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Sun Oct-19-08 06:20 PM
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Tom Brokaw Get your Facts Straight – Are you a Journalist or Part of the GOP Echo Chamber?

Tom Brokaw was at it again on Meet the Press this morning, doing whatever he could to derail the Obama campaign for President, without much or any regard to facts:

Misquoting William Ayers to make him look like an “unrepentant terrorist”

Following Colin Powell’s eloquent endorsement of Obama, Brokaw felt the necessity to add his own spin. First and foremost, he couldn’t let the opportunity pass to get in some more digs on Obama’s “association” with the “unrepentant terrorist” William Ayers:

Let me go back to something that you raised just a moment ago, and that's William Ayers, a former member of the Weathermen who's now active in school issues in Illinois. He had some past association with Barack Obama. Wouldn't it have been more helpful for William Ayers to, on his own, to have renounced his own past? Here was a man who was a part of the most radical group that existed in America at a time when you were serving in Vietnam, targeting the Pentagon, the Capitol. He wrote a book about it that came out on 2001, on September 11th that said, "We didn't bomb enough."

Well Tom, if you’ve been paying any attention to this issue, or if you’d done any research on it before spouting off, you’d know that Ayers did have this to say about it:

I heard Sean Hannity tell Senator John McCain that I was an unrepentant terrorist… extolling bombings against the U.S. and even advocating more terrorist bombs. Senator McCain couldn’t believe it (that is, before Obama became his principle barrier to the presidency), and neither could I. I’m often quoted as saying “I have no regrets”. That is not true. I’m sometimes asked if I regret anything I did to oppose the war in Vietnam, and I say “No, I don’t regret anything I did to stop the slaughter of millions of human beings by my own government.” Sometimes I add, “I don’t think I did enough”. This is then elided: “He has no regrets for setting bombs and thinks there should be more bombings”…. Terrorism is never justifiable, even in a just cause. I’ve never advocated terrorism, never participated in it, never defended it.

In other words, Ayers categorically denies that he ever said anything remotely resembling what Brokaw accuses him of, or ever participating in or even condoning terrorism. So, what is the evidence for Brokaw’s claim that Ayers said “We didn’t bomb enough”, other than that Sean Hannity said so?

I googled “Ayers” with “We didn’t bomb enough” and “Ayers” with “no regrets”, and all I could come up with were Ayers’ denials that he ever said anything like that, plus a bunch of unsubstantiated rumors. I found an inaudible 15 second U-tube clip from FOX News titled “Bill Ayers: I have no regrets”. I found a statement from David9176 disparaging Obama’s association with Ayers and quoting Ayers, but then adding “I'm not sure of the exact quote and I'm too lazy too look up a link, but that's the mainly what it came down too.” And then there is a Washingtonpost.com article that puts forth Ayers’ side of the story without challenging it, and then adds with respect to Ayers’ protests against the Vietnam War:

Ayers says, those who tried to stop the "illegal, murderous, imperial war against Viet Nam ... recognize that our efforts were inadequate: the war dragged on for a decade, thousands were slaughtered every week, and we couldn't stop it. In the end the U.S. military was defeated and the war ended, but we surely didn't do enough."

So there you have it. Ayers repeatedly claims to be passionately against terrorism of any kind, even state terrorism, and he categorically denies the quote attributed to him by the GOP smear machine, namely, “We didn’t bomb enough”. I admit that I haven’t read his book, but it seems rather far fetched that he would repeatedly deny a quote that could be easily found in a book he’d recently written – given all the intense GOP efforts to tie the Obama campaign to terrorism.

Could Ayers be lying about the fact that he never participated in terrorism? The Weather Underground, which he belonged to, was on the FBI’s ten most-wanted list in the Hoover days. But Ayers and his wife turned themselves in during the 1980s, and all charges against them were dropped. Shouldn’t a journalist with integrity and a sense of fairness refer to Ayers as an alleged terrorist when he or she feels the need to bring up the subject?

Bringing the race issue into the campaign

To further dampen Powell’s endorsement of Obama, Brokaw challenged him with this:

And you are fully aware that there will be some – how many, no one can say for sure – but there will be some who will say this is an African-American, distinguished American, supporting another African-American because of race.

Well, Tom, yes it’s true that some people will say that. But why put the blame on some people? By making that statement to an audience of millions, YOU just said it yourself. And let me ask you this. Have you EVER asked a white person if they were supporting McCain because of his race? I’ve never heard you do that. And if not, then I suggest that your question was totally inappropriate for one of the most widely watched news programs in our country.

And this wasn’t the first time that Brokaw tried to play the race card with this campaign. A couple of months ago, when he had Obama on his show as a guest, he showed him some polls and then repeatedly challenged him to explain why black people supported some of his positions more than white people. Funny, but I’ve never seen him challenge a white candidate to explain why white people supported his position more than black people.

Why is it that Brokaw considers the opinions of black people to be so less valid than those of white people that their opinions should be challenged simply on the basis that they’re black? A person in Brokaw’s position should be ashamed of trying to racially divide our country at a time like this.

Castigating Obama’s qualifications to be President

As the McCain camp is running out of issues capable of getting their campaign back on track, Brokaw thought he’d help them out be going back to the “experience” issue. He said to Powell (nervously, as you can see, by the way he stumbled over his words):

There is nothing in Barack Obama's history that nearly paralyze any – parallels any of the experiences that you've had. And while he has performed impressively in the context of the campaign, there's a vast difference between sitting in the Oval Office and making tough decisions and doing well in a campaign.

Nor was this the first time that Brokaw tried that tactic. On the July 27th edition of Meet the Press, Brokaw contemptuously castigated Obama’s priorities by implying that he should have made more trips to Afghanistan:

How is it possible that, as a candidate for president of the United States and a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is making his first trip to what you call the central front in the war on terror?

He then made a bizarre and stupid statement about Obama’s discussion of Pakistan:

You said, "We should condition some assistance to Pakistan on their action to take the fight to the terrorists within their borders. And if we have actionable intelligence about high-level al-Qaeda targets, we must act if Pakistan will not or cannot." Let me take the first half of that statement. That seems, to me, to be a fairly tepid statement, "We'll condition some assistance." What does that mean?

My God, what a stupid and gratuitous comment! Obama’s statement was tepid?!! Then, on Obama’s trip to Berlin, Brokaw had this to say:

Charles Krauthammer, the conservative columnist said, "He hasn't earned the right to speak there." And David Brooks, for The New York Times, who was an early admirer of your rhetoric in the early stages of the campaign had this to say in his column about your appearance in Berlin: "When John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan went to Berlin, their rhetoric soared, but their optimism was grounded in the reality of politics, conflict and hard choices. Kennedy didn't dream of the universal brotherhood of man. He drew lines that reflected hard realities. Reagan didn't call for a kumbaya moment. He cited tough policies that sparked harsh political disagreements. Much of Obama's Berlin speech fed the illusion that we could solve our problems if only people mystically come together…

What utter bullshit! Obama appeals to the need to work together with our former allies to achieve common goals, and Brokaw cites right wing talking heads criticizing him for that! One might think that after four years of alienating the rest of the world under Bush/Cheney that such talk would be welcomed. Then, after much more of the same, Brokaw hits Obama with this condescending remark.

Why didn't you use that occasion to spell out in great detail a sweeping vision of the Obama doctrine? You're a candidate for president of the United States.

Pummeling Obama for opposing George Bush’s troop “surge”

On the same July 27th edition of the show noted above, Brokaw adopted the highly debatable proposition that George Bush’s troop “surge” in Iraq has been an unqualified success, and he used right wing talking points to try to make Obama look ridiculous:

You engaged in some verbal kung fu with reporters and others this week about the surge. You opposed the surge… Many analysts believe that the reason that violence has decreased is because the American troops were deployed in a more effective manner... And it allowed President Maliki to stabilize his government somewhat. But you would not apologize, and you said you did not regret your opposition this surge…That prompted this radio ad from your opponent John McCain, which is running today. So let's listen to that and then respond.

Brokaw then played a free ad for the McCain campaign, followed by a video of Obama opposing the surge. Obama forcefully defended his opposition to the surge, but Brokaw just ignored those points, and rather than respond to them, he merely continued with his pummeling of Obama by quoting the opinion of an unnamed source from USA Today:

This is what USA Today had to say about your position on the surge. "Why can't Obama bring himself to acknowledge the surge worked better than he and other skeptics thought that it would?"… "What does that stubbornness say about the kind of president that he would be?"…

Listening to Brokaw tell it, that “The surge worked” is established fact, and Obama should own up to his mistake and apologize to the American people for opposing it. After all, “The surge worked” is now solidly embedded in the GOP echo chamber.

But not for all of the GOP. In September 2007, questioning General Petraeus about the surge in testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NE) said, “By the way, I assume you read the New York Times piece two weeks ago – seven NCOs in Iraq… Are we going to dismiss those seven NCOs? Are they ignorant? This is what those NCOs had to say about Petraeus’s successful surge:

To believe that Americans, with an occupying force that long ago outlived its reluctant welcome, can win over a recalcitrant local population and win this counterinsurgency is far-fetched….We are skeptical of recent press coverage portraying the conflict as increasingly manageable and feel it has neglected the mounting civil, political and social unrest we see every day… The claim that we are increasingly in control of the battlefields in Iraq is an assessment arrived at through a flawed, American-centered framework. Yes, we are militarily superior, but our successes are offset by failures elsewhere.…

The NCOs then go into extensive detail about those failures, and end with this:

The ability of, say, American observers to safely walk down the streets of formerly violent towns is not a resounding indicator of security. What matters is the experience of the local citizenry and the future of our counterinsurgency. When we take this view, we see that a vast majority of Iraqis feel increasingly insecure and view us as an occupation force that has failed to produce normalcy after four years and is increasingly unlikely to do so as we continue to arm each warring side. …Leaders are far from arriving at a lasting political settlement…

At the same time, the most important front in the counterinsurgency, improving basic social and economic conditions, is the one on which we have failed most miserably. Two million Iraqis are in refugee camps in bordering countries. Close to two million more are internally displaced and now fill many urban slums. Cities lack regular electricity, telephone services and sanitation… Four years into our occupation, we have failed on every promise…

In the end, we need to recognize that our presence may have released Iraqis from the grip of a tyrant, but that it has also robbed them of their self-respect. They will soon realize that the best way to regain dignity is to call us what we are – an army of occupation – and force our withdrawal. Until that happens, it would be prudent for us to increasingly let Iraqis take center stage in all matters, to come up with a nuanced policy in which we assist them from the margins but let them resolve their differences as they see fit. This suggestion is not meant to be defeatist, but rather to highlight our pursuit of incompatible policies to absurd ends without recognizing the incongruities.

Conclusion

In his new role as moderator of “Meet the Press” it is quickly becoming apparent that Tom Brokaw intends to ape Tim Russert’s highly partisan efforts to destroy the candidacies of high level Democrats. Brokaw, as Russert before him, tries to play the role of the serious, unbiased professional journalist, without an agenda. That’s what makes these people so dangerous. I have no more, maybe even less respect for them than I have for the partisan hyenas at FOX News, who wear their partisanship on their sleeves and are not nearly as good at disguising it. That Obama has withstood his encounters with Brokaw and his ilk virtually unscathed, and is still ahead in the polls, is testimony to the fact that he has certain qualities that the American people haven’t seen in quite a while.

Tom Brokaw Get your Facts Straight – Are you a Journalist or Part of the GOP Echo Chamber?

K & R.