Americans as young as 55 to buy into the system drew shouts of “no” and some boos from Republicans during his speech. [Chicago Tribune, 1/28/98]

1997: Republican’s Booed Clinton’s Opposition to the Balanced Budget Amendment The Republican response was far warmer than perhaps any of Clinton’s previous four State of the Union speeches. Time after time, Republicans jumped to their feet to join Democrats in applauding the president. Only once did they unmistakably and collectively show their disapproval–when Clinton spoke disparagingly of a GOP-sponsored constitutional amendment to balance the budget. Many Republicans hissed and some booed. [LA Times,2/5/97]

1995: Republicans Booed Clinton and Walked Out During Speech

The upheaval wrought by the Republican election landslide was visible throughout the president’s State of the Union address – from the moment Speaker Newt Gingrich took the gavel to the striking silence that often greeted Clinton from the GOP. At one point, Republicans even booed. About 20 of them left as Clinton went on and on for an hour and 20 minutes. [AP,

1/24/95]

The little Claude Raines act they are pulling right now deserves as much derision as we can possibly muster. The Republicans can either call for the smelling salts every time the Democrats get combative or they can be the biggest swinging dicks in town. We shouldn’t let them have it both ways.

When they act like little old ladies we should deride them for being delicate little flowers who can’t play hardball. When they act like thugs we should haul out the phony sanctimony and call them on their uncivilized behavior. Two can play at this game.

Rahther-gate

The Poorman noticed something that struck me as odd, as well. The Preznit kept saying “rahther” rather than “rather” during his speech last night. There were times he sounded like Madonna during her kabuki period. Or maybe he was doing a Shirley Mclain and actually trying to channel FDR instead of just using his rhetoric to destroy his programs.

I realize that Dear Leader is beyond reproach and all, but don’t you suppose that an All American Nascar Dad or two had a fleeting moment when they wondered why their straight talking cowpoke had turned into Queen Elizabeth?

Making It Up

Not that it matters, because the spin is firmly emplanted in the public’s mind that the Iraq election turnout was phenomenal, but Editor and Publisher shows that the reports are very likely to have been wildly off the mark. Imagine my surprise.

I’ll be delighted if the turnout figure, when it is officially announced, exceeds the dubious numbers already enshrined by much of the media. But don’t be surprised if it falls a bit short. The point is: Nobody knows, and reporters and pundits should stop acting like they do know when they say, flatly, that 8 million Iraqis voted and that this represents a turnout rate of about 60%.

Carl Bialik, who writes the Numbers Guy column for Wall Street Journal Online, calls this “a great question … how the journalists can know these numbers — when so many of them aren’t able to venture out all over that country.” Speaking to E&P on Wednesday, Howard Kurtz of The Washington Post — one of the few mainstream journalists to raise questions about the turnout percentage — referred to the “fuzzy math” at the heart of it.

[…]

“Election officials concede they did not have a reliable baseline on which to calculate turnout,” Kurtz concluded.

He also quoted Democratic strategist Robert Weiner as saying: “It’s an amazing media error, a huge blunder. I’m sure the Bush administration is thrilled by this spin.”

They spun it and the media gladly got spun because it was one of those hallmark card stories that makes Wolf and Kira and Chris just feel so damned good about themselves. Every once in while they need a narrative that allows them to believe that they are part of something gosh darned wonderful.

As I watched the news shows last Sunday, I was struck by the lockstep maudlin sentimentality of the coverage — a sure sign that it is complete bullshit. Apparently, the word went forth that the tone was to be “proud parents” — America herself had just birthed the Iraq democracy in the back of a humvee. The purple thumbs evoked a collective “awwww” as if the Iraqi voters were sheet swaddled newborn babes or a big ole pile ‘o kittens.

One of the most disturbing (and embarrassing) aspects of this entire enterprise is the air of cultural superiority emanating from Americans as we enlighten the primitives, dahling. This coming from a country that produces a president who says things like:

“We’re still being challenged in Iraq and the reason why is a free Iraq will be a major defeat in the cause of freedom.” —George W. Bush, Charlotte, N.C., April 5, 2004

Yeah, we’re very superior people. And we re-elected him too.

Update: Attaturk is on this one too:

Well, the enablers of the so called liberal media have worked their wonders to make sure that they emoted every ounce of the Bush Administration’s ejaculatory load in Iraq…right down to the last little sperm. Judy Miller didn’t even ask for a virtual towel as she got each prescious drop down her vacuum powered 10 amp gullet.

awesome

Generational Warfare!

Grooviosity. Reform social security, man, because you can’t trust anyone over 30. Cool.

These doughy, briefcase GOP baby boomer geeks have always had a case of arrested development. They started their “revolution” in their 40’s. In their 50’s they’ve discovered the “generation gap.” The rest of us got over this intergenerational squabbling a couple of decades ago. It’s never too late to act like a teen-age ass.

For younger workers, the Social Security system has serious problems that will grow worse with time. Social Security was created decades ago, for a very different era. In those days people didn’t live as long, benefits were much lower than they are today, and a half century ago, about 16 workers paid into the system for each person drawing benefits. Our society has changed in ways the founders of Social Security could not have foreseen.

Man, if only those old people would just die younger, or at least take less money, we wouldn’t have this problem.

Right now, a set portion of the money you earn is taken out of your paycheck to pay for the Social Security benefits of today’s retirees. If you are a younger worker, I believe you should be able to set aside part of that money in your own retirement account, so you can build a nest egg for your own future.

… instead of having to worry about your revolting, diseased parents.

As we fix Social Security, we also have the responsibility to make the system a better deal for younger workers. And the best way to reach that goal is through voluntary personal retirement accounts.

Awesome. A better deal for me!

It is time to extend [the same] security, and choice, and ownership to young Americans.

Listen kids. Here’s your choice. Either keep social security as it is or plan to have your parents —- people my age — living with you for the last twenty years of our sick, decrepit lives. This will be as you’re putting your kids through the privatized school system and saving for medical expenses with your “medical savings account” while putting something aside for your kids’ college and your own meager retirement. Good luck with that. That’s the “choice” you’re getting here.

Bush says nobody over 55 will see any change. I’m 48. Somehow, I don’t think I’m one of those “younger workers” who is oging to experience the miracle of the market. I’m not the solution, I’m the problem. There are a huge number of people my age out there. We who were born in the mid 50’s are the biggest bulge of the baby boom cohort. And we are the ones who are first in line to get fucked if this social security “reform” is passed.

But the good news is that by that time our children will have these lovely fat portfolios. They’ll be happy to take us in if our “personalized social security” doesn’t stretch quite as far as George W. Bush says is will. Right?

Oh, and by the way, kids. You’ll be the ones stuck with the gazillions of dollars in debtthis whole useless scam is going to cost. Don’t be fools.

Update: Josh speaks to this as well:

the president is now saying — and saying emphatically and militantly, with an eye on his critics — that if you’re 55 you’re home free, nothing to worry about when it comes to phasing out Social Security.

One might observe that this is a rather unfortunate dividing in half of the country. If you’re 50 today, you spent most of your highest earning years not only paying into Social Security, but advance-paying even more, under the 1983 Social Security Commission which put in the extra level of tax to build up the Trust Fund. Now you’re hosed. Too bad.

The important point though is that this is simply not true. And the defenders of Social Security would be straight-up fools to let the president get away with a guarantee as obviously bogus as that one.

Maybe they can try to finesse those older than 55 into believing him with a direct, straight up lie, but he’s not even trying to finesse those of us who are just slightly younger than that. And we are a huge demographic cohort. The transition costs, which the Preznit doesn’t address at all, are going to hit this bulge of the baby boom right between the eyes because most of us are under 55. And ALL of us have been paying “extra” since Uncle Alan Greenspan told us to in 1983.

I think we need to start talking to people my age. We are following this closely because retirement issues in general are beginning to get our attention. We are the biggest single age group in the country and we are about to get fucked.

Update, Update:

Ooooh. I see that we are talking about “benefit offsets” which just means that any “extra” money you make in your “personal” account goes into the pot. No ownership, no guarantee, no nothing.

This is more and more ideological by the day. It’s just about tearing up the new deal and destroying people’s trust in government, period.