SteveAudio: I eat alone in the desert, with skulls for my pets.

The Other McCain: Botched raid in Iraq.

James Wolcott: It appears that once again Washington Post journalist and social arbiter Sally Quinn has created a stir by opening her brassy mouth.

Amygdala: ...if it aint got that swing

The Existentialist Cowboy: Carlin: "We can bomb the sh*t outta your country."

Listen to the entire broadcast of the House Judiciary Committee Hearings on Torture, with comments from Scott Horton, as well as interviews with The New Yorker's Jane Mayer, Newsweek's Michael Isikoff, The New York Review of Books contributor Mark Danner, Torture Team author Philippe Sands, American University Professor Stephen I. Vladeck, and other guests

Check out this exchange between Hugh "The Cowardly Lion" Hewitt and Newsweek's Michael Isikoff. It's nothing short of remarkable.

MI: The central argument [for war in Iraq] was weapons of mass destruction.

HH: That was Colin Powell. Again, that's spin. Michael Isikoff, that's spin.

We can debate ideological differences all day long, but we need to have common ground to work off of, which usually consist of things we would call FACTS. With Hugh Hewitt, there are no facts, just SPIN. Now, Hewitt thinks US foreign policy should be run on GUESSES, but when asked to guess, that's SPIN too...

I'll remind Howard Kurtz of Digby's piece describing Hewitt's function for the extreme/Koreshian right of the GOP.

Hewitt stands apart, actually, as being even more craven and unprincipled than the rest. In that way he serves an important purpose for the right. His mere presence in the discourse serves to make people like John Podhoretz and Jonah Goldberg seem like paragons of rectitude by comparison.

People of the center or left who continue to help Hewitt pretend to be a credible person by appearing on his show can no longer be considered credible themselves. By encouraging Hewitt's blatant intellectual corruption they are irrevocably tainted by that intellectual corruption themselves.

So how is Hewitt's pick of Rick Santorum as a Supreme Court Justice doing these day?

Some Power Line delusion.

I had the opportunity this afternoon to be part of a relatively small group who heard President Bush talk, extemporaneously, for around forty minutes.---I've sometimes worried about how President Bush can withstand the Washington snake pit and deal with a daily barrage of hate from the ignorant left that, in my opinion, dwarfs in both volume and injustice the abuse directed against any prior President.

Apparently, he forgot what many from the right did to Clinton for years as Michael Isikoff wrote:

It was at this point, he writes, that he realized with more clarity than he had in the past that he “was in the middle of a plot to get the president.” “I was only covering it, of course,” he now writes. “Or so I told myself. But I was covering it from the inside, while it was unfolding, talking nearly every week with the conspirators as they schemed to make it happen.”

Continue reading »

David Corn, One more thing
Much has been made of my rather satirical post asking David Corn to explain his articles defending his friend Viveca Novak in the Valerie Plame affair. I’ve talked to David in the past and have always thought of him as a good guy and fine reporter, but I felt that since I’ve been openly critical of Tina Brown, Michael Isikoff, Bob Woodward, Andrea Mitchell, Howard Kurtz, and Judy Miller for either giving a free pass to fellow journalists or helping to spread propaganda-I should treat David equally. David said I "politely hinted" that he was being disingenuous and I was.

Just the other day, I learned through anonymous sources that David and Michael Isikoff are collaborating on a new book. I find this fascinating. I’m sure it will be a good read too, however as I looked to see if there was a formal announcement of the new project-I found that David wrote a similar piece defending Isikoff of criticism from Media Matters. David candidly says:

"Admittedly I have a bias in favor of a friend."

No matter how many good stories Michael writes his credibility is shot over the Paula Jones and Monica Lewinsky affairs. We need David in the good fight to make sure this administration and any other one is held accountable to the positions they take. If journalists come out in defense of each other after they use questionable judgement, it makes them look like a special interest group that protects its own. How can the American people trust what is written then? You can still choose to defend your buddies, that’s a choice to make, but you open yourself up to heightened scrutiny and the accusation of veiled motives when you do.

Please come back David, because if you don’t stop now you run the risk of turning into another Andrea Mitchell, who was recently quoted on the Don Imus Show saying:

Imus: "It seems unclear what you said and perhaps you can clear it up about what you said back in Oct. of 2003---
Mitchell: "I have been trying to figure out "what-the-heck" I was talking about, frankly. There is confusion because I am confused."

You've got to hand it to Michael Isikoff and his tireless efforts to try and make the most unsympathetic man in the world -- Karl Rove -- look almost human...read on

Talk Left has more...

Here's my latest on the Huffington Post about Michael Isikoff.

On Inside Politics, MICHAEL ISIKOFF from Newsweek discussed Karl Rove's roll in leaking information to Matt Cooper and other WH implications.

Download | play -WMP-small compression

Eschaton has more: Spikey Mikey

Howie reports : Whitaker said that a senior Pentagon official, for reasons that "are still a little mysterious to us," had declined to comment after Newsweek correspondent John Barry showed him a draft before the item was published and asked whether it was accurate, adding that the magazine would have held off had military spokesmen made such a request. Whitaker said Pentagon officials raised no objection to the story for a week after it was published, until it was translated by some Arab media outlets and led to the rioting.

The item was principally reported by Michael Isikoff, Newsweek's veteran investigative reporter. "Obviously we all feel horrible about what flowed from this, but it's important to remember there was absolutely no lapse in journalistic standards here," he said. "We relied on sources we had every reason to trust and gave the Pentagon ample opportunity to comment. . . . We're going to continue to investigate what remains a very murky situation."

Why didn't the Pentagon raise a red flag? Why didn't they say hold on while we check those facts? Newsweek didn't blind side the Pentagon. They acted in good faith by giving the Pentagon access before they ran the story. The first reported incident made it seem like they printed the story with no notification. That's not the case. Didn't the "senior" Pentagon official have an idea what might happen? This doesn't excuse Newsweek, but the mayhem that ensued could have been averted.

MahaBlog

Because it shows how hard it is to get the facts out.

The wet kiss headline is “Judge Seen as Conservative, Fair”.

And it just gets worse from there.

Savage uses the GOP talking points early in the piece, telling his readers that Owen “comes across as a mainstream conservative.”

He quotes a total of four people that he interviewed. All the quotes are pro-Owen. Read on...

Read on...