I can tell you that I think that it is accurate to say that a lot of people in the media are secular, and don’t understand the concept of faith, and think that faith is weird. And I…

HH: And are you among them?

JT: No.

HH: Oh, faith isn’t weird?

JT: No, I don’t think faith is weird at all.

HH: Are you an agnostic? An atheist?

JT: No, I believe in God. I believe…but I don’t want to get into my personal religious…

HH: Why?

JT: …beliefs. I mean, what? I believe in God, because then, I’m not…

HH: Because if, for example, you were a Christian, and I assuming you’re not, or you would tell me. Are you a Christian?

JT: No, I’m Jewish.

HH: Okay, that Christians would not go after Vitter in the same way that non-Christians would, because Christians understand the essential given that all fall short of the glory of God. That’s quoting Paul, and I’m not a very good Bible person.

JT: You know, Hugh, I don’t know that I’d buy your interpretation. I mean, look, I read your blog, and I listen to your radio show on occasion, and I respect you as a thinker, but I also think that you are a partisan Republican.

HH: I am.

JT: Right. So I mean, so for you to judge other people’s objectivity when you are clearly coming from a subjective point, I question your ability to do that.

HH: Jake, you can. That’s fine. The audience, though, can judge my assessment of people’s motives in journalism, and their professionalism…

JT: Right.

HH: …based upon, you know, I’ve been doing this since 1989.

JT: Right.

HH: I’ve been in radio and television and writing books since 1989. I’ve never held back my political views, because I believe it’s important for the audience to be able to assess my judgments.

JT: But how does that work on an evening news broadcast?

HH: Very easily. Do you think Katie Couric is really a Republican? Do you think she’s anything other than a liberal Democrat?

JT: I don’t want to get into, I don’t want to get into discussing the competition…

HH: Okay.

JT: …because that’s…or…

HH: Charlie Gibson.

JT: I think Charlie Gibson is…

HH: Do you really believe Charlie’s other than a liberal?

JT: I think Charlie, I actually don’t know Charlie’s personal political beliefs, but I can tell you that I think he’s very, very fair.

HH: Oh, I think he’s very, very fair, too, but I still think news is where you look, to quote Dan Rather, and that <b>the Beltway media machine, the Manhattan-Beltway media elite, always looks at ways to advance Democratic agendas, and to hurt Republican agendas, sometimes unconsciously.

JT: That…okay, Hugh, I think that’s nonsense.

HH: It’s not.

JT: We always…

HH: You can. Of course you would. It’s a direct challenge to what you guys do.</b>

JT: No, but it’s…I don’t even think…when I hear comments like that, I think you don’t, you’re not even watching. You’re not even watching the show. You’re not reading what I’m writing, you’re making all these judgments, you’re lumping everybody in. You’ve mentioned Tom Edsall, who is now a columnist for the Huffington Post, and Dana Milbank, who is a columnist. You’re talking about them as if they are objective, non-partisan reporters, and I don’t view myself as…I mean, I like Dana and Tom, they’re nice guys, but I don’t think what they do and what I do are the same thing at all.

HH: But Tom Edsall, for what? 25 years, was a…

JT: Well, I’m not getting into the hiring practices of the Washington Post.

HH: …an objective, or put forward as an objective journalist, putting forth just the news. I think he did a pretty good job, by the way. I think you do a pretty good job. But I’m saying you can’t, you can’t take off your skin. You can’t leave your bones behind. If you are a lefty in your DNA, it’s going to affect what you do, and it’s best for the public to know what you are when you go into that. When you cover Romney, for example, if you’re anti-Mormon or pro-Mormon, it’s going to affect how you cover Romney. If you are, if you’re going to cover Clinton and you’re a Democrat in your heart of hearts, you voted for four Democratic presidents out of five, it’s going to affect your coverage.

JT: No, you said that. I didn’t say that.

HH: I know, I know. Affiant sayeth not. But if the audience hearing this thinks that you have done that, they’re just laughing at you, Jake, because no one believes this shtick anymore about objective journalism.

JT: Hugh, because you, people like you poison it, because…

HH: (laughing) What, by blowing the gig?

JT: You do, because…no, let me tell you, because there are people, and I will include myself among them, who are trying, day in, day out, to present a fair and balanced, to borrow a phrase, picture of what’s going on in Washington, D.C. And no matter what, there are people who are saying everything coming out of mainstream media is liberal, and can’t be trusted. Just yesterday, we did a report on World News where we ran an exchange between me and Majority Leader Harry Reid, talking about what happens to the Iraqi people after the U.S. troops withdraw. What happen? Will they be safer? Harry Reid refuses to answer the question.

HH: I know. I covered it. It was a good, good piece. But now, let me counter, give you a counter example.

JT: Wait, but we put it on my blog, we did a dot com story about it, we put it on World News, we’re about to put the video on World News. Now why is, how is that liberal? I’m just trying to get an answer to a question.

HH: Well, Jake, let me give you the counter example. When your producer set this up, it was on the premise that we’d be talking about A Mormon In The White House and Mitt Romney, right?

JT: Oh, I’m sorry. Well, I haven’t even been able to ask you any questions.

HH: I know, but the first question out of the box was Vitter.

JT: Well, because…

HH: Gotcha journalism, a surprise attack on a social conservative caught in an embarrassing and…

JT: No, I was going chronologically in my mind with the stories…

HH: Jake…

JT: That’s all…you want to…do you want to know what’s going on in my head when I ask you about Vitter?

HH: Jake…

JT: I’m going chronologically in my mind about the stories I did this week. The first story I did this week was about Republicans starting to defect from Iraq. The second story I did was Vitter. The third story I did was the Harry Reid story on Iraq. I thought I’d lump in the Olympia Snowe/Susan Collins story with the Harry Reid on Iraq and do that. <b>So I asked you about Vitter, and then I didn’t get to Iraq, because you started quizzing me about who I voted for.

HH: Jake, I don’t mind. I’m just saying that when American people view Beltway media, and I say Manhattan-Beltway media elite, they view it as 95% liberal left. They view it as attack journalism, gotcha journalism, not really honest with its viewers or its subjects.</b> Occasionally, you will do a story that hits at the center-left or the left, just as you hit at the center-right or the right. The point is that in your DNA is a liberal, a liberal that you try and suppress every single day so that you can do good, objective journalism, and you usually succeed, but that it springs out, and that whenever we see the journalists of yesteryear take off their “objectivity,” and put on their columnist hats, whether it’s Thomas Edsall or Helen Thomas, whatever, lo and behold, what we have there is a screaming liberal. And I don’t mean screaming in terms of crazy, but just that’s who they are.

JT: I agree.

HH: That’s how they got into it.

JT: I agree with that, absolutely.

HH: And so, it just affects journalism. And so I think the way back for journalism, and I wrote this piece when I went up and profiled the Columbia School of Journalism and Nick Lemann, is for everyone to declare openly what they believe. And when that begins to happen, big media will get its credibility back, and maybe some circulation. But there’s a reason why your nightly news show numbers are down, there’s a reason why the New York Times is bleeding…

JT: Well, first of all, our nightly news show’s numbers are up.

HH: Over five years?

JT: But…

HH: Or over one quarter?

JT: Our numbers are up. We’re the only show to gain viewers in like the last…no, there’ve been two shows that have gained viewers in the last 25 years. The other one was Bob Schieffer, by the way. But let me, there are a couple of points I want to make, and I do want to get to your book, A Mormon…

HH: You mean Frank Reynolds had less audience than Charlie Gibson?

JT: Oh, no, no, no.

HH: Yeah, that’s what…I mean, it’s because the audience is fractured, and you guys went back.

JT: Oh, no, of course. Of course. The network news, like newspapers, like magazines, I mean, they’re losing viewers, losing readers, everything. But I was just saying Charlie Gibson has gained viewers since he took over. That’s my point. A few things, one, the truth of the matter is, you talk about, first of all, you’re lumping everybody in. I just don’t think that’s fair. I mean, there are people, you know, the office next to mine is Lisa Stark, the other office is Pierre Thomas. These are not people that I think of as having political biases. But even if you do, to say Lisa Stark, Jake Tapper and Pierre Thomas are all one thing is just, it’s such a grand oversimplification that I think it’s unfair. Now a lot of what you say I agree with, Hugh, I do. But I think first of all, when Harry Reid’s office called me yesterday and they were furious, and they were accusing me of bias and all this stuff, I was saying to them what bias do you think I have? I want to know. Do you think I’m in favor of this war? I mean, I’m just asking them that question. What is the bias? And the truth of the matter is that…and this is the grand prize of having this job, I don’t have an opinion about this war. I don’t.

HH: You don’t have an opinion about the war?

JT: I don’t have an opinion about whether or what we should do, or I mean, I think that a lot of things have been mis…I mean, objectively, I think things have been mismanaged. But should we have gone in? I don’t know.

HH: You don’t have an opinion on that?

JT: No, I don’t. Saddam Hussein was a horrible thug. I mean, is the world better off because he’s not there? I think so.

HH: Now can I…you’ve made an objective judgment about Saddam Hussein, so obviously, you’ve got some capacity there, and some exercise. You’re not neutral as to the world. Why do you turn that off when it comes to the application of that one fact to what American actually did? How do you expect people to believe, Jake, that you don’t have an opinion about Saddam Hussein?

JT: I’m just telling you the truth. I don’t have to. I enjoy…no, I didn’t say I didn’t have an opinion about Saddam Hussein.

HH: No, about the invasion.

JT: I don’t have an opinion, because that’s the great thing about this job. It allows me to be agnostic, as agnostic as possible. And I think not only has my reporting tried to reflect that, I really try to live that in my life. Now obviously, I have personal beliefs about this or that or the other. You can’t help but having things like that. But for instance, you know, I don’t knee-jerk…look, I read a lot of media criticism on the left and on the right. And sometimes, I agree with what I read. I agree that things are glossed over when it comes to like how horrible communism is, how oppressive it is, you know, and I’ve written things about that. I was writing things about that back when I was at Salon, how Oliver Stone does a story about, or does a documentary about Fidel Castro, and really doesn’t even mention the fact that like Castro puts gay people into camps, you know what I mean? I mean, I think there is tremendous dishonesty on the left. But I think there’s dishonesty on the right as well.

HH: Well, look, talk about dishonesty, I want to read this. I’m going to leave her name out of it. Dear Mr. Hewitt, my name is blank, and I work for ABC News in New York. I work on a podcast with Jack Tapper. Mr. Tapper, excuse me…

JT: Jake Tapper.

HH: Yeah, Jake Tapper, is interested in interviewing you for our podcast. He would like to talk with you about your book, A Mormon in The White House.

JT: I do want to talk to you about…

HH: Let me finish this off…Ten Things Every American Should Know About Mitt Romney. The interview would be done over the phone, it would take no more than 15-20 minutes.

JT: Oh, we’ve already passed that.

HH: We usually tape in the morning or early afternoon. If you are interested and available sometime this week, please let me know. Feel free to contact me at the e-mail address.

JT: Right.

HH: Thank you for your time. Was that, did that say and other subjects? Did it say we’re going to start with Vitter? You see the dishonesty of MSM, of which you are a member, is that the pitch said nothing about this, and the American people believe that MSM is fundamentally dishonest…

JT: I can’t believe, I can’t believe…I mean, do you really think that I would have a public intellectual who hosts a current events radio show as a guest on my podcast, and not ask him about current events?

HH: Yes, I thought a 15-20 minute thing that we could easily spend on A Mormon In The White House.

JT: You want to…


HH: I would have said yes, anyway.

JT: Hugh, well look, I didn’t write the pitch. Now that’s all I can tell you, and I didn’t see it, all right? But I’ll tell you this. If you want me to scrap this entire interview…

HH: No, I don’t.

JT: …and not put it on the podcast…

HH: Absolutely not. I think is stars everyone of my points.

JT: We can start right now…

HH: I hope you put it all up.

JT: We can start right now, and do fifteen minutes about A Mormon In The White House, and your book about Mitt Romney. I will happily do that.

HH: Absolutely not. I will, I hope you put this up there complete, in its entire form, <h3>because I think it proves every point I have ever said about the media, about why nobody believes you guys anymore, why they believe, why Rush is the most influential journalist in America, why in fact new journalism, that which puts out on the table what people believe in their hearts it’s the best…</h3>

JT: Where do you get that nobody believes us anymore? <h3>Where do get that from?</h3>

HH: Just my audience, the people I talk to, the impressions I have from men in the street, left, right and center.

<b>JT: Do you believe your audience is representative of the American people? I don’t know what your ratings are. I assume they’re good. How many listeners do you have a week?

HH: Between one and two million a week.

JT: Okay, in a country of 300 million people.

HH: Right.

JT: And do you think that your audience is largely conservatives? Or do you think that they are a mix of everyone?

HH: It’s a mix of everyone, as my callers demonstrate time and time again.</b> I get from the nutroots on the far left to the far right extremists. But mostly, I have a high educated, high income, very successful audience who reflect back not just what they believe, but what they hear in the world, largely entrepreneurial, largely successful, and largely in touch with what is happening, because they have to be, because their jobs oblige them to. I also have a large military audience. I did a show this week where I only took calls from active duty military, reservists and guardsmen who’d served in Iraq in order to get through the prism and the fog that MSM puts up about what is actually happening there. <b>So I really do believe that more than any journalist in the Beltway could ever be, I’m very much in touch with what politically active Americans believe. I’ll put it that way. Politically active Americans of left, right and center. And they don’t trust you. They don’t believe you. Look, go to the nutroots…</b>

JT: Who…but who…are you talking about me specifically? Or are you talking about mainstream media?

HH: No, I’m talking about MSM, Beltway-Manhattan elite media. And if you go to the left wing blogs…

<h3>JT: Are you including Fox News in that?

HH: No, they have a higher queue.</h3> I think they have a higher believability on the right, and a much less believability on the left. But my point is, politically active people of left, right and center generally do not believe mainstream media, because they believe your folks are part of a class, a political class, an elite that lives in D.C., and that is tone deaf. And by the way, this happens on the right. It happened in the immigration debate. My friend Fred Barnes, I don’t think every quite understood what was going on in the country, Morton Kondracke certainly didn’t, because it doesn’t get through…

JT: All right. I think…I mean, I don’t hang out with Fred Barnes and Morton Kondracke. They’re nice enough guys, but I mean, it’s…I mean, look, I understand it serves your purposes, and I don’t disagree with some of the criticism you make about the mainstream media. But like you’re painting us in a way that is…it’s just not true. I mean, you can say it, you can believe it, and your audience can believe it, the American people can believe it. But it’s not true.

HH: Jake…

JT: We don’t all hang out, it’s not this elite class. And in terms of our, you know, you’re calling me dishonest because before we could get…

HH: No, I said the pitch was dishonest…

JT: Before we could get to discussing your book, which I still do want to discuss, although this will be the first nine-hour podcast I’ve ever had.

HH: (laughing) You know, podcasts should be longer, but go ahead.

JT: But before we could get to discussing it, you started interviewing me, you started asking me questions, you steered the conversation, as you are paid to do, as you are skilled at doing, as is your want, to start steering directions, steering the conversation in the direction of talking about the mainstream media and its biases, and what do I think and who did I vote for, and this and that, and then you fault me for not asking you questions about your book, when I haven’t had a chance to ask you questions about your book, because you’re attacking the mainstream media, and asking me questions about my personal beliefs. And you know, that’s dishonest. I want, if you want to talk about Mitt Romney…

HH: Jake, I’m sorry…

JT: I’ve interviewed Mitt Romney on this podcast. I think he’s a fascinating guy. I think he has a very good chance of becoming the nominee. I think that people who harbor anti-Mormon bigotry are wrong. I would love to talk to you about that. But why are you faulting me for not asking questions when you are asking me questions?

HH: Jake, I’m sorry if I have victimized you by agreeing to come on your podcast and talk to you as we said at the beginning of the conversation, conversationally.

JT: I’m not…see, you know what? That’s nonsense, Hugh. That’s just nonsense, because I’m not claiming victimhood. I’m saying it’s not fair for you to accuse me…and look, obviously, you love this.

HH: Yes, I do. I do.

JT: You love this…

HH: Because it…every time I get a big foot D.C. journalist, the same thing happens. The anger comes out.

JT: I’m not angry, Hugh. I’m trying to, I want to ask you questions about your book, and you’re not letting me.

HH: Again…

JT: And you’re faulting me for not asking.

HH: I want to go back to the point of the conversation before we came on the air, about 30 seconds. Hugh, it’s a conversation. It goes where it goes. Let’s not, it’s not really…right?

JT: Yeah.

HH: That’s what we’re having. But the conversation…

JT: I’m not faulting…

HH: …always…if you’re not angry, you’re doing a good impersonation of it, because...

JT: Hugh, I’m not angry. I don’t care. My point is only this. You accused the pitch of being dishonest. I mean, I understand you’re skilled at this, you enjoy doing this. You accused the pitch of being dishonest because I’m not asking questions about the book, and I’m trying to ask you questions about the book. And if you’ll let me ask you questions about the book, I will, and we’ll get off the conversation, and you’ll tell your audience and your bloggers that we didn’t talk about the book, and I’m trying to ask you questions about the book.

HH: Oh, I will, but I’m saying, when you go back to the pitch, there was nothing in that about anything other. I think that is a dishonest pitch, and that…I would have said yes anyway if you would have said do you want to come on and talk about Vitter and your book, do you want to come on…but I might have prepared more. Your interest, I think, in not having me prepared for a question set…

JT: What?

HH: Is that element of surprise, which I think journalism mistakes for authenticity, when it’s not authentic, when it’s…

JT: Hugh, I’m not…

HH: I’ve got to quickly come up with something, and I do it, by the way, on the radio all the time. It’s a standard technique of interviewing, but it’s not what the pitch suggested, and I think that’s the problem with journalism, is that it’s not transparent. You guys aren’t interested in having a well-thought out, prepared conversation about Vitter, or you would have told me that. Then I would have gone back and found exactly what Vitter has said on a number of subjects.

JT: But I didn’t want to have…the point was, I was just, you know, this is…I don’t even know what to say, because it was just an innocent question, I wanted to know what you thought about the Vitter episode, and the mainstream media’s coverage of it, because you’re a critic of the mainstream media. That’s was it. And there wasn’t any…I didn’t think that you weren’t familiar with the story. It’s…

HH: I have spent like three seconds on it. I haven’t read anything he said in the past. I can’t challenge your assertions about what he said about Clinton or whatever. But if the pitch had said we’ll be talking about your role as a media critic…

JT: When was the pitch?

HH: Let me read it to you again.

JT: No, no, when was it? When was that sent?

HH: Two days ago. It was sent on July 11th, at 3:14:49, Pacific Daylight Time.

JT: Well, look. You know what? I mean, what you’re taking is a letter to try and invite you onto the show, and you’re trying to turn that into some sort of grand conspiracy or example…

HH: No, I’m not. I’m just saying…

JT: Or example of nefarious intent, when all I was trying to do was at the very beginning of the conversation, get your thoughts on the current events of the day, because you are an intellectual, and you have a radio show and a blog, and you talk about this stuff all the time.

HH: And Jake, the audience listening to this, and again, you are going to publish it, right? You are going put it up there on the web?

JT: It’s…you know what? It’s getting tiresome, Hugh. It’s getting tiresome.

HH: Is that a no?

JT: No, I’m not saying I’m not going to publish it. I mean, my inclination is to put everything up, but it’s getting tiresome. Why…I don’t know why anybody would be interested in this conversation.

HH: I think it will become…

JT: It’s to me like an argument of like, it’s a petulant, annoying argument you’d hear on a train. I want to talk to you about your book.

HH: I’ll go there. But Jake…

JT: I want to talk to you about your thoughts…

HH: If you put it up, you will find that it has an extraordinary reach, and an extraordinary interest. And that you don’t anticipate that tells me you’ve got a blind spot there. But I hope you do put it up. That was our agreement, that you would.

JT: I’m not saying I’m not going to put it up.

HH: Okay, good.

JT: Again, you’re like steering towards another strange place just to try to make me look bad. This is ridiculous. Why don’t you tell me about your book?

HH: I’d be happy to. What do you want to know?

JT: What prompted you to write a book about a Mormon in the White House, because it looks like, from your blog, that you haven’t, and maybe I’m wrong about this, but you’re saying nice things about Fred Thompson, too, so I don’t know that you’ve endorsed anybody.

HH: I have not endorsed Romney.

JT: Right.

HH: I’m very impressed with him, I say nice things about Thompson, and nice things about Giuliani. I’m very impressed with all three of them. I was not a McCain fan. His campaign is out of gas, talking about headlines today, he’s down to a quarter million dollars, if you take away his debts, and it’s over. The reason I wrote this book is because in the mid-90’s, when I was working for PBS, PBS asked me to, and I did in fact conceive and host a show on religion in America called Searching For God In America. That sent me out across the country to talk to a variety of religious leaders about what they believed and why, and one of them was a fellow by the name of Neal Maxwell, then a member of the quorum of the 12, the second highest authority in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. And I became friendly with him.

JT: Now you’re not a member of that Church?

HH: Never have been, not now, not ever, never, have no family friends in it, no family members in it, but lots of friends in it now.

JT: Okay.

HH: So it was fascinating. I didn’t know much about Mormons, didn’t know any Mormons in Northeastern Ohio growing up, didn’t know any Mormons at Harvard. Did you?

JT: I did not go to Harvard.


HH: But growing up, going to college?

JT: I think the first Mormon, I’m sure there were Mormons at Dartmouth, but I think the first Mormon I met was in a job after college. And to me, the most interesting thing, because I mean, I’m sure like you, I knew so little about it, and I still do know so little about it, but to me, the most interesting thing was that, initially, was they don’t drink even coffee. You know, that was right off the back the only thing that surprised me.

HH: Exactly, it presents a very unusual profile to someone who doesn’t know any Mormons.

JT: Or soda pop, even.

HH: And it also has a very unusual…they’ll drink soda pop that doesn’t have caffeine in it.

JT: Right, right.

HH: But they…a very unusual profile to someone who has no previous experience with them, and an extraordinarily interesting, compelling history, as I learned, as I got ready for this ’96 television series. Having that experience behind me, and having followed various Mormon stories as a result for the last ten years, when Romney began to think about running, and I follow politics obsessively, I went to my publisher, and I said there’s a book here, because the fact that a Mormon’s going to step onto the national stage will create very fundamental issues of how we approach religion in politics in America. They were skeptical, but eventually I sold them on it, and Romney freed up…

JT: Who was the publisher?

HH: Regnery-Gateway.

JT: Uh-huh.

HH: And eventually, the Romney campaign agreed to allow him to be interviewed by me extensively, and to cooperate with the…

JT: About Mormonism?

HH: About Mormonism, about him…

JT: This is interesting, because he doesn’t like talking about that on the campaign trail much.

HH: No, he doesn’t, and it took a lot of time and a lot of familiarity, and I spent hours with the guy getting to this. But I do believe he is right, and I interview people like Doris Kearns Goodwin, and Evan Thomas and others, excuse me, Jon Meacham and others, in the book, that never in history of American politics have political figures been obliged to discuss theology, or their personal religious practices beyond the very, very surface, what do you believe, what Church do you belong to. And there’s a good, solid reason behind that, and I respect and hope Romney maintains his refusal to break that tradition, simply because journalism has fractured, and goes beyond the ordinary bounds of American political discourse it established over 200 years.

JT: Now do you think, you were saying earlier in this conversation, you were intimating that because, and I don’t disagree, but because so many of the members of the media are liberal that his Mormonism is an issue, but the way I’ve seen Mormonism come out so far in the campaign have been from Evangelical supporters of Sam Brownback, the Republican Senator from Kansas running for president, and I think John McCain, I think one of his Iowa supporters, there was some e-mail forwarded by a Giuliani staffer that I actually felt too much was made of that. But I haven’t seen, I mean, I think there is always intrigue about what “new religion,” I mean, he’s the first presidential candidate, major presidential candidate since his father, I guess, who’s Mormon. Maybe I’m wrong about that, but I think that’s right. But don’t you think the questioning is coming from the right on this?

HH: No, I don’t. In fact, the most bigoted piece about his religion came from Jacob Weisberg when he wrote that he would never, under any circumstances, vote for a Mormon, and then went into an attack on the Mormon religion.

JT: Well, we basically said…I don’t disagree. I mean, he basically said that Mormonism is crazy, it’s a flim-flam, and anyone who believes it doesn’t have the right to be president, because they don’t have the judgment.

HH: That’s right, and you also had the New Republic cover article by Damon Linker. You have Kenneth Woodward, former religion editor of Newsweek, writing in the op-ed pages of the New York Times making a very similar attack. Most of these are all chronicled at Article6blog.com, and that’s article with the number 6 blog.com for your listeners. And…

JT: What is that? I mean, I know what Article VI of the Constitution is. But what is that blog?

HH: Article VI says that there shall be no religious test for public office.

JT: Right.

HH: And that’s of course…

JT: No, but what’s the blog? I’m sorry.

HH: The blog is put together by one LDS lawyer, and one Evangelical environmental consultant in Southern California, who make common cause in agreeing that this is a, the Romney candidacy has become irresistible for religious bigots to attack, and that it is not in the interests of anyone who believes in faith in the public square to participate in, or otherwise encourage. And of course, the most obvious attack on Romney’s faith has come from Al Sharpton, the biggest bigot of them all. And he’s, you know, tried to walk that dog backwards, but if you listen to the tapes…

JT: No, I know. I linked to it on my own, on my blog.

HH: And so while you’ll find people of the very far fundamentalist right saying you know, you vote for a Mormon, you’re going to hell, blah, blah, blah, and others saying much more responsible concerns, such as are we going to supercharge Mormon outreach, missionary outreach if we have a Mormon in the White House, you don’t find the naked hostility that you find on the left, in the places like I’ve just articulated, based upon the fact, not the particulars of the Mormon faith, but that Romney and Mormons believe in a God who’s not indifferent to how men and women act in this world. It’s the same kind of hostility that the same people feel towards Evangelicals. It’s all of a kind, and it’s pernicious, and it’s pervasive on the left.

JT: Right, but I mean, I’m saying…look, I don’t disagree that there is bigotry from the left. But in the campaign, I’m saying, forget the pundits or the opinion writers, in terms of…I haven’t heard any of the Democratic presidential candidates, and I’m not saying they wouldn’t, and maybe…anybody, maybe it’s just holding fire until Romney becomes the nominee, assuming he does. But the people where the stories have come out have been from his Republican opponents, staffers for them.

HH: Well, interestingly, this takes us back to the first part of our conversation. Because the Democrats have basically a wholly-owned subsidiary in the mainstream media…

JT: Oh, God.

HH: They don’t have to do it, because the mainstream media is doing it for them, and that therefore…

JT: Hugh, you would think that an article written by Jacob Weisberg in Slate is the same thing as if we’ve read from that on World News Tonight with Charles Gibson that night. I mean, what are you talking about?

HH: I am talking about an attitude and a political agenda, agenda journalism…

JT: Who?

HH: That is widely held inside of Beltway media of the center-left, that reflects the same political agenda of Hillary Clinton and Jonathan Edwards and Barack Obama, and manifests itself not because of code words or daily briefings of the sort that people have alleged talk radio get from Rove wrongly, but that because the same issues interest mainstream media, the same prejudice drive them as drive Democratic candidates, and that therefore, MSM operates as sort of a wholly-owned subsidiary that independently gets to the same place.

JT: All right, well, I mean…

HH: Not a conspiracy, a mindset.

JT: The…I don’t know…like for instance, if you would talk about ABC News, NBC News, CBS, broadcast, look, where has anti-Mormon propaganda come out? I haven’t seen any. I’ve seen people…

HH: Isn’t Jacob Weisberg the editor of Slate? Isn’t Slate owned by the Washington Post company, which also owns ABC News?

JT: No, ABC News is owned by Disney.

HH: But Slate is owned by the Washington Post company, right?

JT: I think that’s right, yeah.

HH: Okay. Is there a relationship between Slate and ABC?

JT: No.

HH: Huh, that’s interesting. I thought there was. I’m sorry about that. But I do say the Washington Post company, if the editor of your online presence is writing anti-Mormon bigotry, and is not rebuked for doing so, that tells me that it does not present an issue within that most influential of MSM organizations, doesn’t it?

JT: Washington Post?

HH: Yeah.

JT: But…look, I didn’t write the op-ed…

HH: I’m not saying that.

JT: But what you’re doing is you’re damning everybody because Jacob Weisberg wrote this, and I mean, you could…I just don’t even understand the logic. I mean…

HH: I guess we’d go back to the beginning where you brought up Vitter, and does that…

JT: Oh, God, if there’s a conversation I wish I hadn’t started, it’s…

HH: (laughing)

JT: It’s that one. I just really wanted to know what you thought of the coverage of it all, is all.

HH: Again, I believe that the extrapolation from individual events into general observations about Evangelicals and Mormons, et cetera, is pretty much common place everywhere, and I don’t even get upset about it. But when…

JT: Well, I just think…

HH: Extrapolations from individual actions on the center-left, and in particularly MSM, and if general observations about the MSM is made, you guys have heart attacks. You just go into collective kind of denial.

JT: No, I just…I think that your linkage is spurious. I mean, I just…you’re talking…Jacob Weisberg writes something for Slate, Slate is owned by the Washington Post. I mean…

HH: And I mentioned Newsweek’s editor, I mentioned the New York Times op-ed, I mentioned the New Republic cover story. It’s not like this is rare.

JT: So you interviewed an editor at Newsweek for your book, right?

HH: Yes, I did. He’s very good. He’s an expert on the founding and the American…

JT: No, Meacham is great. But I’m just saying, like, I could like…there’s a more direct connection between you and Jacob Weisberg than there is between me and Jacob Weisberg, is all I’m saying.

HH: Oh, that could be true.

JT: Like I don’t support anti-Mormon bigotry. I’m intrigued by Mormonism, because I know so little about it, and I think it’s an interesting question that a religion that is called a cult on the Christian Broadcasting Network’s website, not ABC News’ website, but the Christian Broadcasting Network’s website, that whether or not in a party where Evangelical conservatives are the base, or if not the base, a very key part of the Republican party, whether or not a Mormon can get elected.

HH: Jake, are there Mormons within ABC News in management positions?

JT: I have no idea.

HH: Have you heard in the hallways of ABC News any jokes about Mormons?

JT: No.

HH: You haven’t?

JT: No.

HH: I’m surprised by that, because when I go into CNN, there are some Mormons who work in CNN. And off the record, they tell me that there is anti-Mormon bigotry pretty much everywhere in CNN. That’s what you find out. Not terribly anti-Mormon bigotry, just sort of the old kind of canards about them, and they’re strange, they’re weird, that sort of stuff, and that it’s pervasive. It’s pervasive anywhere where a secular elite holds a dominant media position. And it’s an echo everywhere. So if you haven’t heard it, I’m glad to hear that. But I suspect it’s because you haven’t been listening. You haven’t been asking people the way I have for the last…by the way, it’s also in conservative organizations. It’s widespread. We have not yet developed an antipathy to anti-Mormon bigotry that is widespread in the way that antipathy towards anti-Semitic bigotry, or an antipathy towards anti-black bigotry…

JT: Oh, that’s clearly true. I mean, but if you look at polling numbers, or are you willing to elect a black president, a woman president, a Jew president, Mormons, it’s the most, the American people are most against.

HH: I agree. But here’s where I see the gap.

JT: That’s…you don’t have to agree or not. I mean, it’s just a poll.

HH: It’s a fact.

JT: Yeah, yeah.

HH: I think it’s Rasmussen, is the poll you’re referring to.

JT: There are a bunch of them. It’s offensive in a way.

HH: And here’s what’s going on, is that whereas mainstream media would strike down and pillory anyone who spoke an anti-black sentiment into the public airwaves, anyone who spoke an anti-Semitic sentiment into the public airwaves, they would be marginalized, and rightly so, and condemned, and not forcefully enough, in my view, because bigotry, especially religious bigotry, ends up doing what you see in the Shia-Sunni conflicts of Iraq. But when you speak anti-Mormon bigotry, you’re not only not rebuked, you’re elevated…

JT: Who?

HH: And I hold up the examples I’ve given you. Jacob Weisberg is still the editor of Slate. Kenneth Woodward was invited to write that op-ed. The New Republic was not embarrassed and ashamed to run its anti-Mormon cover story.

JT: Yeah, right.

HH: You see, that is the problem, is that the left doesn’t mind the anti-Mormon bigotry, because it’s anti-religious, and they view in it common cause with their anti-Evangelical, anti-social conservative bigotry. And it’s so obvious to those of us who perceive…

JT: I guess…and sorry to interrupt, Hugh, but I mean, I guess where I separate from you is you’re talking about a liberal magazine, a liberal website, and a liberal op-ed page, generally speaking, in terms of the New York Times. I mean, they do publish some conservatives, but generally, I think it’s fair to say the New York Times’ editorial board is liberal, and a lot of their op-eds are liberal. Those are stated, like you’re stated. I mean, they are transparent, the way you’re transparent. You seem to make the jump, then, by saying that because that happens, that that’s what everybody in the mainstream media believes or condones. Now I agree with you that anti-Mormon bigotry is alive and well in this country, and it’s not condemned the way that anti-Semitism or racism or sexism or whatever would be. But what I don’t hear you talking about is the fact that a lot of the, not taking issue with any of the criticism you’ve made of figures on the left, I don’t hear you criticizing the right.

HH: Oh, I often do on my radio show, whenever one shows up like that.

JT: No, but I’m just talking about in this conversation.

HH: I have no big name, inside the Beltway conservative who has stumbled on that. I don’t have the equivalent of a Jacob Weisberg, or a New Republic cover story, or an Atlantic Monthly profile, or a New York Times op-ed. I don’t have that equivalent. I have certainly third tier media people saying nasty anti-Mormon things, and I call them out, and I talk about it all the time. I called up my colleague on the Salem Radio Network, Mike Gallagher. I went on his show, and said Mike, you’re a bigot, stop this.

JT: Right.

HH: And so I’m happy to do that wherever I see it. But the highest levels of the center-left Beltway media elite do not know they have a problem here. They are unaware of it, just as they are unaware of their problem with agenda journalism.

JT: All right, well, can I just ask…

HH: We’re 50 minutes into this, Jake. You know, I don’t want to give you an excuse not to run it.

JT: Well, that’s the thing. I mean, I don’t even know if we’re…I’ve never done a podcast this long, so I don’t want to edit it down. But I want to ask you a couple of questions more before you feel like you’ve make your point about agenda journalism.

HH: I know, but what I really want to hear is your assurance you will not edit out the first 40 minutes of this.

JT: (laughing) I will try not to, but I don’t want to waste time talking about it. The…

HH: Jake, if that gets edited out, you will confirm all of my worst assumptions.

JT: Hugh, I really would like to ask you questions.

HH: No, but this is very important, because if, in fact…I once had this argument with my producer.

JT: I have never discussed with I-Tunes or with ABC News.com having a podcast longer than 25 minutes. I don’t even know if our, if we have the capability of doing it. I don’t want to edit it, and I wouldn’t do it for content. But I want to talk to them before I can make any promises.

HH: Jake…

JT: But please, Hugh…

HH: I just want to tell you an anecdote. I did an hour-long interview once with Oliver Stone, great interview. Many people still stop me in Hollywood about what a great interview it was. And I said to my producer afterwards, the only thing I insist that you include in this is the exchange on Iran and Afghanistan. And of course, the thing he took out was the exchange on Iran and Afghanistan, and I had to threaten to quit to get it back in.

JT: Yeah, but you’re insisting on that I keep the entire, the 40 minute segment.

HH: Yes, I am.

JT: But I think that…

HH: Then don’t run it. Here’s my deal. Either don’t run it at all, or run it as it is, because that was our agreement coming in.

JT: Hugh, can I just ask you a couple of questions? I don’t know what agreement you want to talk about. I mean, my intention is not, is to run this unfettered.

HH: Good.

JT: And my hope, I should say, not agreement, my hope is to run this unfettered, and I don’t want to edit anything out. And the only reason I would is if we can’t technically put it all up there, because it’s so long.

HH: Okay, here’s a compromise. Will you send me the CD or the transmission of the whole thing? I can run it on my radio show.


JT: I want to put…can I just ask you a couple of questions, Hugh?

HH: I mean, it’s a pretty easy question, though, Jake.

JT: I don’t have a problem with that.

HH: Great.

JT: But you know, it’s getting a little annoying, because I’m just trying to ask you some questions about your book. Again, one of the things that Mitt Romney did that I thought was interesting was when he was on Stephanopoulos’ show, and George asked him how he thought the Muslim world would react, because Romney talks a lot about a new Marshall Plan for the Muslim world, how Mitt Romney would react, how Muslims would react to Mitt Romney’s belief that the Messiah will come, and he will come to the United States, which I believe is in Mormon belief, that the Messiah will come, he’ll come to old Jerusalem, and he’ll also come, and I believe, reign over the world from Jackson County, Missouri. When he asked Romney about that, Romney said that’s not what Mormon doctrine says. Now since, and I have talked to several Mormons who say that he was fuzzing it up a little bit, because what Romney said was well, you know, that’s not what my doctrine believes. My doctrine believes what Christianity believes, which is the Messiah will come, and he’ll reign from old Jerusalem. And it’s true that the Messiah will come and reign from old Jerusalem, but it’s not true that it’s not part of Mormon doctrine that he’ll also reign from the United States from Jackson County, Missouri. Now tell me where I’m wrong, or what you think was going on, if I’m…

HH: I think it was an outrageous question. I don’t believe it was intended to elicit an answer at all about what the Muslim world consider about Mormon theology. I think it was intended to embarrass Romney on the basis of his religious beliefs. I think it was a pernicious question, one that ought to have been condemned and edited out beforehand. It would be like asking, give me a Catholic in the race right now.

JT: Giuliani.

HH: Giuliani, do you think Mary appeared at Fatima? And since Mary is not believed to have been assumed and capable of appearing by Protestants and Muslims, isn’t that going to be a problem in your election? It was pernicious. It was so out of bounds, dressed up as a question about current events, and no one at ABC News called him on it, and it was outrageous.

JT: Okay, that said, moving on, I understand that you didn’t like the question, that said…

HH: It’s not the question, it’s the attitude that doesn’t understand we don’t do this in American politics. It is an invitation to sectarian disgust. It’s an invitation…

JT: You don’t think that anybody should be asked about their religious beliefs?

HH: On a general level, yes, but there are six million American citizens, many of whom serve in the public sphere, in the military…

JT: Sure.

HH: …who are Mormons.

JT: Right.

HH: And they do not deserve to be denigrated and mocked by ABC News, which is what the Stephanopoulos question did.

JT: Now why do you think it mocks it? Why do you think it mocks Mormons?

HH: It is an attempt to let others to put into column inches a cartoon of the Mormon faith. I don’t know what they believe. I would go to the…I wouldn’t ask Mitt Romney. If I was sincerely interested in that, George Stephanopoulos ought to have gone to the LDS website and got in touch with someone like Dallin Oakes, a former federal judge, part of the Quorum of the 12 and say…

JT: No, but that is what Mormons believe. I’ve talked to Mormons about it.

HH: I would go to the Quorum of the 12 and ask them, and then I would put that up there, and I would never ask a presidential candidate. He wasn’t interested in what the Muslim world thinks about that.

JT: Okay, without getting into George or specifically, but just in general, the author of somebody who wrote a book called A Mormon In The White House does not think that the mainstream media, or anybody, I guess, should be asking questions about Mormonism to help explain what Mormonism is, if…or maybe not even if the intent is, but because it is taking out selections of religion, of a religion, in order to mock it, or in order to make it seem strange and other........

In June 2002, U.S. officials say intelligence had revealed that Zarqawi and members of al-Qaida had set up a weapons lab at Kirma, in northern Iraq, producing deadly ricin and cyanide. The Pentagon quickly drafted plans to attack the camp with cruise missiles and airstrikes and sent it to the White House, where, according to U.S. government sources, the plan was debated to death in the National Security Council.

The Pentagon drew up a second strike plan, and the White House again killed it. By then the administration had set its course for war with Iraq. “People were more obsessed with developing the coalition to overthrow Saddam than to execute the president’s policy of preemption against terrorists,” according to terrorism expert and former National Security Council member Roger Cressey.

In January 2003, the threat turned real. Police in London arrested six terror suspects and discovered a ricin lab connected to the camp in Iraq.

The Pentagon drew up still another attack plan, and for the third time, the National Security Council killed it.

Military officials insist their case for attacking Zarqawi’s operation was airtight, but the administration feared destroying the terrorist camp in Iraq could undercut its case for war against Saddam.

The United States did attack the camp at Kirma at the beginning of the war, but it was too late — Zarqawi and many of his followers were gone.

that Iraq terrorists "attacked us ... on September the 11th" This article has video.
Friday, July 13, 2007 2:21PM
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Friday, July 13, 2007 12:42PM
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Thursday, July 12, 2007 8:05PM
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Thursday, July 12, 2007 7:25PM
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Wednesday, July 11, 2007 8:03PM
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Wednesday, July 11, 2007 7:43PM
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Wednesday, July 11, 2007 6:39PM
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Wednesday, July 11, 2007 6:00PM
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Tuesday, July 10, 2007 8:08PM
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Tuesday, July 10, 2007 3:18PM
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Tuesday, July 10, 2007 2:32PM
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Monday, July 9, 2007 7:10PM
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Monday, July 9, 2007 6:09PM
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Sunday, July 8, 2007 12:52PM
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Friday, July 6, 2007 2:17PM
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Thursday, July 5, 2007 12:45PM
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Monday, July 2, 2007 5:48PM

By MICHAEL R. GORDON and JIM RUTENBERG

BAGHDAD, July 12 — In rebuffing calls to bring troops home from Iraq, President Bush on Thursday employed a stark and ominous defense. “The same folks that are bombing innocent people in Iraq,” he said, “were the ones who attacked us in America on September the 11th, and that’s why what happens in Iraq matters to the security here at home.”

It is an argument Mr. Bush has been making with frequency in the past few months, as the challenges to the continuation of the war have grown. On Thursday alone, he referred at least 30 times to Al Qaeda or its presence in Iraq.

But his references to Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, and his assertions that it is the same group that attacked the United States in 2001, have greatly oversimplified the nature of the insurgency in Iraq and its relationship with the Qaeda leadership.

There is no question that the group is one of the most dangerous in Iraq. But Mr. Bush’s critics argue that he has overstated the Qaeda connection in an attempt to exploit the same kinds of post-Sept. 11 emotions that helped him win support for the invasion in the first place.

Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia did not exist before the Sept. 11 attacks. The Sunni group thrived as a magnet for recruiting and a force for violence largely because of the American invasion of Iraq in 2003, which brought an American occupying force of more than 100,000 troops to the heart of the Middle East, and led to a Shiite-dominated government in Baghdad.

The American military and American intelligence agencies characterize Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia as a ruthless, mostly foreign-led group that is responsible for a disproportionately large share of the suicide car bomb attacks that have stoked sectarian violence. Gen. David H. Petraeus, the senior American commander in Iraq, said in an interview that he considered the group to be “the principal short-term threat to Iraq.”

But while American intelligence agencies have pointed to links between leaders of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia and the top leadership of the broader Qaeda group, the militant group is in many respects an Iraqi phenomenon. They believe the membership of the group is overwhelmingly Iraqi. Its financing is derived largely indigenously from kidnappings and other criminal activities. And many of its most ardent foes are close at home, namely the Shiite militias and the Iranians who are deemed to support them.

“The president wants to play on Al Qaeda because he thinks Americans understand the threat Al Qaeda poses,” said Bruce Riedel, an expert at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy and a former C.I.A. official. “But I don’t think he demonstrates that fighting Al Qaeda in Iraq precludes Al Qaeda from attacking America here tomorrow. Al Qaeda, both in Iraq and globally, thrives on the American occupation.”

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian who became the leader of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, came to Iraq in 2002 when Saddam Hussein was still in power, but there is no evidence that Mr. Hussein’s government provided support for Mr. Zarqawi and his followers. Mr. Zarqawi did have support from senior Qaeda leaders, American intelligence agencies believe, and his organization grew in the chaos of post-Hussein Iraq.

“There has been an intimate relationship between them from the beginning,” Mr. Riedel said of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia and the senior leaders of the broader Qaeda group.

But the precise relationship between the Al Qaeda of Osama bin Laden and other groups that claim inspiration or affiliation with it is murky and opaque. While the groups share a common ideology, the Iraq-based group has enjoyed considerable autonomy. Ayman al-Zawahri, Osama bin Laden’s top deputy, questioned Mr. Zarqawi’s strategy of organizing attacks against Shiites, according to captured materials. But Mr. Zarqawi clung to his strategy of mounting sectarian attacks in an effort to foment a civil war and make the American occupation untenable.

The precise size of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia is not known. Estimates are that it may have from a few thousand to 5,000 fighters and perhaps twice as many supporters. While the membership of the group is mostly Iraqi, the role that foreigners play is crucial.

Abu Ayyub al-Masri is an Egyptian militant who emerged as the successor of Mr. Zarqawi, who was killed near Baquba in an American airstrike last year. American military officials say that 60 to 80 foreign fighters come to Iraq each month to fight for the group, and that 80 to 90 percent of suicide attacks in Iraq have been conducted by foreign-born operatives of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia.

At first, Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia received financing from the broader Qaeda organization, American intelligence agencies have concluded. Now, however, the Iraq-based group sustains itself through kidnapping, smuggling and criminal activities and some foreign contributions.

With the Shiite militias having taken a lower profile since the troop increase began, and with Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia embarking on its own sort of countersurge, a main focus of the American military operation is to deprive the group of its strongholds in the areas surrounding Baghdad — and thus curtail its ability to carry out spectacular casualty-inducing attacks in the Iraqi capital.

The heated debate over Iraq has spilled over to Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia as well. Mr. Bush has played up the group, talking about it as if it is on a par with the perpetrators of the Sept. 11 attacks. War critics have often played down the significance of the group despite its gruesome record of suicide attacks and its widely suspected role in destroying a Shiite shrine in Samarra in February 2006 that set Iraq on the road to civil war.

Just last week, Mr. Zawahri called on Muslims to travel to Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia to carry out their fight against the Americans and appealed for Muslims to support the Islamic State in Iraq, an umbrella group that Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia has established to attract broader Sunni support.

The broader issue is whether Iraq is a central front in the war against Al Qaeda, as Mr. Bush maintains, or a distraction that has diverted the United States from focusing on the Qaeda sanctuaries in Pakistan while providing Qaeda leaders with a cause for rallying support.

Military intelligence officials said that Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia’s leaders wanted to expand their attacks to other countries. They noted that Mr. Zarqawi claimed a role in a 2005 terrorist attack in Jordan. But Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert at Georgetown University, said that if American forces were to withdraw from Iraq, the vast majority of the group’s members would likely be more focused on battling Shiite militias in the struggle for dominance in Iraq than on trying to follow the Americans home.

“Al-Masri may have more grandiose expectations, but that does not mean he could turn Al Qaeda of Iraq into a transnational terrorist entity,” he said.

<H3>Michael R. Gordon reported from Baghdad</H3>, and Jim Rutenberg from Washington.

Following up on <a href="http://salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/07/08/nyt_iraq/index.html">yesterday's post</a>, I want to return to the topic of <a href="http://nytimes.com/2007/07/08/opinion/08pubed.html">Sunday's column</a> by NYT Public Editor, Clark Hoyt, because the more one thinks about it, the more extraordinary it is. It is really a watershed moment for revealing what our media is and what role it plays.

The profound (and confessed) journalistic failures of the NYT in the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq is, without question, one of the worst scandals in that paper's history -- perhaps its worst. At exactly the time when journalistic skepticism was needed most, as our country debated whether to invade another country which had not attacked us, the Times allowed itself to be completely manipulated by the government and/or eagerly participated in its propaganda campaign, obediently reciting the government's false claims on its front pages and selling this war to its then-trusting readers.

The Times itself has been forced to acknowledge these failures and solemnly insists that it has learned, and taken to heart, the important lessons about the need for skepticism when it comes to government claims about war. Back in February, when Michael Gordon's gullible, government-reliant reports about Iran's actions in Iraq <a href="http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/02/27/blogs_media/index.html?source=rss">prompted</a> a tidal wave of blogosphere-generated (<a href="http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3042">and FAIR-generated</a>) reader complaints, then-Public Editor Byron Calame <a href="http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9804EEDF113EF936A15751C0A9619C8B63">spoke with</a> NYT Executive Editor Bill Keller about these complaints:

The situation [of the Times' reporting on Bush's claims about Iran] closely parallels the pre-war period when The Times prominently reported that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. Deeply shamed when they were not found, the paper publicly acknowledged that its coverage had been "insufficiently qualified or allowed to stand unchallenged."

Times editors clearly were mindful of the W.M.D. coverage as they pursued the Iranian weapons issue. "W.M.D. has informed everything we've done on Iran," Bill Keller, the executive editor, told me three days after the Baghdad briefing. "We don't have to tell the reporters to be as skeptical as possible. W.M.D. restored a level of skepticism."

But Hoyt's column yesterday demonstrates that exactly the opposite is true. The Times is still doing exactly what it did before the invasion of Iraq -- the activities that supposedly brought it such "shame" -- and in many cases, it is exactly the same people who are doing it.

Just consider what Hoyt's criticisms yesterday mean. These criticisms apply not only to one article, but rather, to a whole series of articles. The criticisms concern not some obscure topic or isolated special report, but rather, the single most important political and journalistic issue of this decade -- the war in Iraq and the American media's coverage of government claims about that war.

And most significantly of all, Hoyt's criticisms are grounded not in a technical violation of some petty rule or failure to adhere to some debatable journalistic custom, but rather, involve the worst journalistic sin of all: namely, a failure to treat government claims with skepticism and a willingness mindlessly to recite such claims without scrutiny. <h3>If a newspaper simply prints government claims without skepticism, what remote value does it have other than as a propaganda amplifier? None.</h3> And yet, as Hoyt's column potently demonstrates, that is exactly what the NYT is doing in Iraq -- yet again.

In light of all of this, what rational argument can be mounted in response to the claim that the NYT is simply not interested in practicing real journalism when it comes to the Bush administration's actions in Iraq, or worse, that at least some editorial factions at the Times support the war and want to prop up the administration's political case? What other explanation is possible in light of the clear, lengthy record of the newspaper?

Just consider the record of Michael Gordon -- who, I want to stress, is not personally the problem but merely the most vivid manifestation of the ills of American political journalism. Based exclusively upon what has appeared in the Times itself -- thus excluding all external criticisms of his reporting -- this is Gordon's record of shame over the last four years:

* A May 26, 2004 NYT <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/26/international/middleeast/26FTE_NOTE.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5070&en=4642eb05120749a9&ex=1184126400">Editors' Note</a> identifies several articles written or co-written by Gordon about the Bush administration's pro-war Iraq claims and says about that reporting "that it was not as rigorous as it should have been"; that the war-fueling case "was insufficiently qualified or allowed to stand unchallenged"; and the reporting was flawed because "Administration officials were allowed to hold forth at length" with virtually no challenge or dissent.

* On January 28, 2007, NYT Public Editor Byron Calame <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/28/opinion/28pubed.html?pagewanted=2&ei=5090&en=44c5c953236a6b02&ex=1327640400&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss">reports</a> that "Times editors have carefully made clear their disapproval of the expression of a personal opinion about Iraq on national television by the paper's chief military correspondent, Michael Gordon," in which Gordon expressed clear support for President Bush's "surge" plan. The Times Washington Bureau Chief, Philip Taubman, said that Gordon "stepped over the line" by admitting that he supported escalation in Iraq.

* On February 27, 2007, Calame gently though clearly <a href="http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9804EEDF113EF936A15751C0A9619C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=2">criticized</a> an article by Gordon written about the Bush administration's "saber-rattling about Iranian intervention in Iraq" (and other articles on the same topic) on the ground that (a) Gordon's article violated the paper's rules on the use of anonymous government sources; (b) the reported government claims about Iran "needed some qualification" about whether they were based on evidence or inference; (c) readers "deserved a clearer sense" of whether such a belief about the Iranian leadership's involvement in Iraqi insurgent attacks is shared by a consensus of intelligence officials (<a href="http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/02/14/bush.transcript/index.html">which, as even the President subsequently admitted, it was not</a>); and, most incriminatingly (given its obvious similarity to Gordon's pre-war failures), (d) "editors didn't make sure all conflicting views were always clearly reported" and the "story also should have noted . . . that the president's view on this point differed from the intelligence assessment given readers of [Gordon's] Feb. 10 article."

* Hoyt's column yesterday identifies a series of articles about Iraq, many written or co-written by Gordon, which "slipped into a routine of quoting the president and the military uncritically about Al Qaeda's role in Iraq," and further criticized the articles because "in using the language of the administration," these articles presented a misleading picture of Iraq.

Does anyone at the NYT really need help seeing the clear pattern here? What more does Gordon need to do in order to show how journalistically irresponsible he is, how either incapable or unwilling he is to treat Bush administration claims about the war with skepticism <h3>and do anything other than serve as an obedient vessel for pro-war government claims?</h3>

This is a disgraceful record that continuously exhibits the same journalistic sins and the same exceedingly transparent pro-war, pro-Bush bias, not just bias that Gordon harbors personally but bias which time and again permeates his "reporting." And again, this is the record as established by the Times itself. There are countless other instances where Gordon does this that do not make it into the pages of his newspaper, but which are nonetheless egregious.

And yet, the Editors of the NYT continue not only to make Gordon their featured star reporter when it comes both to Iraq and related stories about Iran, but also to approve of the same defective, corrupt journalistic methods that are his hallmark. The deficiencies in his reporting are not complex or hidden. They are all right there out in the open, easy to see. All one has to do is read Gordon's articles and it is immediately apparent that, time and again, they do nothing other than recite highly questionable and highly inflammatory claims from the military and the Bush administration, and he conveys them with no meaningful question, challenge, dissent, or qualification.

And he does this not once, but over and over. This is exactly what the NYT claims to be so ashamed of its having done prior to the war, and yet it so plainly continues to do it, four years later -- in the form of the same reporter and likely the same editors. After all, as Hoyt's column demonstrate, it is not just Gordon who is guilty of these failures. If bloggers can see it, and Hoyt sees it, isn't it safe to assume that the editors who approve of these articles see it, too? How can they not?

There is important and revealing symbolism in having these criticisms voiced in the NYT by Hoyt. As blogger and journalist Joe Gandleman, who worked briefly with Hoyt, <a href="http://themoderatevoice.com/politics/military/13938/is-the-new-mantra-al-qaeda-is-around-every-corner/">notes</a>, Hoyt has one of the most impressive resumes in modern journalism -- including his work at McClatchy, which exhibited the requisite skepticism of Bush's pre-war claims exactly at the time when the NYT, along with most of our establishment press, so notably -- and so destructively -- failed to do so.

And it bears emphasizing how obvious, basic and long-recognized are the dangers posed when journalists fail to subject government claims -- especially about war -- to real skepticism. In 1994 -- on the 30-year anniversary of the Gulf of Tonkin incident that spawned the escalation of the Vietnam war -- journalists Jeff Cohen and Norman Solomon <a href="http://fair.org/index.php?page=2261">documented</a> the role of the shoddy reporting by the American media, tragically led by the NYT, which enabled the government to perpetuate false claims about that incident:

Thirty years ago, it all seemed very clear.

"American Planes Hit North Vietnam After Second Attack on Our Destroyers; Move Taken to Halt New Aggression", announced a Washington Post headline on Aug. 5, 1964.

That same day, the front page of the New York Times reported: "President Johnson has ordered retaliatory action against gunboats and 'certain supporting facilities in North Vietnam' after renewed attacks against American destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin."

But there was no "second attack" by North Vietnam -- no "renewed attacks against American destroyers." By reporting official claims as absolute truths, American journalism opened the floodgates for the bloody Vietnam War.

A pattern took hold: continuous government lies passed on by pliant mass media...leading to over 50,000 American deaths and millions of Vietnamese casualties. . . .

An exhaustive new book, The War Within: America's Battle Over Vietnam, begins with a dramatic account of the Tonkin Gulf incidents. In an interview, author Tom Wells told us that American media "described the air strikes that Johnson launched in response as merely `tit for tat' -- when in reality they reflected plans the administration had already drawn up for gradually increasing its overt military pressure against the North."

Why such inaccurate news coverage? Wells points to the media's "almost exclusive reliance on U.S. government officials as sources of information" -- as well as "reluctance to question official pronouncements on 'national security issues.'"

Just read Hoyt's column from yesterday, along with much (though <a href="http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/02/13/africa/web.0213weapons.php">not all</a>) of the reporting on Iraq over the last year by Gordon and the NYT, and see if there is a single material difference between what happened then, what happened in 2002-2003, and what is happening now. There is none.

It is hard to imagine a bigger or more important journalistic scandal than the one highlighted yesterday by the Times Public Editor -- namely, the NYT continues, systematically, to engage in precisely the same gullible, government-worshipping reporting about Iraq that it engaged in prior to the invasion, perpetuated by some of the same reporters and approved (presumably) by some of the same editors, despite how transparent and severe are the journalistic sins. Contrary to its solemn assurances, the Times obviously has learned nothing -- or, if it has learned anything, it is consciously disregarding those lessons.

Three years after Judy Miller's departure from that paper, the newspapers's own Public Editor has scathingly pointed out what is glaringly obvious in plain sight -- the defining practices of Judy Miller (blind, uncritical trust in the government's and military's sources) continue to shape and dominate much of the paper's coverage about Iraq and issues related to Iran. Judy Miller, like Michael Gordon, was but a symbol, an extreme expression, of a rotted journalistic system still in place at the Times and most other establishment media outlets in this country.

That her co-writer and editors responsible for those profound failures continue not only to work at the Times, but to remain in charge of its war coverage using exactly the same methods that brought such shame to that paper, is as compelling evidence of the state of American journalism as one can imagine. "Judy Miller" is not just a disgraced journalist, but is also a method of journalism that extends far beyond her.