to Lasseter's story in McClatchy

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/48860.html

Fair enough. The specific claim he makes, in the first paragraph of his Op-Ed, is this;

But how can one erase from memory the horrifying scenes of the nighttime rocket attack on a peaceful town, the razing of entire city blocks, the deaths of people taking cover in basements, the destruction of ancient monuments and ancestral graves?

The evidence to which I referred was primarily Tom Lasseter's report for McClatchy. Some of his comments:

Russian politicians and their partners in Tskhinvali, the capital of the breakaway region South Ossetia, said that when Georgian forces tried to seize control of the city and the surrounding area, the physical damage was comparable to Stalingrad and the killings similar to the Holocaust.

But a trip to the city on Sunday, without official escorts, revealed a very different picture. While it was clear there had been heavy fighting — missiles knocked holes in walls, and bombs tore away rooftops — almost all of the buildings seen in an afternoon driving around Tskhinvali were still standing.

Russian-backed leaders in South Ossetia have said that 2,100 people died in fighting in Tskhinvali and nearby villages. But a doctor at the city's main hospital, the only one open during the battles that began late on Aug. 7, said the facility recorded just 40 deaths.

You will correctly point out that not everything Gorbachev said here is disputed, although the "razing of entire city blocks" certainly seems to be and I would argue that overall the impression Gorbachev makes is inconsistent with Lasseter's report.

As I said, I do not claim that Lasseter is free from bias or even necessarily accurate (although you would have to agree, I hope, that McClatchy has generally been noted for reliable reporting). My point is only that there is no less reason to doubt Gorbachev -- indeed, probably a lot more given that he is, after all, a Russian politician.

Gorby: "Tskhinvali was in smoking ruins and thousands of people were fleeing — before any Russian troops arrived."

McClatchy:

"The difference between Russian officials' description of Tskhinvali and the facts on the ground are profound."

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/48860.html

Granted, the McClatchy piece is not countering Gorby directly. But it does call into question some claims being made by the Russian Govt.

Go to www.daylife.com/photos and search for Tskhinvali. Remember some damaged buildings are photographed multiple times.

http://www.daylife.com/photo/05L53eQ3n1b6z/Tskhinvali

with this caption needs to be tied into the McClatchy report.

Quote

"1 week ago: A South Ossetia fighter stands next to coffins at a makeshift morgue in a destroyed hospital, in Tskhinvali, the Georgian breakaway enclave of South Ossetia's capital, on Tuesday, Aug. 12, 2008. Russia accused Georgia of killing more than 2,000 people, mostly civilians, in the separatist province of South Ossetia. The claim couldn't be independently confirmed, but witnesses who fled the area over the weekend said hundreds had died."

---

there's another pic from 11 months ago

Quote

The President of the Georgian breakaway region of South Ossetia, Eduard Kokoity, watches a military parade during an independence day ceremony in Tskhinvali September 20, 2007. The Georgian breakaway region of South Ossetia celebrated on Thursday the 17th anniversary of declaring itself independent from Georgia. The tiny sliver of land fought a short war against the central government in Tbilisi after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Its declaration of independence has internationally not been recognized, but Russia gives it moral and financial support - a major irritant in the relations between Tbilisi and Moscow.

11 months ago

So 11 months ago, Georgia was nowhere in control of Tskhinvali.

Perhaps you will find the Chairman of the World Congress of Russian Jewry more creditable than Gorbachev

Why no, no I don't. Sorry. Is there some reason I should?

Glen,

You quote the OP-ED by Gorbachev as if he some sort of legitimate authority on whats going on. Putting aside for the moment he was the head of the former Soviet Empire and didn't just happen into that job but was picked to lead our former enemy because of his loyalty to the state, he is hardly in a position to tell us whats going on being he isn't in the new Russian Government.

If you want actually get a good idea of whats going on, read this report by a journalist WHO ACTUALLY WENT THERE AND DID SOME JOURNALISM: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bernardhenri-levy/georgia-at-war-what-i-saw_b_120076.html

And please, PLEASE stop with this "Blame America First" meme i have seen all over the left blogs with regards to this topic. I am so GD sick and tired of reading how the Georgians deserved it or its somehow our fault or whatever the rationalization of the day is.

Herewith a spontaneous free-association exercise I just conducted-- a very rough, sketchy list of attributes amounting to a caricature of the "old-fashioned" reporter versus the corporate media aristocracy. I well understand that these straw-sketches are over-simplified. With that disclaimer...

Archaeo-journalist: high-school graduate (college OK, not mandatory); underpaid; unimportant; earns "byline" by merit (still underpaid); outsider; skeptic; cynic; aggressive; prefers to remain detached from, and adversarial to the powerful elite (distrusts power)

Neo-journalist: college/j-school graduate; relatively well-paid corporate employee; (self)important; seeks iconic celebrity status; insider; credulous; sycophantic; collusive; mingles with, and aspires to parity with the powerful elite (admires power)

___________________________

It seems to me that there is a class component that accounts for the Fourth Estate's transition from the ostensible friend of the common man to the handmaidens of the powerful. The wealthy and powerful have moved into the Fourth Estate lock, stock, and barrel, and the media are living in the slave quarters out back.

However, the Upstairs/Downstairs duality is semi-permeable, such that the Upstairs servants who do their masters' bidding well enough eventually get to sit at the table and join them as equals, or at least equivalents.

I'm just thinking of icons like I.F. Stone, George Seldes, Ida Tarbell-- Helen Thomas-- and even classic fictional reporters like Eddie Willis (Humphrey Bogart) in "The Harder They Fall". This group wasn't impressed, thrilled, and awed by the elite and powerful they covered, and they didn't pursue a career track for the sake of becoming fabulously wealthy and owning homes cheek by jowl with the persons they covered. Nor did they cultivate status, like the modern Beltway Insiders, and take obvious pleasure in clubbiness with the movers & shakers they cover.

This isn't true of the reporters, pundits, and journalists with whom Glenn so frequently takes issue. The adversarial ethos has become "quaint", rather like the Geneva Conventions. Instead, the corporatized and hyper-professionalized journalists have gone "upscale"; as this article so vividly demonstrates, they by and large practice a camaraderie with their fellow aristocrats. They're accorded status as experts as a function of the contacts and sources they develop, not because of sheer independent investigatory skill and determination.

They are united by a common aristocratic class, and to a more or less conscious degree scorn or despise the quaint criticism that this impedes and vitiates their capacity to probe into, report on, and challenge controversial, suspicious, or blatantly wrongful actions by persons of power and influence, aka The Establishment.