Flying back on the plane, I saw Joe Biden shunt off criticisms on MET The Press of his conflicts of interest and support for the bankruptcy bill. Tom Brokaw tried to press him but he was ready with answers before the questions were even asked . Tom disclosed that they had invited McCain and Palin but both some to have declined. The Republican convention was denouncing NBC as you will recall. I guess that General Election is too left for them. It was reminiscent of the rap the Fox Business Channel was trying to lay on CNBC for being anti0-business. Ironically, Tom Brokaw who has in the past enjoyed calling me Danny The Red may now by on the receiving end of this type of baiting.

Comments Mark Crispin Miller:

The story here is not just that Gov. Palin was the only one of the four candidates who didn’t do a Sunday morning press show. The story is that Team McCain is already behaving with
the same blunt arrogance that we all know from having watched Bush/Cheney operate these last eight years. They have always acted with impunity, time and time again dismissing the
concerns of the majority with undisguised contempt. (”So?”)

Palin is expected to agree to a network interview this week.

OTHER VIEWS

FREEDOM THE PRESS, ST PAUL STYLE

David West writes:

St. Paul isn’t a war zone where journalists get fired upon and lose their lives because a camera over-the-shoulder looks like an RPG launcher from the distance, this was a properly accredited network news team, wearing credentials and a vest with the words “PRESS” in big fat bold letters on their chest getting fired upon in an American city.

The crew (a photographer, soundman and producer) was on a city street sidewalk (perfectly legal) filming the protesters marching down the street. The police confronted the protesters and started firing tear gas, pepper pellets and stun grenades at them.

The large crowd dispersed into a neighboring parking lot and the media followed them.

A police officer in full riot gear comes charging at the crew thrusting his baton towards the chest of the producer. The producer identifies herself as press and throws up the credentials she’s wearing around her neck.

“I don’t give a fuck who you are, get the fuck out of here,” the officer shouted, pushing her. Other cops run up with their guns pointed and start pushing the press into the crowd of protesters.

This was the scene the entire night.

The media would follow the protesters and the police would point their weapons at them and fire directly towards them. At one point in the evening an officer runs up to a group of cameramen filming and drops a flash grenade in the middle of them and runs away. The grenade went off in a bright flash and bang, slightly injuring a few of the photographers.

The entire evening journalists were pushed, shoved, intimidated, shot at, abused and finally arrested.

The officers corralled the group of some 300 protesters, along with some 50 working press, onto a bridge and sealed it off from both directions—forming a line of police in full riot gear on each side with weapons drawn.

The cops started shouting at everyone to sit down and put their hands up, saying that they were to be arrested.

The media professionals did what they have always done in this situation, they filed out of the crowd to the edge and continued taking their pictures.

The police became more irate and started to throw flash grenades onto the bridge. At that point you can hear the journalists start talking among themselves.

“I think they mean us to,” said one reporter.

“You got to be fucking kidding me,” said another in response.

“Bullshit,” said a soundman.

The press started shouting at the police identifying who they were.

The police continued their threats, finally saying that they would come in using force if they didn’t sit down.

Journalists started to sit down, still recording the scene, all getting on the phone to report in what was happening.

I heard the photographer over the camera’s microphone in a shaky voice explaining the situation to the newsroom. He sounds scared and confused.

“Yah they’re going to arrest us all… including the press,” he says to the person on the phone.

You can tell that the person on the other end of the conversation can’t believe it.

“We told them we’re press, they don’t care,” the conversation continued.

A Japanese crew was still standing; one of them was carrying a ladder used to see over crowds to get a better angle.

The cops threaten to bring him down with force, calling the ladder a weapon.

The Japanese crew looks scared, they all scream “Press, press!” at the police.

More scared voices among the media, pan to the protesters, and then the feed went black.

My colleagues last night had every reason to be scared.

How much of this was even reported by the mainstream outlets? I think that was one of the questions this strategy was designed to test.

Answer: not much.

STIRRING THE CULTURE WAR AS A STRATEGY

This strategy is calculated. So Opines NYU Journalism professor Jay Rosen:

John McCain’s convention gambit is now a culture war strategy. It depends for its execution on conflict with journalists, and with bloggers (the “angry left,” Bush called them last night) along with confusion between and among the press, the blogosphere, and the Democratic party. It revives cultural memory: the resentment narrative after Chicago ‘68 but with the angry left more distributed. It dispenses with issues and seeks a trial of personalities. It bets big time on backlash.

At the center of the strategy is the flashpoint candidacy of Sarah Palin, a charismatic figure around whom the war can be brought to scale, as it were. In fact the Politico is reporting just that: Palin reignites culture wars.

I have no idea if the ignition system will work; nor do I claim that “this is what they were thinking” when they made the decision to nominate Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.

PARALLELS ANYONE?

Bill Bowles: offers some parallels

The parallels with the situation in Europe prior to the outbreak of WWII surely cannot be avoided, for not only do we have an economic crisis that closely resembles the ‘29 Crash in its magnitude, the US-engineered invasion of South Ossetia could very well be a prelude to more dangerous provocations on the part of the US, in much the same way that German support for the fascist coup in Spain served as a testing ground not only for Hitler’s military machine but also to sew chaos and to test the reactions of two of the leading imperialist powers of the time, Britain and France. For what they all shared was a hatred of Bolshevism and ultimately, that’s what WWII was really all about, the destruction of the Soviet Union.

So is history repeating itself, perhaps not as farce but as an even greater tragedy?

SAM GARDINER ON IRAN AND THE ELECTION

My press sources and reading tell me the current strategy is heavily focused on covert operations and that we may soon see an operation done covertly that will demonstrate to the Iranians there is a price to pay for their behavior. That is clearly consistent with the Cheney view of how the world should be handled. (Suskind’s book) Also, after the Georgia thing it seems fairly clear the Russians would be very reluctant to support another sanctions package.

There is the issue of the MEK. I have seen the Maliki position as being a statement of independence from the United States and a wish to strengthen connections with Iran r ather than as something the US might have agreed. I would add that this week Pakistan and Iran have agreed to cooperate on counter-terrorism. Jundollah, the free Baluchistan movement, is in their category of a terrorist group. The US has backed Jundollah operations inside Iran. It’s another case where we have not been able to influence support for our groups.

Finally, one could also speculate that the quiet may be ending. During his current trip Cheney has been making the point that Russian arms sales have gone through Iran and Syria and ended up with Hezbollah. That is a good way to cover all the bad guys, but it also resurfaces Iran as the sponsor of terrorism. Last week the Israel Project began running television ads very much in the pattern of pre-Gulf II stuff. One shows missiles landing in the Midwest. In other words, we could be seeing the “wisdom” of the White House in pre-Gulf II that you can’t sell a “war” in August. It’s now September. It seems to me the next week is important, and we will begin to see the direction the White House will take between now and January.

I continue to believe the White House will find Iran as a way to generate support for McCain and Republican candidates. The badder the Iranians can be made to appear, the more talk-to-them seems to be out of touch. In a video that was shown at the Republican convention the issue of terrorism was rais ed. In about 15 seconds, the piece started with the Iranian hostage situation and ended up with 9/11. The obvious implication is that Iran is somehow connected to 9/11.