Gored by the Press
The Watch may be a bit spotty for the next couple of weeks, for a variety of reasons: We just reformatted our home computer with a new operating system, and we don't have my home email address back on line yet. Also, I'm traveling to NM over the weekend for a scientific conference, so communications could get a bit stretched. Please bear with us. If you would like to be deleted from the list or if there is a better address for me to use, please let me know. Also, if you would like to have someone added to the mailing list (or if you would like to be BCC'd on the list or some other change) please let me know about that as well. As always, The Watch is archived periodically. With apologies and thanks to Melissa for letting me use her email address for a couple of days.
Two amazing occurrences this weekend: the snow and the protests. We got a lot of snow, and we got it in a very short time. Delaware is still digging its way out, and today is the first day that "non-essential" vehicles are allowed to drive around Wilmington. The kids still don't have school.
The protests are another amazing natural phenomenon. However this war ends up playing out, the people of the world have registered their opinions, loudly and clearly. The foreign press estimates that 8-10 million people took to the streets to protest Bush's war on Saturday, in some places despite very cold weather. Even in this country, the protests were huge. In NYC, a controversial court ruling denied protestors the right to march, but they gathered anyway. The Bush administration filed a brief in that case, asking that this right to assembly be denied to the protestors. That's the American Way!
Skewed Values Watch
Walter Brasch has a very good article which sums up my feelings about the skewed way the media mourns for some (astronauts, for example) and completely neglects others (soldiers in Afghanistan, for another example).
Foxes and Henhouses Watch
This article from "The Hill" exposes the behind-the-scenes maneuvering that led the GAO to drop its investigation of Cheney and the energy task force proceedings. It turns out that the administration threatened to cut the funding for the GAO if they kept investigating, and so they stopped the investigation. How is that for the era of personal responsibility? Really, that's pretty amazing. The administration's response to internal investigations is to defang the investigators. And our media whistles quietly and looks the other way. What is Cheney hiding? What could possibly be so damning in the energy task force's minutes that it would be worth the political fallout of having these strong arm tactics exposed? That scares me a little, because these tactics themselves are very scary. What they are hiding must be a lot worse. This is another example of the rich and powerful taking power away from individuals, in this case represented by an "independent" arm of the government.
Dean Watch
Howard Dean gave an excellent speech on Monday. Here is the transcript and an article on the speech. He really stuck it to Bush and the Democrats in Congress for authorizing Bush’s use of force. If he continues in this vein, I think Dean can really generate some momentum, if he isn't crucified in the press (ha ha).
History Watch
Who won the election of 2000? History will show that Bush now occupies the White House. No one disputes that Gore won the popular vote by over half a million votes. Who got more votes in Florida? It depends on how you count them, of course. Most people were hoping for a more definitive answer when NORC finished its count, many months after the election. But even then, most of the major newspapers covering the results, as if covering up their guilt in the outcome, ran headlines which said that Bush won in Florida after the NORC recount. However, reading down into these articles shows that Bush was not likely to have won in the event of an actual recount. This result is too subtle for most reporters, apparently, as they continue to glide effortlessly around the 2-ton elephant of Bush's illegitimacy in the living room. But the fact was captured in many of the progressive articles which were online at the time. Please see the following articles for the details of how Gore would have won the recount:
Whitewater Watch
Although the Whitewater "scandal" and investigation has since been thoroughly debunked as a search for actual wrongdoing (instead of the partisan witch hunt it was), many important newspapers are still intentionally clueless about whether the Clintons actually did anything wrong. This is shameful, as the NY Times and Washington Post have a responsibility to the truth to which they still are not owning up.
But even worse than the political, personal, and financial damage done to the Clintons are the attacks against ordinary people by the out-of-control Office of the Independent Council. Julie Hyatt Steele and Susan McDougal are two women whose lives were very nearly ruined in the course of the investigation, because they would not lie for Ken Starr. Steele is just now getting her economic life put back together. McDougal spent time in prison. Both of these women are owed a great debt of gratitude by the American people, for halting the investigation in their own way, and for taking the difficult course of truth over easier lies. We'll look at what happened to them both in more detail in the future, but for now here is an interview of Susan McDougal who has a book out currently about her experiences.
Two amazing occurrences this weekend: the snow and the protests. We got a lot of snow, and we got it in a very short time. Delaware is still digging its way out, and today is the first day that "non-essential" vehicles are allowed to drive around Wilmington. The kids still don't have school.
The protests are another amazing natural phenomenon. However this war ends up playing out, the people of the world have registered their opinions, loudly and clearly. The foreign press estimates that 8-10 million people took to the streets to protest Bush's war on Saturday, in some places despite very cold weather. Even in this country, the protests were huge. In NYC, a controversial court ruling denied protestors the right to march, but they gathered anyway. The Bush administration filed a brief in that case, asking that this right to assembly be denied to the protestors. That's the American Way!
Skewed Values Watch
Walter Brasch has a very good article which sums up my feelings about the skewed way the media mourns for some (astronauts, for example) and completely neglects others (soldiers in Afghanistan, for another example).
Foxes and Henhouses Watch
This article from "The Hill" exposes the behind-the-scenes maneuvering that led the GAO to drop its investigation of Cheney and the energy task force proceedings. It turns out that the administration threatened to cut the funding for the GAO if they kept investigating, and so they stopped the investigation. How is that for the era of personal responsibility? Really, that's pretty amazing. The administration's response to internal investigations is to defang the investigators. And our media whistles quietly and looks the other way. What is Cheney hiding? What could possibly be so damning in the energy task force's minutes that it would be worth the political fallout of having these strong arm tactics exposed? That scares me a little, because these tactics themselves are very scary. What they are hiding must be a lot worse. This is another example of the rich and powerful taking power away from individuals, in this case represented by an "independent" arm of the government.
Dean Watch
Howard Dean gave an excellent speech on Monday. Here is the transcript and an article on the speech. He really stuck it to Bush and the Democrats in Congress for authorizing Bush’s use of force. If he continues in this vein, I think Dean can really generate some momentum, if he isn't crucified in the press (ha ha).
History Watch
Who won the election of 2000? History will show that Bush now occupies the White House. No one disputes that Gore won the popular vote by over half a million votes. Who got more votes in Florida? It depends on how you count them, of course. Most people were hoping for a more definitive answer when NORC finished its count, many months after the election. But even then, most of the major newspapers covering the results, as if covering up their guilt in the outcome, ran headlines which said that Bush won in Florida after the NORC recount. However, reading down into these articles shows that Bush was not likely to have won in the event of an actual recount. This result is too subtle for most reporters, apparently, as they continue to glide effortlessly around the 2-ton elephant of Bush's illegitimacy in the living room. But the fact was captured in many of the progressive articles which were online at the time. Please see the following articles for the details of how Gore would have won the recount:
- "Gore's Victory"
- "They call that a win? I call it a crime"
- "Gore Wins After All"
- Written evidence that Gore might have won and that the NYT blew it
- The Media Coverup of the Gore Victory
Whitewater Watch
Although the Whitewater "scandal" and investigation has since been thoroughly debunked as a search for actual wrongdoing (instead of the partisan witch hunt it was), many important newspapers are still intentionally clueless about whether the Clintons actually did anything wrong. This is shameful, as the NY Times and Washington Post have a responsibility to the truth to which they still are not owning up.
But even worse than the political, personal, and financial damage done to the Clintons are the attacks against ordinary people by the out-of-control Office of the Independent Council. Julie Hyatt Steele and Susan McDougal are two women whose lives were very nearly ruined in the course of the investigation, because they would not lie for Ken Starr. Steele is just now getting her economic life put back together. McDougal spent time in prison. Both of these women are owed a great debt of gratitude by the American people, for halting the investigation in their own way, and for taking the difficult course of truth over easier lies. We'll look at what happened to them both in more detail in the future, but for now here is an interview of Susan McDougal who has a book out currently about her experiences.
posted by ProfessorPlum | 10:00 AM
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