Woodward Compares Benghazi To Watergate
"If you read through all these e-mails, you see that everyone in the government is saying, 'Oh, let's not tell the public that terrorists were involved, people connected to al Qaeda. Let's not tell the public that there were warnings.' I hate to show, this is one of the documents with the editing that one of the people in the state department said, 'Oh, let's not let these things out.' And I have to go back 40 years to Watergate when Nixon put out his edited transcripts to the conversations, and he personally went through them and said, 'Oh, let's not tell this, let's not show this.' I would not dismiss Benghazi. It's a very serious issue. As people keep saying, four people were killed. "
Watch the segment here.
(H/T Weekly Standard)
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All The President’s Yes Men: Bernstein ‘Can’t Imagine’ Obama Involved In IRS Scandal
There was a time when Carl Bernstein was celebrated for speaking truth to power and relentlessly pursuing a president even though the rest of his colleagues didn't join him in following a political scandal that involved a second-rate break-in at the Watergate Hotel. Bernstein's work in bringing down President Richard Nixon became an inspiration for journalists everywhere.
How disappointed are all those journalists who joined the profession because they wanted to be the next Bob Woodward or Carl Bernstein as they turn on Monday's "Morning Joe" and hear Carl Bernstein dismiss any suggestion that Barack Obama might have any involvement in the much-large-than-a-hotel-break-in story about the IRS targeting conservative groups.
CARL BERNSTEIN: Lisa Myers' point is correct. In the Nixon White House, we heard the President of the United States on tape saying use the IRS to get back at our enemies. I'd be very surprised --
SCARBOROUGH: That is what you would call a smoking gun, right? If you have it on tape!
BERNSTEIN: We know a lot about President Obama.
SCARBOROUGH: Buchanan was right. They should have burned the tapes! But go ahead.
BERNSTEIN: We know a lot about President Obama and I think the idea that he would want the IRS used for retribution, we have no evidence of any such thing. I think we also got a look at all of these events in the last couple of days in terms of the poisonous hyper-partisanship and ideological warfare in Washington that is making governance impossible.
Watch the segment here: (H/T MRC)
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All The President’s Yes Men: Bernstein ‘Can’t Imagine’ Obama Involved In IRS Scandal
There was a time when Carl Bernstein was celebrated for speaking truth to power and relentlessly pursuing a president even though the rest of his colleagues didn't join him in following a political scandal that involved a second-rate break-in at the Watergate Hotel. Bernstein's work in bringing down President Richard Nixon became an inspiration for journalists everywhere.
How disappointed are all those journalists who joined the profession because they wanted to be the next Bob Woodward or Carl Bernstein as they turn on Monday's "Morning Joe" and hear Carl Bernstein dismiss any suggestion that Barack Obama might have any involvement in the much-larger-than-a-hotel-break-in story about the IRS targeting conservative groups.
CARL BERNSTEIN: Lisa Myers' point is correct. In the Nixon White House, we heard the President of the United States on tape saying use the IRS to get back at our enemies. I'd be very surprised --
SCARBOROUGH: That is what you would call a smoking gun, right? If you have it on tape!
BERNSTEIN: We know a lot about President Obama.
SCARBOROUGH: Buchanan was right. They should have burned the tapes! But go ahead.
BERNSTEIN: We know a lot about President Obama and I think the idea that he would want the IRS used for retribution, we have no evidence of any such thing. I think we also got a look at all of these events in the last couple of days in terms of the poisonous hyper-partisanship and ideological warfare in Washington that is making governance impossible.
Watch the segment here: (H/T MRC)
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Washington Post Breaks Watergate, Celebrates Secret McConnell Recording
Apparently, some secret recordings of politicians are more equal than others:
David Corn and Mother Jones find themselves with another audio scoop …
And just like that, Corn and Mother Jones had their second major bombshell in seven months. The first, of course, was one of the most consequential scoops of the presidential campaign — a leaked video recording of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney saying at a small fundraiser last May that “47 percent” of voters were “dependent” on the government. (Corn will receive the prestigious Polk Award for Political Reporting for the Romney story on Thursday.)
Corn, 54, says the two career-making stories might have been linked. He guesses that his source on the McConnell recording — whom he won’t reveal — came to him because of the way he handled the Romney recording and the firestorm it ignited. But that’s just speculation: “I literally don’t know why” the source came to him, he says. “I didn’t ask.”
That is from the Washington Post, the same once-legendary Washington Post that broke the Watergate story and brought down President Nixon.
Watergate involved a lot of illegal wiretapping.
And now a Democrat official is claiming that the very same recording the Washington Post is celebrating might have been obtained illegally. Moreover, the Post must have known that was a very real possibility when they published this story Thursday. The Post certainly knew the recording was a secret one.
I have always believed, with the exception of Bob Woodward, that -- all crimes being the same -- had Nixon had been a Democrat, the Washington Post never would have pursued Watergate. Now I have yet-another example to back that theory up.
The Washington Post disgraces its own legacy on a daily basis.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC
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How Woodward’s Truths and Sullivan’s Smears Expose Our Corrupt Media
A couple weeks ago, the last living legend in journalism, Bob Woodward -- the man who took down a corrupt president and for the last forty years has remained at the top of his profession -- made the biggest mistake of his career.
Woodward was caught red-handed using his own exhaustive reporting to expose President Obama as a liar for trying to tie ownership of sequester to the tail of congressional Republicans. Afterwards, based on his own opinion, Woodward was then busted for saying he was uncomfortable with a top White House official telling him he would "regret" reporting that Obama had moved the negotiating goal posts with respect to sequester tax increases.
Unlike so many others in his profession, Woodward wasn't caught lying or manufacturing facts. Nothing even close to that. His sin was only daring to step off the Narrative Plantation at the expense of President Obama. And for that sin, the recriminations from his so-called colleagues came fast and furious.
In other words, the media-collective was all geared up to deliver Obama a major sequester victory before Woodward came along and rained a bunch of facts down on their parade. And now, as payback, they are raining hell down on him with derision and ridicule that has lasted straight through to today. Throughout the Web, Woodward is now getting hammered via Slate (an outlet owned by his employer, The Washington Post) over his reporting in "Wired," a 1984 biography of the late John Belushi.
What's notable is that all of this is occurring in a media environment in whicg Eliot Spitzer is given two primetime cable news shows, Al Sharpton is an NBC News star, Dave Weigel has his own Slate blog, Ezra Klein's (of journList fame) and Ben Smith's stars are ever on the rise, Dan Rather is treated as an elder statesman, Brian Ross remains an ABC big shot, and the Internet's number-one smear-merchant, Andrew Sullivan, is treated like the media's favorite uncle.
For those of you who don’t know, Sullivan spent years manufacturing a vicious conspiracy around the parentage of Trig Palin, Governor Sarah Palin's youngest son. Currently, Sullivan is spreading smears about Pope Benedict and the Catholic Cardinals. Neither of these smears is based on anything approaching a journalistic standard. And yet, the media not only helps to aggregate these partisan smear campaigns; they treat Sullivan with respect and deference.
Earlier this year, after Sullivan was dumped by the Daily Beast, everyone from the New York Times to Politico to NPR came to his rescue with the affection and attention needed to ensure his new venture would be a success. All this for a man who launched a nasty "birther" style conspiracy against a Down Syndrome child and his mother.
Can you imagine the same media doing anything close to the same for someone who put a tenth as much effort into questioning Obama's birthplace or the parentage of one of Obama's daughters?
It's a revealing and very troubling fact that, even though Sullivan's unfounded rumor-mongering and character assassination passes nothing close to a journalistic standard and goes a long way towards defining his online identity, the media still embrace him. And we all know why. Because Sullivan is savvy enough to engage in the "correct" kind of unfounded rumor-mongering and character assassination.
You see, although Andrew Sullivan violates every rule of ethical journalism, the media still love and promote him, because he targets the "right" people. That was true with Palin and it's true today.
Since going independent, Sullivan's latest unfounded smear campaign is aimed directly at the Catholic Church. Without any evidence, he has accused the Holy Father of having a secret homosexual relationship. Later, Sullivan upped the ante by claiming "many" of the Catholic Cardinals are gay.
Other than a few media tsk-tsks, though, over the years, Sullivan has paid zero price for any of this behavior. In fact, these deliberate smear campaigns have likely helped to up his media profile and endear him to a left-wing media that secretly loves this behavior. How else to explain why there has been no pushback, no admonitions, no warnings from his peers about what this kind of "reporting" can do to one's career and credibility.
But who is having his career relentlessly undermined right now? Bob Woodward, for doing nothing more than reporting the truth and his opinion.
So, as you can see, the message from the media is abundantly clear: You can hurl all the unfounded claims and filth at the right without ever having to fear any kind of recrimination from your "journalist" peers. But should you report a truth about Barack Obama that derails his political goals, your peers will relentlessly destroy you and your legacy -- even if it means going all the way back to 1984.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC
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The Sad Truth About Immigration and the Sequester
Out of President Obama's sequestration doomsday predictions, the one which best encapsulates what famed Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward described as "madness" involves illegal immigration. And it is no laughing matter.
As Fox News reported, a few hundred illegal immigrant detainees were released by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, which probably led to the early "retirement" of ICE's Enforcement and Removal Operations Director Gary Mead. ICE plans to let loose between 5,000 and 10,000 additional illegal immigrants to meet the terms of the sequester. Confirming the story this week was The Washington Examiner.
But don't worry: Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has informed us that the illegals being released are "very low-level, low-risk detainees.” According to this New York Times profile, that can also be defined as illegals with convictions for “simple assault, simple battery, and child abuse." Are you comforted yet?
I have studied our porous Southern border closely. In 2006, I produced the award-winning documentary Border War: The Battle Over Illegal Immigration. Since that time, the situation and the drain on our social services and entitlement programs have become even more dire.
With President Obama rushing to give every illegal immigrant a pathway to citizenship, what he and our leaders in Congress should do is tell the truth about the state of the fence at our southern border and asking: Why hasn't the border fence been built?
To get that answer, we must look back to the Secure Fence Act of 2006, which was signed into law by President George W. Bush. While it authorized the construction of hundreds of miles of "at least two layers of reinforced fencing," the law was subsequently amended heavily by then-Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas and others who gave DHS bureaucrats the ability to use less secure fencing at their discretion.
As Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama pointed out during a February 13 Judiciary Committee hearing, with more than $600 million in appropriations, and out of the 700 miles of fence we were promised, only 36 miles of doubled-layered fence actually exist. The rest of the fencing consists of single-layer fence or just small "vehicle barriers" designed to stop cars, which any pedestrian could easily hop over. This is an outrage and one of the reasons Washington politicians are so unpopular.
Now, while the border fence construction has essentially stopped, Mexican cartels continue to smuggle weapons, drugs, and illegals into our country who are more likely to commit crimes and fill our prisons. The United State Attorney General's office has released statistical reports showing crime rates along the southern border is increasing, with drug smuggling posing a serious organized crime threat for the country. And throughout the border, desperate Southern states have erected signs warning citizens to avoid certain federal lands because of the high levels of human and drug trafficking.
Before Congress discusses comprehensive immigration reform, we must enforce the laws on our books, finish building a legitimate and effective fence for the 21st century, and further secure our border with boots on the ground. With enemies throughout the world who do not wear uniforms, our liberty can only be secure if we know exactly who is coming into the country. If we are a nation of laws, we cannot reward lawbreakers while punishing those who wait in line to find a better life. And if we are to cut the size of government while reducing the burden placed on law enforcement and social services, conservatives must unite and finally get our border secured first.
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CBS News Hits Obama on Sequester Overreach
Did Bob Woodward's noble decision to bolt from the Narrative Plantation prove to a brave few in media that you could indeed report honestly about Barack Obama and survive? Obama's serial sequester lies haven't become The National Narrative yet, but with his poll numbers already flopping, CBS deciding to do some real reporting is the last thing President Chicken Little needs:
The Obama administration has overreached three times in the past 10 days in attempting to illustrate the negative impact of the sequester spending cuts in the short term, giving fodder to those seeking to play down the impact of the cuts.
On Monday, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told reporters that major airports had seen lines ballooning to 150-200 percent their normal size. The Transportation Security Administration later clarified that it was not yet seeing longer-than-normal checkpoint lines, though Customs and Border Protection told CBS News there had been increased wait times at two airports due to reduced staffing.
Somewhere, in a dark White House room, Obama sits hunched over, head in hands, sobbing: "Why is the media acting like the media. Don’t they know who I am?"
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC
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Narrative Fail: Poll Shows Obama Sequester Blame Game Backfired
For weeks and weeks, the media aided and abetted President Obama's crying of wolf over sequester. As Obama hit the campaign trail (literally) to blame Republicans for the upcoming spending cuts that would result in the end of America as we know it, the media went right along with him every step of the way (my personal fave is here).
Meanwhile, it was conservative media reporting the truth -- the truth that it was Obama who had proposed sequester and signed it into law; the truth that Obama and a number of federal agencies had some discretion when it came to where these cuts would hit; the truth that the sequester cuts amounted to less than 2% of the budget and 1% of GDP; the truth that the original sequester deal did not include tax increases.
And then along came Bob Woodward…
To protect Obama's lies, much of the media tried to destroy Woodward for telling the truth, but after a few other brave journalists decided to bolt the Narrative Plantation and report the truth about Obama's lies, the toothpaste was out of the tube.
Sequester hit, the world did not collapse, and Obama and his media backed down from their unified cries of an impending apocalypse that was to be brought on by a government not bloated enough.
And now we know why…
Thirty-eight percent of Americans place more blame on the Republicans in Congress for the failure, while 33 percent blame President Obama and the Democrats in Congress more. Nineteen percent volunteer that they blame both sides.
When you add up those numbers, you discover that 52% of Americans blame Obama for sequester, while 57% blame the GOP. In other words, all that campaigning and water-carrying by the media did next to nothing to help Obama. More than half the country blames Obama, and he's only polling a measly 5% better than the GOP.
That's what you call a backfire.
And all it took was New Media telling the truth and a very few mainstream media reporters brave enough to do the same.
What we now have to hope is that this new concept of some in the elite media being willing to report honestly on this White House sticks, and starts to catch on.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC
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The Progressive Left’s Marvel Team-Up Act
Over the weekend, Bill Keller had the temerity to assign some blame for the sequester to President Obama. Within a day, the left's commentariat had settled the issue in Obama's favor, each linking to the other and repeating the claim that Keller was all wrong. Over at the Huffington Post, Jason Linkins summarized this group effort as a "Marvel team-up":
It takes a Marvel team-up of three different reporters, from three different news organizations, to perform this elementary act of real-keeping. Meanwhile, Bill Keller can, in one column, undo the work of Harwood, his New York Times colleague.
Linkins actually mentions four reporters at three different news organizations, though three of the four--Klein, Sargent and Chait--are progressives who can reliably be counted on to side with the President. As far as a takedowns go, "Three Like-Minded Progressives Defend Obama" isn't exactly red letter stuff, even if you throw in a tweet from a NY times reporter.
Linkins' comparison to Marvel Team-Up isn't meant to be taken as a serious point but it does point to something that deserves more attention: The narrowness of progressive debate. And since Linkins introduced the comic book analogy, I'll run with it a bit.
In case you're not a comic book nerd, Marvel Team-Up was a book in which Spiderman would get together with another hero to solve a problem, usually a plot by a minor supervillain. It was a chance to see Spiderman swing into action with someone like the Human Torch who didn't cross his path all that often. Often the heroes would cross swords for a bit before deciding to ally themselves for the duration of the mission.
It's not right to call the attacks on Keller a Marvel team-up because there's nothing remotely novel or unusual about it. These same progressive writers and a few dozen others at TPM, Mother Jones, Salon, Maddow Blog, etc. team up constantly. The progressive gang-tackle of Keller--or before that Bob Woodward or Mitt Romney--is about as surprising as sunrise and even more frequent.
The progressive left's network of writers may span different magazines and papers but they usually function as a team, tweeting, retweeting and linking to amplify one another's voices and attacks. For the most part, this happens with little input from anyone who wasn't formerly part of Klein's Jourolist a few years ago. They agree amongst themselves, citing one another for backup, and it's settled.
When the right does this sort of thing it's chastised as the right-wing echo chamber or a sign of epistemic closure. The latter is just a smart-assed way of saying the right doesn't listen to anyone outside their own bubble. That may be true at times, but the attack on Keller shows the professional left has the same problem. The moment anyone--even someone with Bill Keller's progressive bona fides--challenges the group consensus he is a villain who will be taken down in a web of hyperlinks and rhetorical fireballs.
Imagine Sean Hannity reversing his position on immigration. Actually, you don't have to imagine that since it happened recently. Is this a moment for the right to reflect on its position or a moment for the Avengers (in the form of conservative bloggers) to Assemble! and smack Hannity down for daring to thwart the party? It's not hard to guess which way folks on the left would frame it. The same reasoning should apply to their bitter response to Keller (and Woodward before that). Specifically, it's time for the left's Marvel Team-Up act to stop fighting reality and admit the President deserves a significant share of the blame for sequestration.
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The Floodgates Open: More Accounts of White House Thuggery Emerge
In the wake of last week's brouhaha between journalistic legend Bob Woodward and the Obama White House, other reporters have come forward to talk about their own experiences with the controlling and sometimes abusive administration.
Maureen Callahan of The New York Post talked to a number of reporters - some on the record - and some off, and they had interesting stories to tell.
“I had a young reporter asking tough, important questions of an Obama Cabinet secretary,” says one DC veteran. “She was doing her job, and they were trying to bully her. In an e-mail, they called her the vilest names — bitch, c--t, a--hole.” He complained and was told the matter would be investigated: “They were hemming and hawing, saying, ‘We’ll look into it.’ Nothing happened.”
The DC veteran ended up doing the same thing Ron Fournier finally did to stop the abusive emails and telephone calls he was receiving from his WH contact - he threatened to put it on the record.
He wound up confronting the author of the e-mail directly. “I said, ‘From now on, every e-mail you send this reporter will be on the record, and you will be speaking on behalf of the president of the United States.’ That shut it down.”
What kind of Stockholm Syndrome-like relationship do some of these reporters have with this White House? How can they be treated with such disrespect and contempt, and still remain loyal sycophants?
Case in point: Jonathan Alter:
Even Jonathan Alter — who frequently appears on the Obama-friendly MSNBC — came forward to say he, too, had been treated horribly by the administration for writing something they didn’t like.
“There is a kind of threatening tone that, from time to time — not all the time — comes out of these guys,” Alter said this week. During the 2008 campaign swing through Berlin, Alter said that future White House press secretary Robert Gibbs disinvited him from a dinner between Obama and the press corps over it.
“I was told ‘Don’t come,’ in a fairly abusive e-mail,” he said. “[It] made what Gene Sperling wrote [to Woodward] look like patty-cake.”
That didn't stop Alter from beclowning himself in October 2011 with his slobbering and over the top Bloomberg piece: Obama Miracle is White House Free of Scandal:
That was after Dealergate, DOJ Black Panther whitewash, the Obamafication of NEA art, the Sestak affair, the politically expedient IG Gerald Walpin firing, misspent Porkulous funds, the DOJ’s secret astroturf propaganda unit, the Shorebank scandal, oilgate, Blagojevich Rezko Obama corruption, his unaccountable Communist czars, Fast and Furious, The Gibson Guitar Raid, Solyndra and LightSquared.President Barack Obama goes into the 2012 with a weak economy that may doom his reelection. But he has one asset that hasn’t received much attention: He’s honest. (emphasis mine.)
Stop laughing – it gets better:
…the president’s Teflon is intriguing. How did we end up in such a scandal-less state? After investigating the question for a recent Washington Monthly article, I’ve been developing some theories. For starters, the tone is always set at the top. Obama puts a premium on personal integrity, and with a few exceptions…
There were 1642 comments to to that piece - almost all of them scathing.
To me, it's slightly scandalous that members of an administration would attempt to threaten or intimidate reporters who write things they don't like. But as I noted in my piece about Alter's ridiculous Bloomberg column, the reason the administration appears "scandal-less" is because so many reporters refuse to report on the scandals!
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