atrios: The Villagers Heart Torture
The number of media outlets who have done what Andrea Mitchell has done, emphasizing the awesomeness of torture while ignoring the not awesome, tell us a lot.
Greenwald: The Pulitzer-winning investigation that dare not be uttered on TVIt must have killed AP's Ron Fournier (Karl Rove's pal who almost worked for McCain) to write this article. But, the numbers are what they are -- and the Americans are feeling better about the direction of the country. For the first time in a long time, more Americans think we're going in the right direction. That's the kind of change we needed:
[T]he percentage of Americans saying the country is headed in the right direction rose to 48 percent, up from 40 percent in February. Forty-four percent say the nation is on the wrong track.That's quite a turnaround. We have a president who appears to be working hard every day for the American people. We'll see how long it lasts. It's almost fitting that when Dick Cheney, Karl Rove and Newt Gingrich are re-rearing their ugly heads and looking backwards, the American people are feeling hopeful and looking forward.
Not since January 2004, shortly after the capture of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, has an AP survey found more "right direction" than "wrong direction" respondents. The burst of optimism didn't last long in 2004.
And it doesn't happen much.
Other than that blip five years ago, pessimism has trumped optimism in media polls since shortly after the invasion of Iraq in the spring of 2003.
The "right track" number topped "wrong direction" for a few months after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, according to non-AP media polls, and for several months late in the Clinton administration.
So far, Obama has defied the odds by producing a sustained trend toward optimism. It began with his election.
In October 2008, just 17 percent said the country was headed in the right direction. After his victory, that jumped to 36 percent. It dipped a bit in December but returned to 35 percent around the time of his inauguration and has headed upward since.
The New York Times' David Barstow won a richly deserved Pulitzer Prize yesterday for two articles that, despite being featured as major news stories on the front page of The Paper of Record, were completely suppressed by virtually every network and cable news show, which to this day have never informed their viewers about what Barstow uncovered. Here is how the Pulitzer Committee described Barstow's exposés:
Awarded to David Barstow of The New York Times for his tenacious reporting that revealed how some retired generals, working as radio and television analysts, had been co-opted by the Pentagon to make its case for the war in Iraq, and how many of them also had undisclosed ties to companies that benefited from policies they defended.
By whom were these "ties to companies" undisclosed and for whom did these deeply conflicted retired generals pose as "analysts"? ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, CNN and Fox -- the very companies that have simply suppressed the story from their viewers. They kept completely silent about Barstow's story even though it sparked Congressional inquiries, vehement objections from the then-leading Democratic presidential candidates, and allegations that the Pentagon program violated legal prohibitions on domestic propaganda programs. The Pentagon's secret collaboration with these "independent analysts" shaped multiple news stories from each of these outlets on a variety of critical topics. Most amazingly, many of them continue to employ as so-called "independent analysts" the very retired generals at the heart of Barstow's story, yet still refuse to inform their viewers about any part of this story.
And even now that Barstow yesterday won the Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting -- one of the most prestigious awards any news story can win -- these revelations still may not be uttered on television, tragically dashing the hope expressed yesterday (rhetorically, I presume) by Media Matters' Jamison Foser that "maybe now that the story has won a Pulitzer for Barstow, they'll pay attention." Instead, it was Atrios' prediction that was decisively confirmed: "I don't think a Pulitzer will be enough to give the military analyst story more attention."
- NPR's All Things Considered also ignored it.
DougJ: There, but for the grace of God, torture I?
Roger Cohen has become a mostly thoughtful voice on foreign policy at the Times, but this makes next-to-no sense:
To some degree, words failed us all in the aftermath of 9/11, a time of fear and disorientation. Journalists did not meet the challenge of holding the executive branch accountable, politically and morally, in the run-up to the Iraq war. Such failures, it is true, were not gross manipulations of the law in the service of inhumanity, but they were failures nonetheless. And they carried a human price.
So I’m wary of the clamor for retribution. Congress failed. The press failed. The judiciary failed. With almost 3,000 dead, America’s checks and balances got skewed, from the Capitol to Wall Street. Scrutiny gave way to acquiescence. Words were spun in feckless patterns.
[....]
That, of course, is Obama’s favorite word: responsibility. I think it demands some acknowledgment that, “There but for the grace of God go I.”
I understand being ambivalent about prosecutions. I am ambivalent myself, without knowing in advance what an investigation might unearth. But this “we all failed” stuff is just bullshit. There are plenty of dirty fucking hippies who opposed the craziness every step of the way. Words didn’t fail them.
And while I can sympathize with CIA interrogators who in some cases may have been following orders, how many of us really look at Dick Cheney, who may have in effect ordered most of this, and think “There but the grace of God, go I”?
I put the following Benen post under "media" instead of "wingnuts" because of this comment in the thread:
"If these clowns keep screaming bloody murder over meaningless flaps that fall apart under scrutiny, it will be that much more difficult for them to be taken seriously when a genuine controversy arises."
Why would you think that? Has recent history ever given that impression?
The clowns impeached an extraordinarily popular president over something most of the country found silly. They made up lie after lie about Al Gore. They launched attacks on John Edwards' masculinity and Hillary Clinton's femininity. They got the entire country to seriously consider whether decorated Navy veteran John Kerry was a coward and a traitor.
Their reward for their over-the-top screeching has been to have their lies and attacks parroted by a compliant media. This has been true through my adult lifetime and I see no reason to assume it will ever change. Plunging the discourse into the sewer is our media's *job*, as far as I can tell.
Lies, trivia, nonsense, and fact-free dudgeon *work*. They are how you get things done politically nowadays. The Republicans know it, they are good at it, it's how they get their message out. If you think their winning formula is suddenly going to fall apart because they cross a line, you do not understand the American political system -- and you are a well-meaning enabler.
Posted by: Jamie McCarthy on April 23, 2009 at 8:04 AM | PERMALINK
Benen: THEY STILL REFUSE TO PACE THEMSELVES....
It's just not healthy for this many federal lawmakers to be this nutty.Conservative House Republicans are calling on their leaders to ask President Obama for Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano's resignation.
The Republicans think Napolitano should resign because of the release of a report that singled out conservatives as "right-wing terrorists," according to several GOP lawmakers. [...]
"I think leaders are going to bring it up with the president, maybe call for (her) resignation," one conservative member told The Hill Wednesday.
Several conservative Republicans broached the topic Wednesday morning during the open-mic portion of the GOP's closed-door conference meeting. They continued to beat the drum at the Republican Study Committee meeting later in the day.
Rep. John Carter (R) of Texas -- who, despite his apparent madness, is a member of the House Republican leadership -- told reporters, "Singling out political opponents for working against the ruling party is precisely the tactic of every tyrannical government from Red China to Venezuela. The first step in the process is creating unfounded public suspicion of political opponents, followed by arresting and jailing any who continue speaking against the regime."
It's hard to overstate how truly crazy this is. The Republican Study Committee has simply gone stark raving mad.
Neither DHS nor Napolitano "singled out" anyone -- the agency warned law-enforcement officials against potential violent radicals, both "left-wing" and "right-wing." If this was about generating "public suspicion of political opponents," why was the report in question initiated by an appointee of George W. Bush? What, exactly, did the DHS secretary do that warrants resignation?
I'd assumed last week that this was just a silly partisan game, launched by bored conservatives who have nothing better to do. No one, I thought, could be dumb enough to believe this nonsense. Now, I'm not so sure. It might still be about scoring some cheap partisan points, but these nuts seemed pretty serious yesterday.
The broader point, however, is that Republicans still haven't come to realize the benefit of pacing themselves. President Obama has only been in office for three months. At some point, there might be a cabinet secretary who does something that's actually controversial in reality, instead of just the overactive imaginations of rabid, unhinged House members.
If these clowns keep screaming bloody murder over meaningless flaps that fall apart under scrutiny, it will be that much more difficult for them to be taken seriously when a genuine controversy arises.
In this case, Obama should come out, reaffirm his confidence in Napolitano, and then discredit these idiots by pointing out that this Bush-requested, Bush-appointee-authored report, comprised largely of Bush FBI findings, never mentioned the word "conservative." If he uses the slightly mocking tone that he has perfected recently, it will be a slam dunk.
Posted by: BH on April 23, 2009 at 8:19 AM | PERMALINKBH said:
In this case, Obama should come out, reaffirm his confidence in Napolitano, and then discredit these idiots by pointing out that this Bush-requested, Bush-appointee-authored report, comprised largely of Bush FBI findings, never mentioned the word "conservative."Obama should also point out that this kind of silliness doesn't deserve his time and attention, but since the mainstream media refuses to report the facts and let everyone know that the Republicans are full of crap, then his only option is to speak publicly and bypass them.
If Obama embarrasses them enough, maybe some of the "journalists" will start to do their jobs.
Posted by: SteveT on April 23, 2009 at 8:33 AM | PERMALINKI think it's wonderful that the highest levels of elected Republicans are going out of their way to self-identify with the likes of McVeigh, Poplawski, and Aryan Nation. They more Boehner and crew get up in front of the camera to proclaim the equivalence of conservatives with violent right-wing extremists, the better educated the public becomes.
Go GOP!!
Posted by: Domage on April 23, 2009 at 8:35 AM | PERMALINK
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