Was the FBI planning to wait up to 2 years to take Dr. Ivins to trial?

Would they have had to wait for journal publication to try him, especially since the death penalty was at stake?

Now that they don't have to put him to death, why don't they release their proof and prove their case?

Gorby, in today's NYT makes only the following claims:

Quote:

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?

...

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

-----

Actually, I was thinking what happened to all our vaunted satellite imagery? Surely we know exactly where troops are and what happened to the building in various towns - unless Georgia has been under cloud cover for the past so many days? Why do we have to rely on claims by either side?

I've noticed that the "younger generation" not only doesn't share this heroic vision of life -- and that it's one of the things about boomers that really annoys the hell out them.

You should come out to Bummertown, by Putrid Sound (home of Sub-Pop). Every man is a Knight in Shining Armor, and every woman a Damsel in Distress.

The only relief is listening to "Twentieth Century Jazz, the First Half" on KBCS, 91.3FM or click my name to "listen live" on the web. There's no better accompaniment to a big cup of Greenwald.

http://kbcs.fm/site/PageServer?pagename=listenlive

Did I mention the completely entrancing Hawaiian show on Sat at 12N?

Of course you, Susan, might prefer the completely up to the second coverage of folk music, or something else, but it's all there, a "world of music and ideas"

"Other than THE PROPOGANDA MODEL I don't know if anybody has ever tried to create an objective way of explaining the confluence of factors that shape the media's political news coverage."

McChesney's the media monopoly has attemtped such a feat with varying success. Chomsky's (and not to forget Herman) was written in 88 and I think a lot of the media structure has changed radically since then. Also, if I'm not mistaken (and I read it a long, long time ago), Chomsky deals mostly with papers of record (NYT, WashPost, etc.) not with broadcast media, and the as yet futuristic internet media, and certainly not with right wing broadcast which was still a fringe sector driven by the likes of Morton Downey. So I don't think Chomsky got it all. I do see a lot of propaganda aspects in the papers of records breaking of stories dear to Republican administrations. As others have noted, the NYT and Washpost make their money off advertising ( to the 'right' demo), not off of distribution like smaller papers, so in a sense, Chomsky's focus was probably more enduring than it could have been, since a similar dynamic is at work in current media models. This became a dissertations somewhere along the way, too much coffee. Anyway, my point was that neither Bagdikian or Chomsky have covered the topic completely, its rather hugely complex and would need several volumes to analyze the way economics, political ties and independent actors shape the beast.

Upon reading this story, Helen probably went into her back yard, dug herself a nice big six foot hole just so she could have something to lie down and spin in.

The 4th Estate indeed.

Glenn: "But I'm far from convinced that during the Clinton administration, we had some aggressive, adversarial press on meaningful policy issues (as opposed to tawdry scandals, where the press was beyond "adversarial")..."

The one consistent flaw in GG's generally excellent media criticism is his under-valuation of the purely partisan dynamic that drives our discontent. Since the early 90s, Big Media doesn't serve the Government; it serves the Republican Party and follows the scripts provided.

The reason there was little adversarial press on meaningful policy issues during the Clinton years was that the REPUBLICANS generally were not adversarial about meaningful policy issues in those years. Early in the Clinton Administration, the Republicans pretty much abandoned substantive policy argument in favor of character assassination and feverish scandal-mongering, and the press followed suit. I.e., the press simply did what the Republicans wanted. (Given the popularity of Clinton's mostly centrist policies, the last thing the Republicans wanted was a lot of policy-based argument.)

There was a major policy debate about health care in Clinton's first term. The Republicans and their allies fiercely opposed Clinton's plan and made many misleading and false claims about it. And those misleading and false claims were (surprise!) disseminated annd repeated uncritically by the press. The Democratic president's (much more truthful) claims? Not so much.

If Obama wins, adversarial journalism will return with stunning speed and vigor. Just watch.

I am quite possibly Glenzilla's biggest fan but I have to agree with what someone else said above, "other than that?". I don't think its as simple and as self-conscious as media-hates-Democrats-therefore-biases-reports but I think there is no doubt that the prevailing confluence of interests and influences results in the media systematically beating up on Democrats much more than Republicans.

Character questions are much more influential politically than issue questions anyway. Once you've beaten Clinton into the ground on Whitewater, Travelgate, Lewinsky, haircuts, FBI files, draft dodging (which they never did to Bush), etc. etc. etc. then you don't need to attack him on issues anyway.

And notice what they did right after Clinton: they assassinated Democrat Al Gore's presidential candidacy both during the campaign and in the recount debacle. Did they do it on issues in addition to character? You bet they did. They've never covered supply-side economics fairly. Although they branded Gore a liar, they've never covered actual liars in a fair and balanced manner.

I googled Kaplan (again, too much coffee) and found this tid bit from the greasy texts of Wonkette...

"The most interesting info about Kaplan is that he used to be a Democrat, in his college days. Back in 1990, he was elected as an alternate delegate to the Massachusetts State Democratic Convention. Who’d have thunk that a Brooks Brothers rioter and successor to Karl Rove was a Democrat in his youth? A college classmate of Kaplan has this to say:

I vaguely remember that he was an active Democrat, albeit a somewhat conservative one. He was a total politico: he represented Eliot House in the Undergraduate Council, and IIRC, he agitated for bringing ROTC back onto campus. I’ll bet my last dollar he voted against Bush 41 in ‘88."

Also, apparently, Kaplan's Marine tour of duty happened to be the 'war is hell' Mexican American border in the early nineties. The experience of reading Playboy in the desert for hours on end must have been excruciating, and the resulting PTSD and may account for his turn from right wing Democrat to right wing Republican. Lastly, Kaplan seems to have been the manufactured 'brooks brothers riot' that shut down the Florida recount.

I bet you all knew all this, but it was news to me...