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PLIANT MEDIA FOLLOWS BUSH LINE

George W. Bush, March 13, 2002: “I don’t know where bin Laden is. I have no idea and really don’t care. It’s not that important.”

Robert Fisk, January 14, 2006: “To look for bin Laden now is as useful as detaining nuclear scientists after the creation of the atomic bomb. Bin Laden has ceased to be important.”

It’s agreed, then. And people called Bush a divider! Robert’s ego remains in its usual healthy state:

Noting that Spain last year handed Syrian-born journalist Tayssir Alluni a seven-year jail term for collaboration with al-Qaeda - Alluni became famous for interviewing bin Laden shortly after the September 11 attacks on the United States - Fisk joked he hoped he would not suffer a similar fate.

“What will happen, I ask myself, when I arrive in Madrid to talk about my new book, I who have interviewed him three times?

With luck, a 21-year term.

Posted by Tim B. on 01/16/2006 at 03:32 AM
  1. The Russians detained a whole lot of German nuclear scientists in order to create an atomic bomb.
    Fisk has ceased to be important.

    Posted by blogstrop on 2006 01 16 at 05:02 AM • permalink

  2. Imagine boasting about being so palatable to bin Laden you have been granted 3 interviews. A good and also decent journalist would only get one.
    Isn’t it sad how he thinks he “interviewed” bin Laden rather than played out the useful idiot not once, not twice but three times!

    Posted by the nailgun on 2006 01 16 at 05:24 AM • permalink

  3. Is there a spare seat in Big Brother for I, I who am Fisk, is something that I, I who am someone (and how much I do so adore thee), I do ask myself, not infrequently, in fact quite a lot, why?

    Posted by rog2 on 2006 01 16 at 05:28 AM • permalink

  4. Rog2, imagine a Big Brother line up with Fisk, Galloway and possibly Greer.

    The only thing less entertaining would be watching Big Brother with the usual soft-heads they put on the show here.

    Posted by Major Anya on 2006 01 16 at 05:32 AM • permalink

  5. O/T John Quiggin’s End of global warming debate now has 422 comments! The warmers are starting to get a bit ad hominem.

    Posted by pjw on 2006 01 16 at 05:49 AM • permalink

  6. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

    Posted by SteveGW on 2006 01 16 at 06:08 AM • permalink

  7. BTW, Antony L is currently on John Safran and Bob with Austen Tashyus (is that how you spell it?).

    Posted by Major Anya on 2006 01 16 at 06:11 AM • permalink

  8. AL looks like a member of The Chaser team. Arrggghhh, he’s cute. 

    Tayshus just said AL gave him the worst flak he ever received because AL stuck him on own every leftist website such as Pilger’s.

    By the way, Tayshus (I know I am spelling that wrong) thinks Australia is an occupied country and that AL should concentrate on the plight of Aboriginals.

    Posted by Major Anya on 2006 01 16 at 06:18 AM • permalink

  9. I saw the Speaking in Tongues thing too. Austen Tashyus was all over a very timid Angry Ant. Every time Ant would try to make a point (usually tending towards an ill considered generalisation full of holes), AT was hammering him. Great stuff!

    Posted by Mr Anderson on 2006 01 16 at 06:31 AM • permalink

  10. I thought it was particularly amusing how A.T. kept saying Ant’s surname using the German pronounciation (even though it was in the slightly American war movie style).

    Posted by Mr Anderson on 2006 01 16 at 06:34 AM • permalink

  11. Didn’t Bin laden get rid of his sattelite phone because Fisk advised him that the American’s were tracking his movements by it?

    If so there are strong grounds that Fisk could be charged with aiding and abetting the enemy.

    Could go as high as 21 years.

    Posted by gubbaboy on 2006 01 16 at 06:55 AM • permalink

  12. See Robert Fisk using an imaginary telephone to talk to an imaginary friend and/or informant in order to bring us imaginary facts.

    http://humbugonline.blogspot.com/2006/01/robert-fisk-selective-observer.html

    Posted by quillpen on 2006 01 16 at 07:09 AM • permalink

  13. Robert’s ego remains in its usual healthy state:

    Oh, the green eyed monster raises its ugly head. Tim’s just jealous he hasn’t been able to interview Osama bin Laden. Or even Robert Fisk.

    /Loewenstein off

    Posted by James Waterton on 2006 01 16 at 07:37 AM • permalink

  14. And another thing… I am gobsmacked with disbelief when I see phrases like this:

    “Saudi-born terror mastermind”

    A mastermind he is not. Unless it is possible to have a mindless mastermind.

    Posted by quillpen on 2006 01 16 at 07:43 AM • permalink

  15. a video Podcast of Speaking in Tongues - with Lowenstein and Austen Tayshus should be available for from here tommorrow.

    Posted by Melanie on 2006 01 16 at 07:55 AM • permalink

  16. Was Austen talking to Denton about having an indigenous connection?

    Posted by crash on 2006 01 16 at 08:29 AM • permalink

  17. ot but there is some more good news - there’s a useful michael leunig on the planet - he mends people’s hips in switzerland

    isn’t that nice?

    Posted by KK on 2006 01 16 at 09:23 AM • permalink

  18. Major Anya - you are kidding, right? He looks and sounds exactly like I imagined he would, going on his blogging style.

    Melanie - would you really want to waste your bandwidth on a couple of utter lightweights, circling each other and making about as much sense as a howler monkey on speed? Having said that, I shouldn’t slag off howler monkeys - junkie monkeys or otherwise - the average howler would provide more incisive analysis than those two clods.

    Posted by James Waterton on 2006 01 16 at 09:28 AM • permalink

  19. 17: He needs to do the honorable thing and change his name (or maybe the other one can be prevailed upon to change HIS name).

    Posted by paco on 2006 01 16 at 10:16 AM • permalink

  20. “What will happen, I ask myself, when I arrive in Madrid to talk about my new book, I who have interviewed him three times?”

    Why, I imagine that you will attract the kind of numbers that showed up at Cindy Sheehan’s book-signing gig.

    “I who have interviewed him three times” - and who, for all the insight gained, might as well have been conversing with a lamp post.

    Posted by paco on 2006 01 16 at 10:43 AM • permalink

  21. Paco — Or a mirror.

    Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 01 16 at 11:54 AM • permalink

  22. “What will happen, I ask myself, when I arrive in Madrid to talk about my new book, I who have interviewed him three times?”

    Fisk is just hoping that people will even notice he’s there.

    What an utter dust mote of a human being.

    Posted by RebeccaH on 2006 01 16 at 12:43 PM • permalink

  23. Y’all are missing the point.

    What Pilger is telling us here is that Osama bin Laden is dead.

    If bin Laden were alive, he’d be a useful taunt—“look! the Americans go clanking across the landscape in awful array, and Osama slips away like the breeze!” Since that taunt is no longer used, another explanation is required.

    Dead, he might well be turned to an account that favors America—“look, ma, we got ‘im!” That has to be blunted, at least. Therefore Osama doesn’t matter, so killing him is not an achievement and Americans don’t get any credit for it.

    Simple. You just aren’t cynical enough.

    Regards,
    Ric

    Posted by Ric Locke on 2006 01 16 at 05:14 PM • permalink

  24. So Fisk should be jailed? Good thinking. Jail any journalists you don’t agree with. After all we’re at war!

    Posted by bongoman on 2006 01 16 at 06:38 PM • permalink

  25. Too right, Bongoman! 

    We are at war, and any “journalist” who provides, aid, comfort and encouragement to the enemy should be jailed.

    However, I think it a bit extreme to jail journalists just because we disagree with them - this smacks of the oppression found in socialist/communist states.

    Fisk should be tried fairly for his subversive and treacherous actions, found guilty, and sentenced to a lengthy period of imprisonment.

    Posted by Kaboom on 2006 01 16 at 07:28 PM • permalink

  26. Also, bongoman should be sentenced to eight months of waxing the black helicopters for Persistent Wilful Stupidity and Lame Trolling.

    Posted by Crispytoast on 2006 01 16 at 08:06 PM • permalink

  27. Somebody needs to be reminded that he’s supposed to hit the bongos, not hit himself with ‘em. HTH.

    Posted by PW on 2006 01 16 at 10:38 PM • permalink

  28. Bongoman Don’t be so mean to him-he marches to the sound of a different drummer…

    Posted by crash on 2006 01 17 at 08:52 AM • permalink

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