His work on the criminal and unconsitutional abuses that Bush and Cheney brought against the the rule of law and the FISA Act, the Fourth Amendment, and the American People in their extraordinary and incredible embrace of John Yoo's absurd and banal theory of "unitary executive" powers has been well documented here and throughout the blogosphere. Kudos to Salon.com for recognizing Greenwald as a breed apart from the rest of the blogosphere, and one of the most insightful and original minds writing anywhere today. If you don't read Greenwald regularly, you should.
He's turned his eye towards the stunning expose that the NYT ran on the major networks pimping themselves out to the Pentagon's concerted effort to not only shamelessly back the neo-con agenda in Iraq, but more insidiously, to promote the interests of the defense industry, to which the "spokesmen" that the Pentagon sent out to the networks were beholden.
After I read the article, I thought: "golly, that's unseemly". After Greenwald read the article, he writes stuff like this.
I'll cut you a graph, but the entire series should be read:
Both McCaffrey and Downing were about as far from "independent" as a news analyst could possibly be. On November 15, 2002, a press release was issued announcing the formation of something called "The Committee for the Liberation of Iraq," which was devoted "to advocat[ing] freedom and democracy in Iraq." Its list of 25 members was filled to the brim with the standard cast of war-hungry neocons -- including Bill Kristol, Newt Gingrich, Richard Perle, Leon Wieseltier, Danielle Pletka of the American Enterprise Institute, Eliot Cohen, and anti-Muslim "scholar" Bernard Lewis. Both Barry McCaffrey and Wayne Downing -- the two extremely independent "news sources" hailed yesterday by Brian Williams -- were two of its 25 founding members.
On the day of its formation, the group announced that they would meet later that day with then-National Security Adviser Condolleeza Rice to discuss Iraq. The group's President was quoted in the Press Release as follows: "We believe it is time to confront the clear and present danger posed by Saddam Hussein's regime by liberating the Iraqi people." Here was its stated purpose:
The Committee for the Liberation of Iraq will engage in educational and advocacy efforts to mobilize domestic and international support for policies aimed at ending the aggression of Saddam Hussein and freeing the Iraqi people from tyranny. The Committee is committed to work beyond the liberation of Iraq to the reconstruction of its economy and the establishment of political pluralism, democratic institutions, and the rule of law.
So this was a group devoted to building domestic support in the U.S. for the invasion of Iraq through so-called "educational and advocacy efforts." And NBC News then hired both Barry McCaffrey and Wayne Downing as supposedly "independent analysts" to opine to NBC's viewers about the war, and did so without ever once disclosing this affiliation to their viewers, without ever disclosing that they were dedicated to propagandizing on behalf of the Bush administration's desire to invade Iraq.
Beyond their ideological affiliations that negated their "independence," both McCaffrey and Downing had substantial ties to the defense industry which gave them strong financial incentives to advocate for the war. Worse, these ties were detailed all the way back in April of 2003 by The Nation, in an article entitled "TV's Conflicted Experts:
So, NBC and Brian Williams, who clearly knew that these generals were conflicted both ideologically and financially, since at least 2003, refuse to comment on the NYT article until they are confronted by a bunch of dirty hippies on their own blogs, and at that point they basically point out that McCaffrey's a swell guy and undoubtedly wears a lapel pin.
I hate to sound elitist, but this stuff plays in Peoria, and people rely on the information that the major news outlets feed them. O'Reilly, Beck, and Limbaugh can almost be forgiven, because they are so absurd that they appeal only to their own peanut galleries. But Brian Williams (and CNN, and Fox News) needs to be called out here for his shameless and possibly criminal actions, and Greenwald is just the man for the job.