Bill Moyers Journal: "Buying the War"

E&P

The most powerful indictment of the news media for falling down in its duties in the run-up to the war in Iraq will appear next Wednesday, a 90-minute PBS broadcast called "Buying the War," which marks the return of "Bill Moyers Journal." E&P was sent a preview DVD and a draft transcript for the program this week.

While much of the evidence of the media's role as cheerleaders for the war presented here is not new, it is skillfully assembled, with many fresh quotes from interviews (with the likes of Tim Russert and Walter Pincus) along with numerous embarrassing examples of past statements by journalists and pundits that proved grossly misleading or wrong. Several prominent media figures, prodded by Moyers, admit the media failed miserably, though few take personal responsibility.

The war continues today, now in its fifth year, with the death toll for Americans and Iraqis rising again -- yet Moyers points out, "the press has yet to come to terms with its role in enabling the Bush Administration to go to war on false pretenses."

friday reads

U.S. releases a terrorist. Meteor Blades has more.

Vermont senators voted Friday to call for the impeachment of President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, saying their actions have raised "serious questions of constitutionality."

Dan Froomkin covers the Abu Gonzales Clown Show.

"Suicide Bombings" - The Cover Story For US Military Ops In Iraq

friday random ten

Photo by Ryan McManus

friday random ten


"Van Gogh" - The June Umbrella [Self Titled EP (2007)]


"N.Y.C.S." - Havana Guns [Demo (2007)]


"Minua ollaan vastassa" - Regina [Katso maisemaa (2005)]


"I Wanna Be Like Johnny C" - Loveninjas [The Secret Of the Loveninjas (2006)]


"Tape It" - WinterKids [Memoirs (2007)]


"Aiden Quinn" - Thrushes [Sun Come Undone (2007)]


"No Way Out" - Love Of Diagrams [Mosaic (2007)]


"Disaster" - The Besnard Lakes [Are the Dark Horse (2007)]


"Burning World" (Loop cover) - The Field Mice [Bull 4-0 Flexi (1992)]


"In Diesem Raum" - Trost [Trust Me (2006)]


Bonus #420: "Mary, Mary (It's To You I Belong)" - Birdwatchers [Marijuana Unknowns Vol. 1 (1998)]

listen

'bout time

WaPo

Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), the most liberal of the Democratic presidential candidates in the primary field, declared in a letter sent to his Democratic House colleagues this morning that he plans to file articles of impeachment against Vice President Dick Cheney.

just another day in Iraq

Juan Cole

Iraq's streets continued to function as a macabre open morgue. Police found 25 corpses, most showing signs of torture, in Baghdad. The creeping back up of the number of corpses found each day suggests renewed activity on the part of death squads, both Sunni and Shiite. I'm surprised that they are able to operate with such impunity in the capital given the increase in the number of US and Iraqi troops there.

In Mosul, nine bodies were found. Near Diwaniyah in the Shiite south, 4 bodies were discovered. There has been fighting in Diwaniya between the Mahdi Army and local police, dominated by the Badr Corps of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq. In Suwayra south of Baghdad, 3 bodies were fished from a river.

In Ramadi, authorities made a gruesome discovery of a small mass grave with 17 decomposing bodies in it, probably victims of the Salafi Jihadi movement, "The Islamic State of Iraq."

There were also scattered car bombings and mortar strikes.

UPDATE: BBC

At least 157 people have been killed in a string of attacks in Iraq's capital, Baghdad, security officials say.

In the deadliest incident, some 115 people were killed in a car bombing in a food market in Sadriya district.

An attack on a police checkpoint in Sadr City and several other explosions left at least another 42 people dead.

It's...

Season One, Episode Two

monday morning briefs

Amnesty International Charges That Vast Humanitarian Crisis is Looming With More Than Three Million Iraqis Displaced

Pew Survey Finds Most Aware Americans Watch 'Daily Show' and 'Colbert'-- and Visit Newspaper Sites

NEW YORK- A new survey of 1,502 adults released Sunday by Pew Research Center for the People & the Press found that despite the mass appeal of the Internet and cable news since a previous poll in 1989, Americans' knowledge of national affairs has slipped a little. For example, only 69% know that Dick Cheney is vice president, while 74% could identify Dan Quayle in that post in 1989.

Other details are equally eye-opening. Pew judged the levels of knowledgability (correct answers) among those surveyed and found that those who scored the highest were regular watchers of Comedy Central's The Daily Show and Colbert Report. They tied with regular readers of major newspapers in the top spot -- with 54% of them getting 2 out of 3 questions correct. Watchers of the Lehrer News Hour on PBS followed just behind.

Virtually bringing up the rear were regular watchers of Fox News. Only 1 in 3 could answer 2 out of 3 questions correctly. Fox topped only network morning show viewers.

Steady stream of airmen train for convoy duty

CAMP BULLIS, Texas — A row of rumbling flatbed trucks and Humvees outfitted with gun turrets lurches toward a mock village of cinderblock buildings where instructors posing as insurgents wait to test the trainees’ convoy protection skills.

The training range is Army, as is the duty itself. But the young men and women clad in camouflage and helmets training to run and protect convoys are not Army; they’re Air Force.

They are part of a small but steady stream of airmen being trained to do Army duty under the Army chain of command, a tangible sign the Pentagon was scouring the military to aid an Iraq force that was stretched long before President Bush ordered 21,500 additional U.S. troops there.

On Sunday

Shoulders - On Sun...