AP, Fox failed to note U.S. attorneys supporting Patriot Act renewal were appointed by Bush
SUMMARY: Both the AP and Fox News' Special Report with Brit Hume reported on a White House event in which U.S. attorneys appeared and spoke in favor of President Bush's efforts to renew controversial provisions of the USA Patriot Act. However, both media outlets omitted the fact that all of the U.S. attorneys participating are Bush appointees.
Both a January 4 Associated Press article and a January 3 segment on Fox News' Special Report with Brit Hume reported on a White House event in which United States attorneys appeared and spoke in favor of President Bush's efforts to renew controversial provisions of the USA Patriot Act. But in suggesting that there was something noteworthy in the U.S. attorneys' expression of support for the Patriot Act, both the AP and Special Report omitted a key fact: All of the U.S. attorneys who participated in the event are Bush appointees. They work for him. What would be noteworthy is if any had dissented.
In December, a bipartisan filibuster blocked a Patriot Act renewal bill supported by Bush and the U.S. attorneys who spoke.
Six Bush-appointed U.S. attorneys -- Ken Wainstein (District of Columbia), Carol Lam (Southern District of California), Michael Garcia (Southern District of New York), Roslynn Mauskopf (Eastern District of New York), Mary Beth Buchanan (Western District of Pennsylvania), and Debra Wong Yang (Central District of California) -- spoke at the January 3 White House press event. The press event followed a "meeting" between Bush and 19 U.S. attorneys -- all Bush appointees. Speaking to the press, Wainstein said that, during the meeting, Bush "asked us to give him our input about the importance of the Patriot Act to our investigations and our criminal cases and national security cases around the country."
The AP reported:
During a White House meeting with federal prosecutors Tuesday, Bush said lawmakers must act on a permanent renewal of the Patriot Act, which expanded the government's surveillance and prosecutorial powers against suspected terrorists, their associates and financiers.
[...]
Later, outside the West Wing, prosecutors cited several cases in which the Patriot Act had played a crucial role, from staging an undercover sting on California weapons dealers attempting to sell Stinger missiles to securing convictions of major terrorist financiers in New York.
"We use it each and every day to protect our country against terrorists and criminals," said Ken Wainstein, U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia.
The AP also quoted Sen. Russell Feingold (D-WI) as saying, "Bush should spend more time negotiating about the Patriot Act with Democrats and others on Capitol Hill and less on 'staged meetings with hand-picked participants' at the White House." The AP provided no explanation for Feingold's "hand-picked" comment.
On Special Report, Fox News White House correspondent Wendell Goler reported that, at the January 3 meeting, "the president armed himself with stories from some of the prosecutors who use the act every day," adding that Bush later "sent the prosecutors out to talk about the terrorist plots the act has helped them break up." Goler then played portions of comments by Lam and Buchanan but did not inform viewers that they, along with the rest of the participants, were nominated by Bush.
From the January 4 edition of Fox News Special Report with Brit Hume:
BRIT HUME (host): President Bush today resumed his effort to get Congress to renew the Patriot Act. The president says that act -- the key provisions of which are now set to expire early next month -- is a vital tool in the war on terror. Fox News White House correspondent Wendell Goler reports Mr. Bush called in some key allies to help him in that quest.
GOLER: Determined to break a filibuster blocking reauthorization of parts of the Patriot Act, the president armed himself with stories from some of the prosecutors who use the act every day.
BUSH [clip]: And I expect Congress to understand that we're still at war, and they gotta give us the tools necessary to win this war.
GOLER: Later, he sent the prosecutors out to talk about the terrorist plots the act has helped them break up.
[begin video clip]
LAM: Three individuals, weapons dealers, who were interested in taking Stinger missiles from undercover FBI agents and reselling them to Al Qaeda and the Taliban.
BUCHANAN: An imperial wizard of the Ku Klux Klan who had obtained explosive bombs and devices, and he planned to obtain hand grenades and blow up abortion clinics.
[end video clip]
GOLER: And not just terrorist plots, they said, but common criminal activity.
BUCHANAN [clip]: We used section 212 of the Patriot Act to rescue a 13-year-old child who had been taken from her home in Pittsburgh and abducted by a 38-year-old child molester.
By contrast, a January 4 USA Today article by David Jackson reported that "Bush-appointed U.S. attorneys from 14 states and the District of Columbia said the law [the Patriot Act] has helped them crack cases involving terrorist finances, weapons exchanged for drugs, and child abductions."
Similarly, a January 4 New York Times article reported:
Surrounded in the Roosevelt Room by 19 federal prosecutors, Mr. Bush said Congress was holding up renewal of the law because of politics.
"When it came time to renew the act, for partisan reasons, in my mind, people have not stepped up and have agreed that it's still necessary to protect the country," Mr. Bush said. "The enemy has not gone away - they're still there. And I expect Congress to understand that we're still at war and they've got to give us the tools necessary to win this war."
[...]
The United States attorneys, all Bush appointees summoned to Washington by the Justice Department, echoed Mr. Bush when they appeared en masse in front of television cameras moments later.
The U.S. attorneys mission statement notes that "United States Attorneys are appointed by, and serve at the discretion of, the President of the United States, with advice and consent of the United States Senate."
A guest asked this the other day on Air America {forgot both the guest and the show}, and when you think about it, its true: If Bush - as he's repeately said - will do "everything in my power" to ensure the safety of this nation, including illegal wiretapping, why is he so concerned, all of a sudden, about the law?
I guess he sees law breaking not in his power.
I think MMFA hurts itself when it reports "sins of omission" by news companies. This is reaching too far. There is enough dirty lying crap out there, misstatements by all these clowns on Fox that we should not spend our time on "omissions" or "lack of balance."
I don't agree, there are many instances where omissions are done deliberately to skew a story. Fox does it all the time. In my opinion under informing is a sub category of misinformation.
I am sure that Fox is aware how long that list is and would rather omit the relevant details that require this event to be appended to that list.
...than dirty, lying crap. The "story" would be essentially meaningless if the reporters included the fact that the US Attorneys agreeing with the President were all appointees of that President. It would be no more newsworthy than the fact that an audience of hand-picked sympathizers applauded a candidate's speech on the campaign trail.
Presenting this story without including the very strong possibility of bias on the part of the Attorneys in question suggests that there is objective opinion among US Attorneys that the President's action are legal.
-mid
This is regarding the Fox News segment and not the AP segment. The Fox News segment in my opinion was intended to be an ommission to skew the statements of the US Attorneys to give an appearance of independence from the White House. Goler did his part by saying "the president armed himself with stories from some of the prosecutors who use the act every day." But if you looked closely at what Hume said in his intro, Hume screwed his part up in the sin of ommission. He ended up outright lying. Hume called them "allies" of Mr. Bush.
The jury hears the testimony of a woman who witnessed the fatal fight outside a bar.
"I saw it clearly. The accused was attacked first. He only defended himself." she says.
Now, as the only "witness", this would tend to direct the jury to acquittal, for reason of self defense.
But ... what if the woman was the accused's wife or girlfriend? Will the jury assign her story the same weight of credibility as if she were an "uninvolved" dispassionate and objective observer, a stranger coming forward?
Uh, no way in hell.
If the trial prevented the jury from hearing the witness' RELATIONSHIP to the accused, the jury (and the American people, ultimately) would be victims of a SIN of OMISSION.
MOTIVE, always and absolutely mitigates all information presented to back a story or position. FAILING to reveal such a motive is ethical (if not criminal) fraud.
What personnel from the Justice Dept. was he supposed to send?There DOJ lawyers -Because Pres. Bush appointed them they must be bias -or is MMA- saying that?-What your saying was omitted is fine -but what proof do you have they are bias and is it relevant?I guess Sen. Reid should have been to there say "We killed the Patriot Act" which is more demonstrative proof o bias than just being appointed and holding a press conference.
As usual, the rightwinger MUST ask the WRONG question.
Buccaluck asks, "What personnel from the Justice Dept. was he supposed to send?"
This is simply NOT the issue. The issue is the REPORTING.
There are two wildly differing sides of this issue. If the MEDIA presents only the ONE side ... support of Bush's position ... they should identify that those expressing this opinion are all under Bush's employ and control.
The BETTER way to conduct MEDIA, is to present BUSH's partisan people, defending his position, and then present the opposing view held by equally credentialled legal minds, presenting their opinion that Bush IS violating the law.
It's the BIAS of presenting Bush's defenders/employees as if they are the ONLY rational position, NOT identifying them as exclusively from the White House's employment pool CHOSEN by the White House to present the President's polition, and failing to "balance" their views by the opposing view.
This is the essence of partisan propaganda, and MMFA points it out.
Buccaluck may as well ask, "What personnel is a person accused of a felony SUPPOSED to send into the meda?" It's expected the DeLay's of the nation will send forth their attorneys, who are PAID to advocate their innocence, and to bash their accusers.
But this is not the whole story, is it? The OTHER side got indictments based on evidence of wrongdoing. To omit the counter story is to abandon any pretense of fairness, and to become a partisan advocate.
The ISSUE is not who Bush is "SUPPOSED" to send out (or even is EXPECTED to send forward). The issue is presenting his people as the only "experts" who matter, thus giving only one side of the story, and misleading the American people, the audience, into thinking what they are hearing is the only perspective, and the TRUTH.
Yes. Exactly like FOX (and the New York Times) unquestioningly carried the White House's water on the issue of WMDs.
Betrayals of the media's obligation to TRUTH, to balance, to being skeptical, and betraying the American people in the process.
Nobody is saying that they shouldn't be allowed to state their case. Just don't misrepresent who they are.
President Bush could have made an even stronger case if he had gathered state and local level attorneys that were not appointed by him that "use the act every day." Elected attorneys would make an even stronger case.
Very well said TEX..
You still haven't said who he was suppposed to send-Oh I see since 911 we evaded all events-caught persons attempting to create an event-but you want Pres. Bush to send DOJ lawyers who have not been dealing w/ the nuts and bolts to critisize the effforts of the people dealing w/ the issue --he going to send the people w/ the most information on the issue-whether there his appointments is irrrelivant-Unless you can prove their bias or what they said was untrue who cares who appointed them-Don't worry if the Retreat and Defaet crowd could provide a contradiction they would-I did not know half the people in Reno's Justice Dept. when theyn were shooting citizens like Randy Weaver and his wife and nobody said the Justice Dept was bias on the facts