Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

There are some who say that there are too many strawmen arguments on this blog.

In after Baud. Damn.

Hey Washington Post, “Democracy Dies in Darkness” was supposed to be a warning, not a mission statement.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

Dear Washington Post, you are the darkness now.

“Just close your eyes and kiss the girl and go where the tilt-a-whirl takes you.” ~OzarkHillbilly

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

They punch you in the face and then start crying because their fist hurts.

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

These days, even the boring Republicans are nuts.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

The fundamental promise of conservatism all over the world is a return to an idealized past that never existed.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

Fundamental belief of white supremacy: white people are presumed innocent, minorities are presumed guilty.

Their shamelessness is their super power.

Dear elected officials: Trump is temporary, dishonor is forever.

“But what about the lurkers?”

When tyranny becomes law, rebellion becomes duty. ~Thomas Jefferson

This fight is for everything.

Let me file that under fuck it.

You are here: Home / Another one bites the dust

Another one bites the dust

by | 95 Comments

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The hits just keep on coming:

The commissioner of London’s Metropolitan Police Services, Sir Paul Stephenson, resigned his post on Sunday just hours after his officers arrested Rebekah Brooks, the former chief of Rupert Murdoch’s media operations in Britain, as damage from a phone-hacking scandal moved to the highest levels of British public life.

Meanwhile, on this side of the pond, the Kaplan Daily rallies behind News Corp.

Reader Interactions

95Comments

  1. 1.

    Jim C.

    I can’t envision a scenario where the response from this goes too far, though it is, of course, telling that Fred Hiatt’s Washington Post is the one first calling for moderation and a return to business as usual.

    I feel like taking a bath after reading that article.

  2. 2.

    Corner Stone

    Don’t let the response to News of the World go too far

    Is this an Onion headline?

  7. 7.

    13th Generation

    Doug, you really need to start reading comments in threads that precede yours. Still love ya though.

  10. 10.

    Corner Stone

    Maybe all of them do it? Maybe every “news” source in existence does this and they all know it? If it sticks to one then all the rest fall too?

  11. 11.

    Southern Beale

    Of course it happened here. From the memory hole:

    Roger Ailes Caught Spying on the Reporters at His Small-Town Newspaper
    __
    John Cook and Hamilton Nolan — The small-town newspapers in New York’s Hudson Valley that Fox News chief Roger Ailes owns with his wife Elizabeth are in a staff revolt after employees caught Ailes spying on them with News Corp. security goons.

    And then there’s this one:

    Has Roger Ailes Hacked American Phones for Fox News?
    __
    That’s how Portfolio.com began a post back in 2008, when a former Fox News executive charged that Ailes had outfitted a highly secured “brain room” in Fox’s New York headquarters for “counterintelligence” and may have used it to hack into private phone records.

    It’s all gonna come out eventually.

  12. 12.

    The Republic of Stupidity

    Ahhhhhhh…

    Sweet, sweet schadenfreude…

    It’s turning into one of those ginormous sink holes that swallow whole buildings…

    Only in this case, it’s swallowing Rupert’s media empire before our very eyes…

    Now… if only Rush Limbaugh would FINALLY get caught in bed w/ a live boy… or a dead woman… or if we’re really lucky… BOTH…

  13. 13.

    Martin

    Huh. Is Kaplan hoping to sell off a property? Or did they have weak voicemail passwords too?

  14. 14.

    MFA

    “Britain’s biggest media problem is not too much freedom but too little: Onerous libel laws deter critical reporting about public figures and arguably drive journalists to measures such as phone hacking to obtain lawsuit-proof stories.”

    Yeah, as always, they wouldn’t-a-hadda brake-da -aw if it weren’t for those burdensome regulations. It’s the liberal’s fault. Sheesh.

  15. 15.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Yowza. I don’t know British politics, but that sounds like a poobah of a certain grandeur.

    the Kaplan Daily rallies behind News Corp.

    I’m simply shocked that Donnie Graham, who chaffed for years under Mummy’s reins to get his hands on her paper to take it on a hard right turn, is rallying to Rupert and Roger. I’m sure all the fine principled neo-cons around Fred Hiatt’s conference table will resign in disgust.

  16. 16.

    beltane

    It’s no surprise WaPo is standing by their man. Murdoch’s organization has likely metastasised throughout most of the U.S. media whether they are on Fox’s payroll or not. To me, this seems like one of those disturbances in the accepted order that are always a prelude to larger, more cataclysmic disruptions later on. I’m getting a 1914 vibe from all this.

  18. 18.

    13th Generation

    Also, too, top story at fox nation is about how great Sarah palin’s movie is doing at the box office.

    Fucking alternate universe..

  19. 19.

    jl

    And again, the theme that holding the powerful accountable for breaking the law, for very narrow and selfish reasons, is something extraordinary and cruel: “flaying”.

    From what I can tell, powerful UK politicians were still trying to ignore the scandal or actively protect Murdoch until just a couple or weeks ago, either out complicity or fear.

    Only as evidence mounted supporting the worst suspicions, that thousands of people were spied upon, including some of the most powerful people in the UK, and the police actively corrupted, did the powerful do anything that promised meaningful action.

    And that WaPo talks aobut flaying?
    The Libby case comes to mind.

  21. 21.

    cathyx

    I think it’s very suspicious that the Post is commenting that way. They are guilty of something.

  22. 22.

    arguingwithsignposts

    @beltane: It’s worth remembering that News International isn’t just Fox News. It’s also Fox TV, 20th Century Fox, Harper-Collins, etc. All those are no doubt big time advertisers in the Kaplan Post. So, yeah. Bread … butter.

  25. 25.

    Cat Lady

    Hiatt is the Kevin Bacon character in Animal House yelling to remain calm. The center isn’t holding. Roger Ailes must be burning up the phone lines right this minute with every media honcho he knows to let them know that not only does he have pictures, he’s got video and audio. Hiatt’s marching orders are to get out in front of this before it goes “too far”, but it’s a tsunami. Wheeeeee!

  26. 26.

    jl

    Yeah, the ‘UK laws made them break the law’ line is BS. Other news organizations, notably the Guardian, were frustrated in their earlier investigations. Maybe if the crimes were uncovered at an earlier stage, public outrage would not push, or give an excuse for, politicians to go too far in regulating the press.

    I don’t think their concern is so much about freedom of speech, inquiry, or the press. It is about disturbing the privilege for the ‘right sort’ of press and media, that is media that serves the interests of the rich and powerful. And fear of the ‘wrong sort’ of media being allowed to do real reporting, and then actually being able to get the real news to the people.

    Edit: I don’t know enough about UK free speech laws to have much of opinion about them. But just a knowledge of who was trying to investigate what over the last several years (and how those early investigations were foiled by corrupt and illegal Murdoch company efforts), tells you the WaPo line is nonsense.

  27. 27.

    Southern Beale

    I’m simply shocked that Donnie Graham, who chaffed for years under Mummy’s reins to get his hands on her paper to take it on a hard right turn, is rallying to Rupert and Roger.

    I’m not! This is utterly predictable. The ownership class protecting their fellow ownership class compatriots.

  29. 29.

    Southern Beale

    Also, too, top story at fox nation is about how great Sarah palin’s movie is doing at the box office.

    Bwaaahaaaahaaaa!!! Yeah we went to the 10:10 a.m. showing of Harry Potter. The line was OUT THE DOOR for this show. Trust me, no one was there to see the Sarah Palin movie — it’s not even playing here.

    Hilarious.

  30. 30.

    beltane

    Home Secretary Theresa May is about to release a statement on the hacking scandal. That should be good for a laugh or two.

    Don’t you all wish David Broder were alive to school us on the need to be civil and avoid the rush to judgment?

  31. 31.

    Kathleen

    It will take The Guardian to report any wrong doing by Murdoch in this country. Not one of our fish wraps will touch it.

  36. 36.

    MonkeyBoy

    Kaplan bird cage liner:

    THE PRESS SCANDAL that has convulsed the British political establishment this month is first of all about the criminal acts of a tabloid newspaper, News of the World, which hacked the private telephones of …

    How about THE SCANDAL being that News Corp had its tentacles so deep into UK politicians and police that no body dared oppose them, and in fact many helped to cover up basic criminal acts.

  37. 37.

    ML

    Those of us who witnessed the unraveling of the Watergate cover-up are at a distinct advantage understanding the dynamics of this criminal implosion.

    It’s just beautiful.

  38. 38.

    Amir_Khalid

    Here’s a nice bit of excuse-making:

    Britain’s biggest media problem is not too much freedom but too little: Onerous libel laws deter critical reporting about public figures and arguably drive journalists to measures such as phone hacking to obtain lawsuit-proof stories.

    No. A journalist can never justify a lack of moral scruples, whether his own or somebody else’s, as forced upon them by laws that define libel too broadly.
    The definition of libel in England had nothing to do with what NoTW did. Not the bribes handed out to cops, not the widespread phone hacking, not the improper influence they exerted. They did these illegal things for their own benefit: to pry into people’s private affairs, to scoop their competitors, to gain the power to act with impunity.

    The Washington Post is pleading mitigation in advance for when NoTW is found guilty of wrongdoing. It’s doing so for the wrong reason.

  41. 41.

    KCinDC

    Yikes, I had been blissfully unaware of the wingnut hysteria about the ATF supplying guns to Mexican gangs until a Facebook friend of a Facebook friend brought it up in his recitation of government wrongdoing as part of a defense of Murdoch and the supposed greater accountability of the private sector relative to government.

  42. 42.

    gwangung

    No. A journalist can never justify a lack of moral scruples, whether his own or somebody else’s, as forced upon them by laws that define libel too broadly.
    __
    The definition of libel in England had nothing to do with what NoTW did. Not the bribes handed out to cops, not the widespread phone hacking, not the improper influence they exerted. They did these illegal things for their own benefit: to pry into people’s private affairs, to scoop their competitors, to gain the power to act with impunity.

    QFTMFT.

  45. 45.

    Canuckistani Tom

    Un-effing-believable

    Usually when evil like this is brought kicking and screaming into the sunlight it’s the result of a sonic screwdriver and the phrase “Hello, I’m the Doctor”

  46. 46.

    PeakVT

    Has any low-level NotW staff spilled yet? After being shut down so abruptly I would think that at least one ex-employee is sufficiently pissed off to try to get revenge on higher-ups.

  47. 47.

    Violet

    @cathyx:
    Was just going to post this. Really amazing stuff there. Like:

    “I made the connections. Ailes knew I had given Brock the interview. Certainly Brock didn’t tell him. Of course. Fox News had gotten Brock’s telephone records from the phone company, and my phone number was on the list. Deep in the bowels of 1211 Avenue of the Americas, News Corporation’s New York headquarters, was what Roger called the Brain Room. Most people thought it was simply the research department of Fox News. But unlike virtually everybody else, because I had to design and build the Brain Room, I knew it also housed a counterintelligence and black ops office. So accessing phone records was easy pie.”“I made the connections. Ailes knew I had given Brock the interview. Certainly Brock didn’t tell him. Of course. Fox News had gotten Brock’s telephone records from the phone company, and my phone number was on the list. Deep in the bowels of 1211 Avenue of the Americas, News Corporation’s New York headquarters, was what Roger called the Brain Room. Most people thought it was simply the research department of Fox News. But unlike virtually everybody else, because I had to design and build the Brain Room, I knew it also housed a counterintelligence and black ops office. So accessing phone records was easy pie.”

    The Brain Room. I can totally see that at a Fox organization. It’ll also be great in the inevitable movie.

  49. 49.

    jl

    @47 and @51:

    From what I have read of Ailes, I am sure that besides being evil, he is completely bonkers. with a real talent at unhinged paranoia.

    So when the big ‘respectable’ US corporate media all circle the wagons and asks how could anyone believe the respected US News Corp could have been contaminated by the overseas branches, remember that Fox News is run by a guy who is both very evil and very crazy.

  50. 50.

    Amir_Khalid

    @cathyx:
    That just sounds so James Bond-villainish, an underground bunker running an ilicit tech operation. It just cries out for a commando raid led by Daniel Craig.

  52. 52.

    Veritas78

    Is it yet time for some misogynistic tabloid that isn’t owned by Murdoch to attack that harlot Rebekah Brook? That Medusa of Fleet Street, that succubus of deceit, who might well have aborted a rape-child that Rupert may have forced upon her? What else could explain their evil hold upon each other? “The daughter I never had (in spite of having four) upon whom I forced my withered member?” Really, we all know what was going on there.

    Oh, right — “All your tabloids are belong to us.” If we had an actual free press, the purple prose would be already launched. Strumpets away, m’lord.

  53. 53.

    BGinCHI

    WTF? This is the best the WaPo can muster?

    Britain has good bribery laws and is perfectly capable of following up allegations of payoffs to its police or others.

    But even WORSE is this:

    Similarly, suggestions that Britain should replace the newspaper industry’s self-regulatory body with official regulation are misguided and dangerous. Britain’s biggest media problem is not too much freedom but too little: Onerous libel laws deter critical reporting about public figures and arguably drive journalists to measures such as phone hacking to obtain lawsuit-proof stories. That’s obviously no excuse for the inexcusable. But once they are done flaying Mr. Murdoch, the country’s political leaders would do well to address that larger issue too.

    You’ve got to be shitting me. It was the law’s fault they broke the law. So the law needs to be fixed.

    Wow. Journalism really doesn’t have a bottom limit, does it?

  54. 54.

    Cermet

    This evil bastard is a child compared to bush the puppet and bloody hands cheney the puppet master whoses actions killed hundreds of thousands, tortured hundreds here and indirectly thousands else where; worse,for our legel system, these bastards did this to amerikians here in the us (torture) yet suffered no legel actions. Talk about law breakers getting away with murder!

  55. 55.

    jl

    I remember reading awhile ago that the courts ruled that a local election in the UK was invalid, and ordered another one, because the politician bald faced lied, and the lie was uncritically reported by the press. (If I got anything wrong, some one please correct me).

    One can see how any kind of accountability for that kind of thing would scare the piss out of the WaPo, and other press organizations in the US.

    The rules of free inquiry are so much simpler when free inquiry is interpreted to mean toadying to whoever has money and willing to pay big bucks to buy your cooperation. Not that all of the WaPo employees always operate by those rules, but…

  56. 56.

    scav

    BGinCHI:

    Wow. Journalism really doesn’t have a bottom limit, does it?

    Well, he did hold back on how this is all evidence we should lower taxes. That’ll be in his next effort. It would take Alvin to plumb some of these sucker’s moral depths.

  58. 58.

    Linda Featheringill

    @ML: #39

    [like Watergate]

    Once a cascade starts, it acts as if it were a living thing, with a mind of its own. Nobody owns it. Nobody controls it.

    And it might be impossible to predict how far it’ll go.

    But I do hope the FSM guides these investigations along with the gentle touch of her noodley appendages.

  61. 61.

    catclub

    Beltane @ 17 : “I’m getting a 1914 vibe from all this.”

    It is interesting to me that you would say this about a media scandal rather than about the cataclysmic changes that are taking place in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, and Syria.

    Those places are boring.

  62. 62.

    scav

    The prime minister is currently en route on a foreign trip. His location is being kept a secret for security reasons, according to the BBC

    I love this bit from the Guard liveblog. Visions of flying man-sized bunkers zipping off to undisclosed locations temporarily tempt me. Sigh. This’ll be for the long haul but I still don’t see them containing it entirely. Wouldn’t be surprised that in 50 years it is discovered to be far far worse.

  63. 63.

    Martin

    Journalism The quest for profits really doesn’t have a bottom limit, does it?

    There you go…

  64. 64.

    Corner Stone

    Speaking of:
    Gunmen kill adviser to Afghan president, lawmaker
    “The official, Gen. Zahir Wardak, says Jan Mohammed Khan, a former governor of southern Uruzgan province and an adviser to President Hamid Karzai, was killed along with Uruzgan lawmaker Mohammed Ashim Watanwal. They were killed when two men wearing suicide vests attacked Khan’s home in the western Kabul district of Karti Char.”

    We don’t seem to be doing so well there.

  65. 65.

    drkrick

    That part struck me too. WTF WaPo? The law made you break the law?

    Many years ago someone explained to me that one way to understand the difference between Canada and the US was that when Federal agents (FBI and the Mounties) were caught illegally wiretapping internal dissidents in the ’70’s, the US prosecuted the FBI guys and Canada changed the relevant law so the Mounties wouldn’t be put in such an uncomfortable position in the future. Fred Hiatt apparently prefers the Canadian approach today.

  66. 66.

    valdemar

    The speed with which things are moving over here in Limey-land is extraordinary. The dam really has broken, the huge and disgusting boil has been thoroughly lanced. When I’m woken tomorrow by my clock radio, I won’t be surprised if the nice man from the BBC announces the construction of an enormous Wicker Hack outside the Palace of Westminster.

  67. 67.

    beltane

    @catclub

    It is a political scandal, not a media scandal. And it is happening in London and Washington, the belly of the beast. Just because something interesting is happening here is no reflection on events elsewhere.

  68. 68.

    Jay in Oregon

    It would be easy, however, for the reaction to the scandal to go too far, driven by the long-standing antipathy among the media and political left for Mr. Murdoch and his rightward-leaning organs.

    See? It’s all the fault of the dirty fucking hippies!

  69. 69.

    jl

    @73 Jay in Oregon

    You can’t deny it was the fault of the wrong sort of press, that did not give up when corrupt officials lied to them that everything had been thoroughly looked into and everything was fine, except for one rotten or misguided apple way way down at the bottom of the barrel. You can’t deny that, can you?

    The right sort of press wouldn’t have acted in such a reckless way, would it?

  72. 72.

    Pococurante

    @72 Beltane
    It goes beyond even that.

    Scotland Yard is implicated. Contemplate on that. Imagine if the FBI and the CIA were similarly compromised and exposed.

  73. 73.

    Martin

    We don’t seem to be doing so well there.

    We’re not in charge of Afghan security, and we’ve been steadily backing out of security of cities like Kabul (not unlike how we did in Iraq). But I agree, they don’t seem to be doing so well there.

  74. 74.

    MikeJ

    @Pococurante:

    Imagine if the FBI and the CIA were similarly compromised and exposed.

    Not quite. MI5 and MI6 are the FBI and CIA counterparts. Scotland Yard is the Metropolitan police.

    Which isn’t to say it’s not a big deal.

  76. 76.

    scav

    MikeJ: Technically correct but emotionally I’m not so sure. London is so primate a city and the Yard is so iconic . . .

  77. 77.

    pete

    Whoa a moment, don’t buy too hard into the myth of Scotland Yard and our brave boys in blue with pointy hats. The London cops go through this sort of thing every couple of decades. It’s basically inevitable, given the centralization of power in the metropolis. Then someone comes in and cleans house, things get better for a bit. Rinse and repeat. ‘Twas ever thus. But this part of the cycle is always the most fun.

    Note: Ex-Mayor Ken is insisting that there are several more layers of cops who need to go. And I bet he knows.

  78. 78.

    Pococurante

    @79 MikeJ
    Thanks for the correction. Whatever points I get for emotional impact I lost on factuality. :-)

  79. 79.

    karen marie

    It never fails to amaze me that although top executives are paid boatloads of money because they are so brilliant, whenever crimes are discovered they claim total ignorance of what was going on within the company.

    Invariably they get away with arguing total ignorance. As a peon, that pisses me off.

  80. 80.

    scav

    well, for comparison’s sake (esp for emotional impact I think) the iconic part counts. I was having trouble thinking of a US based police force equivalent to the Met vis a vis the rest of the country and not coming up with one. Not sure, but I think we call in the Feds more or less when the UK calls in the Yard, but I may be wrong here.

    ETA: Course, we’ve (the USians) have been largely ignorant of the year to year cops being cops scandals on your side so we may have more lingering illusions.

  81. 81.

    Martin

    It never fails to amaze me that although top executives are paid boatloads of money because they are so brilliant, whenever crimes are discovered they claim total ignorance of what was going on within the company.

    Indeed. If our meritorious producers ever did go Galt, who could possibly take their place as throughly unaware leaders deserving of neverending piles of cash? Most of the looting plebes I know of actually seem to know what the fuck is going on. They’re clearly unqualified.

  82. 82.

    patrick II

    @Violet:
    It’s the room you check your brain into when you come to work at FOX. They also have an Ethics room. It’s in the basement.

  83. 83.

    kennyb

    @85

    ” Not sure, but I think we call in the Feds more or less when the UK calls in the Yard, but I may be wrong here.”

    It’d be highly unusual nowadays for another police force to bring the Met into an investigation in its own jurisdiction.

    It used to happen 50+ years ago when there were a lot of small rural police forces who would lack the resources/skills to handle major investigations but they’ve since been amalgamated into larger areas.

    Of course in crime fiction it was a lot more dramatic to have a character say “i’m inspector X of the yard” rather than “i’m inspector Y of the Southend-on-Sea Borough Police”
    which is where i think the belief that Scotland Yard is some of sort of FBI equivalent rather than just the police force that covers most of london came from

  84. 84.

    pete

    Ah, illusions: J Edgar’s stock in trade. Everyone everywhere is always shocked when cops are revealed to be human, and not always very wonderful humans either.

  85. 85.

    Nutella

    long-standing antipathy among the media and political left for Mr. Murdoch and his rightward-leaning organs.

    Murdoch just couldn’t help himself. His organs are rightward-leaning so he was born that way.

  86. 86.

    Bobby Thomson

    A grain of truth in that blind squirrel’s editorial.

    Imagine if Junior Bush had the ability to staff an agency devoted entirely to investigating and prosecuting media companies.

  87. 87.

    Cacti

    I rather doubt the Test-prep Times would be urging restraint or circumspection if it was the Genovese rather than the Murdoch Crime Family.

  88. 88.

    ThatLeftTurnInABQ

    @partick II #87:

    It’s the room you check your brain into when you come to work at FOX. They also have an Ethics room. It’s in the basement.

    I heard that there’s also a room next to the Brain Room where they keep the severed little digits of those who were forced to prove their continuing loyalty to the code of omerta in a physically dramatic and painful fashion. Insider wags call it “The Pinky Room”.

  89. 89.

    Jennifer

    As to why the dam burst cannot be contained, I won’t go too deeply into it since I’m working up a full piece for my own joint but in a nutshell, it’s this: in any large, far-flung organization or corporation where the everyday modus operandi is to observe no limits, obey no rules, take no prisoners, and so on and so forth, there are inevitably going to be over the years a fair number of malcontents as well as a larger number of people who are going to go along with most everything but will see things that for them “cross the line” and make them angry/disgusted/ashamed to be associated and etc. As time goes on, the ill-will towards the organization and its enemies’ list grows, so that when a chink appears in the armor, there are multitudes waiting in the wings to pile on.

    I suspect there will be fallout here in the US before it’s all done. Don’t know how serious it will be or if it will manage to take anything down, but you know there is stuff there just waiting to come out. You’ve got the fact that Fox was responsible for making Bush the initial “winner” in Florida in 2000. You’ve got Bill O’Reilly ranting to people about how he’s going to send the Fox black ops to their house to “arrest” them. You’ve got their complicity complete assistance in destroying ACORN and other similar actions. Basically, what you’ve got is an ill-behaved “corporate citizen” that has made no secrets about throwing its weight around with no regard for ethics, fairness – which suggests a similar disregard for the law, which is just the previous two legislated. In other words, if you don’t value ethics or fairness for their own sake, you’re not going to value them more because they’ve been legislated, and your propensity to disregard them is going to be greater.

    There have to be a lot of malcontents who have worked for Murdoch media outlets here in the US, too. The public behavior we’ve seen guarantees it. So it’s entirely possible we’ll have a dam burst here, too.

  90. 90.

    NYT

    Got to love Wapo invoking the British libel laws as justification for the hacking. Not even the Murdoch papers have tried that one. Reason being that even though they were hacking thousands of people the only stories they wrote were celebrity exposes and stories relating to murder victims. There hasnt been one single case which could conceivably involve the public interest

  91. 91.

    RossInDetroit

    Mr. Murdoch has already been obliged to shut News of the World and to drop News Corp.’s bid to obtain full control of British satellite broadcaster BSkyB.

    Is this going to be one of those “He’s suffered enough already” situations like Rush’s pill gobbling? A public figure is held up to some finger shaking and therefore doesn’t have to don the jumpsuit and live behind bars?

  92. 92.

    Nutella

    No surprise: WSJ has come out in support of News International, saying that any US investigations could “could turn payments made as part of traditional news-gathering into criminal acts.”

    Does that imply that bribing the police is traditional?

  93. 93.

    Jennifer

    @ Nutella – as if there’s ANY situation in which it is permissable for a public employee to use his position for personal gain beyond that provided by his salary and benefits.

    It’s what is traditionally known as a “bribe.”

    The WSJ: defining deviancy down.

  94. 94.

    RossInDetroit

    Political Dysfunction, thy name is GOS. They still do plenty of good advocacy, especially bringing attention to Dems in local races. But there’s no attempt to pull the reins on the more hysterical impulses on the Left. It gets ugly.

    ETA: Their polling and horserace analysis is usually pretty good as well.

  95. 95.

    Porlock Junior

    @Jennifer:

    The WSJ, which belongs to Rupert Murdoch: defining deviancy down.

    FIFY. It’s kinda fun reading the news pages of the WSJ, which still has some claim to being in the financial news biz and therefore observes some rules of disclosure; every time they mention News Corp., they dutifully mention that it owns Dow Jones, which owns WSJ. I imagine a special key on the reporters’ terminals, like the one that explains what short selling is whenever they mention it; on both, the surface is now worn smooth and blank, but they type those keys by muscle memory.

    BTW the WSJ editorial and op-ed pages were always a criminal cesspool. I recall the line about “the law made them break the law” from back in Iran-Contra times, 20 years before Murdoch bought the thing. Meanwhile, its news pages were good (and still tend to be better than most): the customers preferred to see the entetaining lies in the entertainment, aka opinion, pages, because money depended on the information in the news pages.

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