Kurtz is Shocked That Ellsberg Would Compare WMD Lies to the Tonkin Gulf Incident
h/t David
Howard Kurtz is still playing water carrier for the Bush administration and their WMD lies used to justify invading Iraq and when called out for it by Daniel Ellsberg who says he'll name names as to who in the Bush administration knew better what does he do? Why try to change the subject of course!
Ellsberg is the subject of a new documentary The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers which debuts this week in New York, Los Angeles and at the Toronto Film Festival.
KURTZ: Do you think that the Obama administration is getting as much pressure from the press as it should, particularly compared to previous administrations, say the Bush administration?
ELLSBERG: None. No administration has gotten the pressure that it should from the press on this point. We got into Iraq with as much deceptions as occurred in Vietnam, a generation earlier. A performance by the press no better than we saw of pressing behind the lies of the administration than we got during the Johnson administration when I was in; nor did we get a single person within the administration, the Bush administration now, who saw that the adventure into Iraq was going to hurt our counter-terrorism efforts, hurt our security, and was violating the Constitution in terms of treaties. Another example would be treaties on torture and our domestic laws on torture. People who saw that clearly, not one of them leaked to Congress, or to the press.
(CROSS TALK)
KURTZ: Obviously, there were conflicting opinions and conflicting evidence, for example on WMDs. But let me come back to this.
ELLSBERG: No, pardon me.
KURTZ: Go ahead.
ELLSBERG: When it came to lying -- when it came to lying about the nature of the evidence that the evidence was unequivocal, that was as much of a lie as saying that evidence of the attack on August 4th, on our destroyers, was unequivocal. Yes, there was --
KURTZ: You're comparing the Bush's building of the case to go to war in Iraq, with Lyndon Johnson's Tonkin Gulf war incident, just to be clear.
ELLSBERG: I am, indeed. It's exactly the same in the performance not only by the president, but by all of the people who knew that it was a disaster. And I could name names there, if you want.
KURTZ: Let me -- let me jump in here, because we're short on time.
Let me take you back to this incredible period in American history when you were targeted by the Nixon White House, as I mentioned earlier. Your psychiatrist's office was broke into in an effort to dig up dirt, on Daniel Ellsberg. And on the infamous White House tapes President Nixon said, to one of his aides, "Just get everything out, get it out, leak it out, I want to destroy him in the press. Is that clear?"
What was it like to be on the receiving end of that kind of campaign from the president of the United States?
ELLSBERG: Of course, Joe Wilson and his wife, Valerie Plame, were in exactly the receiving end of the same kind of operation from Rove and others in the administration of Cheney, Scooter Libby, and others. I felt very familiar with that one. Get that guy, destroy his credibility because Joe Wilson, former ambassador, had been telling the truth just as I told the truth with documents.
The lesson that I think is there right now, in the Obama administration, and any later administration, is if you, in the government, believe that your oath to uphold the Constitution is being violated by lies, by reckless adventures abroad, you should consider doing what I wish I had done in '64 and '65. Don't do what I did, wait until the war has started and the bombs have fallen. Do what I wish I had done earlier, go to the press, and to Congress -- not just Congress -- with documents, even though that may risk going to prison.
KURTZ: Let me ask you a last question here. "The New York Times" as you know, won a Pulitzer prize for exposing the Bush administration's secret domestic surveillance program, but Dick Cheney, among others, denounced the paper for doing that. Critics say that journalists who received and published classified information are every bit as morally culpable than the Daniel Ellsberg's of the world who actually leaked the material.
ELLSBERG: Well, if you think it was culpable. By the way, people who do that unless it involves communication intelligence, or the identity of covert operatives, as in the case of Valerie Plame, are not actually breaking the law in terms of any prior precedent.
KURTZ: What about morally?
(LAUGHTER)
ELLSBERG: Morally, I would say they are very complicit in not putting out that information when they understand that lives depend on their revealing it. And I feel I was culpable earlier and that those who have led to so many deaths, Iraqi and American in Iraq, by not risking their careers, are morally culpable for that. You have to make your choice. You have to make your decision as to where morality lies.
KURTZ: Daniel Ellsberg, thank you very much for joining us.
ELLSBERG: Thank you.
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
George Santayana, The Life of Reason, Volume 1, 1905
George Santayana (1922) Soliloquies in England and Later Soliloquies
Smedley Butler speech re-enacted here
---
Daniel Ellsberg, Authors@Google speaks here
Great Conversations: Larry Jacobs and Daniel Ellsberg here
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
He was complict in the latter war and press failure.
Barack Obama: Change we can only imagine
i hope he hasnt forgotten that...which is why he didnt come forward until after the war started
given the times and the perception of the great commie threat, i dont think anyone dast blame the man for not coming forward from day one
'Since the end of the Vietnam War, Ellsberg has continued his political activism, giving lecture tours and speaking out about current events. During the runup to the 2003 invasion of Iraq he warned of a possible "Tonkin Gulf scenario" that could be used to justify going to war, and called on government "insiders" to go public with information to counter the Bush administration's pro-war propaganda campaign, praising Scott Ritter for his efforts in that regard.[18] He later provoked criticism from the Bush administration for supporting British GCHQ translator Katharine Gun and calling on others to leak any papers that reveal government deception about the invasion.[19] Ellsberg also testified at the 2004 conscientious objector hearing of Camilo Mejia at Fort Sill, Oklahoma.[19]
Ellsberg was arrested, in November 2005, for violating a county ordinance for trespassing while protesting against George W. Bush's conduct of the Iraq War. [20]'
.......and kurtz is a douche
In September 2006, Ellsberg wrote in Harper's Magazine that he hoped someone would leak information about a potential US invasion of Iran before the invasion happened, to stop the war. [21] Subsequently, information on the acceleration of US-sponsored anti-government activity in Iran was leaked to journalist Seymour Hersh.
...I believe Uncle Joe was referring to Vietnam. On that, by his own account, Ellsberg was something of a hawk at first, a "Cold Warrior," as they were known. But by 1966 he had become convinced that the war was unwinnable.
In 1967 he was involved in assembling what became known as the Pentagon Papers, which completely soured him on the war. But he kept silent for another couple of years. That was the regret of which he spoke.
There are so few of them these days. He's to be commended for speaking up.
I haven't heard of him in years and it's good to see that he's still around.
As our lives near the end of the great cycle, those of us with any sense of decency at all beome honorable men. The realization comes forth that we are not going to be able to take wealth or power with us so perhaps we should all just come clean. Not all men feel that way, some hold out well beyond the grave and those are the ones i would really lilke to talk to.
.. as the rest of Americans. And he turned against it before most had, and did what his conscience told him.
That takes a huge amount of humility, courage and integrity.
And you don't know what you're talking about. He started working for the pentagon in 1964, which was two years after the war had started. What was he supposed to speak out against? He had not yet gained access to any privileged information on which to change his mind.
Mistah Kurtz, he's a shithead.
...whores like Kurtz defend Conservatives without having to think about it. He allows his righty guests to go on long-winded bullshit diatribes filled with unchallenged lies using up every one's allotted time, then ends his "panel discussion" by giving the Progressive 30 seconds to respond.
Howie could easily migrate to Fox.
People like Kurtz will never accept that an administration lied to start a war. To do so takes guts and guts is something people like Kurtz never had. Heck, I bet if you sat down with him and really went over the Gulf of Tonkin lies he would eventually back that administration to. Its easy for people like Kurtz its accept those lies as fact because they have never had to pay the price for those lies.
When you've been one (like me) who had to carry out those lies you tend to be more critical of an administration as time goes along because you know your butt is on the line. That is the lesson kurtz and the rest of cowardly buddies never learned.
This Movie is based on Historical Facts i hope you enjoy it:
The American Century
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3776...
The Gulf of Tonkin Incident was not the first nor the Last time the Goverment lied to send us to war
OK folks saying Kurtz is a douche or carrying the water for the Bush administration in this interview is just plain STUPID! He's not surprised when he asks Ellsberg whether he's comparing the Bush lies with Gulf of Tonkin incident. Kurtz is just clarifying Ellsberg's comparison for viewers. To say anything otherwise is trying to make something out of nothing and really is biased. Kurtz has a lot of faults and has said some douchy things, but not in this case. Hit him when he's wrong, not just for everything.
Heather should've just stuck to Ellsberg's comments, which were very interesting. I expect better from C&L not this crap.
Agreed.
He didn't really argue any points. He seemed to accept what was said.
"Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob"
-= Franklin Delano Roosevelt =-
Judith Miller's reporting was in the push to war, and should know better that there are not "conflicting opinions and conflicting evidence, for example on WMDs" and that threat was hyped by both the press and the Bush administration. Now he's still feigning ignorance. And I don't believe he was just asking for a clarification from Ellsberg. He pulled what I see way too many of them do on the cable "news" networks day after day. Ask someone to clarify something they themselves already know far too well is true and pretend they don't.
So you based the title, the most visible and influential part of a post on a blog, on your `hunch` that he wasn't just asking for clarification? Really...?
You argue that he should know better about the conflicting opinions - yes we all know those `conflicting` opinions were rather limited, but they were far reaching (British gov) - but you really can't argue that there were actually no conflicting opinions.
There's nothing here except Ellsberg, as odanny pointed out below. We don't need constant attack and ridicule mode, information is what I'm looking for... factual, relevant, rare information - otherwise any other random person talking would suffice.
Kurtz is a neocon who is part of the established group of newsmen and women who control what we see on the television. As for facts...read Robert Dreyfuss' "The Lie Factory" or Seymour Hersh's "The Stovepipe." Both investigative journalist report on how pentagon official Doug Feith and others helped manufacture bogus intelligence, even stooping to rely on an alcoholic Iraqi taxi cab driver with a code name of "Curveball", to make it look like Saddam had WMDs.
The invasion of Iraq was part of the Project for a New American Century. A Bill Kristol led project to refashion the middle east in favor of Israel.
I would love to see a class action lawsuit filed on behalf of soldiers who died or were wounded becuase of a war that was a scam from it's inception.
don smith
My comment wasn't about WMDs and I wasn't asking for sources to find out about them. My comment was about misleading titles and pointless attacks.
agreed
...on his commentary. Kurtz was not the story and his addition, or subtraction of the story here was negligible and irrelevant. We need to hear from more people like Ellsberg and I can say thanks to CNN for having him on
Radix Omnium Malorum Avaritia
Why does Kurtz dismissively state that it was "obvious" that there were conflicting opinions on WMD before trying to change the subject with "Let me come back to this?" Ellsberg then has to interrupt to make his point. Why does Kurtz then "jump in" to change the subject saying they're "short of time" with three minutes still remaining? His clarification of the Gulf of Tonkin reference had no mention that no such incident occurred as was finally admitted in government papers released in 2005. Some media critic. He does, of course, then become a true Howard Kurtz, media critic, by finishing with a very Cheney-like comparison of the immoral nature of both the New York Times and Mr. Ellsberg. Yeah, Kurtz was carrying water.
In fact, the very name "Howard Kurtz" actually means "right wing water carrier" in at least twenty different languages around the world. It is said to come from the sound an ancient infant would make when offered water tainted by the right wing of a decayed and diseased messenger pigeon. Instinctively, the babies knew that such water would cause massive disillusion and intense nausea. In fact the "kurtz" part of the cry was said to be the sound caused by the babies' gag reflex. Unfortunately, we often loose these instincts as we grow resulting in idiots like Howard Kurtz being commonly mistaken for actual journalists.
Spot on, Heather.
Corruption favors the wealthy.
Besides the line "KURTZ: Obviously, there were conflicting opinions and conflicting evidence, for example on WMDs. But let me come back to this. " Kurtz wasn't bad. And really, that line isn't a lie, we just all know that the conflicting opinions were all originating from a single partisan source/office.
Again though, jeez, Heather and her titles are strikingly misleading. If you seriously watched the interview a couple times and still thought that Kurtz was shocked about the tonkin reference (and not just pointing out to viewers that's what the date Ellsberg stated referred to), then you seemingly have become too partisan. I'm not trying to insult you, or muddy your name or even debate the basic premises of your posts; however, I've seen the title of many of your posts and get myself ready to witness what you imply in them, only to find myself time and time again seeing something completely different. This is something I expect to find at newsbusters, not a progressive blog. It really needs to stop.
So next time he screws up, can we play this for him?
He's a real nowhere man
living in his nowhere land...
He's as blind as he can be
Just sees what he wants to see
Nowhere man, can you see me
At all
Nowhere man, please listen
You don't know what you're missing...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7snY1-js6s
I am shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!
OK Kurtz, you gotten your money.
a secret, fact-finding team of scientists and engineers sponsored by the Pentagon determined in May 2003 that two small trailers captured by U.S. and Kurdish troops were not evidence of an Iraqi biological weapons program. What makes the story so important is that this nine-member team “transmitted their unanimous findings to Washington in a field report on May 27, 2003.
Despite having authoritative evidence that the biological laboratories claim was false, the administration continued to peddle the myth over the next four months:
"...for those who say we haven't found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they're wrong. We found them."
- George W. Bush, remarks to reporters, May 31, 2003
http://thinkprogress.org/2006/04/12/lies-abou...
Claiming certain evidence for something for which you do not have certain evidence, is a lie too:
Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction.
- Dick Cheney, speech to VFW National Convention, Aug. 26, 2002
Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons.
- George W. Bush, speech to UN General Assembly, Sept. 12, 2002
If he declares he has none, then we will know that Saddam Hussein is once again misleading the world.
- White House spokesman Ari Fleischer, press briefing, Dec. 2, 2002
We know for a fact that there are weapons there.
- White House spokesman Ari Fleischer, press briefing, Jan. 9, 2003
The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.
- George W. Bush, State of the Union Address, Jan. 28, 2003
(Bush made this "uranium from Africa" claim even after the CIA had removed the claim from two of his previous speeches)
Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised.
- George W. Bush, address to the U.S., March 17, 2003
Well, there is no question that we have evidence and information that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, biological and chemical particularly.
- White House spokesman Ari Fleisher, press briefing, March 21, 2003
There is no doubt that the regime of Saddam Hussein possesses weapons of mass destruction.
- Gen. Tommy Franks, press conference, March 22, 2003
We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south, and north somewhat.
- Donald Rumsfeld, ABC interview, March 30, 2003
But make no mistake - as I said earlier - we have high confidence that they have weapons of mass destruction. That is what this war was about and it is about.
- Ari Fleischer, press briefing April 10, 2003
I was reading a few sites to refresh my memory about Daniel Ellsberg and what happened back in the late 60's. (I was paying attention then, even doing a little protesting, but I'd forgotten some of the details.)
Ellsberg had asked a couple of Senators to read the Pentagon Papers on the Senate floor, but they refused. That was when Ellsberg 'leaked' the papers to a whole bunch of newspapers. But, at the same time, one Senator did have the courage to agree to read the Pent. Papers into the Senate record - Senator Mike Gravel of Alaska.
"Egotism is the anesthetic that dulls the pain of Stupidity" - Frank Leahy
I've just listened to Ellsberg at Google here
Very interesting.
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
I listened to a bit of his talk, but it's past my bedtime, so I copied the URL so I can listen to it in the morning.
I remember Ellsberg as a handsome guy with black hair, and he still looks pretty spry and is articulate - I'm guessing he must be 80 or older.
I'm still waiting for the Ellsberg of this time to step forward. There has to be someone willing to risk everything to tell the truth about all these financial shenanigans, 9/11, the wars, torture, the election fraud, .....so many crimes perpetrated against the People...in the US and all the countries wherein we've fomented illegal military actions.
I get kind of depressed when I think about how little we've progressed as a species.....as Americans, we're moving backward.
"Egotism is the anesthetic that dulls the pain of Stupidity" - Frank Leahy
I would have thought that with almost everyone having access to schools that the species would have been super-evolved by now. Could it be that schools are just indoctrination centers that are causing the species to do nothing more than run in place?
The other link I showed above which I am now listening to is:
Great Conversations: Larry Jacobs and Daniel Ellsberg here
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
S.I. Hayakawa curbing Vietnam protests at SF State so others can make it to class.
Kurtz really doesn't understand, does he? He tried to just dismiss Ellsberg's whole point by making it a "he said, she said" issue... as if that excuses the whole thing. It's incredible.
well then...name the fuckin names!
"Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime."~Ernest Hemingway. Kinda makes you wonder what he would've said about wars that were totally unnecessary.
Just a reminder for all you youngsters out there, Ellsberg wrote a most excelent book: Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers If you have not read it, I highly recommend it. The books was also made into a pretty decent movie with James Spader, also worth checking out.
I would say that since Vietnam happened before this Iraq nonsense, we should've learned our lessons about not jumping to war on the first pretext.
At least with Vietnam it was part of the Cold War with Russia and China, although the Domino theory was nonsense.
The Iraq war was a distraction of the "War on Terrorism."
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
Are you people aware of who his wife is and what she does?
Google is your friend.
Well said! The Dumbya administration were corrupt criminals that should be held accountable for it now.
Saw a screening of the Ellsburg documentary yesterday, and it's a compelling and deeply moving piece of work. It's also impossible to watch it and not be reminded how much the MSM has changed. When Ellsburg leaked the Pentagon Papers, the press actually risked the White House's wrath to report the truth. How might the last eight years have been different if that was still the case?
"Howard Kurtz is still playing water carrier for the Bush administration and their WMD lies used to justify invading Iraq and when called out for it by Daniel Ellsberg who says he'll name names as to who in the Bush administration knew better what does he do?"
Heather, I like your passion but you have a regular problem with sentence structure.
Another big difference between the Bay of Tonkin is it wasn't in dispute who attacked the ship, only whether it was in international waters or not, and they responded by attacking the country the attackers came from. Plus many of the responders were already there as military advisors from the Kennedy era.
I think there have bene some changes to the story however, such as threatening moves, but no attack, etc.
With Iraq we attacked a country that had no involvement at all.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
Hit the rightist chicken-hawk bullshit argument that "We did not know then that Saddam had WMD's" with proof that was readily available... just three names of three very well respected gentlemen now lost to history that clearly refuted the bogus WMD details Cheney invented well in advance of the March 20, 2003 illegal invasion.
Hans Blix, David Kay and Charles Duelfer.
Frank Zappa - Make A Jazz Noise Here
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