Being the Change I Wish to See

Richard Engel, NBC News Chief Foreign Correspondent, embedded with the last combat brigade on their trip out of Iraq, and broadcast it live on the move during the Stryker convoy to Kuwait.

NBC was able to bring live video of this historic moment because of the “Bloom-mobile”, named after the late NBC foreign correspondent David Bloom. David passed away very tragically during the Iraq invasion in 2003. He suffered a pulmonary embolism caused by deep vein thrombosis, the culmination of cramped spaces with little body movement and insufficient hydration in a dessert climate.

No other TV news network has the technology to broadcast live video on the move. Check it out:

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The technology was new in 2003, 7 years ago. It’s a satellite dish on a gyroscope that tracks a TV satellite in space and stays in constant contact with it as whatever the dish is mounted on moves. It works similarly to the GPS a lot of people have in their cars or as part of their smart phones today. The device on the ground tracks the satellite in space so the device can remain in communication with the satellite.

It surprises me that none of the other networks have invested in this technology since we’ve been at war for over 9 years in Afghanistan and 7.5 years in Iraq. There are other places where such technology could be deployed as well, like during natural disasters when news broadcasters must be able to move at a moment’s notice.

It may be the result that many news organizations are losing money. The number of foreign correspondents has dropped considerably over the past decade. With fewer foreign correspondents, it may have been decided that expensive equipment isn’t worth the cost if only a few correspondents will use it once in awhile.

But if the news is to continue to bring us live coverage of events in a global society, they need to have the technology to do it on the move.

Technorati Tags: David Bloom Late NBC Foreign Correspondent, Iraq war, Keith Olbermann, NBC Bloom-mobile, Operation Iraqi Freedom, Rachel Maddow, Richard Engel NBC Chief Foreign Correspondent, The Rachel Maddow Show

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Liz Cheney is at it again. Her new web ad about the Obama justice department and attorneys who have represented or advocated for Guantanamo detainees questions their values and loyalty to the U.S. Are they really al-Qaeda sympathizers? No, they are not. They are just doing their jobs.

Ms. Cheney is playing the “guilt-by-association” card. There is a really big problem once you go down that path, extremely twisted logic. The following clip from The Rachel Maddow Show demonstrates taking guilt-by-association to its full conclusion (7 min.). The question is where do you stop? How far down the rabbit hole do you go?

Queue the scary music:

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Be afraid!!! Are you scared?

Using Liz Cheney’s logic, aren’t all defense attorneys criminals if they defend guilty people in court? No. Our Constitution guarantees presumption of innocence until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, and the accused are entitled to a vigorous defense. What about the attorney who defended Timothy McVeigh? Is he a terrorist sympathizer, too? No.

Defending the guilty is an integral part of our justice system. It’s the American way. It’s one of our founding principals. We can’t abandon those principals because we are dealing with foreign detainees whose arrests were botched. Botched arrests happen regularly, not quite like these, but they are not new. We have the processes to deal with it.

Let’s allow the DOJ to go forward and prosecute the detainees against whom we have reasonable evidence. We know our court system is far more effective than military tribunals. Here’s the score: Federal court system: 300 convictions of terrorist suspects since 2001; military tribunal system: 2 convictions.

Even Republicans and Conservatives are saying Cheney’s ad goes too far. It steps way over the line of reason when Bill O’Reilly of Fox News won’t even agree with her. The following clip from Countdown explores the legal and moral outrage over this web ad (7 min.):

I have to hope Liz Cheney keeps up her conspiracy witch hunts in public for as long as she wants. When it makes Conservatives back away from her, it’s possible for the moderates to move left just a bit and get back to the middle where moderates like to be.

When fear-mongers start to sound like loons to those who are already ideologically extreme, they are finally being seen in the correct light.

Do you buy Liz Cheney and Keep America Safe’s bullpucky on this? If not, what other fear-mongering crap do you now question about what they have said?

If it’s a Cheney talking, I must admit I won’t believe a word of it because whatever “it” is that any of them are saying comes out of irrational fear of another terrorist attack on the U.S. Future terrorist attacks are possible, but so was nuclear war during the entire cold war. You can’t live your life in constant fear of what might happen. If we cower in fear, the terrorists win.

I wonder if the Cheney home is equipped with a fully stocked bomb shelter and survival gear…

BTW, Rachel posted bail with Kent Jones in the amount of slices of pizza, and borrowed the handcuffs from Jimmy Fallon. She was back on her show the next night.

Technorati Tags: al-Qaeda, Countdown, David Corn, Guantanamo Bay prison, guilt by association, Lawrence O'Donnell, Liz Cheney, MSNBC, Obama Administration, Rachel Maddow, The Rachel Maddow Show, U.S. department of justice

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