conscience in DC?
for those who don't know about this intrepid reporter who first became known to me as coauthor of "Tell Newt to Shut Up," detailing what a frigging liar, scoundrel, demagogue that creep is, he was victim of a grenade attack in attack in Iraq the other day, getting his hand blown off in the act of tossing it back out the Hummer into which it was thrown.
if this sounds callous, well, my father got his ass blown off in WWII on a bridge near Bastogne just before youknowwhat, and spent the next year in hospital, fighting for his life. according to doctors, he came within a millimeter of not being my father at all, and spending the rest of his life dead on a bridge in Belgium.
anyway, I know that isn't me (so perhaps I haven't the right to comment on Mr. Weisskopf's injuries in such a cavalier manner), but I've been wearing my dad's dog tag (gave other to my brother) since the run up to the Iraq invasion, seeing as how my father gave his ass, literally, fighting fascism.......and lost to the kleptocrats currently holding our nation hostage. (Gee, today's the the 3d very black anniversary of that awful occurrence).
and to refresh anyone's memory on why I said MW lost his conscience in DC, recall he wrote with Steno Sue the most egregiously, laughably ironic screed, "Truth at Any Cost." Filled to the brim with illegal leaks, innuendo, out and out falsehoods, TAAC is right up their among the reasons the media can be considered in the pocket of the FAR FAR FAR right wing, and the most important factor in the junta's Grand Theft Nation exactly three years ago, to this day.
this bit from the NY Observer captures quite nicely the Schmidt/Weisskopf duo's utter disdain for those "stupid things" to get in the way of a good story:
On page 10, they refer obliquely to a Starr witness who “met with the Clintons’ Washington lawyer, David Kendall, who was offering legal assistance and informal advice to witnesses interested in resisting Starr’s probe.” The explanatory footnote goes on to identify this witness as Mr. Watt, who, despite this supposed intervention by the President’s attorney, “ultimately pled guilty and cooperated with Starr’s investigation.”
That sentence is inexcusably inaccurate. As Mr. Watt himself says, it is “a complete and total falsehood. That is a lie. I didn’t plead guilty to anything because I wasn’t charged with anything.” Although the former Little Rock judge was a target of Mr. Starr’s investigation, he was never indicted by the independent counsel or anyone else.
Moreover, neither he nor his attorney ever colluded in any way with Mr. Kendall, since they have had not the slightest contact with him. “That too is inaccurate,” said Mr. Watt. “I’ve never met David Kendall. Mark Hampton, my lawyer, has never met David Kendall.” The Clintons’ counsel agreed. “That’s simply false. I never met or spoke with William Watt or his lawyer.”
The real story of Mr. Watt’s harsh encounter with the Office of the Independent Counsel is complicated and revealing. When Mr. Starr’s deputies found him unwilling to bolster the testimony of David Hale, their chief Whitewater witness against the President, they threatened indictment. “They tried to intimidate me, bankrupt me,” he recalled. As the Starr prosecutors knew, however, he was innocent of wrongdoing despite his dealings with Mr. Hale. Indeed, he had tried to expose Mr. Hale’s $2 million fraud against the federal government several years before the crooked businessman was finally indicted in 1993. Unable to indict Mr. Watt, the O.I.C. eventually immunized him.so they just make stuff UP!!!!
but wait, it gets better.......S&W write a letter to the Observer, whining about Conason's conflict of interest in commenting on their "competing book," while avoiding the issue of their gross malfeasance in the Watt fiasco.
it's all in the same link, and shows the depths to which the "liberal media" sank during those benighted years of "get the Clintons 'at any cost'"
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Senate/9634/pimps.htmljust the tip of the iceberg with them