GE's Lame Excuses

Howard Kurtz has a thorough piece detailing the warfare between Fox News (Roger Ailes and Bill O'Reilly) and NBC (Jeff Zucker and Keith "Where are my viewers?" Olbermann). It's nasty stuff, and a fine morning read if you're interested in the intersection of news and egos.

There's been a lot going on for a long time in this feud, but the element that's elevated it to Kurtz-like levels is O'Reilly's personal accusations against GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt -- it's the stuff of leads:

Bill O'Reilly, the Fox News star, is mounting an extraordinary televised assault on the chief executive of General Electric, calling him a "pinhead" and a "despicable human being" who bears responsibility for the deaths of American soldiers in Iraq.

O'Reilly's point is that GE, owner of NBC, continues to sell goods to Iran through foreign subsidiaries, getting around US restrictions. Iran, for its part, is unequivocally involved in the killing of US military personnel in Iraq.

All good fodder, for sure, but PR guy that I am, I'm just focusing on GE's statements to Kurtz. Do they exonerate GE, or are they just spin? Here's their basic line, courtesy of Kurtz:

Under growing criticism from the public and its own shareholders, GE announced in 2005 that it would accept no new business in Iran and would wind down existing contracts, which mostly involved sales of oil, gas and energy and health-care equipment. The remaining work, valued at less than $50 million, amounts to less than .01 percent of GE's income, and the company says the final four contracts will expire within weeks.

Timeline: For a period of time prior to 2005, GE stockholders were protesting the company's trade with Iran. 2005: GE announces it will stop doing business with Iran. 2008: GE is still doing business with Iran, albeit at a lower level.

Here's another timeline. Date this one 1987:

In an effort to further isolate Iran, the Reagan Administration is moving toward more severe restrictions on trade with that country, State Department officials said today.

The impending crackdown was described as a reflection of the heightened tensions between the United States and Iran over the Persian Gulf. (NYT)

This news item wasn't really news, since Iran was already a State Sponsor of Terrorism. Here's State's position:

Countries determined by the Secretary of State to have repeatedly provided support for acts of international terrorism are designated pursuant to three laws: section 6(j) of the Export Administration Act, section 40 of the Arms Export Control Act, and section 620A of the Foreign Assistance Act. Taken together, the four main categories of sanctions resulting from designation under these authorities include restrictions on U.S. foreign assistance; a ban on defense exports and sales; certain controls over exports of dual use items; and miscellaneous financial and other restrictions.

Designation under the above-referenced authorities also implicates other sanctions laws that penalize persons and countries engaging in certain trade with state sponsors. Currently there are five countries designated under these authorities: Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan and Syria.

Iran was named a State Sponsor of Terrorism on January 19, 1984 -- 21 years before GE shareholders pressured the American company to follow American laws, even in its European operations. GE was clearly aware that its sales to Iran would violate this law if they were made by American operations, so it purposefully did business with Iran through its European operations.

GE's excuse flunks. We expect American global enterprises to be American first and global second -- especially on issues like this.

Now let's look at how GE deals with the charge that its business practices have led to the deaths of Americans. Here's Kurtz again:

Last week, in an unrelated segment with CBS's Kimberly Dozier about being injured in Iraq, O'Reilly used a graphic that combined GE's logo with a photo of Ahmadinejad. The heading: "Business Partners."

GE spokesman Gary Sheffer called O'Reilly's remarks "offensive," saying: "He has a right to his opinion, and we equally have a right to be appalled by it. We felt he crossed the line. . . . Nothing we supply, or any goods and services we have supplied to Iran, is in any way endangering U.S. troops."

O'Reilly's graphic was certainly over the top, as GE's activities are certainly far below the attention of Mah- I'm in the -moud for peacock Ahmadinejad (rhymes with "I don't think Jeff Immelt's a cad"). But is O'Reilly's message similarly over the top?

Sheffer's denial is complete. Nothing now, nothing ever, supplied by GE has in any way endangered US troops. Additionally, Immelt had a statement issued last month that said sales of hospital equipment are allowed under a humanitarian program licensed by the U.S. government.

Earlier -- in 2005 -- Sheffer had this to say about GE sales to Iran:

"Senior management and the board decided in mid-December to discontinue taking new orders because of uncertain conditions relating to Iran."

"Uncertain conditions" was disingenuous, since the reason for the cut-off was quite a certain condition: Shareholders were rebelling, casting a spotlight on sales GE would just as soon keep quiet.

And what of the non-medical sales? The energy and gas production equipment?

GE can hide behind humanitarianism in their hospital equipment sales (and I'm sure the equipment is sold at a strictly humanitarian price point), but no such cover is provided for energy production equipment. What were our primary targets in our air bombing campaign against Germany in WWII? Military installations, factories and oil refineries and storage facilities.

None of the weapons Iran manufactures for use against us in Iraq can be manufactured without energy. None can be transported to Iraq without energy. And for that reason, Sheffer's blanket excuse is a moth-eaten heap of holes.

O'Reilly's on a high horse and he's using high octane rhetoric, but his position is more defensible than GE's. Thomas Edison probably isn't rolling over in is grave since he was a pretty unscrupulous businessman himself -- and that just might be the problem with GE.

hat-tip: memeorandum

Message Gaffe

You're a smart cookie; you'll figure out what massive message gaffe Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA) has made even before MSNBC reporter Dan Abrams points it out.

C'mon, Jack, this is Messaging for Dummies, here. If you're going to say someone's got bad breath, you'd better use Listerine before opening your yap.

But before we pile too much on Kingston, be sure not to miss Abrams' great profession of patriotism when Kingston presses him on his own lapel flag-wearing habits:

I've worn one I think once in my life ... for something.

Maybe for a few minutes after the 9/11 attacks, Dan, before America got safe again?

Hat-tip: TPM via the Token Dem

Pimped Out At MSNBC

God protect us from idiot journalists ...

... a big job, even for God.

In this MSNBC clip, David Schuster interrupts lib commentator Bill Press, who is talking about Chelsea Clinton's campaigning, and says:

But doesn't it seem like Chelsea is being pimped out in some kind of way?

Since when do the public airwaves deserve speech like this? Can't Schuster say what's on his mind -- that the Clintons are exploiting their daughter -- without bringing whoring into it?

Schuster subsequently apologized, in that smarmy, limited, disgusting new style of apology that's becoming the national norm:

Some people have taken it literally. To the extent people feel I was being pejorative, I apologize for that.

What would be so hard about saying, "I'm sorry I used that word. It wasn't appropriate, it was pejorative, and I apologize to Chelsea Clinton, the Clinton campaign and our viewers." That's an apology that's worth uttering; Schuster's actually makes matters worse.

That said, the Clinton campaign apparently is using Chelsea in unseemly ways -- as Schuster explains before getting to his apology. He states that the Clinton's are using her to call super-delegates, "the unseemly side of politics."

And indeed it is. Words fail me ... Exploitative? Manipulative? Unconscionable? Clintonesque? Yes, that's it.

By happy coincidence, my Demotivator Calendar from Despair.com just happens to have as its February theme exactly the image and phrase that captures the Clintons:


As it says, it's best to avoid standing directly between a competitive jerk and his goals ... be the jerk a campaigning Clinton or a self-aggrandizing cable news reporter.

What Should GE and Microsoft To Do With Their Libs?

The secret's out. MSNBC, we are told by its executives in a NYT article today, never sat around a conference room table with a dogma chip on their shoulders and decided it would be great to attack Bush and Cheney long enough and hard enough so that their lackluster techie news cable network would become America's liberal TV network.

Officials at MSNBC emphasize that they never set out to create a liberal version of Fox News.

“It happened naturally,” Phil Griffin, a senior vice president of NBC News who is the executive in charge of MSNBC, said Friday, referring specifically to the channel’s passion and point of view from 7 to 10 p.m. “There isn’t a dogma we’re putting through. There is a ‘Go for it.’”

As well-spun as that sounds, there's a modicum of truth to it, especially when you consider that Ann Coulter, Laura Ingraham and John Gibson were all early MSNBC on-air newsfolk.

But a funny thing happened on the way to Clinton's impeachment, as MSNBC suddenly began seeing surging viewership on a show hosted by an angry leftist by the name of Keith Olbermann. They liked the dough, and now it looks like the networks sole holdout against flaming liberalism, Tucker Carlson, is about to be shunted aside to make room for 9/11 nut and angry lesbian Rosie O'Donnell.

Giving O'Donnell airtime is a much more whacky proposition than putting Olbermann in front of a camera. He's just a run of the mill, well vocalized lib. She's a certifiable paranoid crazy.

So the co-owners of the network, GE and Microsoft, appear content that the child they birthed to appeal to geeks at the dawn of the Internet age has grown up to be a haven for rants against America and American values. That's not exactly a conventional marketing scheme.

Should we buy Whirlpool instead of GE? Should we shun Windows and Vista (as if that's possible, Apple fans notwithstanding)?

I say no, with one condition: If its owners talk as frankly about the network as the network's hosts do. Here's the not too cryptic Olbermann:

“If you go into a burger place, and you go in there for the fish, you might want the fish occasionally but it’s probably a mistake,” he said. “Could you be utterly different politically and succeed in this format? You’d basically be throwing your audience away.”

Burgers apparently being the food of the left and fish the food of the right. No MSNBC execs would talk for attribution to the Times about the network's leftist leanings. Let them admit it openly, let the corporate owners say they're pursuing the money that comes in from left field, and I'm ok with it.

If they pretend that they're just another fair and balanced news outlet (get the hint, Fox?) then I'd be concerned about giving my money to corporate liars.

This Explains All Those Crabby Comments

If you thought Keith Olbermann was particularly nasty in MSNBC's analysis of Prez Bush's Iraq speech last week ... Oh, wait. No sane person was watching MSNBC. What am I thinking? ... this may have been the reason:

MSNBC’s rising prime-time [?!] star Keith Olbermann was still hospitalized Monday after undergoing an emergency appendectomy Friday.

Mr. Olbermann’s appendix apparently ruptured Wednesday, but he wrote it off as a stomach ailment and soldiered on. Though still feeling ill, he nonetheless reported for work Thursday night, when he anchored MSNBC’s analysis of President Bush’s prime-time address on the war in Iraq.

It wasn’t until Friday afternoon that he decided it was time to seek medical attention, according to an MSNBC spokeswoman. ...

Mr. Olbermann’s medical emergency benched him from NBC’s “Football Night in America” Sunday, but it’s hoped [by whom, pray tell?] he may be able to return to “Countdown With Keith Olbermann” some time this week. (TV Week)

Actually, astonishingly, MSNBC came in second to Fox on cable coverage of the event, topping CNN at least in the 25-54 age group. So the next time you hear a Lefty rag on and on about Fox, just mention to him/her that MSNBC does a great job of filling the biased-left slot on the cable bandwidth.