Speaking of our failed media experiment, the only thing that I could think of that equaled on the scale of our media fawning at the feet of our political elites to this Leon Panetta piece on 60 Minutes would have to be the press coverage of Rumsfeld’s briefings early (known knowns, anyone) in 2002-2004 (complete with complimentary handjobs about his standing desk) or Ron Fournier’s mash notes to Karl Rove.
If you watch that Panetta piece, where Scott Pelley does everything but give him a reach-around on camera, and don’t feel nauseous, something is wrong. With you. Not me. I wanted to throw up in my mouth on multiple occasions and had flashbacks to Commander Codpiece.
We’re so fucked as a nation.
mark k
Saw it and had to change the channel before I puked. Glad you hated it, too.
middlewest
So in Twilight of the Elites the media must be Bella and the elites are Edward. Makes sense.
Cacti
Sorry Cole, no puff piece on Leon Panetta will ever match the way the librul media fellated Bush when he was ginning up a bogus war in Iraq.
You remember Iraq? That country whose invasion and occupation you supported.
muddy
Scott Pelley’s an ass. I watch the CBS evening news to get a look into the SCLM in a low-info voter kind of way. He rarely gets through a broadcast without me yelling at the tv. And that pouter pidgeon suit he wears on there, I always wonder what it looks like when he stands up? It’s gotta just be for the chair. It’s so stuffed and pushed toward the middle it’s like a WonderBra.
Silver
You know those professional killers over at the Pentagon are sitting on a huge Public Relations firm, right? You still find this stuff surprising?
Stuck in the Funhouse
@Cacti:
LOL, and didn’t I read somewhere that Greenwald supported it as well, at least when it mattered beforehand. Or maybe I dreamed it.
IrishGirl
Didn’t even watch it because 60 minutes has sucked for years now. I am old enough to remember when they actually engaged in journalism.
Cacti
@Stuck in the Funhouse:
And GG used to hate him some Messicans also, too. But if you bring that up, it’s proof that you’re a big old poopy pants. Just ask Glenn.
Ronnie P
Of course the advantage of being a commenter is no one knows what you used to believe.
John Cole
Yeah. I supported the war. Yes. I have said for close to 7 years now I was wrong.
Apparently that invalidates my very accurate description of this nauseating 60 Minutes piece.
Never would have guesses General Stuck would be in the middle of the ringleaders in this thread.
muddy
Love means always having to say you’re sorry. Over and over!
Stuck in the Funhouse
@Ronnie P:
The one thing, does not mitigate the other thing.
Water balloon
@Cacti: Greenwald wasn’t writing at the time of the Iraq war. Years later he mentioned that he didn’t pay attention to politics much in that time period and trusted American leaders too much at the time or something along those lines. I don’t know how it would be possible to be a sentient human being in 2003 and not have a definite opinion on the war, but it isn’t true to say he was an active supporter of the war.
Steve in DC
I fucking hate to back up Rummy, he’s an ass and I was at the Pentagon while he was and he was a bit of a joke there, but “known knowns” is a VERY common military saying, so slamming him over it, well you’re mocking all four branches of the military. He shouldn’t have said it to civilians, they don’t understand that sort of crap and the lingo which is why most good military workers treat civilians like nimrods and don’t bring up service slang, but Rummy was correct on that one.
@John
There is nothing wrong with supporting “the war”, there was a lot wrong with why it was conducted and how it was conducted. I don’t think anybody would argue over just how evil Saddam was, having seen the torture cells and what went on it’s far beyond what people actually thought he was up to. We’re talking about a man who used forced rape, feeding people through wood chippers, breaking bones in the public square, drilling through peoples knee caps, and other such acts as “routine interrogation”.
Done for the right reasons, the war could have been the right thing to do. However done because “we could”, because “he tried to kill my dad”, because “it will pay for itself”, because “he has WMD’s we still have the receipts from when we sold them to him”, was a bunch of bullshit. Furthermore it was done in the most idiotic way and paid for on our credit card.
This is something that we as a nation are going to have to understand. We can do whatever we want, we need to make sure then we act for the right reasons, do it right, and pay for it.
Dave
What the hell are you talking about? Who is this?
Cacti
@Steve in DC:
You can always count on Stevie to go to bat for the Bushies.
desertflower
Speaking of failed media…I think you all need to see this and pass this around.This was intentionally planned treason.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=fDAjpVmic8o
salacious crumb
9/11 haappened to us, John! and you are a racist for even questioning Dear Leader Obama and his acolytes intentions!
In other news, US gets ready to attack Syria because Assad is a brutal dictator, kills his own people and ABL supports whatever Dear Leader Obama does.
Stuck in the Funhouse
@John Cole:
LOL. ringleader? now you sound like fuckhead. Don’t believe I mentioned you in my comment Obi Won, nor anything remotely like what you supported back then, invalidating what you support now. Just setting the record straight on the full GG. Why do you not support that? Truth to bullshit, that kind of thing. And why hasn’t Greenwald added you to his blogroll? I wonder about that sometimes.
Steve in DC
@Water balloon:
Plenty of people didn’t care. The military makes up less than 1% of our population, most people don’t give a flying fuck. Especially in the upper class yuppie area where good little white boys don’t join the military. It’s not their problem, it’s some abstract thing where white people from flyover land go off to die, and fuck them.
And a lot of the people that “cared” only did so for political reasons on either side.
A lot of us in the service learned how truly alienated we were from the rest of America during these wars, there are a lot of open wounds that haven’t been addressed by the elites which could bite them in the ass Hence the current military joke “we are the .1%”.
Cacti
@Steve in DC:
It’s always about the white guys for you, eh Stevie?
Steve in DC
@Cacti:
I’m a Democrat, voted for Gore, voted for Kerry, voted for Obama, this will make the first presidential election I don’t vote for a Democrat.
Though again, feel free to take one line and then take the entire comment out of context. You should work on RMoney’s press corps team, you use the same tactics and have the same level of integrity.
Sammi
What about the clips of Chris Christie where the media thinks it’s hilarious that he regularly insults his constituents?
Steve in DC
@Cacti:
Again, taking a comment out of context. Romney must be your man, he makes you look honest.
But yeah, the majority of people they pick up are Texas style country boys because they have not future, especially the Army and Air Force. The Navy (my service) is far more diverse though. Recruitment is moving to inner city areas.
Thing is, liberals care if a minority gets shot, they laugh if a white kid gets shot up. It’s always the same at happy hours in DC. For liberals if a white kid get shot “had his chance, hated muslims, serves him right”, black kid “the military lied to him, it’s tragic”. I’ve grown used to it, but liberals hating on white kids in rural areas and feeling they “deserved it”, is pretty much normal from my personal experience.
Linda Featheringill
At least I learned a new word. I now know what “fap” means.
David Koch
Roll out those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer
Those days of soda and pretzels and beer
Roll out those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer
Dust off the sun and moon and sing a song of cheer
Roll out those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer
Dust off the sun and moon and sing a song of cheer
Nom de Plume
I felt the same way about the “story” a couple of months ago, I think on ABC, about the inner workings of the WH situation room when they got Bin Laden. It was a moist kiss to pretty much the entire White House, and absolutely blatant propaganda, and it totally had DKos in a right proper state of arousal, complete with fanning of flushed faces.
You gotta take this shit with a grain of salt. The media fawns over power, no matter who has it.
Cacti
@Steve in DC:
Still fixed on the imagined oppression of the white dude, eh Stevie?
J.W. Hamner
@Steve in DC:
And Romney suits your allegedly liberal ideals in what way?
Water balloon
@Steve in DC: Everyone I knew at the time had an opinion about the war. You seem to have a cartoon picture about the rest of the country in your head though, so go ahead and think everyone who wasn’t in uniform in 2003 was a clueless imbecile.
TooManyJens
@Steve in DC:
How do you separate the war that actually occurred from how and why it was conducted? Could there have been some kind of Platonic ideal Iraq War that wasn’t an unprovoked and aggressive invasion of another country and was conducted competently? I doubt it, but even if the answer is yes, who gives a good goddamn? That was never, ever the war that the Bushies were going to shove down our throats, and plenty of people knew it.
Steve in DC
@Cacti:
Not at all, I’m not poor so it’s not my issue. And I understand why liberals here would rather give money to DC schools and fix minority issues (subway muggings, get those kids a basketball court so they don’t do it) than poor white kids (had their chance, white priv, so what if they group up in a trailer eating canned food), it’s not my damn problem.
What cracks me up though is why people don’t understand why the white middle class in more rural areas, that are shat on all the time by urban liberals, don’t vote liberal. Both sides are fucking them over, at least one side gives them some lip service.
Shit if I made less money than I did now I’d vote Republican. At least they would say nice things.
I’m just telling you why any white bellow average income and lacking a college education would be nuts to support a party full of people that hate them. Just like I think my roommate is nuts when he votes Republican because he’s gay. Shit don’t make sense!
Water balloon
Wait, you think liberals gather in bars and laugh about dead white soldiers? I’m sorry everyone, I wasn’t aware I was feeding a troll. I’ll stop now.
Steve in DC
@J.W. Hamner:
Not voting for him either, I’m going to vote on some local races solidly D and sit out the Presidential election.
TooManyJens
@Water balloon: I just saw that comment. Yeah, he’s just a fucking liar.
Steve in DC
@Water balloon:
No, I do see liberals who claim every white guy in the Army just joined to kill brown people and Muslims and feel they got what was coming to them when they got shot. Yet if the soldier was a minority claim they were conned by the military and it was a tragedy. If you’re in the DC area we can go out and I’ll show you.
Granted DC has the snarkiest of the snarkiest here, but I’ve seen enough to know why lower income “working class whites” avoid Democrats, would you vote for someone that hates you?
LosGatosCA
That’s what happens when half the population loses it’s mind and decides that thinking critically is not only a waste of time but down right unpatriotic.
There have been a few minutes in my lifetime when the country was working correctly and trending in the right direction, but mostly it’s been assassinations, price controls, Vietnam, Arthur Burns, Beirut/Grenada, Iran Contra, impeachment, the dotcom/Y2K hysteria, the 2000 election, 9/11 hysteria, Bush II, Iraq, swift boating, Sarah Palin, Rick Santorum, Obama’s bipartisanship fetish, the Tea Party hysteria, Citizen’s United, and now the war on women who use birth control.
I’m optimistic that there are one or two minutes left. Maybe in 2025.
Cacti
@Water balloon:
Yep, that’s our Stevie.
The “Democrat” who’s always ready with faux news/talk radio bogey man of the “coastal librul elite”.
coin operated
OK…when does the thread title become a tag. I’m still LMAO!!!
@Steve in DC: Dude…I want some of that good shit you are smoking.
Steve in DC
@Cacti:
I am the coastal elite, and thus I can understand why those in flyover land wouldn’t vote for my team, we are fucking assholes to them and hate them.
LosGatosCA
I’d work on changing the people and places where you get your personal experiences and not waste time posting nonsense here.
eemom
@Stuck in the Funhouse:
Yeowch. O mon General, THAT was a below-the-belter.
All’s I can say to YOU is, don’t expect to NOT be called Obama-fellator-in-chief anytime soon by He Who Shuns Politically Motived Fellatio Jokes When Lindsay Beyerstein Tells Him To.
TooManyJens
@Steve in DC: You’re an asshole. It is thus not surprising that the friends you hang out with in bars (I’m just going to grant that for the sake of argument) are assholes. That doesn’t make “liberals” assholes. Jesus, you project like a Republican.
Water balloon
Two things. First, I don’t live in a city and I don’t make much money, and I know a lot of people just like me. Some are conservative, some more liberal. None care even a little bit what people in DC bars say about anything, let alone base their vote on it. Secondly, I still don’t believe you.
eemom
@Steve in DC:
Go fuck yourself, you despicable smug-ass know-nothing.
And IIRC that you live here in Virginia, well, really go fuck yourself. You deserve every wingnut scumbag we’ve got running this miserable POS state.
David Koch
AZ-8 special election is a devastating defeat for the republicans and portends poorly for Romney in November.
this double digit loss in a conservative red state spells the end/defeat/refudiation of teabaggerism.
Republican activists won’t soon forget how Romney wouldn’t even fly out and campaign or donate money.
srv
Us White Elitist are the victims because we have to be bothered by all these white non-elitists’ inferiority complexes.
I don’t know about y’all, but it just fucks up all my bar conversations. I’ll just have to have another latte and wax my Volvo with that new organic carnuba.
Yutsano
@David Koch: AKA Headlines That Will Never Exist. Gawd our press sucks.
Hypatia's Momma
@srv:
Dude, you are harshing on my mellow.
Mark S.
@Steve in DC:
Man, you are one weird dude. Maybe you can tell us again how you couldn’t care less if Roe v Wade gets overturned as long as the rich get their taxes raised.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@Mark S.: In his language, “that’s not his issue”. After all, he can’t get pregnant, so why should he care?
Catsy
Wow, just when I think Steve in DC can’t post anything that would further lower my opinion of him and his mendacious douchebaggery, he has to go and prove me wrong. When he’s not repeating tedious wingnut frames, he’s bleating out equally tedious Beltway faux-centrism.
Grats, dude. To quote a wise man: my days of not taking you seriously are definitely coming to a middle.
Cain
@Steve in DC:
It’s kind of a endless cycle, we don’t take rednecks very seriously because they vote against their own economic interest and vote for the guy who will take away their healthcare, but will ban gay marriage which would affect them in no way.. because of our behavior they think we’re a bunch of smug assholes.
The problem is, rednecks are kind of dumb because they think they’re fucking liberals over but they are really fucking themselves over due to their own prejudice.
On the other hand, we’re fighting for the good stuff that helps everyone so even if we’re assholes, rednecks will still benefit for what we are fighting for.
fuckwit
It’s the Hunger Games.
Bread and circuses for all!
Violent entertainment is the best– and war is the BESTEST KIND!
GLADIATOR HEROES!!!
coin operated
@Cain: This.
TheMightyTrowel
Hey PirateDan (if you’re reading), CONGRATULATIONS on the win – I’m sure a double handful of those winning votes came from your hard work!
amk
Why WATB steve douche is worth so many responses when all he posts is nonsense ?
owlbear1
I thought in the 21st century it was supposed to be “He said/She said”
journalismstenography?That was completely “He said blow me so we did”
journalismpornography.Villago Delenda Est
1. Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld should hang as war criminals. After all, we did the same to Germans and Japanese for their role in planning and executing wars of aggression.
2. Bush should hang a second time for deserting from the armed forces. Officers set the example…even if the only example they set is a bad one.
3. The MSM is beyond worthless. Pelle is one of many, he’s thoroughly in the Punkinhaid school of Journamalism.
joel hanes
@Linda Featheringill:
Onomatopoeia
joel hanes
@LosGatosCA:
There have been a few minutes in my lifetime …
This. Exactly.
kindness
But I like Leon Panetta. I actually trust his judgement. He was a great Congressman & has been very decent as a CIA director and now Defense Dept chief.
Seth Owen
I’ll admit it. I was snookered. It was a more innocent time. I was glad Bush beat Gore because I was sick of Clintonian sleaze. I had high hopes for a team with folks like Powell, Rumsfeld and Rice. Bush seemed like a practical fellow, not an ideologue. And I believed that responsible leaders would never take such a serious step as war without very good reason and a solid plan. No doubt some people were not paying close attention at the time — life intrudes after all — and simply trusted. But even many of us who were paying attention — because it directly affected us, perhaps — trusted. The Bush era was eye- opening, eh?
But I will say one thing. All you Greewalds and other self-righteous Obama critics need to understand that, for all the legit criticism you may have about Obama, you are a fucking fool if you don’t support him now. You are a dumb shit if you think the Romney administration will stop drone attacks (R will worry about collateral damage? Please!) or not get into yet another I’ll-planned, unwinnable Middle Eastern War. He’s PROMISED us one, for Fuck’s sake! So you can snark about ABL and Dear Leader all you want in your self-congratulatory rectitude, but elections have consequences. Bush wasn’t what most of us were expecting, but we know exactly what we are getting with Romney.
SO STFU.
Stuck in the Funhouse
@kindness:
He runs the defense department, and therefore evil by definition, and guilty as charged for the war crime of choice. He should have been asked why he follows orders from worse than Bush, when he should be linking to Glenn Greenwald for finding out the twoof that 60 minutes can’t handle.
newtons.third
@Steve in DC: I am a liberal democrat, despised the wars that have been fought, but I always thought that Rummy has been wrongly mocked over his statements of “known knowns” etc… It was easy, and the mocking was deserved for many other things, but information has always fallen into one of four categories, and he correctly identified them.
Known Knowns: Things that you know that you know. Think gravity.
Known Unknowns: Things that you know that you need more information on before acting upon. Think string theory.
Unknown knowns: Things that you do not realize are known to you, at least in a form that is helpful. Think about some item of info that suddenly makes sense, when presented with other information.
Unknown Unknowns: Things that you don’t know that you don’t know. Electricity prior to its invention/discovery.
This idea of known knowns etc… is very present in science, as well as most other fields. Giving Rumsfeld grief over this is very easy, but, I think, wrongly placed. Try him as a war criminal (possibly), but not this statement.
BrianK
I was at a wedding this weekend, and the best man’s toast referenced “his least favorite person in the world” and the unknown-unknowns. So someone remembers, Cole.
Chris
@Cain:
It’s an endless cycle, but I can tell you who got the cycle started and it wasn’t the Fucking Coastal Elitists. The country is in the mess it’s currently in because such a massive chunk of those poor, misunderstood white working and middle class voters decided in the late sixties that their hangups over civil rights, Vietnam, and the scary empowerment of sluts and faggots mattered more to them than their economic well-being (or their children’s, or anyone else’s) – and in so doing, they handed the keys to power to the people who’ve been screwing them over ever since. (The Third Way/DLC/milquetoast don’t-really-care-about-economic-issues liberalism didn’t come around until decades after that, largely because the loss of so many white voters over social issues convinced the Dems that there was nothing to be gained by trying to appeal to them anymore).
And yes, at the risk of appalling SteveInDC, I do hate them for it. Not because they signed up for wars (heh, as if – few enough of them do that in any case), but because you, me, and everyone else in this country has been made to pay for their racial and cultural hangups for the last three decades.
But yeah. Somehow we’re the cruel elitists when we resent them for deciding that everyone in this country needs to pay with our futures because they’re upset that there’s a darkie sitting next to them in a public restaurant. Sure we are.
bemused
@Steve in DC:
“At least they would say nice things”. Isn’t that why some women keep going back to the guys who keep beating them bloody? Their abusers are so sorry, nice and sweet lulling them until the next beating.
celticdragonchick
@John Cole:
Fuck it. I supported the war also at the time. To be human is to also be fallible.
Egg Berry
@newtons.third: It is possible that it was just the cherry on top of a bunch of other Rumsfeldian quotables.
Mino
@Steve in DC: You know what? Iraqis tolerated Saddam, knowing full well what he was capable of.
But they threw us out on our ears at tremendous personal cost. (Not to mention, our presence increased their deaths toll by factors, and not in nice ways, either.)
Have a clue?
Mino
I’ll never forget the staged presser when that soldier asked Rummy when they were gonna get armor for their vehicles. And told America what they were jury-rigging to try and stay safe. Shameful.
kindness
@Stuck in the Funhouse:
See right there you show yourself to be an idiot sack of shit. Worse than Bush? Worse than bush43? Fucking moran. With all due respect, screw you. Enjoy firedoglake. They’re your people.
flukebucket
Didn’t about 9 out of 10 Americans support the war at the time? And wasn’t the vote for authorization to use military force about 99-1 or something like that?
Supporting the war at the time does not make you some kind of freak.
And for what it is worth I never supported the damn war but that does not make me some kind of genius either.
Stuck in the Funhouse
@kindness:
What the fuck is wrong with you? You were the one defending Panetta in this thread. And what is the thinking, or non thinking I should go to FDL? I’m an Obot apologist, remember, a boot licking cult supporter that Greenwald describes with about every blog post he makes. Now screw your head back on, or soak in a barrel of bullshit. jeebus.
edit – or maybe you misread my comment as nonsnark.
Omnes Omnibus
@kindness: You should probably get your snark detector in for recalibration.
Stuck in the Funhouse
@Omnes Omnibus:
Well, in defense of kindness, my comment didn’t really have a tell in it. I just assume everyone on this blog already thinks I’m a mindless Obot.
Chris
@Mino:
There I may object. Iraqis didn’t exactly “tolerate” Saddam, as I recall they tried to overthrow him in a massive uprising after Gulf War I, which was brutally suppressed along the lines of what you’re seeing in Syria right now.
Which doesn’t excuse the invasion or anything the U.S. did in the course of it (the Iraqis I’ve met tend to loathe Bush and Saddam alike), but it wasn’t really a matter of “tolerating” Saddam.
Omnes Omnibus
@flukebucket: It felt like more than that at the time.
eemom
@Stuck in the Funhouse:
A point of minorly entertaining historical interest that the general themes of this thread reminded me of, is the way that Hamsher, Greenwald and the rest of their collective ilk sucked up to Valerie Plame in the heydey of the Scooter Libby trial.
She was a nameless CIA drone who would have been reviled precisely as you mention until Libby et al outed her. Then, presto! Instant American Hero!
[puke]
Mnemosyne
@flukebucket:
Nope. More like 60 percent at the most. The First Gulf War had much, more more support than Bush II’s invasion of Iraq.
I thought it was bullshit from the start and told everyone I knew that I thought so, but I don’t hold it against people if they bought into the lies. The only time that annoys me is when people who bought the bullshit at the time now try to tell me that they’re smarter than I am because they eventually figured it out. I mean, yes, I’m glad you pulled your head out of your ass, but don’t look down on those of us who never fell for it.
Mnemosyne
@Omnes Omnibus:
It felt that way because the media was fully on-board. They wanted their TV war and, damn it, they weren’t going to let a little thing like massive public opposition or poor planning by the Bush administration to stand in the way of
ratingsFREEDOM!Stuck in the Funhouse
@eemom:
Well, eemom, I would take issue only with Valerie Plame being ‘a drone’ in the CIA. She was a NOC, non official cover, and actually a real spy with a high level of training for that dangerous work. All the rest about the Hamsher and GG, using her for pol fodder is spot on, in that now, the CIA is an evil org that must be exposed in every way.
Stuck in the Funhouse
@Mnemosyne:
same here. thank you
Mino
@Chris: If they had shown the same determination to get rid of Saddam as they showed to get rid of us, do you think he’d still be around? I don’t.
kindness
My apologies. I was wrong about Stuck in Funhouse’s intent.
I’m not here enough now days to know all the players & I jumped to the wrong conclusions. Sorry ’bout that.
Stuck in the Funhouse
@kindness:
No problemo :)
Judas Escargot, Your Postmodern Neighbor
@Stuck in the Funhouse:
People (ie any foreign nationals with “business” ties to Plame) almost certainly died unpleasant, painful deaths because of Novak’s cover-blowing article. We will never know their names.
Meanwhile, Novak got to die peacefully in his hospital bed. Sometimes I wish there was a hell.
Whoever outed her to Novak (likely Rove) is, objectively, a traitor. (It’s sad that our current culture makes that sentence sound so extreme… but that doesn’t make it any less true).
The Rosenbergs got the electric chair for not much worse.
sparky
i find it fascinating that this thread contains a Greenwald attack but essentially no comment on the blockquoted remark. projection, reflex or something else?
@Chris: i’d be tempted to agree with you, except that the voters you speak of were manipulated by an elite. and, 30 years ago much of the 1% was closer to the ground than they are today, if only because the depression and WWII were shared experiences.
@Seth Owen: criticism and voting are not the same thing. additionally, some people simply cannot stomach voting for the lesser of two evils, and it is not for me to say that they are not entitled to their opinion(s).
sparky
i find it fascinating that this thread contains a Greenwald attack but essentially no comment on the blockquoted remark. projection, reflex or something else?
@Chris: i’d be tempted to agree with you, except that the voters you speak of were manipulated by an elite. and, 30 years ago much of the 1% was closer to the ground than they are today, if only because the depression and WWII were shared experiences.
@Seth Owen: criticism and voting are not the same thing. additionally, some people simply cannot stomach voting for the lesser of two evils, and it is not for me to say that they are not entitled to their opinion(s).