Comments on: Helllooooo? Is Anyone Home in There?

By: Pinko Punko

Pinko Punko — Thu, 13 Apr 2006 02:37:11 +0000

Bob Somerby has a nit to pick with this post, and I’ll agree with him, only because you guys are the go-to on Plame stuff and you have to navigate very very carefully.

http://dailyhowler.com/dh041206.shtml

By: brownandserve

brownandserve — Wed, 12 Apr 2006 01:49:45 +0000

For whatever it’s worth, here is what I sent to the Associated Press
:::::::::::::::::::::::::
Deborah Reichman would do well to read the the relevent policy (hint:
do a Google search on .gov domains with “authority for
declassificaton” as the search term). She should then discover
http://foia.state.gov/eo12958/part3.asp .

How she could totally miss the point that this was not a normal
declassification is really rather disturbing and reflects poorly on
the Associated Press. This ain’t rocket science.

The link above says: “In some exceptional cases, however, the need to
protect such information may be outweighed by the public interest in
disclosure of the information, and in these cases the information
should be declassified. When such questions arise, they shall be
referred to the agency head or the senior agency official.”

It does NOT say “in these cases the information should be
declassified by having the Vice President’s Chief of Staff reveal the
information (mischaracterized as a “key judgement) to a sympathetic
reporter for the New York Times on the precondition that it be
attributed to a “former Hill staffer”.

Does truth matter any more?

By: Bushtit

Bushtit — Tue, 11 Apr 2006 18:33:30 +0000

You’re being polite, Christy. I prefer the term, Media Slut.

By: tenstepsleft

tenstepsleft — Tue, 11 Apr 2006 18:05:34 +0000

“I thought it was important for people to get a better sense for why I was saying what I was saying in my speeches. And I felt I could do so without jeopardizing ongoing intelligence matters, and so I did.”

Didn’t have time to read all the comments, so I may be covering old ground, but isn’t the above quote a clear admission that he cherry-picked the intelligence? I mean we all knew they cherry-picked, but I haven’t seen something this clear from Bush on the point.

By: Seattle

Seattle — Tue, 11 Apr 2006 17:59:19 +0000

Dear AP,

Deb Reichmann’s article on Bush’s “declassification” omits critical facts:

1. I put “declassification” in quotes because parts of the NIE were first released as a result of Bush directing someone to leak them to a single pro-war reporter. That is not declassification, regardless of the fact that the president has the power to declassify.

2. Parts of the NIE supported the administration’s position on Iraq’s possession of WMD and parts of the NIE contradicted the administration’s position. Bush leaked and then publicly released only the former.

3. The portion of the NIE that Bush leaked and then publicly released had been refuted by information known to the administration but not to the public before Bush leaked it. In other words, Bush selectively leaked that part of the NIE that he knew to be false.

In spite of this, Ms. Reichmann’s article simply reports that Bush claims he declassified information because he wanted the American public to know that truth. These aren’t minor issues. We went to war over these lies. Why has the AP decided not to report the facts?

Sincerely,

By: Swoosh

Swoosh — Tue, 11 Apr 2006 17:23:22 +0000

Corollary to “If the President does it, it’s legal” — “If the President says it, it’s true.”

But only 36% of the population believes it, anymore…

By: John Casper

John Casper — Tue, 11 Apr 2006 17:06:50 +0000

fwiw, AP does have a “corrections” web page.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/f.....CTION=HOME

By: J i O

J i O — Tue, 11 Apr 2006 16:48:23 +0000

RBG

EPU’d Zone…think Rod Serling voice overs, main thread zombies wandering around searching for the lost thread, La Brea Tar Pits for Wayward Comments, die-hard threadstirs and all tenacious hangers-on or other retrograde personae.

Think Deadwood.

Sure. Why not?

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By: J i O

J i O — Tue, 11 Apr 2006 16:31:52 +0000

I’m going to go check to see if anyone followed me into the EPU,d Zone on the previous thread.

I’ll post the results there.

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By: ck

ck — Tue, 11 Apr 2006 16:13:27 +0000

I didnâ€™t see one false paragraph in Deb Reichmanâ€™s story.

Not so — all of it is false and misleading, because everything Bush said was false and misleading. This is not reporting, it’s stenography — or did you miss the point of this post?

Furthermore, this bit of stenography violates the pyramid structure that all reporters are taught to follow. Start with a summary; expand a little; then offer the counter views. Repeat again and again, epanding all sides of the narrative at each successive level of the report. That way, a copy editor can cut the article at any significant break point, with out losing the big picture.

Either Deb R was guilty of the worst sort of stenography, or her editors were guilty of the most dishonorable sort of rewrite.

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