My midwest upbringing implores me to point out that as bad as Powell's misinformation on WMDs was at least he was able to admit to the public that he was wrong. I appreciated that and wish we could see more of it from our leaders.
Like all of us, Powell was a flawed person. I give him credit for admitting he was wrong (usually by passively saying he was given bad intelligence), but I also subtract points because Powell never apologized for it.
I have no idea of the total number of people killed/wounded/displaced during the Infinity War, but I know it is very large and they would be alive/intact/home if he had not been a Bush team cheerleader.
It's not just the fact that people are reporting on Powell, both by treating his death as proof that COVID vaccines don't work or by cheerfully eliding past his problems with honesty, or overemphasizing his "remorse" about the UN speech; treating him like he was the same as Robert McNamara, when he wasn't. It's just the way corporate media has continually abdicated their responsibilities.
We wouldn't be in the situation we are in regarding vaccines if the media had treated anti-vaxxers like Jenny McCarthy as the buffoons they truly are, and made clear over and over again that vaccines do not cause autism. Or if they'd battered Big Oil for their tactics and held them to account for their work to contribute to the climate crisis; if they'd gone after companies like Purdue Pharma and the crimes they committed in order to sell OxyContin to the populace, we wouldn't have the opioid crisis.
So many people and organizations need to fall, their heads need to roll. And yet, outrage and scorn is only given to people like Katie Couric, even though her position on the Today Show meant she was a mere entertainment talking head, not a journalist. She was always someone of calculated charm and presence, but not substance, not even remotely to be considered a journalist. And figures like her biggest rival Diane Sawyer weren't much better, especially in terms of her fondness for focusing solely on doing "gotcha" interviews and a condescending attitude. Look at her interview of Britney Spears in 2003, her interview of Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley in 1995, or both of her interviews of Mel Gibson, in 2004 and 2006, respectively. Meanwhile, people with a claim to be actual journalists like Brian Ross end up suspended over claims that their Trump stories are "inaccurate", when we know they aren't, and that organizations and people were just kowtowing to Trump and his bullying.
I believe that a major problem with our political media is that they are desperate to have heroes. When they find a man they feel is strong, charming, manly, etc. they swoon over him and bury or ignore negative facts about their hero. If someone fails to awe them they feel free to tear him apart even for trivial things (like wearing earth tones). Being in the military is one sure fire way to get their respect, something I find particularly dangerous.
The media’s willingness to coverup for Powell was pervasive. When the Iran Contra Independent Counsel’s final report made it clear that Powell had lied under oath by denying his boss Weinberger had kept notes of that deeply unconstitutional conspiracy the media turned a blind eye. Even the fact that Powell sent a letter to the court overseeing the investigation complaining that the IC had “seen fit to impugn my honor” didn’t get reported.
When a network reporter prepared a report on that fact higher ups killed the story letting him know that “this was not serious enough a charge to justify taking a swing at Powell and causing him to be angry with the network”!! Lying under oath about about an extremely serious matter isn’t serous if the liar is Colin Powell but a guy from nowheresville Arkansas lying about a sexual dalliance is worth impeachment in our media land.
Powell was clearly willing to lie to protect his image. When Hillary said that Powell had advised her to avoid using the State Department email server Powell threw her under the bus, denying he had done any such thing. Unfortunately for Powell that was proved a lie when his emails were hacked showing he did give Hillary that advice — hardly the behavior of an honorable man.
The Bush war cabal needed to put a trustworthy face on the neocon wet dream of conquering the Middle East, and Powell was the only one they had. Bush was too dumb to sell it on his own, Cheney was rightfully distrusted and so was Rumsfeld. Powell should have known he was being used - just as the NYT and WaPo were being used - to justify an illegal, immoral, invasion. Powell's political career was terminated, but the pompous, willingly deluded media cheerleaders continued to babble on.
People hate Hillary for her Iraq vote but war hawk Colin Powell gets a mulligan? Colin Powell *was* war. He pushed for it, lied for it and then pretended he was given bad intelligence about it. The collective need of seemingly everyone (not just the media) to glorify this man in death is strange.
I heard the best summary of this issue from an interview with someone who greatly respected Powell on NPR, who said that he took the speech that Bush/Cheney wanted him to give, which he "suspected" of containing false information, and tried to scrub it clean so that the presentation he gave at the UN was reliable and responsible; but he failed.
Just for a little context: the role of the mainstream is to promote establishment propaganda, selling it as responsible reporting when it’s not. So no surprise about, say, WaPo’s support for invading although the volume, as it were, was somewhat special. Also special was the Times’ deference to Judy Miller. You had to be there…
As for Powell, dunno that there’s much good in his track record although, yes, Iraq was especially bad. Had he resigned over it, it may well have accomplished something. That he chose not to…
There is one thing that has been missing in all the coverage of Colin Powell's death, and that is this. While it is true enough that Powell's speech before the UN is what got us into the war in Iraq for good, it is equally true that he is the only person who could've stopped the invasion in the first place, and yet he chose not to. And as Lawrence Wilkerson has pointed out on many occasions since, Powell didn't just have his doubts about WMD in Iraq, he knew the claims that were being made were bullshit.
I know all this. Powell was definitely duped by Rumsfeld and Cheney. I could be wrong of course but I doubt he knew he was lying in that speech. If that is true, I can see where he thought it was important to make the case that Sadam had WMD. This is not really a defense so much as a sad recognition that anyone can be played by the right people. I’m also sad that I had to read a statement by the orange Menace denigrating a man whom I believe was trying to do what he thought was right. He’s dead and that fool took time out to disparage him with cheap nasty immature words. I can’t take part in that.
Everything in a life is more complicated than a single story, but I think the My Lai one is the start of a thread that leads pretty directly to Powell's WMD presentation at the UN. Not an evil guy, but a team player, in the worst sense of the term.
>>
Weeks after U.S. troops killed as many as 500 unarmed South Vietnamese civilians in the village of My Lai, Powell was tapped to investigate general allegations in a soldier’s letter that described rumors of fellow troops regularly engaging in atrocities. Powell probed the accusations and concluded that “although there may be isolated cases of mistreatment of civilians and POWs, this by no means reflects the general attitude throughout the division.”
Framing rights should never have fallen to Spiro Agnew. Geesh what a pantload this whole 'liberal media' has proven to be. I'd like to limit the adjectives for journalism to good or bad, professional or yellow, etc.
One of the most disgraceful chapters in modern media history. Few outlets were against the war and media helped gin up poll numbers so that a whopping 75 percent of Americans believed Saddam had WMD before the invasion. These same papers buried stories by other reporters that contradicted the Bush Admin line, publishing them deep inside Section A. And who could forget their rapture over Rumsfeld, and his rock star treatment. They marveled over his “virility” and we’re charmed by his idiotic comments during those daily briefings even as he mocked them (“hennypenny the sky is falling”).
One of the most infuriating outcomes from that period is the progressives’ loathing for any Dem who voted for the war resolution, either forgetting or too young to remember the atmosphere and enormous pressure—the blatant threats that were used because of the resolution’s timing, on the eve of the midterm elections. Anyone, especially members of Congress, who questioned the admin was seen as a traitor—“you’re either with us or against us” and were warned by Press Sec Ari Fleischer that they “better watch what they say.” And to this day the most the media have done is shrug their figurative shoulders and say, oh maybe we weren’t skeptical or diligent enough—if even that.
That election also gives lie to the current media line that Dems will lose Congress in 22, because they keep saying historically the party in power “always” loses seats, conveniently forgetting that the GOP won majorities in both houses that Nov. Twenty years on and the media has only gotten worse.
My midwest upbringing implores me to point out that as bad as Powell's misinformation on WMDs was at least he was able to admit to the public that he was wrong. I appreciated that and wish we could see more of it from our leaders.
Don't get me started on the hate I have for Fred Hiatt at the Post.
Blood is on his hands that he will never wash off...including the blood of my son he and his Presstitute pals convinced to go to war.
Like all of us, Powell was a flawed person. I give him credit for admitting he was wrong (usually by passively saying he was given bad intelligence), but I also subtract points because Powell never apologized for it.
I have no idea of the total number of people killed/wounded/displaced during the Infinity War, but I know it is very large and they would be alive/intact/home if he had not been a Bush team cheerleader.
It's not just the fact that people are reporting on Powell, both by treating his death as proof that COVID vaccines don't work or by cheerfully eliding past his problems with honesty, or overemphasizing his "remorse" about the UN speech; treating him like he was the same as Robert McNamara, when he wasn't. It's just the way corporate media has continually abdicated their responsibilities.
We wouldn't be in the situation we are in regarding vaccines if the media had treated anti-vaxxers like Jenny McCarthy as the buffoons they truly are, and made clear over and over again that vaccines do not cause autism. Or if they'd battered Big Oil for their tactics and held them to account for their work to contribute to the climate crisis; if they'd gone after companies like Purdue Pharma and the crimes they committed in order to sell OxyContin to the populace, we wouldn't have the opioid crisis.
So many people and organizations need to fall, their heads need to roll. And yet, outrage and scorn is only given to people like Katie Couric, even though her position on the Today Show meant she was a mere entertainment talking head, not a journalist. She was always someone of calculated charm and presence, but not substance, not even remotely to be considered a journalist. And figures like her biggest rival Diane Sawyer weren't much better, especially in terms of her fondness for focusing solely on doing "gotcha" interviews and a condescending attitude. Look at her interview of Britney Spears in 2003, her interview of Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley in 1995, or both of her interviews of Mel Gibson, in 2004 and 2006, respectively. Meanwhile, people with a claim to be actual journalists like Brian Ross end up suspended over claims that their Trump stories are "inaccurate", when we know they aren't, and that organizations and people were just kowtowing to Trump and his bullying.
I believe that a major problem with our political media is that they are desperate to have heroes. When they find a man they feel is strong, charming, manly, etc. they swoon over him and bury or ignore negative facts about their hero. If someone fails to awe them they feel free to tear him apart even for trivial things (like wearing earth tones). Being in the military is one sure fire way to get their respect, something I find particularly dangerous.
The media’s willingness to coverup for Powell was pervasive. When the Iran Contra Independent Counsel’s final report made it clear that Powell had lied under oath by denying his boss Weinberger had kept notes of that deeply unconstitutional conspiracy the media turned a blind eye. Even the fact that Powell sent a letter to the court overseeing the investigation complaining that the IC had “seen fit to impugn my honor” didn’t get reported.
When a network reporter prepared a report on that fact higher ups killed the story letting him know that “this was not serious enough a charge to justify taking a swing at Powell and causing him to be angry with the network”!! Lying under oath about about an extremely serious matter isn’t serous if the liar is Colin Powell but a guy from nowheresville Arkansas lying about a sexual dalliance is worth impeachment in our media land.
https://www.salon.com/2000/03/20/powell_3/
Powell was clearly willing to lie to protect his image. When Hillary said that Powell had advised her to avoid using the State Department email server Powell threw her under the bus, denying he had done any such thing. Unfortunately for Powell that was proved a lie when his emails were hacked showing he did give Hillary that advice — hardly the behavior of an honorable man.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/sep/08/colin-powell-hillary-clinton-email-state-department
The Bush war cabal needed to put a trustworthy face on the neocon wet dream of conquering the Middle East, and Powell was the only one they had. Bush was too dumb to sell it on his own, Cheney was rightfully distrusted and so was Rumsfeld. Powell should have known he was being used - just as the NYT and WaPo were being used - to justify an illegal, immoral, invasion. Powell's political career was terminated, but the pompous, willingly deluded media cheerleaders continued to babble on.
People hate Hillary for her Iraq vote but war hawk Colin Powell gets a mulligan? Colin Powell *was* war. He pushed for it, lied for it and then pretended he was given bad intelligence about it. The collective need of seemingly everyone (not just the media) to glorify this man in death is strange.
I heard the best summary of this issue from an interview with someone who greatly respected Powell on NPR, who said that he took the speech that Bush/Cheney wanted him to give, which he "suspected" of containing false information, and tried to scrub it clean so that the presentation he gave at the UN was reliable and responsible; but he failed.
Just for a little context: the role of the mainstream is to promote establishment propaganda, selling it as responsible reporting when it’s not. So no surprise about, say, WaPo’s support for invading although the volume, as it were, was somewhat special. Also special was the Times’ deference to Judy Miller. You had to be there…
As for Powell, dunno that there’s much good in his track record although, yes, Iraq was especially bad. Had he resigned over it, it may well have accomplished something. That he chose not to…
I learned the hard way last week on social media that I was only allowed to praise Powell.
There is one thing that has been missing in all the coverage of Colin Powell's death, and that is this. While it is true enough that Powell's speech before the UN is what got us into the war in Iraq for good, it is equally true that he is the only person who could've stopped the invasion in the first place, and yet he chose not to. And as Lawrence Wilkerson has pointed out on many occasions since, Powell didn't just have his doubts about WMD in Iraq, he knew the claims that were being made were bullshit.
I know all this. Powell was definitely duped by Rumsfeld and Cheney. I could be wrong of course but I doubt he knew he was lying in that speech. If that is true, I can see where he thought it was important to make the case that Sadam had WMD. This is not really a defense so much as a sad recognition that anyone can be played by the right people. I’m also sad that I had to read a statement by the orange Menace denigrating a man whom I believe was trying to do what he thought was right. He’s dead and that fool took time out to disparage him with cheap nasty immature words. I can’t take part in that.
Everything in a life is more complicated than a single story, but I think the My Lai one is the start of a thread that leads pretty directly to Powell's WMD presentation at the UN. Not an evil guy, but a team player, in the worst sense of the term.
>>
Weeks after U.S. troops killed as many as 500 unarmed South Vietnamese civilians in the village of My Lai, Powell was tapped to investigate general allegations in a soldier’s letter that described rumors of fellow troops regularly engaging in atrocities. Powell probed the accusations and concluded that “although there may be isolated cases of mistreatment of civilians and POWs, this by no means reflects the general attitude throughout the division.”
https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2021-10-18/four-things-you-didnt-know-about-colin-powell
<<
Framing rights should never have fallen to Spiro Agnew. Geesh what a pantload this whole 'liberal media' has proven to be. I'd like to limit the adjectives for journalism to good or bad, professional or yellow, etc.
Ray Benson carrying on like Bob Wills. Dogies!
One of the most disgraceful chapters in modern media history. Few outlets were against the war and media helped gin up poll numbers so that a whopping 75 percent of Americans believed Saddam had WMD before the invasion. These same papers buried stories by other reporters that contradicted the Bush Admin line, publishing them deep inside Section A. And who could forget their rapture over Rumsfeld, and his rock star treatment. They marveled over his “virility” and we’re charmed by his idiotic comments during those daily briefings even as he mocked them (“hennypenny the sky is falling”).
One of the most infuriating outcomes from that period is the progressives’ loathing for any Dem who voted for the war resolution, either forgetting or too young to remember the atmosphere and enormous pressure—the blatant threats that were used because of the resolution’s timing, on the eve of the midterm elections. Anyone, especially members of Congress, who questioned the admin was seen as a traitor—“you’re either with us or against us” and were warned by Press Sec Ari Fleischer that they “better watch what they say.” And to this day the most the media have done is shrug their figurative shoulders and say, oh maybe we weren’t skeptical or diligent enough—if even that.
That election also gives lie to the current media line that Dems will lose Congress in 22, because they keep saying historically the party in power “always” loses seats, conveniently forgetting that the GOP won majorities in both houses that Nov. Twenty years on and the media has only gotten worse.
I think you and I are the cockeyed optimists on this thread 😋They can’t ALL be evil.