Remembering Dick Cheney, ‘Polarizing’ War Criminal
Terms like “polarizing” and “controversial” are the outer limits of acceptable critique for mass murderers who happened to be US statesmen.
How Ageist Is Too Ageist to Be Published?
Election Focus 2020: Just as coverage wondering whether female candidates and candidates of color are “electable” serves to heighten the very stereotypes and prejudices it purports to be passively observing, “how old is too old” stories draw on tired prejudices that need to be challenged by reporters, not reinforced by them.
‘They Had Already Decided They Wanted to Invade Iraq’
Corporate media’s role in the run-up to—and the ongoing aftermath of—the war on Iraq.
Bombs Speak Louder Than Words: The Liberal Reinvention of George W. Bush
As the demonization of Muslims once again gains currency in American electoral politics, liberal personalities are joining the call to return to the good old days when Republicans fielded candidates who talked sweetly to the community of over 1.5 billion Muslims around the world while at the same time ordering warplanes to bomb an ever larger number of them.
Torture Defenders Dominated TV Debate
Only 18 guests (34 percent) articulated clear opposition to the CIA’s torture practices—about half as many as spoke up in defense of torture. Representatives of human rights groups and experts on international law were notable for their absence.
How Did TV News Talk About Torture in Coverage of the Torture Report?
A new FAIR study (Media Advisory, 1/7/15) finds that torture supporters outnumbered critics of torture nearly 2-to-1 in TV news coverage of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on CIA torture. While those who authorized and carried out torture were well-represented, like George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and several CIA officials, victims of torture […]
This Sunday, a Different Kind of Iraq War Booster: Bill Clinton
NBC Meet the Press taps Bill Clinton to talk Iraq. But will viewers know that Clinton was also a crucial supporter of the invasion?
Jon Meacham, Bush Family Publicist
Time’s Jon Meacham is, once again, telling readers to think differently about the Bush family.
Time’s Rethink on Drones
The new issue of Time has a pretty interesting piece on the debate over Obama’s drone program. One way to measure the shift in official opinion is to consider that a little more than a year ago, the magazine hardly seemed to think there was any debate at all.
WaPo’s Debate Advice: Make Sure Your Lies Are Devastating
The lesson seems to be: Make sure your lie is really devastating, since the fact that it’s a lie won’t matter much.
Dick Cheney’s Ho-Hum About Liberal Media Bias
When Dick Cheney appeared on the Today show, at the conclusion of the interview a camera that shows the crowd outside the studio picked up this image: That sign probably represented the harshest take on Cheney’s record that TV viewers saw during the PR campaign for his book. Unsurprisingly, it caught someone’s attention over at […]
‘Waterboarding Worked’?
To hear some tell it, the intelligence clues that ultimately led to Osama bin Laden’s hideout in Pakistan were generated by the use of torture. But the evidence available so far does not bear this out. Torture advocates on the right are claiming vindication. On Fox News Channel’s O’Reilly Factor (5/2/11), Rep. Peter King (R.-N.Y.) […]
Sunday Morning Torture
It’s bad enough that corporate media are having such an ill-informed debate about whether torturing some prisoners helped find Osama bin Laden. But considering whom the media invite to this debate, it’s probably not a surprise. Take yesterday’s Sunday shows (please!). On NBC‘s Meet the Press, Obama national security adviser Thomas Donilon basically refused to […]
Waterboarding ‘Worked’?
To hear some tell it, the intelligence clues that ultimately led to Osama bin Laden’s hideout in Pakistan were generated by the use of torture. But the evidence available so far does not bear this out. Torture advocates on the right are claiming vindication. On Fox News Channel‘s O’Reilly Factor (5/2/11), Rep. Peter King (R.-N.Y.) […]
More on Jon Meacham’s Strange Cheney Attraction
Newsweek editor Jon Meacham’s enthusiasm for Dick Cheney is not a new thing. Appearing on MSNBC back in 2004, Meacham praised the Republican National Convention speeches of Cheney and Sen. Zell Miller: If I taught at the Kennedy School, I would take these two speeches as ur-text of partisan rhetoric. I think it was a […]
Why Jon Meacham Earns the Big Bucks
Newsweek‘s editor apparently believes this is the way to make a “provocative” argument: I think we should be taking the possibility of a Dick Cheney bid for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012 more seriously, for a run would be good for the Republicans and good for the country. (The sound you just heard in […]
Torture Still Qualified at NY Times
New York Times on the pending trial of Khalid Sheik Mohammed ( 11/15/09–emphasis added): Mr. Mohammed’s initial defiance toward his captors set off an interrogation plan that would turn him into the central figure in the roiling debate over the C.I.A’s interrogation methods. He was subjected 183 times to the near-drowning technique called waterboarding, treatment […]
The Weekly Standard’s War
The Weekly Standard, the country’s preeminent neoconservative magazine, was sold to Clarity Media Group, a Denver-based publishing group, for an undisclosed sum in June (Washington Examiner, 6/17/09). Rupert Murdoch’s unloading of the country’s most vigorously pro-war journal marks the end of a particularly sinister and regrettable era in the history of U.S. media. At a […]
Cheney’s ‘Fodder’
The release of a 2004 CIA inspector general’s report on the agency’s “enhanced interrogation” techniques, along with two other previously classified memos, has thrown a harsh spotlight on former Vice President Dick Cheney’s oft-repeated pro-torture arguments. But corporate media seem intent on deflecting much of that glare. Earlier this year, Cheney spent weeks on the […]
Spencer Ackerman on CIA torture documents, Ed Herman on Lockerbie
Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: A few months ago it seemed like Dick Cheney wouldn’t get off your television screen, insisting that secret CIA documents would prove that Bush torture policies saved the United States from further terrorist attacks. Well those documents have surfaced, along with a 2004 CIA inspector general’s report. So what’s […]
