MediaBloodhound

Op-Ed Column: Was Brokaw Also a Victim of His Own Professionalism?

(updated below)

"The struggle of people against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting." -- Milan Kundera

Tom Brokaw, Peter Jennings and Dan Rather, the former reigning kings of broadcast network news (along with the majority of their big media cohorts in cable and print) all contributed to the transaction that sold the war in Iraq. Their pre-invasion newscasts devoted, to only nominally varying degrees, overwhelming airtime not to questioning the grounds for invasion, but to how the U.S. military would execute the task.

While this is well documented by now, revisionist spin remains strong among some of those who are most responsible.

Peter Jennings, arguably the least hawkish of the Big Three anchors during the lead-up to the war, passed away from lung cancer in August 2005. Dan Rather has shown contrition for his role in the pre-war drumbeating; in Bill Moyers' documentary "Buying the War," for example, Rather conceded, "I don't think there is any excuse for, you know, my performance and the performance of the press in general in the roll up to the war. There were exceptions. There were some people, who, I think, did a better job than others. But overall and in the main there's no question that we didn't do a good job."

Yet Tom Brokaw, as evidenced in his appearance on CNN's Reliable Sources with Howard Kurtz this past Sunday, holds a decidedly unrepentant view:

KURTZ: In terms of the coverage [of the Vietnam War], do you see certain parallels here to Iraq? Most people would say, and I would agree, the media did a pretty poor job during the run-up to the Iraq War in terms of the way that President Bush was selling it, and now, of course, the coverage in recent years has been more critical.

BROKAW: Yes. The one thing I would disagree with you about, a lot of what happened on the run-up was unknowable. People did believe he had weapons of mass destruction. People who were critical of the war and the idea of going to war did in fact think that he had weapons of mass destruction, which was one of the bases for...

Kurtz actually affords Brokaw three chances to accept a modicum of accountability, but to no avail. Here's chance number two:

KURTZ: But shouldn't journalists have been more skeptical toward the line the administration was selling, even if they couldn't disprove it and given it more...

BROKAW: I think on the execution...

(CROSSTALK)

BROKAW: I think on the war plan they should have been a lot more skeptical.

Yes, the war plan. Still, to this day, it's about the war plan. The same myopically deficient focus that helped to sell the invasion of a country that never attacked us.

And the kicker:

KURTZ: And given more space, more air time to opposition voices? There was a feeling...

(CROSSTALK)

BROKAW: Yes, but remember -- you have to remember, the opposition voices were not that many in this town, for example, in Washington. There just weren't that many. We put Brent Scowcroft on "Nightly News." I did a two-way with him. And I was one of the few places where he would go where he would do that. We did have Senator Bob Byrd on the air and Ted Kennedy on the air, but it passed by a pretty considerable margin.

KURTZ: Oh, within the Democratic Party there weren't that many anti-war voices.

BROKAW: Yes, that's right.

Brokaw's statement reveals not only a failure of journalistic execution, but a troubling dysfunction at the core of mainstream news during the Bush years, which (sorry, Howie) largely continues to this day: a near wholesale abdication of the media's role as the fourth estate, the last line of defense in our nation's checks and balances.

Of course, legions of other credible voices - from award-winning investigative journalists to members of our own intelligence agencies to current and former weapons inspectors to historians familiar with the region - questioned the pre-war WMD charges, the White House's rationale for war, and also realized any invasion of Iraq, especially with intent to occupy, would be a disaster regardless of the "war plan."

It's just that, yes, those voices weren't coming from the Democratic leadership. That's a fact, but not an excuse.

Nor were those other voices welcome on NBC Nightly News, of which Brokaw was the managing editor as well as anchor. And in that role, surely he was instrumental in who appeared on his broadcast, no matter how much the corporate brass may have been meddling in such decisions. Moreover, if that had been the case, it's incumbent upon Brokaw to inform American citizens now. Something Dan Rather, his competitor for over two decades, is in the process of doing.

Washington Post columnist David Ignatius (as noted here recently) proffered a similar self-serving and inept defense back in 2004: "In a sense, the media were victims of their own professionalism. Because there was little criticism of the war from prominent Democrats and foreign policy analysts, journalistic rules meant we shouldn't create a debate on our own."

Regardless of quality work that Tom Brokaw may have contributed to over the years, toeing the company line will not suffice if he hopes to repair some of the damage to his credibility burned in the memories of millions who witnessed his pre-invasion coverage.

He had a choice then, and he has a choice now.

UPDATE: Brilliant supplementary reading on this subject:

Glenn Greenwald's "Bad Stenographers":

The bulk of our establishment journalists aren't merely stenographers. They're bad stenographers. [...] For that reason, when establishment journalists are called "stenographers," the real insult is to professional stenographers, who are scrupulous about recording what everyone says with equal weight. But our media class gives enormous weight to government sources and, correspondingly, GOP operatives.

Jon Swift's satire "Journalism 101":

1. Journalists must be completely objective. This is the most important rule of journalism. Objectivity means not having any opinion or feelings whatsoever no matter what the circumstances. This rule was best expressed in a line I recently quoted from Washington Post columnist David Broder, the dean of American journalism, about his response [sic] President Kennedy's assassination: "As an ordinary man, I wanted leave the scene, hide somewhere, and weep," Broder said. "But I managed to calm myself and to report the event in the most objective way." As I explained in my earlier piece, "Broder refused to take sides after the President was killed. Was he for the assassination or against it? It was impossible to tell from his reporting. No matter what his personal feelings might have been, as a reporter he had to be objective when it came to whether killing Kennedy was a good thing or a bad thing."

2. There are two sides to every story and a journalist must give both sides equal weight even if he or she knows one side is completely false. Weighing one side against the other violates a journalist's objectivity. (See Rule No. 1.)

Editor's Note: Happy Thanksgiving from MediaBloodhound!

I''ll be back after the weekend.

If you haven't seen this video from "Not the Daily Show, With Some Writer," it's not to be missed. Enjoy:

The Wounded-Courier: God Visits Larry King, Revokes Charter Blessing America

“Is waterboarding torture?” said God, kicking off the taped segment to be aired on Larry King Live on Monday. The Creator of the Universe then turned directly into the camera and added, “That’s a rhetorical, America.”

God’s publicist tells The Wounded-Courier that “The Boss” is embarking on a weeklong media blitz to get the word out and granted Larry King the first interview after disclosing Mr. King’s decades-long prayers to book the Supreme Being.

An exasperated God, clad in a pomegranate Puma jumpsuit, then asked King, “How many historical examples do you people need? If you haven’t figured this out yet, I’ve no choice but to rescind my longstanding agreement to bless America,” adding, “This extends, by the way, to the trademarked utterance ‘And may God bless America.’ Each invocation hereafter will be met with a prompt cease and desist from my lawyers.”

“Now, let’s be clear on this, Heavenly Father,” said King. “For the millions of people viewing our program tonight, you’re saying that’s it? No more support? No more muscle?”

“I’m God, Larry. Not Tony Soprano.” Before explaining, his Omnipotence took a sip of myrrh tea from a hastily CNN-embossed golden chalice. “Certainly it’s no secret I’ve looked the other way for many years, decades - some might argue centuries - because of the tremendous promise of America. But this ‘torture debate’ was the straw that cleaved the dromedary’s only hump, if you will.”

King challenged the decision, noting, “But what about your reputation for loving, unconditional forgiveness?”

“Truth be told, that’s been a bit overplayed in the New Testament. All that old school smotin’ and smitin’ just tossed right out the window. I’m no sadist, Larry. That stuff was supposed to be instructive. I never intended my son to be a landfill for your sins. The Bush crowd and its disciples have been using this as a get-out-of-jail-free card for far too long.

“Let me put it in terms most American consumers can understand,” the Lord continued. “If you buy a merino wool v-neck sweater from Banana Republic and discover, by no fault of your own, a hole in it post-purchase, then, of course, you’re entitled to a free exchange or your money back with proof of the original receipt. But if, say, you buy that same merino wool v-neck sweater, bring it home and intentionally soak it in a bathtub full of Chianti before tossing in a lit match, well, it’s fair to conclude you’ve bought it. I call it the Banana Republic Theory of Ontological Remuneration.”

“Sort of like Colin Powell’s Pottery Barn rule,” said King.

“Mmm, I’m not familiar with that one,” the Infinite Spirit admitted. “But I was tempted to buy this handsome-looking imported wicker toothbrush holder I spotted there recently. Then I thought, ‘Do you really know what happens to wicker if it gets wet.’ I think I made the right move.”

Later, King attempted to further pin down God on what this means for America. “So you’re not answering our prayers anymore. Your number’s unlisted. This is what you’re telling us?”

“You’re on your own,” God said. “Like Yemen. Poets. Detroit. Or the hirsute fat guy with extreme Tourette’s and the double lobster hand.” Clarifying his position, he said, “Look, I don’t think I’m singling out the U.S. unfairly. At a certain point, I had to cut off Rome, too. As a leading monotheistic entity, I have a reputation to uphold. It’s nothing personal, Larry. It’s just business.”

Nevertheless, King continued to press the Supreme Being on the issue of torture.

“Now, since you’re all-knowing, you may have heard law professor Alan Dershowitz’s comment the other day - that sometimes torture works. How do you respond to that?”

“Well, I think Mr. Dershowitz’s comment underscores why I’m officially annulling this ‘covenant,’” said God, air quoting, “with America. That Alan Dershowitz is a lunatic putz should be as manifest as a burning bush or, say, frogs raining from the sky. But, apparently, it’s not. Here’s a professor of law who foamed at the mouth for ‘torture warrants’ right after 9/11.” God also confirmed that “though Dershowitz and his ilk may have been created in my image, my legal counsel has determined free will indemnifies me from such meshugga fascists.”

At the end of the interview, King thanked God, saying, “Even though you’ve decided to wash your hands of America, sir, I just want you to know I feel blessed to have interviewed you first,” adding, “What a day for me.”

Scheduled to follow God in the second half hour of Monday’s Larry King Live is one-time childhood star Danny Pintauro of Who’s the Boss? fame.

Special Report: NPR Plays Fair-and-Balanced Game on Waterboarding

A recent segment on WNYC, New York’s flagship National Public Radio (NPR) station, underscored not only the level to which public broadcasting standards have degraded during the Bush years, increasingly adopting the same intellectually dishonest frames and “fair and balanced” debate as those aired on commercial media networks, but also how, simultaneously, public broadcasting deceptively benefits from, and is protected by, its vaunted and entrenched reputation for providing quality information.

WNYC’s The Brian Lehrer Show hosted the segment “Is Waterboarding Torture?” preceding Judge Michael Mukasey’s controversial confirmation for U.S. Attorney General. On its face, of course, this frame is straight out of the worst of network news and commercial talk radio. In fact, host Brian Lehrer introduces the segment with a replay of MSNBC conservative host Joe Scarborough’s words:

JOE SCARBOROUGH: You know, other people say torture doesn’t work, torture doesn’t work. And I’m not saying we need to torture. I’m just saying for the record, it is a matter of historical record that when we waterboarded Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, he started talking.

Lehrer jokingly chimes in, “Well, that pretty much sums up that debate, doesn’t it?” Yet he then uses Scarborough’s views as the launch pad for the segment:

LEHRER: Joe Scarborough on MSNBC talking about the controversial interrogation technique known as waterboarding. Lots of questions abound. Just what is waterboarding? Does it work? Is it torture? And waterboarding figures heavily in today’s news. The nomination of Michael Mukasey to the attorney general may well rest on his assessment of whether the technique does count as torture.

Contrary to an straightforward, informed assessment of this issue and absent a “balanced” right-wing talking head, Lehrer not only uses Scarborough as a surrogate partisan chatterer, but he himself intermittently assumes the role of foil to facts, history and common sense throughout the segment.

In introducing Malcolm Nance, a counterterrorism analyst, author of the New York Daily News op-ed “I Know Waterboarding Is Torture - Because I Did It Myself” and genuine authority on waterboarding, Lehrer lends further credence to Scarborough’s ill-informed, intellectually dishonest and unconstitutional rhetoric:

LEHRER: So first on that clip of Joe Scarborough on MSNBC. I don’t know if you were able to hear it. But that conservative talk show host claimed that waterboarding is precisely what got Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, al Qaeda’s number two, to talk after 9/11. Do you know that to be true or false?

NANCE: I personally don’t that to be true or false. And as a matter of fact, it hasn’t really been confirmed by anyone. When the Washington Post sourced that article some time ago, one of the comments that was made was, anonymously, was that the information was actually, some of it, unreliable. And that’s generally what happens when you torture someone for information.

I would like to pose a similar question to Lehrer: Did you know that to be true or false? If not, why? The answer, what Nance states, was reported long ago. And if you knew the answer to the question before posing it, wouldn’t “Isn’t it true that…” be a more honest, less contrived frame? Why are you playing devil’s advocate when you’re supposed to be a clear conduit of public information?

It is well known that Khalid Sheikh Mohammad was waterboarded (among other torture techniques) and confessed to just about everything but the Kennedy assassination and the invention of asbestos.

The next few exchanges between Lehrer and Nance are actually quite informative, and reveal what public broadcasting is capable of when the “fair and balanced” canard is dropped.

LEHRER: What was the situation that led you to learn how to waterboard and teach others?

NANCE: During my last years of military service, I was a, uh, instructor at the U.S. Navy Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape School. And this is a school in which we train U.S. service members to resist and be introduced to some of the various techniques that are used around the world in case that they are captured and become prisoners of war or terrorist hostages or hostile governments’ detainees.

LEHRER: So walk us through this a little bit. Your op-ed says that you have led, witnessed or supervised waterboarding of hundreds of people. How do you do that?

NANCE: Well, even though it’s a very, very small fraction of personnel who might be selected for that activity. Over the time that I was there, we processed several thousand students through our school and one of those components is demonstrating a technique, a torture technique, which shows that a hostile government or a totalitarian nation has the ability to make you, to take you beyond your utmost ability to resist. And there are many other torture techniques which are far more brutal, but the waterboarding itself is a historically well-known torture technique. It was used in Vietnam, it was used in Cambodia and other places around the world.

[…]

LEHRER: Were you trained and were you training others to use it on others in actual U.S. government interrogations of detainees?

NANCE: No, absolutely not. As a matter of fact, that’s the thrust of my op-ed. We introduced the technique to students who may be at a high risk of capture. These schools have existed for decades. As a matter of fact, John McCain, Senator John McCain went to our school in Coronado, California, before he was shot down in Vietnam. But it just barely prepares the students who are going through. Now, we do not teach torture. Absolutely not. Now, how this technique came to be selected, if it is in fact selected as an enhanced interrogation technique, and had been used in Guantanamo or in Abu Ghraib and Afghanistan, I’m not privy to how it transferred itself over to that. There are some media reports that it was taken directly from our manuals. However, we demonstrate what a totalitarian nation with a complete disregard for laws and treaties would do to prisoners. And that’s the thrust of my op-ed. Also, my op-ed in the Small Wars Journal, which started this whole ball. And which the comments that were made by Joe Scarborough on the Scarborough show, where they felt that it was a debate, that this was debatable whether this was a torture technique or not. And as somebody who’s gone through it and has had to perform the procedure, I know what it is and there is no debate as to whether it’s a torture technique. And that’s what I wanted to make very clear.

But Lehrer can’t seem to help himself. How does he follow up this momentarily unfiltered, thoughtful and educated discourse?

LEHRER: Let me play you a little more then of what Joe Scarborough said on his MSNBC show. Here it is:

SCARBOROUGH: That’s the debate: Is waterboarding torture? I don’t want the United States to engage in the type of torture that John McCain had to endure. But is waterboarding torture? If it’s in a controlled environment? If you have it done, instead of National Guardsmen from West Virginia like we had it at Abu Ghraib, if people that have been interrogating for twenty years, thirty years? I don’t know…”

Soon thereafter, Lehrer attacks Nance’s primary points – that waterboarding isn’t simulated drowning; the person on whom this technique is applied is drowning, and it is torture.

LEHRER: But since they never actually drown anybody, but just do it to induce the fear of drowning. I mean you said it is drowning.

NANCE: It is drowning.

LEHRER: But if people actually drowned, they would die. So they induce the feeling of drowning, they would say, induce the fear of that, and that coerces people to talk. Truthfully or not is another matter.

NANCE: Well, in fact, it’s not introducing the fear of drowning – because you are in fact drowning. Water is entering your lungs and your breathing process is starting to degrade throughout that period of time. So you in fact are just going through an extremely controlled drowning. And it doesn’t matter whether you’re a professional or an amateur. I’ve seen waterboarding from Cambodia to the articles that were written of the war crimes on Japanese interrogators to Argentineans – it’s almost universal, the technique. It doesn’t matter whether you have a very nice board or whether you have it done on a concrete floor. You are going through a procedure which is debasing and painful. And if you want someone to comply, you’re going to get it. They absolutely will comply. However, this is not something which is, whether it’s a controlled environment or not, determines whether it’s torture or not.

Lehrer continues this nonsense when he’s joined by Karen Greenberg, Executive Director of the Center on Law and Security at NYU Law School, another well-informed guest beholden to the truth and the rule of law. (Incidentally, while I applaud Lehrer for bringing Nance and Greenberg on his show, how much credit does he deserve when he forces both to waste such a large amount of time responding to right-wing talking points? Again, the segment’s title - “Is Waterboarding Torture?” - is no mistake. It guides Lehrer’s decision-making process throughout and, wittingly or not, clearly reveals that debate for debate’s sake, rather than, say, drilling for the layered and complex truth, is what’s driving the proceedings. But imagine the depth of discussion if Lehrer were to drop this brain-dead and corrosive tactic. One that NPR, as does PBS, professes - most notably during the heat of fund-raising drives - is beneath them.) 

LEHRER: And Karen Greenberg from the NYU Law School Center on Law and Security, what about that position? He is not yet the attorney general, and so he has not yet been classified, been briefed on this classified information of what specific interrogation techniques are used, aren’t used, what’s considered legal by the administration, what’s not. Is it unfair of the media, of the Congress, as the president says, to demand a specific answer from him?

GREENBERG: Absolutely not. They didn’t ask him if he knew what the techniques of the program were. They asked him a simple question: Is waterboarding in your opinion torture? That’s all they asked him. It’s not up to him to know the details at this point and that’s not, that wasn’t the line they were pursuing. And what President Bush and Dick Cheney yesterday did in their press conferences, in their speeches, was to basically say, “Look, you can’t hold somebody accountable if they don’t know,” and this has been a persistent theme throughout the Bush administration – this refusal to be accountable on the ground that no one has the facts. And on very many other grounds, but this is just their technique. "How can you accuse us of something if we’ve kept it secret?"

And it only gets worse:

LEHRER: Do you agree that there are degrees of waterboarding? And so, you know, again in Mukasey’s defense, he may not know to what degree this technique is actually used, how close to drowning somebody in the drowning experience, in actually filling their lungs with water, as our previous guest was describing, they actually go. Which also makes it difficult for him to take a position on whether the administration is using a torture technique.

GREENBERG: Waterboarding is designed to simulate drowning. So the degrees of it, whether it’s done well or not done well, that’s the goal of it. And that is why it is torture because torture is defined, in part, as that which simulates near death or the threat of death. And so I wouldn’t buy the degree thing. I want to say on this it doesn’t work thing. You know, to many of us, whether or not torture works is very much beside the point. Even if it does work, it is illegal. And it comprises so much in terms of our ability to effect decency and justice around the world. And our ability to not rely on a last-minute technique, but to get our information ahead of time and years earlier. There are many reasons to oppose torture beyond whether or not it works.

Eventually Greenberg appears to grow impatient with this contrived debate, the endless banality and futility of having to respond to one disingenuous talking point after another, and she finally pulls back the curtain on this farce:

GREENBERG: What’s going here in the debate…we’re losing sight of what the actual debate is about. The actual debate going on right now in Washington is about immunity. And about…and that’s the deeply troubling part of it, is there has been a cry for immunity, partially through the memos [the administration’s “torture memos”] from 2002, ’03, ’04 and ’05, that say, “Look, we would feel we need to implement torture techniques, however, we want to make sure everybody’s immune. However, we don’t want to bring this up for a public vetting.”

Lehrer, seemingly caught off-guard, replies, "Mmm."

Greenberg then shakes the wizard from his perch.

GREENBERG: And so this is really not a discussion about “Does torture work?” or Judge Mukasey. This is a discussion about how much immunity this government wants.

As if compelled to save face, Lehrer immediately responds (in the segment’s last seconds):

LEHRER: So, here, let me read you – we’re just about out of time – but let me read you one sentence from The New York Times editorial on this yesterday, where it says, “The only information Mr. Mukasey can possibly be lacking is whether Mr. Bush broke the law by authorizing the CIA to use waterboarding. A judgment the White House clearly does not want him to render in public because it could expose a host of officials to criminal accountability.” So, legal bottom line, do you think that’s what’s going on here?

Of course, that's how Lehrer should’ve framed the discussion from the start. Instead, he spends thirty minutes burying the actual lede, which Greenberg disinters in the final moments, exposing the inherent charade of the entire segment.   

Greenberg replies, “I absolutely think that is the fear of the Bush administration,” generously omitting that, in essence, it's the point she just made.

Finally, Lehrer not only relies on himself, Joe Scarborough and administration talking points to play foil to his two unimpeachable guests, but also leans on his callers, who, quite dubiously, just happen to be woefully uninformed and/or heavily right-leaning (not an easy task in these parts, mind you):

DALE IN SEAFORD HARBOR: Oh, hi Brian, this is a great segment. I have two quick comments. One, I think there are degrees of waterboarding, so you can get wet or come near drowning. [Dale seems to have confused waterboarding with a bath.] And comment two: it doesn’t work. A better way to interrogate a suspect is to become friends.

[…]

STACEY IN JERSEY CITY: Good morning, Brian. Thank you for taking my call. I am really disturbed at this entire ordeal. To answer the question, I think that this confirmation should be approved. The attorney general, or the prospective attorney general, should not be put in such an unreasonable position to give his opinion about a practice that isn’t new to the Republican Party. [Freudian slip or ironic malaprop?] I resent the implications that the Democrats are doing this, you know, for justice, we are really are going to stick by the law. I would like to know when you are in that position, when you have a bunch of murderers who are out to kill us, what are you supposed to do? Have tea and just please beg them to be forthcoming with the truth. [If that isn’t enough…] This is exactly why, as an African-American, I left the Democratic Party. They’re hypocrites.

[…]

STEVE IN WOODMERE: Good morning. You know, it seems to me that the Democrats, what they’re looking for, is they want to, you know, appoint someone who’s going to answer all the questions just the way they want it done. I thought Mr. Mukasey’s answer was very clear. He said, “Torture is illegal. I don’t know what waterboarding entails so I’m not going to put myself out and tell you that it is illegal.” Now, Mrs. Greenberg, she thinks, uh, that she’s some sort of an expert on how to deal with terrorists and how to get information. [Uh, because she is?] I don’t know what kind of experience does she have. It doesn’t work just the way, you know, just because she says this is what should be done, that’s how it’s going to work. There are a lot more details to getting information from terrorists than what she’s suggesting. 

My question? Why does Brian Lehrer think “Is Waterboarding Torture?” a viable frame for this topic? Needless to say, they happened to run out of time before getting to that one. And certainly, too, the questions of other informed tri-state area residents who objected to Mr. Lehrer’s “fair and balanced” handling of waterboarding. 

Incidentally, under “Statement and Principles” in the NPR News Code of Ethics and Practices, it says:

"Fair" means that we present all important views on a subject. This range of views may be encompassed in a single story on a controversial topic, or it may play out over a body of coverage or series of commentaries. But at all times the commitment to presenting all important views must be conscious and affirmative, and it must be timely if it is being accomplished over the course of more than one story.

The phrase “all important views,” of course, raises more questions than it answers. It’s not clear what constitutes all important views in the eyes of NPR - the legitimacy of what is being said, the prominence of the speaker, both, or either? Rush Limbaugh, for example, is a well-known figure, but he prevaricates for a living, viciously, amorally. Bush administration officials, from the top down, have been caught in serial lies and unconstitutional tactics for years, but what they say must fall under “important views”; yet if their statements are steeped in patent subversions of the truth, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and international law, is it “fair” to present such views to guests and the listening audience as if they should be given equal time and weight? As evidenced in Lehrer’s segment, doesn’t that, rather, often work to obfuscate the truth, mislead listeners and give cover to those who actively promulgate specious information?

Is that fair? Is that even sane? Isn't that the opposite of what a free press - especially via public broadcasting - is charged to provide to its citizens?

NYT Front|Back: Fairytale HS Football vs. Nightmare Military Courts

FRONT:

A Football Power in a Small Kansas Town
Between the size of its photo and accompanying text, this all-American, feel-good story about a beloved high school football team in Smith Center, Kansas, devoured two-thirds of above-the-fold real estate on Friday's New York Times cover.

It's the kind of story normally reserved for the final segment of a local or national news broadcast. Those confection pieces that make the hard news easier to digest and allow the anchor to sign off on a cheery avuncular note. A journalistic aperitif. (Never mind that adults shouldn't need such saccharine coddling, especially when much of that hard news is so watered down.)

Intro:

Their photos are on the cards traded over at the elementary school, and their exploits are on the lips of the old men who gather at the Second Cup Cafe each morning. They are the sons and grandsons of this north Kansas town, and for 30 autumns now, the Smith Center Redmen have puffed up the chests of folks here.

They are a high school football team, a superb one that has won 51 games in a row and three consecutive state championships, and has outscored opponents this season, 704-0. They are more than that, however, to the 1,931 people here who all know one another’s names: The Redmen are proof that hard work and accountability still mean something.

Gee whiz! Really? Do you promise? This sounds ripped from the headli...TV scripts of The Daily Show or The Colbert Report. Has Times reporter Joe Drape, the author of this piece, ever viewed these two wildly popular satirical news programs? Does he not understand that Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert and a parade  of fake correspondents have, for good reason, mercilessly skewered this type of reporting for years?

Do Drape and his Times editors not realize that the greater the cognitive dissonance and contextual irony - i.e. America's current abysmal reputation as a rash, lazy and arrogant imperialistic nation that condones torture - the funnier the piece? In other words, how can they not see how unintentionally hilarious this story is, even more so because, in sync with George Bush's America, it embarrassingly and inanely bullied its way onto the front page of our nation's paper of record. 

BACK (Page A23):

Decks Are Stacked in War Crimes Cases, Lawyers Say
Speaking of America's tarnished reputation in the eyes of the world...

Intro and excerpts:

The administration’s problem-plagued military commission system started up here again Thursday, but it began with contentious new claims that the war crimes cases are unfairly stacked against detainees.      

Military defense lawyers said that on the eve of the hearing, military prosecutors told them for the first time of a government witness who might be able to help a detainee, Omar Ahmed Khadr, counter the war crimes charges on which he was arraigned Thursday.

Mr. Khadr, the only Canadian detainee at Guantánamo, has been held here since he was 16. He is now 21.

“It is an eyewitness the government has always known about,” said Lt. Cmdr. William C. Kuebler of the Navy, Mr. Khadr’s chief military lawyer, who questioned why the military was only now informing the defense. Mr. Khadr is charged with the murder of an American soldier, spying, material support for terrorism and other charges.

[...]

The controversy over the witness emerged after the hearing was completed. Defense lawyers said the new disclosures by prosecutors in closed-door meetings showed that the system was not intended to be fair.

Michael J. Berrigan, the deputy chief military defense lawyer for the Guantánamo cases, told reporters that defense lawyers had been told Tuesday night of the existence of a witness who could provide information that could help Mr. Khadr.

“How we can have newly discovered evidence is beyond me,” since prosecutors have been pursuing charges against Mr. Khadr for years, Mr. Berrigan said. The lawyers said they could not describe the witness because prosecutors told them the information was classified.

“Every time you all come down here you see the problems in this process,” Mr. Berrigan said. Spokesmen for the military said prosecutors turn over information that could help a defendant when they learn of it. The military prosecutors declined to answer questions from reporters.

In response to defense assertions that military commission participants are under pressure from superiors to get war crimes cases moving quickly, a spokeswoman for the Office of Military Commissions, Lt. Catheryne Pully, said, “Our interest is in making sure the process is done correctly, not quickly.”

Commander Kuebler used the courtroom session to mount a strenuous challenge to the military judge hearing the case, Col. Peter E. Brownback III of the Army.

Commander Kuebler noted that the judge had barred the defense from raising challenges at this stage of the case to the constitutionality of the military commission system. He added that the judge had told him in a closed-door meeting that he had “taken a lot of heat” after issuing one of the rulings in June that stalled the commission cases. Pentagon officials and a White House spokesman said they disagreed with the June rulings.

Colonel Brownback, clearly irritated, said he had not intended Commander Kuebler to disclose that conversation but said, “I never said anyone who had any influence over me said anything."

Well, that's convincing.

Nothing to see here. Move right along. Hey, how 'bout those Smith Center Redmen, huh?

Op-Ed Column: Keith Olbermann, Network News' New Standard Bearer

MSNBC's Keith Olbermann, as a consequence of his searing special comments, has long been compared to Edward R. Murrow. And for good reason.

But on Monday night he did something even Murrow may have been hard-pressed to do (though Murrow never covered such a rogue administration): accuse the sitting President of the United States of high crimes and suggest his rightful place in history might be in a jail cell:

Study after study for generation after generation has confirmed that torture gets people to talk, torture gets people to plead, torture gets people to break, but torture does not get them to tell the truth.

Of course, Mr. Bush, this isn't a problem if you don't care if the terrorist plots they tell you about are the truth or just something to stop the tormentors from drowning them.

If, say, a president simply needed a constant supply of terrorist threats to keep a country scared.

If, say, he needed phony plots to play hero during, and to boast about interrupting, and to use to distract people from the threat he didn't interrupt.

If, say, he realized that even terrorized people still need good ghost stories before they will let a president pillage the Constitution.

Well, Mr. Bush, who better to dream them up for you than an actual terrorist?

He'll tell you everything he ever fantasized doing in his most horrific of daydreams, his equivalent of the day you "flew" onto the deck of the Lincoln to explain you'd won in Iraq.

Now if that's what this is all about, you tortured not because you're so stupid you think torture produces confession but you tortured because you're smart enough to know it produces really authentic-sounding fiction — well, then, you're going to need all the lawyers you can find … because that crime wouldn't just mean impeachment, would it?

That crime would mean George W. Bush is going to prison.

Keep in mind, this is not an op-ed in the New York Times, or something Olbermann wrote for The Nation, or said on Democracy Now! Nor did Olbermann deliver these words, à la his MSNBC colleague Chris Matthews, during an off-air speaking engagement, opportunistically timed to regain credibility in the service of selling a new book. Thus, no pose or marketing pitch, nor, for that matter, a fair weather opinion now that the political tides have turned.

No, Olbermann spoke directly to his viewers, who've rightly come to trust him as one of the few mainstream TV journalists to earn such trust during the Bush years. And contrary to the right-wing talking point, Olbermann tells the truth not because he's liberal or bashing Bush is popular or it's a boon to his ratings, but because, however antiquated an idea today, that's what journalists are supposed to do. Rather, the popularity of his show and his ever-rising ratings climb are a consequence of the public's hunger for this truth and its growing revulsion for the propaganda that all too often passes as news.

And though his "special comment" presents an opinion, as opposed to his straight news coverage and goofy "Oddball" segments earlier in the program, it is an opinion based in fact, often underscoring the need to preserve the Constitution, international law, civil liberties and common decency.

As Olbermann states in the opening words of Monday's special comment, "It is a fact startling in its cynical simplicity and it requires cynical and simple words to be properly expressed: The presidency of George W. Bush has now devolved into a criminal conspiracy to cover the ass of George W. Bush."

Once again, while most of Olbermann's colleagues in the mainstream media covered the nomination process of Judge Michael Mukasey as if it were merely a partisan battle of wills and a chance to host the inconceivable debate of whether waterboarding is torture - or even worse, whether torture is acceptable - Olbermann told the truth.

Mukasey's refusal to denounce waterboarding and label it torture comes down to one thing: immunity for war crimes members of the Bush administration have already committed and, presumably, continue to commit with regards to their "interrogation techniques." Techniques that also include other forms of torture, such as stress positions and sleep deprivation.

We forget today, and many younger Americans may not even realize, that there was a time when TV news anchors were the most trusted people in America. Murrow was one. Cronkite another. Others followed, but Murrow and Cronkite were most worthy of that trust, unlike the majority of their news descendants who progressively traded their journalistic integrity for job security and multi-million-dollar contracts. Who, little by little, allowed TV news to devolve into something worse than pure entertainment of the kind Paddy Chayefsky predicted in Network. At least that would've been more honest.

Instead, they enabled and supported a "fair and balanced" news environment in which lies and liars were increasingly given equal or more weight than were facts and honest men and women, in which rampant disinformation or feckless omissions of fact eventually became the standard.

Olbermann alone will not reverse this course. But he deserves our gratitude for trying.

(Editor's Note: You can read or watch Keith Olbermann's special comment in full here.)

Op-Ed Column: Open Letter to WashPo Columnist David Ignatius

Dear Mr. Ignatius,

I have a question about this statement from your Oct. 28 Washington Post op-ed "Walking Into Iran's Trap": "Bush administration officials, for all their bellicose rhetoric, still hope that diplomatic pressure -- backed by ever-tighter economic sanctions -- will persuade Iran to compromise."

Is this conclusion based on anything other than assurances from Bush administration officials? Multi-sourced reports on this topic from three of our country’s most revered award-winning investigative journalists - Seymour Hersh, Robert Parry and James Bamford - have concluded just the opposite. Are you saying they and all of their sources are wrong? Not to mention several other reports, including those from McClatchy and The Guardian? Even your own paper has reported the contrary (Peter Baker, Dafna Linzer and Thomas E. Ricks, April 2006):

"The Bush team is looking at the viability of airstrikes simply because many think airstrikes are the only real option ahead," said Kurt Campbell, a former Pentagon policy official.

[…]

U.S. officials continue to pursue the diplomatic course but privately seem increasingly skeptical that it will succeed.

[…]

[Retired Air Force Col. Sam] Gardiner [who led war games with Iran as a target] concluded that a military attack would not work, but said he believes the United States seems to be moving inexorably toward it. "The Bush administration is very close to being left with only the military option," he said.

In the Oct. 8 op-ed “‘A Way Out’ for Iran,” you similarly claim, “If you read the liberal blogosphere, and even the stately New Yorker magazine, you get the impression that the Bush administration is itching to drop a bomb on Iran. But talking with senior administration officials this week, I hear a different line.”

Though, of course, much evidence refuting your assertion, some of which is cited above, comes not merely from Mr. Hersh of The New Yorker and the liberal blogosphere (and just for the record, no evidence I’ve provided here is sourced from the liberal blogosphere). Rather, it comes from experienced investigative journalists, intelligence and foreign policy experts, and military insiders - from sources both inside and outside the Bush administration. For you to claim otherwise is either careless, naïve or intellectually dishonest.

So, for instance, are you telling us Cheney and his inner circle – run roughshod by über-hawk Chief of Staff David Addington (aka Cheney’s Cheney) – sincerely hope that diplomatic pressure will work? Or is that why you refer to "Bush administration officials" in your Oct. 28 column, rather than, say, "the White House" or "the Bush administration"? Since "officials" is plural, is it safe to assume, then, that at least two people working for the Bush administration want diplomacy to work? And wouldn’t relaying the rough percentage of administration officials who support diplomacy, in addition to their rank, be a much greater indicator of the administration’s genuine diplomatic efforts (that is to say, if any truly exists)?

In failing to provide such critical information while framing this point as you do, I’m sure you can see how readers might be misled by your statement, believing instead that the Bush administration on the whole - or at least the majority of its members - honestly hopes diplomacy will work and military action can be avoided. Or are you actually asserting that Bush administration officials, including the President and Vice President and their inner circles, are unified in their desire for diplomacy's success with regards to Iran?

I'm also sure you recall how widely the mainstream media reported that the Bush White House was doing everything it could diplomatically to avoid war with Iraq - in essence, often parroting administration talking points. Tragically, as we’re all aware, that turned out to be false. And young American men and women and the Iraqi people are suffering the consequences. If key members of the Bush administration (i.e. the highest levels of its leadership) are pushing for military action against Iran, can you see how your frame might then be dangerously misleading? And how it might be used once again by the Bush White House to, in the end, help wage war?

After all, as with Iraq, an appearance of exhausting diplomatic action is prerequisite to an attack.

In your op-ed “Red Flags and Regrets” (April 27, 2004), in which you assess media coverage leading up to the Iraq invasion, you wrote:

In a sense, the media were victims of their own professionalism. Because there was little criticism of the war from prominent Democrats and foreign policy analysts, journalistic rules meant we shouldn't create a debate on our own. And because major news organizations knew the war was coming, we spent a lot of energy in the last three months before the war preparing to cover it -- arranging for reporters to be embedded with military units, purchasing chemical and biological weapons gear and setting up forward command posts in Kuwait that mirrored those of the U.S. military.

In this illuminating statement (though not in the manner you intended), you seem to confuse professionalism with toadyism and journalistic rules with unethical corporate conformity. “Journalistic rules meant we shouldn’t create a debate on our own” is utterly antithetical to the tenets of sound journalism - to holding our elected leaders accountable, proactively seeking the truth and cutting through spin, and informing the public to the best of your ability.

If great journalists of the past and present followed your interpretation of “journalistic rules,” the world would be a much darker place.

Edward R. Murrow wouldn’t have stood up to and taken down Senator Joseph McCarthy. Walter Cronkite, with a Democratic president in office and Republicans overwhelmingly in favor of remaining in Vietnam, might not have declared the war “unwinnable” on national network news. And the names “Woodward and Bernstein” would conjure images of a law firm instead of the investigative reporters who cracked Watergate (in your own paper, incidentally). We still might be clueless to the My Lai massacre and its cover-up revealed by Seymour Hersh, the Iran-Contra scandal broken by Robert Parry and Brian Barger, or, more recently, George W. Bush’s unconstitutional use of presidential signing statements (Charlie Savage of the Boston Globe) or the administration-sanctioned extraordinary rendition program (Dana Priest, your current Washington Post colleague).

Such an interpretation of journalistic standards, as stated in your April 2004 op-ed, might well be acceptable by the Soviet-era Pravda - or, say, in Iran today - but not by any self-respecting news outlet in a democracy.

And not in an America that wishes to preserve its liberty.