Thank you, Glenn Greenwald, for taking Marc Ambinder out to the woodshed in respect of his shameless stenography, and granting of anonymity, on the Obama administration's weak excuses as they try to justify perpetuating their continuance of Bush's blanket state secret defense.

As Glenn, a lawyer, points out to ( self-confessed Halperin-wannabe) Ambinder:

If, as Obama's Atlantic spokesman claims ... the Obama DOJ needed more time to review what they wanted to do -- then the solution is easy and obvious: you ask the court for more time. You don't march into court and explicitly advocate a Bush weapon that you've spent the last several years excoriating as a dangerous abuse of power.

...the alternative to Bush's lawsuit-killing use of the privilege is not to waive the privilege entirely. Everyone -- including the ACLU -- acknowledges that the Government should have the right to assert the State Secrets privilege on a document-by-document basis. The controversy was and is only about one thing: the use of the privilege to compel the dismissal of entire lawsuits in advance -- in other words, to convert the State Secrets privilege from what it always was (a focused evidentiary privilege) to what it was never intended to be (full-scale immunity for government lawbreakers from all judicial accountability).

...Obama has banned rendition to countries (such as Egypt and Jordan) where torture is likely. If there are still specific rendition agreements that the Obama DOJ thinks are secret and need to be protected, then they can and should assert the privilege as to those documents. That has nothing to do with demanding that the entire lawsuit be dismissed in advance.

As Wizner told me this morning, there is no reason why the ACLU would even need those supposedly secret documents to make their case. Whether the U.S. has rendition agreements with Jordan or Morocco, or what the content of those agreements are, is irrelevant. Besides, other countries -- such as Sweden, which already investigated these claims and fully disclosed their involvement in the CIA's rendition program when awarding the victims compensation -- have already made certain that many of these facts are disclosed.

Them's the facts, unspinnable.

But unfortunately Ambinder is only one among several who seem to be vying to become the next generation of stenographers with access, and thus secure their places among the journalistic elite alongside Thomas Ricks, David Sanger, George Will and Mark Halperin. They know from those previous alumni's examples that the only way to get seriously good insider access is to faithfully copy down and report the news in exactly the way unofficially officials ask them to - no attribution required. They've been called "lapdogs" of democracy rather than the watchdogs they should be, and they are a bipartisan breed.

Crossposted from Newshoggers

Why oh why can't we have a better press corpse? Glenn Greenwald:

Indeed. Perish the thought that a reporter should point out when government officials are making "bogus" claims and are lying a country into a war. That is "not their role," says the New Tim Russert (and, unsurprisingly, the Old Tim Russert wholeheartedly agreed). I don't know whether Gregory's public advocacy for a meek and polite press corps that would never be so rude as to point out when government leaders are lying is what sealed the deal for his new promotion to Meet the Press -- a show which centrally depends on having powerful politicians know that they can come on and, as Dick Cheney's top communications aide put it, "control the message." But I'm quite sure that it didn't hurt.

To see what Cheney aide Cathie Martin meant when she explained that Cheney knew he could go on Meet the Press and "control the message" -- and to see in action David Gregory's model of sycophantic, unchallenging "journalism" -- one could do no better than to examine Gregory's embarrassingly deferential "interview" yesterday with Israel's Foreign Minister, Tzipi Livni. It's a perfect template for how our American press corps (with some rare exceptions) functions.

Whatever one's views are on Israel's attack on Gaza -- pro, con or otherwise -- there's no denying that it's an extremely controversial matter -- at least it is in the world that exists outside of mainstream American political discourse. Even within Israel, there are scathing criticisms of what the Israeli Government is doing -- on both strategic and moral grounds. Yet none of those objections made their way into David Gregory's interview of Livni. He didn't present her with a single argument against the Israeli attack. He didn't challenge a single word she uttered. He was even more sycophantic with her than the average American journalist is with the average American political leader.

[...] There are good reasons why the media's reverent 2003 treatment of Bush matches its 2008 deference to Israeli claims. In 2003, claims about Iraq from the Bush administration -- just like claims from Israel now -- were not aggressively challenged or disputed in good company; their pronouncements were mandated orthodoxy, pieties of the highest order. And the one thing our media stars are good at doing -- what, above all else, they're programmed to do -- is to amplify and pay homage to prevailing establishment pieties. To do otherwise, as Gregory revealingly explained, "is not their role."

While it's true that blogs are dependent upon the mainstream media to an extent, it's because the media's hackery is so widespread, so consistent that consumers need us to explain exactly why they're so full of crap. (I mean, we do reward people who get it right by regularly linking to them, thus showing blog readers just who gets our respect.)

The members of the press corpse don't seem to realize that no matter who signs their paychecks, they have a moral obligation to serve as a check on government. The last eight years have proven they don't.

Angry Bear: John McCain - A real standup guy with the solution to poverty.

TPM Election Central: The boys over at MSNBC have had to do a lot of apologizing to Hillary Clinton. But Tweety? He's an equal opportunity offender. Now we know why he's got such a crush on McSame.

VetVoice: Shades of Walter Reed? I never want to hear another word about flag pins and patriotism from Republican criminals , their warflogging enablers, or any of the obedient lapdogs of the corporate press.

The Largest Minority: Evo Morales calls for "reparations to the earth."

Booman Tribune: No one in mainstream media can compare to Peggy Noonan for rambling incoherence, but "the Dean" is a close second.

Halfway There: Iraqi Flag Appreciation Day

(sorry the C&L was down for a while)
A LIBERAL DOSE: Iraqi PM--"Al Zarqawi killed; hope for GOP campaign"

Fafblog! after the end of the world

The Opinion Mill: Today, the average conservative commentator comes across as a kissin' cousin to the inbred mountain men in Deliverance, yelling "Squeal like a pig!" as they bend Ned Beatty over a log.

The Mahablog: Compared to Vietnam, Iraq War photography is nearly devoid of dead American bodies. Lots of dead Iraqis, though.

Yep, another Goddamned blog: Nowhere in Eric Boehlert’s book can one find a liberal political agenda. Lapdogs is concerned with one agenda: Truth and fairness in journalism.

Sooner Thought: Why I left Oklahoma politics

Jim Hightower: Corporate America is shipping our manufacturing, high-tech, andprofessional-service jobs off to Lowwagehellistan – but at least they can't send our fast-food jobs away, right?

Will the MSM Hold Frist Accountable for the hate speeches today?

via AmericaBlog:

Remember last fall when Whoopi Goldberg made a joke about Bush at a Kerry fundraiser and the GOP went crazy? Ken "Straight but not on the record" Mehlman called it a "hatefest." The lapdogs in the mainstream media all obediently tagged Kerry with Whoopi's remarks. It was such a scandal....neverminding the fact that Whoopi is a comedian....

So, the early evidence is that the MSM isn't holding Frist to the same standard Kerry faced. The people holding this conference aren't comedians. They are extreme activists with a hard core agenda. And, they are bashing other elected officials and other religions.

If the MSM holds Frist to the "Whoopi" standard, he will be responsible for the remarks of every other speaker at the conference. Their words are his words by the GOP's own standard.