posted on May 19, 2005 08:59:32 AM new
Good story here but don't post to it or you'll be accused by "some" of "stalking "". Other vile and completely ridiculous accusations will be viciously leveled against you (especially if you're right) by some mentally unstable person who has spent way too much time here.
I think it's a good article and WELCOME comments.
SECAUCUS -- I smell something - and it ain't a copy of the Qu'ran sopping wet from being stuck in a toilet in Guantanamo Bay. It's the ink drying on Scott McClellan's resignation, and in an only partly imperfect world, it would be drifting out over Washington, and imminently.
Last Thursday, General Richard Myers, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Donald Rumsfeld's go-to guy whenever the situation calls for the kind of gravitas the Secretary himself can't supply, told reporters at the Pentagon that rioting in Afghanistan was related more to the on-going political reconciliation process there, than it was to a controversial note buried in the pages of Newsweek claiming that the government was investigating whether or not some nitwit interrogator at Gitmo really had desecrated a Muslim holy book.
But Monday afternoon, while offering himself up to the networks for a series of rare, almost unprecedented sit-down interviews on the White House lawn, Press Secretary McClellan said, in effect, that General Myers, and the head of the after-action report following the disturbances in Jalalabad, Lieutenant General Karl Eikenberry, were dead wrong. The Newsweek story, McClellan said, "has done damage to our image abroad and it has done damage to the credibility of the media and Newsweek in particular. People have lost lives. This report has had serious consequences."
Whenever I hear Scott McClellan talking about 'media credibility,' I strain to remember who it was who admitted Jeff Gannon to the White House press room and called on him all those times.
Whenever I hear this White House talking about 'doing to damage to our image abroad' and how 'people have lost lives,' I strain to remember who it was who went traipsing into Iraq looking for WMD that will apparently turn up just after the Holy Grail will - and at what human cost.
Newsweek's version of this story has varied from the others over the last two years - ones in The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Washington Post, and British and Russian news organizations - only in that it quoted a government source who now says he didn't have firsthand knowledge of whether or not the investigation took place (oops, sorry, shoulda mentioned that, buh-bye). All of its other government connections - the ones past which it ran the story - have gone from saying nothing like 'don't print this, it ain't true' or 'don't print this, it may be true but it'll start riots,' to looking slightly confused and symbolically saying 'Newsweek? Newsweek who?'
Whatever I smell comes from this odd sequence of events: Newsweek gets blasted by the White House, apologizes over the weekend but doesn't retract its story. Then McClellan offers his Journalism 101 outdoor seminar and blasts the magazine further. Finally, just before 5 PM Monday, the Dan Rather drama replaying itself in its collective corporate mind, Newsweek retracts.
I'm always warning about the logical fallacy - the illusion that just because one event follows another, the latter must have necessarily caused the former. But when I wondered tonight on Countdown if it applied here, Craig Crawford reassured me. "The dots connect."
The real point, of course, is that you'd have to be pretty dumb to think that making a threat at Gitmo akin to 'Spill the beans or we'll kill this Qu'ran' would have any effect on the prisoners, other than to eventually leak out and inflame anti-American feelings somewhere. Of course, everybody in the prosecution of the so-called 'war on terror' has done something dumb, dating back to the President's worst-possible-word-selection ("crusade" on September 16, 2001. So why wouldn't some mid-level interrogator stuck in Cuba think it would be a good idea to desecrate a holy book? Jack Rice, the former CIA special agent and now radio host, said on Countdown that it would be a "knuckleheaded" thing to do, but "plausible."
One of the most under-publicized analyses of 9/11 concludes that Osama Bin Laden assumed that the attacks on the U.S. would galvanize Islamic anger towards this country, and they'd overthrow their secular governments and woo-hoo we've got an international religious war. Obviously it didn't happen. It didn't even happen when the West went into Iraq. But if stuff like the Newsweek version of a now two-year old tale about toilets and Qu'rans is enough to set off rioting in the streets of countries whose nationals were not even the supposed recipients of the 'abuse', then weren't those members of the military or the government with whom Newsweek vetted the plausibility of its item, honor-bound to say "you can't print this"?
Or would somebody rather play politics with this? The way Craig Crawford reconstructed it, this one went similarly to the way the Killian Memos story evolved at the White House. The news organization turns to the administration for a denial. The administration says nothing. The news organization runs the story. The administration jumps on the necks of the news organization with both feet - or has its proxies do it for them.
That's beyond shameful. It's treasonous.
It's also not very smart. While places like the Fox News Channel (which, only today, I finally recognized - it's the newscast perpetually running on the giant video screens in the movie "1984" ask how many heads should roll at Newsweek, it forgets in its fervor that both the story and the phony controversy around it are not so cut-and-dried this time.
Firstly, the principal reporter on the Gitmo story was Michael Isikoff - "Spikey" in a different lifetime; Linda Tripp's favorite journalist, and one of the ten people most responsible (intentionally or otherwise) for the impeachment of Bill Clinton. Spikey isn't just a hero to the Right - the Right owes him.
And larger still, in terms of politics, this isn't well-defined, is it? I mean Conservatives might parrot McClellan and say 'Newsweek put this country in a bad light.' But they could just as easily thump their chests and say 'See, this is what we do to those prisoners at Gitmo! You guys better watch your asses!'
Ultimately, though, the administration may have effected its biggest mistake over this saga, in making the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs look like a liar or na￯f, just to draw a little blood out of Newsweek's hide. Either way - and also for that tasteless, soul-less conclusion that deaths in Afghanistan should be lain at the magazine's doorstep - Scott McClellan should resign. The expiration on his carton full of blank-eyed bully-collaborator act passed this afternoon as he sat reeling off those holier-than-thou remarks. Ah, that's what I smelled.
posted on May 19, 2005 10:06:55 AM new
Great thread crowfarm, now you are telling everyone how to post. You are the stalker as I proved in another thread. Now you are making diagnosis on someone you know nothing about. I will defend anyone that you stalk. Remember this board is owned and operated by Vendio and not you. If you want your own go find one as I am sure there are quite a few out there.
Remember there are some of us that don't work and can do what we want anytime we want to unlike you you have a job and the only time you leave this board is when you are there. Your poor significant other, or maybe you don't have one anymore.
Now go pound salt crowfarm. I see you edited your last post. What did you take out? Of course nobody could see it so you can say anything as you started it so.
Now I hope I wrecked your thread like you do all the other ones people start. You deserve everything you get?
posted on May 19, 2005 10:29:06 AM new
You deserve everything you get?
Libra63
posted on May 19, 2005 10:06:55 AM
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Great thread crowfarm, now you are telling everyone how to post. You are the stalker as I proved in another thread. Now you are making diagnosis on someone you know nothing about. I will defend anyone that you stalk. Remember this board is owned and operated by Vendio and not you. If you want your own go find one as I am sure there are quite a few out there.
Remember there are some of us that don't work and can do what we want anytime we want to unlike you you have a job and the only time you leave this board is when you are there. Your poor significant other, or maybe you don't have one anymore.
Now go pound salt crowfarm. I see you edited your last post. What did you take out? Of course nobody could see it so you can say anything as you started it so.
Now I hope I wrecked your thread like you do all the other ones people start. You deserve everything you get? """"
Is this where I whine and cry about being "stocked"(libra's spelling) ?
OH! Somebody posted to my thread ...OH Heavens to Betsey A stalker Oh MY! Call my lawyer(sob, slither whine cry, mewl and puke)
posted on May 19, 2005 10:34:29 AM new
Isno't "Betsey" spelled Betsy? Now you don't have to cut and past my threads crowfarm because I WILL NOT edit anything I post. It is you and only you that does that.
Now you put in your thread something that isn't true. I said stocked in another thread not this one.
How do you like it. Keeps you on your toes as now you have two people to stalk.
posted on May 19, 2005 10:51:30 AM new
Cf, what are you doing posting articles out of Secaucus? lol...you have any idea what that place is like!! LOL>>>ergo your kinda place, swampland!
I actually like McClellan. I've always thought he was a good speaker. Why would he need to resign?
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[ edited by dblfugger9 on May 19, 2005 10:56 AM ]
posted on May 19, 2005 11:08:31 AM new
yeah crowfarm, you've got it all right and everyone else is all wrong. Youre frickin delusional as usual.
Big dime word you got there lets see if you turn it into a dollar, or this will be nickel split word of the week, month, year, century for you. So far youre stuck.
on September 16, 2001. So why wouldn't some mid-level interrogator stuck in Cuba think it would be a good idea to desecrate a holy book? Jack Rice, the former CIA special agent and now radio host, said on Countdown that it would be a "knuckleheaded" thing to do, but "plausible."
