Ron Paul Wants More Information on Torture - David Gregory Wants Less

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David Gregory jumps into the Nancy Pelosi/CIA story this morning on Morning Joe. As usual Gregory leaves out facts that don't support his view that there should be no accountability for torture and distorts facts to make them fit into his view.

Gregory: She either wasn't fully apprised personally of what was happening or she decided not to push back so that's the reality of the public record that we have so far. Now maybe if we go down this road maybe we will learn more, maybe we'll get a fuller accounting of what was contained in that briefing but what you've got right now are other people who were there..Republicans who were there saying look it was clear as day what they were asking for and what they were already doing.

According to the CIA log the only Republican that attended the briefing that Nancy Pelosi was in was Porter Goss. Yet in the above quote Gregory states that there were Republican(s) in the briefing that Nancy Pelosi received. Who are these other Republicans or is Gregory just trying to give the viewers the false impression that there are multiple people who attended her briefing who disagree with what she said the CIA told her? And why didn't Gregory bother to mention that Bob Graham also disputes what the CIA briefed him on? Or why didn't Gregory bother to mention that even Republican, Porter Goss, in his Washington Post op-ed didn't back up the claim that the CIA briefed them that waterboarding was already being done, as this excellent analysis by Emptywheel makes clear.

Porter Goss says Pelosi should have known "the techniques on which they were briefed were to actually be employed." But he doesn't say she should have known "the techniques on which they were briefed had already been employed." Which is a critical part of her complaint--that CIA did not tell Congress that waterboarding and other techniques "were used" ... that "they were using that." This briefing is always described as occurring in "fall 2002." Even interpreting "fall" broadly to include all of September, that means the briefing took place after they had already waterboarded Abu Zubaydah 83 times in a month.

So whether or not Pelosi is arguing "waterboarding" was mentioned or not, even Goss appears to confirm one of Pelosi's main points. The CIA did not reveal this was already taking place. Even Goss' understanding, they revealed only that waterboarding "was to be employee' -- in the future.

While I think David Gregory makes numerous misrepresentations in this video clip (like he always does) his point about the Obama White House not wanting investigations into torture appears to be on point although I'm sure even here he exaggerates because he's an advocate for this same view.

Gregory: In 2002 there were no Democrats who were willing to stand up to the White House. Even Republicans - some Republicans I've spoken to who are sympathetic to the criticism about the treatment of these detainees say we know everything we need to know about what happened. There's nothing more that we actually need to discover...lets just move on.

While I don't agree with the Obama administration doing everything in their power to shut down an investigation into torture I can at least understand the political motivation behind it, misguided though it may be. What I find incredible and what I simply don't understand is how so many supposed "journalists" like David Gregory are also going out of their way to bury this issue. Our Press is supposed to be interested in ferreting out the truth but there are far too many "journalists" in our establishment media who obviously don't want the entire truth to come out. They actually get agitated even thinking about the possibility that a full investigation will be conducted. Just look at how Gregory reacts  when he is asked a simple question about what are the chances that there will be a full investigation into what happened. His reaction is not a dispassionate reaction it's the reaction of an advocate of a particular position.  We saw an even more forceful example of this reaction when Gregory interviewed King Abdullah  and Abdullah did not give Gregory the answers that supported Gregory's position.

Carlos: Hey David even though the Obama White House would rather this not be the conversation what in your mind would be one or several tipping points that would move this towards a full investigation where we spend a summer like we did back in the late 80s talking about the Oliver North hearings. What might lead to that scenario in your mind?

Gregory: How about nothing. How about if the White House has ....Look if the White House has the kind of political capital that it appears to have they're going to make it clear that they do not want this to be the discussion. They've got a lot of other things they want to talk about...

This is not the dispassionate answer of an objective reporter. This is an answer of an advocate who is hiding behind the White House in order to cloak the fact that he is actually advancing his own point of view.

Another interesting segment on the Morning Joe show this morning was when Republican Ron Paul was asked about Pelosi and the CIA issue.  This was part of his response:

...but it's also beneficial in trying to find out what's going on...but just think we wouldn't have this discussion if we had just followed the law. Our law prohibits torture as well as international law. But the fact that this discussion is here and who said what is good. I have no idea who is telling the truth but I know it's very good for the country to get to the bottom of it.

You're right, maybe this will not lead to getting to the bottom of it because the administration is not all that interested in prosecuting the people who broke the law.

After he said this - surprise, surprise...Joe Scarborough changed the subject. While we had 6:11 minutes of David Gregory talking about this issue and 7:43 minutes of Kit Bond talking about this issue...We only had 1:30 minutes of Ron Paul's view on this topic. Of course Ron Paul was the only one of the three to actually talk about prosecuting people for lawbreaking and that doesn't agree with our establishment media narrative on torture so it's no surprise that they changed the subject. I guess we should all be grateful that at least they kept this part of the Paul interview in the video they posted online. When Doris Kerns Goodwin went off the reservation, like Ron Paul did today, they just eliminated her words from the online video.

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Did David Gregory Accidentally Open His Own "Pandora's Box"?

Did anyone else get the impression that David Gregory was a bit peeved at King Abdullah's answers to Gregory's questions about torture? I mean, really, here Gregory has this whole narrative thing going about torture and Abdullah is just not cooperating. How dare he disagree with the beltway narrative about torture. The nerve of some people.  

Do you think that maybe his irritation with King Abdullah in this earlier Meet the Press segment is what might have caused the Goodwin (who also disagreed with the narrative) comments about torture to be left off in one of the Meet the Press videos on the MSNBC website that I wrote about in my previous post? Could Gregory be that petty? Hmmmm, I wonder.

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Meet the Press: The "Missing" Goodwin/Meacham Segment

Photo: Two men with a female spirit by National Media Museum taken around 1920

I discovered a very curious thing on the video page of the MSNBC  website. 

I went to the MSNBC website because I wanted to watch the Doris Kerns Goodwin/Jon Meacham segment from Sunday's Meet the Press show to review some things that were said in that segment. 

There were 3 videos on the website that included  Goodwin & Meacham in the video. The first video I looked at was some type of after the show, extra online video that I didn't need. The second video was of the actual Goodwin/Meacham segment that I wanted, however, it curiously ended before Goodwin gave her views about the torture issue (the very part I wanted to see).  I then checked the third video which, fortunately for me, contained the entire Meet the Press episode, including the missing footage that I wanted to see.

Even though I finally found what I wanted I still thought it was really odd that they would have the specific Goodwin/Meacham segment on video but not the entire segment. Why would they go to the trouble to make a video of the Goodwin/Meacham segment and then leave out the end of the segment?  

Below is a snippet from the transcript where you will see what played just before the video ended and then what was missing from the video. I think it's very interesting.

MR. GREGORY:  But there's--this is a question of leadership.  Again, what critics would say, if you look at how this president handled the bonus question with AIG, he knew that in the scheme of things it was not the biggest deal to this administration.  And yet when the politics shifted, he stood up and said, "Yeah, those bonuses are table--terrible, and I'm angry." Perhaps the leadership moment there was to say to the country, "Calm down, it's not the most important thing." Here on this memos now he seems to be shifting positions because he's got a left wing of his party that says there must be accountability from the Bush administration.  The politics of looking backward are tricky.

MR. MEACHAM:  They are hugely complicated, and my sense is we have not seen the end of this story.  I think that they are keeping some options open.  I'm personally in favor of a 9/12 Commission, where we find someone like Jack Danforth and Sam Nunn and do some something like the 9/11 Commission where you review the entire war on terror.  Did rendition work, did the unmanned aerial drones, as well as the, the interrogation techniques?  And I, I suspect that what they've shown themselves to be are quite pragmatic, quiet realistic. That was the AIG example you raised.  He didn't want to jump on it.  There was a huge moment of populist rage.  But remember, it was just a moment.  I mean, it burn, it burned very quickly.  And what's going to happen, for all the stylistic points, all the temperament points, he's going to be judged on whether this stuff works.

MR. GREGORY:  Right.

MR. MEACHAM:  And whether the, whether the economy comes back and how he confronts still unforeseen national security challenges. (end of tape )

Missing from tape:

MR. GREGORY:  Isn't this question about torture, Doris, if you put it in an historical context, we have to ask the large question, which is can you defeat an enemy like al-Qaeda without compromising the nation's character?  Can you?

MS. GOODWIN:  I...

MR. GREGORY:  I mean, is that a debate that should go forward?

MS. GOODWIN:  I mean, one has to hope so, that it's possible to do; as everybody was saying before, that the moral values of our nation are what we are known for abroad.  I think the interesting question about why he wanted to look forward instead of back, I think he recognizes, as all leaders do, that you only have a certain number of resources in time, focus and imagination. And if the country goes off on a jag, you're going to lose--look at even now, we've been talking about torture this morning rather than maybe what should have been talked about if he had his way, which was this new speech that he just made about the importance of every time you have a tax increase you're going to have to use that to go for the tax cut.  Every time you have a increased spending, you're going to have to have some sort of reduction in spending.  That's a big thing he was talking about.  You lose, you lose command of the airwaves with these things, and I think that was his initial instinct of hoping that somehow we could put this behind us.  But once that elephant is in the room with that CIA memo...

MR. GREGORY:  Mm-hmm.

MS. GOODWIN:  ...options are lost.  They're going to have to do something.

MR. MEACHAM:  I, I, I disagree a little bit.  I think that the, to go to your phrase of politics of looking back, is the mature thing to do.  And if we are right about our first point that the people can handle a lot of things, then finding a smart, moderate, intelligent way to look back, find out what this history of these seven years can teach us about how to fight terrorism, as you say, can we do this and preserve our moral values?  Well, Abraham Lincoln didn't.  FDR didn't.  Great war presidents have always committed great sins, whether it's suspending habeas corpus or detaining Japanese...

MS. GOODWIN:  Incarcerating, incarceration.

MR. MEACHAM:  ...Japanese-Americans.  And so life is messy.  Life is complicated.  But we have to understand this history, because if we don't then we--I think we're unilaterally disarming, in a way, as we push forward.

MS. GOODWIN:  How could I go against looking back at history?  I must yield to your greater judgment.

MR. MEACHAM:  There you go.  There you go.  There you go.

MR. GREGORY:  Yeah.  But, Doris, I--you know what's--talk to people, and they want to know, you know, what's he like?  What are president's like?  How do they make decisions?  And somebody close to the president said he's got a very disciplined mind.  What do we know about how he makes decisions?

MS. GOODWIN:  Well, it sounds like one thing he does is to bring people into the room and ask them to debate different sides of the issue so that he can get alternative points of view, and that what I've heard him say, or other people say, is that he asks people who have been quiet in the room, "Speak up. I want to hear what you said." That's a very healthy thing.  Again, going back to FDR, there was a certain time when he was in a room and he was explaining a pet project and everybody said, "Oh, it's great, Mr. President.  It's great." George Marshall didn't say a word.  He said, "George, what do you think?" and Marshall said, "I don't agree with you at all, Mr. President." Instead of being mad at him, he lifted him 34 feet up--not 34 feet up, 34 generals up to become his chief.  And I think that's the way you want to have a president to make decisions, to have as many points of view there, listen to them and then think, think.

MR. GREGORY:  All right, we're going to leave it there.  Thanks both of you very much.  And congratulations to Jon Meacham...

MS. GOODWIN:  Yeah!

MR. GREGORY:  ...who won the Pulitzer Prize for his biography on Andrew Jackson, "American Lion." Well deserved.  And two Pulitzer Prize-winning authors and historians here, thank you very much.

We're going to continue this discussion on line with Jon and Doris, and ask some questions that our viewers have submitted via e-mail and Twitter.  Watch our MEET THE PRESS Take Two Web extra.  It's up this afternoon on our Web site.  Plus, look for updates from me throughout the week.  It's all at mtp.msnbc.com.  And we'll be right back.

(Announcements)

MR. GREGORY:  A program note before we go.  Tonight as part of Green Week, MSNBC premieres "Future Earth:  Journey to the End of the World" reported by Lester Holt.  It airs at 10 PM Eastern and Pacific time.

That's all for today.  We'll be back next week.  If it's Sunday, it's MEET THE PRESS.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30406811/

A very interesting part to leave out, isn't it?

Now I'm sure MSNBC will say it was just an accident (or a ghost was in the machine) and maybe that's all it was, but you just gotta wonder -  Did they not want us to see Doris Kerns Goodwin going off the reservation by disagreeing with the beltway narrative?  Or did they not want us to see Jon Meacham make a very unconvincing and quite frankly a patently absurd argument about George W. Bush, torture and his place in history? 

Can you imagine trying to pretend that George W. Bush is one of the"great war presidents" just because he committed great sins. How's that for turning history on it's head. We consider these "great sins" by other presidents as blots on their otherwise good record but Meacham evidently thinks that Bush is great because of his great sins even though he has a lousy record in every other area too. Gee, I wonder if Meacham will get another Pulitizer for pushing this kind of mushy, dishonest nonsense? Do you think maybe he's auditioning to write W's biography? He did say that his next book was going to be about George H.W. Bush...is he hoping to get W's story too? 

UPDATE: Jon Meacham has written an eye opening piece for this weeks edition of Newsweek  where Glenn Greenwald pointed out that he makes this disturbiing statement:

That is not to say presidents and vice presidents are always above the law; there could be instances in which such a prosecution is appropriate, but based on what we know, this is not such a case.

In viewing his comments from the Meet the Press video and his comment in the Newsweek piece one gets a better sense of  Meacham's views about abuse of power and about how he applies the lessons of history.  

While most historians would view examples of previous president's abuses of power as major mistakes on a presidents record, Meacham views these abuses of power as nothing more than precedents to be exploited by future presidents to justify committing similiar abuses of power in the future. This twisted view of history would certainly explain both his stunning statement in the Newsweek column and his equally stunning statements from his Meet the Press appearance where he cites the "great sins" of "great war presidents" as an excuse to defend the illegal torture authorized by George W. Bush.

The "Incomplete" Video

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Full Meet the Press Video

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