Bush Lies, Democracy Dies?

(Rhyming makes people pay attention!)

What will it take for the media to come out and openly correct the White House spin on the Bush/NSA scandal? The traditional print outlets (TV remains a mess) have been describing the President's actions correctly, noting it involves "warrantless surveillance of some U.S. citizens by the National Security Agency". But the White House is spinning this as another partisan struggle between the War President and Democratic opponents. And if we've learned anything from the past 4 years, it's that their spin often gets accepted as fact quite quickly.

The need for a media pushback on these talking points is doubly important because the White House is now taking a proactive defense/offense on the criticisms, giving the surveillance a catchy name- 'terrorist surveillance program'- which continues its tradition (No Child Left Behind, Clear Skies Act, Healthy Forest Initiative, etc) of naming of something in almost direct contrast to what it actually does. 'Terrorist surveillance' sounds pretty clear cut and acceptable, but doesn't reflect the full nature of the program (which involves datamining, intrusions upon innocent Americans, and potential targeting of political activists and journalists). Newsweek in fact notes that Bush aides are describing this PR blitz as an attempt to "rebrand the domestic snooping program as 'enemy surveillance' vital to protecting the country" (emphasis added). Unconstitutional, illegal behavior reimagined with Madison Avenue moxie. If only Richard Nixon had this kind of marketing know-how.

And so greater is the need for accurate and aggressive media coverage.

Look, the bottom line is that the American people are not stupid, but they are lazy. 90% don't actively seek out and absorb the news/current events. They depend on the soundbites and talking points that the mainstream media throws at them. And thus they often end up ill-informed of current events and subsequently unconcerned. Ocassionally the media does a good job, as with the post-Katrina coverage, which obviously lead to a better informed populace who showed great concern for what was happening. This was sadly an exception and it's been business as usual ever since.

The mainstream media has not done a good job overall of reporting the Bush/NSA scandal, especially in light of the relevations being made daily by the New York Times or Washington Post. The best example of this problem is that you have still-under-investigation Karl Rove come out and say that "President Bush believes if Al Qaeda is calling somebody in America, it is in our national security interest to know who they're calling and why. Some important Democrats clearly disagree"... and this statement is widely reported and circulated, yet any corrections in news items occur much later on, after the lie has already sunk in. Rove's statement is not merely misleading, it is an outright lie. The media is not supposed to report such lies at face value.

It would take not much effort for a paper or TV reporter/pundit to followup on the Rove statement by noting that a) the FISA laws already allow the President to spy on Al Qaeda as long as a warrant is filed for, but he chose to violate them anyway for dubious reasons, and b) Disagreement of the President's actions is bipartisan. Yet it does not occur. It speaks to how much of a common sense issue getting the legally required wiretaps is that polls show that 52% of the country agree with the statement: "If President Bush wiretapped American citizens without the approval of a judge, do you agree or disagree that Congress should consider holding him accountable through impeachment". But despite these hopeful numbers, the media is allowing the White House to succeed in framing this debate as one between a tough, terrorism-fighting President and weak, partisan Democrats.

This isn't universally the case, of course, as there as some notable exceptions. The AP report linked above does note that "Several members of Congress from both parties have questioned whether the warrantless snooping is legal. That is because it bypasses a special federal court that, by law, must authorize eavesdropping on Americans and because the president provided limited notification to only a few lawmakers." So there is hope. But the presenting of talking points without correction remains an issue overall.

To give an example of the simplistic take on the story, here's today's State of the Union cartoon-


As if the media is crucifying him or anyone wants to stop him from preventing attacks.

The President says he wants open and honest debate... and here he continues to lie to the American people.

This lie will be the centerpiece of his spy program PR campaign this week.

I already gave my take on this the other day- Unspinning The Bush/NSA Scandal

Glenn Greenwald also tackles this subject today-
The media's distorted understanding of "neutrality"

...The Administration’s central goal, as always, is to depict opposition to the President as evidence of one’s sympathies with The Terrorists. We just spent a whole weekend hearing about how Democrats sound exactly like Osama. And simultaneously, and not unrelatedly, we hear Karl Rove issuing the indisputably false claim that the NSA scandal stems from the Democrats’ desire to block the Administration from eavesdropping on their allies in Al Qaeda as they plot their attacks against Americans.

The media need not take sides in the NSA debate or in any other. But it is failing in its primary purpose if it continues to allow the Administration to blithely make false statements without informing their readers that the statements are false. Allowing the Government to make false statements is not neutrality; it is an abdication of the principal journalistic responsibility....

He also uses the false Iraq/Al Qaeda 'links' to show this is a recurring trend. Recommended read.

As the Administration works overtime to 'rebrand' and spin the President's illegal and undemocratic actions as we head into the State of the Union next week, the media must present the American people with the whole story. The whole, complicated, spin-free story. The first line of defense in our democracy from internal tyranny is the press. If they can't hold their own against the President, I lose faith in Congress' ability to rein him in either.