Andy Cobb and Josh Funk have a bit of fun with the Washington Post and their America's Next Great Pundit contest.

Shakesville: Facts Schmacts...but Waxman-Markey passes the House anyway

Scott Horton: Did a Bush Justice Department official obstruct the Renzi investigation?

FAIR Blog: Why I couldn't say what Dan Froomkin said reporters should do

Mondoweiss: Naomi Klein in Bil'in: Boycott Israel

Iraq Today: War News.  It aint good

Alien Truth: Ayatolla tweets can't be beat

Many thanks to Batocchio for filling in so ably for the past ten days

The Washington Post is dead to me:

(T)he Washington Post has terminated its relationship with liberal columnist/blogger Dan Froomkin. Froomkin authored the "White House Watch" blog and was told today that the blog had essentially run its course.

Washington Post Media Communications Director Kris Coratti tells POLITICO that "our editors and research teams are constantly reviewing our columns, blogs and other content to make sure we're giving readers the most value when they are on our site while balancing the need to make the most of our resources. Unfortunately, this means that sometimes features must be eliminated, and this time it was the blog that Dan Froomkin freelanced for washingtonpost.com."

"Run its course"???? WTF? But David Broder, who has been at WaPo since God was a little boy and whose never been in a coffeeshop he couldn't find some colorful local to confirm his preconceived (and generally wrong) notions, is still relevant? Bill Kristol, for whom the Washington Post had to issue not one or two, but THREE retractions for direct misinformation he tried to squeeze into his typical hack op-ed, is still worth holding on to. Charles farkin' Krauthammer, who has no business opining anywhere he has gotten so much wrong, is still collecting a WaPo paycheck.

But Dan Froomkin, whom Andrew Sullivan calls the "best blogger" at the paper and who is the author of 3 of the 10 most linked to articles at WaPo, is not someone worth keeping on staff?

Glenn Greenwald suspects that Froomkin was on the losing end of some internal power struggles:

Notably, Froomkin just recently had a somewhat acrimonious exchange with the oh-so-oppressed Krauthammer over torture, after Froomkin criticized Krauthammer's explicit endorsement of torture and Krauthammer responded by calling Froomkin's criticisms "stupid." And now -- weeks later -- Froomkin is fired by the Post while the persecuted Krauthammer, comparing himself to endangered journalists in Venezuela, remains at the Post, along with countless others there who think and write just like he does: i.e., standard neoconservative pablum. Froomkin was previously criticized for being "highly opinionated and liberal" by Post ombudsman Deborah Howell (even as she refused to criticize blatant right-wing journalists).

Seriously? Does the Washington Post not realize that all these neo-cons they give endless column inches to are what's ruining this country? Steven Benen:

If Froomkin is leaving the Post, it’s a real loss. Froomkin has been a great writer with keen instincts, often picking up on a burgeoning story before it’s gained traction elsewhere. Froomkin was one of the media’s most important critics of the Bush White House, and conservative bashing notwithstanding, was poised to be just as valuable holding the Obama White House accountable for its decisions.

If you like to share your opinion of the Washington Post's hiring choices, you can contact Ombudsman Andrew Alexander at ombudsman@washpost.com. Me, personally? I'm just deleting the bookmark. If I wanted neo-con and fact free tripe from Will, Kagan, Kristol and Broder, I'll just watch Fox News.

As former Vice President Dick Cheney continues his feckless crusade to save his legacy and once again mislead the world about the war crimes he was party to, new revelations about those crimes are beginning to surface.

Denying that White House policy was directly responsible for the vile abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib has been the central goal of a five-year disinformation campaign by Bush officials. 'Torture Team' author Philippe Sands argues that newly-disclosed records show how blatantly Bush officials were willing to lie in order to lead reporters away from the truth. Eighth in a series of articles calling attention to the things we still need to know about torture and other abuses committed by the Bush administration after 9/11.

Soon after the photos of detainee abuse at Abu Ghraib went public, Bush administration officials contrived a high-stakes disinformation campaign to prevent the American people from linking the White House to the vile, sadistic treatment of detainees in that Iraqi prison. They repeatedly insisted that the abuses were just the work of a few “bad apples.” They scoffed at the notion that their orders circumventing historic limits on interrogation were remotely responsible.

Five years later, they’re still at it, with former vice president Dick Cheney waging a clever campaign that would have the debate over government-sanctioned torture turn on what techniques were employed at the CIA’s secret prison -- and whether they “worked.”...

But “Torture Team” author Philippe Sands points out that a vivid illustration of the disinformation campaign – showing just how far officials were willing to mislead and lie in their desperate attempt to avoid culpability for Abu Ghraib – can now be found by comparing one of the newly-released Justice Department memos with statements made by then-White House counsel Alberto Gonzales in June 2004. Read on...

(Sorry for the missing link!)

Dan Froomkin writes an impressive piece that exposes the torturers and their media enablers who covered up and participated in the torture policy of the Bush White House that is a must-read. It's called: "Complicity -- and Accountability -- on Torture," and he ends it on some wise words from Deepak Chopra: (correction)

"The more the right wing tries to justify the torture policy, the worse they look. Using national security to justify torture is just a bald-faced attempt to hide the truth. What really went on was simple. The Bush administration felt that Al-Qaida could not be defeated while still preserving what America stands for."

Dan Froomkin has a great post up about the newly released torture memos and he knows this is only the beginning.

The full extent of what was done in our name remains unclear, and there are still big gaps in our understanding of how it all came to pass. Just how many people were detained by the U.S. government in the so-called “war on terror”? How many of them should never have been held in the first place? How many of them were mistreated, and how badly? Did torture and abuse produce valuable information? How much did it embolden our enemies? How many people knew what was going on? Where in the chain of command does the responsibility lie? Why didn’t more people object? How direct was the link between what happened in the offices of the president and vice president and the cells of Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib? How willful was the administration’s corruption of the law?


And it’s not just torture and detention. When it comes to warrantless surveillance, for instance, what little we know about the program as it still exists today is still considerably more than we know about the program as it operated before the revolt in Bush’s own Justice Department. What were we doing from 2001 to 2004 such that even John Ashcroft couldn’t bring himself to approve it any longer? How many people have been wiretapped without a warrant? What happened to all the data?


The public overwhelmingly wants some sort of official inquiry. According to a recent USA Today/Gallup Poll, nearly two thirds of Americans support an investigation into the treatment of terror suspects during the Bush administration – although they are split on whether it should be conducted by an independent panel or by federal prosecutors.


Journalists have a special role here. Not only can we keep chipping away at the truth – but we can and should remind members of the public, over and over again, about all the facts that remain hidden from them, including information about acts committed in their name that had -- and continue to have -- profound moral and legal implications. We should also remind Americans that our moral stature on the globe has been -- and will remain -- seriously damaged until or unless there is some sort of process of reckoning and accountability. And while there’s no need for journalists to get involved in partisan battles, when the question at hand is whether the nation will avert its eyes or face up to the truth, it’s entirely appropriate for journalists to take a stand.

NiemanWatchDog is having a series devoted to these questions. Journalists, please do your jobs.

 Very nice...There's a big reason why Bush chose Williams for an interview instead of who NPR wanted. Cheney used this technique for Meet the Press and made Russert look like a fool. It's called " Controlling the Message!"

Ellen Weiss, NPR's vice president for news, said she "felt strongly" that "the White House shouldn't be selecting the person." She said NPR told Bush's press secretary, Dana Perino, that "we're grateful for the opportunity to talk to the president but we wanted to determine who did the interview." When the White House said the offer could not be transferred to one of NPR's program hosts, Weiss took a pass.

Notice in the Kurtz piece he never talks about Williams being O'Reilly's chief apologist, but rather prints only his opinions that would seem to make him a good choice for the interview. Here's Williams comparing David Letterman to John Wayne Gacy, the clown killer, because he called BillO out and said "I have the feeling that about 60 percent of what you say is crap". (h/t MM for the video) I wish Juan stood up all the time like he does against Kristol on FNS.

Download | play Download | play Williams discussing Letterman

Download | play Download | play Letterman on O'Reilly

Dan Froomkin has his opinion and it's a good one.

How much control should the White House have over who gets to interview President Bush? Specifically, should Bush be able to dictate which journalists at which outlets he talks to?----Given how meticulously the White House picks and grooms Bush's audiences to avoid any unpleasantness, it should come as no surprise that the press office is very careful about who gets to interview Bush.---

Somewhat tellingly, Williams served as Bill O'Reilly's sympathetic foil during the Fox News anchor's bizarre quasi-racist rant last week about his visit to a black restaurant and his observation that, to his apparent surprise, the patrons weren't running around screaming like addled rappers.

Would other news organizations allow the White House to determine who on their staffs would be allowed to interview the president? Would any responsible newspaper accept such conditions? I hardly think so.

Via The Washington Post:

At yesterday's press conference, President Bush announced that he had put Iran on notice: "One of the main reasons that I asked [U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan] Crocker to meet with Iranians inside Iraq was to send the message that there will be consequences for people transporting, delivering EFPs, highly sophisticated IEDs [improvised explosive devices] that kill Americans in Iraq."

Describing Iran as "a very troubling nation right now," largely because of its nuclear program, Bush warned its leaders that "when we catch you playing a non-constructive role [in Iraq] there will be a price to pay."

So what price is Bush prepared to exact? Is this saber-rattling a harbinger of war? And perhaps most to the point: What is Vice President Cheney up to?

Warren P. Strobel, John Walcott and Nancy A. Youssef write for McClatchy Newspapers today that "the president's top aides have been engaged in an intense internal debate over how to respond to Iran's support for Shiite Muslim groups in Iraq and its nuclear program. Vice President Dick Cheney several weeks ago proposed launching airstrikes at suspected training camps in Iraq run by the Quds force, a special unit of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, according to two U.S. officials who are involved in Iran policy. . . . Read more...

Once again, Dan Froomkin nails it:

Like any terrorist organization, al-Qaeda wants attention. It wants to be perceived as powerful. And it particularly wants Americans to live in fear.

Could al-Qaeda possibly have found a better publicist than President Bush?

At a South Carolina Air Force base yesterday, Bush mentioned al-Qaeda and bin Laden 118 times in 29 minutes, arguing that the violence unleashed by the U.S. invasion in Iraq would somehow come to America's shores if U.S. troops were to withdraw.But the majority of that violence in Iraq is caused either by Iraqis murdering each other for religious reasons or by Iraqis trying to throw off the American occupation. The group that calls itself al-Qaeda in Iraq is only one of a multitude of factions creating chaos in that country, and the long-term goals of its Iraqi members are almost certainly not in line with those of al-Qaeda HQ (which is safely ensconced in Pakistan).

Furthermore, the administration's own intelligence community has concluded that the war in Iraq has helped rather than hurt al-Qaeda.

Dan Froomkin has a great article up on the Bush/Cheney/ Libby pardon commute. Here's a sample:

All of this means that Bush's decision yesterday to commute Libby's prison sentence isn't just a matter of unequal justice. It is also a potentially self-serving and corrupt act...read on

It’s usually pretty easy to tell when the president really cares about an issue. Bush, when he feels like it’s worth his effort, will devote a lot of time to something important to him, he’ll hold sycophant-only public events to talk up his policy, he’ll even come up with little smears and taunts for those who dare to disagree.

With this in mind, Dan Froomkin raised a really good point this afternoon: “Has Bush Given Up on Immigration?”

The much-anticipated immigration compromise cobbled together last week by the White House and a bipartisan group of senators isn’t going anywhere without a lot of aggressive campaigning by the president. But where is President Bush? Not exactly out on the hustings.

Where’s the full-court press? Where’s the barnstorming? Where are the famous White House theatrics?

The current legislation has almost nothing but enemies. Even tacit supporters acknowledge the bill’s many “imperfections.” The White House may have helped put this deal together, but if Bush wants it to pass, he’s going to have to work for it. But by all indications, he doesn’t want to.

This isn’t just symptomatic of the president’s inherent avoidance of hard work. When it comes to his Iraq policy, Bush will give enthusiastic speeches, host townhall gatherings, appear in the media, and use his Bully Pulpit. In 2005, he gave Social Security privatization the same treatment.

But when it comes to immigration, White House and congressional officials struck a major deal, Bush appeared before the cameras for exactly two minutes, said he was “anxious” to sign a bill … and then left town.

Either the president doesn’t really care about immigration, or there’s something stopping him from dipping into his usual bag of tricks.

Froomkin:

Countless e-mails to and from many key White House staffers have been deleted -- lost to history and placed out of reach of congressional subpoenas -- due to a brazen violation of internal White House policy that was allowed to continue for more than six years, the White House acknowledged yesterday.

But when I asked Stanzel to read out loud the White House e-mail policy, it seemed clear enough to me: "Federal law requires the preservation of electronic communications sent or received by White House staff," says the handbook that all staffers are given and expected to read and comply with.

Stanzel refused to publicly release the relevant portions of the White House staff manual and denied my request to make public the transcript of the call, which lasted more than an hour but which -- due to Stanzel's refusal or inability to provide straight answers on many issues -- raised more questions than it answered....read on

Thank you Washington Post. After their disastrous Libby editorials, Read Froomkin's "Scooter Libby Opinion Watch." Now---they follow them up with the always wrong, always cranky Robert Kagan...

If you haven't heard the audio of Glenn kicking Frank Gaffney, another neocon around, here it is...(corrected)

Dan Froomkin:

Washington's media elites have been against this case from the beginning, seeing Fitzgerald and Wilson as unwelcome interlopers threatening the cozy relationship between the city's top political journalists and their sources.

So perhaps today's Washington Post editorial shouldn't come as a surprise. And yet it does.

The Post's editorial grudgingly acknowledges that "Mr. Libby's conviction should send a message to this and future administrations about the dangers of attempting to block official investigations." But, making assertions that aren't supported by facts that have been reported by its own news operation and others, the editorial concludes that the guilty verdict is, of all things, a vindication of the White House and an indictment of the prosecutor.

Dan is doing an online chat right now....

  In his second exclusive interview in three days with ABC's Jonathan Karl, Dick Cheney doesn't back down from yesterday's statement about Speaker Pelosi's Iraq position ("I'm not questioning her patriotism. I'm questioning her judgment.") and continues the sabre rattling with Iran.

Download | play    Download | play  

I could be wrong, but it seems to me that al Qaeda is quite content with having our military bogged down in Iraq rather than in, say, Waziristan or Afghanistan. You know, the places where the overwhelming majority of al Qaeda and Taliban fighters are currently rearming against us. Then again, what do I know. I'm just a stupid blogger.

DKos blogger The Cunctator traces Cheney's patriotism quote back to Spiro Agnew in 1970. Lest we forget, W told Stephanopoulos the same thing back in October of last year. 

Download | play    Download | play

Dan Froomkin breaks down the interview, making some important observations:

Vice President Cheney is going out of his way to make it clear that he doesn't think he has anything to apologize for.

In an unprecedented display of public verbosity from the typically taciturn vice president, Cheney spoke for the second time in three days with ABC News reporter Jonathan Karl. During today's 22-minute interview in a Sydney restaurant, Cheney showed no sign of backing down from controversy. Rather, he:

* Repeated and amplified his opinion that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's proposed course in Iraq would validate al Qaeda.

* Refused to acknowledge any failure of U.S. policy in Iraq.

* Stood by his 1991 prediction that an invasion of Iraq would result in a quagmire -- but said that 9/11 changed the dynamics such that it had to be done anyway.  Read more...