Matthews on White House Crime & Media Failure

Here's an important question:

Valerie Wilson has reminded us there was, in fact, a crime committed by the vice president's office, a multi-count crime that led to years of imprisonment, except the president commuted it.
[But people] allowed the president to erase the blackboard and say it never happened, [as if] there has been no criminality in the vice president's office, or in the White House... That's the way people [sound], is everybody a jug-head now in politics?!

That's what Chris Matthews wanted to know last night. His guests posited two quick answers. Maybe other events sidelined the administration's criminal record (from The Washington Post's Anne Kornblut), or it was a "media failure" to stick with the story (from The American Prospect's Ezra Klein). But Matthews' response answered his own question:

I mentioned criminality in the vice president's office a few weeks ago, and some reporter said he didn't know what I was talking about. Is it amnesia? Is it just bad reporting? I think it's probably the latter. Anyway, according to a new field poll in California, Rudy Giuliani is only at 25 percent. But he's double digit over the pack. I'm amazed by that, Anne, because here we have Schwarzenegger, a pro-choice, moderate Republican in many ways--many, many ways--Maria Shriver's husband in many ways...

And that was it. One meta-question about how the administration has suppressed accountability and scrutiny of its crimes, and then back to horse race politics. (The vast majority of the segment covered polls and political advertising.) And Matthews' entire show, which included an interview with Valerie Wilson, did not even mention the current White House attempt to grant amnesty to telephone companies that allegedly helped the administration break the law to spy on Americans.

It's not just Matthews, either. The New York Times is still ignoring the new face-off over the surveillance bill. When the Times thought the entire Democratic caucus would roll over, the news was trumpeted in a front-page story "Democrats Seem Ready to Extend Wiretap Powers," which reported that Democrats were "nervous that they will be called soft on terrorism if they insist on strict curbs on gathering intelligence." That turned out at least partially incorrect. The next day, October 12, the Times ran a more measured article, "House Panels Vote for More Scrutiny Over Foreign Eavesdropping," which it buried on A29. (Also note how "Democrats" turns to "House Panel" depending on the news.)

Does this mean that Chris Dodd, the leader of the fight against telecom amnesty, is getting no coverage in the Times?

Of course not. Today the Times published an article about his haircuts.

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Comments

[DavidHealy]

06:41 PM on 10/26/2007

Does anyone have any ideas about how to bring this double standard--passive reporting for Republicans, overly aggressive reporting against Democrats--to a head? I realize these "reporters" have no shame but, of late, it's been so obvious that one wonders whether these folk are even compus mentis?

[Desiderata]

05:22 PM on 10/26/2007

What Libby did was an act of treason. By commuting Libby's sentence (and the pardon that will surely come later) Bush, no longer able to be unaware of the treason, then became an accessory to that treason.

And this, alone, requires an Article of Impeachment. By ignoring their duty to impeach, every congressman and senator are, also, accessories to treason.

Every state legislator should demand, then, the recall of all their state's congressmen and senators for treason.

[RobertPaul]

04:54 PM on 10/26/2007

Scooter abetted treason.

Scooter caught in lies about treason.

Scooter convicted by a jury of his peers.

Scooter has sentence commuted by Doofus-In-Chief.

History revised.

No more treason!

By the way...on his way out the door BushCo will issue a full pardon to Scooter.

Life is so-o-o-o simple when you are a crooked Republican.

[Lt]

04:17 PM on 10/26/2007

So? What else is new?

The Conserative party owns the media.

We hear what they want us to hear.

[NABNYC]

03:56 PM on 10/26/2007

In "The Sorrow and the Pity," Marcel Ophuls showed how people in a French area all had remarkably different recollections about their own actions during the Nazi occupation. Post-war, they all claimed to have been heroically anti-Nazi, but that was not true. There were certain people who fought against the Nazis. Many of them were betrayed by other neighbors who were afraid that the Resistance would bring harm to them. And there was a third group that openly supported the Nazis.

I think we're already seeing the same type of selective memory develop among people in this country as to what was their relationship to the Bush/Cheney crimes. Matthews made the comment last night that he personally was extremely skeptical about the claims used by Bush/Cheney to justify the war against Iraq. I recall that I stopped watching Matthews right about that time because he had become such an ass-kisser cheerleader for Bush and Cheney.

And as we see people leave the Bush administration, we also see them trying to distance themselves from the decisions that were made, and actions taken. We've certainly seen it with Powell who, I note, always had the option as a man of principle to resign his job if he believed Bush had launched a war of aggression. I think we'll see it with Rice in the future.

So, it reminds me of that saying: there are only ten stories in the world. But since no one ever listens, we get to keep telling them over and over again.

[hopeless277]

03:51 PM on 10/26/2007

It all has to do with the 'tainment' part of the MSMs replacement of 'news' with 'infotainment'. If it does not have to do with personality or sex or violence, then it does not exist. Especially when Chris admits to having been 'leaned' on. I guess the leaning just got to heavy to resist. Chris is a joke anyway. If you'll notice, he regularly lets the conservative heads talk till they're done. The libs get cut off. I'll repeat, he's a joke.