Noticing how "in the past week, Republican politicians and pundits have been striving mightily to invoke fear in the hearts of the American people," News Corpse blogger Mark Howard has collected (5/25/09) some choice quotes from GOP members "blanketing the airwaves with assertions that President Obama's policies on national security (Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantanamo, torture, etc.) will result in another 9/11": Cheney: "It is recklessness cloaked in righteousness and would make the American people less safe."… John Boehner: "I think this is a pre-9/11 mentality, and I think it'll make our nation less safe." Karl Rove: "They're doing the wrong thing [...]
May
23
2009
NYT: Ex-Prisoners 'Return' to Terrorism Never Charged
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Remembering all too well how the New York Times "helped sell the Iraq War with a bogus story about aluminum tubes for nuclear centrifuges and withheld evidence of illegal spying on Americans for more than a year," Consortium News editor Robert Parry (5/21/09) tells how the paper "is again mishandling a sensitive story in a way that panders to the right." Pointing to a May 21 Times headline and lead "reporting that a Pentagon study has concluded that 'about one in seven of the 534 prisoners' transferred out of the Guantánamo Bay prison 'returned to terrorism or militant activity,'" Parry [...]
Jan
15
2009
FAIR Activist: Friedman's Phony Evidence That Terror Works
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Posting his letter to the New York Times on FAIR Blog, FAIR activist bpb points out that not only is Thomas Friedman claiming that terrorism works, he's making up evidence to claim that terrorism works: There is no evidence for Thomas Friedman's contention that after Israel's 2006 war with Hizballah, "Lebanese civilians, in anguish, said to Hezbollah: 'What were you thinking? Look what destruction you have visited on your own community! For what? For whom?'" In fact, in the month following the war, a public opinion poll conducted in Lebanon confirmed the opposite: that Lebanese public opinion strongly favored Hizballah. [...]
Jan
14
2009
Action Alert: Terrorism on the NY Times Op-Ed Page
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In the wake of NY Times foreign affairs columnist Thomas Friedman's call today for terrorism against Palestinian civilians in Gaza, a new FAIR Action Alert is calling on the Times to clarify whether this column meets the paper's standards. You can post copies of your letters to the New York Times in the comments section below. Please remember that letters that maintain a civil tone are most effective.
