CNN Makes News with WMD Special, But Press Deserves Blame, Too -E&P

[Rose Siding]

snip>
It's a depressing case study of journalistic shirking of responsibility. The press essentially acted like a jury that is ready, willing and (in this case) able to deliver a verdict — after the prosecution has spoken and before anyone else is heard or the evidence studied. As media writer Mark Jurkowitz put it at the time in the Boston Globe, Powell's speech may not have convinced France of the need to topple Saddam but "it seemed to work wonders on opinion makers and editorial shakers in the media universe."

The San Francisco Chronicle called the speech "impressive in its breadth and eloquence." The Denver Post likened Powell to "Marshal Dillon facing down a gunslinger in Dodge City," adding that he had presented "not just one 'smoking gun' but a battery of them." The Tampa (Fla.) Tribune called Powell's case "overwhelming," while The Oregonian in Portland found it "devastating." To The Hartford (Ct.) Courant it was "masterful." The Plain Dealer in Cleveland deemed it "credible and persuasive."

One can only laugh, darkly, at the San Jose (Ca.) Mercury News asserting that Powell made his case "without resorting to exaggeration, a rhetorical tool he didn't need." The San Antonio Express-News called the speech "irrefutable," adding, "only those ready to believe Iraq and assume that the United States would manufacture false evidence against Saddam would not be persuaded by Powell's case."
....
Here's the Post's Jim Hoagland: "To continue to say that the Bush administration has not made its case, you must now believe that Colin Powell lied in the most serious statement he will ever make, or was taken in by manufactured evidence. I don't believe that. Today, neither should you."

http://www.mediainfo.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001018727

[whistle]

1. Colin Powell did lie at the behest of his president, vice president...

...and the entire Bush White House cabinet. To do penance for his lie, Colin Powell should come forward to the American people and the world (since his lies were broadcast from the United Nations to all of the world) and admit that he knowingly lied about WMD and Saddam being a major threat.

[indepat]

2. Only a basically honorable person with a conscience and fidelity to our

Constitution and this Republic would likely do so. Time will tell.

[rodeodance]

3. Powell is having too much fun with his new cars and making speeches ($)

[Joe Chi Minh]

4. I think he actually did some years ago, now.

If not him, some other Bushco official of comparable status. Though I believe it was him.

[90-percent]

5. Powell

He lied through his teeth as a personal favor to George Tenent.

Would George have recieved his totally groovy medal of freedom without Powell's favor at the UN?

You got to play the game, give a little to get a little.....

Next time Cindy Sheehan sees a picture of a gleaming medal adorned Tenent she can appreciate exactly what her son died for.

-85%

[KoKo]

6. Who else thinks Powell knows it all...the dirty hands, the skulkers hiding

under Rove's Bat Cloak. Powell should tell what he knows. All of it.

But, he won't. His son has a career and Powell himself is making too much money on his speeches with his cushy new job. He's a "company man." He might be leaking little "tibits" to the press here and there..but if he had any "Honor" he would come clean for the good of America and figure his son Michael is well fixed enough for the rest of his life that he can get by on "sympathy" alone.

[Cosmocat]

7. Unless something big breaks ...

in the interim, he will wait until this retard is out of office until he comes clean ... That is the golden rule in DC, you don't torch a sitting president if you were one of his guys ...