Washington Press Corps(e)
Glenn Greenwald just eviscerated David Broder over at Salon–exposing him as as the embodiment of everything that is wrong with the Washington media.
In a Washington Post “chat,” a citizen from Crestwood, NY wrote in with a fine point about the “Phase II” Senate investigation into pre-war intelligence:
So the Senate report — supported by two Republicans — supports the conclusion that we all reached several years ago, that Bush and Cheney used propaganda and ginned up intelligence to trick the country into war. If this is not an impeachable offense, what do you define as one? And if an impeachable offense is committed, isn’t it the height of irresponsibility for the Democrats to put possible harm to their electoral chances (negligible, in my opinion) ahead of their oaths to the Constitution? How will history look back at this disgraceful chapter in both the executive and legislative branches?
Broder’s response:
You’ll have to forgive me, but I am reluctant to see every big policy dispute turned into a criminal or impeachable affair. There needs to be accountability but there also needs to be proportionality. This country is engaged in two wars and has serious, serious domestic problems. To stop everything and attempt to impeach and remove a president who has less than a year to serve would not strike me as the best use of our energy. And for what? So Dick Cheney can be president?
Greenwald’s response was blistering, but I’ll only quote a portion:
The only news made by that Senate report is that, in our country, a report like this — documenting that the Government lied us into a war — is no longer news at all. Extraordinary conduct of that type has been converted by the David Broders of the world into commonplace “policy disputes.”
And:
When Scott McClellan used the term “complicit enablers” to describe our press corps, this is the face of that: soothingly assuring the public that there is nothing at all unusual or radical about what’s going on in our Government, that everything from torture to warrantless, illegal spying to process-less detentions and the abolition of habeas corpus and even lying our country into war are just standard “policy disputes” that should be resolved in a gentlemanly manner through respectful and civil discourse, not by excessive and mean-spirited weapons such as investigations and prosecutions. As Broder said, the notion that there should be a “sense of urgency” is for people who “get carried away by their own rhetoric.”
Read the whole post. Greenwald is the best, most insightful, and important voice speaking in the twilight of the Bush regime.
