Records and interviews show how the Bush administration has used its control over access and information in an effort to transform the analysts into a kind of media Trojan horse — an instrument intended to shape terrorism coverage from inside the major TV and radio networks.

Analysts have been wooed in hundreds of private briefings with senior military leaders, including officials with significant influence over contracting and budget matters, records show. They have been taken on tours of Iraq and given access to classified intelligence. They have been briefed by officials from the White House, State Department and Justice Department, including Mr. Cheney, Alberto R. Gonzales and Stephen J. Hadley.

In turn, members of this group have echoed administration talking points, sometimes even when they suspected the information was false or inflated. Some analysts acknowledge they suppressed doubts because they feared jeopardizing their access.

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“Democracy, whether in Sweden or the United States, depends on the voter’s capacity to think. If you have read the best of what has been thought and said, then your cognition and understanding is on a much higher level than if you have read Harry Potter or Stephen King. So what this decline into half-literature and mediocre media really means is de facto a self-destruction of democracy…

“What we are seeing is the fall of the Roman Empire, only now it is the fall of America, the glory of our Empire. This war is what Parthia was to Rome.

“The horror of what is taking place in Iraq exceeds my worst fears five or six years ago (after Bush came to power). I am horrified at the disastrous mistake involved. Imagine the complete madness in trying to occupy a large Arab country in the middle of the Arab world, a culture we know precious little about, and who speaks a language only a handful of our specialists can speak, with armed forces which we have limited control of and with a large army of private soldiers …. The whole thing is a scandal … a series of lies. I don’t understand the motivation for the war, but suspect the real reason for the war, which one would suspect of a country which is a third oligarchy, a third plutocracy and a third theocracy, is that it simply is a profitable machine.”

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So, Plastic is dead. I don’t blame Carl; after all, it seemed to be largely a labor of love for him, and he seemed to get a largely sycophantic response from the community.

Plastic was unique; as Slashdot is to Digg, so Plastic was to Slashdot. A smaller community of readers, but a community, and smart readers at that. Discussions were meaningful. You learned the personalities of the regular crew. It made you think. It was addictive. It was heartfelt. There was passion.

There you were, stuck at your crappy cube farm job, a web browser one click away, and it was so tempting….sooo tempting….

And what an ego boost when one of your stories was accepted, and people actually commented on it. 200 comments on your story? Score! Unlike Digg, in order to get your story through, you couldn’t just use the words “awesome” and “ubuntu” (although those are fine words).

Anyway, now Plastic is dead. The servers are down. Plastic will live on in the minds of probably less than 1000 people, and on wikipedia. There is a blog waiting for Plastic to reappear, but I don’t think it will. And there is no substitute. It was a flash in the pan, a ship in the night, a pretty girl smiling at you from a passing ship. It’s gone. Don’t try to resurrect it.

My advice? GAFB!

(~TRDE)

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Does Xeni suck? Or does she rock? (She sucks.)

There’s a hilarious debate happening on the wikipedia talk page for the Xeni Jardin entry over whether the fabulous xenisucks.com should be included in the main entry. Fanboy defenders are putting up a spirited defense:

The wonderful thing about all this, including your (208.20.220.69/Gerardm) obsessive activity and discovery cycle, is that Xeni will continue to enjoy a fine and fabulous career, regardless of what’s posted here, or elsewhere. Clearly, a majority of the world that’s aware of Xeni finds her fascinating, highly intelligent, noteworthy, and professional. A small but vocal minority has gathered tar and feathers (ala Swift Boat Campaign) in a truly pathetic attempt to salve their own personal deficiencies. The one thing they’ve succeeded in doing is displaying to the world how very ugly they are, as people and as netizens. Rock on, Xeni! By the way 208.20.220.69/Gerardm, I don’t have a lot of fault with your fact-finding nor perspective though you’re clearly anti-Xeni/anti-Boing Boing. The facts you’ve uncovered are actually very good but the subterfuge isn’t. Buh bye!

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Helen Thomas laments the pussified presscorps who took Fleischer at his word.

All this took me back to the days immediately following the unraveling of the Watergate scandal. The White House press corps realized it had fallen asleep at the switch–not that all the investigative reporting could have been done by those on the so-called “body watch,” which travels everywhere with the President and has no time to dig for facts. But looking back, they knew they had missed many clues on the Watergate scandal and were determined to become much more skeptical of what was being dished out to them at the daily briefings. And, indeed, they were. The White House press room became a lion’s den.

By contrast, after the White House lost its credibility in rationalizing the pre-emptive assault on Iraq, the correspondents began to come out of their coma, yet they were still too timid to challenge Administration officials, who were trying to put a good face on a bad situation…

I honestly believe that if reporters had put the spotlight on the flaws in the Bush Administration’s war policies, they could have saved the country the heartache and the losses of American and Iraqi lives.

It is past time for reporters to forget the party line, ask the tough questions and let the chips fall where they may.

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