..... by government officials looking for an easy interview.
It is well-known that Fox News is a bastion of lunacy and lies. However there is a perception that CNN is somewhere in the middle, and - contrary to reality - a reputable news organization. Someone the other day asked me to explain the difference between Fox and CNN and I had to talk about slants and narratives and built-in assumptions - more subtle instruments in the propaganda machines today's mainstream media organizations are. But really examples are where it's at. From Greenwald once again:
[CNN's John Roberts interviewing CIA chief Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell, discussing the retroactive impunity for telecommunication companies who assisted the Bush administration in breaking the law after the Bush administration failed to get the required warrants before initiating a wiretapping program.]
[CNN] ROBERTS: Mr. McConnell, first of all, why the urgent need for retroactive immunity for these telecommunications companies?
MIKE MCCONNELL, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE: Good morning, John. The primary reason for retroactive immunity or liability protection from the carriers is to obtain their assistance. Quite frankly we cannot do the job we have to do without the cooperation of the private sector. So the situation we're in now with private sector companies being subjected to huge suits, they're not inclined to give us assistance. So there is varying arguments about having the bill expire, extending it or continuing it in its current form. In either case, all three of those, we are losing and will continue to lose significant amounts of information because we can't do this mission without the cooperation and participation of the private sector.
ROBERTS: So you say it is important to protect these telecommunications companies from liability so that they continue to help in the program. But is it also important from your perspective to keep the prying eyes of attorneys who are launching these lawsuits away from uncovering information about the program as they go through the discovery process?
MCCONNELL: Well, certainly, John. That's a part of it. This is a classified program.....
[Greenwald]......Roberts' argument is self-evidently moronic. It would mean -- as many, many political and media elites have come to believe -- that nothing the President and his aides do in a classified setting can be or should be subjected to oversight or to judicial proceedings -- no matter how illegal -- because the imperative of keeping everything Secret vastly outweighs the imperative of living under the rule of law. But the fact that it's a "journalist" -- someone who ought to be intrinsically hostile to government secrecy and instincitively adversarial in his questions -- feeding such authoritarian reasoning to our government leaders speaks volumes about where we are as a country.
At least it's not a major news organization where millions get their basic information from. Then there'd be problems, like murderous wars and environmental catastrophes because of a government not held accountable by the fourth estate.
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