Letter to America for May 31, 2013

Dear America,

Five years ago when Barrack Obama was running for president for the first time, I was doing business with a used car dealer with whom I had  become friendly.  One day I went over to see him and he insisted that Obama was a Muslim, and that the future president had so stated.  Setting aside the fact that being a Muslim or not is every American's right and that Muslims are as variegated a people as Christians and Jews with bad people and good among all three groups, I was intrigued by the claim that Mr. Obama purportedly had said he was a Muslim, and I made my erstwhile friend show me the quote on the internet.  Sure enough, there he was saying, " I am a Muslim," just before the three second clip ended.  I went home and found the original clip on the internet, and as it turned out, what Mr. Obama had said in context was that John McCain was to be praised for condemning those who claim that "I am a Muslim."  The point is that any quote deracinated \from its context is suspect, and the fact that news organizations like Fox don't consider that before they run images of people saying this that or the other thing does not redound to their credit.  It only demonstrates their disingenuousness and the conservative tendentiousness of their reportage.  But people still watch them because they know that they will hear what they want to hear, which is only reinforced by what Fox reports...or misreports to be more accurate.  Fox specializes in preaching to the reactionary choir, but they don't purvey news...at least not honestly.

So now we come to the present, and a couple of days ago, my wife's brother told her during a telephone conversation that Attorney General Eric Holder was in trouble because  he had perjured himself before congress in saying that he didn't know anything about the prosecution of reporters for violating the law regarding government secret disclosures.  And it is true that the testimony was not an adroit expression of what he was trying to say because he had indeed signed an application for a search warrant for the records of a reporter named Rosen--an employee of Fox News as you have probably guessed.  But in context, his point was obviously not that he didn't know about the investigation of leaks being conducted by the Justice Department, but that he was skeptical of any policy that led to prosecutions of the press.  And the fact is that the Justice Department isn't looking for the reporters who disclosed the state secrets in question, which were about North Korea...and what we knew about it and how we knew it as well, I assume.  I assume because I don't watch Fox News.  And why would the DOJ need to look for those guys.  The problem they represent is that they have already revealed the secrets so their identities and what they disclosed are matters of public knowledge.  If they were to be prosecuted, the evidence would already be a matter of record.  No, what the Justice Department is looking for is the sources of the information that was disclosed because it is against the law to leak top secret information...and it is dangerous to our security as a nation as well.  That's why it is against the law, and if there is a political party that is focused on national security at any price, it is the Republicans...but not when you can pillory a political opponent for protecting it.  So, Fox reporters have been asking members of a couple of congressional committees what they are going to do about Eric Holders purported perjury, and they have been getting a response...albeit a tepid one.  One committee member told the Fox reporter that the committee he was on would investigate, though he later changed his statement to read that the committee would "look into it."

My guess is that this tempest will stay inside the Fox News tea cup, but who knows.  The other "scandals" being promoted by conservatives aren't working out too well, so this one may be a fall back scandal.  The IRS scandal, including the suspended supervisor of the department in question, Lois Lerner, and her invocation of the Fifth Amendment, hasn't raised much public ire.  And the efforts of one or two conservatives to make her testify have run into the fact that the right to stop testifying whenever you choose is part of that constitutional Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination...at least outside the context of trial it is, and no charges have been filed, nor is a congressional hearing room the same thing as a court house.  That particular conservative congressman remembers that the second amendment is part of the constitution, but he seems to have forgotten about the fifth, which is so inconvenient because conservatives think that no one who has nothing to hide needs it.  They seem to have cut their Constitutional Law classes in law school, which apparently makes such simplistic beliefs possible for them.  Mind you, there is no evidence of any criminal conduct in all this anyway...just arrogance and lack of creativity.  But Ms. Lerner knows that if the Republicans can sink their canine teeth into someone, they will hound that person to the grave, rightfully or not.  So, she did what was prudent...what her lawyer probably told her to do, though if I were him I wouldn't have let her make an opening statement because of that argument that if you start speaking you have to continue, bogus as it may be, at least in this context.  Then there's Benghazi, and you don't even hear about that one anymore.  Besides, what Susan Rice said on Meet the Press and Face the Nation doesn't matter much.  What people care about is the safety of our diplomats, and about that issue there is nothing politically untoward to report.

To summarize, despite all the political gyrations and contortions, and despite all the half-truths, contrivance, casuistry and mischaracterization, the Republican conservative complex including both the politicians and the press--which now includes Karl Rove on Fox (boy has he found a home)--haven't been able to strike a chord.  Yet here we are with real problems for them to address and they can't make the time.  What's an electorate to do?

Your friend,

Mike