The sad, ugly truth: The Jewish owned NEW YORK TIMES pimped the bombing, invasion & occupation of Iraq, in Joseph Goebbels' lying, propaganda fashion

Disgraceful. Despicable. Murderous. Liars. Naziesque propaganda.

Adolf Hitler's bellicose excuses to invade and occupy Poland, but coming instead from the Jewish owned New York Times urging the US invasion of Iraq.

Mr. Arthur Sulzberger, his family, and his editors and writers THE MOST INFLUENTIAL war-pimps in all of America - over and above Fox "news"; over the Rev. Moon owned Washington Times; more influential than the Wall St. Journal or any of the Scaife or Murdoch papers.... on the Bush-Cheney-Wolfowitz-Feith-PNAC-JUDITH MILLER relentless, remorseless lead-up to the Iraq War, the editors of the NEW YORK TIMES were THE MOST INFLUENTIAL war-mongers and PROPAGANDA BROADCASTERS in all of America...

Mr. Sulzberger, the thousands of dead Americans, tens of thousands of wounded and traumatized Americans, and hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis, thank you for your appalling journey into journalistic infamy and relentless lies.

(Which are right there in black and white, in the archived pages of The Times, should anyone have the time and dedication to examine them.
But in writing "The Hunting of The President", Lyons and Conason's huge volume on the atrocious "Whitewater" reporting, a veritable bible of the Times and Post atrocious 'reporting' about the various fake scandals swirling around the Clinton White House, the authors compiled _25 pages_ of mostly single-line footnotes and well documented sources.)

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Scott McClellan Mocks NYT -- On 4th Anniversary of Paper's Weak 'Mini-culpa' on the War

by Greg Mitchell
Posted May 27, 2008
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/greg-mitchell/scott-mcclellan-mocks-nyt_b_103808.html

In a supreme irony, word leaked out about bombshell revelations in the upcoming Scott McClellan memoir -- including his unexpected charge that the "liberal media" fell for Bush "propaganda" on Iraq -- exactly four years from the day from The New York Times offered its famous "mini-culpa" on its role in helping to pave the way for war.

The Times, you remember, reluctantly published a short piece, admitting that a half dozen of its stories in the run-up to the war were fatally flawed, but didn't name any of the guilty scribes and buried the story on Page A10 - about where many of its articles that had raised doubts about Saddam's WMD had ended up.

Now here is McClellan in his book, What Happened, as quoted by Mike Allen of Politico.com, admitting that the Times and other media had been too easily hoodwinked by the White House. He calls them "enablers" in the march to war.

McClellan charges that Bush relied on "propaganda" to sell the war. Allen summarizes: "He says the White House press corps was too easy on the administration during the run-up to the war....McClellan repeatedly embraces the rhetoric of Bush's liberal critics."

In the book, McClellan charges: "If anything, the national press corps was probably too deferential to the White House and to the administration in regard to the most important decision facing the nation during my years in Washington, the choice over whether to go to war in Iraq. The collapse of the administration's rationales for war, which became apparent months after our invasion, should never have come as such a surprise. ... In this case, the 'liberal media' didn't live up to its reputation. If it had, the country would have been better served."

Ouch.

E&P was one of the few "mainstream" publications to repeatedly raise serious questions about the case for war before the invasion. In the months after the attack, we often charged that the Times had been duped and questioned why it refused to come clean. Executive Editor Bill Keller mocked some of the critics (and later stood by Judith Miller through thick and thin).

Finally, on May 27, 2004, the paper ran an editors' note, copping to some of the charges. But the paper tried to shield the guilty parties, and I was first online to identify by name the authors of the six pieces in question, with Miller turning out to be most guilty, and Michael Gordon also having a hand in two stories.

The paper refused to penalize any reporters or editors for their failures. Jack Shafer of Slate memorably called the mea culpa a "mini-culpa."

Perhaps most embarrassing, the paper's reluctant review sparked some other papers that had carried the faulty Times accounts in 2002 and 2003 to run corrections of their own. Many of them placed their own apologies in far more prominent positions than did the Times.

And clearly Keller had been reluctant to own up to the misreporting at all, at least in that time frame. Consider that my assessment of the Times' report, carried the day it appeared, closed with this: "But Executive Editor Bill Keller continues to defend the editors' note, and blamed 'overwrought' critics for overreacting to the Times's WMD coverage. Asked why he finally published the editors' note, Keller (quoted in the Washington Post) replied: 'Mainly because it was a distraction. This buzz about our coverage had become a kind of conventional wisdom, much of it overwrought and misinformed.'

"With his managing editor, Jill Abramson, he penned a memo to staffers explaining that the critique in the paper was 'not an attempt to find a scapegoat or to blame reporters for not knowing then what we know now.'

The problem of course was that certain reporters ignored, or only paid lip service to, evidence that "we know now' - but (as some Knight Ridder reporters showed) was often also available then."

But don't take my word for it. Ask Scott McClellan.

Greg Mitchell's new book is So Wrong for So Long: How the Press, the Pundits -- and the President -- Failed on Iraq. It features a preface by Bruce Springsteen and a foreword by Joe Galloway.

"Queen Furious Over Photo Deal!" stammers AOL 'news'. AOL barely concerned that GOP and Dem presidential candidates INVOKE MURDER of their opponent!

Queen Furious Over $1 Million Photo Deal" stammers one AOL headline....
Posted by AP on May 25, 2008
http://news.aol.com/story/_a/queen-furious-over-1-million-photo-deal/20080524145709990001?icid=1616058736x1203048523x1200306638

(May 24) - A British newspaper says the Canadian bride of the Queen's eldest grandson is being blamed for a controversial deal with celebrity magazine Hello! for exclusive photos of their wedding at Windsor Castle.

While the REAL news.... that BOTH Republican Arkansas Governor and presidential candidate MIKE HUCKABEE, AND New York Democrat Senator and presidential candidate HILLARY CLINTON, BOTH INVOKED the POTENTIAL MURDER of their presidential campaign opponent, Illinois Junior Sen tor Barak Obama, as (respectively) either a "good joke" or a "good reason" to stay in the Democratic primary race!

AOL, AP, the New York Times, the Washington Post, Fox 'news' and the entire chorus of the whore-iffic "major media" make the Queen's shouted protests about a $1 million wedding photo deal MORE IMPORTANT than both Democrat and Republican presidential candidates INVOKING THE SPECTER OF MURDER of a rival presidential candidate!

IT IS THIS ABILITY of the American "mainstream media" to DETERMINE WHAT MAKES THE HEADLINES, for example, the shouted, accusatory headlines against Senator Obama's links to Rev. Wright for a 20 second clip of an otherwise routine "hellfire and damnation" Sunday morning sermon for weeks on end; and what gets left on the cutting room floor, as in the case of Senator Clinton INVOKING MURDER as a GOOD reason to remain in the Democratic primary race!

Above is America OnLine's all important "news" that millions of Americans should know: that the Queen is furious that her grand-daughter, who does not have the resources of billions of taxpayer dollars like the British regent does, sold exclusive rights to her wedding photographs for one million dollars.

Below are Hillary Clinton's DISGRACEFUL, DISGUSTING, downright GHOULISH "good reasons" to stay in the Democratic primary race - her rival might just be MURDERED by some of those racist White, gun-loving voters that the Senator has been appealing to in Ohio, Texas, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Kentucky, and throughout America these past 4 months!
Below that, Gov. Huckabee's "Senator Obama knocks over chair running away from a gunman aiming rifle" "JOKE" during his speech AT NRA (gun lovers) CONFERENCE!
And below that, "COUNTDOWN" news show host Keith Olbermann, the rare, non-obsequious, non-liar network news anchor, COMPILES SENATOR HILLARY CLINTON'S OTHER disgusting, low-class, race-baiting, SMEAR her opponent, DEMEAN the probable Democratic nominee comments....

The COWARDLY, CRAVEN, LYING, Neo-Con WAR-MONGERING PROPAGANDA New York Times outed... by the NY Times STUPIDITY Index!

There is a simple reason that the monstrous, economy-gutting BUSH BUDGET DEFICITS charts shown here are not on the front page of the New York Times two and three times a week:
BECAUSE THE WAR-MONGERING Neo-Con NY TIMES _SUPPORTS_ the Bush-Cheney agenda of EVER EXPANDING WARS of aggression and death-squad pro-US DICTATORSHIPS in the Middle East and Central Asia....

note: Independent confirmation that Mr. John Wilson's commentary, below, is correct, that ARTHUR SULZBERGER is a lying yellow-press media whore, and that his writers and editors are PAID PROFESSIONAL LIARS: this link highlights that Mr. Sulzberger's latest "proud" aquisition, NEO-CON "PNAC" Chairman BILL KRISTOL - is WRONG about _EVERYTHING_ that he writes about!
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/05/19/kristol-primaries/
(Note: Mr. Kristol is SO PROUD of his NewAmericanCentury.org think-tank... that he has STOPPED PAYING THE BILL for its web-hosting! Click the link to see for yourself.)

- And here is Kristol's infamous SNEER at American school-children who might DIE of preventable diseases because, without health care coverage, they may go undiagnosed for a disease which could become malignant and kill that child before it is treated in timely fashion-


BILL KRISTOL's (and hence his new employer, the ARTHUR SULZBERGER NEW YORK TIMES) SCORN and CONTEMPT for American schoolchildren is INDISTINGUISHABLE from the SCORN and CONTEMPT that Nazi Concentration-Camp guards had for STARVING, EMACIATED death camp prisoners!

ALL THE MORE ATROCIOUS, because Kristol uses the sneer of "SOCIALISM!" to deride and pour scorn on health-care policies for AMERICAN children... WHILE he SUPPORTS AMERICAN taxpayers pouring BILLIONS of our tax-dollars overseas TO ISRAEL, where, in European "socialized" fashion, ALL _Israeli_ CITIZENS ARE ENTITLED TO HEALTH-CARE COVERAGE - AT AMERICAN TAXPAYER EXPENSE!

And, re posted: DOUGLAS FEITH, the Pentagon's "INVADE IRAQ NOW!" PNAC war-mongering Propaganda Minister in 2002, had the MEGAPHONE of the NEW YORK TIMES former NIXON speechwriter WILLIAM SAFIRE to shout and BROADCAST their lust-for-war across America:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-fiderer/how-douglas-feith-and-wil_b_95740.html

The Neo-Confederate agenda of EXPANDING WARS, (defacto-slavery prison camps) POLICE-STATE POWERS, Tax-Cuts for the wealthy, and TREASURY GUTTING DEFICITS (see above graph) strongest, most vocal supporters in all of America: JOE LIEBERMAN, the AIPAC lobby, and the NEW YORK TIMES!




(note: While Mr. John K. Wilson's analysis of the Times' coverage focuses on their writing about the Hillary Clinton campaign, Mr. Wilson points out that the entire article on that campaign OMITS DISCUSSION of Senator Hillary Clinton's IRAQ WAR VOTE and her even more appalling KYLE-LIEBERMAN ("BOMB IRAN NOW!") vote - the Times' "reporter" can't even see the White Elephant or 800-pound gorrilla in the room!)

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The New York Times' Shoddy Strange Analysis Of The Clinton Loss
by John K. Wilson, Huffington Post
Posted May 19, 2008
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-k-wilson/the-new-york-timess-shodd_b_102537.html


Adam Nagourney of the New York Times just posted his column from tomorrow analyzing "the factors and developments that undercut her candidacy, some self-inflicted, others inflicted upon her." It’s truly one of the dumbest pieces of political punditry I’ve seen in this election, and it takes a lot to say that. Amazingly, Nagourney explains Clinton’s loss without ever mentioning her vote on the war in Iraq, the incompetence of Mark Penn and her campaign staff, the strength of Obama’s candidacy, or the brilliance of the Obama’s campaign strategy.


To rate each reason Nagourney gives, I’ve created the NSI: the New York Times Stupidity Index, with a rating from 1 to 10 (10 being stupidest) of how dumb these reasons are.

Nagourney begins with the "timing of the Edwards endorsement" after Clinton’s West Virginia win. Considering that the election was over long before John Edwards figured out which way the wind was blowing, this is a bizarre reason to start off a column about Clinton’s loss.



NSI: 10 (out of 10)


Nagourney cites Michigan and Florida, claiming that Clinton’s likely (inevitable?) victories there would have given her a boost going into Super Tuesday if they had counted for half-delegates as the Republicans did. That’s not too persuasive: if Obama had competed in Michigan and Florida, he would have done better there, and remember that this is an expectations game above all else. Michigan and Florida also would have stretched Clinton’s weak financial position.
NSI: 2

The Drudge Report. According to Nagourney, "bad news about the Clinton campaign got extensive attention" on the Drudge Report, after an October NYTimes report on how the Clinton campaign was working with Drudge. This is nonsense. The Drudge Report is a playground for bad reporters, not a major influence on how people vote. Clinton got bad news on the website because her campaign was failing, not because of Drudge blowback.
NSI: 8

The Tipping Scandal. Nagourney blames a false NPR report that Clinton had stiffed a waiter on a tip for "feeding the image of Mrs. Clinton as entitled and imperious." Oh, please. Did anyone pay any attention to this piece of crap story?
NSI: 8

Immigrants Behind the Wheel. This may be the only real effect identified by Nagourney. When Clinton waffled on the question about Spitzer and immigrant driver’s licenses, she looked a lot like her husband. This was not very important in itself, but it mattered because the media finally realized that she might not be inevitable.
NSI: 1

The Return of Joe Trippi. Nagourney claims that under Trippi "the pitch of the Edwards campaign instantly turned more populist and tougher, and took aim at Mrs. Clinton." Edwards did become more populist, but Edwards never really went very negative, and he also took aim at Obama (especially on health care). Edwards’ populist ploy pushed progressive votes away from Obama, so I can’t see any real harm to Clinton here.
NSI: 4

Bill Clinton. According to Nagourney, "It seems hard to argue that Mr. Clinton was anything but a net negative for Mrs. Clinton overall." That’s utter nonsense. Virtually every poll has shown that voters were more likely to vote for Hillary because of Bill. The problem was that everyone expected Bill to be a huge positive for Hillary, and instead his flubs greatly reduced the positive value he provided.
NSI: 4

Planted Questions and False Rumors. Nagourney: "It is hard to exaggerate how much damage Mrs. Clinton suffered from two things that her supporters got busted for doing...." No, it’s not hard to exaggerate, because Nagourney does wildly exaggerate it. The story about planted questions lasted barely a day and disappeared, and nobody really blamed Clinton for a few supporters who pushed the bigoted emails about Obama that roam around the internet like mosquitos.
NSI: 5

Altogether, these eight reasons mark some of the most inexplicably trivial and stupid explanations of why Hillary Clinton lost. But most of all, they ignore the key reason: Obama is the better candidate. Unfortunately, if this is the kind of political analysis we have to look forward to from the mainstream press this year, it will require us to push the real truth told by alternative media. You couldn’t trust the New York Times when it was pretending that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, so why you would trust the New York Times pretending that Clinton’s vote for war didn’t hurt her campaign?


Read more at John K Wilson's Daily Kos Diary. Crossposted at ObamaPolitic

Media CENSORS "Retired Military officers as Pentagon's WAR PROFITEERS PROPAGANDA NETWORK" story....

'Deafening' silence on analyst story
By MICHAEL CALDERONE & AVI ZENILMAN
May 10, 2008
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0508/10204.html



Even with countless media outlets available these days, a Sunday New York Times cover story could always be counted on to send a jolt through the television news cycle.

But apparently that’s no longer the case. Indeed, reporter David Barstow’s 7,600-word investigation of the Pentagon’s military analyst program — whereby ex-military talking heads, often with direct ties to contractors, parroted Defense Department talking points on the air — has been noticeably absent from television airwaves since the story broke on April 20.

While bloggers have kept the story simmering, Democratic congressional leaders also are speaking out, calling for investigations that could provoke the networks to finally cover the Times story — and, in effect, themselves.

On Tuesday, Reps. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) and John Dingell (D-Mich.) sent a letter to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin J. Martin “urging an investigation of the Pentagon’s propaganda program” to determine if the networks or analysts violated federal law.

FCC Commissioner Michael J. Copps, a Democrat, applauded their efforts. “President Eisenhower warned against the excesses of a military-industrial complex,” Copps said in a statement. “I’d like to think that hasn’t morphed into a military-industrial-media complex, but reports of spinning the news through a program of favored insiders don’t inspire a lot of confidence.”

DeLauro said by phone that the Pentagon’s program was “created in order to give military analysts access in exchange for positive coverage of the Iraq war.”

The FCC request follows DeLauro’s April 24 letters to five of the most powerful network executives: NBC News President Steve Capus, ABC News President David Westin, CBS News President Sean McManus, FOX News chief executive Roger Ailes and CNN News Group President Jim Walton.

Only ABC and CNN have responded so far, according to DeLauro, who is not the only member of Congress calling attention to the Times story.

Both Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) have written to the Government Accountability Office, seeking an investigation into whether the Pentagon aided in connecting military analysts with contractors.

“I decided to push this issue hard because ever since The New York Times exposé appeared, the silence has been deafening,” Kerry said in statement to Politico.

Kerry said there needs to be a “thorough investigation” into government contracts and “whether Americans’ tax dollars were being used to cultivate talking heads to sell the administration’s Iraq policy.”

Others involved include Michigan Sen. Carl Levin, who wrote to Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.), who told Think Progress he’s begun to “distrust the military,” and Rep. Ike Skelton (D-Mo.), who said on the House floor that the Times story reflects poorly on the Pentagon, analysts and media organizations.

Congressional outcries alone might not be enough, but if investigations yield any new discoveries or lead to high-profile hearings, the networks would be hard-pressed to continue their de facto blackout.

American media tries to UNDERMINE DEMOCRACY in Bolivia (and, indeed, everywhere in world)

1803- At the same time that the US Marines were "fighting for Right and Freedom...to the shores of Tripoli", against Barbary Coast slavers on the North Africa coastline, the American merchant fleet and US Navy would be EXPANDING the SLAVE TRADE of enslaved Africans from West African ports for three more decades, until the transatlantic slave trade was finally outlawed.
--------------------------------------

For all the bloody-flag waving of Bush administration supporters shouting that they support "FREEDOM and DEMOCRACY!", the ugly truth is that America does NOT support freedom or democracy, at least not in 'under-developed' third-world nations where, Manifest Destiny or conquistador style, American corporate barons think there are good profits to be made extorting the wealth - in natural resources or cheap production labor - out of the natives.
This is actually an ancient strand of the American national identity. At the very same time that US Marines were bragging about "Fighting for Right And Freedom" against the Barbary Pirates (Muslim warlords on North African coast, who were capturing and enslaving European and American sailors in the white-slave trade), the American Navy was riding shotgun for - the transatlantic SLAVE TRADE from West African ports! This "good vs. evil," "slavery vs. freedom" dichotomy (or dual nature) is of course ingrained in all humans across the world, but especially in the young American Republic, founded on ideals of "freedom and democracy," but from the Three-Fifths compromise on, SLAVERY was embedded in the US Constitution, and 13 of the first 15 US presidents were or had been SLAVE OWNERS, including of course Presidents Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Jackson, and other 'statesmen' of whom we Americans today are so proud.

WELL, America is up to it again! For all of the Bush administration's "Freedom!" and "Democracy" rhetoric, they DESPISE the popular vote, whether in the United States (Al Gore's 500,000+ vote popular majority in the 2000 presidential election was negated by the vote-swiping efforts of the Republican presidential candidate's brother, Governor Jeb Bush in Florida) much less overseas in lands populated by despised "brown-skin" locals.

Case in point: BOLIVIA. The people of countries like Bolivia of course are disgusted at the ECONOMIC HIT MAN model of capitalism, indeed, the very term "Free Market Capitalism" is a PROPAGANDA INVERSION, a term which means not FREE markets, but CONTROLLED markets, markets where huge international corporations can buy up a nation's resources for pennies on the dollar, in rigged bids, by BRIBING the elite families of the targeted cities and countries, giving local citizens NO say in the outcome of RIGGED financial manipulations. (i.e., "freedom" = economic slavery)
(Author John Perkins own website) http://www.johnperkins.org/


IN a _text-book_ example right out of the Economic Hit Man model of international financial EXTORTIONS, the Bush administration is urging the wealthy community of Santa Cruz, Bolivia's wealthiest province, to stage a mini-palace coup against the more populist administration of Bolivia president Evo Morales.

Before you read the GlobalAlternatives.org summary of the Bush-Cheney administration's democracy-gutting attempts at financial EXTORTION in Santa Cruz and Bolivia, read as many excerpts as you can stand from the free on-line GoogleBooks preview of Confessions of an Economic Hitman.



United States Maneuvers to Carve Up Bolivia with Autonomy Vote
By Roger Burbach
May 5, 2008
http://globalalternatives.org/node/86

The illegal referendum held on Sunday to declare autonomy in Santa Cruz, Bolivia’s richest province, is backed by the Bush administration in an attempt to halt the leftward drift of South America. While the US embassy in La Paz blandly declares its support for “unity and democracy” in Bolivia, the government’s Interior Minister Alfredo Raba states what is widely known, that the United States “has an agenda more political than diplomatic in Bolivia, and this agenda is linked to opponents of the current government.” Evo Morales, the first indigenous president of the country, bluntly declares: “The imperialist project is to try to carve up Bolivia, and with that to carve up South America because it is the epicenter of great changes that are advancing on a world scale.”

Morales has aligned Bolivia with the nemesis of the United States, Hugo Chavez of Venezuela. Along with President Rafael Correa of Ecuador, who is closing down the largest US military base on the continent, the three presidents constitute what can be called a radical axis in South America.

All three countries have convened constituent assemblies to draft new constitutions and to “refound” their nations. It is Bolivia’s new constitution that is to be voted on in a national referendum that has sparked the separatist opposition of the wealthy oligarchs in Santa Cruz. It grants autonomous rights to Bolivia’s majority indigenous population, places the country’s abundant mineral, gas and petroleum resources under greater national control, and sets limits on the size of the large landed estates that are heavily concentrated in Santa Cruz.

The Podemos (We Are Able) Party, which is strongest in Santa Cruz, first tried to use its control of just over one third of the votes in the constituent assembly to block its actions by insisting that a majority vote was not sufficient to approve statutes to the new constitution. When that failed, it resorted to helping stir up violence against assembly members, targeting its indigenous members and its woman president, Silvia Lazarte Flores. At the turn of the year, Evo Morales, backed by popular mobilizations in the streets of La Paz, compelled the existent Congress to approve the call for a national referendum to vote on the new constitution. It was then that the Santa Cruz elite launched its referendum for autonomy, which the country’s National Electoral Court has declared unconstitutional. The referendum voted for on Sunday grants the provincial government the power to tax and collect revenues, to set up its own police force and to block any efforts by the national government to carry out agrarian reform.

The US ambassador, Philip Goldberg, who was appointed by the Bush administration in September 2006, has maneuvered behind the scenes to support the political forces opposed to Morales and his governing party, the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS). It is notable that Goldberg came to Bolivia from Pristina, Kosovo, where as the US Chief of Mission, he played a central role in orchestrating Kosovo’s independence from Serbia, which it had been a province of for centuries.

Last year Goldberg was photographed in Santa Cruz with a leading right-wing business magnate and a well-known Colombian narco-trafficker who had been detained by the local police. Then in late January of this year, the Embassy was caught giving aid to a special intelligence unit of the Bolivian police force. The embassy rationalized its aid by saying “the US government has a long history of helping the National Police of Bolivia in diverse programs.” US-Bolivian relations were next roiled in February when it was revealed that Peace Corps volunteers and a Fulbright scholar had been pressured by an Embassy official to keep tabs on “Venezuelans and Cubans” in the country. Since Morales took office over two years ago, more than $4 million has been provided by the US Agency for International Development to the political opposition.

Bolivia’s neighbors are strongly opposed to the separatist movement and its destabilizing impact on the region. Brazil and Argentina are both dependent on natural gas from Bolivia and fear that an internal conflict would interrupt their supplies. Argentinean David Caputo came to Bolivia as head of a mission of the Organization of American States to try set up a dialogue between the government and the opposition. He found the government willing to engage in discussions, but the opposition vehemently opposed. The United States has provided no support to these regional diplomatic efforts to avoid civil strife in Bolivia.




© 2007 CENSA: Center for the Study of the Americas
2288 Fulton St., Suite 103, Berkeley,

New York Times MICHAEL GORDON takes up where JUDITH MILLER left off: PIMPING Goebbels' NAZI PROPAGANDA for MORE WARS, banging the drum of ANONYMOUS U

The shameless, soulless, war-mongering, tax-cuts-for-rich-in-time-of-war Neo-Con New York Times takes up where Joseph Goebbels left of.... EVER MORE WARS, EVER MORE EXPANDING WARS, in defense of the "good American volk" and in the interest of "state security uber alles", of course.
In particular, here Times reporter MICHAEL GORDON takes up where JUDITH MILLER had to leave off (because the LIES of her DISGRACEFUL reporting were so egregious and obvious, that even the Times was reluctantly forced to fire her) - PROMOTING ANONYMOUS Bush-Cheney administration "government sources" and statements as JUSTIFYING, demading an immediate attack on and BOMBING of Iran.

========================================

The Times' Michael Gordon: A "Message Force Multiplier?"
Posted May 5, 2008
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joseph-a-palermo/the-times-michael-gordon_b_100182.html

A few months back the United States' top 16 intelligence agencies produced a "National Intelligence Estimate" on Iran that exposed almost everything the Bush administration had been saying for years about the threatening nature of Iran's nuclear program as an elaborate web of lies. So embarrassing to the administration was the Iran NIE, which brought to mind the "smoking guns" and "mushroom clouds" that proved to be total fabrications leading up to the Iraq invasion, that even President George W. Bush found himself on the defensive and had to backtrack. Before the NIE threw dirt in the gears of the Bush war machine Michael Gordon had been a loud and prominent mouthpiece at The New York Times providing endless stenography for Bush and Cheney's most fear-inducing claims about Iran's nuclear capacity.

Michael Gordon shifted gears after the administration's new "mushroom cloud" stories failed to generate much buzz, and he then began flogging another anti-Iran story that the Bush administration and General David Petraeus wanted disseminated: the scary-sounding "explosively formed penetrators" (EFPs) coming from Iran into Iraq and doing harm to American soldiers. But after the EFP stories didn't do the trick to provoke an already war-weary American public into calling for US military action against Iran, Gordon is at it again, dutifully turning to his official sources -- the only ones he knows or cares about -- to generate more alarmist claims that just happen to serve perfectly the Bush administration's calls for some kind of an attack on Iran.

And what is the new pretext for war against Iran that US officials and their underlings inside the Iraqi government are now spoon-feeding Michael Gordon so he can splash it on the front page of The New York Times? Gordon's below-the-fold story in today's Times is entitled: "Hezbollah Trains Iraqi Militants In Iran, American Officials Say."

Now sometimes I'll bother to go in and dissect Gordon's articles and point out that he always quotes from official sources with no apparent effort at all on his part to place their claims in context -- especially the context of the fact that these same kinds of official sources lied to him about Saddam Hussein's "weapons of mass destruction." Gordon keeps flogging the attack Iran story for the Bush administration.

We recently found out the extent of the Pentagon's control of an elaborate propaganda network that sent dozens of retired military officers onto the public's television airwaves equipped with talking points so they could perform their duty as "message force multipliers." They told us that there was "no doubt" that Saddam had WMD, aluminum tubes to be used as nuclear centrifuges, flying drones that could gas an American city, that we'd be greeted as liberators, etc.

Gordon was the co-author with the infamous Judith Miller on a front-page article on Sunday, September 8, 2002 that probably did more to further the Bush administration's calls for war against Iraq than any other article published by anyone anywhere (mainly because Dick Cheney and other officials pointed to the Gordon-Miller article on the Sunday political talk shows giving their bogus claims legitimacy in the establishment "liberal" press).

We have become accustomed to having the views of people who were so wrong about Iraq thrown in our faces without accountability or even an acknowledgment that maybe we shouldn't listen to these people anymore. Yesterday's Times had short opinion pieces on what the US should do in Iraq from Frederick Kagan, Richard Perle, and Kenneth Pollack. Today's paper has Gordon's shrill stenography on the front page and William Kristol's sage views in the opinion section. These people never lose their high perches no matter how many of their past lies are exposed so they can tell us over and over again that this time they really can be trusted to interpret world.

I find it curious, and so should Michael Gordon, that every single time he gets an exclusive "scoop" from his official sources they invariably lead him to report events or issues that lead to greater tension between the US and Iran, and more importantly, they fit perfectly into the Bush Administration's goal of massaging public opinion into accepting the wisdom of a military strike against that country. Gordon knows that if the US did not invade and occupy Iraq and overthrow the Sunni government in Baghdad -- all actions his reporting helped facilitate -- the Shia would not be empowered in Iraq and Lebanon's Hezbollah, which has its hands full dealing with Israel, would be only a marginal player in Iraq if at all. But Gordon wants us to forget that history as if it is just a "back story" and become alarmed about Iran's role in Iraq and stiffen our spines for yet another war, which is exactly what the Bush administration wants. Thanks Again Mike!

America's WHORE, DEMAGOGUE, LYING media.. GIVES Republicans a FREE PASS for Rev Sung Yung Moon's HATE AMERICA preaching....

AS THE CORRUPT, WHORE, TREACHEROUS American media machine tries to make a 24-7-365 video-clip audio loop of Reverend Jeremiah Wright's 20 second misbegotten sermon clip, the Whore Media has to... work hard, to NOT report on the far more systematic, condemnatory, damning rhetoric of REVEREND SUNG YUNG MOON, notorious sponsor of mass weddings, self-anointed god on earth, self-anointed king of the World... and PAYMASTER of Bush Sr. speaking appearances, as well as owner and paymaster of the Washington DC right-wing propaganda 'news' paper, the WASHINGTON TIMES.

AMERICA'S TRAITOROUS, TREACHEROUS MEDIA WHORES will devote FAR MORE TIME to a TWENTY SECOND SOUND-CLIP from Reverend Wright, than they will to the PERVASIVE influence, and BILLIONS of dollars spent CORRUPTING the US political process - by the "Reverend" Sung Yung Moon.

FOREIGN DICTATORS - the SAUDI and Arab OIL KINGS, and the Rev. Sung Yung Moon - have FAR MORE IMPACT on the AMERICAN POLITICAL PROCESS, than millions and millions of Americans do!

The Washington Press corps: GROUND ZERO for press/media BUZZARDS to SELL OUT AMERICA, and SELL AMERICAN DEMOCRACY down the river, by relentlessly DEMAGOGIC REPETITION of minor issues, while AVOIDING THE FAR MORE IMPORTANT ONES.

It is indeed ironic, that as the Washington press corps vultures promote the notions of "patriotism" and defending America, they become ever more subservient to foreign dictators and demagogues like Rev. Moon.

===================================================
The Right-Wing's America-Hating Preacher 0 Rev. Sung Yung Moon
By Robert Parry (A Special Report)
May 2, 2008
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2008/050108.html


<< While Sen. Obama has to explain what he knew and when he knew it about Wright’s angry sermons, the Bush Family floats above its financial and political associations with the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, a South Korean theocrat who had denounced the United States as “Satan’s harvest” and likened American women to “prostitutes.”

In his angry sermons, Moon has gone further than saying “God-damn America” – as Wright did – to vowing to sweep aside American democracy and individualism as he builds a one-world state.

Once his plan to “swallow entire America” is complete, Moon told his followers in one sermon, there will be “some individuals who complain inside your stomach. However, they will be digested.”

But Moon’s hatred of America is not deemed news, in part, because Moon has financed the Washington Times since 1982 to the tune of more than $3 billion, according to former newspaper insider George Archibald.

Moon also has lavished many millions of dollars more to pay for conservative conferences and to bail out key right-wing figures when they have found themselves in financial distress, including Republican direct-mail guru Richard Viguerie and the late Jerry Falwell.

Plus, Moon has paid large speaking fees to former President George H.W. Bush – estimated in the millions of dollars – and has feted President George W. Bush’s brother Neil at recent events for the Moon-sponsored Universal Peace Federation.

In 2004, thankful Republicans even gave Moon use of a room in the Senate Dirksen Office Building so he could be crowned the “King of Peace” in a ceremony that Moon’s followers hailed as proof the U.S. government was bowing down to this new Messiah. [See John Gorenfeld’s Bad Moon Rising.]

Yet, even though Moon has gained influence by funneling huge sums of mysterious money into the U.S. political process – and to the Bush Family – he has avoided the intense scrutiny that has fallen on Rev. Wright, who until recently was a little-known black preacher from Chicago’s South Side. >>

Mo Dowd - the "Shallow and Tawdry" Maureen Dowd, entitled hack columnist for New York Times - taken to woodshed for her trashy sourcing....

MoDowd’s Dubious Sourcing Standards
Who is her “Hillary Democrat” and why does he/she get to bash Obama with impunity?
By Zachary Roth
Wed 30 Apr 2008
http://www.cjr.org/campaign_desk/modowds_dubious_sourcing_stand_1.php?page=all

A few years ago, The New York Times made an admirable move to cut down on its use of anonymous sources. A memo by assistant managing editor Allan Siegal asked newsroom staffers: “Can we…squeeze more anonymous sources out of our pages? Can we make our attributions (even the anonymous ones) less murky?”

Since then, when the Times has used anonymous sources, it’s been noticeably more conscientious about explaining why it was doing so. But judging by this passage from her column today, Maureen Dowd didn’t get Siegal’s memo:

For some, Obama didn’t offer enough outrage. “He talks about Reverend Wright violating his core beliefs as if he is detailing why he doesn’t like cheesecake or cream cheese,” said one Hillary Democrat. “He’s more passionate about basketball.”
Sure, columnists operate according to slightly different rules than regular news reporters. But is there any possible reason why granting anonymity to this “Hillary Democrat” to go after Obama is justifiable in any format? The source could be anyone, meaning there’s no way to assess his or her credibility, or to know whether he or she represents a more widespread response.

Would the Times allow an anonymous Obama or Clinton supporter to be quoted saying: “John McCain talks about people who’ve lost their homes to the mortgage crisis as if they ordered mustard on their sandwich and got mayo”? Let’s hope not.

We’ll wrap this post up with some crack reporting, Dowd-style:

For some, Maureen Dowd’s use of a “Hillary Democrat” to attack Obama is shallow and tawdry. “Attacking one candidate by quoting unnamed supporters of their opponent is the cheapest form of journalism imaginable, and it tells readers nothing,” said one Obama Democrat. “If Obama didn’t offer enough outrage for her, why doesn’t she so say in her own words?”

New York Times circulation plummets. In economic hard times, who can afford to pay attention to a lyin' rag?

As we have relentlessly stated here at MediaWhoresUSA, the New York Times, despite its "LIBERAL" reputation, is actually a rag with a DISTINCTLY RIGHT-WING, MORE WARS, TAX CUTS FOR THE WEALTHY bias.
No further proof is needed to support our assessment than for over a dozen years FORMER NIXON SPEECHWRITER - and UNREPETENT Nixon CRIMES APOLOGIST William Safire was the Times' #1. sydnicated columnist.
#2. After Safire departed the Times, he came back to pen an article, "FALUJAH MUST BE PUNSHED!" for the murder and body-burning of Blackwater mercenaries (oops! "security contractors") who had wandered into Fallujah without a decent respect for that hotbed of Sunni pro-Saddam resentment, or a sufficient US military escort.
Sure enough, Fallujah was POUNDED by US military might - if not erased off the map LIDICE style (all members exterminated or shipped off to death camps by Nazi SS units, the town levelled and erased off the map in retaliation for the assassination of SS General Reinhard Heydrich ) then certainly GUERNICA style, the city that inspired Pablo Picasso's famous mural after the Nazi air force bombed the Republican city resisting General Franco's forces during the Spanish civil war that was a prelude to the bombed-out cities of WWII.
WILLIAM SAFIRE, from the pages of THE NEW YORK TIMES, DEMANDED that US firepower be used on Fallujah to "root out terrorists" .. in the same exact way that the WARSAW GHETTO was "cleansed" of partisans and resistance during WWII - and people still have the impression that the Times is a "liberal" newspaper!

So, we here at MediaWhoresUSA are happy to report that the Times CIRCULATION is GOING DOWN.

ALL they have to do to REVERSE THAT COURSE, to REGAIN THEIR LOST READERS, is for the Times to START REPORTING HONESTLY -
#1. On Dick Cheney's vast CORRUPTION - his HALLIBURTON STOCK-OPTIONS portfolio, his vast corruption in crony, no-bid contracts, his "Secret Energy Task Force" of 2001 (which, duh, was dedicated to making America DEPENDENT ON OIL, thereby leading directly to America's TRILLION-DOLLAR DEFICITS;
#2. in Bush's MALEVOLENT ARROGANCE and incompetence re the FEMA DISGRACE when the FEDERAL LEVEES FAILED, flooding New Orleans...
#3. or here's a dynamite headline grabber the CORRUPT TIMES _REFUSES_ to investigate, the CORRUPTION and STOLEN ELECTIONS inherent in the corporatized, privatized, NO oversight voting machines. (By comparison, EVERY LINE of computer code for Law Vegas casino slot-machines are rigorously inspected by state inspectors, because it is SO EASY TO RIG THEM, to insert a few lines of code to siphon off a portion of the machine's take)

THESE are just THREE BLOCKBUSTER circulation-boosting Stories the CORRUPT, NEO-CON, WAR-MONGERING NEW YORK SLIMES under owner/publisher Aruthur Sulzberger, and his LYING, CORRUPT EDITORS, REFUSE to investigate!

THE STUPID, LYING, CORRUPT, THIEVING, ELECTION-STEALING BASTARDS at the New York Times would PREFER to talk about.... The Reverend Wright's statements, on endless loop, even though Rev. Wright (and millions of other African-Americans) RECALL THE ERA OF SEGREGATION, where they could indeed have been beaten, murdered, or arrested for trying to assert their 15th Amendment Rights!

They see the DEVASTATION and SMOKE from the destroyed 9-11 towers... and side with the Bush-Cheney White House "ALL that devastation IN OUR OWN CITY.... is a PERFECT EXCUSE to DEFRAUD the American public out of MORE MILLIONS OF DOLLARS, with the pathetic, farcical, 9-11 Commission white-wash! (The Commissioners have practically cried that, despite their commission powers, they weren't informed of CIA Director Tenet's July 2001 visit TO THE WHITE HOUSE, SPECIFICALLY TO inform the National Security Advisor and "other White House senior officials" that Al Qaeda was in ADVANCED STAGES of PLANNING AN ATTACK ON or in America!!)
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C03E2DB1139F935A25756C0A9649C8B63

IF the New York WHORE Times did some HONEST reporting on those GENUINE issues, they would see a ZOOM IN SALES, but their publisher and editors PREFER TO BE RIGHT-WING LIARS, who see it as their duty to HIDE and COVER UP the crimes of the Bush-Cheney White House. Which is exactly why we must publish this "MEDIA WHORES USA" website - because ARTHUR SULBERGER and his crew of neo-con HACKS at the NEW YORK TIMES are PAID PROFESSIONAL LIARS, who put the Neo-Con, deficits-and-slavery agenda ahead of the economic strength and welfare of the America people.

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New York Times Circulation Plummets
SETH SUTEL
April 28, 2008
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/04/28/emnew-york-timesem-circul_n_98991.html


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NEW YORK — Circulation fell sharply at most top U.S. newspapers in the latest reporting period, an industry group said Monday, with the exception of the two largest national dailies, USA Today and The Wall Street Journal.

Those papers eked out gains of under 1 percent, while The New York Times, the No. 3 paper, fell 3.9 percent in the six months ending in March, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations.

Newspaper circulation has been on a declining trend since the 1980s but the pace of declines has picked up in recent years as reader habits change and more people go online for news, information and entertainment.

National newspapers like USA Today and the Journal have tended to hold their ground better, as have smaller-market dailies where competition from other media like the Internet isn't usually as intense.

Gannett Co.'s USA Today remained the top-selling paper in the country with an average daily circulation of, 2,284,219, up 0.3 percent, while The Wall Street Journal rose 0.4 percent to 2,069,463. Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. bought the Journal's parent company Dow Jones & Co. last December.

The New York Times Co.'s flagship paper remained the third-largest with circulation of 1,077,256, down 3.9 percent from the same period a year earlier. That company also owns The Boston Globe and International Herald Tribune.

Metropolitan dailies have suffered the worst declines, a trend that continued in the most recent reporting period, with the Dallas Morning News reporting a 10.6 percent drop to 368,313.

The Dallas paper's corporate owner A.H. Belo Corp., newly spun out of broadcasting company Belo Corp., said as part of its earnings statement Monday that the company was culling back on less valuable circulation such as copies distributed through third parties.

Other metro dailies also posted steep declines, including The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, down 8.5 percent to 326,907, and the Star Tribune of Minneapolis-St. Paul, down 6.7 percent to 321,984.

Declines at other major papers were less severe, with the New York Daily News narrowly keeping the upper hand on its crosstown tabloid rival, Rupert Murdoch's New York Post. The Daily News posted a 2.1 percent decline to 703,137, while the Post fell 3.1 percent to 702,488.

Both Murdoch and Daily News owner Mortimer Zuckerman are going after Tribune Co.'s Newsday on neighboring Long Island. Newsday, meanwhile, posted a 4.7 percent decline in circulation to 379,613.

The twice-yearly report from the Audit Bureau includes figures from most major U.S. newspapers but not the entire industry. At the nearly 550 papers that reported comparable figures for both periords, average daily circulation fell 3.6 percent in the most recent period.

Several smaller to mid-size papers posted gains, including a Spanish-language daily in New York called El Diario La Prensa, up 7.6 percent to 53,856, while The Times in Munster, Ind., owned by Lee Enterprises Inc., rose 3 percent to 86.195.

The Chicago Sun-Times, reporting for the first time since being censured in 2004 for circulation misstatements, posted circulation of 312,274, but no prior-year numbers were available for comparison.

Tony Snow, former Bush WH press spokesman, joins CNN; "Democrat" Speaker Pelosi makes nice with Repub Demagogue Newt Gingrich...

Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the nominal "leader" of the Democrat Party, joined with former Republican Speaker of the House NEWT GINGRICH to make a short ad urging viewers to take part in efforts to reduce global warming. But the TV ad probably did more to legitimize the Radical Right Republican agenda than it did to urge environmental action in America, because the same week that Pelosi cut her ad with Gingrich, Gingrich told Fox 'news' host Sean Hannity:
"the left wing of the Democratic Party, frankly, kind of admires American terrorists."
Video at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/04/19/gingrich-left-wing-of-the_n_97584.html

Well, that is TYPICAL of the 'Democratic' "leadership" of this past decade: DO WHATEVER IT TAKES to LEGITIMIZE and/or support the speakers who advocate the Radical Right-Wing agenda!

Speaking of, Tony Snow, the White House press spokesman who helped Bush and Cheney dodge so many scandals - (torture, lies-to-war, outing of CIA agents as part of a White House vendetta against a prominent war critic; and the perjury and obstruction of justice to cover up that scandal past the 2004 election, to name just a few)- is now a new CNN news talking head.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/04/21/tony-snow-joins-cnn-as-po_n_97824.html
<< Tony Snow is joining CNN as a conservative commentator, the network announced today. Snow, who spent 10 years at Fox News, left his job as White House Press Secretary in September, saying he needed to make more money to support his family. >>


Hat tip to Arianna Huffington, who caught the "Speaker Pelosi LEGITIMIZING demagogue Newt Gingrich 'Democrats love terrorists'" juxtaposition, and who sums it up perfectly here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/the-toxic-thinking-of-the_b_98040.html
<< As it happened, I first saw the Pelosi-Gingrich ad on the same night that I caught Gingrich telling Sean Hannity that "the left wing of the Democratic Party, frankly, kind of admires American terrorists." A more outrageous statement would be hard to find. But instead of consigning Gingrich to the slagheap reserved for the likes of Rep. Steve "al Qaeda Will Be Dancing in the Streets if Obama Wins" King, Pelosi -- who according to Gingrich is enamored of home-grown terrorists -- scooches in next to him, smiles for the camera, and enhances his legitimacy as a statesman and champion of reasoned compromise. >>

IF Speaker Pelosi had a GENUINE COMMITTMENT to reversing Global Warming, SHE COULD HAUL THE EXECUTIVES of CHEVRON corporation before Congress, and ask them "WHY DID YOU SUE Toyota and Panisonic companies to FORCE THEM TO QUIT PRODUCING NiMH batteries - that were working in a PRODUCTION Toyota SUV, the RAV4-EV, which got THREE TIMES BETTER mileage-per-energy-dollar than its identical looking gas-powered siblings?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_RAV4_EV

The Solution to America's ENERGY GLUTTONY is staring us in the face: SOLAR PANELS do NOT require a Manhatten Project, Apollo program, Cold War, much less WWII level of committment, investment, sacrifice, or research in unproven science: the TECHNOLOGY IS HERE, NOW, but any NATIONAL committment to creating huge solar farms is COMPLETELY CORRUPTED BY CONGRESS' DEPENDENCE on big corporate donors.

Google corporation is currently producing almost 30% of its "Googleplex" research complex energy needs... from SOLAR PANELS installed on the office building roofs.
Imagine how much power could be produced if the United States spent $500 billion - a fraction of the cost our our exporting war to the Mideast - on installing similar solar panels all over the country, and making the design, production, installation, and integration of those solar farms more efficient in terms of relentless improvements that large-scale research and production would bring?
http://www.google.com/corporate/solarpanels/home

The DISGRACEFUL, chronically LYING New York Times GETS THEIR COME-UPPANCE: Times in deep financial trouble. Serves the liars right....

"HELP!" Arthur "Pinch" Sulzberger, his newspaper the GROUND ZERO of Republican (and DIN))neo-con LIES for the past decade, is seeking a big, strong investor to rescue his old grey whore of a newspaper.

from Wiki: "Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, Jr. (born 22 September 1951) became the publisher of The New York Times in 1992 and chairman of The New York Times Company in 1997."

<< "I am not going to go into the newspaper business," Bloomberg said when asked by reporters at a press conference to discuss city affairs. "I am not a newspaper person."

The comments come after intense speculation Bloomberg could join the ranks of billionaires who have the financial heft to rescue a deteriorating U.S. newspaper business [the New York Times]...

The Times arguably may be the crown jewel of U.S. journalism, but it is dealing with a steady decline in ad revenue at its flagship paper and other papers such as the Boston Globe, a slump that has hit the entire industry. >>

THE TIMES under Arthur Sulzberger has become THE MOUTHPIECE, THE MEGAPHONE, THE LIGITIMIZING press outlet for the LIES, STOLEN ELECTIONS, BUSTED BUDGETS, LOOTED TREASURY, gross dereliction of duty leading up to the 9-11 attacks, LIES-TO-WAR and illegal invasion of Iraq, the grossly incompetent post-invasion and GROSSLY CORRUPT occupation, TORTURE, JOB OUTSOURCING, TECHNOLOGY OUTSOURCING, FALLING DOLLAR, and ECONOMIC DECLINE of the United States of America - ALL the above the SIGNATURE AGENDA of the Neo-Con "TAX CUTS FOR WEALTHY in time of EVER-EXPANDING WARS under the Bush-Cheney administration.

EACH, and every one of the above issues would merit PULITZER-PRIZE WINNING JOURNALISM were the LYING publisher and editor of the Times to FORCEFULLY, AGGRESSIVELY, and PERSISTENTLY FOLLOW the DIRECT LINKS between Bush-Cheney-Republic neo-con policy and their inevitible deleterious effects on American security and the American economy. THIS the Mr. Sulzberger and the Times REFUSE TO DO (except for the once-weekly articles by Paul Krugman and Frank Rich).

THEREFORE, ANY ONE READING the New York Times - at least on its national and international 'news' coverage - IS READING A PACK OF LIES.

Lies intended to JUSTIFY that TAX CUTS FOR WEALTHY CORPORATIONS agenda, Mr. Sulzberger and minions putting the wealth and power of the establishment FAR OVER their committment to honest journalism, much less to the American public.

IF everything the Times writes and publishes about international affairs are Bush-Cheney-Rove whitewash LIES; and if their DOMESTIC REPORTING can't even uncover the LOOTING of the ENTIRE US TREASURY - for at least a decade in the future! - THEN WHEY THE HELL would anyone bother reading the Lyin' Times????

===========================================

Bloomberg says not interested in newspaper business
Mon Apr 21, 2008
By Edith Honan and Robert MacMillan
http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN2141377620080421?feedType=RSS&feedName=domesticNews&rpc=22&sp=true

NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg on Monday dismissed media reports that he could be a suitor for the New York Times Co, saying he is not interested in getting into the newspaper industry.

"I am not going to go into the newspaper business," Bloomberg said when asked by reporters at a press conference to discuss city affairs. "I am not a newspaper person."

The comments come after intense speculation Bloomberg could join the ranks of billionaires who have the financial heft to rescue a deteriorating U.S. newspaper business.

The Times arguably may be the crown jewel of U.S. journalism, but it is dealing with a steady decline in ad revenue at its flagship paper and other papers such as the Boston Globe, a slump that has hit the entire industry.

The Times's financial performance and sliding share price has sparked anger among its outside investors, some of whom have publicly blasted its executives for poor management.

The New York Post reported on Monday that some members of the Times's controlling Ochs-Sulzberger family would be receptive to the idea of a protector.

Bloomberg, who founded financial news and information service Bloomberg LP before becoming mayor, has been encouraged by his close associates to make a bid for the Times and save it from shareholder anger, Newsweek said in its April 28 edition.

Bloomberg could take the company private and "help protect the brand" with his estimated $11.6 billion personal fortune, Newsweek said, quoting an unnamed source.

Speculation on Bloomberg and the Times has surfaced in the past, but the mayor scoffed at the idea on Monday.

"I don't know why anybody keeps pushing this," he said.

New York Times shares closed up 5.5 percent.

BLOOMBERG'S NEXT MOVE

Some of the conjecture stems from curiosity over Bloomberg's next move after his term ends in December 2009. Political observers thought for years he would run for U.S. president, but the mayor threw cold water on those plans.

Former New York Mayor Ed Koch said Bloomberg could still be expected to seek a big new role if he leaves City Hall.

"I cannot believe that he'll be happy just simply being the head of a $15 billion foundation, just giving out money," Koch told Reuters.

The Times is also facing a bold move by News Corp chief Rupert Murdoch to lead the U.S. news agenda with closer political coverage in his Wall Street Journal newspaper.

Bloomberg is considered one of the savviest business minds in the industry and even Murdoch has said he would not relish going up against him, according to Newsweek.

The family believes the company's current capital structure, which gives it control through a special tier of shares, is the best way to protect its editorial independence, a Times spokeswoman said. Analysts also downplayed the idea.

"All of this is just rumor-mongering in the first place," said veteran newspaper analyst John Morton.

Changing the family's control over the Times would be like a "snowball melting in hell," he said.

But the Times has already shown some signs of relenting to criticism. Last month, the company agreed to support two board nominees put forward by an outside shareholder, hedge fund Harbinger Capital Management.

If elected at a shareholder meeting on Tuesday, they would be the first outside directors at the company since it went public. Harbinger and board nominee Scott Galloway of Firebrand Partners have urged changes at the Times, including possibly selling off properties and accelerating its move into digital.

Thomson Reuters Corp competes with Bloomberg in providing financial news and information.

(Additional reporting by Paul Thomasch; Editing by Tim Dobbyn/Andre Grenon)

How the Department of Defense SPINS, WHITEWASHES torture in US media... by "independent" retired military officers...

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/washington/20generals.html
In the "they must be experts... It takes one, to know one!" category, the NEW YORK TIMES (an even more essential component of the Bush-Cheney administration's Lies-to-War propaganda effort leading up to the March 2003 US invasion of Iraq, than even Fox 'news,' the Washington Times, and the Wall St. Journal put together) this weekend compiles an article about how retired military experts dominate the TV 'news' discussion on how TORTURE is being used at US prisons worldwide... even though those "independent" retired military hired-gun TV commentators often do lobbying for US companies with huge contracts with the Department of Defense.
CLEARLY, there is a potential for CONFLICT OF INTEREST if your main job is as a LOBBYIST for a large corporation seeking contracts or doing millions or billions of dollars worth of business with the Pentagon (the building that is the heaquarters for the Department of Defense), but you moonlight part-time as a TV "independent" anaylist on military and DOD issues... especially dealing with subjects or scandals within the top levels of the Department of Defense civilian and military leadership.
(i.e. "who knew what, and when, about TORTURE ORDERS being sent from the DoD to US military prisons worldwide?")
Yet in typical American "free market enterprise" fashion, those retired military experts can pretend that they are being fully objective and indendent observers in their part-time jobs as network commentators, while minimizing the possibility that their presentation (or agenda) is biased towards keeping their full-time bosses - in business or the DoD itself - happy.
The same, of course, could be said for "Liberal" experts who appear on network news - They, too, might be financially compensated for their appearance, while taking home a regular paycheck from their "liberal" organization.
BUT IN THE CASE of TORTURE being ORDERED and DIRECTED from the White House by the Bush-Cheney gang, via their subordinates in the Department of Defense, the retired military experts appearing in the network TV newscasts are less than outspoken (much less outraged) at the administration's cavalier, and premeditated, discarding of the Geneva conventions.


========================================
NY Times, "The Message Machine" -
Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon’s Hidden Hand
[note the typical NYT confusing bureacrateeze headline for a story that could just as easily been titled "Retired Military Experts Shape TV news.. to Pentagon's Favor?"]
By DAVID BARSTOW
Published: April 20, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/washington/20generals.html

ABC 'news" CHARLIE GIBSON, GEORGE STEPHANOPOLOUS, DISGRACE themselves "moderating" Democratic debate with INANE, TRIVIAL, DISTRACTION questions...

The performance of ABC "news" talking heads was so disgraceful, so inane and off-topic from what American voters want to hear about - issues that are truly impacting American lives such as soaring gas prices, soaring health care costs, unaffordable higher education, falling home prices, the falling dollar and rising US deficits, job losses, rising food prices, etc. - that as the network took a break for a last commercial after an hour of INANE, TRIVIAL, "gotcha" questions, the audience BOOED and HECKLED ABC debate "moderators" GEORGE STEPHANOPOLOUS and CHARLIE GIBSON.

HuffingtonPost.com writer Bob Cesca, in his widely repeated "PANDERING YELLOW JOURNALISTS" commentary, captures the essence of Stephanopolous and Gibson WHORING for their corporae masters:

<< Here we had two members of the very serious traditional media going after two Democrats in ways which they have never challenged members of the Bush administration -- despite the Bush Republican record of disaster after disaster after disaster. >>

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bob-cesca/the-very-serious-debate-s_b_97231.html
For a simple example of the TOUGH QUESTIONS (much less PERSISTENT FOLLOW-UPS) that the WHORE corporate media flunkies NEVER ask of President Bush (or, just as importantly, ALLOW him to WEASEL AWAY from with distracting non-answers), a week ago, in insisting that Congress take up and pass the COLUMBIA FREE TRADE bill, President Bush declared on national TV, "IT IS IMPORTANT THAT CONGRESS PASS THIS BILL, SO THE WORLD KNOWS THAT AMERICA _HONORS_ ITS COMMITTMENTS."
Apparently, there was not ONE COMPETENT MEDIA PERSON in one-thousand miles range who could ask Mr. Bush the OBVIOUS Question:
"Mr. Bush, HOW DARE you pretend concern about 'HONORING COMMITTMENTS" - when you have treated the GENEVA CONVENTIONS (and US Constitution as meaningless, disposable, subject to being ignored by your whims and your decrees?"

Over at writer Walter-C-Uhler.com, Mr. Uhler captures the four most inane "depate" questions Stephanopolous and Gibson asked the two Dem. candidates:

<< Yes, notwithstanding the many serious problems afflicting "Bushed" America, we got four nit-picking calumnious questions: (1) Did Obama's characterization of working-class voters as "bitter" indicate he's an out-of-touch elitist? (2) Does Obama believe in the American flag? (After all, he seldom wears an American flag pin.) (3) Can you tell us again, Senator Obama about your ties to the Rev. Wright we know from four controversial out-of-context quotes? And, thanks to question allegedly supplied to former Clinton administration spokesman Stephanopoulos by right-wing hate monger Sean Hannity, (4) What about Obama's association with former Weather Underground terrorist, William Ayers? >>

http://www.walter-c-uhler.com/Reviews/barzun.html
--------------------------------
Mr. Stephanaopolous, former President Clinton press spokesman, has followed in the dismal footsteps of JAMES CARVILLE, who back in 1992, as leader of the Clinton-Gore campaign headquarters "WAR ROOM" was full of sound and fury and outrage over the Treasury-busting antics of the Bush Senior administration. But once Mr. Carville's candidate (Bill Clinton) won the White House in 1993, Mr. Carville moved to Washington, where he promptly became a multi-millionaire FAT CAT Washington lobbyist/consultant PR hack, who actually married a Republican spin-meister, Mary Matlin, who had spent her entire career ADVOCATING FOR those exact policies and taxpayer-ripoffs (by Republican officials and businessmen) that Carville had spent HIS career railing, shouting, and fulminating against!

For all of 1992, specifically, Carville, Stephanopolous and the Clinton campaign "war room" had been confronting and taking to task President George H.W. Bush's (Sr.) tendency to put industry lobbyists in top government positions to oversee those industries - functions that the former lobbyists set out to minimize or undo completely. The DEREGULATION or NO regulations agenda led directly to American taxpayers being forced to bail out PRIVATE bankers and rogue, unsupervised operators in the massive US SAVINGS & LOAN CRISIS - often friends and cronies of the Bush-Reagan administrations - to the tune of almost ONE TRILLION dollars, in late 1980s money. (President Bush son, and brother to the current president, NEIL BUSH, was a director on the Board of Colorado based SILVERADO Savings & Loan - which losses cost taxpayers one billion dollars, alone.)

Assuming the value of a dollar today will be almost double the value of a dollar ten years from now, the one trillion dollar losses of the Bush1 S&L crisis of the late 1980s would be almost THREE TRILLION DOLLARS in costs to US taxpayers in today's money - almost exactly what economist Joseph Stiglitz estimates the Current Bush2 (George W. Bush) US deficits are!http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/stiglitz97

In 1992 George Stephanopolous was also an outspoken, fighting campaign leader of the Clinton-Gore "war room", but fast forward 16 years, he is now a hopelessly corrupted MEDIA WHORE more concerned with satisfying his corporate masters in Washington and New York at ABC "news" (a subsidiary of Disney entertainment corp.) than he is with asking or delving in to the tough issues American citizens, voters, and news consumers want answers to.

Charlie Gibson is just an inane infotainment talking-head puppet for his corporate entertainment masters at ABC.... George Stephanopolous is WORSE, a PAID PROFESSIONAL LIAR who sees his purpose at his current job as trying to UNDO everything he worked for in his life, that got him his millions-of-dollars-per-year cushy gig with ABC for which he has no grace, class, credibility, or any degree of journalistic integrity.

NEW! - The essence of the Gibson-Stephanopolous "debate" "moderating" is captured in this anonymous (pseudonym) comment
<< "It took the moderators over an hour to ask a single question on policy. They may as well have had Britney Spears asking the questions. If Stephanopolous and Charles Gibson made up those questions, they should both be fired immediately. You did an absolute disservice to this great country. Shame on you ABC News." >>
http://www.theage.com.au/news/us-election/chair-lift-for-hillary/2008/04/17/1208025351372.html
"BRITNEY SPEARS" indeed, what an excellent metaphor for Mr. Stephanopolous, Mr. Gibson, and their bosses at ABC "news" - entrusted by the American people with providing the vital information needed to be good citizens and neighbors in this great land of ours, treat their responsibility to the American public the way Britney Spears treats her children - as props to be put in the back of her car, as she drives off in another drunken binge and tirade.

============================================

The Debate: A Shameful Night for the U.S. Media

by Greg Mitchell, editor, Editor & Publisher magazine
Posted April 16, 2008
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/greg-mitchell/the-debate-a-shameful-nig_b_97122.html
In perhaps the most embarrassing performance by the media in a major presidential debate in years, ABC News hosts Charles Gibson and George Stephanopolous focused mainly on trivial issues as Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama faced off in Philadelphia. They, and their network, should hang their collective heads in shame.

Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the health care and mortgage crises, the overall state of the economy and dozens of other pressing issues had to wait for their few moments in the sun as Obama was pressed to explain his recent "bitter" gaffe and relationship with Rev. Wright (seemingly a dead issue) and not wearing a flag pin -- while Clinton had to answer again for her Bosnia trip exaggerations.

Then it was back to Obama to defend his slim association with a former '60s radical -- a question that came out of rightwing talk radio and Sean Hannity on TV, but was delivered by former Bill Clinton aide Stephanopolous. This approach led to a claim that Clinton's husband pardoned two other '60s radicals. And so on. The travesty continued.

More time was spent on all of this than segments on getting out of Iraq and keeping people from losing their homes and -- you name it. Gibson only got excited complaining that someone might raise his capital gains tax. Yet neither candidate had the courage to ask the moderators to turn to those far more important issues. Talking heads on other networks followed up by not pressing that point either. The crowd booed Gibson near the end. Why didn't every other responsible journalist on TV?

To top it off, here is David Brooks' review at The New York Times: "I thought the questions were excellent." He gives ABC an "A." Of course, "A" can stand for many things.
*
Greg Mitchell is author of the new book, So Wrong for So Long: How the Press, the Pundits -- and the President -- Failed on Iraq. It has been hailed by Bill Moyers, Glenn Greenwald, Arianna and others and features a preface by Bruce Springsteen. He is editor of Editor & Publisher. Email: gmitchell@editorandpublisher.com.

More on the Washington Post's INVETERATE LYING to prop up the Bush-Cheney narative of endless war and tax cuts for billionaires...

The face of INCOMPETENCE in Bush administration Washington - aided and abetted by the WASHINGTON POST's REFUSAL to ask EVEN BASIC QUESTIONS of minimal journalistic competence!
Mr. Stephen J. Hadley, President Bush's current National Security Advisor, was DEPUTY NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR when the CIA informed him, before 9-11, that AL QAIDA WAS PLANNING ON HIJACKING US AIRLINERS
(official WH biography) http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/hadleybio.html
yet he did NOTHING - , even though, during that summer of 2001, Al Qaida had NOT BEEN PUNISHED by the Bush administration for the SUICIDE BOMB ATTACK on the USS Cole in a Yemen harbor just 8 months earlier in October of 2000.

For more details in the Washington Post's shameless complicity with the lies and incompetence of the Bush administration, INCLUDING A NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR who DOES NOT KNOW THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN TIBET and NEPAL,
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/04/13/bush-security-adviser-ste_n_96420.html
read on.
_________________________________________________

For more on the Washington Post's INVETERATE, WRONG on EVERYTHING LYING to prop up the Bush-Cheney narrative on the Iraq war (and their LIES TO WAR, STOLEN ELECTION, and WHITE WASH of GROSS DERELICTION OF DUTY leading up to 9-11-2001 in the first place) see ROBERT PARRY's "The Very Annoying Washington Post" http://consortiumnews.com/2008/041008.html
For the inside story of how DICK CHENEY URGED his Iraqi puppet strong man (also known as "Iraq Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki") to WIPE OUT the increasingly popular main Shiite OPPOSITION PARTY in advance of "free and fair elections" scheduled for Iraq this coming October (obviously, a propaganda move to give Republicans something to brag about in America's November 2008 presidential elections) see Ramzy Baroud, "The Other Half of the Basra Battles story" at Counterpunch.org. http://www.counterpunch.org/baroud04122008.html
For the GROSS IGNORANCE (twin sister to GROSS CORRUPTION) that infests the Bush-Cheney White House -
- the people who ALLOWED Al Qaida to plot 9-11, unmolested and unhindered, in the weeks before the 9-11 attack;

- the people who ALLOWED bin Laden to ESCAPE Tora Bora;
- the people who USED bin LADEN AS AN EXCUSE to ATTACK IRAQ... but profess not to care about bin Laden on the Afghan-Pakistan border (!!)
(President Bush declares "I'M NOT THAT CONCERNED ABOUT HIM [bin Laden] ANYMORE" - despite using a theoretical bin Laden-Saddam link as AN EXCUSE to ATTACK ANOTHER NATION! Mar. 2002 official WH press transcript, of WH press conference
Bush "he doesn't concern me that much anymore" comment 1/3rd way down)
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/03/20020313-8.html
or video -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PGmnz5Ow-o

- the people who pledged that the Iraq war and post-war occupation would only need 115,000 troops, cost American taxpayers only $6 billion dollars, and that the insurgency would last only 6 weeks...

see how Bush NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR Stephen J. Hadley CAN'T TELL the DIFFERENCE BETWEEN... TIBET and NEPAL!
(Hint: One nation is OCCUPIED by the COMMUNIST CHINESE ARMY; the other nation is not!)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/04/13/bush-security-adviser-ste_n_96420.html
Speaking of "GROSS INCOMPETENCE" (bordering on GROSS DERELICTION OF DUTY) before 9-11, here is a link to the official bio of Bush's current NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR, STEPHEN J. HADLEY, who the official White House biography informs us was the DEPUTY ASSISTANT NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR TO THE PRESIDENT, _before_ 9-11!
http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/hadleybio.html

A senior, experienced official (bio states that he was who was an Assistant Secretary of Defense under President Bush Sr., 1989-1993) who was undoubtedly "IN THE LOOP" the day those urgent CIA warnings came to the White House, "Al QAEDA HAS NOT BEEN PUNISHED for the October 2000 attack on the USS Cole, HERE IT IS JULY 2001, and they are PLANNING NEW, MORE SPECTACULAR ATTACKS on American targets, this time PROBABLY IN THE UNITED STATES, possibly involving attacks on airlines or passengers, or possibly a REPEAT ATTACK on the WORLD TRADE TOWERS, which Arab terrorists tried to destroy with a previous truck-bomb attack in 1993."

Don't take OUR word for it! Here's the New York Times David Sanger, writing in May of 2002 that BEFORE 9-11:

<< The White House said tonight that President Bush had been warned by American intelligence agencies in early August that Osama bin Laden was seeking to hijack aircraft but that the warnings did not contemplate the possibility that the hijackers would turn the planes into guided missiles for a terrorist attack. >>

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C03E2DB1139F935A25756C0A9649C8B63
As we all know, then NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR Condoleeza Rice was a POLITICAL APPOINTEE to that position with no, ZERO prior National Security experience. (Her sole qualifying item was her Ph.D. at Stanford University, with concentration on Russian Cold War era political-military affairs.)
BUT HER DEPUTY, Stephen J. Hadley, HAD BEEN IN THE DEFENSE DEPARTMENT as an Assistant Secretary of Defense! He undoubtedly received that "AL QAIDA PLANS TO HIJACK AIRLINERS IN AMERICA" briefing.. and did NOTHING about it????
THE WASHINGTON POST, which PURPORTS to be the nation's paper of excellence dealing with NATIONAL SECURITY issues, is nothing more than a PROPAGANDA PARTY RAG, covering up and glossing over GROSS INCOMPETENCE (if not abject corruption) AT EVERY LEVEL of the Bush-Cheney administration and US government!

=======================================================

The Very Annoying Washington Post
By Robert Parry
April 11, 2008
http://consortiumnews.com/2008/041008.html
One of the many annoyances about living in George W. Bush’s Washington is to read the commentaries about the Iraq War on the editorial pages of the Washington Post. Possibly never in modern times has a major newspaper been more wrong, more consistently with more arrogance than has the Post on this vital issue.
(continued: detailing the Washington Post's ABJECT LIES, JOURNALSTIC INCOMPETENCE, and EDITORIAL CORRUPTION would take an encyclopedia.) http://consortiumnews.com/2008/041008.html

Washington Post Whores - "IRAN IS NEW ENEMY!" mantra for Bush, Cheney, Lieberman war-mongers...

"Ahmadinejad, Maliki MUST DIE!" America's war-lusting Neo-Cons sneer through their gnashing teeth.


America is currently trying to bribe Iraqi legislators with payments of $5 million apiece, to sign the American-rights to Iraqi-oil law, and in order to do so, the US military is pushing Prime Minister Maliki to KILL all Shiite opponents to his SCIRI-dominated coalition party... even though SCIRI is more CLOSELY ALIGNED TO IRAN, than the opposition party US bombs, bullets, and Iraqi army forces are trying to dispose of! Once America gets Maliki's SCIRI coalition to sign the oil law, then Maliki can be dispossed of... and for the next 1,000,000 years (according to Senator John McCain), America will have an IRREVOCABLE RIGHT to Iraq oil... just as the United States maintains it base in GUANTANAMO, CUBA, using an ancient treaty with a long departed government there.


Notice the Washington Post's WHORE EDITOR's headline on this story (below) and just imagine if the Post took a similar tack towards YOU.
"JOHN SMITH A TRAITOR ! US says."

Not even "John Smith a TRAITOR! US Officials declare."

NO, the WHORE Washington Post drops in to the PASSIVE "US SAYS" to confer legitimacy to the story, to PROMOTE THE NOTION that Bush-Cheney administration has 100%, ONE-HUNDRED PERCENT SUPPORT in America, to EXPAND THE IRAQ WAR in to Iran.

This is TYPICAL DEMAGOGUE WAR-MONGERING technique: CONFLATING the corrupt, election-stealing, Treasury-gutting, Justice-department corrupting Bush-Cheney administration with "the United States" in sum total as a nation.

One TINY, WAR LUSTING oligarchy (albeit with the backing of a full 27% of voters) is presented in the Whore Post's headline as REPRESENTING the ENTIRE NATION's DETERMINATION TO ATTACK IRAN - on behalf of "national security" and "defending the troops", of course.

This is the WASHINGTON WHORE POST's DEMAGOGUE WAR-MONGERING, RIGHT OUT OF THE NAZI Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels playbook: Screech "THEY ARE THE ENEMY who THREATEN THE FATHERLAND!" with all your might, then bury the actual facts of the story, under a laundry list of 1,000 - - - ONE THOUSAND - US officials who have some tidbit to chime in on the message, in a narrative that sounds like "evidence" in the officialese Washington Post report, but is acutally opinion masking as reporting.

<< "Why of course the people don't want war. Why should some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally the common people don't want war neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked,
and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country." >>

>>
http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/quote_blog/Hermann.Goering.Quote.65D2

SEE Karen DeYoung's TEXTBOOK EXPOSITION of WASHINGTON WHORE POST WAR-MONGERING PROPAGANDA, below. And then realize, that a week after Vice President Cheney visited Iraq, the Iraq goverment STARTED ATTACKING Shiite militia positions in Baghdad, Basra, and elsewhere throughout Iraq, even though many of those militia supporters were more restrained with Iran's government, than the SCIRI forces who are now Maliki's core supporters.

=========================================================

Iran Top Threat To Iraq, U.S. Says
[CLAIMS the Washington Post, using senior officials in the Bush-Cheney dominated US military chain of command to make their weak case.]
"Focus on Al-Qaeda Now Diminishing"

By Karen DeYoung
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, April 12, 2008; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/11/AR2008041101606.html?hpid=topnews

Last week's violence in Basra and Baghdad has convinced the Bush administration that actions by Iran, and not al-Qaeda, are the primary threat inside Iraq, and has sparked a broad reassessment of policy in the region, according to senior U.S. officials.

Evidence of an increase in Iranian weapons, training and direction for the Shiite militias that battled U.S. and Iraqi security forces in those two cities has fixed new U.S. attention on what Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates yesterday called Tehran's "malign" influence, the officials said.

The intensified focus on Iran coincides with diminished emphasis on al-Qaeda in Iraq as the leading justification for an ongoing U.S. military presence in Iraq.

In congressional hearings this week, Army Gen. David H. Petraeus said the U.S. military has driven al-Qaeda from Baghdad, Anbar province and central Iraq, and he depicted the group as now largely concentrated in a reduced territory around the northern city of Mosul.

During their Washington visit, Petraeus, the top U.S. military commander in Iraq, and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker barely mentioned al-Qaeda in Iraq but spoke extensively of Iran.

With "al-Qaeda in retreat and disarray" in Iraq, said one official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the record, "we see other obstacles that were under the waterline more clearly. . . . The Iranian-armed militias are now the biggest threat to internal order."

Partly in response to advice from Petraeus and Crocker, the administration has initiated an interagency assessment of what is known about Iranian activities and intentions, how to combat them and how to capitalize on them. The review stems from an internal conclusion, following last week's fighting, that the administration lacked a comprehensive understanding and a sophisticated approach.

President Bush reiterated yesterday that if Iran continues to help militias in Iraq, "then we'll deal with them," saying in an interview with ABC News that "we're learning more about their habits and learning more about their routes" for infiltrating or sending equipment.

But he also reaffirmed that he has no desire to go to war with Tehran. Saying that his job is to "solve these issues diplomatically," Bush suggested heightened interest in reaching a solution with other countries. "You can't solve these problems unilaterally. You're going to need a multilateral forum."

Iran has long been seen as a spoiler in Iraq, with such strong ties to all of the major Shiite political and militia groups, including that of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, that other Arab countries have begun to regard Iraq as almost a client state of Iran.

The recent fighting in Basra, which began when Maliki launched a military offensive against the Mahdi Army militia of Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, revealed a threat and an opportunity, officials said.

U.S. military officials said that much of the plentiful, high quality weaponry the militia used in Basra and in rocket attacks against the Green Zone in Baghdad, where the U.S. Embassy and much of the Iraqi government are located, was recently manufactured in Iran. At the same time, the militia's improved targeting and tactics indicated stepped-up Iranian training.