BILL MOYERS: Welcome to the JOURNAL.

There was good news and bad news about Afghanistan this week. And it was the same news.

That's right. The Senate held confirmation hearings for Lieutenant General Stanley McChrystal, slated to be the next commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan. Here's how two different news organizations reported his testimony:

The Associated Press headline read, "War in Afghanistan is 'Winnable,'" but the "Washington Independent" reported that the general had, quote, "painted a bleak picture of the Afghanistan war" and that the United States "needed to show significant progress within '18 to 24 months' or risk the war spiraling out of control."

What we know for sure is that the fighting in Afghanistan is escalating. At least 21 thousand more American troops are going in and the number of private security contractors working for the military there jumped 29 percent in the last three months alone. Get this: there are now more private security contractors in Afghanistan than there are U.S. soldiers. And as of next year, according to new Pentagon documents, the war in Afghanistan will be costing more than the war in Iraq.

It's the job of experienced, knowledgeable investigative reporters to throw a monkey wrench into the spin machine and try to make some sense of all this. They're an endangered species, but one of the best in the business is Jeremy Scahill, who's been digging into Pentagon documents and thick congressional hearings for several years now. He's twice winner of the George Polk Award for special achievement in journalism, and author of this best selling book, BLACKWATER: THE RISE OF THE WORLD'S MOST POWERFUL MERCENARY ARMY. Jeremy now runs the new Web site, RebelReports. Jeremy Scahill, welcome back to the JOURNAL...

JEREMY SCAHILL: It's great to be with you Bill.

BILL MOYERS: How do explain this spike in private contractors in both Iraq and Afghanistan?

JEREMY SCAHILL: Well, I think what we're seeing, under President Barack Obama, is sort of old wine in a new bottle. Obama is sending one message to the world, but the reality on the ground, particularly when it comes to private military contractors, is that the status quo remains from the Bush era. Right now there are 250 thousand contractors fighting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. That's about 50 percent of the total US fighting force. Which is very similar to what it was under Bush. In Iraq, President Obama has 130 thousand contractors. And we just saw a 23 percent increase in the number of armed contractors in Iraq. In Afghanistan there's been a 29 percent increase in armed contractors. So the radical privatization of war continues unabated under Barack Obama.

Having said that, when Barack Obama was in the Senate he was one of the only people that was willing to take up this issue. And he put forward what became the leading legislation on the part of the Democrats to reform the contracting industry. And I give him credit for doing that. Because he saw this as an important issue before a lot of other political figures. And spoke up at a time when a lot of people were deafeningly silent on this issue. I've been critical of Obama's position on this because I think that he accepts what I think is a fundamental lie. That we should have a system where corporations are allowed to benefit off of warfare. And President Obama has carried on a policy where he has tried to implement greater accountability structures. We now know, in a much clearer way than we did under Bush, how many contractors we have on the battlefield. He's attempted to implement some form of rules governing contractors. And it has suggested that there should be greater accountability when they do commit crimes.

All of these things are a step in the right direction. But, ultimately, I think that we have to look to what Jan Schakowsky, the congresswoman from Illinois, says. We can no longer allow these individuals to perform what are inherently governmental functions. And that includes carrying a weapon on U.S. battlefields. And that's certainly not where President Obama is right now.

BILL MOYERS: But many people will say of course, the truth, which is he inherited a quagmire from the Bush administration. What's he to do?

JEREMY SCAHILL: Well, there's no question that Obama inherited an absolute mess from President Bush. But the reality is that Obama is escalating the war in Afghanistan right now. And is maintaining the occupation of Iraq. If Obama was serious about fully ending the occupation of Iraq, he wouldn't allow the U.S. to have a colonial fortress that they're passing off as an embassy in Baghdad. Bill, this place is the size of 80 football fields. Who do you think is going to run the security operation for this 80 football field sized embassy? Well, it's mercenary contractors.

BILL MOYERS: So we're supposed to be withdrawing from Iraq. But you're suggesting, in all that you've written, that I've read lately, that we will be leaving a large mercenary force there.

JEREMY SCAHILL: Absolutely. In fact, you're going to have a sizable presence, not only of U.S. forces, certainly in the region, but also in Iraq. These residual forces... I mean, Bill, you remember, during Vietnam, the people who were classified as military advisors. Or analysts. And, in reality, the U.S. was fighting an undeclared war. So, in Iraq, I think that we've seen reports from Jim Miklaszewski, NBC News' Pentagon correspondent. He's quoting military sources saying that they expect to be in Iraq 15 to 20 years in sizable numbers. Afghanistan, though, really is going to become Obama's war. And, unfortunately, many Democrats are portraying it as the good war.

BILL MOYERS: Let me show you a snippet of what he said in Cairo on Thursday. Take a look:

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Make no mistake. We do not want to keep our troops in Afghanistan. We seek no military bases there. It is agonizing for America to lose our young men and women. It is costly and politically difficult to continue this conflict. We would gladly bring every single one of our troops home if we could be confident that there were not violent extremists in Afghanistan and now Pakistan determined to kill as many Americans as they possibly can. But that is not yet the case.

JEREMY SCAHILL: Well, I mean, we have two parallel realities here. We have the speeches of President Obama. I'm not questioning his sincerity. And then you have the sort of official punditry that's allowed access to the corporate media. And they have one debate. On the ground though, in Afghanistan and Pakistan, you hear the stories of the people that are forced to live on the other side of the barrel of the gun that is U.S. foreign policy. And you get a very different sense. If the United States, as President Obama says, doesn't want a permanent presence in Afghanistan, why allocate a billion dollars to build this fortress like embassy, similar to the one in Baghdad, in Islamabad, Pakistan? Another one in Peshawar. Having an increase in mercenary forces. Expanding the US military presence there.

BILL MOYERS: Walter Pincus is an old friend of mine, an investigative reporter at "The Washington Post" for, you know, 30 or more years now. A very respected man. He reported in "The Washington Post" last fall that these contracts indicate how long the United States intends to remain in Afghanistan. And he pointed, for example, to a contract given by the Corps of Engineers to a firm in Dubai to build to expand the prison, the U.S. prison at Bagram in Afghanistan. What does that say to you?

JEREMY SCAHILL: Right. Look, we have President Obama making it a point, regularly, to say, "We're going to have Guantánamo closed by early next year." The fact is that, at Bagram, we see an expansion. They're spending $60 million to expand that prison. You have hundreds of people held without charges. You have people that are being denied access to the Red Cross in violation of international law. And you have an ongoing position, by the Obama administration, formed under Bush, that these prisoners don't have right to habeas corpus. There are very disturbing signals being sent with Afghanistan as a microcosm. Not to mention these regular attacks that we're seeing inside of Pakistan that have killed upwards of 700 civilians using these robotic drones since 2006. Including 100 since Obama took power.

BILL MOYERS: Some people have suggested that the increasing reliance on military contractors in Afghanistan underscores the fact that the military is actually stretched very thin. General McChrystal said, this week, he admitted that he doesn't even know if we have enough troops there to deal with the situation as it is now. Does that surprise you?

JEREMY SCAHILL: No. It doesn't surprise me. Because this is increasingly turning into a war of occupation. That's why General McChrystal is making that statement. If this was about fighting terrorism, it would be viewed as a law enforcement operation where you are going to hunt down criminals responsible for these actions and bring them in front of a court of law. This is turning into a war of occupation. If I might add about General McChrystal, what message does it send to the Afghan people when President Obama chooses a man who is alleged to have been one of the key figures running secret detention facilities in Iraq, and working on these extra judicial killing squads. Hunting down, quote unquote, insurgents, and killing them on behalf of the U.S. military. This is a man who's also alleged to have been at the center of the cover-up of Pat Tillman's death, who was killed by U.S. Army Rangers.

BILL MOYERS: But he apologized for that this week be before Congress.

JEREMY SCAHILL: Well, it's easy to apologize when your new job is on the line. It's a different thing to take responsibility for it when you realize that the mistake was made, or that you were involved with what the family of Pat Tillman says was a cover-up.

BILL MOYERS: You know, you talk about military contractors. Do you think the American people have any idea how their tax dollars are being used in Afghanistan?

JEREMY SCAHILL: Absolutely no idea whatsoever. We've spent 190 million dollars. Excuse me, $190 billion on the war in Afghanistan. And some estimates say that, within a few short years, it could it could end up at a half a trillion dollars. The fact is that I think most Americans are not aware that their dollars being spent in Afghanistan are, in fact, going to for-profit corporations in both Iraq and Afghanistan. These are companies that are simultaneously working for profit and for the U.S. government. That is the intricate linking of corporate profits to an escalation of war that President Eisenhower warned against in his farewell address. We live in amidst the most radical privatization agenda in the history of our country. And it cuts across every aspect of our society.

BILL MOYERS: You recently wrote about how the Department of Defense paid the former Halliburton subsidiary KBR more than $80 million in bonuses for contracts to install what proved to be very defective electrical wiring in Iraq. Senator Byron Dorgan himself, called that wiring in hearings, shoddy and unprofessional. So my question is why did the Pentagon pay for it when it was so inferior?

JEREMY SCAHILL: This is perhaps one of the greatest corporate scandals of the past decade. The fact that this Halliburton corporation, which was once headed by former Vice President Dick Cheney, was essentially given keys to the city of U.S. foreign policy. And allowed to do things that were dangerous for U.S. troops. Provide then with unclean drinking water. They were the premier company responsible for servicing the US military occupation of Iraq. In fact, they were deployed alongside the U.S. military in the build up to the war. This was a politically connected company that won its contracts because of its political connections. And the fact is that it was a behemoth that was there. It was it was the girl at the dance, and they danced with her.

BILL MOYERS: Yeah. The Army hired a master electrician, I read, in some congressional testimony, to review electrical work in Iraq. He's now told congress that KBR's work in Iraq was, quote, "The most hazardous, worst quality work he'd ever seen." And that his own investigation, this is not a journalist, this is an employee of the Army, had found improper wiring in every building that KBR had wired in Iraq.

JEREMY SCAHILL: Right. And we're talking about thousands of buildings. And so we've had, U.S. troops that have died from electrocution in Iraq as a result of the faulty work of KBR. This should be an utter scandal that should outrage every single person in this country. And, yet, you find almost no mention of this in the corporate media.

BILL MOYERS: Do you get discouraged writing about corruption that never gets cured?

JEREMY SCAHILL: Well, I don't believe that it necessarily doesn't get cured. I think that I'm very heartened by the fact that we have a very vibrant independent media landscape that's developing right now. You know, to me, I once put on the tagline of an article that I wrote early on in the Obama administration that I pledge to be the same journalist under Barack Obama that I was under President Bush. And the reason I felt that it was necessary to say that is that I feel like we have a sort of blue-state-Fox culture in the media. Where people are willing to go above and beyond the call of partisan politics to give Obama the benefit of the doubt. This is a man- it's time to take off the Obama t-shirts. This is a man who's in charge of the most powerful country on earth. The media in this country, we have an obligation to treat him the way we treated Bush in terms of being critical of him. And, yet, I feel like many Democrats have had their spines surgically removed these days, as have a lot of journalists. The fact is that this man is governing over a policy that is killing a tremendous number of civilians.

BILL MOYERS: You mentioned you mentioned drones a moment ago. I was impressed to hear our new commander of our troops in Afghanistan admit this week that the United States cannot go on killing civilians. He said, in fact, this is creating a dangerous situation for our own country.

JEREMY SCAHILL: Well, that that I mean, on the one hand, that those words are true. I think that the fact is that, when you are killing civilians, in what is perceived to be an indiscriminate way certainly by the people of Pakistan you're going to give rise to more people that want to attack the United States. They view themselves as fighting a defensive war. But never are the statistics cited that come out of Pakistan. 687 people are documented to have been killed. That the Pakistani authorities say are civilians since 2006. In the first 99 days of this year over 100 people were killed. And the fact is...

BILL MOYERS: By American military action?

JEREMY SCAHILL: Right. By American military action with these robotic drones.

BILL MOYERS: 60 Minutes, on CBS News, recently got some very special access to the military. And came out with a report on drones. Let me show you a few excerpts from that.

LARA LOGAN: Right now, there are dozens of them over the skies of Iraq and Afghanistan. Hunting down insurgents every minute of every day. The fight for the pilot is on the video screen. Here a truck full of insurgents in Afghanistan is being tracked by the pilot. When the ground commander gives the order-he first, hitting his target. The trigger is pulled in Nevada. Inside these cramped single white trailers of small offices.

COL. CHRIS CHAMBLISS: And that white spot that this guy is carrying is actually a hot gun. It's been fired and already know that it's been used. We've met positive identification criteria that these are bad guys. And so now we can go ahead and strike these targets.

BILL MOYERS: Now, many people are like that fellow. They say that these drones are new miracle weapons that enable the United States military to kill the bad guys, as he said, without exposing Americans to danger. There's truth in that, right?

JEREMY SCAHILL: Now, I have a lot of respect for Lara Logan, the CBS correspondent. She's really put her neck on the line and been in the thick of battle, and has been injured in battle. But I think that this piece was propaganda. She allowed the military to make claims about the effectiveness of their weapons that are being contested passionately by the people on the ground in Pakistan itself. I recently did an article about "Time" magazine's coverage of this. They said that the Taliban are using civilians as human shields. And that's why so many civilians have been killed. Their source for that was an Air Force intelligence officer who was allowed to speak on as though it was a Pentagon press release. I think that this is sick. Where you turn war, essentially, into a videogame that can be waged by people half a world away. What this does, these drones, is they it sanitizes war. It means that we increase the number of people that don't have to see that war is hell on the ground. And it means that wars are going to be easier in the future because it's not as tough of a sell.

BILL MOYERS: You will find agreement on people who say war is hell. But you'll also find a lot of people in this country, America a lot of Democrats and Republicans, who say Jeremy Scahill is wrong. That we need to be doing what we're doing in Afghanistan because, if we don't, there'll be another attack like 9/11 on this country.

JEREMY SCAHILL: I think that what we're doing in Afghanistan increases the likelihood that there's going to be another attack.

BILL MOYERS: Why?

JEREMY SCAHILL: Because we're killing innocent civilians regularly. When the United States goes in and bombs Farah province in Afghanistan, on May 4th, and kills civilians, according to the Red Cross and other sources, 13 members of one family, that has a ricochet impact. The relatives of those people are going to say maybe they did trust the United States. Maybe they viewed the United States as a beacon of freedom in the world. But you just took you just took that guy's daughter. You just killed that guy's wife. That's one more person that's going to line up and say, "We're going to fight the United States." We are indiscriminately killing civilians, according to the UN Human Rights Council. A report that was just released this week by the UN says that the United States is indiscriminately killing civilians in Afghanistan and elsewhere around the world. That should be a collective shame that we feel in this society. And yet we have people calling it the good war.

BILL MOYERS: So, step back to that issue of military contractors. You've been you've been writing about privatization and military contractors for a long time. In the large scheme of things what do you military contractors represent to you?

JEREMY SCAHILL: Yeah. Well, I think that what we have seen happen, as a result of this incredible reliance on private military contractors, is that the United States has created a new system for waging war. Where you no longer have to depend exclusively on your own citizens to sign up for the military and say, "I believe in this war, so I'm willing to sign up and risk my life for it." You turn the entire world into your recruiting ground. You intricately link corporate profits to an escalation of warfare and make it profitable for companies to participate in your wars. In the process of doing that you undermine U.S. democratic processes. And you also violate the sovereignty of other nations, 'cause you're making their citizens in combatants in a war to which their country is not a party. I feel that the end game of all of this could well be the disintegration of the nation state apparatus in the world. And it could be replaced by a scenario where you have corporations with their own private armies. To me, that would be a devastating development. But it's on. It's happening on a micro level. And I fear it will start to happen on a much bigger scale.

BILL MOYERS: Jeremy Scahill, thanks for being with me again on the Journal.

JEREMY SCAHILL: It's been an honor Bill.

BILL MOYERS: In just a few minutes we'll have our take on the news of the week with Brooke Gladstone and Jay Rosen. But first, if you value this station, the one you're watching right now, now's the time to pitch in and help it survive these tough financial times. Thank you for pledging.

[SOME VIEWERS MAY NOT SEE THIS CONTENT DUE TO PLEDGE]

BILL MOYERS: We always encourage you to share your thoughts with us online and you always oblige. Spirited discussions fill our email box and blog pages. So we'd like to take this opportunity to share with you some of the comments that recently caught our eye.

Sam Waterston and Harold Holzer showed us the arc of Abraham Lincoln's life through the words of writers ranging from Harriet Beecher Stowe to Allen Ginsberg.

SAM WATERSTON: Let the Railsplitter Awake!
Let Lincoln come with his axe
and with his wooden plate
to eat with the farmworkers.

HAROLD HOLZER: No political leader, no political writer, not even Lincoln, can define his own place in the landscape of memory.

BILL MOYERS: Here is what some of you had to say.

ANNE LIN: Lincoln's suffering as a young man informed his life and character. It could be argued that he should have grown up to be an uneducated racist, but instead...He chose the positive...versus the easy and familiar. -Anne Lin

NIKINOMO: I don't know why Americans attempt to mythologize their dead presidents and turn them into undeserving heroes, while people of great accomplishments are ignored. People like Charles Sumner ...kept Lincoln's feet to the fire on emancipation even as Lincoln was firing generals who liberated blacks in conquered southern territory. -Nikinomo

ALAN ROCKMAN: Lincoln was still our greatest president despite the muddying up of his image and "love-hate" spin... We wouldn't have had an America left if it wasn't for his wisdom, courage, and humanity. -Alan Rockman

BILL MOYERS: Religious historian Karen Armstrong discussed her Charter for Compassion and evaluated the state of religion in the world today.

KAREN ARMSTRONG: To put the words "com" and "passion," means to feel with the other. To experience with the other. Do not do to others what you would not like them to do to you. If you don't like to be attacked, don't attack others.

JIM KNAPTON: Putting these three religions together as the framework for guidelines for your charter bothers me to no end... While you rightly claim at their hearts these religions preach the Golden Rule, by their actions they exclude it. -Jim Knapton

RAZA: The first step to any religion is to be a good human being. How can anyone be a good Muslim, Christian, Jew, Sikh, Hindu or atheist, when they are having a problem being a good human... -Raza

TARA MIDDLETON: I appreciated her statement about how we must also hear the pain among fundamentalists and how we should understand via the historical context of how they have felt attacked... I hope for more understanding & love in the world and less divisiveness. -Tara Middleton

BILL MOYERS: Simon Johnson and Michael Perino compared today's financial system with banks during the Great Depression

SIMON JOHNSON: These big finance houses and securities firms that merged with commercial banks, and vice versa, are incredibly powerful. And they have, you know, questionable practices in New York on and around Wall Street. They're also incredibly powerful in Washington. The strength of their connections possibly is even greater now than it was back in the early 1930's.

MICHAEL PERINO: If you look back at that period in the 1930's, you see banks taking on these kinds of market risks, and they're doing it with leverage. The same thing we're really seeing today.

MARY GODWIN: I think the genesis of "too big to fail" is that the banks own too much of our government to fail. -Mary Godwin

G. ARMSTRONG: Your program with Johnson and Perino ... failed to address the base cause of the recession - our failed U.S. Federal government democracy. They are motivated not by the good of the country but by political expedience. -G. Armstrong

D.C. EDDY: The essential nature of economics is the efficient exchange of goods and services to provide the needs and desires of the people of any and all societies. Economics is not a plaything that depends on whim, chance and random foolishness. - D. C. Eddy

BILL MOYERS: Keep telling us what you think of the Journal by mail, email or on the blog at PBS.org and we'll keep reading.

[PLEDGE CONTENT ENDS]

ANNOUNCER: We now return to Bill Moyers in the studio.

BILL MOYERS: And now the news. Or what passes for news. It's harder and harder to tell these days, because so often what passes itself off as journalism is nothing more than instant opinion with or without the facts.

Take President Obama's big speech in Cairo this week. Because of the time difference, it aired so early in the morning, most of us didn't see it live but that didn't stop the pundits telling us what we should think about it.

JOHN ROBERTS: We've got some of the best minds on television-

LIZ CHENEY: I think it missed some fundamental points-

PAT BUCHANAN: I don't think this speech was an apology speech.

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: Over and over again apologies and moral equivalencies-

BILL SAMMON: He quoted from the Koran three times and we did a search to see how many times as president he's quoted from the Bible.

BILL MOYERS: Meanwhile, NBC news this week delivered a candygram to the president - two prime time specials called "Inside the Obama White House." President Obama couldn't have asked for a sweeter salute...

BRIAN WILLIAMS: People react strongly to this president. We've seen people moved to tears after just the briefest encounter with him.

BILL MOYERS: As for an exclusive revelation about your government from behind the White House's closed doors, well, hold your breath, here it comes...

BRIAN WILLIAMS: There are apples everywhere. Orchards worth of them in bowls throughout the building. They are meant of course to promote healthy eating but what we saw more often is this: the West Wing may lead the western world in candy consumption.

WHITE HOUSE STAFFER: These are official White House M&Ms.

BILL MOYERS: Now, I've been there, done that and got the tie clip. I can tell you this is the kind of Valentine every White House press secretary yearns to hand the boss. And it's not all that hard to achieve, because many of our watchdogs are as housebroken as Bo the White House puppy...

On the other hand, right wing pundits tried to sully the reputation of Judge Sonia Sotomayor, the first Hispanic appointment to the Supreme Court.

SEAN HANNITY: Is she the most activist nominee in the history of the court?

RICK SANCHEZ: Let me start with you Judge Sotomayor is a racist?

TOM TANCREDO: Certainly her words would indicate that that is the truth.

WENDY LONG: She said I think as a Latina woman I'd make better decisions than a white man... It's offensive it's racist, it's sexist

GLENN BECK: She's not that intellectually bright and she's almost a bully. She just loves to hear herself talk.

BILL MOYERS: Here to comment on this week's coverage are two knowledgeable observers and analysts. Brooke Gladstone is managing editor and co-host of the National Public Radio weekly series "On the Media." Previously; she was Senior Editor of NPR's "All Things Considered" as well as NPR's media correspondent. She's writing a book called, "The Influencing Machine."

Jay Rosen is a Professor of Journalism at New York University, as well as a widely published writer and media critic. One of the founders of the citizen journalism movement, he's the creator of a popular blog called "PressThink," subtitled "Ghost of Democracy in the Media Machine." Ten years ago, he wrote a book asking, "What are Journalists For?" Something I keep wondering about.

Welcome back to both of you. The columnist E.J. Dionne, writing in "The Washington Post" this week, wrote, "A media environment that tilts to the right is obscuring what President Obama stands for and closing off political options that should be part of the public discussion. When Rush Limbaugh sneezes or Newt Gingrich tweets, their views ricochet from the internet to cable television and into the traditional media. It is remarkable how successful they are in setting what passes for the news agenda." Do you agree with him?

BROOKE GLADSTONE: What I see is that there's a desperate need on the part of media all the time, and increasingly year after year, to respond to what they think are the concerns of the news consumer. And so, there's a tendency to bend over backwards to prove they aren't liberal. This is a canard that began with the Nixon administration, probably before, but really took off steam then. And they're continually in an acrobatic position, trying to overbalance, show what they think are both sides, a side that isn't being expressed by a mainstream media that is perceived to be liberal, or they believe it's perceived to be liberal.

JAY ROSEN: I think there is a dynamic where it is in the interests of reporters to portray our political debate as standing between people like Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich on the right, and Barack Obama on the left. And what E.J. Dionne was saying is that there are plenty of people to Obama's left who deserve as large a platform as a Rush Limbaugh or a Newt Gingrich or perhaps even more so.

And I think this involves one of the subtler things that journalists do in our public life, Bill. Which is they set the terms of what a legitimate debate is. They marginalize certain people as not a part of it. And they include other people, who perhaps ought to be marginalized as a central part of it. And it's very hard for us to hold them accountable for those decisions, because they are subtler than we sometimes recognize.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: I do think, though, we have to be careful in not regarding the media as solely the mainstream media, as solely the mainstream television news outlets. Or even the big daily papers. There is a huge raucous, wide-ranging discussion going out there. And even though it is not the dominant media in this country yet, it will be a far more democratic discussion as we move forward.

BILL MOYERS: You're talking about-

BROOKE GLADSTONE: I really do believe that.

BILL MOYERS: -the internet? Permanently?

BROOKE GLADSTONE: I am talking about the internet. I'm talking about all the different conversations, local, national, and global that are outside the realm of these filters and these nervous Nellies who are concerned about being perceived as liberals.

BILL MOYERS: Yes, but the big megaphone belongs still to the networks. Both the commercial networks and the cable channels, right? So, ultimately, all this has to be filtered through their microphone.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: But Bill, and I'm asking you this honestly, 'cause I don't know the answer. Do we know that Rush Limbaugh, Newt Gingrich have managed the great task of tarring Sonia Sotomayor as a racist? I don't think so. Rush Limbaugh backpedaled just as Gingrich had, to a certain extent, earlier this week. And said that he would support Sonia Sotomayor if she turned out to be pro-life. Well, that's, you know, at least a policy question that Rush Limbaugh raised. Very out of character for him. Just as earlier Gingrich said, "I'm sorry I used the word racist." He backed away from the word. He didn't back away from the charge, as we know.

BILL MOYERS: Well, that's a valid point, Brooke. But the fact of the matter is they still got away with some deplorable tactics.

I mean, here is the twitter that Newt Gingrich sent out. And which got huge play throughout that stage you were talking about. "White man racist nominee would be forced to withdraw. Latina woman racist should also withdraw." Now, that's not ambiguous. That's very clear. Sotomayor is a racist.

JAY ROSEN: I don't think it's true that what's on television automatically influences the American people. Sometimes people look at what the shouting heads are saying. And they reject it. And certainly that may have happened with Gingrich in this case. But it's true that because he is perceived as a legitimate political figure, he may say something that's completely out of bounds, and yet it will ricochet around the political system.

Because we don't have a press that's willing to say, "this is not a legitimate argument this person is making." We don't have a press that's willing to say, "this, he said it, but it's completely out of bounds. Or it's completely baseless. Or it has no grounding in reality." We just don't have a group of political interpreters who are willing to say that.

BILL MOYERS: This is Rush Limbaugh speaking about Judge Sotomayor.

RUSH LIMBAUGH: How do you get promoted in the Barack Obama administration? By hating white people...She brings a form of bigotry or racism to the court. I don't care if we're not supposed to say it. We're supposed to pretend it didn't happen. We're supposed to look at other things. But it's the elephant in the room...How can a President nominate such a candidate? And how can a party get behind such a candidate? That's what would be asked if somebody were foolish enough to nominate David Duke or pick somebody even less offensive.

BILL MOYERS: Now, that played for several days. The press picks it up, beats the drum. I mean, he slathers mud everywhere, and then when the dirty work's done, he conveniently takes it back, creating yet another news cycle for his so called retraction.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Why did he take it back, though? Not because the dirty work was done, necessarily, but because the mud just didn't stick. How often does Rush backpedal? And he has. Suddenly he sees her as a viable candidate if she would be pro-life. Which, you know, I don't know where she stands on that. But the fact is that suddenly she is out of the realm of inadmissible to a policy discussion. Rush himself recently made that change. How come? Is it possible because he's not longer speaking in such an impermeable echo chamber that these things can reverberate around without consequences.

BILL MOYERS: All right, but let's talk about that echo chamber. I'm going to show you two clips, one of Andrea Mitchell talking to the right winger Pat Buchanan.

ANDREA MITCHELL: Do you agree with what Rush Limbaugh said?

PAT BUCHANAN: Yeah, I do agree. I don't agree with some of the terms. But I do agree that Sonia Sotomayor, she does believe in race-based justice. Basically, at the expense of white males to advance people of color. But the truth is, that's what Barack Obama believes, as well.

BILL MOYERS: To me, there's no doubt this has an effect. 'Cause let me show you a quote from Bob Schieffer on last Sunday's "Face the Nation." And then I have a question to both of you about it.

BOB SCHIEFFER I want to get right to the quote that has caused all of the controversy that Washington has been talking about all week. What Justice, or Judge Sotomayor said in the speech eight years ago. And here it is. She said, "I would hope that a Latina woman, with the richness of her experience, would more often than not, reach a better conclusion than a white male, who hasn't lived that life." Senator Kyl, is that enough to keep her from being confirmed as a Justice on the Supreme Court?

BILL MOYERS: So, instead of deconstructing the quote, Bob plays the beltway card: is this going to cause her not to be confirmed?

JAY ROSEN: Well, first of all, Bob Schieffer forgot to ask himself whether the controversy that had gripped Washington was a legitimate controversy. And surely that's one thing we need him for.

BILL MOYERS: Who's to decide that? Legitimacy-

JAY ROSEN: Well-

BILL MOYERS: -or illegitimacy?

JAY ROSEN: Well, Tom Goldstein, an author of the SCOTUSblog, which is a very carefully put together blog about the Supreme Court, and a law professor - looked at the record of Sotomayor's decisions. In 96 cases, where there were discrimination claims before the court, she decided against the claim of discrimination 78 times. And there were only about ten where she sided at all with a plaintiff charging discrimination.

Now, if you know that, if you know that record, then the whole controversy looks kind of fake from the beginning. And so, what Bob Schieffer did was take what Washington is buzzing about, refused to fact check it, take it as a given, and ask a kind of insider political question. "Is this going to sink her nomination?" Which is premature and which abandons his role as a journalist in determining what is a legitimate controversy. What should we be arguing about? Which views have standing as facts, as fact-based?

BROOKE GLADSTONE: It's disappointing to be sure. And I'm really sorry that that responsibility was abrogated. On the other hand, what this is a clear example of, and I hope I don't sound like a broken record at this point, is increasingly how the Washington punditocracy and those who preside over it, and the Republican Party are marginalizing themselves. By focusing on these people whose influence, whose direct influence seems to be, used to be broadly at the country at large. But if we are to believe the polls, and I guess that's a whole different show for you, it seems that the importance of Rush as a mover of opinion, not as a generator of audience, necessarily. But as a mover of opinion- and Newt Gingrich is diminishing. Fewer and fewer people are identifying themselves as Republican.

So, you see this false balance being created in the news for the purposes of having something that generates a lot of heat without much light to talk about. And you see a medium, a class of experts. A political party. All in the process of marginalizing themselves in pursuit of generating some excitement on television.

BILL MOYERS: So, if you're right, this is happening without what Jay identified earlier. Very few progressive voices to the left of Obama are having a role in the national debate. So, what's happening that is bringing people around to challenge the Limbaughs and the Gingriches, when in fact those alternative voices are rarely heard?

BROOKE GLADSTONE: It's a fascinating question. And I venture to say, that it's probably Obama. Obama is an enormously appealing character. And he has placed himself in front of the cameras everywhere. He's given tons of so-called exclusive interviews everywhere. He has made himself the best spokesman for his own moderate position. And the country likes it. And that's what the polls suggest. It seems quite simple, but that's the stand in for the entire other side of the debate. And the people to the left of him, you are right, we don't see them. And it would be useful to see more of them on television. But we do see them on the net.

JAY ROSEN: I think there's a very interesting dynamic here, which is that Obama makes a living by not being what the right wing says he is. And it was very powerful in the election, when he showed up at the debates. He didn't look anything like or sound anything like what the heated fantasies of the conservative wing had said. And simply by not being who Rush says he is, he ends up seeming way more trustworthy than perhaps he actually should be.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: And makes Rush less credible.

JAY ROSEN: And makes Rush less credible. But even though I agree with you, Brooke that the conservative base is kind of marginalizing itself. It isn't necessarily being marginalized by the news media.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: That's for sure. I completely agree with you there.

JAY ROSEN: So, let's marginalize them. If they're self-marginalized.

BILL MOYERS: What do you mean? Do you mean because they still, as E.J. Dionne wrote, they still are the dominant voices in the so-called mainstream media? Is that what you're saying?

JAY ROSEN: What I'm saying is they're still useful in presenting the journalist as the even-handed person sitting in the middle. And because they have that role, they don't get eclipsed.

BILL MOYERS: I want to ask you about the health care debate. The swiftboating of health care reform has begun, right?

BROOKE GLADSTONE: The fact that is that what has widely been regarded as a swiftboat event began, and was by some of the people who did the Kerry swiftboating, and by some of the people who sunk, many years earlier, the Clinton plan. And all the fact checked organizations have gotten on board, not to mention a profoundly aggressive campaign by the Obama administration itself, which likes using the word "swiftboat" all over the place, to short hand that, you know, you can't believe anything these people say.

And in a way, it's an effort to undercut any debate about the health care proposal. But at least it does place a spotlight on the outright lies.

BILL MOYERS: One of the subjects not in the debate over health care reform is single-payer. And contrary to what many people think about it being a far left proposal, the polls show that it has substantial support among a large swath of the American people. Many of whom would not call themselves far left.

But Senator Baucus said, its not in the discussion because we've gone too far now to go back and consider single-payer. There it seems to me is a very good example of how a legitimate idea gets delegitimated in the debate between the powers that be.

JAY ROSEN: I think it's a classic example of the real religion of the Washington press, which is savviness. And from a problem-solving point of view, we would certainly want to consider single-payer, because it's an important option in a debate. But from a savvy point of view, the inside players know that single-payer is never going to be the answer. And they're already factoring that into their political calculations about what's likely to result.

Which in a way cuts off the debate that we need to have. And so, the inside players in Washington are able to kind of contain the debate by anticipating the outcome, and then talking about the things that are most likely within that set of assumptions. And this is a normal process in Washington that goes on all the time. And it's one of the ways that journalists shape the terms of debate.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: You make an important point when you talk about the fact that Baucus himself said it's off the table. The fact is that reporters most often take their cues on almost any subject from national security to domestic legislation from the debate on Capitol Hill. If they are constraining their own debate, reporters who go outside and report on these other issues are seen as outliers. Are seen as activists pushing the discussion in one direction or another.

So, then you have to raise the question, "Why isn't it being raised on Capitol Hill?" Which is the question you raised. And I honestly think that our Democratic Party is suffering under the same paranoid concerns that the press are. That this putatively liberal party may be too liberal.

BILL MOYERS: Let me show you a clip from a commercial that's being run by groups that are opposed to a public option in the health care debate. And then I have a question for you.

RICK SCOTT: Before Congress rushes into overall health care, listen to those who already have government run health care.

FEMALE VOICE: In Britain, Katie Brickell. Denied the Pap test that could have saved her from cervical cancer. Kate Spall. Her mother suffered on a wait list as her renal cancer became terminal. Angela French. Cost cutting keeps her waiting for the medication she needs to stay alive.

RICK SCOTT: For those tragic stories and more at CPRights.org. Tell Congress to listen, too.

BILL MOYERS: CPRights.org is sponsored by Richard Scott, who had to leave his company. The largest health care chain in the world, Columbia/HCA. After the company was caught ripping off the feds and state governments for hundreds of millions dollars in bogus Medicare and Medicaid payments. He waltzed away with a $10 million severance deal. And $300 million worth of stock. And here he is telling us that his way of health reform is the way the public should go. Now, how does the public get the facts about an ad like that. And a guy like Rick Scott?

BROOKE GLADSTONE: How did you get the facts? The fact is that I've seen Scott being identified, more or less, as you did, in every single story about this campaign. You know, I think that there is now a willingness, as there wasn't even during the Kerry swiftboating earlier on, and certainly not during the sinking of the Clinton health care plan, to acknowledge the source of these ads. I think that all of us, as news consumers, as the American people, are becoming more and more aware that just because you see it on TV doesn't mean that it's true.

JAY ROSEN: I agree with Brooke in this sense.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Yay!

JAY ROSEN: I think that an ad like that is assuming that the receiver of it is an isolated person, who hearing these scary tales of government-run health care will therefore pick up the phone and pressure Congress. And the way the ad imagines the viewer is in social isolation. Where no other messages will get through. And I think that is what's changing. Is that people are not isolated anymore. They're not sitting on the end of their television sets and receiving messages from the center only.

And in a way you could see these kinds of campaigns where you raise money from rich people to scare less educated people. Or low information voters, as they call them in the political trade. As a sign of weakness. The rhetoric might be more furious, the ads might be more outrageous. But it's because this kind of communication is actually weaker and it's working less.

BILL MOYERS: This is going to be a long, hot summer. We've got so many issues on the front burners. Afghanistan, health care, Supreme Court nominations, and who knows what else is coming? What will you be looking for this summer, as the news cycle unfolds?

JAY ROSEN: Well, I'm looking for a press that recognizes that the world has changed. And that the political class in Washington created a lot of these huge problems, and doesn't necessarily have the answers to them. And that the way of doing politics that has sufficed in the capitol for so long, of you take your polls, you raise your money, you run the ads, you scare people, you win the controversy of the day, you win the news cycle. That that system itself is failing. And those who participate in it are, month by month, losing credibility.

And I don't think that the press has realized that they are a part of that system that is failing. And that they, too, need a new approach. Let's take David Gregory, for example, the host of "Meet the Press." He hasn't quite realized yet that he's got to go outside the political class. To bring in new thinkers, new ideas, different parts of the political spectrum.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: What are you talking about? He's twittering.

JAY ROSEN: He's twittering, but he's not listening. And twitter doesn't update you. It's just a trendy thing.

BILL MOYERS: No. You get Newt Gingrich twittering, right? About racism.

JAY ROSEN: I mean, the political class in this country has failed. And if we have a talk show system that is nothing but the same old players, then that system is going to fail.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: I am really interested in what's going to happen to what's increasingly called the media ecosystem this summer. Precisely because of all these sources for optimism that I seem to have. There are a number of polls where people talking about the media and how horrible it is and the echo chamber phenomenon online. And the biased or lopsided discussion on television. And they always say, in greater and greater numbers, you know, I'm not really worried about me. It's the other people. They're going to get all manipulated by this. They're going to get all fooled by this. It's the other people. Quote unquote, you know? The "stupid people." Who aren't going to be able to figure their way out of this.

And if all of those people answering the polls aren't worrying about themselves, and they're just worried about the stupid people, then maybe those people, besides from being a bit arrogant, are increasingly engaged. And what I think we are going to see is a greater positive symbiosis. Not the negative ones we've seen between, you know, the early symbiosis. Where you know, the blogs will start, you know, an obsession.

Did Michelle Obama actually say "whitey?" And then it makes its way onto the cable news. But a more positive symbiosis, where there is a charge made in one place. It's fact checked in another. The fact check ricochets in more places. Corrections happen more quickly. So that symbiosis. And then another symbiosis between the online world and news consumers that don't have their own blogs that are willing to, but who are nevertheless willing to participate and present their own facts and experiences, and send that stuff onto the blogs, where it can be, you know, processed and then bounced back and forth. It's going to be a really interesting summer, because there's so much fuel. And it's just going to be interesting to see what kind of energy comes out of it, and whether there's a lot of pollution or whether it's clean energy.

BILL MOYERS: Well, there really two places I heartily recommend my viewers go. One is to "On The Media" at NPR.org and to PressThink.org. Jay Rosen and Brooke Gladstone, thanks for being with me again on the Journal.

JAY ROSEN: Thank you.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Thank you.

BILL MOYERS: That's it for this week. To read additional media analysis from Jay Rosen and Brooke Gladstone, go to the Moyers Web site at PBS.org. You can also find out more from Jeremy Scahill and about the current situation in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq.

Just log onto PBS.org, click on Bill Moyers Journal.

I am Bill Moyers. See you next week.