State Dept's Iraq Status Report a Compilation of Major News Articles
By Bill W. Wednesday Nov 28, 2007 8:46amAmericablog shows just how much the State Dept's “Iraq Weekly Status Report” (pdf) is filled with sloppily credited cut and pastes from major media articles.
While I wouldn't go so far as John Aravosis does to call it "plagiarism," as the sources all do appear to be cited in the report's endnotes, it is disconcerting at the very least that our State Dept. relies so heavily on the same news outlets we do, and what the hell are the more than 1,600 State Dept employees in Iraq doing that they don't submit enough information back to State so they can file their own report instead of regurgitating articles from the same so-(wrongly)-called 'liberal media' that the Bush administration loves to hate?
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First, and there is no intelligence left in the WH state dept. All left with Powell.
Crouching down in bunkers in the Green Zone, and kissing their asses goodbye.
As we've learned from the Dark Lord Cheney who likes to leak to the press then quote the leak from the press to support his evil machinations (you have to admit, its pretty goddamn smooth) I'm sure most of the reports the State Dept. copied were initially leaked from the State Dept. to the reporters to begin with just for this purpose.
Ahh, is there no slut more willing, with holes more sloppy than the MSM?
Americans know the status of Iraq!! People are dying.
Can't we all just put this unfortunate incident behind us?
Maybe Condi would have time to actually do her job if the MSM wasn't doing softball interviews with her all the time
In other news, Henry Hyde is dead. We should piss on his grave.
and what the hell are the more than 1,600 State Dept employees in Iraq doing that they don’t submit enough information back to State
Writing their wills along with their urgent requests for transfers.
Real simple, their jobs under the Chimp Administraton, that is, to write articles for the MSM and get published. You know, you can always plagiarize later, but get our story out with our friends in the MSM who are looking for consolidation legislation, they will print whatever we want.
We have to get the truth out their over and over again so that our propaganda, oops, meant spreading of the truth, registers with the public. Don't want them to confuse the facts on the ground with OUR truth that we get to publish in our friends newspapers, magazines, radio and tv shows.
What i am about to say is true. I was directly informed by [redacted] who heard about it from [redacted] who got it from me.
xoites defends Constitution @ 10:
And it was in all the papers!
So they feed their bullshit to the MSM, then use that same bullshit to produce a status report.
Slicker than snot!
So I can leak a story to the local paper that says that I am the coolest person in town. They print a story that says I am the coolest person in town. Then I can point to that story and say, I am the coolest person in town because it says so right here in the paper.
XuYu @ 5:
Nope, it ain't gonna be that easy. We must face this problem head on, and take full responsibility for this administrations (in)actions. Elsewise, the rest of the world will hate us (even more) forever. This is not a problem that America can sweep under the rug. We can't walk away like we did in Afghanistan in the 80's.
Che's Lounge @ 12:
Astroturfing is the oldest trick in the book....
Anyhow, yet another "gift" left for future generations by Ray-gun: gutting the fairness doctrine and allowing media consolidation. Of course Clinton et al did not help any...
pissed off patricia @ 13:
I thought you WERE the coolest person in town...next to me. ;)
If you think the reporting on Iraq is bad, check this out.
http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/210.html
pissed off patricia @ 13:
You got it...
in fact it is easier than that, you can just use blogs right now. Only problem is that according to right wingers, only RW blogs are quotable. Liberal blogs are not "reliable" you know, hypocrisy has never been in short supply among conservatives. But that is neither here nor there....
Hey, btw I just read on the internets that you are the coolest person in your town. Congratulations!
Plagiarism isn't only a matter of citing (or not citing) sources. If there is no original content or ideas expressed then it is still plagiarism, no matter how well cited.
To answer your question directly, the 1,600 State Department employees in Iraq have formed a giant Mah Jong league, which gives them 400 teams, and they're reputedly 'whipping the sh*t' out of the four Chinese 'insurgents' Ahmadinejad smuggled over the Iran/Iraq border.
(Actually, the State Department is down, 376 to 0, but that data was squelched in the never-ending propaganda war for world dominance)
I wonder if the State Department's next status report will report that the last status report was 'A Compilation of Major News Articles'?
Dhalgren @ 7:
Why waste good piss?
Hey, guess what? I just opened our local paper and read that I sure am the coolest person in town. Ha! Who knew? I'm feeling pretty good right now. ;)
xoites defends Constitution @ 11:
I read about that, but it didn't give the source.
This morning we woke up to the news that a pipeline explosion at Clearbrook, Minnesota cut 1.5 million barrels day of Canadian oil imports. The explosion killed two workers and the price of oil catapulted near four dollars a barrel. The pipeline company said the fire is still burning. A company spokesman advised that "all lines are shut down until we can safely start up the system.
With prices escalating nearly $4 dollars a barrel, or a transfer of wealth from American consumers to oil interests of some $85 million dollars a day (21 millions plus/minus daily oil consumption X $4) this oil supply interruption classifies as a national supply emergency. It is exactly why we have a Strategic Petroleum Reserve in place, and where release of oil to the market would abate the supply disruption caused by this event.
Will the administration, that is to say President Bush and Energy Secretary Bodman, do the needful, and immediately announce a release from our 750 million barrel Petroleum Reserve to compensate for the Canadian oil shortfall?
Raymond J. Learsy
pissed off patricia @ 23:
Don't want to bring you down, and no offense, but it hasn't made my local paper (yet).
Preacher Boob @ 26:
Give them a call, 555.0666.
pissed off patricia @ 23:
Funny, I saw that in a government report ... I think it was from the State Department.
Well see, Preacher Boob, I'm not in your town so it couldn't be in your paper. This is hard work being named the coolest person in every town. I 'll get to your town and paper as soon as I can.
Are we sure Henry Hyde is dead? Maybe he's just playing opossum.
L.A. Confidential @ 25:
At least some of us did.
Apparently a few of us get more clues then we need.
Shadowgm @ 28:
See what one little well placed leak can do? :)
Worst. Administration. Ever.
Dhalgren @ 7:
Classy!
Filthy Harry @ 3:
Isn't this the truth!! Thanks for saying it...
IB222 @ 19:
Bingo!
re the Iraq Weekly Report--perhaps the reason why US State Dept employees rely on MSM reports is because a) they're in the green zone primarily, and b) real reporting would jeopardize their jobs. We can't have them telling the truth now, can we? ;)
what the hell are the more than 1,600 State Dept employees in Iraq doing that they don’t submit enough information back to State so they can file their own report instead of regurgitating articles from the same so-(wrongly)-called ‘liberal media’ that the Bush administration loves to hate?
Hunkering down???????
Salvador Dali said you always have to copy somebody in order to produce your own piece. (or was that Peeese??) Ok I flunked Art School...
anyway, The reports they are printing are the echo chamber documents fed to the troops on the ground. Otherwise they learn the truth, we will have a lot more of angry vets with combat experience hanging around the oval office and the state department..
bill w @ 22:
eactly , bush has his poop fished from the toilets he uses when hes in aother country by his cia lackeys , they then gently return his donky dung to the whitehouse where he uses it to smear up the constitution, lets hear it for all the unsung cia poop scoopers where ever they are!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The other day, I caught the book excerpt that says SecState Rice first learned that Hamas won the election among the Palestinians while working out on her "elliptical trainer." My first thought was "And where was your staff? Don't people brief you on these things?"
Then I realized she probably got up, got into gym clothes, did her morning workout, then showered and only then, while eating breakfast, did she start catching up on news for the day.
Still, it's extremely sad that a SecState could be caught so utterly flatfooted and so completely unaware of what was going on over there.
Exhibit 9392423 for Bush being worst president ever.
Rich @ 40:
She's been caught flatfooted ever since 9/11. I believe there were reports that indicated Hamas enjoyed public support, but we continued to back Fatah and make noises about 'democratic elections'.
Hamas wins. Condi does her clueless act ("I don't think anyone knew Hamas would win.").
U.S. government refuses to deal with the democratically elected representatives of the Palestinian people and threatens to cut off aid.
please don't tell me we should be shocked at finding out that the booshes have taken another shortcut. it's par for the course.
they don't want government to work anyway, so they are making a mockery of it.
L.A. Confidential @ 25:
I'm sure that announcement is another great excuse to raise the price of oil. wtf else should we expect?
[Deleted]
I hope that they took at least one snippet from maureen dowd. otherwise, it's a total waste. :lol:
pissed off patricia @ 29:
You're getting a little taste of the downside of celebrity. Imagine if you lived in NYC, were a crooked SOB, and were in the headlines every day. You'd have a feeling of what poor Rudy is going through.
dothehop @ 1:
So they lost no integrity whatsoever, but did lose one eyequeue point.
pissed off patricia @ 31:
One well-placed leak could dampen Henry Hyde's lips so he'd be able to swallow. If he were alive.
You're missing the point.
It isn't that the State Dept. employees aren't producing information which can't be used in the report... it's that the information they are producing doesn't tie in to the propaganda fiction Rice, Cheney, Bush, Betrayus, etc need pumped out so desperately.
Faux News and the rest of the "liberal media" will follow whatever line of fiction the Bushites need them to. So why, oh why, would they bother with "reality based community" information sources? That would be stupid.
This isn't terribly surprising since this morning I was reading in The Dallas Morning Nudes that it's the PENTAGON trying to rebuild in Iraq, not the State Dept. which was the norm.
This was more of rummy's "work".
Dhalgren @ 7:
Now he will become a martyr. (Definition: A person who makes great sacrifices or suffers much in order to further a belief - cause - or principle.) Yep, that's Henry Hyde in a nutshell.
rain @ 52:
I thought it was Henry Jekyll and Edward Hyde.
Plagerism??? Maybe, but even that indicates a certain level of effort to assimilate and organize.. So, probably not... Possibly just lazy... They do work for Bush ultimately... after all... Even more probable... Fear..... That whole hunkering/crouching down and doing that whole kissing their asses goodbye thing that Blue Budda@2 and liz@37 alluded to... As far as that Henry Hyde dying bit??? Personally? Not gonna lose any sleep over it...JD
So this would amount to the news services taking down and publishing anything that Bushco says, and then the State Dept copying what the news services say....
Sounds like a circle jerk to me...
IB222 @ 19:
No, that is just sloppy or shoddy, but not plagiarism.
Websters
If you cite your source, as they did in their report albeit sloppily so, it's not plagiarism.
Dhalgren @ 7:
When Bill Clinton heard that Henry Hyde was dead, he made up an impromptu ditty, right on the spot, and sang it. The title was 'Save the First Pee for Me'.
JustSomeGuy @ 50:
DING!! DING!! DING!!
Ladies and gentlemen! We have a winner!
Faux news is liberal?
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