This week on CounterSpin: as the mainstream media has it, Republican presidential candidate Rudolph Giuliani "owns 9/11" and all attendant September 11 issues. But Village Voice journalist and Giuliani biographer Wayne Barrett says that conventional wisdom is all smoke, based in part on some personal myth-making by the former New York City mayor. We'll talk to Wayne Barrett about his recent article, "Rudy Giuliani's Five Big Lies About 9/11."

Also on CounterSpin today, media chatter about "benchmarks" and "progress" in Iraq will intensify in the coming weeks, ahead of a much anticipated report next month on the Iraq troop surge. Michael Schwartz of Stony Brook University will join us to talk about the benchmarks the White House has abandoned, and what has happened since escalation of the Iraq War.

Links:

— Rudy Giuliani's Five Big Lies About 9/11, by Wayne Barrett (Village Voice, 8/7/07)

— The Benchmarks That Matter, by Michael Schwartz (TomDispatch, 8/1/07)