Alterman and Zornick eviscerate the common meme that MSNBC is a "liberal" network simply because it has two ostensibly progressive shows on back to back, Olbermann and Maddow. Their main piece of evidence: the inimitable moron par-excellence, Joe Scarborough, who has a three-hour block in the morning. Morning Joe, as a former congressman:
His very first assignment in the House in January 1995 was to head a freshman Republican task force on eliminating the Department of Education. He later introduced a bill that would force the United States to withdraw from the United Nations and boot the U.N. building out of New York, voted to cut funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, voted to cut funding for Medicare, and voted against raising the minimum wage from $4.45 an hour. He also received $1,000 in contributions from disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
I might add that Scarborough got his first show on MSNBC as an acceptably pro-war substitute for Phil Donahue, who was removed during the run up to the invasion of Iraq, even though his show had good----and competitive!----ratings (Donahue made the mistake of having only a 3 to 1 ratio of pro versus anti- invasion guests).
Also, following up on a previous blog on the newest illegal government surveillance allegations from former NSA officer, Russell Tice, Alterman and Zornick talk about how the media have been absent in pursuing this story, one that has profound implications, not the least of which, in my opinion, relate to just what kind of republic we actually live in/under. That Tice says all Americans were subject to the program----not juuuust journalists (details on James Risen's story included in the article)----should give us pause, and make us wonder why the very profession that was allegedly targeted wouldn't be interested----0r----- "uninterested" enough to start investigating the truth and drawing more attention to this story. Did Prick Cheney hurt their feelings by saying this?
And, yes again from Alterman (who wrote the air-tight case against conservative misrepresentation of the media as "liberal" in What Liberal Media?), we see that the "liberal" NYT editorial page, the one that has recently allowed neoconservative "intellectual" and embarrassment Bill Kristol* the opportunity to disingenuously attack Bill Moyers on his Israel/Gaza comments without accepting for publication an unaltered response from Moyers:
...he was told, "We will not print that 'William Kristol distorts or misrepresents,' and the editors will not budge." They insisted that the letter be changed for publication to read, "I take strong exception to William Kristol's characterization," and they truncated much else.
Moyers' program, the one that so enrages reactionary, Israeli government supporters, was more than fair, and even gave all the perfunctory nods to the "Israel's right to defend itself" mantra that's mandatory in order to express an opinion on the issue----well, in our "intellectual" climate anyway. However, for most commentators the mantra is taken to mean Israel is sanctioned to blockade, invade, illegally settle, and commit various other war crimes as a proper response to Palestinian terrorism. So when Moyers qualified this empty slogan, he was out of line with the almost militantly conventional wisdom on the conflict. To criticise Israeli government policy is somehow "anti-Semitic" for our ruling sophists.
These uncritical supporters of the Israeli government disregard the fact that the Israeli public is far more critical of its government's own policies than the U.S. government and media is. Granted, Israelis are solidly behind their government's effort, but could one imagine 20-30% of our government/media establishment calling for an immediate truce, like those polled in Israel? No way! On the pages of Ha'aretz David Grossman can describe the Gaza operation as "just one more way-station on a road paved with fire, violence and hatred" and that "our conduct here in this region has, for a long time, been flawed, immoral and unwise." Maybe the policy defenders might think he should be brushed aside as just another ineffectual, self-loathing, over-intellectualizing Jew like the archetype we would see in a Philip Roth story?
Grossman's is just one of many wise observations on an unwise policy from the very people who are most affected by this war. And yet, here, one would be castigated as some kind of degenerate radical not to be taken seriously for expressing such heresies (Yes, equanimity is radical). And yes, Alterman is correct: Let's see if the self-appointed anti-defamation league would even dare ask a Grossman, whose son was killed two years ago in a war that nearly all U.S. officials and the media elite supported, to amend his words to conform to their particular sensibilities (Need we say biases or prejudices) the way the "liberal" NYT demanded of Moyers.
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*Some of my favorite Bill Kristol moments quoted from Mission Accomplished! Or How We Won the War in Iraq:
There's been a certain amount of pop sociology in America...that the Shia can't get along with the Sunni and the Shia in Iraq just want to establish some kind of Islamic fundamentalist regime. There's almost no evidence of that at all. Iraq's always been very secular.---April 1, 2003
There are hopeful signs that Iraqis of differing religious, ethnic and political persuasions can work together...There is a broad Iraqi consensus favoring the idea of pluralism.----March 22, 2004
The United States [has] committed itself...to reshaping the Middle East, so the region [will] no longer be a hotbed of terrorism, extremism, anti-Americanism, and weapons of mass destruction....The first two battles of this new era are now over. The battles of Afghanistan and Iraq have been won decisively and honorably.----April 28, 2003
We are tempted to comment, in these last days before the war, on the U.N., and the French, and the Democrats. But the war itself will clarify who was right and who was wrong about weapons of mass destruction. It will reveal the aspirations of the people of Iraq, and expose the truth about Saddam's regime. History and reality are about to weigh in, and we are inclined simply to let them render their verdicts.----March 17, 2003
And my personal favorite:
It is precisely because American foreign policy is infused with an unusually high degree of morality that other nations find they have less to fear from its otherwise daunting power.----quoted by Francis Fukuyama in The New York Times, February 19, 2006
Having defeated and then occupied Iraq, democratizing the country should not be too tall an order for he world's sole superpower.------February 24, 2003
And last, but definitely not least:
I think Iraq is, actually, the big unspoken elephant in the room today. There's a fair amount of evidence that Iraq had very close associations with Osama bin Laden in the past.-----interviewed by NPR's All Things Considered the day after the 9/11 attacks, September 12, 2001
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