'Newsweek' Error Bad, Pentagon Lying About Tillman Death O.K.?"

[Hissyspit]

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/columns/pressingissues_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000930844

The Tillman Scandal: 'Newsweek' Error Bad, Pentagon Lying OK?
In the week after the magazine's retraction, where is the comparable outrage over the military's cover-up of the "friendly fire" death of Pat Tillman? His family is angry, but why is there so little attention on the press and public also being misled? And where is a Scott McClellan lecture on ethics and credibility?

By Greg Mitchell

(May 24, 2005) -- Where, in the week after the Great Newsweek Error, is the comparable outrage in the press, in the blogosphere, and at the White House over the military's outright lying in the coverup of the death of former NFL star Pat Tillman? Where are the calls for apologies to the public and the firing of those responsible? Who is demanding that the Pentagon's word should never be trusted unless backed up by numerous named and credible sources? Where is a Scott McClellan lecture on ethics and credibility?

The Tillman scandal is back in the news thanks not to the military coming clean but because of a newspaper account. Ironically, the newspaper in question, The Washington Post -- which has taken the lead on this story since last December -- is corporate big brother to Newsweek.

- snip -

While military officials' lying to the parents have gained wide publicity in the past two days, hardly anyone has mentioned that they also lied to the public and to the press, which dutifully carried one report after another based on the Pentagon's spin. It had happened many times before, as in the Jessica Lynch incident.

-snip -

Newsweek made a bad mistake in its recent report on Koran abuse at Guantanamo. But it was a mistake, not outright lying. Yet the same critics who blasted the magazine -- and the media in general -- are not demanding that same contrition or penalties for anyone in the military.

MORE AT LINK

[bling bling]

1. Good points, all.

The blantant hypocracy among the right wing is exposed once again.

[ClintonTyree]

12. Not only the rabid right wingers....

but the media as well. After the Newsweek story broke you'd have thought the complete balance of the war hinged upon Newsweek's "egregious" error(again, the facts were correct, the matter of error was in the reporting). The media was quick to jump on it and was treating it as if it was a watershed moment in the "war on terror". Not to mention scurrilous Scott's assertion that it alone caused the deaths of many people, a statement that was later retracted.
The media bears as much or more responsibility than neo-cons.

[NVMojo]

2. Life in Amerika is so fucked up and twisted these days ...

[Robworld]

3. The right wing and the elite ruling class hate the press.

It has been part of the Bush administration's agenda to distort, lie, and persuade people from not trusting the media. With our distrust of the media, you will never have a thing like Watergate again. This helps the Bush Administration have a free ticket to do what ever it wants (which it pretty much does).

Couple of examples:
Fox News, Jeff Gannon, WMD, Swift Boat, Newsweek, etc... etc...

http://www.dumdumgoestothecircus.com

[indepat]

4. Any/everything emanating from this Administration is a.o.k.: bad is

anything not pleasing to it. This is all so simple.

[sinkingfeeling]

5. It makes my mind and heart hurt! How did America get this way in

such a short period of time?

[KharmaTrain]

6. This One Isn't Washing Well In Sportsland...

Scanning a Sports talk station...generally right wing when it comes to thing patriotic, I heard one of the hosts go on a rant not only about how Tillman's death was a cover-up but also brought up Abu Grahb and Jessica Lynch. He went on how the military is starting to lie to us about what's going on and here's an example (not as though some of us already knew)...but this is going to the 18-34 year old jock sniffers who voted heavily for the Manchild and Repugnicans last year.

[BeFree]

7. One correction

Newsweek did NOT make a mistake in it's report. The only mistake it made was in it's retraction.

The rest of the press, however, made a huge mistake in reporting what the WH said. The press should have checked to see that the report from the WH was indeed the truth, because as we now know, it was utter falsehood. The Newsweek report did not cause any deaths.

[Ysolde]

8. This makes me so mad!

I'm at a loss for words! :grr:

[Callboy]

9. do as we say not as we do

the one way beltway.....

[spanone]

10. It's OK to lie FOR the war.....Tillman is an example of what our armed

services have become. A sadistic sad propaganda arm of this mal-administration. To LIE to a mans family about how he died in order to advance an illegal war takes stunning hubris.

[yolatengo]

11. party above nation

The thing that pisses me off most about this is how wingers
think DISCUSSING IT (the fragging, the LYING, the COVERUP,
the politics with a human life) somehow 'hurts our troops'.

What they are really saying is:

"Shut up; this story hurts my man Bush. Whatever the Pentagon
does to forward Republican Power is A-OK. They can lie to me.
They can fuck up and kill a soldier for no reason, but don't you
dare buzzkill my love of Republicans. It's also A-OK to use the
LIE to bash Democrats, to recruit more earnest but ignorant
young americans to be 'heroes' like Tillman, to keep up public
support for the military and to keep going with our horribly
conceived and executed plans in Afghanistan and Iraq".

IOW,

"Bush = Tillman = GOP = Military = Empire = USA"

They've become true Stalinists. Ends justify the means. Let
nothing stand in the way of victory (for the GOP, for the Empire).
And they think nothing of abandoning American Values, honor,
justice, or fairness. Gotta break some eggs to make omelettes!

Watch Tillman's family get death threats from Freepers because
they won't shut up and get with the program. They keep wanting
stoopid morAn 'justice' and to make sure this doesn't happen to
someone ELSE's son, the commies!

[CAcyclist]

16. You've got it exactly right

Except they have become the true fascists, not Stalinists. Because what they are doing allows corporations to keep harvesting profit from us, the sheep.

I always tell Republicans that argue with me that "you have a higher duty to your country than to your party"

Someday, maybe that'll sink in.

[ClintonTyree]

13. The media in our country...

not only being a corporate media whose main emphasis is their bottom line, not factual reporting, has also been so de-fanged and de-clawed by the current administration as to render it useless.
The White House attacks them at every turn, not for the factual content of a story, but on every bit of procedural effort to obtain that story. There has never been a complaint by the White House as to factual content, just the way they either reported it or obtained the information.
Of course our neutered media isn't going to press the issue on Tillman's death, they'd get another dressing down from their "massahs", the White House.
As for the White House or the Army taking any responsibility........you've got to be joking. The bush administration never accepts responsibility for ANYTHING, and the Army is deathly afraid of the PR nightmare this would become.
So, in essence we have a neutered media too afraid to report this story, an administration that never accepts responsibility for anything and the Army which is afraid of the bad publicity this story would generate.
Isn't the "free press" and our governmental "leadership" great? :eyes:

[scdusek]

14. O'Lie-ly

I happened to be flipping through the stations on Monday night and happened to hear on O'Reilly one of his army experts that the cover-up happened at the unit level. This is totally contradictory to the reports that the overall army covered up the truth about his death.

O'Lie-ly made it a point to clarify that it was the unit level covering it up and not the higher level officials in the army. It sickens me that they spread this crap that is totally untrue.

BTW, don't ask me why I stopped to watch that idiot...

[scdusek]

15. Backup

Here's the link and the synopsis from the O'Lie-ly site:

Personal Story Segment
Pat Tillman update
Guest: Fox News military analyst Col. David Hunt

Former NFL star Pat Tillman's family has spoken out for the first time since he was killed in Afghanistan. Tillman's mother and father contend they were betrayed by the Army, which was slow to reveal that Tillman was killed by "friendly fire." Fox News analyst Col. David Hunt conceded that the Army deserves to be criticized. "Tillman's Ranger unit started to cover this up, and issued a false report to the Army. It's a great unit, but they really blew this. Then the Army decided to give Tillman a Silver Star, but didn't tell the family what really happened until after the funeral. All this dishonors Tillman, which he didn't deserve." The Factor concluded that while Pat Tillman remains an heroic figure, his colleagues let him down. "Bottom line, it sounds like the unit made the mistake, not the overall Army."

<http://www.billoreilly.com/show?action=viewTVShow&showID=283#4>

[defiant1]

17. His colleagues???

2nd to last paragraph of the article.

"The Army's public release made no mention of friendly fire, even though at the time it was issued, investigators in Afghanistan had already taken at least 14 sworn statements from Tillman's platoon members that made clear the true causes of his death."

So which is it??

Not like I expect Faux News to be fair and balanced, or anything.

[Disturbed]

18. So which is it??

It is both the Ranger Unit and Cental Command. The troops screwed up so a cover story was put out. When DOD learned of the bogus story they sat on it and gave the Tillmans bogus stories. "The first casualty of war is the truth."

[defiant1]

19. Well, yeah.

Friendly fire killed Tillman.

The Army killed his legacy.

Which is worse??

[ComerPerro]

20. Once again, why is Newsweek held to higher standards than Bush and his

administration?

Similar points were brought up about the whole WMD lies.

Bush uses phony and trumped up intel to lie us into a war that as literally killed thousands, and he gets a free pass.

But Newsweek prints a story that turns out to be true and just one source went back on, and they should be made to apologize?

Same deal with CBS.


Where does this administration get the audacity to demand accuracy and credibility from others?

[jmcon007]

21. Where is the outrage, you ask?

Which one of the grossly unethical incidents or downright crimes are we to focus on? It's like the maddening 'bop the gopher' game.......
I AM outraged by the Tillman story, but it's as old a story as "flushing the Koran" and Jessica Lynch. We'll be outraged when we get around to it. Our brains are not made to diseminate and absorb the sheer volume of crimes this administration has perpetrated on this country and its' democracy.
The problem is, we are becoming so inundated with scandle after scandle and crime after crime from the Bushistas that our brains are swimming and it causes a kind of paralysis.
We need someone (maybe it's Dean) who can articulate to the American public at large just what these criminals are doing to our country.
Someone needs to have the balls to begin impeachment proceedings against Bush and his Brownshirts. Getting it through Congress is not the point. Focusing on the criminal nature of Bush, Cheney, Rove, and Wolfowitz is.

[durutti]

22. Newsweek made no error.

Everyone agrees that there have been Koran desecrations. My guess is that Newsweek's source was telling the truth, then retracted it under pressure.

[appnzllr]

23. Message deleted.