BY DAN
KENNEDY
Notes and observations on
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See the World Through My Daughter's Eyes (Rodale, October 2003),
click
here.
Monday, May 10, 2004
GOOD RUMMY, BAD RUMMY. From
William Safire's New York Times column
today:
Shortly after 9/11, with
the nation gripped by fear and fury, the Bush White House issued a
sweeping and popular order to crack down on suspected terrorists.
The liberal establishment largely fell cravenly mute. A few lonely
civil libertarians spoke out. When I used the word "dictatorial,"
conservatives, both neo- and paleo-, derided my condemnation as
"hysterical."
One Bush cabinet member paid
attention. [Secretary of Defense Donald] Rumsfeld
appointed a bipartisan panel of attorneys to re-examine that
draconian edict. As a result, basic protections for the accused
Qaeda combatants were included in the proposed military
tribunals.
Perhaps because of those
protections, the tribunals never got off the ground. (The Supreme
Court will soon, I hope, provide similar legal rights to suspected
terrorists who are U.S. citizens.) But in the panic of the winter
of 2001, Rumsfeld was one of the few in power concerned about
prisoners' rights. Some now demanding his scalp then supported
the repressive Patriot Act.
From Seymour Hersh's
latest,
in this week's New Yorker:
The Pentagon's impatience
with military protocol extended to questions about the treatment
of prisoners caught in the course of its military operations. Soon
after 9/11, as the war on terror got under way, Donald Rumsfeld
repeatedly made public his disdain for the Geneva conventions.
Complaints about America's treatment of prisoners, Rumsfeld said
in early 2002, amounted to "isolated pockets of international
hyperventilation."
Safire is a serious civil
libertarian who doesn't mind whacking his fellow conservatives, so
his observations about the Good Rummy can't be dismissed lightly. But
it's pretty obvious that Rumsfeld's occasional good deeds have been
overwhelmed by his disdain for anyone and anything that interfered
with his ability to do what he damn well pleased.
CREDENTIALS? THEY DON'T NEED NO
STINKING CREDENTIALS! Joanna Weiss reports
in today's Boston Globe on the Democratic National Committee's
plan to issue press credentials to some bloggers. There's a numbers
game going on, and apparently not everyone who wants credentials will
get them.
This isn't going to matter to
establishment types. For instance, Weiss mentions Josh Marshall, who
writes Talking
Points Memo; but Marshall's
got nothing to be concerned about, since he also writes a
column
for the Hill, a print publication. (Media Log plans to be at
the convention as well, blogging and also reporting for the print
edition of the Phoenix.)
Bloggers have just as much of a
right to be there as anyone else. Particularly out of it is Jerry
Gallegos, head of the House Press Gallery, who told Weiss, "Anyone
with a computer and home publishing can call themselves whatever they
want. If it's a retired couple that just decides they've got an
opinion, that doesn't make them a news organization. It just makes
them a retired couple with an opinion and a website." Yeah, but
Grandma and Grandpa might just be kicking the ass of the hometown
daily to which Gallegos would issue credentials without a
question.
Still, there's some serious
naïveté on the part of bloggers if they think credentials
are going to do much for them. There are lots of great stories at
conventions, but very few of them take place inside the convention
hall. Even fully credentialed mainstream journalists are only rarely
able to gain access to the floor - not that there's any great thrill
in that other than to be able to say you were there. Mainly you
wander the building checking out the news-org set-ups and looking for
interesting people to talk to.
Outside is another story, and it
strikes me that that's where bloggers could do their most important
work: at the protests, at the parties, panels, and seminars, and at
the numerous events that will be staged by those trying to get their
message out. I'm not aware of anything being planned that's as cool
as the "shadow conventions" Arianna Huffington put together in
Philadelphia and Los Angeles four years ago, but certainly something
- no doubt many somethings - will pop up.
Here's a dirty little secret: even
credentialed reporters inside the hall watch the convention on
television. So bloggers ought not to worry about credentials and
bring their laptops to Boston. They'll have plenty to write about.
posted at 9:12 AM |
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Dan Kennedy is senior writer and media critic for the Boston Phoenix.
