Amanpour speaks to Harvard Class Day, 2010\

When the announcement was made that ABC News was placing Christiane Amanpour in the anchor's seat for their Sunday news show, This Week, I was fairly optimistic. I thought placing someone who was female and had focused primarily on global outlooks would put a fresh and interesting perspective on the news of the day.

However, I completely underestimated the power of the Village to demand conformity. Amanpour's interviews got less and less journalistic as the time wore on, her questions barely anything more than a set up to allow invited politicians to spew forth whatever talking point they wanted. And far too often, those invited politicians reflected just one side of the debate, though I don't know how much blame for that lies with Amanpour. The fact remains that Amanpour was simply a potential that was never fully realized, because her real power lay with being an outsider and that wasn't going to stand with the arbiters of the Inside the Beltway mentality.

It would appear the confines of acceptable Village speak is wearing on Amanpour and it looks like she's ready to jump ship:

Christiane Amanpour may soon be giving up the anchor chair on ABC News’ “This Week.” Sources say network honchos are mulling who might replace the award-winning journalist, who has struggled in the ratings since she jumped from CNN to take the reins of the public affairs show in August 2010. [..]

Sources said she’s been “miserable” at ABC and clashed with network executives. Other sources say the DC bureau never warmed up to Amanpour, who was seen as an outsider, commuting to Washington every week to host the show.

Jake Tapper--among others--have been named as possible replacements, including former host George Stephanopoulos pulling double duty with his Good Morning America anchor job. After six years on the job of monitoring these Sunday shows, I actually would be okay with Tapper getting the permanent seat, rather than as substitute host. Unlike other anchors, he's actually fairly approachable and was the first person to coordinate fact-checking with his show.

Digby writes a great op-ed in The Hill which shines a light on the obsession our media elites have with the federal deficit and believe that working class Americans aren't pulling their weight when it comes to sharing the sacrifice.

"Share the Sacrifice."

In a piece in last week’s edition of The Nation titled “Why Washington doesn’t care about jobs,” Christopher Hayes points out that D.C. is doing much better than the rest of the country economically, which is a significant contributor to what he terms “social distance” from the Americans the government purports to serve. That distance is disorienting and bizarre to those of us outside the Beltway, and is hugely fueled by the annoying conceit of many in the political media that they personally embody the concerns of average Americans. This misguided assumption would be merely amusing if not for the fact that almost the entire political conversation in the U.S. takes place among this small group of people — and that these alleged champions of the middle class inevitably convey the impression that Americans across the land are obsessed with deficit reduction and low taxes, which require deep cuts to 
“entitlements.”

Yet out here in the real world, poll after poll shows that, in fact, Americans are far more concerned with unemployment and favor surtaxes on the wealthy to close the deficit. And so, from time to time, these gilded Regular Joes are forced to regretfully admit that sometimes the people are like dotty old relatives who “just don’t get it” or that they just want a “free lunch” — after which they promptly forget those findings and go back to pretending that the American people see things exactly the way they do....read on

Please read the whole piece because the Villagers are filtering the very complex polices that make up a big chunk of the American budget into their own cynical belief system on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid which is damaging not to the very rich, but the average Joes and Janes.

(Blast from the past, but this video explains a lot about Liz Cheney)

Time for another blogger ethics panel. Liz Cheney pals around with terrorists! OK, that's not true. She's allowed to say it about anyone mind you. She actually pals around with the media that's supposed to cover her politics.

Digby:

Susan G at Dkos caught a brilliant illustration of the Village mentality in this New York magazine profile of Liz Cheney:

Fox is a regular pulpit, of course, but Liz is also all over NBC, where she happens to be social friends with Meet the Press host David Gregory (whose wife worked with Liz ’s husband at the law firm Latham & Watkins), family friends with Justice Department reporter Pete Williams (Dick Cheney’s press aide when he was secretary of Defense), and neighborhood friends with Morning Joe co-host Mika Brzezinski, daughter of Carter-administration national-security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski. When Mika criticized Dick Cheney on her show last year, the former vice-president sent her a box of chocolate cupcakes.

[...]

Liz’s friends say she sets the bar for all-American normality: She watches Mad Men and 24 on TV, drives an SUV, attends Girl Scout meetings, and is frequently spotted on the sidelines of soccer fields, trading gossip with people like Terry McAuliffe, Washington Post reporter Glenn Kessler, and other power players whose kids go to the Country Day School or the Potomac School.

The fact that these All American folks are also millionaire celebrities with the most powerful people in the world on their speed dials shouldn't be taken as signs that they aren't just like you and me. In fact, they are Real Americans in ways that the frou-frou coastal liberal elites will never understand.

And as Susan rightly notes, there is another teensy problem with this comfortable arrangement:

This idea that the national press corps can cozy up to sources or people in power they cover during afternoon soccer games or over Saturday night dinners, then turn around and hold their feet to the fire is ridiculous. You know it. I know it. Everyone outside of Beltway zip codes knows that. Hell, anyone who's ever tried to challenge a neighbor at a local meeting knows it.

But the Village? Meh. They have their own rules. And cupcakes.

Liz certainly has been trained well by her parents. I'm waiting for the day Liz rips David Gregory and asks him if he wants the terrorists to win too. This reminded me of the time Lynne Cheney went on CNN in 2006 and attacked her Villager buddy Wolf Blitzer over Dick's love of waterboarding in such a way that his poor itty-bitty feelings were hurt. You see, Lynne suggested to Wolf that he wanted the terrorists to win.

CHENEY: Well, right, but what is CNN doing running terrorist tapes of terrorists shooting Americans? I mean, I saw Duncan Hunter ask you a very good question and you didn't answer it. Do you want us to win?

BLITZER: The answer is, of course, we want the United States to win. We are Americans. There's no doubt about that. Do you think we want terrorists to win?

CHENEY: Then why are you running terrorist propaganda?

BLITZER: With all due respect -- with all due respect, this is not terrorist propaganda.

CHENEY: Oh, Wolf.

Read the rest of the transcript. It's quite enlightening.

BLITZER: It made it sound -- and there's been interpretation to this effect -- that he was in effect confirming that the United States used this waterboarding, this technique that has been rejected by the international community that simulates a prisoner being drowned, if you will, and he was in effect, supposedly, confirming that the United States has been using that.

CHENEY: No, Wolf -- that is a mighty house you're building on top of that mole hill there, a mighty mountain. This is complete distortion; he didn't say anything of the kind.

BLITZER: Because of the dunking of -- you know, using the water and the dunking.

CHENEY: Well, you know, I understand your point. It's kind of the point of a lot of people right now, to try to distort the administration's position, and if you really want to talk about that, I watched the program on CNN last night, which I though -- it's your 2006 voter program, which I thought was a terrible distortion of both the president and the vice president's position on many issues. It seemed almost straight out of Democratic talking points using phrasing like "domestic surveillance" when it's not domestic surveillance that anyone has talked about or ever done. It's surveillance of terrorists. It's people who have al Qaeda connections calling into the United States. So I think we're in the season of distortion, and this is just one more.

BLITZER: But there have been some cases where innocent people have been picked up, interrogated, held for long periods of time then simply said never mind, let go -- they're let go.

CHENEY: Well, are you sure these people are innocent?

BLITZER: They're walking around free right now and nobody has arrested them.

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(h/t Heather)

The Villagers were up in arms Sunday morning over on the set of ABC's This Week about the possibility that Eric Holder might appoint a special someone to look into the Bush/Cheney torture practices. Watch in awe and see how the Villagers feel about trying to get accountability from the Bush years.

Why, an investigation would just trash the place. Oh, the bitterness in D.C. would be too much to handle, all because those other people (that is, non-Villagers) would like to get to the truth.

Bob Woodward, who's trying to be the next David Broder by living off his long-degraded rep as the man who uncovered Watergate, wonders how we will ever be able to keep secrets again if there is some inspection. Um, isn't that what the Bob Woodwardses are supposed to do? Uncover stuff? Nope, not anymore. He's appalled that there might be a frakking investigation.

And he was all a-giggle with the thought that the CIA could actually lie. What a joke. I didn't hear him open his mouth when Newt Gingrich went all whiggy on Nancy Pelosi.

Cokie goes "Cokie" on us for a while and then after much trepidation comes down on the rule of law. Good for her, but she better take some R&R if it happens.

ROBERTS: I must say, I have very mixed minds about this. Because on the one hand, the whole idea of a prosecution gets Washington into that kind of horrible slog where everybody hates each other and the poison just gets very thick.

DONALDSON: Unlike at the moment, right?

ROBERTS: Well, no, it hasn’t been as bad lately as it was in the last 16 years.

STEPHANOPOULOS: And it seems like they’re trying to avoid at least in the design of this, criminalizing of policy.

ROBERTS: And just the whole atmosphere of getting that way again. On the other hand, the rule of law is terribly important. And we have to have it -- you know, we cannot operate in this country without the rule of law.

DONALDSON: So which hand do you come down on?

ROBERTS: I’d probably come down on the rule of law.

Digby writes much more:

Stephanopoulos reported on This Week that the possible Holder investigation is going to be very narrow and will not pursue policy makers or anyone who took orders directly from the policymakers. He's going after "rogue interrogators" who inflicted more torture than was strictly allowed.

The Village roundtable all gasped in horror anyway because who knows where such an investigation might lead and as Cokie complained, it would mean that the whole town would be mad at each other again and nobody wants that! "Everybody hates each other and the poison gets very thick." She did finally come down on the side of following the rule of law even though it would make her uncomfortable at cocktail parties, but it was a close thing.

Bob Woodward was very upset at the idea that the government can't keep secrets because "we need them!" Besides, Holder shouldn't be like Janet Reno and just initiate investigations willy nilly. (He seems to think that Reno authorizing independent counsels to investigate her own president for trivial political reasons is the same thing as investigating whether the previous administration tortured prisoners.) They all chuckled at the notion that Holder was really independent and if he is, that means he's a rogue interrogator himself.

George Will thought it was all just a bunch of balderdash because nothing bad ever happened during the Bush administration. Sam Donaldson said that reporters should probably pursue stories and Donna Brazile added that these things were coming out anyway so they might as well be investigated.

They all snorted and giggled and laughed throughout the whole segment about how silly it was to be upset that the CIA lied because well, that's what it does. And they all thought it was a ripping good joke that Cheney kept everything secret because well, everyone knows that's what he does. Hahahahaha.

Full transcript below the fold.

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Chuck Todd seems to think that torture is A-OK and not something that is fundamentally disgusting, and opposing it just a crazy left-wing position. Digby explains:

Did Chuck Todd recently attend a Mark Halperin seminar on how to be an insufferably obtuse purveyor of stale and useless insider conventional wisdom? (Or does he just have a natural talent for it?) Check this out:

Competence And Ideology: One reason why intelligence has become such a tough nut for Obama to crack: There's a lot of Democratic rhetoric on intel from the presidential campaign, and it's something that Obama is allowing the intellectual left to have veto power over. Obama finds himself caught in this first intra-party vise between his instinct to pick competence over ideology. His first rumored choices for CIA were competent picks -- but both would have been eviscerated by the intellectual left because of their anger at Bush over interrogation practices. He's allowing ideology to trump competence for the first time in one of his major appointments. Now, the pick of Dennis Blair to be DNI is a tip toward competence, while the Obama folks hoped Panetta was a compromise between competence and ideology (Panetta was praised as a smart manager during the Clinton White House years). But it looks like it ain't being received that way...

Apparently being against torture is now a crazed left-wing ideological position built on "anger" at George Bush. And it's incompetent, to boot. I don't know how many times people have to make this point, but when it comes to torture it is not a matter of being mad at bush or even simple human decency. It is a matter of competence as well. Not only does torture not work as an intelligence tool, the sincere and public repudiation of torture is essential to the success of Obama's foreign policy. If he were to choose someone who was implicated in or associated with Bush's torture regime, his credibility around the world would be damaged before he even begins. It would be dramatically incompetent for him not to make a clear distinction both to the intelligence community and the rest of the world between his policies and the Bush administration's...read on

In the mind of a Villager, torture is a civilized practice that is both just and competent. That was very frightening to read. Bill O'Reilly would be proud.

I just turned on the tevee. It's good to see them on the stage together in NH. The Villagers will be having a field day later---trying to tear them down. This is Obama's party and he calls the shots. When you start hearing the media elites attack Bill Clinton just turn it off. They need controversy. They don't want us to come together....McCain' Media will be on display.

And John McCain isn't too happy right now...Maybe he'll run another battery contest on The Situation Room...

We'll have video later...

Reporting 15%

Hillary Clinton 40%
Barack Obama 36%
John Edwards 17%

The Villagers are in shock. Huge voting numbers for the Democratic Party vs Republicans: roughly 2-1

A Killing Commanded by Tradition

...Within an hour, the entire village would learn that the 25-year-old married woman had been discovered in a darkened nearby hut with her lover. Within two days, Amina was dead -- killed by her fellow villagers April 20 after the men of the community ruled that she had violated Islamic law by having an affair with a neighbor.

Amina's fate highlights the magnitude of the challenge faced by Afghanistan's central government as it attempts to extend the rule of modern law and democratic processes beyond the nation's capital, more than three years after the defeat of the repressive and fundamentalist Islamic Taliban government....read on

I guess after millions of women voted, not much has changed.