‘Bush’s Way’ unchallenged in US News & World Report

Nov. 18-- The cover of the Nov. 17 US News & World Report reads: “Bush’s Way: The Promise and Peril of Seeing the World in Black and White.” But the article inside provides an evaluation of the Bush administration’s foreign policy that relies primarily on the Bush administration itself, to the exclusion of Bush critics.

The piece includes 26 instances of either direct quotes or ideas attributed to specific individuals; 17 of these come from Bush, his family members and friends, or various administration officials. The only other perspectives are from a few cautious presidential historians (five statements) and a Clinton pollster (one quote). (This total does not include a separate sidebar interview with First Lady Laura Bush, or a Bush presidential timeline.) The five statements from three different historians fail to offer any significant political judgment of Bush: One refers to his “Wilsonian evangelism,” while another observes that “Bush is part of a small class of presidents whom we think of as commander in chief.”

Clinton pollster Doug Schoen doesn’t offer a critique of Bush’s policies, but rather a professional analysis of his political situation: “Unless he turns the numbers around, he’ll soon be in a more perilous situation than he’s already in.”

While the White House’s foreign policy has no shortage of critics, their points of view aren’t included in US News’s report. Even when the magazine alludes to Bush’s opponents, it does so in terms flattering to him: After quoting Bush saying that he “will not relent in waging this struggle for freedom and security for the American people,” the magazine then asserts that “Bush has been true to his word — so true, in fact, that his adversaries say he has overreacted.” It is doubtful that any of Bush’s “adversaries” would say that their objection is that he’s been too “true to his word” in protecting the American people.

The magazine gives similar treatment to anti-Bush protests in the Philippines, which are turned into a testament to Bush’s strength: “When protesters delayed his motorcade from downtown Manila to a scheduled speech to the Philippine Congress, he told aides he intended to make the speech, no matter what. He raised the prospect of traveling by helicopter but, in the end, the streets were sufficiently cleared to allow him to deliver the address as planned.” While such an incident might serve as an opportunity to explain what Bush’s critics are protesting, US News chalks up the story as evidence that Bush’s “goal-oriented determinationpermeates virtually everything Bush does.”

The piece closes with an observation from George W. Bush’s father about Oval Office photo ops, and this summation from US News: “Like his dad, George W. Bush believes the presidency is an opportunity and an honor, not a burden.”

With soft coverage like this, George W. Bush need not worry about the “burden” of critical media attention.

Source: Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting

Editor interrogated for nearly 15 hours
Australian deemed ‘security threat’ to US

Nov. 17— When an Australian magazine editor flew to Los Angeles last week to interview Olivia Newton-John she had no idea she would become the story.

New Idea editor Sue Smethurst said she would lodge a formal complaint with US authorities after she was treated as a threat to national security and deported back to Australia after nearly 15 hours of interrogation at Los Angeles airport.

“I would have walked across broken glass to get home,” Smethurst said today.

The 30-year-old said she was interrogated, fingerprinted, had mugshots taken, and was refused access to a lawyer.

“I was being made to sign documents and swear oaths — and I was quite concerned that that could be misconstrued and I had no help at all,” she said.

Smethurst was expecting to interview Newton-John about breast cancer on a visa she had used on eight other occasions.

But security staff withheld clearance leaving her in detention for almost 15 hours.

“Their justification for refusing me was that under American law ... [they] have the right to refuse a foreign journalist entry,” she said.

“They said to me ‘you don’t understand, you have no choice, no rights here under American law.’”

A frequent business traveler to the US, Smethurst said she still did not know why she was detained although she asked repeatedly what the issue was.

“Their words to me were: we will tell you when we have a problem and your silence is appreciated.”

During the ordeal, “innocuous items” like lip-liners and make-up — deemed “a national security threat” — were taken from her, she said.

A cup of tea was also forbidden, she added.

Arriving home yesterday, Smethurst said her greatest concern now was to have her record cleared.

“I have a file that’s half a centimeter thick,” she said.

She said she was unsure whether she would be able to re-enter the US ever again and would take up the case with the authorities.

“I know that immediately when I travel, and probably regardless of the fact that it’s in the United States, I have an immigration record,” she said.

Source: Sydney Morning Herald

A message from a producer jailed in Miami during FTAA protests

By Ana Nogueira, Democracy Now! producer

Nov. 23— The following is a message written by Democracy Now! producer Ana Nogueira who was arrested last Friday evening while covering the FTAA protests in Miami. Democracy Now! would like to thank the listeners and viewers who responded to our action alert and called Miami officials demanding her release. She was released early Saturday morning.

“Early this morning I was sitting in a jail cell in Miami, cold, hungry and trying to ignore the cockroaches crawling on the floor of the cell. My clothes had been taken away from me and thrown out because they reeked of pepper spray.

“I was arrested because I had not embedded myself with the Police Department before doing my job of covering the protests for the nationally syndicated public radio and TV program Democracy Now! Instead, I was swept up late Friday afternoon with about 70 others as we tried to obey an order to disperse from an ‘unlawful’ jail solidarity rally.

“Mine is not an isolated case. Four other independent reporters were arrested with me and three of them remain in jail: Jeanette Lee and Michael Medow, both of Michigan Independent Media Center, as well as an IMC reporter who goes by the name of Winter. Todd Price, a Madison, WI, journalist who was formerly the executive director of community television station WYOU, was arrested with me but has been released.

“In addition, Justin Lipson of the NYC IMC Video Team was arrested on Thursday and is being held on a $10,000 bond. Police smashed his camera and have charged him with two felonies. Miami New Times staff writer Celeste Fraser Delgado was also arrested on Thursday while trying to interview protesters. Her purse and press credentials were left at the scene of her arrest.

“I am out now thanks entirely to the pressure that Democracy Now! supporters and staff put on the jail to release me. If not for all the emails and phone calls the police received demanding my immediate release, I would still be there. However, I am still facing charges and will most likely have to return to Miami to appear in court.

“I thank everyone who stood up for the right of independent media today and contacted the jail urging them to release me. But there is more we need to do. Our colleagues in Miami are receiving disturbing reports of ongoing abuse of prisoners inside the jail, including severe beatings, being held in a cold room with no toilet, getting cold-showered every two hours. People of color and transgender people feel that they were specifically targeted. We must all act now to demand that the torture stop and all charges against the journalists be dropped…”

Source: Democracy Now!

George W. Bush loves Michael Jackson

By William Rivers Pitt

Nov. 21— A number of explosions tore through the British consulate in Turkey today, killing scores of people. George W. Bush is in England, surrounded on all sides by enraged British citizens whose massive protests have required nearly every police officer in London to be put on the line of defense.

This is happening in a nation that has been, both in government and among the populace, one of the strongest allies America has ever known. There are a couple of wars happening in Iraq and Afghanistan, neither of which are going very well. A great many soldiers and civilians have died in the last year. Osama bin Laden is still on the loose, and after nearly 750 days, the American people have still been given no explanation for why Sept. 11 happened.

It is 3:16pm on Thursday afternoon as I write this. CNN has been covering, with total exclusivity, a parking lot outside a police station for the last hour. They covered an airplane landing. They covered the same airplane sitting still on the tarmac. They covered the airplane slowly moving into a hangar. All the while, talking head after talking head explored every conceivable facet of the parking lot, the plane, the tarmac, and the hangar, as well as a variety of parallel issues. No stone of data was left unturned.

Why? Michael Jackson is about to surrender to police.

In the last two years, CNN has not devoted this much energy and coverage to any story in the manner that is unfolding right now. Enron, the stock market, the reasons for Sept. 11, the nomination of Henry Kissinger to chair the investigation into that event, the disinformation that was pushed by the Bush administration before the attack on Iraq, the civilian casualties during the attack on Iraq, the American troop casualties during and after the attack on Iraq, the missing weapons of mass destruction, the missing Osama bin Laden, the war in Afghanistan that is far from over, the outing of a CIA agent by the Bush administration in an act of political revenge, and about two hundred other explosive stories did not get the attention that Michael Jackson is getting now.

One talking head just said, “I’m waiting for a white Bronco to pull up.”

The other talking heads laughed and kept on going. A detailed discussion progressed about the tail numbers on Michael Jackson’s plane, along with questions about how all this will affect Jackson’s fans. We’re approaching the two-hour mark in the coverage.

For a while we had the Petersons to obsess the mainstream television media. Then we had Kobe Bryant, and for a bit both stories ran concurrently with “Breaking News” announcements throughout daily coverage. Neither managed to seize national attention, and so periodically CNN and the other networks were forced to mention that the fighting in Iraq is getting a lot of Americans killed, the promised weapons of mass destruction have not been found, and no one but Dick Cheney can say that Iraq was involved in Sept. 11 without looking like a total blithering idiot.

And then, like a surgically enhanced cavalry charge, Michael Jackson blasts to the forefront to rescue the mainstream media from perhaps being required to cover matters of substance. The ability for these talking heads to natter on for weeks and weeks about Jackson, previous charges against him, his musical history, his personal oddities, his baby-dangling antics, and “Oh my goodness, what do we tell the children?” is pretty much bottomless, but we will spend the next several weeks, again, racing to that bottom as quickly as television signals can travel through a coaxial cable.

A black Bronco just left the airplane hangar, and is driving slowly, slowly to the police station. CNN is on it. CNN is all over it.

One of the shots on my television an hour ago showed a gaggle of reporters and cameras gathered outside the police station, waiting for Jackson to arrive. The talking head working the microphone at that moment mistakenly called those people “journalists.” This is not journalism, and those people are not journalists. This is entertainment television passed off as news of import. This is more poison poured into our national discussion. This is the grand bull moose gold medal winning distraction of all time.

George W. Bush should send Michael Jackson flowers and a thank-you note, and send more flowers to CNN. The Republican Party effected an historic takeover of Congress in 1994, during a time when the only television coverage one could find focused on OJ Simpson. The timing was exquisite.

We’re right back, today, to that marvelous chapter in American journalism history.

TV news viewers who think they are getting the hard truth from the mainstream media just forgot Bush exists, forgot the hundreds of thousands of protesters who have dogged his state visit to Britain, forgot the attacks in Iraq, forgot the dead soldiers, forgot Sept. 11, forgot everything except a mutant in a Bronco who lives in a place called Neverland.

They just showed Jackson in handcuffs. The talking heads almost fainted. God bless America.

Source: Truthout.org