Link: http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0711/S00389.htm

Monday, 26 November 2007, 11:37 am
Opinion: Michael Collins

McClellan Points to Bush in Cover Up

McClellan with Bush; McClellan spinning; Plame & husband.

Where are the Headlines?

Reddit * Digg * BuzzFlash.Net
Michael Collins
Scoop Independent Media
Washington, D.C.
On being asked why he said Rove and Libby were not involved in leaking Plame's name, McLellan said:

"There was one problem. It was not true.

"I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the vice President, the President's chief of staff, and the President himself." Public Affairs (McClellan's Publisher) Web Site

A "News" search for "McClellan" anywhere in any article on both Google and Yahoo produced similar totals but a different frequency for web hits. The meta-search engine called "Dogpile" was used as a basis to determine the actual number of unduplicated stories.

How astounding that these searches produced so few hits. Didn't the press secretary just accuse Bush, Cheney, Card, Rove, and Libby of collective action to conceal the truth, i.e., a conspiracy? Didn't the concealed truth concern a major intelligence operation designed to keep us from getting nuked? If this doesn't rate intensive coverage and comment, what does?

Google and Yahoo searches by media type. "Dogpile" is a meta search service that
provides unduplicated results. It is closest to a true total for stories.
Shouldn't Protecting Against This Generate a More than a Few Headlines?

Valerie Plame's mission was to track the illegal market in nuclear weapons. The goal was to prevent the use of any of those weapons against the people of the United States. The mission was disrupted when Plame's true role as a CIA NOC agent was revealed. The leak came from the White House. Then, when fingers were pointed at Rove and Libby, the president and vice president swung into action. They told their press secretary to lie to the press and the people. By McClellan's account, they conspired with the group to deceive the public and perhaps the special prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald.


Failure to grasp its meaning of this story requires an exceptional act of will.

We expect much more out of those charged with protecting the nation and its citizens? Isn't the mainstream media, the so called "fourth estate," a self anointed protector of the public well being? We've been told that this is done by vigorous coverage and investigation of major stories involving presidential cover-ups; particularly those dealing with critical national security threats.


Link: http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0711/S00389.htm

Hidden among the shopping ads.

It's unbelievable. If you look at the middle of the article, there's a bit about the editor of the Knoxville News Sentinel, a well respected paper, saying this:

"A local newspaper can rarely provide national information that interested readers have not already received from other sources. The news you mention was widely disseminated by the national media. In fact, your complaint is not that you did not receive the information, but rather that we did not use enough of our space to reiterate the information you received elsewhere. Knoxville News Sentinel Nov. 21, 2007"

-----------------

So I left the editor this. Maybe he and I can have a dialog on the importance of his paper and all other local papers in telling the truth. This one's easy.

http://tinyurl.com/35462h

Amazing isn't it?

Until someone gets a blowjob, nobody cares.

People just don't seem to care. Since Nixon and his crimes the public seems to have become apathetic toward corruption and crimes in government. That's how Ronnie got away with crimes. People just didn't care.

The corporate media sells is also the truth. They sell ads, their parent companies sell all sorts of things, like weapons systems. And they buy rights to clear out forests to continue their antiquated rags. They're not going to rock the boat. Given what we've all learned about media, poll, and polling place manipulation, who knows what the real reaction was to Iran-Contra.

Welcome to DU.

I think the real reaction to Iran Contra would have been impeach the bum if people had been actually given all the information. Maybe if we had the internet back then folks would have been more informed and pressured congress to do something.

Here's what you get when you search "Scott McClellan" in the Washington Post

http://tinyurl.com/2po5mn

But if you go in and do a date range search, you get FOUR stories. But there's more. Doing a date range search, 11/18 through today you get...

http://tinyurl.com/34xcyh

No original coverage in the Washington Post, not one bit.

3 are from AP Online and 1 is from Reuters

This is the paper of Watergate, right. Surely Sue Schmidt had time to go take some notes at the
White House?

We're in good hands here in your nation's capitol.
:sarcasm:
Maybe the Washington Times will take a shot at it.

save Dennis?

:argh:

the fear of having a woman as president....or a black man.

I am sick of this fascist media and the stupid americans who listen to it.

Fucking consumerist nation that makes nothing but green paper.

is that Bush was lied to by these people.

Now Shrub is not the type to tolerate lying, so that means that Shrub himself is lying.

Hellooo Liberal media?? Lol

own soil with the bushits running the security and thousands die and the corporatemediawhores would praise bushits and the national security adviser would get a promotion.

Oh, Fucking Wait..

And you are so right! :sarcasm: It's like that South Park movie where they put a chip in the little critters to stop them from swearing. Maybe some of the media live within an invisible fence limiting their ability to think and a shock collar to let them know when they get to close. It's very fashionable, electronic tethering.

But, Associated Press got it right. The rest just didn't follow, including some blogs which claim what Scotty's publisher claims...a story in itself. But Wait...;) there will be more bull shit!

they and we could come up with for them..but, The Bottom Line is..They Are MEDIAWHORES-EXTRAORDINAIRE

I can't imagine anytime in history when they would have been so busy covering up that they don't need to investigate.. they can just call it in from their collective barstool.

Except maybe Pravda..I don't really know.

Buy a front page add on every newspaper in the country with that headline. I don't know what else to do!

It's like anything * does, we get a snip then it's lights out. But JohnQCitizen will find out in a few days, weeks. Just heard from "Scoop" and this story is going bonkers on "Stumble Upon."

Good seeing you. Keep up the great efforts!

:hi:

They toss the info out into a few outlets and later say that "American's didn't care." There is also the perception that if you don't hear about a story repeatedly, and on the front page, doubt is created that it's as important as one might have initially thought. I'm talking about the "average" news consumer's perception. Busy, preoccupied, distracted, etc.

Isn't there also a contradictory story also put out about how Scotty "didn't really mean what he said" to further muddy the waters?

And also: when someone says the corporate press is doing a lousy job, they can say "then how do you know the things you do?"

Or something.

K&R.

Hey, boyfriend! :hi:

Brilliant:

"They toss the info out into a few outlets and later say that "American's didn't care." There is also the perception that if you don't hear about a story repeatedly, and on the front page, doubt is created that it's as important as one might have initially thought."

You distilled 27 years of neocon history. That's clearly how it's done. How many times have we heard, the people just didn't go for it, in some way, by the clowns who make excuses for taking orders from their masters, The Money Party. Amazing. It's rigged from the start. Extremely well put and concise (I'll take lessons).

As for the so called left blog Slate, or as I call them,

The ideologically androgynous Slate was cautions, however. John Dickerson parsed McClellan's words too tightly in "The Press Dog that Didn't Bark." He said, "Scott McClellan has offered no bombshells – yet."

This guy is really psychic. John Dickerson: "But was he (McClellan) now saying the same thing about Bush, Cheney and Card? If so, why didn't McClellan just say so? I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest ranking officials in the administration knew it. That would be big news, indeed."

Can this guy read? He says nothing specific about any of them. He refers to them collectively acting to mislead him and, in turn, mislead the U.S. public. That's called "CONSPIRING" to mislead the public in layman's language.

But, hey, don't take my word for it. Here's an Associated Press header:

"Former press secretary accuses Bush, Cheney of deceiving public about CIA leak case."

so there has to be some kind of ahead-of-time thinking/planning about this "leak" of info.

Some way to diffuse it all on a greater level than that which is now taking place.

I can't believe that Scotty didn't let someone in the WH read his galleys before publishing the book. For one thing, I'm sure he'd like to continue living. At very least working at some lucrative job.

Or something.

I think he's cool to fly commercial with. Someone sent me an email saying that the press is downplaying it because it they don't the next revelation will be their complicity in all of this. I don't know but it's a very interesting idea. Sort of like Congress stopping Iraq when they participated in the start up openly and with gusto!

...that runs through Scotty? This doesn't make a whole lot of sense from a self preservation standpoint -- or does it? Maybe I'm missing something.

Who wants to hear about old news?


:sarcasm:

Wasn't that one of Scotty's favorite sayings? Or was it Ari's?

:sarcasm:
It was old news at 1:40 pm EST, Nov. 20, 2007 - right after the NYT published their article. Anything past that time is old news. I must have gotten carried away with all of it, thinking people should actually see this as another compromise to national security and reflection of our lousy leadership.

I'm going to meditate on Bill O'Reilly and take two aspirin.

Thanks, I needed that. O8)

:rofl:


There aren't enough articles out there and hardly anything on TV. This McClellan news needs to be 1st story top news frontpage every day!


:hi:

http://news.google.com/news?q=%22Scott+McClellan%22&btnG=Search+News

It is easy to use Google News. Just type in the name between quotations.

"...from 12:00 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 20 through 3:00 a.m. EST Friday, the 23rd (the timing for all the searches mentioned in this article)."

Here http://tinyurl.com/269jyx There are 10 pages, 10 articles per page. Then sort out the articles not relevant. I actually did a broader search and went through for the date period mentioned.

"Top Story" on Yahoo for "McClellan," still comes out very low, from 9 to about 11. There are 13 articles there but one "McClellan" is a sports figure and another, a woman tried for manslaughtert. The rest are about Scott McClellan. http://tinyurl.com/2gfxlf

Dogpile is more interesting, I think. http://tinyurl.com/2dfle4 - a big fat 30 unduplicated articles as of a few minutes ago.

The search is just illustrative. There is very little reporting on this despite the fact that AP laid it out very clearly, also pointed out in the full article.

"Of all the stories, mainstream or alternative, the Associated Press was right on target with 'Former press secretary accuses Bush, Cheney of deceiving public about CIA leak case.'" (http://tinyurl.com/3yo6ob} and main AP site, five days ago (http://tinyurl.com/2ccpzw) .

If they print the headlines they have to face the truth.

with the White House, what the top folks in the administration thought of the press?

The silence is equal to the enormity of the crime - this is so bad, very few will touch it. In fact there are some on our side of whatever who say McClellan didn't really "finger Bush." They must be progressive "strict constructionists."

They all belong in jail over this one. The AP dropped the bug clue with their first article and then it just senet silent except for this beauty -- http://tinyurl.com/2y4o9t - editorial from McClatchy News. He's like us, figured they'd resign, pack their bags for prison, etc. Didn't happen did it?

:hi:

so goes the reasoning of the scripps guy in knoxville. the absence of thorough coverage defines a couple of meanings for that phrase "self-fulfilling prophecy". in knoxville, if you want us to publish the news, buy an ad. and, if we knoxville editors don't read a story someplace else, we don't publish it in knoxville.

there're a couple of underlying threads here. why do newspapers run from stories like this? they don't want to make rupert murdoch angry. rupert will soon buy scripps papers, and no editor wants to be on the job market, especially a backwater third-tier market like knoxville. where would he work, dinuba?

newspapers are under the gun (and misnamed). when shrub threatened the entire democratic process with his "you're with us or agin' us" the newspapers heeded the likely consequences. mugwumps, apologists, and genuine shrub asslickers would pull their ads and just like that, poof!, the newspaper industry dies.

that editor in knoxville is no different from every other editor. threaten their livelihood and get whatever you want from them.

shrub ran on the platform he'd bring "us" together and quickly proved that "us" means only those of one mind in concert with his lack thereof. "our" newswhores have achieved something john milton warned against in his once-admired free press message, "areopagitica". milton warned that if the state were to license publishers, soon nothing controversial would or could be published. his point, echoing cicero, echoing aristotle, was the truth will always win out in a fair and free exchange with falsehood and evil. have you noticed the concentration of ownership growth? the state is licensing the papers, de facto, and with the abolition of fairness rules, de jure in a bassackward manner.

so collins, there's a fundamental misperception in your view: the USA does not have a free press, so lower your expectations.

if cynicism is its own reward, count me a rich man.

you, on the other hand, need a halogen bulb for that lamp you're hauling around.

mvs

http://labloga.blogspot.com
http://readraza.com

they may see my good works and give praise to secular humanism. Sign me up!

I agree with you and the neglected Milton - excessive concentrations of ownership and de facto
regulation in the form of presidential intimidation are the funeral procession for our society.

In order to make decisions, you need adequate access and exposure to information. Our current
system is a sorry ass version of what's needed. I'm glad you commented on the Knoxville News
Sentinel editor. How very sad...they don't have time to rewrite. Maybe, with the many millions
that they take in, they might find a few writers on staff who'd do this gladly and with some skill.
But no, the editor won't even ask because that might entail a risk. As Orson Wells said during the
McCarthy Red scare in Hollywood,

"In Europe people turned over their best friends to save their lives.
In Hollywood, the do it to save their swimming pools."

We need to stop writing in order to save this newspaper!

I do know that we lack a free press but its important to retell the story every so often.

This was a "Beam me up Scottie" moment...couldn't resist. You remember, the original Star Trek

the greatest original star trek episode ever. the world was an illusion, people had been proscribed from stepping beyond their boundaries (i.e. printing only received truth and ignoring anything straying from the party line). the fellow who took that extra step saw the truth and became a pariah, a madman. diogenes carried the lamp in broad daylight hoping to illuminate an honest person.

as for welles, i think the most appropriate line of the moment, "rosebud". think instead of a sled, a flaming constitution.

...and everyone is too busy to bother with this kind of ranting!

Thanks for crying in the wilderness!