The corporate media are covering their own asses.
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http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/Sunday April 26, 2009 10:34 EDT
David Broder and media culpability for Bush crimes
(updated below)
I read David Broder's truly wretched screed yesterday -- in which he demands immunity for Bush officials from investigation and prosecution and attacks those who advocate accountability -- and decided that I wouldn't write about it until today because I didn't want it to infect my Saturday. For purposes of catharsis, I did immediately note on Twitter that Broder's article was "a tour de force of Beltway sickness - even for him" and that "the Washington press corps has exactly the 'dean' it deserves." Fortunately, Hilzoy, Scott Lemieux and Roger Ailes -- among others -- have now made most of the points quite conclusively that need to be made about the morally depraved joke that David Broder is, leaving just a couple of observations worth noting.
To justify the absolute immunity he wants for government lawbreakers, Broder describes the Bush era as "one of the darkest chapters of American history, when certain terrorist suspects were whisked off to secret prisons and subjected to waterboarding and other forms of painful coercion in hopes of extracting information about threats to the United States." But that's easy to say now that the Bush presidency is over and the evidence of its criminality so undeniable. But Broder never said any such thing while it was all taking place, when it mattered. In fact, he did the opposite: he mocked those who tried to sound the alarm about how radical and "dark" the Bush presidency was and repeatedly defended what Bush officials were doing as perfectly normal, unalarming and well within the bounds of mainstream and legitimate policy.
As but one example, Broder -- in a September 15, 2006 Washington Post chat -- was asked by a reader about an Editorial in The New York Times which appeared that morning that warned of the grave dangers of abolishing habeas corpus and the protections of the Geneva Conventions, as the soon-to-be-enacted Military Commissions Act sought to do. In other words, back then, the Times Editorial Page was warning of exactly the policies -- "certain terrorist suspects were whisked off to secret prisons and subjected to waterboarding and other forms of painful coercion" -- which Broder today, with Bush safely gone, cites as examples of our "darkest chapter." Yet here is what Broder was saying about these things when it mattered:
Kingston, Ontario: I'm rather surprised by your and your correspondents' calm tone of voice this morning. Unless the New York Times editorial page is wildly off-track, the U.S. is in the grip of a major constitutional crisis, with the government trying to set aside long established guarantees of legal behavior, both internally and in relation to international law. Where's the sense of urgency?
David S. Broder: Far be it from me to question the New York Times, but I'd like to assure you that Washington is calm and quiet this morning, and democracy still lives here. Editorial writers sometimes get carried away by their own rhetoric.
On other occasions, Broder mocked those who suggested there was anything extremist or radical about Bush's "counter-terrorism" policies; hailed "Bush's conviction that the quest for freedom is a universal truth"; proclaimed his confidence in Donald Rumsfeld's pre-war Iraq plans; and compared 2002 war opponents to "Jane Fonda in Hanoi or antiwar protesters marching under Viet Cong flags."
-snip-
What Broder states today as fact (that the Bush presidency is "one of the darkest chapters of American history") is almost verbatim that which, when it mattered, when it was happening, he vehemently and repeatedly denied -- and, of course, given that he works in the most accountability-free profession of all (establishment punditry), he does not even have the minimal honesty to acknowledge that. Like so many of his colleagues, Broder played a critical role in defending these crimes and insisting that they were not taking place.
This is a crucial and oft-overlooked fact in the debate over whether we should investigate and prosecute Bush crimes.
The very same pundits and establishment journalists who today are demanding that we forget all about it, not look back, not hold anyone accountable, are the very same people who -- like Broder -- played key roles in hiding, enabling and defending these crimes. In light of that, what is less surprising than the fact that, almost unanimously, these very same people oppose any efforts to examine what happened and impose accountability? Back in January, I wrote the following about the virtual unanimity among establishment media figures against investigations and prosecutions:
-snip-
Much more at:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/
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