Jeremy Scahill Slams Chuck Todd, Media, Congress Over Blackwater On "Real Time With Bill Maher" (VIDEO)

Jeremy Scahill sparred with NBC political director Chuck Todd on Friday, forcefully criticizing journalists and lawmakers for treading lightly on Blackwater's recently-revealed misdeeds.

Newly declassified memos this week showed that the CIA hired Blackwater, a private military security company, years ago as part of an effort to kill senior Al-Qaeda officials and other designated terrorists.

Scahill, who has written a popular book about Blackwater, had scathing comments about the organization, calling it "Erik Prince's Christian supremacist fighting force to eliminate Muslims and destroy Islam globally, and then they bill taxpayers again for this killing that they're doing and they're not held to the same standard as soldiers."

"There are Iraqi and Afghan people that are forced to face down against them, when, I'm sorry, the US Congress does nothing to stop it," he continued, "and journalists have done nothing to hold the White House accountable now, Chuck, or under Bush. This has not been an issue and yet it constitutes more than half of the fighting force in Afghanistan."

Scahill singled out Todd, a fellow panelist on HBO's "Real Time With Bill Maher", for not taking the issue more seriously. "Chuck, you called it political cat-nip to talk about the CIA and Cheney's role in this, because it distracts from the important issues," he said. "This is a central issue and you called it cable cat-nip."

Here is video of Scahill singling out Todd:

Todd responded by alleging that even if journalists reported more vigorously on the issue, it was unlikely that the organization would ever be held accountable. He said it would turn into "a political food fight" where "Congress would not be able to get any prosecutions done," suggesting that Blackwater would inevitably find a way to get off the hook.

According to Scahill, Todd confronted him after the show. In an email to Salon's Glenn Greenwald, Scahill said the following:

Right as we walked off stage, he said to me "that was a cheap shot." I said "what are you talking about?" and he said "you know it." I then said that I monitor msm coverage very closely and asked him what was not true that I said on the show. He then replied: "that's not the point. You sullied my reputation on TV."

Jay Leno, also a guest on Maher's show, praised Scahill for his work on Blackwater but joked that it may be putting his life in danger. "Why are you still alive? Are you paranoid?" said Leno.

Comments

[Kahoneez]

01:11 PM on 09/02/2009

Todd is a shill for the establishment and gate keeper , you prosecute crimes A. bcs crimes have been committed and people need to be held accountable .

[Thumperdumper]

07:49 PM on 08/29/2009

Although Todd's response may be a correct analysis, it is certainly not a reason for not reporting this story. It should be covered by the main stream press until it is fully exposed for the scandal that it is. You're not the prosecutor or the legislator, Chuck. You're supposed to be the reporter. Try doing your job.

[afgail]

02:13 AM on 08/29/2009

Since when was the news media supposed to be the final arbitor of what we the people are to know the government is doing in out name? Todd's position was that it would not lead to resolution so he and others in the media decided not to report on it. Complete intellectual dishonesty. He's been playing defense for all his war criminal friends in the Bush administration.

[balancedsolution]

12:40 AM on 08/29/2009

Scahill, you are awesome! Keep up the great work, passion, and keep the mainstream press on their toes.

Know you have people that truly appreciate your work!

You are what America should be.

Most reporters nowadays just read off the wire. You do one hell of a job!

KUDOS

[kewl2713]

02:25 PM on 08/26/2009

Welcome back Chuck!!!!!!

[JJeff88]

11:00 AM on 08/26/2009

NO member of the news media - regardless of reputation, title or political stripe - should be critical of fellow news people for "rocking the boat" (because it's central to what the Fourth Estate is supposed to do).

I've always felt Chuck T was one of the more responsible (i.e. less partisan and subjective) members of the mainstream media, but perhaps I've read him wrong. Chuck's attitude - at least as it's reported here - seems to have been "go along to get along." It's about time members of the media were held accountable by their peers for sins of ommission. (One reason we were duped into invating Iraq was "a quiet media").

The reason why Chuck's reputation is "being sullied" is due to Chuck's silence/not because someone (Scahill) called him out on it.

The issue of private contractors like Hallburton and Blackwater (or whatever they call it these days) and their accountability to the taxpayers and their capability to "do stuff the military and intelligence people don't want to get caught doing" is a biggie (because, without any controls over their actions, really really bad things can be done in our name that are big enough to bring our country down).

The reason you need muckrakers is "muck." And muck sucks.

[ProgressiveLifestyle]

11:48 AM on 08/26/2009

Very well said!! I hope Chuck Todd straightens this out. If not, I will lose the respect that I was beginning to gain for him and his analysis. I do believe he is more of a pollster than a journalist though, so my standards for him "rocking the boat" may be a little lower

[Witkacy]

10:47 AM on 08/26/2009

How about Todd's encomium for the people in "the middle, between the two extremes," or however the hell he put it? And as I remember it, he accompanied this laughable notion - by way of a defense for the indifference of himself and other lackeys - with hand gestures. By the "extreme" on the left, I'm certain that Todd is thinking of anyone who won't rest until justice under our Constitution has been served via pursuit of the criminals who engineered the Iraq invasion. When it happens in fact, he'll probably be loathe to report on the progress of the investigations/prosecutions.

I also wondered, as I watched this appearance: Who the hell would be buying and then actually reading a book on President Obama written by this numbnuts "Chuck" Todd (or Richard Wolfe's opus, for that matter)? Who is so idle and clueless that they have the time to waste? Just watch Rachel Maddow every night, and you'll get the real deal...

[Osusuki]

09:21 AM on 08/26/2009

I saw the show, and I've been hoping for this to happen for a long time. Chuck Todd became a legend in his own mind some time during the last presidential election and hasn't been a reliable source since. Jeremy Scahill deserves a two medals: one for courage in reporting, and the other for taking Todd's puffed up little carcass to school.

[neesy08]

08:16 AM on 08/26/2009

Todd's comment is disturbing. Their job is to report, not decide what actions may or not be taken by the WH. If this is how journalist thought 30+ years ago, we would not have known about Watergate.

[moesyzlac]

04:23 AM on 08/26/2009

I saw the show, and Todd's comments disturbed me quite a bit. He pretty much said you can't report it because of what will happen? When is the last time these so called MSM people ever reported anything of importance, much less the truth? Can he tell the future? Is it up to Chuck Todd, Etc to manipulate the available information, or to report it?
There is a much longer rant here, but I suddenly realized how much I appreciate HP for reporting the facts. Apparently, truth is a radical left wing concept.
Jeremy Scahill, Thank you for what you do, and please keep doing it. You too, HP.

[Teagarden]

03:35 AM on 08/26/2009

Arguing that doing the Blackwater story right wouldn't do any good anyhow has to be the weakest and morally pathetic rebuttal to why didn't you do the the right thing that anyone has ever offered publicly. That's all he could come up with? Mr. Todd should be fired for this instance of incompetence alone.

The awful thing about Blackwater is not that they are exactly the group Mr. Scahill describes, but that almost all these media types know it - as do all the people in the nations they operate in, and probably half our own nation. Obama, of course, knows it. What everyone knows is that Blackwater doesn't just illegally hunt down, torture, and murder actual bad guys. (Did I forget rape?) In fact, most of their victims are not bad guys. Like all death squads the real job is to scare and demoralize the opposition - in this case to US foreign policy - even when that has meant an illegal invasion of your sovereign country.

By this definition the 'enemy' is vast and includes not just courageous patriots, but their mildest supporters. It includes anyone who would give the opposition shelter, or take pity on them, or treat their wounds, or sell them anything. It includes relatives, spouses, children - anyone even thinking of joining any opposition to American policy whether in a democratic fashion or not. Killing, torturing, raping, random innocent foreign citizens is especially demoralizing to the 'enemy'.

The name for this kind of activity

[zann]

03:23 AM on 08/26/2009

That backstage comment by Todd to Scahill is sickening. Todd may feel like he's higher up the food chain, but Scahill is a fearless truth teller, infinitely more valuable than a well-fed, well-paid journalist.

[Osusuki]

09:25 AM on 08/26/2009

Well-fed and well-paid I'll give you, but Chuck Todd is no journalist. He's just a pollster with a goatee and delusions of grandeur.

[Witkacy]

10:35 AM on 08/26/2009

Exactly - that's why Scahill's comments packed such a sting (you could see Todd looking pissed as they sat there while credits rolled - what a punk).

Even if Todd had attempted to defend himself and his profession forcefully, Scahill would've had the upper hand: this is the guy who helped in a large way to begin to bring down Blackwater (which isn't even Blackwater, anymore). Remember when David Gregory babbled a host of pathetic excuses for the incompetence and cynicism of the MSM in the run-up to the Iraq invasion, on the release of Scott McClelland's book? Todd hasn't even had his job for a long time, but he's already evidently well-studied in the spineless evasions and solipsism of the corporate MSM. And he probably went on the Real Time show expecting a cakewalk!

[marleysghost]

11:09 PM on 08/25/2009

The problem is that we don't believe in honor anymore. Nor do we, as a nation, practice it. There are honorable people to be sure, but at the top of the power pyramid is a vacuum. Makes me cringe when I think of the atrocities that have been committed under the banner of "protecting our country" Nah. That's not why. Killing for money is not defending your country, it's just contract killing. Usually considered a crime, but when authorized by those in power, it becomes a virtue. We are simply afraid to face the truth of our actions and want to sweep it all under the rug. Honor? Us? In a pig's eye!

[Blather15]

08:44 AM on 08/26/2009

Couldn't have said it better, myself!
I think that if this is the way our country's leadership is going to behave and we, as citizens, don't want to fight to hold them accountable then we need to drop the "christian nation" title and stop pretending to be something we're not.
We should be completely outraged by this. We should be so up in arms that we are protesting in DC that Blackwater (aka Xe) is still at this very moment being paid for their services using tax payer dollars. But a vast majority of us are not. It's as if we simply don't care what they've been doing or who they've been doing it to.
Silence is acquiesence...now is not the time to be silent.

[philko]

10:31 AM on 08/26/2009

Was "honor" ever really present at the top? Or has it always been a murky grey-tinted den where the ends justified the means? IMO, the only real difference between now and the "good old days" is that now we've got a kazillion news channels, blogs, reporters like Scahill and shows like Maher's that shine a *lot* of spotlights on what those at the top are doing.

Back in the good ol', if 95% of the media spouted the party line and all you had to choose from were about a dozem media outlets, you wouldn't really be able to find *any* dissenting points of view. Now, if we use the same number and only assume that 5% of the media is speaking the truth about the powerful, we each have scores, if not hundreds of places to go for "real" info.

Take the most perfect, smooth, unblemished object that you can find. Look at it and start turning the magnification up. It won't take long to find flaws. To continue the analogy, back in the good ol', societies barely had spectacles, let alone magnifying glasses. Now, we've got the equivalents of electron microscopes.

[djreedps]

10:24 PM on 08/25/2009

MSM is braindead.

[johnnyfarout]

10:04 PM on 08/25/2009

Remember Dubya talking "Crusades" back after 911. The entire Muslim world raised their swords over their heads at the mere mention of those days 900 years ago! So these Blackwater/Xe mercenaries are the new Templars; fighting for the corpor...ate religion of the New American Century. This isn't lost on anyone but those whose head is up their sphincters. The Templars lost their standing after the collapse of the Frankish Levant because of their wealth and their status as defacto international bankers. Heretics of the white boy kingdoms, they were roasted alive until they went underground and hid for centuries from the Inquisition. So Todd plays the uselessness of the Inquisistion in the modern era. "the men cannot be convicted of crimes because they killed for Jesus and his Church!" We shall see. Rivers of blood is not enough for fanatics. It's okay until your blood joins the river. So this is what everyone throws into Scahill's face...that he can be killed?! Please;history repeating.