Not only did the BigMediaGuys not cover the story, but some of so-called "alternative" news stories wouldn't touch it, either. And, if you complained, or brought it up, they practically accused you of wearing a tin-foil hat.

One exception: Brad DeLong of bradblog.com. http://bradblog.com/ He alone among the liberal blogosphere has, from the beginning, torn into this story like a terrier.

Even at Salon, it was pretty disappointing. They kept giving the story to Farhad Manjoo, who made it clear from the beginning that he didn't think the story had legs. Finally... when Salon posted a column with a response by Robert Kennedy, all hel* broke loose, and the comment threads went crazy. Clearly, Salon's readers were not satisfied. Since then, other writers have been assigned to the story.

The think that was most irritating about it was that it wasn't even beyond belief. Everyone already knew that this was the sort of thing that Rove was famous for, dating from his College Publican days, and when he worked for Atwater (?), and the Bush, the Elder. And the CEO of Diebold had already been quoted saying that in his role in Bush's campaign, he would be doing his best to deliver the vote to Bush. (Supposedly, an unfortuate phrasing, but still...)

Little did you know that you would really tap a nerve with me by bringing that up.

There was a sports writer with a blog on Huffington, who also covered politics on occasion, who floored me when he out and out said there had been foul play. He said that if you get a decent education (i.e., a graduate degree) there's no way you an avoid some quantitative work. And armed with that, there's no way you could think otherwise than foul play. (I'm paraphrasing here.)

If it weren't for this USA scandal, I'm still not sure that the BigMediaGuys would understand how big the story really is.

I bring Vietnam up because of its being an example of a *non-defensive war*, pursued for power-political reasons, that two "liberal" Democrats and two "liberal" Republicans were primarily responsible for.

The Vietnam War, in other words, was the work product of four US presidents: Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon. We currently have only one Republican presidential hopeful (Ron Paul) who has taken a principled stand against colonial/imperialist war-making by the US, and two Democratic candidates (Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel).

And not one of them has a snowball's chance in hell of getting their respective party's nomination, or doing any more than acting as a spoiler in a three way race so the Republican nominee (not Ron Paul, but Romney, Guiliani, Thompson or McCain) could get elected. Is that what you want? If it is, keep it up. It's quite obvious what the agenda is. It's campaign season. Knock yourself out. But the reason we don't do that around here... the answer to this question:

"...perhaps contributors are waiting for Glenn to endorse a candidate..."

This just ain't that kind of blog. It's not DKos. It's not even specifically an anti-war blog. We welcome the support for ending the occupation in Iraq. Many of the commenters here are non-interventionist to varying degrees. Some even think our invasion of Afghanistan was wrong. There are other things one must consider when choosing a president. If it was down to Gravel, Paul or Kucinich, I'd be curious to see what a straw poll of the readers here would be. I've already told you many times why I think a Ron Paul presidency would be a disaster. The Iraq war is "the" issue for 2008 but it's not the only issue. It would be a nightmare because he would veto every spending bill that crossed his desk. The government would come to a halt.

This interview? Having trouble with your links.

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=4551

And (especially for libertarians) if Blackwater kills is it neither war nor democide -- just business as usual? Does corporaticide mean it's okay as long as Wall Street approves? What if a war is started for business interests, does that fall in the corporaticide column or the war column? Does a government-corporate partnership which runs a concentration camp for manufacturing which eventually kills people count as what, e.g. the Silesian-American Corp. at Auschwitz? Is that a form of employicide? When they kill villagers in Nigeria to keep the oil running is that securicide?

Jennifer Government has been optioned and may be coming to a corporately owned theatre near us...

Jennifer Government is a novel written by Max Barry. Published in 2003, it is Barry's second novel, following 1999's Syrup. The novel is set in a dystopian alternate reality in which most nations (now controlled by the United States) are dominated by for-profit corporate entities while the Government's power is extremely limited. It is similar in satiric intent to George Orwell's 1984, but criticizes the concept of a government with too little power, rather than one with too much. Because of this, some readers see the novel as a criticism of libertarianism. Many readers also see it as a criticism of globalization, although Barry claims he is not an anti-globalizationist....

To help promote the novel, Barry created a spin-off browser-based game entitled Jennifer Government: NationStates, in which players run their own countries. The game is very loosely based on the novel, containing none of its storyline.

In 2001, the film rights were optioned to Section 8, a production company owned by Steven Soderbergh and George Clooney. In 2005, Louis Mellis and Dave Scinto, writers of Sexy Beast, were chosen by Clooney and Soderbergh to write the screenplay. Alias TV star Jennifer Garner expressed interest in playing the titular character in the movie or even television adaptation, although Barry himself has said his primary choice for the role would be Nicole Kidman.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jennifer_Government

ondelette writes:

"And (especially for libertarians) if Blackwater kills is it neither war nor democide -- just business as usual? Does corporaticide mean it's okay as long as Wall Street approves?"

____

Any "libertarian", i.e. anyone who is opposed to "authoritarianism" in all its manifestations and guises, would have to be incredibly ignorant, incredibly stupid, or incredibly disingenuous not to recognize that the modern centralized corporation is as essentially authoritarian, corrupt, and dangerous as any government you can name. If anything, a large corporation is even worse than a centralized government in terms of the harm it can do to people, including its own employees.

But the relative dangers posed to humanity by the large, centralized corporation and large, centralized government is rendered moot by the extent of their seamless integration and collusion. For example:

Census Counts 100,000 Contractors in Iraq

Civilian Number, Duties Are Issues

By Renae Merle

Washington Post Staff Writer

Tuesday, December 5, 2006; D01

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/04/AR2006120401311_pf.html

"There are about 100,000 government contractors operating in Iraq, not counting subcontractors, a total that is approaching the size of the U.S. military force there, according to the military's first census of the growing population of civilians operating in the battlefield.

"The survey finding, which includes Americans, Iraqis and third-party nationals hired by companies operating under U.S. government contracts, is significantly higher and wider in scope than the Pentagon's only previous estimate, which said there were 25,000 security contractors in the country.

"It is also 10 times the estimated number of contractors that deployed during the Persian Gulf War in 1991, reflecting the Pentagon's growing post-Cold War reliance on contractors for such jobs as providing security, interrogating prisoners, cooking meals, fixing equipment and constructing bases that were once reserved for soldiers.

"Official numbers are difficult to find, said Deborah D. Avant, author of the 2005 book "The Market for Force: The Consequences of Privatizing Security," but an estimated 9,200 contractors deployed during the Gulf War, a far shorter conflict without reconstruction projects. "This is the largest deployment of U.S. contractors in a military operation," said Avant, an associate professor at George Washington University.

"In addition to about 140,000 U.S. troops, Iraq is now filled with a hodgepodge of contractors. DynCorp International has about 1,500 employees in Iraq, including about 700 helping train the police force. Blackwater USA has more than 1,000 employees in the country, most of them providing private security. Kellogg, Brown and Root, one of the largest contractors in Iraq, said it does not delineate its workforce by country but that it has more than 50,000 employees and subcontractors working in Iraq, Afghanistan and Kuwait. MPRI, a unit of L-3 Communications, has about 500 employees working on 12 contracts, including providing mentors to the Iraqi Defense Ministry for strategic planning, budgeting and establishing its public affairs office. Titan, another L-3 division, has 6,500 linguists in the country.

"The Pentagon's latest estimate "further demonstrates the need for Congress to finally engage in responsible, serious and aggressive oversight over the questionable and growing U.S. practice of private military contracting," said Rep. Janice D. Schakowsky (D-Ill.), who has been critical of the military's reliance on contractors."

__________

See *Tyranny of the Bottom Line: Why Corporations Make Good People Do Bad Things* by Ralph W. Estes for one of about a thousand books you can read regarding the evil behavior generated by organizational gigantism in the "private" sector. Or *Friendly Fascism:The New Face of Power in America* by Bertram Gross.

The interlocking directorates of US corporate boardrooms are populated by people that sooner or later will be "serving " selflessly in the highest echelons of government, before they re-enter the revolving door on their way back to their corporations.

Does the phrase "military-industrial complex" ring a bell? Does the phrase the "public opinion-manipulating corporate media" ring one?

Ken Rogers