A Couple Bits of Truth

Funny how, when you get people talking, eventually they say something that's just INCREDIBLY truthful. My favorite filmmaker, Errol Morris, figured this out, and he basically conducts his interviews by asking as few questions as possible, getting his subjects to fill in the awkward silences by continuing to talk, and eventually drilling down to the unvarnished truth that they let slip from their unguarded mouths.

Today Israel hit a UN compound in South Lebanon, an observation post that Kofi Annan boldly claimed was apparently deliberately targeted. If that is true, it's insane and unbelievably damaging to Israel and the world. Christiane Amanpour backed Annan up on it on CNN, apparently saying (I haven't seen a transcript, so this is somewhat hearsay) that the UN post had been very nearly shelled 14 times that day and that they had spoken several times with IDF telling them to please not bomb that position.

So the press goes to our UN Ambassador, John Bolton. What does he say?

"We're obviously very sorry," Boltin[sic] said. "We're attempting to get information where we can to confirm the nature of the incident."

We? Is John Bolton the Israeli Ambassador to the UN? Did I miss something?

It's certainly one of those telling moments where a neocon tells you where his alliances are. Bolton has the interests of neoconservatism (bomb and conquer and project military might) at heart. By the way, my suspicion was right, and he WILL be up for renewal to the UN after George Voinovich signaled his support. Steve Clemons has all the details.

The other telling moment came on Tim Russert's CNBC show this weekend, his "Charlie Rose" type program where he talks to a guest for an hour. I watched it live, and this particular quote galled me:

"We got this free market, and I admit, I was speaking out in Minnesota--my hometown, in fact, and guy stood up in the audience, said, `Mr. Friedman, is there any free trade agreement you'd oppose?' I said, `No, absolutely not.' I said, `You know what, sir? I wrote a column supporting the CAFTA, the Caribbean Free Trade initiative. I didn't even know what was in it. I just knew two words: free trade."

But it took David Sirota to put it in focus:

what's truly astonishing is that Tom Friedman, the person who the media most relies on to interpret trade policy, now publicly runs around admitting he actually knows nothing at all about the trade pacts he pushes in his New York Times column. This is the equivalent of Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke bragging to an interviewer he never actually looks at economic data, or like a political "expert" admitting to not reading any political news. It is the reason why a growing number of books, such as Sen. Byron Dorgan's and mine, are exposing Friedman as the blind corporate mouthpiece he is. It is, in sum, an admission that Friedman is so out of touch and so arrogant that he thinks it is perfectly acceptable to pollute the political debate with propaganda based on facts he doesn't even bother to investigate.

Truly. There's nothing to add to that. Sirota nails him, and nails him hard.