bustardblog

No Reporters Need Apply

The ever truthful Fred Barnes tells a very different story than does the New York Times about the interaction between Crow, David and Rove.

One thing that they do agree on is that Mr Rove was a guest of The New York Times at the correspondent's dinner.

Beyond my disgust at the Times for breaking bread with the criminal Rove, is my amazement at their article covering the incident.  Their story only reports tit for tat the differing perceptions of Rove vs Crow/David. But the even occurred at the New York Times table - wasn't there a journalist a witness to the exchange.

Not reporting, merely transcribing.

Pelosi got Roved

I'm not particularly smart, but even I can see the formula after all these years.

Speaker Pelosi Tempest =  Karl Rove

Karl Rove's "genius" is to understand the bottom line of our corporate media. He recognizes  the Press' need for scandal, outrage and excitement so that they can "sell papers" and so he does his best to help them meet that need at the lowest possible cost to them. It is Quintessential Karl to manufacture outrage at a potential "shadow President."  Forget the Republicans in Syria the day before her arrival, and the ones there the day after her departure. They do not add excitement to the story - only balance. And Fox News has proved what "balance" is in today's media parlance.

h/t - memeorandum

Now, Lies from The Wall St Journal

I realize that I am going off the deep end with the phony, Roverian SWIFT "scandal" -  but it keeps on infuriating me.
Today's editorial in The Wall Street Journal almost pushed me right over the cliff, but in the end I had to hold tight, because it also showed how hugely important this issue really is.
The thesis of the article is that the Journal committed no wrong, while the Times was evil, because the Journal reports the news just the way that the government wants, and the Times just won't. Here's the story as the Journal tells it: the administration asked the Times not to publish the story, but after considering the government's arguments for quite a while, that grossly irresponsible Times notified them that they were going to publish the story in a week. The Feds asked for an extension - they needed an extra day to get their spin organized. The Times said sure. 
Thus far in its narrative, the editorial has been pretty specific about names and times. At this point it gets all vague. "Around the same time, Treasury contacted  Journal reporter..."  Who at the Treasury made the contact?  Does the reporter really not know the date on which he was contacted?  Their "guess" for why this happened at all is that Treasury thought it would get "a straighter story," one which did not push "a violation of privacy angle."  The Journal, then, would write it the way that government wanted. (In the event, the Times article in no way "pushed" a violation of privacy angle.)
Fearing an accusation, the editorial  defends the Journal's decision to run the story, by saying that it was never asked not to publish, was unaware that the Times had been asked not to publish, and that it was administration officials who were giving them the information. "If this was a leak, it was entirely authorized." Still, the Journal doesn't mention the names of the leaker(s). I already have a hard time with anonymous sources, but an anonymous authorized leaking source is really beyond me.   What respectable newspaper would simply publish "authorized leaks"? Isn't that why the government has its own printing press?
The Journal then speculates as to whether or not it would have published a story that the government did not want it to, and concludes that they would have followed instructions. They characterize Keller's "argument that the terrorists surely knew about the Swift monitoring is his own leap of faith." This from a financial paper? Osama bin Laden owned an import and export business in the Sudan. Another company of his in the Sudan built an 800 mile long road in that country. He had worked for his father's company - which operates in many different countries.  In his first years of fighting and as he climbed up the terrorist ladder he specialized in moving money - both his own and the money he collected from friends and family in Saudi Arabia - all around the world. Buying arms to ship from here to there, arranging travel so a Yemeni fighter could get to Afghanistan. Financing infrastructure building in Afghanistan.  Paying fighters in Bosnia.

As former British Cabinet member Robin Cook noted, the name of the organization he founded , al Qaeda, in translation means the database. Osama's success in the world of terrorism was his ability to organize and to fund a virtual army whose soldiers came from various countires, and who had banded together to oust the Russians from Afghanistan. To imply that assuming Osama's knowledge of SWIFT requires a "leap of faith" is simply a damnable lie on the part of the Wall Street Journal.
Calling the kettle black, the editorial continues it's lament at the level of partisanship on display at the editorial page of the Times. While insisting that the wall between editorial and reportorial be acknowledged and respected at the Journal, no such courtesy is extended to the Times.
In a brief attempt to trick the reader into believing that they are reading something fair, the Journal spends a paragraph in reasonable pontification. They run through a few calculations that the press should make prior to publication:things like a government's need for secrecy being balanced against the public right to know. Fair enough. But the  Journal doesn't actually examine the issues it raises. It simply declares that many Americans don't think the Times "would make those calculations in anything like close to good faith."  It's called the "we've piled onto the campaign of lies and smears about the Times, and now a lot of people have doubts about them" argument. 
With a typically dishonest bit of trickery the Journal then smears the publisher of the Times. Their trick lies in treating an implication as a fact: "Perhaps Mr. Keller has been listening to his boss," and that's why he got everything wrong. They have absolutely no idea what influence Sulzberger may or may not have had on Keller. But they grab onto it as an opportunity to attack Sulzberger, who at a recent graduation talked of a "misbegotten war in a foreign land", of "the stench of corruption in government," of "the horrors and futility of war" as well as problems in the world with human rights. To the Journal this is proof that Sulzberger's "major goal" is "not winning the war on terror but obstructing it." Right, so if you object to aspects of the war, say that corruption exists in government, and that there's room for improvement on human rights issues around the world, what you really are up to is trying to stop the government from preventing another murderous attack on the city where you and much of your family live.

Approaching its conclusion, the editorial give up any pretense to logic or consistency. Instead it talks of a paper in WWII that clearly betrayed real, honest to God, national security secrets. It commends the decision not to prosecute the paper, in part "because it would have drawn more attention" to the actual facts in the revelation. Not for an instant does it occur to the Journal that this administration has done exactly the opposite. It has used every gambit in its power to focus public attention on this "revelation." To me, this is additional evidence that the administration does not really consider this "scandal" anything other than a weapon with which to attack the "liberal" media. Their partisan use of this war continues to be despicable.
But now comes the really scary part. A respected (?) newspaper in this country  essentially argues that if the Times continues to challenge and annoy the administration, it's taking a really big risk. "Once a government starts indicting reporters for publishing stories, there will be no drawing any lines against such prosecutions, and we will be well down the road to an Official Secrets Act that will let government dictate coverage." The Journal is rewriting the First Amendment here, and it's terrifying: "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of the Press, unless they are instructed to so do by the President." (Portions in italics added by Bush and agreed to by the Journal.) What you learned about the Constitution in school was pure malarkey: freedom of the press is a luxury that  can berevoked by the President whenever he feels like it.
"Already, its partisan demand for a special counsel in the Plame case has led to a reporter going to jail..."  So by asking for a special prosecutor, which it did against Clinton as well, the Times is responsible for sending its own reporter to jail, who was trying to protect leakers that were members of the administration, and it is also responsible for Bush's upcoming demand that Congress enact an unconstitutional Official Secrets Act.

It sort of takes your breath away.

Lies: Part II

This is a continuation of yesterday's post in which conclusive proof is offered showing that the outrage expressed by Bush over the New York Times "leak" was a complete fraud.
Yesterday we made two basic points:

• That there were in fact no damaging details in the Times article.  An individual with Osama's sophistication would have expected our examination of SWIFT transfers, since it was exactly what Bush had announced he would do in his Press Conference of Sept 24, 2001.
• That this is part of a pattern of behavior by this administration. The same play was performed over six months ago when the Times committed the "crime" of publishing damaging details of the government's wiretapping program.  It is clear that no one is being prosecuted in any way for that "crime."

Today we will look at other indications that this show of outrage is purely political theater and at the possibility that the play's director may also have been the leak-er:

• The same morning that the  New York Times published the story, it was also published in the Wall Street Journal. Yet no one is calling them disgraceful. In fact the Journal has refused to give definitive answers concerning their discussions with the government about the leaks. When questioned about this, Tony Snow instructed his questioner to ask the Treasury Department. Treasury has not responded to inquiries as of this morning. Snow went on to say that the Times was being focused on because it had the story first. The Times did have the story first, but it did not publish it first. It was asked by the government not to publish, and it withheld publication until it had weighed  the administration's arguments. If we are to believe that any information "damaging" to our nation's security was published, the Wall Street Journal and The New York Times are equally guilty. Yet they are not being equally condemned by the right.
• Ron Suskind's "The One Percent Doctrine"  had already broken the story. It states on page 144 that "Initiatives launched by Treasury and CIA were getting better at tracking money as it passed through accounts across the world...[using] international banking compacts." The most significant "banking compact" is, of course, SWIFT. Why not slam Suskind's book, as they did the New York Times?
• The possibility that Rove was directly involved in this leak is supported by the fact that he has leaked to the press before for vicious partisan reasons. (He leaked the identity of Valerie Plame to Matt Cooper.  Ms. Plame's covert status at that time was confirmed by the Republican Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald, who was appointed by Republican Attorney General Ashcroft.) His pattern of spreading lies and disinformation as a campaign tactic is undeniable. (Governor Ann Richards was dominated by lesbians, McCain has a black baby, Gore's receipt of a tape showing Bush preparing for a debate after which Rove screams Foul!, after which a Bush worker admitted that she has given it to the Gore campaign; The Swiftboating of Kerry, Smearing Murtha)
• Just as Howard Dean, and now Hillary Clinton have built relationships on the left side of the blogosphere, I am sure that Rove and his operatives have done the same on the right side.  Thus it is no surprise how the captains of the wingnut-o-sphere spoke so quickly and with one voice.  Powerline supported and quoted John MacEntyre's writing in RealClear Politics "this is a huge win politically for Bush," "The issue plays to Bush's strengths and continues to paint the picture of the President as a stalwart fighter,protecting America's safety while the left-wing press does their best to undermine...[him]." Bill Kristol and MacEntyre see the opportunity to harm Hillary Clinton especially.  Hugh Hewitt asks soldiers serving in Iraq to write letters to the mainstream media saying that the Times was making their lives more dangerous. (Just a few days ago, the right was making the argument that those who suffer personally should have no more influence on the convbersation than any other American.)  Prairie Pundit wrote that "The terrorist rights lobby in Washington would rather lose the war than stop a terrorist ploy by surveillance."

This entire damned episode may not actually have been engineered by Rove. But he certainly took advantage of it in that slimy way he has that is evocative of nothing so much as pond scum. A phony "leak."  A torrent of abuse deluging the N.Y. Times, and only the Times.  A complete diversion from the truth of what SWIFT is and it's place in international finance. And a deafening chorus of croaks and ribbets from the frogs that are the right side of the blogosphere.

The current adminsitration is composed of scum-encrusted liars.

Lies: Part I

His addiction to dirty tricks, coupled with his constant, unprecedented abuse of a war as a partisan battering ram, make a magnifying glass superfluous in identifying Karl Rove's fingerprints on the finance tracking  "outrage" du jour. The inability to recognize his handiwork is akin to blindly accepting  Rush Limbaugh's latest explanation as to why he has once again been caught carrying drugs that he's not supposed to be carrying. At the risk of repeating myself:  Rove is on campaign mode, and it's a particularly vicious one this season.
As some of you might remember (as our President does not) the organization that attacked us on 9/11 was al Qaeda, and it's commander in chief, was, and still is, Osama bin Laden. He is part of a family that does four to five billion dollars in business annually. In Egypt alone, they have 40,000 employees. They have been awarded the contract to rebuild downtown Beirut. They have interests in banks, in The Carlyle Group, as well as in high-tech Boston companies. Osama's eldest son is a graduate of Harvard Law, a part of Harvard University, to which the bin Laden family has given over two million dollars. This is not some unsophisticated guy. 
He knows that when Bush announced on September 24, 2001 that we are "working with our allies around the world to tackle the financial underpinnings of terrorism. We are working through the G-8 and the United Nations," that meant SWIFT. His family surely does several transactions via SWIFT everyday. SWIFT is one of the most frequently used, if not the most frequently used, means of transferring money in the world. It operates in 200 countries, and works with 7,800 financial institutions. Eleven million transfers a day. (The United Nations only operates in 191 countries) The language of International Finance changes slowly, but in my experience, phrases like "International Wire Transfer" or "T.T" (Telegraphic Transfer) usually mean SWIFT.
In November of 2002, the U.S. Navy Post-Graduate School's magazine discussed the "Treasury Department's new Foreign Asset Tracking Center" and the "Paris based Financial Action Task Force [which] is helping coordinate the tracking of terrorist funds through the global banking system." To anyone experienced in international transfers - this means SWIFT. It is not possible to talk of the "global banking system" without talking of SWIFT. Unfortunately, Osama bin Laden is very experienced at international finance, and he knows SWIFT.
No "secrets" were leaked. There were no "details" exposed by the Times. When Bush said that "great harm" was done to the "United States of America," he lied.
It's not like they haven't lied like this before. A little over six months ago the outrage was over the NSA spying revelations.  Did they hire a special prosecutor? Has anyone read any indictments of the leakers? Anyone heard of any grand jury hearings? Have you seen a shred of evidence, of any kind, as to how that revelation harmed our security?

They're lying. Again.

Part II will be posted tomorrow.

Rove on the Attack

President Bush looks like he is upset. He isn't.

"For people to leak that program and for a newspaper to publish it does great harm to the United States of America," Bush said, jabbing his finger for emphasis. He said the disclosure of the program "makes it harder to win this war on terror." reports the AP today. He offered absolutely no evidence to back up this assertion.

Is there anyone out there who does not immediately recognize this as just another whopper of a lie made up by Karl Rove? Who does not suspect that the leaks were once again from Karl Rove?

I'm not talking about the outrageous postss of a Michelle Malkin or of a Powerline - these guys  know it's a lie, but it advances their personal  careers to promote the lie, and so they do it. I'm trying to ask someone for an honest, sincere response.

The Times's revelations, such as they were, did not do any harm to our security. The only way that this argument could pass the smell test is if its proponents agree that the Bush adminsitration are such a bunch of liars, and al Qaeda is so keenly aware that they are liars, that when we announced over and over again that we were tracking international wire transfers, al Qaeda thought we were lying.

Michael Barone wrote today, commenting on the NSA wiretaps:

Now, thanks to The New York Times, al-Qaida terrorists are aware that their phone calls can be monitored, and presumably have taken precautions.

They ask us to believe that the guy who successfully engineered 9/11, and has eluded a world wide manhunt ("Wanted Dead or Alive") by the strongest nation on earth for amost five years was not aware that phone calls can be monitored for 4-1/2 of those years -  until "he read it in the New York Times."

At the same time that they want us to realize how smart and resourceful our enemy is, they also need to convince us that they're made up of complete morons in order for them to have us believe that what he Times did caused any harm at all. How else can they drum up the hysteria necessary to make it seem that they are protecting us?

They really want us to swallow bilge. Barone again, today, again:

Why do they hate us? No, I'm not talking about Islamofascist terrorists. We know why they hate us: because we have freedom of speech and freedom of religion, because we refuse to treat women as second-class citizens, because we do not kill homosexuals, because we are a free society.

Right, the reason they attacked us on 9/11 is because we don't kill homosexuals.  It had nothing to do with their perception of our continued support for the occupation of Palestine. It had nothing to do with our maintaining a military base on what they consider holy land. Barone expects someone to believe that?

The Times does not alway make the best choices. This time they did. The idea that they need to ask the government for permission to print is so against the First Amendment  that it would be laughable, were it not part of their campaign to paint the left as weaklings who are borderline traitors.

Rove at War

The Republicans have advanced their dishonest, scorched earth campaign for the midterm elections this week, and the Democrats rested. The campaign is in full swing, as dirty and disingenuous as Rove promised it would be, although the Democrats don't seem to have noticed. This week:

• WMD were found and it's just a Democratic, liberal media lie that there were none. Never mind that the President even made fun of the failure, when he did his tasteless skit about searching the Oval Office for WMD. We found 'em.
• That liberal treasonous NY Times once again increased the likelihood of a terrorist attack on our shores, by printing a story destroying our ability to spy on Al Qaeda. Hilariously, Captain Ed wrote of the how the "arrogance of Keller and his two reporters had damaged our national security, and in this case on a ridiculously laughable story that tells us absolutely nothing we didn't already know in concept." If everyone already knows about something, how is publishing a story about it so evil. Three papers ran the story on Friday - the New York Times, the L.A. Times, and the Wall Street Journal. Yet in the three interviews Hugh Hewitt did on Radioblogger with people like the Bill Kristol, Captain Ed, and the Powerline boys; the name of the NY Times or its's editor (Bill Keller) was mentioned 43 times, the L.A. paper 7 times, and the Wall Street Journal - not once. Almost as rarely mentioned was the concept of a free press. Cheney's outrage and anger suggested that the  "leak" was another planned one by the administration
• The head of Homeland Security and  the Attorney General proudly announced the disruption of an AL Qaeda cell in Florida. They prevented the blowing up of the Sears Tower, as well as several other buildings in Florida. Except this group of underground terrorists were trying to get money for Boots and Uniforms! The group wore stars of David on their clothes while they studied the Bible. I'll sleep better knowing that those Islamofascists have been stopped by our government.

Karl Rove's campaign of disingenuous disinformation has begun in earnest. He wants an electorate that is frightened and confused, and he will do whatever it takes to create one.

Pinching The New York Times

It's my humble opinion that  Pinch Sulzberger risks destroying the franchise that he inherited. His two greatest failings are the frightened response to accusations from the rightwingosphere that is destroying the integrity of the paper and his constant devotion to the bottom line means there is less quality reporting.
In today's paper there's an article headlined "Murtha, a War Critic, Assails Rove over Speech." Surprisingly, it devotes more twice as many lines of newsprint to describe the Administration's stance than it does to explain Murtha's position.  Even worse it quotes Rove as saying "that party's old pattern of cutting and running," without correcting this lie. Is he talking of Roosevelt or Truman? Or is he talking about Lyndon Johnson or Richard Nixon in Viet Nam? Is he talking of Reagan in Lebanon?
Equally important, it did not mention the accusation of personal cowardice that Rove hurled at Murtha in his speech. I'd maintain that Murtha was justified in "assailing"" Rove based only on the lie about the Democratic party. Others might say that his reaction was over the top unless they were aware of the insults to his courage that the draft-dodging Rove made against the decorated soldier, Congressman Murtha.
The paper's repugnance at being labeled "liberal" results in a distorted rendering of reality. Reality also is twisted when the Times reduces the number of overseas bureaus  to such an extent that they are not familiar with the turf that they cover.
A relatively unimportant example occurred in an article today on Chile. The people of that country, according to the paper, were "surprised" two years ago to learn that former dictator Pinochet had "amassed an illicit fortune... estimated at 28 million or more." I doubt you could find one, out of the 16 million that live in Chile; one, who was not aware that Pinochet had amassed an illicit fortune. His private home, a combination palace/fortress, sits on a hilltop in Santiago's most expensive suburb.  The only surprise is that anyone would estimate that the total contents of his bank accounts would be as small as 28 million. Whoever wrote those sentences for The Times clearly is not very familiar with Chile.
Although still profitable, The Times, like all American papers, is going though choppy waters. The Internets provide additional competition. For The Times to thrive is must weaken it brand - Top quality reporting that has an integrity that cannot be challenged as political bias. Such reporting and lack of bias simply does not exist on the web; this site included.

True Christians

Pls Double Cliclk to enlarge, 06/17/06

A couple of truly extraordinary people in front of Abraham Lincoln's statue in Union Square Park. Neither their efforts, nor Lincoln's, should be lost in the noise of the day.  For they believe in something; something bigger than Karl Rove's and George W. Bush's church of Ends Justifying Means;  they actually believe in the  Bible. The sign is a quote from Thomas Merton: "The God of Peace is Never Glorified by Violence." (See photo of 12/17/05)

Attacking Those Who Serve

As I write this post, the institution that formerly functioned as the U.S. Congress debates a sham of a resolution. Once again, the Republican Party is using this war as a way to divide the country and gain partisan advantage. I only wish that this administration had tried half so hard to win this war as they have tried to win elections. The non-binding resolution now on the floor is an attempt to embarrass Democrats and to cast them as un-patriotic. It's only value is as a Republican dirty trick.  It  harms the war effort, as it advances Rove's strategy of polarizing the country. This, perhaps the laziest Congress in our history, is engaging in this farce, in lieu of functioning, on the day where the number of U.S. dead in Iraq top 2,500.

This Congress can compete handily with the one Harry Truman described as 'do-nothing', but in one thing: corruption. Republicans in Truman's day ran a Congress that actually did nothing. It did not spend the little time it met breaking House rules, incapacitating the Ethics Committee, and buying and selling votes on the floor like they were pork bellies on a commodity exchange. I haven't even mentioned  Duke Cunningham or Jack Abramoff, whose additional degradation of the institution was considerable. The damage that today's Republicans have done to our legislature is enormous. But I think it reversible. When the electorate finally tires of being robbed, it will want to clean House.

I am much more concerned about the destruction of a more fragile,yet more important aspect of America: the concept of service.  This week we have seen the minions of Bush and Cheney viciously attack, and mock, and demean the service of Congressman Murtha. He fought in two wars, received several medals and awards, and was with the Marine Corps for 37 years. Bush of course did not complete his National Guard Service. (Hell, Bush could not even stand to spend the full six hours he was scheduled to spend in Iraq on Monday. He was out in less than five. Think of soldiers redeployed, and redeployed again.) Cheney had other priorities and so he obtained five deferments during Viet Nam. Both Cheney and Bush have spent their time in that revolving door of politics and business.They have each made tens of millions of dollars this way, while Murtha is counting on his pension from his service with the Marines and in Congress.

The concept of serving our country is being attacked by this administration. Purple hearts earned during combat have no more meaning than little band-aids printed with hearts and handed out at a poltical convention.

A new generation of vets is now coming home. Several are running as Democrats in 2006. What message will Rove send to those still serving, or those contemplating enlisting, when he makes a mockery of service in Iraq?

There will be a guy leaving Walter Reed in a wheel chair who questions the planning of this war. How will his brothers in arms feel while Ann Coulter screams that it was his own stupidity that led to the loss of his limbs?

How long will people want to serve a country where the guy who went off to fight two tours in Viet Nam is called a coward, while the guy who stayed home and pursued his career is now rich and powerful. 

Jonah Goldberg, whose personal wealth and whose career trajectory have so benefited by this war in which he would not serve, decided not to go in order to provide his wife and infant child the life style to which they would like to be accustomed. Soon, the next soldier similar to a Jose Velez, father of two from the Bronx who was killed in Kirkuk this week, will realize that serving one's country is considered a game for losers.

At that time, all the chickens that Ann, Jonah, Karl, Dick and George are so energetically raising, will finally come home to roost. And we will be the lesser for it.