Here is a guest oped on climate change, on the New York Times coveted and highly respected editorial pages, extremely misleading, highly manipulative in effect, based upon nothing but circular logic, and written by someone that appears to know next to nothing about the subject matter. That’s not “perspective” and differing points of view.

The Times, which has very little space on its pages for opeds apart from its own editorials and opinion columnists, nevertheless, amazingly, published the piece - where the writer argues climate change is overblown because we are fascinated with death, supports it with the scientifically irrefutable evidence that “it seems to him,” ignores the countless (and far more compelling) reasons why climate change is under estimated, and spends most of the piece giving inordinate detail about an otherwise irrelevant and highly specific time when people’s fears were overblown.  It did this as if providing an example of when we overestimated something that is otherwise completely disconnected from the present issue is in any way more relevant to the issue than providing an example (or many) when we underestimated. (It’s not.) And that was the entire piece. To call the piece a misleading (or even manipulative)  farce would be valid, and reasonable.  (And even a little generous.)

Here in another article where the Times, though not as egregiously as some other ostensible news sites, confused short term and regional weather patterns with longer term global climate; an almost unfathomable mistake given how elementary it is to the issue, for the “paper of record” to be making.

Even the Times’ environmentally leaning and climate change focused DotEarth blog (now in the opinion section), written by a long time former national environmental reporter and climate change advocate, repeatedly partakes of false balance reporting in order to come across, to a thus repeatedly misinformed audience, as “balanced,” rather than actually being balanced.

In an unusually egregious example of just this type of false balance, the same reporter in an article lazily compared syndicated columnist George Will, who does’t know anything about science and repeatedly,  illogically, relentlessly, and often wildly misleads on the issue, to Al Gore, who takes the defensible position that of the risk range that climate change poses, actual results are likely to be in the upper end of that range barring effective remedial action. Yet the reporter presented them as two sides to the same coin, just, each, simply emblematic of inaccuracies and misstatements in opposite directions.

Here is an example where a NY Times piece on a key aspect of climate change does exceed the coverage of the Washington Post, but still both plays the false balance game, and omits a great deal of the most relevant information. As a result, it leaves readers misinformed on the issue, and of the impression that climate change is defined by trailing temperature data, rather than the far more consequential accumulating heat load of the earth, and the slowly (and, seemingly accelerating) processes which this seems to be correlated with.

In yet another, critical Times climate article, here is who Times reporter John Broder used as his expert – someone who purposefully manipulates graphs to change results, and whose central, poorly qualifying claim to expertise on the matter, is that he often posts on one of the most egregious and consistently misinformational websites in America.  Ironically, the entire article by Broder is about an allegedly enormous scandal involving some climate scientists who may have erroneously averaged out data (who have since been entirely vindicated), and who, in private emails that were hacked into, crudely expressed annoyance at ideological interests and a desire to keep ideologically driven manipulation from posing as science; and Broder quoted as his implicit “expert,” a random (and somewhat extreme) climate change denialist who himself quite unambiguously manipulated data to present a different case.

In perhaps one of the most misleading and scientifically ill founded articles ever occasioned by a “leading newspaper,” a front page story in the Times last spring created the false impression that meteorologists were climate experts. It also falsely posited the “views” of meteorologists (and rather powerfully at that) on climate change as one side of an unsettled two sided debate as to whether or not we are changing the climate. Far more egregiously, it even cites a meteorologist — five sentences into the piece no less – who apparently knows little on the issue of science (beyond weather, which is not climate), has no expertise in the matter, is an extreme  ideologue on the issue–or, simply, is blatantly and profoundly ignorant on the matter — and the Times’ piece presents this to its readers as if he were an expert worthy of being cited on page one of the New York Times and on an objective science matter of broad importance.

Last but not least, here is an article that essentially makes the case against Al Gore’s film “An inconvenient truth,” with the misleading, one sided, headline “From a Rapt Audience, a Call to Cool the Hype.”  It cites two scientists making reasonable points, University of Colorado’s Kevin Vranes who was complimentary of Gore’s attempt to bring attention to the severity of the issue but was concerned about “overselling certainty,” and NASA’s James Hansen, who suggested Gore’s film was more speculation than fact and not careful enough about the hurricane issue.

But it first cites what reporter William Broad conveniently calls a “rank and file scientist,” who takes carefully calculated and wholly one sided shots at Gore, and who is so “UN-rank,” and “UN-file” as to believe (the article does not disclose) that climate change is largely made up.

The article then cites the media’s favorite contrarian expert (without noting him as such), Roger Pielke Jr., whose credentials are solid, but who is one of the few climate credentialed scientists who — while not, obviously, an anti-science denialist — thinks that climate change is heavily overblown.  And who, though a detailed examination of Pielke’s record and statements is beyond the scope of this piece, has exhibited a consistent pattern of non scientific ideology on the issue, and in fact often confuses science for ideology, and vice versa.  (Even one of the four Amazon reviewers of Pielke’s book picks up on this fact, in a well supported review.) The article even includes Gore’s point that he Gore, updated to reflect comments, but manipulatively ends the paragraph, as if he were arguing the case against Gore, with, “He gave no specifics on which points he had revised.” We can’t trust what Gore says, the article– given the rest of its anti Gore context — implies (see below).

The piece, in sum, makes a case against Gore, relies upon Gore himself for for, as the paper puts it “defending” “his work,” takes pains early on to point out that Gore is “not” a scientist (even though Gore has been studying climate change for 30 years, and almost 20 years wrote a warning book, “Earth in the Balance,” that has so far turned out to be fairly prescient), and posits it all as objective, balanced reporting giving “both sides” to the issue.

The fact that this is nowhere near objective, balanced reporting, and/or very misinformed reporting (as seems likely to also be the case, given the Times’ pattern), is aptly confirmed by an unfathomable mistake that the article itself makes, which in some ways is more egregious than any of the mistakes Gore makes in his one hour forty minute movie, where standards are more relaxed:

It centers on the issue of rising oceans, key for understanding our risk parameters on the issue. Some of the conventional data, including the IPCC on the issue, only posits ocean rises based upon projected atmospheric warmths, and purposefully does not take into account numerous potential tipping points, permafrost melts (of which evidence is mounting in the past few years), clathrate melts, accelerated Arctic melting (evidence of which is mounting in the past few years) or portions of the Antarctic melting off (early signs of which are also now being seen.)  It is a purposefully very conservative and likely very inaccurate, estimate. (The IPCC also even acknowledged at the time that its estimates were very “conservative.”)

If the Arctic were to melt — not an unreasonable proposition — sea levels would rise a bit over 20 feet. Were the Greenland ice dome to melt, which represents its bulk, they would rise almost 20 feet, all of which which is what Gore stated in his book and movie, along with the equally true, and reasonable fact that were the West Antarctic ice shelf to melt, the sea would rise by 20 feet (40 feet if both were to happen incidentally; far more than that if more of Antarctica were to melt.) All of this is not only accurately represented by Gore, it is probably far more relevant in terms of strategically assessing climate change’s reasonable risk profile, than the IPCC’s purposefully limited “guestimation” based on projections which specifically excluded ice sheet melt. (Which, similarly, also fail to take into account many other potentially very large feedback effects because we simply don’t know fully how to account  for them — but this does not mean they are not relevant.)

Yet the Times neglected to mention any of this. And, in addition to the constant cacophony of harangues from scientific ideologues, with the occasional defense of Gore, by “Gore,” or expressed adulation by other scientists, thrown in, it paints Gore as a liar, or wild, serial exaggerator. (The same theme which the media over zealously ran with in 2000, changing the course of U.S. history and making Gore, falsely, untrustworthy to many voters.)  It does this by falsely contrasting the IPCC’s estimate of 23 inches of seal level rise,with Gore’s 20 feet, without bothering to mention that Gore in both his book and movie specifically mentions 20 feet in the context of potential Greenland ice dome or West Antarctic ice shelf melt — thereby heavily misleading Times’ readers, and making Gore look disingenuous and extreme,when the melting ice postulations, in addition to being aptly qualified by Gore, are also actually quite reasonable, and highly relevant.

Very tied to this, a special case study report on The Washington Post, Glenn Beck, and Media Standards in America today this past winter illustrated how the media either treated the incendiary Beck as one side of a “two sided” political spectrum, or, in some instances, promoted or further legitimized him. This was starkly contrasted with, at the same time, the failure to cover the relevant facts on Beck: That is, the very heavily followed and influential commentator’s persistent pattern of often outrageously misinformed and highly inflammatory rhetoric — much of it, while Beck continues to say he frowns upon violence, violence inciting.

Unfortunately, this report has not been very widely read. Even the Washington Post, whose publisher, and Managing and Executive Editors each received copies, failed to respond.

As a result of the failure for the media to serve as any kind of check upon the rampant misinformation, and even at times poisonously inflammatory and misleading rhetoric of Beck, we continue to see him not just continue to make up facts and repeatedly get things wrong, but also continue to incite his audience with constant — and often unfounded yet wildly inflamatory — demonization of those he disagrees (or thinks he disagrees) with.

To get a better idea of just how starkly misleading Beck  is, in marked contrast to the way he has been weakly portrayed by much of the media, read the report. Most of Beck’s rhetoric serves to incite great anger and even extreme intolerance, often based upon mis-portrayed highly misleading “facts.”

Here’s another article that ties Beck’s rhetoric in with one of the subsequent acts of violence that came after the DHS report; an act that also was one of outright terrorism. Namely, the purposeful flying of an airplane into a federal office building by an American Citizen, of non Middle Eastern descent and with no connection to Islam. This depraved act was something which the media also underplayed, while much of the far right casually dismissed it.

Following the natural pattern of misleading incitement by Beck, which leads not just to rampant misinformation and confused anger, but sometimes spills over into eventual violent acts, yet another DHS warning type of incident has occurred. As pointed out today, by an often maligned public media advocacy organization, via email:

On Sunday, July 18, unhinged ex-convict Byron Williams loaded his truck with guns and headed up a California highway with the intention of starting a revolution. If he hadn’t been stopped by brave officers — two of whom were wounded in the confrontation — he could have carried out a plan to kill staff at progressive organizations, including the Tides Foundation.

What is the Tides Foundation? It’s the nonprofit that Glenn Beck brags about “turning the light of day” on by constantly attacking it as part of a socialist conspiracy to destroy our government. The Tides Foundation isn’t the shadowy political influence of Beck’s fantasies — it’s a transparent organization known in the philanthropic community for doing good public service. Make no mistake: Beck’s intention was to paint the Tides Foundation as a dangerous, increasingly powerful threat to freedom that must be stopped. And Williams set out to stop them.

Just another example, very aptly here made by Media Matters for America.  (One might also want to compare it with this episode of the Glenn Beck show where two guests seemed to be supporting armed resistance against the U.S Government, with Beck simultaneously decrying how horrible this would be while both egging them on and repeatedly framing all of their talking points for them (except, often far far more effectively.)

Why does this pattern persist? Above we looked at the disconnect between this reality, and the way Beck is being covered by this same media — notwithstanding the fact that some, compounding the problem, refer to the station that Beck’s show appears on, as part and parcel of that media itself. On this note, the email from media matters then, unfortunately, goes on to suggest:

It’s time for those who profit from Beck to take responsibility for his incitements to violence. Beck’s paranoid, dishonest and incendiary rhetoric doesn’t just reflect on Beck — it reflects on News Corp., Fox News’ parent company, and its shareholders. Morgan Stanley owns nearly $300,000,000 in News Corp. stock, Bank of New York more than $175,000,000, Goldman Sachs $115,000,000, and JPMorgan Chase nearly $70,000,000. As owners of the company, they need to take responsibility for the conduct of its employees.

Demand that News Corp.’s major shareholders renounce Glenn Beck’s violent rhetoric and its dangerous consequences.

While this may be technically true, why the email does this is hard to fathom, as it is somewhat akin to asking the Fox guarding the chicken coop to stop eating the chickens, or rather, asking other people to ask the Fox guarding the chicken cop to stop eating chickens. (On the other hand, making the point repeatedly with advertisers is not necessarily a bad strategy.)

The answer (in addition, again, to perhaps making the point repeatedly to advertisers), lies in demanding accountability from other, actual media sources, including regarding the phenomenal and from a media (and well informed democracy) standpoint, disturbing story that is Fox, and, also, and separately, Beck. (Again, the Post memorandum style report linked to above is a good place to start.)  It also lies in turning the underlying facts, as well as Beck, and Fox’s individual instances (and patterns) of misrepresentation of those facts, into far bigger stories — and not just among a self selecting choir but for America — until the misrepresentations serve to undermine the misrepresenting party more than assist it. ]

The report did seem to make the distinction between right wing and right wing violent extremism (though perhaps it could or should have used the slightly more clarifying but technically non relevant language “far right extremism” rather than “right wing extremism). However, some commentators made the claim that the report did not do so enough. And while many moderate conservatives responded normally to a potentially very relevant report, many, more staunch, conservatives, were outraged.

For example, potential 2012 presidential candidate New Gingrich issued such a short response it was a tweet, labeling the report “outrageous,” and calling for firings.

Hyper conservative blogger Michele Malkin called it a “hit job on conservatives” that was a “piece of crap.” Malkin also scoffed at the claim that the report had been initiated under the Bush Administration, calling this “bs,” because the report referenced events that had occurred since the autumn of 2008 — perhaps confusing the idea of being initiated and/or worked on, with it being completed and the most pertinent recent information added.

It also seems that Malkin and others themselves may have been confusing far right violent extremists, with right wing or far right wing politics; or, again, thought the report did not sufficiently make the distinction.  (Here’s the report itself.) Salon columnist and constitutional scholar Glenn Greenwald, while also somewhat questioning the seeming broad language of the report, also notes (and documents) how this seemingly shrill outcry stands in market contrast to past responses to potentially much more egregious uses and abuses of a potentially increasingly investigative Federal Government.

As for the marked differences between a simple and common political ideology (and not one which, unlike Glenn Beck is doing for its political counterpart ideology, anyone is labeling a “cancer,” that needs to be “cut out” and “eradicated”) and the specific concern of far right wing violent extremism, the following might have been an example of the type of distinction that the report was trying to make. Yesterday:

Nine members of the Christian militia group Hutaree have been indicted on multiple charges involving an alleged plot to attack police, including seditious conspiracy and attempted use of weapons of mass destruction, the U.S. Attorney in Michigan announced this morning.

Eight of the nine are pictured below, with the leader, David Stone, pictured in the upper left corner:

Meanwhile, back when the DHS report was issued, the staunchly conservative site “Newsbusters” wrote a scathing condemnation of it, claiming, “its contents read like the paranoid accusations of liberal bloggers and leftwing shills on MSNBC and elsewhere.”

Yet a little over a month ago, an American suicide bomber, in an under publicized incident of clear domestic terrorism, flew his airplane into a federal IRS building; amazingly and thankfully only killing one person, while wounding several others.  While attempts were made by some to categorize this individual as leftist, his anti government screeds and calls for revolt seem to have the clear imprint of raving fomenter Glenn Beck all over them.

That would be two rather potentially chilling incidents of what appear at least to be acts of right wing extremism, both by a “lone” wolf, which the DHS report warns about, and by small “cells” which it warns about as well. And at least three incidents if one considers the Holocaust Museum shootings that occurred shortly after the report was issued last year.  Yet, disturbing as that incident might have been, it does not seem to rise to the level of a suicide bomber flying an airplane into a federal building, or, perhaps even more chillingly, what Hutaree members were allegedly planning.

It [was] a worldwide consensus. You can go back and try and rewrite history, but at that moment we as a nation were faced with the belief that [Iraq] had WMD.

The show’s host, Matt Lauer, did not act simply as a promotional talking parrot for all of Rove’s revisionism. Thus, the extreme far right “Media Research Center” described Lauer as having “assaulted” Rove. That is, pointing out discrepancies between specious claims and the facts, as a journalist actually asking questions, is, according to the Media Research Center “an assault.” Here’s the claim, and the actual interview.

Regarding Rove’s claim: One of the main reasons why 3 out of the 5 permanent members of the U.N. Security Council explicitly voted no on authorization to use military force for the enforcement of U.N. Resolutions regarding potential Iraq WMDs, was because of the belief that Iraq may not in fact possess WMD’s.  In other words, no “world wide consensus,” as Rove asserts.

Just prior to the October 9, 2002 Senate Vote on the U.S. Resolution authorizing the use of force to rid Iraq of WMDs, Senator John Kerry said on the floor of the Senate:

“In order to force inspections, you need the [real] threat of force.”Kerry, then, verbatim, again just before said vote, clearly stated: “Let me be clear, the vote I will give to the President is for one reason and one reason only: To disarm Iraq of WMDs, if we can not [achieve this through] ….inspections in joint concert with our allies.”

Prior to Kerry’s speech, it had been four years since weapons inspectors had been in Iraq. Moreover, inspections prior to that had for years been considered non probative because with no real threat of force Iraq had not cooperated. As a result, almost every single intelligence agency report noted that our beliefs about Iraq WMDs were assumptions rendered “in the absence of credible data.”

After Kerry argued that the resolution was necessary in order to force legitimate inspections, weapons inspectors, on November 27, 2002 went back in Iraq and were able to conduct real, viable inspections, for the first time in numerous years. And as reported (albeit very meekly) in both the Washington Post and the NY Times, inspectors were not finding anything, and were unequivocally saying to “wait” and let them finish their jobs.

There was some skepticism even before the inspectors went back in. England’s leading newspaper, the Guardian, reported three days after the October 9, 2002 Senate vote on the U.S. resolution that Soviet President Vladimir Putin, for instance, “rejected Anglo-American claims that Saddam Hussein already possesses weapons of mass destruction and told Tony Blair [the day before] that the best way to resolve the conflict of evidence is not war, but the return of UN inspectors to Iraq.” Putin:

Fears are one thing, hard facts are another.

Some inspectors, who had the best angle on this information, claimed after going back to Iraq that the Bush Administration was not sharing its alleged “intelligence information” on Iraq with the very people charged with finding proof of it.  For example, as the conservative London Times reported on December 6, 2002, Demetrius Perrico (who later succeeded Hans Blix as head of the U.N. Inspection Commission), frustrated at not finding anything after more than a week in Iraq and lack of Bush Administration “information,” stated:

What we’re getting and what President Bush may be getting is very different, to put it mildly.

On the most hyped up charges, there was even more doubt:

In a December 8, 2002 aired interview with Bob Simon of CBS’s 60 Minutes, physicist David Albright, a leading weapons inspector in Iraq in the 1990s, had the following exchange with Simon:

SIMON: It seems that what you’re suggesting is that the administration’s leak to the New York Times, regarding aluminum tubes, was misleading?
ALBRIGHT: Oh, I think it was. I think — I think it was very misleading.
SIMON: So basically what you’re saying is that whatever nugget of information comes across, the Bush administration puts it in a box labeled ‘nuclear threat,’ whereas it could go many other places.
ALBRIGHT: That’s how it looked, and that they were selectively picking information to bolster a case that the Iraqi nuclear threat was more imminent than it is, and in essence, scare people.

And as Joby Warrick reported in a January 23, 2003 front page Washington Post story:

Moreover, there were clues from the beginning that should have raised doubts about claims that the tubes were part of a secret Iraqi nuclear weapons program, according to U.S. and international experts on uranium enrichment.

By the time of the last inspection report in early March, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency reported to the Security Council that there was no evidence encountered of renewed nuclear programs or that Iraq had attempted to import Uranium since 1990, while again noting “inspections in Iraq are moving forward.”

Once inspectors were back in Iraq and with the credible threat of force backing up their actions were allowed to do their job for the first time in many years, the results were little short of remarkable in contrast with the almost old Soviet style revisionism being played out now (and that for the most part the media has mildly enabled, never covering the issue properly (see second half of this letter to Salon columnist Glenn Greenwald on the characterization and history of the run up to the Iraq war, for example), by far right wing elements in America.  Inspectors simply were not finding evidence of any relevant WMDs, and were repeatedly saying “wait” on any military action and to let them finish their jobs.

On February 20, 2003, in a followup to Perricos’ claim that the Bush administration was asserting one thing and repeatedly sharing another, CBS reported that:

So frustrated have the inspectors become that one source has referred to the U.S. intelligence they’ve been getting as “garbage after garbage after garbage.” [In fact, the CBS article notes that the source used another, cruder word, in addition to "garbage."]

The CBS story also reported that while only the votes of the 5 permanent members of the Security Council matter (3 of whom ultimately voted against authorization on precisely these grounds), that a “majority of the 15 council members are opposed to war at least until U.N. weapons inspectors report in mid-March.”  (After the March 7 report, — the last of five reports to the UN Security Council between December 19 and the initiation of military action — which offered nothing new in the way of new information or evidence of relevant weapons programs and noted the need to continue the process, the status did not change.)

On March 16, 3 days before the U.S. under the Bush Administration initiated military action, Walter Pincus of the Washington Post reported:

…..Senior intelligence analysts say they feel caught between the demands from White House, Pentagon and other government policymakers for intelligence that would make the administration’s case “and what they say is a lack of hard facts,” one official said. …

As Hans Blix, the head of the Inspections team in Iraq, later noted:

In January 2003, we had performed quite a lot of inspections to sites which were given by intelligence and they had not shown any weapons of mass destruction, so we began to be doubtful. And among the 700 inspections that we performed, none brought us any evidence of weapons of mass destruction.

Weapons inspectors who are criticizing U.S. leads as “garbage,” who are repeatedly saying to “wait,” who are stating that while they can not be certain of everything yet they can not find much of significance to support the claim of WMD programs, multiple member contries of the U.N. Security Council who were skeptical, including three of five members who voted no against military action to enforce resolution 1441 (which had passed by a 15-0 vote) on the grounds that it was not clear that Iraq even had WMD’s, hardly sounds like a “worldwide” consensus.

After botching the real story — including most notably that of falsely alleged John “Iraq flip flopping” Kerry for years (again, see second half here); is the main stream media going to stand by now and allow leading national spin that approaches pure pre-Soviet collapse revisionism right here in our own country?

Frank Rich, in Saturday’s New York Times, comments on the dismal state of affairs that has far right wing elements now trying to literally rewrite American history based upon not upon the facts, but upon pure, unadulterated and highly misleading political spin and propaganda:

Now the revisionist floodgates have opened with the simultaneous arrival of Karl Rove’s memoir and Keep America Safe, a new right-wing noise machine invented by Dick Cheney’s daughter Liz and the inevitable William Kristol. This gang’s rewriting of history knows few bounds. To hear them tell it, 9/11 was so completely Bill Clinton’s fault that it retroactively happened while he was still in office.

For more on how militant Keep America Safe is, consider their ad impugning Department of Justice officials as terrorist sympathizers, only one step removed from the wacky, radical theories of years yore that accused the Bush Administration of knowing about, if not being complicit in, the 9-11 attacks before hand. Obama Green Jobs advisor Van Jones was forced to resign from office for allegedly signing a petition (that he later disavowed) that was not nearly so radical as that.

Also consider the false propaganda like argument that the incoming administration was without blame with respect to the the events of September 11, 2001, while the prior administration (along with their top counter terrorism expert holdover — which severely and repeatedly tried to warn the new, incoming administration about the threat (to, of course, repeatedly deaf ears), bears of course all the responsibility. But the reality is:

September 11 did not come out of the blue, but came less a year after the bombing of the USS Cole killing 17 America Sailors; less than 10 months after the outgoing National Security Advisor personally met with incoming NSA head Condi Rice to tell her that the Bush Administration would be spending “more time specifically…on al-Qaeda, than any other subject;” less than eight months after Richard Clarke urgently requested a principals level meeting to discuss the al-Qaeda threat (which never met, despite subsequent requests); less than two months after a President’s Daily Brief warning of the severe and growing threat of Al-Qaeda; and less than eight months after Paul Bremer (later Bush’s Ambassador to Iraq) actually warned:

The new administration seems to be paying no attention to the problem of terrorism. What they will do is stagger along until there’s a major incident and then suddenly say, ‘Oh, my God, shouldn’t we be organized to deal with this?

In fact, not only did September 11 not come “out of the blue,” it came on the heels of an absolutely startling record of issue avoidance and lack of relevant awareness.

Rich suggests; “the old regime’s attack squads are relentless and shameless,” and correctly concludes, “History will be repeated not only if we forget it, but also if we let it be rewritten by those whose ideological zealotry and boneheaded decisions have made America less safe to this day.”

Whatever one thinks about the multitude of strategic international decisions and statements by the Bush Administration, one thing is certain. Just as “secrecy, and a free, democratic government don’t mix,” as former President Harry Truman once put it, abject revisionism history, and free democracies, ultimately don’t either.

The New York times might well be America’s Leading Newspaper. Yet last month, The Times ran an otherwise passable piece on climate change that had a sensationalistic and highly misleading headline about the “deep freeze” we were ostensibly in, and that played into the false balance idea that scientific analyses over climate patterns and mocking anti science skepticism are almost two sides to a reasonable “discussion.”

Such skepticism — a healthy attribute in science in general — is on the issue of climate change routinely based upon ideological belief and yet offered up as ostensible “science.”

Precipitation is not temperature.  (Moreover, in 2009 the U.S. Global Change Research Program predicted the possibility of increased precipitation in the Eastern U.S. as part of the climate change phenomenon.)

And one region over a short term period relative to long term global trends, given inherent weather variability, is about as relevant as what the temperature is at 3:00 p.m. v. 2:35 p.m. on a mid October day in terms of determining if we are moving into winter or summer.

Yet sites that veer into anti science –or simply exhibit great misunderstanding of the subject matter — continue to play upon common misperceptions on the basic science and argue that unusually large snowstorms mean that the phenomenon of climate change is less likely.

As other sites have pointed out, here for example is the far right wing site Newsbusters on the recent Washington, D.C. snowstorm:

With Washington, D.C. buried beneath at least 20 inches of snow, and with more in the forecast, common sense would suggest global warming alarmists look elsewhere to make the argument to raise awareness for their concerns.

But no, Dylan Ratigan thinks it’s ridiculous to suggest all the snowfall totals could cast doubt on the theory of anthropogenic global warming.

Such sound bites as these are easy to assert yet reflect an almost complete misunderstanding of the subject matter, and tend to greatly further misinformation on the subject matter.

As a further example of how this process of misinformation takes place, and just how prevalent it is, consider what happened when the very next day after the misleading NY Times article appeared, Britain’s leading Newspaper ran the following highly misleading headline:

Climate scientists withdraw journal claims of rising sea levels.

This headline implies that the claim of sea level rise was being withdrawn. In fact, what was being withdrawn was a very specific paper on the conservative end of such claims.

The real problems with such headlines is that they are then often mistakenly used by “climate change” skepticism sites and so called experts, most of whom are actually expert at passing off erroneous and misleading information as logical and scientifically based, and adding to the level of confusion, misunderstanding, and false assertions on the topic.

The Wonk Room at the liberal leaning site Think Progress, with little partisan spin, does an excellent job of powerfully illustrating how this climate headline and paper retraction report was in turn, and immediately, used by numerous ideological sites to further misinformation on the subject of climate change.

If all one read was the introduction, a reader might get the false impression that sea level rise from global warming is in doubt. The misleading Guardian headline was picked up — as per usual — by the Drudge Report and Marc Morano’s conspiracy site Climate Depot. Right-wing bloggers, unsurprisingly, latched on to the headline without any comprehension of the story:

Betsy Newmark: Another global warming claim that has had to be retracted because of problems with the data.

Sammy Benoit: OOPS Never-mind! Climate scientists withdraw IPCC-related article claiming sea is rising.

JammieWearingFool: Another global warming myth comes crashing down. No warming since at least 1995, no melting glaciers and now no rising sea levels.

Jules Crittenden: Warmal scientists are compelled to admit (again) that they don’t know what they’re talking about, retract study that predicted up to a nearly three-foot sea level rise by 2100.

Law professor William A. Jacobson: But now the seas are not going to rise? My dream of a waterfront home is melting away faster than the glaciers.

Caleb Howe: Yet another card removed from the geodesic dome of cards that is AGW hysteria.

Joe Romm from Climate Progress — a much heralded site which has its ups and downs but which is generally very informative and painstakingly researched — aptly, if generously, summarizes the phenonemon here:

Another dreadful media headline, another round of anti-science confusion.

Some of it may be confusion.  But some of it also clearly appears to be ideological blindness and or desire driving the multiple analyses and efforts to seek out belief reinforcing mistakes.

The Guardian article itself notes in the very first sentence:

Scientists have been forced to withdraw a study on projected sea level rise due to global warming after finding mistakes that undermined the finding

But the article then goes on to note in the very next few paragraphs that the paper that was retracted was used to support the IPCC estimates for sea level rise — estimates that as the paper also notes, many scientists have criticized as far too conservative.

As the Wonk Room further notes:

However, the retraction instead admits that the paper’s calculations for an upper bound to future sea level rise were incorrect, and sea level rise could be much worse. [The] study used paleoclimate reconstructions to predict that sea level rise from global warming would be constrained to between 7 cm and 82 cm (3 to 32 in) by the end of the century, in line with the estimated sea level rise in the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, which excluded possible effects from ice sheets.

…The best scientific estimates of future sea level rise continue to worsen, as it becomes evident that the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets are losing mass much more rapidly than estimated before 2007. December’s “Global sea level linked to global temperature,” published…in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences projects a catastrophic rise of 0.75 to 1.9 m (2.5 to 6 feet) by 2100:

In other words, estimates of sea level rise were based upon numerous studies and projections, not upon this one study, which was notable only in that it tended to support the earlier IPCC sea level estimates, which had been criticized for having been too low.   The retraction of this report only further supported critiques of the IPCC estimates as too low; quite the opposite of what the seeming anti climate science crowd crowed about –believing, or falsely implying, that it undermined the idea of and support for projected sea level rises.

The retracted study appeared in the Journal Nature GeoScience in July of 2009. In a post written seven months earlier, in December, 2008, entitled US Geological Survey stunner: Sea-level rise in 2100 will likely “substantially exceed” IPCC projections, Romm notes:

A major new report warns that on our current emissions path, we face the severe risk of abrupt climate change impacts. The basic conclusions themselves are nothing new — see “Startling new sea level rise research: “Most likely” 0.8 to 2.0 meters by 2100” and “Australia faces the “permanent dry” — as do we.”

But what is stunning is that these warnings come from the United States Geological Survey —the Bush Administration (!). This new science-based report, Abrupt Climate Change, is thus a sobering book-end to the fantasy-based talking points released by the Administration today on how the President has “Taken Constructive Steps To Confront Climate Change.”

This is a first-rate report from the USGS’s Climate Change Science Program. I highly recommend reading, Chapter 2, “Rapid Changes in Glaciers and Ice Sheets and their Impacts on Sea Level,” and Chapter 3, “Hydrological Variability and Change.” The chapters are much more readable than the IPCC reports, and the two together will make anyone an expert on what are perhaps the two most dangerous climate impacts that threaten this country.

The sea level rise conclusion, “based on an assessment of the published scientific literature” is:

Recent rapid changes at the edges of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets show acceleration of flow and thinning, with the velocity of some glaciers increasing more than twofold. Glacier accelerations causing this imbalance have been related to enhanced surface meltwater production penetrating to the bed to lubricate glacier motion, and to ice-shelf removal, ice-front retreat, and glacier ungrounding that reduce resistance to flow. The present generation of models does not capture these processes. It is unclear whether this imbalance is a short-term natural adjustment or a response to recent climate change, but processes causing accelerations are enabled by warming, so these adjustments will very likely become more frequent in a warmer climate.

For the record, our prediction is that narrow range estimates are valuable in so far as predicting expected general direction, but of very limited worth as exercises in precision. The guestimation here is that save for noting the fact that sea levels are likely to rise. Assuming a slow to moderate anthropomorphic response to the challenge, sea levels will rise between 3 to 20 feet over the next 100 years, and more likely, between 6 and 18 feet. This does not mean it can’t rise more (or less, although less than this is very unlikely). And this takes into broader account more of the uncertainties inherent in speculating such a complex, futuristic phenomenon, as well as some of the potential feedback effects from increasingly decreasing surface albedo, increasingly energy (and carbon dioxide) absorbing ocean systems, and potential increases in both wildfires and terrestrial permafrost melting, among other phenomena.) But the eventual 100 year results could still very reasonably be outside of even these much broader ranges.  (Although, barring a complete reversal of ocean patterns that shut off the flow sub tropical warm waters northward along with other factors, results outside of the lower end seem exceedingly unlikely.)

Note that said “slow to moderate” response will be almost inconsequential to the problem. This will likely lead at some point in the future, well after the causes of these changes will have implemented, to potentially radical responses when anti science furor and complacency switches over to panic. It is hard to predict just when such a similarly unproductive shift will occur, as climate is a slow acting phenomenon as well as a long term trend with excessive shorter term variability which tends to mask our ability to accurately assess precisely what is going on, from shorter term data. Further complicating the picture here is the fact that potential masking inherent variability aside, there is an enormous lag time (several decades if not more) between cause and effect regarding the full impact of climate change, so that if we constrain ourselves to acting upon what is thus observable and provable, we will always be many decades behind the curve: In other words, acting to remedy a created problem that will have been greatly exacerbated via anthropogenic forcing input not yet reflected by then current observations.

Apparently  sensational headlines trump accuracy, for the gray lady now too.  NY Times Headline, February 10, 2010:

Climate-Change Debate Is Heating Up in Deep Freeze

What deep freeze? Times Reporter John Broder writes:

As millions of people along the East Coast hole up in their snowbound homes, the two sides in the climate-change debate are seizing on the mounting drifts to bolster their arguments.

Oh.  That Deep freeze.  The one where temperatures (but for possibly a few days) were, essentially, within normal ranges.  And where, a bit to the West and north in Vancouver where the winter Olympics were being held, the record for the warmest monthly January average was broken by a full 1.6 degrees, and was a whopping full 7 degrees above the historic average January Temperature for the area.

As the Washington Post reported in February:

Before the massive snow-hauling began last week, the freestyle skiing course that will feature gold medal competition in moguls on Saturday sported little more than grass and mud, giving a double meaning to Vancouver’s environmentally conscious effort to put on the greenest Games in history.

As Joe Romm of Climate Progress points out, January temperatures across the continental U.S. were mildly above average. And the year that had just ended,was tied, according to NASA, for the second warmest year on record.

To get a sense of just how irrelevant and variable shorter term data is, and as a random example of potentially how variable it seems to be becoming, consider that temperatures in the U.S. in December, 2009, were 3.2 degrees colder than the long term average, whereas the month earlier, November, they were a whopping four degrees warmer than the 20th century average.   These are not daily temperatures, but the monthly average, for the entire contiguous United States, and represent wildly fluctuating patterns.

As for February, complete temperature data has not yet been compiled; but preliminary data indicates that February was not radically different, temperature wise, from January.

What February did see is a lot of precipitation, which if the temperature is around or below 32 degrees, will usually fall as snow. Temperature data is what it is — whether we have snow or rain is irrelevant to ascertaining whether it is “hot” or “cold” since we have thermometers.  So what matters as to whether we are in a “deep freeze” or not is temperatures,which again were wildly warm for November, unusually cold for December, a bit warmer than average for January, and somewhat normal for February. (Although if the Times headline was referring, more relevantly, to global patterns, we are in the midst not of a deep freeze, but an extremely warm winter.)

Periods of increased precipitation are also fully consistent with the phenomenon commonly referred to as “climate change;” as one of the underlying expectations for decades has been for a potential increase in unpredictable, volatile, and variable weather patterns. The United States Global Change Research Program, for whatever is it worth, constitutes the official U.S. word on climate change. In its detailed U.S. Climate Impacts report last year (as Broder, in his article, does finally get around to pointing out near the bottom), increased rain and snow, whether correctly or incorrectly, was predicted for the Northeastern United States. Heavy snow fall in the mid to northern Eastern Regions of the United States, amidst a broader period of both above average — as well has highly variable and unpredictable temperatures, is not even remotely inconsistent with any reasonably scientific assessment given on climate change, and if anything only serves as further, if statistically of limited value, evidence of precisely these types of increasing trends.

Yet anti science types — whether driven by misunderstanding, ideological zealotry, or both — jumped all over the snow as a chance to mock climate change, as Broder’s article went to great lengths to point out.

What Broder’s article did not go to great lengths to point out is how wildly misinformed as well as scientifically specious this is. Instead, several times in the article, he plays into elementary school remedial science class nonsense as if it were part of some legitimate debate; as for example, among other instances, when he writes:

As the first blizzard howled last weekend, the Virginia Republican Party put up an advertisement on the Web — titled “12 Inches of Global Warming” — criticizing two Virginia Democrats, Representatives Rick Boucher and Tom Perriello, who voted for the federal cap-and-trade legislation last year. The advertisement urges voters to call Mr. Boucher and Mr. Perriello to ask if they will help with the shoveling.

To be fair, Broder does slightly shift into offering up some explanation of some of these things, under the guise of “scientist say;” and the article, wildly misleading and sensational headline aside, is ultimately mildly informative.  But it also plays into the seeming reasonableness of the debate, instead of serving to illuminate the abject misinformation and wild misunderstanding (or, again, speciousness) which it is reflective of — and which is the far more relevant story here.  And in such, does very little to serve to correct it, rather than simply serve as a stenographic parrot for it all.

Introduction

This report was prepared for the media in general, and was also sent to Washington Post publisher Katharine Weymouth, Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli, and Managing Editors Elizabeth Spayd and Raju Narisetti for their response.

Last summer, the Washington Post ran a promotional “Q & A” forum for Fox “news pundit” and popular radio host Glenn Beck.[i]

This report covers the broader media issues relevant to the decision to promote Beck in this Q & A forum, and includes an eye opening analysis of the relevant underlying facts — also pertinent to all media sources.  The report also shows why these issues are so strongly applicable to the Post coverage issue at hand and, by implication, more generically to most of the “Beck” coverage that we have seen over the last several years.

In terms of media coverage assumptions, this special report also helps show what might be contributing to the specific Washington Post phenomena discussed, and again, by implication, to the broader media coverage of Beck and other to some degree other highly misleading and incendiary “news” or political figures – with the single caveat that there is no one quite like Beck, and hence why he was chosen here.  The Post itself was chosen because it is considered a flagship institution, extremely influential in Washington circles, and is still, in the broader population, often portrayed as, and considered, to be a news source that skews facts in a so called “liberal” political direction in its coverage.

This report also leads up to an intriguing and very pertinent question at the end: That is, Beck’s own “common sense” inspiration, Thomas Paine, once famously asserted that “the most formidable weapon against errors of every kind is reason.” This report, at its conclusion, directly asks the Post’s publisher and main editors (as listed on the title page), if this is still the case today; and if so, to illustrate this by correcting the record as laid out below, in light of the ample reason supplied therein.

The Larger Patterns and Misconceptions of Media Coverage Today

If many of Beck’s own representations are to be believed, most of the principles espoused by his inspiration Thomas Paine – in direct contravention to the farcical claim of his Washington Post promoted book cover[ii] – are to be ridiculed or directly contradicted, rather than provide “common sense” book cover “inspiration.”

As we will see, amply supported below, Beck is also often wildly deceptive (or, more likely, self deceiving as well). This, while routinely underestimated (again, see infra), is bad enough for someone who commands the large audiences and constant attention that Beck does. But it takes on additional significance when he combines this with his extraordinarily inflammatory and incendiary rhetoric.

For the most part, however, as relevant and as important as this is, it has not been objectively covered in the media, other than for an occasional, abstract allusion to it — and it is a particularly far cry from the Washington Post’s promotional pandering, in lieu of hard hitting reporting, instead.

Thus, is it the Post’s claim that it’s not the newspaper’s role, as a once estimable part of our Fourth Estate – and given Beck’s wild popularity – to dispassionately, objectively, and non-partisanally examine Beck’s most incendiary claims in light of the hard, fast, objective fact “news”? Or to at least provide the appropriate underlying context and relevant information regarding what he has actually conveyed to the American people?

If this is the Post’s claim, why so? Is it due to a fear that the newspaper will be accused of “bias,” because the facts – as this report provides ample evidence of – are crazily lopsided? Thus, indented for emphasis:

Does a leading newspaper’s role become not to serve as an objective reporter of the most relevant news, information, and context, but to convince a belief driven, largely subjective, and often incorrect world that you are not “biased“?

Such role playing, of course, helps to promote the same wild subjectivity and rhetoric over fact in the first place, in a vicious circle we have seen played out for several years now. Additionally, given the nature of politics, convincing a belief driven, and often incorrect world that one is not “biased” can never be achieved anyway. That is, unless a news source merely reports 1) what those who are going to be most suspicious of the open, dispassionate, investigative, illuminating practice of journalism, and/or most driven by belief over facts, want reported, and 2) reports it in the manner they want it reported. (Somewhat like “Pravda” in the old U.S.S.R. – boosting the government rather than serving as a check upon it; or, perhaps, like “Fox” at times [iii] in the more free and independent U.S., today – boosting one side of the political spectrum at the expense of others, rather than serving as a factual check upon it all wherever the factual chips may fall.)

The media (and even many of its critics on the “left”) has completely missed this. We also seemed to have missed that the very act of journalism is by definition a classically liberal function; and needs to be precisely this, in order for our Democracy to thrive, and for an independent media to properly serve its role as an independent fourth estate “check” in order for this to happen.

Let’s be very clear here: we are not speaking of “liberal” slant (nor is the author of this report liberal politically, by the way), but of the nature of reporting itself. This document, using the case of Glenn Beck versus your newspaper’s coverage of him alone, makes this eminently clear. That is, again indented for emphasis only:

There are many people, who do not know that Beck wildly misleads them (and himself). And if a newspaper shows this – which has nothing to do with bias one way or another – it may be construed as being biased by those who do not want to accept or believe that Beck often wildly deceives himself and his audience, when it is being nothing of the sort.

By playing into this common yet false perception of bias, serving as a stenographic reflection rather than dispassionate investigative journalism source, the same misinformation and ignorance which leads to this in the first place is only further perpetuated, in the same “vicious cycle” briefly alluded to above. Notice also that serving as a stenographic reflection is almost the opposite of serving a vital, quasi public role as our Fourth Estate.[iv]

Notice that simply objective reporting will have political ramifications, particularly as the facts get further and further removed from both the rhetoric, and claims made.  As noted here[v]:

Non partisan analysis, in turn, does not refer to the implications of objective reporting — which is fact based, and yet will often have partisan ramifications — but to the analysis itself, relative to the facts, and irrespective of political ramifications or implications.

This is a critical point; one often overlooked by many in the media, and even by some covering the media.  For example, there are multiple media studies which incorrectly assess bias based upon whether articles are “favorable” or “unfavorable” toward a candidate or group, as if where the facts lie, rather than the media’s treatment (or omission) of them, is the arbiter of objectivity and bias.

…What rule of nature is there that dictates that the facts themselves must weigh equally in favor or disfavor of [one party or claim] versus [another]? None. (In fact, given human nature, and the way of politics, it is far more likely to be the opposite.) Thus favor-ability versus non favor-ability may tell us more about the [party, pundit, or claim] than it does about bias. But we can presume nothing about bias from such studies.  The only thing that correctly assesses bias is the coverage of the candidates relative to the facts.

Coverage of Beck has tilted in the exact opposite direction. Were the facts to be correctly and objectively covered, the picture presented of Beck would be extraordinarily different from the one that he represents, that the “Fox” channel carrying his TV news program represents, and what the Post represented. (Again, see text, infra.)

An objective assessment of Beck would likely paint an extremely unfavorable picture of him.  By the misguided standards routinely employed today — where what is correct is determined by the averaging out of whatever the loudest and most successful parties are shouting, rather than by the facts themselves — such a report might then be determined to be “unfavorable” to Beck, and thus biased against him, when it is nothing of the sort.

There is also another plausible, if not likely explanation, for what appears to be the Washington Post’s de facto belief that it is not its role to provide the appropriate underlying context and relevant information regarding what Beck (and others) have actually conveyed to the American people, and/or that you don’t fully see this underlying context and relevant information yourselves. And that is, it is because the Post, over the course of this past decade, actually has become biased, relative to the facts.

A great deal of evidence exists to suggest that both of these phenomena are at play here; that is, wanting to appear as “not biased,” and actual further bias on top of that, in the other direction.

But, if this is the case, it is very difficult to immediately recognize the latter, by the very nature of politics. But any newspaper can recognize the former factor likely at play here, and almost constantly in the media today; that is, the latent or even conscious concern over appearing unduly biased. And those in the news business can work – and need to work – to look more objectively and apolitically at things: understanding that looking at things apolitically is very different from those things having political ramifications, which is where the whole newspaper/ Right to Far Right tension inherent in any robust, healthy functioning free democracy comes into play.

Speaking of which, let’s now look at the Beck situation; starting, briefly, with the Post’s coverage of him, and then, some examples of the facts. This should help some of the above come into a little better focus, by way of this fairly vivid – and, given the easily explainable phenomenon of Beck, very important – example.

With respect to Beck, the Post provided this frightening, Mad Magazine type Howard Beale spin-off[vi] with a self promotional platform. And it indirectly promoted his book; ostensibly, upon the claim of popularity.

But the problem here is not that Beck is a Howard Beale character – that is fine. Or that a Howard Beale character is popular. It is with what Beck has actually represented and — as the check upon groupthink run amuck that our Fourth Estate has historically served, begins to become more of a mere reflection, of it – continues to represent to his viewers, that is the problem.

After the original Beck article appeared,  a short email was sent to the Post’s Ombudsman, Andrew Alexander, which tried to put the wild divergence between what the forum tended to promote, and Beck himself, into some sort of reasonable context. Alexander wrote back the following [emphasis all added here]:

Thanks for writing. I agree that one hour is hardly a major platform. I also believe in free speech. And I think readers are pretty smart. They can pose tough questions. If he comes off as a genius or a lunatic, they’ll know and they’ll offer their views online.

Let’s briefly address both Alexander’s response, and the paper’s depiction of Beck therein. Then we will look at the relevant underlying facts, and, lastly, draw it all together.

Alexander’s response is much appreciated.  But, unfortunately, this reply has nothing to do with the underlying issues in question. Whether it was a “major” or “minor” platform was not the point; which was, namely, that the reply of the Post (and CNN’s) “media anointed” media critic Howard Kurtz (to a reader’s query in a Q & A with Kurtz where the question of the Beck interview was brought up, with Kurtz brushing it off[vii] was completely non responsive.

As for the arbitrary one hour time distinction Kurtz does draw: if it takes less than an hour to read, or give a speech about, or conduct the underlying interview for a prominent article promoted on your home page – as this forum to Beck was – does that mean that issues with it are similarly irrelevant because it’s “not a major platform”?

With respect to the rest of Alexander’s response, the idea that we believe in “free speech,” or that “readers are pretty smart,” may sound good, but they also have absolutely nothing to do with the journalism issue at hand: Namely, the paper’s inherently promotional depiction of this highly incendiary, profoundly misinformed, and yet overly influential pundit.

The Post promoted his book with an eye capturing, large picture – page center – complete with the ironic “common sense” title, and its prominent “inspiration drawn from Thomas Paine” subtext. As you will see from the stunning examples and quotes by Paine and Beck provided below, this last claim alone – inevitably promoted by the Post’s forum – and as noted above, is somewhat farcical.

The Post even went so far as to provide a title that actually reads: “Beck on Common Sense, More,” which further plays off of and in essence promotes the pervasive “Beck” and “common sense” connection. (It may also subtly play off of another great historical thinker, Thomas More, with whom Thomas Paine is easily confused.)

Alexander also intimates that from the “tough” questions put to Beck in this context[viii] and the answers provided – again, by one of the most popular talk show hosts in the country – readers would be able to determine if he is a “genius,” or, again, quote, a “lunatic.” This is an enormous stretch. Beck has one of the most popular radio shows in the country, for a reason.

The story is that he is popular; not the de facto promotion of him, and self serving platform provision for him, somehow legitimized because he is popular.  Again, indented for emphasis:

In other words, while the appeal of Beck’s misinformation, paranoid distortions, and flat out untruths may be news – something the Post has not remotely covered in the proper context despite the fact that it is extremely important news – indirectly promoting Beck by virtue of this popularity, is an entirely different matter altogether.

But what about these “tough questions” that Alexander maintains were asked?

The fact is, questions that might shed some illumination were omitted from this forum.

Whether this was the case because readers who did participate a) were Beck supporters, (b) did not really know much about Beck’s assertions, or c) did not stay away out of revulsion at the journalistic standards employed here (or at Beck) as those with better knowledge of Beck may have, or because such questions were edited out by your staffers in their question selection, doesn’t really matter. They weren’t included in the Q&A.

Yet attempting to include such questions would have been problematic anyway, as there is not much to discuss in this context:

For example, if Beck utters something that is a proven, objective, falsity – or, for example, is condemned more harshly by his own sentiments on other occasions (which of course, he forgets or does not see) than perhaps anything else could have, what is there to debate about it? Thus what types of questions could possibly have been relevant?

Let’s consider an example:

Dear Mr. Beck, why do you not only state a very large number of things that are wildly incendiary, but also do so in the context of repeatedly giving out, and relying upon, erroneous and misleading information.

Is that a question? Still, Beck could answer somewhat convincingly, if not brilliantly, how that is not the case and in fact quite persuasively claim the opposite.

The reader could then, in turn, do what? Take over your forum and provide a list that is dozens of pages long of objective facts, with documented support, illustrating Beck’s continued pattern of profoundly ignorant, manipulative, and erroneous claims, assertions and statements that would in fact show that it is the case? (As is in fact done below in abbreviated fashion.) Is the Post’s “hour long forum” going to provide the necessary examination of statements and underlying facts necessary for readers to be able to arrive at any sort of reasonably accurate determination on this not?

Of course not.

Moreover, not one question was even remotely revealing.  Again, indented for emphasis:

There is no way for readers of the Post’s forum to get any idea of the types of extremely misinformed, profoundly misleading, and extraordinarily inflammatory assertions that Beck has repeatedly made. Thus Alexander’s idea that readers — from a promotional platform with his “common sense” book and theme fore and center — with the master himself fielding a few unchallenged softballs, could get a true sense of Beck, is way off base.

Again, it is not the idea of rhetorical, or even Howard Beale like, claims that are the problem; the problem is their sometimes, if not frequent, reliance upon wildly distorted, and often completely made up facts.

The Post’s promotional forum only serves to support, and even indirectly promote, the idea of the former — by both providing Beck with this self serving, and legitimizing platform and “common sense” theme and book promotion — while doing absolutely nothing to address the far more newsworthy, and relevant, latter.

The underlying problem, however, doesn’t even stem from the questions asked, or not asked: which, as we have seen above, in this limited promotional context simply can not work anyway in terms of assessing how a wildly misleading figure, given an hour platform to promote himself, is in fact wildly misleading. The problem stems from the decision to promote Beck in the first place, by starting with the same old standard that no matter what is stated on one “side” to a theoretical “debate,” it must be of equal value and weight to some notion of the “other” side.

Therefore, this very prevalent but highly illogical thinking goes, Beck must by definition be one side to a “reasonable debate.” Under this mode of thinking, objectivity is no longer determined by hard data or dispassionate reasoning, but an averaging out of what whoever is motivated to and best at shouting out, is claiming.

That’s not a Fourth Estate Check; that’s a stenographic institutionalization of rhetoric and groupthink run amuck.

The problem also stems from the similar, and intensely anti-journalism idea that popularity and value, when it comes to news, facts, and analytical insight, must be equated, as opposed to the relevance or “fact” of the popularity itself simply being pointed out.

For example, former half term Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is popular.  Thus, for example, with respect to Palin, it’s not just “journalism” for the Post to selectively publish provocative, challenging, editorialization, for example, but, to the Post, incorrectly, also “journalism” to selectively publish and promote wildly misleading and almost incredibly misinformed spin to the Post’s readers and the American public.[ix]

The two don’t remotely equate. Yet the Washington Post newspaper is equating them.

Here, with respect to Beck, the Post went further than the increasingly common tendency to incorrectly equate “balance” and journalistic integrity – as opposed to the false appearance of it – with the mere parroting of two seemingly equal “sides” without regard to underlying fact or context. As a result, it did not even simply present Beck as if he was one of two factually equate-able sides,which is bad enough itself. Instead, it invariably promoted and Beck’s legitimacy therein, by virtue of this ridiculously pollyannaish Q&A presentation – let alone with its “Common Sense” book cover image prominently displayed fore and center, and your promotional “common sense” Q&A forum title.

Not only are readers mislead, but Beck’s credibility, and legitimacy are bolstered — with no context, balance, perspective, or underlying fact provided but Beck’s own self advertising therein.

Thomas Paine, Mr. Beck’s claimed front cover “inspiration,” had this to say: “It is an affront to treat falsehood with complaisance.” The Washington Post newspaper went further.  By indirectly promoting Beck, it promoted the falsehood of Beck.

Some Examples that Place the Post’s Promotional Forum in Context

Let’s take a look now, at Beck, in contrast:

In the Q&A Beck starts off declaring “the only that [sic] would destroy America is us, from the inside.” A few sentences in, he asserts; “Bill Maher said this weekend that Barack Obama was George Bush Lite. What are we fighting over? What is the difference between these two parties? There are reasons to speak out, but tearing ourselves apart over these scraps of freedom is odd.”

Contrast these wildly out of context statements with the fact that Beck, outside of your forum, also asserts that the homicidal actions of James Von Brunn are a natural result of Obama’s policies; that Al Gore is “like Goebbels or Hitler” based on the fact that Gore made a movie about climate change which Beck claims, “lies;”[x] that the victims of the New Orleans Katrina tragedy are “scumbags,” whom he hates; and with his sentiment that “I didn’t think I could hate victims faster than the 9-11 victims.”[xi]

Consider a few more real life examples, of the “tolerance, reasonable discourse, and ‘common sense’” Beck whom you lopsidedly promoted:

Beck: “I’m thinking about killing Michael Moore, and I’m wondering if I could kill him myself, or if I would need to hire somebody to do it. No, I think I could. I think he could be looking me in the eye, you know, and I could just be choking the life out.”[xii]

Beck, further back, “I want to kill [Rep.] Charlie Rangel with a shovel,” several times.

Contrast those imbalanced homicidal fantasies with Beck’s assertion in your cushy common sense promotional Q&A forum: “I think we need to model ourselves after Martin Luther King and Gandhi.”

After your forum appeared, Beck continued his streak of fantasizing about murdering and death – by strangulation, by a shovel, and by flames (see below) – and now by poisoning, by playing out a mock poisoning of Democratic Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi, and stating he was thinking about doing just that.

Or, contrast Beck’s “Martin Luther King” and “Gandhi” statement with his assertion last year that, “every night I get down on my knees and pray that Dennis Kucinich will burst into flames.” This pundit also seems to have a fascination with flames and burning; again, not exactly something which comes across on your “common sense” promotional forum, where Beck, again, unchecked, instead further bolsters his own legitimacy, credibility, and apparent reasonableness with your newspaper’s indirect promotional support. This spring, he even poured pretend gasoline (water) out of a gas can onto a guest, and held up a lit match to simulate what he suggested President Obama was doing to the American people.

Do you suppose, to use his Washington Post supported lingo, that this is just more of Beck’s good natured, “reasonable” on air battle to promote debate and keep us from “tearing ourselves apart”?

Kucinich, however “left” leaning he might have been – clearly reasonable grounds for such a promoter, according to his Washington Post gifted Q&A, of “vigorous debate,” to wish someone to “burst into flames” – was somewhat of a defender of individual rights at the hands of an autocratic state. This is something that surely we can all agree any blossominganti-Fascist should themselves be moderately concerned with. Yet here was the self promoting “anti-Fascist” Beck, not promoting Kucinich, but, essentially, wishing him dead.

Beck ascribed “empathy” on the part of Hitler as part of his push for eugenics and the (sick as it makes one feel to even use or consider the word in this context) “euthanasia” of the mentally disabled. He ridiculously believes that “almost everyone who does believe in global warming (or that it can be fixed, he later added) is a socialist.”

Even worse, Beck described a letter criticizing Al Qaeda in Iraq as “surprising” because “the man who wrote it is a Muslim.”

This is breathtaking, and almost frightening, in its ignorance for someone with prominent national shows and whose book “Common Sense” you promoted with your pollyannaish Q&A and title material placement and de facto legitimization (see infra).

On Carbon Dioxide, Beck, while exhaling, stated; “I’m going to harm the planet. I’m going to give some CO2 off…That should have been bottled and kept away from the planet because that’s a dangerous gas.” He asked “How could carbon dioxide be a poison when it’s naturally occurring and the trees use it to grow?” But, Beck’s incorrect use of the word “poison” aside, instead of actually trying to find the answer, Beck added, quite vehemently, “Stop. Just stop, will you? Stop with the lies!”  Indented here again, as an analogy:

This is close to the scientific equivalent of, say, accusing the government of dropping diplomats off the edge of the world to certain death when it flies them to China, since China is directly “below us” and we all know gravity makes things fall – and then when it is explained how gravity works and that it emanates from the center of a body, not its shell, screaming out in response “Stop, stop with the lies, will you!”

Consider how big a lie the person who made a big deal about “stopping with the lies,” told here, whether out of blatant deception; or, once again, profound ignorance. Yet it’s not the only big lie Beck has told. There are countless.

But consider one told during the same moments where he was repeatedly simulating Obama pouring gasoline on the American people; “He’s also closing Gitmo and letting the terrorists onto the streets!”

Quick, try to come up with a much bigger lie than that; Obama by closing Gitmo is letting the terrorists onto the streets. How inflammatory and misleading do you think that was, while he was suggesting, and metaphorically showing, Obama pouring gasoline on the American people and simulating lighting them on fire.

Beck has also come dangerously close to inciting actual violence against the President. For example, this past spring [2009] he showed a ghoulish picture onscreen of a younger looking Obama with a few other Democrats, alluded to them as bloodsuckers, and subsequently stated “…These bloodsucker vampires are not gonna just be satisfied with sucking the blood out of [business], their thirst for power and control is unquenchable. They will not stop… Either the economy becomes like the walking dead, or ya (with great stated emphasis here) drive a stake through the heart of the bloodsuckers.”

The person who inflamed his audience over lit match simulations of the President pouring gasoline over the American people while also telling them blatant and even more inflammatory lies about the President, is the same person who also wildly mislead his audience on a matter of science, while excoriating others on the matter, who were not lying, to “Stop. Just stop, will you? Stop with the lies!”

It’s like the spouse who comes home after repeatedly cheating on his faithful wife, who then starts screaming at and repeatedly attacking her for being unfaithful while yelling at her to get mental help. It’s not less deceptive (or, in Beck’s case, quite possibly simple ignorance). And the Washington Post, along with much of the rest of the media, has promoted this “pundit” as if he just a “conservative” voice, and one side to a “debate.”

“Every science has for its basis a system of principles as fixed and unalterable as those by which the universe is regulated and governed. Man cannot make principles; he can only discover them.”

Who said that? Once again, Thomas Paine, the “inspiration for” Beck’s book; on its cover, and as promoted by you, on your ridiculous “forum.”

Beck asked how CO2 could be considered a “poison,” when we breathe it out. Yet instead of even trying to discover the answer to his question, to those who try to convey basic, incontrovertible science – 1) CO2 is a greenhouse gas, 2) greenhouse gases trap heat, 3) heat drives climate, 4) because of man’s fossil fuel and non regenerative agricultural activities, atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases are from a geologic perspective accelerating at breakneck speed, and 5) this is probably a bad thing – he shouted “Stop with the lies.”

Sort of like someone shouting to Christopher Columbus, who “claimed” that the world was round, “stop with the lies;” but doing so in 1958. And then writing a book, claiming on his front cover, “inspired by Thomas Paine,” and the Washington Post promoting it with a nice picture front and center, and providing a legitimizing forum for the purveyor of all of this misinformation to further sell and promote himself.

The theme of hating, calling despicable names, or homicidally fantasizing about those with whom he disagrees – of the Washington Post promoted “we need to model ourselves after Gandhi and Martin Luther King” Beck — (never mind the irony that most of the time Beck doesn’t even have enough facts to even know why he disagrees or if he truly does) is rampant in this incendiary Machiavellian Charlatan purveyor of paranoia and misinformation:

For example, your “common sense” peddler seems to also know next to nothing regarding the strange story of Nick Berg, yet called Berg’s anti-war protestor father “despicable” and “a scumbag” two days after his son’s shocking beheading appeared on worldwide video. Perhaps Beck, even if he did not agree with the actions of Berg’s father, might not have found him so “despicable” had he considered the following quote by the man whom Beck both plagiarized his book title from, and claims it was inspired by, as promoted on your pages:

“He who is the author of a war lets loose the whole contagion of hell and opens a vein that bleeds a nation to death.”

Never mind also that Berg had allegedly been an Iraq war supporter, and yet was bound in custody for close to two weeks by the U.S. military in Iraq (until his father brought suit against the government) shortly before his unusually timed and gruesome demise at the hands of apparent insurgent extremists: Beck also accused Berg’s father, shortly after his son’s shocking Internet beheading, of exploiting this politically.

Beck exploits almost everything politically. Yet any action by Berg’s father – an overly avid anti-War protestor whose son, for unknown reasons, was arrested in Iraq and only released after his activism on his son’s behalf just prior to his subsequent, and untimely execution – similarly speaking out, instead of now being of even greater relevance, is “political exploitation,” and the overwrought father who just lost a son to a vicious beheading, a “despicable” “scumbag.” Whatever Beck says is legitimate, whatever those whom he disagrees with is “political exploitation.”

An example of confusing popularity with factual legitimacy was provided in the links above, involving former half term governor Sarah Palin. Probably not by coincidence, Palin does exactly this same thing — accusing others, with not a whit of evidence or basis, of being “political,” while what Palin does, is of course not.  Beck just also routinely adds on how he hates their guts, and fantasizes about killing them.  (And not surprisingly, Beck, who finally got to meet, and, rather eerily, interview, Palin, is apparently quite taken with her.)

Beck also accused the 9-11 victims, whom he “hates,” of exploitation. Is it okay for all other Americans on issues of terrorism to speak out, based upon their own perspectives, as part of our necessary political process; but yet the families of those brutally murdered by actual acts of terrorism, on the other hand, are engaging in political exploitation if they do so? Or is it that they are only being exploitative, and worthy of being “hated,” when Beck disagrees with them.

By this definition – it is “exploitation” by those most affected by an event to speak publicly in relation to it – there is nothing that can be done or said which is not “exploitative.” Or is it just again, exploitative when Beck doesn’t agree with the things someone is saying.

Is such extreme narrow-mindedness the type of “common sense” that Thomas Paine, our great forefather and inspiration for Beck as promoted by your forum, was known for?

To answer that, consider why Beck “hated” the 9-11 victims. Once again, Beck’s “common sense” book inspiration, Paine himself; “It is error only, and not truth, that shrinks from inquiry.” Yet Beck hated the 9-11 victims, in his own words, for “asking questions.” That is “seeking inquiry” rather than shrinking from it.

Beck repeatedly condemns fascism, and otherwise ridiculously accuses a steady stream of rather normal souls of being fascist, Nazis, or “like Hitler.” But fascism – quite unlike our democracy here in America that is grounded in part upon the notion of presumed innocence – is based instead upon the notions of presumed guilt, and of course, more famously, guilt by simple association.

However, to Keith Ellison, our nation’s first Muslim Congressman – all the while illustrating a destructive feel for precisely how to frame the issue in order to foolishly help turn the battle against terrorists into a battle against the world’s second most popular religion, and demarginalize,de-fringe, that extremist, psychotic element that resorts to horrific acts of terrorism against innocents – Beck exhibited precisely this trait, and stated, “[What] I feel like saying is, Sir, prove to me that you are notworking with our enemies.”  Has our society, led by such dumbed down coverage, become so dulled to basic logic and sensibilities, that the profundity of such a statement been lost upon us? The smartest thing we can do to thwart and eradicate terrorism (in addition to eradicating  terrorist themselves) is to work to disconnect and further radicalize the perception of psychotic extremists, from the broad second most populous religion from which their fringe sect hails.   The most fascist tendency we can exhibit, is the one that non stop “anti -fascist” Beck exhibited, by believing that innocence must be proven simply by virtue of generic association to race, creed, or religion.

Beck has also stated, on several occasions, that if otherwise “completely innocent” Muslims (i.e.,almost all of the Muslim population) don’t affirmatively act to stop “bad” Muslims, they might wind up “behind barbed wire,” a la concentration camps. (And it wasn’t always just in the form of an observation, either.)  Not Marcus Brauchli, Post Executive Editor, or Katharine Weymouth, Post Publisher, who have no such duty, but innocent Muslims.

Aside from the profound ignorance, assumed guilt by association, bastardization of an entire group, and effect of further division and misinformation, also contrast this once again with the inspirational words of Beck’s professed cover “inspiration,” Thomas Paine:

“Suspicion is the companion of mean souls, and the bane of all good society.” Or:

“If we do not hang together, we shall surely hang separately.”

Yet this is the same “common sense” Beck who is so profoundly ignorant, and suspicious, on the subject matter, he was “surprised” that a letter condemning al-Qaeda was written by a Muslim.

It is hard to fathom the words to accurately describe the almost dangerous lack of cultural and political “common sense,” sense of an otherwise nationally known news pundit, whom your newspaper would indirectly promote with the absurdly “common sense” labeled book fore and center, who could be surprised that a Muslim – the great majority of whom are normal souls and not connected to al-Qaeda and thus naturally abhor acts of psychotic, depraved violence – would condemn al-Qaeda.

Beck’s alleged inspiration also had this to say:

“Every religion is good that teaches man to be good; and I know of none that instructs him to be bad.”

When expressing “surprise” that a letter condemning the radical psychopathic terrorist group al-Qaeda was written by a Muslim, Beck must have missed that one by Paine too, or otherwise somehow mistaken it as professing the idea that all Muslims either are, or support, psychotic terrorists.

Recently (but also prior to your forum date, as are all these examples but for the one as noted above regarding Nancy Pelosi murder fantasies), the man presented on your forum under the title “Beck on ‘Common Sense,’More,” and whose book, “Common Sense…Inspired by Thomas Paine,” is prominently displayed on the page front and center, declared that:

“Gun sales are going through the roof,” because “…a lot of Americans aren’t paying attention to this…the poem…first they came for the Jews and I didn’t stand up because I wasn’t a Jew? ….in the end, I think this is the problem. First, they came for the banks. I wasn’t a banker….I didn’t stand up and say anything. Then they came for the AIG executives….Then they came for the car companies — and I didn’t say anything………Until it gets down to you — most people don’t see they are coming for you at some point…”

Except we didn’t exactly “come after” bankers, AIG executives, or car companies, in the way Beck insinuates, in so much as arming oneself would be a reasonable response. We actually gave them money – taxpayer money. A slight (and hopefully temporary) tinge of very lightly socialism (or corporate welfare) leaning tendencies with narrow respect to “economic crisis” industry support is not fascism, nor a call to arms to defend oneself against an imperialistic government. It is a call, for those who disagree, to proclaim their concern over government involvement.

But just not to the “tolerance promoting and anti violence” Glenn Beck (see, e.g., the Washington Post Glenn Beck book promotional hour), who would instead rather rally the people to outraged anger and actual arms against a President who would metaphorically light them on fire, and now soon may actually be coming to get them.

Consider one last, even more frightening, example of Beck’s rather profound “common sense,  inspired by” Thomas Paine. Beck:

“Al Gore’s not going to be rounding up Jews and exterminating them. It is the same tactic, however. The goal is different. The goal is globalization. The goal is global carbon tax. The goal is the United Nations running the world. That is the goal. Back in the 1930s, the goal was get rid of all of the Jews and have one global government…You got to have an enemy to fight. And when you have an enemy to fight, then you can unite the entire world behind you, and you seize power. That was Hitler’s plan. His enemy: the Jew. Al Gore’s enemy, the U.N.’s enemy: global warming…Then you get the scientists – eugenics. You get the scientists – global warming. Then you have to discredit the scientists who say, ‘That’s not right.’ And you must silence all dissenting voices. That’s what Hitler did.”

Beck, in his Q&A: “What people need to keep in mind is that some people in the fringe groups are CRAZY.” As are some people who are on the air, and TV shows, and who are given even further credibility by the Washington Post. And who often themselves further foment and promote such craziness, routinely.

et the mainstream media has taken further and further extreme figures, and extremely manipulative and misleading rhetoric as a result, and legitimized it; thus rendering much of our public discussion on critical issues either false, or incomplete, misleadingly, simplistically, and often manipulatively, framed.

Consider Beck’s comparison of Gore to Hitler here, based on the fact that Gore suggests that our global atmosphere that is being altered by global net greenhouse gas emissions is a global problem, where Gore is “silencing all dissenting voices,” sort of like “Hitler did.” Block quoted, for emphasis:

In Beck’s world, disagreement with and pointing out the weakness of counter-arguments – a basic engine of democracy – is “silencing” dissenting voices a la Hitler; whereas calling everyone Hitler that he disagrees with (even when he, Beck, himself, is profoundly wrong on the underlying issue or facts as well), on the other hand, is perfectly fine.

It is hardly possible to do justice in a few sound bites to the ignorance and deceitfulness, not to mention logical depravity, of Beck’s statement comparing Gore to Hitler – because Gore wants to address a growing, and likely severe, global ecological problem, and Hitler actively wanted (and tried) to exterminate huge groups of the population, and sought world domination and control.

It is so ridiculously manipulated, so incomplete, and so outrageously misleading on so many levels, it might just qualify for the prestigious Sistine Chapel Ceiling award, for the most profoundly ignorant and fomenting work of short speech as art form yet proffered by an American pundit.  Yet interestingly, it is Sarah Palin, whom as suggested above most closely mirrors Beck yet without most of the hatred, excessive inflammation, and much of the theatrics, of whom your own Kathleen Parker (a conservative) once famously stated: ‘If BS were currency, Palin could bail out Wall Street all by herself.” Beck could probably do it, and light everything else on fire, all at the same time.

Conclusion, and A Washington Post Question

Huey Long once famously said that “Fascism will come, in the name of anti-fascism.” Beck sure spends a lot of time railing against fascism for someone who continually exhibits many of its underlying driving foundations.

But yet it is “free speech,” according to the Post’s Ombudsman, not just to allow Beck to do this, but to legitimize and promote him and his book by providing it a prominent display, and him a cutesy “common sense” titled forum for further self promotion?

Yes, it is “free speech,” on the part of the Washington Post, to do so.

But it is also free speech to point out how such indirect promotion, credibility bolstering, and legitimizing reflects either an excessive lack of comprehension of the issues which Beck covers and a thorough lack of journalistic regard for reasonably comprehensive logic and reasoning thresholds, a journalistically lamentable lack of knowledge with respect to Beck himself, and/or an abysmally unprofessional attempt to pander once again to the perceived criticism from the far right.  All of which serve as a remarkably far cry from the Fourth Estate check upon power and the powerful, government, misrepresentation, groupthink, and rhetoric run amuck that a vibrant democracy requires.

The Post gave a platform for (self) promotion of this person as a purveyor of “common sense,” in a prominent forum, to say nothing of the promotion of his ironically entitled book and your forum title of the same phrase. And then in defense The Washington Post, at least as represented by its Ombudsman, confused this with the wholly irrelevant issue of “free speech,” which would in fact involve Glenn Beck’s right to say these things — not the depravity and ignorance of them; or the newspaper’s right to promote Glenn Beck — not the journalistic depravity, ignorance, and pandering of so doing.

Again, without information such as presented in this memorandum, Post readers who are painted Beck’s online picture of his own sensibilities have no way of putting them in the proper context; let alone considering the fantastically ironic contrast with his actual history of illogic, and crazily inflamed and wildly misleading communications. All readers are presented with is a deluded notion of fancy provided – courtesy of the paper – by that master of rhetorical spin and self and audience deception, framed in the apparatus of a mainstream legitimizing promulgation of this individual’s commentary, along with the prominent display of his wildly ironic and absurdly titled book, “Common Sense…Inspired by Thomas Paine.”

This report, in addition to the last and most important question posited to the Post just below, concludes with the strong suggestion that if the actual media (as opposed to the station that Beck has a show on, which most of the rest of the media continues to kowtow to instead of treating as the separate, and enormous, advocacy “media” story that it is) wants to cover Glenn Beck because he is a big name – do something useful, and informative – an expose of who he is, the things he says, and what they mean; not provide a platform to promote him, and thus his profound ignorance, profound manipulation and utter insanity (or whatever one wants to label it) already fostered upon millions of  Americans directly (and tens of millions more indirectly) as “common sense analysis.”

But that is precisely what the Washington Post did.

As noted at the outset, Thomas Paine also said “The most formidable weapon against errors of every kind is reason.” This report has presented the Post (as well as the rest of the media, Fair and Balanced “Fox” aside), with ample reason.

Let us see if Paine, who wrote in the 1700s, is yet, in the rhetoric inflamed, sound bite driven, and “false balance” obsessed media of the 2000’s, still correct. Unfortunately, and disturbingly, evidence is mounting that he is not.

The publication of this document provides a grand opportunity for Washington Post Publisher Katharine Weymouth, Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli, and Managing Editors Raju Narisetti and Elizabeth Spayd, to prove this wrong, at least with respect to leading newspapers, and publicly correct the record.

Endnotes:
_________________________

[i] Washington Post online discussion with Glenn Beck, “Pundit Glenn Beck on ‘Common Sense,’ More,” Glenn Beck, June15, 2009.

[ii] It should be noted that of the article page column itself, over one third of the column, on the top half of the page, is taken up by a full color photograph of Beck’s book, entitled “Common Sense,” with the “inspired by Thomas Paine” inscription on the front.  This central, and promotional visualization takes on particular significance in consideration of the facts laid out in the examples part of the text above

[iii] This is not the place to go into the methodology of what is exceedingly generously, and yet rather commonly referred to as Fox News, or its underestimated impact upon the rest of our media today.  But a simple juxtaposition of some of the examples above concerning Beck, and the fact that he is a staple part of Fox’s “news lineup,” ought to at least help to start to bring the issue into a little clearer focus.  Another example, although (rightly or wrongly) sometimes considered a partisan, if somewhat valid piece, is the movie Outfoxed, which details “Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism.”  Details can be found at www.outfoxed.org.

[iv] There is a lot of confusion today over what our Fourth Estate correctly entails. Many confuse this idea with the simple right to speak out freely, and thus, with the explosion of blogs and opinionating on the Internet today. The Internet has given further voice, for many (while simultaneously, by the parameters of pure popularity rather than quality, drowning out others) to speak out freely.  The Internet offers a tremendous repository for information (as well as misinformation) and perhaps far too much editorializing.  The Internet itself can provide a democratic forum for points to be made, and arguments to be heard. But the Internet itself, as opposed to verifiable, documentable, professional reports on it (which themselves often have be looked at skeptically) is a modern version of the simple right to speak, and offer an opinion. It serves as a popularizing and technologically expedizing equivalent of the village square.  This is not a Fourth Estate, nor a substitute for it.  Not coincidentally, at the same time that various media sources proclaim how the Internet has made critical information available, the level of our national public dialogue – which, in a democracy, is ultimately what matters – has become increasingly misinformed.

[v] NewsAffair.Org, “Media Critic Howard Kurtz Exhibits Powerful Bias,” January 5, 2010..

[vi] Beale is a character from the famous 1976 film, “Network,” starring Faye Dunaway.  A classic scene from the movie, link here, illustrates both the similarities between the Beale and Beck characters, as well as, juxtaposed with the facts above, the very disturbing differences.

[vii] Washington Post online discussion with Howard Kurtz, “Howard Kurtz Critiques the Press and analyzes the media,” June 15, 2009.  Here is an example of Kurtz in another online chat, September 14, 2009:  “imagine that a mid-level energy advisor in the Bush White House was found to have signed a document calling the Holocaust a hoax” in partial defense of Glenn Beck’s successful crusade to force controversial White House green jobs advisor Van Jones’s resignation. Van Jones’ name was on the document (a petition), but Jones denies signing it or that it was correctly represented to him.  More importantly, the petition, whatever one thinks of it, did not say that 9/11 was a hoax, or that it was pulled off by the government.  The petition calls for inquiry into evidence suggesting, according to it, that government officials had foreknowledge of the impending attacks and failed to act.  While there is plenty of evidence to indicate that the prior administration was soundly asleep at the switch (this report was compiled by a Liberal think tank, but covers several incontrovertible, but severely under reported, facts) in the face of dire warnings from top outgoing and incoming officials both, we don’t agree with the petition here. But it is hardly what Beck, or Kurtz here, make it out to be, or clear how an investigation into the underlying evidence is soundly anti Democratic.  Examples like this of Kurtz, a top media appointed expert, abound.

[viii] Here are some examples of the “tough” questions put to Beck:  “Do you really believe that the USA is facing destruction?”  “If you were the President right now, how would you handle the financial crisis inherited from the previous administration?”  “Should liberals be afraid to say what they believe about the best way forward for the U.S.?” “What do you think about the current crop of likely Republican presidential contenders for 2012.”  Here were the two “toughest:”  “Isn’t regulation really a common sense approach to containing human greed?”   “How do you balance providing your viewpoint with making sure not to push fringe groups over the edge towards violence?” Becks answer to that last one, in light of just some of his quotes highlighted in the text above, is illustrative:  “Anybody who thinks that I’m pushing fringe groups to violence should read my e-mail.” And to what was the toughest question of all, referencing calls for violence in comments on his web site, and what he thinks about that, Beck actually responded “Anyone who is making threats or thinking about violence on any side of any issue is not only foolish, they will be the ones who destroy the republic.” But then this is the same person who repeatedly fantasizes on the air about various ways to murder people whom he disagrees with, while saying, in his Washington Post “interview” how we have to model ourselves after Martin Luther King, and “Gandhi.”

[ix] NewsAffair.Org, “Palin, the Post, and Climate Change – What All Americans Should Know, Parts V, IV, and II, January 4, 2010, and December 31 and December 27, 2009, respectively.

[x] http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/200606080005 with audio. .

[xi]http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/200509090003, with audio.

[xii] For the statement by Beck in particular in this frightening report, see minute 7:53, Bill Moyers Journal,

This type of “news” station.  Or this:

And that is exactly what this station did when it came to the issue of basic climate change science.

Let’s see how they did it:

The wildly anti environmental and Orwellian named “Competitive Enterprise Institute” (CEI) does everything possible not to level the competitive playing field, but instead give those companies and methodological processes that pollute and degrade the environment an inherent advantage over those that don’t, by working to completely dismiss the cost or relevancy of this external damage in our marketplace.

CEI is wildly ideological, puts fealty to corporations before individual freedom, and seems to confuse capitalism with unfettered oligopoly and even total resource (and market) anarchy.  It even thinks that the market itself properly solves, and protects against, company harms directly to an individual. In other words, if a company knowingly puts a highly carcinogenic substance in a common product, and 15 years later thousands die of cancer, in the CEI’s seemingly naive and ideologically zealous view, the achievement of remuneration from the company (assuming it still exists, and has not re-formed) will have corrected the wrong and somehow serve as a disincentive against such behavior.  (Yet at the same time that the CEI apparently wants to limit potential remunerations in the first place, through caps and the like.)

In other words, when it comes to abstract future damages, these will somehow compensate for a quarterly, now is what matters, profit system, when any corporate entity could have dissolved and regrouped twenty times over before even the knowledge necessary to attach liability would materialize; and let alone the fact that money after the fact is not a substitute for the avoidance of unnecessary and easily preventable harm or damage in the first place.

So the CEI seems like a good source for “fair and balanced” Fox to cite without checking a single fact, right? And this is what Fox routinely does. So when the CEI, among other places, gleefully reported how “climate gate” revealed that scientists “destroyed 150 years worth of climate data”  Fox (along with a few other less than stellar media sources, such as the similarly Rupert Murdoch owned New York Post) went ahead and parroted this falsity as fact, greatly misleading and deceiving its viewers in the process.

Blatant, erroneous propaganda housed as “‘Fair and Balanced’ news” follows a pattern by Fox on the climate change issue, as with many other issues. (Here’s an example, illustrated be a resident Fellow from the otherwise often industry supporting CATO Institute, where Fox simply doesn’t know the basic facts on the critical issue of fundamental American Liberties.)

The station has even even gone so far as to have its correspondents lie about the issue of climate change on other occasions as well — or, once again, just ignorantly recite ideological propaganda talking points like an uninformed person at the dinner table might, as opposed to, say, the “most trusted” name in news. Such as when correspondent Andrew Napolitano wildly told Fox viewers that a NASA study claimed that man was not responsible for climate change — when the study in fact said absolutely nothing of the sort.

In fact, here is what NASA says on the subject.

Several lines of evidence show that current global warming cannot be explained by changes in energy from the sun.

The report that Napolitano falsely cited, simply noted that solar irradiation (obviously), along with other things, may play a role in the earth’s atmospheric temperatures. It said nothing about man’s effect, and said nothing to undermine the general consensus on the issue, including that of NASA. Namely, that man’s activities are invariably starting to effect climate, and will likely do so increasingly. This is a consensus arrived at because greenhouse gases trap heat; heat ultimately warms oceans, which drives climate; greenhouse gases, through specific and easily identifiable anthropomorphic activities, are rising at at an alarming rate;  atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations are as a result now well higher than at any time in the past three quarter of a million years; and slowly but surely, the earth is warming, as weather additionally becomes increasingly variable.

In other words, Fox’s “Fair and Balanced” means that Fox tells you what they want — even if it blatantly misleads viewers on the most basic of facts necessary to correctly understand an issue — while working hard to pretend that it is fair and balanced so that viewers really think they are being led to independent conclusions based upon an objective look at the news. When they are being repeatedly mislead, yet made to think otherwise.

2005 was the warmest year on record

All of the top eleven warmest years on record have occurred since the beginning of 1998.

Not according to long time Washington Post syndicated columnist George Will, who makes up his own facts,  and comes up with some fairly twisted logic — perhaps for these reasons expressed here — and the Post calls it “debate.”  But then, to the Post, this is “debate” also. But not this.

The NY Times notes that:

A separate preliminary analysis from the National Climatic Data Center, a unit of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, found that 2009 tied with 2006 as the fifth warmest year on record, based on measurements taken on land and at sea.

The Times elects to also add:

The new temperature figures provide evidence in the scientific discussion of global warming but are not likely to be the last word on whether the planet’s temperature is on a consistent upward path.

The interesting thing is this use of the word “consistent.”   What does that mean? Climate change means expected increases in temperatures, and increasing variability. More importantly, the relevance of several years in terms of climate shifts are about as meaningful as measuring the weather shifts between a Monday and a Thursday during any random week, in ascertaining whether we are heading toward winter, or summer.

The Times goes much further to show how “balanced” it is, however. To it’s article on 2009 temperatures, it adds:

The question of whether the planet is heating and how quickly was at the heart of the so-called “climategate” controversy that arose last fall when hundreds of e-mail messages from the climate study unit at the University of East Anglia in England were released without authorization.

Critics seized on the messages as evidence that, in their view, climate scientists were manipulating data and colluding to keep contrary opinion out of scientific journals. But climate scientists and political leaders affirmed what they called a broad-based consensus that the planet was growing warmer, and on a consistent basis, although with measurable year-to-year variations.

Does one see anywhere in this article how there is a several decade lag between an atmospheric heat re radiation forcing (what increased greenhouse gas concentrations, by trapping more heat, result in) and actual effects?  Does one see anywhere in the article how effects that result from any increased concentrations are not likely to be linear, but accelerating, or, more importantly,the reasons why?  [See endnote [i] to this, or middle section, here.] Does one see that atmospheric concentrations of CO2 are significantly above any level that we have been able to measure — through ice core sampling — over the past three quarters of a million years (while levels of methane, the next most significant greenhouse gas, have skyrocketed above even the highest levels of the past three quarters of a million years)? Or that the atmospheric concentrations of these gases is rising at what, from a geologic perpsective, is almost instantaneous speed?

No.  But one does see how this is “not likely to be the last word” on whether the climate is in fact warming, even though, what one does not see, is that the reasons for this broad based scientific consensus, are pretty basic. [See here.] Or the actual ideological rather than scientific reasons behind why this is not likely to be the “last word” on climate change itself,  rather than the more sensible question,as to what to do about it.

And one of course sees what a big deal “climate gate” was.  One does not see this NASA chart, which has now gone up even more. Nor does one see that the levels of increased atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations will likely not result in a one to one correlation with actual effects — consistent with nearly everything else in nature and science. Nor does one see that much of the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations has occurred over the past several decades, causing compounded effects (on top of earlier,already anthropogenic increased levels) that we will see well after their cause has been instituted, not contemporaneously with.

We had no domestic attacks under Bush. We’ve had one under Obama.

We had at least two attacks under Bush. (And several smaller quasi terrorist or terrorist related attacks, plus the anthrax attacks, as noted below.)  One, similar to the recent failed Christmas day attempt, by the airline “shoe bomber,” Richard Reid. The other, September 11, 2001 itself.

Putting aside the other attacks, why would Giuliani so think to discount the importance of being caught off guard regarding September 11, that he would make the statement “no domestic attacks under Bush” on the air?

September 11 did not come out of the blue, but came less a year after the bombing of the USS Cole killing 17 America Sailors; less than 10 months after the outgoing National Security Advisor personally met with incoming NSA head Condi Rice to tell her that the Bush Administration would be spending “more time specifically…on al-Qaeda, than any other subject;” less than eight months after Richard Clarke urgently requested a principals level meeting to discuss the al-Qaeda threat (which never met, despite subsequent requests); less than two months after a President’s Daily Brief warning of the severe and growing threat of Al-Qaeda; and less than eight months after Paul Bremer (later Bush’s Ambassador to Iraq) actually warned:

The new administration seems to be paying no attention to the problem of terrorism. What they will do is stagger along until there’s a major incident and then suddenly say, ‘Oh, my God, shouldn’t we be organized to deal with this?’

In fact, not only did September 11 no come “out of the blue,” it came on the heels of an absolutely startling record of issue avoidance and lack of relevant awareness.

To Giuliani, apparently the lack of attention paid to excessive warnings under the early days of the Bush Administration, along with subsequent terrorism attempts, don’t count.  Only attempts under Obama count.

Moreover, during the Bush Administration itself, when September 11 occurred, and the anthrax attacks occurred, and the shoe bomber attempt occurred, did Giuliani point out how “We had no domestic attacks under Clinton, we’ve had more than one under Bush“? Including a really bad one? One that Clinton tried to warn about. One that outgoing NSA head Sandy Berger tried emphatically to warn incoming NSA head Condoleeza Rice about in person.   One that National Counter-terrorism Coordinator Richard Clarke tried to warn about, multiple times, even writing to Rice on May 20, 2001?

When these attacks occur, as they likely will, we will wonder what more we could have done to stop them.

The Bush adminstration, instead of listening to Clarke, demoted him. Richard Cheney, who later of course blamed the attacks on Clarke, even famously stated one time on the air that Clarke was essentially “not in the loop.”  Was Cheney being disingenuous; or worse, given Clarke’s experience and skill set, was he not.

Of course Giuliani never made any of those points. Or the point about how under the Bush administration we had more than one domestic attack, including a devastating one; and none under Clinton.

But Giuliani can nevertheless go onto the news, where some of our major networks give him a microphone and podium to say almost anything with no critical context, balance, or questioning.  And he can assert therein how under Obama we have had a domestic attack whereas we had “none” under Bush.

Aside from overt partisanship, and seemingly forgetting about the anthrax attacks and failed airline bombing attempt that succeeded it, perhaps Giuliani is not including September 11 in his count either because he had a “pre September 11 mindset“?

In other words, September 11 might have taught many in our country about the reality of al-Qaeda and the threat that it posed. But it shouldn’t have had to teach those who ostensibly want to lead it, and those who continue to speak out assertively and critically as if they are experts on the subject matter.

Giuliani takes this one step further, however, by applying double standards to both the Clinton and the Obama administration relative to the Bush Administration, and by making up facts.

But what should be of equal, or greater concern, is Giuliani’s approach to fighting terrorism itself.

To CNN’s Larry King two days earlier, the former NYC Major asserted how what Obama did in “waiting” to issue a statement on the failed Christmas bombing attack “convinces our enemies that we are not ready.”

As noted here:

What expertise is this view of Giuliani’s based upon? The view that thinks that terrorists attack because they don’t want attention drawn to their attacks?

And by what logic?  That terrorists think that being “ready” to combat and eradicate them means issuing a simple statement of condemnation right away?

As also noted in the last link (emphasis added): “What kind of thinking is this by Giuliani?  That by making a bigger deal of attacks, in a way that otherwise serves no strategic advantage, this somehow dissuades rather than bolsters the exact perception that terrorists want to achieve — that they are having an effect upon the great United States?”

Giuliani also made some additional factual errors while speaking on King’s show. He asserted that Obama took ten days to respond to the failed Christmas day bombing attempt, and repeated it several times. Obama addressed the situation three days later (not ten.) He took responsibility (something Bush never really did), ten days later.

Giuliani also told King he thought that the failed “shoe bomber” airline bombing attempt was before September 11, not after. But this is hard to believe given that two days later to ABC’s Stephanopoulos, he seemed to think that the terrorism problem started with September 11, rather than before.

To Stephanopoulos, Giuliani also asserted that understanding that terrorists are “enemy combatants” is also very important and helpful to us.

He probably does not realize that “enemy combatants” is what terrorists want to be.  And being in a war is what they want to be. On the other hand, the most important thing we can do is work to further radicalize what it is that terrorists are, in the eyes of the world and potential disaffected Muslim youth recruits: Namely, pathological, murderous, criminals.

Not “enemy combatants.”  Not “warriors.”  Not part of a “larger battle.” Not, part of a “war.” But pathological, murderous, criminals.

The former framing, that Giuliani and some others are seemingly so excited about using, only serves to slightly de-radicalize extremist terrorists to otherwise relevant target groups outside (and, unfortunately, however rare, even perhaps inside) this country, broadening their scope, appeal, and sense of mission.  Referring to terrorists and the issue in this manner is probably one of the most counter-productive things we can do.

If we feel we need to deal differently with this brand of criminal, because of the depravity and potential enormity of the acts involved, that is an entirely separate question. But it does not make them “enemy combatants.” It does not make them people, or (in their minds) soldiers, fighting in a “war.” It does not make them warriors. It does not make them anything other than pathological, murderous criminals — bent upon acts of depraved violence against people that have nothing to do with them or their complaints (or, at least theoretically, against people used in lieu of complaints) — that they are.