Again ignoring U.S. attorney scandal, CBS Evening News did not report on Goodling's testimony
Continuing a pattern of ignoring developments in the scandal surrounding Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and the dismissal of several U.S. attorneys, the May 23 CBS Evening News with Katie Couric was the only network evening news broadcast that did not cover former Justice Department official Monica Goodling's May 23 testimony before the House Judiciary Committee. During her testimony, Goodling stated that she may have "crossed the line" by taking "inappropriate political considerations into account" in hiring career Justice Department officials, potentially a violation of the law. Goodling, a former aide to Gonzales, also suggested that former Deputy Attorney General Paul J. McNulty had lied under oath and that Gonzales may have done so as well during his testimony on the scandal.
By contrast, both NBC and ABC reported on Goodling's testimony on their evening news broadcasts, as did Christian Broadcasting Network's (CBN) The 700 Club. Although 700 Club anchor Lee Webb identified Goodling as a graduate of Regent University, Webb did not make clear that Regent University is an affiliate of CBN.
As anchor Charles Gibson reported during ABC's World News, Goodling "suggested that" Gonzales "may have misled Congress regarding the controversial firing of eight U.S. attorneys," inasmuch as Gonzales "discussed with her his role in the dismissals," despite testifying under oath that "he had not talked to any potential witness" in the investigation. During his May 10 testimony before the same House committee, Gonzales stated that he had "not gone back and spoken directly with" D. Kyle Sampson, his former chief of staff, "and others who are involved in this process, in order to protect the integrity of this investigation. ... I am a fact witness, they are fact witnesses and in order to preserve the integrity of those investigations, I have not asked these specific questions" about the firings of the U.S. attorneys. Additionally, during Gonzales' April 19 testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, he stated: "I haven't talked to witnesses because of the fact that I haven't wanted to interfere with this investigation."
According to Goodling's testimony, however, when she approached Gonzales about the possibility of transferring from his office in March, Gonzales "laid out for me his general recollection of ... [s]ome of the process regarding the replacement of the U.S. attorneys" and asked if Goodling had "any reaction." Goodling stated that the conversation "made me a little uncomfortable" because "I did not know if it was appropriate for us to both be discussing our recollections of what had happened, and I just thought maybe we shouldn't have that conversation."
Additionally, as The New York Times reported, "Ms. Goodling also accused Paul J. McNulty, the outgoing deputy attorney general, of misleading Congress when he testified on Feb. 6 to a Senate panel. Specifically, she said Mr. McNulty knew more details about the White House involvement in the firings than he acknowledged in his testimony."
From Goodling's testimony:
I believe the deputy was not fully candid about his knowledge of White House involvement in the replacement decision, failed to disclose that he had some knowledge of the White House's interest in selecting Tim Griffin as the interim U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Arkansas, inaccurately described the department's internal assessment of the Parsky commission, and failed to disclose that he had some knowledge of allegations that Tim Griffin had been involved in vote- cadging during his work on the president's 2004 campaign.
As Media Matters for America has noted, Griffin is a former aide to White House senior adviser Karl Rove who replaced H.E. "Bud" Cummins III in December 2006. As the Times reported, following Goodling's testimony, "McNulty sharply denied her assertions. 'I testified truthfully at the Feb. 6, 2007, hearing based on what I knew at that time,' he said in a statement. 'Ms. Goodling's characterization of my testimony is wrong and not supported by the extensive record of documents and testimony already provided to Congress.' "
Despite the significance of Goodling's testimony, the CBS Evening News did not report on the story during its May 23 broadcast -- the only network that did not do so. As Media Matters noted, CBS was initially slow to report on the U.S. attorney scandal and has omitted some new developments altogether. Most recently, the CBS Evening News did not report on former Deputy Attorney General James B. Comey's May 15 congressional testimony regarding what Nightly News anchor Brian Williams called a "rare glimpse of a high-level, late-night power struggle" among the Justice Department, the FBI, and the White House over the National Security Agency's warrantless domestic wiretapping program. As NBC News justice correspondent Pete Williams reported, Comey told the Senate Judiciary Committee that Gonzales, who was then White House counsel, and Andrew Card, then-White House chief of staff, attempted to pressure then-Attorney General John Ashcroft "at his [hospital] bedside ... to approve an extension of the secret NSA warrantless eavesdropping program over strong Justice Department objections even though Ashcroft was seriously ill" and did not have power as the attorney general during his recovery from surgery.
From the May 23 edition of ABC's World News with Charles Gibson:
GIBSON: On Capitol Hill today, a former aide to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales suggested that he may have misled Congress regarding the controversial firing of eight U.S. attorneys.
Monica Goodling told the House Judiciary Committee that Mr. Gonzales discussed with her his role in the dismissals. But Mr. Gonzales testified under oath that he had not talked to any potential witnesses. Ms. Goodling also acknowledged that she crossed the line by letting politics influence who was hired at the Justice Department.
From the May 23 edition of NBC's Nightly News:
BRIAN WILLIAMS: Also in Washington today, another key player in the controversial firing of those eight U.S. U.S. [sic] attorneys testified in front of a packed House Judiciary Committee hearing. Monica Goodling was a top aide to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and the Justice Department's liaison to the Bush White House. She told lawmakers today that she, quote, "crossed the line," by making hiring decisions for career positions based on Republican Party credentials. But she said she never discussed the prosecutor firings with top White House aides.
GOODLING [video clip]: To the best of my recollection, I've never had a conversation with Karl Rove or [former White House counsel] Harriet Miers while I served at the Department of Justice, and I'm certain that I never spoke to either of them about the hiring or firing of any U.S. attorney.
WILLIAMS: She went on to say that Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty knew more than he admitted to Congress about the extent of White House involvement in all this. McNulty denied that today, saying Goodling's testimony was wrong and not supported by the record of documents and testimony already given.
From the 11 p.m. ET airing of the May 23 edition of the Christian Broadcasting Network's The 700 Club:
WEBB: Another person testified today about the firings of those eight U.S. attorneys. It is a scandal that some say could still cost Attorney General Alberto Gonzales his job. Monica Goodling resigned from her Justice Department post after the firings. Today, under immunity from prosecution, Goodling said former Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty falsely accused her of with holding information in preparation for his Senate testimony. Goodling said McNulty had known for months that the White House signed off on those final firings. Goodling, a graduate of Regent University, denies committing any crime. But she admits she crossed the line by using politics to determine who to hire.
GOODLING [video clip]: I do acknowledge that I may have gone too far in asking political questions of applicants for career positions, and I may have taken inappropriate political considerations into account on some occasions, and I regret those mistakes.
WEBB: Today, one Republican on the committee said the government is wasting too much time and money on this investigation.
The scary thing is that there are at least 150 more Christocrats just like her in the Bush Administration.
This is another example of this adminstrations arrogance of power.
She was way cuter before.
How can they not have covered this?
What could be their possible justification for missing this major story?
After all, aren't they part of the liberal media?
No that would be NBC and ABC.
NBC being the more blatant of the two.
Baloney.
There is no liberal media bias. It was an invention of creative rightwingers a couple of decades ago to begin their deceptive and dishonest takeover of our government. It never existed. The people who make decisions about what gets reported upon are, by and large, conservative Republican editors and publishers.
Ground Zero of the 'liberal media' meme was the 1964 Goldwater campaign. Lyndon Johnson, riding a wave of public support for JFK's presumed heir, administered political beating of historic proportions to the Goldwater forces. Goldwater... a cold warrior if ever there was one... had been making foolish noises about a nuclear confrontation with China or the USSR. His supporter... constituting the hard right wing of the Republican Party... had wrested control of the party from the more seemingly moderate Rockefeller forces. Unable to come to terms with their landslide loss to the Democrats, they cast around (as right wingers are constitutionally bound to do) in search of a good scapegoat.
The media quickly became the focus of the Right's anger & humiliation. If they hadn't been such committed Lyndon Lovers, they fumed, then Barry Goldwater would have taken his rightful place as President of the United States of America. It was the Liberal Media that had cheated them of their destiny. Of course, it was simply a case of sour grapes by the losing side. It was very much like a bunch of apoplectic sports fans convinced that the refs had cheated their team out of a victory... never mind that their team had been swept in four straight games. It never occurred to them FOR EVEN A SECOND that Goldwater had doomed his own campaign when he had snarlingly proclaimed that "Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice, and moderation in the defense of freedom is no virtue."
It was a tone-deaf declaration on Goldwater's part. Americans... weary of the Cold War & nerves still frazzled from the Cuban Missile Crisis... were in no mood to elect as President a member of the hard right who was proudly championing the virtues of extremism. They wanted a continuance of Camelot... of optimism... & of the enticing dream of evolving into a Great Society.
The Right has nurtured this delusional grudge within their hardened hearts ever since. Any failure of the media to actively champion their causes has resulted in bitter accusations that the media is thoroughly & systemically infected with the disease of Liberal bias. Every public failure that the Right suffers only confirms them in their dark fantasies of media persecution. It is a faith so harbored so deeply that no amount of evidence to the contrary will ever shake them back to reality.
At least, not so long as they have O'Lielly, Insanity, Limpdick, Crazy Annie, & that uberdumf*ck Glen Beck to continue to stoke their furnaces of paranoia.
My apologies.
The correct quote of Barry Goldwater should read ""I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue."
The truth is, I admire Barry Goldwater for the integrity & the spiritual & intellectual growth that he demonstrated over the course of his long public career. I hold him in MUCH higher esteem than most of our contemporary politicians. He said what he meant, & he meant what he said.
That said, in 1964 he was making a lot of scary, batsh*t crazy remarks.
As Stephen Colbert so aptly stated; "The truth has a liberal bias".
Please give an example including source of a bats**t scary remark Barry Goldwater made in 1964. I think your mouth exceeds your facts.
I think I can produce an ouitright lie on the part of LBJ from that same year. To do this, I merely need show that LBJ said something that he knew to be false at the time he said it.
1. "Johnson also promised that his government would not “supply American boys to do the job that Asian boys should do.” "
2. "From the outset of his administration, backstage discussions of policy options focused not on whether to raise the US military commitment, but on how to do so.(57) For public consumption, however, Johnson portrayed his Republican presidential opponent, Senator Barry Goldwater, as the war candidate.(58) "
3. also from "With these troops in place, U.S. officials instituted an “enclave” strategy under which U.S. forces would try to maintain only those areas of Vietnam already under Saigon’s control. General Westmoreland, opposing the enclave strategy, called for more and more U.S. forces and advocated “taking the battle to the enemy.” Indeed, in July 1965, Johnson sent 100,000 more troops and authorized another 1Now, for your proofs 00,000 to be dispatched in 1966"
Now, let's see your proofs.
"Please give an example including source of a bats**t scary remark Barry Goldwater made in 1964. I think your mouth exceeds your facts."
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Already done, in the very post you responded to. I think your bluster exceeds your brainpower.
NL207
The heart of your response to my posting is, if I understand you correctly, that Lyndon Johnson proved himself to be a lying, manipulative, & deeply duplicitous politician.
You won't get an argument from me on this point.
While I do think that Johnson was a superbly gifted politician, his dark side was every bit as black as Nixon's. Johnson was a figure of Shakespearian proportions... the Southerner who, through guile, cunning, sweet talk, bribery, & outright blackmail shepherded in the most progressive civil rights legislation in our nation's history. He did much to advance the cause of our poorest citizen. And he blatantly lied us into a war that was ruinous for us financially, politically & spiritually.
And his policies nearly tore this nation apart.
In the 1964 presidential campaign... while he was painting Goldwater as a dangerous zealot... he was consciously laying the groundwork for our doomed & murderous escalation of the Viet Nam war. He already knew that it was unwinnable, but... like guess who... was willing to see young Americans & massive numbers of a foreign population put through the meat grinder in a dimwitted imperialist adventure... all in order to maintain a virile appearance. Johnson lied to the American people as if lying was a sacrament. He lied because... above all else... he desired to win reelection in 1968, & feared that the Republicans would crucify him politically if he pulled us out of Viet Nam. He lied in order to protect his image.
He lied in order to cover his ass.
I'm not surprised that you could cite a couple of instances of Lyndon Johnson lying. His Presidency was so saturated with lies that you couldn't help but trip over them. It reeked of the acrid odor of mendacity. If I were a religious man I would state with great certainty that he now burns in hell for the senseless pain & anguish that he knowingly inflicted upon both our nation & all of Southeast Asia. He proved himself to be a coward & a liar... & his lies had enormous consequences for countless innocents. That he was a Democrat is a cause of shame for many of us. I won't stand up for the miserable bastard. Say what you will about him... you'll get no argument from me.
In fact, I could probably top you... denunciation for denunciation... when it comes to pissing on LBJ's grave.
I agree. I also have always admired Barry Goldwater, though I never would have voted for him. He was an honest man. I also think this is when the far right realized they would never win over the American people with their real agenda, militarism, wealth transfer to the rich, and punishing the poor and decided to get and keep power they would need to lie early and lie often. Then Raygun came along and gave them an example on just how to do that.
You're right, Solon.
Reagan represented the first ascendancy of the neocons. Knowing that the American public would never agree to repealing the progressive policies of FDR, they simply embraced them. You people want a social safety net? sure. Whatever you want. You want Medicare? You got it. You want to keep the Social Security that you've paid into your entire working lives? Okay by us. You name the entitlement & we'll guarantee its delivery.
Oh, and we're going to cut taxes too! Especially for the richest people (the "producers", by Republican standards. So, where's the money going to come from? How are we going to maintain all those federal expenditures that you've all grown so fond of while increasing our military budget, drastically growing the size of the national security state & substantially cutting taxes for America's economic elites, you ask? Who's going to pay for it? Well, that's the beauty part of it!
NO ONE WILL! We'll put it all on our national CREDIT CARDS! We'll run deficits like nobody's business! Let future generations worry about this sh*t! Who cares? Hey, they'll be so busy dealing with Global Warming that these debts will be THE LEAST OF THEIR WORRIES!
Its all a shell game, in other words. It's an elaborate, media sanctioned game of three card Monty. We order the meal. We eat the meal. But, its our stupid f*cking grandkids who will actually have to PAY FOR THE MEAL! Is this a great con, or what? We're bilking people who HAVN'T EVEN BEEN BORN YET!
F*ck 'em!
F*ck 'em, indeed. This is the lowest type of grift that I've ever even heard of. These are people with a complete & total disconnect with any concept of human continuity. They don't give two f*cks about future generations. That's all an abstraction to them... & they don't suffer abstractions gladly. What they value is what THEY can spend. What they value is whatever makes THEIR lives more comfortable... more agreeable. What they value is whatever massages THEIR egos... whatever feeds that empty, sucking hole at the center of what is supposed to constitute their souls.
And, for the last two presidential elections, they've managed to seduce the nation into feeding their bottomless pits of status & out of control consumption. True, they've also STOLEN those elections. But it was the closeness of those elections that made them stealable.
The on;y thing that the neocons fear is the truth.
And the truth is our last & best defense.
You know by just changing a few words & names, you could be describing what's been going on since 2000.
The media quickly became the focus of the Left's anger & humiliation. If they hadn't been such committed Bush Lovers, they fumed, then Al Gore would have taken his rightful place as President of the United States of America. It was the Conservative Media that had cheated them of their destiny. Of course, it was simply a case of sour grapes by the losing side.
The Left has nurtured this delusional grudge within their hardened hearts ever since. Any failure of the media to actively champion their causes has resulted in bitter accusations that the media is thoroughly & systemically infected with the disease of Conservative bias. Every public failure that the Left suffers only confirms them in their dark fantasies of media persecution. It is a faith so harbored so deeply that no amount of evidence to the contrary will ever shake them back to reality.
The problem with your comparison is that we can point to specific cases of misreporting during the Gore and Kerry campaigns. If you try to find similar examples of "Liberal media bias" in the 80s and 90s, what the Conservatives tend to come up with are examples of Dan Rather "raising his eyebrows" or using "voice inflection" to signal his bias.
Seriously, I'm sure you can come up with specific examples, but they would pale in comparison to the blatant Right Wing poison that has filled cable news and talk radio over the last decade.
Nerzog,
I used mescal's post and inserted different words/names to show how either side can cry bias.
I've never seen any hard or conclusive evidence that the media is slanted more one way or the other. I believe a lot is about personal perception. Certainly we can all cherry pick examples to make a case for either side, but in the end I think it's impossible to label the media as either biased towards the Left or Right...and I'm talking MSM as opposed to certain columnists, pundits or TV/radio hosts that make no secret of their allegiances or ideology.
In general, I think you're correct. A lot of what we see highlighted on Media Matters may, in fact, be Media laziness or incompetence rather than bias.
"I used mescal's post and inserted different words/names to show how either side can cry bias."
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Yes, and Nerzog pointed out to you specifically how your changing of words was not accurate. Merely stating what you did again does not make your argument either accurate or correct.
Easy, have you actually ever refuted anything?
Nerzog & I pretty much came to a meeting of the minds without your er...input.
But thanks for your usual insignifigant offerings.
Happy posting! ;-)
While you have somewhat of a point, I think the examples are really a lot clearer in 2000 a lot IS laziness in that the media develops a storyline and just ignores the things that dont conform TO that storyline. The line in 2000 was Gore was dishonest and Bush wasnt too bright so the stories went along with that meme. The problem is I have followed Gore for a long time. I didnt vote for him but the man has ALWAYS been honest. Yet the storyline caused them to blow up any slight exageration, even though that is what politicians do, from Gore while ignoring outright LIES told by Bush. Now Jimmy Carter was as honest a politician as we have seen in modern times but even HE said that he was from Georgia and in Georgia when you wanted to sell a mule you call it a horse. The point being that politicians DO trumpet what they have done and are to the point of exageration but Gore was pilloried for doing EXACTLY that. Meanwhile, while the press would trumpet a story that called into question Bush's intellectual shortcomings like when he seemed to forget that Social Security was a federal program, they would leave entirely the stories where he was caught in outright lies. I have never thought it was because the press was pulling for Bush so much as showing him a liar wasnt part of the story they wanted to tell. Coniving Gore against dumb but honest Bush. This put Gore at a huge disadvantage but I never thought this was because the press had a partisan agenda rather they were lazy and in their hearts would all like to be Hollywood screenwriters.
I never thought this was because the press had a partisan agenda rather they were lazy and in their hearts would all like to be Hollywood screenwriters.
Excellent post Solon!
I do believe you just summed up the real problem with our media in the above statement.
They Are Lazy.
Just like they were lazy during the build up to the invasion of Iraq.
Just as they, for the most part, remain lazy even today. They parrot each other because that's a lot less tiring than doing their own research.
Great analysis
Yah I'm waiting for the next liberal media sceech to trot this and Mr. Comey's testimony out, somehow both ABC and CBS couldn't cover that. Liberal media my third testicle.
At least Monica kept it together. I was worried she was going to bawl on the stand like she did when she first found out she may have to testify. Must have been drugged up for her testimony.
I didn't see anything in any report mentioning caging. Firedoglake's bloggers mentioned it as refferring to voter denial programs. Ms. Goodling used the term in part of her testimony. Anyone else have any info. I'd heard of voter denial, but not caging.
Greg Palast covers this issue in great detail in his book "Armed Madhouse", recently released in paperback. He also links Tim Griffin (the newly installed interim US Attorney in Arkansas, and former Karl Rove deputy) to the caging lists and the broader right-wing voter suppression campaigns during the '04 elections. I highly recommend this book if you haven't read it.
I'd bet dollars to doughnuts right now that Arkansas will somehow become the center of some kind of alleged Dem voter fraud case right before the '08 election.
Yes I'd heard of Griffin. Somewhere today there was mention that his interm appiontment had passed its sell by date.
Voter fraud cases seems to be the major tactic of this program. I'll keep an eye out for Palast's book. I'm looking to try, Dictators/ In the Mirror of Medicine, by Anton Neumayer, first.
I got mine at Barnes and Noble, link on Palast's page:
Greg Palast
I do likewise recommend the title, although much of the material is not new to me: I have picked up a lot of Greg in interviews and articles on other sites.
caging is direct mail term used to describe the compliling of lists. Choicepoint is one Data mining firm that was hired by the RNC to put lists together that they would then employ to target voter suppression. For example; Tim Griffin, Karl Roves Mini-Me ,was responsible for one such caging list in the 2004 election. He used his list to target African Americans by sending them letters asking them to respond within 10 days to retain their legal voting status. when they didn't reply , they were stricken from the voters rolls. Why didn't they repond? Because the list targeted african Americans who were serving in Irag!!!this is the same Tim Griffin ( Karl Roves assistant)who was inserted as a federal prosocuter in the state of Arkansasas part of theAlberto Gonzales purge scandal. Just in time for the 08 elections. can anyone say "look out hillary"!
I just read about all of the things you mentioned today. It's funny that many folks are writing Palast off as a nutcase. He claims to have all of Roves missing emails, I hope he leks them all to the public if they in fact do exist.
Palast is no nutcase he is a top notch investigative reporter. The kind corporate America HATES. I have one of his books and he backs up his claims with hardcore solid FACTS and documents. He is good, it says something about the US that one of our best investigative reporters had to go to Britaian to make a living.
Minor point perhaps, but Palast only claims to have 500 of the 5,000,000 missing emails.
It is strange that none of his reporting has been picked up. He's an American reporter who can only get on BBC and American blogs. Liberal media indeed!
It seems that Monica mentioned Griffin's caging exploits and no one on the committee picked up on it. Even Leahy's office doesn't seem interested in looking into it, since Griffin's "an interim appointment and will be gone after the 2008 election." The caging activity, however, is prima facie evidence that the Administration is already actively engaged in stealing said election .
Of course, we may not even get to the election. Bush has issued a presidential order declaring himself, in effect, dictator, in the event that we have a "catastrophic event."
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/05/20070509-12.htmlIt's amazing that one of the few people to be outraged by this is a g-d Swiftboater!
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=55824
I think its interesting that this is getting no attention, even in the liberal blogosphere. It wouldn't surprise me in the least if the Bush/Cheney junta declared martial law right before the '08 election, citing some phantom "terrorist threat".
Thanks for this post MMFA. It would be a useful addition to this type of post to give some examples of what stories CBS did cover that day that were more deserving of the limited airtime. Was it yet another story on some health study. Maybe a profile of an average American just doing his or her job. There is lots of fluff in the network news these days. Shame (yet again) on CBS, once upon a time the home of Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite.
Documented GOP election fraud far outweighs any trumped-up charges of Democratic "voter fraud."
The GOP is going after cases one-by-one. Eight thousand registered voters were denied the franchise in Florida alone in 2000, and many other cases have been documented in both 2000 and 2004. See the book Fooled Again by Mark Crispin Miller.
Who Wants "Perky" Feel-Good News?
The reason she is there is that her business agent convinced someone at Viacom that she was a 'journalist'. Viacom is not about to do anything that will upset the Regulatory Gods at the FCC, incur phone calls from 'loyal Bushie' advertisers or spend money on finding the news. Lately, all CBS News does is surf websites and report whatever the Wall Street Journal dispenses as the talking points of the day.
Ask Walter Cronkite what he thinks of the state of the 'news'casts are today.