The Growing Battle for the Right to Water

At AlterNet.org, Tara Lohan writes:

From Chile to the Philippines to South Africa to her home country of Canada, Maude Barlow is one of a few people who truly understands the scope of the world's water woes. Her newest book, Blue Covenant: The Global Water Crisis and the Coming Battle for the Right to Water, details her discoveries around the globe about our diminishing water resources, the increasing privatization trend and the grassroots groups that are fighting back against corporate theft, government mismanagement and a changing climate.

If you want to know where the water is running low (including 36 U.S. states), why we haven't been able to protect it and what we can do to ensure everyone has the right to water, Barlow's book is an essential read. It is part science, part policy and part impassioned call. And the information in Blue Covenant couldn't come from a more reliable source. Barlow is the national chairperson of the Council of Canadians and co-founder of the Blue Planet Project, which is instrumental in the international community in working for the right to water for all people. She also authored Blue Gold: The Fight to Stop Corporate Theft of the World's Water with Tony Clarke. And she's the recipient of the Right Livelihood Award (known as the "Alternative Nobel") for her global water justice work.

She took a moment to talk to AlterNet in between the Canadian and U.S. legs of a book tour for Blue Covenant:

Tara Lohan: This year in the U.S. there has been a whole lot press about the drought in Atlanta and the Southeast, and I think for a lot of people in the U.S. it is the first they are hearing about drought, but the crisis here in North America is really pretty extreme isn't it?

Maude Barlow: It really is, and it kind of surprises me when I hear people, for instance in Atlanta say, "We didn't know it was coming." I don't know how that could be possible, and I do have to say that I blame our political leaders. I don't understand how they could not have been reading what I've been reading and what anyone who is watching this has been reading.

I remember attending a conference in Boise, Idaho, three years ago and hearing a lot of scientists get up and say, "Read my lips, this isn't a drought, this is permanent drying out." We are overpumping the Ogallala, Lake Powell and Lake Meade. The back up systems are now being depleted. This is by no means a drought ...

The thing that I'm trying to establish with the first chapter, which is called "Where Has All the Water Gone," is that what we learned in grade five about the hydrologic cycle being a closed, fixed cycle that could never be interrupted and could never go anywhere, is not true. They weren't lying to us, but they weren't aware of the human capacity to destroy it, and the reality is that we've interrupted the hydrologic cycle in many parts of the world and the American Southwest is one of them.

TL: How is this happening?

MB: By farming in deserts and taking up water from aquifers or watersheds. Or by urbanizing -- massive urbanization causes the hydrologic cycle to not function correctly because rain needs to fall back on green stuff -- vegetation and grass -- so that the process can repeat itself. Or we are sending huge amounts of water from large watersheds to megacities and some of them are 10 to 20 million people, and if those cities are on the ocean, some of that water gets dumped into the ocean. It is not returned to the cycle.

We are massively polluting surface water, so that the water may be there, but we can't use it. And we are also mining groundwater faster than it can be replenished by nature, which means we are not allowing the cycle to renew itself. The Ogallala aquifer is one example of massive overpumping. There are bore wells in the Lake Michigan shore that go as deep into the ground as Chicago skyscrapers go into the ground and they are sucking groundwater that should be feeding the lake so hard that they are pulling up lake water now, and they are reversing the flow of water in Lake Michigan for the first time.

We are interrupting the natural cycle. And another thing we are doing is something called virtual water trade. That is where you send water out of the watershed in the form of products or agriculture. You've used the water to produce something and then you export it, and about 20 percent of water used in the world is exported out of watershed in this way, because so much of our economy is about export. In the U.S. you are sending about one-third of your water out of watersheds -- it is not sustainable.

This is not a cyclical drought. We are actually creating hot stains, as I and some scientists call them, around the world. These are parts of the world that are running out of water and will be, or are, in crisis. Which means that millions more people will be without water. I argue that this is one of the causes of global warming. We usually hear water being a result of climate change, and it is, particularly with the melting of the glaciers. But our abuse, mismanagement and treatment of water is actually one of the causes, and we have not placed that analysis at the center of our thinking about climate change and environmental destruction, and until we do, we are only addressing half the question.

I do blame in a very big way, the political leadership in most of our countries for having failed to heed the call of scientists and ecologists and water managers who've been telling us for years now there is a crisis coming -- there are 36 states in the U.S. in some form of water stress, from serious to severe. Thirty-six states! Most Americans don't know this -- why is this not part of people's everyday concerns? That is what I'm hoping this book will help do.

TL: Do you think governments, like the U.S. or Canada, have any kind of a contingency plan?

MB: No. There are people in the U.S. who believe Canada is the contingency plant. Or Northeast water or Alaska water. So, moving water is one of the contingency plans, likely by pipeline. You could also ship it by tanker. Other than that, no. And not only are there no backup plans, but there is not even an understanding that you've got to stop increasing the demand on water. In the U.S., people are moving into the very area of the country that has no water -- a huge migration is taking place to to the American Southwest where they're building more golf courses.

I just read about a new water theme park in Arizona that will have waves so big you can have serious surfers, like real surfing in the desert. There is just this lack of understanding about how nature works, how the hydrologic cycle needs to be protected and how watersheds need to be protected, and when you start playing god by moving this stuff around like this we are just creating this massive crisis. There is not enough water for the demands being made on it in the American Southwest.

TL: You said 36 states in the U.S. are water stressed -- what does that actually mean for the people who live there?

MB: Well, in a dire case, literally running out of water. In many other cases, the predictions are that the demand will increase seriously and they've got to start planning. I quote in the book that the demand in Florida is growing so much and overpumping is happening so much that there are actually sink holes opening up and swallowing homes and streets and sometimes whole shopping centers. It is called subsidence. Mexico City is sinking in on itself because all the water under the city has been taken out and now they are going farther afield pumping water.

It can go from that kind of crisis, or as in some communities in the Midwest, you face having no water to the Chicago area, where the demand is going to grow hugely, and therefore the demand will be on the Great Lakes, which are already in trouble. There are four trillion liters taken out of the Great Lakes every single day and believe me, nature is not putting a trillion gallons back in. It is not rocket science that we are not allowing nature to refill and replenish. And now there are new demands on the Great Lakes because communities and industries off the basin are now demanding access to it.

TL: You mentioned global warming earlier, and I just want to come back to that for a moment. Are we approaching climate change in the wrong way by not recognizing its connection to water?

MB: Yes.

TL: So what should we be doing?

MB: Well, we have to put it into the equation. I've found that some politicians are actually using global warming as an excuse not to do anything, and I'll give you an example. It is the polar opposite of the Bush administration, which is that global warming doesn't exist. In Australia, which thankfully has gone through a government change, they are disengaging the water from the countryside and letting farmers sell it through brokers, they are disrupting streams and aquifers. They are draining the wetlands. They are privatizing. They are doing all sorts of things wrong, including overusing and polluting it, and so on. And what did the prime minister say? "It's got nothing to do with anything we're doing; it's global warming, and it blew here from away -- we didn't even create it."

I think global warming is becoming a little bit of a catch all for some governments to do nothing or to put off a solution to other things until they find a solution to global warming, and there is no excuse. Right now we have got to stop the abuse of water. The single most important thing that we can do for global warming, aside from stopping the overpumping of greenhouse gas emissions, but the twin to that is to retain water in watersheds. Because the hydrologic cycle is what cools the temperature.

Global warming can be averted through a great extent if we could maintain watersheds and maintain the cycle in its purest form. That means keeping green spaces, building green rings around urban centers -- everything from parks and gardens -- stop polluting, stop overmining groundwater and retain water in watersheds, which means we have to live more sustainably, we have to grow our food differently, we have to stop believing in unlimited growth and more stuff and more competition, and all of that.

I find that global warming is such a crisis that we won't do anything on any other front because all our attention is going there. I think we are terribly missing the boat on this, and I'm very interested in getting a debate going on this in the climate-change community so that when people are talking about the causes of climate change, our drying up of the earth from below will be considered as serious a cause as the trapping of heat from greenhouse gas emissions. It is not only part of the analysis we are missing, but part of the solution.

TL: That is interesting. I haven't heard a lot of people talking about it from that angle.

MB: Nobody.

I'm working with a group of scientists in Slovakia and a few other places, voices in the wilderness, but when you start putting it together, honestly, it makes such sense. I mean if you start to look at the growth of deserts -- in the last 30 years we've doubled the growth of deserts in the world, and it will double again in 20 years. Well, if you are creating deserts and you've got heat rising from the earth with urban heat islands, the inability for the hydrologic cycle to be maintained because of urbanization, it makes a lot of sense. Of course that is all exacerbated by melting glaciers and the lowering of the ice packs, which protects from evaporation. It is kind of a deadly combination. I spoke at a conference about this recently in London, England, and was received by people from the climate change world, really, really well, and I thought "This is a good sign."

TL: You spent a lot of time in this book, and also in Blue Gold, talking about privatization. Can you talk a little about why we should be concerned about it?

MB: Well, as water dwindles in the world and available fresh water is becoming more scarce, the demand is growing, water is becoming a commodity, it is becoming valuable to those who want to put a price on it, which is why I called the first book Blue Gold. And this blue gold is attracting private sector interest in many, many ways, and there is a private sector interest coming together to control every level of water, from when we take it out of the ground, bottle it, to how we deliver it, to wastewater treatment, and now the biggest and newest is water reuse and recycling. That sounds benign at first, but when you really start to look at it, really it is about big, big corporations like GE, Dow Chemical, Proctor & Gamble getting into the ownership, control, and recycling of dirty water, which because there are billions of dollars at stake, in my opinion, becomes a disincentive to protect source water. And you can start to understand why governments, in collusion with these companies, are starting to spend millions of dollars on cleanup technology but will not enforce rules to stop pollution in the first place.

And then we have desalination. There are 30 desal plants planned for California alone. They are now talking about nuclear-powered desalination. They are talking about building those plants as we speak. The people in the anti-nuclear movement had better dust off and come back because it is all coming back with desalination. And then there is nanotechnology, which they want to be totally deregulated. I've got a great quote in the book where this guy says, "We are going to do to water what we did to telecommunications in the 1990s," which is total deregulation. They want governments out of the business of water.

I have a whole section in the book on how water has become such a hot commodity. When I wrote Blue Gold there was no water being exchanged on the Stock Exchange, now there are over a dozen indexes just for trading water. It has become a multi-multibillion-dollar industry just overnight. A lot of it is this water reuse -- it is the fast-growing section of the water industry. I argue that there is a race going on over who's going to control water, whether it will be seen as a public commons, a public trust, and part of our collective heritage that also belongs to the earth -- or whether it will be controlled by private corporations, and I don't know who will win.

TL: But it is not all bad news.

MB: No, we are making good inroads in the bottled water area -- a lot of universities, high schools, are having drives to reject bottled water. We're getting restaurants now taking the challenge up to not serve bottled water, and we're getting people to take a pledge not to drink bottled water.

There has been a huge fight back from the big utility companies, particularly in the global south, to the extent that Suez has basically announced it is going to leave Latin America because people are so furious with them, which has been the result of fabulous grass-roots activism. So, it is not that this is a done deal, but most of the our governments are supportive of these private-sector incursions.

It is all about technology and not about lifestyle and alternative ways and decreasing growth and stuff -- they are saying we are not going to challenge the model, it is unlimited growth, continued competition, continued economical globalization, continued privatization, continued deregulation -- we'll just continue to find ways to clean up the mess as we go along.

TL: Water is not just an environmental issue, but a national security issue, you discovered with this book.

MB: Yes, water has become an issue of national security in the U.S. Six years ago I couldn't find any inkling at the national level -- the Pentagon or White House -- of a coming water crisis, either globally or in the U.S. But in the last, two to three years, this has been hugely changed. There is now a consortium advising the Bush administration and the Pentagon -- it is called Global Water Futures. It is made up of this think tank called the Center for International Studies and Sandia Laboratories. Then I dug deeper and found it is being contracted out to be run by Lockheed Martin. And this consortium involves Coke and Proctor & Gamble and others. So you finally have the U.S. government saying, "Holy crap, we're in trouble here, you can't be a super power if you don't have energy and water." Now they've got this advisory body that not only has this think tank and the corporate side too, and the high technology side, and the military side. It becomes very clear what you are dealing with.

TL: Can you talk more about the grass-roots resistance to all of this?

MB: The thing that is so stunning, especially in the global south, is that when you are dealing with water, you are dealing with life and death. For a lot of people it is like, "Well, we didn't know what to do when they privatized our education or shut down our public hospitals -- but water is different." They are willing to go the wall for it -- as one person said to me, "You may as well kill me with a bullet as dirty water." People just take a stand and are determined they are not going to compromise.

We took the time as a movement ... whenever anybody always asks me how to build a campaign, I always include these steps. We took the time to find language that we all jointly agreed on -- that water is not a commodity, that it belongs to the earth and all species, it is a public trust and human right, and so on. We've taken the time to work this out so that if you ask any of us around the world, you are going to hear the same kind of language. There is a trust that we have built in this shared philosophy and shared vision.

TL: How is it that you've managed to create such as worldwide message and come together?

MB: Part of the origin was when I wrote a report for the International Forum on Globalization back in 1999. It was called Blue Gold: The Global Water Crisis and the Commodification of the World's Water Supply. It took off, and a bunch of people from around the world started reading it. We got it translated into many, many languages, and I started hearing from people saying, "I thought this was personal and we were fighting this particular company in our community, and we didn't know that this was a global fight."

So, to my knowledge, that was the first analysis, and that morphed into the book. I started traveling and meeting people and Food & Water Watch got set up in the U.S. And then there was meeting people in Europe who were fighting big water companies, coming together at the big World Water Forum and bringing folks together from the global south to challenge what we call the "lords of water." And, of course, technology has been incredible. You don't have to have a computer in every house -- you just have to have somebody on the other end who has the capacity to receive this information.

TL: What else do we need to be doing?

MB: We need laws. Martin Luther King Jr. said, "Legislation won't change the heart, but it will restrain the heartless." We need legislation at every level of our government. It is all well for grass-roots people to do all their wonderful work -- but they shouldn't have to do all the work. We need laws at every level, from municipal up to state to national to international, that protect water ecologically on one hand and protect the notion of a human right and right of the earth, and not a commodity, and that is so fundamental.

That is why I call the book "blue covenant" -- we need a covenant of three parts -- from humans to the earth to stop destroying the lifeblood of the earth, from the rich to the poor (global north to the south) for water justice, not charity -- justice. Water should be a fundamental right for all generations, and no one should be allowed to sell it for profit. We want this right up to the United Nations. It is a struggle at every level. But we just keep going. The fight back around the world is claiming space, but we have to have the weight of law behind us. We have to make, as a society, decisions about what matters. And if we believe that people shouldn't die because they can't afford water, then we have to bring things to bear to make that happen -- we have to change things. If the World Bank has money to give to Suez or Veolia, they've got the money to give to a public agency.

TL: So are you hopeful we can move change in the right direction?

MB: I'm always hopeful -- it is part of my job. I consider hope to be a moral imperative, and I also don't think you have any right to go around alarming people with these facts unless you are also prepared to talk about what needs to be done, and success stories, and be hopeful. I am very very hopeful that we can collectively do this.

If I'm worried -- it is about the exponential abuse of water -- can we catch this and stop it fast enough?

List of stops and dates for Barlow's book tour.

Q&A with FCC Commissioner Michael Copps

Michael Copps, who is in his second term on the Federal Communications Commission,
is in Seattle, with the other four commissioners, for the final FCC media ownership hearing at 4 p.m. Friday at Town Hall. Copps has been a voice against media concentration since being named to the commission in 2001. He answers questions from the Seattle Times' readers.

Q: Commissioner Copps, thanks for your very important stance against media concentration exclusively in the hands of a few. -- Just a question and a couple of comments. Do you think it is in the public interest for the FCC to silently
consent to the Hearst Corp. gobbling up ownership interest of numerous radio and TV
stations in the same media market? If not, what can the average citizen do?

Is it better to write FCC Chair Kevin Martin or should we be really writing our Senators & Congresspersons? Do we have to cite specific examples of anti-competitive practices used by these mega-owners?

In case you're keeping tally, I'll share with you the feelings of people on my block in Wallingford and nearby Fremont. We need independent radio, independent newspapers and independent local stations to keep America vibrant! Many of us who are age 30 & above REMEMBER the days before TV and newspaper consolidation. The FCC, all the way through the Clinton era under the wonderful leadership of FCC Chair Reed Hundt, protected a media marketplace where there was and could be a variety of views and opinions. The FCC guarded the "public interest" from monopolization and collusion with rules that limited media ownership. Then, the radical right took over the White House and used their FCC appointments to dismantle ownership rules. As a result, we are blasted Rupert's views and political agenda through the New York Post, on FOX TV and Fox Cable. News Corp just bought the internet portal MySpace and have recently gobbled up the Wall Street Journal.

Murdoch's News Corp & others like Hearst leverage market power to offer advertising deals that underbid market competitors. There are MANY examples of those outlets
underselling competitors because they can afford to absorb reduced rates and their mom and pop competitors cannot.

Seattle is already a one-paper town, and that's a paper owned by the Hearst mega-corporation. The corporations have little regard for localism and for a diversity of views.

A: I've been reading the Seattle Times coverage of tonight's hearing, and it years-long coverage of how media conslidation has diminished localism and diversity, so this area is more fortunate than most in having that information available to it. Just yesterday, Frank Blethen of the Times testified before the United States Senate on this issue, and I suspect you would agree with much that he said, judging from your message today. You ask what a citizen can do. Just what you're doing--make your feelings known, from your house to the White House. Tell the FCC how you feel. If you cannot attend tonight (I hope you can!), then go to www.fcc.gov and let us know. Don't foregt your elected respresentatives, although I must say Washington has some really outstanding leaders in Congress. You might want to thank those folks.

Q: When is the FCC going to approve the Sirius and XM merger? I think it is in the consumers best interest if the merger is approved. Satelite radio will always compete with terestrial radio and so the merger is not going to reduce the consumers choices. With the merger, the consumer will get more channels and the difficult business of providing satelite radio may someday be profitable.

A: That's pretty much up to the Chairman, who controls the agenda. But just recently the Commission requested additional information and data from the companies, so final action may be slowed a bit. One of the questions we need to answer is whether satellite radio is a separate market with separate characteristics and just two players, or is it part of a larger media competition with free over-the-air programming. We must also deal with a current rule that prescribes that there be at least two players in satellite radio. Merger approval would require us to change that rule in the process. So the Commissioners are working our way through these issues.

Q: I think the reason our country rushed to war in Iraq was due in large part to the misinformation about WMD echoed by our corporate media. Doesn’t it suggest that further consolidation of corporate media would only exacerbate the problem of combating misinformation about such important and weighty matters?

A: I think the danger is when just a few companies are controlling the gateways and the content that we see every day on teleivison, contrary thoughts and other perspectives get lost. That's been costly for us! Further consolidation can only make a bad problem worse.

Q: What is the threat Bell forbearance efforts pose to Seattle?

A: I am willing to look at these items pending before us and am not able to say much about such active petitions. But, as I said earlier, forbearance is not the vehicle we should so often turn to and, when we do, there has to be a granular analysis accurately depicting conditions in specific telecom markets, such as Seattle. The lack of such records is one major reason why I have not been enthusiastic about some other companies' petitions in the past. For example, they sometimes focus on broadband as a national market and ignore the local competitive implications.

Q: Why should we let Comcast have a monopoly on Cable use?
The cable system should be allowed to have competition for better rates for the consumers.

A: I believe in encouraging more competition in all of our communications and media platforms. Unfortunaely, we have been going in exactly the wrong direction for quite a few years now. The big get bigger, competition is diminished, and the people end up paying the price. There isn't much competition in cable in the vast majority of markets. That's bad.

Q: What are the benefits that the members of the commission who favor further consolidation recieve for accomodating consolidation. They must be getting something for thier corrupt behavior.

A: I think that my colleagues are generally sincere in what they believe. It's not that they are bad people; it's just that their mind-sets lead to some very bad results. I believe they are wrong on the merits of the argument, but I try not to impugn anyone's motives.

Q: First, let me thank you for standing against the insanity of further media consolidation. If in fact, "we the people" still own the public airwaves and the FCC is the agency empowered to protect the public interest, how can the FCC justify this trend? We used to endure advertising to fund programing. Now, so much of the programing exists only as a backgound for adverising with no public benefit at all. There is no argument that justifies media concentration to a handful of companies as representing the public interest. How can "we the people" hold the FCC accountable to its original mandate?

A: I haven't heard anything remotely resembling such a justification. The people do own the airwaves, but if we don't reassert our ownership rights, the claim to ownership doesn't accomplish much. The FCC is supposed to be the public's protector and the agency which ensures that broadcasters live up to their obligation to serve the public interest.

Q: Qwest has filed a "forbearance" petition with the FCC asking to be free from wholesaling obligations in Seattle as early as April 2008. What effect would a grant of that petition have on my ability to obtain phone and Internet service from one of Qwest's competitors?

A: I believe their petition goes primarily to business services rather than residential. I am concerned, however, that forbearance as a process is being used to eviscerate competition and by-pass our rules. I don't believe Congress wanted the FCC to conduct its business so often via this truncated process which usually lacks adequate economic analysis and provides an insufficient record when the parties take our decisions to court--which often happens.

Q: Isn't it true that cross-ownership (newspaper/television) could have saved media diversity in many cities that used to have two newspapers, but now have only one?

A: I'm always willing to look market-by-market and if a convincing case can be made that some consolidation is all that can keep a station from shutting down and depriving a community of servce, we ought to look at that and even approve. But big media wants more than that--they want an always-on green light that assures everyone in advance that the media bazaar is open to all sorts of combinations, no questions asked. If the FCC wants localism, it ought to be willing to look at local markets and local conditions. Right now, we don't.

Q: I understand the historic duty of the FCC is to allocate frequencies within the broadcast bandwidth, so to ensure licensee's signals are not interfered with. In allocating the frequencies, I presume there's an objective & mechanism in place that attempts to ensure the use of those frequencies in any market area are adequately responsive to the public in that market.

My question is whether the definition of 'public responsiveness' encompasses the carriage of voices fairly representative of the market OR whether 'public responsiveness' simply means endowing broadcast licensees with expanded 'network power' (i.e. a larger permissible footprint in any and all markets in which they hold a license)?

I believe that's the practical challenge presently before the Commission. Can fair representation exist when today's principal allocation method simply rewards frequencies to the highest bidder?

A: The sad reality is the FCC doesn't appear to care how well the public interest is served. In 1981, a new Chairman took over at the FCC and he said a television set was just "a toaster with pictures." And that's how they proceeded to treat it--just another applicance. All the public interest guidelines we had, and which we used when a broadcaster came in to renew his or her (mostly his, because women have been excluded from owning their fair share of stations) were "deregulated" away. Broadcasters formerly had to justify their performance every three years in order to keep their licenses. Now they send in a post-card once every EIGHT years, and we never deny a license on public interest grounds. So don't blame just big media for the current excesses--blame the FCC, too.

Q: Is there any conceivable way you could persuade one of the FCC's Republican commissioners that any further broadening of ownership rules to benefit corporations as opposed to individuals or public groups goes against the American heritage? The people own the airwaves; yet a few corporations dominate them and disseminate their points of view only. But the American heritage is one of democracy and local inventiveness.

Perhaps you could remind your Republican colleagues that domination by one corporate point of view is far more similar to Soviet totalitarianism.

A: I'm trying, I'm trying! Maybe tonight's hearing can succeed more effectively than me. But, to be frank, my fear is that the fix is in insorfar as loosening the limits on newspaper-broadcast cross ownership. The result of that will be more newspaper-broadcast combinations in lots of markets and that translates into fewer voices, less news, and a diminished civic dialogue. I think that's too costly a price to pay, don't you?

Q: A few years ago we saw the music group called the Dixie Chicks be boycotted by over 200 radio stations, all under one ownership. Wasn't that a prime example of censorship and the affects of multiple media outlets with one ownership?

A: Yes, and it's not the only one, either. That's what happens when too much power in cocentrated in too few hands. In previous years we had enough diversity and local control that if someone committed some sort of act like you mention, it didn't affect the whole nation. Now it does.

Q: I have been in radio since I was a kid. I'm now 55. Radio is at an all time low with bad product and poor community service. Plus the lost of jobs has been shocking. Why hasn't the FCC talked to any of us who are in the talent end of broadcasting? Granted, a lot of folks would not want to come forward for fear of loss of their job. Why not put us under oath and make us tell you and the others on the commission about the damage done by media concentration? I might lose my job just for asking this question. But it's worth the gamble because I care about radio and my country.

A: You know, I have talked to many people in the creative community who feel like you do but who are still trying to eke out a living and many are afraid to testify and go public. So in 2003, I asked then-Chairman Michael Powell to set up some kind of process where we could receive such testimony anonymously. He replied with all sorts of excessively legalistic arguments why this couldn't be done. The result--we don't have nearly enough of that kind of testimony on the public record.

Q: Hello and thank you for coming to listen to folks in our city.

Do you think that all cable providers should be required to provide, on basic cable, public access stations and governmental proceedings (city, county, state and CSPAN)?

When I was a child, this kind of thing was provided often by the networks. My mother made us watch current events on television and always set the standard for us of being an active informed citizen. She spent the summer watching the Watergate hearings on network TV. Later, she was an avid CSPAN watcher, and she and her sister and friends would comment on what they say Congress doing on CSPAN coverage in thier weekly letters to each other.

With that upbringing I find myself watching these channels more than broadcast or other cable. It's the only way I have of seeing my local government at work as I can tape the City Council meetings while I am at my job during the day.

A: I think you and I have some similar viewing habits! I am a huge supporter of PEG channels and public access. I am disappointed that, just very recently, the Commission voted to remove much of the negotiating power that Local Franschising Authorities had to demand these and other services from cable as a condition of their being able to build out and provide service to customers. These local authroties understand what is needed in a community better than we in Washington do, so to preempt them is another mistaken FCC decision against localism, diversity and competition.

Q: What is the FCC progress or assessment of the 800MHz rebanding with SPRINT NEXTEL frequency spectrum? They have been very slow to implement rebanding in key cities across the USA delaying civic efforts to protect their citizens. It is imperative for first responders to be able to communicate in these frequencies.

A: We really need to approach this with urgency, and I believe that my colleagues are now doing that. You are correct that there have been too many delays, and I have been pushing the Commission to keep the parties working hard to make this transition work well and quickly. I have also talked with the private parties concerned to make sure they understand the FCC is not going to tolerate unending delay.

Q: What is the FCC doing to assure fairness and accessibility to high speed internet for individuals and small companies. I have a concern that large "internet / communication companies" will begin limiting access and/or start charging premiums for the internet that should be readily available with a high quality of service for all.

Electric Power companies do not charge (for all practical purposes) for "higher quality" power - the standard power to everyone is of high quality; this is the same for Natural Gas companies, water companies, and other basic utilities.

A: I share your concern and have labored hard to have the Commission adopt serious and enforceable network neutrality rules. I succeeded only insofar as getting a statement of Internet principles adopted: freedom to access content of your choice, to attach devices of your choice, to run applications of your choice, and to enjoy the benefits of competition. But these principles need to be backed up by enforceable rules and the present Commission is not inclined to do that. We did get some enforceability attached to the AT&T/Bell South merger, but this is something we need industry-wide. Congress may have to legislate on this issue. The Internet has so much potential, so we need to ensure it openess and guarantree that it doesn't become a gated community controlled by a few telecom behemoths.

Q: How is it that the issue of cross-ownership is up for consideration again after there was such a huge outcry from the public against further consolidation on this same issue within the last two years? America’s airwaves and broadcast entities are supposed to be held in the public trust. Meaning, very simply, that the American people own the airwaves. And the programming sent over those airwaves is entrusted to be in the public’s best interest. If that is the case, why is this being brought up again for consideration? The lobbying efforts and influence of big business on the FCC seem all too apparent. Futhermore, media consolidation is an encroachment on our rights: Freedom of the Press.

A: Another good question I hope the FCC is asked tonight. I'm with you in believing the people's airwaves should be used to add diverse voices and to encourage local content, rather than bringing in more homogenized, nationalized and sterile corporate "entertainment" and letting Big Media shut down the civic dialogue upon which the future of our democracy rests.

Q: Given that this country's political roots are in dissent, why is the FCC even considering increasing the power of media/communications companies to dominate a political point of view and way of looking at the world?

A: Good question. Come out to the hearing tonight and ask some of my colleagues why they would want to foist additional consolidation on our media environment and what public inrterest good they see in diminishing the number of viewpoints available in our media markets.

Q: I want a choice in providers of content and service – please do your job to ensure that happens.

I have two questions for the FCC,

First how can you possibility justify endorsing the AT&T - SBC take over.
This is possibly the single worst decision in term of competition in the past decade in my opinion.

Second why are you allowing companies to own more media outlets?

Do you not think that this leads to a mind share issue where the relatively few can impact public opinion with a narrow point of view?

A: I don't like consolidation any more in telecom companies than I do with media companies. The result on the AT&T merger you mention was pretty much preordained, but I worked hard to attach some conditions to it--such as enforceable netweork neutrality provisions. On your second question, I have been an outspoken opponent of the excess media consolidation we have had to endure in recent years. I want to avoid encouraging more consolidation through ill-advised new rules and then revisit the current rules that got us into our present mess.

Q: In your opinion, what can we, as citizens and consumers, do to assure that the we develop more diversity in the media?

A: Any satisfactory outcome to this issue will be in large part grassroots-driven. So people need to make their opinions felt. Hearings like tonight's Seattle venue are one vehicle. But we should all be speaking out; talking to friends, family and community; writing letters to the editor; talk radio; write the FCC Commissioners; contact your elected representatives. Elected officials need to know that your opinions on this issue count as you judge their campaigns for office.

Interview with Bush by RTL and N-TV, German TV

Transcript of interview with Bush in the Map Room of the White House:

Q Mr. President, in a couple of days the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel will come to your ranch, which I think is a special privilege. What will you do with her on the ranch on a weekend like that?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, we will -- if she wants -- we'll do anything she wants. If she wants to go for a hike, I'll go for a hike. If she -- I look forward to showing a piece of property I dearly love. But we'll have plenty of time to visit in a different setting. It's not very formal, but it will be conducive to a conversation amongst friends. I can't thank her enough for coming down there.

Q She had said some weeks ago at the United Nations that Germany wants to contribute more to the world and take on more responsibility by perhaps getting a permanent seat in the Security Council. Will you support her in that?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I made my clear statement there at the U.N., that I'm for overall reform and I do believe we ought to look at reforming the Security Council in a way that, you know, accomplishes some missions. And Germany clearly is an important country. I have not taken a stand on any specific country, except for Japan, and won't. But clearly Germany is a very important country for a lot of reasons.

Q Not a permanent member in the Security Council, you don't see her like that -- you don't see Germany as --

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I haven't made that endorsement one way or the other. And I pretty well kept my counsel. I just want to make sure the U.N. is functioning well, that it does -- it needs a big-time reform, and so does the Security Council and so we're open to ideas. It's not easy to get done and the only one country that I've endorsed has been Japan, and it's been a long-standing policy of the government of the United States, and I continue that policy.

Q What are the topics that you will be talking to her where you might need Germany to help you, the United States?

THE PRESIDENT: Oh, me, personally?

Q No, not personally. I mean -- personally, as well, but --

THE PRESIDENT: No, but we definitely need Germany's help on issues like Iran so that we can, you know, solve this issue diplomatically. We need Germany's help on issues like Darfur. Germany is a crucial country in terms of, you know, building coalitions to deal with the threats we face. We need Germany's participation in Afghanistan. I know Angela went over there; I'm looking forward to hearing her report. And I'm pleased with our relationship.

Q Germany doesn't want to contribute any forces to the south of Afghanistan, where it's really getting a little bit hotter, than up in the north, where the Germans are right now. Are you having a problem with that?

THE PRESIDENT: No, I understand. I mean, you know, people -- everybody's parliaments or legislative bodies reacts to the challenges differently. I'm just so pleased that Germany is contributing forces there to help this Afghan democracy. These contributions are meaningful and some countries are able to take on different assignments. And I fully understand that. And I'm not going to try to put Angela Merkel in a position that she nor her Bundestag is comfortable with.

Q You just mentioned Iran. Do you think that the nuclear threat that Iran poses right now is larger than the threat Iraq posed about five or six years ago?

THE PRESIDENT: I think they were both dangerous. I think both of them could have been solved diplomatically. Saddam Hussein chose to ignore the demands of the free world and Security Council 1441 -- which, by the way, Germany voted for initially. And I think they're both dangerous. And I think therefore the lesson of Iraq is that we can work together and solve questions peacefully now.

And hopefully we can and hopefully we can keep pressure on the Iranians to say, one, we respect your people; two, we respect your history; but your government is making decisions that are isolating your country. And all they've got to do is suspend their enrichment program and then there will be a dialogue and a way forward. But it's up to the government to make their choice.

Q But you still have as a last option the military option. Do you think that that could be an option in the future? You even mentioned the possibility, the chance of third world war -- you were serious about that?

THE PRESIDENT: Oh, absolutely serious. I said, if you want to avoid World War III. I didn't say I'm for World War III.

Q Oh, no, I didn't say that. But you mentioned it in that respect, yes.

THE PRESIDENT: But I said if you -- the reason I said that is because this is a country that has defied the IAEA -- in other words, didn't disclose all their program -- have said they want to destroy Israel. If you want to see World War III, you know, a way to do that is to attack Israel with a nuclear weapon. And so I said, now is the time to move. It wasn't a prediction, nor a desire.

And do I think we can solve it? I do. Should all options be on the table? You bet. But I firmly believe we can solve this problem diplomatically and will continue to work to do so. And that's going to be an important topic with the Chancellor.

Q Do you think there's a point where you'd say only a military option is a possibility for us?

THE PRESIDENT: I would never say that. I would say that we would always try to try diplomacy first. In other words, I -- I've committed our troops into harm's way twice, and it's not a pleasant experience because I understand the consequences firsthand. And so I owe it to the American people to say that I've tried to solve this problem diplomatically. And that's exactly what I intend to do. And I believe we can do it, so long as the world works in concert. And Chancellor Merkel understands the dangers and she wants to solve this issue peacefully.

Q The U.S. has imposed some harsh sanctions on some parts of the Iranian government.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes.

Q The Russians were pretty much against that. Do we see a new rift growing between Russia, on the one hand, and the United States on the other hand?

THE PRESIDENT: No, I don't think so. I mean, look, there's going to be -- there's places where we disagree. No, it's a complicated relationship with Russia.

Q Why that?

THE PRESIDENT: Why is it? Just because we've got a history. It's not easy to eradicate history overnight. You might remember, we were quite antagonistic to each other for years. And so I've tried to work hard with Vladimir Putin to put the Cold War behind us, and focus on a positive future. There are still suspicions about U.S. intentions inside the Russian system.

You know, for example, as you know, I'm a big advocate of democracy; I believe democracies enhance peace. And I think that some view the democracy movement as a way to surround Russia. I try to work hard with Vladimir Putin and make it clear to him that this is nothing more than spreading peace. They didn't particularly care for the expansion of NATO, which I'm a strong believer in.

And so we've had our friction, but, no, I wouldn't --

Q And when you see him now, testing new missiles, or testing new bombs, is that flexing muscle, or is that just showing off? Or do you think it's serious?

THE PRESIDENT: I don't view that as a threat. I really don't view Russia as a threat, a military threat. I don't think -- I'm pretty confident President Putin does not want to have any military conflict. I think the bigger threat is the use of energy, which is really a direct problem for the EU. As I say, I try not to have antagonistic relations with President Putin. We've got a good personal relationship. We don't always agree eye to eye. Kosovo is an area where we don't agree eye to eye. But that doesn't -- just because you don't have a -- just because you have a disagreement doesn't mean that you can't work together.

Q You will probably see him longer as a, whatever, strong force in Russia, (inaudible) right now.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes. (Laughter.)

Q Isn't that fascinating? Is that something you would have expected, that he would stay in there as a Prime Minister, then? But he is not voted in yet, but it might happen.

THE PRESIDENT: I know. I haven't had a really good chance to sit down and talk with him about his ambitions and plans. He did tell me that he wasn't going to run for President again. But clearly he likes to be influential inside the Russian system, and I don't know what he's going to do.

My hope, of course, is I've tried to work with him as best as I can to understand the checks and balances. And democracy requires a certain balance in society. And I would hope that he would make decisions that enhanced institutional reform, enhanced the institutions necessary for a free society. As I say, sometimes he listens, sometimes he doesn't.

Q Almost a day to the date, in one year we will have presidential elections again in the United States. What are your three, let's say, main tasks, goals that you have set for yourself for the last 12 months of your presidency?

THE PRESIDENT: Oh, I appreciate that. One is to continue to protect our country from harm. I absolutely know for certain there is a group of extremists who would like to attack us again. Second -- this is all on foreign policy initially -- work with our friends and allies on Darfur, Burma -- I'm afraid I'm going to leave something out -- Iran. Continue to make sure our foreign policy in the Far East focuses not only on North Korea -- and working, by the way, collaboratively with Japan and China and South Korea to deal with North Korea -- but also to maintain good, constructive relations throughout the region.

Continue on the HIV/AIDS initiative. One of the really interesting initiatives that my wife and I are working on is a malaria initiative. There's just too many babies dying on the continent of Africa, for example, because of mosquito bites.

Q Yes, I've talked to your wife about that.

THE PRESIDENT: Oh, did you? Good. And then at home, keep taxes low and keep the economy growing. The two big issues, by the way, for this presidential campaign, are who can best protect America from attack. Now I don't know if --

Q That's what I wanted to ask you next; what will be the three tasks for the next President?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, who can keep people -- same thing. And who can keep taxes low? See, we've got a bunch of people here in America that want to raise taxes. I'm, as you know, a tax cutter. I believe the private sector is -- needs to be enhanced by keeping the size of government reasonably in balance and keep taxes low. Same thing for the next President.

You know, the biggest issue facing a President going forward will be whether or not we can deal with our, you know, our Social Security and Medicare, our health care and pension plans for the elderly, because like other parts of the world -- I presume Germany, as well -- baby boomers relative to people contributing to the system -- so you have baby boomers like me retiring and not enough young workers, and we need to get the systems in balance. And it's very hard to get done because a lot of the politicians here in America really don't want to confront the problem until it becomes immediate. So I tried for seven years to get Congress to do the hard work. They didn't want to, and so the next President is going to have to try to do it.

Q Who do you think it's going to be?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I can't tell you that because -- I think it will be a Republican. I truly do. I think someone from my party will win, but, you know, I'm not going to speculate because the American press, of course, would take my speculation; you know, "Bush is" --

Q Of course. But you think it's going to be a Republican?

THE PRESIDENT: I really do, yes. The economy is in pretty good shape, and we've got some issues, but the economy is pretty strong, which -- and the other side does want to raise taxes. And I do believe taxes are a big issue in America. And then the foreign policy -- and if you will listen to the debate, our candidates have got a strong, firm view of how to conduct foreign policy and the American people innately understand that there's -- there's still threats out there. And our biggest job is to protect our -- see, that's an interesting difference between, say, Germany and America. We've been attacked. We feel like another attack is coming, and therefore, you know, our actions ought to be to protect our country. And, you know, I'm not so sure that it's that same sense of anxiety in other parts of Europe or in Germany.

Q Well, we have some old fears. I mean, we were on the border of the Cold War. I mean, we had this Iron Curtain in our country, in that respect. We know a little bit about that, too. But I can understand your position as well, sure.

THE PRESIDENT: You know, look, there's -- and one of the things I would like to assure the German public about is that I really don't want to have increased tensions with Russia. As a matter of fact, I've worked hard to create an environment that is not hostile, but --

Q Also with the missile shield --

THE PRESIDENT: That's what I was about to describe -- that this is not aimed at Russia. I mean, it -- and frankly it's absurd for somebody to say it is aimed at Russia, because the number of interceptors that would be there -- the rockets to knock down the other rocket -- will be limited in number and therefore somebody who has got a handful of rockets can overwhelm the system. It's just really aimed at, you know, a rogue nation that wants to hold a --

Q Like Iran.

THE PRESIDENT: -- hostage. Like Iran, absolutely. And hopefully, again, you know, the system becomes moot or not needed, by getting the Iranians to back off their ambitions.

And, you know, we did something really interesting with Russia on this Iranian issue. The Iranians said, it's our sovereign right to have nuclear power. And I said, yes, it is; it is your sovereign right. But we can't trust you to enrich because you've been hiding your program from international inspectors, and so therefore we will join -- we agree with Russia when they said, you can have a plant and we, Russia, will provide you the fuel and collect the fuel; which I strongly support.

And so -- the only reason I bring that up is I know that people think that our relations with Russia are, you know, may not be conducive to constructive action, but we got -- we do -- and there's no question there's tensions on some issues.

Q Okay.

THE PRESIDENT: But we can work together as well.

Q Okay. Final question: You will have one year in office. How do you think you will be remembered as a President?

THE PRESIDENT: I think I'll be remembered as a guy who, you know, was dealt some pretty tough issues to deal with and I dealt with them head-on and I didn't try to shy away. I didn't, you know, I didn't sacrifice -- I was firm and that I made decisions based upon principles, not based upon the latest Gallup Poll. And that I helped this country protect itself, and at the same time was unashamed, unabashed at spreading certain values to others -- the main one being liberty, whether it be the freedom from forms of government or the freedom from disease and hunger. And that we had a very robust foreign policy in the name of peace.

And at home, that the cornerstone of my policy is to trust the individual American to make the best decisions for his or her family. And that I dealt with not only a tax, but recession and a lot of other challenges to our economy, and yet our economy is very strong. We've had 50 consecutive months of uninterrupted job growth, which is the longest in American history. So, you know something? But I'll be dead before they finally figure out my administration because history, it takes a while to get the true history of an administration.

Q Okay, first we both see how it's going to be. We might not be dead by then. (Laughter.)

THE PRESIDENT: I don't think so. I think -- listen, they're still writing books analyzing George Washington.

Q That's very true. That's right. And they come to different conclusions in every new book.

THE PRESIDENT: They do. And so therefore my attitude is if they're analyzing the first President, the 43rd President doesn't need to worry about it. The key thing that people need to know is, I make up my decisions based upon principles, not based upon politics -- you know, what's good for a political party -- or trying to be popular. If you chase popularity, you can't lead. And popularity is just like -- it comes and goes; and I've never been one to really worry about that, you know? Because when it's all said and done, I think the key thing in life is to look in the mirror and say, I didn't compromise my core beliefs. And I believe people will say that about me.

Q Thank you very much, Mr. President.

THE PRESIDENT: You're welcome. Thanks for coming.

END 2:49 P.M. EST

The Guardian's Michael Tomasky Interviews Hillary Clinton

In the Guardian, Michael Tomasky writes:

I have interviewed Hillary Clinton a handful of times since our initial meeting in 2000, during her first Senate race, when I must have seen her give 50 - 100 speeches en route to her thrashing of Republican opponent Rick Lazio.

She is a much more fluid politician today than she was in the fall of 1999, certainly. But she is still not known as an especially expansive interview subject. She has a reputation for avoiding actually answering the question, and reverting to a pre-ordained script, to a degree even greater than your average politician.

These qualities were on display at times in our chat. When I asked, for example, about the Democratic Congress' failure to cut off funding for the war, she went into a critique of Republican legislators' unwillingness to break with President Bush and said "the political reality is we don't have the votes".

The trick, then, I thought, would be to ask some germane but slightly offbeat questions in the hope that she hasn't already been asked them a thousand times and might say something new. I began with three such questions on foreign policy-related issues, and overall, her answers gave a somewhat new picture of Clinton in that in each case, the candidate who has spent years cultivating a relatively hawkish foreign policy image notably did not give the most hawkish answer she might have.

On executive power, I pointed out that if elected she would be entering the White House with far more power than her husband had as a result of moves by Bush and Dick Cheney to invest a degree of unilateral power in the executive branch that some find dangerous. "Well, I think it is clear that the power grab undertaken by the Bush-Cheney administration has gone much further than any other president and has been sustained for longer," Clinton said. "Other presidents like Lincoln have had to take on extraordinary powers but would later go to the Congress for either ratification or rejection."

She continued: "There were a lot of actions which they took that were clearly beyond any power the Congress would have granted or that in my view that was inherent in the constitution. There were other actions they've taken which could have obtained congressional authorisation but they deliberately chose not to pursue it as a matter of principle."

Here I asked whether a sitting president, once invested with such powers, could really give some of them up in the name of constitutional principle. Clinton said: "Oh, absolutely, Michael. I mean that has to be part of the review that I undertake when I get to the White House, and I intend to do that."

Moving to Iraq, I asked whether she felt that war fit within the tradition of cold war liberalism that we associate with Harry Truman and his secretary of state, Dean Acheson. This question has been intensely debated among liberal war supporters and opponents since 2003, and how one answers it-especially if one is a Democrat-gives some indication of how one views the morality of pre-emptive or preventive war, and thus, of how one might make future foreign policy decisions. Many liberal war supporters have argued that the fight against terrorism is analogous to the cold war battle with the Soviet Union.

Clinton seemed to reject this. "It's hard to take what was a philosophy with respect to the use and containment of power during the cold war and try to shoehorn it into a post-cold war context," she said. "So I don't really think there is an easy or satisfying answer to that."

Most interesting was Clinton's answer to my question about whether terrorists hate us for our freedoms, or whether they have specific geopolitical objectives. Bush and other administration officials have said repeatedly that terrorists hate us for our freedoms. The implication of this premise, of course, is a fight to the death that is never over until the president says it's over (which in turn requires that we trust the president with enormous unilateral powers). It was one of those premises on which, in the days right after September 11, we were all supposed to agree.

Clinton clearly takes a different view: "Well, I believe that terrorism is a tool that has been utilised throughout history to achieve certain objectives. Some have been ideological, others territorial...And I think we've got to do a much better job of clarifying what are the motivations, the raisons d'etre of terrorists."

She added, "I think one of our mistakes has been painting with such a broad brush, which has not been particularly helpful in understanding what it is we were up against when it comes to those who pursue terrorism for whichever ends they're seeking."

So it's not, I asked, helpful to America's fight to say they hate us for our freedoms? "Well, some do," Clinton said. "But is that a diagnosis? I don't think it's proven to be an effective one."

Clinton has run, it is almost unanimously agreed, a brilliant campaign to this point. Having closely watched her slowly and methodically woo New Yorkers over a 16-month period in 1999 and 2000, allaying their concerns and getting them to submit finally to her undeniable competence and intelligence, I can say that I see much the same kind of process unfolding in its early stages this year. The lead she has steadily built up in the national polls among Democrats, however relevant to the selection process they may or may not be, is testament to this.

Still, of course, many questions remain about both her electability and how she would govern if elected. I'd love to have been able to go through all of these matters in detail, but time was running short, so I just chose to focus on one thing, having to do with how she would govern.

One major concern of liberals about Clinton is her preternatural caution as a politician-her general unwillingness to stick her neck out and risk political capital in behalf of a progressive policy goal that wasn't a safe issue. I asked her to name one issue during her Senate tenure on which she'd done this. Answer: "Well, I think, you know, voting against funding. What did we get, 12, 13, 14 votes on that?" She was referring to a vote last May to make emergency supplemental appropriations to the Iraq war effort. The measure passed 80-14. Clinton and her chief rival for the Democratic nomination, Barack Obama, both voted no, announcing their votes very late in the process.

This, of course, wasn't really what I meant. By the time of this vote, she was in full presidential campaign mode and trying to establish her bona fides with the party's anti-war base. So the political risk inherent in this vote was small. Indeed it was Joe Biden, who was the only senator/presidential candidate to vote yea, who risked something politically, whatever one thinks of his vote substantively.

After I followed up, Clinton went into a defence of how progressive her voting record was; but again, this wasn't what I meant. I was asking about examples of leadership. So the answer to the question was that there really wasn't one thing that she could think of on which she'd taken a risk in behalf of a progressive policy end.

For many Democratic voters, this is the heart of the continuing Clinton conundrum. She is running on a reasonably progressive platform, especially with regard to health care, and even on issues like labour and trade, where she has staked out positions somewhat to her husband's left. Some of her answers to me on foreign policy suggest that she could depart more strongly from the neoconservative agenda than some sceptics might assume ("one of the lessons that I think we all should take out of the last six-and-a-half years is that ideologically driven foreign policy that is not rooted in a realistic assessment of the world as we find it today is not likely to result in any positive outcome").

But at the end of the day there remains the question of how aggressively she would pursue some of her more laudable goals as president. Passing universal health care and bringing the war in Iraq toward its conclusion will both need to be done early in her tenure. Both will require enormous risks of political capital and courageous leadership, especially considering how intensely her political opponents are likely to fight her. As a senator, aware that she is a lightning rod for the right wing, she has tended to work behind the scenes, letting colleagues take the lead.

That's worked well for her. But the difference between the Senate and the White House is that a president has no colleagues. "Change is just a word," she told me, "if you don't have the strength and experience to make it happen." She meant the sentence as a knock on Barack Obama, but they will be words for President Hillary Clinton to live by as well.

Q&A with Investigative Journalist Seymour Hersh

Journalist Seymour M. Hersh, 70, announced his arrival in Washington nearly four decades ago by uncovering the U.S. military massacre of Vietnamese women and children at My Lai and winning the 1970 Pulitzer Prize for international reporting. As a freelancer for the tiny Dispatch News Service, he did all this without even leaving the country. Newsweek dubbed him the "scoop artist," and from the start he has served as the official executive pain in the neck -- breaking such stories as the CIA's bombing of Cambodia and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger's wiretapping of his own staff.

Recently ranked 26th on GQ's list of "50 Most Powerful People in D.C.," Hersh was among the first to expose the Abu Ghraib prison scandal (chronicled in his latest book, "Chain of Command: The Road From 9/11 to Abu Ghraib"), and he continues today to detail the Bush administration's alleged march to bomb Tehran. Persona non grata in this highly secretive White House, The New Yorker writer was recently dubbed "Cheney's Nemesis" by Rolling Stone magazine, and a former Bush insider told CNN's Wolf Blitzer in early 2003, "Look, Sy Hersh is the closest thing American journalism has to a terrorist, frankly."

The Jewish Journal recently spoke with Hersh in advance of his Oct. 4 appearance at UCLA Live, at which he will discuss American foreign policy and the abuse of power under the guise of national security:

Jewish Journal: You wrote in The New Yorker in the spring of 2006 that the United States might not have much more time to focus on Iraq because they had started planning to bomb Iran. That hasn't happened yet. Do you still think it will?

Seymour Hersh At that time it was considered far out. But it's not anymore. I'm still writing about Iran planning. It is very much on the table. And I can tell you right now that there are many Shia right now in the south of Iraq, in the Maliki party, that believe to the core that America is no longer interested in Iraq, but that everything they are doing now is aimed at the Shia and Iran.

JJ: You're not a fan of President George W. Bush. Do you look at things in terms of Jan. 20, 2009?

SH: Absolutely. Absolutely. No matter who will be there.

JJ: Do you have one of those countdown clocks on your desk?

SH: No. Somebody gave me one, but I thought it would be too cute. You know, he's got power. He's still president.

JJ: You mentioned that there are plenty of things you know that you can't write about.

SH: The bottom line is nobody in this government talks to me. I've been around for 40 years -- in Bush I, in the Reagan years, certainly in Democratic regimes, but even in Republican regimes where I am more of a pain -- I've always had tremendous relationships with people. This is the first government in which in order to get my stories checked out to make sure I'm not going to kill some American, I have to go to peoples' mailboxes at night, people I talk to and know, and put it in their mailbox before turning it into The New Yorker, to get them to read it and say, "Oh, Page 4, you better not say that, Hersh."
I can't do that with the government. I used to always go and sit down and talk with the heads of the CIA and heads of other agencies. These guys are just really quantitatively different. You are either with us or against us across the board. And this is why I count days.

JJ: New York magazine has a profile this week of Matt Drudge of the Drudge Report, and they call him "America's Most Influential Journalist." What have bloggers like Drudge done to journalism, and how do you think it compares to the muckrakers that you came of age with?

SH: There is an enormous change taking place in this country in journalism. And it is online. We are eventually -- and I hate to tell this to The New York Times or the Washington Post -- we are going to have online newspapers, and they are going to be spectacular. And they are really going to cut into daily journalism.
I've been working for The New Yorker recently since '93. In the beginning, not that long ago, when I had a big story you made a good effort to get the Associated Press and UPI and The New York Times to write little stories about what you are writing about. Couldn't care less now. It doesn't matter, because I'll write a story, and The New Yorker will get hundreds of thousands, if not many more, of hits in the next day. Once it's online, we just get flooded.
So, we have a vibrant, new way of communicating in America. We haven't come to terms with it. I don't think much of a lot of the stuff that is out there. But there are a lot of people doing very, very good stuff.

JJ: Some people have a problem with muckrakers. Why do you think it is important to shine a light on filth?

SH: I can't imagine what else there is to do in the newspaper business today right now but to write as much as you can about what is going on. Like it, don't like it, what you call filth is the normal vagaries of government and foreign affairs these days.

JJ: Bush recently compared Iraq to Vietnam in a positive way. What do you think he learned from the Vietnam War?

SH: He seems to have learned from lessons that were not very valid. Nobody wants to be a loser. Bush is going to disengage to some degree, and he's going to claim the country is more stable. He's just going to say whatever he wants, and he's going to get away with it because who knows what is going on in Basra. Nobody I know in their right mind would go down there. You'd get whacked.
And the Democrats have fallen into the trap of saying, "We shouldn't get out." As far as I am concerned, there are only two issues: Option A is to get out by midnight tonight, and Option B is to get out by midnight tomorrow.

JJ: Having grown up in a Yiddish home, the son of Polish and Lithuanian immigrants, how would you describe your Jewish identity?

SH: Vague. I like a lot of the historical stuff; I'm agnostic about the religion. But I certainly understand the power of faith, and I wish the American Jews could talk more to some of the Israelis I know and see how open-minded they are about many issues American Jews are not. There is tremendous diversity in Israel. Here the stuff of conversation ends up in a bloody fight; there you can discuss anything.
My [three] children chose: Some went through the bar mitzvah process; some did not. I'm a believer in you do what you want to do. For me, my Jewish heritage comes mainly in literature. I identify very strongly with the Saul Bellows and Philip Roths of this world. But it's so irrelevant that I am Jewish when I write about Jewish issues. It really is for me. It's just like it is irrelevant what my personal opinion is on things.

JJ: I was going to ask if your being Jewish has in any way affected your coverage of Israeli politics, particularly security?

SH: No, no. It gets me in more fights.

JJ: The book "The Israel Lobby" just came out. How would you characterize Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer's assessment of the power of the pro-Israel community?

SH: You can't touch them in terms of being anti-Semitic. They are realists. They are from the realists' school. I haven't read the book, but it's not either/or, either support Israel or don't. It's: try and use the tremendous support and relationship we have to modify their behavior more than we do. But this government and that relationship [with Israel] is really profound, and it is just very secretive between us and Israel. It is not transparent, and that is not healthy for anybody.

JJ: You turned 70 this year. Why keep working so hard?

SH: I don't work that hard. I write four or five pieces a year. Secondly, what do you want me to do? Play professional golf? I can't do that. You do what you can do. And I'm in a funny spot because I have an ability to communicate with people I have known for a number of years. They trust me, and I trust them, so I keep on doing these little marginal stories.

JJ: That's all they are? Marginal?

SH: With these stories, if they slow down or make people take a deep breath before they bomb Iran, that is a plus. But they are not going to stop anybody. This is a government that is unreachable by us, and that is very depressing. In terms of adding to the public debate, the stories are important. But not in terms of changing policy. I have no delusions about that.

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A Conversation with Seymour Hersh

It Will All Fall Down

From Adbusters:

In the pantheon of legendary journalists, Seymour Hersh stands out as a preeminent chronicler of US power. Born in Chicago in 1937, he came to international prominence with a 1969 report on the My Lai massacre in Vietnam. The report on the hundreds of civilians, primarily women and children, who were slaughtered by US troops energized the anti-war movement and won Hersh a Pulitzer Prize. In later years he wrote on Henry Kissinger, JFK, and Mordechai Vanunu, the Israeli who was kidnapped by the Mossad in Rome and imprisoned for 18 years in Israel after exposing Israel’s secret nuclear arsenal.

Famous for using high-level inside sources, Hersh’s reports for the New Yorker on the Iraq War have become a must-read for their revelations on the inner workings of the Bush administration. Richard Perle, a leading neoconservative and one of the authors of the Iraq War, called Hersh the “closest thing American journalism has to a terrorist” after he exposed Perle’s involvement in financial dealings designed to profit from the war. Perle lost his position as chair of the influential Defense Policy Board as a result of the report and threatened to sue Hersh for libel but never followed through. In 2005 Hersh reported that the US was conducting covert operations within Iran to locate targets for a possible attack. In 2006, he revealed that the administration was considering a nuclear strike on Iran, and reported that the US had encouraged Israel to plan and execute the war against Lebanon, in which more than a thousand Lebanese civilians were killed. More recently he has written about US and Saudi support for Sunni jihadists in Lebanon. If the aim of journalism is to hold the powerful to account, Hersh is a towering example on how to do just that. He spoke to Adbusters contributing editor Deborah Campbell from his office in Washington, DC.

DC: Your recent article on the stifling of General Taguba’s inquiry into the Abu Ghraib prison scandal [in which Donald Rumsfeld was accused of misleading Congress] was pretty shocking. What was the most surprising revelation for you?

SH: I’ve given up being surprised by these guys. I would guess the bald affrontery of the contempt for Congress. We already know about their contempt for the press. Just going to Congress and misrepresenting what they know. And we all know they do it.

DC: Why do you think the Bush administration keeps getting away with this kind of behavior?

SH: That’s a question you really have to direct at the Congress and at the mainstream press. Maybe we’re just inured. There’s just so much of this. When you have such a lack of, you know, the word that’s never mentioned anymore is morality, and across the board you basically have people that are diminishing values, diminishing the constitution. To me it shows just how fragile the whole society is. These guys come in and we’ve had a collapse of the military, collapse of Congress, collapse of the press, collapse of the federal government. It’s pretty shocking how easily it slips.

DC: With your story on Lebanon about the US and Saudi Arabia supporting Sunni jihadists, including Fatah al-Islam, we then see the Lebanese army start to fight Fatah al-Islam in a refugee camp in Lebanon. What happened there?

SH: Look, I’m not being querulous but it doesn’t matter what I think. What obviously happened is that, assuming I was right, there’s a pattern here. If you go back two decades, when the war against Russia was being fought in Afghanistan, the Saudis convinced us that they could control the Salafis – Osama Bin Laden, etc. – and we overtly and knowingly aided them and it ended up biting our ass. So it’s not illogical to conclude that one of the things that happened is that people we thought we could control, we could not control. So, right now we are helping the Lebanese army fight people that we indirectly helped support. As usual, it’s complete madness.

DC: You met Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah in Lebanon some time ago. Is fear of him and his popularity their reason for supporting Sunni jihadists at this point?

SH: Sure. Of course.

DC: He’s been branded as a terrorist by the West and the media. What was your impression of him?

SH: I think in Europe he is seen much differently. The Germans certainly negotiated with him; the French do. In fact, Hezbollah was invited by the French government to a conference that may or may not take place on the whole Lebanese crisis. I hear it was delayed because of American protests. So basically this is an American point of view. I think the Brits even have a difference of opinion. And I don’t think there’s any question that, whatever he may have done two decades ago, today he’s certainly playing it responsibly, and his response to the crisis most recently has been pretty interesting, supporting the Lebanese army, etc. So his record speaks for itself. He’s also probably the most influential man in the Middle East right now.

DC: More so than [Iranian president] Ahmadinejad?

SH: Oh my God yes. I don’t think there’s any question. All the popularity polls show, particularly after the war against the Israelis, he was number one in the hit parade. I don’t know if this is true, but I think Ahmadinejad even wanted Hezbollah to come visit him publicly in Tehran at one point in the last six months. He wouldn’t do it, maybe for reasons as simple as his own security. But, he’s quite an imposing figure. And he’s somebody that, were we in the real world, we’d be dealing with. But we’re not in the real world here in Washington DC.

DC: Is his popularity contributing to this whole shift now towards a Sunni-Shia split in the Middle East?

SH: That seems to be this administration’s goal, to mobilize the moderate Sunnis such as they are in Egypt, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia, to join with the United States, Great Britain and Israel, against the Shia. Pretty amazing stuff.

DC: Whether the Shia be in Iran or Lebanon or Syria.

SH: Well particularly because they’re in Iran, and then if there’s going to be negotiation between Israel and Syria, one of the Israeli hopes will be to wean the Syrians from Nasrallah and Iran, which I don’t think is possible.

DC: Why the shift? Why is this the new front at this point? Is it because we see the Shia coming to power in Iraq?

SH: Probably. I don’t have a chance to ask the president about this stuff, but it seems clear that it has to do with the failure in Iraq and the possibility that they’re going to have a Shia government in Iraq and a Shia government in Iran. From the American point of view and also from the moderate Sunni point of view it’s pretty scary.

DC: It seems that they never did the math and they realized that one person, one vote, was going to mean a Shia win in Iraq.

SH: Well of course they did the math but, I think that they thought they could control it better than it turned out they could.

DC: Is that a theme? That they seem to think that they can control situations and they consistently get out of hand?

SH: Again, it seems like it is, but it’s also very possible that everything that’s happening is also what they want. It could be, basically, the notion of chaos. Kissinger once said about the Iran-Iraq War back two decades ago when they were killing each other: “Let them kill each other.” Let’s help each side kill the other guy. And that may be one of the theories to explain the Sunnis versus Shia. It’s almost impossible to figure out what they’re thinking.

DC: When it comes to Iran, you’ve written about the internal policy battles where it seems that Cheney has been pushing for a more militaristic approach to Iran. Who do you think is winning the policy battles right now?

SH: I’m actually writing more on this eventually. I don’t even think it’s really been a policy battle; I think it’s always been Cheney. Cheney, Cheney, Cheney. It’s very hard to get reliable information on what the president believes and wants to do. I really do not know, other than that Rice speaks for herself. I’ve always been skeptical of her influence. But nobody really knows. This is the most submerged, hidden, unrealized government we’ve ever had.



DC: Given that you’ve been following US governments since basically Vietnam, how does this administration’s foreign policy compare?

SH: Well, it’s a joke. Look, even in Vietnam, in the worst days, you always had Kissinger. I never thought I’d say it, but if we had a Kissinger around, we at least could be reasonably sure that what seems to be an insane policy would have some protocol to fill. At one point, I remember Kissinger in the early 70s trying to strike a deal to buy, I think, 12 years worth of oil from the Shah of Iran at a bargain price, ten or 12 bucks a barrel, and that would have explained some of the huge arms deals that were going into this failing state. It was inexplicable except there was a side deal. So you always thought, okay, maybe you can’t always see it. So if Kissinger were here, this insanity we’re seeing right now concerning the war in Iraq might be tied to the argument that maybe it’s hiding some complicated form that we just can’t figure out. But without a guy like Kissinger, what you see is what you got.

DC: But you have to wonder if there is some underlying logic. You touched on the chaos model. Iraq appears to be a disaster for US foreign policy but it may not be to people on the inside. You’ve basically inoculated Iraq; you’re close to Iran; you’ve got a big embassy going up; a permanent base in the Middle East; you’re selling arms by the billions.

SH: I don’t buy that. You could argue that the Israelis can move their anti-missile weapons from the borders in Iraq to other borders. But nah, it’s a disaster. Of course they had planned to grab the oil, and they are building a new facility in the Green Zone. And they are probably building at least one base about which we don’t know much. Apparently there is a lot of concrete being poured on the ground somewhere near the border with Iran. They are thinking about permanent bases. It was all part of the strategic plan, but they’re not going to be able to hold any of it. The end will be pretty brutal. In the end the embassy will crumble. It will all fall down. The chaos theory, in broad terms, is simply to let it all go up in smoke. But I don’t believe there is any way that this can work out in a way that makes sense. Even for the Straussian believers in controlled destruction. But again, it could be right. We don’t get much straight talk from this president. One of the American enemies down the line will always be the Saudis. We know they’ve played games, they’ve financed a lot of Salafi groups around the world. And the idea that Saudi Arabia is a moderate state, that Jordan is a moderate state when Abdullah II is holding on by the skin of his teeth, or Mubarak in Egypt who is certainly anything but a democrat. All of these countries are pretty marginal. So I just don’t know what’s going to happen.



DC: Now, if we go back to the beginning of your career, and the story you broke on the My Lai massacre in Vietnam, was it easy to get that kind of story into the public eye?

SH: No. Nobody wanted it. I had to set up an independent news agency and sell it as a syndicated news column, and then tell everybody who bought it that we had the copyright, we had lawyered it, we were going to take responsibility for lawsuits. It was horrible. I mean, I had been a major writer, I’d been with the AP and upi, been a press secretary for a guy who ran for president, had written for a lot of magazines. I knew everybody. Yet I got that story and nobody wanted to touch it. But once we syndicated it and any newspaper who ran it could put a copyright and say, well, somebody else is responsible, then they ran it. But that was pretty horrible. I think we sent it to fifty papers over telex collect – that was the way you did it back then before email – and I think 35 or 36 ran it, most of them as the lead story. So the institution isn’t totally dead. It’s in trouble, but it’s not totally dead.

DC: How do you see the media environment changing since that point?

SH: That’s a big question. Basically, it’s a little shocking to me that the mainstream press has so completely missed the story of this war in Iraq and this presidency. I think when we look back on this era we’re going to be very critical of the press. They really missed one of the great moral issues of our time, just as they missed Vietnam for many years. So it’s really pretty sad.

DC: Where do you see some good journalism happening right now?

SH: Dana Priest in the Washington Post did some good stuff. There’s a kid named Nir Rosen who does some good stuff and has spent a lot of time out there. There are a lot of good journalists out there doing stuff, not all of them necessarily where we can see it. My old newspaper, the New York Times, is basically a huge disappointment to me, not only because of Judith Miller but because they continue to flack for the war. And that’s sort of depressing. After all those years I spent there I am a little astonished that they haven’t figured out a way to be more critical of Bush.

DC: Can you talk at all about what you’re doing right now?

SH: No. Why would I? I’m doing the same thing I’ve been doing since this war began. I haven’t written another story since 9/11. I hate it.

Former Justice Department Official Calls Gonzales' Actions 'Appalling'

Rebecca Carr, for Cox newspapers, interviews Dan Metcalfe:
Dan Metcalfe says he thought he had seen it all as a former senior Justice Department lawyer whose career stretches back to the Watergate scandal of the Nixon administration.

Over the years, Metcalfe says, he has taken pride in being able to work with Republican and Democratic administrations as director of the department's Office of Information and Privacy, which he co-founded in 1981.

But he says he has never seen anything quite like Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales.

Metcalfe, 55, retired in early January, just before the storm erupted over the dismissal last year of nine U.S. attorneys. The House and Senate Judiciary committees are investigating whether the prosecutors were fired in order to squelch political investigations against Republicans or failing to aggressively pursue voter fraud charges against Democratic-leaning groups.

In an interview, Metcalfe said, "I think the way in which the firings themselves were handled was abominable, the way in which the ensuing controversy was handled was abysmal, and the way in which Gonzales has handled himself is absolutely appalling."

"As a long-term Justice Department official, I am embarrassed and increasingly incensed that he is still in there," he said.

The Justice Department, Metcalfe said, has been heavily damaged by "sheer political expediency, avoidance of individual responsibility, defensive personal aggrandizement, irresponsible 'consensus' decision-making (and) disregard for long-standing practices and principles."

He criticized the Bush administration for filling positions that are traditionally held by career employees with political appointees and protégés.

Historically, other administrations have had Justice Departments run by attorney generals with close ties to the White House. Attorney General Robert Kennedy was the brother of President John F. Kennedy.

But academics say that even the Kennedys maintained a healthy distance, in order to maintain the Justice Department's reputation for conducting investigations without any hint of political intrusion.

Gonzales has defended his decision to fire the prosecutors, saying there was nothing improper or illegal about their dismissal. The prosecutors, he said, serve at the pleasure of the president.

"I have admitted mistakes in managing this issue," Gonzales said during testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee in April. "But the department, as a general matter, has not been mismanaged. We've done great things."

Over the last two years, Gonzales said, he has improved security to guard against terrorists, cracked down on gangs and shielded children against predators.

President Bush has strongly defended Gonzales, refusing to acquiesce to demands from Republicans and Democrats for his dismissal. On Sunday, his spokesman Tony Snow said on "Fox News Sunday" that a no-confidence vote on Gonzales scheduled for Monday was "purely symbolic" and would affect Bush's support "not a bit."

In an interview Sunday, Brian Roehrkasse, spokesperson for the Justice department, disagreed with Metcalfe's assessment of Gonzales's performance.

"Mr. Metcalfe is certainly entitled to his opinion. Unfortunately, his broad and overly general accusations are not necessarily grounded in fact," Roehrkasse said.

"I just don't think it is accurate to say that the department is filling up the jobs with political appointees. Look at the facts," he said. He said there are about 110,000 employees at the Department of Justice and fewer than 400 political appointees, Roehrkasse said.

Metcalfe is becoming a professor at American University's Washington College of Law and executive director of a new Center on Government Secrecy being established there next month. Here are excerpts from the interview:

Q.: You worked for both Republican and Democratic presidents since your start at the Justice Department in 1971. Can you tell the public why you left the Justice Department?

A.: First of all, I must say that 55 is not far too young an age at which to retire from government service if one is interested in having a second career, such as teaching law. One of the advantages of my having started out so young and becoming an office director before age 30 was having had a full career, at a high level, by that minimum federal retirement age. That said, though, there's no doubt that I would not have taken advantage of this so soon had I been working at age 55 in a different presidential administration.

Simply put, I found it increasingly difficult to look my wife and kids in the eye and say that even though I had a choice, I was going to continue working for George Bush and Alberto Gonzales. And this was before they and the public were able to fully comprehend why that sentence included Gonzales.

In fact, until Gonzales arrived at the Justice Department in early 2005, Dick Huff (the co-founder of the Office of Information and Privacy) and I had planned to work there until 2007 and at least 2008, respectively, in order to set up the best possible transition for OIP. That changed in mid-2005, however, when a rash of new mid-level political appointees, woefully lacking in government experience, began making the same types of mistakes over and again.

Mind you, these were almost entirely process problems, not policy ones per se, but in the aggregate they set a pattern of government disdain by a whole cadre of such aides who all too often were permitted to run rampant by the Department's senior leadership. It was almost comical at times, except that the work we were doing was serious. So Dick, who had long been retirement-eligible, retired much earlier than planned — and that suddenly freed me of my own personal commitment to stay well beyond the point of my own eligibility at the end of 2006.

Did this have something to do with the current "politicization" in the department? Of course it did. But the connection had everything to do with the processes of government decision-making and public administration rather than with matters of substantive policy.

When you see images of Kyle Sampson (Gonzales's former chief of staff), Monica Goodling (Gonzales's former counsel), and Mike Elston (chief of staff to the deputy attorney general) "handling" U.S. attorneys as they did, with virtually no adult supervision to compensate for their glaring lack of management experience, you get an idea of what Dick Huff and I saw, within our own policy realm, beginning when Gonzales arrived in February 2005, a year before I decided to retire.

Sheer political expediency, avoidance of individual responsibility, defensive personal aggrandizement, irresponsible "consensus" decision-making, disregard for long-standing practices and principles — it was all there, and it was tainted at most every turn by unprecedented White House involvement.

Q.: What do you think about the way Gonzales has handled the firing of nine U.S. attorneys last year? Were their rights under the 1974 Privacy Act violated by Justice Department officials airing their personnel files in open testimony and selective leaks?

A.: I think the way in which the firings themselves were handled was abominable, the way in which the ensuing controversy was handled was abysmal, and the way in which Gonzales has handled himself is absolutely appalling. As a long-term Justice Department official, I am embarrassed and increasingly incensed that he is still in there.

The U.S. attorneys who were fired surely deserved much better by any reasonable standard, regardless of the fact that they were appointees who served at the president's pleasure.

Remember that though these firings took place mostly in December, the controversy was largely fueled by the department's subsequent public pronouncements that they had been replaced for "performance" reasons. As several of them plaintively pointed out, this was highly stigmatizing, both for them personally and for the career professionals who worked for them in their districts. And it became only worse as aides such as Sampson and Elston flailed around to publicly justify their callous actions after the fact.

One has to wonder: What was the legal basis for the making of these reputation-damaging disclosures?

Surely the average federal employee is firmly protected from such gross recklessness by the strict disclosure prohibitions contained in the Privacy Act of 1974; dozens of cases under both the Privacy Act and the privacy exemptions of the Freedom of Information Act stand for that proposition.

Specifically, are political appointees such as U.S. attorneys any different? No, not if the adverse personnel information derives from (or properly should have been placed within) files maintained under a U.S. attorney's name or (as in this case, perhaps) any personal identifier, such as the judicial district in which he or she currently holds tenure.

And even the fact that such a disclosure might be made as part of a congressional inquiry does not absolutely insulate an agency from culpability or liability in this regard, especially where such an action is tantamount to public disclosure at the outset. At this point, would it surprise anyone to hear that this agency that is so vitally charged with enforcing the law has blithely violated the law in such a way? Sadly, it now would not — and that's part of the terrible damage that Gonzales's tenure has done to the Department of Justice.

Q.: Do you think that Gonzales has the confidence of the career civil servants to continue? How has the controversy affected the morale within the department?

A.: To put it mildly, it's hard to imagine that anyone but the most die-hard political appointees at the Justice Department would have any confidence in Gonzales today — and even that small amount of support would be based on blind loyalty rather than painful reality.

To take just one very specific aspect of his "performance," his astonishing lack of memory alone indicts him. It was bad enough when he claimed he couldn't remember having had a conversation with President Bush bout a U.S. attorney that even the White House (uncharacteristically) acknowledged had in fact taken place. But when he swore before the Senate in mid-April that he could not remember attending the Nov. 27 "U.S. attorney firing" meeting that was the only such meeting held — well, that was either non-credible or, if true, incredibly sad.

Remember that Gonzales had earlier testified on this subject on Jan. 18, less than two months after that Nov. 27 meeting; one should be able to assume that he specifically reviewed the basic facts of the matter then, scant as they were, regardless of how busy or distracted he might have been at any other time.

Yet it seemed that about all he could remember on the day of his Senate testimony in April was to show up as scheduled and take a seat — which, by the way, appears to have been Bush's low standard for his own blind vote of "confidence."

What a disgrace to the position of attorney general to have one who has become an iconic antithesis of personal responsibility. As for morale within the Department, perhaps someone should take an "exit poll" of its career employees as they leave the building at the end of the day; do you think Gonzales would muster even a fraction of Bush's own approval rating of 28 percent?

Q.: Did the Justice Department decision-making processes that you saw in 2005 and 2006 fit with what we now know about Gonzales' role in the U.S. attorneys matter?

A.: Yes, it was a perfect predictor of it. What I saw soon after Gonzales arrived was nothing less than a culture shift within the department, from one of individual responsibility to self-protection, from institutional integrity to highly transactional morality, and from professional confidence to fear of the unknown.

And make no mistake: The source of that fear almost invariably was "the White House" — which meant even the vice president's office on down to the most junior of White House staff members. When you have that fear, I saw, the best antidote apparently is to operate by "consensus," the mantra that Gonzales has repeated so tirelessly and pitifully whenever anyone has questioned his U.S. attorney decision-making — even as recently as in his House testimony on May 10 and at his exploitative National Press Club appearance immediately after Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty announced his own resignation.

Evidently, the first thing you do in "consensus" decision-making is pledge to acquiesce to every suggestion that anyone else involved in the process might have, without caring a bit about the resulting "lowest common denominator" level of quality. Then you make sure that decisions that you absolutely have to be involved in (i.e., those that you cannot get away with completely delegating) are group decisions; that way, no one person takes responsibility for anything in particular.

As I saw time and again, this can both diffuse and obscure individual involvement, even for a person who by dint of his responsibility could not otherwise hope to evade accountability. Case in point: The very fact that no one knows even yet who it was who engineered the firing of U.S. Attorney David Iglesias is a quintessential example of how Gonzales's idea of "consensus" decision-making worked. Yes, to this very day, it has indeed "worked."

Q.: In a recent radio interview, you noted that middle management positions are being filled by political appointees or proteges of political appointees. What is the danger in that?

A.: In that interview I spoke of a particular personnel trend that is distinct from the "politicization" problem I've alluded to above, but which also compounds it.

What the general public probably does not realize is that at any sizable agency in the federal government there is a standard balance between career officials and non-career political appointees who together manage the agency, based upon a traditional division of positions along career/non-career lines. At some agencies, given the nature of their work, the ratio of political to career officials is relatively high; at the Department of Justice, given its unique role in the administration of justice, the opposite has always been the case. Until the current Bush administration, that is.

It is well grounded in fact that during the past six years many more positions have been filled by political or "political protege" appointees there, rather than by career officials as in the past.

These positions include that of an assistant attorney general, numerous deputy assistant attorneys general, and even some positions down at the level of branch director or section chief in the department's litigating divisions. And this is true also at the "component head" level. The Justice Department is divided into 40 components, with a group of "component heads" who predominantly are presidential appointees as you would naturally expect.

But when I retired this year as the longest-serving "component head" of the current group, I was one of a dwindling number of such officials who were not political appointees. What the public should understand is that apart from anything else, a political official is far more likely than a career one to bend the rules or even the law under any pressure that he receives from above or from the White House — and at Justice lately, the two have become one and the same.

By contrast, unless a career official is unduly concerned about her position, either current or prospective, such pressure should not pose an immediate danger to doing the right thing. So when one looks at the Justice Department these days, with its "politicization" problems at multiple levels, one should not overlook the types of people who are filling positions of authority and certainly should compare them to those who held such positions in the past.

Q.: You were there during the Nixon years, including the infamous "Saturday night massacre." Some lawmakers compare the current situation at Justice to that era, given the recent testimony by former Deputy Attorney General James Comey that mass resignations were in the works over Gonzales, as White House counsel, pursuing a domestic surveillance program that the Justice Department deemed illegal. Do you agree with that assessment?

A.: From my perspective, these current comparisons to the Watergate era are quite apt, even recognizing that the wide-ranging Watergate scandal involved many elements of proven criminality that do not appear to be present here.

It is the arrogance of power, the palpable disdain for the rule of law, and the utter disregard for the Justice Department's integrity that brings this so very close to the Watergate era.

Yes, I was lucky enough to have been working as a law clerk in part of the attorney general's office at the time of the "Saturday night massacre" in October of 1973, and I saw first-hand the devastating effects on the department's morale and its functioning when Attorney General Elliot Richardson and Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus were forced to resign rather than do Nixon's bidding and when William Saxbe came in as a replacement attorney general in 1974. That was a time characterized by virtually zero independence of the Justice Department from the White House and by fears of lawlessness as well. The rule of law was very much in question back then, as it unfortunately is again today.

And certainly the comparison is now all the more chilling with former Jim Comey's vivid account of then-White House Counsel Gonzales's blatant attempt to subvert the Justice Department's legal authority in a darkened hospital room. My own view of that sorry episode is that it tellingly took nothing less than threatened resignations, rather than proper legal arguments, to back a president down from a wrongful path, and that the nation is very lucky to have had people of the caliber of Jim Comey and FBI Director Robert Mueller to have done so.

You know, there were those who said in 1973 that our constitutional system of government had succeeded in withstanding a grave test when the Richardson and Ruckelshaus resignations permitted Nixon's firing of (Watergate) Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox on that Saturday night, but I think the real success of Watergate was when Nixon ultimately lost in the courts, setting the stage for impeachment and removal. One wonders whether the comparison will continue to hold in that way.

Q.: The tradition has long been that the Justice Department keeps a healthy distance from the White House. Is there a healthy distance between the Bush White House and the Gonzales Justice Department?

A.: No, there is an unhealthy lack of distance between the Justice Department and the White House now. That tradition of distance and independence stems from the Department's singular role in its administration of our system of justice and the rule of law.

To be sure, it was breached badly under Nixon, but that tradition has been a solid one ever since the Justice Department's post-Watergate repair by Attorney General Edward Levi under President Ford. To say that it has been absolutely shattered by the concerted efforts of Gonzales, Bush, and Karl Rove (not to mention those in the office of the vice president) is nearly redundant by now.

Q.: How does the Gonzales Justice Department compare to that of fellow conservative John Ashcroft? How does Gonzales compare to other attorney generals?

A.: To those of us who worked in the Justice Department under both Ashcroft and Gonzales, the contrasts were more striking than we ever could have imagined.

To be sure, Ashcroft ran the Department with a much more pronounced career/non-career divide than other attorneys general (especially his immediate predecessor Janet Reno) by importing the management model that had worked for him as a senator — and this was far from ideal.

But notice that I said he "ran" the Department; he wasn't just an "empty suit." He also was a man of no small integrity; whether you agreed with him or not, at least there was a basis for thinking that he was trying his best to do the right thing, particularly in the aftermath of 9/11. That certainly showed when he staunchly rebuffed Gonzales, on multiple grounds, from his hospital bed.

And in comparison to Gonzales, the fact that both are conservatives has become meaningless. The key contrast is their standing as individuals and as respectable holders of public trust, or not. Gonzales has now shown himself to be so lacking as to defy complete description; words seem inadequate in the face of such blithe noncompetence. Suffice to say that his standing relative to other attorneys general comports with how this president compares with his own predecessors.