I blogged on their article on the shelling of one of the Islamic compounds of a persona non grata to the USA government. Good article.. poof vanished into the wind and replaced by a nice article on how we were investigating the Persona non grata and had taken some minor actions. Shelling a compound if it was us was not minor however nothing remains so it is just me telling a strange story.

The land of the changing rewritten stories [counted one being changed 4 times in 8 hours]

Howell, as she demonstrated when she peddled the lie that Abramoff had contributed to democrats (and then whined about being called out on it), is about as much an ombudsman as I’m an astronaut. The woman is an incorrigible hack.

Thomas C’s diary :: ::
Readers of the Post detected various factual misrepresentations in Hiatt’s pathetic editorial, including (i) Hiatt’s claim that there was nothing unusual about the way Libby was granted a limited authorization to disclose certain portions of the NIE (in fact Libby testified before the grand jury that the arrangement was “unique in his recollection”), (ii) Hiatt’s contention that Fitzgerald had not presented any evidence in support of Joe Wilson’s claim that the White House had sought to punish him for his criticism of the Administrations claims about yellowcake and Niger (in fact Fitzgerald referred specifically in his court filing last week that the White House had engaged in precisely such an attempt to punish Wilson), and (iii) Hiatt’s claim that Wilson had asserted he’d been sent to Niger by Cheney (Wilson never made any such claim).

Howell never addresses any of these issues, and instead characterizes the controversy thusly: “The passage in the Post editorial that sent war critics round the bend was this one: ‘ . . . Mr. Wilson was the one guilty of twisting the truth. In fact, his report supported the conclusion that Iraq had sought uranium.’”

Were critics of Hiatt’s editorial “outraged” or “concerned” or “critical”? No, they were “around the bend.” Deb again overtly demonstrates a shocking hostility towards her paper’s readers. Even worse, however, she absurdly mischaracterizes the response to Hiatt’s editorial. There were over 600 comments posted at the post.blog on Hiatt’s crap editorial, and they touched on various factual misrepresentations by Hiatt, including the ones I cited above. To reduce these detailed and informed criticisms to a single sentence of Hiatt’s editorial, as Howell has done, is egregiously misleading. But it obviously served Deb’s purpose to divert the controversy from Hiatt’s various factual trespasses.

Howell turns her column on the controversy into a technical discussion of the wall between the editorial and news departments by quoting a letter from a reader that asked “Do the Post editorial writers read the Post articles before publishing their opinions?” She then proceeds to argue that Hiatt’s editorial had been written before Gellman and Linzer’s front page story that debunked various of Hiatt’s claims in the editorial. There are two very big problems with Deb’s approach: first, the bigget problem with Hiatt’s editorial is not that it contradicted the Post’s reporting, but that it contradicted various statements made by Fitzgerald in his court filings (the fact that Hiatt’s editorial got it so wrong while the Post’s reporters were accurately reporting these matters was merely irony); and second, the reader inquiry asking whether “Post editorial writers read the Post articles before publishing their opinions” WAS NOT MADE. Deb just made it up. I know because I’m the guy she cites as asking the question. Here is the e-mail I sent to Howell, which she requested she be able to cite in her column:

“Are we to believe Geller and Linzer’s reporting or the Post’s lead editorial? They are irreconcilable. The Post’s already dwindling reputation for credibility is seeping away with the continued silence from the editorial board and the Post’s ombudsman. I hope you appreciate how
grave this situation is for the Post.”

But Deb wanted to write a column that avoided the factual deficiencies of Hiatt’s Bush propaganda and focus instead on details regarding the Post’s internal housekeeping and so she fabricated a reader inquiry!

This woman has absolutely no shame. I urge everyone to read her ombudsman column and ask yourself: is this the job of an ombudsman, to denigrate her readers by suggesting they are “around the bend”, and then to neatly sidestep numerous misstatements of fact in a Post editorial in order to rationalize brazen pro-war propaganda?

Vice President Cheney threw out the ceremonial first pitch, a right-handed toss that bounced in the dirt to the outside of the plate before being scooped up by catcher Brian Schneider. Cheney, booed by some as he walked to the mound, got even more catcalls after his throw —

http://www.washingtonpost.com/…..01820.html

*****************************************
When I wrote “1984″, I never expected it to come to pass in the United States of America. Newspeak has replaced news.

The Washington Post, in violation of the most basic tenet of journalism, purposefully misled its readers. Objective viewing of the event video shows that the booing starts the instant Cheney steps on the field and dies down during and after the pitch.

This is much more serious than Sunday’s unsigned Newspeak editorial. Your newsroom has just lost a ton of credibility.

Washington Post reporters that have won Pulitzers and continue working for this propaganda outlet bring shame to that prize.

I ve bled pin-stripes all my life, and that may have been my proudest moment.

This is how the times covered it: (via Fromkin)

Tyler Kepner writes in the New York Times that Vice President Cheney visited Yankee Stadium yesterday, and watched the Yankees beat the Red Sox 11-3.

“During the singing of ‘God Bless America’ in the seventh inning, an image of Cheney was shown on the scoreboard. It was greeted with booing, so the Yankees quickly removed the image.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/…..Jun30.html

The crowd was merciless, they were screaming “go F### yourself !!!”

Can someone research and find how the wires, the NY Daily News, NY Post, and WaPo covered the beating he got in ‘da Bronx