Progress Report: Outfoxed Premiers

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Center for American Progress - Progress Report

 

 

by David Sirota, Christy Harvey, Judd Legum and

Jonathan Baskin

 

 

July 12, 2004

MEDIAOutfoxed PremiersVOTINGPostponing the

Election?IRAQIntelligence Whitewash

UNDER THE RADAR

 

MEDIA

Outfoxed Premiers

 

The New York Times Magazine this weekend previewed the

new movie " Outfoxed " #8211; a documentary analyzing

Fox News, sponsored by American Progress and

MoveOn.org. The movie will premier in New York City

Tuesday night, and, according to the LA Times, MoveOn

will promote the film at house parties across the

country on July 18. Featuring " interviews with former

Fox employees and leaked policy memos written by Fox

executives, " the film is " an obsessively researched

expose " by Hollywood director Robert Greenwald, who

shows how the network " distorts its coverage to serve

the conservative political agenda of its owner, the

media tycoon Rupert Murdoch. " In one scene, Fox News's

chief White House reporter Carl Cameron is shown

hamming it up with President Bush, telling the

president that his wife was campaigning for the

Bush-Cheney ticket. As LA Times columnist Tim Rutten

wrote, Fox has become " the most blatantly biased major

American news organization since the era of yellow

journalism. " The movie highlights a trend whereby the

broader right-wing media is parroting the conservative

line on everything from the war to the economy to

coverage of the presidential campaign #8211; leaving

facts and objectivity by the wayside.

 

FOX ORDERS REPORTERS TO DOWNPLAY WAR OPPOSITION:

Greenwald's movie shows how Fox executives issued

memos during the war pressuring reporters to downplay

opposition to the war. One memo warned correspondents

" that anti-war protesters would be 'whining' about

U.S. bombs killing Iraqi civilians, and suggested they

could tell that to the families of American soldiers

dying there. " At the same time, Fox deployed its army

of pundits to echo some of the most egregiously

unsubstantiated myths about the Iraq situation,

claiming without proof that WMD had been found and

that there was definitely a link between Iraq and al

Qaeda.

 

THE FOX-IFICATION OF WAR COVERAGE: Fox's slanted

coverage of the war had two distinct effects: polls

show it helped spread serious misconceptions about the

Iraq situation among its viewers and the public, and

it pressured the industry as a whole to follow suit

and skew coverage. As the Washington Post reported,

influential television-news consulting firms began

telling networks that " covering war protests may be

harmful to a station's bottom line. " Similarly, AP

reported that " Cleveland-based McVay Media Inc., a

consultant to 150 radio stations across the country,

published a 'War Manual' on its Web site " #8211;

applying clear pressure to downplay criticism of the

war. The manual suggested, among other things, playing

" patriotic music that makes you cry, salute, get cold

chills. "

 

THE JAPANESE TAKE THE FIRST STEP: In at least one part

of the world, Fox is paying a price for its shoddy

journalism. Bloomberg reports Japan has rejected Fox

News, with the network recently being forced to pull

out of the country " because of low subscriptions. "

 

CLEAR CHANNEL SQUELCHES OPPOSITION TO BUSH/WAR: The

New York Times reports that Clear Channel, which is

run by a major Bush fundraiser and has " close ties to

national Republicans, " is refusing to allow an

anti-war group to buy ad space on one of its public

billboards during the Republican National Convention

in New York City. The company claims it objected to

bomb imagery, even though Clear Channel had rejected

an earlier version of the ad showing just a dove.

Clear Channel's CEO Paul Meyer, a Bush contributor who

recently gave a speech entitled " Be Ethical, Be

Successful, " said with a straight face, " We have no

political agenda. " But a look at Clear Channel's past

shows otherwise. In the lead up to the war, the

company officially sponsored " some of the biggest

rallies endorsing President Bush's strategy against

Saddam Hussein. " That effort was undoubtedly motivated

by the company's strong connection to the Republican

party: R. Steven Hicks, the founder of Clear Channel,

is a Bush Pioneer, having raised more than $100,000

for the president, and Hicks personally " made Bush a

millionaire 15 times over " in their Texas business

dealings. Other company executives have contributed

more than $24,000 to the president's campaign.

Meanwhile, the NYT reports that in the 2000 and 2002

election cycles, " the company and its officials

donated slightly more than $300,000 in unregulated

money, almost all of it to Republicans. "

 

VOTING

Postponing the Election?

 

In a major exclusive, Newsweek reports the Bush

administration is exploring legal justifications for

postponing the November 2004 election in the event of

a terrorist attack close to the election. In pushing

for the authority to suspend democracy for the first

time in America's history, the White House is seizing

on the right-wing myth that the Spanish election was

won by al Qaeda, instead of being lost by a government

that lied to its people. And while the administration

has trumpeted the prospect that al Qaeda might seek to

disrupt the U.S. election, " counterterrorism officials

concede they have no intelligence about any specific

plots. "

 

MEET BUSTER SOARIES #8211; THE NEXT KATHARINE HARRIS?:

Newsweek reports the plan to give the president

authority to postpone the election is being pushed by

DeForest " Buster " Soaries Jr. #8211; the White House's

recent appointee to the newly-formed U.S. Election

Assistance Commission. Soaries wants the

administration " to seek emergency legislation from

Congress empowering his agency to make such a call. "

But while Soaries is using his agency to feign

nonpartisanship, he is anything but. As a GOP

candidate for Congress less than two years ago, he

relied on major Republican big wigs to assist his

campaign. In a New Jersey speech during the campaign,

President Bush called out, " My friend Buster Soaries,

thank you, Buster, for coming. I'm glad you're here. "

 

PLAN IMMEDIATELY PANNED: The administration's power

grab effort was immediately panned by lawmakers

concerned that the White House is using the fear of

terrorism for its own political gain. Rep. Jane Harman

(D-CA) said, " I think it's excessive based on what we

know, " pointing out that the administration's warnings

about an imminent election threat have been " a bust "

because they were based on old information. Rep. Bill

Delahunt (D-MA) said postponing the election " would be

the ultimate surrender to terrorism for a democracy "

and noted the proposal itself " just creates more

fear. "

 

JUST ANOTHER TROUBLING SIGN: The administration's

effort to empower itself to postpone elections is just

the latest troubling sign in the lead up to the

election. Already, states have contracted Diebold to

manufacture new voting machines #8211; a company whose

CEO wrote in a fundraising letter last August that he

is " committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral

votes to the president next year. " And the voting

machines themselves have severe problems. Meanwhile,

the state of Florida flirted with using a " list of

48,000 ex-felons " that civil rights groups note

" contains inaccuracies that could cause local election

officials to wrongfully purge eligible voters. "

 

MEETING TOMORROW #8211; TELL THEM TO PRESERVE

DEMOCRACY: The U.S. Election Assistance Commission

tomorrow is holding a public meeting at 1:00pm at 1225

New York Ave, N.W., Suite 1100 in Washington, D.C. Go

to the meeting and tell the Bush administration to

preserve American democracy and back off its plan to

hijack the election for its own political gain. If

you're not in Washington, e-mail them at this

address:#160; HAVAinfo

 

IRAQ

Intelligence Whitewash

 

The report released by the Senate Intelligence

Committee on Friday confirmed widespread doubts about

the accuracy of the intelligence President Bush used

to make his case for war in Iraq, but left unanswered

several questions surrounding Bush and his

administration's role in the production and use of

that intelligence. The findings in the report offered

a " broad indictment " of the CIA, and " left in shreds "

the Bush administration's main rationales for war.

However, it stopped short of addressing the pressure

applied by the administration in gathering that

intelligence, including repeated trips to CIA

headquarters by Vice President Cheney, the creation of

a secretive Office of Special Plans to filter

intelligence, and several pre-war statements

exaggerating intelligence estimates or ignoring

conflicting points of view.

 

UNDER PRESSURE: The report states there is no evidence

intelligence analysts were pressured to change their

judgments or alter " intelligence products to conform

with administration policy, " but committee co-chairman

Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) indicated he " voted for the

report in spite of that with which I did not agree,

that is the subject of pressure.#160;I think there was

a lot of pressure. " The evidence supports

Rockefeller's suspicions: if analysts weren't

sufficiently intimidated by Cheney's " repeated trips

to CIA headquarters in the run-up to the war for

unusual face-to-face sessions with intelligence

analysts poring over Iraqi data, " they may have

noticed when the Pentagon set up a rival

intelligence-gathering outfit, the Office of Special

Plans, which " rivaled both the C.I.A. and the

Pentagon's own Defense Intelligence Agency, the

D.I.A., as President Bush's main source of

intelligence regarding Iraq's possible possession of

WMD and connection with Al Qaeda. " Rockefeller said,

" the ombudsman of the CIA, whose job it is to listen

to people's complaints said that in his 32 years of

work in the CIA, he had never seen so much hammering,

i.e. pressure, on the intelligence community. "

 

THE 2002 NIE: The report focused on the flawed

findings of the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate

(NIE), claiming the report said Iraq had WMD, was

developing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) and

" probably intended to deliver biological warfare

agents. " Conservatives have suggested it was this

unsupported intelligence which led Bush administration

to make inflated claims. There's just one

problem#8212;the 2002 NIE does not support many of

those claims. For instance, a declassified excerpt of

the report noted that the Department of Energy

disagreed with assertions that aluminum tubes were

being used as part of Saddam's effort to reconstitute

nuclear weapons. But this didn't stop Secretary of

State Colin Powell from using the tubes to make his

case for war to the United Nations. The report also

lists as " highly dubious " the claims of Iraqi pursuit

of natural uranium in Africa, which Bush nevertheless

cited as fact in his 2003 State of the Union Address.

It's hard to know what else the 2002 NIE really said,

because " the CIA has decided to keep [it] almost

entirely secret, " despite a Freedom of Information Act

request from the National Security Archive. But you

can see this declassified list of warnings the

administration was given that its assertions about

Iraq were weak.

 

OTHER INTELLIGENCE: There was plenty of available

information that conflicted with the 2002 NIE, but it

was ignored by administration officials. In February

of 2003, a CIA report on proliferation said the

intelligence community had " no 'direct evidence' that

Iraq has succeeded in reconstituting its biological,

chemical, nuclear or long-range missile programs in

the two years since U.N. weapons inspectors left and

U.S. planes bombed Iraqi facilities. " Inspectors

repeatedly told the UN Security Council they could not

find evidence of weapons in Iraq and the IAEA warned

Bush it had " found no evidence of ongoing prohibited

nuclear or nuclear-related activities in Iraq. " For

more examples of the administration neglecting

intelligence, check out this American progress

backgrounder. #160;

 

HELPING OUT THE COMMITTEE: The Senate Intelligence

Committee will soon begin a " follow-up investigation

that will examine prewar statements by President Bush

and other administration officials. " According to the

LA Times, Chairman Pat Roberts (R #8211; KS) has asked

members of the panel " to submit lists of claims made

by White House officials and other policymakers that

would be scrutinized to determine whether they were

exaggerated or unsupported by intelligence assessments

available before the invasion of Iraq. " Here are a few

exaggerated or unsupported claims that could help get

the panel off to a good start: 9/25/02: President Bush

tells the press, " You can't distinguish between

al-Qaida and Saddam. " 8/26/02: Vice President Cheney

says, " Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam

Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. " 9/19/02:

Donald Rumsfeld tells the Senate Armed Services

Committee, " [saddam has] amassed large, clandestine

stockpiles of biological weapons, including anthrax,

botulism, toxins and possibly smallpox. " And on

9/7/03, Condoleezza Rice told CNN, " We don't want the

smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud. " Check out our

Claim vs. Fact database for more Bush administration

distortions.

 

 

 

 

 

ETHICS #8211; DELAY REQUESTED ILLEGAL CONTRIBUTIONS

FROM ENRON: Documents obtained by The Washington Post

indicate that Tom DeLay illegally funneled corporate

money into state legislature races in Texas. The money

was part of a successful effort to coordinate a

conservative takeover of the Texas House before

congressional redistricting. An email from an Enron

lobbyist to indicted former CEO Ken Lay said that

DeLay had requested $100,000 in corporate and

individual contributions to be used in Texas House

races. Read the full story.

 

GUANTANAMO #8211;DETAINEES MAY STILL BE DENIED ACCESS:

The Los Angeles Times reports, " despite pledging

yearly reviews for all prisoners held by the U.S.

military at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Pentagon officials

tentatively agreed during a high-level meeting last

month to deny that process to some detainees and to

keep their existence secret 'for intelligence

reasons.' " The move was designed to keep some

prisoners held by the CIA " off public records and away

from the scrutiny of lawyers and judges. " The plans

cast doubt on whether the separate, one-time review to

determine if a detainee has been properly labeled an

enemy combatant would apply to all prisoners. That

order, like the one establishing yearly reviews, is

limited to " all detainees under the control of the

Department of Defense " #8211; leaving open the

possibility that detainees formally in the control of

the CIA would be exempted. #160;#160;#160;

 

CORPORATE #8211; RAILROADING JUSTICE: It's corporate

malfeasance at its lowest. The New York Times has an

in-depth report detailing the lengths railroads will

go to avoid responsibility for deaths at crossroads.

#160;Powerful railroad corporations have a record of

destroying evidence, blocking investigations, refusing

to report crashes, fighting to avoid compensation of

victims and, on one occasion, secretly exchanging

broken equipment before the plaintiff's lawyers could

inspect it. How do they get away with it? Influential

friends, for starters. The railroad industry has

worked to keep the power to investigate accidents

centered in Washington; " Vice President Dick Cheney

served on Union Pacific's board and the Treasury

Secretary, John W. Snow, is a former chief executive

of CSX. " And it works. " Of the nearly 3,000 rail

crossing accidents last year, federal authorities

fully investigated just four. "

 

HEALTH #8211; ADMINISTRATION SEEKS TO RAISE DRUG

PRICES: A new trade agreement negotiated by the Bush

administration would make it harder for Americans

without health insurance to purchase imported

prescription drugs at low prices. The agreement, which

was negotiated with Australia, " would allow

pharmaceutical companies to prevent imports of drugs

to the United States and also to challenge decisions

by Australia about what drugs should be covered by the

country's health plan, the prices paid for them and

how they can be used. " The new pact is part of the

administration's policy of " strengthening the

protection of expensive brand-name drugs in wealthy

countries, where the biggest profits can be made. " The

Bush administration has rejected the idea of lowering

domestic prices with drug imports and instead #8211;

" with strong backing from the pharmaceutical industry "

#8211; is seeking to " raise the price of drugs

overseas. "

 

IRAQ #8211; MARKETING TERROR: Is Iraq the new

Afghanistan? The Washington Post reports, " An

increasing number of Saudis who crossed the border

into Iraq to fight the U.S.-led military occupation

are returning home to plot attacks against the Saudi

government and Western targets in the desert kingdom,

according to Western counterterrorism officials and

Saudis with ties to militant groups. " Terrorist

networks are mining Iraq for new recruits, leading

officials to worry this " trend could become an echo of

the 1990s, when thousands of Saudis traveled to

Afghanistan to enlist in training camps sponsored by

al Qaeda and other Islamic groups. Many of those

radicals were dispatched around the world to launch

attacks, including the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackings in

the United States. " After the Iraq insurgency is over,

" there will be people who are freshly trained in the

art of guerrilla warfare, " said one Western diplomat.

" It's a real concern.

 

ENVIRO #8211; CLEAR THE FORESTS: AP reports, " the Bush

administration will propose a new plan to open up

national forests to more logging. " The plan would end

a prohibition on road building in remote portions of

national forests. Department of Agriculture Secretary

Ann Veneman counterintuitively announced the new plan

demonstrated " President Bush's commitment to

cooperatively conserving roadless areas on national

forests. "

 

#160;Don't Miss

DAILY TALKING POINTS: Whitewash on Intelligence

Failures

 

COLUMN: Paid Family Leave Arrives in California

 

MEDIA: In blow to free press, conservative Maryland

governor trying to evict media from statehouse.

 

IRAQ: New report by Common Cause examines what went

wrong in Iraq

 

IRAQ: U.S. News and World Report has new material from

Taguba report providing " the most comprehensive view

yet of what went wrong at Abu Ghraib. "

 

Contact The Progress Report:

pr.

 

 

 

 

#160;Daily Grill

 

" Vice President Dick Cheney#8230;says he would support

President Bush if he proposes a constitutional

amendment banning same-sex marriage. "

 

- Associated Press, 7/10/04

 

VERSUS

 

" First of all, to be clear that people should be free

to enter into their relationships that they choose.

And, secondly, to recognize what's historically been

the situation, that when it comes to conferring legal

status on relationships, that is a matter left to the

states. "

 

- Lynne Cheney on gay marriage, 7/11/04

 

#160;Daily Outrage

Conservative radio corporation Clear Channel is

refusing to allow an anti-war group to buy ad space on

one of its public billboards during the Republican

National Convention in New York City.

 

#160;Archives

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