There was a Saturday Daily Howler (thanks to Joy for e-mailing a heads up). From Bob Somerby's Howler today:
QUINDLEN GETS IT RIGHT: Joining Peter Beinart's effort (see THE DAILY HOWLER, 5/9/05), Anna Quindlen gets it right in her current column in Newsweek. She discusses the way Hillary Clinton has been trashed-and-spun for the past dozen years. And for once, a major mainstream pundit discusses this process in the way it deserves. And so: Three cheers for Quindlen, for speaking directly about what has occurred!
Yes, let's offer three big cheers for Quindlen's direct, cutting language! "After years of free-floating propaganda," she writes, "[p]eople are finally seeing past the...fabrications" about Senator Clinton. The fabrications have come from something Quindlen correctly describes as a "smear machine"--a smear machined that "suckered" voters as it "demonized" the former first lady. Fabrications? Smears? And propaganda? Over the past decade, mainstream journalists have been reluctant to speak so frankly about this smear machine--perhaps because so much of its effort has come from within their own ranks.
So let's hope that this scribe will continue to fight, even against her own cohort. In her column, Quindlen singles out a conservative, Gary Bauer, for making phony attacks against Clinton. But over the course of the past dozen years, mainstream and "liberal" scribes have played a huge role in this free-floating propaganda campaign against Clinton. Which brings us to the latest disgraceful outing by Chris Matthews and his "liberal" colleague, Margaret Carlson.
There's much more including Carlson and Matthews. I'm pulling from the top of the entry because it's hard to pick one part to highlight (translation, it all deserves reading).
Dahr Jamail has a new post at Iraq Dispatches. Here's an excerpt:
Abu Talat phoned his family today in Baghdad. They've had no electricity for four days. They told him (unconfirmed) that all of Iraq has had no electricity for several days. As Abu Talat says, "Baghdad is running on the generator."
Of course the gas crisis persists augmented by the lack of electricity, along with constantly increasing attacks.
We were in a taxi earlier, driving across the orderly streets of Amman and talking about the situation in Iraq. "Now I feel ashamed to tell people I am Iraq," says Abu Talat after he told the taxi driver he is from Baghdad, "Because my country has been totally destroyed."
I look out the window, not knowing what to say. I think to say, "But it isn't your fault, habibi," but instead sit quietly, feeling that any words would be inadequate.
The situation around Al-Qaim where "Operation Matador" is ongoing, appears to be a micro-version of Fallujah. The military and corporate media continue to portray the situation as if "foreign fighters" have taken control of Qaim and surrounding villages (as was said about Fallujah) when reports from the ground state that interviews with the fighters have them all saying they are Iraqi.
Of course it behooves the military to claim they are battling "foreign fighters," because as in Fallujah and elsewhere, it doesn't look good in the press to admit that they are fighting Iraqis who are fighting for their independence from the occupiers of their country. Even the marines in Fallujah admitted they had killed a grand total of 35 foreign fighters there. That kind of debunks the myth of a foreign terrorist group taking over the city and terrorizing the citizens.
Who is Jim West? For starters, he's BuzzFlash's pick for GOP Hypocrite of the Week:
Welcome back to the BuzzFlash.com GOP Hypocrite of the Week.
This was a tough week for BuzzFlash, what with all the GOP Hypocrites in the news. There's the GOP Congressman from Pennsylvania accused of choking his mistress, the GOP anti-gay mayor accused of molesting boys when he was a scout master, and the prominent GOP appointee who is accused of forcibly sodomizing his ex-wife?
It can give you an ulcer keeping up with the moral depravity of the "holier-than-thou" Republicans.
But, like choosing from a row of port-o-lets, we had to pick one. This week's GOP Hypocrite is non-other than the anti-gay Mayor of Spokane, Republican Jim West.
But who is Jim West besides "the anti-gay Mayor of Spokane?" So much more. To steal from Jacqueline Susan*, you've got to slither to the bottom of the gutter to become the BuzzFlash GOP Hypocrite of the Week. Click the link to read or listen how West achieved the dishonor.
The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.
*Jaqueline Susan's opening lines (in verse) of Valley of the Dolls are:
You've got to climb to the top of Mount Everest
to reach the Valley of the Dolls.
