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apj.us / correntewire.com presents
Pundit Pap
War on the Press
by the Pundit Pap Team
Corrente's Xan & Shystee
APJ's Jane Grice
July 2, 2006 (correntewire.com / apj.us)–The Republican machine and their pals in the Washington bureaus of the big infotainment outfits continued their war against journalism this past week:
So how did the Sunday purveyors of prognostication bamboozle Sunday early birds this holiday weekend? Read on...
—Jane Grice
CBS Face the Nation
by Xan
NY Times Editor Bill Keller, Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA), Sen. Carl Levin (D-VT)
Remember the kid games “Simon Says” and “Mother May I”? These are essentially slow-motion races, but the catch in both is that forward progress—which is always in the form of some ludicrous maneuver like “scissor steps” or “baby steps” or “giant steps” or skipping or hopping on one foot or the like— can only be made when a particular rule is obeyed. If the director says “Take four giant steps forward” and you do it….BZZZT! You are busted and must go back, because the director didn’t say “Simon says take four giant steps.”
This is what our government has been reduced to. A giant fucking game of Simon, or in this case Bush Says. Doesn’t matter what the actual action is, be it “take three baby steps toward revoking the Rule of Law” or “jump on one foot off the edge of this cliff into complete one-man rule.” Bush can do any goddamn thing he wants and all the majesty of Congress, described in Article One of the Constitution of the United States because Congress is the governing body of our Republic, can do in their righteous rage at being stomped into the dirt by the Unitary Executive is to whine “But he didn’t ASK us first!” Feh.
First up was Bill Keller of the New York Times, who first of all should get a new tailor and improve his posture. Doesn’t help the Cause, Bill, if you sit hunched up like a puppy crouching next to a puddle of piddle just knowing that you’re about to be paddled.
And to follow that with a defense of “Well, we judge every story on whether it’s going to get somebody killed,” and we’ve failed to report lots and lots of stuff if the gummint asks us not to because we’re Good Little Responsible Beggars at the trough of information, and besides they’re not playing fair, they leak lots'n'lots of shit if they think it’s to their advantage [cough, Kneepads Miller, cough] and they never complain about those stories even though they’re just as classified.” Blah, blah, ramble, ramble.
And the worst part of it was that the interview was with Bob Schieffer, damn near the last of the non-intimidated Good Reporters, who I think would have stood up and cheered if Keller had come prepared with a ringing denunciation of the Unitary Executive theory, the fact that “in secrecy lies tyranny,” the fact that said tyranny is not just creeping in the window but banging down the national front door and expecting to be thanked by the victim for “protecting” us.
Instead he just pointed out the fact that the SWIFT program was public information for a long time, and the fact that Bush himself had said loudly on many public occasions that tracking terrorism-related financing was a major campaign, so the argument that the Times (et al—the fact that other papers had the story was almost let slide until Schieffer brought it up) was telling Osama Bin Forgotten something he didn’t already know was horsesh!t.
But the true splooge of the Mother-May-I pushback to Executive tyranny came with the joint Specter-Levin appearance. They were actually both quite forceful with their statements, but they nearly wet themselves they were straining so hard to say, “Of course we will let the President do whatever He thinks is best but we gotta have hearings first.”
Bush forgot to say “Mother May I” before taking those baby steps over the cliff. Christ on a cooked-spaghetti crutch, it is with people like these that we must fight the war on tyranny? Oy veh.
NBC Meet the Press
by Shystee and Jane Grice
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Sen. Mitch McConnell, TV's Bill Bennett, WaPo's Dana Priest, WSJ's John Harwood, Senile Ol' Coot Bill Safire
Chuck Schumer is an asshole. He represents everything I hate about the Democratic Party. And I don’t know how to do this without repeating Republican frames but it happens to be the truth as I see it. All they are willing to do is criticize Bush while, at the same time, by their actions, enabling if not outright supporting his abuses of power.
On MTP today Chucky proved that on every current issue (Guantanamo, Iraq, Leaks to the Press, Lieberman) his position supports what Bush and the GOP want to do. But he will say that Bush is a bad man with all his overreaching and all.
On the Guantanamo/Hamdan ruling:
Schumer: To change things, that’s a good idea. We have to change the rules. The problem is that the President thinks he has infinite powers.
Mitch McCONnell: Congress is very likely to give the president what he needs to fight the war on terror.
Chucky doesn’t disagree. He is all for creating the legal authority for the President to do what was previously illegal. He supports legislation to establish “military commissions” which will be different from “military tribunals” because of the change in nomenclature.
The Supreme Court ruled that Guantanamo detainees need to be tried in US courts or Courts Martial. Why create another kind of court? To provide cover for the Bushies. They don’t have enough (any) evidence to convict these illegal detainees otherwise they would have tried them in regular courts already. If they were forced to try the detainees in regular courts, it would become obvious that they have held (and tortured) people for years for no reason.
On the Leaking Leakers:
Schumer: Of course we should investigate the finance leak. Freedom of the press is great but there are exceptions, like national security. But the President jumped the gun.
Great recitation of GOP talking points. Thanks Chucky.
On Iraq:
Schumer: Congress’ job is oversight and accountability, Iraq is Bush’s problem. It’s not our job to come up with a plan. We do have a plan: Levin-Reed. It says Iraqis have to get their act together and our stay is not open-ended.
Sweet. So we’re not going to be in Iraq forever. We’ll be there for infinity minus one. Sounds to me that the Dem’s plan is functionally equivalent to the Bushies’. And besides, proposing a clear alternative, a real attempt at a solution, to the voters is not our job as Members of Congress.
—Shystee
On Lieberman
Andrea Mitchell: Will you support whoever wins the Democratic primary?
Schumer: We are supporting Joe Lieberman in the primary, we’re not going to speculate…
Andrea pressed him over and over again. Chucky would not say that he would support Lamont if he wins the primary and would not rule out supporting Lieberman as an independent.
Even party affiliation doesn’t matter to Chucky. He will stand for a Senator that has supported Bush all the way.
Roundtable
Bill Bennett is a HUGE asshole. His presence today again begs the question: why are batsh!t insane wingnuts on national TV all the time? Why are these people taken seriously and given the opportunity to reach millions of viewers with their crypto-fascist message for free?
He played the part of the besieged, aggrieved conservative blowhard to a tee. “It’s three against one here” he whined. When other people were talking he harrumphed and made faces and interrupted, bellowing “journalists aren’t above the law!”.
Andrea read a quote from Bill “The Gambler” Bennett saying that Dana Priest (who was sitting right next to him) isn’t worthy of a Pulitzer, she’s worthy of jail.
Priest: We are covering the war on terror, it’s a classified war. Why are we doing this? Guantanamo hurts our strategic goal, it hurts our image as defenders of human rights.
And plus there’s that thing about the public’s right to know if the Government is violating their constitutional rights.
Priest also took a terrific swipe at Bennett–and landed it. Hard. Jane explains below.
Why are Major Newspapers allowed to have split personalities?
Harwood: I don’t know anybody in the news side of the Journal who thinks the NY Times acted out of bad faith.
William Safire proved how old he is…
Safire: I used to write speeches for Spiro Agnew, I’m hip to this stuff. It’s all about “get the media”.
He did provide this snappy retort to Bennett’s frothing about how “this government was elected to protect the American people.”
Safire: Who elected the media? The founding fathers did.
Flashback
Back in ye olden times of King Tricky Dick, the Supreme Court ruled on the Pentagon Papers case on or about today’s date.
And Daniel Ellsberg was on Meet The Press a couple of years later, questioned by a paleo-wingnut who quoted someone saying “Liberty without order is anarchy.”
Ellsberg said: “Our government is working now. The other branches of government are working to check the authority of the executive.”
Ah, the olden days, the fable of a Government employee who leaked to the newspapers which led to a President who abused his powers to be impeached by Congress. A happy ending to that story.
No such luck these days with the chickensh!t Democrats who have stated publicly that impeachment is out of the question. Some of them even support prosecuting journalists for publishing the truth about stuff terrorists (the non-brain-dead ones) already know.
—Shystee
Anatomy of a Smackdown
Of all the pundits on all the Sunday shows this year, the one who has shown the largest cojones when it comes to standing up to standard right-wing talking points is none other than Dana Priest, the WaPo's petite, all-business Beltway reporter.
Bennett decided to badmouth the NY Times in his trademark blustery, bullying manner:
Bennett: Well, why did they, why did they get caught on 2003 rather than two years earlier when the program was announced? I know we have an air marshals program, but I don’t know which marshal is on which plane. Yeah, we established a democracy, we, we opposed a king, we have a president of the United States. The founders, let me go back 200 years, James Wilson said “The press will be free. No prior restraint on the press. However, when they err, when they are irresponsible, they should be held accountable.” Now, you put Richard Clarke up against Lee Hamilton and Tom Kean. I’m sorry, Richard Clarke has a thing against this administration, that’s pretty clearly known. Tom Kean said a—the details of a valuable program were lost.
Andrea Greenspan: Well, he worked for a while in this administration.
Bennett: Lee Hamilton said the same thing, Jack Murtha—these, again, are not cat’s paws of this administration—begged The New York Times not to run this piece.
After some nattering back-and forth, Dana Priest chimed in:
Priest: Every time there’s a national security story [the Bush Administration doesn’t] want published, they say it will damage national security. But they—for one thing, they’ve never given us any proof.
And then, following some more back-and-forth, Priest delivered the coup de ass:
Priest: It’s not a crime to publish classified information. And this is one of the things Mr. Bennett keeps telling people that it is. But, in fact, there are some narrow categories of information you can’t publish: certain signals, communications, intelligence, the names of covert operatives and nuclear secrets. Now why isn’t it a crime? I mean, some people would like to make casino gambling a crime, but it is not a crime. Why isn’t it not a crime? Because the framers of the Constitution wanted to protect the press so that they could perform a basic role in government oversight, and you can’t do that. Look at the criticism that the press got after Iraq—that we did not do our job on WMD. And that was all in a classified arena. To do a better job—and I believe that we should’ve done a better job
As Jon Stewart might say, "Ohhh, sssssSNAP!" Bennett looked furious when Priest brought up gambling. He knows damn well that most MTP viewers know about his little video poker problem.
Priest's comment almost seemed calculated to send a message to those proselytizing censorship on the right: you want a war over freedom of speech? Bring it on–we'll make it personal and destroy whatever shred of "moral (koff) authority" you have.
Thankfully, for those of you who missed it—and don't feel like scrolling through MSNBC's Webcast, Crooks and Liars captured the moment. Pour yourself a glass of chardonnay, click the link, play it, and enjoy.
Priceless!
—Jane Grice
This Sunday Gasbaggery With George Stephanopoulos
by Leah
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA; both JJ and Dianne were coming to you from Aspen, where they are attending the "western" version of that Renaissance Weekend), Cokie Roberts, Joe Klein, and TV's Fred Thompson
First subject: “How about that Supreme Court decision!” Or as This Week framed it, wasn't this a rebuke to the Bush Administration's entire theory of presidential power?
No ringing endorsement of the decision from McCain. In fact, a person could be forgiven for thinking that McCain was miffed by SCOTUS poaching on his territory–the good Republican Senator, the one with a conscience when it comes to torture and inhumane treatment of prisoners.
McCain stationed himself firmly at Bush's back. The decision was no big deal, especially in view of the legislative amendment McCain got passed affirming the need for non-torture and human treatment of detainees.
The discomfort that McCain's tense affect betrayed resulted, I think, from his desire not to join the shriller attacks on the Court and its decision, while sharing many of their reservations. Despite his clear consternation with the majority opinion, McCain, looking on the bright side, did allow that it unsticks a judicial process–those military commissions–that had ground to a halt.
No blame to be placed on the Bush Administration for the fact that not one prisoner has yet been tried to a decision by any military tribunals of any kind, and that only ten detainees have been so much as referred for some kind of hearing. No, no, the President was forced to wait for those damn cases to work their way through the system; damn Jag attorneys, and assorted civilian ones, who sought to test the President's reckless disregard for the constitution.
McCain made it clear he was most unhappy with that part of the decision that affirmed the applicability of Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions to the Guantanamo 400 plus detainees. McCain's interpretation–the court was insisting that the full rights of prisoners of war are herewith bestowed on terrorists, who don't wear uniforms, hide among civilians to strike at the innocent, and by the way, some real bad guys are down there in Guantanamo.
How many, and how McCain can be so sure were among many unasked questions.
My personal favorite unasked question: "You mentioned, Senator McCain your own legislative efforts to insist on non-torture on otherwise humane treatment of detainees, but considering the signing statement the President appended to the bill, basically announcing he rejected its terms, why are you so certain the President is willing to work with Congress now to find a way to treat prisoners the way you say they ought to be treated?"
I can't tell you exactly how and why, but McCain seemed to feel that his own position had been upended by the decision. Then again, the Hamden decision put a real dent in this administration's secretive attempts to extend presidential power, beyond the reach of Congress and the courts, and perhaps McCain isn't all that interested in joining that battle.
On immigration, McCain sounded like a politician trying hard to make amends of those to his right on this issue. Nor was McCain particularly impressive on the Republican defeat of a raise in the minimum wage, and their desire to raise their own paychecks. The Democrats insisting they will block the latter if the former is not accomplished McCain labeled a political ploy, and then reminded everyone that he doesn't approve of Congressional pay raises.
Oh, and about that minimum wage increase, he's for it, so long as it doesn't hurt small business.
All in all, this was not one of McCain's more impressive performances.
Senator Feinstein's affect was the opposite of McCain's.
Smiling and relaxed, the Senator didn't hesitate to pronounce “Hamden” a major decision, one that said clearly and specifically that Bush had exceeded his authority. She emphasized the separation of powers argument, pointing to Article One of the constitution wherein is laid out Congress' many enumerated powers to regulate military matters.
She agreed that Congress needed to act to conform the procedures governing the Guantanamo detainees conform with the UCMJ and Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions. Unlike McCain, Feinstein saw no particular problem with the latter.
Also, unlike McCain, Feinstein felt the decision brought into question all the ways in which Bush has interpreted the constitution to mean he can do whatever he wants because we're at war, and she specifically included the NSA program, which, she said should be brought under the supervision of the FISA court.
Wasn't the Senator afraid, asked George, about the political hay to be made by Republicans? To illustrate, he quoted Nancy Pelosi's statement about the decision, and John Boehner's comeback that Pelosi wanted to give special rights to terrorists.
Feinstein made clear she had no such fears, and sounded like she meant it. In fact, this exchange provoked the most notable moment in the hour, when the Senator said, amidst a ringing valediction to the Constitution as a living, breathing document, the source of our greatest strength, not our greatest weakness, something to the effect that the Republicans will rue the day that they try and politicize this decision.
George insisted on pressing forward; after the debates on Iraq of the week before, weren't the Republicans on the offense, the Democrats forced to defend themselves against charges of being soft on the War on Terror?
Feinstein didn't back down. What Democrats understand that the President and most Republicans don't seem to is that we are not succeeding in Iraq and we need to evolve a new strategy. That is what every Democrat believes. That's why they've tried to push the President toward finding a new foreign policy team, one that might help him come up with a new strategy.
Feinstein was very strong here, defining the Democratic position as not staying the course because it is a losing course.
On the issue of the White House attacks on the NY Times, Feinstein went straight for the meat–if the Bush Administration weren't so secretive, so determined to escape the scrutiny of Congress, these kinds of leaks wouldn't happen. Feinstein also made absolutely clear that the briefing Senators were given on the SWIFT financial tracking program only came at the point that it was clear the NYTimes had the story. Her position on SWIFT is that there should be no problem bringing it within the FISA framework.
The one missing point I wish Feinstein, and all other Democrats, would make in the future: the reason there is a need for such scrutiny is that this is a program that can easily lead to abuses of power. And way our constitution deals with such potential abuses is the constitution's checks and balances.
And in making such arguments, it would be nice if some of the Democrats would remember to quote the howls of outrage uttered by Republican after Republican about the Clinton FBI Filegate non-scandal scandal.
As to that roundtable: Fred Thompson is not merely an asshole, he is an asshole's asshole.
Not to put too fine a point on it.
He's an utterly partisan Republican whose years as a lawyer mean nothing to him, apparently. But then we knew that from his utterly partisan performance as chairman of the inquiry into possible campaign abuses after the 1996 presidential election, during which he refused to even consider any depredations on the part of Republicans, this despite the fact that Gingrich and DeLay were already at work on the K Street Project.
On the "issue" of the New York Times, Thompson had all the Republican talking points memorized. If there was nothing new in the story, then why put it on the front page? What was new–sources and methods. The Times motivation–they're anti-Bush, anti his war (which war Thompson didn't make clear).
Joe Klein “sensed” some politics going on with the White House attacks on the Times. Gotta hand it to Joe; no dummy he. In fairness, he went after Bush secretiveness, and he even mentioned that the bigger story in all this is the Bush Administration's unchecked grab for power.
Cokie wanted to talk about the effectiveness of the attack–very effective. Republicans always get mileage out of beating up on the press.
On the Hamden decision, it was Joe and Cokie v. Thompson. According to Fred, this was an activist court that reached aggressively to find a basis for its own jurisdiction. But Thompson was comforted by believing that it was a narrow holding, not of much significance. Republicans will do a bit of corrective legislating, and Bush will continue to protect us all
Cokie thought it was more significant than that, but wasn't convinced that, despite Feinstein's warning, that Democrats would succeed in making life difficult for Republicans on this issue, and in fact, might well lose out on the political benefit. Then again, when have you ever heard Cokie think Democrats have a shot at political success of any kind? Could it be wish-fulfillment?
Just in case you think that pundits might be any better at framing campaign points, arguments, whatever, than are Democratic politicians, here's Joe Klein's big idea for how Democrats can take on the Bush Administration on this whole torture, indeterminate detention issue.
Wait for it...
Klein thinks Democrats should fashion a 30 second commercial featuring John McCain's passionate utterances on the floor of the Senate rejecting torture as a viable option for America. No suggestion from Joe that the 30 seconds ought to include McCain's retreat from those lofty positions, which Klein had just witnessed. No, what struck Klein as a good idea was for Democrats to use McCain to... well, to do what, exactly?
All suggestions as to what Klein was actually thinking of will be gratefully received.
FOX News Sunday
by Leah
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA; both JJ and Lindsey Graham, Jack Reed, And The More-or-less Regulars
The big story for FOX News, this Sunday, was the perfidy of the New York Times.
The SCOTUS decision on the Guantanamo detainees wasn’t so much treated as an afterthought than as part of the same subject: why are these people–liberals, the far left, Democrats, of whom the New York Times is the perfect embodiment–so determined to thwart all Bush Administration efforts in the “War on Terror,” which is only meant to protect Americans from the evil ones?
The first guests were Senators Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Jack Reed (D-RI).
Graham found himself trying to thread the same needle as McCain on This Week.
Working hard not to express too much anger or dismay, Graham’s major point was to portray himself and the Republican Party and Bush himself as completely within the mainstream on issues of the rule of law. Graham expected us to believe him because he’d tried to get the Bush Administration to see that its greatest strength in doing what might be deemed necessary in the War on Terror, and in Iraq, presumably, though Iraq wasn’t mentioned, is to be found in consulting with Congress.
As we would expect, Chris Wallace didn’t ask Graham why Bush had failed to take that advice.
Now, of course, the President will consult Congress, Graham will pretend that such was always the President’s intent, and in no time at all, Republicans will agree on a set of guidelines which will allow Bush to do just what he has been doing.
To be sure, Graham spoke disapprovingly of torture, and approvingly of humane treatment, but it was also clear that what he has in mind, what he has always had in mind, is to give a legal rationalization for behavior that is just plain old fashioned unAmerican.
As with McCain, but more forcefully, Graham came down hard on the “breathtaking ramifications” of Justice Stevens’s citation of Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions. Graham used that word “breathtaking” three different times. Of the fact that a primary aim of any legislation Graham authors or midwives will be to eliminate those ramifications no one should be in doubt.
Graham was at great pains not to appear to be making a political issue out of the decision. “This is not a Democratic issue or a Republican issue, it is an American issue, and yes, we need to treat detainees fairly, but we need to protect the nation.” (An approximation)
Don’t be fooled. Karl Rove, Bush, and Cheney will do as they please– and Graham won’t mutter a syllable of criticism. There was a hint of a threat, too, in the way that Graham reassured his audience that what needs to be legitimated, needs, also, to be done quickly, with a minimum of effort, or lengthy discussion, and if the Democrats are smart they’ll go along with the program.
Wallace was loathe to let go of the political angle–and he presented Senator Reed with the proposition that Democrats were in danger of being pegged, once again, as weak on matters of security.
Senator Reed is nothing if not laid back, and he remained provocation-proof. Yes, Democrats will cooperate in conforming procedures of detention and interrogation with this new SCOTUS decision, but there was no indication that he or any Democrat is ready to rubber-stamp the administration’s wanton disregard for due process concerns of any kind, or the administration’s policy on interrogation techniques, and he explicitly stated that whatever configuration of guidelines is arrived at, it should be consistent with the fundamental international law of war, upon which both the Geneva Conventions and our own UCMJ are based.
Reed was also asked to respond to the Pelosi/Boehner exchange, which Wallace incorrectly restated as Pelosi’s belief that Al Qaeda was entitled to the full protections of the Geneva Conventions. Reed backed up Pelosi; at the very least, these detainees have a right to some form of trial, some form of hearing, else how do we know who they are, or that they are terrorists.
On the NY Times, Graham went with the Republican talking points: we’ve lost a valuable tool in protecting ourselves against those who are out to get us. Frankly, this sounded terribly hollow, and almost silly.
Reed put the blame on the secrecy of the Bush Administration, just where it belongs.
The roundtable was Brit Hume, Nina Easton of the Boston Globe, William Kristol and Juan Williams.
Do I really need to tell you what was said?
Hume and Kristol were both dismissive of Stevens’ opinion on Hamden, especially so as regards the Geneva Conventions, labeling it An act of pure overreach by the court, although Stevens’ argument was misrepresented by both pundits. Kristol expects the Republican Congress to overrule the opinion legislatively.
Hume did have one original observation, when he found a contributing factor to the nonsense of this decision to be the Democrats’ defeat of Robert Bork. Anthony Kennedy was the substitute, and he’s all over the place; you can’t count on what his opinion is going to be, whereas with Bork…
Do I need to tell you what about this formulation is inconsistent with everything right-wing Neocons like Hume and Kristol had to say about pinning SCOTUS nominees down on how they view major issues sure to come before the court? Or the way in which Hume’s comments on Bork make has of the conservative insistence that original intent doctrine of constitutional interpretation is about getting away from results-oriented court decisions?
Nina Easton had nothing of particular interest to say, nor did Juan Williams, but all agreed the Democrats could be in trouble if they seek to do anything but curl up and let the Republicans do anything they want to do to those 460 men being held in Guantanamo. Kristol looked forward to a no-win debate in which Democrats would either have to admit Bush has been right this whole time, or else that the Democratic Party is on the side of al Qaeda.
The panel’s thoughts on the NY Times were entirely predictable recitations of the talking points you will have heard countless times by now, and will hear again countless times, until a new outrage catches the attention of the wingnuttosphere.
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