NYT hits Crossfire hard: All the President's Newsmen...MUST READ..

[itzamirakul]

Tucked waaaaayyyyy back in the arts section of today's online NYTs is a really great article by critic Frank Rich, entitled, All the President's Newsmen.

www.nytimes.com/2005/01/16/arts/16rich.html?th

>snip>
One day after the co-host Tucker Carlson made his farewell appearance ...a television news miracle occurred: even as it staggered through its last nine yards to the network guillotine, "Crossfire" came up with the worst show in its fabled 23-year history.

This was a half-hour of television so egregious that it makes Jon Stewart's famous pre-election rant seem, if anything, too kind. This time "Crossfire" wasn't just "hurting America," as Mr. Stewart put it, by turning news into a nonsensical gong show. It was unwittingly, or perhaps wittingly, complicit in the cover-up of a scandal.

<snip>
On this particular "Crossfire" the featured guest was Armstrong Williams...he had just been unmasked as the frontman for a scheme in which $240,000 of taxpayer's money was quietyly siphoned to him through the Department of Education...so that he would "regularly comment" upon (trnaslation: shill for) the Bush administrations's No Child Left Behind policy in various media venues during an election year. Given that "Crossfire" was initially conceived as a program for tough interrogation and debate, you'd think that the co-hosts still on duty after Mr. Carlson's departure might try to get some answers abut this scandal, whose full contours, I suspect, we are only just beginning to discern.

But there is nothing if not honor among bloviators. "On the left," ...Pauld Begala, a Democrat...had only soft questions and plaudits for Mr. Williams. Three times in scarcely as many minutes, Mr. Begala congratulated his gues for being "a stand-up guy" When Mr. Williams apologized for having crossed "some ethical lines," that was enough to earn Mr. Begala's benediction: "God bless you for that."

Much more....

Edited to fix link

[fertilizeonarbusto]

1. Damn

Frank Rich is smokin' lately.

[ooglymoogly]

29. this is a great must read!!!!!!!!!!!!

thanks for the buried find on the back pages. it should be front page

[proud patriot]

2. I got "page not found"

:shrug:

[itzamirakul]

4. I fixed the link

sorry I was careless with one number...

From "One Child Left Behind"...LOL

[proud patriot]

44. Thanks ...excellent article

:-)

[aden_nak]

5. LINK HERE

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/16/arts/16rich.html

[whometense]

3. Link's wrong.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/16/arts/16rich.html

[itzamirakul]

7. Go to original post and try again...

it is fixed. I tried it a couple of times and it works...

[lukasahero]

6. Link is wrong - here's the right one

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/16/arts/16rich.html

[atommom]

8. Try this link

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/16/arts/16rich.html

Great article!

(Edited to add that the link has now been posted at least 4 times. GMTA! ;) )

[McCamy Taylor]

9. Link didnt work ,this one did

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/16/arts/16rich.html?pagewanted=1


Interesting stuff in here. Armstrong Williams may have gotten paid by the Dept of Education but the whole administration appears to have been serviced by him.

[crispini]

36. "Serviced," snerk. nt

[qanda]

10. I read this earlier

It is excellent. I saw the first 10 minutes of the Crossfire w/ Armstrong Williams and I couldn't believe how Paul Begala was complimenting him. I turned it off in disgust.

[IndianaGreen]

12. This is the same Begala that savaged Cynthia McKinney for saying

that Bush had been warned early in 2001 about Osama planning to attack the US.

This tells you how much alike the Democratic "opinion makers" are from the Republicans. Two peas in the same pod!

[abburdlen]

24. Why would you believe

the Whitehouse is just paying Republicans?

[crispini]

34. One has to wonder about Begala after reading the article

edited to change content 'cause I finally went and read the article. heh.

[FrenchieCat]

13. I saw it too,

and couldn't understand how they were letting Armstrong get away with saying that the focus should be on his wrong doing only....and not on what the White House had done. Crossfire hosts bought it "line and hook".

It was pretty revolting to watch Presstitutes doing their "paid-for" jobs so blatantly!

[Darkhawk32]

11. And some people were talking about Begala becoming the new...

DNC chair?????

Jesus H. Christ.

[ooglymoogly]

30. begala, the giggling fool court jester

pug suckup....carvel, now there is an honest human being

[Chelsea Patriot]

33. Carvel? Consort of She-Prick Matlin? Honest?

[grumpy old fart]

14. his usual kickass article....

[papau]

17. Frank Rich is coming back? - I hope this does become "usual" for Frank

:-)

[LeftCoast]

15. Great article!

Thanks for posting! :kick:

[quinnox]

16. Excellent article

Worth reading all three pages.

[fishwax]

18. Good Riddance, Crossfire

I missed the Armstrong episode, but that is pathetic. I'm lucky in that the only Crossfire I've caught in the last ten months or so happened to be the Stewart episode. :D

[PA Democrat]

19. Great column!

But why is it relegated to the Arts section?

[ieoeja]

37. It's in the Arts section because ...

"That almost no one would notice, let alone protest, is a snapshot of our cultural moment, in which hidden agendas in the presentation of 'news' metastasize daily into a Kafkaesque hall of mirrors that could drive even the most earnest American into abject cynicism."

[scarletlib]

42. It's in the arts section becuase the Times removed Mr. Rich from

the editorial page during Mr. Bush's run up to invading Iraq and put Mr. Rich back in the Arts section. The reason given was that he was just so much better in the arts section. The reality is he was hitting the bush regime hard with his editorials.

Funny, ha, ha! He still zings them from the arts section.

[kentuck]

20. Excellent....

This story must not die....

[IndianaGreen]

23. How many other media personalities are on the Administration's payola?

Last year Mr. Novak had failed to fully disclose - until others in the press called him on it - that his son is the director of marketing for Regnery, the company that published "Unfit for Command," the Swift boat veterans' anti-Kerry screed that Mr. Novak flogged relentlessly on CNN and elsewhere throughout the campaign. Nor had he fully disclosed, as Mary Jacoby of Salon reported, that Regnery's owner also publishes his subscription newsletter ($297 a year). Nor has Mr. Novak fully disclosed why he has so far eluded any censure in the federal investigation of his outing of a C.I.A. operative, Valerie Plame, while two other reporters, Judith Miller of The Times and Matt Cooper of Time, are facing possible prison terms in the same case. In this context, Mr. Novak's "full disclosure" of his friendship with Mr. Williams is so anomalous that it raised many more questions than it answers.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/16/arts/16rich.html?pagewanted=1&oref=login

Well, that's one piece of news I was not aware of, and it really puts Novak's defense of the swift boat veterans in a different perspective. I doubt that Novak and Armstrong are the only TV pundits/"journalists" with conflict of interests, I wonder who else has gotten paid for spouting the Administration propaganda on Iraq, Social Security reform, and what have you.

Let's have a special prosecutor!

[itzamirakul]

31. Check out this article at

www.blackcommentator.com

Armstrong Williams: The Biggest Whore of All.

These are the men who created the show America's Black Forum and they tell how Williams bastardized the show for the rw.

[itzamirakul]

21. Please keep this story kicked!

Thanks...

[AlCzervik]

22. Excellent read, gotta love that "smear merchant" Frank Rich

[Flying Dream Blues]

25. Sad how none of this

even has the ability to shock anymore. I find it completely abhorrent that the WH has to pay people huge amounts of money to defend their egregiously and purposely misnamed policies like "No Child Left Behind" etc. By paying people to lay down the smoke, they hope to keep us from delvinhg into the truth. Pathetic how well it's working, too. Baaaaa, baaaaaaaah.

[Al-CIAda]

26. Great article, thanks -eom

[Q]

27. It goes even deeper:

"Mr. Williams has repeatedly said in his damage-control press appearances that he was being paid the $240,000 only to promote No Child Left Behind. He also routinely says that he made the mistake of taking the payola because he wasn't part of the "media elite" and therefore didn't know "the rules and guidelines" of journalistic conflict-of-interest. His own public record tells us another story entirely. While on the administration payroll he was not only a cheerleader for No Child Left Behind but also for President Bush's Iraq policy and his performance in the presidential debates. And for a man who purports to have learned of media ethics only this month, Mr. Williams has spent an undue amount of time appearing as a media ethicist on both CNN and the cable news networks of NBC.

He took to CNN last October to give his own critique of the CBS News scandal, pointing out that the producer of the Bush-National Guard story, Mary Mapes, was guilty of a conflict of interest because she introduced her source, the anti-Bush partisan Bill Burkett, to a Kerry campaign operative, Joe Lockhart. In this Mr. Williams's judgment was correct, but grave as Ms. Mapes's infraction was, it isn't quite in the same league as receiving $240,000 from the United States Treasury to propagandize for the Bush campaign on camera. Mr. Williams also appeared with Alan Murray on CNBC to trash Kitty Kelley's book on the Bush family, on CNN to accuse the media of being Michael Moore's "p.r. machine" and on Tina Brown's CNBC talk show to lambaste Mr. Stewart for doing a "puff interview" with John Kerry on "The Daily Show" (which Mr. Williams, unsurprisingly, seems to think is a real, not a fake, news program).

But perhaps the most fascinating Williams TV appearance took place in December 2003, the same month that he was first contracted by the government to receive his payoffs. At a time when no one in television news could get an interview with Dick Cheney, Mr. Williams, of all "journalists," was rewarded with an extended sit-down with the vice president for the Sinclair Broadcast Group, a nationwide owner of local stations affiliated with all the major networks. In that chat, Mr. Cheney criticized the press for its coverage of Halliburton and denounced "cheap shot journalism" in which "the press portray themselves as objective observers of the passing scene, when they obviously are not objective."

-----------

It seems that William's conflict of interest goes beyond just shilling for Bush's bad policies. He was also getting paid for damage control and to help smear White House critics.

And to think that these despots claimed that they were going to restore 'dignity' to the White House.

[grasswire]

32. hmmmmmmmmmm

So Armstrong's "NCLB" is a "16 words" ploy, eh? Limit the damage by copping to a smaller crime. Frame the conversation.

He was paid to be an advocate for the WH, period.

[spanone]

28. Begala is no better than Carlson.

These guys don't give a shit about politics, they are ENTERTAINERS who entertain folks who give a shit about politics. It's like the television industry: If your show is a success it doesn't matter if it was an eat-shit reality show or Masterpiece Theatre, you will have the 'respect' of the tv industry. Same in politics, it's all about winning and you can bet Begala respects the rethugs for their winning, regardless of how. And I'm sure he respects Armstrong Williams for getting away with a quarter of a million of taxpayers money.

[Generator]

38. I think you are right about Begala but

it's not that HE doesn't give a shit about politics. It's even worse than that-he doesn't understand it's not a game-that wrong is wrong and the Repubs aren't the only ones guilty of wrongdoing-but by letting them get away with it-such as his ridiculous quotes in the article praising Armstrong-he's actually WORSE than Carlson.

Dems are supposed to know better and realize (oh hardy har har) what rotten propgandizing leeches of Bush they are up against.

He still must think it's 1992 or something.

Respect for winning-that's a very good point-all Dems like him want is to stay in the game, apparently, no matter how it's rigged.

[ieoeja]

35. Paging the late Sen McCarthy

We need you again.

"Every time this administration puts out fiction through the news media - the 'Rambo' exploits of Jessica Lynch, the initial cover-up of Pat Tillman's death by friendly fire - it's assumed that a credulous and excessively deferential press was duped. But might there be more paid agents at loose in the media machine?"


Disclaimer: this post was purely** tongue-in-cheek. The poster in no way endorses the means or madness of the late senator.

**"Purely" can be a very subjective word.

[alfredo]

39. I thought Begala was repeating the "stand up guy"

line to draw a distinction between his admission and the silence from the administration.

[otohara]

40. Judith Miller Should Be In Jail

for all the lies she wrote. She has a lot of blood on her hands.

The Times should investigate Ms. Miller, maybe she too was a paid cog, she sure wrote like one.

[itzamirakul]

41. And so should Novak for "outing" Valerie Plame...

After reading articles like the one by Frank Rich and then the one by the Co-Founders of The Black Commentator, I often get inwardly furious with my fellow democrats who want to continue to "take the high road."

You know..."Oh, please, let's not respond in kind. That's what they want us to do. It does no good to call them names or to lie about them just because they are doing it to us."

These people are taking us down into the mud and rolling us around in it while we try to keep our noses clean - meanwhile everything else on us is pure-d filthy. They are lying, cheating, stealing, raping, pillaging, and looting every single part of the U.S. government and yet there are still Dems who want to remain moderate. "Oh, maybe we can talk some of them into coming over to OUR side."

Bull-----SHIT!

You know, if they would exert one-tenth of the energy currently being expended to prove Michael Jackson is guilty of pedophilia on just one of the many crimes we have caught them in...maybe some of us could better understand the "centrist" Democrats viewpoint. But the Repubs are doing it and telling us to "suck it up!" And we are! Just plain old getting fucked in the ass without grease."

[franksumatra]

43. Novak, Rush, Drudge, Coulter, Hannity, A. Williams, etc., etc.,...

...Have always been suspected of being actual paid shills, I'll bet Armstrong Williams is only the tip of the iceberg. It's like mass hypnosis, and advertising and politics all coming together. Fascism.

[itzamirakul]

45. I really wish that I knew how to USE the FOIA to find out

exactly WHO in the media has been "ArmstongWilliamized." At this point, I don't trust any of them anymore. The rw or the few Progressives out there.

It's going to take an expert blogging journalist to help uncover even a little of this mess.