The MSM has the emergent fact, but as usual ignores the context that Glenn so ably provides.

Another important bit of context here: I agree with the commenters above who characterize what happened here as a possible false flag op. That puts a very different spin on Sy Hersh's recent revelation about how Dick Cheney recently considered dressing up Navy Seals as Iranians, putting them on fake Iranian speedboats, and shooting at them in order to provoke Iran to start a war.

From ThinkProgress:

HERSH: There was a dozen ideas proffered about how to trigger a war. The one that interested me the most was why don’t we build — we in our shipyard — build four or five boats that look like Iranian PT boats. Put Navy seals on them with a lot of arms. And next time one of our boats goes to the Straits of Hormuz, start a shoot-up.

Might cost some lives. And it was rejected because you can’t have Americans killing Americans. That’s the kind of — that’s the level of stuff we’re talking about. Provocation. But that was rejected.

If these people are responsible for sending out those anthrax letters, then we know they have no qualms about Americans killing Americans, or about false flag operations.

Link in the sig.

How many wars have started over false information?

How stupid must we be not to seriously question blatant fear mongering?

When politically biased institutions sell their propaganda as "news" why are they not forced to retract and apologize?

The suspect is dead. The case is closed. It's not the FBI's job to investigate supposed criminal conspiracies. (Thank god Verizon now catches them before they begin!)

OTOH, Richard Cohen is a new American hero for having the balls to openly admit that he is and has always been a craven, cowardly, shallow, knee-jerking, incurious blabbermouth of a fake journalist. That's something to celebrate!

-This story really highlights my call to point our financial sources to marginalizing the MSM. They are one of the pre-imminent destructive forces of this country.-

I have to agree. The MSM personifies the enemy on so many levels.

It is the right wings most effective weapon of all in suppressing any semblance of genuine democracy.

ABC makes Faux seem innocuous because Murdock doesn't try terribly hard to appear neutral, whereas ABC plays the public like a fiddle ,as evidenced by this very story.

OTOH, Richard Cohen is a new American hero for having the balls to openly admit that he is and has always been a craven, cowardly, shallow, knee-jerking, incurious blabbermouth of a fake journalist. That's something to celebrate!

'

The notion that there is some sort of Code of Journalistic Ethics -- comparable to what governs the legal, medical or accounting professions -- has always struck me as a false conceit, but there are some ethical principles that everyone agrees to.

Is there any justification for a reporting to hear from a "high government official" that he should protect himself with cipro because of the likelihood of an anthrax attack and then have the reporter keep that information to himself, secretly inoculating himself while letting the public remain exposed?

I guess he could say he didn't want to create panic. Or he could say that he agreed to keep the information off the record. But -- as others here have noted -- that seems like rather selfish and un-journalistic behavior, doesn't it?

AP (and Salon, linking to the AP) is reporting that the government wanted to seek the death penalty for Ivins. Now that Ivins has apparently killed himself, there won't be a trial, during which lots of skeletons could have been un-closeted.

GG, thanks for informing us, reminding us, of this. It is very important, I think.

billmon points out:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/8/1/21530/45120/924/560478

or click on signature for link

Hersh explained that, during the meeting in Cheney’s office, an idea was considered to dress up Navy Seals as Iranians, put them on fake Iranian speedboats, and shoot at them. This idea, intended to provoke an Iran war, was ultimately rejected:

HERSH: There was a dozen ideas proffered about how to trigger a war. The one that interested me the most was why don’t we build — we in our shipyard — build four or five boats that look like Iranian PT boats. Put Navy Seals on them with a lot of arms. And next time one of our boats goes to the Straits of Hormuz, start a shoot-up.

Might cost some lives. And it was rejected because you can’t have Americans killing Americans. That’s the kind of — that’s the level of stuff we’re talking about. Provocation. But that was rejected.

Think Progress

July 31, 2008

It is not beyond impossibility that the anthrax scare was considered to be acceptable by Cheney's office.

Great reporting. This story really stinks and would seem to have very deep roots. I implore you to keep digging.

The Gulf of Tonkin and the "surprise" attack on Pearl Harbor are possibly the only two suspicious incidents that "respectable" people readily accept about the atrocities from our government. The "lone gunman" theory of JFK's assassination doesn't even seem to be credible to many intelligent people.

Why is it so easy to believe that Hitler lied and murdered but not our politicans? Is our modern American government really that superior?

I am one who completely does not remember such a link. Even as I argued with friends and family about attacking Iraq (I didn't believe Iraq was the threat the administration made it out to be), not one of them used anthrax as evidence of Iraq being a threat.

congressional office buildings were emptied and the fascists had ample time to go through everyone's papers to add fuel to the WH's blackmail fires.

There are so many convenient elements in this narrative, one really does have to wonder about it being a false flag operation. I am aware of the dictum, Do not ascribe to malevolence that which can be ascribed to stupidity. But, at this point, I am ready to accept our government is genuinely capable of perpetrating worst kind of evil, and will do whatever it can to cover it up.

I have only one genuine/concrete thought. My heart aches for Bruce Ivins' family.