Bill Moyers Journal

[Bill McIntyre]

PBS ran an hour and a half program last night marking the return of Moyers to the network. I recorded it on my DVR and just got around to watching tonight.

The subject was the way in which the administration manipulated the public and the media in making the case for an invasion of Iraq. I can't possibly due the program justice, but I was struck by the way the New York Times and the Washington Post, papers that conservatives always accuse of being liberal rags, were used to lead us to war. They were afraid to print anything the least bit doubtful or ask the hard questions, and so was the great majority of the media.

The Administration would leak a story to the NYT, it would be on the front page of the Sunday edition, and then Cheney and the other attack dogs would go on the morning talk shows and cite the NYT as an independent source of a story that corroborated what the administration wanted to promulgate.

The Knight Ridder papers seem to have been the only major chain that asked tough questions and generally got it right, but by their own admission, they just aren't as influential as the Times and the Post and are not sold inside the beltway, so they don't get quoted all over the country.

Phil Donohue was interviewed on the program, and he said told what pressure there was from the network. You could put on a source backing the war all by himself, but if you put on a guy who was against it, you had to show balance by having an administration flack on the same program. After he had the guts to put on Scott Ritter, his show was canceled 12 days later.

I put a lot of hope in a free press as the institution who can save us, but they sure failed us this time.

[ITSABOUTTIME]

How shocking more acussations from Bill Moyers and Phil Donahue

[apnea_beast]

bill moyers is the man. the power of myth series with joseph cambell was awesome.

[Mikerotch]

Personally, I've never been a big fan of Moyers, and I am not at all a fan of Donahue, but I have absolutely no doubt as to the substance of said story. Any war that is undeclared must, by default, be propped up by other means. This again is one of the destinations we wind up at when we circumvent the constitution.

Mikerotch, Still Beating The Constitution Drum

[Bill McIntyre]

How shocking more acussations from Bill Moyers and Phil Donahue

So I take it that you don't think the administration was loose with the truth in its effort to justify the invasion of Iraq. You must really believe the stuff about the aluminum tubes, the yellowcake, the connection between Saddam and Al Queda, and the WMDs.

Or is it just easier to shoot the messenger?

[jackpine savage]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/27/washington/27intel.html?hp

[Bill McIntyre]

Geez, what's next? Its bad enough when the CEO of Ford would embellish a story about his stupidity when Corporate CEOs are not usually among the most left-wing pinko members of society, but now the former Director of the CIA piles on.

Will the CEO of Halliburton be turning on him too?

[Mikerotch]

Will the CEO of Halliburton be turning on him too?

Not with the blank check they've got. They will be the last to be critical of King George's administration.

Mikerotch, Professional Bush Basher

[riplipper]

I dont listen to much news because I would rather be ignorant than listen to the bullsh*t...thats my choice..

My big issue with the war crap is the vast majority of Dems, voted to go to war.....dont give me the crap that they were mislead....they had the same info as everyone else....they voted to go because the US people were "leaning that way" ...helped by 911 and possibly being mislead. The dems still could have voted no (at the risk of losing their voters) but they didnt...they voted for what was politacally popular at the time..

Once the war was "over" in three days...the dems felt great about their vote......then when crap turned sour and things got drawn out, fingers are pointed and stones start flying....

The moral of the story as I see it.....the dems are just as guilty for us being there as the reps....they could have voted NO, but didnt because of political backlash at the time of the vote.....
All politicians are self serving, egotistical, vote mongering, ass holes.

thats my soap box for the politcal forum and since I have chosen the path of ignorance from our daily news and political BS, life is much more enjoyable....Im done and going spearing :thumps:

[Bill McIntyre]

I dont listen to much news because I would rather be ignorant than listen to the bullsh*t...thats my choice..



That is certainly your choice, but I don't know how you can hope to have a valid opinion.

For instance, tonight I just watched Charlie Rose, recorded late last night. Of course he is on PBS, which automatically excludes him from consideration by many conservatives. But his guest for an entire hour, with no commercials, was General David Petraus, the guy who is supposed to make the surge work.

Charlie is a superb interviewer. He is very respectful and doesn't get into the face of his guest, but he asks very intelligent questions. He let the General give his opinion on the surge. I thought I learned a lot. Is it likely to change the world tomorrow? Probably not. But in at least some ways I thing I have more of a right to my opinion, having listened to a very important guy making the administration's case.

And of course, while I didn't get to watch, Charlie's guest for an entire hour a few days ago was President Bush. Do you think Bush would consent to that interview if he didn't think he would be treated fairly and offered an opportunity to make his case?

Why do people like Petraus and Bush, and people from the other side of the isle, let themselves be interviewed by people like Charlie? Do you see them being interviewed on the networks? Hell no, on the networks they would get a couple of minutes of questions with no chance to really give an intelligent response.

Anyway, it may seem quaint, but I think I have a duty as a citizen and a voter to listen to and read the news, and I try to listen to and read sources that are balanced and fair. I may come to different conclusions that do others, but at least I feel I have earned a right to my opinion.

When someone says he willfully doesn't listen to the news, then I wonder why he bothers to post in this forum.

[Oldsarge]

It's a shame there's no way to give karma on this thread. Well put, that Marine!

[riplipper]

That is certainly your choice, but I don't know how you can hope to have a valid opinion.

Anyway, it may seem quaint, but I think I have a duty as a citizen and a voter to listen to and read the news, and I try to listen to and read sources that are balanced and fair. I may come to different conclusions that do others, but at least I feel I have earned a right to my opinion.

When someone says he willfully doesn't listen to the news, then I wonder why he bothers to post in this forum.

Very well said Bill and I dont disagree.
I said I dont listen to much news....As soon as I get the first smell of political mud slinging I do turn it off immediatly...which as you would agree is most of the news...
My time is limited so I dont want to listen to a politician circle questions without answering them...Im not sure Ive ever listened to a debate where a person from either party answered a direct question.....other than maybe Ross Perot and we know where he ended up...but at least he answered the questions....no I am not a Ross fan...but I was impressed that he was at least somewhere near the right track.....run the govt like a business....very novel idea..

[chuam]

As much as everyone calls NPR and PBS left wing they do work hard to show both sides of the argument or at least let both sides speak.

It's the same reason why I listen to the BBC.

If only the rest of the US news programs could learn that being good journalists means trying to be unbiased and treating subjects with respect no turning them into 3 ring circuses.

I know they say it's what the people want but if that is true the american people are truly lost.

[riplipper]

The BBC is by far the best of the bunch.....NPR, well.... they just need people with at least a little bit of personality so I dont fall to sleep...But I do believe they tell it as it is...

[Bill McIntyre]

Speaking of News sources, we spent the day at the LA Times Festival of Books at the UCLA campus. They have panels of authors on every conceivable subject from kids books to crime novels to you name it, but of course we tend to go to the panels of authors who wrote more politically oriented or policy oriented books. The biggest problem is picking which ones you want to see since there are always several going on at the same time, and then sprinting across the hilly campus to get to the next one.

I could go on an on about it, but getting back to news sources, we went to one that was just a conversation between Sander Vanocur and Jim Lehrer talking about the current state of journalism and telling tales from their days as newspaper reporters. Now I think even more of Lehrer than I did before. He is warm, bright, and witty as hell.

[peterv]

"Anyway, it may seem quaint, but I think I have a duty as a citizen and a voter to listen to and read the news, and I try to listen to and read sources that are balanced and fair. I may come to different conclusions that do others, but at least I feel I have earned a right to my opinion."

I wish more felt the same way.
Listen, read, think, then make your own choices.

A plague on the screamers & dittoheads, left and right wing.

[Bill McIntyre]

That Bill Moyers Journal that I mentioned before was the special that started the series. But last night I recorded the first of the regular Friday night programs, and we just watched it.

The first 15 minutes was an interview with John Stewart, and it was terrific. Bill kept trying to say that what John did was journalism, while John kept denying it. I think I tend to agree with Bill.

As an aside, one of the panels that I attended at the Festival of Books today included Mark Halperin, political analyst for ABC News, and the guy that basically provides all the political research for all their programs. He said that no came close to the video research and editiing that Stewart used to show politicians contradicting themselves and proving that they had said things that they later denied.

Sure, Stewart's thing is comedy, but its comedy that makes a point. And I've always felt that he did great interviews with his guests. Unlike Colbert's interviews which are mostly fluff, he seems well prepared and asks good questions and respects the dignity of his guests.

On this program, Moyers showed an interview that Stewart did with John McCain, trying to force him to make sense of his support for the war. It was the only one of his interviews that I happen to have seen where he and his guest ended up shouting over each other. Stewart said he felt really bad that it came to that, but he felt like it was important. McCain ended up visibly wilting and looking at Stewart's chest while he tried to mount some sort of coherent save.

Anyway, I'm glad to have both of them to watch now.