Analysis of the indictments and what they tell us

Indictment Day

So the indictments are out and Libby gets all 5.  What do they tell us?  What new information can be gleaned from this?  The important item in this investigation is who originally leaked the name PLAME?  That was Mrs. Wilsons undercover name and how that got leaked is a vital piece of information.

Well, the first thing we find is that Libby went to an "Under Secretary" of State.  Probably Bolton as early as May 29th, to find out who the ambassador was that was sent to Niger.

Then it tells us where Libby probably got the name PLAME.

On or about June 11 or 12, 2003, the Under Secretary of State orally advised LIBBY

in the White House that, in sum and substance, Wilson's wife worked at the CIA and that State

Department personnel were saying that Wilson's wife was involved in the planning of his trip.

7. On or about June 11, 2003, LIBBY spoke with a senior officer of the CIA to ask

about the origin and circumstances of Wilson's trip, and was advised by the CIA officer that

Wilson's wife worked at the CIA and was believed to be responsible for sending Wilson on the trip.

It is possible that on this day the name PLAME was first leaked to Libby.  It could have occured sooner, but if we go strictly by what Fitzgerald has learned, then it probably didn't happen before this day.  Of course, nothing proves that Libby heard the name PLAME on this day, just that he learned about Wilsons wife being CIA.  However, this is still the first possible day the name PLAME first surfaced.

The question is:  If he first learned of PLAME on this day, did he learn if from Bolton or "a senior officer of the CIA"?

The answer is:  Probably neither.  Why?  Because if he knew all about PLAME on June 11th, then why does Cheney need to fill him in on June 12th?

On or about June 12, 2003, LIBBY was advised by the Vice President of the United

States that Wilson's wife worked at the Central Intelligence Agency in the Counterproliferation

Division. LIBBY understood that the Vice President had learned this information from the CIA.

So the next day, Libby learns Mrs. Wilson's role at the CIA.  It is most likely that this is the day he actually first heard the name PLAME.  And he heard it from none other than DICK CHENEY.  

One thing is for sure, at this point both Cheney and Libby knew that Plame was an operative. Why? Because EVERYONE who works in the Counterproliferation Division is a classified operative.

Of course, there is one more person Libby could have first heard the name PLAME:

Not earlier than June 2003, but on or before July 8, 2003, the Assistant to the Vice

President for Public Affairs learned from another government official that Wilson's wife worked at

the CIA, and advised LIBBY of this information.

That would be Catherine Martin. It's possible that Martin first told Libby who then went direct to Cheney and confirmed this.  Either way, however, this only goes to prove that by the time Libby learned about PLAME, Cheney (and Martin) were already fully in the know.

Next, of course, is the beginning of the leaks:

On or about June 23, 2003, LIBBY met with New York Times reporter Judith Miller.

During this meeting LIBBY was critical of the CIA, and disparaged what he termed "selective

leaking" by the CIA concerning intelligence matters. In discussing the CIA's handling of Wilson's

trip to Niger, LIBBY informed her that Wilson's wife might work at a bureau of the CIA.

Here is the first we know of a journalist being given classified information.  We now know Libby knew the name PLAME and that he passed that name on to Miller.  Why?  Because she jotted down the name Valerie Flame on the memo she kept of that day.

BTW, here is where you can bitch slap all those Republican talking parrots about Wilson claiming to having been sent by Cheney:

Wilson asserted, among other things, that

he had taken a trip to Niger at the request of the CIA in February 2002

And then comes an interesting tidbit:

Also on or about July 8, 2003, LIBBY met with the Counsel to the Vice President

in an anteroom outside the Vice President's Office. During their brief conversation, LIBBY asked

the Counsel to the Vice President, in sum and substance, what paperwork there would be at the CIA

if an employee's spouse undertook an overseas trip.

Trying to dig up more dirt?  Or trying to uncover some piece of information?  Perhaps smarter minds than mine could fill us in on the possible ramifications of this move by Libby and why Fitzgerald thought it pertinent enough to put in the indictments?

And here's where Fitzgerald has Libby by the balls:

LIBBY made the following materially false and intentionally misleading statements and

representations, in substance, under oath:

a. When LIBBY spoke with Tim Russert of NBC News, on or about July 10,

2003:

i. Russert asked LIBBY if LIBBY knew that Wilson's wife worked for

the CIA, and told LIBBY that all the reporters knew it; and

ii. At the time of this conversation, LIBBY was surprised to hear that

Wilson's wife worked for the CIA;

But you see, as Fitzgerald points out:

Russert did not ask LIBBY if LIBBY knew that Wilson's wife

worked for the CIA, nor did he tell LIBBY that all the reporters knew

it;

Which means that Libby is caught in a lie.  But let's look at Libby's lie:  One part of his lie to the GJ was that Russert said all the reporters knew.  But Russert didn't say that.  Why did Libby add this into his lie?  Because from that point on he claims he was telling Cooper and Miller that:

he had heard that other reporters were saying that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA but

LIBBY did not know whether that assertion was true.

But the fact was, Libby was again lying, he never told either Cooper or Miller that "other reporters were saying" bullcrap.  He told them flat out that Mrs. Miller was a CIA operative.

So why isn't Libby being charged with this?  Afterall, according to Fitzgerald:

A major focus of the Grand Jury Investigation was to determine which government

officials had disclosed to the media prior to July 14, 2003 information concerning the affiliation of

Valerie Wilson with the CIA, and the nature, timing, extent, and purpose of such disclosures, as well

as whether any official making such a disclosure did so knowing that the employment of Valerie

Wilson by the CIA was classified information.

And it is clear that Libby did indeed disclose to the media this information.  Obviously, Fitzgerald didn't charge Libby with these things because Libby agreed to turn states evidence.

During the press conference, Fitzgerald refused to speculate whether he knew that Libby knew that what he was telling the media was classified, he returned the answer about Libby may or may not have "appreciated" the importance of the imformation.  I think this is Fitzgeralds way of dodging the question because if he's turned Libby, he can't very well SAY that to the media, can he?

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Happy Fitzmas!!!


Fitzgerald will hold a press conference today at 2pm Eastern. Libby to be indicted. Rove's lawyer evidently said something to Fitz that gave him "pause" 5 minutes before the deadline, prompting him to extend Rove's investigation rather than hand out an indictment. Will Rove be a trojan horse?

Check out Fit'z website here.

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A Tale of Two Leaders

This article describes the views of two very different leaders. One will probably go on to be a rabid supporter of the next American war while the other will be labelled a liberal pussy.

On Dec. 1, Alex Cornell du Houx, a 21-year-old Bowdoin College senior from Solon will head to Iraq for approximately 10 months as part of the Alpha 1st Company Battalion of the Marines.

Instead of staying up late to finish off college papers and cram for finals, Cornell du Houx will use his training and experience as a 0351 Assault Man to shoot rockets, deal with demolitions and work the Javelin Missile System.

"I am not nervous whatsoever. We are well trained and we're ready to go," Cornell du Houx said about the news of his unit's impending deployment to Iraq.

Now you'd think those 'pussy' liberals would be telling this guy he's doing the wrong thing and those 'patriotic' conservatives would be praising him, right? Guess again...

Turns out the fellow heading off to war is a liberal leader, who's parents are against the war.

The senior is most well known on the Bowdoin College campus in his role as development director for the College Democrats of America and as co-president of the Maine College Democrats. Under his leadership, the organization in Maine has grown from two chapters to 23.

And how does this 'pussy' liberal feel about going to war?

"Regardless of my opinions regarding the war in Iraq, it is my duty as a U.S. Marine to serve and I am ready and willing to do my job to its fullest extent," he said.

But what does his counterpart at his college have to say about this? I'm sure those 'patriotic' conservatives wouldn't put partisanship above patriotism...would they?

Others on campus, particularly his political opponents in the Bowdoin College Republicans, feel differently about his service. Daniel Schuberth, a leader of the Bowdoin College Republicans and College Republican national secretary, said, "I applaud Mr. Houx for his service, just as I applaud any other soldier who is brave enough to take up arms in defense of his country.

Sort of lukewarm praise there. Mr. Houx is being heaped upon a pile of 'any other soldier' and not even any other American soldier, just 'any other soldier'. Kinda begrudging praise isn't it? This guy's probably going to be a Senator someday. But there is a but. You can just feel it coming...

I find it troubling, however, that one of the most vocal opponents of our president, our country and our mission in Iraq has chosen to fight for a cause he claims is wrong. Mr. Houx's rhetoric against the war on terror places him in agreement with the most radical fringes of the Democratic Party, and I am left to question his logic and motivation."

Damn us "most radical fringes"!!! See how the right wing bullshit works? Anyone who disagrees with them is part of the "fringe". Sorry, wingnuts, but you guys are definately FUCKING FRINGE FRUITCAKES!!! And you wouldn't know the first damn thing about "logic" (still believe Saddam was the cause of 9-11?) and "motivation" (still don't think cronyism had anything to do with Halliburton getting a no-bid contract?).

Maybe he's never heard of Duty, Honor, Country. I mean really heard of them beyond their use as right wing buzzwords for "Support whatever the Leader does."

Duty, honor, country
Paul Franco, one of Cornell du Houx's government and legal studies professors, disagrees.

"He exemplifies democratic citizenship at its best," Franco said of Cornell du Houx. "Though he opposes Bush's war policies, he still feels obligated to fulfill his duty. ... This is the exact opposite of what is done by those supporters of the war who would never dream of fighting in it themselves or sending their own children to fight in it."

Here's to hoping that the politically motivated leadership over in Iraq doesn't intentionally get him killed. And no, I'm not kidding.

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Update on the Niger Forgeries.

Anti-war.com has possible new information about the Fitzgerald investigation. Seems Fitz has gotten the Italian report that names their findings as to who created the Niger Forgeries. And as I said here , Michael Ledeen appears at the top of the list.

"Previous versions of the report were redacted and had all the names removed, though it was possible to guess who was involved. This version names Michael Ledeen as the conduit for the report and indicates that former CIA officers Duane Clarridge and Alan Wolf were the principal forgers. All three had business interests with Chalabi."

I've got more about Clarridge under the fold.

Duane "Dewey" Clarridge
Division Chief for Latin America,
CIA Directorate of Operations

In 1981, Ronald Reagan appointed William Casey to be the head of the CIA. Over the next years, the Agency greatly expanded its covert activities. One of them was a whole secret war. Former officers of the hated National Guard of Nicaragua's deposed dictator Somoza were hired by the CIA to attack Nicaragua. These were the so-called contras (short for counter-revolutionaries).

In 1982, Casey authorized "Black Eagle"--a secret operation to fund and supply the contras. Casey's plan was to develop a "private" network large enough to secretly arm, finance, and command a whole war--without openly involving official U.S. military forces or intelligence agencies. They called it "The Enterprise"--and it was riddled with "former" CIA officers and agents.

Casey appointed the high-ranking CIA official Duane Clarridge to be the de facto commander-in-chief of the contra war. In August 1981 before the contra war even started, Clarridge flew down to Honduras, the country just north of Nicaragua, which had been selected as the base area for the CIA's contra war.

Clarridge was indicted for lying to investigators about his role in the Iran-Contra affair but was pardoned by Bush Sr. As this website points out:

The crux of the Clarridge indictment was that the European division chief lied when he claimed not to know that the Israeli shipment contained HAWK missiles. Walsh's case was built on two main pillars: testimony from CIA officer Vincent Cannistraro that he and Clarridge had discussed the Iran weapons shipment prior to the Nov. 22 flight, and evidence that a CIA officer in Portugal had notified Clarridge about the HAWKs on Nov. 23, but that the incriminating cable was apparently removed from Clarridge's file and destroyed as part of the cover-up.

Cannistraro testified before a federal grand jury that on Nov. 19, 1985, North asked him to join a meeting with Clarridge at Charley's Place, a famed CIA watering hole in McLean, Virginia. Cannistraro said the trio discussed North's troubles arranging the weapons shipment to Iran through Portugal. With a phone call from the restaurant to deputy national security adviser John Poindexter, North arranged to bring Clarridge officially into the project, Cannistraro remembered. In his book, however, Clarridge continues to insist that the meeting was primarily social and that "Iran did not come up."

Cannistraro's name is vitally important here in relation to Clarridge. In this interview by Ian Masters, he is quoted as saying:

Do we know who produced those documents? Because there’s some suspicion ...

I think I do, but I’d rather not speak about it right now, because I don’t think it’s a proven case ...

If I said “Michael Ledeen” ?

You’d be very close . . .

And in an interview with Scott Horton Cannistraro's business partner and former CIA agent Philip Giraldi, has this to say:

In an interview on July 26, 2005, Cannistraro's business partner and columnist for the "American Conservative" magazine, former CIA counter terrorism officer Philip Giraldi, confirmed to Scott Horton that the forgeries were produced by "a couple of former CIA officers who are familiar with that part of the world who are associated with a certain well-known neoconservative who has close connections with Italy." When Horton said that must be Ledeen, he confirmed it, and added that the ex-CIA officers, "also had some equity interests, shall we say, with the operation. A lot of these people are in consulting positions, and they get various, shall we say, emoluments in overseas accounts, and that kind of thing

So the evidence is firming up pretty solidly that we now know the names of the actual forgers and indeed Michael Ledeen aka Kayser Soze, was in charge of the operation.

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THERE IS NO SPOON

So much of the argument on the "left" is about the DLC centrist policy, or appealing to the centrists, or reaching out to moderate voters, etc. We have to recognize something very simple:

There is no spoon. The "center" doesn't exist. Neither does the "right" or "left". The fact of the matter is, we fight over wealth distribution. If we have laissez faire capitalism, we have a handful of super rich elitists, no class mobility and a lot of poor (read slave) laborers and nothing has much changed since Pharoahs time. If we have socialism, we have no motivation whatsoever to get off our fucking lazy asses and do anything more than we absolutely have to. There's still no class mobility except for the ruling class elite and the working class. What you've got is Pharoahs age but the pyramids are half-assed peices of shit that will never be completed and if they are, wont' last thousands of years cuz the workers are all drunk on vodka because what the fuck else have they got to look forward to in life but to keep doing the same damn thing for the same damn pay, day in and day out. But at least they can sit around, be lazy and get drunk.

Either way kinda sucks.

The third way, and I'm not talking about the DLC's mythical "third way", I'm talking about the REAL third way, is Progressivism. We limit the amount of wealth the upper class can amass and redistribute it to the lower class so they aren't in abject poverty. This keeps class mobility fluid, gives everyone something to bust their butts for and allows for what is commonly known as The Land of Opportunity.

There's no right, there's no left, there's no center, because it looks like this:




As you can see, the top of the pyramid represents all the wealth in the hands of a few. The bottom of the pyramid represents all the wealth evenly divided. The red parallelogram superimposed on the pyramid represents Progressivism, the wealthiest are the top, there are many, the poor are the bottom, yes there's always more poor than wealthy, but the wealth is not as evenly distributed as it is in socialism, nor as hoarded as it is in laissez faire capitalism. It is capped at the top and the bottom is raised up through redistribution.

So what does "right", "left" and "center" really mean?

When you use the above pyramid for reference of what is REALLY going on and you look at the American political language, what you see is Right in US lexicon means the the top of the pyramid and left means the bottom.

And there is the problem with todays national debate.

Progressives aren't "left". They are in the middle. This is why socialism is considered "far left". So what does it mean to be "moderate"? It means moving away from the Progressive position on the pyramid and towards the upper portion.

This is impossible. The Progressive position cannot move. It IS the center. Any shift in that political position results in a shift towards laissez faire capitalism.

There is no spoon. We ARE the center. When Clinton called himself a moderate what he was saying is he wasn't a progressive. And that was true because he proved it by passing NAFTA.

If you want to know why the country has swung so far from Progressivism, the false analogy of left vs right is one of the reasons. It infers that there is a middle ground. There isn't because we are not leftists we ARE the middle ground.

"centrism", "centrists", "moderates" none of these terms have any meaning. If you were to give them meaning it would simply mean Nudging Towards Laissez Faire Capitalism.

The good old days of company towns and slavery.

There is no spoon.

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Yahoo Launches Soul Search Engine

Yeah, I figured a little humor would lighten up the place.

Yahoo's new Soul Search Engine

"There are bound to be some bugs, but we're not too worried," Semel said. "We at Yahoo have a lot of experience in helping people navigate an environment full of falsehoods, random useless information, and truly horrifying pornography. I don't think the human soul will hold any real surprises for us."

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Raping Iraq

The following is an excerpt from an excellent blog entry from an Iraqi woman who is trying to explain why she supports the insurgents fighting in Iraq.

I started with the *who started the war? Who is attacking and who is defending himself? Who is the invader? Who is the one that doesn't have the right to be here? Who's country Iraq is?* well, only in a very detailed way, and then moved to the * The occupation is killing more Iraqis everyday, the occupations is the reason of ALL the killing in the field, there are 60-70 operations against the occupation everyday and a minority of them hurt civilians by mistake and those ones the only attacks you ever hear about in your media, those who target innocent civilians in purpose are not from the resistance: those are terrorists and the only reason they existed, and the only reason they came to Iraq from all over the world is the occupation* well, in details too, and then we reached a part where X said:
I don't care, let the resistance just stop the fight, so many people are getting hurt.
I said: they won't and they shouldn't, and the war isn't their fault, and they didn't choose to make a war, they didn't travel thousands of miles to make a war, they are only defending: defending their countrymen and women, defending their lands, defending their homes, women and children, dignity and pride.
X said: this same pride that you are talking about, made Bush not admit his mistakes and not pull out of Iraq.
I paused...
* Ouch! That was mean! It's a blow under the belt, it doesn't even give you a point! *
and then I said:
Alright, let me put it this way, women might understand it better though:

If someone is trying to rape you, wouldn't you fight back? And then he tries and tries, and you fight and fight and fight, and he insists and you try to hurt him, even if a little to make him go away, you are bleeding, and he tries and hits you, over and over, to make you surrender, your nose is broken, you are screaming in pain, you push and kick, you cry for help, he beats you more and more and more, your tooth is broken, you hit him on the stomach as hard as you could, you see pain on his face, he tries to cover it and look strong, you cant see with your left eye, your throat hurts you because of the screaming, people pass by and do nothing, and you scream and fight with every drop of power, with every piece of strength, with everything, and anything, you realize your life is in danger, tears and blood are all over your face and parts of your body, your clothes are torn in many places..Every part of your body hurts....
and then someone on the window, right behind you, drinking ice tea, sitting on a comfortable chair, relaxing and watching the whole scene right from the beginning opens the window and says: hey, what's the matter of you? Why are you so violent? Let him do it honey! It's a lot of fun, enjoy it, and he will probably pay you good money too!
and you feel stabbed in the back, and his words hurt you so much, you wonder in shock: how is this my fault? How do I let him do it? What is wrong with you? Why aren't you helping me? Why isn't anyone helping me? How do I let him do it? What about my honor, pride and dignity? How am I gonna live and face myself everyday? How am I gonna face my children? How am I gonna face my grandchildren? How am I gonna face the history?
So simple, so tragic.

It's as I've been saying: get the hell out of Iraq and the fighting will stop. We don't need to stay because of the insurgents. We are the REASON FOR the insurgents. We leave, Iraq can find peace.

And maybe we can start the war crimes tribunals.

Meanwhile the right wing idiots can't wait to respond to this dear blogger with their idiocy. Says one "Tall Dave":

who started the war? Saddam.

Really Dave? Was that when he refused to get rid of those WMD's we now know he never had in the first place? Was it when he bought those WMD's from Rumsfeld and his buddies back in the 80's? When exactly did Saddam start this war? oh wait, let me guess, you're one of those brainwashed idiots who thinks Saddam was involved with 9-11, the Niger documents weren't forgeries and every word out of Judy Millers mouth is the gospel truth! Grow a fucking brain! Your comments are an insult to the intelligence of every free thinking person on earth and a slap in the face to the Iraqis who have suffered due to Bush's folly.

Who is attacking and who is defending himself? We are defending the right of Shias and Kurds (and Sunnis) to govern themselves.

Great! Oh wait, you mean MALE Shias and Kurds, right? Because the Constitution the US has helped the Iraqi's build gives women less rights than they had under Saddam!!! I bet Iraqi women are SO fucking happy to have us 'defending' them!

Who is the invader? The Sunni tyrants who oppressed them.

Really? 20% of the country are Invaders? Of their own country? So the US army is just shooting at Sunni's then? And the insurgents are all Sunni Insurgents then?

Can we declare right wing neocons in America to be invaders and shoot them? Seems they've done more to destroy freedom on earth than the Sunnis. Just wondering.

Who is the one that doesn't have the right to be here? Those who would deny all Iraqis the right to choose their own government.

So that would be the US right? Because the constitution they've helped to craft denies Iraqi women less rights than they had under Saddam. I don't think they CHOSE that kind of government. But they're getting it. So by that thinking the government installed by the US has no right to be there.

Who's country Iraq is? It finally belongs to the Iraqis, thanks to the United States.

Yeah, right. That's why they are shooting at us. Maybe we should get the hint and get the hell out of there. If it's their country now and they don't want us in it, maybe we should, you know, LEAVE.

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When did the terrorists become THIS kind of threat?

Bush just made another Fear Speech (TM):

During a speech billed by the White House as a major policy address, Bush said if U.S. forces withdraw from Iraq, insurgents would "use the vacuum created by an American retreat to gain control of a country, a base from which to launch attacks and conduct their war against nonradical Muslim governments."

Now, they didn't do this in Afghanistan, after we drove them out of there. They didn't do this when they HAD Afghanistan, before we drove them out of there.

Then Bush goes on to say:

"We're not facing a set of grievances" that can be negotiated, Bush said.

"We're facing a radical ideology with an unalterable objective, to enslave whole nations and intimidate the whole world," he said.

Where have I heard that kind of (il)logic before? Oh yeah:


During Vietnam. It was called the Domino Theory. If the Soviets couldn't take advantage of it, then there's no way the extremists are going to use it to effect either.

But the Chimperor is right about one thing: We ARE facing a radical ideology with an unalterable objective, to enslave whole nations and intimidate the whole world. It's called the Neocon ideology. And Bush is the head of it. Then he even has the gall to state that:

Bush said the war has not caused hatred of the United States among radical Muslims or global terror attacks, but rather is an "excuse" to further the goal of creating an Islamic state across the Mideast. The militants believe that controlling one country will rally the Muslim masses, enabling them to overthrow all moderate governments in the region and establish a radical Islamic empire that spans from Spain to Indonesia," Bush said.

"The hatred of the radicals existed before Iraq was an issue," Bush said. "And it will exist after Iraq is no longer an excuse."

"No act of ours invited the rage of the killers, and no conscience, bribe or act of appeasement will change or limit their plans for murder."

First off, might I point out Mr. Chimperor, that YOU CREATED the vacuum you now claim the terrorists will fill in order to make their alleged megalomaniacal dreams come true. That if you had wiped out Al Queda and the terrorist groups FIRST, as everyone on the left said, before invading Iraq, we wouldn't even have the possibility that what you say is true. Might I point out, Mr. Chimperor, that it was YOU who fucked this all up!

Secondly, I must point out that you, Mr. Chimperor, are full of shit. That's right. You're up to your eyeballs in bullshit Bush. Our presence there isn't an "excuse" for them. It's the entire reason. It is because we were there, supporting the tyrants who oppressed them, like the Saud family, for decades that they hate us. It is because we were there, taking their oil to make our rich even richer while meddling in their affairs that they hate us. It's because we've interfered in their lives for decades that they hate us.

And more bombs, more oppression and most importantly, more occupation, is not going to make them stop hating us. In fact, as you seem to have stupidly pointed out, it is having the opposite effect.

When did the terrorists go from being a threat to fly planes into our buildings, a threat to use WMD's against us, if they could get ahold of them, to being a threat to unite the entire Middle East into a great, extremist, muslim nation out to destroy America?

When did they become THAT kind of threat Mr. Bush?

After you used propaganda and lies on the American public in order to lead us on a preemptive war on Iraq? After you installed a government and oversaw the creation of a constitution in Iraq that gives women even LESS rights than they had under Saddam? After, having all this time to get Iraq ready to defend itself, you've only managed to create a fighting force of 700 Iraqis? Is THAT why we are in the shithole you say we're in now Mr. Bush?

Impeachment aint good enough!

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AMERICA'S GRAVEST DANGER

Because everyone needs to read this:


Remarks by Al Gore as prepared
Associated Press / The Media Center
October 5, 2005
I came here today because I believe that American democracy is in grave danger. It is no longer possible to ignore the strangeness of our public discourse . I know that I am not the only one who feels that something has gone basically and badly wrong in the way America's fabled "marketplace of ideas" now functions.

How many of you, I wonder, have heard a friend or a family member in the last few years remark that it's almost as if America has entered "an alternate universe"?

I thought maybe it was an aberration when three-quarters of Americans said they believed that Saddam Hussein was responsible for attacking us on September 11, 2001. But more than four years later, between a third and a half still believe Saddam was personally responsible for planning and supporting the attack.

At first I thought the exhaustive, non-stop coverage of the O.J. trial was just an unfortunate excess that marked an unwelcome departure from the normal good sense and judgment of our television news media. But now we know that it was merely an early example of a new pattern of serial obsessions that periodically take over the airwaves for weeks at a time.

Are we still routinely torturing helpless prisoners, and if so, does it feel right that we as American citizens are not outraged by the practice? And does it feel right to have no ongoing discussion of whether or not this abhorrent, medieval behavior is being carried out in the name of the American people? If the gap between rich and poor is widening steadily and economic stress is mounting for low-income families, why do we seem increasingly apathetic and lethargic in our role as citizens?



On the eve of the nation's decision to invade Iraq, our longest serving senator, Robert Byrd of West Virginia, stood on the Senate floor asked: "Why is this chamber empty? Why are these halls silent?"

The decision that was then being considered by the Senate with virtually no meaningful debate turned out to be a fateful one. A few days ago, the former head of the National Security Agency, Retired Lt. General William Odom, said, "The invasion of Iraq, I believe, will turn out to be the greatest strategic disaster in U.S. history."

But whether you agree with his assessment or not, Senator Byrd's question is like the others that I have just posed here: he was saying, in effect, this is strange, isn't it? Aren't we supposed to have full and vigorous debates about questions as important as the choice between war and peace?

Those of us who have served in the Senate and watched it change over time, could volunteer an answer to Senator Byrd's two questions: the Senate was silent on the eve of war because Senators don't feel that what they say on the floor of the Senate really matters that much any more. And the chamber was empty because the Senators were somewhere else: they were in fundraisers collecting money from special interests in order to buy 30-second TVcommercials for their next re-election campaign.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, there was - at least for a short time - a quality of vividness and clarity of focus in our public discourse that reminded some Americans - including some journalists - that vividness and clarity used to be more common in the way we talk with one another about the problems and choices that we face. But then, like a passing summer storm, the moment faded.

In fact there was a time when America's public discourse was consistently much more vivid, focused and clear. Our Founders, probably the most literate generation in all of history, used words with astonishing precision and believed in the Rule of Reason.

Their faith in the viability of Representative Democracy rested on their trust in the wisdom of a well-informed citizenry. But they placed particular emphasis on insuring that the public could be well-informed. And they took great care to protect the openness of the marketplace of ideas in order to ensure the free-flow of knowledge.

The values that Americans had brought from Europe to the New World had grown out of the sudden explosion of literacy and knowledge after Gutenberg's disruptive invention broke up the stagnant medieval information monopoly and triggered the Reformation, Humanism, and the Enlightenment and enshrined a new sovereign: the "Rule of Reason."

Indeed, the self-governing republic they had the audacity to establish was later named by the historian Henry Steele Commager as "the Empire of Reason."

Our founders knew all about the Roman Forum and the Agora in ancient Athens. They also understood quite well that in America, our public forum would be an ongoing conversation about democracy in which individual citizens would participate not only by speaking directly in the presence of others -- but more commonly by communicating with their fellow citizens over great distances by means of the printed word. Thus they not only protected Freedom of Assembly as a basic right, they made a special point - in the First Amendment - of protecting the freedom of the printing press.

Their world was dominated by the printed word. Just as the proverbial fish doesn't know it lives in water, the United States in its first half century knew nothing but the world of print: the Bible, Thomas Paine's fiery call to revolution, the Declaration of Independence, our Constitution , our laws, the Congressional Record, newspapers and books.

Though they feared that a government might try to censor the printing press - as King George had done - they could not imagine that America's public discourse would ever consist mainly of something other than words in print.

And yet, as we meet here this morning, more than 40 years have passed since the majority of Americans received their news and information from the printed word. Newspapers are hemorrhaging readers and, for the most part, resisting the temptation to inflate their circulation numbers. Reading itself is in sharp decline, not only in our country but in most of the world. The Republic of Letters has been invaded and occupied by television.

Radio, the internet, movies, telephones, and other media all now vie for our attention - but it is television that still completely dominates the flow of information in modern America. In fact, according to an authoritative global study, Americans now watch television an average of four hours and 28 minutes every day -- 90 minutes more than the world average.

When you assume eight hours of work a day, six to eight hours of sleep and a couple of hours to bathe, dress, eat and commute, that is almost three-quarters of all the discretionary time that the average American has. And for younger Americans, the average is even higher.

The internet is a formidable new medium of communication, but it is important to note that it still doesn't hold a candle to television. Indeed, studies show that the majority of Internet users are actually simultaneously watching television while they are online. There is an important reason why television maintains such a hold on its viewers in a way that the internet does not, but I'll get to that in a few minutes.

Television first overtook newsprint to become the dominant source of information in America in 1963. But for the next two decades, the television networks mimicked the nation's leading newspapers by faithfully following the standards of the journalism profession. Indeed, men like Edward R. Murrow led the profession in raising the bar.

But all the while, television's share of the total audience for news and information continued to grow -- and its lead over newsprint continued to expand. And then one day, a smart young political consultant turned to an older elected official and succinctly described a new reality in America's public discourse: "If it's not on television, it doesn't exist."

But some extremely important elements of American Democracy have been pushed to the sidelines . And the most prominent casualty has been the "marketplace of ideas" that was so beloved and so carefully protected by our Founders. It effectively no longer exists.

It is not that we no longer share ideas with one another about public matters; of course we do. But the "Public Forum" in which our Founders searched for general agreement and applied the Rule of Reason has been grossly distorted and "restructured" beyond all recognition.

And here is my point: it is the destruction of that marketplace of ideas that accounts for the "strangeness" that now continually haunts our efforts to reason together about the choices we must make as a nation.

Whether it is called a Public Forum, or a "Public Sphere" , or a marketplace of ideas, the reality of open and free public discussion and debate was considered central to the operation of our democracy in America's earliest decades.

In fact, our first self-expression as a nation - "We the People" - made it clear where the ultimate source of authority lay. It was universally understood that the ultimate check and balance for American government was its accountability to the people. And the public forum was the place where the people held the government accountable. That is why it was so important that the marketplace of ideas operated independent from and beyond the authority of government.

The three most important characteristics of this marketplace of ideas were:


It was open to every individual, with no barriers to entry, save the necessity of literacy. This access, it is crucial to add, applied not only to the receipt of information but also to the ability to contribute information directly into the flow of ideas that was available to all;

The fate of ideas contributed by individuals depended, for the most part, on an emergent Meritocracy of Ideas. Those judged by the market to be good rose to the top, regardless of the wealth or class of the individual responsible for them;

The accepted rules of discourse presumed that the participants were all governed by an unspoken duty to search for general agreement. That is what a "Conversation of Democracy" is all about.


What resulted from this shared democratic enterprise was a startling new development in human history: for the first time, knowledge regularly mediated between wealth and power.

The liberating force of this new American reality was thrilling to all humankind. Thomas Jefferson declared, "I have sworn upon the alter of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man."
It ennobled the individual and unleashed the creativity of the human spirit. It inspired people everywhere to dream of what they could yet become. And it emboldened Americans to bravely explore the farther frontiers of freedom - for African Americans, for women, and eventually, we still dream, for all.

And just as knowledge now mediated between wealth and power, self-government was understood to be the instrument with which the people embodied their reasoned judgments into law. The Rule of Reason under-girded and strengthened the rule of law.

But to an extent seldom appreciated, all of this - including especially the ability of the American people to exercise the reasoned collective judgments presumed in our Founders' design -- depended on the particular characteristics of the marketplace of ideas as it operated during the Age of Print.

Consider the rules by which our present "public forum" now operates, and how different they are from the forum our Founders knew. Instead of the easy and free access
individuals had to participate in the national conversation by means of the printed word, the world of television makes it virtually impossible for individuals to take part in what passes for a national conversation today.

Inexpensive metal printing presses were almost everywhere in America. They were easily accessible and operated by printers eager to typeset essays, pamphlets, books or flyers.

Television stations and networks, by contrast, are almost completely inaccessible to individual citizens and almost always uninterested in ideas contributed by individual citizens.

Ironically, television programming is actually more accessible to more people than any source of information has ever been in all of history. But here is the crucial distinction: it is accessible in only one direction; there is no true interactivity, and certainly no conversation.

The number of cables connecting to homes is limited in each community and usually forms a natural monopoly. The broadcast and satellite spectrum is likewise a scarce and limited resource controlled by a few. The production of programming has been centralized and has usually required a massive capital investment. So for these and other reasons, an ever-smaller number of large corporations control virtually all of the television programming in America.

Soon after television established its dominance over print, young people who realized they were being shut out of the dialogue of democracy came up with a new form of expression in an effort to join the national conversation: the "demonstration." This new form of expression, which began in the 1960s, was essentially a poor quality theatrical production designed to capture the attention of the television cameras long enough to hold up a sign with a few printed words to convey, however plaintively, a message to the American people. Even this outlet is now rarely an avenue for expression on national television.

So, unlike the marketplace of ideas that emerged in the wake of the printing press, there is virtually no exchange of ideas at all in television's domain. My partner Joel Hyatt and I are trying to change that - at least where Current TV is concerned. Perhaps not coincidentally, we are the only independently owned news and information network in all of American television.

It is important to note that the absence of a two-way conversation in American television also means that there is no "meritocracy of ideas" on television. To the extent that there is a "marketplace" of any kind for ideas on television, it is a rigged market, an oligopoly, with imposing barriers to entry that exclude the average citizen.

The German philosopher, Jurgen Habermas, describes what has happened as "the refeudalization of the public sphere." That may sound like gobbledygook, but it's a phrase that packs a lot of meaning. The feudal system which thrived before the printing press democratized knowledge and made the idea of America thinkable, was a system in which wealth and power were intimately intertwined, and where knowledge played no mediating role whatsoever. The great mass of the people were ignorant. And their powerlessness was born of their ignorance.

It did not come as a surprise that the concentration of control over this powerful one-way medium carries with it the potential for damaging the operations of our democracy. As early as the 1920s, when the predecessor of television, radio, first debuted in the United States, there was immediate apprehension about its potential impact on democracy. One early American student of the medium wrote that if control of radio were concentrated in the hands of a few, "no nation can be free."

As a result of these fears, safeguards were enacted in the U.S. -- including the Public Interest Standard, the Equal Time Provision, and the Fairness Doctrine - though a half century later, in 1987, they were effectively repealed. And then immediately afterwards, Rush Limbaugh and other hate-mongers began to fill the airwaves.

And radio is not the only place where big changes have taken place. Television news has undergone a series of dramatic changes. The movie "Network," which won the Best Picture Oscar in 1976, was presented as a farce but was actually a prophecy. The journalism profession morphed into the news business, which became the media industry and is now completely owned by conglomerates.

The news divisions - which used to be seen as serving a public interest and were subsidized by the rest of the network - are now seen as profit centers designed to generate revenue and, more importantly, to advance the larger agenda of the corporation of which they are a small part. They have fewer reporters, fewer stories, smaller budgets, less travel, fewer bureaus, less independent judgment, more vulnerability to influence by management, and more dependence on government sources and canned public relations hand-outs. This tragedy is compounded by the ironic fact that this generation of journalists is the best trained and most highly skilled in the history of their profession. But they are usually not allowed to do the job they have been trained to do.

The present executive branch has made it a practice to try and control and intimidate news organizations: from PBS to CBS to Newsweek. They placed a former male escort in the White House press pool to pose as a reporter - and then called upon him to give the president a hand at crucial moments. They paid actors to make make phony video press releases and paid cash to some reporters who were willing to take it in return for positive stories. And every day they unleash squadrons of digital brownshirts to harass and hector any journalist who is critical of the President.

For these and other reasons, The US Press was recently found in a comprehensive international study to be only the 27th freest press in the world. And that too seems strange to me.

Among the other factors damaging our public discourse in the media, the imposition by management of entertainment values on the journalism profession has resulted in scandals, fabricated sources, fictional events and the tabloidization of mainstream news. As recently stated by Dan Rather - who was, of course, forced out of his anchor job after angering the White House - television news has been "dumbed down and tarted up."

The coverage of political campaigns focuses on the "horse race" and little else. And the well-known axiom that guides most local television news is "if it bleeds, it leads." (To which some disheartened journalists add, "If it thinks, it stinks.")

In fact, one of the few things that Red state and Blue state America agree on is that they don't trust the news media anymore.

Clearly, the purpose of television news is no longer to inform the American people or serve the public interest. It is to "glue eyeballs to the screen" in order to build ratings and sell advertising. If you have any doubt, just look at what's on: The Robert Blake trial. The Laci Peterson tragedy. The Michael Jackson trial. The Runaway Bride. The search in Aruba. The latest twist in various celebrity couplings, and on and on and on.

And more importantly, notice what is not on: the global climate crisis, the nation's fiscal catastrophe, the hollowing out of America's industrial base, and a long list of other serious public questions that need to be addressed by the American people.

One morning not long ago, I flipped on one of the news programs in hopes of seeing information about an important world event that had happened earlier that day. But the lead story was about a young man who had been hiccupping for three years. And I must say, it was interesting; he had trouble getting dates. But what I didn't see was news.

This was the point made by Jon Stewart, the brilliant host of "The Daily Show," when he visited CNN's "Crossfire": there should be a distinction between news and entertainment.

And it really matters because the subjugation of news by entertainment seriously harms our democracy: it leads to dysfunctional journalism that fails to inform the people. And when the people are not informed, they cannot hold government accountable when it is incompetent, corrupt, or both.

One of the only avenues left for the expression of public or political ideas on television is through the purchase of advertising, usually in 30-second chunks. These short commercials are now the principal form of communication between candidates and voters. As a result, our elected officials now spend all of their time raising money to purchase these ads.

That is why the House and Senate campaign committees now search for candidates who are multi-millionaires and can buy the ads with their own personal resources. As one consequence, the halls of Congress are now filling up with the wealthy.

Campaign finance reform, however well it is drafted, often misses the main point: so long as the only means of engaging in political dialogue is through purchasing expensive television advertising, money will continue by one means or another to dominate American politic s. And ideas will no longer mediate between wealth and power.

And what if an individual citizen, or a group of citizens wants to enter the public debate by expressing their views on television? Since they cannot simply join the conversation, some of them have resorted to raising money in order to buy 30 seconds in which to express their opinion. But they are not even allowed to do that.

Moveon.org tried to buy ads last year to express opposition to Bush's Medicare proposal which was then being debated by Congress. They were told "issue advocacy" was not permissible. Then, one of the networks that had refused the Moveon ad began running advertisements by the White House in favor of the President's Medicare proposal. So Moveon complained and the White House ad was temporarily removed. By temporary, I mean it was removed until the White House complained and the network immediately put the ad back on, yet still refused to present the Moveon ad.

The advertising of products, of course, is the real purpose of television. And it is difficult to overstate the extent to which modern pervasive electronic advertising has reshaped our society. In the 1950s, John Kenneth Galbraith first described the way in which advertising has altered the classical relationship by which supply and demand are balanced over time by the invisible hand of the marketplace. According to Galbraith, modern advertising campaigns were beginning to create high levels of demand for products that consumers never knew they wanted, much less needed.

The same phenomenon Galbraith noticed in the commercial marketplace is now the dominant fact of life in what used to be America's marketplace for ideas. The inherent value or validity of political propositions put forward by candidates for office is now largely irrelevant compared to the advertising campaigns that shape the perceptions of voters.

Our democracy has been hallowed out. The opinions of the voters are, in effect, purchased, just as demand for new products is artificially created. Decades ago Walter Lippman wrote, "the manufacture of consent...was supposed to have died out with the appearance of democracy...but it has not died out. It has, in fact, improved enormously in technique...under the impact of propaganda, it is no longer plausible to believe in the original dogma of democracy."

Like you, I recoil at Lippman's cynical dismissal of America's gift to human history. But in order to reclaim our birthright, we Americans must resolve to repair the systemic decay of the public forum and create new ways to engage in a genuine and not manipulative conversation about our future. Americans in both parties should insist on the re-establishment of respect for the Rule of Reason. We must, for example, stop tolerating the rejection and distortion of science. We must insist on an end to the cynical use of pseudo studies known to be false for the purpose of intentionally clouding the public's ability to discern the truth.

I don't know all the answers, but along with my partner, Joel Hyatt, I am trying to work within the medium of television to recreate a multi-way conversation that includes individuals and operates according to a meritocracy of ideas. If you would like to know more, we are having a press conference on Friday morning at the Regency Hotel.

We are learning some fascinating lessons about the way decisions are made in the television industry, and it may well be that the public would be well served by some changes in law and policy to stimulate more diversity of viewpoints and a higher regard for the public interest. But we are succeeding within the marketplace by reaching out to individuals and asking them to co-create our network.

The greatest source of hope for reestablishing a vigorous and accessible marketplace for ideas is the Internet. Indeed, Current TV relies on video streaming over the Internet as the means by which individuals send us what we call viewer-created content or VC squared. We also rely on the Internet for the two-way conversation that we have every day with our viewers enabling them to participate in the decisions on programming our network.

I know that many of you attending this conference are also working on creative ways to use the Internet as a means for bringing more voices into America's ongoing conversation. I salute you as kindred spirits and wish you every success.

I want to close with the two things I've learned about the Internet that are most directly relevant to the conference that you are having here today.

First, as exciting as the Internet is, it still lacks the single most powerful characteristic of the television medium; because of its packet-switching architecture, and its continued reliance on a wide variety of bandwidth connections (including the so-called "last mile" to the home), it does not support the real-time mass distribution of full-motion video.

Make no mistake, full-motion video is what makes television such a powerful medium. Our brains - like the brains of all vertebrates - are hard-wired to immediately notice sudden movement in our field of vision. We not only notice, we are compelled to look. When our evolutionary predecessors gathered on the African savanna a million years ago and the leaves next to them moved, the ones who didn't look are not our ancestors. The ones who did look passed on to us the genetic trait that neuroscientists call "the establishing reflex." And that is the brain syndrome activated by television continuously - sometimes as frequently as once per second. That is the reason why the industry phrase, "glue eyeballs to the screen," is actually more than a glib and idle boast. It is also a major part of the reason why Americans watch the TV screen an average of four and a half hours a day.

It is true that video streaming is becoming more common over the Internet, and true as well that cheap storage of streamed video is making it possible for many young television viewers to engage in what the industry calls "time shifting" and personalize their television watching habits. Moreover, as higher bandwidth connections continue to replace smaller information pipelines, the Internet's capacity for carrying television will continue to dramatically improve. But in spite of these developments, it is television delivered over cable and satellite that will continue for the remainder of this decade and probably the next to be the dominant medium of communication in America's democracy. And so long as that is the case, I truly believe that America's democracy is at grave risk.

The final point I want to make is this: We must ensure that the Internet remains open and accessible to all citizens without any limitation on the ability of individuals to choose the content they wish regardless of the Internet service provider they use to connect to the Worldwide Web. We cannot take this future for granted. We must be prepared to fight for it because some of the same forces of corporate consolidation and control that have distorted the television marketplace have an interest in controlling the Internet marketplace as well. Far too much is at stake to ever allow that to happen.

We must ensure by all means possible that this medium of democracy's future develops in the mold of the open and free marketplace of ideas that our Founders knew was essential to the health and survival of freedom. http://mediacenter.blogs.com/morph/2005/10/al_gore_address.html

Here is the audio of this speech. It is even better than the transcript, but of course, it's not in PRINT.

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Why We Fight

Sometimes, when you read things like this you wonder if the Democratic Party even remembers what it is we fight for. Well, I thought I'd put together my personal list of what I think liberals, specifically, Progressive Liberals, fight for just to remind Senator Obama that there is no "center". You either are fighting for these same things, or you're fighting against them. There can be no middle ground.

We fight for Equality. That means programs that help give those less fortunate an equal opportunity to succeed as those born with silver spoons in their mouths. That means a rejection of the social darwinism espoused by the Cheap Labor Conservatives.

We fight for Social Justice. Because a nation that doesn't protect ALL it's citizens is not a free nation.

We fight for Democracy. That means making sure every vote gets counted, unlike the Cheap Labor Conservatives who hold up voting lines in Democratic districts and employ dubious e-voting methods like Diebold machines.

We fight to improve wages and working conditions. Something Cheap Labor Conservatives don't just oppose, it's the entire basis for their platform.

We fight for public education because an education should benefit all our citizens, not just the rich.

We fight for a progressive income tax because we believe that if the government assists businesses to thrive, those that benefit from that assistance should pay their fair share for the riches our system has given them.

We fight for balanced budgets and the elimination of the national deficit. Something the Cheap Labor Conservatives caused in order to bankrupt social programs while allowing them to get rich off the tax free interest bonds created by the deficit.

We fight for trade agreements that are intended to benefit the working class, not intended to create a culture of corporate corruption where national governments serve the interests of corporations by providing cheap labor.

We fight for Freedom of Speech. Something the Cheap Labor Conservatives have fought against tooth and nail since southern planters made it a crime to speak out against slavery.

We fight for civil rights because we believe as Thomas Jefferson, that we are all created equally.

We fight for the working class and their right to unionize in order to gain fair bargaining power with their employers. Something the Cheap Labor Conservatives are dead set against.

We fight for child labor laws, minimum wage and restricted working hours for industrial workers and everything that came into law as a result of the Fair Labor Standards Act, from the 8 hour workday to overtime pay, all of which the Cheap Labor Conservatives opposed and continue to oppose.

We fight fascism, whether it appears overseas or in our own nation.

We fight to keep our country safe not just through military means but through diplomacy and law enforcement means as well. However, we do not and will not trade our liberty for security.

We fight for affordable healthcare for all our citizens because even though Cheap Labor Conservatives would rather see us broke and begging for work, any work, cheap, we'd rather see Americans healthy and financially secure. A healthy, financially secure America is a strong America.

We fight for a clean environment, not just in America but in the world. One that can sustain the human race indefinately. While Cheap Labor Conservatives oppose any legislation that doesn't make them a buck at the expense of our environment, the quality of our water and the air we breathe, we believe that a sustainable ecosystem is critical to the survival of the human race.

We fight for the development of sustainable energy sources and breaking America's dependence upon foreign oil.

We fight against Cheap Labor Conservatives and their Social Darwinistic philosophy of economic enslavement.

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