If you want to see how the wurlitzer works, and how our media establishment has completely failed us, go read Glennzilla:
When discussing the McCarthyite DOJ witch hunt spawned by Liz Cheney and Bill Kristol, I wrote yesterday: now that “we have real, live, contemporary McCarthyites in our midst — Liz Cheney and Bill Kristol — launching a repulsive smear campaign, we’ll see what the reaction is and how they’re treated by our political and media elites.” On Twitter yesterday, I wrote: “How media figures treat Liz Cheney after her vile McCarthyite smear campaign will say a lot about their character.”
CNN’s Wolf Blitzer spoke volumes today about himself and his “news network.” First, on Twitter, he excitedly promoted his upcoming story about what he called the “intense debate about Obama Justice Dept bringing in lawyers who previously represented Gitmo detainees.” On March, 9, 1954, Edward R. Murrow famously devoted his entire broadcast to vehemently condemning Joseph McCarthy’s witch hunts, explaining: “This is no time for men who oppose Senator McCarthy’s methods to keep silent.” By contrast, Wolf Blitzer — receipient of an Edward R. Murrow award — sees such smear campaigns as nothing more than an “intense debate” to neutrally explore and excitingly promote.
Read the whole thing. Just plain disgusting.
Comrade Kevin
Does Wolf Blitzer blow goats with Mickey Kaus?
Is it irresponsible to speculate? It would be irresponsible not to.
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
Put “Blitzer” in the Twitter search box. Funny stuff. Sonofabitch is getting it good tonight.
Rick Taylor
The best of the coverage is going to argue that even scummy vile terrorists require representation. No one in the mainstream is going to argue that with a few exceptions, we picked up a bunch of people who were in the wrong place in the wrong time, and then tortured and imprisoned them because we didn’t know what else to do with them.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
This is one I am just not ready to process yet. A Rubicon Crossing for me. I will say, I hate these soulless motherfuckers with the intensity of a thousand white hot Suns. And now their fascist stenographers in the media. We are fixing for a war in this country, every day it gets a little closer and I don’t see anything that will stop it. Slow it down maybe, but not stop or prevent it. A reckoning is coming, it’s the cards we’ve been dealt, and “can’t happen here” is whistling past the graveyard, I think.
CalD
In other news, David Broder (of all people) just served up Dana Douchebank on a stick. Nice.
Svensker
This make me so angry I’m just beside myself. It’s the last straw. Really.
KCinDC
Taylor Marsh: “Unfortunate, but Wolf Blitzer doesn’t direct the chirons.”
Poor Wolf. Completely powerless to do anything about the way CNN is embarrassing him. And there was no problem with the segment other than the on-screen text, apparently.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@KCinDC: Taylor Marsh is a twit.
Brian J
As I asked last night (I think), aren’t these guys functioning like public defenders would for a common alleged criminal? They work for the government, not a private law firm, so isn’t it more than likely that they are simply assigned the cases instead of volunteering for them?
If all of that is correct, WHAT THE FUCK IS THE “DEBATE” ABOUT? This is absolutely nuts.
West of the Cascades
Amazing that Glenn catches and links to Jake Tapper committing real journalism. Wolf needs to investigate how that could happen inside the Beltway!
Comrade Jake
Gotta luv me some librul media!
Mike Kay
Wolf Blitzer part of Saudi terror cell?
Wolf Blitzer wears diapers while saying “yes, mommy” to his dominatrix?
Wolf Blitzer murdered Chandra Levy?
Wolf Blitzer diddles little children?
Mike Kay
I’m sorry, I can’t read glenn. He’s too much of a conspiracy theorist.
Upper West
I am with the General and Svensker. Any right wing asshole can say anything and cretins like Blitzer will run after the ball. This really is a step beyond. If there were any responsibility in the media Liz Cheney would be nowhere near any TV show.
It remind me of the ACORN Pimp show — 2 idiots edit videos and the fucking Congress votes to cut funding. (Gillenbrand made me a believer by being one of only seven Dems to vote against that.)
John Cole
@West of the Cascades: Jake Tapper is actually much better than we give him credit.
keestadoll
If it’s the CONSERVATIVE(!!!!!) thing to say that the US is better than anyone else (FREEDOM!!!!) at everything all the time and in all kinds of weather [insert gratuitous reference to climate change denialism here], why do they insist on shitting all over one of the pillars of our nations founding and thereby relegate themselves and the reputation of our country to the same ash can of thug mentality nations that they denigrate?
Svensker
@Brian J:
Totally beside the point (don’t know if it’s true or not) and accepts the winger framing that defending a client = being the client’s friend.
Assuming the lawyers volunteered to be attorneys for these friendless, lost, despised people, they should be celebrated for that act.
And let me add, fuck all those who try to smear them. Truly, fuck them.
Brian J
@Svensker:
Maybe you’re right. But I still think it’s important to ask, because I’m under the impression that public lawyers don’t get to pick and choose. And while there is some nobility in signing up for the cases that nobody else wants because you believe everyone deserves a fair trial, if the cases are always assigned, it makes the attacks from the right even more baseless and idiotic. So no, it’s not beside the point.
Am I right or wrong, by the way?
MikeJ
I wonder what Wolfie would do about a picture of Dick Cheney and a super that said, “Paedophile?”
Zam
@Brian J:
Actually I think this just makes them move from Al qaeda 7 to Al qaeda justice dept.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@John Cole: I guess we will have to retract The Flying Pen is award we gave him, or whatever it was called. I think Tapper was a recipient. But I’m getting old and decrepit and don’t member shit like before.
Brian J
@Zam:
Huh?
freelancer (itouch)
@John Cole:
No way you just wrote that. Jake “How many fucking cigs is Obama smoking?” ABC Chief WH correspondent Tapper. John Cole, Amnesiac?
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@freelancer (itouch): Well, he did fall down a while back. maybe bumped his noggin a little.
aimai
I don’t know about these particular lawyers but many of the imprisoned had both assigned lawyers and lawyers who worked pro bono from leading law firms. I attended the bill of rights dinner a few years ago where Neal Katyal and Charlie-I’m-blanking his name, who was a JAG, were both honored. There were lots of white shoe lawyers at that dinner who were volunteering their time and heading down to Gitmo to help defend prisoners there. From top Boston and New York law firms.
aimai
kommrade reproductive vigor
Thou shalt not question the story arc.
Jody
Andy Richter once tore Blitzer a new asshole on celebrity Jeopardy. Just completely crushed him. Ol’ Wolfie just looked like a hapless dope.
Nothing I have ever seen about that asshole has led me to believe otherwise.
Zam
@Brian J: I’m just saying if the lawyers are assigned the talking point moves from just 7 jihad lawyers to the entire department is nothing but terrorists.
Nellcote
@John Cole:
Many of them are. That’s what makes it so very frustrating when the do dumb, ugly things. They know better.
Kryptik
How long until we should expect effigies hanging in front of the Capitol and calls for the whole legal system to be “streamlined” to ‘guilty until proven innocent’?
I’m not kidding. I want to know how long I have until I can truly say that the Republic is dead and buried.
Annie
As I said in a previous post, Ted Olsen wrote an article that destroyed Liz Cheney’s argument — he advocated strongly for legal representation for “terrorists” and for DOJ prosecuting cases. Has Ted been interviewed — no.
Liz Cheney is disgusting — a no nothing woman, who solely exists to save her father from prosecution. She has no credentials as a national security expert, a military expert, etc. Yet, instead of being shunned, she is given a platform, and an incredible amount of visibility to vent her hatred of everything this country should stand for…
CNN should be taken to task for the Wolf Blitzer’s broadcast. I just sent an email to CNN asking them to set the record straight and to stop promoting Liz and her anti-American rant.
We either as a country believe in a fundamental value — the rule of law — or we don’t. If we don’t, then we have just acknowledged that we are exactly like those countries we are supposedly fighting.
Fuck “American Exceptionalism”
MikeJ
@aimai:
And Seattle.
freelancer (itouch)
@Nellcote:
I guess this would be more in line with my critique. To some extent, it might be meritocratic, but lots of people pulling a Gretchen carlson.
Rick Taylor
My first exposure to Jake Tapper was during the 2000 election. He was frank, and didn’t try to create in false equivalence; the Gore campaign despite some faults was playing by the rules and trying to do the right thing, while the Bush campaign was ruthlessly doing whatever it took to win.
cleek
no need to read it.
after all this time, who could possibly expect Blitzer to be anything but an eager rent-boy for authority ?
AhabTRuler
@John Cole: He is a little girl, who has a little curl…
J
The lawyers, whether assigned or night, whether working for the justice dept or acting pro bono deserve praise
‘white shoe’ nice touch Aimai, haven’t heard that expression in a long time.
kdaug
My 3 rules of journalism:
1) If you make more than a million dollars a year, you’re doing it wrong.
2) If you have special access to otherwise anonymous sources, you’re doing it wrong.
3) If you’re on TV, you’re (usually) doing it wrong.
These are the rules I live by – I’m not a journalist, just a consumer. But until the villagers get a clue, I’m stickin to ’em.
Kryptik
@AhabTRuler:
When he’s good he’s kinda sorta good, but when he’s bad he’s dreadful?
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio
Blitzer has been doing this every day for years. It’s the classic “intense debate over the shape of the earth” approach to news, in which “news” is just a vehicle for billboarding a false dichotomy in order to fill the gaps between the commercials.
That’s the bad news. The good news is that nobody much pays any attention to this kind of nonsense outside of the cult.
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio
Reposted because shut up:
Blitzer has been doing this every day for years. It’s the classic “intense debate over the shape of the earth” approach to news, in which “news” is just a vehicle for billboarding a false dichotomy in order to fill the gaps between the commercials.
That’s the bad news. The good news is that nobody much pays any attention to this kind of nonsense outside of the cult.
Annie
Just read on TPM, that the American Bar Association said what Lynn Cheney is doing is “a divisive and diversionary tactic” to impugn “the character of lawyers who have sought to protect the fundamental rights of unpopular clients.”
There is more to the ABA press release, but the question is who will care…
Olsen, ABA, and others need to flood CNN for this disgusting broadcast and need to forcefully and vocally fight against her anti-American rant…
Mike P
Time to link to this Jay Rosen post again:
“The Quest for Innocence and the Loss of Reality in Political Journalism”
Mark S.
@kdaug:
I think this has fucked up journalism more than anything else besides FOX News. They don’t understand how the rest of us live, and they are very interested in the status quo.
(I realize that 99.9% of journalists don’t make that much, but many of the assholes on TV do.)
Texas Dem
If you guys think this is bad, wait until the GOP retakes the Congress. Right now these smears are limited to CNN, Fox, and the rest of the MSM. But next year (assuming, of course, the GOP retakes the House) they’ll be backed by subpoena power. Can you imagine a hearing before a Congressional committee with the so-called “Gitmo Nine” lined up like those tobacco execs before Henry Waxman’s committee years ago? I can. What’s happening now is only a preview of coming attractions. The real fun begins January 2011. Pleasant dreams……..
Mike in NC
Fixed
iriedc
Slightly OT…but every time I see Liz Cheney on TV, I expect to see her hand to swing up and wonder how she manages to keep it down, ala Dr. Strangelove.
Montysano
@Texas Dem:
And another 1/2 bottle of Pinot bites the dust. ‘Cause I’m afraid yer right.
Quiddity
Someone wrote in the comment thread for that GG Salon article:
The only answer is that “the press” deem Liz Cheney somebody who deserves to be heard. (Unlike, say, a Lyndon LaRouche acolyte)
wilfred
For the umpteenth time – Blitzer was a lobbyist for Aipac and a writer for its house newsletter. Anything and everything that legitimizes anti-Arab/Muslim policy is within his ‘journalistic’ range. In this case, discussing the merits of this ‘debate’ is the play for him here.
New Yorker
I think I’m going to start keeping a list of all the founding fathers who would disown this country if they could see what it has sunk to:
Thomas Jefferson, for the demolition of the separation of church and state.
George Washington, for the inhumane treatment of prisoners captured in war, and for the unchecked power concentrated in the hands of the presidency.
Benjamin Franklin, for the war on science.
And now John Adams, for the odious attack on lawyers doing their duty to defend those in need of it (Glenzilla mentions Adams’ defense of the Boston Massacre soldiers in his earlier post).
Mark S.
@New Yorker:
That’s funny, I was thinking whether there was a more disgraceful VP than Cheney, and I came up with Aaron Burr. Maybe he’ll become the new right wing hero.
GregB
Fuck Wolf Blitzer with a spiky acid tipped dick.
-G
New Yorker
@Mark S.:
What disgusts me the most is that the attack is led by two children of privilege who would be nothing if not for the accomplishments of their (disgusting) fathers: Liz Cheney, the daughter of a disgraced war criminal, and Bill Kristol, the drooling buffoon son of the odious founder of neoconservatism.
edit: somewhere, Alberto Fujimori is cursing his luck that he was president of Peru and not the US, and thus he is in jail and doesn’t have his daughters sliming those who attempted to restore the rule of law to Peru.
TenguPhule
Not while there is at least 1 IED left to detonate.
Chuck Butcher
It is just sad.
kdaug
@Mark S.:
Yep, ditto. See rule #3.
Nick
@Texas Dem: This is why I expect any day now the administration to announce it is going with military trials. At this point, it isn’t even worth it anymore.
ricky
@John Cole:
Are you using negative exponents with the credit you assign to Tapper?
rageahol
I don’t have a TV, but I am inclined to avoid products who advertise on wolf’s show, and write them letters explaining why.
can someone give me a list?
Josh Huaco
America would really be America if it weren’t for real Americans.
El Cid
Why did the Founding Fathers write such a pro-Al Qa’ida Constitution? Who will defend the Al Qa’ida 56?
Why did George Washington think that defendants needed to be legally defended? Did we know that someday he would love jihad and want to have bin Laden’s babies?
sukabi
Rachel Maddow did a take down of Liz Cheney and her nutty conspiracy theory about the DOJ being infested with al quaida sympathizers… took it full circle right back to Liz Cheney… included Ted Olson, the Supreme Court TWICE, GW Bush, Dick Cheney, paranoid Liz and because Rachel had shaken Liz’s hand at CPAC she was also infected with the taint of aq…
quite hilarious.
slightly_peeved
One of the lawyers for the Gitmo accused wasn’t working for a law firm or the DoJ, but for the Marines. Major Michael Mori defended David Hicks, and publicly criticised unfair aspects of the tribunal process.
There’s a transcript of an interview with him here. The guy’s a credit to the Marines and to his country.
wilfred
As much as he deserves credit Adams is less remarkable than the members of the jury themselves, who in the midst of the revolutionary moment and intense anti-British climate actually had the decency to accept Adams’s arguments and vote for acquittal (at least for most of the defendants). Fair play’s a jewel.
I think it would still be. These pricks don’t want Gitmo prisoners tried in court on US soil because they’re afraid the public will see behind the curtain of Muslim/Arab Othering and vote for acquittals. This obscene posturing about DOJ sympathies is part of a larger scheme to undermine the original plan for trials in the US.
El Cid
@wilfred: Should the jury be the “Al Qa’ida 12”?
wilfred
@El Cid:
12 A’Ngry Men, I think.
El Cid
@wilfred:
That’s true, but I think it’s also true that the modern conservative right is opposed to the notion of trials themselves.
As long as police and prosecutors act with the same authoritarian prejudices they have, they want agents of the state to simply be able to pronounce judgment against anyone at any time, no trial, no evidence, no process, no chance of escaping your decided destiny.
They are opposed to civilian trials because they are trials. They are opposed to accused terrorists getting defense attorneys because they are opposed to the notion that people they don’t like get a legal defense when accused. They prefer military trials because that’s the closest sort of thing they can call for which don’t seem to them like real trials.
Hell, they are opposed to the notion that Arabs and Muslims could even ever theoretically be innocent, except for the occasional right wing Arab / Muslim who backs U.S. hawk policies or who gives entities favored by right wing politicians tons of money.
If you are one of them, you are innocent, and should never be brought into the system of immediate and unquestioned sentence.
If you are not one of them — Arab, Muslim, black, Mexican, liberal, labor union, helping the poor and disenfranchised — you are guilty, and simply haven’t been arrested and imprisoned, tortured, or executed yet (or all 3), and the State merely needs to get out from under all these oppressive liberal Constitutional rules and increase its efficiency and ability to kill / torture you as soon as they can get around to it.
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
@Mark S.:
Aaron Burr was a national hero, compared to Cheney. He only tried to pry the Mississippi river valley away from the country and carve a personal empire out of it. If we compare his patriotism to Cheney’s (in vacuo), he belongs on the $1 bill.
kay
They’ve been getting away with this approach for a long time, and it was probably inevitable that the accusations they lob were extended to “loyalty” and then extended to the actual US justice system.
They set up every question this way.
They launch accusation, and insist the accused prove them wrong.
Conservatives have always gotten it backward. Always. It’s a consistent thread, and it runs through “birthers” to the ACORN smear, to the Clinton inquisition(s).
I’m completely confident that they believe this is how our system should be. Guilty until proven innocent. It’s how the operate, on both a personal and professional level.
It’s pretty fucking scary to watch, I’ll tell you.
kay
@El Cid:
What continues to amaze me is the lack of awareness. How they cannot make the leap from “criminal defendant” to “could be ME”.
A lot of people can make that conceptual leap. Conservatives cannot.
It’s doubly amazing because conservative leaders have often been criminal defendants.
The ACORN filmmaker has been arraigned. He’s been “processed”. He was given the presumption of innocence. He hired top-flight counsel. He cannot connect his experience to the broader idea.
That’s freaking amazing. Usually, a person of average intelligence talks tough on hang ’em all and sort it out later until they are picked up. They do a complete 180, and never look back.
With conservatives, they can actually personally experience why we set it up like this, and they still don’t get it.
That’s stupid on a level that probably can’t be remedied.
chrome agnomen
@kay:
the eloi vs the morlocks.
Marcus
Why is no one making the link between Kristal and Blitzer? It always comes down in the interest of Israel foreign policy?
The stenographers get away with it because they are the gaurdians of maintaining a zionist foreign policy.
I would love to be proven wrong.
kay
@chrome agnomen:
Well, I had to google it, but okay.
It holds true across a broad range. For example: juries.
Juries are too stupid to award damages in a an environmental harm or malpractice case. Conservatives think there should be a federal law barring them doing that. Because they’re stupid.
However, these same stupid juries can easily determine whether someone should be put to death, so we should have the death penalty.
What’s the difference? The difference is the defendant. If the defendant is a corporate entity accused of violating regulatory protections, that defendant merits more protection, up to an including a federal law protecting them from jury-calculated money damages, than an individual facing the death penalty.
That’s the freaking “value system” we’re talking about here.
ericblair
@kay: What continues to amaze me is the lack of awareness. How they cannot make the leap from “criminal defendant” to “could be ME”.
‘Cuz El Cid is completely right. There’s no concept of fair, just my tribe and your tribe. Anybody on my tribe is completely innocent and/or justified in whatever they do, so no trial is ever appropriate. Anybody on the other tribe is by definition a criminal and enemy, so no trial is needed: just off with their heads.
That’s why arguing with them about “moral relativism” is so useless. They use the absolute opposite definition we do: as far as they’re concerned, treating My Tribe like The Other Tribe is ridiculous and unfair. Trying to turn around things like “courts” and “laws” onto themselves instead of the Other shows your moral relativism: how can you use weapons on us that are meant for Them?
chrome agnomen
@kay:
i was only being the least it snarkish. the divide among the great unwashed in this country is perhaps even simpler than the facile labels of republican/democrat or conservative/liberal. it boils down to intellectually curious/intellectually slumbering. or, to bring up one of the big dogwhistles–empathetic versus unsympathetic. a growing number of people have been conditioned to be so fearful, that they refuse to, or are unable to, make that conceptual leap that you describe.
a truly tragic state of affairs.
Robert
CNN must be getting quite a bit of negative feedback on their awful “story”. On the piece I saw on it this morning their chryon had changed from last night’s “Are Justice Dept. lawyers disloyal?” to “Justice Dept. Smear?”
Redshirt
This was disgusting, and ultimately demoralizing. Every day it seems I’m a bit more convinced we’re doomed.
Slightly OT: Subpoena power. Oh noes! From the school of IOKIYAR, did anything ever come of Karl Rove flat out ignoring subpoenas? I don’t think anything ever did, right?
maody
late to the party, here is wolf at his best
E N J O Y
roshan
While I think that the ad is absolutely disgusting it seems to me that something else is at stake for the proponents behind this ad. Something that they wish would never see the light of the day ever in any court. Something so evil and abhorrent that it can’t be refuted in any forum, public or courts. The Cheney daughter is meticulously going one step at a time in this torture debate. First she claimed that there was no torture, next she claimed that torture works and provides information. Next she is asserting that the DOJ folks handling the Gitmo cases are tainted and disloyal. I am trying to guess what her next step is.
Ken
As a Buffalonian, Wolf Blitzer is a goddamn embarrassment. I’d rather have a blizzard than a Blitzer associated with the area.
IndieTarheel
@roshan: Take the most disturbing, vile action/statement you can think of. Multiply it by a bajillion, while riding a horse backwards. That ought to get you into roughly the same quadrant as the lunacy this moron is going to spout next.
slank
Okay, I am stunned, I did not know Wolf Blitzer has received an Edward R. Murrow Award… seriously?? I have not been watching him for long and believe me, it will not be for long either!!
deadrody
LOL. It is just sheer lunacy over here. I do love the entertainment value of this pathetic train wreck, though.
So opposing hiring lawyers who worked on the jihadi’s DEFENSE to now work on the prosecution is the same as the McCarthy Un-American Activities Committee ?
Unbelievable how laughable that is. I mean, honestly, do big time rich lawyers doing pro-bono work for jihadis really suddenly need government jobs ? Really ?
This is ridiculous without even considering the conflict of interest implications.
Ah, so funny. You people are a complete joke. How does it feel knowing your 15 seconds in charge of this country is about to crash in a monumentally thundering wreck ?