Course Ben has been a gift to the left. Confirming what a number of folks on the left have said about how so much of the mainstream media effort to balance the truth with right wing lies.

I am glad your article mentions that journalist have to take courses on ethics. My question is are there refresher courses? Some good candidates

Debra Howell, Jim Brady, all conservative on WP staff.

Miller at the Times etc...

National Review... everyone

Fox News ... don't really know they seem to rely on fiction

Anyway thanks for doing what you do. Its great

The Post never had any credibility with the right and in their attempt to cater to the right wing they have alieneted the moderates and the left. Their credibility is a joke and the VRWC is exploding.

Why not sit back and enjoy? At this point only thing I need is a tub of popcorn.

Kudos to Joe Conason for todays article. Course having Joe write an article to investigate Ben is like using a bazooka to shoot a mouse.

Why are they so afraid. Joe is completely right where the hell is the media. The big non - news event now is the news blackout on the Hadley memo. It is the elephant in the room. Why isn't everyone screaming about it

I have been a fan for years. Joe's investigative work has been something I always look forward to reading. Joe keep shaking them trees cause I think alot more stuff is going to fall out.

Bush is the culmination of Conservative policies and ideology. The problem was not that Bush wrecked conservatism its that conservatism has too many flawed ideas. Please expand your view from just an Bush/USA centric viewpoint and look around the world or history. Examples Thatcherism, Pinochet in Argentina, Iraq "free market reforms", Reagan trickle down economics, the Great Republican Depression etc... It demonstrates failures in this ideology. Your article suggest Bush "broke" conservatism but Bush is just using "broken or flawed" principles the outcome was preordained.

Still any "news" organization that put this out without identifying it for the propaganda it is would be just as complicit. Your can't be innocent if you are enabling these jokers

Dianne Feinstein is a political animal what did she get for this vote ?

Just read Peter Hoekstra's article in the NRO. See Republicans believe laws only apply when its convenient and so Everyone else must believe that too.

My favorite part excerpted below

Second, Klein was correct in his original contention that the bill recently passed by the House of Representatives “would require the surveillance of every foreign-terrorist target’s call to be approved by the FISA Court.” It is true that one section of the bill states the “clarification” that such an order is not required, but that’s not the end of the story.

Anyone who understands how FISA works in practice or how the bill is intended to work as a whole understands that a court order is necessary to compel the cooperation of third parties to actually conduct the surveillance and provide clear liability protection for assisting the government. Without such protection, third parties are unlikely to cooperate, especially after being subjected recently to baseless and unfair attacks. Such court orders are expressly provided for later in the bill.

See you don't have to follow the law you just have to understand how FISA works in practice. How convenient is that!

Today he finally commented on the National Reviews controversy concerning the false reporting done by war Blogger W. Thomas Smith Jr., a former Marine. He then immediately took the opportunity to equivicate it to a 5 month old controversy concerning the New Republic. Even though this was covered extensively by Kurtz previously. Yet he managed to ignore the much more timely National Review's scandal.

Whenever challenged at his constant need to balance the rights malfeasance with a negative slam on the left its always justified. Yet he does not feel that standard is necessarilly appropriate in the reverse case. In fact he spends an inordinate amount of his columns acknowledging liberal bias and rationalizing right wing bias. The examples are too numerous to recount

a simple google search of kurtz right wing bias retrieved 167000 hits !

While the other side may claim liberal bias its pretty obvious Kurtz Republican operative wife certainly influences his bias's

Once again the reporters would rather chase a Democrats nebulous guilt by association rather than the years of accumalated Republicans scandals. Just to name a few Abramoff, illegal wire tapping, Downing Street Memos, false Iraq Intelligence reports, torture, failure to meet any Iraq war benchmarks, US AG firings, Outing CIA agents and WH administrations being held in contempt for failing to appear before congress. All these scandals have a huge list of unanswered questions but the media feels that focusing on Rezko is more important. What a disgrace !

Years of being wrong and yet they are the experts. The MSM kills its credibility and when they get called on it just whine that progressives are shrill and intolerant. Guess what I AM ALWAYS shrill and intolerant for advocates of policies that cause death and destruction. So I wear my badge with honor

This nonsensicle delegate system is a carryover from a bygone era. Just like the electoral college it should be abandoned. The problen is very well illustrated when you have small minority in tiny states effectively making candidates viable or nonviable for the whole nation. Its silly and adopting the Republican model is even worse. It feeds the notion that only swing states matter and hurts the democratic process

Give yourselves a hand

Because they heard it in a debate and people trust Gibson. Most people watching now "Know" that capital gains tax cuts results in less revenues. Its the power of the media to make an untruth a truth. Example Al Gore invented the internet