A Million People Murdered For a Lie, and To Tom Brokaw It's Just Business As Usual

In a medium full of revolting displays of hypocrisy and self-importance, Tom Brokaw gave a performance last night that was so hypocritical and so self-important that I wanted to make like Elvis watching Robert Goulet and shoot out the screen with a .38. Fortunately, I was unarmed, and the TV was my mother's, or there would've been a thousand jagged fragments of screen and a black, smoking picture-tube in the center of her living-room.

Brian Williams was interviewing Brokaw about Scott McClellan's new book, specifically citing McClellan's charge that media talking-heads like Brokaw were "complicit enablers" in selling America -- in-between decongestants and erection pills -- a criminal "war" that has already killed 4,000 Americans and, according to the respected medical journal The Lancet, more than one million Iraqi citizens. It was a special moment, or what passes for one, on The NBC Nightly News, with Brokaw and Williams sitting knee-to-knee on an open stage, signifying for viewers that this was Serious Stuff, and we should Pay Attention.

Williams teed it up for Brokaw, condensing McClellan's charges and then capping it with the insipid: "But does it have to be viewed in the context of the time?" (As if everything doesn't have to be "viewed in the context of the time." And as if that excused the nauseating way that every network anchor picked up the pompoms and put on the cheerleader skirts to holler "SHOCK! AND! AWE! SHOCK! AND! AWE!" when Bush told them to.)

Well, big surprise: a grinning Brokaw averred that their sickening cheerleading did, actually, have to be excused by the "context of the time." He then gave an answer that -- even by the standards of corporate media -- was so stupefyingly idiotic that I forced myself to transcribe it in full to make sure I heard it right.

"When the President says we're going to war, that there's the danger of the mushroom cloud, we know Saddam Hussein had been experimenting with Iraqi nuclear programs in the past, honorable people believed that he had weapons of mass destruction, there's the drumbeat of war... this President was determined to go to war, and it was more theology than anything else, and that's pretty tough to deal with."

Wow.

This is such a smorgasboard of gibberish -- such a litany of stupidities -- that a rational mind reels even trying to make sense of it. Even worse, it reveals the mindset of the so-called "journalists" charged with the job of speaking truth to power -- their mental and spiritual laziness, their knee-jerk reflex towards submission, their lack of any ability to learn from history. Worse yet, Tom Brokaw knew in advance this question was coming, and the answer he gave was -- to coin a phrase that will not catch on -- like spreading horseradish on horseshit and calling it an hors d'ouevre.

"Honorable people believed (Saddam Hussein) had weapons of mass destruction?"

Horseshit. Name one. You didn't have to be a rich and privileged member of the American inner circle, like Tom Brokaw, to know that Bush and Cheney were playing a second-rate game of three-card monte with their incredibly sketchy "evidence" of WMDs. You didn't have to be a self-described "historian" like Tom Brokaw to laugh at Colin Powell's grade-Z dog-and-pony show at the UN, when he pointed to a couple of blurry photos that could've been Lindsay Lohan's backside and claimed they proved we were on the eve of World War III. Nonetheless, the Tom Brokaws of the world jumped all over these lies like crack-whores competing for a john, and even now they feel no need to apologize for -- or even reflect upon -- their unseemly haste to believe.

And, thanks in large part to them, we not only have a million unnecessary graves, and a million shattered families; we have an American landscape strewn with the grievously wounded. With human faces melted into horror-movie masks. With once-healthy young hands burnt into cloven stumps. With once-strong minds now shorted-out forever thanks to the unbearable sights they witnessed in Iraq.

"It was more theology than anything else, and that's pretty tough to deal with."

This is gibberish that actually gives gibberish a bad name. I dare Tom Brokaw to visit the wounded and grieving in Iraq and America and give them this nonsensical "theology" excuse.

Near the end of their conversation, seeking a make-nice takeaway, a clearly embarrassed Brian Willliams lobbed Brokaw a softball question, hoping to elicit one tiny bit of self-reflection, but Brokaw actually made it worse, though such a thing didn't seem possible. Dig this: "A lot of us would like to go back, with the benefit of hindsight, but a lot of what was going on back then was unknowable... The CIA insisted he had WMDs, the US military thought so... There was the 'fog of war,' and there was 'the fog of covering the war.'"

Oh yeah? It makes you want to scream: exactly how foggy was it, Tom? So foggy that you couldn't fight the Orwellian rules laid down by the Bush-Cheney junta and actually bring us images of the carnage and horror inflicted in our names? So damn foggy that your correspondents had to stay forever "embedded" deep in the butt of that "US military" you're so eager to believe? So foggy that you couldn't see the dead bodies, or hear the screams of the women and children?

Brokaw concluded his bizarre and revealing monologue with an especially strange observation: "We often bump up against what I call 'the opaque world.'"

The Opaque World.

What an accidentally perfect description of the American corporate media. Opaque it was, and opaque it remains. At a dark time, when a sick and treasonous cabal led by Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld was furiously dragging America into a pre-fascist state (and doing their best to strip away that "pre" once and for all), our media was staring dumbly at an "opaque world." When criminal thugs were turning our country into a mindless war-state without civil liberties or simple human mercy, those smug faces starring on the Nightly News could only cheer them on. We need to remember how completely these men and women disgraced their profession--because, as Tom Brokaw's words make all too clear, it will definitely happen again.

Comments

[darthdarcy]

Nice job John things are certainly heating up for the human beings out there..

TV News commentators are not human beings their just card board cut off people without compassion or any humanity..­.now Vincent Bugliosi wants to prosecutor Bush for Murder, I'd be happy with Manslaughter over 4,000 Americans and we don't know how many poor Iraqi's but at least 500,000 or more..

935 Lies lead to at least 1/2 a million deaths maybe more many more more than al-Qaeda killed many more than bin-Laden maybe there is a prosecutor out there with some big ones who will charge Bush with murder or manslaught­er..

Brokaw, Brian Williams, Tim Russert and all of Fox Propaganda network all have lots of blood on their hands..

Here's Harry Shearer talking about 935 Lies

http://www.mydamnchannel.com/Harry_Shearer/Music_Video/935Lies_687.aspx

[speciallady2003]

Now we blame the journalists for the war? Who in their right minds would depend upon them to be accurate? They too have an agenda. The facts were out there, and the problem is far too many Americans are too lazy to educate themselves or look past their borders until it is far too late.
Anyone with half a brain could have figured out how absurd and destructive it would be to invade Iraq. GWB presented it to the people as a fairy tale, and rather than question it, they behaved like the sheep they are. Unfortunately, I can bet that better than half the country would be hard preesed to find it on a map today.

[StudentThinker]

It can be difficult to find accurate facts when the ENTIRE set of your usual sources of information is repeating the same BS. Most people don't have hours to spend trying to find stuff online, searching international news, etc. - and when they hear the same BS being pushed from EVERY side how likely is it that they are going to even have the thought that there could be a significant side that's not being covered (i.e. to realize there is even something to go looking for?) I'm not excusing the American public, we're all complicit, but the media played a big role too. And yes, no media source is going to be totally objective or accurate, but there are standards of journalistic integrity that are there to ensure that our news and information are at least balanced, critical, and as close to accuracy and objectivity as they can reasonably get. That is, standards distinguishing news from propaganda. The media COMPLETELY dumped these standards. They sold out.

[KillTheMessenger]

Let's just say that the problem with all of this is the implicit assumption that journalists are the forth power in the state and that they reign supreme over the three other powers and control/police them as they perform their functions. I do not believe that there is any mention of that in the constitution whatsoever. A constitutional scholar might enlighten me about that if I am wrong.

So if we now blame our journalists for not doing what WE should have done ourselves in the first place, i.e. telling it as it is and calling a fascistoid party and its government by its true name, aren't we all little hypocrites?

Yes, dear friends, we are. But just keep chipping away a the mainstream media and telling yourself that it is their fault that you did not go to Washington and protest every day of the week in front of the capitol. Maybe it will make you all feel better. Or maybe it won't.

[digitboy]

I would love to go to Washington and protest every day. But who will pay for my kids' tuition?

But you're right. There's plenty of blame to go around. Bush is a war criminal. Our representatives are criminals for not doing their constitutional duty and remove him from office. And we are all criminals for not imploring our representative to do their jobs.

God Damn America.

[celticjag]

Excellent Post. It is too bad that Brokaw and the rest of the MSM ignored the findings of the U.N. inspectors that proved that Bush and his WAR CRIMINALS were lying! They treated Scott Ridder, who actually spent time in Iraq, as if he were on drugs. Their complicity in this folly makes them as guilty of war crimes as the Bush Cabal!

[frankwopc]

Brokaw's highlighted quotation contains no truth. "When the President says we're going to war..." but he didn't. While Bush had transparently made up his mind to go to war, he denied it right up till the invasion (remember the lies about his using diplomacy, and how Saddam had kicked out the IAEC investigators?). "...there'­s the danger of the mushroom cloud..." even though IAEC investigators disproved that. "...honora­ble people believed that he had weapons of mass destructio­n..." -- let's just avoid using the word "honorable"! "...there'­s the drumbeat of war..." but that was the whole point of the question: the persistent drumbeat was coming from the MSM, which gave no alternative (i.e., "accurate" or "realistic") information. The only germ of truth (less the word "honorable") was "people believed that he had weapons of mass destruction" which was certainly the case within the administration, because Rummy and others had delivered them for Poppy (but they had deteriorated).

[InofTouch]

What about Dan Rather and Peter Jennings..­.are people here going to let them off the hook.

[NightflyLester]

If you're not comatose, you are aware that Mr. Jennings has passed and Mr. Rather is no longer in his position, in part because, in essence, of his attempts to seek the truth about Mr. Bush's military service.

Thanks for really not adding much to the discussion­...

[ofbbg]

Remind me again about the number of Democrats in Congress who voted to approve the invasion and consistently provided the funding to continue.

[InofTouch]

I laugh for you giving them a free pass, both of them were on there desk during 2002 and 2003 and could have use there postion it the same since that Tom Brokaw was. I just see people doing on one guy while the rest get away.

Rather reporting about president bush service is in the same since with Scott mcclellan book...bot­h now telling the truth when they could have said some prior to the even happening.

[westwind]

In mid-2002, while the adminstration was marshalling its media forces to fool the public into supporting a bogus war, I knew they were lying, primarily because I had read a thin book called "War on Iraq", comprising mainly an interview of Scott Ritter by William Rivers Pitt.

If Tom Brokaw, or any of the other bloviating gasbags that fill TV newsanchor seats had bothered to read what a weapons inspector who spent literally years finding and decommissioning Iraqi WMDs had to say about the administration's case for war, it would have made a huge difference.

But Brokaw and his ilk forgot long ago (or pushed it to one side in their minds) that their duty as journalists is not to their companies' bottom lines or their own egos, but to the public who rely on journalists to root out truth. The world is only opaque because the people whose work and vocation it is to reveal truth to us, so often refuse to do so, whether because of fear, corporate pressure, wanting to be media stars, or just because they're flat out lazy.

If was Tom Brokaw, I'd keep a low profile on this, because despite his and his colleagues' best efforts at creating that fog of war, the truth is now out there, and he can only look worse the longer he keeps repeating the same tired old justifications.

[NightflyLester]

Nice piece Mr. Eskow. For a long time I had a great deal of respect for Mr. Brokaw but those days are long past. It seems these days Brokaw is a good deal more interested in insuring his pension from NBC Universal is secure than doing what a semi-retired journalist should be doing, in Brokaw's case, either carrying the title of "Emeritus" with dignitiy or as old dogs are apt to do, not bother with the niceties and really speak the truth.

Mr Brokaw, meet Mr. Shorr...

[TellingTruth2Kooks]

Yeah I agree, what a Load of Gibberish, too bad that they also enabled the Clinton Administation to devolve into Vapid Fecklessness.

It's really too bad that the News Investigative Bureaus were too inept to find out what Kofi Annan/United Nations delegations were really up to in that "Oil For Food" Program,

I know that this Forum is for Bush Bashing, trying to get a Worthless inexperienced junior senator from Illinois elected, and what does that Say about US?

Here we are getting ready to elect one of three Senators, when None of them are competent enough to run a McDonalds. History has shown us that everytime that we have elected a Senator, WE ALL, AS A PEOPLE HAVE REGRETTED IT!!!

But yet these News People and other Cheerleaders, don't seem to care who is elected, as long as their ratings reflect that their form of Propaganda is better than the Other Networks.

We are headed for a Train Wreck in this Country, and the people we look to for unbiased information, are just stoking the Racial/Sexism fire in order to make the election as Divisive as is possible, and that their form of extremism is the Truth and Salvation that will save us all, when it never has, anywhere else in the world.

And if we Elect another Incompetent Public Official to lead our country, we all pay thru the nose for it.

And we will have deserve it for listening to this Nitwits to begin with!

[digitboy]

You may recall that we did have more than three senators to choose from in the race. That was until we allowed the media to define who could continue in the dialog.

Shame on us for allowing such nonsense.

[phasechange]

Wonderful, nicely righteous. However, be prepared to be outdone when a Democratic administration comes in and these same guys take on the persona of a junk-yard dog in "exposing" every flaw and hidden issue they can discover as true journalists. Remember, Reagan and Bush got off easy, Carter and Clinton were reamed. Obama will face a corporate media that has been born again as investigative reporters on a mission. Let's start now to find a way to de-fang corporate media permanently.

[dadw5boys]

The WAR MACHINE!!!!!!!!

Since World War ll they have held how many invasions? How many wars?

How many millions dead? How many TRILLIONS IN PROFITS?????

4 MORE WARS. 4 MORE WARS. 4 MORE WARS.

[TellingTruth2Kooks]

And just what is Wrong with Wars?

[dadw5boys]

What is good about wars is the only way I can answer that.
Well it sure gets rid of a huge number of people so we have less competition for food, housing, jobs and vaction reservation.
It will lower the cost of everything because demand will be lower.
It also helps to keep an Ecomony strong espically for the one winning the war as they can prove they can turn more raw materials into destructive WMD'S faster and better then the enemy.
People get to experience new things like making a bomb, wiring a missle, and building new types of weapons like unmanned aircraft.
Oh year our Military men get to visit distance lands and force people to learn English. I mean when an Iraqi Family is killed because the driver does not understand English Road signs or American Hand Signals the Iraqi's who must drive learn really fast.
Like the General from the "Art Of War" when he cut off the womens heads to make the other women obey him. They learned so that familys death was a good thing?? You Think so??

Oh so many good things but I just can't think of a GOOD REASON TO KILL SOMEONE though.
I mean Commies, come on this is just another government who has concentrated power only to the wealthy.
Capitalist do the same thing. Look around you!

[anon004]

"like spreading horseradish on horseshit and calling it an hors d'ouevre."

John, you're too hard on yourself. I think that's a mighty apt description of not only the MSN's behavior leading up to the Iraq War, but also pretty much the entire 7 years of the Bush Administration. I'm going to start using this phrase whenever it's appropriate. With John McSame running, I should get plenty of chances!

[SBlackmun]

Bravo!

[hopeless277]

As long as the same corporations that own the media own the factories of war, this country will be at war, like it or not. Congress will not act, a new president will not act, and citizens will be arrested if they act. Facism is to light a word. What it is is Totalitarianism. Our way or the highway. With us or against us. Brokaw and Williams are just following orders. Kind of like, well, you know who.

[ofbbg]

My dear hopeless - wars are caused by one and only one thing - population pressure. Corporations do not cause wars, monarchies do not cause wars, the media doesn't cause wars - too many people in an area incapable of providing food and other necessities for their increasing population causes war. Simple as that!

[RoloTomassi]

Your statement is idiotic when put in context to the war in Iraq; population nor economic pressures had anything at all to do with that war, and there are many more instances that can be quoted to completely discount your assertion, if such is necessary.­...

[philistine]

That's it, Mr. Eskow--put the wood to them. They were complicit in this ineffable boondoggle, and will never admit that they were BushCo enablers. They can't and won't face their culpability. We need folks like you to do that for/to them.