Friday, May 20, 2005

xymphora 5/19

xymphora: "We're starting to see a pattern in the new American way of war. The assault on the town of Al Qa'im (or here or here or here) is remarkably similar to the attack on Falluja. The characteristics:


Pick an area with a significant local insurgency that can be destroyed for the purposes of teaching other areas a lesson.

Seal off the town, so the civilians can't leave."

xymphora: The CIA is going to file papers in court today to block the release of documents relating to its employee, George Joannides.

xymphora

$1 trillion missing : Military waste under fire

$1 trillion missing : Military waste under fire

The Nation | Lookout | Torture's Dirty Secret: It Works | Naomi Klein

The Nation | Lookout | Torture's Dirty Secret: It Works | Naomi Klein

News Hounds: O'Reilly: "9/11 was the genesis of ALL the action that we've taken"

News Hounds: O'Reilly: "9/11 was the genesis of ALL the action that we've taken"
BG: Bill O'Reilly agrees, the 911 Psyop is a pretext to all sorts of atrocities.

Technorati Tags: sept11

Mohamed Atta, Teetotaler

Technorati Tag: sept11 atta hopsicker coverup
Mohamed Atta, TeetotalerMohamed Atta didn’t drink, do cocaine, or hang out in strip clubs, and the official FBI account of the terrorist conspiracy to take down the World Trade Center is pretty much right on the money, according to a new book, "Perfect Soldiers: The Hijackers, Who They Were, Why They Did It," by Terry McDermott, a reporter for the L.A. Times.

Salon.com News | The lies that led to war

Salon.com News | The lies that led to war: "The lies that led to war
A leaked British memo, and other documents, make it clear that Bush intended all along to invade Iraq -- and lied about it to the American people. The full gravity of his offense has not yet sunk in.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Juan Cole

May 19, 2005 | When Newsweek's source admitted that he had misidentified the government document in which he had seen an account of Quran desecration at Guant�namo prison, Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita exploded, 'People are dead because of what this son of a bitch said. How could he be credible now?'
Di Rita could have said the same things about his bosses in the Bush administration.
Tens of thousands of people are dead in Iraq, including more than 1,600 U.S. soldiers and Marines, because of false allegations made by President George W. Bush and Di Rita's more immediate boss, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, about Saddam Hussein's nonexistent weapons of mass destruction and equally imaginary active nuclear weapons program. Bush, Rumsfeld, Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice repeatedly made unfounded allegations that led to the continuing disaster in Iraq, much of which is now an economic and military no man's land beset by bombings, assassinations, kidnappings and political gridlock.
And we now know, thanks to a leaked British memo concerning the head of British intelligence, that the Bush administration -- contrary to its explicit denials -- had already made up its mind to attack Iraq and 'fixed' those bogus allegations to support its decision. In short, Bush and his top officials lied about Iraq.
Going to war is the most serious decision a president can make. It should never be approached in a cavalier fashion. American lives, the pre"

Salon.com Politics: The press rewrites the Jeff Gannon story

Salon.com Politics

The press rewrites the Jeff Gannon story

Watching ensconced Beltway journalists get busy trying to rewrite the Jeff Gannon story in recent weeks has made for some strange reading, as scribes argue they were right to ignore the controversy because, in retrospect, it was no big deal. The whole revisionist exercise would be funny if it weren't so sad; a telltale sign of today's press corps timidity.

A good chunk of the recent Vanity Fair feature on Gannon -- the former male escort who used a phony name while volunteering for a phony news organization and got instant access to the White House briefing room without having to submit to a full background check -- was set aside to explore the media elite notion the controversy was a big nothing. The Washington Post's Mike Allen and ABC's Terry Moran, two White House correspondents who all but ignored the Gannon story as it unfolded right in front of them for weeks last winter, were quoted to that effect. Allen assured readers it was "super-naive to think" the White House had anything to do with getting Gannon whisked inside, while Moran tipped his hat to Gannon, calling some of his briefing questions "valuable and necessary."

That's their (defensive) spin and they're entitled to it. But it was a revisionist Boston Globe column from this week that really made War Room's jaw drop. Penned by the paper's D.C bureau chief Peter Canellos, the piece, "Gannon's Story Left Critics Tarnished, Too," took a tsk-tsk approach to Gannon's online accusers. War Room thinks that's a bit of a stretch, but so be it. But this passage was just unpardonable:

"In many respects, the Gannon scandal followed a similar trajectory as the similarly unproven allegations of the swift boat veterans who claimed that John Kerry had lied about his military service: Newspapers could not verify any of the allegations except one that Kerry himself acknowledged. But the veterans' TV ads nonetheless commanded wide coverage as symbols of Kerry's weaknesses as a presidential candidate."

That's right, the Gannon story, which, as Salon detailed, was essentially boycotted by major media outlets for weeks at a time last winter, "followed a similar trajectory" as the Swift Boat story which dominated the political news cycle for a solid month last summer, to the point where it helped wipe out Sen. John Kerry's post-convention bounce last August, and arguably cost him the election.

For some context, consider that during the roughly four weeks last February as the Gannon story made news the Boston Globe published exactly three stories or columns that mentioned the controversy, according to the Nexis electronic database. During the roughly four weeks the Swift Boat story made news last August, the Boston Globe published 41 articles or columns that mentioned the controversy.

Search Nexis' category of major newspapers for mentions Gannon last February and you get 122 hits. Do the same search for Swift Boat Veterans for last August and you get 748 hits.

Yet according to the Globe, the two stories, a fictitious one that targeted a Democratic candidate and was embraced by the Beltway press, and a factual one that targeted a Republican White House and was downplayed by the Beltway press, "Followed a similar trajectory."

It would be funny if it weren't so sad.

Salon.com Politics: WSJ phones in media attack

Salon.com Politics: "
WSJ phones in media attack

Is being a conservative press critic the easiest, least taxing job in American journalism? Honestly. So little effort goes into documenting the media's alleged liberal sins that the whole practice has become a bit of a joke.
Today's phoning-it-in award goes to Leo Banks, who wrote an opinion piece for the Wall Street Journal complaining about the 'elite media' and its skewed coverage of the Minutemen, those southwest volunteers who patrolled the U.S./Mexico border in an effort to keep illegal aliens out of this country. The Minutemen received an extraordinary amount of press coverage and Banks complains the liberal press got it all wrong.
It's an utterly predictable attack from the WSJ editorial page, but what makes the piece so amazing is that Banks doesn't provide a single example to show how the press got it wrong. Not one article is quoted and not one television report is cited. Apparently too busy to do any actual media analysis, Banks simply insists the press did X,Y,Z and expects everyone to believe it.
For instance, Banks writes, 'In the view of most of the reporters who parachuted into Arizona for this story and, disturbingly, local ones as well, you'd get the distinct impression that the Minutemen are the problem along the border.'
Press examples to back up that claim? Zero.
'[Reporters] wanted to stand up the angle that went something like -- no, exactly like -- this: Gun-toting vigilantes run amok in the desert, hunting harmless illegals who are only looking for work.'
Press examples to back that up? Zero.
'These border residents are routinely snickered at and called racist vigilantes.'
Press examples to back that up? Zero.
La"

'Big Heads and Little Resumes'

Tomlinson used Diane Rehm interview to further distort his actions as CPB chairman

Ezra Klein: Minimum Wage Woes

Ezra Klein: Minimum Wage Woes

Crooks and Liars

Crooks and LiarsSean Hannity and The Nurses Part II/ Video

I was just emailed this short video clip of Sean Hannity coaching the two nurses that appeared on his show during the Terri Schiavo case. We reported on it April 15th.

mediabistro: FishBowlDC

mediabistro: FishBowlDC

The Counter-Recruiters: All the Charm of the Draft- And Then Some

The Counter-Recruiters: All the Charm of the Draft- And Then Some

The Huffington Post | The Blog

The Huffington Post | The Blog

Another Day in the Empire » Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Syria: More Black Propaganda from the Bush Lie Factory

Another Day in the Empire » Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Syria: More Black Propaganda from the Bush Lie Factory