Samantha Power

Fox News Breaks Out Nazi Smear To Attack Obama’s UN Pick

Posted by on June 5, 2013 at 9:11 pm. 7 Comments :

This didn’t take long. Just a few hours after President Obama announced his selection of Samantha Power to succeed Susan Rice as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Fox News has already hauled out the Nazi references that they just can’t seem to hold in.

Fox News
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As comedian Lewis Black once said of Glenn Beck, another Nazi talk junkie, they have Nazi Tourettes Syndrome – a malady that manifests itself with the uncontrollable compulsion to shout “Nazi” at everyone associated with Obama or any other Democrat or liberal. And shortly after the President’s morning announcement Fox had another seizure:

“The former White House adviser and longtime Obama friend nominated Wednesday as the next U.S. ambassador to the United Nations has a history of controversial comments that could haunt her in confirmation — including likening U.S. foreign policies to those of the Nazis.”

That was the very first paragraph of the Fox News article about Power’s appointment. There was no introductory information, no biography, nothing setting up the circumstances of her nomination. Fox went straight to the Nazi talk so as not to waste any time disparaging Power or confusing people with her exemplary resume.

Of course, Fox’s allegation is entirely false. It is pure fiction that they never even bother to support with any facts. At no time does Fox cite a U.S. foreign policy that Power allegedly likened to those of the Nazis. Fox doesn’t even offer some vague reference that they attribute to Power that might be misconstrued as likening U.S. policies in general to Nazi policies. This is a smear invented wholly in the diseased mind of Fox News.

The sole, and very tenuous, link that Fox cites is from a magazine article Power wrote in 2003, where she mentioned the famous incident in 1970 when then-German Chancellor Willy Brandt knelt at the monument to the victims of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising who were slaughtered by Nazi troops. In her article Power described the moment as expressing the remorse of contemporary Germans who “do not endorse the sins of their predecessors.” She further wrote that “his gesture was gratifying to World War II survivors, but it was also ennobling and cathartic for Germany.” Power was merely relating a very positive historical precedent when the Germany of 1970 affirmed its sorrow for the atrocities committed a quarter of a century prior.

That is the source for Fox’s repulsive attack on Power. And you can be certain that having introduced this insult, Fox and a bevy of right-wing slanderers will attempt to spread it throughout the conservative mediasphere. It matters not to them that there is no truth to it. The only thing that matters is that they have a rhetorical club with which to beat their enemies.

It also doesn’t matter that Power is an eminently qualified and capable nominee to represent the U.S. at the U.N. She is a Harvard law graduate, a Pulitzer Prize winner, and a fierce defender of human rights. She also has the honor of being called the “most dangerous woman in America” by Glenn Beck. That charge was one Beck repeated frequently when he was still on Fox News. Like much of his conspiracy-related dementia, it is difficult to unravel. But it had something to do with her being married to a long-time Beck foe, Cass Sunstein, as well as her support for a U.N. policy against genocide known as “Responsibility to Protect.” I wrote about this back in 2011:

The thrust of Beck’s squabbling is his contention that Power is the source of the administration’s policy in Libya. In his pseudo-professorial style Beck mis-educates his gullible viewers as to the roots of the “Responsibility to Protect” (R2P) initiative endorsed by the United Nations. R2P sprung from the post-WWII determination that the community of nations are morally obligated to act in opposition to genocide, crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing, and war crimes.

In short, Beck falsely asserts that the UN got the idea from George Soros who got it from Power’s book, “A Problem from Hell.” The only flaw in that theory is that Power’s book (which, by the way, won the Pulitzer Prize) came out the year following the publication of a UN commissioned report on the subject, so it could not possibly have been the inspiration for it. And the UN’s report was based on the 1948 “Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide,” when Soros was a poor, eighteen year old Holocaust refugee and student in London, and well before Power was even born. Also notable is the fact that R2P was adopted when John Bolton was the ambassador to the UN and both Israel and the Bush administration supported it.

The fact that Fox was able to manufacture a phony Nazi smear so rapidly is evidence of how seriously disturbed they are. Only a sick mind(s) could find so many paranoid examples of shadowy enemies lurking virtually everywhere. And as I have noted before, the Nazi talk on Fox News starts at the top with Roger Ailes. It is clearly a critical part of their business model. And despite having received numerous condemnations from Jewish organizations and other groups that fight anti-Semitism, Fox persists with their disgraceful behavior.

Glenn Beck: “I’ve Never Been Called A Conspiracy Theorist In My Life”

Posted by on June 5, 2013 at 3:06 pm. 6 Comments :

I had intended to write an article this morning congratulating President Obama on his selection of Susan Rice for National Security Adviser and Samantha Power to succeed Rice as U.N. Ambassador. Not only are these two public servants brilliant and capable, the GOP will regard their appointments as a poke in the eye, which they thoroughly deserve. I intended to further note that Power was singled out by Glenn Beck as the “most dangerous woman in America,” at least partly because she is married to Cass Sunstein who Beck has called the “most dangerous man in America.” And then all my plans were upended when this happened:

Rachel Maddow recently did a segment on how the right-wing media has been mainstreaming conspiracy theories once thought to be beyond the fringe. She went into great detail with examples of batty theories and the people who propound them. Included amongst the theorists were folks you might expect like Alex Jones and Glenn Beck.

Apparently Glenn Beck took offense. He devoted a considerable portion of his program to swinging back at Maddow and questioning her “intellectual integrity.” [I’ll wait for you to stop laughing and get get back into your chair — OK then] Beck took particular aim at the suggestion that he is a conspiracy theorist. He even went so far as to make this explicit declaration in his defense:

“I’ve never been called a conspiracy theorist in my life.”

Glenn Beck

Oh my. This may be the best example of severe detachment from reality that’s ever played out in public. It was just one week ago that Beck bitterly complained that there is “a concentrated effort now to label me a conspiracy theorist?” How he can go from a concentrated effort to label him, to never having been called a conspiracy theorist, in only one week is mind-boggling. But it isn’t just a matter of acute short-term memory loss, Beck has been addressing allegations of his conspiracy theorism for years:

  • Oct 6, 2009: I don’t have a stealthy agenda, but I’m still called “conspiracy theorist.”
  • Jan 11, 2010: It’s funny to be called a conspiracy theorist because I’ve always made fun of conspiracy people.
  • Aug 17, 2012: You talk about a conspiracy theorist, you know, me being a conspiracy theorist, I didn’t get the decoder ring in the box of cereal.
  • Jan 8, 2013: When they try to make me look like like a conspiracy theorist, they always use [Alex Jones’] arguments and assign them to me.
  • May 10, 2013: And the media smeared anyone who said these things. I know because I was one of them. I pointed out the truth. I showed you the truth. Early. I was a conspiracy theorist. I was a crazy man.

Beck has got to know that he is frequently called a conspiracy theorist (and with good reason). It’s simply impossible for him not to be aware of it after all these years and after all of his own references to it. So what could come over him that would cause him to deny that he was ever called one? Can he really be that delusional? Or is he just so confidant of the mental squishiness of his audience that he doesn’t care at all about trying to be the least bit coherent?

No matter how many times Beck demonstrates his shaky grasp of reality, it continues to amaze me that someone with such cognitive impairment is capable of attending to the routine chores of daily life, much less turn his dementia into a financial bonanza.

Message To Obama: Don’t You Dare F__king Fire Samantha Power

Posted by on April 2, 2011 at 1:11 pm. 6 Comments :

Once again the evil winds of Fox News are blowing across the land and threatening to whip up a Perfect Storm composed of nothing but disinformation and unfounded fears. As part of their all-to-predictable criticism of President Obama’s efforts to prevent carnage in Libya and to support democratic reformers, the Fox brigades have unleashed a torrent of lies and irrational arguments that amount to siding with Qaddafi against American interests.

As usual, Glenn Beck is leading the charge with his typically factless assault and incitement to panic. The target this time is Samantha Power, the Senior Director of Multilateral Affairs and Human Rights for the National Security Council. Just as he did with Van Jones last year, Beck has begun a barrage of invective aimed at slandering Power. Day after day he repeatedly denounces her while playing a context-deprived video in an endless loop.

The thrust of Beck’s squabbling is his contention that Power is the source of the administration’s policy in Libya. In his pseudo-professorial style Beck mis-educates his gullible viewers as to the roots of the “Responsibility to Protect” (R2P) initiative endorsed by the United Nations. R2P sprung from the post-WWII determination that the community of nations are morally obligated to act in opposition to genocide, crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing, and war crimes.

In short, Beck falsely asserts that the UN got the idea from George Soros who got it from Power’s book, “A Problem from Hell.” The only flaw in that theory is that Power’s book (which, by the way, won the Pulitzer Prize) came out the year following the publication of a UN commissioned report on the subject, so it could not possibly have been the inspiration for it. And the UN’s report was based on the 1948 “Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide,” when Soros was a poor, eighteen year old Holocaust refugee and student in London, and well before Power was even born. Also notable is the fact that R2P was adopted when John Bolton was the ambassador to the UN and both Israel and the Bush administration supported it. These facts, however, don’t prevent Beck from inventing a conspiracy that defies the linear confines of time.

The video Beck has on auto-replay shows an excerpt of Power discussing the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and suggesting that a “mammoth protection force” may be required. Beck alleges that she is promoting this protection on behalf of the Palestinians against the Israelis, and he extends that dimwitted analysis to imply that Power, Soros, and Obama have designs on attacking Israel under the provisions of R2P. In fact, a full playing of the video reveals that Power was not advancing her own solution to the ongoing Middle East hostilities. She was responding to a question that posed a hypothetical scenario wherein one side or the other was engaging in genocide. Her answer proposed a protection force that would be neutral, along the lines of a conventional UN peacekeeping mission.

The reality could not be further from Beck’s gyroscopic spinning of an imagined international military assault on Israel. Beck couples these allegations with a reference to the White House’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs administrator, Cass Sunstein, whom Beck calls “the most dangerous man in America.” Sunstein is Power’s husband. Consequently, Beck now calls her “the most dangerous woman in America.”

HypersensitiveThe problem that Beck’s vile disinformation campaign presents, other than advancing the progress of stupidity, is that the Obama administration has been notoriously hypersensitive when it comes to criticism, especially from Fox News. In addition to their knee-jerk reaction to Beck’s demonization of Van Jones, the White House also jettisoned Yosi Sergant from the National Endowment for the Arts and Shirley Sherrod from the Department of Agriculture, over phony controversies promoted by Fox and other right-wing media.

This Foxophobia manifests itself in dangerously careless decision making that not only unfairly punishes staffers who did nothing wrong, it encourages the Becks of the world to persist with their character assassination crusades.

In this regard it is imperative that Obama not buckle under to the smears that Samantha Power is now suffering. The President needs to demonstrate that he has the fortitude to ignore Beck and Fox and the rest of the conservative hate machine that is itching to claim another scalp. Power is a brilliant, dedicated, and effective public servant and deserves the support of the President. She must not become another casualty in the war on competent White House advisors (which is really just a war on the White House by proxy).

My message to Obama is this: You cannot placate your foes by giving in to them. They feed off of that sort of weakness and become even more voracious. By denying them their little victories you retain trusted advisors, enhance your reputation, and starve the beast that stalks you. So, Mr. President, don’t make the same mistakes you made with Van Jones and the others. Stand by Power. Scoff at Beck. And exhibit some of the backbone that your position imparts onto you.

Fox News And Glenn Beck: Pro Genocide?

Posted by on March 25, 2011 at 1:48 am. 8 Comments :

The latest demonstration of right-wing dementia is actually just a variation on an old theme: Whatever Obama does, they’re against it. In this instance they are coupling that with a perennial conservative favorite: Whatever it is, George Soros is behind it.

From the moment the crisis in Libya began there was an outcry from rightists that the President should intervene on behalf of the rebellious citizens whom Qaddafi was slaughtering. That is until the President did just that, at which point they were outraged by his reckless imperialism.

Now the attacks on the administration are escalating to accuse Obama of conspiring with a shadowy organization that they allege is tied to terrorists and aspires to invade Israel. The organization is the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect. This ghastly, UN-backed backed group lists barbarians like former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Bishop Desmond Tutu amongst their patrons. Their mission is to enlist the international community’s cooperation to prevent genocide, crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing, and war crimes. What a dastardly plot!

Glenn Beck took up this argument this morning on his radio program. He was alerted to it by a caller and could barely contain his glee. For him it was another piece of the conspiratorial stew that mashed together many of his favorite demons including Soros, Muslims, and Cass Sunstein whom he calls “the most dangerous man in America.”. And somehow by becoming even more conspiratorial he insisted that this puts an end to criticism of him as a conspiracy theorist. Apparently the conspiracy theory that he is a conspiracy theorist is a conspiracy theory itself. And least that’s Beck’s theory.

It’s clear, however, that Beck’s caller got his information from either WorldNetDaily, who published an item claiming to have found “Soros’ Fingerprints on Libya Bombing,” or from one of their many conservative repeaters, including Fox Nation. The WND article was written by notorious Birther Aaron Klein and declared that…

“Philanthropist billionaire George Soros is a primary funder and key proponent of the global organization that promotes the military doctrine used by the Obama administration to justify the recent airstrikes targeting the regime of Moammar Gadhafi in Libya.”

Klein is a long-time Obama basher who wrote a book titled, “The Manchurian President,” that questioned Obama’s citizenship and patriotism. He has been working tirelessly to taint the President’s policy toward Libya. Just two days ago he posted an article on WND that asked…

“Could President Obama’s decision to sidestep Congress and strike Libya as part of an international coalition put the U.S. on a military collision course with Israel?”

There’s that Israel invasion thing again. You have to wonder whether these guys actually believe what they are spewing or are they just so infected with Obama Derangement Syndrome that they’ve lost the ability to process coherent thoughts?

The policy they are so feverishly flagellating is known as “Responsibility to Protect” (R2P). It was adapted from the 1948 United Nations “Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide,” which was a response to the atrocities witnessed during the Holocaust. There was worldwide condemnation of genocide and war crimes, and agreement that it must never be permitted to happen again – even if that meant using force to defend civilians being victimized by their own government. In 2001, the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS) published a report that refined the policy and it was formally adopted by the UN in 2005.

That’s the policy cited by the right as justification for restraining Qaddafi. And that’s the policy that Fox News and Glenn Beck are opposing. By extension, it must be concluded that they are in favor of ethnic cleansing and other crimes against humanity that the policy prohibits. Beck even conceded that the mission of R2P sounded good until he discovered its wicked roots. He began by expanding on the U.S. plot to invade Israel on his television show today. Not surprisingly he got everything wrong. He attributed the policy to a National Security aide, explicitly asserting that it “came from Samantha Power,” not the UN.

No it didn’t. It came from the UN commissioned ICISS report while John Bolton was ambassador, and it was supported by conservatives in the Bush administration including Secretary of State, Colin Powell. Beck asserted that the UN got the idea from Soros who got it from Power’s book, “A Problem from Hell.” The only problem with that theory is that Power’s book (which, by the way, won the Pulitzer Prize) came out the year following the publication of the ICISS report so could not possibly have been the inspiration for it. Typical Beckian disinformation that can’t even make the ends meet. But that doesn’t stop him from filling his gullible disciples weakened brains with hogwash.

Now Beck and the right is closing ranks to attack this humane policy that is illustrated by sentiments like this:

“True sovereignty belongs to the people, who in turn delegate it to their governments. If governments abuse the authority entrusted to them and citizens have no opportunity to correct such abuses, outside interference is justified.”

While that sounds like it could have been uttered by anyone from Reagan to Clinton, or even to Beck, that quote was in fact from (you Tea Baggers may want to sit down), George Soros. It epitomizes the Open Society philosophy of people-powered democracy that Beck distorts as being a version of a New World Order.

I find it more and more depressing that there are people who actually buy into the fiction that Beck and Fox News promote. Granted those numbers are in decline, but it’s still a concern. It is the most delusional faction that still adheres to these lies and they can be a dangerous lot. That’s why it remains so important to continue to counter the disinformation with the truth. At least it may be possible to mitigate the damage they do.

Tucker Carlson’s Ethics Education

Posted by on March 9, 2008 at 1:09 pm. NO Comments :

In the thoroughly overblown controversy surrounding Barack Obama’s foreign policy adviser, Samantha Power, there is no shortage of hysterical lunacy.

Power, in a momentary lapse of judgment referred to Hillary Clinton as a “monster.” Clinton’s campaign then proceeded to act like one, calling for Power to be fired. It seems like an oddly inapt sanction for the first truly viable female presidential candidate to banish from the political theater another women who is a Pulitzer prize winning author, historian, lawyer and foreign policy expert. Clinton continues off the deep end by saying…

“I think that it is important to look at what she and his other advisers say behind closed doors…”

Presumably this means that Clinton will shortly release the transcripts of her private meetings and those of her advisers. Obama, for his part, should never have accepted Power’s resignation. It would be shameful to lose the talents of this brilliant woman over a trivial campaign dust-up.

But the supreme idiocy is, as usual, reserved for the media. On Friday, Tucker Carlson interviewed Gerri Peev, the reporter who published the fateful Power story. In the course of the discussion, Carlson inexplicably asserts that reporters have some obligation to grant all requests to take a subjects comments off the record. He then disparages the whole of British media by stating that their standards are “dramatically lower” than those in the U.S. Here’s the clip (and the full interview):

Tucker February 2008Hearing Tucker Carlson elucidate on journalistic ethics is like having Dick Cheney tutor you on honesty and open government. It was, however, nice to hear Peev put Tucker in his place. To cap it off, after Carlson insults Peev for doing her job, he has the gall to chastise her, saying…

“People don’t talk to you when you go out of your way to hurt them…”

You mean like when you declare that they, and all of their nation’s journalists, have low standards? I can’t think of many examples of American journalism’s standards that sink as low as Tucker. Seriously, when is this low-life, ratings loser going to be canceled?