Boneheads and Infotainers

Granted, NPR has trouble distinguishing Tea Party Brown Shirts from the Civil Rights Movement, and it's own ombudsman rues not having more Beckian viewpoints presented in its coverage - but this weekend poor Andrea Seabrook and chuckling Guy Raz can't seem to tell the difference between Jon Stewart and Glenn Beck or their rallies.

Seabrook: ....I mean, think about it. Some of the biggest political movement in terms of rallies this year have been organized by non-politician...

Raz: Yeah.

Seabrook: ...infotainers.

Raz: Incredible.

Seabrook: And they were very much alike. People at both the Glenn Beck rally and his rally were very nice, calm, happy. I mean, the Glenn Beck rally was more like a church picnic.

Yep, Jon Stewart and Glenn Beck (and their respective rallies) are almost identical - just good old infotainers, except one likes to describe his opponents as a virus and call for their eradication. I bet that Glenn Beck rally was just like a church picnic, can't wait for the bonfire later...

In the Open Thread comments below goopDoggy succinctly notes how the other subtext of Seabrook's "report" is to disparage antiwar protesters as "chanting, you know, screaming people."

The Art of Framing at NPR

There are many ways you could frame the role of Senator Kent Conrad, one of the gang of six senators who are working very hard to preserve the profitable dominance of private health insurance in the US. A report marvel at why six senators representing less than 3% of the US population is controlling the fate of health insurance reform. A serious report might look at the obscene amounts of campaign cash flowing into these senators coffers from the for-profit health insurance industry and its allies.

Ah but not on NPR. Yesterday, on Friday's ATC Andrea Seabrook explains Kent Conrad's opposition to the pubic option and offer of health insurance co-ops as the result of his expertise on fighting government deficits and his commitment to centrism and bipartisanship.

Before introducing Seabrook's report, Siegel sets the tone, "Conrad's focus on the deficits and debt makes him a pivotal figure in the health care debate." After that it's all Seabrook:

"he's keenly aware of the long-term problems the United States faces when it comes to government spending and the national debt. And when it comes to health care? Conrad sees big, new problems with the idea of big, new government programs."

"Democratic leaders could ram a health care bill through the Senate; they'd have to use a special set of rules known as reconciliation. Conrad knows this; he just thinks it's a terrible idea."

"Now, because Conrad is at the nexus of budget expertise and political centrism, Senate Democratic leaders and committee chairs asked him to devise a plan that could pass the Senate and get some Republican votes."

"Health care co-ops would be to private insurance companies what credit unions are to private banks. The co-op would provide health insurance, but it would be a nonprofit business owned by its members. A big plus, says Conrad, they'd be a lot cheaper in the long-term. The idea already has support from centrists of both parties."

"He could end up being the guy who represented the rational middle or the guy who killed real reform."

There's just one little, tiny problem with all this emphasis on expertise, budget deficits and BIG, NEW PROBLEMS, great co-ops, and winning Republican votes: it doesn't wash. First there is no consensus that deficit spending is a bad thing. As far as the danger of a BIG, NEW GOVERNMENT PROGRAM costing sooooo much more money than what we've got - that's a factually challenged assertion, too. But Health Insurance Co-ops are a good thing, like Credit Unions, right? Wrong, they are a sham. Well, at least the bit about getting Republicans on board makes sense, yes? Wrong again.

Defending Missile Defense

The US isn't the only one selling missile defense. Arch foe of Iran, Peter Kenyon, teams up this morning with Sec. of War Robert Gates and Centcom Commander David Petraeus to frighten us about the Iranian threat - again. Starting the sales pitch is Linda Wertheimer:

"US officials also want the UAE to purchase another missile defense system for more than twice that amount. As NPR's Peter Kenyon reports, they're hoping to deter the potential threat from Iran."

Kenyon doesn't disappoint:

"Gates made sure to remind delegates of the threat from Iran. [reluctant servant Gates] 'Now when it comes to Iran's missile programs...it is clear that this year Iran has tested...can hit any country in the Middle East...has continued its pursuit of a nuclear program...geared toward developing nuclear weapons...'"

"General David Petraeus, head of the Central Command, followed up with a five point plan for enhancing security in the region - near the top of the list missile defense. [Petraeus] '...expand existing bilateral air and missile defense initiatives...multilateral cooperation in this defensive area...active missile defense measures underway are vital elements of regional deterrence...'"

"US officials have been making the case for a Persian Gulf missile defense system for several years now. As gulf economies boomed in recent years...the argument took on a sharper edge: invest in protection against Iranian missiles or risk losing the confidence of overseas investors."

You have to admire the skill with which NPR seamlessly combines US military (and corporate weaponsmakers') propaganda into this report. Never is the assertion that Iran is a threat called into question (and conveniently, no mention is made of why the UAE would be a target of Iranian missiles).

Kenyon does mention that the effectiveness of anti-missile technology has a "mixed record at best" and that missile defense could spark a new arms race, but he closes his report with this Orwellian twist:

"Analysts say it's not clear when missile defense technology will be a truly effective deterrent...."

Missile defense [even if it is technically successful] is the opposite of a deterrent. At best it can be seen as defensive, and practically, it is likely to encourage offensive adventurism on the part of those who possess it.

Stupid or Dishonest?

I was all set to give a nod of praise to NPR on Thursday morning when they noted that they made a mistake regarding the oath that cadets and faculty take at the Air Force Academy (see my post below). But there was a little problem with their "correction." Renee Montagne said:

"...we mistakenly said cadets quote 'take an oath to support the Commander in Chief.' Members of the military wrote to point out that their oath only calls for them to obey the President not support him."

That's completely untrue. Wednesday morning's NPR report said nothing about an oath "to support" the Commander in Chief. Here's the exact segment in question (again):

"at the Air Force Academy where students and most faculty members take an oath to obey the Commander in Chief."

That's curious, don't you think. Kind of odd to misquote yourself, apologize for the misquote - and then offer a correction that restates what was actually said in the first place!

My reason for posting on this below was two-fold:

• First, cadets DO NOT take the same oath as enlisted members of the military. There is simply nothing in their oath about the Commander in Chief.
• Second, the explicit emphasis in the cadet oath - and for that matter in the enlistment and officer's oath - is to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic."

And there's the rub. The soul of all military oaths is to support and defend the Constitution (not a person) and anyone with even a bit of brain activity knows who qualifies as the Constitution's greatest enemy - foreign or domestic. One has to admit that it does put active military personnel in a bind: they are sworn to defend the Constitution against its enemies and also to obey the person who is out to gut it - a situation the founders would have found rather shocking.

That brings us back to NPR. Why in God's name would they make such a mind-numbingly stupid error? Either their staff and host are utter incompetents or the "mistake" wasn't an error at all, but a tactic for reinforcing the anti-Constitutional Commander in Chief worship/allegiance that has so run amok of late.

Return of the Living Dead

When trying to convince liberal friends and acquaintances that NPR news coverage does not have even the slightest liberal, progressive or leftist tilt, I often ask them to consider the "expert" viewpoints that are given the lion's share of airtime, or to consider how disputed topics are framed. You can bet the house that if the topic is US foreign policy the extent of the debate on NPR news will range from the neocon far-right to centrist Democrat (at best).

A feature on Saturday's ATC is a case in point. Andrea Seabrook interviews "colorful" John Bolton on the Iran 2007 NIE report. Given that NPR has already devoted large blocks of time to making the neocon case for war on Iran (see my posts of Dec. 7, 2007, Nov. 30, 2007, Nov. 3, 2007, Aug. 23, 2007, Aug. 15, 2007, Aug. 1, 2007, etc.), you might hope to hear some reports on the NIE that challenge the administration and neocon assertions regarding Iran. For example Salon.com has two former NSC members (hardly anti-establishment!) on to dissect Bush dishonesty about "negotiating" with Iran. On the Informed Comment Global Affairs blog independent scholar Farideh Farhi posited that the release of the NIE was timed to strengthen the punitive sanctions case. Perhaps even more telling is Gareth's Porter's pre-release report on the attempt by neocons to alter the report (his analysis seems vindicated by the release and by the strident, disciplined neocon counterattack covered here by Marc Cooper and here by Khody Akhavi.)

Do we get even a sampling of this rich (and revealing) discussion and analysis? Not on NPR news, and then - to add insult to injury - we are subjected to a 7 minute hurl-fest with Andrea Seabrook and John Bolton, where Bolton (getting a whopping 5.5 minutes of blab time) makes his case that the NIE was a putsch against the White House.

Needless to mention that what we have never heard discussed or analyzed on NPR news is the hype and absurdity that underlies the entire case of Iran as dire threat to world peace - nonsense which is nicely disrobed in a video that I found at this Iran information site.

Zero Recall

Morning Edition first ran a piece about Cambodia and the brutal Khmer Rouge years. Funny, I never once heard any questions about the US aerial slaughter unleashed on Cambodia that helped create the conditions for the Khmer Rouge takeover. And, handily, it never came up how the US backed the Khmer Rouge once the Vietnamese invaded Cambodia and ousted them. (It's interesting how this twisted version of history so resembles the text that Bush is reading from.)

But heck, that was 30 years ago and the memory does get a bit fuzzy. How about something more recent, like say the joint US-Ethiopian invasion of Somalia way back in December 24th of last year (kind of a little Bushist Christmas present for the people of Somalia).

Listen, if you can stand it, to Gwen Thomkins give her report of the sad plight of Somalis streaming out of Mogadishu. It's one of those Africans as poor, herd-like, violence-prone, hungry, diseased folks pieces that is pretty revolting - especially coming from Thomkins who was complicit in running propaganda operations for the US aggression against Somalia in January of 2007. This kind of "Ministry of Truth" trimming of history is typical NPR fare; in fact just three short months after the US and Ethiopia helped install the "transitional" regime in Somalia, NPR had already erased the US from the list of armed parties involved - imagine that!

Garrels Twists

As in twists in the wind and twists the truth. Earlier this week I posted on Garrels' Heart of Darkness moment. Fortunately NPR must have been bombarded with complaints from listeners and I saw today that FAIR picked up the Garrels' report two days ago for an "Action Report."

This morning on the "letters" segment of NPR news, Inskeep (who was party to Garrels' torture-sourced reporting) questions her on the phone from Iraq. Garrels' response to listeners' complaints was essentially a four-pronged counter attack:

1) She claims that she made it clear in her original report that she was appalled by the treatment of the prisoners: "...and I think I made it clear that I was as appalled as listeners were by the torture that had clearly occurred." That's interesting, because her original report was rather matter-of-fact about the torture and focused on the extracted testimony of the victims not on their treatment or ultimate fate.

2) She claims that she and her team were not expecting torture and were scared and frightened by the situation: "...and quite frankly NPR was extremely uncomfortable with the situation; we were quite scared. When we got to the location our tape recorders were confiscated temporarily. We were clearly taken in a circuitous route..." Fair enough. I would have been scared too, but then once they were back to safety, why didn't the focus of the story become the brutal nature of militia factionalism and the barbarism resorted to by all combatants in Iraq. Instead the entire focus was on Garrels'/NPR's predetermined story - IRAN's culpability.

3) She claims that she independently verified all the information that the victims were compelled to give. "...the details that were given, seemed to me, to gel with other things that I had heard from people who had not been tortured...." and "The details that came from the questions were such that it lent credibility to the story. There were a great number of details about how they operated, who they operated through, why they did this - and we do know for a fact that they described posing as Sunnis...raping a Shiite girl...that incident did occur; we were able to confirm that - that was not made up." Inskeep (in all seriousness) says, "So you were working almost like a police officer in that sense and taking this information that might well be corrupted information, but trying to match it up with other facts that you knew from your long experience in Iraq."

4) She simply makes up the proposition that listeners don't want to hear about torture and atrocities. "When we saw what we believed to be torture victims we reported it, and in the end if you ignore the reality of what these groups are doing and do not say they tortured these people, then that's even worse." I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried. Amazing! Garrels is claiming that she is being criticized for doing dangerous investigative journalism to expose human rights abuses, when in fact she has been caught red-handed using torture extracted testimony to make a case against Iran.

I hope that listeners will continue to contact NPR with demands that Garrels and Inskeep be held to account for their misinformation and unethical behavior.

We Have Consensus!

Yes, all those tens of thousands of protesters yesterday were calling for an end - oops, I mean for a strong US presence in Iraq. Those protesters and, all the Iraqis, and all the US soldiers (and National Guard troops), and every US person you could possible poll now agree with the Decider that we will stand down as the Iraqi Army and police stand up. Pretty ridiculous,absurd, stupid - maybe even just a bald-faced lie - except in NPR-world. Here's Lianne Hansen reading the script this morning on Weekend Edition Sunday:

"The question is how long we'll continue to send soldiers and money to Iraq. There's little agreement on the answer, but there is consensus on one aspect of the debate: the US has to maintain a strong presence in Iraq until it's army and police can take charge of its own security...."

Consensus? I swear to God she wasn't kidding!