Politico’s Mike Allen: A Courtier to Power and The Lobby

Yesterday, Politico reporter Mike Allen appeared on Morning Joe with Joe Scarborough, and, to be sure, behaved just as he always does, and how most Politico Beltway beat reporters do. Which is to say, to use Glenn Greenwald’s phrase, he behaved like a piece of “Versailles sleeze,” or as Chris Hedges puts it about the modern press at-large, he acted true to form, as a “Courtier” (better known as a servant) to power. To call him a journalist is to make a mockery of the profession–apologist is more of an apt term.

The topic of the segment was the new far right-wing Neo-Conservative collective, run by Lobby extraordinaires Bill Kristol and Gary Bauer, known as the Emergency Committee on Israel, a committee name that has fear and smear written all over it.

What did they do to start of their campaign? They smeared U.S. Rep, Joe Sestak of Pennsylvania, who signed onto a letter J-Street pushed through, a letter that was signed by roughly 60 members of the House, by saying he is not “Pro-Israel” enough and “must not realize that the U.S. and Israel are allies.” All the while, the backdrop music consists of spooky, apocalyptic music that sounds like the the Rapture is impending, which, I suppose makes sense considering Bauer, an Evangelical Christian Zionist, believes in that stuff and is the sole basis for his support for Israel. See it here:

Let’s get something straight here: J-Street IS Pro-Israel. People on this blog, generally righteously, bemoan how nauseatingly pro-Israel and apologetic for Israel’s crimes even they can be. Sure, they’re not AIPAC, but it’s not as if J-Street is Jewish Voices for Peace or Jews for a Just Peace, either. They’re a collective of mainstream liberals (generally Democrats) who preface everything they say and all of the positions they take with the fact that they are Pro-Israel. They’ve never called for a reduction or freeze in military funding for Israel and furthermore and they are opposed to BDS. True, much of this is political posturing, which helps to balance the conversation on The Hill and give voices of reason more of a safe-space in the Beltway, but any reasonable person would realize that J-Street is FAR from being “Anti-Israel.”

That’s what makes the whole incident so absurd: Sestak signed onto a J-Street Pro-Israel letter that called for an end to the futile and ruthless blockade in Gaza, as well as pushing for making a bold move toward a Two-State solution, and now, a group that coins itself the “Pro-Israel Lobby of the Pro-Israel Lobby,” through shrewd propaganda techniques, is saying that signing the letter was akin to signing the front flap of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. And we all know what will this turn into, namely, a big battle over who is more Pro-Israel on the campaign trail, rather than a rational discussion over what U.S. policy should be toward Israel.  In the meantime, peoples’ lives are on the line, with an appalling humanitarian crisis in Gaza, as well as a ludicrous ongoing situation in the West Bank.

But frankly, these tactics resemble American political discourse as a whole, particularly on the campaign trail. In this era of sound bites and sloganeering, politicians become consumed with the “permanent campaign.” Beltway politicians are more concerned with how what they say will be perceived by their voters and reported on by the media (and in turn, consumed by their voters) than rationale, honest discourse on the big issues of the day, which, while solving the Israel-Palestine conflict is but one issue, there are plenty of other important issues for which this happens, too. The Lobby, though, has been especially effective at silencing even mild accountability for the U.S.’ favorite client.

What will come out of this? Both Sestak and his Republican opponent will be duking it out to prove who’s more macho and “supportive” of Israel, meaning, who’s more supportive of Israel turning into a full-fledged Apartheid state. Sadly, for those who care about peace and justice in Israel and Palestine, whether advocating for a single state, or two states, people like Kristol and Bauer are more concerned with neo-cons winning elections than peace in the Holy Land. They don’t care about Israelis and they don’t care about Palestinians, but rather, they care solely about their power and their pocketbooks.

And then came the disgraceful segment as a follow-up to the announcement of the Emergency Committee for Israel on Morning Joe:

First of all, look at Mike Allen’s body language and posture when the interview first starts. He looks like a guy ready to kiss some serious ass. And kiss some serious ass, he does. After the creepy commercial is shown, Scarborough states that Obama is losing “serious Jewish voter support” because of his treatment of the Israel-Palestine conflict. But, as Glenn Greenwald pointed out in his blog yesterday, this is a notion that, on its face, is a falsity:

“This matters so much because this has long been the central neoconservative tactic used to prevent any changes in American policy in the Middle East: the myth that Jewish voters will abandon the Democratic Party if it asserts any independence at all from Israel. This is false, because the vast majority of Jewish voters outside of neocon spheres…Even those for whom Israel is a very important issue are not in lockstep with the neocon belief system. That was why Peter Beinart’s article in The New York Review of Books (and before that, the emergence of J Street) caused so much consternation: because it revealed the large and growing disparity of thought between right-wing Jewish organizations demanding lockstep political devotion to Israel and the views of American Jewish voters generally.”

Also, see the J-Street poll that came out at in March, clearly debunking the entire basis of this conversation on its face.

The conversation then drifts to Mike Allen AGREEING with Scarborough, and sympathizing with the lies of the Lobby. He must have never learned, or just does not care, that the role of the journalist is to pursue truth, not to lend legitimacy to the lies of charlatans.

But as Greenwald explains in a couple blog posts, that’s what Allen is all about and that’s how he’s made a career for himself. Hell, even the New York Times noticed. From there, as generally happens on the mainstream media, the conversation festers into a cycle of unbacked claim after unbacked claim, showering the public with propagandistic Lobby talking points. Let’s also not forget the fact that Scarborough has shown himself to be a Lobby shill throughout his career.

While we are sometimes stuck in the our own world of reading actual news and having realistic discussions about the future of the conflict, let’s not forget where most of society gets their news from:  people like Scarborough and Allen.  The media have failed us and continue to fail us day after day.

Top Five Mentionworthies for 8/18/09

1. NY Times Editorial: The Climate and National Security

2. NY Times: Supreme Court Orders News Look at Death Row Case

3. NY Times: Obama Defends Strategy in Afghanistan

4. Salon.com: The Lanny Davis disease and America’s health care debate

5. NY Times: Mental Stress Training Is Planned for U.S. Soldiers

1. Today, the NY Times wrote an interesting piece on the angle the Obama Administration should take in passing meaningful climate change legislation.  Somehow, the fact that if meaningful legislation is not passed in the next year or two, it could have devastating effects on the future of the world, has not engendered potent legislation.  This, in of itself, is absurd.

The problem, when it comes to motivating politicians, is that the dangers from global warming — drought, famine, rising seas — appear to be decades off. But the only way to prevent them is with sacrifices in the here and now: with smaller cars, bigger investments in new energy sources, higher electricity bills that will inevitably result once we put a price on carbon.

Mainstream scientists warn that the longer the world waits, the sooner it will reach a tipping point beyond which even draconian measures may not be enough…That is why Rajendra Pachauri, the head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — no alarmist — has warned that “what we do in the next two or three years will determine our future.” And he said that two years ago.

Yet, this is not enough for Congress to pass anything worthy of our tax-dollars.  What do we get instead?  Cap-and-Trade and Cash-for-Clunkers, both of which are half-assed, weak attempts at solving the quagmire that look good to politicians’ constituencies, but in reality, do very little to curb the problem.

So, in the end, it may come down to making climate change a national security issue, because, as we all know, people will always be motivated by fear and possible endangerment of their personal safety, hence WMD, Saddam Hussein, the justification for torture and waterboarding, and on and on and on.  Fear-mongering will always win the day in politics, so if that’s the angle it takes to alarm people of the necessity to pass potent climate change legislation, then I suppose it’s better than doing nothing at all about the issue.  It’s a sad-but-true tale:  fear, and not the actual public interest, may again have to win the day.

3. It behooves me that Obama continues to trumpet that Afghanistan is the “good war”, or the one worth fighting.  The nerve he has to state, “We must never forget, this is not a war of choice.  This is a war of necessity.  Those who attacked American on 9/11 are plotting to do so again.  If left unchecked, the Taliban insurgency will mean an even larger safe haven from which Al-Qaeda would plot to kill more Americans.  So this is not only a war worth fighting.  This is fundamental to the defense of our people.”

I just don’t get it:  of course this was a war of choice!  How can a Global War on Terrorism against a Global Terrorist network in Al-Qaeda be pinned down to one or two SOVEREIGN nations, in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Those who attacked us on 9/11 were predominately from Saudi Arabia!  Obama CHOSE to increase troop-levels in Afghanistan.  What’s left to accomplish there?  How in the world can we ever win the war?  What counts as victory?  When the Taliban no longer exists?  Us being there continues to motivate Radical Muslims to come to Afghanistan, commit Jihad, and fight what they consider a Holy War.  It is a battle we cannot possibly win because they will continue to fight perpetually.  For Obama to state that this is a war of necessity is both deceiving and dangerous.

The soundbite:  “This is a war of choice.  This is a war of necessity” will be shown over and over again on the mainstream news media, and by the majority of the American public, his words will be treated as gospel.  In the meantime, our troops continue to die and come home seriously wounded and by no means are we “winning” this war.  But, at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter:  bill after bill, Congress continues to fund the war efforts.  Better to stay mum on the issue and not risk being called unpatriotic and risk not being re-elected than to actually do what’s right for our country and speak out against a senseless war, right?

4. Greenwald again does a great job in revealing the mainstream media’s skeletons in their closets.  In what is becoming more and more common, Cable and Network TV News are using sources with extreme conflicts-of-interests and displaying them as “independent” analysts.  The very fact that cable networks are profit-motivated, rather than public interest-motivated, should cause suspicion in anyone consuming news from these channels.  The bottom line is that cable network news, other than Rachel Maddow’s show, hosted by a woman with a background in nonprofit, public radio, is not worth watching, as it is infested with corporate money and secret agendas, all of which mislead the public.  Journalism is all about revealing the truth in the name of the public interest and in holding those in power accountable, not about hiding the truth in the name of making money and working as a PR machine for those in power.  With the direction the journalism industry is headed in, though, it looks like real, hard-hitting journalism will become more and more a thing of the past, and journalism as a forum for public manipulation of policy debate will become more and more commonplace.

5. The NYT ran a story today about a new ARMY program that attempts to tackle problems like soldiers affected by disorders like PTSD before their onset.  While surely a good PR move by them, the bottom line is that it is pointless.  They are fighting in purposeless wars and seeing horrible atrocities on a daily-basis, so of course, PTSD, depression, and alcoholism will be take place.    It’s not about being “emotionally resilient”.  Imagine having images in your head of shooting a family full of innocent civilians in the midst of a war with no overall purpose or direction.  It’s not about being “mentally tough”.  People should not have to go through these types of scenarios in their lives.  War should always be the last option, but these men, many of whom probably joined the ARMY for noble reasons, have been hung to dry, sent to the killing-fields of Afghanistan to be slaughtered by the Taliban.  No “resiliency training” can halt the onset of PTSD when the war in which the soldiers are fighting is barbaric and downright un-winnable.

Premiere Post

So, here’s the start to what is hopefully a successful career as a blogger.  I plan on using this as a forum to discuss what I find to be the most controversial and maddening political topics of the day, whether it be on-campus in Madison, at the state-level in Wisconsin, nationally, or internationally.  Most days, there will probably be multiple posts, and some days there will probably be none at all.  Only time will tell where this venture takes me.  I just know that working in Washington DC for the summer as an intern for the US Senate motivated me to speak out and do something for the numerous injustices I see on a daily basis, particularly in the House, Senate, and Executive Branches.  Hopefully this blog becomes fodder for intelligent political dialogue and is something friends, family, and people at-large come to for a voice of reason, combating the tyranny of the corporately-backed mainstream media, which fail us on a daily basis.  Cheers to many days, months, and years of blogging that lay ahead!