Media Complicity

Former White House spokesman Scott McClellan has a book out. It is critical of the Bush Administration. It is also reportedly critical of the news media. No, it is not that the news media was too critical of the Bush Administration. Quite the contrary!

In a world where the term “main-stream media” has become common place and the term “liberal media” differentiates those, the former White House flack writes that the news media were enablers in the Administration’s “carefully orchestrated campaign to shape and manipulate sources of public approval” in the ramp-up to the Iraq war, according to the New York Times article about McClellan’s book.

Why would the liberal media want to enable such a conservative, yea a neo-conservative government? That’s easy. In broadcast it is for ratings. In print, it’s to sell papers and magazines, or, in general, what was, before they let this Administration destroy it, the all-mighty dollar.

Shortly after the war I was able to participate in a talk about coverage of the war that involved Eason Jordan, former Chief News Exec at CNN and Christopher Dickey, Paris Bureau Chief and Middle East Editor for Newsweek Magazine. It was at the Southern Center for International Studies (SCIS) in Atlanta. Jordan and I are old colleagues, having worked together on the CNN international desk in the 80s and again in the ramp-up to the war, when I was back on the desk and he was the big boss. In that SCIS talk, I asked them whether the fourth estate had done their job in the ramp-up to the war.

Dickey responded, “You have to remember that we were in a situation of, you are either with us or you are with the terrorists.” He indicated that it was very difficult to question the government in that atmosphere.

Jordan, in his usual direct style said, “If you are asking whether we asked enough questions in the ramp up to the war, the answer is no.”

But, it goes beyond that. At CNN, in the weeks before the heavily anticipated and disseminated “Shock and Awe,” a concept that CNN is still using in promotions for anniversary coverage, management held mandatory meetings for staff. They scheduled a half-a-dozen of them so that all shifts could attend. In the front of the large room at Atlanta’s World Congress Center, Jordan and fellow president Jim Walton held court. Walton led off talking about the two of them, “He likes Springsteen. I am more of an Allman Brothers guy.” Then they proceeded to give a pep talk about the upcoming coverage. They talked about how CNN needed to “own the war.” That phrase took some media heat, but I did not have a problem with it. That just means that you want to be the source for coverage.

The sentence that shook my journalistic being was when they talked about then recent ratings shifts, putting FOX in the lead between the two. FOX had just bought the billboard across the street from CNN touting their ratings lead. CNN execs were challenged to do something about it. Some of us inside said that FOX was commentary not news and that the Anna Nicole Smith reality show at the time had better ratings than both and we didn’t feel the need to compete with her. Remember that FOX News Channel had eagles turning into fighter jets in their graphics at the time. Professional wrestling had higher ratings than both news networks combined. CNN didn’t see the need to emulate them!

But this was seen as an opportunity for these two executives. While they said, “no one wants war,” they also added, “but if there is going to be one, it is an opportunity to win back lost ratings.”

That was their motive. Their modus operandi was to not question the war. There were some in the newsroom, for instance, after Colin Powell’s speech to the U.N. asking who CNN was putting on the air immediately afterward to question what he said. The answer was no one.

So, now Scott McClellan, trying to clear his slate, repairing his reputation and generally setting the record straight says he was duped. The question some of us have is whether leaders of the fourth estate were duped, or whether they were complicit.

Shut Bush Up

It is too late to impeach President Bush and Vice President Cheney, but we don’t have to listen to them anymore, do we? Last week there was a tremendous uproar about whether a head of state should be negotiating with “sponsors of terror” such as Iran and Syria. President Bush suggested that such talks would be tantamount to appeasing the Nazis.

Lost in the discussion and ignored by the media are other levels of contact. When the five former Secretaries of State were at the University of Georgia in Athens recently, as guests of The Southern Center for International Studies, Henry Kissinger spoke directly about how a process with Iran might work vis-a-vis his opening up China and the Soviet Union. He talked about discussions at lower levels, even through non-governmental emissaries. From those talks a framework emerges and those preconditions, missing in Senator Obama’s description of the process, can lead to heads of state signing agreements that have already been worked out. By the way, that is the naïveté of Obama’s description. It is not that the government would talk to them, but that the President would be the one doing it. By 2016, he will have learned that.

But here is the best part. While President Bush was tossing political hand grenades about talking to “sponsors of terror,” speaking to the Knesset, Israel was about to announce talks with Syria that will be held in Turkey, a NATO member.

Furthermore, on the rest of his trip, President Bush managed to alienate pretty much all of the Muslim world by talking about their governments’ need to reform, while having just lavished nothing but praise on Israel’s. The wake of his visit swept across the region as he was still flying home.

His policies in the region have been disastrous. He has indeed strengthened Iran by leaving an unstable Shia ally next door. By decimating the U.S. military, the strongest, most well trained and mightiest in history, he has left us impotent. President Bush, VP Cheney and their minions have left us in that condition, particularly in that region where factions rather than nations are our most dangerous enemies. They now know that our military is not made to fight such a war. In fact, they have shown that a terror campaign, with IEDs, suicide attacks and the like is the best strategy against us. No military force can defeat us on the battlefield, because we own the air and have devastating weapons. In Iraq, we are showing that those weapons are all but useless against an insurgency or terrorist group. We have carrier-based squadrons that do not drop one bomb in a full deployment in the Persian Gulf. This war is not for them.

The fact that days after Bush decries discussion with Syria the Israelis announce talks with Syria is an international embarrassment. Was Bush not aware of that? Was his domestic political motivation so strong that he just didn’t care? Either way what it tells me is that it is time for Mr. Bush to just head back to the ranch and cut brush until he has to attend the inauguration in January. Enough damage. Oil the chainsaw and shut up already!

Same old Slime

John Edwards endorsing Barack Obama, at a strategic time picked to distract the media from Hillary Clinton’s overwhelming victory in West Virginia, reminded me of what I think was one of the most representative moments in Senator Obama’s campaign.

It was January 21, 2008, in South Carolina. The three remaining democratic candidates were debating. Senator Barack Obama was commenting on the issues of gender and race. He said, “One last point I want to make, because I think the media, you know, has really been focused a lot on race as we move down to South Carolina. And I have to say that, as I travel around South Carolina, I am absolutely convinced that white, black, Latino, Asian people want to move beyond our divisions, and they want to join together… (APPLAUSE) … in order to create a movement for change in this country. And I mean, I’m not entirely faulting the media because, look, race is a factor in our society. There’s no doubt that in a race where you’ve got an African-American, and a woman and John…(LAUGHTER) …there’s no doubt that that has piqued interested, but I guess what I’m saying is I don’t want to sell the American people short.”

At the point where Senator Obama said, “and John,” he physically referred to John Edwards in a mocking fashion, which is what brought the laughter.

Examine the comment. It is a case of a candidate both decrying focus on an issue and focusing on it at the same time, even in a mocking fashion.

Keep in mind that at the same time, The Obama campaign’s South Carolina press secretary had sent out a five-point memo designed to charge the primary with racial divisions, by misconstruing and exaggerating comments made by the Clintons and their supporters. His campaign press office was encouraging the media to focus on racial divisiveness.

So now the candidate who mocked the former candidate for his race and gender has his endorsement. That came two days after Edwards said he would not be endorsing a candidate. We’ll eventually find out what sort of deal led to the endorsement. The wheels of power continue to turn with the same slimy grease that has lubricated them throughout our history. This is not change. It is business as usual.