It might be hard for you to imagine covering the democratic uprising in Egypt as a way to reflect upon all the wise things you've written in the past.

But you're not Tom Friedman. He wrote today (New York Times, 2/11/11):

I spent part of the morning in the square watching and photographing a group of young Egyptian students wearing plastic gloves taking garbage in both hands and neatly scooping it into black plastic bags to keep the area clean. This touched me in particular because more than once in this column I have quoted the aphorism that "in the history of the world no one has ever washed a rented car." I used it to make the point that no one has ever washed a rented country either--and for the last century Arabs have just been renting their countries from kings, dictators and colonial powers. So, they had no desire to wash them.

That wasn't the first time Egypt reminded him of something smart he'd written (NBC's Meet the Press, 1/30/11):

For the first 15 years or so of his rule, Egypt really did stagnate. I visited, gosh, back 12 years ago. I remember writing that Mubarak had more mummies in his Cabinet than King Tut, OK. Then he slowly, under our pressure, and under the pressure, really, of globalization, started to open up. And in the last few years, actually appointed a lot of reformers to his Cabinet who produced a real opening, a 6 percent growth, I believe, last year.

Appearing on Charlie Rose last night (2/10/11), Friedman said this:

We've had this conversation before where we talked about the Iraq War and the whole idea of why it's important to democratize a place like Iraq.  I think I said to you the old aphorism that in the history of the world no one has ever washed a rented car.  And the point I made about Iraq is that no one's ever washed a rented country, either.

Is this guy wise or what?

Actually, Friedman's most memorable "conversation" about Iraq on the Charlie Rose show didn't have to do with washing cars. It was the time he explained the reason the U.S. invaded Iraq--to pop the "terrorism bubble" after 9/11. As he put it (5/30/03):

What they needed to see was American boys and girls going house to house, from Basra to Baghdad, and basically saying, "Which part of this sentence don't you understand? You don't think, you know, we care about our open society, you think this bubble fantasy, we're just gonna to let it grow? Well, suck. On. This." That, Charlie, is what this war is about.

According to this post at MediaBistro (2/10/11), CNN is adding three new contributors. Two are right-wingers: Dana Loesch, a Tea Party radio host and editor of Andrew Breitbart's BigJournalism website. Will Cain is a commentator at the National Review website. And the "left"? His name is Cornell Belcher, a pollster and advertising/messaging consultant for various Democrats. 

Beyond the 2-1 numerical tilt in favor of the right,  this is a good example of how corporate media often pick their pundits. The right-wingers are true believers, drawn from the ranks of the conservative media world. TV leftists are generally not well-known advocates for the left, familiar to Democratic party insiders. That is the type of left/right debate they prefer.

It was certainly surprising to see former Haitian dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier return to the country on January 16. To say he has blood on his hands is an understatement--the Duvalier regimes were responsible for tens of thousands of deaths and widespread abuse, and stole millions of dollars from the country.

Soon thereafter, former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide announced his intention to return to his country. Aristide, twice elected and twice removed from office, remains a popular figure in Haitian politics. His first stint in office was remarkably peaceful; his second, during which he faced armed attacks that eventually succeeded in overthrowing his government, was scarcely more violent. But some media accounts are expressing concern about Aristide's return, in effect equating him with the bloody Duvalier.

USA Today columnist DeWayne Wickham wrote a piece on February 8 headlined "U.S. Meekly Allows Despots to Return to Haiti." Wickham recounts the horrors of Duvalier's reign of terror, but for some unfathomable reason decides that Aristide poses some comparable menace to Haiti--his return might "push Haiti closer to turmoil," and the two of them are "old troublemakers from returning at a time when Haiti's democracy is most vulnerable to the havoc they almost certainly will produce."

Wickham seems mostly concerned about democracy:

With another round of voting scheduled for March 20, the thing Haiti needs more than anything else now is a level of stability and calm. But what it's likely to get once Aristide returns--and once he and Duvalier rally their old supporters to their side--will be a return to the bloody factionalism that punctuated their time at the helm of Haiti's government.

It might be worth pointing out that Aristide's Lavalas party--still enormously popular--was banned from participating in last year's election, which as a result had the lowest turnout of any election held in the Western Hemisphere in the last 60 years.

The Duvalier = Aristide equation could be seen elsewhere. A New York Times report (2/9/11) warned that "experts inside and outside Haiti fear that the presence of the two former leaders could further destabilize the country." The Times went on to note that "members of the international community expressed concern that Mr. Aristide...could create widespread instability at a precarious moment." The story does note that Aristide was "beloved by the poor but criticized by many"--given Haiti's massive poverty, it's hard to know what to make of that.

A short Los Angeles Times piece (2/8/11) conveyed a similar message: Aristide "has broad popular support but remains a polarizing figure in Haiti." That article also equated Duvalier and Aristide, reporting that "the return of the two former leaders comes at an unsteady moment for the country."

One would hope reporters could find a way to make a meaningful distinction between a ruthless, bloody dictator and a popular elected president. It is obscene to refer to them both as "leaders" or, as the USA Today headline put it,  "despots."

The owner of the Washington Redskins football team, Dan Snyder, is suing the local City Paper for publishing an unflattering cover image of him--namely, a photo doctored to include devil horns. That image was accompanied by an article about Snyder's business practices.

Rob Capriccioso of Indian Country Today points out (2/1/11) that the suit alleges the cover art is "the type of imagery used historically, including in Nazi Germany, to dehumanize and vilify the Jewish people." And, well....

The claim comes as ironic to many observers since Native Americans have for over a decade been suing Snyder for his use of the Redskins name and trademark. The word redskins has historically been used derogatorily toward Indians, and is highly offensive.

Kudos to Richard Prince for reporting this in his Journal-isms column yesterday.

For more on racist mascots, see "Cheerleading for ‘Abusive’ Mascots: Critics of Native American sports symbols are sidelined" (Extra!, 7/10).

The United States sent former ambassador Frank Wisner to Egypt to talk to Hosni Mubarak. Wisner garnered headlines when he declared support for Mubarak staying in power, causing the White House to try and argue that wasn't the message the White House was trying to send.

But Wisner's background was worth more attention. As Pratap Chatterjee reported (Inter Press Service, 2/4/11):

Frank Wisner, the former U.S. ambassador that President Barack Obama dispatched to Cairo earlier this week to advise President Hosni Mubarak, is employed by Patton Boggs, a law firm and registered lobbyist. On its website Patton Boggs summarises the contracts that it has won in the last 20 years to advise the Egyptian military, leading "commercial families in Egypt" as well as "manage contractor disputes in military sales agreements arising under the US Foreign Military Sales Act."

Shortly thereafter, Robert Fisk of the Independent weighed in with a column (2/7/11) adding more details about Patton Boggs, noting that Wisner's pro-Mubarak comments were in line with his employer's long-standing ties to the regime and Egyptian corporate interests. Fisk pointed out that this wasn't getting much attention from the corporate media:

Oddly, not a single journalist raised this extraordinary connection with US government officials--nor the blatant conflict of interest it appears to represent.

That's still the case--but some reporters are attempting to debunk Fisk's story.

New York Times reporter Sheryl Gay Stolberg wrote a piece for the paper's website (2/7/11) where she pointed out that the story of Wisner's conflict "erupted in the blogosphere"--we all know what that means--and that Fisk was wrong:

Mr. Wisner's comments prompted the Independent, a British newspaper, to accuse him of conflict of interest and to assert--incorrectly, Patton Boggs said--that Mr. Wisner "works for a New York and Washington law firm that works for the dictator’s own Egyptian government."

Obviously Wisner does work for Patton Boggs.  What Stolberg is reporting is that the company doesn't work for the Egyptian government (which was part of Fisk's case).  That debunking relies on the word of a Patton Boggs spokesperson, who said this:

But Mr. Newberry said that while Patton Boggs does represent "a very small number" of corporate clients in Egypt, it has had no business with the Egyptian government since the mid-1990s, except for briefly last year, when the Egyptian embassy retained Patton Boggs on a legal matter for which the firm billed less than $10,000.

OK--so does the firm represent Egyptian corporations? Yes. And as recently as 2007 was lobbying on behalf of a company with ties to the regime.

Does it have business with the Egyptian government? No--well, except for that time last year, and many times before then.

So I think I got this one: As the Paper of Record sees it, when Fisk reported that Wisner's firm worked for the Egyptian government and various corporate interests, he was incorrect. The company in fact works for a small number of Egyptian corporations, and worked for the Egyptian government as recently as last year.

The L.A. Times'  controversial investigation last year that rated Los Angeles schoolteachers' effectiveness based on a value-added research method has faced a storm of criticism. (See Wayne Au's recent Rethinking Schools piece.)

Now the National Education Policy Center has weighed in, finding that the research "was demonstrably inadequate to support the published rankings."

The NEPC was covered in the Washington Post and, wouldn't you know it, the Los Angeles Times.

Below are the headlines. Go ahead and guess which one is which.

Researchers Fault L.A. Times Methods in Analysis of California Teachers

Separate Study Confirms Many Los Angeles Times Findings on Teacher Effectiveness

On February 5 the Associated Press ran a story about a case in Cuba:

Prosecutors are charging jailed U.S. contractor Alan Gross with "acts against the integrity and independence" of Cuba and requesting a 20-year prison term, state news media reported Friday, dimming hopes he would be allowed to go home soon.

Further down, as one would expect, is a response from the United States:

Gloria Berbena, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Interests Section in Havana, which Washington maintains instead of an embassy, said his "imprisonment without charges for more than a year is contrary to all international human-rights obligations."

Now that is rich. A news outlet might want to point out the well-known fact that elsewhere on Cuba, the United States has built a detention facility to do precisely that to prisoners under U.S. control. But the AP is not that impolite.

(h/t JJ, who spotted the piece in his local paper)

The White House position on Egypt would seem to back the transfer of some level of official power to Omar Suleiman, who Hosni Mubarak recently named vice president. Suleiman's former role as intelligence chief made him a key player in Egypt's use of torture, against Egyptian citizens and in connection with CIA-backed rendition.

That part of the story hasn't received enough media attention, but today the New York Times does a great job, splashing the story on the front page.... sorry, that's not right. It must be here somewhere.

Perhaps a stinging editorial denouncing torture... no, that's not it.

OK, here we go.

It's a letter to the editor from writer, lawyer and activist Marjorie Cohn.

To the Editor:

Re “West Backs Gradual Egyptian Transition” and “Blood on the Nile” (Week in Review, Feb. 6):

The United States government, which sends $1.5 billion annually to Egypt, refuses to learn that supporting vicious dictators is counterproductive.

Washington is backing Vice President Omar Suleiman, who is fiercely loyal to President Hosni Mubarak, to lead the transition team. But the vast majority of Egyptians who have taken to the streets to demand Mr. Mubarak’s ouster would not likely accept a Suleiman-led government.

The former intelligence chief worked with the Central Intelligence Agency when it rendered terrorism suspects to Egypt for torture. As your reporters who were interrogated by Egypt’s secret police, Souad Mekhennet and Nicholas Kulish, vividly point out, torture is commonplace in Egyptian prisons. Mr. Suleiman is closely identified with the government’s longstanding policy of torture.

What happens next in Egypt is up to the people there, not the United States government. Until we stop backing tyrants and torturers, we and our allies will suffer the consequences.

Marjorie Cohn
San Diego, Feb. 6, 2011

The writer, a law professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, is editor of “The United States and Torture: Interrogation, Incarceration and Abuse.”

One of the supposed attractions of the news site Politico is that every so often they give you a peek behind the media curtain, trying to explain how Beltway journalism works. So they don't just obsessively cover Sarah Palin--they explain why they obsessively cover Sarah Palin: "For the media, Palin is great at the box office."

John F. Harris and Jim VandeHei offer a similar piece (2/7/11) that takes aim at the supposed turnabout in Barack Obama's political fortunes after the midterm election. Part of the answer is that the White House is doing things they know the media will cheer on as a return to "centrism" and a triumph for Beltway bipartisanship:

This three-month metamorphosis says something about Obama’s survival skills, but the turnabout says even more about the mainstream media: Obama is playing the press like a fiddle.

He is doing it by exploiting some of the most longstanding traits among reporters who cover politics and government--their favoritism for politicians perceived as ideologically centrist and willing to profess devotion to Washington’s oft-honored, rarely practiced civic religion of bipartisanship.

They add:

Conservatives are convinced the vast majority of reporters at mainstream news organizations are liberals who hover expectantly for each new issue of the Nation.

It’s just not true. The majority of political writers we know might more accurately be accused of centrist bias.

While their definition of press-approved centrism seems a little off ("they believe broadly in government activism but are instinctually skeptical of anything that smacks of ideological zealotry and are quick to see the public interest as being distorted by excessive partisanship"), the larger point--that reporters are more favorably disposed towards policy that is endorsed by leading figures from both major political parties--seems right on the money.

And, for the record, a far more forceful explanation and critique of centrist media bias appeared a mere 22 years ago in Extra! (10-11/89), courtesy of FAIR founder Jeff Cohen.

In yesterday's Washington Post (2/6/11), David Broder likened the U.S. position on Egypt to being a fan of the hapless Chicago Cubs: Big things are happening all around you, but you have no way to do anything about it.

That is the reality that confronts President Obama today. His hands are tied while Egypt erupts.

At first he expressed support and sympathy for the democratic forces filling the streets and appreciation for the Egyptian military holding fire. But when it became clear that Mubarak was on his way out, sooner or later, it dawned on everyone that the Muslim Brotherhood might seize on the resulting power vacuum and chaos to erect a hostile regime on the banks of the Suez Canal.

Whom do you root for in a situation like this?

It actually hasn't "dawned on everyone" that the Muslim Brotherhood will "erect a hostile regime" in Egypt. Even a casual observer of the uprising in Egypt would likely encounter commentary and analysis that debunks the argument that the Muslim Brotherhood is about to turn Egypt into Iran.

Broder's contribution to the discussion is in line with that of other establishment pundits who express alarm at the prospect of Egyptian democracy.

From the Friday broadcast of the PBS NewsHour (2/4/11) came a discussion about how the U.S. supports dictators--which elicited some chuckles. Remember, Mark Shields is the one who plays the "left" on the program.

MARK SHIELDS: Just one little point of personal privilege on Joe Biden, who did take a hit for not being able to say dictator, but in United States politics, I mean, it's always been, if someone is on our side, he is a strongman.

(LAUGHTER)

MARK SHIELDS: If he is on the other side, he is a dictator. I mean, that has sort of been the nomenclature throughout. All of these guys who were such stalwart anti-Communists, I mean, the Marcoses of the world, they were--they became dictators when they fell.

DAVID BROOKS: Hey, strongman is a bad word, too. But this was--the policy, I mean....

MARK SHIELDS: No, I'm not arguing with policy. I'm just...

DAVID BROOKS: I mean, I'm not blaming Biden. They told him what to say.

MARK SHIELDS: Yes.

Laughing about U.S. support for dictators is one thing. Expressing outrage that the U.S. is abandoning a dictator in his hour of need is another. But that's what MSNBC host Chris Matthews appeared to be saying on Morning Joe today (2/7/11), as he explained that all dictators want to hand off control to their children:

It all comes down to the same thing. They want their oldest kid to replace them. And what was the plan for transition for our friend? Did we ever talk to him about it? Did we talk about it, encourage him? That's my view. Character and planning. And I don't see--I feel shame about this. I feel ashamed as an American, the way we're doing this. I know he has to change. I know we're for democracy, but the way we've handled it is not the way a friend handles a matter. We're not handling as Americans should handle a matter like this. I don't feel right about it. And Barack Obama, as much I support him in many ways, there is a transitional quality to the guy that is chilling.

I believe in relationships. I think we all do. Relationship politics is what we were brought up with in this country. You treat your friends a certain way. You're loyal to them. And when they're wrong, you try to be with them. You try and stick with them.

So on the one hand you have public TV pundits chuckling about U.S. support for dictators--this is just the way the world works, apparently. And on the other hand, a host from the supposedly liberal cable news channel is "ashamed" that our government is not doing enough to support Mubarak.

There have been some interesting, informative TV coverage of Egypt.

And then there was last night's Charlie Rose (2/3/11), with special guests Tom Friedman and Henry Kissinger.

Displaying the same allergy to actual democracy shown by Joe Klein (FAIR Blog, 2/3/11), Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer (2/4/11) calls, like Klein, for a military regime in Egypt to impose a "period of stability" for "guiding the country to free elections"--the kind of "free elections" in which the military will "guarantee" that the right people "prevail."

The breathtaking hypocrisy of Krauthammer's column--which begins "Who doesn't love a democratic revolution?"--is on view in this passage:

Our paramount moral and strategic interest in Egypt is real democracy in which power does not devolve to those who believe in one man, one vote, one time. That would be Egypt's fate should the Muslim Brotherhood prevail. That was the fate of Gaza, now under the brutal thumb of Hamas.

Aside from the fact that Krauthammer is borrowing a phrase from apologists for apartheid South Africa (e.g., Thomas Sowell, Chicago Tribune, 8/17/85), he really ought to be aware (thanks to the "Palestine Papers" leaked via Al-Jazeera) that the United States has demanded that Palestine not hold elections--threatening to cut off all aid if they did so (Guardian, 1/24/11).

Hmmm... can I get two votes?

For the record, the results are currently 94 percent for liberal control, 1 percent for conservative-pandering and 5 percent for control by the rich.

Sometimes words fail. Joe Klein, writing in the new issue of Time, wonders:

How on earth do we get saddled with such creepy clients as Karzai and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, over and over again?

Yes, why do they keep doing this to us?!

His piece is a pox-on-both-houses rant about U.S. foreign policy: The "realists" often end up coddling dictators, and the idealists don't understand how the world works. Of the latter, he writes:

the tangible fruits of the Freedom Agenda turned out to be mostly rotten: elections in the Palestinian territories, which no one but Hamas (and Bush) wanted, produced a Hamas plurality; a push for democracy in Afghanistan produced a foolish constitution, centralizing power in a notoriously decentralized country, and corrupt elections. And the jury is still out on Iraq, where the most vital "democratic" force may turn out to be the populist, Iran-leaning cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

If this is supposed to represent some special category of policy wisdom, it fails miserably--it's a fairly standard complaint among pundits that democracy that produces the wrong results (for us) is bad democracy. Klein has a better idea:

A smarter foreign policy would quietly promote a careful transition from autocracy to something more benign. The best way to do this is to latch onto institutions, not individual leaders, in the developing countries we seek as allies.

That institution? The military.