Chuck Todd is the White House correspondent for NBC News. He is, frankly, one of the smartest political analysts on network TV—certainly he was among the best covering last year’s elections.
And yet… events this week make it clear that Chuck Todd has no faith in the American justice system, has no confidence in the democratic process, and doesn’t even trust mass-media journalism—his own profession—to do anything for public discourse other than debase it. Apparently even a top-level practitioner of the Beltway media establishment still can’t help but embody its worst systemic flaws.
This all arose when Chuck was on MSNBC’s Morning Joe on Tuesday discussing AG Eric Holder’s possible appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate Bush administration war crimes (as I wrote about here). Salon’s Glenn Greenwald jumped all over Chuck’s casually dismissive remarks about the idea, and Chuck (to his credit) agreed to a detailed interview with Glenn. The results were very revealing, and very discouraging.
Here are excerpts (all emphases mine) from what Chuck said on Tuesday…
Tags: Chuck Todd, DOJ, Eric Holder, Glenn Greenwald, John Yoo, journalism, media, torture
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