Category Archives: News Media

As the Leaks Drip

Posted on by

All the news that’s fit to leak …

In today’s episode, we learn that CIA intelligence analyst Mary O. McCarthy is accused of being The Source for WaPo reporter Dana Priest’s Pulitzer-prize winning reporting on secret CIA prisons. Ms. McCarthy has been fired from her job. NBC News reports that she is under investigation by the Justice Department. At the very least, Ms. McCarthy would have violated a signed secrecy agreement by leaking information to Priest. The arrest action was part of a determined effort by CIA Director Porter Goss to crack down on leaks.

It also appears that someone at the Agency violated the Privacy Act by leaking Ms. McCarthy’s name and job description to news media, but we weren’t supposed to notice that.

Dafna Linzer of the Washington Post quotes her boss:

Post Executive Editor Leonard Downie Jr. said people who provide citizens the information they need to hold their government accountable should not “come to harm for that.”

“The reporting that Dana did was very important accountability reporting about how the CIA and the rest of the U.S. government have been conducting the war on terror,” Downie said. “Whether or not the actions of the CIA or other agencies have interfered with anyone’s civil liberties is important information for Americans to know and is an important part of our jobs.”

The Bush Bitter Enders are howling for McCarthy’s head on a pike, but seems to me people who live with leaky glass plumbing are advised not to throw rocks — Matthew Barakat reports for the Associated Press:

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice leaked national defense information to a pro-Israel lobbyist in the same manner that landed a lower-level Pentagon official a 12-year prison sentence, the lobbyist’s lawyer said Friday.

Prosecutors disputed the claim.

The allegations against Rice came as a federal judge granted a defense request to issue subpoenas sought by the defense for Rice and three other government officials in the trial of Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman. The two are former lobbyists with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee who are charged with receiving and disclosing national defense information.

Condi’s subpoena may well be just a grandstanding tactic on the part of the defense lawyer, so until we hear more I wouldn’t make too much out of this. Still, the Bushies might not want to make a big bad example out of the grandmotherly McCarthy while stories about their own leaks are dripping away in the background. Bad PR, you know. (See TalkLeft for more background on this case.)

Speaking of background drips, this is from a letter to the editor in yesterday’s Kansas City Star by concerned citizen David Langton of Shawnee, KS:

Where are all the Republican voices that were so loud when Bill Clinton stood before the camera and lied to the American people?

There seems to be a belief in moral relativism in the Republicans’ view of President Bush’s behavior.

Bush stood before the camera and told the American people that he would not stand for the leaking of classified information. He also said he would remove anyone from his administration who was involved in such behavior.

When it became clear people in the administration were involved in leaks, he softened his position on their removal.

Now we know the president himself was leaking classified information.

We are now given some tortured logic that it is not a leak of classified information if the president declassifies and leaks it.

Are we also supposed to believe it is not a lie if the president says it’s not a lie?

Yes. That is exactly what we’re supposed to believe. Next question?

Alan L. Light of Iowa City writes in the Quad City Times of Davenport, IA:

You have to wonder why President Bush has allowed millions of dollars to be spent investigating leaks that, he now admits, came from him.

Every time President Bush was asked about White House leaks he said that he knew nothing about it, he would get to the bottom of it, and would punish whoever did it. Does it mean nothing to him to waste millions of taxpayer dollars on a needless investigation? Why didn’t he come forward sooner and just say “Yes, I declassified it?”

What’s even more galling is that the information Bush leaked in order to supposedly “spread the truth” was in fact information that had already been proven wrong months before he authorized it to be leaked. In other words, Bush didn’t want people to see the truth so he intentionally leaked false information, information he knew had been disproved months before, in order to trick the American people into supporting the war in Iraq under false circumstances.

Bush has repeatedly abused power, lied to Congress, lied to the American people, lied to the military, started war on false pretenses, has demonstrated the most egregious incompetence and has placed the nation in a precarious economic and diplomatic condition.

But at least he didn’t lie about sex or we’d have to impeach him.

Snort. Too droll.

Regarding Mary McCarthy’s leak — in a coincidence too perfect to be a coincidence, it’s also reported today that a European Parliament probe into CIA “renditions” in Europe has not found any “illegal activities” on the part of the CIA:

Oddly, the investigator who issued this statement, Gijs de Vries, seems to have been investigating very selectively:

De Vries came under sharp criticism from the EU parliamentarians for refusing to consider earlier testimonies from a German and a Canadian who described to the committee how they were kidnapped and imprisoned by foreign agents, and from a former British ambassador to Uzbekistan who alleged that British intelligence services used information obtained under torture.

”There is so much circumstantial evidence, you can’t close your eyes from the fact that this is probably happening,” Dutch deputy and civil liberties activist Kathalijne Buitenweg said.

The US has never confirmed or denied the renditions. The committee plans to go to Washington to interview former and current CIA officials and Bush administration officials.

The parliament committee is seeking firsthand testimony from people who say they were kidnapped by US intelligence agents and from human rights activists and EU antiterrorism officials to get a better picture of the reported US ”extraordinary rendition” flights.

Rightie blogger Rick Moran puts together the McCarthy and de Vries stories and chuckles, “Interestingly, the leak was about the ‘Secret Prisons’ being run by the CIA overseas. You remember the ‘secret prisons’ don’t you? You know, the ones no one seems to be able to find … Can you say ‘sting?'”

Well yes, I can, and the theory that McCarthy and Priest were fed false information as part of a sting operation to find leakers is an interesting one. But the news story Moran links doesn’t say de Vries found no secret prisons (although other news stories did say that; see below). It says de Vries managed not to find evidence of illegal renditions. The EU Parliament is looking into allegations that the CIA is kidnapping people without due process of law and using European air bases as “rendering” transit points without the host countries’ permission. Their investigation into the existence of secret prisons is separate, the Associated Press story says:

The legislators also are investigating news reports of secret detention centers in Eastern Europe. They are expected to publish a final report on their findings in June.

Other news stories quote de Vries as saying he couldn’t find prisons, although it’s not clear he was looking for them. Dan Bilefsky reports for the International Herald Tribune:

The European Union’s antiterrorism chief told a hearing today that he has not been able to prove that secret C.I.A. prisons existed in Europe.

“We’ve heard all kinds of allegations,” the official, Gijs de Vries, said before a packed chamber of deputies. “It does not appear to be proven beyond reasonable doubt.”

But Mr. de Vries came under criticism from some legislators who called the hearing a whitewash. “The circumstantial evidence is stunning,” said Kathalijne Buitenweg, a Dutch member of Parliament from the Green Party, even if there is no smoking gun.

“I’m appalled that we keep calling to uphold human rights while pretending that these rendition centers don’t exist and doing nothing about it,” she said. ..

..A number of legislators challenged Mr. de Vries for not taking seriously earlier testimony before the committee by a German and a Canadian who gave accounts of being kidnapped and kept imprisoned by foreign agents.

Lisl Brunner of The Jurist reports:

De Vries’ comments to the committee investigating the CIA allegations [official website] were met with criticism from members of parliament, who cited 50 hours of testimony that it heard from alleged victims of rendition and human rights organizations.

Italian MEP Claudio Fava called de Vries’ testimony “completely useless,” while Dutch MEP Kathalijne Buitenweg noted “stunning” circumstantial evidence regarding the existence of the prisons. The former British ambassador to Uzbekistan also testified that he had witnessed rendition programs carried out in that country but could not confirm that they were linked with Europe.

A story in the March 31 Los Angeles Times says another investigator is convinced there are secret prisons.

The United Nations’ special investigator on torture says he is certain that there are secret U.S. prisons in Europe and he wants access to them.

Manfred Nowak said, “I am 100% sure. I have evidence.”

He cited a U.S. refusal to provide details or records of interrogations later used in terrorism trials in Germany. He did not explain how that was proof of the existence of the CIA-run prisons.

Bottom line, the question of whether there are or are not secret CIA prisons in eastern Europe remains open.

Finally, on last night’s Hardball there was a weird exchange among guest host Norah O’Donnell, former congressman and fugitive from justice Joe Scarborough, and Craig Crawford. They were discussing reports that someone close to new White House chief of staff Josh Bolten had leaked plans to redeploy Harriet Miers out of the White House.

Rightie blog NewsBusters (this is the same guy who was outraged that Eleanor Clift used an op ed to state an opinion) provides a partial transcript. Scarborough was certain Bolten would not have leaked that Miers was on her way out without Bush’s permission. Talk about poor Harriet getting stabbed in the back! But Craig Crawford (not quoted at NewsBusters) was dubious. He thought it more likely that Bolten was using a leak to pressure Bush into letting Miers go.

That does it for today’s episode of As the Leaks Drip, unless more stuff happens.

Update: See Glenn Greenwald.

Rightie Watch

Posted on by

A rightie blogger is outraged that Eleanor Clift, best known as the token liberal on “The McLaughlin Group,” is biased in favor of liberalism.

Any faithful watcher of “The McLaughlin Group” knows that one of the most transparently biased members of the antique media over the past two decades has been Newsweek’s Eleanor Clift. Week in and week out, Eleanor rips apart every Republican on the political landscape while oozing nothing but adoration for those on the opposite side of the aisle even when they are found guilty of serious transgressions.

The other regulars, including Tony Blankley, Pat Buchanan, and McLaughlin himself are, of course, the very measure of objectivity. Snort.

Clift’s op-ed posted at Newsweek’s website on Friday is a fine example. After somewhat misrepresenting the seriousness of the recent allegations that have emerged from Vice President Cheney’s former chief of staff I. Lewis Libby concerning unclassified information from a National Intelligence Estimate by President Bush, Clift went right into a stump speech: “The only way the American people can stop Bush’s imperial expansion of power short is to turn out in massive numbers to take back one or the other body of Congress from Republican control.”

My goodness, Eleanor: You’re supposed to be a journalist. This isn’t reporting.

Of course it’s not reporting, you stupid twit. Newsweek clearly labels the op-editorial as “commentary” in big red letters. That means it’s the columnist’s personal opinion and analysis.

It won’t surprise you that the blogger who can’t tell the difference between commentary and reporting has dedicated his blog to “exposing and combating liberal media bias.” If you define liberal media bias as “everything I don’t want to hear because it contradicts MY biases,” and you’re an idiot to boot, there’s no question that liberal bias in media is as common as onions. People with functioning frontal lobes might not agree, of course.

The Clift op ed, btw, is pretty good. The first page, anyway. On the second page she devolves into Joe Biden apologia.

Yesterday I commented on this E.J. Dionne column about the ongoing crisis in American conservatism. Well, the same rightie genius linked above came up with this excuse:

I guess E.J. must have written this piece before this morning’s announcement by the Labor Department that the economy added more jobs in the past three months than in any first quarter since before the stock market bubble collapsed, and that over five million jobs have been added since Conservatives fought for tax cuts in 2003.

Conservatism’s dead, E.J.? Hardly.

About that announcement, see Hale Stewart, “Bush’s Job Creation Record Worst of Last 40 Years (Still).”

According to the National Bureau of Economic Research the last recession ended in November 2001. That means we have had 54 months of an economic recovery. First, notice how Bush uses May 2003 as the starting point of his comparison? Why is he doing this? Because May 2003 is the lowest point of establishment job creation in his administration. Since the actual trough in November 2001 Bush’s economy has created 4,083,000 jobs. At the same point (54 months) all other expansions of the last 40 years had created more jobs.

At 54 months,

The expansion starting in February 1961 created 6,550,000 jobs

The expansion starting in November 1970 created 6,240,000 jobs

The expansion starting in March 1975 created 13,565,000 jobs

The expansion starting in November 1982 created 12,366,000 jobs

The expansion starting in March 1991 created 8,718,000 jobs.

Therefore, Bush’s economy would have to create 2,157,000 jobs to be second to last on this list.

There is no way that Bush can create enough jobs to increase his rank to 4th on the list. At this point, he will go down as presiding over the weakest records of job creation of the second half to the 20th century.

The excitement when Bush’s economy squeezes out some jobs is akin to watching, say, a trained pig push a ball with his nose. The wonder is not that the pig is so skilled, but that it can do the trick at all.

A Light Almost Dawns

Posted on by

Adam Nagourney writes in tomorrow’s New York Times about using the Internets for political campaigning:

Michael Cornfield, a political science professor at George Washington University who studies politics and the Internet, said campaigns were actually late in coming to the game. “Politicians are having a hard time reconciling themselves to a medium where they can’t control the message,” Professor Cornfield said. “Politics is lagging, but politics is not going to be immune to the digital revolution.”

The professional politicians are losing control of the message. This is absolutely the best news I’ve heard in a long time.

I like this part, too:

President Bush’s media consultant, Mark McKinnon, said television advertising, while still crucial to campaigns, had become markedly less influential in persuading voters than it was even two years ago.

“I feel like a woolly mammoth,” Mr. McKinnon said.

The dominance of television and radio ads in political campaigns may be the worst thing that ever happened to American politics, IMO. The need to purchase big chunks of mass media time, as well as to produce slick ads, requires truckloads of money and has thoroughly corrupted the election process. Further, mass media communication is one-way — from the top, down. In the mass media age ordinary Americans lost their voices. Demagoguery got much easier. Smart people figured out how to use media to manipulate truth and manipulate voters — usually by appealing to prejudices and fears — into voting against their own interests. And there was no way to talk back.

The times they are a-changin’.

If you read the whole article is becomes apparent that Nagourney mostly doesn’t get it any more than the woolly mammoth consultants he interviews. Which is essentially the problem with the article. Nagourney interviews the woolly mammoths for their perspective of the cro-magnon cave men, but he doesn’t think to interview the cave men for their views of the woolly mammoths.

If you’re old enough, think back forty years and imagine Lawrence Welk discussing the Rolling Stones. Well, that’s Nagourney on blogging.

Like the old Buffalo Springfield song goes, “There’s something happening here, what it is ain’t exactly clear …”

Bloggers, for all the benefits they might bring to both parties, have proved to be a complicating political influence for Democrats. They have tugged the party consistently to the left, particularly on issues like the war, and have been openly critical of such moderate Democrats as Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut.

Jane Hamsher adds,

… if Lieberman does in fact get tanked it will be because we’ve become adept at reverberating our message with local Connecticut media, something the Lamont campaign well understands and which the Elmendorfs of the world still charge a high price for having no fucking clue about. Neither, for that matter, does Nagourney. The game has so far outstripped and advanced any knowledge that either of them has of it, let alone the existence of the playing field, it’s rather pathetic.

“Elmendorf” is Steve Elmendorf, a Democratic consultant who told The Washington Post that bloggers and online donors “are not representative of the majority you need to win elections.”

John Aravosis has a vigorous response to Nagourney’s calling Lieberman a “moderate” Republican [oops; Democrat. Freudian slip.].

(singing)

I think it’s time we stop, children, what’s that sound
Everybody look what’s going down …

Sorry, I’m having a nostalgia wallow.

Affirmative Action for Bushies

Posted on by

The Washington Post just announced that Ben Domenech has resigned from his WaPo blog. This is not a surprise.

Whether I agree with his opinions or not, I would expect someone who landed such a plum assignment at the tender age of 24 to show a spark of cleverness, some freshness, some, um, talent. But Mr. Domenech’s work at WaPo was drearily unexceptional and, to this middle-age lady, about as interesting as a sixth-grader’s Social Studies report on wheat farming in Saskatchewan.

His strongest post was this one, in which he takes offense because WaPo editors didn’t “get” current rightie film iconography. This is writing typical of a college newspaper, but I think WaPo could do better. Even choosing among rightie bloggers, WaPo could do better.

Speaking of college newspapers, I’ve looked at the examples (at Salon, Eschaton, and elsewhere) and the boy did plagiarize other peoples’ work for his college newspaper, The Flat Hat. To plagiarize is “To use and pass off (the ideas or writings of another) as one’s own,” according to the online American Heritage dictionary. And he did that; it is beyond question. There is a post up at RedState.com titled “We Must Defend” that defends Mr. Domenech, thus: “…permissions obtained and judgments made offline were not reflected online by an out dated and out of business campus newspaper.” But even if he had obtained permission to quote other peoples’ work, he still plagiarized that work by trying to pass it off as his own. And, strictly speaking, it would be a violation of any one-time serial rights agreement I’ve ever seen to republish the permissioned work without the proper permissions statements attached to it. And The Flat Hat (linked above) is not out of business. So the “defense” is absurd on its face.

(And what’s really outrageous for anyone who cares about film, he plagiarized bleeping Stephanie Zacharek of Salon. Zacharek’s “Batman Begins” review actually says the Joel Schumacher Batman films were better. There’s no excuse for that.)

I’m assuming Mr. Domenech got the Post position through connections, as it wasn’t through talent. DHinMI writes,

Ben Domenech did not get his position at the Washington Post based on merit. He got his position because of connections. He was home-schooled in part because his family–unlike most American families–could maintain a comfortable living with only one parent working outside the home. He got in to William and Mary, but he did not come close to graduating. (And given his penchant for plagiarism, one would have to wonder if intellectual thievery prompted a forced departure from William and Mary.) Nevertheless, despite no degree or significant life accomplishments, he got some patronage jobs in the Bush administration, no doubt because his father is an upper level GOP apparatchik. He has gotten bylines over at that bastion of heartless blue bloods, the National Review Online. He was a founder of Redstate.com. (And can you believe those clowns have shut down comments from new members, banned anyone who criticizes Domenech, and are actively defending this thief?) And he parlayed all those connections in to getting the Washington Post gig while still in his mid-20’s.

Would anyone recognize a similar career trajectory of some schmoe from a working class community outside the DC/NYC/Boston/LA/Bay Area metro areas, who went to a state university, got great grades, but whose blue collar parents didn’t have the connections of a Ben Domenech? Especially within the context of the current GOP, somebody with that background (and whose family wasn’t tightly connected with politically powerful religious leaders) might as well be a feral child.

This feral child has seen hacks promoted and talent held back all her life. It nearly always ends badly. Although I’m sure somebody in the VRWC establishment will come through with another cushy job for Mr. Domenech, he’ll be remembered in the news/publishing biz as the guy who bombed out at WaPo. And it’s a shame, because in another ten or twenty years Mr. Domenech might be capable of being interesting, even if he’s still a rightie.

See also: Glenn Greenwald, Digby, Booman Tribune.

Update: See Jay Rosen at PressThink:

I wasn’t—in principle—against the Post.com hiring a Republican activist as an opinion writer. It didn’t bother me that Domenech lacks mainstream newsroom credentials, and doesn’t call himself a journalist. I found it more interesting than scandalous that he was home schooled. And to me it was an inspired thought to give a 24 year-old a blog at washingtonpost.com.

Today I might be defending Jim Brady and company for their decision— if…. If Ben Domenech were a writer with some grace, a conservative original, a voice, something new on the scene, a different breed of young Republican, with perspective enough on the culture war to realize that while he can’t avoid being in it, he can avoid being of it. I might even be sympathizing with Ben if he had been that kind of hire.

He wasn’t. That he wasn’t was suggested by his first post, Pachyderms in the Mist: Red America and the MSM, a strange and backward-facing thing the apparent purpose of which was once more to ridicule what Peggy Noonan called “the famous MSM.” And it is famous, as a construct that allows anyone to say anything about the news media without fear of contradiction. This was Ben:

    Any red-blooded American conservative, even those who hold a dim view of Patrick Swayze’s acting “talent,” knows a Red Dawn reference. For all the talk of left wing cultural political correctness, the right has such things, too (DO shop at Wal-Mart, DON‘T buy gas from Citgo). But in the progressive halls of the mainstream media, such things prompt little or no recognition. For the MSM, Dan Rather is just another TV anchor, France is just another country and Red Dawn is just another cheesy throwaway Sunday afternoon movie.

I suppose this was supposed to mean that reporters, editors and producers in the nation’s newsrooms don’t know why Dan Rather is such a prized conservative scalp, or that the right hates the French. Besides being untrue, this was also an extremely ungracious statement, since the washingtonpost, was hiring Ben Domenech to bring the news about social conservatives to more Americans.

But in fact there is no MSM. No one answers for it. It has no address. And no real existence independent of the dreary statements (like Ben’s) in which it is bashed. Therefore it is not a term of accountability, which is one reason it’s so popular. No one’s accountable for what they say using it. If you’re a blogger, and you write things like, “The MSM swallowed it hook, line and sinker,” you should know that you have written gibberish. But you probably don’t, for to keep this knowledge from you is the leaden genius of MSM.

Today on the Tube

Posted on by

Republican Senator Chuck Hagel is on ABC’s “This Week” saying that there’s been a “low-grade civil war” going on in Iraq for the past six months. He also asked the rhetorical question, are we better off, is the Middle East more stable, because we invaded Iraq? And he answered himself — no.

Channel flipping to NBC, I caught Andrew Sulivan telling Chris Matthews that Bush resists making any changes to his policies because he can’t admit he is wrong.

Update: The “This Week” roundtable, I kid you not — George Will, Cokie Robert, Sam Donaldson. Danger! Danger! Change channel! Change channel!

Ooo, on Meet the Press — Jack Murtha. Could be good.

Update: While we’re waiting for Murtha to come on, get this — Fred Barnes tells us which issues GOP candidates will run on for the midterm elections:

Party strategists, led by chairman Ken Mehlman, want to rejigger the debate so it’s about a choice between candidates, putting Democratic candidates on the defensive as well. In short, they want it to be a choice election, not a referendum election. …

… House Republicans, for their part, intend to seek votes on measures such as the Bush-backed constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, a bill allowing more public expression of religion, another requiring parental consent for women under 18 to get an abortion, legislation to bar all federal courts except the Supreme Court from ruling on the constitutionality of the Pledge of Allegiance, a bill to outlaw human cloning, and another that would require doctors to consider fetal pain before performing an abortion.


The BooMan says,

I’m sorry, but I don’t see anything in there about ending the war in Iraq, bringing down the federal defecit, creating good jobs, extending health care coverage, providing better education, protecting the environment, or cleaning up the corruption in Washington. All I see is an agenda pulled straight out of James Dobson’s playbook.

This midterm election won’t be a referendum. I’ll be an intelligence test, for voters.

Murtha says, What they [the Bushies] are trying to do is paint Iraq as if there were progress so that we can get out. … We’re caught in a civil war. … There’s less than a thousand al Qaeda; the Iraqis will get rid of al Qaeda as soon as we get out of there.

The Bushies are trying to blame the military for their mistakes, Murtha says.

The troops themselves don’t know what our mission is.

Murtha says his vote for the war in 2002 was a mistake. Why can’t the rest of the Dems who voted for the war say this?

“You know who wants us in Iraq, Tim? Iran wants us in Iraq, China wants us in Iraq, al Qaeda wants us in Iraq.”

“The public doesn’t want rhetoric.”

Murtha predicts the Dems will re-take the House of Representatives in November.

Don’t Miss TV

Posted on by

Some Mahablog commenters and other bloggers are saying the CSPAN town hall broadcast on on separation of powers issues dealing with the NSA domestic spying was first rate. It will be rebroadcast tonight on CSPAN1 at 9:00 EST. Panelists include Mary DeRosa, Lawrence Tribe, John Dean, Jim Harper, Anthony Romero, and Marvin Kalb. I plan to watch.

Also, the Olympic ice dancing final competition on NBC will be fun to watch (I know who got medals — wink, nudge).

“Marginalizing” the Press

Posted on by

Steven Thomma writes for Knight Ridder:

To many on the outside, it looked like a mistake when Vice President Dick Cheney failed to notify the White House press corps first of his shooting accident. But in the White House, it reflected a strategy of marginalizing the press.

More than ever, the Bush White House ignores traditional news media and presents its message through friendly alternatives, such as talk-show hosts Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity. And when a reporter appears belligerent in a televised confrontation with the White House spokesman, as NBC’s David Gregory did this week, the imagery helps the administration turn the story into one about the press, which energizes a Republican base that hates the media anyway.

More than just a matter of sniping at an enemy, the Bush administration sees the traditional media as hostile. Working to erode their legitimacy in the public’s eyes is a critical element of its determination to weaken checks on its power.

Bush culties oblige. Like bratty children they throw tantrums at the press whenever it presents Dear Leader in a less than glowing light. Bush toady Thomas Sowell, who pretends to be some kind of journalist, actually wrote this:

There is nothing in the Constitution or the laws that says that the media have a right to be in the White House at all, much less to have press conferences.

Many world leaders have agreed with Sowell:

Sowell, who appears not to have two connecting brain cells anywhere in his head, begins his column “The first revolt of the American colonists against their British rulers was immortalized by Ralph Waldo Emerson as ‘the shot heard round the world.'” Does Sowell believe colonists outside Massachusetts would have learned about Lexington and Concord were it not for independent colonial newspapers like the New England Courant and the Pennsylvania Gazette? I guess Sowell thinks King George would have issued a news release. He also says “The accidental shooting of Harry Whittington, while he was on a hunting trip with Dick Cheney, has nothing to do with government policy or the Vice President’s official duties.” Oddly, he held Bill Clinton to a different standard.

Thomma of Knight Ridder continues,

… more than any of its predecessors, Bush’s team has learned to deal with the media on the White House’s terms.

Cheney, for example, spoke about the shooting in an interview with Fox News, where hosts all week voiced sympathy for him and criticism for the press badgering him. (In fairness, Fox anchor Brit Hume posed many of the same questions that the White House press had asked – but only Hume got answers.)

Cheney also makes frequent appearances on talk radio, where he’s often fawned over. “We are thrilled and excited to have with us the vice president of the United States … for a precious few minutes,” Limbaugh said during one recent Cheney visit.

This week Limbaugh echoed the White House line, proclaiming: “This is not about Dick Cheney. It’s about the media.”

Thomma writes that Scott McClellan is not just stonewalling the press; he is baiting the press so they’ll play their assigned “bad guy” role for the camera.

At the start of a recent off-camera briefing, for example, White House spokesman Scott McClellan interrupted NBC’s Gregory when he asked about the shooting.

“David, hold on, the cameras aren’t on right now. You can do this later,” McClellan said. On camera later, Gregory appeared abrasive when McClellan stonewalled his questions. While reporters may think such exchanges show that the White House is unresponsive when the public has a right to know, White House aides know the TV imagery makes the press corps look petulant and appear more interested in posturing than in the public interest.

“McClellan is a brick wall disguised as a government official. He wins any time the press bangs its head against the wall,” NYU’s [Jay] Rosen said. “Part of the White House strategy is essentially cultural, that resentment against the press is itself converted into a political asset.”

If you are old enough to remember the Nixon Administration you’ll remember that Nixon and Agnew attempted to make the press their “bad guy,” too. As reporters dug deeper into Nixon’s Watergate and Agnew’s bribery scandals, Nixon apologists of the time complained the press was just picking on their guys because of “liberal bias.” That Nixon and Agnew might actually be guilty as sin doesn’t seem to have crossed their minds.

But Nixon and Agnew were amateurs at media manipulation compared to the Bushies. And Nixon and Agnew didn’t have Faux News, which for all intents and purposes is a propaganda arm of the White House disguised as “independent” news media. But some things don’t change. Like the right wingers of more than 30 years ago, today’s wingnuts are all-too-easily manipulated into betraying every value America ever stood for while calling themselves “patriots.”

Thomma continues,

.. Cheney found a ready audience when he suggested that the White House press corps was angry only because he’d left them out of the loop.

“I had a bit of the feeling that the press corps was upset because, to some extent, it was about them,” he said. “They didn’t like the idea that we called the Corpus Christi Caller-Times instead of The New York Times.”

Conservative bloggers echoed that line of attack, despite firm statements from loyal Republicans such as former Defense Department spokeswoman Torie Clarke and former White House press secretary Marlin Fitzwater, who both said that Cheney had acted irresponsibly by not immediately disclosing to the nation that he’d shot someone.

Live TV broadcasts of news briefings also help the White House manipulate the media. Pundits, bloggers and talk-show hosts often spend more time criticizing reporters’ questions than the issues they’re raising. And reporters probing aggressively for information from polite but unresponsive officials can look like snarling jackals.

Jay Rosen of PressThink says the veep did not make a mistake by stonewalling media:

The way I look at it, Cheney took the opportunity to show the White House press corps that it is not the natural conduit to the nation-at-large; and it has no special place in the information chain. Cheney does not grant legitimacy to the large news organizations with brand names who think of themselves as proxies for the public and its right to know. Nor does he think the press should know where he is, what he’s doing, or who he’s doing it with. …

… How does it hurt Bush if for three days this week reporters are pummeling Scott McClellan over the details of when they were informed about Cheney’s hunting accident? That’s three days this week they won’t be pummeling Scott McClellan over the details of this article from Foreign Affairs by Paul R. Pillar, the ex-CIA man who coordinated U.S. intelligence on the Middle East until last year.

And we’ve also been distracted from the stonewalling of the NSA spy scandal, notice. Yesterday the Senate Intelligence Committee decided not to investigate the NSA “surveillance” program.

Some days I think that it’s going to take a miracle for this nation to survive the Bush Administration with democracy intact.