Huckabee: Bright He's Not, But PBS Can't Ask Him Tough Questions?

Posted at My Left Wing (and my blood is boiling!):

Posted at My Left Wing are some questions I think need to be asked AND answered:

[There] is a transcript provided by the Public Broadcasting System (PBS) of Judy Woodruff's interview with Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee. Or you can listen to the audio by clicking here. This interview illustrates why bloggers like myself have utter contempt for the corporatist media. And yes that now apparently includes PBS which is supposed to be a cut above and serve only the public. In a disgraceful display of inept journalism, Woodruff asks one horse race question after the other.

This man may become the Republican nominee and perhaps our next president. I don't think he will but it's not impossible. So why not ask him questions of substance? They're plenty to chose from.

Some clips from Woodruff's piss poor interview (which, btw, hardly fits New Hampshire which, despite its Republican bent, is a far cry from Iowa):

JUDY WOODRUFF: The first question, is you had a lot less money.

MIKE HUCKABEE: Yes.

JUDY WOODRUFF: You had a much smaller organization.

MIKE HUCKABEE: Mm-hmm.

JUDY WOODRUFF: How do you think you did it in Iowa?

MIKE HUCKABEE: I think we did it because we had a message that people
resonated with.

And they wanted to believe that there was still a place in American politics for a person who didn't come at them with a lot of money and razzle and dazzle, but came at them with an authenticity that they felt like was about them, not about the campaign, but about the people, who are supposed to be the very recipients of all this message we create.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Do you think that what happened in Iowa translates to the
state of New Hampshire, where we are right now, a very different state...

MIKE HUCKABEE: Sure.

JUDY WOODRUFF: ... everybody has started to point out?

MIKE HUCKABEE: Americans different in some maybe thoughts or emphasis still have the same ideas. They want a government that lets them be free, that leaves them alone, that doesn't interrupt and interfere with every aspect of their life, that lets them go to work and keep more of what they've worked hard to have.

Those are principles that I think are valid anywhere. Now, there may not be as much focus, for example, in New Hampshire on the sanctity of life or maybe even traditional marriage, as you would see in Iowa. But on issues like lower taxes, less government, and then a more efficient government, that'll be a focus here in New Hampshire that I think is universal anywhere.

New Hampshire, as of January 1st, started the first civil union that is identical to marriage. But calling people who believe in choice and freedom less focused on "sanctity of life" or "sanctity of traditional marriage" is just one of a whole huge host of reasons Huckabee should never get any closer to being president than winning the Iowa caucus. However, New Hampshire right now - God help us - is heavily leaning toward McCain and Vermont governor Jim Douglas, a Bush loyalist, just came out endorsing McCain who also should not be allowed anywhere near Washington, much less 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Dick Cheney, Enemy of the State (And The World)

As I posted elsewhere...

I strongly (as in STRONGLY) encourage you to find your local listing for this week's PBS Frontline for a startling, scary profile of Vice DickPresident Dick Cheney's 30+ year war to take away civil liberties at the same astonishing pace as he wants to turn the American presidency and any notion of democracy into a game only Cheney and his pals can play.

I was riveted and sickened all at once; those who maintain BIG questions about the Bush Administration's possible complicity in September 11th will find new fodder with the revelations from Cheney's own hench cretins that as buildings still burned that day, The Dick was calling in his people to stage a coup against American democracy and the U.S. Constitution while giving the president more powers than our founding fathers EVER wanted to allow.

This material, fully documented, FAR EXCEEDS the imagination of George Orwell's 1984 and the machinations of Machiavelli. And yet, with all of that, what REALLY amazed me was that the dimbulb former Attorney General (although a dimbulb HAS to burn brighter than also former AG Alberto Gonzales) John Ashcroft ACTUALLY stood up for us when Cheney demanded the feds launch the most massive domestic spying and data mining operation against the American people in U.S. history.

Absolute Must Read/Must See: A Probe of the Press and Iraq by PBS' Bill Moyers

Regular readers know of the extremely high esteem in which I hold Greg Mitchell of Editor and Publisher magazine (the journal of the press about the press). While I link to him and the online magazine frequently, I implore you to catch Greg's latest piece about the new Bill Moyers' PBS documentary upcoming about the press and America's war with Iraq labeled "devastating (and then you need to be sure you see this documentary):

The most powerful indictment of the news media for falling down in its duties in the run-up to the war in Iraq will appear next Wednesday, a 90-minute PBS broadcast called "Buying the War," which marks the return of "Bill Moyers Journal." E&P was sent a preview DVD and a draft transcript for the program this week.

While much of the evidence of the media's role as cheerleaders for the war presented here is not new, it is skillfully assembled, with many fresh quotes from interviews (with the likes of Tim Russert and Walter Pincus) along with numerous embarrassing examples of past statements by journalists and pundits that proved grossly misleading or wrong. Several prominent media figures, prodded by Moyers, admit the media failed miserably, though few take personal responsibility.

The war continues today, now in its fifth year, with the death toll for Americans and Iraqis rising again -- yet Moyers points out, "the press has yet to come to terms with its role in enabling the Bush Administration to go to war on false pretenses."

Among the few heroes of this devastating film are reporters with the Knight Ridder/McClatchy bureau in D.C. Tragically late, Walter Isaacson, who headed CNN, observes, "The people at Knight Ridder were calling the colonels and the lieutenants and the people in the CIA and finding out, you know, that the intelligence is not very good. We should've all been doing that."

At the close, Moyers mentions some of the chief proponents of the war who refused to speak to him for this program, including Thomas Friedman, Bill Kristol, Roger Ailes, Charles Krauthammer, Judith Miller, and William Safire.

But Dan Rather, the former CBS anchor, admits, "I don't think there is any excuse for, you know, my performance and the performance of the press in general in the roll up to the war…We didn't dig enough. And we shouldn't have been fooled in this way." Bob Simon, who had strong doubts about evidence for war, was asked by Moyers if he pushed any of the top brass at CBS to "dig deeper," and he replies, "No, in all honesty, with a thousand mea culpas….nope, I don't think we followed up on this."