Hacks vs. Flacks: IstoÉ Dinheiro Replies

Attuch’s Breaking the Contract defended, as a heroic enterprise in the Ayn Rand mold, the Mendes construction firm, which returns to the headlines today over the Line 4 scandal. Scroll down to begin reading translation of his latest screed.

Consultor Jurídico carries Leonardo Attuch’s reply to Luis Gushiken, which I’ll translate — hastily, as always, so no wagering — pra inglês ver.

Most of Attuch’s work seems to be done for IstoÉ Dinheiro. ID, I am sorry to say, I find pretty putrid by the standards of local business sections and weekly business glossies.

As to Attuch himself, a Federal Police report from Operation Jackal dedicated five pages to the reporter’s relationship with Daniel Dantas and states quite clearly that he cooperated with the Opportunity Fund to write articles favorable to its interest.

Anatel, the Brazilian FCC-equivalent, stripped Dantas of his ownership interest in Anatel in April 2006.

For parallel findings about the business press in the Clearstream scandal in Europe, see my Closed Book Report.

I think I have that PF report here somewhere; I’ll try to translate a paragraph or two for you, just as an appetizer.

Attuch’s reply here is very similar to Veja’s campaign during the recent inquiry into its reporting on a “secret meeting” between two suspects in the “dossier” case: Stalinist police-state persecution!

Veja was caught out-and-out lying in that story, in my opinion.

As a vigilante consumer of the local media here in Brazil, I generally find that if you triangulate from the Estadão business section and CartaCapital, supplemented with doses of Forbes Brasil and some of the excellent little industry-specific trade rags you find floating around, you can do completely without the shinola they peddle over there at ID.

ID reminds me of nothing more than the kind of scabrous mixture of disinformation and editorializing in news storites that has been going on at Investor’s Business Daily in the last year or so.

Not the Bloomberg way at all, the way these rags do (other people’s) business.

But what I find interesting, from a noise-machine reverse-engineering point of view, is how closely Attuch sticks to the script gisted recently, for example, by the infamous Microsoft PR rep down here, InfomediaTV, in its review of Olavo de Carvalho’s “How to Win an Argument Without Being Right.”

If you cannot mount persuasive arguments, then make sure that your opponent is not able to make her own argument. Shift the focus of the debate: change the subject, preferably to a subject in which you are in the right; dwell on how much you know, on how hard you have worked to get where you are, on how your work is unjustly devalued and despised. Or simply lead the debate into a blind alley from which it cannot escape. In that case, both parties lose, but this is a better outcome for the party who was going to lose in any event.

Appropriately enough, Mr. de Carvalho’s Mídia Sem Máscaras (‘media unmasked’) has energetically defended Attuch in a case in which e-mails between Attuch and Daniel Dantas — indicted by the federal police in the Kroll bugging case, which was recently scheduled for trial — were published by CartaCapital.

CC is accused by MSM of forging those documents.

I will translate that piece of hogwash for you next.

The following, by the way, for you rhetoric students, is a classic argument from ethos — from personal characteristics.

One quite similar, in fact, in its technical aspects, to other cases the autohagiography genre I have been noting a lot lately, such as Autohagiography of Rebecca McKinnon and the Authohagiography of Ethan Gutmann.

More on that in a bit.

Jornalistas investigados

Journalists under investigation

Qual é o seu medo, senhor Luiz Gushiken?

What are you afraid of, Mr. Gushiken?

By Leonardo Attuch

Há dezessete anos, resolvi optar pelo jornalismo. Não foi, propriamente, uma opção econômica. Era um ideal. Não fazia planos de enriquecer, nem de ganhar nada imerecidamente.

Seventeen years ago, I chose a career in journalism. It was not, properly speaking, an economic choice. It was an idealistic one. I had no plans to get rich or to get my living without earning it.

Não sei há quantos anos o senhor Luiz Gushiken optou pela política. Imagino que faça muito tempo.

I do not know how long ago Mr. Gushiken chose politics as a career. I imagine it was quite some time ago.

According to his resumé, Mr. Gushiken was an employee of Banespa, the State Bank of São Paulo, from 1970-1999 — it was sold off to Banco Santander in Nov. 2003 — and got into politics through the employees union.

Do meu lado, sempre atuei na iniciativa privada, onde o mérito é aferido pelo esforço e pelo talento. Trabalhei nos jornais Correio Braziliense e Estado de Minas, bem como nas revistas Veja, Exame, Istoé Dinheiro e Dinheiro Rural. Dediquei-me a relatar fatos. Apurar, investigar, entrevistar, escrever.

For my part, I have always worked in the private sector, where merit is acquired by work and talent. I worked at the Correio Braziliense and the Estado de Minas, as well as at Veja, Exame, Istoé Dinheiro and Dinheiro Rural. I dedicated myself to reporting the facts. Check, investigate, interview, write.

A regular rogue’s gallery of top neo-Lacerdist bullshit factories, I am sorry to say.

Gushiken dedicou sua vida à luta pelo poder. Sindicalista profissional, sempre atuou na órbita do dinheiro público, estando na oposição ou no governo.

Gushken has dedicated his life to the struggle for power. A professional trade-unionist, he has always worked in the area of public funds, whether in opposition or in government.

Note the similarity to the Civita Meme, whereby, in Brazil, government is the font of all corruption and the private sector is the font of all virtue.

The point also dovetails neatly with the rationale of the 1964 April Fool’s revolution, which, as Gen. Figueiredo maintains, was “sadly necessary” to prevent “the dictatorship of the (non-State controlled) trade unions.”

Nossos destinos se cruzaram quando Gushiken, na posse de um cargo público, envolveu-se numa disputa privada. E, a meu ver, decidiu agir contra um grupo econômico, o Opportunity, de forma arbitrária e alheia às suas atribuições governamentais. A partir de então, passei a contar com a sua antipatia.

Our destinies crossed when Gushiken, occupying a public office, got mixed up in a private dispute. And as it seems, decided to act against an economic group, Opportunity, in an arbitrary manner that lay outside the realm of his duties in the government. From then on, I have been the steady object of his wrath.

Gushiken had some kind of relationship with public employee pension funds that objected to Citi and Opportunity’s deal to acquire control Brasil Telecom.

I am not completely up on that aspect of the dispute, but I think what got him in trouble was that he did seem to be meddling outside what the sovereign people had hired him to do.

He resigned, returned to the Congress whence he came, and was not, I think, voted back.

De volta da Itália, nesta semana, fui surpreendido com uma carta do ex-ministro ao delegado Paulo Lacerda, pedindo que a Polícia Federal investigue jornalistas que escrevem notícias que não lhe agradam – e ele cita meu nome, de forma nada lisonjeira. Gushiken se imagina vítima de uma conspiração contra a sua honra. E age preventivamente.

Returning from Italy this week, I was suprised by the letter from the former minister to Paulo Lacerda, asking the Federal Police to investigate journalists who write news articles that do not please him — and that that he cites my name, in a less than complimentary way. Gushiken imagains himself to be the victim of a conspiracy against his personal honor. And is acting preemptively.

Minha viagem à Europa, de fato, foi produtiva. Acompanhei o andamento das investigações que se desenrolam na Procuradoria de Milão sobre uma quadrilha formada por vários espiões ligados à Telecom Italia, com ramificações no Brasil.

My trip to Europe was, in fact, a productive one. I followed the progress of the investigations of the Milan prosceutor into the gang formed by various spies linked to Telecom Italia, a case with ramifications in Brazil.

Yes, we know.

Again, Mr. Attuch has been formally described in a federal police report as writing articles favoring the position of a party to that Byzantine deal, Daniel Dantas.

And Dantas, again, has been indicted by federal police for allegedly hiring Kroll to bug the boardroom of Brasil Telecom … and government officials as well.

CartaCapital published extensive photos of the bugging equipment in question, which Kroll, if I recall correctly, stated was actually bug-sweeping and anti-surveillance equipment.

Mais de 20 pessoas já foram presas por lá. E essa quadrilha italiana, batizada de “tiger team”, atuou intensamente no Brasil durante os anos de 2004 e 2005. A partir da confissão de um dos espiões, Marco Bernardini, os procuradores descobriram que a quadrilha fez pagamentos ilegais a políticos, a policiais e até mesmo a jornalistas brasileiros. Coisa de US$ 2 milhões. É isso que relato num artigo publicado nesta semana na Istoé.

More than 20 people have already been arrested. And this Italian gang, called “the tiger team,” acted intensiveely in Brazil between 2004 and 2005. Based on the confession of one of the spies, Marco Bernardini, the prosecutors discovered that the gang had made illegal payoffs to politicians, police and even to Brazilian journalists. Something in the neighborhood of $2 million. I report on all that this week in an article to appear in IstoÉ.

As CartaCapital point out this week, in a refutation of this argument, the spying that got Dantas in trouble started in 2002, according to official investigations.

The man is going to report on a theory of the case that exculpates him personally, and Dantas as well, that is.

I can’t wait to read that.

It seems a bit like hiring Robert Hanssen to cover some of the more disturbing cases to come out FBI counterintelligence operations in recent years for the New York Post.

O dinheiro passava pela empresa Business Security Agency, com conta no Barclay´s Bank. Isso, no contexto da disputa pelo comando da Brasil Telecom, um litígio empresarial que sempre despertou grande interesse do ministro Luiz Gushiken e envolve as empresas Telecom Italia, Opportunity e Citibank, além dos fundos de pensão.

The money passed through the firm Business Security Agency, through its account at Barclays Bank. And this all happened in the context of a fight over control of Brasil Telecom, a business lawsuit that always attractd great interest from minister Gushiken and involves Telecom Italia, Opportunity, and Citibank, as well as pension funds.

O ex-ministro, que no governo respondeu pelas tortuosas áreas de publicidade oficial e de fundos de pensão, pediu a Lacerda que investigue os jornalistas “subornados” pelo empresário Daniel Dantas, do Opportunity, sem que jamais tenha exibido qualquer evidência ou mesmo indício de “suborno”. Mas Gushiken enxerga um ardil. E dessa trama sinistra nasceriam ataques à honra do ex-ministro.

The former minister, who while in government was in charge of the tricky areas of official publicity and pension funds, asked Lacerda to investigate journalists who had been “bribed” by Daniel Dantas of Opportunity, without ever having shown any evidence or even indication of “bribery.” But Gushiken smells a plot, and from this sinister plot the attacks on his honor were allegedly born.

Gushiken, hoje fora do governo, solicitou essa investigação preventiva quando ainda estava no Núcleo de Assuntos Estratégicos, um órgão que faz parte da estrutura da Presidência da República. Ou seja: ele pediu a ação do braço armado do governo contra um jornalista quando ainda estava em pleno exercício do poder. E o fez, coincidentemente, uma semana após as primeiras prisões na Itália. Tão grave quanto o pedido esdrúxulo é o fato de Paulo Lacerda acatá-lo. Ao que parece, já está em andamento uma investigação sobre os jornalistas que incomodam Gushiken.

Gushiken, now out of government, requested this preemptive investigation while still working the Strategic Affairs Council, a body attached to the President’s office. That is: He asked an armed branch of the government to investigate a journalist while he was still in office. And he did it, intentionally, one week after the first arrests in Italy. And what is just as bad as this ridiculous request was that the head of the Federal Police took official notice of it. It seems that the investigation into journalists that bother Gushiken is still in progress.

O ex-ministro fala em suborno. Cita jornalistas e as revistas Veja e Carta Capital. Confunde fatos e inverte os papéis de vítima e agressor.

The former minister speaks of bribes. He cites the names of journalists and the magazines Veja and Carta Capital. He confuses the facts and inverts the roles of victim and agressor.

É ele quem deve explicações à Justiça. É ele quem foi um dos 40 denunciados no processo do mensalão pelo procurador-geral da República. Segundo Henrique Pizzolato, ex-diretor de marketing do Banco do Brasil, algumas contratações milionárias das agências publicitárias de Marcos Valério aconteceram por ordem direta de Gushiken. E houve ainda o caso das misteriosas cartilhas.

It is he [Gushiken] who owes explanations to the courts. It is he who was among the 40 members of Congress denounced in the mensalão scandal by the Attorney General. According to Henrique Pizzolato, former marketing director for the Banco do Brasil, some of the multimillion contracts given to Marcos Valério’s firms were awarded on direct orders from Gushiken. And there is still that case of the mysterious posters.

“The mysterious posters”: Another murky case, although not necessarily because the facts are all that murky.

The federal auditor (TCU) objected to the printing bill on a bunch of posters and t-shirts that were printed at public expense but handed out to the PT political party to distribute.

If I understand aright, the TCU consider the money spent on the materials — which as I understand it Gushiken argues was not PT advertising but government-related “social communicatons” in some legally neutral sense, such as “Call 1-800-BUGSOFF to apply for federal fumigation credits” or something — to have been “embezzled” because of the fact that the tchotchkes were distributed by the party.

Which seems like a pretty boneheaded thing to do on Gushiken’s part, you kind of have to think, and possibly also an overweening degree of urge overkill on the part of the TCU, which the PT accuses of having golpista tendencies.

This could technically, I think, be argued as grounds for an “abusive of economic power” charge under the electoral mini-reform, leading to the impeachment of the candidate who benefitted from it.

The case was brought shortly before the first round of the elections, then deferred until 2007. If it fizzles, there will be loud noises in some quarters.

Mas não foi Gushiken a pessoa acossada pela Polícia Federal petista nesses últimos anos. Fui eu. Em 2004, no calor da Operação Chacal contra as empresas Kroll e Opportunity, ousei dizer que não se tratava de uma mera ação policial. Escrevi que estávamos diante de um takeover empresarial com participação ativa e pesada do governo brasileiro – e isso, os fatos confirmaram. Além do mais, as notícias que vêm da Itália revelam farta distribuição de dinheiro sujo.

But Gushiken was not the person assailed by the petista Federal Police in recent years. It was me. In 2004, in the heat of Operation Jackal against Kroll and Opportunity, I had the audacity to say that this was not a simple police operations. I wrote that we were witnesses a hostile business takeover with the active and heavy-handed participation of the Brazilian government — and this the facts have confirmed. Further, the news from Italy reveals that the dirty money was widely spread around.

What made the Jackal affair a federal case was the element of alleged illegal wiretapping of government officials, and the alleged suborning of perjury.

The PF have lately been very touchy about the idea they are a politicized rather than a modern, professional organization, especially after the Bruno Surfistinha incident.

And especially now that one of their main priorities is busting crooked pols, cops, soldiers and judges.

When Veja accused them of covering up for Lula at the instigation of the Justice Minister, their PR folks gave Veja both barrels about suppressing evidence that the PF had provided them — jail logs and other paperwork — showing that no “secret meeting” between aloprado Gedimar and presidential adviser Freud Godoy could have occurred in the time frame they reported.

They also hauled them in to give more evidence, investigating what would have constituted a crime on the part of any officers who actually behaved as Veja alleged. Veja screamed Stalinist persecution again.

Veja is a nasty piece of work.

Freud was formally  later cleared of any wrongdoing.

But oh, the torrent of headlines punning “Freud” with “Fraud” that had passed under the headline beforehand, right before the elections.

É espantoso que um ministro de Estado – afinal foi nessa condição que Gushiken escreveu ao diretor da PF – tenha a ousadia fazer uma denunciação caluniosa para intimidar jornalistas. Para desgosto de alguns, não vivemos na China comunista nem na Cuba castrista.

It is astonishing that a federal minister — for after all it was as a minister that Gushiken wrote to the director of the federal police — would have the audacity to make a slanderous allegation like this to intimidate journalists. To the great displeasure of some, we do not live in Communist China or Castro’s Cuba.

To the great displeasure of some, Brazilians do not live in Pinochet’s Chile.

Gushiken left the Cabinet-level Secom in June 2005 to head the (non-Cabinet level) Strategic Affairs advisory council until resigning in January 2007 — to be replaced, interestingly, by a professional military man.

Possibly a less Bush-league approach than having flacks advise you on your security and foreign affairs thinking.

The letter in question dates from Sept. 2006.

Mas afinal de contas: de que Gushiken tem medo? Por que procura já a Polícia Federal e não a Justiça, quando vier – e se vier – a ser difamado? Aliás, difamá-lo jamais foi meu propósito.

But it all comes down to this: What is Gushiken afraid of? What does he apply to the Federal Police and not to the civil courts whenever — if ever — he is libeled? And libeling him was never my intention.

Que intenção eu teria de ofender uma pessoa tão enredada em investigações? Nenhuma. É claro que gostaria de contribuir para que os fatos relativos ao “caso Brasil Telecom” e todos os subornos – exatamente todos – sejam esclarecidos. E gostaria até de debater esse tema, publicamente, com Gushiken.

Why would I set out to offend someone so enmeshed in investgiations? I have no reason to. Naturally, I would like to contribute relevant facts to the “Brasil Telecom case” and hope that all the bribes — that is correct, all of them — will come out. I would even welcome the change to debate this topic, publicly, with Gushiken.

É triste ver alguém tão bem sucedido na luta pelo poder, com tanta experiência na vida pública, querer criminalizar um profissional. Isso não é tolerável no Brasil contemporâneo. E é também ineficaz. Há vários outros jornalistas, corretos e ainda mais competentes, em busca da verdade. Talvez já estejam até em Milão.

It is said to see someone who has been so successful in the struggle for power, with so much experience in public life, trying to incriminate a professional. This cannot be tolerated in contemporary Brazil. And it will not work. There are many other journalists, as ethical as I am and even more competent than I am pursuing the truth. They might already be in Milan, in fact.

I repeat: The contrary-to-fact conditional is the first refuge of a not particularly intelligent scoundrel.

I run this through my patented NMM-Tabajara wetware Neuzameter — my paulistana wife’s gut take on things like this.

It immediately shoots straight off of what we call, as a private joke, the opera buffa scale, like the mercury busting out of the high end of a thermometer in Hell in an old Looney Tunes cartoon.

Almost putting out an eye.

But we shall see. We shall see.

At this point, all is noise in the absence of established facts.

Tune in again. Same time, same bat macumba channel …