The MSM, six years of Bush scandals, and the gap between Ward 54 and Building 18

[ProSense]

Note the two-year gap between Walter Reed scandals...

February 18, 2005:

Behind the walls of Ward 54

February 18, 2007:

Soldiers Face Neglect, Frustration At Army's Top Medical Facility

That's just to demonstrate the big gaping hole in media scrutiny of the Bush administration. For six years, Bush was allowed to seize power with little media scrutiny. Why? Answer: The MSM was preoccupied. In 2006, the media spent an inordinate amount of time trying to prove Libby and Rove's innocence while portraying Democrats as gearing up to return to power "to lynch the president" and to exact revenge by focusing on nothing but partisan investigations. One reporter even suggested that Democrats apologize to Rove. Now that Democrats are the majority party in Congress, the media is still trying to sell the idea that there will be public backlash against vigorous oversight. Yet Congressional oversight is the only reason most of these scandals are being widely exposed. The Bush admin has lied about everything: Iraq, firing prosecutors, CIA leak, rigging elections (since 2000), treatment of Veterans, climate change and everything else related to protecting the environment, and links to corruption.

Democracy or "Decidership?"

The Bush/Cheney regime has rammed down the nation's throat "signing statements," torture as official policy, secret prisons, illegal spying, the suspension of habeas corpus, political purges of U.S. attorneys, preventive wars, cronyism, no-bid contracts, and an utter contempt for Congressional checks on Executive power. And with all this going on the general contentedness of the chattering classes is startling.

Overpaid prognosticators like Adam Nagourney, David Sanger, Dana Milbank, Michael Kinsley, David Broder, David Gergen, and the rest, continue to serve up their bland and copious political "analyses" as if nothing is out of the ordinary. They even give the cautionary advice to members of the Legislative Branch that they better not push back against President George W. Bush too vigorously lest they be stung by voters in the next election.

Americans are divided at home and reviled abroad. Our reputation overseas is the worst it has been in our history. And our political commentators warn us against the "over-reaching" of the Democrats in Congress? A Congress that can only muster 218 votes in the House to put limits on an illegal war that was based on a pack of lies? Remember the "mushroom clouds" and the yellow cake from Niger?

<...>

Contrast the mainstream political "commentators" with the consistent remarks of Bill Moyers over the past few years, and it really drives home the extent of their detachment. Moyers has been sounding alarm bells, and he sees the magnitude of the catastrophe Bush has wrought.

Bush and Cheney have brought the crisis to a head with their largely successful expansion of executive power. They control a global military and intelligence network, a multi-billion dollar secret budget, front companies, "cut outs," secret prisons, and mercenary armies. Unless the Congress and the Courts assert themselves now and with vigor, we're in big trouble. It is painful to witness the corporate media's gatekeepers of our political discourse miss what is right in front of their faces.

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I voted for the Democrat and democracy! Let the oversight continue.

Edited title.

[ProSense]

1. Think Progress posted Rush Limbaugh's opinion on firing Gonzales

Rush Limbaugh: Don’t fire Gonzales even though he’s incompetent because winning elections is much more important:

[ProSense]

2. Bush's wingnut proganda machine

Bush's http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=3100475&mesg_id=3100475">propaganda machine includes Limbaugh, who interviewed:

Dick Cheney
Dick Cheney
Colin Powell
Condoleezza Rice
Donald H. Rumsfeld

[ProSense]

3. The don’t-bother-me-with-facts faction

The don’t-bother-me-with-facts faction

<...>

And then there’s the rest of the right, which doesn’t quite know what to do about this unpleasantness. Take, for example, National Review’s Mark Levin and his screed on the scandal yesterday. (via Jason Zengerle)

As Senate Judiciary Committee members continue to show that emails don’t comport with past statements and all the rest of it re the firing of eight U.S. attorneys, I guess I’m supposed to be outraged by all of it like some of my colleagues. I guess I’m supposed to fret about the political damage it will do to the Republican Party. Of course, the lib media are having a field day, denying their customers context and facts, as they continue to push the story…. But I choose not to join yet another wimp-a-thon, where phony scandals are made to look serious and too many Republicans and conservative pundits fire shots at their own people.

Is Alberto Gonzales a conservative? No. Was there an organized conservative effort to stop his nomination? No. Did the Republican majority in the Senate confirm him for his post? Yes. So, to argue now that one of the reasons he should go is because he’s not a conservative seems odd. Is Alberto Gonzales the smartest and most competent person to serve as attorney general? No. Did he botch the firing of the eight U.S. attorneys? I don’t know because I don’t what the question means under these circumstances, i.e., this is a phony scandal.

Levin goes on to say that questioning Gonzales’ fitness for office is “throwing your own people to the liberal wolves,” “disloyal,” and “self-destructive.” He describes conservatives who take this scandal seriously as offering a “pusillanimous” response. (For good measure, Levin throws in a few rants about the Koresh compound, Ken Starr, and Elian Gonzalez.)

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[ProSense]

4. "The 2006 election taught Republicans that people vote against headlines about corruption and war. "

Rove Knows That Voters Have Short Memories

In 2006 people voted against Republicans, not for Democrats. Never forget this.

The 2006 election taught Republicans that people vote against headlines about corruption and war. Republicans were being investigated and indicted for corruption so people voted against them.

So they are taking steps to change the playing field for 2008.

This is what the Justice Department scandal is about. The prosecutors who did "play ball" -- drop investigations into Republican corruption and investigate "administration priorities" -- were allowed to stay and the ones who did their jobs were fired.

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[ProSense]

5. Kick! n/t

[ProSense]

6. Judith Miller Faults Media Reponse in Libby Affair

Judith Miller Faults Media Reponse in Libby Affair

March 30, 2007 | 5:05 PM ET | Permanent Link

Former New York Times reporter Judith Miller, who in 2005 spent 85 days in jail for refusing to identify former White House aide Lewis "Scooter" Libby as a confidential source, said Friday she believes the media failed a major test when reporters and news organizations acquiesced to subpoenas issued them by federal prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, reports U.S. News & World Report media correspondent Liz Halloran.

"Had the press hung together," Miller said, and had more journalists protested the "pro-forma" confidentiality waivers issued by the White House, the damage done to the media during Fitzgerald's investigation into who leaked to reporters the identity CIA operative Valerie Plame would have been much less.

But, as it stands, she said, the investigation and Libby's recent trial that featured a parade of prominent journalists--including Miller--on the witness stand is cause for "enormous concern." Miller, speaking at the National Press Club during a media forum, blamed the nation's deep political divisions for making news organizations wary of fighting the orders to testify.

"These are very difficult times," said Miller, noting that there are at least 70 active subpoenas of journalists--"a chilling prospect.

"(This is) when solidarity really counts," she said.

Miller, who had become a lightning rod for complaints about faulty pre-war reporting on weapons of mass destruction, also told those at the forum, sponsored by Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, that the New York Times has spent $2 million defending her in three separate cases--including the Libby case--in which she or her notes and phone records had been subpoenaed.

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[mloutre]

7. Oh, puh-leeze. Judith Miller is a doink.

And she seems to think that we're all doinks, too. RoveCo played her like a two-dollar violin, and now she's trying to coax some extra mileage out of her being made a dupe by the neocons. Jeez, Louise.