Whiggate Update
Saturday, July 12, 2014
The WHIG Quote of the Week comes from Phil Donahue
This is from an interview with Elias Isquith in Salon that was published on July 10 with the title, "Phil Donahue’s vindication: Media icon unloads on Fox, Cheney and what happened at MSNBC; Legendary TV host was fired for opposing Iraq war. Here's how he feels seeing the return of those who got it wrong." I couldn't resist repeating this particular part of the interview because he again speaks about the pivotal role of the public relations team, the White House Iraq Group, or WHIG, that lied us into the war, and which I tried to beat the drum about on both trueblueliberal.org and whiggate.blogspot.com since 2005. Every time WHIG comes up in the news again, I make sure I check one thing; I search The New York Times to see if they have yet mentioned the White House Iraq Group in their news pages. I may be missing something, but I still cannot find it mentioned outside the comments sections and opinion pages. If America's Paper Of Record (which gladly printed WHIG's aluminum tubes lies under Judith Miller's byline) doesn't recognize the existence of the WHIG, did it exist?
(This is being cross-posted on both the TrueBlueLiberal and Whiggate Update blogs)
"I’d very much like you to see the behavior of the congressmen. They were summoned to the White House by WHIG, White House Iraq Group. This is a Karl Rove committee that included the advertising warriors who named our invasion “Shock and Awe,” and “Rolling Thunder,” like video games. And they gave them their talking points: “A smoking gun will become a mushroom cloud”; “The longer we wait, the more dangerous he becomes”; “Saddam has more weapons of mass destruction than Hitler ever had”; “I see Hitler in Saddam Hussein.” And they read this, they’re looking down at the piece of paper, in what was at most a shell debate, that led to the deaths of over 4,500 service people, men and women both, not to mention how many injuries, we’re not even sure, we’re not even sure how many Iraqis are dead, and the refugees are in the millions.
This is unbelievable. You’ve got to see this debate. It’s truly a very instructive piece on what you can do if you scare the people. George Bush took this nation, the mainstream media included, and led it right into this war. It was an amazingly executed, brilliantly executed, plan. The politics of fear. ..."
--Phil Donahue
This is from an interview with Elias Isquith in Salon that was published on July 10 with the title, "Phil Donahue’s vindication: Media icon unloads on Fox, Cheney and what happened at MSNBC; Legendary TV host was fired for opposing Iraq war. Here's how he feels seeing the return of those who got it wrong." I couldn't resist repeating this particular part of the interview because he again speaks about the pivotal role of the public relations team, the White House Iraq Group, or WHIG, that lied us into the war, and which I tried to beat the drum about on both trueblueliberal.org and whiggate.blogspot.com since 2005. Every time WHIG comes up in the news again, I make sure I check one thing; I search The New York Times to see if they have yet mentioned the White House Iraq Group in their news pages. I may be missing something, but I still cannot find it mentioned outside the comments sections and opinion pages. If America's Paper Of Record (which gladly printed WHIG's aluminum tubes lies under Judith Miller's byline) doesn't recognize the existence of the WHIG, did it exist?(This is being cross-posted on both the TrueBlueLiberal and Whiggate Update blogs)
Labels: Karl Rove, New York Times, Phil Donahue, quotations, Salon, WHIG, WHIGgate, White House Iraq Group
¶ 7/12/2014 11:04:00 AM 0 comments
Tuesday, March 19, 2013
On this tenth anniversary of the Iraq War, The New York Times still has a lot to answer for
You can look at earlier entries in this blog from 2005-2009 to see more about this key group whose sole purpose was to sell us this illegal criminal invasion of Iraq (the obvious reason why would-be war criminals of BushCheneyCo rejected the authority of the International Criminal Court in 2002), but the Times still has NO news articles about this group whose existence has been widely reported in The Washington Post (though I'm having trouble today finding a live link to the key Barton Gellman and Walter Pincus article in the August 10, 2003 Post), by Bill Moyers, in The Huffington Post, The Daily News, and elsewhere, and publicly confirmed in print and video by key players like Scott McClellan. But still, all the Times has to show when you search for existence of this group in its pages are a handful of Op/Ed pieces written (and written well) by Frank Rich.
This would all be just a strange omission in the journalistic record of this disastrous war if the Times' Judith Miller hadn't played a key role in spinning the WHIG's web of lies with her reporting about the aluminum tubes that were supposedly being used by Saddam Hussein to enrich uranium. Dick Cheney could then conveniently point to this reporting in "the liberal press" to help make his fictional case for war (with that glee about others' death and destruction which only the true chickenhawks among us can feel).
The Times at some point will need to come to terms with its own culpability in beating the war drums, but I'm no longer holding my breath.
I haven't written anything on this WHIGgate Update blog since 2009, but on this tenth anniversary of Bush'n'Cheney's Shock'n'Awe show over Baghdad, I had to go back to one of my routine searches to see if The New York Times -- the "Paper of Record" -- had yet made one reference in its news pages to the WHIG, the White House Iraq Group.
You can look at earlier entries in this blog from 2005-2009 to see more about this key group whose sole purpose was to sell us this illegal criminal invasion of Iraq (the obvious reason why would-be war criminals of BushCheneyCo rejected the authority of the International Criminal Court in 2002), but the Times still has NO news articles about this group whose existence has been widely reported in The Washington Post (though I'm having trouble today finding a live link to the key Barton Gellman and Walter Pincus article in the August 10, 2003 Post), by Bill Moyers, in The Huffington Post, The Daily News, and elsewhere, and publicly confirmed in print and video by key players like Scott McClellan. But still, all the Times has to show when you search for existence of this group in its pages are a handful of Op/Ed pieces written (and written well) by Frank Rich.This would all be just a strange omission in the journalistic record of this disastrous war if the Times' Judith Miller hadn't played a key role in spinning the WHIG's web of lies with her reporting about the aluminum tubes that were supposedly being used by Saddam Hussein to enrich uranium. Dick Cheney could then conveniently point to this reporting in "the liberal press" to help make his fictional case for war (with that glee about others' death and destruction which only the true chickenhawks among us can feel).
The Times at some point will need to come to terms with its own culpability in beating the war drums, but I'm no longer holding my breath.
Labels: Bill Moyers, Bush, Cheney, New York Times, Scott McClellan, Washington Post, WHIG, White House Iraq Group
¶ 3/19/2013 08:39:00 PM 0 comments
Saturday, July 18, 2009
WHIGGATE.org is no more
This blog will continue to sit here (probably inactive) in whatever "in perpetuity" means on Blogger at http://whiggate.blogspot.com, but I did not renew the whiggate.org domain name this year for the convenience of the two or three people a month it might help to stumble here. The cost wasn't worth it.
When I started this blog in July 2005, and bought the domain name, I really thought that the White House Iraq Group would be recognized as the key to the entire illegal entry into the Iraq War. I thought that maybe the American people would care that we were lied to and that an illegal war was carried out in our name. I thought that maybe the New York Times really was more than a government mouthpiece (if you do the check that I've been doing for years -- or click here -- you will see that the "Paper of Record" still doesn't come up with a single hit on the Group in its news pages, but only in Frank Rich editorials and letters to the editor).
Here's a link to the first time I used the WHIGgate name, thinking it might help bring down that whole tribe of war criminals while they still held power. Now I think we should just ignore them and thank their mythical god that they will spend the rest of their lives believing in a universe where an eternity in hell is a possibility.
If you've stumbled here, come visit at TrueBlueLiberal.org
When I started this blog in July 2005, and bought the domain name, I really thought that the White House Iraq Group would be recognized as the key to the entire illegal entry into the Iraq War. I thought that maybe the American people would care that we were lied to and that an illegal war was carried out in our name. I thought that maybe the New York Times really was more than a government mouthpiece (if you do the check that I've been doing for years -- or click here -- you will see that the "Paper of Record" still doesn't come up with a single hit on the Group in its news pages, but only in Frank Rich editorials and letters to the editor).
Here's a link to the first time I used the WHIGgate name, thinking it might help bring down that whole tribe of war criminals while they still held power. Now I think we should just ignore them and thank their mythical god that they will spend the rest of their lives believing in a universe where an eternity in hell is a possibility.
If you've stumbled here, come visit at TrueBlueLiberal.org
Labels: blogs, domain names, WHIG, WHIGgate.org, White House Iraq Group
¶ 7/18/2009 06:44:00 PM 0 comments
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Article I:CREATING A SECRET PROPAGANDA CAMPAIGN TO MANUFACTURE A FALSE CASE FOR WAR AGAINST IRAQ, or Whiggate approaches its logical conclusion
Dennis Kucinich introduced 35 detailed articles of impeachment by reading them aloud for four hours on the floor of the House on the night of June 9th.
You can read the whole horrifying litany of the crimes of the Bush/Cheney years by reading the full text here, but I'm going to cut and paste all of Article I, because the White House Iraq Group takes pride of place in this first of 35 crimes.
I certainly don't expect them to run any long excerpts from these 35 articles of impeachment, but you can read them here if you made it through Article I without smashing your computer screen.
You can read the whole horrifying litany of the crimes of the Bush/Cheney years by reading the full text here, but I'm going to cut and paste all of Article I, because the White House Iraq Group takes pride of place in this first of 35 crimes.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~But, of course, the New York Times still has not verified the existence of the White House Iraq Group by mentioning it in its news pages.ARTICLE I~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
CREATING A SECRET PROPAGANDA CAMPAIGN TO MANUFACTURE A FALSE CASE FOR WAR AGAINST IRAQ
In his conduct while President of the United States, George W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath to faithfully execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty under Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution "to take care that the laws be faithfully executed," has both personally and acting through his agents and subordinates, together with the Vice President, illegally spent public dollars on a secret propaganda program to manufacture a false cause for war against Iraq.
The Department of Defense (DOD) has engaged in a years-long secret domestic propaganda campaign to promote the invasion and occupation of Iraq. This secret program was defended by the White House Press Secretary following its exposure. This program follows the pattern of crimes detailed in Article I, II, IV and VIII. The mission of this program placed it within the field controlled by the White House Iraq Group (WHIG), a White House task force formed in August 2002 to market an invasion of Iraq to the American people. The group included Karl Rove, I. Lewis Libby, Condoleezza Rice, Karen Hughes, Mary Matalin, Stephen Hadley, Nicholas E. Calio, and James R. Wilkinson.
The WHIG produced white papers detailing so-called intelligence of Iraq’s nuclear threat that later proved to be false. This supposed intelligence included the claim that Iraq had sought uranium from Niger as well as the claim that the high strength aluminum tubes Iraq purchased from China were to be used for the sole purpose of building centrifuges to enrich uranium. Unlike the National Intelligence Estimate of 2002, the WHIG's white papers provided "gripping images and stories" and used "literary license" with intelligence. The WHIG's white papers were written at the same time and by the same people as speeches and talking points prepared for President Bush and some of his top officials.
The WHIG also organized a media blitz in which, between September 7-8, 2002, President Bush and his top advisers appeared on numerous interviews and all provided similarly gripping images about the possibility of nuclear attack by Iraq. The timing was no coincidence, as Andrew Card explained in an interview regarding waiting until after Labor Day to try to sell the American people on military action against Iraq, "From a marketing point of view, you don't introduce new products in August."
September 7-8, 2002:
NBC’s “Meet the Press”: Vice President Cheney accused Saddam of moving aggressively to develop nuclear weapons over the past 14 months to add to his stockpile of chemical and biological arms.
CNN: Then-National Security Adviser Rice said, regarding the likelihood of Iraq obtaining a nuclear weapon, "We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud."
CBS: President Bush declared that Saddam was "six months away from developing a weapon," and cited satellite photos of construction in Iraq where weapons inspectors once visited as evidence that Saddam was trying to develop nuclear arms.
The Pentagon military analyst propaganda program was revealed in an April 20, 2002 [should read 2008], New York Times article. The program illegally involved "covert attempts to mold opinion through the undisclosed use of third parties.” Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld recruited 75 retired military officers and gave them talking points to deliver on Fox, CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, and MSNBC, and according to the New York Times report, which has not been disputed by the Pentagon or the White House, "Participants were instructed not to quote their briefers directly or otherwise describe their contacts with the Pentagon."
According to the Pentagon's own internal documents, the military analysts were considered "message force multipliers" or "surrogates" who would deliver administration "themes and messages" to millions of Americans "in the form of their own opinions.” In fact, they did deliver the themes and the messages but did not reveal that the Pentagon had provided them with their talking points. Robert S. Bevelacqua, a retired Green Beret and Fox News military analyst described this as follows: "It was them saying, 'We need to stick our hands up your back and move your mouth for you.'"
Congress has restricted annual appropriations bills since 1951 with this language: "No part of any appropriation contained in this or any other Act shall be used for publicity or propaganda purposes within the United States not heretofore authorized by the Congress."
A March 21, 2005, report by the Congressional Research Service states that "publicity or propaganda" is defined by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) to mean either (1) self-aggrandizement by public officials, (2) purely partisan activity, or (3) "covert propaganda."
These concerns about "covert propaganda" were also the basis for the GAO's standard for determining when government-funded video news releases are illegal:
"The failure of an agency to identify itself as the source of a prepackaged news story misleads the viewing public by encouraging the viewing audience to believe that the broadcasting news organization developed the information. The prepackaged news stories are purposefully designed to be indistinguishable from news segments broadcast to the public. When the television viewing public does not know that the stories they watched on television news programs about the government were in fact prepared by the government, the stories are, in this sense, no longer purely factual -- the essential fact of attribution is missing."
The White House's own Office of Legal Council stated in a memorandum written in 2005 following the controversy over the Armstrong Williams scandal:
"Over the years, GAO has interpreted 'publicity or propaganda' restrictions to preclude use of appropriated funds for, among other things, so-called 'covert propaganda.' ... Consistent with that view, the OLC determined in 1988 that a statutory prohibition on using appropriated funds for 'publicity or propaganda' precluded undisclosed agency funding of advocacy by third-party groups. We stated that 'covert attempts to mold opinion through the undisclosed use of third parties' would run afoul of restrictions on using appropriated funds for 'propaganda.'"
Asked about the Pentagon's propaganda program at White House press briefing in April 2008, White House Press Secretary Dana Perino defended it, not by arguing that it was legal but by suggesting that it "should" be: "Look, I didn't know look, I think that you guys should take a step back and look at this look, DOD has made a decision, they've decided to stop this program. But I would say that one of the things that we try to do in the administration is get information out to a variety of people so that everybody else can call them and ask their opinion about something. And I don't think that that should be against the law. And I think that it's absolutely appropriate to provide information to people who are seeking it and are going to be providing their opinions on it. It doesn't necessarily mean that all of those military analysts ever agreed with the administration. I think you can go back and look and think that a lot of their analysis was pretty tough on the administration. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't talk to people."
In all of these actions and decisions, President George W. Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President and Commander in Chief, and subversive of constitutional government, to the prejudice of the cause of law and justice and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States. Wherefore, President George W. Bush, by such conduct, is guilty of an impeachable offense warranting removal from office.
I certainly don't expect them to run any long excerpts from these 35 articles of impeachment, but you can read them here if you made it through Article I without smashing your computer screen.
Labels: Dennis Kucinich, Impeachment, WHIG, White House Iraq Group
¶ 6/12/2008 12:06:00 AM 0 comments
Monday, June 09, 2008
Walter Pincus still digging for WHIG information
Without the reporting of Walter Pincus in the Washington Post, we might never have learned about the the White House Iraq Group. His key article, "Depiction of Threat Outgrew Supporting Evidence," written with Barton Gellman and printed on page A1 on August 10, 2003, was the first that I know of to spell out the structure and members and methods of the White House Iraq Group (WHIG) and call it by its name and abbreviation.
Today Walter Pincus is still digging for information about this group. In "Records Could Shed Light on Iraq Group," published today, he highlights the omissions in last week's Senate Intelligence Committee report on prewar exaggerations -- they did not seek out any "less formal" White House communications, obtain White House records, or interview President Bush or Vice President Cheney, because "such steps were considered beyond the scope of the report."
Without the reporting of Walter Pincus in the Washington Post, we might never have learned about the the White House Iraq Group. His key article, "Depiction of Threat Outgrew Supporting Evidence," written with Barton Gellman and printed on page A1 on August 10, 2003, was the first that I know of to spell out the structure and members and methods of the White House Iraq Group (WHIG) and call it by its name and abbreviation.Today Walter Pincus is still digging for information about this group. In "Records Could Shed Light on Iraq Group," published today, he highlights the omissions in last week's Senate Intelligence Committee report on prewar exaggerations -- they did not seek out any "less formal" White House communications, obtain White House records, or interview President Bush or Vice President Cheney, because "such steps were considered beyond the scope of the report."
Pincus then goes on in today's short article to recap the key known members and activities of the White House Iraq Group, enhanced with some of Scott McClellan's recently-added revelations (or confirmations), before concluding:One obvious target for such an expanded inquiry would have been the records of the White House Iraq Group (WHIG), a group set up in August 2002 by then-White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr.
WHIG's records would shed much light on whether, as Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), chairman of the intelligence panel, put it: "In making the case for war, the administration repeatedly presented intelligence as fact when it was unsubstantiated, contradicted or even nonexistent."
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..... you can also read the transcript of a short interview between Bill Moyers
..... and, in case you're wondering, No, The New York Times still has not mentioned "White House Iraq Group" or "WHIG" (in this new meaning) in its news pages. Can the Group have really existed without the Paper of Record having printed an official record of its existence?
Labels: Washington Post, WHIG, White House Iraq Group
¶ 6/09/2008 02:31:00 PM 0 comments
Friday, June 06, 2008
WHIG of the Week Scott McClellan (Part Two, The Video)
I just watched more of Bill O'Reilly than I've seen in my life in watching this video, "O'Reilly Goes Ballistic on McClellan," but you can skip right to the 3'29" marker to hear the section that's most relevant to the purposes of the WHIGgate Update blog.
Here's the transcript of the section about "catapulting the propaganda" using the White House Iraq Group, as transcribed in Crooks and Liars:
Propaganda may be a loaded word in O'Reilly's mind, but Scott McClellan gets his definition of the word directly from his former boss:
If you can stand watching the whole interview video, it's also interesting to see the way that O'Reilly goes on about how "everyone" believed Iraq had WMDs because they read it in The New York Times; I just wish that Scott would have pointed out how Judith Miller of the Times was being used as a tool -- perhaps the key tool -- in the catapulting the propaganda about Saddam's scary aluminum tubes.
Here's the transcript of the section about "catapulting the propaganda" using the White House Iraq Group, as transcribed in Crooks and Liars:
Bill O’Reilly: You said they used propaganda and that is a loaded word.
Scott McClellan: The White House Iraq group, the White House Iraq Group was set up, it’s a marketing arm for selling the a war. That was a specific purpose that I talked about in the book
BO: Because they fervently believed that the guy was a danger and could hand his weapons off.
SM: No because the President had a bigger driving motivation which was to transform the middle east.
BO: You telling me that President Bush didn’t believe they had the,
SM: No, he did too. He believed that too.
BO:That’s not propaganda then, that’s not propaganda.
SM: It is when you package it all together—over sell it and over state it to the American people. That is propaganda.
Propaganda may be a loaded word in O'Reilly's mind, but Scott McClellan gets his definition of the word directly from his former boss:
... third time I've said that. (Laughter.) I'll probably say it three more times. See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda. (Applause.)You can see a video of the Catapult the Propaganda quote here.-- George W. Bush, 24 May 2005 (text and stage cues from the whitehouse.gov transcript)
If you can stand watching the whole interview video, it's also interesting to see the way that O'Reilly goes on about how "everyone" believed Iraq had WMDs because they read it in The New York Times; I just wish that Scott would have pointed out how Judith Miller of the Times was being used as a tool -- perhaps the key tool -- in the catapulting the propaganda about Saddam's scary aluminum tubes.
Labels: Scott McClellan, Video, WHIG, White House Iraq Group
¶ 6/06/2008 09:22:00 AM 0 comments
Thursday, June 05, 2008
"WHIG of The Week" Returns With a New WHIG, Scott McClellan
OK. I know that WHIGgate.org has been very inactive lately, but the fact is that it started with high hopes (and what turned out, of course, to have been false hopes) that the American people and their representatives in Congress and the "independent" flag-waving American mass media would come to their senses and hold the war criminals of the Bush Administration responsible for waging a war of aggression on manufactured evidence. The White House Iraq Group seemed like the perfect frame in which to tell the story of those lies, and the way they were sold to us.
Despite the fact that we seem to be OK with being lied to, I couldn't help posting this new entry for nobody to read when I ran across the following question and answer in the transcript of a Washington Post Book World online discussion from May 30:
I'm not sure that I've seen the White House Iraq Group referred to by name and by its WHIG designation so clearly by a White House official who took part in their meetings. I find it very impressive that the author of What Happened was not responding to a specific question about the Group or its role; Scott McClellan brought the names up unprompted, and followed up with the perfect one-sentence definition: "WHIG was set up as the marketing arm for selling the war to the public."
OK. I know that WHIGgate.org has been very inactive lately, but the fact is that it started with high hopes (and what turned out, of course, to have been false hopes) that the American people and their representatives in Congress and the "independent" flag-waving American mass media would come to their senses and hold the war criminals of the Bush Administration responsible for waging a war of aggression on manufactured evidence. The White House Iraq Group seemed like the perfect frame in which to tell the story of those lies, and the way they were sold to us.Despite the fact that we seem to be OK with being lied to, I couldn't help posting this new entry for nobody to read when I ran across the following question and answer in the transcript of a Washington Post Book World online discussion from May 30:
Rhode Island: Hi. I hope this question doesn't sound confrontational. My understanding is that you didn't become press secretary until a year or so after the Iraq war began. Can you tell us about what your role was before that? Were you privy to high-level discussions in the lead-up to the war? Thanks.
Scott McClellan: I became press secretary on July 15, 2003, a few months after the initial invasion. Prior to that, I served as the principal deputy press secretary. I was not involved in the policy-making on Iraq or in developing the overall marketing strategy for selling the war to the public. I did fill in for my predecessor at times, and even participated in some White House Iraq Group, or WHIG meetings. WHIG was set up as the marketing arm for selling the war to the public.
I'm not sure that I've seen the White House Iraq Group referred to by name and by its WHIG designation so clearly by a White House official who took part in their meetings. I find it very impressive that the author of What Happened was not responding to a specific question about the Group or its role; Scott McClellan brought the names up unprompted, and followed up with the perfect one-sentence definition: "WHIG was set up as the marketing arm for selling the war to the public."
When America's Paper of Record, The New York Times, still has not mentioned the "White House Iraq Group" in its news pages [only in Frank Rich's columns], then it's not surprising that even some of us who track down these scattered references begin to doubt the group's existence and/or importance. Scott's nonchalant confirmation of its name and its role is striking (but not as striking as the continuing silence from the "liberal" Times). WHIGgate Update will come roaring back with another post if the Times ever writes about the Group in its news pages [click here to see if they do], but don't hold your breath. We don't expect to see anything until we're well into the Obama administration and they can treat this Bush-regime story in quaint historical context, not as a crime that demands immediate prosecution.
Labels: New York Times, Scott McClellan, Washington Post, WHIG, White House Iraq Group
¶ 6/05/2008 02:32:00 PM 0 comments
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Impeach Cheney First
Of course the figure who hovers above the White House Iraq Group and its orchestrated lies is the man who was Lewis Libby's boss.
Being next in line for the presidency, of course he has to be removed before any sane person can even think about impeaching George W.:
Sign the petition at ImpeachCheney.org
Being next in line for the presidency, of course he has to be removed before any sane person can even think about impeaching George W.:
Sign the petition at ImpeachCheney.org
Labels: Cheney, Impeachment, WHIG
¶ 7/11/2007 12:25:00 PM 0 comments
Saturday, June 02, 2007
What Has Happened to the Sanctity of the Meaningless Internet Sidebar Poll??
I wish I had made a screenshot a few days ago, because the last time I looked at the summer sidebar poll, the only votes were for Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, and Dennis Kucinich, with the Democratic hopefuls running in that order. Now Joe Biden has suddenly jumped from last to first, showing either a great groundswell of support for the Senator from Delaware, or the work of one dedicated fan who knows how to vote more than once on Pollhost.
Here's a screenshot from the morning of June 2.
Is it time to reset the results and start from scratch, or should we just live with the fact that in the electronic age, election fraud is going to be as common on meaningless internet preference polls as it is in Florida, Ohio, and American Idol contests?
Here's a screenshot from the morning of June 2.
Is it time to reset the results and start from scratch, or should we just live with the fact that in the electronic age, election fraud is going to be as common on meaningless internet preference polls as it is in Florida, Ohio, and American Idol contests?
Labels: Election fraud, Joe Biden, Poll
¶ 6/02/2007 12:20:00 PM 0 comments
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Why Do Many UMass Students Oppose Honoring Andrew Card?
Why do 31% of readers responding to this poll in The Massachusetts Daily Collegian answer Yes to the question "Should the University of Massachusetts rescind its offer to give Andrew Card an honorary degree?" at its commencement in Amherst on May 26th? Why are hundreds marching to deliver a petition to that effect to Chancellor Lombardi's (empty) office?
The issue is summed up simply in this paragraph from Christine Morretti's May 7 article in the Collegian. After listing many of Andrew Card's accomplishments in and out of the current Administration, she states:
If more people knew about the actions of the White House Iraq Group -- if the New York Times had yet mentioned WHIG's existence and actions in its news pages (Click here to see that there is still nothing but Frank Rich columns about WHIG in the paper of record) -- wouldn't even more University of Massachusetts students (and other Americans) be against bestowing honors on one of the group's leaders?
Why do 31% of readers responding to this poll in The Massachusetts Daily Collegian answer Yes to the question "Should the University of Massachusetts rescind its offer to give Andrew Card an honorary degree?" at its commencement in Amherst on May 26th? Why are hundreds marching to deliver a petition to that effect to Chancellor Lombardi's (empty) office?The issue is summed up simply in this paragraph from Christine Morretti's May 7 article in the Collegian. After listing many of Andrew Card's accomplishments in and out of the current Administration, she states:
[...] much of Card's political history is mired in the Iraq war, and his association with the White House Iraq Group (acronym - WHIG, but I doubt the Whig party would approve of the Bush presidency at all).
Card was instrumental in the organization of WHIG, which was designed to sell fear and distrust to the American people, and sway our minds toward the war in Iraq. According to a 2002 CNN report, this group was used to push an "escalation of rhetoric about the danger that Iraq posed to the United States, including the introduction of the term 'mushroom cloud.'" Indeed, many people on this campus would have Card labeled a propagandist and a war criminal.
If more people knew about the actions of the White House Iraq Group -- if the New York Times had yet mentioned WHIG's existence and actions in its news pages (Click here to see that there is still nothing but Frank Rich columns about WHIG in the paper of record) -- wouldn't even more University of Massachusetts students (and other Americans) be against bestowing honors on one of the group's leaders?
Labels: Andrew Card, New York Times, University of Massachusetts, WHIG
¶ 5/16/2007 01:25:00 PM 0 comments
Wednesday, May 02, 2007
The first WHIGgate Presidential Poll in today's sidebar
I'm not sure that I've made up my mind yet, but it's never too early to start expressing an opinion. I'm sure that nothing will change between now and November 2008.
In France this week, published opinion polls are illegal [see correction below]. If we lived in Avignon or Tours, we would have to spend this week reading about something other than the constant tracking polls during the final days of the presidential horse race. We would have to wait until Sunday to cast our vote for Ségolène Royal, and to see whether our countrymen had agreed with us or chosen Nicolas Sarkozy to occupy the Élysée Palace for the next five years.
Unfortunately, we can't include Ségolène in our sidebar poll. Being born in Senegal somehow disqualifies her from occupying our Oval Office. You'll have to choose between one of the seven alphabetically-arranged also-rans to your right.
Fortunately for us, there is never a shortage of meaningless horse-race polls in the U. S. of A.!
-------------------------
UPDATE 4 May 2007: The law changed, or I was mistaken, because the French press is full of polls like these today showing Sarko in the lead in advance of Sunday's voting.
In France this week, published opinion polls are illegal [see correction below]. If we lived in Avignon or Tours, we would have to spend this week reading about something other than the constant tracking polls during the final days of the presidential horse race. We would have to wait until Sunday to cast our vote for Ségolène Royal, and to see whether our countrymen had agreed with us or chosen Nicolas Sarkozy to occupy the Élysée Palace for the next five years.
Unfortunately, we can't include Ségolène in our sidebar poll. Being born in Senegal somehow disqualifies her from occupying our Oval Office. You'll have to choose between one of the seven alphabetically-arranged also-rans to your right.
Fortunately for us, there is never a shortage of meaningless horse-race polls in the U. S. of A.!
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UPDATE 4 May 2007: The law changed, or I was mistaken, because the French press is full of polls like these today showing Sarko in the lead in advance of Sunday's voting.
Labels: Election, France, Poll, Ségolène Royal
¶ 5/02/2007 08:41:00 PM 0 comments
Thursday, April 26, 2007
Required viewing for New York Times "reporters"
Look, I know it's TV Turnoff Week, but how could I resist watching a show on Channel 13 last night that started off with these opening paragraphs from Bill Moyers?
The Times, the Washington Post, and the major broadcast networks all come under fire in this show (as do the easy targets of the flag-waving cable news networks and saber-rattling pundits). The only heroes are two reporters for Knight Ridder (Warren Strobel and Jonathan Landay) who saw the holes in the government's stories with basic fact checking rather than high-level cocktail party access to the lies of Scooter Libby and Karl Rove.
The New York Times STILL has not mentioned "WHIG" or the "White House Iraq Group" in its news pages even though one of their reporters, Judith Miller, has been exposed as their chief tool (or maybe even an honorary member of the Group).
When the White House Iran Group feeds their reporters information from "Important High Level Administration Sources" (i.e., Liars), maybe the Times editors should think about the following quotation from a Knight Ridder editor before uncritically printing government "information" about Iranian WMDs on their influential front page.
BILL MOYERS: Four years ago this spring the Bush administration took leave of reality and plunged our country into a war so poorly planned it soon turned into a disaster. The story of how high officials misled the country has been told. But they couldn't have done it on their own; they needed a compliant press, to pass on their propaganda as news and cheer them on.
Since then thousands of people have died, and many are dying to this day. Yet the story of how the media bought what the White House was selling has not been told in depth on television. As the war rages into its fifth year, we look back at those months leading up to the invasion, when our press largely surrendered its independence and skepticism to join with our government in marching to war.
This 90-minute special edition of Bill Moyers' Journal from April 25, 2007 "Buying the War", which has a full transcript online here, was a good introduction or review for anyone interested in how and why the leading lights of the mainstream press were either dupes or collaborators in the march to invade Iraq. He did not (like the New York Times) ignore the group that gave this blog its raison d'être, the WHIG.
BILL MOYERS: As the WASHINGTON POST'S veteran reporter Walter Pincus would later report, the propaganda machine was run by the president's inner circle — officials who called themselves the White House Iraq Group, or WHIG.....
You wrote that WHIG included Karl Rove, the chief of staff, Andrew Card, Mary Matalin, Condi Rice, Steven Hadley, Lewis Libby and they were in charge of selling the war.
WALTER PINCUS: Selling the war. Yeah.
PRESIDENT BUSH (9/11/02): Good evening. A long year has passed since enemies attacked our country.
BILL MOYERS: Their chief salesman had the best props at his disposal [spoken over a clip of Bush with the Statue of Liberty behind him on the 1st anniversary of 9/11/01]
PRESIDENT BUSH (9/11/02): …and we will not allow any terrorist or tyrant to threaten civilization with weapons of mass murder.
WALTER PINCUS: They created that link.
BILL MOYERS: The marketing group?
WALTER PINCUS: The marketing group. And the link was a twofold link. One, he had weapons of mass destruction. And two, he supported terrorists. And they repeated it everyday. anybody who watches-- television these days knows you sell a product, not just by saying it once, by saying it over and over again with new spokesmen two, three times a day and it sinks into the public.
BILL MOYERS: But is there anything unusual about an administration marketing its policy?
WALTER PINCUS: It's, I think each administration has learned from the other, and with this group is just the cleverest I've ever seen-- and took it to new heights.
NORM SOLOMON: The TV, radio, print, other media outlets are as crucial to going to war as the bombs and the bullets and the planes. They're part of the arsenal, the propaganda weaponry, if you will. And that's totally understood across the board, at the Pentagon, the White House, the State Department.
COLIN POWELL (9/26/02): A proven menace like Saddam Hussein in possession of weapons of mass destruction
PRESIDENT BUSH (Discussion with Congressional Leaders, 9/26/02): The Iraqi regime possesses biological and chemical weapons
DONALD RUMSFELD (DOD Press Briefing 9/26/02): We do have solid evidence of the presence in Iraq of Al Qaeda members.
PRESIDENT BUSH: The regime has long standing and continuing ties to terrorist organizations.
BOB SIMON: Just repeat it and repeat it and repeat it. Repeat Al Qaeda, Iraq. Al Qaeda, Iraq. Al Qaeda, Iraq. Just keep it going. Keep that drum beat going.
And it was effective because long after it was well established that there was no link between Al Qaeda and the government of Iraq and the Saddam regime, the polls showed that an overwhelming majority of Americans believed that Al Qaeda-- that Iraq was responsible for September 11th.
The Times, the Washington Post, and the major broadcast networks all come under fire in this show (as do the easy targets of the flag-waving cable news networks and saber-rattling pundits). The only heroes are two reporters for Knight Ridder (Warren Strobel and Jonathan Landay) who saw the holes in the government's stories with basic fact checking rather than high-level cocktail party access to the lies of Scooter Libby and Karl Rove.
The New York Times STILL has not mentioned "WHIG" or the "White House Iraq Group" in its news pages even though one of their reporters, Judith Miller, has been exposed as their chief tool (or maybe even an honorary member of the Group).
When the White House Iran Group feeds their reporters information from "Important High Level Administration Sources" (i.e., Liars), maybe the Times editors should think about the following quotation from a Knight Ridder editor before uncritically printing government "information" about Iranian WMDs on their influential front page.
BILL MOYERS: Knight Ridder's early skepticism was a rarity inside the beltway bubble…..
JOHN WALCOTT: A decision to go to war, even against an eighth-rate power such as Iraq, is the most serious decision that a government can ever make. And it deserves the most serious kind of scrutiny that we in the media can give it. Is this really necessary? Is it necessary to send our young men and women to go kill somebody else's young men and women?
Labels: Bill Moyers, WHIG
¶ 4/26/2007 09:17:00 AM 0 comments
