As noted by an account on the TVNewser blog (7/11/11), on ABC's This Week panel there was some talk of Rupert Murdoch losing his U.S. television licenses over the News of the World phone hacking scandal. There is a "character clause" for broadcast licensees, and the current scandal would go a long way towards demonstrating a certain type of bad behavior. Here's how panelist Steven Brill put it:

News Corp has a lot of FCC licenses. There's still a clause in the federal communications law that requires that you have to be of good character to have such a license, and I was reading last night just in the approval that they gave Comcast to take over NBC, there was actually some guy who challenged the character of Comcast because when they installed a cable system somewhere they had hurt his building, and didn't pay for it. And this became a big legal proceeding, action.

So here I am reasonably certain that someone, maybe someone from the political left or whoever, is going to make a big deal of whether they are fit to have their FCC licenses under the current management.

Once upon a time, Extra! raised this issue with General Electric's NBC licenses, in "Felons on the Air: Does GE's Ownership of NBC Violate the Law?" (11-12/94). GE's record at the time including defrauding the Pentagon, fraud and money laundering. All that, unfortunately, didn't disqualify them from getting valuable licenses to control a hefty share of the public airwaves.

Here's panelist Steven Brill:

I was struck by this headline in the Washington Post (7/10/11):

Loss of Support for Nuclear Power Threatens Japan's Economy

There are probably a lot of things that are threatening the Japanese economy--a massive, deadly earthquake and tsunami, for instance. Or the massive nuclear disaster that resulted from that tsunami.

The news here is that Japanese officials are doing inspections of their nuclear reactors--as they've always done. The problem, apparently, is that they're doing more than that:

Under ordinary circumstances, these shutdowns would be temporary. Instead, they loom as an urgent problem for Japan, whose government--itself divided over nuclear policy--has not yet mustered the political will or the popular support necessary to restart reactors once they are idled.

The "problem" is that the government is also doing stress tests to make sure the reactors can survive major disruptions. That doesn't sound like a bad idea, given the horrendous disaster that they've just suffered. The Post describes the government's decision to call for these tests as "undermining its cause," apparently because this contradicted an earlier claim that the reactors were safe.

The problem, as defined by the Post, is a lack of political support for nuclear power, inspired by a government that wants to increase the country's reliance on safe renewable energy.  That position is what the Post is saying "threatens" the country's economy. Others might argue that a massive nuclear disaster is to blame.

Here's the headline and subhead in a Newsweek piece (7/10/11) about the Egyptian presidential election:

Egypt's Rising Power Player

Amr Moussa is on track to succeed Mubarak. And that spells danger for Israel.

Reporter Dan Ephron characterizes Moussa like this:

"long and vocal history of anti-Israel diatribes"

"his anger against Israel"

"one of Israel’s most relentless detractors in Egypt"

"He confronted Israelis at conferences and attacked them in television interviews"

"His tirades even made him the subject of a hit song"

"his longstanding dislike of Israel"

"anger at Israel is genuine"

This would be a lot more convincing if there was some rhetoric or record from Moussa that would suggest an obsessive dislike of Israel. Instead, we get one quote from him saying the peace plan was "just [an Israeli] trick to continue talking and make the cameras flash ... but there's no substance. We shall not engage in such a thing anymore."

It would be hard to argue, whatever your position, that this "peace process" has led to much in the way of peace.

Newsweek goes on on to note that opposition to the current "peace plan" is common in Egypt. That suggests Egyptians don't believe that their views were reflected by the foreign policy of their country's previous dictatorship--one that Moussa served for a decade. But readers get less a sense of that fact, and plenty of discussion of the supposed anti-Israel obsession of a leading presidential candidate.

The current Status of Forces agreement calls for U.S. troops to be out of Iraq by the end of the year. The U.S. government wants to stay longer, and would seem to be pressuring the Iraqi government to ask them to do just that. But the Iraqi government hasn't done that yet--leading to stories like this one in the Washington Post by Karen DeYoung (7/10/11), headlined "Iraqis Fail to Reach Consensus on Longer U.S. Troop Presence."

The "failure" is that they haven't written a new agreement that would negate the current agreement. The Post presents this all as a strategic problem for the United States. Iraq's failure to change course is

leaving the Obama administration with an ever-shorter timetable to complete the withdrawal or manage the political fallout from staying.

It's not clear why this is a serious problem. The deadline has been well-known for some time; no one is shortening anything.

But the explanation of why this is a problem for Obama is totally baffling:

In the meantime, the indecision complicates an already vexing problem for Obama.

Despite his pledge of complete withdrawal, the administration has made clear its willingness to continue tasks such as training, air defense, intelligence and reconnaissance, as well as joint counterterrorism missions with Iraqi forces at a time of Iranian inroads, increased violence and ongoing political instability....

But the longer the decision takes, the less time Obama has to explain to the American public the importance of preserving a presence, and the more he risks clouding an election-year message that he has overseen the end of the Iraq war.

OK, let's follow the logic.

Obama promised to completely withdraw from Iraq. There is an agreement that would achieve that. But apparently he really wants to stay. But that isn't the "vexing problem."  If the Iraqis don't make up their minds soon and extend the U.S. presence in Iraq, it makes it harder for Obama to "explain to the American public the importance of preserving a presence" in Iraq. Which would be contrary to his stated pro-withdrawal policy.

The article seems to push the idea (as the Post has in the past) that the best course of action would be for both the Iraqi and U.S. governments to violate the current plan. If that happens, it will be good for  Obama, since it will remove the stigma of doing what he said he was going to do.  Otherwise his message would be "cloudy."

Makes perfect sense, right?

In the Washington Post (7/7/11), Fareed Zakaria tries to defend Barack Obama against the criticism that he needs a more consistent foreign policy. He writes:

All American presidents have supported and should support the spread of democracy. The real question is: Should that support involve active measures to topple undemocratic regimes, especially military force?

Since this is an important part of his argument, it is worth noting that "all American presidents" have no such passion for the spread of democracy. There is a fairly rich history of U.S. foreign policy taking "active measures" to support undemocratic regimes. It is unclear why Zakaria's  "real question" should be based around the opposite notion.

Interestingly, Zakaria's rebuttal to the idea that the White House should have  "a consistent policy toward the Arab Spring" is at odds with his assurances about U.S. support for democracy. Zakaria points out that the U.S. has not stood very strongly on the side of democratic stirrings in many of the countries under discussion,  chalking it up to the usual difference between U.S. "interests" and "values" in places like Saudi Arabia, where the former are far more important than the latter.

There is, of course, a consistency in U.S. policy-- it involves standing by dictators who are aligned with U.S. interests, and moving against those who do not, especially when there is oil involved.

Which is another way of saying that it's a good week to have Noam Chomsky on CounterSpin. Listen here.

Of some of the Arab countries under examination--U.S.-friendly regimes without substantial oil reserves--Chomsky said:

There is a game plan which is employed routinely,  so commonly it takes virtual genius not to perceive it.... When there's a favored dictator, and he's getting into trouble, support him as long as possible--full support, as long as possible. When it becomes impossible to support him--say, maybe the army turns against him, the business class turns against him-- then send him off somewhere, issue ringing declarations about your love of democracy, and then try to restore the old regime.

Barack Obama took questions via Twitter at an event yesterday. The queries they posed didn't impress everyone-- Michael Shear of the New York Times wrote:

Most of the Twitter queries were not very tough-minded and gave the president the opportunity to repeat his talking points.

Yeah-- leave the question-asking to the professionals, who apparently know how to get politicians to stray from their talking points (anyone who's ever watched a White House press conference might find this unusual).

The real difference, though, is in what issues are worth asking questions about. On that score, the Twitter users have different priorities than the Beltway media, as this chart published in the Boston Globe makes pretty clear:

As Matthew Yglesias put it, the press likes to ask "process" questions, that mean nothing to most people, who happen to pay closer attention to politiics

because they’re worried about jobs or the environment or energy prices or taxes or something. It’s never because they’re wondering how the president reacted to Steny Hoyer’s remarks about Eric Cantor’s characterization of the Treasury secretary’s statement about the debt ceiling.

Reporter Jose Antonio Vargas wrote a moving piece for the New York Times magazine about his status as an undocumented immigrant. One hope is that his story might improve the tone and substance of media coverage of immigration; Vargas has suggested as much, at one point tweeting this message:

Undocumented Immigrant trending. So let's drop "Illegal" and "Alien." No person is illegal or an alien.

His story has received a tremendous amount of media attention. But as Monica Novoa pointed out at ColorLines, too much coverage has dwelt on Vargas' "illegal" status:

Vargas’ story has drawn enormous media attention and drove "undocumented immigrant" up to a top-trending term on Twitter yesterday. But it’s a shame that in the dissection and retelling of his story, a fine point has been lost on many of Vargas’ colleagues: He came out specifically as an undocumented immigrant and not as “illegal.” The distinction is a central part of his story. He is rejecting a legally inaccurate, dehumanizing and racist label that helps to prop up an ignorant and limited immigration debate, along with all of the violence and unconstitutionality the concept of an “illegal” human being engenders.

That brings us to his Sunday appearance on ABC's This Week.  Check out their headline:

The answer might depend on which media outlet you rely on.

I read the headline at Democracy Now! on Friday:

"Justice Dept Drops 99 of 101 Cases Against CIA for Abuse and Torture"

The New York Times, on the other hand, offered a different sort of emphasis:

"U.S. Widens Inquiries Into 2 Jail Deaths"

When I saw the July 3 New York Times headline "Setting Sail on Gaza’s Sea of Spin," I expected the worst.

Times reporter Ethan Bronner's analysis piece on the Gaza humanitarian flotilla starts off predictably enough, saying there's blame to spread all around:

Almost everything about the flotilla stuck in Greece and waiting to challenge Israel’s blockade of Gaza seems to be a parable for something else, part of an unstated effort to recast the Israeli-Palestinian narrative in extreme terms. Instead of helping to clarify what Gaza needs and how it might build a future, the saga has merely brought out the public relations demons on all sides.

PR demons?!

The first problem, according to Bronner, concerns the very purpose of the flotilla. As he sees it, there would seem to be no need for much relief in Gaza, thanks to Israel's generosity following the killings of activists on last year's  flotilla:

The international outrage that followed helped force an easing of the siege. One result, largely unacknowledged by the flotilla leaders: far more goods have gone into Gaza over the past year, and while the 1.6 million people there still need many things, basic supplies are not among them.

This is something that Bronner seems to fixate on in his reporting-- he had a June 25 report that touted the building boom in Gaza:

Two luxury hotels are opening in Gaza this month. Thousands of new cars are plying the roads. A second shopping mall — with escalators imported from Israel — will open next month. Hundreds of homes and two dozen schools are about to go up. A Hamas-run farm where Jewish settlements once stood is producing enough fruit that Israeli imports are tapering off.

As pro-Palestinian activists prepare to set sail aboard a flotilla aimed at maintaining an international spotlight on Gaza and pressure on Israel, this isolated Palestinian coastal enclave is experiencing its first real period of economic growth since the siege they are protesting began in 2007.

He went on to note that things were not progressing evenly, but his point seemed to be that things were much improved since the last flotilla, thus making the current efforts unnecessary ("For the past year, Israel has allowed most everything into Gaza but cement, steel and other construction material.")

But the evidence available from human rights observers tells a very different story.  From the Oxfam report, "Dashed Hopes" (12/1/10):

Many in the international community, including Quartet Representative Tony Blair, expressed hopes that this would lead to a major change and alleviate the plight of the Palestinian civilian population in Gaza. However, five months later, there are few signs of real improvement on the ground as the ‘ease’ has left foundations of the illegal blockade policy intact.

While the Government of Israel committed to expand and accelerate the inflow of construction materials for international projects, it has so far only approved 7 per cent of the building plan for UNRWA’s projects in Gaza, and of that 7 per cent only a small fraction of the necessary construction material has been allowed to enter for projects including schools and health centres.  In fact, the UN reports that Gaza requires 670,000 truckloads of construction material, while only an average of 715 of these truckloads have been received per month since the ‘easing’ was announced.

Although there has been a significant increase in the amount of food stuffs entering Gaza, many humanitarian items, including vital water equipment, that are not on the Israeli restricted list continue to receive no permits. Two thirds of Gaza’s factories report they have received none or only some of the raw materials they need to recommence operations. As a result, 39% of Gaza residents remain unemployed and unable to afford the new goods in the shops. Without raw materials and the chance to export, Gaza's businesses are unable to compete with the cheaper newly imported goods. This economic development leaves 80% of the population dependent upon international aid.

And a March 2011 United Nations report found that

the easing of the blockade on the Gaza Strip since June 2010 did not result in a significant improvement in people’s livelihoods, which were largely depleted during three years of strict blockade. Because of the ongoing restrictions on the import of building materials, only a small minority of the 40,000 housing units, needed to meet natural population growth and the loss of homes during the ‘Cast Lead’ offensive, could be actually constructed.

Bronner argues that the improvement in Gaza goes "largely unacknowledged" by the flotilla activists. Actually, what they're saying is that the blockade has hardly been eased-- which is almost the opposite of what Ethan Bronner is reporting.

The Washington Post's Chris Cillizza's curious take on the Mark Halperin affair:

The truth of the Halperin matter is that all reporters (or others) who go on television frequently are forever in a “there but for the grace of God go I” situation.... We know of what we speak, having found ourselves tongue-tied or worse on any number of occasions while staring into a camera. And in an ill-fated 2009 video venture known as “Mouthpiece Theater,” The Fix had to live down an inappropriate reference to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

For those who might be unaware, he's referring to the skit where he and Post colleague Dana Milbank likened Hillary Clinton to a "mad bitch." This was a scripted satirical video; the "bitch" reference came in the form of an image, which would suggest they'd thought about it well in advance. There's something utterly predictable-- and pathetic-- about reporters who react to these scandals by suggesting that if you talk into a microphone often enough you're bound to say something stupid.

"2 Republicans Open Door to Increases in Revenue" reads a headline in Monday's New York Times. The suggestion is that a few Republicans are walking away  from the the party's no-tax-hike orthodoxy. That much is clear from John Broder's lead:

Two senior Republicans said Sunday that they might be open to raising new government revenue as part of a deal to resolve the dispute over the federal debt ceiling, but they warned that there was little time to enact a comprehensive deal.

This would be a pretty remarkable development. So who are we talking about? Broder reports:

One of the senators, John Cornyn of Texas, said he would consider eliminating some tax breaks and corporate subsidies in the context of changes in the tax code, provided there was not an overall increase in taxes.

That sounds like no shift at all-- Cornyn went on to rule out any tax increases.

But he insisted that any changes in taxes be “revenue neutral,” meaning that the government would not take in any more money from individuals or businesses than it does now.

OK-- he supports raising revenues, so long as there is no increase in, well, revenues. Is there a clearer example Broder is thinking about?

The other senator, John McCain of Arizona, said he would be willing to consider some “revenue raisers” as part of a broad deal, but he refused to name specific measures.

He was specific about one thing:

“The principle of not raising taxes is something that we campaigned on last November, and the result of the election was that the American people didn’t want their taxes raised and they wanted us to cut spending,” he said on the CNN program “State of the Union.”

This article provides the evidence to refute its premise, which I guess is helpful.

The Washington Post reports today on a one day walkout by public sector workers:

The strikes are the first major uprising over the Conservative-led government’s ambitious plans to slash $128 billion in spending over the next four years.

I don't know how one defines "major uprising," but on March 26 hundreds of thousands hit the streets to protest the government's austerity plans.  The Post didn't find them terribly newsworthy when they happened, running a brief item alongside other international news.