Comments Posted By Christopher Fotos
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OUR WHOLE ROTTEN, SMELLY, SEWER OF A GOVERNMENT
Something has got to change. And the depressing thing is, I don’t even know where to begin.
This is a lazy and misinformed post. I am a generic conservative 100% behind the Porkbusters project and, not that it matters, in agreement with much of what I've seen on this blog. But greater DC has a stunning diversity of businesses now, two thriving major airports on the Virginia side, universities coming out the gazoo, major biotech, computer- and software-related services, telecommunications, a self-reinforcing velocity-of-money cycle based on local retail, one of the country's fastest-growing immigrant populations providing every imaginable service at wages far above what they could earn at home; in short, all the elements and critical necessary for the kind of prosperity and dynamism most people actually favor. I'm completely in favor of fighting graft and taxpayer-funded excess, but it's lazy demagoguery to leap from that to "suburbs of sodom," and "defilers of the temple of liberty" and by the way, we actually need to spend lots of money on defense and homeland security, partly so I won't be nuked or attacked with a bioweapon the next time I take the Metro. Hope that's okay with you.
Comment Posted By Christopher Fotos On 30.08.2006 @ 20:02
I'll tell you what has to change, bub, you have to change. Suburbs of Sodom? Go to hell.
Comment Posted By Christopher Fotos On 30.08.2006 @ 19:08
It's one war. It's the war against Islamofascism. Whether it makes any sense to start bombing Iran is a separate question, but Iran is using Hezbollah against Israel and whatever local terrorists are handy to destabilize Iraq. One war, lots of fronts.
Comment Posted By Christopher Fotos On 15.07.2006 @ 22:36
Laughable. The times did its job. The Times leaked nothing, they publushed something that was leaked to them, and this program was widely known.
Um, if this program was widely known, in what sense could it have been leaked to anyone?
Is Eric Lichtblau posting here under a pseudonym?
Comment Posted By Christopher Fotos On 3.07.2006 @ 12:16
This series is a freakin' tour de force.
Comment Posted By Christopher Fotos On 29.06.2006 @ 22:29
HUGH HEWITT: KOOL AID DRINKER OR SAGE OF SAGES?
Hewitt's posts on the subject have a strong Harriet Meiers vibe.
Comment Posted By Christopher Fotos On 7.05.2006 @ 12:04
CIA VS THE WHITE HOUSE: THE LONE PARTISAN?
At the very least, we are left with a reporter who knew McCarthy had a political ax to grind which means Ms. Priest either didn’t care or chose not to inform the reader and lessen the negative impact of the story.
With apologies for tooting my own horn, I've cross-posted a recap at my own blog & Newsbusters of Dana Priest's position on the motives of anonymous sources at the CIA. In a live chat Nov. 3, the day after her secret prisons story, we have the following exchange:
Washington, D.C.: Cliff Kincaid writing in "Accuracy in Media" says that your story on secret prisons yesterday "reflects the view of a faction in the agency (CIA) that opposes this policy and wants to use The Post to convey its view publicly. Once again, the secret war against the Bush administration is on display for all to see."
While I don't expect you to reveal your sources to us -- although go ahead if you want to do so -- you should at least be able to tell us if there is any truth to the notion that currently serving CIA officers are trying to undermine the Bushies. Are they?
Dana Priest: I've always found this view amusing, and rather convenient for the White House, which likes to point to someone else when it's own policy decisions don't work out right or fail to achieve the stated goals (like other administrations, I would add) Most CIA people I've met probably voted for George Bush. And the CIA is responsible for executing the war on terror and capturing the vast majority of the terrorist suspects around the world. No one from the CIA and no one who used to be in the CIA proposed that I write the article I did. On the contrary.
I'll add here that we cannot yet know whether Priest was aware of McCarthy's political contributions. One would think Priest would at least be informed about a top source's political leanings--or be almost recklessly uncurious about them.
Comment Posted By Christopher Fotos On 23.04.2006 @ 11:54
That's okay smithy. I didn't see that the story I cited was by an AP reporter, I didn't see the correct spelling of the reporter's first name, and I didn't see how to correctly end italics. So you're doing better than I am.
Comment Posted By Christopher Fotos On 2.04.2006 @ 12:20
Apologies for muddying the waters: The story in the Post I cite above is by Mariam Fam (got the name wrong) of the Associated Press. Judging from the time stamp, that exact version didn't appear in the newspaper itself, but was shot over the wires and available at washingtonpost.com.
Comment Posted By Christopher Fotos On 2.04.2006 @ 10:11
Good points in this post but I think you're glossing over a key event you reference briefly: Her interview with the Iraqi Islamic Party after her release, in which she continued to speak positively about her terrorist kidnappers.
Many bloggers, but but by no means only bloggers, were startled by the statements she made in what they took to be her first opportunity to freely speak her mind. The mainstream media reports about that interview pushed in the same direction. Here's one from the Washington Post by Miriam Fam:
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- American reporter Jill Carroll's three-month hostage ordeal ended Thursday when she was left on a Baghdad street in front of a Sunni political party office. She appeared composed and eager to talk about her 82 days held captive in a tiny room.
"It's important people know that I was not harmed," she said.
Wearing a green Islamic head scarf and a gray Iraqi robe, Carroll was dropped off at midday near an office of the Iraqi Islamic Party. She walked inside and was then driven 20 minutes to party headquarters, where she called her family and gave an interview to Baghdad Television before being handed over to U.S. authorities.
The 28-year-old freelancer for The Christian Science Monitor said her kidnappers confined her to a small, soundproof room with frosted windows but treated her well. Although her captors issued televised threats to kill Carroll if American forces did not release women prisoners, she said: "They never said they would hit me, never threatened me in any way."...
In the interview, Carroll seemed well and animated and spoke in a strong voice. She frequently tucked her hair under her headscarf, and appeared excited to be free nearly three months after she was ambushed and her translator killed....
Dr. David Wellish, a psychologist at the UCLA School of Medicine, said he had the impression Carroll was suffering from a psychological trauma known as "Stockholm syndrome," a survival mechanism in which a hostage begins to empathize with his or her captors.
"Jill Carroll clearly went down the Stockholm syndrome spectrum part of the way," he said, adding he thought it would take her "a few weeks to get over it and regain perspective."
It was unclear, however, whether Carroll would have given a different assessment in the interview Thursday were she not still in Iraqi hands _ albeit the offices of a Sunni political party.
Now let's face it, the general attitude of American reporters toward the war is not one that argues against believing what she said was heartfelt. But even more than that, I think you should pay more attention to how this interview was framed. She "appeared composed and eager to talk." She gave an interview to "Baghdad Television." She "seemed well and animated and spoke in a strong voice." She "appeared excited to be free." And when we get an expert in the story to talk about Stockholm syndrome, the reporter adds "It was unclear, however, whether Carroll would have given a different assessment in the interview Thursday were she not still in Iraqi hands."
Now I'm not saying that every one of these points were made in every MSM story--but I think if you go back and read other accounts, you'll find the same plot.
So I'd be much harder on people who attacked her statements while still in terrorist captivity than those made when it appeared she was completely free. I'd be much more critical, for example, of the party officials who exploited a kidnap victim in this way.
And I don't get most of indignation about Podhoretz, who said the following:
It's wonderful that she's free, but after watching someone who was a hostage for three months say on television she was well-treated because she wasn't beaten or killed -- while being dressed in the garb of a modest Muslim woman rather than the non-Muslim woman she actually is -- I expect there will be some Stockholm Syndrome talk in the coming days.
Again, this was made after the IIP interview. Seems like a reasonable statement which turned out to be true.
Comment Posted By Christopher Fotos On 2.04.2006 @ 10:05
