It's worth taking note when David Sirota says MSNBC's "Up with Chris Hayes" is "one of the best television programs on the air"

"Up With Chris Hayes, which broadcasts Saturday and Sunday mornings, purposely rejects the manufactured red-versus-blue mallet that bludgeons every issue into partisan terms. Instead, the program's host is creating a space for more expansive discussions with voices typically deemed too unconventional, provocative or dangerous to be allowed anywhere near a television set."

-- David Sirota, in "TV That Finally Lifts Journalism Back Up"

"Arabs being asked for their opinion on events in the Arab world -- what a concept! . . . Even more incredible was the show's ideological openness. Just one example: We had a discussion about the notion of America as an empire."

-- from the same source

by Ken

How often do we get to share good news? I haven't had a chance to road-test this recommendation from our friend David Sirota, but when he declares MSNBC's Up with Chris Hayes "one of the best television programs on the air," I take that seriously, and with the next broadcast coming up tomorrow morning, I thought this would be the time to share his recommendation for the benefit of those who haven't seen his Creators.com column (which I saw courtesy of Nation of Change).

He explains how he came to have firsthand experience of the show.

Waking up at 4 a.m. is rarely enjoyable, and arising at that unspeakable hour to appear on a cable news show is particularly painful. In such situations, you feel as if you're dragging yourself out of bed only to be treated like a canine in a dogfight, with the typical show pitting you in a contrived death match against another guest who is your equally angry, equally mangy opposite. That, or you're simply asked to play the yes-man -- the Ed McMahon to the host's Johnny Carson.

Needless to say, I'm not a fan of most cable news because I find this format mind-numbing, uninformative and tedious (and cable news' declining ratings over the last year prove I'm not alone). So when I was asked to appear on MSNBC last Saturday morning, my initial thought was, "Thanks, but no thanks."

But then I realized it was a new show hosted by Chris Hayes, a journalist whose work I've long admired. So I said yes. And crack-of-dawn fatigue aside, I'm glad I did, because to my surprise, I ended up getting the chance to participate in one of the best television programs on the air.

As regular DWT readers know, Chris Hayes is held in pretty high esteem here too. Here's David's sampling from his experience on the show.

The panel I appeared on exemplified Hayes' effort. Out of five in-studio guests appearing to discuss the death of Moammar Gadhafi, the Iraq War and the Arab Spring, one was Iraqi author Zainab Salbi, one was Libyan author Hisham Matar and one was Palestinian-American comedian Dean Obeidallah. (Arabs being asked for their opinion on events in the Arab world -- what a concept!) Amazingly (and refreshingly), in a cable world dominated by crotchety Caucasians, NBC News' foreign correspondent Richard Engel and I were the only white dudes on the panel.

Even more incredible was the show's ideological openness.

Just one example: We had a discussion about the notion of America as an empire -- a concept pervasive throughout the globe that Engel nonetheless couldn't believe was being discussed on American television. He was right to be surprised. Though it should be standard, a cable program that both explores hugely taboo questions and includes a diverse set of voices is something you rarely see in this country.

Pleased as David is to be able to pass on tidings of this "terrific, better-late-than-never development" for American news consumers, he notes, "The fact that Up is groundbreaking is also something of a sad commentary on the larger media." I think he actually means more than "something of a sad commentary, though, as he goes on to explain:

For the most part, TV remains exactly as Hunter S. Thompson once described it: a "cruel and shallow money trench through the heart of the journalism industry, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free ..." In that hallway's current cable form, "national news" is a euphemism for New York- and DC-focused content engineered primarily by a closed ecosystem of East Coast elites who believe the only things that matter are Manhattan gossip and Beltway games. This is why you almost always see the same vapid pundits and the same homogenized topics on TV — because this clique is hostile to diverse viewpoints and uses its privilege to make sure media debates represent only the elites' myopic perspective.

By contrast, Hayes' show joins a variety of programs, from Amy Goodman's "Democracy Now!" to Jon Stewart's "The Daily Show" to Thom Hartmann's "The Big Picture," in rejecting this suffocating model. If "Up" succeeds, it'll play a huge role in creating a new model that will serve journalism and the citizenry far better than today's vast television wasteland.

As anyone who's tried to extract information from the MSNBC website knows, it's a tough pull. Apparently the idea is to keep what they're up to secret except to those who really, really want to know. This much I was able to find out, though: Up with Chris Hayes airs Saturday mornings 7-9am and Sunday mornings 8-10am. Don't ask me about time zones; I'm not a TV-schedule swami. Um, you could check your local listings, I guess.

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Andrew Solomon: "How Qaddafi Lost Libya"

The escalating violence of the Qaddafi regime's response to the uprising in Libya is bringing increasing calls for international action.

"Libya is North Africa’s most prosperous country, given its tremendous oil wealth and small population. Yet most Libyans live in deplorable conditions. The state provides little by way of civil society and does not take care of even the most basic government obligations."

"The government has been exercising control over communications, shutting off both Internet and phone services. One of my contacts in Libya managed to call last night just before all lines were cut. He said, 'It’s awful, much worse than you think. Please get out the word to support us.'”

-- Andrew Solomon, in a New Yorker blogpost
yesterday, "How Qaddafi Lost Libya"

by Ken

And one of what Andrew Solomon describes as "several strategic errors" made by the Qaddafi regime since Solomon wrote about Qaddafi and Libya for The New Yorker in 2006 (Letter from Libya: "Circle of Fire," May 8, 2006), "has been the lack of attention to the poverty of the population."

Back in 2006, Solomon writes, "the question was whether a much-advertised reform process was really underway."

The ostensible champion of reform was Qaddafi’s son Seif-al-Islam. Seif usually talks a good game, but he does so with minimal regard for the truth. I was amazed, at a meeting with Seif and some senior American diplomats, in 2008, to hear him describe as imminent the exact same plans he’d so described to me in 2005, without the slightest embarrassment that nothing he had promised then had even inched forward.

And it seems that nothing more has been accomplished in this department since. Solomon describes the Libyan leader's "retreat" from his son's announced plans for reform as one of "several strategic errors" made by the regime since his article was published.

It was in Qaddafi’s interests to sustain the fierce battle between hardliners and moderates, to present his moderate spokesman to the West (hence the meeting between Seif and diplomats), and to keep his hardliner face visible to his own people. Within the government, each side had moments of believing itself in favor, but the best guarantee of Qaddafi’s continued hegemony was to keep them constantly embattled. When this became unsustainable, however, in 2008, he quashed the reformers, and Seif was generally seen as having fallen from grace. Even though most Libyans had been cynical about the reform process—which was predicated on economic reform rather than on the introduction of real democracy—it had kept hope on the horizon, had allowed them to indulge the idea that Qaddafi was really interested in what was best for the population rather than for himself and his family. To give hardliners more power, as Qaddafi did in 2008, was catastrophic.

Where most observers were puzzled that the public face the regime first offered on Libyan TV during the current crisis was that of Seif Qaddafi, Solomon sees the choice as "very telling."

Qaddafi would not have chosen him as spokesman if he didn’t recognize the hunger for reform, and if he didn’t know that quashing Seif’s ambitions had fed the fire now consuming Tripoli. Monday morning, Qaddafi announced that Seif would be forming a committee to investigate what is happening. But Seif’s too-little-too-late performance -- which Al Jazeera described as “desperate,” and which some commentators have said was aimed at his friends in the West rather than at the Libyan people -- has almost certainly not helped his cause.

Of the regime's callous disgregard for the living conditions of most Libyans, Solomon writes:

There are police to control people who stray from supporting the Leader, but there is little else. As a housing crisis has escalated in the past few years, the regime has made no effort to provide adequate public accommodation. Wealth is concentrated in the hands of the very few. It would have been easy for Qaddafi to raise the standard of living for the population as a whole either by creating a sustainable non-oil economy or simply by distributing some portion of oil revenues, but he chose to do neither.

As a third mistake he cites inattention to "the needs of the young."

When a third of the population is under fifteen and a further large proportion is under twenty-five, the young become central to coherent governance. Qaddafi has stuck with his old cronies, and has not taken on board the nature of the widespread discontent. The most obvious problem here, as in much of the Middle East, is vast youth unemployment, for the amelioration of which there are no programs at all. Qaddafi has never made any attempt to reach out to disgruntled youth, and they feel that their voices are not heard and carry no weight.

Solomon doesn't claim to be able to predict how the current situation will play out -- "whether the regime can withstand the revolution that is underway."

The response to protests has been swift and brutal, since Qaddafi had seen how ineffective more moderate responses were in Egypt and Tunisia. It is not clear, however, that brutality will work; it appears to be making more and more Libyans incensed. A Libyan diplomat said today, “The more Qaddafi kills people, the more people go into the streets.” Qaddafi’s power has for a long time relied on the docility of ordinary Libyans. As he ignored the youth of his country, though, he seems to have ignored the possibility that he is ruling a less passive population. The new generation is ready to push out the old. Libya’s deputy ambassador to the United Nations said today that if Qaddafi does not willingly step down “the Libyan people will get rid of him.” Two members of the Libyan Air Force have defected to Malta rather than attack protesters in Benghazi. Others may well follow, and a loss of loyalty within the army would be the end of Qaddafi’s reign.

This would indeed represent an important change from the attitude of the Libyan people during the earlier decades of Qaddafi's rule.

The regime has always wanted credit for its beneficent decrees, without accepting blame for its failure even to try to turn them into results. Libyans are aware that this represents a higher degree of hypocrisy than is common in most of the rest of the world. For a long time, they did not much love Qaddafi, but they did not hate him, either; he was in many ways irrelevant to their lives, which chugged along according to a tribal logic that had been in place long before the regime came to power. Libyans are leery of democracy; they like a strong ruler who can keep tribal rivalries from erupting. But they do not particularly like their current strong ruler.

It's not surprising to Solomon that the uprising began and has remained most incendiary in eastern Libya.

The area around Benghazi has always been the one least under Qaddafi’s thumb, and most of his problems have originated there. Qaddafi’s tribe is a desert one, and the verdant east resents his authority.

Part of Qaddafi's strategy in keeping the restive east under control has been "deflecting the anger of one enemy against another."

But it was not possible to suppress permanently the fact of his unpopularity in Benghazi; people there have always felt freer to express disapprobation of the regime than people in the western parts of the country, and they have long waited for a moment when they could act on those expressions.

Whenever the post-Qaddafi era comes, it's difficult to guess what form it will take. It's certainly possible, Solomon suggests, that the country could split apart into "several smaller countries," since "modern Libya is an artificial construct, a remnant of colonialism," and "the glue holding it together is failing." The warnings of chaos are real, he says. "The choice between chaos and oppression is always a tricky one, but this population is tired of oppression and corruption, and chaos may look more attractive to them."

However, the opposition in Libya is far less organized than in any of the other countries facing regime change. There aren't "any real opposition leaders," or "any internal opposition as we generally define it." And Libya, with all its geographical vastness, has a smaller population even than Tunisia (6 million to 10).

All the educated and competent people in Libya know one another, and most of them have worked in one way or another with the Qaddafi regime. If Qaddafi goes, there are not enough trained bureaucrats or statesmen to construct a new Libyan government that is not an extension of the old one, and this fact alone could propel Libya back into some form of tribalism. That failing, his stooges are likely to end up playing a significant part in running the show.

One thing Libya clearly has in common with the other Muslim nations of the Middle East and North Africa is that it's hard to imagine good outcomes -- and by "good outcomes" I mean the people seeking to overthrow the regimes that have oppressed and exploited them.

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Muammar G likes "Leeza" R, all foreign dictators love the Cheneys, and Chimpy got hisself a calf-and-foot massager!

What do you give the crackpot despot who has everything? Certainly not diamonds. How 'bout a lovely DOS dinner plate?

Our pal Al Kamen has been rummaging around the State Dept's latest annual foreign-gifts list for today's Washington Post "In the Loop" column, and among other things has discovered that Libyan President Muammar Gadaffi apparently has a thing for a certain former U.S. secretary of state. No word from "Leeza" as to whether wedding bells might be in the offing.--Ken

Libyan dictator Moammar Gadaffi, a somewhat eccentric fellow, was clearly bewitched by then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, whom he had taken to calling "Leeza."

So when Rice visited him in Tripoli in September, the two had a private dinner in a small kitchen in his personal quarters, in an area where only women are allowed (except, of course, the leader himself).

Gaddafi gave her several gifts, our colleague Glenn Kessler reported at the time, including a diamond ring in a wooden box, a lute, and a locket with a photo of the leader himself inside. He also gave her a signed copy of his manifesto, "The Green Book," signed "with respect and admiration." There was also a DVD -- probably starring him.

Last week, in the State Department's annual compilation of gifts from foreign officials, we find out that the value of what Rice got from the lovestruck Gaddafi -- as appraised by State Department officials -- was $212,225. Must have been one huge rock.

Rice was obliged to accept the gift; this must be done, according to protocol rules, when "non-acceptance would cause embarrassment to the donor and U.S. government." Alas, she was also obliged to turn it in to the appraisers. If it is determined a gift is worth a minimal amount -- around $200 -- the government recipient may keep it.

If it's worth more, the official may buy it for the appraised value or it is handed over to the General Services Administration. The annual report says that the diamond and, sadly, the locket with his picture, are headed to the GSA.

And what did Rice give Gaddafi in return? A plate adorned with the Great Seal of the United States and her robo-pen signature. Gaddafi told her he thought it was lovely. A plate? What? If he's good and she returns seven more times, he has a full service? This from the world's only remaining superpower to our best buddy in North Africa?

Times surely are tough. A small plate with a seal, though unsigned, goes for $39.95 at the State Department gift shop.

Gaddafi's largess was, as would be expected, outdone by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, who showered close to $1 million on U.S. officials in 2008. His Highness gave Rice a "gold, diamond and sapphire set with necklace, ring, bracelet and earrings" as well as a "ceremonial robe." Value: $230,145.

But not all gifts are lavish.

Some can be a bit quirky, like a Singapore official's gift to President George W. Bush of a "Creative Zen MP3 Player and an OSIM uSqueez Calf and Foot Massager."

Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko gave Vice President Richard B. Cheney and his wife, Lynne, "Two bottles of 1940 Massandra Golden Collection Wine" the gift list says, noting these, like any perishable gifts, are "handled pursuant to U.S. Service policy." (Bet the wine tasted really good.)

Yushchenko also gave Lynne Cheney "Three Ukrainian cookbooks," valued at $90, which she kept. And he gave the Cheney daughters and grandkids seven Ukrainian children's books, six plush stuffed animals, three girls' blouses, three boys' shirts, and a "wooden toy cart with horses," which they kept.

Even King Abdullah can get practical. He gave Lynne Cheney "two pairs of Dr. Scholl's high-heeled clogs," valued at $450. She declined. He gave daughter Liz Cheney (who was doubling as a deputy assistant secretary of state at the time) three pairs of those high-heeled clogs.

Nothing that many of the GSA-bound gifts "go on display or are used in government buildings," Al suggests, "Maybe we can auction them off to help pay for Obama's health-care plan?" (There's no indication whether the uSqueez foot-and-calf massager found its way to the GSA. Our research indicates that the list price on this baby -- not to be confused with the $100-cheaper iSqueez model -- is $499, but surely that would have been a small price for Chimpy the then-Prez to pay to tickle those delicate tootsies.)

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