Thursday, April 06, 2006
So Libby is producing documents detailing part of his defense, a defense we originally got wind of in February, as I recall. If you need a refresher timeline of the story, check it out.
Libby’s defense is reminiscent of Oliver North’s defense, as the National Journal writes, and Libby has retained one of North’s attorneys, John D. Cline.
So now, according to Libby, we know what we learned in February: the President authorized some senior officials, including Cheney and Libby, to leak classified information to the press to help justify the war.
Legally, the cant is that the president and authorized officers can’t “leak” information: if they have the power to declassify information, by definition it isn’t a “leak.”
It is still simply dishonest and coercive. If they choose to selectively leak classified information to the press to justify their side on an argument, without “leaking” dissenting opinions from CIA or DIA or State Department analysts, they’re doing exactly what the president did before the war, only in a more obvious fashion.
This puts the full force of the United States intelligence community behind the tendentious reporting of administration supporters by giving those journalists all of the intelligence gleaned to support their case and none of the intelligence that refuted it.
This is why we say this administration is ripping the floorboards out of the house of democracy. Why don’t Bush and Cheney simply funnel taxpayer funds into bribing journalists to write stories that support their positions?
Oh yeah. They have.
Oh yeah. They did it in Iraq, too.
Oh, yeah, and don’t forget Jeff Gannon, and the slaughter of al-Jazeera journalists in Iraq who gave their location to the military, and the President’s ill-advised idea to deliberately bomb al-Jazeera, and the staged Potemkin Town Hall Meetings, and the captive military audiences, and the disinformation piped hot and steaming into the American media world by FOX News and right wing radio.
No administration in history has assaulted the media like this one (at times, literally). Spirew Agnew’s “nattering nabobs of negativism” is a joke compared to the Bush Administration’s and the right wing’s constant criticism of the press, their planted stories, their fake reporters, and their murderous anger at foreign press outfits. This administration simply continues to forge new ground in their quest to crush dissent and subvert public opinion.
This junta wants what all fascists need: control of the media. Mussolini required media outlets to be certified, and of course that certification was revoked very quickly when the outlet failed to toe the party line. This administration already has an ally in a mainstream media that is already corporate-owned and corporation-friendly. I might suggest that to co-opt the media all you have to do is co-opt the seven companies that dominate the media market today.
The system is already ripe for exploitation. Like all companies, the major media companies are hierarchical, pyramidal, top-down structures: suborn seven corporate presidents and the rest will follow. You don’t need to control every little journalist in every little newspaper: as long as you control most of the media in the country you will control most of the thought in the country. You only really need a majority in a democracy.
The junta has another plan. Part one is ignore the media. This president set a modern record for fewest press conferences in his first term, and I see no logic in comparing his openness to presidents who lived in the days of horses and wooden navies.
Part two is suborn the media, the evidence of which litters the pages of newspapers over the past few years.
This movement lies blatantly and unambiguously, virtually daring journalists and knowledgeable citizens to do something about it. Their brazenness is stunning. I wonder what it was like in Italy in 1922, watching Mussolini and his rise to power. Wikipedia describes the time in sadly familiar terms:
The bluntness of the deceptions and the amazing brazenness of the administration were on full display in the last few months, with the revelations of the NSA wiretapping scandal and the State of the Union Address earlier this year. It reminds me of a certain post by Tom Gilroy…
It also reminds me of January 3, 1925, when Mussolini, with monolithic brazenness, took credit for the murders and intimidation of the fascist para-military groups and the assassination of the opposition leader in parliament and simply declared Italy a dictatorship under his leadership.
Though it may be hard to believe that a guy named "Scooter" is ripping up the floorboards of democracy, biding time until his presidential pardon, it is actually happening as we speak. Iran-Contra should serve as a lesson, a lesson that we apparently didn't learn after Watergate: lawlessness in the highest levels of the presidency must be punished with impeachment and criminal prosecution. A slap on the wrist for those involved would be a sad, quiet admission that the justice system of the United States has collapsed.
Libby’s defense is reminiscent of Oliver North’s defense, as the National Journal writes, and Libby has retained one of North’s attorneys, John D. Cline.
In the North case, the Iran-Contra independent counsel, Lawrence Walsh, was forced to dismiss many of the central charges against North, including the most serious ones-that North defrauded taxpayers by diverting proceeds from arms sales to Iran to finance the Nicaraguan Contras-because intelligence agencies and the Reagan administration refused to declassify documents necessary for a trial on those charges.
So now, according to Libby, we know what we learned in February: the President authorized some senior officials, including Cheney and Libby, to leak classified information to the press to help justify the war.
Legally, the cant is that the president and authorized officers can’t “leak” information: if they have the power to declassify information, by definition it isn’t a “leak.”
It is still simply dishonest and coercive. If they choose to selectively leak classified information to the press to justify their side on an argument, without “leaking” dissenting opinions from CIA or DIA or State Department analysts, they’re doing exactly what the president did before the war, only in a more obvious fashion.
This puts the full force of the United States intelligence community behind the tendentious reporting of administration supporters by giving those journalists all of the intelligence gleaned to support their case and none of the intelligence that refuted it.
This is why we say this administration is ripping the floorboards out of the house of democracy. Why don’t Bush and Cheney simply funnel taxpayer funds into bribing journalists to write stories that support their positions?
Oh yeah. They have.
Oh yeah. They did it in Iraq, too.
Oh, yeah, and don’t forget Jeff Gannon, and the slaughter of al-Jazeera journalists in Iraq who gave their location to the military, and the President’s ill-advised idea to deliberately bomb al-Jazeera, and the staged Potemkin Town Hall Meetings, and the captive military audiences, and the disinformation piped hot and steaming into the American media world by FOX News and right wing radio.
No administration in history has assaulted the media like this one (at times, literally). Spirew Agnew’s “nattering nabobs of negativism” is a joke compared to the Bush Administration’s and the right wing’s constant criticism of the press, their planted stories, their fake reporters, and their murderous anger at foreign press outfits. This administration simply continues to forge new ground in their quest to crush dissent and subvert public opinion.
This junta wants what all fascists need: control of the media. Mussolini required media outlets to be certified, and of course that certification was revoked very quickly when the outlet failed to toe the party line. This administration already has an ally in a mainstream media that is already corporate-owned and corporation-friendly. I might suggest that to co-opt the media all you have to do is co-opt the seven companies that dominate the media market today.
The system is already ripe for exploitation. Like all companies, the major media companies are hierarchical, pyramidal, top-down structures: suborn seven corporate presidents and the rest will follow. You don’t need to control every little journalist in every little newspaper: as long as you control most of the media in the country you will control most of the thought in the country. You only really need a majority in a democracy.
The junta has another plan. Part one is ignore the media. This president set a modern record for fewest press conferences in his first term, and I see no logic in comparing his openness to presidents who lived in the days of horses and wooden navies.
Part two is suborn the media, the evidence of which litters the pages of newspapers over the past few years.
This movement lies blatantly and unambiguously, virtually daring journalists and knowledgeable citizens to do something about it. Their brazenness is stunning. I wonder what it was like in Italy in 1922, watching Mussolini and his rise to power. Wikipedia describes the time in sadly familiar terms:
Fascism was a product of a general feeling of anxiety and fear among the middle-class of postwar Italy… public discourse took on an inflammatory tone on all sides… Mussolini was able to exploit fears… fascism evolved into a new political and economic system that combined corporatism, totalitarianism, nationalism, and anti-Communism in a state designed to bind all classes together under a capitalist system… Most of his time was spent on propaganda
The bluntness of the deceptions and the amazing brazenness of the administration were on full display in the last few months, with the revelations of the NSA wiretapping scandal and the State of the Union Address earlier this year. It reminds me of a certain post by Tom Gilroy…
It also reminds me of January 3, 1925, when Mussolini, with monolithic brazenness, took credit for the murders and intimidation of the fascist para-military groups and the assassination of the opposition leader in parliament and simply declared Italy a dictatorship under his leadership.
Though it may be hard to believe that a guy named "Scooter" is ripping up the floorboards of democracy, biding time until his presidential pardon, it is actually happening as we speak. Iran-Contra should serve as a lesson, a lesson that we apparently didn't learn after Watergate: lawlessness in the highest levels of the presidency must be punished with impeachment and criminal prosecution. A slap on the wrist for those involved would be a sad, quiet admission that the justice system of the United States has collapsed.
# posted by BitterHarvest @ 7:46 PM 
