Cheney: Vader unmasked

Bit by prevaricated bit, reporters for McClatchy, Columbia Journalism Review and Slate pick apart former Vice President Dick Cheney’s speech before the American Enterprise Institute:

First up, Jonathan Landay and Warren Strobel’s piece for McClatchy, in which they remove the shaky supports from Cheney’s defense of U.S. interrogation techniques against suspected terrorists:

[Cheney] quoted the Director of National Intelligence, Adm. Dennis Blair, as saying that the information gave U.S. officials a “deeper understanding of the al Qaida organization that was attacking this country.”

In a statement April 21, however, Blair said the information “was valuable in some instances” but that “there is no way of knowing whether the same information could have been obtained through other means. The bottom line is that these techniques hurt our image around the world, the damage they have done to our interests far outweighed whatever benefit they gave us and they are not essential to our national security.” …

Cheney said that President Barack Obama’s decision to release the four top-secret Bush administration memos on the interrogation techniques was “flatly contrary” to U.S. national security, and would help al Qaida train terrorists in how to resist U.S. interrogations.

However, Blair, who oversees all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies, said in his statement that he recommended the release of the memos, “strongly supported” Obama’s decision to prohibit using the controversial methods and that “we do not need these techniques to keep America safe.

Writing for Columbia Journalism Review, Charles Kaiser aims squarely at the contradictions between Cheney’s professed beliefs and his actions:

Newly frugal guy

Tea and Hypocrisy: Free market — ho-oh!

A full Slate of stories about U.S.-Mexico relations

In advance of President Obama’s visit to Mexico, Slate.com has published a series on U.S. relations with its neighbor to the south. What makes this series so compelling is that each article was reported by experts on Mexico and international relations:

“Our Model Neighbor: Ignore the bad press; Mexico has undergone an economic and political transformation over the last decade,” by Barbara Kotschwar.

Since the early 1990s, Mexico has cut its external debt by more than half, has lowered inflation from triple to double to single digits, has adopted a flexible exchange rate that helps maintain price stability, and has nearly doubled its openness to trade. Mexico has accumulated sufficient foreign reserves and has kept the government fiscal position healthy enough to be able to provide a buffer during bad economic times and to stimulate its economy in the current downturn—at least for a time.

“Calderón’s War of Choice: How Mexico’s war on drug cartels is like the war in Iraq,” by Jorge Castañeda. Posted April 14, 2009.

Rachel Maddow and the limits of sarcasm

As I was reading Alissa Quart’s look at MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow and her use of sarcasm as a form of political humor, it occurred to me: Is sarcasm as a tool to illuminate public issues only acceptable or effective when it is wielded by the Left? Anyone remember Dennis Miller’s short-lived show on MSNBC?

Consider the examples Quart offers of satiric news delivery: Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Bill Maher, Keith Olbermann. Certainly, eight years of George W. Bush have contributed to the popularity and power of leftist humor:

Why Jindal’s speech tanked

At Huffington Post, Howard Fine explains why Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal did so poorly during his Republican response to President Obama’s address to Congress. Here’s an excerpt:

He wanted the audience to think that he is a good guy, so he adopted a general demeanor of kind and empathetic. This is why he came off as condescending. No matter what he talked about the the pose was the same. He was trying to project his idea of a warm and friendly guy. Therefore he came off as patronizing.

Mickey Kaus dissects Obama’s speech

Mickey Kaus has a nice post up at his Kausfiles blog on Slate that critically analyzes President Obama’s address to Congress. Here’s an excerpt:

How, exactly, did failure to find new sources of energy cause the recession? Obama could be right, but he didn’t make the logical link clear. After listening, it sure still seems to me the problems begin when the housing market collapsed and the stock market sank! The people who helped produce the collapse–e.g. Jim Johnson, plus whoever had the bright idea of securitizing risky mortgages and insuring everything through AIG–are more to blame than governments that failed to invest in wind power. … Not that Obama’s three long term crises aren’t really long-term crises. But they seemed unconnected to the short-term crisis–they’re just things he’d (rightly) like to address.

Greenwald on the Left’s love affair with Obama

This being Valentine’s Day, I’m sending out some journalistic love to Salon.com’s Glenn Greenwald for his  analysis that the Left’s unqualified allegiance to President Obama is politically counterproductive for them both:

During the 2008 election, Obama co-opted huge portions of the Left and its infrastructure so that their allegiance became devoted to him and not to any ideas.  Many online political and “news” outlets — including some liberal political blogs — discovered that the most reliable way to massively increase traffic was to capitalize on the pro-Obama fervor by turning themselves into pro-Obama cheerleading squads. …

Greenwald gives Ambinder a lesson in journalism

Glenn Greenwald,  a former constitutional lawyer who writes for Salon.com, has been giving The Atlantic’s Marc Ambinder a rather harsh public lesson in journalism for the past few days.

First the context: Before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, the Obama administration asserted the same state secrets privilege as the Bush administration in the case of Mohamed et al v. Jeppesen Data Plan, Inc. Here’s the gist of the case, as reported by ABC News:

Sunday paper reads

From the New York Times:

Frank Rich on Obama’s dubious choices to lead the nation out of economic turmoil:

The new president who vowed to change Washington’s culture will have to fight much harder to keep from being co-opted by it instead. There are simply too many major players in the Obama team who are either alumni of the financial bubble’s insiders’ club or of the somnambulant governmental establishment that presided over the catastrophe.

From the Wall Street Journal:

Obama’s Government 2.0

Today I added the White House Blog RSS feed to my bookmarks menu.

In the post titled “Change has come to WhiteHouse.gov,” Macon Phillips, director of new media for the White House, announces:

President Obama has committed to making his administration the most open and transparent in history.

And the weight of that ambition drives this excellent Wired article on Obama’s digital networking efforts, which notes that: