Glenzilla Strikes Again and the MSM Goes down

Glenn Greenwald is the most withering and comprehensive blogger I read. He assembles an avalanche of historical video and documents to make his points like nobody else. It is like footnotes on steroids in this the era of the internets, The Google, and Nexus/Lexus. In his legally trained hands, it's a powerful and particularly persuasive method that must take him hours each day.

Here he takes on the self-justifying reaction of the biggest of the media's talking heads to Scott McClellan's digs at the compliant and complicit mainstream press during the run-up to the war.

Yesterday was actually quite an extraordinary day in our political culture because Scott McClellan's revelations forced the establishment media to defend themselves against long-standing accusations of their corruption and annexation by the government -- criticisms which, until yesterday, they literally just ignored, blacked-out, and suppressed. Bizarrely enough, it took a "tell-all" Washington book from Scott McClellan, of all people, to force these issues out into the open, and he seems -- unwittingly or otherwise -- to have opened a huge flood gate that has long been held tightly shut.

Network executives obviously know that these revelations are quite threatening to their brand. Yesterday, they wheeled out their full stable of multi-millionaire corporate stars who play the role of authoritative journalists on the TV to join with their White House allies in mocking and deriding McClellan's claims. One media star after the next -- Tom Brokaw, David Gregory, Charlie Gibson and Brian Williams, Tim Russert, Wolf Blitzer -- materialized in sync to insist that nothing could be more absurd than the suggestion that they are "deferential, complicit enablers" in government propaganda.

I have little doubt that they would be telling the truth if they denied what Yellin reported last night. People like Williams, Gibson and Gregory don't need to be told to refrain from reporting critically about the war and the White House because challenging Government claims isn't what they do. And amazingly, they admitted that explicitly yesterday. Gibson and Gregory both invoked the cliched excuse of the low-level bureaucrat using almost identical language: exposing government lies "is not our job."

Brian Williams, Charlie Gibson and company are paid to play the role of TV reporters but, in reality, are mere television emcees -- far more akin to circus ringleaders than journalists. It's just as simple as that. David Halberstam pointed that out some time ago. Unlike Yellin, Donahue and Banfield, nobody needed to pressure the likes of Williams, Gibson and Russert to serve as propaganda handmaidens for the White House. It's what they do quite eagerly on their own, which is precisely why they're in the corporate positions they're in. They are smooth, undisruptive personalities who don't create problems for their executives. Watching them finally describe how they perceive of "their role" leaves no doubt about any of that.

Baghdad Hillary

Hillary lost me a while ago when she started adopting the actions I've abhorred from the Repubs: endless spin and manipulation, selective memory, dishonest argument, and continual moving of the goalposts. For many months I had been agnostic on Hillary vs. Obama. Her irrationality and dishonesty now threatens the run against McCain (I still think Barack is going to win comfortably), but it also tarnishes the Democratic brand as the clear-thinking, honest party. I'm not the only one. Yukkk.

Huff Post:

"Every time she claims she has a popular majority, she's shattering whatever ceasefire exists and making it that much more likely that her supporters stay home come November. If she really wants a united party, she needs to stop, and the media and the superdelegates need to hold her accountable."

Bittman Aligns with Michael Pollen

This video of a lecture by Mark Bittman, food columnist for the NYT and TV food guy on PBS, makes most of the key points made by Pollen in his book In Defense of Food. Watch it and read the very short and prescriptive book. I like to think it's changing the way we eat. I hope so, but 60 years of mostly bad habits are hard to break. The politics of this is that we are in the grips of agribusiness, to the detriment of our health and environment.

Historic Economic Performance

There have been several studies and essays comparing the economic performance of the nation under Republican and Democratic administrations. The Republican argument is basically for trickle-down economics -- providing tax benefits for the rich encourages investment and entrepreneurial risk-taking to the benefit of all as the economy then grows. Nice theory but what does the data say. The answer: not so much.

This compendium of measures over time shows a clear pattern of superior results under Democratic administrations over the last 40-60 years even when lag times are comprehended to account for the time for policy changes to take effect. Clear advantages for Democratic administrations show in GDP growth, unemployment, inflation, growth in government spending, and average stock market return.

These articles and essays comment on and go inside the numbers: Kinsley in the Washington Post, Forbes.com, and the Washington Monthly. More recently these issues are again coming up along with the sister issue of income distribution (not just overall performance). See Bartels, more Bartels, Krugman, and a column in the Washington Post. Here is the detailed Bartels paper with all the latest tables and charts. I have not found any serious rebuttals from conservatives or Republicans. The data are the data. I challenge you to scan/study these long-term results, which will only be magnified by the disastrous performance of the Boy George administration, and argue for Republicanism being better for the nation's economy.