INVESTIGATING THE INVESTIGATORS

APOLOGIZING FOR WAR COVERAGE

SUPPORTING IRAQ”S “RESISTANCE”

YES! I am writing to the upbeat sounds of the new AIR AMERICA radio network , which went on the air this morning in New York. The first sounds I heard were Billy Joel’s “We didn’t start the fire?” and Bob Marley singing “Get up, stand up for your rights.” Bye the bye, “Air America” was the name used by the CIA’s airline in Vietnam. What a difference a few decades makes.

911 SHENANIGANS

If you want to know why Condi Rice reversed herself and agreed to testify, look at the polls. CNN was reporting last night that Richard Clarke and President Bush are nearly neck and neck in public credibility ratings. The President’s numbers are falling even as Fox News spent part of the morning recycling Administration arguments, as Governor Tom Kean hinted that Condi’s constitutional concerns were bogus on the Larry King show last night. The good Dr. Rice apparently confused this PRESIDENTIAL commission with a Congressional Committee–which it is not. (She kept explaining that a Presidential advisor could be forced to testify before Congress) ? The deal, however: in exchange for her public testimony, President Bush and Vice-President Cheney will testify SECRETLY and IN PRIVATE and NOT under oath but before all the commissioners. Also part of the deal: the Commission agreed not to call Rice back — nor any other White House people. The reason — of course — National Security! Which suggests that one effort to heal a PR disaster may end up creating another one.

Talking Points Memo’s Josh Marshall asks: “what’s the deal?” His answer

” Only three scenarios or explanations make sense to me.

The first — and most generous — explanation is that this is simply another way to further dilute the Commission’s ability to ask questions.

If, say, the meeting lasts three hours, that’s three hours to ask questions of both of them rather than three hours to ask questions of each — as might be the case in separate meetings.

That wouldn’t be any great coup for the White House. But it would be one more impediment to throw in front of the Commission’s work, which would probably be a source of some joy for the White House.

From here the possible explanations go down hill — in every respect — pretty quickly.

Explanation number two would be that this is a fairly elementary — and, one imagines, pretty effective — way to keep the two of them from giving contradictory answers to the Commission’s questions. It helps them keep their stories straight.

(It’s a basic part of any criminal investigation — which, of course, this isn’t — to interview everyone separately, precisely so that people can’t jigger their stories into consistency on the fly.)

The third explanation is that the White House does not trust the president to be alone with the Commission members for any great length of time without getting himself into trouble, either by contradicting what his staff says, or getting some key point wrong, or letting some key fact slip. And Cheney’s there to make sure nothing goes wrong.”

FILL IT UP

The high price of gas has become a major Kerry issue. On Tuesday, he called for a “new direction” in the nation’s energy policy as consumers face escalating gas prices, and the Bush campaign hammered the presumptive Democratic nominee as a tax-spending liberal.

In other campaign news, MoveOn.org is alerting new members of the latest threat to its work. In a letter yesterday, MoveOn asked:

“Are you involved in a local or national non-profit or public interest organization? As a leader or board director or member? Please read this message carefully, because your organization could be facing a serious threat.

The Republican National Committee is pressing the Federal Election Commission (FEC) to issue new rules that would cripple groups that dare to communicate with the public in any way critical of President Bush or members of Congress. Incredibly, the FEC has just issued — for public comment — proposed rules that would do just that. Any kind of non-profit — conservative, progressive, labor, religious, secular, social service, charitable, educational, civic participation, issue-oriented, large, and small — could be affected by these rules.”

DANIEL ELLSBERG ENCOURAGES MORE WHISTLEBLOWERS

The San Francisco Chronicle reports:

“When famous whistle-blower Daniel Ellsberg boarded a plane to Cincinnatiearlier this week, he took along a little light reading: a stack of articlesabout former counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke, who has stirredcontroversy with allegations in his book and testimony before a specialpanel that the Bush White House was somewhat indifferent to al Qaeda beforeSept. 11 and obsessed with Iraq afterward.

Ellsberg, who in 1971 leaked the Pentagon Papers documenting governmentmisrepresentations about the Vietnam War, sees Clarke as part of a trend:well-placed individuals in the government who have gone public with books orinterviews outlining their concerns and criticisms about their country’sgovernment–while that government is still in power.

Ellsberg is not alone in that observation–observers from across thepolitical spectrum, whether they support Clarke’s actions or not, agree thata new willingness exists to tell all far sooner, and far more publicly, thanin the past?.”

US CHARGED WITH ASSASSINATING JOURNALISTS

CNN reports that Al Arabiya, the Dubai-based Arabic-language news network. has now

“?described the killing of two employees by U.S. troops March 18 in Baghdad as an `assassination’ Tuesday.

In the incident, a correspondent and a cameraman were shot dead at a U.S. checkpoint as they drove to the site of a nighttime rocket attack not far from the site of the bombing of the Mount Lebanon Hotel a day earlier. The killings generated outrage across the Arab world. Some Iraqi and international journalists issued a protest and staged a walkout of a news conference with Secretary of State Colin Powell in Baghdad?.”

AT LAST: A REPORTER APOLOGIZES FOR WAR COVERAGE

Editor and Publisher reports:

“While the major media, from The New York Times on down, has largely remained silent about their own failings in this area, a young columnist for a small paper in Fredericksburg, Va., has stepped forward.

`The media are finished with their big blowouts on the anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, and there is one thing they forgot to say: We’re sorry,’ Rick Mercier wrote, in a column published Sunday in The Free Lance-Star.

`Sorry we let unsubstantiated claims drive our coverage. Sorry we were dismissive of experts who disputed White House charges against Iraq. Sorry we let a band of self-serving Iraqi defectors make fools of us. Sorry we fell for Colin Powell’s performance at the United Nations. Sorry we couldn’t bring ourselves to hold the administration’s feet to the fire before the war, when it really mattered.

“Maybe we’ll do a better job next war.’

Mercier admitted that it was `absurd to receive this apology from a person so low in the media hierarchy. You really ought to be getting it from the editors and reporters at the agenda-setting publications, such as The New York Times and The Washington Post.’ “

PILGER MOVES BEYOND PROTESTING COVERAGE

There was more violence in Iraq today. Two automobiles were blown up near Fallujah with people cheering; the people in the vehicles were thought to be workers for the US occupation. Andfive more coalition soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb,

British-based and Australian-born journalist John Pilger has moved from critiquing the war to publicly supporting the armed “resistance” in Iraq. This is the first time a major well-known journalist has, to my knowledge, taken this stand in an interview with Australian broadcasting. Here is an excerpt from a broadcast certain to become controversial:

TONY JONES: John Pilger, do you still maintain thatthe world depends on what you call “the Iraqiresistance” to inflict a military defeat on thecoalition forces?

JOHN PILGER: Well, certainly, historically, we’vealways depended on resistances to get rid ofoccupiers, to get rid of invaders.

And what we have in Iraq now is I suppose theequivalent of a kind of Vichy Government being set up.

And a resistance is always atrocious, it’s alwaysbloody.

It always involves terrorism.

You can imagine if Australia was occupied by theJapanese during the Second World War the kind ofresistance there would have been, and so on.

We’ve seen that all over the world.

Now, I think the situation in Iraq is so dire thatunless the United States is defeated there that we’relikely to see an attack on Iran, we’re likely to seean attack on North Korea and all the way down the roadit could be even an attack on China within a decade,so I think what happens in Iraq now is incrediblyimportant.

TONY JONES: You mean defeated militarily?

JOHN PILGER: Yes.

FAIR ON COVERAGE OF POTUS’ DOPEY HUMORFairness & Accuracy in Reporting takes the DC press corps to task for their playing along with the President’s reprehensible attempt at humor at the the annual Radio and TelevisionCorrespondents Dinner:

“When presidents appear appear at the annual Radio and TelevisionCorrespondents Dinner, it’s traditional for them to tell a few jokes. Butwhen George W. Bush appeared last week (3/24/04), he made a series of`jokes’ about the failure to find the weapons of mass destruction that hadbeen the central justification of his invasion of Iraq. Part of Bush’sroutine included slides showing administration officials looking aroundthe White House for something. `hose weapons of mass destruction must besomewhere,’ Bush explained while showing one of the images, which elicitedlaughter from the audience of politicians and media figures.

Interestingly, Bush’s comments were hardly controversial to the Beltwaypress corps, which seemed to write it off as harmlessly `self-deprecating’humor. Many of the press accounts the next day did not raise questionsabout Bush’s humorous reference to his administration’s bogus rationalefor a war that has cost thousands of lives– American and Iraqi. For themedia, such humor was expected. `Well, every night we hear people on TVtelling jokes about President Bush, but last night it was the president’sturn to tell jokes about the president,’ CBS anchor Julie Chen explained(3/25/04), adding that `at least someone’s making jokes about it otherthan the late-night talk show hosts?.’”

FROM SERBIA WITH FEAR

“Radio Television B92 has today written to Serbian Interior Minister Dragan Jocic demanding that he personally ensure that there is a serious investigation into the placing of a bomb under a B92 crew vehicle in Raska at the weekend.
The bomb was found on Saturday, March 27, under a crew vehicle being used to cover the events of March 17 in Kosovo. The vehicle was parked in Raska, just twenty metres from the local police station.”

YOUR LETTERS

Henry Fernandez writes in re the Condi testimony compromise:

“It is kind of an oxymoron to speak of the quest for factual truth taking on a degree of compromise. Sounds like the public’s interests have been out-maneuvered by shady operators again.
P.S. My best regards on “keeping on keeping on.”

Tom Nusbaumer says “thanks ? btw, your site is cool, great job. And the piece is excellent.”

The writer Marty Jezer comments:

“Saw your recent Commondreams piece citing Robert Novak’s red-baiting of SNCC. My recollection is that with his partner Rowland Evans, Novak served as a conduit for J. Edgar Hoover to slander M.L. King in the press, that Hoover leaked stuff to the two of them to undermine King. Yet, I can find no citation to back this up. Is it a warped memory or is their truth to what I’m thinking? Any idea where I might look to substantiate this charge?(Am thinking of the context of Novak accusing Clarke of being racist for his criticism of Condi Rice.).Keep up the good work.”

Well, I personally wrote to Novak and Evans to criticize the redbaiting they were doing of the civil rights movement. I got back a nasty letter which I may have somewhere. A good friend of mine told me about personal arguments he had with Novak (whom he insists was in the CIA but only has hearsay evidnce) about the student sit-ins that launched the civil rights movement. He claims Novak opposed them because they interfered with property rights and were bad for business.–Danny

Ed Devitt hails from Mesquite in the Lone Star State:

“Isn’t this new race for POTUS designed to KEEP voters away from the polls? NINE MONTHS? How many babies will be born in that time? Will their mothers coo in their ears, `You can grow up to be President?’ I rather doubt it. By the time November miraculously ( trust me, by then it will appear that way ) arrives, those who have managed to preserve their sanity and intelligence will thoroughly disgusted. For anyone that fails to grasp the scenario please go back into your childhood and recall a typical argument on the playground. The only saving grace ( as yet ) is that the ‘candidates’ haven’t begun the ‘ My dad can beat your dad ‘ taunting. As I looked at the sky last night trying to remember where exactly the visible five planets were, all I could thinking was, `If there is life on any of them, they must be pissing themselves laughing at us!’”

Sally Vitamvas writes in about the politics of healthcare:

“I spent several hours a day for about nine months researching health insurance (because I couldn’t get a good policy at any price, although my health is good). When I started, I truly believed the `a federal universal plan is impossible’ line, but my research convinced me that such a reform is the only way to fix the mess we currently have. Because up to 25% of the money spent on healthcare goes into overhead (CEO salaries, profits, administrative costs, advertising, lobbying,) and because the insurance system is designed not to provide care, but rather, to limit care in order to produce higher profits, the US spends a higher percentage of its GDP on healthcare than does any other country, yet 44 million Americans have no health insurance and the World Health Organization ranks US healthcare 72nd in the world in terms of outcome. According to a GAO study, a universal singlepayer system would save enough in administrative costs alone to fully pay for everybody’s care (including the uninsured) with no added expenditure of money. The principal, and oft-repeated argument against a national universal plan, that `Canadians have to cross the border to get care,’ is completely untrue. (See Katz, Cardiff, et. al., “Phantoms In The Snow: Canadians’ Use Of Health Care Services In The United States,” Health Affair May/June 2002 ).

People who have good insurance usually have no idea how bad the situation is for those of us who cannot buy coverage. The perception is that the uninsured are simply too cheap to buy insurance, but the reality is that the individual insurance market is designed to exclude those who might generate a claim. If insurance is offered at all to an individual, it is severely limited in its coverage, and the monthly cost for a single individual often rivals the average mortgage payment. Then, to literally add insult to injury, hospitals charge the uninsured as much as five times what insured patients’ insurance companies pay for the same services. Half the bankruptcies in the US are the result of unpayable medical bills?”

SOME CORRECTIONS

Hugh Hyatt writes in to to say “New subscriber. Excellent stuff. How ’bout an RSS feed?,” and also corrects a URL on the piece “When Playing Paintball is Terrorism”):

I believe this URL should be: http://www.progressivetrail.org/articles/040329Cassel.shtml

A MEA CULPA

Teddi Curtis was challenged here yesterday on a claim he made about voter fraud. He writes in to correct the record:

Mea culpa, mea culpa.
In my haste to spread the word on the verifiability of absentee voting, I put in a figure from my memory. We all know that the first thing to go is the memory.

My son, the same one who had the marvelous idea of voting absentee, has been forcing me to always cite my sources in all my activism. Easy for him to say. I’ve got over a hundred sites bookmarked, all having to do with good people telling us what the bad people are doing. Add to that the 40 or so newspapers I read via the Internet and I come to mistake-making.

“I’ve just spent an hour trying to find where I got that apparently incorrect information. Sorry, can’t find it and have to get on with the day. It is entirely possible the number doesn’t exist anywhere except in my head. I did come across 10,000 votes not counted in Bernillo County, NM, 11/5/02. That’s from Verified Voting, http://www.verifiedvoting.org/article.asp?id=1553. This site also presents the 134 votes not counted that Marrion Steele mentions.

So, wrong number, wrong state, can’t find where I read it, can’t remember if I dreamed it.
Please forgive me. I will not be so lazy again.”

Thanks for the additional research, Teddi. Would that all journalists shared your sense of journalistic ethics. Meanwhile, see Anita’s post below for a positive response to your previous comments.

“THE FORUM”

Anita Nowell writes:

“Good Morning, Danny. Did you read about the `141 days of The Forum?’ It is structured around 10 different overarching themes: Cultural Diversity & the Media; Freedom, Security, & Peace; Globalization & Development; and Unheard Voices: Women, Youth, Intergenerational & Intercultural Communications. The Forum is revolutionary because the focus isn’t on power, it’s about humanity. Will have 423 concerts (Sting, Norah Jones, & Bob Dylan). Can learn more about The Forum, make plans to travel to Barcelona or participate in dialogues — visit www.barcelona2004us.org ?

Also, you had an article yesterday from Teddi Curtis, Corona, CA. about our touch, computerized, voting machines in which Teddi spoke of Diebold the mfg.. Well, I’ve written to Senators Clinton and Rbt. Graham since they are working on presenting this before the Congress to be sure the election of 2004 is democratic, asking why the entire US doesn’t adopt Oregon’s, “Vote-by-Mail”. Oregon has no problems in their voting system. In fact, Danny, this was written in by one of your mediablog people a number of weeks ago. And Teddi’s son is right–absentee ballots is similar. We can do this-so what is our next step to make sure 2004 is an election by the American people and not the corruption people?”

A TEAR FOR PAUL IRISH

On Monday I got an email telling me a friend was in a hospice. I tried to call but the line was busy. I wanted to send some love. I then got busy and waited until Tuesday to try again.The time, there was no answer. He died the night before. The lesson: make that call when the spirit so moves. Do it now. His name was Paul Irish and he helped run the American Committee on Africa when it led the fight against apartheid. Hamba Kahle Paul Irish. Viva. I woulda, coulda, shoulda!

Thanks to all of you who write, who volunteer, and who donate. Keep those letters coming. Writedissector@mediachannel.org

A final thought from Sam Adams– not the beer, but the Boston revolutionary:

It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people’s minds.Which is another way of wishing good luck to the Air America radio teams that launch their network today.