Update: Dr. Evil And Mini-Me Go To Parliament

-by Noah

“These actions do not live up to the standards that we aspire to.”
                                               - James Murdoch, son of Rupert, Parliament July 19th.

Kinda brings new meaning to the phrase “If I knew you were coming, I’d have baked a pie!” Of course, the media are giving way too much coverage to the pie incident when there are deeper, more important issues at play in the Murdoch scandal. The Murdochs are damn lucky the guy didn’t have a machete or a black belt in some sort of deadly up close and personal martial art.

“I do not accept ultimate responsibility.”
                                             -Rupert Murdoch, Fascist Crank, Parliament July 19th.

Rupert Murdoch actually used the words “shocked and appalled” in yesterday’s testimony before Parliament in London! You can’t make this stuff up! There was also plenty of use of the usual dodges: “on-going investigation,” “I have no knowledge of that.” “I didn’t know.” Here they say “I don’t recall.” It was a whole day of weaseling. It was like Rupert Murdoch was auditioning for the part of Sgt. Schultz (“I know nothing. I see nothing.”) in a 2011 remake of Hogan’s Heroes. Here you had a man who is literally a kingmaker, a man who runs a multi-billion dollar empire that not only promotes certain candidates into office around the world for paybacks in the form of waivers to communications laws that allow him to expand his business and build his ever-expanding power, it strives and conspires to control those candidates once they are in office, even going so far as to place Murdoch people in important positions around them, whether it’s press flaks like David Cameron’s Andy Coulson, or, here, Bush’s Tony Snow. Police? Hell, you can just buy them.
 
Such a person would, by necessity, have to have his wits about him, wouldn’t he? Rupert says he runs the place but he doesn’t know what’s going on. Yet, his former editors, such as CNN’s Piers Morgan say they were in touch with Rupert on a weekly basis. That’s hardly being distant or being buffered by layers of management. Murdoch’s appearance yesterday was a textbook illustration of a conniver wanting it both ways. Out of one side of his jowly old mouth he says he doesn’t know what’s going on and puts on the doddering old geezer routine, while out of the other side he says he shouldn’t resign because he’s the best guy to fix what’s wrong.
 
I have to go back to the mobster comparison again. It was a classic example of the old mobster feigning illness in court in order to engender sympathy and get a better deal. In New York, we had a local godfather named Vinny “the chin” Gigante. He ran an empire, too. At one time, he was the most powerful crime boss in America. Yet, he went around his neighborhood in his pajamas and bathrobe, muttering to himself, in order to pretend he was just some crazy old coot. When he got before the judges as an old man, he really poured it on. He knew nothing. He played it to the hilt. Before he died, he admitted it was all an act, but, for 10 years, he was declared mentally unfit to stand trial. All the while, he ran his empire. Same deal with what we saw yesterday.
 
What a farce. First of all, the Murdochs were not even under oath. They could say anything or nothing, with impunity. James Murdoch talked about standards yet paid off someone with a million pounds. Standards? No wonder FOX “News” is the way it is.
 
Here’s some typical dialogue from yesterday’s dog and pony show, English-style, with Labor MP Watson questioning Rupert Murdoch-

Watson: “You’ve repeatedly stated that news Corp. has a zero tolerancetowards wrong doing by employees. Is that right?”
  
Rupert Murdoch: “Yes.”
 
Watson: "In October 2010, did you still believe it to be true when you said 'Let me be clear: We will vigorously pursue the truth and we will not tolerate wrongdoing'?"   
 
Rupert Murdoch: “Yes.”
 
Watson: “So, if you were not lying then, somebody lied to you. Who was it?”
 
Rupert Murdoch: “I don’t know. That’s what the police are investigating, and we are helping them with.”

 
Yeah right. He doesn’t remember. He was lied to but he doesn’t really pay all that much attention to the day to day. He doesn’t know. If someone lied to me, I’d know who it was. This same approach probably kept Rupert from getting expelled from school back around 70 years ago. Someone else is responsible! Not me! Round up the usual suspects! Put my most expensive cops on the case! Here’s more-

Watson: “Can I take you back to 2003? Are you aware that in March of that year, Rebekah Brooks gave evidence to this Committee admitting paying police?”
        
Rupert Murdoch: “I am now aware of that. I was not aware at the time. I am also aware that she amended that considerably, very quickly afterwards.”
 
Watson: "I think that she amended it seven or eight years afterwards.”
 
Rupert Murdoch: “Oh, I’m sorry.”
 
Watson: "Did you or anyone else at your organization investigate this at the time?”
 
Rupert Murdoch: “No.”

 
No one at News Corp. saw any need to investigate bribing police for information. Must be those standards that James Murdoch mentioned. There’s plenty more in the Parliament’s own transcript of the hearings.

Watson goes on to question Murdoch about a very high profile 2006 case involving the hacked voicemails and blackmail that we have been hearing about. The case resulted in admonishments from the judge, and received widespread media attention, yet Murdoch would have Watson and the rest of us believe that he, the great media baron knew nothing. More importantly, his company, which espoused a policy of “zero tolerance” for such wrongdoing didn’t draw his attention to it. Zero tolerance apparently has a whole different meaning in the land of News Corp.
 
I’ll give the British Parliament credit for a couple of things, although neither of them makes up for not putting such creeps as the Murdochs and their minions such as former News Of The Word editor Rebekah Brooks, who was questioned after the Murdochs, under oath. One was the intelligence of the questioning. The other is that, unlike hearings in our House or Senate, there was no grandstanding or self-aggrandizement on the part of the politicians.
 
It’s clear from yesterday’s testimony, that the Murdochs are buffering themselves from the wrongdoing that obviously never bothered them. The presented a picture of being detached or removed from things that were obviously company policy. Someone will be taking the fall, but they don’t intend for it to be them. Which employee or ex-employee will they sell down the river? Right now, you can put your money on Rebekah Brooks but, stay tuned
 
Sean Hoare, aka, the dead journalist, may have been the best or even only guy who could connect Murdoch and the Cameron government together in great detail. In my previous post, I raised the supposition of how would it look if Haldeman or Hunt had turned up dead at the beginning of the Watergate Scandal. While that would have set off quite a conflagration, perhaps I should have asked what would have happened if Woodward and Bernstein had been found face down in the Potomac.
 
The Murdochs and, no doubt, their man at No. 10 Downing Street once thought that just shutting down the News Of The World would make this whole thing go away, but it didn’t. Then a body turned up, the top two cops in Scotland Yard suddenly resigned over the police for sale issue, and Rebekah Brooks got arrested while police were retrieving her personal computer, phone and files from the garbage. The whole scandal leads to the question of how does a citizen deal with a legal system that is so corrupted by the money of the uber-powerful that it is in itself lawless; a legal system where more and more police and judges can be bought, given offers and orders that they can’t refuse. This is what will continue to happen as governments give waivers and tax breaks to the few uber-wealthy, the lords. Money equals power. That we are entering a state of complete lawlessness may very well be what the Repugs here, and their corporate overlords like Murdoch have been aiming for all along. It’s obvious. It’s certainly the logical end result of their policies. We are going medieval; merry olde England. Lords and serfs. Laws only written for the lords. If that’s the case and the law both there and here becomes even more of a farcical joke than it already is, then here’s my fantasy on how to deal with people like Murdoch, if only in my dark dreams.