Greg Mitchell's Blog, page 180

"60 Minutes": Out Foxed?

My new piece at The Nation on submerged angle in "60 Minutes" fiasco: head of CBS News, David Rhodes, helped run Fox News for years.  And recall, just a month ago, they ran that hatchet job on allegedly false disability claims.  Need we add that Rhodes' vp of programming produced Joe Scarborough's old show at MSNBC--and then Morning Joe.

UPDATE #4  Lara Logan tonight on the show did 90-second "we're sorry" again and added absolutely nothing new.  See her do it here. 

UPDATE #3  Craig Silverman, the "Regret the Error" scribe, with lengthy and valuable assessment of what's similar and what's different in the Dan Rather and Lara Logan episodes.

UPDATE #2:  Great post here by Digby on a Lara Logan speech one year ago (and see video) where she exposed herself as a raging, biased hawk on exacting revenge for the Benghazi attack.  Digby also looks at other Logan statements about Libya and Afghanistan, showing that likely her own bias led to not asking right questions on her star "source."   Logan even admits that her boss had to remind her that she was seek the truth and not merely trying to prove her own views.

Needless to say, the fact that she fell for such a clearly ridiculous hoax was due to her biases. She shows in that speech that she had already made up her mind about what happened. And 60 Minutes should have been professionally skeptical of her story because of that. Logan's agenda blinded her to the fact that she was being played.

UPDATE #1:  Jay Rosen points us to a Comment following his latest from a veteran of 34 years at CBS, who contrasts the Dan Rather and Lara Logan scandals.  Especially good to remind us of how Dan was at the sinking "60 Minutes 2" while Logan at still-a-cash-cow regular "60 Minutes."  All very good, but I disagree with his conclusion that no need for CBS to fully probe the latest affair. 

Call Him "Wince Vaughn"

Vince Vaughn opens up about being one of the relatively rare right-wingers in Hollywood.  Perhaps why dumb roles appeal to him.  Not to mention: Ron Paul.

 “I think that what you come, as you get older, you just get less trust in the government running anything. And that you start to realize when you really go back and look at the Constitution and the principles of liberty, the real purpose of government is to protect the individual’s right to sort of think and pursue what they have interest in. And that when you start drawing the lines, saying, as a society, we think this is inappropriate, we’re going to pass laws to protect them from themselves and or take things away to protect themselves or move money from here to there, that you realize that you wake up with corruption and without the unintended consequences you’ll wake up with a lot of problems that didn’t exist prior.”

Cruz's "Crucible"

Boston Globe got its hands on a clip of Ted Cruz acting in, wait for it, Arthur Miller's Salem witch-hunting (and anti-McCarthyism) classic The Crucible back at Harvard in 1992.  Not the greatest video quality but the horrid voice is unmistakable.   His lines, the Globe notes, show  "parallels to his political future."  The pastor he played complained that he had a lot of enemies who wanted to drive him from the pulpit.  And see this amazing photo from 1994.  And full story here.

Interviews with more than two dozen alumnae and professors fill in a portrait of Cruz, in Cambridge two decades ago, that would be fully recognizable to those who know him now in Washington. He made a lasting impression as someone both arrogant and pretentious, as well as someone unwilling to yield or compromise.

What Will Be in "60 Minutes" Apologia on Sunday Night?

Yeah, they did their mini-culpa on Friday for the bogus Benghazi report while promising a bit more during their show this week.  But what?  Even the mini-culpa was enough for many media writers, and the program's chief, who also happens to be CBS News chief, clearly indicated they are turning the page--no promise of a full review, suspension of guilty parties, etc.  Jay Rosen with an in-depth look tonight at what CBS should say but probably will not.  It starts with also apologizing for stonewalling for so long, claiming the critics were mere partisans,  and only admitting the obvious after other news outlets revealed deep flaws.  He also notes how Mary Matalin and her book imprint is tied up with CBS and will they say anything about that?

Saturday Night Music Pick

One of great Lou Reed solo tunes, sadly overlooked. 

Public Ed. Revisits Infamous 2004 'NYT' Episode

The Times' tireless public editor Margaret Sullivan (man, could she get a lifetime appointment?) tonight revisits one of the most controversial and damaging episodes in the paper's history--its refusal to publish and important and prescient story by James Risen on illegal Bush wiretapping before the 2004 election, holding it until well after.  Besides the many journalistic, ethical and legal questions it raised, there's the matter of possibly handing the next four years to Bumbling Bush.

Sullivan interviews many of the key players on why the paper failed to publish--until Risen was about to spill the beans in a book.  Of course, pitiful Bill Keller (left), then the top editor,  continues to defend, others, such as Philip Taubman, claim mixed feelings or feel they should have gone ahead, and more.  And we here from good old Michael Hayden.  Who knew the whole saga was optioned for a movie?   Read the whole thing. 

Lou Reed on Beethoven

Aptly, given my obsession, I was pleased to see that in Lou Reed's final interview he paid tribute to...Beethoven.  

"I know the way I like things to sound," he explained. "I wouldn't want to hear Beethoven without beautiful bass, the cellos, the tuba. It's very important. Hip-hop has thunderous bass. And so does Beethoven. If you don't have the bass, it's like being amputated. It's like you have no legs."

Later he observes, "Beethoven could make music, even though he was deaf." 

Trash It While You Can

The "Morgan Jones" fiction about the Benghazi attack, Embassy House, still being sold at Amazon, despite Simon & Schuster pondering pulling it (good work, Mary Matalin), but check out the new one-star reviews.

When Lara Logan Trashed Michael Hastings

Worth re-visiting the McChrystal backlash in light of, you know.  Matt Taibbi covered it in Rolling Stone in 2011 in one of his classics. Excerpt: 

I thought I'd seen everything when I read David Brooks saying out loud in a New York Times column that reporters should sit on damaging comments to save their sources from their own idiocy. But now we get CBS News Chief Foreign Correspondent Lara Logan slamming our own Michael Hastings on CNN's "Reliable Sources" program, agreeing that the Rolling Stone reporter violated an "unspoken agreement" that journalists are not supposed to "embarrass [the troops] by reporting insults and banter."

Anyone who wants to know why network television news hasn't mattered since the seventies just needs to check out this appearance by Logan. Here's CBS's chief foreign correspondent saying out loud on TV that when the man running a war that's killing thousands of young men and women every year steps on his own dick in front of a journalist, that journalist is supposed to eat the story so as not to embarrass the flag. And the part that really gets me is Logan bitching about how Hastings was dishonest to use human warmth and charm to build up enough of a rapport with his sources that they felt comfortable running their mouths off in front of him....

As to this whole "unspoken agreement" business: the reason Lara Logan thinks this is because she's like pretty much every other "reputable" journalist in this country, in that she suffers from a profound confusion about who she's supposed to be working for. I know this from my years covering presidential campaigns, where the same dynamic applies. Hey, assholes: you do not work for the people you're covering! Jesus, is this concept that fucking hard?

Put Down Your Phone, Damn It

Over 30 million views now for this recent two--minute film.