Greenwald PWNS Gregory

As fate would have it I was commenting over at Swampland this morning when another long time frequent commenter said that David Gregory had "challenged" Israel's Foreign Minister, Tzipi Livni on the military action the Israelis have taken in the Gaza strip yesterday on Meet The Press but not as much as I would have liked. I admit that I didn't watch MTP yesterday as I am not a big fan of David Gregory. So I went to the MTP website to watch the clip of the interview and I could find not even a trace of Gregory "challenging" Livni. In fact to me it seemed almost like a scripted back and forth meant to be used to convince Americans that Israel is right in their actions. Gregory didn't mention the Israeli closing of their border which has created almost inhumane conditions for the residents of the Gaza strip including being reduced to eating grass to survive, he didn't mention the Hamas enforcement of the cease fire agreement when it was in effect, he didn't even mention the fact that Israel had been planning this attack even during the time when they were supposedly engaged in "good faith" negotiations for a new ceasefire agreement with Hamas. Glenn Greenwald wasn't impressed either:

To see what Cheney aide Cathie Martin meant when she explained that Cheney knew he could go on Meet the Press and "control the message" -- and to see in action David Gregory's model of sycophantic, unchallenging "journalism" -- one could do no better than to examine Gregory's embarrassingly deferential "interview" yesterday with Israel's Foreign Minister, Tzipi Livni. It's a perfect template for how our American press corps (with some rare exceptions) functions.

Whatever one's views are on Israel's attack on Gaza -- pro, con or otherwise -- there's no denying that it's an extremely controversial matter -- at least it is in the world that exists outside of mainstream American political discourse. Even within Israel, there are scathing criticisms of what the Israeli Government is doing -- on both strategic and moral grounds. Yet none of those objections made their way into David Gregory's interview of Livni. He didn't present her with a single argument against the Israeli attack. He didn't challenge a single word she uttered. He was even more sycophantic with her than the average American journalist is with the average American political leader.

snip

Actually, the only time Gregory challenged her at all was, in essence, to demand that Israel take even more aggressive action than they're talking already. He was essentially pushing her into invading Gaza and deposing its democratically elected government ("Aren't you making the case for pushing Hamas from power? . . . . only the replacement of Hamas by Fatah, by more moderate leaders, appears to be the only answer"). It was almost as though his goal were to make Israel appear excessively restrained and pacifistic.

I honestly couldn't have said it any better. But its worth the entire read because he ties it into the how Gregory sees the press' role and how the press failed us leading up to the Iraq War.

If this interview was indicative of what David Gregory's level of asshatery will be on MTP going forward, you can pretty much count on me passing on that crap to start my Sunday morning.


In the interest of fairness I am posting the offending video so you can make your own decision on the quality of journalism, or lack thereof, Gregory exhibits in the interview.

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