The New York Times today (12/8/11), reporting on the CIA drone that went down in Iran, refers in passing to the

recent public debate in Israel about whether time is running out for a military strike to slow Iran's progress toward a nuclear weapon.

Of course, the assumption here is that Iran is making "progress towards a nuclear weapon." That is what some political elites and many in the media say, but that doesn't make it true. And there is no evidence to support that assertion. And basing a debate around an assumption that might be entirely false is, of course, a problem. (Consider the run-up to the Iraq invasion, 2002-03.)

Today's piece also includes what some might read as justification for the secretive surveillance program over Iran:

In Iran, among other missions, it is looking for tunnels, underground facilities or other places where Iran could be building centrifuge parts or enrichment facilities. One such site, outside Qum, was revealed by President Obama and the leaders of France and Britain in 2009, though it appears that Israel played a major role in detecting that site.

This is a strange assertion, since many accounts have suggested that the facility was revealed by Iran. In fact, that's how the Times reported it last month (11/9/11):

Iran told the nuclear agency about that facility days before President Obama and European leaders reported its existence two years ago, and Iran has recently said it is moving some of its nuclear activity to that underground facility, at a well-defended military base.

Political campaign watchers seem to agree that the election will be about the economy, and that Republicans probably won't have much to say about Obama's foreign policy (partly because it doesn't much differ from what a Republican president might be doing).

The New York  Times' Richard Oppel has a piece today headlined, "Republican Candidates Aim at Obama Foreign Policy."

So what exactly is the Republican case against Obama's foreign policy? That it's too soft on the Hezbollah menace on our southern border.
Seriously.

Oppel writes:

A small but revealing episode unfolded in the closing minutes of the last Republican presidential debate. After the candidates were asked to name the national security issue they most worry about, which had not yet been discussed, Rick Santorum cited radical Islamists in Central and South America.

Mitt Romney agreed, saying that Hezbollah, a militant Shiite group in Lebanon that is backed by Iran and Syria, was working in Mexico, Venezuela and throughout Latin America, posing an "imminent threat." Earlier in the night, Gov. Rick Perry of Texas warned that Hezbollah, as well as Hamas, the Palestinian militant organization that controls Gaza, also were working in Mexico.

That the candidates would cite the same threat--one denied by the Mexican government, and which seemed to contrast with a State Department report that there are no Hezbollah-related operational cells in this hemisphere--was not a coincidence.

Oppel adds that  "a major thrust of the Republican foreign-policy argument" will include this kind of rhetoric about Obama being "too soft" on the likes of "Iran, Hezbollah and the Palestinians."

If a journalist is looking to inform voters, it might help to give them a sense of whether what these candidates are saying is grounded in reality. PolitiFact judged  Romney's Hezbollah comments "Mostly False," pointing out that the claim appears to come from a paper by former Bush assistant secretary of state Roger Noriega--and that the paper argues that most of the activity in Latin America is related to fundraising--criminal activity that funnels money back to Lebanon.

The Times judges the accuracy of the Republican charges in passing--the candidates' claims "seemed to contrast with a State Department report." ` The piece is far more concerned with the political strategy at work, and how Republicans might be trying to appeal to some Jewish voters with a message about Obama being soft on Islamic terrorists. It's a strategy that will likely be a lot more successful if reporters aren't going to call them out.

The Republican Party is in something of a bind. Many oppose White House efforts to extend--and perhaps increase--a Social Security payroll tax cut next year. This might sound strange, since if conservatives are supposed to be fond of anything, it's tax cuts.

So they have some explaining to do. They're given a valuable assist when journalists, thanks to the conventions of corporate media, will print their words with little in the way of critical analysis. Take this from today's Washington Post (12/7/11) by Rosalind Helderman:

A Republican Party that has for decades benefited from a commitment to lower taxes is now finding itself on the defensive on the issue, as members face a deep split over a Democratic plan to extend a payroll tax reduction.

What might normally be a no-brainer for most congressional Republicans is being resisted by many tea-party-conscious members who oppose what they consider a short-term gimmick that would worsen the federal deficit and siphon money from Social Security.

These Tea Party Republicans are concerned about the effects of a tax cut on the deficit? For real? It's the kind of thing that a reporter might challenge by, say, quoting a critic who would point out this absurdity. But the piece gives readers an array of Republican and conservative quotes, with one comment from Democratic Sen. Harry Reid.

Then again, the claims of the  politicians actually quoted could stand to be factchecked too. Like this one:

"The president’s suggesting we raise taxes on small-business folks to give a temporary one-year tax holiday and make job creators pay it off over the next 10 years," said freshman Rep. Tim Huels­kamp (R-Kan.). "That's not the way you grow this economy."

That "tax on small business owners" line refers to the White House plan to pay for the payroll tax break with a surtax on millionaires. Republicans claim that this would devastate small business owners don't stand up to scrutiny, something the New York Times pointed out yesterday:

But Jenni R. LeCompte, a spokeswoman for the Treasury Department, said the proposed surtax "would affect only a very, very small number of small-business owners."

"Only 1 percent of all small-business owners have adjusted gross income over $1 million and would be affected by this surcharge," Ms. LeCompte said, citing a new study by Treasury’s Office of Tax Analysis.

USA Today's Rick Hampson has a piece today (12/7/11) on Occupy Wall Street's Occupy Our Homes actions, which include efforts to move families into vacant housing. This coverage is a good sign if you think there is still something happening with this movement after the evictions in New York, Los Angeles and elsewhere.

But why does the article include commentary from right-wing scam artist Andrew Breitbart? The paper reports:

Conservative online publisher and commentator Andrew Breitbart said the movement's new focus demonstrates that Occupy Wall Street is not "an authentic grassroots movement" but a political maneuver backed by organized labor and remnants of the ACORN community-organizing group aimed at boosting President Obama's re-election campaign.

"This is AstroTurf" rather than grassroots, he said. "This isn't about helping little old ladies.… This is about fomenting civil unrest, fomenting class warfare."

Breitbart's work is totally unreliable. He's been sounding the ACORN/SEIU alarms about Occupy Wall Street almost from the beginning--just like (at least) one Fox News host. The point is to try and link the movement to an array of progressive institutions and, apparently, the Obama campaign. It's nonsensical paranoia. Is he included for the sake of "balance"?

Imagine that the company founded by the frontrunning Republican presidential candidate also owned a massive radio company--say, the largest one in the country.

And imagine that said company announced, right as the election season started, that it was ditching its progressive talk format in a major city for a mostly conservative lineup.

Stop imagining--Brad Friedman reports that this is reality:

The only progressive AM radio talk station, Green960-KKGN, in one of the nation's most liberal cities, San Francisco, is being taken off the AM dial by radio behemoth Clear Channel Communications, Inc.--a media conglomerate now owned by Mitt Romney's Bain Capital, LLC--at the beginning of the 2012 presidential election year.

Left-of-center hosts Stephanie Miller and Thom Hartmann will be replaced by the likes of Glenn Beck, John Gibson and right-leaning financial/money guy Dave Ramsey. The Clear Channel press release announcing the changes speaks of an effort to "expand our footprint... as we head into an election year and a population increasingly engaged in local, state and national events and activism." Well, some kinds of activism.

Is Fox News Channel going soft? In an election year? Some media figures seem to think the hard-right channel is going to the "middle," but this seems to be a figment of the centrist imagination.

New York magazine's Gabriel Sherman has a short piece trying to make this case. His first bit of evidence is that  Fox granted backstage access at its recent Republican debate to a New York Times reporter--as Sherman put it, "Fox's decision to allow Times scribe Jim Rutenberg into the building to confront the candidates in person." That sounds rather aggressive, and Sherman sees this as some sort of political shift:

That "sweating" session was a debate moderated by three Republican attorneys general, who are in some ways to the right of some of the candidates--particularly Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich. Given that the conservative base of the Republican party seems to have questions about the ideological commitment of these two--especially Romney--the fact that Fox convened a debate where the candidates had to field questions from the right doesn't really seem like playing to the "center."

Sherman argues:

Many big papers have rules about when reporters can use anonymous sources. It should be rare, and the information generated should be important and difficult to get without granting a source the privilege to speak anonymously. Of course, reality is different--as Janine Jackson documented in the new issue of Extra!.

Anonymous sources supposedly aren't allowed to abuse the privilege to attack someone--and they also aren't, as Jackson noted, supposed to do the opposite:

Both papers officially caution against special pleading and spin, along with quotations, as the Post rules have it, "whose only purpose is to add color to a story."

I thought of that while reading a piece in the Washington Post about Newt Gingrich. Peter Wallsten and Anne Kornblut got this evaluation of Gingrich from a Democratic strategist:

"He does not carry Wall Street baggage," said one Democratic strategist working on the Obama reelection effort, speaking on the condition of anonymity to freely discuss his thinking. "He's really smart. He's definitely authentic."

The flattery is bipartisan--here's a Gingrich adviser, in the same piece:

A Gingrich adviser, speaking anonymously, said the former speaker's long interest in traditionally Democratic issues such as inner-city poverty is "an underestimated advantage" in a general election and could soften his image with independents. Gingrich plans to start talking this week about "conservative solutions" to urban problems, the adviser said.

Is that a reference to the "advantage" of advocating that poor kids work as janitors?

USA Today's front page today (12/2/12) seemed to know-- their "Newsline" headline was, "Flip-Flops by Gingrich Fail to Alarm His Conservative Base."

The piece inside by Jackie Kucinich--which is actually fairly comprehensive--unfortunately bore this headline:

Gingrich Endures Shifts in Policy

Candidate sees no backlash from base

So he's able to endure himself?

In the new issue of Time (12/12/11), Fareed Zakaria writes in the first sentence of his column:

It is difficult to find a country on the planet that is more anti-American than Pakistan. In a Pew survey this year, only 12 percent of Pakistanis expressed a favorable view of the U.S.

It's not that difficult. The same survey of seven countries found one of them, Turkey, with an even lower 10 percent favorable opinion of the U.S., and Jordan just a hair above at 13 percent.

More important is Zakaria's conclusion:

There is a fundamental tension in U.S. policy toward Pakistan. We want a more democratic country, but we also want a government that can deliver cooperation on the ground. In practice, we always choose the latter, which means we cozy up to the military and overlook its destruction of democracy.

To be clear, he thinks siding with the military over democracy is a bad thing.

But he also thinks the United States "always" choose repression over democracy. This is notable, in that as of this summer he was writing that "all American presidents have supported and should support the spread of democracy." As we pointed out then, this does not square with the record.

And in March 2007, Zakaria wrote critically of the Bush record of intervening in Latin American countries, which he saw as a break with a Reaganesque policy of democracy promotion:

American foreign policy toward Latin America had been on the right track for two decades. Ronald Reagan orchestrated an extraordinary turnaround, supporting human rights, democracy and free trade in several countries.

As FAIR noted, this was a remarkable whitewash of the Reagan record.

And then there was the time Zakaria attempted to argue that U.S. policy towards Haiti was one long attempt to promote democracy:

Consider, for example, Haiti, where the United States has attempted to foster democracy on and off for almost a century--with almost no success. Why? Surely Haitians yearn to be free. But there are aspects of its politics, economics and culture that have made it very difficult to establish liberal democracy.

As FAIR pointed out, this period included U.S. military occupation along with support for a coup against Haiti's democratically elected government.

I suppose there's a chance that Zakaria's views towards U.S. power are becoming more critical. But if he's really reaching this conclusion, why talk about the "tension" between supporting democracy and working against democracy? Maybe he's just having trouble remembering which side of the argument he's on.

FAIR has a new Action Alert about last night's CBS Evening News report about the Iraq War. Read the alert and let CBS know what you think-- and post your letter in the comments section below.

If you've paid attention to the presidential campaign season, you've no doubt been entertained by the string of embarrassments and gaffes: Rick Perry blows the voting age! Herman Cain can't remember what to say about Libya! Mitt Romney talks about the upside of a murderous dictatorship!

Wait--what?

In the November 22  debate, Romney gave this answer to a question about what to do about Pakistan:

We don't want to just pull up stakes and get out of town after the enormous output we've just made for the region. Look at Indonesia in the '60s. We helped them move toward modernity. We need to help bring Pakistan into the 21st century, or the 20th, for that matter.

That's an astonishing comment--and one that was hardly noticed in the corporate media.

To people who were paying attention, Romney would seem to have been praising the reign of Indonesian dictator Suharto, who took power in the mid-'60s. As Ed Herman wrote in Extra! (9-10/98):

Suharto's overthrow of the Sukarno government in 1965-66 turned Indonesia from Cold War "neutralism" to fervent anti-Communism, and wiped out the Indonesian Communist Party--exterminating a sizable part of its mass base in the process, in widespread massacres that claimed at least 500,000 and perhaps more than a million victims. The U.S. establishment's enthusiasm for the coup-cum-mass murder was ecstatic (see Chomsky and Herman, Washington Connection and Third World Fascism); "almost everyone is pleased by the changes being wrought," New York Times columnist C.L. Sulzberger commented (4/8/66).

Suharto quickly transformed Indonesia into an "investors' paradise," only slightly qualified by the steep bribery charge for entry. Investors flocked in to exploit the timber, mineral and oil resources, as well as the cheap, repressed labor, often in joint ventures with Suharto family members and cronies. Investor enthusiasm for this favorable climate of investment was expressed in political support and even in public advertisements; e.g., the full-page ad in the New York Times (9/24/92) by Chevron and Texaco entitled "Indonesia: A Model for Economic Development."

The Progressive's Matt Rothschild called Romney's answer the "most outrageous comment of the whole debate," noting that the "new leadership" he referred to was a dictator "who killed between 500,000 and 1 million of his own citizens with the help of the CIA. A little follow up from Wolf Blitzer would have been nice there."

One of the only other journalists to catch this was Dan Murphy of the Christian Science Monitor, who spent a decade reporting from Indonesia. As Murphy wrote, the 1960s saw

the systematic destruction of Indonesia's nascent democratic institutions and political parties (which had already been taking a beating under Sukarno); state repression of opponents with torture, targeted killings and long jail terms; and a military-backed dictatorship that persisted until a popular uprising in 1998 pushed Suharto, finally, from power.

The first sentence of Murphy's piece was "I don't generally write about U.S. politics." Indeed. Hundreds of journalists who spend every day writing about U.S. politics apparently did not find it newsworthy that Romney endorsed a bloody dictatorship.

The New York Times today (11/29/11) has a somewhat cheeky piece about Republican candidate Newt Gingrich's background as a historian--which, according to reporter Trip Gabriel, means he's unusually smart:

In an election season rife with factual misstatements, deliberate and otherwise, Mr. Gingrich sometimes seems to stand out for exhibiting an excess of knowledge.

I don't know whether he really "sometimes seems" to have an "excess of knowledge"--whatever that might be. The point seems to be that he comes across as smarter than, say, Michele Bachmann. Well, sure.

But what about Gingrich's misstatements? According to PolitiFact, at one debate Gingrich claimed that Sarah Palin was right about the "death panels" in the healthcare law--which earned him a "PANTS ON FIRE" from the site.

Let's give him the benefit of the doubt, though--the healthcare law is not precisely "history." Perhaps the same goes for his claim that the stimulus bill "is anti-Christian legislation that will stop churches from using public schools for meeting on Sundays, as well as Boy Scouts and student Bible study groups." To be fair, that was in 2009--way before he was the smartest presidential candidate in the room.

But PolitiFact also gave Gingrich a "PANTS ON FIRE" for his his Twitter claim that the United States spends less on its military (as a percentage of GDP) than at any time since Pearl Harbor. A historian might be expected to know something about that.

The Times adds:

Fellow historians are generally pleased that Mr. Gingrich brings history into the national conversation, even if some dispute his insights.

It would be odd for historians to be pleased by this--which might explain why the Times can't offer much in the way of evidence for it.

A New York Times piece today (11/29/11) about the U.S. airstrikes that apparently killed 24 Pakistani soldiers opens with Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani speaking publicly about the incident, as does Pakistani military spokesperson Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas.

Readers are then treated to a lesson in how U.S. officials speak to important news outlets about an emerging, controversial story. They don't use their names. Instead, we hear from:

• "A United States official" who comments  on the "growing frustration in Washington about the increasingly harsh language coming out of Islamabad." He "spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing the need not to personally alienate Pakistani officials."That same official then is allowed to mischaracterize the Pakistani complaint:  "You hear what they’re saying, and they’re making it sound like we're just bombing Pakistani military positions for the hell of it."
• "Another American official," who "disputed the Pakistani assertions that the border posts were in areas that had been largely cleared of insurgents."
• "Yet another American official... who asked not to be identified in discussing a case that is under investigation."
• And, finally, a "third American official briefed on the raid."

Elsewhere in the paper, a Times editorial explained its regrets over this incident and others:

It's not clear what led to NATO strikes on two Pakistani border posts this weekend, but there can be no dispute that the loss of lives is tragic. At least 24 Pakistani troops were killed. We regret those deaths, as we do those of all American, NATO and Afghan troops and Pakistani and Afghan civilians killed by extremists.

So any deaths in the wars in Afghanistan or Pakistan are regrettable--except for civilians killed by U.S./NATO forces.

Back in March, we wondered when U.S. corporate news outlets would find U.S./NATO killing of Afghan kids newsworthy. Back then, it was nine children killed in a March 1 airstrike. This resulted in two network news stories on the evening or morning newscasts, and two brief references on the PBS NewsHour.

On November 25, the New York Times reported--on page 12--that six children were killed in one attack in southern Afghanistan on November 23. This news was, as best I can tell, not reported on ABC, CBS, NBC or the PBS NewsHour.

There were, on the other hand, several pieces about U.S. soldiers eating Thanksgiving dinners.

Salon columnist Glenn Greenwald was one of the few commentators to write about the latest killings. As he observed:

We're trained simply to accept these incidents as though they carry no meaning: We're just supposed to chalk them up to regrettable accidents (oops), agree that they don’t compel a cessation to the war, and then get back to the glorious fighting. Every time that happens, this just becomes more normalized, less worthy of notice. It's just like background noise: Two families of children wiped out by an American missile (yawn: at least we don't target them on purpose like those evil Terrorists: we just keep killing them year after year after year without meaning to). It's acceptable to make arguments that American wars should end because they're costing too much money or American lives or otherwise harming American strategic interests, but piles of corpses of innocent children are something only the shrill, shallow and unSerious--pacifists!--point to as though they have any meaning in terms of what should be done.

Sam Husseini asked a tough question of a member of the Saudi royal family at a National Press Club event--which got him into some trouble with folks at the Press Club. (Good news--his suspension has been lifted.)

Part of what motivated Husseini to question Turki al-Faisal was the fact that a representative of such a repressive regime would have the nerve to give a talk about Arab democracy. Elite journalists, on the other hand, don't spend much time worrying about this. Washington Post columnist David Ignatius filed his Sunday column (11/27/11) from Riyadh, where he was speaking about, what else, Arab democracy with another member of the Saudi ruling family, Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal.

Ignatius' point was that "elders who have been through countless springs and winters" can see things with "consequent clarity." He went on:

There are some wise, older voices left, and they deserve a hearing. So listen for a moment to Prince Saud al-Faisal, the 71-year-old Saudi foreign minister. He's had that post since 1975 and is the world’s longest-serving foreign minister.

I met Saud at his palace here a week ago, and it was a poignant visit: The prince has Parkinson's disease, and his hands and voice tremble slightly. Though his body is frail, his Princeton-educated intellect remains sharp: This was the most interesting of our many conversations over the years.

What was so interesting about Saud's words? It's not clear.  He says that Arab "governing bodies" assume "that they can go on neglecting the will of the people," which he apparently thinks is unwise--though he also seems to think that Saudi Arabia's family-based dictatorship is not doing this.

Husseini asked about the Saudi regime's efforts to inhibit pro-democracy Arab Spring movements in Egypt and Bahrain. Ignatius, on other hand, dwelled on the positive:

I think Saud captured the most positive factor I have seen in my travels this year. The Arab people are writing their own narrative for once. They are not victims of domestic dictators or foreign powers.

Ignatius also reports back that "Saud has the regal ways of a Bedouin prince, tall and thin, with an ascetic face that masks the spark in his eyes." Now that's journalism!