Richard (RJ) Eskow: Rogue's Gallery: CNN's Ideologically Rigid, Scandal-Tainted, Ethics-Investigation-Haunted GOP Debate 'Panel'

The story won't die. People keep commenting on the near-Stalinist level of ideological purity reflected in CNN's panel of "expert" questioners at last week's Republican national security debate.The neocons have been proven spectacularly and tragically wrong, over and over.

Remember "We'll be welcomed as liberators"? Or the claim that Iraq will be a "cakewalk"? Nowhere on Earth are their words given an ounce of credence.

Nowhere, that is, except CNN. We haven't seen national security commentary with so little credibility since Judith Miller interviewed "Curveball."

People are understandably outraged by CNN's ideological extremism and willingness to discard even the veneer of journalistic objectivity. But there's another cloud over this panel: a cloud of scandals, criminal investigations, and ethical lapses.

David Addington. Paul Wolfowitz. Ed Meese. It's a Rogue's Gallery of government officials gone wild, a motley crew of the short-sighted, the benighted, and the nearly-indicted.

Or, as CNN calls them, "experts."

CNN and the Right: Partners Again

CNN cosponsored one debate with the Tea Party, but maybe that group wasn't considered extreme enough. This time CNN's cosponsors were the American Enterprise Institute and the Heritage Foundation, radical-right organizations that played an active role in misleading the American people into a bloody and costly war. They accomplished that mission. Now these groups are pushing new disinformation campaigns, like the one that asserts that climate change is a hoax.

Steve Clemons says that CNN's choice of partners means that the old GOP foreign policy wing represented by Republicans like Lugar, Hagel, and even Kissinger is "an endangered species." Personally, I'd say it's already dead. CNN has all but officially declared its members "non-persons." If a Republican wants to get on CNN today, their r?sum? better include corruption or scandal.

The words "corruption" and "scandal" can only mean one thing: ladies and gentlemen, it's time to meet our panelists.

Meese the Honorable

The first question was asked by Ronald Reagan's former attorney general, a gentleman Wolf Blitzer described as "the honorable Ed Meese."

Honorable? As one report put it:

No other member of the Reagan administration, with the exception of Oliver North, was as tainted by scandal as Edwin Meese III ... At one point in his tenure as attorney general Meese was under investigation by three special prosecutors, each inquiring into separate allegations of influence peddling, bribery, and cover-up in the Iran-Contra affair. Though Meese was never charged with any crime, the last of the special investigators said that Meese "had probably broken conflict of interest and income-tax laws, though none of the indictments were worthy of prosecution."

Meese was also investigated for possible bribery and influence peddling regarding an oil pipeline... in Iraq.

But special investigators were oddly disinterested in prosecuting high government officials after the Reagan years. Several of them noted the officials' probable crimes on several occasions but deemed them, like Meese's, "unworthy of prosecution." Others found evidence of criminality that was outside the scope of their investigations. Still, even the most indifferent investigation from those years is an improvement over today's Justice Department, which prefers to simply ignore evidence of criminal wrongdoing by government officials.

The "honorable" Mr. Meese asked the candidates, "Shouldn't we have a long-range extension of the investigative powers contained in the PATRIOT act so that our law enforcement officers can have the tools that they need?"

Objection! Leading the witness! That's always unacceptable, especially from someone who should've been in the dock. Needless to say, Meese's mini-brief for continued suspension of our civil liberties was received with appropriate warmth and enthusiasm by candidates and broadcasters alike.

Torture Man

Chris Hayes was understandably outraged at the inclusion of David Addington, the lawyer employed by Dick Cheney to build specious arguments for deceptive war and illegal torture. Addington's even guiltier of promoting torture than the much-criticized John Yoo, who wrote his now-infamous memo under Addington's supervision.

Addington also pushed for illegal and unconstitutional actions such as "black bag" detentions, warrantless surveillance, and impeding Congressional oversight of intelligence. Colin Powell reportedly remarked that Addington "doesn't care about the Constitution" -- and it shows.

Mr. Addington would have been investigated for criminal violations of law and abuse of power at any other point in our history. Addington repeatedly advised other government officials to ignore both law and Constitutional obligations in order to pursue the agenda of his immediate boss, Dick Cheney.

This week he emerged from a long public silence to ask the candidates about "U.S. interests" in the Middle East.

Puppetry of the Panelists

Compared to the unethical and potentially illegal actions of panelists Meese and Addington, a questioner like the American Enterprise Institute's Fred Kagan comes across like a beacon of moral rectitude. Kagan's merely been wrong about Iraq war policy, consistently and repeatedly, while displaying no signs of remorse for his errors.

Kagan helped lead a pseudo Iraq Study Group for the American Enterprise Institute, after the one created by Washington's leaders displayed insufficient ideological purity. He also seems to have a propensity for letting himself be used as a media puppet for generals who are trying to undermine their civilian leadership by pushing their own preferred strategies in the press.

Kagan stands head and shoulders above some of his co-questioners, if only because he's never been accused of wrongdoing. But he's sure been wrong a lot.

A lot.

Call Them Irresponsible

The mendacious, the error-prone, and the scandal-ridden were well-represented on the panel. But it still felt strangely incomplete. Where was Curveball?

CNN violated journalistic ethics by allowing such biased and tainted questioners to participate in the debate. On the other hand, it was thoughtful of them to pick people who would make current Republican frontrunner Newt Gingrich feel at ease. As the Washington Post reported in 1997, Gingrich's own ethics scandal led to his unprecedented punishment, a $300,000 fine to settle charges of Federal tax law violations and lying to Congressional investigators.

Our last panelist is none other than Paul Wolfowitz, that key architect of Bush's disastrous Iraq war, who was immortalized on camera licking a comb and then running it through his hair. Apparently the shampoo that washes away conscience and moral legitimacy also leaves you with split ends and hard-to-manage hair.

Wolfowitz capped his mismanagement of the Iraq war by leaving the Bush administration to serve as President of the World Bank. There he became embroiled in scandal after giving preferential treatment to his then-girlfriend, an employee of the Bank. An Ad Hoc Group found that Wolfowitz had violated a number of internal Bank rules, as well as its ethical Code of Conduct, with his favoritism toward his lady friend and his public attacks on the investigation into his behavior.

World Bank investigators also expressed concern about "one central theme" that ran through Wolfowitz's self-justifications: his repeated assertions that "blame for the current situation lies with others."

Neocons never take responsibility for their own behavior. But then, why should they? They never get indicted. These days they're not even investigated. They know the only time they're ever going to serve is onscreen with CNN.

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rj-eskow/rogues-gallery-cnns-ideol_b_1115560.html

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