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TNR seems to be using that old technique employed by those who seemingly run afoul of the "Endangered Species Act" namely "Shoot, Shove, Shutup". |
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Written By:
Neo
URL:
http://
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One little correction: "since the Army doesn’t appear to be ready to do so on their side" should read "since the Army is prevented by statute from doing so". |
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Written By:
Charles Martin
URL:
http://
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Critics of the War are going to have a harder and harder time attacking the Surge as a failure. So they’ve taken another tact. They are attacking the military’s integrity. They can bring doubt on any optimistic reports from the military and toss in a few accusations of atrocities.
Beauchamp’s stories were a back door version of that by giving a self-confessed case study in how the men in the military are supposedly bastards.
Now TNR has decided to raise the ante. They are attacking the military leadership directly.
I wonder if they plan on taking their normal base so far off into their version of reality their base is immunized from the story being dismantled or if they plan to try to convince the general public as well. |
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Written By:
jpm100
URL:
http://
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"...he has been informed of the requests to speak to various members of the media, both traditional and non-traditional and has declined..."
At least he seems to be smart enough to know the Law of Holes. Perhaps TNR could send one of their ace investigative journalists to Iraq to go and find Beauchamp ask him. They could make a movie out of it, a la Michal Moore, and call it "Interviewing Private Beauchamp". Get Tom Hanks to do it. |
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Written By:
timactual
URL:
http://
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Tom Hanks is probably already cast as Beauchamp in some other project. |
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Written By:
jpm100
URL:
http://
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You know, Mr. Greenwald, when he speaks for himself, has zero credibility. Ditto when he reaches conclusions from “facts” he is reporting. However, does that mean that when he accidentally reports real facts that these facts should be ignored? I don’t think so. Mr. Greenwald interviewed Michael O’Hanlon about his notorious (to the left) NYT op-ed on the Surge and, believe it or not, added some real value. Of course, one had to ignore Mr. Greenwald’s spin and read the transcript of the entire interview to get that value, but it is there, nevertheless:”... O’Hanlon acknowledged... that many of the descriptions applied to him ...were inaccurate...”:MO: ” I was not a critic of this war. In the final analysis, I was a supporter.” ”From beginning to end, this trip was planned, shaped and controlled by the U.S. military”...MO: ”The predominant majority were people ... the D.O.D. developed... I did a lot of probing of what I was told, and remain confident in the conclusions that we reached about the military successes which we highlighted. But if you’re suggesting that some of our impressions might have been shaped by the military’s selection of Iraqis, and that we might have disclosed that, that is, I think, fair enough.” ”Your claims in that regard in the Op-Ed were based upon your belief that what the U.S. military commanders were telling you was accurate. Is that true?” ”MO: Yes, that’s true.” ”...The New Yorker’s George Packer spoke with Pollack and reported that Pollack "spoke with very few Iraqis and could independently confirm very little of what he heard from American officials." To Packer, Pollack also confirmed that the flamboyant claims about Iraqi troops readiness "came from American military sources." ”...It is difficult to avoid reaching any conclusion other than that they willfully served as propaganda tools in order to bolster the perception of success for a war and a "Surge" strategy which they prominently supported and on which their professional reputations rest. After all, the whole premise of the Op-Ed is that they have credibility to speak about the Progress in Iraq because they just returned from a trip there and because they are "two analysts who have harshly criticized the Bush administration’s miserable handling of Iraq." Well, of one does not share Mr. Greenwald’s prejudices, it is not at all difficult to reach an alternate conclusion. One that the rational world obviously reached.
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Written By:
&
URL:
http://
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Sure, TNR ’could’ do as you suggest, but since you and they are on separate pages/sides, it is the last thing they’ll do (as I believe you’re guessing they’ll do)
It’s not that TNR can’t handle the truth, they’re not interested in the truth, at least not the truth on a factual basis. Being of small circulation, low profits and not much else, they need to keep hope alive.... with ’hope’ being defined as something, anything, that allows them and their supporters to hold on to the thought that they are right and everybody on the right side is wrong.
So they’re going to fight like crazy to avoid getting into anything that could leave them having to admit they got taken. Better to leave things up in the air, claiming that only A or only B is keeping them from being able to do X or Y, and rallying their supporters than to come clean and say they screwed up.
TNR’s readers will stick with them out of loyalty (it’s not for the writing) but only so long as TNR maintains they did nothing wrong. Once TNR admits they screwed up, the readers will leave... looking for another anti-Bush outlet. |
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Written By:
steve sturm
URL:
www.thoughtsonline.blogspot.com
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By the way, if you doubt the power of the MSM gatekeepers to spike a story that they don’t pursued, what have you heard lately about the soldier who addressed the Kos convention?
I don’t know about you, but I was very interested in that story. Much more so than in Paris Hilton. Guess I just have no nose for news. |
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Written By:
&
URL:
http://
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