MediaShift

Why! Our government does'nt avoid conflicts of interest. As a matter of fact everything I've read about the government in the last month says they're guilty of more than conflict of interest...

you're way too kind to traditional media here...

bloggers are largely leading the way in disclosing conflicts, perhaps because they know online readers can simply click away to another, more transparent blogger in the blink of an eye....whereas traditional journalists have had monopolies in, say, local markets (e.g., daily newspapers) for far too long

it's the bloggers who are keeping the journalists honest here, not the other way around

good question mark - so i'll bite given that i am a blogger who happens to work inside traditional media ;)

its all about disclosure & the realization that whatever you post (or comment on) can be read by anybody and could be available forever...

so each time you post, ask yourself - should i be simply listening and learning or do i actually have something to add to the conversation and can i stand behind it even if i have to defend my motivations for posting...

my blog is personal and has nothing to do w/ my employer but i do post about the industry i work in and sometimes about companies i know or used to work for, so i always open a sensitive post w/ a disclosure on how the post topic relates to me if needed as well as i've always made sure to state the following: "this is a personal weblog. the opinions expressed are mine and not related to my employer in any way."

i also make sure to list my affiliations such as the boards i serve on & when pertinent the stocks i own...

this disclosure philosophy works for me, but of course if i think something will be a conflict of interest if i make a public statement about it (even w/ disclosure) - simple, i just don't make the statement...

in this regard i follow the robert scoble school of blogging - "be smart" :)

Transparency is only the prelude, and disclosure can be faked. For example, who cares if a PayPerPoster declares that they're paid to promote (or attack) something?

What matters is the agenda, whether hidden or confessed. We do not wish to hear from paid enthusiasts or hired flamers. We want to hear from unincentivized, uncoached, unrehearsed, unscripted users who have no axe to grind and no butts to kiss. True word of mouth buzz in the blogosphere is based on this peer-to-peer recommendation system.

In online journalism, we expect the same lack of bias and good breeding. Plus, the ability to post comments in a thread directly connected to the articles, and not shoved aside to some forum space where few readers venture.

This is the global democracy revolution: from now on, everyone is on a level communications playing field. Political, governmental, religious, family, commercial, and other domination systems give way to the voice of the individual.

Journalism is not known for universal high ethics, but they used to be good at keeping the interest and loyal readership of an audience. That has now changed.

I don't think the question is: "How will the blogosphere benefit from professional mainstream journalists?"

The question is: "How will the blogosphere continue to destroy the very fabric and foundation of mainstream journalism?"

And: "How do we keep the creepy agendas and bias of mainstream journalism OUT of the beloved blogosphere?"

As far as TechCrunch, and other bloggers who are suspected of dubious or detrimental policies, we have our ways of dealing with such things in the blogosphere.

Influencers and friends of influencers can cause rapid avalanches when necessary.

Basically, we want most [that is, the corrupt, arrogant, and greedy] businesses and journalists to stay out of the blogosphere. We don't need or want them.

As long as I've been blogging, I have been struck by the ethos of serious bloggers that the key to ethics is transparency and honesty, not a phony stance of objectivity. That has long been considered the key differentiation between bloggers and MSM reporters. As blogging exploded, we've seen a rise of bloggers who maybe less aware of the need for transparency and honesty, but the key advantage of a typical blog is that it is one person with a clear personal agenda.

Yes...many bloggers are almost Too Transparent, and if they have an axe to grind or a butt to kiss, they stridently proclaim it.

Bloggers tend to be, and I include myself, a bit too confessional, too much focus on self, and Mark brings up a very astute point about MSM journalists: they are not narcissistic in their writings.

While MSM journalists often have more subtle bias, whether left or right or whatever, at least they don't blabber on and on about their favorite music, their relationships, or their children.

:^)

"Old Media" journalists have become stenographers in the way that they practice objectivity. Evidenced by the NYTimes new color-coding method of identifying articles so, god forbid, readers don't find any opinion.

Full disclosure, yes. But lifting the veil of objectivity in the blogosphere allows the writer to not have to include all sides in order to purport to some sort of fairness, no matter how crazy some arguments may be.

I'm feeling scattered right now -- not too coherent -- but bloggers are on the right track. We all have to be concerned with transparency, but it's the bloggers leading the way, not the other way around.

Um, bloggers aren't journalists. Of course, some are, however, the lions-share are not. If you're a good blogger, you have two characteristics:

1. You're an expert
2. You're passionate about your expertise

If the above is true, then you have one-heck-of-a blog and much to offer.

"Should bloggers avoid conflicts of interest as journalists do?"

wow. even the title is filled with assumptions. i propose that there are very few actual journalists left in the us. certainly only two or three who work in TV; as far as print goes, ditto. we are down to three major media outlets, and even PBS was neutered in the early 70's. the loss of such a giant as Ed Bradley is a real tragedy. i trusted him. i do not trust the vast majority of those left behind. i trust dan rather--why did he get screwed? michael moore and several others published the same info, and it was not proven to be untrue. oh well.

my point is: true journalists are few and far between. poor grammar, misspellings, misinformation and misquotes are commonplace. journalistic skills are not as important as a pretty face, and talking heads only need to be able to read a teleprompter.

the question is moot.

journalists have ethical standards to which they can be held (in theory); bloggers are private individuals, and can be held to no standard (unless there is one put in place by their blog host). most often they are self-deluded blow-hards who feel the need to see their viewpoints in print (of a sort)--it allows them to experience immortality. they write an open-ended op-ed column. WHO CARES?

"Um, bloggers aren't journalists"

Aren't they? That sure wasn't the line they were taking when the FEC was in the process of rulemaking re: the internet.

The problem is that some bloggers want to have it both ways. They want to take their government-paid-for junkets to Amsterdam; they want to be paid political advisors; they want to be industry insiders (firing offenses in my world)... but yet they want to be called journalists at the same time.

So, I'd say the question posed is up to the individual blogger to answer, much as it is often up to the individual journalist. Companies (like mine) have policies, but often it is up to me to make judgment calls on the fly when a source wants to pay your lunch tab, or when someone offers information you know was acquired in a less-than-legal manner.

It ultimately comes down to credibility. Bloggers have to decide whether they want to be taken seriously by readers as information brokers, or dismissed as shills. It's their choice. Personally, I think this is THE single biggest issue noone in the blogosphere is really talking about. Kudos for raising it.

"Should bloggers avoid conflicts of interest as journalists do?"

Actually I have no opinion. I either know or I don't know. There is no other view for me. So in that sense I write as if the only thing that matters is the information. It does not matter which point of view someone sees it from, nor mine, since I have none. It only means something if the information is real, factual, and trustworthy or does it? The main question is: What is real, factual, and trustworthy? I myself trust no one, because everyone sees even the same incident differently. No one has the same eye's nor the same brain, but which of them actually "sees" anyways? Reality is in the eyes of the viewer, no matter who sees it, or how they see it. All I can do is present information that I feel is trustworthy and non-trustworthy and hope that people are intelligent enough to distrust me and every other journalist. With the hopes that they will research for themselves. Hopefully, they research it all the way back to the person who saw it on the street or wherever something took place. Then of course comes the question: Can I trust hear-say? Well in all actual fact, everything in the world is hear-say; everything. So who too trust? Well it leads to the ultimate quote: "I know that I know nothing." Everything I hear and see is but my perception of those events, not that of those who experience it with me.

That being said, "I care not for what emotions I evoke in readers... though I love that it does."

"Knowledge is freedom... Research is the path to attain it!"

Benjamin Franklin
"The great secret of succeeding in conversation is to admire little,
to hear much; always to distrust our own reason, and sometimes that of our friends; never to pretend to wit, but to make that of others appear as much as possibly we can; to hearken to what is said and to answer to the purpose. "

Patrick Henry
"Are we disposed to be of the number of those, who having eyes, see not, and having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly concern their temporal salvation? For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it might cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst, and to provide for it."

Samuel Johnson
"In order that all men may be taught to speak the truth, it is necessary that all likewise should learn to hear it."

Who says journalists avoid conflicts of interest? Bill Moyers is a paid head of a foundation which has a goal to convince government to action on global warming along with other agendas. And yet he has a free hand at PBS to produce "documentaries" on global warming and other news worthy items. The NY Times ombudsman also recently made a statement that went something like this "of course the Times is liberal...and then went one step further and stated that they have an out right agenda when it comes to gay marriage.

Sorry don't agree with your premise as any thoughtful citizen would.

yes. otherwise they are no different from journalists.

How do I rate the corporate media? Lousy. You are propaganda hacks or castrated poodles on a leash. That's for journalists. As for the networks, they are corporate America's propaganda outlets. There to push the interests and agenda of Corporate America, the Bush regime and conservative ideology. Your purpose is to shape the opinions and attitudes of the American people so you can get them to vote for the issues and candidates corporate America and conservative ideology favors. You do this by censoring the truth, managing the dialogue and manipulating the debate. You filter out the other voice, the other perspective, especially the liberal, progressive perspective on the issues we face, so the American people will never hear their side of the argument. Meanwhile you constantly reinforce the conservative ideology of corporate America, conservative Republicans and the Bush regime on your news talk shows. You never question or challenge the party line, and if you do its only to answer the critics-who never get to speak for themselves, answer the points raised or allowed to pursue their point. All we get is a one sided discussion that is highly biased to begin with. It allows you to rewrite not only current events but history. In the process creating a distortion of the truth, a false reality and a deluded understanding of the situation. Don't call yourselves journalists. Call yourselves pr people. Then you can claim just a little honesty for yourselves.

Here's what I wrote before being given this marvelous opportunity to give my opinion about the media. No surprise it should occur on the Now web site. If all the corporate media propaganda outlets were like Now it would make everything I write here a lie. They aren't, so I stand by everything I write here.

just a continuation of earlier remarks.

Here here.

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Date: Thu, 23 Nov 2006 15:37:34 -0500 [11/23/2006 08:37:34 PM GMT]
From: "David J. Sirota"
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Subject: "Bipartisanship" Hides the Real Power Equation That No One Talks About
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"Bipartisanship" Hides the Real Power Equation That No One Talks
About

By David Sirota

Here?s a very simple question to ponder with full stomachs after our
Thanksgiving meal: is the real problem afflicting our political
system a lack of so-called ?bipartisanship? or is it actually too
much bipartisanship?

I ask this question honestly, because it seems to me that
congressional Democrats believe that, above all, their mandate is to
be more ?bipartisan.? Out of all the messages coming from them and
the professisonal political elite in Washington (the Serious People
as many call them), the call for more ?bipartisanship? seems the most
crisp. Summing up this call from other Democrats quite succinctly,
Speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi said, ?The American people voted for a new
direction to restore stability and bipartisanship to Washington, D.C.?

I?ll admit, that feels soothing for a few minutes. Yes, yes, wouldn?t
we all like to go back to that era that actually never occurred to
frolick happily through the fields of bipartisanship that never
existed. But like the cheap massage chairs you can test out at the
mall, the soothing quickly becomes a painful digging and scratching,
which is why you don?t buy the chair, why we shouldn?t buy all this
rhetoric about a need for more ?bipartisanship,? and why only a fool
whose brain has rotted from Potomac Fever would actually believe that
a country under severe economic distress in a neverending quagmire in
Iraq walked into the ballot box and voted primarily on a desire to
see Mitch McConnell hug Harry Reid.

Anyone who spends 5 minutes around the halls of power in the nation?s
capital knows that Washington is dominated by one party: The Money
Party, and that the People Party is far outnumbered - even after this
election. Look no further than votes on the bankruptcy bill, the
energy bill, the class action bill, China PNTR and NAFTA to figure
out which politicans who call themselves Republicans and Democrats
actually belong to the Money Party and which politicians actually
belong to the People Party. The Establishment pretends this paradigm
doesn?t exist - they need the drama of Democrats vs. Republicans to
sell newspapers, and more importantly, hiding the existence of the
real power equation is in the interest of all the major for-profit
corporations that own the media.

Let?s also be honest - this Kabuki Theater is sometimes reinforced by
the Netroots and by self-described ?progressive? institutions in
Washington. There are various reasons for this. Sometimes its just
easier to pretend that life is a cartoonish struggle between Blue and
Red, with Blue always being Moral and Just, and Red always being Evil.
Other times, it is a matter of financial pressures - some of the
self-anointed progressive leaders and institutions in Washington are
actually very much a part of the Money Party, both in terms of thier
funding and their ideology.

What this election really was was a surge for the People Party,
because so many candidates were elected on anti-Money Party themes
(opposition to pay-to-play corruption, opposition to lobbyist-written
trade pacts, etc.). This explains why in the election?s aftermath we
hear such repetitive calls for ?bipartisanship?: they are really
repetitive and not-so-hidden attempts to make sure the Money Party
that includes both Republicans and Democrats remains dominant and
that the election?s mandate is ignored. The thing they really do not
want is for the People Party to assert itself against the Money
Party.

I hope when Pelosi and other Democrats talk about ?bipartisanship?
they understand the real partisan divide in Washington, and will use
their power to build coalitions of Republicans and Democrats to push
the People Party?s agenda. Because doing the opposite - solidifying
coalitions of Republicans and Democrats to continue pushing the Money
Party?s agenda - is not the ?bipartisanship? this country wants or
deserves.

To paraphrase Barry Goldwater, I would remind progressives that
partisanship in the defense of regular people is no vice, and
Washington?s faux bipartisanship in the pursuit of selling out is no
virtue.

Thank god we can count on our government and the media to get to the bottom of this. Then we can count on the corporate media propaganda outlets to start their con job on the American people to sell the nomination of Bob Gates for secretary of Defense. Usual white wash coming. And you people have the gall to call yourselves journalists. Street prostitutes have more honor and integrity.

Gates and the Iran Arms Sales
By Robert Parry
Consortium News

Thursday 23 November 2006

In November 1987, as the Reagan administration was still scrambling to contain the Iran-Contra scandal, then-deputy CIA director Robert M. Gates denied that the spy agency had soft-pedaled intelligence about Iran's support for terrorism to clear the way for secret U.S. arms shipments to the Islamic regime.

"Only one or two analysts believed Iranian support for terrorism was waning," Gates wrote in articles that appeared in the Washington Post and Foreign Affairs magazine. "And no CIA publication asserted these things."

However, a month earlier, an internal CIA review had found three reports from Nov. 22, 1985, to May 15, 1986, claiming that Iranian-sponsored terrorism had declined, according to a sworn statement from veteran CIA analyst Ray McGovern, who prepared the review for senior officials in the Directorate of Intelligence [DI].

"My findings uncovered an unexplained discontinuity," McGovern's affidavit said. "To wit on 22 November 1985, in an abrupt departure from the longstanding analytical line on Iranian support for terrorism, DI publications began to assert that Iranian-sponsored terrorism had 'dropped off substantially' in 1985. I recall being particularly struck by the fact that no evidence was adduced to support that important judgment.

"This new line was repeated in at least two additional DI publications, the last of which appeared on 15 May 1986. Again, no supporting evidence was cited. After May 1986, the analytical line changed, just as abruptly, back to the line that had characterized DI reporting on this subject up to November 1985 (with no mention of any substantial drop or other reduction in Iranian support for terrorist activity)."

The timing of CIA's dubious reporting in 1985 about a decline in Iranian-backed terrorism is significant because the Reagan administration was then in the midst of secret Israeli-brokered arms shipments of U.S. weapons to Iran.

The shipments not only were politically sensitive, but also violated federal export laws ? in part because Iran was officially designated a terrorist state. So, playing down Iran's hand in terrorism worked for the White House whether supported by the facts or not.

At that time, Gates was deputy director in charge of the DI, putting him in a key bureaucratic position as the CIA worked to justify geopolitical openings to Iran. Even earlier, in spring 1985, Gates had overseen the production of a controversial National Intelligence Estimate that had warned of Soviet inroads in Iran and conjured up supposed moderates in the Iranian government.

That Gates, two years later, would make exculpatory claims about the CIA's reporting ? assertions contradicted by an internal DI report ? suggests that he remained more interested in protecting the Reagan administration's flanks than being straight with the American public.

In his affidavit, McGovern wrote that after Gates's exculpatory articles in November 1987, "efforts to correct the record remained unsuccessful."

[McGovern's report to senior DI management about the Iran-terrorism issue was dated Oct. 30, 1987; his affidavit was signed Oct. 5, 1991, during Gates's confirmation to be CIA director, but the sworn statement was not made public at that time.]

Iran Initiative

The dispute about Gates's role in the Iran-Contra scandal and his contradicted denial about the CIA reporting on Iranian terrorism are relevant again today as the Senate considers Gates's nomination to replace Donald Rumsfeld as Defense Secretary.

Gates's honesty has long raised concerns among CIA colleagues, members of Congress and federal investigators who looked into the Iran-Contra scandal.

Although independent counsel Lawrence Walsh chose not to indict Gates over Iran-Contra, Walsh's final report didn't endorse Gates's credibility either. After recounting discrepancies between Gates's Iran-Contra recollections and those of other CIA officials, Walsh wrote:

"The statements of Gates often seemed scripted and less than candid. Nevertheless, given the complex nature of the activities and Gates's apparent lack of direct participation, a jury could find the evidence left a reasonable doubt that Gates either obstructed official inquiries or that his two demonstrably incorrect statements were deliberate lies."

For his part, Gates denied any wrongdoing in the Iran-Contra arms-for-hostage deal and expressed only one significant regret ? that he acquiesced to the decision to withhold from Congress the Jan. 17, 1986, presidential intelligence "finding" that gave some legal cover to the Iran arms shipments.

Beyond that one admission Gates submitted what reads like carefully tailored denials of his involvement in the scandal. In 1991, when he was facing confirmation hearings to be CIA director under President George H.W. Bush, Gates said:

"As Deputy Director for Intelligence, I was not informed of the full scope of the Iran initiative until late January/early February 1986; I had no role in the November 1985 shipment of arms; I played no part in preparing any of the Findings; I had little knowledge of CIA's operational role."

Narrow Denial

Left out of that denial, however, was what exactly did Gates know about the Iran initiative prior to January 1986, particularly about several 1985 shipments that violated the Arms Export Control Act. Nor did he make clear whether he exerted any influence over the production of Iran-related intelligence reports, including the ones that downplayed Iran's support for terrorism. In 1985, Israel and some of its allies within the Reagan administration were pushing for permission to sell arms to Iran, which was then fighting a bloody border war with Iraq. Israel was seeking to expand its strategic influence in Iran, while suggesting to the White House that Iran might help gain the freedom of American hostages then held by Islamic extremists in Lebanon.

Gates's DI set the stage for the Iran initiative by producing a special National Intelligence Estimate in May 1985 that laid out justifications for U.S. openings toward Iran, including fears of Soviet inroads in Iran if the United States did nothing.

In a Nov. 21, 2006, article for the Los Angeles Times, former CIA analyst Jennifer Glaudemans charged that the special NIE flipped the judgments of CIA Soviet specialists who saw little chance of Moscow making progress with Tehran.

"When we received the draft NIE, we were shocked to find that our contribution on Soviet relations with Iran had been completely reversed," Glaudemans wrote. "Rather than stating that the prospects for improved Soviet-Iranian relations were negligible, the document indicated that Moscow assessed those prospects as quite good.

"What's more, the national intelligence officer responsible for coordinating the estimate had already sent a personal memo to the White House stating that the race between the U.S. and USSR 'for Tehran is on, and whoever gets there first wins all.'

"No one in my office believed this Cold War hyperbole. There was simply no evidence to support the notion that Moscow was optimistic about its prospects for improved relations with Iran. �

"We protested the conclusions of the NIE, citing evidence such as the Iranian government's repression of the communist Tudeh Party, the expulsion of all Soviet economic advisors � and a continuing public rhetoric that chastised the 'godless' communist regime as the 'Second Satan' after the United States.

"Despite overwhelming evidence, our analysis was suppressed. At a coordinating meeting, we were told that Gates wanted the language to stay in as it was, presumably to help justify 'improving' our strained relations with Tehran through the Iran-Contra weapons sales." [LAT, Nov. 21, 2006]

Bolstered by the NIE, Ronald Reagan's national security adviser Robert McFarlane began circulating a draft presidential order in June 1985 proposing an overture to Iran.

After reading the draft, Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger scribbled in the margins, "this is almost too absurd to comment on." The plan also contradicted President Reagan's public policy to "never make concessions to terrorists."

Still, in July 1985, Weinberger, McFarlane and Weinberger's military assistant, Gen. Colin Powell, met to discuss details for doing just that. Iran wanted 100 anti-tank TOW missiles that would be delivered through Israel, according to Weinberger's notes.

Reagan gave his approval, but the White House wanted to keep the operation a closely held secret. The shipments were to be handled with "maximum compartmentalization," the notes said. On Aug. 20, 1985, the Israelis delivered the first 96 missiles to Iran.

Pivotal Moment

It was a pivotal moment. With that missile shipment, the Reagan administration stepped over a legal line. The transfer violated the Arms Export Control Act's requirement for congressional notification when U.S. weapons are trans-shipped and a prohibition on shipping arms to nations, like Iran, that had been designated a terrorist state.

On Sept. 14, 1985, Israel delivered a second shipment, 408 more missiles to Iran. The next day, one hostage, the Rev. Benjamin Weir, was released in Beirut. But other Americans were snatched in Lebanon, undermining a key rationale for the arms deals.

Word of the Iranian arms shipments also was spreading through the U.S. intelligence community. Top-secret intelligence intercepts in September and October 1985 revealed Iranians discussing the U.S. arms delivery.

The risk of exposure grew worse in November 1985 when a shipment of 80 HAWK anti-aircraft missiles ran into trouble while trying to transit through Portugal en route from Tel Aviv to Tehran. In a panic, White House aide Oliver North pulled in senior CIA officials and a CIA-owned airline to fly the missiles to Tehran on Nov. 24, 1985.

But one consequence of drawing the CIA directly into the operation was a demand from the CIA's legal advisers that a presidential "finding' be signed and congressional oversight committees be notified.

With the White House desperately looking for ways out of its worsening dilemma, the CIA's Directorate of Intelligence ? with Robert Gates at the helm ? reported a substantial decline in Iran's support for terrorism, according to McGovern's affidavit.

By citing this alleged Iranian moderation, the CIA created some policy space for Reagan finally to formalize the arms shipments with an intelligence "finding," signed on Jan. 17, 1986. But the authorization ? and the Iran arms deals ? were still kept hidden from Congress and even Pentagon officials.

A day after Reagan's finding, Gen. Colin Powell instructed Gen. Max Thurman, then acting Army chief of staff, to prepare for a transfer of 4,000 TOW anti-tank missiles, but Powell made no mention that they were headed to Iran. "I gave him absolutely no indication of the destination of the missiles," Powell testified later.

Though kept in the dark, Thurman began the process of transferring the TOWs to the CIA, the first step of the journey. Powell's orders "bypassed the formal [covert procedures] on the ingress line," Thurman acknowledged in later Iran-Contra testimony.

As Powell's strange orders rippled through the top echelon of the Pentagon, Lt. Gen. Vincent M. Russo, the assistant deputy chief of staff for logistics, called Powell to ask about the operation. Powell immediately circumvented Russo's inquiry. In effect, Powell pulled rank by arranging for "executive instructions" commanding Russo to deliver the first 1,000 TOWs, no questions asked.

"It was a little unusual," commented then Army chief of staff, Gen. John A. Wickham Jr. "All personal visit or secure phone call, nothing in writing ? because normally through the [covert logistics office] a procedure is established so that records are kept in a much more formal process."

Finally, Wickham demanded that a memo about the need for congressional notification be sent to Powell. "The chief wanted it in writing," stated Army Lt. Gen. Arthur E. Brown, who delivered the memo to Powell on March 7, 1986.

Poindexter's Safe

Five days later, Powell handed that memo to President Reagan's national security adviser John Poindexter with the advice: "Handle it ... however you plan to do it," Powell later testified.

Poindexter's plan for "timely notification" was to tell Congress on the last day of the Reagan presidency, Jan. 20, 1989. Poindexter stuck the Pentagon memo into a White House safe, along with the secret "finding" on the Iran missile shipments.

When the Iran-Contra scandal finally broke into the open in November 1986, most participants in the operation tried to duck the consequences, especially for the 1985 shipments that violated the Arms Export Control Act, what Secretary Weinberger once warned President Reagan might constitute an impeachable offense.

For second-tier officials, such as Gates and Powell, admitting knowledge of or involvement in the 1985 shipments would amount to career suicide. So, Gates, Powell and most other administration operatives insisted they knew or recalled nothing.

Undercutting Gates's claims of ignorance and innocence, however, is that his subordinates in the DI were pushing unsupported notions about why shipping arms to Iran made sense, according to Glaudemans and McGovern.

With Congress hoping for a new Defense Secretary who has both the guts and the clout to stand up to White House pressure, the senators who will evaluate Gates's fitness for the job may want to look back at this troubling Iran-Contra episode.

-------

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How often do I have to keep saying to the Bush regime and his propaganda outlets in the corporate media, STOP LYING! STOP LYING TO YOURSELVES AND THE AMERICAN PEOPLE!

Bush has made a total complete mess in Iraq and the Middle East. We are the problem. Not the solution. The longer we stay the worse we make the conditions, the situation in Iraq and the Middle East. We have to get out now. Its like a patient with gangrene. We can�t save the leg, but if we cut it off now, we might be able to save the patient. The longer we delay though, the more we have to cut off. Delay long enough and we will lose the patient.

The mess in Iraq after we leave is going to be horrible. The thing to remember is the sooner we get out the less horrible it will be. Our presence there only exasperates the situation. Had we gotten out a year or so ago before Shia�s and Sunni�s had started their sectarian fighting and the blood feuds began a chance for a settlement were much better. Allaytoya Histani was there. Had other options open to us as well, but these are all gone now. So now what? Are you going to police a civil war? Get it through your f�en heads we are the problem. Not the solution. The only way we are going to keep this mess from getting worse and from spreading throughout the Middle East is by getting out now and getting ourselves in a position where we can try to salvage the mess Bush and his Archie Bunker Neo-cons have created.

All this bullshit we are hearing now from the Bush pigs and the corporate media propaganda outlets is to cover their ass, avoid responsibility for the mess they created in Iraq and the Middle East-watch for the blame game to start in earnest as the coming catastrophe in Iraq and the Middle East unfolds and the presidential elections get into full gear-and to spread responsibility for the war to Democrats, if the Democrats are stupid enough to sign on to accepting responsibility for the war. This was Bush�s war. Period. The entire mess is his fault. The solution is to get out. Now. That�s the only responsibility the Democrats should accept. Forget about offering other solutions. When we said don�t go to war on Iraq we were called unpatriotic, traitors, supporters of terrorism, and a whole lot of other crap. When we offered other ideas for solving the problems in Iraq or as possible solutions to the mess, again demonized and put down. Besides, how can we expect a solution from the same corrupt, incompetent assholes who created this mess in the first place to all of a sudden disavow everything they have done, change policies and competently execute an exit strategy? Aren�t you asking a bit much?

Besides. The only solution that will work now is far too radical for Bush to accept. The only reason he is accepting what he is now is because reality hit him hard on the head and he has no choice. He is still working now to bastardize the situation, get Democrats in for the blame by making the solution �bipartisan� so when it all goes to hell Democrats can at least be caught holding part of the bag. There will be another definition for stupid if Democrats buy in to Bush�s proposals. Democrats should say, look Bush, get us out of Iraq in six months, accept responsibility for your fuck up, and we will fund the troops for a withdrawal. Failing that, we cut funding for the war on Iraq and you have no choice but to bring the troops home now. The pigs, of course, will squeal and the corporate media propaganda outlets will cry foul and blame Democrats for everything that goes wrong, demonizing them, etc. etc., but the corporate media propaganda outlets are going to do that anyway. Remember Murtha? They tried that then, but Murtha fought back and the American people saw threw the crap. Democrats can now take part in the dialogue. They are really stupid if they allow themselves to be out maneuvered by Bush and Republicans on this one. Especially since the American people have made it clear they out out and a change of direction. So. Tell Bush this is the direction we are taking and if you don�t go along with us then you and Republicans can answer to the American people. For once stand up for principle. Don�t compromise or sell us out.

Washington's Iraq Chimeras
By John Brown and Ray McGovern
TomPaine.com

Wednesday 22 November 2006

The war in Iraq began as a war based largely on illusions. But now most Americans realize that the always-illusory option of "staying the course" in Iraq will never work. This was the main message of the recent Congressional elections. Still, there is a great danger that we will fall victim to additional Iraq-related illusions - illusions fostered by the administration, Congress, the Pentagon and the mainstream media.

Three persistent illusions - which, intentionally or not, serve to cover up or minimize the mess President George W. Bush has created in Iraq - stand out:

The Baker/Hamilton Commission is our way out. The possibility afforded by the James Baker/Lee Hamilton-led Iraq Study Group (ISG) for a new approach has been met with knee-jerk optimism in the media. This is especially true of newspapers like The Washington Post whose editorial pages present apologias, rather than the mea culpas more appropriate to the paper's three-year varsity cheerleading for the war.

Bush can use the ISG to good advantage. It gives him some time to sort out the implications of the severe Republican election losses; it makes Iraq not just a Republican problem, but a "bipartisan" (read: also Democratic) one; and, perhaps most importantly, it serves as a vehicle to take the bloody situation in Iraq itself off the headlines. Instead, the media can be directed to what is being said in Washington about Iraq (always of greater interest to our domestically-focused news corporations than what is actually happening abroad). All the while, of course, Americans are being encouraged to buy into the illusion that the ISG is doing something concrete to find a successful way out of Iraq.

What the Iraq Study Group can actually do, though, is quite limited. There simply are no good options. This or that recommendation may be able to provide cover, should the White House decide to choose what it considers a lesser evil.

But the administration itself seems to be moving to tamp down expectations that the Baker-Hamilton group is primus inter pares among the burgeoning number of commissions and committees on Iraq, and that the ISG will provide the panacea solution for which the mainstream press lusts.

In an effort to portray the president as something more than a bit player, the White House announced yesterday that he will meet with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki in Amman on November 29-30 to focus on "progress made to date in the deliberations of the high-level joint committee on transferring security and responsibility, and the role of the region in supporting Iraq." National security adviser Stephen Hadley told the press that the idea for a summit meeting "came up ... maybe a little longer than a week ago. But, obviously, things accelerated as you do on these things in the last couple days." Asked to elaborate on the timing and venue, Hadley lamely explained that the president would fly to Amman after the November 28-29 NATO summit in Riga, Latvia, since "the president was going to be in the region [sic]." Hadley stressed, "There are many voices the president will want to listen to," besides the Baker-Hamilton study group and, in his determination to "draw from a varietyof sources," Bush will "want to hear what Primer Minister Maliki wants to say."

The administration recently established an "Iraq Policy Review" to harness expertise from within the government; the Pentagon has completed its own study, with planners said to be favoring a hybrid strategy labeled by one defense official "Go Big But Short While Transitioning to Go Long [sic]"; Dr. Victory-is-the-Only-Outcome and presidential adviser Henry Kissinger now says military victory is impossible; and the languishing final draft of last summer's National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq can also be put in play should any of its conclusions lend themselves to supporting the preferred policy adjustment.

Thus, there is varied counsel to choose from, with the wisdom of the Iraq Study Group just one among many places to go for it; in effect, the ISG has been deliberately taken down a peg. So, illusions, politically useful as they are for the short term, are kept under long-term control through "other views," lest they actually lead to questioning the administration's policies, whatever they may be.

Training Iraqis will save the day. Training Iraqi troops to replace American ones has long been touted by the administration and the Pentagon as key to success in Iraq, a view reiterated last week by General John Abizaid in his testimony before Congress. On the surface, U.S. training of Iraqi soldiers and police seems like a viable option: It takes Americans out of the line of fire, it "softens" the impact of the U.S. occupation, making American soldiers appear to be instructors rather than aggressors, and, most importantly, it ideally gives Iraqis themselves responsibility for safety and order in their own country.

But there are many reasons to be skeptical about the effectiveness of U.S. training. First, report after report indicates the limited success - and notable failures - of U.S. training, including a recent article by Michael Scherer in Salon and yesterday's Washington Post report by Thomas E. Ricks.

Second, it is doubtful that American forces, the object of much hostility in Iraq, are sufficiently familiar with local conditions and traditions (not to mention the language) to impart even specialized military knowledge to Iraqi counterparts. Third, U.S. military training itself is by no means perfect or necessarily applicable, as a recent article in The Weekly Standard by Eric Egland, "Six Steps to Victory: The bottom-up plan to defeat the insurgency" suggests. Egland writes that:

According to one soldier in Iraq, his unit spent days going over how to clear a foxhole, something many had already trained to do numerous times in their careers. The problem is that the enemy we face in Iraq is not entrenched in foxholes, but moves fluidly and blends into the civilian population.

Of course, the key issue regarding creating a reliable home security force in Iraq is not "training" but - as neoconservative pundit Charles Krauthammer points out in one of his rare insightful moments - allegiance.

The chances of members of the various Iraqis under arms giving genuine allegiance to a central Iraqi government - or to any likely Iraqi government in the foreseeable future - range from slim to non-existent. Indeed, ethnic and religious differences and widespread infiltration of the army - not to mention the police - by sectarian forces are so pervasive that it is debatable whether one can accurately speak of an "Iraqi Army."

We Will Keep Some Kind of Control No Matter What. There is a deeply ingrained belief, perhaps rooted in eternal American optimism, that the U.S.still has the ability to control developments in Iraq to a greater or lesser degree. Advocates for different policies - augmenting U.S. troops or withdrawing them - seldom consider the possibility that local conditions could turn out to be so chaotic that we could not do what we want to do once we have decided to do it. This Green-Zone naivet� may be psychologically soothing, but it is dangerously divorced from reality in Baghdad, which is becoming more violent and fragile each day. In The Guardian (November 15), Simon Jenkins wisely warns against the "we're in control" illusion:

As we approach the beginning of the end in Iraq there will be much throat clearing and breast-beating before reality replaces denial. For the moment, denial still rules. In America last week I was shocked at how unaware even anti-war Americans are (like many Britons) of the depth of the predicament in Iraq. They compare it with Vietnam or the Balkans - but it is not the same. It is total anarchy. All sentences beginning, "What we should now do in Iraq ... " are devoid of meaning. We are in no position to do anything. We have no potency; that is the definition of anarchy.

In sum, at a time when the American public has said "no" to what passes for administration policy on Iraq, we must be on the alert for shimmering chimeras - illusions about what the U.S. can still accomplish in that troubled country. Only then can we safely sort out and choose among the best approaches - ranging from talking with "enemies" like Syria, Iran and the "insurgents" themselves, to international conferences.

Our aim must be the quickest possible withdrawal of American troops from Iraq, letting Iraqis themselves decide the fate of their country. The urgency of achieving this becomes even more acute in light of the heavy-handed demagoguery already in evidence from prospective presidential candidates in 2008. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., for example, has chosen to play fast and loose with the lives of Americans and Iraqis alike, in calling for sending substantially more troops to Iraq.

If McCain really thinks the situation can be rescued by more troops he needs a tutorial on counterinsurgency. Rather, his appeals seem motivated primarily by a wish to escape responsibility for "losing Iraq" when electoral politics heat up again. If that is his calculation, what he will not escape is responsibility for any delay this crass political tactic causes in getting our country out of this misbegotten adventure and bringing our troops home, as soon as this can be done in an orderly way.

John Brown, a former Foreign Service officer who practiced public diplomacy for over twenty years, now compiles the "Public Diplomacy Press Review," which can be obtained free by e-mail. Ray McGovern, a CIA analyst for 27 years, now works with Tell the Word, the publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in Washington, DC.

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Have to throw this in. Set up for next piece.

Thanks - No, Seriously
By Molly Ivins
Truthdig

Wednesday 22 November 2006

Austin, Texas - It's time to give thanks, and I want to start off with a great, big thank you for the top American movement conservatives and all the fun we've had since Election Day. I know I promised not to gloat after this election was over, but I'm not talking unseemly gloating - I'm talking about moments so brilliantly hilarious the only option is to put your head down on the desk and howl.

First in line is the wit of The National Review's Kate O'Beirne, who clearly teamed up with Borat to explain the great conservative win. Her explanation is that this is a win for conservatism because a great many of the D's elected are so conservative themselves. She says half of them are conservatives.

She is indeed right. If only twice as many Democrats had been elected, it would have proved that there are twice as many conservatives in the country, and this is clear to any thinking person. We might challenge Ms. O'Beirne to explain how the next Republican win is a victory for liberalism.

The reason that O'Beirne and others are able to accept such an absurdity is because they've been listening to George W. Bush for six years and are thus able to believe six impossible things before breakfast.

Speaking of "thinking," another great moment for conservatives this year was highlighted on the Nov. 16 edition of Comedy Central's "The Daily Show." Host Jon Stewart addressed a recent remark that CNN Headline News host Glenn Beck made to Rep.-elect Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), the first Muslim ever elected to Congress.

Beck said, "I have been nervous about this interview with you because what I feel like saying is, 'Sir, prove to me that you are not working with our enemies.' " After airing Beck's comment, Stewart declared, "Finally, a guy who says what people who aren't thinking are thinking."

While the Washington press corps worried its pretty little head to a frazzle over Nancy Pelosi's Armani suits and terrible start as speaker of the House (except she hasn't started as speaker), they forgot to fret over Trent Lott, who had previously been bounced unceremoniously from the Senate leadership team to which the Republicans just reelected him. They seem to have forgotten that he had expressed the wish that Strom Thurmond, the segregationist candidate for president, had won in 1948.

Thanks for the late Johnny Apple and the now retired Adam Clymer (who predicted a 28-seat sweep and the possibility of taking the Senate) for reminding us that The New York Times used to know how to cover politics. So, for that matter, did The Washington Post, now graced only by E.J. Dionne.

Thanks for Cokie Roberts, who was the only alert citizen on television on election night. The others were either stalwart Republicans or John McCain worshipers.

Thanks from a grateful nation for an obedient press corps that failed during Bush's six-hour, carefully orchestrated visit to Indonesia to register the fact that there were massive demonstrations against his administration and its policies toward Muslims. The demonstrators during his short visit forced him to stay behind the presidential palace wall all day and - due to concerns for his safety - not spend the night.

So many of our media mavens have been so wrong for so long that we may yet see a mere modicum of becoming self-doubt from our professional pontificators. And think how thankful we'd all be for that. Their sources, led by Karl Rove, have had them eating Pablum out of their hands for years now.

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For me this has already happened with PBS and the News Hour. I�ve been bitching about it for a long time but so what? What�s happening now is by design. Bitch all you want, but this is going to happen. Best to look elsewhere for your news and information and get the truth there because you sure as hell aren�t going to find it in our news media.

The Decline of Journalism
By Thomas D. Williams
t r u t h o u t | Report

Monday 20 November 2006

If some doomsday industry analysts are to be believed, newspapers are laid out and stacked neatly inside their own future death warehouses, not only in the United States, but worldwide.

"October was a pretty depressing month for national newspapers. While circulations slide, the industry news has been dominated by job cuts and staff unrest, particularly among journalists," England's Guardian Unlimited reported in November. A month earlier, Der Spiegel, the intellectual German news magazine, disclosed that more and more, German journalists are leaving the print media to get safer and more lucrative jobs with corporate public relations agencies.

But some concerned and dedicated journalistic observers both inside and outside the US news business believe the demise or baggage-seat status of newspapers is a farfetched theory. It is promoted, say news insiders, by corporate executives operating large newspaper chains. They are engrossed in making news collection as cheap as possible, while forcing a larger advertising layout in newspapers at the expense of the formerly generous pages of a variety of local, national and international news. And as they do, publishers and editors claim to be inventing a new, easy-to-read, streamlined form of tabloid attractive to all ages, particularly the younger set.

Threat of Extinction

Published explanations of fiscal threats to newspapers from so-called industry communications experts and corporate news executives sound so logical. Their mantra is: the news business is under constant threat of extinction from fierce Internet advertising competition, extraordinary increases in newsprint costs and declining newspaper profit margins.

It is hard to question news executives' assertions that the Internet is a modern information superhighway, easier to access, keenly popular with a younger generation of site-Googling activists. As a result, experts say, newspapers are losing much of their classified and display advertising to a host of flashy, photogenic and even audio-video-oriented Internet sites. Only older adults, used to washing ink off their hands, would read a newspaper, those same experts say. Newspapers have fought back, creating their own Internet sites with free news and paid advertising.

In spite of the Internet's allure, and a variety of news sites like Salon and Slate, many competing newspapers are still making 20 percent profits. That is five percent more than used to be acceptable in the decades when publishers understood the costly but essential responsibility of being part of the Fourth Estate, while scrutinizing and reporting on government and corporate corruption.

Profitable and Resilient

In its 2005 state of the news media, Rick Edmunds of the Poynter Institute says, "As businesses, newspapers are strong, highly profitable and resilient. In good times and mediocre, the industry now boasts operating margins in the low to middle 20-percent range, a bit less than Microsoft and Dell, but higher even than pharmaceuticals."

Hosts of editors, reporters and readers are angry just listening to and repeatedly reading what they consider "excuses" to increase profits while eroding probing enterprise journalism. Those committed to public service news and investigative reporting believe grave industry profits to be manipulative, shallow or misleading. In fact, the very rationale for saving newspapers - cost cutting, layoffs and buyouts - is thought to have created circulation and profit drop-offs, and to foster the very predictions of a dark, deadly fiscal whirlpool. The bigger the staff and cost cuts, the more advertisers and readers are scared away, indeed creating loss of disgusted readers and lesser profits.

As newspaper size shrinks, experienced reporters and editors are replaced by relative greenhorns. Then, the comparative evidence in daily published reporting shows a wide variety of in-depth stories and features morphing into larger sensational headlines, bigger photos, news graphics and repetitious bad news dominated by politics, crime and war.

Lock on Talent

Paul Marks, 53, spent 30 years of his life as a reporter in more than one newspaper before he became discouraged by the lock on his development and talent, and left the ever-declining staff of the Hartford Courant this year. He said he once again feels professionally energetic and less creatively constrained as an aerospace and speechwriter for the president of Pratt & Whitney, a manufacturer of aircraft engines, gas turbines and space propulsion systems.

As an eventual result of declining staff, Marks said, Courant editors cut back on reporter training, workshops, fellowships and conferences. Reporters were sometimes trapped collecting and writing a workaday 10-inch story instead of attending a rare all-day, local seminar on an assigned specialty - in his case the energy industry.

When he and other reporters wanted to be reassigned to expand their careers, Marks said, they frequently were blocked because cutbacks made it difficult for editors to transfer them to better assignments with so few replacements. And, as time and cuts wore on, said Marks, reporters had difficulty suggesting time-consuming, in-depth stories because they were needed instead for day-to-day routine coverage. "The people who had good local or deep sources and thorough understanding of the political landscape the Courant lost to attrition," said Marks. "As a result, the Hartford Courant just became another parachute in news organization, like TV stations or the Associated Press."

"Every time a newspaper loses staff, it forces those remaining to take on more duties in the effort to continue the paper's core mission ... to create a strong local report," Les Gura, metro editor of the Winston-Salem Journal, told the Poynter Online journalism site. "The problem?" he asked. "If you reduce staff, you are going to have to either cut local coverage, or add duties to those remaining to maintain local coverage."

Readers Rebelled

As reporters were being pulled out of some towns that supplied prime circulation, said Marks, local readers were pelting the paper with e-mails, phone calls and letters complaining about the loss of published news in their towns. Still other readers are being fed a steady diet of news features, initiated from such superficial inspirations as eunuchs collecting taxes in India. Such oddities can be easily collected by a reporter from the Internet and rewritten, a task that saves the reporter the time it takes to explore on the street for a more fascinating, readable local feature, said Marks.

However, the Courant's newly appointed top editor, Cliff Teusch, has said the cuts are merely a challenge for editors and reporters to reinvent ways to cover news for a "thriving" newspaper. "We all know very well the grander reinvention agenda that faces us today," Teutsch told the staff recently. "We need to make the smartest, boldest moves we can as we confront challenges in circulation and advertising and changes in how people get their news and information. As a staff, you have shown great enthusiasm for this in the numerous innovative ideas you have submitted in recent days."

Bob Greene was a longtime investigative reporter and editor for Newsday and the founder of the journalism program at Hofstra University. He is perhaps one of the foremost experts in the country on investigative journalism. Greene suggests the innovation Teutsch mentioned has disappeared. "Reduced news staffs lead to gradual abdication of responsibility for comprehensive and insightful news coverage," he said.

"The quarterly report drives public corporations, including those holding and publishing newspapers," says Greene. "When many of our great newspapers were owned by individual persons or families, they were willing to reduce their profit margins in any given quarter or year if it came to maintaining reporting staff or devoting much time and money to investigative and other forms of public service reporting. This was in tacit acknowledgment that their businesses also had a unique Constitutional responsibility to fully inform.

Profits Are the Goal

"In this respect, I can think of publishers like the Taylor family and the Boston Globe, Alicia Patterson and Newsday, the Bingham family with the Louisville Courier Journal, the Chandler family and the Los Angeles Times, the Pulliam family in both Indianapolis and Phoenix and many others, big and small. These newspapers and others of their kin are now owned by public corporations, where constantly increasing profits are the paramount goal," says Greene.

Pat Feeley, a former Connecticut resident now living in Colorado, is a veteran newspaper reader who buys hard copies of the Coloradoan, and regularly reads the New York Times online, as well as sometimes the online Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, "and even the [Hartford] Courant." She thinks news executives, editors, reporters and readers, too, have allowed their public service values and native intelligence to erode. Instead, she says, they have become mesmerized by starlit gossip and scandals, money-making, power politics, Internet blogs, television and conformity.

"Newspapers and journalists themselves are slipping," says Feeley, "and most have adapted ineptly to the succession of electronic media. The public companies have become hysterically responsive to the 'expectations' of Wall Street.... [News] is a mature industry, and a profitable one, and it isn't going to have growth like Microsoft or Crocs or Google before the bubble burst. I think it is managing for the short term, not the longer one.

"Don't discount the decline of American education," she said, "and the rise of the consumerist imperatives as sources of trouble in the newspaper trade. We now think we should be entertained from infancy to senility, and aren't willing to work to understand difficult concepts, other cultures, other points of view, nor do many citizens have the skills to do any of that. This goes for journalists as well as readers," she explained. "We keep seeing what we want to see; we keep following the herd, as in the hero worship that kept Bush in office with scare tactics. [Some] journalists and publishers knew better, but were afraid to say anything for fear of being tabbed as 'disloyal' or 'un-American.'"

Simplistic Thinking

"This is the kind of simplistic thinking that says, 'You're for us or against us' was contagious," said Feeley. "Fear and greed too are powerful motivators. I think the scariest thing is how many people listen to and read only [information] that agrees with their point of view; the proliferation of purported news outlets permits one to do that. If you are narrow, you only get narrower that way, and the country gets more polarized."

Although newspaper executives like Dennis FitzSimons, chairman, president and CEO of Tribune Company in Chicago, say the declining revenues of newspapers require responsible officials like himself to repeatedly cut expenses and reduce staffing, those closer to the printing presses believe these reductions are themselves the cause of lost revenues and quality newspapers.

As a result of the pressures from stockholders and boards of directors, the Tribune is actively trying to extract itself from the fiscal-vs-journalistic- value controversy. Its officials are proposing to sell out as a corporate whole or by auctioning off its newspapers and television stations to individual buyers. The latter prospect has encouraged some dedicated journalists to hope that selected parts of the news business will flash back decades. That's when some newspapers were owned by rich individuals who allowed professional editors and reporters to pursue in-depth news. But a few of the potential buyers swooping in over the Tribune, it is believed, are thought to have ambitions to influence news content for more selfish schemes.

But as newsroom cuts continue to threaten the product, the corporate goal of attracting new buyers willing to pay the highest of prime sales prices seems to become less realistic to some inside the news profession. And, even if that goal is reached, it is clear to many editors and reporters that new owners will have to improve staffing levels and encourage a wide variety of in-depth story collection.

Tradition Destroyed

"Reporters and editors once had a vocation and worked in a place that generated hope and the possibility of justice," says Andy Thibault, a former reporter and editor who now operates, investigates, reports and edits from his own Connecticut news blog. "The so-called news executives have sold out and destroyed a grand tradition."

In her last column before she took a buyout in December 2005 as part of staff reductions at the Hartford Courant, 27-year news veteran Michele Jacklin was clearly fed up with constant erosion at the nation's oldest continuously published broadsheet.

"In the 1980s, the Courant staffed its Capitol bureau [covering the state legislature] with five reporters. [Still] other reporters were assigned to cover the full panoply of state agencies, from the Department of Transportation to the Properties Review Board. Today, there are fewer reporters in the Capitol bureau and many of the state and regional beats have been dismantled," wrote Jacklin in "This Columnist's Last Stand."

"Not long ago, a spokesman for a major agency confided that employees once lived in fear of opening the newspaper and reading about some bureaucratic misstep that was sure to land them in hot water. That anxiety has gradually dissipated," Jacklin wrote.

Heft of Cotton Candy

She continued: "Nowadays, the spokesman said, agency officials don't worry about embarrassing revelations. The news media don't dig as deeply as they once did, don't attend hearings as often as they used to, don't go to as many press conferences as in the days of old. Sad to say, Connecticut's Fourth Estate no longer believes that informing and educating voters about their political leaders and government is its chief responsibility. As a substitute for hard news and insightful analysis, readers are served up a steady diet of splashy graphics, celebrity gossip and stories with the heft of cotton candy."

The Associated Press's recent headlines tell it all:

Tribune Said to Be Mulling Sale of Company in Pieces
Google Targets Newspaper Advertising
LA Daily News Publisher Out, 21 Jobs Cut
Akron, Ohio, Newspaper Cuts Top Newsroom Job
San Diego Newspaper Offers Buyouts

Surprisingly, despite today's predictions of the demise of newspapers as a result of declining advertising and readership in the Internet age's takeover of communications, part of this dragged-out story is decades old.

The movie "Network," about the perils of network television news aiming daily sensationalistic programming at viewers and advertisers to make millions of dollars for corporations, was produced 30 years ago.

"Deadline USA," another and even older 1950s film, starring the legendary Humphrey Bogart as the feisty city managing editor battling to save his newspaper as it's about to be sold off for profit-taking, has, as well, a familiar story line in this 21st century.

On one hot polar extremity is Bogart's character, editor Ed Hutchenson - and in "Network," actor Peter Finch's character, wild and crazy news anchor Howard Beale - while on the other frigid extremity are multiple imaginary, money-hungry corporate executives.

The two courageous characters, editor Hutchenson and news anchor Beale, look to many harried modern-day newsmen like rare dinosaurs, but are they?

"Not Going to Take This"

As his world as a newsman morphs more into entertainment and his very professional existence is threatened, Beale screams at his TV viewers: "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!" And editor Hutchenson is outraged and unrelenting - fighting on all fronts for his news colleagues and for the perpetuation of his sacred journalism, says a New York Times movie review.

Where are Beale and Hutchenson today?

They are still around, but seldom seen in the columns of their own newspapers. One of them lost his battle with corporate executives recently.

Los Angeles Times editor Dean Baquet was ousted November 7 for taking the "mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore" attitude toward staff cuts at the paper. Eventually, after he continually refused to go along with the latest in a series of staff cuts ordered by Tribune Company executives controlling the Times, Baquet, to the dismay of reporters and editors, was forced out earlier this month.

"Sometimes when I sit down with editors and managing editors, I find them all too willing to buy the argument for cuts," Baquet was quoted as saying. "We need to be a feistier bunch. It is the job of the editor of the paper to put up a little more of a fight than we've been willing to put up in the past, because a public service is at stake. We understand the business model is changing and we have to do some cutting," he said, "but don't understand it too much."

But, of course, Baquet, instead of covering city hall as a newsman, was fighting it as the editor closest to corporate executives' reach. And, now he's gone from the Times after 19 years as a journalist there and elsewhere. Eight years earlier, as an investigative reporter for the same Tribune that pressured him out as editor, he won a Pulitzer Prize for leading a team of three in documenting corruption in the Chicago City Council.

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Thomas "Dennie" Williams is a former state and federal court reporter, specializing in investigations, for the Hartford Courant. Since the 1970s, he has written extensively about irregularities in the Connecticut Superior Court and Probate Court systems for disciplining both judges and lawyers for misconduct. His stories about the corrupt activities inside the Hartford Probate Court helped encourage a federal grand jury probe leading to the conviction of the court's investigator for corrupt activities, the first attempted impeachment of a judge or any official in the state's history, and a legislative probe that resulted in major changes of the court's disciplinary system for state lawyers. Another of his investigative inquiries in the 1980s led to the forced resignation of a Superior Court judge who was hiring and appointing friends and relatives for lucrative court duties. His most recent freelance stories exposed failings of the Connecticut Judicial Review Council, investigating misconduct by Superior Court judges and the regular one-and-a-half-year delays in deciding State Appellate Court cases. He has received numerous awards for his investigative and in-depth reporting.

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Knowing how politicians and the corporate media propaganda outlets act I�m making plans to get established in another country with financial reserves. When it blows here, I�m gone.

Only have one comment here. Notice how the corporate media propaganda outlets, even though truthout is not, all focus their attention for our fiscally irresponsible government in creating this looming crisis of bankruptcy for the United States on the cost of domestic programs. Apparently irresponsible tax cuts giving trillions of dollars away to the already wealthy and super wealthy, as well as to profitable corporations making billions of dollars, part of the corporate welfare our capitalistic society pursues for companies and wealthy individuals, has nothing to do with the deficits. Apparently, neither do bloated military budgets where hundreds of billions of dollars, if not trillions of dollars are wasted. Nobody knows. Its an accounting black hole. No. The problem is those damn domestic programs which help people in this country.

Just want to point out here quickly that the money going to domestic programs circulate throughout our economy far more than military dollars and dividends to the wealthy. Military spending wastes money, or if you prefer, costs money. It costs money to produce, maintain and run a tank which quickly becomes obsolete and produces nothing in return. Someone did a study which showed the rate of return on every dollar spent for the military was only 75 cents. A dollar spent for domestic purposes returns a dollar twenty five. That�s because if you produce a truck or a tractor it goes to work for you making money.

Its simple really. Give people money and they spend it. That stimulates the economy and is a benefit for society as a whole. It creates job and wealth. Give money to the military and the already wealthy and you take money out of the economy-probably in equal proportion as the above study showed. The wealthy, for example, have to buy fewer necessities as the poor and middle class, but even if they didn�t, their numbers are far too few to have much of an impact on the economy. I mean, how many cars and consumer goods are the wealthy and the super wealthy going to buy anyway? And please don�t bring up that discredited trickle down theory of economics. It was rightly called voodoo economics. Maybe great for the Lords and Ladies of America, but for us peasants it was the greatest boondoggle to come down the pike. It justified the greatest transfer, excuse me, theft of wealth in America since the days of slavery. Probably bigger, but only because our economy is bigger now. Of course, with the keepers of the status quo in control of the system and our media propaganda outlets not very likely the American people are going to hear the truth about this. Instead, they will be told we must do something about the deficits and cut domestic programs. That or raise their taxes. Tax cuts for the wealthy, of course, must be kept in place or increased so the trickle down theory of economics can work more effectively. I don�t know who should be more insulted by this. Me, because you think I�m that stupid, or you, because you think I would believe such an idiotic idea..

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Top Government Official Says US on Verge of Economic Disaster
By Matt Crenson
The Associated Press

Saturday 28 October 2006

A dirty little secret everyone in Washington knows, or at least should. The vast majority of economists and budget analysts agree: The ship of state is on a disastrous course, and will founder on the reefs of economic disaster if nothing is done to correct it.

David M. Walker sure talks like he's running for office. "This is about the future of our country, our kids and grandkids," the comptroller general of the United States warns a packed hall at Austin's historic Driskill Hotel. "We the people have to rise up to make sure things get changed."

But Walker doesn't want, or need, your vote this November. He already has a job as head of the Government Accountability Office, an investigative arm of Congress that audits and evaluates the performance of the federal government.

Basically, that makes Walker the nation's accountant-in-chief. And the accountant-in-chief's professional opinion is that the American public needs to tell Washington it's time to steer the nation off the path to financial ruin.

From the hustings and the airwaves this campaign season, America's political class can be heard debating Capitol Hill sex scandals, the wisdom of the war in Iraq and which party is tougher on terror. Democrats and Republicans talk of cutting taxes to make life easier for the American people.

What they don't talk about is a dirty little secret everyone in Washington knows, or at least should. The vast majority of economists and budget analysts agree: The ship of state is on a disastrous course, and will founder on the reefs of economic disaster if nothing is done to correct it.

There's a good reason politicians don't like to talk about the nation's long-term fiscal prospects. The subject is short on political theatrics and long on complicated economics, scary graphs and very big numbers. It reveals serious problems and offers no easy solutions. Anybody who wanted to deal with it seriously would have to talk about raising taxes and cutting benefits, nasty nostrums that might doom any candidate who prescribed them.

"There's no sexiness to it," laments Leita Hart-Fanta, an accountant who has just heard Walker's pitch. She suggests recruiting a trusted celebrity - maybe Oprah - to sell fiscal responsibility to the American people.

Walker doesn't want to make balancing the federal government's books sexy - he just wants to make it politically palatable. He has committed to touring the nation through the 2008 elections, talking to anybody who will listen about the fiscal black hole Washington has dug itself, the "demographic tsunami" that will come when the baby boom generation begins retiring and the recklessness of borrowing money from foreign lenders to pay for the operation of the U.S. government.

"He can speak forthrightly and independently because his job is not in jeopardy if he tells the truth," said Isabel V. Sawhill, a senior fellow in economic studies at the Brookings Institution.

Walker can talk in public about the nation's impending fiscal crisis because he has one of the most secure jobs in Washington. As comptroller general of the United States - basically, the government's chief accountant - he is serving a 15-year term that runs through 2013.

This year Walker has spoken to the Union League Club of Chicago and the Rotary Club of Atlanta, the Sons of the American Revolution and the World Future Society. But the backbone of his campaign has been the Fiscal Wake-up Tour, a traveling roadshow of economists and budget analysts who share Walker's concern for the nation's budgetary future.

"You can't solve a problem until the majority of the people believe you have a problem that needs to be solved," Walker says.

Polls suggest that Americans have only a vague sense of their government's long-term fiscal prospects. When pollsters ask Americans to name the most important problem facing America today - as a CBS News/New York Times poll of 1,131 Americans did in September - issues such as the war in Iraq, terrorism, jobs and the economy are most frequently mentioned. The deficit doesn't even crack the top 10.

Yet on the rare occasions that pollsters ask directly about the deficit, at least some people appear to recognize it as a problem. In a survey of 807 Americans last year by the Pew Center for the People and the Press, 42 percent of respondents said reducing the deficit should be a top priority; another 38 percent said it was important but a lower priority.

So the majority of the public appears to agree with Walker that the deficit is a serious problem, but only when they're made to think about it. Walker's challenge is to get people not just to think about it, but to pressure politicians to make the hard choices that are needed to keep the situation from spiraling out of control.

To show that the looming fiscal crisis is not a partisan issue, he brings along economists and budget analysts from across the political spectrum. In Austin, he's accompanied by Diane Lim Rogers, a liberal economist from the Brookings Institution, and Alison Acosta Fraser, director of the Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.

"We all agree on what the choices are and what the numbers are," Fraser says.

Their basic message is this: If the United States government conducts business as usual over the next few decades, a national debt that is already $8.5 trillion could reach $46 trillion or more, adjusted for inflation. That's almost as much as the total net worth of every person in America - Bill Gates, Warren Buffett and those Google guys included.

A hole that big could paralyze the U.S. economy; according to some projections, just the interest payments on a debt that big would be as much as all the taxes the government collects today.

And every year that nothing is done about it, Walker says, the problem grows by $2 trillion to $3 trillion.

People who remember Ross Perot's rants in the 1992 presidential election may think of the federal debt as a problem of the past. But it never really went away after Perot made it an issue, it only took a breather. The federal government actually produced a surplus for a few years during the 1990s, thanks to a booming economy and fiscal restraint imposed by laws that were passed early in the decade. And though the federal debt has grown in dollar terms since 2001, it hasn't grown dramatically relative to the size of the economy.

But that's about to change, thanks to the country's three big entitlement programs - Social Security, Medicaid and especially Medicare. Medicaid and Medicare have grown progressively more expensive as the cost of health care has dramatically outpaced inflation over the past 30 years, a trend that is expected to continue for at least another decade or two.

And with the first baby boomers becoming eligible for Social Security in 2008 and for Medicare in 2011, the expenses of those two programs are about to increase dramatically due to demographic pressures. People are also living longer, which makes any program that provides benefits to retirees more expensive.

Medicare already costs four times as much as it did in 1970, measured as a percentage of the nation's gross domestic product. It currently comprises 13 percent of federal spending; by 2030, the Congressional Budget Office projects it will consume nearly a quarter of the budget.

Economists Jagadeesh Gokhale of the American Enterprise Institute and Kent Smetters of the University of Pennsylvania have an even scarier way of looking at Medicare. Their method calculates the program's long-term fiscal shortfall - the annual difference between its dedicated revenues and costs - over time.

By 2030 they calculate Medicare will be about $5 trillion in the hole, measured in 2004 dollars. By 2080, the fiscal imbalance will have risen to $25 trillion. And when you project the gap out to an infinite time horizon, it reaches $60 trillion.

Medicare so dominates the nation's fiscal future that some economists believe health care reform, rather than budget measures, is the best way to attack the problem.

"Obviously health care is a mess," says Dean Baker, a liberal economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a Washington think tank. "No one's been willing to touch it, but that's what I see as front and center."

Social Security is a much less serious problem. The program currently pays for itself with a 12.4 percent payroll tax, and even produces a surplus that the government raids every year to pay other bills. But Social Security will begin to run deficits during the next century, and ultimately would need an infusion of $8 trillion if the government planned to keep its promises to every beneficiary.

Calculations by Boston University economist Lawrence Kotlikoff indicate that closing those gaps - $8 trillion for Social Security, many times that for Medicare - and paying off the existing deficit would require either an immediate doubling of personal and corporate income taxes, a two-thirds cut in Social Security and Medicare benefits, or some combination of the two.

Why is America so fiscally unprepared for the next century? Like many of its citizens, the United States has spent the last few years racking up debt instead of saving for the future. Foreign lenders - primarily the central banks of China, Japan and other big U.S. trading partners - have been eager to lend the government money at low interest rates, making the current $8.5-trillion deficit about as painful as a big balance on a zero-percent credit card.

In her part of the fiscal wake-up tour presentation, Rogers tries to explain why that's a bad thing. For one thing, even when rates are low a bigger deficit means a greater portion of each tax dollar goes to interest payments rather than useful programs. And because foreigners now hold so much of the federal government's debt, those interest payments increasingly go overseas rather than to U.S. investors.

More serious is the possibility that foreign lenders might lose their enthusiasm for lending money to the United States. Because treasury bills are sold at auction, that would mean paying higher interest rates in the future. And it wouldn't just be the government's problem. All interest rates would rise, making mortgages, car payments and student loans costlier, too.

A modest rise in interest rates wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing, Rogers said. America's consumers have as much of a borrowing problem as their government does, so higher rates could moderate overconsumption and encourage consumer saving. But a big jump in interest rates could cause economic catastrophe. Some economists even predict the government would resort to printing money to pay off its debt, a risky strategy that could lead to runaway inflation.

Macroeconomic meltdown is probably preventable, says Anjan Thakor, a professor of finance at Washington University in St. Louis. But to keep it at bay, he said, the government is essentially going to have to renegotiate some of the promises it has made to its citizens, probably by some combination of tax increases and benefit cuts.

But there's no way to avoid what Rogers considers the worst result of racking up a big deficit - the outrage of making our children and grandchildren repay the debts of their elders.

"It's an unfair burden for future generations," she says.

You'd think young people would be riled up over this issue, since they're the ones who will foot the bill when they're out in the working world. But students take more interest in issues like the Iraq war and gay marriage than the federal government's finances, says Emma Vernon, a member of the University of Texas Young Democrats.

"It's not something that can fire people up," she says.

The current political climate doesn't help. Washington tends to keep its fiscal house in better order when one party controls Congress and the other is in the White House, says Sawhill.

"It's kind of a paradoxical result. Your commonsense logic would tell you if one party is in control of everything they should be able to take action," Sawhill says.

But the last six years of Republican rule have produced tax cuts, record spending increases and a Medicare prescription drug plan that has been widely criticized as fiscally unsound. When President Clinton faced a Republican Congress during the 1990s, spending limits and other legislative tools helped produce a surplus.

So maybe a solution is at hand.

"We're likely to have at least partially divided government again," Sawhill said, referring to predictions that the Democrats will capture the House, and possibly the Senate, in next month's elections.

But Walker isn't optimistic that the government will be able to tackle its fiscal challenges so soon.

"Realistically what we hope to accomplish through the fiscal wake-up tour is ensure that any serious candidate for the presidency in 2008 will be forced to deal with the issue," he says. "The best we're going to get in the next couple of years is to slow the bleeding."

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