Is anyone following the Giordano vs Golinger spat?

[subsuelo]

I'm wondering what you all think about it. Basically Eva Golinger has called out the Obama Administration as having had some role in the coup. Giordano of Narcosphere argues against that being the case. (both sides condemn the coup; the debate is over the level of U.S. involvement)

I really go back and forth on this. Sometimes I think Eva is right. Then I read some of Giordano's latest and I think, ok, he's right.

I just don't know. I admire both their journalistic work a great deal. But Giordano has really called Eva out recently, for example this recent article at Narcosphere http://narcosphere.narconews.com/thefield/oh-snap-credibility-comes-adherence-facts

It's turned into an interesting discussion regarding current and past U.S. involvement in the region, at any rate. One has to wonder just how much the current U.S. administration either knew or had involvement in the coup in Honduras. Is Obama a willing prisoner of the empire? Has he cut a deal with the ruling corporate elite as Peace Patriot has suggested, and now his hands are tied on this issue? (PP correct me if I've misinterpreted your view!)

Anyway I'm wondering what some of your thoughts are on this. Was this 'Obama's first coup' as Golinger has written? Or is Giordano right - that Obama's administration was not involved?

[flamingdem]

1. I've been mulling over the conflicting information

including that program Mesa Redonda, transmitted from Cuba, where the panelist was magnanimous towards Obama stating that US involvement was likely not something he wanted. The usual sense of the conspiracy of the US against Latin America may have been replaced with a clear vision of the role of the extreme right in the USA and in the hemisphere.

Personally, I think that is the right focus as I see the republicans exhibit the same insane hatred as the golpistas.

Plus, the Cubans have excellent spies, so they should know. I don't think so far that there is proof of the intention to cause the coup on the part of the US. But we know not to trust quickly, and the question of the bases in Colombia, and other factors, make the answer murky.

I will read the articles with interest.

[magbana]

2. Yes, I have been watching Giordano go after Eva. Too bad. I wish Giordano would

stick to his reporting.

Of course the US was involved in the coup and has been planning it for a long time. There is no way that the Pinochettis themselves could have pulled off the coup and kept Zelaya at bay for over three weeks.go. I think Giordano is viewing this coup through a lens trained on the Obama administration which is making it difficult for him to believe that the US is behind the coup. I don't know what Obama knew or when he knew it, but he is pretty irrelevant to this issue except when the history books are written about his administration. This coup was conceived and sewn together by Miami terrorists, present and former State Dept. officials, hordes of consultants with ties to Hillary and Bill, business people, and military officials of the US and Honduras. Hillary functions as the emcee and at appropriate times appoints an Oscar Arias to eat up the clock in negotiations for the two sides and dings (supposedly) Micheletti about his intransigence.

For several days we have been hearing that the coup in Honduras is the first of many to come and is focused squarely on the growing alliance among countries that are decidedly leaning to the left. This is evidenced by the enormous amount of chatter circulating about Chavez and Ortega. If Honduras was to be the fire starter for multiple coups, the US would not leave such an important mission to Pinochetti and his racist sidekick, Ortez. And if the US wasn't involved in the coup, it would have withdrawn Llorens, declared the damned thing a military coup, and drop-kicked Pinochetti.

Eva's instincts are good and she has one thing that I think Giordano does not have: good connections with the Venezuelan government which afford her the opportunity to acquire info that folks like Giordano don't have.

I'll be interested in hearing what others have to say.

[flamingdem]

4. But where is the hard proof?

It's not clear yet. It is nuts for Hillary to be involved with trying to do a makeover on the hemisphere, WHY?

Hillary might not like Castro or Chavez, but she would not ally with the scum golpistas, they are just trouble, the US is after stability. I also don't think she's splitting off from Obama. While more conservative she's still beholden to his vision, and his vision is about communication and negotiation, not violence.

[magbana]

5. The hard proof is everywhere. Read Eva's posts from the

beginning www.chavezcode.com

Hillary would not ally with the scum golpistas? You are right because Hillary allies with the guys that ally with the scum golpistas-- Lanny Davis, Tom Shannon, Hugo Llorens, Noriega, Otto Reich.

Splitting off from Obama? It's more like each is floating on a separate iceberg and has been from day one. Obama needs plausible deniability and as long as he remains hermetically sealed on the issue of Honduras, he might pull it off.

Obama's life vision may be about communication and negotiation, not violence. But, what he thinks about how to proceed on Honduras, if he thinks about it at all is for naught. This is a virtual military-consultant-industrial-diplo-miami thug complex rolling here. Hillary is wheeled out as I said to deal with the Oscar Arias issue and to make a phone call to Pinochetti.

[Judi Lynn]

7. I heard about Mark Penn, Hillary's old strategist during one of Hugo Chavez' initiatives .

Penn's group did a poll commissioned by the NGO (heavily financed by US taxdollars, from NED or USAID, headed by Maria Machado. They have no other mission in life than to create enough trouble for Chavez to finally bring him down. They are active in every rumor campaign, and disinformation.) Sumate.

Mark Penn's company got together information which was clearly far off, and Sumate spread the it around, hoping it would damage the turnout at the polls. Didn't appear to work. That's when I heard of him first.

Later I learned Mark Penn worked for Hillary Clinton. At the same time, he was representing the HARD RIGHT filth Alvaro Uribe, Colombia's President, in Washington, doing his P.R. for him.

Here's some info. from Source Watch:

Mark J. Penn is worldwide CEO of the PR firm Burson-Marsteller (B-M), a position he has held since December 2005. <1> He is also the president of the polling firm Penn, Schoen and Berland Associates (PSB), which he co-founded in 1975. Since December 2008 he has been a columnist for the Media & Marketing section of the Wall Street Journal.<2>
Penn was U.S. Senator Hillary Clinton's top presidential campaign strategist until April 2008, when he left following a meeting with representative of the Colombian government to promote a free trade deal that Clinton said she opposed. A June 2007 biographical note stated that he "has worked with Mrs. Clinton for over six years, since he ran the polling and messaging for her successful election to the US Senate in 2000." <3>

However, Penn wasn't fired from the Clinton campaign. He and his polling firm "will continue to provide polling and advice to the campaign," reported the Wall Street Journal. <4> On April 7, "Penn took part on the campaign's morning message call ... as usual," reported Marc Ambinder on The Atlantic website. "This afternoon, he is also scheduled to be on a call with Clinton and other aides to begin to prepare for Saturday's presidential debate in Philadelphia." <5>

Penn also served as NPI Fellow at the New Politics Institute. He advised United Kingdom Prime Minister Tony Blair "for his successful run for a third term." Penn is "best known for serving as President Bill Clinton's pollster and political adviser for the 1996 re-election campaign and throughout the second term of the administration. He also ran the polling and messaging and was part of the media team for the successful Senate campaign of Hillary Clinton, serving as her chief campaign adviser. He advises organizations and companies on a wide range of image, branding and competitive marketing assignments. Mark has been a key adviser to Bill Gates and Microsoft for the last 6 years."

~snip~
Penn as "Chief Strategist" with Hillary Clinton's Presidential Bid
Early in Clinton's campaign, Penn drafted an outline of how he thought Clinton could win the support of a majority of Democratic delegates.

"As this race unfolds, the winning coalition for us is clearer and clearer. There are three demographic variables that explain almost all of the voters in the primary—gender, party, and income. Race is a factor as well, but we are fighting hard to neutralize it.
We are the candidate of people with needs.
We win women, lower classes, and Democrats (about 3 to 1 in our favor).
Obama wins men, upper class, and independents (about 2 to 1 in his favor).
Edwards draws from these groups as well.
Our winning strategy builds from a base of women, builds on top of that a lower and middle class constituency, and seeks to minimize his advantages with the high class democrats.
If we double perform with WOMEN, LOWER AND MIDDLE CLASS VOTERS, then we have about 55% of the voters.
The reason the Invisible Americans is so powerful is that it speaks to exactly how you can be a champion for those in needs . He may be the JFK in the race, but you are the Bobby."<8>

ETC.

~snip~
Penn, Hillary Clinton & Colombia
On April 4, 2008 the Wall Street Journal reported that Penn had "met with Colombia's ambassador to the U.S. on Monday to discuss a bilateral free-trade agreement, a pact the presidential candidate (Clinton) opposes." Burson-Marsteller "has a contract with the South American nation to promote congressional approval of the trade deal." A spokeswoman for the Colombian embassy in Washington, Sandra Ocampo Kohn, stated that Burson-Marsteller, along with the Glover Park Group and Johnson, Madigan Peck, Boland & Stewart, had been contracted in 2007 to lobby for Colombia on behalf of a bi-lateral trade deal.<11>

U.S. Department of Justice filings disclose that in March 2007 B-M signed a $300,000, one-year contract with the Colombian Embassy. In March 2007 the Managing Director of Burson-Marsteller's Washington Region Office and Chairman of its Issues & Advocacy Practice, Robert Tappan, signed an agreement with the government of Colombia. In mid-April 2007 the agreement was filed with the U.S. Department of Justice and subsequently became a public document. In it B-M undertook to "Provide ongoing strategic communications counsel to the Ambassador and key Embassy officials regarding the Free Trade Agreement and Plan Colombia; develope key messages, talking points and briefing materials regrading strategic objectives; facilitate meetings in Washington D.C. for the Ambassador; and co-ordinate media interviews and public events with relevant news media in Washington D.C. on behalf of the Embassy." <12> It also stated that B-M would "provide advice and communications counsel to the Ambassador and Embassy staff. Drave and review materials related to issues of interest to the Embassy".<13>

In a statement, Penn later apologized: "The meeting was an error in judgment that will not be repeated, and I am sorry for it. The senator’s well-known opposition to this trade deal is clear and was not discussed.<14> Penn may have thought his statement would mollify the Clinton campaign, but ultimately it did neither.

Colombia took offence at Penn's statement that it "was an error in judgment" to meet with the Colombian ambassador in Washington D.C. "The Colombian government considers this a lack of respect to Colombians, and finds this response unacceptable," the embassy stated in a media<15>

The escalating controversy resulted in a Clinton campaign spokeswoman, Maggie Williams, announcing that Penn was no longer "chief strategist" but would still be retained for his polling advice. "After the events of the last few days, Mark Penn has asked to give up his role as Chief Strategist of the Clinton Campaign; Mark, and Penn, Schoen and Berland Associates, Inc. will continue to provide polling and advice to the campaign. Geoff Garin and Howard Wolfson will coordinate the campaign's strategic message team going forward," the statement said.<16>

For Mark Penn the campaign "has been about as effective an economic stimulus program for himself as anything his clients have ever proposed for the nation," reports Mike Madden in Salon. Penn's firm, Penn, Schoen & Berland Associates, has billed the campaign $14 million for polling, direct mail, and consulting services -- nearly 9 percent of her entire campaign expenditures. "Getting rich off free-spending campaigns is, of course, a time-honored tradition in politics, and it isn't just Mark Penn who does it," Madden adds, noting that campaign consultants to Barack Obama and John Kerry have also raked in millions of dollars. "Campaign finance experts say most people who give to candidates figure it's being spent on TV ads. What few of them know is how much of the 'TV ad' budget winds up paying for a consultant's beach house."<17>

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Mark_Penn

~~~~~~~~~~~~
Greenberg Accuses Penn of Cooking Polls (and Why the Claim Is Credible)
Charges that Pollster Mark Penn “Rigged” Data in the 2005 British Election are Supported by Reports that He Did the Same in Venezuela in 2004

By Al Giordano
Special to The Narco News Bulletin
February 23, 2009

Mark Blumenthal at Pollster.com has a most interesting post today:

Of the many stories in Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg’s new book, Dispatches from the War Room, the most newsworthy may be his slashing condemnation of Mark Penn, the pollster that displaced him within the inner circles of both President Bill Clinton and British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Greenberg, reacting to what he saw of Penn’s polling when both worked on Blair’s 2005 re-election, describes Penn’s methods as “errant,” his tests of messages as “biased” and “rigged” and his documentation lacking “transparency” and “the information normally delivered by a professional research organization.”

Penn, in response to my query, defends his surveys for the Labor Party as “extremely accurate,” says Greenberg was excluded from information because he was “not in the loop,” and describes Greenberg’s attacks as inaccurate and “unsubstantiated.”

Mark Penn
Read the whole thing, but here’s why I tend to believe Greenberg’s claim: the 2005 British elections came on the heels of Penn’s unethical rigging of exit polling data in August of 2004 in Venezuela.

In an August 19 story that year, Penn & Schoen’s Inaccurate and Dishonest ‘Exit Poll’ on Chávez Vote, I reported from Venezuela:

The United States-based, British-owned, political consulting firm bearing the names of pollsters Mark Penn, Doug Schoen, and Michael Berland, committed a crime under Venezuelan election law on Sunday: It violated the law against releasing “exit poll” data before polls had closed.

In the firm’s own press release, Penn, Schoen & Berland admitted that they knew they were releasing the supposed “exit poll” information while voting was still underway:

“New York, August 15, 2004, 7:30pm EST – With Venezuela’s voting set to end at 8:00pm EST according to election officials, final exit poll results from Penn, Schoen & Berland Associates, an independent New York-based polling firm, show a major victory for the ‘Yes’ movement, defeating Chavez in the Venezuelan presidential recall referendum.”

The careless and malicious approach that Penn, Schoen & Berland displayed with the Venezuela referendum on the continued tenure of President Hugo Chávez can be seen by the hour when the firm put out its press release: Voting in Venezuela had already been extended another two-and-a-half hours, until 10 p.m. (it would later be extended past midnight) so that all the millions of Venezuelan citizens still waiting on line to vote would be able to cast their ballots.

… it gets even worse: Penn, Schoen & Berland’s “exit poll” now turns out to have been wrong… not just a little bit wrong… but a lot wrong. And beyond being very, very, inaccurate, the firm deceived the public in how it represented this sloppily conducted survey that ignored the basic methodology that all serious pollsters undertake: the “exit poll” resulted to be inaccurate by a total of 36 percentage points! Penn, Schoen & Berland got the “Yes” vote – the anti-Chavez vote – wrong by 18 percentage points, and the pro-Chavez “No” vote wrong by another 18 percentage points… and the firm must now be forced to face the music of its own deception: “a 36-point margin of error” simply does not credibly exist in the field of professional polling.

The “outlier” poll – at odds with all other polling data by all other companies prior to the 2004 Venezuelan referendum (and, as stated, with the actual results) became the sole basis for seething accusations of electoral fraud from the same opposition forces that had supported the failed 2002 coup d’etat in Venezuela.

That story also revisited a previous incident, during the 2000 Mexican presidential elections, when this publication caught Penn, Schoen & Berlandi violating the ethics code of the American Association of Public Opinion Research (AAPOR).

Back then, Penn, Schoen & Berlandi claimed to be impartial and ethical. The passing of the years has lifted that cloak, with Penn’s fall from grace with Secretary Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign (due to undisclosed conflicts of interest involving payments from the regime of Colombian President Alvaro Uribe). But the trajectory of his former partner, Doug Schoen, in the years since provides perhaps an even more illuminating prism through which to look back upon their bizarre behavior in 2004 in Venezuela.


Douglas Schoen
After Venezuelan President Chávez won that recall referendum, Schoen – based on his firm’s claims that conflicted with all other data and with the international electoral observations of former president Jimmy Carter and other organizations – claimed, “I think it was a massive fraud.” Worse, the alleged data upon which Schoen based his claims was the firm’s “exit poll” carried out by members of the Venezuelan opposition organization that led the referendum campaign against Chávez, a group named Súmate.

Schoen has descended in the years since from his PR work to become primarily known for shrill wing-nuttery. He teamed up with Venezuelan opposition columnist Michael Rowan to author the alarmist tome, The Threat Closer to Home: Hugo Chávez and the War Against America (2009, Free Press). The book’s current Amazon sales rank of 54,832 is unimpressive and so were the reviews.

Reviewing the Schoen-Rowan hardcover for The Washington Post, former US News & World Report reporter in Latin America, Linda Robinson wrote, “Schoen and Rowan undermine their argument with hyperbole and unsupported allegations… they do not add anything to the factual record, nor do they attempt a coherent explanation.”http://www.narconews.com/Issue55/article3400.html

[flamingdem]

3. This author examines the policy of caution "The US response to the Honduras crisis"

* there are insights here into the administration's mindset

Looking at it this way I can better understand why Hillary said that Zelaya should not go. His emotional return could lead to a painful slaughter that would be a set back for all parties. I can also see Zelaya's viewpoint, but it's a more intuitive viewpoint, he is apparently a devout Christian, but that won't protect him from a bullet, and that does matter to the successful conclusion of this struggle.

Also, reading this I tend to think Obama is calling the shots. It would surely NOT be his way to have Zelaya risk returning before all negotiation efforts are exhausted. My guess is that Zelaya is following their advice to some extent.

It's is so clear to me though that this is the last mess the administration wanted to be involved with in this moment of Obama's tenure.

http://www.bloggingsbyboz.com/

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

The US response to the Honduras crisis

Secretary Clinton called Honduras de facto President Micheletti over the weekend to strongly encourage him to work with the Arias negotiations. She also warned him of the significant consequences his government will face if he does not work to peacefully restore democracy to Honduras. Clinton's call was one more step of the Obama's administration's building pressure on the Micheletti government and push for peaceful resolution to bring democracy back to Honduras. I continue to think the Obama administration is doing an excellent job overall on the Honduras crisis.

I'm going to use that point to start commenting (unorganized ranting perhaps) on the Obama administration's management of the Honduras crisis as an element of broader US-Latin America and foreign policy. The points below aren't particularly organized or comprehensive, just me getting a first draft of my thoughts on paper (in an electronic sense).

Secretary Clinton's call and ongoing discussions through other channels go to Obama's promise to communicate with governments, even the ones with whom we have significant disagreements. The willingness to talk frankly with a coup government we do not officially recognize goes beyond Honduras to our policy on Cuba and even Iran and North Korea.

Although the Honduras crisis is only a few weeks old, it's worth looking at how Obama has handled it because it comes with far less of the historical baggage than those other situations which the new president has inherited from his predecessors. I think Obama and Clinton are aware of that fact and are dealing with Honduras as both an individual crisis that needs to be solved but also a potential precedent for how the administration will act and work with multilateral institutions when dealing with future "rogue" nations like the Micheletti government.

As written previously, I think there are necessary parallels between the issues of Honduras and Cuba. The two countries are the only unelected, undemocratic governments in the hemisphere. Even though we don't have diplomatic relations with the governments, we're forced to have limited military relations with both due to our bases at Soto Cano and Guantanamo (great article from McClatchy this about US-Cuban joint military training). They are the only two governments out of the OAS.

It's stunning in the case of Honduras to watch some people in the US and around the hemisphere reflexively call for immediate cutting of aid, removal of ambassadors, economic sanctions, trade embargoes, travel restrictions, cuts on remittances, etc. Those are all weapons in the US diplomatic arsenal that should be considered (I'm not saying they should never be used), but those are also all the same policies that have failed for 50 years in Cuba. Implementing any of those policies on Honduras is something that should be carefully considered and even more carefully executed so we don't end up doing more harm than good as we have with our Cuba policy. The US is still trying to fix early mistakes on its Cuba policy. Let's think before we take an action three weeks into the Honduras crisis that could create decades of bad consequences.

This really comes down to 1) communication, 2) working through multilateral organizations, 3) standing by our principles and 4) thinking before we act. I want the US to still be communicating with the Micheletti government the same way I want the US to communicate with the Cuban government and we should use those communications to discuss human rights and democracy issues. I think working through the OAS and other organizations rather than imposing a unilateral US policy strengthens the hemisphere. On our principles, we've correctly condemned the coup and insisted on Zelaya's peaceful return because he is the elected president of Honduras.

That fourth point of thinking before we act, however, can't be overstated. I discussed before how this crisis has a time element to it. Yet, acting too quickly has its own set of dangers. Every action we take sets a precedent for how we may act with future coups or disruptions in democracy. Every action has the potential to have months, years or even decades of consequences for US-Honduran relations and relations with the rest of the hemisphere if this crisis is not resolved in the near term. Many countries in the hemisphere exhausted their full range of diplomatic and economic levers in the first week of this crisis, leaving only a few countries with continued leverage over the de facto government. Many countries also pulled their ambassador and fully cut off communications with the de facto government, limiting their ability to deal with both sides. The Obama administration's ability to maintain slow, steady pressure on the Micheletti government and communicate with them has been a key reason continued progress has been made during weeks 2 and 3 after the coup. If only we could find a way to turn back the clock and take a similar approach with Cuba.

The Obama administration's biggest success in this crisis may be its patience, its ability to set a steady pace, and its thinking through the consequences before acting, none of which are attributes the United States has historically been known for. A president elected in part due to his ability to manage the fast-paced communications technology and the 24/7 news cycle is succeeding at diplomacy by slowing the hype and taking the long view. We may not have solved the Honduras problem in the first three weeks, but we're setting up a strong and intelligent US policy for the next decade and beyond.

[magbana]

6. Boz, like many bloggers are trying real hard to stay neutral

and I have to say he doesn't demonstrate any understanding of coups and the result is that it is all MUSH.

And the crap boz writes about comparing Honduras and Cuba -- unelected, undemocratic. Total lack of understanding the electoral system in Cuba.

There have been enough US led coups in Latin America for boz to understand what happens in one and who the traditional players are. Boz has no context for what he is saying and frankly he is focusing on an issue of little importance -- Obama's knowledge of the coup, etc.

Boz is one of these bloggers that is part of the liberal propaganda machine of "let's stay neutral and people will think we have said something when we haven't said shit." And, all while the very un-neutral world is going up in flames.

Imperialism works in very predictable ways that have not changed says Teddy Roosevelt mounted San Juan Hill. It's not hard to figure out how the pieces of the Honduras puzzle fit. Same coup, different country/different decade.