Jim Lehrer "moderates" the first presidential debate between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney

Within minutes, both candidates ignored the rules Lehrer set out at the beginning of the evening. Rules that the Commission on Presidential Debates – a private corporation funded by the likes of Anheuser-Busch, and created by the Democratic and Republican parties to wrest control of the debates from the non-partisan League of Women Voters in 1987 – secretly negotiated with the Obama and Romney campaigns.

Over the course of the evening, Lehrer was reduced to a bemused spectator. Had this been a Monday Night Football game, the entire country would be in an uproar over such lackluster officiating. But this isn’t football, of course, it’s a case of business as usual: timid journalists and politicians who refuse to play by their own rules.

During a recent appearance on Pacifica radio’s Democracy Now!, former Wisconsin Sen. Russ Feingold openly criticized President Barack Obama’s decision to accept campaign contributions from Super PACs. Feingold succinctly characterized the president’s reversal on taking Super PAC money: “It’s not just bad policy. It’s also dumb strategy.”

Feingold’s point is well taken. Obama’s acceptance of Super PAC contributions flies in the face of his stated opposition to the Supreme Court’s Citizen’s United decision – a ruling that opened the floodgates to unlimited corporate campaign contributions. This reversal may come back to haunt the president, especially as he and the Democrats attempt to capitalize on the popular discontent articulated by the Occupy movement.

Recently named co-chair to the president’s re-election committee, Feingold’s criticism is welcome, if not quite newsworthy for mainstream press outlets to report. Nevertheless, for a great many progressives, Feingold’s qualified support for Obama has an all too familiar ring to it. It’s the sound of the Democratic Party’s “lesser of two evils” campaign strategy.

In a wide-ranging interview with Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman, Feingold’s criticism of the Obama re-election strategy extended to the president’s handling of the Afghan war, as well as then-Senator Obama’s flip flop on the question of granting immunity to the telecommunications industry for their role in domestic surveillance under the Bush administration.

Refreshing as it is to hear a progressive critique of Obama’s record, Feingold pulled a few punches. For example, when Goodman pressed him on the president’s record on civil liberties, he said: “I am disappointed in his commitment to civil liberties at this point. He needs to get his game back on that,” adding, “And here’s the thing: it’s not like you can really accuse Barack Obama of being soft on terrorism.”

No. Obama isn’t soft on terrorism. His growing appetite for drone warfare and extra-judicial killing may have endeared him to the hawks in both the Republican and Democratic parties. But he’s hardly the principled champion of civil liberties and the rule of law that he ran on in 2008.

And for all his talk of transparency, Obama’s been making life more, not less, difficult for whistleblowers – a disturbing trend Linda Greene examined in the June 24, 2011, edition of The Bloomington Alternative.

Equally troubling, Obama’s recently announced military strategy – ostensibly a budget-cutting effort that retains a robust national defense – is actually a provocative and dangerous plan to expand American empire well into the 21st century. Feingold’s fellow Wisconsinite, Matthew Rothschild, editor of The Progressive magazine, has one of the more clear-eyed assessments of Obama’s “defense” strategy – what the Pentagon calls “Sustaining U.S. Global Leadership: Priorities for 21st Century Defense.”

“The title itself is none to subtle about America’s hegemonic goal,” Rothschild notes, adding that Obama’s military posture “relies more brazenly on nuclear weapons. It is belligerent toward Iran. It escalates tensions with China. And it incorporates the military more than ever into domestic law enforcement.”

To date, there hasn’t been much outcry against Obama’s militarism from his GOP rivals. And you sure haven’t heard much debate about it in the establishment press. Nor from rank and file Democrats, let alone progressives like Russ Feingold.

In short, Obama’s hawkish approach to foreign policy is in keeping with the “lesser of two evils” stratagem that corporate Democrats have relied upon for at least a quarter century, the results of which are plain to see. As the United States relies on military might to assure its place as global hegemon, the 1 percent reaps enormous benefits, while the rest of us endure America’s precipitous decline here at home.

Welcome to Obama’s re-election campaign strategy: endless war abroad, a declining standard of living at home and the eclipse of the rule of law. He can’t lose. We already have.

Bloomington Alternative

This time of year, entertainment awards dominate the news cycle. From last month’s Golden Globes, Screen Actors and Directors Guild Awards to Sunday evening’s telecast of the 54th Grammy Awards, it’s all celebrities all the time. Then there’s Oscar’s big night on February 26th. Between all of the excitement and anticipation of award season, is it any wonder that US news workers have neglected a few important stories?

For readers weary of snarky comments from the Red Carpet fashion police, or otherwise bored to tears by George Clooney’s PR blitz for that elusive Best Actor Award, the Bloomington Alternative presents the Award Season edition of the annals of censorship.

We’re Number 47!

Last month, Reporters Without Borders issued its 10th annual press freedom index. Reporters Without Borders has been defending press freedom around the world since 1985, so it knows a thing or two about the dire circumstances news workers encounter on a daily basis.

The report begins, “This year’s index sees many changes in the rankings, changes that reflect a year that was incredibly rich in developments, especially in the Arab world.”

The good news: countries with a long history of press censorship, such as Tunisia, improved their standing considerably. The bad news: the United States came in at number 47 on this year’s press freedom index.

While U.S. news media produced sympathetic coverage of some, but certainly not all, of the pro-democracy movements across greater Middle East, American news workers have been silent on one of the more disturbing aspects of last year’s history making events: the assault on press freedom here at home.

According to Reporters Without Borders, the United States “owed its fall of 27 places to the many arrests of journalists covering Occupy Wall Street protests.”

The UK-based Daily Mail put the U.S. news media’s lackluster performance in perspective, “The slide in the United States places it just behind Comoros and Taiwan in a group with Argentina and Romania.” Nuff said.

Political ad profits

As if the horse race coverage of award season were not enough, the handicapping surrounding the GOP primary is generating more heat than light. Rick Santorum’s three state-sweep last Tuesday only added fuel to the fire.

Campaign financing – and all of the political advertising this money buys – is a perennial news story in an election year. And yet, despite all of this coverage, the broadcast industry is doing all it can to avoid disclosing how much radio and television stations make during campaign season.

Writing for AlterNet, Jay Costa reports, “Last week the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) filed another in a series of comments to the FCC opposing new rules that would require broadcast TV stations to post information online about the political ads they air.” Costa, who works with MapLight.org, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization that examines the influence of money on electoral politics, goes on to document some of advertising buys of GOP rivals Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich during this, the most expensive election cycles in U.S. history.

Between the uncertain outcome of the Republican primaries and President Obama’s “reluctant but principled” acceptance of Super PAC financing for the general election, broadcasters have earned bragging rights on their election year windfall.

But it seems the broadcast industry’s appetite for campaign minutiae only goes so far.

Truth be told, I was only half listening to President Obama’s State of the Union (SOTU) address the other night. The once soaring rhetoric rings hollow these days. Not that I wasn’t skeptical of Mr. Hope-y Change-y from the get-go.

Even fervent Obama supporters are disappointed with the president’s inability – make that his unwillingness – to take on the moneyed interests that have colonized our politics and wrecked the economy. And Obama’s paean to militarism that bookended the SOTU makes it clear that the 2009 Noble Peace Prize winner has cast his lot with American Empire.

Small wonder, then, that in his response to the president’s address, Indiana’s Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels saluted Obama “for his aggressive pursuit of the murderers of 9/11 and for bravely backing long overdue changes in public education.”

Daniels’s remarks should remind us that despite all of the rhetoric and political posturing to the contrary, Obama’s record is more closely aligned to neoliberal principles and objectives than anything that even remotely resembles a progressive agenda. Case in point: the much-maligned “ObamaCare” is little more than a federal subsidy (a.k.a. corporate welfare) for the health insurance industry.

As for the president’s latest prescriptions for tax reform, corporate accountability and economic recovery, file it under “too little, too late” – right alongside Obama’s pledge to “fight obstruction with action.” Unless he’s (still) confusing acquiescence with action, the prospect of 112th Congress passing meaningful reform legislation in a presidential election year is wishful thinking.

Then again, it seems wishful thinking is the order of the day. Mitch Daniels put it best on Tuesday: “We do not accept that ours will ever be a nation of haves and have nots; we must always be a nation of haves and soon to haves.”

If I didn’t know any better, I’d swear Daniels stole that line from Stephen Colbert’s Americans for a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow.

Precisely what we’re “soon to have,” Daniels didn’t say. But if the corporatists in both parties have their way, it’s a safe bet endless war, union busting, low-wage jobs, lousy benefits, unsafe water, air and working conditions are all in the cards.

Obama made one thing perfectly clear on Tuesday night: the phrase “class warfare” is taboo for polite company. Just the same, it’s all the rage in Republican-controlled statehouses across the country. Obama’s silence on the GOP-led assault on worker’s rights and collective bargaining is all the more infuriating in this regard.

So what’s the take away from the SOTU and the Republican response? Neither party sees the writing on the wall. Last year’s worker uprising in Wisconsin was just the beginning. From the Arab Spring to Occupy Wall Street, people are resisting American empire, the corporate takeover of electoral politics and the wishful thinking of the haves and their political handmaids.

The people’s voice is clear and grows louder by the day: We won’t have it.

The self-congratulatory tone was even more evident when mainstream media outlets revisited Haiti on the second anniversary of the 2010 earthquake that devastated the island nation. What these press reports ignore is the ongoing struggle in these troubled places — and the US role in perpetuating corrupt and anti-democratic forces.

In Egypt, the mass mobilizations in Tahrir this past week were less celebratory than American media outlets let on. For a majority of Egyptians, especially young people, the revolution continues. It is an ongoing fight to liberate the country from an oppressive military regime.

The Bloomington Alternative

The news media is full of it these days. The Republican presidential primaries, that is. But thanks to the short attention span of most news organizations, by the time you read this, the New Hampshire primary will be a distant memory, the Iowa caucuses ancient history. So it’s on to South Carolina, for yet another show business extravaganza masquerading as democratic politics.

A bottomless schedule of television debates interrupted only by an endless stream of spin and speculation ought to satisfy even the most avid political junkie. It’s news workers themselves who can’t get enough of this stuff. At times, it seems the entire U.S. press corps is suffering from obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Between an unnatural fixation with public opinion polls and the horse race coverage that passes for political journalism this election cycle – from Michele Bachmann’s early win in the Iowa Straw Poll and Newt Gingrich’s implosion to Rick Santorum’s last minute surge – it’s no wonder more substantive news stories fail to get much traction.

In the annals of censorship, the 2012 presidential election is shaping up to be a next-generation WMD: weapon of mass distraction. In no particular order, here are a few stories that haven’t made much news lately.

Indefinite detention

President Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) into law on New Year’s Eve while vacationing in Hawaii. Mainstream news outlets dutifully reported the partisan debate over budget priorities that preceded the president’s action.

But the law’s far more controversial and ominous element – an indefinite detention provision that allows Obama, and his successors, to detain American citizens without charge or trial – went virtually unnoticed in the U.S. news media.

In an action alert, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) noted that the new law “has no time or geographic limits. It can be used by this and future presidents to militarily detain people captured far from any battlefield.”

With the notable exception of Texas congressman Ron Paul, Obama’s presidential overreach hasn’t raised many objections among the GOP contenders – despite the candidates’ deep-seated distrust of Big Government. For their part, U.S. news workers dutifully ignored charges by civil liberties and human rights organizations that the indefinite detention provision is illegal and unconstitutional.

Buddy Roemer

Conspicuously absent from round-the-clock coverage of the New Hampshire primary was the name Buddy Roemer. The former governor of Louisiana and four-term congressman was on the Republican ballot in the Granite State, along with Mitt Romney, John Huntsman and the rest. But Roemer’s candidacy was MIA in the incessant coverage leading up to Tuesday’s first-in-the-nation primary. What’s more, Roemer was not invited to participate in either of last weekend’s debates – bringing the total to 16 such debates he has been excluded from.

When rank-and-file Republicans and U.S. news workers continue to lament the lackluster field of GOP candidates, why shouldn’t Roemer get an invitation to the dance? More to the point, what’s up with the media blackout of Roemer’s candidacy?

After all, Roemer’s campaign is unique among Republican contenders. As Democracy Now! reported, Roemer “has refused to accept campaign contributions more than $100, rejected all donations from political action committees, and has made campaign finance the key plank in his platform.”

News accounts of the GOP primaries routinely mention Super PACs and the enormous sums Republican candidates and their surrogates are spending this campaign season. And yet, when a respected and experienced lawmaker like Roemer limits the dollar amount of campaign contributions and forgoes donations from PACs, the American news media is silent.

In the annals of censorship, Roemer’s unconventional campaign – a textbook example of what journalists call a “man bites dog” story – simply isn’t unusual enough to merit press coverage.

SOPA

The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) has created a firestorm in cyberspace. But you wouldn’t know it if you get your news from broadcast and cable television. Meanwhile, big name tech companies, including Tumblr, Twitter, Yahoo! and Google have joined the likes of Internet rights groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation in a campaign to stop SOPA.

Should the House measure (H.R. 3261) and its companion bill in the US Senate (S. 968) – the Internet Blacklist Legislation or PROTECT IP Act – become law, the Internet would be subject to all manner of censorship. According to the nonpartisan, media reform group Free Press, SOPA “could rip apart the open fabric of the Internet. People could see their websites disappear from the Internet for a ‘crime’ as innocent as posting a video of themselves singing along to a favorite song.”

In contrast to the media blackout on broadcast and cable television, print journalists are joining the online chorus against SOPA. In the annals of censorship, it’s no coincidence that the public interest takes a back seat to the financial interests of ABC, CBS, FOX, and MSNBC and other big media companies that support SOPA.

Occupy the Primaries

When the mainstream media finally got around to covering the Occupy movement, reporters and pundits seized on a media narrative that suggested the movement lacked coherence. After all, critics charged, the Occupy movement was leaderless. Worse yet, the Occupiers have a laundry list of complaints, but they haven’t made a single demand.

Without missing a beat, occupiers recently dispersed from their encampments by paramilitary forces descended on Iowa and New Hampshire, challenging the entire GOP field. In the spirit of bipartisan protest, Occupiers appeared at Democratic Party headquarters as well.

However, these actions rarely get much press attention – a stark contrast to the extensive coverage tea party activists received during the healthcare “debate” of 2009, when they disrupted town hall meetings in congressional districts across the country. What’s more, the U.S. press is turning a deaf ear to a provocative demand emerging from the Occupy movement: a constitutional convention to end corporate personhood.

The Supreme Court’s 2010 ruling Citizens United – a decision that equates unlimited corporate political spending with free speech – is the target of such calls. And as the consequences of Citizens United become clear, lawmakers from coast to coast have issued similar calls to repeal it. But you won’t hear much about that from the mainstream media either.

In the annals of censorship, such a fundamental challenge to the corporate dominance of electoral politics is strictly off limits.

“The Protester” is Time magazine’s person of the year. Featuring a fierce-looking, veiled figure peering back at the reader, Time’s front-cover image succinctly captures the uprisings and social upheavals that made history in 2011. As the saying goes, “A picture is worth a thousand words.”

Nonetheless, we shouldn’t forget the slogans, catchphrases and epithets that made headlines this year. After all, whatever comes of the Occupy movement, the mantra of the politically and economically disenfranchised – “We are the 99%” – has dramatically altered American political discourse as we plunge headlong into the 2012 presidential race.

Here then, are some of the remarks, declarations, and comments – snarky and otherwise – that made 2011 a year to remember.

8. “This seems like it was a prank to make fun of my name. … When you are named Weiner, that happens a lot.” – Former Representative Anthony Weiner offering the first of a fistful of flimsy excuses for lewd photographs posted to his Twitter account, June 2.

7. “Before we get started, let’s all say ‘Happy Birthday’ to Elvis Presley today.” – U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, while campaigning for president in South Carolina on the anniversary of Presley’s death, Aug. 16.

6. “All the world saw him being killed, all bloodied. Is that democracy? And who did it? Drones, including American ones, delivered a strike on his motorcade. Then commandos, who were not supposed to be there, brought in so-called opposition and militants. And killed him without trial.” – Russian Primer Minister Vladimir Putin, assessing NATO’s role in ousting Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, Dec. 15.

5. “This is such a cool state. I mean, come on, ‘Live free or die?’ I mean, you know, you gotta love that, right? I come from a state, you know, where they had this little place called the Alamo, and they declared, ‘Victory or death.’ You know, we’re kinda into those slogans, man. It’s like, ‘Live free or die,’ ‘Victory or death.’ Bring it!” – Texas Governor Rick Perry on the campaign trail in New Hampshire, Oct. 28.

4. “WikiLeaks applied new technology to penetrate the inner workings of government to reveal an avalanche of inconvenient truths in a global publishing coup.” – Citation for the whistleblower website upon receiving a Walkley Award – the Australian Pulitzer – for outstanding contribution to journalism, Nov. 27.

3. “This is the most humble day of my life.” – Rupert Murdoch, Chairman and CEO of News Corporation, testifying before British Parliament on the phone-hacking scandal, July 19.

2. “We’re under great threat because we occupy so many countries.” – Representative Ron Paul of Texas speaking at a GOP Presidential debate, Sept. 13.

1. “They have acted like terrorists.” – Vice President Joe Biden’s assessment of Congressional Republicans during last summer’s debt-ceiling debate, Aug. 1.***

Honorable Mentions

“I can’t stand him anymore, he’s a liar.” – French President Nicolas Sarkozy, as overheard by a handful of journalists, discussing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“You may be sick of him, but me, I have to deal with him every day.” – Barack Obama’s rejoinder to Sarkozy at the November G20 Summit.

During the December 1, 2011 CBS Evening News anchor Scott Pelley reported: “What began in 2003 as an effort to overthrow Saddam Hussein became a vicious religious war, pitting Iraqi against Iraqi–with the U.S. caught in the middle.”  This assertion does not square with the historical record.  The US invaded Iraq based on charges that Hussein was stockpiling of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) — charges that have proven baseless.  Any suggestion that the US was caught in the middle of an internal conflict is, at best, shoddy reporting.  At worst, this is deliberately misleading journalism.

What’s more, in using icasualties.org’s lowest estimate of civilian casualties (50,000), based on figures from January 2005 — nearly two years after the invasion — CBS is low-balling the death toll in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion.  At the very least, CBS News should provide clarification to the figure Pelley reported last evening.  A more forthright clarification would note how other estimates, including those of the highly respected British medical journal the Lancet, put the figure much higher.  Lancet’s 2006 study put the number of “violent deaths” at 600,000.

Finally, reporting on the withdrawal from Iraq should remind viewers of the number of “trainers” that will remain in Iraq.  Likewise, CBS would do well to discuss the role that private military contractors have played, and will continue to play, in Iraq for the foreseeable future.

The Bloomington Alternative

Scandal, gridlock, high crimes and misdemeanors. In this season of journalistic outrage, political stalemate and record-shattering heat waves, it’s tough to keep your cool. Tougher still if you are in the hot seat – unless of course you’re fortunate enough to occupy a position of power and authority. In which case, you might just as well settle in for a bit of kabuki theater and go about your business.

Seems the more precarious vital social, political and economic institutions become, the less accountable they are to the general public. Or maybe it’s the other way around. In any event, if you’re scoring at home, here’s the latest accountability index.

Wither News Corp.?

Last week, media mogul Rupert Murdoch testified before the British Parliament about the phone hacking scandal that shuttered his popular tabloid, News of the World, and scuttled his bid to take controlling interest of satellite broadcaster BskyB. The media baron told MPs, “This is the humblest day of my life.” The escalating scandal has prompted U.S. lawmakers and citizens’ groups to call for an investigation into Murdoch’s American media holdings, which include the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post and Fox News.

Murdoch flatly denied personal responsibility for news workers who allegedly intercepted the voice mail messages of celebrities and crime victims. Over the course of his testimony, Murdoch seemed to be channeling Fox Television’s original bad boy, Bart Simpson, when he just as much told lawmakers: “I didn’t do it.”

Dancing on the (debt) ceiling

With less than two weeks before the U.S. government loses its authority to borrow money, President Obama and congressional leaders appear no closer to reaching a compromise on a blend of spending cuts and tax hikes to reduce the federal deficit and raise the debt ceiling. If lawmakers can agree to one thing, it is this: government default could trigger an economic crisis.

With their eyes fixed squarely on the 2012 election cycle, Democrats and Republicans alike are more concerned with the political fallout of the debt ceiling debate than they are with the economic calamity they’re flirting with. Politicians on both sides of the aisle are putting political expediency before the well-being of ordinary Americans.

Obama: Droning on and on

Since taking office, in January 2009, President Obama has escalated the use of so-called predator drones as part of a broader “counter-insurgency” strategy across the Muslim world. According to Fred Branfman, who helped expose Nixon’s secret war in Laos, “Although packaged as involving only ‘surgical’ strikes, the U.S. ‘counter-terrorism strategy’ already involves tens of thousands of ‘special operations’ troops and thousands of drones in six Muslim countries — Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Libya, Somalia and Yemen. Seven thousand U.S. troops in Afghanistan and 3,000 in Iraq alone are engaged in round-the-clock assassinations.”

Apart from a handful of progressive Democrats, Obama’s secret wars and targeted assassination program sits just fine with congressional leaders – no partisan rancor here! Seems the costs of an open-ended war on terror, not to mention questions over the president’s authority to use military force in this fashion, doesn’t faze very many Democrats or Republicans, much less freshman tea party lawmakers.

Michele Bachmann’s pledge drive

Seems every other day, tea party favorite and presidential contender Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) is signing one pledge or another. Last week, while stumping in South Carolina, the location of the first Republican presidential primary, Bachmann issued yet another pledge – she refuses to vote in favor of increasing the debt ceiling. And for good measure, Bachmann added she is committed to repealing “Obamacare.”

This flurry of pledges makes it easy for news workers to report on Bachmann’s presidential campaign without all the fuss and bother of doing any actual reporting. Despite Bachmann’s homophobia, her knack for playing fast and loose with the facts, let alone her hypocrisy over federal subsidies – the Bachmann family farm has received hundreds of thousands in taxpayer money – it’s Bachmann’s pledge drive to the White House that gets press coverage.

Wall Street: The pot calling the kettle black

Finally, in the wake of ongoing debt ceiling negotiations, Moody’s Investor Services, among other credit-rating services, issued dire warnings to lawmakers should the U.S. government go into default. According to some analysts, if the government goes into default, it could panic the financial markets, spike interest rates and further erode the retirement savings of ordinary Americans.

Press coverage of the debt debate routinely includes the pronouncements of leading credit-rating firms. But news stories rarely mention that these same rating services were enablers for Wall Street banks and investment firms to use deceptive lending practices, credit default swaps and other “sketchy” financial instruments to line their pockets. When the Ponzi scheme finally unraveled, it led to the global economic meltdown of 2008 and the ongoing foreclosure crisis.

In a summer of blockbuster sequels, soon enough we’ll all be lining up for The Great Recession 2.

In our 24/7 news culture, when the “he said, she said” of budget negotiations in the nation’s capitol are enough to make your head spin like a Fourth of July pinwheel, it’s easy to lose historical perspective.  And so, along with the change of scenery and some time to think, I came to realize that the lessons of history are essential for understanding – and surviving – these troubled times.

As we celebrated our nation’s birth, I found myself asking the same question: How did we get here?

By “here” I mean the economic calamity that has decimated working families and is quickly thinning out the ranks of the middle class.

By “here” I mean American imperial ambition cloaked in the rhetoric of democracy and opportunity for all the world’s people.

By “here” I mean a rapacious corporate culture that has rendered our political system unrecognizable to all but the lobbyists, politicians and Supreme Court justices who sell off democracy to the highest bidder.

By “here” I mean an ecological crisis of biblical proportions that threatens life as we know it.