picky, picky, picky

Next thing you know he'll be telling them they can't come here and wave their tiny arms like windmills whilst spewing spittle all over the place.

Rex Tomb, Chief of Investigative Publicity for the FBI responded, “The reason why 9/11 is not mentioned on Osama bin Laden’s Most Wanted page is because the FBI has no hard evidence connecting bin Laden to 9/11.” Tomb continued, “Bin Laden has not been formally charged in connection to 9/11.” Asked to explain the process, Tomb responded, “The FBI gathers evidence. Once evidence is gathered, it is turned over to the Department of Justice. The Department of Justice then decides whether it has enough evidence to present to a federal grand jury. In the case of the 1998 United States Embassies being bombed, bin Laden has been formally indicted and charged by a grand jury. He has not been formally indicted and charged in connection with 9/11 because the FBI has no hard evidence connecting bin Laden to 9/11.”

from http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/articles/16-no-hard-evidence-connecting-bin-laden-to-9-11/

or when journalism is reduced to false moral/factual equivalencies via the stenographic process of striking a "faux balance" by always representing that two "sides" of an issue are always equally meritous and that "truth" is found somewhere in between.

That's right: Much of the White House press corps spent the Fourth schmoozing with White House staffers, catching performances by the Foo Fighters and Jimmy Fallon, and watching the fireworks from the most exclusive vantage point in the D.C. metro area, all off the record

I bet they didn't send a ticket to Helen.

A shame because I'd have paid good money to see her cutting a rug to the Foo Fighters.

You are being invited to attend this event as a guest.

That's a nice, one-sentence summation of exactly what's wrong with modern US so-called journalism... they see themselves as "guests."

And, once again, bernbart is half-right: for a "guest" to blog or tweet or Facebook an "event" is terribly rude and déclassé.

For a journalist, it's their job.

These people are courtiers, nothing more nor less.

I guess you missed all the news outlets around the world which released Osama's videos. Which came via middle east media by the way.

-- bernbart

You mean the video with Osama using his right hand to eat food, even though he's left handed? Did you hear Osama say it himself, or is that what the reporter said he was saying? So if Osama was involved in 9/11, why does his FBI most wanted poster not list that as one of his crimes? Why would FBI agents state we have no evidence linking Osama Bin Laden to 9/11? From project censored http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/articles/16-no-hard-evidence-connecting-bin-laden-to-9-11/ (link at sig)

The fact is you don't know jack. I doubt you speak farsi or whatever langauge Osama speaks. So you rely on what you are told. Ever notice how when a new Osama tape is released, it's never played for us in America. We are just told what gov't agents claim Osama is saying. Yet it's played in other parts of the world. Why is that?

Glenn,

For another amazing example of this, please check out a book I just finished: Kafka Comes to America, by Steven Wax (2008). Wax is the Oregon Public Defender who is well-known for successfully defending Brandon Mayfield, the soft-spoken attorney who was unjustly accused of complicity in the Madrid train bombing, due to an amateurish, false fingerprint "match," but also due to his Moslem faith. But that's only one track. The other is Wax's much more frustrating journey, defending a Sudanese humanitarian worker who remained in Guantanamo for five years based on what even the US admitted was false information -- but still kept him detained another two years.

I like to distinguish between reporting and Opinion. I think Glenn's' column is Opinion, and I think it is sad that many readers do not, or cannot distinguish reporting the news from opinion.

If your reference points were truth and lies then maybe you would understand that "reporting" has little, if any, value when all it does is faithfully reproduce the lies of the powerful.

True enough.. and all Senators are US Citizens so Glenn could have said "US Citizens say that in Gitmo we house the worst of the worst".. in fact to be even more accurate we could just use the term Human Beings.. since I think all Senators are Human Beings (come to think about it, that might be a stretch)

-- Stephen Peter

You're not really interested in a conversation are you? You're only interested in playing 'gothcha' by pretending that you've exposed some falsity or hyperbole of some sort. If Glenn had posted a link to something that, for example, say, Obama, had said would you have expected Glenn to have written, "No matter how many times some guy claims..." when Glenn was actually specifically referring to Obama, The POTUS? According to your logic, that would seem to be your expectation or "your argument". How clever by half you are.

Well, he wasn't alone. Gawker has learned that the White House gave tickets to virtually every major news organization that covers the president—the New York Times, Washington Post, Newsweek, Time, ABC News, NBC News, CNN, CBS News, and so on, about 30 in all.

Was this the White House's way of mollifying Dana Milbank?

When will you get that blogging and twittering non stop at meetings or evnts is RUDE!!!!!

picky, picky, picky:

Here's how demands for retractions work:

(1) You identify a factually false statement someone wrote or spoke;

(2) You identify and highlight the evidence demonstrating it to be false.

You've done neither. Feel free to try. Screaming "you were wrong!!!" doesn't even rise above the level of hysteria.

Stunning al-Harmain Filing Shames Obama; Shows Duplicity Of Officials
By: bmaz Thursday July 9, 2009 12:35 pm

In early June, a critical hearing was held in front of Judge Vaughn Walker in the al-Haramain warrantless wiretapping case. As a result of that hearing, Judge Walker entered an order commanding the attorney for plaintiffs al-Haramain et. al to file a motion for summary judgement. Hot off the press, the motion was filed minutes ago, and it is a stunning demonstration of just how disingenuous and two faced President Obama and his administration have been on the seminal issues of warrantless wiretapping, protection of Constitutional rights, transparency and accountability....

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2009/07/09/stunning-al-harmain-filing-shames-obama-shows-duplicity-of-officials/#more-4456