When General David Petraeus appeared before Congress to give his long-awaited report on the state of the war in Iraq, Republicans found a subject that, in their minds, took precedence over the war itself. Rather than focus on the life and death struggles in the Middle East, Republicans repeatedly assailed a newspaper ad by MoveOn.org that asked some provocative questions.

The headline on the ad asked, “General Petraeus or General Betray Us?” Republicans immediately pounced on a shallow interpretation that MoveOn was calling Petraeus a traitor. A more profound analysis would show that they were merely warning readers that the General’s testimony might be more aligned with White House spin than with the facts on the ground saying:

“General Petraeus will not admit what everyone knows; Iraq is mired in an unwinnable religious civil war.”

That didn’t stop Senator John Cornyn from introducing legislation to censure MoveOn, an action that impinges on the rights enumerated in the First Amendment to the Constitution. Although, Cornyn’s statement on the ad twice references freedom of speech, in each instance he qualifies and constrains it:

“Every American, including a Washington special interest organization like MoveOn.org, has the right to voice their opinion on the Iraq war. But to suggest that the four-star General leading the fight against al-Qaeda in Iraq has ‘betrayed’ his country is abhorrent.”

“There should be a full and honest debate on the war on terror […] But hateful, personal attacks that call our military leaders traitors should be condemned.”

These attacks on MoveOn are nothing but a desperate attempt to shift the public’s attention from an unpopular war to a false and irrelevant controversy that has been manufactured for media consumption. Cornyn, and the rest of the Republican cabal, should cease their efforts to stifle free speech. Likewise, they should consider placing greater emphasis on the core issues that impact our military and our nation than they do on advertisements that express the views of millions of Americans.

Perhaps this is a Fox News pilot for a program to follow Hannity and Not Hannity: Petreaus And Crocker. Today, following their testimony on Capital Hill, the general and the ambassador will appear exclusively on Fox News in a move that affirms the starkly partisan intentions of both the guests and the the network. Sometimes they make this just to easy.

The latest video episode of Osama bin Laden’s terror series (transcript) has stirred up the rightist media mouthpieces like little that has come before it. There is a uniform glee amongst them that savors the return of OBL much the same as Harry Potter fans relish each new edition of the young wizard’s tales. Were it opening at the Cineplex, I expect that lines of Crusaders dressed up as Rummy and Saddam would be forming around the block. Their delight stems from their confidence that every Osama sighting scores points for the Republican Doctrine of freedom by agression.

Their leader, Mr. Bush, kicked things off with his own critique of Osama’s new production:

“I found it interesting that on the tape Iraq was mentioned, which is a reminder that Iraq is a part of this war against extremists.”

It’s also a reminder that bin Laden is still free to make videos that bring such joy to the hearts of America’s conservative warmongers. The eminence grise of this gang, Rush Limbaugh declared, less than a year ago, that he would no longer carry water for the GOP losers of last November’s election. But today he still wears his yoke with giddy elation:

“It is a liberal rant. It’s everything you would hear out of San Francisco. It’s what you would hear from a major college campus, take your pick of a professor. It’s on the Senate floor. It’s anything you would hear out of the mouth of an average elected Democrat. It’s stunning. I can’t wait to get a hold of the actual transcript of this thing…”

Rush might have a point if you believe that liberal rants propose state-sponsored religions that take precedence over Constitutional law as bin Laden does in this video; or if you believe that it was liberals and not the Reagan administration that supported bin Laden’s Mujahideen in Afghanistan who are also praised in this video. This is the kind of misrepresentation for which the right is famous. Sean Hannity provides another example:

“(Bin Laden) seemed to adopt the very same language that is being used by the hard left in this country as he describes what’s going on in Iraq as a civil war, he actually used the term ‘neocons’ …”

Indeed, bin Laden referred to neocons Richard Perle, the disgraced Pentagon advisor who was forced to resign from the Defense Policy Board for conflict of interest; Donald Rumsfeld, the disgraced Secretary of Defense who was forced to resign for incompetence; and Dick Cheney, who, while still in office, has the distinction of being the least popular vice-president ever. If Hannity wants to associate bin Laden’s comments critical of these neocons with Democrats for the purpose of tarnishing them, he should be aware that he is also disparaging the vast majority of Americans who oppose these crooks and made their views known long ago.

And Wizbang chimes in: “The new OBL tape is out… He’s feeling kinda down spending all his time in a cave talking to himself so he decided to use his tape to audition for Daily Kos…”

And Protein Wisdom: “To borrow from Voltaire, if Osama bin Laden didn’t exist, Republicans would have to invent him. At the very least, they might want to send him a fruit basket.”

And Ace of Spades: “Watch him criticize Democrats, Kos-like, for not being forceful enough in trying to end the War in Iraq, and even praise Noam Chomsky and the Kyoto Accord. I’ll give him this: he knows his target audience.”

And Wake Up America: “WOW, after reading the transcript, bin Laden is getting ALL his talking points from the Democrats in our own country. How many times have we said ‘they are listening to us’, they are ’emboldened by our Democratic politicians?'”

And Little Green Footballs: “The new Osama video is all over the news; in it, he advocates reading Noam Chomsky. It’s another pretty direct appeal to the Western left.”

And Atlas Shrugs: “The Bin Laden sounds like a candidate for the Democrat presidential ticket.”

The celebration greeting bin Laden must be gratifying coming from the group that has provided him with the most effective recruiting campaign he could have ever imagined. This video seems like little more than a holiday bonus for his most loyal fans. Do conservatives think for a minute that bin Laden doesn’t know the effect of the words he has chosen? To whom do they think he is playing?

If I had to pick out a single piece of this production number that succeeded in delivering a message that deserves our attention, it would be this:

“…despite America being the greatest economic power and possessing the most powerful and up-to-date military arsenal as well…19 young men were able to change the direction of its compass.”

The message delivered here is not the one that bin Laden thinks it is. The sad point that this quote conveys is that America, under the guidance of the Bush Administration, has radically shifted course. We have adopted new laws that chafe against our Constitution. We have, for the first time, engaged in a war of aggression. We have abandoned long-held values of justice and humanitarianism. We have become divided as never before. And our faith in institutions like elections and the media and the church are strained and tainted. And all of these changes in the direction of our compass are indeed due to the reactions of frightened politicians who infect their constituents with their fear. They believe that the answer to terrorism is to be afraid; to lock yourself up in a prison so that the evildoers cannot harm you; to surrender your liberties in pursuit of a false security. Never mind Franklin D. Roosevelt, who’s famous quote went further than most people recite:

“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself. Nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror, which paralyzes needed effort to convert retreat into advance.”

This is the victory of modern terrorism. It’s the sense of gratification we feel believing, in our bunkers, that the terrorists have not won and that we are still a proud and free people. Our enemies will never see us cower. Sure, they’ve seen the passage of the Patriot Act that limits long-held freedoms. They’ve seen our government listening in on our phone calls and monitoring our financial transactions. They see us lining up at airport terminals shoeless and forced to surrender our shampoo and Evian water. They see us resort to preemptive war and torture and submission to imperial, undemocratic leaders. They see us mourning the loss of our sons and daughters who are not even engaged in battle with the 9/11 perpetrators.

And now they see us anxiously hanging on every word uttered by the madman they revere. But if there is one thing that offers even a small measure of relief, it is that they will never have the satisfaction of seeing us recoil from militarism or the comforting imposition of martial law.

The folks at NewsBusters are lamenting the lack of a right-wing version of DailyKos. In a lengthy post on their web site, they seek to examine why the left has been so much more successful at motivating activists and advancing progressive issues.

“Whether or not one agrees with the political views of Markos Moulitsas, there’s no getting around the fact his website has become not just a powerful force in the blogosphere, but is also shaping the Democrat Party. This raises an important question: Why isn’t there a conservative website like Daily Kos?”

The NewsBusters column erupted from the musings of Dean Barnett at the Weekly Standard and David Weigel, associate editor of Reason. While their soul searching has produced some accurate descriptions of the differences between the right and the left online, their conclusions are devoid of insight or logic.

The contributions by Barnett and Weigel correctly observe, for instance, that conservative blogs are structured as top-down enterprises and they focus more on punditry than political practicalities. In other words, they’re more interested in disseminating coordinated messages than in precinct walking and campaign outreach.

But when NewsBusters ventures to explain the reasons for dKos’ success they completely misread the obvious. They surmise from Barnett’s comment that the progressive blogosphere is “passionate and in your face,” that lefties are defined only by what they oppose. Even if that were true, it certainly would not be a path to Internet stardom. It is left to Weigel to correct the NewsBusters by pointing out a more profound reason for dKos’ popularity…

“Moulitsas’ willingness to open up the blog and let the readers run it was crucial.”

It’s called democracy and it’s practiced by notorious liberals dating back to Thomas Jefferson, et al. NewsBusters, however, believes that the Conservosphere is disadvantaged because of a liberal media bias that forces them to fight on that front while the left considers the press their allies. Huh? They seriously assert that…

“Kos and his compatriots can rely on the media being friendly to candidates and positions they support.”

By this I assume they mean the way we can rely on the media to responsibly investigate the reasons for going to war. Or perhaps they are referring to the friendly way the press incessantly hounds Democratic candidates about their haircuts or where they attended school when they were six. They even quote Glenn Reynolds who says…

“People on the right think their political machine works, but that the media is out to get them […] People on the left, on the other hand, know the media is basically on their side, but feel that their political machine stinks.”

How then would they explain the innumerable references to media bias, incompetency, and slander that is a daily part of DailyKos (and News Corpse)? Anybody who is paying attention would be well aware of the dissatisfaction the left deservedly holds for the corporate-dominated media that routinely disparages progressives and their values, despite the fact that polls show that those are the values that are most representative of mainstream America. And once again, even if NewBusters were correct, it hardly serves as an explanation for dKos’ success.

NewsBusters goes on to ascribe a laundry list of situational reasons for why dKos took off: the war in Iraq; Howard Dean’s campaign; the Republican majority; etc. But they only seem to trip over a real reason accidentally by recognizing its “free-wheeling nature.” However, even here they reveal their disdain for free speech by describing the comments emerging from this environment as “abhorrent.”

The NewsBusters are clearly suffering from an Internet inferiority complex. At least they recognize now that a race is in progress and that they are losing badly. But I don’t know how they can expect to compete when they have no idea what the game is. If NewsBusters really wants to know why dKos is successful, and how they can emulate that success, they will have to remove their blinders. Now, I don’t want to give away the recipe, but I will say this: It includes generous heapings of reality and liberal portions of free thought (pun intended).

Update: NewsBusters has posted a response on their site that generously concedes some of what I’ve said here – mostly the parts where I conceded some of what they said there. But they also said that I was “laughably incorrect about the media being pro-war.” I guess they don’t read or watch the New York Times, The Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, etc. All of these media outlets, and more, were unquestioningly supportive of the administration’s arguments in the run-up to the war in both their reporting and their editorials.

I recently wrote about how the press has been diverted by the White House from newsworthy events that the President might not really want covered. That story described how the White House Press Office sent the Washington press corps off to far flung locales while the President went somewhere else entirely. But sending reporters on wild goose chases is not the only way to distract them from doing their jobs.

Today it was announced that Osama Bin Laden is expected to release the latest video in his “Death To America” serial. This episode is debuting the same week as the report from General Petraeus on the status of the “Surge” in Iraq. That’s awfully convenient timing for the war propagandists who would like nothing better than to stir the nation into a fear-drenched frenzy at the same time they are making the case to extend their engagement in Baghdad. Never mind the fact that Iraq and Bin Laden have nothing whatsoever to do with one another, the connection is (again) subtly reinforced.

I hope that when the Bin Laden video airs on TV people will remember that our preoccupation with Iraq is part of the reason that he is still out there making videos. And I hope that when people watch Gen. Petraeus advance his theory that the war is progressing swimmingly, they will ask themselves why we are there at all when Bin Laden is still loose planning new productions of terror. Finally, I hope that people pay attention to the way the media tries to juxtapose these otherwise unrelated events and don’t allow themselves to be blinded by the shiny objects radiating from their TV screens.

Tony Snow’s subterfuge with regard to the President’s recent itinerary on his “surprise” visit to Iraq apparently is not the only time the White House has misled the press corps on presidential travel plans. CBS White House Correspondent Mark Knoller is a little miffed that he and his colleagues have been shipped off to destinations far removed from the President on days when newsworthy events took place.

“Three times in recent weeks, those of us who were covering the President’s trips to Kennebunkport, Maine; Crawford, Texas; and today to Bellevue, Washington were totally out of position for the big stories of the day.”

In the first instance, reporters were whisked off to Maine and missed the President’s press conference in DC. Then they were sent to Crawford while Bush stayed in Washington to announce the resignation of Karl Rove. After that, they were flying to Seattle while the President went to Crawford to make his first comments on the resignation of Alberto Gonzales.

Does it seem a little like the White House Press Office is intentionally diverting reporters to keep them away from the President when important news is being released? To be sure, there will be somebody at the event with Bush, but it will not be the assigned correspondent with the most knowledge and relevant experience covering the President. This leaves Bush facing a bunch of second stringers who will likely be less aggressive and less probing. That’s exactly as the President would want it.

If I were a White House correspondent, I would start to be more suspicious when asked to get aboard the press plane. Given the pattern of behavior demonstrated here, I would wonder what they might be sending me away from.

All of this would be troubling all by itself, but the impact of this news is somewhat diluted by Knoller’s admission that the press is often not in close proximity to presidential newsmaking anyway.

“Truth be told, on most presidential trips, many of us in the press corps cover his statements and actions without actually laying eyes on him. We hear his statements on audio feeds from the White House Communications Agency or see live video transmissions arranged by the TV Networks. We get written reports from our colleagues in the pool with the President and we get transcripts of his statements from the White House stenographers.”

That revelation of media disengagement may explain why they so often miss significant stories or misreport those that they cover. What are they being paid for? If this is all that’s required to perform the duties of a network correspondent, I could be reporting the news from my home – and for a lot less than these guys are pulling in.

The American news consumers are the ones being hurt by this. We are left with a media that is often AWOL, and when they do report for duty, they are easily duped into detours that remove them from the events they are supposed to be covering. As citizens we should be outraged and we should make our opinions known. The media are not doing the jobs we expect of them, or deserve from them. If they continue to fail to perform, we need to find a way to fire them