Tag Archives: stewart

Cheney’s disinformation

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Cheney is continuing his mission of deception, this past Sunday on Bob Schieffer, which Stewart skewers (GREAT VIDEO).

Crooks and Liars has some good video, including the answer to the question of what Bush knew, which is chilling.  Excerpt:

“SCHIEFFER: How much did President Bush know specifically about the methods that were being used?
We know that you– and you have said– that you approved this…

CHENEY: Right.

SCHIEFFER: … somewhere down the line. Did President Bush know everything you knew?

CHENEY: I certainly, yes, have every reason to believe he knew — he knew a great deal about the program. He basically authorized it. I mean, this was a presidential-level decision. And the decision went to the president. He signed off on it.”

Creepy. But, I’ve digressed. (Want to read the whole transcript?)

Let’s get straight to the point. Here again is another example of Cheney playing his usual games with the media. Cheney lied to the American nation on numerous times, to numerous to count, about weapons of mass destruction and about to. rture (beginning his lies with “we didn’t do it.”) Is there a reason to believe him now. No, never.

Cheney and his staff have destroyed materials relating to torture, even before they left office, and now they want to make the record public. More lies and disinformation.

As part of the disinformation campaign, in which Cheney is treated with respect, not as the serial liar that he is, the right-wing has trotted out the whole notion that Nancy Pelosi knew about the program and that the Democrats are merely playing politics. There has been a steady stream of such claims from the usual right-wing abetters, Bill Kristol, Michael Barone, Victor Davis Hanson and such–you can find them over at RealClearPolitics.

Read Congress’s Torture Bubble – NYTimes.com and you get the whole dope on what it means to brief Congress and the Speaker.

When the right-wing fascists scream “Pelosi knew” what they are doing, then, is trying to hide the torture in a political morass; they are also trying to implicate all of us in their criminality. We know better. We should make these records public, hold hearings, hold Truth & Reconciliation. And, if necessary, we should send people to jail.

Including Dick Cheney, which is after all why he is out there trying to muddy the waters, to avoid the slammer.The more he talks, the more I want justice.  Torture is wrong, illegal, and ineffective. Let’s not reward criminals who perpetrate torture and brag about it. Let’s see that justice is done.

Economic Meltdown

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The New York Times has a great summary of much of what has been discussed the past week, vis-a-vis the economic crisis. See the Weekend Opinionator: The Magi of the Meltdown – The Opinionator Blog – NYTimes.com.

But, the highlight of the last week, for me, was Jon Stewart’s evisceration of Jim Cramer, or more rightly his stinging analysis of the financial press and its culpability in advancing the interests of bankers any whim. More broadly, though, Stewart’s evaluation of the crisis is acute and worth noting; over at Fivethirtyeight.com, Nate Silver posted all three clips, including an unaired one, of the interview. His glee over Cramer’s disembowelment is a little odd, though ’cause I’m not sure its the point.

It would be nice if we got some of this sort of this sort of analysis or insight from more media sources, especially would-be news sources.

In many ways, his approach offers the sharpest indictment of a slogan like Fox’s “Fair and Balanced.” Of course, Fox offers that to disguise its own bias, as well as to attack the so-called bias of the main-stream-media. But, in the rhetoric of “fair and balanced” Fox provides insights into the media’s obsession with “both sides” of a conflict, as if there are two equally good points of view. And, here, we’re not talking about empathy for the human experience of individuals, but the notion that there are two (and usually in this view, only two) rational and reasonable arguments about any disagreement. The truth is more complex, surely; and, taking a point of view and/or exposing hypocrisy are part of the job of real journalists.

I have often said to myself that its a shame that comedy television is more insightful than the news; maybe that is why humor is so important?