I SO Dislike The Guardian

This is not an article; it is an opinion essay. "Journalists" employed by The Guardian are opinion writers.

"The Guardian is the only truly independent national newspaper in the UK. Ownership by the Scott Trust guarantees Guardian journalists are free to present the truth as they see it, with no proprietor, or shareholders dictating what can and cannot appear in our pages." - (Link)

All too often people confuse opinion pieces with actual hard news articles (probably because they're both in newspapers, so it must be fact, right?) and therein lies the daunting confusion for them in forming coherent, refutible arguments instead of prattling on and on with rife, misguided emotionalism and nonsense.

And isn't it the natural reaction of a man whose genitals are in danger of being mutilated to cover them? Why then do so many stand there, drooling, head tilted back, arms wide to the side, muttering, "You're right, Mr Porter. Emasculate me. Lop it off. It's useless. Chop away." I don't understand this revert-to-juvenile mentality of subjegating one's self to such a scathing and maligning view of one's Nation. Emasculated? How? Isn't Mr Porter's country involved up to the hip in this, too? I thought so.

"Mission to Explain Has Been Replaced by a Mission to Avoid"? What does that mean? No one is avoiding anything; except the extremist fringe, who refuse to accept reality. What allegation against the current administration has not been investigated? Because the conclusion of those investigations do not meet the expectations of some, the entire process is discounted as meaningless. There's rationality for you.

A Study in Emasculation
In the US Media, a Mission to Explain Has Been Replaced by a Mission to Avoid
Henry Porter
Saturday June 4, 2005
The Guardian

Our name for him was Wig. And for two years only a handful of people at Vanity Fair's office in New York knew what or who Wig was. It turned out to be another code name for Deep Throat, wittily, or perhaps tastelessly, given to Mark Felt by Bob Woodward during the Watergate investigations - undoubtedly the highest moment of journalistic inquiry ever on either side of the Atlantic.

Let's go with wittingly on this one. It was the 70s, afterall, and Deep Throat, the movie, was the talk of the town for quite some time. Sensationalism. A newspaper-seller.

"The highest moment of journalistic inquiry..." Not quite. What investigation? Woodward and Bernstein were spoon-fed the info; told where to go, what calls to make, what office was connected to what office. Hardly high moments of journalistic inquiry.

Woodward was gracious when he learned that Vanity Fair had scooped him with his own story, as indeed was Carl Bernstein when editor Graydon Carter called his friend to make a slightly rueful apology on Wednesday morning. Actually it's a testament to Woodward and Bernstein's integrity that Vanity Fair was able to capture the unicorn and reveal the identity of this mythic creature. This was a serious secret that still has the power to stir considerable passions in America, as we saw in the reaction of Pat Buchanan who instantly branded Felt a traitor. Woodward and Bernstein, together with the former Post editor Ben Bradlee, held true to the cardinal rule of journalism of never revealing a source. In a time of such looseness and compromise, this kind of rigid probity almost seems old-fashioned.

The Buchanan article is here.

"Actually it's a testament to Woodward and Bernstein's integrity..." Integrity. Hmmmm. Having a problem with this one. Was it integrity to accept a plethora of illegal information from the FBI's Number 2 man who knowingly had an axe to grind with the president on an on-going basis using the shield of "unnamed source" to cover-up your complicence? It sounds more like ensuring your promotion, to me. It was the waiving away of the countless opportunities to encourage the man without courage to "do the right thing" and resign his position within the FBI and give this same information to the grad jury.

The actual article from Vanity Fair is here, 9 pages, pdf file.

"This was a serious secret..." That's right. Was. John D. O'Connor, a wishy-washy California lawyer revealed that Felt, his client (maybe?) was Deep Throat.

Cardinal rule of journalism? A secret? "In 1999, a teenager broke the story of Deep Throat's identity as W. Mark Felt in a high school history term paper. He got a B on it. Or "something ridiculous like that. The teacher is...an idiot in my opinion," said Chase Culeman-Beckman to the Journal News of New York in 1999." (Link)

"PORT CHESTER — Yesterday's revelation of the identity of the secretive source known as Deep Throat — one of the country's most enduring mysteries — came as little surprise to one Port Chester resident who has been fingering W. Mark Felt since the ripe old age of 8." (Link)

Revenge of the camper: Did one of the world's most closely guarded secrets leak out through summer-camp pillow talk?

Chase Culeman-Beckman, a 19-year-old from Port Chester, N.Y., recently told the Hartford Courant that Carl Bernstein's son, Jacob, tipped him off to the identity of Deep Throat when they were at camp together in 1988. The Watergate source was, he said, W. Mark Felt, the former associate director of the FBI whose name has long been among those considered likely to have tipped off the Washington Post's Bernstein and Bob Woodward about Nixon's scandalous White House shenanigans.

Felt, now 86, denies the report. A snickering Bernstein denies it as well: "Bob and I have been wise enough never to tell our wives, and we've certainly never told our children." He reiterated that the once dynamic duo would identify Deep Throat only upon the source's death.

"Is Mark Felt still alive?" Bernstein asked." (Link)

In many other ways, recalling Watergate this week emphasises how times have changed, and I am afraid present values in the US media are not shown in an especially good light. Since 9/11, when the heroic fortitude of America was at its most visible, the Bush administration has gradually contrived to cast all criticism and investigation into its activities as unpatriotic and an obstruction to its jihad against Islamist terrorism. Few cross the line in the White House, where a wary and unforgiving regime - not unlike that run by Bob Haldeman and John Ehrlichman for Richard Nixon - ensures that leaks are very rare indeed. Much the same atmosphere of fear and obedience obtains in the Pentagon under Donald Rumsfeld and at the justice department, though less so at the state department and CIA.

"...present values in the US media are not shown in an especially good light." Mr Porter is obviously speaking of the instances where the Leftist media try to pull fast ones on the citizens of the United States by using false documents and intentionally incorrect information.

"Since 9/11...an obstruction to its jihad against Islamist terrorism." Again, there has not been one allegation levied against the administration or the military which has not gone uninvestigated. Transparancy has always been maintained.

Mr Porter seems to have an issue with national security. Leaks are not supposed to happen. That's why they're called leaks. Even a rare occurance is unacceptable. Atmosphere of fear? This is laughable. What measuring stick is Mr Porter using for this one?

Broadcasters have largely accepted that attacks on the White House can only harm America's interests, and when they don't they are bamboozled and vilified by the shrill voices of the right.

"Attacks (what a choice of words, huh?) on the White House" do harm America's interests. It's the "divided we fall" we've all heard and sung. It's as though the fringe extremists want there to be hard lines drawn between the political parties. Every opportunity is taken, within the media, to lambaste the administration and skew the facts with negative, anti-Bush rhetoric. Any number of media watchdog sites have recent reports and studies proving the anti-Bush bias in all forms of media.Mr Porter has his political parties confused on this one.

I visit the States three or four times a year, and watching the television news in hotel rooms in the last three years has been like witnessing a time-lapse study of emasculation. It's not just the unbearable lightness of purpose in most news shows; it's the sense that everyone is rather too mindful of the backstairs influence of the White House in companies such as Viacom and News Corporation that own the TV news. The anchorman Dan Rather, for example, was eased out by Viacom - CBS's owner - after he wrongly made allegations about the president's time in the Texas Air National Guard. It was not a mistake that required his head on a platter.

Three or four times a year, at a hotel, limited channels to watch, usually only local news and CNN; but that's a time-lapse study of the American emasculation. Lightness of purpose; well, it is only a local, thirty-minute news program Mr Porter is watching. And, Mr Porter is too soft on Dan Rather, who, by the way, is insisting to this day the documents are legitimate and accurate. What's the frequency, Dan; Mr Porter?

The result of this climate of fear and caution is that few Americans have any idea of the circumstances in which 1,600 of their countrymen have lost their lives in Iraq, the hideous injuries suffered by both Iraqi and American victims of suicide bombers, or even the profound responsibility that lies with Rumsfeld for mishandling practically every facet of the occupation. The mission to explain has been replaced by the mission to avoid. If today there was a whistleblower as well-placed, heroically brave and strategic as Mark Felt, one wonders whether he would now find the outlet that Felt did at the Washington Post between 1972 and 1974.

"...few Americans have any idea of the circumstances..." Is Mr Porter pulling words out of his ass along with the flying monkeys of doom? What rock is he living beneath? Has he seen any of the hundreds of weekly polls on the subject? Evidently not. Does Mr Porter actually believe Americans take the war in Iraq as an everyday occurance with no regard for the preciousness of life? Mr Porter, obviously, don'y know doodly-squat about we Yankee Doodles.

"If today there was a whistleblower as well-placed..." He's called the President. "...heroically brave and strategic as Mark Felt..." Already address this man's lack of courage in his inability to do the right thing instead of the illegal thing. "...find the outlet that Felt did at the Washington Post between 1972 and 1974." With the steady decline and almost collapse of the Democratic party since Watergate, and the public's wise perception of the press' erosion, the press has to do something to generate readership. The New York Times laying off over 200 people this past week is a clear indication people are not buying the Leftist spin they, or Mr Porter, are selling anymore. The press seeks out sensationalism. That which it cannot find, they fabricate or negatively spin to sensationalism. The press will make a parking ticket look like an indictment if it will sell more papers than the day before.

The Post's sister publication, Newsweek, has just had its nose rubbed in the dirt by the administration after what is still, I believe, a questionable scandal involving an item alleging that the Qur'an had been flushed down the toilet at Guantánamo.

Hold up, Mr Porter. You actually want us to believe a book can fit down the hole of a toilet? You're kidding me.

Questionable because Newsweek's erroneous report, which was based on an official source, palls in comparison to the illegality of the detention at Guantánamo and the outsourcing of torture by the administration all over the Middle East. And yet Bush's spokesman Scott McClellan insisted that the humbled magazine should go further than mere apology by speaking out about the "values that the United States stands for ... the values that we hold so dearly".

Mr Porter makes a glaring omission of facts, here. From Newsweek's, Mark Whitaker, "Our original source later said he couldn't be certain about reading of the alleged Qur'an incident in the report we cited..." (Link)

"...the illegality of the detention at Guantánamo..." Time-honored rules of war and detaining prisoners, enemy combatants, and bona-fide prisoners of war are, and always have been, in place, Mr Porter. Because you don't understand the difference between a uniform and/or insignia and/or a flag and civilian clothing is casting serious doubt on your comprehension skills.

Outsorcing of torture...all over the Middle East." Sending enemy combatants back to their country of origin for detention is not outsourcing torture. You're spinning out of control, Mr Porter.

"...go further than mere apology by speaking out about the "values that the United States stands for ... the values that we hold so dearly". And Scott McClellan is correct in his insistence. Using a source that was "unsure" of where or how he gained the information is irresponsible and not a standard to which the reputable press adheres. Mistakes, happen, sure. But when it's something this serious, especially since the bad guys have been trained in alleging abuse where none exists.

"1. At the beginning of the trial, once more the brothers must insist on proving that torture was inflicted on them by State Security [investigators] before the judge. 2. Complain [to the court] of mistreatment while in prison." (Link); (Link); also, (Link)

What is so worrying about the Newsweek story was the cowed reaction of the press. In some cases they scrambled to pay obeisance to the White House's tough line, quite forgetting that the kerfuffle distracted from the worsening situation in Iraq in which scores of lives are lost every day. Marty Peretz, the owner of the New Republic, took space in his own publication to attack the Newsweek reporter Michael Isikoff, who by the way was once the hero of conservatives for his hounding of Bill Clinton.

What is this obssession Mr Porter has with the word "attack"? A little heavy on the adjectives, there, wouldn't you say? Here's the Peretz article.

'The Newsweek delinquency," he wrote, "broaches still another lesson that journalists will have to face, however reluctantly: that confidential sources - especially 'reliable' confidential sources, which may mean eager sources who are too willing to tell because they have their own personal agendas to serve - can be untrustworthy. The Newsweek scandal deserves to exacerbate the debate in the general culture about the legitimacy of anonymous sources that is now burgeoning in American journalism."

Now, what was that again about Newsweek's official source not being certain about what he said...? Oh, yeah. He wasn't sure where he saw it or heard about it. He wasn't sure. But, that's good enough for Newsweek and Mr Porter. It's "close enough". Sorry, doesn't cut it.

This is one of the most knuckleheaded utterances ever made by a proprietor of current affairs magazine. It is plain that, despite all his wealth and shrewdness, Peretz does not possess an elementary understanding of the sacred duty of the press, which, however dishonoured and ignored, is to watch government and make it answerable when the processes of democracy are corrupted by politics and the self-interest of politicians.

Mr Porter. This opinion of yours is one of the most knuckleheaded utterances ever made by an opinion writer. Peretz understands precisely the sacred duty of the press. It is not to watch the government. It is to report the news, factually and without bias. Your latent communism is showing, Mr Porter.

The motivated source that he describes perfectly delineates Deep Throat's position during Watergate. Felt probably did have an agenda influenced by the fact that Nixon had made Patrick Gray head of the FBI when Felt was clearly the better and more experienced candidate. That would have ruled Felt out as a source under a Peretz editorship, even though Felt was primarily motivated by a deep revulsion at what was going on around him. He knew that all investigations into the Watergate break-in and the activities of the Committee to Re-elect the President (Creep) were being fed back to the White House by Nixon's man, Pat Gray. The CIA was also providing Felt's investigators with false leads at Nixon's behest.

As Felt remarked to Woodward long before Watergate, the Nixon White House was "corrupt" and "sinister". Eventually the Watergate cover-up compelled him to the lonely and dangerous role of Deep Throat, but one cannot imagine that this was something Felt - a career G-man who admired J Edgar Hoover - wanted for himself.

Felt was compelled to the lonely and coawrdly role of an "anon" who had an axe to grind. Felt's way of escaping persecution to do his illegal work with Woodward and Bernstein. It was only after Felt left the FBI that he "was indicted on charges of having authorized illegal F.B.I. break-ins earlier in the decade, in which agents without warrants entered the residences of associates and family members of suspected bombers believed to be involved with the Weather Underground." He was convicted in 1980. While his case was still on appeal, Ronald Reagan was elected president, and in 1981, Reagan granted Felt a full pardon.

We must remember that these were dark days. Nixon fought and won an election during the Watergate scandal and, had it not been for the persistence of the Post and the wary guidance provided by Deep Throat, he might well have survived to serve a full second term. Had Peretz been editor of the Post at the time, all that criminality and corruption might well have gone unpunished.

Correction. Had it not been for Mark Felt feeling snubbed because of not reaching the first chair of the FBI and wanting someone to pay for it, Felt's knowing Woodward was a hungry, I-don't-know-what-to-do-with-my-life reporter and supplying him with all the information he could possibly need for the "serial story" in the Post, no persistence by any stretch of the imagination on the part of the Post, and Felt being able to sit back and read his illegal whispers as front page headlines (even though he could have resigned and gone the legal route), Nixon may have made it to a second term.

Interesting that Mr Porter is able to transport himself through time and space and know the outcome of a situation had another person (Marty Peretz) been the editor of the paper. Simply amazing.

It is good that Deep Throat has at last come in from the cold at a time when his country needs many more men and women like him. Let us hope the media are still willing and able to help a great American hero like Mark Felt.

Our country needs no more people who feel "getting away with it" is justified. A great American hero like Mark Felt? He is as guilty of illegal activities as the ones making the break-in at the Watergate (he was convicted in 1980, remember?).