Site Presented By
Saturday, Nov 7, 2009
The link to the column seems to be broken.
Glenn is right, as usual; but what infuriates me is that nobody is ever called to task for the errors and omissions that Glenn points out in this column. If, even occasionally, columns or claims were retracted, or editors publicly chastised writers for some of these sins against journalism, it would give some sense that things were getting better.
As it is, Glenn's column is just a catalog of bad journalism that is being consumed by millions every day, leading us inexorably to outcomes this corrupt and evil Administration wants, war with Iran, a pardon for L'il Scooter.
I love Glenn's column and admire the hard work he's doing exposing these egregious journalistic crimes; but I don't know if I can continue reading him without becoming downright suicidal.
Klein, Cohen, Pearlstein... oy vey is mir!
(Thank God for Greenwald!)
...it is often best to keep the lights off.
You're right Glenn. This really epitomizes what the corporate media has become over the last decade or so.
Wow. Just.. Wow.
See, we really didn't need that pesky first amendment after all.
This is a keeper too:
...he was appointed to look into a run-of-the-mill leak
The intentional outing of a US national security asset, who was working in a covert manner to gather information on weapons of mass destruction, mere months after the wort terrorist attack in American history, all in an apparently successful attempt to intimidate others to not speak out of line, all of that is reduced to a "run-of-the-mill leak".
Wow. Just.. Wow.
I think Atrios has not just his wanker of the day, not just his wanker of the month, but he finally has his wanker for the ages. The wanker to end all wankers.
Wow. Just... Wow.
Five or ten or fifteen years from now people will go back and read the Richard Cohen, Hiatt, etc., etc., opeds and editorials and be completely unable to understand how these guys were taken in by the "Wizard of Oz"-type ploys used by Karl Rove. It's truly depressing and sad that the U.S. has fallen to this level. Hopefully a slow but painful comeback is still possible after complete "De-Bushification."
In the meantime, all I can say is that if Libby can't do the time he shouldn't have done the time.
Great post Glenn. It perfectly illustrates how our corporate press has abdicated its role as watchdog to assume its more comfortable and profitable role as courtiers.
Is it any wonder that our democracy is in danger of failing (if it hasn't permanently failed already)?
Why do you insist on waking me up so early and making me feel so depressed? Turn the light off - I want to go be to sleep and dream of a better country.
As with sex or real estate, it is often best to keep the lights off.
I know that I am in the majority when I say this:
It is much more fun with the lights on!
(And much easier to see what you are doing, which almost always leads to a mutually beneficial and satisfactory outcome.)
Deliciously wicked post... One of your best.
But not nearly long enough.
; )
You forgot "fetid" in your description of that place where Beltway pundits dwell.
Cohen:
It is often best to keep the lights off.
What a perfect explanation for why the US press has studiously ignored this for well over two years now:
As originally reported in the The Sunday Times, May 1, 2005
SECRET AND STRICTLY PERSONAL - UK EYES ONLY
DAVID MANNING
From: Matthew Rycroft
Date: 23 July 2002
S 195 /02cc: Defence Secretary, Foreign Secretary, Attorney-General, Sir Richard Wilson, John Scarlett, Francis Richards, CDS, C, Jonathan Powell, Sally Morgan, Alastair Campbell
IRAQ: PRIME MINISTER'S MEETING, 23 JULY....
C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action.
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/1
It's not just that, as Cohen writes:
As any prosecutor knows -- and Martha Stewart can attest -- white-collar types tend to have a morbid fear of jail.
When it comes to the President--if he's a Republican--every citizen of Versailles has a morbid fear of the mere word i-m-p-e-a-c-h-m-e-n-t, and thus cannot talk about anything that might reasonably lead in that direction.
In such cases, their motto becomes:
It is always imperative to keep the lights off.
Can I donate a gallon of a sealing laminate?
It is the least a blue-collar, lover of jails, can offer. I a-museum's, and amused by your article today. Thanks.
Before I get knocked-a-kilter off, or butt-off the Internet again...It seems my battery-flash-light, burnt-butt's out...
...yea, in jail yoo get free tp, a poisonous 3-princiPALS victuals, fake food, bored room, steel crib, and a aluminum public flush-handle on a fake-silver, stupid looking, compact dish washer and commode in one magisterial executive suite unit? Why? To vomit in...?...thanks. nice neocon gals and guys!
...well, if ya have a indoor water spring come bubbling forth in jail, count yer blessings and name-um-one by one Lucky Mr Shooter? Who knows?
I say, exhibit THAT crap pile at the Smithsonian Mental Institution in neo-con can-can DC?
Fibrils Who Get Cranky Get Free admission.
Cohen's column is full of incorrect statements, distractions, and just plain whining, it was hard to read. Obviously he has been in Washington far too long. By his reckoning nobody in Washington should ever be charged with any crime. Congress can investigate all it wants, but Cohen thinks that is where it should end. Just investigations, nothing more.
I was particularly irritated by his claim that anti-war advocates did not think about where the whole Valerie Plame thing could lead.
Glenn, I agree, this is the prime example of how the chattering class in Washington thinks, if "think" is the right word.
Perhaps that is the problem, they do not think, they just react.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The Maine fight was supposed to be the dress rehearsal for repealing California's Prop. 8 -- but gay marriage lost
Once one obtains Seriousness credentials in the Washington media, they are irrevocable no matter one's conduct.
Salon headlines in your mailbox
