(Capitol Hill Blue defends itself) Are We That Good?

Are we that good? Damn right we are

By DOUG THOMPSON

Dec 26, 2005, 04:08

“Why is it,” the emailer who signed their name only as “skeptical” wanted to know, “that your story about President Bush’s remarks about the Constitution has not been reported by any other news media? That convinces me that it must be untrue. Why is it that you have sources that no one else seems to have? Are you that good?”

In a situation like this, false modesty usually kicks in and I say something like “well, sometimes we just get lucky” but to hell with false modesty. Luck had nothing to do with this story just as luck has had nothing to do with many other stories that we all too often break long before the so-called “mainstream media.” Are we that good? Damn right we are.

On January 22, 2003, before President Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq, we ran a story, Role reversal: Bush wants war, Pentagon urges caution. Among the points in that story: But conversations with sources within the Bush administration, the Pentagon, the FBI and the intelligence community indicate a deepening rift between the professionals who wage war for a living and the administration civilians to want to send them into battle. Sources say the White House has ordered the FBI and CIA to “find and document” links between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of the 9-11 terrorist attacks. “The implication is clear,” grumbles one longtime FBI agent. “Find a link, any link, no matter how vague or unproven, and then use that link to justify action against Iraq.”

We followed that story up the next day, January 23 with this one: Intel pros forced to fabricate Iraqi intelligence: U.S. intelligence professionals, under pressure from the Bush administration to provide proof needed to justify war with Iraq, say they have been forced to fabricate evidence of Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction as well as the location of non-existent hidden chemical weapon warheads.
The fabricated documentation, shared for the first time with the White House on Thursday, provides the basis for material the administration requires to justify an attack on Iraq. It was two years, repeat two years, before the same information appeared in mainstream media.

(snip)

http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_7894.shtml

They have been nailing Bush's balls to a board on a regular basis...

his veteren's day column is a classic.

Well Capitol Hill Blue I'd rate a 4 out of 10.

The publication cannot be trusted, and the 4 out of 10 is mainly for entertainment value. Doug Thompson comes up with some great articles, articles that a lot of people want to believe, but articles that for the majority part aren't true.

one has to defend itself every day. their track record is good enough to deserve respect. he skewers both sides.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=602189

My favorite LBN story of all time, 320 posts I believe

Keep 'em coming!

Still reading him so far.

link



The freepers believed this crap back then. Don't fall for it now.

...he's had seven years, more than enough time, to learn to check and double-check his stories before printing a story from someone he thought he could trust.

If you have anything that he's printed recently that he's gotten wrong, post it.

the "media lies daily", you sure are easily convinced that someone is telling you the truth when they provide no corroborating proof other than those "unnamed sources". I guess when you are told what you want to hear, its easy to be deceived. Unfortunately, its a flaw that both ends of the ideological spectrum share.

...and/or tried to deliberately mislead anyone, please do so.

My bet is that you don't have anything other than your usual attempt to appear morally superior to everyone else on this board. That act is getting older by the minute.

don't have any ability to discern a named source from a unnamed source from a "media" outlet that you basically admit were sloppy (at best) journalists 6 years ago.

By the way, the story cited in the OP is a wonderful example of a story whose journalistic ethics/style are quite worthy of being fish-wrapping material.

...into a corner you tend to get personally abusive and insulting. Why do you think that is, Tex? Did I hit a major nerve of some sort?

No nerve touched here at all.

You shouldn't assign characteristics of one person to another. You'll find yourself schooled if take that tack with that particular poster. FYI.

And despite my many times questioning the veracity of CHB's reports, I have to give Thompson credit for mounting a strong defense here. It seems like he scooped the whole world on the NSA story, and it was probably dismissed as tinfoil-nuttery at the time.

That act is getting more and more tiring to me as well...

sources" for everything these days. :eyes:

I wouldn't trash CHB for that. When Editors of major newspapers have to haul their butts up to the Oval Office for Bush to bribe them not to publish stories it's no wonder "unnamed sources" are the only news we get.

Everyone there in DC is too afraid of their own shadows to be on the record for anything.

I don't have a problem with CHB.

Look in the right-hand column and scroll down.

About posting something new and false; CHB doesn't print any stories that can be proven true/untrue anymore

Thats the thing, they are incredibly vague.

"Bush's erratic behavior inside white house worries close aides"

How the hell does anyone know if that is true or not. Something that happens only inside the WH worries people inside the WH. When Sy Hersh prints a story he references "former intelligence official" or "top CIA analysts" and the like, not "insiders" and "close aides". Who are bush's close aides; Rove? Hughes? Do you really think karen hughes is tattling to CHB?

"Bush says: constitution just a 'goddamn piece of paper'"

Well yeah, I think we all believe he would say something like that, there have been probably 1000 posts here that said something like that about bush. This is nothing new or exclusive, Its just CHB's tactic of printing vague stories that have a ring of plausibility.

"Bush wants war, Pentagon urges caution"

No shit sherlock. He printed this in 2003, I think everybody knew this in 2003.

...I think you and the rest of his detractors can't stand the idea that you aren't hearing these stories first. That just drives you crazy, doesn't it?

As to who might be considered some of Herr Busch's closest aides, how about Andy Card and those that work for him? I haven't seen anything implicating Card and/or Card's staff in any of the Executive Branch wrongdoings, have you?

Whatever you say man. :shrug:

Andy Card is the leader of the WHIG. His name has come up in the Plame scandal.

...but I've never seen him mentioned as taking part in any of the activities that outed Plame. So far, the top names mentioned to date have been Rove and Libby.

Maybe you have some different sources that state otherwise.

"Whatever" yourself, "man".

Edit: Card was also interviewed by Fitzgerald. link

http://www.thinkprogress.org/leak-scandal#card

CARD GIVEN A TWELVE-HOUR HEAD START ON THE INVESTIGATION: On September 29, 2003, the Department of Justice informed then-White House counsel Alberto Gonzales that it was launching a criminal investigation into the leak of Valerie Plame’s identity. Gonzales was instructed to notify the White House staff to preserve all documents related to the case. By his own admission, Gonzales didn’t comply with the request immediately; he went to Chief of Staff Andrew Card and told him that the White House staff would be told to preserve all documents related to the leak the following morning. As a result, Card had a 12-hour window to tip off White House staff about the request — an amount of time that “would give people time to shred documents and do any number of things.”

CARD WAS ON AIR FORCE ONE: Then-Secretary of State Colin Powell was on Air Force One accompanying President Bush on the July 2003 trip to Africa. A “senior State Department official confirmed that, while on the trip, Powell had a department intelligence report on whether Iraq had sought uranium from Niger.” The State Department memo in question — a “key piece of evidence in the CIA leak investigation” — stated that “Wilson’s wife had attended a meeting at the CIA where the decision was made to send Wilson to Niger.” The memorandum “contained information about CIA officer Valerie Plame in a paragraph marked ‘(S)’ for secret, a clear indication that any Bush administration official who read it should have been aware the information was classified…”

CARD INITIATED CONVERSATION BETWEEN TENET, BUSH ABOUT INVESTIGATION: Two days into the Justice Department investigation, Card initiated a conversation between President Bush and then-director of the CIA George Tenet about the leak investigation. Though Tenet was not planning on discussing the issue with the President at the daily intelligence briefing, it was Card who brought up the subject.

MEMBER OF WHITE HOUSE IRAQ GROUP: Andrew Card was the founder and a “regular participant” in the weekly meetings of the Bush Administration’s White House Iraq Group. The main purpose of the group was the systematic coordination of the “marketing” of going to war with Iraq as well as selling the war here at home. One clear example of this fact is that “the escalation of nuclear rhetoric” during the pre-war stage, “including the introduction of the term ‘mushroom cloud’ into the debate, coincided with the formation” of WHIG. The group included the two individual who have been confirmed as leakers, Karl Rove and Lewis Libby.

were the first to report infighting within the gov't on Iraq or that intel folks were complaining that they were being pressured to "cook the books" and provide intel that supported Bush's war aims. Knight Ridder, for one, reported that months before the articles Thompson cites.

And Andrew Card formed the WHIG. He was the one who told the NYT for attribution of the PR campaign to on the invasion of Iraq: "From a marketing point of view, you don't introduce new products in August."

More on WHIG's purpose:

August 2002
White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. forms the White House Iraq Group, or WHIG, which aims to “educate the public” about the alleged threat from Iraq. A senior official involved with the group later describes it as “an internal working group, like many formed for priority issues, to make sure each part of the White House was fulfilling its responsibilities.” Members of the group include Karl Rove, Karen Hughes, Mary Matalin, James R. Wilkinson, Nicholas E. Calio, and policy advisers led by Condoleezza Rice and her deputy, Stephen J. Hadley, and I. Lewis Libby. They meet weekly in the White House Situation Room. A “strategic communications” task force under the WHIG is charged with planning speeches and writing white papers. According to an intelligence source interviewed by the New York Daily News in October 2005, the group, on “a number of occasions,” will attempt “to push the envelope on things,”—“The would say, ‘We just don't have the intelligence to substantiate that.’” An important part of the WHIG strategy is to feed their messages to friendly reporters such as New York Times reporter Judith Miller. James Bamford, in his book A Pretext for War, writes: “First OSP supplies false or exaggerated intelligence; then members of the WHIG leak it to friendly reporters, complete with prepackaged vivid imagery; finally, when the story breaks, senior officials point to it as proof and parrot the unnamed quotes they or their colleagues previously supplied.”
http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=complete_timeline_of_the_2003_invasion_of_iraq&startpos=300#complete_timeline_of_the_2003_invasion_of_iraq_3153

I don't quite buy Thompson's claim that no MSM reported anything of divisions within gov't, claims that intel was being skewed, etc before CHB. He toots his own horn of course, but certainly some (I'm not saying all) of his reporting, if I recall correctly, appeared to me to build on stories already out there, although he tended to go farther in his assertions and details. (He presumably has no editors and can write as he wishes.) But was he always first on these matters?

I don't have the time at the moment to find all the stuff I've read before but here's a few interesting articles by an MSM outlet (Knight Ridder, noted for its prewar reporting that diverged from the herd) that predate CHB's articles noted above. Full articles are at the links I provided.

Posted on Wed, Feb. 13, 2002
Bush has decided to overthrow Hussein
By Warren P. Strobel and John Walcott

WASHINGTON - President Bush has decided to oust Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein from power and ordered the CIA, the Pentagon and other agencies to devise a combination of military, diplomatic and covert steps to achieve that goal, senior U.S. officials said Tuesday. http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/news/special_packages/11809605.htm
----------------------------

Posted on Fri, Oct. 04, 2002
CIA report reveals analysts' split over extent of Iraqi nuclear threat
By Jonathan S. Landay
Knight Ridder Newspapers
WASHINGTON - The CIA released a new report Friday on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction that added little to earlier appraisals but exposed a sharp dispute among U.S. intelligence experts over Saddam Hussein's nuclear weapons program.

...Several senior administration and intelligence officials, all of whom spoke only on the condition of anonymity, charged that the decision to publicize one analysis of the aluminum tubes and ignore the contrary one is typical of the way the administration has been handling intelligence about Iraq.

The White House and the Pentagon, these officials said, are pressuring intelligence analysts to highlight information that supports Bush's Iraq policy and suppress information and analysis that might undercut congressional, public or international support for war.

Some U.S. intelligence and military experts dispute the administration's suggestion that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction pose an imminent threat to the United States. One senior military official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the threat has not increased appreciably beyond what it was when Saddam invaded Kuwait in 1990. http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/news/special_packages/11922671.htm
----------------------------------

Posted on Tue, Oct. 08, 2002
Some in Bush administration have misgivings about Iraq policy
By Warren P. Strobel, Jonathan S. Landay and John Walcott
Knight Ridder Newspapers

WASHINGTON - While President Bush marshals congressional and international support for invading Iraq, a growing number of military officers, intelligence professionals and diplomats in his own government privately have deep misgivings about the administration's double-time march toward war.

These officials charge that administration hawks have exaggerated evidence of the threat that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein poses - including distorting his links to the al-Qaida terrorist network - have overstated the amount of international support for attacking Iraq and have downplayed the potential repercussions of a new war in the Middle East.

They charge that the administration squelches dissenting views and that intelligence analysts are under intense pressure to produce reports supporting the White House's argument that Saddam poses such an immediate threat to the United States that pre-emptive military action is necessary.

"Analysts at the working level in the intelligence community are feeling very strong pressure from the Pentagon to cook the intelligence books," said one official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/news/special_packages/11922658.htm
--------------------------

Posted on Sun, Oct. 27, 2002
Some in Bush administration have misgivings about Iraq policy (Note: title should be "Infighting among U.S. intelligence agencies fuels dispute over Iraq." Seems the web page with the article has the wrong title.)
By Warren P. Strobel, Jonathan S. Landay and John Walcott
Knight Ridder Newspapers

WASHINGTON - The Pentagon and the CIA are waging a bitter feud over secret intelligence that is being used to shape U.S. policy toward Iraq, according to current and former U.S. officials.

The dispute has been fueled by the creation within the Pentagon of a special unit that provides senior policymakers with alternate assessments of Iraq intelligence.

Administration hawks who have been leading proponents of invading Iraq oversee the Pentagon unit, which is producing its own analyses of raw intelligence reports obtained from the CIA, Defense Intelligence Agency and other agencies, the officials said.

The dispute pits hardliners long distrustful of the U.S. intelligence community against professional military and intelligence officers who fear the hawks are shaping intelligence analyses to support their case for invading Iraq. http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/news/special_packages/11922636.htm

Sorry CHB, you are an entertaining read, and sometimes have proven useful and factual, but all things considered would be the last source that upon completion of reading would have me call up everybody and say "OMG, this was in CHB, it's gotta be true!"

Even a broken clock is wrong twice a day, but you'll have to do far better than that to earn my trust in a day were misinformation runs rampant and the stakes of accuracy are as large as they are. Sorry.

Might be true, might not. Lots of fun to read and speculate though. I can't see why anyone would view it as anything other than that.

It takes more than getting one story correct to have a respected reputation for the truth.

The washington post did. They were triple checking their sources when somebody leaked it to drudge.

which is kind of his style.

the BBC on that: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/special_report/1998/clinton_scandal/50031.stm

It was that paragon of principled reportage Michael Isikoff whose story was made public by Drudge before Newsweek could publish it. He reportedly left the WaPo for Newsweek in a snit because they wouldn't let him follow his great great white whale of a story on Clinton and Paula Jones.

As for Isikoff's incisive groundbreaking coverage of the Bush Administration and its crimes against the Constitution and federal law, eh not so much. John Amato over at the HuffPo on Isi the high paid steno: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-amato/michael-isikoff-the-fr_b_11322.html

He's not exactly the greatest journalist ever!

sort of sat around and hedged.

Isikoff reminds me of a woman who used to be the secretary for myself and another person. She loved gossip. Now, this didn't distinguish her from many other respectable lady secretaries and clerks all around the courthouse. But what did was, she would keep secrets. She was not into spreading gossip--but she was absolutely dogged in her quest to KNOW those dirty little secrets. So often one would see some other secretary or clerk sitting whispering to her about the gossip du jour.

Then this woman would hold onto the gossip like a bulldog. No one could get anything out of her. Admirable, oh yes. (But not as admirable as it would've been if she'd not listened to the scandalous stories in the first place.)

I think Isikoff enjoys knowing stuff, and above all he enjoys having people admire him for knowing stuff. But he's not all that good at actually reporting--you know, that "journalism" stuff that is supposedly his career.

I'm off to bed.

Not CHB's finest hour. Speculation was that Thompson just plain made the guy up.

Sid

After the revelations that Bush would violate the law, openly admit he violated the law, proclaim he would continue to violate the law, and expects PRAISE for his ongoing violations of the law, I no longer put anything past these evil bastards and would say CHB probably has been holding back the really good stuff as unbelievable.