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REALITY CREATED

Informed political discussion at Adelaide Writers’ Week, featuring Mark Danner and Robert Fisk:

Danner was up first and quickly cast forth the troubling question of facts versus spin in an era wherein the U.S. Administration has dubbed political journalists “a reality-based community” and advised them: “We’re an empire now and when we act we create our own reality.”

For “US Administration”, read “one unnamed Bush aide”. More from Danner:

He recalled the Abu Ghraib torture atrocities which, despite earlier leaks, were not reported until photographs presented revelation. The story then became subject to the “spinning wheel” and then, for lack of an official investigation, he said, “the story did not have legs . . . it was broken and sidelined”.

Robert Fisk, who works on the ground amid the kidnappings and shootings in Baghdad, confirmed Danner’s observation.

Confirmation from Fisk isn’t usually helpful. There was an official investigation; the Independent Panel to Review Department of Defense Detention Operations handed down its findings in September, 2004. This was widely reported at the time. Danner and Fisk have, as they might say, “created their own reality”.

Posted by Tim B. on 03/11/2006 at 01:47 PM
  1. Yes, but…

    Posted by Mystery Meat on 2006 03 11 at 02:10 PM • permalink

  2. Where’s my plastic turkey?

    Posted by Some0Seppo on 2006 03 11 at 02:15 PM • permalink

  3. If Fisk and Danner want to build their own reality, they’d be more usefully employed doing this

    Posted by paco on 2006 03 11 at 02:20 PM • permalink

  4. Danner and Fisk have, as they might say, “created their own reality”.

    They have rejected verifiable, fact-based reality and substituted their own.


    (Apologies to Adam Savage)

    Posted by Spiny Norman on 2006 03 11 at 02:40 PM • permalink

  5. the story did not have legs
    is there anyone on the planet who has not heard of Abu Ghraib?

    Posted by daddy dave on 2006 03 11 at 03:11 PM • permalink

  6. Doesn’t he own the Quickie Mart on The Simpsons…?

    Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 03 11 at 03:24 PM • permalink

  7. ...said Danner, going on to describe the way in which truths may finally come out as exemplified by Watergate - “1. revelation (leaks), 2. investigation, 3 expiation”.

    Gack. Fellas, that was 35 years ago. Yeah, yeah, I know, you took down two presidents and stopped an illegal, immoral war (condemned millions to enslavement and death, whatever), but what have you done lately? Anything? Anything at all? Twits. Note to non-Boomers: You should round up all of us who came out of the 60s, line us up against a wall and shoot us dead. Really. You’d be a lot better off.

    Fisk cited the new emotive terminology American journalists are required to adopt - “disputed territory, not ‘occupied’ for Israel’s West Bank, and ‘settlements’ or ‘neighbourhoods’ for the colonies and the Wall, which is taller than the Berlin Wall, is a ‘fence’ or ‘security barrier’ “.

    Oh, you mean like calling terrorists “freedom fighters” or “insurgents” or “militants”? Or “radicals” or “rebels” or “disaffected activists”? Like that?

    Posted by Kyda Sylvester on 2006 03 11 at 03:47 PM • permalink

  8. You should round up all of us who came out of the 60s, line us up against a wall and shoot us dead.

    Er… you can shoot those other ones, but not me, okay?  Really.  I’m with you.

    That is, I completely agree that what Danner and Fisk mean by the story having “no legs” is that the Bush Administration did not go down in the hottest flames of hell, followed, screaming, by all us heartless IdiotBeasts who voted for him.

    Posted by RebeccaH on 2006 03 11 at 04:25 PM • permalink

  9. An astute observation, RebeccaH. They’re not talking about whether the public were given the facts, because they were. They’re talking about the public voting for the ‘wrong’ party after getting the facts.

    Posted by daddy dave on 2006 03 11 at 04:43 PM • permalink

  10. Fisk continues down his path of voluntary insanity.

    Posted by Dave S. on 2006 03 11 at 05:33 PM • permalink

  11. I wish you would all stop hitting on Fisk.

    Herewith my favourite FISK RECIPE :

    Take Bob and beat until tender,

    Add 2 eggs and whisk with a blunt spade,

    Place in oven at 3000 C (probably get a
    column next day…. “There was something
    odd about Kelvinator…usually it’s
    2997 C at this time of year”)

    Remove and dispose with waste. Remember
    to seperate from glass items….

    Posted by Mike 101 on 2006 03 11 at 05:47 PM • permalink

  12. “Informed political discussion” - “Adelaide Writers’ Week”

    Wilful oxymoronism. I think there’s a law against that.

    Robert Fisk, who works on the ground

    Fiskwit couldn’t get any closer to the ground if he tried. Makes a snake’s belly look like the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

    Posted by Henry boy on 2006 03 11 at 06:23 PM • permalink

  13. Sometimes I think - with embarrassment - that I’m being had.

    Is Fisk a double agent? You know how some criminals secretly want to be caught so they can get their due recognition? Is Fisk’s increasing stridency and self-parodying a sign of this?

    Has that nefarious wronwright character ever let slip on this matter?

    Posted by Henry boy on 2006 03 11 at 06:32 PM • permalink

  14. 7# I’ve long blamed Watergate for the state of the MSM today, ever since then journalists/commentators have been desperately chasing their own Watergate - they know it’s out there..  Everything’s a conspiracy.  And the closer the journalist is to be there for Watergate the more feral he/she is.

    Posted by spyder on 2006 03 11 at 06:57 PM • permalink

  15. Would they be the photos produced by an internal investigation and leaked by a defense attorney?  Or am I hallucinating a non-existent investigation simply to confirm my own hard-wired fantasy-based ‘absolute truths’ about the world?

    Or, if the investigation did exist then maybe Fisk et al would be hallucinating…

    Posted by scoota on 2006 03 11 at 07:36 PM • permalink

  16. Hamish,
    I think WronWright has been otherwise employed applying no-slip WACS to Black Helicopters.

    Cheers
    JMH

    Posted by J.M. Heinrichs on 2006 03 11 at 07:37 PM • permalink

  17. He recalled the Abu Ghraib torture atrocities which, despite earlier leaks, were not reported until photographs presented revelation. The story then became subject to the “spinning wheel” and then, for lack of an official investigation, he said, “the story did not have legs . . . it was broken and sidelined”.

    My God, do reporters actually believe this shit?

    Posted by Rob Crawford on 2006 03 11 at 09:01 PM • permalink

  18. They do after the lobotomy.

    Well, how else can their lack of memory be explained?

    Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2006 03 11 at 09:16 PM • permalink

  19. “They do after the lobotomy.”

    Alright, all together now:  An’ I’d rather have a bottle in front a’me than…

    Posted by Old Grouch on 2006 03 11 at 09:44 PM • permalink

  20. #14, spyder, exactly so.

    Posted by RebeccaH on 2006 03 11 at 09:45 PM • permalink

  21. Is Fisk really real and if so in which reality where? I’m told it’s not so simple but those on the inside tell me that Fisk is a huge plastic dummy that leftoids gather round at midnight and pump up with their bodily fluids until the smegma comes out of its plastic orifices and then they all loll all over it until they wack off one way or another. I’d relate more but I don’t want any of you to retch all over your keyboards.

    Posted by stats on 2006 03 11 at 10:11 PM • permalink

  22. In the words of Douglas Adams, Fisk is spending a few years loony for tax reasons…

    Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 03 11 at 10:17 PM • permalink

  23. In the real world crap administrations (sometimes assisted by deranged death cults) are making life a misery for their populace, and throwing their weight around way beyond the permissible limits.
    In Bizarro Media World it’s all Bush’s fault.

    Posted by blogstrop on 2006 03 11 at 10:40 PM • permalink

  24. # 7, they’re only ‘freedom fighters’ when they’re fighting on our side. When they start shooting at us and our troops, then they become ‘terrorists’.

    And too late Stats, I’ve already retched. Smegma? Isn’t that the name of a Korean whitehoogs manufacturer?

    We won’t have to wait long for most journos to go the way of the telegraph operators. Murdoch’s dream of running media outlets solely using the content provided by bloggers grows ever closer.

    Can you guys recommend some good, or more truthful journos, than Fisk, Pilger, Danner for rock-solid Iraq and Middle East coverage?

    Does Paul McGeogh make the grade?

    Posted by LeftieLatteLover on 2006 03 11 at 10:44 PM • permalink

  25. Could these “earlier leaks” include the press conference in January 2004 or so where they announced they’d been investigating reports of abuse at Abu Ghraib and arrests had been made?

    Of course, they didn’t release all the nifty photos so it must not have counted or something.

    Posted by Patrick Chester on 2006 03 11 at 10:56 PM • permalink

  26. LatteLL…Paul McGeough??????  Oh, now I know you’re just a kidder!  That’s so cute!

    Posted by ushie on 2006 03 11 at 11:41 PM • permalink

  27. Can you guys recommend some good, or more truthful journos, than Fisk, Pilger, Danner for rock-solid Iraq and Middle East coverage?

    I realize this will come as a shock to you, but compared to those guys, pretty much anyone would be an upgrade. Even McGeough, who at least still has the Stopped Clock Phenomenon working for him. Fisk and Pilger, on the other hand, seem to be wrong 100% of the time these days. (I suspect it was always so, but nobody bothered to track their claims before.)

    I originally thought you were being tongue-in-cheek when you described your reaction to the Fisk speech you attended as “I was surprised by how much I didn’t know about the endless conflicts of the Middle East, and the true aggressors behind most of the slaughters”, but I guess you really do believe the alternate-reality nonsense that Fisk sells as insight.

    I wish I could even fake being so gullible, but I guess that’s a trait that simply must come naturally, as it obviously does for you.

    Posted by PW on 2006 03 11 at 11:44 PM • permalink

  28. Michael Totten.
    Michael Yon.

    Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 03 11 at 11:46 PM • permalink

  29. Let’s see Robert Fisk goes to that notorious hotspot, Adelaide.  While Michael Totten is leisurely touring Biara, Iraq.  Darn, these book tours are really dangerous.

    Posted by Pat Patterson on 2006 03 11 at 11:56 PM • permalink

  30. #12 McFootpath,

    Oh gee, know what?  Remember those jack boots you ordered?  The white rhinocerous skin ones with lynx fur lining?  The nefarious ones?  Well, unfortunately your name nefariously got bumped to the bottom of the list.  We’re now looking at a 5 year turnaround time on this.  Yeah, that’s too bad too.  I heard they were almost finished and they look nice, very nice.  In a rather nefarious fashion.

    Whose next on the list?  Maybe he or she will want them.  Michael Lonie.  Lonie, you like rhino hide?

    Posted by wronwright on 2006 03 12 at 12:11 AM • permalink

  31. #13: Hamish, Wronwright hates being called nefarious. He destroyed the hard drive of my computer just because of the merest whimsy on my part with respect to the polymer poultry. Consider yourself lucky that the worst thing you have to put up with is wearing rubber boots with a Smurf cartoon on them for a little while (I’ve actually received quite a few compliments on mine).

    Posted by paco on 2006 03 12 at 12:53 AM • permalink

  32. I’ll take the jackboots Wronw I mean Sir. I need ‘em.

    I’ve been caught in a Sid Walker/Damian Lataan pincer operation after being caught red-handed threatening WebDiary with six truckloads of army surplus smoked herring unless they admitted immediately that WWII happened and the US was on our side.OK that might sound as dangerous as being licked by a twelve year old beagle.

    But between me and the cliff edge there’s only Will and as usual he’s being such a bloody gentleman about it. You know. Reasonable and all that kind of stuff.

    I will remind you that this was an officially authorised operation. I’ve done hardly anything freelance since the Spanish elections false flag incident. How was I supposed to know that “Taliban” also means “surrender”?

    Can I have the ones with the Death Adder fangs embedded in the toes?

    Posted by geoff on 2006 03 12 at 02:04 AM • permalink

  33. OOps . I promise to never use “strike” again as well

    Posted by geoff on 2006 03 12 at 02:06 AM • permalink

  34. does this stop it?

    Posted by geoff on 2006 03 12 at 02:07 AM • permalink

  35. Right .I’m out of here. Bye.

    Posted by geoff on 2006 03 12 at 02:08 AM • permalink

  36. I haven’t been around for thirty years to follow the history of the Middle East, that’s why I don’t know the full history.

    I could read up, but the only book I saw in two shops yesterday on Middle East history was Fisk’s massive 1300 bloody page doorstop of eyeball destruction.

    Any journo is better thank Fisk and Pilger? Okay, who? Names?

    News limited seems to only run stuff from ‘international correspondents’, which sounds like some hack rewriting AP wire stories.

    Piers Ackerman and Miranda Devine, two formerly loud cheerleaders of democracy in Iraq haven’t written a word in months, and it’s hard to check in detail because, for some reason, neither have their columns archived on their respective publications anymore.

    I agree that Pilger and Fisk probably do get it wrong, but 100% of the time? Come on, now who’s being gullible?

    I checked out both the Washington Times and Weekly Standard, and they’re both pulling away from ‘Everything’s Going Great In Iraq’ as well. Who else is left? What’s going on here?

    Who do I read for the real news on Iraq and the Middle East? And no, former Mossad chiefs and senior officers editorialising in JPost don’t count.

    Posted by LeftieLatteLover on 2006 03 12 at 02:09 AM • permalink

  37. I haven’t been around for thirty years to follow the history of the Middle East, that’s why I don’t know the full history.

    I could read up, but the only book I saw in two shops yesterday on Middle East history was Fisk’s massive 1300 bloody page doorstop of eyeball destruction.

    Any journo is better thank Fisk and Pilger? Okay, who? Names?

    News limited seems to only run stuff from ‘international correspondents’, which sounds like some hack rewriting AP wire stories.

    Piers Ackerman and Miranda Devine, two formerly loud cheerleaders of democracy in Iraq haven’t written a word in months, and it’s hard to check in detail because, for some reason, neither have their columns archived on their respective publications anymore.

    I agree that Pilger and Fisk probably do get it wrong, but 100% of the time? Come on, now who’s being gullible?

    I checked out both the Washington Times and Weekly Standard, and they’re both pulling away from ‘Everything’s Going Great In Iraq’ as well. Who else is left? What’s going on here?

    Who do I read for the real news on Iraq and the Middle East? And no, former Mossad chiefs and senior officers editorialising in JPost don’t count.

    Have i just been blacklined or is my computer having a breakdown?

    Posted by LeftieLatteLover on 2006 03 12 at 02:19 AM • permalink

  38. Michael Totten, Michael Yon, thanks for the heads up.

    Will now google for more info on their work.

    Posted by LeftieLatteLover on 2006 03 12 at 02:29 AM • permalink

  39. OUT

    Posted by MentalFloss on 2006 03 12 at 02:38 AM • permalink

  40. Sheesh.

    Posted by Dave S. on 2006 03 12 at 02:45 AM • permalink

  41. Posted by Dave S. on 2006 03 12 at 02:45 AM • permalink

  42. Fisk and Danner must think we’re all as mentally challenged as they are.  I’m old as dirt but my memory ain’t that bad.

    Yet.

    Posted by saltydog on 2006 03 12 at 03:22 AM • permalink

  43. ” ... conflict specialist Prof Mark Danner ... “

    How much does he charge for an argument?

    Posted by Inurbanus on 2006 03 12 at 05:09 AM • permalink

  44. Afterthought

    “the story did not have legs . . . it was broken and sidelined”.

    What?  We’ve had Abu Gravy on toast, Abu Gravy with potatoes, Abu Gravy and sausages, Abu Gravy fritters, Abu Gravy ...

    Posted by Inurbanus on 2006 03 12 at 05:13 AM • permalink

  45. /

    Posted by blogstrop on 2006 03 12 at 05:13 AM • permalink

  46. too many strikes and you’re out- comprehend?

    Posted by blogstrop on 2006 03 12 at 05:15 AM • permalink

  47. strike that out. Faaaark.

    Posted by blogstrop on 2006 03 12 at 05:16 AM • permalink

  48. /strike
    <strike></strike>

    Posted by scoota on 2006 03 12 at 05:23 AM • permalink

  49. LatteLeftover is in retreat, trying not to be banned. “oh, yes, I’ll just go and read up on them”. Seems like a re-run of Idleburger. Bit prone to rubbish people for being older than thirty-something.
    If you are going to take pleasure in seeing Iraq turn into custard - and in fact wish for it, so you are proven right - you are of the lowest order of scum in the pond.

    Posted by blogstrop on 2006 03 12 at 05:23 AM • permalink

  50. What does Close All actually do?

    Posted by blogstrop on 2006 03 12 at 05:25 AM • permalink

  51. </s>
    </del>

    Posted by scoota on 2006 03 12 at 05:26 AM • permalink

  52. Hmmm…

    Posted by Henry boy on 2006 03 12 at 05:40 AM • permalink

  53. Gregarious... really I meant gregarious. Nefarious was a tqypho.

    W[ronwright]: an inverted M?.. (a little espionage humour there…).

    But you cannot touch me; I have no use for anything but petro-chemical footware (whilst always appreciating the stripping of the vital juices of Malaysian rubber trees). Gumboots. That’s what I’m sayin’.

    I did bid for some Panda mitts on eBay but was beaten by one Ishikawa Hemmingway (also successful on the 10 MT of whale blubber, apparently the “rove child” of Earnest).

    Posted by Henry boy on 2006 03 12 at 06:01 AM • permalink

  54. Let that be a lesson to all.

    Posted by wronwright on 2006 03 12 at 06:19 AM • permalink

  55. Thank you for cleaning up that horrid little mess. The thread I mean. Not Spain.

    Now Major-General wronwright, sir. About those boots ...

    Posted by geoff on 2006 03 12 at 06:51 AM • permalink

  56. #49 blogstrop

    Cut LeftieLatteLover some slack.

    I have it on the best possible authority that he’s barely old enough to vote.

    Posted by geoff on 2006 03 12 at 07:01 AM • permalink

  57. Blogstrop, what is your problem?

    I’m not in retreat. Am I supposed to stay as ignorant as some of you think I am by not asking questions? Not asking for the supposed wisdom of elders?

    When I told friends about this place soon after I came across it, they came and looked and then bailed, complaining about ‘attitude problems’ from certain posters.

    How the heck did you get anything from what I’ve posted so far that suggests I want to see Iraq turn to custard? I said I was for the War, unlike most kids at my school, I said I want democracy for Iraq, for everyone in the whole world. How much clearer than that can I be?

    I’ve noticed a very nasty habit amongst some here, very few thankfully, that rather than simply disagreeing, or arguing another point, or trying to educate, they simply accuse people of saying things they never said, or taking a position completely the opposite of everything they have ever posted. Now that might be fine for Scott McClellan, but really, does my mind need that much of a working over?

    Do you want young people like me to go away and never come back? Sheesh!

    You don’t want to hear anyone say anything you might not agree with and then you don’t want them to ask questions either?

    Where are you living? Ignoramustan?

    And thank you, Richard McEnroe for suggesting the journalising of Michael Totten and Michael Yon. I have been googling my ignorant, illformed little heart out for the last few hours and have found many articles which I am now sitting down to read.

    Posted by LeftieLatteLover on 2006 03 12 at 07:15 AM • permalink

  58. Paul Mc GOUGH?

    Posted by crash on 2006 03 12 at 08:21 AM • permalink

  59. I’m rather partial to a Vienna myself..

    Posted by crash on 2006 03 12 at 08:25 AM • permalink

  60. LeftieLatteLover : See The Command Post back in February 2004.

    Seventeen US soldiers have been suspended of duties pending the outcome of the investigation into alleged allegations of abuse of Iraqi prisoners, a US officer said today.

    The 17 include a battalion commander and a company commander, Colonel William Darley said. He gave no further details.
    Last month, Lieutenant-General Ricardo Sanchez, commander of US forces in Iraq, ordered a criminal investigation into reports of abuse of prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison on the western outskirts of Baghdad.

    It was in The Australian. It was on blogs.

    I’ll even recycle a comment from May 2004 on the subject :

    You did read the date of the post, didn’t you? You know, how a US Army Internal investigation found all this stuff out in February, 3 months before the press got wind of it? And that prosecutions started immediately, and a General was summarily fired? And that the bare bones of the story - all that could be reported without prejudicing the trial - was even on TCP [The Command Post]? Please enlighten me on how this is a Bush cover-up of the CBS story. Does he have a time-machine to go back to February? Sorry, there’s a real reality-disconnect here. Please explain, I’m obviously not seeing something.

    Now of course it’s March 2006, and the same tired old stuff is being poured out.  No matter how many times Fisk or whoever repeats the same old lie, it doesn’t make it true. And the evidence is out there, on websites for anyone to see, if they bother to.

    But so many like yourself prefer to believe in plastic turkeys.

    Meanwhile, some more TCP quotes, what Fisk said about the Iraq war at the time, so you can judge his “middle east facts”

    The Impregnable Baghdad Defences :

    In Al-Mussayib, central Iraq ? The road to the front in central Iraq is a place of fast-moving vehicles, blazing Iraqi anti-aircraft guns, tanks and trucks hidden in palm groves, a train of armored vehicles bombed from the air and hundreds of artillery positions dug into revetments to defend the capital. Anyone who doubts that the Iraqi Army is prepared to defend its capital should take the highway south of Baghdad.

    How, I kept asking myself, could the Americans batter their way through these defenses? For mile after mile they go on, slit trenches, ditches, earthen underground bunkers, palm groves of heavy artillery and truck loads of combat troops in battle fatigues and steel helmets. Not since the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War have I seen the Iraqi Army deployed like this; the Americans may say they are “degrading” the country’s defenses but there was little sign of that here Wednesday.

    Or the Americans Nowhere near Baghdad Airport story, when CNN was showing video of the US forces there.

    Or the this story. Or this one. Or… just use the search facilities on “Fisk” to find more.

    Posted by Zoe Brain on 2006 03 12 at 08:27 AM • permalink

  61. LeftieLL: Want a more reliable reporter than Fisk? Try “Baghdad Bob” who now works for Al-Jaz. Perhaps a bit tainted but much more reliable and accurate than Fisk. Moreover, he’s simply crazy, not a consistent liar like Fisk. In short, anyone, even your grade school headmaster, would be a more reliable reporter on Iraq (or anything else), even if your headmaster had never left his little office. Your question as to who might be better is not relevant. The relevant questions are, “How does this blowhard keep his job, what kind of warped organization would retain him, what twisted media producers would give him a platform?”
      (You’ve given yourself away at pretending to find a better reporter on Iraq. As you admit to reading the Washinton Times and the Weekly Standard you surely have found one. But more revealing is your glee at these publications seeming (according to your malformed perceptions) to back away from optimism on Iraq. Don’t start dancing in the streets with your Musliar friends yet. (May the Smegma lay upon you)).

    Posted by stats on 2006 03 12 at 08:59 AM • permalink

  62. This reminds me of an incident from my youth in Texas.  A large group of hoodlums had invaded our neighborhood park and were pretty much raising hell.  My father and another man, drove over and told them they’d have to leave.  At that point, another neighbor, whom I’ll call John O’Brien (his real name is Jim O’Brien - so sue me) steps forward and claims that these hoodlums have a RIGHT to be in the park, at which point he dramatically threw himself onto the hood of my father’s pickup. He was trying to portray himself as a champion of the down-trodden.  My father and the other man left and went back to our home.  Later that night, after the hoodlums had detroyed the park and torn down the gazebo, they beat John O’Brien to a pulp, sending him to the hosptial for several days.  It appears to me that Robert Fisk IS John O’Brien.

    Posted by Texas Bob on 2006 03 12 at 09:39 AM • permalink

  63. That was an entire baseball season’s worth of strikeouts. Whew. Even George Will wouldn’t have enjoyed that.

    If LLL (interesting he chose initials of derision common to LGF) is truly interested in unbiased reporting from Iraq, he needs to do more than Google Yon and Totten. Nearly every milblogger reports better than the MSM who are still using their Saddamite “minders” as translators and stringers while the reporters are sipping sweet tea in the Green Zone. I suggest going to Instapundut, searching “milblogger” and start clicking links.

    Posted by Some0Seppo on 2006 03 12 at 10:22 AM • permalink

  64. Zoe Brain, where did I say I believed that Plastic Turkey rubbish?

    Why people like you insist on lumping me in with the moonbats simply because I went to a Fisk speech (that I only found out was even taking place through this site) and I dared to say I had learned things I hadn’t known before about the Middle East?

    Why are people here so obsessed with this Plastic Turkey story?

    As I stated on an earlier post, I only went to the FiskFest in the first place because some of you said you were going to ‘shout him down’.

    Apparently I was the only one who bothered to go as nobody else here has posted any kind of firsthand report on what was said, just what they’re ‘friends’ told them.

    Stats, I suppose one of the reasons Fisk has kept his job this long because so few reporters are willing to go to Iraq because so many of them are getting killed and major media organisations are reluctant to give journalists adequate insurance cover? As far as I can find out, the reason why so many US journalists don’t go outside the Green Zone is because their insurance won’t cover them if they do so. This may not be completely correct, but there’s not a lot of info on the internet about this question.

    Fisk also said he was going back to Iraq. I’m sure some of you will be mightily pleased if he gets slaughtered, then you won’t have to put up with his supposed non-stop lies. But the problem therein would be enormous coverage of Fisk’s death and a renewed interest in his latest doorstop of eyeball destruction (I thought it was a funny line, anyway)

    I didn’t admit to regularly reading The Washington Times or the Weekly Standard, I said I had just visited those sites and found articles there that presented opinions that the Iraq War was not going as previously imagined, and they, too, were touting the Perle and Pipes new mantra that it might be too soon for American style democracy in Iraq.

    And how did what I post say or indequate in any way that I found some kind of glee or joy in their obvious disappointment that the situation was growing ever more dire? I said I wanted to find good, accurate reporting on the situation in Iraq and why the situation was improving, and both the Wash Times and Weekly Standard had little to say about that.

    Pehaps you should read some of the Kristol articles I’m working my way through from recent issues of the Standard, they’re all online and waiting for you right now.

    Stats, you’re recommending Baghdad Bob? Is this a warped joke? Musliar friends? So some guy I met at the FiskFest is a liar? Why, because he’s Muslim? How the hell would you know? Fantastic attitude, mate, really helping to pull the world back together again.

    Now I know what ‘Smegma’ means, and since you seem to have such an obsession with the subject, I recommend regular, thorough cleaning of the cheesy region.

    And in Australia, we don’t have ‘grade schools’, we have primary and high schools.

    I asked for guidance and information as to where to find good reportage from Iraq, and a far more positive picture than most that the media presents, and the only person who could be bothered to be helpful, instead of trying and failing to insult me like Stas and Blogstrop, was Richard McEnroe. Thank you again, Richard.

    I’ve read through a dozen fairly recent pieces from Michael Totten and Michael Yon and their impressions of Iraq are no more positive than either the Washington Times or The Weekly Standard.

    This is my central problem in my search : where’s the good news now? After the elections?

    The Command Post doesn’t appear to have been updated since November, 2005.

    Today’s Washington Times has a story saying the US will end up talking to Iran about their exit from Iraq. Iran?

    Max Boot in the Weekly Standard has some weird rant about great it is US soldiers can enjoy Subway and Burger King inside Camp Victory, and writes vividly of the terror he feels when he had to travel outside the heavily fortified green zones (to and from the airport).

    So who’s left to turn to for really good news from Iraq?

    Anne Coulter?

    Posted by LeftieLatteLover on 2006 03 12 at 10:23 AM • permalink

  65. #57 I am bemused by the similarity in the posts by a sequence of lefties who post by here every now and then, PB2 and others. Are these the multiple personalities of of one person,or do lefties go to some school of trolling? Here we have the usual symptoms. The false search for information (where to find a better reporter than Fisk? Under the bed?), the holier than thou attitude (you people are not polite, not nice, I have friends (hmmmm?) turned off by your attitude) the urge to throw up moral equivalence , the self-importance (don’t you want me to come back?), the adolescent sarcasm (I’m just searching for wisdom from my elders), the boring sameness. I expect he/she will bring up the Crusades eventually.

    Posted by stats on 2006 03 12 at 10:26 AM • permalink

  66. #64 LeftieLaLa, calm down. I didn’t realize you were off your meds or I wouldn’t have put you onto Baghdad Bob as a source of information, but I thought he would do as you’re prone to give credence to anyone who has something awful to say about the war against the Mus-liars. (OOOOPS, a slip.) The reason you’re lumped with the moonbats is that, despite all the evidence demonstrating that Fisk is a liar, and an irresponsible liar, you give him credence, and lecture all about you (and it’s all about you and not Fisk)to dare to show you someone better, when there are a multitude giving realistic reports of doings in Iraq. If you are going to make a fool of yourself, don’t throw yourself on the hood of a pickup.

    Posted by stats on 2006 03 12 at 10:40 AM • permalink

  67. Geez, Stats, I say ‘friends’, as in school friends, and you think I mean…what exactly?

    I didn’t realise I was expected to cop endless shit from people like you and say nothing in my defence.

    I do actually think my elders can be full of wisdom, as in I have respect for people who lived longer than me. Was it the phrasing that offended you?

    Who exactly do you read for good reportage on Iraq, seeing as now you think anybody ‘under the bed’ (?) is better than Fisk?

    Christ, and since when I have become a Leftie moonbat? I chose the name because i thought it was funny, as latte lovers seems to have replaced the worn out chardonney quaffers, or whatever it used to be.

    Tim Blair, by the way, thought Leftie Latte Lover was “delightful”, in email, while he and Andrea were trying to get me logged in right because of apparent problems on my computer.

    I don’t actually see any Lefties posting around here at all. Did you chase them all off? Do you want the playground all to yourself?

    Posted by LeftieLatteLover on 2006 03 12 at 10:46 AM • permalink

  68. #67 You’ll be worth a reply when you stop talking about yourself and get to the subject of this post, which is the Fisk world of unreality.

    Posted by stats on 2006 03 12 at 11:01 AM • permalink

  69. Finally wore the old guy down, eh?

    Fisk is full of shit.

    The War On Iraq couldn’t be going any better than it is right now.

    Better now, Statsy?

    Posted by LeftieLatteLover on 2006 03 12 at 12:22 PM • permalink

  70. Speaking of Fisk, whatever happened to that sacked BBC git who claimed he was at the Bagdhad airport when he was nowhere near the place?

    Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 03 12 at 12:44 PM • permalink

  71. Probably writing for the Grauniad.

    Posted by Spiny Norman on 2006 03 12 at 01:42 PM • permalink

  72. #69 More assolescent swiftie sarcasm. Before you can be taken seriously, explain the evidence that Fisk is a reliable reporter withoput ignoring his past woefully false reporting.

    Posted by stats on 2006 03 12 at 02:05 PM • permalink

  73. Finally wore the old guy down, eh?

    Sod off, swampy.

    Posted by Rob Crawford on 2006 03 12 at 05:19 PM • permalink

  74. Leftie Latte Lover

    Seems to me that some commenters here are trying to avoid the real topic, which is you and your feelings.

    I can sense that you are hurt and bewildered, much like me. Please continue.

    Posted by Margos Maid on 2006 03 12 at 06:23 PM • permalink

  75. LLL you seem to want us to direct you to an Iran commentator who will tell u that all is sweet in Bagdhad, it has miracuously turned into a western city in springtime overnite because of our glorious western liberators.  Well that’s just dreamtime stuff mate.  The reality is it was always going to be a hard slog, all we could hope to achieve was to give the Iraqi ppl the chance to do it for themselves.  There was always a chance it would fail (I’m not saying it will tho), but giving the Iraqis the opportunity to succeed is, to me anyway, the bottom line here.

    Of course there are ppl there who have now lost their status/rewards given for supporting Saddam, and they’re not going to let it go without a fight.  Which is what we are seeing now.

    So we can’t direct you to such a journalist, just the realistic, and hopeful, ones.  The ones who also think it was worth it.

    Posted by spyder on 2006 03 12 at 06:28 PM • permalink

  76. #4 Spiny Norman—my favorite tv show! I love those guys. S’pose they have no counterparts in the MSM…pity.

    Posted by KC on 2006 03 12 at 07:39 PM • permalink

  77. Are you sure they were talking about the Bush Administration and not greenhouse gas induced global warming??? Now THERE’S manufactured “reality!”

    I guess that’s a silly question…ALL these ARSEHOLES ever talk about is U.S. foreign policy! Putin could nuke Chechnya and these “bleeding-heart” Lefties would stay on message. If you’re not a “victim” of the U.S. these bloody,  GUTLESS FRAUDS couldn’t give a toss!!

    Posted by Brian on 2006 03 12 at 07:50 PM • permalink

  78. Leftie, stop asking people to do your research for you. I let you in after your many emailed pleas (I had to register you after you were totally incompetant at registering yourself), and I am beginning to regret having done so as you are proving to be somewhat of an irritant. You have spent most of your time here picking fights and making demands. This website was not set up for your personal entertainment and edification.

    It used to be considered plain good manners for the new member of a group to wait awhile before venturing his own opinions into the general conversation, lest he seem uncouth and lacking in the normal social graces. This fact of human social interaction does not change when the members of the group cannot see each other.

    Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2006 03 13 at 12:04 AM • permalink

  79. LLL is a complete fraud.

    Posted by blogstrop on 2006 03 13 at 07:01 AM • permalink

  80. While Blogstrop remains a complete Freud

    Posted by LeftieLatteLover on 2006 03 13 at 12:45 PM • permalink

  81. Inurbanus 43

    How much does he charge for an argument?

    Wot?!  Thass notta argument!  Thass justa lottuv gainsaying!

    Posted by Stoop Davy Dave on 2006 03 13 at 02:43 PM • permalink

  82. I am bemused by the similarity in the posts by a sequence of lefties who post by here every now and then, PB2 and others. Are these the multiple personalities of of one person,or do lefties go to some school of trolling?
    Amen to that stats. It is extremely repetitive and simply creates long threads going over the same old flawed arguments. LLL is so like a clone of Deadhead Idleburg it is uncanny. Even the tactic of trying to soften up Andrea via email is the same. As for wanting the playground to ourselves - too much more of LLL’s home-brand crap and the trolls can have it to themselves as far as I am concerned.

    Posted by blogstrop on 2006 03 13 at 05:58 PM • permalink

  83. You would be missed, blogstrop. I hope you guys don’t spend hours going over old posts trying to find linguistic connections between disparate posters. There are too many good books out there worth reading.

    Posted by LeftieLatteLover on 2006 03 13 at 06:09 PM • permalink

  84. How my brain works after reading LLL’s posts:

    Meanwhile in Europe, the enlightenment was a reasonable time. Voltare invented electricity and also wrote a book called Candy. Gravity was invented by Isaac Walton. It is chiefly noticeable in the Autumn, when the apples are falling off the trees.

    Bach was the most famous composer in the world, and so was Handel. Handel was half German, half Italian, and half English. He was very large. Bach died from 1750 to the present. Beethoven wrote music even though he was deaf. He was so deaf he wrote loud music. He took long walks in the forest even when everyone was calling for him. Beethoven expired in 1827 and later died for this.

    The nineteenth century was a time of many great inventions and thoughts. The invention of the steamboat caused a network of rivers to spring up. Cyrus McCormick invented the McCormick raper, which did the work of a hundred men. Samuel Morse invented a code of telepathy. Louis Pasteur discovered a cure for rabbis. Charles Darwin was a naturalist who wrote the Organ of the Species. Madman Curie discovered radium. And Karl Marx became one of the Marx brothers.

    Now, where did I put those meds….

    Posted by MentalFloss on 2006 03 14 at 02:45 AM • permalink

  85. LLL - you got it in one - there are too many things available to read to go on reading threads awash with your dribble.

    Posted by blogstrop on 2006 03 14 at 05:33 AM • permalink

  86. Exactly, Blogstrop, exactly. I just finished six chapters of Anne Coulter’s ‘Treason’. It gave me terrific insight into….treason.

    Posted by LeftieLatteLover on 2006 03 14 at 05:43 AM • permalink

  87. Page 1 of 1 pages

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