Ahem

I am not sure what this means for his job security at WaPo but Ezra Klein basically just called out Fred Hiatt over his op ed column about the House health care bill. Now he wasn't belligerent and was very respectful in his response but basically he called bullshit on Hiatt's column and there is no way of getting around that.

Fred Hiatt's column today calls the House's health-care reform bill "a step closer to bankruptcy." But he's not really talking about the House's health-care reform bill, which he admits the Congressional Budget Office has assessed as not only deficit neutral but deficit improving. He's talking about, first, a fix to Medicare reimbursement rates that really isn't part of health-care reform, and, second, the capacity of Congress to make hard decisions about, well, anything. Fair points both, but neither here nor there when it comes to the House legislation.

To take them in order, the $250 billion Medicare payment fix is actually the outgrowth of another bill: The 1997 Balanced Budget Act. That legislation created a payment formula for Medicare that tied the program's payments to the period's extremely low growth in health-care costs. But then cost growth accelerated again, and Republican and Democratic congresses alike began voting to reject the formula's cuts. Bringing the formula back into line with the growth of health-care costs will require a hefty $250 billion. But we'd have to do it whether President Obama pursued health-care reform or not. Just ask President Bush, who had no interest in health-care reform, but saw Congress reject these payment cuts in 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008.

Hiatt's more compelling objection is that Congress will continue to duck the hard questions of health-care reform and vote to avoid making the cuts and reforms that are written into the bill. As he says, "history suggests that legislators will not be deaf to the complaints of seniors and those who treat them when it comes time for the ax to fall."

This may be true. The problem, however, is that it obviates any possible solutions. For instance: In the final line of the column, Hiatt proposes that "Obama puts his clout behind the progressive ideals of thrift and cost containment." Elsewhere in the column, Hiatt laments that Congress did not "end the tax break for employer-provided insurance" or "empower an independent commission that could make cost-control decisions" or "rais[e] taxes on anyone who earns less than $250,000 per year." But if Congress will simply thwart any effort at cost containment, what's the point?

Taxes can be rolled back (see the Bush tax cuts) or indefinitely delayed (see the AMT). Commissions can be ignored or overturned. Cost controls can be repealed and weakened. I'm not necessarily arguing that Hiatt's pessimistic conception of Congress is inaccurate, but the appropriate response is either nihilistic or revolutionary. It cannot, however, be to propose different and harder cost controls than the ones Congress itself has passed.

Now I realize that I probably quoted more than what's usually acceptable but I hope he doesn't mind because I wanted you to get a very good idea of how thoroughly he PWNED Hiatt who is essentially his boss.

I have to give him major respect for not letting Hiatt's BS stand even though they work together and I can only hope that there is no retribution. Ezra is a monster when it comes to health care policy and WaPo would be a fool to let him go any damn way!

Is Virginia Going To Elect A Bigot?

Not if the Washington Post has anything to say about it...

Priorties

Another excellent post from Glenzilla about the Villager, in particular the Washington Post's, position that the deficit doesn't matter when talking about ramping up the war in Afghanistan but its a "major concern" when talking about health care reform.

WaPo Is A Safe Haven For Neo Cons And Pro Torturists

When Politico is fact checking you then you know that you have jumped the shark, the whale and the giant octopus!

For a more complete debunking of the Washington Post article yesterday and the new one today which reported that torture "worked" on Khalid Sheik Muhammed despite tons of evidence to the contrary I would recommend emptywheel's posts here and here.

How screwed up is it that in 2009 we are even having to prosecute the argument against torture in the court of public opinion?

Steven Pearlstein Brings The Noise

As a columnist who regularly dishes out sharp criticism, I try not to question the motives of people with whom I don't agree. Today, I'm going to step over that line.

The recent attacks by Republican leaders and their ideological fellow-travelers on the effort to reform the health-care system have been so misleading, so disingenuous, that they could only spring from a cynical effort to gain partisan political advantage. By poisoning the political well, they've given up any pretense of being the loyal opposition. They've become political terrorists, willing to say or do anything to prevent the country from reaching a consensus on one of its most serious domestic problems.

There are lots of valid criticisms that can be made against the health reform plans moving through Congress -- I've made a few myself. But there is no credible way to look at what has been proposed by the president or any congressional committee and conclude that these will result in a government takeover of the health-care system. That is a flat-out lie whose only purpose is to scare the public and stop political conversation.

Good on Steven Pearlstein for calling bullshit on the Republican attacks on health care reform. He better watch his back though because if he keeps it up he will likely be Froomkined.

Why Democrats Hate Democrats

First off I gotta give props to the much (rightly) maligned Ceci Connolly for debunking the euthanasia cannard in the health care reform bills in her new articlce in the Washington Post. I personally feel like she just posted a crib notes version of a Media Matters post on the issue without attribution, but as long as its exposed as a fraud in the pages of a newspaper with as high a circulation as WaPo I really don't care.

But one part of her article just about made me want to smash my laptop into bits. Check this out...

Democratic strategists privately acknowledged that they were hesitant to give extra attention to the issue by refuting the inaccuracies, but they worry that it will further agitate already-skeptical seniors.

snip

After letting the controversy simmer on talk radio and the blogosphere, expecting that it might blow over, Democrats have begun to respond.

Now I don't know which Democratic strategists gave these quotes anonymously, but they should never be allowed to advise another Democrat ever again in life. I don't know if its more infuriating that these people prove the notion that Democrats don't have any spine or that they could even possibly be so naive. The right wing ideologues in this country, especially those on talk radio, have already shown that they will not let anything just "blow over" especially on a topic they are so vehemently opposed to as health care reform.

What kind of fucking idiots are actually advising our elected Democrats in Congress? What kind of a dumb ass would even begin to believe that the euthanasia cannard would just magically go away? And how can they possibly have not learned anything from then Senator Obama's campaign last year? Its enough to make me want to scream!

Someone should email every Democrat in Congress the link to "Fight The Smears" dot com. This website was a freaking stroke of genius for candidate Obama last year. He had the good common sense to realize that Republicans and special interests traffic in misinformation and confusion to win every single one of their battles. And the only way to successfully over come that kind of garbage is to correct the record forcefully and in a way that is widely available to reach the most people. Whether it was a right wing blogger or a right wing radio host or a right wing member of Congress, if they were pushing bullshit out about candidate Obama, you can best believe they were smacked down on the website.

So where exactly is our health care reform version of "Fight The Smears"?

This would be the perfect time for Democrats in both houses of Congress to put up a website debunking all the right wing and corporatist smears against health care reform. I can damn well guarantee that its about to get worse this whole month. How helpful would it be to have one place that they could tell their constituents to go to find out the truth about the proposed legislation? But instead you have Democratic advisors with their thumbs up their asses just hoping they can close their eyes and everything will be all better. And in the mean time every lie and smear and mischaraterization gets the chance to get a foot hold and in some circles get repeated so much that they become conventional wisdom. At that point you can refute everything all you want but people are still going to hang on to that first impression. It is what it is.

Now there is a citizen made site to help fight the health care reform smears which I have posted before and will post again here. But why should WE have to do the damn job of the people in Congress? If they are so damned stupid and or cowardly that they won't put in place a method to debunk all of the lies about health care reform, do they even deserve to be members of Congress anymore?

We really REALLY need to get a better brand of Democrat in Congress, and I mean ASAP!

Mad Bitch

A few weeks back Dana Milbank was complaining about Huffington Post blogger Nico Pitney getting a question at a Presidential press conference and even went so far as to call him a dick. This was of course all in the name of "journalistic integrity".

Today Milbank and his partner in crime Chris Cilliza released a video joking that our current Secretary of State and former first lady, Hillary Clinton, is a "Mad Bitch".



Hardy fuckin har.

Honestly I don't even want them to be fired or suspended. I want Milbank and Cilliza to be the straw that broke the Washington Post's back and brings them to full on financial ruin and collapse. That's what would happen in a just world.

Bill Moyers On The WaPo "Health Care Salon" Scandal

This is so on point I wish I could excerpt the whole thing.

Remember, the invitation promises this private, intimate, and off-the-record dinner is an extension "of THE WASHINGTON POST brand of journalistic inquiry into the issues, a unique opportunity for stakeholders to hear and be heard."

Let that sink in. The "stakeholders" in health care reform in this case do not include the rabble — the folks across the country who actually need quality health care but can't afford it. If any of them showed up at the kitchen door on the night of this little soiree, a bouncer would drop kick them beyond the beltway.

In other words, before you can cross the threshold in Washington to reach "the select few who will actually get it done," you must first cross the palm of some outstretched hand. The dinner was canceled after the invite was leaked to the website politico.com — by a health care lobbyist, of all people. But it was enough to give us a glimpse into how things really work in Washington. A clear insight into why there is such a great disconnect between democracy and government today, between Washington and the rest of the country.

According to one poll after another, a majority of Americans not only want a public option in health care, they also think that growing inequality is bad for the country, that corporations have too much power over policy, that money in politics is the root of all evil, and that working families and poor communities need and deserve public support when the market fails to generate shared prosperity. But when the insiders in Washington finish tearing worthy intentions apart and devouring flesh from bone, none of these reforms happen. Oh, they say, "it's all about compromise, all in the nature of the give-and-take of representative democracy." That, people, is bull — the basic nutrient of Washington's high and mighty.

It's not about compromise. It's not about what the public wants. It's about money, the golden ticket to "the select few who actually get it done." And nothing will change. Nothing. Until the money-lenders are tossed out of the temple, and we tear down the sign they've placed on government — the one that reads: "For sale."

Bill Moyers doesn't play around and the truth is Democrat or not we have to hold our leaders to account with this health care reform fight. The lobbyists can lavish them with cash and gifts but come election day we are still the ones who decide who stays and who goes. Its time to remind them of that!

Stick A Fork In Him

I would love to excerpt this whole short post from Joe Klein PWNING that war mongering sonofabitch John Bolton and his weaksauce enablers in the Mainstream Media but that wouldn't apply under fair use, so I will just link to it and strongly encourage you to go check it out.

How's THAT For "Staging"

I can't wait to hear what #dickwhisper has to say about this.

WASH. POST SELLING ACCESS?.... It's hardly a secret that newspapers, including the major dailies, have run into serious financial problems in recent years, and are frantically looking for new revenue streams. But if this report from Mike Allen is accurate, it seems the Washington Post's financial concerns have led the paper to consider a jaw-dropping scheme.

For $25,000 to $250,000, The Washington Post is offering lobbyists and association executives off the record, non-confrontational access to "those powerful few" — Obama administration officials, members of Congress, and the paper's own reporters and editors.

The astonishing offer is detailed in a flier circulated Wednesday to a health-care lobbyist, who provided it to a reporter because the lobbyist said he feels it's a conflict for the paper to charge for access to, as the flier says, its "health care reporting and editorial staff."

The End

Well not really, literally the end, but the end of Dan Froomkin's time with the Washington Post.

His last column:

Today's column is my last for The Washington Post. And the first thing I want to say is thank you. Thank you to all you readers, e-mailers, commenters, questioners, Facebook friends and Twitterers for spending your time with me and engaging with me over the years. And thank you for the recent outpouring of support. It was extraordinarily uplifting, and I'm deeply grateful. If I ever had any doubt, your words have further inspired me to continue doing accountability journalism. My plan is to take a few weeks off before embarking upon my next endeavor -- but when I do, I hope you'll join me.

It's hard to summarize the past five and a half years. But I'll try.

I started my column in January 2004, and one dominant theme quickly emerged: That George W. Bush was truly the proverbial emperor with no clothes. In the days and weeks after the 9/11 terror attacks, the nation, including the media, vested him with abilities he didn't have and credibility he didn't deserve. As it happens, it was on the day of my very first column that we also got the first insider look at the Bush White House, via Ron Suskind's book, The Price of Loyalty. In it, former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill described a disengaged president "like a blind man in a room full of deaf people", encircled by "a Praetorian guard,” intently looking for a way to overthrow Saddam Hussein long before 9/11. The ensuing five years and 1,088 columns really just fleshed out that portrait, describing a president who was oblivious, embubbled and untrustworthy.

When I look back on the Bush years, I think of the lies. There were so many. Lies about the war and lies to cover up the lies about the war. Lies about torture and surveillance. Lies about Valerie Plame. Vice President Dick Cheney's lies, criminally prosecutable but for his chief of staff Scooter Libby's lies. I also think about the extraordinary and fundamentally cancerous expansion of executive power that led to violations of our laws and our principles.
And while this wasn't as readily apparent until President Obama took office, it's now very clear that the Bush years were all about kicking the can down the road – either ignoring problems or, even worse, creating them and not solving them. This was true of a huge range of issues including the economy, energy, health care, global warming – and of course Iraq and Afghanistan.

How did the media cover it all? Not well. Reading pretty much everything that was written about Bush on a daily basis, as I did, one could certainly see the major themes emerging. But by and large, mainstream-media journalism missed the real Bush story for way too long. The handful of people who did exceptional investigative reporting during this era really deserve our gratitude: People such as Ron Suskind, Seymour Hersh, Jane Mayer, Murray Waas, Michael Massing, Mark Danner, Barton Gellman and Jo Becker, James Risen and Eric Lichtblau (better late than never), Dana Priest, Walter Pincus, Charlie Savage and Philippe Sands; there was also some fine investigative blogging over at Talking Points Memo and by Marcy Wheeler. Notably not on this list: The likes of Bob Woodward and Tim Russert. Hopefully, the next time the nation faces a grave national security crisis, we will listen to the people who were right, not the people who were wrong, and heed those who reported the truth, not those who served as stenographers to liars.

It's also worth keeping in mind that there is so very much about the Bush era that we still don't know.

Now, a little over five months after Bush left office, Barack Obama's presidency is shaping up to be in large part about coming to terms with the Bush era, and fixing all the things that were broken. In most cases, Obama is approaching this task enthusiastically – although in some cases, he is doing so only under great pressure, and in a few cases, not at all . I think part of Obama's abiding popularity with the public stems from what a contrast he is from his predecessor -- and in particular his willingness to take on problems. But he certainly has a lot of balls in the air at one time. And I predict that his growing penchant for secrecy – especially but not only when it comes to the Bush legacy of torture and lawbreaking – will end up serving him poorly, unless he renounces it soon.

Obama is nowhere in Bush's league when it comes to issues of credibility, but his every action nevertheless needs to be carefully scrutinized by the media, and he must be held accountable. We should be holding him to the highest standards – and there are plenty of places where we should be pushing back. Just for starters, there are a lot of hugely important but unanswered questions about his Afghanistan policy, his financial rescue plans, and his turnaround on transparency.

So classy.

The Washington Post didn't deserve him...

Aiding and Abetting

Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo coined a phrase some years ago that Washington is "wired for Republicans" and was such a prescient statement. The establishment media are now conditioned to work almost exclusively in favor of the Republican tactic of out and out lying and relying on the MSM to report the lie without any significant push back. Take for example the "liberal media" running with missing Governor Sanford aide's statement that he had spoken to Sanford today and that he was on the Appalachian Trail and that he would be back tomorrow. They are repeating this story as a fact even though Sanford hasn't called anyone else which would support the story, the aide has no way of confirming where Sanford was calling from, and the various conflicting stories his staff and his wife gave yesterday after the story broke. This media failing is getting to the point of being disgusting.

But not every example of the media being wired for Republicans has to do with them just repeating what they are told. Sometimes its that they actively incorporate what they have been told by Republicans about Democrats into their own original smears against Democrats. Take for example this question in the supposedly liberal Washington Post and supposedly liberal ABC News Poll.

8. Which of these statements comes closer to your view: (Beneath it all, Obama is an old-style, tax-and-spend Democrat) or (Obama is a new-style Democrat who will be careful with the public's money).

Now this isn't one of those notoriously wacky RNC polls, nor is it one of those hyperpartisan FoxNews polls. Hell this isn't even a right wing Rasmussen poll. This is the Washington Post and ABC News combining to project the most blatantly false and politically damaging meme about Democrats in general and Democratic Presidents in particular.

There is no good option for a person answering this question. If you say Obama is an "old school tax-and spend-liberal" you buy into a right wing stereotype that doesn't exist in the real world. If you say Obama is a "new style Democrat who will be careful with the public's money" then the clear implication is that even if you had a positive view of him personally that only means that the rest of the Democrats historically have been irresponsible with the people's money.

In short its a bullshit question. Its almost analagous to a push poll question, meant to create an impression rather than measure one.

So lets check out those "old school tax and spend" Democratic Presidents as opposed to their "fiscally responsible" Republican counterparts.




But why should our "liberal media" let a little thing like facts get in the way of smearing Democrats, right?

Assholes.

Connecting The Dots

There is a great Washington Post story today about those torture briefings to members of Congress. Several times in listing of the briefings there is a notation of "not available" in the category of who actually led the briefing. Well reporters Paul Kane and Joby Warrick have discovered that these briefings were led by none other than Dick Cheney:

Former vice president Richard B. Cheney personally oversaw at least four briefings with senior members of Congress about the controversial interrogation program, part of a secretive and forceful defense he mounted throughout 2005 in an effort to maintain support for the harsh techniques used on detainees.

The Cheney-led briefings came at some of the most critical moments for the program, as congressional oversight committees were threatening to investigate or even terminate the techniques, according to lawmakers, congressional officials, and current and former intelligence officials.

Cheney's role in helping handle intelligence issues in the Bush administration -- particularly his advocacy for the use of aggressive methods and warrantless wiretapping against alleged terrorists -- has been well documented. But his hands-on role in defending the interrogation program to lawmakers has not been previously publicized.

The CIA made no mention of his role in documents delivered to Capitol Hill last month that listed every lawmaker who had been briefed on "enhanced interrogation techniques" since 2002. For meetings that were overseen by Cheney, the agency told the intelligence committees that information about who oversaw those briefings was "not available."

Now why is this important?

In the CIA intelligence report there is a briefing on 7-13-2004 for Jane Harman and Porter Goss. At that meeting the notes say the information from the “Holy Grail” IG report on interrogations was put forth. Here is the actual notes on it.

1 IG presented report on interrogations.

2. Status update on interrogation process.

3. General Counsel informed of legal/policy
issues.

EITs were discussed, including a specific mention of waterboarding as one of the EITs. Discussion of CIA currently seeking reaffirmation from DOJ on use of EITs as well as renewed policy approval from NSC principals to continue using EITs.

Now here is how Greg Sargent of The Plum Line blog described the IG report.

Dem Congressional staffers tell me this report is the “holy grail,” because it is expected to detail torture in unprecedented detail and to cast doubt on the claim that torture works — and its release will almost certainly trigger howls of protest from conservatives.

Now take note also of the last line

Discussion of CIA currently seeking reaffirmation from DOJ on use of EITs as well as renewed policy approval from NSC principals to continue using EITs

It would seem after hearing the CIA's Inspector General's report on torture techniques the proverbial shit had hit the fan. What other reason could you imagine that the discussion turned to "seeking reaffirmation from DOJ on the use of" torture?


Now when you go to the documents Dick Cheney wants declassified when do you think the first one is dated?

7-13-2004

Just two days later on 7-15-2004 there is another briefing this time with Pat Roberts and John Rockefeller, but check out what shows up in the notes of that one .

Briefed on Interrogation Techniques, including waterboarding, abdominal slap, and sleep deprivation. Also briefed on actionable intelligence derived from use of EITs.

For the first time in the briefing timeline members of Congress were briefed on "actionable intelligence derived from" torture. I don't think it takes a great leap of logic where that information came from.

This was DEFINITELY propaganda material that Dick Cheney got the CIA to put together to “sell” members of Congress on torture. The second of the reports Cheney requested is dated 6-1-2005 and it just so happens that "not available" under the briefers section starts showing up in March of 2005 and continues through October of 2005. I guess the first iteration of the propaganda report just wasn't convincing enough so Cheney needed to add a few more "facts".

So there you have it ladies and gentlemen. The reason why Dick Cheney only wants those two report declassified is because he himself was the one who helped put it together to sell members of Congress on torturing detainees. I can't see how those two reports would have any kind of credibility at this point should they ever be released. But once again the question will turn on how the media examines it. If they continue to perform as they have so far and take it and present it as a serious source of information I fear that they will once again fail the American people.

Demand better!

A Day Late And A Dollar Short

The New York Times and the Washington Post finally decided to take an in depth look into allegations that the pro Israel lobby was integral in derailing Chas Freeman's appointment to chair the NIC. Glenzilla wasn't impressed with their previous efforts at the task.

Now that establishment media venues have finally (now that it's all over) taken note of the Charles Freeman controversy which was exploding on blogs and in Congress for the last week, we have yet another perfectly illustrative example of these distorting effects of anonymity. In The New York Times yesterday, Mark Mazzetti noted that Freeman blamed "the Israel Lobby" for the attacks against him, but then followed his description of Freeman's accusation with this paragraph:

Joshua Block, a spokesman for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a lobbying group, said Tuesday that his organization had not taken a formal position on Mr. Freeman’s selection and had not lobbied Congress members to oppose it.

See? Contrary to Freeman's frenzied conspiratorial rantings, AIPAC had nothing to do with the controversy. The always-neocon-friendly Washington Post Editorial Page today went even further in insisting that Freeman's false claim of AIPAC's involvement was part of what the Post called Freeman's "crackpot tirade":

Yes, Mr. Freeman was referring to Americans who support Israel -- and his statement was a grotesque libel.

For the record, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee says that it took no formal position on Mr. Freeman's appointment and undertook no lobbying against him. If there was a campaign, its leaders didn't bother to contact the Post editorial board.

Since there are no on-the-record quotes from AIPAC opposing Freeman's appointment, the impression is created -- explicitly and deliberately -- that Freeman's claims of AIPAC's involvement are false, paranoid and even bigoted. But Fred Hiatt might have waited a day before writing that accusation so that he could read his own newspaper, where this article on the Freeman controversy by Post reporter Walter Pincus appears:

Only a few Jewish organizations came out publicly against Freeman's appointment, but a handful of pro-Israeli bloggers and employees of other organizations worked behind the scenes to raise concerns with members of Congress, their staffs and the media.

For example, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), often described as the most influential pro-Israel lobbying group in Washington, "took no position on this matter and did not lobby the Hill on it," spokesman Josh Block said.

But Block responded to reporters' questions and provided critical material about Freeman, albeit always on background, meaning his comments could not be attributed to him, according to three journalists who spoke to him.

Anyone who even casually followed the Freeman attacks from the start knew where most of the attacks originated. Once it was over, neocons like Daniel Pipes were sending out celebratory emails hailing former AIPAC official (and accused espionage defendant) Steve Rosen as being the catalyzing force behind the anti-Freeman campaign. Dan Flesher reported that, throughout the controversy, Block himself, on behalf of AIPAC, was contacting journalists and bloggers and (while hiding behind grants of anonymity) encouraging and feeding the attacks on Freeman. Greg Sargent, who thoroughly covered the Freeman controversy from the start at his Washington Post-owned blog, wrote yesterday:

As Ben Smith, Andrew Sullivan, Max Blumenthal and others have already shown, pro-Israel forces were instrumental in turning the Freeman pick into a major controversy. Reporters who covered this closely were subjected to a barrage of info and spin from that camp.

Once Freeman was safely vanquished, even some of the lynch mob leaders, like The New Republic's Jonathan Chait, were willing to acknowledge: "Of course I recognize that the Israel lobby is powerful, and was a key element in the pushback against Freeman." Richard Silverstein wrote more than a week ago that "this coordinated attack fits Aipac’s modus operandi to a tee" and also noted the obvious: "This is Aipac laying down a marker, telling Obama that if he wants to stray from the fold on Israel this is what he can expect: war by attrition and death of policy by a thousand paper cuts. The Israel lobby desperately wants to slow down the train that is Obama’s Israel policy."

Reporters knew that AIPAC was helping to grease the wheels of the attack because it was reporters at whom AIPAC directed those secret efforts. Politico's Ben Smith even granted anonymity to what he called "a top official at one major pro-Israel organization" (which may or may not be AIPAC) merely to boast that the Freeman "victory" sent a message that "hostility" towards Israel will not be tolerated. Smith, however, also noted:

But Jewish and pro-Israel organizations largely decided not to make the fight against Freeman a public crusade, though they were the first, and fiercest, Freeman opponents and made their views known privately.

Yet reporters agreed to keep AIPAC's "private" involvement a secret by allowing them to do everything "on background," and -- far worse -- then allowed what they knew to be the false impression to be created that AIPAC had no involvement in the campaign. Instead of the truth, what we have is AIPAC insinuating (through Mark Mazzetti's article) and Fred Hiatt outright stating that Freeman's accusations of AIPAC's involvement are false and deranged -- all because journalists concealed AIPAC's involvement by agreeing to keep it all off the record and therefore pretending it didn't exist.

You really should read the whole thing as it deals with something that irks the hell out of me too, and thats journalist's handing out anonymity by the truck load these days and effectively just becoming outlets for talking points and spin instead of doing actual reporting. There used to be a time when to go "off record" a person actually had to have pertinent reasons to do so. Now basically all they have to do is say they don't want their name attached to their words and journalists, always looking for a scoop, grant them anonymous status and then uncritically report the things they are told. Its turning into a form of free adverstising for political players and its further destroying the already shaky credibility of the mainstream media.

My Question In WaPo

I got a question published in a Washington Post discussion today between Ana Marie Cox (supposed liberal) and Tucker Carlson (conservative). I actually sent in several more questions and this wasn't the best one but I think Tucker Bounds' response shows that he didn't have a good comeback.

Tampa FL: Since FoxNews has by far the highest viewership in terms of cable news and they are decidedly not liberal, how does that line up with the whole "liberal mainstream media" meme? Is the Washington Times liberal? Is the Wall Street Journal liberal?

Tucker Carlson: OK. You've named three. Name five more. I dare you.

For the record I sent in 5 more but they didn't publish them.

Weekly Standard

New York Post

Boston Herald

Investors Business Daily

National Review

Its Time To Stop Singing And Start Swinging.

Showing that he has a little bit of Malcolm X in him to offset that MLK Jr persona President Obama has an op-ed today in the Washington Post largely echoing the statements he made yesterday about his economic stimulus bill. Setting aside for a moment that our previous President would have needed crayons to write an op-ed, this one by President Obama is just right. It lays out the challenges facing us, it describes in details how his plan will address them, and he directly and forcefully takes on his detractors. Damn good job Mr. President now if you can just get the rest of your party to follow suit. Thia bill is in fact a risky and very expsensive proposition. We need more people willing to stand up and fight for it and make the case to the American people instead of letting the Rethugs frame the argument. This op-ed is a very good start but there is still much work to be done.


First he lays out the situation we all see ourselves in right now

By now, it's clear to everyone that we have inherited an economic crisis as deep and dire as any since the days of the Great Depression. Millions of jobs that Americans relied on just a year ago are gone; millions more of the nest eggs families worked so hard to build have vanished. People everywhere are worried about what tomorrow will bring.

snip

Because each day we wait to begin the work of turning our economy around, more people lose their jobs, their savings and their homes. And if nothing is done, this recession might linger for years. Our economy will lose 5 million more jobs. Unemployment will approach double digits. Our nation will sink deeper into a crisis that, at some point, we may not be able to reverse

Then he lays out his plan to tackle these problems.

That's why I feel such a sense of urgency about the recovery plan before Congress. With it, we will create or save more than 3 million jobs over the next two years, provide immediate tax relief to 95 percent of American workers, ignite spending by businesses and consumers alike, and take steps to strengthen our country for years to come.


This plan is more than a prescription for short-term spending -- it's a strategy for America's long-term growth and opportunity in areas such as renewable energy, health care and education. And it's a strategy that will be implemented with unprecedented transparency and accountability, so Americans know where their tax dollars are going and how they are being spent.

And now the much appreciated conservative smackdown.

In recent days, there have been misguided criticisms of this plan that echo the failed theories that helped lead us into this crisis -- the notion that tax cuts alone will solve all our problems; that we can meet our enormous tests with half-steps and piecemeal measures; that we can ignore fundamental challenges such as energy independence and the high cost of health care and still expect our economy and our country to thrive.

I reject these theories, and so did the American people when they went to the polls in November and voted resoundingly for change. They know that we have tried it those ways for too long. And because we have, our health-care costs still rise faster than inflation. Our dependence on foreign oil still threatens our economy and our security. Our children still study in schools that put them at a disadvantage. We've seen the tragic consequences when our bridges crumble and our levees fail.

Next President Obama lays out his vision for the future.

Now is the time to protect health insurance for the more than 8 million Americans at risk of losing their coverage and to computerize the health-care records of every American within five years, saving billions of dollars and countless lives in the process.

Now is the time to save billions by making 2 million homes and 75 percent of federal buildings more energy-efficient, and to double our capacity to generate alternative sources of energy within three years.

Now is the time to give our children every advantage they need to compete by upgrading 10,000 schools with state-of-the-art classrooms, libraries and labs; by training our teachers in math and science; and by bringing the dream of a college education within reach for millions of Americans.

And now is the time to create the jobs that remake America for the 21st century by rebuilding aging roads, bridges and levees; designing a smart electrical grid; and connecting every corner of the country to the information superhighway.

One final shot across the bow at those who persist in having tin ears to the public's will.

So we have a choice to make. We can once again let Washington's bad habits stand in the way of progress. Or we can pull together and say that in America, our destiny isn't written for us but by us. We can place good ideas ahead of old ideological battles, and a sense of purpose above the same narrow partisanship. We can act boldly to turn crisis into opportunity and, together, write the next great chapter in our history and meet the test of our time.

I did happen to catch a Democratic Congressman (didn't catch his name) this morning on Morning Joe and he did a pretty good job of echoing the President's talking points so we have the foundation of a good platform here, now we just need to follow it up aggressively pushing back against the framing by the wingnuts who would rather play politics and score points than get our country back on track. Its time we painted them as the anti American, selfish hacks that they are and use their own kind of rhetoric against them. I can't think of anything that could prove any clearly that they want America to lose than their obstructinist tactics in a time of crisis in this country, can you?

P.S. Remember when President Obama first introduced the bill and everybody was saying that $775 billion was too little. Has anybody noticed that its almost $900 billion dollars now? Of course not.