Letters to the Editor
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@GoodCelery!
It takes two to quagmire and ruin a nation too...
This quote is destined for immortality.
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Time Magazine invents facts
I just sent the following letter to the editor at Time:
"This is "analysis"? On what basis are you printing this load of fact-free nonsense? Mr. Calabresi and his editors may not care about our civil liberties, and may have full faith in this President, but let me tell you, there are plenty of us out here who disagree. Every poll has suggested that Americans DO care, and care deeply about what has been done to our civil liberties. For one of the latest examples of Americans caring, how about Foster's winning Hastert's seat in a GOP stronghold, while saying things like: “The President and his allies in Congress are playing politics with national security, and that’s wrong. Nobody is above the law and telecom companies who engaged in illegal surveillance should be held accountable, not given retroactive immunity. I flatly oppose giving these companies an out for cooperating with Alberto Gonzalez on short-circuiting the FISA courts and the rule of law.” This article is so riddled with falsehoods that you should be printing an immediate apology and retraction."
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JSTRICK
I'm curious about is why the media didn't even seem to investigate if Bush had spied on them. A couple of years ago Andrea Mitchell asked what I thought was a very strange question to James Risen:
Mitchell: Do you have any information about reporters being swept up in this net?
Risen: No, I don't. It's not clear to me. That's one of the questions we'll have to look into the future. Were there abuses of this program or not? I don't know the answer to that
Mitchell: You don't have any information, for instance, that a very prominent journalist, Christiane Amanpour, might have been eavesdropped upon?
I can find no follow up to this and the media seemed to drop it. Even if they claim that average americans don't care about government spying, I would hope that they would take care that they aren't being spied on. Of course I know they are supremely ignorant and don't really care either way.
-- JSTRICK
Monday, March 17, 2008 09:55 AM
My guess is that they are extremely well aware of being spied upon, and their reporting precisely refects how very personally concerned they are.
Not to discount Glenn's superb theories of Village/Beltway conformity, but sometimes the reality-defying coverage does smell of blackmail payment.
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“Beat The Press” segment on new MSNBC show
Dan Abrams has reworked his show into a new one called Verdict. He has been willing as a TV news outsider to criticize the media and its slanted coverage. He promises on his nightly segment “Beat the Press,” to do just that. It might be worth checking out.
Too many programs on other networks, just invite two people on to "debate" some issue and leave viewers with little more than each side's talking points. I will try to use my legal background to assess right from wrong and ultimately announce the day's winners and losers.
A good example is our regular "On Their Trail" political segment where we compare the candidates' accusations and statements. Rather than simply have people discuss or debate the latest political spat with no resolution, we check the facts, assess the accusations and by the end of the segment we declare a loser – the candidate who, on that day, is "guiltier" of more misstatements, cheap shots, and blunders.
My stint as General Manager of MSNBC made me particularly sensitive to how the big stories are covered. So as a lawyer, and Washington outsider, I will continue to lead the charge against the media if a story is not being covered fairly.
We are excited about our regular segments which will include: "Why America Hates Washington," "Beat The Press," "Winners and Losers," and our email segment called "The PO'd Box" which will include many emails from people who strongly disagree with me.
As you can see below, even the look of the show is different from anything else in the TV news business today. We won't just cover the biggest national stories and debates of the day, we render a "verdict."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23636625/
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The socialization of debt
That was a good opening, L.W.M., worthy of Ruy Lopez. It makes me reflect on all the flim-flams the conservatives have come up with over the years in their zeal to discredit the the income redistribution mechanisms set up by the New Deal and its successors.
The first of these, the appropriately named Laffer Curve, was offered as a universal solution to the inconvenience of forcing the rich to share with the poor. It was magical, and shiny, and largely wrong.
Well, said liberals, some reduction in marginal rates might be useful in stimulating investment in certain circumstances, but.... No, no, said the Ronald Reagan Dancers, this will fix everything.
Next came financial innovation. If the poor could invest in the stock market, why ever would they need defined benefit pension plans, or single-payer health care, for that matter? At the rate the market is going up, said conservative pundits, they can do a lot better, and we can save ourselves a lot of money, make our industries more competitive, etc.
Well yes, said liberals, mutual funds and IRAs are clever, and could very well help people supplement their pensions, but 401K's -- apart from their portability -- don't look like such a good deal, and E*Trade? That doesn't look at all promising in the long run. No, no, said the Alan Greenspan Dancers, this will fix everything. (Enron, they said, was a mere glitch, a few bad apples, etc.)
Finally, conservatives offered us McMansions, HELOCS and Collateralized Debt Obligations. Wow! Your house is your piggy bank. Use your HELOC to buy more houses, poor people, and soon you'll be rich like us. And what's in it for us? Oh, not that you should care, but we'll be able to spread the risk in a cleverly obfuscatory game of global hide-the-sausage. Yippee!
Well, said liberals, it's nice that we can spread the benefit of home-ownership more broadly, but we should be careful about selling things to people that they can't really afford, particularly if we're talking about a lot of people, and particularly if the things we're selling them might be hard to liquidate in the event of a downturn. No, said the Alan Greenspan Dancers (again) this will fix everything.
Well, folks.... Now that you've all been well and truly fixed, how do feel about your wonderfully conservative future now? We liberals think that it might be time to revisit the Great Reagan Revolution, perhaps with a pitchfork, a torch, and a length of stout rope. What do you think?