Washington Post columnist (and CNN host) Kathleen Parker turned in some thoughts (1/30/11) about what she didn't hear Barack Obama's State of the Union address:

He didn't say it. That word: "exceptional." Barack Obama described an exceptional nation in his State of the Union address, but he studiously avoided using the word conservatives long to hear.

She goes on:

The exceptional issue may be political, but it isn't only that. The idea lies smack at the heart of how Americans view themselves, and the role of government in their lives and in the broader world. Is America exceptional or isn't she? Is there something about this country that makes us unique in the world?

The right-wing obsession with Obama's alleged reticence about declaring the United States "exceptional" is notable mostly because, as we pointed out here (12/21/10), the primary example Obama's exceptional critics cite comes from a press conference in 2009 where Obama said this:

The United States remains the largest economy in the world. We have unmatched military capability. And I think that we have a core set of values that are enshrined in our Constitution, in our body of law, in our democratic practices, in our belief in free speech and equality, that, though imperfect, are exceptional.

Apparently that use of the word "exceptional"--you know, the thing Obama refuses to say--wasn't quite exceptional enough. Parker knows that incident, but must write in circles in order to make the criticism of Obama hold up:

Exceptionalism became radioactive a couple of years ago when Obama was asked at an overseas news conference whether he subscribes to "the school of American exceptionalism that sees America as uniquely qualified to lead the world."

His answer has haunted him since:

"I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism."

I remember thinking at the time: Bzzzzt. Wrong, Harvard. That is not the correct answer. There was more to his response, in fact, but the impression was already set.

What Obama added was that "we have a core set of values that are enshrined in our Constitution, in our body of law, in our democratic practices, in our belief in free speech and equality, that, though imperfect, are exceptional."

Not so hard to say after all?

Let me see if I understand this. Obama doesn't declare the United States to be exceptional--except that he does. Namely, the part of this much-discussed 2009 press conference where he explains that America really is exceptional--an answer of a sort to those deluded Brits and Greeks. Is the problem that he doesn't declare American greatness loudly enough?

For the record, the State of the Union address included some boilerplate political rhetoric:

We are part of the American family. We believe that in a country where every race and faith and point of view can be found, we are still bound together as one people; that we share common hopes and a common creed; that the dreams of a little girl in Tucson are not so different than those of our own children, and that they all deserve the chance to be fulfilled.

That, too, is what sets us apart as a nation.

So what's the problem, then? Obama would seem to make all the usual noises about American greatness. But some folks--Parker included--don't seem to believe it. Given that this is the same Kathleen Parker who once wrote about how Obama lacked a certain American "fullbloodedness," it seems pretty clear that she's still got some hang-ups about him.

The long 60 Minutes segment on WikiLeaks and Julian Assange from last night (1/30/11) is definitely worth a look. But this set-up from correspondent Steve Kroft was certainly odd:

Julian Assange is not your average journalist or publisher, and some have argued that he is not really a journalist at all. He is an anti-establishment ideologue with conspiratorial views. He believes large government institutions use secrecy to suppress the truth and he distrusts the mainstream media for playing along.

Assange believes the government keeps important secrets? And that mainstream media play along? That is kooky.

Joe Biden on Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak (PBS NewsHour, 1/27/11):

 I would not refer to him as a dictator.

 On WikiLeaks' Julian Assange (NBC's Meet the Press, 12/19/10)

 DAVID GREGORY: Mitch McConnell says he's a high-tech terrorist, others say this is akin to the Pentagon Papers. Where do you come down?

 JOE BIDEN: I would argue that it's closer to being a high-tech terrorist than the Pentagon Papers.

For the record, neither journalist pushed Biden to explain his opinions.

The New York Times:

Cables Show Delicate U.S. Dealings With Egypt's Leaders

The Guardian:

WikiLeaks Cables Show Close U.S. Relationship With Egyptian President

That reminds me of something Times executive editor wrote in a forthcoming piece on WikiLeaks, where he explains the difference between The Newspaper of Record and the Guardian in handling the Afghanistan documents:

If anyone doubted that the three publications operated independently, the articles we posted that day made it clear that we followed our separate muses. The Guardian, which is an openly left-leaning newspaper, used the first War Logs to emphasize civilian casualties in Afghanistan, claiming the documents disclosed that coalition forces killed "hundreds of civilians in unreported incidents," underscoring the cost of what the paper called a "failing war." Our reporters studied the same material but determined that all the major episodes of civilian deaths we found in the War Logs had been reported in the Times, many of them on the front page.

They are indeed different newspapers. The Guardian thinks civilian deaths should be reported, in some cases maybe more than once.

The Guardian's piece today reports:

Another cable, from March 2009, shows the U.S.'s astonishingly intimate military relationship with Egypt. Washington provides Cairo $1.3bn annually in foreign military finance (FMF) to purchase U.S. weapons and defence equipment, and the cable said. "President Mubarak and military leaders view our military assistance program as the cornerstone of our mil-mil relationship and consider the $1.3bn in annual FMF as 'untouchable compensation' for making and maintaining peace with Israel.

"The tangible benefits to our mil-mil relationship are clear: Egypt remains at peace with Israel, and the U.S. military enjoys priority access to the Suez canal and Egyptian airspace."

Presumably Keller would argue that the Times has already--somewhere, at some time--mentioned U.S. military aid to Egypt, and thus didn't need to dwell on it today.

Yesterday (FAIR Blog, 1/27/11) the Washington Post tried to argue that U.S. policy under the Obama administration has shifted to one of open support for pro-democracy movements in Egypt and Tunisia. There was little, if any, evidence to support this idea.

Today (1/28/11) the New York Times steps in with a report based largely on WikiLeaks cables that paints a rather unflattering portrait of Obama policy towards Egypt.  As the Times put it, the cables

show in detail how diplomats repeatedly raised concerns with Egyptian officials about jailed dissidents and bloggers, and kept tabs on reports of torture by the police.

But they also reveal that relations with Mr. Mubarak warmed up because President Obama played down the public "name and shame" approach of the Bush administration. A cable prepared for a visit by Gen. David H. Petraeus in 2009 said the United States, while blunt in private, now avoided "the public confrontations that had become routine over the past several years."

The Times story unfortunately buries some of the most damning details:

American diplomats also cast a wide net to gather information on police brutality, the cables show. Through contacts with human rights lawyers, the embassy follows numerous cases, and raised some with the Interior Ministry. Among the most harrowing, according to a cable, was the treatment of several members of a Hezbollah cell detained by the police in late 2008.

Lawyers representing the men said they were subjected to electric shocks and sleep deprivation, which reduced them to a "zombie state."  They said the torture was more severe than what they normally witnessed.

To the extent that Mr. Mubarak has been willing to tolerate reforms, the cable said, it has been in areas not related to public security or stability. For example, he has given his wife latitude to campaign for women's rights and against practices like female genital mutilation and child labor, which are sanctioned by some conservative Islamic groups.

So a key U.S. ally is run by a torturing, election-rigging authoritarian who the U.S. mostly refrains from criticizing in public. "Cables Show Delicate U.S. Dealings With Egypt's Leaders" would seem to be a rather gentle way of putting it. Scanning coverage of the protests in Egypt overall, it seems like long-standing U.S. support (including billions in military aid) receives scant attention.

But U.S. policymakers are being asked the tough questions, right? Not exactly. Here's Jim Lehrer at the PBS NewsHour (1/27/11) in an exclusive sit-down with Joe Biden:

LEHRER: The word to describe the leadership of Mubarak and Egypt and also in Tunisia before was dictator. Should Mubarak be seen as a dictator?

BIDEN: Look, Mubarak has been an ally of ours in a number of things and he's been very responsible on, relative to geopolitical interests in the region: Middle East peace efforts, the actions Egypt has taken relative to normalizing the relationship with Israel.  And I think that it would be--I would not refer to him as a dictator.

Lehrer has long viewed his job as not pushing his powerful guests too hard. "My part of journalism is to present what various people say," as he once put it . "I'm not in the judgment part of journalism." That's a good thing for Biden.

Jay Carney was a Time magazine reporter, bureau chief and frequent TV talking head. He is married to ABC reporter Claire Shipman. He left journalism to be Joe Biden's communications director, and was just named Barack Obama's next press secretary.

It used to be more common to see people criticize this media/politics revolving door.  Journalists who jump over the supposed divide between the supposed watchdogs and the powerful institutions they're watching do little to dispel the sense that the Beltway is one big cocktail party. (Read "Party Like a Beltway Insider Journalist!"--FAIR Blog, 4/26/10--for some sense of the terrain.)

Which brings me to Howard Fineman's piece about Carney in Huffington Post (1/27/11). Which starts out with this:

Among his other attributes, Jay Carney is a cool dancer. I know that because I saw him and his wife, Claire Shipman, getting down on the tented dance floor of a fancy Georgetown wedding years ago. Jay Carney, who went to Yale and was a foreign correspondent in Moscow, is--besides being smart, savvy, loyal and well-connected with the right sort--suave.

Now this is a head scratcher. "As Arabs Protest, U.S. Speaks Up" is the headline today over a story by Scott Wilson and Joby Warrick in the Washington Post. The story attempts to argue that the Obama administration is backing protests in Tunisia, Egypt and Lebanon--in the first two cases, regimes backed strongly by the United States (Egypt to the tune of more than $1 billion in annual military aid).

As the lead puts it:

The Obama administration is openly supporting the anti-government demonstrations shaking the Arab Middle East, a stance that is far less tempered than the one the president has taken during past unrest in the region.

The Post adds that the White House has "thrown U.S. support clearly behind the protesters, speaking daily in favor of free speech and assembly even when the protests target longtime U.S. allies such as Egypt."

The support for demonstrations against Hezbollah, which the U.S. government deems a terrorist organization, is to be expected. In Tunisia, though, the White House approach seemed quite "tempered," in fact. As NYU's Mohamad Bazzi wrote:

As the uprising spread in Tunisia, the administration of President Barack Obama stayed largely silent until the day Mr. Ben Ali fled. That was when Mr. Obama issued a statement condemning the use of violence against peaceful protesters and applauding "the courage and dignity" of Tunisians. By then, it was too late: The U.S.-backed dictator was gone, and the Arab world chalked up another example of how Washington favors stability over democracy.

So where is the evidence that the Obama White House is openly supporting democratic protests? Here is what the Post offers:

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Wednesday that "the Egyptian government has an important opportunity ... to respond to the legitimate needs and interests of the Egyptian people." She urged "the Egyptian authorities not to prevent peaceful protests or block communications, including on social media sites."

Well, that's rather mild. Since the Egyptian government would seem to be continuing precisely what Clinton "urged" them not to do, what's been the official response?  The Post also has this:

Asked whether the administration supports Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs replied only: "Egypt is a strong ally."

But the most revealing example might be this (emphasis added):

"Some of the confidence and assertiveness comes from having spent time in government, and now we've identified ways where we want to make our push," said a senior administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss White House thinking on the Middle East developments.

And later, presumably from the same "senior official":

"Democracy had been characterized in some quarters as the United States seeking to control countries," said the senior official. "What we've made clear in the last few years is that democracy is important to the United States because of who we are, but not as a means of controlling governments. Quite the contrary, we're supporting a process in Tunisia now that we do not know how it will end or who will emerge as leader."

It's hard to take the premise of the article seriously when the most definitive statements of support for democracy come from anonymous government officials.

From the post-State of the Union discussion on the Charlie Rose Show (1/25/11):

CHARLIE ROSE: With respect to his base, where are they tonight? They listened to him move to the center--

JOHN SUNUNU: On the Upper West Side.

JOHN HEILEMANN: Drinking heavily on the Upper West Side.

(LAUGHTER)

The discussion went on to explain how the progressive base either really likes Obama, or won't have anyone else to vote for so it won't matter what they think.  Such discussions are a lot easier to have when you don't invite any actual progressives who might disagree with the Upper West side jokes.

It's normal for the opposition party to deliver a rebuttal address to the State of the Union. Last night Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin was given that responsibility. But further-to-the-right Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota delivered the "Tea Party" response to the State of the Union, which was initially scheduled to air on the Tea Party Express website.

That is, until CNN decided it would air it on television. Which meant, as Washington Monthly's Steve Benen put it, CNN broadcast "the president's address, followed by a speech by a far-right Republican, and then followed by another speech by a different far-right Republican."

In response to CNN's justification--that the Tea Party is a "major political force"--he wonders:

Would CNN be inclined to air a SOTU response from the AFL-CIO? Labor unions are a major political force.

I think we know the answer to that one.

The Washington Post, meanwhile, voiced an odd concern about all this in a news article today, wondering whether the GOP message would get lost in the shuffle:

This year, the dueling responses probably made it even harder for either Republican to be heard.

Would viewers remember Ryan, using only his expressive face to convey worry about the debt? Or would they remember Bachmann's screen, which showed bar graphs and patriotic images behind her? At one point, she showed the iconic photo of Marines raising an American flag over Iwo Jima in World War II.

I don't think many people would worry about their own political point of view getting too much uninterrupted TV time.

There's  an emerging line in the corporate media that Obama's recent bump in the polls is due to the perception that he's shifting to the "center." There's a long record of media encouraging Democrats to move to the right; after the midterms, Wise Pundits were saying that Obama had to pull a Bill Clinton in order to get things back on track.

And now we see things like this from the Los Angeles Times (1/24/11):

After his party was dealt an electoral blow in November, Obama embraced a compromise that extended the President George W. Bush-era tax cuts, retooled his West Wing to include more moderate voices--such as his new chief of staff, William Daley--and made new overtures to the business community.

His polls have rebounded on the eve of his second State of the Union address, passing the 50 percent threshold in a series of major surveys.

And on ABC World News (1/23/11):

DAVID KERLEY: Even with high unemployment, President Obama is much higher in the polls than he was just weeks ago. His charm offensive with business, appointments of business-friendly staff and a productive lame duck session have put him on a roll.... Moving to the center, talking about cutting spending, creating jobs is working.

And on NBC Nightly News (1/22/11), pollster Charlie Cook declared:

We started seeing--starting a week or so after the election, we started seeing the president moving, reaching out, compromising, shifting over, reaching out to business, and the proof is in the--is in the polls.

Somehow I doubt that there is some unusual public fondness for William Daley, or a desire to see Wall Street and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce happier with the White House. The generally favorable reaction to Obama's response to the Tucson tragedy would seem to be a likelier explanation for the current trend. But leave it to the media to chalk up any shift in the polls to Obama's march to the "middle."

Anonymous Israeli officials are weighing in at the New York Times today. Let's remember the Times has some rules regarding the use of anonymous sources:

The use of unidentified sources is reserved for situations in which the newspaper could not otherwise print information it considers reliable and newsworthy. When we use such sources, we accept an obligation not only to convince a reader of their reliability but also to convey what we can learn of their motivation--as much as we can supply to let a reader know whether the sources have a clear point of view on the issue under discussion.

The rules also stipulate:

• "We will not use anonymous sourcing when sources we can name are readily available."
• "We do not grant anonymity to people who use it as cover for a personal or partisan attack."
• "Anonymity should not be invoked for a trivial comment, or to make an unremarkable comment appear portentous."

With that, example No. 1 comes from a piece about the effect of the leaked Palestine papers on future negotiations:

Another top Israeli official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly, said the big question for him was whether the revelations would make the Palestinians more timid in future negotiations because of public indignation. He said they seemed to be walking away from their concessions since they were revealed.

Alternatively, the official said, the opposite could be true--the Palestinian public could get used to the kind of concessions needed for a deal now that they were in the open, and that would ease future talks.

So things could turn out one way, or the other way. What a revelation.

In another piece on the political upheaval in Lebanon, we get this:

"We are concerned about Iranian domination of Lebanon through its proxy, Hezbollah," said an Israeli official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the situation in Beirut was not yet clear.

Presumably said official will speak on the record once things in Lebanon are "clear."

Of greater concern, though, is the charge that Hezbollah is an Iranian proxy. This is often treated as a fact in U.S. media discussions, though a few months ago (10/17/10) an expert on such matters wrote this letter to the Times (see bold):

To the Editor:

Joe Klein, in his review of A Privilege to Die, by Thanassis Cambanis ("The Hezbollah Project," October 3), says Mr. Cambanis fails "to put Lebanese Hezbollah in the context of Iran's larger terrorist network." However, Mr. Cambanis is correct in his presentation; the idea that Hezbollah today has a place in Iran's "larger terrorist network" is ill-informed. Hezbollah has not been under Iranian political or military control for nearly a decade. It is now an organization operating on its own recognizance, although it continues to receive a fraction of its operating funds from Iran--much of it in the form of religious charitable contributions from its Shia brethren.

WILLIAM O. BEEMAN
Minneapolis
The writer is a professor and the chairman of the anthropology department at the University of Minnesota.

Bob Herbert, today in the New York Times (1/25/11):

There has always been feverish opposition on the right to Social Security. What is happening now, in a period of deficit hysteria, is that this crucial retirement program is being dishonestly lumped together with Medicare as an entitlement program that is driving federal deficits.

He's right. Where did I last read someone trying to pull off that dishonest accounting? Oh yeah--it was in yesterday's New York Times. Sheryl Gay Stolberg reported on a poll that found people unwilling to support cuts to

Medicare and Social Security, the programs that directly touch millions of lives and are the biggest drivers of the long-term deficit.

A few laughs on CBS's Face the Nation yesterday (1/23/11):

BOB SCHIEFFER: And we begin this morning welcoming back to Face the Nation for the first time in exactly one year Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the person who, by the way, has been on this broadcast more than any other politician now in office.

Well, senator, you haven't been here in a year. What were you doing? Were you busy back in Arizona or what?

JOHN MCCAIN: Busy and thanks for having me back on. And it's probably the longest absence in all these years too. So I'm glad to be back.

McCain is still trailing former Sen. Bob Dole as the most frequent guest on NBC's Meet the Press. He'll pass him soon enough.

The apparent inability to have a Sunday show that doesn't feature frequent McCain appearances was best illustrated last year, when the July 4 broadcast of ABC's This Week touted an "exclusive" with the Arizona senator--who had appeared on NBC's Meet the Press exactly one week earlier.

Or this P.U.-litzer from 1999:

* PLAY-IT-AGAIN SPIN AWARD: National TV News

On April 5, network TV convened panels of experts to discuss the war on Yugoslavia. Viewers could see hawkish Sen. John McCain at 9 p.m. on CNN's Larry King Live, at 10 p.m. on Fox News Channel, at 11 p.m. on PBS's Charlie Rose show and at 11:30 p.m. on ABC's Nightline With Ted Koppel. The senator's whereabouts between 10:30 and 11 p.m. could not be determined.

On Friday it was announced that General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt would be the chair of the White House's Council on Competitiveness and Jobs. Given the fanfare of the announcement (Obama toured a GE plant with Immelt as part of the official rollout), it was considered big news. But let's compare two nightly news broadcasts.

The first program mentioned that between 2007-2009 GE laid off 21,000 U.S. workers and closed 20 factories. The report quoted critic Scott Paul of the business-labor partnership Alliance for American Manufacturing.  And it also mentioned the issue of conflicts of interest: GE has $3 billion in government contracts, including manufacturing engines for a fighter jet Secretary of Defense of Robert Gates has deemed a "wasteful boondoggle."

On another broadcast, the announcement was framed as "part of the White House's shift in focus now that the economy is in recovery." The choice of Immelt was "more evidence the president is trying to mend fences with the business community," with the correspondent adding that "the president said companies like GE are key to his export strategy, which he says will create jobs in the U.S." The only criticism was a passing remark that "some labor leaders were skeptical today, saying that GE has cut jobs and sent them overseas."

The first report was done by ABC's Jake Tapper, and aired on World News.  The latter report aired on NBC Nightly News, owned by General Electric. As anchor Brian Williams put it, the show was "duty bound to remind you GE is the parent company of NBC Universal." That would have been pretty obvious to anyone who watched both broadcasts.

Today the New York Times reports on the debate over spending, deficits and the State of the Union (1/24/11):

The public itself seems split, or perhaps confused. Americans overwhelmingly say that in general, they prefer cutting government spending to paying higher taxes, according to a New York Times/CBS News poll published last week. Yet their preference for spending cuts, even in programs that benefit them, dissolves when they are presented with specific options related to Medicare and Social Security, the programs that directly touch millions of lives and are the biggest drivers of the long-term deficit.

Social Security is not a big 'driver of the long-term deficit,' especially when compared with Medicare, which is a far more serious concern.

More to the point: In the poll cited (which was reported by the Times last week), the public was asked about cuts to Social Security, Medicare or the military. Opposition to cutting spending did not "dissolve"; the public picked cuts to the military by, as the Times put it, "a large margin."

If the public is indeed "confused" by anything, it could be the fact that, in the debate over cutting government spending, their preferred option-- cutting the miltary budget-- finds little support in official Washington, and is mostly ignored by a media more focused on the apparent necessity of cutting Social Security.