Media Neutrality = Media Nihilism (Postscript added)

I like Chuck Todd, and I admire that he has enough integrity to submit to aggressive questioning by Glenn Greenwald about comments he made on "Morning Joe" earlier in the week regarding whether Bush administration war crimes ought to be investigated and prosecuted.  But his answers to GG's questions reveal the underlying nihilism of the inside-the-Beltway media pundit--there's no right or wrong--there are only points of view, "interpretations" all ideologically and politically driven.  He takes at face value that because the Bush OLC lawyers came up with a legal rationale for war crimes, it's a matter of interpretation, and it's not for journalists to say whether the interpretation is completely off the wall, because, "Well, we're journalists, not lawyers, and everything is politically driven, and the politics is all we're paid to report on."  This exchange at the end of the interview is interesting:

GG: And isn't the best thing to do to immunize that question from political considerations is to say to a prosecutor, the way that we do with every other accusation of crime: take a look at the pure legal issues here, ask: "were crimes committed; is this the kind of case that indictments are appropriate for, where people should be put on trial," and then just have this be treated like every other accusation of crime, which is the prosecutor taking a look?

CT: I agree, in a perfect world - Glenn, in a perfect world, yes. And if you could also guarantee me, that this wouldn't become a show trial, and wouldn't be put, and created so that we had nightly debates about it, that is the ideal way to handle this.

GG: Why not?  What's wrong with nightly debate about whether our government committed crimes?

Todd thinks that there is no such thing as a non-ideological investigation, and that since Nixon it's not possible to have one.  The impeachment of Clinton was payback for Nixon, and if Obama were to investigate and prosecute Bush, the GOP would get its payback on Democrats as soon as they had the chance. The people in the Obama administration, obviously, would rather not be subjected to that if a GOP administration succeeds them, so it's understandable for self-protective reasons that they don't want to pursue prosecution of Bush administration felons. In the political calculus, there's more to gain than lose by prosecuting Bush administration crimes.  And since the media sees everything as politically driven, there is no need for the media to point to its view/reading public that  a dime-a-dozen sex scandal with an intern does not have the same constitutional substance as Nixon-, Reagan-, and Bush-era abuses of power.  It's all equal; it's all politics. It's all so fatiguing.

Greenwald asks whether there isn't a larger issue at stake here:

GG: The principal argument of those of us who want investigations and prosecutions, is that our justice system ends up being perverted, and it's a very dangerous thing if we have this idea that presidents can break the law, and then for political reasons, shouldn't be treated like everybody else. That is a very dangerous idea that we've accepted since Ford pardoned Nixon, and since the Iran-Contra criminals were pardoned. That if there's an accusation, a credible accusation that laws were broken, it's vital that the prosecutors and the Justice Department treat it like any other case, and indict if indictments are warranted, because it's so dangerous to create this two-tiered system of justice.

That view wasn't included anywhere in the discussion you had.  And I just think that - I'm not saying you should be an advocate for that view, although I think the Founders thought journalists should be - but even if you don't think so, that that view has to be articulated every time there's a discussion about whether or not prosecutions are warranted.

CT: Glenn, you get to a bigger problem here. I don't disagree with you with this issue, that ever since the Nixon situation, that we have gotten into this situation where investigations in the government of officials have become politicized, in some for or another. Either the investigators are politicized in what they're doing, or it gets politicized from the outside by--

GG: Well, I don't agree with that. That's your point. My point is there have been prosecutions--

CT: And the problem is, there is a department, and you can't, whether this, you can sit here and say, you know what, that's exactly what's wrong with the Beltway. But there has been this fatigue about it because the use of prosecutions has been too politicized, to the point where I think it has made it where it's just unfortunately too easy to dismiss an investigation.

GG: And as a result, powerful politicians know that they can break the law and get away it.

CT: I don't disagree with your conclusion here.

GG: Politicians know that they can break the law and get away it because there is that quote-unquote 'fatigue', that dislike, that contempt for holding political officials accountable in Washington....

CT: Well, look, I think the problem, though, sits not with the media in this respect. And this is what frustrates me a little bit, is that the problem, the people we should be upset with are the folks on the Hill, folks in the White House, folks at the Justice Department. Those are the ones who have the power of the subpoena, and the power to do these things, not the media. And I know we get beaten up about it. But the power does lie in Congress. And the power does lie in the Justice Department.

We are upset with them, Chuck, but we're upset with you and your colleagues, too, because you let them off the hook rather than challenge them to live up to their constitutional and legal responsibilities.

Todd seems to be saying, "Look, I'm not a lawyer.  I have my personal opinion, but I'm not paid to give my opinions; I'm paid to analyze.  This is the Republican point of view and strategy; this is the Democratic point of view and strategy."  But then why can't the non-partisan nature of this controversy get more play? There are plenty of non-Democrats who are concerned about Bush administration crimes.  Why can't these people be given the center stage.  Greenwald points this out:

Some of the people who have called for investigations and prosecutions of Bush-era torture crimes include people like Jesse Ventura, the former independent governor of Minnesota; Philip Zelikow, the former aide to Condoleezza Rice; four-star general Barry McCaffrey, who said, on MSNBC, actually, that numerous detainees were, quote, "murdered" in custody, and that there's no way that we can not have criminal investigations. General Antonio Tabuga, who investigated the Abu Ghraib crimes, said: quote, "There is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes; the only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account." Same with Lawrence Wilkerson, the former chief-of-staff to Colin Powell; Thomas Pickering and Williams Sessions, former Reagan administration officials, on and on, wrote an op-ed in The Washington Post calling for investigations.

The idea that this is something that, the idea that the rule of law, that holding our high government officials to accountability when they commit crimes, is a "hard left versus a hard right" or a partisan debate - isn't that really just an invention of cable news, for exactly the reason that you said, which is that's how cable news typically understands things, even when that's not really what the debate is?

Todd's response is illuminating:

CT: Well, look - and that is my frustration on this very issue, that I don't think - and this is why, when I said, how should this be handled, and how should this be investigated - if you could guarantee me that we could keep this debate off of television, and keep it off of being an ideological - because, this was an ideological, when you read those OLC memos, I was struck by this fact, and that is that the Bush White House was looking for a legal way to do this. They were trying to legally justify what they were doing, and what their policy was. Which then, if that is the case, then, things are going to have an ideological split, and frankly, you, you and I both know you're going find judges that end up falling on both sides of this issue.

Now, does that mean that there shouldn't be investigations as to how these detainees died in custody?  Of course there should be investigations. That's what makes the American form of justice held to a higher standard.

A TV guy saying the solution is to keep it off television?  Seems to be a clear admission of TV's central role in creating this problem and why we are upset with the media as well as the politicians, why we see them as all part of the same corrupt system.  American form of justice is held to a higher standard??? 

Todd's a smart guy, and I think a decent guy, but I hope he reads the full transcript of his comments, because they are largely incoherent. Maybe he will come away from this discussion having learned something. Greenwald's effort to hold Todd accountable should be a model for him and his colleagues about how to challenge those in the White House or on the Hill to hold them accountable and focused on the real issues:  It's not about left and right, Dem or GOP; it's about the rule of law.

***

Postscript: Here's the nub of the problem.  It's not just a question about what things look like from 30,000 feet up versus what things look like on the ground, as Todd thinks.  It's a question of both being integrated.  Todd's defense of his media role is a  perfect description of what I described last weak as  being lost in a thicket of rationalizations without a moral compass. 

Yes, it's true politics and political motivations are a dominant factor not just in Washington but everywhere in our lives.  People are continuously in conflict, and different parties have good and bad reasons to support their agendas, but Todd and his colleagues seem immune from distinguishing good reasons from silly, frivolous, or reasons that are based on transparent falsehoods because there is in the media view no broadly accepted standard by which such judgments can be made. Self-interest is the only criterion.

But we do have a standard when it comes to torture and war crimes.  It's the law and treaty obligations.  Most Americans know the difference between a show trial about substanceless accusations and issues of real importance. Most Americans did not see the Watergate Hearings as a show trial, but they did see the Clinton impeachment as one.  Americans have common sense and recognize the difference between the serious and the trivial.  It's the people within the Beltway and the courtiers who manage the Beltway media who for some reason seem incapable of it, and the reasons for this lack of capability are not hard to fathom.