Krugman: "...administration is trying, yet again, to deceive the public."

[understandinglife]

The point isn't just that the administration is trying, yet again, to deceive the public. It's the fact that this attempt at deception shows such contempt - contempt for the public, and especially contempt for the news media. And why not? The truth is that the level of misrepresentation in this new document is no worse than that in a typical speech by President Bush or Vice President Dick Cheney. Yet for much of the past five years, many major news organizations failed to provide the public with effective fact-checking.

So Mr. Bush's new public relations offensive on Iraq is a test. Are the news media still too cowed, too addicted to articles that contain little more than dueling quotes to tell the public when the administration is saying things that aren't true? Or has the worm finally turned?

There have been encouraging signs, notably a thorough front-page fact-checking article - which even included charts showing the stagnation of oil production and electricity generation! - in USA Today. But the next few days will tell.

Link:

http://select.nytimes.com/2005/12/02/opinion/02krugman.html?hp=&pagewanted=print

In_deed, they will.

I'll post a link to the full Op-Ed as soon as TruthOut or some other site makes it available.

This is perhaps the most significant Op-Ed Mr Krugman has published.

He knows Bush and the neoconsters have lied. He knows the press has either acted as willing propagandist or unpatriotic stenographer.

Has the 'worm finally turned'? Let's hope so, for the sake of America and humanity.


Peace.

[yurbud]

1. vote up the KrugMan

[understandinglife]

3. I agree. He has been persistently courageous. But, this one really ...

... calls out both the liars and their enablers in the media.


Peace.

[johnfunk]

2. When our "liberal" press is owned by stealth right wing thugs...

...like Pinch Sulzburger, and phonies including Judy Miller and Bob Woodward are consider "superstar" journalists, then I can't help but think the establishment press is just going to recycle Scott McClellan's pap and label it news.

[understandinglife]

4. Well, I suspect Judith, Arthur, Bill and others are spending major $$$ ...

... trying to find some way to avoid being prosecuted for war crimes.

Notably, the World Tribunal on Iraq explicitly cited the New York Times and even more explicity, Judith Miller, in their final list of those charged.

Folk can poo-poo that now -- but, I suspect as the Bush Crimes Commission proceeds and many others join the effort, Arthur, Bill, Judith and the NYT shareholders will be held accountable -- if history is any lesson.

I will 'never forget'; I suspect many others will not, either.


Peace.

[Bozita]

5. MUST READ --- Krugman may outdo Frank Rich with this piece

from the article:

The National Security Council document released this week under the grandiose title "National Strategy for Victory in Iraq" is neither an analytical report nor a policy statement. It's simply the same old talking points - "victory in Iraq is a vital U.S. interest"; "failure is not an option" - repackaged in the style of a slide presentation for a business meeting.

It's an embarrassing piece of work. Yet it's also an important test for the news media. The Bush administration has lost none of its confidence that it can get away with fuzzy math and fuzzy facts - that it won't be called to account for obvious efforts to mislead the public. It's up to journalists to prove that confidence wrong.

Here's an example of how the White House attempts to mislead: the new document assures us that Iraq's economy is doing really well. "Oil production increased from an average of 1.58 million barrels per day in 2003, to an average of 2.25 million barrels per day in 2004." The document goes on to concede a "slight decrease" in production since then.

We're not expected to realize that the daily average for 2003 includes the months just before, during and just after the invasion of Iraq, when its oil industry was basically shut down. As a result, we're not supposed to understand that the real story of Iraq's oil industry is one of unexpected failure: instead of achieving the surge predicted by some of the war's advocates, Iraqi production has rarely matched its prewar level, and has been on a downward trend for the past year.

--wow--

[Supersedeas]

22. Fuzzy math and fuzzy facts -- the Corp Media is satisfied with that

[emald]

6. turn you damn worm TURN!!! n/t

[Nothing Without Hope]

7. K & R - so terrible that Krugman is behind the pay-for-view wall

and Scheer has been kicked off LA Times in favor of a wingnut fool. (He's now at SF Chron.)

[annabanana]

11. perhaps this is by design..

It's easier to manage information once you divide it. Way way back, when "pay TV" first started being talked about, my father and I discussed the possibility of an "information divide" that would separate the haves and the have-nots. The poorest Americans have very little diversity of view available to them. We who sail around the world on this highspeed highway should look down every once in a while.

What would you and your neighbors know if you had no internet and no cable TV? Your newspaper would be what was at the local coffee shop. Your radio would be the local airwaves. Your TV would be whatever the antenna could pull in.... what if you couldn't even afford a TV, or had no place to plug one in?

We have to free the airwaves.

[WiseButAngrySara]

17. Good Points. These are questions I've pondered for some time now. ..n/t

[hfojvt]

20. I cannot credit the internet completely

In 2000, my niece researched something on the internet which caused her to vote for Bush. In 2004 my RW co-worker was talking about some website where she found all kinds of anti-Kerry "info".

The internet is not necessarily a cure for ignorance, sometimes it can be a cause. I like to think that I have BS detectors and also my own knowledge from my reading, college degrees and research, but my niece and RW bro-in-law also are pretty smart and have their own college degrees (but my BiL has twice sent me RW hack pieces that I have torn to shreds, so where was his brain in that?)

[progressoid]

24. Right. I think many use the internet to find "info" to support their

preconceived notions. They have mostly made up their minds, but are looking for reinforcement.

[hfojvt]

26. that's the trouble

How can I be sure I am not one of them?

The last time I read a conservative was on Oct. 18, 2004 and I was inspired to write this:

" That Welch quote must surely be the most over-used quote in the Bartlett lexicon, at least it is right up there with the one about truth being the first casualty of war. I should know, I used it last week to wave my finger at gloating Yankee fans.
I questioned whether I was becoming, or perhaps revealing that I am, close-minded since I felt no need to watch the debates and also feel no need to listen to the other side. Yet Bush, and your columns supporting Bush, clearly demonstrate that the "other side" has nothing to say. Bush cannot make an honest argument for the war in Iraq any more than he can honestly admit he was wrong about the WMD. Bush cannot make an honest argument for his tax cuts.
So instead of honestly supporting Bush or honestly criticizing Kerry, you write a column feigning outrage. So the candidate, or supporters of the candidate, who used the "McCain fathered an illegitimate black baby" and the "swift boat veterans for truth" attacks. Those people are going to be outraged about Mary Cheney. Those people are going to be so concerned about her privacy that they keep talking and writing about her. Saying things like:
"the Democratic strategists who concocted this base-suppressing dirty trick orchestrated a defense that it was Dick Cheney who "outed" his daughter months ago."
Well, sir, one of the advantages of that defense is that it happens to be true. I learned about Cheney's daughter from the Kansas City news.
Your feigned-outrage shtick needs work."

I should clarify that I learned it from KC news because they were covering something that Dick said when he visited the area.

[understandinglife]

19. And, Scheer is with this important new effort -- truthdig.com:

http://www.truthdig.com
http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground


Peace.

[LaPera]

8. Always a pleasure to read Krugman - Very few like him have his

courage, honesty or scruples.

[Brundle_Fly]

9. his book The Great Unravelling...

was an eye opener as well.

Krugman is a voice that should be heard, he picks away at all the little lies and inconsistencies. He knows his fact and takes them on head on.

Kudos

kicked and reco'ed

[radfringe]

10. get ready for the next round of GOPer spin

short blurb in an article I read yesterday -- (local paper, no link sorry)

the "new improved" spin regarding the bush* plan has GOPers point to the bounce in bush* numbers ( http://www.realclearpolitics.com/polls.html ) as a sign that American want bush* to succeed in Iraq...

my 2-cents: most americans recognize Iraq is a mess, they also recognize that "we broke it" and are at least morally obligated to fix it. I don't think it's that we want bush* to succeed as much as acknowledging that there are serious problems that need to be addressed and we can't walk away

If your kid busted a cookie jar, and you told him to fix it - and he glues it back together -- is it because you wanted him to succeed at fixing what he broke or to rectify the incident?

[Nothing Without Hope]

12. ***FULL TEXT POSTED***

http://nevadathunder.com/?p=596

[understandinglife]

14. Thank you Hope!! The "TruthOut.com" link is now also available.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/120205Z.shtml


Peace.

[BamaBecky]

27. kick

[femrap]

29. Krugman is exactly right about the 'contempt' that the

administration is showing the public. After W's little speech, Simpson of Wyoming was interviewed on Hardball, I believe. He disgusted me....said that the public didn't want to know the details...that the public had better things to do...he insinuated that we cared nothing about the details of the Iraq War...I was flabbergasted....but I knew he was talking the pug points.

Did anyone else see that? It was as if he thought the American public was too busy to deal with the war....that we had better things to do. It made me sick.

[depakid]

13. The far right media will never question the Republicans

and they'll continue to suppress the truth until they're forced to divest by reinstatement of regulations that were in place for 50 years before Reagan's administration dismantled them.

Breaking up the media oligopoly is the only way back to even a vestige of a free press in America.

[understandinglife]

15. Ray McGovern: "Bush ... presents a clear strategy for quagmire & disaster"

<clip>

Staying the Course

The president's words struck an overall defensive tone, especially when he took on critics of his policy of "staying the course." Bush rang a number of changes on the theme of how "flexible and dynamic" our military has become in "adapting and adjusting" to the situation in Iraq. As an example, he noted: "We have changed the way we train Iraqi troops."

There was no sign in the president's speech that this flexibility includes openness to the step that is the sine qua non for the US to climb out of the Iraqi quagmire. As author Robert Dreyfuss has emphasized, that step is to sit down face-to-face with representatives of the Baath party - not the Quisling Sunnis with whom US officials prefer to deal. Why? Because the Baathists are the backbone of the resistance/insurgency.

The good news is that a peace process has begun, despite Washington's decision to boycott it because of its allergic reaction to dealing with the real resistance/insurgents. At a Reconciliation Conference ten days ago in Cairo, Shia, Sunni, and Kurdish representatives sat down together under the auspices of the Arab League and reached a surprising degree of consensus, including agreement on a demand for a timetable for withdrawal of foreign forces from Iraq. A second, much larger session will convene in February but, if the president's speech is any indication, Washington will continue to frown on such talks, and may continue to shun them. This, of course, raises the question as to whether the Bush administration really desires a political solution at this point.

The failure to take advantage of this potentially fertile path out of Iraq opened up in Cairo, together with the "Same Old, Same Old" character of yesterday's speech, strongly suggest that the "Cheney-Rumsfeld cabal" is still telling the president what to say and do.

From Bush Speech Offers "Clear Strategy"- For Victory or Disaster?
by Ray McGovern on December 1, 2005

Link:

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/120105I.shtml

Truth == despite Washington's decision to boycott it

Bush, Cheney and the neoconsters are lying, murdering imperialists. The only way to stop them is to Mirandize'um, book'um and try'um. So, please support these folk:

http://www.bushcommission.org

Peace.

[understandinglife]

16. Robert Dreyfuss: Edelman lies to him, again ...

<clip>

Now that the war is underway, and going badly, President Bush and his minions are still insisting, against all evidence, that Iraq is still at the heart of the war on terrorism. In his recent Annapolis speech, in the hefty Victory in Iraq document, and in other statements from administration officials, the Bush team is still misrepresenting the enemy. In fact, our real opponents in Iraq are not Al Qaeda, but the Iraqi resistance led by secular Baathists, former Iraqi military and intelligence officials, and a vast underground army of unhappy Sunnis, what U.S. intelligence calls POI's ("pissed off Iraqis"). But just as Bush lied about the terrorist threat from Iraq in 2003, he is doing it again: he is claiming that the real enemy in Iraq are Al Qeda-linked jihadists -- even though virtually all analysts of the war in Iraq say that the jihadists are only about 4 per cent of the fighters that U.S. forces face.

Which brings us to Edelman. Speaking at CFR yesterday, Edelman cited a long list of jihadist web site ravings, including one in which he quoted bin Laden claiming that the jihadists' goal in Iraq was to turn that country into the base for a new, worldwide Caliphate, a political-religious empire that Edelman warned would take over first the Middle East, then Europe, then the world. He ignored the reality that whatever outlandish claims bin Laden makes (and bin Laden is not in Iraq and has little leverage even over the small band of jihadists there), there is no chance that bin Laden's wild fantasies could come true. Certainly they do not represent an existential threat to world security, except in the sense that Al Qaeda can blow up things in London or Madrid. But Edelman presented the war in Iraq as the only way to prevent bin Laden from creating his worldwide Evil Calipjhate. (In the press corps, sitting in the back, there were audible titters at the stupidity of Edelman's claims.)

<clip>

Still, the reality in Iraq is that the opposition to the U.S. occupation is primarily secular and nationalist, not Islamist.

So when it came my turn to ask a question, I asked Edelman, first, if as Cheney's chief national security aide, he had participated in the administration's effort to arm-twist the CIA to skew intelligence about ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda. And I asked him if he thought that the Pentagon inspector-general's investigation of Feith and the OSP was justified. (Amazingly, even though I spoke politiely, breifly, and without any inflammatory rhetoric, some in the posh CFR audience threw catcalls my way while I was speaking.) Edelman lied again, denying that he was involved in any pressure against the CIA, telling me to ask CIA officials if they felt pressured. (I have already asked, and many of them told me: Yes, they did.) And he refused to comment on the IG investigation of Feith, which parallels the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence so-called Phase II investigation of pre-war abuses of intelligence. "Iraq," he said, "is a central front in the War on Terror."

From Bush v. The Evil Caliphate by Robert Dreyfuss on December 2, 2005

More at the link:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bob-dreyfuss/bush-v-the-evil-caliphat_b_11583.html

One journalist attempting to advance the truth. One can only hope that those "...audible titters at the stupidity of Edelman's claims" are broadcast broadly.


Peace.

[WiseButAngrySara]

18. K&R once again USL, for an excellent post. For you to say:

"This is perhaps the most significant Op-Ed Mr Krugman has published."

...is very noteworthy in itself! I will read the full article. Thanks for the post and links. I love this sentence:

"He knows the press has either acted as willing propagandist or unpatriotic stenographer.!!!!

[understandinglife]

21. "The Nation": Editors -- "If the classified memo detailing President Bush

... alleged proposal to bomb the headquarters of Al Jazeera is provided to The Nation, we will publish the relevant sections. Why is it so vital that this information be made available to the American people? Because if a President who claims to be using the US military to liberate countries in order to spread freedom then conspires to destroy media that fail to echo his sentiments, he does not merely disgrace his office and soil the reputation of his country. He attacks a fundamental principle, freedom of the press -- particularly a dissenting and disagreeable press -- upon which that country was founded.

Preface to The War on Al Jazeera by JEREMY SCAHILL

December 19, 2005 issue of The Nation:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=5503782&mesg_id=5503935

Thought it fitting to link this statement to what Mr. Krugman has written about the failed responsibility of most American media, particularly in the past five years.


Peace.

[understandinglife]

23. "I guess the insurgents in Fallujah did not get the memo from Condi Rice

... and other Bush Administration hawks that things are fine and the insurgency is, as Dick Cheney said, in "its last throes".

<clip>

The Marines were clearing a factory. The enormous blast that killed our Marines had been carefully placed inside over a period of time. This appears to have been an ambush. Clearly the Marines had poor intelligence about the factory and there was no control around its perimeter in the days preceding the patrol. No neighbors in the area chose to alert U.S. forces that they were walking into the jaws of death. And, more importantly, where were the damn Iraqi troops accompanying our Marines? Why didn't they fan out in advance and gather intel that might have prevented the loss of these brave troops.

When you are fighting an insurgency and do not have the genuine support of the locals, it is relatively easy to kill alot of Americans. God bless the souls of these brave Marines who have died fulfilling their duty. Too bad their civilian leaders do not have the same code of honor and integrity.

From Someone Tell the Marines Fallujah is Pacified by Larry C. Johnson

More at the link:

http://noquarter.typepad.com/my_weblog/2005/12/someone_tell_th.html

"plan for victory" .... sure George.

Has the media shown any sign of the awakening .... Just what will the "next few days tell"?


Peace.

[understandinglife]

25. "Oil: So here we are at another of the great, hardly covered stories ...

... of the Iraq war.

As Mark LeVine has recently made so clear, the Bush administration, with its former energy industry execs and consultants, was thinking oil - and Iraqi oil in particular - from literally the first moments of its existence. "The few documents that have been made public from (Vice President Cheney's) Energy Task Force... reveal not only that industry executives met with Cheney's staff (in February 2001) but that a map of Iraq and an accompanying list of 'Iraq oil foreign suitors' were the center of discussion." Hmmm... These were people who already had "peak oil" on their minds. They entered Iraq, a nation sitting on untold amounts of oil, thinking about the global control of future energy resources. They sent soldiers to guard the Oil Ministry and the oil fields, while allowing pretty much everything else to be looted as the country fell to them. They have no desire to abandon either their permanent bases or that reservoir of "black gold" to others. But beyond pious statements about preserving the Iraqi "patrimony" (i.e. oil) in the early days of the war, they never broached the subject publicly and the media followed their lead. It's rare today - though a perfectly obvious point to make - for someone to say, as Ambassador Khalilzad did recently, "You could have a regional war that could go on for a very long time, and affect the security of oil supplies." Keep your eyes on this issue. It's what separates Vietnam, which itself contained nothing special for a foreign power, from Iraq.

In the end, ignore (if you can) the whirlwind of withdrawal language that will turn all sorts of non- or semi-withdrawal schemes into something other than what they are, and try to keep your eyes on those shoals of reality. This is not Vietnam, which happened in slow-time. This war, as the historian Marilyn Young claimed in its first weeks so few years ago, is "Vietnam on crack cocaine" and, whatever anyone is saying now, it's a fair bet that events will outpace all administration plans and fantasies in the explosive year to come.

From How (Not) to Withdraw from Iraq By Tom Engelhardt

Much, much more at the link:

http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=40663

Follow John Murtha.


Peace.

[MH1]

28. Krugman ROCKS. Consistently. n/t

[BjohnsonMN]

30. Krugman has been great...

It is almost hard to believe these days that he is actually a moderate and not a leftist because unlike most people who are called "moderates" he actually is willing to stand up to the administration. I am well to the left of Krugman, yet it is very rare that he says anything I disagree with because he knows that the progressive position is in reality far closer to the center than the extreme-right position pushed by the administration,.