James Comey and Bret Baier Should Be Fired

So FBI Director James Comey just informed the world that there was nothing in Anthony Weiner's emails that changed Comey's assessment in July that there was nothing in Hillary Clinton's emails which warranted pursuing criminal charges.

This news is both welcome - and infuriating.  Comey's ill-advised letter last week threw a dangerous grenade into this crucial Presidential campaign.  It violated the Hatch Act.  Comey should be fired, forthwith, and he should be investigated for criminal conduct himself.

Meanwhile, though Bret Baier did nothing criminal, he should be fired, too.  He announced from his anchor position on Fox News that the FBI had enough on the Clinton Foundation to pursue criminal charges, then walked it back and apologized.

Too little, too late.  As comparison, Don Rather was forced to leave CBS News after reporting a story about George W. Bush avoiding the draft, the truth of which is unclear to this very day.  Brian Williams - who's doing a great job now on MSNBC - was forced to leave the NBC Nightly News because he exaggerated a personal story about himself, having nothing to do with any election.

Baier aggravated the already deplorable conduct of Comey.  I had nothing but praise for Baier when I was interviewed by Politico about his taking over the Special Report from Brit Hume on Fox in 2009. But his mistake this past week in such an intense and important political campaign is unacceptable.

We deserve a Presidential campaign free of FBI Directors who violate the Hatch Act, and free of anchors who seriously misreport the news.

Khizr Khan's Service to America

It's been almost two days since the conclusion of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, and the words that are still in my mind, in fact, the only words, are not from Presidents and First Ladies, not from candidates for President and Vice President, not from former Mayors and lots of other people, impassioned and eloquent and memorable as they were.   It's what Khizr Khan, his wife beside him, father of slain US-Muslim soldier Humayun Khan killed in the Iraq War, said to Donald Trump.

They've no doubt been seen by millions of people on the Internet.  They were heard by millions when Khan said them.  But here they are again - like all words for the ages, you can't read or hear them too many times:

Donald Trump, you're asking Americans to trust you with their future. Let me ask you, have you even read the United States Constitution? I will gladly lend you my copy ... Have you ever been to Arlington Cemetery? Go look at the graves of the brave patriots who died defending America -- you will see all faiths, genders and ethnicities. You have sacrificed nothing and no one.

Dan Rather said to Rachel Maddow last night that he thought those words - especially that final sentence - were the most powerful he had ever heard at any national political convention, going back to 1956.  I agree. Indeed, I think those words are more powerful and important than any great political statements in any arena - better than Lloyd Bentsen's "Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy" to Dan Quayle in the 1988 Vice Presidential debate, even better than Joseph Welch to Joe McCarthy in the 1954 Senate hearing, "At long last, have you left no sense of decency?"

What Khan said was even more important to our country and its future, and the world, because of who he is and whom he said it to.   Khan is an immigrant, and a man whose son made the ultimate sacrifice for this country, to save the soldiers around him.

And Trump is ... well ... poking holes in his positions is easier than shooting fish in a barrel.  But Khan burst Trump's balloon of bluster and hate and ignorance more fully and effectively than anyone I've seen before.  Khan's words laid bare Trump's appalling and pathetic ignorance, along with his selfishness and greed and profound inability to walk the walk.

Those words should be carved in a monument in some public place, as a response to the totalitarian impulse that has now gripped some of this nation.   And they should be kept in mind by anyone doesn't like Trump, but is thinking of staying home on Election Day, or maybe voting for a third party candidate, because they don't like Hillary Clinton much either. I think Hillary will make an excellent President and would be voting for her whoever her Republican rival.  But with Trump, and with Khizr Khan's words indelibly in my mind, I'd vote for Hillary in a heartbeat whatever my opinion of her career.

I'm Glad Brian Williams Will Be Back on Television

That's right, I'm glad Brian Williams will be back on MSNBC, where he started, rather than being exiled from news reporting and anchoring forever.

I get that he did something wrong in his braggadocio misremembering of several news events of which he was not a part.  But that wasn't as bad, as, say, the racist comments made by Imus on the radio a decade ago, or even Dan Rather's misreporting of the George W. Bush evasion-of-the-draft story, if indeed that was misreporting.  But Brian Williams' exaggerations were not a misreporting of a news story, just of his own direct involvement in it.  And although people who tell us the news should be held to a higher standard of truth-telling than the average person, it's worth noting that exaggerations of personal experiences are as common as saying you loved a popular movie when you slept through it, as in fact at least one famous movie critic was reported as frequently having done.

As for MSNBC, they can use all the help they can get.  Despite their highly intelligent and articulate anchors - especially in the evening - they've been consistently in last place in the Fox, CNN, MSNBC lineup for a while now.  They were outrightly dumb to get rid of Keith Olbermann, the most energetic, iconoclastic person ever on their air.  And the tick-like constant reference to their "Pulse" statistics - to show what their viewers are thinking - is a drag on more than one of their shows.   But whatever its problem, MSNBC will be well-served with Brian Williams and his sage, incisive, sometimes satirical analysis -- especially with the 2016 Presidential campaign already in gear, and William's astute political sense.

Rachel Maddow, the best person on MSNBC and for that matter on any news network, last night took a point of personal privilege and said how happy she was that Brian Williams was returning and being given a second chance.  I couldn't agree more. Now, if MSNBC got back Olbermann, I'd bet at least even money that they'd overtake at least CNN once again,

Olbermann to Have Nightly Show on Current TV

Glad to see this report in the Huffington Post that Keith Olbermann will soon be on Current TV with a new, nightly news and commentary show.   As I noted to a reporter at Crain's New York yesterday, in an interview about AOL's takeover of the Huffington Post, big corporations are not the best foundations for free press and broadcast media.

Although there is no direct evidence that anyone at GE or Comcast was responsible for Olbermann leaving MSNBC, or that Viacom led to Dan Rather's leaving CBS over Docugate, it certainly is reasonable to suppose that Rather would have been more respected had William Paley still been in charge at CBS, and Olbermann would have done better with a more independent MSNBC.    To be clear, I'm not necessarily against corporate acquisitions, and certainly do not want the FCC or FTC to unconstitutionally interfere with such media business, but nor should we be blind to possible adverse consequences of such mergers.

In Olbermann's case, his no-holds-barred progressive commentary will no doubt find a better home on Current TV, with Al Gore and his uncompromising support of free speech at the helm.  As Gore said to the Huffington Post, "We believe at Current that every citizen has freedom of speech, and that freedom of speech includes the ability to donate to candidates of your choice."

In other words, Olbermann is not likely to be abruptly yanked off the air, as he was a few months back on MSNBC, or leave on almost no notice, as also happened on MSNBC, both of which actions redound to MSNBC's discredit.

In other words, Olbermann on Current TV is good for our democracy.

Walter Cronkite Reaches the Cosmos

Sad but not unexpected news ... Walter Cronkite has died.

He placed first in a Gallop Poll in the 1970s ... the "most trusted man" in America. News anchors were held in a lot higher regard then than now.

He was our public companion during the momentous decade of 1960s. He told us about JFK's assassination, about Martin Luther King's. He called out the "thugs" who were shoving Dan Rather around on the floor of the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago (the thugs were convention "security"). He bore witness almost speechless with awe and wonder to our first steps on the Moon, almost 40 years ago to this day.

I thought he retired too early when he stepped down from the CBS Evening News in 1981. Dan Rather was great - but I would've liked to have seen a few more years of Walter.

Now he's stepped up to the cosmos of our memories.

Rating the News Networks in their Election Campaign Coverage

With the Fall at our doorstep, and the lecture I'm giving to my class at Fordham University about the media mistreatment of Ron Paul just a week away, I thought I'd share with you a little list I put together, which ranks the five major TV news networks on their coverage of Ron Paul as well as other presidential candidates these past six months.

Since I'm not omniscient, I may have missed some network errors and abuses. All corrections and additions are welcome in the comment section.

1. CNN: in first place. They've done nothing wrong that I know of, and get kudos for the YouTube CNN debate a few months ago, in which questions came from people who submitted videos to YouTube, rather than so-called experts in the media. CNN decided which questions to air, but this is still a real breakthrough in the democratization of media.

2. MSNBC has in general done a fine job in its reporting of Ron Paul and the other campaigns. MSNBC commentators Tucker Carlson and Pat Buchanan have been public and explicit in their support of Ron Paul. But MSNBC got off to a bit off a rough start. Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews, discussing the candidates' positions on the war after the debate of May 4, neglected to mention that Ron Paul has been systematically against the war. They both improved their reporting considerably, shortly thereafter.

3. CBS has done nothing wrong in its coverage of the current campaigns, either, as far as I know. But I put CBS in third place because of its continuing graceless treatment of Dan Rather, who was forced out of CBS after courageously reporting about George Bush's military past, in the election of 2004.

4. Now we take a sharp turn downward with Fox News. Hannity and Colmes denigrated Ron Paul's first place finish in the Fox phone-in poll conducted after the last Republican Presidential debate on Fox - the two claimed that Ron Paul's supporters were multiple-dialing. Not only was there no evidence for this, it turns out a second call from the same phone resulted in a text reply that the vote wouldn't count. O'Reilly, to his credit, did have Ron Paul on his show. But to O'Reilly's discredit, he barely gave Ron Paul a chance to get a word in edgewise.

5. ABC is in the cellar. Worse than Fox, ABC failed to mention on at least one occasion that Ron Paul came in first in its post-debate poll. It removed comments from Ron Paul supporters on its online board, and then proceeded to shut it down. ABC also showed a lone Ron Paul supporter before the Iowa caucus, in contrast to big crowds for Romney, when in fact Ron Paul had big crowds of supporters, too. Then there was Mark Levin, in ABC's radio line-up, who called upon his listeners to call up Ron Paul headquarters with advice that Ron Paul couldn't win. And, just for good measure, ABC spread some its abuse around, and cropped Dennis Kucinich out of a photo Democratic contenders.

The good news for Fox and ABC is that the election campaigns are continuing, and they can change their ways. Actually, Fox has been worse than ABC in the past month, and that may be a sign that ABC is finally seeing the error of its ways.

I'd like to see all five major news networks report the election campaigns truthfully. The American people require no less.

I'll continue to keep you posted.

Good for Dan Rather: CBS Deserves To Be Sued

A brief note of support:

Dan Rather is 100% justified in filing a 70 million-dollar lawsuit against CBS. Instead of standing by its reporter, after its own two-member panel could not say for sure that the report Rather went on the air with was false, CBS hung Rather out to dry, and in so doing damaged both his reputation and his potential for future employment.

CBS damaged its own reputation and its legacy even more.

CBS just celebrated its 80th anniversary the other day. William Paley must be turning over in his grave about CBS did to Dan Rather. His law suit is a small way of rectifyng that.