Shortly After Major Bush Donor Takes Over MSNBC, Network Selectively Applies Rules To Suspend Olbermann
Earlier today, MSNBC declared that it would be suspending progressive host Keith Olbermann because he violated NBC’s ethics rules by donating to three Democratic candidates for Congress. As many bloggers have noted, conservative MSNBC host Joe Scarborough has donated to Republican candidates for Congress while promoting the same candidate on air, but has never been disciplined. Moreover, Gawker notes that MSNBC has been exempt from the formal NBC ethics rules for years. It is still a mystery why MSNBC selectively applied NBC’s ethics rules to Olbermann. However, it important to realize that MSNBC has undergone a fundamental change in leadership in the last two months.
Late last year, Comcast — the nation’s largest cable provider and second largest Internet service provider — inked a deal taking over NBC Universal, the parent company of MSNBC. Comcast moved swiftly to reshuffle MSNBC’s top staff. On September 26th of this year, Comcast announced perhaps the most dramatic shift, replacing longtime MSNBC chief Jeff Zucker with Comcast executive Steve Burke. Burke has given generous amounts to both parties — providing cash to outgoing Sen. Arlen Specter (D-PA) as well as to Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) and other top Republicans. But as Public Citizen has noted, Burke has deep ties to the Republican Party. Public Citizen’s report reveals that Burke served as a key fundraiser to President George Bush, and even served on Bush’s Council of Advisers on Science and Technology:
Comcast – the country’s largest provider of cable TV and broadband Internet services – has increased its political giving along with its mergers and acquisitions. CEO Brian Roberts was a co-chairman of the host committee at the 2000 Republican Convention. Comcast Cable President Stephen Burke has raised at least $ 200,000 for Bush’s re-election campaign. [...] Comcast’s political giving has increased along with its mergers and acquisitions. The company was a “platinum sponsor” at the 2000 GOP convention, and Roberts was a co-chairman of the host committee at the Philadelphia event. Burke was appointed to the President’s Council of Advisers on Science and Technology in 2002.
Why would Comcast be interested in silencing progressive voices? Historically, Comcast has boosted its profits by buying up various telecommunication and media content companies — instead of providing faster Internet or better services (overall, American broadband services are far slower than in many industrialized nations). Many of these mergers, as Public Citizen and Free Press have reported, have been allowed by regulators because of Comcast’s considerable political muscle. Comcast’s latest regulatory battle has been to oppose Net Neutrality — a rule allowing a free and open Internet — because the company would prefer to have customers pay for preferred online content.
Olbermann has been a strong voice in favor of a free and open Internet. Republicans, on the other hand, have supported the telecommunication industry’s push to radically change the Internet so corporate content producers have the upper hand over start-ups like blogs, independent media, small businesses, etc. As Reuters has reported, the incoming Republican Congress has signaled that it will vigorously side with companies like Comcast against an open Internet.
It is not clear why MSNBC has selectively suspended Olbermann indefinitely without pay — but the move showcases the limits of the corporate media. While modern technology has created a seeming multitude of entertainment and television choices, the reality of corporate media consolidation has resulted in fewer investigative news options and less voices in the media with a critical perspective on powerful business interests. Olbermann has stood out as a voice for working people in a media universe dominated by “reality television” and business lobbyists posing as political pundits. It is unfortunate that Comcast and MSNBC have chosen to suspend him.
The Secrets They’re Keeping Selectively Leaking about Anwar al-Awlaki
As I noted yesterday (and Glenn has examined at more length), in addition to asserting that the government can target Anwar al-Awlaki … because they said so, the Obama Administration also invoked state secrets in its motion to dismiss the ACLU/CCR suit challenging targeted killings.
The Obama Administration has officially positioned itself to the right of hack lawyer David Rivkin.
But the state secrets invocation is interesting not just because it shows a Democratic Administration out-hacking a noted hack.
For example, I think the invocation shows just how weak they recognize their own argument to be. Consider what Robert Gates (who invoked something newfangled called the “military and state secrets privilege”) and James Clapper described as falling under their invocation of state secrets (Leon Panetta basically said only that CIA could neither confirm nor deny its involvement, which sort of makes me wonder whether CIA really has targeted al-Awlaki or not).
A. Intelligence information DoD possesses concerning AQAP and Anwar al-Aulaqi, including intelligence concerning the threat AQAP or Anwar al-Aulaqi pose to national security, and the sources, methods, and analytic processes on which any such intelligence information is based;
B. Information concerning possibly military operations in Yemen, if any, and including criteria or procedures DoD may utilize in connection with such military operations; and
C. Information concerning relations between the United States and the Government of Yemen, including with respect to security, military, or intelligence cooperation, and that government’s counterterrorism efforts.
A. (U) Intelligence information concerning al-Qaeda and the sources and methods for acquiring that information.
B. (U) Intelligence information concerning AQAP and the sources and methods for acquiring that information.
C. (U) Intelligence information concerning Anwar al-Aulaqi and the sources and methods for acquiring that information.
The Administration is sort of kind of relying on the President’s authority under the AUMF (unless the judge doesn’t buy that argument, in which case the Administration promises to try something else), which states:
That the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.
In other words, the Administration is relying on some tie between AQAP and the al Qaeda organization that hit us on 9/11 for its authority to kill an American citizen with no due process. Mind you, it can’t say precisely what that tie is-whether AQAP is al Qaeda or whether it is just closely connected enough to be included under the AUMF. But that’s precisely what it has called a state secret: the evidence of ties between the group against which Congress declared war in 2001 and the group we’re targeting in Yemen.
Effectively, the Executive Branch-with no known support from Congress-is saying we’re at war against AQAP. But it’s also saying no one outside of select people within the Executive Branch (and, presumably, a group of four or maybe eight members of Congress who serve in leadership or on the Intelligence Committees) can see the evidence that proves we’re at war against AQAP.
The President has unilaterally declared war against a group but then said no one can see why he has done so.
And then both Gates and Clapper invoke state secrets over the evidence the government has against al-Awlaki.
Rather than prove to a judge that they even have reasonable suspicion to believe al-Awlaki is part of AQAP, much less enough evidence to execute him, the government has instead asserted that all of that is a state secret. They’ve declared everything al-Awlaki would need to challenge his execution a state secret. Even KSM will be able to see the evidence against him; and he has admitted to killing 3000 Americans. But American citizen al-Awlaki, whom no one has accused of actually killing anyone, can’t see the same kind of information.
Finally, there’s the tied old sources and methods catch all. We can’t know how the government has collected the evidence it has against al-Awlaki.
Except we already do.
Thanks largely to the efforts of Crazy Pete Hoekstra, we know that the government had wiretaps on al-Awlaki going back at least since December 2008. Al-Awlaki himself has challenged the government to release the intercepts they have on him (which public reports say include correspondence with tens of thousands of people). Al-Awlaki has even made some of that correspondence available himself. But the government says all that is a state secret.
Furthermore, some of the evidence against al-Awlaki appears in court documents, from the public testimony of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. The alleged recruitment of Abdulmutallab is one of the key issues the government describes al-Awlaki to have been involved in. That information is public. Yet the government also says it is a state secret.
And if all this really is a state secret, then why isn’t Crazy Pete Hoekstra in jail? If letting others know that al-Awlaki has been wiretapped for years-as Hoekstra did-causes grave damage to the national security of the United States, then why hasn’t the government prosecuted Crazy Pete, or at least stripped him of his security clearance?
More importantly, if the information surrounding al-Awlaki’s targeting is a state secret, then why not prosecute the steady stream of national security officials who have leaked details of his targeting to the press going back to January?
The government has deliberately leaked details of al-Awlaki’s targeting to the press, when it served its political purpose. No investigation of which officials made those leaks has ever been launched-not even against Crazy Pete. And yet now that al-Awlaki’s family is asking for the information that has been leaked to the press for the last nine months, the government is choosing to declare it all a state secret.
The release of it can’t be causing grave danger to the US-because national security officials have leaked tons of it with no consequences. Which all suggests one thing about the government’s invocation of state secrets. Which suggests the government invoked state secrets for just two reasons. First, to give plausible deniability to Yemen, which (as officials leaked to David Ignatius months ago) apparently came to us and asked us to gather intelligence on capture kill al-Awlaki on their behalf back in October.
But more importantly, to hide what is evidenced by the shoddiness of their motion to dismiss itself. The government isn’t really sure whether any of its arguments about al-Awlaki make sense. It’s not even willing to commit to one or another of those arguments to a judge. So the best way to hide the obvious legal insufficiency of its argument, it has simply declared all the evidence that (doesn’t) support its argument off limits.
Not only has the President declared the authority to target American citizens with no stronger argument than “because I say so.” But it has also declared any of the evidence that would prove the sufficiency or insufficiency of its argument off limits.
Related posts:
Bob Wright explores an instance when the human tendency "to latch onto evidence consistent with your worldview and ignore or downplay contrary evidence" has an upside:
It means that the regrettable parts of the Koran — the regrettable parts of any religious scripture — don’t have to matter. After all, the adherents of a given religion, like everyone else, focus on things that confirm their attitudes and ignore things that don’t. And they carry that tunnel vision into their own scripture; if there is hatred in their hearts, they’ll fasten onto the hateful parts of scripture, but if there’s not, they won’t. That’s why American Muslims of good will can describe Islam simply as a religion of love. They see the good parts of scripture, and either don’t see the bad or have ways of minimizing it.
So too with people who see in the Bible a loving and infinitely good God. They can maintain that view only by ignoring or downplaying parts of their scripture.
His exegesis of a particularly controversial Koranic passage is here.
Islam - Qur’an - Bible - Religious text - Koran
