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The Weekly Standard vs. BuzzFlash.com and Sidney Blumenthal: Part I

A BUZZFLASH EDITORIAL

A while back the Wall Street Journal called BuzzFlash "the shrillest and most dimwitted political site on the web." We are regular targets of invective from the right wing shills (who are cousins to the kind of journalists who staffed Pravda under Soviet rule). So we weren’t surprised when the Rupert Murdoch Neo-Con rag, The Weekly Standard, accused BuzzFlash and Sidney Blumenthal of slander.

Here is an excerpt from the September 1st edition of the Murdoch publication (available only to paid subscribers), entitled "Another Phony Anti-Bush Slander":

BuzzFlash.com, a sort of Drudge Report for the left, has joined forces with former Clinton aide Sidney Blumenthal to spin the line that the Clinton administration was heroically tough on terrorism but that the Bush administration, despite being "fully briefed by Clinton staffers about the imminent threat posed by terrorism," fell asleep at the switch until 9/11.

Under the banner "Bush Ignored the Terrorist Threat," BuzzFlash readers can enjoy excerpts from Blumenthal's recent book "The Clinton Wars," in which he recounts transition meetings between Clinton and Bush national security officials. In one, we learn that Clinton NSC adviser Sandy Berger "told them that Osama bin Laden was 'an existential threat' and told them he wanted 'to underscore how important this issue is.'" In another transition briefing, according to Blumenthal, "Richard Clarke, head of counterterrorism in the NSC, the single most knowledgeable expert in government, gave a complete tutorial on the subject."

The Weekly Standard was reacting to two excerpts from Blumenthal’s scrupulously documented book, "The Clinton Wars," which were recently posted on BuzzFlash [LINK].

Here was our introduction to the second excerpt from "Clinton Wars":

With permission of the author and his publisher (Farrar, Strauss and Giroux), the second section we are reproducing (beginning on page 795 of the book) finds Blumenthal reflecting on Bush's White House stature before and after 9/11. It includes information on how the Bush team was fully briefed by Clinton staffers about the imminent threat posed by terrorism. Blumenthal reveals shockingly how the Bush national security team ignored an explicit warning about al-Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden before 9/11 from within the National Security Council itself -- and how the official who gave them that red alert was isolated as a result.

BuzzFlash contacted Sidney Blumenthal to get his response to The Weekly Standard attack.

"September 11th was the biggest security failure in American history and it was George W. Bush who neglected the issue and was the president that failed," Blumenthal told BuzzFlash. "The right is trying to blame President Clinton and Democrats generally for the lapses of the Bush administration. Bush has spent his whole life ducking responsibility, having his father's friends cover up his escapades and advance his career and portfolio, and having a political machine blame others and make excuses for his incompetence while hailing him as a great leader. But it's Bush who bears the responsibility. The buck stops there."

As for the BuzzFlash response to The Weekly Standard, one editorial won't be sufficient. But we’ll start off by quoting from a recent BuzzFlash editorial [LINK]:

Lies have, of course, also been the basic tool used by the Bush administration to fend off criticism of its failure to protect America from 9/11. In a recent BuzzFlash editorial, we mentioned, yet again, one of the most astonishing lies in a long list of audacious mendacity.

It’s still worth repeating (Note that in this incident, Condi Rice once again carried the water for Bush):

Well, let's take a look at a couple of examples from 2002. In the spring of that year, revelations were coming out that Bush had been warned of an imminent terrorist attack on the U.S. during a briefing in the summer of 2001, but ignored the warning and went off to vacation on his ranch for a month. Then came September 11th and the Bush Cartel acted as if it were all a big surprise. Other information about the Bush Cartel being asleep at the wheel in preventing the terrorist attack also began to emerge. There were starting to be rumbles in Congress about an independent investigation of 9/11 being created. Cheney even called Tom Daschle to threaten that an independent investigation would make the United States more vulnerable to terrorist attacks.

The Bush Cartel hauled out Condi to "explain" that it was true that Bush had been warned that Al-Qaeda hijackings might occur in the near future, but that Bush wasn't told about plans to attack the World Trade Center or Pentagon so he didn't take action to protect them. The press dutifully accepted this explanation. But as BuzzFlash pointed out at the time -- and we assume most second graders would understand this, but apparently not the mainstream press -- the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon WERE hijackings. If Bush had taken steps after his pre-9/11 security briefing to put law enforcement on heightened alert, he might very well have prevented the hijacking attacks on the WTC and the Pentagon. But the American press and the TV pundits couldn't figure out this little bit of basic common sense and convinced the American public that Condi had cleared everything up. It staggers the mind that they could get away with this transparent, nonsensical, lie. Condi admitted that Bush was warned about potentially imminent hijackings, the source of the 9/11 attacks. That is the bottom line, period.

Furthermore, if Bush was warned in the summer of 2001 that Al-Qaeda was planning spectacular hijackings and did nothing significant to increase airport security, what does that tell you? Another point that seemed to cast doubt on Condi's claims of Bush innocence in terms of having failed to prevent 9/11 was that she claimed that no one had known that Al-Qaeda was planning to attack buildings with planes. But that was quickly disproved by BuzzFlash and other sites who pointed out that Bush had attended a G-8 conference in Genoa, where anti-aircraft missiles were deployed for the specific reason that intelligence gathering had revealed Al-Qaeda was planning to attack buildings in the Italian city, targeting the G-8 conferees. That was one reason Bush slept on a boat offshore. And that occurred before the "smoking gun" briefing in the summer of 2001!

The lie that Rice told to explain away Bush's pre-9/11 briefing on the threat of deadly hijackings by Al Qaeda was the political equivalent of robbing a bank in broad day light -- and getting away with it.

And beyond the known lies about Bush failing to prevent 9/11, there are all the details that the Bush Cartel still refuses to share with the American public. Insiders on the Congressional 9/11 commission have indicated that much of this information would be damning to Bush.

It is vital to remember that The Weekly Standard is owned by Rupert Murdoch. The attack (on Blumenthal’s valid assertions that the Bush administration did almost nothing to fight Al-Qaeda prior to 9/11) was reprinted in the New York Post, owned by Rupert Murdoch. No doubt, it will resurface on the always "Unbalanced and Unfair" FOX News, owned by Rupert Murdoch. Murdoch is very skilled at creating an echo chamber for his pro-Bush views. He does the same thing in England, where he uses multiple media outlets to support pro-war, pro-privatization, and pro-deregulation positions. Most importantly, he uses his interrelated media outlets to attack individuals who challenge the puppet government of the Bush administration. If there weren't the Rupert Murdochs of the world running news organizations that are really vehicles for pro-Bush and pro-Blair propaganda, both governments would have collapsed long ago.

In the United States, when you combine the media clout of NewsCorps with other pro-Bush media empires like Clear Channel radio, you have, in essence, a privatized government propaganda dissemination service. Clear Channel, after all, is still organizing pro-Bush rallies (in the guise of "supporting our troops," even when Bush is abandoning them to die), most recently in the Pacific Northwest as Bush made his fundraising rounds there.

So why then would The Weekly Standard react in such a nervously defensive manner to Blumenthal’s assertion that Bush was asleep at the wheel in fighting Al-Qaeda before 9/11?

A recent Harvard University study might touch upon at least part of the answer: "While the pages [of newspapers] are more or less equally partisan when it comes to supporting or opposing a given presidential administration's policy pronouncements, the conservative pages are more partisan -- often far more partisan -- with regard to the intensity with which they criticize the other side. Also ... conservative editorial pages are far less willing to criticize a Republican administration than liberal pages are willing to take issue with a Democratic administration." [LINK]

That means supporting the figurehead running the government, even if he daily reveals himself to be an uninformed puppet. Take, for instance, Bush’s remarkable ignorance about whether or not we have increased or decreased troops in Afghanistan, as reported in the Washington Post:

"We've got about 10,000 troops there, which is down from, obviously, major combat operations," he [Bush] said. "And they're there to provide security and they're there to provide reconstruction help. But both those functions are being gradually replaced by other troops. Germany, for example, is now providing the troops for ISAF [International Security Assistance Force], which is the security force for Afghanistan, under NATO control. In other words, more and more coalition forces and friends are beginning to carry a lot of the burden in Afghanistan."

In fact, the 10,000 troops in Afghanistan represent the highest number of U.S. soldiers in the country since the war there began. By the time the Taliban government had been vanquished in December 2001, U.S. troops numbered fewer than 3,000 in Afghanistan. And three months later, in March 2002, when the last major battle against remnants of the Taliban and al Qaeda took place in eastern Afghanistan, about 5,000 U.S. troops were in the country. [LINK]

It’s like having a blind, brain-damaged parakeet as president. All the Chickenhawk Neo-Con "endless war" advisors sit around the parakeet and recommend war, deregulation, rollback of environmental protections, government contracts for campaign contributors, making America into an official Christian state, and so forth. Because the parakeet is mentally deficient, he keeps nodding his head all the time. The advisers interpret his nodding head as approval for their destructive plans. The Bush corporate media shills prop up the parakeet by insisting that his head nods are proof of his decisiveness and wisdom. This is what passes for good government with the Republicans and their media enablers!

It doesn't even matter if it means America was and is at greater risk for terrorism with a brain-damaged, nodding parakeet sitting in the White House. It doesn't matter that he is a puppet for reckless fundamentalist zealots, driven by narrow-minded illogical ideology. All that matters is rabidly supporting the "team effort." Maybe the team is being led over the cliff, but that’s a mere trivial complaint -– a sign of flaccid weakness.

So The Weekly Standard, a propaganda broad sheet for Rupert Murdoch’s efforts to shape the U.S. government to meet his own needs and world views, criticizes Sidney Blumenthal rather than admitting the sad truth: Cheney and Bush were too preoccupied with larding up the pantry for their corporate contributors to notice that America was about to be attacked by terrorists.

Indeed, just prior to September 11th, Bush was taking his annual month-long vacation at his faux, photo-op ranch, where he is right now.

And while The Weekly Standard fills up its pages with panicky criticisms of BuzzFlash and Blumenthal, our soldiers continue to die in Iraq and Afghanistan.

With the death Monday, August 25, of another U.S. soldier in Iraq, the number of U.S. troops who have died there since May 1, when President Bush declared an end to major combat operations, rose to 138, more than those who died BEFORE Bush declared "Mission Accomplished." Since Monday, three more U.S. soldiers have died. At least 76 American soldiers have died in Iraq since Bush recklessly declared, "Bring them on." Remember how the deaths of the Saddam sons were supposed to slow down attacks on our soldiers? 48 U.S. soldiers have died since that time. And that doesn't include the hundreds that have been wounded. [LINK]

The pages of The Weekly Standard are more than just fish wrap for the Murdoch agenda; they are bloodstained broadsides that defend the indefensible.

A BUZZFLASH EDITORIAL

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