Right Wing Nut House

As Hizbullah fighters fanatically try and hold their ground in the small villages and towns of southern Lebanon, all the while being slaughtered systematically by the IDF, the makings of Israel’s “defeat” is being spun unmercifully in some corners of the media and on the left.

To date, more than 50 members of the IDF have been killed in the 25 day war. And while information on the numbers of Hizbullah fighters killed in action has been sketchy to say the least, the IDF estimates put the number at 300 on August 1, almost certainly an inflated estimate but one at least more trustworthy than Hizbullah’s laughable figure of 43 given on the same day.

There is every reason to believe that the figure of 300 is closer to being accurate as of today given what’s been happening the last 72 hours in southern Lebanon. Wherever Hizbullah fighters have stood toe to toe with the IDF, they have died. The terrorists perform the best in small unit ambushes where they put the Israelis on the defensive. The IDF then must call in helicopters and fighters to pound Hiz positions in order to extract their men.

But in the last few days, the Israelis have attacked in much larger formations, overwhelming the pockets of Hizbullah fighters and causing them to either flee or be killed. The J-Post reports:

At least ten Hizbullah operatives were killed and three were captured overnight.

Meanwhile, it was released on Sunday that in the past 48 hours, special forces operated south of Tyre. The troops destroyed 3 rocket launchers, a bunker, three weapons warehouses, and three cars used to transport rockets.

Two reserve soldiers were killed in clashes with Hizbullah in southern Lebanon on Saturday. Army forces killed at least 50 Hizbullah guerillas over the weekend, the IDF said.

The raid at Baalbek and the most recent Special Forces op south of Tyre killed dozens more. And given the amount of ordinance expended by the IAF, one has to assume that many Hizbullah fighters have died as the result of bombings.

The point is very simple; Hizbullah fighters are dying in droves, their infrastructure is being smashed to pieces, they are being thrown out of positions in southern Lebanon they’ve occupied since Israel left in 2000, and conversely, they have failed to inflict significant casualties on the IAF although they do very well killing unarmed civilians by launching barrages of rockets indiscriminately into the towns and villages of northern Israel.

Would someone please explain how Hizbullah is “winning” anything except perhaps the race to have the most martyrs claim those 72 virgins in the afterlife?

Where the Hiz are successful, it is in the battle of perceptions. And in this conflict, the IDF is at a huge disadvantage in that the overwhelming majority of the world’s press is openly cheering for Hizbullah to give the Israelis a bloody nose. Tom Gross of the J-Post points to the piss poor job being done by the Israelis in the media war:

Hizbullah and the Palestinians know the value of propaganda. They often fight their media battles by the dirtiest possible means. An expose in these pages on Thursday by former Sunday Telegraph correspondent Tom Gross revealed that Hizbullah officers supervise CNN reports, that a CBS reporter admitted Hizbullah overseers determine what’s filmed, that repeated shots of several downed buildings lend Beirut the erroneous image of devastated WWII Dresden, that journalists are threatened, that Hizbullah holds their passports for ransom, that their analyses are skewed to curry favor, and so on.

Not only doesn’t Israel engage in significant preemptive damage control, it often seems resigned to lose by default. The axiomatic official Israeli attitude often seems to be that “the world hates us.”

It may indeed deny us a fair shake, but there’s a difference between giving up a priori and trying to do something about it. To forfeit without a fight is reckless neglect. It can only impact on Israel’s image, its standing abroad, and the pressure on international politicians to take unsympathetic positions, and thus directly on Israel’s future well-being.

The pathetic nature of Hizbullah’s “success” - the fact that they aren’t running away in terror or surrendering as other, less fanatical Arab armies have done in the past - says much more about those who are lionizing the terrorists than it does about whether they are “winning” the war in any real sense of the word. Because when the dust settles and hostilities end, Israel will have a buffer zone of one kind of another, Hizbullah will be prevented from re-occupying positions they held for nearly 6 years prior to the war, and given Israeli-American insistence, Nasrallah’s fanatics will be disarmed probably by having his militia folded into the Lebanese army.

And this is a Hizbullah “victory?”

Ah, but the Hiz are heroes in the Arab street you say! Nasrallah will be more powerful in Lebanese politics, you crow! As for the former, my aunt Mabel would be popular in the Arab street if she was the beneficiary of the dizzying spin being put on this conflict in the Arab and western press.

As for the latter, someone please give me the crystal ball making that prediction so that I can pick some stocks. No one knows what shape post war Lebanese politics will take., what the impact of Nasrallah’s bellicosity that started the war and now his intransigence that is prolonging it will have on his standing among the other factions. My guess is that the Future Party of Prime Minister Siniora, Saad Hariri and Walid Jumblatt will do a little anti-Nasrallah spinning of their own in the aftermath of this war. And how that will turn out is anyone’s guess.

The western press always seems able to find present or former State Department officials or analysts of one kind or another who will wail on cue about how badly the war has gone for Israel and how the conflict has “empowered” Hizbullah. These doomsayers have made their prognostications based not what has been happening on the battlefield but what they perceive to be Israel’s weakness in not vanquishing Hizbullah in 6 days - that being the standard set by the international punditariat for a clear Israeli victory. Anything more and either the IDF is losing its edge or they have met their match on the battlefield in Hizbullah. This is so clearly tommyrot. Just look at a map of Israeli positions today and see that they have trapped Hizbullah’s remaining fighters in a kill zone from the border to the Litani River. With roads and bridges impassable, those Hiz fighters are doomed unless they surrender.

Given the fact that Nasrallah has rejected out of hand the provisions in the cease fire resolution that will probably be passed Tuesday or Wednesday, Israel will have a free hand to continue to kill his fighters, bust up his remaining infrastructure, and weaken his organization where it counts - its ability to harm the Jewish state.

Will that matter to those who are busy spinning Israel’s inevitable defeat? Probably not. But then, I doubt the Israelis care very much just as long as they can prevent Hizbullah from harming their citizens whenever they feel like it.

Now that smells like victory…

UPDATE

Judith Klinghoffer has more evidence of a Hizbullah “victory.” Nasrallah begging for help in arranging a cease fire from the very same Arab states he dismissed so cavailerly just 3 weeks ago:

Get out of my way, he told Arab leaders at the start of the conflict. Now he changed his tune:

For your own sake, for the sake of your thrones, I say to you: Combine your humanity with your thrones, and act - even for a single day - to stop this aggression against Lebanon. From the first day, I said that I do not ask or call upon you to do anything. I still do not, but I want to protect you, our country, and our homeland. This is how those who want can help Lebanon.”

This is so outrageous that I’m going to take a break from what’s happening in the Middle East long enough to spout off about this piece of jaw dropping idiocy from the New York Times.

It seems that in one of the newspaper’s online slide shows of photos from Iraq, a photographer for the paper snapped a few Polaroids of he and his buddies in the Mehdi Army killing American citizen-soldiers:

The caption under the picture reads - incredibly - “A sniper loyal to Shiite cleric Moqtada al Sadr fires towards U.S. positions in the cemetery in Najaf, Iraq.” Assistant Managing Editor for Photography Michele McNally comments:

“Right there with the Mahdi army. Incredible courage.”

Goldstein nails this idiocy:

Incredible courage? Well, far be it for me to question such self-congratulatory enthusiasm, but it seems to me that actual “incredible courage” would have entailed, say, Joao Silva getting word to US troops, or his bumrushing the sniper and beating him unconscious with a heavy telephoto lens.

Hinderaker adds:

It would have required courage to hang out with the Mahdi Army, if there were any likelihood that a member of the Iraqi “insurgency” would regard a representative of the New York Times as an enemy.

Apparently this Mr. Silva has an entire book of these photos of him cozying up to the jihadis entitled Me and Mookie’s Boys or maybe its called Moral Relativism for Fun and Profit.

Whatever the real name of the book, I will not identify it nor will I link to it. And perhaps some clever reporter type may want to do an indepth interview with Mr. Silva. If he did, I’d love it if he asked the photographer the Dierks Bentley question; “What were you thinking?”

For a little perspective, let’s imagine it’s 1944 in France. Here’s the “courageous” Mr. Silva covering the invasion - from a unique vantage point.

GERMAN SOLDIER PLAYING CATCH WITH AMERICAN GI

Given the cluelessness exhibited by his editor in being so profoundly touched by his “courage,” I doubt very much if Silva or the Times gave much thought to the mother or wife of that American soldier the fanatic was killing at the time he snapped the picture.

Maybe we should ask Mr. Silva to stop by the widow’s or the mother’s house and explain himself while looking her right in the eye.

Now that would take courage.

UPDATE

Dan Riehl:

I’m not sure which is more disgusting, a New York Times employee observing snipers targeting our military, or the lofty prose with which they are surrounding the pictures in a new book.

Here’s what he’s talkng about. It’s a blurb selling the book:

“This photographic body of work, recorded over twelve months, richly captures the Shi’as’ intense commitment to their faith and their indomitable spirit of sacrifice.”

“Indomitable” indeed.

UPDATE II

In my haste to compile this post, I neglected to mention that the folks at Little Green Footballs were the ones who ferreted this stupidity out in the first place.

I apologize to all Lizardoids who may have been wondering how I possibly could have forgotten them.

Glenn Greenwald is almost never right about anything. He is an hysteric, a red meat partisan Democrat (who piously rejects that label despite being outed recently as a member of the partisan Democrat email list “Townhouse”). He can be acerbic, cranky, and a serial exaggerator of laughable proportions. He is also smart, passionate, and a dyed in the wool defender of our civil liberties, one of the most articulate in the blogosphere.

If you get the idea that I have mixed feelings about Greenwald, you would be correct. I generally find his critiques of conservatives unbelievably shallow, almost grotesque in the cartoonish and simple minded way he paints the right. He natters. He takes forever to make a simple point (something I’ve been guilty of more than once). And to top it all off, he’s popular and gets tons of traffic, thus awakening the green monster of jealously in me and stimulating the id to take over my unconscious mind, forcing me to imagine all sorts of foul things that could befall his blog.

But today, I’m agreeing with him:

One Bush follower after the next who has been furiously protesting the publication of leaks by the NYT and other newspapers — almost all of whom has accused the NYT of treason, of providing aid and comfort to their Al Qaeda friends, etc. for reporting leaked classified information — have written today about this leaked story. But all of them are ecstatic over this story, celebrating it as a great and heroic blow for the Bush administration and as proof that The Terrorists really are the Epic Threat they’ve been claiming. And almost none of them are protesting the unauthorized leak, let alone calling for the reporters and editors at the Daily News to be sent to gas chambers or put in federal prison for the rest of their lives.

Their celebratory reaction to this leak is particularly noteworthy given that the Daily News article itself acknowledged that its source told it that the leaked law enforcement investigation “is an ongoing operation.” And the FBI claims that this leak has jeopardized foreign intelligence sources.

Before I pat Greenwald on the back, let me bash him over his pointy head. The only debate about the efficacy of the press publishing secrets in wartime is occurring on the right. The question of whether or not to arrest and try the reporters and editors who publish these stories has been a topic of heated debate only among conservatives. As usual, Greenwald’s critique is shallow and off target.

The left, as with almost every other issue involving national security, has failed to engage in any kind of serious colloquy, even among themselves, as to the national security implications of these leaks. Instead, all we get is the ridiculous notion that the information shouldn’t have been classified in the first place because al-Qaeda already knows everything we’re doing to track them so publishing stories that detail our methods is perfectly alright because the government is violating our civil liberties. The fact that we don’t know enough about how these programs actually work to make that kind of determination doesn’t stand in the way of the left when their on a roll politicizing national security.

No one can take their argument that al-Qaeda is in the know about all of our tracking methods seriously. Which is why despite the many sins committed by Republicans in managing the government, the Democrats are by no means assured of taking over Congress in November. As much as the American people dislike Republicans, they simply don’t trust the Democrats on national security matters. Nor will they until the left begins to engage Republicans on the issues and not the politics of keeping the country safe.

But Greenwald has made a point that many on the right cannot dispute today. The fact of the matter is that publishing details of this investigation has harmed our ability to keep the United States of America safe and we shouldn’t be ignoring this fact in order to make cheap political points at the expense of the left.

The damage done in impairing our ability to prevent another attack on this country was severe:

Disclosure of the bomb plot coincided with the one-year anniversary of a terrorist bomb attack on London subways and a bus that killed 52 and injured about 700. Authorities said they hadn’t intended to release details about the plot this early and that whoever leaked the information had compromised the FBI’s relationship with some foreign intelligence services.

The person who leaked the details is clearly someone who doesn’t understand the fragility of international relations,” Mershon said. “We’ve had a number of uncomfortable questions and some upsetment (sic) with these foreign intelligence services that had been working with us on a daily basis.”

Whether the leak came from the Administration or from a foreign source doesn’t matter. Cooperation with other intel agencies is absolutely vital to ferreting out the possibility of a terrorist attack on the United States and any diminution of that cooperation is a blow to our security. It is clear that the New York Daily News should be placed in the same boat as the New York Times and other publications that use unauthorized leaks to either sell newspapers, make political hay, or both.

Greenwald makes another point that needs to be aired here; the rank hypocrisy on the right when it comes to the issue of national security leaks in general. As he points out, this isn’t the first time that there have been leaks showing the Administration on the ball that has had the right celebrating the government’s watchfulness. Consistency may be “the hobgoblin of little minds” as Emerson said but it should also be a faithful friend in politics. One can’t pick and choose which leaks are efficacious and which are detrimental. You and I are simply unqualified to make such judgements.

All of this being said, I can’t resist linking to this article in Raw Story that seeks to downplay the plot, thus re-enforcing the notion that the left is unserious about our security:

One former intelligence field officer says, and two other CIA officials confirm, that the alleged plot by Muslim extremists to bomb the Holland Tunnel in New York City was nothing more than chatter by unaffiliated individuals with no financing or training in an open forum already monitored extensively by the United States Government, RAW STORY has learned.

“The so-called New York tunnel plot was a result of discussions held on an open Jihadi web site,” said Philip Giraldi, a former CIA officer and contributor to American Conservative magazine, in a late Friday afternoon conversation. Although Giraldi acknowledges that the persons involved – “three of whom have already been arrested in Lebanon and elsewhere - are indeed extremists,” their online chatter is considerably overblown by allegations of an actual plot.

“They are not professionally trained terrorists, however, and had no resources with which to carry out the operation they discussed,” Giraldi added. “Despite press reports that they had asked Abu Musab Zarqawi for assistance, there is no information to confirm that. It is known that the members discussed the possibility of approaching Zarqawi but none of them knew him or had any access to him.”

There is every reason to take any plot, or “chatter,” or fantasies like this seriously. Even the article admits these perps are extremists with the desire to carry out such an attack. As we have seen to our endless sorrow, couple that desire with a fanatical determination to succeed and you get Mohammed Atta and 9/11. And the fact that Raw Story and most of the left would, in the aftermath of such an attack, skewer the Administration for not believing the extremists were serious only shows how truly frightening the prospect of the Democrats having their quaking hands on any of the levers that control our national security would be.

UPDATE

Pundit Guy has a perfect counterpoint to the left’s downplaying of this threat:

Have we become so far removed from that day in September of 2001 that we now criticize the very people who work 24/7 to protect us from being killed? Isn’t this the kind of complacency that the terrorists hope will spread through America, just so they can once more catch us asleep at the wheel?

In their eagerness to score political points about “fearmongering,” liberals have once again demonstrated that they are unfit to command. The American people will not elect those who have either forgotten 9/11 or who believe it didn’t change much.

One fascinating aspect of the controversy over the terrorist bank monitoring imbroglio has been the insistence by the press that 1) the terrorists already knew about the program so it wasn’t a secret; and 2) it’s okay to reveal secrets as long is it’s in the cause of “the people’s right to know.”

Does anyone else see something a little strange there? It was okay to reveal a program that all the reporters and editors involved wrote was a “closely held” secret when the story broke but now we’ve decided it wasn’t a secret anyway?

I must confess to becoming dizzy from all the spin being created by the press and the left on this issue. Round and round we go, careening from explanations about what a good thing it is to reveal secrets that, in the opinion of the press, are essential to the preservation of liberty to why it doesn’t matter because the terrorists know everything so its not a secret anyway.

Stop the world I want to get off!

This encomium to the freedom of the press, waxing poetic about the media’s right to publish anything it damn well pleases by Time Magazine Managing Editor Richard Stengler is a real jaw dropper. For sheer brazenness on the issue of press irresponsibility, it has no equal. And its dripping condescension and arrogant assumptions about the American people reveal a man so out of touch, he may as well be writing from another galaxy:

The stories in the New York Times and other newspapers about the government’s highly classified program to monitor bank records have provoked outrage from the White House. President George W. Bush called them “disgraceful” and said the revelations caused “great harm” to America. Vice President Dick Cheney said the press had “made the job of defending against further terrorist attacks more difficult.”

I do not know if they are right. What I do know is that Presidents in wartime assert that their constitutional responsibility for national security trumps any issue of civil liberties. Often that has meant trampling on them.

First, I suppose it’s possible one could out a “highly classified program” that everyone knows about, although one would think the very definition of “highly classified” would preclude such a construct.

But note Mr. Spengler’s uncertainty about whether or not the Administration’s criticism is valid. In other words, when in doubt, publish. That seems to sum up all of the gratuitous chest thumping we’ve seen from the likes of Bill Keller and Dean Baquet who, as editors of the New York Times and LA Times respectively made the decision to publish details of this top secret program. And reporter Eric Lichtblau, who stressed how secret the program was in his New York Times article, is now backtracking furiously:

“USA Today”, the biggest circulation in the country, the lead story on their front page four days before our story ran was the terrorists know their money is being traced, and they are moving it into—outside of the banking system into unconventional means. It is by no means a secret.

(HT: Patterico)

The fallacy of that particular piece of illogic is in the details. For instance, Hitler knew full well we were going to invade France in the summer of 1944. But could you imagine the New York Times publishing the fact that the intended target of the invasion was Normandy and then defending its decision by saying that Hitler knew we were coming anyway?

I realize the exaggeration inherent in my example, but the essential truth of it holds. The terrorists may have known in a general way that we were tracking their bank transactions. But given the specificity of what we were doing with Swift contained in the Times article, it is ridiculous to assume that this information wasn’t at least helpful to terrorists and their financial enablers in either confirming their methods were effective in avoiding scrutiny or how vulnerable they truly were to detection.

The former is probably equally as damaging as the latter. And the fact that Stengler doesn’t even acknowledge that possibility is revealing. By taking on the role of Commander in Chief in deciding what information should be shared with the American people, the press in this case proves themselves inept, incapable, and incompetent in evaluating potential damage to our security, reason enough to slap them down particularly hard on this issue.

In fact, Stengler’s only acknowledgement of responsibility is this curious statement:

The government’s assertion that it must be unhindered in protecting our security can camouflage the desire to increase Executive power, while the press’s cry of the public’s right to know can mask a quest for competitive advantage or a hidden animus. Neither the need to protect our security nor the public’s right to know is a blank check. So listen carefully because, after all, you are the judge. It is the people themselves who are the makers of their own government.

What Stengler fails to mention is that if a President oversteps the bounds of the Constitution in his grab for excess executive power, he can be held responsible through impeachment. Making the press accountable for misusing their trust is an entirely different matter.

How do we hold the press responsible? The free market is a useful tool in that if enough people get upset with the newspaper over publishing secrets and cancel their subscriptions, the paper dies an ignoble death. But in reality, the chances of this happening are extremely remote and in fact, would be unprecedented in American history.

This has given the press a kind of immunity that no President or politician enjoys. For this reason, Stengler’s carefully constructed house of cards about the equal responsibility of the press and the executive is, in the end, a chimerical attempt to hide the fact that the press is asking the American people simply to trust it when it comes to revealing secrets, that their motives are pure and their judgement supreme to that of the people’s elected representatives.

If there is another definition of “hubris,” I haven’t seen it.

“Wild Bill” Keller appeared on television last night in what can only be described as “the friendliest forum available” - on CNN with Wolf Blitzer. Since Keller deigned not to explain his decision to publish information on the top secret wire transfer monitoring program in his arrogant and rather cryptic “letter” to readers in yesterday’s edition, he counted on Blitzer not to dig too deeply into his motivations and instead allow him to skate through relatively unscathed.

Good move, Bill. With anger taking on something of a bi-partisan tone for the first time in years (at least outside the blogs where liberals insist that this is one more indication that Bush is Hitler without the mustache and jack boots), Keller probably realized he couldn’t hide under his desk forever and not pretend to answer some of the issues that led him to publish a story that ruined a program that by all accounts was legal, had proper oversight, and most importantly, actually caught some bad guys.

The argument made here that ” [a]nyone who thinks that the people who carried out 9/11 don’t know that we are tapping their phones, reading their emails and checking into their financing, is an idiot” is true up to a point. Terrorists may know we are trying to tap their phones but I doubt very much whether they realized most of our capabilities in this regard. For instance, by knowing the specific measures that we take in not just intercepting phone calls to each other but also to people who may be totally unrelated to their terrorist activities, one more avenue of potential monitoring dries up. The NSA intercept program - details of which are still lacking (which hasn’t stopped the left from declaring the program “illegal”) - was far more than a wiretapping program. It was designed to uncover terrorist networks, not just the jihadis themselves.

The fact that it was successful in doing so makes the above argument ring a little hollow. Despite taking ordinary precautions against having their communications monitored, once the program became public knowledge, the jihadis could put in place countermeasures making it that much harder for us to find out what they’re up to.

In a similar vein, the wire transfer program will now be useless to us. The fact that 9/11 hijackers received Western Union wire transfers on a regular basis probably alerted the terrorists to the idea that this particular way of moving money was now closed to them. But what about their financiers? The Islamic charities here and abroad that maintain a steady flow of cash to terrorist groups like Hamas, Hizballah, Islamic Jihad, and others as well as the individuals who fund terrorists may or may not have been aware of the extent of our monitoring or of our capabilities to pull these transactions and the networks they reveal out of thin air.

Ultimately, the point is why assume they know everything that we are doing to spy on them? With that kind of attitude, we may as well shut everything down and wait for an attack, that trying to monitor their activities is useless and we may as well give up.

I think most Americans would reject that approach which is why, as Patterico points out here, Keller, the LA Times, and the Wall Street Journal may be in more trouble than they realized prior to publication:

The decision to prosecute newspaper personnel for publishing classified information is a vexing one that pits the core American value of free speech against a legitimate need for secrecy in some areas. I think that, in the particular circumstances of this case, a good argument can be made that a prosecution would be consistent with the relevant statutes and the Constitution. However, it is by no means certain that we would obtain a conviction — and prosecutions would be very bad public relations.

Accordingly, we should concentrate on finding the leakers, first and foremost. If that means dragging some journalists before a grand jury and forcing them to out their sources or go to jail, then so be it.

I think that analysis is spot on given that every newspaper and broadcast outlet in the country would oppose prosecution, no matter how much they may deserve it. And the people’s anger against the outing of this program may grow as information comes to light that there was a bi-partisan effort prior to the Times and others running their stories on this program to quash publication. Treasury Secretary Snow:

Your charge that our efforts to convince The New York Times not to publish were “half-hearted” is incorrect and offensive. Nothing could be further from the truth. Over the past two months, Treasury has engaged in a vigorous dialogue with the Times - from the reporters writing the story to the D.C. Bureau Chief and all the way up to you. It should also be noted that the co-chairmen of the bipartisan 9-11 Commission, Governor Tom Kean and Congressman Lee Hamilton, met in person or placed calls to the very highest levels of the Times urging the paper not to publish the story. Members of Congress, senior U.S. Government officials and well-respected legal authorities from both sides of the aisle also asked the paper not to publish or supported the legality and validity of the program.

(HT: Captains Quarters)

While it appears that the LA Times has made a concerted effort to explain and justify its decision (that Patterico takes apart here), Keller has maintained a facade of arrogance about publication of the story that either reveals him to be completely clueless about the real anger at what the Times did or unconcerned about its impact on the War on Terror. Since Keller swears that he and his reporters assessed the potential damage to our efforts to fight terrorism, one would have to conclude that Keller and the Times ultimately placed their own narrow interpretation of the civil liberties implications of the program over what all agree was the importance of the program to uncovering terrorist networks.

This is arrogant and elitist on the part of Keller and the Times. And if we are forced to pay for their delusions of power by enduring a devastating terrorist attack, I daresay the questions asked of Keller will not be coming from bloggers, but from Federal prosecutors.

UPDATE

Steve Sturm suggests denying the New York Times access to the White House as well as Air Force I and other Presidential sites. In short, yank their press credentials.

It’s an interesting idea. I believe that the Administration froze out Helen Thomas in the immediate aftermath of the invasion - not for publishing secrets but because she was so rabid in her criticism. They didn’t yank her press pass but both the press secretary and the President refused to acknowledge her at press conferences and briefings. Since Thomas is the “Dean” of the Washington press corp, this was a slight that did not go unnoticed.

Can the Administration take away press privileges for the Times? I’m sure they can. But given the wailing and gnashing of teeth that would emanate from the media nationwide, my guess is that they may take them out of the loop the way they dissed Helen Thomas.

Hi Mom and Dad!

Well, I have to say my idea for starting this Camp New York Times retreat was certainly one of my more inspired brainstorms since taking over for poor Howell Raines as Executive Editor. I actually invited Howie up for the weekend thinking it would do him good to see the old gang again. But he mumbled something rather uncomplimentary about you, mom and well - I figured he just wouldn’t fit in with the group anymore. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that Jayson Blair was staying in the Alumni cabin.

I’m having a wonderful time. Sure is nice to get away from the city where I have to rub elbows with the hoi polloi and endure the stultifying presence of so many commoners. By the way, I know you’ll get a kick out of this: One of the security guards downstairs actually had the temerity to say “Hi Mr. Keller” to me the other day. I gave him my best “New York Times Executive Editor Haughty Glance,” barely acknowledging his presence with an ever so slight nod of my patrician head. That shut him up quick. He hasn’t had the gumption to say anything to me since. Now if I could only be that successful about shutting up our Public Editor Byron Calame and stop him from bothering me all the time with stupid questions about this or that story. I am so sorry I hired him.

You may have read in our newspaper right before I left for camp about my latest triumph; publishing more hush-hush stuff from the government. We’re all having fun up here reading how simply everyone is talking about it. Right after me and some of the boys carried out a panty raid on Maureen Dowd’s cabin (she asked us to stay and “play” but Dad, you should see that woman without makeup. Yikes!), I decided it was time to write a letter explaining my decision to publish the story about this top secret program to track terrorist wire transfers.

Well, you know the drill. Blah, Blah, Blah “bill of rights.” Fiddle, Fiddle, Faddle “freedom of the press.” This is usually good enough to satisfy the really important people like my friends at The New Yorker and The Nation. And, of course, I don’t have to work very hard to get Babs Streisand or any of our Hollywood friends on my side. Besides, I’m sure you know what a complete waste of my time writing letters like this is. Since I don’t feel like I have to explain myself to anybody, much less a bunch of Bush loving chimpanzees, I made this one extra irrelevant. Not once did I mention the real reason I spilled the beans about this perfectly legal program; it makes me feel real important, almost like I was in charge of the country.

In fact, one of our funnest games here at Camp is to pretend that all of us at the Times are more important than the elected government and that I get to decide what laws to obey and which ones to ignore. It’s almost as fun as my favorite game, “I’ve Got a Secret to Publish” although all of the government leakers I asked up here who have helped us with the top secret stuff would rather play “Get Bush” which, as you know, is getting to be so boring since we play that game everyday, day in and day out at the office. (To tell you the truth, I’m getting a little tired of having those leakers around. After all, they are bureaucrats and not the right sort to invite to The Club for a drink or take out on the Sound in the Avenger .)

One thing kind of bothers me, mom. All of these wild people on the internet. You know, the bloggers and such. Now you know me. I wouldn’t know a kilobyte from a kipper. But these bloggers are sort of smart - in a pedestrian kind of way. I mean, they’re not “smart” like us. They probably don’t know about the real important stuff like never wearing navy blue after Labor Day or how a gentleman shells an oyster in a restaurant. (Just like you taught me, dad. Gently…gently.)

But these bloggers are screaming bloody murder about this terrorist thing and want me arrested because they say I helped the enemy during wartime. Now you and I both know dad, that it’s not very sporting of us to have such a huge advantage over the terrorists when it comes to our hi tech stuff. All I’ve been trying to do by publishing the gobs of secrets about how we monitor terrorists is “level the playing field” a little. Jeepers! We do this all the time in politics. Anytime a Republican gets a lead on a Democrat, all we have to do is a couple of hit pieces, blow things way out of proportion, (you know…allow that note of hysteria to creep into our coverage) and things are back level - or better.

So these bloggers are driving us nuts over this and now, some people are talking about prosecuting me. I’d be interested in your thoughts, dad, about who I should call to represent me. Paul Krugman thinks I should get Robert Bennett, the man who kept Bill Clinton out jail. But I think I’d rather go with a New Yorker. Maybe the ACLU can recommend someone.

Anyway, that’s about all if have to say. Keep reading our paper. I’m sure before too long, I’ll have some more juicy government secrets to spill.

Your son,

Billy

UPDATE

Michelle Malkin has a great round up of reaction to Keller’s curious missive and links to Patterico’s analysis of a radio interview done by LA Times Washington Bureau Chief Doyle McManus during which the journalist tried to explain why the paper went with the story:

The bottom line is, of course, that McManus and his colleagues took it upon themselves to decide what classified information the public (and our enemies) should know about. Bizarrely, he claims that the critical factors in his decision were whether the program was legal and had adequate safeguards — even though, as I document in a related post, it was indeed legal and had extensive safeguards in place. Thus, his excuses are an apparent cover for some other motivation, as yet unrevealed.

Could it possibly be that McManus, Keller, and many other mainstream journalists and broadcasters are perhaps daring the Administration to initiate prosecutions against them? While I have no doubt that they can justify the decision to publish details of these programs based on their perception of the public’s “right to know” - a necessarily broad and all-encompassing reason - the fact is, it simply doesn’t adequately explain why they feel compelled to expose a secret program of obvious legality and with several different levels of safeguards (not the least of which is oversight by Swift itself).

It really is curious.

I refuse to take a back seat to anyone in my support for constitutional principles. No lefty, no privacy advocate, no civil liberties absolutist, and certainly no smarmy, self righteous, sickeningly smug Executive Editor of a newspaper like the New York Times and its cowardly editor Bill Keller can look me in the eye and accuse me of less. Those who question my support for those principles know nothing of me, my past, my passions nor my sincerity.

I have questioned many of this Administration’s anti-terrorist measures and am troubled by the accumulation of power by the executive branch - a process, I might add, that both the President and Vice President have stated on numerous public occasions their intent to justify and continue. They have made no secret of their goal to, in their words, “bring the constitution back in balance,” a state of affairs they attribute to the stripping of executive power by Congress following Watergate. I look at these statements and some of their actions with the jaundiced eye of a conservative who remembers what untrammelled executive power is capable of when used by men whose primary goal is not preservation of the nation but preservation of their own personal, privileged positions in power.

I have wrestled with with these issues on a case by case basis as any thinking American should. This lets out the overwhelming majority of liberals whose knees automatically jerk and whose heads explode with every revelation of government trying to figure out if there is someone out there trying to blow me to smithereens. They are not serious people and should never, ever be trusted with anything more important to national security than running the local YMCA.

This most recent attempt by the New York Times and others to throw a body block against the Administration to spring al-Qaeda for an open field run at the United States is so far beyond the pale that any attempt to justify their actions only reveals them to be as clueless about national security as they are partisan in their political beliefs.

Indeed, this jaw dropping “explanation” by Times Executive Editor Bill Keller reaches heights of hubris and arrogance not seen since the days of Hearst, McCormick, and other press barons who believed they, not the elected representatives of the people, ran the country:

Bill Keller, the newspaper’s executive editor, said: “We have listened closely to the administration’s arguments for withholding this information, and given them the most serious and respectful consideration. We remain convinced that the administration’s extraordinary access to this vast repository of international financial data, however carefully targeted use of it may be, is a matter of public interest.”

There are many, many things “in the public interest” that I would love to see splattered all over the front pages of the Times. For instance, I would find it irresistible to know what was in the President’s Daily Brief (PDB) from the CIA each day, wouldn’t you? I would love a transcript of the private briefing listened to by the President. What questions did he ask? What were the spook’s sources? And while we’re at it, I would find it fascinating to get the CIA’s take on the situation inside Syria or what’s the real scoop on President Ahmadinejad of Iran. Is he really as loony as he sounds? Or is it all an act?

Talk about “public interest!” The Times would sell a gazillion copies if they printed that stuff. Of course, I’m not saying the Times is quite so irresponsible as all that. But the point needs answering.

Where does one draw the line on “public interest?” Does the Times have the obligation to disclose its internal debates that went into the decision to out this particular program? Do its editors and writers have an obligation to fan out and appear in public forums like the cable nets and talk radio shows to explain their rationale for publicizing a program that even they admit in their 5,000 word article is legal?

Keller is a coward. And his refusal to appear on shows like Hugh Hewitt’s program only leaves the impression that he knows what he did is unjustifiable under any doctrine that includes “the public’s right to know” or that the Times was acting in the even more problematic “public interest.” The reporters on the piece are less responsible but should still demonstrate a little backbone and come out from behind the Time’s firewall and explain themselves.

Patterico wrestles with the legal implications:

As to the separate question of whether these folks can and/or should be criminally prosecuted, I haven’t made up my mind. I lean toward the conclusion that prosecutions are possible and wise. But it’s not as obvious as you might think. In the context of the current situation, the answer may seem obvious. But it is easy to imagine other situations where it is not.

The boys at Powerline are much more certain about what should be done:

It is unfortunately past time for the Bush administration to enforce the laws of the United States against the New York Times. The Times and its likeminded media colleagues will undoubtedly continue to undermine and betray the national security of the United States until they are taught that they are subject to the same laws that govern the conduct of ordinary citizens, or until an enraged citizenry decides, like Bill Keller, to take the law into its own hands and express its disagreement some other way.

From a purely practical point of view, making Keller and the Times reporters do the perp walk would cause a constitutional crisis no matter how “legal” the prosecutions would be or how justifiable they would be under the present circumstances. Nearly every media outlet in the country would condemn it and it would certainly set off a Congressional row. It may actually end up being much more trouble than those gentlemen are worth. In fact, the prosecutions may have the opposite effect that Powerline envisions. Just to prove how brave they are, journalists would take it upon themselves perhaps to publish all sorts of classified information, daring the Department of Justice to prosecute them.

What we can do is being done - flood their inboxes with mail and condemn their actions with all the moral outrage we can muster. It won’t change a thing with regards to this story. But it may make Keller and the Times think a little harder next time about publishing national security secrets.

UPDATE

Patterico has cancelled his subscription to the Los Angeles Times, one of three papers who broke the story yesterday. The other two were the NY Times and the Wall Street Journal.

He pointed out to the subscription specialist who tried to talk him out of cancelling that he wasn’t doing it because he disagreed with the newspaper. And anyone who has read Patterico’s year end summaries of what the LA Times has done knows that he has plenty of ammunition there. Rather, he cancelled because he cannot abide by the paper’s decision to publish details of the top secret program:

I told the man that officials from the Bush Administration had begged the newspaper’s editors not to print this story, but the editors ran the story anyway. I told him that I think publishing the story was completely irresponsible, totally lacking in any justification, and has posed a threat to the safety of our country. And I just can’t continue to subscribe to a newspaper that would do such a thing.

This is another way to make newspapers think twice about publishing such stories. Hopefully, many more will follow his example.

In some ways, I feel badly for Marc Ash, Executive Director of Truthout.Org.

Thanks to Jason Leopold, he finds himself in quite a pickle. You may recall last May 13th that Mr. Leopold wrote in Truthout that Karl Rove had been indicted, that he had told the President that he would resign, that his lawyer Mr. Luskin met for 15 hours with Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald the previous Friday, and that God didn’t make little green apples and it don’t rain in Indianapolis in the summertime…

All of this was to be splashed across the front pages of America’s newspapers and become fodder for the screamers on cable news within 48 hours. When the 48 hours came and went, we heard from Truthout that it must have been “business hours.” And when the 48 business hours came and went, I was half expecting the folks at Truthout to tell us that they had it wrong, it was actually doggie hours Fitzgerald was working on.

Needless to say, Leopold and Truthout became something of a laughingstock on the right with Jeff Goldstein satirizing the situation unmercifully. (Yeah, I know. The words “Goldstein” and “mercy” used together where a lefty loon like Leopold is concerned is a little farfetched.)

Then, in what has to be considered one of the most striking examples of the Gods piteously toying with us mortals, playing us for the fools we truly are, the night before Fitzgerald informed us that Fitzmas had been cancelled due to his refusal to indict The Evil One, Marc Ash wrote in Truthout that they were standing by their man Jason and that we were right and the whole rest of the world was nuts.

They based this defiant conclusion on their anonymous sources who were insisting that Rove indeed was being measured for the orange jumpsuit and a curious “sealed indictment” (whether it is an indictment is a matter of dispute) that came for the same grand jury that Fitzgerald has been manipulating (as all prosecutors do) for months.

I would have loved to have seen the look on Ash’s face less than 24 hours later when Rove’s attorney announced that Fitzgerald was not going to indict his client. Again, Truthout was left with egg on its face and its bare bottom exposed for all the world to see. One would think these developments would bring a quick and contrite mea culpa from Ash and Truthout. After all, this would be the responsible thing to do, something that any publication with an ounce of integrity would do in a heartbeat.

I guess that lets out Truthout.

In a series of startling development yesterday and last night, after a week of silence on the matter, Marc Ash came out with both barrels blazing, insisting that his anonymous sources were right, that Truthout was right, that Leopold was right, and that the facts themselves were somehow wrong.

He granted an interview to Justin Rood of TPM Muckracker, a much more responsible lefty journal, and insisted, like Kevin Bacon in Animal House, that “all is well:”

So does Truthout stand behind Leopold’s reporting — or does it “defer. . . to the nation’s leading publications”?

Ash doesn’t seem to think it’s an either/or proposition. “There is a perception here that Jason misreported facts, didn’t report facts accurately, wasn’t candid with his editors. None of that is true,” he told me. Right now, the publication is “reviewing all our sources. . . and trying to confirm, confirm, confirm.”

One would think before going to print with the biggest story of the young century that a responsible publication would have already tried to “confirm, confirm, confirm” but, hey! That’s just me. I mean, I could have gone with my bat boy story a couple of weeks ago but couldn’t confirm that the little bugger was actually related to James Carville. Looks like Weekly World News scooped me again.

Also in the interview with Mr. Rood, Ash made the rather tactful assertion that his staff is in hysterics:

“We’re suffering from hysteria here,” Ash said of the reaction to the mainstream press accounts which appear to contradict Leopold’s reporting. “And I don’t find that attractive and I don’t find it in the best interests of our readers. We are expressly endeavoring to mitigate hysteria,” said Ash.

One wonders if by “hysteria” Ash means that Truthout’s employees are rolling around on the floor laughing uncontrollably or shaking with palsied fits at the prospect of actually having to go out and get a job somewhere.

And don’t you just love “endeavoring to mitigate” the panic? Reminds me of the scene in the film Outlaw Josey Wales” where Chief Dan George playing the Indian Lone Watie was describing a meeting between the President of the United States and the Cherokee Chiefs who had come to Washington to negotiate. Watie says that the President told them to “Endeavor to persevere:”

LONE WATIE: We thought about it for a long time, “Endeavor to persevere.” And when we had thought about it long enough, we declared war on the Union.

Ash has apparently decided to declare war based on this defiant missive he published last night:

After spending the past month retracing our steps and confirming facts, we’ve come full circle. Our sources continue to maintain that a grand jury has in fact returned an indictment. Our sources said that parts of the indictment were read to Karl Rove and his attorney on Friday, May 12, 2006. Last week, we pointed to a sealed federal indictment, case number “06 cr 128,” which is still sealed and we are still pointing to it. During lengthy conversations with our sources over the past month, they reiterated that the substance of our report on May 13, 2006, was correct, and immediately following our report, Karl Rove’s status in the CIA leak probe changed. In summary, as we press our investigation we find indicators that more of our key facts are correct, not less.

That leaves the most important question: If our sources maintain that a grand jury has returned an indictment - and we have pointed to a criminal case number that we are told corresponds to it - then how is it possible that Patrick Fitzgerald is reported to have said that ‘he does not anticipate seeking charges against Rove at this time?’ That is a very troubling question, and the truth is, we do not yet have a definitive answer. We also continue to be very troubled that no one has seen the reported communication from Fitzgerald to Rove’s attorney Robert Luskin, and more importantly, how so much public judgment could be based on a communication that Luskin will not put on the table. Before we can assess the glaring contradiction between what our sources say and what Luskin says Fitzgerald faxed to him, we need to be able to consider what was faxed - and in its entirety.

What appears to have happened is that - and this is where Truthout blundered - in our haste to report the indictment we never considered the possibility that Patrick Fitzgerald would not make an announcement. We simply assumed - and we should not have done so - that he would tell the press. He did not. Fitzgerald appears to have used the indictment, and more importantly, the fear that it would go public, to extract information about the Plame outing case from Rove.

Mark Coffey, in his usual calm, collected, and understated manner, responds:

In other words - we weren’t wrong! We’re heroes! Don’t you see, you fools? It was us - we forced Rove’s hand! We control space and time! Bwwwaaaaahaaaaaaahaaaaaa! And you thought we would apologize! And how do we know? By relying on our original mistaken sources and a sealed case with contents we have no earthly way of knowing about! BWAAAAHAAAAAHAAAA!
Suckers…

Yeah, well…I think that covers most everything.

The sane left is a little more circumspect:

Truthout claims that their sources for this information are “career federal law enforcement and federal government officials.” Truthout also claims that their senior editors have confirmed all this with their sources. They’re not just relying on Jason Leopold.

Is this true? I don’t have a clue, but I figure I should pass along the latest scuttlebutt regardless. And for what it’s worth, there is one thing that makes me wonder if Rove is really in the clear: the fact that he refuses to make public the letter from Fitzgerald saying that he “does not anticipate seeking charges” against Rove at this time. Rove’s spokesman says they won’t release the letter because they have an agreement with Fitzgerald that they “wouldn’t disclose direct communications or any documents between his office and ours.” This is a pretty laughable excuse, and it’s hard not to wonder just what’s in that letter that they don’t want anyone to see.

I suppose following the orders of a Special Prosecutor not to release direct communications between his office and Rove’s attorney could be considered “laughable” if there was no possibility that by disobeying that order you could find yourself once again in the prosecutor’s sights. That would seem to include Kevin Drum in the laughing category but not Luskin or Rove.

Regardless, Drum points out that Truthout is relying on “career federal law enforcement and federal government officials” and not just Leopold. I would wager that somewhere in the mix of sources for Leopold’s article are Larry Johnson and/or Ray McGovern. Given the violent reaction that Johnson had to the news Rove would not be indicted as well as his assuring the left in the immediate aftermath of the May 13th article that all was well, that Fitzmas was on the way, one wonders whether or not Larry the Loon had a personal stake in that story being true.

While some on the left continue to “wait and see” about the Rove indictment until Fitzgerald makes a formal announcement, Ash actually upped the ante by stating that it is possible Rove flipped on Cheney:

Our sources provided us with additional detail, saying that Fitzgerald is apparently examining closely Dick Cheney’s role in the Valerie Plame matter, and apparently sought information and evidence from Karl Rove that would provide documentation of Cheney’s involvement. Rove apparently was reluctant to cooperate and Fitzgerald, it appears, was pressuring him to do so, our sources told us.

In other words, Fitzy dangled the sealed indictment in front of Rove and threatened him with it unless he rolled on Cheney.

Interesting speculation. That’s not what the original Truthout article said nor did the follow-up article mention it either. I guess in this case, third time’s the charm. And lest ye be unbelievers in this matter, I would like to point out that every responsible individual who has covered the Plame affair has said that it would be a huge stretch for Fitzy to go after Cheney. And the fact that Rove is still working at the White House would seem to indicate that either Cheney has a death wish or that once again, Ash is talking out of his nether regions.

This is actually sort of a sad story in a way. Marc Ash has been had. And he is either too stupid or too naive to see it. Or, he may know the story is wrong but is scrambling to save the reputation of himself and his publication.

If I were him, I wouldn’t worry about that. As long as he keeps up with the Bush-bashing, he’ll have a massive audience. For on the left, sometimes leaving the “Truthout” really doesn’t matter.

UPDATE

Can you stand more Goldstien?

Of course, I suppose I should mention, for purposes of full disclosure, that it is TruthOut who has exonerated itself—citing the accuracy of its own earlier reporting as proof that its earlier reporting was, in fact, completely accurate. But then, that’s just nitpicking, really—and we shouldn’t get hung up on the niceties of the reasoning when what is at stake here is speaking Truthiness to Power, namely, the now-confirmed (albeit not yet quite “confirmed” confirmed) revelations that Karl Rove is a fat-assed liar who drove his own mother to suicide and who flipped on Dick Cheney.

And when the world sees Evil Dick with a pair of teardrop tats lifting weights in a federal pen alongside those Enron bitches, Jason Leopold will laugh and laugh and laugh!

Given the proclivities of Mr. Leopold, perhaps he will be spotting for his new buddy Karl?

Every once and a while - usually after some feeding frenzy that the press needlessly engaged in - we read and hear the beginnings of a debate in the press over whether or not it was truly necessary to cover some celebrity’s drunk driving trial or give 24 hour, wall to wall coverage of another missing college girl or some other story that clearly doesn’t deserve the attention it gets but is covered to the nth degree anyway.

The debate begins and then, curiously, trails off into the ether, disappearing before the real issues that drive these kinds of stories are examined. The reason for this is simple; the media is not introspective enough about itself. As individuals, they exercise a nominal influence over politics and policy. But as a pack, the can alter history, drive debate on important issues like war and peace, make or break Presidents, generally set the agenda for our national conversation about politics. and engage in the silliest and most irrelevant celebrity watching imaginable.

All of this is done with a dangerous disconnect about the consequences to journalistic integrity and the public perception of what is truly important to the nation. In essence, if it is indeed the people’s right to know, then the people whose charge it is to fulfill the unwritten contract between the news consumer and the news provider have let us all down with potentially catastrophic effects.

That’s because this lack of introspection allows for the media to be used by not only politicians from both sides of the political spectrum here in this country, but also terrorists seeking to destroy us all. And this curious disinterested attitude on the part of journalists toward what makes news, who makes news, and why only serves to make it possible for the designs of calculating politicians and bloodthirsty terrorist alike to succeed.

How can this be possible?

The simple answer the media gives is that relationships that allow the press to be used are “symbiotic” in nature. Then there are the economics of media companies that can, at times, dictate whether or not a controversial story will see the light of day. Finally, there are the journalists themselves who not only have morphed from hard bitten, regular Joe’s into superstar celebrities in their own right, they have, in effect, become part of the story as well.

Not exactly the kind of world they teach about in J-school. And I’m not sure that much can be done about it except for all of us to continue to try and hold journalists responsible for what they write and what they cover. If this “new media” is not going to replace journalists (and I am becoming more convinced every day that it will not), then perhaps the best we can hope for is to force the media to deal with the consequences of its decisions.

For instance, this “symbiotic” relationship the mainstream press has with everyone from politicians to dictators to terrorists - with little or no effort to reflect on the exigencies of cause and effect reporting - can have cataclysmic effects in the near future. Consider this study that showed the vicious symbiosis between terrorist attacks and media coverage:

The researchers counted direct references to terrorism between 1998 and 2005 in the New York Times and Neue Zuercher Zeitung, a respected Swiss newspaper. They also collected data on terrorist attacks around the world during that period. Using a statistical procedure called the Granger Causality Test, they attempted to determine whether more coverage directly led to more attacks.

The results, they said, were unequivocal: Coverage caused more attacks, and attacks caused more coverage — a mutually beneficial spiral of death that they say has increased because of a heightened interest in terrorism since Sept. 11, 2001.

Is there a solution to the conundrum? If dozens or hundreds die in a terrorist attack, this is certainly news. If it happens in the United States, it is a tidal wave that can change politics and policy. How can the media as a collective ignore what is clearly “news” in any sense of the word while also avoiding the pitfall of encouraging the acts themselves?

They can’t, of course, This is one of the very large bills that must be paid for having a free press. We’ve heard similar arguments for years about so-called “copycat killers” who see a particularly gruesome murder or series of murders covered extensively in local media and wish to horn in on the publicity by aping the actions of the original criminal. Here too, there is little or no introspective analysis on the part of the media to try and come to grips with their responsibility to the public to report the news while realizing how their coverage can affect the community.

The real problem occurs not so much in covering what the terrorists do but rather in how the “narrative” of the story is played out. Much of what appears in the media today about the war on terror is, almost soap opera like, part of a continuing “story.” The story has a plot, it has characters (both protagonists and antagonists), and it is reported in serial fashion. Hence, the “story” in Iraq is how many bombs went off in Baghdad, how many people were killed, and totalling the body count of Americans with the usual referrals to previous “episodes” that were similar. It doesn’t matter if almost the same story appears tomorrow because it simply becomes the latest installment in the serial.

This is not so much “symbiosis” but rather a reflection on how Americans want their news reported. We like story time journalism because it makes it easy to put the news in context. Since the press has pretty much abandoned the effort to give the War in Iraq any kind of meaningful framework that would allow people to connect what is going on there with what is happening elsewhere, we substitute narrative for “big picture” journalism simply because it is easier.

Outside of the political class in America (a group too small for anyone in the news business to make much money from) no one pays much attention to what is happening in Iraq. Signs of progress are ephemeral. Since they don’t fit the daily narrative of war, death, and chaos, they can be relegated to think pieces in the Sunday magazine section or the odd late night report on CNN. The same could be said for Darfur genocide, oil for food scandals, and even the real progress the US has made in stifling funding for al-Qaeda and rolling up dozens of their cells. If it can’t be pigeonholed, it simply fades into the background.

This is why stories that “march” or progress day to day are so prevalent on 24-hour cable news. One would think that with 24 hours of programming to fill, the cable news networks would be able to cover every aspect of the Iraq story. But, of course, the news nets don’t work that way. Instead of in depth reporting, we get barely more than headlines. This is actually a function of how Americans watch TV news. Most people apparently switch on the news for only minutes at a time. So before the consumer has a chance to press the “forward” button on the remote, the network feels as if it has to keep the consumer’s eyeballs glued to their station long enough to sell them something.

The latest on a celebrity trial or the search for an unfortunate missing girl is a godsend to cable news because it keeps those eyeballs trained on their coverage of these stories long enough to build viewership, allowing them to both sell more advertising and charge more for the privilege.

This kind of thing is no secret which is why the lack of introspection about this form of “journalism” is so disturbing. Straight news reporters may occasionally bemoan these facts of life, but one rarely hears about any solutions to the problem. In a competitive market environment for news, there is apparently no way to stop it as long as the public is demanding it. If one outlet refuses to cover the story, viewers will gravitate to where they can get what they want. And sadly, it appears that people would much rather hear about Angelina Jolie’s new baby than the Marines supplying a hospital nursery in some remote corner of far away Iraq.

But what about the new media? More and more Americans are getting their news from the internet. What are the most popular sites for news? You guessed it: Entertainment and celebrity news websites. It appears that as long as Americans have the freedom to remain relatively ignorant, they will exercise that freedom with a vengeance.

The internet will always be there as an alternative news source for those so inclined. But the kind of mass audience drawn by 24 hour cable and the half hour news summaries on broadcast networks is still far beyond the reach of even the most popular sites. And if we ever do achieve some kind of rough equivalence between internet news and mainstream media, I would hazard a guess and say that the two would be indistinguishable from each other. Being able to draw 50 or 60 million people a day to a website or even a limited number of sites would by necessity mean that people were interested in the same things that attracts them to the news nets.

I don’t know if a serious attempt by journalists, network executives, and corporate managers of media companies to actually think about these issues and talk about them on a regular basis would change the dynamics of news as it exists today and refashion journalism into a more valuable part of our political culture. But it couldn’t hurt, could it?

UPDATE: 6/19

Thank you, Dan Abrams.

Former MSNBC host and current General Manager of the network makes my point about the current state of American journalism for me:

Kaplan added Fox alum Rita Cosby, but despite CNN’s frequent missteps MSNBC remained a weak third in the cable ratings scrum, making another shakeup almost inevitable. As for the tilt of that switch, Abrams told the Wall Street Journal, “We need to reflect excitement and even irreverence. I don’t think news has to be boring.”

Damn right. If there’s anything we need less of, it’s boring news.

The “news,” of course, is neither exciting nor boring; it is simply news. To sex it up in order to attract eyeballs for advertisers (without regard for the consequences to context) puts us in Howard Beale territory. And for that, Paddy Cheyevesky appears to be a prohphet rather than a satirist.

I found this article on the economy in the LA Times interesting for two reasons. First, it mentions “stagflation,” perhaps the first time that word has been seen in print in any context except an historical one in a quarter century. Second, one of the economists using the term is a moonbat:

A separate Fed survey of regional economic conditions released Wednesday showed that the economy was slowing, led by declines in home sales and manufacturing, and that inflation was on the rise.

Other recent data — including retail sales, employment and wage data from April and May — suggest that the Fed’s previous rate hikes are slowing the economy. Economists said more increases by the Fed would run the risk of inducing a recession — and wouldn’t have much effect on inflation anyway because it was largely driven by the global demand for oil.

“The economy could be facing a bout with stagflation,” said Peter Morici, a University of Maryland business school professor. “My feeling is we’re headed for a tragedy here.”

Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, said he also viewed stagflation as a possibility as credit tightening further damps the housing market and puts a crimp on the spending of homeowners.

“The May price data provides grounds for concern on several fronts,” he said.

“I think we’re in for some tough times.”

First, since 1st quarter growth was pegged at a robust 5.3% annual rate while the 4th quarter’s real GDP rate was revised upward to a very healthy 1.7%, any “grounds for concern” would seem to be wishful thinking on the part of partisans. What both gentleman economists were reacting to is information found in the “Beige Book,” a report issued 8 time a year by the Fed in preparation for it’s Open Market Committee meetings on rates:

Each Federal Reserve bank gathers anecdotal information on current economic conditions in its district. The beige book generally consists of reports from bank and branch directors and interviews with key business contacts, economists, market experts, and other sources. The beige book summarizes this information by district and sector.

This is clearly an important report. But to predict “tragedy” as a result of it’s “anecdotal” conclusions doesn’t sound much like science to me; more like spin don’t you think?

Now, to the economists quoted in the article who strangely (or perhaps not), were the exact same economists quoted in this SF Chronicle article of June 3 which also warned of a bad economic moon rising.

Peter Morici is indeed a recognized authority on trade, having served as Chief Economist for the International Trade Commission under President Clinton. He can also be fairly characterized as a liberal economist. Here’s an excerpt on a paper he did advocating a “social charter” for NAFTA:

Should a common floor be negotiated for workplace health and safety standards and environmental protection?

Also, once the door is opened to these issues, proponents of a Social Charter may wish to add legislatively-mandated worker benefits and rights. Generally, these are much more extensive in Mexico and Latin America than in the United States and Canada. U.S. pressure on Mexico to raise workplace safety and environmental standards may engender, in time, countervailing pressures on the United States and Canada to alter their worker entitlement laws.

Here are links to a couple of dozen other papers and op-eds by Professor Morici so that you can make up your own mind.

Regardless of whether he’s a liberal or conservative, Professor Morici is an oft-quoted economist because he always seems to have something interesting to say. He is, in effect, contacted by these publications because he can sex up an article with eye-catching quotes. For instance, he has been predicting for at least 3 years that that our trade deficit with China as well as our refusal to pressure the Chinese in altering the valuation of the yuan will result in catastrophe. He is the media’s “goto” guy on gloom and doom quotes on the trade deficit.

While I have no doubt that there is potential trouble in our economic relations with China (and he is not the only one who has been predicting such a calamity), the fact is he and others have been wrong - so far. And in fact, the Chinese have recently taken steps to devalue their overpriced currency.

The Professor may not be a partisan. But his quote about “stagflation” and “tragedy” is over the top. With interest rates at 5.25% and inflation still under 5%, that is a far cry from the kind of economic conditions we saw in the mid to late 1970’s which was the last time “stagflation” was used as a descriptive of the US economy.

On the other hand, we don’t have to worry about the political leanings of the other economist quoted in the article. Dean Baker is an unabashed liberal who heads up a recognized liberal economic think tank, the Center for Economic and Policy Research. His Board of Directors can fairly be described as a gaggle of far left activists and policy wonks. There’s Mark Weisbrot, an admirer of Hugo Chavez and other Latin American socialists. Brennan Van Dyke was a director at the radical Center for International Environmental Law . Robert Pollin is an advocate for the “Living Wage” and has written with admiration for socialist economic models in the third world.

My beef with the Times is not that they are quoting liberal economists it’s that they are only quoting liberal economists. I daresay that there might be opposing views with regards to whether or not the United States is headed into a period of stagflation. Isn’t it customary to include opposing viewpoints when writing about the political economy?

Maybe I’m just an old fashioned sort of fellow who remembers a time when such a thing was commonplace. But it appears to me that this kind of reporting is one more reason why the Los Angeles Times is sloughing off more readers than any other top 10 major paper, losing a whopping 5.4% of its readers in the last year.

This is not surprising news if you read Patterico, who has documented the LA Times descent both editorially and circulation wise. One wonders if they, like the New York Times, will do anything to stop their decline before two of our greatest newspapers fold up and die.

UPDATE

Today, my readers are truly blessed to receive the wit and wisdom of two addtional Moran brothers in the comments below.

My brother who hails from the great white north (is there still snow on the ground in Minneapolis, Larry?) has corrected my figures on the GDP as well as my disbelief regarding “stagflation” as a term used outside of the history books:

1. You have the GDP growth for the 4th/1st quarters backwards: 4th was stronger than the first (probably for some technical reasons).

Hope all is well.

Indeed. With two of my more progressive brothers keeping an eye on me, I’m going to have to mind my P’s and Q’s - no more kool aid drinking or BSing from here on out…