It’s classic MBA Presidency stuff (btw, Why aren’t all the MBAs in the nation rising up and calling for Bush’s impeachment? Hasn’t he singlehandedly devalued the stock of an MBA sheepskin forever?): “What’s good for GM is good for the nation.” When was the last time that flag got hoisted in public? But of course it’s still THE No. 1 operating principle in this sorry administration of injustice…
Latest case in point: a Bush Special corollary-inversion on that principle (see header). It isn’t enough that Bush has already politicized the entire Justice Department (e.g., US Attorney scandal) or the EPA (all of those scientific reports on the environment censored, rewritten) or Energy (policy written dock, stick and barrel by the Cheney-Halli-Big Oil cohort, in secret) or … well, as you already know, the list goes on…
Here’s the latest on the Surgeon General politicization scandal, which you’ve probably seen in today’s Washington Post. Front page, mind you. (A mini-version of the story also made the LA Times, with reference to the WP report, but on page A25. How do they do that?)
It warrants going to the WP site to see the photo of the green-behind-the-ears William Steiger, totally “connected” via his father to families Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, et al, and who had the role all too typical of this administration of being the young upstart who forbade what should by rights and credentials have been a superior — in this case, the Surgeon General — from going forward with something not sufficiently up to Lee Atwater/Karl Rovean standards of political propaganda.
This time it was the SG’s report on Global Health with advisories for US action and funding in light of the increasing globalization of disease and impact of poverty, AIDS, etc. But it didn’t brag about the Bush administration. How dare the SG? Well, like so many before him (e.g., General Shinseki), he was dismissed. New SG. And Steiger has been rewarded with an ambassadorship nomination. To Mozambique. (Enough dirty work in the Beltway for one greenhorn, send him to Siberia? But as ambassador? Heaven help us. What mayhem of international intrigue and mega-CEO meddling will the power-mongering and -connected greenhorn wreak there? Unless of course the Senate, which has yet to approve his nomination, does more than just read the WP, bark, and then snore. Note, in the article, that Steiger had previously gained fame for demanding — who are these kids? It’s an administration of 30somethings “demanding” their way or the highway that we’re being run by? — that an international — an international! — obesity report be changed so as not to upset the US food and sugar industries.)
Well. It seems to me that, if we had a mainstream media doing their jobs as Fourth Estate monitors, we should have known about this politicized blockage of the Surgeon General’s global health report sometime back in 2006, not just now. (The problem actually began in 2005, when the SG was first forbidden from issuing his report.)
Yet at least now. With a seeming “surge” recently in actual Fourth Estate responsibility and some investigative journalism of the type democracy depends on, especially into White House shenanigans — which have been unprecedentedly subversive, insidious, and pervasive in this administration — nevertheless, the jury’s still out on whether the tide has truly turned and serious, sustained coverage is finally happening on a more frequent basis. Enough with the MSM bending over backwards to keep from being labeled ‘unpatriotic’ or ‘liberal’ or otherwise intimidated from doing their jobs by an autocratic and secretive White House.
Of course it helps that the Congress, under opposition-party leadership instead of fawning “loyal Bushies,” now finally subpoenas these guys, like ex-Surgeon General Carmona, like Gonzales, like Miers and Bolton, like Rove, who the GOP leaders in Congress were complicit with the White House in keeping under wraps.
But when our democracy depends on who’s in power and able to issue subpoenas in Congress in order to have basic information about what the White House is hiding or not from the public, we’re doomed. As we were and still are in a quagmire called Iraq. And a Justice Department turned swamp. And on and on.
And so it’s every bit as much the MSM, years late and billions of dollars short, as it is the Congress who are long overdue with some teeth, to put a sock* in this hemorrhaging of White House credibility and respectability in all matters domestic and global.
Which makes it all the more revolting to have awakened yesterday (Saturday) morning to the LA Times’ latest embarrassing lead editorial. But that’s for another post…
* meta4itis. sorry.
What I don’t understand is why these people aren’t blowing the whistle and resigning when the trouble first surfaces rather than becoming part of the problem themselves before getting shoved out anyway. This SG only joins a long list of less than honorable men that get pushed out after the damage has been done. At the top of that list goes Colin Powell.
I agree, Dallas; I’ve said that about Powell from Day One. The lives that man could have saved, and didn’t. The most disturbing thing about Surgeon General Carmona’s experience is his acquiescence in keeping his mouth shut for four long years. He held in his hands the power to improve public health – a rare and invaluable opportunity – and instead he caved to the demands of the political hacks who run the Bush administration. Why, when he was told for the second or third time to not speak the truth, did he not call the Times or CNN and tell the public what was happening in matters of utmost importance to their health? Even before Congress he was too afraid to name names. This is cowardly, reminiscent of George Tenet’s too-late revelations. And as with Mr. Tenet, Dr. Carmona proved to be just the kind of guy Mr. Bush was looking for – subservient to a grievous fault. I expect much more from a public servant. Dr. Carmona failed us.
At the same time, we should (by experience) expect this kind of behavior, whether from Powell, Carmona, Steiger, or any number of other functionaries. That is why we need the news media. But journalism’s failures have gotten to the point where we should also expect from them what we expect from government. And that’s the sorriest statement one can make about the state of American mainstream journalism. Mainstream journalism has taken on one of the worst attributes of conservative government: self-aggrandizement accompanied by the abandonment of public service. Thus you find reporters and columnists making big money writing books and appearing on talk shows; laughing it up and hip-hopping with Karl Rove; performing stenographic functions for the powerful whose favor they curry. The result is reporting that’s intended to get those little pats on the head and tummy scratches the wiggly puppy craves so much that it piddles when it gets them.
Hi Dallas,
I totally agree but the reason why I see it as ultimately the fault of the MSM is that I think it was the MSM who actually endorsed the climate of “unitary executive” rally-round-the-Presidentism to the point that they fully indulged, uncritically, for far far too long, the entire Ashcroft/Fleischer/Rove/Cheney/Bush lockstep invocation of patriotism, pulling all their own MSM punches (well, if/when they even dared to even broach a punch at all) … and made any remotely conscientious folks in Bush’s Cabinet behave just as the Dems in Congress (and moderate GOP there as well): They toed the line.
Anybody who verged out of line (e.g., Daschle daring to say in winter 2003 that he questioned the way Bush was conducting the war on terror) was immediately slapped down and Daschle’s “outraged” critics, in the holy name of patriotism, were given exponentially more space and time in the MSM to decry him than were Daschle’s own views. Not that Daschle was the most adept at articulating his oppositions to Bush but his gist was valid, yet it got smothered by MSM indulgence of GOP mockery and accusation … I recall one time that Daschle dared a comment around the time of the 2002 elections and the MSM response was typified by Tim Russert giving Rush Limbaugh an entire HOUR, alone, to smarmily pontificate and mock and deride Daschle. Nowhere could you even find the context and content of Daschle’s original words. All the MSM played was the over-the-top rebuttal.
In a climate like that, whatever conscience there is and should be in people like Powell, Tenet, Carmona et al. looks at the MSM and surely thinks “What good does it do to voice concern?” I’m not saying that they even came so far as to emerge from Bushthink as to do that in the cases of Powell and Tenet anyway, seemingly much more complicit with it, even if Powell chafed more at the leash. But Carmona seems to have heard his conscience and still done nothing. So in his case more than others, I have to think that this entire climate shaped and sustained far too long by the MSM had to have a stultifying effect. Anyone not toeing the line was getting slimed. He may even have rationalized to himself that if he spoke up, which meant imminent dismissal, he would leave his job in the hands of someone who wouldn’t even fight in the name of honest science, rationalizing that at least by staying there he was keeping a finger in the dike of all-propaganda-all-the-time.
Sometimes, in some eras, as perhaps exemplified in JFK’s now ancient Profiles in Courage, there are folks of conscience who speak out despite prevailing winds. But to me it’s how the prevailing winds get to be prevailing which the MSM has to answer to … and makes them of late really the most inexcusable “public enemy no. 1.” Bush and Cheney have gotten away with murder, but the MSM paved their way, going clear back to their suckup lack of scrutiny in 1999/2000. And that a President even tries a “charm offensive” on the media suggests that he thinks it will work. There is the biggest indictment of them right there.
Montfort:
Didn’t we talk about Powell before?? Powell has a history of playing the party line going back to My Lai.
“As an Army officer, Powell’s superiors considered him a consummate “team player.” They could count on Powell to haul their water despite any contradictory feelings he may have had. Powell’s blind loyalty was demonstrated during a second tour in Vietnam (1968-1969), where as deputy assistant chief of staff for operations G-3 at Americal Division headquarters in Chu Lai, he was asked to handle a potentially embarrassing letter a young soldier had written to Gen. Creighton Abrams, commander of all U.S. forces in Vietnam.
The soldier had written about rumors of a massacre that Americal Division soldiers had committed in the hamlet of My Lai 4 in South Vietnam. Although he did not mention My Lai in the letter, the soldier complained that Americal soldiers were indiscriminately killing Vietnamese civilians. Such acts, the young soldier warned, “are carried on at entire unit levels and thereby acquire the aspect of sanctioned policy.”
Several days after he received a copy of the letter, Powell sent a memo to his superior, the adjutant general, making the outrageous claim that the young soldier had not given enough specifics upon which to base an inquiry. The purposely blind Powell said the soldier’s charges were false except for “isolated instances.” He wrote that “relations between American soldiers and the Vietnamese are excellent.” Powell’s damage control efforts soon proved fruitless and the My Lai massacre burst onto the world stage like an atomic explosion, severely damaging the U.S. war effort in Vietnam. On the orders of Lt. William Calley, soldiers from the U.S. Army Americal Division had indeed indiscriminantly gunned down an entire village of men, women and children.”
and further down . ..
“Armitage had written a letter on official Defense Department stationary urging the Arlington County Court to “show mercy” on the refugee whom he acknowledged was a friend. Powell, the team player, sided with Armitage when these issues blew up in the press and today continues to stick by his best friend. But, Powell’s damage control activities have not been limited to Armitage. He played an active role in White House damage control following the tragic loss of hundreds of marines when the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut were blown up. (Marine guards had been forced to stand guard duty with empty rifles).”
and further . . .
“Powell also helped with damage control after the U.S. government’s failed attempt to kill Libya’s Moammar Khadafy – a bombing raid which instead killed one of the Libyan leader’s children. In January 1986, the political general again blindly obeyed his superiors and secretly transferred U.S. TOW missiles to Iran without the approval or knowledge of Congress.”
A consummate team player of the highest order. Powell has a long history of betrayal of those who have no power over him. It is all self gratification.
It is nice to see people I like and can speak freely amongst