Obama Finds Allies in Graham, Lieberman, and O'Reilly on Suppression of Detainee Photos

President Obama has some interesting supporters who agree with his decision to block the release additional photos of detainee abuse by U.S. forces.

Last night on The O'Reilly Factor , host Bill O'Reilly and Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Joe Lieberman (I-CT) praised Obama for his commitment to keep these photos under lock and key. Graham and Lieberman are trying to push through the Detainee Photographic Records Protection Act of 2009 that would ban the release of any photo between 9/11/01 and 1/22/09 that would "endanger the troops". The Senators and O'Reilly also took the time to chide those on the "far-left" for not caring about the lives of U.S. troops because of their advocacy for the release of these photos. Watch:





If we are going to ban photos, then Glenn Greenwald questions why we don't just suppress evidence of civlian deaths in Afghanistan when they occur. After all, information that the United States kills and maims civilians could be used as a recruiting tool that would "endanger the troops" right? Greenwald:

Using the standard that is now so accepted across the political spectrum in Washington -- information that will inflame anti-American sentiment should be suppressed rather than disclosed so at to not endanger our troops -- isn't it better if we just cover-up, rather than learn the truth about, the civilian deaths we caused in Afghanistan? After all, news reports of dead Afghan women and children at the hands of American bombs obviously inflame anti-American sentiment and Endanger Our Troops at least as much as the disclosure of some additional torture photos would. By the prevailing reasoning of Washington, shouldn't we want our government to hide the truth about what we did -- lest anti-American anger and the risk of attack on Our Troops increase? Isn't that the noble anti-transparency principle we're now endorsing?

The people who are killed by the airstrikes are just as dead. Thus, there's no value in transparency for its own sake. What's the point of our knowing as citizens the truth about what happened and learning the evidence that proves it? All that would do is put our Troops in danger.

Who cares about actual accountability, let's just suppress evidence of all mistakes made by the U.S. in the name of national security and call it a day. Out of sight, out of mind.

As Predicted, O'Reilly Airs Segment that Smears and Distorts

Last night, as expected, Bill O'Reilly aired the piece in which his producer ambushed Amanda Terkel of ThinkProgress. In my entry yesterday, I highlighted some excerpts from Terkel's account of the confrontation and mentioned that I expected O'Reilly to heavily spin the ambush, spin his own comments that Terkel criticized, and bring someone on the show to help him smear Terkel. O'Reilly, did not disappoint:



Immediately following this clip, O'Reilly brought on someone who has worked with the Alexa Foundation and with Alexa's family to help denounce Terkel, ThinkProgress, and NBC. O'Reilly's account of this scenario is heavily spun and he leaves out certain details such as:

- The initial audio clip from his radio show that Terkel and ThinkProgress initially criticized. O'Reilly mentions that the clip is on his website, but does not address the content of the clip nor does he defend this comments in that clip. Interesting considering that those comments are at the heart of this issue.

- O'Reilly fails to mention how he obtained comments from Terkel. He does not mention that he never invited her on his program to formally address the situation nor does he mention that he had his producer follow Terkel for two hours while she was vacationing in Virginia to ambush her during a time when she would be least prepared to discuss this issue. Perhaps O'Reilly doesn't mention this fact because he would then be caught in another lie. From the August 24, 2007 airing of The O'Reilly Factor:

As you may know, "The Factor" occasionally sends out producers to confront people who will not answer serious questions about controversial things they do, like judges giving child rapists probation, for example.

Now, some object to displays like these. But we feel they're a vital tool in holding public servants accountable for their actions, and we do not go after people lightly. We always ask them on the program first, or to issue a clear statement explaining their actions.

As Terkel points out in a follow-up post, she is not a public servant and she was never asked on the program first.

It seems as though if you make Bill mad enough by highlighting comments that he has made, he will send his producers to stalk you, ambush you, and then from the comfort of his studio, he will call you a "villain" while distorting the facts.

This kind of hypocrisy was outlined a while ago by Jon Stewart, but it certainly applies to this situation as well:

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O'Reilly's Latest Adventure in Ambush Journalism

Brace yourselves, you may think that I am not feeling well after I tell you this:

I want you to watch at least a portion of The O'Reilly Factor tonight. I know, I know...sounds like I've lost my mind, but go with me on this for a moment.

Amanda Terkel over at ThinkProgress, has posted an interesting account of her being ambushed by producers from The O'Reilly Factor. To provide a bit of context to the situation, it is important to know that Terkel recently wrote a piece critical of comments made by Bill O'Reilly. The comments made by O'Reilly back in August, deal with the issue of rape; in particular, the rape and killing of an 18 year-old girl named Jennifer Moore:

Now Moore, Jennifer Moore, 18, on her way to college. She was 5-foot-2, 105 pounds, wearing a miniskirt and a halter top with a bare midriff. Now, again, there you go. So every predator in the world is gonna pick that up at two in the morning. She’s walking by herself on the West Side Highway, and she gets picked up by a thug. All right. Now she’s out of her mind, drunk.

As Terkel points out, O'Reilly's comments were part of a larger discussion on the dangers of drunkenness. O'Reilly also used the example of Mel Gibson's anti-Semitic tirade and concluded:

"I think it’s safe to say that if Mel Gibson didn’t get drunk, he wouldn’t be in this terrible situation he finds himself in and if a young woman, 18-year-old Jennifer Moore of Harrington Park, NJ, didn’t get drunk, she’d be alive today.”

The issue in this case, as Terkel wrote about, is that O'Reilly seems to be implying that this young woman bears some responsibility for being raped and murdered because of the way that she dressed and because she had consumed alcohol. Terkel wrote about these comments because O'Reilly was slated to speak on March 19 at the Alexa Foundation, a group committed to supporting rape survivors, and it seemed interesting regarding O'Reilly's past comments outlined above.

Now that you know the background, here is the interesting part. Terkel says that while she was on vacation with a friend this past Saturday, O'Reilly's producer, Jesse Watters, ambushed her and demanded that she apologize for causing "pain and suffering" to rape victims and their families.

Many of you know that Bill O'Reilly has a history of using so-called "ambush journalism" to distort serious issues and then use these pieces to launch attacks on those who are ambushed from the comfort of his studio and without a chance for adequate response from the subjects of his smears. This is what we have come to expect from O'Reilly. What is interesting in this case is the context of the ambush. Here is a clip from Terkel's aforementioned piece:

I expect O’Reilly to air this “interview” at some point this week, possibly as early as tonight. I have no expectation that he will show the entire altercation or give the entire story about what happened, so here is the full account, offering a glimpse inside the O’Reilly harrassment machine:

– The Stalking: Watters and his camera man accosted me at approximately 3:45 p.m. on Saturday, March 21, in Winchester, VA, which is a two-hour drive from
Washington, DC. My friend and I were in this small town for a short weekend
vacation and had told no one about where we were going. I can only infer that
the two men staked out my apartment and then followed me for two hours. Looking back, my friend and I remember seeing their tan SUV following us for much of the trip.
– The Ambush: Shortly after checking into our lodgings, we emerged and immediately saw two men walking toward us calling out my name. Watters said he was from Fox News, but never said his or his companion’s name, nor did he say he was with The O’Reilly Factor.
– The Surprise Attack: Watters immediately began asking me why I was causing “pain and suffering” to the Alexa Foundation. He never gave me the context for his questions. Confused, I repeatedly asked him what he was talking about and whether he could refresh my memory, but he just continued shouting his question.
– The Evasion: I said that it was inappropriate for O’Reilly to imply that just because a woman may be drunk and/or dressed in a certain way, she should expect to be raped. Watters asked me whether I had listened to the interview (which I had) and claimed that O’Reilly had made the comments in the context of a commentary on Mel Gibson/drunkenness. When I tried to ascertain why he was attacking ThinkProgress in particular — even though other sites had also covered the story — he said that we were part of the “smear pipeline,” which also included the “Soros-funded” Media Matters. He ignored my comments when I asked if Fox News also smears people.
– Setting A Guilt Trap: Watters ended the charade by demanding that I look into the camera and apologize to the Alexa Foundation and rape victims. I told them that I don’t speak through Fox News and if someone from the Alexa Foundation would like to personally call me, I’d be happy to speak with that person.
– More Stalking: The camera man then continued to film me as I walked down the block. After a few minutes while I waited at the light to cross the street, Watters called him back and they left.

As Terkel predicted, it now appears that O'Reilly plans to air the segment on tonight's show. So now that you know all of this information, watch The O'Reilly Factor tonight and see how the ambush is spun, how O'Reilly spins his own comments that Terkel criticized, and who O'Reilly may bring on to attack both ThinkProgress and Amanda Terkel. Terkel says that she was never asked for a statement or to appear on O'Reilly's program prior to the ambush and that she has unsuccessfully contacted FoxNews for a response to the incident.

The Dishonesty of the Wall Street Journal

If you are looking for your daily dose of inaccuracy and dishonesty, you need look no further than today's editorial page of the Wall Street Journal. This discussion centers around President Obama's prime-time press conference the other night and his practice of calling on reporters from a pre-arranged list. From the piece (emphasis mine):

The problem wasn't the lighting in the East Room. The President was running down a list of reporters preselected to ask questions. The White House had decided in advance who would be allowed to question the President and who was left out.

Presidents are free to conduct press conferences however they like, but the decision to preselect questioners is an odd one, especially for a White House famously pledged to openness. We doubt that President Bush, who was notorious for being parsimonious with follow-ups, would have gotten away with rescreening his interlocutors. Mr. Obama can more than handle his own, so our guess is that this is an attempt to discipline reporters who aren't White House favorites.

I don't take exception to questioning the practice of preselecting reporters who get to question the President, I take exception to the WSJ's false statement that President Bush would not have gotten away with this practice. One would only need to do a small amount of research before realizing that President Bush also preselected reporters to call on during his press conference. Just the other night on The O'Reilly Factor, former White House spokesman Ari Fleischer blatantly stated that this was the practice:




Not only did President Bush make it an accepted practice to preselect who he would call on, but as noted in this article, the Bush Administration even scripted a whole press conference in the lead-up to the Iraq War to assure that no questions would be asked from the likes of TIME magazine or The Washington Post.

For the Wall Street Journal to suggest that Bush could have never "gotten away with rescreening his interlocutors" is misleading at best and flat-out dishonest at worst.

Alberto Gonzales and His Perverse Sense of Political Martyrdom

Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has recently resurfaced in the news media as he has announced plans to write a tell-all book about his time as a member of the Bush Administration. Gonzales appeared on The O'Reilly Factor last week to answer softball questions from substitute host Juan Williams about his role in approving so-called enhanced interrogation techniques and his role in the firing of nine U.S. attorneys.

Billed as a "Factor Exclusive", it quickly became clear why Gonzales chose The O'Reilly Factor as the forum for his first interview since leaving the Bush Administration. Williams began the interview with this question:

WILLIAMS: Now do these kind of loud appeals coming from the left for the
Obama administration to go after you, to look at criminal proceedings, does that
worry you?

GONZALES: It doesn't worry me, Juan. Obviously, in every
administration, every president is criticized. Cabinet heads are criticized. I
think if you're not criticized by someone, you're probably not doing your
job.

Other questions Williams asked were:

WILLIAMS: Now Ruben Navarrette, the columnist out in San Diego he says, you
know what? Liberals don't like you, conservatives don't like you. He says civil
libertarians are going after you for treatment of detainees as well as for
wiretaps. And then last week, you had the Senate Armed Services report that said
that based on their studies, the Obama administration should look at future
criminal proceedings. Now, let's stop and think about this for a second. Do you think that you did anything wrong in terms of paving the way for
detainees to be tortured?

WILLIAMS: Now, Mr. Attorney General, in September, the current Attorney
General Michael Mukasey appointed a prosecutor to look at whether or not there
were possible criminal charges, again criminal charges that could put you in
jail in regard to the firing of those nine U.S. attorneys. Again,
you're on the spot. You know, some people say there's a lynch mob after you. We
have talked just a moment ago about detainees. Now we are back to the nine U.S.
attorneys. Again, do you have any sense that you did something wrong
with regard to the firing of those nine U.S. attorneys?

Guess what Gonzales answered to both of these questions? "Absolutely not Juan..." followed by a long explanation for why he didn't feel he was in the wrong. It is clear that this was not a critical interview, but a chance for Alberto Gonzalez to continue to spout his talking points and deny that he did anything wrong or criminal while he was a member of the Bush Administration. Williams performance reminded me of a defense attorney gently asking his client rehearsed questions in order to allow his client to give favorable testimony in front of jurors.

If this appearance wasn't interesting enough, Gonzales also gave an interview to the Wall Street Journal's Evan Perez. From Perez's piece:

"What is it that I did that is so fundamentally wrong, that deserves this kind
of response to my service?" he said during an interview Tuesday, offering his
most extensive comments since leaving government.
During a lunch meeting two blocks from the White House, where he served under his longtime friend, President George W. Bush, Mr. Gonzales said that "for some reason, I am portrayed as the one who is evil in formulating policies that people disagree with. I consider myself a casualty, one of the many casualties of the war on terror."

Go ahead and read that excerpt again if you need to because it is quite telling of the mindset that exists not just within the Bush Administration, but within Washington. Not only does Gonzales express a sense of bewilderment at why people would think that he has done anything wrong, but he also plays the role of a political martyr by victimizing himself as "one of the many casualties of the war on terror." When I think about casualties of the so-called "War on Terror", I tend to think about the hundreds of thousands of innocents killed between Afghanistan and Iraq, I tend to think about the millions of displaced persons in both countries, and I tend to think about all those effected by the attacks on the World Trade Center. to name a few. What I don't think about, is Alberto Gonzales and his political career.

Aside from being appalling, the mindset that Gonzales puts forth stems from his belief that he is portrayed as evil for "formulating policies that people disagree with". He is viewing this, as was done in the interview with Juan Williams, as a political issue. Opponents of the torture policies and wiretapping policies that Gonzales has shown his support for, are painted as "liberals", "lynch mobs" and with vague terms like "the left". The debate is framed as political opposition to policies that were implemented by the Bush Administration. This issue, that of lawbreaking conducted by Bush Administration officials, should not be viewed through the lens of political accountability rather these concerns exist outside traditional political discourse. These concerns need to be discussed without a Pavlovian response to paint everything as "the left" vs. "the right" because we are talking about accountability to the rule of law and remaining a country in which no person can operate above the law.

The bewilderment that Alberto Gonzales expresses as he asks "what is it that I did that is so fundamentally wrong" is precisely a reason for why these Bush Administration officials should be held to account. Alberto Gonzales, like other Bush Administration officials, believe that they have done nothing wrong and that this criticism stems from "political opponents". This is despite reports like those from the bi-partisan Senate Armed Services Committee that state that Bush Administration officials are "directly responsible" for the abuse of detainees and despite the report done by Physicians for Human Rights which led Maj. General Antonio Taguba to state:

After years of disclosures by government investigations, media accounts,
and reports from human rights organizations, there is no longer any doubt as to
whether the current administration has committed war crimes. The only question
is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account.

It is imperative for the Obama Administration to understand that holding elected officials to account for breaking the law falls outside of political retribution. The media pundits and the Bush Administration continue to try and frame this issue of accountability within the context of political differences and in order for any kind of legal accountability to take place, it is absolutely necessary for the incoming administration to recognize that this is taking place. This would not be an act of investigating political opponents who drew up unfavorable policies, this would be an act of investigating elected officials who committed serious crimes because they believed themselves to be above the law. There is a difference and in order for this country to preserve itself as a nation where no one is above the law, it is a difference that needs to be realized and articulated by the incoming administration.

This article can also be found at: http://www.cincinnatibeacon.com/

How I Spent My Weekend...

This past weekend I attended the National Conference on Media Reform in Minneapolis, Minnesota. I spent my time attending numerous workshops, panels, and speeches by leading minds in the Media Reform movement. Over 3,000 people attended the event from all 50 states and beyond. We heard from Bill Moyers, Naomi Klein, Amy Goodman, FCC Commissioners Jonathan Adelstein and Michael Copps and many more leading voices on this issue. You can view some of the speeches and get more information at this link:


http://www.freepress.net/conference


Over the course of the weekend I couldn't help but be reminded of what many already know, that an independent and free media is necessary in order for the public to be informed and for democracy to function. This is the key belief of those within the Media Reform movement. We believe that we have slid into dangerous territory with greater media consolidation, propaganda being used on U.S. citizens and media outlets that act as little more than a megaphone for the official word. It is important for us to look beyond the myth of the so called "liberal media" and give careful examination to the role that giant corporations have upon the information that we consume on a daily basis. It is clear at this juncture, that our very democracy is in trouble. It is not simply enough this time around to remain silent and hope that the issue resolves itself. Fighting for an independent press is a fight for our democracy and should not be taken lightly.


There are many in the corporate media who feel that dismissing those of us who gathered this weekend as "far-left" or "nuts" as Bill O'Reilly has put it, will negate the issue. In fact, O'Reilly sent his producer to ambush Bill Moyers while at the conference as to why Moyers will not appear on O'Reilly's show. First and foremost, ambushing someone, is not journalism. The attempt that O'Reilly used was nothing more than an attempt to gather a sound byte with which he could use on his show to attack and defame Moyers without any discussion of the real issues at hand. The raw footage of this incident was captured by other journalists at the Conference and I have included it below. Bill O'Reilly has promised to show his audience just how "nuts" those who attended the conference are on tonight's show. I will be comparing this raw and unedited footage below, with what airs on Bill O'Reilly's program and make discussion of this the topic of my next blog.


We need to fix the media for this very reason. If what you see below qualifies as journalism then it is obvious that we have a long fight ahead of us.