Bob Schieffer - Part-Time Journalist or Full-Time Courtier?

Magic Lantern Slide of Dog Jumping Through a Hoop

 (National Media Museum 1830)

Well it looks like Bob Schieffer of CBS is at it again. Back in 2010 I posted a piece about him where he went after the Salahi's for crashing a White House party. He didn't want to investigate the Bush administration torture program but he got all indignant about the Salahi's crashing a White House party. He wanted no accountability for war criminals but he wanted to throw the book at the Party crashers for their hideous crime.

Now he has focused his wrath on yet another enemy of the state by going after Edward Snowden, the whistle-blower who has exposed government wrongdoing in the illegal NSA spying scandal.


 


Our "serious" journalist, Bob Schieffer tells his viewers:

"I like people who are willing to stand up to the government. As a reporter, it's my job to do that from time to time."

From time to time, Bob? Wow, you're just a part-timer? Shouldn't that be your job all of the time? Bob then goes on to say:

Some of the people I admire most are in the government

What? Where did that come from? That's oddly out of place in the discussion, isn't it? Well then again, maybe it's not. I submit that this oddly placed statement actually let's us know the truth about Bob's kind of journalism. His admiration for the people in government that he's so anxious to get on the record may help explain why he only stands up to government from time to time. You see in Bob's world, what David Sirota calls "Permanent Washington," you defend others who are also a part of permanent Washington. A long time ago this would have been called circling the wagons.  When anyone dares to challenge the narrative created and nurtured by permanent Washington insiders they all circle the wagons to protect each other by attacking the person or persons who have the audacity to challenge their rule. It's how they turn an almost certain defeat on the merits into a victory through propaganda. They are especially incensed when the challenger is someone they consider beneath them. You know, someone who didn't go to the right schools and get the right piece of paper, etc. 

Bob then goes on to wax poetic about giants in the Civil rights movement to try to use their stature to raise his own.

"Men and women who led the civil rights movement - Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Jr. - they are true heroes".

Now who could argue with that? But what Bob fails to remember or has conveniently forgotten is that Martin Luther King, Jr. was himself spied upon by the FBI. I hardly think Martin Luther King, Jr., were he alive today, would be on Bob's side for obvious reasons.

Bob also tries to pretend that he's really not defending what the government has done:

Schieffer noted that his criticism of Snowden did not mean that he approved of the programs that he helped reveal to the public, saying "I don’t know yet if the government has over-reached since 9/11 to reinforce our defenses, and we need to find out.

Bob says we need to find out if the government has over-reached. Ok Bob, put your part-time journalist hat on and start pressuring some of those people in government who you admire so much and find out what in the world they are doing. After all isn't that what journalists are supposed to do? Maybe if you and others like you were actually doing your  job by speaking truth to power, maybe people like Mr. Snowden wouldn't have to risk their lives to become whistle-blowers. 

But Bob isn't really interested in investigating this story.  That self-serving comment he made is just for show. We know this because Bob also said this in his commentary:

"I think what we have in Edward Snowden is just a narcissistic young man who has decided he is smarter than the rest of us. I don’t know what he is beyond that, but he is no hero. If he has a valid point—and I’m not even sure he does—he would greatly help his cause by voluntarily coming home to face the consequences."

So after Bob tells us how we need to find out if the government over-reached he then tells us he isn't even sure Mr. Snowden has a valid point by showing all Americans what their government is doing. What? For crying out loud Bob if you feel like this I'm not very confident that you really are interested in getting to the bottom of this NSA spying program any more than you were interested in getting to the bottom of the Bush era torture program. 

Face it Bob, you aren't even a part-time journalist, are you? You are just another Washington courtier who sucks up to power by doing it's dirty work. Admit it, the whole purpose of your commentary was to attack the whistle-blower, Edward Snowden, who is doing the job you should be doing by holding the friends you admire so much accountable for their bad deeds. The rest of your commentary, that is wrapped around this attack of Mr. Snowden, is mere  camouflage to fool the uninformed.

ATT Up to it's Old Tricks Again

Photo: Mobile phone and thief

Looks like AT&T is up to it's old tricks again. This time instead of illegally helping the Bush administration wiretap it's customers, AT&T was accused in January of this year of spamming their customers with American Idol messages and more recently of helping to rig the text voting for American Idol.

LOS ANGELES — AT&T, one of the biggest corporate sponsors of “American Idol,” might have influenced the outcome of this year’s competition by providing phones for free text-messaging services and lessons in casting blocks of votes at parties organized by fans of Kris Allen, the Arkansas singer who was the winner of the show last week.

AT&T spammed a "'significant number' of its 75 million customers" yesterday with text messages advertising the premiere of American Idol. AT&T also pissed off a significant number of its 75 million customers in the process, and the company's justification for the blitz isn't exactly making AT&T sound smart when it comes to understanding what qualifies as spam.

I guess after Congress granted them immunity for helping the Bush administration with their illegal wiretapping AT&T felt that they could do anything they wanted to do without suffering any consequences. 

Indeed, back in 2008 Boing Boing documented that AT&T was so unrepentent for helping the Bush administration spy on Americans and so confident that nothing would happen to them that they even ran a parody about spying on people on their billing website. I guess AT&T thought the parody was a perfect way to advertise their online billing program and at the same time thumb their nose at those who had the nerve to criticize their lawless participation in the Bush spying program. 

Our establishment media never got real excited about covering AT&T's lawless behavior in helping the government spy on Americans.

Unfortunately, there has been scant coverage by MSM of the AT&T/NSA spying program and the pending court cases against it, despite the imminent threat this program and its legalization poses to communication privacy in America, and indeed to democracy itself. So why haven't the MSM given due attention to this serious threat to national security? 

The answer probably lies in the ever-increasing trend toward corporate media consolidation in America. First, the MSM corporations including News Corp (FOX), General Electric (NBC), Time Warner (CNN), Viacom (CBS), and Disney (ABC) have all enjoyed joint ventures with AT&T. Since these few giant media corporations that control network news in America are driven largely by their bottom lines, they are not likely to persist in exposing a serious business partner to bad press. Consequently, such stories are played down or not covered at all. 

Second, the behemoth media and telecom companies have strong monetary incentives to cooperate with the government -- such as the receipt of lucrative military defense contracts, tax breaks, and relaxed ownership and antitrust rules. For example, the recent merger of Bell South with AT&T was possible only because the Federal Communication Commission (FCC), presently chaired by Kevin Martin, a Bush appointee with close ties to the White House, approved the merger. 

Maybe the allegations that they participated in a vote rigging scheme for American idol and that they spammed their customers will prove to be just too juicy for our tabloid loving establishment media to resist. Maybe this time AT&T may actually get the unwanted negative publicity that they so richly deserved for spying on their customers. 

Sadly, in the upside down world that we live in today, where a man who authorized torture is given the same respect by our establishment media as that given to our president, I wouldn't be a bit surprised if AT&T suffers more negative consequences for rigging  American Idol votes than they ever did for illegally spying on Americans. 

Update: Looks like the establishment media is going to give AT&T another pass. They are now reporting that the vote rigging scandal is "overblown." Here is the evidence they cite to support their view that this vote rigging is overblown:

1. it was just a few "overeager" AT&T employees who brought the phones to the Kris Allen viewing parties. (it was not AT&T policy is was just a "few bad apples")

2. AT&T employees giving texting lessons at these Allen parties is no different than citizens who band together as a voting bloc. (yeah, right)

3. It was the Allen fans who went to the trouble to get AT&T at their party (they were smart enough to cheat)

4. Fox has a system to discard "power votes" (oh a system. Did the "system" work?)

5. conspiracy theorists should note that Allen's rendition of the "awful" final song outranks Lambert's fantastic rendition of Mad World on Itunes according to rankings of single downloads for May 25. (conspiracy theorists? how about AT&T employees frantically downloading to "prove" voting was not rigged?).

6. Imperfect science but Fox keeps voting as fair as possible (yeah, how?)

7. Let's put this in the rear view mirror. (let's look forward, not backward)

Wow. This sounds like a lot of the same type of comments we've heard about other "scandals."

We have a few bad apples, people accused of being conspiracy theorists, let's look foward not backward, etc. What we don't have is any evidence that AT&T didn't rig the voting.