There’s nothing our commenters like to discuss more than media ethics and standards — or rather, the lack of them. Amid that ongoing MSM v. blogosphere war, Joe’s link last week to Deborah Howell’s Washington Post ombudsman column about commenters really got them going. Deborah has another column this week. This time, I think, our …
In the ArenaUncategorized
Sicko
The New York Times does some actual reporting on the health care system in Cuba. This doesn’t mean that the current U.S. system is at all tolerable. We need a universal system, and now. (Regular Swampland readers know that I favor the individual mandate, community rated system that Senator Ron Wyden has proposed.) But the Times does …
In the ArenaUncategorized
The Iraq Conundrum
Two extremely important, and contradictory, pieces about Iraq today. Both true.
Andrew Bacevich on the combat death of his son in the Washington Post.
A variety of experts in the US and Iraq on the difficulty of a withdrawal now in the New York Times
Bacevich:
The people have spoken, and nothing of substance has changed. The November
…
Continuing on the McCain Beat
The Senator supplied the WSJ [$] with five favorite recommended books about war and soldiers. I’ll leave it to readers to figure out what else they have in common (quotes are from McCain’s reviews):
1. For Whom The Bell Tolls
By Ernest Hemingway
Jordan “becomes disenchanted — not necessarily with his cause but with its leaders and
…
In the ArenaUncategorized
From Jane Harman
Just got a message Jane Harman left on my voicemail last night:
I apologize for not calling to tell you that I changed my mind. Your account of our conversation was accurate and I stand by what I said to you. We were faced with two miserable choices. I had those kids on the C-130 [deploying to Iraq] in my mind, but I also had to
…
In the ArenaUncategorized
A Withdrawal Plan?
This is fascinating. Let me deconstruct it:
1. The split in the Bush Administration on middle east policy is going public. First we had Steve Clemons’ report yesterday about the Cheney v. The World split on Iran. Now we have a split between the Secs. Def and State, the Pentagon brass, the intelligence community, and possibly the …
In the ArenaUncategorized
Harman Update
About an hour ago I received a call from Jane Harman’s–uh, embarrassed–chief of staff saying that after her conversation with me yesterday, she changed her mind and voted against the war funding. I like Harman a lot. She is one of the best-informed Democrats on intelligence matters but….Yikes. If there’s more from the Harman camp …
Scooter Libby’s Holiday Weekend Plans…
will certainly include reading the sentencing memo that the government filed today asking that he be given 30-37 months. Here’s the key part:
IV. Conclusion
Mr. Libby, a high-ranking public official and experienced lawyer, lied repeatedly and
blatantly about matters at the heart of a criminal investigation concerning the disclosure
…
Re: The Hillary Books
I’ve been reading the back and forth between Jay and our commenters regarding the Hillary books. And I found myself agreeing with Jay’s observation:
It is news, I think, that Hillary had a “serious fear” that she might be indicted for perjury or obstruction during the Whitewater investigation. Covering the Clinton White House at the
…
McCain v. The World v. Obama v. This Is Your Reporting on Political Crack
Our editor says that polls are the “crack of political reporting,” but they’re more like powdered cocaine: hard to get, expensive, a quality high that gets spread around the whole party. The real crack of political reporting are political catfights: cheap, fast, generally leading to poor decision making and lost teeth. [Swampland does …
Re: The Hillary Books
I want to respond to some of the early reaction out there to my post on the two Hillary books about to be published. The post takes note of the front-page story in the WP this morning about the two books, judges the revelations in the books (as reported in the WP story) to be fairly unsensational and then throws out the incontrovertible …
The Hillary Books
So what are we to make of the Washington Post story today about the two, soon-to-be-published tomes on Hillary Rodham Clinton? Based on the story, neither book is very flattering. But again, based on the WashPo story (because we haven’t scored copies of the books yet), the revelations contained in the books are not of the bombshell …
In the ArenaUncategorized
Cheney’s Iran Fantasy
I can confirm, through military and intelligence sources, part of Steve Clemons’ account of Cheney’s crazed bellicosity regarding Iran. In fact, having just received a second-source confirmation of the following story, I was intending to post it today:
Last December, as Rumsfeld was leaving, President Bush met with the Joint Chiefs of …