White House Media Policies Revealed

Dana Milbank writes in Friday's Washington Post that the Scooter Libby trial "has already pulled back the curtain on the White House's PR techniques and confirmed some of the darkest suspicions of the reporters upon whom they are used. Relatively junior White House aides run roughshod over members of the president's Cabinet. Bush aides charged with speaking to the public and the media are kept out of the loop on some of the most important issues. And bad news is dumped before the weekend for the sole purpose of burying it.

"With a candor that is frowned upon at the White House, Martin explained the use of late-Friday statements. 'Fewer people pay attention to it late on Friday,' she said. 'Fewer people pay attention when it's reported on Saturday.'

"Martin, perhaps unaware of the suspicion such machinations caused in the press corps, lamented that her statements at the time were not regarded as credible. . . .

"Martin, who now works on the president's communications staff, said she was frustrated that reporters wouldn't call for comment about the controversy. She said she had to ask the CIA spokesman, Bill Harlow, which reporters were working on the story. 'Often, reporters would stop calling us,' she testified.

"This prompted quiet chuckles among the two dozen reporters sitting in court to cover the trial. Whispered one: 'When was the last time you called the vice president's office and got anything other than a "no comment"?'"

Martin's notes showed that she considered "Meet the Press" a good venue for Cheney for this reason: "Control message." And, Milbank writes: "She walked the jurors through how the White House coddles friendly writers and freezes out others."

Tim Rutten writes in the Los Angeles Times: "The lesson to take away from this week's unintended seminar in contemporary journalism is that the vice president and his staff, acting on behalf of the Bush administration, believe that truth is a malleable adjunct to their ambitions and that they have a well-founded confidence that some members of the Washington press corps will cynically accommodate that belief for the sake of their careers.

"It's a sick little arrangement in which the parties clearly have one thing in common: a profound indifference to both the common good and to their obligation to act in its service."

From Dan Froomkin's "The Unraveling of Cheney" in the Washington Post, January 29, 2007

Hot Reuben Dip

Hot Reuben Dip

1 8-oz pkg cream cheese, softened
1/2 C sour cream
2 T ketchup
1/2 lb. deli corned beef, finely chopped
1 C sauerkraut, rinsed, drained and chopped
1 C (4 oz) Swiss cheese, shredded
2 T onion, finely chopped
snack rye bread or crackers

In a mixing bowl, beat cream cheese, sour cream and ketchup until smooth.
Stir in corned beef, sauerkraut, Swiss cheese, and onion until blended.

Transfer to a greased 1-qt baking dish. Cover and bake at 375 degrees for 30 minutes. Uncover and bake 5 minutes longer or until bubbly. Serve warm. Makes 3 Cups Approx.

Quotes to Live By: American Democracy under Bush

A story of America's hilarious dark side, a place where democracy, as defined by Mencken, is "... the worship of Jackals by Jackasses"... "a circular firing squad of self-righteous viciousness."

"It takes two to speak the truth — one to speak and another to hear."
Henry Thoreau

"A belief tank is like a think tank, just without the doubt."
Tony Snow (as satired by Gary Trudeau in this cartoon)

Civilization begins with order, grows with liberty, and dies with chaos.
Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.
One of the lessons of history is that nothing is often a good thing to do and always a clever thing to say.

All by Will Durant

All progress is based upon a universal innate desire on the part of every organism to live beyond its income.
- Samuel Butler

There is no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the interval.
- George Santayana

late 1960s and early 1970s speeches by Oregon Gov. Tom McCall. He promised to clean up the Willamette River, calling the mills at Albany, “a festering cancer on the broad, green bosom of the Willamette Valley” and demanding land use laws to rein in “sagebrush subdivisions and coastal condomania.”

Science Dam it

All religions, including Buddhism, stem from our narcissistic wish to believe that the universe was created for our benefit, as a stage for our spiritual quests. In contrast, science tells us that we are incidental, accidental. Far from being the raison d'être of the universe, we appeared through sheer happenstance, and we could vanish in the same way. This is not a comforting viewpoint, but science, unlike religion, seeks truth regardless of how it makes us feel. Buddhism raises radical questions about our inner and outer reality, but it is finally not radical enough to accommodate science's disturbing perspective. The remaining question is whether any form of spirituality can.

Excerpted from "Why I Ditched Buddhism" at http://www.slate.com/id/2078486/