Elite journalists stick up for their friends

David Broder, a columnist for the Washington Post, has been a faithful defender of the ruling elite -- pardon the redundancy -- and criminal immunity for the powerful for the past four decades. Indeed, he boasts of his support for Gerald Ford’s “courageous” pardoning of disgraced war criminal Richard Nixon in his most recent column, and openly sides with former Vice President Dick Cheney (also a disgraced war criminal . . . noticing a pattern?) and his belief that it is “a dangerous precedent when a change in power in Washington leads a successor government not just to change the policies of its predecessors but to invoke the criminal justice system against them.” Expressions of extreme sycophancy like this are why Broder maintains his tremendous access to power, and helps explains why he’s considered “the most respected and influential political journalist in the country” -- by the groups and corporations that pay him thousands of dollars to hear him share his banal observations live.

But even a soon-to-be octogenarian like Broder doesn't know everything about life and still needs to ask questions. Here he is perplexed by what might happen should CIA torturers and murderers -- over 100 people died in U.S. custody -- be prosecuted for their crimes:

If accountability is the standard, then it should apply to the policymakers and not just to the underlings. Ultimately, do we want to see Cheney, who backed these actions and still does, standing in the dock?

Um, yes? And get Donald Rumsfeld and George Bush while you’re at. Somehow I doubt locking up a few powerful people who committed and/or authorized violent crimes -- notice Broder doesn’t spend much time challenging that latter fact -- will adversely impact the lives of 300 million Americans. Not prosecuting powerful people who commit crimes (“the Broder rule”), however, seems like a fine way of ensuring future members of the ruling establishment flaunt the law with impunity. You certainly can’t argue that Ford’s courageous pardon of Nixon, for whom Cheney once worked, did anything to make future crimes by the executive branch less likely.

Perplexingly, Broder and his fellow media stars are consistently more incensed over the prospect of the rich and powerful going to prison than the scandalous fact that the U.S. is home to the largest prison population in the history of the world. One in 100 Americans are incarcerated, or 2.2 million people, many for the non-violent drug offenses. Yet the tangible harm inflicted by the state via the prison-industrial-complex on millions of families torn apart because of punitive (and profitable!) laws criminalizing peaceful behavior is of much less concern to the Washington establishment than the hypothetical harm that may befall lovely people like Dick Cheney. That's probably because all their friends are the powerful, who as we know don't go to prison as easily as the rest of us -- the very idea that they might is shocking to the Washington power structure.

Broder and his ilk's willingness to defend those who have everything from the specter of accountability -- and the prospect of facing the same justice system that regularly tears apart those who have nothing -- is merely another way of saying thanks for last weekend's dinner party.

Cheney echoes Obama talking points

While in Argentina earlier this year, a Buenos Aires taxi driver asked me what I thought about the new president of the United States -- "who is it, Cheney?" -- which served as a reminder that 1) the world doesn't hang on the election of a new caesar as much as the media here in the U.S. would have you believe (Vogue magazine on Michelle Obama: "The First Lady The World's Been Waiting For". The rest of the world: who?) and 2) while President Obama isn't exactly much of an improvement upon his predecessor, things could be worse, if only by a little.

I was reminded of that on Sunday when former Vice President Dick Cheney emerged from his underground lair to remind the world what evil looks like, and to snarl to CNN's John King about all the ways President Obama's superficial attempts to roll back some of the Bush-era "war on terror" policies -- such as dropping the term "enemy combatant" while retaining the power to indefinitely imprison terrorism suspects -- were making us all less safe, doing his part to flame the fiction that there actually is some deep, meaningful chasm between the way Republican and Democratic administrations view maintaining the American empire (when there in reality exists at best minor squabbles over the methods, not the ends).

Indeed, Cheney echoed verbatim the cabal of godless liberals now in power in claiming -- contrary to the findings of the U.S. intelligence community and the IAEA (a phrase I've written a dozen times this year) -- that Iran is actively developing nuclear weapons (video):

"[W]e still have an Iran that I believe is pursuing nuclear weapons. What they've done, I think, as best I can tell -- I'm not reading the intelligence reports anymore like I did before January -- is they produced a fair amount of low enriched uranium, the kind that you would use for a power plant. That's the hardest step to get to. Once you have got low enriched uranium, it's relatively simple to change it to highly enriched uranium, and that's the last step that's needed before you've got fissile material for a weapon. So I'm not sure exactly where they are at this point, but I am confident of what their objective is, and I don't think that's changed."

With Cheney unarmed and about as popular as . . . well, a Republican, it should have been easy for any competent (remember that word), professional journalist to bring up the fact that all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies disagree with the former vice president's assertion. Indeed, back when the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate on Iran was released, CNN described it thusly:

"Iran halted work toward a nuclear weapon under international scrutiny in 2003 and is unlikely to be able to produce enough enriched uranium for a bomb until 2010 to 2015, a U.S. intelligence report says."

Fairly straightforward, no? A competent journalist might even use this information to their advantage, say, when a high-ranking former official states the exact opposite.

But during Sunday's interview King made no mention of the report or of the international inspectors currently inspecting Iran's nuclear facilities, choosing instead to accept the validity of Cheney's statement at face value. "Do you wish your administration had taken more aggressive steps" on Iran, asked the credulous King. "Were you boxed in by opposition to Iraq not only here but around the world?"

Likewise, King remarked that Cheney's use of "over reliance" would be "a good term, a fair term" to describe the Bush administration's approach to "diplomacy" with Iran. The Bush administration, which rejected Iranian diplomatic overtures in 2003 and actually berated the Swiss for passing the message along, was overly reliant on diplomacy and the negotiating efforts of its European allies, according to King. If you find that characterization to be wildly inaccurate and contrary to empirical evidence -- good news: you're a member of the reality-based community. The bad news? Good luck getting a job at CNN.

As for Cheney, it appears he stole his talking points on Iran from the very people he claims are on the verge of surrendering to the terrorists. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, for instance, told a German television station on March 6th that Iran "is very aggressive in their pursuit of nuclear weapons." A day earlier she declared that she doesn't "think there is a credible debate about their intention" to develop nukes (after earlier acknowledging an "ongoing debate" about the status of Iran's nuclear program -- a nuance she didn't allow a day later).

Cheney might not be in the White House, but his spirit lives on.

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For those interested, I have compiled a list of some of the more egregious untruths uttered by the Obama administration (and Cheney) about Iran's nuclear program, with a few statements from Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair thrown in for a bit of contrast. Download a PDF of the file here, and feel free to suggest quotes for inclusion or engage in ad hominem attacks via email or in the comments.

That which must not be said

Democratic blogs are erupting with righteous fury over a statement made by John McCain's running mate, Sarah Palin, suggesting the United States may need to go to war with Russia if it attacks would-be NATO members Georgia or Ukraine.  But before I get to the hypocrisy of the partisan reaction, let's go to the tape:

When asked if the United States would have to go to war with Russia should Georgia join NATO and Russia invade the country, [Palin] said, "Perhaps so."

"I mean, that is the agreement when you are a NATO ally, is if another country is attacked, you're going to be expected to be called upon and help.

Unfortunately, though the prospect of war with the nuclear-armed Russia may seem horrific, that is nonetheless the widespread -- though unstated -- view of much of the bipartisan Washington foreign policy establishment. 

Consider that Barack Obama, who once fashioned himself as something of an "anti-war" candidate, in response to the recent Georgia-Russia conflict called for "deepening relations between Georgia and transatlantic institutions, including a Membership Action Plan for NATO". Translation: if Georgia becomes a NATO member under an Obama administration, the United States would be obligated to militarily aid Georgia should it ever be attacked by Russia.

As the blogger IOZ points out, article 5 of the NATO treaty says just as much:

The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognised by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.

Of course, the problem liberal bloggers have with Palin's statement is not that she agrees with the Obama-Biden position, but that she frankly states what that position actually entails. As Ilan Goldenberg writes at the Huffington Post:

Technically, if Georgia and Ukraine were to become part of NATO under Article Five, we would be obligated to protect them and even Obama-Biden support bringing them into NATO. But here's the thing...

No sane American or European leader would ever ever ever give an answer like that . . . . Barack Obama would never give that answer. Joe Biden would never give that answer. They would say that we don't discuss those types of hypotheticals. That might sound like a cop out, but think of the Palin alternative and what kind of alarm bells that sets off in Moscow. Prescisely the type of alarm bells that could one day lead to mushroom clouds.

You see? Everyone agrees that Georgia should be allowed into a mutual security agreement that could conceivably lead to a hot war between the United States and Russia -- but gosh darn it, you're not supposed to be so honest!

"But honey, I was only protecting national security... honest!"

In my previous post, I noted how to some of the most ardent war supporters -- those ones so brave that when called to fight themselves, instead chose to defend Houston from the Vietcong -- military action was nothing more than a distant, romanticized fantasy -- a wet dream, if you will. Consider President Bush's recent comments to soldiers serving in Afghanistan that he was "a little envious" of their situation:

"It must be exciting for you ... in some ways romantic, in some ways, you know, confronting danger. You're really making history, and thanks," Bush said.

Clearly one who had witnessed the realities of war -- mothers wailing over the loss of a son or daughter, children traumatized by continual violence and sounds of bombs dropping -- would not be able to so easily view it as "romantic". But for U.S. political leaders, war is usually more than just another policy option, albeit a bit sexier and exciting. Unfortunately, these same leaders never seem able to get in on the action themselves. Odd, right?

However, as ABC News has revealed, the courageous defenders of freedom in the White House were not content in letting these exciting times pass them by. But since they couldn't secure the streets of Baghdad themselves (they always seem to have other commitments), they decided to bring a little bit of that good war-fighting-feeling back home -- by micromanaging torture:

Highly placed sources said a handful of top advisers signed off on how the CIA would interrogate top al Qaeda suspects -- whether they would be slapped, pushed, deprived of sleep or subjected to simulated drowning, called waterboarding.

The high-level discussions about these "enhanced interrogation techniques" were so detailed, these sources said, some of the interrogation sessions were almost choreographed -- down to the number of times CIA agents could use a specific tactic. [emphasis mine]

The advisers were members of the National Security Council's Principals Committee, a select group of senior officials who met frequently to advise President Bush on issues of national security policy.

At the time, the Principals Committee included Vice President Cheney, former National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell, as well as CIA Director George Tenet and Attorney General John Ashcroft.

As the national security adviser, Rice chaired the meetings, which took place in the White House Situation Room and were typically attended by most of the principals or their deputies.

That's some pretty hot stuff there. Can you imagine the conversation as these very serious, Churchillian leaders of ours discussed in minute detail just how individual prisoners -- excuse me, terrorists -- would be "handled"?

"Dick, why don't we slap them three times on the side of the face first, stick needles under their fingernails, drown them until they almost die and -- oh god, yes! -- stack them naked when we're 'through', if ya know what I mean?"

Commenting on the story, author and professional chronicler of presidential crimes, James Bovard, notes the psycho-sexual issues at play in all of this and asks the most important question of them all:

Sitting around a table and deciding how many times each Muslim detainee can be whacked up side the head sounds like the ultimate NeoCon masturbatory fantasy.

Even prize-Constitution stomper John Ashcroft had qualms about the meetings, reportedly warning, “History will not judge this kindly.”

What does it take to get someone indicted for war crimes in this country any more?