Sorry -- here are the names of the six journalists at IHT who made the claim:

David Stout, Scott Shane, Eric Lipton, Sarah Abruzzese, William J. Broad and Brian Knowlton

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/08/06/america/07anthrax.php

link on my name. Table Talk is search-able (as is Salon - see top bar with "search" in "salon")

TableTalk used to be free, but it went pay to play in the late 1990, irrc, when Salon went to subscription. Salon's letter section was "promised" (by Joan back then) never to compete with TableTalk but, of course, it does. I subscribed to Salon and participated actively TableTalk (until the Broadsheet debacle which I won't bore you with but which caused quite a number of defections).

Petitioning Joan and Salon to make TableTalk free to all users might be an easy fix. Traffic seems way down, so not much revenue loss.

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I'm fairly underwhelmed by "genetic fingerprint, er, whorl, er, something" evidence, but I will reserve judgement until some of Ivin's cohorts express theirs since some, even much, seems to revolve around actual lab practices and dates/times, etc. Retrospective analysis like this has some inherent bias, and I'm hopeful they tested this method on other species, did blind testing, etc.

I'm reminded of the Law & Order evergreen about how cops are allowed to lie to suspects, as in "there was a witness," "we found your fingerprints," "your friend ratted you out." ....chuckle, chuckle.

I suspect it's their "lucky break" they never actually had to go up against defense "expert witnesses" as they presented their case against Ivins. Our loss.

You did it again.

Salon looks at it as you commenting on Glenn's posts. Salon does not, at this time, seem to want discussions -- as we do on forums.

The guys and gals on many tech forums will even volunteer to moderate the board according to whatever rules are in place; and God knows that UT could use moderation! One forum for a Linux distro even has a "back yard" or something like that where flame wars are permitted. Whole threads get moved there when it becomes a flame war.

So, yes it would be damn nice to have a forum on Salon; but this comment area is not a forum.

Does Salon have any idea how many people would see the adds if there was a Greenwald section of a forum? Jebus!

Glenn would not even go there if he did not want to; and certainly would not moderate it. Think Billmon and Moon of Alabama when Billmon got tired of moderating the comments on his own site.

Come on Salon, open that sucker up for up poor folk!

Yes. They were trying to make him crack, not kill him. They were supposed to put on a Showy Trial in Election Season to entertain the electorate and remind everyone that voters are supposed to fear WMD crazed terrorists and love the walking gods who protected the little people from them.

I'm even willing to bet that had the case gone to trial, there would have been a ratcheting up of the terrorist threat, and ominous hints, never quite able to be sourced, of a bio-attack by someone with a Muslim name, on Halloween. John McCain would have put on a bandillero, a red scarf headband, some grease stains and stage sweat, grabbed a Stinger missile to put under his arm, and said "I'm the candidate who can keep you safe. Do you feel lucky, punk?" (while his wife, dressed in nothing but black leather chaps and tattoos, did the hokey-pokey with a banana). ;-}

Any inquiry we have now will focus entirely on the tactics of the FBI, not on whether or not they were pressured. We've been stooges, in a way, because we have helped make this all about the FBI. I feel sorry for those agents who were honestly trying to solve a case, and may have even protested the attempts to speed it up. Even if they were on the wrong track.

Thanks Glenn for great reporting on this issue. The NYT did seem to take some of the FBI's contentions at face value (and its companion piece, 'In Email, Hints of Delusion' seemed skewed toward the FBI's viewpoint), but overall I think they did a decent job of providing balanced reporting. In particular, the NYT provided a good deal of space for experts and skeptics of the FBI's case, as well as the attorneys involved in Ivins' defense. The NYT also noted that the FBI could not place Ivins in Princeton, and that the FBI's focus on Hatfill undermined its credibility. I read a lot of crap in that rag, but this is one of the few issues involving Federal govt. actors which they seem to be following their own script to. On a unrelated note, it just makes my blood boil that the FBI would stage such a deplorable dog and pony act to smear the name of someone who can no longer defend themselves. Anyone can clearly see that this is unethical as well as unneccessary and that the FBI has absolutely no justifiable role in doing so. One wonders what would have become of this case if Hatfill had come to an untimely death several years ago. No doubt, Ivins would have, if he is indeed the culprit, escaped justice completely due to the FBI's overriding imperative of CYA.

And the question: to put Ivins' attorneys continuing interest in this case in context, I was wondering if any of the legal professionals out there could tell me whether a lawyer continues to have an ethical or fiduciary responsibility to a client, even after they die or are no longer in their employ.

I was in sore need of a chuckle. Read right through the misspelling the first time. Wouldn't have caught it if you hadn't pointed to it, but then I'd have fewer endorphins circulating in my system. And, I could use a few endorphins right now.

Rather than ridicule some of the laughably weak evidence offered, which has become way too easy, I thought I'd take a minute to play devil's advocate and look at elements that, considered objectively, at least have some prime facie plausibility on their side. I'm not personally going over to the other side here. I just think you have a stronger case when you can refute your opponent's best shots, not his lamest.

1. Major genetic markers tying the anthrax samples to RMC-1029, of which Ivins had "sole custody".

As I said, this at least sounds plausible on its face as a means of establishing guilt - let's say it is at least "scientistic" if not scientific. As CargoCult, Jim White and others have pointed out, there are many weak links here - i.e., no full genome sequencing by independent source, labs like Battelle left out of sampling, no apparent attempt to determine what labs might have received spores from RMC-1029 (any in NJ?), chaos in B3 in aftermath of attacks, Ivins' inexperience with adding silica/electric charge to spores, etc. If the FBI can address these issues, they may have a case (finally). If not, there's plenty of room for reasonable doubt.

2. Evasive, incriminating behavior by Ivins. Here I would include the apparently doctored or mislabeled samples submitted by Ivins in 2002, his alleged attempts to incriminate or divert attention to colleagues, and his furtive disposing of a book and article on DNA sequencing. If true, this behavior does look suspicious. However, it also appears consistent with the behavior of someone with Paranoid Personality Disorder. Was he acting weird because he was guilty, or because he was weird? More details would be helpful to establish a pattern.

3. Timing of late night work. Ivins himself never claimed to be working on anything 9/11 or Bioport related, he simply said in effect he was working late to get away from problems at home. This was his motive for working late. But what did he actually do? Emailing, surfing for porn, mulling over a new anthrax vaccine, preparing attack spores, who knows. But in addition to the timing, the extra days put in right before the 2nd attack would mesh with the second attack strain's being more highly cultivated (assuming, again, that is the case).

I would also like to address the issue of whether the planning involved in the attack was consistent with Ivins' mental condition. One thing to consider is, despite his condition, Ivins was able to continue working effectively at USAMRIID, so effectively in fact he received the DoD's highest civilian award in 2003. As a very bright, high-functioning, self-aware person with a serious psychological illness, I believe he could have acted rationally enough to plan and carry out the attacks (note: could, not did).