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For the sake of the U.S.A.Let it happen!
Let The Sun Shine In......
The Iranian Threat?
14 years ago
Friday, April 17, 2009
Maj. General Calls forIinvestigation
Major General Antonio Taguba called for an independent commission to investigate war crimes committed by senior members of the Bush Administration. Taguba was pressured to resign by the Bush Administration in 2007 following the 2004 leak of his report detailing abuses by U.S. armed forces in Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
For the sake of the U.S.A.Let it happen!
For the sake of the U.S.A.Let it happen!
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Right-Wingers Are Desperately Trying to Destroy Obama, and the Cowardly Corporate Media Are Helping
Yet, despite the evidence of that, the major American news media mocked Hillary Clinton when she complained about a "vast right-wing conspiracy."
After Clinton survived impeachment, the national press corps transferred its hostility toward Vice President Al Gore in Campaign 2000 , ridiculing him as a serial exaggerator and liar, even when that required twisting his words. [For details, see our book Neck Deep.]
Then, when George W. Bush wrested the White House away from Gore with the help of five Republican partisans on the U.S. Supreme Court, the drumbeat of hostility toward the American President suddenly disappeared, replaced by a new consensus about the need for unity. The 9/11 attacks deepened that sentiment, putting Bush almost beyond the reach of normal criticism.
Again, the right-wing media and the mainstream press moved almost in lockstep. The deferential tone toward Bush could be found not just on Fox News or right-wing talk radio, but in the Washington Post and (to a lesser degree) the New York Times -- and on CNN and MSNBC. [For details, see Consortiumnews.com’s "America’s Matrix."]
To some foreigners, the U.S. news media’s early coverage of the Iraq War had the feel of what might be expected in a totalitarian state.
"There have been times, living in America of late, when it seemed I was back in the Communist Moscow I left a dozen years ago," wrote Rupert Cornwell in the London-based Independent. "Switch to cable TV and reporters breathlessly relay the latest wisdom from the usual unnamed ‘senior administration officials,’ keeping us on the straight and narrow. Everyone, it seems, is on-side and on-message. Just like it used to be when the hammer and sickle flew over the Kremlin." [Independent, April 23, 2003]
Bush’s Slide
Bush skeptics were essentially not tolerated in most of the U.S. news media, and journalists who dared produce critical pieces could expect severe career consequences, such as the four CBS producers fired for a segment on how Bush skipped his National Guard duty, a true story that made the mistake of using some memos that had not been fully vetted.
Only after real events intervened -- especially the bloody insurgency in Iraq and the ghastly flooding of New Orleans -- did the mainstream U.S. press corps begin to tolerate a more skeptical view of Bush. However, the news personalities who had come to dominate the industry by then had cut their teeth in an era of bashing Democrats (Clinton/Gore) and fawning over Republicans (Reagan and the two Bushes).
With Barack Obama as President, these "news" personalities almost reflexively returned to the Clinton-Gore paradigm, feeling the freedom -- indeed the pressure -- to be tough on the White House.
Though MSNBC does offer a few shows hosted by liberals and there are a few other liberal voices here and there, the national media remains weighted heavily to the right and center-right.
For every Keith Olbermann or Rachel Maddow or Paul Krugman or Frank Rich, there are dozens of Larry Kudlows, Sean Hannitys, Bill O’Reillys, Joe Scarboroughs and Charles Krauthammers who take openly right-wing or neoconservative positions — or the likes of Lou Dobbs, John King and Wolf Blitzer, who reflect Republican-oriented or neocon views out of personal commitment or careerist caution.
While the right-wing media denounces Obama as a "socialist" and Republican activists are organizing "tea parties" to protest taxes, the mainstream media continues to follow the old dynamic of framing political issues in ways most favorable to Republicans and least sympathetic to Democrats.
On CNN’s "State of the Union" Sunday, in an interview with Gen. Ray Odierno, host John King pushed a favorite media myth about President Bush’s successful "surge" in Iraq. King never mentioned that many factors in the declining Iraqi violence predated or were unrelated to Bush’s dispatch of additional troops, nor did King note the contradiction about Bush’s supposed "success" and Odierno’s warning that he may have to urge more delays in withdrawing U.S. troops.
Let The Sun Shine In......
So Say The People!
Cheney is full of it!!!
So, what else is new?
72 percent of Americans disagree with Cheney’s claim that Obama has made the U.S. less safe.
Last month, former Vice President Dick Cheney complained that President Obama’s policies “raise the risk…of another attack” in the U.S.Since then, numerous government officials — including Gen. David Petraeus and Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE) — have spoken out against Cheney’s remarks.
Now, a new CNN poll shows that the American public also view Cheney’s claim with disregard.
According to the poll, 72 percent “disagree with Cheney’s view that some of Obama’s actions have put the country at greater risk with 26 percent agreeing with the former vice president.”
Let The Sun Shine In......
Krugman on the Chambliss Hypocrisy
Here is' something for my fellow Georgians.
more about "Krugman on the Chambliss Hypocrisy", posted with vodpod
Obama a 'fascist'?
Why can't anyone think to ask even one of these nut jobs to define Fascism or Socialism or Communism for that matter? How about Capitalism? Can anyone define Capitalism
The man who founded the Fascist party in Italy was none other than, Benito Mussolini. He said that the word for fascism would easily be replaced with corporatism; when government and the corporations, who own the elected officials, are one force in the nation and in the world, representing the U.S.A..
Proud of all our corporate types and what they have been up to for the past 50 years or so? Is anyone proud to vote for one more politician who is owned by some corporate interest that is clearly not in-line with the well-being of the people?
more about "Obama a 'fascist'?", posted with vodpod
Obama publishes 'torture' memos
| ABOUT TIME!!! | |||
The US has published four secret memos detailing legal justification for the Bush-era CIA interrogation programme. Critics of the programme say the methods used amounted to torture. President Obama has also issued a statement guaranteeing that no CIA employees will be prosecuted for their role in the interrogation programme. Some in the CIA wanted parts of the memos to be blacked out, fearing full disclosure could trigger lawsuits against agents, reports suggest. The release of the memos stems from a request by civil rights group the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Harsh techniques Three of the documents were written in May 2005 by the then acting head of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), Stephen G. Bradbury. They gave legal support for the combined use of various coercive techniques, and concluded that the CIA's methods were not "cruel, inhuman or degrading" under international law.
The fourth document, dating from 1 August 2002, was written by OLC lawyer John Yoo and signed by his colleague Jay Bybee. It contained legal authorisation for a list of specific harsh interrogation techniques. Critics of the Bush administration's interrogation programme say the memos provide evidence that many of the methods authorised amount to torture under US and international law. There was a rift within the Obama administration about whether the documents should be made available to the public in full or should be partially redacted. Attorney General Eric Holder and White House Counsel Greg Craig were vocal supporters of full publication of the memos, according to reports. But CIA chief Leon Panetta and Deputy Director John Brennan called for portions of the memos to be blacked out, or redacted, the New York Times reported. They were concerned that full disclosure would set a precedent for future exposure of intelligence sources and methods, and would threaten America's relationship with allied intelligence services. But civil liberties campaigners said anything short of full publication would undermine President Obama's attempts to paint himself as more transparent than his predecessor. Announcing the publication of the memos, Mr Obama said: "I believe that exceptional circumstances surround these memos and require their release." "Withholding these memos would only serve to deny facts that have been in the public domain for some time," he explained. But he also gave an assurance that "those who carried out their duties relying in good faith upon legal advice from the Department of Justice... will not be subject to prosecution." During his first week in office, President Obama issued an executive order officially outlawing the use of harsh interrogation techniques by the CIA, and forcing the agency to adhere to standards laid out in the US Army Field Manual. | |||
Let The Sun Shine In......
Anatomy of Bush's Torture 'Paradigm'
The prose of the recently leaked report of the International Committee of the Red Cross on torture seems colorless. It is at the same time obscene — almost pornographic.
The 41-page ICRC report depicts scenes of prisoners forced to remain naked for long periods, sometimes in the presence of women, often with their hands shackled over their heads in "stress positions" as they are left to soil themselves.
The report's images of sadism also include prisoners slammed against walls, locked in tiny boxes, and strapped to a bench and subjected to the drowning sensation of waterboarding.
How could it be that we Americans tolerate the kind of leaders who would subject others to systematic torture — yes, that’s what the official report of the international body charged with monitoring the Geneva agreements on the treatment of prisoners concludes — torture.
Could it be because some of us are brainwashed by the wingnuttia crowd?
Over the past week I have been asked to explain how this could have happened; who authorized the torture in our name? The Red Cross report lacks the earmarks of rogues or “rotten apples” at the bottom of some barrel.
This is what I have been telling those who ask:
Rather than Harry Truman’s famous motto on his Oval Office desk, “The Buck Stops Here,” this was a case of “The Buck Starts Here.” President George W. Bush set the tone and created the framework, with strong support from Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
The first hints of what was in store came from the President himself in the White House bunker late on Sept. 11, 2001, at a meeting with his closest national security advisers after his TV address to the nation about the terrorist attacks that morning.
The vengeful bunker mentality prevailing at that meeting comes through clearly in the report of one of the participants, Richard Clarke in his book, Against All Enemies. Describing the President as confident, determined, forceful, Clarke provides the following account of what President Bush said:
“We are at war.… Nothing else matters. … Any barriers in your way, they’re gone.”
When, later in the discussion, Secretary Rumsfeld noted that international law allowed the use of force only to prevent future attacks and not for retribution, Bush nearly bit his head off.
“No,” the President yelled in the narrow conference room, “I don’t care what the international lawyers say, we are going to kick some ass.”
‘Taking the Gloves Off’
In the weeks that followed, the air in Washington hung heavy with demons of retribution. Afghanistan was invaded in October 2001, and during a prisoner uprising on Nov. 25, a CIA officer was killed there.
A young American citizen, John Walker Lindh, was discovered among the prisoners in the area. There was not the slightest evidence that Lindh had anything to do with the killing.
But documents show that U.S. Joint Special Operations troops were told that the office of the Defense Secretary’s counsel (William J. Haynes II, was Pentagon general counsel at the time) had authorized an Army intelligence officer “to take the gloves off and ask whatever he wanted” of Lindh.
Despite urgent intervention by Justice Department ethics attorney Jesselyn Radack, Lindh was not properly read his rights. Instead, the FBI agent on the scene ad-libbed in an offhand way, “You have the right to an attorney. But there are no attorneys here in Afghanistan.”
Lindh had been seriously wounded in the leg. Despite that, U.S. troops put a hood over him, stripped him naked, duct-taped him to a stretcher for days in an unheated and unlit shipping container, and threatened him with death.
Parts of his humiliating ordeal were captured on film (a practice that became tragically familiar with the photos of Abu Ghraib).
In her book, Canary in the Coalmine: Blowing the Whistle in the Case of John Walker Lindh, attorney Radack comments that official documents pertaining to this case provide “the earliest known evidence that the Bush Administration was willing to push the envelope on how far it could go to extract information from suspected terrorists.”
(Because she protested, Radack was fired as Justice Department legal ethics advisor, put under criminal investigation, and even added to the “no-fly” list.)
End-Run Around Geneva
But the Bush administration was just getting started.
On Jan. 18, 2002, White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales advised the President that the Justice Department had issued a formal legal opinion concluding that the Geneva Convention III on the Treatment of Prisoners of War (GPW) does not apply with respect to al Qaeda.
Gonzales added that he understood that Bush had “decided that GPW does not apply and, accordingly, that al Qaeda and Taliban detainees are not prisoners of war under the GPW.”
On Jan. 19, 2002, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld told combat commanders that the President had “determined that al-Qaeda and Taliban individuals under the control of the Department of Defense are not entitled to prisoner of war status for purposes of the Geneva Conventions of 1949.”
Secretary of State Colin Powell asked the President to reconsider his decision and to conclude, instead, that the GPW does apply to both al Qaeda and the Taliban. But Powell’s protest was couched in bureaucratic politeness, rather than in anger and outrage. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Cowardice in the Time of Torture.”]
The next step took the form of the fateful memorandum of Jan. 25, 2002, signed by Alberto Gonzales but drafted by counsel to the Vice President David Addington. That memo outlined for the President “the ramifications of your decision and the Secretary’s [Powell’s] request for reconsideration.”
It described a “new paradigm” that, the writers claimed “renders obsolete Geneva’s strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners, and renders quaint some of its provisions.”
Gonzales and Addington urged the President to disregard Powell’s misgivings and move ahead. But they cloaked their argument in lawyerly language that obscured what was to come.
The lawyers argued that it was “appropriate” and “consistent with military necessity” to waive Geneva regarding the treatment of al Qaeda and Taliban detainees, but they inserted assurances that the prisoners would be treated “humanely” and “in a manner consistent with the principles of GPW.”
Powell Rebuffed
Brushing aside Powell’s objections, President Bush adopted the Gonzales/Addington language and signed a
memorandum to that effect on Feb. 7, 2002. The memo went to Vice President Cheney, Secretary of State Powell, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, Attorney General John Ashcroft, Chief of Staff to the President Andrew Card, Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet, Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs Condoleezza Rice, and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Richard Myers.
The memo amounted to an executive order, although it was not labeled as such. In it, the President alludes fulsomely to Justice Department opinions and recommendations, as well as “facts” supplied by the Defense Department.
Bush then takes clear responsibility for the decision to spurn Geneva: “I determine that common Article 3 of Geneva does not apply to either al Qaeda or Taliban detainees. … I determine that Taliban detainees … do not qualify as prisoners of war under Article 4 of Geneva … and that al Qaeda detainees also do not qualify as prisoners of war.”
The Feb. 7, 2002, memo bears the Orwellian title “Humane Treatment of al Qaeda and Taliban Detainees.” In it, Bush lifts verbatim the language from the Gonzales/Addington memo of Jan. 25, 2002, and makes it his own.
Bush claimed, for example, “the war against terrorism ushers in a new paradigm [that] requires new thinking in the law of war.”
Bush then tries to square a circle, directing (twice in the two-page memo) that “detainees be treated humanely and, to the extent appropriate and consistent with military necessity, in a manner consistent with the principles of GPW.”
Smell Smoke?
The smoking-gun memorandum of Feb. 7, 2002, was released to the media, together with other documents, by Gonzales on June 22, 2004, but it did not receive the attention it deserved until recently.
On Dec. 11, 2008, Sen. Carl Levin, D-Michigan, and Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, ranking members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, released, without dissent, the summary of their committee’s report on the abuse of detainees.
The report’s first subhead was: Presidential Order Opens Door to Considering Aggressive Techniques, and the first words of the first sentence of the first paragraph were, “On Feb. 7, 2002, President Bush signed a memorandum stating…”
Referring to the “President’s order,” the first paragraph adds that “the decision to replace well-established military doctrine, i.e., legal compliance with the Geneva Conventions, with a policy subject to interpretation, impacted the treatment of detainees.”
“Conclusion Number One” of the Senate Armed Services Committee report states: “Following the President’s determination [of Feb. 7, 2002], techniques such as waterboarding, nudity, and stress positions … were authorized for use in interrogations of detainees in U.S. custody.”
Once Bush had opened the door with his Feb. 7, 2002, memo, other actions followed to implement the President’s “new paradigm.”
White House lawyers worked with Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo of the Office of Legal Counsel to develop constitutional theories about expansive presidential powers that effectively let Bush operate beyond the law.
The OLC traditionally is the office that tells presidents the limits of their constitutional authorities. However, in this case, Yoo collaborated with Gonzales, Addington and other White House lawyers in hammering out arguments that the administration could use to implement harsh interrogations of al Qaeda suspects.
On Aug. 1, 2002, Yoo and his OLC superior, Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee, issued an opinion that so narrowly defined “torture” that it cleared the way for a variety of “enhanced interrogation techniques,” including waterboarding, which creates a near-drowning experience.
Top-Down Torture
As the legal framework for Bush’s torture policies took shape, senior officers and lower-level participants in the interrogations understood that the basis for the newly permitted harsh tactics stemmed from a presidential decision.
In a report on Abu Ghraib prisoner abuses, former Defense Secretary James Schlesinger indicated that Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the top commander in Iraq, instituted a “dozen interrogation methods beyond” the Army’s standard practice under the Geneva Convention.
Sanchez said he based his decision on “the President's memorandum,” which he said allowed for "additional, tougher measures" against detainees, according to the Schlesinger report.
An FBI e-mail of May 22, 2004, from a senior FBI agent in Iraq stated that President Bush had signed an
Executive Order approving the use of military dogs, sleep deprivation and other tactics to intimidate Iraqi detainees.
The FBI official sought guidance in confronting an unwelcome dilemma. He asked if FBI personnel in Iraq were required to report the U.S. military’s harsh interrogation of detainees when such treatment violated Bureau standards but fit within the guidelines of a presidential Executive Order.
In sum, abundant evidence indicates that the torture techniques applied in the jail cells and interrogation chambers — the “alternative set of procedures” about which Bush boasted publicly on Sept. 6, 2006 — resulted directly from Bush’s Feb. 7, 2002, memo and implementing actions by his administration.
Interrogators also were egged on by comments from Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld regarding the “tough” treatments they favored.
One fig leaf left covering the otherwise exposed role of Bush and his top aides remains the clever inclusion of the word “humane” in the memo that made possible what the International Committee of the Red Cross condemned as “inhuman” treatment of terror suspects in U.S. custody.
There’s also the-Justice-Department-told-me-it-was-legal excuse, though the evidence is now clear that the Bush administration essentially stage-managed the Yoo-Bybee opinions.
For instance, when the Yoo-Bybee opinions were withdrawn by Bybee’s OLC successor, Assistant Attorney General Jack Goldsmith, Addington and other administration officials successfully pressured Goldsmith to resign and then welcomed a new OLC chief, Steven Bradbury, who reinstated the key opinions in May 2005.
And – as the evidence built of illegal torture in 2006 – the Bush administration pushed the “Military Commissions Act” through the Republican-controlled Congress with phrasing that granted a degree of retroactive immunity.
The law states that “no person may invoke the Geneva Conventions or any protocols thereto in any habeas corpus or other civil action or proceeding to which the United States, or a current or former officer, employee, member of the Armed Forces, or other agent of the United States is a party as a source of rights in any court of the United States or its States or territories.”
That provision was interpreted as a broad amnesty for U.S. officials, including President Bush and other senior executives who may have authorized torture, murder or other violations of human rights.
The law also granted Bush the authority “to interpret the meaning and the application of the Geneva Conventions.” [For details, see Consortiumnews.com’s “Shame on Us All.”]
However, there remain legal questions about whether the law’s language would prevent prosecutions under pre-existing anti-torture laws.
The sudden appearance of the damning report by the International Committee of the Red Cross, initially given to the CIA’s acting general counsel on Feb. 14, 2007, greatly complicates any rotten-apples-at-the-bottom-of-the-barrel-type disingenuousness.
In a departure from the usual diplomatic parlance, the ICRC minces not a word in referring to those who authorized torture. In the report itself, the Red Cross calls on current U.S. authorities “to punish the perpetrators, where appropriate, to prevent such abuses from happening again.”
What do you suppose is holding Attorney General Eric Holder back from appointing an independent prosecutor to investigate, with a view toward rubbing out, once and for all, this shameful stain on our collective conscience?
Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, the publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington. An Army officer and CIA analyst for almost 30 years, he now serves on the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity.
Let The Sun Shine In......
It’s not just Paul Krugman anymore.
A growing chorus on the legal left is cooling toward President Barack Obama as a result of recent actions by the Justice Department vigorously defending the Bush administration in what it termed the war on terror.
“Obama Position on Illegal Spying: Worse Than Bush,” a large graphic declared over the weekend on the home page of a respected group advocating freedom on the Internet, Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Obama has been pilloried by a liberal TV icon who was one of President George W. Bush’s most vociferous critics, MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann.
“During his run for the presidency, Barack Obama, who taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago, argued strongly against the Bush administration’s use of executive authority, including its self-justification, its rationalization of the warrantless wiretapping of American citizens,” Olbermann said on his show last week. “That was then. This is now. ... Welcome to change you cannot believe in — or sue over.”
Obama is also under withering attack from an attorney who was one of the most widely read critics of Bush’s legal strategy in the war on terror, Glenn Greenwald. He recently blasted Obama administration moves as “extremist” and “bizarre.”
“Reading this brief from the Obama DOJ is so striking — and more than a little depressing — given how indistinguishable it is from everything that poured out of the Bush DOJ regarding secrecy powers in order to evade all legal accountability,” he wrote on Salon last week, before calling his fellow civil libertarians to rise up. “It is simply inexcusable for those who spent the last several years screaming when the Bush administration did exactly this to remain silent now or, worse, to search for excuses to justify this behavior,” he said.
The new wave of criticism was triggered by two actions in recent weeks by the Justice Department.
First, earlier this month, the department presented an expansive series of arguments urging a federal court in San Francisco to throw out a lawsuit over warrantless surveillance first filed against Bush. The department’s brief not only asserted the state secrets privilege, which has long infuriated civil libertarians, but also made a sweeping assertion that Americans have no rights to challenge surveillance that violates the law unless the information is improperly released.
See Also
Then, on Friday, the department issued similarly broad arguments against a court ruling giving legal rights to some detainees held by the U.S. military at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. The government motion said the decision could aid “enemies of the United States” by allowing them to use “the U.S. court system as a tactical weapon.” The filing led to a New York Times editorial Monday sharply criticizing Obama for positioning Bagram as “the next Guantanamo.”
Obama administration officials insist that critics are jumping the gun. A Justice Department official said some of the recent arguments are essentially intended to buy time for a review Obama has ordered of procedures and policies regarding detainees.
The official, who asked not to be identified, said Obama deserves credit for announcing the closure of Guantanamo and banning the use of torture. The aide also pointed to Attorney General Eric Holder’s statement to CBS News last week that he soon expects to reverse the Bush administration assertion of the state secrets privilege in at least one case.
Let The Sun Shine In......
US News Media Fails America, Again
Watching Glenn Beck of Fox News rant about “progressive fascism” – and muse about armed insurrection – or listening to mainstream pundits prattle on about Barack Obama as the “most polarizing President ever,” it is hard to escape the conclusion that today’s U.S. news media represents a danger to the Republic.
By and large, the Washington press corps continues to function within a paradigm set in the 1980s, mostly bending to the American Right, especially to its perceived power to destroy mainstream journalistic careers and to grease the way toward lucrative jobs for those who play ball.
The parameters set by this intimidated (or bought-off) news media, in turn, influence how far Washington politicians feel they can go on issues, like health-care reform or environmental initiatives, or how risky they believe it might be to pull back from George W. Bush’s “war on terror” policies.
Democratic hesitancy on these matters then enflames the Left, which expresses its outrage through its own small media, reprising the old theme that there’s “not a dime’s worth of difference” between Democrats and Republicans – a reaction that further weakens chances for any meaningful reform.
This vicious cycle has repeated itself again and again since the Reagan era, when the Right built up its intimidating media apparatus – a vertically integrated machine which now reaches from newspapers, magazines and books to radio, TV and the Internet. The Right accompanied its media apparatus with attack groups to go after troublesome mainstream journalists.
Meanwhile, the American Left never took media seriously, putting what money it had mostly into “organizing” or into direct humanitarian giving. Underscoring the Left’s fecklessness about media, progressives have concentrated their relatively few media outlets in San Francisco, 3,000 miles away – and three hours behind – the news centers of Washington and New York.
By contrast, the Right grasped the importance of “information warfare” in a modern media age and targeted its heaviest firepower on the frontlines of that war – mostly the political battlefields of Washington – thus magnifying the influence of right-wing ideas on policymakers.
One consequence of this media imbalance is that Republicans feel they can pretty much say whatever they want – no matter how provocative or even crazy – while Democrats must be far more circumspect, knowing that any comment might be twisted into an effective attack point against them.
So, while criticism of Republicans presidents – from Ronald Reagan to the two Bushes – had to be tempered for fear of counterattacks, almost anything could be said against a Democratic president, Bill Clinton or now Barack Obama, who is repeatedly labeled a “socialist” and, according to Beck, a “fascist” for pressuring hapless GM chief executive Rick Wagoner to resign.
The Clinton Wars
The smearing of President Clinton started during his first days in office as the right-wing news media and the mainstream press pursued, essentially in tandem, “scandals” such as his Whitewater real-estate deal, the Travel Office firings and salacious accusations from Arkansas state troopers.
Through talk radio and mailed-out videos, the Right also disseminated accusations that Clinton was responsible for “murders” in Arkansas and Washington. These hateful suspicions about Clinton spread across the country, carried by the voices of Rush Limbaugh and G. Gordon Liddy as well as via videos hawked by Religious Right leader Jerry Falwell.
While not accepting the “murder” tales, mainstream publications, like the Washington Post and the New York Times, often took the lead in pushing or exaggerating Clinton financial “scandals.” Facing these attacks, Clinton sought some safety by tacking to the Right, which prompted many on the American Left to turn on him.
The stage was set for the Republican “revolution” of 1994, which put the GOP in charge of Congress. Only in the latter days of the Clinton administration, as the Republicans pushed for his ouster through impeachment, did a handful of small media outlets, including Consortiumnews.com and Salon.com, recast the war on Clinton as a new-age coup d’etat.
(If it is a coup d'etat, it began in November of 1963.)
Yet, despite the evidence of that, the major American news media mocked Hillary Clinton when she complained about a “vast right-wing conspiracy.”
After Clinton survived impeachment, the national press corps transferred its hostility toward Vice President Al Gore in Campaign 2000 , ridiculing him as a serial exaggerator and liar, even when that required twisting his words. [For details, see our book Neck Deep.]
Then, when George W. Bush wrested the White House away from Gore with the help of five Republican partisans on the U.S. Supreme Court, the drumbeat of hostility toward the American President suddenly disappeared, replaced by a new consensus about the need for unity. The 9/11 attacks deepened that sentiment, putting Bush almost beyond the reach of normal criticism.
Again, the right-wing media and the mainstream press moved almost in lockstep. The deferential tone toward Bush could be found not just on Fox News or right-wing talk radio, but in the Washington Post and (to a lesser degree) the New York Times – and on CNN and MSNBC. [For details, see Consortiumnews.com’s “America’s Matrix.”]
To some foreigners, the U.S. news media’s early coverage of the Iraq War had the feel of what might be expected in a totalitarian state.
“There have been times, living in America of late, when it seemed I was back in the Communist Moscow I left a dozen years ago,” wrote Rupert Cornwell in the London-based Independent. “Switch to cable TV and reporters breathlessly relay the latest wisdom from the usual unnamed ‘senior administration officials,’ keeping us on the straight and narrow. Everyone, it seems, is on-side and on-message. Just like it used to be when the hammer and sickle flew over the Kremlin.” [Independent, April 23, 2003]
Bush’s Slide
Bush skeptics were essentially not tolerated in most of the U.S. news media, and journalists who dared produce critical pieces could expect severe career consequences, such as the four CBS producers fired for a segment on how Bush skipped his National Guard duty, a true story that made the mistake of using some memos that had not been fully vetted.
Only after real events intervened – especially the bloody insurgency in Iraq and the ghastly flooding of New Orleans – did the mainstream U.S. press corps begin to tolerate a more skeptical view of Bush. However, the news personalities who had come to dominate the industry by then had cut their teeth in an era of bashing Democrats (Clinton/Gore) and fawning over Republicans (Reagan and the two Bushes).
With Barack Obama as President, these “news” personalities almost reflexively returned to the Clinton-Gore paradigm, feeling the freedom – indeed the pressure – to be tough on the White House.
Though MSNBC does offer a few shows hosted by liberals and there are a few other liberal voices here and there, the national media remains weighted heavily to the right and center-right.
For every Keith Olbermann or Rachel Maddow or Paul Krugman or Frank Rich, there are dozens of Larry Kudlows, Sean Hannitys, Bill O’Reillys, Joe Scarboroughs and Charles Krauthammers who take openly right-wing or neoconservative positions — or the likes of Lou Dobbs, John King and Wolf Blitzer, who reflect Republican-oriented or neocon views out of personal commitment or careerist caution.
While the right-wing media denounces Obama as a “socialist” and Republican activists are organizing “tea parties” to protest taxes, the mainstream media continues to follow the old dynamic of framing political issues in ways most favorable to Republicans and least sympathetic to Democrats.
On CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday, in an interview with Gen. Ray Odierno, host John King pushed a favorite media myth about President Bush’s successful “surge” in Iraq. King never mentioned that many factors in the declining Iraqi violence predated or were unrelated to Bush’s dispatch of additional troops, nor did King note the contradiction about Bush’s supposed “success” and Odierno’s warning that he may have to urge more delays in withdrawing U.S. troops.
‘Polarizing’ Obama
The commentariat class also has continued to frame the Republican hatred of Obama as Obama’s fault, describing his “failure” to achieve a more bipartisan Washington or – in its latest formulation – calling Obama “the most polarizing President ever.”
It might seem counterintuitive to call a President with approval ratings in the 60 percentiles “polarizing” – when that term was not applied to George W. Bush with his numbers half that of Obama’s. But this notion has arisen because Republicans have turned harshly against Obama, while Democrats and Independents have remained supportive.
This gap of about 60 points between Democratic approval and Republican disapproval is called the largest in the modern era. (Bush presumably was less “polarizing” because his Republican numbers slumped along with his approval from Democrats and Independents.)
What is rarely acknowledged is that the Republican Party has both shrunk in size and retreated toward its hard-line “base,” meaning that the “polarization gap” could simply reflect the fact that a smaller, more extreme Republican Party hates Obama, while other presidents faced a larger, more moderate opposition party.
Rather, according to the Washington pundit class, this gap is Obama’s fault, much as he was blamed for “failing” to attract Republican votes for his stimulus bill and his budget. Rarely do the pundits lay the blame on the Republicans who have taken a position of near unanimous opposition to Obama, much as they did toward Clinton 16 years ago.
Instead of seeing a pattern – that Republicans may hope to torpedo Obama’s presidency and reclaim congressional control , as they did in 1993-94 – the Washington press corps describes the Republicans as holding firm to their small-government principles and the Democrats as refusing to give due consideration to GOP alternatives.
Already a new conventional wisdom is taking shape, that “polarizing” Obama would be wrong to use the “reconciliation” process to enact health-care and environmental programs by majority vote, that he should instead water them down and seek enough Republican votes to overcome GOP filibusters in the Senate, which require 60 votes to stop.
To get enough Republican votes on health care would almost surely mean eliminating a public alternative that would compete with private insurers, and on the environment, cap-and-trade plans for curbing carbon emissions would have to be shelved.
But that is the course that the pundit class generally favors, while demanding that Obama and the Democrats, not the Republicans, take the necessary steps toward cooperation.
“It will continue to behoove Obama to woo Republican help – no matter how tough the odds,” wrote Washington Post columnist David Broder on Sunday. “Presidents who hope to achieve great things cannot for long rely on using their congressional majorities to muscle things through.”
But if Obama takes the advice of Broder and other pundits and dilutes his proposals to make them acceptable to Republicans, the President will surely draw the wrath of the Democratic “base,” which will accuse him of selling out. The vicious cycle will have rotated once again.
Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Neck Deep: The Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush, was written with two of his sons, Sam and Nat, and can be ordered at neckdeepbook.com. His two previous books, Secrecy & Privilege: The Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq and Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & 'Project Truth' are also available there. Or go to Amazon.com.
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Glenn Beck Praises Texas Secessionists As Patriots:
They Just Think Texas Does America Best
If they want to, please allow them to secede!
Standing in front of the Alamo, Beck said, “This is the place – everybody's always heard, you know, 'Draw a line in the sand' – this is where it happened. They drew a line in the sand and said 'Enough is enough.'”
Beck later told Van Susteren, “Texans understand a republic better than anybody else in the country.” Wild cheers erupted behind him.
At that point, Van Susteren brought up Governor Rick Perry's statement earlier in the day, after speaking at that same protest, in which he suggested to reporters that Texas might have to secede. “Governor Perry has some pretty harsh words for the federal government right now,” she said. Another wild cheer broke out at those words.
Beck responded by saying he had talked to the governor and while he didn't know how popular Perry is (another big cheer), “His words rang true to an awful lot of people, not just in Texas, but I think a lot of people all around the country.” Speaking figuratively to the federal government, Beck said, “You need to back off!”
That brought on another burst of loud approval.
“I don't want to be too dramatic,” Van Susteren said, “but it almost seems like Texas is looking to secede from the rest of the nation.” Now there were cheers, applause and banner-waving.”
Beck didn't disagree. He asked the cameras to get a shot of a large banner of the Texas flag with the words,
“Texas Independence” on it. That prompted what were probably the loudest, longest cheers yet.
Bragging about how well he understands Texas (because he lived there for four years), Beck said, “These people love America (more cheers). They just think Texas does America best.”
The crowd erupted into a “USA!” chant.
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This and That....NEWS
More than a half the country’s voting-age population used the Internet to get political news or get involved in the political process in 2008, according to a new survey conducted by the Pew Internet & American Life Project. “Nearly one in five (18%) internet users posted their thoughts, comments or questions about the campaign on an online forum such as a blog or social networking site.”
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano responded to criticism of a leaked DHS report on right-wing extremism, saying that “we are on the lookout for criminal and terrorist activity but we do not — nor will we ever — monitor ideology or political beliefs.” In TV interviews today, she said “these are routine reports” that were “begun months ago, in fact, in preparation before this new administration took office.”
The Obama administration has abolished an office “responsible for coordinating Defense Department information campaigns overseas.” Military and civilian critics said DOD’s office for support to public diplomacy “overstepped its mandate during the final years of the Bush administration by trying to organize information operations that violated Pentagon guidelines for accuracy and transparency.”
President Obama and his wife, Michelle, earned $2.73 million last year and paid $855,323 in federal taxes, “an amount that would be higher by about $102,000 if his budget plan were in effect.”
Foreclosure filings spiked in March, according to RealtyTrac. The 341,180 filings nationally was “the highest monthly total since RealtyTrac began collecting this data in 2005. “The spike in filings probably was related to the expiration of several foreclosure moratoriums across the country,” according to a RealtyTrac spokesperson.
More »
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano responded to criticism of a leaked DHS report on right-wing extremism, saying that “we are on the lookout for criminal and terrorist activity but we do not — nor will we ever — monitor ideology or political beliefs.” In TV interviews today, she said “these are routine reports” that were “begun months ago, in fact, in preparation before this new administration took office.”
The Obama administration has abolished an office “responsible for coordinating Defense Department information campaigns overseas.” Military and civilian critics said DOD’s office for support to public diplomacy “overstepped its mandate during the final years of the Bush administration by trying to organize information operations that violated Pentagon guidelines for accuracy and transparency.”
President Obama and his wife, Michelle, earned $2.73 million last year and paid $855,323 in federal taxes, “an amount that would be higher by about $102,000 if his budget plan were in effect.”
Foreclosure filings spiked in March, according to RealtyTrac. The 341,180 filings nationally was “the highest monthly total since RealtyTrac began collecting this data in 2005. “The spike in filings probably was related to the expiration of several foreclosure moratoriums across the country,” according to a RealtyTrac spokesperson.
More »
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NYT report: National Security Agency tried to spy on a member of Congress.
Me thinks this is not even the tip of the iceberg
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The New York Times’ Eric Lichtblau and James Risen report that the National Security Agency engaged in “overcollection” of e-mail messages and phone calls of Americans last year. The legal authority given to the NSA authorizes the surveillance of targets “reasonably believed” to be outside the United States. The Obama Justice Department said it “detected issues that raised concerns,” but claims that the problems have now been resolved. “[T]he issue appears focused in part on technical problems in the N.S.A.’s ability at times to distinguish between communications inside the United States and those overseas.” Lichtblau and Risen document one particular instance of misconduct involving the wiretapping of a member of Congress:
And in one previously undisclosed episode, the N.S.A. tried to wiretap a member of Congress without a warrant, an intelligence official with direct knowledge of the matter said.
The agency believed that the congressman, whose identity could not be determined, was in contact — as part of a Congressional delegation to the Middle East in 2005 or 2006 — with an extremist who had possible terrorist ties and was already under surveillance, the official said. The agency then sought to eavesdrop on the congressman’s conversations, the official said.
The official said the plan was ultimately blocked because of concerns from some intelligence officials about using the N.S.A., without court oversight, to spy on a member of Congress.Congressional officials said they have “begun inquiries” into the matter.
Update: Kevin Drum writes, "Looking on the bright side, maybe this will finally motivate Congress to take NSA surveillance more seriously. Having one of their own members come within a hair's breadth of being an NSA target ought to concentrate their minds wonderfully, if anything will."
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All We Will Say About This Silliness.
I may be a little dense, but what exactly are they protesting? The shredding of the Bill of Rights, the Constitution? Making torture policy? Maybe they live in Georgia where all voting and counting is still done by Diebold. (Like most criminals, Diebold has changed their name.) Now, there is a reason to claim taxation without representation.
So, these people don't like paying taxes if things don't go their way. That's pretty much what it sounds like, since I haven't heard a cogent reason of conscious for these tea parties.
Glenn Beck is screaming, "Fascism is here." No sh--, Sherlock. It's been coming since WWII and Bush and Cheney, god love their little dark hearts, did us the ultimate favor of making it very clear, except to the the most retarded among us, that Fascism is here. It's been clear to our global neighbors for years. Time we caught up, eh?
Please tea party people, come up with a matter of conscious; like torture, imprisonment without representation, using the DOJ for purely political and ideological reasons, war crimes, including starting a war of aggresssion against the people of Iraq.
Where were all of you when the Constitution and international law were being violated left and right?
UPDATE 2:15 P.M.The tea party protest in Washington, D.C., outside the White House was just shut down by police. A Secret Service agent told Huffington Post's Arthur Delaney that a demonstrator had thrown a package over the fence onto the White House lawn. From AP: Tax protesters threw what appeared to be a box of tea bags toward the White House on Wednesday, prompting officials to lockdown the compound. The Secret Service also used a robot to inspect the package thrown in an apparent act of defiance meant to echo the rebellion of the Boston Tea Party.
UPDATE 2:40: The conservative protesters were allowed to return to an area around the White House after a robot was used to open the package that had been thrown onto the lawn.
The Tea Parties here in Washington DC are off to a roaring start, right? Not really. Right now, the Tea Parties are contending with a number of terrible struggles, which this report from Fox News documents.
In the first place, the big event of the day was to be the dumping of one million teabags. The Washington Post notes that this was originally supposed to happen at the Potomac River but was shifted to Lafayette Park because of issues of legality. And seriously, why anyone thought it would be legal to further pollute the Potomac is beyond me.
But! As it turns out, the alternate plan -- 1. Take a million teabags to Lafayette Park, 2. Dump them on a tarp, 3. Yell at them, 4. Clean up the teabags -- also isn't happening, because of permit issues.
According to reports, the truck filled with teabags pulled up to Lafayette Park, but didn't have a permit, and so they were loaded back on to the truck and driven off to an undisclosed location.
Also, the plan to have a second rally in front of the Treasury Department was scotched after the Secret Service objected.
So, this epochal day is off to an amazing start. And somewhere out there, a truck full of teabags rolls on, destination unknown, into an uncertain future.
[WATCH.]
UPDATE: HuffPost's Arthur Delaney was in attendance at the DC tea bag protest and has many more details:
"Hell no, we won't pay!" they chanted.
"I'm here to protest the spending and the taxes and the government running the private affairs of private industries," said Steve, 51, a computer programmer who took the day off to drive from Northern Virginia and pay "a big chunk of money" to park in a downtown garage. "I'm here to protest the bailing out of companies when they should be going bankrupt."
Steve came prepared. He'd waterproofed his sign, which depicted 1990s sitcom icon Steve Urkel saying "Did I do that?" next to a downward-sloping stock market graph. The other side of his placard showed Obama with a long Pinocchio nose.
Rain aside, the event hit a few snags. The original plan had been to dump a million teabags onto the ground, but authorities shot that down. There was also supposed to be a second event outside the Treasury department, but authorities said no to that as well. Chalk it up to the fickle D.C. police department.
"We thought we had a permit but then they were like, 'No, you don't,'" says organizer J. Peter Freire.
Many tea partiers stressed that they were not attacking the administration from the Right.
"My sign is non-partisan," said Jill, who took a day off from her job in the insurance industry to commute from Woodbridge, Virginia. Her sign said she was registered to vote and that Congress was in trouble. "I'm hoping this is a non-partisan event."
Another non-partisan attendee, 29-year-old Abraham Mudrick, says he flew in from Oregon just for the tea party. "There were plenty of tea parties in Oregon, but I wanted to be in the belly of the beast," he told the Huffington Post.
Freire told the Huffington Post that while famous types like Alan Keyes were scheduled to speak at the event, they were given not given better billing than regular folks who wanted to talk. At one point, a speaker yelled out, "To hell with the Left!"
The crowd responded with a chant: "USA! USA! USA!"
[Would you like to follow me on Twitter? Because why not? Also, please send tips to tv@huffingtonpost.com -- learn more about our media monitoring project here.]
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Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Fox Reporter Contradicts Fox:
DHS Report On Right Wing Was ‘Requested By The Bush Administration’
Yesterday, a Department of Homeland Security report about the rising radicalization of “rightwing extremists” was leaked. The right wing was immediately incensed, viewing the report on radical “extremists” as an attack on “conservatives.” MSNBC host Joe Scarborough, for example, tried to suggest it was a report about Republican “loyalists.”However, this morning, Fox News’s Catherine Herridge revealed that the report, along with an earlier report on radicalized left-wing groups, was actually “requested by the Bush administration” but not completed until recently:
HERRIDGE: Well this is an element of the story which has largely gone unreported. One looks at right-wing groups, as you mentioned. And a second is on left-wing groups. Significantly, both were requested by the Bush administration but not finished until President Bush left office.Herridge’s reporting undermines her network’s own “reporting” over the past 24 hours. Since news of the DHS assessment broke yesterday, Fox anchors and guests have been seizing upon the report as evidence that the administration is trying to intimidate tea party goers or “stifle speech”:
– ANDREA TANTAROS: It’s free speech and the Obama administration is trying to shut it down.
– JAY ALAN SEKULOW: The Obama administration here under Department of Homeland Security has allowed a new regime to come into place that basically says this: Our focus is going to be on the right-wing groups.
– SEAN HANNITY: What do you think of that interpretation, especially coming from a guy that started his political career in the home of an unrepentant terrorist who bombed the Pentagon and capital and sat in Reverend Wright’s church for 20 years?
– DANA PERINO: If Bush had done that we would be having a very different conversation. It wouldn’t have taken a week to find it out. There would have been a special prosecutor. We would have had to come out and apologize.Watch a compilation, ending with Herridge’s report:
To recap, the Obama administration was apparently following the lead of the Bush Homeland Security Department in assessing the very real threat of violent right-wing extremism.
Indeed, Bush appointees such as FBI Director Robert Mueller have acknowledged the threat of right-wing extremism multiple times.
Of course, we can always trust Fox News to jump to conclusions before fully weighing the facts.
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Note Bene for 13 April 2009
Always Time For Old Time Poetry..... at least it seems long ago....
Hot links from recent days: My favorite loony elected official warns of “politically correct re-education camps” for youths … Robots are replacing humans as the great explorers, observes Jeremy Hsu …Woe is Colorado: Wildlife’s losing ground to sprawl, there’s mercury in the lakes, and forests are turning brown …
RIP Tom Braden; Crossfire was at its best when it was Braden & Buchanan …
The plight of Haiti continues to shame the Western Hemisphere … The surviving Beatles put on a show … Spotless minds may soon shine eternally … Howard Zinn discusses class in America … Our friend Brad Friedman says: Hey, AP nitwits, Franken won … America’s first solar-powered city? … Paging Dr. Jones: Mugabe has stolen the Ark
… Would you pay for news online? … A second sequel to the animation classic Heavy Metal is in the works, and Rob Zombie might direct a segment … In other metal news, Ronnie James Dio is penning an autobiography … We’re at the dawn of personalized medicine, says Fergus Walsh … “Whanne that Aprill with its poems sote/The doldrums of March hath perced to the rote” … $150 million in Nigerian bribes are sitting in Swiss banks … Humans and aliens might share DNA roots, writes Brandon Keim. Hey, I saw that Next Gen episode! …
Microsoft believes Net usage will overtake traditional TV in Europe next year … Oh, great. Now insurers will get bailed out. Developers must be next … Speak of the devils: “We clearly overbuilt.”
You don’t f?!king say … Fox comes up with this week’s Sound Business Solution™: Capitalize on misery … What could possibly make Kanye West regroup his shit? This … Adam Carolla chats with Trek legend and gay icon George Takei … And speaking of gay, Matt Drudge wants you to know that he does not love sex with men. He prefers eggs. ∞
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Endgame for Gramm?
One wonders if Phil Gramm has been made just a tad nervous by the news on Tuesday that one of UBS' super-wealthy private clients has pleaded guilty to tax evasion. That's the second case in two weeks involving the bank at which the former senator is a vice chairman, and 100 other clients are under investigation for possible bank-assisted tax fraud.
Gramm, the Republican former chair of the Senate Finance Committee, where he authored much of the deregulatory legislation at the heart of the current banking meltdown, has for the six years since he left office helped lead a foreign-owned bank specializing in tax dodges for the wealthy. These schemes by the Swiss-based UBS not only force the rest of us taxpayers to pay more to make up the government revenue shortfall but are blatantly illegal. In February, UBS admitted to having committed fraud and conspiracy and agreed to pay a fine of $780 million. Republican "Tea Baggers" take note: Offshore tax havens do not equal populist revolt.
In UBS' "deferred prosecution agreement" with the Justice Department, the bank agreed to turn over the names of its secret account holders to avoid a criminal indictment. The complicity of top executives in this far-ranging scheme to use foreign tax havens to cheat the U.S. treasury of billions in uncollected taxes was noted at the time in a Justice Department statement: "Swiss bankers routinely traveled to the United States to market Swiss bank secrecy to United States clients interested in attempting to evade United States income taxes."
What did Gramm think all of those Swiss bankers from his firm were doing over here? Was he totally clueless? The Justice Department statement suggests otherwise: "UBS executives knew that UBS's cross-border business violated the law. They refused to stop this activity, however, and in fact instructed their bankers to grow the business. The reason was money -- the business was too profitable to give up. This was not a mere compliance oversight, but rather a knowing crime motivated by greed and disrespect of the law."
Is it conceivable that this "knowing crime," so widespread within the UBS enterprise, was unknown to Vice Chairman Gramm -- even though it primarily involved U.S. tax evasion, and he had been hired by the company because of his expertise in American law, some of which he helped to write? As Gramm said when he was hired in 2002 by UBS, the position "will provide me with the opportunity to practice what I have always preached. I have been involved in every major financial debate since I've been in the Congress."
How could Gramm, who prides himself on expertise in these matters, have been unaware of the damage that the Swiss bankers who worked for him were doing to American taxpayers saddled with making up the shortfall in government revenue? As the Justice Department said: "In 2004 alone, Swiss bankers allegedly traveled to the United States approximately 3,800 times to discuss their clients' Swiss bank accounts. The information further alleges that UBS managers and employees used encrypted laptops and other counter-surveillance techniques to help prevent the detection of their marketing efforts and the identities and offshore assets of their U.S. clients."
But then again, if you are Phil Gramm or his wife, Wendy, you might expect to get away with a great deal in the way of financial machinations. After all, neither has ever been held legally responsible for the Enron debacle, in which the Gramms played a major part.
As a top government regulator, Wendy Gramm changed the rules to make Enron's chicanery possible, and as the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Phil codified those rule changes into federal law. While Enron execs like Chairman Ken Lay (a major Gramm campaign contributor) were indicted, the charmed couple that created the loopholes Lay and others jumped through escaped legal responsibility.
After leaving the government, Wendy Gramm joined Enron's board, where she headed the audit committee that managed to avoid auditing the company's disgraceful accounting procedures -- just as her husband has apparently looked the other way during his stint in the private sector with UBS.
Sure, Phil Gramm lost his position as the co-chairman of John McCain's presidential campaign when he blamed the recession not on the banking deregulation he championed but rather the people of the United States, which he described as a "nation of whiners." But that was a sideshow compared with the serious charges now swirling around UBS, charges that may finally prove to be Gramm's undoing.
Robert Scheer is editor in chief of Truthdig and author of The Pornography of Power: How Defense Hawks Hijacked 9/11 and Weakened America.
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