Impeachment and the Shame of American News Media

Dave Lindorff: Bill Moyers Puts Impeachment On the Media Table

Submitted by BuzzFlash on Mon, 07/16/2007 - 3:20pm.
Guest Contribution

by Dave Lindorff

Bill Moyers has put impeachment in the news and, in the process, shaming both the national media and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the rest of the Congressional leadership.

In his program, Bill Moyers Journal, Moyers and guests John Nichols, the Nation's Washington correspondent and author of The Genius of Impeachment and Bruce Fein, a former attorney in the Ronald Reagan Department of Justice, made it clear that the Bush/Cheney administration has gravely threatened the Constitution and the survival of tripartite, divided government.

Moyers, feigning astonishment at the arguments of Nichols and Fein, asked if it might be justified for the Bush administration to grab special dictatorial powers in order to combat terrorism. His posited position was demolished by both Nichols and Fein.

Nichols explained that the Constitution was designed by the Founders to be a "fighting" document, capable of handling dangerous times. He noted that the Constitution actually provides for the temporary barring of habeas corpus (the right to have one's imprisonment brought before a court and adjudicated), but he said that this was something that a president had to do with the approval of Congress (not behind its back), and only if the Country was under attack, which is of course, not the case right now.

Fein for his part noted that most of Bush's and Cheney's abuses of power and violations of the Constitution and the rule of law have been done not openly and in consultation with Congress, but in secret and in the dark of night. His secret monitoring of Americans' communications -- phones, mail, and Internet, for example -- went on for four years before it was exposed in an article in The New York Times. And the president has still not explained to anyone why he felt the need to break the law.

Fein and Nichols both blasted the current Democratic leadership of Congress for cowardice, lack of principle, and a basic failure to honor their oaths of office to uphold and defend the Constitution, in refusing to impeach the president. Fein said that in earlier administrations, there were always at least a few members of Congress who were honorable enough to put country and the Constitution above party. "We don't have anyone like that in Congress now," he said.

Actually, it was one failing of Moyers' program that neither he nor his two guests mentioned that there actually are some honorable members of the current Congress. They did not mention that Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) has filed a bill of impeachment against Vice President Cheney, and that his bill currently has 14 co-sponsors, with more people signing on every week. They also failed to mention that Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) only days before the program, declared in no uncertain terms that Bush and Cheney should be impeached, saying that the country was "closer to dictatorship than it has ever been" because of the president's assertion of "unitary executive" powers to ignore laws passed by the Congress."

Despite this one shortcoming, Moyers' program is a public shaming of the tawdry and shameless corporate media, which has ignored the exploding impeachment movement blossoming across the nation, pretending that it doesn't even exist, or that it is the province of a few leftist wackos.

In fact, as Moyers noted, the most recent poll on the issue shows that half of Americans want both Bush and Cheney impeached and removed from office.

It will be interesting to see what impact the powerful Moyers program has on the growing movement for impeachment, on how it is reported, and on the response in Congress.

While not watched by too many ordinary Americans, the program is influential among professional journalists and editors, and among liberals and progressives, who will be increasing their pressure on Democratic leaders to act.

Pelosi's efforts to block impeachment and keep it "off the table" will continue to look more and more pitiful and self-serving.

The next challenge to do-nothingism will be a march on July 23 from Arlington Cemetery to the office of Rep. John Conyers, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, and the man who has the power to kick-start hearings on impeachment -- in particular to schedule hearings on the Kucinich bill (H Res. 333).

A sit-in is planned in Conyers' office if he won't meet with the delegation, which will be headed by Cindy Sheehan, the anti-war and impeachment activist whose son was killed in action in Iraq.

DAVE LINDORFF, a Philadelphia-based investigative journalist and columnist, is author, most recently, of "The Case for Impeachment: The Legal Argument for Removing President George W. Bush from Office" (St. Martin's Press, 2006 and now in paperback), co-authored by Barbara Olshansky. A well-known investigative journalist and columnist, his work is also available at thiscantbehappening.net.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. The Lantern has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is The Lantern endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

....And The Truth Shall Set Us Free

New Media is a Must!

Published on Tuesday, July 10, 2007 by The Peninsula (Qatar)

Puppets In The Hands of Corporate Media

by Ramzy Baroud

To speak of an alternative media is to acknowledge the deficiency of the prevailing media, the mainstream, in addressing the issues, catering to the concerns, and responding to the woes of the general public, the overwhelming majority of people who are almost completely disregarded by the corporate media everywhere.

It is disheartening, to say the least, that at a time of unpopular wars, corrupt elites and a widening gap between rich and poor, the corporate media still finds it tasteful to follow the mischievousness of Paris Hilton, now that Britney Spears is getting back in shape after her drug mishaps, or discuss at length and tirelessly the most recent scandals or spectacular performances at Britain’s Big Brother or American Idol.

This is, of course, problematic if one is to consider the role of the citizenry in sustaining a healthy democracy, which itself requires an educated and well-informed public. When the public sphere becomes a puppet in the hands of the corporate media, whose profits and losses are often determined by friendly relations with the state, then a meaningful change in the lives of peoples of democratic societies is simply untenable.

The corporate media is, by definition, forged and sustained with corporate funds, by wealthy individuals whose objective is to amass more wealth, rather than ensure that freedom of speech serves as a guarantor for personal and collective freedom, social cohesion - as opposed to alienation - and democracy. Unlike theocratic or authoritarian societies, which simply stifle freedom of expression altogether, the conduct of the media in Western societies is legitimate from a legal standpoint: it violates no written rules, but the end result is the same.

In Taliban’s Afghanistan, people knew little of the outside world because TVs and satellite dishes were tabooed. In the US, most people, no matter how will intended, also know little of the outside world. Their perception is almost entirely concocted based on bits and pieces from CNN’s sound bites, Jay Leno’s comedy and Hollywood’s stereotypes.

But it should be recognised that democratic societies, although being robbed in so clever a way from their own meaningful democratic platforms are more than capable of tipping the balance in favor of free speech - as opposed to nations that are violently coerced not to exercise the same right.

Indeed, the more the US administration and its corporate media benefactors attempt to consolidate their control over public opinion, under various pretences, notwithstanding, the need for unity in the ‘war on terror’ - thus justifying the ostracising of dissidents - the more agitated Americans insist on their right to exercise their free speech, refusing to succumb to the new skewed logic of the time. Thus, the need for an alternative media.

Increasingly so, alterative media is breaking away from being a mere local expression of dissent, and is emergent as global initiatives; from international newspapers to progressive publishing houses, there is indeed an intense and genuine effort at countering the corporate media in a collective and equally global fashion. I spoke with two leading individuals whose work is felt around the world, but still, require the support of the public for their missions to truly succeed.

Wendy Kristianasen, the editorial director of LMD, Le Monde diplomatique’s English edition, told me: “I think it comes down to this: we publish wonderful writing that illuminates the state of the planet in a fresh way. LMD specialises in the very best journalism - things nobody knows about until after we’ve exposed them and important stories other papers miss altogether. And the analysis is sharp, and authoritative.”

“Everyone has heard of Le Monde diplomatique, they know of it as the famous Paris monthly, radical and independent. What they don’t know is that the paper has dozens of foreign editions around the world, in thirty languages, making for a global readership of one and a half million.” One of its many foreign editions is, of course, in English, and it can be easily obtained from www.mondediplo.com.

Dr. Roger van Zwanenberg is the Chairman and Publisher of Pluto Press Limited (www.plutobooks.com). This tireless individual, through his company, disseminates scores of most valuable books to countless bookstores and academic institutions the world over. His office on London’s Archway Road is reminiscent of a dungeon, but a lot of good comes out of it.

He commented during a recent conversation: “Pluto is 20 years old this year. We are a dying breed, an independent book publisher producing 60 new, non fiction, books a year. In a world where book publishing and selling are part of the great global media conglomerates, Pluto struggles to remain viable and alive.

Our niche, our rationale and our advantage in the marketing place of the world, is that we tackle the great issues of our day… the grandeur of Imperialism, war and peace locally and globally, the tyranny of oppression, and the domination of one people by another…. the great issues as seen through socialist writers’ eyes. Our readers expect not only relevant books, high quality professional production, and modest prices. This is what our house proudly stands for, and why we have a good chance to succeed to remain against the odds of a globalised world.”

Online, CounterPunch.org remains one of the most important and respectable commentary website anywhere. But since no single article can give a full account of the best alternative media available today, CommonDreams.org is an excellent place to start; this homepage list of alternative media is simply exhaustive.

It’s important to note that the success or failure of the alternative media is wholly reliant on the engagement and the support of the public, who would, ultimately have to make a choice: what issues to care about? What books to read? What music to listen to? And what news are worthy of attention: health coverage, education, war and peace, or Paris Hilton’s prison fiasco. The choice is ultimately ours.

© 2007 The Peninsula

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. The Lantern has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is The Lantern endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

....And The Truth Shall Set Us Free

Woodward Mea Culpa, well sort of....

Bob Woodward: Yes, I Should Have Probed Iraqi WMD More Closely
Bob Woodward
By E&P Staff Published: June 18, 2007 3:35 PM ET

NEW YORK: The venue was a bit odd -- an online chat marking the 35th anniversary of the Watergate burglary -- but it produced one of the clearest admissions yet by Washington Post editor/reporter Bob Woodward that he was among the many who fumbled the ball on pre-war Iraqi WMDs.

He also took issue with how a key Fred Thompson angle relating to Watergate is portrayed.

Woodward has written three books relating to the war, each one more critical of the effort than the previous one, but in the online chat at www.washingtonpost.com this afternoon he was asked about the media's performance while the run-up to the war was still underway.

A reader from Rancho Mirage, Calif., asked: "In light of Watergate, why did the "investigative" branch of the press miss so badly on the Bush-Cheney spin machine to justify Iraq? Was the lesson of Watergate wasted, or was the press serving the country well?"

Woodward replied: "I think the press and I in particular should have been more aggressive in looking at the run-up to the Iraq war, and specifically the alleged intelligence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction stockpiles. To answer the WMD question before the March 2003 invasion would have been a monumental task, but one that we should have undertaken more systematically."

Later, in response to a similar question, he added: "I think we've learned a lot from Watergate and from the handling of controversy and scandal in all the presidents' administrations since then. At the same time, as I said earlier, I wish everyone would be more aggressive -- the press and the Congress, and in developing a fuller system of accountability. Hopefully those in government also would see the value of transparency. Speaking openly and honestly gets issues out on the table, and as Nixon himself once said, 'it's the coverup that always matters.'"

Another reader asked about Fred Thompson, who was an attorney for the Watergate committee chaired by Sen. Sam Ervin and asked the crucial question about whether Nixon kept tape recordings.

Woodward replied: First of all, when Fred Thompson -- who was the Republican cousel to the Senate Watergate committee -- asked Alexander Butterfield the question about possible tape recordings in the White House or Oval Office, Thompson, like a good lawyer, knew the answer -- because three days before the public testimony, lawyers and investigators for the committee got Butterfield to reveal the existence of the secret tape-recording system.

Though Thompson seems to get public credit for asking this critical question, it was the work of others on the committee staff who dug out Butterfield's revelation in a lengthy interview on a hot Friday afternoon on July 13, 1973.

On another note, Woodward was asked if was really friends with Carl Bernstein (they have had their differences).

He replied: "I just talked to him an hour ago, and we talk all the time and see each other regularly. He was down here visiting my wife Elsa and I last week while on his book tour for his Hillary Clinton excellent biography 'A Woman in Charge.' Carl and I indeed are friends and will always be friends. We look at lots of things very differently, but over the decades have become much closer."

E&P Staff (letters@editorandpublisher.com)

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. The Lantern has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is The Lantern endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

....And The Truth Shall Set Us Free

The Media Are Trying To Create Reality Again

Memo To Media: Public Supports Dems' Confronting Of White House
By Greg Sargent bio

In a front page Washington Post article today by Jonathan Weisman and Lyndsey Layton about how the Democratic Congress is faltering, the reporters quote Leon Panetta making the case that Dems had better watch out and not be too confrontational with the White House:

"The primary message coming out of the November election was that the American people are sick and tired of the fighting and the gridlock, and they want both the president and Congress to start governing the country," warned Leon E. Panetta, a chief of staff in Bill Clinton's White House. "It just seems to me the Democrats, if they fail for whatever reason to get a domestic agenda enacted ... will pay a price."

Panetta, it appears, has become the go-to person for reporters eager to make the case that Dems are at risk of overreaching or failing. Indeed, it just so happens that this is the second time in just over a month that WaPo has gone to Panetta to get a quote arguing this. Funny coincidence, that.

But let's put that aside and ask a larger question: Is it really true that the public is fed up with partisanship and "sick and tired of the fighting," as Panetta says, and as David Broder and Joe Lieberman keep lecturing?

No doubt one could dig up polls showing that people don't like generically defined "fighting" or "gridlock." But here's another way to look at this: The polls show clearly that the public strongly supports efforts by Dems to confront Bush both on Iraq and on corruption. Check out the numbers in this recent Pew poll:

Do you think Democratic leaders in Congress are going too far or not far enough in challenging George W. Bush's policies in Iraq, or are they handling this about right?

Too far 23%
Not far enough 40%
About right 30%
Don't know/
Refused 7%

So 70% say that Dems are being appropriately or even insufficiently aggressive in challenging Bush.

Multiple polls show that solid majorities back Dem efforts to end the war -- efforts which by nature are confrontational and basically partisan, since the GOP more or less (with a few exceptions) continues to back Bush's Iraq policies.

What's more, multiple polls have also found that solid majorities support Dem efforts to probe GOP malfeasance -- also efforts which by nature are confrontational and partisan.

Bottom line: Asking whether the public opposes generic "partisanship" in the current environment is utterly meaningless.

Here's the deal: Bush and the GOP are doing a bunch of things. The American people don't like those things, and want them changed. But Bush and the GOP just keep on doing them, anyway. So Dems are the ones now trying to force Bush and the GOP to change.

In other words, the choice the public faces isn't between "fighting" and "gridlock" on the one hand, and "bipartisan cooperation" on the other. Rather, it's between (a) accepting the disastrous Bush/GOP status quo; and (b) backing Democratic efforts to change it. And the public supports the latter. Even though those efforts are partisan and confrontational. Is that really so hard to fathom?

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Update: A commenter below notes that "the public supports continuing pressure and a willingness to stand firm from the Democrats," but also that independents do believe bipartisanship "is the key to good public policy." Let me clarify: I don't have a problem believing that. The point is, "bipartisanship" is not on the menu. And faced with the choice they do have -- that is, between the status quo and Dem "fighting" to change it -- the public wants the latter.


(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. The Lantern has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is The Lantern endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

....And The Truth Shall Set Us Free

If You're Looking For The Truth, Look Overseas

U.S. media have lost the will to dig deep
A changed news culture has let several important investigative stories slip through the cracks.

By Greg Palast, GREG PALAST is the author of "Armed Madhouse: From New Orleans to Baghdad -- Sordid Secrets and Strange Tales of a White House Gone Wild."April 27, 2007


IN AN E-MAIL uncovered and released by the House Judiciary Committee last month, Tim Griffin, once Karl Rove's right-hand man, gloated that "no [U.S.] national press picked up" a BBC Television story reporting that the Rove team had developed an elaborate scheme to challenge the votes of thousands of African Americans in the 2004 election.

Griffin wasn't exactly right. The Los Angeles Times did run a follow-up article a few days later in which it reported the findings. But he was essentially right. Most of the major U.S. newspapers and the vast majority of television news programs ignored the story even though it came at a critical moment just weeks before the election.

According to Griffin (who has since been dispatched to Arkansas to replace one of the U.S. attorneys fired by the Justice Department), the mainstream media rejected the story because it was wrong. "That guy is a British reporter who accepted some false allegations and made a story up," he said.

Let's get one fact straight, Mr. Griffin. "That guy" is not a British reporter. I am an American living abroad, putting investigative reports on the air from London for the British Broadcasting Corp.

I'm not going to argue with Rove's minions about the validity of our reporting, which led the news in Britain. But I can tell you this: To the extent that it was ignored in the United States, it wasn't because the report was false. It was because it was complicated and murky and because it required a lot of time and reporting to get to the bottom of it. In fact, not one U.S. newsperson even bothered to ask me or the BBC for the data and research we had painstakingly done in our effort to demonstrate the existence of the scheme.

The truth is, I knew that a story like this one would never be reported in my own country.

Because investigative reporting — the kind Jack Anderson used to do regularly and which was carried in hundreds of papers across the country, the kind of muckraking, data-intensive work that takes time and money and ruffles feathers — is dying.

I've been through this before, too many times. Take this investigative report, also buried in the U.S.: Back in December 2000, I received two computer disks from the office of Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris. Analysis of the data, plus documents that fell my way, indicated that Harris' office had purged thousands of African Americans from Florida's voter rolls as "felons."

Florida now admits that many of these voters were not in fact felons. Nevertheless, the blacklisting helped cost Al Gore the White House. I reported on the phony felon purge in Britain's Guardian and Observer and on the BBC while Gore was still in the race, while the count was still on. Yet the story of the Florida purge never appeared in the U.S. daily papers or on television. Until months later, that is, after the Supreme Court had decided the election, when it was picked up by the Washington Post and others.

U.S. papers delayed the story until the U.S. Civil Rights Commission issued a report saying our Guardian/BBC story was correct: Innocents lost their vote. At that point, protected by the official imprimatur, American editors felt it safe enough to venture out with the story. But by then, George W. Bush could read it from his chair in the Oval Office.

Again and again, I see this pattern repeated. Until there is some official investigation or allegation made by a politician, there is no story. Or sometimes the media like to cover the controversy, not the substance, preferring an ambiguous and unsatisfying "he said, she said" report. Safe reporting, but not investigative.

I know some of the reasons why investigative reporting is on the decline. To begin with, investigations take time and money. A producer from "60 Minutes," watching my team's work on another voter purge list, said: "My God! You'd have to make hundreds of calls to make this case." In America's cash-short, instant-deadline world, there's not much room for that.

Are there still aggressive, talented investigative reporters in the U.S.? There are hundreds. I'll mention two: Seymour Hersh, formerly of the New York Times, and Robert Parry, formerly of the Associated Press, who uncovered the Iran-Contra scandal. The operative word here is "formerly."

Parry tells me that he can no longer do this kind of investigative work within the confines of a U.S. daily newsroom. One of the biggest disincentives to doing investigative journalism is that it jeopardizes future access to politicians and corporate elite.

During the I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby trial, the testimony of Judith Miller and other U.S. journalists about the confidences they were willing to keep in order to maintain access seemed to me sadly illuminating.

Expose the critters and the door is slammed.

That's not a price many American journalists are willing to pay.

It's different in Britain. After the 2000 election, when Harris' lawyer refused to respond to our evidence, my BBC producer made sure I chased him down the hall waving the damning documents. That's one sure way to end "access."Reporters in Britain must adhere to extraordinarily strict standards of accuracy because there is no Bill of Rights, no "freedom of the press" to provide cover against lawsuits. Further, the British government fines reporters who make false accusations and jails others who reveal "official secrets."I've long argued that Britain needs a 1st Amendment right to press freedom. It could, of course, borrow ours. We don't use it.


(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. The Lantern has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is The Lantern endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

....And The Truth Shall Set Us Free