UPDATE: President Bush will nominate White House counsel Harriett Miers to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, MediaChannel has learned.

She was his personal lawyer, a donor to his campaign and the administrator of the lottery in Texas, appointed by then-Governor Bush.

POLITICAL TRANSFORMATIONS
THE KATRINA DISASTER CONTINUES
PROTESTING AT CNN

Fallen celebrities know the routine. When their drug or alcohol problems become public scandals, they check into a high-profile clinic and announce their rehabilitation in interviews with Barbara Walters or on Good Morning America. The media that built them up, and then tore them down, quickly builds them up again.

Big companies today employ specialists in “reputation management,” and some PR strategists are famous for practicing the science of personality alchemy, in which bad guys turn into good guys.

One day, Donald Trump is a role model for avaricious capitalism and egomania; the next, he is a cultural icon, dispensing advice on TV shows to “apprentices” and the public for big fees. One day, Ariel Sharon is denounced as the Butcher of Beirut, and the next he is a peacemaker in Gaza.

PACKAGING IS A POLITICAL SCIENCE

Packaging is a political science, so it’s not surprising that 60 Minutes feted Ahmed Chalabi last night for his “resilience.” Leslie Stahl — who first bought his “kool aid” in a story accepting his claims about WMD’s, and then exposed him a year later as a fraud — was back this week with a third profile, showing that this war-promoter and Administration stooge is now a respected political leader who criticizes Washington. (Stahl’s back-and-forth on Chalabi was riddled with ambivalence; Andy Rooney’s commentary was not: He blasted the Iraq war and invoked Eisenhower’s warning on the growing power of the Military-Industrial Complex. Go Andy!)

Audio and video at Brad Blog:
http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00001887.htm

This transformation occurred on the strength of a very public raid by U.S. soldiers on Chalabi’s home in Baghdad a year ago. It just happened to be filmed. Suddenly, Chalabi has become a “victim” of U.S. heavy-handedness and was criticizing the occupation he helped organize. If an event ever smelled like a staged example of pys-ops, this was it. But even 60 Minutes, which was not totally skeptical, seemed to accept the sincerity of a transformation by a politician who gives opportunism a bad name.

JUDITH MILLER TRANSFORMS HERSELF

I am afraid that Judith Miller of the New York Times may have played the same game. Criticized sharply by every critic of the war for shilling for the invasion, she suddenly turned into a Joan of Arc of free speech. I called for her freedom (as an extension of a belief in media freedom) in principle, but am not unmindful of all the Administration Bigs — like John Bolton — who visited her in jail, or the fact that we have just learned that the source she was protecting was none other than Dick Cheney aide “Scooter” Libby.

Why Libby couldn’t have released her earlier from her confidentiality pledge is unclear. So is her role in this sordid affair. She, too, went from zero to hero by skillfully transforming her image.

WILL THERE BE A WHITEWASH AT THE WHITE HOUSE?

We still don’t have all the facts but, clearly, some very-spin savvy folks have a lot to hide. The Washington Post reported Sunday:

As the CIA leak investigation heads toward its expected conclusion this month, it has become increasingly clear that two of the most powerful men in the Bush administration were more involved in the unmasking of operative Valerie Plame than the White House originally indicated.

With New York Times reporter Judith Miller’s release from jail Thursday and testimony Friday before a federal grand jury, the role of I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Vice President Cheney’s chief of staff, came into clearer focus. Libby, a central figure in the probe since its earliest days and the vice president’s main counselor, discussed Plame with at least two reporters but testified that he never mentioned her name or her covert status at the CIA, according to lawyers in the case.

POTUS WAS INVOLVED

More interesting was a statement that one time White House aide and now ABC host Gorge Stepanapolous made on the air yesterday. Live Journal noted:

Near the end of a round table discussion on ABC’s This Week, George Stephanopoulos dropped this bomb:

“Definitely a political problem but I wonder, George Will, do you think it’s a manageable one for the White House especially if we don’t know whether Fitzgerald is going to write a report or have indictments but if he is able to show as a source close to this told me this week, that President Bush and Vice President Cheney were actually involved in some of these discussions.”

http://www.livejournal.com/users/mparent7777/3301438.html

‘WHO IS JUDY MILLER KIDDING?’

As for Miller, Ariana Huffington — who has her own sources inside the New York Times — doesn’t buy the picture we are getting. “Who is Judy Miller kidding?” she asks:

Now that Judy Miller has finished testifying, finished spinning for the cameras on the courthouse steps, finished hugging her dog and finished eating that special meal she wanted her husband to prepare, she needs to do what Time reporter Matt Cooper did and immediately publish a full and truthful account of her involvement in Plamegate.

Because what she — and the New York Times’ publisher and editor — have said so far just doesn’t add up.

The story being pitched to the public - that Miller was a heroic, principled martyr who sacrificed her freedom in the name of journalistic integrity, then fulfilled her “civic duty” after she “finally received a direct and uncoerced waiver” from her source — is laughable.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-huffington1oct01,0,7057608.story?coll=la-news-comment-opinions

The Atrios blog challenges the story, too:

The story is one of the polite fictions we were all supposed to buy throughout all of this is that the confidentiality waivers were “coerced” and therefore they weren’t good enough. Of course, this polite fiction allowed everyone to look good as long as we all pretended to buy it. Bush got to look good by telling his staff to cooperate. Potential perps got to look good because they played along by granting the waivers. And, the journalists go to look good by pretending that they were standing up for some grand principle by refusing to accept “coerced waivers.”

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_09_25_atrios_archive.html#112820453905365727

ISIKOFF’S VIEW
What does all this mean for journalism and journalists? That’s a subject that Newsweek’s Michael Isikoff addresses:

Veteran Newsweek investigative reporter Michael Isikoff has some provocative things to say about the relationship between journalists and their confidential sources. And they’re not the kinds of things that would likely sit well with Judith Miller, the New York Times reporter who’s been in jail for 83 days because she refuses to give up her source or sources in the Valerie Plame investigation, or Time magazine’s Matthew Cooper, who nearly went to jail in the same probe.

Yesterday, at the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy, at Harvard’s Kennedy School, Isikoff praised Miller and Cooper for refusing to break their promises of confidentiality. Cooper cooperated with the grand jury only after announcing that his source, who turned out to be Bush political adviser Karl Rove (a story broken by — yes — Isikoff), had given him permission to do so. Time subsequently turned over Cooper’s notes to the grand jury, an action to which Cooper personally objected.

But Isikoff followed up his praise with exasperation, saying he couldn’t understand why neither the Times nor Time magazine pursued the story of who had revealed Plame’s identity even after those promises of confidentiality were made.

“Our primary obligation is not to protect our sources. Our primary obligation is to inform our readers,” he said.

http://medianation.blogspot.com/2005/09/isikoff-on-confidential-sources.html

Jerry Policoff offers this view:

The spin the Miller people are putting out is just outrageous. Here is one more story suggesting that Miller cut a deal limiting her testimony to just Libby, and that Fitzpatrick had turned down the same deal a year ago. First of all, if that were true why did she only ask Libby for a waver two weeks ago? Of course it is possible that she lied when she said she believed Libby’s earlier waver was coerced even though Libby says he told Abrams that it wasn’t at the time. And if this is true it also supports the theory that she is really protecting someone senior to Libby and is willing to throw Libby but no one else under the bus.

It could be true that she tried to cut a Libby only deal a year ago and Fitzgerald said no, but I suspect the deal she cut this week was not so narrow. Any way you slice it, Miller and Abrams and the Times have made so many conflicting representations that none of them have any credibility. The only question is are they lying all of the time or just some of the time? Of course, it could be as some have speculated, that Miller herself is the source.

REPORTS UNERNEWS:

Miller agreed to admit what was already known but not what isn’t. For example, what if her real source was her buddy Chalabi, Karl Rove, or even GW Bush?

Meanwhile both the NY Times and the Washington Post low balled the story that Larry Franklin had agreed to plead guilty in what appears to be a case involving Israeli spying on the U.S. including the Pentagon. Back when the media was still in the news business, this would have been considered a big story, but no more. The Washington Post even buried it in its Metro section, as though it was just local news.

MORE:

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp? vnu_content_id=10012

TWO OTHER VIEWS

Mike Whitney:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10481.htm

Juan Cole:
http://www.juancole.com/2005/10/government-of-war-criminals-press- of.html

KATRINA FOLLOW-UP

The Army Corps of Engineers say the levees are fixed and that the city of New Orleans is just about “dry.” All the water has been pumped out. Sounds good — BUT…

The Washington Post reports:

Housing Promises Made to Evacuees Have Fallen Short

Two weeks before President Bush’s mid-October goal for moving Hurricane Katrina victims out of shelters, more than 100,000 people still reside in such makeshift housing, and 400,000 more are in hotel rooms costing up to $100 a night.

SEE: “Iraq war delayed Katrina relief effort, inquiry finds:”
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article316682.ece

NEXT FOR KATRINA VICTIMS: POST STRESS DISORDER

When I was in Atlanta on Friday, I met a victim of Katrina. She was, she told me, “a wreck.” How could she not be?

New York, NY — On Monday, August 29th, the coastal areas of the Gulf coast were hit by Hurricane Katrina. With wind speeds of up to 140 mph (225 km/h), Hurricane Katrina destroyed everything in its path. The hurricane first hit Louisiana and traveled 200 miles from west of New Orleans to Pensacola in Florida. The states of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida were hit. As of today, about 1000 people are reported dead as a result of this disaster.

The victims of Hurricane Katrina have lost their homes, main source of employment, schools, and hospitals and desperately need basic necessities. Governor Kathleen Blanco of Louisiana has asked for federal assistance as the crisis is “beyond the capabilities of the state and affected local governments”.

In response to this crisis, the Association for Disaster and Mass Trauma Studies spearheaded by Dr. Anie Kalayjian, is implementing its Mental Health Outreach Project (MHOP) in the Gulf Coast. The MHOP is mobilizing teams of mental health volunteers to treat survivors. Unfortunately, at least 15% of survivors will present symptoms of PTSD that will require treatment.

www.meaningfulworld.com

MAYA ANGELOU ON KATRINA

When the land became water and
Water thought it was God,
Consuming lives here, sparing lives there,
Swallowing buildings, and devouring cities.
It was power, mighty power, grown careless
And intoxicated with itself, and
The American people were tested…

http://www.blackamericaweb.com/site.aspx/bawnews/katrina/yesican.

OUR HEARTS GO OUT TO BALI — AGAIN!

Washington Post:

25 Killed In Three Blasts In Bali
Bombings Recall Massive ‘02 Attack

Asia Pacific tourism leaders meeting in the Malaysian capital condemned the cowardly bombing of tourists and local people in Bali, Indonesia tonight. The Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) Chairman, Mr. Nobutaka Ishikure, speaking during the association’s Board of Directors meeting in Kuala Lumpur tonight said: “The travel industry and everyone who supports tourism as a force for peace and understanding wholeheartedly condemn this terrorist outrage.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/01/AR2005100100624.html?referrer=email&referrer=email

MORE NEWS:
http://www.alternet.org/story/26302/

ANALYSIS:
http://kurtnimmo.com/?p=44

BILL BENNETT’S REAL POLITICS

Bill Bennett has been in the news of late. (His brother Bob represents Judith Miller.) Here’s story about the Morality Bill that I hadn’t heard before. It’s by Clinton-era FCC Chairman Reed Hundt:

When I was chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (1993-97), I asked Bill Bennett to visit my office so that I could ask him for help in seeking legislation that would pay for internet access in all classrooms and libraries in the country. Eventually Senators Olympia Snowe and Jay Rockefeller, with the White House leadership of President Clinton and Vice President Gore, put that provision in the Telecommunications Law of 1996, and today nearly 90% of all classrooms and libraries do have such access. The schools covered were public and private.

So far the federal funding (actually collected from everyone as part of the phone bill) has been matched more or less equally with school district funding to total about $20 billion over the last seven years. More than 90% of all teachers praise the impact of such technology on their work. At any rate, since Mr. Bennett had been Secretary of Education I asked him to support the bill in the crucial stage when we needed Republican allies.

He told me he would not help, because he did not want public schools to obtain new funding, new capability, new tools for success. He wanted them, he said, to fail so that they could be replaced with vouchers, charter schools, religious schools, and other forms of private education. Well, I thought, at least he’s candid about his true views. The key Senate committee voted almost on party lines on the bill, all D’s for and all R’s against, except one — Olympia Snowe…

http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/10/1/105329/697

‘WE PRETTY MUCH FEEL’

I railed last week about the lack of coverage of the march against the war. More worrisome might be the lack of ongoing coverage of this:

Biohazard sensors showed the presence of small amounts of potentially dangerous tularemia bacteria in the Mall area last weekend as huge crowds assembled there, but health officials said they believed the levels were too low to be a threat.

Health authorities in the Washington area were notified yesterday that the bacteria were found in and near the area between the U.S. Capitol and the Lincoln Memorial, where crowds gathered Saturday for an antiwar rally and a book festival.

The notification, which came from federal health officials, said that after the initial detection, subsequent tests “supported the presence of low levels” of the bacteria. However, officials also said they did not believe the findings posed a health problem.

“We pretty much feel there is no public health threat here,” said Von Roebuck, a spokesman for the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, noting that there have been no reports of tularemia, the disease that is caused by the bacteria. “We just wanted to alert the medical community to watch out for cases.”

ANOTHER NEO-CON TO THE U.N.

TheWashingtonNote.com has just confirmed that prominent neoconservative Jeffrey Gedmin will be named as John Bolton’s No. 2 at the United Nations and will carry the formal title of “Deputy Permanent Representative of the United States to the United Nations.”

Gedmin is currently serving as Director of the Aspen Institute Berlin and is former Director of the New Atlantic Initiative at the American Enterprise Institute.

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000986.html

Our Media, Our Challenge

SPEAKING TRUTH TO POWER

Joe Dunphy notes:

Remember that Ambassador Joe Wilson went to check out reports of stray yellowcake in Niger, to provide uranium for WMD’s? Well, guess where Special Ops is making a public report of its presence… see below. He sends along an article from the American Forces Press Service:

“HURLBURT FIELD, Fla., Sept. 30, 2005 — A select team of combat aviation advisors from the 6th Special Operations Squadron here deployed to the edge of the Sahara desert to conduct a joint exchange training exercise with the fledgling Niger air force in August…”

Michael N. Kashouty writes:

In regard to Mr. Englehart’s commentary, I must add: when are Americans going to open up their eyes and realize that there is no longer a distinction between parties.

Both Democrats and Republicans work for the same boss, the CFR (Council on Foreign Relations), and their objectives are the same: destroy the Republic (not democracy), destroy American sovereignty, and take this once great land into the One World Order (as if we were not already there).

I can honestly say, that today, I am ashamed to call myself an American, and to be associated with all of those that boast, with their chest out, that they are Americans, and proud of it, but are not willing to stand up and fight for what so many in the past have spilled their blood, and surrendered their young lives for.

I only pray that God holds in reserve a special place in hell for the Bushes, Clintons, Cheneys, Rumfelds, and the rest of their club for betraying this once beautiful land.

PROTESTING AT CNN

On Friday, I was in Atlanta speaking at Georgia Tech, showing my film WMD and joining a “Show Us the War” protest at CNN headquarters. When I worked there, it was not an opulent tourist attraction, or based in the Omni Center with its lavish food court and base for a CNN tour. (”They make a fortune off of that,” one employee told me). CNN now calls itself “The New CNN.” (This morning, CNN was back with footage of “Operation Iron Fist” in Iraq — another one of those “routing insurgents” exercises offered up with one sided action footage and no analysis.)

A few activists brought some blank placards into the building, put them on a table, and proceeded to write slogans on them — slogans like “The More You Watch the Less You Know” and “Show Us the War” — right in the center of the CNN Center. While the sign-making was going on, a passerby came over to watch. He called CNN “the Communist News Network” and said he watched FOX because “it provides all sides.” Attempts to give out leaflets inside the building were unsuccessful because CNN employees all seemed scared to be seen with them, including one guy who was wearing a CNN ID card and carrying a Bob Dylan DVD. Did he ever listen to Masters of War?

After the signs were finished, and held up next to a giant “INSIDE CNN” sign, it took about two minutes for a gaggle of security guards to swarm around, and order us to leave because we were on private property. The demo then moved outside, where members of the public expressed their public support and two brave CNN staffers came out to urge demonstrators to come back every day. “You never see some of the footage we get,” said one. “I agree with you,” said the other. “We need to be pressured to get the real news out.”

Anti-war activists who a weekly vigil there held up a sign, urging passing drivers to “honk if you hate the war.” Many did.

For an example of the type of coverage missing on CNN, see Alexander Cockburn today on Counterpunch.org:

The U.S. sought yesterday to defend the two helicopter pilots who fired seven rockets into a crowd on Sunday killing 13 people and wounding 41, saying they had come under “well-aimed ground fire”. This is different from the first statement by the US military claiming that they had opened fire with rockets in order to prevent a Bradley fighting vehicle hit by a bomb from being looted of arms and ammunition.

L’SHANA TOVA

L’Shana Tova to all who celebrate the Jewish New Year, the Rosh Hashanah holiday.

MY SCHEDULE

I will be screening WMD at Upstate Films in Rhinebeck, NY, on Sunday, October 9, at 1 PM. The next weekend, I will be in London for a screening at the Everyman Theater in Hamstead, Sunday, October 16, at 3 PM, and the next evening at 6:45 PM at the Ritzy in Brixton.

Your comments always welcome. Write:
Dissector@mediachannel.org

The News Dissector blog is published every weekday. It is written by News Dissector Danny Schechter and edited by Jody Kolodzey. It is offered as a public service of MediaChannel. If you find this report valuable, please pass it on to friends and urge them to sign up for it and the Media Savvy newsletter.