Click here to view this media Digby caught this bit of bizarre right-wing behavior from New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie this weekend: Keith Chaudruc, of Madison, got the final question of the night. The Livingston school district elementary teacher launched into a list of complaints about drops in municipal aid, increasing NJ Transit fares and tax cuts for those making more than $1 million. His question: How could Christie sign off on a tax cut for the most wealthy, ignoring the regressive nature of the sales tax, while those at the bottom were getting squeezed with increases like the transit fares? The two adversaries went back and forth for a few minutes, until Chaudruc, a Republican, interrupted the governor. “You want to come up here?” Christie shouted. “You come up here … Let’s have a conversation..” Chaudruc, who stands 5’6″ and weighs about 160 pounds, backed away until the governor insisted “bring him up here,” and a state trooper escorted him to the stage. Christie, a few inches taller and several pounds heavier, loomed over Chaudruc as he launched into a tirade. “Your wonderful increase in taxes would have killed jobs in this state,” Christie said pointing his index finger at Chaudruc. “You and I have different ideas of what being a Republican is all about because I’m not going to raise taxes.” Before he could get another word in, Chaudruc was ushered off the stage and out of the room by a trooper. It looks like the schtick is wearing thin in New Jersey, at least: By bullying a citizen, hogging the microphone and condescendingly dismissing him, Christie was the rude one. But it’s nothing new. Christie has turned state politics into one never-ending yo’ mama joke. It doesn’t matter who you are — school superintendent, teacher, student, U.S. senator, state Assembly leader, former education commissioner or just a regular guy trying to have a conversation: If you disagree with him, Christie will try to humiliate you publicly. Some find Christie entertaining, but his combativeness is counterproductive and breeds the kind of hate speech that plaques the nation. However, as Alex Pareene at Salon observes : But some people find this totally delightful, because Chris Christie is basically an amusing comic television show character, like Charlie Sheen or Pat Buchanan. Whether it helps Christie politically depends on whether New Jersey residents find it funny or get bored with it. But Christie will continue doing it, because it’s a major part of his “brand.” In lieu of class solidarity, which is a privilege only afforded to the wealthy these days, American politics are mostly about tribal self-identification. Most Republicans get this, and that’s why being a shouty asshole doesn’t hurt Christie. Democrats — with a couple of exceptions, like Anthony Weiner — are not so good at this, which is why MSNBC’s liberal hosts whine about how Obama needs to “get tough” all the time without ever explaining how that would help him achieve policy goals and not just make them feel like they’re backing a winner. Like Digby, I find his bullying behavior clearly fascistic — this is how real fascists, the kind you get in Hayden Lake and at Joe Arpaio rallies, behave. I guess Americans are getting accustomed to that and a lot more approve of it. And that may be the scariest aspect of Chris Christie.
Continue reading …Lieberman suggests media outlets could be prosecuted over WikiLeaks stories
December 7, 2010 No Comment
Click here to view this media Sen. Joe Lieberman has said that the federal government has the right to shut down the whistleblowing website that released thousands of secret US documents and now the Connecticut senator has indicated that media outlets like The New York Times may be in danger too. Following the release of thousands of documents by government watchdog WikiLeaks, Lieberman told the Times that he wanted to use “all legal means” against the website. On Tuesday, the independent senator told Fox News’ Jenna Lee that the First Amendment may not even protect mainstream media outlets that publish documents obtained by WikiLeaks. “Julian Assange has written an editorial that points out or characterizes his organization as an underdog in the media world,” Lee noted. “He’s saying he’s a journalist, and he’s just providing information out there for the world citizens to see. He mentions that organizations like The New York Times have published his information which you’re classifying as state secret. So, are other media outlets that have posted what WikiLeaks has put out there also culpable in this and could be charged with something?” “I have said that I believe the question you’re raising is a serious legal question that has to be answered,” Lieberman replied. “In other words, this is very sensitive stuff because it gets into the America’s First Amendment. But if you go from the initial crime, Private Manning charged with the crime of stealing these classified documents, he gives them to WikiLeaks, I certainly believe that that’s a — WikiLeaks has violated the espionage act,” he said. “But then what about the news organizations, including the Times , that accepted it and distributed it? I know they say they deleted some of it, but I’m not here to make a final judgment on that,” Lieberman continued. “But to me New York Times has committed at least an act of bad citizenship. And whether they’ve committed a crime, I think that bears very intensive inquiry by the Justice Department,” he added. Lieberman’s position seems to be a slight change from last week, when he said the Times should not be prosecuted. “I don’t know if you can prosecute the Times under existing Supreme Court decisions,” he told Fox Business News’ Don Imus . “But I’ll tell you this, I wish the Times, just as an act of citizenship had said, ‘No, we’re not going to publish this stuff because it’s going to do the country damage,’” he said “You know, The New York Times , afterall, is The New York Times with all its stature and I wish this stuff had appeared somewhere else. I wouldn’t be for prosecuting the Times, but I would say I wish they had shown better citizenship.”
Continue reading …President Obama lashes out at his liberal critics: Choice is to ‘get things done’ or feel ‘sanctimonious’
December 7, 2010 No Comment
Click here to view this media Well, President Obama’s press conference today, defending his deal on the Bush tax cuts, won’t exactly do much to mollify the people who, you know, actually voted for him in 2008. Especially this part: You know, so this notion that somehow we are willing to compromise too much reminds me of the debate that we had during health care. This is the public option debate all over again. So I pass a signature piece of legislation where we finally get health care for all Americans — something that Democrats have been fighting for for a hundred years — but because there was a provision in there that they didn’t get, that would’ve affected maybe a couple million people, even though we got health insurance for 30 million people, and the potential for lower premiums for a hundred million people, that somehow that was a sign of weakness and compromise. Now, if that’s the standard by which we are measuring success or core principles, then let’s face it, we will never get anything done. People will have the satisfaction of having a purist position and no victories for the American people. And we will be able to feel good about ourselves and sanctimonious about how pure our intentions are, and how tough we are — and in the meantime, the American people are still seeing themselves not able to get health insurance because of pre-existing conditions. Or not being able to pay their bills because their unemployment insurance ran out. That can’t be the measure of how we think about our public service. It’s clear that Obama is not speaking to his base here — rather, he’s only saying things that are certain to piss them off and demoralize them. He is, however, making his case to the larger media-consuming public, and particularly the Beltway Village, who buy rather easily into the notion that hippies need punching. It’s actually probably a smart short-term strategy, because it means there will be relatively little media blowback, since the pundit class will be on his side here. Long term? Well, we’ll see how willing the troops are to come out and re-elect somebody who’s been beating up on them publicly for the previous four years come 2012. Alex Pareene at Salon observes: While congressional Democrats are to blame for putting Obama in this position, and Obama’s hands were basically tied, he continues to imagine that his liberal critics are upset with the idea that compromises need to be made in order to accomplish progressive policy goals. Some of them are that stupid. But lots of them are actually critics of White House’s legislative strategy, and their apparent willingness to preemptively compromise before the negotiations have already begun. We’ll have the transcript up when it’s available.
Continue reading …BREAKING: Obama Presents The Tax-Cut Deal Cut With GOP Leadership. Will Rank-and-File Republicans Pass It? Will Dems Say No?
December 7, 2010 No Comment
Click here to view this media H/T Heather. Senior administration officials talked to bloggers tonight after President Obama addressed the nation on the results of the extortion negotiation with the Republican leadership, and I have to tell you, I’m not all that unhappy with the results. This is an actual compromise deal . (And, as I’ve said before, giving tax cuts to the rich is the best insurance policy we can get for Social Security.) First of all, the unemployed who are still collecting benefits get to heave a sigh of relief, because they’re covered for the next 13 months. (I did ask about the 99ers. Sorry, nothing. Apparently we’re still invisible . I also said if they were still in negotiations, they might want to considering exempting unemployment benefits from the income tax, the way they used to before Reagan.) But that’s not all. The package includes a shiny new one-year 2% payroll-tax cut for employees, which will stimulate the economy because the people who get it are the ones most likely to spend it. Thumbs up on the payroll-tax cut, which by the way, will be revenue-neutral for Social Security via a credit for the amount that would have been otherwise collected. It also includes a fix to the Alternative Minimum Tax. The aforementioned millionaires and billionaires do get their tax cuts — but only for two years. (That will cost us $95 billion, by the way, and will be financed by borrowing from China.) But they’ll have a merry Christmas anyway, because of the jingle in their pockets from (you knew this was coming) reinstating the estate tax with a $5 million exemption . (The officials said that issue will be fought again at a later date.) If the president had his way, one of the officials said, they would only be making the middle-class tax cuts permanent, but it “wasn’t possible to get through. If there was a compromise, though, he wanted lots of other pieces included.” Bottom line, as the officials pointed out, if he didn’t deal with the Republicans, they would have dragged this out for “months and months and months,” and there was a good possibility they wouldn’t get any UI extensions at all. Honestly, I don’t care that he promised not to raise these taxes. With a gun to his head , he didn’t have much choice. But Obama needs to learn that an occasional piece of cheese from the Republican rats doesn’t mean a new era of understanding.
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Click here to view this media (h/t Heather@VideoCafe ) CNN tried to have a discussion about Wikileaks Sunday on Howard Kurtz’s Reliable Sources. Only Jeff Jarvis stuck up for Julian Assange, which is still strange, considering that the panel represented the “media.” It was a pretty typical example of how our media is handling the WikiLeaks story. CNN transcripts: KURTZ: Jeff Jarvis, I know you argue for a greater transparency of information, but why should “The New York Times” and “The Guardian” and others let Julian Assange set their agenda? JEFF JARVIS, FOUNDER, “BUZZ MACHINE”: It’s not even Julian Assange. It’s not even WikiLeaks, Howie. The world has changed. Someone can know information now and spread it for the whole world in an instant. I think we have to look at this the other way around and say, why isn’t government more transparent? Government should be transparent by default, secret by necessity. Part of the lesson of the WikiLeaks leaks is that too much is secret, much of what is secret is done in our name, and we should know it. And also, as Fareed Zakaria said in “TIME” this week, the revelations about our diplomacy core are actually all in all good, actually say that they do a good job. And I think that what we should be doing is turning around and recognizing that this is the future. We are in a transparent age. It used to be the secrets went — brought power. Now transparency brings power. Howard Kurtz allegedly understands journalism so I thought it was outrageous for Kurtz to take offense when Assange refuses to out his sources. KURTZ: Rick Stengel, let’s turn now to your interview with Julian Assange. I found some of his answers to be absolutely disingenuous. For example, you ask whether secrets are ever necessary, and he says, well, his secrets are necessary, protecting his sources, but “Our responsibility is to bring matters to the public.” What’s important is the information contained in the Wikileaks cables–not Assange–and when we’re dealing with whistle blowers, of course their identities have to be protected. KURTZ: Do you want to respond to that, Jeff Jarvis? JARVIS: Well, I want to say that all of us journalists around this virtual table should be thinking very seriously about the threat that can be made to our First Amendment rights. Matthew Ingram, a Canadian journalist, wrote at GigaOm.com today — and I think a very important post — saying that WikiLeaks is a publisher. It, took, has First Amendment rights, and we should be defending its First Amendment rights. We in journalism are going off, and many of us attacking WikiLeaks. We should think twice about that, I think, ,because we should be defending transparency as a principle, and defending openness as a principle. And as Rick said, we publish and be damned, so certainly has WikiLeaks. KURTZ: Well, certainly some people are damning the profession as a result. Some people are damning the profession of journalism because it appears to most people that your interests are tied in to protecting the ruling class elites and assisting governments to go to war with other countries so that you may continue to have access to all the powerful people. Digby has been covering the WikiLeaks story as well as anybody and she links up Greg Mitchell, who sheds some excellent light on a very important false meme about WikiLeaks the media keeps using. Digby: For instance, in the course of conversations both online and in the real world, I’ve become convinced that peple do not understand something very important about this last batch of documents and the press is simply not telling them. They were not just dumped on the internet willy nilly. Mitchell explains in this post: German mag Der Spiegel out with its 2nd issue on its access to cables. A lot on Iraq. One headline: “US Diplomats Bewildered and Bamboozled in Baghdad.” Say its based on their reading of 5500 cables. This raises key point: WikiLeaks itself has still posted less than 900 cables — due to relying on heavy redacting by its new org partners. But the same partners do have the complete 250,000 cables. So they, not WikiLeaks, are the ones breaking news and quoting from — even if not postings — the cables. This is just one of many, many misapprehensions that have been allowed to fester (if not actively disseminated) by the American news media and one I would guess most people do not understand. WikiLeaks is working with partners in the press to release these documents, which are being reviewed and redacted before they are uploaded on to the web and published in newspapers. Right now, the only people besides WikiLeaks who have access to all the cables are the newspapers they’ve partnered with. I imagine that many of the people who are threatening to imprison and assassinate Assange do know this and also understand that they are threatening not just him but the publishers of newspapers all over the world who also have these documents. Is everyone comfortable with that? What, you mean WikiLeaks isn’t giving al-Qaeda all the cables, un-redacted and letting them do what they want with them? And what about the “rape” charges? Dana Kennedy reports that Julian Assange‘s alleged crime isn’t violent rape, but that his trouble with the law “apparently stems from a condom malfunction” and an obscure Swedish law involving continuing consent in those situations. David Cay Johnston writes: “If Kennedy is right, and at a minimum her report deserves to be checked out today, then our best news organizations are behaving more like (to borrow a hoary newspaper phrase) those ‘semi-official’ newspapers and broadcast outlets that reliably convey official government truths.” Why hasn’t the media gone to Sweden and found out exactly what the truth is instead of regurgitating what’s being fed to them by people who are completely against Assange for reasons more to do with embarrassment than any ongoing question of national security? Romenesko asks an important question: My hope here is that the top editors at the organizations named above will immediately call or email their reporters and tell them to check out Kennedy’s story and find out the actual facts. Better yet, the reporters whose bylines were atop stories about this will act on their own.
Continue reading …Liz Cheney Calls for Obama to Say Afghan Withdrawal Will be ‘Conditions Based’ When He Already Has
December 6, 2010 No Comment
Click here to view this media Ah yes… another Sunday, another week with Dick Cheney’s daughter out there doing his dirty work for him and lying on Fox News. We’re all shocked, right? On Fox News Sunday, Cheney apparently decided to demand that President Obama say that withdrawal from Afghanistan will be “based on conditions on the ground”, ignoring the fact that he has repeatedly said exactly that. Media Matters has more here — Liz Cheney Has No Idea What Obama Has Said : Liz Cheney called on President Obama to “repudiate” his policy in Afghanistan and say that decisions will be “based on conditions on the ground.” In fact, Obama has repeatedly said that the transition in Afghanistan will be based on “conditions on the ground.” Obama: “The Pace Of Our Troop Reduction Will Be Determined By Conditions On The Ground.” Discussing the end of combat operations in Iraq on August 31, 2010… Joint Statement From Obama and Karzai: Security Transition Process Will Be “Conditions-Based.”… Obama: “We Will Execute This Transition Responsibly, Taking Into Account Conditions On The Ground.” From Obama’s speech announcing the deployment of additional troops to Afghanistan… Facts seem to be stubborn things for Republicans. It doesn’t matter how much of a hawk he is, it’s never going to satisfy the likes of Cheney because he’s got a D behind his name. It’s all about politics and power with these people. Transcript below the fold. WALLACE: The commander-in-chief, during a surprise trip to Afghanistan Friday, telling U.S. troops success is within reach. And we’re back now with the panel. So, Liz, there has been a lot of criticism from conservatives, I think it’s fair to say, over the last year that the president was not committed to victory in Afghanistan, that he talked in the speech a year ago when he announced the troop surge of 30,000 troops, in the next sentence he talked about starting to pull troops out in July, ’11. But when you take his comments during this trip, about we will never allow the Taliban to have a safe haven. When you see what he said at NATO, where he is now talking about being there for four more years before we turn things over, are you convinced this president, at least now, is all in, in Afghanistan? CHENEY: I think he is clearly moving in the right direction. And I think that we ought to praise him for going to visit the troops. Every time a commander-in-chief does that, I think it’s an important thing for him to do and important for him to send the message of support back here. I was very pleased to see this 2014 date out there now, as opposed to just the 2011 date. You know, what I’d like to see, because I do believe that setting the 2011 deadline did cause significant damage to the effort in terms of convincing people that we’re committed to be there to win, I’d like to see the president repudiate it. I’d like to see him say, just let’s be clear, we are going to make our decisions based on conditions on the ground, not based on days we set back here in Washington. And that is important not just for what is happening in Afghanistan, it’s important for the Pakistanis to hear that as well so that they understand it is not in their interest at all to help to support, provide safe havens to the extent that the Taliban has safe havens in Pakistan. That message is a critically important one, and I’d like to see the president stay conditions-based, and not just deadlines set. WALLACE: So, it has to be a full-fledged — WILLIAMS: Boy, I tell you, moving — you’re pleased that he is moving in the right direction. It seems to me he has done everything you could have asked in terms of the Bush-Cheney agenda for Afghanistan. And so I’m surprised that you can’t even just — this wonderful Sunday morning, Liz — say go, President Obama, you’ve done a wonderful job. And I know — CHENEY: I know you’d fall out of your chair if I said that.
Continue reading …Right wing declares war on the poor: Kate O’Beirne calls parents of school lunch recipients child abusers
December 6, 2010 No Comment
Click here to view this media [h/t Heather ] I’m speechless. This little rant by Kate O’Beirne at a Republican strategy session is so evil, so incredibly cold-hearted, and so predictably right-wing that it makes me want to shove a big bowl of cereal and a big banana right down her chicken-hearted little gullet. Ebenezer Scrooge would be proud of his progeny. O’BEIRNE: And then the title of our gathering is so crucial; “Less of Washington and More of Ourselves”. The federal school lunch program and now breakfast program and I guess in Washington DC, dinner program are pretty close to being sacred cows… broad bipartisan support. And if we’re going to ask more of ourselves, my question is what poor excuse for a parent can’t rustle up a bowl of cereal and a banana? I just don’t get why millions of school children qualify for school breakfasts unless we have a major wide spread problem with child neglect. You know, I mean if that’s how many parents are incapable of pulling together a bowl of cereal and a banana, then we have problems that are way bigger than… that problem can’t be solved with a school breakfast, because we have parents who are just criminally… ah… criminally negligent with respect to raising children. And yet, that’s the kind of program that has huge bipartisan support with very little thought about why we’re now feeding children. Talk about a fundamental parental responsibility. In what sense can we begin asking the “more of ourselves” piece to go with this less government? Obviously she never met Jaelithe , who relied on the school lunch program to survive because her mother was young, single and poor, struggling to raise her daughter and get an education to better herself. Are these the words of an abused child, or just one raised in a world where the only outstretched hand was the government’s? Exactly what part of Jaelithe’s mother’s “self” should have given more? But going hungry — that is a different story. That’s waking up in the morning hungry. Feeling, throughout the day, hungry. Lying in bed not able to sleep just yet because you are hungry. Dreaming about feeling hungry. And there is not any trip to the taco place down the street and not a trip to McDonald’s instead and not a trip to the farmer’s market or the grocery store, either, because there is no money for those things. There is not even the option of a trip to the backyard for some homegrown tomatoes or cucumbers or strawberries because there is no yard when you live in a run-down apartment or a shelter or a car. There is only your hollow-eyed mother who is hungrier than you are dividing the last stale crackers to make them last. Assuming that you are lucky enough to have a mother. And crackers. This goes so far beyond the sacred right-wing cow of personal responsibility. It’s outright cruelty. These pigs are out there shouting to give zillionaires a fat year-end bonus and extend it for a couple of years while sticking it to poor people who rely on programs like the school lunch and breakfast program to survive. Lest you think this was just a slip of the tongue, here’s more of her teabagging nonsense: Click here to view this media Maybe she should shut up and listen to what’s going on around her for a change. If she did, she might not, miss the fact that food banks are struggling to meet demand as more and more families struggle to keep roofs over their heads, sacrificing other necessities like food and clothing. Since 2006, the need for some form of assistance has tripled . Tripled. Here’s an example of someone O’Beirne considers a child abuser : Elizabeth Brown looked tired. When her husband, “the main money-maker” died three years ago, she was left with a 10- and a 5-year-old. She worked part time at Allegheny General Hospital in housekeeping with help from her family, “but they couldn’t help that much. They’re having hard times themselves.” She couldn’t afford child care on her earnings, so she left the job and is now, at 40, raising a 13-year old and 8-year old on food stamps worth $550 a month. There’s a profile of a child abuser for Ms. O’Beirne. Only in her little imaginary world. That’s the only place that everyone has enough to eat and to feed their children. Anyone who doesn’t must be a child abuser, because they should be able to slap together a banana and cereal in the morning. If they had cereal. Or a banana. Or the money to buy cereal and a banana. This is the world of the heartless and the selfish, the teabagger. They trot through life making pronouncements on others with mighty conviction without ever having walked in the shoes of the poor and likely profiting from the sacrifices yanked from the vanishing ranks of the middle class. There is no humanity, no compassion, no understanding. Just a pair of bootstraps to beat up anyone less fortunate. After watching this I’m feeling the need to make a donation to a nearby food bank to offset this woman’s evil. Here’s a tool to find one near you , should you feel the same way. If anyone knows where Robin Hood is hiding, perhaps they could direct him to Kate O’Beirne’s house as a first stop?
Continue reading …Sane People: Of Course Gay People Can Serve In The Military, They Do Everywhere Else. Crazy Wingers: But We’re Special!
December 6, 2010 No Comment
Click here to view this media (h/t Heather at VideoCafe ) You could read this , which makes it sound like there was an actual rational discussion on This Week about repealing DADT (and there was , sort of — but only with some of the participants), or you can take my word for it that the the two far-right nutjobs who came on to plead that allowing people to be openly gay in the military would undermine the nation’s mission (I guess because they’d all be off organizing drag parties or Gay Bingo Nite) are just plain barking insane, and swimming upstream against reality. But the entire argument against repealing DADT was distilled in one statement by director of National Security and Joint Warfare at the Marine Corps War College Tammy Schultz and reinforced by R. Clarke Cooper, an Iraq War Vet and member of the Log Cabin Republicans, who are spearheading the campaign for repeal: SCHULTZ: Nothing will be good enough for the opponents who do not want to repeal “don’t ask/don’t tell.” It’s not about the evidence; it’s about the ideology. They’re saying, oh, you can’t compare the U.S. military to other militaries. We’re bigger, we’re in war, et cetera, et cetera. But then they simultaneously want to say we have the most professional forces in the world, which we do. And that’s true of almost all of conservative obstructionism. Nothing is good enough to knock them out of their world view: no facts, no studies, no other opinions. And no matter what you say, they’ll constantly stay with their unsubstantiated talking points. But at least Christiane Amanpour challenged them. A little.
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Click here to view this media The founder of the whistleblower website responsible for releasing thousands of secret documents should be treated as an enemy of the US, according to a former Republican Speaker of the House. Newt Gingrich became the latest conservative Sunday to suggest that WikiLeak’s Julian Assange deserves to be hunted and executed Sunday by calling him an “enemy combatant.” “I approach this very seriously,” Gingrich told Fox News’ Chris Wallace. “Information warfare is warfare. Julian Assange is engaged in warfare.” “Information terrorism, which leads to people getting killed is terrorism. And Julian Assange is engaged in terrorism,” he continued. “He should be treated as an enemy combatant and WikiLeaks should be closed down permanently and decisively,” Gingrich said. The former House Speaker added that the Obama administration deserved much of the blame for the leaked documents. “This is a system so stupid that it ought to be a scandal of the first order,” he said. “This administration is so shallow and so amateurish about national security that it is painful and dangerous.” Gingrich, who is now a paid pundit at Fox News, is just the latest conservative to call for violence in response to the WikiLeaks releasing 250,000 secret US diplomatic cables. Townhall’s John Hawkins wrote a column last week entitled “5 Reasons The CIA Should Have Already Killed Julian Assange.” Fox News contributor Sarah Palin took to her Facebook page to suggest that Assange deserved the same treatment as terrorists and insurgents. “Why was he not pursued with the same urgency we pursue al Qaeda and Taliban leaders?” she asked. Sen. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell told NBC’s David Gregory Sunday that Assange is a terrorist. “I think the man is a high tech terrorist…he’s done enormous damage to our country and to our relationships with our allies around the world, and he should be prosecuted,” McConnell said . Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee was caught on video at a book signing at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum in Simi Valley, Calif. saying that the person that leaked the documents to WikiLeaks should be executed. “Whoever in our government leaked that information is guilty of treason,” Huckabee said. “I think anything less than execution is too kind a penalty.” Palin, Huckabee and Gingrich are all paid Fox News contributors who are thought to be contenders for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination. Gingrich indicated Sunday that he was likely to make a presidential bid. “We’re much more inclined to run than not run,” he said.
Continue reading …Diplomats Pimping Planes: Dirty little Wikileaks secrets of the Bush Administration
December 5, 2010 No CommentThere have been disturbing but not earth-shattering disclosures in the Wikileaks documents, but one the press hasn’t talked about much is the way the Bush administration turned our Foreign Service into salesmen for Lockheed Martin. A series of cables flew back and forth between Oslo and Washington in the autumn of 2008. The first one rather urgently called for “high-level advocacy” NOW. The GON decision making process on the purchase of new fighter aircraft has entered a critical phase. Public opinion has swung away from the F-35 due to negative coverage, and private contacts warn that the GON may decide to purchase the Saab Gripen or leave the decision to a future government. High-level Washington advocacy on this issue is needed to help reverse this trend. Norway’s decision on this purchase will either end or sustain one of the strongest pillars of our bilateral relationship and could impact subsequent Danish and Dutch decisions on the F-35 , affecting NATO joint operational capacity and the vulnerability of the Northern Flank. Septel requests Deputy SecDef direct engagement, possibly with a visit to Oslo. I may be a bit ignorant of such things, but the idea that all countries must use the same airplane strikes me as a bit disingenuous. However, those high-level officials did come to the rescue, and behold, Norway agreed to buy the F-35, which overjoyed all parties involved . On November 20, PM Stoltenberg and Defense Minister Strom-Erichsen announced that the GON recommends the purchase of the F-35 to replace Norway’s aging F-16 fleet. The timing of the announcement was a surprise, coming earlier than expected, as was the exceptionally strong endorsement of the F-35 by the GON panel. A concerted effort by Lockheed Martin, Embassy Oslo, EUCOM, and the Departments of State and Defense played a key role in this decision. Who knew high level diplomacy included pimping Lockheed Martin’s jets? The post-mortem written after the deal was inked reads like a Republican PR map: –Get the whole country team involved. The active involvement of the Ambassador and DCM, ODC, DAO, Pol/Econ, FCS, and Public Affairs offices ensured that the fighter plane decision was an Embassy priority. This was necessary to convince Lockheed Martin and Washington officials that it was important to devote time and resources on Norway,s decision. — Working with Lockheed Martin to determine which aspects of the purchase to highlight. In Norway the capabilities of the JSF vs. the Gripen were the strongest suit, and Embassy and Lockheed Martin efforts focused on discussions of why the JSF,s capabilities were the best match for Norway,s needs, especially in the High North. This focus played to the JSF,s strengths and eventually proved to be the decisive factor, despite perceived weaknesses in other areas such as the industrial package. — Jointly develop a press strategy with Lockheed Martin and collectively determine the role the Embassy will play in this strategy. — Use the Ambassador to give numerous on-the-record interviews but also to have off-the-record in-depth discussions with editorial boards on the purchase. — Be constantly available to the media to discuss the technical merits of the aircraft, and be assertive in refuting disinformation. In Norway, there were many self-proclaimed experts talking about the F-35 and making wildly inaccurate statements on everything from its lack of ability to its exorbitant price. It was important to counter these assertions and our ODC chief gave more than 20 separate interviews. It’s interesting to me that I haven’t seen anything this blatant or similar in cables written under the Obama administration. Surely it couldn’t be that the Bush administration was using our Foreign Service personnel to benefit American industry like that? Surely not.
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