Buying The War.
Buying The War.
You can watch Bill Moyers’ full documentary HERE. Glenn Greenwald writes:
If you didn’t watch Bill Moyers’ documentary last night regarding the joint, coordinated behavior of our government and its media in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, I can’t recommend it highly enough. [...]
One of the most important points came at the end. The institutional decay which Moyers chronicles is not merely a matter of historical interest. Instead, it continues to shape our mainstream political dialogue every bit as much as it did back in 2002 and 2003. The people who committed the journalistic crimes Moyers so potently documents do not think they are guilty of anything — ask them and they will tell you — and as a result, they have not changed their behavior in the slightest.
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The saddest thing about Bill Moyers’ excellent piece is that for those of us who are aware of the news there will be no surprises, just reinforcement of what we already knew. The people who need to watch Moyers’ excellent work were glued to the tube watching reruns of American Idol while Bill O’Lielly was blowing off steam at Faux Noise. A very sad commentary on this nation and its sheeple.
April 26th, 2007 at 1:52 pmWatched it. Great to see real journalism (and Moyers) on the tube again. Tell PBS. I did.
April 26th, 2007 at 1:52 pmit was indeed incredible… I’m recommending it to my friends…
April 26th, 2007 at 1:53 pmWhile I’m sure the rightie trolls were come out in full force on this one, I was particularly impressed with the fact he noted that several Dems were shown as buying into the hype (Clinton, for example).
Very, very, very well done.
Great to have Moyers back.
.
April 26th, 2007 at 1:57 pmGlenn Greenwald is awesome. I recommend his blog on Salon.com to anyone.
April 26th, 2007 at 1:59 pmWhen the majority of Americans believed that Saddam Hussein was directly involved in 9/11, that type of misinformation can only be obtained by non-objective news reporting.
Indeed…..our “liberal” “drive-by” media bears as much responsibility as anyone for providing a platform for the White House and right-wing spin machine to turn at full cycle. It continues on to this day.
April 26th, 2007 at 2:01 pmI’m glad Moyer’s came back, he resonates well with many people, particularly older generations.
April 26th, 2007 at 2:01 pmHear that David Broder?
April 26th, 2007 at 2:03 pm#1 Ben Dover
April 26th, 2007 at 2:04 pmYou said it perfectly IMHO.
I am in total agreement with your comments.
exactly, ben dover… there were very few surprises for me…
it was depressing and fascinating at the same time… had to watch…
a very good job, very well done…
April 26th, 2007 at 2:05 pmTenet: we dont torture people
http://ccoaler.blogspot.com
April 26th, 2007 at 2:12 pmWhat I find incredulous is that the very same “reporters” who see no wrong in their actions are the very same ones who talk big on Democracy. Do these media whores not understand that it is only when the press is reporting the truth that Democracy is safe.
April 26th, 2007 at 2:12 pmAsk the same question of any criminal and they’ll also tell you they aren’t guilty of anything.
What were you expecting? Honesty? Competence?
Ain’t likely.
April 26th, 2007 at 2:13 pmI believe that political journalists know when they are considering saying something that will displease the administration. As a result, they qualify what they are saying to save themselves the grief.
April 26th, 2007 at 2:15 pmOne of the best exposes that I’ve ever watched.
My favorite part was a “news” conference a couple of weeks before the beginning of the war. All of the various news organizations were there. At one point, Bush slips up and it becomes apparent that he has a list of who he is supposed to go to next for his next question. He actually makes a remark about this new conference being scripted.
Any hatred we have toward Bush should be also directed at these “news” organizations for enabling this to happen and still NOT taking responsibility for their part in it.
April 26th, 2007 at 2:16 pmYou can get the audio off of I-tunes.
April 26th, 2007 at 2:20 pmMany in the press are owned by the Bush Regime and they sold their souls to the devil.
April 26th, 2007 at 2:20 pmwhat was interesting was when he was talking about the networks’ complicity, and the PBS logo was shown onscreen… it was right there next to the PBS logo that’s always in the lower right corner during programs… that PBS allowed itself to be criticized so directly on its own show was incredible….
and, as another poster has suggested, it wasn’t a “Republicants are the perps” kind of show…
April 26th, 2007 at 2:25 pmThe manipulation of the media never stops with this White House. Just listened to WH Briefing where Dana Perino uses the talking point about last summer’s discovery of a plot to blow up airlines. The WH has used this plot to terrorize this nation and continues to use it against us. The fact is that when you analyse the facts of that plot, it is/ was almost an impossible event to occur by anyone. Yet they continue to use fear against the people.
April 26th, 2007 at 2:26 pmWm
I was watching it. Great piece but couldn’t make myself finish watching it. 6 years of depressing memory floods back. Everything still continues as it has been. I’m amazed at our stupidity and dividedness.
April 26th, 2007 at 2:31 pmIn defense of the wankers, first of all Tim Russert is a ‘blue collar guy from Buffalo’ so that makes giving Dick Cheney as free pass okay.
And Peter Beinart never said he was an ‘expert’… he was just happy to be on TV…
/sarcasm off.
April 26th, 2007 at 2:31 pmall-in-all it is slightly amazing that 65% of disinterested and mostly poorly informed Americans, are against this war under the current Fascist propaganda media conditions, which points out just how wrong this war is.
April 26th, 2007 at 2:31 pmRemember when a news division wasn’t expected to be profitable? It existed in a somewhat exalted strata, had a sacred role in informing and empowering the masses of Americans, who used this information and power to participate in the civic process. There was a much loftier goal afoot than selling soap.
I don’t believe that Edward R. Murrow’s broadcasts earned CBS any money at all; and yet, Murrow is remembered as the sine gua non of modern journalism speaking truth to power.
CEO legend Jack Welch famously changed all that when he bought NBC. “From now on,” he declared (and I paraphrase), “the news division is just another division. We are in the business of making money and the news division is no exception.”
The failures noted by Moyers are epic and totally understandable in the context of unchecked capitalism. In our system, money doesn’t talk, it screams (thanks, Bob Dylan), and is the end in itself. Good reporting is not nearly as important as good ratings, and speaking unpopular truths to a flag-addled, traumatized country will only result in less revenue, the loss of a job, perhaps being blacklisted and unable to work at any station or newspaper again.
In short, truth might get you fired, not because it threatens the powerful, but because it threatens the bottom line.
What sane reporter would challenge the administration’s ludicrously thin rationales for war, when the corporations that own the media, more powerful than at any time in over a century, are the very group that placed the president in the oval office to begin with? When was the last time YOU blew the whistle on your boss? What happened afterward?
To be a fearless journalist today means not caring whether your children eat or have shelter. I challenge anyone to dispute this.
There are other reasons why the media failed us in its duty to inform us and investigate malfeasance on our behalf. BUt unless we take a hard look at the effects of modern, global, bare-knuckles capitalism on the independence and efficacy of the fourth estate, we can expect this type of situation to happen again and again.
April 26th, 2007 at 2:34 pmI laughed when Dan Rather was whining about the pressures put on journalists by advertisers,management and government. Thats what the word ‘courage’ means Dan!!!! Dont now say ‘oh yeah i knew it was bogus and i was just afraid’!!!! LOSER!!!!
April 26th, 2007 at 2:38 pmmeg_mag,
If Rather is a loser, you’re lower than a tit on a pregnant sow.
I didn’t expect idiots like you to appreciate a show that includes truth, but wasn’t American Idle on? Where were you?
Trailer Trash Troglodyte
April 26th, 2007 at 2:44 pmI laughed when Dan Rather was whining about the pressures put on journalists by advertisers,management and government. Thats what the word ‘courage’ means Dan!!!! Dont now say ‘oh yeah i knew it was bogus and i was just afraid’!!!! LOSER!!!!
Comment by meg_mac — April 26, 2007 @ 2:38 pm
I agree completely. I used to feel that he lost his job unfairly because of the Bush machine, and he did. But the fact that he knew the lead up was lies and did nothing just shows that he chose his own job over the country.
I found that Oprah clip where she snaps at a dissenter that they’re just presenting the “facts” not propaganda confirmed my opinion of her. She thinks she knows everything and doesn’t bother to do her homework.
April 26th, 2007 at 2:49 pmGreat peice. Loved it. One thing that stuck out for me was that it seems to prove that Cheney knowingly lied to the American people about Saddam and weapons of mass destruction. (among other lies) Why is he not in jail? Why call Condi in again. Waxman should subpoena Dick.
April 26th, 2007 at 2:51 pmZimzone… wow thats pretty low…. just about as low as Rather got!!! ps i loved the program and couldnt have agreed more with Moyers,,, for real news checkout any Knight Ridder paper!!!!
April 26th, 2007 at 2:51 pm#20 – I couldn’t agree with your sarcastic assessments of Russert and Beinart more. Russert didn’t take responsibility one whit, although he claimed MTP didn’t restrict the kinds of questions he was allowed to ask – he didn’t mention how negligent he was in the questions he chose to ask.
And Beinart – what a twit! He recommends print journalism to inform due to it’s ability to capture “nuance” and more fully cover a subject , decries TV for being preferred by the unwashed masses because it is a more limited medium, yet went/goes on television and delivered crap and lies!
Regarding Moyers, there is a really good interview with him in the 40th anniversary issue of Rolling Stone. His evolution from politico to journalist is really something special to realize. What a thoughtful man he must be.
April 26th, 2007 at 2:51 pmHere’s a quote from Bill O’Reilly off his website:
“Moyers takes a special pride in denigrating FOX News and talk radio in his presentation. Now I supported the action against Saddam because the Secretary of State Colin Powell, former Secretary of Defense under Bill Clinton, William Cohen, the CIA, British intelligence, and a variety of other intelligence agencies all told me Saddam was making dangerous weapons in violation of the first Gulf War cease-fire. We did our own original reporting here.”
Does anyone see the idiocy in this statement?? It seems that to O’Reilly (and one assumes the rest of his ilk), that being told by someone else is the same as original reporting…..
April 26th, 2007 at 2:51 pmd w – I blew the whistle on my boss in 1973. Discrimination on the basis of gender. The Feds came in, did a big investigation, found multiple violations of the law – also found some seriously crooked behavior with $$$ (it was a bank) Within a year the President and 3 Vice Presidents took ‘early retirement’ officers from another town were installed to clean it up, women were promoted and/or got paid the same amount as men. I had moved out of state (got married, went to grad school) by the time it was over, but after a couple of years I got a check for $500.00.
After my kids, it is what I am proudest of in my life. One person can make a difference.
April 26th, 2007 at 2:53 pmI have always known…but to see/hear it first hand on PBS, well my heart just sank and I wanted to throw up. I have three Marines, and I am not feeling all that good right now. I have never been so mad in my life. To hear these right wing crack pots just drives me insane.
April 26th, 2007 at 2:54 pmThe worst, you can see all these people, on any and every news source and they are considered (still) viable sources for our news.
Justice? For me would be the same gallows that were used for Saddam, for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
I STRONGLY URGE EVERYONE TO SEE THIS…it does not seem to run but only once in the next week and out here on the west coast, @3:00 am.
SPEAK UP, SUPPORT OUR TROOPS
The Moyers special is great and gives us an insight on how badly the media let this country down, but, to get an idea as to where the Bush administration learned how to decieve and control the American people you should watch a PBS special “Independent Lens” Enron, the smartest guys in the room.
Unbelievable to see the parallels between the slugs that ran Enron into the ground and the slugs that are running this country into the ground.
April 26th, 2007 at 3:06 pmi just had a bit of an epiphany as to why i was so involved in watching this program, even though i already knew “how the story went”…
it’s the first time, probably, that i heard the truth tellers actually tell their story in this format… especially Jonathan Landay and Warren Strobel of Knight Ridder and Bob Simon of 60 Minutes, who was based in the Middle East…
it’s out there now… the corporates will surely make up for it, right?…
read about it, if nothing else…
April 26th, 2007 at 4:13 pmhttp://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/btw/watch.html
…
I tried to tape and watch Bill Moyers’ show, “Buying the War” last night, but it started with the Royal traitorous lying election-stealing war criminal Bush babbling on. I couldn’t stomach listening to that vile vicious thug again, so I turned off the VCR and went back to watching the NBA playoffs… From time to time, some folks on left-liberal blogs seem to worry about Bush “declaring martial law” blah blah blah. Well, we’ve lived under the fascist lying corporate martial media since the summer of 2000, when the “MS” media began excusing the idiot Bush and attacking Al Gore for supposedly saying that he claimed to have invented the Internet (it was just another Reich-wing smear: VP Gore never made that assertion)…
April 26th, 2007 at 4:15 pmHis evolution from politico to journalist is really something special to realize. What a thoughtful man he must be.
Comment by detepe — April 26, 2007 @ 2:51 pm
His books “A World of Ideas” 1 and 2 where he interviews scholars, religious, political, historical, are amazing. At least the trolls aren’t bad mouthing him today.
April 26th, 2007 at 4:17 pmMoyer’s show was especially good when it showed the way the news was wrong. Especially when it showed how the Adminstration gave info to the NY Times, the NY Times ran an article and the same day Administration officials went on the talk shows talking about the NY Times article as though it were independently written.
The show was not as good when it went after the likes of O’Reilly and William Saffire. Especially Safire who everyone knows is a right wing editorial writer. He is not the news.
April 26th, 2007 at 4:46 pmBill Moyers did a good show last night but he even he is still guilty of not telling us the real reason why we invaded Iraq. It is because of Israel, and that is why we are still not pulling out of Iraq. Sure the administration said it was because WMD and we all thought it was for the oil, but those reasons are gone now. Israel stated back then that Iraq was their biggest threat to security and now they are stating the same thing about Iran. American troops are dying to protect Israel.
April 26th, 2007 at 4:49 pmThere must be some way of using this info to put pressure on the networks to get rid of some of the guys– I’d say people, but there are mostly guys– who were wrong and are still defending their misinformation and replace them with people who didn’t buy into the administration’s version of the facts. Some should be replaced , not all– the worst of the failure was that once a (mistaken) consensus had formed, those (like Donohue) who questioned it were banished from the public dialogue. We-the-People must begin to notice who’s NOT allowed at the table. How can we perform our duty as citizens if the info we need to judge our representatives is not brought to light?
April 26th, 2007 at 5:00 pmFrom Jane Hamsher of FiredogLake.com
Everyone has their favorite moment from the Bill Moyers documentary last night, this was mine:
BILL MOYERS: Critics point to September eight, 2002 and to your show in particular, as the classic case of how the press and the government became inseparable.
Someone in the administration plants a dramatic story in the NEW YORK TIMES And then the Vice President comes on your show and points to the NEW YORK TIMES. It’s a circular, self-confirming leak.
TIM RUSSERT: I don’t know how Judith Miller and Michael Gordon reported that story, who their sources were. It was a front-page story of the NEW YORK TIMES. When Secretary Rice and Vice President Cheney and others came up that Sunday morning on all the Sunday shows, they did exactly that.
TIM RUSSERT: What my concern was, is that there were concerns expressed by other government officials. And to this day, I wish my phone had rung, or I had access to them.
BILL MOYERS: Bob Simon didn’t wait for the phone to ring.
BILL MOYERS: When you said a moment ago when we started talking to people who knew about aluminum tubes. What people-who were you talking to?
BOB SIMON: We were talking to people – to scientists – to scientists and to researchers and to people who had been investigating Iraq from the start.
BILL MOYERS: Would these people have been available to any reporter who called or were they exclusive sources for 60 minutes?
BOB SIMON: No, I think that many of them would have been available to any reporter who called.
After sitting in the Libby trial with jaw-dropping incredulity as Russert admitted he’d spilled his guts to the FBI when they first contacted him and then later refused to testify claiming he was protecting his source, and then listening to him say that all conversations were off the record unless otherwise specified, I thought we’d reached some sort of nadir in terms of Russert’s flat-out ignorance of basic journalistic principles. I was wrong.
What kind of a journalist sits around and waits for people to call him? Well, journalists don’t do that, but then again he’s the guy Cathie Martin said could be counted upon to let the OVP “control message.” I think “political operative,” “shill” and “wanker” are all probably more apt.
It’s astonishing that he’s still allowed to host perhaps the most influential of all the Sunday morning political talk shows, and yet, he is.
April 26th, 2007 at 5:18 pmnapu,
Your comment about six depressing years is how I feel also. Well half of how I feel, I had Dubya as a Governor for six long years so my nightmare has been going on for twelve. And if you can believe it the crook that took his job here in Texas is I think actually more corrupt, if that’s possible. I gotta tell ya it’s depressing as h*ll and just saps my energy.
April 26th, 2007 at 5:29 pmMoyers could easily do two more specials. The media’s failure during the middle of the war. The media’s failure during the end stages of the war.
April 26th, 2007 at 5:33 pmComment by Marie — April 26, 2007 @ 5:18 pm
i can never decide whether he or matthews is worse.
April 26th, 2007 at 5:38 pmThe media has failed completely. Here’s 35 topics the media has INTENTIONALLY IGNORED to protect the administration and their profits. Katie, Bryan and Charles IMO are accomplices in this crime and should be jailed.
1) Downing Street Memos
2) Media Ownership (deregulation)
3) Disappearance of Habeas Corpus
4) Fairness Doctrine no longer enforced
5) Freedom of Information Act ratcheted up
6) Bush family close relationship with Bin Ladins
7) Bush family close relationship with the recently departed (yeah right) Ken Lay (Enron)
8) The strategic importance of running that oil pipieline thru Afghanistan
9) Congress working to draft legislation to strangle internet (net neutrality)
10) Military Bases in Iraq
11) All the old Iran-Contra players currently working for Bushco
12) The scummy manner which the medicare prescription bill was passed that has allowed drug companies to make off like bandits
13) Journalists targeted in Iraq
14) The danger posed by a 9 trillion dollar national debt
15) The danger posed by unregulated hedge funds
16) Why labor gets almost no TV time and management dominates the airwaves
17) Oil executives secretly meeting to write our energy policy (fascism)
18) Bankers allowed to write bankruptcy bill (fascism)
April 26th, 2007 at 5:41 pm19) KBR buidling detention facilities across the country for whom?
20) Voting Integrity
21) Purging of voter rolls..see GregPalast.com for info that’ll make u sick!
22) Depleted Uranium from the hundreds of thousands of shell casings in Iraq
23) Delay and Abramoff running sweat shops/prison camps in Marinas Islands and forcing young Chinese girls into prostitution then abortions
24) Fake, gay (not a fake gay but a fake reporter) reporter Jeff Gannon sleeping over at White House multiple times.
25) Sibel Edmonds being silenced and what she knows about 9/11, Denny Hastert and illegal arms sales.
26) Bill Frist sneaking legislation into a Defense bill to protect big Pharma from lawsuits.
27) Choicepoint collecting data on you perhaps even your DNA.
28) Why White House is now hiding all visitor logs (400 Abramoff visits?)
29) Zero Reporting on all the Executive Orders Bush signed.
30) Exxon Mobil spends $19 million dollars on 75 front groups to create uncertainty over global warming.
31) Private Right Wing Christian Army Blackwater with fundraising ties to Bush operating almost secretly in Iraq.
32) Posse Comitos Rescinded
33) Food Genetically Altered, Not Labeled, No Testing ever done on humans.
34) Profit Sharing Law being pushed thru Iraqi Parliment giving oil rights (70% of all profits) to foreign countries for 30 yrs.
35) White House Hides Presidential Papers that should be released to Public
Anytime Bill Moyers does anything on tv, I try to watch it. Last nites special was typically terrific. I especially liked the reporters from Knight Ritter. They were right on the mark, but unfortunately alone in their reporting. I also liked the part about the Iraqi exiles who made the case for war. Ahmed Chalibi convinced the neocons that Invading Iraq would be a cakewalk. I am just about convinced that he was working for Iran. Que bono???
April 26th, 2007 at 5:49 pmRussert is particularly disgraceful. All that blather about working class this or that. This guy makes $5 million a year, lives on Nantucket and cocktails with Jack Welch. But, that really is a big part of the problem. You really can’t expect a bunch of pampered “Antonettes”, as Bob Somerby calls them, to care about the real challenges of working class Americans. Journalists used to be working class heros. Now, most are either part of a pampered, over-paid, insider elite or they want to be part of it. It’s part of the corporatization of American news media.
April 26th, 2007 at 6:17 pmTo my friends here at Think Progress if you want the genesis of this story go over to http://www.Coolaqua.com and read the article written about GE and NBC, Jack Welch and Karl Rove in 1999! Scroll down to where it is in bold face and take about 10 minutes to read it–I was enraged–we are not getting the truth by a long shot.
I loathe these people–they are all so self-serving: Russert is a whore–there is no other word for him and he is a pimp for this administration (he is making a lot more than $5 million a year; Matthews is just a pig with an obsession about Hillary; Andrea Mitchell, Norah , these people are tools for Bush–read the article. Bill Moyers did an outstanding job but the rest of the story is on Coolaqua.
Moyers should get a Peabody for his work–it was riveting and confirmed my suspicions.
April 26th, 2007 at 8:34 pmLying is not crime nor sin, torture is not crime nor sin, spying is not crime nor sin, treasury theft is not crime nor sin, greed is not crime nor sin, hypocrisy is not crime nor sin, murder is not crime nor sin, genocide is not crime nor sin….this is the new christianity, the new religion of the world order, where gays are criminals, where doctors who execute abortions are sinners, where anyone black is considered suspicious and a parasite and where truth has made room for belief (the belief in your own wrong and lies).
April 27th, 2007 at 9:23 amIt was good that the woman in Oprah’s audience accused Oprah’s guests of propaganda. At first Oprah was open minded to arguments about liberating Iraq but following that woman’s comments her show became extremely antiwar for the next several months. In fact Michael Moore even endorsed her for president in his book by noting that she was the only mainstream media that was against the war before it happened.
May 4th, 2007 at 1:28 pm