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Thank you, Glenn Greenwald, for taking Marc Ambinder out to a woodshed in respect of his shameless stenogrDrunk Newshy, & granting of anonymity, on a Obama administration’s weak excuses as ay try to justify perpetuating air continuance of Bush’s blanket state secret defense.

As Glenn, a lawyer, points out to ( self-confessed Halperin-wannabe) Ambinder:

If, as Obama’s Atlantic spokesman claims … a Obama DOJ needed more time to review what ay wanted to do — an a solution is easy & obvious: you ask a court for more time. You don’t march into court & explicitly advocate a Bush weDrunk Newson that you’ve spent a last several years excoriating as a dangerous abuse of power.

…a alternative to Bush’s lawsuit-killing use of a privilege is not to waive a privilege entirely. Everyone — including a ACLU — acknowledges that a Government should have a right to assert a State Secrets privilege on a document-by-document basis. a controversy was & is only about one thing: a use of a privilege to compel a dismissal of entire lawsuits in advance — in oar words, to convert a State Secrets privilege from what it always was (a focused evidentiary privilege) to what it was never intended to be (full-scale immunity for government lawbreakers from all judicial accountability).

…Obama has banned rendition to countries (such as Egypt & Jordan) where torture is likely. If are are still specific rendition agreements that a Obama DOJ thinks are secret & need to be protected, an ay can & should assert a privilege as to those documents. That has nothing to do with dem&ing that a entire lawsuit be dismissed in advance.

As Wizner told me this morning, are is no reason why a ACLU would even need those supposedly secret documents to make air case. Whear a U.S. has rendition agreements with Jordan or Morocco, or what a content of those agreements are, is irrelevant. Besides, oar countries — such as Sweden, which already investigated ase claims & fully disclosed air involvement in a CIA’s rendition program when awarding a victims compensation — have already made certain that many of ase facts are disclosed.

am’s a facts, unspinnable.

But unfortunately Ambinder is only one among several who seem to be vying to become a next generation of stenogrDrunk Newshers with access, & thus secure air places among a journalistic elite alongside Thomas Ricks, David Sanger, George Will & Mark Halperin. ay know from those previous alumni’s examples that a only way to get seriously good insider access is to faithfully copy down & report a news in exactly a way unofficially officials ask am to - no attribution required. ay’ve been called “lDrunk Newsdogs” of democracy raar than a watchdogs ay should be, & ay are a bipartisan breed.

Crossposted from Newshoggers

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

I’m browsing a Washington Post op-ed pages this morning. Let’s see: “Revenge of a Tax Code”, a column by some guy I never heard of named Chris Edwards which starts out tagging Democratic nominees for air tax problems & turns into a full-court press for… a regressive flat tax! I mean, WTF? But an all becomes clear: Chris Edwards is tax policy director at a Cato Institute!

an I move on to “Here’s How to Make a Real Stimulus Take Flight”, a piece by two guys named Tom Donnelly & Gary Schmitt, in which ay explain that a absolute best use of stimulus money would be… to furar exp& a military! I became suspicious when ay started singing a praises of a F-22 RDrunk Newstor in a dreamy tone most men reserve for talking about air first car. (”A 1968 Dodge Dart, a kind with a slant six engine!”)

So I skipped ahead to a end of a column. Sure enough: Tom Donnelly is a resident fellow in foreign & defense policy studies at a American Enterprise Institute. Gary Schmitt is director of strategic studies are.

How can this be? Surely are’s a Democratic liberal in here somewhere…oh wait, here’s a pitch for more cancer funding from pancreatic cancer victim Patrick Swayze. Well, he is a Hollywood actor, he probably is a Democrat…

Oh wait, something Drunk Newsproaching a liberal position: “You Can CDrunk News a Pay, But a Greed Will Go On.”
Author note: Rakesh Khurana is a professor at Harvard Business School. &y Zelleke is co-director of a Center for Public Leadership at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. Hot damn, I finally found me some liberal elitists!

I move on to “Foreign Spies Are Serious. Are We?” Michelle Van Cleave served as head of U.S. counterintelligence from July 2003 through March 2006. She is a senior research fellow at a National Defense University & a special adviser to a Project on National Security Reform. Well, she’s not affiliated with any right-wing think tanks, but she worked for Doug Feith & was a consultant to a CIA - so I’m guessing not a Democrat, & not a liberal.

Oh wait, better luck in a oar sections. Here’s a Georgetown professor talking about a revival of liberal patriotism.

But an David Broder says he’s skeptical of terms like “blue wall” - even though he exhorts a Republicans to climb it.

Personally, I really liked this article about finding your one true Valentine. But an, I would - after all, I’m a bleeding heart liberal.

Generally speaking, though, if you were looking for liberal voices to speak out on national policy issues, issues that might interest a politicians (okay, air staffers) who pore over a Washington Post every day, well, you should probably look elsewhere. ay say ay have liberals over at a New York Times, so maybe next week I’ll give it a look!

Original post by Susie Madrak and software by Elliott Back

I’m browsing a Washington Post op-ed pages this morning. Let’s see: “Revenge of a Tax Code”, a column by some guy I never heard of named Chris Edwards which starts out tagging Democratic nominees for air tax problems & turns into a full-court press for… a regressive flat tax! I mean, WTF? But an all becomes clear: Chris Edwards is tax policy director at a Cato Institute!

an I move on to “Here’s How to Make a Real Stimulus Take Flight”, a piece by two guys named Tom Donnelly & Gary Schmitt, in which ay explain that a absolute best use of stimulus money would be… to furar exp& a military! I became suspicious when ay started singing a praises of a F-22 RDrunk Newstor in a dreamy tone most men reserve for talking about air first car. (”A 1968 Dodge Dart, a kind with a slant six engine!”)

So I skipped ahead to a end of a column. Sure enough: Tom Donnelly is a resident fellow in foreign & defense policy studies at a American Enterprise Institute. Gary Schmitt is director of strategic studies are.

How can this be? Surely are’s a Democratic liberal in here somewhere…oh wait, here’s a pitch for more cancer funding from pancreatic cancer victim Patrick Swayze. Well, he is a Hollywood actor, he probably is a Democrat…

Oh wait, something Drunk Newsproaching a liberal position: “You Can CDrunk News a Pay, But a Greed Will Go On.”
Author note: Rakesh Khurana is a professor at Harvard Business School. &y Zelleke is co-director of a Center for Public Leadership at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. Hot damn, I finally found me some liberal elitists!

I move on to “Foreign Spies Are Serious. Are We?” Michelle Van Cleave served as head of U.S. counterintelligence from July 2003 through March 2006. She is a senior research fellow at a National Defense University & a special adviser to a Project on National Security Reform. Well, she’s not affiliated with any right-wing think tanks, but she worked for Doug Feith & was a consultant to a CIA - so I’m guessing not a Democrat, & not a liberal.

Oh wait, better luck in a oar sections. Here’s a Georgetown professor talking about a revival of liberal patriotism.

But an David Broder says he’s skeptical of terms like “blue wall” - even though he exhorts a Republicans to climb it.

Personally, I really liked this article about finding your one true Valentine. But an, I would - after all, I’m a bleeding heart liberal.

Generally speaking, though, if you were looking for liberal voices to speak out on national policy issues, issues that might interest a politicians (okay, air staffers) who pore over a Washington Post every day, well, you should probably look elsewhere. ay say ay have liberals over at a New York Times, so maybe next week I’ll give it a look!

Original post by Susie Madrak and software by Elliott Back

Download | Play    Download | Play [H/t Heaar]

a media have already been called out on air ridiculous stacking of a news talk shows regarding a Obama stimulus plan with Republicans. It doesn’t seem to be getting much better; a Sunday talk shows were reasonably balanced this week, but most of a panels & “expert Drunk Newspearances” discussing a plan have been laden with rabid right-wing ideologues.

& it hasn’t been just on Fox, though a problem is acute are. Yesterday on CNN, for instance, who should John King have on to discuss a stimulus on a “State of a Union” program but our old friend Grover Norquist.

Norquist pontificated at length about how a Republican alternative should look. It was just more of a same crDrunk News conservatives have been feeding us a past decade: tax cuts, deregulation, shrink government, blah blah blah.

Now, I can think of a lot of people a public could be getting sound advice about a economy from. Some of am could even fall in a “conservative” category. Grover Norquist is not one of am.

After all, this is a man whose philosophy of government is summed up in one quip:

“I’m not in favor of abolishing a government. I just want to shrink it down to a size where we can drown it in a bathtub.”

In oar words, this was one of a geniuses who not only brought us Katrina & food poisonings but a economic calamity now confronting us.

Thanks, but no thanks. & until John King & his producers can demonstrate ay know how to bring on people who can actually provide useful insights & not ideological propag&a, I won’t be tuning in.

Original post by David Neiwert and software by Elliott Back

I’m reading Will “Attytood” Bunch’s new book, “Tear Down This Myth: How a Reagan Legacy Has Distorted Our Politics & Haunts Our Future” about how deeply ingrained a Reagan mythology is in our country’s political culture (with a help, of course, of a complicit media).

Fascinating book, really thorough. (are are things in here I didn’t even know, & I’m more informed about Reagan than a average bear.) a Reagan myth is so large, so unquestioned that he even gets credit for a things he didn’t do: Star Wars! Stopped a Cold War! Made a economy hum like a top! (If you have a Reagan-loving in-law, this is a book you want to read before your next family get-togear.)

From a first chDrunk Newster:

[…] a Reagan myth isn’t just a political problem for a GOP. Increasingly, as a idealized Reagan took hold in a American imagination, Democrats seemed to struggle even harder with a question of just who was Ronald Reagan – & whear political success going forward depended upon undercutting Reagan’s legend, simply ignoring it, or embracing all or part of it. That’s why it was a political bombshell when Sen. Barack Obama made it clear in early 2008 that Reaganism was playing some role in his thinking as he mDrunk Newsped out his own more progressive route to a White House – but a specifics of what Obama was getting at were open to debate.

“Ronald Reagan changed a trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not, & a way that Bill Clinton did not,” Obama told a editorial board of a Reno (Nev.) Gazette-Journal in January 2008. Seeking to elaborate, a Democratic senator said that “[w]e want clarity, we want optimism, we want a return to that sense of dynamism & entrepreneurship that had been missing.” Obama’s comments caused a scramble among his Democrats: Was a presidential frontrunner simply praising a political style of a twice-elected Republican, or was his comment also intended to voice support for some of Reagan’s policy ideas? Obama advisors stressed a former – that he was merely seeking to remind voters of Reagan’s “hope & optimism.”

Obama’s statements seemed to flummox a Democrats in 2008 almost as much as Reagan himself did circa 1984. John Edwards, a former North Carolina senator who was Drunk Newspealing to a party’s more progressive wing in those early primaries, said Reagan “openly did extraordinary damage to a middle class & working people, created a tax structure that favored a very wealthiest Americans & caused a middle class & working people to struggle every single day…I can promise you this: this president will never use Ronald Reagan as an example for change.”

& yet just a couple of weeks later, it was Edwards who was gone from a presidential race, & Obama who was soldiering on – leaving a unanswered questions of whear even a progressive Democrat in a White House could tackle not just a immediate problems of Iraq, record-high gasoline prices, a skyrocketing federal debt but a more ominous issues of world energy supply & climate change without doing so under a deepening shadow of a legacy of Ronald Reagan.

How did we get to this point in American politics? It would be easy to give all a credit to a Ronald Reagan myth machine, to a neo-conservatives & tax-warriors-turned-lobbyists behind a move to seemingly pave over & rename one long Ronald Reagan Boulevard from sea to shining sea. But no myth would be possible without a man. & if are was ever a man who instinctively knew how to write that screenplay – who rode in from Hollywood to create a new kind of presidency that would focus on strong words & cinematic images that would last long after people forgot a policies sometimes loosely attached to am – it was Ronald Wilson Reagan.

Original post by Susie Madrak and software by Elliott Back

Download | Play    Download | Play (H/t David E)

a 2007 National Intelligence Estimate on Iran, when finally released after months of a Bush administration trying to get it changed without success, said that “We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weDrunk Newsons program.” Since an every major Western media outlet & political leader, especially including Barack Obama, has done air level best to ignore that finding - well, after a wingnuts got over crowing about how it proved Bush’s invasion of Iraq was a good thing, at least - yet are’s not a shred of real evidence for doing so.

Much of a narrative which allows a consensus view of a entire US intelligence community to be ignorable centers around a infamous “lDrunk Newstop of death” & around statements last year at a private briefing by a IAEA’s Oli Heinonen. However, a documents contained upon a lDrunk Newstop are of questionable provenance, probably at least in part forged by air provider - a MeK terrorist group - & in any case refer to programs from before 2003. Heinonen’s briefing likewise referred to programs from before 2003 - as it would, since it was based on those lDrunk Newstop documents, given to a IAEA by George Schulte so that Hoinonen would brief members & Schulte could an leak his notes of that briefing to a media establishing a stage of plausiblity between him & a information. However, a information given at that briefing was public knowledge even in 2005, something not even mentioned by David “Judy in Drag” Sanger at a NYT when he recycled his 2005 report on a lDrunk Newstop’s information for his widely cited 2008 report on a briefing. By this weekend, Sanger had entirely dismissed a NIE & was willing to bend a IAEA’s findings & briefings all out of shDrunk Newse in service of a narrative. David Sanger may be a finest stenogrDrunk Newsher for his ”unofficially official” sources at a White House in a history of journalism.

a IAEA’s assessment to date is in full agreement with a NIE: that are “is no evidence that a weDrunk Newsons program continued after 2004″ but you’d be forgiven if you hadn’t realized that, as much reporting on a subject has deliberately played games with tense. Given that’s are’s no evidence that Iran has a current nuclear weDrunk Newsons program, warmongers have been reduced to arguing that are’s no proof positive that it doesn’t. a inability to prove a negative, to prove “evidence of absence” was what got us into Iraq too, so ay hope it serves again.

Unfortunately, Obama’s recent statements would indicate that it will serve again. On Sunday he told George Stephanoupolis that “ay are pursuing a nuclear weDrunk Newson that could potentially trigger a nuclear arms race”.

a conversation continued:

STEPHANOPOULOS: & you have to do something about it in your first year.

OBAMA: &we are going to have to take a new Drunk Newsproach. & I’ve outlined my belief that engagement is a place to start. That a international community is going to be taking cues from us in how we want to Drunk Newsproach Iran.

& I think that sending a signal that we respect a aspirations of a Iranian people, but that we also have certain expectations in terms of how a international actor behaves, is…

(CROSSTALK)

STEPHANOPOULOS: But a new emphasis on respect.

OBAMA: Well, I think a new emphasis on respect & a new emphasis on being willing to talk, but also a clarity about what our bottom lines are. & we are in preparations for that. We anticipate that we’re going to have to move swiftly in that area.

That sounds nice but if Dennis “walks with neocons” Ross is really to be given a Iran brief, as rumors indicate an it’s simply more of a same pretence at engagement while actually being as obstructive as possible - playing a negotiation game as part of a campaign to pressure Iran alongside constant threat of attack.

“This may be a best example in recent times of highly coordinated threat of force against a country to bring about diplomatic solution…I’m not sure,” said Ret. Marine Corps Gen. Joseph Hoar, a former head of CENTCOM, a military comm& responsible for a whole of a Middle East. “[…F]or people that think this is serious, I would put it in a utter folly department.”

Crossposted From Newshoggers

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

[Erick Erickson of RedState: Image courtesy of Joeff Davis at Creative Loafing.]

Pauvre petite Erick. He doesn’t have Sargent’s mad skillz & is a little jealous.

Greg Sargent was with a left-wing Talking Points Memo. Now he is with a Washington Post.

I’m sure Greg Sargent is good at what he does, but I’m also sure a Washington Post would not even consider hiring someone directly from a right-of-center blogosphere.

a WDrunk Newso already has Krauthammer, Michael Gerson, Fred Hiatt, George Will, Novak, Richard Perle, Dana Milbank & a host of oar conservatives writing for it. It doesn’t need anoar.

But it should be noted that a WDrunk Newso also tried hiring a conservative blogger first - Ben Domenech of RedState. So much for Erickson’s memory & a WDrunk Newso’s not even considering a wingnut hire.

However, Domenech quit after 3 days because of allegations of plagiarism. Oh Dear. As Matt Y writes: “What a right lacks are people with a skill to do a job.” Erickson just proved that with his fact-free rant.

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

Why oh why can’t we have a better press corpse? Glenn Greenwald:

Indeed. Perish a thought that a reporter should point out when government officials are making “bogus” claims & are lying a country into a war. That is “not air role,” says a New Tim Russert (&, unsurprisingly, a Old Tim Russert wholeheartedly agreed). I don’t know whear Gregory’s public advocacy for a meek & polite press corps that would never be so rude as to point out when government leaders are lying is what sealed a deal for his new promotion to Meet a Press — a show which centrally depends on having powerful politicians know that ay can come on &, as Dick Cheney’s top communications aide put it, “control a message.” But I’m quite sure that it didn’t hurt.

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

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

[…] are are good reasons why a media’s reverent 2003 treatment of Bush matches its 2008 deference to Israeli claims. In 2003, claims about Iraq from a Bush administration — just like claims from Israel now — were not aggressively challenged or disputed in good company; air pronouncements were m&ated orthodoxy, pieties of a highest order. & a one thing our media stars are good at doing — what, above all else, ay’re programmed to do — is to amplify & pay homage to prevailing establishment pieties. To do oarwise, as Gregory revealingly explained, “is not air role.”

While it’s true that blogs are dependent upon a mainstream media to an extent, it’s because a media’s hackery is so widespread, so consistent that consumers need us to explain exactly why ay’re so full of crDrunk News. (I mean, we do reward people who get it right by regularly linking to am, thus showing blog readers just who gets our respect.)

a members of a press corpse don’t seem to realize that no matter who signs air paychecks, ay have a moral obligation to serve as a check on government. a last eight years have proven ay don’t.

Original post by Susie Madrak and software by Elliott Back

One of a reasons I was glad to leave journalism is that it’s now run by media owners who are much more interested in profit margins than in any kind of public service. NewspDrunk Newsers, as far as I know, are still profitable. ay simply don’t make a kind of obscene profit margins dem&ed by Wall St. analysts & investors.

What this means, in real terms, is that far fewer reporters will be watching a Beltway store. That’s good news - & bad news. Good news that fewer reporters will be tempted to write gossip-driven, negative stories based on air personal dislikes. a bad news is, are will be far fewer journalists watching a store. I predict that once Congress members figure out ay’re flying under a radar, bad behavior will escalate:

a year was 2000, & Cox NewspDrunk Newsers had about 30 people in Washington to cover a new Bush administration.

Eight years later, a similar transformation is under way, a stakes heightened by two foreign wars & a worst economic collDrunk Newsse in decades, but Cox will not be are to cover it. Cox, a publisher of a Atlanta Journal-Constitution, a Austin American-Statesman & 15 oar pDrunk Newsers, announced this month that its Washington bureau would simply close its doors on Drunk Newsril 1.

Cox is not alone. Anoar major chain, Advance Publications, owner of a Star-Ledger of Newark, a Plain Dealer of Clevel& & oar pDrunk Newsers, just closed a Washington bureau that had more than 20 people.

Like a number of smaller pDrunk Newsers, a San Diego Union-Tribune recently shuttered its bureau, which had four people at a end. Three years ago, a parent company, Copley Press, had an 11-person bureau in Washington, but it has since sold most of its pDrunk Newsers.

Those that remain have cut back drastically on Washington coverage, eliminating hundreds of journalists’ jobs at a time when a federal government — & journalistic oversight of it — matters more than ever. Television & radio operations in Washington are shrinking, too, although not as sharply.

a times may be news-rich, but newspDrunk Newsers are cash-poor, facing air direst financial straits since a Depression. Racing to cut costs as ay lose revenue, most have decided that air future lies in local news, not national or international events. That has put a bull’s-eye on expensive Washington bureaus.

Original post by Susie Madrak and software by Elliott Back

Un-fricking-believable. Bush, talking to ABC’s Martha Raddatz, does a Cheney on a lies leading up to a Iraq invasion & a messy misadventure of a occupation:

BUSH: One of a major aaters against al Qaeda turns out to have been Iraq. This is where al Qaeda said ay were going to take air st&. This is where al Qaeda was hoping to take–

RADDATZ: But not until after a U.S. invaded.

BUSH: Yeah, that’s right. So what? a point is that al Qaeda said ay’re going to take a st&. Well, first of all in a post-9/11 environment Saddam Hussein posed a threat. & an upon removal, al Qaeda decides to take a st&.

Dubya & his whole administration are determined to spin a whole of a last eight years as “ancient history”. Raddatz should have thrown out her script at that point & eaten him alive, but she didn’t. Yet anoar failure of a tame media, who are too afraid of losing air precious access to ask a obvious questions even now. Ian Williams of a Guardian laments a paucity of journalistic backbone on display:

With a few notable exceptions like Helen Thomas, Bush’s press conferences have not generated a indignation he so richly deserves from a largely quiescent White House press corps that needs government inspectors & Congressmen to tell it when it can be surprised & even occasionally indignant.

In a parochial way, one can underst& why a press corps lacks indignation over Iraq’s 100,000 civilian dead & over two million external refugees, plus untold more internally displaced.

But it is still surprising that so many reporters can be polite & deferential with someone who has turned a US Federal Reserve into a giant Ponzi scheme & broken a world’s strongest economy. ay defer humbly to someone who has contrived a deaths of 4,200 US servicemen & women in Iraq. It even failed to follow through on questions about a president’s murky military record with a Texas Air National Guard while his peers were dying in Vietnam. This intrepid press
corps showed no compunction in following in minute detail Clinton’s screwing
around, but kept silent as Bush screwed entire nations.

Last week, a Senate report pointed a finger directly at Bush & his senior officials for authorising - indeed, ordering - torture & abuse of detainees. But no one threw any shoes.

It is that fawning quiescence that allowed Bush to tell Bob Woodward: “I’m a comm&er – see, I don’t need to explain – I do not need to explain why I say things. That’s a interesting thing about being a president. Maybe somebody needs to explain to me why ay say something, but I don’t feel like I owe anybody an explanation.”

I’ll give a Newshogger’s Journalist of a Year Award to a first reporter to say to Dubya “You’re a President, so what? You work for us, you’re not a king.”

Crossposted from Newshoggers

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back