In the old days before reporters got holy—at least in their collective minds—freeloading was a perk of journalism. Tickets to sporting events, rock concerts, theme parks, free drinks and meals were accepted without a second thought given to the impropiety of sponging off politicians and other people we wrote about.

And I was as guilty, if not more so, than most news people. My freebie habit was particularly bad in the booze days when I hung out in bars frequented by an array of public officials and career scoundrels. Freeloading even overlapped my early years as a self-righteous investigative reporter. 

I still squirm recalling my acceptance of season football tickets from a Florida state representative who was an alumni of the University of Miami. In my defense, receipt of the gratuity was inadvertent. He invited me to sit in his block of 50 seats at one game. Two days after accepting the invitation, season tickets arrived in the mail. I called to return the tickets, however, he convinced me I was doing him a favor because none his friends attended games during the era that the Hurricanes were a second rate team. That was true. Only a half dozen fans occupied the seats around me. But that barely eased my conscience. Fortunately, except for the interview that prompted him to send me the tickets, he was not part of any future stories I wrote.

About the time I was sitting in Orange Bowl Stadium watching the Miami Hurricanes lose, reporters stumbled over the word “ethics” in the dictionary. And in a moment of inspiration, the word “journalism” was attached. Ever since, reporters have tried to refine the phrase to improve our craft. The phrase has made it easy to say, “no thank you,” and mean it. Most news organizations now prohibit reporters from accepting free lunches, let alone season football tickets or family passes to Disney World—a perk that I am familiar with. Twice.

If politicians abided by the same standards as journalists, it would certainly make the job more challenging for FBI agents and other lawmen. “Lead me not into temptation” is a Biblical prayer that has been forgotten by a lot of folks wearing bracelets connected to the wrists of both hands. Entrapment is the easy way of enforcing bribery statutes. 

FBI ”sting” operation in Louisiana has resulted in the recent indictments of three black Mayors in small towns along the west bank of the Mississippi River. They were offered proverbial “carrots on a stick” in the form of free tickets to football games, cash payments, expensive meals and offers of debauchery in New Orleans strip clubs.

Were the targets of the sting already predisposed to take bribes? Or were the favors orchestrated by the FBI so subtle and tempting that the officials unknowingly committed crimes? The entrapment issue is already being raised in a motion filed this week in federal court in Baton Rouge.

http://www.2theadvocate.com/news/100410409.html

Over the course of my muckraking career, I exposed law enforcement misconduct in at least eight “sting” operations. One of the most outrageous and far-reaching was the so-called Brilab case covering a half-dozen states and a waste of millions of dollars. The Brilab exposé was part of an ABC Close Up documentary I worked on in the late 1970’s.

Even more egregious than Brilab abuses was a 1990’s U.S. Customs sting operation called Exodus. It was the subject of a series of reports I did for CNN. I write about the investigation in Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger.

A Congressional staffer suggested I investigate the flagrant entrapment of two men caught in a Custom’s “sting” of arms dealing—a legal but sinister business. Agents had lured two German buyers to the United States by misrepresenting the legality of the merchandise being offered for sale. The men were secretly videotaped buying today’s equivalent of B.B. guns.

The Exodus arrests were announced with great fanfare. Then Attorney General Richard Thornburg portrayed the two indicted men as “merchants of death.” In reality, it was the first arms venture for both buyers. Neither had been in trouble with the law before. And they would avoid prison in this case. Because of the unsavory tactics of investigators in assuring them that the deal was lawful, the charges were thrown out of court. The case led me to other Exodus abuses.

One target was a retired Egyptian Air Force General hailed as a hero in his country. He was considered a close friend of the U.S. military. But after responding to an ad in a weapons magazine, he became entrapped by agents, who repeatedly vouched for the legality of the sale.  By exploiting his lack of understanding of American slang, investigators elicited incriminating statements.

“There was a lot of talking, mostly by the government,” an irate federal judge said in dismissing the charges.

Exodus was not limited to arms sales. A California electronics salesman was secretly videotaped finalizing the sale of an obsolete supercomputer to a Belgium informant―a snitch being paid a bounty for ensnaring suspects. During negotiations, he assured the seller that the computer was Paris-bound. But at a final secretly-videotaped meeting in an Orlando, Florida hotel room, the informant said the computer was actually being shipped to an embargoed Eastern European country. On camera, the salesman backed out of the deal. It was too late.

Agents stormed his hotel room at the same time he was explaining the turn of events to his lawyer in a telephone call.  Again, the arrest was portrayed at a news conference as ensuring the safety of U.S. citizens. And again, the charges were eventually dismissed.

I have no idea about the guilt or innocence of the three Mayors and other officials indicted in the recent Louisiana case. Coincidentally, one of the three Mayors was the subject of an exposé I did more than 20 years ago. Because of the time that has elapsed, he will remain nameless. Besides, I don’t recall the outcome of the mini-scandal, although I collected an Investigative Reporters and Editors citation for the story.

Maybe the guy was an easy target given his background. I don’t know. What I do know is that everytime the word “sting” creeps into a story, my skeptics antenna goes up.

My memoir, Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger, is available at amazon.com and independent bookstores. It offers much more than $19.99 worth of laughs. The book is an account of my illustrious (I choose the adjectives) career.

A recent decision by the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the Federal Communication Comission’s broadcast indecency policy. The ruling stated that FCC standards covering offensive language are “unconstitutionally vague.”

If the decision is eventually upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court, it could open the door for CNN to finally do something innovative. Take for example all the boring talking heads on the network. Instead of restrained debate when Republicans and Democrats face-off, the language could be more reflective of how political opponents really feel. Something along the lines of former Vice President Dick Cheney’s advice to Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont, “Go f–k yourself.”

HBO’s success with programs such as The Sopranos is evidence that real life language attracts viewers. And take it from me, a reporter who spent a good portion of my career covering organized crime, that is the language of mobsters. But since CNN is desperate to regain lost viewers, let’s not rely on dirty words as an attraction. Instead of blondes in short skirts, “Take it off.”

I know this seems stupid. However, my old employer is getting close to cornering the market on stupid decisions—the foremost being its effort to incrementally sink to the level of Fox “News.” The departure of Campbell Brown as a prime time anchor is indicative of CNN’s failure to sustain its legitimacy as a reliable news gathering organization. Replacing her in the time slot is a show co-anchored by a horny former New York Governor and a conservative newspaper columnist. The program should be titled, Crossfire: Part Two. For readers with short memories Crossfire was a long-running CNN screaming match between liberals and conservatives.

Before I express contempt for the new show prior to its debut, I must concede that it has potential if the network takes full advantage of Eliot Spitzer’s more perverse talents. He can book a few of his paramours from the little black book he used while serving as Governor. Please, though, avoid demonstrations of past behavior. I don’t want to see a guy prancing around wearing only black socks as was his habit in Washington D.C. hotel suites.

Hopefully, co-host Kathleen Parker will keep his libido in check. Despite her credentials as a conservative pundit, she is an outspoken feminist. Actually, her politics seem more moderate than conservative—a view that I’m certain is held by Sarah Palin. During the 2oo8 Presidential campaign, Parker wrote many unkind words about the former Governor of Alaska, such as this excerpt from a column following the infamous Katie Couric interview.

Like so many women, I’ve been pulling for Palin, wishing her the best, hoping she will perform brilliantly. I’ve also noticed that I watch her interviews with the held breath of an anxious parent, my finger poised over the mute button in case it gets too painful. Unfortunately, it often does. My cringe reflex is exhausted.

Palin filibusters. She repeats words, filling space with deadwood. Cut the verbiage and there’s not much content there. Here’s but one example of many from her interviews with Sean Hannity: “Well, there is a danger in allowing some obsessive partisanship to get into the issue that we’re talking about today. And that’s something that John McCain, too, his track record, proving that he can work both sides of the aisle, he can surpass the partisanship that must be surpassed to deal with an issue like this.”
(Note: The interview proves that Palin was never a prophet)

When Couric pointed to polls showing that the financial crisis had boosted Obama’s numbers, Palin blustered wordily: “I’m not looking at poll numbers. What I think Americans at the end of the day are going to be able to go back and look at track records and see who’s more apt to be talking about solutions and wishing for and hoping for solutions for some opportunity to change, and who’s actually done it?”

If BS were currency, Palin could bail out Wall Street herself.

The Eliot Spitzer/Kathleen Parker show begins in mid-September. I wish CNN luck in bringing back viewers. But media critics are pretty much unanimous in verdicts that the network is taking steps backward, rather than forward—especially with the pending announcement that tabloid personality Piers Morgan will replace Larry King, who is leaving one step ahead of the arrival of a hearse.

As New Yorker media critic Nancy Franklin pointed out this week, there are no easy answers to CNN’s dilemma of competing with right and left-wing lunatics like Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity and Keith Olberman. And as smart as Spitzer is by his own admission, he is probably 25 IQ points behind fellow liberal Rachel Maddow.

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/television/2010/08/02/100802crte_television_franklin?currentPage=all

I would like to think that CNN’s future is in its past. The New Yorker article reminded me of my ten years with the network when legitimate news stories were dominate. But those days may be long gone.

So I say to CNN, lets see some skin. It will help my IRA.

My memoir, Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger, is available at amazon.com and independent bookstores. It offers much more than $19.99 worth of laughs. The book is an account of my illustrious (I choose the adjectives) career.

Hot enough for you? Probably. But I’ll get to that later. First, the hot news. Oregon authorities will not pursue sexual assault allegations against Al Gore. If readers blinked while perusing the newspaper or answered the phone while watching television, there is a good chance they missed last week’s report that the District Attorney in Portland has closed the investigation.

There were a few problems with the tale by masseuse Molly Hagerty accusing the former Vice President and U.S. Senator of inappropriate conduct when she came to his hotel room in October, 2004 to administer a back rub. Haggerty told the National Enquirer that Gore wanted a frontal rub—lower and faster—and even attempted to kiss her.

The initial complaint was not filed with police until two years later. And by her lawyer. Bet you can’t guess what the attorney had in mind? Whatever the intention, the lawyer must have been sorely disappointed. Hagerty refused to cooperate with police and the case was dropped.

Four years passes before the Enquirer publishes the masseuse exposé. Relying on the supermarket tabloid’s reputation as a bastion of journalistic responsibility, the mainstream media picked up the story. Why not? The Enquirer was accurate—perhaps for the only time in its history—with the revelation that former U.S. Senator John Edwards was the daddy of a baby produced by his liaison with a woman he hired to massage his ego during the 2008 Presidential campaign.

The Enquirer denies paying Hagerty to revive the Gore allegation. If true, she was cheated. Years ago, the tabloid sent me a check, unsolicited, for answering a couple of simple questions about Jimmy Swaggart. I don’t recall cashing the check, but my memory is probably faulty. Anyway, Hagerty reportedly refused to answer the D.A.’s questions about receiving compensation in the course of the most recent Portland investigation. There are also reports that she failed a lie detector test relating to her allegation. Nor was she able to provide the D.A. with forensic evidence as promised in her earlier claims. One might conclude she was a liar trying to cash in on Gore’s celebrity.

Not surprisingly, two more masseuses have recently had “recovered memory” experiences and accused Mr. Goody Two Shoes of similar assaults. The outcome of the Hagerty investigations is a setback for them since the  mainstream media failed to pick-up their belated claims. Regardless, the bogus scandals involving Gore expose a major shortcoming of contemporary journalism.

A Google search of “Al Gore+masseuse” reveals 264,000 references. Obviously, I did not take time to look at each one. But a quick view of a few pages discloses that most deal with accusations. Only a few refer to the outcome of the Portland investigation.

In Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger, I cite a far-reaching sting operation by U.S. Customs agents as an example of the huge disparity between the beginning and end of criminal investigations and indictments.

Attorney General Richard Thornburg, U.S. Attorneys and Customs officials regularly overstated the importance of spurious arrests at news conferences during the Exodus sting operation. Journalists dutifully wrote down the names and allegations, but rarely questioned what turned out to be bogus charges. Nonetheless, the bloated cases made front page headlines. But after being tossed out of court, the verdicts were relegated to the back sections of newspapers alongside obituaries.

Worse, television reporters completely ignored the outcomes of the trials.

The Exodus cases I refer to in the book are not exceptions. Innocence is not news. The same journalistic rule applies to allegations involving public policy issues—especially in the hardball game of politics. Al Gore struck out several times trying to correct inaccuracies during his 1992 campaign as Bill Clinton’s running mate.

There were, for instance, the infamous stories accusing him of claiming to have invented the Internet. Gore never made such a claim. He did say he was a co-sponsor of legislation that facilitated the development of the Internet.

Nor did Gore exaggerate a claim that he and wife Tipper were romantic models for the best-selling novel, Love Story. According to a few rare reports that are accurate, author Erich Segal is to blame for the myth.

[A] reporter for The Nashville Tennessean who knew that Mr. Gore and the author were friends had asked if there was not a little bit of Al Gore in Oliver Barrett. Mr. Segal said yes, there was, but the reporter “just exaggerated,” Mr. Segal said. “He made it out to be the local-hero angle.”

So someone had “exaggerated,” all right, but it was a reporter for the Tennessean, not Gore.

Still, the claims linger on. Indeed, the Love Story angle was used in several recent reports about the Gore’s marital separation. In an era of lunatic birthers and the lies spread about President Obama, what can we expect? 

Although I could cite other erroneous Gore fables that have gained traction over the years, lets talk about the weather. It’s damn hot. Nearly as hot as the winter was cold. And how about floods and other strange weather phenomena. Just like Gore predicted.

However, we all know it has nothing to do with global warming. Ask the Republicans. It is a result of natural cycles. So how could Al Gore make such accurate predictions? He has no training as a TV weatherman.

I conclude he is a modern day Isaiah. Remember, the Biblical prophet faced a lot of embarrassment. It turned out, though, he had a direct line to God. Maybe God tipped Al Gore to future weather cyles.

My memoir, Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger, is available at amazon.com and independent bookstores. It offers much more than $19.99 worth of laughs. The book is an account of my illustrious (I choose the adjectives) career. 

There’s many people in the world just like our Henny-Penny,

They panic when they listen to the news,

They think the sky is falling and we’re all about to die,

I’d say they have the Henny-Penny-Blues.

The Lightnin’ Hopkins song should be adopted as the anthem of the Tea Party. “The sky is falling” iseems to be the mantra of the loudest folks at tea party demonstrations and other events. It is no wonder. Doomsday prophecies dominate the nation’s airwaves and cable news channels. And although the heaviest dose of negativism and uncivility penetrates the right ear, the left ear drum also takes a beating. Whine, bitch, complain. There seems to be no escape.

This certainly is not the best of times. Nor is it the worst of times. My IRA is proof. Unfortunately, though, our society lives on instant gratification. Patience? What the hell is that? President Obama promises a slow recovery of the economy. But he should have dealt with that problem yesterday. Worse, the President delivered on his campaign promises. Health care legislation and finance reform were passed by a Democrats in Congress, despite opposition from a party that votes no on bathroom breaks.

I recognize the contradiction in my vent. Whine, bitch, complain. But I duck when passing mirrors to avoid seeing myself as others might see me. Besides, I’m a journalist. That gives me a free pass to point fingers at other people, create conflict and act like I have good sense. These are God given journalistic privileges. If you don’t believe me, just watch television. Listen to the radio. Or—I know this is radical in the Internet age—read newspapers.

So where am I going with this rant? I’m not exactly sure where my fingers will take me. More than likely, it’s in the direction of politics, pollsters and journalists. One of the qualities I admire in Obama is his apparent tendency to ignore polls. At least, in the short-term. His knee seems to remain relatively still in the face of opposition to issues such as health reform, immigration, drilling moratoriums, etc. Unlike his predecessor who put on a flight suit to declare our victory in Iraq (some victory) Obama didn’t don a scuba outfit and dive into the Gulf of Mexico to plug the BP oil leak. Maybe he expected Louisiana Governor Smarty Pants to put his finger in the well head.  

I have no doubt that Obama reads the polls. Actually, he doesn’t need to. News reporters and pundits read them obsessively and pass along the results when questioning the President. Even if he doesn’t care that people believe he is the worst President since the one yesterday. Or the one tomorrow. Even though journalists comprising the Washington elite don’t cover a hurricanes, they still bend with the breeze—most of which is generated polls.

In a weird sort of way, Fox “News” is refreshing. Bet the readers of the blog never believed I would make such a statement. But like patients in mental asylums, Fox folks see the world differently than the norm. In my book, that is okay. It just gives me additional things to bitch about in the blog. Thirty seconds watching Glenn Beck provides enough material to last for days.

I relate to oddballs because my investigative reporting career was built on contrarianism. At times when all my colleagues were jumping on the bandwagon of conventional wisdom, I hung around to ask one more question about an issue and/or individual. One more question led to two, then three and so on. The results were often surprising. As evidence, check the journalism awards on the walls of my home office. But be sure to knock. Sometimes my hair is mussed.

In some respects, the only difference between the Fox folks and me is that I based my exposés on facts rather than politics. Sadly, facts are not much in vogue today. Especially on cable news networks. All three—I’m being generous in calling MSNBC a news network—are filled programming with talking heads. Fox provides forum for every known Republican politician. MSNBC’s format of all opinion, all the time caters to Democrats. CNN tries to play the middle ground by encouraging guests from the left and right to engae in fistfights. Instead, the conflicts are pissing matches. I fully expect CNN to raise the stakes by recruiting Jerry Springer. He could take the place of John King. 

By the way (notice that I didn’t use the shortcut btw to make me seem like I was a mod kind of guy), what’s with John King—no relation to the network’s mummy in residence, Larry King. John is CNN’s replacement for nutty Lou Dobbs. Although King the younger claims Massachussets as his birthplace, my suspicion is he was born in a taxicab on Pennsylvania Avenue outside the White House while his mother played video games. He is consumed with Presidential politics and digital devices that are designed to totally confuse viewers. I Tivo the show and use it as a cure for insomnia.

But enough of this rambling discourse. I warned you that I didn’t know where my fingers were going to take me. My dilemma now is coming up with a clever close to the post, something that relates to the title. I never attended journalsim school but I think there is supposed to be a bit of relevance between the opening and the finale.

How about this? I’ve rattled on today without any forethought given to what the hell I was going to say.

BTW (they years just peeled away), tomorrow is re-run day as I try to escape the dog days of summer by heading out of town.

My memoir, Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger, is available at amazon.com and independent bookstores. It offers much more than $19.99 worth of laughs. The book is an account of my illustrious (I choose the adjectives) career.

The release of more than 90,000 classified documents by Wikileak this week has opponents of U.S. involvement in Afghanistan peeing in their drawers. Journalists are also staining their britches. Nothing causes a reporter to get more excited than acquiring a document marked “Secret.”  Having spent three decades of my life in pursuit of secrets, I’m quite familiar with the loose bladder syndrome.

As an investigative reporter, most of the secrets I revealed were non-military—notable exceptions being my disclosures about the U.S. invasion of Panama to capture dictator Manuel Noriega, and my futile effort to uncover evidence to save the jobs of colleagues who produced a CNN segment accusing the American military of using a nerve chemical to kill enemy forces in Vietnam.

As an aside, what I found out in the aftermath of the nerve gas controversy makes interesting reading in my non-best selling memoir, Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger. (I’m getting damn good at sneaking in book plugs).

Anyway, uncovering secrets and secret documents is often a waste of time. But the sheer bulk of the Wikileak material suggests there is important information included that will shed new light on the Afghanistan war. Even so, the initial response by the Obama Administration and the Defense Department indicates much of the material is old news—information that has already been reported, or falls into the category of undocumented raw intelligence.

Regardless, the threshhold for causing controversy is low nowadays. Viral e-mail and video currently flooding the Internet is proof that proof is not required to spread to false information. Still, my guess is a thorough analysis of 90,000 classified documents will uncover a few revelations to embarrass people in both the current and past administrations.

After reading about the Wikipedia material, I decided to skim several thousand de-classified CIA documents that I acquired in my follow-up of CNN’s Vietnam nerve gas fiasco—stories stemming from a military operation called “Tailwind.”

http://www.aim.org/publications/special_reports/NewsStand06-07.html

While scanning the dated CIA material, I paused to read excerpts from a couple of documents that seemed eerily contemporary. They were cables distributed to top echelon military and diplomatic officials in April, 1968, shortly after President Lyndon Johnson announced his decision not to seek reelection.   

THE PRESIDENT SAID HE WAS SINCERE WHEN HE DECLARED IT WOULD PROBABLY BE POSSIBLE FOR THE ALLIES TO REMOVE SOME OF THEIR TROOPS BY THE END OF 1968. HE THOUGHT AT LEAST ”SEVERAL BATTALLIONS” SHOULD BE PHASED OUT AT THAT TIME AS A TOKEN INDICATION OF GVN (government of Vietnam) DETERMINATION TO PLAY A LARGER ROLE IN ITS OWN DEFENSE. 

HE (the South Vietnamese President) IS TAKING SOLACE IN THE PRESIDENT’S STATEMENT THAT THE U.S. HAS NEVER LOST A WAR AND IS NOT ABOUT TO LOSE THIS ONE.

These excerpts relate to an attempt by U.S. officials to assure the leadership of South Vietnam that the U.S. commitment to the war remained solid. In short, classifying a document as “Secret” or higher is not a testimonial to accuracy. The content is frequently propaganda. Indeed, secrets are in the eyes of the author. Consequently, much information under the label of confidentiality is relatively mundane. And plodding through stacks of classified material often raises the question, ”What is the big secret?”

Now for my secret. While serving in the Air Force many years ago in Okinawa, I was dispatched to mainland Japan as part of a two man team assigned to measure radar bomb scoring. Basically, we plotted the likely location of phantom bombs aimed at designated targets. Based on an array of factors—altitude, heading, wind drift, the point of “bombs away,” etc.—the score was calculated on a chart laminated to a flat 12-by-12 wood board. The chart was classified “Secret” because it allegedly mirrored the bombing approach to potential targets in the Soviet Union.

After 90 days on temporary duty in southern Japan, a plane was sent to return me to Okinawa’s Kadena Air Force Base. The aircraft was a B-25, which even then had been retired from strategic and/or combat use by the military (damn, I’m old). Unfortunately, the huge scoring chart was too big to fit into the bomb bay of plane. Following  after a few minutes of deep thought, everybody agreed that we throw the damn thing in the trash. Although I tried, I could not destroy the “secret” information on the chart. Thus with the acquiesence of the pilot, co-pilot and navigator—all of whom helped me haul it away—American secrets were stacked next to an air base trash pile. Given the fact that the U.S. never went to war with the Russians, I now feel comfortable revealing my secret.

I know the long ago tale is boring. I couldn’t even keep barroom pals interested in my drinking days. But in the future I promise to write about more intriguing secrets—like Elvis Presley’s income tax returns.

My memoir, Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger, is available at amazon.com and independent bookstores. It offers much more than $19.99 worth of laughs. The book is an account of my illustrious (I choose the adjectives) career.

I don’t mean to abuse the 12-Step analogy, but CNN needs some sort of treatment for its obsessive coverage of “Breaking News.” The network’s reporting of the Shirley Sharrod scandal is a classic example of overkill. By the time the weekend rolled around, CNN viewers began losing interest in Sherrod. This is unfortunate because there are facets of the story that extend beyond her heroic personal story.

Although the Sharrod debacle is largely about race and racism, the humiliation heaped on the USDA official is also about journalism. Before I take cheap shots at Fox “News,” let me point out the shortcomings of my former place of employment. CNN exploited Sherrod for more sinister reasons than taking up the banner of a wronged person. And I’m referring to something more than its hope for increasing ratings. For the people who underwrote my IRA, it was an opportunity to dump on Fox by pointing the finger of blame to the people who gave the story momentum.

The real blame, of course, falls on the shoulders of Andrew Breitbart, the right-wing rumor-monger whose fantasies are published on his Internet news sites and repeated by the lunatic fringe ad nauseam. He distributed out-of-context remarks made by in a speech to an NAACP gathering in Sherrod’s native Georgia. The African American agriculture official— daughter of a farmer murdered by white men, who were never prosecuted—told the story of how years before a poor, elderly white couple on the verge of losing their farm helped her deal with underlying racial prejudice she harbored since childhood. The Breitbart video only showed the part of her speech about Sharrod’s early attitudes toward whites.

Libel litigation is a pet peeve of mine—mainly because I had to defend myself in eight cases that I can recall. The only one settled in favor of the plaintiff was the most trivial. The Boston TV station I worked for was in the process of being sold and lawyers recommended a few thousand dollars be paid to dispose of the case. But no matter how frivolous, defending against libel is a time-consuming distraction. In Breitbart’s instance, I hope Sharrod carves a big chunk out of his derriere. Thes distribution of the video clip was clearly done maliciously without regard for truth. And he will have a hard time defending the story as being opinion, which has broader protections under libel and defamation laws.

That brings me to the subject of stupid tricks by anchors. Unfortunately, technology has not been developed to stop the lips of news anchors from flapping when they deviate from the teleprompter. In the course of CNN’s saturation coverage of Sharrod, the two most enthusiastic supporters of the Agriculture Department bureaucrat—Kyra Phillips and John Roberts—agreed that it might be time for the government to consider a crackdown on irresponsible bloggers who spread hatred.

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/alana-goodman/2010/07/23/cnn-host-calls-crackdown-bloggers-wake-sherrod-incident-something-s-g 

I’m reasonably certain that Phillips and Roberts have both heard of the First Amendment. It even protects people I don’t agree with. And like everyone else, I receive an abundance of viral e-mails filled with misinformation and/or varying levels of hate. It’s sad commentary on a segment of our society, although it is sometimes entertaining to be exposed to the ignorance of people responsible for spreading Internet rumors and speculation. But what the hell? Everybody is entitled to believe what they want to believe. And I know from talking to right-wing family members and friends that my blog posts and opinions are perceived as left-wing ranting. But writing about my version of the world is an American privilege I enjoy exercising.

It is the same privilege exercised by Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity and other escapees from the nation’s asylums. However, the line is crossed when malicious viral video is presented as legitimate news. The Breitbart segment aired on Fox “News” in the context of legitimacy (if that is even possible on the Republican Propaganda Network). Instead, the story was a personal attack on an obscure federal official in the Obama Administration.

I doubt that Fox will lose viewers because of the gaffe. Most people watching the network don’t really care about facts. The truth only confuses them. Nonetheless, the Sherrod story further revealed the close relationship between Fox and Breitbart—a marriage that had already exposed many times before.

Since Shirley Sharrod’s office is located in close proximity to CNN’s Atlanta headquarters, it was a chance to bring her into the studios and engage in crusading journalism by defending an injustice—especially her idiotic treatment by Department of Agriculture officials who asked for her resignation based on a Fox “News” story. It doesn’t get any more stupid than believing Fox. 

Anyway, I admired CNN for taking up a crusade for justice. At least until I realized that instead of restoring the kind of reporting missing from contemporary television, the network was simply using Sherrod as a way to criticize the competition.

My memoir, Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger, is available at amazon.com and independent bookstores. It offers much more than $19.99 worth of laughs. The book is an account of my illustrious (I choose the adjectives) career.

Did you hear the one about the guy who feeds 5000 people with two fish and five loaves of bread? Read all about it in Mark 6: 30-44. I know this opening line makes me sound like a religious zealot. So I will analogize by referring to a more secular character—the guy planning to provide health coverage to 32-million uninsured Americans without raising taxes on middle-class folks. Are Jesus and Obama socialists, liberals, progressives, miracle workers, or all of the above? Whatever the label, I would rather be like them than the Party of No Conscience and Compassion.

Before you criticizze, be assured that I’m certainly not comparing myself with Jesus or anyone of note. I leave those comparisons to Sarah Palin and her self-proclaimed links to William Shakespeare, who she cited as a justification for making up words like “refudiate.” My references to Jesus and Obama is a ?clever? way of arriving at the central point of this missive. I try to answer the question of how an under-educated redneck like me drifted from right to left. It has been a strange transformation and I sometimes wonder why my politics are so different from family and friends. 

In the beginning (don’t you love my use of phrases from the bible), my daddy was a “yellow dog Democrat.” The characterization stems from an old southern expression, “I’d vote for a yellow dog before I’d vote for a Republican.” However, voting for Democrats in daddy’s day was a far cry from being a “liberal.”

In Alabama where I grew up and in my family, racism was rampant. Black people were expected to stay in their place at the bottom of the economic and social ladder. My family was only a few rungs above, separated from the bottom by a class called “poor white trash.” Still, the “N” word was part of my vocabulary, as well as that of every kid in the low income projects and neighborhoods where I lived.

As I write in Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger and have mentioned in a previous blog post, my first memory of flinching at the word followed a brief encounter with Jackie Robinson.

I was thirteen years old and working as “roof boy” for the minor league Mobile Bears, retrieving foul balls that landed on top of the grandstand. A screen at the rear of the roof prevented them from going into the parking lot. Before and after games, I ran errands for players. I was paid fifty cents a night, plus tips, to watch baseball games and hang around professional athletes. It was great.

On trips north from Florida spring training in those days, major league teams played exhibition games in the cities of minor league farm clubs. The Bears were affiliated with the old Brooklyn Dodgers. And when the team bus arrived at Mobile’s Hartwell Field in 1949, I helped the Major League’s first black player carry his equipment bag to the clubhouse. When I excitedly told daddy, he was not impressed.

“Hey, Marie,” he called to mother. “Come and listen to Johnny brag about carrying a nigger’s suitcase.”  It was supposed to be a joke―a symptom of culturally ingrained Southern prejudices.

In dad’s defense, when I took up the civil rights banner years later, he bragged to friends about my support of the cause.

So what caused a radical change my in racial, societal and political attitudes? Actually, there was no sudden epiphany or single event that formed my views. Indeed, it was a gradual evolution that probably began in the military. For reasons I don’t recall, I became close friends while station in Okinawa with a young black airman from Washington D.C. In 1954, Jesse James White and I became the first mixed race roommates in our barracks. Although the military had been fully integrated for six years, we were considered oddballs—especially me, an 18 year old kid with southern redneck roots. J.J. and I didn’t hang around much outside the base, but we respected one another as equals and that was an important lesson for me.

I guess the next major step toward my enlightment occured in the early 1960’s during my tenure as a radio newsman in California at stations in the Sacramento Valley. Luckily, I have another opportunity to plug my book with an excerpt. 

I was influenced in large part by seeing societal ills first hand, such as migrant worker abuses and poverty. Nearby ghetto-like labor camps were the underbelly of agriculture. Already paid low wages, migrants were assessed outrageous rents for shacks with no running water or electricity.

I also saw first hand the gloom of farm workers in my daily stops at the Marysville Police Department. Because of the volume of arrests on skid row, a makeshift courtroom was set up inside the jail to avoid stinking up the courthouse. A judge conducted daily proceedings. He imposed sentences that were practical and compassionate. If a drunk showed symptoms of DT’s, he was sent to the county penal farm to get medical attention. If still able to navigate, he was usually cut loose after paying a small fine, which was determined by the amount of money in his pockets. Most were white male Americans, rather than blacks or Hispanics. Illegal immigration had not yet become a big issue in the country.

Simply seeing the plight of these people instilled in me a degree of compassion. I knew that they were victims of necessity and a lack of opportunity.

After leaving California in the mid-sixties to become News Director 0f a Baton Rouge radio station, my politics were already moving to the left of center. In Louisiana, I moved farther left during the civil rights era, especially after becoming a radio talk show host. For three years, race and poverty were regular topics on the show. My guests included civil rights leaders like John Lewis, then head of Voter Education Project and desciple of Martin Luther King. At the other extreme were the hate-mongers like David Duke and the late Judge Leander Perez. In addition to the talk show, I was covering civil rights, poverty and other societal ills on the street and becoming convinced of the need for radical changes in the country.

Adding an exclamation point to my political transformation was an “opportunity” to spend a year in a mostly black workplace—though it was not by choice. In 1971, my broadcast career almost ended as a result of booze. After landing on skid row in New Orleans, I was jobless and seemingly unemployable. My career was salvaged by a black programmed radio station in Baton Rouge that hired me to start its first news department.

Being a shameless self-promoter, I will add another excerpt to describe experiences that had a significant impact in shaping my politics.

It didn’t take me long at WXOK to realize that my “enlightened” understanding of discrimination was superficial at best. I had never been the victim of blatant bigotry. Nor had I experienced the humiliation of being turned away from a segregated school, public facility, or denied a job because of my skin color. I came close―an experience that was more comical than sinister.

In the course of building a news department, I had an ongoing dialogue with a black-owned syndicated news service that provided the station with national material for our newscasts. In turn, we fed Louisiana stories to the network. Since Louisiana was then a civil rights hotspot, there were plenty of stories to pass along. Indeed, my feeds became so frequent that the New York based company made a job overture.

“You realize I’m white,” I asked the recruiter. There was a long pause. I heard him take a deep breath. “Yes, of course,” he said unconvincingly. “We’ll be getting back to you real soon.” I’m still waiting.

Sadly, many young blacks faced the same wait from white-owned companies. Also disheartening was the ignorance and bigotry of friends. My barber once asked if the body odor of co-workers bothered me. Such misconceptions were deep-rooted in Baton Rouge and most parts of the South. Working at WXOK taught me lessons that I could only learn in predominately African-American surroundings.

It also helped me later on to empathize with a black high school girl I interviewed while producing a documentary on poverty in Baton Rouge. Breaking into tears, she told of missing the senior prom at her integrated school because her mother couldn’t afford a nice dress. In the same program, a teen-aged boy said his most memorable meals were leftovers momma brought home from her job as a maid at an LSU sorority house.

More tragic were the struggles of poor and elderly blacks in getting medical care. “I don’t know how I gonna breathe if the welfare don’t get me my medicine,” an asthmatic woman cried in the documentary. Six hours after the interview, she died of heart failure while waiting for a welfare worker to deliver the prescription. 

But despite my self-proclaimed empathy for those deprived of the American dream, I was a phony. My outsized ego had been severely damaged by the tumble from News Director, ace reporter and talk show host at Baton Rouge’s leading radio station to my job as WXOK’s token white boy. And instead of feeling gratitude for a career reprieve, I began fabricating an excuse for my presence at the station. I would tell former colleagues that the job was an assertion of my commitment to civil rights―foisting myself off as a self-sacrificing Peace Corps journalist.

The opportunity to promulgate the fiction presented itself at an NAACP news conference. For the first time since my failed attempt to succeed as a skid row bum I was about to come face-to-face with reporters that I had avoided since my day of reckoning. The prospect of seeing them at a Baton Rouge hotel was so unnerving that I sat in the parking lot for several minutes trying to summon the courage to go inside. Entering the lobby, I immediately ran into Louisiana’s Associated Press bureau chief, Charles Layton. He greeted me with a smile and a handshake.

“Where have you been, John?” he asked. “I haven’t seen you for awhile.” My answer was so stunning I thought it was the voice of another person.

“WJBO fired me for being a drunk,” I blurted out. “I’m working at WXOK, trying to get things back together.” Had I actually made this humbling admission to someone? I could not believe my own words. Charlie took the sting out of my confession.

“That’s great. I knew you were having problems. I hope things work out.” It was no big deal to him. Like most Baton Rouge reporters, he knew about my drinking. Acknowledging my alcoholism outside of AA meetings was an important step in maintaining sobriety. 

It was significant in seeing my deep-rooted hypocrisy and seeing myself as others saw me. For anyone who has read this far, my apologies for the length of the post. At least you will know the experiences that are the basis of my political views and opinions.

I wish I could say my rants fall within the realm of WWJD. But I’m certain that is not the case. By the same token, observing the actions of the Party of No Conscience and Compassion—aka Republicans and tea partiers—I have a strong sense they represent what Jesus would not do.   

My memoir, Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger, is available at amazon.com and independent bookstores. It offers much more than $19.99 worth of laughs. The book is an account of my illustrious (I choose the adjectives) career.

There is no getting around the fact that Bill O’Reilly must be one smart guy. Just ask him. He is a Harvard graduate with a couple of Masters Degrees, plus extensive training in the art of assholism (I know there’s no such word, but in explaining the use of the word, “refudiate,” Sarah Palin assured fans that it is okay to make up words because William Shakespeare made up words. And speaking of masterful writers, I made up assholism in my masterpiece, Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger. Indeed, I’m adding another contribution to literature by composing long parenthetical digressions).

http://popwatch.ew.com/2010/07/19/sarah-palin-refudiate/ 

Getting back to Bill O’Reilly finally, I am fascinated by his remarks regarding the influence and impact of Fox “News” on television viewers—more influential he claims than other networks.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/20/bill-oreilly-fox-news-bet_n_652477.html

O’Reilly is correct in believing that the Republican propaganda network gives viewers the news they want to hear, which is basically what he is saying. However, the comment makes me wonder if he really received a Masters in Broadcast Journalism from Boston University. After all, O’Reilly once falsely claimed that he was awarded a Peabody. If he’s telling the truth about his Masters, I want be recommending the journalism school to fledgling reporters. The role of news is to report the truth and give people information they need to know. My old employer, CNN, at least tries. But Fox fails miserably as a legitimate news organization. The network so slanted to the right that discerning truth is a formidable test for viewers—even if they cared.

I concede that Fox “News” has considerable influence on its viewers. On a regular basis, I encounter Fox folks who take the attitude of “Don’t confuse me with facts.” Some are simply too lazy to think for themselves. Others are angry, unhappy people facing economic setbacks and other difficulties they don’t understand. O’Reilly and his right-wing comrades provide viewers targets to assign blame. Primarily Democrats. 

But lets face it, monkeys in a room filled with typewriters (are any left?) will compose one word that is comprehensible. And even though God may punish me for this, I’m going to give Fox ”News,” Bill O’Reilly and Megyn (this is hard to spit out) Kelly an A+ for criticizing Bob Scheiffer, the CBS host of Face the Nation. Crazy Megyn’s point……

Attorney General Eric Holder sit downs with CBS’ “Face the Nation” host Bob Schieffer for a half hour, a one-on-one interview. And not one question about the now-infamous New Black Panther voter intimidation case….

I’m telling you one of two things happened. You tell me if I’m wrong. Number one, Schieffer doesn’t care about the story and just decided to punt on it, even though you can find facts about it on CBS.com. So, the Web site over there is doing its job, but Schieffer apparently isn’t interested in the story. Or, number two, the DOJ sent guidelines for this interview and told him you can’t ask about that.

In reality, the Black Panther case is a non-story stemming from a decision by the U.S. Department of Justice to drop a civil case regarding allegations of voter harrassment at precincts in Philadelphia during the November, 2008 Presidential election. Critics of Eric Holder—wing-nuts mostly—have accused the Attorney General of showing favoritism in cases involving African Americans. In this instance, there is no monetary value in pursuing a case against individuals without assets.

The so-called scandal has been conjured by Megyn Kelly and other Fox loonies. But it received enough publicity to a warrant question by Scheiffer during Holder’s appearance on the Sunday program. In an interview with Washington Post media columnist Howard Kurtz, Scheiffer pleaded ignorance. The veteran CBS newsman said he had been on vacation and was unaware of the Holder “scandal.” Shame on Scheiffer. Unless he was trapped in the remote jungles of Borneo fighting for his life against headhunters, he must have been in contact with the rest of the world. Most reporters maintain a casual interest in public affairs while on vacation. And besides, news shows like Face the Nation employ producers and researchers to provide questions and background. So O’Reilly wins one.

Let me tally the scorecard. He is correct that Fox distorts the news to fit an audience, wrong to suggest this is good journalism, right that Fox has influence on its viewers, wrong in believing they have good sense, correct in saying Scheiffer screwed-up, and wrong in considering the Black Panther case worthy of Scheiffer’s attention. According to my Tuscaloosa High School math skills, O’Reilly has three rights and three wrongs. That comes out to 50 percent—a miserable grade.

Hey, Bill. How the hell did you ever get into Harvard? On an assholism scholarship?  

My memoir, Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger, is available at amazon.com and independent bookstores. It offers much more than $19.99 worth of laughs. The book is an account of my illustrious (I choose the adjectives) career.