And so it goes, on, and on ...

Nine were killed and dozens more injured when a Palestinian suicide bomber hit a Tel Aviv restaurant earlier today. The attacker was little more than a child.

Samer Samih Hamad, from the West Bank village of Arakeh, near the pre-1967 border, is believed to be one of the youngest suicide bombers ever dispatched by a Palestinian group.

In a video "living will", he dedicated the operation to the thousands of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. Dressed in black with a yellow headband inscribed with Koranic verses, he warned in a clear, firm voice: "There are many other bombers on the way." Relatives said he had completed high school. But he looked more like a boy.

Nidal Hamad, 35, his cousin, told The Independent that Samer was 17 and had left home yesterday to go to his job in Jenin. Another cousin, Nazeer Hamad, carried out an earlier suicide bombing in Afula. "Jews have confiscated more than 50 per cent of our agricultural land, where we cultivated olive, almond and fruit trees," Nidal Hamad said. "I do not know what to tell you. Some youths believe that they should do something about it. Some people believe they should not. But you will never be able to make a distinction between those who believe in it, and those who do not."

These are the children of the Second Intifada. And they are legion.

Tonight, the news media are filled with this latest and unspeakable tragedy, as they should be. TDuring the 8:15 newsbreak during The O'Reilly Factor on Fox News, I caught the presenter talking of the ''homicide bomber'' and the horrors he caused. I heard that U.S. President George W. Bush has rightly condemned the attack while Hamas has not.

I won't get into the politics here except to say that the suicide bombing, while understandable on one level, is not justifiable on any level -- and has not helped Hamas one damn bit. If it wanted the world's sympathy, it needed to condemn the attack, without hesitation, without equivocation.

That said, I have yet to hear Fox -- or indeed, most other news media -- talk of the horrors being rained down on Gaza in recent week. Here's Gideon Levy in Ha'aretz on the subject:

The scenes from Gaza are heartbreaking. Heartbreaking? That's not for certain. The sight of the Aben family from Beit Lahiya mourning its 12-year-old daughter Hadil last week did not stir any particular shock in Israel. Nor did anyone take to the streets and protest over the sight of her wounded mother and little brother lying in shock on the floor of their shanty in Gaza.

On the day Hadil Aben was killed, Yedioth Aharonoth carried a story about Nelly, the dog from Kibbutz Zikim that died of heart failure from the booming noise of the Israeli artillery firing into Gaza.

Instead of expressions of sorrow at the death of children, the upper echelons of the defense establishment came out with a stream of strident statements. The defense minister said that the only thing to do was step up the pressure on the Palestinians. The deputy chief of staff spoke about a possible invasion of Gaza and the head of army operations added, "what we've seen so far are only the previews." The IDF announced it would further reduce the "safety range" that is designed to avoid shells hitting the civilian population.

It was a chilling, united chorus. Israel is dropping thousands of bombs on towns and villages, on the "the launching pads" of the Qassams - another dubious term created by the defense establishment and blindly adopted by the press - and only the Palestinians, whose Qassam rockets haven't killed anyone since the disengagement, are called "terrorists."

<SNIP>

No Qassam justifies the killing and terror that the shells sow in Gaza. Cannons are meant for war against an army. Using them against a helpless civilian population is supposed to be beyond the realm of the legitimate, without any ifs or buts about it. A state does not shell towns. Period. Just like in the war against crime that is also deadly and endangers state security, no end justifies all the means. Would it ever occur to the Israeli police to evacuate an entire neighborhood from which some murderers came? Would anyone decide to shell such a neighborhood, even if it would mean minimizing the crime coming out of it?

Those who really want to end the Qassam launches from Gaza, should turn Israeli policy upside down. To show restraint in the face of the Qassams, to lift the siege, to immediately meet with the elected Palestinian leadership and call on the world to stop withholding the funds from the Palestinian Authority. Only a free and secure and thriving Gaza will stop launching Qassams. Have we ever tried that?

This must be asked in our media too.

But it won't be.

Mount your mooses and stand on guard!

Looks like the American neocons have finally figured out who has all the oil and water -- and it would be real easy to build a pipeline. This transpired on Sunday's edition of CNN's Reliable Sources, whose transcripts are not, most frustratingly, yet online. (I added the links.)

In attempting to provide trivial business as usual cover, Lucianne's son (Jonah Goldberg), looking more and more like mom, said that the U.S. has developed plans to attack Canada. Amazingly, it was not meant as a joke, as he said he reiterated that he "knew they have plans." That host Howard Kurtz let that one fly by without an intercepting followup deserves a followup itself.

Perhaps it was a White House or Pentagon-inspired leak meant as a first salvo to warn Canada to keep Universal Healthcare north of the border. Maybe Canada has looked into purchasing back-bacon yellowcake or their Zamboni-delivery systems are ready to release "Hockey Night in Canada" onto ESPN.

If you want to see the U.S. reaction to an invasion, check out the comments on AMERICAblog. Blogger John Aravosis was on the Reliable Sources panel with Goldberg.

Here's Goldberg's reaction to all this:

While debating the Sy Hersh story about Pentagon plans to attack Iran, I made the entirely conventional point that it would be a scandal for the Pentagon not to have plans to attack Iran. After all preventing states like Iran -- indeed, specifically Iran -- from getting nukes has been the core of American foreign policy since the end of the Cold War. I should hope, I said, that the Pentagon has plans to attack Iran, North Korea etc. Heck, it's their job. In fact, I added, I know that the Pentagon even has plans to attack Canada. Young thinks this is all hilarious or absurd or perhaps merely an excuse to flap his gums about how wrong it is I have a column in the LA Times (the left coast lefties are still quite vexed about that). He says I've made news here. But the actual news is this guy doesn't know what he's talking about. The US military's plan to attack Canada is called War Plan Red. It's been written up in these things called "newspapers" every so often for years.

So, without further ado, here's the Washington Post on War Plan Red.

First, we send a joint Army-Navy overseas force to capture the port city of Halifax, cutting the Canadians off from their British allies.

Then we seize Canadian power plants near Niagara Falls, so they freeze in the dark.

Then the U.S. Army invades on three fronts -- marching from Vermont to take Montreal and Quebec, charging out of North Dakota to grab the railroad center at Winnipeg, and storming out of the Midwest to capture the strategic nickel mines of Ontario.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Navy seizes the Great Lakes and blockades Canada's Atlantic and Pacific ports.

At that point, it's only a matter of time before we bring these Molson-swigging, maple-mongering Zamboni drivers to their knees! Or, as the official planners wrote, stating their objective in bold capital letters: "ULTIMATELY TO GAIN COMPLETE CONTROL."

Excellllllllllllent. That will make Rummy and company think it's gonna be a cakewalk. Heh-heh. Wait 'til they find out we drive cars here now.

What's another dead journalist ...

... to the American corporate media? (I admit that even I was late in catching it.) Seriously, how is it that this managed to escape the notice of most North American news organizations?

U.S. soldiers who shot dead a Reuters television soundman in Iraq last year breached their rules of engagement and the killing was "unlawful", an independent investigation commissioned by Reuters has found.

Waleed Khaled died and cameraman Haider Kadhem was wounded on August 28 when the troops fired on their car in Baghdad as the two Iraqis covered the aftermath of an attack on policemen.

An investigation by the Army unit involved found that its soldiers had acted within rules of engagement that allow them to fire if they feel under threat.

But The Risk Advisory Group (TRAG), a risk management consultancy asked by Reuters to examine the incident, said the use of force was neither proportionate nor justified.

It said the Army inquiry conclusions were not supported by the evidence -- including the testimony of the soldiers themselves -- and expressed incomprehension that crucial footage shot by Kadhem had somehow been lost by the military.

"We conclude, based on the independent evidence and the evidence of Haider Kadhem, that no hostile act took place and no act could have been legitimately mistaken as indicating hostile intent," the TRAG report said.

"The engagement was therefore in breach of U.S. Rules of Engagement and, in our opinion, on the current evidence was prima facie unlawful."

More here.

Now, if Khaled had been kidnapped by the murderers and marauders running loose in Iraq, the media would have been all over it -- especially if there was video. But when the Americans do the killing?

Hello! and Goodbye

Looks like one of the last of the Maclean's stalwarts had an offer he couldn't refuse. Here's the latest e-missive from editor/publisher Ken Whyte:

It is with regret that I announce Peter Bregg's departure from Maclean's. Peter joined Maclean's almost 17 years ago, after an already illustrious career at Canadian Press, Associated Press, and with the Prime Minister's Office for a stint as Brian Mulroney's official photographer. During his years at Maclean's, Peter was the consummate professional, photographing prime ministers, rock stars and tsunami victims, travelling widely, digging into his extensive archives for photos that predated his time at Maclean's, even undertaking an investigative project to determine whether one protester in a picture he took during the 1979 U.S. Embassy hostage-taking in Iran might be current Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. We're sad to see him go, and we wish him well in his new position as photo editor of Hello! Canadian Edition.

Hello! is being launched here by Rogers, which also owns Maclean's.

Just what the world needs, another celebrity magazine. Can you say ''glut?''

Corporate Hot Air

Here's some of today's treeware column, an anti-business piece of business in the business section.

When is a commercial for an automobile an advocacy ad?

When it promotes a lifestyle. When it isn't just about, say, gas mileage or cargo room, safety features or handling hairpin turns. When it becomes a vehicle for selling the concept of car-ownership that will help you get more girls or give you freedom, or social status.

Or at least that's what Kalle Lasn, editor-in-chief of the Vancouver-based Adbusters Media Foundation, insists — and he plans to take it to the Supreme Court of Canada if he has to.

He's been battling to get his anti-consumption advocacy ads on TV for over a decade — ads that portray North Americans as resource and fast food hogs.

But the networks have almost always turned him away.

Read the entire thing and you'll see how, after a legal hitch, Adbusters' two-year old lawsuit to force Canada's networks to sell it airtime is ''back on track.''

Consulting on the case is UBC law professor Joel Bakan, screenwriter of the award-winning documentary The Corporation, as well as author of the companion book.

Craig Jones, a Vancouver-based lawyer and author of two books on suing corporations, leads the legal team. He's best known for his role in the protests during the APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) summit in Vancouver in 1998.

This time the case has shifted from Ontario's courts to the Supreme Court of British Columbia. The defendants in this latest suit to buy airtime are Global TV, Global Communications and the Attorney General of Canada. Notices of discontinuance have been filed against CTV and CBC.

The plan is to zero in on CanWest because of its size, power and influence — particularly in the Vancouver area — and because it is easier to take on just one broadcaster instead of all.

"Our lawyers said we could spend hundreds of thousands of dollars if the broadcasters decided to play hardball — and, if we lost, we would have to pay costs to all," says Lasn. "That could bankrupt us.

"And legally we had nothing to lose by whittling the case down to one broadcaster."

A side note: Adbusters and CanWest Global have had their differences in the past.

But back to the topic at hand:

In its initial statement of defence, filed last spring, Global invoked its own freedom of expression rights under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, asserting that Adbusters has incurred no damages by Global.

But Jones believes he has a strong case: "The public airwaves are a resource owned by the people of Canada and administered by the federal government.

"The government of Canada prohibits any citizen from broadcasting, except for those few who obtain licences, on threat of extreme penalties — up to $500,000 fine per day. The nature of the forum is that only a few citizens can ever own licences. The licensees, including Global, while private parties, are government actors to the extent that they are performing the function of `gatekeepers' over a public forum. While this might not require that they have an obligation to permit any citizen a forum on their station, it does at least require that they do not enjoy absolute power to refuse to air advertising to dissenting voices, where the advertising has been approved for content and is paid on the same terms as other ads."

The Adbusters' Media Carta campaign -- with video of the ads and audio of the rejections by network salespeople -- is here.

Soooo, how much TV coverage do you think this potentially landmark case is gonna get?

MonkeySee, Monkey Do

As predicted -- and I wish I could find the post in which I called it -- Canada's conservative blogosphere is so in love with the Harper government, it can only ape their Chimp-loving  counterparts who pound the keyboards south of the border. That means they attack the media and, specifically, the Parliamentary Press Gallery (PPG) instead of the government. This salvo, from regular commenter Mark-Alan Whittle, arrived in my email today. I felt compelled to share some of his gloating.

... Harper must be enjoying this with mirthful glee, I know I would. Just like that single mothers kid at the variety store throwing a spittle laced rant because mom didn't move fast enough appeasing the little twerp. A slap up-side the head only made it worse. The parallels are self-evident, aren't they?

<SNIP>

Bring it on brother, Harper has the upper hand no matter what they (MSM) try to do from here on in, the die's been cast, so to speak. Only the arrogant elites running the press gallery will have themselves to blame in the end. To them I say, keep it up, there's still the other foot to shoot after it's removes from your collective mouths. Oh joy, oh bliss, everyday it's show-time again. LOL.

The current fuss over who gets to ask questions during the ''media availabilities" seems to be the focus of all the coverage of the coverage. Here's the latest on the war from the Hill Times:

This month, at a general meeting of the Press Gallery, national reporters unanimously adopted two motions on its relations with the PMO. The first resolution, according the draft minutes, said that "the Canadian Parliamentary Press Gallery deplores the Prime Ministers' Office's restriction of access, such as access to the third floor outside cabinet, and instructs the executive to take all steps possible to restore the gallery's traditional access in the spirit of transparent and accountable government." The second resolution said that the Press Gallery "will ask questions in the manner that we see fit and will not accept direction from the prime minister's office or anyone who is not a member of the press gallery." Both motions were intended to demonstrate a sign of solidarity within the Press Gallery.

More from the Hill Times, recapping what I blogged last week.

Frustration among reporters seemed to mount last week at a news conference with the Prime Minister on the introduction of the Federal Accountability Act. The announcement was originally scheduled to take place in the foyer outside the House of Commons, but after the Press Gallery planned to set up a system of lineups to determine who would ask questions, the news conference was moved to the small Commonwealth Room down the hall.

The Press Gallery quickly set up its system of lineups and microphones at the new location, with nearly 130 reporters in the room. When the news conference ended, however, Mr. Harper attempted to pass over the CBC's Julie Van Dusen, in the lineup, to take a question from Tim Naumetz, a reporter for CanWest News Service, who sat among the reporters. When reporters told the Prime Minister that a lineup had formed, he continued to ask Mr. Naumetz if he wanted to ask a question. Ms. Van Dusen continued to press Mr. Harper, to which he finally replied, irritated: "Go ahead, Julie. Ask your question."

Mr. Harper then ended the news conference, and some reporters mused that he cut it short because he was annoyed, but other reporters said that just before the news conference began, Mr. Harper's press aide said there would be time for two questions only.

Which brings us to CBC-TV's chief political correspondent Keith Boag, who is now the target of a right-wing spew by the usual suspects and their acolytes. They're calling for his head over his report on last week's The National about the introduction of the Federal Accountability Act. They're saying he made it about himself and the media and not the act. They say he's biased. They're posting the address of the CBC ombudsman and calling all to write in and accuse Boag of violating the broadcaster's journalistic policy. These reader comments are typical:

(1) It is simply wrong for Canada to have any state-sponsored media. It destroys any possibility of that media being able to support its role as a pillar of society. If the CBC is funded by the state, then clause 2(b) of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms should be amended to exclude the CBC.

(2) If he doesn't like his job, then he should quit. However, it would be best if Harper eliminated the CBC altogether, firing everyone, selling whatever can be moved for scrap, and destroying the buildings. The CBC no longer serves any rational purpose. They supported 9/11, denied the Holocaust and supported the Nazis (Valor and the Horror) and have made a mockery of the concept of a free media. Get rid of it now and forever.

Unfortunately, I contributed to to this attack on CBC by -- at first -- mistakenly validating what was originally posted by Big Bloviating Tory Stephen Taylor who started this assault. I regret that because Taylor's post was GROSSLY MISLEADING, UNFAIR AND BIASED.

That's because, among his many sins, he only posted video of the top and tail of Boag's report -- perhaps a minute of what was actually a four minute report to make his case against Boag. Taylor ''footnotes'' the video but not once does he say that it was heavily-edited -- indeed mutilated -- to indict Boag. And yet he damns Boag for editing the report?

What makes me truly sick is that these Blogging Whories, as McLelland calls them, all drawing from Taylor, then use my original post -- which, by the way, was based on watching a midnight rerun of The National that night -- to attack Boag.

My mistake was I did not view Taylor's chophouse video before posting.

But after I updated my post, corrected the record and included the full text of Boag's report (the original video is no longer online) -- not one of these biased, CBC-hating, ideologically-driven bloggers saw fit to do the same.

And they have the nerve to call Boag dishonest?

What's ironic is, if you read the comments on Taylor's (and the other bloggers') post, you'll see how many of his readers distrust the MSM and think he's the one delivering the straight goods.

BONUS BASH: The full text of Boag's script, obtained from CBC, is posted in the comments below. Compare it with the video on Taylor's site. Let's see if he and his simian posse continues this crusade without correcting their shoddy record on it.

Conrad Black and George W. Bush, sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G

When this week's (April 17) Maclean's landed in my mailbox, I took one look at it and wondered if The Nation had switched to glossy paper. That's because the cover, which shows a confident looking George W. Bush, asks "The Worst President in 100 Years?"

Inside, a six-page essay (including photos) in which Steve Maich rips the preznit on every from his catastrophic foreign policy blunders to his fiscal mismanagement.

Maich doesn't even get into the environment or health issues and scarcely mentions the humanitarian and political disaster that was Hurricane Katrina. It would take a whole year's worth of Maclean's to do that.

Still, Maich manages much in the space allowed.

In 2004, George Mason University polled 415 presidential historians and found 80 per cent considered Bush's first term a failure. More than half considered it the worst presidency since the Great Depression. More than a third called it the worst in 100 years. Eleven per cent said it was the worst ever. Robert McElvaine, a professor of history at Millsaps College in Mississippi, says scores would likely be worse if the poll were repeated today. "When I filled out that survey I said Bush was the worst since Buchanan [1857-61], but things have gotten worse and now I'd have to consider him the worst ever," McElvaine says. "If you look at the situation he inherited, and the situation following 9/11, he had great opportunities and he basically squandered them.

Maclean's website also asks readers to vote on whether Bush sucketh more than any other president in a century and, last time I looked, the score was 76% to 24% against the Shrub.

Here's the thing: Conrad, Lord of Blackness, has taken umbrage at this altogether inadequate historical scholarship. Which is why his former protege, Maclean's editor/publisher Kenneth Whyte, will be sacrificing many trees so that Black can hold forth in next week's Maclean's on how there have been far worse U.S. presidents in the past. (Recall that Black recently authored a biography of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a copy of which has been shredded to line my nuclear bomb shelter.) Readers will no doubt be subjected to a torporific treatise on Taft's inability to grasp the intricacies of the job.

Maich will respond to the response. And Black will likely respond to the response to the response. Which should drive a lot of traffic to the Maclean's website.

Sayyyyy, do ya think they planned this?

 

 

Isn't this what media reporters are for?

THIS POST HAS BEEN UPDATED:

Blogging Tory Stephen Taylor expresses some sympathy for the Parliamentary Press Gallery which is not exactly enjoying a honeymoon with the Harperites.

In this modern era of 24 hour cable news, reporters are certainly under more pressure to get the report filed quickly (and often live) and get it with full picture, sound and comment.

The Prime Minster's Office, in contrast, is not under the same pressures and really hasn't changed to a significant degree in its need to satiate the media since print reporters that made telephone calls for comment were the primary report filers. Modern media demands the sound bite and live video and these demands are at odds with a body (the PMO) that's strategy has never really changed: control messaging and information flow.

If I found myself in Ottawa as a reporter for the modern news industry I would very rightly be frustrated with Stephen Harper's communications approach that finds itself directly incongruent with the demands of my job. However, I don't believe that I'd be justified in laying blame on the PMO for its strategy.

But Taylor has no warms and fuzzies for Keith Boag's reporting on the new accountability legislation for last night's edition of CBC-TV's The National. That's because Boag made accountability to the reporters the focus of his story.

   1. Keith Boag remarks (or complains) that Stephen Harper made them "jam" into a small room for a press conference. (Perhaps a larger venue such as the lobby outside of the HoC would be more appropriate for large crowds of reporters and their technical crews? However, I hear that reporters would prefer to "jam" themselves in the narrow hallway outside of the Prime Minister's office and cabinet meeting room)

   2. More than 300 clauses in the FAA? Not bad. Too bad the FAA's merits do not strike Boag enough to underscore them first in his report. This report instead begins with his anger towards cabinet accessibility.

   3. "Reporters had dozens of questions about [the FAA]", Boag remarks as he sets up the video which includes an irate reporter complaining, "Are you going to ignore everyone (the queued reporters) in the lineup?" Boag then edits to qualify the reporter by explaining that Harper only allowed one question in each official language. CBC's chief political correspondent continues sarcastically, "Then he left, to champion public accountability, transparency and openness elsewhere."

As painful as this is, I have to say that I agree. This kind of information should have been in a secondary/sidebar piece. The report should have concentrated on the proposed legislation.

UPPITY DATE: I knew I should not have given Taylor carte blanche to trash CBC, as he loves to do. Although I still feel that Boag muddied the waters somewhat by talking about the media -- at a time when the Parliamentary Press Gallery appears to be at war with the PMO -- his story did concentrate on the content of the proposed act. I have a transcript of his report. It's too long to post here but you will find it down way down in the comments, time stamped Apr 15, 2006 7:19:39 PM.

Trailer Trash

THIS POST HAS BEEN UPDATED:

Okay, according to the Washington Post, Georgie Boy Pudding and Lies fibs ... again. (All boldface is mine.)

On May 29, 2003, 50 days after the fall of Baghdad, President Bush proclaimed a fresh victory for his administration in Iraq: Two small trailers captured by U.S. and Kurdish troops had turned out to be long-sought mobile "biological laboratories." He declared, "We have found the weapons of mass destruction."

The claim, repeated by top administration officials for months afterward, was hailed at the time as a vindication of the decision to go to war. But even as Bush spoke, U.S. intelligence officials possessed powerful evidence that it was not true.

A secret fact-finding mission to Iraq - not made public until now - had already concluded that the trailers had nothing to do with biological weapons. Leaders of the Pentagon-sponsored mission transmitted their unanimous findings to Washington in a field report on May 27, 2003, two days before the president's statement.

Here's what the preznit actually said, in an interview with Poland's TVP:

THE PRESIDENT: We found the weapons of mass destruction. We found biological laboratories. You remember when Colin Powell stood up in front of the world, and he said, Iraq has got laboratories, mobile labs to build biological weapons. They're illegal. They're against the United Nations resolutions, and we've so far discovered two. And we'll find more weapons as time goes on. But for those who say we haven't found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they're wrong, we found them.

Indeed, according to Justin Rood, Bush was not the only administration liar on this one.

While the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency debunked the story in a May 27, 2003 report, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, along with Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith, continued to push the mobile weapons labs quackery for months ...

More lies here.

But do you think the White House can actually come clean on anything? Are you insane?

Talking to reporters today, McClellan said: “You know, I saw some reporter talking about how this latest revelation — which is not something that is new; this is all old information that’s being rehashed — was an embarrassment for the White House. No, it’s an embarrassment for the media that is out there reporting this....

"First of all, intelligence is - when an assessment is made, it looks at a lot of different intelligence and it takes time to vet that intelligence, go through it, debate it, discuss it with the intelligence community, look at all the different intelligence coming in, whether it's human intelligence or signals intelligence or open-source intelligence. And they pull that all together and the intelligence community makes the assessment. The White House is not the intelligence-gathering agency....

"Now, I will point out that the reporting I saw this morning was simply reckless and it was irresponsible. The lead in The Washington Post left the impression for the reader that the President was saying something he knew at the time not to be true. That is absolutely false and it is irresponsible, and I don't know how The Washington Post can defend something so irresponsible."

Yabbut ...

McClellan’s complaint is that the Washington Post and others suggest that President Bush may have known about the report before he made definitive statements that the trailers were for the purpose of building biological weapons.

When McClellan was asked when the White House became aware of the Pentagon field report, however, McClellan couldn’t say. He told the press corps “I’m looking into that matter” but the answer was “not the point.”

Scottie went even further ...

When an ABC reporter pressed McClellan on the subject at his morning briefing, McClellan upbraided the network for picking up on the report.

"This is reckless reporting and for you all to go on the air this morning and make such a charge is irresponsible, and I hope that ABC would apologize for it and make a correction on the air," he said.

Indeed, one network, so far not named, did beat a hasty retreat, said McClellan.

I brought up with some of you earlier today some of the reporting that was based of this Washington Post report. And I talked to one of networks about it…they expressed their apologies to the White House.

We're all guessing which network it could be.

Hmmm... ya think? (Antonia sez: See update below.)

The Moderate Voice considers the larger question:

A new dispute between the White House and the Washington Post over a published report boils down to the question: did President George W. Bush knowingly use information on weapons of mass destruction that had been officially debunked, or not?

That's the issue at hand. But a bigger issue is the overriding one facing and steadily undermining this administration: seemingly each day there is new information that underscores what is either a major credibility problem, — or major competency one.

Meanwhile the right-wing echo-sphere is seizing on sentences and paragraphs deep in the story which appear to contradict the Washington Post headline and lead paragraphs. For example, below the fold is this:

Intelligence analysts involved in high-level discussions about the trailers noted that the technical team was among several groups that analyzed the suspected mobile labs throughout the spring and summer of 2003. Two teams of military experts who viewed the trailers soon after their discovery concluded that the facilities were weapons labs, a finding that strongly influenced views of intelligence officials in Washington, the analysts said. “It was hotly debated, and there were experts making arguments on both sides,” said one former senior official who spoke on the condition that he not be identified.

But I think the apparent contradiction is just sloppy writing or editing because there's no misunderstanding this sentence in the third paragraph, as already excerpted at the top of this post:

Leaders of the Pentagon-sponsored mission transmitted their unanimous findings to Washington in a field report on May 27, 2003, two days before the president's statement.

What's more, here's the New York Times' Judy Miller, of all people, on June 7, 2003 - sortly after she was in on finding the ''mobile weapons labs'' on May 11, 2003. Her later piece reinforces the notion that lthe official documents were - once again - cooked to bolster the mobile labs theory.

American and British intelligence analysts with direct access to the evidence are disputing claims that the mysterious trailers found in Iraq were for making deadly germs. In interviews over the last week, they said the mobile units were more likely intended for other purposes and charged that the evaluation process had been damaged by a rush to judgment.

"Everyone has wanted to find the 'smoking gun' so much that they may have wanted to have reached this conclusion," said one intelligence expert who has seen the trailers and, like some others, spoke on condition that he not be identified. He added, "I am very upset with the process."

The Bush administration has said the two trailers, which allied forces found in Iraq in April and May, are evidence that Saddam Hussein was hiding a program for biological warfare. In a white paper last week, it publicly detailed its case, even while conceding discrepancies in the evidence and a lack of hard proof.

Now, intelligence analysts stationed in the Middle East, as well as in the United States and Britain, are disclosing serious doubts about the administration's conclusions in what appears to be a bitter debate within the intelligence community. Skeptics said their initial judgments of a weapon application for the trailers had faltered as new evidence came to light.

Outside the Beltway sums up what this is really about.

(I)t obviously became clear within a few weeks that there was doubt as to the nature of those trailers. To keep referring to them in public as if they were slam dunk evidence of Iraqi WMD is disengenuous at best.

Finally, if there's anything funny in all of this, it's here.

Top Reasons You Wouldn't Want a Mobile Biological Weapons Lab

1. How could you have a clean room in a mobile biological weapons laboratory?

2. Petrie dishes might vibrate off the table.

3. Germs might get carsick. Now that's something you don't want to have to clean up.

4. Biologists keep pulling up at the drive-through at McDonald's.

5. What if you hit a big bump while working on the plague?

And really, where do they have water hook-ups in the desert?

UPPITY DATE: Commenter Stuart MacDonald below writes:

Antonia - I think it was ABC (not FOX) which caved and apologized when the White House went on the attack.
I followed one of your links to NewsHound - and noted a suggestion, and went to it - and saw an ABC clarification - check it out.

FOX probably never even bothered to cover the story.

Here's the apology, which is not a retraction of the Washington Post story but of a misrepresentation of it.

Clarification: A report in today's Washington Post said, "On May 29, 2003, 50 days after the fall of Baghdad, President Bush proclaimed a fresh victory for his administration in Iraq: Two small trailers captured by U.S. and Kurdish troops had turned out to be long-sought mobile 'biological laboratories.' He declared 'We have found the weapons of mass destruction.' The claim, repeated by top administration officials for months afterward, was hailed at the time as a vindication of the decision to go to war. But even as Bush spoke, U.S. intelligence officials possessed powerful evidence that it was not true."

This morning on "Good Morning America," in a question to White House Correspondent Martha Raddatz, Charles Gibson misstated the Washington Post story when he said, "The Washington Post says today that the president knew at the time that was not true."

The White House was unable to say today when or whether the White House received the information to which the Post referred.

And here's the latest from the Post:

A White House spokesman acknowledged that President Bush's assertions about the suspected labs were in error but said this was caused by flawed intelligence work rather than an effort to mislead.

Yeah, you're doing a good job, Tenny.

Hang up

As predicted, that big TV review by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission is underway. The following went out to CBC staffers today:

April 12, 2006

CRTC defers CBC/Radio-Canadas license renewals

Today I was informed by the Chair of the CRTC that they will defer our broadcast license renewals. CBC/Radio-Canadas Television, Radio and CBC Newsworld and RDI licenses expire August 31, 2007. The license renewal process has been deferred because the CRTC intends to launch a broader review of the television industry in Canada.

The CRTC has not yet confirmed the scope or timing of the review, nor has it confirmed the specific issues and questions it would like to address.

Any process that could allow us to discuss issues that touch on us will receive our full and active support.

We will keep you apprised of any new developments.

Robert Rabinovitch
President and CEO

There are many implications in this for CBC. Chief among them are that Rabinovitch, whose term expires November 2007, will be gone when the hearings take place. Assuming a Conservative government is still in power, who knows who will be leading CBC into its uncertain future for another seven year licence term?