Public Broadcasting Chairman Tomlinson hid polls ... that show ... around 80 percent of Americans believe that public television is “fair and balanced

16 Senators Urge President to Call for Removal of Public Broadcasting Chairman Tomlinson: "June 21, 2005 | BUZZFLASH NEWS ALERT

News from Sen. Schumer:

House GOP Slashes Funding of PBS, Tomlinson Doesn’t Even Speak up to Defend CPB, Hires Lobbyists to Undermine Influence of Member Stations on CPB Board

80% of Public Believes PBS is “Fair and Balanced” in Poll Hidden by Tomlinson

Schumer: Overt Political Agenda Undermines Credibility of Public Television

U.S. Senators Charles E. Schumer (D-NY), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and fourteen other Senators urged President George W. Bush to call for the removal of the Chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Kenneth Tomlinson. In a letter today, sixteen Senators stated that Mr. Tomlinson has spent a great deal of time and the public’s money undermining public television in his new post and making the CPB weaker than before he took over the chairmanship. Public broadcasting, in particular the Public Broadcasting System (PBS) is an invaluable resource for our TV-watching public. Congress created this not-for-profit entity in 1967, and it has become one of the most relied upon sources of news and educational programs for all Americans, and especially their children.

The Senators wrote, “We strongly disagree with your Administration’s decision to appoint an individual to head a not-for-profit corporation such as public broadcasting who is actively undermining, under-funding, and ultimately undoing its mission.

Mr. Tomlinson has made a series of decisions that call into question his commitment to public television:
- He hid polls from the public that show that public support for PBS is around 80 percent of Americans believe that public television is “fair and balanced;”
- He has spent unnecessary funds to investigate individual news programs for bias;
- He adjusted programming to cut news programs because of perceived bias;
- He didn’t speak out publicly against cuts to massive cuts to public television by the House Appropriations Committee;
- He hired expensive lobbyists to strategize about how to encourage senators to oppose a bill that would have allowed individual public television stations to have more representations on the board of the CPB; and
- He has recommended Patricia Harrison, a former Republican Party co-chair, to be the new CPB President.

The Republican leadership in the House has cut nearly $200 million for CPB’s budget – and has slashed the “Ready to Learn” shows such as Reading Rainbow and Sesame Street by $23 million in the House Appropriations Committee.

“We urge you to immediately replace Mr. Tomlinson with an executive who takes his or her responsibility to the public television system seriously, not one who so seriously undermines the credibility and mission of public television,” their letter concluded.

a George W. Bush Jr. was convicted in a Midland, Texas court on a vague “unlawful practice of medicine” charge

Fresh Intelligence May 27 2005 : Radar Online: "Dubya’s Double Trouble?

Since George W. Bush’s first presidential campaign, journalists have been trying to verify reports that the president was once arrested on a cocaine posession charge. Now, for the first time, court records obtained by Radar may be able to shed some light on the mystery. Filed in 1986, the same year that the president claims to have given up drinking, the documents clearly show that a George W. Bush Jr. was convicted in a Midland, Texas court on a vague “unlawful practice of medicine” charge. Only thing is, it appears to be the wrong George W. Bush. Although they were born mere months apart, lived in the same town (the president grew up in Midland), and both have blue eyes and similar builds, only one was slapped with a $2000 fine and a year’s probation. The other became leader of the free world.

The arrest story stems from Texas journalist J.H. Hatfield’s much-maligned 1999 book Fortunate Son: George W. Bush and the Making of an American President. Hatfield, who committed suicide a year after his book was published, alleged that Bush was once arrested for drug possession in Texas but persuaded the judge to expunge his record by volunteering for an inner-city outreach program. It was rumored that the architect of the deal was legendary Texas lawyer Warren Burnett, who added further intrigue by cagily refusing to answer definitively whether or not he had represented George W. Bush. (The president has always vehemently denied the drug claim and a White House spokeperson did not return calls by press time.) Perhaps reporters should have specified which Bush they were talking about: The court documents list Burnett as George W. Bush Jr.’s lawyer in the 1986 arrest. Unfortunately, Burnett, who died in 2002, was unavailable to comment on his bizarro client."

Re Durbin's comments on Gitmo abuse: The rank hysteria being perpetrated by some on the right is what is shameful

www.AndrewSullivan.com - Daily Dish: "DURBIN SAID NOTHING WRONG:

I've now read and re-read Senator Dick Durbin's comments on interrogation techniques at Guantanamo Bay. They are completely, perfectly respectable. The rank hysteria being perpetrated by some on the right is what is shameful. Hugh Hewitt should answer one single question: does he doubt the FBI interrogator who witnessed the appalling treatment of some detainees at Guantanamo? Here's the report:

On a couple of occasions, I entered interview rooms to find a detainee chained hand and foot in a fetal position to the floor, with no chair, food, or water. Most times they urinated or defecated on themselves, and had been left there for 18-24 hours or more. On one occasion, the air conditioning had been turned down so far and the temperature was so cold in the room, that the barefooted detainee was shaking with cold... On another occasion, the [air conditioner] had been turned off, making the temperature in the unventilated room well over 100 degrees. The detainee was almost unconscious on the floor, with a pile of hair next to him. He had apparently been literally pulling his hair out throughout the night. On another occasion, not only was the temperature unbearably hot, but extremely loud rap music was being played in the room, and had been since the day before, with the detainee chained hand and foot in the fetal position on the tile floor.'


Is Hewitt arguing that the interrogator was lying? Does he believe that the kind of tactics used against this prisoner are worthy of the United States? Does he believe that this happened without authorization? If he were told this story and informed that it occurred in, say, Serbia under Milosevic, would he be surprised? Hewitt should then answer the same question about the 5 detainees which the U.S. government itself has acknowledged were tortured to death by U.S. interrogators, and the scores of others who died in detention during or after "interrogation". Does he deny that this happened? Does he honestly believe that removing the legal restrictions on cruel and inhumane treatment of detainees by our current president had nothing to do with this? Maybe he needs a little refresher on the extraordinary range and scale of the record of abuse that is still accumulating. I'm just amazed that some can view what has happened and their first instinct is to attack those who have criticized it, rather than those who have perpetrated it. It is this administration that has brought indelible shame on America, and it's people like Dick Durbin who prove that some can actually stand up against this stain on American honor and call it what it is. Good for him. Thank God for him.

Mainstream media cover-up: In five weeks following its disclosure, Downing Street memo drew little attention

Network and cable news prime-time coverage of Downing Street memo

	ABC	CBS	NBC	CNN	MSNBC	Fox News
5/1-5/7
5/8-5/14						Hannity & Colmes (passing mention, 5/11)
5/15-5/21				Wolf Blitzer Reports (full report, 5/16)	Countdown with Keith Olbermann (full report, 5/16)	Hannity & Colmes (passing mention, 5/16)
5/22-5/28					Hardball with Chris Matthews (passing mention, 5/25)	The O'Reilly Factor (passing mention, 5/23)
5/29-6/6						Special Report with Brit Hume (panel discussion, 6/6)
June 7: Bush-Blair Press Conference
6/7-6/11		CBS Evening News (partial report, 6/7)	Nightly News (full report, 6/7)	Lou Dobbs Tonight (partial report, 6/7); NewsNight with Aaron Brown (full report, 6/7); NewsNight (full report, 6/8)	Countdown (passing mention, 6/6); Countdown (full report, 6/7); Hardball (partial discussion, 6/7); Hardball (passing mention, 6/9)	Special Report (partial report, 6/7); The Big Story with John Gibson (partial report, 6/7)
6/12-6/14			Nightly News (partial report, 6/14)		Countdown (partial report, 6/14); Hardball (passing mention, 6/14)

The search results are based on two Nexis database searches in "Transcripts" from May 1 through June 14:

Think Progress � Rice Says Administration Told Americans Iraq Would Be A “Generational Commitment”

Think Progress � Rice Says Administration Told Americans Iraq Would Be A “Generational Commitment”: "Rice Says Administration Told Americans Iraq Would Be A “Generational Commitment”

This morning on Fox News Sunday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was asked if “the Bush administration fairly [can] be criticized for failing to level with the American people about how long and difficult this commitment will be?” Rice responded:

[T]he administration, I think, has said to the American people that it is a generational commitment to Iraq.

That’s not true. To build support for the war the administration told the American people that the conflict in Iraq will be short and affordable.

Vice President Dick Cheney, 3/16/03:

[M]y belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators. . . . I think it will go relatively quickly. . . (in) weeks rather than months

Donald Rumsfeld, 2/7/03:

It is unknowable how long that conflict will last. It could last six days, six weeks. I doubt six months."

Everyone is rather too mindful of the backstairs influence of the White House in companies such as Viacom and News Corporation that own the TV news

MediaChannel.org Features: "A Study in Emasculation | By Henry Porter | The Guardian (UK) | June 16, 2005
...
Since 9/11, when the heroic fortitude of America was at its most visible, the Bush administration has gradually contrived to cast all criticism and investigation into its activities as unpatriotic and an obstruction to its jihad against Islamist terrorism. Few cross the line in the White House, where a wary and unforgiving regime - not unlike that run by Bob Haldeman and John Ehrlichman for Richard Nixon - ensures that leaks are very rare indeed. Much the same atmosphere of fear and obedience obtains in the Pentagon under Donald Rumsfeld and at the justice department, though less so at the state department and CIA.

Broadcasters have largely accepted that attacks on the White House can only harm America's interests, and when they don't they are bamboozled and vilified by the shrill voices of the right.

I visit the States three or four times a year, and watching the television news in hotel rooms in the last three years has been like witnessing a time-lapse study of emasculation. It's not just the unbearable lightness of purpose in most news shows; it's the sense that everyone is rather too mindful of the backstairs influence of the White House in companies such as Viacom and News Corporation that own the TV news. The anchorman Dan Rather, for example, was eased out by Viacom - CBS's owner - after he wrongly made allegations about the president's time in the Texas Air National Guard. It was not a mistake that required his head on a platter.

The result of this climate of fear and caution is that few Americans have any idea of the circumstances in which 1,600 of their countrymen have lost their lives in Iraq, the hideous injuries suffered by both Iraqi and American victims of suicide bombers, or even the profound responsibility that lies with Rumsfeld for mishandling practically every facet of the occupation. The mission to explain has been replaced by the mission to avoid. ...

Milbank used the valuable real estate of the Post to mock Rep. John Conyers, who arranged the meeting, and his “hearty band of playmates.”

Bush's WMD 'Joke': Is the Media Still Laughing?: "Bush's WMD 'Joke': Is the Media Still Laughing? | By Greg Mitchell | (June 18, 2005)

A brief comment at a forum in Washington this week resurrects one of the most shameful episodes in recent media history: The night a roomful of journalists laughed along with a president making fun of the bogus threat that led to a costly war.

Dana Milbank of The Washington Post, in an article Friday, suggested that the congressional forum the previous day on the Downing Street memos was something of a joke. In his opening sentence he declared that House Democrats “took a trip to the land of make-believe” in pretending that the basement conference room was actually a real hearing room, even importing a few American flags to make it look more official.

Oddly, he seem less interested in the far more serious “make-believe” that inspired the basement session: the administration’s fake case for WMDs in Iraq that has already led to the deaths of over 1,700 Americans and tens of thousands of Iraqis. No, Milbank used the valuable real estate of the Post to mock Rep. John Conyers, who arranged the meeting, and his “hearty band of playmates.”

This fun-loving “band” included a mother who had lost her son in Iraq."

Congressman Conyers hammers the Washington Post's Dana Milbank

The Raw Story | Congressman Conyers hammers the Washington Post's Dana Milbank: "

June 17, 2005

Mr. Michael Abramowitz, National Editor; Mr. Michael Getler, Ombudsman; Mr. Dana Milbank; The Washington Post, 1150 15th Street, NW, Washington, D.C. 20071

Dear Sirs:

I write to express my profound disappointment with Dana Milbank's June 17 report, "Democrats Play House to Rally Against the War," which purports to describe a Democratic hearing I chaired in the Capitol yesterday. In sum, the piece cherry-picks some facts, manufactures others out of whole cloth, and does a disservice to some 30 members of Congress who persevered under difficult circumstances, not of our own making, to examine a very serious subject: whether the American people were deliberately misled in the lead up to war. The fact that this was the Post's only coverage of this event makes the journalistic shortcomings in this piece even more egregious.
...
The article begins with an especially mean and nasty tone, claiming that House Democrats "pretended" a small conference was the Judiciary Committee hearing room ... Despite the fact that a number of other suitable rooms were available in the Capitol and House office buildings, Republicans declined my request for each and every one of them. Milbank could have written about the perseverance of many of my colleagues in the face of such adverse circumstances, but declined to do so. Milbank also ignores the critical fact picked up by the AP, CNN and other newsletters that at the very moment the hearing was scheduled to begin, the Republican Leadership scheduled an almost unprecedented number of 11 consecutive floor votes, making it next to impossible for most Members to participate in the first hour and one half of the hearing.
...
In a typically derisive and uninformed passage, Milbank makes much of other lawmakers calling me "Mr. Chairman" and says I liked it so much that I used "chairmanly phrases." Milbank may not know that I was the Chairman of the House Government Operations Committee from 1988 to 1994. By protocol and tradition in the House, once you have been a Chairman you are always referred to as such. Thus, there was nothing unusual about my being referred to as Mr. Chairman.
...
By the way, the "Downing Street Memo" is actually the minutes of a British cabinet meeting. In the meeting, British officials - having just met with their American counterparts - describe their discussions with such counterparts. I mention this because that basic piece of context, a simple description of the memo, is found nowhere in Milbank's article.
...
The fact that I and my fellow Democrats had to stuff a hearing into a room the size of a large closet to hold a hearing on an important issue shouldn't make us the object of ridicule. In my opinion, the ridicule should be placed in two places: first, at the feet of Republicans who are so afraid to discuss ideas and facts that they try to sabotage our efforts to do so; and second, on Dana Milbank and the Washington Post, who do not feel the need to give serious coverage on a serious hearing about a serious matter-whether more than 1700 Americans have died because of a deliberate lie. Milbank may disagree, but the Post certainly owed its readers some coverage of that viewpoint.

USDA plants its own news

Chicago Tribune news : Business: "USDA plants its own news | Critics liken radio, TV spots to propaganda; agency defends use | By Andrew Martin and Jeff Zeleny | Washington Bureau | Published June 16, 2005

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Department of Agriculture has churned out three dozen radio and television news segments since the first of the year that promote a controversial trade agreement with Central America opposed by labor unions, the sugar industry and many members of Congress, including some Republicans.

Amid an intense debate over government-funded efforts to influence news coverage, the prepackaged reports have been widely distributed to broadcast outlets across the country for easy insertion into newscasts.

About a third of the reports deal specifically with the politically powerful sugar industry, which has emerged as the major obstacle to the Central American Free Trade Agreement, or CAFTA.
"

GOP Committee Targets International Red Cross

GOP Committee Targets International Red Cross: "Senators ask Bush to reconsider financial support for the agency after its criticism of how U.S. forces treat their detainees abroad. | By Sonni Efron, Times Staff Writer

WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans are calling on the Bush administration to reassess U.S. financial support for the International Committee of the Red Cross, charging that the group is using American funds to lobby against U.S. interests.

The Senate Republican Policy Committee, which advances the views of the GOP Senate majority, said in a report that the international humanitarian organization had 'lost its way' and veered from the impartiality on which its reputation was based. The Republican policy group titled its report: 'Are American Interests Being Disserved by the International Committee of the Red Cross?'"

United States is in a McCarthy-like era in which the government stifles political dissent while the news media and the public fail to speak out in op

March 21, 2005 Headlines | Montana governor wants Guard back from Iraq: "Newsman says dissent stifled

DANVILLE, KY — Former National Public Radio newsman Bob Edwards says the United States is in a McCarthy-like era in which the government stifles political dissent while the news media and the public fail to speak out in opposition.

Speaking at Centre College, Edwards, now host on XM Satellite Radio, said the “Bush administration holds reporters in contempt” and has become the “all-time champion of information control,” the Lexington Herald-Leader reported.

Edwards built a theme based on a quote by Bush’s former press secretary Ari Fleischer in the wake of 9/11: “People should watch what they say.”

Edwards also said journalists “have done a terrible job explaining their role to the public,” the newspaper reported.

He quoted Edward R. Murrow’s famous TV response to Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s communist witch hunt: “We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty,” and “we cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home.”"

"Even we at Fox News manage to get some lefties on the air occasionally, and often let them finish their sentences before we club them to death"

Fox News Admits Bias! - Its London bureau chief blurts out the political slant that dare not speak its name. By Timothy Noah: "Posted Tuesday, May 31, 2005, at 9:40 AM PT
...
Norvell is London bureau chief for Fox News, and on May 20 he let the mask slip in, of all places, the Wall Street Journal. So far, the damage has been contained, because Norvell's comments—in an op-ed he wrote decrying left-wing bias at the BBC—appeared only in the Journal's European edition. But Chatterbox's agents are everywhere.

Here is what Norvell fessed up to in the May 20 Wall Street Journal Europe:

Even we at Fox News manage to get some lefties on the air occasionally, and often let them finish their sentences before we club them to death and feed the scraps to Karl Rove and Bill O'Reilly. And those who hate us can take solace in the fact that they aren't subsidizing Bill's bombast; we payers of the BBC license fee don't enjoy that peace of mind.

Fox News is, after all, a private channel and our presenters are quite open about where they stand on particular stories. That's our appeal. People watch us because they know what they are getting. The Beeb's institutionalized leftism would be easier to tolerate if the corporation was a little more honest about it.

Once again it has taken grieving relatives to point out that the Bush administration will exploit even a heroic death for its own partisan purposes.

A Cover-Up as Shameful as Tillman's Death: " May 31, 2005

Once again it has taken grieving relatives to point out that the Bush administration will exploit even a heroic death for its own partisan purposes.

As with the widows of Sept. 11 who demanded that our obfuscating leaders investigate what went wrong on that terrible day, or the wounded Army Pfc. Jessica Lynch, who resisted efforts to make her into some kind of Rambo figure, so relatives of late NFL star Pat Tillman are demanding to know why their celebrated war hero son's death in 2004 was exploited for public relations purposes by the U.S. military and the administration.

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'They blew up their poster boy,' Tillman's father, Patrick, a San Jose lawyer, told the Washington Post last week. He joined his former wife to demand accountability for the latest military cover-up to happen on Commander in Chief Bush's watch. High-ranking Army officials, he said, told 'outright lies.'

'After it happened, all the people in positions of authority went out of their way to script this,' Tillman said. 'They purposely interfered with the investigation …. I think they thought they could control it, and they realized that their recruiting efforts were going to go to hell in a handbasket if the truth about his death got out.'"

Bush: "Catapulting the propaganda" ... "Culture of life" ... but not in Iraq

WorkingForChange-Catapulting the propaganda: "Bush supports culture of life; not in Iraq, of course | Molly Ivins | 05.31.05

AUSTIN, Texas -- As a longtime fan of both George Bushes' eccentric grasp of English, I naturally enjoyed this gem from W.: 'See, in my line of work, you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda.' (Bush in Greece, N.Y., May 24, once more explaining his Social Security plan to a town hall meeting of perfectly average citizens -- except they had all been pre-screened to allow only those who agree with him into the hall.)"

"Catapulting the propaganda" would explain his performance at the press opportunity that same day at which he appeared surrounded by babies born from frozen embryos. He used the phrase "culture of life" at least 27 dozen times (I think I exaggerate, but maybe not). "The use of federal dollars to destroy life is something I simply do not support," he said to the press the following day.

Meanwhile, back in Baghdad, federal dollars are being used to destroy life at pretty good clip because Bush decided to wage an entirely elective war against a country that presented little or no threat to us. And according to the Downing Street memo, he damn well knew it, too.

Media quickly drops stories critical of Bush administration

" Media Matters ," week ending May 27, 2005 ... [Media Matters for America]: "Media quickly drops stories critical of Bush administration

Washington Post reporter Terry M. Neal wrote this week:

A certain and clear pattern has emerged when a damaging accusation or claim against the Bush administration or the Republican-led Congress is publicized: Bush supporters laser in on a weakness, fallacy or inaccuracy in the story's sourcing while diverting all attention from the issue at hand to the source or the accuser in the story.

Often this tactic involves efforts to delegitimize the entire news media based on the mistakes or sloppy reporting of a few. We saw this with the discrediting of CBS's story on irregularities in President Bush's Texas Air National Guard service in the 1970s. Although the CBS 'scoop' was based on faked documents, the administration's response and backlash from both conservative and mainstream media essentially relieved Bush of having to deal with the story. In other words, the allegedly 'liberal' media dropped the story like a hot rock.

We saw ex-members of the Bush administration -- former Treasury secretary Paul H. O'Neill, former White House counterterrorism adviser Richard A. Clarke, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff John M. Shalikashvili and former director of faith-based charities John J. DiIulio Jr. -- similarly attacked by conservative bloggers and columnists. The mainstream media eventually backed away from coverage of their claims as well.

[...]

For conservatives and liberals alike, attacking the media has become a cottage industry, the very thing that drives both talk radio and blogs. Delegitimizing the media is seen as a legitimate way by some to protect those you support politically from the media's critical eye.

To be clear about something, the Bush administration's attacks on Newsweek don't represent a new phenomenon. The Clinton administration often attacked its accusers and criticized unflattering media reports. The big difference is that the Clinton administration didn't have any such supportive echo chamber of talk radio and blogs that now exist to amplify it.
...
To name only the most obvious example: The same news organizations that pursued the Whitewater "scandal" as though it were Watergate, Teapot Dome, and the Lindbergh Baby all wrapped into one virtually ignored Bush's controversial sale of Harken Energy stock. The basic information about that sale -- that Bush, while serving as a Harken director and member of the company's audit committee, dumped more than 200,000 shares of the company's stock shortly before Harken publicly announced massive losses -- was publicly available long before Bush ran for president. Yet The Washington Post, to name one news outlet, gave the matter a total of 26 words of attention during the 2000 presidential campaign. The July 30, 1999, edition of the Post reported:

Even now, questions linger about a 1990 sale of Harken stock by Bush that was the subject of a probe by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

That's it. Twenty-six words

US media censor uranium weapons stories: Google "Depleted Uranium" and "ceramic uranium oxide gas + battlefield"

US media censor uranium weapons stories: Depleted uranium turns to poison gas | By Bob Nichols | Project Censored Award Winner & Online Journal Contributing Writer | May 27, 2005

Dedication to the Iraqi People in 2005: Iraq is uninhabitable. The wars in Central Asia all were nuclear wars fought with radiation-dispersing American weapons.

None of the Bushista NeoCons running this miserable genocide in Central Asia care one whit. In fact, it is what they ordered from the US military's list of services. Mostly, the remaining 300 million "good Americans" do not care, do not know and do not want to know.

Those Iraqis not yet radiologically contaminated must leave Iraq as soon as possible. Before they too get radiation poisoning, their genetic line is kaput, they die and become just so much radioactive sand in the deserts of Iraq.
...
Censorship at Work
...
Google these phrases ... depleted uranium ... ceramic uranium oxide gas + battlefield

Media keeps Americans in the dark about massive foreign policy failure: 14 percent of soldiers and 28 percent of marines had killed a civilian

Media keeps Americans in the dark about massive foreign policy failure: "By Kristina M. Gronquist | Online Journal Contributing Writer

May 27, 2005—The dismal failure of U.S. mass media to challenge Washington over its early decision and unsubstantiated reasons for going to war, combined with the media's incomplete coverage since the invasion, create a continual challenge for those of us who want to expose the truth about what is really happening. The success of the antiwar movement lies in its ability to disseminate information and provide a clear, truthful message about the need to end this war now.

U.S. media reporting since 9/11 has been, for the most part, excruciatingly shallow and jingoistic. Believing that 50 percent of voters support the current administration, the media feels the need to play to the "winners," the Bush clientele who want only upbeat assessments from Iraq. War news that does surface is sanitized, wrung through official channels, and presented in such a manner as to deceive American viewers into believing everything in Iraq will still be okay.

The basic truth—which is obvious to many but unreported—is that the spiraling violence in Iraq is symptomatic of a country in which there is mass opposition to the occupation and no government recognized as legitimate. Kenneth Katzman, an expert on the Persian Gulf region with the U.S. Congressional Research Service says, "We are approaching a situation that is unstable, of a war of all against all, complete chaos, where the government is ineffective, the security is ineffective, and anybody can be killed at any time by anybody."
...
Few Americans have a true sense of how profoundly botched and bloody things actually are in Iraq. Nor are people cognizant of the level of human suffering that exists in a failed state. As in all situations of war, women and children suffer the most; they face a continual lack of security, electricity, clean water, medicine, and food. The reality that the war has claimed tens of thousands of civilian casualties in Iraq is never mentioned in any mass media news reports, not on CNN, not on the Lehrer News Hour, not even on NPR. Civilian casualties are only reported in conjunction with resistance attacks. According to a study published in the Lancet, the most highly regarded medical journal in the world with stringent peer-review procedures, "at least" 100,000 civilians had died violently, the great majority of them at the hands of coalition troops." The study also described how American military doctors had found that 14 percent of soldiers and 28 percent of marines had killed a civilian: a huge, unreported massacre.

Network Viewers Still in the Dark on "Smoking Gun Memo": broadcasters have maintained a near silence

Network Viewers Still in the Dark on "Smoking Gun Memo": "Network Viewers Still in the Dark on 'Smoking Gun Memo' | Print media continue to downplay story | Action Alert (5/20/05)

Following FAIR's call for more mainstream coverage of the 'smoking gun memo'—the secret British document containing new evidence that the Bush administration manipulated intelligence to justify its plan to invade Iraq—a steady trickle of news reports have appeared. But that coverage has been downplayed in general and is still completely absent from the nightly news.

The Los Angeles Times published a page 3 story on the memo on May 12, and the Washington Post ran a page 18 story the following day. More than two weeks after the story broke in the Sunday Times of London (5/1/05), it finally made the front page of a major U.S. newspaper, the Chicago Tribune (5/17/05).

After referring to the memo (5/2/05) in a story on the British electoral campaign, the New York Times failed to report on the document's implications about the Bush administration until today (5/20/05); the one-column story didn't mention the manipulation of intelligence until the eighth paragraph. (Times columnist Paul Krugman also discussed the memo on the paper's opinion page on May 16.)
...
While the memo has begun to get wider coverage in print, broadcasters have maintained a near silence on the issue. The story has turned up in a few short CNN segments (Crossfire, 5/13/05; Live Sunday, 5/15/05; Wolf Blitzer Reports, 5/16/05), but the only mention of the memo FAIR found on the major broadcast networks came on ABC's Sunday morning show This Week (5/15/05), in which host George Stephanopoulos questioned Sen. John McCain about its contents. When McCain declared that he didn't "agree with it" and defended the Bush administration's decision to go to war, Stephanopoulos didn't question him further. A look at the nightly news reveals not a single story aired about the memo and its implications.

When finally questioned by CNN (5/16/05), White House press secretary Scott McClellan claimed he hadn't seen the memo, but that "the reports" about it were "flat-out wrong." British government officials, however, did not dispute the contents of the memo—which can be read in full online at http://downingstreetmemo.com/ —and a former senior American official called it "an absolutely accurate description of what transpired" (Knight Ridder, 5/6/05).

The Chicago Tribune (5/17/05) named several factors that had caused a "less than robust discussion" of the British memo: Aside from the White House's denials, and the media's slow reaction, the paper asserted that "the public generally seems indifferent to the issue or unwilling to rehash the bitter prewar debate over the reasons for the war." Of course, it's hard to judge the public's interest in a story the media have largely shielded them from.

Judge: Public Has Right to See Abuse Photos

Judge: Public Has Right to See Abuse Photos: "Judge: Public Has Right to See Abuse Photos | By LARRY NEUMEISTER | The Associated Press | Thursday, May 26, 2005; 7:57 PM

NEW YORK -- A federal judge has told the government it will have to release additional pictures of detainee abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, civil rights lawyers said.

Judge Alvin Hellerstein, finding the public has a right to see the pictures, told the government Thursday he will sign an order requiring it to release them to the American Civil Liberties Union, the lawyers said."

Demolish the idea of a press independent of political parties by way of discouraging scrutiny of conservative politicians in power

WorkingForChange-Power 101: "E.J. Dionne, Jr. | Washington Post Writers Group | 05.27.05 | Power 101 | Newsweek flap offers lesson in conservative ethics

WASHINGTON -- So now it turns out that the FBI has documents showing that detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, complained about the mistreatment of the Koran and that many said they were severely beaten.

The documents specifically include an allegation from a prisoner that guards had "flushed a Koran in the toilet."

What, then, is one to make about the Bush administration's furious assault against Newsweek magazine for bringing allegations about the abuse of the Koran to popular attention?

Let's be clear: Newsweek originally reported that an internal military investigation had "confirmed" infractions alleged in "internal FBI e-mails," including the Koran incident. The new documents made public Wednesday include only an allegation from a prisoner. And the Pentagon insisted that the same prisoner, reinterviewed on May 14, "did not corroborate" his earlier claim about the Koran in the toilet.
...
But this particular anti-press campaign is not about Journalism 101. It is about Power 101. It is a sophisticated effort to demolish the idea of a press independent of political parties by way of discouraging scrutiny of conservative politicians in power.

Bush's spokesman: the United States, is in Afghanistan and Iraq by invitation.

Antiwar.com Blog: "Thu May 26, 2005
Thomas rips McClellan

Drudge is running a report about an exchange between the only White House correspondent who matters - Helen Thomas - and White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan. It goes like this;

Q The other day -- in fact, this week, you said that we, the United States, is in Afghanistan and Iraq by invitation. Would you like to correct that incredible distortion of American history --

MR. McCLELLAN: No, we are -- that's where we currently --

Q -- in view of your credibility is already mired? How can you say that?

MR. McCLELLAN: Helen, I think everyone in this room knows that you're taking that comment out of context. There are two democratically-elected governments in Iraq and --

Q Were we invited into Iraq?

MR. McCLELLAN: There are two democratically-elected governments now in Iraq and Afghanistan, and we are there at their invitation. They are sovereign governments, and we are there today --

Q You mean if they had asked us out, that we would have left?

MR. McCLELLAN: No, Helen, I'm talking about today. We are there at their invitation. They are sovereign governments -- Q I'm talking about today, too.

MR. McCLELLAN: -- and we are doing all we can to train and equip their security forces so that they can provide for their own security as they move forward on a free and democratic future. Q Did we invade those countries?

MR. McCLELLAN: Go ahead, Steve. (Emphasis gleefully added by me)

Yes, Steve, go ahead. Please bail me out of this disaster. I shouldn't have to answer unpleasant questions like this.
Anyone who has to resort to using a phrase like 'I think everyone in this room knows' is full of crap. Imagine if the entire press corps weren't a passel of gutless power worshippers -- imagine they all had the sack to tell the Emperor that he was buck naked -- now that would be fun, unless your name is Scott McClellan."

McClellan Backs Away from Claims that 'Newsweek' Story Cost Afghan Lives

McClellan Backs Away from Claims that 'Newsweek' Story Cost Afghan Lives: "By E&P Staff | Published: May 24, 2005 1:10 PM ET

NEW YORK At a White House press briefing Monday, Press Secretary Scott McClellan, pressed by reporters and with Afghan President Karzai in disagreement, retreated on claims that Newsweek's retracted story on Koran abuse cost lives in Afghanistan.

He also claimed that he had never said it did, even though a check of transcripts disputes that. On May 16, for example, he said, 'people have lost their lives.' On May 17, he said, 'People did lose their lives,' and, 'People lost their lives' due to the Newsweek report."

The Tillman Scandal: 'Newsweek' Error Bad, Pentagon Lying OK?

The Tillman Scandal: 'Newsweek' Error Bad, Pentagon Lying OK?: "The Tillman Scandal: 'Newsweek' Error Bad, Pentagon Lying OK? | By Greg Mitchell

(May 24, 2005) -- Where, in the week after the Great Newsweek Error, is the comparable outrage in the press, in the blogosphere, and at the White House over the military's outright lying in the coverup of the death of former NFL star Pat Tillman? Where are the calls for apologies to the public and the firing of those responsible? Who is demanding that the Pentagon's word should never be trusted unless backed up by numerous named and credible sources?

Where is a Scott McClellan lecture on ethics and credibility?
"

Real Gitmo shame? Report U.S. soldier rapped for Koran abuse at lockup

New York Daily News - World & National Report - Real Gitmo shame? Report U.S. soldier rapped for Koran abuse at lockup: By JAMES GORDON MEEK | DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU | May 20, 2005

WASHINGTON - It wasn't tossed in a toilet, but disrespecting an inmate's Koran got at least one American soldier reprimanded at the Guantanamo prison for terrorists, the Daily News has learned.
...
But two reliable military sources confirmed the previously undisclosed reprimand at the Camp Delta prison - contradicting Bush administration denials of any "credible and specific allegations" about Koran desecration at Gitmo.

"That's true," an ex-Army interrogator at Gitmo said. "I am aware of somebody having their hand slapped."

The source said a soldier on another interrogation team was punished for "trying to be insulting" of a detainee's Koran.

Stacking the audience: [Bush] "would like to visit with" a young worker who "knows that [Social Security] could run out before they retire,"

How Bush Makes Sure They Agree: "May 20, 2005 | THE NATION | By Warren Vieth, Times Staff Writer

# A memo illustrates the way the White House is selectively casting members of the under-30 set to promote its Social Security plan."
...
"President Bush will be in Rochester, N.Y., for an upcoming event and has called on WIPP for help," said the memo to New York-area members, from one of the group's leaders. "He would like to visit with local workers about their views on Social Security."

The memo went on to solicit several types of people "who he would like to visit with" — including a young worker who "knows that [Social Security] could run out before they retire," a young couple with children who like "the idea of leaving something behind to the family" and a single parent who believes Bush's proposal for individual investment accounts "would provide more retirement options and security" than the current system.

The people solicited appeared to represent various arguments that Bush has been making for why Social Security should be overhauled. The memo requested an immediate response, because "we will need to get names to the White House."