(Update) For Those Who Disagree With My Disgust at the Media’s Obsession With the Blagojevich Scandal
By Mona
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[See Sully bitch-slap the repugnant Glenn "Instapundit" Reynolds on the subject of the Senate Armed Services report and what it means.]
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Recently I posted my objections to the undue focus on this scandal, and many commenters disagreed for various reasons — some are lovin’ it. Well, fine.
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I would invite you to check out Greenwald’s post today — titled Senate report links Bush to detainee homicides; media yawns — and I’d really like you who disagreed with me to then explain yourselves:
The bipartisan Senate Armed Services Committee report issued on Thursday — which documents that “former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other senior U.S. officials share much of the blame for detainee abuse at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba”. . .
And further, my emphasis:
The policies which the Senate Armed Services Committee unanimously concludes were authorized by Bush, Rumsfeld and several other top Bush officials did not merely lead to “abuse” and humiliating treatment, but are directly — and unquestionably — responsible for numerous detainee murders. Many of those deaths caused by abusive treatment have been formally characterized as “homicides” by autopsies performed in Iraq and Afghanistan (see these chilling compilations of autopsy findings on detainees in U.S. custody, obtained by the ACLU, which reads like a classic and compelling exhibit in a war crimes trial).
But what are some homicides and war crimes compared with another corrupt Chicago pol? Every good reporter knows the answer. pffft.
Comment by albatross —
December 15, 2008 @ 9:00 pm
I agree with you that the torture cases don’t get enough attention, neither from the media nor from the public. (It’s an interesting question which way the causality goes, there.) But surely, the governor of Illinois being indicted for trying to sell a US Senate seat to the highest bidder is also news.
Comment by Mona —
December 15, 2008 @ 10:18 pm
I most assuredly do agree it is newsworthy. But not at the level of time and hyperbole it has received, and whilst long all but ignoring the many other important issues destroying our constitutional republic. And making us pariahs to the rest of the world.
Political corruption — especially Chi-town style — is sexy and easy for Joe and Jane Six-pack to understand. That’s why it gets the never-ending lede. But other, more serious issues are hardly mentioned in the (as Jim taught me to say) Emm Ess Emm.
Comment by Leonard —
December 15, 2008 @ 10:54 pm
People want to feel good about themselves. Normal scandals — like Bush authorizing a memo that is expanded into operational guidelines by some mid-level schmuck in the bowels of the Pentagon, which are taken by some low level operator to mean that he can pull teeth in the basement of the US Embassy in Nowhereistan — are tedious because there is no clear way to place blame. Say it like Click and Clack: booor-oooor-oooor-ring. But if you do bother to spend the time (and as you say, who cares enough about things he cannot influence to have the time to understand them in the detail necessary) then you’ll just find it depressing. Your nation tortures people in dank basements! Congrats! And they’ve discovered a way to get plausible deniability for all involved! Happy Christmas to you!
Whereas, not only does the Blogojavich thing have the wonder of being easily comprehensible, it’s feelgood in two different ways. No, three. (1) We get to feel superior to him, because we do not curse like sailors, do stupid things like try to sell Senate seats like on FBI tape, etc. (2) we get a good laugh at his stupidity, and out of the dramatic discontinuity between his public persona and his foul private one, and (3) we get the reassurance of good triumphing over evil, of the happy ending. Hell, (4): we get a cheap confirmation of our prejudices against politics, against with a happy ending to ensure that in the long run, at least, our thrills are not gained at the expense of others.
This guy is perfect. Chalk me up in the “lovin’ it” category.
Comment by Mona —
December 15, 2008 @ 11:21 pm
Leonard, no way to assign blame? Did you read the Senate Armed Services Committee report and the ACLU’s collection of autopsies? This went to the top; or, if you think that is still unclear, then more investigations and some prosecutions are in order.
Detainees dead from strangulation, torture-induced heart attack or other exacerbation of pre-existing condition, asphyxia from, among other things, “stress positions”; crucifixion is is an asphyxiating “stress position,” even if done with ropes rather than nails. . . just read the effing autopsy synopses, and Greenwald’s entire post — including all links.
Then tell me the Blago mania should be as runaway as it is, even as this war crimes story is marginalized.
Comment by Barry —
December 16, 2008 @ 10:11 am
Mona, I think that Leonard was being sarcastic there (because he’s written here before; too many Americans actually believe such stuff). The excuse of ‘a few bad apples’ can exist in close proximity and harmony as part of the sentence ‘we didn’t do it; it was only a few things, they deserved it, you have to break a few [hundred thousand] eggs to make a Freedom omelette; they only understand force and violence; it’s justified because we’re bringing enlightenment and democracy to them….’.
But I think that the real explanation is simply ‘Clinton Rules’. The slightest *possible* hint of corruption on the part of anybody who lived on the same planet as any Obama administration member, member’s spouse, member’s in-law, etc., will need relentless probing, most of which will come down to ‘it has been alleged [...] so the administration must prove it’s innocence.
We saw that going into the Clinton administration, where journalists who gave the Reagan administration a big fat yawn suddenly became crusaders. Until 2000, when a stinky Texas oilman whose failing businesses kept mysteriously getting bailed out by shadowy figures was too good for suspicion, except by Evul Leftists.
It all comes down to the interests of the elites.
Comment by joe from Lowell —
December 16, 2008 @ 11:31 am
I’m sorry, was there some sort of broad, detailed media coverage of detainee-treatment misdeeds by the Bush administration before the Rod Blagojevich scandal, and I just didn’t notice?
Comment by Michael L —
December 16, 2008 @ 12:49 pm
I get Leonard’s point and agree with Mona, but Barry is exactly right too. I would add that Blago is also the right hand waving while the left hand is giving away billions of dollars to those poor wall street gamblers who got so evilly tricked by….each other.
Comment by Mona —
December 16, 2008 @ 4:14 pm
Apologies to Leonard for not “getting” his comment. Literal-mindedness is one of my flaws.
Comment by John Markley —
December 16, 2008 @ 6:10 pm
I think joe from Lowell gets to the heart of it. Why assume that, in the absence of the Blagojevich scandal, the attention currently focused there would be redirected to the murder of detainees? If the public doesn’t even care about the treatment of fellow American citizens here in America- and the public doesn’t- they’re not likely to care about Iraqis or Afghans, no matter how horrifically treated. If the news wasn’t about Blagojevich, it would be something even less important instead.
Comment by Mona —
December 16, 2008 @ 8:18 pm
I make no such assumption. But when a senate committee unanimously concludes that homicides and war crimes go all the way to the top for the authorization of same, I find the relative silence about that by the MSM — while it neverendingly airs breathless Blago updates — to be a particularly egregious example of a dysfunctional, infotainment “news” media.