(photo: vividBreeze/flickr)

Isn’t it interesting how the US establishment media, even as it went out of its way to push the Republicans’ distorted talking points on Hilary Rosen’s comments concerning Ann Romney, simultaneously ignored things that might not reflect well on Mrs. Romney or her very wealthy husband — things like the full history of her birthday party host Fred Malek, aka Nixon’s Jew Counter?

And no, Malek was not merely following Nixon’s orders, as Timothy Noah points out:

But here’s what Malek left out. Four of the people on Malek’s Jew list got demoted, with Malek’s active involvement. This is what Malek denied to the Post‘s Woodward and Pincus in 1988 (when Woodward and Pincus identified two of the four but were unable to prove the Malek link). “In no way did I take part in moving anyone out of the BLS,” Malek told Woodward and Pincus. “If I had even been peripherally involved or asked to alter someone’s employment status I would have found it offensive and morally unacceptable, and I would have refused.” Please note this comparatively rare instance in which a Washington hack tells a lie in the subjunctive tense. Malek was more than peripherally involved. And he most certainly did not refuse.

The proof is a memo that was withheld from Woodward and Pincus but was made public many years later. The memo, from Malek to Haldeman, notes the imminent demotions of Harold Goldstein, Peter Henle, Leon Greenberg, and Ben Burdetsky. I have no idea how many of these four were actually Jewish, but all four names appeared on Malek’s Jew list. (Malek’s memo did not mention the 13 by name but a  different memo  to Malek from White House aide Dan Kingsley did. Shiskin, oddly, didn’t make Malek’s list of 13, even though he was BLS director at the time.)

When you add all these details to Malek’s story, it acquires a very different meaning. Far from subverting Richard Nixon’s anti-Semitism, Malek enabled it. The fact that Malek later helped install the Jewish Shiskin as commissioner of BLS is not particularly relevant because by then Nixon had presumably moved on to other bizarre and/or hateful obsessions. (I’ve checked the unedited tape of Naftali’s Malek interview, and Malek doesn’t mention the demotions there either.)

Kinda like how the establishment press runs to demonize every single brown-skinned guy with a non-Anglo name caught up in an FBI entrapment net, yet gives far less attention (especially national attention) to right-wing terrorists like Kevin Harpham and James Cummings who don’t need the FBI to bait them into attempting violence.

What to the what?! Can this be true?

Today, NPR is introducing staffers to a new Ethics Handbook that has been in the works for more than a year and illustrates how the organization is taking steps to safeguard against some of the ethical dilemmas it’s faced in the past.

So, is this a good thing or a bad thing? Does it uphold truth-telling and real journalism or codify cowardly FOX-emulating “he said, she said” propaganda?

Here’s what Jay Rosen has to say about it:

In my view the most important changes are these passages: #

In all our stories, especially matters of controversy, we strive to consider the strongest arguments we can find on all sides, seeking to deliver both nuance and clarity. Our goal is not to please those whom we report on or to produce stories that create the appearance of balance, but to seek the truth.

and…. #

At all times, we report for our readers and listeners, not our sources. So our primary consideration when presenting the news is that we are fair to the truth. If our sources try to mislead us or put a false spin on the information they give us, we tell our audience. If the balance of evidence in a matter of controversy weighs heavily on one side, we acknowledge it in our reports. We strive to give our audience confidence that all sides have been considered and represented fairly.

With these words, NPR commits itself as an organization to avoid the worst excesses of “he said, she said” journalism. It says to itself that a report characterized by false balance is a false report. It introduces a new and potentially powerful concept of fairness: being “fair to the truth,” which as we know is not always evenly distributed among the sides in a public dispute. #

Maintaining the “appearance of balance” isn’t good enough, NPR says. “If the balance of evidence in a matter of controversy weighs heavily on one side…” we have to say so. When we are spun, we don’t just report it. “We tell our audience…” This is spin! (Update: The new policy is already having an effect.) #

Wow. If this isn’t a mirage, it’s the best news I’ve heard all year.

An exercise for the reader:

Google “minneapolis tar sands obama” or “minneapolis keystone xl obama” and see how many articles you find by the StarTribune, the Pioneer Press, WCCO, KSTP, TPT2, KARE, or FOX9 on these protests:

When President Obama arrives at the Minneapolis Convention Center he will be greeted by several dozen Minnesotans with a 20-foot banner that reads: ‘Pres. Obama, Yes You Can Stop the Tar Sands XL Pipeline.´

The rally comes as protests against the pipeline continue at the White House where more than 500 people have already been arrested in a rolling 15-day sit-in that started on August 20.

The controversial 1,700-mile pipeline project would carry tar sands oil from Canada to the U.S. and has become the most important environmental decision facing President Obama before the 2012 election. Notable figures such as author and environmentalist Bill McKibben, former Chairman of the U.S. Council on Environmental Quality and founder of the Natural Resources Defense Council Gus Speth, and NASA climatologist James Hansen have already been arrested at the White House in opposition to the pipeline.

Lemme guess — you didn’t find anything, right?

Well, maybe, you might have found this piece in the Minnesota Independent, but nothing by the local traditional media types.

Oh, well.

I’ve long since got used to seeing the Republican-leaning “mainstream” media go out of its way to ignore or minimize progressive protests and parades — such as the massively-well-attended pro-immigrant ones that have taken place in several US cities over the past few years — while chasing after any old handful of right-wingers gathered in a single spot long enough for the camera crews to immortalize them on film, video or pixels. We saw this most recently in Madison last month, where Russian TV crews did a better job covering the protests than did most national media, which for the most part averted its eyes when nearly 100,000 people converged on the Wisconsin State Capitol on February 26.

But Bluestem Prairie’s Sally Jo Sorensen has alerted me to a first: a newspaper — namely, the Rochester, Minnesota Post-Bulletin — giving copious coverage to a right-wing rally that never happened. Really and truly:

The paper published three stories Saturday about the local tea party:

Rainy days or sunshine ahead for Rochester Tea Party Patriots?

Debate continues: Do Rochester Tea Party Patriots help, hinder local GOP?

Rochester Tea Party Patriots: Five questions

What’s the problem? Check out the lede for the first story of the three handed in by Tea party toadie and PB political reporter Heather Carlson:

It appears that only a blustery, rainy forecast has been able to keep Rochester Tea Party Patriots from speaking out.

The group canceled what would have been its third annual tax day rally Friday in Rochester. But while they weren’t out at Soldiers Field waving signs calling for budget cuts and an end to the “nanny state,” Tea Party activists say it won’t curtail the efforts that have made them a growing force in local politics this year. . . .

Yeah, you read that right. The Tea Party Patriots of Rochester cancelled their rally because of a weather forecast (probably assisted by that nanny-statish National Weather Service), but still got three stories in the Post Bulletin.

As Sorensen goes on to note, union members of her acquaintance have told her that the Post-Bulletin routinely ignores pro-labor protests, ones with actual protesters who are out in all sorts of weather and who don’t leave when the news crews do. Yet the sunshine patriots so beloved of the P-B get fawning treatment despite being total no-shows.

It is to laugh.

(Crossposted to Renaissance Post.)

In an era when a habit of saying the honest truth seems to be a black mark against most corporate journalists, I suppose the Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza should get some atta-boys for saying what we already know:

The scads of media coverage about the burgeoning "tea party" effort has focused heavily on the idea that those who identify themselves as part of the movement are political free agents — dismissive of both parties and Washington in general.

New data out of Gallup suggests that premise isn’t right, as nearly seven in 10 tea party supporters describe themselves as "conservative Republicans."

All told, nearly 80 percent of tea party supporters describe themselves as Republicans, while 15 percent say they are Democrats and just six percent are, in their own minds, "pure independents."

Of course, if Cillizza had been reading either Digby or DDay oh, about five months ago, he would have known, without needing Gallup to tell him, that the teabaggers are in fact the Republican base:

The group’s leaders plan to support candidates who stand for a set of “First Principles.”

Those principles are: fiscal responsibility, lower taxes, less government, states’ rights and national security. Prospective political candidates will be expected to support the Republican National Committee platform. If a particular candidate meets the proposed criteria he or she would be eligible for fundraising and grassroots support.

Once elected to office, members would be expected to join a congressional caucus of “like-minded representatives” who attend regular meetings and are held accountable for the votes they cast. Those who stray from the tea party path would risk losing the new organization’s support and a possible re-election challenge.

The "tea party" as it currently stands is a GOP outpost that exists both to keep rebellious libertarians in the fold and to serve as a place for racist Republicans to get their bigot on without it tarnishing the GOP brand as a whole (or at least any more than it can already be tarnished). People who read the reality-based blogs knew that long before Chris Cillizza or Gallup did.

More "non-terrorist" activities being committed by homegrown conservative Americans, this time of the white supremacist variety and against officers of the law:

A series of potentially deadly booby traps targeting police officers in the desert community of Hemet may have been the work of a white supremacist gang, authorities say.

[...]

The California attacks took place in Hemet, a city of some 71,000 about 90 miles southeast of Los Angeles. No officers were hurt, but some of the attacks were potentially deadly. In February, a gun was rigged up to fire when a gate was opened. A bullet narrowly missed an officer when, to wrest open the sticky gate, he turned from where the gun was aimed.

In December, a natural gas line was redirected through the roof of the Hemet-San Jacinto Valley Gang Task Force office building, filling it with deadly and combustible gas, which officers discovered when they arrived for work in the morning.

Last month, a pipe bomb attached to a task force car was defused by the bomb squad. A suspicious fire also gutted a building at a police shooting range, and four city service trucks were torched, though authorities were uncertain whether those incidents were tied to the other attacks.

Now, if these acts against law enforcement had been committed by Muslims or anyone with a skin darker than that of Jim DeMint’s, there would have been no hesitation in labeling them as "terrorism". But once again, if white conservatives do it, it’s not considered terrorism.

Why? Because the invoking of the magic words "terrorist" and "terrorism" allows one to dispense with not only examining motives for an attack, but even with admitting the basic humanity of the people so labeled. If they’re terrorists, you don’t have to bother with finding out their grievances or their rights — just kill ‘em all and let God sort it out. But if they’re not terrorists, then their grievances and rights are important to understand, and perhaps even to admire.

Even though more Republican officeholders are retiring or running for other offices than are Democratic ones, the GOP/Media Complex only focuses on the Democrats. Gotta defend the "Democrats in Disarray" narrative at all costs, y’know.

The latest case in point: Indiana’s Steve Buyer, retiring days after his Frontier Foundation was embroiled in financial scandal. The only way I knew about this was because somebody forwarded the story to me. Meanwhile, Democrats who retire or decide to try for other offices are seen as proof of — of — well, of something that somehow indicates they’re not very well off, and this is trumpeted throughout a very GOP-friendly media.

Oh, well.

There has been much wailing and gnashing of teeth lately at the Republican attacks, led by the racist nutjob Glenn Beck of FOX News, against Van Jones, who until he resigned this weekend was Obama’s green jobs czar.

Jones, you see, was under attack by Republicans for referring to them (and to himself) as "assholes" in remarks meant to demonstrate their and his toughness, as well as for signing a 9/11-related petition that questioned what Bush knew and when he knew it — pretty tame stuff, considering that wrist-slitting advocate Michele Bachmann has accused Obama, ACORN, and lefties in general of all sorts of bizarre and impossible things, and George W. Bush once called NYT reporter Adam Clymer a "major league asshole" and was not being complimentary in the least when he said it. And yes, conservatives and Republicans applauded both of them for it. (Here’s Jonah Goldberg on Bush’s dig at Clymer: "It never hurts to call a reporter from the New York Times an a**hole.")

Once again, we see the different ways in which Democrats and Republicans deal with scandals and setbacks, real or ginned-up, and the different ways our media elites treat Republican and Democratic setbacks — real or ginned-up.

When the Republicans got their butts unexpectedly kicked in 1998 by a pissed-off public warning them to stop it with the impeachment crap against Bill Clinton (a warning which featured kicking the Senate’s two most vocal impeachment advocates — D’Amato and Faircloth — out of office), what did they do? They chose Newt Gingrich — who of all the GOP leadership was the least involved with the impeachment mess — to be the scapegoat for the party’s midterm losses, and kicked him out so he could go make ten times as much dough as a lobbyist. Then, they went ahead with a lame-duck Congressional impeachment anyway — and they did so with the media’s full cooperation and approval.

When Democrats are attacked with real or fake scandals, they either ignore the attacks and hope the media doesn’t join in with the media’s Republican pals to amplify them, or they immediately try to cut their losses and cut loose whoever or whatever is the object of the hissy kabuki. (John Kerry’s tardy response to the Swift Boat smears is a classic example: He thought he could depend on the press to debunk and then stop publicizing the smears. He was wrong.)

Republicans, instead — and usually with the press’ assistance — pretend nothing ever happened. Even when it’s really blatant, they usually figure they’ll skate if only they can keep the press quiet. Look at how many months it took for Republican Senator Larry Craig’s airport-solicitation arrest to hit the news; it was nearly three months from his June 11, 2007 arrest until Roll Call finally broke the story on August 27, 2007. If he’d been a Democrat there would have been TV cameras filming him on his way out of the bathroom.

Don’t believe me about the press’ disparate treatment? Just look at Doris Kearns Goodwin’s telling PBS viewers that Bill Clinton’s pardoning Marc Rich was far, far worse than the first George Bush’s essentially pardoning himself over the Iran-Contra scandal. Seriously. Meanwhile, she had an attack of the vapors January at the prospect that Bush and Cheney might be called to account for genuine war crimes such as torture.

Or you can look at the press’ treatment of the winner of the 2000 presidential election, Al Gore. In 2000, the Atlantic Monthly adorned the cover of an issue with a picture of Al Gore as a vampire. The James Fallows cover story to which this fanged illustration referred included these words:

Al Gore is the most lethal debater in politics, a ruthless combatant who will say whatever it takes to win, and who leaves opponents not just beaten but brutalized. But Gore is no natural-born killer. He studied hard to become the man he is today.

And:

Debate has also been the medium in which Al Gore has displayed the least attractive aspects of his campaigning style: aggressiveness turning into brutality, a willingness to bend the rules and stretch the truth if necessary. A generation ago Gore was a divinity student who said he was repelled by the harsh realities of politics. Now he is the political combatant most likely to leave his opponents feeling not just defeated but battered.

Gee, project much, Mr. Fallows? That’s not the Al Gore we all know. But of course, truth was the first casualty in the War on Gore.

Finally, how about David Broder, the Dean of the White House Press Corps and the amplifier of many a Republican-crafted piece of hissy kabuki? David Broder never met an RNC talking point he didn’t like, including the one that states that anything Republicans do should never ever ever be prosecuted.

The recent Quinnipiac Poll putting President Obama at 50% got spammed all over the TradMed. You couldn’t watch a TV news show or listen to the radio without hearing about it.

Well, guess what? After a Gallup Poll low of 53% in late July, Obama’s Gallup favorables have been steadily growing as his unfavorables shrink, and he’s at 58% favorable now. But I didn’t hear about this on the evening news, or any other TradMed source. Nope, I got it from a diary at TPM.

Remember how the GOP/Media complex peed themselves in ecstasy whenever Bill Clinton’s ratings dipped, and were silent when they rose? Remember how they loved talking about Bush’s soaring approval ratings in the wake of 9/11 but couldn’t bring themselves to admit it when his ratings crashed through the floor? What the TradMed did to Clinton, they’re now doing to Obama.

One of the things that’s most infuriating about arguing with mainstream media folk about why they didn’t cover a particular issue is when they smugly say "Oh yes we did" — and then point to a single, offhand reference of it buried at the bottom of a story which is mostly about something else. That’s not exactly the same as having that same story lead the evening news for weeks on end, is it?

This is what’s so bizarre about this Glenn Kessler piece in this morning’s Washington Post. The basic thrust seems to be that there’s something vaguely, in a hemi-demi-semi homeopathic sort of way, scandalous about the Big Dog, who is now a private citizen, having his private-citizen endeavor — namely, the successful rescue of two Current TV journalists who’d been wrongly imprisoned in North Korea for paid for by some of his fellow private-citizen friends. We get hundreds of words on who paid for what, and then, at the very end of the piece, Kessler abruptly switches gears to a much more interesting story:

Bill Clinton in the meantime is not resting on his laurels. His office has announced that he and "leading drug manufacturers" will make "a major announcement" in Harlem on Thursday.

Why is this interesting? Because of a New York Times story that Scarecrow discussed earlier today, concerning Blue Dog and Big Pharma tool Billy Tauzin’s effort to push through a particularly egregious giveaway to Big Pharma. As Scarecrow says: Read the rest of this entry →