Olbermann, Obama and FISA

Keith Olbermann responded to Glenn Greenwald's post criticizing his flip on the FISA revision and telecom amnesty at DailyKos in Well, You Stumped Me 06/26/08. He did introduce an angle I hadn't heard before, which is that John Dean reads the language in the current bill under consideration as leaving open the possibility of criminal prosecution of the telecoms while ending civil lawsuits against them. But Olbermann's argument is unconvincing. And he doesn't deal with the probably much more serious aspect of the FISA bill, which would effectively allow arbitrary surveillance at the President's discretion.

Olbermann goes on to praise John Dean's brilliance - not something I would argue with but he puts an unusual emphasis on the credibility of his source on this and even works a baseball story into it - and declares, "I think John Dean is worth 25 Glenn Greenwalds (maybe 26 Keith Olbermanns)."

I'll have to go find something on Dean's position. He's one of my favorite authorities on things like this, as well. But Olbermann's position still strikes me as silly in light of his emphatic opposition to telecom amnesty back in January as being a "shameless, breathless, literally textbook example of Fascism - the merged efforts of government and corporations that answer to no government."

Even if Dean is right about criminal liability, stripping away civil liability is a very bad thing. A McCain Justice Department would be extremely unlikely to attempt such prosecutions, since McCain is wholly in favor of the FISA bill and the warrantless spying program, telecom amnesty and all. Obama would be under tremendous pressure not to do so. And the very fact the Dems caved on this bill weakens their hand in insisting on such prosecutions.

Then there's the problemita of Bush's pardon power. He can and almost certainly will issue blanket pardons to telecom execs for all criminal acts involved with the warrantless spying program. Since a major part of the illegal spying was conducted by private telecom companies, shutting down civil remedies will largely eliminate our chances to find out the extent of the program in any near term time frame, maybe ever. Congress could investigate it in detail. But if the Dems are afraid to filibuster an unpopular and blatantly bad bill like the FISA revision, it's unlikely they will do such an investigation absent revelations forced by civil lawsuits.

Olbermann's post doesn't even discuss the provisions in the FISA bill that could very well allow arbitrary surveillance of pretty much anyone in the US, citizen or not, without showing probable cause. There's a fig leaf of court review included. But it's a small and thin one.

This argument of Olbermann's is also less than impressive:

Thus, as I phrased it on the air tonight, obviously Obama kicked the left in the teeth by supporting the bill. But anybody who got as hot about this as I did would prefer to see a President Obama prosecuting the telecoms criminally, instead of seeing a Senator Obama engender more "soft on terror" crap by casting a token vote in favor of civil litigation that isn't going to pass since so many other Democrats caved anyway.

When Markos was on (Monday? Again, blurs) he made the simple but essential point that if this is Obama's rationale for this, maybe he should explain it. I think it can be argued that if he's caught the same hole in the bill that Dean has, his best course is actually to shut up and take the criticism and hope the Republicans don't see the loophole.

Assuming John Dean's reading of the bill's language is correct, why should Congressional Republicans worry about the loophole? The administration that orchestrated the criminal warrantless surveillance is almost certainly going to issue pardons so the perpetrators don't have to worry about it.

Coming from one of the few Big Pundits that attempts to be more-or-less consistently liberal, this was to me the most disturbing part of Olbermann's post: "I don't know much about Mr. Greenwald and I didn't read his full piece ..." (my emphasis). But that doesn't stop him from accusing Greenwald of being "simplistic and childish" in that same piece. He's responding to Greenwald's post criticizing him, and he didn't even bother to skim through the whole thing? We're not talking about a 50-page law journal article. Greenwald's post was kind of long for the average blog post - given the length of many of mine, that's certainly no criticism! - but it wasn't that long. Since I was basing my earlier post on Greenwald's piece, I at least felt obligated to read the whole thing to make sure I got the full context before posting on it.

And in any case, Olbermann's attitude as expressed here is the very outlook that has let Cheney, Bush and the lockstep Republican Party in Congress roll over the Democrats on major issues again and again. (Digby gives several examples from this sad record in Getting Things Done Hullabaloo blog 06/26/08.) Well, other Democrats are caving in, so what's the big deal if the leader of the Party does it? The difference, in this case, is between passing a bad bill and blocking it. And surely Olbermann can't imagine that the Republicans are going to refrain from calling Obama "soft on terror" and much worse because he surrendered to the Republican position on this bill, can he?

Olbermann also scolds those of us who were such rude hippie malcontents as to talk about the Great Journalist Tim Russert's manifest problems in his role as a Great Journalist while Olbermann and his fellow members of the journalistic clan were eulogizing him with virtually no critical comment whatsoever:

On a personal level, a thanks to all who expressed sympathies on our two great losses. I will confess, as suggested in another diary, to continuing surprise that there was even a little callousness expressed at Tim Russert's passing. I think the political hats were taken off briefly in respect of the loss of a good man, even on the Right (except for the disgusting New York Post). I was startled to see so many here [presumably he means Daily Kos] unable to hold their fire until at least after he was interred.

This is one of the most prominent of the rare liberal voices about the punditocracy. He's fine with Obama backing the complete cave-in on the FISA bill. He doesn't mind telling us that he didn't even read the full blog post he's brushing off with contempt, a disturbing indication that he shares some of the most dubious habits of his peers.

I am glad to see him note that Rupert Murdoch's New York Post can be "disgusting". I wish he had had that in mind when he did his 10-minute rant against Hillary Clinton over her comment about RFK, basing his report on the New York Post's reporting of it that was so bad even the Post itself later withdrew the language.

And he tut-tuts those who discussed the legacy of Tim Russert as a journalist. Most of us did not know Russert "on a personal level". We did know about his often-damaging legacy as one of the leading figures in the TV news business. And it's a perfectly valid criticism of the news judgment of Olbermann and others who praised Russert to the high heavens on air without providing more than the tiniest hint of the negative aspects of his effect on news. And consequently on the state of our politics and on our involvement in the completely unnecessary Iraq War. Instead, they turned their endless praise for Russert into a massive exercise in media self-congratulation.

Glenn Greenwald has posted his reponse to Olbermann's Kos post in Keith Olbermann's reply and Obama's Secret Plan to Protect the Rule of Law Salon 06/27/08. He also discusses John Dean's view of the FISA bill, which Greenwald says he shares.

Tags: democratic party, keith olbermann, tim russert

Matthews on Russert and the Iraq War

This is the video segment from Keith Olberman's Countdown of 06/13/08 in which Chris Matthews made at least an oblique criticism of Tim Russert's handling of the buildup to the Iraq War. I say "oblique", because I think he was trying to praise Russert. But what he actually says is that Russert got conned by the administration's phony pitch on the most phony part of their case for war, the scare talk about Iraq's nonexistent nuclear weapons.



Bob Somerby (Daily Howler 06/17/08) notices that this segment seems to have at least momentarily disappeared from MSNBC transcripts as well as Lexus/Nexis, although the MSNBC video feed embedded here is still active as of this writing. I did my own transcript of that portion of this video. This is Matthews speaking, beginning at about 1:08:

One other thing. And it may be tricky to say this and I- I'll say it.

When we went to war with Iraq, he and I had a little discussion about that. And this is where he is Everyman. This is where Tim is Mr. or Miss America, or Mrs. America. He is Us as a country.

I said, "Why are you c-, why-, how can you believe this war is justified?"

And he said, "The nuclear thing. If they have a bomb that they can use, we gotta deal with it. We can't walk away from that."

And that to me was the essence of the- what was wrong with the whole case for the war. The- they used, they knew the argument that would sell with Mr. America, with the regular guy, with the true American patriot. They used the argument that would sell, that would get us into that war.

Tim was right on the nail. He was Us, the American people. And that to me is just something that's been comin' into my head the last couple of hours. When Tim and I had that conversation.

That that was the thing that sold America, and the guys who wanted the war used that one thing that would sell the patriot in Tim Russert. And as a journalist, he was also an American. I think we gotta always remember that.

'Cause when people watch Meet the Press and they watch nightly news and they watch us, you and me, Keith, they expect us to look up to the country and to look out for it in terms of finding the truth.

"Find the truth for us." There's a purpose to finding the truth. It's for the good of us all. And Tim never forgot that th-, the purpose of truth and getting at it was for the good of us all. We needed the truth. And, boy, did I look up to him.

Tags: chris matthews, iraq war, tim russert

Tim Russert, celebrity journalist

I began to worry about myself today while reading Debra Saunders column, The Russert weekend, RIP San Francisco Chronicle 06/17/08. I actually found myself agreeing with her. Fortunately, after spending the whole column criticizing the national press for obsessing over fellow journalist Tim Russert this past weekend, she concludes:

An outstanding journalist of Russert's stripe rated more than a nice send-off story. But there is another tenet of the profession that Washington TV news bureaus seem to have forgotten in the shock of Russert's passing: We are not the story.

That made me wonder if her real concern may have been that the hagiography of Russert over the weekend may prompt more people to ask questions about the real faults of our press corps, as opposed to the endless conservative mantra of "Liberal Press! Liberal Press! Liberal Press!"

Actually, even in the body of the column she manages to get off some characteristic whoppers. This, for instance, could be satire, though she clearly means it seriously: "Most important, Russert cared deeply about policy, not just the horse race and latest polls."

But, credit where credit is due. It may well be one of those stopped-clock-is-right-twice-a-day things. But Saunders actually got this part right:

It's a bit like watching "Larry King Live" after an octogenarian Hollywood star dies, and fellow hoofers rush to reminisce about their tales with the deceased. Even in death, everyone wants in on the act.

The Republican National Committee sent out a statement. Ditto California Democratic Party Chairman Art Torres. California first lady Maria Shriver's statement said that Russert "was one of a kind to me and I was lucky enough to have had him as a best friend."

In this game, crass opportunism is rewarded. Shriver appeared via satellite from Sun Valley, Idaho, on Sunday's special edition of "Meet the Press" - on which she started or repeated the thread about Russert being the product of nuns, Jesuits and parochial education.

And that's one of many problems of our national press, especially television. The stars like Russert and Chris Matthews are celebrities, and they are expected by their corporations to act much like entertainers to justify their multi-million-dollar salaries.

But Saunders gets another thing wrong when she says, referring to Russert's constant invocation of his working-class roots, "Do you get the feeling that some talking heads think that if you're on TV, then you're too big to have come from a working-class family or love your hometown? I do."

In fact, this pretension to be a down-home guy or gal who speaks for the "regular people" is one of the favorite conceits of the wealthy punditocracy.

Appropriately enough, the Chronicle gave the main obituary task for Russert's passing to its TV critic, Tim Goodman (Passion for politics propelled newsman Russert 06/14/08). He laid it on thick about Russert's charming love of sports, etc. Not a peep, of course, about how he was one of the leaders of the media pack enabling Dick Cheney and George Bush to take the country into war in Iraq by largely disregarding his role as a responsible journalist. Goodman types up the standard hype about Russert being such a regular guy:

One of the frequent comments heard on news channels after Mr. Russert's death was that he was genuine, didn't have East Coast elitism, and wasn't constrained by a Beltway tunnel vision.

From his upbringing onward, he was able to relate to real people and to project a folksiness to viewers across the country that was believable, colleagues said. He understood "the wisdom of the everyday people who make up the United States," Williams said as he helped Brokaw and Mitchell assess the man's character and his appeal to TV viewers.

It's hard to argue against that interpretation. Just by the look of him - the jowly face and hulking sack suits that spoke of business instead of fashion - it would be hard to imagine Mr. Russert as, say, the Paris bureau chief. Not that he wouldn't have done the relentless preparation to pull it off, but he always seemed more rooted in American soil, more representative of what the intricacies of insider politics meant to everyday Americans. As much as any well-paid television personality can be considered "working class," Mr. Russert seemed to fill the bill. (my emphasis)

Chris Matthews loves to indulge the same pretensions. He was doing his schtick on Morning Joe on June 4, talking with Joe Scarborough about how Barack Obama supposedly can't connect to the "regular" Americans:

It is Ronald Reagan -- probably didn't hang out with regular people for 40, 50 years once he got to Hollywood, but he knew how to connect with the regular person. Nixon, in his own way, could connect with the resentments of the regular person. ...

Sometimes, elite liberal Democrats have a problem connecting with the regular soddy buster guy who's got to work his butt off just to pay the bills. ...

They leap from poor to rich and skip 80 percent of the country. (my emphasis)

I believe down-home-guy Matthews was referring to "sodbuster", an obscolescent word for farmer. "Soddy buster" seems to be Matthews' own regular-guy construction.

Our great soddy-buster pundit went on talk about his wise old pal "Leroy Taylor, a real country guy", who was a sterling example of "the little guy". And he explained to us what "the average guy in Northeast Philly" understands, what "a woman" understands", what people in Scranton think. No need to cite polls or some trivia. A soddy buster guy like Matthews just knows about these things.

Writing in The Nation, Laura Flanders takes a less gushing view of Russert's journalistic accomplishments in Russert (and a Million Others) RIP 06/16/08. Reflecting on the weekend media praise heaped on Russert, she writes:

For me one moment stood out. It was Friday, soon after the news of Russert's death broke. NBC anchor Brian Williams was interviewed on camera from Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan. Calling Russert's death "an unfathomable loss", he appeared to choke up. You could hear the pain in his voice.

Watching him there - in Afghanistan, but it could as well have been Iraq - I couldn't help but think. After how many hundreds of thousands dead in the US's two assaults on those two countries - what if Williams, or Russert or any of the big power news men ever expressed emotion about other deaths. What if we saw them pause and choke up – even once – at the slaughter of an Afghan family in a misguided US missile attack, or swallow hard while reporting the blowing-to-bits of an Iraqi father as he lined up to buy food or find work?

The most likely reason we don't see our celebrity pundits weeping over the "little people" who die in wars they facilitated, often with completely irresponsible journalistic practices, is that most of them don't give a s***. Their job as they see it is comfort the comfortable at home and entertain the regular folks in Scranton, but most of all to keep their corporate bosses happy. If they started weeping over civilians killed and tortured in our glorious wars, the CEO might get some nasty calls from the White House or threats from advertisers.

Bob Somerby took up the Russert coverage in his Daily Howler post of 06/16/08, promising to return to the topic next week. Noting that Tim Russert may very well have been the nicest guy in the world on a personal level, he continues:

Sometimes, though, "nicest guys in the world" are the last to challenge conventional wisdom - even when it desperately needs to be challenged, examined, hollered about. In Tim’s case, we think he showed poor judgment in various instances over the years, as we’re all inclined to do. Chris Matthews touched on one possible error in judgment in his comments from Paris on Friday’s Countdown (text below). For once, we think Chris’ lack of impulse control served the public understanding—although he’s getting beaten up for his comment at various spots on the web.

Over the weekend, other members of the mainstream press corps did the thing that comes natural inside their group; they went on the air and told Group Tales, tales which reflected quite wondrously on Tim’s journalistic work—and, of course, by extension, most importantly, on them. Telling the truth is pretty much the last thing that enters these people’s heads. And so, they handed out novelized tales about Tim’s always brilliant work—failing to make the slightest attempt to be balanced, objective or truthful.

Again, credit where credit is due. Atrocious as the Soddy Buster is, he has been critical of the Iraq War all along. That didn't stop him from drooling in admiration at our Dear Leader's public appearance in flight suit and a manly codpiece. But still. Somerby provides a link to a video of Matthews, as we went momentarily off script and talked about a glaring fault in Russert's brand of journalism, i.e., that he failed to adequately challenge the administration's claims leading up the Iraq War. (Update: I've posted the video and a transcript here.)

On that same topic of the Soddy Buster and the war, see Chris Matthews Admits: MSNBC Bosses Were "Basically Pro-War" Huffington Post 05/07/08. That article also includes this excerpt from Arianna Huffington's new book, Right is Wrong:

Take Tim Russert, whose July 1, 2007, Meet the Press interview with Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff was about as priapic a display as you're ever likely to see outside of a porno film or the monkey cage at the zoo, with Russert desperately trying to get Chertoff to pump up the panic meter...You could almost hear the blood rushing to his loins - and the palpable sense of deflation when Chertoff refused to stroke his fantasy[.]

Tags: establishment press, chris matthews, mainstream media, mainstream press, tim russert

Tim Russert dead - Iraq War goes on (Updated)

Dark Lord Cheney being interviewed by his pal Tim Russert 09/10/06

Tim Russert of Meet the Press passed away suddenly today at age 58.

We'll see lots of tributes to him, and that's expected and appropriate.

But I predict that very few of those tributes in the Establishment press will talk about his egregious role in promoting the most vapid and destructive press scripts that have poisoned American politics so badly during the last decade and more and helped land us in Iraq.

Russert was the king of "gotcha" journalism, if we can call his more recent work journalism. One way he displayed his obsequious stance toward Republicans in power came out during his testimony in Scooter Libby's trial related to outing Valerie Plame. He admitted that he followed a policy that any conversation with a government official he considered "off the record" unless the official gave him positive permission to use it. Does a paid government PR functionary do anything different?

Russert's decision not to report what he knew about the Plame outing was a serious thing, very serious. Even more serious was his irresponsible role in helping Dick Cheney and George Bush set up the invasion of Iraq. Cheney said at one point he liked going on Russert's Meet the Press because he (Cheney) could keep complete control of the message there. In his most infamous outing in that connection, Russert on Meet the Press for 03/16/03, just prior to the invasion of Iraq based on fabricated evidence, asked Cheney this hard-hitting question: "And even though the International Atomic Energy Agency said he [Saddam Hussein] does not have a nuclear program, we disagree?" (my emphasis) To which Cheney notoriously replied, "And we believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons." Read the transcript to see the kind of "journalism" that enabled the American armed forces to be stuck indefinitely in Iraq.

I know that as a rule we're not supposed to speak ill of the dead, at least immediately after they pass away. But I know Russert only as a public figure. And in that role, he's been one of the most influential people in driving the deterioration of TV News into a form where it no longer does the minimal job that a free press in a democracy has to do in order for democracy to thrive. We'll see how many of his colleagues are willing to utter a peep about that during the next few days.

Update: Russert did an online chat earlier today, Vigilance needed on campaign claims 06/13/08. He promised that MSNBC would cover the Presidential campaign with a focus on "big issues between John McCain and Barack Obama". But in the chat itself, the only "issues" he actually discusses have to do with the horse-race. Back on May 25 on Meet the Press, Russert and his Big Pundit guests had a good laugh when he brought up the general notion of those big issues, suggesting that he was actually going to be covering them.

Tags: establishment press, mainstream media, mainstream press, tim russert