Glenn Greenwald on Ignorance and Bias Plus NBC's Decision Not To Air Dixie Chicks Documentary Ad

[Ed. note: You also want to read Glenn's coverage of The Dick Cheney interview where he seems gleeful about U.S. torture and waterboarding specifically.]

Constitutional legal expert Glenn Greenwald is always an informative read and tonight is no exception.

First he tackles the latest so-called liberal media bias (cackle!) with NBC's decision not to air something perhaps "unflattering" against President Bush related to the Dixie Chicks ("Shut Up and Sing"). Then there's the Bushies demanding military escalation in Iraq (oh, that'll be good), followed by "rank ignorance" masquerading as expertise.

Dixie Chicks:

The new documentary, Shut Up & Sing, chronicles the hostile and sometimes threatening conduct directed towards The Dixie Chicks after one of the group's members criticized the Commander-in-Chief, President George W. Bush, during a 2003 concert. The documentary is being distributed by Harvey Weinstein's film company, and a preview for the film can be seen here.

According to Matt Drudge (a phrase that does not roll out of one's mouth easily), both NBC and the CW Television Network (the joint venture of CBS and Warner Brothers that combines the WB and UPN Networks) are refusing to air ads promoting Shut Up & Sing on the ground that the ads are "disparaging" to our President...

The very idea that it is in the "public interest" to prohibit ads that criticize the Leader is ludicrous on its face. The President is constantly given free airtime to argue his views and propagandize on virtually every issue, and the networks endlessly offer forums for his followers and surrogates to defend him. And the networks' argument is particularly absurd now, given that networks are awash with cash from offensive, obnoxious, and repugnant political ads of every kind.

What possible justification is there for a network to prohibit the promotion of films which are critical of the nation's political leaders? Worse, the networks' recent history of ostensible avoidance of "controversial" political material seems extremely selective and one-sided. "Controversial" in this context seems actually to mean "likely to trigger displeasure among the Leader and his supporters."

Bushies Demand More War (as in more aggressive) in Iraq:

Bush followers have finally been forced to accept as fact that the Iraq War has become widely unpopular among Americans. But a consensus among them has emerged that the war's unpopularity is not a repudiation of the war itself, but instead, is reflective of a belief that the war must be prosecuted more aggressively, with more resources, and with less restraint and caution. In their view, the problem isn't that Americans have realized that the war isn't worth the costs or is based on false pretenses, but instead, it's that Americans believe that victory is so urgent in Iraq that they're angry that we're not doing enough to achieve it.

Yesterday, the President -- as he has been doing regularly over the past couple months -- met with eight Bush followers who masquerade as "journalists," including Tony Blankley of the Washington Times, Charles Krauthammer, Mark Steyn and Michael Barone. As Byron York (who was also there) reported, one of the principal themes was that Americans are dissatisfied with the war in Iraq because we aren't going all out to win (emphasis added):

The frustration in the room stemmed not so much from internal divisions and paralysis in the Iraqi government, or lagging indicators like oil and energy production. Rather, it came from the fact that American forces simply do not seem to be winning the war — on anyone’s terms — and that most Americans are disinclined to leave the troops in Iraq without some clear movement toward victory.

“The American people were solidly behind this when you went in and you toppled the Taliban, when you go in and you topple Saddam,” columnist Mark Steyn said to the president. “But when it just seems to be a kind of thankless, semi-colonial, policing, defensive operation, with no end — I mean, where is the offense in this?”

Rank ignorance posing as expertise

It should surprise nobody that armies of "conservatives" have become overnight experts in New Jersey Constitutional law and have pronounced the 66-page decision (.pdf) from the New Jersey Supreme Court to be a tyrannical embodiment of judicial activism. But in issuing these condemnations, none of them mentions a single provision of the New Jersey State Constitution or any precedent applying it that supports their righteous conviction that the decision was legally erroneous; they just know intuitively, deep in their soul, that it is.