I was shocked to come home and see Keith Olbermann again turning to Gerald Posner for “information” regarding the Anthrax case. I had to sit down and fire off a letter to him pronto. I doubt he’ll even see it, but he should. Because Gerald Posner is clearly not his friend, or ours, and should NOT be featured on his show.
Here’s what I wrote:
Keith!!!
How can you be so naïve???
Don’t you know who Posner is? Or is that the price you have to pay to keep your show on the air?
Posner has proved to be little more than a shill for the intelligence community. His books reek with the access he has received, and his book on the JFK case is one of the single most dishonest books I’ve ever read on the subject.
Has it not occurred to you that if the anthrax attack was an inside plot to help build the case against Iraq, that Posner would be trotted out yet again to spin a theory that takes you FURTHER, not CLOSER, to that horrible truth?
Most of the time you are so insightful and bright that I just want to pull my hair out when you do something so dumb as to give this man credibility by putting him on your show.
Please. There are honest commentators you can have on. But this guy does not deserve your approval. Please – read this, by a historian Posner himself praises:
“Gerald Posner argues that the Warren Commission properly investigated the assassination of JFK. He claims to have refuted the critics, purports to show what actually occurred, and asserts simple factual answers to explain complex problems that have plagued the subject for years. In the process he condemns all who do not agree with the official conclusions as theories driven by conjectures. At the same time his book is so theory driven, so rife with speculation, and so frequently unable to conform his text with the factual content in his sources that it stands as one of the stellar instances of irresponsible publishing on the subject.”
Consider his other books:
Mengele – excuses the CIA for failing to find Mengele (unless of course, they did, in which case he is covering for the CIA.)
His first book by himself – a novel lauding the Cold Warrior old guard of the CIA against the younger corporate types. It’s also about the very people Ivins was a part of – the bio-warfare community. How many inside sources did he have when he wrote The Bio-Assassins?
He openly admitted his extensive contacts in the intelligence community when he wrote Hitler’s Children and a book about the Chinese drug trade (excusing the CIA of course from its golden triangle dealings and focusing instead on the equivalent of the mafia in China).
His book on the Martin Luther King case is even weaker than his book on the Kennedy case, which I hardly thought possible. And then the guy writes about 9/11 and expects anyone to believe him?
Wake up and smell the CIA asset you’re being played by, Keith! Seriously. Start with Carl Bernstein’s article on the CIA and the media and smarten up. I love you, but you’re naïveté is a threat to this nation, given your pulpit’s reach. You can read the whole thing here: http://www.carlbernstein.com/magazine_cia_and_media.php. It’s just a start. But you need to know what’s going on under your nose.
Seriously, I love you, but you’ve got to wise up. You’re the only guy most of us have in the mainstream media that’s believable at all. The more you fall for these guys, the more you become a part of the problem and less a part of the solution.
With great affection and frustration,
Lisa Pease
