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Not a single comment from any of the duped lobs who supported this deal?
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/08/ma...guru.html?_r=1
too long to copy/paste
for the tl/dr crowd:
The White House consciously created an "echo chamber" of experts and commentators to shape the public's perception of the Iran deal: "We created an echo chamber," Rhodes told The Times' David Samuels. "They were saying things that validated what we had given them to say ... We had test drives to know who was going to be able to carry our message effectively. So we knew the tactics that worked."
Rhodes' "story" of the Iran deal began in 2013, but it was not the full story: As many foreign-policy experts have noted, Obama began negotiating with Iran at least a year before Hassan Rouhani, Iran's new "moderate" president, defeated Iran's hardliners in a landslide 2013 election. Still, Samuels wrote, "The idea that there was a new reality in Iran was politically useful to the Obama administration."
The administration "is not betting on" Iran's moderates being real reformers: "I would prefer that it turns out that Rouhani and [foreign minister] Zarif are real reformers who are going to be steering this country into the direction that I believe it can go in, because their public is educated and, in some respects, pro-American," he told Samuels. "But we are not betting on that."
Former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta is not sure Obama is still "serious" about preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon: Part of Panetta's job in holding up the nuclear deal was to assure Israel that Obama would not allow Iran to develop an atomic weapon. "Would I make that same assessment now? Probably not," he tells Samuels.
Others provided a glimpse into the administration's perception of political "experts" and the press:
- Rhodes hates Washington's foreign-policy establishment — and doesn't care if they hate him back: He refers to the foreign-policy elite, which he said includes Hillary Clinton and Robert Gates, as "the Blob," and he "gives zero [expletive] about what most people in Washington think," said Jon Favreau, the Obama campaign's former lead speechwriter.
- The White House relies on "handpicked Beltway insiders" to help the administration spread its message: These apparently include The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg and Al-Monitor's Laura Rozen.
- Rhodes thinks most of the reporters the White House has to deal with "literally know nothing": "They call us to explain to them what's happening in Moscow and Cairo," Rhodes told Samuels. "Most of the outlets are reporting on world events from Washington. The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old, and their only reporting experience consists of being around political campaigns. That's a sea change. They literally know nothing."
Not a single comment from any of the duped lobs who supported this deal?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...is-just-gross/So the piece, posted Thursday and led “The Aspiring Novelist Who Became Obama’s Foreign-Policy Guru,” is, in straightforward terms, a real talker, a success. Even if it is, as a piece of nonfiction writing, kind of gross.
The grossness emerges on several levels and on multiple occasions.
It is the knowing chumminess of a journalist finishing sentences for a White House official who is mocking other prominent Washington journalists for getting so easily spun – and then quoting himself as he finishes the sentence, even letting us know that he did so with a chuckle. (It takes a special kind of journalist to quote his own chuckle.) It is the blindness of a writer who declares that Rhodes is “not an egotist” while offering countless examples of that subject’s gargantuan self-regard, and not bothering to note the contradiction. It is letting a speechwriter colleague praise Rhodes for giving “zero [expletive] about what most people in Washington think,” when the entire exercise in which the writer, subject and source are engaged – a lengthy and access-heavy profile portraying Rhodes as the “Boy Wonder” of the Obama White House and revealing Rhodes’s contempt for the Washington foreign-policy establishment – proclaims precisely the contrary.
The grossness is also evident in the profile’s literary pretentiousness. Don DeLillo is a frequent reference point, from the first paragraph of the story, in which the horror of 9/11 becomes a convenient inflection point in the arc of Rhodes’s professional aspirations (from wannabe fiction writer to guy who wants to “try to write about international affairs”), to the bizarre exchange later when Samuels and Rhodes wonder who would best write the novel of Rhodes’s experiences. “I don’t know how you feel about Don DeLillo,” Rhodes suggests. “I love Don DeLillo,” Samuels responds.
TSA swallowed vintage bilgewater and and chides anyone who didn't for their lack of good taste.
Winehole swallowed vintage Rhodes'
White House on damage control after aide's magazine profile
WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House on Monday worked to contain the damage caused by one of President Barack Obama's closest aides, who, in a seemingly candid, behind-the-curtain magazine story, ripped the Washington press corps, boasted of creating an "echo chamber" of supporters to sell the Iran nuclear deal and appeared to dismiss long-time foreign policy hands, including Hillary Clinton, as the Blob.
Deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes' comments to The New York Times Magazine have sparked a mix of bewilderment and outrage in Washington's political and policy circles. While some marveled at a savvy White House aide's apparent eagerness to discuss what some consider the ugly sausage making of modern governing, other noted he'd kicked up a hornet's nest of a debate over whether the White House oversold the legacy-burnishing deal to curb Iran's nuclear program.
The article revived criticism of the agreement. In a statement issued Monday, Sen. John McCain, a long-time critic of the Iran pact, said the piece "provided a troubling glimpse of the White House spin machine that has put sustaining 'the narrative' above advancing the national interest."
The piece portrays Rhodes, Obama's top foreign policy speechwriter and arguably one of his most influential aides, as singularly in tune with his boss's thinking and narrowly focused on crafting a messaging machine to support it. It quotes Rhodes lamenting the ignorance of Washington reporters. ("They literally know nothing.") And it describes Rhodes, a former aspiring novelist, as focused on crafting a storyline and dismissing facts that don't fit.
Rhodes appears to try to keep secret news that Iran had seized 10 U.S. Navy sailors until after the president's State of the Union speech. The article quotes Rhodes and his aides describing how they used social media, journalists and friendly interest groups to disseminate White House-generated talking points about the Iran deal.
"We created an echo chamber," Rhodes said. "They were saying things that validated what we had given them to say."
Rhodes sought to soften the remarks on the website Medium. A post late Sunday included something of an overture to reporters he's dismissed, saying the Iran deal had been well-covered and debated. He wrote that he didn't try to dupe the press or spin Washington
"It wasn't 'spin,' It's what we believed and continue to believe, and the hallmark of the entire campaign was to push out facts," Rhodes wrote. "These were complicated issues."
Still, some experts involved in the debate said they recognized the hard sell described in the story.
David Albright, a physicist and arms control expert with the Science and International Security in Washington, said he was surprised to see a White House official "opening up this can of worms again." The intensity of the debate over the Iran deal left many in the arms control and policy world bruised, not the least because of the White House's take-no-prisoners approach, said Albright, who was briefed by the administration during the negotiations and remained neutral on the deal.
"It was, 'Are you with us or are you against us?'" Albright said, "The White House was looking for sound bites that beat the opposition, not necessarily sound bites that captured the truth of what was going on. I wish they were just putting out facts. They exaggerated and overstated to sell the deal."
Not all saw the tactics described as anything more than good public relations in the social media age.
Initial reaction to the piece within the White House was good — Rhodes last week retweeted a Twitter follower's compliments, and as the story circulated on Facebook it piled up 'likes' and glowing remarks from former White House aides.
In a sign of Rhodes' popularity and position in the White House, the piece quotes a who's who of White House figures, including chief of staff Denis McDonough, United Nations Ambassador Samantha Power, former Obama adviser David Axelrod and former CIA director and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta. National Security Adviser Susan Rice was interviewed for the piece but not quoted.
By Monday the White House was playing defense. White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters he had never heard Rhodes describe the foreign policy establishment, including Clinton, as the Blob, as the magazine describes.
Earnest has said Rhodes' concern about the timing of the disclosure of seizure of the sailors in January was primarily about the sailors' safety — not about concerns that the news would interfere with the president's speech. He said he was certain Rhodes would recast his description of the Washington press corps.
"I assure you that's not how it was intended, and based on that reaction I'm confident he would say it differently if given the chance," he said.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/whi...ile/ar-BBsOUWy
gaybait, cut and paste, repeat
Samuels advocated bombing Iran in 2009. Hardly an impartial reporter.
The fairy tale about a Rasputin-like demagogue who fooled the whole world is just that.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...-was-a-glitch/
State Department keeps saying that erased video of tough question from Fox News reporter was a ‘glitch’
I tend to believe Rhodes over exaggerated his importance and influence in the deal.
He's been thoroughly trashed by several journalists, not politically, not left/right, Dem/Repug, just his personal self-aggrandizement, hubris, bull .
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...-was-a-glitch/
State Department keeps saying that erased video of tough question from Fox News reporter was a ‘glitch’
most transparent administration ever.
State Department admits briefing footage on Iran deal intentionally deleted
The State Department, in a stunning admission, acknowledged Wednesday that an official intentionally deleted several minutes of video footage from a 2013 press briefing, where a top spokeswoman seemed to acknowledge misleading the press over the Iran nuclear deal.
“There was a deliberate request [to delete the footage] – this wasn’t a technical glitch,” State Department spokesman John Kirby said Wednesday, in admitting that an unidentified official had a video editor “excise” the segment.
The State Department had faced questions earlier this year over the block of missing tape from a December 2013 briefing. At that briefing, then-spokeswoman Jen Psaki was asked by Fox News’ James Rosen about an earlier claim that no direct, secret talks were underway between the U.S. and Iran – when, in fact, they were.
Psaki at the time seemed to admit the discrepancy, saying: “There are times where diplomacy needs privacy in order to progress. This is a good example of that.”
However, Fox News later discovered the Psaki exchange was missing from the department’s official website and its YouTube channel. Eight minutes from the briefing, including the comments on the Iran deal, were edited out and replaced with a white-flash effect.
Officials initially suggested a "glitch" occurred
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016...l?intcmp=hpbt3
gulliberals
And a bit more to chew on
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/7044e...o-funded-media
Group that helped sell Iran nuke deal also funded media
WASHINGTON (AP) — A group the White House recently identified as a key surrogate in selling the Iran nuclear deal gave National Public Radio $100,000 last year to help it report on the pact and related issues, according to the group's annual report. It also funded reporters and partnerships with other news outlets.
The Ploughshares Fund's mission is to "build a safe, secure world by developing and investing in initiatives to reduce and ultimately eliminate the world's nuclear stockpiles," one that dovetails with President Barack Obama's arms control efforts. But its behind-the-scenes role advocating for the Iran agreement got more attention this month after a candid profile of Ben Rhodes, one of the president's top foreign policy aides.
In The New York Times Magazine article, Rhodes explained how the administration worked with nongovernmental organizations, proliferation experts and even friendly reporters to build support for the seven-nation accord that curtailed Iran's nuclear activity and softened international financial penalties on Tehran.
"We created an echo chamber," said Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser, adding that "outside groups like Ploughshares" helped carry out the administration's message effectively.
The magazine piece revived Republican criticism of the Iran agreement as they suggested it was evidence of a White House spin machine misleading the American people. The administration accused opponents of trying to re-litigate the deal after failing to defeat it in congressional votes last year.
Outside groups of all stripes are increasingly giving money to news organizations for special projects or general news coverage. Most news organizations, including The Associated Press, have strict rules governing whom they can accept money from and how to protect journalistic independence.
Ploughshares' backing is more unusual, given its prominent role in the rancorous, partisan debate over the Iran deal.
The Ploughshares grant to NPR supported "national security reporting that emphasizes the themes of U.S. nuclear weapons policy and budgets, Iran's nuclear program, international nuclear security topics and U.S. policy toward nuclear security," according to Ploughshares' 2015 annual report, recently published online.
"It is common practice for foundations to fund media coverage of underreported stories," Ploughshares spokeswoman Jennifer Abrahamson said. Funding "does not influence the editorial content of their coverage in any way, nor would we want it to."
Ploughshares has funded NPR's coverage of national security since 2005, the radio network said. Ploughshares reports show at least $700,000 in funding over that time. All grant descriptions since 2010 specifically mention Iran.
"It's a valued partnership, without any conditions from Ploughshares on our specific reporting, beyond the broad issues of national and nuclear security, nuclear policy, and nonproliferation," NPR said in an emailed statement. "As with all support received, we have a rigorous editorial firewall process in place to ensure our coverage is independent and is not influenced by funders or special interests."
Republican lawmakers will have concerns nonetheless, especially as Congress supplies NPR with a small portion of its funding. Just this week, the GOP-controlled House Oversight Committee tried to summon Rhodes to a hearing en led "White House Narratives on the Iran Nuclear Deal," but he refused.
Ploughshares' links to media are "tremendously troubling," said Rep. Mike Pompeo of Kansas, an Iran-deal critic.
Pompeo told the AP he repeatedly asked NPR to be interviewed last year as a counterweight to a Democratic supporter of the agreement, Rep. Adam Schiff of California, who he said regularly appeared on the station. But NPR refused to put Pompeo on the air, he said. The station said it had no record of Pompeo's requests, and listed several prominent Republicans who were featured speaking about the deal or economic sanctions on Iran.
Another who appeared on NPR is Joseph Cirincione, Ploughshares' president. He spoke about the negotiations on air at least twice last year. The station identified Ploughshares as an NPR funder one of those times; the other time, it didn't.
Ploughshares boasts of helping to secure the deal. While success was "driven by the fearless leadership of the Obama administration and supporters in Congress," board chairwoman Mary Lloyd Estrin wrote in the annual report, "less known is the absolutely critical role that civil society played in tipping the scales towards this extraordinary policy victory."
The 33-page do ent lists the groups that Ploughshares funded last year to advance its nonproliferation agenda.
The Arms Control Association got $282,500; the Brookings Ins ution, $225,000; and the Atlantic Council, $182,500. They received money for Iran-related analysis, briefings and media outreach, and non-Iran nuclear work.
Other groups, less directly defined by their independent nuclear expertise, also secured grants.
J-Street, the liberal Jewish political action group, received $576,500 to advocate for the deal. More than $281,000 went to the National Iranian American Council.
Princeton University got $70,000 to support former Iranian ambassador and nuclear spokesman Seyed Hossein Mousavian's "analysis, publications and policymaker engagement on the range of elements involved with the negotiated settlement of Iran's nuclear program."
Ploughshares has set its sights on other media organizations, too.
In a "Cultural Strategy Report" on its website, the group outlined a broader objective of "ensuring regular and accurate coverage of nuclear issues in reputable and strategic media outlets" such as The Guardian, Salon, the Huffington Post or Pro Publica.
Previous efforts failed to generate enough coverage, it noted. These included "funding of reporters at The Nation and Mother Jones and a partnership with The Center for Public Integrity to create a national security desk." It suggested using "web videos, podcasts, photo-based stories" and other "attention-grabbing formats" for "creatively reframing the issue."
The Center for Public Integrity's CEO, Peter Bale, confirmed the grant.
"None of the funding received by Ploughshares was for coverage of the Iran deal," said Bale, whose company received $70,000. "In general, we avoided that subject because the topic did not lend itself to the type of investigative reporting the Center does."
Caitlin Graf, a spokeswoman at The Nation, said her outlet had no partnership with Ploughshares. She referred queries to The Nation Ins ute, a nonprofit associated with the magazine that seeks to strengthen the independent press and advance social justice. Taya Kitman, the ins ute's director, said Ploughshares' one-year grant supported reporting on U.S.-Iran policy, but strict editorial control was maintained.
Mother Jones' media department didn't respond to several messages seeking comment.
The AP has taken grants from nonpolitical groups and journalism foundations such as the Knight Foundation. As with all grants, "AP retains complete editorial control of the final news product, which must fully meet AP standards for independence and integrity," Standards Editor Thomas Kent said.
Repugs and Dems are identical?
Repugs, dozens of them, LIE to go to war for oil.
Dems LIE (only one guy, AFAICS) to achieve peace without nukes.
Identical?
I will push Iraq war for oil, Afghanistan botched, and the entire Middle East you assholes' noses FOREVER.
Only one guy.
name other names.Only one guy.
Your party, like the GOP, is led by them.
State Department doctored video to hide Iran deal
http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/01/politi...ml?eref=rss_us
(CNN)Part of a video of a State Department press briefing addressing secret talks between the U.S. and Iran was deliberately deleted before it was posted online, an investigation by the department's legal adviser found Wednesday.State Department spokesman John Kirby told reporters Wednesday that an unknown U.S. official made a request over the phone to delete several minutes of a December 2013 video of the exchange between reporters and a State Department spokeswoman. The State Department routinely posts on its site the briefing that it holds nearly every day with the diplomatic press corps.
Kirby said the department technician who made the edit could not recall who requested it.
The deleted portion of the video involves questions about a previous press briefing in 2012 in which then-State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland denied secret talks between the U.S. and Iran about a potential nuclear deal were taking place.
After it was revealed in December 2013 that secret talks between the U.S. and Iran actually had taken place, then-spokeswoman Jen Psaki admitted the administration lied in order to protect the secret negotiations.
Read More
Earlier this month Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes acknowledged to The New York Times that the administration was deceptive about the talks, creating a "narrative" that they did not take place.
When James Rosen of Fox News -- who asked the original questions of Psaki -- tried to refer back to the video last month, he found the exchange had been deleted.
Kirby, who originally called the deletion a "glitch," said Wednesday that he asked State Department lawyers to look into the matter after being notified about the omission.
"They learned that a specific request was made to excise that portion of the briefing. We do not know who made the request to edit the video or why it was made," Kirby said.
Another senior State Department official said the technician found the request "unusual" and consulted her supervisor before making the edit. The supervisor, who also could not remember the name of the person who called, approved the request because it came from someone "from a certain level and credibility" in the Department of Public Affairs.
"Although this person did not remember the person who called her, or the person they were calling on behalf of, she remembers it was not (Jen) Psaki," this official said. "Jen did not request it, did not know about it and had nothing to do with it."
Psaki, who now is the White House communications director, tweeted Wednesday that she was unaware of the episode: "I had no knowledge of nor would I have approved of any form of editing or cutting my briefing transcript on any subject while STATeDept."
Kirby noted that the full briefing transcript, including the exchange on Iran, had always been available on the State Department website and that the omitted video has since been replaced with a complete version that had been archived with the Defense Department.
He said that was the only instance he was aware of in which briefing videos were edited, though he couldn't be sure there weren't others. He announced a new policy Wednesday in which every video would be posted immediately with all edits disclosed.
"To my surprise, the Bureau of Public Affairs did not have in place any rules governing this type of action," he said. "Therefore, we are taking immediate steps to craft appropriate protocols on this issue, as we believe that deliberately removing a portion of the video was not and is not in keeping with the State Department's commitment to transparency and public accountability."
Because such rules weren't previously in place, Kirby said he found "no reason" to press forward with a more formal investigation.
The duped lobs go silent again.
a flawed deal, but maybe the best possible under the cir stances. not doing the deal would've left us with less leverage, and Iran with far less accountability and more incentive to pursue nukes.
no doubt Obama spun it and sold it. nature of the game, particularly with a country as irrationally disliked and feared as Iran.
Your thoughts on the state department deleting the video?
Dems tried to do something good.
Repugs do nothing but bad.
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