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Last updated on March 5th, 2018 at 01:44 pm
John Howard has been vindicated. So too has Kim Beazley.
With the arrests in Sydney and Melbourne, no matter what the outcome of the charges laid against various individuals yesterday, the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition did the right thing last week.
The news sent others, such as the Democrats leader Lyn Allison, into a cosmic trip of conspiratorial fancy. “I suppose it’s not beyond the possibility that he would say to the state police commission, ‘Well, you know, is there not a raid that could be taking place at this time to justify it?”’ she told reporters in Canberra after the raids …
Their perverted world view, so twisted with cynicism and distrust that they are not sure if the sky is blue, or if there even is a sky, doesn’t allow them to comprehend a terrorism threat for what it is.
And if you think the Greens are now retracting their vehement criticism, consult your local faith healer. Brown didn’t break stride yesterday, describing (accurate) newspaper reports about imminent raids as “criminal” and wondering in the Senate whether Howard hadn’t “endangered the intelligence and security” of the counter-terrorist operation by not acting earlier to amend the law.
If audacity were measured in gold bullion, Brown could make a takeover bid for BHP Billiton.
Brown ain’t backing down:
Liberal senator Richard Colbeck has called on Senator Brown to apologise for suggesting the terror warning was a smokescreen for controversial industrial relations reforms.
Senator Brown responded by saying many of Senator Colbeck’s fellow parliamentarians were “rednecks”.
This week an attack, how imminent we don’t know, has been nipped in the bud, a matter of relief and for congratulation of the relevant authorities.
Naturally, Fairfax failure Antony Loewenstein isn’t buying it:
The inherent acceptance of intelligence, government and police spin shows a public and media too afraid or gutless to question “reality.”
It’d be fun to see Loewenstein edit a daily for a week or so. Imagine his reporter briefings.
GIRLS ATTACKED
The evil continues in Sulawesi:
New violence has flared in Indonesia, in the town where three girls from a Christian school were decapitated on October 29, the AsiaNews service reports.
Two more girls were shot in the head in the evening of November 8 in Poso, in central Sulawesi—a province marred by months of bloodshed, as Muslims have clashed with Christians. The two girls are in critical condition in a local hospital.
Root causes, anyone?
COLUMN HAS PLAN
This week’s Continuing Crisis column for The Bulletin mentions John Howard, Kim Beazley, Noam Chomsky, Saddam Hussein, Richard Neville, the Crusty Demons, Tom Keneally, Bessie Bardot, and Bob Brown. Also in The Bulletin:
* Eric Ellis and Preston Smith track down corporate fugitive Abraham Goldberg (it’s big news in Poland!)
* Patrick Carlyon compares Makybe Diva and Phar Lap.
* Paul Daley studies Howard-based conspiracy theories.
* And Ashley Hay interviews a 175-year-old tortoise.
* Plus: TV stars!
FAITH-BASED REPORTING
Mary Mapes, fired by CBS for idiocy, hasn’t learned a thing:
Three of CBS’s own document experts say they had warned CBS they could not authenticate the memos. Mapes’s source for the documents, former National Guardsman Bill Burkett, later admitted lying about who had given him the memos said to have been written by Bush’s long-dead Guard commander. “Document analysis is a real subjective profession,” said Mapes, who still believes the memos are real.
Who said journalists were cynical?
Perhaps her greatest fury is reserved for the “vicious” bloggers who pounced on the “60 Minutes II” report within hours—and who she believes provided the map that major news organizations, including The Washington Post, essentially followed.
“I was attacked, Dan was attacked, CBS was attacked 24 hours a day by people who hid behind screen names,” Mapes said. “I may be a flawed journalist, but I put my name on things.”
Take that, Atrios!
Despite her career implosion, Mapes hopes to stay in journalism. “It’s what I’m good at,” she said. “I like making a difference.”
Well, she made a difference to Dan Rather’s career. Like O.J. prowling golf courses in search of his wife’s killer, Mapes is still hunting for the truth:
Mapes says she is continuing to investigate the source of the controversial documents whose authenticity was seriously questioned by the CBS panel.
Might have been an idea to try that before going to air. Speaking of which:
She tells Ross that she had no journalistic obligation to prove the authenticity of the documents before including them in the “60 Minutes II” report. “I don’t think that’s the standard,” she said.
Not for CBS, evidently. Too bad for Mapes that her audience is a little more demanding.
