NewsBusters Archive

The Bushies are launching their war on leaks, says the [Washington] Post, because they’re upset at newspaper accounts of the network of secret CIA torture prisons and on Bush’s warrantless phone taps of American citizens. Bush even accused the New York Times, which first reported on the NSA spy program, of committing a “shameless act.”

The White House declaring war on journalists? How ironic! How hypocritical! How dangerous! And how Nixonian!

Yes, isn’t it ironic? Bush is now resurrecting a seldom-used 1917 law to go after journalists and their sources. Yet, not so long ago, in the NSA spying scandal, he claimed he couldn’t obey a 1978 law requiring a court order before tapping Americans’ phone calls because it was an “old law.” So old laws are OK after all, as long as Bush agrees with them.

She complains that Hollywood, ironically, is not liberal enough, which explains why they still hate "gays and fags."

On the sidewalk stood hordes of the righteous, some leaning forward like wind-bent grasses, the better to deliver their imprecations against gays and fags to the open windows of the limos - the windows open by order of the security people - creeping towards the Kodak Theatre for the 78th Academy Awards. Others held up sturdy, professionally crafted signs expressing the same hatred....

The people connected with Brokeback Mountain, including me, hoped that, having been nominated for eight Academy Awards, it would get best picture, as it had at the funny, lively Independent Spirit awards the day before. (If you are looking for smart judging based on merit, skip the Academy Awards next year and pay attention to the Independent Spirit choices.) We should have known conservative heffalump academy voters would have rather different ideas of what was stirring contemporary culture.... And rumour has it that Lions Gate inundated the academy voters with DVD copies of Trash - excuse me - Crash a few weeks before the ballot deadline. Next year we can look to the awards for controversial themes on the punishment of adulterers with a branding iron in the shape of the letter A, runaway slaves, and the debate over free silver....

You'd think that of all days, they'd be believers over at Today this morning. After all, they were blessed with presidential poll numbers for which they were surely praying.  Numbers so low that Matt Lauer, Tim Russert et. al could spend an extended first segment reveling in them. 

Ironically, in sowing some GOP dissent, Lauer even used the language of religion, suggesting the low numbers were "a blessing in disguise" for congressional Republicans because "they can look and say I don't have a popular president here, I can turn my back on that president."   Remind Frist and Hastert not to invite you to the next GOP Unity Rally, Matt.

In one of the more ugly and mean-spirited op-ed pieces in the Los Angeles Times this year, opinion writer Erin Aubry Kaplan likened former Bush staffer Claude Allen to a "house Negro" from the days of slavery. (Claude Allen, a black man, resigned as President Bush's senior domestic policy advisor in early February. He was arrested on March 9 for theft of items from a Target and other stores.)

What is the gist of Kaplan's nasty and condescending article ("Claude Allen's life sentence," 3/15/06)? Kaplan surmises that Mr. Allen's "compromises" and "cognitive dissonance" as a conservative black male may have taken a "psychological toll" on him. She then questions if this caused Allen to "finally crack under the pressure."

It doesn't get much more hostile and arrogant than this, folks. Writes Kaplan (emphasis mine),

For those of you that are unfamiliar, “Boston Legal” is an Emmy-winning television program broadcast by ABC on Tuesdays. In its most recent episode, one of the key attorneys, Alan Shore – played by James Spader – raised various issues facing our nation in his closing arguments (video link to follow). His monologue included references to weapons of mass destruction, Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, terrorist surveillance, you name it.

Spader began:

When the weapons of mass destruction thing turned out not to be true, I expected the American people to rise up. They didn’t.

Video link follows.

Those in attendance: Anna Badkhen of the San Francisco Chronicle, Jackie Spinner of the Washington Post, John Burns of the New York Times and Mark Danner, a Berkeley journalism professor and contributor to The New York Review of Books.

UC Berkeley News reported on the event.

Jackie Spinner, Washington Post staff writer and author of "Tell Them I Didn't Cry," an account of a year spent in Baghdad starting in May 2004, disagreed that reporters in Iraq are prevented from telling both sides. "I think we're getting 90 percent of the story," she said. When disbelieving guffaws rang out from the audience, she retorted, "Excuse me, have you been there?" She went on to explain how when Washington Post reporters can't go out, "we rely on this whole cadre of Iraqi stringers and translators, who in the case of the Washington Post are Post-trained journalists."

Those skeptical of this reliance should take the time to read Spinner's book, which describes in detail the tight bond between the Post's Baghdad correspondents and the Iraqis who risk their lives to work for the bureau, often keeping their jobs a secret even from family members lest the insurgents kill them in retaliation. Before the situation in Iraq turned even more dangerous, Spinner — a UC Berkeley journalism alumna — would dress in a headscarf and full-length abaya and ride to the scene of an incident. There she would wait while her translator brought her an Iraqi who she could interview inside the tinted windows of the car. Later, she could not always go herself, but would be in constant contact with the Iraqi staff, guiding what questions they asked and pressing for details of the source's mannerisms, hesitations, and context.

The media has manufactured another furor over "controversial" Pat Robertson comments. The televangelist has said he was referring to terrorists when he described radical Muslims as "satanic." His statements recently came under the scrutiny of the women on ABC's The View. On the March 14 edition of the program, View co-hosts used Robertson’s comments as an excuse to generally bash religion. Joy Behar stated, "And a lot of the nasty people represent religion in this world.." She also added, "There’s too much anger between extreme religions." Just getting warmed up, the host then took a gratuitous and bewildering swipe at Rush Limbaugh: "Rush Limbaugh, people like that, get your attention because they’re radical."

He’s baaaack. Although it certainly shouldn’t be lost on the reader that such statements are good marketing for his soon to be released film about Hurricane Katrina, controversial actor and director Spike Lee, in an interview with the New York Observer, once again addressed the possibility that New Orleans’ levees were intentionally exploded. In addition, he suggested that folks who consider this possibility are similar to Jews that talk about the chance of another holocaust happening. His reasoning? Well, it happened before:

“‘Here’s the thing,’ he said. ‘Even today, a large part of the African-American community of New Orleans thinks that those levees were bombed. Now, whether that is true or not, that should not be discounted.’ He rattled off past government trespasses: 1927’s Great Flood of Mississippi, when the levees were, in fact, blown up; the flooding of the Ninth Ward during Hurricane Betsy in 1965; the Tuskegee syphilis experiment.

“‘So, in the collective mind of African-Americans, it is not some science-fiction, hocus-pocus thing to say that the government is doing stuff,’ he continued. ‘Even if it didn’t happen, you cannot discount it and dismiss it as Oh you people are crazy. It’s what people think—talk to Jewish people. Because of the Holocaust, you know, anything that happens, it’s like, ‘Oh! It’s starting again.’ And I’m not going to fault someone of Jewish ancestry that feels like that because that happened! This is history.’”

What's beautiful about this reasoning is that Lee has created a marvelous self-fulfilling prophecy that seems to have eluded him: high profile folks like him continue to float this idea, and then say that since people believe it is possible, it is significant. Amazingly, he continued to try and justify this premise: