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Mayor Rudy Giuliani at the WTC site.
CounterSpin this week revisits two interviews from the past, on topics very much of today. First up: Now that Rudy Giuliani is known as Donald Trump’s rabid fixer, whom we learned none other than John Bolton described as “a hand grenade” who would “blow everyone up,” the former New York City mayor has fallen out of elite media’s good graces. To which New Yorkers say, what took you so long? Much of media’s story around Giuliani was about how cool and effective he was on September 11, 2001. And much of that story is myth. In 2006, CounterSpin spoke with the late journalist Wayne Barrett, then at the late Village Voice, about his book, Grand Illusion: The Untold Story of Rudy Giuliani and 9/11, co-authored with Dan Collins. We’ll hear that interview today.
Transcript: ‘Giuliani Did All the Wrong Things on That Day’
[mp3-jplayer tracks=”CounterSpin Wayne Barrett Interview @http://www.fair.org/audio/counterspin/CounterSpin191129Barrett.mp3″]
(cc photo: Ralf Roletschek)
Also on the show: Another thing we can’t miss because it won’t go away: the PATRIOT Act, signed in 2001. House Democrats, unbelievably to some, just put through a reauthorization of the Act, in the midst of proceedings to impeach the person to whom it hands such incredible power. The PATRIOT Act was opposed from the very beginning, but did media do enough to reveal and resist the way it impedes the public’s right to know? In 2005, we heard from the ACLU’s Melissa Goodman about a particular case that showed just how draconian and anti-democratic the PATRIOT Act is. We’ll hear that conversation again today.
Transcript: ‘It’s This Culture of Secrecy That’s Pervading the Courts’
[mp3-jplayer tracks=”CounterSpin Melissa Goodman Interview @http://www.fair.org/audio/counterspin/CounterSpin191129Goodman.mp3″]
Plus Janine Jackson takes a quick look at recent coverage of the “strong economy.”
[mp3-jplayer tracks=”CounterSpin Banter @http://www.fair.org/audio/counterspin/CounterSpin191129Banter.mp3″]
President George W. Bush ignored the warnings, including those from the CIA in one of its Presidential Daily Briefings, but was still praised for the way he handled the matter by Senator Joe Biden!
Yeah, that was pitiful the way the media and the Dems reacted to the whole 911 episode, especially as regarded ‘W’ — he should’ve been charged with criminal negligence, jailed and impeached. But the media was too busy pandering to the lowest common denominator (nationalism) to notice, and the Dems had recently outflanked the militaristic Reps by bombing the Balkans and that drug manufacturer in Ethiopia, so they didn’t want to do anything brave & honest — better to wave the flag and then blindly go along with the subsequent Iraq invasion.