MediaBloodhound

Special Report: Moyers, Wolf, and Journalism in Crisis (Part I)

The day before Bill Moyers debuted his documentary “Selling the War,” a scorching indictment of our national press corps in the run-up to the Iraq invasion, Naomi Wolf published an article titled “Fascist America, In Ten Easy Steps” in The Guardian. Examined together, along with recent news, they provide a disturbing picture of our nation’s precarious grip on democracy and the evolving danger of the mainstream media’s entrenched dysfunction and unrepentant attitude.

In assessing Bush’s America, Wolf does something our mainstream media is loathe to do: view the threat of anti-democratic precedents established by this White House in the context of historical fascist regimes. Here’s her how-to list, which she believes, as would anyone who’s been paying attention, the Bush administration has already fulfilled:

1. Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy
2. Create a gulag
3. Develop a thug caste
4. Set up an internal surveillance system
5. Harass citizens' groups
6. Engage in arbitrary detention and release
7. Target key individuals
8. Control the press
9. Dissent equals treason
10. Suspend the rule of law

Wolf shows how the fingerprints of former fascist regimes - from Mussolini's Italy to Nazi Germany to communist East Germany to Augusto Pinochet’s Chile - are ubiquitous in Bush administration activities. Specifically, on controlling the press, she writes:

Italy in the 1920s, Germany in the 30s, East Germany in the 50s, Czechoslovakia in the 60s, the Latin American dictatorships in the 70s, China in the 80s and 90s - all dictatorships and would-be dictators target newspapers and journalists. They threaten and harass them in more open societies that they are seeking to close, and they arrest them and worse in societies that have been closed already.

As Wolf then points out, “The Committee to Protect Journalists says arrests of US journalists are at an all-time high.” So what does that tell you about where we are right now?

Even worse is the treatment of journalists covering the Iraq War:

The Committee to Protect Journalists has documented multiple accounts of the US military in Iraq firing upon or threatening to fire upon unembedded (meaning independent) reporters and camera operators from organisations ranging from al-Jazeera to the BBC. […] In some cases reporters have been wounded or killed, including ITN's Terry Lloyd in 2003. Both CBS and the Associated Press in Iraq had staff members seized by the US military and taken to violent prisons; the news organisations were unable to see the evidence against their staffers.

Wolf also underscores the insidious effect of excessive, long-term manipulations of fact on the public:

Over time in closing societies, real news is supplanted by fake news and false documents. Pinochet showed Chilean citizens falsified documents to back up his claim that terrorists had been about to attack the nation. The yellowcake charge, too, was based on forged papers. […] What you already have is a White House directing a stream of false information that is so relentless that it is increasingly hard to sort out truth from untruth. In a fascist system, it's not the lies that count but the muddying. When citizens can't tell real news from fake, they give up their demands for accountability bit by bit.

It’s no wonder that six months after the Iraq invasion, seven out of 10 Americans still believed Saddam Hussein planned the 9/11 attacks. For years, President Bush and members of his administration inserted “Saddam” and “9/11” into as many speeches, press conferences and public appearances as they could. Yet in most cases they were careful not to state directly “Saddam planned the 9/11 attacks.” As Wolf points out, it’s the muddying of information that’s most dangerous – the mantra of Saddam-9/11 drummed into the minds of an already fearful populace trumped all the known information that confirmed otherwise.

In Moyer’s “Selling the War,” he kicks off his documentary by reiterating a point that, to this day, most Americans still do not realize: Bush’s press conference on the eve of the Iraq invasion was scripted, in that all the reporters allowed to ask questions were on a pre-screened list (one has to wonder if the questions as well were scripted). Yet even more outrageous was the White House press corps’ utter willingness to play along with this charade.

BILL MOYERS: At least a dozen times during this press conference he will invoke 9/11 and Al Qaeda to justify a preemptive attack on a country that has not attacked America.

REPORTER: Mr. President, if you decide…

BILL MOYERS: But the White House press corps will ask no hard questions tonight about those claims. Listen to what the President says:

PRESIDENT BUSH: This is a scripted…(laughter)

REPORTER: Thank you Mr. President--

BILL MOYERS: Scripted. Sure enough, the President's staff has given him a list of reporters to call on.

PRESIDENT BUSH: Let's see here… Elizabeth… Gregory… April…Did you have a question or did I call upon you cold?

APRIL: No, I have a question. (laughter)

PRESIDENT BUSH: Okay. I'm sure you do have a question.

ERIC BOEHLERT: He sort of giggled and laughed. And, the reporters sort of laughed. And, I don't know if it was out of embarrassment for him or embarrassment for them because they still continued to play along. After his question was done. They all shot up their hands and pretended they had a chance of being called on.

Certainly one of the lowest moments in the annals of American journalism. One that led to possibly the most inane, obsequious question posed to a democratic leader calling for war:

APRIL: How is your faith guiding you?

PRESIDENT BUSH: My faith sustains me because I pray daily. I pray for guidance.

Moyers proceeds to connect the dots in the media’s complicity, from falling into line behind the Bush administration’s hyper-patriotism directly following 9/11, which included yielding to corporate and  White House pressure to greatly limit images of civilian casualties in Afghanistan; to parroting and/or uncritically reporting the administration’s 9/11-Saddam connection; to using patently unreliable sources such as known conman and formerly paid CIA informant Ahmed Chalabi, while simultaneously failing to perform the most fundamental journalistic due diligence, such as picking up a phone to confirm easily accessible nuclear information with an expert (e.g., on aluminum tubes); to perpetuating a false sense of balance through Crossfire-style debate but ignoring highly pertinent facts and failing to challenge bald-faced lies often spouted by administration lackeys in the press and government; to, finally, fawning over Colon Powell’s highly dubious testimony. 

All in all, Moyers shows the shameful abdication of the mainstream media to provide oversight of our government’s elected officials. As Moyers notes, “…in the six months leading up to the invasion The Washington Post would editorialize in favor of the war at least 27 times.”

A couple of moments in the documentary stood out for their effectiveness to encapsulate everything that went wrong then, the roots of which continue to fester today. Not so ironically, both moments involve two Bush administration enablers, who, it should be noted, at least had the guts to face the music with Moyers: Tim Russert and Peter Beinart. (Lead drumbeater Judith Miller, along with proudly outspoken hawks Bill Safire, William Kristol, Charles Krauthammer and Roger Ailes, declined to meet with Moyers.)

The Vice President just happened to show up on Russert’s Meet the Press the very same morning a front-page New York Times article - penned by Judith Miller and Michael Gordon – told of Saddam’s accelerated acquisition of WMD. When Moyers asks Russert why it didn’t cross his mind that Cheney’s appearance and that morning’s splashy cover story might be orchestrated, “a circular, self-confirming leak,” Russert, routinely hailed by his mainstream colleagues as a hard-nosed no-nonsense reporter, a bulldog even, suddenly becomes a shrinking violet: “What my concern was, is that there were concerns expressed by other government officials. And to this day, I wish my phone had rung, or I had access to them.”

How’s that for proactive, investigative journalism? I’ll wait until my phone rings.

But Moyers’ discussion with Peter Beinart may be my favorite moment. No scene better exposes the unchecked nonsense and unethical journalism that drove much of the received wisdom in Washington at the time.

BILL MOYERS: Peter Beinart became editor of THE NEW REPUBLIC at age 28. During the run-up to the invasion he was one of the hottest young pundits in town, a liberal hawk, accusing opponents of the war of being "intellectually incoherent and echoing the official line that Hussein would soon possess a nuclear weapon.

PETER BEINART: (CNN 4/29/02) We need a little bit of logistical support, but we don't need the moral support of anyone, because we're on the side of the angels in this.

BILL MOYERS: Had you been to Iraq?

PETER BEINART: No.

BILL MOYERS: So what made you present yourself, if you did, as-- as-- as a Middle East expert?

PETER BEINART: I don't think that I presented myself as a Middle East expert per se. I was a political journalist. I was a-- a columnist writing about all kinds of things. Someone in my-- in my position is not a Middle East expert in the way that somebody who studies this at a university is, or even at a think tank. But I consumed that stuff.

I was relying on people who did that kind of reporting and people who had been in the government who had-- who had access to classified material for their assessment.

BILL MOYERS: And you would talk to them and they would, in effect, brief you, the background on what they knew?

PETER BEINART: Sometimes, but--

BILL MOYERS: I'm trying to help the audience understand. How does-- you described yourself as a political-- a reporter of political opinion, or a journalist--

PETER BEINART: Yeah.

BILL MOYERS: --political opinion. How do you-- how do you get the information that enables you to reach the conclusion that you draw as a political journalist?

PETER BEINART: Well, I was doing mostly, for a large part it was reading, reading the statements and the things that people said. I was not a beat reporter. I was editing a magazine and writing a column. So I was not doing a lot of primary reporting. But what I was doing was a lot of reading of other people's reporting and reading of what officials were saying.

BILL MOYERS: If we journalists get it wrong on the facts what is there to be right about?

PETER BEINART: Well I think that's a good point, but the argument in the fall of 2002 was not mostly about the facts it was about a whole series of ideas about what would happen if we invaded.

The facts, of course, were beside the point. War was a given in large part because the facts were irrelevant. That’s why all those military analysts and former generals kept popping up on every channel to discuss war gaming. That’s how millions of people marched against the war and U.N weapons inspectors said there was no proof of WMD, yet the majority of Americans still didn’t hear them.

In the final analysis, Bill Moyers shows how members of the mainstream media, in spite of the facts, helped this administration successfully pitch the Iraq War to the American people, and, almost unanimously, refuse to take responsibility for their actions.

Writing about Moyers’ documentary, Salon’s Glenn Greenwald notes the danger inherent in not holding the press enablers accountable: “The people who committed the journalistic crimes Moyers so potently documents do not think they are guilty of anything -- ask them and they will tell you -- and as a result, they have not changed their behavior in the slightest.”

In detailing the practices of the dysfunctional journalism that led to the Iraq War, which today remain firmly in place, Moyers also provides a window into how the same media might continue to aid and abet this administration, eventually allowing it to fulfill each of Naomi Wolf’s ten easy steps to fascism.

Part II of “Moyers, Wolf and Journalism in Crisis” will explore how the pervasive dysfunctional journalism that Bill Moyers detailed is contributing to the Bush administration’s ongoing dismantling of democracy about which Naomi Wolf cautions.

Story of the Day: The Return of Bill Moyers and "Buying the War"

If you want to see a concise yet in-depth breakdown of how the mainstream media sold the Iraq War to the American people, do not miss Bill Moyers' "Buying the War." (You can watch it there and/or read the full transcript.)

It's not that you'll find anything earth-shattering if you've been following our dysfunctional media during the Bush years. But somehow seeing it all laid out before your eyes - each piece connected to the other, each lie and manipulation building, resonating, told again and again and again, until millions of people believed them - it does remind you how astonishingly irresponsible the Washington press corps was and, sadly, remains today.

Psychologists talk about how human beings use coping mechanisms to deal with uncomfortable events in their lives in order to continue functioning. When I watched this documentary last night, I was reminded that even those of us who have committed years of our lives covering this stuff still use such coping mechanisms. If we spent every day thinking about what's happened and how it could've been averted, we'd go nuts. Confronted with the full trajectory of the lies and deception - and the resultant death and destruction - of this White House and the media's abdication of the most basic journalistic principles, it's almost unbearable to sit through. It's like watching a visceral movie or documentary about the JFK, RFK or Martin Luther King Jr. assassinations or the Vietnam War, that feeling you get in the pit of your stomach, the one that makes you want to cry and scream and curse and ask "why" all at the same time, knowing how much was lost and how it might have all been avoided. So you might do some of those things, especially if you're in the privacy of your own home. Or you sit there and stew. You feel helpless, maybe.

But then you must say we cannot let this continue. We must at least attempt to salvage our current botched democracy. We must force the current media elites to either do their jobs or step aside.

And that's why, as unbearable as it is seeing it all laid out before you, you must not turn away. I'm speaking here also to those who don't follow news so closely, in that I hope to not just be preaching to the choir when I say, as Bill Moyers always says, it's your duty as a citizen to know what your elected officials in Washington are doing in your name, on matters large and small. The one thing, in fact, that might have been missing from this documentary was the idea that if Americans were more aware, the pitiful exhibition of journalism leading up to and after the war would've been exceedingly more difficult to maintain.

I'll be following up on these thoughts in the next couple of days, dissecting some of the issues discussed in this documentary while also looking at them through the prism of what is happening right now.

Until then, enjoy the show.

Buying the War, by Bill Moyers
PBS

NYT Front|Back: Rising U.S. Billionaires vs. Fallen U.S. Troops

FRONT:

Top Hedge Fund Managers Earn Over $240 Million
What news matters most to the average American, or even to the average citizen of the world? That’s right: the burgeoning obscene wealth of hedge fund managers. Or, as they’re referred to in this article, “the hedge fund elite.”

At a time when the divide between the haves and have-nots has never been greater - in this country and across the globe - what could be more unseemly and less newsworthy than this: front-page focus on the divide between those who, tragically, fall short of making $240 million a year and those who are close to joining, or are already members of, the “billion-dollars-a-year club.”

While traditional news outlets struggle to staunch their hemorrhaging audience share, continued prominent focus on such truly marginal stories - not to be confused with vital ones often deemed marginal by establishment editors and pundits - will only perpetuate their slide. These choices also beg the question: Just how out of touch can these people be? A cover story about the wealthiest of the wealthy jockeying for position at the billionaires' table? With everything going on in our country and the world? It's simply a disgrace.

Maybe one day Brian Williams will realize that traditional news' dwindling audience has less to do with competition from "a guy named Vinny in an efficiency apartment in the Bronx" than it does with these kinds of vacuous stories and egregious editorial choices.   

Intro:

James Simons, a 69-year-old publicity shy former math professor, uses complex computer-driven mathematical models to make bets on stocks, bonds and commodities, among other things.

His earnings last year were $1.7 billion.

As one of the leading hedge fund managers, Mr. Simons makes a sum that dwarfs that of the top chiefs on Wall Street. The highest paid on the Street, Lloyd C. Blankfein of Goldman Sachs, earned $54.3 million in salary, cash, restricted stock and stock options last year. (Unlike the total for Mr. Simons, Mr. Blankfein’s reported compensation does not include gains on investments.)

And Mr. Simons, the founder of Renaissance Technologies, is not the only member of the billion-dollars-a-year club.

Two other hedge fund managers, Kenneth C. Griffin and Edward S. Lampert, each took home more than $1 billion last year, with George Soros missing the hurdle by a hair, give or take $50 million, according to an annual ranking of the top 25 hedge fund earners by Institutional Investor’s Alpha magazine, which comes out today.

BACK (page A14):

9 U.S. Soldiers Killed in Suicide Bombing in Iraq
Back on planet Earth, our soldiers are being killed at an alarming rate. In fact, the death rate of American troops and Iraqi civilians has increased since Bush's "surge." Something the mainstream media seems hard-pressed to highlight.

Most appalling about the placement of this article (bottom of A14!) is this tidbit of information: "It was one of the most lethal suicide bomb attacks on American troops in Iraq."

With Bush's war policy once again on the ropes, had The Times not only placed this story on its cover but also either led with the above line or incorporated it into the headline, the networks would've certainly been more compelled to focus their broadcasts and roundtables on this exceptionally deadly day. Thus, thrusting a more substantive dimension into the current battle between the White House and Congress on funding and timetables. Burying this story in the back pages, on other hand, has aided the Bush administration's current propaganda blitz to portray Democrats as playing politics with our troops.

It is April 25, 2007, over four years into this war of choice, and The New York Times is still providing cover to, and pushing talking points for, the Bush White House. (Incidentally, when you click on that link it leads to today's Times cover story: "Bush and Cheney Chide Democrats on Iraq Deadline." And so it goes.)

Intro  and excerpts:

A devastating suicide car bombing on Monday killed nine American soldiers and wounded 20 others near a patrol base in Diyala Province, the military announced early today.

…

It was one of the most lethal suicide bomb attacks on American troops in Iraq. Another occurred on Dec. 21, 2004, when a suicide bomber wearing an explosive vest walked into a mess tent on an American base in Mosul and detonated his charge, killing 14 United States soldiers.

In the past six months, Diyala Province, where several Sunni Arab insurgent groups are active, has become one of the most dangerous places in Iraq for American soldiers.

…

[And in other news in Iraq...]

On Monday, an American soldier also died in Muqdadiya when a roadside bomb exploded, the military said in a news release.

Today, two car bombs exploded in a parking lot in front of the Iranian embassy in Baghdad, wounding four people, a day after two bombs exploded in the same area, news services reported. American officials accuse Iranians of fueling Iraq’s sectarian conflict by supplying weapons and training to Shiite militias.

On Monday, five car bombs exploded across Iraq, killing a total of 22 people, and a suicide bomber wearing an explosive vest walked into a popular restaurant near Baghdad’s fortified International Zone, formerly known as the Green Zone, and detonated his explosives, killing six people.

Ten people were killed in northern Iraq when a suicide car bomber struck a Kurdish Democratic Party outpost on Monday.

In Baquba, in Diyala Province, a suicide car bomber attacked a group of police cars parked at an intersection, killing six policemen and a seventh, who was injured, later died, according to a government official in Baquba.

In Hilla, a suicide car bomber attacked a restaurant, killing two people.

In Falluja, two suicide truck bombs exploded near the Huriyah neighborhood, killing three people, according to a statement from the United States military.

The Wounded-Courier: Little Sent Into Dinner Without Protective Humor

WASHINGTON – In another blow to President Bush’s image as Commander-in-Chief, comedian/impressionist Rich Little was sent into the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner without sufficient protective humor.

“It was a bloodbath,” said one anonymous reporter. “I haven’t seen anything like it since Chevy Chase’s talk show.”

Working behind-the-scenes with the White House Correspondents’ Association, President Bush and Pentagon advisors based their decision to send Little on last year’s surprise attack by Stephen Colbert, which, according to administration officials, will forever be known as  “Pearl Colbert” – a grim evening that left the administration and the Washington press corps bloodied by guerilla satirical tactics which unjustly targeted flagrant abuses of executive power and members of the media who enabled them. Strafed and shelled by a cruel display of wit and reality, most of the press corps, including the President and the First Lady, barely escaped with their sense of entitlement and delusions intact.

General David Petraeus, who helped architect this year’s campaign, reasoned, “Look, many people might fault our Rich Little strategy. But our primary objective was to protect the president and the men and women who serve him in the press.” He then quipped, “And that mission was accomplished.”

But most who attended this year’s black-tie affair thought the psychological effect of Little’s bombing would remain with them for years to come.

“Maybe you don’t understand,” said a shaken David Gregory. “I watched this man, I watched him walk into the room…and open with jokes about Canada.” Gregory paused a moment to compose himself. “The guy never had a chance. My heart goes out to his family.” Franklin Foer, editor of The New Republic, observed, “Last year, when they invited Colbert, that was a complete accident. This year was an assisted suicide.”

Comedian Jerry Seinfeld, not in attendance but reached for comment, said that if President Bush truly supported comedians he would “never again send them into harm’s way without sufficient jokes.” Seinfeld also called into question Little’s readiness. “I mean you can’t expect someone who’s been opening for Robert Goulet to be prepared for this. You know what that’s like? That’s like asking a newly lapsed vegan to enter the Coney Island Hot Dog Eating Contest. Believe me, no one is betting on that guy.”

Some in the audience were more charitable. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, commending Mr. Little’s unexpected assault on Canada, kvelled, “No one could’ve predicted Canadian jokes at a correspondents’ dinner. It was a crafty surprise attack that stunned our enemies.” Added Gates, “We probably won’t know just how effective Rich Little’s performance was until sometime in late summer. But I think he made his presence clear and took the fight to comedy.”

President Bush refrained from telling jokes this year, explaining to the audience, “While in the past I’ve mined comedy gold from the war in Iraq with such classic bits as ‘Well, I Don’t See Any WMD Over There,’ this year the incident at Virginia Tech has, well, made my heart a little too heavy, for the moment anyway, to dip back into that wellspring of humor known as the Iraq War.”

Setting the tone for the proceedings, Steven Scully, president of the Correspondents’ Association, said, “Let us be reminded that sucking up is not the same as selling out, nor does an evening of excrescent fawning mean we prostitute our press freedoms without conscience.”

Little closed his performance by leading the room in a rendition of “If You’re Happy and You Know It, Clap Your Hands.” Journalist Charlie Savage, an up-and-coming reporter who just last week received a Pulitzer prize for his expose on the Bush administration, dropped to his knees in the middle of the song and committed Seppuku with David Sanger’s oyster fork. Though no members of the Washington press corps noticed.

A busboy later discovered Savage’s crumpled, eviscerated body while cleaning up after the event.

From the Archives: Gonzales Pulling All-Nighters to Ace Attorneygate

In honor of Alberto Gonzales' compelling testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee this past Thursday, in which his memory failed him 64 times, here's The Wounded-Courier article that explored the attorney general's painstaking preparation.

WASHINGTON – In preparation for his scheduled appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee concerning eight fired U.S. attorneys, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is cramming like he’s back in law school, pulling all-nighters and subsisting solely on Red Bull, cold pizza, Snickers, power naps and foosball. 

President Bush, standing firm in his support of the attorney general, called Gonzales’ grueling preparation for his testimony “one more example of his strong work ethic and commitment to fight partisan attacks on his character.” Bush added, “It reminds me of when Alberto disappeared to write that torture memo. He showed up in my office two weeks later – full beard, strung out on guarana, Vivarin and Malomars. Looked like Jim Morrison near the end. But that memo was A+. Making a legal case for torture was hard work. Colin Powell said it couldn’t be done. But Colin didn’t know Alberto’s heart. The law’s no barrier to this patriot. And I have every confidence the attorney general will once again rise to the occasion.”

Part of Gonzales’ intensive preparation includes mock question-and-answer sessions with outside legal advisors, a methodical re-reading of Orwell’s Nineteen-Eighty-Four and Machiavelli’s The Prince, tutoring with a team of Kaplan SAT instructors, a spa day with Henry Kissinger (involving a detoxifying Dead Sea wrap, ginger-lemon body polish and couples massage), team-building exercises with members of the National J. Edgar Hoover Fan Club at an undisclosed paintball facility, and a global endangered species hunting expedition with a panel of Stalin-era legal scholars (game will include proboscis monkeys, marmosets, African giant frogs, northern hairy-nosed wombats and puffins).

Responding to Gonzales’ studying regimen, Senate Judiciary Chairman Pat Leahy warned, “Mr. Gonzales seems to think this is going to be some kind of multiple choice test. Someone needs to tell the attorney general this is true or false. Pass-fail. I don’t care if this administration pumps him full of performance enhancing drugs, Stephen Hawking gives him a damn mind-meld and he channels Harry f**king Houdini. Time is running out for Torqamada.”

Leahy then criticized Gonzales for not answering 200 written questions following his January appearance before the committee. In response, a Justice spokesman confirmed, “We’re working round-the-clock to complete those questions for the record,” before howling with laugher. “No really,” he continued, convulsing and snorting, tears streaming from his eyes, “we’re all over that – hahaha!! No really…ba-hahaha!!”

Los Angeles Times columnist Ron Brownstein believes that Gonzales has his work cut out for him but still has a good chance to keep his job. “It might be evident he’s lied and broken federal law in firing these U.S. attorneys for failing to do this administration’s bidding,” Brownstein said. “So for Congress and the American people to embrace the kind of amnesia and acquiescence to fascism necessary to overlook these crimes, Gonzales is going to have to deliver an impressive performance before the committee – a mix of airtight labyrinthine logic, Svengali-like body language and subtle yet pointed death threats. Sure, it’s somewhat of a challenge. But I wouldn’t count him out by any means. The American people love a fighter.”

Speaking with Today anchor Matt Lauer, NBC's chief political analyst and Meet the Press host Tim Russert cautioned, “The real danger here for Democrats is looking overly beholden to the rule of law. This betrays a certain inflexibility that makes Americans uncomfortable. Remember, Matt, the Revolutionary War forced our leaders to “break the law” in order to form our democracy. Democrat leaders forget our country’s own history at their peril." Added Russert, "Don’t be surprised to see a devastating backlash to this pursuance of justice in the next presidential election.”

Op-Ed Column: Gates Continues to Dance Circles Around Press

Lost in the reporting of Baghdad’s carnage yesterday, "the deadliest single car bomb attack on civilians of the four-year-old war,” is that, according to our own military commanders on the ground, "overall civilian casualty rates are actually higher now than they were before the plan [Bush’s escalation] was initiated.”

Defense Secretary Robert Gates, other administration officials, and mainstream reporters and pundits tout that sectarian killings, such as those carried out by Shiite death squads, are down. But if the underlying purpose of increasing troop levels, as stated, was to bring more security to Iraq and curb the unceasing violence, then an increase in civilian casualty rates can only mean one thing: the plan is failing, or has already failed.

To say or report anything less is to repeat the kind of Rumsfeldian disinformation or calculated half-truths (depending on one’s perspective) that were supposed to end with the former defense secretary’s long overdue departure.

Members of the mainstream media have never accounted for their failure to effectively press Rumsfeld for the truth, for the scores of briefings in which he managed to bedazzle and intimidate them with the most inane explanations and musings a U.S. Secretary of Defense has uttered in our nation’s history. Truly comic had it not been for the tragic consequences of his successful obfuscations.

And now, with his successor Robert Gates, a more sober (aka, less Strangelovian) figure, we see the same members of the press - seemingly placated by Gates’ starkly contrasting coherency and respectful manner - question the new defense secretary with familiar deference and timidity. 

Gates has also proved himself quite adept at deflecting pressure. With a McCain-like ability to disingenuously project an image that is supportive yet marginally independent of this White House, he has created a pattern of parroting administration talking points one day and making comments the next that appear to stray from the Bush/Cheney “success is the only option” mantra. And, unsurprisingly, the mainstream media covers the two Robert Gates as if they were one.

Sometimes the two Gates show up on the same day. Take today. Here’s Gates this morning responding to criticisms of the new security plan in Iraq: "We have anticipated from the very beginning...that the insurgency and others would increase the violence to make the people of Iraq believe the plan is a failure. We intend to persist to show that it is not." (Eerily reminiscent of Rumsfeld’s “dead-enders” rhetoric.) And here’s Gates a couple of hours later: “Frankly I would like to see faster progress," along with the accompanying AP headline: “Gates Says ‘Clock Is Ticking’ on Iraq.”

Possibly the administration’s only wise move during this entire tragic misadventure in Iraq was tapping Gates to replace Rumsfeld. Addressing the press and the American people, Gates is never glib, arrogant or peevish, his comportment always in sync with the seriousness of the situation. Yet his is a thankless job: the face of a war strategy, driven more by politics than reason, that is all but certain to fail.   

Nevertheless, Gates, like a skilled pugilist, keeps mixing it up, dancing, dancing, bobbing and weaving, throwing the press off balance while it misleadingly portrays him as providing a balanced view on the situation in Iraq and the effectiveness of Bush’s escalation.

But the only ones feeling the knockout punch are Iraqi civilians. Day after day after day.

Story of the Day: Virginia Tech Massacre Is Our Gut-Check

Juan Cole and Larry Johnson, among others, hit on the same thing that went through my mind as the national media reacted with shock and horror to the tragedy at Virginia Tech: as sad and frightening as it is, this kind of violence is a daily occurence in Iraq.

Cole, speaking on PBS's Newshour last night, noted:

Remember that we’re all concerned, as we should be, about these events at Virginia Tech today. In Iraq this is a daily event. Imagine how horrible it would be if this kind of massacre were occurring every single day. And the people of Iraq feel that either the Americans are not stopping it or they’re actually causing it.

Johnson, writing on his blog No Quarter yesterday, summed it up this way:

The people of Iraq are living in a Marquis de Sade version of Groundhog Day. It is like the Bill Murray movie--the same horrible day repeated with some new, bizarre twists--only not funny. Multiple body counts and explosions and shootings are the daily experience of the people of Iraq. They have been living this hell for four years. Just keep that fact in mind as you mourn the deaths of 22 American students slain in Blacksburg, Viginia.

He also provided a rundown of just one day's worth of violence in Iraq (this past Sunday, the day before the incident at Virginia Tech):

04/15/07 Reuters: 19 bodies found in Baghdad on Saturday
Police found the bodies of 19 people in various parts of Baghdad in the past 24 hours, police said.

04/15/07 Reuters: 20 Iraqi troops and policemen abducted
A group linked to al Qaeda said it abducted 20 Iraqi troops and policemen and demanded the release of all Sunni women held in Iraq's prisons, according to a Web statement.

04/15/07 Reuters: 4 killed by suicide bombers in Mosul
Four people, including two Iraqi soldiers, were killed and 16 wounded when two oil trucks driven by suicide bombers exploded outside a military base in the northern city of Mosul, police said.

04/15/07 AP: Suicide bomber kills 5, wounds 11 in northwest Baghdad
A suicide bomber blew himself up on a minibus in northwest Baghdad, killing at least eight people and wounding 11, police and hospital officials said.

04/15/07 AP: 37 die as car bomb hits near Iraq shrine
A car bomb blasted through a busy bus station near one of Iraq's holiest shrines Saturday, killing at least 37 people, police and hospital officials said.

IraqSlogger goes a step further and directly contrasts the tragedy at Virginia Tech with what universities in Iraq have been experiencing (which receives little or no attention in our mainstream media):

On Monday, the same day as the Virginia Tech mass shooting, two separate shooting incidents struck Mosul University, one killing Dr. Talal Younis al-Jelili, the dean of the college of Political Science as he walked through the university gate, and another killing Dr. Jaafar Hassan Sadeq, a professor from the Faculty of Arts at the school, who was targeted in front of his home in the al-Kifaat area, according to Aswat al-Iraq.

In January, Baghdad’s Mustansiriya University sufferred a double suicide bombing in January that killed at least 70 people, including students, faculty, and staff. A month later, another suicide bomber struck at Mustansiriya, killing 40.

Kidnappings of students and faculty are another all-too-common occurrence on Iraq’s campuses. Members of the univerisity community have been abducted and murdered for sectarian reasons, or simply held for ransom. […]

In January, students reported that violent events had threatened students that attendance rates at Baghdad University had dropped to six percent.

Earlier this month, the Dr. Qais Jawad al-Azzawi, head of the Geneva-based Committee International Committee of Solidarity with Iraqi Professors said that 232 university professors were killed and 56 were reported missing in Iraq, while more than 3,000 others had left the country after the 2003 invasion.

Though it's not just university students in Iraq. Consider this from yesterday's prominently featured USA Today story (and kudos to them for giving it so much attention):

About 70% of primary school students in a Baghdad neighborhood suffer symptoms of trauma-related stress such as bed-wetting or stuttering, according to a survey by the Iraqi Ministry of Health.
...

Many Iraqi children have to pass dead bodies on the street as they walk to school in the morning, according to a separate report last week by the International Red Cross. Others have seen relatives killed or have been injured in mortar or bomb attacks.

"Some of these children are suffering one trauma after another, and it's severely damaging their development," said Said Al-Hashimi, a psychiatrist who teaches at Mustansiriya Medical School and runs a private clinic in west Baghdad. "We're not certain what will become of the next generation, even if there is peace one day," Al-Hashimi said.

...

In the study, schoolteachers were asked to determine whether randomly selected students showed any of 10 symptoms identified by the World Health Organization (WHO) as signs of trauma. Other symptoms included voluntary muteness, declining performance in school or an increase in aggressive behavior.

The teachers received training from Iraqi psychologists on how to identify and help students cope with trauma-related stress, Al-Aboudi said.

The study "shows the impact of the violence and insecurity on the children and on children's mental health," said Naeema Al-Gasseer, the Iraqi representative of the WHO. "They have fear every day."

The Iraqi government is aware of the problem but largely unequipped to address it, said Ali al-Dabbagh, a government spokesman. "Until we have proper security in Baghdad, there's not much we can do to help these children," al-Dabbagh said in Washington.

If there was ever a time for Americans to attempt to wrap their heads around the daily horror being inflicted on students of all ages in Iraq, in addition to adult and elderly civilians, it is now. It's no accident that you hear less - or practically nothing - these days from Bush administration officials on the wonderful school attendance of Iraqi children.

Many Americans may not want to hear this right now. And the mainstream media will surely enable them to turn a deaf ear to these points. It's understandable on one level: what happened on Monday is still fresh. Yet for that very same reason, while our citizens are trying to come to terms with such senseless violence and abject loss, it should be our duty as a nation, and as human beings, to consider closer the daily madness befalling innocents in Iraq (not to mention our own soldiers). When you see American families and friends mourning over loved ones lost at Virginia Tech, when you hear their stories, observe their immeasurable suffering, their fear and helplessness and anguish, remember that none of them deserved this day of death visited on their lives.

And then try to imagine the unimaginable: consider what life would be like if every day were like Monday. That is Iraq. Today, tomorrow and the next day. Until we stop their suffering. Until the mainstream media captures half of the horror and sorrow it's managed to present in just two days worth of Virginia Tech coverage. Until our press corps asks our president how he can be "shocked" by this tragedy but not by the one his war of choice wreaks every single day on the Iraqi people, our soldiers and their families.

Warmongers (even the chickenhawks running our country) love to talk about "gut-checks." Well, you want a gut-check? Here it is. Due to circumstances created by this White House, a Republican-led Congress, a lapdog press corps and, yes, millions of Americans who supported them, it's not enough that we mourn these young men and women of Virginia Tech and pray for their families.

We have no right to mourn this tragedy, lick our wounds and then go about our daily lives again. The time for shopping has long been over. The war in Iraq must end now.

Gut-check.

(Big h/t to Think Progress)

Story of the Day: RIP, Mr. Vonnegut, And Thank You

People used to talk about books that changed their lives. That's seldom heard these days. But a handful of books have changed my life (specifically by inspiring me to become a writer). I'd definitely count Slaughterhouse-Five among that handful. This novel and other Vonnegut works, though, also helped to shape my worldview, to prepare me for the brutality and madness of this world by teaching me that above all, regardless of the outcome, it is our job to expose hypocrisy, keep our sense of humor intact and be kind to one another. And that if we can do that, then it's a victory in itself against the cruelty, mendacity and banality we see daily.

Kurt Vonnegut, though I never met the man, meant a lot to me. So I've struggled today to decide what to say about his death, if anything. (I laughed when I discovered that his official website's landing page currently contains nothing but an illustration of a birdcage with an open door, his name, and the day he entered this world and the day he left.) Writing this now feels somewhat like that moment if and when you come face-to-face with one of your idols. What should you say? What can you say? Especially when the revered is a writer, when your association with him is almost solely through intangible words on a page and the individual worlds they spark in your mind, a physically separate (not only from the author but from everyone else on the planet) yet supremely intimate connection, where arguably - as opposed to, say, a rock star and his fan - no two are the same.

Simultaneously, I can't help but hear Vonnegut whispering, Ah, bullshit. Just wish me well and do your best. It's 10 PM and you haven't even eaten dinner yet. For Christsakes, go eat something already. And so I will.

I'll leave you with this classic interview Vonnegut did with In These Times editor Joel Bleifuss shortly before the U.S. invasion of Iraq:

You have lived through World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the Reagan wars, Desert Storm, the Balkan wars and now this coming war in Iraq. What has changed, and what has remained the same?

One thing which has not changed is that none of us, no matter what continent or island or ice cap, asked to be born in the first place, and that even somebody as old as I am, which is 80, only just got here. There were already all these games going on when I got here. … An apt motto for any polity anywhere, to put on its state seal or currency or whatever, might be this quotation from the late baseball manager Casey Stengel, who was addressing a team of losing professional athletes: “Can’t anybody here play this game?”

My daughter Lily, for an example close to home, who has just turned 20, finds herself—as does George W. Bush, himself a kid—an heir to a shockingly recent history of human slavery, to an AIDS epidemic and to nuclear submarines slumbering on the floors of fjords in Iceland and elsewhere, crews prepared at a moment’s notice to turn industrial quantities of men, women and children into radioactive soot and bone meal by means of rockets and H-bomb warheads. And to the choice between liberalism or conservatism and on and on.

What is radically new in 2003 is that my daughter, along with our president and Saddam Hussein and on and on, has inherited technologies whose byproducts, whether in war or peace, are rapidly destroying the whole planet as a breathable, drinkable system for supporting life of any kind. Human beings, past and present, have trashed the joint.

Based on what you’ve read and seen in the media, what is not being said in the mainstream press about President Bush’s policies and the impending war in Iraq?

That they are nonsense.

My feeling from talking to readers and friends is that many people are beginning to despair. Do you think that we’ve lost reason to hope?

I myself feel that our country, for whose Constitution I fought in a just war, might as well have been invaded by Martians and body snatchers. Sometimes I wish it had been. What has happened, though, is that it has been taken over by means of the sleaziest, low-comedy, Keystone Cops-style coup d’etat imaginable. And those now in charge of the federal government are upper-crust C-students who know no history or geography, plus not-so-closeted white supremacists, aka “Christians,” and plus, most frighteningly, psychopathic personalities, or “PPs.”

To say somebody is a PP is to make a perfectly respectable medical diagnosis, like saying he or she has appendicitis or athlete’s foot. The classic medical text on PPs is The Mask of Sanity by Dr. Hervey Cleckley. Read it! PPs are presentable, they know full well the suffering their actions may cause others, but they do not care. They cannot care because they are nuts. They have a screw loose!

And what syndrome better describes so many executives at Enron and WorldCom and on and on, who have enriched themselves while ruining their employees and investors and country, and who still feel as pure as the driven snow, no matter what anybody may say to or about them? And so many of these heartless PPs now hold big jobs in our federal government, as though they were leaders instead of sick.

What has allowed so many PPs to rise so high in corporations, and now in government, is that they are so decisive. Unlike normal people, they are never filled with doubts, for the simple reason that they cannot care what happens next. Simply can’t. Do this! Do that! Mobilize the reserves! Privatize the public schools! Attack Iraq! Cut health care! Tap everybody’s telephone! Cut taxes on the rich! Build a trillion-dollar missile shield! Fuck habeas corpus and the Sierra Club and In These Times, and kiss my ass!

How have you gotten involved in the anti-war movement? And how would you compare the movement against a war in Iraq with the anti-war movement of the Vietnam era?

When it became obvious what a dumb and cruel and spiritually and financially and militarily ruinous mistake our war in Vietnam was, every artist worth a damn in this country, every serious writer, painter, stand-up comedian, musician, actor and actress, you name it, came out against the thing. We formed what might be described as a laser beam of protest, with everybody aimed in the same direction, focused and intense. This weapon proved to have the power of a banana-cream pie three feet in diameter when dropped from a stepladder five-feet high.

And so it is with anti-war protests in the present day. Then as now, TV did not like anti-war protesters, nor any other sort of protesters, unless they rioted. Now, as then, on account of TV, the right of citizens to peaceably assemble, and petition their government for a redress of grievances, “ain’t worth a pitcher of warm spit,” as the saying goes.

As a writer and artist, have you noticed any difference between how the cultural leaders of the past and the cultural leaders of today view their responsibility to society?

Responsibility to which society? To Nazi Germany? To the Stalinist Soviet Union? What about responsibility to humanity in general? And leaders in what particular cultural activity? I guess you mean the fine arts. I hope you mean the fine arts. ... Anybody practicing the fine art of composing music, no matter how cynical or greedy or scared, still can’t help serving all humanity. Music makes practically everybody fonder of life than he or she would be without it. Even military bands, although I am a pacifist, always cheer me up.

But that is the power of ear candy. The creation of such a universal confection for the eye, by means of printed poetry or fiction or history or essays or memoirs and so on, isn’t possible. Literature is by definition opinionated. It is bound to provoke the arguments in many quarters, not excluding the hometown or even the family of the author. Any ink-on-paper author can only hope at best to seem responsible to small groups or like-minded people somewhere. He or she might as well have given an interview to the editor of a small-circulation publication.

Maybe we can talk about the responsibilities to their societies of architects and sculptors and painters another time. And I will say this: TV drama, although not yet classified as fine art, has on occasion performed marvelous services for Americans who want us to be less paranoid, to be fairer and more merciful. M.A.S.H. and Law and Order, to name only two shows, have been stunning masterpieces in that regard.

That said, do you have any ideas for a really scary reality TV show?

“C students from Yale.” It would stand your hair on end.

What targets would you consider fair game for a satirist today?

Assholes.

Op-Ed Column: Imus and the “Teaching Moment”

When MSNBC’s Howard Fineman spoke the other day with embattled radio host Don Imus, he inadvertently underscored the real issue behind Imus’ “nappy-heads hos” comment.

Fineman, also an editor at Newsweek and “regular guest on Imus in the Morning” (as noted in his MSNBC bio), had this to say about his Imus’ remarks:

FINEMAN: You know, the form of humor that you do here is risky, and sometimes it runs off the rails. Most of the people who listen to this show get the joke most of the time, and sometimes, you know, as David Carr said in The New York Times this morning, sometimes you go over the line so far you can't even see the line. And that's what happened in this case. And I think of all the stuff you've done and do do, and, you know, you make your mistakes -- we all make our mistakes. We all make mistakes. This was a big one. And I thought that the way you handled it just now -- and I'm not blowing smoke here -- I believe it, you know, was very heartfelt. And I know you well enough to know that that's the case and you're going to do everything you can to set it right.

You know, I don't know what'll happen. I think -- you know, it's a different time, Imus. You know, it's different than it was even a few years ago, politically. I mean, we may, you know -- and the environment, politically, has changed. And some of the stuff that you used to do, you probably can't do anymore.

…

FINEMAN: You just can't. Because the times have changed. I mean, just looking specifically at the African-American situation. I mean, hello, Barack Obama's got twice the number of contributors as anybody else in the race.

…

FINEMAN: I mean, you know, things have changed. And the kind of -- some of the kind of humor that you used to do you can't do anymore. And that's just the way it is.

First, Don Imus has built a career on doing  this “risky” humor. Imus and his sidekicks have been making such comments for decades. Fineman directly refers to this when he says, “…the kind of humor that you used to do you can't do anymore.” But let’s be specific about this kind of humor. Because it has certainly encompassed more than just racism over the years. Moreover, calling Imus’ brand of humor “risky” affords it an air of originality or iconoclasm that it most certainly does not deserve.

Far from merely muttering offensive stereotypes into his microphone - or laughing along with, or feigning disapproval of, such remarks if they instead come from his crew - Imus has been much more inclusive over the years. In addition to targeting the lowest common denominator with racist “jokes” (including anti-Semitism), misogyny and homophobia also round out the Don Imus School of Humor. Humor, by the way, that, far from taking risks to enlighten through genuine wit, creativity and iconoclastic thought, instead embraces the banal hackery of age-old stereotypes. The kind of yuck-yucks you might find in one of those old joke books, where the most offensive premise and punchline built around a stereotype is supposed to be the funniest; ditto for female body parts, female intelligence, and the sexual preferences and consequential situations of gays and lesbians. The type of stereotype-driven jokes that predate the turn of the 19th and 20th century, having been passed down - like racism, sexism and homophobia themselves - from one generation to the next.

Such mainstream news stars as Fineman, Chris Matthews, Tim Russert, David Gregory and Andrea Mitchell, and politians like John McCain, Rudy Giuliani, Joe Lieberman, John Kerry and Joe Biden, make (or made) regular visits to Imus’ studios. So accepted was this annointed dean of beltway politics, MSNBC gladly began to simulcast his radio broadcasts some years ago. The dark reality, however, which no one in the mainstream media wants to touch (many of them because they’re regulars on his show), is that this type of humor – uninventive and unfunny, and as stultifyingly boring as it is offensive – has always been embraced by the establishment. Why? Because far from challenging the powers that be, it feeds into the divisive messages that perpetuate stereotypes and dims rather than enlightens our national political discourse. Humor that lays bare our culture’s broad hypocrisy – on such topics as politics, media, sex, religion, war, poverty, health and death – is of course anathema to the same establishment. (That’s why Everybody Loves Raymond.)

So when Fineman tells his buddy Imus that “things have changed,” and when he references Barack Obama’s fundraising ability despite his skin color as evidence of such change, what he’s really saying here is: Gee, we might not be able to continue padding our wallets with humor steeped in racism, misogyny and homophobia – you know, the stuff you’ve been doing since I’ve known you. And more pointedly, since so much money is at stake, Fineman is telling Imus: You’re just going to have to be a little more subtle about it. That’s all. When Fineman says, “Most of the people who listen to this show get the joke most of the time,” it's another way of saying that all of Imus' guests know he and his crew say these awful things, but, well, they all know he doesn’t really mean it. If Imus did, that would be another story. Thus, with this, Fineman provides cover for Imus, himself, his fellow guests and even the fans who tune in.

Fineman's following words are quite telling as well: “…and sometimes, you know, as David Carr said in The New York Times this morning, sometimes you go over the line so far you can't even see the line. And that's what happened in this case.” What is the line to which Fineman’s referring? It’s the one that calls any attention to the racist, misogynistic and homophobic banal-athon that occurs regularly on Imus in the Morning.

All of that said, Imus shouldn’t be fired for this unless MSNBC, WFAN and every politician and member of the media who frequent his show denounce the things that Imus and his crew have uttered over the years and apologize for their active patronage. The height of hypocrisy is to hear people like Fineman tell us that Imus has crossed the line. Moreover, I don’t want to see Don Imus apologize to the Rutgers' women's basketball team any more than I thirsted for Michael Richards to hold mea culpa meetings with members of the black community. This is nothing but self-serving PR. Imus didn’t suddenly wake up one morning and decide he shouldn’t say racially offensive things anymore; he’s been doing it for over three decades and it’s made him millions of dollars and he’s spread that wealth to mainstream media and politicians. Rather, it appears he simply got caught in the crosshairs of a moment. Imus himself is probably walking around wondering why that day was any different than the rest. (Incidentally, it is worth noting that Imusgate blew up less than three weeks after the radio host was hounding the Bush administration over its scandal at Walter Reed. Though this may have no correlation whatsoever, given the administration's vindictive track record, coupled with the fact that Imus has been doing the same shtick for years, it's certainly not out of the realm of possibility that that's why Imus' words suddenly hit the fan.)

No, firing Imus won’t achieve much. In fact, it may even backfire at a later date. It’s important to remember that free speech applies to everyone. The responsibility for his success lies with the millions of listers who tune in, the advertisers who fund his show, his bosses who pay his salary, and, of course, the news media figures and politicians who keep coming back for more. And let’s face it, there are far worse popular media figures than Don Imus, ones, for instance, who have openly called for the murder of those who dissented or reported certain news items during the Bush years – media stars like Ann Coulter and Melanie Morgan, who still make regular visits on TV and radio. Or the  comedian Rush Limbaugh. (Just stop by Media Matters for a treasure trove of all the revolting, fascist, xenophobic, racist, anti-gay, anti-women rhetoric spewing forth from radio broadcasts around this country; many of these same hosts either pop up on the networks as guests or, like Bill O'Reilly or Glenn Beck, have TV shows of their own.)

You want to really punish Imus? You want to see him squirm? Keep him on the air but challenge him to be funny without relying on hateful clichéd stereotypes. Fineman said that Imus’ trip to meet with the women at Rutgers would be a “teaching moment” for “us all.” I’d prefer to see Imus attempt humor that strays from his tired vile bag of tricks, and to admit, along with his courtiers and overlords in the media and Washington, that the “nappy-headed hos” comment was all just part of the game, i.e., it pays the bills.

Now that would be a true teaching moment.

The Wounded-Courier: Gonzales Pulling All-Nighters to Ace Attorneygate

WASHINGTON – In preparation for his scheduled appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee concerning eight fired U.S. attorneys, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is cramming like he’s back in law school, pulling all-nighters and subsisting solely on Red Bull, cold pizza, Snickers, power naps and foosball. 

President Bush, standing firm in his support of the attorney general, called Gonzales’ grueling preparation for his testimony “one more example of his strong work ethic and commitment to fight partisan attacks on his character.” Bush added, “It reminds me of when Alberto disappeared to write that torture memo. He showed up in my office two weeks later – full beard, strung out on guarana, Vivarin and Malomars. Looked like Jim Morrison near the end. But that memo was A+. Making a legal case for torture was hard work. Colin Powell said it couldn’t be done. But Colin didn’t know Alberto’s heart. The law’s no barrier to this patriot. And I have every confidence the attorney general will once again rise to the occasion.”

Part of Gonzales’ intensive preparation includes mock question-and-answer sessions with outside legal advisors, a methodical re-reading of Orwell’s Nineteen-Eighty-Four and Machiavelli’s The Prince, tutoring with a team of Kaplan SAT instructors, a spa day with Henry Kissinger (involving a detoxifying Dead Sea wrap, ginger-lemon body polish and couples massage), team-building exercises with members of the National J. Edgar Hoover Fan Club at an undisclosed paintball facility, and a global endangered species hunting expedition with a panel of Stalin-era legal scholars (game will include proboscis monkeys, marmosets, African giant frogs, northern hairy-nosed wombats and puffins).

Responding to Gonzales’ studying regimen, Senate Judiciary Chairman Pat Leahy warned, “Mr. Gonzales seems to think this is going to be some kind of multiple choice test. Someone needs to tell the attorney general this is true or false. Pass-fail. I don’t care if this administration pumps him full of performance enhancing drugs, Stephen Hawking gives him a damn mind-meld and he channels Harry f**king Houdini. Time is running out for Torqamada.”

Leahy then criticized Gonzales for not answering 200 written questions following his January appearance before the committee. In response, a Justice spokesman confirmed, “We’re working round-the-clock to complete those questions for the record,” before howling with laugher. “No really,” he continued, convulsing and snorting, tears streaming from his eyes, “we’re all over that – hahaha!! No really…ba-hahaha!!”

Los Angeles Times columnist Ron Brownstein believes that Gonzales has his work cut out for him but still has a good chance to keep his job. “It might be evident he’s lied and broken federal law in firing these U.S. attorneys for failing to do this administration’s bidding,” Brownstein said. “So for Congress and the American people to embrace the kind of amnesia and acquiescence to fascism necessary to overlook these crimes, Gonzales is going to have to deliver an impressive performance before the committee – a mix of airtight labyrinthine logic, Svengali-like body language and subtle yet pointed death threats. Sure, it’s somewhat of a challenge. But I wouldn’t count him out by any means. The American people love a fighter.”

Speaking with Today anchor Matt Lauer, NBC's chief political analyst and Meet the Press host Tim Russert cautioned, “The real danger here for Democrats is looking overly beholden to the rule of law. This betrays a certain inflexibility that makes Americans uncomfortable. Remember, Matt, the Revolutionary War forced our leaders to “break the law” in order to form our democracy. Democrat leaders forget our country’s own history at their peril." Added Russert, "Don’t be surprised to see a devastating backlash to this pursuance of justice in the next presidential election.”