Clip and use

It's like a as Bingo Card for the Beltway Media talking points for the past week, . . .

Media Malpractice on Debt Ceiling

NPR versus Patrick Henry

Rights?
We doon need no stinkin' rights.

Gen. Juan Peron: A template?

On today’s Morning Edition the "Proposal Offers Specifics On Preventive Detention" by Ari Shapiro was beyond the usual NPR FOX-lite hackery, it represented a full assault on the founding principals of the American Constitution.

Ari fawningly, interviews Benjamin Wittes, but he fails to mention the Mr. Wittes is fellow at the Hoover Institue, noooo he's from the Brookings Institute and one of those special “serious people” that the Beltway reveres. Mr. Wittes also has contempt for the fundamental principles of our Constitution.

"Effectively, Wittes concedes, someone could be locked up forever as long as a court approves of the detention twice a year." -Ari Shapiro, NPR

Shorter Wittes: Because Bush has already suspended the Bill of Rights and ignored domestic and international law with his chain of secret prisons and instituted torture as policy, then its OK, so let’s write laws documenting these policies, that will put a nice patina of legality on classic authoritarian techniques. Wouldn't that argument justify the legalization of the Japanese American interment, Jim Crow, the Trail of Tears?

Mr. Wittes you see, has written that he believes "the absurdity of the Eighth Amendment" for you kids out there, the Eighth Amendment (Amendment VIII) to the United States Constitution is the part of the United States Bill of Rights which prohibits the federal government from imposing excessive bail, excessive fines or cruel and unusual punishments. The phrases employed are taken from the English Bill of Rights of 1689. Yep, limiting cruel and unusual punishment, is absurd.

Now that NPR has succeeded in normalizing torture as US foreign and domestic policy, it’s proceeding to the next logical step: promoting the FOX/Right Wing meme that fundamental human rights make America weak and must be eliminated.

Wittes is adovcating an authoritarian chief executive that can suspend habeas corpus with the approve of a secret Star Chamber court system: What could possible go wrong? NPR isn’t concerned about a President that's reading the mail of their political opponents, since it ignored this story so what’s a little indefinite imprisonment without charges or trial based on hearsay evidence between friends?

While growing up attending the Grumpy Consolidated Independent School Districts, in Grumpyville, Illinois I was taught that the American government was comprised of three co-equal branches of government (Executive, Legislative, and Judicial) that provided checks and balances to each branch. Apparently my teachers were wrong, according to Wittes when we're afraid, we only have one branch of government, the Executive.

Thanks to NPR and this think-thank genius, I’ve learned that our government is really a Unitary Benevolent Authoritarian Strong Man who can revoke anyone’s rights at his or her whim (nice template see: Chile under Pinochet, Argentina under Peron, Cuba under Fidel). I guess we weren’t endowed by the Creator with inalienable rights after all. It’s not like anything could go wrong.

Patrick Henry: Give me liberty or give me death.

NPR and the Right: We’re afraid of death, take our liberties.

US Citizen, enjoying Wittes' proposed law.

Has anyone (reporter, editor, clerk, intern) at NPR ever bothered to read the Constitution or Declaration of Independence? Based on Mr. Shapio’s cheer leading, er “reporting” during the Bush/Cheney regime and this report, it’s clear he hasn’t. As a public service, I would suggest Ari start with this document , something that he and his colleagues seem to have no passing familiarity with.

NPR and Ari Shapiro when it comes to the Bill of Rights, not smarter that a fifth grader.

Mr. Shapiro, NPR's legal correspondent who over looked (missed? ignored?) the DOJ scandal (yeah which one?) report has numerous other problems. The least of all is that Shapiro claims, with out any evidence, the Mr. Wittes' gutting of the Bill of Rights is getting "serious consideration" by the White House. Yet based on Wittes' Hoover Institute bio, he's neither a lawyer or has attended law school.

NPR'S TORTURED LOGIC

What journalism used to strive for when Grumpy was growing up:

"To be persuasive, we must be believable; to be believable, we must be credible; to be credible, we must be truthful." -Edward R. Murrow

What journalism at NPR and among the Beltway Villagers has become:

"the role of a news organization is not to choose sides in this or any debate. People have different definitions of torture and different feelings about what constitutes torture. NPR's job is to give listeners all perspectives, and present the news as detailed as possible and put it in context." -Alicia C. Shepard NPR Ombudsman, Journalism Professor

If you want to be appalled, just read the defense of NPR not calling torture "torture" by Alicia Shepard NPR's (Not A) Obudsman.

It hard to believe that anyone, much less a journalism professor, would actually write such nonsense:

"To call them torture suggests we've taken sides in the debate."

Oh, no, can't control, . . . ist too much, GRUMPY GET MAD, RANT ON, . . .



Only NPR and the Ombudsman would think that correctly and accurately describing water-boarding, considered torture for centuries, and illegal under US law for more than a half century, would be "taking a side."

What side would that be? Human decency? The side of Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the Red Cross? Talk about an Axis of Evil. Maybe NPR is doing its best of offset reality's well know Liberal bias.

There's only one problem with this facile and less than honest explanation, NPR originally didn't have a problem calling "torture" torture take a look at this series from 2006 The Question of Torture The Question of Torture three years ago NPR called torture "torture".

It seems clear to me that once Bush/Cheney's crimes were being revealed, NPR made a clear and conscientious decision to defend the Bush Administration. This combined with NPR' numerous interviews with torturers and their apologists (Yoo, Cheney, Gonoz, even "Jack Bauer", et al) while blacklisting Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and other critics, while numerous staff work full time for FOX, shows NPR's abandonment any journalistic standards.

Thank God for Terry Gross, Bill Moyers, and PBS, who didn't show NPR's cowardice in the face of torture. For example PBS broadcast s"Ghosts of Abu Grave", "Taxi To the Dark Side" and "Torturing Democracy" excellent documentaries, which apparently Ms. Shepard along with NPR editor didn't watch.

Don't know which is worse, NPR's contempt for its listeners, journalism or human decency.


RANT OFF.

The always excellent Glen Greewald, has a much better point-by-point rebuttal of Ms. Shepard's poor logic and moral turpitude. Here's the first sentence:

Anyone who believes that NPR is a "liberal" media outlet -- and anyone who wants to understand the decay of American journalism -- should read this column by NPR's Ombudsman, Alicia C. Shepard, as she explains and justifies why NPR bars the use of the word "torture" to describe what the Bush administration did.

He then hits the ball out of the park after that.

Also, tip o' the hat and much deserved congratulations for NPR Watch getting the recognition for its good work.

In the beginning was the Word and it was a rant,

Doonesbury



In the past week my local paper, The Dallas Morning News, has published, with little notice or comment, the obits for three young men in our military, two died in Iraq, the third at a state-side base after returning from Iraq. Yesterday, Obama announced that he will be ending Bush/Cheney's policy of hiding the bodies from their two failed wars by their suppression of photos of our war dead.

I wonder if it will make any difference?

During the last election the National Press, NPR especially, ignored, under reported, white washed, forgot (take your pick) the 250,000+ troops deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Now, it seems like there's even less coverage.



As someone that can remember Vietnam, it looks like the Pentagon learned its lesson that knowledge is power. In the name of "protecting the privacy of the troops" the Pentagon has decided to keep the US public ignorant of the consequences of war. The compliant US press has not provided the American public with the images like these from Vietnam:






(Photos by David Douglas Duncan, via Harry Ransom Center University Of Texas. http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/exhibitions/web/ddd/gallery/war/vietnam.html Per Fresh Air: "Life magazine has called David Douglas Duncan perhaps the best war photographer since Matthew Brady. In 1999, Duncan received a lifetime achievement award for excellence and bravery from the Marine Corps.")

Gary Trudeau of "Doonesbury" has a blog "The Sandbox" that features posts by our service men and women: http://gocomics.typepad.com/the_sandbox/

"The Sandbox, our command-wide milblog, featuring comments, anecdotes, and observations service members currently deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. This is GWOT-lit's forward position, offering those in-country a chance to share their experiences and reflections with the rest of us. The Sandbox's focus is not on policy and partisanship [snip], but on the unclassified details of deployment -- the everyday, the extraordinary, the wonderful, the messed-up, the absurd. "

Be warned, knowledge is a dangerous thing.

As a society we ask our men and women and their families to sacrifice life, limbs, and treasure to protect us. It seems the least we could do is pay attention.

(I will leave the equally distressing issue of civilian causalities for another day.)