The Bolton filibuster, the judges "deal," and media bias
Hugh Hewitt
Here's my World column on Monday's big deal.
Why didn't any of the major morning papers' accounts of the Democrats' decision to filibuster the John Bolton nomination reach for comment any of the seven Democrats who pledged a new era of cooperation on Monday night? The Wall Street Journal (subscription required), The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe and the Los Angeles Times all devote long stories to the Bolton filibuster, but not one of the Democratic seven who had promised a new era on Monday night could be found to explain why the new era ended so abruptly. Ohio Republican Mike DeWine could be located, and he was happy to offer an explanation for his Democratic colleagues that excused their vote (and of course explains his agreement Monday night):
"'It is unfortunate,' conceded Senator Mike DeWine, Republican of Ohio and a prominent member of the so-called Gang of 14 who drew up the judicial compromise. 'It is too bad. But the deal was on judges, not anything else.'"
Why is it that the Democrats were obviously trying hard to deny it was a filibuster, and the key Democrats could not be found, but DeWine would provide political cover? Could it be that the grifters' victim is embarrassed at being conned?
This AP report does not explain why two crucial appellate court nominations which were to have been voted on yesterday by the Judiciary Committee did not make it out of committee but two others did. There appears to be much more to the "deal" than has been reported. This isn't classified information, and usually the Hill leaks everything, so why can't even one reporter with that beat figure out who got tossed under the bus and who will get a vote? Or was the "deal" so ambiguous that nobody knows for sure?
news.yahoo.com
Now, sigh, to media bias.
The Washington Post, front page, first paragraph:
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"Pentagon officials said yesterday that investigators have identified five incidents of military guards and an interrogator 'mishandling' the Koran at the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, but characterized the episodes as minor and said most occurred before specific rules on the treatment of Muslim holy items were issued."
>>>
The headline used on this story: "Pentagon Confirms Koran Incidents"
washingtonpost.com
E.J. Dionne, in a column titled "Assault on the Media" uses this Pentagon report to brand last week's criticisms of the Newsweek allegation that the Koran had been flushed down thee toilet as "the war on Newsweek."
"I write about it now," Dionne explains, "because of the new reports and because I fear that too many people in traditional journalism are becoming dangerously defensive in the face of a brilliantly conceived conservative attack on the independent media."
Dionne goes on to argue:
"Conservative academics have long attacked 'postmodernist' philosophies for questioning whether "truth" exists at all and claiming that what we take as 'truths' are merely 'narratives' woven around some ideological predisposition. Today's conservative activists have become the new postmodernists. They shift attention away from the truth or falsity of specific facts and allegations -- and move the discussion to the motives of the journalists and media organizations putting them forward."
Note that the accusation Dionne levels at "conservative activists" is exactly what he just done vis-a-vis the Newsweek story that led to riots that killed perhaps 17 people and which did damage to the American mission in Afghanistan and Iraq. The front page account noted that the Pentagon briefer, General Hood "took pains to deny a now-retracted report in Newsweek magazine's May 9 issue that said officials had confirmed a detainee's claim that a guard had flushed a Koran down a toilet." Dionne ignores that and indeed manipulates the briefing to defend Newsweek, thus "shifting attention away from the truth or falsity of the specific facts and allegations" of the Newsweek story, while moving "the discussion forward to the motives of the" Administration and conservative critics of Newsweek specifically and the media generally.
I am not surprised that Dionne tries to shift the focus from the first false report, the riots and the retraction to the new report, but I am surprised that he does so so nakedly and unpersuasively, revealing a whole bunch of projection as he goes about his lame counter-attack.
It isn't difficult to agree on a standard: Report facts, in their appropriate context, without attempting to push a story line or an anti-Administration narrative or anti-military bias of the sort Terry Moran admitted last week is deep within the MSM.
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The Post's Dana Milbank, in an interview with me yesterday, provided the key to understanding the officials Beltway reporters like and those they don't. Milbank had just revealed to me that he voted for Chuck Hagel for president, and the exchange followed:
"HH: Who'd you vote for?
DM: I voted for Chuck Hagel.
HH: For president?
DM: I did. I wrote him in.
HH: Really?
DM: I did.
HH: Why?
DM: Well, I, you know, my executive editor, Len Downey, has this policy of not voting at all, you know, so he doesn't have to form that judgment in his own head. I don't go that far. I, you know, as I say, we...we should be capable of making judgments, so I...what I do is I write in a candidate that I think, regardless of who's actually in the race, who I'd think would make a terrific president.
HH: Why do you think Chuck Hagel would make a terrific president?
DM: Well, for one, you know, a strong military background. So I guess we can add that up against what my colleague Terry had to say. And then, you know, sort of an ability to work across the aisle. And also, he's just very candid and refreshing in the way McCain was, who I've also voted for in previous elections.
HH: Now, that ability to work across the aisle...a specific please. I followed Senator Hagel's career pretty closely, and it's not immediately occurring to me.
DM: Well, you know, actually, this past week, we have an instance where he talked a very good game on the judges, and then ultimately turned against...
HH: But there must be something there where he worked across the aisle that sticks in your...
DM: Oh, sure. I mean we've seen it on, you know, on the tax issue. We've seen him standing up on a variety of health care issues, and the other half of what I'm talking about is sort of the candor factor in which he's said, look. You know, we made mistakes in Iraq, we didn't go in with enough troops, being willing to step away from the party line.
HH: Now, is it possible that as a journalist, you prefer elected officials who embrace those qualities that make your life easiest, and give you leads, and have candor, and you know...
DM: Oh, no question about it.
HH: And so, McCain, Hagel, and anyone who'll let you guys on the bus, are going to get a boost from you people.
DM: Oh, yea. No, No. In fact, that was a major theme of Smashmouth.
HH: I remember that now.
DM: We're just suckers for somebody who'll be nice to us."
This isn't complicated stuff. Dionne, Milbank, a thousand other big names and worker bees in MSM like the people who build them up, and dislike the people who treat them like they treat every other citizen. What it would take, a tractor to pull out of Milbank is the admission that his love for Hagel or McCain colors his reporting of them or his reporting of Bush?
The fact --the fact-- is that the vast majority of the public believes that the media's bias affects its collective reporting because they understand that their own likes and dislikes affect their own perceptions. Common human experience tells us that the idea of an iron-willed objectivity on the part of MSM is just a story they tell themselves at seminars. Insisting on their objectivity is every day a new reason to doubt it. The antidote to media hostility --the real and deep sort, not the sort alleged by Dionne to have been invented by "conservative activists" (who I guess made Mary Mapes do it and Dan Rather read it)-- is transparency of belief, not the cagey denial of belief's importance.
radioblogger.com
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Victor Davis Hanson begins his column today at NRO with a reference to Pepsico President Indira Nooyi's "middle finger" speech, which had to be explained to the reader because the vast majority of them will not have heard about the speech via any MSM outlet. Not that the MSM is biased in its story selection or anything.
nationalreview.com
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