MediaBloodhound

From the Archives: The Democrats Get No R-E-S-P-E-C-T

(This MediaBloodhound op-ed column was originally posted on June 22, 2006. At the time, following the White House's lead, the mainstream media was busy attacking Democrats for not agreeing on a uniform plan to bring our troops home from Iraq. The fact that Democrats were unified on the need for a plan - regardless of the plan - was ignored. Their mild disagreement opened them up to cliché  partisan attacks and hack media characterizations of being weak on national defense. In the end, it was our troops who paid the price - and continue to do so - for this kind of twisted national political discourse.)

Yesterday’s Washington Post report “Democrats Divided on Withdrawal of Troops” is indicative of the mainstream media’s lopsided coverage of Democrats and Republicans. More proof that Dems, their shortcomings aside, are treated like the Rodney Dangerfield of political parties.

First, let’s review for the sake of context.

• We have a Republican president who, under false pretenses, consigned our sons and daughters to a war of choice, resulting in over 2,500 of their deaths, with more than 18,000 wounded - missing limbs, losing sight and hearing, severely burned, suffering brain damage and chronic psychological impairment.

• Inconceivably, this Republican president sent them into battle without sufficient body armor, a clear objective or an exit strategy.

• This same Republican president directly sanctions torture and scoffs at the Geneva Conventions (which, in part, were originally set in place so our own soldiers were less likely to be treated inhumanely should they fall behind enemy lines). Uses fear of “evildoers” for political gain at every opportunity (like other fascist regimes in history). And has invoked unprecedented, unconstitutional and impeachable presidential powers (one of which includes spying on millions of Americans’ phone calls).

• Ironically, with all of his tough talk about doing whatever it takes to protect Americans, uttered ad nauseum like a robotic monkey, the 9-11 Commission graded his efforts in preparing our nation against terrorist attacks with a resounding “F.”

• Furthermore, this Republican president has denied that human activity is directly linked to global warming, gutted environmental laws (that have, and will for years to come, greatly contribute to its expansion) and refuses to sign the Kyoto Treaty.

• Finally, this Republican president let New Orleans drown and, to this day, has not come through on his promises (stated during a nationally televised photo-op) to help its citizens rebuild their homes and lives.

This Republican president has amassed an indefensibly abysmal record. And this Republican-led Congress has staunchly supported him in lockstep fashion.

Yet the mainstream media pillories the Democrats for not unanimously agreeing on the same date for withdrawing our troops from Iraq, while praising the Republicans’ unequivocal support for Bush’s disastrous policy there.

Starting with the headline “Democrats Divided on Withdrawal of Troops,” this Washington Post article gives the false impression that their bone of contention is whether or not to withdraw troops; their disagreement, however, lies in when troops should be withdrawn. The majority clearly agrees that troop withdrawal must be in the plans. A simple edit could’ve clarified their stance: “Democrats Divided on Timetable to Withdraw Troops.” One could argue the Levin-Reed plan speaks of a date for “redeploying” troops from Iraq and does not specify a date for full withdrawal. But, let’s face it, setting a date to start redeploying troops from Iraq instead of setting one for a full withdrawal is largely a nuanced, semantic buffer from the misleading Republican accusations of “cutting and running.” And, yes, a withdrawal under the Levin-Reed plan would take longer than under the one proposed by Senator John Kerry, but the underlying intention of both is to finally provide an exit strategy that Bush and the Republicans have failed to do.

Here’s the article’s intro:

While congressional Republicans continued to show almost unanimous support for President Bush's handling of the Iraq war, Democrats struggled for consensus yesterday, reflecting what some of them called the public's mixed feelings about the three-year-old conflict.

So the Republicans are painted in a positive light for showing “almost unanimous support” for Bush’s failed policy and strategy in Iraq. Can you imagine the same coverage if the Democrats were in power and Iraq had occurred on their watch? It’s simply inconceivable. The mainstream media continues to frame strong leadership - as if taking their cues directly from Karl Rove - on the basis of being decisive rather than sound in judgment (something, incidentally, that Senator Kerry underscored about Bush during their presidential race and the mainstream media found of little consequence – until, however short-lived, they witnessed first-hand in New Orleans a direct consequence of rewarding a leader for being decisively wrong). They reward Republicans for being faithful to party rather than country, something our Founding Fathers cautioned us against.

More kudos for Republican consensus on failure:

Debate and votes on the two measures are likely to be held today and tomorrow, with Senate Republicans happy to clear the way for Democrats to showcase their divisions. Senators predicted that few, if any, Republicans will embrace the Democrats' proposals, mirroring the nearly unanimous support House Republicans displayed last week for Bush's policies.

Not until eight paragraphs into the article are we provided with an accurate glimpse into the Democrats’ view on this issue:

Kerry, Levin and Reed say Iraqis must understand that the U.S. military presence in their country is not open-ended and that Iraqis therefore should step up efforts to train and equip their police and army.

Then, time for more Dem bashing:

GOP leaders took obvious pleasure in the Democrats' disarray, issuing a stream of press releases with headlines such as, "Democrats Divided On The Meaning Of Their Own Amendments."

It’s telling how similar that headline is to the one the Washington Post chose for its article. Is it not merely the subtext of the WashPo headline?

The best example of the report's bias, however, is that this was saved for its final paragraph:

Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) acknowledged his party's divisions over Iraq but played down the significance. "One thing Democrats agree on is this war has taken too long, it's too expensive and costs too many lives and too many soldiers injured," he told reporters. "We all agree there should be a change in the course of the war. We all agree that there should be redeployment starting sooner rather than later."

Reid attempts to make quite clear to the mainstream press and the American people that it’s the Democrats’ common ground - a joint belief we need to lay down an exit strategy in Iraq and the underlying reasons why - that is of much greater importance here. Not the quibbling over when to exit.

But, whereas the Republicans are the star basketball players rarely called for fouls or traveling, Reid and the Dems don’t get any breaks from the refs in the mainstream media. His quote is sidelined to the last paragraph of the article. His point clanking off the rim and quickly forgotten, if ever read.

I tell ya, no respect, no respect at all.

From the Archives: Terrorist Plot Foiled Before Conception Phase

(This Wounded-Courier article was originally posted on July 7, 2006. If you haven't heard of the Secaucus Seven, that's because the Bush administration thwarted their chilling plan.)

NEW YORK - In yet another victory in the war on terror, seven New Jersey residents were arrested before masterminding a plot to open a coffee bar in midtown that wasn’t a Starbucks.

A tip from the FBI alerted local Secaucus police, who arrested the men – known now as the “Secaucus Seven” – without a struggle. Each arrest came as a surprise to the plotters, none of whom had actually met.

FBI Assistant Director Mark Mershon, fresh from this afternoon’s press conference on the disrupted plot to blow up a tunnel between New York and New Jersey, met again with the press later in the day. “In the tunnel plot, the FBI, along with local New York City authorities, were able to stop it in the planning stage,” Mershon explained. “In the case of the non-Starbuck’s coffee bar plot, the FBI, with help from local Secaucus authorities, made the first terrorist arrest in the pre-ideation phase. Simply put, this is a landmark case in the war on terror.”

Mayor Michael Bloomberg, standing beside Mershon and New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelley, said, “Though we can’t give enough credit to Agent Mershon and the FBI, Commissioner Kelley and local Secaucus law enforcement officials, New York cannot be expected to regularly stop terrorist plots in their pre-planning stage if we don’t receive more funding from the federal government.”

The only suspect to be formally charged as yet is mastermind Dougie Fensler, a 37-year-old man who operates a Mister Softee truck two days a week in his Secaucus neighborhood. Fensler confessed to thinking recently, while strolling through midtown on a day off, that something other than a Starbucks might be nice. But he claims he never planned on doing anything about it, or calling on anyone else to bring his idea to fruition. Through his lawyer, Fensler released this statement: “Dude, I’m a burnout who sells ice cream. I’m not exactly what you’d call proactive. You feel me?” Mr. Fensler did not claim any ties to al Qaeda, but did admit to hearing of them before; though he couldn’t remember why.

“The threat stream began with a citizen who witnessed Fensler scowl while passing a Starbuck’s on 48th and 8th,” said Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff. “The FBI took over from there, noticing similar reactions as Mr. Fensler made his way around the general midtown area. Agents then tailed his Mister Softee truck – which, incidentally, he was driving illegally in an off-duty capacity – back to his home in Secaucus.” Chertoff went on to explain, “There, they witnessed Mr. Fensler’s soul-crushing existence – a basement apartment with a mattress on the floor, no sign whatsoever of a sexual partner and a wardrobe that included jeans shorts – and realized it was only a matter of time before militant desperation might lead to the idea of the coffee bar plot. We didn’t want to take that chance.”

The six other men, whose names have not been released, are still being questioned by authorities. Though one man, a podiatrist and father of four, did release this statement through his lawyer: “This entire episode is so idiotic I’ve temporarily lost my ability to swallow.”

From the Archives: Coulter Eats Newborn During Book Signing

(Originally posted on June 9, 2006, this was the debut installment of The Wounded-Courier, MediaBloodhound's all-satirical news release. A love letter of sorts to everyone's favorite hellbound plagiarist.)

NEW YORK - Conservative author Ann Coulter, in the midst of her new book tour for Godless: The Church of Liberalism, snatched a mother’s newborn child from her arms last night and swallowed her whole.

Bonnie Seaberg, the mother of six-week old Jennifer, stood in horror as Coulter unhinged her jaw and dropped the infant straight down her gullet. “Yes, I was wearing a ‘Gore in ’08’ button,” Seaberg began, teary-eyed, “but it’s a free country, isn’t it? And that woman, that devil-whore-Nazi-cokehead, spotted me and my little Jenny, stopped reading in mid-sentence, ripped her from my bosom and swallowed her like a grape.”

Coulter, in her defense, says, “Look, every audience member who shows up at my book tour must sign a release form. Okay? It specifically affirms that they are not a liberal, are not having liberal thoughts and are not wearing any liberal paraphernalia. Period. I’m very upfront about that. All right?”

When asked if swallowing a newborn whole was simply another publicity stunt to boost sales of her book, Coulter shrugs off the suggestion. “That’s ridiculous! Another convenient accusation spun out of the law of liberal infallibility. Liberals are never willing to take responsibility for their actions. Look, Mrs. Seaberg accepted the conditions of the release form – in a free society, actions have consequences. And you really think I need to feed on the flesh of small children to sell my books? Didn’t you see me on the Today Show with Matty Lauer? Didn’t you see Hillary Clinton doing a better job than my faggy publicist?” Pausing a moment, she adds, “Besides, I’ll defer to the Jews when it comes to eating the flesh of small children. Historically, they’ve certainly set the benchmark. I’m an amateur.”

Standing before a packed crowd at a luncheon for Mothers Against Swallowing Kids (MASK), Senator Hillary Clinton today responded to Coulter’s ingestion of the infant by saying, “Maybe she should’ve called her book…‘Bottomless.’” The auditorium of mothers held its applause until realizing Clinton had delivered the punch line. Clinton went on to say, “I know what Ann Coulter did to that poor mother’s child was wrong. To treat a defenseless newborn in such a manner is everything I stand against, and everything I will fight to stop.” Asked by a mother in the crowd if she would bring U.S. troops home from Iraq, Clinton replied, “Did I mention how much I’m against that baby-eating thing?”

On her recent dust-up with the 9-11 widows, Coulter, moments after unintentionally causing a puppy to go into cardiac arrest with a side glance, says, “Trust me. They got off light. It’s their husbands that had to pay for their sins. But we already knew that. Ouch. Ka-ching. Can you hear that, ass hound, I just sold another thousand books.” Coulter takes a sip of her sparkling water and then tosses another log on the fire. “Did I mention Holocaust survivors are, like, really whiny. I mean, all right already, you suffered. We get it. Hey, my cable box wasn’t working last night – we all have crosses to bear.”

Defending the choice to invite Coulter onto its program, the Today Show released this statement to the press: “We have a proud tradition of showcasing a range of opinions on our program, from center to the far right of extreme. We intend to continue delivering nothing less to our viewers. And, no, Matt Lauer is not the Anti-Christ.”

Coulter’s grueling book tour, an 18-week-long orgy of odious, illogical and misinformed screeds, has already kicked off a firestorm of sales for the svelte (some might say harrowingly gaunt) diva of dissention. Next up, she’ll be making an appearance in Hades on Roy Cohn, Live from Hell, joining a panel that includes Joseph McCarthy, Jeffrey Dahmer, Jim Varney and Vlad the Impaler. From there, Ms. Coulter will be stopping by The View and Good Morning America.

While critics continue to wring their hands that Coulter is given a forum for her brand of in-your-face journalism, she has some words of advice for them. “Don’t hate me because I’m right.”

From the Archives: The "Sustainable Cease-fire" Press Conference

(This MediaBloodhound op-ed column was originally posted on July 24, 2006. The number of Lebanese civilians killed since that date has more than doubled. And while Israel and Hezbollah each now claim victory, both have brought nothing but increased suffering, terror and death to their own people. Finally, we sit on the eve of a cease-fire between the two warring parties. Or do we? Presently, the cease-fire has been treated by our mainstream media and the Bush administration with the urgency of a dentist appointment. Israel, Hezbollah, your cease-fire is scheduled for Monday. Should either of you need to cancel, you'll must give us 24-hour notice or you will be charged in full for your appointment. Until then, fire away.)

Tony "The Press Corps Whisperer" Snow expanded on the Bush administration's shamelessly Orwellian "sustained cease-fire." Language that distorts the very intent of a cease-fire: to stop mindless bloodshed, at least in the short term, during which diplomacy is engaged. It also usually occurs when neither side will benefit from the continuation of violence, which appears to be the case here. For the Lebanese, because of the nearly 400 deaths and 800,000 displaced from their homes; for Israel, aside from the disruption of normal life in the north, because certain blowback from this crude operation accrues daily. As Lebanese civilians suffer wildly disproportionate casualties, the Israeli government, whether it recognizes it or not (or even cares) is losing the global war of opinion.

Even though our mainstream media has largely kept the horrific images of burned, blinded and blown up Lebanese civilians out of the public's eye (opting instead to concentrate on pictures of bloodless rubble), the rest of the world is viewing these disturbing images. One of the most horrific includes a baby who's had his head blown off. Too much? Sorry. This is the reality of war, and the reality that - though Hezbollah's actions are to be condemned as well - the Israeli army clearly has no qualms about slaughtering hundreds of innocents in the name of defense.

To the press briefing:

Q: On Lebanon, there seems to be two tracks that have emerged. There are those calling for an immediate cease-fire; there are those calling for a sustainable cease-fire. And the sustainable camp says there's a risk -- if you just call for an immediate, you'll be back here in three weeks or three months. Isn't it worth the risk if you stop innocent Israelis and Lebanese from being killed; isn't it worth taking that risk while you try to bang out something more sustainable?

MR. SNOW: The question is whether that's a fool's errand, Jim. The idea that you suspend -- number one, there's a notion that somehow both sides are going to suspend, and we remain deeply skeptical that Hezbollah is going to abide by any such agreement.

...

So the sustainable cease-fire is one that is not going to enable Hezbollah to declare victory, but instead will allow the people of Lebanon to look forward to peace and prosperity.

"Sustainable cease-fire," as it's applied by this administration, is simply a micro version of "perpetual war for perpetual peace." Precision-guided war mongering, if you will. But if someone is on fire, you don't plan his future; you put out the damn fire. Before looking "forward to peace and prosperity," the Lebanese people would first like Israeli bombs to stop killing and maiming them.

Q: If you -- I don't think there's any disagreement about the goal, even the folks calling for an immediate cease-fire want to see something sustainable. The point is, what do you do in the interim -- this risk everyone is talking about, that you could be back there in three weeks? So what? So you're back there in two weeks. In the meantime, you've had three weeks less of --

MR. SNOW: No, you're assuming that there are three peaceful weeks. And I'm not going to take out the crystal ball.  I'm telling you what our position is, which is --

Q: About your position, though, if they're not peaceful weeks, doesn't that, in some way, also insulate the administration, the Israelis from criticism from people saying that response is disproportionate. Doesn't that improve and strengthen your position to say, hey, we tried it, we called for it, and it didn't happen?

MR. SNOW: I don't think continued civilian deaths strengthens anybody's position. What you're saying is if there are further civilian casualties, it strengthens our position from a debating point of view.

No, what he's saying is that not only is your position inhumane and cynical but politically inept.

Snow's willful illogic and callousness continues:

MR. SNOW:  Well, no, that is -- no, that is if you call for a cease-fire that is unenforceable, that is not enforced and people suffer, that is the practical consequence. The point is, there's no give on this. The United States believes in a sustainable cease-fire. Secretary Rice is in the region talking about it. She had a very good meeting today with key leaders in Lebanon and they talked about that. They also talked about humanitarian assistance and a number of other topics.

So I think the notion that you have a cease-fire that, at this point, is unenforceable, does not really get us to the point we need to be at. You do not want to give -- you simply don't want to go there.

But people are suffering and dying now. That's the point. Just not Tony's. "The point is, there's no give on this." That's Tony's point. The same kind of belligerent, arrogant rhetoric we get from everyone in this White House - from Bush to Cheney to Condi to Rummy to Alberto to Ambassador Bolton. You don't like it? Go f*** yourself. That's how we roll. Whaddya think this is, a democracy?

"Secretary Rice is in the region talking about it. She had a very good meeting today with key leaders in Lebanon and they talked about that. They also talked about humanitarian assistance and a number of other topics." Talk, talk, talk. While Condi smirks through photo-ops and plays make-believe president - or empress - every hour adds to this humanitarian nightmare. Once more, this administration is moving at the speed of grinding incompetence. Yet what's even more infuriating is that chalking it up to incompetence, or even misguided policy, seems too generous. For it appears to be more a case of callous disregard. As with Katrina, this White House seems unfazed by needless death. Let's be honest. If they didn't care about our own citizens (or our troops sent into battle on false pretenses with insufficient body armor), they sure as hell as don't care about Lebanon's. (Or Iraq's. Or Afghanistan's.)

And just look at the conservative talking points spewing over right-wing talk radio and Fox News about how those Americans trapped in Lebanon - another delayed reaction moment for this White House - are all a bunch of "whiney babies" who had no reason to be there in the first place; so it serves them right whatever happens to them. Meanwhile, other countries, including France and Italy and Sweden, realizing their citizens were in danger, got them out immediately (and without demanding cash before they would help).

After other painfully ironic allusions to US humanitarian aid (food and supplies in one hand for Lebanon, more bombs for Israel in the other), Snow fields the original question, though quickly smothers it in this new rhetoric:

Q: To sort of follow on Jim's point, when so many other world leaders and entities are saying we need a more immediate cease-fire, and the U.S. persists in this view that it must be sustainable, is it not then for people to infer that the U.S. views that crushing Hezbollah is more important than the short-term loss of civilian lives and civilian structures?

MR. SNOW: No. Again, I think what you're posing is a false choice. If you can guarantee for us that Hezbollah somehow would stop rocketing, then maybe you'd have a point. But Hezbollah started this. You've got to keep in mind, the aggressor in this case is not Israel, it's Hezbollah. Hezbollah crossed over into Israeli territory and kidnapped two soldiers. It has been rocketing Israel, but it has been ratcheting up in recent days. Nasrallah has made it pretty obvious that he considers a war against Israel, and as a consequence, I think a lot of people -- look, we would like a cease-fire tomorrow, we would like a cease-fire immediately, but it has to be a cease-fire that is going to stand the test of time so that people in that region -- and people in Lebanon in particular, a country that has been hard hit by occupying forces and by frustrations of its democratic aspirations, deserves a shot in having the freedom and democracy its people deserve.  And the only way that's going to be possible is if there is no longer an internal threat of the sort that we've witnessed in recent weeks.

The press drops that line of questioning. (Never mind no one reminded Tony that it's now common knowledge Israel had planned this attack for a year, conveniently using those two Israeli soldiers as provocation.) Two questions. Two evasions. Why make more of an effort? It's only hundreds or, possibly in time, thousands of lives at stake. Nearly a million with no home. But the topic soon switches. Tony runs out the clock. It's just another day for The Press Corps Whisperer.

"...and people in Lebanon in particular, a country that has been hard hit by occupying forces and by frustrations of its democratic aspirations, deserves a shot in having the freedom and democracy its people deserve."

Unfortunately, Tony, freedom and democracy are hard to enjoy when you're already dead.

From the Archives: Big Oil Tries to Gore Al's Inconvenient Truth

(This MediaBloodhound op-ed column was originally posted on May 17, 2006. Since then, Al Gore has been compared to everything from a crackpot to a Nazi for attempting to wake up our nation to the current and future impact of global warming. Big oil continues to pump money into efforts to discredit Gore, as well as the overwhelming scientific consensus on which his film was based. Meanwhile, with the country in the midst of a sweltering heat wave, the hottest summer on record, even wingut supreme Pat Robertson has left the kitchen, saying this week "it is getting hotter and the ice caps are melting and there is a build up of carbon dioxide in the air." All right, who spiked Pat's Kool-Aid with reality juice?)

Like fur matted to an endangered wild yak, Think Progress was all over big oil’s imminent attack on Al Gore’s new global warming movie, An Inconvenient Truth.

Just a week before its May 24th opening, the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) - a disinformation front group for big oil - will unleash two TV ads on “global warming alarmism” in cities nationwide. While CEI is funded by other oil companies through the American Petroleum Institute, Exxon Mobil is a major donor, with more than $1.6 million in contributions since 1998. (Busy promoting an image of environmental responsibility, Exxon Mobil has, in fact, pumped millions of dollars into think tanks, media outlets, consumer and religious groups, and other organizations that promote a skeptical global warming agenda. Surprise, surprise.)

So what exactly is CEI’s perspective on global warming? Here’s the straight dope from their website:

Although global warming has been described as the greatest threat facing mankind, the policies designed to address global warming actually pose a greater threat. The Kyoto Protocol and similar domestic schemes to ration carbon-based energy use would do little to slow carbon dioxide emissions, but would have enormous costs. These costs would eventually fall most heavily on the poorest nations in the world. Luckily, predictions of the extent of future warming are based on implausible scientific and economic assumptions, and the negative impacts of predicted warming have been vastly exaggerated. In the unlikely event that global warming turns out to be a problem, the correct approach is not energy rationing, but rather long-term technological transformation and building resiliency in societies by increasing wealth. CEI has been a leader in the fight against the global warming scare.

Who’s wearing the tin foil hats now, huh? The "fight against the global warming scare." Great. Just what we need. A global war on global warming informants. Maybe the NSA can start spying on who's leaking those incontrovertible scientific facts.

As Think Progress points out, “Science Magazine analyzed 928 peer-reviewed scientific papers on global warming published between 1993 and 2003. Not a single one challenged the scientific consensus that the earth’s temperature is rising due to human activity.”

And not to throw gasoline on a fire, but here’s CEI’s founder Fred Smith and reporter Michael Kinsley from a 1992 Crossfire interview:

SMITH: Look, the point- what we do know and don’t know, we know that carbon dioxide is increasing. We know carbon dioxide is a plant fertilizer which is a positive benefit to the peoples of the world. We know that there are these elaborate computer models that have never been right before, may be right this time, that suggest climate changes, possibly good, possibly bad. Most of the indications right now are it looks pretty good. Warmer winters, warmer nights, no effects during the day because of clouding, sounds to me like we’re moving to a more benign planet, more rain, richer, easier productivity to agriculture -

KINSLEY: Wait a minute.

SMITH: We’re basically to a world now that’s a lot closer to heaven than hell.

This MediaBloodhound op-ed column was originally posted on May 17, 2006.

Is it any wonder that big oil has been the driving force behind Bush administration policy? These are the people with whom Dick “Leave All the Lights On” Cheney carved out our nation’s energy policies behind closed doors. Smith on Crossfire and CEI’s website statement sound strikingly similar in tone and twisted logic to that of Cheney describing why we attacked Iraq, Rumsfeld defending troop levels and insufficient body armor, Gonzales and Rice denying our use of torture and secret gulags, and President Snoop Dog asking us to trust him and his crooked-to-the-core administration not to spy on us.

Every single one of their policies and positions stands in the way of human progress, science and decency. To these villainously greedy dead-enders, money trumps death, even if it means the demise of their own family’s future generations.

Incidentally, this past April was the warmest on record in the United States. I guess that means we’re all one step closer to heaven.

From the Archives: Predicting Tom Friedman

(The MediaBloodhound op-ed column was originally posted on June 12, 2006. Before you sit down with your Sunday morning coffee and tune in to Meet the Press (because, apparently, you are also a masochist), you might want to revisit this piece on New York Times columnist Tom Friedman. The mustachioed master of the overwrought metaphor will be joining Tim Russert, and I'm going to go out on a limb here and predict that Friedman will make yet another prediction on the situation in Iraq. In a perfect world, Russert would then cut to footage of every false prediction Friedman has made since the beginning of this war. Unfortunately, one hour may not be long enough.)

Tom Friedman likes making predictions. Especially about the war in Iraq.

Though, unlike most people, if Friedman's predictions don't come true - or, more precisely, are wildly off the mark - he refuses to admit he made a mistake. Instead, he simply changes the time frame in which the original prediction was to occur. And changes it again. And again. And again. Desperately hoping his prophecy will eventually come to pass. We're supposed to believe him because he's Tom Friedman, and he says we're supposed to believe him. (Kind of reminds me of The Decider in the White House.) And while that seems good enough for his colleagues in the mainstream media and those of his readers who defer to his alleged expertise "on the ground," it leaves the rest us wondering why his viewpoint on Iraq is still deemed credible by anyone.

In May, we covered the FAIR report documenting Friedman's pattern of endlessly rejiggering his timetable on when a clear picture of Iraq's success or failure will surface. His multiple "six-month window" projections have now extended to over three and a half years. And counting.

Yesterday, he was back with another prediction. This one predicated on why his original predictions were never actually proven wrong. Here's Friedman to explain, with help from CNN's Howard Kurtz:

KURTZ: Now, I want to understand how a columnist's mind works when you take positions, because you were chided recently for writing several times in different occasions "the next six months are crucial in Iraq," the next six months. And now you've written a column saying that Americans are simply not going to tolerate this kind of anarchy for another two years and deadlines have to be set. Were you conscious that you were now shifting your position on this?

FRIEDMAN: Not really. You know, the problem with analyzing the story, Howie, is that it doesn't -- everyone, first of all, this is the most polarized story I've certainly written about, so everyone wants, basically, to be proven right, OK?

So the left -- people who hated the war, they want you to declare the war is over, finish, we give up. The right, just the opposite. But I've been trying to just simply track the situation on the ground. And the fact is that the outcome there is unclear, and I reflected that in my column. And I will continue to reflect.

KURTZ: Unclear, but you're running out of patience?

FRIEDMAN: Well, it's not that I'm running out of patience. The story's evolving. And what strikes me as I see it evolve, when it drags on, six months after an election we still don't have a government. Then, as a columnist who's offering opinions on what I think the right policy is, it seems to me we have to be telling Iraqis we are not going to be here forever, providing a kind of floor under the chaos, while you dicker over the most minute things when American lives are at stake. So I think it's a constantly evolving thing.

The classic mainstream media square dance. Friedman grabs Kurtz's original question and tosses it aside. Kurtz obliges with a curtsy and dosey-do. Then Friedman swings logic round and round, and justifies his slippery timelines by declaring the situation in Iraq "a constantly evolving thing." Now...bow to your host...bow to your guest. And...pat yourselves on your backs. 

"A constantly evolving thing." What a convenient assessment of Iraq. The kind presidents and military brass use to dodge legitimate timetables and extend prosecution of wars far beyond reason. I somehow doubt Friedman would feel as comfortable with his wait-and-see attitude if he had a son or daughter in Iraq. If he had to greet each morning with the dreadful uncertainty of not knowing whether his child had made it through another night.

Just as Bush's credibility suffered by telling us that what we were seeing and hearing and reading about Iraq was all wrong, so too should Tom Friedman's. His ongoing reverential treatment by the mainstream media will only further erode public confidence in traditional news outlets. Sadly, Friedman will remain a fixture at The New York Times because he perpetuates the kind of nuanced cheerleading and cover for the Bush administration in which The Times often participates. Meanwhile, he represents everything that infuriates those who saw this illegal war for what it was prior to the invasion. Like this administration, instead of basing his analysis on reality, facts and common sense, he continues to rely on fitting the "situation on the ground" to his own ideology. In trying to save face now for his past assessments on Iraq, largely inspired by the geo-political perspective on which he's staked his reputation, Friedman has irrevocably tarnished his name in the process.

Of course, many will forget all about this. Eventually, the Bush administration will go darkly, brutally, into the night. We will bid Iraq adieu, wondering how mad our leaders must have been to have entered in the first place. Fresh calamities and concerns will arise, helping to wash away the memory of those in the media who served as mouthpieces or apologists for this White House. Time, most likely, will be more forgiving to Tom than not.

But here's a prediction. And a promise.

Tom Friedman's inability, or refusal, to accurately assess the situation in Iraq and the true intentions of this White House will be remembered by the current generation of progressive media, and by the ever-growing generation of readers who now rely on it to find the truth.

From the Archives:Like a Schmuck on Wheels

(This MediaBloodhound op-ed column was originally posted on May 4, 2006. The mainstream media's reaction to Stephen Colbert's appearance at the White House Correspondents' Dinner helped to create its legendary status. The New York Times' first article covering the event managed to omit any mention of Colbert. Just disappeared him. In a follow-up story, The Times asked us to further disregard reality when it told us Colbert's performance had actually been a flop. This op-ed was written in response to The Times' irresponsible and weasily reaction to the night when Stephen Colbert brought the hammer, made us laugh and told the truth.)

In Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas, Morris "Morrie" Kessler, a rug-wearing toupee salesman who hocks his pate covers in local TV ads, brings needling and obliviousness to new heights. Into the mob for several Gs, he begins complaining after they jack up his interest. Morrie’s nearly rubbed out early in the film, when, while grousing about the interest, his commercial comes on a nearby TV screen, prompting De Niro's Jimmy Conway to twist a telephone cord around Morrie’s neck, enraged that Morrie has enough to pay for the commercial but not enough to pay him. Ray Liotta's Henry Hill steps in and convinces Jimmy that Morrie will have his money. But as the movie progresses, so does Morrie’s griping, reaching a shrill apex when he sees no return on a side investment he’s made with Jimmy. Ever clueless of the likely repercussion from constantly carping, he’s finally, unceremoniously, whacked.

Reading New York Times reporter Jacques Steinberg’s account of blogosphere reaction to Stephen Colbert’s performance at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, with the gleefully snarky headline, “After Press Dinner, the Blogosphere Is Alive With the Sound of Colbert Chatter,” I couldn’t help but think of ol’ Morrie Kessler. 

If you were to skim through the archives on MediaBloodhound, you would find generous focus on The Times. For good reason. First, as the accepted “Paper of Record,” they should be held to a higher standard. Second, with an unearned and patently false “liberal media” tag, it’s necessary to further dispel this myth. And, finally, for no other reason than they, like Morrie, seem to bring it upon themselves. Generally speaking, Morrie is on friendly terms with the mobsters - they hang out with him, he can be charming and convivial - yet just when they’re all enjoying themselves, his kvetching begins anew.

Similarly, The Times might, within the same day’s paper, serve up a solid front-page article while running an adjacent one that reads like news analysis but isn’t labeled so, or an op-ed piece that reveals highly pertinent facts that fail to find their way into a lead article covering the same event or issue. You can trust one thing from The Times: an overall editorial approach to journalism, despite some exceptional daily reporting mixed in, that is too often stingy with the whole truth and, at times, manifestly dishonest. When they broke the illegal NSA wiretaps story, they had already sat on it for a year, long enough for another presidential election cycle to pass – one more gift to a president who seems to moonlight as their Editor-in-Chief. Equally deferential was their last-minute quashing of a story on the unmistakable curious hump beneath Junior's jacket during the 2004 presidential debates. And when our country, and the world, depended on them to deliver the truth about Iraq’s purported WMD, instead we got Judy Miller, a.k.a. “Miss Run Amok” (she invented that nickname, people), and the willful ignorance and negligent oversight of her editors.

So now The Times decides to weigh in on Colbert’s act. This after deciding to strike any mention of it from their coverage of the event, after excising him from the public record as one might snip a drunk uncle out of a family portrait or an ex out of an photo before uploading it to an online dating site. (Incidentally, it’s public record that cropping “unnecessary” folks out of photographs, like, say, candidates they deem unworthy of notice, is literally a tactic The Times has employed in the past.) Though they’re only willing to broach Colbert’s appearance through the disingenuous frame that bloggers are exaggerating both the brilliance of Colbert’s acid set and what’s behind the mainstream media’s criticism or outright willingness to ignore it.

How out of touch, willfully or not, are Times reporter Jacques Steinberg and his editors?

"At issue was a heavily nuanced, often ironic performance by Mr. Colbert, who got in many licks at the president — on the invasion of Iraq, on the administration's penchant for secrecy, on domestic eavesdropping — with lines that sounded supportive of Mr. Bush but were quickly revealed to be anything but. And all this after Mr. Colbert tried, at the outset, to soften up the president by mocking his intelligence, saying that he and Mr. Bush were ‘not so different,’ by which he meant, he explained, ‘we're not brainiacs on the nerd patrol.’"

“Often ironic performance”? Colbert is a satirist who plays a character whose whole persona rests on taking the phony populist patriotism, harebrained logic and boorishness of a Bill O’Reilly and running blindly through the muck of facts, science and reality; the joke depends on this contrast and the irony that billows forth. Not grasping this is like not realizing Ali G. is just a character. But thanks for the contextual attempt to define irony: “with lines that sounded supportive of Mr. Bush but were quickly revealed to be anything but.” Gee whiz, Jimmy. Hold the phone. I gotta jot that down.

“In an online survey begun yesterday, the snarky Web site Gawker sought to boil down the matter to its essence by asking readers to vote on whether they thought Mr. Colbert's performance, broadcast live on C-Span and since then widely available on the Internet, was 'one of the most patriotic acts I've witnessed of any individual' or 'not really that funny.'”

The only thing is, that’s hardly boiling “down the matter to its essence.” The matter at hand is the mainstream media’s inability to countenance such incisive attacks of their coverage of King George. If this is the bubble presidency, then surely it’s found extraordinary symbiosis in a bubble press corps. 

“Others chided the so-called mainstream media, including The New York Times, which ignored Mr. Colbert's remarks while writing about the opening act, a self-deprecating bit Mr. Bush did with a Bush impersonator.”

The “so-called mainstream media.” That’s catchy. Sort of like “so-called global warming.” Reminiscent of Martin Short’s sweaty-lipped corporate stooge Nathan Thurm, constantly peering into the camera during the “The 60 Minutes” spoof with Harry Shearer’s Mike Wallace, saying, “Why are you pointing the finger at other people all the time? Why don't you point the finger at yourself? Is it me? It's him, right?”

Moreover, when is it a journalist’s right to pick and choose from central facts of an event? If a sports writer on the beat doesn’t mention a three-run homer in a six-run game, he’ll be covering little league the next day. If a financial writer cites only one of two staggering mergers effecting the market, he’ll soon be getting his health insurance through COBRA. The Times did more than just downplay the impact and import of Colbert’s moment of truth up on the dais that night. Shamelessly, they actually fitted the facts of the evening to manipulate public opinion. Sound familiar?

At the height of Morrie’s frustration in Goodfellas, he cries, “What am I? A schmuck on wheels?” The answer was implicit. When Morrie gets whacked, he thinks they’re going for a drive to the local diner. He doesn’t see it coming. Similarly, The Times, the standard bearer of the “so-called mainstream media” - as well as other news outlets in their arena - incredibly, seem flummoxed as to why they are increasingly in the crosshairs of members in the alternative media who simply demand the who, what, where, when and why of every story.

From the Archives:Tangled Up in Flu

(This MediaBloodhound op-ed column was originally posted on November 22, 2005. With the helping hand of the mainstream media, bird flu is one of the Bush administration's most successful weapons of mass distraction. It also happens to be paying off handsomely for Donald Rumsfeld. Take a closer look at what's behind this fowl hysteria.)

With our color-coded terror alert system having long been Chicken Littled to death, support for the war evaporating and President Bush’s poll numbers circling the drain, a fresh tactic of fear mongering and diversion was to be expected. Especially when the mainstream media, smarting from the sucker punch of Katrina ineptitude, began to betray flickers of journalistic integrity.

Cue the bird flu.

From the outset, the mainstream media, in lockstep with the Bush administration, have pumped us with fear. A fowl shock and awe campaign of near daily reports – at a rate eerily on pace with news of fallen US soldiers - tell us how the H5N1 avian virus is looming, tearing through Asia and one mutation away from decimating the world’s population in a matter of days or weeks. Yet they have simultaneously withheld or glossed over information necessary to fully grasp the machinations behind this poultry pandemonium, while insufficiently covering the actual state of our country’s preparedness. 

First, and potentially foremost, there’s Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s stake in this paranoia. From 1997 to 2001, Rumsfeld served as chairman of Gilead Sciences, the biotech company that owns the rights to Tamiflu, the drug being touted as the cure-all for this rampaging virus. Though the exact number of shares Rumsfeld owns in Gilead isn’t known, its estimated worth is somewhere between $5 million and $25 million. Since the buying frenzy for Tamiflu – marketed dutifully by the mainstream press - Gilead’s stock has jumped from $35 to $54 a share, earning the Chairman of the Bird, already one of the wealthiest members of the Administration, around $2 million. 

Rumsfeld has, on record and through the services of his legal counsel in an effort to avoid accusations of insider trading, reportedly recused himself from any decisions involving a potential avian flu pandemic and Tamiflu. Though, in July, the Pentagon bought $58 million of the drug for U.S. troops and Congress is deliberating over a multi-billion dollar purchase. Roche, the Swiss pharmaceutical company that manufactures and markets Tamiflu, projects 2005 sales of the drug to reach $1 billion, a near 400% increase from 2004; analysts at Morgan Stanley estimate Tamiflu sales could reach $3 billion over the next two years.

Yet none of this warrants further investigation by our mainstream press. Not Rumsfeld’s highly questionable conflict of interest, nor the blatant connection between fear mongering for bird flu and the surge in Tamiflu profits. Nor the fact that bird flu mentioned daily in the same breath with Tamiflu inevitably cements - or brands - this drug’s position as the #1 bird flu panacea in the minds of consumer-conditioned Americans. It’s the same marketing technique that once convinced two-thirds of our population that Saddam orchestrated 9/11. 

Making matters worse, there’s evidence Tamiflu may not be very effective in fighting an avian flu pandemic. Michael Osterholm, an infectious disease expert who’s spent decades studying pandemic flu, said governments should be preparing to cope with the pandemic instead of relying on drugs and vaccines to control it. If the H5N1 avian flu began to infect humans easily, he believes it would move too quickly for drugs and vaccines to be of much use. Additionally, we only have enough Tamiflu to treat about 2.3 million Americans right now, with another 2 million treatments arriving by the end of the year; yet, according to University of Virginia flu expert Frederick Hayden, about 90 million Americans would need the drug if a pandemic occurred and, at current capacity, it would take about 10 years to produce enough Tamiflu to treat just 20% of the world’s population.

A vaccine is also problematic. Development is a painstakingly slow process and the vaccine must match the virus to be effective. But no one can predict how, or at what rate, it will mutate. The World Health Organization (WHO) has already confirmed a patient in Vietnam infected with a Tamiflu-resistant strain. Moreover, few American drug companies still manufacture vaccines. Why? Diminished long-term profit motive – money is in the treatment, not prevention. Dr. David Fedson, an American scientist and former director of medical affairs for the French pharmaceutical company Aventis Pasteur MSD (now Sanofi Pasteur), says, “We have a toxic mixture in America of a corporate culture that is inappropriate for producing vaccines for national security, and a political culture that is unwilling to accept government responsibility for ensuring it is achieved.” The influence of this culture has also thus far permeated the international approach to preparedness: Tamiflu is being stockpiled by wealthy countries in North America and Europe rather than in the impoverished countries, like Vietnam, where an avian flu pandemic is much more likely to start. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), “On present trends, most developing countries will have no access to vaccines and antiviral drugs throughout the duration of a pandemic.” Just the right mix for another Katrina, but on a world stage.

So what topped President Bush’s list of pandemic priorities and was received virtually unquestioned by our mainstream media? A call to dismantle the Posse Comitatus Act, which forbids the active duty military from undertaking law enforcement duties. Yes, nothing like a little martial law to clear up your bird flu. Our Conniver-in-Chief’s logic: “If we had an outbreak somewhere in the United States, do we not then quarantine that part of the country? And how do you, then, enforce a quarantine?” He added, and you can feel him biting back a smirk, “And who best to be able to effect a quarantine?”

Predictably, rather than come up with an effective pandemic influenza plan, the Bush Administration seizes an opportunity to exploit this nightmare scenario by unconstitutionally expanding the powers of the military. As the Washington Post put it, “That comment - conjuring images of soldiers shooting as sick people try to cross a cordon sanitaire - could have been a scare tactic. In fact, there is no legal, let alone ethical, means of enforcing mass quarantine in this country, and flu viruses, which don’t always produce symptoms in the early stages, wouldn’t obey them if there were.” And is it a coincidence that the US military - listed separately from the civilian-only priority groups in the Bush Administration’s plan - will be first in line for Tamiflu? They will be protected, so they can police how those who are not survive. Comforting.

And who’s been tasked to protect our nation during such a calamity? Meet the next crony poised to make FEMA clown Michael Brown look competent. Stewart Simonson, Secretary for Public Health Emergency Preparedness at the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). His qualifications? A former corporate lawyer for Amtrak, with no public health management or medical experience, he’s a known political hack whose every job since graduating from Wisconsin Law School in 1995 has been arranged by former HHS Secretary and longtime Republican Governor of Wisconsin, Tommy Thompson. Simonson also earned points within the Administration as the inside lackey who championed Cheney’s and Libby’s efforts to convince HHS public health experts that Saddam was poised to hit the US with biological weapons.

Representative Henry Waxman, who included Simonson in a list of five “inexperienced individuals with political connections” in this Administration, cited Simonson’s July appearance before the House Government Reform Committee, where he “claimed he had sufficient funds to purchase influenza vaccine and antiviral medication for the nation. The next day his office submitted a funding request to Congress seeking an additional $150 million for flu vaccine and antiviral medication.” Whoops. Instilling more confidence, at a recent Homeland Security hearing on government response to a chemical or biological attack, Simonson said, “We’re learning as we go.”

The astounding incompetence of this administration is matched only by their insatiable greed and tireless pursuit of more power by any means necessary. It’s a combination that has - and is fixed once again - to cost countless lives. While the Birdman of the Pentagon watches his stock soar with each new avian flu story, the mainstream media is once again driving blind.

From the Archives:Out of Sight, Out of Mind

(This MediaBloodhound op-ed column was originally posted on November 7, 2005. The death toll for U.S. troops in Iraq surpassed 2,500 this week. More than 475 American soldiers have lost their lives since the time this was written. Certainly, a grim statistic. But now, just as then, little attention is given to the number of wounded soldiers, even though over 3,270 more of them have joined these ranks during the same period, pushing the total to nearly 18,500. The mainstream media's insufficient coverage of their numbers, anguish and plight continues to this day. A grave disservice to these young men and women who were sent into battle under false pretenses, and to the American public who are still largely shielded from the human costs of this war.)

They arrive at night in the darkness of their new lives. They are greeted only by military physicians in fatigues. No one else to document their suffering, or their swelling ranks. Among them a fresh crop of amputees, of blind and deaf and permanently disfigured, of paraplegics and quadriplegics, of those suffering from traumatic brain injuries and post-traumatic stress disorders (PTSD).

They are the wounded. The forgotten. Their bodies and minds shattered by a war of choice that was chosen for them. Over weapons of mass destruction that never existed. Over something the mainstream media remains hard-pressed to say: a lie.

Over 15,220 American soldiers now carry the life-altering scars that this lie has left. In addition to the near daily tally of dead American soldiers - over 2,025 and counting - and the tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians who have been prematurely liberated into the afterlife, our wounded troops remain almost completely hidden from public view. And not by chance.

As with the arriving caskets of fallen soldiers at Dover Air Force Base, the wounded returning from Iraq have been off-limits to photographers and the deferring news media. A ban this administration has enforced since the beginning of the war. Moreover, a Salon investigation uncovered that flights carrying the wounded only arrive in the United States at night. Journalist Mark Benjamin writes: “Officials at the Pentagon’s Air Mobility Command, which manages all the evacuations, refused to talk on the record to explain the nighttime flights, or to clarify discrepancies in their off-the-record explanations of why the flights arrive when they do.” John Pike, the director of GlobalSecurity.org, a defense information Web site, says, “It is puzzling because there are perfectly sensible explanations for this, but those are not the explanations being offered. And the explanation being offered makes no sense.”

Paul Rieckhoff, founder and executive director of Operation Truth, an advocacy group for veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan, says, “They do it so nobody sees [the wounded], adding, “The overall cost of this war has been continuously hidden throughout. As the costs get higher, their efforts to conceal those costs also increase.”

The military’s “fuzzy math” is another method for obfuscating the war’s toll. According to the Pentagon, only soldiers wounded or killed in combat situations are reflected in casualty counts. Bombs or bullets. This excludes troops incurring injuries or illnesses in “non-combat” situations, from the all-too-common Humvee accidents to disease to psychological trauma. The number of such wounded today is believed to be in the tens of thousands. In a “60 Minutes” report from November 2004, the Department of Defense, who declined an interview with them, did send a letter with a figure not included in their published casualty reports: “More than 15,000 troops with so-called 'non-battle' injuries and diseases have been evacuated from Iraq.” And, yes, that was a year ago.

Army reservist Chris Schneider, for example, was in hostile territory though not under fire when he was thrown from his vehicle and subsequently lost his leg. He is not counted as a casualty of war. In the military’s and this administration’s eyes, he does not count. It’s not only demoralizing to him and the thousands of others in his situation, but also grossly inaccurate for the public perception at large.

The mainstream media's failure to shine a light on how the wounded are being represented and treated is also a disservice to those who serve. According to the Department of Veterans Affairs, one in every six soldiers returning from Iraq may have PTSD. Yet the military is reluctant to diagnose soldiers’ mental trauma as having been caused by their combat service. Why? Economics. Psychological disorders stemming from combat can require the military to pay disability for years. Group therapy sessions, according some soldiers at Walter Reed Hospital, often focus more on childhood and family experiences than the war.

“When you get [to Walter Reed], they analyze you, break you down, and try to find anything wrong with you before you got in the Army,” said Spc. Josh Sanders, who had been evacuated from Baghdad because of mental strain. “They started asking me questions about my mom and my dad getting divorced. That was the last thing on my mind when I’m thinking about people getting fragged and burned bodies being pulled out of vehicles. They asked me if I missed my wife. Well, shit yeah, I missed my wife. That is not the fucking problem here. Did you ever put your foot through a 5-year-old’s skull?”

The next time you hear the latest tally of soldiers killed, ask yourself how many were wounded, and will never be the same. When President Bush speaks again of “our” sacrifice, remember these words from U.S. Army Sgt. Erik Howard, a combat medic:

“Personally, I think there’s a difference between living and being alive,” Howard said. “A lot of us fear losing an arm or a leg; a lot of guys worry they’ll get hurt and lose their genitals. It’s the head injuries that are the worst, in my opinion. I fear getting a head wound - having brain damage and still being alive, but not being able to care for my wife or kids.” He added, “Not many of us worry about death except for the effect on our families.”

A new accounting must be made.

From the Archives:Reporting America's Story

(This MediaBloodhound op-ed column was originally posted on September 14, 2005. It was written in reaction to the mainstream media's penchant for lamenting loss of American civilian life - both at home and abroad - while focusing little attention on foreign lives lost, or even the lives of our own soldiers fighting abroad. It also predicted  the hollowness of the mainstream media's pronouncement that Katrina would finally force America to confront its widespread poverty.)

"NBC Nightly News" anchor Brian Williams, a standout during Hurricane Katrina, visited "The Daily Show" last week and detailed his harrowing experience covering the storm. His voice still edged with the indignation viewers witnessed in those broadcasts, Williams eventually landed on what dismayed him most about the government’s torpid response. Noting he’d been in "lousy" places before, like Iraq, and had seen horrible things, he went on to say the difference here was “these were Americans.”

CNN’s Anderson Cooper, another anchor noteworthy for his no-nonsense coverage of Katrina, also expressed a similar view while being profiled in the NY Times on Monday. “I have been tearing up on this story more than any story I’ve worked on. I can’t really explain why that is.” He added, “It’s not hard to be moved. The fact that it is in the United States, for me, added a layer and dimension to the story.”

A common argument for this bias centers on the reflexive notion that we should feel greater empathy toward our fellow countrymen. Proud to be American. Just as, say, an Italian citizen might be proud to be Italian. One man’s xenophobia is another’s patriotism? Fine. But where is the line drawn? Should the mainstream media make such distinctions for us in the way they report - or decide not to report - a story? And when does national pride determine whose suffering and loss of life we see on the nightly news and covers of newspapers and magazines?

Here in the States, we are conditioned to live in a vacuum, to see America as “the world” and an American life as somehow more valuable. We hear it every time a plane crashes overseas: X number of people died, X number of them were American. Innocuous enough on the surface, but the implication is that our lives are significant. While others? Not so much. Even if that isn’t the intent, such reporting has this effect, and over time becomes ingrained in who we are as a people. It slips into our national subconscious, so to speak. Maybe that’s why Anderson Cooper couldn’t explain why he was more choked up over Katrina than any story he’s ever covered.

Consequently, on the whole, our citizens do less international travel than our brothers and sisters in other industrialized nations. So while we still profess to be a melting pot, we mix very little with the rest of the world. The dangerous effect of this vacuum is that, by not recognizing all human life as equally significant, we as a country are more inclined to accept human suffering. As long as it’s not ours. This compels us to stand up and be outraged over those who died because of criminal negligence and mismanagement in New Orleans, but accepting of criminal negligence and mismanagement - and massive loss of life - in Iraq.

Whether it’s the estimated 100,000 plus Iraqi civilian deaths or the tortured prisoners of war in Abu Ghraib and other chambers of inhumanity condoned and utilized by this administration to dodge Geneva Conventions, our mainstream media has been woefully lacking in their coverage. Over the two and a half years since this war of choice commenced, ask yourself how often we've seen images of dead or disfigured Iraqi children or post-Abu Ghraib torture victims. (Incidentally, our soldiers’ lives didn't carry much currency either until Cindy Sheehan entered the scene; they continue to fight without the armor they need and their caskets remain off-limits to photographers, while the media barely bats an eye.)

Katrina revealed a similar bias in how we depict the poor and underprivileged in our own country, a microcosm of how we depict the suffering of those abroad. The victims of the hurricane were first dubbed “refugees” before many in the mainstream media (though some defended this usage, notably the NY Times) recognized the racist overtones and changed the reference to “evacuees.” Meanwhile, President Bush, evoking the perspicacity of Mr. Magoo, initially referred to the hurricane-stricken areas as “this region of the world." In addition to giving the impression our Commander-in-Chief is unaware that Louisiana and Mississippi are part of the United States, this gaffe seemed to compound the Third World flavor of their plight.

That the majority of faces suffering from this disaster had black skin was not lost on anyone either. Least of all, CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer, winner of the Freudian slip award for his reference to the victims: “…so many of these people, almost all of them that we see, are so poor and they are so black…” Throughout, the media spoke of these poor as if they had been belched from some ghetto Atlantis beneath the Mississippi River. Then, as if suddenly seeing the light, we heard them crowing about how America will finally be forced to confront its own poverty. (That is, until the next serial killer, fair-skinned missing person, celebrity breakup or shark attack comes down the pike.) On the heels of these empty assertions, we now learn that Katrina and its bungled aftermath may have contributed to the swiftest spate of gentrification since the origins of Manifest Destiny.

“These were Americans.” In the same interview, Mr. Williams also noted that this was the overwhelming refrain from viewers who followed the coverage of Katrina. It seemed as if he was trying to ring from these words a defining moment of national disgrace and a standard to which our government must never fail to meet. But I wonder instead how many Americans felt the hollowness of these words that night.

Looming over Times Square, an enormous billboard for “NBC Nightly News” with Brian Williams stares down at pedestrians. The tagline reads: “Reporting America’s Story.”

As Walter Cronkite used to say, “And that’s the way it is.”