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NBC’s Today Show eagerly carried water for Cheney this morning.
They led by asking what Pelosi knew and when did she know it, with Kelly O’Donnell yapping about the veracity of Pelosi’s claim that the CIA mislead Congress.
Matt Lauer followed with an interview of Sen. Kit Bond as ranking minority member of the SENATE Intelligence Committee about this situation, going so far as to throw a soft ball, asking Bond whether we needed to keep the timing of the key briefings on interrogation tactics in mind, in reference to the 9/11 attacks. Bond, of course, claimed that all CIA briefings he’s received are solidly good stuff and that he was sure Pelosi had gotten more of the same good stuff.
There was NO member of the Democratic delegation interviewed as a rebuttal; there was NO representative from Pelosi’s office. Didn’t we see this gag pulled last week, but in text by ABC’s Rick Klein on The Note, an accusation without any attempt to get comment from the accused?
And who the hell is Kit Bond to this story? Bond wasn’t briefed in 2002-2003 on interrogations as a member of the HOUSE Intelligence Committee. Where was Porter Goss on this program? NBC actually showed a small snippet of the CIA briefing record this morning, showing that both Pelosi and Goss has allegedly been briefed at the same time. Where’s Goss?
NBC also didn’t mention that Sen. Rockefeller, a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and Sen. Bob Graham, chair of the same Senate Select Committee on Intelligence for the period 2001-2003, have both indicated they have problems with the briefing records and the content of the briefings — not a word on this from NBC’s O’Donnell or Lauer.
Nor did NBC’s Lauer make any attempt at all to press Sen. Bond about his role on the Senate Appropriations Committee, which may have played a key role on approving funding for illegal interrogations. Lauer couldn’t be bothered to press Bond on the likely conflict between funding torture and Bond’s position that he would not favor waterboarding in any circumstance.
It certainly appears to be a full-blown assault on Pelosi, sustained now for a second week — which makes me wonder about Pelosi.
Perhaps we really should be asking what Pelosi knows that she hasn’t mentioned which is scaring the hell out of either the intelligence community or Deadeye Dick, enough to sustain this attack on her credibility?
(In the mean time, the other two major networks’ morning shows lead with other programming: CBS covered the closure of NYC schools, ABC went with the closure of dealerships. Funny how different the news looked this morning to other networks…)
13 Comments
I am never surprised by a single thing that a GE subsidiary does. They are a completely amoral company and would do anything to advance their own agenda. Including purchasing their very own television network to air corporate propaganda.
It was very interesting to watch Eric Cantor basically threaten Steny Hoyer that any “Truth Commission” would just have to include investigation into the Speaker and “What she knew, when she knew it, etc”. This was on C-span last evening during their colloquy addressing the next week’s business. Hoyer was definitely losing his patience with the little creep. But the Republicans are over this, on the Washington Journal the callers are all certain they have the Speaker in a trap and are determined to bring her down. Priorities, isn’t it interesting how different the parties priorities are!
I certainly hope her story is airtight, for if it is not…
Yeah, the Hoyer v. Cantor bit is also being co-opted and misused across the internet, like Glenn Thrush’s post at Politico.com, featuring a headline, “Hoyer questions Pelosi’s CIA charge.”
I’m not linking to it because Thrush, choosing to do something phenomenally assholish and unethical, actually used a GOP staffer’s rush transcript of the exchange.
Thrush doesn’t wait until he can get a better transcript or one from a neutral source; he only labels it as coming from a GOP staffer.
And then he posts at 6:02 pm on a Thursday nite. What a coincidence! ABC’s Rick Klein, who ordinarily posts mid-afternoon every day at ABC’s The Note, about Obama and the White House, published his piece accusing Pelosi of being briefed on waterboarding last Thursday nite at 6:02 pm!!
Wow, how does so much negative content about Pelosi happen at exactly the same time two weeks in a row, in the not-quite-a-news-dump zone?
The bit about Hoyer also continues the sleight-of-hand away from any GOP members — it’s all Dems’ problem, all Dems’ fault, in spite of the fact that Republicans were briefed more often, held the majority in Congress at the time, and owned the White House in 2001-2004.
As clammyc says at Dailykos, it’s a shiny object.
Too bad so many members of our media fall for it, and so predictably.
rayne, a BRUTAL indictment of nbc and why they WILL bleed viewers
we need a call in campaign informing them just that too
thanx for the post
Just use the SPOTLIGHT feature below the post and send a message to NBC’s folks — I’d hit Kelly O’Donnell for sure, and probably Neal Shapiro as top news dog since none of the rest of Today Show folks are listed.
Still gritting my teeth over how bad the piece was, how very unethical, and how very easy it continues to be for Dick Cheney to use NBC like toilet paper.
A government agency that is tasked with deception as one of it’s primary tools is incapable of using deception in dealing with its oversight? Huh?
I too watched this Today Show escapade in disgust. Classic he said she said BS from folks who happen to make money off the underlying enterprise.
Story narratives like this ought to be illegal for it is surely immoral as well as disingenuous on so many levels.
What is in Cheney’s dossier on Matt Lauer and his producers?
If you wish for a healing moment…
http://smokingmirrors.blogspot…..chine.html
So much for my suggestion about using the SPOTLIGHT feature; I notice that the people listed as contacts have changed a lot and corresponding changes haven’t been made to the Spotlight contact list.
I’d probably use it anyhow, and just hit Kelly O’Donnell. Send the same via email separately to the attention Matt Lauer and Today Show producers/editors at: TODAY [at] nbcuni.com
You know what’s really annoying? I can’t find a video of this morning’s segment at their website. I can get all the crap I want on freaky alleged wife-killer Drew Peterson, more about that doomed commuter flight which crashed this winter, but nada on torture. In fact, Today Show’s recently updated site has virtually nothing on real news. Agh.
I didn’t even realize that was what the spotlight feature was for — VERY useful. Thanks!
Isn’t Kit the same dolt who described waterboarding as a kind of backstroke? He needs to park in the senior section with McCain with a couple of fruit cups.
oh oh oh! sounds like this has potential for a great Whitehouse type chart.
I too am soooooo sick of the so called journos feeding the partisan fire. Every GD story is blue v red. It gets so old and is particularly myopic when you consider the international community who might be watching as well. Is an issue ever legal v. not legal instead of I’m OK you’re not? So sick of it.
Yes, Kit Bond has made some rather twisted comments about waterboarding, all the while claiming waterboarding was never appropriate.
And nobody ever asks him why he approved money to pay for torture, either, without any objection.
In re: NBC — they can’t seem to stop themselves. Andrea Mitchell, wife of Alan “Who could have known” Greenspan, blabbed off with the same party line on MSNBC midday today, puling on about what Pelosi knew and when she knew it, but pointedly ignoring that any information Pelosi received had been stovepiped just like the rest of the Iraq War intelligence.
Gah. Useless, the lot of them.
Rayne, to make themselves feel better….the republicans don’t like having any opponents near them. They only like to hear themselves. See? ;-)
Kit Bond was on C Span a while back saying 4% of the nation’s budget was spent on defense. Even the conservative callers said, “Can’t you get somebody on there who can tell the truth?”