BOOKS / Lamar W. Hankins : 'The Fox Effect' Poisons Public Discourse

The Fox Effect:
Disinformation that poisons public discourse

By Lamar W. Hankins / The Rag Blog / March 26, 2012

[The Fox Effect, by David Brock, Ari Rabin-Havt, and Media Matters for America (2012: Anchor); Paperback; 336 pp; $15.]

Sometimes education is not the answer, at least if the question is one that involves politics. A 2008 Pew report supports this proposition. What one believes about political issues is determined more by one’s view of the world than by facts.

There is more emotion involved with political beliefs than reasoning says the Pew study and another study by Dan Kahan at Yale University. Researcher and author George Lakoff suggests that people with authoritarian and individualistic orientations are less likely than others are to accept facts that are contrary to their emotional state.

More education does not fix this disconnect. Other researchers from Dartmouth and George Washington University have found that better-educated Republicans are more resistant to facts that aren’t emotionally satisfying than are their less well-educated compatriots.

Examples of this include the widespread (and false) belief among conservatives that the 2010 healthcare bill included “death panels,” the ridiculous proposition that Barack Obama is a Muslim, and the widespread right-wing fabrication that Obama is not a U.S. citizen. We’ll get to global warming in a minute.

Now, we have a new book that argues that the deliberate misrepresentation of facts by Fox News strengthens the conservative views of Republicans and poisons our political discourse.

The title of the new book by Ari Rabin-Hayt, David Brock, and their colleagues at Media Matters for America explains clearly its premise: “The Fox Effect: How Roger Ailes Turned a Network into a Propaganda Machine.” In case you were wondering whether these authors are nothing but a bunch of lefties and Democrats, the personal journey of David Brock might convince you otherwise.

Brock has worked for The Washington Times and The American Spectator, and he was one of the key people financed by Richard Mellon Scaife to look for heinous crimes committed by Bill and Hillary Clinton in Arkansas in an attempt to destroy Clinton’s presidency. He termed Clarence Thomas’s accuser during Thomas’s Supreme Court nomination hearings, Anita Hill, “a little bit nutty, a little bit slutty” in a book he wrote touching on Hill’s allegations of sexual harassment of her by Thomas.

Before Clinton’s presidency was over, Brock had his own Damascus Road experience and denounced his right-wing colleagues and himself for their sewer antics and dishonesty. Since that time, he has devoted himself to exposing conservative disinformation and misinformation, and was a founder of Media Matters for America.

Brock and Rabin-Hayt’s new book draws from memos leaked by disaffected Fox News employees to show that Fox is not just another news organization, but a propaganda mill whose purpose is to change the Republican Party into a political institution that satisfies the basest instincts of the neoconservatives who embody Fox News.

The Fox News Channel is in a real sense the alter ego of its president, Roger Ailes, who began his political career working for Richard Nixon and George H. W. Bush, for whom he produced the misleading, but politically brilliant, Willie Horton ad that shut down any chance Michael Dukakis may have had to become President.

To understand how close Fox News and Roger Ailes are to Republican Party politics, consider that in the week leading up to the first Tea Party events, Fox ran 100 promotional spots, all free. This largess fits in with Ailes’s desire to turn the party over to anti-government, libertarian, neoconservative forces. What Fox supports and promotes influences Republicans’ political beliefs more than the facts do. A clear example of this is the debate about global warming.

A University of Maryland poll shows that Fox News viewers believe overwhelmingly that there is no scientific consensus that we are experiencing man-made climate change. Notice that this proposition is not focused on what the viewers believe about man-made climate change, but on what they believe about the scientific consensus on that matter.

Their views have been so shaped by disinformation and propaganda broadcast by Fox News that they think there is no scientific consensus about climate change, a demonstrably untrue assertion. Now, the scientific consensus could be wrong, but there can be no doubt that such a consensus exists. Only dishonest reporters claim otherwise.

Fox viewers also believe that their taxes have increased under Barack Obama’s presidency, another position easily refuted, but one repeated so often on Fox that its viewers accept it as true. As Ari Rabin-Hayt says, all they need do is look at their own tax returns and they will see this proposition is false.

In a very real sense, Fox News is like the older brother of a friend of mine. When they argued as they were growing up, the older brother would make up facts so that he could win the argument. It didn’t matter to him that what he said was pure make-believe. He insisted that it was true, that he had read it somewhere, or that someone in authority provided the information -- so he could win the argument.

The authors of The Fox Effect acknowledge that Roger Ailes is brilliant as a producer of Fox News. But he has devoted his brilliance to harming the world by poisoning the arena where much public discourse occurs today -- the air waves of cable television.

Fox’s productions are excellent largely because Ailes insists on having high production values, utilizing great graphics and sets. Rabin-Hayt says that Fox News is more visually and auditorily appealing than other cable outlets.

Fox was the originator of the now-ubiquitous crawl -- the news ticker that appears at the bottom of television screens during shows. Ailes created the crawl in the aftermath of the 9/11 tragedy when the news was coming in too fast to cover in only one way.

According to the authors of The Fox Effect, Fox News presenters and commentators don’t present false information by accident. They do so intentionally. The head of Fox’s news division in Washington, Bill Sammon, has acknowledged that five days before the 2008 election, he went on air and called Obama a socialist even though he knew it wasn’t true.

This false allegation was repeated on 30 Fox segments just before the election. If the essence of good journalism is presenting the truth, what can you say about someone who has acknowledged in writing that he lied for political purposes on a news show?

The authors of The Fox Effect believe that the fundamental problem with Fox News is that it destroys our national debate because its commentators and producers refuse to stipulate what the known facts are.

For instance, we can’t debate about whether the cost of fixing climate change will be worth the expense of transforming our economy in fundamental ways, if that would be necessary to correct the problem of global warming, because Fox (and its adherents) will not stipulate the scientific consensus about the fact that we have man-made climate change.

Whether we should move our economy, for instance, away from carbon-based energy can’t be discussed because Fox will not acknowledge the core facts that would lead to that discussion.

According to the authors, Fox doesn’t necessarily create lies -- like the one about death panels during the health care debate -- but it amplifies and gives a forum to such lies. In Rabin-Hayt’s view, Fox "launders" the lies.

Because Fox’s lies have been exposed, Fox now has as much credibility as a political party has; that is, it is suspect. Fox has been the key propaganda arm of the Republican Party for many years and gave the Tea Party element of the Republicans more cachet than the Tea Party would ever have mustered on its own.

As a letter-writer to The New York Times put it:

"By passing off conservative jihadism as 'fair and balanced' reporting, Ailes and Fox have diminished the journalistic enterprise itself, contributing mightily to a communications universe in which research, facts and dialogue are seen as soft, boring and ineffectual compared with fear-mongering, Bible-thumping and race-baiting. Honest debate becomes impossible, and the entire marketplace of ideas on which a functioning democratic society depends is put at risk."

Just the point made by The Fox Effect.

This is why I have jokingly said that “friends don’t let friends watch Fox News,” at least not without adult supervision.

[Lamar W. Hankins, a former San Marcos, Texas, city attorney, is also a columnist for the San Marcos Mercury. This article © Freethought San Marcos, Lamar W. Hankins. Read more articles by Lamar W. Hankins on The Rag Blog.]

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Fight Global Warming Denial : George Will Distorts the Facts

Global warming is one of the most urgent issues facing our country and the entire world. In dealing with an issue of such magnitude, the [Washington] Post has a duty to provide the truth to its readers. George Will is entitled to his own opinions, but he is not entitled to his own facts.

By Ben Dimiero / February 23, 2009

As many in the progressive blogosphere have already documented, The Washington Post ran a column by George Will that misused data and distorted statements made by climate experts in order to suggest human-caused global warming is not occurring. The Washington Post has refused to correct the record. In response, we launched an e-mail writing campaign today demanding that they do so.

Below is the full text of the alert we sent out earlier today (which includes links to the email tool and to our item documenting Will's falsehoods.) If you need anything, feel free to get in touch.

Email Text:

Last week, The Washington Post ran a column by George Will that misused data and distorted statements by climate experts to suggest that human-caused global warming is not occurring. Despite the widespread outcry about Will's climate misinformation, the Post has refused to correct the record.

Now we need your help -- to demand that The Washington Post run a correction; visit:

http://mediamatters.org/action_center/willful_denial/


Will's distortions were unambiguous.

First, he misused data on global sea ice levels from the Arctic Climate Research Center (ACRC), wrongly suggesting that ACRC data undermine the overwhelming scientific consensus surrounding "man-made global warming." In fact, the ACRC says the opposite is true -- the sea ice data Will cited actually support the scientific consensus that humans are causing global warming.

Second, Will claimed that "according to the U.N. World Meteorological Organization, there has been no recorded global warming for more than a decade." Will cited no source and provided no quote for this claim. In fact, last year, the WMO said that the "long-term upward trend of global warming, mostly driven by greenhouse gas emissions, is continuing." And just last month, WMO secretary general Michel Jarraud reportedly said: "The major trend is unmistakably one of warming."

Third, Will rehashed the discredited myth that in the 1970s, there was broad scientific consensus that the Earth faced an imminent global cooling threat.

Instead of correcting Will's distortions, the Post has thus far refused to acknowledge that they exist. That is why it is vital you contact The Washington Post today and urge them to correct Will's column:

http://mediamatters.org/action_center/willful_denial/

Global warming is one of the most urgent issues facing our country and the entire world. In dealing with an issue of such magnitude, the Post has a duty to provide the truth to its readers. George Will is entitled to his own opinions, but he is not entitled to his own facts.

Thank you again for all you do.

Sincerely,

Eric Burns
President
Media Matters for America

Source / Media Matters for America

Also see Global Warming: A George Will Harrumph by Larry Ray / The Rag Blog / Jan. 22, 2009

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American Public Opinion Bucks Israeli PR Machine

Public opinion. Illustration courtesy of Pew Research Center.
'The same pundits who are cheerleading Israel's assault on Gaza once sold the occupation of Iraq to America, and with a nearly identical set of arguments.'
By Max Blumenthal / January 5, 2009

Almost as soon as the first Israeli missile struck the Gaza Strip, a veteran cheering squad suited up to support the home team. "Israel is so scrupulous about civilian life," Charles Krauthammer claimed in the Washington Post. Echoing Krauthammer, Alan Dershowitz called the Israeli attack on Gaza, "Perfectly 'Proportionate.'" And in the New York Times, Israeli historian Benny Morris described his country's airstrikes as "highly efficient."

While the cheerleaders testified to the superior moral fiber of their team, the Palestinian civilian death toll mounted. Israeli missiles tore at least fifteen Palestinian police cadets to shreds at a graduation ceremony, blew twelve worshipers to pieces (including six children) while they left evening prayers at a mosque, flattened the elite American International School, killed five sisters while they slept in their beds, and liquidated 9 women and children in order to kill a single Hamas leader. So far, Israeli forces have killed at least 500 Gazans and wounded some two thousand, including hundreds of children. Yesterday, the IDF blanketed parts of Gaza with white phosphorus, a chemical weapon Saddam Hussein once deployed against Kurdish rebels.

"It was Israel at its best," Yossi Klein Halevi declared in the New Republic.

By New Year's Day, Israel's cheering squad had turned the opinion pages of major American newspapers into their own personal romper room. Of all the editorial contributions published by the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and the New York Times since the Israel's war on Gaza began, to my knowledge only one offered a skeptical view of the assault. But that editorial, by Israeli novelist David Grossman, contained not a single word about the Palestinian casualties of IDF attacks. Even while calling for a cease fire, Grossman promised, "We can always start shooting again."

Israeli public relations agents fanned out to broadcast studios from the US to Europe, fulfilling an aggressive strategy conceived after the country's catastrophic 2006 attack on Lebanon. An analysis by Israel's foreign ministry of eight hours of coverage across international broadcast media concluded that Israeli representatives received a whopping 58 minutes of airtime compared to only 19 minutes for Palestinians. "Quite a few outlets are very favorable to Israel, namely by showing [its] suffering. I am sure it is a result of the new co-ordination," said Major Avital Leibovich, an IDF spokesperson who has become a fixture on cable news in the past weeks.

But while Israel's PR machine cranked its Mighty Wurlitzer to full blast, drowning out all opposing voices with its droning sound, a surprisingly substantial portion of the American public decided to dance to its own tune. According to a December 31 Rasmussen poll (so far the only measure of US opinion on the Gaza assault), while Americans remained overwhelmingly supportive of Israel, they were split almost evenly on the question of whether Israel should attack Gaza -- 44% in favor of the assault and 41% against it. The internals are even more remarkable.

While Republicans supported the assault on Gaza by a large margin, a predictable finding, only 31% of Democrats did. Members of the Democratic base thus stood in sharp contrast to most of their elected representatives (freshman Rep. Donna Edwards is a notable exception), who backed the latest Israeli assault in lockstep, and seem to support Israel no matter what it does. The rift between the progressive base and the party played out on Barack Obama's Change.gov site, which was deluged in recent days with demands for a statement condemning Israel's assault on Gaza.

So what accounts for the surprising trend in American opinion on Gaza? The proliferation of progressive online media and social networking sites could be a factor, but I have another theory: The same pundits who are cheerleading Israel's assault on Gaza once sold the occupation of Iraq to America, and with a nearly identical set of arguments. In their voices and those of the grim Israeli PR agents carted out for cable news, many Americans hear echoes of the Bush administration's most fantastical lies. When they see images of Gazans under withering bombardment, they flash back to Fallujah and the assorted horrors of Iraq. When they look at Israel, they see themselves during the darkest days of the Bush era.

Now, an increasing share of Americans know what Israel is doing to Gaza. And they reject it, even when Israel is "at its best."

Source / The Huffington Post

Thanks to David Hamilton / The Rag Blog

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The Media and Hamas : Vilifying the Victim

The dominant media are in high gear over Gaza. They vilify Hamas, stay silent about Gazan suffering, are mute on the crippling blockade, its devastating human toll, and practically champion Israel’s call for “all-out war” and the slaughter of defenseless men, women, children and infants.

By Stephen Lendman / January 2, 2009

The blame game -- no one plays it better than the dominant media, and they’re at it again over Gaza. Expect no comments below in their spaces, yet honest journalism would headline them.

After Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Franklin Roosevelt addressed Congress - with an appropriating updating for Gaza:

December 27 “will live in infamy.” The people of Gaza were “suddenly and deliberately attacked by….air forces of the” State of Israel. The “attack was deliberately planned many (months) ago. During the intervening time (Israel) deliberately sought to deceive (Palestinians) by false statements and expressions of hope for” the peace process.

“The (weekend and continued) attack(s) caused severe damage to” property throughout Gaza. In addition, “many (Palestinian) lives have been lost. The facts (on the ground) speak for themselves… this “unprovoked and dastardly attack” must not go unanswered.

Note the contrast. Japan in the 1940s sought accord, not conflict. Not America. FDR goaded them to attack through numerous harassments and provocations - selling arms to Tokyo’s enemies, denying Japan strategic resources and port access, as well as imposing a damaging embargo.

For its part, Hamas has been conciliatory and sought peace. It’s willing to recognize Israel in return for a sovereign Palestinian state inside pre-1967 borders - just 22% of it original homeland. In 2008 and earlier, it agreed to unilateral ceasefires in spite of repeated Israeli violations and Gaza in duress under siege. It responds only in self-defense when attacked as international law allows, yet Washington, Israel, and the West call it “terrorism.”

The dominant media also in their customary role - guarding the powerful and suppressing uncomfortable truths in lieu of full and accurate reporting. They’re in high gear over Gaza. They vilify Hamas, stay silent about Gazan suffering, are mute on the crippling blockade, its devastating human toll, and practically champion Israel’s call for “all-out war” and the slaughter of defenseless men, women, children and infants.

“The more damage to Hamas, the better the chances for peace” says the Wall Street Journal in a lead December 28 editorial headlined “Israel’s Gaza Defense.” The Journal rewrites history this way:

“The chronology of this latest violence is important to understand. Israel withdrew both its soldiers and all of its settlers from Gaza in August 2005. Hamas won its internal power struggle with Mr. Abbas’ Fatah organization to control Gaza in 2006. Since 2005 Hamas has fired some 6300 rockets at Israeli civilians from Gaza, killing 10 and wounding 780.”

“Hamas did agree to a six-month ceasefire earlier this year, during which the rocket attacks declined in number but never stopped. But Hamas refused to extend the truce past December 19, and the group has since resumed attacks…” Israelis in the south “live under constant threat, often in bomb shelters, and the economy has suffered. Yet the world’s media (only pays) attention when Israel responds to that Hamas barrage.”

The Journal’s op-ed page standard fare twists facts into a fabric of misinformation and agitprop, and when vilifying Hamas it’s vicious. A few corrections:

• Israel never disengaged from Gaza;
• it relocated its settlers to seized West Bank land to strengthen its hold on the Territory;
• it redeployed to new positions; re-enters Gaza at will; controls its airspace and coastline; movement within and between Gaza and the West Bank; virtually all other aspects of Palestinians’ lives; and since Hamas’ January 2006 electoral victory, falsely called it a terrorist organization; cut off all outside aid; imposed a crippling economic embargo; imprisoned 1.5 million Gazans in isolation; inflicted devastating human suffering; and stepped up oppression in an all too familiar pattern: repeated incursions, killings, targeted assassinations, mass arrests, incarcerations, torture, and all the rest;
• then, after mid-June 2007, collaboratively and at the behest of Washington and Israel, president Mahmoud Abbas declared a “state of emergency” (when there was none); he dismissed Hamas’ prime minister; appointed an “emergency” cabinet; split Palestinian authority between Gaza and the West Bank; incited internal conflict to divide and conquer; and acceded to Israel blockading Gaza - closing all border crossings; cutting off most essential to life supplies; creating critical shortages of everything; devastating local production and agriculture; sending poverty and unemployment soaring; and grievously harming the health and welfare of the population;
• no Journal op-eds condemn this; they call Israel the region’s “only democracy” and a model for others to emulate;
• no op-eds mention thousands of Palestinians killed, many more wounded, even greater numbers imprisoned, many uncharged, torture as official policy, and no chance for redress in Israeli courts;
• none mention previous Hamas unilateral ceasefires, one lasting 18 months despite repeated Israeli violations and continued other failures to observe international law;
• none explain that rocket fire from Gaza during Hamas’ ceasefire came from other elements in the Territory, not its own members;
• none say that Hamas uses crude, homemade rockets and light arms against the world’s fourth most powerful military, a nuclear power, with the latest home-produced and US supplied technology and weapons;
• nothing gets reported about over 60 years of Israeli state terror; the unimaginable harm it’s done; the continued theft of Palestinian lands; the destruction of their homes, crops and other property; the ethnic cleansing of its people; and Israel’s slow-motion genocide against a population too isolated and weak to contest it;
• no op-eds about one-sided media reporting; suppressing uncomfortable truths; defending the indefensible; ignoring Israeli crimes; vilifying Hamas without cause; Palestinians for being Arabs; and Arab Israeli citizens because they’re not Jews;
• no mention that the ratio of Arabs to Jews killed and harmed is disproportionately one-sided; or
• that Palestinians have endured a brutal, illegal 41-year occupation in violation of international law; Journal editors find those facts uncomfortable, unimportant so they ignore them.

Instead the Journal supports the Gaza siege, and says “If Hamas wants its people to have freer movement, it can stop sponsoring terror killings.” Even Arab leaders were “urged to demand that Hamas maintain the truce… so we could have avoided what happened.”

In the aftermath, Journal editors hold Hamas responsible as does Washington. Arab leaders “understand that (Hamas’ leaders), like Hezbollah, (are) increasingly allied with Iran and its goals for fomenting regional instability.”

In fact, despite pro-forma criticism and anger on Arab streets, leaders in the region’s capitals offered little support for Gazans for fear of antagonizing Washington and their powerful Israeli neighbor.

The Arab League won’t discuss a common response until a January 2 Doha summit, and when it does expect little more than from the UN. As for Arab foreign ministers, they postponed an “emergency” meeting until December 31, so the killing continues while they attend to more pressing business.

Journal editors have a message for Obama. He’s “about to discover that the terrorists of the Middle East (won’t) change their radical ambitions merely because America has a new president.” For their part, Palestinians will learn that the new one is no friendlier than the incumbent and may turn out even worse. White House occupants, key congressional members, and the entire Senate pledge unswerving support for Israel. At the same time, blaming their victims (and ours) is one of Washington’s favorite spectator sports.

On December 28, the Journal gave two noted Israeli flacks prominent space - Michael Oren of Jerusalem’s Shalem Center and Yossi Klein Halevi of the Shalem Center’s Adelson Institute for Strategic Studies for their op-ed headlined: “Palestinians Need Israel to Win.”

They claim that while Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni “implore(d) Egyptian leaders (on December 19) to urge restraint on Hamas… prime minister Ehud Olmert told viewers of Al-Arabiyah Television that Israel had no interest in a military confrontation” at the very time it was long-planned and about to be unleashed.

“If Israel was guilty of acting disproportionately, it was in its willingness to seek any means, even at the risk of its citizens’ lives, to resolve the (brewing) crisis diplomatically.” The writers blame the UN for not condemning Hamas and for “growing media criticism of Israel.”

Israeli security comes first, and “Gaza is the test case. Much more is at stake than merely the military outcome.” It’s about Israel’s “deterrence power and uphold(ing) the principle that its citizens cannot be targeted with impunity.” They’re not unless Palestinians are attacked first and even then have little to fear beyond their government’s own rhetoric.

Syria is an issue as well… “triggering the Gaza conflict only deepens Israeli mistrust. The Damascus office of Hamas, which operates under the aegis of the regime of Bashar al Assad, vetoed the efforts of Hamas leaders to extend the ceasefire and insisted on escalated rocket attacks.”

The Gaza conflict may “intensify with a possible incursion of Israeli ground forces. Israel must be allowed to conclude this operation with a decisive victory over Hamas…. This is an opportunity to redress Israel’s failure to humble Hezbollah (in 2006), and to deal a substantial setback to another jihadist proxy of Iran… without Hamas’ defeat, there can be no serious progress toward a treaty that both satisfies Palestinian aspirations and allays Israel’s fears. At stake in Gaza is nothing less than the future of the peace process.”

Their rhetoric defies comment. It’s breathtaking, mirror opposite of the truth, and credible only to the truest of true believers of the most dubious analysis the two writers lay out.

New York Times Press Handout-Style Journalism

The Times‘ 1997 proxy statement calls itself “an independent newspaper, entirely fearless, free of ulterior influence and unselfishly devoted to the public welfare” in reporting “all the news fit to print.” No media source anywhere has more clout. None more effectively influences world opinion, and none show more one-sided support for Israel, disdain for Palestinian rights, and justifying the unjustifiable when they’re so grievously harmed.

It’s December 29 Ethan Bronner/Taghreed El-Khodary “No Early End Seen to ‘All-Out-War on Hamas in Gaza” article is typical. It highlights Israel’s aim “to cripple Hamas’ ability to fire rockets into Israel,” never mentioning they’re for legitimate self-defense and never preemptively fired. It calls Hamas a “terrorist organization” when, in fact, it’s Palestine’s legitimate government. It respects the rule of law, and it fearlessly defends the rights of its people. It reports nothing about its democratic election, its seeking peace and rapprochement, its unilateral ceasefires, its support by the great majority of Gazans, and the efforts it makes for them in spite of overwhelming challenges under siege.

Instead it states that “Hamas killed four Israelis on (December 28) after firing more than 70 rockets, including a long-range one into the booming city of Ashdod some 18 miles from Gaza, where it hit a bus stop, killing a woman and injuring two other people. Earlier a rocket hit nearby Ashkelon, killing an Israeli-Arab construction worker and wounding three others. The other dead Israelis… were a civilian in the Negev desert and a soldier.”

“Thousands of Israelis huddled in shelters as the long-range rockets hit streets or open areas in… the most serious display of Hamas’ arsenal since the Israeli assault began.” It referred to “Hamas gunmen,” reported that “Israel would widen and deepen the attack if necessary… until Hamas no longer had the ability to fire rockets into Israel.” It said that Israel has “nothing against the citizens of Gaza and that it had more than once offered its hand in peace to the Palestinian nation.”

“Israel sent in some 40 trucks of humanitarian relief, including blood from Jordan and medicine. Egypt opened its border with Gaza to some similar aid and to allow some of the wounded through.” No mention of the Gaza siege, the devastating pre-conflict humanitarian crisis, or that Egypt’s president Hosni Mubarak initially ordered his soldiers to shoot Gazans breaching border barriers, then only reluctantly allowed in some of the seriously wounded for medical treatment.

“Meanwhile in Israel, sirens wailed over mostly empty streets in the seaside city of Ashkelon. Storefronts were battered shut. Families clustered inside the city’s stretches of towering white apartment blocks and single-family houses. Weary of venturing too far outside, they scurried into protected rooms when sirens sounded, listening for the sound of another rocket crashing somewhere in their city. ‘It’s frightening, but what can we do?’ asked a high school senior.”

Plenty the Times won’t report. Ask your government to stop attacking Gazans so they won’t respond in self-defense. Demand that Palestinian rights be respected, the illegal siege ended, the IDF aggression stopped, and the occupation of the West Bank. Insist Israeli laws apply equally to Arab citizens, that Palestinians no longer will be persecuted, that peace will take precedence of war, that Israel will engage its neighbors, not attack them, and that real democracy will replace the sham kind now practiced.

Make it impossible for the (outrageous December 29) New York Times‘ “War Over Gaza” editorial to be written. It begins:

Israel must defend itself. And Hamas must bear responsibility for ending a six-month cease-fire this month with a barrage of rocket attacks into Israeli territory. Still we fear that Israel’s response… is unlikely to weaken the militant Palestinian group substantially or move things any closer to what all Israelis and Palestinians need: a durable peace agreement and a two-state solution.

Hamas’ leaders, especially those safely ensconced in Damascus, are unconcerned about their people’s suffering - and (are) masters at capitalizing on it.” The writer urges other Arab leaders “to cajole or more likely threaten Hamas (or its patrons in Syria and Iran) to accept a new cease-fire (read “surrender”).

The editorial claims most casualties were “Hamas security forces” when, in fact, the great majority are civilian men, women and children, including police with no military connection. It stresses Ehud Barak’s promised “war to the bitter end.”

It says there’s “no justification for Hamas’ attacks or its virulent rejectionism,” but turns a blind eye to Israel’s culpability. It refers to the failure of the never was and never will be “peace process” but won’t report that Washington and Tel Aviv won’t tolerate one. That they choose dominance over peace, violence over reconciliation, and conquest above the rule of law.

It claims Condoleezza Rice sought Middle East peace, and it’s up to Barack Obama to accomplish it himself - when, in fact, Democrats and Republicans one-sidedly support Israel, seek dominance over Middle East states, want a subservient Hamas like Fatah, back the Gaza conflict to weaken its effective rule, and are for the illegal occupation of Palestine to continue.

Times‘ articles reveal more about what they don’t report than what they do. They:

• leave Israeli brutality unexplained; its vicious 41 year occupation;
  let Gaza images inciting world outrage go unpublished;
• suppress Israel’s continued waging of the bloodiest, most unjustifiable war on Palestine since 1967;
• won’t report how its current air strikes hit civilian targets (including residential neighborhoods, homes, workshops, medical warehouses, a sewage lagoon, a plastics factory, a TV broadcasting center, universities and mosques) while claiming only military ones are attacked;
• don’t explain the terror on ordinary Gazans; the traumatizing effects on children and how psychologically damaged they are;
• the night phone calls Israeli intelligence personnel make to families, ordering them out of homes to be bombed;
• Gaza’s humanitarian crisis compounded by Israel’s “war to the bitter end;”
• the immensity of Israel’s crimes of war and against humanity; its mockery of the rule of law; its worse than apartheid South African practices according to observers who know.
• the near-silence and inaction of the international community; the compliance of regional Arab states;
• the Palestinians’ total isolation; Gaza’s tighter than ever siege; the media mostly barred from entering and when allowed are few in number, carefully screened, and greatly circumscribed; reports are from Gazans on the ground; they include much higher death and injury totals; hundreds still alive but clinically dead and will perish; surgeries performed without anesthesia because little to none is available; and the impossibility of proper medical care because of Israel’s imposed blockade.

The Gaza-based Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) reports that “its field workers have faced extreme difficulties in documenting crimes due to the dangers of getting close to” bombed areas and the chaos throughout the Territory as war rages round the clock. Yet they do what they can throughout Gaza and in horrific pictures they take and publish - images suppressed in America.

It urgently asked the UN Human Rights Council to act under its (”Uniting for Peace”) UN Resolution 377 authority. It permits the General Assembly to address peace and security matters when the Security Council doesn’t do it. General Assembly President Miguel D’Escoto said: “the time has come to take firm action if the UN does not want to be rightly accused of complicity by omission.”

As of New Year’s day, Ma’an News reported 428 known killed (other reports are higher) and over 2000 injured, many too seriously to survive.

On December 28, the US vetoed a Security Council draft resolution to end Israel’s “disproportionate use of force” on Gazans. The vote was 11 ayes, three abstentions (Britain, Germany and Bulgaria), and one nay - America. John Negroponte did the dishonor following a long-standing practice of blocking any UN condemnation of Israel, regardless of how justified.

The Security Council held an emergency meeting on New Year’s eve at which Negroponte again rejected a legally binding resolution condemning Israel and demanding its attacks stop. At the same time, Israel rejected pressures for a 48-hour ceasefire to allow in humanitarian aid. According to the New York Times, “The government said it would push ahead with its air, sea, and ultimately ground operation, which one senior military official described as ‘making Hamas lose their will or lose their weapons.’ ”

Earlier on December 30 at 5:00AM, Israeli gunboats (without warning) attacked the humanitarian boat Dignity (in international waters 90 miles from Gaza) bringing three tons of medical supplies. It was rammed three times, heavily damaged, and took on water. Israelis also threatened to shoot its occupants and fired machine guns overhead and around it attempting to head it off. It managed to get to the Lebanese port of Tyre in the afternoon. Luckily no one was injured. The Free Gaza Movement founder, Paul Laurdee, said 11 Israeli vessels surrounded Dignity, ordered it to stop, but it refused.

The New York Times was silent on the incident. However, on December 29, it gave pro-genocide historian Benny Morris space for his “Why Israel Feels Threatened” op-ed - a disturbing justification of Israel’s attacks and warning of much more to come. This by an advocate of attacking Iran with nuclear weapons and a believer in ethnic cleansing who once described Palestinians as “wild animal(s who have) to be locked up in one way or another…. When the choice is between destroying or being destroyed, it’s better to destroy.”

He paints a totally disingenuous picture of isolated Israel surrounded by hostile neighbors and losing support from the West. “To the east, Iran… to the north, the Lebanese fundamentalist Hezbollah… to the south… the Islamist Hamas movement (controlling) the Gaza Strip.”

These “dire threats” make Israel “feel that the walls - and history - are closing in on their 60-year-old state.”

Israel threatened? Syria, Lebanon and Iran should worry based on past and current provocations. No country attacked Israel since the 1973 Yom Kippur war, and none today would dare - given its military strength, nuclear arsenal, and close ties to America and the West.

Morris cites another threat - demography. The 1.3 million Israeli Arabs “offer the recipe (for the) dissolution of the Jewish state.” They’ve become “radicalized, embrac(e) Palestinian national aims,” Jews see them as a “potential fifth column,” and, with their higher birthrate, will outnumber Israeli Jews by 2040. Within five years, Arabs may become the majority in pre-1948 Palestine.

According to Morris, Israel is endangered because of its commitment to “Western democratic and liberal norms.” Violence in Gaza resulted, and “it would not be surprising if more powerful explosions were to follow” - a clear assessment that slaughter is OK in the name of “self-defense” and an indication that the Times agrees.

The Los Angeles Times‘ Misinformation “primer on Gaza, Israel, and some key factors behind the current violence.”

On December 30, Michael Muskal wrote it asking:

– “Why is Israel attacking Hamas? To curb rocket attacks he maintains, when, in fact, neutralizing the government is the real aim, destroying its ability to rule effectively, weakening its support on the ground, and, in the end, co-opt it like Fatah and the PLO under Arafat; rocket attacks are just pretext.

– “What is Hamas?” An Islamist group founded to destroy Israel and refuses to accept its right to exist, he claims. In fact, after its establishment during the First Intifada (in 1987), Israel supported it against the PLO (as it now backs Fatah against Hamas). Ever since, it’s been an effective resistance movement. Its goal - ending Israel’s illegal occupation through negotiation and international consensus, not terrorism, war, or denying Israel’s right to exist. However, its charter states that it wants peace, equity and justice for all Palestinians; supports the weak; defends the oppressed; and will fight for its rights if Israel won’t grant them peacefully. Hamas is clear on its willingness to recognize Israel in return for a Palestinian state inside pre-1967 borders - a nonstarter for Israel.

– “Does Hamas speak for all Palestinians? No. Hamas gunmen took full control of Gaza in the summer of 2007. The West would prefer to deal with (Fatah’s) Abbas, who has shown a willingness to negotiate with Israel, and it tried to topple Hamas with economic and political sanctions.” No is right as well as the West going along with Washington and Israel trying to topple Hamas, but unmentioned is the crippling siege. Hamas is a legitimate political group with a military wing for defense, not offense. They’re not “gunmen” or militants. Abbas’ subservience endears him to America and Tel Aviv. Hamas is independent. It champions Palestinians’ rights, and therein lies the conflict.

– “If Hamas is so opposed to Israel, why did it agree to a truce? Hamas had hoped to end the blockade, but the cease-fire collapsed in November and expired Dec. 19. Abbas blamed Hamas for prompting the Israeli attack by refusing to extend the cease-fire.” True on the first point. False or misleading on the rest. Hamas declared a ceasefire unilaterally. Israel never respected it and killed over two dozen Gazans while it was in force. Abbas blamed the victims and absolved the aggressor in deference to Tel Aviv and Washington - in betrayal of his people for his own political aims.

– “What has been the response to the Israeli attacks in the Arab world?” Saying that anti-Israeli demonstrations have been held in several countries greatly understates how many, their size and where. They’re large and growing and are being held across America, throughout the Middle East, and in many other countries worldwide.

“What about Egypt? (It) opposes Islamic radical groups, including its own Muslim Brotherhood, which helped give birth to Hamas. Egypt has a difficult relationship because they share a border (and) clashes have been reported between Palestinians and Egyptian security forces at border crossings?” Half truths and misleading. Egypt is allied to Washington and Israel. It opposes the Muslim Brotherhood and all independent opposition to president Hosni Mubarak’s dictatorship. Egyptian forces initiated border clashes by firing on Gazans trying to escape the violence.

– “What about the US?” A “power vacuum” suggests Muskal until Obama takes office. Unexplained is a continuity of policy that unswervingly supports Israel, its right to wage aggressive war, violate international law, slaughter Gazan civilians, maintain its illegal occupation, and deny Palestinians their right to self-determination.

– “What has the Bush administration done?” Saying it blamed Hamas and asked Israel publicly to avoid civilian casualties is right but misleading. For eight years, George Bush disdained Palestinian rights, supplies Israel with billions of dollars in aid, the latest weapons and technology, and full support for its occupation, oppression and aggressive wars.

– “What about the Obama administration?” Repeating his saying the US has only one president at a time is right. So is affirming his strong support for Israel. Unmentioned is his indifference to Palestinian issues and that chances for regional peace will be no greater than under George Bush so expect little hopeful change.

– “How do Israeli politics figure in the equation? Muskal is right in relating the current conflict to Israel’s February 10 elections. A new prime minister and Knesset will be chosen and polls show a large majority of Israelis back its government’s attacks. Acting tough could prove a winning strategy even at the expense of human lives and less security than without conflict.

Misinformation like the above is de rigueur throughout the dominant media, especially when it comes to Israel. Tel Aviv can do no wrong even when it inflicts vast amounts of destruction, massacres hundreds of civilians, and injures tens of hundreds more, defenseless against its onslaught.

Profiting from Human Slaughter

On December 27, the London Guardian reported that the “Israeli far right gains ground as Gaza rockets fuel tension.” Jerusalem-based Toni O’Loughlin wrote that pre-conflict polls showed “the Israeli public calling for harsher military strikes in Gaza.” It’s been a boon for former Likud member Avigdor Lieberman’s extremist Yisrael Beiteinu. It advocates ethnic cleansing by revoking Israeli Arabs’ citizenship and transferring Palestinian towns in Israel to PA control.

Likud leader, Binyamin Netanyahu also stands to gain because he states: “In the long run, we have no choice but to topple Hamas rule… we have to go from passive response to active assault.” That got Kadima’s foreign minister Tzipi Livni saying: “Israel must topple the Hamas rule in Gaza and a government under my command will do just that.” Campaigning is in high gear for the upcoming February elections with all sides vying to look toughest.

War rages as a result, and according to Alternative Information Center in Jerusalem founder Michael Warschawski: “all Israeli leaders are competing over who is the toughest and who is ready to kill more.” Mass slaughter makes good campaign politics, and whoever looks the meanest may become Israel’s next prime minister. Follow the body count for clues. Watch TV clips of Tzipi Livni disheveled with no makeup to show machismo, and as Tariq Ali puts it: “dead Palestinians are little more than election fodder” and may help Kadima retain power.

Justifying the Unjustifiable

On December 28, O’Loughlin in the Guardian headlined: “Israel mounts PR campaign to blame Hamas for Gaza destruction” as Kadima put positive spin on mass murder and destruction.

Israeli media suggested the following preceded the attack:

• six months of intelligence-gathering to pinpoint bases, weapons silos, supplies, training camps, senior officials’ homes, and other strategic targets, including civilian ones; the attack also began exactly at 11:30AM Saturday when children just finished morning classes, were in the streets, and others were en route to school;
• disinformation and deception were used to keep the media and public uninformed and off guard;
• Hamas was lulled momentarily into a false sense of security to give the initial onslaught maximum tactical effectiveness;
• on December 26, food, fuel and other humanitarian supplies were let into Gaza as part of the deception; and
• when the assault came, officials justified it saying “patience ran out” to hide their real motives.

Ahead of the attack, Britain, the EU, Egypt and Saudi Arabia were briefed, and Israel coordinated everything with Washington the way it’s always done at least since the 1967 war. According to the Jerusalem Post, the Bush administration also supplied the Israeli Air Force with “a new bunker-buster missile” called GBU-39 - a small-diameter bomb for low-cost, high-precision, minimal collateral damage strikes.

Congress authorized 1000 of them in September, and defense officials said the first shipment arrived in early December for use in penetrating underground Gaza Kassam launcher sites and bombing Egyptian border tunnels in Rafah through which emergency supplies were funneled.

Israel’s PR spin began before the assault. According to the Guardian, “the foreign ministry honed its message and amassed its staff… Israeli diplomats were recalled from holidays and ordered back to work, and in” Sderot, a multilingual media center was opened to brief foreign journalists.

Everything was orchestrated. At the right moment, Tzipi Livni called foreign ministers in Washington, London, Russia, China, France and Germany as well as EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. She also briefed around 80 international representatives and dignitaries in the Sderot media center. World leaders spread her message, blamed Hamas for “breaking” the ceasefire, and claimed Israel had to respond.

Israeli envoys around the world did the same, and Livni vowed to end Hamas rule if elected. She told Kadima party members and the media that “The State of Israel, and a government under me, will make it a strategic objective to topple the Hamas regime. The means… should be military, economic and diplomatic.”

As war rages, Israel is in full spin mode. According to Haaretz, even Fatah loyalists say Gaza is “Allah’s revenge” - referring to the 2007 clashes that secured Gaza for Hamas and left Fatah, under Abbas, in control of the West Bank. For his part, prime minister Ehud Olmert said the bombardment is “the first of several stages approved by the security cabinet” - a clear signal of more to follow and Israel’s intent to destroy Hamas’ effectiveness and render it as weak as possible.

Livni also released a document to the Israeli and world press spreading deceit, disinformation, exaggeration, and agitprop. Examples included:

• “Israeli citizens have been under the threat of daily attack from Gaza for years;
• Only this week hundreds of missiles and mortar shells were fired at Israeli civilian communities;
• Until now we have shown restraint; but today there is no other option than a military operation;
• We need to protect our citizens from attack through a military response against the terror infrastructure in Gaza;
• Israel left Gaza in order to create an opportunity for peace;
• In return, the Hamas terror organization took control of Gaza and is using its citizens as cover while it deliberately targets Israeli communities and denies any chance for peace;
• We have tried everything to reach calm without using force; we agreed to a truce through Egypt that was violated by Hamas, which continued to target Israel, hold Gilat Shalit, and build up its arms;
• Israel continues to act to prevent a humanitarian crisis and to minimize harm to Palestinian civilians.”

These and other statements blame Hamas for the violence; accuse it of being a terrorist organization backed by Iran; has a radical Islamic agenda; is the enemy of all Palestinians seeking peace; is criminal under international law, and seeks Israel’s destruction.

These comments are from Israel’s foreign minister and a leading candidate for prime minister; someone representing a state founded on terrorism by massacring and ethnically cleansing Palestinians from their land; that disdains international law; illegally occupies Palestine; collectively punishes its people; denies them self-determination; their right of return; seizes their land; demolishes their homes; imprisons and tortures their people, impoverishes them; denies them free movement, essential services, employment and enough food and clean water; destroys their crops and factories; and grants them no judicial redress because they’re Arabs in a Jewish state or under occupation.

On December 31, Livni was in Paris meeting with president Nicolas Sarkozy, foreign minister Bernard Kouchner and other officials. In response to a French two-day truce proposal, she rejected the idea saying: “there is no humanitarian crisis in the Strip, and therefore there is no need for a humanitarian truce.”

Protests Worldwide Over Gaza

Carnage and destruction trump spin, and it shows worldwide on city streets - across the Arab world, in America, the EU, London, and even parts of Asia, Latin America and Africa.

The New York Times reported that “After four days of Israeli airstrikes on Gaza, an outpouring of popular anger is putting pressure on American allies in the Arab world and appears to be worsening divisions in the region.” Egypt has been especially pressured because it’s a close US and Israeli ally. But “demonstrations continued… from North Africa to Yemen.”

Al Jazeera reports that protests spread across the Middle East, and in the West Bank Israeli troops opened fire, killed one Palestinian, and critically injured two others. One was declared brain damaged from a bullet to his head. In Yemen, “tens of thousands of people gathered in and around a stadium in the capital, Sanaa, chanting anti-Israeli slogans and criticizing Arab leaders for failing to act.”

It’s been much the same in Cairo, Beirut, Baghdad, and dozens of other world capitals. In Tehran, students broke into the British Embassy’s residential compound, vandalized buildings, and replaced the British flag with a Palestinian one.

Al Jazeera added that several members of Jordan’s parliament burned the Israeli flag in protest and called for the expulsion of Kadima’s ambassador. In Lebanon, hundreds of Lebanese and Palestinian refugees staged a sit-in near the Beirut UN office. Hezbollah condemned the attacks as a “war crime and a genocide that requires immediate action from the international community and its institutions.”

Its statement called on Arab countries to “take a firm stand and exert its utmost efforts against the Israeli barbarism - which is (endorsed) by the US - and the international community (must) stop this ongoing massacre.”

In Damascus, thousands were in Yusif al-Azmeh square shouting slogans and displaying flags of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), Hezbollah, Syria, Iraq and Palestine. From loudspeakers, calls were for “jihad” against Israel and for continuing the “struggle in the name of God.”

Protests across Iraq took place - in Baghdad with messages supporting Gaza, anti-Israeli slogans, and the Palestinian ambassador, Dalil al-Qasoos, saying: “Gaza will remain steadfast in the face of Americans and Zionists whatever the plots and conspiracies hatched by tyrants and arrogant enemies.”

Across Britain as well in Belfast and London where hundreds demonstrated in front of the Israeli embassy and outside the BBC.

In Washington, 5000 gathered at the State Department and marched to the White House. In San Francisco, over 10,000 protested in front of the Israeli consulate. In Los Angeles, around 5000 did the same, and in New York thousands more were at the Israeli consulate waving Palestinian flags and chanting “Free Palestine.” Similar demonstrations were held in dozens more US cities, including Chicago, Boston, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Philadelphia, Portland, Houston, Dallas, Seattle and in Hawaii in front of Obama’s vacation compound where he remains indifferent.

On January 2, the ANSWER Coalition, Muslim American Society Freedom, and National Council of Arab Americans plan a major protest at the Israeli embassy in Washington and at the Egyptian embassy as well.

Expressions of World Outrage

On December 29, a National Lawyer’s Guild (NLG) press release condemned the Israeli massacre, called for a ceasefire and urged participation in New York protests. NLG president and Thomas Jefferson School of Law professor Marjorie Cohn stated:

“The Human Rights and Security Assistance Act mandates that the United States cease all military aid to Israel, which has engaged in a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights.” America, like Israel, disdains international law and has supplied Tel Aviv governments with tens of billions of aid, weapons and technology for decades, and as explained above, with special bunker-buster bombs to attack Gaza. It also partners in Israeli aggression, assists all aspects of it, and provides cover through vocal support and UN resolution vetoes for it to continue.

On December 29, the Arab Association for Human Rights (HRA) condemned Israel’s Gaza attack, its slaughter of civilians and “violation of all international laws and treaties,” and its crippling siege as “another crime and collective punishment against (over 1.5 million Gazans) living in an atmosphere of continued terror and intimidation.”

HRA also denounced world leaders for failing to speak out or act and thus effectively give “a green light for Israel to escalate its siege, topped with the barbaric bombardment” of Gaza and its people. “The Security Council’s non-binding statement (calling for “an immediate halt to all violence” and for both sides “to stop immediately all military activities”) is evidence of (the UN’s) incompetence (and impotence) in implementing its primary duty in maintaining world peace and security.”

In his “Dachau to Gaza” article, law professor, international law expert, and former PLO legal advisor Francis Boyle compared Washington and Israel’s aims to Hitler’s Munich Pact for Germany to occupy and annex the Sudetenland. Today it’s to seize Palestinians’ land and deny them “self-determination and a real independent state of their own.” As a result, he fears a “high probability that history will repeat itself” in more conflict.

In 1986, he visited the US Embassy in Tel Aviv, complained about “criminal Israeli occupation practices,” its violations of international law, and that America “has an absolute obligation to use its enormous political, military and economic leverage over Israel to terminate (these) practices immediately.”

Yet since Israel’s establishment in 1948 and its post-1967 occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, Washington has one-sidedly supported Israel and denied Palestinians their “freedom, justice, dignity, respect and independence.” One day, America must end this policy and “order Israel out of Palestine.” Until then, no Middle East peace is possible and the possibility of greater conflict exists.

Like others wanting war crimes to be punished, Boyle also advocates “An International Criminal Tribunal for Israel (ICTI) as “the Only (possible) Deterrent to a Global War.” He urges the General Assembly to establish one as a “subsidiary organ” under Article 22 of the UN Charter. It would be similar to those for Yugoslavia (ICTY) and Rwanda (ICTR) to:

“investigate and prosecute Israeli war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide against the People of Lebanon and Palestine.” It would “provide some small degree of justice to the victims” of decades of Israeli crimes, thus far committed with impunity. “It would also have a deterrent effect” on current Israeli leaders and generals and force future ones to obey international laws or face similar prosecution.

Without legal restraints, Boyle, like others, fears possible new Middle East conflict that could “degenerate into World War III,” not by intent but by accident, much like WW I developed. He urges General Assembly action to prevent it at a time attacks on Gaza persist, the Arab street is enraged, and the longer fighting continues, the greater the risk of something far greater.

Israel is a serial aggressor. Its lawlessness can no longer be tolerated. Mass outrage and world pressure must build for a global campaign for boycott, divestment and sanctions until its human rights abuses stop, its war crimes are punished, its occupation and colonization end, Palestinian refugees have the right to return, and the people of Gaza and the West Bank achieve their long-denied self-determination rights in an internationally recognized sovereign state, free from Israeli oppression. For people of conscience, that’s Resolution One for the new year.

Source / Dissident Voice

Thanks to Devra Morice / The Rag Blog

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Shades of Whitewater : Media Attempts to Tie Obama to 'Blagogate'

Media Frenzy by Amer Sahoury of Clio High School in Michigan, from the 2008 Congressional Art Competition.

The similarities between the media's current behavior and their shameful performance in the 1990s doesn't stop with their bizarre suggestions that geography is destiny. ...One of the central flaws of the media's coverage of the Clintons was that they portrayed nearly everything as evidence of guilt.

Media Matters: Media pick up where they left off 8 years ago
by Jamison Foser / December 12, 2008

To anyone who lived through the media feeding frenzy of the 1990s, during which the nation's leading news organizations spent the better part of a decade destroying their own credibility by relentlessly hyping a series of non-scandals, the past few days, in which the media have tried to shoehorn Barack Obama into the Rod Blagojevich scandal, have been sickeningly familiar.

Whenever reporters think -- or want you to think -- they've uncovered a presidential scandal, they waste little time in comparing it to previous controversies.

Yesterday, CNN's Rick Sanchez tried desperately to get the phrase "Blagogate" to stick -- the latest in a long and overwhelmingly annoying post-Watergate pattern of ham-handed efforts to hype a scandal by appending the suffix "-gate" to the end of a word.

Sanchez's efforts to create a catchphrase aside, the criminal complaint filed against Blagojevich this week isn't the Watergate of the 21st century -- though it shows signs that it may become this decade's Whitewater.

Right about now, you may be scratching your head, trying to remember what, exactly, the Whitewater scandal was. Didn't it have something to do with a bank? Or a land deal? But didn't the Clintons lose money? How did the congressman who shot the pumpkin fit in?

But Whitewater is quite simple, when it is understood as it should be -- as a media scandal, not a presidential scandal.

As an endless series of investigations, costing taxpayers tens of millions of dollars, revealed, the Clintons broke no law and violated no ethics regulations in connection with Whitewater. They lost money on a failed land deal in which their business partner cheated them. That's all there was. Republicans Ken Starr, Robert Fiske, Robert Ray, Al D'Amato, and Jim Leach, among others, investigated the matter, and none of them found illegality. There was simply nothing there -- except year after year of obsessive, and often dishonest, media coverage, fueled by conservatives who would stop at nothing to destroy the president.

As Joe Conason explains today, "The madness that was eventually classified under the quasi-clinical rubric of 'Whitewater' began, in no small degree, with the dubious idea that Arkansas, the Clintons' home state, was a peculiarly corrupt place -- and that any politician from Arkansas by definition was suspect (but only if he or she happened to be a Democrat)."

Arkansas journalist Gene Lyons noted in Fools for Scandal, his 1994 book about how the media invented Whitewater, "Scarcely a Whitewater story has appeared in the national press that hasn't made references to the state's uniquely 'incestuous' links between business, government, and the legal establishment -- concepts utterly foreign to places like Washington, D.C., and New York City, of course." (Conason and Lyons co-wrote The Hunting of the President, a book that -- along with Fools for Scandal -- are must-reads for anyone interested in the media or politics.)

By portraying Arkansas as thoroughly, and uniquely, corrupt, the media (and Clinton's political opponents) tied him to a long line of misbehavior that had nothing to do with him -- and created the impression that Clinton must be corrupt merely for being from such an ethical cesspool.

Of course, Arkansas was neither thoroughly nor uniquely corrupt.

In addition to the ages-old clichés -- big cities like New York and Chicago; the anything-goes Wild West of Las Vegas and Texas; perennial whipping boy New Jersey -- countless other states and cities have reputations for "unparalleled" corruption. People experienced in Connecticut politics will forcefully argue that their state takes a back seat to no other when it comes to the frequency with which public officials are caught in various degrees of wrongdoing. Then there's Florida, about which the less said, the better. And on and on and on.

Such reputations stem not only from actual examples of actual corruption -- California gave us Nixon; Maryland gave us Agnew; two of the Keating Five, including John McCain, hailed from Arizona -- but from the fact that many people, particularly those who work in politics and the media, tend to engage in a bit of tongue-in-cheek bragging about their home city or state's propensity for scandal.

The point isn't that everyplace is corrupt, or that nowhere is. It's that no location has a monopoly on crooked politicians (nor has there yet been a location over which crooked politicians held a monopoly) -- and that any claim of a city or state's unique history of public officials abusing their office should be taken with a whole shaker of salt. (For what it's worth, USA Today determined this week that "[o]n a per-capita basis ... Illinois ranks 18th for the number of public corruption convictions the federal government has won from 1998 through 2007," behind both Dakotas, Alaska, Alabama, Florida and several other states.)

And yet, here we are again, with an incoming Democratic president who hails from a city we are all supposed to believe is the most corrupt place this side of Dick Cheney's undisclosed location. Chicago, we are told, is a den of villainy so irredeemable it defies credulity to suggest anyone could emerge from so much as a long layover at O'Hare without a closet full of skeletons.

This nonsense was well under way during the presidential campaign, during which John McCain suggested a lack of integrity on Obama's part simply because he is from Chicago. You might think that a man who was a participant in one of the most notorious scandals in the history of the U.S. Senate would be laughed at if he tried to claim his opponent lacked integrity simply because of his ZIP code. Instead, the national media laughed along with McCain, endlessly repeating his witty zinger about Chicago.

And so this week, we've heard over and over how politics in Illinois are rotten to the core.

At Obama's press conference yesterday, the third questioner asked, "What's wrong with politics in Illinois?" Chris Matthews made sure viewers knew that "Barack Obama, of course, rose to political power in a city, Chicago, in a state, Illinois, known for corruption."

ABC's Rick Klein chimed in: "[W]ith one stiff wind, Chicago has grabbed Obama and his transition -- and blown it off-course. ... The underbelly of the Obama political operation, with all its Chicago tints and taints, is now fair game for reporters looking for a story." (Nonsense. If the "Obama political operation" has an "underbelly" featuring actual wrongdoing, it's fair game whether or not a governor is busted in a scandal that has nothing to do with Obama. And if that "underbelly" hasn't actually done anything wrong, Blago's bust doesn't change that -- regardless of tint or taint.)

On his radio show, Bill O'Reilly asked Chicago Tribune columnist John Kass if it is even possible for Obama to have existed in Chicago without being dishonest, leading Kass to reply: "Yes, that is possible. It's also possible that he was found as an infant in a reed basket floating in the Chicago River."

The similarities between the media's current behavior and their shameful performance in the 1990s doesn't stop with their bizarre suggestions that geography is destiny.

One of the central flaws of the media's coverage of the Clintons was that they portrayed nearly everything as evidence of guilt. Perhaps most perverse was the suggestion that the conviction of Clinton Justice Department official Webster Hubbell was evidence of wrongdoing by the Clintons. What made that so perverse? Hubbell was convicted, essentially, of stealing money from the law firm in which he and Hillary Clinton were both partners. Hubbell, in other words, stole from Hillary Clinton. The Clintons were Hubbell's victims -- and yet many journalists portrayed his conviction as evidence of their guilt.

Which brings us to Tuesday's New York Times. As Will Bunch has explained, the Times reported that Obama supported an Illinois ethics reform package that passed over Blagojevich's veto, which led to Blagojevich pressing state contractors for contributions before the reform takes effect, which "indirectly contributed to the downfall." Good news for Obama, right? He supported a reform package, even urging the state Senate to pass it over Blagojevich's veto. And yet the Times concludes that this story demonstrates that Obama "has never quite escaped the murky and insular world of Illinois politics" -- as though the fact that Blagojevich allegedly did something improper in an effort to avoid the effects of the reform Obama championed somehow taints Obama. Bizarre.

Most telling is the tendency of many journalists to speculate that the Blagojevich scandal may ensnare Obama without acknowledging that the complaint against Blagojevich contained absolutely no evidence of wrongdoing by Obama, or that U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald has said, "I should make clear, the complaint makes no allegations about the president-elect whatsoever, his conduct." (You may remember The New York Times' reaction to the Resolution Trust Corporation investigation that exonerated the Clintons of Whitewater wrongdoing in 1995: The "paper of record," which had been relentlessly hyping the non-scandal, all but ignored the RTC report and continued pushing Whitewater.)

Even worse than ignoring Fitzgerald's exculpatory comments, Time actually suggested they are bad news for Obama:

On more than one occasion during his stunning press conference on Tuesday, U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald bluntly said he has found no evidence of wrongdoing by President-elect Barack Obama in the tangled, tawdry scheme that Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich allegedly cooked up to sell Obama's now vacant Senate seat to the highest bidder. But for politicians, it's never good news when a top-notch prosecutor has to go out of his way to distance them from a front-page scandal.

Got that? Fitzgerald said there's no evidence Obama did anything wrong. Bad news for Obama! (For the record: The reason Fitzgerald "has to go out of his way" to distance Obama from the scandal is that news organizations like Time keep going out of their way to baselessly link Obama to the scandal.)

Such attempts to link Obama to scandal via tortured logic and geography rather than more substantive ties were necessary because of the complete lack of substantive ties.

Perhaps the most striking aspect of the media's attempts to link Obama to the Blagojevich scandal has been the volume of news reports that are purely speculative -- and not only speculative, but vaguely speculative. That is, they don't even consist of conjecture about specific potential wrong doing. They simply consist of completely baseless speculation that Obama might in some way become caught up in the investigation at some point in the future, for some reason. It's little more than, "Maybe Obama will be involved." Well, sure. And maybe he'll play shortstop for the Washington Nationals next year.

Associated Press reporter Liz Sidoti set the standard for pointlessly speculative news reports with an "analysis" piece declaring that "President-elect Barack Obama hasn't even stepped into office and already a scandal is threatening to dog him." In the very next sentence, Sidoti had to admit that "Obama isn't accused of anything" -- but that didn't stop her from continuing to offer ominous warnings that Obama could be implicated in the scandal, interspersed with concessions that he, you know ... isn't.

Not that Sidoti was unique in stringing together a bunch of coulds and mights and maybes and ifs to create something that vaguely resembles -- but is certainly not -- an actual news report.

ABC's Rick Klein, for example:

The scandal surrounding Blagojevich, the Democratic governor of Illinois, may or may not implicate members of Congress, in addition to at least the outer ring of advisers in the incoming Obama administration.

Got that? The scandal may or may not implicate members of Congress. Awfully hard to argue with that. The modifier "at least" is a nice touch, too -- suggesting that the outer ring of Obama advisers has already been implicated in the scandal (they haven't).

That was par for the course this week, as reporters breathlessly asked what Obama knew and when he knew it (the decidedly non-scandalous answers are apparently "very little" and "very recently").

If you want to make a "scandal" stick to someone despite the inconvenient truth that they aren't actually guilty of the purported wrongdoing in question, one thing you do -- if you're the media covering a Democratic president, or an overzealous conservative -- is continually expand the scandal's definition. So the "scandal" grows and evolves into an amorphous mass of innuendo as political opponents and journalists begin throwing everything against the wall, hoping something will stick.

Eventually what begins as a land deal (in which the Clintons did nothing wrong and lost money) includes an investigation of the tragic suicide of a White House staffer -- and the next thing you know, some B-list congressman is traipsing into his backyard with a shotgun, taking aim at a perfectly innocent pumpkin because the voices in his head told him that gunning down some produce would somehow "prove" that the staffer was murdered as part of an elaborate cover-up of ... well, of nothing. There was nothing to cover up, and no murder to cover it up. The pumpkin died in vain.

And so on Wednesday, the Associated Press issued an article headlined "Questionable associations of Obama." Prompted by the Blagojevich scandal -- which, again, involves no indication that Obama did anything wrong -- the article announces, "In his life and career in Illinois, President-elect Barack Obama has crossed paths with some notable figures who have drawn scorn and scrutiny."

From there, the AP proceeds to describe several such "notable figures," most of whom have little if anything to do with Obama -- or the Blagojevich scandal. What, for example, is Jeremiah Wright doing here? None of their connections to Obama involve so much as a hint of an allegation of legal or ethical wrongdoing. To the extent they are controversial, it is for their views. They couldn't possibly have less to do with the Blagojevich scandal; there is no conceivable reason for the AP to bring them up now -- except to try to fling a bunch of garbage against the wall in hopes of something, somehow, sticking. It's as though the AP, recognizing how tenuous Obama's ties to the Blagojevich scandal are, tried to make it look more substantial by tossing in a bunch of other "notable" ties.

Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz complained that it took Obama "24 hours" to decide that Blagojevich should resign, worrying "that kind of excessive caution" could "define his presidency."

Obama called for Blagojevich's resignation within 24 hours, and Howard Kurtz thinks that wasn't fast enough. It's so fast, Kurtz had to measure the time elapsed in hours rather than days. And yet, Kurtz thinks it constituted excessive foot-dragging. This is simply not a sane assessment. It's a desperate attempt to find something to criticize about Obama. Obama is not involved in the scandal, so Kurtz sits by with a stopwatch, trying to document Obama's slow response to it.

CNN's Wolf Blitzer announced yesterday that "some are calling this Obama's first presidential scandal." It isn't. There is no evidence he has done anything wrong. This is not Obama's first presidential scandal -- but it shows signs of becoming the first media scandal of the Obama presidency.

Obviously, the news media should aggressively investigate and report on actual involvement in actual wrongdoing by public figures. There was far too little of that reporting during the Bush administration. (Remember when the media refused to report on the Downing Street Memo? Good times.)

If the news media regains a bit of the skepticism so many of them set aside for the past eight years, that would be an unequivocally good thing, and it should be applauded.

But this week brought signs that much of the media is set to resume the absurd and shameful behavior that defined the 1990s -- guilt by association, circular analysis whereby they ask baseless questions about non-scandals, then claim they have to report on the "scandal" because the White House is "besieged by questions," grotesque leaps of logic, downplaying exculpatory information, and too many other failings to list.

If that happens -- if the media continue to behave as they did in covering Whitewater -- they will damage the country. It's really that simple. We cannot afford to be distracted from serious problems by overheated conjecture and baseless insinuation masquerading as journalism.

Not to mention the outright fabrications. To take just one of many examples, Jeff Greenfield and ABC selectively edited Hillary Clinton's comments during a Whitewater press conference, then accused her of lying -- an accusation that, based on Clinton's full comments, was clearly false. It was a shockingly dishonest report; Greenfield and ABC were simply lying about Clinton -- there's really no other way to put it. Those involved should have seen their reputations take a serious hit -- at the very least. Yet they suffered no consequences due to their dishonorable and unprofessional actions.

That's how the media behaved the last time we had a Democratic president. They devoted wall-to-wall coverage to invented "scandals," ignored exculpatory evidence, saw evidence of guilt everywhere, took people out of context in order to accuse them of lying, and generally behaved like a pack of wild animals who couldn't tell right from wrong or truth from fiction -- or who simply didn't care. As a group, they behaved without ethical standards and without regard for the truth.

It's our responsibility -- all of us -- to make sure it doesn't happen again.

[Jamison Foser is Executive Vice President at Media Matters for America.]

Source / Media Matters

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ACORN and 'Voter Fraud' : Bogus Issue Missreported

Top: ACORN voter registrar in New Mexico. Photo by Clayton Kennedy / ACORN. Above: Nevada investigators raid Las Vegas ACORN office looking for evidence of 'voter fraud.' Photo by J.C. Hong / AP.
Media revive pattern of reporting on alleged "voter fraud" concerns, despite lack of evidence
By Eric Boehlert and Jamison Foser / October 16, 2008

See 'Evidence points to ACORN's sloppiness, but not fraud' by Greg Gordon, Below.

In recent weeks, media outlets have revived the cyclical practice of highlighting allegations by conservatives of voter fraud. In this election cycle, the primary target of those allegations appears to be the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), over reports that some people hired by ACORN have submitted false or redundant registration forms. Once again, the media are devoting great attention to these charges, even though in past election cycles, charges of voter fraud have largely proven baseless.

Indeed, according to the Nexis news database, in the period October 6-15, the phrase "voter fraud" has appeared in 221 articles in U.S. newspapers, including five Washington Post articles, two New York Times articles, and one USA Today article. Moreover, "voter fraud" has appeared in 43 CNN news transcripts, 31 Fox News transcripts, and four MSNBC transcripts during that time. For example, The Washington Post reported on October 14 that "Republican officials and advisers to Sen. John McCain" accused ACORN of "fomenting voter fraud." It also reported that "[t]he charges have come repeatedly, in news releases, conference calls to reporters and remarks on the campaign trail. Republican National Committee spokesman Danny Diaz called ACORN a 'quasi-criminal group' last week during one of a series of news conferences, charging that the group was committing fraud during its voter-registration drives. 'We don't do that lightly,' RNC chief counsel Sean Cairncross said."

The media's focus on these charges just before elections is not new. A Media Matters for America search of Nexis indicates that numerous stories about voter fraud appeared in major newspapers and on television news in the weeks leading up to the 2000, 2002, 2004, and 2006 elections. Yet the U.S. Department of Justice crime statistics cast doubt on the existence of widespread voter fraud. On April 12, 2007, The New York Times reported, "Five years after the Bush administration began a crackdown on voter fraud, the Justice Department has turned up virtually no evidence of any organized effort to skew federal elections, according to court records and interviews."

In an April 1 American Prospect article, U.S. News & World Report and Washington Monthly contributing editor Art Levine wrote:

Using various tactics -- including media smears, bogus lawsuits, restrictive new voting laws and policies, and flimsy prosecutions -- Republican operatives, election officials, and the GOP-controlled Justice Department have limited voting access and gone after voter-registration groups such as ACORN. Which should come as no surprise: In building support for initiatives raising the minimum wage and kindred ballot measures, ACORN has registered, in partnership with Project Vote, 1.6 million largely Democratic-leaning voters since 2004. All told, non-profit groups registered over three million new voters in 2004, about the same time that Republican and Justice Department efforts to publicize "voter fraud" and limit voting access became more widespread. And attacking ACORN has been a central element of a systematic GOP disenfranchisement agenda to undermine Democratic prospects before each Election Day.

In fact, while a 2005 Senate Republican Policy Committee paper claimed, "[v]oter fraud continues to plague our nation's federal elections, diluting and canceling out the lawful votes of the vast majority of Americans," Justice Department statistics indicate that few actual instances of voter fraud have been prosecuted in recent years. According to a report by the Justice Department's Criminal Division of prosecutions between October 2002 and September 2005, the Justice Department charged 95 people with "election fraud" and convicted 55. Among those, however, just 17 individuals were convicted for casting fraudulent ballots; cases against three other individuals were pending at the time of the report. In addition, the Justice Department convicted one election official of submitting fraudulent ballots and convicted five individuals of registration fraud, with cases against 12 individuals pending at the time of the report. Thirty-two individuals were convicted of other "election fraud" issues, including people convicted of offenses arising from "a scheme to block the phone lines used by two Manchester [New Hampshire] organizations to arrange drives to the polls during the 2002 general election" -- in other words, these convictions were connected to voter suppression efforts, not voter fraud. Several other people listed in the report were convicted of vote buying.

Additionally, a 2007 report by New York University's Brennan Center for Justice stated:

There have been several documented and widely publicized instances in which registration forms have been fraudulently completed and submitted. But it is extraordinarily difficult to find reported cases in which individuals have submitted registration forms in someone else's name in order to impersonate them at the polls. Furthermore, most reports of registration fraud do not actually claim that the fraud happens so that ineligible people can vote at the polls. Indeed, we are aware of no recent substantiated case in which registration fraud has resulted in fraudulent votes being cast.

Nevertheless, media outlets continue to report on allegations of possible voter fraud in advance of elections. For instance, between October 14, 2004, and the November 2 election that year, two USA Today articles, 49 CNN transcripts, and 37 Fox News transcripts containing the term "voter fraud" appear in Nexis. Media Matters searched Nexis for news reports containing the term "voter fraud" in the weeks leading up to the 2000, 2002, 2004, and 2006 elections in The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal, and USA Today, and in news transcripts from CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, and NBC. (Media Matters did not examine the substantive content of these reports). Results of the search were as followed:

October 14-November 7, 2000

Los Angeles Times: 5

The New York Times: 1

The Washington Post: 1

CNN: 6

Fox News: 2

MSNBC: 1

October 14-November 5, 2002

Los Angeles Times: 8

The Washington Post: 5

USA Today: 1

Fox News: 7

CNN: 6

MSNBC: 1

October 14-November 2, 2004

The Washington Post: 10

Los Angeles Times: 8

The New York Times: 8

USA Today: 2

CNN: 49

Fox News: 37

NBC: 10

MSNBC: 9

ABC: 3

CBS: 3

October 14-November 7, 2006

The New York Times: 6

Los Angeles Times: 2

The Washington Post: 2

USA Today: 2

CNN: 16

Fox News: 9

MSNBC: 4

ABC: 2

CBS: 2

From the April 12, 2007, New York Times article:

Five years after the Bush administration began a crackdown on voter fraud, the Justice Department has turned up virtually no evidence of any organized effort to skew federal elections, according to court records and interviews.

Although Republican activists have repeatedly said fraud is so widespread that it has corrupted the political process and, possibly, cost the party election victories, about 120 people have been charged and 86 convicted as of last year.

Most of those charged have been Democrats, voting records show. Many of those charged by the Justice Department appear to have mistakenly filled out registration forms or misunderstood eligibility rules, a review of court records and interviews with prosecutors and defense lawyers show.

In Miami, an assistant United States attorney said many cases there involved what were apparently mistakes by immigrants, not fraud.

In Wisconsin, where prosecutors have lost almost twice as many cases as they won, charges were brought against voters who filled out more than one registration form and felons seemingly unaware that they were barred from voting.

One ex-convict was so unfamiliar with the rules that he provided his prison-issued identification card, stamped "Offender," when he registered just before voting.

A handful of convictions involved people who voted twice. More than 30 were linked to small vote-buying schemes in which candidates generally in sheriff's or judge's races paid voters for their support.

A federal panel, the Election Assistance Commission, reported last year that the pervasiveness of fraud was debatable. That conclusion played down findings of the consultants who said there was little evidence of it across the country, according to a review of the original report by The New York Times that was reported on Wednesday.

—J.H.

Source / County Fair / Media Matters

Evidence points to ACORN's sloppiness, but not fraud
By Greg Gordon / October 15, 2008

WASHINGTON -- Republicans and their allies in the media and on the Internet are ramping up allegations that the liberal-leaning nonprofit voter registration group ACORN is trying to steal next month's presidential election for Democrat Barack Obama.

Conservative media outlets and Web sites are focusing on ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. According to TVeyes.com, Fox News alone has mentioned ACORN stories 342 times in recent days.

In nearly a dozen states, county registrars have found phony voter registration applications submitted by canvassers for ACORN; criminal investigations are under way in Nevada, Ohio and elsewhere; and a racketeering suit was filed in Ohio this week. The mounting evidence of ACORN's sloppy management and poor supervision, however, so far doesn't support the explosive charges that the group is trying to rig the presidential election.

Larry Lomax, the registrar in Clark County, Nev., said he would estimate that 25,000 of the 90,000 applications submitted by ACORN this year were duplicates or phony.

However, Lomax said in a phone interview with McClatchy Newspapers: "I don't think ACORN consciously sets out to turn in fraudulent forms. I just think the people they hire find it incredibly easy to rip off their bosses and turn in fake forms."

While he criticized ACORN's quality control, Lomax said he doubted that any of the fake filings would result in fraudulent votes.

Election officials say that registrations under names such as Mickey Mouse or Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo suggest that ACORN workers were trying to fill their quota of 20 applications to get paid, not to steal the presidency. They say that county registrars or poll workers would flag such obvious pranks, and that anyone who signed a poll book in another person's name would risk being prosecuted for a felony.

ACORN, which boasts that it has registered 1.3 million mostly poor African-Americans this year, said that it's alerted authorities to many of the suspicious applications. ACORN officials said the group has fired numerous workers who filled in forms with names from the phone book or the Dallas Cowboys starting lineup rather than trekking from door to door.

Moreover, said ACORN spokesman Scott Levenson, state laws in most of the 21 states where the group is active require it to turn all new registrations over to election officials. The group follows that policy even in states where it's not required, but ACORN notifies election officials of suspect registrations in all states. "It is our policy to turn in them all," Levenson said.

Nevertheless, Republicans have seized on the reports to attack Obama, who led a voter registration drive on Chicago's South Side in 1992 for Project Vote, a group that later hired ACORN to register voters. They also pointed to the Obama campaign's hiring of an ACORN affiliate for get-out-the-vote efforts and to his role, while on the board of two Chicago charities, in approving hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants for ACORN.

On Tuesday, the conservative-leaning Buckeye Institute filed a racketeering suit against ACORN in Warren County, Ohio, a Republican stronghold in the southwestern part of the state. The suit, nearly identical to a 2004 suit that was withdrawn after the election, seeks to avoid the dilution of legitimate votes, but doesn't contend "that the election is going to be stolen," said attorney Maurice Thompson, who filed it.

Ohio ACORN spokeswoman Kati Gall called the suit "a political stunt."

Republican Sen. George Voinovich of Ohio followed the suit Wednesday with a letter asking U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey to work with Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner "to investigate swiftly any allegations of fraud in Ohio's voter registration process." Separately, a Republican National Committee lawyer argued that convicted felons who work for ACORN shouldn't be allowed to register voters in Milwaukee.

ACORN has long been a target of Republicans, including the Justice Department under former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. Five days before the 2006 election, interim U.S. Attorney Bradley Schlozman of Kansas City trumpeted the indictments of four ACORN voter registration workers, despite a department policy discouraging politically sensitive prosecutions close to elections. Schlozman is now facing a criminal investigation into the veracity of his congressional testimony about that and other matters.

Wade Henderson, the president of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, said he thinks that the Republican attacks on ACORN "are part of a concerted effort to ... discredit the registration of many new voters who may well determine the outcome of the presidential election."

Source McClatchy / Miami Herald

ACORN, in its own words.

ACORN is the nation’s largest grassroots community organization of low- and moderate-income people with over 400,000 member families organized into more than 1,200 neighborhood chapters in 110 cities across the country. Since 1970, ACORN has been building community organizations that are committed to social and economic justice, and won victories on thousands of issues of concern to our members, through direct action, negotiation, legislative advocacy and voter participation. ACORN helps those who have historically been locked out become powerful players in our democratic system.

To learn more about ACORN, go here.

And see ACORN and Voting Rights Groups Respond to Partisan Attacks / ACORN / Oct. 15, 2008

Also see Who Gets to Vote? / by Amy Goodman / truthdig / Oct. 16, 2008

And Conyers Says Of ACORN: Voter Fraud Allegations 'A Right-Wing Cottage Industry' / AHN / Oct. 17, 2008

And ACORN cracked open: Thieves hit Hub office / by O'Ryan Johnson / Boston Herald / Oct. 17, 2008

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