Pentagon Rejects Its Own Pundit Program Whitewash

Pentagon Rejects Its Own Pundit Program Whitewash
by Diane Farsetta

The continuing saga of the Pentagon pundit program just keeps getting curiouser and curiouser, as Alice in Wonderland might say.

From 2002 to 2008, the Defense Department secretly cultivated more than 70 retired military officers who frequently serve as media commentators. Initially, the goal was to use them as "message force multipliers," to bolster the Bush administration's Iraq War sell job. That went so well that the covert program to shape U.S. public opinion -- an illegal effort, by any reasonable reading of the law -- was expanded to spin everything from then-Defense Secretary Rumsfeld's job performance to U.S. military operations in Afghanistan to the Guantanamo Bay detention center to warrantless wiretapping.

In April 2008, shortly after the New York Times first reported on the Pentagon's pundits -- an in-depth exposé that recently won the Times' David Barstow his second Pulitzer Prize -- the Pentagon suspended the program. In January 2009, the Defense Department Inspector General's office released a report claiming "there was an 'insufficient basis' to conclude that the program had violated laws." Representative Paul Hodes, one of the program's many Congressional critics, called the Inspector General's report "a whitewash."

Now, it seems as though the Pentagon agrees.

On May 5, the Defense Department Inspector General's office announced that it was withdrawing its report on the Pentagon pundit program, even removing the file from its website. (You can still download the report from our website by clicking here or using the link at the end of this article.)

"Shortly after publishing the report ... we became aware of inaccuracies in the data," states the "withdrawal memo" (pdf) from the Inspector General's office. The office's internal review of the report -- which it has "refused to release," according to the Times -- "concluded that the report did not meet accepted quality standards." The report relied on "insufficient or inconclusive" evidence, the memo admits. In addition, "former senior [Defense Department] officials who devised and managed" the Pentagon pundit program -- including Victoria Clarke and Lawrence DiRita -- "refused our requests for an interview."

While the Inspector General's "highly unusual" about-face is welcome, it gets us no closer to accountability. "Additional investigative work will not be undertaken," the withdrawal memo states, because the Pentagon pundit program "has been terminated and responsible senior officials" -- such as Allison Barber -- "are no longer employed by the Department."

Of course, accountability for the Pentagon pundit program was never likely to come from the Defense Department itself. Now it's up to Congress to demand -- and the Government Accountability Office and the Federal Communications Commission to carry out -- real investigations into the elaborate propaganda campaign.

Lou Dobbs False Populist and Liar

CNN exec concedes Dobbs is "opinionated" -- but that's the least of his journalistic faults
* On July 11, 2008, Dobbs falsely asserted that in his July 8 remarks, then-Sen. Obama was "out telling people to have their children not learn languages -- foreign languages, but specifically, while discussing the issue of illegal immigration, tells them they've got to learn Spanish." In fact, Obama was responding to a question about education and bilingualism, not "illegal immigration," and while Obama did reference "immigrants," at no point in his July 8 remarks did he mention "illegal immigration."

* On March 14, 2008, Dobbs falsely claimed that "Senators Obama and [Hillary] Clinton are making it very clear where they stand: not for border security, for open borders, and for amnesty." Dobbs' assertion followed false claims made in a report by CNN correspondent Louise Schiavone about Obama's and Clinton's records on immigration.

* On January 16, 2008, Dobbs noted that that the Culinary Workers Union Local 226, based in Nevada, "is encouraging its members to caucus on behalf of Senator Obama" and then baselessly claimed: "[I]n point of fact, as many as half of the union's members are illegal aliens" [emphasis added].

* On April 12, 2006, Dobbs uncritically reported Republican leaders' false suggestion that Democrats were to blame for a plan to make illegal presence in the United States a felony.

* On March 10, Dobbs claimed that the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce "is effectively an organization that is interested in the export of American capital and production to Mexico, and Mexico's export of drugs and illegal aliens to the United States." On March 17, Dobbs apologized for the smear, saying that he "made a mistake." Dobbs also said: "I, of course, do not believe that the chamber supports or condones either drug or human trafficking."

Global warming misinformation

Dobbs also has a history of misinforming on global warming. Despite overwhelming evidence of human-caused global warming and warnings by experts that short-term weather conditions are not evidence for or against its existence, Dobbs said during the introduction of his December 18, 2008, show: "And tonight, unusual winter storms are dumping snow in unusual places across Western states, and a huge snowstorm is headed toward the Northeast. This is global warming?" During his segment on the issue, Dobbs hosted Heartland Institute senior fellow and science director Jay Lehr without disclosing that Heartland receives funding from the energy industry and without challenging Lehr's assertions that "[t]he last 10 years have been quite cool" and that "the sun" -- rather than humans -- is responsible for recent climate change. According to NASA, "2008 is the ninth warmest year in the period of instrumental measurements, which extends back to 1880. ... The ten warmest years all occur within the 12-year period 1997-2008." (NASA states that it "can only conclude with confidence that 2008 was somewhere within the range from 7th to 10th warmest year in the record.")

On the January 5 edition of Lou Dobbs Tonight, Dobbs again questioned the impact of humans on global warming and suggested that solar activity may be far more responsible for global warming than humans, stating, "[M]any scientists are saying, 'My gosh, compared to what our sun can do, man has minuscule influence.' " In making these assertions, Dobbs ignored the conclusion by the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that "it is extremely likely [greater than 95 percent chance] that humans have exerted a substantial warming influence on climate" and its estimate of "radiative forcing" caused by humans "is likely [>66% chance] to be at least five times greater than that due to solar irradiance changes." According to the IPCC, "The observed widespread warming of the atmosphere and ocean, together with ice mass loss, support the conclusion that it is extremely unlikely [<5%>90% chance] that it is not due to known natural causes alone. During this period, the sum of solar and volcanic forcings would likely have produced cooling, not warming."

Beck echoes tired falsehood that ACORN received stimulus funds

Beck echoes tired falsehood that ACORN received stimulus funds

Glenn Beck echoed a false Republican talking point by stating, "By including ACORN, or groups like them, in the stimulus package, we have guaranteed them billions of dollars to buy more votes for the party that helps them the most." In fact, the stimulus bill does not mention ACORN or otherwise single it out for funding.

Green Your Shopping Habits

How To Green Your Shopping Habits by Avital Binshtock

1. Clothes: When it comes to buying clothes, the greenest - and often hippest - purchases are vintage. For great finds, shop at used-clothes boutiques, online stores, or at prominent antique shows like Massachusetts's Brimfield, New York's Manhattan Vintage, or California's Vintage Fashion Expo.

If you have to buy new, look for eco-friendly materials like organic cotton, hemp, or recycled anything. Buy classic styles (not trends!) so that your purchase doesn't, in a year, end up in the landfill. And make sure your choices are well-made and durable so they don't fall apart after only a few months of wear.

2. Food: Did you know that a third of households' total environmental impact is related to food and drink consumption? To help reduce the footprint of the foods you buy, there are a few things you can do when at the grocery store. First, avoid the deli, since more than a third of all U.S. fossil fuels go toward producing meat, and since animal agriculture is highly correlated with pollution and natural-resource depletion.

Also, be willing to shop in the organic section, since fewer pesticides and other polluting chemicals are used to produce the items sold there. Look, too, for where a product was produced, and when. Buying local and seasonal reduces the miles your food had to be shipped to get to your shopping cart. Examine whether what you're considering buying is overpackaged; if it is, leave it in the store as a statement of disapproval that'll hit corporations' bottom lines. Finally, bring your own reusable shopping bags to prevent disposable plastic or paper bags from ending up where they shouldn't.

.....complete article at link

The Iraq War in Perspective

The Iraq War in Perspective by Richard N. Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, is the author of War of Necessity, War of Choice: A Memoir of Two Iraq Wars

The second and still ongoing Iraq war was a war of choice, not necessity. To paraphrase what a French statesman of the eighteenth century said about an ill-advised and unwarranted execution, it was also a blunder. There were other viable policy options available to the United States to meet the challenges posed by Saddam Hussein. In particular, the sanctions regime could have been reformed to allow Iraq more leeway in what it could import but also to limit the resources coming under the regime's direct control. Inspections could have been designed to provide considerable if not total confidence that Iraq was not developing weapons of mass destruction. Odds are that Saddam Hussein would have remained in power, but his ability to threaten his neighbors and his own citizens would likely have been circumscribed. The United States could well have accomplished a change in regime behavior and a change in regime threat without regime change.

Some would grant that this second war was not necessary but would hasten to add that it was a justifiable or even desirable war of choice. The best argument for this perspective is the ouster of Saddam Hussein and the avoidance of a possible (but by no means inevitable) future in which Saddam broke out of constraints imposed on him in the wake of the first Iraq war and dedicated enormous resources to military might and adventures. Avoiding this certainly belongs in the plus column; the problem is the associated costs, which include the American, coalition, and Iraqi lives lost and diminished, the huge financial expense, the enduring strain on the U.S. military, the relative enhancement of Iran's position in the region, the rise in terrorism and anti-Americanism, and the hard to measure but all too real cost in the time and attention available to senior officials to devote to other pressing concerns.

George W. Bush inherited a robust economy, a budgetary surplus, a rested military, and, even after 9/11, a world largely at peace and well-disposed toward the United States. He handed off to his successor a recession, a massive deficit and debt, a stretched and exhausted military, two wars, and a world marked by pronounced anti-Americanism. I am hard-pressed to find another set of back-to-back presidential transitions in which so many of the basic features of the domestic and international landscapes changed so dramatically for the worse. The Iraq war of course cannot be blamed for all of this, but it absorbed a great deal of this country's resources and, as a consequence, contributed significantly to the deterioration of the absolute and relative position of the United States in the world. It is quite possible history will judge the war's greatest cost to be opportunity cost, the squandering by the United States of a rare and in many ways unprecedented opportunity to shape the world and the nature of international relations for decades to come. Instead, Iraq contributed to the emergence of a world in which power is more widely distributed than ever before and U.S. ability to shape this world much diminished.

To be fair, it is too soon to calculate additional benefits should Iraq stabilize and come to resemble the model society that many of the war's advocates suggested it would be. But such "success" is highly unlikely given the many fault lines that divide Iraqi society, and even if it were to come about, nothing could erase the considerable costs of the war. More likely is a future in which the costs of U.S. policy continue to mount (albeit at a reduced pace) and Iraq remains divided and falls far short of constituting a normal much less model country.

Still others would say that the principal problem with the second Iraq war was with its implementation, that it was a necessary and even desirable undertaking but that it was carried out poorly so that its costs were increased and benefits decreased. Wherever one comes out on the advisability of the war, it is hard to dispute the criticisms over the conduct of the war and its aftermath. Indeed, criticisms of such decisions as going to war with a relatively small number of troops, demobilizing (or not working to remobilize) the Iraq army, and extending de-Ba'athification beyond the most senior level are frequently made and widely accepted for good reason.

The one question that needs to be raised in this context is whether a "neat" and successful outcome would have materialized even if the United States had used far more troops and made far better decisions about how to manage Iraqi reconstruction. It is not at all obvious this would have been the case given the nature of Iraqi society and its political culture, although it is highly likely that things could and would have turned out better if policies had been better. There is no getting around the reality that the second Iraq war was a war of choice; had it been carried out differently, it still would have been an expensive choice and almost certainly a bad one.

Rove the Supreme Court Two Faced Hypocrite

Rove Hypocritically Argues Right Should Oppose Potential Obama Court Pick Just Because She’s Liberal
This morning on Fox News, former Bush political adviser Karl Rove criticized Judge Sonia Sotomayor, a potential nominee for the upcoming Supreme Court vacancy. “She could be even more liberal than Souter was,” Rove said. “She has a reputation on the Court of Appeals that she’s on for being very liberal.” He then argued that Sotomayor’s views would be cause for conservatives to oppose her, despite her qualifications for the position:

On the other hand, she’s also likely to draw opposition from conservatives because her opinions on the Circuit Court of Appeals have been very liberal and very expansive. In fact, this is going to be one the big dividing lines. President Obama…said he wanted a judge who would uphold the Constitution, but also a judge would be empathetic. These two things are in conflict.

Watch it:

Needless to say, Rove is being hypocritical. When he was shepherding Bush’s Supreme Court nominees through the process, he explicitly made the argument the President was owed deference to choose a qualified nominee and opposition party had a “responsibility to back” that pick. Here’s what Rove told the Washington Post in July 2005:

Karl Rove, President Bush’s chief political architect, said precedents from the most recent Supreme Court vacancies suggest that opposition-party senators have a responsibility to back a president’s choice if they believe a nominee is qualified, even if they disagree with the person’s views. He also maintained that a strongly held ideological stance would not amount to “extraordinary circumstances” justifying a Democratic filibuster under a recent bipartisan Senate deal. [...]

Rove made clear that Bush will consult with senators in both parties, but that he has no interest in any kind of grand bargain between the White House and Congress in which legislators would give support in exchange for advance input on the president’s choice. Some Democratic groups have suggested that Bush seek an early consensus. Rove, however, cited his own weekend reading of the Federalist Papers to argue that the framers of the Constitution envisioned no such role for Congress, leaving the president alone to make nominations.

In the interview with Fox News this morning, Rove lauded the Bush White House’s preparedness for filling the Supreme Court vacancies when they arose and suggested the Obama White House is unprepared for making a nomination. It seems Rove has quickly forgotten his “active role” in the disastrous nomination of Harriet Miers, who came under relentless assault from Bush’s conservative base.

Conservatives Run Ad Against Health-Care Plan That Does Not Exist

Government-Run Health Care?
A conservative group's ad implies Congress is on its way to instituting a British- or Canadian-style health system.
Summary
A group called Conservatives for Patients' Rights began airing a television ad this week that criticizes government-run health care and falsely suggests Congress wants a British-style system here in the U.S.:

* The ad neglects to mention that President Obama hasn't proposed a government-run plan and, in fact, has rejected the idea.

* It claims that a research council created by the stimulus bill is "the first step in government control over your health care choices." The legislation actually says the council isn't permitted to "mandate coverage, reimbursement, or other policies."

* The ad quotes a Canadian doctor who has been critical of his country's system, but leaves out the fact that the doctor has praised other government-funded systems, such as those in Austria and France.

Analysis
Conservatives for Patients’ Rights is, as its name indicates, a conservative group, and it’s also quite obviously not a proponent of government-run health care. Its minute-long ad was launched April 27 with what the group said was a month-long $1 million buy. (We've seen it on CNN several times this week.) CPR was launched this year and is led by Rick Scott, former head of Columbia/Hospital Corporation of America.

The ad states that government-run health care systems, in particular those in Britain and Canada, take control away from patients and ration health care. CPR is certainly entitled to state its own view. But the ad implies that the U.S. Congress wants to implement a health system like those in Britain and Canada. That's contrary to what President Obama and Democratic leaders in Congress have said.

CPR Ad:
"Not So Innocent"



Rick Scott, chairman, CPR: Deep inside the stimulus bill Congress buried an innocent-sounding board, the Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research.

It’s not so innocent. It’s the first step in government control over your health care choices. This federal council is modeled after the national board that controls Britain’s health system. Listen to Britain’s Dr. Karol Sikora about what happens to patients once the government takes over.

Sikora: They’ll lose their own choice completely. Lose control of their own destiny within the medical system.

Scott: Not only could a government board deny your choice in doctors but it can control life and death for some patients. Ask Canada’s Dr. Brian Day about bureaucrats rationing care.

Day: Patients are languishing and suffering on wait lists. Our own Supreme Court of Canada has stated that patients are actually dying as they wait for care.

Scott: Tell Congress you won’t trade your doctor for a national board of bureaucrats. Let’s put patients first.
Obama hasn’t called for such a government-run plan, also called a “single-payer" plan. In fact, he has flatly rejected it. The administration has said on the White House’s “Health Care” Web page (and previously on its transition site) that “President Obama and Vice President Biden believe” that government-run health care is “wrong.” And they also believe, the administration says, that the other extreme, “letting the insurance companies operate without rules,” is wrong. (The White House redesigned its health care page on April 30; a cached page with the quoted language is attached to this article.)

Obama has long said he would allow individuals or small businesses to buy insurance through a public plan – like the one now available to members of Congress. But nobody would be forced to drop his or her current insurance, and private plans would exist as they do now. This was the health care plan he promoted as a presidential candidate.