April 23, 2009
Peggy Noonan had an esteemed career as speechwriter to former Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. She now writes a weekly column for The Wall Street Journal and she frequently appears as a panelist on many television news programs. She has been on the blogroll of this website since its inception.
On Sunday, April 19, she appeared as a panelist on ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos. During that program’s Roundtable discussion, the subject eventually turned to President Obama’s decision not to prosecute the CIA operatives involved in the torture of detainees in the “War on Terror” as well as the decision to release the so-called “torture memos”. Those memos were prepared by the Office of Legal Counsel during the Bush administration. They described the permissible use of such techniques as waterboarding, sleep deprivation, confinement in a box with insects and other sadistic acts, intended to get detainees to provide valuable information. Roundtable panelist Sam Donaldson expressed his opinion that the operatives who administered these interrogation techniques were not “just following orders”; they believed they were following the law because they were relying on the legal opinions expressed in those memos. However, as Donaldson explained, if the people who devised those methods and wrote the legal memos condoning their use were “just trying to find cover” and just trying to find a way to get around American law and the Constitution, they should be held accountable in a court of law. Donaldson added that if the President wanted to pardon those people, he should do so, although it would be important for those individuals to be held accountable before a court.
Peggy Noonan then remarked:
Oh, I have reservations about all of this. It’s hard for me to look at a great nation issuing these documents and sending them out to the world and thinking: “Oh, much good will come of that?” Sometimes in life you wanna’ just keep walkin’.
Sam Donaldson then interrupted with the question as to whether it was right “to let people walk who may have committed a crime”. Noonan then replied: “Some of life has to be mysterious”.
Noonan’s remarks drew immediate outrage from Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin. As Sam Stein reported for The Huffington Post, Feingold was harshly critical of the rationalizations for avoiding prosecution of these people, as expressed by government officials as well as those in the news media. Stein quoted the Senator’s expressed indignation:
“If you want to see just how outrageous this is, I refer you to the remarks made by Peggy Noonan this Sunday” … “I frankly have never heard anything quite as disturbing as her remark that was something to the affect of: ‘well sometimes you just have to move on’.”
Noonan’s opinion is emblematic of the mainstream media’s all-too-frequent response to scandalous events and it demonstrates why so many people have turned to the Internet to get the news. If you overhear someone in a restaurant arranging a bribe with a politician: Just keep walking. If you discover information about illegal toxic dumping by one of your publication’s sponsors: Just keep walking. If Harry Markopolos approaches you and tries to explain how Bernie Madoff is running a Ponzi scheme: Just keep walking.
Peggy Noonan’s statement wasn’t just a situation where she “misspoke”. It was the expression of an arrogant attitude held by too many in the media who decide it is up to them to determine when the public deserves to know something and when it doesn’t. After all: “Some of life has to be mysterious”.
Shame on you, Peggy Noonan! Shame on you!
Somebody Really Loves Goldman Sachs
May 17, 2009
The recent article about Treasury Secretary “Turbo” Tim Geithner by Jo Becker and Gretchen Morgenson, appearing in the April 26 edition of The New York Times, seems to have helped fan the flames of the current outrage concerning the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Turbo Tim was president of the New York Fed during the five years prior to his appointment as Treasury Secretary. Becker and Morgenson pointed out many of the ways in which “conflict of interest” seems to be one of the cornerstones of that institution:
The New York Fed is probably the most important of the nation’s twelve Federal Reserve Banks, since its jurisdiction includes the heart of America’s financial industry. As the Times piece pointed out, this resulted in the same type of “revolving door” opportunities as those enjoyed by members of Congress who became lobbyists and vice versa:
The New York Fed’s current chairman, Stephen Friedman, has become a subject of controversy these days, because of his position as director and shareholder of Goldman Sachs. Goldman sought and received expedited approval to become a “bank holding company” last September, thus coming under the jurisdiction of the Federal Reserve and becoming eligible for the ten billion dollars in TARP bailout money it eventually received. After Goldman became subject to the New York Fed’s oversight (with Friedman as the New York Fed chairman) the Fed made decisions that impacted Goldman’s financial state. Although this controversy was discussed here and here by The Wall Street Journal, that publication’s new owner, Rupert Murdoch, now requires a $104 annual on-line subscription fee to read his publication over the Internet. Sorry Rupert: Homey don’t play that. Although Slate provided us with an interesting essay on the Friedman controversy by Eliot “Socks” Spitzer, the best read was the commentary by Robert Scheer, editor of Truthdig. Here are some important points from Scheer’s article, “Cashing In on ‘Government Sachs’ “:
Yes, there are a couple more things: Goldman Sachs was the second largest contributor to Barack Obama’s Presidential election campaign, with a total of $980,945 according to OpenSecrets.org. President Obama nominated Gary Gensler of Goldman Sachs to become Chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. As Ken Silverstein reported for Harpers, this nomination has stalled, since a “hold” was placed on the nomination by Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. Mr. Silverstein quoted from the statement released by the office of Senator Sanders concerning the rationale for the hold:
“Change you can believe in”, huh?