Hah! Wimpy has been running our government!

They will gladly pay us Tuesday for the hamburger we allow them to have today. That's pretty much it in a nutshell. Oh, and it keeps them from raising taxes on themselves while they're dining on the ground up meat of our young people and social programs.

Well, let's hope Dolly's Pardons have been completely deflated by the time we get around to levelling charges against them for their crimes.

It may not be a good day to roll down a hill, but I love playing soccer in the mud. Kick the ball hard enough often enough and with sufficient accuracy and it's bound to hit the back of the net sooner or later. ;-}

Regarding the Scott Collins comments: The public understands that powerful forces (advertisers in particular) manipulate news coverage and control what appears in print. They know this because they have disputes with major advertisers, yet they can't interest their local newspaper in exposing the criminality of, say, the local car dealer who sells rebuilt wrecks without disclosure, even if they sue the dealer and win a huge settlement.

So the public can cynically dismiss the media's unwillingness to cover substantive news by accusing the media of bowing to those with economic or political power. But the public doesn't understand this as a conservative impulse. Surrender is never a conservative impulse, at least not according to the myths of conservatism that I'm currently reading about in Glenn's excellent book.

This story lacks legs because covering it would require the news channels to disclose their production processes, and they're not really aware of how much distance there is between "production" and "reporting."

After all, broadcast news is not a "reporting" process, it's a "production" process. No information is required to fill air time, only speakers and analysts are required. TV shows aren't backed up by reporters, much, they're run by "producers." These producers are merely doing their jobs by filling up air time with newslike stuff, and the Pentagon made it really easy for them to book speakers for their air time.

It seems like there was a quiet, bloodless coup in 2000 by corporate/theocratic fascists.

* Wars without end

* Elections fixed

* Habeas corpus voided

* Congress made irrelevant/impotent

* Control of media

* Torture

* Warrantless survellance/wiretapping

The corporate media is only too happy to be a megaphone/stenographer for the government. All that "informed electorate" stuff is unnecessary in a fascist dictatorship -- and the money is damned good.

They are ashamed of their weakness. It can't be concealed. The Sold-Outs praise intemperance, murder for hire, and condone the blood of the innocent victims that are being shed daily. They are hired, cold-bloodied, and are rear prop architects of lies. It's wearisome to keep telling them. However.... Tell the truth until America gets fed up... The citizens is already disgusted. Goons are weak. These creeps are wretches. Well, is this slander? No apologies from me.... Their natures are "wicked" and don't be fooled... evil does incarnate stooges.... GOPS. And potentially, everybody.

DCLaw1.

About one month ago, in the V.A. ER. ~;

I went to the ER because of a wound that seemed to fester more severe over night. Eyes were blurred. Sore. Swelling. I once was hospitalized for 21 days for putting in a Spring garden, and postponing medical intervention, and I'd gotten very bloody septic. I though. yikes. The young ER Doc had a uniform on... `Why? He was active National Guard, and just back from Iraq. He said : `The bodies of Americans are sometimes obliterated by 155 artillery detonations. The medics can't distinguish what body part belongs to who - or what leg is from another? If 4-troops are in a tank. Red Jello. It's Sad. True.

He (MEDIC) was misty eyed, and seemed to want to keep informing me about more truths about the war carnage. Military pro-war are fakes and pretenders. It's propaganda and a great deal of sad-nonsense.

They are a court of little boys. A eagle would call them bait. They are weak cowards. They sent many people to their deaths. They are very wretched pro-war-porn loyalist. Core whores.

They carry water, and spill warm innocent blood in their "wicked" military careers. Helen Caldicott (sp) the physician used the word "wicked" to describe Bush/Cheney. And I agree.

we lefties reminded each other of back before the war started is that common citizens who don't understand things like the tight connection between "independent analysts" and the military is that citizens aren't stupid.

When you have a housewife who's preparing dinner, calling on the kids to set the table, asking the husband when he's coming down and who's trying to keep up with the news, she sees Osama bin Laden on the TV set and there's a "crawl" underneath that refers to Saddam Hussein and when this happens time after time, well, she's quite naturally going to reach the conclusion that bin Laden and Hussein are somehow connected.

I worked in a corporation for a little while a few years back and had a pro-Bush workmate. I explained to her that no, Saddam Hussein did not give money to the families of the 9-11 hijackers, the people he allegedly gave money to were Palestinians, who were opposed to Israel, not America.

I could see that I was drawing distinctions that were way over her head and got a blank look of confusion from her, so I didn't try to explain it further. Natcherly, she was senior to me in the workplace, so her confusion in lumping together all the "bad guys" of the Middle East meant absolutely nothing in terms of when she gave me workplace instructions.

Wow. Wow. Wow.

A brilliant strategy on the part of DoD, one must give that to them. I had assumed that incompetency was universal in this government, but they hit upon a truly effective way to control the media, didn't they. Just keep the selected cadre supplied with the "good stuff"--the fresh inside information, and the media market will simply do its thing, and select for the best. A sort of media horticulture, or if you prefer, whoreticulture.

I absolutely agree with you re: Collins. The public--regardless of what opinion it may have regarding he media--has no appreciable effect on which stories get promoted/amplified and which do not. To blame the media silence on an 'uncaring public' is just a ludicrous false-flag argument meant to shift responsiblity from where it truly belongs.

please entertain a preemptive comment regarding hijacking of UT comment threads. Rather than moving this section to yet another argument about Libertarianism, I suggest that the many truly bright, literate, and able commenters here launch into the DOD document dump themselves, and begin looking for interesting documents not already discussed by Greenwald. I submit to you that this is a much better use of time and comment space than yet another circle-jerk on unrelated issues.

Finally, GG, let me close with----WOW.