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.

The sisters' ordeal, as columnist Richard Prince wrote back in November, came to national attention thanks largely to a November 2008 piece in the Black Commentator by Nancy Lockhart, which then spread throughout black-oriented blogs and talk radio, as well as the alternative media (Prince cites a piece by James Ridgeway of  Mother Jones).

The story then began to get national attention, mostly thanks to African-American columnists like Bob Herbert and Leonard Pitts, and NPR's Michel Martin of Tell Me More. Prince joined us on CounterSpin (12/3/10) to tell the story behind this story.

Bob Herbert was back on the story on December 31, writing a strong column that ended: "The Scott sisters may go free, but they will never receive justice." That they're free at all is a testament to activism and the role of the independent media. And it should serve as a reminder that diversity inside the mainstream media certainly mattered; as Janine Jackson put it during that CounterSpin interview with Prince:

But it seems reasonable to consider whether this case would have even the so-called "big" media presence that it's gained at this point, if it weren't for Bob Herbert at the New York Times, who's written about it; Leonard Pitts, syndicated columnist; Michel Martin at NPR. It has been not entirely, but it's had a lot to do with highly placed black journalists that the story has kind of bubbled up.

One of the bright spots at the Washington Post media enterprise was Dan Froomkin's column, "White House Watch," for WashingtonPost.com.  It often struck us that Froomkin had a whole different attitude--skeptical of those in power, and critical of their journalistic enablers--than most of his colleagues at the Post Co. So it was perhaps not too surprising to hear that Froomkin, one of the Post's most popular online writers, had been fired--not long after his column was placed under the authority of editorial page editor Fred Hiatt, who's one of the journalists who best exemplifies the Post's dominant ethic of service to authority.

Those who had accepted the premise that the purpose of journalism was to advance the agenda of official Washington were understandably resentful of Froomkin, who was a constant reminder that that was not, in fact, the only way to report the news.  Post ombud Deborah Howell wrote a column back in 2005  complaining that Froomkin was "highly opinionated and liberal"--hilariously quoting the Post's then-national political editor John Harris as saying that Froomkin's column "dilutes our only asset--our credibility."

Let's be clear--it's not that they don't like you injecting opinion into the news at the Washington Post; in fact, they do that so much that economist Dean Baker refers to them as "Fox on 15th Street." But they have to be the right opinions--if, like Post columnist Dana Milbank, you think single-payer advocates are pathetic and ridiculous, that's an opinion the Post Co. is happy to showcase.  If your opinion is, like Froomkin's, that torture performed by the U.S. government ought to be called "torture," well, that might be putting at risk what the Washington Post calls "credibility."

I was struck in writing this item by what I couldn't do, which is quote Froomkin's powerful statement about the importance of journalists pointing out when officials aren't telling the truth--because Froomkin repeatedly refers to this key journalistic function as "calling bullshit"--and if we had quoted that on the air, the stations that run our show would risk being fined by the FCC.  (I could have translated that to "calling BS," but somehow euphemizing Froomkin's unvarnished call for journalistic forthrightness didn't feel right.)  Just a reminder that the petty censorship policies of the FCC do have political consequences.