Gore on the Threat to American Democracy
Al Gore gave a speech this morning on the decline of the media, our public discourse and the threat to American democracy itself. The transcript beneath the break ...
Remarks by Al Gore as prepared
Associated Press / The Media Center
October 5, 2005
I came here today because I believe that American democracy is in grave danger. It is no longer possible to ignore the strangeness of our public discourse . I know that I am not the only one who feels that something has gone basically and badly wrong in the way America's fabled "marketplace of ideas" now functions.
How many of you, I wonder, have heard a friend or a family member in the last few years remark that it's almost as if America has entered "an alternate universe"?
I thought maybe it was an aberration when three-quarters of Americans said they believed that Saddam Hussein was responsible for attacking us on September 11, 2001. But more than four years later, between a third and a half still believe Saddam was personally responsible for planning and supporting the attack.
At first I thought the exhaustive, non-stop coverage of the O.J. trial was just an unfortunate excess that marked an unwelcome departure from the normal good sense and judgment of our television news media. But now we know that it was merely an early example of a new pattern of serial obsessions that periodically take over the airwaves for weeks at a time.
Are we still routinely torturing helpless prisoners, and if so, does it feel right that we as American citizens are not outraged by the practice? And does it feel right to have no ongoing discussion of whether or not this abhorrent, medieval behavior is being carried out in the name of the American people? If the gap between rich and poor is widening steadily and economic stress is mounting for low-income families, why do we seem increasingly apathetic and lethargic in our role as citizens?
On the eve of the nation's decision to invade Iraq, our longest serving senator, Robert Byrd of West Virginia, stood on the Senate floor asked: "Why is this chamber empty? Why are these halls silent?"
The decision that was then being considered by the Senate with virtually no meaningful debate turned out to be a fateful one. A few days ago, the former head of the National Security Agency, Retired Lt. General William Odom, said, "The invasion of Iraq, I believe, will turn out to be the greatest strategic disaster in U.S. history."
But whether you agree with his assessment or not, Senator Byrd's question is like the others that I have just posed here: he was saying, in effect, this is strange, isn't it? Aren't we supposed to have full and vigorous debates about questions as important as the choice between war and peace?
Those of us who have served in the Senate and watched it change over time, could volunteer an answer to Senator Byrd's two questions: the Senate was silent on the eve of war because Senators don't feel that what they say on the floor of the Senate really matters that much any more. And the chamber was empty because the Senators were somewhere else: they were in fundraisers collecting money from special interests in order to buy 30-second TVcommercials for their next re-election campaign.
In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, there was - at least for a short time - a quality of vividness and clarity of focus in our public discourse that reminded some Americans - including some journalists - that vividness and clarity used to be more common in the way we talk with one another about the problems and choices that we face. But then, like a passing summer storm, the moment faded.
In fact there was a time when America's public discourse was consistently much more vivid, focused and clear. Our Founders, probably the most literate generation in all of history, used words with astonishing precision and believed in the Rule of Reason.
Their faith in the viability of Representative Democracy rested on their trust in the wisdom of a well-informed citizenry. But they placed particular emphasis on insuring that the public could be well-informed. And they took great care to protect the openness of the marketplace of ideas in order to ensure the free-flow of knowledge.
The values that Americans had brought from Europe to the New World had grown out of the sudden explosion of literacy and knowledge after Gutenberg's disruptive invention broke up the stagnant medieval information monopoly and triggered the Reformation, Humanism, and the Enlightenment and enshrined a new sovereign: the "Rule of Reason."
Indeed, the self-governing republic they had the audacity to establish was later named by the historian Henry Steele Commager as "the Empire of Reason."
Our founders knew all about the Roman Forum and the Agora in ancient Athens. They also understood quite well that in America, our public forum would be an ongoing conversation about democracy in which individual citizens would participate not only by speaking directly in the presence of others -- but more commonly by communicating with their fellow citizens over great distances by means of the printed word. Thus they not only protected Freedom of Assembly as a basic right, they made a special point - in the First Amendment - of protecting the freedom of the printing press.
Their world was dominated by the printed word. Just as the proverbial fish doesn't know it lives in water, the United States in its first half century knew nothing but the world of print: the Bible, Thomas Paine's fiery call to revolution, the Declaration of Independence, our Constitution , our laws, the Congressional Record, newspapers and books.
Though they feared that a government might try to censor the printing press - as King George had done - they could not imagine that America's public discourse would ever consist mainly of something other than words in print.
And yet, as we meet here this morning, more than 40 years have passed since the majority of Americans received their news and information from the printed word. Newspapers are hemorrhaging readers and, for the most part, resisting the temptation to inflate their circulation numbers. Reading itself is in sharp decline, not only in our country but in most of the world. The Republic of Letters has been invaded and occupied by television.
Radio, the internet, movies, telephones, and other media all now vie for our attention - but it is television that still completely dominates the flow of information in modern America. In fact, according to an authoritative global study, Americans now watch television an average of four hours and 28 minutes every day -- 90 minutes more than the world average.
When you assume eight hours of work a day, six to eight hours of sleep and a couple of hours to bathe, dress, eat and commute, that is almost three-quarters of all the discretionary time that the average American has. And for younger Americans, the average is even higher.
The internet is a formidable new medium of communication, but it is important to note that it still doesn't hold a candle to television. Indeed, studies show that the majority of Internet users are actually simultaneously watching television while they are online. There is an important reason why television maintains such a hold on its viewers in a way that the internet does not, but I'll get to that in a few minutes.
Television first overtook newsprint to become the dominant source of information in America in 1963. But for the next two decades, the television networks mimicked the nation's leading newspapers by faithfully following the standards of the journalism profession. Indeed, men like Edward R. Murrow led the profession in raising the bar.
But all the while, television's share of the total audience for news and information continued to grow -- and its lead over newsprint continued to expand. And then one day, a smart young political consultant turned to an older elected official and succinctly described a new reality in America's public discourse: "If it's not on television, it doesn't exist."
But some extremely important elements of American Democracy have been pushed to the sidelines . And the most prominent casualty has been the "marketplace of ideas" that was so beloved and so carefully protected by our Founders. It effectively no longer exists.
It is not that we no longer share ideas with one another about public matters; of course we do. But the "Public Forum" in which our Founders searched for general agreement and applied the Rule of Reason has been grossly distorted and "restructured" beyond all recognition.
And here is my point: it is the destruction of that marketplace of ideas that accounts for the "strangeness" that now continually haunts our efforts to reason together about the choices we must make as a nation.
Whether it is called a Public Forum, or a "Public Sphere" , or a marketplace of ideas, the reality of open and free public discussion and debate was considered central to the operation of our democracy in America's earliest decades.
In fact, our first self-expression as a nation - "We the People" - made it clear where the ultimate source of authority lay. It was universally understood that the ultimate check and balance for American government was its accountability to the people. And the public forum was the place where the people held the government accountable. That is why it was so important that the marketplace of ideas operated independent from and beyond the authority of government.
The three most important characteristics of this marketplace of ideas were:
1) It was open to every individual, with no barriers to entry, save the necessity of literacy. This access, it is crucial to add, applied not only to the receipt of information but also to the ability to contribute information directly into the flow of ideas that was available to all;
2) The fate of ideas contributed by individuals depended, for the most part, on an emergent Meritocracy of Ideas. Those judged by the market to be good rose to the top, regardless of the wealth or class of the individual responsible for them;
3) The accepted rules of discourse presumed that the participants were all governed by an unspoken duty to search for general agreement. That is what a "Conversation of Democracy" is all about.
What resulted from this shared democratic enterprise was a startling new development in human history: for the first time, knowledge regularly mediated between wealth and power.
The liberating force of this new American reality was thrilling to all humankind. Thomas Jefferson declared, "I have sworn upon the alter of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man."
It ennobled the individual and unleashed the creativity of the human spirit. It inspired people everywhere to dream of what they could yet become. And it emboldened Americans to bravely explore the farther frontiers of freedom - for African Americans, for women, and eventually, we still dream, for all.
And just as knowledge now mediated between wealth and power, self-government was understood to be the instrument with which the people embodied their reasoned judgments into law. The Rule of Reason under-girded and strengthened the rule of law.
But to an extent seldom appreciated, all of this - including especially the ability of the American people to exercise the reasoned collective judgments presumed in our Founders' design -- depended on the particular characteristics of the marketplace of ideas as it operated during the Age of Print.
Consider the rules by which our present "public forum" now operates, and how different they are from the forum our Founders knew. Instead of the easy and free access
individuals had to participate in the national conversation by means of the printed word, the world of television makes it virtually impossible for individuals to take part in what passes for a national conversation today.
Inexpensive metal printing presses were almost everywhere in America. They were easily accessible and operated by printers eager to typeset essays, pamphlets, books or flyers.
Television stations and networks, by contrast, are almost completely inaccessible to individual citizens and almost always uninterested in ideas contributed by individual citizens.
Ironically, television programming is actually more accessible to more people than any source of information has ever been in all of history. But here is the crucial distinction: it is accessible in only one direction; there is no true interactivity, and certainly no conversation.
The number of cables connecting to homes is limited in each community and usually forms a natural monopoly. The broadcast and satellite spectrum is likewise a scarce and limited resource controlled by a few. The production of programming has been centralized and has usually required a massive capital investment. So for these and other reasons, an ever-smaller number of large corporations control virtually all of the television programming in America.
Soon after television established its dominance over print, young people who realized they were being shut out of the dialogue of democracy came up with a new form of expression in an effort to join the national conversation: the "demonstration." This new form of expression, which began in the 1960s, was essentially a poor quality theatrical production designed to capture the attention of the television cameras long enough to hold up a sign with a few printed words to convey, however plaintively, a message to the American people. Even this outlet is now rarely an avenue for expression on national television.
So, unlike the marketplace of ideas that emerged in the wake of the printing press, there is virtually no exchange of ideas at all in television's domain. My partner Joel Hyatt and I are trying to change that - at least where Current TV is concerned. Perhaps not coincidentally, we are the only independently owned news and information network in all of American television.
It is important to note that the absence of a two-way conversation in American television also means that there is no "meritocracy of ideas" on television. To the extent that there is a "marketplace" of any kind for ideas on television, it is a rigged market, an oligopoly, with imposing barriers to entry that exclude the average citizen.
The German philosopher, Jurgen Habermas, describes what has happened as "the refeudalization of the public sphere." That may sound like gobbledygook, but it's a phrase that packs a lot of meaning. The feudal system which thrived before the printing press democratized knowledge and made the idea of America thinkable, was a system in which wealth and power were intimately intertwined, and where knowledge played no mediating role whatsoever. The great mass of the people were ignorant. And their powerlessness was born of their ignorance.
It did not come as a surprise that the concentration of control over this powerful one-way medium carries with it the potential for damaging the operations of our democracy. As early as the 1920s, when the predecessor of television, radio, first debuted in the United States, there was immediate apprehension about its potential impact on democracy. One early American student of the medium wrote that if control of radio were concentrated in the hands of a few, "no nation can be free."
As a result of these fears, safeguards were enacted in the U.S. -- including the Public Interest Standard, the Equal Time Provision, and the Fairness Doctrine - though a half century later, in 1987, they were effectively repealed. And then immediately afterwards, Rush Limbaugh and other hate-mongers began to fill the airwaves.
And radio is not the only place where big changes have taken place. Television news has undergone a series of dramatic changes. The movie "Network," which won the Best Picture Oscar in 1976, was presented as a farce but was actually a prophecy. The journalism profession morphed into the news business, which became the media industry and is now completely owned by conglomerates.
The news divisions - which used to be seen as serving a public interest and were subsidized by the rest of the network - are now seen as profit centers designed to generate revenue and, more importantly, to advance the larger agenda of the corporation of which they are a small part. They have fewer reporters, fewer stories, smaller budgets, less travel, fewer bureaus, less independent judgment, more vulnerability to influence by management, and more dependence on government sources and canned public relations hand-outs. This tragedy is compounded by the ironic fact that this generation of journalists is the best trained and most highly skilled in the history of their profession. But they are usually not allowed to do the job they have been trained to do.
The present executive branch has made it a practice to try and control and intimidate news organizations: from PBS to CBS to Newsweek. They placed a former male escort in the White House press pool to pose as a reporter - and then called upon him to give the president a hand at crucial moments. They paid actors to make make phony video press releases and paid cash to some reporters who were willing to take it in return for positive stories. And every day they unleash squadrons of digital brownshirts to harass and hector any journalist who is critical of the President.
For these and other reasons, The US Press was recently found in a comprehensive international study to be only the 27th freest press in the world. And that too seems strange to me.
Among the other factors damaging our public discourse in the media, the imposition by management of entertainment values on the journalism profession has resulted in scandals, fabricated sources, fictional events and the tabloidization of mainstream news. As recently stated by Dan Rather - who was, of course, forced out of his anchor job after angering the White House - television news has been "dumbed down and tarted up."
The coverage of political campaigns focuses on the "horse race" and little else. And the well-known axiom that guides most local television news is "if it bleeds, it leads." (To which some disheartened journalists add, "If it thinks, it stinks.")
In fact, one of the few things that Red state and Blue state America agree on is that they don't trust the news media anymore.
Clearly, the purpose of television news is no longer to inform the American people or serve the public interest. It is to "glue eyeballs to the screen" in order to build ratings and sell advertising. If you have any doubt, just look at what's on: The Robert Blake trial. The Laci Peterson tragedy. The Michael Jackson trial. The Runaway Bride. The search in Aruba. The latest twist in various celebrity couplings, and on and on and on.
And more importantly, notice what is not on: the global climate crisis, the nation's fiscal catastrophe, the hollowing out of America's industrial base, and a long list of other serious public questions that need to be addressed by the American people.
One morning not long ago, I flipped on one of the news programs in hopes of seeing information about an important world event that had happened earlier that day. But the lead story was about a young man who had been hiccupping for three years. And I must say, it was interesting; he had trouble getting dates. But what I didn't see was news.
This was the point made by Jon Stewart, the brilliant host of "The Daily Show," when he visited CNN's "Crossfire": there should be a distinction between news and entertainment.
And it really matters because the subjugation of news by entertainment seriously harms our democracy: it leads to dysfunctional journalism that fails to inform the people. And when the people are not informed, they cannot hold government accountable when it is incompetent, corrupt, or both.
One of the only avenues left for the expression of public or political ideas on television is through the purchase of advertising, usually in 30-second chunks. These short commercials are now the principal form of communication between candidates and voters. As a result, our elected officials now spend all of their time raising money to purchase these ads.
That is why the House and Senate campaign committees now search for candidates who are multi-millionaires and can buy the ads with their own personal resources. As one consequence, the halls of Congress are now filling up with the wealthy.
Campaign finance reform, however well it is drafted, often misses the main point: so long as the only means of engaging in political dialogue is through purchasing expensive television advertising, money will continue by one means or another to dominate American politic s. And ideas will no longer mediate between wealth and power.
And what if an individual citizen, or a group of citizens wants to enter the public debate by expressing their views on television? Since they cannot simply join the conversation, some of them have resorted to raising money in order to buy 30 seconds in which to express their opinion. But they are not even allowed to do that.
Moveon.org tried to buy ads last year to express opposition to Bush's Medicare proposal which was then being debated by Congress. They were told "issue advocacy" was not permissible. Then, one of the networks that had refused the Moveon ad began running advertisements by the White House in favor of the President's Medicare proposal. So Moveon complained and the White House ad was temporarily removed. By temporary, I mean it was removed until the White House complained and the network immediately put the ad back on, yet still refused to present the Moveon ad.
The advertising of products, of course, is the real purpose of television. And it is difficult to overstate the extent to which modern pervasive electronic advertising has reshaped our society. In the 1950s, John Kenneth Galbraith first described the way in which advertising has altered the classical relationship by which supply and demand are balanced over time by the invisible hand of the marketplace. According to Galbraith, modern advertising campaigns were beginning to create high levels of demand for products that consumers never knew they wanted, much less needed.
The same phenomenon Galbraith noticed in the commercial marketplace is now the dominant fact of life in what used to be America's marketplace for ideas. The inherent value or validity of political propositions put forward by candidates for office is now largely irrelevant compared to the advertising campaigns that shape the perceptions of voters.
Our democracy has been hallowed out. The opinions of the voters are, in effect, purchased, just as demand for new products is artificially created. Decades ago Walter Lippman wrote, "the manufacture of consent...was supposed to have died out with the appearance of democracy...but it has not died out. It has, in fact, improved enormously in technique...under the impact of propaganda, it is no longer plausible to believe in the original dogma of democracy."
Like you, I recoil at Lippman's cynical dismissal of America's gift to human history. But in order to reclaim our birthright, we Americans must resolve to repair the systemic decay of the public forum and create new ways to engage in a genuine and not manipulative conversation about our future. Americans in both parties should insist on the re-establishment of respect for the Rule of Reason. We must, for example, stop tolerating the rejection and distortion of science. We must insist on an end to the cynical use of pseudo studies known to be false for the purpose of intentionally clouding the public's ability to discern the truth.
I don't know all the answers, but along with my partner, Joel Hyatt, I am trying to work within the medium of television to recreate a multi-way conversation that includes individuals and operates according to a meritocracy of ideas. If you would like to know more, we are having a press conference on Friday morning at the Regency Hotel.
We are learning some fascinating lessons about the way decisions are made in the television industry, and it may well be that the public would be well served by some changes in law and policy to stimulate more diversity of viewpoints and a higher regard for the public interest. But we are succeeding within the marketplace by reaching out to individuals and asking them to co-create our network.
The greatest source of hope for reestablishing a vigorous and accessible marketplace for ideas is the Internet. Indeed, Current TV relies on video streaming over the Internet as the means by which individuals send us what we call viewer-created content or VC squared. We also rely on the Internet for the two-way conversation that we have every day with our viewers enabling them to participate in the decisions on programming our network.
I know that many of you attending this conference are also working on creative ways to use the Internet as a means for bringing more voices into America's ongoing conversation. I salute you as kindred spirits and wish you every success.
I want to close with the two things I've learned about the Internet that are most directly relevant to the conference that you are having here today.
First, as exciting as the Internet is, it still lacks the single most powerful characteristic of the television medium; because of its packet-switching architecture, and its continued reliance on a wide variety of bandwidth connections (including the so-called "last mile" to the home), it does not support the real-time mass distribution of full-motion video.
Make no mistake, full-motion video is what makes television such a powerful medium. Our brains - like the brains of all vertebrates - are hard-wired to immediately notice sudden movement in our field of vision. We not only notice, we are compelled to look. When our evolutionary predecessors gathered on the African savanna a million years ago and the leaves next to them moved, the ones who didn't look are not our ancestors. The ones who did look passed on to us the genetic trait that neuroscientists call "the establishing reflex." And that is the brain syndrome activated by television continuously - sometimes as frequently as once per second. That is the reason why the industry phrase, "glue eyeballs to the screen," is actually more than a glib and idle boast. It is also a major part of the reason why Americans watch the TV screen an average of four and a half hours a day.
It is true that video streaming is becoming more common over the Internet, and true as well that cheap storage of streamed video is making it possible for many young television viewers to engage in what the industry calls "time shifting" and personalize their television watching habits. Moreover, as higher bandwidth connections continue to replace smaller information pipelines, the Internet's capacity for carrying television will continue to dramatically improve. But in spite of these developments, it is television delivered over cable and satellite that will continue for the remainder of this decade and probably the next to be the dominant medium of communication in America's democracy. And so long as that is the case, I truly believe that America's democracy is at grave risk.
The final point I want to make is this: We must ensure that the Internet remains open and accessible to all citizens without any limitation on the ability of individuals to choose the content they wish regardless of the Internet service provider they use to connect to the Worldwide Web. We cannot take this future for granted. We must be prepared to fight for it because some of the same forces of corporate consolidation and control that have distorted the television marketplace have an interest in controlling the Internet marketplace as well. Far too much is at stake to ever allow that to happen.
We must ensure by all means possible that this medium of democracy's future develops in the mold of the open and free marketplace of ideas that our Founders knew was essential to the health and survival of freedom.
Wow. That was pretty good.
Ever since 2000, I've had two overwhelming emotions when hearing or reading yet another address by Al Gore. The first is sadness at the fact that a man of such intelligence was denied the office of President in favor of one who can only be considered a goon in comparison. The other is anger at the winger media who will almost inevitably use something in the current speech to carry on their campaign of hateful mockery against Gore.
Al Gore, the Cassandra of Tennessee.
October 5, 2005 12:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
How did we end up with George Bush? He certainly should never have "evolved."
But seriously, this is so interesting, and needs further attention. It is a sad fact that we rarely hear a thoughtful, wise assessment of our condition. I hope others will read and heed him.
Jan Knaus
October 5, 2005 12:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
Bravo, especially for taking it on in such depth. (Any other way it would have become a hypocritical sound bite!)
I am especially glad he mentioned this:
The movie "Network," which won the Best Picture Oscar in 1976, was presented as a farce but was actually a prophecy.
I always like to suggest to younger people who haven't seen this movie to see it and to understand and realize that it was actually a farce at the time it was made. They need to know that the media was not always like this, and also to see how what what was foretold in that movie may be encouraged by certain forms of blogging and vox populi and discouraged by other forms.
About the only thing I think is missing is that when he says this:
We must ensure that the Internet remains open and accessible to all citizens without any limitation on the ability of individuals to choose the content they wish regardless of the Internet service provider they use to connect to the Worldwide Web. We cannot take this future for granted. We must be prepared to fight for it because some of the same forces of corporate consolidation and control that have distorted the television marketplace have an interest in controlling the Internet marketplace as well. Far too much is at stake to ever allow that to happen.
He is ignoring the elephant in the room: how bandwidth is paid for by most bloggers: with advertising, the same as with TV. Right now we are on a path recreating the path of TV the past couple of decades because "merit of ideas" equals "number of clicks" in order to pay for the transmission. The effects of capitalism on printed matter has never been as extensive and limiting, indeed, the successful paradigm there has often been not to sell well that one has to give the "listener" what they want to "hear," but rather, to teach them something they don't know or give them a new way of looking at things. History shows that vox populi combined with capitalism can sometimes get to be vicious downward spiral of 'lowest common denominator,' something which can go on for decades. I do have faith, though, that eventually eventually, someone bright out there figures out an alternative to break the cycle, and there's a return to the 'merit of ideas.'
In recent history, I see too many bloggers going for strength in numbers for the political power and then get into the need for clicks to pay the bills. Political power and echo chambers is not the same as 'merit of ideas.' Not at all, sometimes quite the contrary. Right now, what bloggers are doing is continuing the downward partisan us v. them slide started by the TV producers stuck in their vicious downward spiral. That's why it's one of the few topics I think is worth ranting on. This new medium has to break out of the heavy emphasis on political action and needs to also offer a marketplace of ideas. They have to be separated more somehow, if only by more people kvetching on it. The most crucial thing to making the First Amendment work as intended is that everyone gets a mix of the 'propaganda,' mho. And that works contrary to political goals. That's why the press was considered 'the fourth estate,' it's not supposed to be arm of the other three? The best use of 'free speech' includes having a press interpreting and summarizing all the voices that are speaking?
October 5, 2005 12:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Did you notice how stiff and wooden he was? He's flip-flopping again, trying to go after the stiff and wooden vote. And he dumped the earth tones for a blue suit. He must have finally broken away from the influence of that sartorial Rasputin, Naomi Wolf. No more beard, and it looks like he's keeping that weight off -- he's making a play for the slender, clean shaven vote.
It's too bad he claimed to have invented the internet, claimed to be the inspiration for Love Story, too bad the man is such an inveterate liar. With his obvious desire to twist himself into whatever shape he thinks the public wants, he could have had a future in politics. But we, the fraternity of the ridiculously overpaid and silly the vigilant watchdogs of the truth, your media, caught on to him just in time, and gave you George W Bush, and 8 years of war, bumbling, and sometimes mediocrity eight years of an honest, upright man who looks great clearing brush in a tight fitting pair of jeans.
October 5, 2005 12:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
This guy should run for president. I'd vote for him.
October 5, 2005 12:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
Seriously. Obviously.
(BTW, Hillary is not going to run for president.)
October 5, 2005 12:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
Can't give you a citation on this, but I'm fairly sure that screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky said "Network" was his admittedly broad-brush prediction of where TV would actually go. Not that the movie wasn't done in a farcical style, but Chayefsky saw it as making a quite serious point.
October 5, 2005 12:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
Good for Al Gore! I've been wondering about the way FOX News reports the "news". Can anyone tell me if FOX may be in violation of their broadcast liscense in the sense that what FOX is "reporting" is not news, but rather a editorial opinion in the guize of a news story?
October 5, 2005 12:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Fox News doesn't broadcast. It's a cable network.
Because it doesn't use public airwaves, it is excempt from FCC regulation.
October 5, 2005 12:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
Great speech. He summed up a pile of concerns of mine about the media that have been piling up for the past 20 years.
I wish he'd followed up on his brief reference to one purpose of the TV media being "to advance the larger agenda of the corporation of which they are a small part."
That looms so large right now - not only do they want to avoid giving a forum to any message hostile to their owners' direct concerns, but also they don't want to speak truth to power, because the party in power can pass laws that will make a significant difference in their bottom line. Hence the combination of kid-glove handling of the Administration, and the parade of Missing White Girls filling up the news. The less news, the less chance of saying the 'wrong' thing.
Other than that omission, an excellent speech. I voted for Gore for President once, and I'd do so again in a heartbeat.
October 5, 2005 12:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hats off to Vice-President Gore.
This is an excellent indictment of the MSM, the kind of gripe we in the blog world have had and complained about for quite some time. But I've never seen it expressed with this much passion before by a public figure.
Gore does make an excellent point about Network. It's an excellent compliment to one of the other big films from that year, All The President's Men, and if you've never seen either, rent them both.
Just one little errata, however
It was Rocky , not Network , that won the Best Picture Oscar for 1976 (although it was Network that deserved to win it, bar none).
The movie, however, did win four other Oscars, including the Woman and Man of the Year: Faye Dunaway as Diana Christensen (the manipulative producer who romances, then eventually arranges the execution of, Howard Beale), and a posthumous award for Peter Finch who played Beale himself.
That little slip-up does not detract from the rest of his overall message, however. We need to heed it and hope it's not too late to tell the MSM, as Beale encouraged his viewers to tell the government and big corporations, "We're as mad as hell, and we're not going to take it anymore!"
October 5, 2005 12:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
Excellent. Intelligent. I'd even wager a good amount of money that Mr. Gore wrote the entire speech, or at least did all but the final editing. Bravo. Glad to see him with a higher profile of late, whether that is due to 2008 positioning or not.
Separately, I watch Current on occassion via my DirecTV subscription. As a 45 year old male, I find it a bit hard on my eyes and brain but I apprecaite the attempt and the innovativeness. I must say however, that NWI was one of few sources of good news available on TV. It would be nice if the German, Canadian, British, and Japanese English language news shows appeared elsewhere.
October 5, 2005 12:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Gore just won my vote, if he chooses to run in '08.
October 5, 2005 12:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Of course as soon as they notice this, the right wing and the so-called Liberal media will start shrieking how delusional Gore is, how out of touch, how radical, and what a liar he is.
The did that prior to 2000, and he still won a majority vote.
I think it would be a big mistake for the Democratic Party not to nominate him, assuming he wants to go. A Gore/Clark ticket would be just about perfect.
October 5, 2005 12:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, I forgot. Russert and Matthews and all the "Today Show" type chorus will be bleating on about he "re-invented himself" again. Just you watch.
October 5, 2005 12:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is a great speech by Gore, but there's a bit of irony here.
The Telecommunicatons Act of 1996 was passed under Clinton/Gore (and TPMC's Reed Hundt), and if there's one thing that's contributed to the downfall of the news media it was the deregulation the Act enabled.
The Act was a giveaway to Big Business, clearing the way for News Corp, Time Warner, Clear Channel and the few other major conglomerates that run our media.
Also included was the Communications Decency Act, which was eventually knocked down. Thank goodness, because sometimes I just want to say things like "shit."
October 5, 2005 1:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm still astonished and angry that his moving speech at New York University ('How dare they drag the good name of the United States of America through the mud of Saddam Hussein's torture prison') was dismissed, discounted and derided.
The message is compelling and the argument persuasive. It should still be noted that the halcyon age of the First Amendment wasn't quite so halcyon as he suggests. William Randolph Hearst, Colonel McCormick and the other press barons were precursors of the Rupert Murdochs and other media conglomerateurs. Franklin Roosevelt invented his radio "fireside chats" precisely because the press barons were monolithically characterizing his administration as a bunch of unAmerican socialists.
The issue remains the same -- the would-be neofeudalists will ever be seeking to seize the "commanding heights" of information and communications technology, and it's up to all of us to be ever vigilant against that power grab, as vigilant as we are about government interference with free expression.
Benjamin Franklin is familiarly quoted, in reply to a query about whether the 1787 Constitutional Convention had proposed a monarchy or a republic, as saying "A republic, if you can keep it." Our ancestors managed to "keep it" through the challenges of bloody civil war, the Great Depression, world war with Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, and a 45-year cold war with the Soviet Union. How disgraceful and dishonorable would it be for us, the legatees of such a noble heritage, to give up the struggle to keep our Republic without a fight.
October 5, 2005 1:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Now there's one blogosphere political action I could seriously get behind.
Why the heck is there silence on that? What say ye great oracles of the TPMCafe contributor roster? Hillary is soooo problematic. (Actually, I am coming to think that the only reason he didn't get a safe enough margin is that his handlers painted him too much with a Hillary brush and not enough with a Bill brush. Now Hillary's been working on looking like Bill but I just don't know how well that's gonna work...I don't think swing voters bought that Gore was the old Hillary, they just didn't like him pretending inauthentically that he was her.) The real Gore is ideal, ideal. Peak oil, global change, terrorism, on all the upcoming issues, people like where he stands already, the majority voted for him before 9/11. Pre-sold vote unless he does something wrong.
Knows all the players in foreign policy upside down and backwards. Remember "the most active v.p. in history thing" before Cheney?
He gave a great speech on foreign policy and torture in May 2004, the "how dare they" speech, that should please the base as well as the majority.
Mr. Ken Baer, what say ye?
October 5, 2005 1:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Only if Gore were to start giving strong hints that he might run for president in '08 would this speech generate comment from the media mediocrities.
October 5, 2005 1:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
Great speech. But us regular folks who say essentially the same thing are still being bashed, called shrill, told to calm down, told we are tin-foil-hat-wearing nuts, accused of Godwin violations...
But I'm not bitter!
Gore has had a string of great speeches over the past few years. It's clear from the virtuoso combination of substance and emotion in his presentations that he knows deep down what he lost in 2000, and he feels a heavy weight of responsibility for the feeble response of the Democrats then and, probably, now.
I'd love to see him come back into the ring.
October 5, 2005 1:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
Anyone who thought "Network" was a farce really, really, really missed the point. That movie scared the hell out of me. And now we live in it. Hi-ho.
October 5, 2005 1:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
I am extremely impressed with Gore's powerful statement and applaud him for making such a strong case.
Many of us on the left have long railed about how the news we get on TV amounts to no more than a mixture of entertainment and propaganda. The TV airwaves have been hijacked by the right as a propaganda tool. Instead of news we get people who are doing the bidding of political movements. Mr. Gore cites the repeal of Public Interest Standard, the Equal Time Provision, and the Fairness Doctrine. The repeals of those regulations have allowed TV to become corrupted as a source of unbiased information. Allowing paid political hacks and shills on the airwaves msaquerading as "fair and balanced" journalists.
And I think Mr. Gore is right on the money that limiting our access to the information we need to have to engage in public discourse of issues facing our country. I happen to think the threat dwarfs what terrorists, trillion dollar budget deficits and global pandemics pose to this country combined. Without the access to information and the ability to engage in discourse is the first amendment moot? And if it is moot we are truly not a free people...
Thank you Josh for posting this. I hope someday Mr. Gore would consider joining us here!!
October 5, 2005 1:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
When are the "Get Your Gore On" shirts rolling out, and how do I get one?
October 5, 2005 1:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't know what can be done about this.
October 5, 2005 2:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wrong about the claim re the Internet, as has been debunked many times - just part of the rightwing noise machine. Try http://www.snopes.com/quotes/internet.asp. Gore was ONLY referring to his role in Congress.
Or are you being ironic here?
October 5, 2005 2:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'd like to tell President Gore what R. Lee Ermey told Private Pyle in Full Metal Jacket: You are definitely born again hard.
I'm glad someone has already pointed out that it was Rocky, and not Network, that won the Best Picture Oscar in '76. (Network was one of the five nominees.) You watch - some wingnut will pick up on that and say Gore's gone off the reservation again, clearly "shrill" with no idea what he's talking about.
Hey, if the guy should run again in '08, I'd consider voting for him (again). How about Gore/Clark?
October 5, 2005 2:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
*sigh*
October 5, 2005 2:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Vork, he was being ironic...
October 5, 2005 2:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
I have been on the fence about the viability of Gore '08 over the past few years. I want to support someone who can win a presidential election and I do think that Gore was out-politiked in 2000. He isn't terribly charismatic and doesn't connect with the average person very well. He also made a visible effort to distance himself from Bill Clinton in 2000 which, I think, partially caused him to lose the election. Of course, we all know that Gore should have won in spite of that, but it wouldn't have been close if he had let the greatest politician in the later half of the twentieth century help his campaign.
That being said, every time I have read one of Gore's speeches since 2000, I just love what he has to say. While careful politicians in Washington dance around vital issues that should be central in the public discussion, Gore takes them head-on. I especially liked his speech on Moveon.org criticizing the prison abuse in Abu Ghraib. I wish he had been more like that in 2000, but he obviously succombed to the advice of his political advisors.
I am willing to forgive him for bungling up the 2000 election. I hope that, if he chooses to run again, he will continue to act and speak as he has in these past few years. I want the ideas in this speech and the ideas in his Move.org speeches to be in the faces of the entire American electorate. They need to hear what he has to say, and I think he would be a great President.
I'm not sure that he will run. I don't think he thinks he is a viable politician any more. But, maybe with some serious netroots backing, he could get enough support to win the Democratic nomination. He'll have a tough time beating out Wes Clark and John Edwards (and Hillary if she runs). But if he does choose to run, he will have my support.
October 5, 2005 2:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Unfortunately, not only the winger media. As any regular reader of Bob Somerby knows, it was the mainstream media, led by the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the broadcast networks, that hammered home the message every damn day that Al Gore was a liar and that George Bush was a dunce who at least had the good sense to surround himself with capable people.
The establishment press has a lot to answer for.
October 5, 2005 2:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
Are we still routinely torturing helpless prisoners, and if so, does it feel right that we as American citizens are not outraged by the practice? And does it feel right to have no ongoing discussion of whether or not this abhorrent, medieval behavior is being carried out in the name of the American people?
I can't go on, I try but something says "here we go again" and the rest might as well be looped on a reel, over and over, did he happen to mention Halliburton or "blood for oil" later on?
October 5, 2005 2:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
I wish he would give a speech addressing how do we change this. What do we do.
An informed public is essential for a functioning democracy and yet in the run up to the Iraq war most people couldn't tell the difference between Saddam and Osama. It doesn't matter how many channels we have if all they do is broadcast tabloid trash packaged as news.
October 5, 2005 3:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
What has burned me recently is the media's neglect of aWol's and Cheney's public lies. If you write to a Public Editor or Ombudsman, you are told that is old news; covered earlier and no longer of interest.
October 5, 2005 3:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
What Curt said plus the FCC is not in the business or regulating speech (other than "obsenity").
October 5, 2005 4:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
No irony at all.
The Telecom Act would have passed in the Congress anyway, except that it would have been much worse had Gore&co. not stood in the way of Gringrich&co.
I remember those days vividly and how Gore
debated for weeks -- fairly loudly -- with Grigrich.
Don't forget that in 1996 the Reps had the votes in both houses to override Clinton's veto because it would have taken only a few
right wing Democrats to get the 60 votes.
October 5, 2005 5:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
"As recently stated by Dan Rather - who was, of course, forced out of his anchor job after angering the White House - television news has been "dumbed down and tarted up." "
Hmm. I thought Rather was forced out of his job because he got caught using forged documents to make his point in one of those oh so important policy debates that Gore advocates tie public airwaves he used for.
October 5, 2005 5:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
LOL That was very well put
October 5, 2005 5:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
No, Democracy is not just "conversations." The word is totally transparent: Power to the People. Either the People have power or they don't; and they don't. Gore, the Clintons, Will Marshall, Al From and those guys are as committed as any 18th century high tory to keeping power away from the People.
Nevertheless, it's a fine statement on the the totalitarian media and it's weapons of mass delusion.
October 5, 2005 5:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Clinton was not even a great politician let alone the one of the greatest. Just because you can pretend that "you feel my pain" will not make a your a great politician. It sure makes a big phoney.
Anyway, the actual facts prove that Gore was smart to move away from Clinton. Clinton was a loser in 2000. He would have lost to Bush by 6 points in Aug 2000. The best showing he had was in Oct 2000 (44-41), within the margin of error just like the Gore-Bush polls.
His personal approval ratings in 2000 were horrible, (below 30% in red states), 51% were glad he left office and Gore had actually higher favorable rating than Clinton by the time of the convetions. (42% for Clinton, 50% for Gore)
Gore would have been a fool to risk losing support of independent voters by using an unpopular president, whose job approval numbers were high but personal approval number were historically low.
October 5, 2005 5:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Separately, I watch Current on occassion via my DirecTV subscription. As a 45 year old male, I find it a bit hard on my eyes and brain but I apprecaite the attempt and the innovativeness.
I'm a little younger, but I agree. So far, it hasn't been all that captivating. At least in the beginning, they were running the same content over and over. I need to check it out again soon.
October 5, 2005 5:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
I can't go on, I try but something says "here we go again" and the rest might as well be looped on a reel,
Yes, sigh, bring up that old torture thing again.
Can't we just pretend it never happened? We'd all be so much better off.
October 5, 2005 5:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, that's what he wanted to achieve back the 80s.
"It is the case that Al Gore was perhaps the the first political leader to grasp the importance of networking the country (and later the world). In 1986 I chaired the Computer science and Telecommunications Board and Gore was our dinner speaker at the National Academy of Sciences. He spoke about the importance of a National Information Infrastructure. At the time he was a senator from a fairly small Southeastern state and I was amazed at his national vision. He has continued to be a national leader in promoting the importance of the internet for commerce and education."
Joseph Traub
October 5, 2005 5:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
No he didn't. But really I'd like to know whether we are still torturing people in secret fascilities and if so where, what is done and why?
If you can't stand the heat, your problem. For people like you it's always more convinient to stay ignorant. After all most of you still think that Saddam was behind 9/11.
October 5, 2005 5:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
The hipocracy here is staggering. Al Gore has incredible nerve lecturing on the issue of the state of television news. The man was responsible for putting scores of real journalists out of work at NewsWorld International, one of the only channels available to Americans that didn't simply regurgitate White House talking points. It did everything Gore now says the American news channels aren't doing, and he killed it.
When I wrote his offices to complain about shutting down a real news channel to start up a boutique channel like Current, the reply I received pointed out that NWI had a very low market share and therefore was of limited value.
I used to have real news on my television. Gore, this great proponent of journalistic integrity, could have kept NWI going. He might even have invested more in it. But he didn't. Now in its place I have another station of features, fluff, and Deepak Chopra. That was all Al Gore's doing--his big contribution to the broadcast media world. If he does take up the advice of posters here and run in '08, I hope he will remember that he axed the one station where he would have been given a fair shake.
When he needed to be brave and talk straight, he was a coward. Now he is simply hot air.
October 5, 2005 5:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh poor guy. I just can see every day how Al Gore deprives you from your power and therefore prevents you from doing all kind of good things for your fellow human beings.
Gimme a break.
The problem is with the people themselves.
Those who consume the oil and the media lies,
the propaganda and those who fool themselves with nice theories like "we have to fight the terrorists in Iraq so we don't have to do it here".
October 5, 2005 5:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
And explain to me how exactly Gore or anyone else could have kept NWI on air?
It was sold because it was doomed and it Gore didn't have the money to keep it on, moreover
NWI was just another elite controlled news network. The only reason why you liked it was because it was left-leaning.
But otherwise it was no more democratic than FOX News.
Thanks but we've have enough of that already.
October 5, 2005 5:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, well they shoulda made them override his veto. When I was involved in radio and TV in the 60s, no single entity could own more than 5 TVs, 5AMs and 7FMs, and never more than one of each in any single market.
Now ClearChannel owns 1500 radio stations.
Point number 2. Back then, you had to apply and re-apply for a license from the FCC, who was the "custodian" of the public's airwaves, for a license every three years. In that application, you had to show why YOU and not somebody else served the public interest best. There was a case where a Boston TV station lost its license (no small thing) to a competitor on the basis of serving the public interest.
No more. The airwaves are "property" to be bought and sold like apartment houses.
Pretty sad. Clinton/Gore caved. They shoulda stood up for what's right.
October 5, 2005 6:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Can you even imagine George W. Bush forming a thought like this? Let alone articulating it without injuring himself?
The 2000 election will go down as one of the greatest tragedies in history. But as Randy Newman once told Karl Marx, life isn't fair.
October 5, 2005 6:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
A mistake like that, especially if the guy appologizes, is not a reason to remove him.
The whole FOX gang should be removed for all the lies they told about Democratic public figures, such as Sean Hannity claiming that Gore was the first in 1988 who brought up Willie Horton. Totally bogus.
How many times did the media lie about Gore? And who lost his or her job because of that?
Noone. So please. Rather had to leave because it was about that fucking Bush. If it had been about Gore he would still be where he was.
And you know that.
October 5, 2005 6:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Anybody thought about a Gore/Clinton (Bill) ticket? Under the XXII amendment, Clinton cannot be ELECTED president, (neither was Bush), but he could be SWORN IN as president (like Bush) if Gore died.
Clinton still has the magic. He could be elected tomorrow if it were legal.
October 5, 2005 6:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
And how many people will read it or even know about it?
Imagine that this speech is on CNN.
And then you'll understand what Gore was saying about the power of distribution.
The Net still can't compete with TV. That's the ugly reality.
October 5, 2005 6:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's no longer that repetitive. It's much more diverse now. But it has been on air for only 66 days so they have time. It's something new on the market and it will take time before enough people have the skills to produce ready-for-TV content. But the kids are growing pretty fast.
October 5, 2005 6:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
By the way if you think that Bush's advantures in the National Guard are somehow
about "important policy debates" then you should by a ticket to the nearest loony bid.
Gore himself didn't give a shit about Bush's Vietnam era cowardice during the 2000 campaign. Never mentioned it never criticized it.
I tell you what is important policy: the invasion of Iraq. Now go back and check out what the media was doing regarding that subject in 2002.
October 5, 2005 6:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
October 5, 2005 6:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
Now in its place I have another station of features, fluff, and Deepak Chopra.
Where do you get your news from?
Current today is airing 400+ vidoes. Only two are about Chopra. But sure you don't exaggerate.
At least you should know what you are talking about.
Current is far better than NWI not the least becuse it is indeed something new and independently owned not just another corporate moster on the block dictating what is news and what is not news.
October 5, 2005 6:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sean Hannity gives his opinion and spins the news. He is not expected to be fair.
"A mistake like that, especially if the guy appologizes, is not a reason to remove him"
Rather continued the cover up for so long after he got caught that there was serious question if this was a "mistake". Rather to this day still clings to the "fake but true excuse" and has not really apologized IMO.
"If it had been about Gore he would still be where he was. And you know that"
I know no such thing.
I am certain that if Rather had been caught using forged documents in a story about Gore he would been forced out as well. It's all about the credibility of the CBS brand. In fact, I am surprised they acted so slowly on the Bush story.
October 5, 2005 6:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Of course I was being sarcastic.
October 5, 2005 7:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
Clinton is on record that he wouldn't do it, arguing that the 12th Amendment works with the 22nd to prohibit a two-term president from the VP spot...
October 5, 2005 7:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
The final point I want to make is this: We must ensure that the Internet remains open and accessible to all citizens..... We cannot take this future for granted. We must be prepared to fight for it because some of the same forces of corporate consolidation and control that have distorted the television marketplace have an interest in controlling the Internet marketplace as well. Far too much is at stake to ever allow that to happen.
This fight is coming, folks. You know it's coming.
As someone has pointed out, they wouldn't even know about this speech without the Internet....
October 5, 2005 7:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Jackson came roaring back with a campaign largely fueled by public outrage over the "corrupt bargain". If I were Gore, I'd have roared in 2003, and he should, imho, roar now. The public outrage is waiting for a focus.
October 5, 2005 7:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
I can't go on, I try but something says "here we go again" and the rest might as well be looped on a reel, over and over,SFC, I applaud your brilliant use of irony!
Oh it wasn't meant to be ironic....
Never mind.
October 5, 2005 7:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Gore seems to be head and shoulders above the cut of the rest of the Democratic "leadership". He has spoken out during the dark years of the war hysteria joined in and fanned by the DLC and most of the Democratic elected officials. Clinton (Bill) seems to be willing to be used as a convenient tool for Bush; Hillary seems to fit in well with the DLC.
October 5, 2005 8:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wow. That was wonderfully, fantastically heartening, in particular coming from a former U.S. vice president and all-but-president. Smart sincere people in proximity to power. Could it be there's hope for us after all?
October 5, 2005 8:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Gore argues his case fairly eloquently, but there seems to be a real lack of evidence supporting his claims. Simply put, what evidence is there to support the claim that the public dialogue in earlier (pre-broadcast) eras was higher quality than today? During the era of yellow journalism did reason drive public policy? During the gilded age, were corporations less successful in controlling the national debate than they are today? Was public discussion high minded during the Civil War, when Mrs. Lincoln was attacked as a traitor? What about when Grover Cleveland's possible illegitimate child was a major issue in a Presidential campaign? Was the election of Warren Harding the action of a thoughtful public, focused on the important matters of the day? In the golden era of the printing press that Gore alludes to, what percentage of the public actually published on important political issues? How does it compare to the percentage of those who publish blogs today?
Moreover, I think Gore's statement that, "Dan Rather...was, of course, forced out of his anchor job after angering the White House," while technically true, (Dan Rather was forced out and he did anger the White House) is misleading to the point of dishonesty. Rather presented forged documents as genuine, and then inexcusably delayed in correcting his error. Anyone who believes in a responsible media should be able to see this was a serious misdeed.
To be clear, I think the issue Gore raises (the cheapening of the public dialogue) is important. And I am not blind to the persistent and destructive misinformation peddled by our current administration. My point is merely that the situation today is not historically unique. To the contrary, the question of how to facilitate an intelligent and rational dialogue among citizens has been one our country has struggled with since its inception, with mixed success.
October 5, 2005 8:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
Why the fucking amnesia Al? You left your merit at the ballot box in FLA for the year 2000. You're rich upon rich and a vested part of the infrastructure that calls the shots regardless of party lines.
Nice of you to finally come around. You let this country be taken away, nothing can change that fact. Your words now carry of the weight of wind in a bag with the end tied shut.
You helped make it this way. You are one of the Weimar Republicans. The non slave owning founder would not claim you. Back to your tobacco farms and trust funds.
Your ridiculous stance against against longhaired teens helped provide distraction from Iran-contra and emboldened the zealotry of policy we now see causing ruin of the public's good will in the social contract.
You spoke out against free speech before AWOL ever did. Drink deep the mirr of gall you helped enable. It becomes you.
Thank John Kerry for his war vote while you're at it. They'll bury him with that flag lapel one day. It is his legacy.
Ditto John Edwards and you old boss Hillary.
We're taking the Dem party back before we take the country back. Cya.
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20051004/ap_on_go _co/congress_war_veterans_2
October 5, 2005 9:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
I really, really hope that others take up the cause for freedom on the internet. I'm worried about it all of the time. Once newspapers are gone, we'll be out of luck.
When I read the Washington Post story about the terrorists communicating on the internet, I thought here we go - censorship.
When I read about the FBI going after pornographers, I thought here's we go - censorship.
That no one in the US government speaks out against Chinese censorship of the internet gives me the chills.
Meanwhile, the FCC relaxed the rules about who has to register to use underwater submarine cables which means select entities have private access to the internet.
Tyco has its own cable. Enron, in August 2001, got permission to access the South American one.
Remember that cable that was paid for by the stockholders who got swindled in the great telecom scandal?
None of us really know how all of that cable supposedly installed in the '90s was laid out or who owns it now.
Goldman Sachs was one of the underwriters on those crooked telecom deals and when the companies looked to be bankrupt, Goldman Sachs set up MCG Capital to buy the assets.
Jon Corzine is not a Democrat. He is a wolf in sheep's clothing.
October 5, 2005 11:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
hwestiii - I assume you're referring to Gores brilliant global warming speech in NY as one example. The media covered it superficially and dismissively, riffing on the unusually cold weather the day he gave the speech. Har har. Of course global warming predicts an average temperature rise globally, but regionally weather is more extreme and erratic, some regions actually getting much colder while others have prolonged heat waves in excess of 100 degrees.
Maybe it's TV. Maybe lead paint. Or similac. Maybe poverty and class warfare. All those and more. Whatever it is, Gore is right, it's bizarre in the extreme.
btw, speaking of meritocracy of ideas, that’s what TPMC is. That’s why it’s important to rate! Take Gore’s comments to heart and apply them here.
* Also, notice he mentioned the “squadrons of digital brownshirts” dispatched by the Bush admin and corporate interests to harass and disrupt any dissemination of useful information to the public. That is no joke. That is why I always harp on trolls.
Internet forum people should be very aware that many PR agencies specializing in stealth marketing and internet buzz have sprung up over the years. They pay people to push everything from movies to political agendas, and the “actors” tend to be totally amoral and devious. The full number of agencies are largely unknown, because the field is so new and client confidentiality so high. Some are internal divisions of larger companies which are almost impossible detect. The field is booming though, creating a wide pool of expertise in deceptive marketing, and the number of people employed is in the thousands, perhaps tens of thousands.
So, like I’ve said before, many of these trolls and other axe grinders are literally paid internet agent provocateurs, whose job is promoting winger propaganda and disrupting meaningful discourse. They don’t even care if they convince anyone, so long as they disrupt and lower the overall tone.October 6, 2005 2:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
You guy's will never get it! It's the way you just apply disgrace with a broad brush. Your forefathers did it in the 70's. Everyone who came back from Vietnam was as bad as Lt. Calle and had to have killed at least a couple of innocent civillians, why else were they there? The only thing different now is that after you say that you throw in "but we support the troops" like it's some puntuation mark that allows you to say what ever you want before it without repercussions. There was no systematic "torture" of prisonners in Iraq, Afganistan or Gitmo. The soldiers who guard them are not like Nazis, Pol Pot, or the "Soviets in their Gulags" and the treatment of the prisoners can't be compred to it (but we support the troops). Soldiers, are just average Americans like you and me. They get in sittuations that you will never understand. Some handle it. Others do stupid things. The ones that do stuff like what happened in Abu Garab get prosecuted. There's no "secret message" form the Secretary of Defense condonig torture that passes down the ranks with a "wink and nod." Did some prisoners get abused in Iraq? Yes. Is that a bad thing? Yes. Should it be tolerated by the chain of command? No (and it wasn't, that's why people are going to jail). Does the United States Army "routinely torturing helpless prisoners"? No. Is it fair to insinuate that tortue is a "routine" part of the daily schedule of soldiers in Iraq, Afganistan and Gitmo as long as you end the sentence with "but we support the troops" Hell no!
October 6, 2005 3:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
Unfortunately, GWB and the entire Bush clan have excellent motor reflexes. Don't forget he and his daddy were both fighter pilots. His admittance to the Texas Nat'l Guard may have required some string-pulling, but strings or no strings, you don't get to fly a supersonic plane unless you've got 20/20 eyesight and excellent hand-eye coordination.
October 6, 2005 4:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
When you compare this sophisticated speech to the anti-science stance of the Bushies...who pretend not to even recognize that we had such ancestors...I say pretend, because their anti-evolution nonsense is just red meat to their base, they don't believe a word of it themselves...it's just so sad.
October 6, 2005 4:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
There's no "secret message" form the Secretary of Defense condonig torture that passes down the ranks with a "wink and nod." Did some prisoners get abused in Iraq? Yes. Is that a bad thing? Yes. Should it be tolerated by the chain of command? No (and it wasn't, that's why people are going to jail).
The same techniques were used in Gitmo and Abu G.
Coincidence? Magic?
A policy of torture is obvious. What do you think the Senate vote yesterday was about?
And your notion that the "chain of command" going to jail represents justice, when PFCs are being locked up, is laughable.
October 6, 2005 4:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
Clinton/Gore caved. They shoulda stood up for what's right.
How? Exactly what should they have done?
Name it.
People often think that the White House has somehow absolute power in Washington. They don't. They cannot do anything they want.
It's called checks and balances -- something that is now missing in Washington -- but was there in the 90s.
So let's say Clinton/Gore "had stood up for what is right" -- whatever that means? Then what? You say that the Reps couldn't have passed a much worse bill?
October 6, 2005 5:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
Clinton never had any kind of magic. Nor does he have it now. He was elected in 1992 because the economy was in the toilet and the Reps screwed it up their convention by booing moderates off the stage.
But Clinton had Perot twice, and an old Senator as his opponent in 1996. He never had Nader or any other serious challenge from the left.
He is sure lucky but magic? No way.
Democrats have this delusion that Clinton is so damn popular all over America.
But Middle America disdains him, not just for what he did with Monica, but also for his "me myself and I" attitude. He just cannot live without being in the spotlight. That's juveline and pathetic.
Clinton would have either lost in 2000 or would have had a very close election with Bush, just like Gore.
Today it might be different but again that would be for the blunders and incompetence of Bush and the Reps not due to Clinton's own talent.
October 6, 2005 5:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
If the "once a loser alwasy the loser" nonsense was true then the following people would have never been elected to public office after losing a race:
Bill Clinton
George W Bush
Al Gore
Ronald Reagan
George H W Bush
Richard Nixon
and many others.
And we wouldn't talk about John McCain as a potentional prez candidate, either. After all he lost big to Bush in 2000. Why is it that he is not called a loser and Gore is, when Gore in fact didn't lose as far as the number of voters is concerned, but McCain indeed
failed to convince enough people to beat Bush? Something is wrong with this double-standard.
October 6, 2005 6:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
Simply put, what evidence is there to support the claim that the public dialogue in earlier (pre-broadcast) eras was higher quality than today?
Do you want evidence?
Compare Eisenhower to Bush.
Compare Truman to Clinton.
Now you may get it.
Today the US political culture is as ridiculous as ever. As a result idiots and Casanovas get in the White House. One Carter aid noted in 2000 about Gore, you would be a great president but not today.
Why? Because the TV pundit dominated, soundbite-driven and overly simplistic, shallow and repetitive nature of our current political culture denies people like Gore the opportunity to govern no matter how qualified they are, no matter how much they know, no matter how logical or intelligent they are. If you do not charm you can't be elected. That's the level we have sunk and that was not the case before the TV era.
Can you imagine that an Eisenhower could be elected today? No way.
Can you imagine that a man like Bush could have ended up in the White House 60 years ago? No way.
Rather presented forged documents as genuine, and then inexcusably delayed in correcting his error. Anyone who believes in a responsible media should be able to see this was a serious misdeed.
And you think that Rather would have been removed if those forged documents had been used against a President Gore?
No way. The media, including Rather, constantly lied about both Clinton and Gore and no pundit, no scribe, no anchor paid any price.
Was Ceci Collony kicked out from the NYT because of the dishonest coverage she gave to Gore? No, she is still there.
Was any journalist who lied about Gore and Love Story, Love Canal, Internet, the Texas fires etc. fired? No.
But Rather who made one a mistake and later appologized is suddenly out of the game. No double-standard, right?
October 6, 2005 6:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
Am I mistaken if I think your are a far-left
idiot?
1. Gore had no option after the SC decision. Period. The law is the law, the rules are the rules even if you don't like them. Gore fought for 36 days virtually alone AND without your help. So who are you demand more from him? Nobody. You would have gone crazy after 2 days listening to that non-stop "Get out of Cheney's House" screaming in front of your house.
2.You did nothing to prevent the selection of Bush after the SC decision so shut up. Democracy is not a one-man game.
3.Gore was much more concerned about Iran-Contra than about longhaired teens. He never took any stance against them. Unlike you he doesn't care about people's hair. Go back to school.
4.He never spoke out against free speech.
And never did anything against free speech either. Those labels on those CDs do not mean censorhip. As someone who actually lived in a communist country I can tell you you have no idea what censorship really means. But sure I'm glad that obscenity does not get a free ride in this country.
5.Kerry voted for the war but Gore opposed it from the beginning. So what's your point? Gore is not Kerry.
October 6, 2005 6:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
hwestii, I agree this article does sound good and insightful at first glance. To me though, it seems odd that now, finally after 4+ years, Gore finds that there is no longer a "news" fact-based media in our country. Four years ago not one US media outfit dared to look into charges that ten illegally blocked from voting, 80% or more of those typically voting democrat. Only one american reporter (www.gregpalast.com) dug into the story, and reported it to the BBC, who ran a feature on it that apparently nobody here has seen. This information BTW was shared with the Gore camp more than once, weeks PRIOR to the supreme court decision handing Bush the election. What did Gore do? He conceded. We need a leader who is going to fight and is not afraid of the republican spin machine, but one is willing to challenge it with facts at each and every opportunity, one who will attack, yes attack the lies. We don't need Gore and his new awareness of the cow-towed media, timed perfectly with his own self promotion, or John Kerry, a softballing, soft-pedaller who can't make up his mind on anything. We need a STRONG LEADER willing to stand up to any issue, provide solutions and yes attack the republicans for each and every failure without let-up. And of course, there does not seem to be anyone like that at this time that I know of, I wish I did...
October 6, 2005 7:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
apologies, meant tens of thousands illegally blocked from voting.
October 6, 2005 7:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
Rather continued the cover up for so long after he got caught that there was serious question if this was a "mistake". Rather to this day still clings to the "fake but true excuse" and has not really apologized IMO.
Gimme a break. That's BS. So long?? A few weeks after the show he was out.
Rather applogized for what he did with black and white language. It doesn't matter what he
personally thinks about the episode now. The implication was that the public was informed that the story was false. The public was not kept in the dark as they were with regard to Gore for YEARS not weeks.
I do not condone what Rather did but it was a far cry from what the media as a whole did to Gore for years. And noone was removed for it. Not one damn scribe, pundit or anchor appologized.
And you think Gore doesn't have to right to say Rather was removed because it was about Bush?
What else should he think?
If there is anyone in this country who has the moral right to say that that is Al Gore.
Bush got a free ride from the media for years, but especially during the campaign in 2000 while Gore was treated by the same media gurus as a corrupt liar based on what?
And who paid the price? Gore. Not the the liars in the media.
I know no such thing.
I am certain that if Rather had been caught using forged documents in a story about Gore he would been forced out as well. It's all about the credibility of the CBS brand. In fact, I am surprised they acted so slowly on the Bush story.
BS, again. You lie. You know that all too well, unless you have lived on another planet over the last 6 years. The media, from wall to wall conservative, mainstream, liberal you name it, lied constantly about Gore during the 2000 campaign. They put words to his mouth and used those words to label him as a liar. They never corrected themselves and never appologized. Not one of them lost his job.
As a result just like many people still think that Saddam had something to do with 9/11, most still think that Gore said he invented the Internet (he didn't say it) that he said he and his wife were the models for Love Story (he never said it) that he said he discovered Love Canal (he never said it), that he intentionally lied about his trip to Texas during those fires (he didn't lie about it) that he lied when he said he was working on his father's farm (he did in fact work) and many other urban legends about his past and present. The end result: millions of people believe even today that Gore is a serial exaggerator and a pathological liar.
They didn't use forged documents. They used misquotes, spin, paraphrases, double-standard. Is that better?
A lie is a lie. A falsehood is a falsehood. Everyone in the media now knows that Gore never said those things. Still noone applogized, noone lost his job. Instead Gore lost the job he was running for because in 2000 most voters were concerned about character (thanks to Clinton and his lies). They punished Gore for things he didn't even say. Who was responsible for that?
October 6, 2005 7:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
NickDoe: "Internet forum people should be very aware that many PR agencies specializing in stealth marketing and internet buzz have sprung up over the years. They pay people to push everything from movies to political agendas, and the “actors” tend to be totally amoral and devious."
This is so true. Although most here are probably focused on the ones who push political agendas, the stealth marketing types are both evident, and rather annoying, to say the least. I've come across so many Internet product "reviews" that read like paid advertisements from the manufacturers. It's a shame: the idea of unfiltered reviews from our peers - other consumers - is a great one. It's also a threat to the established commercial order, and they are moving to coopt it.
October 6, 2005 8:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
"And you think Gore doesn't have to right to say Rather was removed because it was about Bush?"
Gore has the right to say anything he wants. That claim seemed to be a cheap shot (among others) and a bit out of place in a speech that purported to be about civil debate and not a typical red meat stump speech. It is also a bit ironic since the story Rather got canned over had nothing to do with serious policy debate that Gore was advocating.
"BS, again. You lie. You know that all too well, unless you have lived on another planet over the last 6 years. The media, from wall to wall conservative, mainstream, liberal you name it, lied constantly about Gore during the 2000 campaign."
Listen, you clearly have a strong emotional attachment to Gore. You are confusing hearing things you don't want to hear about Gore with violation of journalistic standards like using forged documents. Did you not hear speculation about Bush's drug use, being "AWOL" from the military, his general intelligence, ect. duly reported in the media?
I think that if Rather had simply run his story using his dubious sources but not the forged documents, he would have been able to keep his job and the information about Bush would be analogous to all those things about Gore reported from dubious sources that you lament.
October 6, 2005 8:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
You are a little paranoid and also out-of-touch with reality.
1.Noone here defended the attrocities in Vietnam. In fact Gore -- unlike your coward Bush -- opposed that pointless war from the beginning. So what's your point?
2.Noone said here that the soldiers who guard them are like Nazis, Pol Pot.
First of all we are not talking about just innocent guards but individuals who commited torture. Two different things. But still noone called them Nazies but you bet the treatment at Guantanamo and the prisons in Iraq was not much better than the treatment in the Gulag. I lived in Hungary for years and one of my relatives was sent to the Gulag right after WWII and I know all too well what was done to him. Not much worse than what Bush-Gonzales-Rummy-Feith cabal did to those innocent Iraqis (yes, innocent most of them have been released by the very same guards you defend so much).
And I wonder what you would say if the same things were done to you in your own country by a foreign troops? You would say, well no big deal or you would be mad as hell?
3. There was systematic torture of prisonners in Iraq, Afganistan and Gitmo. The very fact that it was going on in Afghanistan AND Iraq AND Gitmo and that the nature of the torture was pretty similar proves that it was not an isolated incident.
But it is the case that people like you still believe that the Earth is flat and simultanously keep your head in the sand. But that will not change reality.
Those few troops did not invent those torture tricks. They have been applied by Israel for a long time in Gaza and in the West Bank. They know that Muslims are particularly sensitive of standing naked in front of others. This was known within the CIA and the DIA and Rummy and Feith both knew what was going on there. It was intentional and systematic because it was believed to be effective. That's it.
4.The one who sends troops to a pointless war does not support the troops. Sending people to their death can hardly be called support. And who sent those troops to Iraq? His name is Bush.
5.Soldiers, are just average Americans like you and me. That's true. And average Americans can do evil just like everyone else -- including Bush, Rummy, Feith, Gonzales and others at the top. But those soldiers wouldn't have done that had it not been for the leadership which created the circumstances where such crimes could took place.
6. In fact there was no "secret message" passed down. It was not secret at all before those who had to know about it on the ground.
They in fact knew very well what they were doing and they knew that the top had no problem with those activities.
7.Should it be tolerated by the chain of command? No. But it was not only tolerated it was fascilated by the civilian leadership in the Pentagon and the White House. They were not kep in the dark. The Red Cross talked about torture in Abu Ghraib as early as 2003 Dec. The White House knew about that report. What did they do? Nothing.
8. Does the United States Army "routinely torture helpless prisoners"? It's a good question. But you are no authority about this matter. Sorry.
October 6, 2005 8:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
Clinton was a brainiac too, but he could manage to connect with monosyllables.
Gore lacks that gift.
October 6, 2005 9:07 AM | Reply | Permalink
It is now clear that “Conservatism”, even “Neo-conservatism”, was never anything more than a cover for this centralization of power. The ballooning deficit alone demonstrates that. This ruling faction of the Republican Party often claims inspiration from Evangelical Christianity, but the scandals and the corrupt activities of these same individuals tell a different story. To the extent that they can be said to have a coherent philosophy, it is some sort of implicit faith in the moral superiority of winner-take-all competition. Winning justifies everything. This has more in common with Social Darwinism than anything else, there is more Nietzsche in it than Adam Smith.
As for television, it is clear why it is the tool of choice for propagandists and centralists. One person or faction, who have the money to buy prime time, can dominate a one-way message to millions of people. As Mr. Gore pointed out, these millions of people cannot ask questions back to the speaker, and even more importantly, cannot share insights with each other. Nor will the internet save us from this. As Robert Putnam has shown, face to face conversation is the foundation of human capital. But as he also demonstrated, we don’t talk to one another anymore.
The way to oppose a conspiracy, even an open one, is to expose it. Leaders who care, both Democratic and Republican, conservative and liberal, have to call the others out. One opposes Centralism with Empowerment, Authoritarianism with Democracy, promises by powerful people to protect us all against our enemies with a call for all citizens to participate equally in sweeping corruption and incompetence from our system. This isn’t Left-wing or Right-wing, it isn’t Red or Blue, its American Humanism. Above all, it’s time to stop allowing the faction in power to define the issues. This isn’t about Health Care, or Social Security, or NAFTA, or even the Katrina disaster, although those are all symptoms of what is going on. Note to Talking Points Memo: the first point on the memo should be “It’s about America, stupid.”
October 6, 2005 9:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
What does exist is a dangerous lack of military discipline, particularly when dealing with prisoners of war/nonwar. Were I you, I'd spend my partisan politicking on establishing better standards of discipline for those serving in these sensitive roles and forcing the military to adopt a system of independent observers to ensure compliance.
Abuse scandals hurt all of us, because they justifiably sow the seeds of future anti-American sentiment. Let's fix the real problem, rather than egaging in worthless witch hunts.
October 6, 2005 11:07 AM | Reply | Permalink
There's no "policy of torture." And it's unproductive to argue what is effectively a red herring. You come across as tinfoil-hat-wearing conspiracy theorists.
Did Gonzales not write a memo about torture?
Did Rumsfeld not sign off on torture techniques?
Did Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller not command Gitmo, and then Abu G, and the same torture was found in both?
These are facts, and they represent a POLICY. Policy decisions are made by people in office, and implemented in the field.
How more clear can it be? Are you seriously unable to connect these dots?
October 6, 2005 12:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Actually, Ceci Connolly writes for the Washington Post. Katharine Q. Seelye, her counterpart at the Times, still has a job, too. As, or course, does Ste. Judith Miller. The main point, though, is perfectly true: nobody gets fired for publishing lies about a Democrat, no matter how poorly sourced.
October 6, 2005 2:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
GeorgeSalt - it's not just products they're selling, it's politics as well.
Any prominat interent forum will attract paid posters to spam and regurgitate talking points.
There is a long history of agent provacateurs infiltrating public commons to wreak havok. It's well documented the FBI for example used these tactics to disrupt civil rights organization.
However, it used to be a costly endeavor, difficult to coordinate, and require large institutional participation like law enforcement, which then left a paper trail and had to opperate under the law, or skirt it at tier peril.
The internet has made citizen>citizen communication more efficient, it's also made deliberate disruption more efficeint. Now, any unscrupulous PR company, or politcal outift can set up a propaganda outfit of FT internet trolls with little to no investment, training them in methods of disruption and propagandizing.
October 6, 2005 4:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Actually, enlisted solddiers and NCO's (the ones who commited the acts) have gone to jail, some of the officers, who were responsible for the orginization have been relieved of their commands (which in the military, for those of you who don't know is the end of you career). Higher level officers (battalion and brigade commanders) are still under investigation. And as for the vote in the Senate, it's nothing but PC PR, torture has been illegal for decades in the Army and the country, a vote saying we oppose torture is just a way to "pretend" you're doing something.
October 7, 2005 3:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
There's a link to the memo if yo'd like to read it and please let me know where it say's we can torture people.
Did Rumsfeld not sign off on torture techniques? No, he did accept the legal oppinion stated in the Gonzales memo (that's why you have a lawyer, to advise you)
Did Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller not command Gitmo, and then Abu G, and the same torture was found in both? No, General Karpinski was in charge of the M.P. Brigade responsible for the mistreatment of prisoners at Abu G (she was also relieved of command)
These are facts, and they represent a POLICY. Policy decisions are made by people in office, and implemented in the field. Wrong again, what you call facts, is simply over the top hyperbole design to foment dissent with in the country. You figure if you say it enough over and over people will believe it (which apparently works, because Paul Begalla said it a couple of times and you swollowed it, Hook Line and Sinker).
October 7, 2005 4:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
October 7, 2005 7:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
There was a policy of torture.
Whether it is still the case I don't know. But I wouldn't be surpised if it was.
Just because you don't like to hear something doesn't mean it doesn't exist. And you let the civilian leadership off the hook for political reason and blame a few troops instead. How coward is that?
Those tactics were not invented by Lyndie England. They have been used for a long time by Israel in Gaza and the West Bank. That famous picture with the guy standing on a box is called 'the Vietnam'. It was been around since those days and it was not invented by a few reservists from upstate New York.
Gonzales threw the Geneva Convention out of the window. Bush said boo about that. The White House was warmed by the Red Cross in 2003 Dec that torture was going on in Abu Ghraib. They did nothing. Why? Because they wanted it to be continued. It was one of their desperate tactics in Iraq to get intelligence and no amount of spin from you will erase that from history.
Keep your head in the sand. Maybe sooner or later you'll notice you can't breath.
October 7, 2005 10:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah man everyone is guilty expect those at the top who knew what was going on
Your political bias equals cowardice.
Bush knew what was going in Abu Ghraib. The Red Cross produced a report in 2003 Dec.
He knew that by throwing out the Geneva Convention he dismantles checks and balances in those prisons and creates an anything-goes environment. But sure. Nothing Bush does can shake your blind faith in his endless wisdom.
Idiot.
Yes torture has been illegal for decades in the military. That's why those who condoned this practise should be put in prison along with those who implemented it. And that does not stop with politically safe low ranking officers. The bucks stops at the president's desk.
October 7, 2005 10:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
Someone tell me WHY, exactly, we should listen to a member of the administration that chose not to stop Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda after the first bombing of the World Trade Center and the bombing of the USS Cole?
1.Osama bin Laden had nothing to do with the first WTC bombing. It was masterminded and organized by Ramzi Yousef who did his own job regardless of whether bin Laden was alive or dead. Yousef was captured in Pakistan in 1995. Guess how much credit did Clinton get? 0. But hey if bin Laden was captured today you would put Bush to a piedestal.
2.You are an ignorant fool if you think that the Clinton administration did nothing to stop bin Laden after the African Embassy bombing. And you were the first to jump on him when he was "too agressive" in Afghanistan. If he had decided to invade the country you would have crucified him.
Not that invading Afghanistan would have necessarly stopped bin Laden but in your simplistic world nothing works except carpet bombing.
Counter-terrorism is a little bit more comlicated than that and a mostly secret business.
You din't give a damn about bin Laden in the 90s. Clinton did, so did Gore and the entire NSC. But just because you can't see something on FOX News doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
3.Bush didn't do a damn thing after the Cole to stop bin Laden. In fact he compleltely ignored terrorism and al Qaeda.
4.Clinton was in charge of our national security in the 90s not Gore. The bucks stop at the president's desk. You don't know what Gore would have done if he had been president so your accusation is baseless.
5.Bin Laden is still at large. More than 4 years after 9/11. Bush managed to miss him at Tora Bora then pull the spec ops out of Afghanistan to go after Saddam who was the weakest dictator in the Middle East.Duh! Bush sure knows something about how to curb transnational terrorism. Not.
6.You don't have to kill bin Laden in order to prevent 9/11. You stop those 19 people and there's no attack no matter whether bin Laden is alive or dead.
But in order to stop those 19 people you have to connect the dots. In order to connect the dots you have to find those dots. In order to find those dots you have to ask the CIA, the FBI and other parts of the IntelCom to go and look for anything they have about al Qaeda operatives inside the United States. Did Bush do that in the summer of 2001? Did he "shake the trees"?
No.
Would Al Gore have done that? You bet. It would have been routine procedure. That's what the Clinton administration was doing in 1999 Dec, preventing the associates of Ahmen Ressam from blowing up a few things.
Now go back to school.
October 7, 2005 10:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
Dear Transcriber of this speech,
"I have sworn upon the alter of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man."
The word is "ALTAR." "Alter" is a verb meaning "to change."
ARRRGHHH!!!
October 7, 2005 10:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
Neither Gore nor most Americans will be swayed by conspiracy theories.
As for Greg Palast, I'm not convinced and he is biased. If I had been Gore during the Florida mess I wouldn't have "used" Palast's report, either. Gore concended because after the SC decision he had no more legal option. The law is the law even if you don't like it.
And even if Palast is right 100% and if Gore had argued that 1000s of Dem voters were not allowed to vote because of that purge-list it wouldn't have made a damn difference because the only remedy to such violation would have been to invalidate the entire Florida election result.
Which would have never happened and you know that.
Fighting is fine. But fighting without using your mind is stupid.
And Gore knew all too well in 2000 that media was crazy. That's why he didn't talk to them for 60 days before the convention. Why should anyone tell them anything if they ignore it and just go ahead with their own fantasies?
October 7, 2005 11:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
Why can't you guys ever have a civil discussion with me? I find your points and ideas as outlandish and indefensible as you find mine, however I've managed to post over a hundred comments without calling you names. You say "Bush knew what was going in Abu Ghraib. The Red Cross produced a report in 2003 Dec." I'm sure the Red Cross "produced" lots of reports in 2003, link me to one that says "American soldiers are torturing prisoners in Abu Gharaib." The soldiers who committed the acts are guilty, anyone in the Chain of command who condoned illegal acticity should be found guilty. However, your logic seems to dictate that every officer at every level from the soldier who committed the crime up to the President should be held equally responsible for that crime and punished accordingly. So following this logic, because a group of guards in a prison in Iraq "abused" some prisoners the 15 NCO's and 17 Officers (stationed throughout the world) in the direct chain of command, as well as the Secretary of the Army the Secretary of Defense and the President should all be convicted of abuse because of the act of a soldier in Iraq?
October 7, 2005 12:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
And there's also the media companies that are trying to find a way to control the Internet and make a profit out of it.
October 8, 2005 3:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
I suppose you could say that Hitler was not a war criminal becaause he never personally killed a Jew and there is no written trail of documents saying he authorized the final solution.
Bush makes everything a secret so you'll never have him, Rumsfeld or the military brass saying that torture was systemic. But why on earth should we beleve their protestations to the contrary?
I thought Nuremberg made the civilian and military commanders responsible for the war crimes of their subordinates.
October 8, 2005 4:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
2. I was not leading the Senate gavel. If you want me to "shut up" you best read the Constitution and the First Amendment there, Mr.Smarty Britches.
3.Gore was posturing about heavy metal lyrics when more pressing concerns were around. He did a great job of taking up news cycles for a non item.
4.Well then label you a true moralist, eh?
5.The fact is both made expedient stands at crucial times to court votes for views that did not reflect the broad interests of the whole constiuency.
October 10, 2005 3:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
Gore has the right to say anything he wants. That claim seemed to be a cheap shot
You dodge my questions. You did not explain why anchors, pundits and journalist were not removed when they were lying about Gore.
Was that better? Was that more honest than what Rather did? Did those lies serve the public better than what Rather did.
He was removed not because he lied about Bush
but because it was about Bush.
Under such circumstances it is entirely logical to conclude that Rather was removed because the lie was about Bush.
But of course you will never see that since
you are just as bised as the current MSM is.
It is also a bit ironic since the story Rather got canned over had nothing to do with serious policy debate that Gore was advocating.
It would be ironic if it wouldn't be the prime example of how the government under Bush can intimidate the media if they don't like what they hear. And since that was one of the subjects of Gore's speech where is the irony? There cannot be a democracy without a press that is free from government interference. Thoman Jefferson understood it why don't you?
Listen, you clearly have a strong emotional attachment to Gore. You are confusing hearing things you don't want to hear about Gore with violation of journalistic standards like using forged documents. Did you not hear speculation about Bush's drug use, being "AWOL" from the military, his general intelligence, ect. duly reported in the media?
1.I don't have any kind of attachment to Gore let alone emotional. I just hate when double-standard and blatant lies dominate a presidential campaign and help get a man like Bush, who was utterly unqualified for the presidency, get his way to the White House.
2.Yes I don't want to hear those things for one simple reasons: those things are LIES. Prove it that they are not. Gimme quotes where Gore said those things. Name the time, place when he said those things.
Those words were used over and over and over again for years to undermine Gore's character. And you know that. You heard them not once not twice but many times from people all over the media. And noone ever paid a price for that. But you think that's just all right since it's about Gore.
3.Speculations about Bush's drug use? Sure I heard speculations. But they were never presented by the MSM as facts especially they were not repeated for two years throughout the entire campaign.
Can't you see the difference between a few guys speculating about something and 1000s of media people repeating a lie about someone in order to paint him as a liar?
The issue is the frequency and intensity. If you say something once on ABC it will go away. If you say the same thing 1000s times on CNN, FOX, ABC, NBC etc. it will become conventional wisdom and will influence what millions of voters think about that candidate.
Comparing Bush's drug use news to the "I invented the Internet" madness is like comparing the 1998 Sudan strike to the invasion of Iraq.
The MSM never questioned Bush's intelligence on a permanent basis. They never promoted relentlesly the idea that he was stupid. That came from left-wingers who did not get much exposure on the MSM. Again, Sudan and Iraq.
Moreover evaluating Bush's intellgeince is a subjective matter, in absense of actual IQ test data. Whether Gore said that he discovered Love Canal or not is not subjective. He either said it or not. It either happened or it didn't happen. No middle ground. You know that famous moral clarity.
If Bush was not AWOL and if someone said in the media that it in fact he was AWOL he should be fired. But name one mainstream journalist who claimed that as a matter of fact other than Rather?
If a journalist put words to someone mouth and use those words to paint him as a liar that violates journalistic standards, all right? If you cannot get that you don't understand the meaning of this phrase: journalistic standard.
Actually in other democracies you cannot do that. If you do you gonna end up in court and punished. But in America apparently that's just fine. Free speech means free lies anywhere, anytime.
I think that if Rather had simply run his story using his dubious sources but not the forged documents, he would have been able to keep his job and the information about Bush would be analogous to all those things about Gore reported from dubious sources that you lament.
The core of the problem was not the forged documents. That itself was a honest mistake. The core was that it was a lie about Bush.
And as I said a lie is a lie no matter what technic is used to formulate it or spread it.
The Bush team and the Republicans wouldn't have cared about the whole issue if it wouldn't have attacked his character. Remember Bush's vehement objections when McCain compared him to Clinton during the primaries? Rove knew that if Bush loses the character and credibility advantage he could lose the election.
And that's what the lies about Gore were all about in 2000: character.
They used fabricated quotes not fabricated documents. But if I kill you with a hammer is that less of a crime than if I kill you with
anthrax?
October 10, 2005 3:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
Why do you think he considers that a gift?
In my view he disdains Clinton's superficial
approach toward strangers. He is way too open. Enters a room and pretends everyone is his best friend all of sudden.
And it's pretty sad if the presidency now is decided on whether someone can pretend that he "feels your pain". FDR didn't do that. Truman didn't do that. Eisenhower didn't do that. Kennedy didn't do that. Johnson didn't do that. Nixon didn't do that. Carter didn't do that.
Then came Reagan who mixed entertainment with governance and paved the way for anti-intellectualism in our political culture. Idiot.
I consider myself an average person but I can connect with Gore far better than I can connect with Clinton.
The ignorant and inarticulate Americans should educate themselves and be much more serious and then Gore will sound just like them. I'm sick and tired of clowns in the White House who are supposedly like the average Joe, when in fact they are not.
October 10, 2005 4:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
Red Cross: Iraq abuse "tantamount to torture"
U.S. told over time
Antonella Notari, chief spokeswoman for the Red Cross, would not discuss the full report Monday.
It is our report, Notari told The Associated Press. That's all I can say.
But Pierre Kraehenbuehl, the Red Cross’ director of operations, said Friday that the report was given to U.S. officials in February. He said it only [b]summarized what the agency had been telling U.S. officials in detail from March to November 2003 [/b]“either in direct face-to-face conversations or in written interventions.”
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4944094/
OK? The report was given to the CPA in Feb, 2004. The White House was told over and over again by the Red Cross in 2003 that prisoner abuse took place in Iraqi prisons. They knew it long before you heard about it in the news. They did nothing to stop it. Why?
However, your logic seems to dictate that every officer at every level from the soldier who committed the crime up to the President should be held equally responsible for that crime and punished accordingly.
Everyone who planned or participated in these acts should be held accountable accordingly. Not just a few reservists who were put into this anything-goes environment.
Those who knew at the top for months that the US military and intelligence abused prisoners
-- most of them innocent of any crime --- were the most responsible for creating that environment and should not be let off the hook while low-ranking officers go to prison. It's coward and shows that high-ranking government officials in the Bush administrations are somehow above the law and no matter how unethical how destructive their decisions are they can get away with everything.
The bucks stops at the president's desk.
October 10, 2005 5:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
Gore ignored pleads from the COngressional Black Caucus involving Florida.
Ignored? No he didn't ignore them. He just didn't have the power to sign that petition.
He was NOT a Senator. Get it? There were certain rules which he had to follow.
I was not leading the Senate gavel. If you want me to "shut up" you best read the Constitution and the First Amendment there, Mr.Smarty Britches.
The First Amedment has nothing to do with House rules. You cannot say what you want in the Congress at any time you want. There is a certain order in place which applies to everyone and the CBC violated the rules. The Persident of the Senate -- in this case Gore -- had to gavel them down. Period.
3.Gore was posturing about heavy metal lyrics when more pressing concerns were around. He did a great job of taking up news cycles for a non item
First, it was his wife's crusade not Gore's.
Second it was not about heavy metal but obscene lyrics in any kind of music.
Third, when that campaign for those labels was going on Gore was doing a bunch of other things simultaneously. Did you read the Congressional Record? You didn't. Did you read his public statements at the time? I mean all of them. You didn't. But you are sure the only things that Gore cared about were those labels.
You are a joke. Go educate yourself about Gore's real record then you will not say so much nonsense about him.
Well then label you a true moralist, eh?
I don't care about your labels. Labels are only tools of fools who know all too little to
give a credible account of history or about a public offical.
But it's sure that liberals are now in the minority because of assholes like you.
The fact is both made expedient stands at crucial times to court votes for views that did not reflect the broad interests of the whole constiuency.
You were talking about Gore then you switched to Kerry and his Iraq war vote with which Gore has nothing to do. You were not talking about some undefined "expedient stands". After you were informed that Gore was actually against the war you changed your story.
Furthermore, you certainly do not represent the "the whole constiuency" and you have no idea what their "broad interests" are. In fact you only represent a fringe minority. Sorry if Gore failed to pander to you. I'm actually glad that he didn't.
October 15, 2005 10:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
Hillary was not Gore's boss.
Under the Constitution Hillary had no right to give orders to anyone the Clinton administation let alone to Gore.
October 15, 2005 12:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
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