Conspiracy...

theorists unite.

Word is Oswald and Elvis are involved too.

-- tiberius

Tiberius, who probably still thinks Saddam was involved in the attacks of 9/11 and that the WMDs are still there in Iraq someplace, or were perhaps moved to Syria.

On second thought, I'm actually more inclined to agree with Dave Satan and Dr. Freud but the bungling of this entire investigation, like everything else bungled by the current administration, should be thoroughly investigated.

This is easier.

RIP

"Source confidentiality is premised on a model of journalism where the media is adversarial to the Government..."

That model is long-dead, replaced by a vertically integrated infotainment corporate oligarchy.

-- BobbyG

Corporations are not motivated by, nor do they operate on the values associated with lower case "r" republican virtues, those being the ones this country was founded on. They are, in fact, two competing value systems, almost diametrically opposed. They are antinomial, like liberty and safety or due process and crime control. If there is more than one person reading Salon right now that has any idea what republican virtues actually are, or who has reread Plato's Republic since high school, I'll become a Republican and there is nothing republican about the Republican party at all, not in its current incarnation. Try this for starters.

Virtue vs. Commerce

The open question, as Pocock suggested,[9] of the conflict between personal economic interest (grounded in Lockean liberalism) and classical republicanism, troubled Americans. Jefferson and Madison roundly denounced the Federalists for creating a national bank as tending to corruption and monarchism; Alexander Hamilton staunchly defended his program, arguing that national economic strength was necessary for the protection of liberty. Jefferson never relented but by 1815 Madison switched and announced in favor of a national bank, which he set up in 1816.

John Adams often pondered the issue of civic virtue. Writing Mercy Otis Warren in 1776, he agreed with the Greeks and the Romans, that, "Public Virtue cannot exist without private, and public Virtue is the only Foundation of Republics." Adams insisted, "There must be a positive Passion for the public good, the public Interest, Honour, Power, and Glory, established in the Minds of the People, or there can be no Republican Government, nor any real Liberty. And this public Passion must be Superior to all private Passions. Men must be ready, they must pride themselves, and be happy to sacrifice their private Pleasures, Passions, and Interests, nay their private Friendships and dearest connections, when they Stand in Competition with the Rights of society."[10]

Adams worried that a businessman might have financial interests that conflicted with republican duty; indeed, he was especially suspicious of banks. He decided that history taught that "the Spirit of Commerce . . . is incompatible with that purity of Heart, and Greatness of soul which is necessary for a happy Republic." But so much of that spirit of commerce had infected America. In New England, Adams noted, "even the Farmers and Tradesmen are addicted to Commerce." As a result, there was "a great Danger that a Republican Government would be very factious and turbulent there."[11]

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

Poor Glenn. He often reminds me of poor Cicero pining for a lost Golden Age that may never have been, or if it was, was so short lived, it should never have been remembered.

Please razoo2 don't make me laugh like that so early in the morning! Do you still not understand? Of course the TV fatheads won't touch this with a ten foot pole. They're all in this together. They self censor. The fact that Cheney and his bunch of goons were munching on Cipro well in advance of these attacks would be what the Bush gang of fatuous, murderous morons would call a slam dunk and it would have dire consequences in any other universe but the American Universe. How bloody obvious can it be? Your own government carried out an airborne terrorist attack on its own citizens and followed it up by mailing out anthrax to people who had made it VERY VERY ANGRY all so that they could run a human rights free government and kick some Muslims around while they were stealing their oil. Where the hell is your anger? How can you let your government treat you like this and not hold them accountable? Mainsteam media all over the world are simply running a propaganda campaign for Bush, talking about Ivins as if he was Jack the Ripper when he was nothing of the kind. When not one plausible shred of evidence has been presented that he was anything other than a fall guy after the Bush gang's plan to frame Hatfill fell through. What happened to 'we the people'. You've become a nation of cowards and that includes your Congress who are so afraid of another Cheney led terrorist attack that they can't sleep at night let alone act decisively against the Republicans. I would't want their job but if I had put my hand up for it my conscience would force me to act. The journalists took no oath of office to defend America against all enemies foreign and DOMESTIC.

I think those in Congress did. On the other hand when all anyone has to do is run a media smear campaign talking about conspiracy theories to make everyone duck for cover it's hard for those in Congress to gauge what people really think.

The taking over of the media by the right had broken the lines of communication and now the internet has stepped into the vacumn. This is the real reason newspapers are on the skids. No one trusts them anymore because they have violated the trust the public put in them. And just bear in mind that all that fuss about bird flu in the media was done quite deliberately. All that talk of it mutating into a human to human virus? My guess is they've already got that strain in the laboratory and the vaccine for it. If John McCain is elected this nightmare of fear and scapegoating will just go on and on. If anyone hears of Cheney being vaccinated for bird flu, watch out! The cure for America's present virus is impeachment and even if it's a risk it should be done because the alternative,to simply let them walk, is even riskier. The real mystery in all of this is Tony Blair. How was such a clever man taken in by a borderline retard? Unless he wasn't.