Newsfront: Pigs, a Plumber & the King of Pop

 

 Chicago: Hog Butcher to the World!

So the reactionary thugs who were on the Chicago police force in ’68 decided to have a reunion, and guess what? They’re still the good guys! At least, according to their own self-serving recollection of events.

The riots that tore through Chicago Democratic National Convention are notorious for the hugely disproportionate response to protesters from city police—wielding batons and billy clubs they beat them damn yippies and hippies to a pulp. Norman Mailer witnessed the riots and described them in lurid detail for Playboy; Hunter S. Thompson, Jean Genet and William S. Burroughs were also there to document the carnage. A commission formed in the wake of the riots found that the police had acted with “unrestrained and indiscriminate” violence.

But 41 years later, those self-same gutter-dwelling cops would have you believe otherwise. The New York Times reports from a reunion held this past Friday:

The reunion’s invitation itself, penned by the son of a former officer, offered an utterly different view, saying that the officers had been “the only thing that stood between Marxist street thugs and public order,” and adding: “For decades the collective Left has white-washed what really happened during the riots of 1968 and 1969. Chicago Police officers who participated in the riots continue to endure unending criticism—all of which is unwarranted, inaccurate and wrong….” “From the pictures the media showed, it always looked like poor little Jimmy was getting attacked by the police, but what they didn’t see was what Jimmy did just a minute before,” said Tom Rowan, 65, a retired officer. “Everybody who got hit during the convention may not have deserved it, but 95 percent of them did.”

There’s something strangely reassuring about hearing the dying breed of Archie Bunkers continue to defend the indefensible. It’s the dying part that reassures….

---

   Plumb Ugly

Via FireDogLake comes this typically absurd, and absurdly funny, dispatch from the latest appearance from Joe the Plumber, this time in Wasau, Wisconsin.

Joe the Plumber, who is neither named Joe, nor a plumber, shared his thoughts on morality! “Obama right now is talking about, he can generate more revenue by taxing the top two to three percent of Americans. Well, you know, that's immoral.”

He encouraged lynching a sitting Senator! “Referring to Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., more than once, Wurzelbacher asked, ‘Why hasn't he been strung up?’”

He engaged in creative anachronism! “Referring to the Constitution as ‘almost like the Bible,’ Wurzelbacher said of the Founding Fathers: ‘They knew socialism doesn't work. They knew communism doesn't work.’”

And then he vomited all over the stage, before collapsing in a drunken, methamphetamine haze to the raucous applause of dozens! (Not really.)

---

   Chief Justice Meets King Pop

If you thought there wasn’t a political angle to Michael Jackson’s untimely death, think again Tito. In 1984, at the height of Jackson’s fame, the gloved one was invited to the Reagan White House. But when the White House’s Office of Private Sector Initiatives drafted a letter from Ronnie congratulating Michael, John Roberts—then an aide to the President, and now Chief Justice of the Supreme Court— repeatedly expressed his disapproval.

In a fantastically in-depth post, The New York Times’ Charlie Savage details the back-and-forth these seemingly innocuous gestures invited. Here are some excerpts from Roberts’ memos in which he learns of a new pretender to the throne of King of Pop known as Prince.

I hate to sound like one of Mr. Jackson’s records, constantly repeating the same refrain, but I recommend that we not approve this letter…Frankly, I find the obsequious attitude of some members of the White House staff toward Mr. Jackson’s attendants, and the fawning posture they would have the President of the United States adopt, more than a little embarrassing.

It is also important to consider the precedent that would be set by such a letter. In today’s Post there were already reports that some youngsters were turning away from Mr. Jackson in favor of a newcomer who goes by the name “Prince,” and is apparently planning a Washington concert. Will he receive a Presidential letter? How will we decide which performers do and which do not?

That’s the head of the highest court in the land, ladies and gentlemen, opining on “Prince.” And we thought Scalia was out of touch.

---

   From Post to Pillar

The Washington Post opinion pages—a space that saw fit to hire Bill Kristol after he was wrong about just about everything, just could not find room to keep “White House Watch” columnist Dan Froomkin around, one of the best writers they’ve got on staff. That seems about right.

But Froomkin’s last column does go out with something of a bang—calling out the Bush administration for its criminal activities and even more so his colleagues in the industry who aided and abetted the Bush leaguers. He writes:

When I look back on the Bush years, I think of the lies. There were so many. Lies about the war and lies to cover up the lies about the war. Lies about torture and surveillance. Lies about Valerie Plame. Vice President Dick Cheney's lies, criminally prosecutable but for his chief of staff Scooter Libby's lies. I also think about the extraordinary and fundamentally cancerous expansion of executive power that led to violations of our laws and our principles….

How did the media cover it all? Not well. Reading pretty much everything that was written about Bush on a daily basis, as I did, one could certainly see the major themes emerging. But by and large, mainstream-media journalism missed the real Bush story for way too long. The handful of people who did exceptional investigative reporting during this era really deserve our gratitude: People such as Ron Suskind, Seymour Hersh, Jane Mayer, Murray Waas, Michael Massing, Mark Danner, Barton Gellman and Jo Becker, James Risen and Eric Lichtblau (better late than never), Dana Priest, Walter Pincus, Charlie Savage and Philippe Sands; there was also some fine investigative blogging over at Talking Points Memo and by Marcy Wheeler. Notably not on this list: The likes of Bob Woodward and Tim Russert. Hopefully, the next time the nation faces a grave national security crisis, we will listen to the people who were right, not the people who were wrong, and heed those who reported the truth, not those who served as stenographers to liars.

Happy trails, Mr. Froomkin. May you find a newspaper that deserves you. It’s probably in Europe somewhere….