Finally, finally someone in the Washington press corps has the guts to say it.

I guess it takes the MSNBC funny man from Keith Olbermann’s show to nail Bush but good. I watched the press conference with king George the 43rd this morning partly in agony, when I wasn’t laughing out loud, before and after most of the talking heads stumbled all over themselves trying to trump everyone else in saying Obama’s candidacy is over due to the comments of the Rev. Wright.

Dana Milbank in his “Washington Sketch” column was able to make light of Bush’s attempt at word sorcery and nail him to the wall at the same time. Too bad there’s no local columnists anywhere who are willing to do the same thing, except, er, here on the Web.

This is so good for a change I’m going to post a significant portion for your enjoyment and/or enlightenment, in case you happen to be an Alabamian who believes Mike Royer’s account of Bush blaming Congress on the local NBC affiliate had any resemblance to reality. Maybe you’ve never read the Washington Post. Here’s a sample.

The incredible shrinking presidency of George Walker Bush hit a new milestone yesterday: The commander in chief turned to sorcery.

“You know, if there was a magic wand to wave, I’d be waving it,” Bush informed Sheryl Gay Stolberg of the New York Times in a Rose Garden news conference. She had asked him about the recession, which everybody seems to be acknowledging but Bush.

Further, the wizard of the West Wing said he would use his supernatural powers, if he had them, to conjure up lower gas prices. “I think that if there was a magic wand and say, ‘Okay, drop price,’ I’d do that,” said the illusionist.

Abracadabra! Watch the president pull a rabbit out of a hat! …

Well, not this time. “There is no magic wand to wave right now,” Bush finally confessed…

But the president had something else up his sleeve. He used his appearance before the White House press corps to perform one of the oldest tricks in the book: blaming Congress. He faulted lawmakers 16 times in his opening statement alone….

“Congress has repeatedly blocked efforts,” he protested. “Congress continues to block provisions. . . . Congress needs to clear away obstacles. . . . Congress is considering a massive, bloated farm bill. . . . Congress needs to do more. . . . I ask Congress to do its part.”

(Some of) the reporters in the audience didn’t fall for the blame-Congress sleight-of-hand.

“Gas prices have gone up, foreclosures have gone up, there have been layoffs, news just this morning that consumer confidence is down yet again,” recited the Associated Press’s Jennifer Loven. “Isn’t it time to think about doing more?”

“Were you premature in saying that the U.S. economy is not in a recession?” needled Jeremy Pelofsky of Reuters.

“Americans believe we are in a recession,” pointed out American Urban Radio’s April Ryan. “What will it take for you to say those words, that we are in a recession?”

The illusionist swirled his cape and turned that into a question about Congress.

“I mean, you know, the words on how to define the economy don’t reflect the anxiety the American people feel,” (Bush) ventured.

Rubbing his nose, he continued: “The average person doesn’t really care what we call it. . . . These are difficult times. And the American people know it, and they want to know whether or not Congress knows it.”

***
But diversions would get Bush only so far. After the White House called the news conference, but half an hour before Bush stepped from the Oval Office, the Conference Board announced that consumer confidence fell in April to its lowest point since the Iraq invasion in 2003. That started a new sell-off on Wall Street, where investors await today’s report on economic growth in the first quarter.

“Are you concerned that they will show us to officially be in a recession?” Stolberg asked Bush.

“I think they’ll show that we’re - it’s a very slow economy,” he replied.

The Washington Post’s Dan Eggen tried to put Bush in one of his least favorite places - the psychoanalyst’s couch.

“You’ve expressed frustration with Congress,” he pointed out. “Are you frustrated? Are you angry? And do you have any real hope of being able to work with this Congress this year?”

Bush looked around, as if puzzled. “I believe that they’re letting the American people down, is what I believe,” he answered.

A chief way in which Congress is letting the American people down, the president said, is by refusing to approve oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (what a dumbass).

“They’ve repeatedly blocked environmentally safe exploration in ANWR,” he said, depriving the nation of “27 million gallons of gasoline and diesel every day.” This was one of the oldest tricks under Bush’s cloak - he has been making the ANWR case, unsuccessfully, for eight years — and his delivery was a bit rusty. “Repeatedly” came out as “repleatedly,” and “27 million gallons” became “27 millions of gallons.”

Reporters quickly pointed out that, whatever the merits of oil exploration in ANWR, it is a long-term proposal that won’t help this summer’s gas prices. “Opening up ANWR is not long-term,” Bush objected. “It’s intermediate-term.”

So now the president is reduced to arguing the difference between long-term and intermediate-term. His is a slow and torturous disappearing act.

Bush: The Escape Artist?

Who cares what some reverend told the Washington press corps. Bush is the real idiot in the room who has done considerable damage to his country and committed crimes against the Constitution and humanity for which he should be tried and convicted.

The Post also has this story for Wednesday’s paper (my improved headline).

Bush Tries to Recycle Tired, Failed Policies

(The New York Times basically continues to kiss Bush’s ass in their coverage today, even though their correspondent was on the butt end of the attempted hit by the prez. Why they take it dog only knows.)

Wouldn’t we all be having so much more fun if we had an impeachment trial to look forward to this summer?

That would certainly divert the media away from Obama’s former paster. I mean who cares?

Wouldn’t it be great if we could abide by the United States Constitution and get god out of our political campaigns - and our government policy discussions?

What does it have to do with rising gas and food prices?

The war in Iraq and our looted treasury?

Rebuilding New Orleans or unsafe products from China, where almost everything is now made - rather than here?

Would someone please tell the American people on their dog damned television screens that what Bush has done is not working? Cannot work?

Does Obama have any answers? Will he do a better job? Will Hillary or McCain?

I don’t know, but I know this Bush government has got to go, and the sooner the better.

Wouldn’t we all be having so much more fun if we had an impeachment trial to look forward to this summer?

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will be the keynote speaker Friday, May 2 at the Alabama Democratic Party’s 2008 Jefferson Jackson Dinner. She is the first female Speaker of the House and the first sitting speaker to visit Alabama since Sam Rayburn in 1960, according to the party’s press release.

A reception begins at 5:50 p.m. and dinner will be served at 6:30 at the Cahaba Grand Conference.

Reservations can be made on the phone by calling 800-995-3386 or online at http://www.aladems.org/events/JJ08.

What is needed?

Under the Microscope
by Glynn Wilson

HUNTSVILLE, Ala., April 24- As I was driving south on Highway 431 the other day after descending the mountaintop in Huntsville at Monte Sano State Park, a jumble of thoughts rumbled around in my head about what to say on how to fix the problems we face with politics and the press in Alabama and the old US of A.

It would be easy to look around and say the situation is hopeless. The great masses in this country are by and large too ignorant and religious to educate. They depend way too much on TV news for information, and they are not particularly computer savvy.

And it is clear the press is way too interested in corporate advertising money to go out of its way to do the job that is needed.

Glynn Wilson

Scott Horton speaking on media reform

Even an educated writer like Scott Horton does not know enough about communications research or the workings of the Web to say much about the future.

(Read the full text of his remarks here).

It is easy to bash the corporate, chain press in this state for blatantly promoting moneyed interests, which just happens to fall to Republicans in this era as it was Bourbon Democrats in the 19th century after Lincoln freed the slaves. And it is easy to criticize the newspapers and TV stations for eschewing alternative facts that are freely available on the Web for anyone with a computer and an Internet connection to see.

It was somewhat heartening to see a nice crowd of people in Huntsville show up to the media reform presentation Tuesday night. But it did not exactly inspire hope to see that the average age of those in attendance was, well, older than me, and I turned 50 this year.

And as I look on the Web at the goals of the North Alabama Media Reform group, there is not one single word about the power of the Web to transform our media habits and make our politics and governance smarter. The chief goals of the group involve trying to bring liberal New York radio to the Alabama airwaves, which might be nice to listen to for liberals, progressives and Democrats. But it has about as much of a chance of reforming the media or the political landscape here in Alabama as a farmer telling a pig not to eat the slop dumped in the pin every day. (Sorry for the farm analogy. Guess it was inspired by passing so many farms in North Alabama on this trip : )

The group quotes Robert McChesney, a professor of communications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and president of the group Free Press.Net, which bills itself as “a national, nonpartisan organization working to reform the media.”

But it is worth pointing out that McChesney was a sports stringer for UPI and wrote about rock ‘n’ roll before going into academe. In other words, he was not a political reporter or an investigative journalist. And he was tenured on the basis of other kinds of research long before he became the media critic darling of the American left.

Saying so is not to disparage his work, just as pointing out Horton’s weaknesses should not be seen as taking anything away from the great work he’s done on the Siegelman story. Without Horton’s blog columns on the Harper’s magazine Website, there would not have been such a national outcry in Siegelman’s case and most likely no report on “60 Minutes.”

But now that he has stopped blogging on a daily basis, where are the people of Alabama supposed to turn to find out what’s going on about other stories that come along? Is it possible that a site like this one with the creative combination of a news and blog interface might be able to attract some mass readership beyond the partisan e-mail lists that pass around news for free and allow motivated readers to comment?

It is obvious from the Karl Rove inspired rants from a couple of reporters for the Birmingham and Mobile papers that the state’s “Big Mule” papers are not going to change their tune. Maybe the people of Huntsville have a better chance of bringing about some changes in that local paper’s outlook, although the coverage of Horton’s appearance in their hometown does not inspire much hope.

This headline and story are so far removed from the reality of what actually happened at the event that it is a real wonder the people of Huntsville bother to read it at all.

Siegelman lauds pair who helped get him out of jail

And coverage in the Decatur Daily, a paper Horton credited with being one of the better small town papers in the land, was not much better, even though old executive editor Tom Wright was there himself. (The link is not freely available online).

As I have indicated before in this space, the answer to reform what the future looks like is in the hands of Web publishers who know what they are talking about when it comes to understanding the difference between objectivity in journalism and objectivity in science - and how to resolve those differences by correcting the mistake journalism historians have been making on this point for close to 100 years. You would think someone in the high tech capital of Alabama would have some inkling of this, in Huntsville, a place Horton referred to in his address as “Alabama’s brain.”

For the uninitiated, here are a couple of links to get started researching this issue. (I’ll have more to say about this in the days ahead).

Objectivity in science

Objectivity in journalism

I cannot tell you how many attempts have been made by journalists and scholars to illuminate this in recent years, although most of those efforts have fallen far short of what is needed.

McChesney himself, as quoted on the media reform Website, puts it this way:

“Journalism should not just report two sides that are spinning you and they say, ‘We report you decide.’ We don’t need that - that’s not journalism. Journalism is hearing what they’re saying and then investigating to see who’s telling the truth. That’s the value added genuine journalism does in a free society.

“And, people in power don’t like genuine journalism. They never have. Thomas Jefferson, he was the first one to criticize journalism when it went after him. But, he understood in principle you couldn’t have a free society without it. It’s simply impossible. It’s as true today as it was in 1791.”

That is all well said and good, but by itself, it is not going to be enough.

If the progressives in this state and country want to change things, they are going to have to learn to support alternative media outlets economically that actually have a chance to reach something of a mass audience online. Totally one-sided Democratic Party sites and lists and publications are not the answer. They have their place, but they are just “singing to the choir” so to speak.

In spite of being lumped into that class of blogger by the Alabama press, we are not a tool of any political party. We search for the truth through objective facts, and we look at the big picture.

The problem with a lot of local reporting these days is that the reporters and editors cannot see the forest for the trees. There may be all kinds of little corruptions going on in the community college system and the Legislature. But to focus on the little stuff ignores the larger problems in the world being caused by the most corrupt administration to ever occupy the White House.

That is a story you will not see on any TV news channel, national or local, not even “60 Minutes,” and it is not a story you will see fleshed out by any newspaper in the United States, not even the New York Times or the Washington Post. They may get out the little bits and pieces, just as the Associated Press and Reuters wire services do. To link it all together takes a writer with a broader and more experienced point of view to put issues into a fuller perspective.

Horton is good at it, and there are a few other fine magazine, book and Web writers we link to from time to time. But a prime example of what I am talking about is demonstrated in our coverage of the controversy over the Bush administration’s drive to browbeat Congress into granting the telephone companies immunity from lawsuits, you know, in the current debate over the so-called spying bill aimed allegedly at foreign “terrorists.”

To keep up with that story, the only real place to turn are Websites like this one, where we have covered each development and gone to great lengths to connect the dots, also drawing on the work of the Talking Points Memo and Daily Kos (linked in the blog roll).

If you are new here or missed this coverage, you can catch up under our category in the free archives called Liberty vs. Security.

Perhaps the North Alabama Media Reform group might be willing to expand its operations to cover the entire state, because dog knows this state needs media reform. As I told some people at the event, there is no history of media criticism in this state, in part because the university journalism schools are funded largely by the corporate, chain news outlets. There is no Alabama equivalent of the Columbia Journalism Review in New York.

Well, of course, except here at LocustFork.Net, where we are pioneering the alternative Web Press based on almost 30 years of journalism and academic experience. And we are doing it right here in Alabama, not out of New York. A liberal blog indeed…

Glynn Wilson

Mobile Press Register reporter Eddie Curran (left) made a fool out of himself at the event, interrupting and talking on a cell phone, while former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman (top right) called attorney Jill Simpson “a true American hero” for blowing the whistle on Republican political prosecutions.

We are still working on an upcoming column about what is needed to reform the Alabama press. Meanwhile, here’s a video clip showing some of what New York attorney and writer Scott Horton had to say in Huntsville Tuesday night about the biased coverage in the case of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman, courtesy of LeftInAlabama.com.