Setting the example

The current scandal involving the governor of Illinois, who was caught on tape discussing the sale of the Senate seat there to the highest bidder, has managed to eclipse the ongoing economic crisis, the no-strings-attached gift to Wall Street banks, and the damning Senate Armed Services Committee report indicating that torture was sanctioned and fostered at the highest levels of government.

We all wonder how the foolish governor thought he could get away with it, bragging about his power and cursing out the politicians who wouldn’t play his game, especially since he knew he was the subject of an investigation. Perhaps the governor saw what the rest of us did – that high-level officials from the Oval Office on down are getting away with their crimes and incompetence. The Bush administration lied us into a disastrous war, disregarded US laws and the Geneva Conventions and then made sure that a few low-level soldiers faced the legal consequences for the use of “enhanced interrogation techniques”. Administration officials were so sure that they could trot out Article 2 of the Constitution as an excuse for their every deed that earlier this week the Vice-President confirmed that he had authorized techniques such as waterboarding while insisting that “we don’t do torture.” Sadly, but not surprisingly, the interviewer did not press Mr. Cheney on the contradictory nature of his statements, or on how a technique that had previously been prosecuted by the United States as a war crime was at the very least unacceptable.

Thanks to the media’s abdication of their watchdog responsibility, the Bush administration was also able to

- institute ideological litmus tests for government appointments and overlook such important elements as qualifications;

- break the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act law and and continue its illegal wiretapping of American citizens for a year while the New York Times sat on its reporters story;

- order a supine Congress to amend the 1978 FISA legislation by raising the specter of more devastating attacks and the need for the now mythical Article 2 powers (true to form, Congress, including the President-Elect, acquiesced, immunizing administration officials and their telecommunication allies).

Since that same Congress refused to consider impeachment, the President has been free to bid the country a fond rather than humiliating farewell on the major networks, as reporters render puff pieces detailing what Mr. Bush will do post-presidency. Mr. Bush got a less cozy reception in Iraq, where one journalist delivered a damning message via his shoes.

Is it any wonder then, that Governor Blagojevich would think himself immune from legal consequences and vow to fight until exoneration or death? Still, the country, denied justice in the Bush debacle, may finally see the impeachment of a corrupt government official. Media organizations are attacking the governor with a gusto unseen in their approach to the Bush administration. The shocking attempt to sell the President-Elect’s Senate seat has done what nonexistent weapons of mass destruction, destructive cronyism and erosion of the Constitution could not accomplish.

A tale of two media

While journalists at the Republican National Convention continue their dutiful reporting of the proceedings – commenting on the speeches, looking for the typical delegate, opining about whether the choice of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin for Vice-President will reel in disaffected Hillary Clinton supporters – a veritable police state has sprung up in the streets of St. Paul. But you won’t hear much about this in the mainstream press. After all, out in the streets, those who dare to document the activities of law enforcement are roughed up, slammed to the ground, detained or arrested and charged with a felony.

Additionally, as happened when Amy Goodman and two producers of Democracy Now! were arrested, their press credentials and credentials for the convention were confiscated by Secret Service officers and not returned. When Goodman later questioned the St. Paul police chief on how journalists covering street demonstrations could avoid arrest, he said they should “embed” with the police department. Access, of course, is everything to the mainstream media, where hobnobbing with replaces speaking truth to power. The need for access clearly informed the “embedded” coverage of the Iraq war and the Bush administration in general.

Meanwhile the surveillance state inaugurated after the 9-11 attacks is alive, well, and unscrutinized by the embedded media organizations, as groups opposed to current US policies were infiltrated and raided prior to the Republican Convention. These organizations include I Witness Video, which films police tactics during demonstrations and whose film footage was instrumental in charges being dropped against many of the demonstrators at the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York City. Law enforcement personnel raided the home where members of this organization were staying, searched their belongings, and detained them for three hours before releasing them without charges. Among the many tactics used by police and the FBI were the recruitment of moles to infiltrate groups of RNC protesters at such dangerous places as “vegan potlucks”.

The major media organizations are once again ignoring governmental overreach conducted in the name of national security. It appears that cowed by the specter of vegan terrorists, and just a week before the painful anniversary of the 9-11 attacks, the corporate media would prefer to ignore civil rights violations rather than face accusations of being “with the enemy” and losing access to power.

Mocking the media

President Bush held what will hopefully be the last news conference of his tenure on Tuesday. Why? With his approval ratings at a nadir, perhaps he still thinks he has the “political capital” to get things done. After all, he’s not one to pay attention to public opinion. Maybe he wanted another chance to chide Congress into making his tax cuts permanent; or to facilitate further huge profits for his friends in the oil and gas industry while many Americans struggle to fill up the gas tanks now so necessary for transportation to and from work; or to remind us one more time of the dangers lurking around every corner.

But what came through loud and clear from the press conference was the president’s total disdain for those assembled to hear him. Mr. Bush may call it friendly bantering, but complimenting a reporter on the color of her outfit while she is trying to do her job is condescending and an unnecessary distraction. He taunted reporters about follow-up questions and whether he would allow more than one per questioner. And what about those microphone glitches – the President seemed gleeful when one network reporter was unable to ask her follow-up question without practically screaming it out. Another reporter also had microphone issues.

Sadly, when members of the press decided it was OK to accept administration pronouncements as truth, and to embed themselves with the US military in order to cover war, when they relinquished there role of watchdogs in order to gain access to power, they left themselves open to this type of ridicule. This is a shame, since recently some reporters have done an excellent job of uncovering such major stories as the extent of the administration’s involvement in shaping interrogation policies, and the use of retired generals as “a kind of media Trojan horse” briefed by the Defense Department in pitching the invasion of Iraq. Others have uncovered such important stories as the extent of the president’s use of signing statements and telecommunication company involvement in spying on Americans. As year eight winds down, here’s hoping we get more incisive reports like these from now on rather than the servile stenography so prevalent during the Bush regime.