The Dish

I found myself watching the Sean Hannity “interview” of vice-president Dick Cheney last night on Fox. I must say I have chortled through quite a few Larry King-style, fawning interviews by liberal journalists of liberal politicians in my time – all under the rubric of “objectivity.” But I don’t think I have ever witnessed a more fawning, sycophantic and simply rigged interview than that between Hannity and Cheney. In fact, the whole conceit that this was an actual interview is preposterous, along with the notion that Hannity is in any way a journalist. The first instinct of an actual journalist is to ask the tough questions even of someone you admire – perhaps especially of someone you admire. Hannity’s instinct is the exact opposite: ingratiation of his interview subject and his audience. The transcript reveals no distinction of any meaningful kind between the interviewer and interviewee. Here, for example, are a selection of statements made during the half hour. See if you can tell whether Hannity or Cheney said which:

a) “The world’s much better off and much safer today because Saddam Hussein’s in prison, will soon go on trial in Iraq, and the 25 million people in Iraq, as well as in Afghanistan, have been liberated. Those are all major achievements.”

b) “We just had elections in Iraq. The security forces are growing in Iraq. There’s still an insurgency, but there’s a lot of progress.”

c): “We’ve got millions of people here illegally… It adds significant cost to local communities who have to provide educational services or health services.”

d) “People express their concern about the vulnerability and susceptibility of our borders.”

e) “The Koran had not been flushed down the toilet, and the – Newsweek had to withdraw its comment. It’s important that they be careful and exercise a sense of responsibility here, because lives are at stake.”

d) “When Newsweek puts out reports that the Koran was flushed down the toilet, and then later they have to retract a story like that. The impact it has on people worldwide and those people that are looking for reasons to hate the United States or justify, perhaps, actions against our troops.”

f) “Two hundred and fourteen years, we’ve never had a judge that would have otherwise been approved by the Senate filibustered.”

g) “We need to restore the traditional practice of the last 214 years.”

No prizes for correct answers. You can figure it out from the transcript. This is a free country, and Sean Hannity and Fox News can broadcast what they want. Fox is far more entertaining than the other cable news channels and I can see its appeal, and the need for a less liberal network. But this was not journalism. It was propaganda, cloyingly arranged between interviewer and interviewee, based on talking points adhered to by both sides, and broadcast as if it were a real interview. I worry that viewers actually begin to believe that this is journalism, that asking questions designed to help the interviewer better make his case, in fact often supplementing his answers to improve their rhetorical power, is somehow what real journalists do. It isn’t. I wish I could provide a better kicker for this blog item than Sean Hannity did. But I can’t. So here’s his sign-off: “Lynne, I was too tough on him.”

Another Greg Djerejian take-down.

LIBERATING STRAIGHT CAMP: Protesters have arrived at the “Love In Action” camp, designed to sequester gay kids and re-program them. Stories are being written, exposing this form of psychological child abuse. Young Zach’s blog made this happen.

A case of the importance of “reasonable doubt.” I’ve said my piece. Now I’m merely looking forward to watching Nancy Grace tonight, and to see that smug, self-righteous sneer get wiped off her face.

It’s imminent! My take on the case here.

GITMO AND PERSPECTIVE: As Cheney and Rumsfeld dig in further, Fred Hiatt gets it exactly right. Meanwhile, Anonymous Liberal tries to reach the right balance on Iraq.

BLAIR VERSUS BUSH: The honeymoon is over. Novak is, of course, over the top, but the truth is that Blair is deadly serious about aid to Africa and resuscitating Kyoto. He’s working on Putin, already has Europe in his pocket on this one, and is shoring up his standing at home by taking on the French on the EU rebate. I wonder if the president knows what’s coming at Gleneagles.

REFLECTIONS ON “LOVE IN ACTION”: A reader was moved by the story below on a young teen sent to an evangelical “straight camp” where he will be tormented for his sexual orientation and has allegedly been told by his supervisor that suicide would be preferable to leaving the camp to be proud and gay. He sent me the following poem by A. E. Housman, of whom Auden once said that he “kept his tears in a drawer.” It says a lot about the vast, unnecessary pain we inflict on gay kids and teens, and the cruelty that still exists and still legislates and still threatens:

Oh who is that young sinner with the handcuffs on his wrists?
And what has he been after that they groan and shake their fists?
And wherefore is he wearing such a conscience-stricken air?
Oh they’re taking him to prison for the colour of his hair.

‘Tis a shame to human nature, such a head of hair as his;
In the good old time ’twas hanging for the colour that it is;
Though hanging isn’t bad enough and flaying would be fair
For the nameless and abominable colour of his hair.

Oh a deal of pains he’s taken and a pretty price he’s paid
To hide his poll or dye it of a mentionable shade;
But they’ve pulled the beggar’s hat off for the world to see and stare,
And they’re taking him to justice for the colour of his hair.

Now ’tis oakum for his fingers and the treadmill for his feet,
And the quarry-gang on Portland in the cold and in the heat,
And between his spells of labour in the time he has to spare
He can curse the God that made him for the colour of his hair.

BURGER BLOG: Rare and yet well done.

That’s the acronym the lefty blogosphere now uses for the Downing Street Memo. Kinsley’s right, though, as usual. All the memo shows is one individual’s take on what was going on in Washington. It was also my take and the take of lots of journalists and observers. It proves nothing but that senior figures in Downing Street believed that the war was inevitable, unsellable to the British public and that there was almost no post-war planning. I guess it is slightly amazing that any senior government official can get three things right. But I’m underwhelmed.

What the Michael Jackson case tells us about the sorry state of our culture. My take, now posted.

Time’s inside account of the attempt to interrogate a high-level Qaeda detainee is interesting. It may well be that the important interrogations were indeed professionally handled and that abuse was kept to a minimum, although some of the techniques are still offensive. Perhaps the real story of the last couple of years is how these techniques filtered down the ranks, how unprofessional individuals got the message from above that the gloves were off and went further, with far less significant figures. I know we’re supposed to treat all detainee affidavits as suspect (and with good reason) but some have corroborating evidence, like this story about a possible minor dragged into Gitmo:

The details of M.C.’s accusations are contained in a 17-page account prepared by Mr. Stafford Smith, in which the prisoner said that he was suspended from hooks in the ceiling for hours at a time with his feet barely missing the floor, and that he was beaten during those sessions. M.C. said a special unit known as the Immediate Reaction Force had knocked out one of his teeth and later an interrogator burned him with a cigarette. Mr. Stafford Smith said he saw the missing tooth and the burn scar. Some of M.C.’s descriptions match accounts given not only by other detainees, but also by former guards and interrogators who have been interviewed by The New York Times.
He describes being shackled close to the floor in an interrogation room for hours with music blaring and lights in his face. He also said he was shown a room with pictures of naked women and adult videos and told he could have access if he cooperated. His description fits the account of former guards who described such a room and said it was nicknamed “the love shack.”

There are simply too many corroborated details in these detainee accounts to let them be dismissed out of hand as enemy propaganda. Here’s another gut-wrenching one. We need an independent inquiry into all detainee abuse, clear new rules for interrogation that abide by U.S. law, and the closure of Gitmo itself. It is becoming the enemy’s propaganda jewel.

“But justices declined to address a separate issue: whether American citizens arrested on U.S. soil can be designated “enemy combatants” and held without trial.” – from the Associated Press today.

CRYSTAL SMILES: One blogger has already created an image for an ad campaign directed against crystal meth targeted at gay men. Effective.

My main employer, the Sunday Times, scores another huge scoop with this leak on how British ministers were told in July 2002 that since an “illegal war” was already inevitable, it was “necessary to create the conditions” which would make it legal. I wish I were surprised. I distinctly remember telling my London editors that summer that of course the decision for war had already been made. Wasn’t that obvious to everyone at the time? I guess not among the British public.

The broader argument of this post by Wretchard at Belmont Club is worth debating. The tectonic shifts in global politics – the slow demise of Chirac and Schroder, the resilience of Bush and Blair, the potential for reform at the U.N. – may well be connected. But Wretchard assumes this part of the equation as well: “the defeat of the Iraqi insurgency.” Excuse me? There’s a difference between some positive developments and the alleged defeat of an insurgency that seems far from deflated. Greg Djerejian brings a dose of reality to the analysis. The truth is that we are in the early stages of a long, long war of attrition in Iraq. It’s still winnable, but the odds are against us. Greg actually gets incensed by some of the pro-Bush reflexive commmentary in the blogosphere on this and contends it doesn’t help at all. No shit, Sherlock:

This is why I am so incensed by the too rosy assessments of the state of the war effort (especially by smart people like Wretchard who should know better). Adults need to stop scoring this like a parlor game. Criticism = treacherous disloyalty to POTUS. Praise = omniscient Rummy rules us happy serfs so wisely! As a Bush supporter, let me give my level-best, most honest criticism here. We never put enough troops in theater and barely have enough there now. We are resource-constrained, and doing the best we can short of increasing the size of the military (which is getting increasingly problematic) or re-instituting the draft (not kosher in the era of Paris Hilton and the Apprentice). What’s the best way forward? If we could scrap a few more battalions together to go into Anbar Province that wouldn’t be a bad start. Short of marching into Teheran or Damascus (the height of folly), we also need to continue to move towards better securing each of those long borders (today, more Syria’s as Sunnis are our biggest challenge; tomorrow perhaps, Iran’s, as the Shi’a might become more problematic if we are seen to be overly protecting the Sunni in the future) using every single rational means conceivable and at our disposal.

The trouble is: we haven’t committed enough resources to succeed quickly; and we may not have the political backing at home to succeed in the very long term. The first task for the administration is to level with the country about this. But they’d rather spin.