Rachel Maddow is tearing Benghazi and the lousy media apart!

[babylonsister]

So nice to hear the truth in one fell swoop with all the details.

[DirkGently]

1. Love the way she's been ripping DOJ on the AP scandal!

[babylonsister]

3. I think that fell through, too. nt

[SunSeeker]

8. I don't. I think that was one of the rare times when she got it wrong. nt

[DirkGently]

9. Seems to be the thinking among mindless Obama partisans this week.

Which is why I took the time to bop into a few of the "Yay, Rachel went after Benghazi!" threads to point out that she, along with Chris Hayes and a lot of the rest of the best progressive commentators, are making qualitative distinctions between made-up partisan nonsense like Benghazi, and the very real, very wrong attacks on journalists and leakers.

My hope is that some people might step back from a thoughtless partisan need to defend any government wrongdoing that occurs under the Obama administration, and consider that underhanded attacks on journalists, whistleblowers, and leakers, carried over and perhaps even enhanced from the Bush years, is worthy of criticism.

Because Dems and progressives are supposed to leave knee-jerk party-line opinion mongering to rightwing idiots.

Aren't they?

[SunSeeker]

14. Mindless is gleefully shitting on a thread with an off-subject point just to bash Obama.

As I state below to your other post on this, the leaker here was wrong to do what he did. He signed a valuable double-agent's death warrant. There is a massive "qualitative distinction" between that source and a whistleblower. I guess some people can't overcome their knee-jerk instinct to bash Obama. But Rachel saw the distinction, albeit in the context of the ABC email story.

[DirkGently]

18. The fact you see the AP scandal as "Obama bashing" reveals your bias.

We don't even know to what extent Obama had anything to do with the AP spying scandal.

And there was no "gleeful shitting." Nice turn of phrase, by the way.

I do think it puts mindless Obama partisans in a quandary when they wish to celebrate a brilliant commentator like Rachel Maddow when the facts support the administration (as they often do) but still need to condemn equally intelligent criticism.

Your new attempt to completely misrepresent what Rachel has said about the correctness of burning the dishonest Benghahzi sources is perfectly illustrative of this. You want to acknowledge her legitimacy on one point, but are so narrowly partisan in your views that you cannot even honestly acknowledge that she is not on the All Obama, All The Time bandwagon regarding the AP scandal.

[SunSeeker]

19. The fact that you don't see these so-called scandals as Obama bashing reveals your bias. nt

[DirkGently]

31. I'm able to distinguish between bashing & real issues. Are you?

No one made up the facts of the AP spying scandal. No one bothered by it needs to be motivated by a desire to embarrass the administration. And in fact, the administration is not embarrassed anyway.

And rightwingers love it when the press is characterized as a security threat and forcefully brought to heel, so it's not like Republicans are driving it, right?

We are supposed to be smart enough to filter the signal through the noise. To be able to distinguish between nonsensical partisan flailing and real issues.

The wording of a public statement on a terrorist attack is not a scandal. No one without a partisan motive ever thought otherwise.

Widespread, secretive spying on news agencies is an entirely different kettle of fish. There is a reason it's being raised by progressive commentators and journalists rather than a pack of Republican witch hunters.

It's no more acceptable to feign blindness over real wrongdoing that may reflect on Democrats than it is to make up wrongdoing that is not real. If we can't tell the difference, we're just Republicans with different colored jerseys.

[SunSeeker]

32. Yes. And I'm able to distinguish between right and wrong.

Lying is wrong. Exposing a valuable double agent is wrong. Sources that do either should be exposed. You obviously disagree.

[treestar]

20. This is the least of these scandals, as nothing was done wrong

If you disagree with a law, that's fine, but you can't claim any administration is doing something scandalous by using that law.

Freedom of the Press does not mean journalists are above the law.

[DirkGently]

27. It is in fact the greatest of the scandals, if you value the First Amendment.

Benghazi is patent nonsense, as has been well documented. There is a kernel of importance with the IRS situation, but it's not cut and dried, and it doesn't appear to attach to Obama.

The AP spying situation is the latest in a long line, beginning in the Bush era, of unprecedented attacks on journalists, whistleblowers and leakers.

You incorrectly imply that the AP broke the law. It did not. Receiving information the government does not wish released is not per se illegal. You will note no journalist is being prosecuted.

The ostensible purpose of spying on the AP was to catch the person who released information. The result, however, is that ALL of AP's sources now know they are subject to secretive, long-term spying by the government.

Is that what you want? A press afraid to gather information the government does not want released? Were you in favor when the Bush administration did it?

[SunSeeker]

2. Cool. I've got it on my dvr for weekend viewing. nt

[Atman]

4. Too bad no one will care.

Seriously...I love Rachel. But preaching to the choir won't help. The right will simply dismiss the crazy liberal lezbo.

[Whisp]

5. the same lousy media she was so defending on that phoney AP story too?

that freedom of the press (free to fucking lie) brought tears to your patriotic and amended eye. *sniff.

whatever Rachel. We know it's not your job to report just to appear that you do. You do get it right once in a while, but we all know who you work for and what they expect of you.

[SunSeeker]

7. Now Rachel seems to have changed her tune; she's saying sources should be disclosed...

on the ABC e-mails story. You know, because the sources LIED and are now themselves news. http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022862242

Of course, the AP sources committed an even worse transgression, they outed our Al Qaeda double agent who gave us info that thwarted a plane bombing, basically signing his death warrant. How is that source not now themselves news, Rachel?

I love Rachel, but sometimes she gets it wrong, and the AP story was one of those times. And I think she knows it.

[DirkGently]

11. You "love Rachel," but you deliberately distort what she said?

Where exactly does she come down on the side of DOJ spying on AP in the item you cited?

The Benghazi sources lied for political gain. The "leaker" did not.

Do you not understand the difference between truth and lies?

[SunSeeker]

12. The "leaker" exposed a double agent who helped us thwart a bombing.

That is at least as bad as lying for political gain. The leaker signed that man's (and his family's) death warrant. I do understand the difference between lies and truth. I also understand the difference between right and wrong. What that leaker did was wrong. And by doing so, he made himself the news. Which is what Rachel now says, in the context of the ABC news email story sources, warrants the disclosure of such sources.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022862242

[DirkGently]

13. Wrong on all counts. The "leaker" exposed no one. Rachel did not "change her tune."

This is basic journalistic ethics. A source that lies to a journalist to manipulate news coverage has violated the relationship with the journalist, and forfeits source protection.

The "leaker" did not lie. So that's the end of that attempted parallel. Journalists do not expose sources of valid information.

The "leaker" also did not expose anyone or sign anyone's "death warrant." The source only revealed we had captured a bomb. The government reacted by reassuring everyone the bomb had always been "in our control." Those TWO things, put together, allow a deduction that there was a (British intelligence) mole in a Yemeni Al Quaeda cell.

You are dishonestly mischaracterizing what she's saying here, or else you lack basic understanding of ethics and reason.

[SunSeeker]

16. She did change her tune to extent her prior position was sources should never be exposed.

She thinks the ABC source should be exposed because they lied (i.e. did wrong). The source who exposed the double agent did wrong as well. The information he gave led to the exposure of the double agent.

[DirkGently]

21. When did she say sources should never be exposed?

More importantly, when and where has she said the AP spying is acceptable?

You are drawing a parallel that does not exist.

Sorry, but there's nothing new or different about the idea that a source that burns a journalist with a lie cannot be burned in return.

There is no parallel notion that a source that angers the government can be burned.

And, once again, since you keep repeating it, the AP source did not expose the mole. The way the government reacted to the story that we had captured a bomb allowed a deductive inference that a mole existed.

Neither the source nor the AP revealed the existence of the mole.

Rachel has not, in any way, suggested that AP spying was legitimate, and your suggestions to the contrary are utterly nonsensical.

[SunSeeker]

26. She didn't say AP "spying" is acceptable; but she now says sources that make themselves the news...

should be exposed. I consider this a contradiction of her prior position. I love Rachel, but it is not a blind love. I can see when she is wrong. Just like I can see when the DOJ and the President are wrong. The subpoena of AP phone records was not wrong in this instant.

[DirkGently]

28. She never espoused the "prior position" that lying sources cannot be exposed.

That would be idiotic. No journalist recognizes a source's right to lure them into repeating false information in secrecy.

I do not "blindly love" Rachel, either, but neither do I automatically judge everything she says on the basis of whose politics it supports or undermines.

What's amusing is seeing those with a transparently rigid pro-Obama agenda twisting themselves into knots trying to support one well-reasoned observation, while simultaneously trying to maintain that Rachel is some corporate tool not to be trusted when the facts fall in any kind of "not-entirely-helpful-to-Obama" area.

[SunSeeker]

30. I didn't say she did. But her position on ABC contradicts her position on AP.

I think she's wrong on the AP position, and that it contradicts her reasoning with regard to the propriety of exposing ABC's sources. I have agreed with her on other points where she has been critical of the Obama, such as with regard to the Keystone XL pipeline. But I guess you wouldn't find that "amusing."

[DirkGently]

10. So Rachel goes under the bus now, too?

Last edited Sat May 18, 2013, 04:26 PM - Edit history (1)

Who's left, exactly? Chris Hayes also was (sniff) aghast at the AP spying scandal. You do understand that journalists, however far astray some may go, are still the way we find out things, right?

Or is everyone not actually IN the Obama administration now on the Enemies List.

[Whisp]

15. what's fucking lame is who she works for, who they all work for.

can I blame them for wanting a nice paycheck and fame? No.

but I see them as self promoters and actors sooner than journalists.

when one of them goes on air and discusses how the media has changed in recent years as to how a handfull of corporations now own practically all the information we read and on the tv, then I'll become a believer again. I wonder if she knows that GE is invested in military gadgets and so I wonder if she thinks this may be a slight conflict of interest when talking about, say, the run up to the Iraq war.

sure she does.

[treestar]

22. Yes indeed. Where are the complaints about corporatism now?

It amazes that we are bashed for supporting the Democratic candidates, and yet expected to slavishly agree with Rachel's every criticism. We didn't elect Rachel, she rose commercially like anyone else who got a TV show.

[DirkGently]

25. Do not "slavishly agree." If she's wrong, explain how. Make an argument.

Don't rely on Fox News culture's mindless dismissal of news sources and commentators in every case they contradict partisan favoritism.

[DirkGently]

24. "Fucking lame" was a bit much. Sorry.

But I do take issue with the context-sensitive general demolition of the entire idea of journalism. Journalism is rife with problems, but it's not a monolithic institution, and everyone who reports the news is not, whenever we don't care for what they say, to be dismissed as a biased tool of whomever.

Rachel isn't a straight journalist to begin with -- she's a commentator with an openly opinionated point of view. But she's a good one, and I have yet to see her exposed as bending the truth to suit a point of view.

If we want better reporting and commentary, the first job is to drop the rightwing premise that all sources of news information are subject to being dismissed as biased and therefore unreliable. What matters is whether they are actually telling the truth, not whether the "mainstream media" as a whole is subject to critique.

[Whisp]

29. msnbc and all the biggies were not telling the truth for Bush's war.

we can all agree on that. This is just one example so so many.

the question is why. for self interest and promoting the party that has their self interest more in mind than the opposition.

why was the only anti-war voice fired from NBC - Phil Donahue.

it's still the same place and will act in a similar manner for the next atrocity and the many smaller ones we are faced with regularly. I don't trust the snake head so I have difficulty trusting the other parts as well because they have bread to be buttered.

Oh, and Rachel not being a 'journalist'. That brings up a good point. Why are we accepting opinions and commentary as 'news'. When did that happen and why?

About the 'fucking lame' thing, np, no need to apologize but nice gesture.

[Iliyah]

6. Set up

GOPers going down.

[spanone]

17. and the rest of the media sucks up to the 'scandals, scandals, scandals, scandals......'

all media has become the national enquirer

[Cha]

23. Oh, I saw that on Vid.. loved it! Same with the

Leak to AP that outed a double agent in al qaida!