Eric Alterman | The Nation

My new Think Again column is called “Campaign-Finance Reform in an Age of Corporate Influence,” and it’s here.

My new Nation column is called More BS About 'Both Sides' and it’s here.

Below is a copy of a letter I sent to The Forward regarding the newspaper’s coverage of the hiring of Josh Block to run The Israel Project. The sections in bold are the ones they chose not to run. (It was edited without my participation and The Forward does not appear to have updated the “letters” section of its website since December.)

1 April 2013

To the Editor:

I was disappointed to read The Forward’s coverage of The Israel Project’s hiring of ex-AIPAC flack Josh Block to be its new head. According to your coverage, “Block entered a highly publicized quarrel with the Center for American Progress, a progressive Democratic think tank whose views on Israel, according to Block, were biased and at times ’borderline anti-Semitic.’”

Actually, Block did not accuse the entire center with this term. He referred specifically to yours truly. I thought it rather funny at the time, given that I was also a columnist for The Forward, which rarely offers regular columns to anti-Semites, “borderline” or otherwise. Moreover, the quote of mine to which he specifically referred as allegedly anti-Semitic merely called attention to AIPAC’s desire to see the United States attack Iran. This is hardly a controversial view regarding AIPAC’s aims, even among its supporters. As it happens, I felt forced to resign my Forward column over the enforced delay I experienced in responding to Block’s McCarthyite attack on CAP and myself in the Forward’s pages. So that was one victory for Mr. Block. He has won yet another with the Forward’s coverage of his appointment. Here, again, Block’s false charge against the Center for American Progress (where I was, and remain, a senior fellow) was repeated, albeit inaccurately, without any response from the accused, nor any context for readers unfamiliar with Mr. Block’s nefarious tactics. (It was a rather big deal at the time, and was covered in The Forward’s news and editorial pages). 

It’s shame that yet another Jewish political institution will now likely adapt such tactics with regard intra-community disagreements, but that is clearly the direction The Israel Project has chosen in picking Mr. Block to represent it. What remains unclear to me, however, is why The Forward, whose reporting on Jewish political organizations is second to none, chooses to sugarcoat these actions, and in doing so, encourage their continued abuse by Mr. Block and his allies in the future.

Sincerely,

Eric Alterman

Former Forward Columnist

Interesting how The Forward kept in the compliment I gave them regarding “second to none” but took out every other reference, including especially, the reason I resigned. Note also that the letter does not now reveal that I was the topic of Block’s attack, which could lead to accusations that I sought to cover this up in my criticism of The Israel Project’s decision to hire him.

Alter-reviews: Here’s Danny Goldberg on the new film, War on Whistleblowers.

Robert Greenwald, whose previous films include the great "Outfoxed"  has a new film about the way that the US government has discouraged and sometimes published whistle-blowers ."War on Whistleblowers" highlights four cases where whistleblowers noticed government wrong-doing and took to the media to expose the fraud and abuse. It exposes the surprisingly worsening reality for whistleblowers and the press.

The film includes interviews with award-winning journalists David Carr, Lucy Dalgish, Glenn Greenwald, Seymour Hersh, Michael Isikoff, Bill Keller, Eric Lipton, Jane Mayer and Dana Priest. More info, trailer and info about downloading here.

Now here’s Reed:

My cover story for The Nation magazine this week, "GOP-Fox Circus Act," is now up. It’s a long, detailed look at how the network, despite suffering from the same worsening symptoms as the Republican Party it shamelessly fronts for, has changed little since the 2012 election. And how honest conservatives are suffering from the co-dependent relationship between the two. (And a big thanks to the proprietor of this blog for giving me the platform here every week that eventually led to me getting the chance to write it.)

The Beltway Media’s Best-Kept Budget Secret: Social Security Does Not Add to the Deficit
by Reed Richardson

Let me sketch out a ridiculous, outlandish conspiracy theory for you. It involves an overwhelming majority of the nation’s establishment media, who meet secretly so that they can uniformly mislead the public into believing one of our most popular safety net programs has a deleterious impact on our federal budget. At times, this misinformation campaign is brazenly direct, and might involve using op-ed columnists and TV pundits to endorse the wrongheaded conclusions of bipartisan presidential commissions. Most other times, though, this insidious, dark-cloaked cabal works more subtly (as all great conspiracies do), choosing to confuse the debate through carefully positioned citations of conventional wisdom and sly rhetorical conflation of thoroughly dissimilar fiscal platforms. After enough time, this falsehood might even come to be seen as true among many of our government’s key decision makers. And only by the grace of God, the bracing power of common sense, and perhaps a healthy dose of fear about being left destitute in old age, does the public resist buying into this same propaganda.

Crazy, right?

Well no. In fact, this same familiar scenario played out this past week after President Obama released his latest federal budget proposal. (OK, I have no proof about the secret meetings or the dark cloaks.) With the White House budget’s inclusion of a benefit cut to Social Security—by embracing a chained-CPI cost-of-living adjustment for recipients—the American public was once again treated to a widespread assault on the truth regarding what Social Security is, what it does, and, most importantly, what it does not do. Fortunately, there is a simple mantra one can use to avoid all these distortions. Reporters, producers, pundits, bloggers—repeat after me:

Social Security does not add to the debt.

Social Security does not add to the deficit.

Social Security has nothing to do with the deficit. (Special for our conservative readers.)

I know, I know. How can these statements be true? After all, no serious person in Washington has ever admitted as much. Even the illustrious fact-checkers at the Washington Post and Associated Press say it does add to the deficit, as does the editorial board of a national newspaper. Isn’t it just the dirty hippies who think this way—along with other crackpots like Pulitzer Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman and conservative Social Security trustee Charles Blahous?

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The fact is that, Social Security cannot contribute to the federal budget deficit because, by law, the program is not a part of the federal government’s “on-budget” accounting, as it’s called. (See slide 14 of this CBO report.) But the mainstream press routinely dismisses this part of the US Code as mere artifice, and loves to point out that the federal government pays out Social Security revenue as fast as it comes in and then borrows against it for more spending. All that’s left, then, is supposedly a bunch of government “IOU”s—a favorite trope of Social Security Cassandras. But here’s someone much smarter than me—George Washington University political scientist professor Robert Stoker, explaining how the Beltway conventional wisdom goes totally awry with this analogy:

If you owe a $5,000 credit card bill and you take a home equity loan to pay off the credit card, your total debt has not changed; you have refinanced the debt, transferring it from one financial instrument (and one creditor) to another. Much the same can be said about repaying the OASDI Trust Fund. The fund’s assets are composed of debts already accounted for as part of the nation’s total debt. When the Treasury borrows to pay current Social Security benefits, the debt owed to the Social Security Trust Fund is repaid, refinanced, and transferred to whoever purchases Treasury securities.

Of course, the cost of refinancing the debt is a key concern. However, the only scenario in which repaying the Social Security Trust Fund can increase the nation’s debt is if interest rates are higher now than they were when the original debt was incurred. Given current market conditions (nominal interest rates are presently quite low, the rate on ten-year Treasury Bonds is around two percent), the more plausible claim is that refinancing the Social Security Trust Fund’s debt has reduced the nation’s debt slightly by reducing interest costs” [italics mine].

Yes, you read that last part right, the negative interest rate spread we’re currently enjoying actually means borrowing money effectively lowers the deficit. (One note of caution, probably not wise to share this bit of data with any right-wing friends in the midst of taking a drink.) How this reality plays in the press looks radically different, though, as I found after trolling through dozens of news articles about the president’s budget this past week.

Among the worst offenders of up-is-down reporting, somewhat ironically, was this CNNMoney report that explicitly tied Social Security and the deficit together:

All told, the switch to chained CPI could reduce spending over ten years by $216 billion and raise $124 billion in revenue, according to Congressional Budget Office estimates. That would mean total deficit reduction of $340 billion, before counting interest savings.

This is falling directly into the Republican trap of conflating Social Security “entitlement cuts” as necessary to stem out of-control spending. Thankfully, most of the rest of the media wasn’t this brazenly wrong, but that doesn’t mean they’re not marching to the sound of the same out-of-step drummer. For example, below is the opening paragraph of the Associated Press’s big lead story on President Obama’s budget. It’s Social Security-deficit conflation manipulation is one step removed, but noticing that nuance is beyond mere mortals, and certainly out of reach for most Congressmen. By lumping Social Security cuts in with other stuff as one big “debt reduction” deal, the point is made:

President Barack Obama’s proposed budget will call for reductions in the growth of Social Security and other benefit programs while still insisting on more taxes from the wealthy in a renewed attempt to strike a broad deficit-cutting deal with Republicans.

This Washington Post lead story on the budget commits the same sin, juxtaposing the two disparate items into the same thought:

Obama also proposes to slow the growth of Social Security benefits through chained CPI, trimming cost-of-living increases by roughly three-tenths of a percentage point a year and saving the government about $130 billion over the next decade.

White House officials said the change would not affect programs for the poor, such as Supplemental Security Income, or SSI, and would be adjusted to reduce the impact on retirees 77 or older. Still, the proposal has infuriated many Democrats, who have long demanded that Social Security be protected from any debt-reduction deal.

Gee, I wonder why many Democrats might be infuriated? Oh yeah, probably because Social Security does not add to the debt. Guess that motivation isn’t worth mentioning, though. Sadly, The New York Times’s straight news coverage stumbled over this Democratic anger as well. In last Friday’s front-page story, the Times ambiguously conjoins the two and omits any mention of why those on the left might be, again, “infuriated”:

President Obama next week will take the political risk of formally proposing cuts to Social Security and Medicare in his annual budget in an effort to demonstrate his willingness to compromise with Republicans and revive prospects for a long-term deficit-reduction deal, administration officials say. […]

The idea, known as chained C.P.I., has infuriated some Democrats and advocacy groups to Mr. Obama’s left, and they have already mobilized in opposition.

Over at Politico, one could read any number of its trademark process stories, like this one, that obsessed over the insider details of the budget deal, and encounter the same mistaken formulation:

There was some praise from Republicans about the inclusion of ‘chained CPI,’ a provision that would reduce Social Security benefits in the long run. Obama offered the language as an olive branch to Republicans in hopes it would help kick off a large-scale deficit deal.

Funny that a cut in a program like Social Security, which you might have heard, doesn’t add to the deficit, is characterized as a something that would “kick off” a deal on the deficit. Still, let’s give (partial) credit where it’s due. Nine paragraphs later, the article does at least quote Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse as saying: “Social Security hasn’t contributed to the deficit and shouldn’t be included in deficit talks.” But sticking a fact inside a politician’s quote is an age-old journalistic trick to effectively undermines it; it’s a way to sidestep controversy and taint the truth by ascribing it to a “biased” source. To see how the pros at this behave, look no further than this Fox News story, which establishes that only the radical left cares about preserving Social Security:

The 2014 plan, delivered to Congress Wednesday morning, was pitched by Obama as a compromise—twinning tax increases, which Republicans dislike, with changes to Social Security, which liberal Democrats despise.

That’s true, liberal Democrats do object to sacrificing the sanctity of a vital social insurance program on the (phony) altar of deficit reduction. Probably because Social Security doesn’t add to the deficit. And this viewpoint, I might add, is actually shared by a majority of Americans, including half of independents and nearly four out of ten Republicans. Although you likely wouldn’t know it from consuming the mainstream media’s output the past week. Indeed, only by venturing into the realm of subjective reasoning, like the New York Times editorial page, might one finally encounter a reality-based approach to the deficit/debt and Social Security reform, which are two distinct issues:

Social Security reforms should be decided separately because the program is not driving the deficit…Social Security did not cause today’s deficits, because the payroll taxes that support it have been more than adequate; and it will not contribute to future debt, because it is barred from spending more than it takes in.”

Hallelujah! But sadly, what little the Beltway media giveth in terms of the truth, it quickly tries to take away, as the frighteningly predictable lead editorial in yesterday’s Washington Post demonstrates:

Unlike the Senate Democrats’ budget, Mr. Obama’s does not pretend that deficits can be meaningfully reduced by soaking the rich while largely avoiding entitlements.

Most important, the president committed himself in writing to more than $100 billion in Social Security spending restraint over the next decade, along with $400 billion in health program reductions. Mr. Obama too often casts entitlement reform as a concession to extract Republican assent to higher taxes, rather than a worthy end in itself [italics mine].

Here, the Post can’t quite let itself explicitly acknowledge that, yes, Social Security has nothing to do with the deficit, so readers are treated to a clever usage of a euphemism, “spending restraint” that merely implies the same thing. But then they just come right out and say what the Beltway’s thinking is really all about—cutting Social Security is all about doing it for the sake of doing it—a “worthy end in itself.” Pain for pain’s sake.

So, let’s be 100-percent clear, to misunderstand and then misrepresent how Social Security figures into our national debt and deficit is gross injustice. By helping to propagate this myth among our nation’s leaders, the press is guilty of nothing less than journalistic malpractice. And for a profession that proclaims its devotion to objectivity, it’s critical to point out that media’s failure here significantly redounds to the political benefit of the party and ideology of the right-wing. (Although, to be fair, this president also enjoys the fruits of this misreporting, as it makes his callous ploy of sacrificing the quality of life of our nation’s seniors on an altar of phony debt reduction and legacy building less obviously craven and depraved.)

Ten years ago, our establishment media failed spectacularly, resulting in a disastrous war that claimed hundreds of thousands of lives and cost trillions of dollars. This, despite the fact that its premise was known to be false at the time we launched it. So, one has to wonder if, ten years hence, the tattered remnants of the most effective social insurance program in our nation’s history will occasion another pathetic round of self-recrimination among the press corps. The same names and publications will shrug their collective shoulders and admit that thing might have turned out differently, if only they’d admitted the obvious truth: Social Security does not contribute to the deficit.

Contact me directly at reedfrichardson (at) gmail dot com. Also, I’m on Twitter here—(at)reedfrich.

Editor's note: To contact Eric Alterman, use this form.

For more on Josh Block and The Israel Project, see Eric Alterman's last blog post.

My new Think Again column is called “Acknowledging Our Mistakes in Iraq Would Prevent Us from Repeating Them” but I would have called it “Liberal Hawks on Iraq Anniversary: 'We were right to be wrong.'" Anyway, it’s here. You can be the judge of what it should be called.

My Nation column is called “The Passion and Eloquence of Anthony Lewis” and it is here.

How to get into Bruce Springsteen.

An annoying back and forth:

I found myself forced last week to get into a letters to the editor hassle with a conservative academic named Richard Vatz, who, in attempting to make the case in the Baltimore Sun that “Liberal media bias is beyond doubt,” wrote the following sentence:

“Nation magazine journalist Eric Alterman wrote a book, 'What Liberal Bias,' that is widely cited and heavily researched but filled with evidentiary problems.”

That was it. No evidence. No follow up. No nothing. And the dude could not even get the title correct.

Anyway, I responded:

To the editors:

I was almost tempted to admire both the irony--to say nothing of the audacity--of being accused of producing work flawed by “evidentiary problems” in a newspaper column by a professor who cannot be bothered to produce a single scintilla of evidence to support his claim. But since it’s my reputation at stake, my amusement was minimal.

For the record, the work to which your guest columnist, Richard E. Vatz, refers: What Liberal Media? The Truth About Bias and the News (Basic Books, 2003 and 2004), was meticulously fact-checked and contains  fully 43 pages of source notes. I do not deny the possibility of error. It’s almost impossible to write a work of over 350 pages without them, though I am aware of none that have survived beyond its first printing. I also do not deny the likelihood that many people will disagree with my arguments. That is, after all, what honorable public discourse is all about.  But I do deny both Mr. Vatz and by extension, the Sun’s right to cast aspersions on my scholarship by throwing out casually derogatory accusations without making any attempt to support them.

I hate to sound defensive, but it so happens that The New Yorker magazine, which is considered to be an authority on such matters, noted the“ meticulous care with which [Alterman’s] arguments are sourced and footnoted.” The Los Angeles Times called the book “well-documented” and “even-tempered.” The Columbia Journalism Review said the “research really is excellent.” The Orlando Sentinel called the book “thoroughly researched.” The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel termed it “masterful, painstakingly documented.” Publishers Weekly thought it “well-documented” and “well-argued.”  Providence Journal: “Exhaustively researched.” The Boston Review: ”Exhaustively researched.” I could go on, but my point is not to brag, but merely to point out that Mr. Vatz’s opinion is a lonely one, and requires, at the very least, significant supporting evidence to be taken seriously as anything but an ideologically motivated ad-hominem attack.

Such baseless accusations may be the appropriate manner to conduct oneself in the on Fox News or right-wing talk radio, but Sun readers deserve better and so do I.  I look forward to both an apology and a retraction.

Sincerely, 

Eric Alterman 

So then he wrote back:

Eric Alterman criticizes my recent commentary in The Sun on major media bias ("Liberal media bias is beyond doubt, March 18) because, he claims, I lacked "supporting evidence" in claiming his book, ""What Liberal Media? The Truth About Bias and the News," had "evidentiary problems" ("Vatz's baseless attack," March 21). He unsurprisingly quotes variously liberal sources as finding his thesis well-proved. In several e-mails to me, he recklessly analogized me to the reckless Joe McCarthy, ending with addressing me as "Joe." Very adult.

As I explained to him, it is impossible to provide full analysis to every example one cites in a 600-700 word op-ed piece, but I shall be happy to now, quoting just a few problems in his work from a book review I wrote for a major journal in my field, the Fall, 2003 issue of Qualitative Research Reports in Communication. Incidentally, Mr. Alterman's book was required reading in my class for years.

Mr. Alterman disputes the existence of most liberal bias and even argues that there is much conservative bias in the media (p. 1, p.11, p. 15). He concedes that there may be some liberal bias here and there in the media, but he undercovers it and claims without proof it is not "overwhelming" in the significant areas of abortion, gun control, campaign finance reform, gay rights and the environment (pp. 108-109).

Mr. Alterman is simply not careful with his generalizations in his book and often his evidence is conspicuously selective. For example, he cites a 1996 Freedom Forum poll of Washington bureau chiefs and congressional correspondents as "the right's Rosetta Stone..." He simply ignores the very long list of other media surveys that reveal as well that elite journalists skew left or liberal in comparison to public opinion.

There are also glaring omissions in his work. For just one example, absent is any careful analysis of National Public Radio. In his very selective and limited analysis of this source of liberal bias (NPR), he simply claims that it was inadequate in criticizing corporate wealth. There also has been a long concern about allegedly anti-Israeli reporting by NPR, which is also unaddressed by Mr. Alterman.

I could go on, but the point is that one cannot write a lengthy treatise about every supporting point in an op-ed piece. But a writer should have knowledge about criticisms he makes, and I do. Mr. Alterman doesn't.

Richard E. Vatz, Towson

So then I wrote back:

I have no doubt your readers find the back and forth between Richard E. Vatz and myself about the evidence contained in my 2003 book, What Liberal Media? The Truth about Bias and the News, to be tedious. Be assured I find even more tedious to have to participate in it.  But a scholar’s reputation for accuracy and evidence is the equivalent of his personal integrity. Mr. Vatz appears intent on impugning mine, but insists upon doing so behind nothing more than the verbal equivalents of smokescreens and mirrors.

I’ll be as brief as I can. In his March 26 letter in response to mine, Vatz notes in his first sentence that “claim that he lacked ‘supporting evidence’” for his attack on the evidence in my book.  I did not “claim” this, I note it as a simple fact. Vatz made no attempt whatever to support his accusation.  He later attempts to excuse his action because he writes, “it is impossible to provide full analysis to every example one cites in a 600-700 word op-ed piece.” Again, “full analysis?” How about none whatsoever? Mr. Vatz appears not to know the difference.

In his next sentence he writes that I “unsurprisingly quote variously liberal sources as finding his thesis well-proved.” Again, check the record. Not a single one of the sources I quote was a “liberal” one. Each was a mainstream media newspaper or newsmagazine. They are “liberal” only the sense that anyone to the left of say, Rush Limbaugh or Ann Coulter is also “liberal.” Perhaps this is also true of Mr. Vatz, though, lacking further evidence, I hesitate to draw any definite conclusions.

I apparently hurt Mr. Vatz’s feelings when I emailed him that it was also a tactic of Joe McCarthy’s to make accusations without bothering to present any evidence. For that I am sorry, accurate as the analogy may be.

As for his belated attempt to support his initial carelessness, he huffs and puffs a bit before insisting that one piece of evidence I cite is “selective.” Goodness! A scholar being “selective?” What will he accuse me of next? Exercising careful judgment?  As for his revelation that there exists  “a very long list of other media surveys that reveal as well that elite journalists skew left or liberal in comparison to public opinion.” It is false to say I ignore this. I address it by noting that a variety of factors, including professional pride, the belief in objectivity, media ownership, and right-wing pressure—all of whose effects are described in detail in my book--can prevent liberal journalists from publishing liberally biased stories. I’m sorry if I stated this in such a way that Mr. Vatz failed to understand it. I hope I have done so more clearly now.

As for the “glaring omissions,” in my work, and my “very selective and limited analysis,” once again, I plead guilty. In a book of only 350 or so pages with a 43 mere pages of supporting source notes, one cannot cover absolutely everything. I am selective. My analysis is limited. This is true. It is also a truism. All scholarship is by definition “selective” and “limited.” It’s true of Robert Caro’s (so far) 4000 page biography of Lyndon Johnson  and it’s true of everything Mr. Vatz has ever published, whatever that may be. As a professor of “rhetoric,” I would have expected him to know this, but then again, I would also have expected him to be acquainted with the meaning (and importance) of evidence.

Finally at the end of his letter, Mr. Vatz writes “There also has been a long concern about allegedly anti-Israeli reporting by NPR, which is also unaddressed by Mr. Alterman.” I have to admit, I find this bizarre. First, it has nothing whatever to do with anything in my book, since I barely discuss NPR. Second, once again--and I am getting as tired of writing this as Sun readers are of reading it--Mr. Vatz provides no evidence. for his accusation. Sure “there has long been concern” about lots of “alleged” matters. Many people are apparently concerned about President Obama’s “alleged” birth in Kenya and his “alleged” desire to turn the United States into either a Socialist or an Islamic Republic, or perhaps both. In the past, we have heard of others “concern” with President Clinton’s “alleged” murder of his wife’s “alleged” ex-lover or his “alleged”  love child of mixed-race parentage. The idea that Vatz would end his missive by tossing out yet another allegation for which he provides no evidence is either sad or comical, depending on one’s point of view. What it is not is worthy of space in your newspaper.

Sincerely

Eric Alterman

Alter-reviews:  Carrington and Ellington, Stephen Stills and Duane Allman

I was unfamiliar with the work of the drummer, Terri Lyne Carrington, but she certainly caught it with her tribute to the 1963 album by Duke Ellington, Charlie Mingus and Max Roach,  Money Jungle. Her album features Featuring Gerald Claytonand Christian McBride, with guests, Clark Terry, Lizz Wright, Herbie Hancock  and picks up the previous  commentary on the perennial tug-of-war between art and commerce that has only grown more desperate in the half century that’s passed.  I caught her band at Dizzy’s  on Tuesday night and she and the players (which included Mr. Clayton)  It was an interesting and provocative night, and in addition to educating me about Carrington’s work, whetting my appetite for next month’s Jazz@LC tribute to Mr. “Beyond Category.” The Ellington festival begins on April 24 and you can read about it here. For more about Ms. Carrington, go here.

It’s been a magnificent week in my favorite category:  “Box sets of the music of the people to whose work I grew up listening but with whom I could not entirely keep up, much to my regret.” Up first, Carry On is a four-CD set, spanning 50 years. One great thing about it is that it’s the right size to fit on your cd shelf (as were the slightly less expansive Crosby and Nash boxes.) You get over five hours of music and a 113 page booklet and most of it, I’m betting, is stuff with which you’re not familiar.  Produced by Nash with Stills and Joel Bernstein, it hits most of the high spots but throws in a plethora of alternate recordings, demos, live cuts, new mixes, totalling 25 previously unreleased tracks.

I also appreciate that the box is organized chronologically—beginning with The: "Travelin " a previously unreleased recording that Stills made at age 17 in Costa Rica (one of the many places he lived growing up in a military family). The most recent recording is from one of those incredible Beacon shows I reviewed in the fall and has  CSN performing "Girl From The North Country."  There’s a lot of music here that will be a revelation to people who know only CSNY, Buffalo Springfield and Marrakesh Express.  Did you know, for instance that Stills played with Hendrix? (He says they were planning to record together.) There’s a great jam here.  And I particularly love the 2002 CSNY “Ole Man Trouble” at MSG with on Booker T. and Donald "Duck" Dunn. You’ll also find Herbie Hancock, Eric Clapton, Maynard Ferguson, Ray Baretto, Willie Bobo, and Larry Harlow sprinkled throughout the musicians, but overall it’s a compelling play for Stills’ centrality in the history of rock n roll, as well as just some great stuff to have all in one place.  I would have preferred a bit heavier emphasis on the Manassas albums and the much undervalued solo work from the late seventies, but hey, I didn’t do the work. The price is pretty reasonable too, all things considered. More here.

p.s. I see the May 3CSN/Jazz@LC gig is sold out. That’s a shame. I fear the scalpers will get rich on what will undoubtedly be a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

The monster box this month is the enormous seven cd  129 track retrospective of Duane Allman's  work,  “Skydog.” Duane’s career has been examined before, over the course of four cds, but this set will tempt even those who, like yours truly, already have everything the Allman Brothers ever put out  plus a few albums where Duane was just a studio hand. It begins in 1965 with Duane, at age 18, together with his baby brother, Greg, fronting a band called the Escorts, doing a quite decent version of “Lovelight.” A year later we get six songs, also with Gregg, as the Allman Joys. Plus another nine with same as The Hour Glass and then two more as the 31st of February follow.  These are much better than I expected them to be—few are “work” the way say, listening to “The Bruce Springsteen Band” or “Steel Mill” can be.  Next we get a tour through Duane’s studio work, much of it done down in Muscle Shoals for Jerry Wexler  and includes the work of Clarence Carter, Wilson Pickett, Arthur Conley Aretha Franklin, Boz Scaggs, Ronnie Hawkins, Lulu, Herbie Mann, Hammond Jr.,  Barry Goldberg, Otis Rush, King Curtis, Johnny Jenkins, Sam Samudo, Delaney and Bonnie, and even Laura Nyro and Lulu. There is no new Derek and the Dominoes material unfortunately and the Allman Brothers stuff, which is a lot of it, is mostly from performances that have been released in the past few years but are not on the classic albums that everybody has.  I had them, but the studio work and the early stuff more than justifies this box even with the repeats.  In fact I’ve even gone out to buy a few albums by people with whose work I was unfamiliar after listening to Duane play on their songs.  The mixes are excellent and the liner notes, while not terribly elaborate, provide all the dates and players for each of the songs. There are too many highlights spread across this to name any one—especially since this will differ from person to person--to name any of them. But everything’s here. It takes one up a bit short to note that Duane died at just 24. I’ve been seeing the band twice a year (at least) for the past quarter century, and while they are better technically now than ever—better I would submit, than just about any band of musicians playing popular music of any kind anywhere—the creative period obviously took place under Duane and shortly thereafter (through “Brothers and Sisters.”) There is a richness to this music, given his versatility as a studio player and the excellence of those whom he sought for collaboration and vice versa.  “Skydog” is not cheap but it will sell out, and if you are considering it, even with the repeats of previous releases, I feel pretty certain you’ll regret it if you let it go by. I know I would. There’s a video here.

Now here’s Reed:

Propaganda Propagation
by Reed Richardson

Ever wonder where a piece of right-wing misinformation comes from? Or how it got started? Or what kind of long, strange trip it took from conception to gestation to arriving, fully formed, in the talking points of conservatives, after which one can expect the mainstream media to treat the lie seriously on the Sunday morning news shows?

Then come with me down the rabbit hole.

Our first stop is this Mediaite column from earlier this week authored by columnist and site editor Noah Rothman. The premise of this column was that the millions of dollars New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg is currently spending to push for reasonable gun control legislation was, in fact, counterproductive. Instead, he argued Bloomberg is conveniently providing right-wing folks from the redder parts of America an attractive archenemy to rally against. But Rothman’s real objection to Bloomberg comes later in the piece when he suddenly pivots to the topic of campaign finance reform [italics mine]:

Bloomberg is the physical embodiment of the hypocrisy the Democratic Party and the media display on campaign finance reform issues.Combined with the news that the liberal Tides Foundation had contributed five times more to Democrats than the oft-maligned libertarian Koch Brothers contributed to Republicans, Bloomberg’s financial contributions to liberal candidates demonstrate that progressives and the media establishment are only concerned about campaign finance issues when Democratic candidates are in danger of losing elections. 

As someone who has occasionally written about the pernicious effects of outside spending on political campaigns—for example, right here last week—I was admittedly surprised by the claim in the italicized portion above. Could it be that the Tides Foundation really is this secret liberal leviathan whose Democratic campaign funding dwarfs even the infamously outlandish spending by the Koch brothers? Only a few seconds after clicking the link, which brings you to a page on the Human Events website, does one begin to realize the short answer is no.

The Human Events article is, itself, merely a waystation for this bit of propaganda, one that uses the supposed smoking gun about the Tides spending for “activist causes” to aim criticism at the supposed liberal media’s unfair obsession with the Kochs. But to get the full measure of the deception here requires clicking the link for the block-quote. Doing this drops you down one more level, to the original source of the talking point, a Washington Examiner op-ed from early March. And here, predictably, is where the wheels start to come off:

Three Koch foundations made a total of 181 grants worth $25,405,525 in 2010 (most recent available records). The one Tides Foundation made a total of 2,627 grants worth $143,529,590 in 2010.

Put otherwise, for every one grant made by a Koch foundation, Tides made more than five grants.

First, let’s set aside Examiner executive editor Mark Tapscott’s innumeracy and sloppy conflating of the comparative ratios of grants and grant dollars. What’s really noteworthy here is that these bottom-line numbers lack any context at all, and that Tapscott doesn’t bother linking to the pertinent tax forms for these four foundations so the reader could see for him or herself where all this money is really going.

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There’s a reason for all this opacity, of course—it’s because the details tell a radically different story when it comes to these two groups’ actual spending on partisan causes. If you actually look into their individual grants, you’ll see only a tiny percentage of it went anywhere near politics. The foundations of the Kochs donated almost all of its monies to apolitical causes, with most of the grants going to the general funds of several dozen universities. And at nowhere in these three foundations’ records is any mention of the Kochs’ notoriously spendthrift 501(c)(4) political group, Americans for Prosperity, which spent $140 million during the 2012 election.

As for the Tides Foundation, more than 96% of its 2010 grants—$138 million—went to 501(c)(3) charities that are barred, by law, from partisan activities. These grants ran the gamut from the Academy for the Love of Learning to the Zen Community of Oregon. The remaining $5.1 million of Tides grants did go to 501(c)(4) groups, also known as social welfare organizations—most notably, groups like the ACLU and League of Conservation Voters—that can engage in robust political lobbying and endorse partisan candidates.

So what’s going on here? Simple, Tapscott is cherry-picking two distinct sources of charitable giving from either side of the ideological spectrum whose spending, when compared without any regard for accuracy or precision, conveniently fits longstanding feelings of conservative resentment and claims of media bias. Thanks to some vestigial remnant of intellectual honesty, however, Tapscott acknowledges as much in the very next paragraph, what I’ve taken to calling the greatest disclaimer of all time:

There are important qualifications to these numbers, including that the two Koch brothers also contributed to numerous political candidates, there may be other Koch-controlled foundations that didn't surface in this study, not all of the grants included here went to political or ideological groups or causes, and the two men may have significant influence on yet other foundations not under their direction.

Qualifications, indeed. What we have here is a four-part(!) self-defeating timebomb stuck squarely in the middle of his argument, which essentially blows apart the conclusions therein. This selective conflating of grants to like-minded charities with direct donations to political campaigning is little more than trafficking in willful misinformation. And while adding this shameless disclaimer gives Tapscott an out, it won’t come as a surprise that when this talking point gets picked up and repeated among the usual right-wing suspects, this bit of context magically disappears. Instead, the core critique becomes ground down and polished into a soundbite ready diatribe where the “secret” Tides foundation gets to escape “liberal media” scrutiny while contributing hundreds of millions to “political causes,” all of which is further cross-contaminated and intentionally confused by intermixing vague talk of funding partisan candidates.

Notably, Rothman makes the very same mistake in his column, which contains nary a mention of the huge caveat that accompanied the Examiner op-ed about the Kochs many other political spending efforts. Even the Human Events page Rothman links to manages to keep the disclaimer. Now, I don’t consider Mediaite part of the right-wing media constellation, nor do most others in the media I suspect, so it’s important to understand that when Rothman’s column got picked up and featured on Hot Air, Michelle Malkin’s website, his lack of due diligence effectively launders this bit of conservative misinformation through an ostensibly liberal or at least apolitical news site, where it can then be approvingly cited and injected back into the right-wing media feedback loop.

Once ingrained, these talking points can be almost impossible dislodge, no matter how much logic is applied, as I found out. Right after Rothman’s column came out, I pointed out the deceptive nature of this claim that Tides give “five times more” to Democratic candidates than the Kochs do to Republicans, citing the actual 990 tax form as proof. His initial response, via Twitter, was encouraging, if also suggestive of someone who doesn’t take glaring errors very seriously: “Strive for accuracy, but we’re all imperfect beings. Does not change the underlying point of that post.”

Rothman’s subsequent “correction” was anything but, however, as it kept the same A vs. B textual construction from the original and simply substituted “progressive causes” where it had previously said electing Democrats (which is how it now reads). When I pointed out that his column was still grossly inaccurate because it continued to conflate grants to non-partisan charities with all the partisan-focused spending by the Kochs, which actually totaled close to $400 million in 2012, he continued to obtusely lump them all together as “political spending.”

His resistance to ceding the point is, in a way, understandable. To take away the idea that liberal groups like Tides and individuals like Bloomberg are vastly outspending conservatives like the Koch brothers undermines his caviling about Democratic hypocrisy. Likewise, if the right-wing’s deluge of election campaigns with hundreds of millions in cash really is unmatched by the left than his column’s whole argument falls apart. Most telling to me was his response to my last question, where I asked him if he thought liberals, though vastly out-gunned in the post-Citizens United world of no-holds barred political spending, should nonetheless be forced to unilaterally disarm to prove their belief in campaign finance reform. His answer—silence.

Truth be told, I suspect that whatever Rothman’s flawed arguments about liberal hypocrisy on campaign spending are, they will quickly dissipate in the discourse. His contribution to furthering a right-wing propaganda point, however, has the potential to last for years. I guess we’ll know his column really succeeded when we tune in on Sunday morning to hear someone talking all about how the Tides Foundation outspends the Koch brothers on “Meet the Press.”

Contact me directly at reedfrichardson (at) gmail dot com. 

Also, I’m on Twitter here—(at)reedfrich.

Editor's note: To contact Eric Alterman, use this form.

Read Reed Richardson on the press coverage of the lead-up to the Iraq War ten years ago.

My new Think Again column is called “Real Reporting and Right-Wing Ideology Don’t Mix,” and it’s here.

My Nation column is called “The Rehabilitation of Elliott Abrams,” and it’s here.

Alter-reviews:

Jazz at Lincoln Center presented a real treat last weekend: The Jon Faddis Orchestra, playing the music of Dizzy Gillespie. Jon Faddis probably enjoyed the closest personal connection to Gillespie of any living trumpet player and he picked up not only “Birks’” dedication to his craft but also his penchant for clowning from the stage. I have to say, there was much too much of this the night I saw the band. J. Lo was sitting in the front row and he would not leave her alone. Everyone who came to show late caught hell from the bandleader. None of it was particularly clever and it probably cost the evening at least two numbers. Luckily, when the band did play, they more than made up for it. The first half of the show was made up of new transcriptions from Gillespie's 1940s big band. The second half was devoted to pieces from Gillespie's days as a jazz ambassador in the 1950s. Faddis ran one of the tightest jazz bands of all time when Carnegie Hall was footing the bill and the orchestra he has put together is pretty stellar today. The big thrill of the show—both musically and emotionally—were the songs played by the great Jimmy Heath who just killed on some of the same solos he did over half a century ago alongside John Coltrane. Kinda brought tears to these eyes… More from my friends as Jazz@LC here.

On the old fart music scene, there’s a forty-year anniversary re-release on 180-gram vinyl only of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s seminal Will the Circle Be Unbroken, which long ago introduced teenagers and others to the music of Mother Maybelle Carter, Roy Acuff, Doc Watson, Earl Scruggs, Merle Travis, Jimmy Martin. Lotta talking, but if you don’t have it, you gotta. Nice packaging, too.

And my friends at Sony Legacy have put out Elvis's Aloha From Hawaii via Satellite. It’s two CDs from two 1973 shows plus a dress Rehearsal plus five bonus tracks and a twenty-four-page booklet with rare photos and new liner notes. Again, lotta talking but Elvis fanatics want every second they can get, especially 1973 Elvis fanatics.

For Deadheads, there’s Dave’s Picks, Volume 5, also from 1973 at UCLA. Apparently, it’s already sold out though, so I’m sorry. Read all about how excellent it would be if you could have gotten your hands on one, here. (Big bonus: Bill Walton wrote the liner notes...)

I have also been spending some time with of those British sleuthing shows on DVD and Blu-ray, most recently, "Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries," which stars Essie Davis as a modern woman of the late 1920s operating in a mostly male-dominated detective world. Then there is Stephen Mangan in "Dirk Gently" as a holistic detective, which is pretty goofy. There is also a new season of "Murdoch Mysteries," but to be honest, none compare with the gold standard: "Foyle’s War," which luckily for everyone who hasn’t see it, is now out on "The Home Front Files, Sets 1-6" in preparation for its return in September 2013.

This week’s list:

Philip Roth novels, in order of greatness:

1) The Counterlife

2) Goodbye Columbus

3) Operation Shylock

4) The Ghost Writer (Zuckerman Bound)

5) Letting Go

Philip Roth novels, in order of overratedness:

1) The Plot Against America

Philip Roth novels I sometimes think are a bit overrated but I would not wish to argue the point because they are, in most respects, great:

American Pastoral

The Human Stain

Sabbath’s Theater

I’d write more but I have to prepare for the events of this weekend and "I Ain’t Wastin’ Time No More" ... Now here’s Reed:

First, a quick hat-tip to Cara Forgarty, over at the Organization of News Ombudsmen. She has been kind enough to highlight my blog post about the perilous state of America’s ombudsmen on her organization’s home page. If you’re media-obsessed geek (and who isn’t?) you should check it/them out at newsombudsmen.org.

Secrecy, the Dark Side of Democracy … and Journalism
by Reed Richardson

In the spring of 1960, just barely a year after Fidel Castro had seized power, a Princeton researcher named Lloyd Free conducted a comprehensive public opinion survey inside Cuba. After talking with thousands of Cubans, Free found an overwhelming majority of the public had made common cause with their new leader and his plans for the future and, what’s more, greatly feared a return of the previous, American-backed dictator. Under these conditions, any attempts at fomenting an insurrection would likely result in miserable failure, and the report concluded as much when it was published and circulated in Washington, DC, in July of that year. And that’s exactly what happened almost a year later, we now know, when the CIA disastrously proved Free right.

The woeful anecdote above is paraphrased from Senator Patrick Moynihan’s invaluable little book about our government’s long history of mismanaging information, Secrecy. Though it was published in 1998 and is now a generation old, it’s nonetheless striking how timely the insights from the book remain and scary how prescient its warnings still sound. This is particularly true as we approach the point ten years ago when the US invaded Iraq, a war whose casus belli had likewise already been thoroughly undermined by in-country investigation as well as contemporaneous reporting before the first round was ever fired.

That the conventional wisdom in Washington dismissed all this extensive evidence in favor of some ambiguous spy satellite photos and the chimerical rumors of a few, dishonest grifters is telling. It speaks to a dangerous inversion of how both the government and the media has come to assess and value information—one that now increasingly correlates importance and exclusivity. Playing upon this very same predilection in the media, the Bush White House deftly maneuvered the country into war by spoon-feeding the Washington press corps an unending series of irresistible scoops. If anybody can pull a quote from Hans Blix’s UN report, what it says can’t be that important in other words, whereas an exclusive from Ahmad Chalabi is bound to be far more revealing and thus drive the news cycle.

But the grim anniversary approaching on the calendar isn’t what prompted me to pull Moynihan’s book down off the shelf a few days ago. It was the occasion of this being “Sunshine Week,” an admittedly PR-driven, yet worthwhile effort by a number of open government watchdog sites to get together and discuss just how far down the rabbit hole our nation’s information has descended, and how the public and the press can try get it all out. It culminates with Friday’s National Freedom of Information Day conference at the Newseum in Washington, D.C. 

There’s no doubt that one week of emphasis on this issue is not enough. Secrecy is now endemic to our government like never before. Indeed, the vastness of its reach produces through-the-looking-glass moments of Orwellian absurdity. For example, Moynihan noted in his book that when the CIA finally declassified its role in staging a 1954 coup in Guatemala, the agency’s 1994 report still chose to redact some elements, including a passage quoting directly from President Dwight Eisenhower’s public memoirs. Then there’s the Pentagon Papers, thousands of pages of which were famously leaked to the New York Times in 1971, but which wasn’t officially and fully declassified (including another 2,384 pages) until forty years later. And late last year, when the independent watchdog group National Security Archive tried to follow-up on the progress of implementing new Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) regulations, it had to—what else?—submit a FOIA request.

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The scope of the secrecy problem confronting us now is staggering, as is the cost to manage it all, which the Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO) estimated at $11.36 billion in fiscal year 2011. During that same year, the US government took 92,064,862 derivative classification actions, meaning they found some data point in some document, blog post, email, or IM worth making secret. Over the course of a year, that’s the equivalent to classifying something a secret three times every second. Moreover, that total number of annual classifications represents an 11-fold increase over the 8,390,057 made in the fiscal year that ended just a few weeks after 9/11/2001. This runaway train of secrecy is misleading, however, as the ISOO’s 2011 annual report subtly acknowledges that until the Obama administration instituted new rules, few governmental agencies even knew how to track their classification activity, making the reported numbers deceptively low. This, of course, meant that nobody really knew how many secrets the US government was keeping, making it perhaps the best-kept secret of all.

Since 2009, the current administration has made some notable strides in easing our secrecy overload. Responses to FOIA requests and annual declassifications are both on the rise—although the latter is still barely half the rate of classifications—and the backlog of pending declassifications and FOIA requests has declined. But Obama’s oft-touted claim of “most transparent” administration ever is far from living up to the hype. Two recent analyses—from the Center for Effective Government and the Associated Press—find that the federal government is now releasing fewer full versions of information requested and increasingly citing several exemptions, most notably national security, as justification for not complying with requests. As the AP explains:

In a year of intense public interest over deadly U.S. drones, the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, terror threats and more, the government cited national security to withhold information at least 5,223 times — a jump over 4,243 such cases in 2011 and 3,805 cases in Obama's first year in office. The secretive CIA last year became even more secretive: Nearly 60 percent of 3,586 requests for files were withheld or censored for that reason last year, compared with 49 percent a year earlier.

Whether this turning off of the spigot is having a direct effect on the media is hard to say, but it is notable that news organizations are pursuing fewer legal challenges to government secrecy during the Obama administration than during Bush’s second term. (Certainly, the overall decline in newsroom staff size during these years could be playing a major role in the downward trend.) Of note, the “liberal” New York Times has filed nine FOIA lawsuits since Obama took office, while it only pursued three during 2005–09. Fox News, on the other hand, has filed five since 2009 after having sought none during Bush’s second term. But it’s important to point out that the media is involved in only a tiny fraction—between one and two percent, typically—of FOIA lawsuits.

This increasing tension between creating more secrets while trying to shield more of them behind the mantle of things like national security and “deliberative process” has had a perverse effect. By boosting supply and tightening demand, it creates a ready-made market for third-party organizations like Wikileaks to step into and exploit, especially if the press is perceived as having pulled back somewhat from its traditional role of pursuing and publishing secrets. It’s perhaps not surprising, then, that Private Bradley Manning ended up there after he couldn’t gain any traction with his attempts to leak hundreds of thousands of war documents and secret cables to the Times or Washington Post. And exacerbating all this is the Obama administration’s dreadful record of aggressively prosecuting both whistleblowers and leakers, like Manning, at a never before seen rate.

The Times’ recent track record is illustrative of the dilemma confronting both the press and our democracy. On the one hand, preventing some information from being publicly disseminated may be critical to protecting US personnel and interests in places of danger. But one has to question the real motives behind these requests when, many times, the secret either gets out through other means or the government simply seems to stop caring about them.

This was the case with the Times’s revelation of a heretofore secret drone base in Saudi Arabia, an article which the paper’s public editor discussed last month. Notably, the paper had withheld the base’s location for many months per CIA request, but when a Times reporter finally notified the agency the paper was unilaterally ending its news embargo the CIA didn’t respond. So, one might reasonably ask, what then was really gained by the delay, for either national security or the public’s right to know?

Fed by the default behavior common among almost any bureaucracy, keeping secrets can soon become a self-fulfilling prophecy, a means unto itself. And despite its role as our democracy’s chief source of sunshine, the press—with its long history of liberally granting anonymity and hiding its editorial decisionmaking—has some of this same dark, secretive DNA built into its profession as well. But in a world where there exists too many secrets to even count anymore, the press would be sell served to move away from the business of protecting any of them, whether it’s their own or somebody else’s. And while chasing scoops and exclusives helps in that, that too is a strategy of diminishing, sometimes dangerously wrong, returns.

“Analysis, far more than secrecy, is the key to security,” wrote Moynihan 15 years ago, in what might be interpreted as good advice not just for the healthy future of our democracy but for our press corps as well. “Secrecy is for losers,” he noted in his book’s conclusion. “For people who don’t know how important information really is.”

Contact me directly at reedfrichardson (at) gmail dot com.

Also, I’m on Twitter here—(at)reedfrich.

Editor's note: To contact Eric Alterman, use this form.

Journalists should hold themselves to a higher standard, and so should their ombudsmen, Reed Richardson writes.

My new 'Think Again column is called "Republicans Ignore the Evidence About Higher Taxes on the Wealthy," and it's here.

Alter-reviews: Peter Wolf, The Mavericks and WHN

So, Monday night I stopped by Hill Country Barbeque for some excellent guess-what and to listen to a bunch of radio old-timers reminisce about the good old days when New York had an AM country radio station, WHN, which it did between 1973 and 1987. I originally discovered the station looking for Mets games, but it turned out to be the best thing on if you were in a car and didn't have an FM radio. The panel, moderated by Ed Salamon, former WHN Program Director and author of the new book WHN: When New York Went Country was pretty good humored, and most of the audience was made up by former employees of the station, and everyone had a nice cozy feeling. One problem: Alan Colmes was on the stage, but none of the other people seemed to know him.

I had to leave early before the music started because hey, THE MAVERICKS are back together with their first album in seven years, and were playing an insanely crowded show at the Bowery Ballroom. They are really too popular for such a small hall, though not as popular as they should be, because well, okay, the music's great and fun, but Raul Malo has one of the greatest voices of any singer alive and most singers before that. I think he sounds a lot like Elvis. Others say Roy Orbison. The new album is called In Time, and what can one say, it's a Mavericks album. Act now.

The night before I went to City Winery to see Peter Wolf, for the first time since I saw J. Geils with Scott and Paul and the Palladium and we all smoked pot for the first time in 1975. (It's okay, my kid doesn't read this.) We actually didn't get too far with the pot, as we heard something about cops when we were in the bathroom and flushed it down the toilet. Anyway, they were among the greatest live bands ever and Peter Wolf remains a charming, energetic entertainer and storyteller. Sunday night he paid tribute to his roots which stretch from John Lee Hooker to Sonny Rollins to Merle Haggard. One of the world's great DJs, he is an awesome storyteller. One of them actually ended with Hooker watching Lassie and telling the teenage Wolf: "Man, that is one smart motherfucking dog." The band had nice chops and the solo material is first rate, even without Jagger, Haggard and Shelby Lynne, et al. The most recent one got a real workout. It's called Midnight Souvenirs.

So Reed told he wouldn't have anything this week owing to deadline pressure, and I didn't want anyone to feel they had come here for (next) to nothing, so in honor of Ted Cruz, I, too, made a bunch of lists. Mine's not of Harvard commies but a patriotic list of some of the things that make this country great; at least if you're me. I'm sure I forgot stuff, so don't yell at me. (They are not in any particular order.)

My Favorite Things: God Bless America Edition
Directors:
John Ford
Alfred Hitchcock
Billy Wilder
Woody Allen
Martin Scorsese
Sidney Pollack
Howard Hawks
Orson Welles
Frank Capra
John Huston
Francis Ford Coppola
Preston Sturges
Sidney Lumet
Stanley Kubrick

Movies:
Casablanca
Rear Window
All About Eve
His Girl Friday
Philadelphia Story
It's a Wonderful Life
The Searchers
Diner
Groundhog Day
Roman Holiday
Taxi Driver
Fast Times at Ridgemont High
Dazed and Confused
Manhattan
Crimes and Misdemeanors
The Godfather
The Godfather II
One Two Three
This is Spinal Tap
Goodbye Columbus
Chasing Amy
Chinatown
The Maltese Falcon
The Big Sleep
Double Indemnity

Novelists:
Henry James
Edith Wharton
Ernest Hemingway
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Truman Capote
Philip Roth
John Updike
John Cheever
Jonathan Franzen
Dasheil Hammett
Raymond Chandler
James M. Cain
Wallace Stegner
J.D. Salinger
Nick Hornby
E. L. Doctorow

Critics:
Edmund Wilson
Pauline Kael
Dwight Macdonald
Alfred Kazin
John Updike

TV Shows:
"The Odd Couple"
"The Simpsons"
"M*A*S*H"
"The Bob Newhart Show"
"The Larry Sanders Show"
"The Wire"
"The Sopranos"
'Deadwood"
"Curb Your Enthusiasm"
"Eastbound and Down"
"Mad Men"
"Freaks and Geeks"
"30 Rock"
"SNL," 1975-1980
"The Johnny Cash Show"
"Dr. Katz"
"Daily Show"/"Colbert"
"Archer"
"Star Trek"
"The Dick Van Dyke Show"
"The Honeymooners"
"Bill Moyers Journal"
"I Love Lucy"
"The West Wing"

Rock bands:
Nirvana
Talking Heads
Allman Brothers
Creedence
Grateful Dead
Eagles
CSNY
The Beach Boys
The Byrds
The Band
Steely Dan
Hot Tuna
R.E.M.
Little Feat

Solo rock performers:
Bruce Springsteen
Bob Dylan
Tom Waits
Roy Orbison
Neil Young
Bonnie Raitt
Paul Simon
Chuck Berry
Elvis Presley
James Taylor
Patti Smith
Jackson Browne
Billy Joel (just barely)

Folk singers:
Bob Dylan
Bruce Springsteen
Simon and Garfunkel
Joni Mitchell
Joan Baez
Leonard Cohen
Woody Guthrie
Laura Nyro
Harry Belafonte

Soul singers:
Aretha Franklin
Sam Cooke
Joe Turner
James Brown
Otis Redding
Sly
Marvin Gaye
Al Green
Stevie Wonder
Levi Stubbs
Solomon Burke
James Carter
Clarence Carter
O.V. Wright
ZZ Hill

Jazz performers and composers:
Duke Ellington
Louis Armstrong
John Coltrane
Ben Webster
John Lewis/MJQ
Miles Davis
Charles Mingus
Thelonius Monk
Art Tatum
Clifford Brown
Sun Ra
Dizzy Gillespie
Count Basie
Dexter Gordon
Charlie Parker
Wayne Shorter
Chick Corea
Stan Getz
Chet Baker
Sonny Rollins
Herbie Hancock
Bud Powell

Vocalists (non-rock):
Frank Sinatra
Tony Bennett
Bing Crosby
Billie Holiday
Abby Lincoln
Ella Fitzgerald
Barbara Streisand
Fred Astaire
Dean Martin
Miss Peggy Lee
Bobby Short
Barbara Cook
Nina Simone

Country singers:
Hank Williams
Johnny Cash
Patsy Cline
Merle Haggard
Ray Price
Willie Nelson
Waylon Jennings
George Jones
Tammy Wynette
Loretta Lynn
Jimmie Rodgers
Jimmy Dale Gilmore
Townes van Zandt
Kitty Wells
Rosanne Cash
Ray Benson
Raul Malo

One (or so)-hit wonders:
Redbone, "Come and Get Your Love"
Tommy Tutone, "8675309"
Dean Friedman, "Ariel"
Zanger and Evans, "In the Year 2525"
King Missile, "Jesus was Way Cool"
Stories, "Brother Louie"
Shocking Blue, "Venus"
Brewer and Shipley, "One Toke Over the Line"
Bobbie Gentry, "Ode to Billy Joe"
Jeannie C. Reilly, "Harper Valley PTA"
Norman Greenbaum, "Spirit in the Sky"
Lee Michaels, "Do You Know What I Mean"
Archie Bell and the Drells, "Tighten Up"
Left Banke, "Walk Away Renee"
Electric Lighthouse, "Love Grows Where My Rosemary Goes"
Swinging Medallions, "Double Shot of My Baby’s Love"
Bobby Fuller Four, "I Fought the Law"
? and the Mysterians, "96 Tears"
Marmalade, "Reflections (of my Life)"

Videos:
Bruce Springsteen, "Glory Days"
Nancy Sinatra, "These Boots Are Made For Walking"
Beastie Boys, "Fight for Your Right to Party"
Madonna, "Material Girl"
Cyndi Lauper, "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun"
Paul Simon with Chevy Chase, "You Can Call Me Al"
Mick Jagger and David Bowie, "Dancing in the Streets"

Should be (much) more famous than they are:
John Prine
Randy Newman
Loudon Wainwright III
Maude Maggart
The Roches
Iris DeMent
Richard Thompson
Lucinda Williams
Steve Earle
Todd Snyder
Silver Jews
Hayes Carli
Dave Alvin
David Bromberg
David Johansen
Junior Brown
Southside Johnny
Graham Parker
Warren Zevon
Chris Gaffney
Big Star
Tom Verlaine
Kate and Anna McGarrigle
Joan Osborne
Garland Jeffreys

Whatever happened to:
Ricky Fante
David Forman
Terrance Trent DÁrby

Bonus: Best and worst baseball moments, post 1962. (I was born in Flushing, FYI...)
Best:
Cleon Jones catching the ball on one knee (1969)
Ron Swoboda catching the ball sideways (1969)
Seaver strikes out nineteen, sets record (1970)
Tom Seaver strikes out Dave Winfield at Yankee Stadium with bases loaded on 3-2 to get 300 Ks, (1985)
Bill Buckner’s blown grounder (1986)
Sox beat Yankees in game seven (2004)
Endy Chavez’s catch (2006)
R.A. Dickey wins Cy Young (2012)
Worst:
Jimmy Qualls singles with one out in the ninth (1969)
Seaver is traded (1977)
Carlos Beltran looks at three and two (2006)
Madoff is arrested, (2008)
Dickey is traded (2012)
Opening Day (2013), alas.

Editor's note: To contact Eric Alterman, use this form.

For a better take on Washington gridlock, the media should look at proven psychological differences between Republicans and Democrats, Reed Richardson writes in the last Alterman post.