PressCoverage

from Frontline's latest great piece of investigative journalism:
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/ea..._id=1003545556

essentially he's saying: "Bush's lies are not biased reporters' opinion, they're demonstrable fact."

New York - Part one of the new PBS "Frontline" four-page series on the media debuted last night, mainly looking at the Plame affair. As usual, only snippets from dozens of interviews will make it on the air, but PBS.org is helpfully putting complete transcripts of many of the interviews up on its Web site (as we note in a separate article).

Here is a brief excerpt from the interview with Watergate sleuth Carl Bernstein. The interviewer is Lowell Bergman.

Q: Finally, I just want to get your reflections on the [famously contentious] relationship of Richard Nixon and the press.... How does that compare to George W. Bush and the press?

Bernstein: First, Nixon's relationship to the press was consistent with his relationship to many institutions and people. He saw himself as a victim. We now understand the psyche of Richard Nixon, that his was a self-destructive act and presidency.

I think what we're talking about with the Bush administration is a far different matter in which disinformation, misinformation and unwillingness to tell the truth - a willingness to lie both in the Oval Office, in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, in the office of the vice president, the vice president himself - is something that I have never witnessed before on this scale.

The lying in the Nixon White House had most often to do with covering up Watergate, with the Nixon administration's illegal activities. Here, in this presidency, there is an unwillingness to be truthful, both contextually and in terms of basic facts that ought to be of great concern to people of all ideologies....

This president has a record of dishonesty and obfuscation that is Nixonian in character in its willingness to manipulate the press, to manipulate the truth. We have gone to war on the basis of misinformation, disinformation and knowing lies from top to bottom.

That is an astonishing fact. That's what this story is about: the willingness of the president and the vice president and the people around them to try to undermine people who have effectively opposed them by telling the truth. It happened with [Sen.] John McCain in South Carolina. It happened with [Sen.] John Kerry. It's happened with [Sen.] Max Cleland in Georgia. It's happened with many other people. That's the real story, and that's the story that [the press] should have been writing....

It's very difficult, as a reporter, to get across that when you say, "This is a presidency of great dishonesty," that this is not a matter of opinion. This is demonstrable fact. If you go back and look at the president's statements, you look at the statements of the vice president, you look at the statements of Condoleezza Rice, you go through the record, you look at what [counterterrorism expert] Richard Clarke has written, you look at what we know - it's demonstrable.

It's fact. Now, how do you quantify it? That's a different question.

But to me, if there is a great failure by the so-called mainstream press in this presidency, it's the unwillingness to look at the lies and disinformation and misinformation and add them up and say clearly, "Here's what they said; here's what the known facts were," because when that is done, you then see this isn't a partisan matter. This is a matter of the truth, particularly about this war. This is a presidency that is not willing to tell the truth very often if it is contrary to its interests. It's not about ideology from whence I say this.

It's about being a reporter and saying: "That's what the story is. Let's see what they said; let's see what the facts are." ... [/COLOR]

Fogbuster

Oh, yeah, the "dishonesty" card.

So, you guys really want to revisit Bill Clinton's lying to Grand Juries, his defilement of his marriage and the Oval Office?

Whew.

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OT, but related:

Now, we got Jane Fonda doing "Peace" rallies again, just like in 1970 -- with John Kerry, again, no less.

All that remains is her trip to the al qaida secret headquarters and videos of her in mock shoot downs of U.S. planes.

Weehew.

DarrylS

There is a difference about lying about a hummer and lying about national security to the American People.. I know the righties get great comfort playing this card. YOu are comparing Grapefruit and raisins.

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PressCoverage

nevermind... he never has anything to say to refute the lies of an administration that has us on the brink of global catastrophe... he's still fixated on a blowj0b...

but then, perhaps if the PNAC made a better effort to ever get a blowj0b once in their lives we wouldn't be in this mess in the first place...

Fogbuster

Hey, the "righties" aren't the ones trying to make a big deal out of Libby, et. al.

If you want integrity it stands for all, every time. Period. *Your* value judgments on whether lying of extra-marital sex/b-jobs are as bad as "national security" don't change the facts: Clinton lied to a grand jury. Last time I checked the laws on lying do not have any exceptions for lying about "only" sex. Lying is lying, period.


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Fogbuster

Yeah, nobody is ever going to take you guys seriously until you start calling the same rules for everybody. The longer you selectively choose and pick *which* law-breaking is OK and which law-breaking is "not" OK, the longer your hysterics fall on deaf ears.

What goes around will come back. That's it.

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All_Around_Brown

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All_Around_Brown

stop crying. Millions of our tax dollars were spent on a witchhunt against Clinton. 99% of the charges you types levelled against him were simply dropped as they had ZERO merit. (whitewater, etc.) You had to settle for what you got in the end.

Its funny how you equate the two lies. One outed a CIA agent and very possibly damaged our national security in limiting our counterproliferation ability. The other was a lie that people like Newt Gingrich and Rudy Guliani tell all the time.

But okay, yeah...the two are almost identical.

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Fogbuster

Who's crying!!

As for the "outing" of Valerie Plame, I think it is safe to say that anybody who could do anything credible to harm U.S. interests knew a long-g-g time before any leaks in this decade who she was or what she did. She and her husband kept a pretty high profile around town. So, a big "ding" for any such non-"damages" done.

As for the other lie, gee, I didn't know Giulliani or Newt were hauled before federal grand juries!!! Didn't know they had been convicted of lying to said Grands!! Did they have to drop their drawers for "official physiology" exams, too!! No, didn't think so.


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All_Around_Brown

Oh Foggy, you amuse us.

Oh, so according to you Plame was a known, high profile CIA operative.

Reporter: "Who is that?"
CIA dude: "Oh thats Wilsons hot wife Valerie Plame, wink wink"
Reporter: "Whats she do?"
CIA: "She undercover working in counterproliferation of weapons of mass destruction...she looks for loose nukes"
Reporter:"Cool! Hey guys....check it out!"

Nuff said folks. Koolaids flowing...marshmallow fields, lunar brie, and cotton candy for everyone!!

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