Academics are far from unanimous that only kooks and misguided ideologues suspect the government is covering up the truth about 9/11.
One example of a professional who doubts the government story is Richard A. Falk, a UN human rights official.
"Any close student of 9/11 is aware of the many serious discrepancies between the official version of what took place and the actual happenings of that fateful day in 2001," wrote Falk, the UN's human rights rapporteur in Israeli-occupied territories.
The recently retired Princeton University international law professor argued that it is "not paranoid" to "assume that established elites of the American government structure have something to hide, and much to explain."
Falk's article, which appeared Nov. 9, 2008 in a British journal, took aim at the fact that the presidential candidates avoided discussion of these matters. Please see http://www.journal-online.co.uk/article/5056-911-more-than-meets-the-eye. Or Google: Richard Falk, 9/11.
Falk, who is a member of the editorial board of the left-leaning Nation, was, however, somewhat critical of government antagonists, saying that "what has not been established by the '9/11 Truth Movement' is a convincing counter-narrative -- that is, an alternate version of the events that clears up to what degree, if at all, the attacks resulted from incompetence, deliberate inaction and outright complicity."
Comment: There is ample evidence of "outright complicity." However, it is quite difficult for honest observers, lacking the power of subpoena, to shake out a truthful account of all covert actions related to the attacks.
Christmas jet attack's 9/11 echoes
There are many chilling echoes of the attacks of 9/11 in the Yuletide terror attempt.
Recriminations are flying, and we have the same failure to connect dots. Now consider, suppose the jet downing had succeeded? The hysteria would have been so great that Obama would have been forced into draconian measures that enhanced the control of those secret cliques Falk was talking about.
Yes, the CIA is taking a lot of heat right now. But, had the attack succeeded, perhaps the heat would have been worthwhile. After all, the CIA managed very well with political damage control following the 9/11 attacks (and also following John Kennedy's assassination).
Though I can't at this point say that we have grounds to suspect an inside job, I would say that there are disconcerting similarities with a previous inside job.
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Why does Shermer believe weird things?
Because al Qaeda claimed credit for the Christmas airline bombing attempt, therefore the U.S. government is innocent of involvement in orchestrating the events of 9/11.
This is the reasoning of Skeptic Michael Shermer, according to a Dec. 28 post at TrueSlant.
Evidently the Skeptic missed his basic logic class at university.
Well, actually, he didn't quite use strict logic. He deployed the implication arrow rather loosely, in the manner typical of a professional propagandist. Maybe he should write a column for the New York Post, or appear as a commentator on Fox News.
There are very few critics of the official 9/11 tale who claim that al Qaeda is not a terrorist group anxious to inflict spectacular casualties on Americans. The point is that the scientific evidence fails to corroborate the government story about what occurred on Sept. 11, 2001.
Nevertheless, we can anticipate that there will be a barrage of this sort of junk reasoning aimed at drowning out the inconvenient truths about what happened, and did not happen, on 9/11.
And note the contrast between this most recent al Qaeda attack -- if that's what it really was -- and the attacks of 9/11. In the first case, we have a highly coordinated, professional paramilitary operation; in the latter case, we have an attack at about the level of sophistication al Qaeda demonstrated before and after 9/11.
If Shermer is not a professional disinformation agent, then, alas, he is a scientist whose reasoning powers have been clouded by hysterical, irrational thinking.
This is the reasoning of Skeptic Michael Shermer, according to a Dec. 28 post at TrueSlant.
Evidently the Skeptic missed his basic logic class at university.
Well, actually, he didn't quite use strict logic. He deployed the implication arrow rather loosely, in the manner typical of a professional propagandist. Maybe he should write a column for the New York Post, or appear as a commentator on Fox News.
There are very few critics of the official 9/11 tale who claim that al Qaeda is not a terrorist group anxious to inflict spectacular casualties on Americans. The point is that the scientific evidence fails to corroborate the government story about what occurred on Sept. 11, 2001.
Nevertheless, we can anticipate that there will be a barrage of this sort of junk reasoning aimed at drowning out the inconvenient truths about what happened, and did not happen, on 9/11.
And note the contrast between this most recent al Qaeda attack -- if that's what it really was -- and the attacks of 9/11. In the first case, we have a highly coordinated, professional paramilitary operation; in the latter case, we have an attack at about the level of sophistication al Qaeda demonstrated before and after 9/11.
If Shermer is not a professional disinformation agent, then, alas, he is a scientist whose reasoning powers have been clouded by hysterical, irrational thinking.
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
What Bush 'knew' and when he 'knew' it
Within hours of the 9/11 attacks, the White House "knew" without a doubt that al Qaeda had carried them out, the former British envoy to the United States has testified.
Christopher Meyer, the former ambassador, told of a conversation with National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice. "She said, well, there's no doubt it's -- this has been an al Qaeda operation."
The disclosure to Britain's Iraq war inquiry makes one wonder how the White House could have been so certain so rapidly. Perhaps the FBI had by then found the luggage left on a connecting flight that, at first sight, seemed to implicate al Qaeda, but that, on further reflection, looked planted. (See my article The worst of Hearst which can be reached via the links in the sidebar.)
It seems quite suspicious that the White House was dead certain that al Qaeda had pulled off the attacks so soon after they occurred. How were top officials already so sure that there was no chicanery going on? After all, it's a given that cloak-and-dagger units are proficient at throwing suspicion onto others.
And to compound things, Meyer added that the White House was already seeing a link between the attacks and Saddam Hussein. "But at the end of the conversation, it's: we are just looking to see whether there could possibly be any connection with Saddam Hussein. And that was the very first time -- on the day itself -- that I heard the name of the Iraqi leader mentioned in the context of -- of 9/11."
(Gleaned from a Judy Woodruff report on PBS's Newshour.)
A top aide to Prime Minister Tony Blair then confirmed that the White House was pushing to link the attacks to Hussein very soon after Sept. 11.
David Manning, Blair's foreign policy adviser in 2001, testified that, in a Sept. 14 conversation with Blair, President Bush "said that there might be evidence that there was some connection between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda."
Manning added, "The prime minister's response to this was that the evidence would have to be very compelling to justify taking any action against Iraq."
(Gleaned from an Agence France Presse report.)
A "link" of sorts eventually surfaced when military anthrax was mailed to journalists and politicians. The White House seized on the anthrax attack to imply a link to Saddam, who was suspected of developing military grade anthrax. That pattern of inuendo was sustained even after it was learned that the anthrax was linked to the Pentagon.
We see that:
1. The White House was immediately interested in exploiting the attacks of 9/11 to further its agenda against Hussein, but that the British were not persuaded there was much to the suspicion. Others have also disclosed that the in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, the White House decided to "get" Saddam. If the White House wasn't overly concerned with the truth at that point, does this not suggest that the White House was behaving as if it had advance knowledge?
2. Blair knew that the White House favored military action against Iraq based on unsubstantiated inferences. Yet, supposedly he accepted the White House's eventual theory that Iraq was sitting on a dangerous complex of WMD horror weapons. In other words, didn't Blair realize that the White House was determined to launch a war no matter what and that, perhaps, he should have been chary of being dragged along?
Christopher Meyer, the former ambassador, told of a conversation with National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice. "She said, well, there's no doubt it's -- this has been an al Qaeda operation."
The disclosure to Britain's Iraq war inquiry makes one wonder how the White House could have been so certain so rapidly. Perhaps the FBI had by then found the luggage left on a connecting flight that, at first sight, seemed to implicate al Qaeda, but that, on further reflection, looked planted. (See my article The worst of Hearst which can be reached via the links in the sidebar.)
It seems quite suspicious that the White House was dead certain that al Qaeda had pulled off the attacks so soon after they occurred. How were top officials already so sure that there was no chicanery going on? After all, it's a given that cloak-and-dagger units are proficient at throwing suspicion onto others.
And to compound things, Meyer added that the White House was already seeing a link between the attacks and Saddam Hussein. "But at the end of the conversation, it's: we are just looking to see whether there could possibly be any connection with Saddam Hussein. And that was the very first time -- on the day itself -- that I heard the name of the Iraqi leader mentioned in the context of -- of 9/11."
(Gleaned from a Judy Woodruff report on PBS's Newshour.)
A top aide to Prime Minister Tony Blair then confirmed that the White House was pushing to link the attacks to Hussein very soon after Sept. 11.
David Manning, Blair's foreign policy adviser in 2001, testified that, in a Sept. 14 conversation with Blair, President Bush "said that there might be evidence that there was some connection between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda."
Manning added, "The prime minister's response to this was that the evidence would have to be very compelling to justify taking any action against Iraq."
(Gleaned from an Agence France Presse report.)
A "link" of sorts eventually surfaced when military anthrax was mailed to journalists and politicians. The White House seized on the anthrax attack to imply a link to Saddam, who was suspected of developing military grade anthrax. That pattern of inuendo was sustained even after it was learned that the anthrax was linked to the Pentagon.
We see that:
1. The White House was immediately interested in exploiting the attacks of 9/11 to further its agenda against Hussein, but that the British were not persuaded there was much to the suspicion. Others have also disclosed that the in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, the White House decided to "get" Saddam. If the White House wasn't overly concerned with the truth at that point, does this not suggest that the White House was behaving as if it had advance knowledge?
2. Blair knew that the White House favored military action against Iraq based on unsubstantiated inferences. Yet, supposedly he accepted the White House's eventual theory that Iraq was sitting on a dangerous complex of WMD horror weapons. In other words, didn't Blair realize that the White House was determined to launch a war no matter what and that, perhaps, he should have been chary of being dragged along?
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Tiptoeing past conspiracy disclosures
The UK Iraq war inquiry got off to a hot start as leaked documents implied conspiracy between Blair and Bush to bring about war hell or high water.
One special forces general was quoted as saying he had been preparing for an Iraq war since 2002, well ahead of the timetable given in official history.
One internet reporter, Dave Lindorff, noted that most of the U.S. media ignored these disclosures, though the Philadelphia Inquirer ran an AP story and the New York Times ran a story that, he said, cruised past the conspiracy angle.
True, it's the holiday season, and many journalists assume Americans are uninterested in "foreign" news. But there is also the fact that controlled reporters and editors are fearful of being labeled as "conspiracists" for exposing conspiracies.
And clearly, the control freaks fear too much awareness of high-level conspiracy because where there's one conspiracy, there may be another -- such as to cover up the facts about 9/11.
9/11 fair trial problems
It has been reported that at least one 9/11 defendant, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, plans to plead guilty, thus sparing the government of the need to prove his guilt. However, KSM was extensively tortured. The FBI's way out is to say that he confessed to being the 9/11 ringleader before the torture by the CIA. Mmmhmm.
There are times when a judge can refuse to accept a defendant's guilty plea and force the government to prove its case. One would think that the extensive use of torture is grounds for such a decision.
However, there's a bit of a hang-up. Anyone who goes to trial should be entitled to bring in evidence concerning torture, but the special prosecutor assigned to investigate the CIA's torture of captives appears to be far from ready to prosecute anyone or issue a report. Still, the political pressure to try these people is so strong that it is unlikely defense lawyers will have access to the special prosecutor's material prior to trial.
Well, we all know these are intended as show trials meant to obtain "closure" concerning 9/11. There is no effort to bring the real 9/11 masterminds to trial.
One special forces general was quoted as saying he had been preparing for an Iraq war since 2002, well ahead of the timetable given in official history.
One internet reporter, Dave Lindorff, noted that most of the U.S. media ignored these disclosures, though the Philadelphia Inquirer ran an AP story and the New York Times ran a story that, he said, cruised past the conspiracy angle.
True, it's the holiday season, and many journalists assume Americans are uninterested in "foreign" news. But there is also the fact that controlled reporters and editors are fearful of being labeled as "conspiracists" for exposing conspiracies.
And clearly, the control freaks fear too much awareness of high-level conspiracy because where there's one conspiracy, there may be another -- such as to cover up the facts about 9/11.
9/11 fair trial problems
It has been reported that at least one 9/11 defendant, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, plans to plead guilty, thus sparing the government of the need to prove his guilt. However, KSM was extensively tortured. The FBI's way out is to say that he confessed to being the 9/11 ringleader before the torture by the CIA. Mmmhmm.
There are times when a judge can refuse to accept a defendant's guilty plea and force the government to prove its case. One would think that the extensive use of torture is grounds for such a decision.
However, there's a bit of a hang-up. Anyone who goes to trial should be entitled to bring in evidence concerning torture, but the special prosecutor assigned to investigate the CIA's torture of captives appears to be far from ready to prosecute anyone or issue a report. Still, the political pressure to try these people is so strong that it is unlikely defense lawyers will have access to the special prosecutor's material prior to trial.
Well, we all know these are intended as show trials meant to obtain "closure" concerning 9/11. There is no effort to bring the real 9/11 masterminds to trial.
Friday, October 23, 2009
Greenspan's 9/11 skepticism
I posted an item on this when Greenspan's memoir, The Age of Turbulence, was published in 2007. He didn't alter his words for the updated version that discussed the first phase of last year's financial crises.
In the days following Sept. 11, 2001, said former Fed chief Alan Greenspan, "There was no bigger question in Washington than, Why no second attack?" (Page 227)
He wrote:
"If al Qaeda's intent was to disrupt the U.S. economy, as bin Laden had declared, the attacks had to continue. Our society was open, our borders porous, and our ability to detect weapons and bombs was weak. I asked this question of a lot of people at the highest levels of government, and no one seemed to have a convincing response." (Emphasis added.)
In other words, Greenspan thought there was something fishy about the attacks and the war on terror. Greenspan, who describes himself as a libertarian Republican, makes it clear that he was disturbed by the threats to individual liberty that arose after the attacks. And, Greenspan was candid about having little respect for Bush and a number of his aides.
We should add that Greenspan does not challenge the authenticity of the purported bin Laden statement, but then, he doesn't need to. If the statement is authentic, his question follows. If it isn't, then why did the Bush bunch vouch for it?
Neither does he question the FBI's decision to treat the anthrax attacks as unrelated to the events of 9/11. Once a Pentagon role was discovered in the anthrax case, the FBI quickly nixed the theory that it was part of a single terrorist campaign. But, because that position became the official stance, Greenspan's question stands.
You won't find information like this on Fox news -- though it was widely reported that Greenspan had little use for the official tale of what was behind the Iraq war.
Greenspan argued that regional instability posed a threat to oil supplies, spurring U.S. and British action, "whatever their publicized angst about 'weapons of mass destruction'."
"I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil."
We also learn that Greenspan, a market fundamentalist, was surprised that the market's "counter-party surveillance" provided insufficient self-regulation to avert the subprime crash.
He expressed alarm at global warming and said he was concerned that political dithering would prevent realistic countermeasures. Nevertheless, he backed a tax on gasoline in order to force America to wean itself from dependence on oil. He argued that the economy could well handle a tax that pushed gas up to $5 a gallon. Of course, this was written before the wild financial meltdown of last autumn.
++++++++++++++++++++++
NOTE: Holy cow! A post from this blog showed up in the Google blog alerts under "Znewz1" -- a first. Now, the thing will be to see if blogs that mention Znewz1 show up in Google alerts.
FOLLOW-UP NOTE: Well, an alert arrived with an old Znewz1 post linked on someone else's old blog. Interesting.
In the days following Sept. 11, 2001, said former Fed chief Alan Greenspan, "There was no bigger question in Washington than, Why no second attack?" (Page 227)
He wrote:
"If al Qaeda's intent was to disrupt the U.S. economy, as bin Laden had declared, the attacks had to continue. Our society was open, our borders porous, and our ability to detect weapons and bombs was weak. I asked this question of a lot of people at the highest levels of government, and no one seemed to have a convincing response." (Emphasis added.)
In other words, Greenspan thought there was something fishy about the attacks and the war on terror. Greenspan, who describes himself as a libertarian Republican, makes it clear that he was disturbed by the threats to individual liberty that arose after the attacks. And, Greenspan was candid about having little respect for Bush and a number of his aides.
We should add that Greenspan does not challenge the authenticity of the purported bin Laden statement, but then, he doesn't need to. If the statement is authentic, his question follows. If it isn't, then why did the Bush bunch vouch for it?
Neither does he question the FBI's decision to treat the anthrax attacks as unrelated to the events of 9/11. Once a Pentagon role was discovered in the anthrax case, the FBI quickly nixed the theory that it was part of a single terrorist campaign. But, because that position became the official stance, Greenspan's question stands.
You won't find information like this on Fox news -- though it was widely reported that Greenspan had little use for the official tale of what was behind the Iraq war.
Greenspan argued that regional instability posed a threat to oil supplies, spurring U.S. and British action, "whatever their publicized angst about 'weapons of mass destruction'."
"I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil."
We also learn that Greenspan, a market fundamentalist, was surprised that the market's "counter-party surveillance" provided insufficient self-regulation to avert the subprime crash.
He expressed alarm at global warming and said he was concerned that political dithering would prevent realistic countermeasures. Nevertheless, he backed a tax on gasoline in order to force America to wean itself from dependence on oil. He argued that the economy could well handle a tax that pushed gas up to $5 a gallon. Of course, this was written before the wild financial meltdown of last autumn.
++++++++++++++++++++++
NOTE: Holy cow! A post from this blog showed up in the Google blog alerts under "Znewz1" -- a first. Now, the thing will be to see if blogs that mention Znewz1 show up in Google alerts.
FOLLOW-UP NOTE: Well, an alert arrived with an old Znewz1 post linked on someone else's old blog. Interesting.
Obama-Murdoch battle widens
A media battle royal between President Obama and mogul Rupert Murdoch is rapidly escalating.
The fracas took another turn when a media watchdog urged progessives to join an all-out campaign to delegitimize Fox News as a real news organization. This followed an effort by Republican partisans Karl Rove and Lamar Alexander to characterize Obama as a Nixon-like figure.
David Brock, who runs Media Matters, sent out a call to action to others on the left to counter "lethal" Fox, as Politico reports in its latest editions.
http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/
Brock at one time was a conservative journalist who indulged in many of the tactics used by Fox and most Murdoch media. He later wrote a book "Blinded by the Right," which marked his change of conviction.
It is very likely that Fox's Glenn Beck and others at Fox will jump on Brock's call to action as evidence that the left-wing is out to get Fox. However, it should be noted that other left-oriented groups have only touched on the controversy tepidly, if at all, and that the conservative Accuracy in the Media, while running some commentary on the brawl, has largely been unenthusiastic about backing Fox.
In another development, Newsweek published Slate chief Jacob Weisberg's piece upholding the White House view and urging reputable journalists to shun Fox, with a headline denouncing Fox -- and by implication Murdoch -- as "un-American." Considering Glenn Beck's attacks on White House aide Anita Dunn as a Mao-loving radical, Newsweek's head was no doubt thoughtfully chosen.
"Whether the White House engages with Fox is a tactical political question," wrote Weisberg. "Whether journalists continue to do so is an ethical one. By appearing on Fox, reporters validate its propaganda values and help to undermine the role of legitimate news organizations. Responsible journalists -- I'm talking to you, Mara Liasson -- should stop appearing on its programs."
A memorable dart tossed by Weisberg: "If you were watching Fox News Channel, you saw a familiar roster of platinum pundettes and anchor androids reciting the same soundbites: this was Obama's version of Nixon's enemies list."
See http://www.newsweek.com/id/218192
Clearly, non-Fox journalists have been getting a kick out of covering this feud. At least that's the sense one gets when reading the latest wrap-up in the New York Times, where it was reported that Obama himself had vented his displeasure at Fox in a closed meeting, which included the liberal opinion molders Rachel Madow, Keith Olberman, Frank Rich and Bob Herbert.
Reflecting Obama's pique, White House aide David Pfeiffer kept up the attack on Fox. "We simply decided to stop abiding by the fiction, which is aided and abetted by the mainstream press, that Fox is a traditional press organization," Pfeiffer said.
Latest salvoes: Dan Froomkin writes in the liberal Huffington Post about "why journalists shouldn't defend Fox" and Murdoch's Wall Street Journal has a right-spin piece by James Taranto suggesting that the White House is behaving like left-wing radicals when it criticizes Fox.
Some question the political wisdom of the White House drive to marginalize Fox as a serious news organization. However, one might recall that Hillary Clinton kicked off a counter-offensive in the Monica Lewinsky scandal with her famous "vast, right-wing conspiracy" theory. That counter-offensive did not save her husband from impeachment, but it very likely influenced the Senate's decision to let him off with a reprimand.
The fracas took another turn when a media watchdog urged progessives to join an all-out campaign to delegitimize Fox News as a real news organization. This followed an effort by Republican partisans Karl Rove and Lamar Alexander to characterize Obama as a Nixon-like figure.
David Brock, who runs Media Matters, sent out a call to action to others on the left to counter "lethal" Fox, as Politico reports in its latest editions.
http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/
Brock at one time was a conservative journalist who indulged in many of the tactics used by Fox and most Murdoch media. He later wrote a book "Blinded by the Right," which marked his change of conviction.
It is very likely that Fox's Glenn Beck and others at Fox will jump on Brock's call to action as evidence that the left-wing is out to get Fox. However, it should be noted that other left-oriented groups have only touched on the controversy tepidly, if at all, and that the conservative Accuracy in the Media, while running some commentary on the brawl, has largely been unenthusiastic about backing Fox.
In another development, Newsweek published Slate chief Jacob Weisberg's piece upholding the White House view and urging reputable journalists to shun Fox, with a headline denouncing Fox -- and by implication Murdoch -- as "un-American." Considering Glenn Beck's attacks on White House aide Anita Dunn as a Mao-loving radical, Newsweek's head was no doubt thoughtfully chosen.
"Whether the White House engages with Fox is a tactical political question," wrote Weisberg. "Whether journalists continue to do so is an ethical one. By appearing on Fox, reporters validate its propaganda values and help to undermine the role of legitimate news organizations. Responsible journalists -- I'm talking to you, Mara Liasson -- should stop appearing on its programs."
A memorable dart tossed by Weisberg: "If you were watching Fox News Channel, you saw a familiar roster of platinum pundettes and anchor androids reciting the same soundbites: this was Obama's version of Nixon's enemies list."
See http://www.newsweek.com/id/218192
Clearly, non-Fox journalists have been getting a kick out of covering this feud. At least that's the sense one gets when reading the latest wrap-up in the New York Times, where it was reported that Obama himself had vented his displeasure at Fox in a closed meeting, which included the liberal opinion molders Rachel Madow, Keith Olberman, Frank Rich and Bob Herbert.
Reflecting Obama's pique, White House aide David Pfeiffer kept up the attack on Fox. "We simply decided to stop abiding by the fiction, which is aided and abetted by the mainstream press, that Fox is a traditional press organization," Pfeiffer said.
Latest salvoes: Dan Froomkin writes in the liberal Huffington Post about "why journalists shouldn't defend Fox" and Murdoch's Wall Street Journal has a right-spin piece by James Taranto suggesting that the White House is behaving like left-wing radicals when it criticizes Fox.
Some question the political wisdom of the White House drive to marginalize Fox as a serious news organization. However, one might recall that Hillary Clinton kicked off a counter-offensive in the Monica Lewinsky scandal with her famous "vast, right-wing conspiracy" theory. That counter-offensive did not save her husband from impeachment, but it very likely influenced the Senate's decision to let him off with a reprimand.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
KRM, champion of America's right to know
K. Rupert Murdoch, a mastermind of the 9/11 treason coverup, is indignant that he can't get no respect from the Obama White House.
How dare the White House scold us? KRM's co-conspirators snort. We dish it out! We don't have to take it!
Why, that Obama gang is trying to MUZZLE THE PRESS, rages the KRM crew. It's really terrible that a government unit would try to RUN THE NEWS MEDIA, by DELEGITIMIZING the great journalist KRM.
The government wants to turn us into nobodies because it is covering up terrible things! (Except not about 9/11. In that case, the government is telling the GOD'S HONEST TRUTH.)
Others in the news business should RUSH TO OUR AID in the name of defending FREEDOM OF THE PRESS. (We'll get back to you on why we haven't rushed to the aid of journalists forced to the margins for news reports that were too pointed or commentary that was too assertive.)
Obama's people can't distinguish between commentary and reporting, the KRM crew says.
True, says the White House, it is hard to tell the difference when viewing or reading KRM's tales. Balloon boys and the like may wow the audience, but who is checking facts at KRM offices?
+++++++++++++
True to form, we have problems with Google. This time it's their news and blog alerts. Allegedly, no blogger or news outlet has vigorously defended the White House. Only alerts favoring Fox are delivered. This is consistent with previous experiences of political filtering by Google, which, like Murdoch, has been highly accommodating of Chinese communism. My blog is barred from Google alerts. I suppose a notional case can be made that not enough people read it; yet, I've seen some pretty obscure stuff in Google alerts.
++++++++++++++++
What have Britons learned about the row between Obama and a tycoon with a strong hand on Britain's media?
Nothing at all from Murdoch's prestigious Times of London or his wild tabloid, the Daily Mirror. At any rate, a search of those sites turned up nothing concerning the feud. Evidently Murdoch , a former British Commonwealth citizen, believes that the British have better things to do than read about a wild melee between a British media tycoon and the president of the United States.
Yes, KRM, defender of the people's right to know...
++++++++++++++++++
Karl Rove and Lamar Alexander have jumped into the fray, using all their partisan wiles to defend Fox from the charge that it is a partisan political outfit masquerading as a news organization. Hey, somewhere around here is an old post about Rove at a Tennessee GOP event that, in a precedent, excluded the press. Back then, he was too hot for public dissemination, I suppose.
How dare the White House scold us? KRM's co-conspirators snort. We dish it out! We don't have to take it!
Why, that Obama gang is trying to MUZZLE THE PRESS, rages the KRM crew. It's really terrible that a government unit would try to RUN THE NEWS MEDIA, by DELEGITIMIZING the great journalist KRM.
The government wants to turn us into nobodies because it is covering up terrible things! (Except not about 9/11. In that case, the government is telling the GOD'S HONEST TRUTH.)
Others in the news business should RUSH TO OUR AID in the name of defending FREEDOM OF THE PRESS. (We'll get back to you on why we haven't rushed to the aid of journalists forced to the margins for news reports that were too pointed or commentary that was too assertive.)
Obama's people can't distinguish between commentary and reporting, the KRM crew says.
True, says the White House, it is hard to tell the difference when viewing or reading KRM's tales. Balloon boys and the like may wow the audience, but who is checking facts at KRM offices?
+++++++++++++
True to form, we have problems with Google. This time it's their news and blog alerts. Allegedly, no blogger or news outlet has vigorously defended the White House. Only alerts favoring Fox are delivered. This is consistent with previous experiences of political filtering by Google, which, like Murdoch, has been highly accommodating of Chinese communism. My blog is barred from Google alerts. I suppose a notional case can be made that not enough people read it; yet, I've seen some pretty obscure stuff in Google alerts.
++++++++++++++++
What have Britons learned about the row between Obama and a tycoon with a strong hand on Britain's media?
Nothing at all from Murdoch's prestigious Times of London or his wild tabloid, the Daily Mirror. At any rate, a search of those sites turned up nothing concerning the feud. Evidently Murdoch , a former British Commonwealth citizen, believes that the British have better things to do than read about a wild melee between a British media tycoon and the president of the United States.
Yes, KRM, defender of the people's right to know...
++++++++++++++++++
Karl Rove and Lamar Alexander have jumped into the fray, using all their partisan wiles to defend Fox from the charge that it is a partisan political outfit masquerading as a news organization. Hey, somewhere around here is an old post about Rove at a Tennessee GOP event that, in a precedent, excluded the press. Back then, he was too hot for public dissemination, I suppose.
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