KPFA - CounterSpin

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This week on CounterSpin: American diplomacy and prestige abroad has seldom been in lower water, a situation underlined by the White House’s destructive role in the Lebanon-Israel crisis. But do US media recognize the degree of the problem? We’ll talk to Ian Williams, UN correspondent for the Nation, and author to the blog Deadline Pundit, about the state of US diplomacy.

Also on the show: Lou Dobbs used to be known as the ‘money guy’ at CNN, with a long running financial news show. But if you’ve checked in recently, you know that Dobbs has morphed of late into a virtually single-note preacher on the issue of immigration, or as he might put it, ‘the problem of illegal aliens.’ In a way he’s still the money guy though; his anti-immigrant rants appear to be doing quite well for the network. We’ll talk about that with freelance journalist Daphne Eviatar.

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This week on CounterSpin: the battle over ballots. In Connecticut, Democratic voters tossed aside Senator Joe Lieberman in favor of anti-war newcomer Ned Lamont. Lieberman has long been the poster boy for media-friendly centrism in the Democratic Party. So what are pundits and political reporters, who’ve long advised moving the party to the right, saying about the Lamont victory? We’ll talk it over with FAIR founder and author Jeff Cohen.

Meanwhile in Mexico the fight to recount the ballots in the country’s presidential election continues, with a partial recount underway. Will this satisfy supporters of leftist candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obradror, who are charging widespread fraud? And what is the US media-no fan of Obrador to begin with-saying about his efforts to count every vote? We’ll speak to Chuck Collins, a senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies.

Guests:

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This week on CounterSpin: With the resounding margin of 410 to 8, the House of Representatives passed a resolution in late July endorsing Israel’s continuing attacks on Lebanon and the Gaza Strip; but our guest explains that that overwhelming bipartisan majority endorsed some other things as well, including the meaninglessness of international law and potential military action against Iran and Syria. Professor and author Stephen Zunes will discuss that and other underexplored aspects of this evolving crisis.

Also on the show: understanding the language we use to talk about politics is essential to understanding media coverage of politics. Buzzwords like ‘values’ mean something very specific, usually defined to the advantage of conservatives. UC Berkeley linguist Geoff Nunberg explains in his new book "Talking Right" that this is no accident, part of a concerted effort by the right to define the language of politics. He’ll join us to talk about it, and about what the media does to help.

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Guests: Mark Weisbrot on Mexican election; James Zogby on Gaza crisis

This week on CounterSpin: The still-unresolved presidential election in

Also on CounterSpin today, a major newspaper ran a recent column complaining

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John Feffer on North Korea

This week on CounterSpin: North Korea’s launch of several missiles on July

Also on the show: Remember Ronald Reagan and his Cadillac-driving welfare

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