Pvt. Bradley Manning.

By Dennis J. Bernstein

The grassroots activist group, RootsAction.org, has drafted a petition addressed to the Norwegian Nobel Committee calling for the Nobel Peace Prize to be awarded to imprisoned U.S. whistleblower, Pvt. Bradley Manning. According to RootsAction co-founder Jeff Cohen, the response to the petition has been swift and substantial. More than 30,000 people signed on in a matter of days.

Manning was arrested nearly three years ago on charges that he provided a large number of classified documents to the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks.

In a recent interview on Pacifica’s “Flashpoints,” Cohen spoke with Dennis J. Bernstein about why RootsAction launched the petition drive as well as the failure of the mainstream press to report the story in an honest and meaningful way. Cohen is also the founding director of the Parks Center for Independent Media at Ithaca College.

DB: Why the Nobel Prize? What is relevant? Why does it connect up for you?

JC: Well, the prize as it was originally Intended by Alfred Nobel’s will is supposed to go to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, the abolition or reduction in standing armies. Bradley Manning has been an unbelievable whistleblower for the cause of peace.

He was an Army private; he saw all these documents that showed war crimes, [such as] the U.S. had an official order not to intervene when allies in Iraq were torturing people. The civilian [death] toll is documented, you know, the government has always told us they are not keeping track of civilians. But Bradley Manning released documents that show they are. We saw the videotape of Apache helicopter personnel almost seeming to enjoy the fact that people were being killed on the ground in Iraq. And it turned out to be civilians and at least one or two Reuter’s journalists. So there’s all this evidence of war crimes, of official misbehavior by both the U.S. Defense Department and the U.S. State Department.

And in the cause of peace, as originally intended by Alfred Nobel, there’s a lot of worthy candidates this year, but it hard to see anyone being more worthy than the guy who might be spending the rest of his life in prison for educating not only the U.S. public but the world about some of the atrocities that are happening in the so-called U.S. War on Terror.

DB: Now, the corporate press would have to accept some responsibility for the lack of knowledge and understanding of what Bradley Manning was doing. I remember very well how the corporate press participated in the release of certain WikiLeaks documents. Everybody went and studied and published. But all of a sudden, that operation, WikiLeaks and anything associated with it became persona non grata. You want to talk about the role the corporate media plays in misinforming the public on something like Bradley Manning and what that means?

JC: Well, there’s no doubt that the U.S. mainstream media turned against WikiLeaks; did not defend WikiLeaks. You know, WikiLeaks is a publisher of these documents that they received from Bradley Manning, and from so many other whistleblowers inside governments or corporate world. And I think it reflects in the U.S. mainstream media how far we’ve declined since the Pentagon Papers. You know, in the Pentagon Papers in 1971, you had newspapers from the New York Times to the Washington Post to the Boston Globe basically engaging in civil disobedience against the Nixon administration.

As soon as one newspaper was stopped from publishing the Pentagon Papers, another newspaper started publishing. And these were highly classified documents from Daniel Ellsberg about the Vietnam War. Much higher classification than what Bradley Manning released.

So jump forward from 1971 to today and you find a U.S. mainstream media that seems uninterested in whistleblowers, unwilling to come to the defense of whistleblowers, and a media that seems to discuss how will the documents that Bradley Manning or WikiLeaks is releasing, how are these documents going to affect U.S. policy? It’s more like how are the documents going to undermine the Establishment.than what a journalist should ask, which is “How did these documents shed light on what the government is doing in the name of the American people, that the American people need to know about?”

These documents showed that the U.S. State Department was aligned with the corporate interests in Haiti trying to stop a minimum wage in the poorest country in our hemisphere. That’s news. That when there was a military coup in Honduras the U.S. State Department, the embassy there knew immediately this was an open and shut case. This is an illegal military coup d’etat against a democratic president. But that’s not what they were saying out of Washington.

So, these are huge stories, they are being covered as big stories across the globe, but as you said Dennis, in our mainstream media it’s sort of a ho-hum attitude and with this young man, Bradley Manning, who is now 25 years old, looking at perhaps his life in prison. In fact, quite likely his life in prison, that’s why I think, that people who know the true story of Bradley Manning have rushed to RootsAction.org. The signatures are exploding today.

Norman Solomon wrote a whole column with just comments from Americans who are getting the news about why Bradley Manning does deserve a peace prize, and the peace prize was originally intended to give some cash so these people who received the peace prize could continue working for peace. Well, Bradley Manning has a major, major law bill, legal defense bill. He needs help. And it’s a long shot but if the Nobel committee ever gave a peace prize to Bradley Manning it would really say something to the U.S. war machine about where international opinion is moving on the so-called War on Terror.

DB: One of my favorite reporters, Jeff, is Amira Haas. She works for Ha’aretz and she reports from the West Bank, and she says the job of the media is to monitor the centers of power, whether they be in the government, in corporations, wherever it happens. But it does seem now that instead,… the media has become one of the centers of power, one of the buddy buddies, and they do appear to believe that their job is more as patriots than as reporters.

JC: There’s no doubt, the higher you go up in the mainstream media, and I used to work in mainstream television, the more these people see themselves as part of the establishment. Editors of Newsweek have admitted, “We are part of the Establishment, that’s how we see things. We don’t want the boat rocked.” And there’s no doubt that as the media have become bigger and more corporate, there’s less willingness to go out on a limb and question something that the two parties are doing together. That’s the essence of the problem.

When the two parties agree on a military adventure like invading Iraq or trying to get some sort of confrontation going today with Iran, when the two parties are in alliance as they usually are on foreign policy — there’s obviously a lot of fighting about domestic policy, but on foreign policy there’s often a lot of alliance between the two parties — well, the mainstream media, the corporate media, basically is acting as parts of the Establishment, don’t see an issue.

And anyone who does is obviously liberally biased or progressively biased. If you think there’s a problem here with the thrust of the War on Terror, well you must be one of those people, those Pacifica-Bradley-Manning-WikiLeaks-type people. But we in the Establishment know that since the two parties aren’t in an active fight about U.S. foreign policy, there’s not a real story here.

DB: You know, Jeff, I used to do a lot of reporting, as you know, for the print press, and as an investigative reporter working for some of the mainstream newspapers who actually at that time had some decent editors. I remember I worked for Les Payne at Newsday who got a Pulitzer prize for reporting on South Africa, there were some great people. And one of the things that meant a great deal to a journalist doing these hard stories was to get a document, because just an eyewitness’ account could be questioned but if you have the document.

For instance, we were covering the first Gulf War. And we got a document that said that the public information part of the military was going to lie about the obvious exposure that vets would be exposed to chemistry during the first Gulf War because the U.S. knew it, because they sold the material to Iraq. We love those documents because you couldn’t question. Yet, here [regarding Manning], the media laugh at the documents. It’s almost as if they’ve been hoodwinked by giving a document that reveals a crucial story that the people need to know about.

JC: Yeah, I think you’ve touched on it. Because the journalists used to salivate over documentation and the people in power can’t deny it’s true. You’ve got the document, you’ve got someone in power talking to someone else in power. But instead of just wanting to grab onto these documents, there’s been a sense in the mainstream media, “Oh, okay, this is problematic.”

I think what the Bradley Manning, WikiLeaks documents show is the U.S. mainstream media have been asleep at the wheel the last decade. That’s the point. If you’ve been in mainstream media, whether National Public Radio or whatever, to grab onto these documents now might make people question “Well, why weren’t you on the story before?” I mean these documents show the U.S. leaning on democratic governments in Europe to prevent them from prosecuting CIA officials, CIA agents that engaged in kidnap and abetted torture. That’s pretty serious.

These are huge stories in the German mainstream media, the Spanish mainstream media, the British mainstream media but these are largely stories about the U.S. war effort, the so-called War on Terror and they just haven’t been that big a story in the country where the public really needs to know what is being done in our name.

DB: Now, there’s certainly something else at play here in terms of corporate reporting because if on the one hand you have all these independent sort of internet-related journalists now putting out a story based on significant information the corporate press has a lot to lose, including their credibility, what’s left of it, if here you’ve got this small outlet putting out crucial information. So the corporate press has to walk all over it. They have to pooh-pooh it. They have to make believe that these folks that are working in smaller organizations are crazy and shouldn’t be believed. Or they look really bad.

JC: There’s no doubt about that. That a group like WikiLeaks — and I hope there will be many successors to WikiLeaks — has sort of abrogated, diminished the gate-keeping function of the mainstream media. And that’s another resentment. A lot of small outfits have gone to town, and thank God for WikiLeaks as the original releaser, have gone to town on these documents.

And I think there’s a sense, in the mainstream media, that they are losing their power; losing their ability to control what gets out to the public and what doesn’t. And I just feel that you look at the evolution from Daniel Ellsberg in 1971 to Bradley Manning today and the different way that the New York Times and Washington Post oriented toward Ellsberg and the way they orient to Bradley Manning today, who was so mistreated in custody. It’s really night and day.

And the good news, though, Dennis as you pointed out — and I remember your investigative reporting over the years, and when you were doing articles sometimes in Newsday actually — the real good news is that independent media are stronger than ever. As long as the Internet remains free and as long as there’s community radio. Stories are getting out.

I think in the last ten years the corporate mainstream media has lost some of its clout. They’ve certainly lost credibility. The mainstream media was largely wrong about the invasion of Iraq, factually. It wasn’t an ideological thing. They got the facts wrong. They missed the story of the financial meltdown on Wall Street. And there’s a lot of people who don’t trust the mainstream media anymore, that’s a good thing.

And there’s a lot of those people looking for independent outlets, alternative to the mainstream media. And that’s a great thing. And as long as the Internet remains free, and that’s a big if. And as long as community radio continues to exist and that depends on peoples’ donations. Then independent media will continue to grow. And that’s one of the few bright spots in our society, the growth of independent media and the decline of corporate mainstream media.

DB: Final question now, and it has to do with people often think that community media is National Public Radio. Big story in the news today is that Talk of the Nation with Neal Conan, a former Pacifica person who was a good reporter in New York, is being discontinued. I wasn’t crazy about the show, but people are moaning because this is an in-depth program, in an in-depth network, and we were getting information where we wouldn’t get anywhere else. But you wouldn’t agree with that, would you?

JC: No. I’ve not been a big fan of National Public Radio’s national programs. They sometimes have some great local shows. But just think about the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, we were just referring to. Who was the NPR reporter that distinguished him or herself during that period? There weren’t any.

DB: No, they were all quoting Judith Miller.

JC: Yeah. Right. The New York Times and NPR have always enjoyed a special relationship. Who was the [NPR] reporter who distinguished him or herself on Wall Street meltdown, and the housing crisis? They missed it. And I think NPR is very much, at the national news level, intimidated by right-wing forces and corporate forces. It’s become like bland corporate centrist reporting. And there’s very little investigative reporting because the right wing in Congress is always threatening to cut off their funds.

DB: And a lot of corporate sponsorship.

JC: Oh, no doubt…

DB: One of the most well-endowed stations here in the Bay area, KQED, does Chevron commercials.

JC: No doubt. No doubt. Again, it’s a sad thing because in other countries the mainstream media is more vibrant because they have genuine public, insulated funding to genuine public broadcasting. And public broadcasting sets a tone for the rest of the commercial, more commercial, and more corporate media. We’ve never had that. We’ve always had weak public TV and public radio. The big media corporations have never allowed it to be genuinely public, they’ve always hemmed it in.

The National Association of Broadcasters has always been the main foe of public broadcasting. It has a huge audience. There’s millions and millions of people. The news coverage, and I listen to it every single day, is so bland. If you place yourself between the two parties scrupulously and you believe you are on the 50-yard line, then you are not paying attention. If you put yourself between the elites of the Democratic and Republican parties, you may be somewhere between the 10- and 20-yard lines. But if you pretend that’s mid-field, which is what gets done on NPR, it’s not really solid reporting.

Solid reporting has to somehow, sometimes take itself out of Establishment group think and go outside of what the two major or three major political parties are in a society. And our public radio news, it seems to be imbedded inside the elites of the two-party system and rarely wanders outside of that. That’s not helpful to the public.

DB: Alright, Jeff Cohen, how can people get more information about RootsAction and about what RootsAction is doing in the context of Bradley Manning and the Nobel prize.

JC: If people go to the home page which is simply www.RootsAction.org, you’ll see it at the top of the page. You can sign that petition, the most important thing is send it to your friends. Forward that thing around. And we’re having explosive growth. And feel free to add your comments,.wonderful, and very warm comments from people that know the Bradley Manning story, respect the bravery. They’ve been making comments and those comments will also be delivered to the Nobel Peace Committee. We have weeks to do this, but I encourage people to start building the numbers today.

Dennis J. Bernstein is a host of “Flashpoints” on the Pacifica radio network and the author of Special Ed: Voices from a Hidden Classroom. You can access the audio archives at www.flashpoints.net. He can be contacted at dennisjberstein@gmail.com.

(Originally posted at Consortium News)

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By Ben Cohen: In an incredibly long winded and monotonous rant on his Guardian blog Glenn Greenwald lambasts the progressive media for making hollow promises to hold President Obama more accountable after beating Mitt Romney in the general election. Greenwald makes some interesting and valid points, but the lecturing aggressiveness is unbelievably tiring to say the least.

I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again: Glenn Greenwald is an exceptional journalist who has done an enormous amount of good on issues pertaining to civil liberties in the US. His work is well substantiated, cogently argued and often powerfully written making his contribution to the national dialogue extremely important. But Greenwald makes himself completely inaccessible to the very people he should be trying to reach if he wants to have real impact, and confines himself to the self congratulating rantosphere alongside fellow ideologues like Jane Hamsher and the rest of the FireDogLake bloggers.

Here’s Greenwald on the progressive media that he argues blindly follows President Obama regardless of the ethical implications:

As for the vow that media progressives will now criticize Obama more and hold him more accountable, permit me to say that I simply do not believe this will happen. This is not because I think those who are taking this vow are being dishonest – they may very well have convinced themselves that they mean it – but because the rationalization they have explicitly adopted and vigorously advocated precludes any change in behavior.

Over the past four years, they have justified their supine, obsequious posture toward the nation’s most powerful political official by appealing to the imperatives of electoral politics: namely, it’s vital to support rather than undermine Obama so as to not help Republicans win elections. Why won’t that same mindset operate now to suppress criticisms of the Democratic leader?

I don’t necessarily find fault with Greewald’s argument here – he is provably right that the mainstream progressive media failed to draw attention to serious civil rights and foreign policy issues leading up to the election, but his relentless hounding of the left wing media and wild generalizations about their aims says more about him than anything else. Greenwald believes that the Left wing media is guilty by omission – they don’t overtly criticize Obama’s foreign policies or civil rights abuses, so therefore they must support them. The logic is completely ridiculous given Greenwald could be found guilty of supporting Republicans using the same line of thinking. Greenwald (very) occasionally writes about Republicans and the right wing media, but spends most of his time attacking the hypocrisy of the Democrats and the left wing media. All well and good. He has the right to do that, and I don’t think the lack of attention he pays to the Republicans means he supports their agenda. But the same goes for left leaning publications and media figures. Just because many of them choose to focus their attentions on the dangers posed by the Republican Party does not mean they explicitly support drone killings or Obama’s policies towards the Palestinians.

Generally speaking, I am supportive of President Obama and have written extensively on why it is crucial he remains in office. I believe the threat posed by the Republican Party is extreme, both from a domestic and foreign policy point of view. I won’t go into detail, but I think there is a strong argument to made that the Democratic Party is the only institution left protecting the country from complete capitulation to corporate interests and the military industrial complex, and must be kept in power in order to preserve what is left of functioning government. That does not mean that I support the President and the Democrats when it comes to their ties to Wall St, his acquiescence to the military chiefs, the use of drones, the signing of the NDAA or the unconditional support of Israel. I don’t specialize in civil rights issues or international law, so don’t spend massive amounts of time writing about them. I have particular interests that I like to cover, and I won’t try to pretend to my readers that I am an expert on issues I haven’t researched thoroughly. This doesn’t mean I don’t have opinions on those issues, I just don’t tend to cover them as much. I do regularly criticize Obama on Israel and the economy, because those are topics are have a particular interest in. That’s my business and I don’t expect everyone to share my interests or take on them.

The problem with Greenwald is that just because he believes Obama’s failings on civil liberties issues and the sorry state of the American media are the most important topics on the planet, everyone else has to agree with him.

Objectively speaking, both mine and Greenwald’s interests are small fry in comparison to environmental issues. Obama’s use of drones and the treatment of Bradley Manning in prison aren’t exactly pressing when compared to the wholesale destruction of vital life sustaining eco systems and the rapid heating of the planet. I’m sure Greenwald cares about these issues, as I do, but probably isn’t as interested in them as he is his own pet topics. And just because we don’t write about them doesn’t mean we don’t feel they are incredibly important.

Personally, I see Greenwald’s excessive ranting against the President and other progressives as counterproductive, not because he’s wrong, but because it gets harder and harder to listen to him.

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Greenwald a master of shooting himself in the foot

By Chez Pazienza: So over the past week this site has turned into the “Let’s Take a Few Shots at Glenn Greenwald” show, with two of its highest-profile columnists — Banter founder Ben Cohen and blogging machine Bob Cesca — penning pieces that take issue with Greenwald’s smugness and intransigence in the face of political reality. One of the essays that started it all actually quoted something I’d written months ago, but I’ve been loathe to step into the fray myself around here simply because these days I honestly regard Glenn Greenwald as a nonentity, having come to the conclusion quite a while back that the less I think about Greenwald’s insufferable sanctimony and ongoing propensity for childish tantrum-throwing, the better. I genuinely don’t read what he writes at all anymore; I see the headlines over at Salon, know in short order exactly what he’s going to say before he even says it, chuckle and shake my head for a second, then move on to something more informative, balanced and worth taking seriously.

With that in mind, though, I do think there’s one thing worth addressing when it comes to the discussion of Greenwald. It’s something I’ve noticed all week, something I’m frankly tired of seeing: I’d like to know why anyone feels as if he or she needs to go through the requisite genuflection procedure before spelling out just how worthless Greenwald is as a voice for smart progressive politics. I obviously don’t mean to insult either Ben or Bob, because I believe their overall appreciation for Greenwald’s work to be sincere, but it does seem as if any criticism of Greenwald from the left has to be tempered with the disclaimer that he’s an intelligent guy who often does good work that’s deserving of consideration and praise. In other words, to crib an old bit from comic Dom Irrera, it seems like anytime someone on the left decides to take on Greenwald, that person has to begin with the obligatory, needlessly deferential and often laughably full-of-shit, “With all due respect…”

Well, as it turns out I don’t do that. And that’s because I’m more than happy to admit that I have no respect at all for Greenwald. Not anymore.

I actually have spelled out in the past, in semi-articulate fashion I hope, just a few of the reasons that I think his relentless fusillade of self-righteous indignation aimed at the Obama administration amounts to little more than white noise and disqualifies his opinion from serious, continued attention by anyone interested in the promotion of a progressive agenda in this country. Greenwald’s ongoing love affair with four or five subjects, at the exclusion of almost anything and everything else, has become, if you’ll pardon the pun, a dull “drone” at the periphery of intelligent political debate. No one’s arguing that the White House under Barack Obama has and hasn’t done quite a few things worthy of criticism and even outright denunciation, but to hector this presidency without compromise or the consideration of any dissenting argument, to equate it wholesale with the administration of George W. Bush or the potential administration of Republican President X, and to condescendingly ridicule anyone who dares to defend Obama as some sort of “cultist” or intellectually dishonest automaton — that makes you nothing more than a fringe element whose opinions will never make a bit of difference in the overall political discourse because you offer zero room for the possibility that you’re wrong. It’s one thing to stick by your ideals — it’s quite another to arrogantly believe that you’re Horatius at the Bridge and to blithely dismiss those not willing to stand on that bridge with you.

The main issue for me comes down to this bit of hypocritical dissonance: Greenwald once wrote a lengthy piece questioning President Obama’s progressive bona fides, in essence claiming that he had none, that he wasn’t really a liberal thinker and therefore no one on the left should approach his presidency with the assumption that he has their best interests at heart. First of all, this is a nonsensical thing to say by any objective measure, given that while Obama has indeed made decisions that reflect centrist and even conservative politics on occasion, he’s taken progressive positions across a wide range of subjects and has pushed through or attempted to push through liberal legislation as a matter of policy more so than just about any other president in a half-century.

But more than that, I’d argue that it’s Glenn Greenwald who doesn’t truly care about progressive politics — certainly not more than he cares about, well, Glenn Greenwald and the absolute satisfaction he demands on his pet issues. He speaks out, always in an almost inhumanly detached and Aspergerian fashion, not as someone who wants to see real-world liberal politics succeed and flourish in the United States but as someone who wants his personal utopian ideals catered to in the manner he feels he deserves. He figuratively and somewhat literally — if you take into account the fact that he lives as an expatriate a good portion of the time — offers the “view from nowhere” in his diatribes. Not only are his opinions divorced from modern political reality in this country, he’s throwing rocks at a house he chooses not to live in and therefore there are no negative consequences to his actions. He can look from on-high and pass judgment, piously casting himself as ethical journalism’s Last Man Standing, because in the end he won’t have to live with the disaster that would be the alternative to the Obama administration coming to power in November.

Politics is about compromise and, as much as you or I would like it to be otherwise, that’s always going to be the case. While this president has done plenty of things I vehemently disagree with, I understand that if you’re looking to see progressive political policy pushed by the White House he is the absolute best you’re going to do in a country that’s made up of as many conservatives as there are liberals. Demanding accountability is always a necessity — but constant vilification accomplishes nothing other than doing the job of Republican strategists for them. And that matters if the debate isn’t merely an academic one for you — a lot of pseudo-intellectual masturbation — and if you’ve actually got something to lose. If you live in a world where political reality is a consideration for you. But again, Greenwald isn’t on anyone’s side but his own and his only consideration is what he personally believes is right — and if something infinitely worse and more unjust comes from relentlessly voicing that intractable belief system and patronizing anyone who offers a contradictory argument, so be it.

A smart and potentially powerful voice for the advancement of progressive policy and against the frightening reality of Tea Party-era conservatism is instead content to settle for dispensing town crier-style shtick on a handful of subjects — evil drones, Bradley Manning as a martyr, Assange as a saint, al-Awlaki as an innocent victim of imperial murder — and to make a really nice little career for himself doing it it. This is what makes it so easy to simply shrug off Greenwald’s pedantic ranting. Which is what anyone interested in keeping this country from going to total shit should be doing.

Oh, by the way, Greenwald supported George W. Bush’s invasions of both Afghanistan and Iraq, then had the balls to turn around a couple of years later and punch way above his intellectual weight class by calling Christopher Hitchens a “war monger” for having done the same.

Tell me I need to take him seriously.

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Welcome to this week’s installment of The Daily Banter mailbag! We discuss Bob’s twitter beef with Glenn Greenwald, the scariness of the Sarah Palin movie and the dangers of a Romney Presidency.

The questions:

Bob, read your piece on Greenwald with interest. I think the dude is a fanatic libertarian and can’t be reasoned with. Why did you bother interacting with him? You’re just going to get the same reply: war is bad, America is bad, the constitution should be interpreted literally etc etc. I say save your breath. 

-Darren Jacob

Bob: I don’t believe he’s entirely unreasonable, and there have been a couple of times when we’ve reached some sort of concensus. That said, my goal isn’t necessarily to change his mind on the usual issues, but instead to convince people who typically rubber-stamp some of the things he writes. I think there’s a misconception on the left that he’s always right — a sort of touchstone for progressive thought. Well, he doesn’t appear to be as progressive as he is, as you wrote, libertarian (and he’d object to me assigning of labels), and I strongly believe that many of the absolutist positions he holds will actually damage the progressive cause. Accountability for similarly-minded politicians should always be constructive and smart because, naturally, we want more progressive-leaning politicians to succeed. I don’t think Greenwald or his supporters understand this distinction and it hurts the movement.

Chez: I’m always telling Bob that it’s worthless arguing with Greenwald. Even if you put him in his place it’s a pyrrhic victory because ultimately you’re not going to sway him in his opinions or knock him from that throne he sits on in Rio, the one from which he issues all kinds of sweeping edicts about awful the U.S. is and how Bradley Manning’s a martyr and Barack Obama’s a judicial murderer or whatever-the-hell. Worst of all, once Greenwald’s legion of mindless acolytes figures out you’re debating him, they’ll descend on you en masse like some kind of Twitter virus. Greenwald’s incapable of budging on anything because, as Bob said, his mind can’t process nuance. I’m genuinely convinced that he has an at least mild form of Asperger’s and that’s what’s to blame for his long-winded, pedantic diatribes and what seems to be his complete lack of human emotion. Either that or he’s just an asshole.

Ben: I thought Bob’s argument with Greenwald was extremely interesting, and that both sides made excellent points. I find Greewald’s inability to understand the complexity of issues like war annoying sometimes – his views are dogmatic and inflexible making debate with him next to impossible. Having said that, his contribution to public debate is immense and he does some excellent and necessary work. I think it’s always a good idea to engage with people like Greenwald regardless of how stubborn they are, particularly when you are able to articulate complexity as well as Bob does.

Gentlemen, any thoughts on the Sarah Palin movie? just watched it on HBO, and was horrified. Do you think anyone should be held responsible for allowing her to get so near to power?

-Jim

Bob: I hate that everyone who saw the movie gave John McCain such a pass. I don’t care how badass he was at the time, he elevated Palin for political expedience and ought to be condemned for it. If he had won that election, Palin would’ve been a heartbeat from the presidency, and no amount of badassery should absolve that. All that said, I thought Moore’s portrayal of Palin was brilliant and it was a compelling story, but all of these recent-history biopics are too soon and, because of it, they look like extended SNL sketches complete with shitty wigs.

Chez: I haven’t seen the movie because a while back I made the decision to have a life. Not insulting you for soldiering through it, of course — just saying that for me personally I don’t specifically seek out things to piss me off anymore. If I want to be infuriated, I’ll pick up the phone and call my ex-wife. That said, I also feel that everything that can possibly be said about how dangerous, intellectually incurious and, ironically, filled with moral certitude Palin was and still is has actually been said. In a more advanced world, John McCain would be in prison right now for willfully and opportunistically trying to put this country in mortal danger and for foisting Palin’s dumb, hillbilly ass on our culture for who knows how long.

Ben: I saw the movie and was horrified too. I think McCain’s campaign manager Steve Schmidt is personally liable for putting the country at risk – he knew how utterly incapable Palin was and should have pulled the plug on her political career as soon as he discovered she had the mental capacity of a 14 year old school girl. McCain’s motto was ‘Country First’, and putting Palin so close to power was putting country very far behind the McCain team’s political careers.

Ok guys, what happens if Romney gets elected? I know it probably won’t happen, but I thought the same about Bush. Do you think he could f$%k it up as bad as Bush did?

-Mark

Ben: From a technical point of view, Romney isn’t an idiot, and left to his own devices his Presidency wouldn’t be an utter disaster. However, Romney is a weak character who will pander to everyone and anyone, and the people he would surround himself would be incredibly dangerous. He’d have to appease the Right in order to form a functioning administration, and they’d go about dismantling government in the same way the Bush Administration did. So yes, he could screw it up as badly as Bush did.

Bob: We’d be screwed. He’ll absolutely roll back everything President Obama does and the far-right Tea Party wing of the party will control his White House. Worse, the Supreme Court will end up swinging to the right for another generation, which will, of course, doom women, minorities and our electoral system for longer than I care to contemplate. Anyone who thinks he’ll be a reasonable chief executive is utterly delusional. Worse, a far-right Republican like Santorum or Gingrich will be heartbeat away from the presidency.

Chez:  I don’t worry about it. I’m wearing my special Mormon underwear to protect me from stuff like that.

Got a question? Write to us at thedailybanter@gmail.com!!!

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The UN special rapporteur on torture has formally accused the US government of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment towards Bradley Manning, the US soldier who was held in solitary confinement for almost a year on suspicion of being the WikiLeaks source.

Juan Mendez has completed a 14-month investigation into the treatment of Manning since the soldier’s arrest at a US military base in May 2010. He concludes that the US military was at least culpable of cruel and inhumane treatment in keeping Manning locked up alone for 23 hours a day over an 11-month period in conditions that he also found might have constituted torture.

“The special rapporteur concludes that imposing seriously punitive conditions of detention on someone who has not been found guilty of any crime is a violation of his right to physical and psychological integrity as well as of his presumption of innocence,” Mendez writes.

The findings of cruel and inhuman treatment are published as an addendum to the special rapporteur’s report to the UN general assembly on the promotion and protection of human rights. They are likely to reignite criticism of the US government’s harsh treatment of Manning ahead of his court martial later this year. Read more at the Guardian…

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