In "Weapons of Mass Distortion: Saddam's Media War" I noted:
bq. "British MP George Galloway, long the subject of questions about his income and lifestyle, was simply the first revelation. He made himself a large and obvious target; clearly, some digging has been done to ensure his exposure from multiple sources. He was first, but he will not be the last. Nor should he be."
Guess not. As allied forces continue to mine the millions of documents they recovered from Saddam's Iraq, we're starting to see consequences. Exposure of the the U.N.'s thoroughly corrupt oil-for-food program is one example. In fact, this scandal has been brewing for a while. Yesterday The Wall Street Journal added fuel to the fire with a detailed follow-up that names some principals and traces some of the connections thanks to recovered documents, even as the U.N. and Kofi Annan continue to stonewall.
Now, an America journalist has been arrested on charges of working as an Iraqi spy. Silflay Hraka leads and Wizbang adds details on Ms. Susan Lindauer. Meanwhile, "Oh, That Liberal Media" flays the coverage that mentions a family relationship to the White House while ignoring this journalist's previous employment as a staffer for 3-4 Democratic Party representatives. You'd think that a responsible news outlet would see both facts as relevant. Instapundit has more.
Personally, I'm looking forward to more of these exposures. Susan Lindauer won't be the last one, either. Nor should she be.
I read Therese Raphael's article in the printjournal yesterday am, a very fine piece of journalism. then i scanned the tvnews periodically the rest of the day-- i only caught one reference to the story on FOX-- the rest of the airwaves were completely consumed with 3/11 and interminable replay and discussion of kerry's openmike pseudo-accident. the dems behave like trial lawyers, essentially making unsustainable and outrageous comments to lodge them in the jurors' minds, even if they are not represented in the record. But, isn't the UN scandal huge? i think it should unmake the UN, and play very badly for the Kerry campaign. Doesn't it explain why the security council and france were so reluctant to engage? Why is there no media coverage? is the media actually giving kerry time to reprocess his foreign policy positions? Unbelieveable.
Amabel,
We are now in an age of narrowcasting partisan media, even if the networks don't want to admit it.
The talk radio shows like Hannity, Limbaugh and Savage are all going heavy on both Ms. Susan Lindauer's partisan affilitation and her connection to the pro-totalitarian "peace movement" as well as the UN oil-for-food Iraqi-bribe corruption story.
They are also talking heavily about the war on terrorism in a way the major networks are not.
Joe,
Have linked to this, but no trackback showing up. Sorry ab out that, but this is an excellent piece, as is Trent's comment above, which bears repeating. Thanks for all the good work here, especially on this story.
The American "journalist" is looking like an American "nutcase". I suppose it's possible she was on an Iraqi payroll, but she doesn't look like much of an investment.
It might have been worthwhile to mention her intermittent work for liberal Congressmen, but it would have been very difficult not to mention her cousin Andy Card, because that's the connection she said she would use to obtain secrets.
Trent,
your comments are sadly true, and it actually gave me an idea for a fisking-- use one of edward's speeches or kerry's on "the two americas", but divide it this way--one who can read, one who can watch tv; one capable of independent thought, one who wants the media to tell them what to think, perhaps even a nation of bloggers and non-bloggers. having only newly come to the blogosphere, i am probably not competant to do this. but, oh, i love the blogosphere, and most especially this blog, winds of change. it is so sympatico to me, i loved the reccommend on the language cds (after gulf II i began learning arabic and reading the Qu'ran), i love especially the sufi wisdom, good news saturday, etc,etc. gratitude.