GMA Highlights Prof: Court Ruling Could Lead to Bush Impeachment --8/21/2006

1. GMA Highlights Prof: Court Ruling Could Lead to Bush Impeachment
Friday's morning shows largely preferred the JonBenet Ramsey case over Thursday's federal district court ruling declaring the National Security Agency's terrorist surveillance program to be unconstitutional. ABC's Good Morning America, however, gave some time to the topic, but Jessica Yellin never acknowledged the liberal background of the Carter-appointed Judge Ann Diggs Taylor who, Yellin pointed out, "accuses the President of acting like a king" and says the NSA program "blatantly disregards" the parameters established in the Bill of Rights. Yellin labeled the court's decision a "stinging setback" for President Bush, and highlighted this warning to the President from George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley: "He could be impeached. And people should not be underestimating that. It's true that this Congress does not want to-" That statement seemed to go a bit to far for Yellin, who appeared skeptical, inserting in her taped piece: "Come on. He's not going to be impeached for this program." Turley: "Well the question -- that is a political question."

2. Olbermann Bolsters 'Smackdown' of Spying on 'Our' Phone Calls
On Thursday's Countdown, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann bolstered the ruling by federal Judge Ann Diggs Taylor against the Bush administration's controversial NSA spying program that involves warrantless monitoring of international phone calls when one participant is a terrorist suspect. Referring to the ruling as a "judicial smackdown" and a "stunning ruling" against the program, Olbermann repeatedly referred to the NSA program as monitoring "our" phone calls or "our" emails. The MSNBC host further contended that since the program was revealed, "anybody who had actually read the Constitution" believed it would eventually be ruled as "patently illegal." Olbermann's guest discussing the topic was liberal law professor Jonathan Turley, who labeled Judge Taylor's ruling as a "very thoughtful opinion," called efforts by conservatives to discredit her as a liberal Carter appointee as "distasteful" and maintained President Bush "could well have committed a federal crime not once, but 30 times."

3. WPost Publicizes Pro-Military Media Bias Study -- By Grad Student
The Washington Post routinely ignores studies of liberal media bias by the Media Research Center and other groups. But you don't even have to have a group or belong to a group to get your research cited in the Post if you find a "pro-war" bias. In Friday's Post, pollster Richard Morin's "Unconvential Wisdom" roundup on page A-2 carried the headline: "Embedded Reporters, Slanted Perspective?" At the end of Morin's item, we learned the researcher is simply a graduate student.

4. Wash Post: Look Out, Joe Scarborough Thinks Bush Is An Idiot
Well, MSNBC and Joe Scarborough have clearly figured out how to get their show mentioned in a liberal newspaper. Inside Sunday's Washington Post, reporter Peter Baker wrote an article about conservative disillusionment with Bush on Iraq headlined "Pundits Renounce the President: Among Conservative Voices, Discord." Baker began: "For 10 minutes, the talk show host grilled his guests about whether 'George Bush's mental weakness is damaging America's credibility at home and abroad.' For 10 minutes, the caption across the bottom of the television screen read, 'IS BUSH AN 'IDIOT'?' But the host was no liberal media elitist. It was Joe Scarborough, a former Republican congressman turned MSNBC political pundit..."

GMA Highlights Prof: Court Ruling Could
Lead to Bush Impeachment

Friday's morning shows largely preferred the JonBenet Ramsey case over Thursday's federal district court ruling declaring the National Security Agency's terrorist surveillance program to be unconstitutional. NBC's Today and CBS's The Early Show limited their reporting on the issue to brief anchor reads, as did their evening news counterparts (see the August 18 CyberAlert item excerpted below.)

ABC's Good Morning America, however, did devote more than a few seconds on the topic, with ABC's Jessica Yellin reporting from the White House. In her report, Yellin never acknowledged the liberal background of the Carter-appointed Judge Ann Diggs Taylor who, Yellin pointed out, "accuses the President of acting like a king" and says the NSA program "blatantly disregards" the parameters established in the Bill of Rights. Yellin labeled the court's decision a "stinging setback" for President Bush, and highlighted this warning to the President from George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley: "He could be impeached. And people should not be underestimating that. It's true that this Congress does not want to-"

That statement seemed to go a bit to far for Yellin, who appeared skeptical, inserting in her taped piece: "Come on. He's not going to be impeached for this program."
Turley: "Well the question -- that is a political question."

[This item, by Megan McCormack, was posted Friday afternoon on the MRC's blog, NewsBusters.org: newsbusters.org [1] ]

The full transcript of Yellin's August 18 report:

News reader Kate Snow: "We begin to, with a major blow to President Bush's war on terror. A judge found wiretapping without a warrant was unconstitutional. The administration is appealing. ABC's Jessica Yellin joins us with more. Good morning, Jessica."

Jessica Yellin: "Good morning, Kate. This is a stinging setback for the President and the way he's defending the nation against terrorists. In this ruling, the federal judge essentially accuses the President of acting like a king and she orders him to stop the program soon. President Bush is passionate about the NSA spy program."
President George W. Bush: "I believe I've been hired by the people to do my job and that's to protect the people and that's what I'm going to do."
Yellin: "But federal judge Anna Diggs Taylor says it's illegal. The President cannot authorize the NSA to eavesdrop on phone calls in the U.S. without a court warrant, even in the war on terror. She says the program blatantly disregards the parameters clearly enumerated in the Bill of Rights. Political reaction to the ruling was fierce. Senate majority leader Frist urged quick reversal of this unfortunate decision and the White House says they couldn't disagree more with the ruling. But an outspoken critic of the program warns of serious consequences if the ruling is upheld by higher courts."
Jonathan Turley, George Washington University: "He could be impeached. And people should not be underestimating that. It's true that this Congress does not want to-"
Yellin: "Come on. He's not going to be impeached for this program."
Turley: "Well the question -- that is a political question."
Yellin: "Now, this morning, one White House official just dismissed the critics and said that the administration is confident the decision will be overturned on appeal. Now, right now the NSA wiretap program is still active and in place, at least until further court action. Kate?"
Snow: "Jessica Yellin at the White House this morning. Thank you."

The August 18 CyberAlert recounted: All three broadcast network evening newscasts on Thursday covered the ruling by a federal judge against the Bush administration's controversial NSA spying program that involves warrantless monitoring of international phone calls when one participant is a terrorist suspect. Stemming from a case filed by the ACLU and other plaintiffs, Judge Ann Diggs Taylor, a Detroit-based Carter appointee, found the program to be unconstitutional. Unlike CNN and FNC, which conveyed that the ruling would likely be overturned, none of the network evening newscasts mentioned the liberal credentials of Judge Taylor or the debate over judicial activism and legal weaknesses in the ruling, such as the issue of whether the plaintiffs had standing to file the lawsuit, since the plaintiffs themselves were not found to be the subjects of surveillance. See: www.mediaresearch.org [2]

Olbermann Bolsters 'Smackdown' of Spying
on 'Our' Phone Calls

On Thursday's Countdown, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann bolstered the ruling by federal Judge Ann Diggs Taylor against the Bush administration's controversial NSA spying program that involves warrantless monitoring of international phone calls when one participant is a terrorist suspect. Referring to the ruling as a "judicial smackdown" and a "stunning ruling" against the program, Olbermann repeatedly referred to the NSA program as monitoring "our" phone calls or "our" emails. The MSNBC host further contended that since the program was revealed, "anybody who had actually read the Constitution" believed it would eventually be ruled as "patently illegal." Olbermann's guest discussing the topic was liberal law professor Jonathan Turley, who labeled Judge Taylor's ruling as a "very thoughtful opinion," called efforts by conservatives to discredit her as a liberal Carter appointee as "distasteful" and maintained President Bush "could well have committed a federal crime not once, but 30 times."

[This item, by Brad Wilmouth, was posted late Thursday night on the MRC's blog, NewsBusters.org: newsbusters.org [3] ]

Olbermann teased the segment, referring to surveillance of "our" phone calls and emails, and mocking the administration's claims that the NSA program had helped stop terrorists: "Unconstitutional: A federal judge in Detroit orders Bush administration eavesdropping on our calls and emails halted immediately. The administration appeals, invoking the purported liquid bomb plot, claiming there is proof the wiretaps stopped terrorists, and the proof is that the administration says it stopped terrorists."

As the Countdown host introduced the show's lead story on the JonBenet Ramsey case, Olbermann previewed the NSA story, again referring to "our" phone calls and emails: "Good evening from Los Angeles. It is not the day's most important news. Clearly, that would be a stunning ruling out of a Michigan court concluding that George Bush and his Attorney General and his National Security Agency violated the Constitution by illegally intercepting our phone calls and our emails."

After two more plugs, Olbermann introduced the segment: "From the moment in December when the New York Times first revealed the existence of the government's secret warrantless surveillance program, nearly anybody who had actually read the Constitution at some point believed that it would be only a matter of time until a court of law ruled such spying to be patently illegal. Our fourth story in the Countdown tonight, the matter of time took just 35 weeks. The Bush administration's first attempt to politicize today's judicial smackdown taking mere minutes."

After Olbermann's opening question to Turley in which he referred to "domestic spying" with "many fangs," during Turley's answer, the liberal law professor brought up the "difficult implication" that President Bush "could well have committed a federal crime not once, but 30 times."

Olbermann finally brought up the fact that Judge Taylor was a Carter appointee as he characterized conservatives as "making hay" out of her history, which ended up serving to queue up Turley to condemn the questioning of Judge Taylor's ideology as "distasteful" and giving his view that her ruling was a "very thoughtful opinion."

Olbermann: "The response to this from the White House, there's nothing of course like claiming you have secret proof that you stopped all sorts of bad things by rewriting the Constitution, but the conservatives are already making hay out of the fact that Judge Taylor was an appointee of President Carter. Where does the case go next legally? And in following it, do we have to follow the personal politics of the judges? Or are there any judges who are just judges anymore?"
Turley: "Well, that's what's really distasteful, you know. This is not the first judge to rule against the administration. But every time a judge rules against the administration, they're either too Democratic or they're too tall or too short, or they're Pisces. I mean, it, you can, all this spin, this effort to personalize it is really doing a great injustice to our system. If you look at this opinion, it's a very thoughtful opinion. The problem is not the judge. The problem is a lack of authority. You know, when Gonzales says I've got something back in my safe, and if you could see it, you'd all agree with me, well, unless there's a federal statute in his safe, then it's not going to make a difference."

Olbermann concluded the segment seeming to show disagreement with the idea that Congress could pass a law that would be constitutional explicitly giving the President the authority to engage in the warrantless NSA surveillance in question. After Turley argued that in order to discredit Judge Taylor's ruling that "you need to show me a statute, you need to show me part of the Constitution," Olbermann chimed in: "And the Constitution, not just a, say, Arlen Specter-sponsored law that would permit this according to the Congress, correct?"

Turley argued that Specter's bill was an "absurd" bill: "Well, if Specter goes forward with that absurd bill that he wrote with Dick Cheney, I would be surprised. I mean, if they actually move this into a secret court after a judge found the President was acting unlawfully, it will be the whitewash of the century."

Below is a transcript of relevant portions of the August 17 Countdown show:

Keith Olbermann, in opening teaser: "Which of these stories will you be talking about tomorrow? Unconstitutional: A federal judge in Detroit orders Bush administration eavesdropping on our calls and emails halted immediately. The administration appeals, invoking the purported liquid bomb plot, claiming there is proof the wiretaps stopped terrorists, and the proof is that the administration says it stopped terrorists."

...

Olbermann, introducing the lead story on JonBenet Ramsey: "Good evening from Los Angeles. It is not the day's most important news. Clearly, that would be a stunning ruling out of a Michigan court concluding that George Bush and his Attorney General and his National Security Agency violated the Constitution by illegally intercepting our phone calls and our emails. We will cover that in depth in a moment...."

...

Olbermann, before commercial break at 8:12 p.m.: "To the hard news of the day, and it certainly is going down hard at the White House. The Bush administration's warrant-free wiretap program, a federal judge says it has to stop, it has to stop now, analysis on the import of a ruling of unconstitutionality with Jonathan Turley."

...

Olbermann, during commercial break at 8:13 p.m.: "The federal judge says the Bush administration is breaking the law, warrantless wiretaps illegal, unconstitutional. The White House says it has proof the judge is wrong. The proof's a secret. That's next, this is Countdown."

...

Olbermann: "From the moment in December when the New York Times first revealed the existence of the government's secret warrantless surveillance program, nearly anybody who had actually read the Constitution at some point believed that it would be only a matter of time until a court of law ruled such spying to be patently illegal. Our fourth story in the Countdown tonight, the matter of time took just 35 weeks. The Bush administration's first attempt to politicize today's judicial smackdown taking mere minutes. Federal Judge Anna Diggs Taylor ruling in Detroit today, becoming the first to strike down the National Security Agency's program, ordering it stopped at once, although how fast that is is yet to be determined, calling it an unconstitutional violation of privacy and free speech rights. Quoting Judge Taylor in her 43-page opinion, 'Plaintiffs have prevailed, and the public interest is clear in this matter. It is the upholding of our Constitution.' Within the hour, though, unnamed senior White House officials pointing out to NBC News, that the ruling comes just one week after the purported London bomb plot in which they claim telephone surveillance was used to gather intelligence. By name, the press secretary, Mr. Snow, also evoking the British arrests in a written statement. Quote, 'Last week America and the world received a stark reminder that terrorists are still plotting to attack our country and kill innocent people. ... We could not disagree more with this ruling.' The Justice Department meanwhile indicating it will do all it can to fight the ruling."
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Justice Department: "Today a district court judge in Michigan ruled that the program was unlawful. We disagree with the decision, respectfully disagree with the decision of the judge, and we have appealed the decision, and we, there is a stay in place. And so we will continue to utilize the program to ensure that America is safer."
Olbermann: "Joining me now to assess the impact of the ruling today, constitutional law expert Jonathan Turley, law professor at George Washington University. Good evening, Jonathan."
Jonathan Turley, George Washington University: "Thanks. Hi, Keith."
Olbermann: "Domestic spying by the Bush administration has many fangs. Is this specific to the wiretapping of the international calls and emails? Or is it broader than that?"
Turley: "...The real tough question is what we would do about it. If a court of appeals upholds this judge, it means that the President could well have committed a federal crime not once, but 30 times. And so that's the difficult implication."
Olbermann: "The response to this from the White House, there's nothing of course like claiming you have secret proof that you stopped all sorts of bad things by rewriting the Constitution, but the conservatives are already making hay out of the fact that Judge Taylor was an appointee of President Carter. Where does the case go next legally? And in following it, do we have to follow the personal politics of the judges? Or are there any judges who are just judges anymore?"
Turley: "Well, that's what's really distasteful, you know. This is not the first judge to rule against the administration. But every time a judge rules against the administration, they're either too Democratic or they're too tall or too short, or they're Pisces. I mean, it, you can, all this spin, this effort to personalize it is really doing a great injustice to our system. If you look at this opinion, it's a very thoughtful opinion. The problem is not the judge. The problem is a lack of authority. You know, when Gonzales says I've got something back in my safe, and if you could see it, you'd all agree with me, well, unless there's a federal statute in his safe, then it's not going to make a difference."
Olbermann: "The administration tried forever to get this suit dismissed on the ruse of state secrets, but, Jonathan, do we really think the country would dissolve into a bowl of jello if the courts threw out the administration's national security rationale for wiretapping? Have we ever noticed this in the past when previous administrations have cited national security of the most urgent import? Do you recall the country ever going out of business or the safety of the citizens every just vanishing?"
Turley: "Well, you know, there is this appearance of 'let's keep fear alive,' you know, and, you know, how we read the Constitution will depend upon how close we are to the London arrests. That's really immaterial. I mean, in a country like ours, it is as important, if not more important, how we do things, as it is what we do. And we can't uphold the system of law, the rule of law, if we violate it. And, you know, here I think one of the most important things this judge did was to say, look, I'm looking at whether you have authority to do this. And I can do that without looking at all of these secret documents you're referring to, you need to show me a statute, you need to show me part of the Constitution. And I think she was absolutely correct in that."
Olbermann: "And the Constitution, not just a, say, Arlen Specter-sponsored law that would permit this according to the Congress, correct?"
Turley: "Well, if Specter goes forward with that absurd bill that he wrote with Dick Cheney, I would be surprised. I mean, if they actually move this into a secret court after a judge found the President was acting unlawfully, it will be the whitewash of the century."
Olbermann: "It hasn't been a long century yet, so we'll see. Jonathan Turley of George Washington University, as always, sir, great thanks for your time."
Turley: "Thanks."

WPost Publicizes Pro-Military Media Bias
Study -- By Grad Student

The Washington Post routinely ignores studies of liberal media bias by the Media Research Center and other groups. But you don't even have to have a group or belong to a group to get your research cited in the Post if you find a "pro-war" bias. In Friday's Post, pollster Richard Morin's "Unconvential Wisdom" roundup on page A-2 carried the headline: "Embedded Reporters, Slanted Perspective?" At the end of Morin's item, we learned the researcher is simply a graduate student.

[This item, by Tim Graham, was posted Friday morning on the MRC's blog, NewsBusters.org: newsbusters.org [4] ]

Morin's take on the study:

The use of embedded reporters by major newspapers during the invasion of Iraq produced more personal and human-interest stories about the lives of U.S. soldiers while "downplaying the effects of the invasion on the Iraqi people," according to a Penn State University researcher.

Andrew M. Lindner examined 742 newspaper articles written by 156 journalists from the beginning of the war on March 19, 2003, until President Bush's "Mission Accomplished" speech on May 1, 2003.

Lindner found that reporters assigned to military units as part of its "embedded journalists" program were responsible for 71 percent of the articles on the front pages of major newspapers and 69 percent of articles inside the main news sections. Far less prominent were articles written by journalists from those same papers who were based in Baghdad or not part of the embedding program.

Only 12 percent of the stories by embedded journalists reported civilian fatalities, compared with half of those written by reporters stationed in Baghdad, reported Lindner, a sociology graduate student who presented his findings last week at the American Sociological Association meeting in Montreal.

END of Excerpt

For Morin's August 18 "Unconventional Wisdom" column: www.washingtonpost.com [5]

Wash Post: Look Out, Joe Scarborough
Thinks Bush Is An Idiot

Well, MSNBC and Joe Scarborough have clearly figured out how to get their show mentioned in a liberal newspaper. Inside Sunday's Washington Post, reporter Peter Baker wrote an article about conservative disillusionment with Bush on Iraq headlined "Pundits Renounce the President: Among Conservative Voices, Discord." Baker began: "For 10 minutes, the talk show host grilled his guests about whether 'George Bush's mental weakness is damaging America's credibility at home and abroad.' For 10 minutes, the caption across the bottom of the television screen read, 'IS BUSH AN 'IDIOT'?'
"But the host was no liberal media elitist. It was Joe Scarborough, a former Republican congressman turned MSNBC political pundit. And his answer to the captioned question was hardly 'no.' While other presidents have been called stupid, Scarborough said: 'I think George Bush is in a league by himself. I don't think he has the intellectual depth as these other people.'"

[This item, by Tim Graham, was posted Sunday morning on the MRC's blog, NewsBusters.org: newsbusters.org [6] ]

The show aired last Tuesday. Transcript here: www.msnbc.msn.com [7]

Scarborough also paraded this idiot-Bush line in a blog on The Huffington Post: www.huffingtonpost.com [8]

What Baker did not consider is what one might call the Scarborough Syndrome: being a conservative host inside a liberal network -- not to mention a liberal network that has a history of changing prime-time hosts like socks -- might compel you to being more critical of Bush and conservatives. In the study of MSNBC segments -- well, just this one -- Baker also ignored that Scarborough, now anointing himself the avatar of intellectual curiosity, has often buried his viewers in tabloid piffle like the unending JonBenet Ramsey case, which isn't exactly honoring the intellect of your viewers. The Baker article also ended with Scarborough:

While the country does not want a leader wallowing in the weeds, Scarborough concluded on the segment, "we do need a president who, I think, is intellectually curious."

"And that is a big question," Scarborough said, "whether George W. Bush has the intellectual curiousness -- if that's a word -- to continue leading this country over the next couple of years."

In a later telephone interview, Scarborough said he aired the segment because he kept hearing even fellow Republicans questioning Bush's capacity and leadership, particularly in Iraq. Like others, he said, he supported the war but now thinks it is time to find a way to get out. "A lot of conservatives are saying, 'Enough's enough,' " he said. Asked about the reaction to his program, he said, "The White House is not happy about it."

END of Excerpt

The article also included William F. Buckley's critique of Bush's Iraq policy, along with an interview with current National Review editor Rich Lowry. But the strangest part of the article -- the one that suggests "one of these things is not like the others," is this paragraph:
"Thomas L. Friedman, a New York Times columnist who is not a conservative but has strongly backed the Iraq war, reversed course this month, writing that "'staying the course' is pointless, and it's time to start thinking about Plan B -- how we might disengage with the least damage possible."

For Baker's August 20 article: www.washingtonpost.com [9]

-- Brent Baker