The missing spine

BULLY BOY PRESS & CEDRIC'S BIX MIX -- DC.

A $60,000 REWARD IS BEING OFFERED TO ANYONE WHO CAN DISCOVER A 216-YEAR-OLD SPINE.

THE SPINE WAS LAST THOUGHT TO HAVE BEEN SEEN SOMETIME BEFORE 1994 THOUGH SOME SWEAR IT HAS BEEN M.I.A. SINCE THE MID-SEVENTIES.

AT ONE POINT, IT WAS ATTACHED TO THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY.

THE FIRST TUESDAY OF NOVEMBER, THERE WAS AN OPERATION THAT ATTEMPTED TO GRAFT THE SPINE BACK ONTO THE PARTY AND EARLY INDICATIONS WERE THAT THE SURGERY TOOK.

HOWEVER, YESTERDAY'S ARMED SERVICE COMMITTEE HEARING AND FINDING PROVED THAT THE SPINE WAS STILL AS LARGE.

ANY INFORMATION OR LEADS ON THE MISSING SPINE SHOULD BE DIRECTED TO
(202) 863-8000.

$60,000 ISN'T A LARGE AMOUNT FOR A REWARD BUT THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY CONFESSES THAT THEY'RE REALLY NOT SURE THEY WANT THEIR SPINE RETURNED YET.

FROM THE TCI WIRE:


Wednesday, December 6, 2006. Chaos and violence continue in Iraq, the James Baker Circle Jerk finally spews, Dow Jones reports ten US soldiers dead in Iraq today from two IEDs, and the Democrats demonstrate that "bipartisan" is Beltway Latin for "Screw the voter."

Starting with the vocab lesson first, for all the gas bagging after the election by The Elector (in all their forms) and all the talk of "change" and "listening to the people," Democrats -- swept into power by voters wanting change -- demonstrate that "bipartisanship" is just Beltway Latin for "Screw the voter." First up was the character assassination took John Murtha out of the running for the post of House Majority Leader and allowed War Hawk Steny Hoyer to be installed. Last week Dems were supposed to be cheerleading around the nation over Silvestre Reyes who was being installed as House Intelligence Committee chair. "Yeah, Silvestre!" was the kind of "critique" the public got as the gas bags of the left (and 'left') tried to paint over the fact that others were (again) passed over. Now, Amy Goodman (Democracy Now!) notes an interview Reyes gave to Newsweek where he expressed his desire to send an "up to 30,000" additional US troops to Iraq.

The vocabulary lesson is not limited to House Dems, Democrats on the Senate Armed Service Committee collectively stated, "Screw the voter." As Robert Parry (Consortium News) observes, "Despite winning the Nov. 7 elections largely due to public anger over the Iraq War, congressional Democrats crumbled in their first post-election confrontation with President George W. Bush on the future direction of that conflict."

As elected Dems attempt to 'educate,' the mainstream press attempts to present the marginalized as the norm. Though polls repeatedly demonstrate US citizens want US troops out of Iraq, though polls repeatedly demonstrate that Iraqi citizens wants US troops out of Iraq, Big Media thinks they can pull one over on the public again.

Tossing Judith Miller onto the stake and burning her as the public scapegoat is supposed to satiate the masses and allow War Pornographer Michael Gordon to get off scott free again. (Gordo was Miller's writing partner quite often including on one story that was mentioned in the Times' mini-culpa.) Norman Solomon (Common Dreams) observes that Gordo and David Sanger have both contributed articles pushing the "the US must stay myth" and concludes: "What's now going on in mainline news media is some kind of repetition compulsion. And, while media professionals engage in yet another round of conformist opportunism, many people will pay with their lives."

It's not limited to the New York Times, but to stay on Gordo and the Times, FAIR notes that, on November 15, 2006, Gordo was on CNN telling Anderson Cooper "while the politicians in the United States would like to see a withdrawal of forces, particularly on the Democratic side, that's simply not realistic given how precarious the security situation is at this point in time" and drawing a comparison between Democrats who actually call for a withdrawal (there are a few of those) and 'insurgents': ". . . there are a significant number of players in Baghdad today who don't mind if the Americans withdraw. These are the militia leaders. They would be happy if the United States withdrew . . ." Now does any of that sound anything like a policy judgement or recommendation?

Because when attempting to foist his bad book off on the public, Gordo refused to weigh in on the war itself, telling Amy Goodman (Democracy Now!), "Well, that's a policy judgement and a political judgement that's really beyound the scope of our book."But now, he can can make those judgements? Of course he can, he made them during the invasion as well -- in fact, he made them on CNN. March 25, 2003, Gordo took the CNN airwaves (Aaron Brown's now cancelled show) to cheerlead a US attack of a civilian target, a TV station, stating, "And personally, I think the television, based on what I've seen of Iraqi television, with Saddam Hussein presenting propaganda to his people and showing off the Apache helicopter and claiming a farmer shot it down and trying to persuade his own public that he was really in charge, when we're trying to send the exact opposite message, I think, was an appropriate target." Three year later, Juan Gonzalez (Democracy Now!) noted to Gordo that his [Gordo's] remark were "condemned by many journalism organizations around the world" and Gordo sputtered: "Well, I think, when -- you know, I don't know what was in General Franks' mind . . ." Blah, blah, blah. Gordo can't own his own mistakes, neither the can the paper.

Judith Miller was one person. The dog pile on her while others were ignored created a climate of impunity. Ditch digger Dexy is outed as a the go-to-boy (outed by a mainstream daily) for the US military and, if noted, it's reduced to an aside. While everyone obsessed and dog piled on Judith Miller's pre-war 'reporting' (which included co-writers), there wasn't time to call sob sister Dexy out. Even now, as the paper's attempts to marginalize US public opinion is called out, who's noting the story, filed from Iraq, that couldn't find a single Iraqi who wanted the US to withdraw (a position held by the majority of Iraqis)? No one. Miller's departure changed nothing at the paper. But bash-the-bitch and golden oldies did allow many to feel, three years later, that they were 'commenting' as they again trotted out the name "Judy Miller." The only thing surprising about Gordo is that his war porn has taken so long to be called out.

Recommended: "Iraq Snapshot"
"NYT: 'At Least 5 Marines Are Expected to Be Charged in Haditha Deaths' (Paul von Zielbauer)"
"Other Items"
"Jim Lafferty, Law and Disorder, peace movement"
"the hearing"
"Zohra Yusuf Daoud, Sunita Mehta, Women For Afghan Women"
"Hype express hits a pothole"
"Bobby Gates goes to a Democratic cotillion"
"THIS JUST IN! GATES ATTENDS A DEMOCRATIC SOCIAL!"