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July 16, 2005
Rollback"This White House doesn't settle for managing the news--what used to be called 'feeding the beast'--because there is a larger aim: to roll back the press as a player within the executive branch, to make it less important in running the White House and governing the country."The brutalizing of Scott McClellan at the White House podium on Monday is a development with long roots. They stretch well beyond the particulars of what McClellan earlier said about Karl Rove and the use of Valerie Plame to discredit Joseph Wilson. Frustrations roared to life that day from hundreds of briefings prior: MCCLELLAN: If you’ll let me finish. And so he was. The immediate cause for Monday’s events, where the press finally held McClellan in contempt of country, was an old-fashioned breakdown in official credibility. It happened when statements from the podium were rendered inoperative by Michael Isikoff’s report for Newsweek, posted Sunday, July 10. The press attacks when it feels openly lied to. (Emphasis on “openly.”) Also when it senses weakness, which of course means it’s safer to attack. Dana Milbank spoke for most of the reporters when he said to McClellan: “It is now clear that 21 months ago, you were up at this podium saying something that we now know to be demonstratively false.” (See also David Corn.) The press secretary and the White House didn’t try to contest it, choosing silence until the prosecutor is done. Lying to the press—though a serious thing—is what all administrations do. In Washington leaking to damage people’s credibility or wreck their arguments is routine, a bi-partisan game with thousands of knowing participants. I rarely see it mentioned that Joseph Wilson (who is no truthtelling hero) began his crusade by trying to leak his criticisms of the Bush White House. When that didn’t work he went public in an op-ed piece for the New York Times. But business as usual is not going to explain what happened in the Valerie Plame case, or tell us why its revelations matter. For that we need to enlarge the frame. My bigger picture starts with George W. Bush, Karl Rove, Karen Hughes, Andrew Card, Dan Bartlett, John Ashcroft plus a handful of other strategists and team players in the Bush White House, who have set a new course in press relations. (And Scott McClellan knows his job is to stay on that course, no matter what.) The Bush team’s methods are unlike the handling of the news media under prior presidents because their premises are so different. This White House doesn’t settle for managing the news—what used to be called “feeding the beast”—because it has a larger aim: to roll back the press as a player within the executive branch, to make it less important in running the White House and governing the country, but also less of a wild card in fighting enemies of the state in the permanent war on terror. Depending on audience and situation, rollback is seen as:
Back ‘em up, starve ‘em down, and drive up their negatives: this policy toward the press has many strengths as a working piece of politics, and supporters of it abound within the Bush coalition. I believe the ultimate goal is to enhance executive power and maximize the president’s freedom of maneuver— not only in policy-making, and warfare, but on the terrain of fact itself. This is why Bush the Younger’s political project inevitably collides with journalism, a conflict that has largely been won by the Bush forces. They have succeeded in changing the terms of engagement with journalists. Monday’s evisceration of McClellan happened only because a third party—the prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald—altered the power equation. At Whiskey Bar, the astute Lefty blogger Billmon wrote about this (July 13th): Spinning unfavorable media stories is easy; deflecting accusations from the hapless Democrats easier still. But the Rovians are dealing with a prosecutor and a grand jury who mean business, and a set of federal judges who appear to have found the evidence presented to them rather compelling… they face the possibility that whatever story they try to peddle could be quickly and definitively proven false by hard legal evidence — just as the carefully constructed non-denial denials [from] Scotty McClellan were blasted to bits by Matt Cooper’s e-mail. His point: The brutalizing of McClellan was no recovery of courage by a suddenly-awakened press. It was the Bush team’s bald assertiveness coming into conflict with truth collection in the criminal justice system, which has exposed a seamy story that journalists themselves would have kept hidden because it involves their confidential sources. (See Howard Fineman’s very different analysis.) In the normal conduct of McClellan’s briefings, the non-answer (a refusal to engage a question, or even grant it validity) has become the standard answer. “Why bother asking…?” then arises as a problem in professional conscience. It involves trying to estimate the value of having another empty reply in the record of what the White House spokesman said. As Fineman wrote: The deliberately colorless Ari Fleischer raised the content-free “briefing” to a dismal high art; Scott McClellan… is if anything, even less communicative and, unlike Fleischer, who once worked on the more media-friendly Hill, never betrays the slightest sense of guilt about saying nothing. And that guiltlessness is a critical factor in his success. The very art of “spin,” which we still talk about, is the old model speaking. The original logic of spin assumed the story the press told was a kind of base line in the public narrative. Therefore you had to win the spin by playing the game of interpreting events with journalists. Bush has challenged that assumption. Of course Bush spin is still around— lots of it. But notice: Scott McClellan isn’t particularly good at spin or telling the President’s side of the story. That’s not the game anymore. His are the skills of non-communication; he was hired to absorb questions and let no light escape through his non-answers. Beyond that he repeats a pre-determined White House line in rote (many say robotic) fashion. Press rollback, the policy for which McClellan signed on, means not feeding but starving the beast, downgrading journalism where possible, and reducing its effectiveness as an interlocutor with the President. This goes for Bush theory, as well as Bush practice. The President and his advisors have declared invalid the “fourth estate” and watchdog press model. (See my earlier posts here and here on it.) They have moved on, and take it for granted that adversaries will not be as bold. The old notion (still being taught in J-school, I’m afraid) had the press permanently incorporated into the republic as one part of the system of checks and balances— not a branch of government, but a necessary, vital and legitimate part of open government and a free society. The First Amendment was interpreted as protection for that part of the system, and this is the grand thinking behind which Judy Miller has gone to jail. Within government, a representative figure for the pre-rollback era is David Gergen, the consummate insider who served as White House advisor to Nixon, Ford, Reagan and Clinton. He preached to both parties, the press, and television audiences a cautious realism in White House media relations. It’s long gone now but (in my paraphrase) it went something like this: “The White House has a right to get its message out. The press has a right to question and probe. There are going to be conflicts (and during scandals much worse) but they ought to remain within bounds. The press needs the Administration, it’s number one source. The Administration can be hurt by bad press, and helped by good relations with reporters. So calm down and let’s get on with producing White House news together.” Or as Larry Speakes, fomer press secretary to Ronald Reagan, once put it: “You don’t tell us how to stage the news, and we don’t tell you how to report it.” It’s no surprise that Gergen moved easily from one Administration to the next, and from government into journalism and back. He had the insider’s consensus narrative in his pocket. But what if one party unilaterally withdraws from Gergen-style managerialism? There’s nothing in the press playbook about that. Ken Aueltta of the New Yorker was one of the first to notice the shift and try to describe it. (See Fortress Bush and this interview.) In January of 2004 he wrote: “For perhaps the first time, the White House has come to see reporters as special pleaders - pleaders for more access and better headlines - as if the press were simply another interest group, and moreover, an interest group that’s not nearly as powerful as it once was.” Not as powerful, and unsure of what to do about it. In switching from news management (think Gergen) to roll back (think John Ashcroft) the Bush Team was recognizing certain weaknesses in its adversary. Not only could it count on culture warriors to drive up the negatives of the liberal elites in journalism, but also on broader trends reducing the size and influence of the Legacy Media, therefore weakening the Washington bureaus from without and above. The simple fact that the public can download the Administration’s story from whitehouse.gov (a media page) is part of the change. The Economist described it well in March: Behind all this lies a shift in the balance of power in the news business. Power is moving away from old-fashioned networks and newspapers; it is swinging towards, on the one hand, smaller news providers (in the case of blogs, towards individuals) and, on the other, to the institutions of government, which have got into the business of providing news more or less directly. I think Rove also knew that the press is that rare special interest group that feels constrained in how “organized” it can be to protest or strike back. In fact the national press, which is only a semi-institution to start with (semi-legitimate, semi-independent, semi-protected by law, and semi-supported by the American people) has no strategic thinking or response capability at all. Rove and company understand this. They know the press can be done to. It rarely knows how to “do” back. (Here is Milbank’s 2002 effort in the Washington Post: “For Bush, Facts Are Malleable.” He barely gets any traction.) “Executive freedom on the terrain of fact itself” is my way of describing what the Downing Street Memo said: “facts were being fixed around the policy.” Which is also what author Ron Suskind was getting at in a celebrated passage from his 2004 article in the New York Times Magazine, “Without a Doubt.” Today it is mocked by the Right as crackpot realism. I think the passage, which adds little to the documentary record since the official who speaks is unnamed, is a parable about recent innovations in executive power. Suskind, as you may recall, wrote of a meeting with a “senior adviser to the President,” who expressed his displeasure with an article Suskind had written about Bush’s former communications director, Karen Hughes (one of the architects of rollback.) “Then he told me something that at the time I didn’t fully comprehend— but which I now believe gets to the very heart of the Bush presidency.” The parable: The aide said that guys like me were ”in what we call the reality-based community,” which he defined as people who ”believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.” I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ”That’s not the way the world really works anymore,” he continued. ”We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors … and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.” Today the prosecutor is studying what they do, and there’s no way to roll that back. In a Salon interview after the Times article came out, Suskind (whose sources were mostly Republicans) was asked whether the Bush forces were indeed trying to “eliminate a national point of reference on facts.” Absolutely! That’s the whole idea, to somehow sweep away the community of honest brokers in America — both Republicans and Democrats and members of the mainstream press — sweep them away so we’ll be left with a culture and public dialogue based on assertion rather than authenticity, on claim rather than fact. No more honest brokers; claims take the place of facts. Disguised by the culture war’s ranting about media bias, these very things are happening all around us today. Limits on what liberties could be taken with the factual record without triggering a political penalty are being overcome. Joseph Wilson interfered with this, forcing the White House to pay a penalty: the so-called sixteen words in the State of the Union speech that had to be withdrawn after his op-ed. So he had to pay. And that’s how rollback, freedom over fact, culture war, and the naming of Valerie Plame connect to one another. I should add that rollback intersects with trends in journalism that, as Tom Rosenstiel notes, are promoting a “journalism of assertion” (cheap, easy, safe) over the discipline of verification (expensive, hard, and certain to spur more attacks as the culture war wears on.) Also, Team Bush has been aided immeasurably in its strategy by various lapses and excesses in journalism, including major breaches in public trust like Dan Rather’s Sixty Minutes story about Bush’s military service, and faulty reporting during the build-up to the war in Iraq. When the press is damaging itself in the eyes of the public, and under automatic attack, it’s hard to recover any lost ground. Writing in the New York Times May 22, reporter Patrick Healty said: Scrutiny is intense. The Internet amplifies professional sins, and spreads the word quickly. And when a news organization confesses its shortcomings, it only draws more attention. Also, there is no unified front - no single standard of professionalism, no system of credentials. So rebuilding credibility is mostly a task shouldered network to network, publication to publication. When “no unified front” meets “roll back the press” and the discipline of the Bush White House, it really is no contest. A PressThink reader pointed me to this testimony at a public hearing organized by Senate Democrats on the Valerie Plame disclosures and the effect of outing an agent (Oct. 24, 2003). (Also discussed by Talk Left.) The speaker is Vince Cannistraro, former Chief of Operations and Analysis, CIA Counterterrorism Center, and now a terrorism consultant. His is one of the better descriptions I have found of that strange feature of the Bush governing style Suskind called “a retreat from empiricism.” CANNISTRARO: …There was a pattern of pressure placed on the analysts to provide supporting data for objectives which were already articulated. It’s the inverse of the intelligence ethic. Intelligence is supposed to describe the world as it is and as best you can find it, and then policymakers are supposed to use that to formulate their own policies. In this case, we had policies that were already adopted and people were looking for the selective pieces of intelligence that would support those policy objectives. This ethic in government (stating that the White House is entitled to its own facts, and what are you going to do about it?) has brought the Administration into conflict with the CIA, with the press, and now with Republican prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald. All are engaged in empirical work—truth collection and verification—of one variety of another. My final thought: “A few months ago I told the American people I did not trade arms for hostages,” said Ronald Reagan on March 4, 1987. “My heart and my best intentions still tell me that’s true, but the facts and the evidence tell me it is not.” I wonder what caused him to say that, because whatever it was seems to be much weaker today. After Matter: Notes, reactions & links… Dori Smith of Talk Nation Radio (Pacifica) interviewed me about this post. The transcript is here. Excerpt: “In my view the story of the Bush White House has been for a long time political innovation. They are innovators. They don’t believe in doing things the way that others have done them.” Scott Rosenberg of Salon responds to my final paragraph: It seems to me that what caused Reagan to say that was not any particular flash of conscience, but the determined, relentless effort of a team of prosecutors and congressional investigators to dig up the truth, forcing the Republican administration into a corner from which Reagan had no choice but to make a confession in an effort to defuse a crisis that was otherwise headed down the road to impeachment. In those days, we still had an independent counsel statute, and we had two-party government, in that Democrats had a power-base in Congress. Today, there’s a prosecutor, but he’s out there pretty much on his own, and I don’t have any great confidence that his efforts will bring the Bush White House back to its factual senses. CBS News anchor Bob Schieffer in a commentary Sunday: This White House did what it usually does when challenged: It went into attack mode, called charges that the White House had leaked the name ridiculous, and allowed the controversy to boil until a special prosecutor had to be appointed. Now two years and millions of tax dollars later, the president’s trusted friend and strategist Karl Rove has emerged as the top suspect, and we’re left to wonder: Can anything said from the White House podium be taken at face value, or does the White House just deny automatically anything that reflects badly on it? Schieffer thinks the Bush people are following “the modern public relations rule, ‘Never admit a mistake, just do what is necessary to kill the story before it kills you,’ which often works.” I think the strategy goes well beyond any notion of PR we know about from the past. Howard Kurtz: “Helping White House officials finger a covert operative is not exactly the kind of work that builds public support for the Fourth Estate.” In the 33 years since Deep Throat, Kurtz writes, “journalists have so badly overused unnamed sources on routine stories that they have come to be seen as too cozy with political insiders.” Stephen Spruiell at National Review’s media blog has had it with journalists “refusing to report what they know” by protecting their sources; and he thinks stonewalling the press is justified: With the NY Times leading the coverage last week with an incessant series of leaks, all spun against Rove, and with the Times’ reporting clearly tailored to its own political interests — protecting the crutch of anonymous sources, promoting a scandal involving a powerful, unaccountable White House official, and covering up its own role in the investigation of a potentially serious crime — tell me again: Why shouldn’t the White House stonewall this press? Not rollback, blowback! Bill Quick at Daily Pundit thinks I have it wrong. He says my post ignores (stonewalls? rolls back?) the possibility that the problems the media is having with the White House (and not just this one, either) are of its own making, arising out of the media’s sense of itself as a special interest group with special privileges to not just report the news, but to militate both for its own projects, and against those of Presidents and other politicians and ideologies with which it disagrees. Read the rest. I do wonder what Bill Quick thinks of Karl Rove declining to endorse the cultural right’s view of the press in a speech he gave in Maryland April 18. As reported by Dana Milbank, Rove was asked a question about the liberal media: “I’m not sure I’ve talked about the liberal media,” Rove said when a student inquired — a decision he said he made “consciously.” The press is generally liberal, he argued, but “I think it’s less liberal than it is oppositional.” I also wonder why Rove received so little criticism from his own camp for this view, which openly contradicts the claims of the cultural right, and undermines the entire “liberal bias” discourse. Editor & Publisher: What did Spiro Agnew actually say about the press back in 1969-70? Useful. In comments, Andrew Tyndal of the Tyndal Report notes that who-leaks-what (certainly an important story) doesn’t get much attention: How about an article on the leaking styles of the major inside-the-Beltway actors? How does Karl Rove leak? Does he pick up the phone or wait for his contacts to call? Does he react to stories or initiate them? Does he deliver only assertions or authentic facts, as Rosenstiel would say? Does he trade access for non-disclosure? Does he engage in reportorial reward and punishment? In fact, there is a gentleman’s agreement among journalists not to investigate each other’s confidential sources. Whenever I have asked about this, I have never heard a reporter try to justify the arrangement. (I don’t think it can be done) Nor do they deny it. Good question for Howard Kurtz to ask on “Reliable Sources.” The San Francisco Chronicle calls on Scott McClellan to resign. Won’t happen. McClellan hasn’t even apologized for misleading the press, which would be the decent thing to do. Billmon of Whiskey Bar comments (at the Huffington Post): “I rarely see it mentioned that Joseph Wilson (who is no truthtelling hero) began his crusade by trying to leak his criticisms of the Bush White House.” Big difference, yes. Bill (ex-reporter himself) also points out an intruiging passage from a Sidney Blumenthal article in Salon, where former New York Times Washington bureau chief and Atlanta Journal-Constitution editor Bill Kovach, a legend in the business, argues against the notion that confidential sources must be protected at all costs: If a man damages your credibility, why not lay the blame where it belongs? If Plame were an operative, she wouldn’t have the authority to send someone. Whoever was leaking that information to Novak, Cooper or Judy Miller was doing it with malice aforethought, trying to set up a deceptive circumstance. That would invalidate any promise of confidentiality. You wouldn’t protect a source for telling lies or using you to mislead your audience. That changes everything. Any reporter that puts themselves or a news organization in that position is making a big mistake. Billmon’s commentary on this shows a man wrestling with himself. Read the rest. Time magazine’s Matthew Cooper provides the view opposite to Kovach’s. Here he is on CNN: I don’t think we as journalists can sort of pick and choose which sources and which obligations we’re going to honor, and say, well, this source doesn’t seem to have good motives, I’m not going to take his. I think even as we saw in Deep Throat, Mark Felt, who emerged as Deep Throat, had his own motives, and he had been involved in things that were not so great too. And I think the phrase “we can’t pick and choose” is a dodge. Translates as: we cannot afford to think about it or make any distinctions. New York Times editorial: “But the hard truth is that no reporter can choose the circumstances for upholding a principle.” See also Sam Smith in Editor & Publisher, who says: if there was more news value in what the source was trying to do (get Wilson’s wife into the frame) than in the information the source was passing (remember the Times did not report it as news) then Miller erred. Smith calls it “malpractice.” Michael Kinsley on June 12, 2005 dismissed the Downing Street Memo but said: “Fixing intelligence and facts to fit a desired policy is the Bush II governing style, especially concerning the Iraq war.” Hmmmm. The New Yorker’s Ken Auletta in a 2004 interview: “This is a cohesive White House staff, dominated by people whose first loyalty is to Team Bush. When Bush leaves the White House, most of his aides will probably return to Texas. They are not Washington careerists, and thus they have less need to puff themselves up with the Washington press corps.” Halley Suitt comments on this post, and she’s optimistic: “Has telling the truth gone out of fashion? I say no. Telling the truth is very fashionable. We all need to start wearing it out on the town. I think we’re about to enjoy a new fall season of veracity, strutting around town in our finery, all dressed up in the naked truth.”
Posted by Jay Rosen at July 16, 2005 12:58 AM
Comments
Basically, it is not abnormal for any current Admin. to evolve with the current press-rightly or wrongly- and this tension/rollback will obviously affect the reporting/questioning/journaling as we see with the Plame/Rove affair. As usual, there must be a winner and loser in such cases-perceived or real- and therefore who will be the perceived or real loser in this rollback in the Plame/Rove affair or other budding stories? Is the evolution of the way the Press deals with things correct or wrong or neutral, or is the way the Admin. deals with things correct or wrong or neutral? Is the average american the real loser in all of this? Posted by: calboy at July 16, 2005 2:38 AM | Permalink linking to the thoroughly discredited Daily Howler piece about Joe's Wilson's supposed lack of credibility doesn't help you make your case, Mr. Rosen. Posted by: ami at July 16, 2005 7:33 AM | Permalink Jay, I think you give the administration far too much credit in this. You're writing about an effect, the causes of which are many and not nearly so organized and planned. The rollback policy (excellent phrase) is a natural reaction to the slow suicide of the press. None of this would be possible were it not for years of public trust abuse at the hands of the media elite. Did the Bush administration take advantage of that abuse? Perhaps yes, but here's the bigger question: would any other administration have done likewise? I think the answer is yes. Posted by: Terry Heaton at July 16, 2005 9:12 AM | Permalink To Ami: Actually, linking to any piece questioning Mr. Wilson's credibility *does* provide context, thus supporting Mr. Rosen's point. More so, your assertion that the Daily Howler piece is thoroughly discredited lacks substantiation. By whom? And how many? Jay's point seems to be that assertion without evidence leads to spin. And then it merely becomes point/counterpoint. And that is what the current administration has used to weaken investigations of its policies and decisions. Posted by: Jasperjed at July 16, 2005 9:27 AM | Permalink heh I was going to leave a comment about the Daily Howler, as well. There are so many things that Bob Somerby has written in his posts that are just plain wrong...it's hard to know where to start. But, instead, I'll argue that the White House press corps didn't just suddenly awaken. I think the day to mark on the calendar is May 17th, 2005 when Scott McClellan said, in relation to the Koran desecration story which had (sort of) been discredited (link), "And we would encourage Newsweek to do all that they can to help repair the damage that has been done, particularly in the region." Terry Moran, who I have criticized often in the past, was especially awakened and his response was, "With respect, who made you the editor of Newsweek? Do you think it's appropriate for you, at that podium, speaking with the authority of the President of the United States, to tell an American magazine what they should print?" Heck...one could even make the case that it happened a few days before that...when a number of reporters who were in the Old Executive Office Building were upset at the fact that they hadn't received word to be evacuated during the plane scare in May. I also give credit to a certain blogger (who many in the press think is still the acting chair of a certain school's journalism department - or are just too lazy to fact check) who made an awful lot of noise before both of the incidents that I mentioned about how poor a job the White House press corps has done. I just hope they keep it up. Posted by: Ron Brynaert at July 16, 2005 9:29 AM | Permalink This is a fascinating analysis of the way that the Bush administration has successfully rolled over the press, but I disagree with the suggestion that the press might counter it with better coordination. Media organizations could never get away with creating their own spin infrastructure. The real enemy of the Bush approach is reality. You can win elections and minimize criticism through bald assertion and fix intelligence around policy objectives, but those only solve your political problems. Posted by: Rogers Cadenhead at July 16, 2005 9:35 AM | Permalink Jasperjed, Joe Wilson has effectively countered every point that the Daily Howler made in the hundreds of interviews he's given over the last two years. And most of his points were brought up in the last thread by some right-leaning detractors and were countered by the usual suspects who populate the commments section. While it's possible that there may be a few things which Wilson said or did that may not be altogether truthful...so far...there's nothing that can be proven unequivocally false, yet. Posted by: Ron Brynaert at July 16, 2005 9:36 AM | Permalink Rosen illustrates the phenomenon of press rollback by describing the Fleischer-McClellan stonewalling technique of public press briefings. The facts of the Plame case, however, seem to indicate that the White House project of creating its own reality does not disdain the press as an institution when using other conduits, namely secret, unattributable briefings. When information is spread by that method--via unaccountable, anonymous sources--the mainstream media appears to be an instrument of government rather than its constraint. It is in this sense that Judith Miller's predicament is ironical: having been a conduit for Weapons of Mass Destruction "reality creation," she is apparently punished for being the recipient of information that she deemed not reality-creating enough even to include in her own journalism. The unreported phenomenon in this entire affair does not concern Plame or Rove or Miller or any of that gang. I would like to read a story about how, precisely, this almost-institutionalized system of unattributable briefings works. How about an article on the leaking styles of the major inside-the-Beltway actors? How does Karl Rove leak? Does he pick up the phone or wait for his contacts to call? Does he react to stories or initiate them? Does he deliver only assertions or authentic facts, as Rosenstiel would say? Does he trade access for non-disclosure? Does he engage in reportorial reward and punishment? In what way is Rove's leaking style different from Paul Wolfowitz's, Colin Powell's, Karen Hughes', Dick Cheney's and so on? Reporting on the system of leaking would not compromise confidentiality agreements since they concern the content of a leak not its technique. Andrea Mitchell could file this story, or Michael Isikoff, or Matthew Cooper, or Robert Novak, or countless others. Best of all, Miller should write it. She has some time on her hands.
Posted by: Andrew Tyndall at July 16, 2005 11:49 AM | Permalink The mention of Newsweek's Quran-flushing story raises the question of Isikoff's role in this story. His first article, one of the first stories breaking Rove's involvement, is a great study in a lot of these forces. Of course, it is notable that Isikoff--recently recovered from his public White House beating--writes the story. So one might think this story is just Isikoff's chance for revenge. But Isikoff, of course, is not new to this kind of story; he's got one President's credibility under his belt, and I'm sure he'd love to get a second. Nevertheless Isikoff falls right into White House spin on this story. He relies on three sources, Luskin, and two anonymous lawyers "sympathetic to the White House." (I saw no one mention the irony of relying on two anonymous sources at the White House for a story about Plame...) I, for one, am quite certain he was a tool of someone in the White House (my latest theory is that Libby's or Cheney's lawyer was the one who said, "WH is worried about a Rove indictment" because it shifted attention away from their own culpability). He thought he was taking down a(nother) President, and he was really just falling for someone's spin!!! Posted by: emptywheel at July 16, 2005 1:54 PM | Permalink Although it neatly describes the changes we see in the dominant liberal media, I think the term "rollback" sounds too proactive. It assumes the Bush folks, clever though they are, are largely responsible for shrinking of our dominant libearl media's credibility. Instead, I think the media themselves are responsible for their own diminishment as a result of the increasingly transparent liberal bias evident in their work. This is so well documented, including by admission against interest from our dominant press, that it is now almost completely beyond reasonable dispute. In this environment, any Bush Administration pushback is at least a justified reaction, if not necessary. But more than that, from the perspective of the vast center-right majority of this nation, a "rollback" of press influence is desireable. Such a rollback (a.k.a. the dominant media’s de-legitimization of itself through liberal bias) is likely to unleash the ascendancy of mainstream conservative ideology. Here’s why: The dominant media are consequential participants in the nation’s political discourse. As I say, even according to admission against interest from a few honest, courageous members of the dominant media (empirical evidence, to some), the press are overwhelmingly liberal and their work-product reflects that (see link above quoting Halperin, Okrent and Goldberg). (If you are not yet prepared to admit this, even to yourself, for now just stipulate it for sake of argument.) Accordingly, liberal ideas have enjoyed disproportionate representation in our public consciousness. You pick the issue: Gun control, abortion, gay marriage, taxes, the death penalty and dozens more. That is, our dominant liberal media friends have stacked the deck against conservative positions in the public square by their slanted reporting - - misinformation on which Americans base political judgments. Without the sympathetic portrayal of liberal ideas projected through the dominant media’s distorted lens, much of leftist ideology would have largely died a natural death some decades ago, at least in the general polity (for now, universities seem immune to ideological fumigation). To use a recently topical metaphor, liberalism is in a persistent vegetative state, but is being kept alive in the body politic by the life support of liberal media bias. Now, our dominant liberal media friends find the pretense of (self-certified) objectivity useful in promulgating liberal ideas in news coverage. This is because a presumed impartial referee has more credibility to most than an ideologue, and such credibility is often a prerequisite for ideological influence. Abandoning (or exposing) the false pretense of objectivity reduces the dominant media’s credibility and, consequently, their influence. For this reason, of course, I don’t expect our press friends to abandon the pretense. I’m hopeful, however, that on their own or through publicity from increasingly effective alternate voices in new media, the dominant media’s pretense of objectivity will be thrown down and their leftward bias exposed. As a result, an electorate searching for information on which to base political judgments will do so on a more level playing field, rather than on the current field tilted left by crooked “referees” who place their thumb on the scale of civic debate by slanting the news under color of objectivity. Thus, for example, instead of taking for granted that President Bush received preferential treatment or shirked his National Guard duty because “60 Minutes” made it seem so, the citizen will think to himself, “Well CBS News gave me one side of the story, let me now hear the other side.” In that balanced, if not fair, news environment I’m confident that conservative ideas will compete favorably with the left. All of this will be quite a change for our friends on the left. Stripped of the liberal cocoon spun by the dominant media, its denizens will be left blinking in the sunlight, surprised and despairing that the real world is not what they believed. Posted by: Trained Auditor at July 16, 2005 3:00 PM | Permalink Please elucidate. What is the evidence that the administration is in conflict with Patrick Fitzgerald? Is the press afraid of the blogs for the exposing of a multitude of false reports? It is easier to place blame on Rove et. al. than numerous private individuals. Posted by: richard siegel at July 16, 2005 5:11 PM | Permalink 'Executive innovation' is a curious way to describe a rollback of the enlightenment in governance. Posted by: Matt Stoller at July 16, 2005 5:20 PM | Permalink Instead of a retread of Jay's press rollback theory, I would have been more interested in seeing him delve into the media's continuing, evolving role in the Plame affair. Perhaps Jay is also waiting, like Scott McClellan, for Fitzgerald to finish his investigation! I mean when Josh Marshall is grudgingly moving on to other issues, you know that a reality that many people had a lot invested in has turned into quicksand. But is it the quicksand of Bush's diabolical press strategy or the quicksand of a lazy, mediocre Washington Press corps (routinely castigated by Bob Somerby) that declines to do hard work when it can instead piece together another bogus conflict piece based on the canned sound bytes of a couple of press spokesmen? John Tierney so completely nails the Plame affair that one wants to breathe a sigh of relief: it's one of the few places in the MSM you can read about Wilson's credibility problems and the strange emptiness at the center of this would-be scandal. I disagree with him, however, in his apparent belief that it's a scandal without promise. I do think that it's very possible some unknown figure--who could be Wilson, Novak, Miller, Plame, an Administration official or someone in the CIA--is going to be indicted for a crime that has nothing to do with a post-facto coverup but for some sort of original sin. The fact that you can't read in the good old MSM about most of the facts to which Tierney alludes, but you can on the blogs, is why I don't think there is much of a "rollback" going on, as in some external force acting on the press. The press is rolling itself back with shoddy work. I think it's steady loss of credibility is good for the country, for the spread of complete information and for democracy. Who isn't cheering the press's self-rollback? (except the press). Bring on the alternative media. Posted by: Lee Kane at July 16, 2005 6:27 PM | Permalink PS. No irony intended, btw. I know that Tierney is a member of the MSM so by citing him I am disproving my own thesis. But I am speaking primarily of the news pages, not a backpage columnist, whose "facts" will always be seen as partisan. On the other hand, perhaps in some sense I am disproving my own thesis. One cheer for the MSM! Posted by: Lee Kane at July 16, 2005 6:32 PM | Permalink I must say that all this discussion of "rollback" and any other words one wishes to apply, is utter nonsense. The Press is every bit as guilty as the WH in all the noninformation that comes out in print. Perhaps the journalists have gotten lazy, perhaps the corporate heads of ALL the media have been so taken by taxcuts and other bribes that they simply have sold their soul for money. Perhaps the "elite" journalists of the WH Press Corp simply think too much of themselves, or consider being "one of the in crowd" more important than actually reporting. What I DO know is that for the so-called "rollback" nonsense to work requires the implicit acceptance by the Press Corp - you have to play along. What, they fear that Rove or Bush wont SMILE at them or shake their hand at the next press meeting if they print facts rather than spin? Poor baby! Get another job if that's your concern! The correct response from the press corp, at least those members not poltically 100% onboard with anything the Administration wants and does, is to print NON-spin. Spin ONLY works if the press bites off on it and prints it again and again (which they have ALL proven too willing to do). For God's sake, look at the lies the press has STILL been biting off on with regards to Joe Wilson! Plame's CIA identity is blown and the WH tries to defend the action by saying "Joe is a liar! Joe is a liar! He said the VP sent him to Niger and HE DIDN'T!", and the press prints that crap making it seem a legitimate defense. It ISN'T, plus the words are objectively false. The press doesn't give a damn, they like to see a pointless and very damaging political fight and virtually ignore the fact that a crime against the nation's security was committed. The press's behavior these last 6 years or so hurts the nation and it hurts how the public views the press, yet the press corps continues to self immolate in this manner. If the members of the press would let the SPIN nonsense run in one ear and out the other and instead print facts, print reality, then there could not be any possibility of "rollback". The press can only be "rolled back" if the press plays along with the game the Admin plays. There are ALWAYS disgruntled employees. There are ALWAYS people willing to spill some beans. It is impossible to hide from reality, no matter what the WH thinks, and if the press would simply go with reality, the Admin would be powerless and incapable of controlling the press. I don't want to hear any more lame excuses. The Administration is running a "rollback" scheme and there nothing the press can do. Bullcrap. Print what is right, print what is true, compare it with the lies and spin the WH blathers on about (ANY WH Admin) and watch THEM squirm. Quit seeking prestige in the form of being gladhanded by the (ooh!) President. Quit seeking to feel important by being on the Administration's A-list so you can get invited to all the parties. That crap is meaningless. DO. YOUR. JOB. INSTEAD...and let the chips fall where they MUST. Posted by: Praedor Atrebates at July 16, 2005 8:00 PM | Permalink Jay, I think you're giving the special prosecutor a little too much credit here. He, like the adminstration flunkies on the run and like the Washington press itself, has hardly covered himself with glory in this unfolding fiasco. --The prosecutor's office set up to chase anonymous leaks of sensitive information evidently leaking sensitive information itself--about grand jury proceedings, which is clearly illegal. --The NYT that has both foresworn using anonymous sources, and is willing to violate the law to protect anonymous sources, accepting leaks from the leak-hunting prosecutor, and then explaining why it's okay for them to be anonymous. --The evidently real possibility that the person who outed Plame was not a government official at all, but a journalist (who used to be a government official), Tim Russert. (Which, of course, begs the question -- who was Russert's source who told him stuff that he then blabbed to whomever he could reach at the White House.) -- And, best of all, of course Karl Rove's ingenious and shiny new defense: "I didn't leak to reporters ... reporters leaked to me!" You couldn't make this stuff up! Posted by: Steve Lovelady at July 16, 2005 8:45 PM | Permalink Praedor, Understanding is a three edged sword. Your side, their side, and the truth. Posted by: Trained Auditor at July 16, 2005 10:37 PM | Permalink Praedor, Your plea for our media to "print what is true" reminds me of something I once heard: Understanding is a three edged sword. Your side, their side, and the truth. By day I'm a scientist. The whole deal is quite simple. You observe, ask questions, get answers, you dig. You report the facts and generate conclusions ONLY based upon the facts (data). There's no room here for spin (that is called scientific misconduct). There are also certain operating assumptions for the press corps that are virtually 100% foolproof. ANYTHING the WH says is spin and may or may not be associated with reality. Better to take it with a grain of salt. NEVER trust a "source" that is highly placed, has a clear political agenda tied to the information that has nothing whatsoever to do with serving the public good. It is unacceptable, period, when "journalists" pass on talking points or repeat clearly demonstrable falsehoods spouted by political operatives with clear motive to lie. David Brooks and others pass on totally irrelevant nonsense provided by the WH about what a liar Wilson is...as if, even if true, that would justify outing a CIA operative. Apples and oranges. It doesn't help when the nonsense they forward at the behest of the WH are factually incorrect (provable lies) and yet they say nothing about that fact. Unethical, every last one of them. They simply haven't been doing their jobs. All they do is accept printouts and words from the WH and then pass them on to the public without critical review. If any ever DO actually provide the factually-based counterpoint to the spin, the nevertheless present the obvious fabrications by the WH as if they have equal weight with REALITY. I repeat: unethical. It's also lazy, damaging to democracy, damaging to the press, damaging to the nation, and a dereliction of duty (I am also a veteran so this last is as unforgivable to me as presenting false data as if it were true). Posted by: Praedor Atrebates at July 16, 2005 11:06 PM | Permalink Ron: I haven't seen Somerby's post challenged and refuted (I know a lot of people don't like it, but that's different.) Have a link that explains what he gets wrong? I'll gladly add it to the After section. If you don't have one, I would recommend that you do a post. Wilson seems to me a very poor choice for lionization, Ron. (This was Somerby's point.) If you're Wilson and you say repeatedly and with great indignation that your wife did not "authorize" your trip or send you to Niger, but then fail to mention that she did in some way recommend you for it, then you're an ass. Wilson knows how the discrediting game works. He should have known his wife's recommendation would come out. What was he thinking? "I know how to stonewall too"? If you have an explanation I would love to hear it. It's far worse, of course, for the Bush Team and its supporters (some of whom comment here) to simply make up facts like, "his wife sent him," and then try to spin what did come out as confirmation of that lie. (And it was a lie.) Andrew: You are totally on the mark. There is a gentleman's agreement among reporters not to investigate each other's sources. It's impossible to justify, I think. But I would love to see someone try. I think the seamy underside of confidential sourcing is about to be exposed by this story. Journalists love a good scandal, but I doubt they are happy about that. TA: In one of the studies you cite as rock-solid evidence that "liberal bias" is now "almost completely beyond reasonable dispute," journalists were asked to identify themselves politically. A majority--54 percent--of the national press identified itself not as liberal but as "moderate." A bigger majority--61 percent--of the local press did the same. First question: Is this the kind of evidence for transparent liberal bias that you see as "almost completely beyond reasonable dispute?" Second question: If 41 percent of the general public calls itself "moderate" according to the same report, would you agree that I am on firm factual ground in stating that the press, overall, is significantly more moderate than the American public as a whole according to the study you cite? Matt: I was trying to use curious terms, so thanks. But FYI... my own view of the Bush Team is that they are far more innovative than either supporters or detractors give them credit for. Most supporters shrink from describing the current White House that way because they're invested in the term "conservative" for Bush, which simply doesn't apply to his tradition-busting behavior. (I'm one of those who think Bush is a visionary, and a radical, and quite intelligent, although not learned.) Detractors don't focus on innovation because it gets in the way of denunciation. And of course the Bushies themselves don't speak about many of their innovations because they have cover stories that would collapse if they did. Steve: what credit did I give the prosecutor? Or are you using the culture war scorecard where if you don't denounce you are supporter? Ron Brynaert wrote While it's possible that there may be a few things which Wilson said or did that may not be altogether truthful...so far...there's nothing that can be proven unequivocally false, yet.I wonder what you might be referring to? Would it be the "documents" Wilson supposedly saw, that, when the SIC confronted him with the fact that he couldn't possibly have seen them, he claimed were "literary flair"? Could it be the response to Newsweek, "That's bullshit!", when he was asked if his wife was involved in his trip to Niger? Or perhaps it's his reference to the forged documents obtained by the US from the Italian's six months after he claimed to have seen them, when he said he "may have mispoken"? Or perhaps it's his claim that he "debunked" the claim that the iraqis had signed an agreement to obtain yellowcake from Niger when in fact that claim had never been made? I'm just curious which, of all the many lies Wilson has told, you think he has refuted. Oh, and I absolutely love your parsing of words in "there's nothing that can be proven unequivocally false, yet." I guess we get to argue incessantly now over whether or not his lies were "unequivocally" false rather than patently false. I do have to thank you for a good chuckle, though. Jay, a fascinating look at current relationships between the press and the White House. I wonder how you would respond to this question. Yesterday and today AP published stories based upon leaks from "legal professionals" with knowledge of Fitzgerald's grand jury investigation. Would you support an investigation of those leaks? Would you support compelling the AP reporters to reveal their sources so they could be charged with their obvious violations of the law? Does the press have an ethical obligation not to reveal secret information? Or are they free to publish anything, even if the only way the information could be obtained were for someone to violate the law? Jay, I think you're wrapping your arms around one leg of a big elephant here. The key to understanding Bush & Co.'s approach to the press is understanding its approach to politics in general. Bush & Co. simply isn't interested in the traditional political practice of reaching out to the general populace through the press or any other means. It doesn't have to. That's due in part to advances in targeted media, but also because demographics and structural electoral changes (redistricting, the growth of exurbs, etc.) give the GOP a slim but largely unassailable advantage. The goal is therefore not to evangelize the Bush/GOP message to the masses, but rather to preach to the choir. Writing in The Atlantic last year, Joshua Green explained: As with direct mail, Rove was skilled at reaching specific voter segments with television commercials, buying air time only during programs that he believed would attract the audience he was trying to reach. In his Alabama races he was known particularly to withhold advertising from The Oprah Winfrey Show and similar afternoon programming—"trimming a media buy," as it is known in the trade. Bill Smith, who worked on a series of close races with Rove in Alabama, says, "There's a real overlap in what he specialized in professionally and what you need to do in a tight race." Whether he is seeking donors in a direct-mail fundraising campaign or manipulating a particular demographic sliver to win a close race, Rove's professional goal has been strikingly consistent: to reach the right people. Green concluded that Karl Rove "isn't bracing for a close race. He's depending on it." Because it can depend on a slim but solid majority, Bush & Co. can afford to ignore the hue and cry from the press and the other side of the aisle. In fact, it often throws salt in the wound because it pleases its own base: Rather than soften Bush's appeal to reach moderates, Rove, as he has done throughout his career, is attempting to control the debate by expertly spotlighting issues sure to inspire his core constituency [which includes bashing out groups]... Posted by: Sven at July 17, 2005 12:17 AM | Permalink FWIW: Attributing Wilson's trip to his wife's supposed authority became the predicate for a smear campaign against his credibility. Seven months after the appointment of the special counsel, in July 2004, the Republican-dominated Senate Select Committee on Intelligence issued its report on flawed intelligence leading to the Iraq war... The three-page addendum by the ranking Republicans followed the now well-worn attack lines: "The plan to send the former ambassador to Niger was suggested by the former ambassador's wife, a CIA employee." Posted by: Sven at July 17, 2005 12:37 AM | Permalink I'm with Praedor on this. It has been less a rollback than an assisted suicide. And now we're seeing "Night of the Living Press." Who knows how long that'll last? I think with a few exceptions no one in the press room actually thinks McClellan was lying when he said Rove assured him he had nothing to do with the leak, and that the press are mostly pissed off that Cooper, who seems to be pretty popular, almost went to jail because of Rove, and that the degree to which the press have allowed, indeed encouraged themselves to be played is becoming inescapably public. They can't get at Rove or any of the other principals so they're taking it out on McClellan. Which is fine; he deserves a thorough thrashing, but probably not precisely the one he's getting. Of course Wilson tried to leak the story anonymously: He's not stupid and he would have anticipated White House retaliation, although probably against him and not his wife. And while Somerby is correct that beyond mistaking Iraq for Iran with respect to the actual purchase of uranium (a fairly major mistake under the circumstances), Schmidt wrote a mostly accurate summary of the Intelligence Committee report, it's more than passing strange that he would accept the report itself without question when chunks of it have been debunked. And of course Wilson isn't even the seminal figure in the yellowcake saga: he just happens to have been the most public one. The claim was in enough question within the intelligence community long after Wilson returned from Niger and supposedly reinforced the view that an attempted purchase had occurred, that the CIA had it removed from a Bush speech, and it was disproved entirely shortly before the invasion and months before Wilson got frustrated enough to go public. But enough of that. Even while the press are salivating all over McClellan, they're still happily printing anonymous tidbits from Rove's attorney and other Rovian Defense Force sources while at the same time chastising the White House for sanctioning the leaks the press are gorging on. And they're not doing much of a job untangling the mess. I'd like to get some idea of why Rove's attorney, or whoever that was, decided to introduce Stephen Hadley into the mix, and why Powell's and Ari Fleischer's potential involvement have been suddenly resurrected by Rove's people. And I'd seriously like to know why reporters seem to have so little interest in the person who ratted out the rats to the Washington Post, since that person seems not only to have all the details of the leak, but to be known to the prosecutor (by virtue of the reporters not bunking with Judy Miller). So even now, with all that adrenaline pumping, reporters aren't doing much more than snarling at McClellan and blithely printing leaks from at least one person, Robert Luskin, whom they know to be either a liar or a dupe. And where's the context? Why is the NYT talking about Ari Fleischer and the State Department memo without mentioning that Fitzgerald subpoenaed the full transcript of a Fleischer press gaggle that took place during the now-famous Africa trip when the now-famous memo surfaced? Can't they even quote a bit of what Ari said about Wilson then? The frickin' transcript is posted at the White House site and the gaggle took place two days before Novak's column was published. Isn't that, like, interesting to any reporter? Why aren't they interviewing the other two Africa hands who came to the same conclusion Wilson did? We're only a few months away from the annual press self-recrimination orgy. What do you want to bet this story will be near the top of the "Damn, we blew it: oh well" list? And the really pathetic thing is that at least a dozen reporters already know how the story ends and they still can't report it well. Posted by: weldon berger at July 17, 2005 12:43 AM | Permalink Jay: Thus, according to the study you also cited, the national press self-identify as signifcantly more liberal and significantly less conservative than the general public. I believe that fact is apparent in their work product - - and I hope many other Americans come to understand that as well. Posted by: Trained Auditor at July 17, 2005 12:50 AM | Permalink Why is that more illuminating? And I want an answer to: Is this the kind of evidence for transparent liberal bias that you see as "almost completely beyond reasonable dispute?" Sven, I'm afraid there are several inaccuracies in the report you cite. 1) The statement, "The plan to send the former ambassador to Niger was suggested by the former ambassador's wife, a CIA employee." can hardly be truthfully characterized as "Attributing Wilson's trip to his wife's supposed authority". That's a false syllogism and ought to be rejected by all reasonable people. There is all the difference between suggestion and authority as there is between me suggesting that my boss ought to authorize the purchase of software we want and her actually signing the purchase order. To suggest that, because I didn't have the authority to sign the purchase order I therefore had no influence is disingenuous. As my boss would readily tell you, my professional opinion is highly respected and frequently requested. 2) "Schmidt quoted a CIA official in the senators' account saying that Plame had "offered up" Wilson's name." If that's true, Schmidt was wrong. It was an INR official who made that statement, not CIA. 3) "Plame's memo, in fact, was written at the express directive of her superiors two days before Wilson was to come to Langley for his meeting to describe his qualifications in a standard protocol to receive "country clearance." Do you have any evidence that this is true? It's the first time I've ever heard this charge, and it conflicts with the official account, which was signed off on unanimously by the SIC. Furthermore, Plame had earlier recommended her husband (in 1999) for a CIA trip to Niger. No one has argued that is false, and it buttresses the case for her having suggested the second trip as well. In addition, 24 hours after she submitted the memo, the CIA sent a cable requesting concurrence to send Wilson on the trip. This suggests strongly that her memo was the motivating factor for the cable. Finally, Plame convened the meeting Wilson attended to discuss his upcoming trip and she attended his debriefing. By any reasonable interpretation of these facts, she was involved. 4) "The CIA officer who wrote the memo that originally recommended Wilson for the mission -- who was cited anonymously by the senators as the only source who said that Plame was responsible -- was deeply upset at the twisting of his testimony, which was not public, and told Plame he had said no such thing. CIA spokesman Bill Harlow told Wilson that the Republican Senate staff never contacted him for the agency's information on the matter." Do you have evidence of this? This is the first time I've seen this stated publicly. 5) "Curiously, the only document cited as the basis for Plame's role was a State Department memo that was later debunked by the CIA." This is false. The SICR expressly quotes the memo written by Ms. Plame. Perhaps you can clear these discrepancies up? On a side note, I find it curious to be trusting the statements of anonymous CIA employees for the facts of the Plame case when they supposedly can't be trusted for their intelligence gathering on something as important as WMD - curiously, Plame's area of "expertise" by the way. Appeals to authority to substantiate a "truth" in order to prove another "truth" to be false seem particularly fraught with difficulty. Antimedia: are you claiming that you, personally, believe that, based on the evidence you have seen, Wilson was sent to Niger by his wife, who conceived and authorized his trip? I would be happy to add your "name" and a link to this post and send whatever readers I have (here and at the Huffington Post) to your site so they too can know the truth and be set free. So... do you think he was sent by his wife? And if you do, what link from your site can I use? You libs just don't get it, do you? First of all, Rove didn't leak anything to Novak. Novak ran with the story first and had secured permission from the CIA before publishing. Now, ask yourself was Valerie Plame a covert operative? If she was, why did Langley bless Novak's story? If she wansn't, this is just politics as usual. If you don't have someting on your opponent, make something up (its getting habitual for the left). Secondly, who is Judith Miller's source? Can't be Rove--he gave waivers. The NYT is probably protecting someone. But you guys will do ANYTHING to try and make Bush look bad. It's like blood for you sharks. Better luck next time. And you honestly think this administration controls the press? That is laughable. Check out http://www.cmpa.com/ and see how the press has run mostly negative stories on this administration. Except for a few newer networks, the media hates this president as much as Howard Dean. Viva' Bush! Posted by: Jeff Fleming at July 17, 2005 9:43 AM | Permalink No, Viva Jeff! That's almost a perfect culture war comment thread text. Good enough to put in a time capsule for curious people generations from now. Especially: "you guys will do ANYTHING to try and make Bush look bad," which is so...beautifully all-purpose. By the way, here's Karl Rove declining to endorse the cultural right's view of the press in a speech he gave in Maryland April 18. As reported by Dana Milbank, Rove was asked a question about the liberal media: "I'm not sure I've talked about the liberal media," Rove said when a student inquired -- a decision he said he made "consciously." The press is generally liberal, he argued, but "I think it's less liberal than it is oppositional." Both Rove and Fleicher wanted to separate themselves from yahoos in their own party for whom this view (press is constant thorn of those in power, whether Republican or Democrat) is heresy. Why did they do that? Anyone know? Low blow to Viva Jeff Mr. Rosen. The economy is booming--what does the press say?. I can't hear the tree falling sir. When the pillar of probity(Mr. T. Kennedy) and Mr. Byrd(KKK) are quoted ad nauseum, one wonders whose agenda the press is furthering. The country at large( yes the red states are alive and kicking) has left the press behind. Oh by the way-- remember how " Mr. Bush" stole Florida in 2000? I don't see the outrage or coverage of the East St. Louis or state of Washington scandals. Posted by: richard siegel at July 17, 2005 11:40 AM | Permalink Unless I'm reading the tone of Jay's post wrong, the instinct seems to be to attribute ulterior, maninuplative motive to Rove's comment on press bias (or its lack) ironically resembles the reflexive mode of "it's all liberal bias" interpretation of MSM behavior. Perhaps Rove made his comments simply because he believed them, for the most part--though maybe there is ulterior motive. It doesn't behoove the Administration to get caught in a he-said/she-said game in which Bush and Co. (Rove, et al) accuse the media of liberal bias and the media denies it. Better to be above the fray--let others make the accusations than do so directly--and that's been the Bush line all along for a number of obvious reasons, so Rove's comments are hardly suprising. By the way, I agree mostly with Rove. I think sometimes the dominant paradigm operating in a given bit of coverage is to "afflict the comfortable" while other times it is laced with a particular form of almost subconscious Republican mistrust. I think your frequent poster Steve Lovelady is a case in point there, so blinded by his paradigms that he has pretty much been off base on this Plame affair right along, so expecting Rove to be the "villain," even the latest developments he must interpret from a frame of Rove as master manipulator events to nefarious purpose, and that that is always the main story, even the only story. It is rather amusing. The major media-even NPR as late as today--is still operating from this base; eventually they will catch up a bit to what's actually happening, though I doubt fully so. In any case, "afflication" or "bias" motivated -- the real question is do these modes get the public the information it needs to make decisions. I think the answer there is no, pretty much. Both modes are dysfunctional and destructive, and lead to sometimes grossly inaccurate pictures of any given situation. Posted by: LK at July 17, 2005 12:27 PM | Permalink Jay asks Antimedia: are you claiming that you, personally, believe that, based on the evidence you have seen, Wilson was sent to Niger by his wife, who conceived and authorized his trip?Not at all. I'm arguing that framing the question the way that you have (and many others have as well) is a false dichotomy. Of course Plame didn't authorize the trip. She wasn't in a position to. But she certainly suggested the trip, and she certainly promoted her husband for the trip, and she convened the meeting at which the trip was planned and she attended his debriefing. By any reasonable measure, that is involvement. To then reframe the facts to say she never authorized the trip or she never sent him to Niger is to ignore the influence she had over the trip being authorized. My boss is the only one who can sign PO's, but I can assure you she will tell you my influence is critical. In fact, in some areas she defers to my judgment completely. If, then, something went wrong with a purchase I promoted, who do you think is going to be criticized for the judgment to buy? Certainly not my boss alone! This is silly parsing of words that completely misses the point which is that Plame was actively involved from the beginning. Considering that her area of expertise was WMD and her former boss characterized her as "an excellent agent" (I don't buy the "paper pusher" characterization for one minute), it's rather difficult to buy the idea that she had no influence at all or wasn't even involved. Jeff wrote You libs just don't get it, do you? First of all, Rove didn't leak anything to Novak. Novak ran with the story first and had secured permission from the CIA before publishing. Now, ask yourself was Valerie Plame a covert operative? If she was, why did Langley bless Novak's story? If she wansn't, this is just politics as usual. If you don't have someting on your opponent, make something up (its getting habitual for the left).I'm afraid this is a mischaracterization of the facts, Jeff. Novak didn't "get permission" from the CIA. He chose to publish because the CIA didn't warn him strongly enough not to. This is a consistent problem with the press. They take the slightest indication of something and assume it's confirmation. For example, Novak used Rove as his second source. He told Rove what he knew and Rove said, "I heard that too." Novak took that to be confirmation. It is not! Novak failed to ask the obvious followup question - is it true? Had Rove been asked that, and answered, "Yes!", then and only then would Novak have gotten confirmation. The press is assuming far too much before they publish. Secondly, who is Judith Miller's source? Can't be Rove--he gave waivers. The NYT is probably protecting someone.That's untrue. Whoever Judith Miller's source(s) is/are has given a waiver. Miller simply refuses to testify anyway. So her source could be any one of the people that has granted waivers, including Rove, Scooter Libby and a number of others. Jay wrote Why is that more illuminating? And I want an answer to: Is this the kind of evidence for transparent liberal bias that you see as "almost completely beyond reasonable dispute?"I'd like to address two points related to this argument. First, you asserted that some 40% of journalists self-identify as moderate. You then argued that the press was not "liberal" (whatever that means.) This is a meaningless data point. I can tell you that I'm moderate, but that doesn't mean I am. I may be in my own mind, but that doesn't mean that I am in practice. Case in point. During the Swiftvets controversy Jim Rasmussen was consistently portrayed by the press as "a Republican" or "a registered Republican" or "a registered Republican for 33 years" (an appeal to authority, which is meaningless anyway). Yet when a reporter in Arizona actually bothered to ask him who he voted for, he listed Carter, Clinton and Gore (among others.) I think you would be hard-pressed to find very many Republicans (much less registered Republicans) who voted for all three of those men. Actions always speak louder than words, yet far too many in the press pay attention to the words and ignore the actions. If you want genuine evidence of media bias, then look at this post of mine (excerpted in part here.) NBC 40 - 1That is bias, plain and simple. You can put whatever label you want on it (liberal, adversarial,positional), but it is clearly bias. Another clear example of bias is the tremendous amount of scrutiny given to President Bush's Guard record (nothing wrong with that) compared to the complete lack of scrutiny given to John Kerry's military record (great deal wrong with that.) Kerry never even "released" his military records until two months ago, yet when he repeatedly said during the campaign that he had released all his military records no one in the press questioned him about it. Even now he has only released them to friendly outlets (Boston Globe, LA Times and AP), none of which have done much with them, much less resolved any of the questions raised by the Swiftvets. The only "story" that came out of them was the story of his grades, and that was puerile to say the least. It's such a minor point it's hardly worth writing a story about. That's dishonest and it does not serve the public well, but that's the press we're stuck with today. Posted by: antimedia at July 17, 2005 1:17 PM | |
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