Letters to the Editor
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An Interesting Juxtaposition
First off, it needs to be said that there's nothing the least bit unusual about this story, IMHO. Unless there's a powerful interested party--which Saddam Hussein obviously was not--a series of blatantly false reports will never be retracted or apologized for in any way. Simply not going to happen.
That doesn't mean we should accept it, of course. Nor do I mean to demean the importance of this particular story--which was obviously of significant historical importance. It's simply that this is how things are done. This is a chronic, continuous problem, perhaps made a bit worse by the heightened atmosphere of the time... until you recall the summer before, which was all full of Gary Condit and shark attacks--attacks that were statistically nowhere out of the norm.
So, in other words, what we have is the normal flow of over-hyped, under-factual "news."
Meanwhile, TPM had this little item yesterday:
Stepping away from politics for a moment, you might be interested in "Pearls Before Breakfast," the cover story in Washington Post Magazine, which a friend pointed me to this evening. I've been offline for much of the day, so this may already be well-covered ground, but if you missed it, the Post arranged for the violin virtuoso Joshua Bell to play in a DC subway station during the morning rush hour, like any other street musician, and filmed the reaction--or the lack thereof. The only demographic group to redeem itself: the children.
Post story here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/04/AR2007040401721.html?hpid=artslot
While the Post was writing about the flood of people oblivious to spectacular beauty in their midst, I thought naturally of truth ("'Beauty is truth, truth beauty'---that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.") And I thought of how utterly typical this little experiment was--as well as how ironic that the Post should be staging it.
For we are living in an age when mundane lies flow past us in a steady, undifferentiated stream, like the commuters in the subway station, and if a sparkling ray of truth shines forth--and it's not immediately overwhelmed with character assasination--it will simply be utterly and routinely ignored.
It's not that we can't handle the truth. We can't even notice it.
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Who was the source?
Who was the source behind Ross' claims? Who forged the Niger yellowcake letters? Who worked so hard to get the U.S. to go to war? Time to start turning on the lights.
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Would anyone be shocked
if Ross's four "anonymous sources" were: Libby, Rove, Cheney, and Addington?
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Is it too early?
Is it too early in the new Dem congress to start pushing for a breakup of the Corporate National Media? To start limiting ownership of multiple outlets again? To start making concrete requirements for fairness and truth in any broadcasting that has political consequences -- including the "news" -- in return for the rather profitable use of the public's airwaves? This was the original idea, but we've wandered so far away from it -- is there any hope that we can still get the very powerful fox out of the chicken coop?
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Anthrax attacks
Could you imagine if the anthrax attacks had happened on Clinton's watch and nearly six years later nobody had been charged? Not a day would pass without smears, fingerpointing, talking points, and outrageous allegations by the Right Wing Noise machine-- let alone NEARLY 2000 DAYS WITHOUT ANYONE BEING HELD ACCOUNTABLE.
But then again, when you've screwed up Iraq, Afganistan, Katrina, Abu Ghraib, Harriet Meirs' Supreme Court nomination, the Medicare Prescription Drug Bill, spying, turning the largest surplus in the history of the world into the largest deficit in the history of the world just to name a few debacles -- NOT capturing terrorists is the EXPECTED outcome.
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Paul:
First off, it needs to be said that there's nothing the least bit unusual about this story, IMHO. Unless there's a powerful interested party--which Saddam Hussein obviously was not--a series of blatantly false reports will never be retracted or apologized for in any way. Simply not going to happen.
Who was the "powerful interested party" that led to the New York Times publishing its mea culpa Editors Note admitting that much of its journalism on Iraq's WMD claims was shoddy and overly gullible?
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Don't trust Beecher
Glenn,
The Douglas Beecher article is contradicted by many reports which states that the anthrax was "weaponized" using silica.
http://www.afip.org/images/public/nl081002.pdf
“Ft Detrick sought our assistance to determine the specific components of the anthrax found in the Daschle letter,” said Florabel G. Mullick, MD, ScD, SES, AFIP Principal Deputy Director and department chair. AFIP experts utilized an energy dispersive X-ray spectrometer (an instrument used to detect the presence of otherwise-unseen chemicals through characteristic wavelengths of X-ray light) to confirm the previously unidentifiable substance as silica. “This was a key component,” Mullick said. “Silica prevents the anthrax from aggregating, making it easier to aerosolize. Significantly, we noted the absence of aluminum with the silica. This combination had previously been found in anthrax produced by Iraq.”
While still trying to blame Iraq, we at least have someone on the record talking about specific tests.
Beecher's information is sourced to "Individuals familiar with the compositions of the powders in the letters..." Beecher's footnote refers to "Matsumoto, G. 2003. Bioterrorism. Anthrax powder: state of the art?" which is available here:
http://cryptome.org/anthrax-powder.htm
Matsumoto's information originates with "According to sources on Capitol Hill..." None of this is any better than ABC.
This is an important post you have written because the anthrax attacks were used, along with yellow cake and the aluminum tubes, as part of the march to war but using the unsourced Beecher article to knock down the Iraq connection is problematic at best.
These unsourced reports came at a time when the advanced techniques used to weaponize the anthrax were being used as an argument that the anthrax must have been produced by the US military or someone with military training.
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Richard Cohen
Another excellent post, Glenn! Keep up the good work!
Just one quibble: in an effort to nail ABC (who deserve it) you seem to let Washington Post "liberal" columnist Richard Cohen off the hook by blaming his shameless fluffing of the Bush administration on ABC's misinformation.
Cohen is entirely capable of deluding himself without any help from the ABCs of the world. As you know (and have written about at length) the Washington punditocracy has been as craven in their uncritical support for the Bush administration as have reporters like Ross. And despite his supposed liberalism, Cohen has been part of the problem. Indeed, his liberalism only makes his willingness to mouth administration talking points that much worse.