Sunday, June 17, 2007

Gordo's heavy breathing

On the front page of the New York Times today, War Pornographer Michael Gordon does his heavy breathing act with "G.I.'s In Iraq Open Major Offensive Against Al Qaeda." Thom Shanker is along for the ride and let's all hope Shanker's wearing a Hazmat suit. The basis for the laughable article (all resistance fighters are not linked to al Qaeda nor does al Qaeda out number non-al Qaeda)? Bobby Gates and Davey Petraeus held a joint press conference.

What?

You thought it was something observable? Please, the only time Gordo leaves the Green Zone without the military is to jet back to DC. He can't tell you what happens in Iraq because he truly can't leave the Green Zone. So a press conference becomes a front page story. Now, let's note, the Friday F-16 crash didn't make the front page. The 3500 mark did not make the front page. But a press conference is front page 'news.'

The piece is nothing but an op-ed masking as reporting and it's a bad op-ed at that. We should probably actually be glad that a press conference was held, otherwise we'd have another Gordo article that never names a single person quoted.

The article continues on A10 which is where you find David S. Cloud's "General Says Prison Inquiry Led to His Forced Retirement." Antonio Taguba, author of the Taguba report, looked into the Abu Ghraib torture and was deemed "overzealous" by Rumsfeld and the Pentagon. The Secretary of Defense staff informed Taguba that he "was no longer part of the team."

And that's it for the Times. As noted in an entry ("Community Note") that is still not showing up, Ruth's Report posted last night. It didn't show up forever. Due to those problems, I called Isaiah and, since he hadn't yet started on the comic, I told him not to bother because there was no way to be sure it would post today.

New content at The Third Estate Sunday Review:

A Note to Our Readers
Truest statement of the week
Editorial: Iraqis & Benchmarks
TV: A down and up week for women
The Dirty Politics of Barack Obama
Precedent is again tossed out the window
Independent media
Ed Oakley
Dumbest Headline of the week
Peter Pace fired
Highlights
Ruth's Report

The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.