'DeepThroat' revelation:Will it spur media investigation of * and Rove?

[AirAmFan]

'DeepThroat' revelation: Will it spur media investigation of * and Rove?

Will this week's nostalgia for investigative journalism in the 70's prompt some contemporary national reporters to try giving up 'presstitution' for awhile? Are there parallels between Nixon's Watergate electoral and governing tactics and those of today's White House?

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This week, the Washington Post is reluctantly re-living its glory days in the 70s, when it was the command post for national investigative journalism. At age 91 and ailing, Mark Felt left the Post with no choice but to dispatch Bob Woodward to fill a gigantic "news-hole", opened up by Felt's confession of his secret identity to Vanity Fair (4 meg, 9-page PDF at http://www.vanityfair.com/pdf/pressroom/advance1.pdf ).

The contrast between what the Post printed a generation ago and its recent national reporting couldn't be more vivid. Just this month, the White House Press Secretary blamed an at-least-defensible magazine item about Qur'an abuse for deadly anti-American riots, and the Post's Newsweek division obediently RETRACTED the story post-haste!

Do the events and characters of Watergate have parallels in the Rove White House? Will a few national-beat reporters start to explore them now that polls show Dubya's Teflon is beginning to peel away in the polls?

[loudsue]

1. I doubt it, ArAmFan, but we can hope & pray!

O8) Maybe someday the press will take a whole truck-load of Metamucil and finally get rid of all their bullshit. O8)

Then, and only then, will they free themselves up for real journalism, once again. Until then, they're merely part of the corporate government of the D.S. of A (Divided States of America).

:kick:

[AirAmFan]

4. Vanity Fair's timing could not have been better for

contrasting 'Wood-stein' et al with the contemporary 'White House press corpse'.

The sideshows at the Capitol won't be back in session for more than a week, so the national political circus has just two main 'rings' until a couple of days past the Sunday talk shows: Watergate nostalgia and today's White House.

[kevinmc]

2. No, There is no Media.......

just infotainment. Maybe by me saying that I'll be proven wrong.

[AirAmFan]

5. Who was the reporter who asked McClellan, "Who made you editor

of Newsweek?"

Some of today's national-beat reporters have their moments.

[kevinmc]

8. I think it was Terry Moran........

the same guy who went on a wingnut radio show last week and said the Media has a Anti-bias towards the Military. I emailed him for some evidence for his claim and have not received a response.

[AirAmFan]

9. Thanks. At Conyers' 'Media Forum' a week ago, the BBC's

Washington correspondent had a thought-provoking remark on how covering the WH differs from covering Number 10 Downing Street: here in the States, reporters ordinarily get no followup questions. In Britain, according to this fellow, long-established custom requires that public officials stay open to probing questions as long as reporters insist on persevering. The BBC corresponent went on to give an example of an interview of a high official in which a reporter repeated the same question TWENTY TIMES!

It could be that there are a few smart would-be investigative reporters such as Terry Moran, David Gregory of NBC, and a few others, but that the WH Press Office has manipulated the rules under which they operate so they never get a chance to probe.

I wonder what was the customary practice for followup questions under WH Press Secretaries such as Bill Moyers in the 60s, whether things changed under Nixon in the 70s, and how we got to the sad state of affairs today.

[CBHagman]

34. Have you ever seen Question Time?

Check C-SPAN for airing times. The prime minister actually has to go before PARLIAMENT and debate the members. The U.S. has absolutely nothing like it. Needless to say, a format like that would leave Bush bloodied.

[AirAmFan]

13. What did I tell you? David Gregory (NBC) just asked Scott

McClellan (at Wednesday's WH Press Briefing) about "what * thinks as President what the legacy of Watergate is... It sounds as though he's reserving judgment on whether Mark Felt did the right thing."

But in less than a minute, an unrelated question from another reporter saved McClellan from having to answer Gregory.

[Cha]

25. Terry Moran's name has

come up at other times, though, when he's been good.

A reichwing rag.com has an article about him character assassinating dick armey..so that's in his favor.

I don't understand the "anti-bias" remark about the military.

Aren't they touting the official line?.. and how is that anti-military unless it means..bush is getting people killed with all the gung-ho pollyanna speil.

[grasswire]

17. Elizabeth Bumiller..

...surprisingly enough.

Here's a source. http://www.nationalreview.com/beltway/063507.html

[tishaLA]

19. Read the update at the bottom of that missive

Where the record is corrected to say Mr. Moran asked the question.

[meppie-meppie not]

27. I thought it was Helen Thomas

[meppie-meppie not]

28. oh dear, seems my recall entered the "idiot zone"

[paineinthearse]

3. John Conyers on the media, 1972 & present

The lessons of Watergate are so telling and important today that it is eery, not to mention depressing:

� Back than we had an aggressive press corps � at least parts of it � willing to take a story and run with it, notwithstanding blowback from the White House. Today we have a paid government propoganda machine and a largely compliant press, although we do have a blogosphere attempting to lead � or shame � the MSM into dong the right thing.

more at http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x1820871

[AirAmFan]

6. Does the WH still have a system for TAPING meetings in the Oval

Office? Is there video now as well as audio? What maneuvers in Congress would be required to get some of those tapes shown on C-SPAN?

[McCamy Taylor]

7. Opposite I think. Check out this thread about a Fox headline

note that there is a big story about "Memogate" and a big story about "Watergate." The implication is clear. If the Downing Street memo story is pursued, it could lead people to question the Bush administration, possibly even to a special prosecutor, possibly even to impeachment. Fox News viewers will be dead set against this. People who remember the utter stupidity of the Clinton impeachment will be fairly easy to convince that another impeachment isnt in the national best interest, too.

I think that the Washington Post, under orders from the WH, decided to reveal Deep Throat now, so that Karl Rove could defuse the Downing Street memo by painting it as a political time bomb that will throw the country into total political chaos.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=3760814#3761409

[AirAmFan]

12. What WH action will produce a CRIMINAL conviction? The Plame

"outing" clearly was a CRIMINAL law violation far more serious than the infractions committed by the first Nixon staffers to be tried and convicted. "On Jan. 30, 1973, (G. Gordon) Liddy and James W. McCord Jr., a former CIA employee and chief of security for Nixon's reelection campaign, were convicted of conspiracy, burglary and wiretapping in the Watergate incident" (from the URL cited in post #11 below).

IMHO, Republicans can "spin" away the Downing memo, the "Brooks Brothers Riot" that prevented vote counting in Miami, and most other scandals in Dubya's White House. Legal mechanisms for punishing warmongering, election fraud, and many other WH misdeeds are not very well-developed. But staff convictions for CRIMINAL law violations would taint the Bush-Rove White House unalterably, and open up the key Watergate question: "What did the President know, and when did he know it?"

I don't have the URL handy, but I remember a John Dean column at http://www.findlaw.com that made this point about the Plame investigation. And John Dean knows what he's talking about when it comes to Watergate.

[democracyindanger]

10. They didn't care much about Richard Clarke.

They didn't care about Sibel Edmonds.

There have been plenty of whistleblowers. They just don't care.

[AirAmFan]

31. Foreign policy did not bring down Nixon. In fact, an impeachment

article citing Nixon's lying about invading Cambodia was voted down.

[AirAmFan]

11. 'How Watergate Unfolded', from Wednesday's Washington Post

Anyone see parallels to Dubya's "selection" and "reselection" here?

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From http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/31/AR2005053101425.html :

"How Watergate Unfolded

Wednesday, June 1, 2005; Page A07

"It began with a bungled burglary of the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate complex early on the morning of June 17, 1972, and the arrest of five suspects. A security guard named Frank Willis had discovered tape-covered door latches in a Watergate stairwell and had called the police. Two of the five suspects arrested possessed address books with the entries "W. House" and "W.H.," scribblings that quickly linked them to two shadowy figures: E. Howard Hunt, a onetime CIA agent who had recently worked in the Nixon administration White House, and G. Gordon Liddy, a former FBI agent who was on the payroll of the Committee for the Reelection of the President, Richard M. Nixon's campaign organization.

Nixon dismissed the break-in as "that pipsqueak Watergate" and John N. Mitchell, the reelection chairman, denied any link. But over the next two years, the burglary metastasized into one of the biggest scandals and constitutional crises in modern U.S. history. Ultimately, Nixon resigned to avoid impeachment, and more than 30 government and Republican campaign officials were convicted of charges including perjury, burglary, wiretapping and obstruction of justice....

While the media and members of Congress ignored or played down the significance of the break-in, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, two young reporters on the metropolitan news staff of The Washington Post, doggedly pursued leads that led to the highest levels of government. Woodward and Bernstein were greatly helped by "Deep Throat," a confidential source who was privy to the details of the FBI investigation.... The Post published remarkable findings--that a $25,000 cashier's check earmarked for the Nixon campaign wound up in the bank account of one of the burglars; that Mitchell, while serving as attorney general, controlled a secret fund for intelligence operations against the Democrats; and that John D. Ehrlichman, a top Nixon aide, supervised covert actions of a special unit known as the Plumbers that burglarized the office of the psychiatrist of Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers....

The Senate Watergate committee began televised hearings in May. The following month, The Post reported that former White House counsel John W. Dean III told Watergate investigators he had discussed the cover-up with Nixon at least 35 times, and Alexander P. Butterfield, former presidential appointments secretary, testified to the Senate panel in July that Nixon secretly taped his conversations and telephone calls from 1971 on. Nixon's firing of Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox on Oct. 20 -- which triggered the resignation of Attorney General Elliot L. Richardson and his deputy -- and a unanimous Supreme Court ruling on July 24, 1974, telling Nixon to surrender 64 tape recordings, hastened the president's demise. With the House bearing down on him and moving toward approval of three articles of impeachment, Nixon announced his resignation on Aug. 8, 1974.

-- Eric Pianin"

[lyonn]

15. That is how I remember it

A slow, who cares, media story with stories that minimized the whole event, Nixon was even re-elected during this time. We have hope! There appears a building of opinion that questions this administration actions. People don't want to think that a Pres. would lie so flagrantly to the people, they would rather hide from the truth until they choke on it - Nixon for instance. This could go either way but with so many questions out there like the UK briefing/memo, Plame, Clarke and McNeil's books, Bush's nominees that have been getting very bad press, etc., it could bring this terrifying bunch to a halt. A few more dandy leaks could help, apparently the FBI and CIA arn't real happy with this crowd.

[AirAmFan]

16. Great points! If someone now is considering emulating Mark Felt,

that person very likely is an FBI or CIA official.

Outing Valerie Plame was not very smart, considering all the friends and colleagues hundreds of longtime CIA personnel must have lost to the treachery of people like Ellsworth Ames and whoever tried to get to Wilson through his wife. And longtime FBI staff must be pretty irate about having an Attorney General Amnesty International wants arrested for advocating torture.

All it took to bring down Nixon was a small handful of dedicated people. Dubya and Rove can't clamp down on everybody.

[AirAmFan]

14. 'Covering Watergate' (Woodward,Benveniste,Reeve) will be rebroadcast

Wednesday June 1st at 8pm on CSPAN-2. I just saw the second hour of the first rebroadcast today, and it was very worthwhile. The presentation is a two hour tape of an event three months ago at UTexas in Austin. The occasion was the opening of an exhibit of Woodward and Bernstein's journalistic papers from their Washington Post Watergate days. Those papers have been deposited with the university.

Ben Veniste got the most applause, when he stated that the fundamental charge against Nixon stemmed from CRIMINAL behavior whose goal was "close to a coup d'etat".

[rhett o rick]

18. This is a different time - Media and Investigation are diametrically

opposed.

[AirAmFan]

20. I'm not sure I agree there are no more Woodsteins today

Woodstein were much more the predecessors of today's bloggers than of today's "White House Press Corpse".

Bernstein, the editorial brains of the pair, was a hard-drinking, rough-edged veteran the Post did not trust with anything beyond a local beat. Woodward, the detective, was still wet behind the ears, having graduated from college in 1965, spent 5 yrs in the Navy, and worked one year at the Montgomery County Sentinel:

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From http://www.washingtonian.com/people/woodward_bernstein.html :

"Karlyn Barker, Post reporter:

Woodward and I were hired at the Post the same day in 1971. We sat outside Ben Bradlee�s office waiting for his thumbs-up or thumbs-down. I remember thinking, 'Gee, I hope they hire this nice young man.' Nine months later, he was doing Watergate."

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National-beat reporters with White House press passes sneered at the Watergate story until Woodstein uncovered the $25,000 CREEP payoff to the burglars. They were putting WH foreign policy misdeeds on the front page of Section A, while Woodstein's reports were buried in the Metro or Lifestyle sections.

[AirAmFan]

21. Felt told Woodstein, 'Follow the money'. Here's how they took his advice,

and exploded the long-simmering Watergate story onto every front page. The story is told by Liz Donovan, the obscure Post researcher who worked for Woodstein, on her own webpage:

From http://edonovan.home.infionline.net/behind/wgate.htm :

"This is a story for all news librarians and researchers who feel that the job we do for our reporters and editors doesn't get the recognition it deserves. It's also a story for reporters and editors who don't stop to think often about how valuable the researchers' contribution can be.... Sometime in the evening of July 31, 1972, an editor -- Barry Sussman -- called or came into the library asking for a check on the name Kenneth Dahlberg. Carl Bernstein had called from Miami that evening -- possibly around 7:00 or maybe around 8:30 -- to tell Sussman and Bob Woodward that he had been shown bank records from a Watergate burglar's account, including a $25,000 check from Dahlberg. Nothing was known about Dahlberg, or where to find him.

Woodward and Bernstein's book, All The President's Men, says that Woodward asked a librarian to check for a clip file on Dahlberg, but there wasn't one. In the movie of All The President's Men, ... Robert Redford (Woodward) is poring over a pile of Who's Whos, frantic to find any reference to Dahlberg; a librarian walks up to him, saying something like: "I couldn't find a clip on this guy, but this was in his photo file"... handing him a 1967 photo of a Kenneth Dahlberg at a Minnesota fund-raiser with Hubert Humphrey. ... in W&B's book the photo is the clue that caused Woodward to call Minneapolis information.

... the information Woodward got from Kenneth Dahlberg that night (and got into the next morning's paper) changed the course of the Watergate story. Dahlberg had raised the money in Minnesota and given it to Nixon's campaign committee -- and here it was now in the possession of one of the Watergate burglars. The New York Times had been hot on the story, too, but didn't find Dahlberg. It was this revelation that put Woodward & Bernstein on the trail that would lead to a Post Pulitzer, the Ervin hearings, and eventually Nixon's resignation."

[dchill]

22. Anything's possible...

but unfortunately, reporters used to be shovels, now they're trowels.

[AirAmFan]

23. Timing of US 'Downing Street Minutes' coverage: coincidence, or

a 'bandwagon effect' of the Deep Throat revelation?

While lionizing Woodward and Bernstein for investigative journalism more than thirty years ago, the US media had been ignoring for a whole month a "smoking gun" at the current White House.

But suddenly, there is a flurry of coverage of the "Downing Street Minutes", strong evidence that Dubya LIED when he said he had not decided to gin up an unprovoked invasion of Iraq before the spring of 2003. Even Fox "News" (!?) has jumped on the bandwagon! Below is a snippet of a rare online anti-Bush FOXNEWS.COM story, including a link to the actual DSM.

Has the DT revelation ignited vestigial journalistic instincts even among the stenographers at Fox "News"?

From http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,158228,00.html :

"Downing Street Memo Mostly Ignored in U.S.

Wednesday, June 01, 2005 By Kelley Beaucar Vlahos

PHOTOSSTORIES WASHINGTON � A British government memo that critics say proves the Bush administration manipulated evidence about weapons of mass destruction in order to carry out a plan to overthrow Saddam Hussein (search) has received little attention in the mainstream media, frustrating opponents of the Iraq war. The "Downing Street Memo"--first published by The Sunday Times of London on May 1--summarizes a high-level meeting between Prime Minister Tony Blair (search) and his senior national security team on July 23, 2002, months before the March 2003 coalition invasion of Iraq. The memo suggests that British intelligence analysts were concerned that the Bush administration was marching to war on wobbly evidence that Saddam posed a serious threat to the world.

CLICK HERE TO READ THE MEMO.

In the memo, written by top Blair aide Matthew Rycroft (search), Foreign Secretary Jack Straw indicated in the meeting that it "seemed clear" Bush had already decided to take military action. "But the case was thin," reads the memo on Straw's impressions. "Saddam was not threatening his neighbors, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran." The memo also paraphrased former head of the British Secret Intelligence Services, Richard Dearlove, fresh from meetings in the United States. The memo said Dearlove believed "military action was now seen as inevitable." "Bush wanted to remove Saddam Hussein, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD," the memo reads. "But the intelligence and the facts were being fixed around the policy," according to Dearlove's impressions.

"The NSC (National Security Council) had no patience with the U.N. route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action." The memo, which received sporadic reporting in major newspapers in the United States throughout May, has sparked an outcry from more than 88 Democratic members of Congress who have signed two letters to President Bush demanding a response. Led by Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., the signatories are mostly representatives who opposed the war in Iraq and make up the Congressional Progressive Caucus."

[Cha]

24. Not getting my hopes up

but it's a brilliant thought!

In a perfectly Ironic World it would happen.

[AirAmFan]

26. Was the ANTHRAX cleanup that closed Dem Senate offices for 3 mos

the Texas-sized Watergate event of Dubya's "presidency"? Who had the run of Tom Daschle's offices and those of 49 other Senators for three full months, and how were they supervised?

DUer Atman proposed this startling idea in a GD thread today (Thursday, 6/2/05).

Some googling reveals that $4 million in cleanup contracts at the Hart Senate Office Building were awarded without competition, and that 50 Environmental Protection Agency staff were assigned to "monitor" the cleanup. Did having the run of the building for three solid months tempt some people to peek at sensitive documents in the Minority Leader's office and in other Democratic Senators' offices?

Googling found several very interesting webpages at the UCLA School of Public Health, but the most informative was this one, an archived Washington Times story:

From http://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/bioter/hartanthraxclean.html :

"GAO SCORES CONTRACTOR WORK, PAY IN HART ANTHRAX CLEANUP
Last Updated 18 Jun 2003
Source: Washington Times, June 18, 2003
By Tom Ramstack, THE WASHINGTON TIMES

The General Accounting Office says in a new report that the anthrax cleanup at the Hart Senate Office Building last year suffered from "inconsistencies" in monitoring the work and payment of contractors. ... The GAO recommends that the Environmental Protection Agency use a uniform system for tracking costs and performance of toxic-cleanup contractors, rather than a patchwork of different systems.

The Hart building was contaminated in October 2001 when someone sent deadly anthrax spores in envelopes mailed to Capitol Hill offices. The office of Sen. Tom Daschle, South Dakota Democrat and minority leader, appeared to be the prime target. No one died at the Hart building, but it was evacuated for three months during the cleanup, which started in November 2001. ...

The EPA spent $27 million from its Superfund program on the Capitol Hill anthrax cleanup. The agency originally estimated the cleanup would cost $5 million. ... The EPA assigned 50 staffers to monitor the contractors' work. Another problem arose when contractors sent toxin-removal technical specialists. Often, they couldn't explain the costs to the EPA for each phase of the cleanup....

Costs escalated "as the nature and extent of the contamination became fully known and the solutions to remove and properly dispose of anthrax were agreed upon and carried out," the GAO said. Sen. Charles Grassley, Iowa Republican, requested the GAO audit. The GAO also raised questions about the fact that 15 contracts, worth a total of $4 million, were awarded without competitive bids. Instead, contractors were paid under the General Services Administration's supply schedule for vendor fees. The largest competitive contracts went to IT Corp. for removal of anthrax and to Pasadena, Calif.-based Tetra Tech Inc. for sampling of contaminated sites and decontamination plans. IT Corp. was paid about $4 million. Tetra Tech was paid $4.4 million."

See also Atman's GD thread, at http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=3772514&mesg_id=3772514

[AirAmFan]

32. Suspicious cleanup contracts, worth further investigation

Appendix I of a 3-megabyte Government Accountability Office report (online at http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d03686.pdf ) lists the contractors involved in the Hart building cleanup, alongside their contractual responsibilities. There are two groups of contractors: those who bid competitively, accounting for $23 million in cleanup costs; and those who were awarded noncompetitive contracts, accounting for $4 million in costs.

The contractual duties of several competitive award winners included removal of documents, off-site decontamination of documents, return of documents, and building security. Prior relationships between Bush Administration operatives and these contractors might have allowed for abusing the privacy of Democratic Senators and their staff.

But noncompetitive contracts for removal of documents for decontamination would provide maximal opportunities for partisan exploitation of reduced document security. From this point of view, one name stands out:

"Appendix I: Contract Tasks and Roles

Page 38 GAO-03-686 Capitol Hill Anthrax Incident

Noncompetitively awarded contracts

Contract: Kemron Environmental Services, Inc.

Purpose: Technical

Task/role performed: Perform air sampling and perform HEPA vacuuming services. Remove critical items and documents, ..."

[AirAmFan]

35. Kemron's description of their Capitol Hill activities,

which generated $2.5 million in revenues:

From http://www.kemron.com/Projects/anthrax_pd.html :

"Anthrax Decontamination, US Capitol Buildings

KEMRON completed remedial and removal actions during the decontamination program at the Hart, Longfellow and Ford US Senate and House office buildings in response to an anthrax release. KEMRON, under the USEPA Region 3 Emergency Response Group, responded and was on site within 24 hours. KEMRON, operating 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for a period of 10 weeks, performed removal efforts, physical removal and disposal of expendable items, and final remediation of spores using chemical treatment through a fumigation process and a direct spray/washdown process....

Due to the inherent difficulty in performing anthrax removal and destruction, much of the site work operating procedures were developed at the job site in conjunction with the regulators, USEPA�s Emergency Response Team, CDC, ATSDR, Capitol Hill Police, US Coast Guard, National Guard, US Marines, MD Department of the Environment and VA Department of Environmental Protection and in coordination with stakeholders. A true partnering relationship was established in order to move quickly through pilot testing of anthrax destruction / decontamination to full-scale implementation.

Project Facts: ... Value $2.5 million...

Removal efforts were conducted systematically evacuating particles using HEPA vacuums from objects of value and physically removing all expendable items for off-site disposal....

KEMRON was charged with the decontamination of the two most highly contaminated areas in the Hart Building � Senator Daschle Suite and the nine-story HVAC system."

[Jacobin]

29. giggling

now
:rofl:


:rofl:



Why would one of the six boards of directors who own 90% of the media make themselves and their friends look bad for invading Iraq to steal its oil and lying to the American people about WMDs to do it?


:rofl:

:rofl:

[AirAmFan]

30. Ownership and complete control rarely coincide

[CBHagman]

33. The press has treated Bush relatively tenderly.

I don't know whether it's the false belief that the administration is defending us against terrorism; the media's exhaustion, stupidity, or moral obtuseness; the fact that big corporations dominate the media; or the possibility that Karl Rove has naked pictures of everybody, but the media really hasn't landed on Bush the way he deserves.

The same media that can still summon sniggers over Al Gore and the Internet or moral indignation over Clinton's sex life apparently doesn't care that the current administration is incompetent, selfish, insular, and short-sighted.

[AirAmFan]

36. Is the main reason 'journalists' laziness--their taking the path of least

resistance to a Republican PR bulldozer?

George Lakoff says the big difference between Democratic and Republican media relations is that the RNC has 15 full time "bookers" to take advantage of every opportunity to get their spokespeople on the air, and that Republicans have a highly organized network to get their talking points out to those people.

Democrats don't have such sophisticated and costly PR, and thus seem to rely on the media to INVITE them to "balance" their political coverage. But maybe more such invitations actually will be forthcoming for awhile, as jornos react to lionization of Woodward, Bernstein, and O'Connor (of Vanity Fair).

If journalists' laziness explains Republican domination of the media, then a push by Howard Dean to make DNC PR as sophisticated as RNC PR might tend to level the media playing field.