The REAL Palin Story

I wasn't impressed with the Sarah Palin story in Vanity Fair yesterday. Most of it was rehashed stuff that politics junkies like me already had seen reported other places. The rest of it was stuff that I think common sense would have allowed you to believe without the need for the story. The people who support Palin are never going to read that article and change their mind about her and the rest of us which is the overwhelming majority of the country don't need to know any more "dirt" to turn us off from Sarah Palin.

However the fallout from the article is really worth paying attention to. This GOPolitico article detailing the attacks and counter attacks that were launched after the article was published is pretty interesting reading. The primary reason is that Bill Kristol's role as Sarah Palin's primary promoter and sponsor is being exposed to the masses. And the by product of that is that every "news" organization whom employed Kristol during the election season including the New York Times and of course FoxNews as having allowed blatant propaganda to be disseminated through their organization without ever forcing Kristol to divulge his ties to the McCain campaign.

Ok and I will admit that there is a "juicy soap opera" feel to it also that is pretty compelling. I don't know that anybody has improved their profile any more than Steve Schmidt since the election came to a close. The guy helped to run one of the worst, most inept presidential campaigns in history and yet after the election he started to speak truth to power. He has been frank about what the GOP needs to do to change their political fortunes and it doesn't involve just using the words "freedom" and "socialism" more. And he has also of course come out in support of gay marriage. Something that, of course, would have been a lot braver move had he done it during the campaign, but still better late than never, right?

Well after how he conducted himself in the GOPolitico documented, drama filled back and forth, I can only see his star rising even further.

Bill Kristol, not so much.

Well I am not going to excerpt from the article because I have major issues with GOPolitico has a news organization, however if you like to watch the GOP implode right before your very eyes, I would say click on the link and go crazy.

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!

When Will Someone At MSNBC Push Back On Liz Cheney?

Crossposted at Attackerman

Yesterday MSNBC gave Liz Cheney a platform to deceive yet again.



Now interestingly enough Carlos Watson asked for questions to ask Liz Cheney before she came on for the interview. I myself submitted probably 10 good questions to ask her. Nothing over the top, just straight forward questions that she probably would have a hard time answering and which would expose her as being there purely for propaganda purposes. Several other people endorsed many of the questions. Sadly maybe at the most one of my questions were used. Not only that he allowed Liz Cheney to make up shit out of whole cloth. Like for instance when she said that Bush saying torture saved lives meant thats exactly what happened. Or when she claimed DNI Dennis Blair said that torture saved lives which he didn't.

Maybe the most frustrating thing was that Carlos Watson used the "some people say" device when interviewing her instead of being specific. The President of the United States says she is wrong. The Director of the FBI says she is wrong. The FBI interrogator who extracted the most useful information from Abu Zubaydah says she is wrong. But Watson seemed content with generalities allowing her to frame it as if just partisan politicos were the ones who were saying she was wrong.

Watson also refused to say that waterboarding is "illegal" using that word, or that the CIA may have "broken the law", instead using the weaksauce euphemism "crossed the line". What the hell does "crossed the line" mean? And what in the hell is so hard about being honest about what is at stake here?

Well now Greg Sargent is reporting that the Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Senator Carl Levin, has now come out and said that Liz Cheney and her daddy Dick are both full of shit.

Levin’s comments are highly newsworthy because they give us the most detailed picture yet of what’s in the documents Cheney wants. You can watch Levin’s speech right here at TPM. This is what Levin said about the documents:

Mr. Cheney has also claimed that the release of classified documents would prove his view that the techniques worked. But those classified documents say nothing about numbers of lives saved, nor do the documents connect acquisition of valuable intelligence to the use of the abusive techniques. I hope that the documents are declassified so that people can judge for themselves what is fact and what is fiction.

If this is true, it’s big. A Senator who has seen the documents Cheney claims will prove that torture saved lives says that those docs contain absolutely nothing about whether the torture techniques were actually responsible for yielding any valuable intelligence.

Networks such as MSNBC have given literally hours of airtime to Cheney and his daughter Liz to claim endlessly that these docs will prove Cheney’s torture assertions. These claims have gone almost entirely unchallenged, due to the classified nature of the documents. You’d think that a contrary claim from a well-respected Senator who has also seen the docs would merit a few passing mentions, too.

Yeah you would think that but for some reason I doubt it will happen. For whatever reason MSNBC has decided to allow Liz Cheney to come on their show and have free reign. I don't know if the edict has been handed down from on high, but its pretty evident that either no anchor has been allowed to really press her on specifics or every anchor who has interviewed her is woefully inept. I happen to have a pretty high opinion of Carlos Watson so I am going to go with the former. But the question is when will people start holding MSNBC accountable for absolutely failing their audience by giving these softball interviews? I can't think of one credible reason for them continuing to have a blatant propagandist come on their network and spew misinformation. Can you?

Like it or not Liz Cheney can move public opinion on this issue. That means that every time she is allowed on MSNBC they are basically helping to push against accountability for torture. That is not only morally wrong but also irresponsible. We should demand better.

And Now For The Main Event!

Goodmorning America brings us the match up we have been hoping for. Liz Cheney vs Lawrence O'Donnell. Unfortunately because this was a "polite" setting O'Donnell couldn't unload the clip like I am sure he wanted to so it didn't quite live up to the hype. However make no mistake, this was absolutely an PWNING.



Did you notice that Liz Cheney had no comeback to any of Lawrence O'Donnell's questions? Did you also notice that she totally made up some shit about we only prosecuted people for waterboarding because they did "some additional things" other than waterboarding? I loved how O'Donnell hit back when Liz said 14% of detainees who were released from GITMO "returned to the fight" (which we know isn't true) by pointing out that it was her dad who let them out in the first place. Now if only we could get that same match up somewhere like "Hardball" or "Morning Joe"

Its Not The Torture, Its The Pictures

FoxNews says we did not torture on the one hand, but on the other hand releasing pictures of us torturing is going to hurt our national security. One can only wonder what the color of the sky is on the planet they live on.

Daddy's Little Girl

Why in the hell has MSNBC put Liz Cheney on Tee Vee twice now? What does she bring to the discussion other than pushing propaganda to promote her father? She wasn't in any meetings or privy to any top secret information. She doesn't know what the hell she is talking about. Yet MSNBC has allowed her to bring her whitewashing act to their network for the second time today. Its telling that they didn't have Lawrence O'Donnell on with her today. They didn't want to see her evicerated on their network evidently. Eugene Robinson did ok on pushing back on her bullshit but he isn't the right person for that particular job. MSNBC should be ashamed of themselves for allowing her to use their pulpit to shape public opinion on the issue of torture. Something she nor her sorry ass daddy know a got damn thing about since they both declined military service.





Update: Here is a link to Eugene Robinson's op ed today in the Washington Post crushing Liz's daddy.

Years In The Making

Several recent polls on the subject of torture have been pretty surprising to many on the left. While most of the polls show a majority of respondents wanting more investigations, on the other hand there were bigger majorities that actually said they felt that torturing detainees was justified. Greg Sargent tried to tackle the question of how that dichotomy could make sense yesterday, but I think he might have, for once, gotten it wrong. But it wasn't because of a failure of Sargent's analytical skills, it was because he didn't have all of the information.

This morning the New York Times published an article that should be the lede on every cable news station as well as the headline of every major mainstream media outlet that runs a story about the torture program enanacted under the Bush Administration. The story details the abject failure of our mainstream media to scratch below the surface of a story to see whether its fact or fiction when its the hot story of the moment. It also shows how a supposed "whistleblower" can actually be a vehicle to promote propaganda for the people they are supposedly blowing the whistle on. And it also explains exactly why many Americans have now settled into the narrative that torture helped to save lives and is "no big deal". Its because thats the story we were spoonfed by the media outlets and it was the story the CIA planted through one of their agents, the "whistle blower" John Kiriakou:

In late 2007, there was the first crack of daylight into the government’s use of waterboarding during interrogations of Al Qaeda detainees. On Dec. 10, John Kiriakou, a former C.I.A. officer who had participated in the capture of the suspected terrorist Abu Zubaydah in Pakistan in 2002, appeared on ABC News to say that while he considered waterboarding a form of torture, the technique worked and yielded results very quickly.

Mr. Zubaydah started to cooperate after being waterboarded for “probably 30, 35 seconds,” Mr. Kiriakou told the ABC reporter Brian Ross. “From that day on he answered every question.”
His claims — unverified at the time, but repeated by dozens of broadcasts, blogs and newspapers — have been sharply contradicted by a newly declassified Justice Department memo that said waterboarding had been used on Mr. Zubaydah “at least 83 times.”

Some critics say that the now-discredited information shared by Mr. Kiriakou and other sources heightened the public perception of waterboarding as an effective interrogation technique. “I think it was sanitized by the way it was described” in press accounts, said John Sifton, a former lawyer for Human Rights Watch, an advocacy group.

During the heated debate in 2007 over the use of waterboarding and other techniques, Mr. Kiriakou’s comments quickly ricocheted around the media. But lost in much of the coverage was the fact that Mr. Kiriakou had no firsthand knowledge of the waterboarding: He was not actually in the secret prison in Thailand where Mr. Zubaydah had been interrogated but in the C.I.A. headquarters in Northern Virginia. He learned about it only by reading accounts from the field.

I would think it wouldn't have been very hard to at least find out that Kiriakou wasn't even involved in Zubaydah's interrogation but the problem is I doubt if anybody in the media actually asked.

Still, he told ABC that the actions had “disrupted a number of attacks, maybe dozens of attacks.” A video of the interview was no longer on ABC's website.

“It works, is the bottom line,” Rush Limbaugh exclaimed on his radio show the next day. “Thirty to 35 seconds, and it works.”

Mr. Kiriakou subsequently granted interviews to The Washington Post, The New York Times, National Public Radio, CBS, CNN, MSNBC and other media organizations. A CNN anchor called him “the man of the hour.”

We of course know now that Kiriakou was obviously talking out of his ass. So the question is what gave him any credibility on the issue with so many media sources other than his status as a supposed "whistle blower". Shouldn't it have been some what of a clue that he was there for propaganda and not blowing the whistle when he so zealously defended the waterboarding and, while acknowledging that it was torture, minimalizing the supposed actual harm it had done and maximizing the supposed benefits? I mean I would think that even the world's biggest idiot would ask themselves why someone would be blowing the whistle on a program that its obvious they believed was both important and useful. Maybe I could understand if Kiriakou at least attempted to sell this as something other than propaganda, but he was pretty straight forward about what he was doing but yet and still our media pushed his story out there like it was truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

His ABC interview came at an especially delicate juncture in the debate over the use of torture. Weeks earlier, the nomination of Michael Mukasey as attorney general was nearly derailed by his refusal to comment on the legality of waterboarding, and one day later, the C.I.A. director testified about the destruction of interrogation videotapes. Mr. Kiriakou told MSNBC that he was willing to talk in part because he thought the C.I.A. had “gotten a bum rap on waterboarding.”
At the time, Mr. Kiriakou appeared to lend credibility to the prior press reports that quoted anonymous former government employees who had implied that waterboarding was used sparingly. In late 2007, Mr. Ross began pursuing Mr. Kiriakou for an interview, “leaning on him pretty hard,” he recounted.

On Dec. 10, in the subsequent interview, Mr. Kiriakou told Mr. Ross that he believed the waterboarding was necessary in the months after the 9/11 attacks. “At the time I was so angry,” he told Mr. Ross. “I wanted so much to help disrupt future attacks on the United States that I felt it was the only thing we could do.”

Mr. Kiriakou was the only on-the-record source cited by ABC. In the televised portion of the interview, Mr. Ross did not ask Mr. Kiriakou specifically about what kind of reports he was privy to or how long he had access to the information. “It didn’t even occur to me that they’d keep doing” the waterboarding, Mr. Ross said last week. “It doesn’t make any sense to me.”

He added, “I didn’t give enough credit to the fiendishness of the C.I.A.”

Such WEAKSAUCE from Brian Ross. It wasn't the fiendishness of the CIA that was the problem, it was the fecklessness of Brian Ross and the rest of the members of the media who couldn't be bothered to actually check the guy's story before running their "exclusives". And predicibly the usual suspects picked up the story and carried water for the Bush administration.

In the days after Mr. Kiriakou’s media blitz, his claims were repeated by an array of other outlets. For instance, the Fox News anchor Chris Wallace cited the 35 seconds claim to ask a congressman whether the interrogation program was “really so bad.”

Months later the claims continued to be amplified; the National Review editor Jonah Goldberg used Mr. Kiriakou’s assertions in a column last year to argue that the waterboarding was “right and certainly defensible.”

And now, knowing everything that we know now about just how full of shit Kiriakou was back then what do you think the response is from the people who brought him to us in the first place?

Mr. Ross, who received a George Polk Award for a series on interrogation, expressed no regret about the Kiriakou interview and praised him for speaking publicly. He said ABC was preparing a story that would address the previous reporting.

“Kiriakou stepped up and helped shine some light on what has happening,” Mr. Ross said. “It wasn’t the huge spotlight that was needed, but it was some light.”

Yeah you read that right. Even though Kiriakou's story was basically made up from whole cloth to cover the CIA's ass and just about every single part of it has now been debunked Brian Ross still has nothing but praise for him. If this doesn't make you angry about the state of the media in this country I don't know what will. And bigger than any personal outrage is the fact that because people like Ross advanced this bogus story over a year and a half ago, there are men and women who authorized and ordered torture in the Bush Administration who will likely never face the justice they deserve. This preemptive perversion of the facts is without a doubt the reason for the disconnect in the polling that you see nowadays and honestly I don't know how you unring that bell. But what I do know is that both Kiriakou and Ross should have to answer for pushing this propaganda out there and be held to account. Helping to insure that people aren't prosecuted for breaking the law isn't something Ross should get an award for, its something that should earn him a pink slip.

WEAKSAUCE Express

The usual suspects are apoplectic about the fact that President Obama admitted that recently the US has been derisive and dismissive towards Europe. Of course as I pointed out earlier that's not all that he said, but it suddenly came to me why these people are so upset at what he said. THEY are the main ones he is referring to when he talks about people having those fucked up attitudes towards Europe. You don't see liberals or progressives or Democrats wagging their fingers at the EU or France or Spain. Its the wingnuts who came up with "Freedom Fries" and it was John McCain who said he might not meet with the President of Spain. What they are really made about is that President Obama called them out and as Congressman Grayson said the other day, "a stuck pig squeals loudest".

The Myth Of George Will

I have never been a fan of George Will which is really only natural. He is a die hard conservative Republican propagandist in my opinion so there wouldn't be many topics that he and I would agree on. It didn't help that he has been factually challenged quite a few times recently. But I always thought that Will MUST have at some point been a "serious" writer to justify his continued employment in the journalism field. I guess I just figured that the Washington Post kept him around because of his reputation and because he has a reputation as a "great conservative mind". But after reading this MediaMatters profile of George Will it makes you wonder why this guy still has a job after all these years. It is now apparent that he has always been a hack and has always had problems with being truthful in his articles. Yet while genuinely qualified journalists are now finding themselves unemployed, Will continues to draw a generous salary for writing on the level of a petunlant 3rd grader. Here are a few nuggets about the many over the years from the article.

During the 1980 presidential campaign, for example, Will secretly helped coach Ronald Reagan for a debate, using a briefing book stolen from Jimmy Carter's campaign. After the debate, Will appeared on ABC's Nightline, where he praised Reagan's performance without disclosing his role in prepping the candidate. In 1996, Will defended a speech by GOP presidential candidate Bob Dole without noting that his wife, a top Dole aide, had helped write it.

During the 1988 presidential campaign, Will treated Jesse Jackson quite differently, ambushing him with an arcane question about "the G-7 measures of the Louvre Accords" -- a question interpreted by many as an effort to do little more than embarrass Jackson and compared by some to the literacy tests used to disenfranchise African-American voters until they were banned in the 1960s.

Whatever the reason for Will's treatment of Jackson, he behaved far differently toward George W. Bush during the 2000 presidential campaign, when he penned a Washington Post column about Bush titled "He's No Intellectual -- And So What?" During that campaign, Will met privately with Bush shortly before the candidate appeared on ABC's This Week. Why? To go over a question in advance so he didn't "ambush" Bush with "unfamiliar material." Will even went so far as to give Bush an index card containing a portion of the question he would ask.

snip

Will's pattern of global warming falsehoods has been well-documented in recent days. It's a pattern that goes back at least 16 years:

Will confronted Gore on the issue of global warming: "Gore knows, or should know before pontificating, that a recent Gallup Poll of scientists concerned with global climate research shows that 53 percent do not believe warming has occurred, and another 30 percent are uncertain."
It was Will, however, who should have read the poll more carefully "before pontificating." Gallup actually reported that 66 percent of the scientists said that human-induced global warming was occurring, with only 10 percent disagreeing and the rest undecided. Gallup took the unusual step of issuing a written correction to Will's column (San Francisco Chronicle, 9/27/92): "Most scientists involved in research in this area believe that human-induced global warming is occurring now." Will never noted the error in his column.

snip

In more recent years, Will has made false claims about the Voting Rights Act and the New Deal. He made a claim about China drilling off the coast of Florida that was so wrong, even then-Vice President Cheney -- who cited Will in repeating the claim -- acknowledged it wasn't true. When even Dick Cheney thinks you've gone too far in spouting pro-drilling falsehoods, you have a problem. But neither Will nor the Post corrected the error.

Last year, Will claimed in his Newsweek column and on ABC that Social Security taxes are levied based on household income. Not true. He claimed that McCain won more votes from independents during the primaries than Obama did. Wrong. He claimed most minimum-wage earners are students or part-time employees. False. Will has even lied about Hillary Clinton's Yankees fandom.

Now in return for spreading obviously false propaganda as well as never EVER correcting himself George Will gets to be a requenct guest on several talking head shows on cable news programs as well as having a platform to continue disseminating false information. Isn't it about time that we demand better from our mainstream media sources? I don't know that it will do any good but I believe that we should not let the latest controversy over his column denying global warming by using bogus quotes and statistics die. Perhaps if we continue to put pressure on the Washington Post to correct George Will that for once people will have to take notice of the fact that this man doesn't come close to living up to the reputation that the Village has created for him. We deserve better from our media outlets and we should demand better. Its time to take a stand.

Update: Wouldn't you know it, just so happens that today the ombudsman for the WaPo, you know the guy whose ass hilzoy broker her foot off in, put up his information in the Washington Post website. I think he should hear from all of us to let him know that his explanation of why George Will got by without a correction is totally unacceptable. Perhaps we could even include hilzoy's article. For those who are so inclined here is his information.

You can communicate with me in three ways. E-mail me at ombudsman@washpost.com. Leave a message on the ombudsman's line at 202-334-7582. Or write to me, care of The Post, at 1150 15th St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20071.