Notes on “Stonewalled,” part 1

[Valin]

Power Line:

Scott Johnson

January 5, 2015

 

Over the weekend I read Sharyl Attkisson’s book Stonewalled: My Fight for Truth Against the Forces of Obstruction, Intimidation, and Harassment in Obama’s Washington from cover to cover. I read it in preparation for a brief interview we are scheduled to record with Attkisson for the next Power Line podcast. I would like to share notes, thoughts and excerpts in a series of posts, of which this is the first.

 

(Snip)

• Attkisson is an outstanding investigative reporter reporter and Stonewalled is a gripping book. To use the cliche, I couldn’t put it down. (Sorry.) I rate it among the five most important books for conservatives published in 2014. It deserves your attention and repays it with increased understanding of the scandals that have characterized the Obama administration: Fast & Furious, green energy crony capitalism, Benghazi, and Obamacare (she reports on the website fiasco). Attkisson reported on each of these scandals and devotes a chapter to her work on each one.
• Each chapter combines Attkisson’s reporting with her experiences working on the story against the forces of the Obama administration. The book is thus part memoir and part reportage. It inevitably recalls All the President’s Men and the work of Woodward and Bernstein on Watergate. Attkisson’s book lacks the unity of All the President’s Men but is a more trustworthy and useful source.

(Snip)

 

 

I want to leave you with a stray paragraph from the book:

 

 

During the 2012 presidential campaign, Obama Treasury secretary Timothy Geithner was afforded the chance to meet with and spin network news managers off camera. According to those who attended, Geithner pretty much blamed all of the nation’s economic troubles on–the drought. His analysis became a basis for subsequent CBS Evening News story decisions that advanced the drought theory of economic weakness, helpfully pinpointing a factor outside the president’s control and, therefore, one for which he could not be blamed. Naturally, this advanced Obama’s case rather than that of his Republican opponent, Mitt Romney.

 

[Valin]

Notes on “Stonewalled,” part 2

Scott Johnson

January 6, 2015

 

Reading Sharyl Attkisson’s Stonewalled from cover to cover over the weekend, I flipped over the book. In this post I’m continuing to post notes on the book to amplify the (insufficient) attention it has received so far. Part 1 is posted here; our interview with Sharyl Attkisson, recorded yesterday, is posted here.

 

Attkisson organizes the book around the Obama administration scandals she covered at CBS News, and she covered just about all of them with the exception of the IRS scandal. Each of the scandals falls into a larger pattern of scandal management practiced by the Obama administration. The book is great at providing the details of the pattern. Without her saying anything about it, the reader can see how the IRS scandal fits the pattern precisely, to a T. This is one respect in which her book is invaluable, combining her reportage with her work behind the scenes inside CBS News.

 

What is the pattern? False denials (bald lies) and stonewalling. Attribution of responsibility to the lowest level of bureaucrat when that fails. Rather than responding to straightforward inquiries, administration spokesmen pump reporters for the information they have so they can undermine it. (Attkisson calls this technique “pump and mine.”) Slanted leaks to friendly bloggers and reporters. Characterization of advances in the story as “old news.”

 

Disparagement of sources and reporters advancing the story via friendly bloggers and reporters. (Attkisson calls this technique “controversialization.”) Attkisson has been a prime subject of the technique of controversialization. She is speaking from personal experience recounted in the book. Attkisson singles out Media Matters as the prime mover of administration spin into the mainstream media. As Attkisson demonstrates, however, MM’s power derives from the complicity and cooperation of MM’s media allies, i.e., the Obama administration’s media allies.

 

(Snip)

[Valin]

Notes on Stonewalled, part 3

Scott Johnson

January 7, 2015

 

This concludes my series of posts on Sharyl Attkissons important new book, Stonewalled: My Fight for Truth Against the Forces of Obstruction, Intimidation, and Harassment in Obamas Washington. Part 1 is here; part 2 is here. We recorded an interview with Attkisson about the book early Monday afternoon; the interview is posted here.

 

Attkisson bookends her accounts of the Obama administration scandals she has covered with the story of what appear to be coordinated intrustions into her her telephones and computers. She begins the book with this story and she devotes the penultimate chapter of the book (Chapter 6: I Spy) to it. The concluding chapter recounts her departure from CBS News as a result of her frustrations with news management.

 

Shes working on the Benhgazi story when she is advised by a friendly source connected to a three-letter agency that the administration is likely monitoring youbased on your reporting. In fact, shes had troubles with her phones and computers; they have been behaving oddly. In addition to Benghazi, she says, she now has a new mystery to unravel.

 

(Snip)

 

The Department of Justice has issued two statements on Attkissons case. In response to Attkissons first public mention of her experience, in the course of a radio interview, the Department of Justice issues this statement (page 303): To our knowledge, the Justice Department has never compromised Ms. Attkissons computers, or otherwise sought any information from or concerning any telephone, computer, or other media device she may own or use. I should note here that the FBI falls under the jurisdiction of the Department of Justice.

 

To our knowledgesays the Justice Departments quasi-denial. Who is the we encompassed in our, Attkisson asks. The entire Justice Department? Did officials really, in the blink of an eye, conduct an investigation and question 113,543 Justice Department employees? Thats impressive! Im still waiting for answers to Freedom of Information Act requests that I filed with them years ago, but theyre able to provide this semi-definitive statement within minutes of the question being posed.

 

(Snip)

 

Attkisson deftly articulates one of the bona fide occupational qualifications for service as a spokesman in the Obama administration. Referring specifically to HHS spokesman Joanne Peters, who is perfectly representative in this respect, Attkisson writes (page 267): It takes a certain kind of person to be untruthful and then display utter lack of contrition when caught. (Attkisson had caught Peters lying to her.)

 

I cant help but note Attkissons sidelong glance at Rathergate (pages 366-368). A senior producer tells Attkisson of the then upcoming 60 Minutes II story on President Bush and shows her the supposedly typewritten documents on which the story is based; he tells her she may have to follow up on the story. Attkisson takes a look at the documents and tells the producer: These look like they were typed by my daughter on a computer yesterday. Attkisson notes parenthetically: My daughter was nine at the time. When ordered to cover the story the following week, while CBS was still sticking with it, Attkisson refused. She tells her senior producer: I cant report a story that says something I know to be false. And if you make me, Ill have to call my lawyer. Attkisson concludes: Nobody ever again suggested that I report on Rathergate.

 

Thanks for sticking with me through this series.

[Valin]

Steadfast (non-denial) denials

Scott Johnson

January 9, 2015

 

Sharyl Attkisson filed her lawsuit against the Department of Justice et al. on Monday. She spoke briefly with us about it in the interview with her that we posted here on Monday afternoon.

 

The lawsuit alleges the violation of Attkisson’s civil rights as a result of the illegal electronic monitoring and surveillance of her home and business computers and phones from 2011 to 2013. Attkisson tells the story behind the lawsuit in her memoir cum exposé Stonewalled. The press release posted on her site briefly explains:

 

(Snip)

 

The Department of Justice promptly issued the statement in response to Attkisson’s initial disclosure of her experience in the course of a radio interview in the spring of 2013. Attkisson addresses the statement in her book. She is not swayed by it; she characterizes it as a “quasi-denial.” In Watergate, we became familiar with the non-denial denial (a locution credited to the Washington Post’s Ben Bradlee); the Department of Justice statement reads like a variant.

 

“To our knowledge…says the Justice Department’s quasi-denial,” she writes. Who is the “we” encompassed in “our,” she asks. “The entire Justice Department? Did officials really, in the blink of an eye, conduct an investigation and question 113,543 Justice Department employees? That’s impressive! I’m still waiting for answers to Freedom of Information Act requests that I filed with them years ago, but they’re able to provide this semi-definitive statement within minutes of the question being posed.”

 

(Snip)