[Or: Beating A Dead Horse]
Glenn Greenwald:
This is without question one of the most significant problems in how our establishment media functions. They refuse to subject claims — particularly claims from the GOP power structure and the right-wing noise machine which they fear — to any critical scrutiny.
For various reasons, they simply will not investigate such claims and, when warranted, identify such claims as false. The most they are willing to do is simply write down each side’s claims and treat them equally, even when one side is blatantly lying. GOP operatives know that this is how the press functions and thus know that they can easily get away with spewing lies, and can even recruit the media into helpfully spreading them (using the predominant “he-said/she-said” template). That’s the same process that led us into Iraq, kept us there for so long, protected endless presidential lawbreaking and enabled all sorts of fact-free smears.
…snip…
It isn’t actually that complicated. When a government official or candidate makes a factually false statement, the role of the reporter is not merely to pass it on, nor is it simply to note that “some” dispute the false statement. The role of the reporter is to state the actual facts, which means stating clearly when someone lies or otherwise makes a false statement.
It’s staggering that this most elementary principle of journalism is not merely violated by so many of our establishment journalists, but is explicitly rejected by them. That’s the principal reason why our political discourse is so infected with outright falsehoods. The media has largely abdicated their primary responsibility of stating basic facts. One can see how damaging that really is in those all-too-rare instances, such as Cooper’s article this morning, when a real reporter fulfills the core function of journalism.
November 30th, 2007
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Media |
2 comments
Publius:
And there’s a substantive, non-petty reason why I try to persuade people to see Reagan rather than Saint Reagan – namely, the lionization of Reagan has modern political and policy implications.
Whatever you think of him, it’s pretty undeniable that Reagan’s record has some rather repulsive elements (much like other Presidents). Race particularly stands out, given the systematic hostility that Reagan and his agencies had for civil rights efforts. But there’s also Iran-Contra, and Negroponte’s death squads in Central America, to name a few. That said, Reagan got some things right too. Marginal tax rates, for instance, were too high for some income brackets in 1979.
The point is not that Reagan is irredeemably evil, but that he doesn’t deserve the deification he receives not only from Republicans, but from the public as well. His race record doesn’t discredit his entire administration, but it does mean that we shouldn’t name airports after him.
…snip…
Modern race policy arguably turns on whether federal interventions remain necessary in light of the state-sponsored interventions of the past (which had been around, oh, 350 years or so). To me, the fact that the President of the United States from 1980 to 1988 successfully exploited race – and so actively opposed civil rights initiatives – is itself evidence that we’re not there yet. Indeed, the problem is not solely Reagan, but that Reagan reflected public opinion. If the public thought “welfare queens” and Philadelphia campaigns were ok, then that’s further evidence that we’re not there yet.
The upshot is that a honest appraisal of Reagan’s racial record would inform modern policy debates. But if we lionize him – and whitewash his record by repressing the negative in favor of a “Morning in America” narrative – then we lose sight of that record.
And those that forget the past… continue to employ David Addington and John Negroponte.
[Emphasis in original]
As they say, read the whole thing.
November 30th, 2007
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Politics, Weekend Flame Bait, Race |
3 comments
A few thoughts, in no particular order:
- First, I thought going in that the Cowboys were the better team (I’ve been saying most of the season that I don’t think the Packers are as good as their record), and it looks like I was right.
- That said, neither team looks to me like a championship caliber team. They both have a lot of talent, but are simply too inconsistent, and too prone to giving up the big play.
- I knew that “Bad Brett” was still hiding in there somewhere. But a lot of that had to do with coaching yesterday. More on this later. I will say, though, that as bad as Brett’s first INT looked, the guy was open — he simply underthrew him, probably because he was hurried. If he’d thrown the ball about 5 yards farther, that’s a probable touchdown.
- Tony Romo is the real deal. But I don’t understand the constant comparisons to Brett Favre. Yes, he’s got a gun for an arm, but that’s where the similarities end, in my opinion. Romo’s much less cavalier with the football; I didn’t see him make any of the kinds of cover-your-eyes throws that Favre is prone to making (and often getting away with).
- Of course, it doesn’t hurt that Romo had all day and then some to throw the ball. My kingdom for a pass rush. If you want my opinion of the single most important difference-maker in the game, it was that Dallas had a good pass rush (especially early and late), and Green Bay didn’t.
- Is it just me, or was the game terribly officiated? The only saving grace was that it was bad in a way that didn’t favor one team over the other. I saw several blatant holds go uncalled in both directions; ditto for several blatant occurrences of offensive interference. I don’t think Green Bay got the first down near the goal line in the third, but the officials said “close enough.” Al Harris’ clear interception in the first quarter was called a completion to Owens. The list goes on.
- Despite my complaints about the officiating, I do think that the late pass interference call against Green Bay was the right call. Although I would like to see a two-tiered pass interference rule (think facemask), with a flagrant, spot-of-the-foul variety, and a less severe, 10-yards-and-automatic-first-down variety. But with the rule the way it is today, I think you have to call that.
- As I alluded to above, the game was coached terribly. Both teams demonstrated a maddening refusal to stick with what works. McCarthy seemed to think that the Packers needed to hit a home run, and called several long plays and getting away from the controlled, short passing attack that has worked so well all season. (Indeed, when Favre went out and Rodgers came in, he reverted to that plan, with a couple of ugly exceptions, and lo and behold, it worked pretty well.)
- Wade Phillips (or perhaps Jason Garrett), on the other hand, went with a “that worked, let’s not try it again” approach. Every time the Cowboys put Owens in motion, it confused the Green Bay corners and resulted in a big play. Yet they only did it a few times, and stopped altogether when they built up a big lead, only going back to it after the Packers pulled to within 3.
- WTF was up with that Owens bobble in the end zone that resulted in Romo’s only INT? Romo should be allowed to punch him in the nose for that…
- Speaking of Owens, he pretty much took Al Harris to school. He also provided a blueprint for how to beat Harris: don’t worry about gaining position on him, because on several plays Harris was in perfect defensive position and then merely stood there while Owens went up and made the catch.
- Not to make excuses, but I would like to see how the game would have played out if Green Bay didn’t have injuries to its top pass rusher, one of its top two corners, and one of its best offensive lineman. I think the injury to Favre actually helped the Packers, though: Favre tends to get psyched out in Dallas, and the switch to Rodgers made the Cowboys [stupidly] switch to a more conservative game plan.
- On the bright side, Rodgers showed a lot of promise. As uncomfortable as he looked, he got the job done; you certainly can’t pin the loss on him. If he gets comfortable, the Packers will be just fine at the QB position for quite some time.
- Finally, Chris Collinsworth gets the trifecta: He managed to give glowing verbal hand jobs to Favre, Romo, and Rodgers, all in the same game. Apparently, all you have to do is either be effective or have a good history in order to be worshipped by Collinsworth…
- OK, I lied, one more thing: Bryant Gumbel is awful. I can’t even count how many times he called a three yard gain “almost nothing,” and in the end, he can’t even count, because he said something like “Cowboys win by 7.” It’s not every day someone can make me long for Joe Buck, but Gumbel does it.
November 30th, 2007
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Sports, NFL |
2 comments
This is inexcusable:
Thousands of Iraqis whose support for the U.S. war effort in Iraq has put them and their families in grave danger at home are being excluded from a new fast-track system aimed at speeding up refugee resettlement in the United States for American allies, officials said Thursday.
The Bush administration within the next month will begin accepting refugee applications directly from the about 100 Iraqi employees of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad and their relatives, letting them bypass an often-lengthy U.N. referral process in third countries where they must travel at great expense, they said.
But possibly tens of thousands more at-risk Iraqis — those who worked for private contractors, aid agencies or media outlets and their relatives — won’t be eligible due to objections from the Homeland Security Department, which fears that terrorists might use it to slip into the country, the officials said.
Homeland Security is effectively blocking contract employees, like drivers, translators, technicians, from benefiting from the initiative by insisting they provide official U.S. references and sponsors before applying for resettlement, a more stringent standard than for direct hires and even those in the U.N. system, according to the officials.
We invaded their country, destroyed its infrastructure, failed to provide either security or the political rebirth we [promised, and now we are going to turn our backs on thousands of people who helped us try to reach our goals. Why? becasue the Bush Administration and its backers are too God damn afraid of the Scary Brown Terrorists to do the right thing by these people. We owe these people, but the Bush Administration is perfectly willing to let them and their families be raped tortured and killed becasue, apparently, no one in the damn place is smart enough to figure out a way to minimize the already slight risk that a terrorist might slip into the country. The notion that terrorists could slip into the country under the cover of this program is silly. Could it happen? maybe - -but there are screening processes that could be done and, frankly, its easier for a terrorists to come into the country in a way that does not invite such stringent scrutiny. You’d have to be a pretty stupid terrorist to try this. Denying help to these people base don that is inhumane and disgusting.
It is a loathsome decision made by loathsome people . And may God have no mercy on their souls if they are just doing this to keep the number of official refugees down in order to allow Bush to keep pretending that things are just going swimmingly. And full credit, here, to the people at the State Department (and I have to assume this includes Rice and her deputies) who are backing legislation to let these people in and who are fighting the DHS to get them to do the right thing. This is, in a literal sense, the very least we can do for those Iraqis who tried to help us. We cannot turn our back on these people becasue of mis-placed and overblown fears over terrorism.
November 30th, 2007
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Iraq, Terrorism |
7 comments
