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Originally Posted by Outofdodge  |
OoD, I’m surprised that someone with some degree of sense would use Huff Po as a resource. But just to humor you I went there and read the column. I see no reference that the writer attempted to contact the military for a first hand report. Instead he writes this;
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Once again, an abuse of government power was used to malign and punish the target, Beauchamp, and to make the trivial element seem important. The Army, which has insufficient time and resources to investigate negligent homicides of Iraqi civilians by U.S. military, conducted an "investigation" over these pranks, pressured Beauchamp to sign statements under duress, and prevented Beauchamp from contacting anyone in the outside world. The Army announced that its investigation had discredited Beauchamp's reporting. The Army announcement also lent a veneer of legitimacy to the entire disinformation campaign, enabling it to cross over into mainstream media coverage.
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If the Army pressured Beauchamp to sign anything under duress and then prevented him from contacting the outside world how could he know that’s what happened?
He goes on to site the FOX News Watch of August 11,2007;
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Here's a smoking gun. Eric Burns, Jane Hall, Jim Pinkerton and Cal Thomas all profess to be journalists who comment on media coverage of major issues. Before the program Fox News Watch on August 11, 2007, they know the topics to be discussed and they come prepared. This show has a staff that would access the latest information from The New Republic, which was published online the day before the show. There is no way they could profess to knowledgably speak on this topic and yet be ignorant of such information.
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He goes on to quote the transcript of the show. I pulled show’s transcript from the FOX News website and found it to be only a partial transcript and did not include the quoted comments.
FOXNews.com - Transcript: 'FOX News Watch,' August 11, 2007 - FOX News Watch
So the question becomes where did he get it and can we trust his unnamed source? What really struck me odd and caused me to take a closer look was his failure to mention the other member of the panel, Neil Gabler. Gabler’s name appears in the transcript posted on the FOX site so he must have been there that night. Why would the writer not mention him? Could it be that Gabler is a fire-breathing, Bush bashing lefty and so he got a pass on the broad smear of the show’s panel? Where were Gabler’s remarks because Gabler would certainly have went to
The New Republic site to defend them if he had an opportunity to counter the remarks of a conservative. I watch the show whenever I can and Gabler repeats far left talking points every chance he gets. Could it be that even he had no defense for
The New Republic?
Fiderer shows me nothing to convince me he has any creditability.