Scandal For Sale - The Politics of 9/11

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• 1 - Mark Saleski

  Mar 22, 2004 at 7:39 pm

  better shovel some more coal on that fire...the smokescreen's not thick enough.

• 2 - Ms. Tek

  Mar 22, 2004 at 7:59 pm

  The Drudge Report is what you use as a source?
  
  You and Tom Bux need to start an online website together. It would be such a hoot!
  
  If you need any help with design, give me a hollar. I'll make it all pretty for you so you guys can repost funny stuff from Fox News, Limbaugh, Drudge, etc...

• 3 - David Flanagan

  Mar 22, 2004 at 10:52 pm

  The Drudge Report is what you use as a source?
  
  Is the Drudge Report wrong in what it claims? Just because you don't like the site doesn't mean the information is not accurate.
  
  Thanks.
  
  David

• 4 - Ms. Tek

  Mar 22, 2004 at 11:34 pm

  It didn't seem to be accurate about the Kerry affiar which you were the first to run over and post about here.
  
  

• 5 - JB

  Mar 23, 2004 at 12:21 am

  Way to avoid the question, Tek! Is the Drudge Report wrong in what it claims? This is true about 60 Minutes, whether you like it or not.

• 6 - Ms. Tek

  Mar 23, 2004 at 12:30 am

  What is true about 60 minutes?
  
  And the Drudge Report is wrong in quite a few of its claims. Its yellow journalism at its finest.

• 7 - Scott S

  Mar 23, 2004 at 12:54 am

  Since when did American Bandstand's spokesman get involved in national security?
  
  
  More to the point, the Drudge debate is a silly Left tactic to get off the point. And it worked.
  
  The point is that there are many truths, and that it is important to understand it all to make your own opinion.
  
  I believe some of Clarkes' words, but the tone and timing are suspect. Hell, I'm a die-hard right-winger, but I've said to people doubts about Bush at one time or another.
  
  Yet Clarke is an insider, so compared to me, his words do mean more. Yet, showing the bias above and other facts - controversy sells books, (He is no stranger to controversy).
  
  Anyways, I take his claims only partially. The real truth - if Bush is to Blame for 9/11 so is CLarke. From the above-linked story (BBC):
  
  "Clarke also screwed up. He was after [all] the counter-terrorism tsar when 9/11 took place."

• 8 - JB

  Mar 23, 2004 at 8:56 am

  Uh, hello out there? ... I'm commenting on this article which is discussing corporate media ethics. See if you can follow it this time:
  
  1) The parent company for 60 Minutes has a major financial stake in this book.
  2) 60 Minutes devoted an extremely large amount of air time discussing this book.
  3) 60 Minutes did not reveal their parent company's financial stake in the book.
  
  Is there an ethical breach in this situation -- a journalistic show devoting an enormous amount of time on basically a one-sided argument, without telling everything? Regardless of what "side" the book takes -- hell, I would have been just as pissed if it had been about a right-wing book.
  
  Is that clear enough for you? Do I need to post some critical reading pointers, too ;)

• 9 - Eric Olsen

  Mar 23, 2004 at 9:05 am

  Apart from the actual content of the interview or Clarke's book, most if not all media outlets are caught up in this kind of "synergy": what an extraordinary coincidence that the lead "news" story on my local Fox channel involves some hot "exclusive" story about American Idol immediatley following American Idol. But it is critical to make a corporate connection explicit when it isn't self-evident: 60 Minutes absolutely should have mentioned that their parent company owns the publisher of the book. This is obvious fact and where it came from (sometimes Drudge is right) has no bearing on that fact.

• 10 - Mark Saleski

  Mar 23, 2004 at 9:17 am

  all very true. hopefully, they'll admit to this next week.
  
  not that it will matter.
  
  what's also true is that the people screeching to the hills about cbs's apparent subterfuge are looking for anything they can find to discredit clarke.
  
  ...because we all know that our president, teflon-encrusted, can do no wrong.

• 11 - Hal Pawluk

  Mar 23, 2004 at 10:51 am

  Not acknowledging the indirect connection to the publisher was a bad idea because it made CBS susceptible to exactly the claims that are being made by Limbaugh et al.
  
  However, it's a red herring.
  
  It doesn't change the content and the facts any. You could have seen essentially the same interview on PBS's "News Hour" last night.
  
  And the claim of going after Iraq instead of pursuing the terrorists has other sources, like Paul O'Neill.
  
  Also Bob Woodward, who wrote a book before the invasion of Iraq. The book was friendly to the administration, yet still showed Rumsfeld raising the issue of using 9/11 as an excuse to go after Iraq:
  
  

  "[On the day after 9/11] Rumsfeld raised the question of Iraq. Why shouldn't we go against Iraq, not just al Qaeda? ... Rumsfeld was raising the possibility that they could take advantage of the opportunity offered by the terrorist attacks to go after Saddam immediately." [Bush At War p.49]

  Another Bush counter-terrorism expert acted even more strongly on principle. Five days before Bush invaded Iraq, Rand Beers resigned his position as special Presidential assistant for counterterrorism. He had spent thirty-five years in intelligence under three Republican Presidents, but objected to what was happening with the current one:
  
  

  The focus on Iraq has robbed domestic security of manpower, brainpower and money, he said. The Iraq war created fissures in the United States' counterterrorism alliances, he said, and could breed a new generation of al Qaeda recruits. [Former Aide Takes Aim At War On Terror 06/16/2003]

  He was right.
  
  The rest of it is just an attempt at obfuscation.

• 12 - Joe

  Mar 23, 2004 at 5:19 pm

  Hal- You realize Beers is currently on John Kerry's payroll?

• 13 - JR

  Mar 23, 2004 at 8:06 pm

  Hal- You realize Beers is currently on John Kerry's payroll?
  
  That's good news. When Kerry takes office he'll already have somebody competent to fight terror.
  
  I'm guessing we'll see more defections to the Kerry camp before the election. Clearly a lot of smart people have grave concerns about Bush's policies.

• 14 - Joe

  Mar 23, 2004 at 8:25 pm

  I wonder if his resume touts the numerous intelligence coups which took place during his thirty-five year tenure. Did his competence contribute the vaunted state of US intelligence?

• 15 - Hal Pawluk

  Mar 24, 2004 at 3:13 pm

  Not only Beers - I've heard that Clarke is going there, too. As JR said, great news indeed.