MediaBloodhound

Op-Ed Column: Edwards' Iraq Proposals Misrepresented by NY Times

In case you missed Monday's New York Times cover story by Jeff Zeleny, here's what he reports on the Iraq position of the three Democratic presidential front-runners for '08: "The current Iraq proposals of Mr. Obama; Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Democrat of New York; and former Senator John Edwards of North Carolina share more similarities than differences, including a gradual withdrawal of troops."

Keep in mind this piece is not "news analysis." It's supposed to be straight reporting. You know, just the facts.

But here's a critical fact you don't see anywhere in the regular text, either on the cover or in the continuation page on A18: John Edwards is calling for an immediate withdrawal of 40,000 to 50,000 U.S. troops. (This is noted on the continuation page but is tucked into a side graph; it's even further obscured in the corresponding online article, in an easy-to-overlook, diminutive clickable graphic.)

Now, though Edwards, like Obama and Clinton, is calling for a gradual withdrawal of troops, it is woefully misleading to omit that he first plans to bring home up to 50,000 of our soldiers. Maybe this doesn't seem like a significant distinction to Zeleny and his editors at The Times, but I think the American people, especially the families of these young men and women, would strongly disagree. This would effectively send one-third of U.S. forces back to their loved ones and out of harm's way (roughly 145,000 are currently serving in Iraq). Here's more perspective: 50,000 is nearly double the total number of troops we currently have fighting in Afghanistan (27,000). Yet this substantial number of troops, to whom Edwards would like to give an immediate get out of hell free card, is somehow not substantial enough for The Times to cite as a major differentiator.

Even on the specific call for gradual withdrawal (after sending those initial tens of thousands of soldiers back home), Edwards proposes a complete withdrawal of combat troops "in the next 12 to 18 months, by the fall of 2008." He provides no accompanying wiggle room in this plan. His opponents? Obama says he wants all combat troops to be redeployed by March 31, 2008. But redeployment "can be suspended if Congress agrees that the Iraqi government has met 13 benchmarks for progress laid out by the Bush administration." So Obama might bring home troops five-to-six months earlier than Edwards, or he might scrap this plan for redeployment altogether should Congress have a change of heart. Clinton's timetable for withdrawal? It's not included here. Though when pressed by members of an audience at a recent town hall meeting, she finally said, "If I had been president in 2003, I never would have started this war, and if it is not ended when I'm president in 2009, I will end it." Some have pointed to this as a 2009 date for withdrawal, but even that might be generous. If she begins to "end it" in 2009, who's to say when in 2009 it might actually occur, or if complete withdrawal of combat troops doesn't take place until 2010 or 2011 or even later? The longer our troops are there, the greater the opportunity there is for politicians to keep them there. And what if she's not elected, nor Edwards, nor Obama, or whoever winds up as the Democratic presidential candidate?

If leadership isn't taken on this issue now, before the next president is elected, it leaves the door wide open for a McCain or Giuliani or some other unprincipled hawk to step in and say, like Bush now, "Success is our only option." We need only look at politicians' actions during Vietnam to imagine how easily this could happen. To see how the horror that is 3,000+ troops dead and tens of thousands wounded now could be dwarfed in the future. To see how a complicit mainstream press might ride the coattails of a new strongman, one with more gravitas than George W. Bush, who decides the only way to pay tribute to the ever-mounting deaths of our soldiers is to make sure we win this war.

So here's the quick breakdown: Edwards would have them out by fall 2008. Period. End of story. Obama might have them out five or six months earlier but leaves open a potential gaping loophole that could put a kibosh on any troops leaving then, with no contingency end date should that happen. In which case, who knows how much longer they could languish in the desert? And Clinton refuses to set any firm date, saying, in effect, that she'll take care of it if she's elected.

Does this sound like they "share more similarities than differences"?

Moreover, upon closer inspection of the three Iraq proposals in the side graphic, Edwards' plan also stands in stark contrast in a couple of other decidedly critical areas.

Edwards wants to cap "financing for the troops in Iraq at 100,000 troops." Both Obama and Clinton want to cap troop levels where they were before the escalation (at roughly 145,000). But what's an extra 40,000 or 50,000 of our soldiers stuck in a senseless slaughterhouse? (Four more U.S. soldiers were killed in just the last 24 hours, three from roadside bombs; it's as predictable as it is sad.)

Finally, Edwards' proposed complete withdrawal by fall 2008 comes with a promise to not leave behind "any permanent U.S. military base in Iraq." Another key aspect of Edwards' plan that Zeleny and The Times find too minor to note as a differentiator. Obama and Clinton propose no such decisive blow to our status as occupiers.

And "decisive" is the operative word when you compare Edwards' stated Iraq proposals to those of Obama's and Clinton's. "Clear" might be another. Edwards, to some degree, as opposed to his opponents, has stuck his neck out. And his proposals are neither gimmicky, muddled nor hedged. He calls for immediate action, with clear dates and no loopholes. By downplaying Edwards' differences in the service of this article, Zeleny and The Times not only mislead their readers and misrepresent a presidential candidate's views, but also detract from an honest national discourse on how to proceed in Iraq.

The Wounded-Courier: Vilsack Falls Victim to Grinding Obscurity

DES MOINES, IA - Democrat Tom Vilsack, the former Iowa governor who built a centrist image that inspired nearly eight American citizens, abandoned his bid for the presidency on Friday after struggling against the dark forces of reality. 

The fiery self-delusion that compelled Vilsack to launch his presidential campaign was still on display, if somewhat tempered. “It is money and only money that is the reason we are leaving today,” Vilsack told reporters at a news conference, later adding, “Money…money and the fact that my name is Vilsack.”

With his wife Christie and two grown sons by his side, Vilsack conceded, “I came up against something for the first time in my life that hard work and effort could not overcome. I think scientists refer to it as ‘negative matter.’ Imagine a black hole where no charisma exists. Then imagine me in there. Apparently, this didn’t work in my favor.”

One of his supporters, George Stubbs of Des Moines, a 46-year-old former Buddhist who designs custom-made cattle prods, has encouraged Vilsack to team up with Senator Evan Bayh (D-Indiana) in what he believes would be the most electrifying campaign duo since Michael Dukakis and Lloyd Benson captured the imagination of a country thirsting for entrenched mediocrity. “Bayh-Vilsack? Are you kidding me?” Stubbs said between sips of what appeared to be a citrus-infused alcoholic beverage from a travel-size Head & Shoulders shampoo bottle. “One word: unstoppable. OK, two words: truly very much unstoppable. Not to be stopped, man. No way.”

Democratic front-runner Senator Hillary Clinton, fresh from a $400,000-a-scoop fundraiser at the Ben & Jerry’s factory in Vermont, congratulated Vilsack on his hard-fought campaign. “Some will say Tom Vilsack never had a chance. But Tom Vilsack was the first to drop out of this race. Number one. And no one can ever take that milestone away from him,” said Clinton, as a fleet of armored Brink’s trucks backed up to the factory and began loading hundreds of crates stuffed with stacks of cash. Added Clinton, “A modern-day American hero, Tom Vilsack ignored the odds, disregarded the realities on the ground, was blinded by ego, coddled by the insular encouragement of family and friends, indifferent to basic arithmetic and ran heroically into the propeller blades of his destiny.”

Chip Kipples of Kipples, Shank & Shein, a political consulting and advertising firm based in Iowa that was hired and summarily fired by the Vilsack campaign only days into his presidential bid, expressed frustration over the failed run.

“If you’d only seen the umbrella media campaign we were poised to unleash…” said Kipples, a veteran of local politics and extreme cow-tipping. Standing, Kipples held his hand aloft and delivered a string of ill-fated campaign slogans: “‘We could all use some Vilsack.’ ‘Macking with the sack. Vilsack.’ ‘America’s got a Vilsack attack.’ ‘The ’sack is back in town.’ Catchy, no?”

A new CNN/NY Times poll shed further light on Vilsack’s uphill battle. Outside his own state of Iowa, only .02% of the American public had heard of his name. Of that .02%, 70% of respondents thought “Vilsack” was not a former governor but a medical condition akin to a hernia; 20% believed it was a genetic disorder affecting the shape of the scrotum; 9% were convinced it was a STD; and 1% said it was furry nocturnal animal with an elongated tail and no legs.

Story of the Day: U.S. Citizen, Jose Padilla, Tortured Until Broken

When historians look back on George W. Bush’s war on terror, the case of Jose Padilla may come to symbolize the brutality, inhumanity and futility of this entire campaign.

Accused al-Qaida operative Jose Padilla suffers from intense stress and anxiety stemming from his isolated years in military custody and cannot adequately help his lawyers prepare for trial, two defense mental experts testified Thursday.

...

"He is immobilized by his anxiety," said Patricia Zapf, a forensic psychologist who administered tests on Padilla last October. "He believes he will go back to the brig and he will die there."

And he believes “he will die there” not only due to his “isolated years in military custody” but also because of the torture and cruel and inhumane treatment to which he was subjected during his incarceration. Additionally, “intense stress and anxiety” hardly sum up what he is suffering from, which, in part, includes post-traumatic stress disorder.

Now a little background from the AP:

Padilla, a 36-year-old U.S. citizen, is charged with being part of a North American terror support cell that provided money, recruits and supplies to Islamic extremists around the world. All three have pleaded not guilty and face possible life imprisonment.

The Bush administration initially claimed that Padilla was on an al-Qaida mission to detonate a radioactive "dirty bomb" in a major U.S. city when he was arrested in May 2002 at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport.

He was designated an "enemy combatant" and was imprisoned by the military without criminal charges. But the dirty-bomb allegations are not part of the Miami case.

If you ever wonder why a greater number of Americans are not more outraged by cases like Padilla’s, these three paragraphs prove instructive.

First, there’s the order of information. That he was jailed without charge is slipped matter-of-factly into the last of the three paragraphs. The number of years, three and a half, is not mentioned here; though it is four paragraphs later, a full eleven paragraphs into the article, and even that’s muddied in an allusion to “his 3 1/2 years in the brig.” To separate these two factors - incarceration without charge and the number of years held - simply boggles the mind. Imagine a report in which you’re told a man was pistol whipped by an assailant in one paragraph while information that he died only comes paragraphs later, presented as if the two weren’t directly connected. Nor are we told when Padilla was formally charged by the Bush administration (November 2005). Thus, the math is not even there for the reader to do if he wanted.

Then there’s the skeletal, and consequent misleading, encapsulation both of what he was finally charged with and what the Bush administration originally claimed was behind his arrest. The indictment against Padilla is known in the intelligence community to be flimsy at best yet is presented here as if it’s clear-cut. And “The Bush administration initially claimed that Padilla was on an al-Qaida mission to detonate a radioactive ‘dirty bomb’ in a major U.S. city…” is quite an understatement. The administration, with then Attorney General John Ashcroft as head cheerleader, hailed Padilla’s arrest as one of the most significant victories in the war on terror before sticking him in a dark hole in solitary confinement where he would be tortured and treated cruelly and inhumanely for three-and-a-half years without ever being charged with a crime.

Finally, back to the screwy order of information: We then have to go to the final of these three paragraphs for: “But the dirty-bomb allegations are not part of the Miami case.” Far more than not being “part of the Miami case,” the one in which he's been charged, all of those prior allegations are dead in the water. No credible evidence was found to charge Padilla for trying to make and use a dirty bomb. Therefore, the initial and much ballyhooed justification for his arrest and incarceration was utterly baseless. A sham. Padilla's arrest was leveraged in much the same manner the administration used the infamous “Mission Accomplished” banner: as an illusion of success to keep the wheels of war turning. So with no evidence and growing questions about Bush’s right to hold detainees indefinitely without charge, new charges suddenly appeared against Padilla.

Failing to connect these dots for the reader is more than a disservice; it is intellectually dishonest journalism. Scattering facts about the page does not suffice. Presenting news in a logical order, with coherent background information, should be requisite for any report - but especially for one dealing with such a serious topic.

Padilla's symptoms are most acute when he is asked to talk about his 3 1/2 years in the brig, including interrogations techniques used on him, or to review evidence in his criminal case, including transcripts of intercepted telephone conversations, [Dr. Angela] Hegarty [a forensic neuropsychiatrist] said.

"He doesn't want to because it hurts so much, and because it hurts so much he shuts down," Hegarty said.

When Padilla is asked about his case or the brig, [Patricia] Zapf [a forensic psychologist] said, he becomes noticeably tense, begins to sweat, tries to change the subject and rocks back and forth while hunched over. She said he was adamant that he did not want to testify in his own defense.

"He said he can't relive it, he can't go through it again, and he can't name names," Zapf said.

I’ll leave you with a trip down the memory hole, a glimpse into Padilla's living hell, the very definition of tyranny under which Padilla dwelled for those three-and-a-half years. The following scene, a description of Padilla being taken to a military dentist for a root canal, was viewed on videotape obtained by his lawyers and reported in The New York Times in December 2006. (Keep in mind that one of his lawyers, Andrew Patel, said in his affidavit, “I was told by members of the brig staff that Mr. Padilla’s temperament was so docile and inactive that his behavior was like that of ‘a piece of furniture.’”)

''Today is May 21,'' a naval official declared to a camera videotaping the event. ''Right now we're ready to do a root canal treatment on Jose Padilla, our enemy combatant.''

Several guards in camouflage and riot gear approached cell No. 103. They unlocked a rectangular panel at the bottom of the door and Mr. Padilla's bare feet slid through, eerily disembodied. As one guard held down a foot with his black boot, the others shackled Mr. Padilla's legs. Next, his hands emerged through another hole to be manacled.

Wordlessly, the guards, pushing into the cell, chained Mr. Padilla's cuffed hands to a metal belt. Briefly, his expressionless eyes met the camera before he lowered his head submissively in expectation of what came next: noise-blocking headphones over his ears and blacked-out goggles over his eyes. Then the guards, whose faces were hidden behind plastic visors, marched their masked, clanking prisoner down the hall to his root canal.

If mainstream news outlets spent a fraction of the time they do on such stories as Anna Nicole Smith’s death or folks lost on Mt. Hood or John Mark Karr’s in-flight dinner as they did on this administration’s glaring Constitutional and human rights abuses, maybe Jose Padilla would not be a broken man today.

Maybe. But it's too late for this U.S. citizen. A terrorized, quavering shell of his former self, Jose Padilla is now just another casualty among the hundreds of thousands of human beings whose lives have been shattered or snuffed out by George W. Bush's perpetual war for perpetual peace.

AP Experts: Padilla Unable to Stand Trial, by Curt Anderson
Associated Press

Story of the Day: The Daily Show's Anna Nicole Smith Smackdown

If you missed The Daily Show's response to the coverage of Anna Nicole Smith's death, do yourself a favor and check it out. While the entire segment is hilarious, hitting on various lowlights and shameless techniques, Jon Stewart aptly sums up this bottom-feeding frenzy in one sentence:

STEWART: The media unleashed a full-scale coverage orgy, with CNN at one point going 90 minutes without a commercial, making the death of Anna Nicole Smith a more significant news event than a State of the Union address and slightly less than 9/11.

And these are the same people who cry foul when accused of shoddy journalism (just think of their wounded response to Stephen Colbert's speech at the White House Correspondents' Dinner last year  - and he's a satirist). I had CNN on today for a couple of hours in the background and you'd think that the biggest threat facing mankind are avalanches.

After the John Mark Karr circus, every major news outlet in this country should've issued an apology and a pledge to never repeat the same mistake (I'm referring to the type of nonsensical saturation of coverage; never mind that Karr wasn't even the right guy). Though, to no one's surprise, none did.

Their coverage of Anna Nicole Smith's death is merely a reminder of the depths to which they're willing to sink without regard to news that actually affects us.

The Daily Show Rips MSM for Anna Nicole Coverage
TDS (via Crooks and Liars)

Story of the Day: Citizens of the World Reject "Clash of Civilizations"

War remains the decisive human failure.
~John Kenneth Galbraith

As the Bush administration continues its "Give War A Chance" policy towards Iran, a new poll shows that the citizens of nearly every country - including our own - believe there is hope to avoid the neo-con/al-Qaeda deathwish for a battle of civilizations.

From the BBC:

Most people believe common ground exists between the West and the Islamic world despite current global tensions, a BBC World Service poll has found.

In a survey of people in 27 countries, an average of 56% said they saw positive links between the cultures.

...

Doug Miller, president of polling company Globescan, said the results suggested that the world was not heading towards an inevitable and wide-ranging "clash of civilisations".

"Most people feel this is about political power and interests, not religion and culture," he said.

...

The most positive respondents came from Western nations, with 78% of Italians, 77% of Britons and 73% of Canadians saying it is possible to find common ground. [Americans came in at 64%.]

...

The BBC poll asked approximately 1,000 people in each of 27 countries three questions about their interpretation of the world they live in.

Most expressed the belief that ongoing clashes could be resolved without violent conflict.

Unfortunately, of course, wars are fought by citizens but waged by governments. It's one of the reasons why it's crucial for a country's press to vigorously question the evidence that governments present for war, hold them accountable for war profiteering, demand and report accurate civilian and troop casualties, and give anti-war demonstrations fair exposure.

Sadly, on the whole, our mainstream press fails on all accounts. (Watch how much play this story gets.)

Meanwhile, different sides of the same coin, George W. Bush and the Osama bin Ladens of the world have no qualms about sacrificing young lambs to further their goals. Even if the majority of human beings stand against them.

Poll Sees Hope in West-Islam Ties
BBC News

Op-Ed Column: Dowd Does Hatchet Job on Obama

When Maureen Dowd is good, she’s very good. But when she’s bad, she’s not always better.

Dowd has written some brilliant columns over the years. When she’s on, she can be hilarious, incisive, morally outraged and lyrical all in the same article, often in the same sentence. But when she falters, it's almost invariably because of one recurring weakness: an unchecked cattiness that causes her to stray from substance and overly project onto her subjects. Further compounding the matter, when this does happen she's given to overstating her observations as if to make up for the fact that they’re built less upon issues or facts than a kind of high school pettiness.

In today’s column, “Obama, Legally Blonde?”, Dowd begins with a projection: “Barack Obama looked as if he needed a smoke and he needed it bad.” And then follows it up with a barrage of them:

He was a tad testy. Traipsing around desolate stretches of snowy – and extremely white – Iowa to go into living rooms and high school gyms and take questions like "Are you willing to stand up for independent family farmers?" makes me want to sneak out for a drag, too, and I don’t even smoke.

In addition to ascribing more feelings to Obama, what else could she be implying from “Traipsing around desolate stretches of snowy – and extremely white – Iowa...” other than part of the reason Obama was “a tad testy” was a result of being in a predominantly white area of the country? If intended, it’s a particularly unseemly and irresponsible projection on Dowd’s part; if unintended, a most unfortunate editorial oversight.

“I’ve been chewing Nicorette all day long," he told reporters at a press conference in Ames on Sunday, where he was getting irritated at suggestions that he lacked substance and at the specter of his vanishing privacy.

The Howard Dean-ing of Obama continues, now literally taking a page from Dean’s prior critics in the mainstream press. Look out: every now and then he’s not ready with a smile and curtsying profusely for his media courtiers.

The Illinois senator didn’t have on an implacable mask of amiability, as Hillary did in Iowa. He didn’t look happily in his element, like Bill Clinton.

Quick! Someone tell Obama that he has to be less genuine. Quick! Before the masses take to a politician who might not be full of it 24/7.

Beyond his smooth-jazz façade, the reassuring baritone and that ensorcelling smile, the 45-year-old had moments of looking conflicted.

Uh-oh. More moments devoid of soulless calculation (if he indeed was “conflicted” to begin with). Ponder such crack observations for his alleged unease:

In the lobby of the AmericInn in Iowa Falls on Saturday night, he seemed a bit dazed by his baptism into the big-time. He was left munching trail mix all day while, he said, "the press got fed before me."

Everything was a revelation for him: The advance team acronym RON, for Rest Overnight. Women squealing. "I saw a hat," he noted with a grin, "that said, ‘Obama, clean and articulate.'"

How many trivial slights and pejorative descriptions can Dowd pack into this article?

Senator Obama’s body language was loose — and he’s so slender his wedding band looked as if it was slipping off — but there was a wariness in his dark eyes.

Yes, a “wariness in his dark eyes.”

He is backed up by a strong, smart wife and a professional campaign team, but he doesn’t have a do-whatever-it-takes family firm with contract killers and debt collectors, like Bush Inc. and Clinton Inc.”

Well, hallelujah! Tell me how that's not a positive thing? I don’t want my president to have a “family firm with contract killers and debt collectors,” thank you. Just like I don't want my presidential candidate's most memorable quote thus far to be "I'm in it to win it."

He was eloquent, if not as inspiring as his advance billing had prepared audiences to expect. He made his first Swift-boat-able slip when he had to apologize for talking about soldiers’ lives “wasted” in Iraq. He sounded self-consciously pristine at times, as if he was too refined for the muck of politics. That’s not how you beat anybody but Alan Keyes.

In this one paragraph, Dowd slags his undeniable gift as an electrifying speaker (though the best she can muster is say he wasn't quite as electrifying as advertised), tosses raw meat to the Swift Boat crowd (as if they'll need it) and paints the junior senator from Illinois as an elitist (i.e., paging Al Gore).

To make sure you didn't miss Obama's holier-than-thou 'tude, Dowd notes:

After talking to high school journalists, he took a sniffy shot at the loutish reporters who were merely whispering where’s the beef: “Take some notes, guys, that’s how it’s done.”

No fewer than three times last week, Mr. Obama got indignant about the beach-babe attention given to a shot of him in the Hawaiian surf.

Using the dreaded third person that some candidates slip into, he told the press that one of their favorite narratives boiled down to “Obama has pretty good style, he can deliver a pretty good speech, but he seems to prioritize rhetoric over substance.” After an ode to his own specificity, he tut-tutted, “You’ve been reporting on how I look in a swimsuit.”

"He took a sniffy shot"; "Mr. Obama got indignant"; "Using the dreaded third person that some candidates slip into" (no, Maureen: he's using their words, not his; he's not speaking of himself); "After an ode to his own specificity, he tut-tutted."

Maureen Dowd does not like Barack Obama. And so, dear reader, she's going to do her damnedest to convince you not to like him either.

He poses for the cover of Men’s Vogue and then gets huffy when people don’t treat him as Hannah Arendt.

Are we really going to start grading the candidates based on which media outlets they show up in or on? Besides, Dowd is creative. If it weren't Men's Vogue, she'd be knocking him for posing in another magazine or turning up on another radio program or TV show: Rolling Stone (insert marijuana and coke jokes), Air America (is he the next Mondale?), The Economist (see prior elitist remarks), The Colbert Report (more lightweight fodder), and on and on. It's not merely pointless. It's so bloody random as well. She's accusing Obama of being a lightweight for showing up on the cover of a particular magazine, yet she fails to see how meaningless - how very lightweight - it is worth noting.

For some of us, it’s hard to fathom being upset at getting accused of looking great in a bathing suit. But his friends say it played into this Harvard grad’s fear of being seen as “a dumb blond.” He has been known to privately mock “pretty boys” (read John Edwards, the Breck Girl of 2004).

Well, OK, this has degenerated into nonsense now. Get a load of this guy, all you regular Joes and Janes out there: he's complaining about being good-looking. Meanwhile, she knows it's not about that. It's a cheap shot. Also, which "friends" of Obama's would be spilling to Dowd his fear of a "dumb blond" label? And for good measure, Dowd manages to knock Edwards in the process for being "the Breck Girl of 2004." (That former Breck Girl now happens to be only one of the three leading Democratic candidates to call for an immediate withdraw from Iraq. There's not one word in this column as to Obama's position on the war, or, for that matter, on any of his positions.)

He doesn’t lack confidence, but he’s so hung up on being seen as thoughtful that he sometimes comes across as too emotionally detached and cerebral with crowds yearning for an electric, visceral connection. J.F.K. mixed cool with fire.

Does this sound even remotely like the Barack Obama we have all seen? "J.F.K. mixed cool with fire"? What does that even mean? Maureen, please stop lunching with Tom Friedman. I'm afraid his forced metaphors might be rubbing off on you. Though I pray not.

For a man who couldn’t wait to inject himself into the national arena, and who has spent so much time writing books about himself, the senator is oddly put off by press inquisitiveness.

They all write books about themselves. That's what presidential candidates do these days, and have done for quite some time now. This is but another intellectually dishonest attack, intended to pile on to her portrait of arrogance. That, of course, is sandwiched between the first and third attack in the sentence: too much ambition and a surly secretive quality, respectively. 

When The Times’s Jeff Zeleny asked him on his plane whether he’d had a heater in his podium during his announcement speech in subzero Springfield, Mr. Obama hesitated. He shot Jeff a look that said, “Are you from People magazine?” before conceding that, unlike Abe Lincoln, he’d had a heater.

Finally, a projection from Dowd that seems dead-on. It does sound like a question posed by a People magazine reporter. And, go figure, maybe Obama expected something a little more substantive. A question befitting a serious journalist from a serious newspaper. I hope that's what Obama was thinking. It's the same thing many of us have been saying and thinking for years now: Hey, why don't you guys do your job?

Appalled by the Bush administration's criminal negligence and complete disregard for the rule of law and human suffering, Dowd, rightly, has skewered and, at times, hammered this president and his henchmen. But in writing a column that so desperately seeks to highlight potentially niggling flaws of a potentially great leader, she only increases the chances that we'll end up with another presidential lightweight. Or worse.

Dowd ends her column with this parting shot: "Take some notes, senator, that’s how it’s done."

With all due respect, Maureen, I suggest you do the same.

Story of the Day: Axis of Weasels Strikes Again

Salon's Tim Grieve picks up today where so many of us in progressive media have been focusing:

In an August 2004 respective on journalism in the run-up to the Iraq war, Washington Post editor Leonard Downie Jr. was asked to explain how two stories that called into question the case for war wound up buried deep inside his newspaper. His answer, at least in part: The stories relied on anonymous sources.

You might remember Leonard. He's the same WashPo editor who in March 2006 said he was "concerned" about the "more aggressive stance by the government [in cracking down on leaks]." But then pointed out that "the Post had at times honored government requests not to report particularly sensitive information, such as the location of CIA prisons in Eastern Europe."

Holding fast to the facts and journalistic integrity do not appear to be his strong suit.

So what's on the front page of the Washington Post today? A 2,600-word story linking Iran to weapons that are killing U.S. soldiers in Iraq -- a 2,600-word story that is based almost entirely on unnamed sources. We say "almost entirely" because the Post's Joshua Partlow does quote one official by name: Labeed M. Abbawi, an Iraqi deputy foreign minister, who says that it is "difficult" to "accept whatever the American forces say is evidence" because the Americans won't speak openly.

The rest of the story? The part that makes an Iran-Iraq link? Every bit of it comes from unnamed sources, some of whose identities the Post itself doesn't even know. The story starts with the words "senior U.S. officials" and descends deeper into anonymity from there. The Post says that reporters were briefed in Baghdad on the alleged Iran link by "a senior defense official, who was joined by a defense analyst and an explosives expert, both also from the military." The officials spoke "on the condition of anonymity," the Post says, and the analyst's "exact title and full name were not revealed to reporters."

And while Partlow cautions that the unnamed military officials weren't joined by U.S. diplomats or intelligence officials and offered "no evidence" that the "highest levels" of the Iranian government had sanctioned attacks on U.S. troops, the Post's editors still saw fit to put the piece at the top of A1 under the headline, "Military Ties Iran to Arms in Iraq: Explosives Supplied to Shiite Militias, U.S. Officials Say."

And it shouldn't surprise anyone - especially anyone who reads these pages - that The New York Times is right there with WashPo:

The New York Times also put its version of the story on the front page. The headline: "U.S. Says Arms Link Iranians to Iraqi Shiites: Using Serial Numbers as Proof of Origin."

Like the Post's Partlow, the Times' James Glanz dumps some cold water on the military's anonymous presentation. He says that an evidence-free "inference" of involvement by high-level Iranian leaders "and the anonymity of the officials" who made it "seemed likely to generate skepticism among those suspicious that the Bush administration is trying to find a scapegoat for its problems in Iraq, and perhaps even trying to lay the groundwork for war with Iran."

Journalists like Glanz defend such reporting by saying they're merely reporting the facts. But it is an intellectually dishonest account of the situation. Facts are not solely what officials are telling him. And limp allusions to what some critics might believe do not make up for the dearth of questioning.

Facts attained through responsible journalism, especially pertaining to the life and death of war, also call for context, both current and historical. No one in the their right mind can honestly look at the months now of this administration's war-mongering anti-Iran rhetoric (which officially began years ago with the disastrous "Axis of Evil" speech), as well as the more recent highly provocative U.S. military maneuvers, without directing extreme skepticism toward this White House's methods and motivations.

Speaking of skepticism, Grieve ends his article with this:

We'd add, as further cause for skepticism, the fact that the Bush administration was forced to postpone any evidentiary presentation to support the president's State of the Union claims about Iranian involvement in Iraq because, as Stephen Hadley acknowledged, an initial briefing planned by the military "overstated" the case that could be made. Glanz mentions the delay, but then says -- without any attribution whatsoever -- that it stemmed, in part, from "a view among officials in Washington that the original presentation was insufficiently strong."

Glanz also says that "whatever doubts were created about the timing and circumstances of the weapons disclosures, the direct physical evidence presented" by the anonymous military officials Sunday was "extraordinary."

Looking back in 2004 at their own prewar coverage, the Times' editors said that they wished they had been "more aggressive in re-examining the claims" about Iraq's WMD and ties to al-Qaida "as new evidence emerged -- or failed to emerge." With Glanz's having acknowledged room for "skepticism" over the Iran claims, can we expect to see that sort of "aggressive re-examining" before the shooting starts this time around?

Count me among the skeptics.

Iran and Iraq, anonymously, by Tim Grieve
The War Room

Op-Ed Column: Same As It Ever Was

As the saying goes, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Though the Democrats swept the midterm elections, they still can’t manage to call for a binding resolution against The Decider’s troop surge. And, for the most part, the mainstream media looks the other way while failing to make clear to the American people that the surge is already on.

Though many members of the media have confessed in the past, however tepidly, to not asking tough enough questions leading up to the war in Iraq, they are currently repeating  their mistakes with regards to the Bush administration’s assertions, and now alleged proof, that Iran is killing our soldiers in Iraq.

Though they cry foul when attacked for concentrating their coverage on subjects such as John Mark Karr or TomCat’s wedding while Iraq burns, genocides flourish, our Constitution withers, New Orleans languishes and oceans rise, they pounced on Anna Nicole Smith’s sad yet otherwise inconsequential death with the kind of self-control exhibited by crack-addicted monkeys.

Though members of this same media often decry the quality of the presidents from which we are left to choose every four years – in between yucking it up at what jolly good fun these darn horse races are - they continue, more than any other factor in our political system with the possible exception of money, to determine who is nominated, who is elected and what we think of them.

An Associated Press article from this past week not only contributes to the long history of media bias and absurd focus on non-issues, but also injects a creepy racism into its portrait, however unintentional.

The article’s title, “Obama Had Multi-Ethnic Existence in Hawaii,” reveals the type of media coverage the junior senator from Illinois has received thus far. Barack Hussein (yes, get over it) Obama (no, not Osama!), in case you haven’t heard, is half-black and half-white. Before officially declaring his candidacy this weekend, Obama has already had his middle name repeatedly disparaged by “respectable” pundits; his first name misspelled to link him to Osama bin Laden and his image placed alongside stories about  Bin Laden by major news outlets, including CNN and Yahoo News; and was accused by many in the media of having attended an extremist Muslim school as a child (the story turned out to be untrue, though we all know how effectively an accusation alone can linger and fester in voters’ minds).

So right from the start, the article’s title begs the question: How much progress have we made since Martin Luther King Jr. dreamed of a day when we’ll live in a country where Americans “will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character”?  Judging from this article, not enough.

If the level of ethnic diversity, or lack thereof, in the background of all presidential candidates were a common topic of media coverage, that would be one thing. But I don’t recall any articles pointing out George W. Bush’s decidedly homogeneous, privileged and socially cloistered upbringing. Do you? Bush and many people brought up in his conservative circles, for example, don’t tend to favor throwing the poor a life preserver, unless it’s connected to an anchor. It makes sense, then, that a presidential candidate who shows a distinct inability to empathize with all Americans, first as human beings and then as countrymen with different beliefs and cultures and ethnicities, may not be capable of representing this diverse nation.

So if that’s what the mainstream media wants, I say bring it on. But I don’t think that’s the case, which is why we get this:

“He was known as Barry Obama, and with his dark complexion and mini-Afro, he was one of the few blacks at the privileged Hawaiian school overlooking the Pacific…. As he pursues the presidency, the chapters of Obama's unfamiliar biography are drawing greater scrutiny. The Democratic senator from Illinois was born in Honolulu 45 years ago and lived in one the country's most diverse metropolitan areas for the better part of 18 years. He spent four childhood years in Indonesia.”

But it is not his general biography that is “drawing greater scrutiny” – president of the Harvard Law Review, graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, professor of constitutional law at University of Chicago Law School, elected to Illinois State Senate in 1996, opposed the 2003 invasion of Iraq - rather, it is his specific ethnicity within the biography. It’s one thing to touch on this but quite another to make it the sole focus.

In his 1995 memoir, "Dreams From My Father," Obama recalls experiencing some discrimination growing up in the islands, such as when other kids laughed at his name.

“I tried to raise myself to be a black man in America, and beyond the given of my appearance, no one around me seemed to know exactly what that meant," he wrote. But Obama acknowledges he wasn't growing up in the Jim Crow South or the housing projects of Harlem - he was in Hawaii, where his peers mostly treated him the same as others.

Since the strands of this ethnography are presented in such fragmented bits, where no connection is made until the very last line of the story that these events might have led Obama to more easily embrace all Americans, this article, inadvertently or not, plays right into the hands of racists on both sides: he’s black, but he’s really white; he’s half-white, but he’s really black. Rather than a man who sees all sides, this disjointed background material presents him as a man with no country, i.e., a candidate who might be incapable of drawing enough votes from either side. Twenty paragraphs later, in that last line, Obama is quoted as saying, “The opportunity that Hawaii offered - to experience a variety of cultures in a climate of mutual respect - became an integral part of my world view, and a basis for the values that I hold most dear.”

Editorially speaking, that’s twenty paragraphs too late. 

Then there are the numerous allusions to his basketball prowess, as though this defines him:

• At Punahou, Barack Obama was known primarily for his appealing personality, his honesty and his aggressive play on the basketball court.

• "He always had a basketball in his hands and was always looking for a pickup game," said teammate Larry Tavares, 46, now an estate planner at First Hawaiian Bank.

• A lanky, left-handed forward, Obama became known for his elusive moves on the basketball court.

• By his senior year, Obama was part of a talented team with at least three college-bound players. As a backup forward, Obama helped Punahou win the state championship in 1979.

And then this:

As a teenager, Obama went to parties and sometimes sought out gatherings on military bases or at the University of Hawaii that were mostly attended by blacks. He wrote in his book that he tried drugs and let his grades slip in his final years of high school.”

I almost don’t know where to begin with this paragraph. It is a journalistic abomination. “As a teenager, Obama went to parties…”? Really? You mean like 99.9% of other Americans. He attended “gatherings at military bases or at the University of Hawaii that were mostly attended by blacks”? I’m sorry but what could possibly be a reason for pointing this out other than to call into question his decision to attend allegedly predominant black parties? The words alone, “mostly attended by blacks,” has an accusatory tone, as if this were the case it would be a crime. In context of how little we heard of Bush’s coke use and alcoholism during the 2000 election, that Obama “…tried drugs and let his grades slip in his final years of high school” seems all the more inconsequential, even gratuitous here. Especially for a guy who then went on graduate magna cum laude from Harvard Law School.

To be fair, the article does note some of Obama’s positive traits, but on the whole is such a tone deaf hash of reporting that it's reminiscent of the kind of cluelessness Senator Joseph Biden displayed when he attempted to compliment Obama by calling him “clean.”

It’s not just that Barack Hussein Obama deserves better. We all do.

Story of the Day: Investigating Detainee Abuse in Kafka's World

Just a reminder: Torture is still "legal" in this land of liberty and supported by this freedom-loving White House. And, like General Francisco Franco, habeas corpus is still dead. You wouldn't know it from reading mainstream papers and watching the networks. Like every serious issue covered by the national media, once the initial debate or amendment or ruling is over, or has siphoned valuable time away from celebrity squabbles and shark attacks, the issue drifts into the ether as if the problem has suddenly been solved, only to return like an infection that has grown chronic. 

Case in point is this story from the Associated Press, one that confirms all your worst fears about lack of oversight at Guantanamo Bay:

An Army officer who investigated possible abuse at Guantanamo Bay after some guards purportedly bragged about beating detainees found no evidence they mistreated the prisoners — although he did not interview any of the alleged victims, the U.S. military said Wednesday.

Justice served. The U.S. military investigated allegations of detainee abuse but failed to speak with those who were alleged to have been abused.

Col. Richard Bassett, the chief investigator, recommended no disciplinary action against the Navy guards named by Marine Sgt. Heather Cerveny, who had said that during a conversation in September they described beating detainees as common practice.

In an affidavit filed to the Pentagon's inspector general, Cerveny — a member of a detainee's legal defense team — said a group of more than five men who identified themselves as guards had recounted hitting prisoners. The conversation allegedly took place at a bar inside the base.

"The evidence did not support any of the allegations of mistreatment or harassment," the Miami-based Southern Command, which oversees Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in southeastern Cuba, said in a statement.

Insufficient evidence. But not how one normally thinks of that term. Rather, in this case, it is the act of evidence gathering itself that is insufficient. A purposeful smothering of truth.  It is corrupt. Shameful. Even cowardly. If these people want to support a system of torture and cruel and inhumane treatment (and I'd like to think that the majority of U.S. troops are not on board with this), then they should at least have the guts not to hide behind a kangaroo court of their peers. Can there be anything less honorable than such an act? Yet this is the very code of ethics that filters down from the high command in the White House: Just don't get caught.

Investigators conducted 20 interviews with "suspects and witnesses," the Southern Command said. Bassett did not interview any detainees, said Jose Ruiz, a Miami-based command spokesman.

"He talked to all the parties he felt he needed to get information about the allegations that were made," Ruiz said by telephone from Miami.

Sounds a lot like the technique George W. Bush employed in his internal investigation into who leaked Valerie Plame's name, doesn't it? But wait. In Bush's world, which is Kafka's world as much as it's Orwell's, the job is never complete until those seeking truth and justice are punished for their humanitarian hubris.

Bassett's findings were approved by Adm. James Stavridis, the head of the Southern Command.

The investigation began on Oct. 13 and was expanded ten days later to include a similar allegation from a civilian employee who recounted a conversation between a female guard and a male interrogator, according to the statement. Following Bassett's recommendations, Stavridis said a "letter of counseling" should be sent to the female guard who allegedly initiated a "fictitious account" of detainee abuse.

Bassett also accused Cerveny of filing a false statement during a brief meeting with her at the Marine base at Camp Pendleton, Calif., her boss, Marine Lt. Col. Colby Vokey, said last week.

Meanwhile, here's a rundown on what's missing from this article:

• A quote from Cerveny (though there is a photo of her at the top left of the page, which, positioned right below the headline "Military: No Gitmo guard abuse evident," at a glance, gives the impression that Cerveny might be one of the accused rather than being the courageous soldier who in fact brought these base and cowardly acts to light).

• Not just a mention that detainees weren't interviewed during the investigation but some context: the thoughts of a legal scholar, former military personnel, an ex-Guantanamo detainee - people who have legitimate insight into this case who weren't involved in its prosecution.

• The number of human beings still being held at Guantanamo without ever having been charged with a crime; the number of those who were held for years but have since been released after unimaginable psychological and physical abuse. Just one or two lines, that's all I'm asking here. This absence of context is irresponsible. When you see a Darfur article (and we surely don't see enough), you would be hard-pressed not to find in it somewhere a general line that gives you background information (e.g., over 200,000 - though the number is probably more than double that - people have been killed and over 2.5 million displaced since the conflict began). But when it comes to people being held illegally, with no recourse, who are tortured and beaten and dispirited to the point of preferring death than to take one more day in this purgatorial hell, then they're not worth citing in context to a story about alleged detainee abuse?

I rest my case.

Military: No Gitmo guard abuse evident, by Michael Melia
Associated Press

Story of the Day: A Tribute to Molly Ivins

Here are some of my favorite Molly Ivin quotes, followed by a star-studded tribute:

The Serious Molly

What you need is sustained outrage...there's far too much unthinking respect given to authority.

The thing about democracy, beloveds, is that it is not neat, orderly, or quiet. It requires a certain relish for confusion.

You can't ignore politics, no matter how much you'd like to.

One function of the income gap is that the people at the top of the heap have a hard time even seeing those at the bottom. They practically need a telescope. The pharaohs of ancient Egypt probably didn't waste a lot of time thinking about the people who built their pyramids, either. OK, so it's not that bad yet -- but it's getting that bad.

Although it is true that only about 20 percent of American workers are in unions, that 20 percent sets the standards across the board in salaries, benefits and working conditions. If you are making a decent salary in a non-union company, you owe that to the unions. One thing that corporations do not do is give out money out of the goodness of their hearts.

It is possible to read the history of this country as one long struggle to extend the liberties established in our Constitution to everyone in America.

You want moral leadership? Try the clergy. It's their job.

Conservatives have been mad at the Supreme Court since it decided to desegregate the schools in 1954 and seen fit to blame the federal bench for everything that has happened since then that they don’t like.

What stuns me most about contemporary politics is not even that the system has been so badly corrupted by money. It is that so few people get the connection between their lives and what the bozos do in Washington and our state capitols.

Politics is not a picture on a wall or a television sitcom that you can decide you don't much care for.

In the real world, there are only two ways to deal with corporate misbehavior: One is through government regulation and the other is by taking them to court. What has happened over 20 years of free-market proselytizing is that we have dangerously weakened both forms of restraint, first through the craze for "deregulation" and second through endless rounds of "tort reform," all of which have the effect of cutting off citizens' access to the courts. By legally bribing politicians with campaign contributions, the corporations have bought themselves immunity from lawsuits on many levels.

The United States of America is still run by its citizens. The government works for us. Rank imperialism and warmongering are not American traditions or values. We do not need to dominate the world. We want and need to work with other nations. We want to find solutions other than killing people. Not in our name, not with our money, not with our children's blood.

From her last column, January 11, 2007: We are the people who run this country. We are the deciders. And every single day, every single one of us needs to step outside and take some action to help stop this war. Raise hell. Think of something to make the ridiculous look ridiculous. Make our troops know we're for them and trying to get them out of there.

The Seriously Funny Molly

The first rule of holes: when you're in one, stop digging.

I believe in practicing prudence at least once every two or three years.

I am not anti-gun. I'm pro-knife. Consider the merits of the knife. In the first place, you have to catch up with someone in order to stab him. A general substitution of knives for guns would promote physical fitness. We'd turn into a whole nation of great runners. Plus, knives don't ricochet. And people are seldom killed while cleaning their knives.

It's hard to argue against cynics -- they always sound smarter than optimists because they have so much evidence on their side.

Being slightly paranoid is like being slightly pregnant - it tends to get worse.

I still believe in Hope - mostly because there's no such place as Fingers Crossed, Arkansas.

During a recent panel on the numerous failures of American journalism, I proposed that almost all stories about government should begin: "Look out! They're about to smack you around again!"

I dearly love the state of Texas, but I consider that a harmless perversion on my part, and discuss it only with consenting adults.

As they say around the Texas Legislature, if you can't drink their whiskey, screw their women, take their money, and vote against 'em anyway, you don't belong in office.

I know vegetarians don't like to hear this, but God made an awful lot of land that's good for nothing but grazing.

Phil Gramm, the senator from Enron...

I have been attacked by Rush Limbaugh on the air, an experience somewhat akin to being gummed by a newt. It doesn't actually hurt, but it leaves you with slimy stuff on your ankle.

If he gets even more sedate, we will have to water him twice a week. [Molly Ivins about then-President Ronald Reagan]

If ignorance ever goes to $40 a barrel, I want drillin' rights on that man's head. [Molly Ivins on Dick Armey]

There is one area in which I think Paglia and I would agree that politically correct feminism has produced a noticeable inequity. Nowadays, when a woman behaves in a hysterical and disagreeable fashion, we say, "Poor dear, it's probably PMS." Whereas, if a man behaves in a hysterical and disagreeable fashion, we say, "What an asshole." Let me leap to correct this unfairness by saying of Paglia, Sheesh, what an asshole. [Molly Ivins about Camille Paglia]

Next time I tell you someone from Texas should not be president of the United States, please pay attention.”

Everyone knows the man has no clue, but no one there has the courage to say it. I mean, good gawd, the man is as he always has been: barely adequate. [on George W. Bush]

In my opinion, Bush's gut should not be entrusted with making peace in the Middle East.

[On George W. Bush (and George H. W. Bush)] If you think his daddy had trouble with "the vision thing," wait till you meet this one.

[Molly Ivins quotes George W. Bush in one of his "Bushisms"] "What I am against is quotas. I am against hard quotas, quotas they basically delineate based upon whatever. However they delineate, quotas, I think vulcanize society. So I don't know how that fits into what everybody else is saying, their relative positions, but that's my position."

[On then-President George H. W. Bush] Personally, I think he's further evidence that the Great Scriptwriter in the sky has an overdeveloped sense of irony.

On With the Tributes

Bill Moyers

Jim Hightower

Paul Krugman

Garrison Keillor

Joe Conason

John Nichols

Thanks for the insights. Thanks for the laughs. Rest in peace, Molly. Or however it is you'd want to rest.

-MediaBloodhound