Last Sunday's "60 Minutes". Don't know what's on tonight.
I actually didn't see last Sunday's, but the gf taped it and I watched it on Thurs.
Their main story was an interview with Douglas Feith, one of the main neocon operatives of the Big Lie factory that conned the people and the politicians into the Iraqi disaster.
For decades "60 Minutes" has been the primary practitioner of Gotcha journalism. Some incautious crook with a yen to make his name by appearing on this major league show sits down with Mike Wallace or another of their senior hit men. Then, while they are denying everything ol' Mike pipes up:
"Look, Big Ralph, we have you on tape taking millions of dollars in bribe money . . ."
Gotcha, dummy!
But the show itself is something of a swindle. They pose as fearless journalists, but they rarely go after a truly big story, one that steps on tootsies with humongous power in the USA.
They were as AWOL as the rest of the major media when it came to the hoax of Iraqi WMDs and alliance with Al Queda, in the Bushies' prologue to the invasion.
In the midst of Reverend Al's Tawana Brawley hoax (charged that white men had raped her and scrawled racist symbols on her body) 60M was again looking the other way.
Their Feith interview was another example of how 60M worships certain sacred cows.
Not once did they ask Feith why an American citizen (as he is) should be a member of a right wing party in Israel (as he is).
They did not ask him why, in 1996, he co-wrote a position paper for that party (Likud, headed by Bibi Netanyahu, whose followers run around chanting, "Bibi, Bibi, King of Israel ". . .) titled A CLEAN BREAK: SECURING THE REALM.
Feith's co-authors of that report were also prominent American neocons, like Perle and Wurmser,the former with the ear of GW, the latter employed by Cheney.
The "realm" they wished to secure was that of Israel.
The first demand they had to secure the country of their heart's desire was to get rid of Saddam Hussein.
Apparently it was kosher to do so at the expense of the USA, of American lives and treasures. Not the much more precious lives of Israeli soldiers or citiziens.
Seven years after they published their report, the same people, and other "Israel-First" neocons, had virtual control of the Pentagon, and of a weak-minded president, who apparently idolized the ex-military leader Ariel Sharon.
(Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld - sock puppets for the gloved fingers)
Any true and fearless reporter would not only have this information about Feith, he or she would have hammered away on it. It's a story, bro. A big one.
But once again, the show that has won all those phony "awards" for fearless journalism showed the yellow feather.
Jefferson's faith in a free press in America was misplaced. And, as a reading of the Federalist papers will inform us,others of the founders worried about this very thing, that powerful single-issue interest groups would run roughshod over our American institutions.
And so it has happened. And so the American press - including the fakers of 60M - have once more not Spoken Truth to Power, but rather collapsed before it.
I actually didn't see last Sunday's, but the gf taped it and I watched it on Thurs.
Their main story was an interview with Douglas Feith, one of the main neocon operatives of the Big Lie factory that conned the people and the politicians into the Iraqi disaster.
For decades "60 Minutes" has been the primary practitioner of Gotcha journalism. Some incautious crook with a yen to make his name by appearing on this major league show sits down with Mike Wallace or another of their senior hit men. Then, while they are denying everything ol' Mike pipes up:
"Look, Big Ralph, we have you on tape taking millions of dollars in bribe money . . ."
Gotcha, dummy!
But the show itself is something of a swindle. They pose as fearless journalists, but they rarely go after a truly big story, one that steps on tootsies with humongous power in the USA.
They were as AWOL as the rest of the major media when it came to the hoax of Iraqi WMDs and alliance with Al Queda, in the Bushies' prologue to the invasion.
In the midst of Reverend Al's Tawana Brawley hoax (charged that white men had raped her and scrawled racist symbols on her body) 60M was again looking the other way.
Their Feith interview was another example of how 60M worships certain sacred cows.
Not once did they ask Feith why an American citizen (as he is) should be a member of a right wing party in Israel (as he is).
They did not ask him why, in 1996, he co-wrote a position paper for that party (Likud, headed by Bibi Netanyahu, whose followers run around chanting, "Bibi, Bibi, King of Israel ". . .) titled A CLEAN BREAK: SECURING THE REALM.
Feith's co-authors of that report were also prominent American neocons, like Perle and Wurmser,the former with the ear of GW, the latter employed by Cheney.
The "realm" they wished to secure was that of Israel.
The first demand they had to secure the country of their heart's desire was to get rid of Saddam Hussein.
Apparently it was kosher to do so at the expense of the USA, of American lives and treasures. Not the much more precious lives of Israeli soldiers or citiziens.
Seven years after they published their report, the same people, and other "Israel-First" neocons, had virtual control of the Pentagon, and of a weak-minded president, who apparently idolized the ex-military leader Ariel Sharon.
(Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld - sock puppets for the gloved fingers)
Any true and fearless reporter would not only have this information about Feith, he or she would have hammered away on it. It's a story, bro. A big one.
But once again, the show that has won all those phony "awards" for fearless journalism showed the yellow feather.
Jefferson's faith in a free press in America was misplaced. And, as a reading of the Federalist papers will inform us,others of the founders worried about this very thing, that powerful single-issue interest groups would run roughshod over our American institutions.
And so it has happened. And so the American press - including the fakers of 60M - have once more not Spoken Truth to Power, but rather collapsed before it.