Tuesday, US President Barack Obama spoke from the Oval Office and a great deal of time was wasted dithering on about the 'new look' of the Oval Office in each network's prime time 'analyasis' -- if you can call a minute or two of gas bagging before the speech and less than that after the speech 'analysis.' It was embarrassing to watch the TV personalities weigh in (before the speech) on this 'new' look. Looking at photos in papers the next day, Mississippi Mud would be the 'theme' of the sitting area of the Oval Office but that didn't even make it on TV. What made it on TV was Barack behind a desk with those ugly drapes that were in place when Bush occupied the Oval Office. (Doubt us? Click here for a 2006 photo.) The drapes were the same. The desk behind Barack feautred more photo frames (including photos of himself) and drew to mind another cold fish who had trouble communicating with people: Lillith Crane. All that was missing was Fraiser pointing out her bizarre accordian style of displying magazines on the coffee table. In other words, the make over was a bust and,how very telling, the worshipful TV 'journalists' couldn't even tell you that.
ABC World News with Diane Sawyer opened with the speech to come.
Diane Sawyer: Good evening, a long war and a long road have reached a historic milestone tonight. The President is set to announce that America is officially ending its combat mission in Iraq, giving the lead to Iraqi forces. This comes 7 years, 5 months and 13 days after American troops arrived. And this was that moment marked by President George W. Bush on March 19, 2003.
George W. Bush: My fellow citizens, at this hour American and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm Iraq, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger.
Diane Sawyer: We saw the thunder of "shock and awe." Then that ground invasion encountering so little resistance as it rolled through the desert toward Baghdad. And in Baghdad, threee weeks after the war started, civilians cheered as Marines pulled down the huge statue of Saddam Hussein.
Yes, Diane went there.
And, in doing so, reminded everyone of the whoring she did to sell the illegal war.
Civilians cheered the statue coming down? No, Diane, a small number of shipped in exiles cheered. That was a PSYOPS operation that the US media gladly went along with. Click here for reality about the toppling of the statue at Information Clearing House.
Those who were evening news anchors then are all gone now. Brian Williams has replaced Tom Brokaw and Williams 2003 work was on MSNBC -- translation, few saw it. Katie Couric replaced Dan Rather and she can point to the debate on the war she moderated on NBC's The Today Show. Diane Sawyer?
Richard Nixon's favorite girl (we use the term intentionally and ironically) in his administration whored like no other. And, at her worst, was on prime time TV badgering the Dixie Chicks, specifically Natalie Maines, about Maines stating -- on a British concert stage -- that she was ashamed Bush was from Texas. "But about your commander-in-chief," Sawyer intoned over and over (a) forgetting that civilians in the United States have no commander-in-chief (check the Constitution, Diane) and (b) reminding everyone that nothing ever did as much to affix rumors of Diane being a lesbian as her interview with the coming out Ellen DeGeneres where she repeatedly appeared to be stating and displaying that she'd never met a gay person before.
We don't like Diane. In fact, "loathe" is too weak of a word for what we feel towards her. And it's due to her whoring for Bush (which inclued the attack on Howard Dean and Judy Dean -- and, if we ever get pissed off enough, we'll tell you what forced Diane to get honest on air about the so-called 'scream'). We usually set it aside but part of the reason we loathe Diane is because she whored it to sell the Iraq War. Tuesday, she demonstrated that nothing had changed.
Diane Sawyer (Con't): And three weeks after that, President Bush arrived on the aircraft carrier, standing under a sign that said "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED." There would be triumph. Iraqis go to the polls. Their ink dipped fingers purple badges of courage. And the capture of Saddam Hussein. But there would also be another seven years of hard combat in a brutal war, the third longest war in American history. And as we said, now, tonight, President Obama is declaring the official end of Operation Iraqi Freedom. But be warned, it does not mean the danger is over. And Jake Tapper is at the White House to tell us more about what he's going to say. Jake?
Jake Tapper: Good evening, Diane. That's right, this evening President Obama will tell the American people that "Ending this war is not only in Iraq's interest, it is in our own. The United States has spent vast resources abroad at a time of tight budgets at home." And, Diane, even as he is declaring an end to the combat mission in Iraq, he say, "Today our most urgent task is to restore our economy and put the millions of Americans who have lost their jobs back to work."
Jake Tapper had the advance text of the speech (most outlets did at this point, less than an hour and a half before the speech was to be given). And what he did he do with it? He gave you little bits and pieces of what would be said.
With ABC, we watched before the speech. The other two networks? We Tivo-ed them at home -- meaning we had the West Coast versions to refer to, the evening news broadcasts that were broadcast after Barack gave his speech. And even those 'reporting' after the speech did as Jake Tapper, confused Closed Captioning with reporting. See, reporting would be analyzing the claims made by Barack. No one had the guts to do that, though. And, low and behold, Media Matters didn't bemoan the lack of a fact check the next day. But they're only concerned with media responsibility when Republicans are getting coverage.
After Tapper finished quoting from Barack's speech, ABC News went to Dan Harris in Iraq. He would inform you that there were 560 IED explosions in August. He would also speak with three unidentified soldiers.
Dan Harris: Do you feel like the war is over?
Soldier 1: We're combat troops, we're still here. We've still got a job to do. The names change, But the mission's pretty much the same.
Dan Harris: So you don't feel like combat is done?
Soldier 1: Not at all, sir.
As he concluded his report, Harris would observe, "The White House may talk about ending this war but many on the homefront and on the frontlines say they are still fighting. "
To her credit, Diane and team opened with the speech, gave it the most air time. But it was amazing that with all that time, they had so very little to offer. Perspective? Diane would offer a folksy take that recalled Dan Rather and we're not sure that's a good thing. "As of tonight," she would declare, "4,427 American service men and women died in Iraq." And then go on to the suffering of "tiny Vermont" and the "small population of Montana" and "every single state" and the "4,000 miles between" Fairbanks, Alaska and Key West Florida. The most frightening thing of the night may have been how that passed for 'perspective.
CBS Evening News had Harry Smith sitting in for Couric and no one sitting in for the news. Which explains why the program led not with the speech Barack had just finished delivering but with Hurrican Earl on the East Coast. On the East Coast. Repeating, we were watching the West Coast broadcast. A hurricane that wouldn't touch our coast was judged as the lead and not the president's second Oval Office address.
Harry tossed to Bill Plante at the White House who offered a recap -- no analysis of the speech. And then went into, "But today President Obama called former President Bush who made the decision to surge troops into Iraq. Neither side would say what they discussed but the Republican leader of the Senate blasted President Obama for taking credit." A man was displayed on the screen declaring, "You might recall that the surge wasn't very popular when it was announced. You might also recall that one of its biggest critics was the current president." No where on the screen or in Plante's remarks was Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell identified. And in less than two minutes, the 'report' was over and Harry had other things to focus on.
The main thing that registered was just how little work TV news did. Because a Republican figure (actually more than one) had called out Barack, that got airtime. Because of that, it was necessary to parade Barack's remarks against the "surge" and then his caving and claiming the "surge" worked. (The escalation did not work. The purpose of the escalation was to lower the rate of violence in order to allow Nouri and company the space to achieve the White House defined benchmarks for success. None of those benchmarks were achieved, therefore the "surge" failed.) They couldn't fact check Barack, they couldn't even question his claims. But Republicans criticize what they see as Barack's efforts to take credit for Bush's efforts and that they can pretend to 'explain.' (Nothing was explained, nothing was assessed. Just a bunch of clips of past statements paraded before the viewer.)
NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams, West Coast version, didn't lead with Iraq either. But, hey, we're talking about a 'news' show that decided not to air on Saturday (on either coast), not to even tape a show, due to a football game. As telling as that was about the news division, Brian had his own illuminating moment Tuesday.
Brian Williams: Now to tonight's address to the nation by the President. His second Oval Office speech as president. Barack Obama, you'll recall, ran against the Viet -- the Iraq War and tonight he made official what we watched on live TV 13 days ago: The combat phase is over. He said the US will pull out entirely by the end of next year. As he said earlier today, said again tonight, America's work in Iraq is not done. Our White House correspondent Savannah Guthrie has more from the north lawn tonight. Savannah, good evening.
Did you catch it? He got out "Viet" before he caught himself. Savannah gave a long synopsis of the speech Barack delivered and didn't bother to fact check because she apparently spent all of her time deciding whether or not she could neckline plunge at least as low as Lynda Carter in her Wonder Woman costume? The answer was yes and she might have even gone lower but the cameras wouldn't show that, in part because her white blouse was see through and viewers could see the freckles on her shoulders and the fact that she wasn't wearing a bra. Some women try to stand out on the news via hardwork, Savannah went the T&A route. What proud, proud moment.
Like Diane Sawyer, Brian Williams used 4,427 for the number of US service members killed in Iraq. We mention that because ICCC says it 4416. Of course, ICCC has taken 3 deaths away from their count in the past six weeks and has made clear that Iraq is the last thing on their minds. The Defense Dept figures, [PDF format warning] issued Friday, count 4421 Americans killed while serving in Iraq. So ABC News and NBC News are keeping their own count? No. The 4427 number is coming from US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates who used the figure Tuesday -- as Nancy Youssef reported for McClatchy and Tony Capaccio reported for Bloomberg. Gates was delivering a prepared speech and presumably the DoD sent him out with the correct figure. More disturbing is the fact that ICCC's number is so much lower than the Pentagon's. And charges of indifference to Iraq on the part of ICCC may soon turn to charges of a deliberate miscount.
Brian Williams did one thing the other two networks didn't do, offered that the death count for Iraqis -- a toll Diane and Harry skipped completely -- could be as high as "a million or more." The Lancet and other studies put the death toll at a million some time ago. Of all the anchors, only Brian Williams appeared to be aware of that.
Richard Engel offered Brian his take on what was missing from Barack's speech, "No mention of democracy. Whatever happened, Brian, to that idea that there woudl be a war in Iraq first to find Weapons of Mass Destruction and when that didn't happen, there would be a war in the Middle East to spread democracy. That dream died tonight. There was no mention that this would create a broader MiddleEast that was more stable, that was more democratic. How many times did we hear that speech from the Bush administration? Instead, he thanked the troops and, as Savannah referenced, he said it's time to turn the page. That was the message."
What was rather amazing was that Engel's remarks were pretty much it for WMD despite the illegal war being sold on WMD. You wouldn't know that if you caught CBS or ABC news or 'news' on Tuesday evening. You wouldn't really know it if you caught CBS on Wednesday. Robert Gates had given another speech and CBS 'news' wanted to 'report' on it.
Harry Smith: Gates told reporters history will judge whether the Iraq War was worth fighting.
US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates: Even if the outcome is a good one from the standpoint of the United States, it will always be clouded by how it began.
Harry Smith: Gates was referring of course to the Weapons of Mass Destruction that Saddam Hussein was believed to have stockpiled but were never found. Still ahead on the CBS . . .
Were never found? Were they misplaced, Harry? Or maybe they're like Al Capone's corpse? Prone to pop up any minute now?
That's it?
That's what these f**king assholes who sold us the war thinks qualifies as reporting?
In real time they wouldn't fact check the lies of Dick Cheney (for example, August 26, 2002: "Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has Weapons of Mass Destruction"), George W. Bush (for example, September 12, 2002: "Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons"), Ari Fleischer (for example, January 9, 2003: "We know for a fact that there are weapons there."), Colin Powell (for example, February 5, 2003: "We know that Saddam Hussein is determined to keep his Weapons of Mass Destruction, is determined to make more''). There were no WMD in Iraq. None. And Bush wasn't mistaken, he willfully and knowingly misled the public (as did Collie, Cheney, Ari and the rest). They lied. Repeatedly. And the media let them get away with it. Not only that, the media amplified the lies -- knowing and willingly.
And after over a million Iraqis dead -- Iraqi deaths were 'sidestepped' by all but NBC Nightly News -- and over 4,000 Americans dead, after the death of a free press and the death of democracy within the United States, they want to keep lying.
Focusing on US deaths, the media found a number of surving family members last week who were ready to talk about 'sacrifice' and how their loved one died for a cause. Their loved one died in an illegal war and, in a functioning democracy, there would be a public apology for that. But it was so cute to watch this play out and grasp that 'democracy' was being fought for in the minds of some. US democracy was never, ever threatened by Iraq. But to go war with Iraq, democracy was attacked.
It was attacked by attempting to demonize Natalie Maines and others who spoke out against the illegal war. It was attacked by allowing public officials -- so-called leaders -- to lie to the people they allegedly serve. It was attacked by politicians using our Constitution to wipe their asses with as they destroyed every check and balance we supposedly had in a free society.
We are very sorry for those who lost loved ones serving in Iraq but as painful as those deaths were, the entire country was effected by the attack on our liberties launched by those who wanted to sell the illegal war. We have not recovered from that, we have not rebounded. Truth was not the first casualty of this illegal war, our Constitution was.
Though many realized that, very few took a stand for it. One of the few people who did and did so publicly was Lt Ehren Watada. He is the true hero of this time. Told he would be deploying to Iraq, the officer began studying up on it to be prepared. He quickly saw the lies and grasped that our nation's highest laws had been circumvented. He realized that the war was illegal and that, as an officer, he would be commanding those under him to serve in an illegal war.
Ehren made a hard decision, he wouldn't go to Iraq. He told his superiors of his decision and attempted to work it out privately. But they were, in fact, stalling him and trying to run out the clock, thinking that if they just ignored it, he would deploy. Instead, Ehren went public.
And the military slapped back, moving to 'discipline' him with an August 2006 Article 32 hearing and then a February 2007 court-martial with the loony Judge John Head (aka Judge Toilet). When the prosecution was clearly losing -- despite Head refusing to allow the defense to call the witnesses they needed, Head called a mistrial over defense objection. It really wasn't a surprise that to defend the illegal war that spat on the Constitution, Judge Head would ignore the Constitution and the protection against Double Jeporady. The Constitution had to be ripped apart to start the war, of course it would have to be torn anew in order to punish a truth teller.
In the end, Ehren walked. Judge Toilet sank back down into his sewer and the US government dropped their case againt Ehren. Ehren Watada was a winner because he stood up for the Constitution he took an oath to defend.
It was really something to watch the TV personalities yack on about sacrifice while they repeatedly refused to note the sacrifice our Constitution made, the battering it took. Over and over, the well coiffed and heavily made up told us that bad things happened over there and, in doing so, they ensured that the truth about the (ongoing) Iraq War would remain buried.
