Scandalous

Health Insurance Is A Protection Racket

Posted by on August 1, 2008 at 9:24 am. 8 Comments :

Blue CrossEarlier this week I had a minor medical emergency. It was nothing life threatening, but it was not insignificant. The resultant encounter with the healthcare insurance system was nothing short of insanity. Had this been a more serious malady someone might have died, and no doubt some have.

When I determined that I needed to make an emergency appointment with a medical provider, I called my insurance company, Blue Cross, and asked if I could see a doctor who was not my assigned provider, but who was more convenient at the moment. After some discussion, that merely demonstrated how difficult it is to get them to understand simple requests, I was told that because this was an emergency, it would be OK. Thus began my ordeal.

When I arrived at the doctor’s office, they told me that they had spoken with Blue Cross and were told that I would not be covered for services there and that I needed to call the insurer. When I finally reached them they advised me that there was no record of my being told that I could visit this provider and that, in any case, if I was told that that it was wrong. This led to a series of arguments that included several telephone agents and supervisors. On several occasions they put me on hold for twenty minutes or more. After more than two hours they indicated that they would not make an exception and that I must see my assigned provider who was thirty minutes away on the other side of town. Bear in mind that I am still waiting to receive care for an emergency.

So I return to my car (that has been ticketed because it was over the two hour limit) and make a call to my assigned provider. I get a recorded message that says that the phone number I dialed is not in service. I double checked it three times. Same recording.

So I call back Blue Cross and explain that I can’t reach my assigned provider to make an appointment and ask again if I can receive treatment at the office I was already sitting in. The answer is still no, even though they confirmed that the provider was not reachable. This leads to another round of arguments and escalations to supervisors.

This is the insane part. As a self-employed artist, I’m paying my own healthcare premiums. But apparently I’m paying for something that they have no obligation to provide. They insist that I have to see a provider that seems not to exist. And they won’t let me change to provider that does exist and is ready to treat me. What the hell am I paying for? They are telling me that the only provider I can see is one that can’t be reached. At one point they suggested that I should drive across town to ascertain whether or not the provider’s office is there. I’m waiting for emergency care and they want me to be their field investigator.

I continue trying to persuade them that they have to let me see somebody. What would stop them from assigning all of their customers to phantom providers and never have to pay a cent in coverage? This time, while speaking to a manager, my cell phone battery dies. It has been four hours since I first started talking to them about getting a little emergency care. When I find another phone to use, I speak with a manager who says he will see if he can switch me to a new assigned provider (DUH!) and call me back. Half an hour later, the doctor’s office I have been sitting in for four hours receives a call telling them that they can treat me and that it will be covered.

As I noted above, my problem was not life threatening. But there are surely others who go through bureaucratic torture like this who have much more on the line. These sort of situations should never occur, but with the current healthcare system in this country they are inevitable. Health insurance is a legalized protection racket that requires that you pay them to keep from being financially ruined. But like all criminals, they cannot be depended on to keep their word or comply with their contractual obligations. Why should they? They are the sole arbiters of the agreement. Blue Cross, in particular, has had other well-publicized events where they unlawfully dropped coverage for patients who had the audacity to get sick and file a claim.

I have always advocated universal health care. Fortunately for me, it has always been from a position wherein I was not in need of much of it myself. This experience is a vivid affirmation of my commitment to a more humane system of care that puts the patient before profits.

But my ordeal is not really over. The coverage that I was eventually granted is still woefully under funded. My portion of the cost will still be be several thousand dollars that I don’t have. For the first time in my life I am now indebted to my credit card, the only means I had of paying. So this is still going to haunt me for some time to come. If anyone reading this is of a mind to help, there is a virtually painless way to do so. I will not ask for charity or donations. But I will remind you that you can purchase products from Crass Commerce, my business site. So while helping me to recover from a medically driven indebtedness, you can enjoy, for example, your very own John McCain NOPE stickers or t-shirts.

Thanks to all those who are able to help. And thanks even more to all those who keep up the fight for universal healthcare so that no one should have to go through this sort of nightmare.

CNN Journalist Added To Terrorist Watch List After Report

Posted by on July 18, 2008 at 1:12 am. 2 Comments :

The Terrorist Watch List maintained by the Transportation Security Administration has become a bloated and useless compendium of waste. The ACLU recently reported that the list contains a million names. The TSA disputes this saying that, due to duplicates and aliases, the number is actually closer to 400,000. Well, that’s comforting, but it doesn’t change the fact that…

“Members of Congress, nuns, war heroes and other ‘suspicious characters,’ with names like Robert Johnson and Gary Smith, have become trapped in the Kafkaesque clutches of this list, with little hope of escape.”

New amongst the listees is CNN reporter Drew Griffin. Last March Griffin broadcast a story on the TSA that exposed some of its weaknesses. Within two months he found that he was unable to travel without significant inconvenience and later learned of his inclusion in the database intended to identify dangerous individuals suspected of having ties to terrorism.

In questioning before Congress, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff gave the wholly incredulous explanation that Griffin may be a victim of a name “mismatch.” As if there is another Drew Griffin that is the real terrorist. And it is apparently nothing more than a coincidence that Griffin’s placement on the list shortly followed the broadcast of his critical investigation.

The obvious exploitation of these government resources to punish unfriendly journalists is hardly out of character for the Bush regime. It is another illustration of their incompetence, waste, and abuse of power. And in this case they are contributing to making the country less safe by diluting the effectiveness of security operations. While it is repugnant that any government agency would employ these chilling schemes, it is particularly disturbing that they would target the press. The only purpose for doing so would be to frighten other conscientious journalists into silence.

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) is requesting an investigation. But if the past is any indication, the administration will stonewall, lie, and otherwise seek to obstruct the lawful implementation of oversight. The only hope for an open and honest examination of this is if it is conducted by a new administration. Hopefully that isn’t too far off.

McCain Lies To Fox News About Town Hall Audience

Posted by on June 12, 2008 at 10:35 pm. 9 Comments :

John McCain held a town hall meeting in New York City this evening. It was part of a series of gatherings he has proposed for himself and Barack Obama.

This program, which Obama did not attend, was to be broadcast on Fox News under an unusual agreement that would have Fox provide the cameras, while the McCain campaign would produce the event. On the surface that is a peculiar arrangement because it puts Fox in the position of airing a candidate production. But beneath the surface it got even more peculiar.

At the outset it was announced that the audience would be a politically diverse group that McCain sought to portray as ordinary, undecided voters. But at the conclusion, Fox anchor, Shepard Smith, went on air to reveal that McCain had mislead the network in a rather significant way.

Smith: “I reported at the top of this hour that the campaign had told us at Fox News that the audience would be made up of Republicans, Democrats, and independents. We have now received a clarification from the campaign and I feel I should pass it along to you. The McCain campaign distributed tickets to supporters, Mayor Bloomberg, who of course is a registered Republican, and other independent groups.”

Stop for a moment and take in the magnitude of this deception. John McCain felt it was necessary to lie to Fox News, the propaganda arm of the Republican Party, in order to pull off this charade. Imagine the lengths to which he would go to deceive a network that he did not regard as friendly.

The dishonesty of McCain’s actions put Fox News in the awkward position of having misinformed their audience, something they do with relative frequency anyway, so maybe that’s not too big a deal. Then they had to swallow hard and set the record straight by disclosing the McCain deceit. But by this time considerable damage had been done to McCain’s credibility. He is still trying to persuade Obama to join these forums. Early on in the meeting, McCain made another plea for just that:

“I think this town hall meeting tonight would have been a little bit more interesting tonight if Senator Obama had accepted my request,”

Indeed it would have been more interesting, and not just because McCain by himself is a total snooze-fest. It would have been an ambush where Obama would have encountered an audience that was secretly stacked against him. Certainly Obama would have been able to hold his own in a room full of McCainiacs. But after an evening of questioners who were snuggling up to McCain while putting Obama on the defensive, it could have left the impression that this assembly of supposedly neutral citizens found Obama unappealing.

This revelation of McCain’s brazen untrustworthiness should be weighed by the Obama camp in any consideration of future candidate encounters. Under no circumstances should the McCain crowd be permitted to manage, unsupervised, any portion of the event. And the media should also apply a stricter level of scrutiny when negotiating press availabilities with McCain and his Double Talk Express.

John McCain’s Bottomless Pit Of Lobbyists

Posted by on May 31, 2008 at 4:59 am. NO Comments :

Maverick McCainIt hardly seems that a day goes by without a new revelation of lobbyists in John McCain’s campaign. Last week I reported that, so far this year, five tainted staffers have had to resign. Still on the McCain wagon are uber-lobbyists Charlie Black and campaign manager Rick Davis. Media Matters has compiled a superb list of even more tainted McCain staffers

Now the Washington Post is reporting another unethical, and perhaps illegal, McCain relationship with a political benefactor. Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) has a long history with McCain. They have endorsed his candidacy for president, heralded him as a “Taxpayer Hero” and contributed $11,000 to his campaign. The Post article describes an even deeper partnership that potentially violates election law prohibiting coordination between campaigns and independent advocacy groups:

“For weeks, Republican presidential candidate John McCain had been hammered for supporting the Air Force’s February decision to award a $40 billion contract for refueling tankers to Northrop Grumman and its European partner. Democrats, labor unions and others blamed the senator for a deal they say could move tens of thousands of jobs abroad.

McCain’s advisers wanted to strike back against key Democratic critics. But they did not mount an expensive advertising campaign to defend the candidate’s position. They called a tax-exempt nonprofit closely aligned with the senator from Arizona, seeking information and help.

Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) partnered with Northrop and one of its consultants to produce a vitriolic advertising campaign defending the tanker deal.”

In addition to the rash of lobbyists fleeing McCain’s campaign, two of his closest allies, Sens. Joe Lieberman and Lindsey Graham, were forced to resign their board posts at Vets for Freedom, a 527 political organization. The resignations accompanied McCain’s announcement of his campaign’s policy toward such groups:

“No person with a McCain campaign title or position may participate in a 527 or other independent entity that makes public communications that support or oppose any presidential candidate.”

On the board of CAGW, which has endorsed McCain, is his campaign’s Veterans Liaison, Orson Swindle. Swindle is a long-time friend and associate of McCain. They met as cell mates in a North Vietnamese prisoner of war camp where Swindle says that he and McCain “slept side-by-side for almost two years.” Politicians in bed with lobbyists? That’s nothing new. In fact CAGW has had problems of it’s own with one of lobbydom’s premier figures:

“CAGW has been criticized for accepting donations from organizations that benefit from its advocacy. Two years ago, investigators probing the activities of convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff for the Senate Finance Committee examined whether CAGW advocated on behalf of Abramoff clients, including the Magazine Publishers of America, in exchange for donations. The committee concluded: ‘The e-mails show a pattern of CAGW producing public relations materials favorable to Mr. Abramoff’s clients.'”

But as far as compromised associates go, Swindle is a two-fer. In addition to being a 527 operative he is also a Senior Policy Advisor at the lobbying firm of Hunton & Williams. His specific charge is within the firm’s Center for Information Policy Leadership, which was founded to “develop innovative, pragmatic approaches to privacy and information security issues from a business-process perspective while respecting the privacy interests of individuals.” Their clients include dedicated privacy rights activists like American Express, Eli Lilly, GE, Microsoft, and Wal-Mart.

If nothing else, this election season is shaping up to be a masters course in media priorities. After weeks of perpetually looping video of Barack Obama’s former pastor, Jeremiah Wright, the hysteria appeared to be on the wane. Now, as if on cue, another minister has been catapulted to stardom by news broadcasters across the land. The only talent requisite for such fame is the ability to embarrass Sen. Obama, regardless of how tenuous your connection to him.

Hiding in the wings is Sen. McCain who has had his own problems with God’s messengers. He recently had to reject the support of bigoted Revs. Hagee and Parsley, whose endorsements he had actively pursued.

The media obsession with religion is characteristically shallow. It demonstrates a tendency to cling to tabloid sensationalism rather than to provide information about matters relevant to public service. With that principle in mind, broadcasters can relentlessly hype Obama’s crazy preachers while virtually ignoring McCain’s dubious connections to the real political power players that have infested his campaign. The difference between the two is that McCain’s associates would be very likely to have real influence over policy in his administration. They would end up in cabinet positions and other appointed regulatory offices. And, of course, they would still have their lobbying portfolio which would extend all the way up to the White House.

But expect the media to continue to put the spotlight on the sideshow because, let’s face it, we’ll never have video of corrupt lobbyists prancing and wailing the way crazy preachers do.

The Scott McClellan Confessional

Posted by on May 28, 2008 at 12:28 pm. 6 Comments :

Former White House press secretary, Scott McClellan, has joined the ranks of Bush administration castoffs to write a tell-all book illuminating their role in degrading our Democracy. While this book is a particularly damning reminiscence, it is also a stab at absolution. Here a few of the atrocities that McClellan is revealing while asserting he had little to do with them:

  • McClellan charges that Bush relied on “propaganda” to sell the war.
  • He says the White House press corps was too easy on the administration during the run-up to the war.
  • He admits that some of his own assertions from the briefing room podium turned out to be “badly misguided.”
  • He asserts Karl Rove, the president’s senior adviser, and I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, the vice president’s chief of staff “had at best misled” him about their role in the disclosure of former CIA operative Valerie Plame’s identity.
  • He opines that “the decision to invade Iraq was a serious strategic blunder […] war should only be waged when necessary, and the Iraq war was not necessary.”
  • He admits that “the ‘liberal media’ didn’t live up to its reputation. If it had, the country would have been better served.”

Much of McClellan’s revelations are couched in his insistence that he was as much a victim as the nation. He asserts that Rove, Cheney, and Libby, were allowing him to go before the press corps and dispense information that they knew was false. In the big picture it doesn’t matter all that much if he is telling the truth now. His complicity is irrevocable whether it was due to intention or stupidity. And his superiors in the White House are still just as guilty.

The response from the White House is the predictable refrain that McClellan is:

  • untrustworthy and disloyal.
  • just trying to sell a book.
  • ignorant and out of the loop.
  • a liar.
  • to blame for not having spoken up sooner.

But the response from the media is somewhat more nuanced. Considering that it was the media that dropped the ball and allowed BushCo to peddle lies, you would think that they might be more repentant. But only Katie Couric, amongst the network anchors, seems to acknowledge any responsibility. Couric called it “one of the most embarrassing chapters in American journalism. Our responsibility is sometimes to go against the mood of the country and ask hard questions.” By contrast, Charlie Gibson said he thinks “the media did a pretty good job.” and that “it’s convenient now to blame the media.” Brian Williams said that you have to take into account the “post-9/11” mindset. No, Brian … You don’t! You only have to do your job responsibly and ethically. Anything less is (and was) a disservice to your viewers, the nation, and the world.

Another member of the media, as of this year, Karl Rove had his say about McClellan as well:

“This doesn’t sound like Scott. It really doesn’t — not the Scott McClellan I’ve known for a long time. … It sounds like a left-wing blogger. …If he had these moral qualms, he should have spoken up about them. And frankly, I don’t remember him speaking up about these. I don’t remember a single word.”

I think we can expect Rove’s memory to be equally faulty in the months to come as he battles congressional subpoenas and the other legal hazards hovering around him. And if there is something we can be assured that Rove would forget, it is anything having to do with “moral qualms.” However, it was thoughtful of Rove to praise McClellan’s writing as sounding like “a left-wing blogger.”

The book will be released next week, and there is likely to be a lot more discussion in the days to come. It must be considered a net positive that an insider like McClellan is blowing the whistle on the criminals in the White House. But it would be going to far to buy into his claims of victimhood. I would support a grant of immunity if he spilled all he knows before a grand jury, but short of that, he is just another member of the gang.

Spin-Com: Obama And Clinton Step Up – Media Cowers

Posted by on April 29, 2008 at 12:32 am. NO Comments :

SpinComThe propaganda scandal uncovered last week by the New York Times has been virtually blacked-out by the rest of the media – particularly television. Even though this may be the most brazen act of disinformation ever perpetrated against American citizens. Why would the press seemingly act in concert to bury this story?

It really doesn’t take much imagination to understand the panic these media outlets must be experiencing. The Pentagon-driven program of dispatching retired generals to serve as TV pundits with the intention of painting an artificially rosy picture of the war in Iraq poses a slippery dilemma. These TV networks were either pawns, dupes, or accomplices, in a scheme to mislead the country and enrich the players. Therefore, it is not surprising that the media has acted to sweep it all under the rug. To report on it would be to indict themselves.

Well, at least some of the candidates for president have finally weighed in:

Senator Clinton is very concerned by a recent press report that the Department of Defense (DOD) hid behind “an appearance of objectivity” in a concerted media “campaign to generate favorable news coverage of the administration’s wartime performance.” The report raises issues of credibility and trust at the Pentagon.

~~~

Senator Obama is deeply disturbed by this latest evidence that the Bush Administration has sought to manipulate the public’s trust. From its misleading case to go to war with a country that had nothing to do with 9/11, to its argument for keeping our troops in Iraq indefinitely, the Administration has depended on spin because its assertions have not been supported by facts.

Both Democrats are calling for various levels of investigation. So is the Pentagon, whose spokesman has announced that they are temporarily suspending the program “pending further review.” The only candidate to fail to take a position is that straight-talking maverick, John McCain. Of course he may be the only public official who has been even more unquestioningly upbeat than the bought and paid for war spinners.

This isn’t over. It is still possible to get the press to be responsible and to perform their duty to inform the public. Write letters and emails to any national and/or local media outlet you patronize. And be sure to visit FreePress where they are collecting signatures to urge Congress to further investigate this breach of the public trust.

Mind War – The Pentagon’s Propaganda Assault On America

Posted by on April 21, 2008 at 4:20 pm. 1 Comments :

“World War Three will be a guerrilla information war with no division between military and civilian participation.” ~ Marshall McLuhan, 1968

SpinComThe New York Times has now documented the sad prescience of McCluhan. In an in-depth examination of supposedly independent, retired military analysts, the Times’ David Barstow has uncovered what may be the most brazen attempt at propaganda ever initiated.

“To the public, these men are members of a familiar fraternity, presented tens of thousands of times on television and radio as “military analysts” whose long service has equipped them to give authoritative and unfettered judgments about the most pressing issues of the post-Sept. 11 world.”

“Hidden behind that appearance of objectivity, though, is a Pentagon information apparatus that has used those analysts in a campaign to generate favorable news coverage of the administration’s wartime performance.”

“The effort, which began with the buildup to the Iraq war and continues to this day, has sought to exploit ideological and military allegiances, and also a powerful financial dynamic: Most of the analysts have ties to military contractors vested in the very war policies they are asked to assess on air.”

It should come as no surprise that the Bush administration would manipulate the press to shape public opinion. The press, of course, are their willing accomplices. Rupert Murdoch of Fox News even admitted it publicly. And the Pentagon has been caught doing the same in Iraq. The Associated Press reported that the U.S. military secretly paid Iraqi newspapers to publish stories intended to portray operations there in a positive light.

But the scale of this program, the fact that it was directed at Americans, and the added wrinkle of financial corruption and greed at the expense of thousands of lives, is thoroughly without precedent. The article reveals that there was deliberate intent on the part of the government to define what constituted news and to replace the analysis of independent journalists with that of hand-picked and conflict-laden Pentagon mouthpieces. It was further disclosed that many of these spokespersons provided commentary they knew was false in order to protect either their access to the media or their profits. These former military officers clearly were not protecting their troops.

“It was them saying, ‘We need to stick our hands up your back and move your mouth for you,’ ” Robert S. Bevelacqua, a retired Green Beret and former Fox News analyst, said.

That’s just one of the more than 150 retired officers participating in this program, most of whom worked for – you guessed it – Fox News. One Fox News crony, Paul E. Vallely, called it a “MindWar” – using network TV and radio to “strengthen our national will to victory.” Another analyst, General Conway, confessed that “The strategic target remains our [the American] population.” He went on to callously trivialize the loss of U.S. troops as incidental to winning in the court of public opinion and, he might as well have added, in the marketplace of war profiteering.

The scope of deceit and greed that this program encompasses is mind boggling. Read the whole story at the New York Times. Then visit FreePress where they are collecting signatures to urge Congress to further investigate this breach of the public trust.

Passport-Gate: Secrets In The House Of Bush

Posted by on March 21, 2008 at 12:09 pm. NO Comments :

In less than 24 hours, a story that began with the disclosure that State Department employees were peeking into the passport records of Barack Obama, it has come to light that the snooping also extended to Hillary Clinton and John McCain. While there is still much that is unknown, these revelations are being treated by the victims as a serious breach of privacy and security.

The Bush administration has developed a reputation as the most secrecy obsessed administration in history. Over the past seven years they have:

  • sought to withhold public records like those of Dick Cheney’s meetings with lobbyists
  • reclassified thousands of documents that were previously available
  • banned photos of military caskets being returned from Iraq
  • thrown roadblocks in front of legislation to enhance the Freedom of Information Act
  • opposed investigations into Iraq, 9/11, Katrina, wiretapping, intelligence failures, U.S. attorney firings, etc.
  • instructed aides to defy Congressional subpoenas

In addition, Bush signed Executive Order 13233 which allows presidents, and former presidents, to restrict historians’ access to presidential records. And they have been pushing relentlessly for the right to access private records of American citizens without warrants.

Yet it is the Bush administration that has been leaking like a sieve when it comes to prejudicial (and often false) data about Iraq and terrorism. It is BushCo that outed Valerie Plame, a covert CIA operative. And now it is the Bush State Department that has opened confidential files of presidential candidates to unauthorized persons and, at this time, has no idea whether the stolen data has been disseminated to others. How can we possibly trust them with any personal data or permit them to bypass legal requirements for access to it?

These are the actions of a corrupt enterprise that puts information for which there is a legitimate public interest behind lock and key, while surreptitiously publishing information for which it can realize a propaganda benefit. It is shameful behavior that must be investigated, punished, and prohibited in the future.

Tucker Carlson: The Biggest Loser

Posted by on March 3, 2008 at 3:06 am. 1 Comments :

Somebody tell me why Tucker Carlson still has a television show. Seriously! Is there anyone at MSNBC who reads News Corpse? I want an answer. I just can’t figure out what’s going through their heads.

Tucker has been the worst performing program on the MSNBC primetime lineup for as long as he’s been on. And he rarely notches anything above last place versus his competition. That record of defeat has predictably repeated itself for February 2008.

Tucker February 2008

What does it take to get canceled by this network. Does Tucker have to insult a women’s basketball team to get the ax? There are many examples of him insulting women, like when he said about Hillary Clinton that, “there’s just something about her that feels castrating, overbearing, and scary.” Then there is the time he said Obama “seems like kind of a wuss,” and “sounds like a pothead.” Now he has taken to inviting the most repugnant guests he can dig up. Last month he hosted Jonah “Liberal Fascism” Goldberg and Roger “C.U.N.T.” Stone.

But the network doesn’t need a scandal to ditch Tucker. They just need a desire to get better ratings and make more money. Isn’t that what they’re in business for? Tucker’s show is an expensive flop and it is bringing down the shows adjacent to it. As I’ve said on many previous occasions, there is simply no business case for keeping this show on the air. And yet it’s still there.

It’s not like MSNBC doesn’t have some recent experience with success on which to draw. Keith Olbermann’s Countdown continues to surge and is the fastest growing program on cable news. Last Thursday it even scored a #1 ranking, beating its nemesis, Bill O’Reilly. But even when it doesn’t come out on top, it’s a more valuable asset. O’Reilly’s audience is not particularly appealing to advertisers. Only 17% of its total viewers are in the coveted 25-54 demographic. Countdown’s audience in the demo is 40%.

So what’s wrong with MSNBC? Why don’t they want to emulate their successes and eject their failures? Since there are no arguments from a business perspective for keeping him, then what are their arguments? There is good cause to suspect that their motivations are not wholly reputable. Either someone is doing someone else a favor, or some political bias is being exerted, or Tucker has photographs of an executive in a compromising situation. It’s worth remembering also, that Tucker is the son of Richard Warner Carlson, a former U.S. ambassador, director of the U.S. Information Agency, and president of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. There is plenty of room for salacious speculation, but what there is little supply of is reason.

Any half-way sane television professional would have canceled this loser long ago. I think it’s time the viewers get involved and demand that MSNBC account for themselves. If, as I suspect, they are protecting Tucker due to some unsavory and secret compact, then they are violating a public trust and they need to come clean. Write to MSNBC and ask them to explain why Tucker is still on the air despite his dismal performance. Ask them why they are protecting a program that has never delivered for them. Feel free to cite the data in this article and ask for specific answers. In the pursuit of journalistic ethics and transparency, we have a right to know.

MSNBC Viewer Services

Fox News Contributor Karl Rove Becomes The Story

Posted by on February 22, 2008 at 1:07 am. NO Comments :

This coming Sunday 60 Minutes will broadcast a report on Alabama’s former governor Don Siegleman. Siegleman is presently serving a seven year jail term for a bribery conviction that is considered suspicious by Democrats and Republicans alike. Many believe that the case was politically engineered by some familiar names in the Dirty Tricks business:

“A Republican operative in Alabama says Karl Rove asked her to try to prove the state’s Democratic governor was unfaithful to his wife in an effort to thwart the highly successful politician’s re-election.”

While the ethical underhandedness of a manufactured prosecution that lands an innocent man in prison is disgusting on its own, there are other questions raised that will likely not be answered by this scandal’s principal player. Karl Rove, Fox News’ newest contributor, has refused requests by 60 Minutes to comment, but he will continue to appear as an election analyst on the Fox News Channel.

What I want to know is: How can this guy appear on Fox air, with reporters questioning him about the presidential campaign, without being made to answer questions about the political controversies swirling around his own life? How can Fox anchors sit next to him, pretending these issues don’t exist, and still be called journalists? Yeah, I know…no one calls them journalists now, but this would be like hiring O.J. Simpson as a crime reporter without ever mentioning Nicole and Ron.

I probably shouldn’t be giving Fox any ideas. After all…

Karl Rove & OJ Simpson…it was the Murdoch- owned ReganBooks that published Simpson’s “If I Did It” and tried to air a shlockumentary based on it on Fox, before they were shamed into ditching the program. Judith Regan was subsequently fired as a sacrifice to protect Murdoch and others who had greenlighted the projects.