All Major US Broadcast Networks Blackout of David Barstow's Pulitzer Prize

[Guest Tom Scully]

In the post linked here,

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.ph...st&p=165700 ....a week ago, I posted that all US major broadcast networks blacked out, David Barstow's reporting in the NY Times, beginning in April, 2008, that the networks used retired US Military generals as "consultants", in the run up to the invasion of Iraq, and until now, represented by the networks as independent military consultants retained by the networks to give expert opinions on military matters. The networks have not disclosed that Barstow had exposed the generals as being pentagon briefed propagandists bestowed with pentagon "perk" briefings and junkets, and that some were deeply compromised by political ideology and investments and directorships with military contractors.

Last night, all of these networks avoided mention of the name of the winner of the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for investigative journalism, David Barstow, because the networks were at the center of Barstow's investigative reporting, and they still think they can keep the gist of Barstow's reporting from enough Americans to make the negative impact to their own credibility, worth the effort to make believe David Barstow and his reporting about their conflicts and their shilling for the pentagon and the Bush admin, did not happen:

http://www.pulitzer.org/citation/2009-Inve...ative-Reporting

The 2009 Pulitzer Prize Winners

Investigative Reporting

Awarded to David Barstow of The New York Times for his tenacious reporting that revealed how some retired generals, working as radio and television analysts, had been co-opted by the Pentagon to make its case for the war in Iraq, and how many of them also had undisclosed ties to companies that benefited from policies they defended.

This is probably the most blatant example of how compromised US network news is, that has ever been documented....PROVEN! It should give all LNs pause, because it speaks volumes of how unreliable the establishment press actually is. In the 1960's and 1970's there was no internet. If the networks think they can cover up Barstow's exposure of them as government propagandists, even in this mature age of internet information distribution, imagine how bold network executives must have felt they could be, before the internet?

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/200...tzer/index.html

http://mediamatters.org/items/200904210002?f=h_latest

http://mediamatters.org/countyfair/200904200029

Barstow wins Pulitzer for military analysts story; will networks notice?

Published Mon, Apr 20, 2009 3:52pm ET by Jamison Foser

[David G. Healy]

In the post linked here,

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.ph...st&p=165700 ....a week ago, I posted that all US major broadcast networks blacked out, David Barstow's reporting in the NY Times, beginning in April, 2008, that the networks used retired US Military generals as "consultants", in the run up to the invasion of Iraq, and until now, represented by the networks as independent military consultants retained by the networks to give expert opinions on military matters. The networks have not disclosed that Barstow had exposed the generals as being pentagon briefed propagandists bestowed with pentagon "perk" briefings and junkets, and that some were deeply compromised by political ideology and investments and directorships with military contractors.

Last night, all of these networks avoided mention of the name of the winner of the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for investigative journalism, David Barstow, because the networks were at the center of Barstow's investigative reporting, and they still think they can keep the gist of Barstow's reporting from enough Americans to make the negative impact to their own credibility, worth the effort to make believe David Barstow and his reporting about their conflicts and their shilling for the pentagon and the Bush admin, did not happen:

http://www.pulitzer.org/citation/2009-Inve...ative-Reporting

The 2009 Pulitzer Prize Winners

Investigative Reporting

Awarded to David Barstow of The New York Times for his tenacious reporting that revealed how some retired generals, working as radio and television analysts, had been co-opted by the Pentagon to make its case for the war in Iraq, and how many of them also had undisclosed ties to companies that benefited from policies they defended.

This is probably the most blatant example of how compromised US network news is, that has ever been documented....PROVEN! It should give all LNs pause, because it speaks volumes of how unreliable the establishment press actually is. In the 1960's and 1970's there was no internet. If the networks think they can cover up Barstow's exposure of them as government propagandists, even in this mature age of internet information distribution, imagine how bold network executives must have felt they could be, before the internet?

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/200...tzer/index.html

http://mediamatters.org/items/200904210002?f=h_latest

http://mediamatters.org/countyfair/200904200029

Barstow wins Pulitzer for military analysts story; will networks notice?

Published Mon, Apr 20, 2009 3:52pm ET by Jamison Foser

the networks are on the way out.... in another 5 years their numbers will look like todays basic cable news network numbers.... (as will their spot ad rates)

-- excellent story, btw! Thanks.

[David Andrews]

What you can expect from pursuing decency in this, our world.

Edited April 22, 2009 by David Andrews

[Nathaniel Heidenheimer]

Tom thanks for posting this very important observation. The Story about the News Experts and their Defense Contractor portfolios is an incredibly important one. Please try to post this everywhere so lots can see it. It can do wonders to deligitimate the Corporate Media.

One thing that I have noticed about this story in the Times is that it only had 1 follow up .. about 8 months after the initial story.

For a story to become "water coolable" ie for enough people to have heard about it to enable discussion among citizens at work around the water cooler, a story has to run a lot over some period of time.

This is a variable that is studied in communications research, so it is noticeable that even the Times itself did not "Watergate it" ie make it a story that would build before a national audience from one plot point to the next.

Also David, I have to disagree with your point about "the networks" and also the major corporate media. Yes their numbers are down. But they STILL occupy the positions on the Sunday morning, and also PBS agenda setting shows that determine, WHAT WILL BE THE NEWS THIS WEEK and implicitly, what will not. The internet does not have critical mass. Even the bigger alternative sites are geared toward a strategic faction in terms of what stories they legitimate and which stories they dismiss. The importance of Corporate Media in terms of limiting national political dialogue should not be prematurely dismismissed in my opinion.

[Guest Tom Scully]

http://thinkprogress.org/2009/05/06/urbahn-barstow-pentagon/

.....“I take it as an affirmation of the principle that American journalism ought to be fiercely independent,” Barstow told Editor and Publisher upon winning the award.

But Barstow’s award was not positively received by allies of former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. On Monday, U.S. News’ Paul Bedard reported that former Pentagon Assistant Secretary Dorrance Smith told him, “Does the Pulitzer give prizes for works of fiction? Perhaps they just got the wrong category.” Current Rumsfeld aide Keith Urbahn went further, citing a January 2009 Pentagon inspector general’s report to attack Barstow’s reporting:

Rumsfeld’s current spokesman, Keith Urbahn, cites a January 2009 Pentagon inspector general’s report debunking the story: “The Times’s reporting on DoD’s routine outreach to military experts didn’t merit a place in the paper, much less a Pulitzer.” [...]

Says Urbahn: “Between the New York Times and the Pentagon’s inspector general office, it’s pretty clear which is a more credible and non-partisan source.”

Just one day after Urbahn’s intemperate remarks, however, the Pentagon announced that it was withdrawing the IG report because it “did not meet accepted quality standards for an Inspector General work product.” In a memo announcing the withdrawal of the report, Donald M. Horstman, the Pentagon’s deputy inspector general for policy and oversight, told staff “do not continue to rely on its conclusions.” = (DOD link loads slow, but it does finally display same memo image as below)

The Pentagon's office of Inspector General has now taken the highly unusual step of denouncing the reliability of it's

own report on the Pentagon's manipulation of retired military officers working as independent contractor consultants for the

major US broadcast news networks and also advises that it will not attempt to correct the now admitted flaws in it's own

investigation, or to initiate a new investigation....case closed....NEVERMIND!

Imagine if the same could be done to the status of the WCR?

Coverage of this story by pulitzer prize winning investigative journalist, David Barstow:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/06/us/06gen...edia&st=cse

Coverage by an independent news outlet that was thoughtful enough to provide an image of the IG's memo:

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/...tary_analys.php

Bush DOD Officials Mum On Using TV Military Analysts To Tout Admin Policies

By Zachary Roth - May 6, 2009, 2:15PM

So, as the New York Times has reported, the Pentagon's Inspector General has taken the unusual step of withdrawing a report into the department's use of retired military analysts to tout Bush administration policies on network news shows.

The report, released just days before the Bushies left office in January, found that DOD didn't violate prohibitions on using public funds for propaganda, as part of a program that was exposed by David Barstow's Pulitzer-winning New York Times story.

We've now taken a look at the memo issued yesterday by the Pentagon IG's office, announcing that the report has been withdrawn.

And it reveals that the report's authors -- who don't have subpoena power -- were prevented from reaching solid conclusions about the program because former top Pentagon officials who engineered the program wouldn't talk.

From the memo, by Donald Horstman, the department's Deputy Inspector General for Policy and Oversight:

Additionally, the review noted that report findings relied, in part, on a body of testimonial evidence that was insufficient or inconclusive. In particular, former senior DoD officials who devised and managed the outreach program refused our requests for an interview. Our judgmental sample of RMAs interviewed was too small (7 out of 70 RMAs) to allow that testimonial evidence to be used to support conclusions.

Who was responsible for the flawed report (which has now been removed from the Pentagon's website but which we still have a copy of)? It was signed by Brem Morrison, the DOD IG's Assistant Inspector General for Inspections and Examinations. A spokesman for the IG's office, Gary Comerford, confirmed to TPMmuckraker that Morrison is still with the department, but declined to elaborate. Morrison himself declined to comment.

You can ask America's "most watched" network television news anchor, Brian Williams, why he continues to broadcast "news" including comments from retired US military officers hired as NBC News consultants, while he and NBC continue their 54 weeks blackout of the unflattering secrets uncovered and reported by David Barstow:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/?search=DailyNigh...e(DailyNightly)

When good things happen to good people - The Daily Nightly - msnbc.com

Updated April. 29, 2009

brian, i saw you mentioned the list of pulitzer winners....i was multi-tasking so may not have caught it all, but do you have any comment on barstow's award for military ... http://dailynightly.msnbc.msn.com/archive/...20/1900253.aspx

A welcome, a puzzle and a finding - The Daily Nightly - msnbc.com

Updated April. 29, 2009

Even when David Barstow wins a Pulitzer for uncovering the Pentagon scheme to use former generals to propagandize on US TV, you still won't report it. Why won't you just admit NBC fell for it? Promise to do better? You look complicit and thoroughly dishonest. http://dailynightly.msnbc.msn.com/archive/...21/1902073.aspx

Edited May 7, 2009 by Tom Scully

[David Andrews]

On another page, Bill Kelly recently posted the lyrics to "I'm your Puppet," by Marvin Gaye with Tammi Terrell.

If I may, I'd like to post these lyrics to Bob Dylan's song, "Dignity." They started running through my head while reading this thread; indeed, they remind me of all our research efforts. If this is out of line, please delete post.

But everybody should hear this song once in their lives:

Fat man lookin' in a blade of steel

Thin man lookin' at his last meal

Hollow man lookin' in a cottonfield

For dignity

Wise man lookin' in a blade of grass

Young man lookin' in the shadows that pass

Poor man lookin' through painted glass

For dignity

Somebody got murdered on New Year's Eve

Somebody said dignity was the first to leave

I went into the city, went into the town

Went into the land of the midnight sun

Searchin' high, searchin' low

Searchin' everywhere I know

Askin' the cops wherever I go

Have you seen dignity?

Blind man breakin' out of a trance

Puts both his hands in the pockets of chance

Hopin' to find one circumstance

Of dignity

I went to the wedding of Mary-lou

She said I don't want nobody to see me talkin' to you

Said she could get killed if she told me what she knew

About dignity

I went down where the vultures feed

I would've got deeper, but there wasn't any need

Heard the tongues of angels and the tongues of men

Wasn't any difference to me

Chilly wind sharp as a razor blade

House on fire, debts unpaid

Gonna stand at the window, gonna ask the maid

Have you seen dignity?

Drinkin' man listens to the voice he hears

In a crowded room full of covered up mirrors

Lookin' into the lost forgotten years

For dignity

Met Prince Phillip at the home of the blues

Said he'd give me information if his name wasn't used

He wanted money up front, said he was abused

By dignity

Footprints runnin' cross the sliver sand

Steps goin' down into tattoo land

I met the sons of darkness and the sons of light

In the bordertowns of despair

Got no place to fade, got no coat

I'm on the rollin' river in a jerkin' boat

Tryin' to read a note somebody wrote

About dignity

Sick man lookin' for the doctor's cure

Lookin' at his hands for the lines that were

And into every masterpiece of literature

for dignity

Englishman stranded in the blackheart wind

Combin' his hair back, his future looks thin

Bites the bullet and he looks within

For dignity

Someone showed me a picture and I just laughed

Dignity never been photographed

I went into the red, went into the black

Into the valley of dry bone dreams

So many roads, so much at stake

So many dead ends, I'm at the edge of the lake

Sometimes I wonder what it's gonna take

To find dignity.

Edited May 8, 2009 by David Andrews

[Guest Tom Scully]

On another page, Bill Kelly recently posted the lyrics to "I'm your Puppet," by Marvin Gaye with Tammi Terrell.

If I may, I'd like to post these lyrics to Bob Dylan's song, "Dignity." They started running through my head while reading this thread; indeed, they remind me of all our research efforts. If this is out of line, please delete post.

But everybody should hear this song once in their lives:

Fat man lookin' in a blade of steel

Thin man lookin' at his last meal

Hollow man lookin' in a cottonfield

For dignity.....

David,

IMO, the Bob Dylan lyrics you posted for us, and Bill's "I'm your Puppet" reference on another thread are in synch with what constitutes reasonable reaction to the absurdity, criminality. and calculated, politically motivated sabotage of the vital to functional democracy information stream that are apparent in the deliberate distortions and propaganda brought to us by a corporatist alliance of extreme right politicized military, intelligence and privately owned but publicly licensed major broadcast and print media apparatus.

I want readers to consider how "beyond the pale", from centrist political orientation, an individual has to be in order to believe or declare that the major news networks and news services like the NY Times or the WaPo are "too liberal", or have a "liberal bias".....the latest example is ABC news, caught broadcasting the propaganda falsely extolling the benefits of "torture" in "keeping us safe", by a CIA employed shill who ABC was so impressed with, they hired him themselves to partner with him in "catapulting the propaganda".

....and today, observe ABC engaged in a political smear campaign against Nancy Pelosi, initiated at CIA, using information CIA specifically declares it won't even vouch for the accuracy of.....but ABC distributes this propaganda as if it is evidence based fact furnished by the CIA:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/28/business...28abc.html?_r=1

April 28, 2009

How ’07 ABC Interview Tilted a Torture Debate

By BRIAN STELTER

In late 2007, there was the first crack of daylight into the government’s use of waterboarding during interrogations of Al Qaeda detainees. On Dec. 10, John Kiriakou, a former C.I.A. officer who had participated in the capture of the suspected terrorist Abu Zubaydah in Pakistan in 2002, appeared on ABC News to say that while he considered waterboarding a form of torture, the technique worked and yielded results very quickly.

Mr. Zubaydah started to cooperate after being waterboarded for “probably 30, 35 seconds,” Mr. Kiriakou told the ABC reporter Brian Ross. “From that day on he answered every question.”

His claims — unverified at the time, but repeated by dozens of broadcasts, blogs and newspapers — have been sharply contradicted by a newly declassified Justice Department memo that said waterboarding had been used on Mr. Zubaydah “at least 83 times.”

Some critics say that the now-discredited information shared by Mr. Kiriakou and other sources heightened the public perception of waterboarding as an effective interrogation technique. “I think it was sanitized by the way it was described” in press accounts, said John Sifton, a former lawyer for Human Rights Watch, an advocacy group.

During the heated debate in 2007 over the use of waterboarding and other techniques, Mr. Kiriakou’s comments quickly ricocheted around the media. But lost in much of the coverage was the fact that Mr. Kiriakou had no firsthand knowledge of the waterboarding: He was not actually in the secret prison in Thailand where Mr. Zubaydah had been interrogated but in the C.I.A. headquarters in Northern Virginia. He learned about it only by reading accounts from the field.

On “World News,” ABC included only a caveat that Mr. Kiriakou himself “never carried out any of the waterboarding.” Still, he told ABC that the actions had “disrupted a number of attacks, maybe dozens of attacks.” A video of the interview was no longer on ABC's website.

“It works, is the bottom line,” Rush Limbaugh exclaimed on his radio show the next day. “Thirty to 35 seconds, and it works.”

Mr. Kiriakou subsequently granted interviews to The Washington Post, The New York Times, National Public Radio, CBS, CNN, MSNBC and other media organizations. A CNN anchor called him “the man of the hour.”

Eight months after the interview, Mr. Kiriakou was hired as a paid consultant for ABC News. He resigned last month and now works for the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.

His ABC interview came at an especially delicate juncture in the debate over the use of torture. Weeks earlier, the nomination of Michael Mukasey as attorney general was nearly derailed by his refusal to comment on the legality of waterboarding, and one day later, the C.I.A. director testified about the destruction of interrogation videotapes. Mr. Kiriakou told MSNBC that he was willing to talk in part because he thought the C.I.A. had “gotten a bum rap on waterboarding.”

At the time, Mr. Kiriakou appeared to lend credibility to the prior press reports that quoted anonymous former government employees who had implied that waterboarding was used sparingly. In late 2007, Mr. Ross began pursuing Mr. Kiriakou for an interview, “leaning on him pretty hard,” he recounted.

On Dec. 10, in the subsequent interview, Mr. Kiriakou told Mr. Ross that he believed the waterboarding was necessary in the months after the 9/11 attacks. “At the time I was so angry,” he told Mr. Ross. “I wanted so much to help disrupt future attacks on the United States that I felt it was the only thing we could do.”

Mr. Kiriakou was the only on-the-record source cited by ABC. In the televised portion of the interview, Mr. Ross did not ask Mr. Kiriakou specifically about what kind of reports he was privy to or how long he had access to the information. “It didn’t even occur to me that they’d keep doing” the waterboarding, Mr. Ross said last week. “It doesn’t make any sense to me.”

He added, “I didn’t give enough credit to the fiendishness of the C.I.A.”

Mr. Kiriakou refused an interview request last week. In a statement to ABC, he said he was aware only of Mr. Zubaydah’s being waterboarded “on one occasion.”

The C.I.A., which considered legal action against Mr. Kiriakou for divulging classified information, said last week that he “was not — and is not — authorized to speak on behalf of the CIA.”

Paul Gimigliano, a C.I.A. spokesman, said: “This agency did not publicly disclose the frequency with which the waterboard was used, noting only that it was employed with three detainees. If reporters got that wrong, they weren’t misled from here.”

In the days after Mr. Kiriakou’s media blitz, his claims were repeated by an array of other outlets. For instance, the Fox News anchor Chris Wallace cited the 35 seconds claim to ask a congressman whether the interrogation program was “really so bad.”

Months later the claims continued to be amplified; the National Review editor Jonah Goldberg used Mr. Kiriakou’s assertions in a column last year to argue that the waterboarding was “right and certainly defensible.”

Mark Danner, a journalist who has written extensively about the covert program for The New York Review of Books, said the news reports had fed the idea that brutal interrogations could instantly glean information about terrorist plans.

“There was a completely mistaken impression put about that this technique was not cruel because it could break detainees so quickly,” he said.

(An article in The New York Times on Dec. 13, 2007 described his comments to ABC and added a quotation from Mr. Kiriakou: “I think the second-guessing of 2002 decisions is unfair. What I think is fair is having a national debate over whether we should be waterboarding.”)

When Mr. Kiriakou was later hired by ABC to provide commentary on terrorism cases, Mr. Ross said that network officials had been concerned about the appearance of a tie between the interview and the job. For that reason, “I felt that we should sort of wait,” he said. “I didn’t want anyone to think that he was promised something for the interview. He was not.”

Mr. Ross, who received a George Polk Award for a series on interrogation, expressed no regret about the Kiriakou interview and praised him for speaking publicly. He said ABC was preparing a story that would address the previous reporting.

“Kiriakou stepped up and helped shine some light on what has happening,” Mr. Ross said. “It wasn’t the huge spotlight that was needed, but it was some light.”

As talk continues about possible prosecutions of people involved in the interrogations, waterboarding is once again a hot topic. Last week, Sean Hannity, a conservative Fox News host, said he would agree to be waterboarded (for charity) when a guest proposed that he experience it.

But the recent Justice Department memo has led some commentators to revisit their earlier impressions about the technique.

“I’ve always been on the fence about whether waterboarding constituted torture,” Mr. Goldberg of the National Review wrote last week, but if the figures are true, “then I think the threshold has been met.”

He added: “Debating whether it was worth it still seems open to debate, depending on the facts.”

....and ABC yesterday, engaging in a politically biased smear using newly released CIA "information" that the CIA distributes but specifically disclaims the accuracy of:

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2009/05/...itically-again/

.....CIA: "Here's a list, but we won't vouch for its accuracy."

ABC: "We've proven that Nancy was wrong!!"

ABC, after having been burned in the past, took documents that the CIA itself said might not be accurate, and treated them as accurate.

But it gets worse. ABC printed the following description, as if it were an accurate representation of the next set of torture briefings, which took place in February 2003.

On Feb. 4, 2003, a briefing on “enhanced interrogation techniques” for Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., and Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV, D-W.Va., revealed that interrogations of Abu Zubaydah and Abd Al-Rahim Al-Nashiri were taped.

ABC doesn't tell you, but there's an asterisk by (Sen. Jay Rockefeller's (D-WV) name, saying, "later individual briefing to Rockefeller," with no indication of when they say he got briefed, whether it was in addition to or in lieu of the briefing listed here, or what....

http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenote/2009/05/i...ligence-re.html

Intelligence Report: Pelosi Briefed on Use of Interrogation Tactics in Sept. ’02

May 07, 2009 6:02 PM

ABC News’ Rick Klein reports: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was briefed on the use of “enhanced interrogation techniques” on terrorist suspect Abu Zubaydah in September 2002, according to a report prepared by the Director of National Intelligence’s office and obtained by ABC News.

The report, submitted to the Senate Intelligence Committee and other Capitol Hill officials Wednesday, appears to contradict Pelosi’s statement last month that she was never told about the use of waterboarding or other special interrogation tactics. ....

As initially released, ABC's "story". did not include this statement in the CIA release that ABC had used as the foundation for it's reporting..... A credible news gathering agency, one of the three major US news broadcastes, already

reported to have hired a former CIA employee as a consultant, after willingly broadcasting his distortions as the only "on the record source" for the false notion that waterboarding produced useful intelligence after only brief mistreatment,

WOULD NOT HAVE REPORTED SUCH POLITICALLY SLANTED PROPAGANDA, AT ALL:

http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenote/2009/05/i...ligence-re.html

....This letter presents the most thorough information we have on dates, locations, and names of all Members of Congress who were briefed by the CIA on enhanced interrogation techniques. This information, however, is drawn from the past files of the CIA and represents MFRs completed at the time and notes that summarized the best recollections of those individuals. In the end, you and the Committee will have to determine whether this information is an accurate summary of what actually happened. We can make the MFRs available at CIA for staff review. ...

Edited May 8, 2009 by Tom Scully

[Guest Tom Scully]

Of course, "access" is the reward for being a stenographer first, and a journalist last....NBC's Brian Williams has a new

"pal":

http://dailynightly.msnbc.msn.com/archive/...01/1949640.aspx

By Brian Williams, Anchor and managing editor

MoshPix: Obama Takes Brian Williams to Five Guys | NBC Washington

May 29, 2009 ... The president got another burger itch Friday and this time he chose Five Guys to scratch it. President Barack Obama helps NBC's Brian ...

http://www.nbcwashington.com/around_town/d..._Five_Guys.html

Fox News gives you sides of every story, the president’s side and the vice president’s side.

>> But the rest of you, what are you thinking, reporting on N.S.A. Wiretapping or secret prisons in Eastern Europe? Those things are secret for a very important reason, they’re super depressing.

>> And if that's your goal, well, misery accomplished. Over the last five years you people were so good over tax cuts, W.M.D. Intelligence, the affect of global warms. We Americans didn't want to know, and you had the courtesy not to try to find out. Those were good times, as far as we knew.

But, listen, let's review the rules. Here's how it works. The president makes decisions, he’s the decider. The press secretary announces those decisions, and you people of the press type those decisions down. Make, announce, type. Put them through a spell check and go home. Get to know your family again. Make love to your wife. Write that novel you got kicking around in your head. You know the one about the intrepid Washington reporter with the courage to stand up to the administration. You know fiction.

>> Because really, what incentive do these people have to answer your questions, after all? I mean, nothing satisfies you. Everybody asks for personnel changes. So the white house has personnel changes. Then you write they're just rearranging the deck chairs on the titanic. First of all, that is a terrible metaphor. This ships not sinking....

-Stephen Colbert

[John Bevilaqua]

In the post linked here,

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.ph...st&p=165700 ....a week ago, I posted that all US major broadcast networks blacked out, David Barstow's reporting in the NY Times, beginning in April, 2008, that the networks used retired US Military generals as "consultants", in the run up to the invasion of Iraq, and until now, represented by the networks as independent military consultants retained by the networks to give expert opinions on military matters. The networks have not disclosed that Barstow had exposed the generals as being pentagon briefed propagandists bestowed with pentagon "perk" briefings and junkets, and that some were deeply compromised by political ideology and investments and directorships with military contractors.

Last night, all of these networks avoided mention of the name of the winner of the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for investigative journalism, David Barstow, because the networks were at the center of Barstow's investigative reporting, and they still think they can keep the gist of Barstow's reporting from enough Americans to make the negative impact to their own credibility, worth the effort to make believe David Barstow and his reporting about their conflicts and their shilling for the pentagon and the Bush admin, did not happen:

http://www.pulitzer.org/citation/2009-Inve...ative-Reporting

The 2009 Pulitzer Prize Winners

Investigative Reporting

Awarded to David Barstow of The New York Times for his tenacious reporting that revealed how some retired generals, working as radio and television analysts, had been co-opted by the Pentagon to make its case for the war in Iraq, and how many of them also had undisclosed ties to companies that benefited from policies they defended.

This is probably the most blatant example of how compromised US network news is, that has ever been documented....PROVEN! It should give all LNs pause, because it speaks volumes of how unreliable the establishment press actually is. In the 1960's and 1970's there was no internet. If the networks think they can cover up Barstow's exposure of them as government propagandists, even in this mature age of internet information distribution, imagine how bold network executives must have felt they could be, before the internet?

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/200...tzer/index.html

http://mediamatters.org/items/200904210002?f=h_latest

http://mediamatters.org/countyfair/200904200029

Barstow wins Pulitzer for military analysts story; will networks notice?

Published Mon, Apr 20, 2009 3:52pm ET by Jamison Foser

One only has to read George Seldes who died a few years ago at age 100+ who wrote "The Lords of the Press" about William Randolph Hearst and some of the other newspaper publishers who contributed much to "press control" since the 1930's. Ever wonder how Operation Mockingbird got started? The Knight-Ridder chain, the Hearst Chain, the AP, UPI, Reuters, and every other major chain had a designated Operation Mockingbird reporter on their staff. Before that it was up to George Seldes' suspects on a totally voluntary basis. Seldes even wrote "The Age of Surveillance" which described Billy James Hargis, Gordon Hall and dozens of others who played a Spy vs. Spy game both for and against the FBI, DIA and NSA.

Hargis was part of Willoughby's A/C Liaison C of C with McClendon, Hunter, Rorke and Fellers who were masters of the Spy game for the Reich.

[Guest Tom Scully]

Almost All Mainstream U.S. Newspapers and Broadcast Media Have Self-Censored This Reporting For Two Full Years, maybe because it makes the American electorate look ridiculous for voting for this "leadership", twice? Or....because

"Thr methods by which the "Empire of Business" maintains its control over Journalism are four, First, ownership of the papers; second, ownership of the owners; third'"

http://books.google.com/books?id=iaJZAAAAM...;q=&f=false

The brass check: a study of American journalism - Google Books Result

1920 - Language Arts & Disciplines - 443 pages

... ownership of the papers; second, ownership of the owners; third, ... The extent to which outright ownership of newspapers and magazines has been ...

http://wvgazette.com/ap/ApTopStories/200908120239

By James A. Haught

August 12, 2009

Agog over Bush's comments on Gog and Magog

The Associated Press

(MCT)

Incredibly, President George W. Bush told French President Jacques Chirac in early 2003 that Iraq must be invaded to thwart Gog and Magog, the Bible's satanic agents of the Apocalypse.

Honest. This isn't a joke. The president of the United States, in a top-secret phone call to a major European ally, asked for French troops to join American soldiers in attacking Iraq as a mission from God.

Now out of office, Chirac recounts that the American leader appealed to their "common faith" (Christianity) and told him: "Gog and Magog are at work in the Middle East. ... The biblical prophecies are being fulfilled. ... This confrontation is willed by God, who wants to use this conflict to erase his people's enemies before a New Age begins."

This bizarre - seemingly deranged - episode happened while the White House was assembling its "coalition of the willing" to unleash the Iraq invasion. Chirac says he was boggled by Bush's call, and "wondered how someone could be so superficial and fanatical in their beliefs."

After the 2003 call, the puzzled French leader didn't comply with Bush's request. Instead, his staff asked Thomas Romer, a theologian at the University of Lausanne, to analyze the weird appeal. Dr. Romer explained that the Old Testament book of Ezekiel contains two chapters (38 and 39) in which God rages against Gog and Magog, sinister and mysterious forces menacing Israel. Jehovah vows to smite them savagely, to "turn thee back, and put hooks into thy jaws," and slaughter them ruthlessly. In the New Testament, the mystical book of Revelation (20:8) envisions Gog and Magog gathering nations for battle, "and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them."

In 2007, Dr. Romer recounted Bush's strange behavior in Lausanne University's review, Allez Savoir. A French-language Swiss newspaper, Le Matin Dimanche, printed a sarcastic account titled: "When President George W. Bush saw the prophesies of the Bible coming to pass." France's La Liberte likewise spoofed it under the headline, "A small scoop on Bush, Chirac, God, Gog and Magog." But other news media missed the amazing report.

Subsequently, ex-President Chirac confirmed the nutty event in a long interview with French journalist Jean-Claude Maurice, who tells the tale in his new book, "Si Vous le Repetez, Je Dementirai" (If You Repeat it, I Will Deny), released in March by the publisher Plon.

Oddly, mainstream media are ignoring this alarming revelation that Bush may have been half-cracked when he started his Iraq war. The Charleston Gazette in West Virginia is the only U.S. newspaper to report it, so far. Canada's Toronto Star recounted the story, calling it a "stranger-than-fiction disclosure ... which suggests that apocalyptic fervor may have held sway within the walls of the White House." Fortunately, online commentary sites are spreading the news, filling the press void.

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ABOUT THE WRITER

James A. Haught is the editor of the Charleston (W.Va.) Gazette. Readers may send him e-mail at hau...@wvgazette.com.

McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

More Articles in AP Featured News

http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/642352

Was Bush on a mission from God? TheStar.com - World - Was Bush on a mission from God?

May 29, 2009

Mitch Potter

WASHINGTON BUREAU

WASHINGTON–George W. Bush comes to Toronto today bedevilled by fresh questions about whether the former U.S. president felt the hand of God driving his wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Bush, a born-again Christian since age 40, arrives for today's paid speaking engagement at Metro Toronto Convention Centre with fellow former president Bill Clinton amid a series of stranger-than-fiction disclosures, one of which suggests that apocalyptic fervour may have held sway within the walls of his White House.

Bush, who turns 63 in July and was 54 when first sworn into office in 2001, has yet to comment on the reports. They include last week's GQ magazine exposé into the hawkish use of scripture in 2003, when then-defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld forwarded secret intelligence memos to Bush embroidered with biblical passages.

"Therefore, put on the full armour of God," a verse from Ephesians, and "Open the gates that the righteous nation may enter," from Isaiah, are among the messages that adorn reports prepared for Bush by Rumsfeld's Pentagon.

Stranger still are new accounts emerging from France describing how former president Jacques Chirac was utterly baffled by a 2003 telephone conversation in which Bush reportedly invoked fanatical Old Testament prophecy – including the Earth-ending battle with forces of evil, Gog and Magog – in his arguments to enlist France in the Coalition of the Willing.

"This confrontation is willed by God, who wants to use this conflict to erase his people's enemies before a New Age begins," Bush said to Chirac, according to Thomas Romer, a University of Lausanne theology professor who was later approached by French officials anxious to understand the biblical reference. Romer first revealed his account in a 2007 article for the university review, Allez savoir, which passed largely unnoticed.

Chirac, in a new book by French journalist Jean-Claude Maurice, is quoted as confirming the surreal conversation, saying he was stupefied by Bush's reference to biblical prophecy and "wondered how someone could be so superficial and fanatical in their beliefs."

It remains unclear whether Bush will be asked to shed light on the matter in Toronto today, where civil tongues are likely to prevail in what is billed as "a conversation" between political heavyweights.

But in the absence of comment from Bush himself, disturbing questions about the extent to which his administration blurred the lines of religion and war loom large.

"Speculating on what goes on inside George Bush's head is always a bold endeavour. But the sense one gets from this is that biblical prophecy somehow factored in the thinking," said Clive Hamilton, a visiting scholar at Yale University in a recent article for counterpunch.org.

"The most striking thing for me is in the real world, trying to get France to go to war on that basis is crazy. It is hard to imagine a better way to scare off a potential friend."

Indeed, parts of these disclosures don't square with previous reports of Bush's religious motivations. In 2003, Bush reportedly told Palestinian delegates he felt the hand of God pushing him to establish a Palestinian state – an outcome opposed by hardcore U.S. evangelicals who support Israel, and campaign against Palestinian statehood on the basis of biblical prophecy.

But for many, including officials from America's Muslim communities, one need not go deep into biblical verse to be troubled.

"Just the fact that Donald Rumsfeld and the Pentagon would overlay briefings to the president with biblical verses confirms eight years of suspicions," said Salam al-Marayati, of the Los Angeles-based Muslim Public Affairs Council.

"What is so disturbing is that it is similar to the way Al Qaeda uses sacred text to support their ambitions. As a Muslim who loves America, who wants my children and my grandchildren to feel this is their home, it is the last thing we want to see in a president."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/an...ion-george-bush

Bush, Gog and Magog

Just when you thought it couldn't get crazier, a well-sourced story claims Bush invaded Iraq because of Bible prophecies

Here's a story we should all be ashamed of missing: George W Bush attempted to sell the invasion of Iraq to Jacques Chirac using biblical prophecy...

Thia Link contains the French language accoint of Prof. Thomas Romer, punlished in Spetember, 2007; http://bit.ly/YpZHu ...and described in the post below:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discu...ress=103x308691

A Little Scoop on Bush, Chirac, God, Gog and Magog

By Jacques Sterchi

Rue89 in partnership with La Liberté, Fribourg

Monday 17 September 2007

In 2003, University of Lausanne theology professor Thomas Römer received a telephone call from the Elysée. Jacques Chirac's advisers wanted to know more about Gog and Magog ... two mysterious names pronounced by George W. Bush while he was attempting to convince France to enter the war in Iraq at his side. In its September edition, the University of Lausanne's review, Allez savoir, reveals this story that could seem fantastic did it not, as Allez savoir's Editor-in-Chief Jocelyn Rochat emphasizes, reveal the religious underpinnings of Bush's policy.

Apocalyptic prophecy: Bush would have declared to Chirac that Gog and Magog were at work in the Middle East and that the Biblical prophecies were in the process of being fulfilled. That was several weeks before the intervention in Iraq. The French president, to whom the names of Gog and Magog meant nothing, was stupefied.

In Allez savoir, Thomas Römer details: Gog and Magog are two creatures who appear in Genesis, and especially in the most arcane chapters of the Old Testament Book of Ezekiel. An apocalyptic prophecy of a global army giving final battle in Israel.

"This confrontation is willed by God, who wants to use this conflict to erase his people's enemies before a New Age begins," continues Thomas Römer............

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200005/bush-skull-bones

May 2000 Atlantic

A rare look inside Skull and Bones, the Yale secret society and sometime haunt of the presumptive Republican nominee for President

by Alexandra Robbins

.....The name Magog is traditionally assigned to the incoming Bonesman deemed to have had the most sexual experience, and Gog goes to the new member with the least sexual experience. William Howard Taft and Robert Taft were Magogs. So, interestingly, was George (HW) Bush.

George W. was not assigned a name but invited to choose one. According to one report, nothing came to mind, so he was given the name Temporary, which, it is said, he never bothered to replace; Temporary is how Bush's fellow Bonesmen know him today.....

Edited August 18, 2009 by Tom Scully