Gannon and WHIG: The Noose Gets Tighter

"Systematic coordination began in August, when Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. formed the White House Iraq Group, or WHIG, to set strategy for each stage of the confrontation with Baghdad.

In an interview with the New York Times published Sept. 6, Card did not mention the WHIG but hinted at its mission. "From a marketing point of view, you don't introduce new products in August," he said.

A "strategic communications" task force under the WHIG began to plan speeches and white papers. There were many themes in the coming weeks, but Iraq's nuclear menace was among the most prominent."

Gannon and WHIG: The Noose Gets Tighter

I believed Joseph Wilson All Along

I'm glad I did. As I look back, I see that Jeff Gannon played a central role in the right wing's vigilante activism to destroy Wilson's credibility.

IDDYBUD: July 12, 2004

IDDYBUD: Sunday, July 11, 2004:

The new Senate intelligence committee report has served to undermine Joseph C. Wilson IV's prior assertions that the Bush administration had manipulated intelligence to build their case for war....

...As far as common sense is concerned, this report does not prove or disprove Joseph Wilson's criticism of the Bush administration's abuse of bad intelligence.

Just as I believed there was no imminent threat to America all along based on the information I'd personally collected before the Iraq war, I continue to believe Joseph C. Wilson IV. He has my benefit of doubt.. and I hope he'll have yours, dear readers.

Consider the liars and the powers he's up against.

From Smirking Chimp March 2004:

"The political hit squad assigned to go after Wilson – meeting, perhaps, in the Situation Room – decided to hit back at him through his wife, Valerie Plame, a CIA undercover agent working on nuclear nonproliferation issues. They told Novak, and apparently a good number of other journalists, that he wasn't really qualified, Wilson's wife had gotten him the (non-paying) job to go to Niger through her CIA connections, a bit of information dropped casually amid familiar complaints of partisan bias and ulterior motives. Plame's career in the CIA was effectively ended."

I want to know who, if anyone, Jeff Gannon was in cahoots with, and if his involvement was direct, conspiratorial, and intentional.
It's all too strange. You look back to summer, 2004. You see a high-powered White House cabal in the information-war business, and nearly every article that is first to deliver a message attacking Joe Wilsons credibility, as we look back on that period, has Gannon's name at the top of it. (Some of the articles are listed below).
Gannon, apparently, was the only one who's been identified by the Washington Post as having knowledge of a leaked internal memo's existence. The document, written by a State Department official who worked for its Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), described an alleged meeting at the CIA where the Niger trip by Wilson was discussed. The memo was alleged to have contained information which suggested that Joseph Wilson claimed his wife was instrumental in his selection for the fact-finding trip to Africa. CIA officials have challenged the accuracy of the INR document, a White House official said, because the agency officer identified as talking about Plame's alleged role in arranging Wilson's trip could not have attended the meeting.
Why Gannon?
Why Talon News?
Did the Senate Intelligence Committee, knowingly or unknowingly, contribute to the media propaganda?

I would hate to even suspect that any of the fine Senators on the Intelligence Committee (listed at bottom) would have cooperated in any activity, intentional or unintentional, which involved slipping internal information to Jeff Gannon/JD Guckert for the purpose of partisan gain.
How did Gannon get this information from the INR report?
Why did no other reporter have access to it?

A multi-leveled propaganda operation

IDDYBUD: July 9, 2004: Who was the "White House Iraq Group (WHIG)" - and did they use Jeff Gannon for their PR?

Waas writes that some of Libby's notes describe efforts to discredit Wilson by the mysterious cabal known as the White House Iraq Group. Little is known about that group beyond what Barton Gellman and Walter Pincus wrote in The Washington Post last August. But it included Rove, Libby, adviser Karen Hughes and other top White House players."

--Dan Froomkin/Washington Post

Justin Raimondo deserves much credit for his early investigation and questions about Gannon's role:

"My regular readers might recall a column I wrote on Plame-gate a couple of months ago, wherein I mentioned that the Talon News Agency, an arm of something called "GOP U.S.A," did an interview with Ambassador Wilson, during which the interviewer challenged Wilson with an internal U.S. government document purporting to be the minutes of a meeting at which Plame played a key role in getting her husband the Niger assignment. There was just one problem with these documents: as in the Niger uranium forgeries, which listed ministers who hadn't served in years and got key facts wrong, these minutes of a purported meeting of CIA agents placed personnel in locations they couldn't possibly have been. Another forgery! Counterfeiting official documents is also a crime, particularly when it is done with the cooperation or complicity of government officials involved in a conspiracy.

I advise Mr. Gannon to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, if he knows what's good for him.

This case is about much more than the outing of a CIA agent: It's about a cabal of ruthless liars who stopped at nothing – not even treason – to achieve their goals, and kept lying (and committing forgery) even after they were caught. It's about a bogus war fought on account of faked "evidence." It's about the hijacking of American foreign policy on behalf of interests that are neither American nor morally defensible."

Republicans On Intelligence Committee


Pat Roberts, (KS)
Orrin Hatch (UT)
Mike Dewine (OH)
Chris Bond (MO)
Trent Lott (MS)
Olympia Snowe (ME)
Chuck Hagel (NE)
Saxby Chambliss (GA)
John Warner (VA)


____________________________

"In uncovering the culprits, this investigation is bound to unearth the network of Washington warmongers who retaliated with such swift treachery when Joe Wilson hit them, unexpectedly, in a weak spot." - Justin Raimondo

Gannon-Related articles

Talon article July 27, 2004

Talon article July 13, 2004
Excerpt from Gannon's own article:

"..the Senate Intelligence Committee discovered a memo from Plame dated February 12, 2002 to the Deputy Chief of the Counterproliferation Division (CPD) that "offered up his name." It was also revealed that Wilson traveled to Niger for the CIA in 1999 on a mission whose details are redacted from the report.

In October 2003, Talon News reported on an internal government memo prepared by U.S. intelligence personnel that detailed a meeting where Plame suggested Wilson be sent to Niger. Wilson claimed to have never been in a meeting with his wife, but a State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) analyst's notes indicated that a meeting was "apparently convened" by Plame who had proposed her husband go on the mission. Plame told the committee that she only attended the meeting to introduce her husband and left after about three minutes.

A CIA source told the Washington Post in December 2003 that the INR memo was still classified and disputed its contents. As a result of asking Wilson about the memo during an October 2003 interview, FBI agents questioned Talon News under the guise of the leak probe to discover the source of the memo that refuted the assertions of the agency and Wilson about the circumstances by which he was chosen for the trip.

The Senate Intelligence Committee report may have a significant impact on the leak probe. Loss of confidence in the agency and its attempts to discredit evidence that suggests alternate motivations by sub-groups within it may serve to undermine the case. The INR memorandum may have revealed Plame's identity prior to Novak's column and therefore any statements by the administration might only qualify as simple gossip.

Even if that is not the case, the federal statute requires that the exposure of Plame would have had to be deliberate and malicious, a threshold that may not be reached by the investigation, particularly in light of new information revealed by the Committee report."

Talon article, October 29, 2003

Talon article, July 22, 2004 (Gannon on Sandy Berger)

"Instead of reviewing documents for the 9/11 Commission investigation, Republicans suggested that Berger used the information from the National Archives to help the Kerry campaign.

Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) said, "Reportedly these documents related to homeland security and then suddenly we see that the Kerry campaign came
forward with what may have been illegal documents. This is sensitive
stuff and was a significant breach of security."

Articles Where Gannon is quoted or mentioned:

Washington Post article December 26, 2003

Excerpt:

"Sources said the CIA is angry about the circulation of a still-classified document to conservative news outlets suggesting Plame had a role in arranging her husband's trip to Africa for the CIA. The document, written by a State Department official who works for its Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), describes a meeting at the CIA where the Niger trip by Wilson was discussed, said a senior administration official who has seen it.

CIA officials have challenged the accuracy of the INR document, the official said, because the agency officer identified as talking about Plame's alleged role in arranging Wilson's trip could not have attended the meeting.

"It has been circulated around," one official said. CIA and State Department officials have refused to discuss the document.

On Oct. 28, Talon News, a news company tied to a group called GOP USA, posted on the Internet an interview with Wilson in which the Talon News questioner [Gannon] asks: "An internal government memo prepared by U.S. intelligence personnel details a meeting in early 2002 where your wife, a member of the agency for clandestine service working on Iraqi weapons issues, suggested that you could be sent to investigate the reports. Do you dispute that?"

Other past Gannon-related media Comments and Referrals:

From a live Q and A chat-session with Washington Post's Mike Allen, May 13, 2004:

Washington, D.C.: There's some new guy asking questions at the daily briefings who sounds like a plant from the Bush administration. I think his name is Jeff. Any idea who he is and how he gets in to the briefings? This guy makes Fox News actually seem fair and balanced.

Mike Allen: I believe you're referring to Jeff Gannon of Talon News, whose dispatches are available at GOPUSA.com

Additional Note:

The Democrats have been trying to get the public to understand the severity of this problem all along. It was not a partisan act on their part.

Bloggers need to speak out now.

A high level of investigation is needed.

It may need to be initiated by Republicans.

We are watching. We are waiting. The whole world is watching.

You can run, but you just can't hide these days.

This was part of a memo from a Democrat on the staff of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence which was stolen ascertained by Republicans:

"...even without a specifically authorized independent investigation, we continue to act independently when we encounter foot-dragging on the part of the majority...the FBI Niger investigation was done solely at the request of the vice chairman (Jay Rockefeller); we have independently submitted written questions to DoD; and we are preparing further independent requests for information".

Advice for Well-Known Freepers: Go Underground

Advice for Well-Known Freepers: Go Underground

The Freepers are warning their "prominent" participants to "go underground".
They've posted a new set of suggested guidelines.
They need to get sneakier and more intelligently devious.
They know others are watching what they've been getting away with in the "light of day" for far, far too long.

Need A New Career?

Need A New Career?

Go HERE. Ol' J.D. will set you up.

New Info On How Gannon Got Credentialed

"It was a bad enough that somebody let in a guy with no media experience, an alias, and a background as an on-line escort -- but why did they let him in if he wasn't even pretending to represent a news organization of any kind?"

-- Keith Olbermann, MSNBC


New Info On How Gannon Got Credentialed

Former Talon News reporter James Guckert obtained his first White House press credentials as a representative of the pro-Republican Web site, GOPUSA, not as a Talon News reporter, as previously believed, Press Secretary Scott McClellan told E&P today.

McClellan said White House Press Office staffers considered the openly partisan site to be a legitimate news organization when they gave Guckert, a.k.a. Jeff Gannon, the first of numerous day passes in February 2003.

LINK

__________

Editor and Publisher: Radio Producer Could Always Count on 'Gannon' for Tips

________________

RAW STORY: Gannon’s own statements suggest he fed exclusive stories damaging Bush opponents to networks; Bragged of feeding Rather story

_________________

Guckert will give interview to CNN: "My side of the story has been poorly reported," said Guckert.

* (Jude says: In other words, Jeff is saying Crap! They know too much about me now! I want to go on CNN and give my slanted, Karl-Rove-ass-saving side. It will sound just like my shady reporting).

AMERICAblog: Anderson Cooper is my God

_______________

CBS: Gannon connected to Karl Rove?

"Rove's dominance of White House and Republican politics, Gannon's aggressively partisan work and the ease with which he got day passes for the White House press room the past two years make it hard to believe that he wasn't at least implicitly sanctioned by the "boy genius." Rove, who rarely gave on-the-record interviews to the MSM (mainstream media), had time to talk to GOPUSA, which owns Talon....

...what Gannon was up to was not just writing opinion columns or using a different technique to get information. He was a player in Republican campaigns and his work in the South Dakota Senate race illustrates the role he played. It is also a classic example of how political operatives are using the brave new world of the Internet and the blogosphere. Gannon and Talon News appear to be mini-Drudge reports; a "news" source which partisans use to put out negative information, get the attention of the bloggers, talk radio and then the MSM in a way that mere press releases are unable to achieve...

...Planting or even just sanctioning a political operative in the WH press room is a dangerous precedent and Karl Rove's hope to become a respected policymaker will be hampered if the dirty tricks from his political past are more apparent than his desire to spread liberty around the globe."

Destroying Daschle: Gannon tagged as political operative

"Nobody in South Dakota could know, until now, the true identity and purpose of "Jeff Gannon" and his employers at Talon News.."

Destroying Daschle: Gannon tagged as political operative

Before he was buttering up Bush at White House press conferences, Jeff Gannon, the Great Gay White House Press Corps Escort of the Internet was doing the GOP's dirty work by attacking Tom Daschle.

Joe Conason reports:

"Gannon took up the Republicans' dirty work with great gusto, beginning more than a year before the election, in the summer of 2003. Working with two local South Dakota bloggers, both of whom later turned out to be secretly paid operatives of the Thune campaign, he targeted Daschle and discredited mainstream journalists..[..]..

...why he obtained such special treatment from Karl Rove's White House communications operation -- one useful exercise may be what intelligence analysts call "walking back the cat." In essence, this means running the movie in reverse slow-motion to see where the suspect came from and what he did along the way.

Looking back at the special role played by Talon and Gannon in the South Dakota Senate campaign may provide clues in the mystery of the male-escort-cum-journalist's extraordinary access to the Bush White House."

Conason's article exposes a site called "DaschleVThune," a Web blog operated by history professor and Republican activist Jon Lauck, and South Dakota Politics.com, run by a lawyer named Jason Van Beek, who gave flight to Gannon's covert and operative style of "journalism".

CBS News reported in December, 2004:

"The two leading South Dakota blogs – websites full of informal analysis, opinions and links – were authored by paid advisers to Thune’s campaign.

The Sioux Falls Argus Leader and the National Journal first cited Federal Election Commission documents showing that Jon Lauck, of Daschle v Thune, and Jason Van Beek, of South Dakota Politics, were advisers to the Thune campaign.

The documents, also obtained by CBS News, show that in June and October the Thune campaign paid Lauck $27,000 and Van Beek $8,000. Lauck had also worked on Thune’s 2002 congressional race.

Both blogs favored Thune, but neither gave any disclaimer during the election that the authors were on the payroll of the Republican candidate."

To the bloggers at LGF

To the bloggers at LGF

My fine fellow Americans at Little Green Footballs, you think I'm calling the kettle black by insinuating that you participated, in concert with other right-wing blogs, in a well-orchestrated activity which resulted in grave harm to the career and reputation of a 23-year veteran of CNN news, a brilliant, decent, and hard-working man with years of on-the-job experience.

Was this a case where Jordan actually said something inflammatory? Of course. It cannot be denied.

Do I think he should have resigned? No. I don't.

He says he wanted to save CNN from controversy. If any of you say you think you know any other reason why he left so quickly, I will remind each of you that you could not know. Conjecture just won't do.

My observations on the gang-mentality that led him to resign are just what they are. I saw it unfolding before my eyes and I blogged about it. I realize that you did not appreciate my observations about what was occurring. I won't rehash it again. It's over.

I make no apology. I'm a blogger, just like you.

Little Green Footballs people, you categorize my follow-ups on the ongoing Jeff Gannon story as "screeching". It seems that you cannot imagine how I could possibly reconcile the hypocrisy that you see in me.

Jay Rosen recently said that "the solution to miscommunication has to be more communication." I agree. CNN failed Eason Jordan in their failure to defend him with open discussion and a demand for the tape's release. They could have foiled what I saw to be the Right's distinct intent to damage the "old media".

The fact that CNN refused to even talk about it leads me to believe that they thought they couldn't fight the Right's influence. That, to me, is very telling.

I see Jeff Gannon as a wicked symptom of the very same gang mentality that helped to easily destroy Eason Jordan's CNN position.

Gannon was not Eason Jordan. They are two different people and these are two different stories. Each story needs to be based upon its own merits. It's easy to spin them together, but they are not the same story.

Gannon was a professional imposter (not to mention a man-ho) and perhaps he was a known shill for the White House. We still don't know. All signs are pointing to the suspicion that he was a political operative.

None of us know the full scope of the story to date. There are stones still unturned.

Unturned stones is precisely what an investigation is all about, Little Green Footballs people.

I see a disturbing trend, in the case of Jeff Gannon. As Frank Rich wrote in a recent column:
By my count, "Jeff Gannon" is now at least the sixth "journalist" (four of whom have been unmasked so far this year) to have been a propagandist on the payroll of either the Bush administration or a barely arms-length ally like Talon News while simultaneously appearing in print or broadcast forums that purport to be real news.

A real investigation isn't "He said this (or that)! Let's complain to his employer! Let's petition! Let's act en masse to put the pressure on his employer to fire him!"

You may call that a really good investigation.
I call it an extremely effective dogpile.

In the case of Jordan, the Davos tape you so badly wanted means almost nothing now, and I am proud to say that I never once advocated its stifling.

You can dogpile on me all you'd like, LGF folks, but in the end, I am one person who gets paid a big fat ZERO and am under the influence of no one and nothing except for my own conscience.

I stand alone, I have one opinion, I abhor cultural propaganda and shoddy journalism, and consider myself to be no hypocrite.

I wish each one of you peace and hope you will never fail to closely examine your own individual conscience in all endeavors.

I also hope Eason Jordan finds a wonderful new job and that Jeff Gannon never again attempts to pass himself off as anything more than a willing participant in the propagandizing of the media.

-- Jude

Gotcha, Ted Hitler!

Gotcha, Ted Hitler!

I mean, like...being a fake newsman wasn't enough, already? And now we bloggers uncover the grisly reality--
you're a fake fake newsman!

See the Daily Show last night? ;)
VIDEO here.

*Thanks, in large part to people like John Stewart making this a featured focus, this Jeff Gannon story moved over to the NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams tonight. Finally, someone in the mainstream has taken it seriously.

Glocal Journalism at Glocal Man

Glocal Journalism at Glocal Man

Doug McGill, the former New York Times reporter, has created a blog which he hopes will illuminate the links between local and global life.

I discovered his new blog while visiting Press Think today.

I like the idea. I plan to visit often.

Tom Ridge:Regardless of Party Affiliation?

Tom Ridge: "Regardless of Party Affiliation"

It should be no great surprise that Frank Luntz prepped Tom Ridge during Bush's re-election campaign.

I'm not surprised.

Why did Tom Ridge feel that he had to insist Homeland Security was not about politics, though?

That's my question.

In effect, he lied for political gain.

He lied.

During the campaign, he bragged to crowds:

"We don't do politics in Department of Homeland Security."

Like hell, you didn't, Mr. Ridge.

When Ridge was running the department of Homeland Security, he said the war on terrorism is "about as apolitical or bipartisan as you can get. There's no Republican or Democratic way to do it. We just have to do it right, regardless of our party affiliation."

Now, more than ever, I firmly believe Ridge was lying about that, as well.
Once again, the people's trust is breached by the discovery of bold lies.

I think back to past terrorist-alerts issued by Ridge at incredibly opportune political moments. I wonder how much of it was complete and utter deflective politics?

Regardless of party affiliation, my Homeland posterior.

I can't imagine anything LESS characteristically or traditionally "American" as painting members of your loyal opposition with the same brush as terrorists, but it's been done far too many times now for me to put an ounce of trust in the purposefully divisive Bush administration.

It all makes this spoof seem eerily close to reality.

Rumsfeld Defensive on Missile Defense

Rumsfeld Defensive on Missile Defense

Former US weapons inspector Scott Ritter is in the news again. He is saying that the new Russian Topol missile makes U.S. defenses obsolete. Russia has tested the ballistic missile and it's a weapon that would render the United States Star Wars scheme useless.

This comes on a day when Donald Rumsfeld's hawking of the Missile Defense program appears in the press. When Senator Hillary Clinton expressed her concerns about the oddity that we would deploy a system that hasn't succeeded and expect that to serve a deterrent value, Rumsfeld said this:

"If you didn't do anything until you could do everything, you probably wouldn't do anything."

Whew.
I hope you can figure that one out.

Journalists: Please Frame Delicate Syria Situation Truthfully

Journalists: Please Frame Delicate Syria Situation Truthfully

I sense that the Bush administration is beating drums that could lead to a U.S. war with Syria.

Given the seriousness of the charges we are making against Syria, I am seeing what I believe are some irresponsible statements in the media.

Allow me to give you an example. Take a look at David Schuster's recent comment, which he'd made regarding the assassination of former Lebanon PM Hariri.

The Bush administration hasn't directly accused Syria of being responsible for the thousand-pound car bomb that ripped a dozen armor plated cars to shreds. But, nothing dramatic happens in Beirut without the Syrian government's knowledge or approval.

In fairness, Mr. Schuster follows the statement up with this:

This afternoon, one of our military analysts suggested the Lebanese bombing may not have necessarily been the work of Syria..[..]..However, most analysts still subscribe to the idea that Hariri wouldn't have been assassinated without Syria's acquiescence.

Disturbingly, the first statement sounds all too definitive. It leaves an impression that Syria must be undeniably guilty of direct involvement with the assassination of the former PM. There is no supporting evidence presented with which to convince the public of this assertion.

I think that, after what we saw in the lead-up to the Iraq war, our journalists must be extremely careful in how they frame such assertions.

No Proof, But Syria Gets Blame for Lebanon bombing

No Proof, But Syria Gets Blame for Lebanon bombing

At Informed Comment, Juan Cole explains how reality-based nuance means very little when it comes to world politics. In Lebanon (and in much of the outside world), Syria will be guilty because they said so.

That is, the Maronite, Druze and Sunni Muslim leadership has largely decided to blame President Lahoud and his Syrian backers for the assassination. In a sense, it does not any longer matter who precisely was behind the blast. The political opposition in Lebanon has made up its mind whom to blame. It is not that they are necessarily wrong. On any list of suspects in the killing of Hariri, the Syrians would have to rank high. They had means, motive and opportunity-- which does not, however, establish that they murdered Hariri.

The other angle, of al-Qaeda-like groups hitting out at Saudi-related targets (Hariri had Saudi citizenship), cannot in my view be dismissed. (If, as is now being reported, the blast was in part the work of a suicide bomber, that would rule out a mafia-type business dispute). Given the 250,000 tons of missing munitions in Iraq, there are lots of very high-powered explosives on the market in the Middle East. This proliferation of explosives may be among the major ways in which the Iraq war ends up destabilizing the Middle East, since the explosions are unlikely to remain only in Iraq. Already, some Iraq-related violence has spread to Saudi Arabia.

But the Lebanese opposition and most of the outside world have decided that Syria is guilty because it is guilty.

Letter from Banda Aceh

Letter from Banda Aceh

We don't see a lot about Banda Aceh in the headlines these days, but there is still tremendous suffering.

From a Letter from Banda Aceh, written by Dr. Laurence Ronan, who is aboard the hospital ship USNS Mercy off Banda Aceh with a 42-person medical team from the Massachusetts General Hospital organized by Project Hope.

"One child sits outside with the cats and dogs, his 12-year-old sister beside him. They lost their parents and four brothers in the flood. Terribly devoted to one another, they share one plate of food between them and make sure each carefully has his or her proper share.

Most of the parents are in shock. Many live in the displaced persons camps. All have lost someone and hope for their return. The great horror of the tsunami is not knowing what happened to a loved one.

Stressed, a mother delivers prematurely, a 30-week-old preemie, 4 pounds. We likely would save this child in Boston; here, she dies slowly, quietly, in front of our eyes."

From The Guardian: Aceh: A story half-told

Christian Reflection: Demilitarize Iraq

Christian Reflection: Demilitarize Iraq

Retired Lt Col Karen Kwiatkowski (USAF) wrote this article last December. With the Easter/Lenten season upon us, I thought it was an appropriate time to repeat Kwiatkowski's words.

From MilitaryWeek.com:
Without Reservation
by Karen Kwiatkowski, Lt. Col. USAF (ret.)
What would Jesus do?

"At this time of year, we take time to remember the importance of humility and love for our brothers and sisters, even in the face of hate or contempt. We think about Jesus' radical command to turn the other cheek, his rejection of the old law of "an eye for an eye."

Americans are citizens of a nation created with Saint Augustine's distrust of human government foremost in mind. This time of year, we should thankfully recall the primitive Christian message that one's devoted public service to the state is not the same as one's quiet individual service to God.

The American invasion of Iraq was based on lies, as has been the continued American occupation of her major cities. The lies put forth by the administration ought to remind Christians of those lies the Devil told Jesus up on that mountain in the wilderness. Promises of peace, whispers of wealth, visions of total control of the earth.

At this time of year, we also look for answers. It is truly difficult to know what to do in Iraq, whether you are the President, the Secretary of Defense, his military leaders, the soldiers and Marines in the field, their families or just a single individual who cares.

Something tells me we should leave Iraq to the Iraqis, and try to help that country by first demilitarizing it. Such a solution would require great humility, a turning of the other cheek, and a re-examination of the correct level of American devotion to the state and its propaganda."

Fleischer on Gannon:"It's All A Bit Odd"

Ari Fleischer on Gannon:
"It's All A Bit Odd"

Ari Fleischer knew of and about Gannon. But he didn't know he was a Guckert.

He said that, even if Gannon was a gay hooker, and a White House Press Corps reporter at the same time, it would have been AOK. It wouldn't have mattered.

Even Guckert's ties to several sex Web sites and allegations that he worked as a male prostitute should not necessarily keep him or any other reporter out, Fleischer said. "The last thing our nation needs is for anyone in the White House to concern themselves with the private lives of reporters," he said. "What right does the White House have to decide who gets to be a reporter based on private lives?"

If allegations that Guckert ran Web ads offering his services as a male escort prove true, however, this would represent more than a “private life” issue. Asked what he thought about the recent revelations about Guckert's past, Fleischer said only, "It is all a bit odd."

A bit?! Yathink??!?

Americablog says: McClellan said he knew Gannon used a fake name. How did he know when Ari didn't?

Attitudes

Attitudes

When Israeli warplanes attacked deep inside Syria for the first time in decades, here were comments from US ambassador to the UN John Negreponte and the former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, who was killed in a bombing attack this week.

Quotes Regarding Israel's Strike in Syria

"The United States believes that Syria is on the wrong of the side of the war on terrorism. We believe it is in Syria's interest, and in the broader interest of Middle East peace, for Syria to stop harboring and supporting the groups that perpetrate acts such as the one that occurred yesterday."

- U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Negroponte

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Lebanon ... calls on the international community and the United Nations to restrain Israel and the Sharon government, which alone poses a danger to international security and peace by attacking a sovereign state and an effective member of the Security Council and the United Nations."

- The late and former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri

These are things that can't help but make you go hmmmmmmmm....

______________


David Frum is acting highly irresponsibly, in my opinion, for putting this out into the ether:

"It might seem incredible that young Bashar Assad, if it was Assad, would choose the path of confrontation with the United States. And yet this is a choice he seems already to have made, by for example sheltering leaders of the Iraqi insurgency. And if he did give the order for the Hariri killing...."

This type of soft accusation is not only utterly irresponsible, but it falls in with the tried and true method that led us to unjust war with Iraq.
Spread rumor and innuendo.
Use manipulative liars like Chalabi to support necessary misleadings.
Depend upon your Right wing mouth machine to gear up. You've got your FOX, your NRO, your Rush Limbaughs. Go boys, go!
Have no facts or proof to back it up.
Lie if necessary. (Make them scary lies).
Use words like watershed, freedom, democracy. Use them like whores.
Make sure it all fits in with the NeoCon desire to effect a quick regime change in Syria...
and VOILA!
The Bush administration gears up with warnings for Syria to cooperate with the UN, even though Bush and his NeoCon administration have overtly stated that the UN is yesterday, it's powerless and it's nearly meaningless.

It's a path to war, boys and girls!

MoDo: White House Cred Hits Rock Bottom

MoDo: White House Cred Hits Rock Bottom

"At last month's press conference, Jeff Gannon asked Mr. Bush how he could work with Democrats "who seem to have divorced themselves from reality." But Bush officials have divorced themselves from reality.

They flipped TV's in the West Wing and Air Force One to Fox News. They paid conservative columnists handsomely to promote administration programs. Federal agencies distributed packaged "news" video releases with faux anchors so local news outlets would run them. As CNN reported, the Pentagon produces Web sites with "news" articles intended to influence opinion abroad and at home, but you have to look hard for the disclaimer: "Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Defense." The agencies spent a whopping $88 million spinning reality in 2004, splurging on P.R. contracts.

Even the Nixon White House didn't do anything this creepy. It's worse than hating the press. It's an attempt to reinvent it."

LINK- MoDo

Negroponte? No Way!

Negroponte Intel Chief? God Help America!

Bush Nominates Negroponte As Intel Chief?!

Get outta town!

You've got to be pulling my leg.

Mr. Death Squad? No way!

Uh uh.

Nun-killers need not apply.

A Vet says: "Perfect, don't you think? Who better to track down terrorists than one who knows very well how they operate?"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Negroponte speaks no Arabic and has no background in the Middle East or the Islamic world. What he does have is a good deal of experience with counterinsurgency. Bad experience."

--Matthew Yglesias

And who looked the other way while Jordan and Turkey were granted embargo-breaking oil sales throughout the course of the Oil-For-Food scandal?

Egypt: Democracy At What Price?

Egypt: Democracy At What Price?

"A bit of patience is sometimes wise--and now may be one of those times."

- Joseph Braude, from his article at TNR

_______________


To what extent do we believe that Islamist victories are an acceptable price to pay for the arrival of democracy in Muslim countries?

Where Egypt is concerned, Joseph Braude causes us to ponder this question with his latest article at TNR Online. Mr. Braude is the author of The New Iraq: Rebuilding the Country for Its People, the Middle East, and the World.

The Muslim Brotherhood is a Sunni, Egyptian-dominated international movement which has been ratcheting up its anti-American rhetoric. In Egypt, a democratic government dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood would set back the cause of freedom that President Bush had so boldly championed in his second inaugural address.

For Egyptians, true democracy is on the horizon and Mr. Braude explains how and why, given the realities in Egypt today, it is worth waiting for.

Liberals are exceedingly weak and radical nationalists and Islamists are strong. This is a mess of Mubarak's making. But ironically, for reasons unique to Egyptian politics, Mubarak may also be the person best suited to clean up this mess, paving the way for liberal democracy in Cairo. And strange though it may seem, the longtime foe of liberal reform could soon have every incentive to do just that.

One of the aspirations of The Muslim Brotherhood is to undo the entire framework of Arab-Israeli peace.

Mubarak has long used the strength of the Brotherhood as an excuse for his authoritarian rule. But he has done more than merely talk up this threat--he has done his best to make it real by working to undermine Egypt's liberal movement and outdo his Islamist rivals on religious matters.

Political survival for leaders in the liberal movement in Egypt today must involve paying homage to the Brotherhood.

Ironically, Mr. Braude writes that "the skewed political environment that has been created by Mubarak's long years of anti-liberal manipulations would only be enshrined if free and fair elections took place now."

Democracy-enhancing projects would best be facilitated by Egypt's liberals themselves, such as opening Egyptian broadcast media to progressive voices, advancing a secular humanist agenda through the educational system, and opening the organs of the Egyptian state to exchange programs with democratic countries.

All of these will need President Mubarak's support and our patience.

I recommend a full reading of Mr. Braude's article at TNR.


- Jude Nagurney Camwell

Feds "Scooping" Up Leftover NeoCon Dirt?

Feds "Scooping" Up Leftover NeoCon Dirt?

Get this:

Remember Douglas Feith, who was the No. 3 official in the Defense Department but surprised many by abruptly quitting "to spend more time with his family"?

It seems that some DOD/CIA types are frantically trying to cover someone's tracks over something or other (who knows what?). Now, I could be on the wrong track here, and I will say that clearly before I begin to talk about real and meaningful issues that don't make me look like a fan of conspiracy theories.

A team of five federal agents ( from CIA, DoD, and DoE ) showed up at the University of Washington to search through the archival papers of the late Washington Sen. Henry M. "Scoop" Jackson.

Where does "Scoop" Jackson come in? Feith's mentor was former Pentagon official and influential conservative policy advisor Richard Perle. And from 1969 to 1980 Perle was a member of Jackson's staff and at times his most influential advisor, dubbed by some "the Prince of Darkness" during that era. Perle is so close to the Jackson legacy that he remains a member of the Henry M. Jackson Foundation that the senator established.

from Campaign Extra

Background:

When Perle was working for Senator Scoop Jackson, he was investigated by the Justice Department and found to have violated US policies relating to unlawful transmission of sensitive classified US information to Israel.

"Jackson's influence is more powerful now than when he was alive," said Charles Horner, who worked beside Mr Perle on the senator's staff, in his "bunker" - Room 135 in the Senate office building, from where they fought against detente and the peaceniks in their own party."

It's interesting to consider that Robert Novak (who outed Valerie Plame) found "common cause" with someone suspected of espionage.

At Kos, Dem in Knoxville wonders:

"He [Scoop Jackson] was in the senate from 1953 until his death in 1983. Towards the end he was on the committee for Energy and Natural Resources - would this include Atomic Energy Commission / DOE type stuff? Maybe he knew something about nuclear technology transfer? Tie in with North Korea/Iran/Pakistan? I'm just making wild ass guesses - but why now? It might tie in with something that just happened?"

Eliot Abrams (who is son-in-law of NeoCon gurus Midge Decter and Norman Podhoretz) has been tapped to be head of President George W. Bush's Global Democracy Strategy. Abrams worked for Scoop Jackson. I wonder what might be lurking in Scoop's drawers that Abrams might have to hide?

Please understand these are only out-loud thoughts, but I can't help but wonder how we American citizens can go on with our everyday lives and not care that, deep within our White House, lies the seed of misguided idealism sprouted by those who have been accused of espionage. Worse yet, this cult has gotten us into an unnecessary war and is clearly still favored by our President.

Allow me to say that this could have something to do with the Hanford nuclear site in eastern Washington state. A Seattle newspaper had an advance story on the archive search'n purge.

Still, I suspect our government of assisting an ascending NeoCon to erase his past with another stained NeoCon who's about to walk the plank. Perhaps some of those documents will simply have to disappear.

_________________

"First and foremost, we must bring down the terror regimes, beginning with the Big Three: Iran, Iraq, and Syria. And then we have to come to grips with Saudi Arabia. … Once the tyrants in Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Saudi Arabia have been brought down, we will remain engaged. …We have to ensure the fulfillment of the democratic revolution. … Stability is an unworthy American mission, and a misleading concept to boot. We do not want stability in Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and even Saudi Arabia; we want things to change. The real issue is not whether, but how to destabilize."

The NeoCon creed. You can look at up on Google and see which one said it. They're all alike. Either they're incredibly naive, or they're out for endless war. You decide.

And remember, it's your kids who will go to this war-without-end and die for these ideal-zealots. Come on, America. Your own child's blood must be worth at least the small amount of time it would take for you to look into this.

Try stepping away from Reality TV for a few moments.

What Do They Have In Common?

What Do They Have In Common?

.........
Sheik .. Barack ..Abu ..... ..... Rev Daniel
Omar .. Obama ..Musab al.....Berrigan, Jesuit
Abdel .. ..... ........Zarqawi........Priest
Rahman

They're all on that David Horowitz' wall of "enemies". America doesn't need inhuman monsters like Horowitz.
He's the hateful symptom, not the cure America requires to heal this land.

Dear God. Anyone who can stick the face of a beloved man of the Jesuit faith alongside a murderer..and the fresh face of a hopeful young black-American politician next to a terrorist wholeheartedly deserves the name of hateful monster.

When, I ask you, will we wake up to hatemongers like Horowitz?

Mullah Robertson Urges GOP to Change Filibuster Rules

Mullah Robertson Urges GOP to Change Filibuster Rules

"[Pat] Robertson, head of the Christian Broadcasting Network and one of the original leaders of the grass-roots Christian conservative political movement, urged Senate Republicans to change the chamber's rules to prevent Democratic filibusters against the nominees.

Bruce Ackerman warns:

The neo-con religious agenda is nothing short of revolutionary. The modern Supreme Court has consistently barred the state from endorsing religion, and it has protected each American’s right to make intimate decisions about sexuality, child-bearing and child-rearing. Neo-cons would reverse these priorities; they would strip away the constitutional right to privacy, and empower politicians to engage in endless theological disputes.

MSNBC: U.S. contractors in Iraq allege abuses

"What we saw, I know the American population wouldn't stand for."

MSNBC: U.S. contractors in Iraq allege abuses

I saw four men featured on the NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams last night. They were saying that they witnessed the indiscriminate shooting of unarmed civilians by poorly trained young Kurds, who have historical resentments against other Iraqis. The young Kurds were heavily armed security operators on missions conducted by Custer Battles, a company hired by the Pentagon to conduct dangerous missions guarding supply convoys. The four men, all contractors for Custer Battles, were sickened by it; heartsick over it. They will not be returning to Iraq.

The very name, Custer Battles, inspires a vision of brown-skinned men at defensive war with occupiers of their native land. I wonder if they couldn't have come up with a better name?

I wonder what the right-wing collective blog-mind is thinking right now? I'll bet they're seething. Will Brian Williams be their next target?

Gannon story: Let's Get to the Heart of Serious Matters

Gannon story: Let's Get to the Heart of Serious Matters

I know newspapers love gossip and controversy. It sells. In the case of Jeff Gannon, there's more than enough Enquirer-style gossip to go around.

I always thought newspapers like The Washington Post were above that type of journalism, especially when there's so much more to a particular story than meets the eye.

Howard Kurtz (and Post editors), I''m sorry to be critical, but I have to be critical.
I'm a blogger.
It's my job.

"Online Nude Photos Are Latest Chapter In Jeff Gannon Saga"
Is that the best title you could come up with?
Sure, it's an eye-catcher. Nude Online Photos.
It looks like a porn site come-on.
It makes the whole Jeff GAnnon story look like kerfluffle.

Shame on you.

Your focus on the story is wrong, if you expect your readers to take the more serious aspects of the story to heart.

And there ARE serious aspects.

QUOTE:

More than anything, though, it is Gannon's personal online activities that has kept the story churning.

Maybe there's a method to that madness? Perhaps this story has to be kept in the "churning" stage so the deeper, far more serious issue can finally be brought to the surface by the painfully-slow-to-react (and ethically misguided) mainstream media.

I can hardly believe that Howard Kurtz felt it was terribly important to add the "woe-is-she" commentary about Gannon's poor elderly Ma getting phonecalls from those nasty liberals. What is that supposed to prove? Life is tough in the fast lane. We're all accountable for what we choose to do. Gannon lived fast and knew the consequences.

Did Howard Kurtz write a sob-story about Eason Jordan's family?
Sh*t, no.

This is the kind of double standard that gets me fired up. It's no wonder the mainstream media gets played for fools by the Right.

Gannon sought out an interview with Joseph Wilson just after Wilson's wife was outed as a CIA agent, likely by someone in the upper ranks in the Bush administration.

As a person with natural curiosity and who has closely followed the Joseph Wilson story, I can only suspect that Jeff Gannon, whose politics I have come to clearly understand, was planning a purposefully antagonistic and hopefully damaging story on Wilson.

Worse, he had access to information in a very sensitive internal memo. Where he got it (or information from it) is in question. He says he got it from a legitimate source, but frankly, I wonder why anyone should believe him.

This is dirt, people. I think we're talking bottom of the scumbucket.

There was a bitter vendetta involved. Joe Wilson dared to come out and challenge President Bush's State of the Union comments. The attitude of this ethically ugly administration would lead me to believe they would think: No one does that and gets away with it.

Gannon's been made a part of the investigation of the outing of Ms. Plame. His shady outline is being filled in by blogger investigation. Someone made sure his shiny head was in that White House Press room asking snarky, underhanded questions about the loyal political opposition. I want to know who that was. If we're going to have any trust in the White House at all, it's important that we get this clear in our minds.

Everyone should care about this. Not just "liberals".

The mainstream media should have a reporter concentrating on getting to the serious facts about Jeff Gannon. How did he get access to the White House Press Corps with such ease?

What if Gannon (as your doctor) did a botch-job on you in the ER, and afterward you found out he was someone totally different than he was supposed to be - that instead of going to medical school, he'd had a three-day crash course? What would you do when you discovered that he wasn't Dr. Gannon, ER practioner, but that he was Jim Guckert, gay escort of the Internet? Wouldn't you ask the hospital some tough questions?

____________

Lex of Lex Files comments:

"..we also should be wondering who on Gannon/Guckert's client list was a government official with access to sensitive information. Patronage of a prostitute by such a person (irrespective of sexual orientation) could leave him/her open to blackmail and so represents a huge security risk."

Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., has asked the White House for documents showing how Gannon got his White House credentials. I wonder if the Washington Post has jumped on that story? I would hope so. After all, a newspaper in the heart of Washington D.C. is the first newspaper about whom you would think a scoop would be forthcoming! I checked and saw nothing thus far!

MSNBC: U.S. contractors in Iraq allege abuses

"What we saw, I know the American population wouldn't stand for."

MSNBC: U.S. contractors in Iraq allege abuses

I saw four men featured on the NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams last night. They were saying that they witnessed the indiscriminate shooting of unarmed civilians by poorly trained young Kurds, who have historical resentments against other Iraqis. The young Kurds were heavily armed security operators on missions conducted by Custer Battles, a company hired by the Pentagon to conduct dangerous missions guarding supply convoys. The four men, all contractors for Custer Battles, were sickened by it; heartsick over it. They will not be returning to Iraq.

The very name, Custer Battles, inspires a vision of brown-skinned men at defensive war with occupiers of their native land. I wonder if they couldn't have come up with a better name?

I wonder what the right-wing collective blog-mind is thinking right now? I'll bet they're seething. Will Brian Williams be their next target?

Wolcott on GOP: Flautulent with Hubris

Wolcott on GOP: Flautulent with Hubris

You've just got to love James Wolcott.
Really. How can you resist?

"I wonder if Dems are learning the wisdom imparted by Bull Moose, that there's mischievous and useful fun to be had in being the opposition party, particularly when the party in power is as flatulent with hubris and corruption as the fiefdom of Tom DeLay. Dems should resist the temptation to be statesmenlike and bail out Bush should he stumble, the way they shamefully rescued Reagan in his second term. Bipartisanship has gotten Democrats nowhere for four years, has earned them nothing more than a fine spittle of contempt falling like a constant drizzle. They should let a smile be their umbrella as they enjoy the spectacle of House and Senate Republicans promoting Social Security privatization as if they'd been ordered by their commander in chief to suck lemons."

Error

For some reason, I keep getting this message while searching the net for believable quotes from the Bush administration on Iraq:

Jeff Gannon Update

Jeff Gannon Update

At The Nation, David Corn has a few things to say today about recent blog-outings. I think he's going far too easy on the people who've worked in concert to "kill off" Eason Jordan. I'd imagine David would have felt differently had he been the target.

"..let me raise a cautionary note or two. The blogosphere in recent months has become the piling-on-osphere. When there is blood in the water--or on the keyboard--bloggers rush in for the kill...So far all of the victims have deserved the whacks..CNN executive Eason Jordan did not immediately clarify, back up or retract comments in which he reportedly claimed that US troops in Iraq had purposefully targeted and killed journalists. Yet the speed and drama of these trials-by-blog may be cause for quasi-concern not unfettered celebration. Am I being a semi-old fuddy-duddy? Could be."

I have to say I was left a bit cold by David's assessment. Eason did immediately clarify, but the ones who wanted his head never wanted to hear them.

On Jeff Gannon, I somewhat agree with David. think the Internet/gay-escort angle is a bit of a circus sideshow (The guy was a total creep). Yet, I don't think David or any of us should run away in fear of being called a "vigilante" over this particular story.

The aspect of the story with which I am seriously concerned is the one which surrounds any involvement he may have been allowed to play in the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame..before or after the time she was outed. I ask myself, why would this untrained, inexperienced journalist who squeezed himself, somehow, into the White House Press Corps, be privy to confidential information and internal memos when seasoned, hard-scrabble journalists couldn't get to them? It just doesn't "smell" right. Since Gannon has run away from the public's sight so very quickly, it should make any curious investigator want to latch onto the story.

Corn says:

"....Another serious angle in the Gannon/Guckert story. In October 2003, Gannon/Guckert interviewed former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, a Bush critic whose wife months earlier had been outed in a Robert Novak column as an undercover CIA officer by unidentified administration officials. During this interview, Gannon/Guckert cited "an internal government memo prepared by US intelligence personnel that details a meeting in early 2002 where your wife, a member of the agency for clandestine service working on Iraqi weapons issues, suggested that you could be sent to investigate the reports." The question is, how did a hooker-turned-reporter end up with this leak of classified information? Did White House officials hand it to Gannon/Guckert because he was in cahoots with them? Gannon has refused to say if he had a copy of this memo or if someone had read him what it said. In December 2003--when he was not under fire--Gannon/Guckert wrote that this "information did not come from inside the administration," and he strongly hinted that his source was on Capitol Hill, referring to the Senate intelligence committee...

..Gannon/Guckert has noted that FBI agents working on the Wilson leak probe did contact him and that he would not tell them the source of the information. Apparently, he has not been subpoenaed by Patrick Fitzgerald, the Justice Department attorney investigating the Wilson leak...

...There has been some public confusion about this aspect of the Gannon/Guckert story. Representative Louise Slaughter, a New York Democrat, has called upon Fitzgerald to "investigate the leaking of a classified Central Intelligence Agency memo containing the identity of undercover agent Valerie Plame to a man at the center of the White House Press Briefing Room scandal, 'Jeff Gannon.'" The classified memo came not from the CIA but from the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, and by the time its contents reached Gannon, Valerie Wilson (nee Plame) had already been identified as a CIA officer.

Gannon/Guckert, according to the record so far, was a bit player in the Wilson affair. The leak he received was an after-the-fact leak. But it is certainly rather curious that this particular reporter obtained any classified information from any government source. Slaughter and others are justified in calling for an investigation. It is not beyond belief that partisans in the White House or on Capitol Hill saw Gannon/Guckert as a safe outlet..."

Anthony Wade strongly disagrees with David Corn on many of his points.


Dave Johnson at Seeing the Forest says:

"If you are following the Gannon story - the right-wing fake "reporter" who was somehow able to infiltrate the White House using an alias, even gaining access to the President and classified CIA documents - then you know that the whole right-wing machine is now saying this is all an attack by "liberal BLOGGERs" on the guy's "private life." Wow. This is how the supposed National Security crowd - "keep us safe" and all that - react. Do they demand that this huge hole in our national security be closed? Do they demand that someone answer for this? OF COURSE NOT! They use it as an opportunity to attack "liberals" while just making things worse."

Skippy says we should be wondering how a miscreant breaking the law somehow got access to a classified memo about valerie plame.

Temerity Leads to Grave Injustice

"Be not intimidated... nor suffer yourselves to be wheedled out of your liberties by any pretense of politeness, delicacy, or decency. These, as they are often used, are but three different names for hypocrisy, chicanery and cowardice.

-- John Adams


Temerity Leads to Grave Injustice

Self-righteous temerity mixed with just enough lies necessary to convince good people of a moral purpose has led to the Iraq war.

The same self-righteous temerity and jabber-jawing about a higher purpose (while covering the actual reason - vigilante justice) has caused Eason Jordan to be professionally removed from the mainstream.

Self-righteous rhetoric is often spewed about a respect for life. In the past four years, I have seen a tremendously disturbing breakdown in our culture's respect for life.

For instance, you cannot possibly think of using a stem cell gleaned from an embryo, but you can see a perfectly innocent family of ten eliminated with a misguided bomb and not blink an eyelash.

You brand others as 'evil' for demanding equal justice for a prisoner who was too poor to afford a hotshot attorney and is sitting on death row, but you can hear about 3 of your own soldiers dying in Iraq one day, and you go on eating your dinner, accepting it as just another day, just another body, for the fight against WMD...I mean rogue leaders with terror connections...I mean, tin pot dictators with rape rooms...I mean, in the grande march toward freedom...I mean, the rush for pipe line domination.
* Just what are they dying for, anyway, after we sort through all those lies?

American citizens: How is it that you have lost your sense of reality? How have you so easily forgotten your sense of humanity? Compassion? Truth? Empathy? Honesty? Why do you fail to speak out for these values, if they are values you espouse?

In a recent blogpost on Eason Jordan's resignation, Bernard Moon asks:

"Imagine if Jordan's statement went unchallenged and taken as truth?
What effect would it have on the morale of our troops?
And a further battering of America's image abroad?"

I ask my readers to think about the government that fails to cherish or respect the truth.

Gee, I don't have to imagine that the Bush administration's irresponsible statements in the lead-up to the Iraq war went unchallenged by the mainstream press.
They did.
The lies were, for all intents and purposes, taken as Gospel truth.
They were never investigated.
Hard questions were omitted from the press.
Soft questions were given the back-seat treatment on page 8, far from the focus of the public.

Bernard Moon raises a red herring when he asks "What if Jordan Eason's words had gone unchallenged?"

In an open society with a working and healthy democracy, we can always expect statements like Jordan's to be challenged.

Moon wonders, what would be the effect, on troop morale, of his (highly unlikely) scenario of Jordan's completely "unchallenged statements"?
Troops have fought and died for freedom of speech.
Moon is clearly lacking faith in a democracy where everyone has an equal right to speak. He comes off sounding something just short of paranoid.

What effect has the (real and present) lack of truth-telling by the Commander in Chief had on troop morale? That's the real question.
A line of soldiers refusing to return to Iraq is shattering evidence that our troops are questioning the reasons for the Iraq war.

Is anyone so blind that they cannot see that the Bush administration was responsible for America's reputation being "battered" abroad? And yet we blame journalists?

How could anyone be in denial about the fact that it was the gross misleading of the Bush administration, with their backhanding of the international community, which caused America's reputation to spiral downward?

Imagine: What if the Bushite-NeoCon crowd's statements were taken as truth in the lead-up to attacking Iraq?

No imagination necessary.
They were.

Self-righteous temerity has made real-life decisions about our nation going to war far too easily made, because of an absence of journalistic investigation through intimidation. NeoCons have created a narrative borne of idealism - a story with a nice-sounding moral vision. The problem is, in reality, it spells d-e-a-t-h for many inncocent people. This cult of death is hidden by the sweet-sounding folly of the NeoCon dream.

I submit to you that NeoCon temeriy and intimidation have directly contributed to the degradation of the traditional American values we share. Our culture has lost a respect for intellect, life, truth, honesty, and the forthright spirit that is required in a healthy open democratic society.

Life has been rendered far less precious in an atmosphere of right-wing intimidation and an all-too idealistic cult-style vision.

The cult of death reigns today, and if a journalist says one cautionary word about it, they are swiftly removed, with the help of right-wing blogger lynch-mobs, from the market's sight.

The reason we are at war in Iraq right now is because we were given reasons that were far less than true, and the media, most of them being afraid of the loss of advertiser-dollars, hardly questioned the government.

Eason Jordan raised questions and found out that you just cannot even mention your unfounded fears or suspicions in the public anymore, lest you be swept from the world of mainstream journalism. You can't even throw them up for discussion.

If the Eason Jordans of the market-driven mainstream are barred from professionally raising concerns, and the government continues to spout unchallenged lies, I see nothing but death for freedom of speech in the marketplace. Cultural propaganda is all the public will be allowed to see in the future.

I'm tiring of smokescreens. I'm tiring of right-wing idiots running roughshod over the decency and integrity of America while NeoCons spin their Utopian tales.

I respect life. Life has been cheapened. I love truth. Under the black lie-boot of the Bush leadership, the cult of NeoCon, and a concert of chirping right-wing morons, truth has suffered killing blows. Freedom to live in truth should be a treasured common value. In the Bush era, we are moving away from freedom in our own nation. Let's not sit on the sidelines and watch it happen.

Let's take our government back.

~~~~~~~~~

*A tip of the hat to Scrutiny Hooligans for the quote.

My Love is Like A Red, Red Rose

My Love is Like A Red, Red Rose

0, my love is like a red, red rose,
that's newly sprung in June.
0, my love is like a melody,
that's sweetly play'd in tune.

As fair thou art, my bonnie lass,
so deep in love am I,
And I will love thee still, my dear,
till a' the seas gang dry.

Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear,
and the rocks melt wi' the sun!
And I will love thee still, my dear,
while the sands of life shall run.

And fare the weel, my only love!
And fare the well awhile!
And I will come again, my love.
Tho it were ten thousand mile!

-- Robert Burns

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY!

NRO Has No Defense For The Ones They Inspire

NRO Has No Defense For The Ones They Inspire

At NRO, Andrew McCarthy insists that the Wall Street Journal is wrong about the outcome of the Eason Jordan situation and it's not "kerfluffle". McCarthy claims that no one can fix the gravity of Jordan's offense with certainty because the tape was never released ( as if it would make a difference now ).

Attacking the Wall Street Journal is easier, I'd imagine, than NRO accepting accountability as representative and promoter of the ideals of their targeted reading audience. The NRO and the crowd who loves them have heavily contributed to a professional journalist losing his 23-year-long CNN career over conjecture at the bloggers' unwashed typing hands, and now the writers of NRO haughtily wish to separate themselves from those amateur blogging brutes who would have such uneducated motives!( cough! )

Coming from a radical right-wing megaphone that professionally harbors Jonah Goldberg, an ideologue who regularly chimes in on Iraq when he admits he's never even read a book on Iraq, I'm not impressed. I'm terribly sick of their hypocrisy.

Speaking of Goldberg, he wrote this line today (note the joyous-frick'n-head over-a-mantle referral)

"Jordan's head will hang alongside Howell Raines's, the editor of the New York frick'n Times and four top executives at CBS News."

These are not the words of a humble or professional journalist. Jonah's all ticked off because he's been the mainstream media's little-boy-out-in-the-cold for so long. So, with his NRO megaphone, he champions the blogger-destroyer cult:

"For the right-wing bloggers, they are the same sort of alternative that NRO has been for near a decade now and that National Review has been for 50. Conservatives still see ourselves as the out-party when it comes to the media establishment. Sure, we appear on op-ed pages and as talking heads, but almost always in the spirit of "the other view." This tokenism rarely extends to the executive suites or to the editorial offices."

While Goldberg freely admits to loving the fact that his "alternative" crowd bagged a big-time journalist, Jim Geraghty slithers away from the joy when he goes in front of a mianstream audience.

Geraghty appeared on the Jim Lehrer PBS News Hour today, and tried his hardest to make NRO, Powerline and Little Green Footballs look as if they were never donning their huntin' guns and going out loaded for bear the liberal media journalist du jour. I've never seen such blatant hypocrisy.

Today, Geraghty was the one who had a bad day on PBS. David Gergen expressed deep regret for what the vigilante bloggers did to Jordan. Jay Rosen was there to explain and defend journalistic principles. Geraghty was there to talk about what his crowd believes are bad things Eason Jordan has said in the past (having nothing whatsoever to do with the Davos stuation). Geraghty had no moral defense for his crowd...a mob of thugs and hacks who endeavor to work in concert to destroy a man and deny it later on.

Jonah Goldberg concluded his column about Eason Jordan by saying:

"..the liberals look like they want to switch places."

I'll conclude mine by saying I'm far too much of a decent and moral human being to agree with that statement.


UPDATE: Apparently, Eason Jordan's resignation wasn't enough for the Little Green Footballs crowd. It seems they are still navel-gazing about the part they played in destroying the 23-year career and reputation of a good and intelligent man. They are searching, it seems for even more reasons to reinforce the role they played in ruining the man's reputation, all after the fact. James Taranto has put them to shame, as well he should. Some of them don't appreciate the fact that I have spoken frankly about the topic. They do not like me, a blogging Jiminy Cricket, to be watching over them and appealing to their collective conscience, I suppose.

Letter to Romanesko: News judgment and majority rule

Letter to Romanesko: News judgment and majority rule

From DAVID McLEMORE:

"I find myself stunned to be in agreement with the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page. Eason Jordan’s statements at Davos were ill-conceived and stupid. But hardly a firing offense. And CNN caved in to the hysterics of the largely blog-driven mob out for Jordan’s head.

I don't know Eason Jordan. Fact is, I rarely watch CNN, save when wars start or natural disasters wreak havoc. You know, breaking news. The rest of the time, CNN is too repetitive and self-referential to be useful. And that's the news programming. Let's not get started on the talk shows…

But the facts of Jordan's imprecisely stated concerns about the U.S. military's role in targeting journalists in Iraq -- what we know anyway -- were couched as opinion. And quickly rephrased when challenged that very day. Yet bloggers, relying heavily on their own opinions, told us exactly what Jordan meant. There was no doubt, no lack of certainty. We were also told how it would play in the major media outlets and how wrong that would be. And when Jordan's position became untenable to the corporate suits at CNN and they eagerly accepted his resignation, the blogs howled with glee. And put Jordan’s scalp next to Dan's.

When the Wall Street Journal and Corey Pein (now there’s a pairing!) suggest that the blogs rushed a bit too quickly to pile on Mr. Jordan, they are lambasted as anti-blog reactionary journalists who better get with the program. "Tomorrow belongs to me," the chorus sings.

Is this the lesson traditional journalism is supposed to learn from the blogs? Certainty based on little evidence? Opinion and snarky analysis masquerading at fact? Mind reading and a partisan rush-to-judgment as a substitute for nuance? Do we really want news judgment built on majority rule?"

Danny Schechter on Eason Jordan

Danny Schechter on Eason Jordan

Documentary filmmaker Danny Schechter explains how CNN wasn't interested in the Jordan Eason fight.

Fox News was. Hannity and Colmes called Danny in.

So Danny entered the Fox arena, the way Christians were fed to the lions.

"It was hard to shift the conversation back to the real issue – the killing of journalists and not what Eason Jordan said or didn't say – no one there seemed to know or really care in what was really a bash CNN exercise."

Then came the Fox viewers' letters.

There was no impartial mainstream forum for Danny Schechter.

This is what happens when we allow cultural propaganda to swell to monstrously tilted proportions.

Ackerman: Future of the U.S. Supreme Court

Bruce Ackerman on
the Future of
U.S. Supreme Court

I recently mention Bruce Ackerman's theory regarding amendment via "constitutional moments" in my essay discussing torture and our nation's road down the dubious path away from the rule of law.

The London Review of Books has a piece on Ackerman titled "The Art of Stealth: Bruce Ackerman on the Supreme Court".

Ackerman stresses that it's the job of the Senate to make it clear to the American people which path the president is taking, and that the stakes are very high and the Democratic minority should be careful. There are traditional conservatives and there are what Ackerman calls "radical neo-cons". Presaident Bush has three options if and when the next vacancy to the Supreme Court comes up: he can nominate a seasoned conservative, a stealth candidate or a plain-speaking neo-con. Ackerman warns the Senate against giving its ‘advice and consent’ to a stealth revolution in constitutional law. He uses the example of Clarence Thomas, who he claims was a stealth appointment, and that Thomas' performance on the bench reveals "the remarkably destructive potential of neo-conservatism". Ackerman says, if
Bush does play the stealth card, the Senate Democrats should respond with an unconditional filibuster.

Cathy Young - Ambivalent Over Professional Murder

Cathy Young - Ambivalent About Professional Murder

In the Boston Globe, columnist Cathy Young dabbles in soft-fallacy, and I have to ask myself "Why would she do that?"
Ms. Young says:

"One oddity is that, so far, no one knows exactly what Jordan said."

On its face, it's untrue that we don't know what Jordan said. There may not be a tape, but Jordan has freely admitted what he said and has even apologized and clarified his intent. Here are Jordan's own words, which were easy to find by research:

"I stressed insurgents are to blame for the vast majority of the 63 journalist deaths in Iraq. Second, when Congressman Franks said the 63 journalists killed in Iraq were the unfortunate victims of "collateral damage," I felt compelled to dispute that by pointing out journalists in Iraq are being targeted -- I did not say all journalists killed were targeted, but that some were shot at on purpose and were not collateral damage victims. In response to a question about whether I believed the U.S. military meant to kill journalists in Iraq, I said, no, I did not believe the U.S. military was trying to kill journalists in Iraq. Yet, unfortunately, U.S. forces have killed several people who turned out to be journalists. In several cases, the U.S. troops who killed those people aimed and fired at them, not knowing they were shooting at journalists. However tragic and, in hindsight, by Pentagon admission, a mistake, such a killing does not fall into the "collateral damage" category. In Iraq and Washington, I have worked closely and constructively with U.S. military and civilian leaders in an effort to heighten the odds of survival for the courageous journalists in Iraq."

If Cathy Young can credit bloggers for Eason Jordan's professional demise, she needs to equally credit bloggers like Rebecca MacKinnon, who have posted words straight from Jordan Eason's mouth (or e-mail, in this instance).

In Cathy's own words: "...a journalist should be the last person to traffic in unsupported and irresponsible innuendo." Cathy should have provided this key piece of information for her column.

HERE IS THE LINK

Note that Ms. Young throws up the red herring known as "backpedaling". While clever in its framing, it is no more than a code word for:
"Jordan Eason is liar and we will not believe him - no matter what. Ignore all his follow-up clarifications.".
See Ms. Young's quote:

Yet eyewitness accounts suggest that Jordan was not so much clarifying as backpedaling.

I strongly suggest that Cathy Young is not acting in professional good faith toward a fellow journalist by brushing off (and omitting) any of Eason Jordan's attempts to have a further conversation about the subject.

Above all, let's not forget that Jordan quit. If that's not accountability, I'm not sure what is.

"Many of those bloggers undoubtedly had an ideological agenda, but the fact is that they did some solid reporting -- and that some of their information came from liberals such as Representative Frank. In some quarters of the blogosphere, Jordan's resignation was met with an unpleasant "we got him!" gloating; but "gotcha" journalism is hardly limited to blogs. Like other media, the blogs can be vehicles for vendettas and witch-hunts -- as well as a tool for openness and accountability.

Mainstream journalists should resist the temptation to view Jordan as a victim of a right-wing lynch mob. His fatal wound was ultimately self-inflicted. And, if the "old media" don't learn some lessons from this incident, there will be more such wounds.

The "solid reporting" of which Ms. Young speaks is still, when all the smoke clears, nothing more than a case of sheer conjecture. Whether we have a tape or not, Jordan is guilty. The blogworld has already deemed it to be so, and Ms. Young seems to be joining with the throng.

Barney Frank gave his assessment of Jordan's statement and Frank's words played directly into the mob's storyline. I hope Frank will realize the part he played in this, whether witting or not.

Eason Jordan committed no act which could be qualified as an offense worthy of his resignation.

Yet, resigning was Eason's choice.

Eason Jordan's "fatal wound" was taken for CNN. Let's not neglect to call that fact to mind.

Young ends her column by casting a net of warning to the "old media", which is code for "liberal media"/MSM. This indicates, to me, that she feels powerless, as a journalist, to the whim of the mob. It also tells me, from my pragmatic understanding of this piece, that Young is ambivalent about the concerted effort of right-wing blogs to kill off their next MSM journalist du jour.

I'm not ambivalent. Cathy seems to be doing too much navel-gazing while her fellow journalists' careers are being gunned down in the name of a search for truth, which I perceive as no more than a concerted effort to destroy decent people's careers.

Wait until bloggers come for Cathy. She may become strong in her conviction when it's far too late.

As a columnist for Reason magazine, I was disappointed by Ms. Young's fuzzy position.

Eason Jordan & The Low-Purposed Angry Mob

"If you're going to do this open-source journalism, it should have a higher purpose. At times it did seem like an angry mob, and an angry mob using high technology, that's not good."

- Rony Abovitz, Davos attendee, the first web poster to 'write up' Eason Jordan

I think that says it all. It's exactly what I've been saying here at Iddybud.

So goes the saga of Eason Jordan and the low-purposed angry lynch-mob.

The Right-wing blog-mob avers, with a straight concerted face, that all they want is "truth", completely forgetting that they are part of the same truth which they have venomously pursued.


*source: NY Times

____________

Rony is also quoted by Howie Kurtz today:

"The head of the largest news organization in the world, afraid of himself. There is a Shakespearean sense of tragedy and drama in this story. Eason, prince of CNN, committs (sic) a last act of valor and attempts to restore grace to himself and his overlords. His actions are classic Bushido, the way of the Samurai warrior, sacrificing himself to protect his Masters from harm. Give him at least this."

Cultural Propaganda Limits Freedom of the Press

Cultural Propaganda Limits Freedom of the Press
A blogger named Beldar has asked me to explain one of my statements, and I'd be happy to oblige:

Ms. Camwell, I have some trouble following that. Maybe it's just a syntax problem — an implied or assumed causal link between the way "blogs [are] being used" and "American journalism [approaching] another step closer to being pure propaganda." That linkage seems kinda dubious to me, ma'am. I always understood "propaganda" to be something dictated by a ruling elite, operating in absolute harmony of purpose under precisely dictated orders. I double-checked my spam blocker this morning just to be sure, and — nope, Karl Rove and the RNC still haven't even been trying to dictate what I blog about, much less what I think!

I have not suggested a link to Karl Rove or the RNC, Beldar.
The propaganda of which I speak is cultural propaganda.

By its definition, propaganda is a deliberate attempt by some individual or group to form, control, or alter the attitudes of other groups by the use of instruments of communication, with the intention that in any given situation the reaction of those so influenced will be that desired by the propagandist.

By its definition, the word cultural relates to the arts and manners that a group favors.

I find that your group, Beldar, does not favor what you consider to be the "liberal media".

With each successful trial-by-blog "kill", a journalist becomes less confident that freedom of speech in its relation to freedom of the press are not tightly restrained by a top-heavy (right-tilted) cultural influence.

The fact that the cultural propaganda of the Right, in today's political atmosphere, falls in line with the RNC and White House is no great revelation.

Regarding my original quote, I hope this explanation has served to enhance your pragmatic competence.

Regards,
Jude

MSM: Time to Scrutinize Attack-Bloggers

MSM: Time to Scrutinize Attack-Bloggers

The next time Howard Kurtz hears Jeff Jarvis insisting, to the public, that the aim was merely "truth" in the Easongate-hunting-down of Eason Jordan, he should remember to hold Jarvis to a higher standard than that to which he held him on CNN's Reliable Sources today.

Jarvis was speaking for the bloggers and others in the internet community who signed those petitions which were sent to CNN.

This was a lynching and a trial by blog with no offense sufficient to cause a 23-year news veteran to lose (or relinquish) his job in order to save the network from being unfairly tarnished.

I think that Howard Kurtz could have been better prepared.

He should have asked Jarvis to explain the easy-to-find words of the very citizens of the blogworld who are targeting mainstream journalists.

Here are some examples. They weren't very hard to find.

If bloggers and everyday people are doing the targeting and crucifying, then we need to start holding them to standards and scrutiny. It's professional careers they are seeking to destroy.

Their Neo-McCarthyism is too easily carried out, and the mainstream is letting them get away with professional murder all too easily.

Why aren't mainstream journalists asking more questions?
Are they afraid they'll be next on the hit list?

________________

At Dean's World, my blogging-colleague (and someone I consider to be a friend) Joe Gandelman posts a partial transcript from the Reliable Sources show today:

"Bloggers didn't want his head, most of us didn't. We wanted the truth," said Jeff Jarvis today on Reliable Sources. There were no other bloggers on the CNN show to counter Jarvis.

I have seen and heard the real motives of the Right too many times in my years spent on internet political forums to believe a word of this. "Liberal media" must die.

I hope Joe and other sensible people will think carefully about what I'm saying here. This does not look like justice to me. They're playing with real people's careers here. This is no game.