MediaBloodhound

Special Report: Scant Coverage of Obama Assassination Plot -- Irresponsible Or Cautious?

Was the U.S. media admirably discreet or just plain ineffectual in covering news of the arrest of three men suspected of plotting to assassinate Barack Obama during his acceptance speech at Invesco Field?

First, consider the evidence: One of the men arrested, Nathan Johnson said the other two men, Tharin Gartrell and Shawn Robert Adolph, "had planned to kill Barack Obama...on Thursday...," which was why they were in Denver, and that "Adolph was going to shoot Obama from a high vantage point using a 22-250 rifle which had been sighted at 750 yards." According to the FBI, "Johnson was directly asked if they had come to Denver to kill Obama and he responded in the affirmative." The Denver police found in their possession two high-powered rifles with scopes, 85 rounds of ammunition, a bullet-proof vest, walkie-talkies, wigs, fake I.D.s, hotel reservations near the convention and 4.4 grams of methamphetamine, an amount, however, too small to be charged with more than simple possession. (Yet, for some reason, Colorado U.S. Attorney Troy Eid put a much greater focus on this relatively little amount of meth and their use of it than on the other apparent highly incriminating pieces of evidence obtained, including Johnson's statements). All three men have long criminal records, are suspected of having ties to white supremacist groups, and one of the men, Adolph, who was on the Weld County, Colo., sheriff department's "Most Wanted" list for burglary, larceny, aggravated motor vehicle theft and other charges, has a violent criminal history and is being held on $1 million bond for outstanding warrants.

During U.S. Attorney of Colorado Troy Eid's peculiar press conference Tuesday night, he characterized the men as "just a bunch of meth heads," framing his question-and-answer session with reporters more like an anti-drug campaign sloganeer than a chief law enforcement official: "You know, I don't know, uh, bunch of meth heads get together, I don't know what they do, I don't get inside their brain. But we take them very seriously what they do. I have to just emphasize this is a group of people, there were a number of people, that are using meth. I don't know how many of you know meth, anyone here not know about meth? This is a really terrible drug. People do all sorts of stupid things on meth." He followed that response with: "There is no credible threat right now and there was no credible threat based on the evidence that we have to Senator Obama or anybody else related to what we know about this case." Asked what the weapons could be for (not to mention the ammo, bullet-proof vest, wigs, fake I.D.s, etc.), Eid answered only, "You know, I don't know what they were for and we'll keep looking into that." Eid went on to say, "You know, they didn't, they didn't reveal a plan. I think what you can see in the affidavit was, uh, a lot of racist rantings and a lot of dislike for the idea of Senator Obama as an African-American person of color being able to pursue that office."

But Eid's statement appears to be patently false. As reported by the Associated Press:

Johnson later told a federal agent that the men talked about assassinating Obama only because he was black, according to a federal arrest affidavit. Johnson said he also heard Adolf say that he wanted to kill Obama "on the day of his inauguration" and that he would "find high ground to set up and shoot Obama," the affidavit said.

That's not merely, as Eid called it, "the racist rantings of drug abusers." Rather, coupled with the arsenal found, it shows motive, intent and a plan. And, to be clear, contrary to what Eid told the press, it was in the affidavit.

Moreover, sprinkled throughout Eid's comments downplaying the threat and the risk posed by these "meth heads," he rather tone-deafly reiterated some variation of, "Like I said we all have an open mind about this, we take this very seriously." As if stating upfront that these men are nothing more than stoned losers and failing to recognize how their high-powered arsenal, their presence in hotels being used by DNC attendees and their blatant language couldn't constitute a credible threat doesn't actually undercut his claims to "take this very seriously."

What of that evidence specifically? Eid said, "You know, as the affidavit shows, there was a search done. They searched the hotel room, they searched vehicles, and they obviously have looked for any kind of evidence that might indicate a threat or a plot or a conspiracy. And at the this time we have insufficient evidence to believe that any of those things occurred." Really?

When a reporter questioned just how serious Eid and the Feds were taking these arrests, Eid explained, "At these particular moments, to go into the issue of a legal threat...when you talk about threatening presidential candidates, there's a legal standard you got to meet. It's got to be a credible threat as defined by the law. It's what the law calls a true threat. And that means that someone has a way to carry it out. And at this time we don't have sufficient evidence that there was a true threat."

An explanation that deserved a torrent of obvious follow-ups and overall skepticism in the media. One such follow-up, for a direct and exceedingly timely comparison, should've included: How does this not constitute a "true threat," when, just last week, another man,  Marc Harold Ramsey, an inmate already incarcerated at the Arapahoe County Jail in Colorado, was charged by Eid with sending a threatening letter to John McCain from behind bars? The contents of the envelope? A white powdery substance that turned out to be harmless and a letter stating, "Senator McCain, If you are reading this then you are already DEAD! Unless of course you can't or don't breathe." If convicted, Ramsey faces up to five years in federal prison and S250,000 in fines.

But by Eid's own definition of a true threat, in which, "someone has a way to carry it out," what kind of credible access to a dangerous substance did an already incarcerated inmate have? Of course the "powder-like" substance turned out to be as lethal as, what it probably was, baby powder.

In bringing this charge against Ramsey, Eid made clear to the press, "A death threat is not a legitimate form of political expression." Right. Unless you're meth-addled racists with real rifles, scopes, rounds of ammunition, disguises, fake I.D.s and bullet-proof vests and a stated plan to murder the first African-American presidential candidate giving his acceptance speech on the anniversary of Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech.

Then, you're just goofy "meth heads" who can't be taken seriously. Your plans somehow more "aspirational than operational," as Eid also put it.

(Incidentally, if you think Eid sounds curiously like a typical George W. Bush appointee -- somewhat unprofessional, seemingly incompetent, stonewalling, less than brilliant -- he is. Not only that, he was appointed at the height of Monica Goodling's infamously and illegally partisan vetting process. What's more, right before Eid's appointment to U.S. Attorney, he and convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff worked together at the same top Washington lobbying firm, Greenberg Traurig, where Eid, allegedly, was a less visible player in Abramoff's dealings to defraud American Indian tribes.)

Speaking with a reporter the other night who has a great deal of experience on the national security beat, I was informed of two things. First, what many might think: in such situations, the media often defers to the Secret Service in not making a 24/7 circus out of the events, which, they fear, might either encourage copycats seeking their fifteen minutes of fame or accidentally divulge information that diminishes their ability to protect a candidate. This same expert on national security reporting, however, made clear that it remains the journalist's duty in this situation to not merely parrot the authorities but to confirm if "no credible threat" is a reasonable conclusion to draw and to provide that information to the public in a responsible, sober manner.

But on television Tuesday, MSNBC barely edged out CNN for burying news of these arrests. MSNBC didn't bat an eye away from Hillary Clinton's impending speech; CNN followed suit but allowed for the swiftest of mention of the arrests at its top-of-the-hour news brief. This mimicked MSNBC and CNN's online presence of the story. At 7 p.m. (EST) Tuesday, CNN's homepage listed 14 top stories that trumped news of the arrests, including "Did Bill Clinton take a dig at Obama," "Edwards wife blasted for keeping affair secret," "Lying pastor had porn fetish, not cancer" and "Elephant warms to baby she stomped." And the headline CNN used for this link, it's 15th top story? "No evidence of 'true threat' to..." So if you weren't already aware of the story, you'd have no idea what this was referring to unless you happened to click on this already buried link. At the same time, the story didn't make the cut at all on MSNBC's homepage.

Additionally, all three major broadcast nightly news programs -- ABC World News, NBC Nightly News and CBS Evening News -- and PBS NewsHour -- failed to mention the story. There did seem to be something ironic about each newscast's obsessive and incessant Iago-like riffs on the Clinton-Obama rift (however real or conflated) while simultaneously ignoring news about a potential assassination plot against the presidential candidate whose near future was being endlessly hypothesized.

This scant coverage continued Wednesday, with The New York Times, our paper of record, burying the story at the bottom of page A18; the Washington Post printed its corresponding report on page A23. By Thursday, the story officially disappeared into the ether.

I was also assured by the same veteran national security reporter that despite the U.S. Attorney downplaying this incident, "I guarantee you the Secret Service is taking this seriously and is so far up the ass of these guys [the three men arrested] you cannot even imagine." This reporter also noted that the Secret Service operates independently as well in tandem with other federal authorities and may not agree with the U.S. Attorney's assessment.

Seeking to confirm whether the Secret Service agreed that "no credible threat" existed, I contacted them directly. Ed Donovan, assistant special agent in charge of government and public affairs at the Secret Service, told me only, "I have no further comment other than what was said at the press conference yesterday."

Not necessarily a refutation nor an affirmation of U.S. Attorney Troy Eid's assessment.

Barack Obama gave his acceptance speech last night. Fortunately, it went off without a hitch. But ask yourself this: Is Senator Obama safer in the coming weeks because the U.S. media did its best to ignore, downplay or disappear information about the arrests and suspected plot on his life? With the Bush administration's track record of politicizing the Justice Department as well as appointing cronies and incompetents, isn't it more incumbent on our journalists to ask the right questions and responsibly report information that encourages U.S. law enforcement officials to perform their jobs with ever greater vigilance?

With the first African-American presidential nominee now vying head-to-head for the White House, these questions need to be addressed immediately.

Special Report: Ivins Anthrax Case Another Black Eye for Network News

While cable news dutifully devotes nonstop coverage to the latest random criminal cases -- kidnappings, shootouts, murderous love triangles, car chases -- it's telling when a supposed break in one of the biggest manhunts in FBI history, for a terrorist who murdered and poisoned multiple American citizens with anthrax, takes a backseat to nearly every other story. That is, if it's mentioned at all.

Even as details, leaks and a burgeoning list of questions bubbled to the surface last week, demanding serious scrutiny, the big three broadcast networks were equally blasé. Some nights skipping mention of the unfolding story altogether, as did last Tuesday's editions of CBS Evening News and ABC World News (though both that evening reported the eminently newsworthy story of a thrill-seeking English couple who married while being strapped outside separate airplanes). On the same night, Brian Williams afforded 39 precious seconds to the anthrax investigation on NBC Nightly News.

In covering one of the most historic criminal investigations in our nation's history, the worst bioterrorism attack on U.S. soil, the overall tenor and quality of network reporting (as well as much of the work in mainstream print media) has been nothing short of disgraceful. A dearth of circumspection and paucity of competent investigative work that mirrors the most feckless moments of the last eight years. This coverage, delivered in an Orwellian bubble world where our brazenly criminal administration still earns the benefit of the doubt, is all the more indefensible when you factor in the reality this is a Bush administration investigation, one which had already dragged on for almost seven years, during which time the government was forced to cough up nearly $6 million to settle with a previously wrongly accused man whose reputation and personal life it had destroyed.

As the story unraveled, coverage almost invariably failed to not only address questions that would be obvious to fictional adolescent sleuths Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys but also showcased a breathless zeal to help the Department of Justice prosecute Ivins through unfiltered and uncorroborated leaks -- from accusations of "therapist" Jean Duley (Ivins was a homicidal killer who threatened her life and planned to kill all of his colleagues in a final "blaze of glory"), a woman known to have a fairly lengthy police record (news that failed to reach national mainstream outlets until the day the FBI/DOJ publicly aired their case,  before disappearing again; plus, to my knowledge, Duley's police record has yet to receive network airtime), whose depth of experience appeared at least suspect (she was still attending Hood College as of last year and, while various media reports called her a "psychiatrist," "psychologist" or "social worker," it turns out Duley is actually an "addictions counselor") and whose affidavit, including the misspelling "theripist" and manic, haphazard penmanship, appears as if it were written by either a second grader or an unstable adult (investigative journalist Larisa Alexandrovna has more on Duley); to a leak last Monday courtesy of the Associated Press -- quickly largely debunked by an update of the same article and then further dispelled by a New York Times piece Tuesday -- which claimed, around the time of the anthrax attacks, Ivins had been visiting and harassing members of a Princeton University sorority located near one of the mailboxes used to send the envelopes; to another leak portraying him as both a porn-obsessed sicko because he received adult videos to a P.O. box and a raging alcoholic who, nonetheless, managed to retain his security clearance to work with some of the most lethal substances on the planet.

While ABC World News ignored the case on Tuesday's August 5 broadcast, its previous night's coverage proved no report might be preferable to a poor one. A segment called "A Closer Look" (video of this segment online included the headline "Closing the Anthrax Case") focused on the break in the anthrax investigation. It's a piece of journalism that might be described as anti-investigative work. As the online headline suggested -- with exception to a one-sentence quote from New Jersey Representative Rush Holt ("After seven years of blind alleys and false accusations, we have to ask, well, has the FBI once again let their zeal replace evidence") -- this "closer look" was nothing more than a stenographic replay of the FBI's storyline, including those damning quotes from Ms. Duley, a present wrapped in a bow to the FBI, the Department of Justice and the Bush administration. But a grave disservice to journalism, victims of the anthrax attacks, the American people and, quite possibly, the Ivins family. There was nothing remotely closer about this look.

Then there's those 39 seconds NBC Nightly News dedicated to the Ivins' case the following evening. Another example of a report imparting more heat than light, complete with an exclusive leak to NBC News from the Justice Department, seamlessly delivered by Brian Williams:

BRIAN WILLIAMS: Federal officials are telling our justice correspondent, Pete Williams, they will reveal a possible motive tomorrow as to why they believe Dr. Bruce Ivins, the former Ft. Detrick bioweapons expert, sent the anthrax letters, including the one here to NBC. They say he felt badly stung by the criticism that the anthrax vaccine he helped develop for the armed forces back in the first Gulf War could've contributed to what's now know as Gulf War Syndrome. He may have sent the deadly letters, they believe, to generate renewed interest in anthrax as a threat which would cause demand for an approved vaccine, one that he later, by the way, worked on.

Neither Brian Williams nor his justice correspondent posed any questions regarding this fresh allegation. Failing to demand evidence supporting this new leak or to question its legitimacy before passing it on to millions of viewers and the rest of the media, the dynamic Williams duo acted not as responsible journalists who either considered or cared that government officials might be using them -- something any competent and ethical journalist must be on guard against in such situations -- but as willing mouthpieces, blithely abdicating their role as members of the Fourth Estate, no more circumspect than White House spokespeople.

Even New York Times journalist Scott Shane, one of the more reliable reporters covering this case, had an odd appearance when he visited PBS' NewsHour on Monday's August 4 broadcast. (Yet it was arguably as much or more the fault of NewHour senior correspondent Margaret Warner.) Earlier in the day, Shane published a Times article with the headline "Anthrax Evidence Is Said to Be Circumstantial" (later edited online to "Anthrax Evidence Called Mostly Circumstantial"), in which he reported in the opening paragraph "a person who has been briefed on the investigation said on Sunday" that "evidence amassed by F.B.I. investigators against Dr. Bruce E. Ivins....was largely circumstantial." But somehow in a lengthy discussion with Shane, neither he nor Warner raised this highly relevant point, each with ample opportunity to do so.

While possible, it seems unlikely on the same day Shane writes a major article around this finding -- the case being brought against Ivins will be predominantly circumstantial -- that it would later, on the very same day, completely slip his mind. What's more, as regular newscast segments go, Warner conducted a pretty extensive interview. So even if, for the sake of argument, Warner failed to do her homework prior to the interview and missed Shane's article (more believable), one would still expect Shane to point out the case's top-heavy circumstantial nature, if not immediately, then at some time during the discussion. Did NewsHour censor Shane? Did they agree beforehand not to mention that, by Sunday August 3, the case against Ivins was already believed -- by a very credible source close to the investigation -- to be built upon "largely" or "mostly" circumstantial evidence? It's certainly a curious omission, one that, intentionally or not, helped to buy the government more time to leak negative information about Ivins before playing its hand on Wednesday.

As it turned out, when the Justice Department held its big press conference two days later, it confirmed Shane's Monday scoop had been correct. If anything, the report's characterization of the evidence seeming "mostly" or "largely" circumstantial turned out to be generous. The case against Ivins appears, thus far, completely circumstantial: they couldn't tie him directly to the anthrax envelopes, prove he made the trip to Princeton around the time the envelopes were mailed, detect the type of anthrax mailed on his body or in his home or car, present any eyewitness accounts putting Ivins in his lab on those nights in late September and early October, or confirm many other colleagues hadn't used the same flask that federal prosecutors call "effectively the murder weapon."

Following this far from airtight presentation, journalism professor and author Ted Gup wrote in the Washington Post:

Such evidence, even when seemingly overwhelming and conclusive, is the very sort of circumstantial argument that pegged Richard Jewell as the Atlanta bomber, that linked Oregon attorney Brandon Mayfield to the Madrid bombings, that fingered Los Alamos scientist Wen Ho Lee as a spy, and that cast biodefense expert Steven Hatfill as the original anthrax suspect. In each of those investigations, the news media were largely complicit, conveying incriminating details of the government's case as if they were the gospel.

And yet, in each of those cases, the government was wrong -- shaking public confidence even as it eroded individual civil liberties, produced groundless prosecutions and diverted precious time and resources in pursuit of bogus cases. [...]

In June, the government agreed to a settlement with Hatfill valued at $5.8 million. Neither it nor the press, which was only too eager to link arms with the Justice Department in carrying the stories that stripped Hatfill of everything he had, has offered an apology or conceded wrongdoing.

Against this background, who could be blamed for imagining that an innocent Ivins was hounded to his death? Can we discount the accounts that suggest the government repeatedly harassed Ivins's family, offering his son a reward and sports car if he would turn his father in?

Gup went on to say:

To their credit, in reporting the Ivins's case, the media now appear somewhat chastened and more inquisitive than inquisitorial. It may well be that, absent a trial, it will fall to reporters to aggressively test the solidity of the case against Ivins. Perhaps they can restore a measure of credibility to their profession and to the government.

Hopefully he was not holding his breath.

If you turned on CNN and MSNBC the day after Wednesday's FBI/DOJ presentation, you would've found no mention of the Ivins' case. Paris Hilton's scantily clad political spoof? Yes. A child kidnapping ring? You bet. Bret Favre's trade to the NY Jets? Touchdown. Questions about a case involving the worst bioterrorism attack in U.S. history? Nothing.

Exclusive Special Report: CBS' Kaplan Says Tiger's Injury "Of Major Importance"

On June 17, Lara Logan, CBS News' Chief Foreign Correspondent, had this exchange with Jon Stewart:

STEWART: Do you watch the news that we’re watching?

LOGAN: No.

STEWART: …in the United States? Do you see what we’re hearing about the war? So, we might actually know everything?

LOGAN: If I were to watch the news that you hear in the United States—I’d just blow my brains out because it would drive me nuts.

The following night, CBS Evening News spent the first four-and-a-half minutes of its broadcast on star golfer Tiger Woods' injury. (View full clip here.)

This is how anchor Russ Mitchell (filling in for Katie Couric) began this opening story, which accounted for, excluding commercials, nearly one quarter of the night's newscast: 

RUSS MITCHELL: Just two days after one of his greatest victories, the season is over for perhaps the biggest name in sports. Tiger Woods, the world's number one golfer, said today he needs reconstructive knee surgery to a pair of torn ligaments. It is a major blow for Woods and for the sport itself.

I contacted CBS and asked them how they not only justified making this their lead story but saw fit to devote nearly a quarter of their broadcast to it.

I received the following statement from Rick Kaplan, Executive Producer of CBS Evening News, who, I was also informed, had a direct hand in making this decision:

“The Tiger Woods injury story was of major importance and we felt we needed to devote time to it as the lead. Tiger is arguably one of the world’s premiere athletes and his career is in some jeopardy with Tiger halting playing the sport for the year. It was certainly the most talked about story of the day, and the biggest story in most national newspapers. Our story contained implications for sports, millions of fans, and many aspects of business; which have by and large been revolutionized by the Tiger Woods phenomenon.”

If you want to know why such thin gruel often passes for serious news on network television, Mr. Kaplan's statement perfectly underscores the warped priorities of corporate media.

In addition to subsequent Evening News reports that night on the disastrous floodwaters in the U.S., the debate over offshore drilling and the increasing cases of salmonella poisoning from tomatoes, all of which were deemed less pressing than news Woods had cut short his golf season (a story about a $200 hamburger arguably the only piece less newsworthy), here's a shortlist of stories of the day denied any airtime on the broadcast because Tiger's injury "was of major importance":

Israeli Defense Officials Confirm Cease-Fire with Hamas to Begin Thursday
Baghdad Insists on Right to Veto US Operations
Bill Extending Jobless Benefits Is Blocked By G.O.P.
Baghdad Blast Leaves 51 Dead, And the Shiites Call for Revenge
Notes Show Confusion on Interrogation Methods
One-Third of People Shot by Taser Need Medical Attention
Chinese Quake Toll, 69,172, Is Just a Guess
Senators Deny Knowing Of Home Loan Favoritism; Senate Ethics Panel Is Investigating
More Illegal Crossings Are Criminal Cases, Group Says
Conflicts Displacing More People
UN Says 5 Million Could Go Hungry in Zimbabwe Due to Drop in Food Production, High Inflation
Man with Deadly Skin Cancer Saved by New Treatment
Sudan: Darfur Groups Urge U.N. Action
US Targets Venezuela-Based Hezbollah Helpers
Taliban Take Afghan Villages In South in Prelude to Battle
Three Men Charged for Politkovskaya Murder: Investigators
New Florida Rules Return More Than 115,000 Ex-Offenders to Voting Rolls
Pakistani Fury Over U.S. Airstrikes Imperils Training of Frontier Force

In that same interview with Jon Stewart the previous night, CBS' Logan went on to further denounce American press coverage:

"Tell me the last time you saw the body of a dead American soldier. What does that look like? Who in American knows what that looks like? Because I know what that looks like, and I feel responsible for the fact that no one else does. ... And the soldiers do feel forgotten, they do. No doubt. From Afghanistan to Iraq, they absolutely feel -- you know, we may be tired of hearing about this five years later, they still have to go out and do the same job."

The very next night, her bosses chose to lead with a four-and-a-half minute story on an injured golf star.

Yesterday, the man in charge of CBS Evening News defended that decision without pause.

[Editor's Note: A special thanks to Bill W. and Nicole Belle over at Crooks and Liars for lassoing the full video of this story through RedLasso.com. (According to CBS, the piece online was edited due to rights restrictions on sports coverage featured at the beginning of the report.) Also, a big thanks to my good friend Danny G. for tipping me off to this story.]

Special Report: One of the "Smartest People" Fareed Zakaria Knows?

"Deadly hawks come in many styles. Some have polished talons." - Norman Solomon

Fareed Zakaria debuted his new show for CNN this past Sunday. Introducing his program, called Fareed Zakaria GPS (as in Global Public Square, not Global Positioning System, though the latter might also apply), he explains:

FAREED ZAKARIA, HOST, "GPS": Welcome to the very first edition of "Global Public Square."  I'm Fareed Zakaria. For the last 20 years, I've been writing about the world. And now I have an opportunity to bring all of you along with me on what has been a fascinating adventure.

I know that right now to a lot of people, the world looks like a grim place. Almost every day you're bombarded with frightening headlines, stories of out-of-control governments and terrorists who want to kill you.

But beyond those headlines, the picture is actually much brighter. Economic growth and technology are raising people out of disease and poverty every day.

On this program, we'll try to understand the new forces shaping our world, both the good and the bad. And I'll talk to some of the world's great thinkers and doers -- people like former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who will be joining me in a few minutes.

So, let's get started on what's going to be a hell of a ride.

My "built-in bullshit detector," to borrow Ernest Hemingway's phrase, was triggered by the words "some of the world's great thinkers and doers -- people like former British Prime Minister Tony Blair." But nothing could prepare me for what followed.

FAREED ZAKARIA: At water coolers across this country, people are talking about the American presidential election. But our strange drama is also gripping the rest of the world.

I gathered some of the smartest people I know to talk about this subject, and China, and Iran and anything else that comes up.

Hmm, can't wait to meet the panel.

FAREED ZAKARIA: Joining me are Christiane Amanpour, CNN's chief international correspondent...

Oh, Amanpour. I'm intrigued. And?

FAREED ZAKARIA: the European Union's ambassador to the United States and the former prime minister of Ireland, John Bruton...

Tell me more...

FAREED ZAKARIA: Minxin Pei, one of the world's top China scholars...

Hey, this might actually be a substantive geopolitical confab. Of course, no true progressives, anti-globalists, human rights representatives or anti-war activists but this is still CNN. Let's be realistic. At least, however, there's no knee-jerk sycophantic Bush lackey either. No mindless "fair and balanced" framework, where inane and dangerous ideas - many often already discredited - are given equal weight. So I'm interested. I've reserved my judgment. I'm ready to go along with Zakaria on this "hell of a ride." And I'm eager to hear who rounds out this more promising-than-usual panel.

FAREED ZAKARIA: ...and Douglas Feith, former undersecretary of defense, one of Donald Rumsfeld's key lieutenant's in President Bush's first term.

Cue the spit-take. (I actually did nearly spit my coffee across the room.) Feith?! Douglas Feith. One of the "smartest people" that Fareed Zakaria knows?

Donald Rumsfeld's under secretary of defense for policy? One of the primary architects of the occupation in Iraq and point man on circumventing the Geneva Conventions so torture and holding detainees indefinitely without charge or recourse was "legal"? The one who oversaw both the Counter Terrorism Evaluation Unit, which issued the bogus pre-war report linking Saddam Hussein with al Qaeda that helped sell the invasion, and the Office of Special Plans, which was in charge of the disastrous post-war planning? The schmendrick that former US Army General Tommy Franks, who led the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, called “the dumbest fucking guy on the planet” for his sparkling ideas? Whose work on Iraq former CIA chief George Tenet called "total crap"? The level-headed global strategist who Jay Garner, a former American administrator in Iraq, believes is "incredibly dangerous" and "a smart guy whose electrons aren't connected?" About whom Larry Wilkerson, Colin Powell's former chief of staff, said "Seldom in my life have I met a dumber man"?

The brilliant man who, as Chris Suellentrop wrote in Slate:

...[as reported by The New Yorker] intentionally excluded experts with experience in postwar nation-building, out of fear that their pessimistic, worst-case scenarios would leak and damage the case for war. In the Atlantic earlier this year, James Fallows told a similar story: The Pentagon did not participate in CIA war games about the occupation, because "it could be seen as an 'antiwar' undertaking" that "weakened the case for launching a 'war of choice.' " The State Department's Future of Iraq Project, an effort that accurately predicted some contingencies that the Pentagon overlooked, was dismissed by Feith and company out of hand.

That guy?

The same schmo who's said:

• “The main rationale [for invading Iraq] was not based on intelligence.”

• “I am talking about myself in the following sense: expertise is a very good thing, but it is not the same thing as sound judgment regarding strategy and policy. George W. Bush has more insight, because of his knowledge of human beings and his sense of history, about the motive force, the craving for freedom and participation in self-rule, than do many of the language experts and history experts and culture experts.”

• “The common refrain that the postwar has been a disaster is only true if you had completely unrealistic expectations.”

• Regarding diplomatic agreements with adversaries: “If we had mutual trust and real security, you wouldn’t need these agreements, and if you need these agreements, then it is an illusion to say that you have mutual trust and security."
  

• “The surprising thing is not that there are so many Jews who are neocons but that there are so many who are not.”
  

• "We certainly understood that these are the things that might happen. That’s why we wrote them down." (Feith's response in a recent 60 Minutes interview to Steve Kroft reading him portions of Rumsfeld's pre-war "Parade of Horribles" memo, which detailed what might go wrong in Iraq: "'The United States could become so absorbed with its Iraq effort that we pay inadequate attention to other serious problems; the war could cause more harm and entail greater costs than expected' - obviously it has; 'that it would not go on for two to four years but eight to 10 years; terrorist networks could improve their recruiting and fundraising as a result our being depicted as anti-Muslim; Iraq could experience ethnic strife among Kurds, Sunnis and Shia; it could damage our relationship with our allies and our reputation in the world community.' Did you think that one or two of these would happen?" "One of the things that is reflected in this memo," said Feith, "is secretary Rumseld's deeply held view that it's foolish to try to predict the future." Kroft replied, "Well, as it turned out, he was pretty good at anticipating problems because virtually all of these things have happened.")

Yes, that Douglas Feith, who is not only a disastrous foreign policy thinker with no regard for domestic or international law, but a dangerous propagandist whose views have been roundly discredited and whose reputation, in the minds of most sentient beings, has been irrevocably tarnished by his thoughts and deeds.

Special Report: NYT Iraq War Timeline Whitewashes History (Part III: Burying News of Iraqi Dead)

To mark the recent fifth anniversary of the Iraq War, The New York Times published an interactive timeline. This is the third in a series of posts exploring the most misleading statements and glaring omissions from its Iraq War history. (If you missed either of the first two parts, you can read them here and here).

Timeline Entry: W.H.O.'s Iraqi Civilian Death Toll

This entry reads in full: "January 9, 2008, W.H.O. Estimates Deaths: The World Health Organization publishes a study estimating the number of Iraqi civilian deaths from the start of the war through June 2006 as between 104,000 and 223,000. It estimated that the actual total was 151,000."

In the accompanying article filed on Jan. 10, 2008 (linked under the timeline), The Times does note the John Hopkins study, which estimated "about 600,000 [Iraqi civilian] dead between the war’s start, in March 2003, and July 2006." So why, then, isn't this acknowledged in the timeline? Moreover, nine paragraphs into that same companion article, The Times mentions in passing:

In any case, the study [W.H.O.'s] ended four months after the bombing of a revered Shiite shrine in Samarra helped set off a wave of killings throughout Baghdad and other mixed Sunni-Shiite areas. So because of its timing, the study missed the period of what is believed to be the worst sectarian killings, during the latter half of 2006 and the first eight months of 2007.

FACT: This not only undercuts W.H.O.'s count but, considering the John Hopkins study only covered through the following month (July 2006), it also illuminates the shockingly high number of Iraqi civilian deaths by John Hopkin's estimate, which was counted before the "worst sectarian killings, during the latter half of 2006 and the first eight months of 2007."

The Times' omission of the John Hopkin's study is not surprising, considering it's framed in the accompanying article as having "come under criticism for its methodology." In reality, its methodology was almost solely criticized by the White House (President Bush falsely claimed that "the methodology has been pretty well discredited"), the Pentagon, and partisan pro-war supporters in the media.

Special Report: NYT Iraq War Timeline Whitewashes History (Part II: Record Day of Global Protest Disappeared)

To mark the recent fifth anniversary of the Iraq War, The New York Times published an interactive timeline. This is the second in a series of posts exploring the most misleading statements and glaring omissions from its Iraq War history (read Part I here).

Timeline Entry: DC Antiwar Protest

This entry reads in full: "Jan. 18, 2003, Antiwar Demonstration: Tens of thousands of demonstrators converge on Washington to protest the threatened use of force in Iraq."

FACT: First of all, a demonstration of equal or greater size (according to varying estimates) occurred in San Francisco on the same day. The Times did report the San Francisco protest in its corresponding 2003 article (a link is provided beneath the timeline). So, to put it mildly, it's a peculiar omission. Additionally, employing terminology such as "tens of thousands" rather than, say, 200,000 - the estimated number of participants in both DC and San Francisco on Jan. 18, 2003 - is patently misleading. (The San Francisco police department's original calculations, by the way, were 40,000 before it altered its count several times, from 55,000 to 100,000-125,000 a few days later, to then stating 150,000 a "safe estimate," while also conceding it could've been closer to 200,000.) The mainstream media, led by The Times, has regularly used such language to describe the number of Iraq War protesters. Such statistically blunting nomenclature has been a gift to the Bush White House and an assault on the most American of activities: peaceful dissent.

As the Jan. 26, 2003 editorial in the Santa Rosa Press Democrat noted: "A demonstration of 40,000 is newsworthy. A protest of 150,000 to 200,000 is historic."

Yet even more egregious than this entry was the timeline's failure to mention what was arguably the single largest day of protest in recorded human history: February 15, 2003, in which up to 30 million people in over 600 towns and cities across the globe protested the imminent invasion of Iraq. Roughly half a million people gathered in New York City alone. The 3 million who protested in Rome entered the Guinness World Records as the "Largest Anti-War Rally" ever.

What's more, in a February 17, 2003 front-page news analysis by reporter Patrick Tyler, The Times itself printed:

The fracturing of the Western alliance over Iraq and the huge antiwar demonstrations around the world this weekend are reminders that there may still be two superpowers on the planet: the United States and world public opinion.

In his campaign to disarm Iraq, by war if necessary, President Bush appears to be eyeball to eyeball with a tenacious new adversary: millions of people who flooded the streets of New York and dozens of other world cities to say they are against war based on the evidence at hand.

[...]

For the moment, an exceptional phenomenon has appeared on the streets of world cities. It may not be as profound as the people's revolutions across Eastern Europe in 1989 or in Europe's class struggles of 1848, but politicians and leaders are unlikely to ignore it.

Of course our politicians and leaders - the ones with the power to prevent this war - did ignore this. Five years later, so has The New York Times.

In other words, our paper of record presents an Iraq War timeline in which it includes one mention of one protest in one city, yet fails to record the largest coordinated global protest in the history of the human race.

Not Fox News. Not the Bush administration up on its White House website. The New York Times. This is ineptitude or censorship on a truly staggering level.

Special Report: President Bush Mourns Every Loss?

In the last line of "The Unfeeling President," novelist E.L. Doctorow’s masterful 2004 essay on President Bush, he wrote: "He cannot mourn but is a figure of such moral vacancy as to make us mourn for ourselves."

Many Americans would have agreed with Doctorow's assessment four years ago. Today, far more have accepted this reality about the man who sends our sons and daughters off to die in his never-ending war of choice. Yet, by and large, our national press corps still covers President Bush as if he were a king, treating him with a deference and submissiveness equal to the contempt and belligerence he affords its members, the American people, world opinion and the rule of law. 

In a telling prelude to the grim milestone of 4,000 American dead in Iraq (of which 97% were killed after the president, with his "Mission Accomplished" banner aloft, declared major combat operations over), Mr. Bush, less than two weeks ago, gushed about how "romantic" it would be to fight right now on the "front lines" in Afghanistan. You know, trudging through clouds of depleted uranium while sniper bullets whiz by your head, wondering if the next roadside bomb has your name on it. On March 13, in a videoconference with U.S. military and civilian personnel stationed in Afghanistan, our president spoke of war as if it were a videogame (to date, roughly 482 US troops have died in Afghanistan):

"I must say, I'm a little envious," Bush said. "If I were slightly younger and not employed here, I think it would be a fantastic experience to be on the front lines of helping this young democracy succeed.

"It must be exciting for you ... in some ways romantic, in some ways, you know, confronting danger. You're really making history, and thanks," Bush said.

Adding insult to injury, on that very same day, March 13, the Pentagon released an exhaustive study confirming that there was no connection between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda.

Meanwhile, our uber chickenhawk of a president - who, along with his multiple draft-deferring vice president, avoided serving in Vietnam - had expressed a similar callous, G.I. Joe vision of warfare in September 2007. Writing for the Washington Post, Dan Froomkin reported on Bush's "misguided sense of bravado":

President Bush wishes that he could be alongside the troops in Iraq -- except that he's too old. At least that's what he reportedly told a blogger embedded with U.S. troops in Iraq...."N.Z. Bear," one of the eight guests sitting around a table with Bush at the White House, reported: "Responding to one of the bloggers in Iraq he expressed envy that they could be there, and said he'd like to be there but 'One, I'm too old to be out there, and two, they would notice me.'"

Froomkin also noted that since declaring an end to major combat missions operations on May 1, 2003, Bush, through September 2007, had only visited Iraq three times, for a total of fewer than 15 hours. Here's the courageous breakdown:

Bush's first trip was a two-and-a-half-hour visit to the Baghdad airport on Thanksgiving 2003, where he teared up at the sight of the soldiers and was famously photographed posing with a prop turkey.

In June 2006, Bush spent five hours visiting Iraqi political leaders in Baghdad, although he didn't let the prime minister know he was coming.

During his most recent trip, two weeks ago, Bush was on the ground for seven hours, never leaving the confines of a military base known as Camp Cupcake, a heavily fortified American outpost for 10,000 troops with a 13-mile perimeter.

And how does Bush's vice president soften the oncoming blow of 4,000 American dead? In response to ABC's Martha Raddich pointing out that two-thirds of Americans think the war was a mistake, Dick Cheney replied, "So?"

And so, now this: 4,000 Americans have fallen in Iraq but nothing changes. President Bush and Vice President Cheney can say and do anything with seeming impunity. The blood of 4,000 American men and women is spilled and the press corps' questions - in context to this administration's seven-and-a-half years of death, destruction and brazen criminality - still aren't much tougher than they were on the eve of the invasion, when one of their sharpest inquiries was: "Mr. President, as the nation is at odds over war, with many organizations like the Congressional Black Caucus pushing for continued diplomacy through the U.N., how is your faith guiding you?" During that same press conference, President Bush himself, in a bizarre and now forgotten meta-gaffe, admitted the question and answer session was a farce. The White House press corps reacted by chuckling along in complicity:

PRESIDENT BUSH: The risk of doing nothing, the risk of hoping that Saddam Hussein changes his mind and becomes a gentle soul, the risk that somehow -- that inaction will make the world safer, is a risk I'm not willing to take for the American people. We'll be there in a minute. King, John King. This is a scripted -- (laughter.)

Flash forward five years later from that press conference and here's how the Associated Press frames Mr. Bush's handling of the 4,000 American soldiers, in an article titled "Bush Sympathetic As War Toll Hits 4,000":

Grim milestones such as new death toll often go unremarked by Bush. But he chose on this occasion to note the losses, albeit briefly and without taking questions from reporters.

As always, his message was determination.

Special Report: NYT Iraq War Timeline Whitewashes History (Part I: Hans Blix Security Council Presentation)

To mark the fifth anniversary of the Iraq War yesterday, The New York Times published an interactive timeline. Yet even after the paper's mea culpa about its deficient reporting leading up to the invasion, The Times repeats similar journalistic malpractice in this stroll down memory lane.

This is the first in a series of posts exploring the most misleading statements and glaring omissions from its Iraq War history:

Timeline Entry: Hans Blix's Report to Security Council

This entry reads in full: "Jan. 27, 2003, Weapons Inspector Reports: Hans Blix, a chief U.N. weapons inspector, reports that Iraq has not cooperated during two months of inspections."

The corresponding Times report filed back in 2003 (to which there's a link beneath the timeline) is titled "Inspector Says Iraq Falls Short," with the lede, "Hans Blix, one of the chief United Nations weapons inspectors, gave a broadly negative report today on Iraq's cooperation with two months of inspections, providing support to the Bush administration's campaign to disarm Iraq by force if necessary."

FACT: First, the statement in the timeline that Blix "reports that Iraq has not cooperated during two months of inspections" fails miserably to encompass not only the complexity of what Blix related to the Security Council but the intended purpose of his report.

Hans Blix saw his presentation before the Security Council as a report card with which to force Iraq's hand to be more forthcoming with his team of weapons inspectors. In the end, his dedication to the facts, of painting an exhaustive view of Iraq's cooperation up to that point, over a mere two-month period, left his findings vulnerable to cherry-picking by those, in the Bush administration and the media, who were beating the war drums. Blix related that Iraq had, as of Jan. 27, 2003, not cooperated as fully as he would have liked, but not that it had refused to cooperate altogether, as the timeline deceptively implies.

In fact, this timeline entry is even more misleading than that Times report filed on Blix's presentation. That report's framing certainly bolstered the Bush administration's argument for invasion, claiming, foremost, that Blix's findings "support the Bush administration's campaign to disarm Iraq by force if necessary" while wholly omitting Blix's points that progress had been made and his weapons inspectors needed more time to do their jobs. As opposed to this timeline entry, however, even the report refrained from implying Iraq had totally failed to cooperate. (Yet the article does give the false impression that Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei, the chief inspector for atomic weapons, held an extremely divergent view from Blix: "[ElBaradei] was less critical of Iraq today, reporting that his team had found no evidence so far that Iraq had tried to revive its nuclear arms program and appealing to the Security Council for a 'few months' more to complete his work." ElBaradei - who the Bush administration fought to remove from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), going so far as to tap his phone, and who, along with the IAEA, was later awarded the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize - would soon be roundly criticized by Vice President Dick Cheney, US United Nations ambassador John Bolton and other administration surrogates.)

Contrary to the 2003 administration narrative that is repeated in this 2008 timeline, years after it was first echoed by The Times and the mainstream media at large, Blix also told the Security Council that day:

HANS BLIX: While the inspection is not built on the premise of confidence, but may lead to confidence if it is successful, there must nevertheless be a measure of mutual confidence from the very beginning in running the operation of inspection. Iraq has, on the whole, cooperated rather well so far with UNMOVIC [U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission] in this field.

The most important point to make is that access has been provided to all sites we have wanted to inspect. And with one exception, it has been [without] problems.

What's more, in closing his presentation, Blix painstakingly detailed how the weapons inspectors' capacity to perform their jobs was growing more effective by the day, progress had been made and much work remained:

HANS BLIX: Mr. President, I must not conclude this update without some notes on the growing capability of UNMOVIC. In the past two months, UNMOVIC has built up its capabilities in Iraq from nothing to 260 staff members from 60 countries. This includes approximately 100 UNMOVIC inspectors, 60 air operations staff, as well as security personnel, communication, translation and interpretation staff, medical support and other services at our Baghdad office and also Mosul field office.

All serve the United Nations and report to no one else.

Furthermore, our roster of inspectors will continue to grow as our training program continues. Even at this moment, we have a training course in session in Vienna. At the end of that course, we should have a roster of about 350 qualified experts from which to draw inspectors.

The team supplied by the Swiss government is refurbishing our office in Baghdad which had been empty for four years. The government in New Zealand has contributed both a medical team and a communications team. The German government will contribute unmanned aerial vehicles for surveillance and a group of specialists to operate them for us within Iraq. And the government of Cyprus has kindly allowed us to set up a field office in Larnaca.

All of these contributions have an assistance in quickly starting up our inspections and enhancing our capabilities, so has help from the U.N. in New York and from sister organizations in Baghdad.

In the past two months, during which we have built up our presence in Iraq, we have conducted about 300 inspections to more than 230 different sites. Of these, more than 20 were sites that had not been inspected before.

By the end of December, UNMOVIC began using helicopters, both for the transport of inspectors and for actual inspection work. We now have eight helicopters. They have already proved invaluable in helping to freeze large sites by observing the movement of traffic in and around the area.

Setting up the field office in Mosul has facilitated rapid inspections of sites in northern Iraq. We plan to establish soon a second field office in the Basra area where we have already inspected a number of sites.

Mr. President, we now have an inspection apparatus that permits us to send multiple inspections teams every day all over Iraq by road or by air. Let me end by simply noting that that capability, which has been built up in a short time and which is now operating, is at the disposal of the Security Council.

Following Blix's Jan. 27 presentation before the Security Council, Iraq became more compliant to inspections while, simultaneously, the inspectors were expanding the coverage and effectiveness of their searches. But it didn't matter. The Bush administration had already made up its mind and began an effort to discredit Blix.

Blix revealed in an April 2003 interview: "When on January 27, I denounced Iraq in the Security Council of the UN for not cooperating in an immediate, complete and unconditional way to fulfill the terms of resolution 1441, the American Government, including the hawks, applauded me. However, it was a great paradox, because from then on, the Government of Iraq began to cooperate actively. And then the Americans began to criticize me." He also disclosed, "There is evidence that this war was planned well in advance. Sometimes this raises doubts about their attitude to the (weapons) inspections," adding, "I now believe that finding weapons of mass destruction has been relegated, I would say, to fourth place, which is why the United States and Britain are now waging war on Iraq."

And just today in The Guardian, Blix writes:

The elimination of weapons of mass destruction was the declared main aim of the war. It is improbable that the governments of the alliance could have sold the war to their parliaments on any other grounds. That they believed in the weapons' existence in the autumn of 2002 is understandable. Why had the Iraqis stopped UN inspectors during the 90s if they had nothing to hide? Responsibility for the war must rest, though, on what those launching it knew by March 2003.

By then, Unmovic inspectors had carried out some 700 inspections at 500 sites without finding prohibited weapons. The contract that George Bush held up before Congress to show that Iraq was purchasing uranium oxide was proved to be a forgery. The allied powers were on thin ice, but they preferred to replace question marks with exclamation marks.

They could not succeed in eliminating WMDs because they did not exist.

This timeline entry on Blix's Jan. 27 presentation to the Security Council is a sharp reminder of how the media, led by our paper of record, helped to sell the war in Iraq by almost invariably shaping information to fit the Bush administration's narrative. 

Special Report: Secret Service Denies Obama Security Lapse While MSM Plays Dumb and NBC Plays Dumber; Plus, A Reminder of Who Controls the SS

(Updates below - Update I: NYT matches AP's obliviousness; Update II: In latest article by Star-Telegram, "former head of the FBI in Dallas who was in charge of the agency's investigation of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing" slams Service Service's actions at rally.) 

On Thursday, I wrote about a frightening lapse in security at Wednesday's Obama rally in Dallas. Reporter Jack Douglas Jr. of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram broke the story and has since written a follow-up, to which he updated yesterday. I noted on Thursday that the mainstream media (with the exception of UPI) had completely ignored this story, which has largely continued, with the Associated Press going so far as to publish an article Friday titled "Many Blacks Worry About Obama's Safety" yet without referencing in the piece what had occurred at Wednesday's Dallas rally. Friday's broadcast of NBC Nightly News did mention an alleged breach of security, but the report - a shoddy piece of journalism driven solely by the Secret Service's official denial - was summarily tacked on to the end of a separate report on the Obama campaign. Additionally, in comments left on Douglas' articles on the Star-Telegram's website (one of which he published in his follow-up) and other sites around the web (including this one), people have provided firsthand accounts of the same type of lax security at Obama rallies throughout the country (yes, they need to be corroborated, but they reveal a pattern of lax security that also demands further investigation into this matter).

First, an exploration of the insufficient Secret Service response to these charges, followed by the deplorable NBC Nightly News segment and then a brief reminder of who controls the Secret Service.

Secret Service Denies Security Lapse

Jack Douglas' follow-up includes the Secret Service's denial of any security breach:

"There were no security lapses at that venue," said Eric Zahren, a spokesman for the Secret Service in Washington. He added there was "no deviation" from the "comprehensive and layered" security plan, implemented in "very close cooperation with our law enforcement partners."

Zahren rebutted suggestions by several Dallas police officers at the rally who thought the Secret Service ordered a halt to the time-consuming weapons check because long lines were moving slowly, and many seats remained empty as time neared for Obama to appear.

"It was never a part of the plan at this particular venue to have each and every person in the crowd pass through the Magnetometer," said Zahren, referring to the device used to detect metal in clothing and bags.

So basic checks, the kind performed at any major sporting or music event, were never "part of the plan"? If such checks can be carried out for, say, 20,000 people at a Springsteen concert or 50,000 at a Yankee game, why is it too much to expect the same for our nation's leading Democratic presidential candidate?

Douglas goes to report that Zahren "declined to give the reason for checking people for weapons at the front of the lines and letting those farther back go in without inspection."

Why?

"We would not want, by providing those details, to have people trying to derive ways in which they could defeat the security at any particular venue," Zahren said.

Sure, he wouldn't want to tip off those would-be criminal masterminds to what thousands of people across the country already know: that (at least up until now) arriving late and hanging in the back of the line is the surest way to enter without being checked for a weapon.

The article ends with unique spin from the Dallas police brass:

Lt. V.L. Hale III, a spokesman for the Dallas Police Department, said in a statement Friday that he would not comment on security measures at the Obama rally except to say there was no arrest or incident and that it was a "success from a police standpoint."

So according to Dallas Police Department officials (as opposed to the officers who were shocked and alarmed by the lapse in security), no one actually getting shot or blown up is a "success." Of course, that's not success, but luck.

In Douglas' updated article, he reports on an additional bit of PR spin, provided by a "lawyer and consultant for security concerns," who, unwittingly, seems to confirm a security lapse did indeed occur.

The Secret Service may have been doing all it could at the rally, said Keith Howse, a lawyer and consultant for security concerns and a former assistant police chief for the sprawling Baylor Health Care System.

Howse, who was not at the rally, said the Secret Service may have been screening the people closest to the candidate while letting others go in unchecked who were seated far away in the spacious, 17,000-seat arena.

"It may have ended up not being the best of all worlds, but it might not have been a flat-out security breach," he said, adding: "I think it's important to understand that the Secret Service would not sink below minimum protection" for a presidential candidate.

Settling for making the possible future President of the United States merely a slightly harder target is an acceptable level of security? Doesn't Obama, as well as Hillary Clinton and John McCain, deserve "the best of all worlds" when it comes to federal protection? (Incidentally, I'd be interested to know if Douglas contacted Howse, or if Howse contacted him unsolicited - and if so, if Howse is working in the capacity of security consultant and council for the Dallas Police Department in this matter, or, possibly, even in that role for the Secret Service in this particular case.)

NBC Nightly News Coverage of the "Alleged" Security Breach

Brian Williams spared 75 seconds for this story on Friday night. He sounded annoyed while framing it for his viewers, his voice betraying an utter lack of curiosity. Williams' handling of this segment displayed the worst of network news: a failure to frame a story with intellectual honesty or to ask and follow up on the most glaringly obvious questions. NBC may have been better off taking its competitors' lead and ignoring this news altogether. Instead, this lame effort turned out to be even more insulting - to its viewers, to the safety of a potential future president, and to journalism in general.

Special Report: Clinton vs. Obama on the Cluster Bomb Vote

(updated below - includes full text of Senate Amendment No. 4882; update II: copy of Senate Roll Call Votes.)

"[Cluster bombs are] the single greatest risk civilians face with regard to a current weapon that is in use." -Marc Garlasco, senior military analyst at Human Rights Watch

David Rees, the man behind the hilarious and trenchant Get Your War On, reminded me yesterday of another especially egregious - yet much less known - vote cast by Senator Hillary Clinton, which no one in the mainstream media is talking about:

But in the autumn of 2006, there was a chance to take a step in the right direction: Senate Amendment No. 4882, an amendment to a Pentagon appropriations bill that would have banned the use of cluster bombs in civilian areas.

Senator Obama of Illinois voted IN FAVOR of the ban.

Senator Clinton of New York voted AGAINST the ban.

Analysts say Clinton did not want to risk appearing "soft on terror," as it would have harmed her electibility.

No, neither candidate is perfect. Indeed, as Rees points out about Obama:

Nobody who voted for 2005's wack-ass energy bill is perfect. Nobody who voted to reauthorize the Patriot Act is perfect.

Yet he goes on to say:

But of the two remaining Democratic candidates, one decided her vote on Amendment No. 4882 according to a political calculation. The other used a moral calculation.

Whomever you're supporting, or even if you're not supporting either candidate, Rees makes a fair point here. On not one but two of her most important life-and-death votes in the Senate, Clinton embraced political expediency over the protection of innocent human lives.

Moreover, if such issues as the horrific realities of cluster bombs were given their due in the mainstream media, Clinton's vote against Amendment No. 4882 would've and should've been fair game in assessing her record.

The United States of America is the largest manufacturer of cluster bombs. This weaponry maims and kills thousands of innocent human beings globally each year but reaps huge profits for the defense industry, which in turn, of course, pays exorbitant rates to advertise during U.S. network news broadcasts.

Thus, its absence from our "national debate" is no grand mystery.

First, a brief background on the cluster bomb. Then, an exploration of why Senator Clinton's vote against its ban is highly relevant to President Clinton's actions back in 1997.

The Cluster Bomb

Nick Turse describes the ghastly nature of cluster bombs in his article "Did the U.S. Lie About Cluster Bomb Use in Iraq?":