Don't I have obligations as a journalist beyond crass money grasping? Haven't I been invested with a sacred trust that shouldn't be held hostage to profit? Indeed I have: to report stories that are factually correct and more importantly, to the best of my knowledge and ability, fundamentally true. But I don't think that I have a duty to lose vast sums of money doing so--I already took quite a hefty paycut when I devoted my MBA to journalism. I gave, as they say, at the office. So did everyone else who took their college degree into journalism, from editors on down. Nor do newspaper owners exactly mint money.
But this is actually sort of besides the point that I was trying to make when I said that newspapers can't print stories readers don't want to read. Both my conservative and my liberal commenters have gotten bogged down in an argument about whether it is possible to make a profit selling stories of the kind Glenn Greenwald desires. I doubt it is on mass scale, but it sort of doesn't matter.
The object in writing these stories is presumably to get people to read them, not merely to acquire the moral satisfaction of a job well done. You cannot get people to read them if they do not acquire your paper. If you fill the paper with stories they do not want to read, they will not take your paper even if it is free. Just ask the people shoving gratis dailies at harassed commuters in subway stations.
You can slip stories that people do not particularly care to read in among a lot of stories that they do want to read. Editors do this all the time, which is how they win pulitzers; those series are generally things that very few people want to read, but impress other editors. Editors also like important stories about topics of vital national interest, which is why they run stories about things like John Yoo. In a general daily that is not owned by Murdochs, Sulzbergers, or Grahams, those stories are already getting quite a hefty readership subsidy from Barack Obama's bowling prowess and the parrot who phoned 911 during a house fire.
Writing more stories will not bring in the many, many subscribers who aren't reading the ones you've already printed. It may chase away casual readers who were willing to peruse one or two, but not eight in a month. (It will also chase those readers away from other vital topics, like mark-to-market accounting).
In short, Glenn Greenwald wants major media outlets to use more of their real estate to push the stories he wants. He claims that this is possible because in fact, readers want to read those stories, only the media is too lazy to print them. I aver that this is weapons-grade poppycock; media outlets have a very good idea of what people read, and if there were vast unmet demand for such stories, editors would have met it.
Thank God for the web, where one can get paid to yammer on endlessly, stating the same thing over and over and over again, in a desperate and futile attempt to restore one's permanently lost credibility.
Good grief, Megan.
Think through the Yoo story and its ramifications and then ask yourself again if you think there would be a broad readership market if someone could thoughtfully articulate what it all means.
As Greenwald noted, "A Department of Justice memo, authored by John Yoo, was released which authorized torture and presidential lawbreaking. It was revealed that the Bush administration declared the Fourth Amendment of the Bill of Rights to be inapplicable to "domestic military operations" within the U.S."
That's news.
MM needs to go back a bit further if she wishes to attempt to regain credibility.
Some one should cut and paste all the comments from all the other posts on this same subject right here so no one has to waste time posting any tonight.
Record, meet broken.
Isn't this issue moot when everyone can set up their own blog and "publish" for a mass audience for less than the out-of-pocket cost of a cup of Starbucks coffee?
Face it, the mass media channels were important in the 18th, 19th, and early part of the 20th Century.
They are still important because of momentum and because their replacements have not fully geared up to replace them.
Mass media today are like the passenger railroads in the 1950s, everyone know they are obsolete, but the coup-de-grace have not been administered by the interstate highway / private car and the airline system.
So you refute Greenwald's argument by averring?
Wonderful! At least you admit you aren't serious.
People have thoughtfully articulated what it all means - other people just dont' read it because, as Megan is arguing, it's not the sort of thing that interests them. You think it's interesting because the "thoughtfully articulated" view to which you subscribe makes it an earth-shattering kaboom sort of thing, particularly because you accept the thoughtful articulations (cough) of fellows like Greenwald.
I actually agree, in a roundabout way, that journalists should do more to present weightier stories, but I suspect if they actually did that Greenwald would find his job of preaching fire and brimstone to the choir would be a little more difficult than he'd like. As with most of his ilk, it's a far easier to sit in his position and constantly bleat about how everything is f*cked up and it's all someone else's fault when people are so ill-informed and/or ideologically blindered that you can more easily get them to believe anything you say so long as you appeal to their beliefs.
At this point virtually no one is engaged in true journalism at this point. Greenwald, Koz, HuffPo, Free Republic, Newsbusters, and just about anyone else you can name out there in pundit land and the blogosphere are all just doling out slop for their fans to consume, it's just a different version of spoonfeeding Lohan and Angelina to the teenyboppers. It's also why Idiocracy is such a fantastic f*cking movie, because the extreme pandering of media and commentary on all sides that eventually strips any hint of objectivity from reporting is a big part of the way we get there.
Absolutely pathetic. Greenwald is not telling you what stories he wants you to write. He is criticizing the current state of the general mass media focus. Your attempts at defending the butt of his criticisms are just plain sad. Keep digging your hole MM. It's actually pretty fun to read.
"You can slip stories that people do not particularly care to read in among a lot of stories that they do want to read. Editors do this all the time, which is how they win pulitzers [sic]; those series are generally things that very few people want to read, but impress other editors."
Sure this is true. For instance we all know that no ever paid any attention to those stories about the mistreatment of American soldiers at Walter Reed Hospital, which won the Washington Post a Pulitzer the other day.
I aver that this is weapons-grade poppycock
I think we need to send in Joseph Wilson to find out if Greenwald has been purchasing yellowcake poppycock from anyone.
It's funny when Megan gets a bee in her bonnet, as she did over the Iraq stuff, and posts the exact same content four or five times in a row.
Her entire argument boils down to one sentence: "the public likes bowling stories."
For some reason that's taken her 3 or 4 posts to badly elaborate on, and she has yet to support it with any data.
Pro-tip: saying the exact same thing over and over again, without any justification whatsoever, is not convincing. It's pathetic.
"saying the exact same thing over and over again, without any justification whatsoever, is not convincing. It's pathetic."
Does this tip apply to candidates for public office?
I regularly check Sullivan and a few other thoughtful comentators. The last time I got lured onto this pathetic blog you were outlawing the use of the word Fascism. Things haven't improved.
It is a real shame that people are not engaging in Megan's argument--she is saying something that Glenn Greenwald and co should pay attention to. Nick Davies has written a book, Flat Earth News describing the way the news industry has become entirely corrupted through commercial pressures, based on some research he did with Cardiff University. Unfortunately it is about the UK industry but it I bet the picture will be recognisable in the US. It was an eye-opener.
The commercial pressures that Megan is describing are very real and very difficult to resist. The bottom line is that commercial pressures are putting pressure on costs--the biggest costs are journalist's time and these come under tremendous pressure and they are made to rely on more and more on news agencies and on stories being given to them on a plate by government and corporate PR/propaganda departments who are dutifully serving them up. These people have become very, very adept at shaping the news to their ends, and very few of the stories (The Growth Illusion.
One of the things that he flagged that Economic growth is generally achieved by efficiencies savings generated by substituting machines for people and since I have read that there is a very close relation ship between useful energy being used and economic activity--a very nearly linear relationship (for those that haven't come across this work it is clearly and concisely explained in the The Last Oil Shock).
Douthwaite observes (and this is only a part of his thesis) that industries that heavily rely on labour will start to look more and more expensive as manufactured goods become cheaper and cheaper as we become better and better at extracting these goods as a by product of pumping the carbon into atmosphere. (The book was written in the early '90s; he anticipated all the problems with global warming.)
It looks to me as if this is exactly the problem that Nick Davies is observing in the News industry. Of course people are also more an more time-poor from driving this hamster-wheel round more and more so they don't have time for engaging in anything that requires sustained attention. So the media inevitably will have another set of pressures to provide entertainment on the consumer side.
It is very difficult to break this. You folks should sneer less and listen more to diverse viewpoints. Especially when you are sneering at two other classes of people for being intellectually lazy.
Megan, please stop. You keep bringing that dull butter knife of yours to a gunfight.
You don't have to fill each newspaper with a dissertation of Yoo's legal briefings to make a difference, just have the balls to call things as they are. The MSM has basically become the clearing house for political spin - facts don't exist anymore, just opinion. The media has ceased being the referee that keeps the political establishment from beating up and taking advantage of the public.
Greenwald is basically arguing that the media doesn't have to bore us to tell us the truth. Call John Yoo a damn liar and a traitor and be done with it. There will still be a lot of space left to print about Obama's bowling score.
Chris:
Nah we don't have to listen to MM at all. She's a right wing hack, LA-LA-LA-LA, I can't hear her. All I do is read Koz and Atrios, ahahahahahhahaha
"Players learn about life and physical sciences, art and music, math, geography and history and english while they play."
MM,
I think the success of Carmen Sandiego seriously unhinges any point you're trying to make.
http://www.kidsclick.com/descrip/carmen_think.htm
Megan is working under an economist's common simplistic "rational man" framework of decision-making. I actually happen to agree that most people want trivial vapid gossip. But the question is, why do they want it? People's desires and constituted by culture and the press is a significant element of the cultural apparatus. So what people want is in part a result of what the press gives them. The relationship between the press and the public is circular and self-reinforcing, not the simple-minded one-way model Megan presents.
Now the second question is, how did this culture arise? In my opinion it is a natural outcome of the intersection of human nature and the marketplace. The tabloidisation (sorry) of the mainstream press started when the press became answerable to the market in the '80s. This is when the corporate owners of news organization began to view them as profit centers rather than loss leaders working in public interest. The human nature pressure stems from the fact that people will naturally pay more attention to whatever is louder and more sensational. So in a competitive market, the media product bit by bit became louder, more gossipy, more oriented toward "human interest" stories, ignoring hard stories in favor of vapid character vignets and mindless repetition of talking points.
And the third, and most important, question is: can a democracy function in this environment? It is this question that most concerns me and, I suspect, Glenn Greenwald.
The last time I got lured onto this pathetic blog you were outlawing the use of the word Fascism.
Well, that's 'cause Megan's, like, totally libertarian. Obviously.
The market for hard news is actually oversupplied, since so many talented people are willing to make financial sacrifices to write it. The instant that a niche market for information opens up, there is intense competition to exploit it.
Greenwald could not be more misguided in his futile attempts to guilt the marketplace into expanding.
Argh, OK, I promise from now on I will proofread my comments before I click Post... Sorry about the weird grammar and everything...
[Second time trying this.]
Ooops: forgot I was writing HTML: the sentence that finished with a '(' should read:
"These people have become very, very adept at shaping the news to their ends, and very few of the stories (
An indictment of journalists:
The MSM has basically become the clearing house for political spin - facts don't exist anymore, just opinion
And from the same comment, a recommendation for journalists seeking to escape the indictment:
Call John Yoo a damn liar and a traitor and be done with it.
Except that, well, the second of these sentences is an example of the first, not the antidote to it.
phasearth: Nick Davies (see my above post) also said the 1980s were a key time when the news business became much more profit oriented. In the UK it is put down to Murdoch breaking the print unions.
Chris Dornan that was a good post but this is your argument, not Megan's. What you wrote is only vaguely related to what Megan wrote.
That journalists rely more on PR and what people whisper in their ears is certainly true, and perhaps at least partly related to commercial pressures, but Megan didn't touch on that at all.
Her entire point was that things are working as intended because the public loves bowling stories and the media delivers them.
*Your* argument is an interesting one. Hers is not.
If you look at the economic situation faced by the typical news room "we're giving the public what it wants" is almost absurd on its face.
In fact, this is so perfect that I need to quote it. It's from the NYTimes in October 1996:
It goes on. He sounds exactly like Greenwald.Chris Dornan, just read your post, thank you. I agree, cost pressure is another effect of the market that is driving down quality. I do want to warn you against underestimating Greenwald. He certainly lays into the press, but he is extremely careful to avoid any analysis of the causes of the behavior he criticizes. In fact, see
Margalis, does the term "revealed preference" (both on the supple and demand side) mean nothing to you?
You had me up until the end. The fact that most newspapers do not make a lot of money, and in fact many are losing money these days, seems evidence that they do not know very well what kind of stories people want to read.
Greenwald's may not be the answer. But neither is what they are doing...
Because I am not familiar with Megan McArdle's work regarding economic issues, I do not want to be too harsh on her, but playing both sides of the issue in her recent column "Down the Memory Hole" (April 7) did not enhance her reputation. Based on the observations she has made about her feud with Glenn Greenwald, Ms. McArdle has become disillusioned with her own profession, and yet she feels compelled to defend the corpse that rots around her.
It is difficult to disagree with reader Will Allen's argument that the profit motive is most responsible for bad journalism, but that argument is not much of a defense for the banality of the mainstream media. There have always been media barons such as Randolph Hearst and Rupert Murdoch, who represented the worst side of journalism, but there was a period of time in the 1960's and 1970's during which corporation profits were not the only controlling force for television news journalists.
I understand that cable television is responsible for a significant decline in the number of people who watch the news on the major television networks, and I understand that the Internet has been responsible for a significant decline in the number of people who read major national newspapers and periodicals, and I understand that the profit motive induces media corporations to cater to the lowest common denominator, but the end result is that the mainstream media are a cesspool.
Ms. McArdle assures us that media corporations know what they are doing by pumping sludge to the masses, and that must be why the television networks are so unsuccessful at gauging the likely success of television programs. I have my own theories about the political motivations of the people who control most of the mainstream media, but because I do not have 100 million dollars to invest in a media outlet, I will concede that the profit motive is the primary reason that the mainstream media have so little of value to offer.
Ms. McArdle is not responsible for the sorry state of our mass media, but unless her editor told her to defend this crap, she is part of the problem. This latest insinuation that her job is her charity is a stretch, but if Ms. McArdle thinks that she already has given her heart and soul to her profession, I would think she would be more concerned about upholding her ethics as a journalist. However, Ms. McArdle is more popular than I could ever hope to be, and if Ms. McArdle's readers want her to remain just the way she is, and if Ms. McArdle wants to remain true to these readers, they have a match.
David Nieporent,
There is no evidence at all that Greenwald is a leftist. In fact, I read him almost daily, and I suspect he is closer to a libertarian, but that's just a somewhat informed guess. He is very careful not to reveal his political views and has made same critiques of the press vis-a-vis Ron Paul, Clinton and Obama. He is not a shill for the left.
Yes, and during the time of Hearst and Pulitzer the press was tabloid and sensational. I was talking about major news organization like CBS News in the 60s and 70s. "Loss leader" was an imprecise phrase, I agree. I meant, most serious news organizations did not exist primarily to make money. They were usually subsidized one way or another.
Not sure what your point is with the Bob Dole quote. The right's accusation of liberal bias in the press is not news to anyone.
Run for profit or funded by a trust fund, a majority of americans thought Saddam was behind 9-11. I have never viewed "journalists"/the media in the same light since.
Oh yeah the media is very healthy, as is american democracy! A model for the rest of the world...to be exported by force!
The supple side? Mmmmm....
Revealed preference? You mean how Glenn is much more popular than Megan, as a totally random example? So that must mean that consumers much prefer what Glenn is offering? And that most consumers think Glenn's arguments are much stronger than Megan's?
You mean that?
Geez. Is there some virtue in repeating yourself? The more you write, Ms. McArdle, the more you reveal your ignorance and your utter devotion to it.
I suggest you do some research into the recent history of journalism, since Watergate. It is embarrassingly obvious that you are clueless about the subject.
Ever hear of the fourth estate? Any clue why the media were designated as such? Is it just one of those charming, retro notions that is incompatible with present-day free-market thinking?
That's because the editors know exactly what the public wants, and what the public wants is false stories linking Saddam to 9/11.
True story.
On an earlier thread a question was raised as to whether Yoo might be deemed a war criminal under the principles of the Nuremberg Trials. Here is a description of the Alstoetter matter: it suggests that Yoo may have a problem.
http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/nuremberg/Alstoetter.htm
In general, a person is held to intend the results which are the natural consequences of their actions.
I think GG's argument is less that MSM's focus on trivialities is a market failure than a political failure. He believes they are a diversion camouflaging constitutional crime so that it goes, if not exactly unnoticed, then unchecked.
The camouflage is all the more effective because "serious" journalists, the very people who'd tell us if there were something really wrong, have gone to the dogs themselves and now outdrudge drudge. The polity then cannot protect itself from the abuser of power because somehow the First Amendment is no longer the bulwark it once was.
Scolding serious journalist to do better is an acceptable response even though doing so dogmatically in an insufferable tone of voice may not win converts.
There is however an obviously dangerous implication to the notion that people aren't buying as much prune juice as they should because the inferior juice have unfairly more popular taste, packaging, shelf space, advertising budgets, etc. have an authority require that they do.
Ironically, for people who think this diagnosis and remedy are spot on, among all the other problems, it is an approach that embodies the very ill it would cure. The political discussion turns to what forms of regulation -- campaign spending limits, enforcement, donor relationships, etc. that a good deal of air time is spent on these trivialities instead of on policy substance.
Megan, what exactly is your point? that americans are dumb and therefore you should feed them crap? from an economist's point of view, you are dead-on. but this is effectively the death of journalism and without real journalism we may as well drop the whole 'greatest democracy in the world' charade. pretty depressing and it seems like you are way too happy about this.
This is really Meghan's cardinal virtue: she will not allow herself to appear just a little foolish. When the foolishness starts, she doubles down -- again, and again, and again -- until she looks like the silliest damn person to ever walk upright. I kind of admire that.
This letter may seem a bit long but Mr. Glenn Greenwald's uncongenial screeds cannot be adequately described in less than a long essay. First and foremost, sometimes I think that Greenwald is simply a willing pawn of those callous individuals who declare martial law, suspend elections, and round up dissidents (i.e., anyone who does not buy his lie that the kids on the playground are happy to surrender to the school bully). I typically drop that willing-pawn notion, however, whenever I remember that what really irks me is that Greenwald has presented us with a Hobson's choice. Either we let him break down traditional values or he'll destroy the sovereignty of all nations and every feeling or expression of patriotism.
There is an unpleasant fact, painful to the tender-minded, that one can deduce from the laws of nature. This fact is also conclusively established by direct observation. It is a fact so obvious that rational people have always known it and no one doubted it until Greenwald and his lickspittles started trying to deny it. The fact to which I am referring states that it's really astounding that Greenwald has found a way to work the words "sphygmomanometric" and "plethysmographically" into his methods of interpretation. However, you may find it even more astounding that he knows how to lie. It's too bad he doesn't yet understand the ramifications of lying. Delirious dangerous-types who jump on everything that is written, said, or even implied and label it as either mawkish or termagant might not recognize the incongruities in Greenwald's demands, but Greenwald has been trying hard to protect what has become a lucrative racket for him. Unfortunately, that lucrative racket has a hard-to-overlook consequence: it will rebrand local churches as faith-based emporia teeming with impulse-buy items sooner than you think.
If one believes statements like, "Greenwald is a refined gentleman with the soundest education and morals you can imagine," one is, in effect, supporting parasitic oligarchs. His precepts are not the solution to our problem. They are the problem. I am now in a position to define what I mean when I say that his outrage at complaints about him is indicative of his self-esteem and value system. What I mean is that I frequently wish to tell Greenwald that he uses a rather money-grubbing definition of "epididymodeferentectomy". But being a generally genteel person, however, I always bite my tongue. He harbors a sense of entitlement and an expectation of success beyond reason. Regular readers of my letters probably take that for granted, but if I am to serve on the side of Truth, I must explain to the population at large that I am truly at a loss for words when he asserts that he answers to no one. He can't possibly be serious. I, speaking as someone who is not an unregenerate chiseler, suspect that the real story here is that we've tolerated Greenwald's laughable snow jobs long enough. It's time to lose our patience and chill our kindness. It's time to call for proper disciplinary action against Greenwald and his flunkies. It's time to shout to the world that he wants to demand that loyalty to cocky nonentities supersedes personal loyalty. It gets better: He believes that he can ignore rules, laws, and protocol without repercussion. I guess no one's ever told him that his formula for faddism is more viperine than ever. The sooner he comes to grips with that reality, the better for all of us.
I suspect that Greenwald's zealots explain everything through the lens of Greenwald's disingenuous and ideologically loaded nostrums, even though that presupposes a dialectical intertwinement to which a sick turn of mind is impervious. Greenwald likes to quote all of the saccharine, sticky moralisms about "human rights" and the evils of propagandism. But as soon as we stop paying attention, he invariably instructs his subalterns to create an unwelcome climate for those of us who are striving to tell you things that he doesn't want you to know. Then, when someone notices, the pattern repeats from the beginning. Though this game may seem perverse beyond belief to any sane individual it makes perfect sense in light of Greenwald's sexist smear tactics. I call upon him to stop his oppression, lies, immorality, and debauchery. I call upon him to be a man of manners, principles, honour, and purity. And finally, I call upon him to forgo his desire to eliminate the plebiscitary mechanisms which ensure a free and democratic society.
Greenwald's policies are based on two fundamental errors. They assume that Greenwald's treatises are Holy Writ and they promote the mistaken idea that hooliganism is the key to world peace. Let me put it this way: inasmuch as I disagree with Greenwald's accusations and find his ad hominem attacks offensive, I am happy to meet Greenwald's speech with more speech and, if necessary, continue this discussion until the truth shines. Greenwald's list of sins is long and each one deserves more space than I have here. Therefore, rather than describe each one individually, I'll summarize by stating that his reasoning is circular and therefore invalid. In other words, he always begins an argument with his conclusion (e.g., that there should be publicly financed centers of vigilantism) and therefore -- not surprisingly -- he always arrives at that very conclusion. So, sorry for being so long-winded in this letter, but this serves as a reminder that I am skeptical of Mr. Glenn Greenwald's efforts to produce an ophidian definition of "stereophotogrammetry".
As all you media types do is glorified stenography on serious issues (too hard for you to understand?) or tabloid reporting on unserious issues you should go broke.
Wow. Rick E's comment does not pass the Turing test. What on Earth is he (it?) talking about?
jw,
It's an obvious spoof of Greewald's critics, i.e, satire, given that all his critics do is make pompous ad hominem attacks. But it may also have been a compilation of their comments done randomly by a computer.
hahaha, this comment thread has nothing but vitriol for megan and discussion of someone else's writing.
Thank you for that massacio. Actual facts, how refreshing.
Yoo's pretty safe though, I think.
Dear Ms. Bachelard, I have been warned that I should not enter into a pissing war with a skunk. Please let me know, Ms. Bachelard, if you are a skunk. If you are not a skunk, Ms. Bachelard, please do not be so angry that your beloved Ms. McArdle does not know of your devotion to her.
With your most recent post, Ms. Bachelard, I am reminded of a song by Joan Armatrading called "I Love It When You Call Me Names", and maybe Ms. McArdle will also be reminded of this same song. Maybe it can be your song, Ms. Bachelard.
I decided to heed your advice, Ms. Bachelard, and I did some research on the history of journalism since Watergate. As a result of this research, Ms. Bachelard, I learned that the profession of journalism has gone down the toilet, and yet the product is still quite satisfying for the fan-base of the popular press.
You do not need to feel embarrassed for me, Ms. Bachelard, when you have Ms. McArdle to defend. I will confess that I have heard about the fourth estate, Ms. Bachelard, and it has fallen on some hard times. Have you ever heard of a non sequitur, Ms. Bachelard? Do you know the meaning of the word "defamatory", Ms. Bachelard?
It's quite amusing to watch wingnuts like McArdle, Drezner, et. al., shitting their pants in fury at Greenwald's dead-on assessments of them.
You're a fucking collaborator, Megan. No better than the Nazis. And the nice thing about those "show trials" in Nuremberg is the number of guilty motherfuckers that wound up hanging by their neck.
I'm a Journalamist!
Watch me journalamise on da Tee Bee!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ll4N_pvoSXI
Heh...
Greenwald has revealed his political views. They are all over his work and in his bio if you care to read and are capable of comprehending what you read. It's now wonder an airhead like David Nieporent reads other sirheads. Greenwald was, and still is, a conservative. He rankles at being decribed a libertarian but is extremely passionate about civil liberties, obviously. Conservatives used to be that way once, remember? Call him a civil libertarian if you must but shill for the left? You are as obtuse as can be. His very first articles were in Pat Buchanan's American Conservative Magazine, for Chissakes!. What does that tell you? Shill for the left? Come to think of it, name one. And why would the left need a shill? They aren't running the short con. I tend to think, like most people of any intelligence and intellctual honesty, he woke up one day and realized that the political right in this country had left him and become something unrecognizable to anyone who is a true conservative. Something ugly, extremist and dangerous and without any fundamental philosophy, and that it must be destroyed. Watch it. It's being done right before your very eyes. It's not that difficult. It's mostly an act of self-destruction with vacuous moderates like McArdle and Drezner laying down smoke to cover the retreat before the final rout. Good riddance.
To the certain members of the right-wing everyone is a leftist. Against the war? Must be a fringe leftist! Think Bush is a bad president? Must be a fringe leftist! Against torture? Must be a fringe leftist!
What they call leftists we call "most Americans."
It's truly delusional. They honestly believe that their views are shared by all but a tiny minority of communist radicals.
Megan, there are a number of slots one can choose to occupy in the contemporary media system. The slot of broadcaster or broadcast editor is one. It's very hard to do and requires talent, but the stories it produces are usually stupid (unless you're at PBS or 60 Minutes, or The Daily Show of course).
Way out at another fringe of the spectrum somewhere is being a blogger. And there are many different kinds of bloggers. But as you have noted before, one thing that certain blogs can do better than any other source is provide a comprehensive in-depth searchable guide to a specific issue in which they have exceptional expertise.
Which is why I'm kind of disappointed that it really looks like you're not going to get to that question of why you think that experts agree the NEJM Iraq war-death study was so much better than the Lancet studies. You didn't really do that issue comprehensively in the way that Ezra Klein has done health-care reform.
I completely sympathize with your point that there are performance incentives and disincentives in each kind of media job. For example, you just generated over 170 comments by posting again about your beef with Glenn Greenwald. Those numbers are being driven by angry visits from Glenn's partisans, and he in turn has been rewarded for being extremely angry and obstreperous all the time and attracting a certain segment of the Permanently Angry blog audience. So there may be less of an audience for your in-depth assessment of the Iraq death studies. Maybe you even get paid less if you spend your time on that stuff.
But please recognize: This Way Lies Madness. The more you write posts that basically garner responses only because they make Glenn Greenwald's readers mad, the further you descend into the ideosphere of a Bill O'Reilly. And I mean that not in the sense of the particular political ideology, but of O'Reilly's fists-swinging, brain-frozen approach to political discourse.
I guess I just mean that this sequence of posts seems to illustrate your point about one's responsibilities as a journalist, or even as a writer in general, in a particularly sharp way. You could go on writing things that just make some people mad and generate endless repetitive debates. But ultimately that's empty and hollow. I don't think you got into journalism to be empty and hollow.
Hahahah! Greenwald fans say the darndest things.
Boy, they just love working themselves up into a self-righteous lather and delivering spittle flecked denunciations of their political enemies.
Of course, you can't work up a really good fury without a heavy dose of hyperbolic exaggeration, and therefore the interrogation/'torture' techniques that are designed not to cause physical harm are described as 'deadly', the techniques authorized by the government and conflated with the abuses of Abu Ghraib and, of course, everyone even tangentially associated with or defensive of the use of these techniques are Nazis who are going to be hung after Nuremberg style trials.
In reality, the techniques are far more mild than say, the abusive behaviors like prison rape that are allowed to occur every day in civilian prisons without much outcry, or even the kind of torture shown on prime time television on 24.
This might have something to do with the fact that stories about this 'torture' don't get as much attention as Greenwald and company would like, but this dose of perspective would interfere with their ability to work up a good, fun, self-righteous fury, so of course it has to be ignored in favor of paranoid consipracies about the supposedly right wing media killing the story, which they very much prefer.
One thing I'm noticing here is that there seems to be a consensus that crosses left, right, and center. This consensus is that the drive for profits is what has driven the content of media coverage. The question I have for the less-libertarian amongst us is this:
If profits are what is driving the quality of news downward, then doesn't that mean that a disproportionate number of people are interested in the trivial coverage?
After all, you can't have greater profits in the news business without first getting more readers/viewers.
I should point out, though, that this is not to say that the public actually does prefer the weaker stories. After all, news media profits in recent years have largely been going down, not up. While profits in the cable news industry have been going up, much of that has been a result of the fact that the cable news networks are entering more markets globally, as well as the fact that they are regularly adding new niche networks (which largely offer better coverage along the lines of what all of us in this thread would like).
That said, it's worth pointing out that primary coverage this year led CNN's profits to double in the month of February, and ratings in that month went up on all three cable news networks. It's also worth pointing out that CNN is the network which has arguably been the most hyperfocused on the primaries, with its "Ballot Bowl" and "Election Center" shows. Given the significantly higher ratings the networks have seen for the primary coverage, it is a rational (though perhaps incorrect) decision for them to think that Obama bowling is as or more likely to draw viewers as the Yoo memos.
Margalis: Thank you much for your complements in the other thread.
One more thing:
From a personal preference point of view, I just want to second every word that brooksfoe just wrote.
The other troubling implication of Megan's line of argument is that she's saying it is inevitable that journalism driven by the profit motive and funded by advertising will be vapid.
This is essentially an argument for massive public funding of broadcast journalism, or aggressive regulation. If it is left to advertising-funded, for-profit broadcasters to determine the shape of the political debate, that debate will be stupid and misinformed. Hence we need publicly funded, not-for-profit broadcasters to be at least as wealthy and powerful as the for-profit ones. As I recall, CNN's and FOXNews's budgets are well over $1 billion a year each.
Alternatively, one could return to old-fashioned regulation requiring broadcasters to broadcast at least 1 hour of nightly news, and a return to the Fairness Doctrine. This would be confusing to implement, obviously, in the era of 1000-channel cable broadcasting.
McArdle has a peculiar cat-like genius for climbing up trees of irrationality from which she cannot climb down. Instead she boasts about the great distance she can see from her lofty perch of absurdity. This is what comes of using her argumentative hammer to drive every problem peg into the uniform hole of her grand theory of selfishnesss.
Unfortunately, there is no fire department for neo-liberals stuck in blunders. McArdle has been reduced to saying that journalist must write junk to accommodate the lowest common denominator of public taste and that the press has no civic responsibility. I can't wait for this principle to be applied more extensively so that America can more better resemble a fully libertarian state like Somalia.
This Way Lies Madness. The more you write posts that basically garner responses only because they make Glenn Greenwald's readers mad, the further you descend into the ideosphere of a Bill O'Reilly.
But that is fine according to McArdle's crack-brained grand unified theory of personal selfishness. Why should she care how she gets her traffic? It's all about her personal incentives.
McArdle has no concept whatever of the public good, so why should she give a flying flip about how she attracts eyeballs to her blog?
Greenwald speaks intelligently in defense of the Constitution and our liberties. McArdle speaks stupidly in defense of selfish behavior. I'll go with Greenwald any day.
I don't know where to begin.
You "gave at the office" by becoming a journalist? Holy crap, you actually think that choosing to be become a journalist was a public service in itself? I'm not sure which is more galling: your blithe confidence that you could be making a fortune now in any other career, or your belief that you yourself are a gift to journalism and therefore, to the world.
And under what economic model do "readers want" self-justifying posts like this?
"Nor do newspaper owners exactly mint money ..."
But of course they do. Have you ever owned one? I have. Net profit margins of 30% anually.
No business, not even insurance, affords these kinds of riskless returns on investment. In fact, large swaths of American journalism is owned by insurance companies ... who know how to count pennies and balance books.
They know that owning a newspaper is in fact a license to print money.
Greenwald speaks intelligently in defense of the Constitution and our liberties
The long-winded data do not support that conclusion.
-
Does anybody else find it odd that the person making this argument works for a low-circulation magazine, for which she most recently wrote a story about assessing the statistics of civilian body counts in a warzone?
Nobody is suggesting that People magazine start writing hard-hitting stories on John Yoo. They're suggesting that the shredding of the constitution in order to torture prisoners should be something of a big story for newspapers like the New York Times (which has no comics page, no horoscopes and doesn't publish gambling lines on football games, all of which readers must like because other newspapers do this).
I'd also argue that if the NY Post had been running back pages that featured torture stories and illegal behavior on the part of the President--as they were happy to do when there was no illegal behavior on the part of the last president, then people would be paying attention.
There is nothing dry or uninteresting in stories about torture done by secret agents in back rooms. How that came to be is part of that story.
What's really going on here is an unwillingness of the mainstream press to confront the fact that Bush has exploited American Exceptionalism in order to engage in the tactics of dictators in banana republics. The media's unwillingness to discard this narrative is what is going on. And the republicans exploit this on issues ranging from hegemony to health care.
OTOH, Britney Spears is on the cover of the April Atlantic.
People are not interested in hard news (think city council meetings) except for one-off events, so hard news cannot pay the bills in the media business model.
The only audience you can get successfully, day in and day out, news or no news, is the soap opera audience, which is big but not a majority even of women (about 40% of women). So that's what you write for, and that's what edits every public debate.
If it doesn't interest soap opera women, it doesn't have legs, and it won't survive in the public forum.
The remedy is ridicule of this audience, not of the media that has to write for it. The media know very well what they're doing.
Whether there's another business model for news that will work is another question. There may not be. But at least their tastes won't edit everything.
also the title is kinda funny, given just how many low circulation magazines exist only because they are subsidized by rich people.
The media is a market - you sell a product and you are supposed to tell the truth about it. If you don't tell the truth and people get mad, you lose business and possibly get in trouble. If you don't tell the truth and people like what you sell anyway, they shrug it off and keep buying.
Journalistic integrity? Like everything else, only if the benefits outweigh the negatives.
Megan is correct to an extent.
If the media was really covering stories people wanted to read/watch/listen to why is it shrinking?
It is shrinking because they are not publishing what people want to know.
And what do people want to read? Look at traffic patterns on the www for a clue.
Why is Limbaugh getting rich and Air America dying. Another clue.
Why is the CNN audience shrinking and FOX increasing? Simple - FOX wants to have a mix that appeals to Americans in the middle. Left Center, Right. CNN? Left and Lefter.
Why are journalists 85% to the left? Because Walter Duranty got a Pulitzer. And you know how that ended.
BTW when people don't even know (so many here) what John Yoo even wrote about it is obvious that even for stories people here are interested in the media has been dishing up moldy slops.
Did Yoo shred the Constitution? How could he? He doesn't make policy.
What was Yoo asked to do? To research the applicable laws national and international dealing with torture and irregular warfare.
And what is the number one rule dealing with irregular warfare? They can be summarily shot after a military court. And how rigorous does that court need to be? It can be done on a battlefield.
Why is that a rule of war? Because irregular warfare that does not conform to the rules of irregular warfare endangers non-combatants.
Now if you can kill them on the spot why would torture be out of bounds?
Now that may be a true legal opinion. It says nothing about whether it is wise. It is obvious that our military leaders consider it unwise, despite the legality, because that is not the practice of our military.
Why don't they torture and execute if they have the legal power? It impedes surrender. And we want them to surrender. We want easy fights - not fights to the death. We want to beat them not kill them. A man who changes sides is more valuable in terms of victory than a dead man. Dead men don't change sides.
Now in all this uproar over Yoo has any one of note covered the facts well enough so that at least the majority of the audience gets it?
I see no evidence here.
"The Britney Show (Part 8)
The last of eight installments of an NYU panel on paparazzi and celebrity. Hosted by David Samuels, author of “Shooting Britney,” The Atlantic’s April cover" -theATLantic.com
OTOH, Britney Spears is on the cover of the April Atlantic.
Posted by jayackroyd | April 10, 2008 8:02 AM
wow, that wasn't a joke...
Let me add. In this war which side is known as the torturing side? Which side executes civilians at random as policy? Which side is notorious for using human shields?
So for all the fools screaming Yoo, Yoo, Yoo, Yoo, and Bush too, why no outrage at the random mass murder of civilians as a military tactic?
Because the other side is using a tactic well known here. It is: give up or the puppy dies.
And the puppy murderers are the friends of so many here.
Now in all this uproar over Yoo has any one of note covered the facts well enough so that at least the majority of the audience gets it?
Yes, several blogs, like Firedoglake and Glen Greenwald, authored by knowledgeable lawyers, have covered the reckless and unsupported character of Yoo's legal recommendations authorizing torture, which were subsequently withdrawn by his DoJ colleagues.
It is against the Geneva conventions to torture captives, no matter what their combatant status, regular, irregular, or extra-large.
The Bush administration has committed war crimes by any reasonable standard, starting with a planned war of aggression. Because the press and public supported these crimes in the heat of anger over the 9/11 attacks, there is a widespread desire to forget about them. McArdle would like to forget that the Predident she voted for TWICE is a war criminal.
But the blood of those killed and tortured by Bush cries out for justice. These crimes will never be forgotten.
First off, have YOU read his book on presidential power? I have.
BTW when people don't even know (so many here) what John Yoo even wrote about it is obvious that even for stories people here are interested in the media has been dishing up moldy slops.
Did Yoo shred the Constitution? How could he? He doesn't make policy.
One of the things that makes his role so noteworthy is that he was used by the policy-makers to circumvent normal justice department channels. The policy-makers had made the decision to torture people, but knew that there would be objections, because it is both wrong and illegal. So they sought out someone in the Justice Department who would write what Addington and Cheney wanted written. The result is stunning news--that the US secretly abrogated US law, and treaties it had signed and tortured people. The process of using Yoo is also very big news. The executive used the DoJ to rubberstamp illegal policies. (We know this, for sure, because the DoJ eventually repudiated the memo.)
What was Yoo asked to do? To research the applicable laws national and international dealing with torture and irregular warfare.
No, he was asked to come up with a legal justification for torturing people.
And what is the number one rule dealing with irregular warfare? They can be summarily shot after a military court. And how rigorous does that court need to be? It can be done on a battlefield.
Why is that a rule of war? Because irregular warfare that does not conform to the rules of irregular warfare endangers non-combatants.
Now if you can kill them on the spot why would torture be out of bounds?
Yoo didn't make this stunningly bad argument. You summarily shoot guys in uniform, too, without getting into trouble. That has nothing to with laws and treaties banning torture.
Now that may be a true legal opinion. It says nothing about whether it is wise. It is obvious that our military leaders consider it unwise, despite the legality, because that is not the practice of our military.
No, it is not legal. The DoJ says it is not legal. John McCain's justification for supporting the president in not requiring the CIA to follow the US military's rules of interrogation is that torture is illegal anyway, and the CIA is not permitted to engage in it.
Why don't they torture and execute if they have the legal power?
They don't have the legal power.
It impedes surrender. And we want them to surrender. We want easy fights - not fights to the death. We want to beat them not kill them. A man who changes sides is more valuable in terms of victory than a dead man. Dead men don't change sides.
This is also a stunningly bad argument. This is the ineffectiveness argument against the use of torture in interrogation. Interrogators say that you get the best, most complete and most reliable information from a subject that comes to trust you.
Now in all this uproar over Yoo has any one of note covered the facts well enough so that at least the majority of the audience gets it?
Sure. Greenwald has. Who IS a lawyer. His point is that the traditional media has not, and that it should--that it is much bigger news than a political burglary or a presidential dalliance.
So you refute Greenwald's argument by averring?
Wonderful! At least you admit you aren't serious.
Actually, I believe that all Greenwald had was an assertion, which Megan's appropriately dealt with.
Megan, there's really no point in trying to argue or even discuss anything with Greenwald. Ask just about anyone who has--Althouse, Patterico, Reynolds, Ace, Goldstein. All he'll do is re-work his argument and say that you really just don't get it. He's probably the biggest sophist on the web, with a massive group of followers who defend his every word and move. Even when he was caught sockpuppeting with four or five aliases, none of his fans that I know of criticized him in the least. He provides them intellectual cover for their anger and bile; they’ll never admit that a view other than his has any legitimacy whatsoever.
It's cute that many of the commenters think that what the MSM really needs to do is focus more on their liberal issues. I mean, 90% of journalists are liberal, but surely things would be better if they could just capture that last 10%!
I think the real lack in journalism today (and probably going back quite some time) is a distinct lack of curiousity by reporters. They just don't have a knack for knowing when something interesting comes up, something that should be followed up on. They don't have that little voice that says, "Hey, I bet that's something my readers would be interested in. I should follow up on it."
Why this is the case, I don't know for sure, but it's probably for several reasons. Ideological conformity is one, I'm sure. When almost everybody you know thinks the same way you do, you will have a hard time knowing what others might be interested in. It might be the way journalists are trained, with a focus on "narrative" over "interest." If something comes up that is interesting but doesn't fit the narrative, then it is likely to be ignored or minimized. It could also simply be a factor of not having enough free time to look into things the reporter thinks would be interesting but are not part of the current assignment.
As Greenwald noted, "A Department of Justice memo, authored by John Yoo, was released which authorized torture and presidential lawbreaking. It was revealed that the Bush administration declared the Fourth Amendment of the Bill of Rights to be inapplicable to "domestic military operations" within the U.S."
That's news.
Uh, that is not "news" it is fiction. The memo said no such thing.
Wow, the cocoon of ignorance you leftists live in is unbelievable.
Let me add. In this war which side is known as the torturing side?
The US. Throughout the world.
That's why this is such a big story. The US has always claimed, and mostly lived up to the claim, that it does not torture people. We've heard, our whole lives, stories of people captured in war, terrified of being tortured because of propaganda they've been fed, only to have the GI who captured him say "We don't do that. We're Americans."
This is, by the way, a very powerful interrogation tool. It's a big step toward gaining a subject's trust if your first action gives the lie to what he has been told about you.
What is most repulsive about Bush and Cheney is they have USED these stories we've heard our whole lives as a way of denying doing what they're doing, and justifying a hegemonic war of choice. That's what I mean when I say they've exploited, and perhaps destroyed, American Exceptionalism. Nobody can now claim that the US is anything but a hegemon.
The reason the US has always given for having military bases everywhere and occupying countries for decades is to promote freedom and human rights. Accusations of imperialism are met by claiming American motives are pure. The invasion and occupation of Iraq destroys that story. Torturing people destroys the human rights story. Locking people up indefinitely without charge destroys the freedom story.
The policy-makers had made the decision to torture people
Hilarious.
You will literally believe anything, any claim, said about the Bush Administration.
The Bush administration has committed war crimes by any reasonable standard
Wow!
Seriously clown, get a grip. You neither know what a "war crime" is nor factually what the Bush Administration has done.
Greenwald speaks intelligently in defense of the Constitution and our liberties.
This is actually sad.
Really it is. You are an easily misled dupe.
I bet you actually believe you are on the side of the "Constitution" too.
Right?
It is fascinating to observe that some of the commenters here consider obeying the law to be a "liberal" position. The many laws against torture have existed for decades, and America never had a problem with obeying them - until Bush/Cheney/Rove took power. These men see the world differently.
A government of men holds laws in low esteem. They believe that their heroic characters and good intentions are more important than the rule of law and that a vigorous and powerful executive is to be preferred to scrupulous adherence to the law. Look around and see where this approach has brought us.
The permanent "emergency" that Bush effectively declared after 9/11 has been used to turn America into a dark and ugly nation. It will take us decades to recover.
HH,
You failed to mention that the USA is not a signatory to those conventions which totally ban torture.
It is not LAW if we have not signed the Treaty and ratified it. It may be the right thing to do - and we know that our military does not practice torture as a matter of policy - but it is not law.
As I said. Misinformation is wide spread.
Ask just about anyone who has--Althouse, Patterico, Reynolds, Ace, Goldstein.
ROFL. The intellectual lights of the right blogosphere.
Oh, I remember Ace. I remember when he would post Telegraph story after Telegraph story about the WMD found in Iraq. One time, he spent a solid two hours setting me for the devastating story in the Telegraph that he knew about and I didn't. Of course, the story turned out to be wrong.
What was it he used to call me? What brilliant satirical trope did he come up with?
C*ck in the Mouth Jay.
Yep, that was it. That was Ace, at his best.
Hey, Megan, these are your peeps. Great stuff, what?
This is, by the way, a very powerful interrogation tool.
How would you know?
Seriously, how? You've:
a) Never worked for the CIA
b) Never served in the military
c) Never worked for the DOJ
d) Never have held any sort of security clearance
Therefore, you simply do not have anything of value to say on this topic. Nothing.
The US. Throughout the world.
Yes, because of dupes like you. AQ broadcasts video tapes of people they capture being beheaded but you ignorants claim the US "tortures" people.
Stunning.
Ah yes. The US Nick Bergs enemy combatants and films it for distribution.
Do you have a link?
The permanent "emergency" that Bush effectively declared after 9/11 has been used to turn America into a dark and ugly nation. It will take us decades to recover
Hilarious.
Where is this "emergency" taking place exactly?
Is it in effect for those Code Pink morons disrupting hearings on Cap Hill? Or is it when they, in their "support the troops" mode, deface military recruiting centers?
It is fascinating to observe that some of the commenters here consider obeying the law to be a "liberal" position. The many laws against torture have existed for decades
You can't name any such "law" nor do you have the foggiest clue as to what you are saying.
You neither know what a "war crime" is nor factually what the Bush Administration has done.
I know, FACTUALLY, that the Yoo memorandum authorizes the torture of captives. Torture is a war crime.
If you are a defender of Bush's torture policies, you should note that the concealment of what Bush ordered is breaking down, and as more information emerges, the difficulty of justifying Bush's barbaric actions will increase. This story isn't over, and these crimes will never be forgotten.
It is not LAW if we have not signed the Treaty and ratified it.
Yoo's argument, actually, is that the president is not bound by the law. The US is certainly a signatory to the Geneva conventions, and is certainly in violation of them.
And, of course, Yoo would not have made that argument if the administration weren't engaging in violations of the law and of treaties.
You can't name any such "law"
The United States has incorporated international prohibitions against torture and mistreatment of persons in custody into its domestic law. The United States has reported to the Committee Against Torture that: “Every act of torture within the meaning of the Convention is illegal under existing federal and state law, and any individual who commits such an act is subject to penal sanctions as specified in criminal statutes. Such prosecutions do in fact occur in appropriate circumstances. Torture cannot be justified by exceptional circumstances, nor can it be excused on the basis of an order from a superior officer. “
Military personnel who mistreat prisoners can be prosecuted by a court-martial under various provisions of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ, arts. 77-134).
The War Crimes Act of 1996 (18 U.S.C. § 2441) makes it a criminal offense for U.S. military personnel and U.S. nationals to commit war crimes as specified in the 1949 Geneva Conventions. War crimes under the act include grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions. It also includes violations of common Article 3 to the Geneva Conventions, which prohibits “violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture; …outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment.
A federal anti-torture statute (18 U.S.C. § 2340A), enacted in 1994, provides for the prosecution of a U.S. national or anyone present in the United States who, while outside the U.S., commits or attempts to commit torture. Torture is defined as an “act committed by a person acting under the color of law specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody or physical control.” A person found guilty under the act can be incarcerated for up to 20 years or receive the death penalty if the torture results in the victim’s death.
Military contractors working for the Department of Defense might also be prosecuted under the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act of 2000 (Public Law 106-778), known as MEJA. MEJA permits the prosecution in federal court of U.S. civilians who, while employed by or accompanying U.S. forces abroad, commit certain crimes. Generally, the crimes covered are any federal criminal offense punishable by imprisonment for more than one year. The MEJA remains untested because the Defense Department has yet to issue necessary implementing regulations required by the law.
Source: http://www.hrw.org/english/docs/2004/05/24/usint8614.htm
I know, FACTUALLY, that the Yoo memorandum authorizes the torture of captives
No you do not.
Cite me where the memo says that. Not where Greenwald says is says it, but the memo itself.
The US is certainly a signatory to the Geneva conventions, and is certainly in violation of them.
Another comical claim with no basis in fact.
You don't have any idea what the Geneva Conventions actually say.
Where is this "emergency" taking place exactly?
Yoo's claim in the memo was that the AUMF exempted the president from following any laws if the reason he was breaking those laws was related to the war that was authorized (NOT declared, btw. Yoo denies the Congress the war declaration power in any but a purely formal sense. He only grants the Congress the power of the purse.)
The administration has repeatedly claimed that the second AUMF (Iraq) permits it to engage in any military activity.
Megan is right. There are plenty of news sources available that carry the stuff Greenwald wants. If I'm reading the Nielsen ratings for Q1 08 correctly, Olberman had about 1.8 million viewers (0.8% share) and O'Reilly had about 5 million (2.2% share). Although both shows dig deep into the stories in the way Greenwald wants (from their own partisan perspectives), they are barely attracting 3% of households between them, during a presidential primary and a war.
Greenwald would probably like Frontline even better, and "Bush's War" did get 1.5 million online views, plus an unknown number of television viewers, but again, I'll be surprised if more than 3% of the population watched. This was notwithstanding favorable notices and reviews in every newspaper I read.
By introducing Fox News, Rupert Murdoch showed pretty effectively that if you can meet a previously unidentified news demand, people will watch. There just isn't an unmet demand for Greenwald's preferred news stories. There is plenty of demand, sure - probably several million people all told, but that demand *is being met* by MSNBC, Olberman, Krugman, The Nation, and the blogs.
If Greenwald wants to go after someone, he should go after ESPN. My bet is that if you compare their coverage of the Kansas-Memphis game to their coverage of John Yoo, you will find that the disparity is infinite. And which is more important?
AQ broadcasts video tapes of people they capture being beheaded but you ignorants claim the US "tortures" people. - Ace
It is, in fact, logically possible that both Al-Qaeda and the United States torture people, just as it is logically possible for both George Bush and Osama bin Laden to wear socks.
The United States has ratified the Convention Against Torture. That, among other reasons, is why the United States' torture of various people in American custody (almost none of whom were ever even charged with a crime, many of whom have since been definitively shown to be innocents detained completely in error) constitutes a war crime.
It is fascinating to observe that some of the commenters here consider obeying the law to be a "liberal" position.
A rather interesting thought.
So, if the Congress authorized and the President agreed that "waterboarding" was legal, you'd be ok with that then, right?
It is, in fact, logically possible that both Al-Qaeda and the United States torture people
Irrelvant as I never said otherwise.
That, among other reasons, is why the United States' torture of various people in American custody
Something you have no proof of.
Of course to you, someone who has never served in the military, and would not, to you "torture" is loud music, bright lights, being dunked under water, etc. While the other side burns people alive, cuts out tongues, and chops off heads (and other limbs).
That is the point, clown.
Of course you can't grasp it.
J. Mann
The largest circulation newspapers are the NYTimes, the WSJ and USA Today. I do not think for a minute that their circulation would suffer were they to cover this story. It is at least as big a story as Watergate, arguably much bigger.
Megan claims that good stories, like the Walter Reed story or Charlie Savage's work on signing statements, win Pulitzers but don't attract readers. (There's a fallacy in this argument I'll get to at the bottom.) It's editors commissioning stories to be read by other editors in order to win prizes.
I'd say political coverage has the same quality--that the stories are written for other journalists rather than for readers. The obsession with John Edwards' haircut wasn't something that was selling papers. (In fact, the outlet flogging it the hardest, Politico, is subsidized and not profit-making.)
The fact that People attracts more readers and ESPN more viewers than the Atlantic or Face the Nation is irrelevant. The point is that the news organs which cover these kinds of stories are not covering this story, even though it is a much bigger story than many that are being covered. It's not like there's this huge reader demand for Bumiller telling us that there is a battle between the neocons and the pragmatists for McCain's ear. That front page story in today's NYTimes is considerably less interesting or important than the story about the administration manipulating the Justice Department into issuing a justification for violating the law regarding torture.
On the fallacy of writing for editors to get Pulitzers. The economics of the newspaper business is pretty simple. The paper gives away content that people are generally interested in. That content (the "news hole") attracts people to the newspaper, and the advertisements that run in them. Winning Pulitzers attracts people to the newspaper, even if they did not find the stories that won the Pulitzer interesting. (They often do, though. The NYT won Pulitzers for its 9/11 coverage, for example.)
Dammit! Brooksfoe it only took 6 hours for your prediction to come true.
"But please recognize: This Way Lies Madness. The more you write posts that basically garner responses only because they make Glenn Greenwald's readers mad, the further you descend into the ideosphere of a Bill O'Reilly. And I mean that not in the sense of the particular political ideology, but of O'Reilly's fists-swinging, brain-frozen approach to political discourse."
The madness is upon us. Megan, your loyal readers beg for a return to sanity!
The Ace:
Glad to know you've been asleep for the past 7+ years. I guess you never heard of Jose Padilla.
Couldn't we shed some light on this discussion by having Mr. Greenwald disclose his readership metrics for the past 24 months? We could compare them to, say, ESPN.com, Wonkette, the local newspaper in Tulsa, &c., and see if his argument holds up.
Of course to you, someone who has never served in the military, and would not, to you "torture" is loud music, bright lights, being dunked under water, etc.
Tell it to Malcolm Nance. Who seems to have written the definitive piece on being dunked under water.
Megan, you really didn't understand my argument, I was saying that Yoo is a traitor and journalists should stop being so motivated by profit, rolling in the dough as they are.
Your lack of agreement with this assertion marks you as an idiot.
Wow, Greenwalld1, what an insightful comment!
Thank you, Grenn. I don't see what Megan doesn't understand about my argument!
Where were all you clowns during the Imperial Clinton Presidency?
the President may declare in a signing statement that a provision of the bill before him is flatly unconstitutional, and that he will refuse to enforce it
--November 3, 1993
Next,
Where the President's authority concerning national security or foreign relations is in tension with a statutory rather than a constitutional rule, the statute cannot displace the President's constitutional authority and should be read to be "subject to an implied exception in deference to such presidential powers." Rainbow Navigation, Inc. v. Department of the Navy, 783 F.2d 1072, 1078 (D.C. Cir. 1986) (Scalia, J.). We believe that, if Title III limited the access of the President and his aides to information critical to national security or foreign relations, it would be unconstitutional as applied in those circumstances.
--Clinton DOJ, 2000
Next,
First, the Department of Justice believes, and the case law supports, that the President has inherent authority to conduct warrantless physical searches for foreign intelligence purposes and that the President may, as has been done, delegate this authority to the Attorney General.
...
Physical searches to gather foreign intelligence depend on secrecy. If the existence of these searches were known to the foreign power targets, they would alter their activities to render the information useless. Accordingly, a notice requirement, such as exists in the criminal law, would be fatal.
...
The Department of Justice has consistently taken the position that the Fourth Amendment requires all searches to be reasonable, including those conducted for foreign intelligence purposes in the United States or against U.S. persons abroad. For the reasons I just mentioned, however, we believe that the warrant clause of the Fourth Amendment is inapplicable to such searches.
-JAMIE S. GORELICK
DEPUTY ATTORNEY GENERAL
It is also worth noting the Clinton DOJ made these arguments in a time of peace, with no AUMF.
I distinctly remember the outcry from you leftists about these things. You defenders of the constitution you!
What is the under / over for the number of sock puppets posting comments?
On "Fox filling an unmet niche" ....Polling data indicates that Fox viewers were by far more likely to think that a. WMDs were actually found b."the rest of the world wanted us to invade" c. Saddam was behind 911!
Does the concept "truth" no longer apply? Or is all media just an exercise in PR/ advertising to influence/entertain people for profit?
PS. People may want to be mislead. So I dont know that I have an answer!
Megan, I liked the post. Just thought I'd throw a mild opinion in here someplace.
"You don't have any idea what the Geneva Conventions actually say."
I do. And I suspect that *you* don't.
Please, favor us with your exposition on the Geneva Conventions.
Finally! Someone actually posted some data that might relate to the topic at hand! Thanks, J Mann.
But this is just one comparison, and both shows have a lot less to do with news and a lot more to do with commentary; moreover the demographics (from what I understand, I haven't seen the breakdowns) seem to indicate that O'Reilly's audience seem to be, er, a bit older. That is, a non-representative audience.
Another point, if it's all about ratings, then shows aren't selected on the basis of political slant, right? But Donaue's show was cancelled despite being one of the highest rated shows on MSNBC, beating out Hardball, for example. Why was it cancelled, if it was 'all about the ratings'?
Finally, I'm not sure that ratings are very good evidence; it only compares what's currently out there, not what people want to see vs what's actually put out by the media. I've run into multitudes of people, for example, who absolutely _despise_ Bush the younger, despite having voted for him in 2000. The rather universal reaction in this set is that if they had known about him then what they know about him now, they would never have voted for him. The thing is, there was plenty that was known about him back then, it just didn't get conveniently packaged by the media. When I point out to these people his job history and education, most of those same teeth-gnashers say they didn't know that. When I pointed out his history as the Governor of Texas, such as his shenanigans with the "Chip" program, they say they didn't know about that either . . . and wish that they did.
And of course, a lot of people got taken in by the smoke and mirrors surrounding the U.S.'s venture into Iraq. They're upset about that too, and rightfully so.
So how come these stories didn't get aired, if people wanted to hear them? How come we heard endless hours of drivel about Clinton's staff 'Trashing the White House' when they departed? Or about 'TravelGate' and other not-scandals?
Is the real proposition being advanced here the notion that the public is endlessly hungry for stories about Democratic foibles? If so, come right out and say it.
So, if the Congress authorized and the President agreed that "waterboarding" was legal, you'd be ok with that then, right?
It would be legal. I'd go and stand in front of Schumer's office if he voted for it, like I did when he approved Mukasey.
But, as Ron Paul said when Tim Russert asked what he would do if Iran invaded Israel, it's not going to happen.
I already took quite a hefty paycut when I devoted my MBA to journalism.
Unless you were making more money as an MBA student than you are as a journalist, I don't think that voluntarily giving up the opportunity to make more money in the future is actually a pay cut*. Rather, I think it's an example of what real economists call "opportunity cost."
As a self-styled economist, you might be expected to know the difference.
Principals set up torture protocols.
The basis for the legality of these techniques was a secret memo written by the Justice Department.
So, if the Congress authorized and the President agreed that "waterboarding" was legal, you'd be ok with that then, right?
Ace is spinning like a top to deflect the cries of outrage over Yoo's torture enabling document. He can barely pop up his feeble whack-a-mole arguments fast enough as they are smacked down.
Americans don't like the idea of torturing people. That is why we did not torture Nazis or Japanese prisoners. Only now, under macabre thugs like Bush and Cheney, has our government believed it necessary to subject captives to controlled drowning, stress positions, sleep deprivation, and God knows what else. Ace is obviously incapable of being ashamed, but most Americans are deeply ashamed of what Bush and his crew of criminals have done to our nation's reputation.
Bush and Yoo assert that the President has UNLIMITED power if he is acting to protect the nation. That is a gross violation of the Constitution. It is impeachable and treasonous, and it will ensure that Bush is remembered as the worst President in modern American history.
"Where were all you clowns during the Imperial Clinton Presidency?"
I didn't vote for Clinton. Either time.
"It is also worth noting the Clinton DOJ made these arguments in a time of peace, with no AUMF."
Do you actually *read* the things you post before you post them? The first excerpt, about signing statements, appears to be more of a historical overview about how they have been used, rather than an precis about how President Clinton *ought* to use them going forward. Frankly, I think you've misrepresented the content to which you've linked. Whether or not that was intentional remains to be seen.
Secondly, you appear to have cited the second excerpt without context; it is possible, from my reading, that the arguments may not be framed as a position on *domestic* operations, but rather as a position on *foreign* operations. I call on you to provide further background and support for that document.
You fail to link to the next three excerpts at all, and I call upon you to provide a link to that content.
"I distinctly remember the outcry from you leftists about these things."
This is a red herring. I don't know you, you don't know me, and I owe you no explanation for for what anyone else was doing or saying at that time. Why not bring the jerking of your knee under control and make your case calmly and plainly?
I posted something like this long ago, but since everyone else seems to be posting the same arguments pro and con over and over again, I figure, hey, why not me too?
There a very good reason why the media is not pursuing the torture angle. Are you ready for it?
Because -- NO ONE CARES! You could report this every day for a year and most of the country would still ignore it. No one outside of Greenwalds' deranged disciples cares about the torture of suspected terrorists. In fact, I suspect that most people would actually quietly approve of it if they felt it would prevent another 9/11. If you want to get po'd at anyone for this unfortunate reality, then blame radical Islam for sowing this crop. Get outraged if you want. But at least try to direct as much of your outrage at those who started this mess instead of directing ALL of your venom at those who are trying to fight this conflict, notwithstanding the many mistakes that have been made along the way.
Oh, and by the way, if you think it's bad now, just wait till you see what happens to civil liberties when a US city gets nuked by a suitcase carrying jihadist.
notwithstanding the many mistakes that have been made along the way.
Torturing a human being is not a "mistake." It is a grave crime. You insult the American people when you say that no one cares about torture. People want to forget about it, but that doesn't mean they don't care.
Unfortunately, there are some things that can't be forgotten. America has been shamed by the thugs of the Bush administration. Even if a third of our population believes in murder and torture as justifiable, the majority of us repudiate it, and we will never forgive the people who committed these loathsome crimes.
These comment threads have been hilarious!
All these intelligent people so sure that they know exactly what kind of journalism should be done and sold to the mass market, and every single one of them too damned lazy to start their own media outlets to feed this great unmet desire on the part of the public to buy the real news. If they are correct, then there are vast monies to be made by meeting the desires of this market. It is truly amazing how the money-grubbing media has failed to satisfy this market today.
Although I often read Glenn Greenwald's column, I think that there is a limited market for the issues he discusses. I recently wrote an article titled "The Fog of FISA", which was printed on OpEdNews.com. I am very fortunate that I do not have to make a living as a journalist because very few people were exposed to this article, and only a handful of people thought my article was worth reading. Of those few people who thought my article was worth reading, probably some of them thought my article was boring. I can live with that.
If I have learned anything from the feud between Megan McArdle and Glenn Greenwald, it is that there really is no incentive for Megan McArdle to attempt to transform herself into a more serious journalist because such a change would not be well received by her current readers, and it is doubtful that the new target audience would be as large as her current fan base.
On a different topic that was addressed earlier today, and quoting myself from my aforementioned article: "Whenever someone supports his/her argument by claiming that President Clinton did it too, it signals that the argument is probably without much foundation in logic." Now, everybody should read my article and then give me holy hell.
Riiiight, American's don't care and would approve of torture.
"Even if the US believes that a detainee is withholding information that could prove critical to stopping a terrorist attack on the US, majorities rejected most forms of coercion. These include methods formally approved by the Department of Defense, including using threatening dogs (rejected by 58%) and forcing detainees to go naked (75% rejected). Other forms rejected by even larger majorities included sexual humiliation (89%) and holding a detainee’s head under water (81%)."
Sure, it's from 2004.
... and 2006
"Most Americans (58%) are against any use of torture. But opposition to torture in the United States is less robust than in Europe. The percentage of Americans favoring the practice in certain cases (36%) is one of the highest among the 25 countries polled."
You got better numbers?
Oh, and by the way, if you think it's bad now, just wait till you see what happens to civil liberties when a US city gets nuked by a suitcase carrying jihadist.
You people watch too many movies. Just because a novelist or a screenwriter can make something up doesn't mean that the something exists.
You need to read Fallows' Declaring Victory. The US has done a couple of orders of magnitude more damage to itself than terrorists have done to the country.
OK, what wingnut blog linked Megan this time? Ace?
It's just depressing that this "the market for hard news is already served, in fact is overserved" argument is still being made. How can the "market" for hard news EVER be overserved? How can the public ever be overinformed? What kind of a world is this where it's seen as a positive good to have an uninformed citizenry? "Because that's what they want, it's too hard, it's boring, they want bread and circuses, they have better things to do"...good god. You people actually promote this as a reasonable and good outcome?
Economics is not the answer to everything. Economics is not a social philosophy. It is not a form of government. It is not a legal system. It is not even a good organizer of society. It is an attempt at mathematical modeling of human behavior in a very limited sense, that of monetary transactions. That's all. It is not a hammer you can use on every social issue that arises. At least, it should not be; because economics has no heart. It doesn't care. It doesn't feel. It is pure mathematics, and you cannot (and should not want to) reduce a human being to a number in any and all situations. That way not only lies madness, that way lie monsters.
It may make economic sense for journalists to give their audience what they want, so more papers are sold and more ad revenue is brought in. It does not make social sense.
Looks like plenty of Greenwald's signature sock puppets we here right away.
I think Glenn just refreshes Megan's blog every 2 mintues hoping for a mention and another excuse to drag out Socko and his army of clone hosiery.
Having just skimmed this thread in its entirety, and coming out of it with the distinct sensation of having just crossed Death Valley without water or adequate footwear, I think I can safely say that of Megan's sharpest critics in this thread, only brooksfoe at 3:36am has shown the appropriate mixture of tact and prudent insight to qualify as honest and capable of changing anyone's mind.
I may have missed a couple elsewhere.
Meanwhile, it is downright hilarious that the first five comments managed to attact Bleak and Toasted Nuthatch. Credibility? Broken Records? What would it take, in your eyes, for the hostess to regain credibility -- should she maybe dedicate a new blog to the destruction of your careers and then repeat the same inane obsceneties over and over in an obsessive-compulsitve dissection of every comment you ever make?
You know what I'm talking about. Get a life, guys. Really.
Not important.
Worldpublicopinion.org? You're joking right? A UN sponsored shill organization if there ever was one. If they told me Americans favored sunny days over rain, I'd doubt their methodology.
It may make economic sense for journalists to give their audience what they want, so more papers are sold and more ad revenue is brought in. It does not make social sense.
Hey, I agree with liberalrob! But I am warming up my Conservamatic to disagree with any solutions he proposes.
Mouse: I 100% agree with you. Oddly, brooksfoe is one of the few who is a regular (far more regular than me, at least) commenter here. Ok, maybe not so oddly.
Sadly, a number of Megan's supporters (of which I'm obviously one) have shown as bad or worse tact and insight. Too many have turned this as a means of castigating anyone who has a problem with the Yoo memos (which has exactly zero to do with the actual debate).
johnm,
I'll take that to mean you haven't got any kind of numbers. Not a very strong counter argument.
Update II beat down.
I don't see how that constitutes proof. Pardon me, but looking at the site OpEdNews.com, it doesn't look like the sort of thing most people would like to read . . . myself included. Reading the headlines to the stories, it looks like a mirrored version of Little Green Footballs or Atlas Shrugged.
To the larger point, it's all very well to say that 'there isn't a market for this sort of thing'. And yet, we had hours upon hours of the Whitewater Saga - putatively about a boring and convoluted land deal that had happened twenty years ago at the time. Are you saying there was really a public appetite for that story? Or any of the other 'scandals' lumped under Whitewater, everything from Travelgate (do you really think people are interested in staff being fired in an entirely legitimate fashion?), to the story of the Clinton staffers 'Trashing' the White House? Why wasn't the the story about how this was a completely made-up event, about how this was indicative of 'the character and timbre of the new administration'?
Or how about a 'liberal' show like Donahue's that gets cancelled in spite of good ratings? Doesn't that go against the meme that "we're just giving the public what they want"?
The real problem is that few folks really want "facts" -- or else they'd look them up in an encyclopedia. What they want is a complex mix of InfoTainment:
some facts but especially those that are understandable with respect to a story, the underlying cultural narrative.
The new "facts" of the Yoo memos are ... the actual words in the memo. Yet Greenwald, for instance, gives almost none of these words. Instead, he asserts his interpretation of what they mean.
While most people do want to know what the facts mean, why should we read 1000 words about a story which is covered in 100 words and just a couple of actual facts, plus the author's interpretation/ analysis of those facts.
What is torture? In fact, there is wide disagreement on the precise border -- how many hours of sleep deprivation does it take? Why not 10% more, or less? In the WaPo story Greenwald refers to, Yoo defends the need to be clear on the boundaries, whereas most others want to be more comfortably fuzzy.
I think Yoo's limits are too wide, and allow acts which I object to. But while threatening force IS a "use of force", threatening torture is not really torture.
On waterboarding, going unconscious is torture, swallowing water but not going unconscious is not. My definition of torture, my limit -- Congress hasn't passed a clear law on it.
But discussion of the reality of limits is missing more in Greenwald than in WaPo's Yoo coverage.
More relevant to this post is that most readers are already invested in a version of this "US terror story".
1) Greenwald's: America is a horrible, terrible, non-exceptional country because of Bush and his Admin, and their acceptance & promotion of torture.
2) Bush defenders: Torture is bad and unacceptable, but firm interrogation up to the limit, but not over, is OK. There have been cases of going over the limit, but it's not US policy.
If none of the new Yoo info has much effect on either of these stories, it's not much news.
The story of Barack is "he can unify us". But his elitist inability to even bowl like a normal guy certainly means he's not a usual American guy. I'd bet Bush is twice the bowler -- which mostly doesn't matter unless one is claiming to be non-elitist but the facts are contrary to the claim.
notimportant. It wasn't meant to be a counter argument. It was a rejection of your reliance on an opinion poll from an organization whose funding comes from left wing foundations like the Ford Foundation, the Rockefellers and the Ploughshares Fund.
Give me a real argument and I'll give you a real counter argument.
what an idiot!
if you weren't such a dunce, you would read the constitution and realize that the constitution specifically makes mention of the freedom of the press -AND THAT THE PRESS IS THE ONLY BUSINESS ENTERPRISE MENTIONED IN THE CONSTITUTION!!!!
the constitution specifically provides protection to the press, by making certain that it has
certain freedoms, and as a result, as when anyone is provided that kind of protection, certain duties and responsibilities arise.
is that so difficult to understand?
get it?....
the constitution says that the press has certain freedoms that cannot be taken away...
therefore, the press has certain duties and responsibilities...
that is why the press is mentioned in the constitition.
that is why the press is the only enterprise that could function as a business is mentioned in the constitution.
reading this blog - which i stopped doing regularly long ago - is like reading the rantings of a high school sophomore who is failing composition 201. the student has learned the fundamentals of putting a sentence and paragraph together but has no idea about properly analyzing and putting together a cogent argument.
what an indictment of our educational system and the atlantic for continuing to employ someone who produces this kind of garbage.
shame on the atlantic.
funny, no one mentions that megan appears to be a strict affirmative action hire.
oh, but i forgot, affirmative action only is controversial if a racial element is present.
is she here by virtue of merit?
that is howlingly funny.
obviously she is here because the atlantic wanted a female blogger to fill out there roster and megan fit their idealogical profile.
great work if you can get it.
Dear Scent: You are pardoned.
You got it wrong, bub. _He's_ not under any obligation to prove anything.
You are. You said:
Since you made the claim, it's on you to back it up.
The game is most specifically not "Prove me wrong, and I get to decide whether you have or not." (the shorter version is: "If you can't make me say I'm wrong, I win.")
On waterboarding, going unconscious is torture, swallowing water but not going unconscious is not. My definition of torture, my limit -- Congress hasn't passed a clear law on it.
This kind of shabby argumentation is the standard escape hatch for the torture apologists - a definitional ploy. The reason the Geneva Conventions and other anti-torture laws define torture broadly is to prevent this idiotic "Simon says" approach to finding torments that are not explicitly prohibited.
What kind of disgusting legal weasel would try to find loopholes in anti-torture laws so that people could be abused, then claim that he did it to prevent people from being excessively tortured? Answer: John Yoo.
So congratulations; you have defined away Bush's criminality. I hope you are proud of yourself.
liberalrob,
People can be as informed as they wish to be. There is such a plethora of media in the United States that one can find as much or as little information as they desire. They can choose how information is presented to them- they can choose whom to listen to and whom not to. This is the essence of freedom.
What Greenwald's complaint boils down to is that people are choosing not to be informed in the way that Greenwald thinks they should. He is free to vent his opinion on this, but that is really the end of it as far as I am concerned- I won't force anyone to report news one way or the other, and I won't force anyone to listen.
Hey, you are the guys who've been screaming for the past week about how the media is falling down on the job and not reporting what the population inherently wants to know but is being denied it by a lazy media. The burden of proof is on your side. I'm saying that American don't care about this. It's not up to me to prove the negative. You have yet to prove the point that anyone beyond Glenn's sock puppet world actually cares about this. notimportant cited a poll from a biased source. I can do that too with a quick Google search of the phrase "support for torture"
This kind of shabby argumentation is the standard escape hatch for the torture apologists - a definitional ploy.
Actually, it's the standard thing that any lawyer does when attempting to understand a law: figure out what the words mean.
I don't see how it's any more "shabby" to try to define "torture" than it is to refuse to define it; the former may lead to disagreements and perhaps the legal sanctioning of bad things, but the latter leaves people with no guidance as to what is acceptable and what isn't. If you're going to punish people for crossing a line, it's quite unjust to refuse to tell them clearly where the line is.
Gee Megan, defensive much?
Sounds like someone's got a case of the crybaby blues.
Look, I KNOW this whole concept of "accountability" can be confusing and at times embarrassing. The thing is, when you push for a policy or action, you're accountable for the results.
And you, Ms. McCardle, advocated a war of aggression in iraq. It's a matter of public record. I'm sorry it hasn't turned out as well as you'd hoped, but unfortunately, you own those results.
Greenwald is correct:
"If you cheer on optional invasions and aggressive wars, you do so knowing that you're supporting things that will -- at best -- lead to mass destruction and the deaths of thousands and thousands of people. Aggressive wars lead to war crimes; it itself, by definition, is a "war crime" by virtue of our own principles and legal framework. I know full well that it's impolite, overheated and shrill to point all of this out -- to suggest that those who advocate such wars, even the good, nice, well-meaning people, bear responsibility for what follows -- but that doesn't make pointing it out a "misrepresentation.""
liberalrob, I tend to agree with you also. Unfortunately, if one is also committed to the notion that people should be able to choose to read and watch whatever they please, and people should be able to use their labor, ingenuity, and whatever wealth they have accumulated, to disseminate whatever words and images they desire, short of libel and fraud, without interference from the government, and without being compelled by the government to use their wealth to fund the dissemination of words and images, then there isn't much to be done. Except conglomerating enough capital, by voluntary transaction, to fund the dissemination of the words and images one finds important, of course.
The bitch about living in a free society is that each citizen carries equal responsibility for what takes place in pursuit of self government. It just won't do for you or I (or Greenwald) to say, "Look at those awful Murdochs and Sulzbergers! Why won't they use their media outlets in the way I think they should!" and perhaps even "There oughta be a law!" If we think it is critical for certain images and words to be disseminated, it is up to us, as free people, to attract enough capital, by voluntary transaction, to see that they are disseminated. Liberty dosn't mean you get to stand on the sidelines and wag your finger, and force people adhere to your beliefs as to what should be done. Liberty means it is up to us to persuade people to do so voluntarily. Freedom is damned hard work.
Johnm,
I couldn't be less in your opinion of WPO. They could be half-centipede satan worshippers and still be correct. Your job is to show that they're wrong, if you can.
Argumentum ad hominem
"Argumentum ad hominem (argument directed at the person). This is the error of attacking the character or motives of a person who has stated an idea, rather than the idea itself."
Have you got any actual support for your position or not?
BTW, the board of WPO:
Uh, brendancalling, perhaps you weren't aware of it, but ALL wars, every last one of them, lead to war crimes, committed by all parties. Unless one commits to pacifism, one has committed to the existence of war crimes. Maybe you can let Greenwald know also.
I don't see how it's any more "shabby" to try to define "torture" than it is to refuse to define it; the former may lead to disagreements and perhaps the legal sanctioning of bad things, but the latter leaves people with no guidance as to what is acceptable and what isn't. If you're going to punish people for crossing a line, it's quite unjust to refuse to tell them clearly where the line is.
Bullshit! There were no agonizing questions about the meaning of the anti-torture laws before the Cheney/Bush administration came to power. We had somehow managed to survive as a nation without finding "legal" ways to torture captives.
Now, suddenly, because the thugs in the White House want to torture people, torture becomes a very tricky and complicated subject. I have a simple method for you to use in defining torture: think about what you would tolerate having done to your family members to extract information from them.
If you can't understand why anti-torture laws need to be broadly, rather than narrowly interpreted, then there is an important human quality missing from your character.
"If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear."
George Orwell
Preface to Animal Farm
http://home.iprimus.com.au/korob/orwell.html
Ace:
Please read the following and look at the pictures.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manadel_al-Jamadi
"I aver that this is weapons-grade poppycock; media outlets have a very good idea of what people read, and if there were vast unmet demand for such stories, editors would have met it."
Ah, the efficient markets hypothesis applied to the media industry.
How very original.
And how very accepting of the destructive herd mentality that market fundamentalism can lead to.
There was a public appetite for that story- among people who hated the Clintons. That's what's wrong with this kind of argument; for any given story, there almost surely is some market for it. Air America does have listeners, after all. It's not a question of is there a market, at least it's not to me.
My question is, again, why should there be a "market" that determines what journalists cover? Is a "market" necessarily the best way to go about deciding which stories get coverage? And to the point of Megan's post, is journalism just about serving that market? Or is there some higher calling, some system of ethics or social responsibility that should trump considerations of whether there is a known demand for a particular story? And if there is, why isn't it operative in the case of the FISA and Yoo memo stories?
Yancey wants me to go out and start up a newspaper, if I'm so confident that there is a market for these stories. That's dodging the point. If it was just a matter of serving a market I could put it on my blog. The point is that there are already newspapers. Don't they have an ethical obligation as journalistic publications to cover these things? Yancey says no, economics should determine what gets published. But as I said before, economics doesn't care. Economics doesn't think. Economics doesn't value democracy or any particular system of government (certain schools of economics do, but not economics itself). Economics only cares about what is profitable. If we let economics dictate what gets published, stories critical of major advertisers get spiked. Stories critical of the government get spiked. Reporters are pressured to not cover controversial topics, or to cover them only in particular ways or from particular viewpoints, on threat of losing their jobs. (Thanks to media consolidation and corporate ownership, we see this to some extent even now.) It is not good for society to let economics dictate what journalists cover. Some stories are so important they need to be covered regardless of whether it makes economic sense to cover them.
Journalists have to take the lead on this. I can't agitate for a law saying journalists have to cover my pet stories. It is entirely up to journalists to make the decision of whether to investigate and report on something. If they are going to decide that their only responsibility is to make money for their employer, all I can do is castigate them for abdicating what I see as their responsibility to educate and inform the public.
What I can do, however, is advocate legislation that promotes the independence of journalists. Media consolidation has been a patently obvious source of this "journalism by economics" trend. Corporate media ownership has been an unmitigated disaster to journalistic ethics (as corporatism has generally been a disaster in practically any case you care to name). Big media conglomerates should be broken up and prevented from re-forming, and intense oversight of big media companies with an eye towards eliminating corporate influence on coverage should be put in place.
Atrocities occur in all wars and are committed by both sides. Greenwald knows this. Not all atrocities are always prosecuted as war crimes, regardless of who is the victor. Unit 731 was never prosecuted. Google it. The point is this invasion that led to the current occupation in Iraq should never have occured. The invasion itself was the first atrocity that will never be prosecuted as a war crime.
"Ah, the efficient markets hypothesis applied to the media industry."
This could explain why newspapers are as dead as the term "dead tree journalism" would indicate.
Self-fulfilling prophecy, perhaps?
That business model died long ago. All that is left is for them to wake up and die right.
Uh, brendancalling, perhaps you weren't aware of it, but ALL wars, every last one of them, lead to war crimes, committed by all parties. Unless one commits to pacifism, one has committed to the existence of war crimes.
Every high school football season involves clotheslining, spearing, facemask-grabbing, and several permanent spinal cord injuries. Unless one commits to eliminating high school football, one has committed to the existence of clotheslining, spearing, facemask-grabbing, and permanent spinal cord injuries. Therefore, it is absurd to condemn a coach who encourages his players to clothesline, spear, or grab facemasks, and causes permanent spinal injuries. After all, these things are simply inevitable parts of the game of football.
Shorter Megan McArdle:
Bah, facts schmacts, you cheap bastards don't pay me enough to care about your stinking facts - let The Fifth Estate just keep right on pimping the pablum - maybe we can STUPID our way out of danger!
Uh, brendancalling, perhaps you weren't aware of it, but ALL wars, every last one of them, lead to war crimes, committed by all parties.
Intrepid, rugged, hardscrabble individualist Will Allen, perhaps you weren't aware of it, but Greenwald was speaking specifically about Wars of Aggression. It turns out that not all wars are equal; perhaps you were not aware of it. Some nation's wars are acts of defense, others are trumped up by selling a bunch of bulljive to mouth-breathing jingoists through studied manipulation of limited public airwave outlets and collaborative media (i.e., Teh Fox News). As Dr. Johnny Fever once said, look it up, man.
Liberalrob, I think you misunderstand. Markets in themselves don't care about anything, but markets are the summation of the preferences of all participants.
The legislation you advocate would promote the "independence" of journalists from the desires of their readers.
Whether you care to admit it or not, privileging the "not in it for the money" liberal journos is just a way of silencing those with whom you disagree. That doesn't fit with my idea of (classical) liberalism.
Jeebus, people. If Napoleon got it, you should have no trouble grasping it.
"The barbarous custom of having men beaten who are suspected of having important secrets to reveal must be abolished. It has always been recognized that this way of interrogating men, by putting them to torture, produces nothing worthwhile. The poor wretches say anything that comes into their mind and what they think the interrogator wishes to know."
- Napoleon Bonaparte
Napoleon to Berthier 11 Nov 1798, Corres., V, no. 3606 p. 128 quoted in - Napoleon on the Art of War
Professionals know it does not produce actionable intelligence. Ever.
http://www.mcitta.org/torture.htm
United States Marine Corps Interrogator Translator Teams Association
I have a simple method for you to use in defining torture: think about what you would tolerate having done to your family members to extract information from them.
That's a perfectly good moral definition, but you don't need to be a lawyer to see that it will be tricky to make that stick in an actual prosecution.
If you can't understand why anti-torture laws need to be broadly, rather than narrowly interpreted, then there is an important human quality missing from your character.
I haven't said they should be interpreted narrowly anywhere. I'm just saying that 1) they do have to be interpreted, period, and 2) nobody seems willing to point me to the place in an actual memo where Yoo got his interpretation wrong. Rather, people are mad that he interpreted them at all. And that anger, I argue, is misplaced.
liberalrob:
Believe it or not, I agree with you to a point. The MSM is controlled by too few outlets at the moment, which does drive competition within those outlets down. That said, many of their would-be customers are going to the internet as a way of getting around the MSM filter.
But the solution you propose is, I think, the wrong way to go about it. One of the biggest problems with corporate media ownership isn't whether we allow tv stations to merge with newspapers, but is instead the fact that broadcast licensing is handled entirely by one single government agency, which literally gives out broadcast licenses for free, as long as you make it through their approval process. Of course that process is largely arbitrary (I've dealt with enough agency licensing issues to understand that much), which means that the determining factor for maintaining a broadcast license isn't money so much as it is influence with the FCC.
I suspect more requirements for diversity of ownership would help modestly, but I think giving the FCC a smaller role in licensing and oversight would help a lot more.
Markets in themselves don't care about anything, but markets are the summation of the preferences of all participants. - Colin Frazier
The press must be giving the public what it wants. After all, the public consistently gives such high ratings to the press.
Or perhaps "wants" is a complicated thing.
What has Bush done that approaches Waco? Padilla? Did Bush burn him alive?
And yet you - Greenwald fan boys - rallied around Clinton after he perjured himself. I think you boys need a do-over.
Brooksfoe, the press is _indeed_ giving the public what it wants, but perhaps not what it _says_ it wants.
It also is clearly not giving Mr. Greenwald what he wants. His frustration arises from the fact that widespread apathy about this issue overwhelms his intense interest in it.
"I think I can safely say that of Megan's sharpest critics in this thread, only brooksfoe at 3:36am has shown the appropriate mixture of tact and prudent insight to qualify as honest and capable of changing anyone's mind."
Oh, yeah? So's your old man! I know you are, but what am I? I'm rubber and you're glue.
Republicans and torture, sittin' in a tree...
Hey, Megan, my e-mail account is down, so I'll try here. I apologize if I broke the rules with my exchange with SOV in the other thread. I didn't think I was that over the line, but I obviously was in error.
nobody seems willing to point me to the place in an actual memo where Yoo got his interpretation wrong
Let me help. In his memo, Yoo asserts that in order for inflicted pain to qualify as torture it must be so extreme as to be comparable to that of an injury causing organ failure or death. This is a deliberate act of raising the bar on torture to make, say, beating someone for hours acceptable. This disgusting torture loophole was one of the main reasons Yoo's memorandum was withdrawn by the DOJ.
Would you like to have your family members beaten for hours? Would they consider it torture? Do you think captives in an American prison should be brutally beaten?
liberalrob,
You completely miss or dismiss the fact that no activity is free- someone must bear the costs of reporting stories if the consumers of news are not willing to do so. This fundamental fact applies to journalists, editors, and publishers. Your essential complaint is this: you want news reported that doesn't have to have a paying customer, but such a thing does not exist. What does is exist is coercing people into paying for information they may not want, or coercing people into paying for reporting they do not want to do. There is no third option where news can be reported that is free from economic constraints- there is always someone that has to bear the costs.
It is perfectly legitimate to advocate a different standard in journalism, but if you are not willing to personally stand forth and use your own dime to see it done, then, at that point, you have done all you can do, and all you should do.
The equivocation of Lyman and Frazier is in stark contrast to Fan Boy Fan's "Clinton did it!" defense.
The real winners here are McArgle's and Drezner's hit counters. Everyone knows that you boost traffic by taking Glenzilla on. The public has a short memory and the embarassment of making a fool out of yourself publicly is fleeting. It works for Paris Hilton and Gary Busey. The stat counter never forgets.
Well, I've been alowed back in, apparently. I think the issue was I tried to link to a CNN piece. The point I was trying to make was that Donahue was getting killed by his competitors, so one shouldn't overstate his popularity.
Brooksfoe, I wasn't saying that one shouldn't condemn the Bush Administration. I was merely responding to Greenwald's statement that "aggressive wars lead to war crimes". All wars lead to war crimes, and to all manner of other horrors. Greenwald seemed to me to be putting forth the implication that some wars are less horrible than others, depending on how they start, or who starts them. Heck, I read people frequently who claim the U.S. was the aggressor in WWII, by the use of the embargo against Japan. I think they are wrong, but that would not lead me to imply that the U.S. did not engage in war crimes versus the Japanese.
Brooksfoe, the press is _indeed_ giving the public what it wants, but perhaps not what it _says_ it wants.
Ah, I see. The old Marxist "false consciousness" argument.
Brooksfoe, no, not false consciousness. I'm not saying that they don't really want what they want. I'm saying that don't really want what they say they want.
Markets judge people by what they _do_, not what they say they want to do.
I _say_ that losing weight is very important to me, but my frequent visits to Chipotle (mmmm, burritos) are an obvious demonstration that what I _say_ is important is not really that important to me. If it were, I'd _do_ something different.
No, brooksfoe, it is the old "revealed preference" argument. Look, it it is perfectly reasonable to assert that there are some market ineffciencies whih have resulted in some readers and viewers being not served. However, to assert that there are giant ineffciencies resulting in a very significant percentage of viewers and readers not having their demand met, is an extraordinairy claim, requiring extraordinairy evidence, beyond people responding to a poll which essentially asks "Are you an intelligent, sophisticated, person who would like more serious reporting, or are you a superficial person who is happy with fluff?"
brooksfoe,
No, it is the difference between saying and doing. Words are cheap, actions are less so.
Greenwald seemed to me to be putting forth the implication that some wars are less horrible than others, depending on how they start, or who starts them.
Shorter: Invading Iraq (in 2003) was every bit as justifiable as the U.S.'s entry into WWII. They are exactly equivalent in every way.
Uh, no, ed, I never actually wrote, or implied, such a thing.
Will Allen:
You are correct, my sincere apologies. My comment ought to have read, "...are darn near equivalent in every way." I regret the error and take full responsibility for it.
No, ed, I never wrote or implied that, either.
Words are cheap, actions are less so.
It doesn't require a lot of effort to flip a remote.
Look, I don't really care what people want. Most Americans are stupid and ignorant. It's not in the financial interests of any media organ to tell them so, or to tell them that regardless of whether or not they want to watch serious news and try to understand it, they have a duty to do so. But they do, in fact, have a duty to do so, because they wield political power through their votes, and that power impacts others. Citizens have a responsibility to try to understand the political sphere, and the media has a responsibility to inform them about that sphere. Right now neither side in the US is living up to its responsibilities. I think we are better served by calling out both sides' deficiencies than by shrugging them both off.
IMHO, Greenwald is falling for the John Stewart fallacy. We have a bunch of different, sometimes overlapping news products. ESPN and Sports Illustrated report on sporting news; People and TMZ report celebrity gossip; NPR and PBS report serious news at a certain level of depth; and Olberman and O'Reilly do whatever it is they do.
There is a certain demand for trivial, celebrity-obsessed news about politicians, which is why Wonkette was such a hit after it was launched. There's also a certain demand for serious analysis of past events. (There's apparently a higher demand for partisan analysis that confirms your existing worldview, which is unfortunate, but there you go.)
Using Google News, it looks like the NYT did a story on Yoo on March 30, then, after the memo was released, did a story on April 2/3, linked the full memo from its website, and did an editorial on April 6.
Greenwald's complaint is essentially that journalists should be doing *more* of the coverage he wants, but there's no particular reason he should be going after any particular media segment.
People Magazine didn't write a long story about what was essentially confirmation of what we already knew about a former government official because that's not their beat. The NYT didn't write more than two stories and an editorial about it because that kind of drum beating isn't what they see as their beat. I don't see a lot of distinction.
I tend to think most statements pertaining to the mental qualities of 300 million people which begin with the word "most" are stupid and ignorant.
I see my appeals to unquantifiable social benefits and social responsibility have once again fallen on completely deaf ears. The only acceptable choice is what rings the cash register.
Bring on the Britney stories!
liberalrob,
It is not that they fall on deaf ears, but there is no solution we would accept other than criticism. The fact that the providing of information has a cost to be born means that coercion cannot be used to provide it, or to force its assimilation.
Journalists are free to report whatever they wish, but no one is obligated to pay them for it, or to listen to it. This is where my position begins and ends.
No liberalrob, what is acceptable is whatever you can convince individuals to do of their own free will. The socially responsible thing to do is to respect people enough to persuade them to voluntarily act in the manner you prefer, and only use the force of law to shape their behavior when the failure to do so would result in another party being subjected to illegitimate coercion or violence.
This has gone from funny to just pathetic. Just kidding, its still pretty hilarious.
You can appeal to the lowest common denominator all you want. As you and countless commentators have already pointed out, that is your right to do so. Don't expect any kind of respect or admiration for such crass efforts, however. And certainly don't expect to be considered a serious journalist. If you're going to peddle untruths about something as grave as war in naked self interest for a magazine that hawks Britney Spears gossip in an effort to get rich go for it. Just don't throw a petulant fit when someone calls you a hack for doing so
In his memo, Yoo asserts that in order for inflicted pain to qualify as torture it must be so extreme as to be comparable to that of an injury causing organ failure or death.
That definition of torture strikes me as overly narrow from a moral perspective. I would place the pain bar much lower than that for "torture," and lower still for "stuff that isn't torture but that the US shouldn't do anyway."
But from a legal perspective, what I'd like my family members to experience is irrelevant. The question is what the statute and court decisions say. Yoo spends something like 20 pages on this question; I don't have time right now to read all of it (defending a depo, on lunch break) but I'd invite you or anyone who's interested to do so and identify the legal errors that Yoo makes in attempting to determine what the statute requires.
Torture memo here. I think it starts around page 24 but check for yourself.
Mike M, I don't really understand what you're asking for. Are you saying that Ms. McArdle or The Atlantic or the media should somehow _make_ the public pay attention?
The sad fact is: you live in a society that collectively is not all that upset about the fact that the U.S. government may have tortured or may have been willing to torture its enemies.
I understand the idea that torture is reprehensible. I understand the slippery slope idea that it might not just be (foreign) enemies of the government next time.
However, most people are not convinced that we're in imminent danger of losing our liberty because of these actions. I understand that some of you _are_ convinced of this and believe we all should be too. You seem to believe that--if only the media would make us listen--we'd all wake up and see that Mr. Bush is one step removed from the inaugurating the Fourth Reich.
Collectively, the U.S. public does not share your level of concern. (Good news for you: they certainly aren't crazy about Mr. Bush.)
When there's a Democrat in the White House, these same Bush-licking torture apologists will be screaming that jaywalking is an impeachable offense.
SomeNYGuy, no, not jaywalking. I do, however, believe that perjury is.
Guys, I really understand your frustration. You care deeply about this issue and think that--if only people heard you--they would rise up and overthrow Bushitler.
The frustration you feel is that of deeply held belief with which many people disagree. It happens.
Rob Lyman and others, for a good discussion of another aspect of the worthless Yoo memo, go here, a post at firedoglake.
Looseheadprop, a lawyer and, I think, a former AUSA, discusses another egregious example, in which dogbreath explains that the Constitution Art. 1 sect. 8, clause 14, doesn't mean what it says, and cites Quirin, which seems to hold the opposite.
Jwill -- "You had me up until the end. The fact that most newspapers do not make a lot of money, and in fact many are losing money these days, seems evidence that they do not know very well what kind of stories people want to read.
Greenwald's may not be the answer. But neither is what they are doing..."
I totally agree. The NY Times has had a steady decline in their readership. The head honcho there blames Rove and the acrimonious internet. I say it is the fact that they forgot who their readership truly was -- we have since gone to much more informed sources (i.e. blogs) on the net to find the facts and context and not the "he said, she said" that is so pervasive in the Times.
Whether it fits my politics or not, I want to know the truth.
How exactly do you know that we've only tortured foreign enemies?
Oh right, you made it up on the spot. Well played.
When you don't have a good point to make invent. I suggest you learn to use the magical new invention called "google" before posting again.
Look another casual inventer. Arguing with people from a position of total ignorance sure is fun!
Maybe this is more proof that the media is doing a bad job: that multiple posters here don't understand even the most basic facts about our torture policies.
Colin Fraizer,
I noticed this style of argument among many pro-Megan posters here, and actually commented on it in another thread. You are describing my frustration (I speak only for myself) in general terms in order to reframe it as whining. The frustration I feel is not some pouting and foot-stomping because everybody does not doesn't like my favorite flavor of ice-cream. It is a frustration with a very specific and important issues: systemic law-breaking by high public officials and their direct involvement in torture. This stuff needs to be shouted from the rooftops, not because I am so important, but because it goes to the core of the American institutions, values, and honor.
Lost in the sea of gobeldygook that is this post, is an actual truth; though I'm pretty sure it's only in there by accident. That truth is this:
If you fill the paper with stories they do not want to read, they will not take your paper even if it is free.
That, as so many newspaper publishers are learning everyday, is absolutely true.
Unfortunately, those same publishers have, for years, hired people like you, who even when they stumble upon the truth, can't seem to make sense of it. I'm sure you'd do a bang up job with that parrot story though.
Here's a newsflash for you:
People don't buy a newspaper to "read." A newspaper is not a novel, poem, short story, or even a website; it is, or is supposed to be, a source of information. In the best case for newspapers, important information you can't easily obtain any place else. If a newspaper can't do that, people, as they demonstrate more and more every day, won't pick them up.
Unfortunately for newspapers, since publishers have been listening to people like you for years, they can't expect people to see them as a source of information, so the cost of rebuilding their business might be higher than they can afford to pay.
Which I'm sure makes the John Yoos of this world pretty happy.
Ed, please let us know of your fabulous track record in allocating capital in a fashion which maximizes ROI, that would lead us to believe that your insight as to what ails the newspaper industry is soemthing we should pay attention to.
Phasearth, I apologize if you thought I was belittling your frustration or labeling it "whining". That certainly was not my intent.
I understand that you believe this is very important. I'm just pointing out that your countrymen don't seem to share that judgment.
If--as Margalis suggested above--I thought there were real danger, I'd be more worked up.
As it is, I think there _is_ a "ticking bomb" justification for coercive interrogation, including torture. I also don't think that U.S. citizens are in real danger of being tortured nor of sliding down that particular slope.
(Aside. I'm always surprised by folks using the "it never works" argument. That's a thin foundation on which to base an argument. If it can be shown that it _ever_ works, then you've given up a lot. If you think it's always wrong--even if the cost is, say, millions of lives, that's a respectable moral argument. "It never works" probably isn't even true.)
(Aside. Can you guys try to be nice?)
Where do you get this drivel, Allen?
He was the highest rated show on MSNBC.
Yes, it is the same condescending and belittling style she uses in her own posts when she says that torture is no more important than calculating bond rates. The same style she employs when she says "think you can do better? Feel free to try!" A schoolyard retort.
But it goes beyond that. Colin Fraizer and Rob Lyman both included a subtle lie in their comments: that we are only torturing our legitimate enemies. When in fact we are torturing people who are not charged with any crimes, have tortured people to death without ever having good evidence that they were guilty of anything, and have let people go without charging them after torturing them.
Pointing that out makes us crazed lefties whining about "Bushitler."
They are about point scoring and gloating. Which sadly describes a vast swath of the small-minded right-leaning population.
Man -- You guys have been at this for hours! Let me boil it all down for you:
Imagine, for the sake of discussion, that you suddenly find yourself in Iraq. You are unarmed and in the cross-fire between American forces on the west and some kind of opposing forces on the east. Further imagine that you can speak English, Arabic, and the local dialect; and that you look like an Iraqi civilian but have absolutely no identification papers or the like. Your only hope is to surrender quickly. East or west. Which way you gonna run?
The fact free zone.
Donahue
And if the facts about this don't prove Greenwald right, it's because you all can't deal with the truth. He was the highest rated show on MSNBC when he was cancelled. Period. No spinning around.
Phil Donahue on his 2003 MSNBC firing: "We had to have two conservatives on for every liberal. I was counted as two liberals."
http://mediamatters.org/items/200410290004
http://www.nader.org/interest/022803.html
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0329-31.htm
Colin Fraizer and Rob Lyman both included a subtle lie in their comments: that we are only torturing our legitimate enemies.
I must request a quote of where I say this.
Er "/"
You're being deliberately dishonest, I think. Or disingenuous. Or not very bright. You pick one.
Allen says; "... Donahue was getting killed by his competitors, so one shouldn't overstate his popularity."
You say; "He was the highest rated show on MSNBC."
Are you under the misimpression that you just contradicted Allen?
Sorry my bad, both of those were Colin Fraizer. Your post was right above his and apparently I fail at reading.
I stand corrected and apologize for besmirching you.
While you're handing out apologies, perhaps you could charitably admit that I did not lie. Perhaps I am mistaken and the U.S. Government has indeed used torture against U.S. citizens. If so, I am unaware of it.
My word, what a thread. Couple of things:
1) Guys, please please please be nice to each other. Conservatives/libertarians especially. We used to have a great comments section on this blog, and every time we get an infusion of flamethrowers, things rapidly degenerate. I do understand the temptation, obviously, but if y'all set an example by keeping things respectful, hopefully the flamethrowers will either get bored or--as I'm glad has happened in a few cases--stick around and talk. A lot of you are already doing this, and I really appreciate your efforts. Those who have given in to the dark seductions of sarcasm . . . oh, yes, it is sweet, but please, please don't feed the trolls.
2) Brooksfoe: I'm disappointed too, but only in my lack of timeliness. Travel and other responsibilities have kicked my ass over the last few weeks, but finishing the series (hell, I barely started) is very high on my list of priorities. I haven't given up. It's just that every post takes several hours of uninterrupted concentration that have been hard to come by recently.
3) Will Allen, I have no idea what you're talking about, as I haven't seen the other thread, but I haven't banned you or anything. You're usually pretty level-headed though, and one of the balancing forces in the flame wars, so don't worry about whatever it is--just see item one on this list.
I have a simple method for you to use in defining torture: think about what you would tolerate having done to your family members to extract information from them.
I did, and waterboarding turned up OK. I'm also willing for my family members to undergo waterboarding during military survivial training. I like waterboarding because it is fast. You can be waterboarded and released in five minutes, or you can be asked the same questions over and over by a pair of cops playing good cop, bad cop for eight hours. The second option is not torture, but I wouldn't want my family members subjected to it. Desireable, no, tolerable, sure.
That simple method is not a legal standard, and it doesn't help with the definition of torture much. Remember, there are some members of some families who want some appalling things done to other members of their family.
I've asked for definitions of torture and people have quoted various laws to me. But they didn't define the terms, and so I found that a broad interpretation of the words would qualify imprisonment, for example, as torture. Well, imprisonment is torturous, it's undignified, it's coercive, it's scary as all get out. Actual serios interrogation when you know you are suspected of a serious crime is torturous, undignified, coercive and scary as all get out. Say the wrong thing and you go to jail, innocent or guilty.
I don't want the U.S. to do torture. I don't want torture defined so broadly that interrogation is illegal. Not sure I would trust Glenn Greenwald lawyer or no to draw that line. Not sure I would trust John Yoo lawyer or no to draw that line. I'm pretty sure that the Justice Department as a group of lawyers did alright.
Yours,
Wince
Yet another person who has no idea of what it means to make a good argument.
Look, I know you've had to have seen this _at_least_ a dozen times already, and you should have this ingrained anyway: if you make an assertion, you've got to back it up.
Neither you nor a round dozen others who have made that claim have offered up the slightest scintilla of evidence.
None. Nada. Zip.
And I'm guessing that you have zero intention of ever doing so.
Sigh. If he's the highest rated show, and he's 'getting killed by his competitors', why did shows with lesser ratings not get the axe as well - 'Hardball', for instance? Oddly enough, it still seems to be on the air.
Did you really have to have this explained to you? I find that hard to believe.
if you make an assertion, you've got to back it up.
That's an assertion. Back it up.
It's also not true. People don't have to back up their assertions. You may desire them to do so, but they don't in fact have to. My observation is that spending time backing up one's assertions is pretty much a waste of time after one has done it once.
Yours,
Wince
Chuckle. The meta-meaning of the meta-meaning of 'is'. When you're reduced to this, the assumption is you've lost, but are not going to do anything so lame as to admit it. Only wimps ever admit to being wrong.
No, you're not going to post any evidence that the media are just giving the people what they want either.
Why am I not surprised?
ScentOfViolets, actually, I made several assertions. It's not clear which one you question.
1. "The press is indeed giving the public what it wants." I suppose there are two possibilities: that newspapers are being responsive to what their customers actually will support; OR there is a massive conspiracy amongst newspaper publishers to downplay this to benefit the Bush administration. I find the latter possibility extraordinarily unlikely.
2. "It also is clearly not giving Mr. Greenwald what he wants." You're right. I cannot support this assertion. Maybe he doesn't want what he says he wants. He certainly acts like someone who wants the media to put greater emphasis on this story.
3. "His frustration arises from the fact that widespread apathy about this issue overwhelms his intense interest in it." Again, you are correct. I don't know if Mr. Greenwald is frustrated. If he is, I don't know what has caused the frustration. Perhaps there is no widespread apathy about the Yoo memos. I cannot prove that either. Perhaps everyone is intensely interested, but is hiding it carefully.
Rob Lyman apparently is still waiting for someone to refute the legal theories advanced by John Yoo in the memo that was released recently by the Department of Justice. He could start by reading the entry "Up is Down, Hot Is Cold, The Constitution Means The Opposite Of What the Words Actually Say" by looseheadprop (yes, this is a pseudonym) on the "firedoglake" website. In his book published last year, Jack Goldsmith, former Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel (in the Bush Administration), harshly criticized some of the legal rationale in John Yoo's memo. Marty Lederman is currently reviewing the 81-page memo to prepare his analysis for the "Balkinization" website. Although I am not an attorney, I'm sure I could find numerous flaws and inconsistencies in John Yoo's memo, but as I learned from a similar exercise I recently completed with respect to FISA, it is a very time-consuming process, and not many people would be interested in validating the effort. To paraphrase Yogi Berra: "If people don't want to read it, how are you going to stop them".
If Rob Lyman really is interested in whether John Yoo's legal theories can withstand the scrutiny of other legal experts, the information is available in John Yoo's memo, in the Constitution, in relevant court cases, in legal statutes and other legislative documents. I'm sure Mr. Lyman knows how to find such information.
Sigh.
Chuckle.
Chuckle.
Sigh.
Damn, I'm sophisticated. I'm amazed I'm even talking to you nitwits.
Point 1: How do you know there are only two possibities?
Point 2: How is the fact that you find something 'unlikely' evidence?
Point 3: Given that several reporters are now on record as saying they wrote the stories the way they did because they just didn't care for Gore when they covered the 2000, how does this in any way shape or form not completely blow the claim that they're 'just giving the people what they want' out of the water?
If you want to throw out the _opinion_ that it's all about the Benjamins, and if you want to admit straight-up you have absolutely zero evidence for this, fine.
But don't pretend that this is some sort of 'fact' that certain people just find it difficult to become reconciled to.
I'm sure Mr. Lyman knows how to find such information.
Indeed I do, and I'll try to find the time (and I'll look at firedoglake to start), but given that I have to earn a living while helping care for a toddler and an infant, I was really hoping one of Yoo's many detractors could throw me a bone. Their confidence made me think they had already done the research.
Just call me the SoV of legal arguments.
Here's a simple way to understand Greenwald's complaint. Imagine if, during WWII, a Times reporter wrote this story:
"Secret DoJ memo reveals Roosevelt administration sought authority for OSS agents to coercively interrogate SS prisoners to reveal V-2 rocket locations."
Do you think the editor would run it on the front page? Or maybe not run it at all? And were it run, what would the public make of it, if they weren't sorely outraged? Maybe ignore it and wish it went away?
Of course there are historical differences. But fundamentally, both cases still boil down to the US government asking good people to do bad things to bad people to prevent catastrophic harm to innocent people. Greenwald thinks the story not being covered is, "The Bush Administration authorized torture!", but even assuming that were the case, it's not the whole story. But Greenwald doesn't want the whole story reported, because then the public reaction would be different than what he wants.
Or to put it in even simpler terms: on the scale of moral outrage against all the troubles in the world, where do you think most people put fake drowning the planner of 9/11? Somewhere above Sudan, Tibet, lack of health care, subprime mortgage crisis? Or maybe way the fuck down?
That Rick Ellensburg....he's so funny!!
Short McArdle: Modern journalism is a perfectly functioning information market. Editors have perfect knowledge of the interests of readers and only publish what readers want to read.
Conversely, if they don't publish it, that means readers don't want to read it.
Hard to believe anyone actually believes this nonsense. Newsflash to McArdle: Not everything in life is a market. Markets, at any rate, are not perfect and in the real world we can't hold all things equal.
And you really put too much trust in the knowledge of editors and are too naive about other motives (like simple cowardice or the power of conservative pubilshers).
To W. James Au:
Great! That's just great James! Leave aside for a moment the fact that the use of torture on detainees is violation of the Forth Amendment, Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, numerous statutes in U.S. and International Law and strikes at the very heart of our constituional framework, one very compelling reason that these 'enhanced interrogation techniques' should never have been used on 'al-Qahtani', this supposed 'planner' of 911? The simple fact that he was tortured means that any evidence against him, because it was procured by torture, will probably be rendered moot, and he will probably never be convicted of anything!
Chew on that for a bit....will ya? Then come back and tell me that this whole issue isn't one of the most important were facing right now.