IN THE MID-DAY SUN: “SHUT UP A THON”

It’s Tuesday afternoon. Mediachannel’s Tim Karr just passed Ralph Nader going into a CNN studio. Ealier today I watched CNN anchor Bill Hemmer close an interview with President Bush’s Education Secretary with the words “Good Luck tonight.”

“Good Luck” from a (sic) journalist to a politician? Excuse me? Afterwards, he introduced veteran political analyst Jeff Greenfield by calling ” his reports so “interesting.” Interesting? Don’t you barf when you hear that word?

PROTESTS ABOUND

The Indy Media Center reports on protests going on at this hour:

“Infernal Noise Brigade is trying to rally crowd at FOX Shut-Up-Athon. Reports of a steady stream of arrests at the event.

“Bike Bloc amassing in Union Square. High energy. 50-100 bikers.

Johnny Cash protest: 100+ in protest pen, singing. Cops are keeping the sidewalk clear.

And this from wnbc.com:

Man Arrested After He Allegedly Tries To Enter VP’s Box

NEW YORK — A 21-year-old Yale student was arrested after entering a restricted area near Vice President Dick Cheney’s booth at the Republican National Convention, coming within 10 feet of him and shouting anti-war statements, authorities said Tuesday.

“Cheney was never in any danger, and no weapon was found on the man, the authorities said.

“The suspect, Thomas Frampton, was charged with assaulting federal officers and impeding the operation of the Secret Service in court papers filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Manhattan.

“Frampton was released on $50,000 bail and ordered to stay 100 feet from Cheney and President Bush. He also was ordered to give back a red volunteer’s shirt he used to get into the convention, along with any convention passes.”

MACARONI AND CHEESE

As for the politricks of the convention, we turn to a piece on Asia Times by our old friend Ian Williams, a Nation editor rarely in the Nation for reasons that are beyond me and everyone else I know:

NEW YORK - Part of the press kit for the Republican National Convention (RNC) is a packet of “Republican Macaroni Cheese Dinner”, provided by Kraft, which has a “Republican IQ test” on the back. Actually the real test, as with the convention itself, is to read the ingredients in the small print on the side. It contains as many chemicals as the chemistry set I used to have as a schoolboy, and was certainly not digestible for the discerning reader.

“The old saying has it that you can’t fool all of the people all of the time. But as the convention opens in New York, that is not the challenge facing President George W Bush and his eminence grise Karl Rove. At worst, they only need to fool 50% plus one of the population for the next two months. And if Governor Jeb Bush, the president’s brother, controls Florida with his accustomed strong hand, maybe not even that.

“In fact, the target victims are the 20% or so swing voters, since the partisan spirit is such that each side takes its core voters for granted, assuming that they can take almost any degree of abuse for the cause of victory. And they can take it for granted that few, if any, of the voters, committed or undecided, will look at the actual ingredients but will act on their perception of the packaging.

“In the old days, the conventions were where the parties actually chose their presidential candidates and argued about their policies. Nowadays, the primaries and the party bosses have already made that choice, so the convention is more like a coronation ceremony, much glitter and little substance. The actual nomination of the candidate has all the tension of a North Korean general election, and nobody apart from the party faithful reads, let alone cares, about the party platforms, the policies on which the “party nominally goes to election.”

CAN YOU WIN IT?

What one media outlet reports one day is undercut by another the next. Here’s Dan Kennedy of the Boston Phoenix” George W. Bush told the truth on Saturday. But don’t worry. He’s not going to let it happen again. He made sure of that earlier this afternoon in a characteristically fawning interview conducted by Rush Limbaugh.

www.rushlimbaugh.com

“As you may recall, the president was asked by Matt Lauer, in an (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5866571/) interview for NBC’s Today show, whether the US could win the war on terrorism. (The interview was broadcast yesterday.) Bush replied: “I don’t think you can win it. But I think you can create conditions so that those who use terror as a tool are less acceptable in parts of the world - let’s put it that way.”

“It was a good, honest answer. Unfortunately, it was also at odds with the triumphalism of his past remarks. As Elisabeth Bumiller reported in today’s New York Times, Bush said as recently as July 14, “I have a clear vision and a strategy to win the war on terror.” Bumiller went on to write, “It was unclear if Mr. Bush had meant to make the remark to Mr. Lauer, or if he misspoke.” Misspoke? Re-read what he said. Rarely has he been so honest and coherent.

“Of course, Bush’s candor was immediately labeled a mistake. It would have been nice if John Kerry or John Edwards had jokingly welcomed Bush to the real world. But no. Edwards made a stiff (http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/politics/2769652) statement insisting, “This is no time to declare defeat. It won’t be easy and it won’t be quick, but we have a comprehensive plan to make America safer.” (Note that Edwards didn’t say that Bush was wrong.) Even Bush’s sycophants on the Fox News Channel said Bush had stepped in it, though they tried to explain it away.”?

for Freedom of the Press reports: “An award-winning syndicated columnist was denied access byunidentified security officials to Vice President Dick Cheney’s speechlast Wednesday at Bloomsburg University, a public college innortheastern Pennsylvania, despite having received a media credentialfrom the Bush/Cheney ‘04 campaign. Upon arriving to pick up hiscredential at the university’s gymnasium, where Cheney spoke,columnist Walter Brasch was told he could no longer attend the event.

“A journalism professor at Bloomsburg for the past 25 years, Braschsaid he was approached by a group of men who refused to identifythemselves, including who they worked for and why Brasch was suddenlyno longer allowed to attend the event. “I repeatedly said I was thereas a reporter, not a protestor or anything else,” Brasch, 59, said. “Ihad my notepad, and they could see that I was taking notes on whatthey were saying.

http://www.rcfp.org/news/2004/0827syndic.html

YOUR LETTERS

Anna Taylor writes: “I’m fighting the computer here so hardly have time to read, but your yesterday/today pieces are fantastic.

“CNN crawler says James Baker will be the Texas Two’s debate guy. Where is Mr. Murchison?

“Anyway, the divine retribution factor (see http://DeepEndNews.com) in the Shrock story:

“Think about it: first deluges in Texas, then Florida, now Virginia. Could it be that the Great Weatherman is stomping upon the terror of “Republican” misrule?

“Chairman Arnold, son of a Nazi as you note, endorsing the grandson of a Nazi. How clearer does it GET . . .”

“That’s the view this afternoon from Dissectorville. Stay tuned for more

Posted ar 5:12 PM

WHAT HAPPENED TO MICHAEL MOORE LAST NIGHT AT THE RNC

Before I dropped off into the world of much needed sleep, I wrote about seeing Michael Moore at the RNC last night. He seemed to be on his way out while I was just arriving. I wasn’t sure what happened until radio wizard Amy Goodman told me he had been publicly dissed by John McCain whose role last night was to defend the Bush Administration’s wars that Moore and so many others oppose.

I have now learned that Moore was there on assignment from USA Today. Their version of what happened was this:

n also delivered an attack on filmmaker Michael Moore, whose “Fahrenheit 9/11″ movie is sharply critical of Bush’s leadership and motives for going to war. In his remarks, McCain referred to “a disingenuous filmmaker who would have us believe that Saddam’s Iraq was an oasis of peace when in fact it was a place of indescribable cruelty, torture chambers, mass graves and prisons that destroyed the lives of the small children held inside their walls.” (DUH? Did he see the film?)

“The line was greeted with roars of approval. Moore, who is writing a convention column for USA TODAY and was in Madison Square Garden when McCain spoke, raised his arms as the crowd chanted, “Four more years.”

Moore held up two fingers for “Two more months.” Actually he held up two fingers that spelled out an L for “LOSER”

FAHRENHEIT l0:30

One of the bloggers at the RNC published a transcript of Secret Service harassment of Michael Moore as he was being interviewed by NPR. (I though they were there to protect the President, not squelch free speech.)

The headline: “Secret Service shuts down Michael Moore interviews

“NPR Reporter Andrea Seabrook: Hello Frank. I’m standing here with Michael Moore, the filmmaker who made Fahrenheit 911. Mr. Moore, why are you here?

Michael Moore: I’m here writing a guest column each day for USA Today.

Seabrook: OK, so you have credentials to…

Secret Service Agent Come around here

“Seabrook: I’m going to have to join him. They’re kicking me out of this exact area but I can go around to … They just asked me to come around to the other side here.

“NPR Convention Anchor Fred Stachio (phonetic spelling): Andrea Seabrook on the floor with Michael Moore.

Seabrook: [unintelligible]

Stachio: I know you’re still there. I just want to be sure that you can still hear us while your being moved, Andrea.

“Seabrook: Well, well I’m not … the Secret Service has blocked off that area. They’re calling it a .. .a hazard because of the number of people who are a gathered around him. Their aren’t that many people, but the Secret Service won’t let me around him anymore, so I think a the access to him might be cut off for a moment. We’ll try to get back with him.

“Seabrook: Yes, I am in the middle of a … you might be able to hear the Secret Service yelling into my mic at the same time. There, there are a bunch of Secret Service that have surrounded Michael Moore’s section. There are three or four reporters with him right now, but they are trying to kick all of the reporters and press photographers who are around him out of his area. The convention staff is also here. They’re standing here telling us that we have to move from this are … they’re obviously disturbed by the fact that Michael Moore is here and want as little public here as possible.

“Stachio: Can we hear? Can we hear what’s going on? Can you stick a mic in there? I don’t know if we can hear.

“Seabrook: Yeah … ah … eh … they’ve sort of moved me away from that area.

“Stachio: I don’t understand. Who is it. Is it Secret Service?

Seabrook: It’s Secret Service which is interesting because the Secret Service of all agencies is the one that remains… is the least involved in the sort of political… political kinds of things, but of course they always cover the candidates and they have to be involved in the convention like this. They claim that what they’re doing is for safety reasons, although there is a almost nobody around Michael Moore right now. So a we’ll see if I can a…

“Seabrook: Yeah, I’m being herded back in four different ways right now.”

WHAT HE WROTE FOR USA TODAY

“The GOP doesn’t reflect America

“Hanging out around the convention, I’ve encountered a number of the Republican faithful who aren’t delegates. They warm up to me when they don’t find horns or a tail. Talking to them, I discover they’re like many people who call themselves Republicans but aren’t really Republicans. At least not in the radical-right way that George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, John Ashcroft and Co. have defined Republicans.

“I’ve often found that if I go down the list of “liberal” issues with people who say they’re Republican, they are quite liberal and not in sync with the Republicans who run the country. Most don’t want America to be the world’s police officer and prefer peace to war. They applaud civil rights, believe all Americans should have health insurance and think assault weapons should be banned. Though they may personally oppose abortion, they usually don’t think the government has the right to tell a women what to do with her body.

“There’s a name for these Republicans: RINOs or Republican In Name Only. They possess a liberal, open mind and don’t believe in creating a worse life for anyone else?”

TO READ MORE MOORE:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/2004-08-30-moore-gopamerica_x.htm

MCCAIN FEASTS MEDIA BEFORE MOORE ROAST

The Drudge Report offers this juicy social note that also shows the seduction of big media:

“Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain hosted a hyper-exclusive birthday party for himself at La Goulue on Mad Avenue on the eve of the convention, leaving no media icon behind.

WASHINGTON POST reports Tuesday how guests included NBC’s Tom Brokaw and Tim Russert, ABC’s Peter Jennings, Barbara Walters, Ted Koppel and George Stephanopoulos, CBS’s Mike Wallace, Dan Rather and Bob Schieffer, CBS News President Andrew Heyward, ABC News chief David Westin, Time Warner CEO Richard Parsons, CNN’s Judy Woodruff and Jeff Greenfield, MSNBC’s Chris Matthews, CNBC’s Gloria Borger, PBS’s Charlie Rose _ pause here to exhale _ and U.S. News & World Report publisher Mort Zuckerman, Washington Post Chairman Don Graham, New York Times columnists William Safire and David Brooks, author Michael Lewis and USA Today columnist Walter Shapiro.

“They and others dined on lobster salad, loin of lamb, assorted wines, creme brulee, lemon souffle and French tarts.

INDY MEDIA UNDER INVESTIGATION

” ..the Department of Justice has opened a criminal investigation andis demanding records concerning anti-RNC deleagte posts to thiswebsite. Specifically, the DOJ is seeking information on lists of2,200 RNC delegate names posted to our Open Newswire….

http://nyc.indymedia.org/feature/display/107119/index.php

YOUR LETTERS

Virgil writes from California:, “Good to see you at the RNC. I’ve been using you andC-SPAN almost exclusively today to find out what isgoing on at the Republican War Convention — RWC. C-SPAN caught Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Teleprompterwhile he was practicing last night. In a portion ofhis speech on Tuesday, he will reference how he sawcommunism first hand in his native country. Onewonders if he will also mention he’s the Son of a NaziParty Member?

“But in a completely unrelated item, and please forgiveme if you’ve already mentioned this on a previousblog, but I stumbled upon a new partisan product thatthe “for us” people would easily support — W Ketchup.That’s right! Now you can have W Ketchup with yourFreedom Fries!

Some excerpts from the official website: “You don’t support Democrats. Why should yourketchup?”

“W Ketchup? is made in America, from ingredients grownin the USA. The leading competitor not only has 57varieties, but has 57 foreign factories as well. WKetchup comes in one flavor: American.”

MEDIA NEWS: COURAGE IN JOURNALISM

Luke Harding reports in the Guardian: “Most American TV networks now rarely venture out of their Baghdad hotels. Last week not a single American TV reporter travelled to Najaf to cover the conflict there; instead the American networks prefer to “embed” with the US military, where the information on offer is, at best, one-sided. By contrast, the British media emerged well from what was the biggest story in Iraq since the Abu Ghraib scandal, with all major British newspapers and the BBC represented in Najaf.

After having us dragged into his station at gunpoint, meanwhile, Najaf’s police chief Ghalib al-Jazae’ri then gave us a classically neo-Ba’athist dressing down. “You are not under arrest, but you will listen to us to see what disasters you have caused,” he told us, before complaining about media coverage of the impending visit to Najaf of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.”

A FRENCH CNN ON THE WAY

EU Observer reports: “Plans to create an international French television channel along thelines of CNN or the BBC appear to be back on track, following commentsby French foreign minister Michel Barnier. “In the battle of imagesbeing played out today, as we see in Iraq, our country must be present”,he said, according to AFP. French President Jacques Chirac called forthe new channel during the height of the Iraqi war, so that the Frenchviewpoint, which was against the war, would have a better chance ofbeing exposed. How France is perceived in the world, and particularlyEurope, has led to much soul-searching lately among French politicians.Especially with the decline of the use of the French language in EUinstitutions and the perceived decline in French influence in Brussels.”

http://euobserver.com/?sid=9&aid=17151

Finally from my West Coast NY Times watcher, a quote for the day that activists call Direct Action Day: “New York City is a fortress, and I love it,” Joseph Kyrillos, the New Jersey state Republican chairman, said yesterday at a delegate breakfast…”

Don’t you love it. I don’t. Won’t be at the circus tonight since I am previewing WMD at a “Truth Convention” in Times Square, It is a preview screening with the film “State of the Union” and is already sold out. (See www.wmdthefil.com)

Keep your ee’s coming.Write: Dissector@mediachannel.org

MIDNIGHT AT THE OASIS (Posted around midnight)

I couldn’t figure out why Michael Moore looked so glum when I passed him in the press area at the RNC. I was just entering and he seemed on the way out, flanked on all sides by a cordon of security guards. He said hello but with a glazed look.

I had been feeling good about Michael today and was perplexed. I spent a good part of the day editing some footage I shot of Moore and journalist Greg Palast in Boston at the Florida delegation breakfast discussing voting rights. It is for an update I am doing to our film Counting on Democracy, supplemented with some interviews I shot earlier today on the convention floor with Florida delegates here who assured me all the problems of 2000 have been straightened out.

So why the big chill from big Mike?

McCAIN VERSUS MOORE, ROUND ONE

Medea Benjamin of Code Pink was walking with me and we both commented on his unapproachability. It was only later when I walked out of the Garden, having had my fill of Rudy Giuliani’s slavish praise for the President and attack dog like rhetoric against Kerry that I discovered what had happened earlier.

In fact it was Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman who was going back in while I was fleeing who told me that after Moore was spotted in the press section, war hero John McCain bombed him the way he bombed Vietnam with a frontal assault from the podium against Fahrenheit 911. That led the delegates into a a lynch mob like mentality shouting four more years while Mike put up two fingers calling for two more months. And then he was shown the door. In that circumstance his stony face was understandable. Maybe he deserves the courage award for even being there!

What I did hear McCain say was "We are Americans first, Americans last, Americans always. Let us argue our differences,'’ he said. “But remember we are not enemies, but comrades in a war against a real enemy.'’ America first? Hasn’t that been used before?

EJECTED BY ABC

All I got tossed out of tonight was the ABC News work space where I committed the unforgivable crime of watching a TV monitor without permission. Forget my membership in the retirement plan, I was out of there. Happily I had the good sense to leave the network 16 years earlier.

So then it was off to the hall to watch "America’s Mayor" live and in person who had a brief post-9/11 experience as human being revert to form as warrior and wise guy. He sounded like those old Soviet apparatchiks who spent their lives praising Stalin. Bush was his Icon-in-Chief and even Dick Cheney was praised for his brilliance although the Veep did not deign to smile Rudy’s way. He told a bunch of old 9/11 homilies as if the 9/11 Commission had never met or its report had not indicted all the screw-ups that made the World Trade Center death toll far higher than it should have been.

Rudy was supposed to be the poster child for courage tonight and he played his part well, smirking for the camera, and playing the partisan card even as he kept stressing that we are all Americans regardless of party affiliations. He questioned Kerry’s integrity and intelligence while praising it. His speech was a veritable trick bag of slick rhetorical maneuvers. Example, so what if we didn’t find WMDs? Saddam WAS a WMD. Applause.

His applause lines played well in the hall. Will they be received as well in a more skeptical America?

PUBLIC OPINION ON 9/11 TURNING

Rudy’s narrative may not be too convincing to many if a new Zogby International poll is to be believed: "On the eve of a Republican National Convention invoking 9/11 symbols, sound bytes and imagery, half (49.3%) of New York City residents and 41% of New York citizens overall say that some of our leaders ‘knew in advance that attacks were planned on or around September 11, 2001, and that they consciously failed to act.’ The poll of New York residents was conducted from Tuesday August 24 through Thursday August 26, 2004. Overall results have a margin of sampling error of +/-3.5. The poll is the first of its kind conducted in America that surveys attitudes regarding US government complicity in the 9/11 tragedy. Despite the acute legal and political implications of this accusation, nearly 30% of registered Republicans and over 38% of those who described themselves as “very conservative” supported the claim."

MEDIA MONITORING

Dwayne Chandler, a member of the military, was not exactly the type of solider that the RNC troops had in mind when they waved signs backing the armed forces. He has been doing some insightful media monitoring over the weekend and shares it with us:

CNN reported on 28 August, 2004 that a cleanup had begun in Najaf now that weeks of intense fighting and US airstrikes had ended. It was also reported that “scores of decaying bodies have been found in the streets and destroyed buildings.” Before an hour had passed CNN refined the amount of decaying bodies down to “several.”

FYI: My copy of Webster’s dictionary includes in it’s definition of “scores” as being “groups of 20 or more.” Whereas the definition of “several” as “being more than two or three, but not many more.” Not surprisingly, the number of people protesting against the RNC is not the only fuzzy arithmetic practiced by the US media.

Unfortunately, the wounded and dead of Iraq are subjected to the magical math of propaganda.

Sunday, 29 August, 2004:

At the moment, CNN and Fox news have retreated inside MSG to conduct live broadcasts. Both networks have also conducted a preemptive barricading of their bay window’s which the public usually has access to for a close and personal view of the proceedings within. CNN has completely blocked their bay windows with large placards of the company logo. Meanwhile, Fox is using a combination of television monitors and logo placards to block their window; they also have steel barricade fencing outside their studio windows.

The following is a timeline of events based on C-Span’s exceptional coverage of the protests yesterday.

3:04P ET: NY fire dept. is extinguishing the burning remains of a large dragon float. I can hear people chanting “Fox news set the fire, FOX news set the fire!” The fire occurred directly in front of Sbarros pizzeria. Fox reports the fire at 3:06P ET. As a result of the fire the march has been stopped at 7th Ave. and 33rd. street. At 3:13P ET the march has restarted. Once again it is stopped at 3:16P ET. Finally it continues, more or less, at 3:21P ET.

4:05P ET: CNN’s Bob Franken is reporting live from a building behind MSG. Also, he is indoors and on the second floor of the building. Apparently, the quiet of being indoor and the empty streets behind MSG is being used to portray the march as over and done.

4:08P ET: CNN has just announced that the march is over. It is not over. I am still watching C-Span’s live broadcast from outside MSG; the march is massive and thousands upon thousands can be seen stretching down 7th Ave. Once again, C-Span is announcing that people have been marching past MSG since 12P ET; it is now 4:15P ET.

4:21P ET: CNN is intentionally portraying the protests as over. CNN is now broadcasting footage that has been recorded over the past few days, of the buildup to the RNC convention. Without question, the footage is not live and not from today, but is being simultaneously while a live interview is conducted with the infamous Chief of the Miami PD, John Timoney, who is in Miami, not New York. Once again, that live interview is being spliced with stock footage of MSG and the immediate surroundings, which is being intentionally used to support the lie that the march is over. It is not."

LET US NOW PRAISE MEDIA MEN (AND WOMEN)

AJ Rowley writes from Canada:

I just thought I’d share a little observation. Watching the formal broadcast beginning of the RNC on CNN (SNL spoof and all), I noticed something very interesting. It would appear that Wolf Blitzer, Judy Woodruff, and Jeff Greenfield, all employees of CNN suddenly had a moment where they got their journalistic balls back. The three of them speaking with White House Communications Director, Dan Bartlett actually challenged him on his points. As if a robot extra for a bad Sci-Fi movie, Bartlett answered none of the questions he was asked directly and instead re-directed the answers to comply with Bush and Co certified sound bites.

Normally when I watch CNN and listen to the ‘chatter’ between guest and host there is a sense of the chronic complacency plaguing the major news organizations, and I am forced to change the channel or have my intelligence impaired. But this! Greenfield even shook his head while Bartlett was talking! And the three of them challenged him on his points and made clarifications. Such as Bush’s slip over the "War on Terror is not something that can be won." But the simple fact is that they were able to challenge and stand up to a senior Bush authority. Which means! (Insert preferred Eureka-like expression) That they ARE capable of continuing to do so, and that they CAN challenge the Orwellian hocus pocus, the carpet bombing sound bites, and over all FLIP FLOPPING of the Republican powers-that-be.

Since they choose to be complacent, rather then do their jobs, they are proving they know exactly what is going on. And that, that is unacceptable failure. No longer can they hide behind the ‘flawed intelligence,’ they’ve proven they CAN challenge the lies, and more importantly, if they can do it once, they can damn well do it again.

The helicopters are back buzzing the neighborhood. Can I drown them out? Keep your commentaries coming. Write dissector@mediachannel.org