The Sickness of the MSM

Typical examples of the genre can be found daily at The New York Times, Washington Post or the Los Angeles Times, but the real genesis of such reports can be found in the left-wing of the Blogosphere and, significantly, in the reports of the “human rights” or “peace and justice” NGOs. (NGOs as a rule seem blissfully, and wonderingly, unaware of the damage to those sound concepts they do when they advance a partisan political position under their banners.)

For example, the international NGO Global Policy Forum—an organization whose mission “is to monitor policy making at the United Nations, promote accountability of global decisions, educate and mobilize for global citizen participation, and advocate on vital issues of international peace and justice”—and which is “a non-profit, tax-exempt organization, with consultative status at the UN,” released numerous reports on the alleged real motivations of the Bush Administration in the run-up to the Iraq War.

One such report, in interview format from a show which actually originated with a left-wing radio news program, was released by GPF in March, 2003, subtly entitled “War Profiteering and Halliburton.” In its introduction, the authors set the table for the contents of the report for noting that:

Well before the Bush administration launched its war against Baghdad, U.S. corporations were lining up to win lucrative contracts for the rebuilding of Iraq, a nation devastated by war and 12 years of economic sanctions. But because companies with close ties to the White House, such as Halliburton, Bechtel, and the Carlyle Group have been awarded multi-million dollar contracts in postwar Iraq, questions are now being raised about the appearance of ethical impropriety and conflicts of interest. (Emphasis added).

Except on the lunatic Chomsky-Cockburn-Nader fringe, such reports are always careful to harp only on the “appearance” of ethical impropriety and conflicts of interest mostly because hard evidence has been much harder to come by. It appears obvious to most Americans that the mere fact that both the President and the Vice President were active in private business in the energy sector cannot, by itself, cause the executive to take a pass and recuse itself from foreign policy decisions touching upon oil. The Presidency is not a District Court judgeship; he was elected to take those decisions, with the full knowledge of the American people that Bush was, and to a certain extent remains, an oil man.

But this theme, this meme, was picked up by the opposition, both domestically and in other countries, and, since it was an objective fact that many had these concerns, the MSM picked them up and amplified them. It no longer was sufficient to prove such improprieties or conflicts of interest, the story was that millions believed they existed. The result has been, for just about every day since Iraq became an issue, a relentless pounding of the President and Vice President, not on the basis of fact, but on the basis of allegation and innuendo.

After all, it’s news when the NGOs and foreign political parties think that the war is an oil grab; it’s news when thousands shout “No Blood for Oil!,” it’s news when a new report from the Soros group of NGOs charge shoddy contracting practices with regard to Halliburton, it’s news when the Pentagon finds over-charging in Halliburton contracts.

Canada firmly opposed military action in Iraq, under any circumstances. The then-government of Prime Minister Jean Chrétien came out against the war early, strongly and never wavered from its anti position. In a CBC report dated March 18, 2003—the same time GPF was releasing its charges that the war implicated the Administration in war profiteering—the PM laid out his government’s full-scale opposition to the Iraq War:

OTTAWA - Prime Minister Jean Chrétien has revealed more reasons behind Canada's decision not to join the U.S. in a war against Iraq.

Chrétien told the House of Commons that the goal of disarming Saddam Hussein could have been achieved if Iraq was given a few more weeks to comply with UN weapons inspections. And the prime minister repeated that he's against the idea of forcing a regime change.

Question period was all about the near certain war against Iraq and Canada's decision to stay out.

"The diplomatic process was bringing positive results. That was the view of the Canadian government. It was not, obviously, the view of the American government. We can have a disagreement there. I still feel given a few more weeks disarmament would have been achieved," he said.

Chrétien also said that forcing a regime change is not desirable. Many leaders in the world are not his friends, but, he adds, only the local people have the right to change government. "If we change every government we don't like in the world where do we start? Who is next?"

That is the closest Chrétien has come to criticizing the Bush administration for pledging to go to war against Iraq.

The Liberal government now says it is opposing any invasion on principle. (Emphasis added).

This story perfectly sums up the Canadian Government’s approach during the run-up to the Iraq War. It felt diplomacy would have disarmed the regime of Saddam Hussein, that regime change was undesirable and that Canada’s opposition was largely based on principle.

Except that wasn’t the whole story, a fact you never would have learned had you relied solely on the left-wing Blogosphere, the NGOs and, critically, the MSM. As the great Mark Steyn explained in fine detail in the February 14th issue of Canada’s conservative journal of opinion, the Western Standard (you do subscribe, right?), there exists strong reasons not to accept either the PM’s or his government’s opposition at face value.

It all begins with a gentleman named Paul Desmarais, a power-broker in the intimate world of the Liberal Party and Canadian politics. Desmarais owns the deliciously-named Power Corporation, which in turn owns the largest chunk of stock in the French energy company Total Group (formerly TotalFinaElf). Total had secured from the regime of Saddam Hussein the rights to develop a whopping 25% of Iraq’s oil reserves, a fact that catapulted Total into the ranks of the world’s oil giants, like ExxonMobil and British Petroleum.

Desmarais was a huge campaign contributor to both the Liberal Party in general and Chrétien in particular. In addition, Chretien’s daughter is the wife of Desmarais’ son, who stands to inherit both a controlling interest and the day-to-day control of Power Corporation. As Steyn explains:

For a year, the antiwar crowd had told us it was “all about oil”--that the only reason Iraq was being “liberated” was so Bush, Cheney, Halliburton and the rest of the gang could annex in perpetuity the second biggest oil reserves in the world. But, if it was all about oil, then the fact--fact--is that the only Western leader with a direct stake in the issue was not the Texas oilpatch stooge in Washington, but Jean Chrétien: his daughter, his son-in-law and his grandchildren stood to be massively enriched by the Total-Saddam agreement. It depended on two factors: Saddam remaining in power, and the feeble UN sanctions being either weakened into meaninglessness or quietly dropped. M. Chrétien may have refused to join the Iraq war on “principle,” but fortunately his principles happened to coincide with the business interests of both TotalFinaElf and the Baath party.

It’s such a happy occasion when one’s principled stand just happens to match one’s direct financial interests, isn’t it?

Now, as it so happens, we’re not as convinced of corruption by tales of campaign contributions and stock ownership as the Michael Moore crowd is. Truth be told, and as Steyn points out, Canada is a G8 economy and it would be strange if there weren’t deep, even personal, ties between her economic and political elite. For all we know, Chretien’s stance may have been the same even if his family didn’t stand to personally benefit from the presence of the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq.

What this sad episode does reveal is the deep sickness of the MSM. If any of Chretien’s story had been shared by the President, the entire world’s press would have investigated it, commented on it, made sure it was in your face every time the arguments pro and con on the Iraq War were made.

But the fact is, as the CBC report showed so clearly, the Canadian government’s pronouncements were taken at face value. The Fourth Estate’s vaunted skepticism, it’s duty to assume corruption and work from there, mysteriously vanished when their wasn’t an American Republican to be found in the story.

And that is precisely where the bias, the fatal bias, in the MSM is to be found; in choosing what is or is not a story, they reveal what they are interested in. They manifestly are interested in bringing down, or at least wounding, a Republican President. No innuendo, no minor story is too insignificant not to be trumpeted to High-Heaven if there is even a small chance it will make Bush and company look bad. For example, when those Pentagon auditors found out that Halliburton had overcharged on some contracts and demanded re-payment to the Treasury by the company, the MSM howled with outrage. The Vice President was sure to be introduced, always, as “former Halliburton CEO.”

It never seemed to occur to the MSM that the officers who spotted, investigated and brought the case to its conclusion are all Executive Branch officers who work for…well, who? Why, the President of the United States, that’s who. Some war profiteering conspiracy he’s got going there, huh?

But direct financial interest in the Saddam regime surviving on the part of the head of the Canadian Government was ruled to be of no news value. You do the math.

But, wait, there’s more! As Steyn explains, don’t look for the following in the MSM anytime soon:

But, getting on for two years later, we’re in the middle of the UN Oil-for-Fraud investigation, the all-time biggest scam, bigger than Enron and Worldcom and all the rest added together. And whaddaya know? The bank that handled all the money from the program turns out to be BNP Paribas, which tends to get designated by Associated Press and co. as a “French bank” but is, as it happens, controlled by one of M. Desmarais’s holding companies. That alone should cause even the droopiest bloodhound to pick up a scent: the UN’s banker for its Iraqi “humanitarian” program turns out to be (to all intents) Saddam’s favourite oilman.

I’m not a conspiracy-minded guy, and, if I were, I’d look for a sinister global organization with a less obvious name. If “Power Corp.” was the moniker given to the sinister front operation for the latest Bond villain, critics would bemoan how crass the 007 franchise had become. And a “Power Corp.” that controlled the “Total Group” would have them hooting with derision. But it’s nevertheless the case that M. Desmarais’s bank functioned as the cashier for Saddam’s gaming of the global-compassion crowd: if a company agreed to sell Iraq some children’s medicine for $100 million, Iraq would invoice BNP Paribas for $110 million, pay the supplier and divert the skim-off into other areas. Everyone knew this was happening. It seems impossible, even with the minimal auditing, that BNP Paribas did not.

So here is a Canadian “making a difference in the world.” Suppose Conrad Black controlled a bank that had enriched a brutal dictator with a fortune intended to go to starving children, and that he also had an oil company that had cooked up an arrangement to make billions from the same dictator’s oil resources. Think Maude Barlow and the CBC might show an interest? But Paul Desmarais’s no-publicity clause is apparently enshrined in the Charter of Rights. So on it goes. Only the other week, M. Desmarais was hosting at his home in Quebec Nicholas Sarkozy, very likely the next president of France. Even after they’d become heads of government, neither Bush nor Blair could be bothered swinging by Ottawa to look in on Chrétien; not for years. But an invitation from M. Desmarais, and France’s coming man can’t wait to hop on the plane.

Oh, and by the way, both current PM Paul Martin and current CBC head Robert Rabinovitch are also former Power Corp. men.

The MSM can whine and moan about idiot, drooling bloggers and the rise of the New Media all it wants. But it’s as clear as day to any who care to look that the MSM treats stories affecting conservatives one way and those touching upon liberals in quite another.

No amount of crying or teeth gnashing will change the facts on the ground: until the MSM abandons its open political agenda, it will continue to be marginalized, continue to lose its already pathetic audience and will continue to be the laughing-stock of the media world.

Reposting - to pick up the formatting that is necessary to distinguish quotations from comment, make the links work, and show emphasis.

Sunday, February 20, 2005

The Sickness of the MSM: It's All About the Oiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiilllll!

President Bush is thought to have ordered the invasion and occupation of Iraq in order to secure control of that country's vast oil fields for his friends and contributors in the oil industry, especially Vice President Cheney's former company Halliburton. This is taken as an article of faith among many, especially for many in our universities, our cultural industries, and in our press. Hundreds, if not thousands, of essays, articles and reports have been circulated in the past 3 years about the motivations of President Bush when it comes to Iraq.

Typical examples of the genre can be found daily at The New York Times, Washington Post or the Los Angeles Times, but the real genesis of such reports can be found in the left-wing of the Blogosphere and, significantly, in the reports of the "human rights" or "peace and justice" NGOs. (NGOs as a rule seem blissfully, and wonderingly, unaware of the damage to those sound concepts they do when they advance a partisan political position under their banners.)

For example, the international NGO Global Policy Forum, an organization whose mission "is to monitor policy making at the United Nations, promote accountability of global decisions, educate and mobilize for global citizen participation, and advocate on vital issues of international peace and justice", and which is "a non-profit, tax-exempt organization, with consultative status at the UN," released numerous reports on the alleged real motivations of the Bush Administration in the run-up to the Iraq War.

One such report, in interview format from a show which actually originated with a left-wing radio news program, was released by GPF in March, 2003, subtly entitled "War Profiteering and Halliburton." In its introduction, the authors set the table for the contents of the report for noting that:

Well before the Bush administration launched its war against Baghdad, U.S. corporations were lining up to win lucrative contracts for the rebuilding of Iraq, a nation devastated by war and 12 years of economic sanctions. But because companies with close ties to the White House, such as Halliburton, Bechtel, and the Carlyle Group have been awarded multi-million dollar contracts in postwar Iraq, questions are now being raised about the appearance of ethical impropriety and conflicts of interest. (Emphasis added).

Except on the lunatic Chomsky-Cockburn-Nader fringe, such reports are always careful to harp only on the "appearance" of ethical impropriety and conflicts of interest mostly because hard evidence has been much harder to come by. It appears obvious to most Americans that the mere fact that both the President and the Vice President were active in private business in the energy sector cannot, by itself, cause the executive to take a pass and recuse itself from foreign policy decisions touching upon oil. The Presidency is not a District Court judgeship; he was elected to take those decisions, with the full knowledge of the American people that Bush was, and to a certain extent remains, an oil man.

But this theme, this meme, was picked up by the opposition, both domestically and in other countries, and, since it was an objective fact that many had these concerns, the MSM picked them up and amplified them. It no longer was sufficient to prove such improprieties or conflicts of interest, the story was that millions believed they existed. The result has been, for just about every day since Iraq became an issue, a relentless pounding of the President and Vice President, not on the basis of fact, but on the basis of allegation and innuendo.

After all, it's news when the NGOs and foreign political parties think that the war is an oil grab; it's news when thousands shout "No Blood for Oil!," it's news when a new report from the Soros group of NGOs charge shoddy contracting practices with regard to Halliburton, it's news when the Pentagon finds over-charging in Halliburton contracts.

So, no problem, right? No bias here. Nothing to see here. Please move along.

Canada's Opposition to the Iraq War

Canada firmly opposed military action in Iraq, under any circumstances. The then-government of Prime Minister Jean Chrétien came out against the war early, strongly and never wavered from its anti position. In a CBC report dated March 18, 2003, the same time GPF was releasing its charges that the war implicated the Administration in war profiteering, the PM laid out his government's full-scale opposition to the Iraq War:

OTTAWA - Prime Minister Jean Chrétien has revealed more reasons behind Canada's decision not to join the U.S. in a war against Iraq.

Chrétien told the House of Commons that the goal of disarming Saddam Hussein could have been achieved if Iraq was given a few more weeks to comply with UN weapons inspections. And the prime minister repeated that he's against the idea of forcing a regime change.

Question period was all about the near certain war against Iraq and Canada's decision to stay out.

"The diplomatic process was bringing positive results. That was the view of the Canadian government. It was not, obviously, the view of the American government. We can have a disagreement there. I still feel given a few more weeks disarmament would have been achieved," he said.

Chrétien also said that forcing a regime change is not desirable. Many leaders in the world are not his friends, but, he adds, only the local people have the right to change government. "If we change every government we don't like in the world where do we start? Who is next?"

That is the closest Chrétien has come to criticizing the Bush administration for pledging to go to war against Iraq.

The Liberal government now says it is opposing any invasion on principle. (Emphasis added).

This story perfectly sums up the Canadian Government's approach during the run-up to the Iraq War. It felt diplomacy would have disarmed the regime of Saddam Hussein, that regime change was undesirable and that Canada's opposition was largely based on principle.

The Prime Minister's Principled Iraq Policy

Except that wasn't the whole story, a fact you never would have learned had you relied solely on the left-wing Blogosphere, the NGOs and, critically, the MSM. As the great Mark Steyn explained in fine detail in the February 14th issue of Canada's conservative journal of opinion, the Western Standard (you do subscribe, right?), there exists strong reasons not to accept either the PM's or his government's opposition at face value.

It all begins with a gentleman named Paul Desmarais, a power-broker in the intimate world of the Liberal Party and Canadian politics. Desmarais owns the deliciously-named Power Corporation, which in turn owns the largest chunk of stock in the French energy company Total Group (formerly TotalFinaElf). Total had secured from the regime of Saddam Hussein the rights to develop a whopping 25% of Iraq's oil reserves, a fact that catapulted Total into the ranks of the world's oil giants, like ExxonMobil and British Petroleum.

Desmarais was a huge campaign contributor to both the Liberal Party in general and Chrétien in particular. In addition, Chretien's daughter is the wife of Desmarais' son, who stands to inherit both a controlling interest and the day-to-day control of Power Corporation. As Steyn explains:

For a year, the antiwar crowd had told us it was "all about oil"--that the only reason Iraq was being "liberated" was so Bush, Cheney, Halliburton and the rest of the gang could annex in perpetuity the second biggest oil reserves in the world. But, if it was all about oil, then the fact--fact--is that the only Western leader with a direct stake in the issue was not the Texas oilpatch stooge in Washington, but Jean Chrétien: his daughter, his son-in-law and his grandchildren stood to be massively enriched by the Total-Saddam agreement. It depended on two factors: Saddam remaining in power, and the feeble UN sanctions being either weakened into meaninglessness or quietly dropped. M. Chrétien may have refused to join the Iraq war on "principle," but fortunately his principles happened to coincide with the business interests of both TotalFinaElf and the Baath party.

It's such a happy occasion when one's principled stand just happens to match one's direct financial interests, isn't it?

The Bias is the Double Standard

Now, as it so happens, we're not as convinced of corruption by tales of campaign contributions and stock ownership as the Michael Moore crowd is. Truth be told, and as Steyn points out, Canada is a G8 economy and it would be strange if there weren't deep, even personal, ties between her economic and political elite. For all we know, Chretien's stance may have been the same even if his family didn't stand to personally benefit from the presence of the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq.

What this sad episode does reveal is the deep sickness of the MSM. If any of Chretien's story had been shared by the President, the entire world's press would have investigated it, commented on it, made sure it was in your face every time the arguments pro and con on the Iraq War were made.

But the fact is, as the CBC report showed so clearly, the Canadian government's pronouncements were taken at face value. The Fourth Estate's vaunted skepticism, it's duty to assume corruption and work from there, mysteriously vanished when their wasn't an American Republican to be found in the story.

And that is precisely where the bias, the fatal bias, in the MSM is to be found; in choosing what is or is not a story, they reveal what they are interested in. They manifestly are interested in bringing down, or at least wounding, a Republican President. No innuendo, no minor story is too insignificant not to be trumpeted to High-Heaven if there is even a small chance it will make Bush and company look bad. For example, when those Pentagon auditors found out that Halliburton had overcharged on some contracts and demanded re-payment to the Treasury by the company, the MSM howled with outrage. The Vice President was sure to be introduced, always, as "former Halliburton CEO."

It never seemed to occur to the MSM that the officers who spotted, investigated and brought the case to its conclusion are all Executive Branch officers who work for -- well, who? Why, the President of the United States, that's who. Some war profiteering conspiracy he's got going there, huh?

But direct financial interest in the Saddam regime surviving on the part of the head of the Canadian Government was ruled to be of no news value. You do the math.

But, wait, there's more! As Steyn explains, don't look for the following in the MSM anytime soon:

But, getting on for two years later, we're in the middle of the UN Oil-for-Fraud investigation, the all-time biggest scam, bigger than Enron and Worldcom and all the rest added together. And whaddaya know? The bank that handled all the money from the program turns out to be BNP Paribas, which tends to get designated by Associated Press and co. as a "French bank" but is, as it happens, controlled by one of M. Desmarais's holding companies. That alone should cause even the droopiest bloodhound to pick up a scent: the UN's banker for its Iraqi "humanitarian" program turns out to be (to all intents) Saddam's favourite oilman.

I'm not a conspiracy-minded guy, and, if I were, I'd look for a sinister global organization with a less obvious name. If "Power Corp." was the moniker given to the sinister front operation for the latest Bond villain, critics would bemoan how crass the 007 franchise had become. And a "Power Corp." that controlled the "Total Group" would have them hooting with derision. But it's nevertheless the case that M. Desmarais's bank functioned as the cashier for Saddam's gaming of the global-compassion crowd: if a company agreed to sell Iraq some children's medicine for $100 million, Iraq would invoice BNP Paribas for $110 million, pay the supplier and divert the skim-off into other areas. Everyone knew this was happening. It seems impossible, even with the minimal auditing, that BNP Paribas did not.

So here is a Canadian "making a difference in the world." Suppose Conrad Black controlled a bank that had enriched a brutal dictator with a fortune intended to go to starving children, and that he also had an oil company that had cooked up an arrangement to make billions from the same dictator's oil resources. Think Maude Barlow and the CBC might show an interest? But Paul Desmarais's no-publicity clause is apparently enshrined in the Charter of Rights. So on it goes. Only the other week, M. Desmarais was hosting at his home in Quebec Nicholas Sarkozy, very likely the next president of France. Even after they'd become heads of government, neither Bush nor Blair could be bothered swinging by Ottawa to look in on Chrétien; not for years. But an invitation from M. Desmarais, and France's coming man can't wait to hop on the plane.

Oh, and by the way, both current PM Paul Martin and current CBC head Robert Rabinovitch are also former Power Corp. men.

The MSM can whine and moan about idiot, drooling bloggers and the rise of the New Media all it wants. But it's as clear as day to any who care to look that the MSM treats stories affecting conservatives one way and those touching upon liberals in quite another.

No amount of crying or teeth gnashing will change the facts on the ground: until the MSM abandons its open political agenda, it will continue to be marginalized, continue to lose its already pathetic audience and will continue to be the laughing-stock of the media world.

And rightfully so.

# posted by NewSisyphus @ 9:35 PM 15 comments

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.