Hersh Winces at Media Protecting `lying' Sources

[Wind Dancer]

It's Saturday, the afternoon after I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the U.S. vice president's chief of staff, was indicted for lying in the investigation of the leak of a covert CIA operative's identity.

On the phone from his Washington home, Seymour Hersh is cranky. He's on edge partly because he just got off the red eye from San Francisco, partly because the cleaning lady is vacuuming and partly because I'm asking about things that rile him.

But mostly, the controversial investigative reporter is exercised over the fact that journalists connected to the Libby case have "a very strange value system" if they protect people who they know used and abused them.

snip

"Who in the hell is (President George) Bush?" he demands. "My parents came here to get away from stuff that he's recreating. Who is he to deconstruct 250 years of the constitution? If you were a Muslim in America after 9/11, you were presumed guilty of something. He prosecuted 2,000 Muslims — and not one conviction for terrorism. They got a couple of guys on credit card fraud and a couple of guys on overstayed visas. Right now this government is going around and anywhere in the world we think there's a member of the `global war on terrorism' we can snatch him and take him somewhere where the sun don't shine on him.

"That is enraging."

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http://www.commondreams.org/views05/1101-28.htm

[acmavm]

1. Who is he to deconstruct 250 years of the constitution?

That's exactly what I want to know. I've been somewhat more than curious for a LONG TIME. Since the 2000 election as a matter of fact.