I'm still waiting for the press to apologize for stuff like this

From Bad News by Tom Fenton

Here's a startling example of how more news stories about bin Laden and al Qaeda might have made a difference. Shortly after he arrived in America, Mohammed Atta, the man we now believe to have been the ringleader of the 9/11 attacks, went to an unsuspecting Department of Agriculture loan officer in Florida and tried to get a loan for what he described as crop dusting. He told the loan officer, one Johnell Bryant, that he wanted to finance a twin-engine, six passenger aircraft, take out the seats, and fit it with a chemical tank that would fill every square inch except where the pilot would sit. Bryant thought the idea was impractical and rejected the application. Atta then turned his attention to an aerial photo of Washington on the wall of her office, pulled out a wad of money, and tried to buy it. He asked her to point out the White House and the Pentagon, and asked her how America would like it if another country destroyed Washington and some of the monuments in it, just as the cities in his country had been destroyed. And here's the amazing part: In the course of their conversation, Atta inquired if the loan officer had heard of an organization overseas of people dissillusioned with their governments; that group, he told her, was called al Qaeda. He also mentioned the name Osama bin Laden, and promised that bin Laden would some day be known as the "world's greatest leader."

All of this took place four months before 9/11, but none of this rang a bell with Bryant, for al Qaeda or bin Laden were going nearly unmentioned by the mass media at the time.

In the late 90s, Fenton wanted to cover bin Laden but his bosses didn't see a story. No doubt it wasn't considered as important as the details of the Starr report.

In the passage that follows the part I've quoted Fenton goes on to describe how journalists who covered the terrorist beat were in alarm mode as they knew there was impending danger but no one was interested in covering it because they didn't see profit in it.

"Are there quotes somewhere? Attributions?"

Well, Tom Fenton is a respected journalist from CBS, he's hardly anywhere in the neighborhood of Hannity. I don't expect the Columbia Journalism Review to be conducting an interview with Hannity anytime soon.

http://www.cjr.org/the_water_cooler/tom_fenton_on_how_dumbing_down.php

I don't have a copy of the book with me at the moment so I don't know what reference Fenton uses, but there's stuff like this

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C00E5D8143DF934A35755C0A9649C8B63

Of course, you can also google Atta and see him not placed in the U.S. until after the time Bryant alleged him visiting her.

http://www.edwardjayepstein.com/nether_fictoid11.htm

I'll have to post something chastising myself for lack of skepticism and critical thinking tomorrow, it would seem.

When I got home and had access to my books I was able to check. Fenton cites the ABC interview with Bryant. I'm not sure why those website I looked at yesterday said that Atta wasn't in Florida at the time, because I checked my copy of the 9/11 Commission Report and Atta was in Florida in May 2001.

I see the discrepancy ... Fenton says May 2001, but the ABC interview says May 2000.

It's still a sad state that this sort of story is just out there with confirmation or retraction.

Not going to check all two hundred plus comments for this so:

"You might however consider whether you should not unfold as a background the great privilege of habeas corpus and trial by jury, which are the supreme protection invented by the English people for ordinary individuals against the state. The power of the Executive to cast a man in prison without formulating any charge known to the law, and particularly to deny him the judgment of his peers is in the highest degree odious and is the foundation of all totalitarian government, whether Nazi or Communist." - In a telegram by Churchill from Cairo, Egypt to Home Secretary Herbert Morrison (1943-11-21) (source Wikiquote)

meant to be more explicit, but that is a Winston Churchill quote.

I love hearing that from folks like Hannity. Yes, the radical activist jurists who upheld the 800 year old foundation of western democracy - habeus corpus.

Broken record watch with my obligatory statement that I didn't read the other comments to see if someone had not already quoted any of the following, and also that I've quoted both of these before at this blog but ...

Propaganda in favor of action that is consonant with enlightened self-interest appeals to reason by means of logical arguements based upon the best available evidence fully and honestly set forth. Propaganda in favor of action dictated by the impulses that are below self-interest offers false, garbled or incomplete evidence, avoids logical argument and seeks to influence its victims by the mere repetition of catchwords, by the furious denunciation of foreign or domestic scapegoats, and by cunningly associating the lowest passions with the highest ideals, so that atrocities come to be perpetrated in the name of God and the most cynical kind of Realpolitik is treated as a matter of religious principle and patriotic duty.

- Aldous Huxley, "Propaganda in a Democratic Society"

"[V]oice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country." - Nazi Reichsmarshall Hermann Goering