Someone Noticed the Media Isn't Doing Their Job

Hello readers, after a too long hiatus, I'm back blogging, with greater regularity.

I stumbled on this AP article, and well, it shocked me.

The author wrote this: "To a certain extent, networks could be accused of unimaginative bookings, going to people they know very well" but I would have to disagree to some extent, I think they go to people that fit into their pre-conceived notions of conventional wisdom, and they go to people that swim in their same circles. And that is really the problem, the TV National News is reporting from the same fishbowl it resides in, objectivity is warped by the glass of their own world.

The numbers cited are pretty damning, and wholly typical of what I have seen for many years on TV News, and the quotes from Cameron and Schieffer perfectly highlight what has happened to television news reporting. Losing Cronkite effectively ended LBJ's presidency, and CBS and NBC hounded Nixon during Watergate, but since then,(or not) the TV news has become a useless bastion of Corporate regurgitation of the Republican line, or incestuous navel gazing from the DC Beltway crowd.

"Ian Cameron, executive producer of ABC's Sunday morning "This Week," said the trend had less to do with unimaginative bookings than 24-hour cable's need to draw contrast and promote verbal battles." I have a hard time equating that statement with journalism, indeed, I have trouble believing that he would even say that out loud, let alone that it is a true statement. In short, we don't do journalism, we promote cat fights and finger pointing, and we're proud of it!

But Bob Schieffer's is really the best of all. In fact, re-reading it truly boggles the mind.

"Maybe we should be talking to more economists," Schieffer said. "I've been a reporter now for 52 years, covered everything from hubcap thieves to arms control negotiations, and I generally have an opinion on whether the government is doing the right or wrong thing. This thing is so complicated that I'm not sure what is the right or wrong thing."

Um, maybe someone can mention to Bob, if it's too complicated, then yes, you should be talking to economists. A lot. And perhaps someone should also tell Bob that we all have an opinion on the government's activities, and that we aren't really interested in your opinion, after all, we all have one of those too, and that, really, you're supposed to be reporting on the stimulus, not giving us your opinion, an opinion, I must point out, you've just admitted is worthless.

That the AP published that article is perhaps an indication that the pendulum has started to swing back from Corporate Whoredom to that thing enshrined in our Constitution, maybe. After all, the gravy train left the station November 4th, perhaps now if they want to make money they're going to have to do some work, just like everyone else. Or maybe not. But I find the article a hopeful one, maybe the result of the unending pushback from bloggers on the left decrying the sorry state of the corporate media, and the fact that President Obama called on a Blogger at his first of many press conferences.

We can only hope.

Media a 3 Legged stool

Via Atrios, the Media gets defensive. Imagine that, when you have no justification for your failure, defend the process, forget the product, at all costs.

What's more important, that Obama does or doesn't wear a flag pin made in China on his lapel, or that Obama is critical of President Carter going to Syria to talk with Hamas leaders?

Wouldn't that be a bit more of an issue you could ask "tough" questions about? The media has decided that their questioning was "tough," that is the Party Line, but is it tough? A tough interview question forces you to think; makes you and the questioner a bit uncomfortable, unpopular even; forces you to give an answer that might reveal something about how you are going to behave on the job, how your actions might cause pain and suffering and harm to other people. I'm pretty certain that questions of symbolism do none of those things.

You know who asks tough questions, or at least he used to? Jim Gray at NBC Sports. Remeber when he grilled Pete Rose on his gambling during the World Series, way back in 1999? That was tough, and unpopular, yet he did the job. Not so Charlie Gibson or Mop Top Stephanopoulos.

And why should those elitists do something unpopular, simething that might harm their precious Q rating? Thus we see the faqilure of the media, the fundamental failure of the whole concept of a free press, and the reasons why the Founding Fathers set up our government the way they did, with checks and balances, not so much that no one group could become more powerful than the others, but so that no one group could escape accountability.

That's why there is Sarbanes-Oxley in the business world, so that no one can create and benefit from a fraud, not without lots of help from other groups outside your own. But the MSM has nothing to act as a check save the whole of the public and the dirty effing hippy bloggers.

So we get the media narrative we get because nobody can touch the media, really. And until someone or thing can reach out and create a counterweight to their self serving crap, nothing is going to change.

Let's dump the horserace notion, please

[Cross posted over at Daily Kos]

I posted this comment on the recommended thread about the tip heard round the world.

How does her (Hillary) tip story relate to her stance on Global Warming? Or Healthcare? Or her stance on the Constitution? Or anything else for that matter?

Stupid obsession with parsing every word somebody says, every body movement, every event or location they physically appear in, it's beyond meaningful. IT SERVES NO PURPOSE, except to sell crap on teevee and does nothing for the political process.

Just like if John Edwards doesn't win Iowa he is done. How many delegates does Iowa have? And how many are needed to win the nomination?

[ed-this is expanded from my comment hereon down] This is not a game, people, let's try treating it appropriately.

Yet Iowa could destroy his campaign, ACCORDING TO THE NEWS MEDIA and parroted all over the blogs like this one (Daily Kos, not mine fer dogs sake!!).

How does that serve democracy? How does that benefit me? Or you?

Rather than debate whether somebody's healthcare plan plays well with this or that group of voters, lets debate about how to make it happen, what are the best mechanisms or programs or POLICIES that can provide us with national healthcare for all Americans.

Because that's the kind of thing that matters, not who has the best soundbite, the best debate performance, who looked effing "Presidential" under the glare of the camera and under the inane and disgusting self serving questions of lazy fat assholes like Tim Russert.

I hear that somebody is working on making ethanol from tree farms, how does that affect agricultural policy, is ethanol the best route to go for cutting greenhouse gasses and our dependence on terrorist oil? Not the same issues, btw, greenhouse gasses and oil dependence.

Why does it matter if a candidate criticizes another candidate? On their policies, that's what I want to know, it doesn't mean anything except that they don't agree. This isn't the schoolyard, people, yet that's how everybody acts, and it's stupid and serves no purpose except the media narrative. And the media, people, is out to kill us, they are as much the enemy as bin Laden, scrath that, Karl Rove and Dick Cheney.

Iowa and New Hampshire do not represent me, and I'm tired of the news media and then all the campaign experts and political operatives who have no real deep abiding values, allowing those states to decide who my parties candidate will be. They did it to Howard Dean, and we got John Kerry, who still beat Bush if everything had been done properly. They did it to Al Gore, they're doing it again, and I say that THIS MUST END.

So long as you all insist that money is the defining aspect of a political campaign, and that's what all this momentum bullshit during the early primaries is all about, then we will continue to get lackluster, half assed, timid politicians, and no leadership.

Free Trade with Columbia on CNBC

Yes, I'm still alive, faithful readers.

Just watched a bit of debate about the looming free trade agreement with Columbia. What I love the most is that the reporter had a pro and con and some business talkers on, and as soon as the con started talking, she, the reporter, had to talk over and interrupt her because she wanted to argue with what the woman was saying. Was I watching O'Leilly all of the sudden?

Say what you will about Jim Lehrer (I won't, much) but the strongest part of his show is that the reporters DO NOT become part of the report. When they do, they get axed, like Stuart Taylor did some years back to be replaced by Jan Crawford Greenburg.

Back to CNBC. The great Gen. McCafferty said, "Polls, schmolls" when asked to comment on the fact that the majority of Columbians oppose the agreement, because the business community is all for it. And we know who matters in the world, right, great General? Then some Wall Street guy started talking about how it helps keep cheap, low cost goods available for Americans. To which I say, WE ALREADY GET THAT POISON FROM CHINA, why do we need somebody else's?

Then the reporter was all happy, at which point I cursed the teevee and turned it off. Better Democrats, better reporters, how about better JOURNALISM SCHOOLS?

Things to Consider

Michael Vick made his statement, and the little piece they put on the teevee news showed him speaking, not reading, what he had to say. I'm going to give him some consideration for his statement, he did seem to recognize his mistakes, not sure if he recognizes the wrongness of his actions, but hopefully he will. And he should never play professional football again, as sorry and redemptive as he may be, just because he found god suddenly does not cut it, but he needs to be a role model for how money can corrupt you.

If professional sports can learn that giving these kids this kind of money is in some ways unconscionable, if they address the absurdity and warped priorities that puts so much wealth into these games, then maybe some good comes of all this.

There was a rally in support of San Diego's KLSD Air America Radio station today, a couple hundred people, maybe more, showed up to challenge Clear Channel to keep one progressive radio station in San Diego County. It was a pretty good turnout and event given the 4 days we had to prepare for it, organized, orderly, passionate.

Now, if only we owned some radio stations and wouldn't have to subject ourselves to being at the mercy of some corporation, that would be progress. Keep pushing them, sign the petition, something, call Clear Channel and tell them of your support, call or write advertisers tell them you're glad they advertise on KLSD and will look favorably on their business for doing so.

Let's see, Mike Vick gets a $130 million dollar contract, and we can't keep one lousy radio station because of what, $10-20,000 a month? A fraction of what one guy gets paid to star in the NFL.

Clear Channel Silencing Free Speech in San Diego

Rumors have been flying about San Diego's Air America station, 1360 KLSD, home to The Stacy Taylor Show and all of that liberal /progressive talk in a region of 3 million people and no liberal media save this one. Here's a link to an action page of sorts for info and things to do.

Clear Channel seems to be intent on shutting down Air America and all that liberal talk in San Diego, and many people are determined to stop them. Do what you can, contact their sponsors and nicely encourage them to put pressure on what is really a bad business decision to alienate one third of the San Diego market.

3 million people, 1/3 Dem, Indy, repub, that's a million potential customers with no radio station to listen to. Is that good business sense?

Media Hackery, West Coast Version

Via Atrios and TPM, this editorial by a journalism professor is a fine example of just what is wrong with the news media today. Because if a professor is teaching people what he's demonstrating in this editorial, the news media, as we all know, has some problems. I was suitably moved to write to the Times in response, and as The Offspring might say, "it came out sounding something like this."

That's a lovely paean to journalism, and a rather gratuitous and un-informed slap at bloggers Mr. Skube has written. For the record, I'm a blogger far down the list, but people might know my handle if they saw it. But not today.

Debate is going to save us? And too much information is a bad thing? I'm reading this in the LA Times, but discounting it as quickly as possible.

What nonsense. Given the near absolute secrecy of the Bush Administration, given the manufactured and empty debate that the news media is giving us for the past 30 years or so, you would think that a reporter might thank the bloggers for carrying on an actual debate of issues, he certainly isn't going to get it from the journalists of the news media, for the most part.

On today's politics page there's this: "Ah, those fickle Nevada Republicans" reporting on POLL Numbers, "Key is that since March, Romney has gained 24 points while Giuliani has dropped 20 points" and Oprahs Obama party instructions and something about the Supreme Court Justices and their "funny" robes, and a no doubt breathless piece on Fred Thompson's hometown getting ready to capitalize on his impending candidacy announcement.

I could go on, but do you see the debate there? Or you could go to Daily Kos and see debate on psychologists and torture, the real meaning of the Minnesota bridge collapse and the Utah mine disaster and some solutions, debates on student loans, NASA, Iraq, and of course all of the presidential candidates.

If you have paid the least bit of attention the past six years you would realize that the news media truly does need watchdogs. Reporters have been in turn uncritical of the GOP; cheerleaders and enablers of the Bush Administration; threatened, terrorized, and corporatized.

The abuses and failures at Walter Reed didn't just happen in 2005, yet until a blogger talked about it, nobody knew. If it weren't for bloggers asking questions about the firings of the United States Attorneys, we wouldn't even know about how Karl Rove has politicized the Cabinet Departments, how Gonzales tried to manipulate a sick John Ashcroft to sign off on what had been declared illegal wire-tapping, that they were decimating the ethics division of the Justice Department, and so on.

I quote here from your article, '"What democracy requires," Lasch wrote in "The Lost Art of Argument," "is vigorous public debate, not information. Of course, it needs information too, but the kind of information it needs can only be generated by debate.'

When all you get from the White House is countless legalistic variations of 'I don't remember,' 'That's under investigation so I can't tell you', 'Homeland Security,' and 'Executive Privilege,' there is no public debate. Except on the blogs, where, funny enough, the public debates. And sometimes that debate spills over into the physical world or the journalism world, and actually furthers the cause of a badly abused democracy.

And on an aside, could Mr Skube kindly either, a) identify who "Some" are who reject that label, or, b) stop using that dishonest and uninformative and meaningless argument. Last time I looked, "Some" could be anybody or any number of body's, and a professor of journalism ought to know that terminology has no business being in a piece of journalism, opinion or otherwise.

Jon Stewart Shames the Press-Again

While Broder is whining about how bad partisanship has been, I guess he means that since the GOP has been stuffing partisanship down the country's throat as one of their many legacy's that makes the GOP bad for the country, right? Well, whatever, while that's going on in the Preserve OUR Corporate Cash press, Jon Stewart shows us yet again how an honest interviewer could approach a topic, and even with his obvious bias, still do his job.

Stephen Hayes was on talking about his book about Dick Cheney, and Jon had just gotten done, ala Timmeh Russert, showing old clips of Dick Cheney from 1994 talking about why we didn't go into Baghdad after Desert Storm.

Because it would be chaotic and deadly and would not end up with any kind of clear resolution that would advance American interests in the region.

Stewart hit on the clearest point, not that Cheney lied us into the war, not that Hussein wasn't a threat to the US or that he didn't have WMD's, not that 9/11 changed the world view or situation that faced our interests in the region. No, he stuck to what Dick had said, to demonstrate the essential truth of Bush/Cheney's actions after 9/11.

"Given all of that, given that he knew that in 1991 removing Hussein would lead to chaos and unforseen consequences in Iraq and the Middle East regardless of the circumstances at that time, why would they not plan for what they knew would happen if we 'took out' Saddam Hussein?" [I'm paraphrasing here-DGR]

And when the author tried to defend Cheney, Stewart would have none of it, and kept repeating that point, if they knew bad things would happen, why is there a total absense of any kind of effort to plan for and act accordingly? And Cheney's admission of miscalculation and mistake does not qualify as a satisfactory answer in any way.

Their failure to do so tells you everything you need to know about what their intentions were/are in Iraq. How they few human life, Muslims, Iraqi's, geo-politics. Like Josh Marshall keeps saying bout Romney and Guiliani, they don't have the least bit of comprehension about the area, and the White House doesn't have one either, nor do they care.

Such callous ignorance makes you wonder what the hell they're doing over there in the first place. And like I told Ms. Duckman this evening, they're there for the oil, in one way or another. And that is an impeachable offense, and contrary to the Geneva Convention.

Brooks Reveals a Bit of Truth

On tonights News Hour David Brooks exposed yet another angle on Bush's Presidential unfitness, an unfitness I talked about the other day. Consider what he's saying here:

DAVID BROOKS: That's a good point. And as I was listening to the president today, I was remembering a past interview. And he said, "General Casey is a good man." You know, there have been a series -- and the president, when you hear him talk about world affairs, he looks at other people. And he sees it as, "Do I trust that man? And if I trust that man, he probably has the right views." Well, it could be you could trust somebody and they don't have the right views, so it is a bit of a crapshoot.

I've bolded the critical parts. All Bush's talk about the Generals, and he's run through quite a few trying to find one that tells him what he wants to hear, boils down to his trusting them, as Bobo said, and their judgement.

The problem here is that Bush is totally reliant on that judgement because he has no sense whatsoever, no capacity to judge for himself, no real savvy on what would actually work, or even a rudimentary grasp of the issues involved.

Think back on America's past. FDR led the war effort, he had a pretty good sense for what was right, the strategic imperatives and implications on the ground, the goals and strategies to employ. He knew, for instance, that the focus had to be on Hitler, that Japan, because of the geographical situation and the size of the forces engaged in China, could not threaten the Soviets or the Allies in Egypt and the Middle East and could be held off with the forces at hand, 4 Aircraft Carriers, a Division of Marines and a handful of submarines.

As Brooks has pointed out, Bush, not so much. It's a pity that the Corporate Whore Press is, well, what they are. Perhaps after the Revolution we can fix that. Let me close with this beautiful summation from The Freeway Blogger.

Hamas and What Could Have Happened

McClatchey has this article about BushCo in action, this time in Palestine. It's like what reporting should do, expose government actions to the scrutiny of somebody in America. As we all know, BushCo isn't about governance, they're about furthering the interests of their sponsors, Corporations. At the same time though, they show us how costly and tragic such a government is for the people they're expected to govern.

I think Athenae touched on it yesterday, others today. The government of Jefferson and Madison and Hamilton and Adams et al, has been taken over by a bunch of maniacs of two versions; one, the greed mongering MIC supporters, whose world view consists of quarterly reports and the amoral and immoral and impractical ravings of a movie character, one Gordon Gecko, and; two, the foaming ravings of neo-cons like the much beloved Elliot Abrams, a world dominion of the mighty American Exceptional Empire, and in the process of achieving that goal completely forgetting, nay reversing, the very things that make us exceptional, our Constitution and Bill of Rights, and our freaking principles as embodied by the Declaration of Independence.

McClathcey looks at Palestine after the Hamas electoral victory and BushCo's deft handling of the situation. While they didn't say it, as good reporting doesn't tell you what should have been done, they let you figure it out on your own. And I figured it out at the time, and I'll repeat it here.

Embrace Hamas, congratulate them for their victory, give them the aid they needed to make the lives of the Palestinian people they were representing a little bit more tolerable, and see if we could co-opt or ameliorate, or at the least, engage them in dialog regarding their relations with Israel. Be mature and respectful from the get go, not be forced or shamed into doing the right thing, but do it because it is the right thing, like it or not. Because by all accounts that election was perfectly valid, even more so than our elections of recent memory.

But no, that wouldn't have fit into the needs of the BushCo crew, no, not at all.

Hamas, a violent Islamist movement whose charter calls for the destruction of Israel, had won Palestinian parliamentary elections — elections that were deemed free and fair and a cornerstone to President Bush's initiative to bring more democracy to the Muslim world.

For the next 17 months, White House and State Department officials would undertake an all-out campaign to reverse those results and oust Hamas from power.

Instead of undermining Hamas, though, the strategy helped to exacerbate dangerous political fissures in Palestinian politics that have delivered another setback to the president's vision of a stable, pro-Western Middle East.

…
At its heart was a plan to organize military support for Abbas for what opponents of the strategy feared could have become a Palestinian civil war, according to officials in Washington and the Middle East, and documents.

What would have happened, do you think, if, instead of immediately ostracizing and blockading the legally elected Hamas Government, the US had accepted the results of the election, and worked to ameliorate Hamas’ more egregious stances, against the State of Israel, and their radical religious underpinings?

You only have that first opportunity, that first impression to establish a foundation for future interactions, what signal does cutting Hamas off at the knees send as opposed to releasing foreign aid after the successful election and starting a real dialog with them on the subject of Israeli recognition?

Imagine your own life. You’re asking your Supervisor for some time off. Your Supervisor wants you to get all of your work done before you go. So you finish your work, let’s say you work in an accounting office in the Payables section. Alas, your Supervisor gets pissed off at you for spending all of the companies money before you go on vacation, and as punishment, denies your vacation request, and what’s more, starts sending negative reports to your manager on your job performance, negatives not necessarily true or on items already addressed in the past.

And then your Supervisor dumps a load of work on you and expects you to do it right away, accurately and correctly.

What are you going to think of your Supervisor? And more importantly, how are you going to work with the asshole?

Real diplomacy could have worked with Hamas, because underlying all of their bullshit, their shelling and suicide bombings, their religious ravings, is the abject poverty of the people of Palestine. Most of those people just want to live in peace, have a decent way to raise a family and live their lives, eat 3 meals a day, get out of the heat, have some social activity, get a decent nights sleep, and dream of a better live for them and theirs. Address that and the anger melts, the fanaticism fades, the death grip of religion weakens.

But there's no profit in that, is there?

Long term, the U.S. effort to oust Hamas has further deepened doubts in the Middle East about the administration's understanding of the complex region.

"America is so far away, they are completely misinformed about what is happening," said Munib Masri, a Palestinian businessman allied with Abbas. "The more they do against Hamas, the more power they (Hamas) get from the people."

[snip]

But Abbas argued that elections wouldn't be credible without Hamas, and Washington went along, said one of the senior U.S. officials, who agreed to be interviewed only on condition of anonymity due to White House-imposed ground rules.

Was that a mistake?

"Maybe," he said. "The question was debated at the time."

Once Hamas was elected, the White House gave almost no thought to accepting the results and trying to co-opt the hard-line Islamist group, which the U.S. government deems a terrorist organization, current and former U.S. officials said.

After the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, "I don't think it was ever possible emotionally, ideologically ... for this administration to consider reaching out, probing" Hamas, said Aaron David Miller, who advised six secretaries of state on Arab-Israeli negotiations.

Instead, Rice orchestrated an international financial boycott of the new Palestinian government, an action that failed to weaken Hamas or force it to moderate its views.

Destroy the village to save it, all over again. It's like when the troops kick down the door of some Iraqi's house, turn over the place, wave guns around, push and shove, break a few things, then give the kids a candy bar. Friends for life, right? G Gordon Liddy's jack booted thugs that the extreme right wing racists hate so much, should they expect any different kind of reaction from the Arabs and Iraqi's and whoever else in the Middle East?

But, then again, there's nothing like a little civil war for stirring up some business for GE and friends, is there?

But we shouldn't impeach Cheney and Bush because that might be too radical for some people, too overarching, too divisive, right?

Another Media Genius

Michael Barone was on C-SPAN today, I was working outside but listening and here's all you need to know about Barone.

He's a blogger.
Well, he's a blogger with an editor, according to Barone.

He cited a blogger as an example of good blogging.
It was Instapundit.

He has an opinion on Dick Cheney.
He thinks the charges and coverage is overdone.

Barone writes for US News and World Report.
And he contributes to Faux News as well.

Barone wrote an article on how we pick vice presidents.
But he managed to not talk about how Dick Cheney yanks Bush around like a cat with one of those catnip balls on a string. And he closes the column with a totally gratuitous slam on John Edwards, coming from that multi-loser Bob Shrum.

Gratuitous? Yes, because he mentioned every other VP choice since 1972 without a signle comment about them, not Eagletons psychiatry, not Quayles stupidity, not Liebermans sanctimony, no, just a slam on Edwards from a self serving source of little trustworthiness.

Broder is shocked that Cheney is running Bush like Harvey Keitel ran Jodi Foster in The Taxi Driver, Barone ignores Cheney altogether except to disparage one of the Demcoratic challengers for President, yes, the DC Pundits really further the principles set out by Jefferson and Madison and Paine and Adams et al, if you think that Corporations and Elitism were what those men were writing and dying about some 231 years ago. Yes, George Washington and Nathanael Greene would be proud of the patriotism and honor that the DC Beltway Pundits shower on our country; as brave soldiers die needlessly in Iraq, for a war sold on a pack of treacherous lies promulgated by said pundits; as an elite class built on accumulated wealth gains greater control of our country thanks to the Orwellian writings of the aforementioned DC Pundits (Death Tax anyone?); yes Barone is a great patriot, isn't he?

C-SPAN runs these turds all of the time, Heritage and AEI hacks, it shows that we have a long ways to go, but putting pressure on these people helps. So write Barone, maybe one of his editors will notice.

Wanker of the Day

The guy on MSNBC talking to the Dem and Gopper Thug "Strategists" about the Democratic candidates at the AFSCME forum in DC today.

He spews talking points from Drudge like we spew CO2, he gives that Gopper apologist more time to talk and cuts off the Dem when he tries to interrupt, he's everything wrong about the media, and he has no name here because I have no time to pursue it. Just this one bit. He said that the forum allows the candidates to make their campaign speech, as if that speech is some entity that exists outside the body politic, and that giving that speech is a bad thing.

Those campaign speeches summarize what the candidates stand for, what they hope for, what they want to change and want to keep, and are important anchors for what kind of leaders they hope to be. Expanding on their stump speeches in a less formal manner is critical in explaining themselves, even under the gentle ministrations of Chris Man Crush Matthews. It's called communications, it's too bad that the people in the communications industry have such contempt for America that they only desire one way communication, them speaking from on high, as opposed to dialogue and debate.

Wankers all.

Fantasy Land

Joe Klein wants people to be nice to David Broder and discuss Broders editorial on it's merit, so says bigger bloggers than I.

The problem being that his eds have no merit, except as a window on the delusions of the DC Beltway crowd, people like Klein and Broder and what not other rag tag riff raff Dowds and Sally whats her name that make up our Conventional Wisdom.

So I sent him a note, I tried, as always in respect of his old age, to keep the vitriol at a minimum.

"Iraq War at an end?"

The widely trusted Gen. Petraeus? That's the tip off that you're talking out of your imagination again David. We don't know the good General from David, do we? Of course you Beltway folks know him oh so well, right, but David, you know that DC is just a speck of the population of this country, so widely is a relative term, don't you think?

But on to the meat of my missive. Dude, you just live in a total fantasy land don't you. Haven't you heard Bush repeat ad very nauseum that we aren't leaving Iraq while he's President? Don't you understand the Korea metaphor? What part of "leaving it for the next President" don't you get?

Centrists exert leverage? All 8-12 of them? And John Warner, has he yet done any more than sputter some protest than fall directly into the Bush line on vote after vote after vote after vote? Ken Salazar, the rookie turncoat from Colorado, you think he has any heft with the Democratic Party?

Bush wasn't cool to the Baker-Hamilton recommendations, he said they were a good start, then proceeded to ignore and reject every aspect of them out of hand. That isn't being cool to something, that's spitting all over the plan and its progenitor's.

But I guess in the Purple Fantasy Land you live in, that calculated disrespect means something else. I suppose that's how you can sleep at night, by living in a world so far removed from the reality that everybody else, mostly, lives in.

Give it up Broder, you're not unlike the pathetic and delusional people like your brilliant friend Paul Wolfowitz, except that you have no power and no impact whatsoever on the events of this day and on this miserable and misbegotten administration you find so comforting and competent.

Centrists and leverage, there's a breakfast combination you don't see every day!

I'm sorry, but Bush isn't leaving Iraq unless we somehow force him to, maybe a revolt of the military, maybe a sign from the Great Flying Spaghetti Monster, and the United States Senate, for the greatest part, is fully infected with the disease that Al Gore is talking about, what Jimmy Carter called a malaise, what explains the desperate grasping at things that give so called meaning to our lives, like god, or money or i-pods or more and more material crap, this endless and frantic soccer mom mentality of running your kids from one event to another and having no time to spend together as a comminity, be it a family or a neighborhood or social gathering to exchange ideas of import and substance with our fellow human beings.

What did Bob Simon say to Bill Moyers, he was too afraid to speak out on the shoddy intelligence, the gaping logic holes, the false premises of Iraq as terror master that led us to this pass today, too afraid to lose his precious job of news reader because, I don't know, he would've died or suddenly had no value as a human being if he didn't have that wonderful particular job?

And I wonder how it is that these raging idiots and fools and woefully uneducated people like Bush and Goodling and Doan and Cheney and DeLay and Wolfowitz can beat the tar out of the Democrats for the past 7 or 27 years?

Fire Fighting in the US

Somebody is finally going to look at the consequences of building in wilderness areas, and the expectation that maybe the fire departments shouldn't be killing themselves to protect somebody's house that probably shouldn't be there in the first place.

A blaze that killed five federal firefighters last year has emboldened those who question the cost of saving the ever expanding number of homes on the fringe of wilderness.

From the report on the firefighter deaths: The Twin Pines community is identified in the Mountain Area Safety Taskforce (MAST) Report as a very high to extreme threat area for potential destructive impacts from wildland fire due to physical orientation, surrounding dense chaparral/Manzanita, exposure to upslope winds, and alignment with potential Santa Ana winds. We're building in places just asking for trouble, with no regard for the consequences to those expected to safeguard that dream home mountain retreat. And people die, good people, for someone else's property. Sounds familiar, doesn't it?

Let me add this. Mixed in with the bravado and Smokey the Bear and the Machismo and what all else, every time the reporters talk about fires, they use the same, wrong, language.

A fire engulfed Griffith Park on Tuesday, destroying about a quarter of the hilly urban refuge before being brought under control Wednesday night.

Somehow or other, a fire laid seige to a town. It's like when you declare war against a tactic or emotion. It doesn't help or clarify or explain, it just sensationalizes without informing. And that is what is wrong with the news media. Fires don't destroy land, they're a natural part of the cycle of things. Houses and buildings get destroyed, but time after time after time the teevee especially, talks about the acres destroyed, when fire is a needed part of a healthy ecosystem.

And it's this ignorance and sensationalism that cheapens and weakens our discourse in this country, that keeps us from doing the right thing in so many cases, like in Iraq.

Bill Moyer Returns

I got home from work last night, turned on the teevee to see if there was anything fun on C-SPAN, but Moyer's new show was on first, and that's as far as I got.

Just in time to see Moyer's carefully and respectfully questioning "The Media" about their failed coverage of the propagandizing the cause for a war with Irak (Timmeh).

When you go back and think about it, how and when did Iraq get into the dialogue anyway? When did we go from getting the terrorists to obsessing over Hussein's intransigence, his drive towards NBC's (Nuclear, Biological, Chemical, aka WMD's).

When the Beltway, Teevee media kept reporting what the White House was telling them without question. And Moyers gets those guys to expose their cowardice, their laziness, and their selfishness, every single one of them. Bob Simon, Tim Russert, Walter Isaakson, Dan Rather, all too scared of Bush and his Bullies Rover and Big Time to do their jobs.

"We might have gotten fired" or "the people would rise against us" or "our corporatations would lose access and money money money" they whined. Simply overlooking that if they had reported the truth, the facts, the relentless and never ending lies, if they hadn't buried the precious little important stuff they did report on page 18 and such of their papers or after the funny cat video, then maybe the American People could have figured things out instead of getting swept up in a war fever thanks to the utterly one sided propaganda of the Bush Administratin and the Big Time Media.

Yes, you need to watch the video. Moyers destroys them all very politely, pointedly, yet he asks the questions and gets answers that no invective blogging would ever get. He shows those fat cat and useless media tools exactly how you balance being on the inside and asking tough questions, he shows Tim Russert precisely, by demonstrating on ol Timmeh, how he should be doing his job, still keeping access, but actually holding up the powers that be to the light of truth.

Well done.

Time and Religion in the Schools

I got an e-mail from DEFCON today, and i sent Time a response on their cover story about teaching religion in schools. I also read most of the first of 4 pages of the article from Time. After swallowing some vomit I dutifully sent Time a letter, the essence being that, well, read on please, I'll bold my favorite parts.

There is no reason to be teaching the Bible in public schools, carefully or otherwise.

The Bible is a compilation of moral and religious teachings. Public schools are for educating minor children in the fundamentals of reading, mathematics, scientific methodology, engineering, artistic expression, logic, and reason. You know, tools and building blocks for future growth.

You can't "teach" the Bible in the schools without including all of the moralizing, the values, the dogmatic belief systems, the faith, and the righteousness. Not to mention, whose Bible are you going to teach? The Jewish Bible (hey, it came first you know), the Catholic one, the Methodist one, what about the Koran or the Hindu sacred texts? What about something for the atheists or the deists, what kind of Bible are you going to bring for them? Somebody else’s?

For a magazine that has more time for writing articles then a newspaper, it's pretty shocking how shallow you have become. It's like you're trying to compress seven days of car chase stupidity into a weekly magazine, instead of doing in depth and truly thoughtful and well researched work.

Why didn't Time do the story on the conditions at Walter Reed, instead of a daily newspaper? Why hasn't Time researched the purge of the US Attorney's and the lies and dissembling from Gonzales and Crew that have followed the revelations of the Purge? How many people have resigned from the White House so far because of that story, and yet you want to write dreck about teaching that damnable book in Public Schools?

I guess because the religious fundamentalists of America have been screaming and shoving their precious Bible down our throats, it behooves the public schools to cave into that fundamentalist revisionism and start teaching their creed, since, to quote your lovely piece, "But then religion rushed into the public square."

All by itself it rushed into the public square, right? Dobson and Falwell and Robertson and Reagan and Bush evangelicalizing and fomenting their neo-fundamentalism on America, and we're expected to accept that frame and buy into the notion that Religion, IXOYE style, is an intrinsic part of the American psyche, so gosh, we better teach it in the public schools.

If Thomas Jefferson were alive today he'd probably spend all of his days fused to his toilet, vomiting in despair and revulsion at what America is becoming, the antithesis of what the American Revolution was all about, a revolution of mind and spirit that Jefferson expressed in our Declaration of Independence. Teaching religion in the schools because a bunch of hypocritical blowhards with access and influence want to propagate their insidious fundamentalism hardly seems like a reason for rejecting the very foundations of this country.

But hey, your religion writer had a deadline to meet, right?
[Was that too harsh for Time? Think they'll publish it?]

Media Tidbit-CNBC Hearts Fox

Joe Kiernan, on Squawk Box had this little filler thing, the 3 "reporters" sitting around, talk show like, showing off the woman's legs, and Kiernan went off on the Dem's cancelling the Nevada Debate on Fox "News", although he tried to make it sound like it hadn't been cancelled. He defended Fox, questioning those nasty bloggers like Markos, those dirty hippies like MoveOn, wanting to know why the Dems want to associate with those off the chart wacko's instead of the mainstream massive majority of Democrats who should treat Fox as a fully legimate news organization. And of course they pooh poohed Ailes Obama / The Murderous Terrorist Bush Has Failed To Find slur, rightly viewed as an excuse for the pullout, but also NOT acknowledged as very indicitive of the nature of Faux "News."

Unbelievable, the hackery. He posited what next, the GOP boycott CNN???

Stop it Joe, yer killin me!!!! [sniff, wipes tear from eye]

There was no reason for this segment they had, it was just killing some time at the end of the hour, yet it accomplished many things for the corporate press. Legitimizes Faux, deligitimizes MoveOn and Kos, and confuses the border between the pure "news" divisions of the various networks, and their corporate activites like branding and ratings for their shows, etc. Faux running a political debate is not "news," it's a business function, and that's fine, there's nothing wrong with it, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with Democrats responding to the people they represent and deciding that it would be inappropriate to support that business function of a lying, smearing, pandering, bootlicking outfit like Faux News.

But CNBC "reporters" apparently got their marching orders from GE HQ, and decided that shilling for Faux was more important than journalistic integrity. Faux, CNN, CNBC, MSNBC, all legitimate "News" operations, and don't you dare think otherwise, oh, and don't listen to that huge number of dirty filthy hippies who believe in democracy and a free press and actual news reporting like the sort that Dana Priest has demonstrated with her Walter Reed stories.

Bi-Broder-Sans Grey Mystery Meat

Read Broder's Thursday column at work, just had a good laugh. What astounds me is how Mr Dean of the Fairies, er Pundocracy, Pundidiotocracy, Punditirodacy, DC Hand Jobbers, is how he forgets some minor factual matters in his desparate embrace of civility over substance, comity over progress, or congeniality over accomplishment.

For instance, and doesn't Tom Daschle make a fine example? Sen. Gopper Leader Frist campaigns against his opposite number, Sen. Daschle, breaking a 50 year tradition, straining the bonds of comity in the process. Sen. Daschle, of course, having been accused of all manor of heinous crimes, from treason to not being sufficiently supplicantable in his relations to George W Bush while, horrors, a war was happening, was so fierce and violent in his attacks against Bush that he had to be defeated you know.

"I don't think the success has been overstated. But the continued success I think is still somewhat in doubt. Whether we continue to succeed depends on whether we get the right answers to the questions Senator Byrd was posing yesterday. ... I will say that at this point, given the information we've been provided, I don't think it would do anybody any good to second-guess what has been done to date. I think it has been successful. I've said that on many, many occasions. But I think the jury's still out about future success, as I've said."

He also suggested Thursday that it was necessary for the United States to find Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaida leaders for the war on terrorism to be considered a success.

And in response Sen. Daschle got this:

Trent Lott, however, fired back almost immediately by attacking Daschle's right to criticize the Bush administration's prosecution of the war. "How dare Senator Daschle criticize President Bush while we are fighting our war on terrorism, especially when we have troops in the field," Lott stated. "He should not be trying to divide our country while we are united." Bill Frist, called Daschle's remarks "thoughtless and ill-timed." Meanwhile, Rep. Thomas Davis, claimed Daschle's "divisive comments have the effect of giving aid and comfort to our enemies by allowing them to exploit divisions in our country."

[...] Andrew Sullivan suggested that Daschle's comments marked the start of a campaign "to undermine the war in order to gain some political traction against the president."

Mr. Broder forgets stuff like that, forgets the ugly smears that republicans have been throwing out at Democrats for years, forgets the contempt that Republicans have demonstrated for Democrats in every way, remember Sensenbrenners fit at the basement hearings the Dems were having, just relagating them to basement hearings, Bill Thomas calling the cops on the Democrats, oh the list is a long one, why just yesterday some House gopper of some name, can't remember which one nor does it matter, kept making the snotty little Democrat Party comment, minor to be sure, but a petty insult that demonstrates the GOP's sense of comity nonetheless, yes, David Broder forgets that at the heart of this divide is nobody but Republicans.

Tom Daschle asks a wishy washy question, and you'd think he'd raped Mary Cheney for christssake. And David Broder thinks these eminent gris leaders are going to save the country from partisanship?? Broder wants gruel sans the grey lump of mystery meat or salt and thinks that is going to make this a better place for all.

As Ezra Klein notes though, tellingly so,

You can't bipartisan the health care crisis. You can't bipartisan Iraq. You can't bipartisan energy. There are solutions to these issues, and you have to be courageous enough and concerned enough to actually make the hard choices and advocate for the right ones. [That's why we have political parties, they think their own solutions are the right ones-DGR] And maybe, if you're forceful enough, and savvy enough, you can get members of both parties to agree that your solution is the right one. But you don't start with bipartisanship, you end with it.

Watch the News Hour

Friday's News Hour had some good reporting and discussions, even from Bobo, believe it or not.

And they even had a representative from the online world, Mark Benjamin from Salon.com. Bloggers have been talking about this story from day one, that's why Atrios was always wondering why Bush would never visit the troops there, DKos has had weekly discussions of the treatment of soldiers and veterans, people like Seven of Six have talked about their "adventures" with the VA, but until the WaPo went front page, nobody did didly. This exchange between Lehrer, a former Marine, and Bobo, not a former Marine, tells quite a lot:

DAVID BROOKS: And to me -- and I really wasn't aware of how much had been reported in Salon. I wasn't aware until Dana Priest just said it, that there had been a hearing.

JIM LEHRER: In 2005, and nobody paid any attention, including us.

As Judy Woodruff noted, now that we have a divided government again, these sorts of stories will come out. But the question is why they haven't before this? Why did/does the Bush Administration suppress so much about this war, beyond the fact that half of what they do is illegal, the other half incompetent?

They actually kindof discussed it in the Walter Reed story and in the Shields and Brooks discussion, but I'll summarize.

They don't want the people of this country to know the consequences of the Administration's War of Occupation. They don't want us to sacrifice, because if we become a part of this nightmare we will begin to seriously question why; those 30 percent dead enders that back Bush without question will start to wonder when things begin to impact their own Cheetos stained lives, those 10 percent supporters will not just leave Bush, but go after Bush and Cheney, and start to look for changes and solutions, will start demanding that the troops come home now, and it won't be unequivocable either. And Bush/Cheney can't afford that.

Because then stories like the two that followed Shields and Brooks will get addressed too, and then their whole criminal enterprise will come crashing down around their preciousssssssss corporate masters. Here's a link to the video of the Port Pollution story. Check it out too, it's quite interesting, and once again California is actually trying to fill the void left by Bush's Administration.

CNN Smears Vice President Gore

You've all probably read this piece at Kos, well, CNN just did their part this morning. I sent them some feedback, you should too. To wit:

I just heard your very brief "report" on Al Gore's energy use. If I heard it correctly, Ms. Stouffer said that "an environmental group" is criticizing Mr. Gore's home energy use.

This is some seriously poor reporting for a number of reasons, and I would like to see it retracted and corrected for the record.

First, you do not name the group. For all we know they could be a completely disreputable organization, or a group of two people claiming the label. This is horribly inaccurate and incomplete and misleading journalism. And as a matter of fact, I know who the group is, and they are not an environmental group at all, your reporter may have misspoken, regardless, since you left the group un-named, how could we tell?

Second, that group, "The Tennessee Center For Policy Research," IS a non-entity and hardly non-partisan, certainly deeply conservative, a fact you could determine with a little research. Look at who they link to, AEI, CATO, Club for Growth, Separation of School and State Alliance, all anti government, anti tax, highly conservative. And by reporting this group's attack on Mr. Gore, you give standing to an organization with NO standing, certainly not on a par with Mr. Gore.

Third, the attack is specious on many levels. Of course his energy consumption is higher than the average, his house is a bit bigger than the average home as well. And since you did nothing more than repeat this groups attack without verifying its validity or accuracy or context, you have simply participated in a right wing smear to discredit Mr. Gore and his message. As the Vice President's spokesman reports, "What Mr. Gore has asked is that every family calculate their carbon footprint and try to reduce it as much as possible. Once they have done so, he then advocates that they purchase offsets, as the Gore’s do, to bring their footprint down to zero."

Since you also don't report on what kind of activities go on in the Gore residence and guest house, such as intensive computer use, security equipment such as alarms, cameras, sensors etc, guests using the home as a research center, a well used home office, you know, figure out the context of WHY they use energy at the home, simply reporting a high level of energy usage is meaningless without that context, and, again, poor reporting.

Repeating a smear that begins with some conservative group of no real policy standing or credibility, and then moves on to a right wing smear gossip site like Drudge is poor reporting, shoddy reporting, lazy reporting, in fact, it isn't reporting at all, it's rumour mongering and partisan political attacks of the worst sort.

I want a correction, and I truly wish you people would do your damn job and, you know, RESEARCH before you report something. This charge against Mr. Gore is unfounded and nothing more than a conservative attack to try to stop us talking about global warming, and that CNN perpetuates that foolhardy behavior is almost criminal. Please stop. Report the NEWS, don't just repeat unfounded garbage handed to you. And don't tell us about time pressure, that is not an excuse.