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Showing posts from April, 2007

Mr. Tenet, You're No Jack Ryan

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CIA Originally uploaded by prawnpie . Enough has been said about George Tenet . But here is a bit of fictional dialogue, reprinted without permission (national security imperative), between CIA analyst Jack Ryan and the President of the United States, from "Clear and Present Danger." You know, for future reference. President : "And we have to do this very delicately, otherwise people might get the wrong idea." Ryan : "We have to lie." President : "Did I say that?" Ryan : "No, you didn't." President : "You're upset." Ryan : "I'm upset." President : "Well, it's understandable. You mind if I give you a bit of advice? Of course, you know this, because you're a smart guy. You should never make important decisions while you're upset." Ryan : "You did. And American soldiers and innocent civilians are dead because of it." President : "I never ordered any-" Ryan : &quo

Where is that Beef Anyway?

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O K – so the most composed person at the Democratic debate was Brian Williams. And Dennis Kucinich seemed mainstream by comparison to Mike Gravel. And Joe Biden didn’t muck up his a Calvin Coolidge moment by being even slightly verbose about being too verbose. But anyone looking for something other than lackluster job interviews was bound to be disappointed despite the chorus of hype by every MSNBC talking head on the payroll. It's a shame that neither Barack nor Hillary showed off why they are considered first tier candidates rather than maybe just the best of the lot at raising money (ask Howard Dean about the difference). What is Edwards waiting for -- and I don't mean the suspiciously long time he took to answer a question about who his moral authority is (I guess Edwards' opposition to gay marriage stems in equal parts to "my lord," his wife and his father). The First Taste is -- Dull People: these early debates are for political junkies. Given NBC’s onerou

Free Speech Isn't Supposed to be Just Rosie

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T here isn't any real evidence that Rosie O'Donnell was shown the door at ABC, even though it isn't really possible to know for sure why these two parties with obvious common interests have decided to part company. The story is that Rosie wanted a one-year extension for being the lead host of "The View" and that ABC wanted to lock her into more time. The New York Times also reports that Rosie's salary demands were too high. ABC could have been feeling some heat in this post-Imus world (though Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly's employers seem to have NASA-grade tiles between them and the civilized world). Rosie, who is often restless in her work -- she gave up her top-rated daytime talker and walked away from her eponymous named magazine -- could just be playing her "I couldn't care less" card again. But you can't blame anyone for speculating about the reasons someone gives up a major, attention-getting pulpit. Or has it taken away.

David Halberstam, R.I.P

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The untimely death of David Halberstam will, I hope, provide a peg for new discussion about the proper role of dissent against war. May only generals assert that a war cannot be won? Is it the troops, or is it the strategists who are being attacked when war policy is criticized? What are we to think of those who, during wartime, say that the war is wrong (when else is there an opportunity to do so)? A Pulitzer-Prize winning correspondent whose early Vietnam War despatches expressed a pessimism about the prospects of "success" that would not become the conventional wisdom for years, Halberstam would a decade after his reporting write a best seller about the long list of very smart men who thought that war had to be fought, and won. "The Best and the Brightest," published in 1972 as the war still raged on, chronicled the creeping dementia and paranoia of three administrations. By then, opposition to that war was widespread, as is opposition to the Iraq now. Hal

The Funniest Guy Wasn't There

T hey've been after him for years, so David Letterman must know something. Maybe it's because of his famous anti-social proclivities. Maybe Saturday really is Yoga night at the Letterman home. Maybe he learned a tough lesson when he hosted the Oscars : it ain't fun bombing in person. Thanks to C-SPAN even nobodies can be a fly on the wall at the White House Correspondent Association's annual dinner . I'm no Sanjaya but I like watching a train wreck as much as the next guy. Don't worry if you missed it last night -- C-SPAN will repeat it several thousand times. But you missed nothing. Well, almost nothing: the only thing worth seeing, Letterman's virtual appearance, is already on YouTube . Please Help Me Forget Rich Little, making his second and certainly last appearance as "the talent" at the dinner, was horrible. A choice intended to make everyone forget last year's pointed commentary by Steven Colbert , he probably succeeded by putting every

Guns & Roe(ses)

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T he push of other news has crowded the presidential campaign from the media front burner for a few days. I have to think that the occasional yellow flag is welcomed by front-runners and that even emerging also-rans like John McCain are grateful for the small favors of a distracted crowd, so things like "Bomb bomb bomb. Bomb bomb Iran" get ( mostly ) buried. But soon enough the cameras will get back on the calliope. And with a war in Iraq sucking most of the air out of the smoke-filled room who could have predicted that gun control and abortion might be central campaign issues in '08? The disturbingly efficient rampage by Cho Seung-Hui was committed not with the fringe weapons the gun control battle is always about, but With a war in Iraq sucking most of the air out of the smoke-filled room who could have predicted that gun control and abortion might be central campaign issues in '08? with a pedestrian semi-automatic 9 mm handgun he acquired legally (though the New Y

The Cho Tapes: Having it Both Ways

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T he day after, nearly every broadcast network has drawn a line in the sand about further airings of the Cho tapes. While reserving the right to air them in whatever way merited in the future, they are saying enough is enough, sometimes in very strong terms. The statements are all at TVNewser , the best outlet for breaking news about TV news, and I quote them all from that source. NBC : "Beginning this morning, we have limited our usage of the video across NBC News, including MSNBC, to no more than 10 percent of our airtime." It used to be that news organizations risked doing irresponsible things for competitive reasons against only other news organizations. Now the argument is extended to the point that if it is on YouTube, it is fair game. FNC : "We believe that 18 hours after they were first broadcast and distributed via the Internet, our news viewers have had the opportunity to see the images and draw their own conclusions about them. We see no reason to continue ass

NBC Gives VTech Killer the Last Word?

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I 'm no fan of self censorship but NBC's decision to air Virginia Tech mass murder Cho Seung-Hui's video "manifesto" is difficult to understand. What is the news value in this pathetic, meaningless, juvenile rant mailed to NBC in New York by Cho? This student, who according to fellow students and faculty said almost nothing in life is permitted to veritably spit venom in death. "NBC News has indeed received what I would call a "multimedia manifesto" from the gunman," Brian Williams says in his blog, the Daily Nightly . "We received it today, and immediately handed it over to Federal law enforcement authorities. We are still going over our own copy -- its a lot of material -- we are talking with law enforcement, our own standards people -- and Pete Williams, our Justice Correspondent, will join me live on the broadcast to go through the material." Well, maybe not so immediately. Coming up on Today -- More from the Mass Killer What is

Weapons of Mass Destruction

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W e now know who was responsible for the mass shootings at Virginia Tech and are relieved that he was not a terrorist, or someone who had been in the country for a short time, or an illegal alien. Or a Muslim. Nobody to carelessly blame, just a young man, troubled and/or angry and determined to make someone pay for his torment. But suppose it had been a terrorist attack? It is frightening what one person with a handgun can do: a handgun firing the most common round manufactured , easy to purchase legally and to transport. This incident has no obvious homeland security dimensions. In other words, homeland security measures did not fail because they do not apply. But it ought to be troubling to those who protect us from terrorists because it isn't the least bit obvious why those who do wish our destruction have not attacked us in the manner of the Virginia Tech Forget airplanes, skyscrapers, bridges, tunnels and bombs, dirty or otherwise. Anyone who is prepared to die and who has a

Imus in the Aftermath

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T he death spiral for Imus came incredibly quickly — sentence carried out a week after the — and incredibly slowly — hard to accept that his media bosses were "shocked shocked" days after the offense and after lots of counties were heard from. A very smart friend was the first to my knowledge to make the "Bonfires of the Vanities" allusion: "It's a Tom Wolf novel now," he wrote me, "not a 'conversation' about race." But let's try to keep it a conversation about race or at least a conversation about standards and the price(s) for violating them. I'm not sorry to see Imus go. But I was not a fan so I don't really count. He does have some friends loyal enough to say that the punishment did not fit his crime (and the less convincing "I know this man's heart" stuff). Bill and Hillary, Sure. But Essense and Kia? The remarks of his undoing, while typical after a fashion over the course of his career, were

An Accident Waiting to Happen

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D on Imus has been suspended for two weeks starting next Monday for referring to the Rutger's women's basketball team as "nappy-headed hoes." The suspension will take his MSNBC morning drive time simulcast off cable, and CBS — which owns the New York City station where Imus' radio show originates as well as the company which syndicates him — will also keep him off the air for that period. Imus has engaged in crude humor with a cast that does terrible and insulting impersonations of public figures for many years. Everyone puts up with it; his program is also flypaper to big-name politicians and a regular staging area for NBC journalists talking up their own projects so it has anchored itself firmly in the mainstream rather than the fringe. The Rutgers' team are not public figures, and did nothing to even merit his attentions. It is the randomness of the comments, as well as the stinging stereotypes they conjure, that shocked pretty much everyone. It was

Josh Wolf, Citizen [Journalist?]

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"It was journalism to the extent that I went out to capture the truth and present it to the public." … "It has nothing to do with whether or not I'm employed by a corporation or I carry a press pass." -- Josh Wolf I s that enough? Is it even the right argument? Wolf, a videographer and blogger, spent nearly eight months in jail for refusing to cooperate with federal prosecutors who wanted him to give up video of a protest he took and testify before a grand jury. It was said to be the longest contempt-of-court term ever served by someone in a media-related case (though because his status as a journalist is disputed even that claim is controversial.) Wolf was released yesterday after he agreed to give up the video – he posted it in it’s entirely on his site – and answer two written questions from prosecutors. Being too inclusive, by lumping in those whose credentials and commitment are disputable, creates a new jeopardy to journalists whose credentials are not