Chuck Pierce reminds us that ABC’s Jonathan Karl isn’t exactly a neutral observer of the news when it comes to this whole Benghazi blow-up. Pierce looks into a FAIR background check on Karl:
Karl came to mainstream journalism via the Collegiate Network, an organization primarily devoted to promoting and supporting right-leaning newspapers on college campuses (Extra!, 9-10/91)-such as the Rutgers paper launched by the infamous James O’Keefe (Political Correction, 1/27/10). The network, founded in 1979, is one of several projects of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, which seeks to strengthen conservative ideology on college campuses. William F. Buckley was the ISI’s first president, and the current board chair is American Spectator publisher Alfred Regnery. Several leading right-wing pundits came out of Collegiate-affiliated papers, including Ann Coulter, Dinesh D’Souza, Michelle Malkin, Rich Lowry and Laura Ingraham (Washington Times, 11/28/04). The Collegiate Network also provides paid internships and fellowships to place its members at corporate media outlets or influential Beltway publications; 2010-11 placements include the Hill, Roll Call, Dallas Morning News and USA Today. The program’s highest-profile alum is Karl, who was a Collegiate fellow at the neoliberal New Republic magazine.
Well now. The question of “Why choose Jonathan Karl” to launch Operation Clown Car seems to have been pretty firmly answered, eh?
Assuming the FAIR report is accurate, then Jonathan Karl was not trained as a journalist, because the Collegiate Network doesn’t produce journalists. It produces partisan warriors. He was not trained as a reporter, because the Collegiate Network doesn’t produce reporters. It produces propagandists. He was not trained as a newsman, because the Collegiate Network doesn’t produce newsmen. It produces hacks.
Funny how that works.
Also, Joy Reid is following the other end of this trail: who leaked to Karl in the first place? Do check this piece out: Reid has a pretty good theory that the Gooper in question is Sen. Tom Coburn, or someone on his staff. It’s definitely very interesting.
srv
Link isn’t working and why are you linking to Chucky “Eric Holder Must Resign Now!” Pierce?
Might as well be linking to GG.
Elie
Exactly!
And when are we going to have that broader discussion around what the press itself should do to monitor its own abuses. Without that, we just end up affording protection to political operatives to spread lies and cause all kinds of damage. I fully acknowledge that there is a line here and that there is a danger in the over zealous pursuit of “leaks” — but there is an important dynamic here that should be “put out there” as they say…This guy was never recruited to be a journalist. He was recruited, as you stated, to be a right wing warrior — masquerading as a journalist — who then lies and makes shit up (or more accurately, was given lies and made up shit to promote). No one yet in this whole discussion of “Freedom of the Press” has noted any of this…. People like this can hurt a lot of people – and never have to name their sources
Bill E Pilgrim
“Chuck”?
nemesis
The real travesty is that such a cozy relationship between pundits and the far right goes essentially unnoticed. When noticed, the realtionship seems to be just shrugged off.
Elie
@nemesis:
I don’t think that its “unnoticed” by the administration. They know quite well about it and are therefore particularly assertive about checking it out. Every “fake” whistleblower needs some quality time in jail — ala Judith Miller. Scooter Libby got off light — he had some real blood on his hands.
This needs to be talked about way way more
Afferent Input
I’m not sure why everyone assumes that someone leaked the highly edited emails to Karl. Why is it not possible that Karl himself edited the emails himself to smear the WH? Karl has been a sneaky partisan hack for a looooooong time.
Just check out his love note to Paul “zombie-eyed granny starver” Ryan.
Comrade Jake
Kind of a murderer’s row of wingnuts, eh?
Elie
@Comrade Jake:
But these are not disguised as anonymous journalists. Everyone knows who they are and their points of view. The greatest damage comes from non identified “proto” journalists who are amplifiers or propagators of un-identified interests… we gotta talk about that more
Bill E Pilgrim
@Comrade Jake: The best line from Charlie Pierce in that one:
The imagery is perfect; bred to slither away when mature and start injecting venom.
Mike in NC
Why is that scumbag even still alive?
aimai
@Afferent Input: I agree with this. Once you see Karl’s background it is unnecessary to imagine that a “leak” in a conventional sense happened at all. Why does Coburn or any other authoritative source even have to make the call/leak the information? The Republican party wanted certain information out there regardless of the truth value so the person who told Karl to go ahead and publish an outright falsehood doesn’t have to be someone who saw the real memo or who even had some synopsis read to them by someone else.
rikyrah
Reid’s article is terrific.
that she’s the only one seeming to be working on this is a sad commentary on the state of the MSM.
Tone In DC
http://blog.reidreport.com/2013/05/benghazi-emails-whodunit/
That stuff is FLAGRANT. After skimming that, I shook my head and muttered, “Breitbart lives”. This kind of “reporting” makes the general public mistrust the press more than it does already.
piratedan
TY for the link to Reid’s piece. I dunno why so many folks buy into this “aw shucks” persona of Coburn, wasn’t he the bagman for the Ensign escapades last year? He may profess to be a Christian, if so, he’s one of those guys who is apparently out of the ranks of the monks from Eco’s “The Name of the Rose” when it comes to what his personal and moral boundries actually are. IIRC wasn’t he one of the guys leading the prayer vigil for former Sen. Byrd to die before he could cast his ACA vote? He’s a skunk.
Davis X. Machina
You have to consider the magnitude of the threat.
It’s a Democratic administration. If the government of the day were a real, legitimate government — that is, a Republican one — nothing along these lines would be necessary.
Asymmetrical warfare, and a cold civil war.
Extremism in the defense of extremism is no vice.
fuckwit
RETHUG PROJECTION! RETHUG PROJECTION! ALERT! ALERT!
This whole IRS “scandal” is Rethug projection! And Nooners gave the tell.
The Rethugs are, and actively have been, trying to destroy the Obama Administration with a constant barrage of abusive investigation harrassment, and scandal-sniffing. They’re trying to slow the administration to a crawl with investigation after investigation, on anything and everything. 2/3rds of the committees in the Rethug House are investigating Obama, not to actually find anything, but just to harass and intimidate.
And what are they howling about? Oh yes, they’re howling about the IRS auditing teabagger PACs that were illegally claiming a tax exemption but weren’t charities. Why? Because they claim such auditing was an intimidation and harrassment tactic.
Hmm..
Interesting that.
Did you see what they did there?
RETHUG PROJECTION. Again.
Freud would have a field day with those guys.
It’s a huge tell. Whenver they’re claiming victimhood, take 5 seconds to look at their behavior, and you’ll see where they’re guilty as sin, of SUCCEEDING at doing exactly what they’re accusing others of merely WANTING to do to them.
It’s so bizarre.
belieber
Jesus! Are they gonna fire him or not? Enough with the endless masturbation on whether it was right or wrong or how bad or what exactly happened blah blah yada yada.
They should also be hounding Coburns office asking if he was the source of the leak. There are probably some laws broken as well that people should be asking about.
Bokonon
How ironic it is that the GOP and the larger conservative movement has based its organizing principles zealotry of its old communist adversaries.
Karl is the equivalent of a party cadre, very literally taking orders and serving the interest of his ideology and movement. And he is operating like a Leninist mole, trying to undermine the system and destroy his adversaries in the mainstream media from within. By any means necessary.
Elie
@Bokonon:
for real — the Tea Party/Republican Poliburo– Pravda for dummies
Someguy
It’s good to hear that sick right wing bastard James Rosen from Fox was being targeted too. His treasonous ass would be shot in a just country. We’ll have to settle for “investigated, tried and convicted.” Inducing leaks in wartime and publishing them… shameful.
Boots Day
Andrew Sullivan’s defense of Karl is a classic of its kind. It boils down to, “I know him and like him, so he can’t have done anything wrong here.”
El Cid
LEAVE JONATHAN KARL ALONE!
He’s made it, he gets good pay and has all kinds of cool stuff and knows cool people. It’s TOTALLY wrong for you peasants to mess with that just because you don’t think you ought to be giving market value to the company he works for by reading or watching his work.
You OWE it to him to keep him successful. Who do you peons think you are, anyway?
mclaren
I still have no idea what the fuck this Benghazi “scandal” is supposed to be about. Benghazi is a city near the coast of Libya. There was a terrorist attack. U.S. forces responded poorly.
Well guess the fuck what, buckaroos? Everybody responds poorly to terrorists attacks. That’s why terrorists use them — because everyone responds badly, fucks up, does crazy things, does stupid things, yadda yadda yadda.
If we’re going to create a big scandal about administrations not doing enough to prevent terrorist attacks and then trying to cover up the evidence that they overlooked signs of the terrorist attack, howzabout starting with the Drunk Driving C Student and his torturer sidekick in 2001 who overlooked and then tried to cover up all the evidence that they ignored signs of the 9/11 terrorist attack?
Oh, I give up. It’s just more rightwing bullshit. There’s nothing there. Can we stop talking about this crap now?
lojasmo
@mclaren:
Could republicans have cut funding there? Would that be a scandal?
Droooonnnnez! Obama is worse than bush!
lojasmo
@mclaren:
Could republicans have cut funding there? Would that be a scandal?
Droooonnnnez! Obama is worse than bush!
lojasmo
@mclaren:
Could republicans have cut funding there? Would that be a scandal?
Droooonnnnez! Obama is worse than bush!