This board will serve as my wall of shame, or s–tlist of people who pass off GOP propaganda as either research or news.
This post will be a whole directory of journalists, politicians, academics, prominent blogs, and other prominent figures who either:
–Ignore basic facts;
–Omit important information;
–Tells lies about Iraq.
If anybody tries to use such sources on me, I will simply reply that their source is not credible because they do not have their facts straight. Therefore, why should we believe them when they make their case? Anybody is entitled to their own opinions. However, people are not entitled to their own facts when trying to make arguments. Here are the people who, for one reason or another, make my wall of shame for not telling the truth about Iraq:
Wolf Blitzer, CNN:
–Blitzer has shown a repeated track record of holding Democratic guests to higher standards than Republican guests. For example, on October 31st, he repeated unsubstantiated rumors and presented them as facts to Joe Wilson. On the other hand, he let Mary Matlin’s false claim on October 14th, 2004 of the US capturing 75% of Al-Qaeda operatives go unchallenged. In order to be an objective reporter, one must challenge Republican guests in the same way they challenge Democratic guests.
David Brooks, NY Times:
—In the October 30th New York Times, David Brooks wrote a column that ignored basic facts about Plamegate and contained several omissions that could have been corrected by reading the indictment or listening to the press conference:
- He referred to any attempt to go beyond the current indictment as a "wild theory" by the Democrats. Our goal in any investigation is to get to the bottom of what people know and when they knew it. In so doing, he deflects attention away from the crime. It is the Bush administration being investigated, not the Democrats.
- He erroneously stated that the everybody had cooperated with Fitzgerald when the latter said it was "all agencies." This did not mean "all individuals." Libby lied to the Grand Jury according to the indictment; therefore, he did not cooperate.
- Brooks falsely claimed that the case was over when Patrick Fitzgerald made it clear that he would continue the investigation as long as necessary and that Rove is a continued target.
- Brooks engages in doublethink when he says the White House collectively lied and then claims that it is not a conspiracy. If the White House as a group lied, then it is a conspiracy, as a conspiracy involves two or more individuals.
- Brooks condemns Democratic anger and outrage over Plame, but refuses to condemn similar Republican anger and outrage.
Chris Matthews, MSNBC’s Hardball:
—On October 31st, 2005 Matthews lied on Hardball by calling a Democratic fact sheet on Judge Samuel Alito "disgusting." In so doing, he fell in with a right-wing smear campaign against Democrats by accusing them of racism. However, the Democratic fact sheet, posted here, contains no ethnic slurs; however, it does contain a detailed record of the problems with Judge Alito. Political parties publish fact sheets like this all the time; for a news anchor to call such a document "disgusting" is hypocritical, given that he has not done so with a Republican document.
- Update: Armando at Daily Kos documents that this smear came from Kenneth Ciongioli, a long-time Republican who violated The National Italian-American Foundation’s non-partisan status for propaganda purposes.
- Cingoli’s son worked for right-wing AG John Ashcroft; he also clerked for Alito.
Judith Miller, NY Times:
—On Sepember 8th 2002, Miller wrote a propaganda article, disguised a news, which claimed that we had intercepted alumunum tubes which could have been used to make uranium. These articles were debunked five days later. The same link points out that Miller, by the NYT’s own admission in 2004, wrote five factually inaccurate articles that were propaganda pieces disguised as news during the leadup to the war.
Wes Purden, Washington Times:
—In an October 25th column, Wes Purden wrote a completely unprofessional article completely mocking the investigation. In the article, Purden insulted the intelligence of his readers by suggesting that the Plame matters were too difficult for the average voter to understand.
Cokie Roberts, ABC News:
—On October 30th 2005, Cokie Roberts repeated factual errors and GOP propaganda on This Week:
- Roberts repeated the worn-out lie that no crime was committed;
- Roberts defended Judith Miller when she claimed that the Plamegate case was all about the rights of a reporter to have conversations with a government source, ignoring the fact that this resulted in the shutting-down of a major WMD-monitoring project and damaging our national security.
–On This Week after the third debate in 2004, a gleam in Roberts’ eyes was evident as she repeated news that she saw as good for Bush;
–Roberts, after the second debate, claimed falsely that Bush stayed behind to shake hands with undecided voters, while Kerry left.
John Tierney, NY Times:
—In the November 1st issue of the New York Times, Tierney contradicted himself and made basic factual errors while defending Libby:
- He falsely accused Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald of being a Democratic Party operative;
- He falsely implied that the Plamegate investigation was closed; Fitzgerald specifically said in his press conference that it was still open;
- He contradicted himself when he said that Joe Wilson brought back "scant evidence" that bolstered the Niger uranium connection to Iraq; scant evidence cannot be used to prove a case.
- Tierney makes an ad homenim attack against Valerie Plame when he slams her for posing for Vanity Fair. This has nothing to do with the case, as it was the fact that she was a CIA agent that was classified, not her identity. This is a propaganda device designed to portray elitism.
- He blames the CIA for being cavalier about protecting Plame. But that does not make outing her as an agent legal.
Wall Street Journal editorial page:
—In an October 30th editorial, the Journal claimed that Patrick Fitzgerald spent millions of dollars investigating Plamegate, when in fact, he had only spent $700,000. In the same editorial, there were these other factual errors:
- They falsely claimed that Libby had not leaked Plame’s name to the media, when in fact he had;
- They claimed there was no evidence for a conspiracy when the indictment clearly spelled out one;
- They lack basic knowledge of the law when they claim no laws were broken; the investigation was over Sections 793 and 794. These laws specificly deal with the outing of CIA agents and the actions committed by Libby.
- They make a factual error when claiming that Wilson was a Democrat; in fact, he was a Republican and Bush I’s ambassador to Iraq before Gulf War I.
Bob Woodward:
—On the October 28th night Larry King show, Woodward told a blatant lie and made several basic factual errors:
- Woodward made an ad homenim argument by calling Patrick Fitzgerald a "junkyard dog prosecutor."
- Woodward claimed that Joe Wilson’s written report was ambiguous, when in fact, as pointed out by his fellow panelists, Wilson gave an oral report on his return from Niger. This meant Wilson’s conclusion that there were no Niger-to-Iraq Uranium sales was so obvious, there was no need for a written report.
- Woodward claimed Plamegate had nothing to do with the Iraq War.
- Woodward lied when he said the CIA did a damage assessment and found there was no damage. In fact, the CIA shut down Brewster-Jennings, a front company, as the result of the outing of Plame. In addition, one agent may have lost his life when the outing occured. In addition, R.J. Eskow of Huffington Post writes that Woodward could not possibly have had the access necessary to read such a document.
John Yoo, American Enterprise Institute:
—On October 31st, 2005 UPI reported that Yoo declared that only the President can declare war. This is a basic factual error. The Constitution specifically states that only Congress can declare war. Mr. Yoo is entitled to his own opinions defending the Bush administration. However, he is not entitled to his own facts about the Constitution.
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These are the first ten examples I have of media and academics who won’t tell the truth about Iraq, but have prostitutied their vocation in favor of being GOP propagandists instead. And I am sure there are many more.
Who is the worst academic, blogger, or journalist ever? You can help be a part of this process. If you nominate someone and document their status as right-wing propagandist, I will add them to my Wall of Shame. I am using this as a resource so people can see for themselves who is credible and who is not.
For your nomination to be considered, they must either:
–Tell a lie or factual error about Iraq that has already been debunked. Anything about Joe Wilson, Plamegate, Iran, or Syria is welcome as well.
–Ignore a basic fact that is easily accessible, such as the on first two pages of Google or in a newspaper;
–Omit important information;
–Display demonstrable bias, such as being harder on Democrats than Republicans or body language.
You must provide a link to the source and a link debunking the propagandist’s assertion.