What Fires You Up?

3/13/2004

 

"Now They Tell Us" Media Complicity
This is from Kent, whose Canadian weblog has intrigued me for months. Fascinating to me, as an American, that I run into so many erudite Canucks that are commenting on what they see in American politics and policy - and are right on the money! Giantkicks is his blog and intro description: "This is giantkicks.com, a news and image weblog by Vancouver artist and designer Kent Lins. A blog since 2000. Anti-propaganda, Anti-Bush. - blogging urban hipster art, fashion, film and design. 'Reviews' of downtempo, electro, priogressive, dubby tech-house, euro-dub and other music types more difficult to classify." Good reading, folks! Thanks Kent for the post and link to the NYTimes article.

"Here's a scathing critique of news writing in the US. It's a play by play of war cheerleading and dissent hushing in influential newspapers. It shows the US press to be complicit in the US attack on an unaggressive country. The lack of any weapons of mass destruction or any credible evidence for attacking Iraq should be (aside from being incredibly shaming) a warning to the public to be skeptical when reading newspapers and listening to government speaches. - it won't, articles like this one are too long for their attention span...The New York Review of Books: Now They Tell Us"

http://kent.cluonflux.com/bweblog/blogger.html

BJ 3/13/2004 10:12:00 AM

3/07/2004

 

Plame and Wilson:
Just Won't Go Away, for Bush Administration

See the snip from the Chicago Tribune story below. As usual, this kind of "news" comes out only late Friday or on Saturday so that it will not be heard by most Americans until after the White House has the weekend to spin it or smother the story. What will it take to wake people up that the Bush folks mean bad business???

Transcript: Bush staff went after ambassador
Sat Mar 6, 9:40 AM ET
By Tom Brune Tribune Newspapers: Newsday

A transcript subpoenaed in the CIA (news - web sites) leak investigation reveals the White House press operation began trying to discredit former Ambassador Joseph Wilson IV days before a columnist blew the cover of his CIA-officer wife.

A federal grand jury served three subpoenas on the White House in January for Air Force One telephone records and a transcript of a news briefing during the presidential trip to Africa the week before Robert Novak's July 14 column identifying CIA officer Valerie Plame.

The grand jury also subpoenaed White House records of staff contacts with more than two dozen reporters who wrote or broadcast about administration concerns over Plame, Wilson and his CIA report that rejected rumors that Iraq (news - web sites) tried to buy uranium in Niger.

The White House confirmed it had received subpoenas.

The efforts to discredit Wilson came after he went public July 6 with criticism of President Bush for mentioning the uranium rumor in his State of the Union address in January 2003. The information was part of the administration's case for the Iraq war.

Links to online stories:
Joshua Marshall, one of the best, right on the case of the Valerie Plame affair from the summer:
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/old/sept0304.html

Mark R. Kleiman, in the Open Source Politics blog and his own blog

Mark Follman, in Salon

BJ 3/07/2004 08:07:00 PM