hilarious jihad

* for some reason FOX has a hilarious jihad about the DC Madam story. They are apparently very very nervous. Perfect. Hannity is trying to make the argument that maybe some people on the list maybe got right up to the prostitute's door and then changed their mind.

* via Josh, Ray McGovern was on Tucker Carlson - saying that he has evidence that the OVP orchestrated the Niger forgeries - and appears to be suggesting that Ledeen was involved. (one min vid)

* Palast (in the LATimes):

"U.S. media have lost the will to dig deep
A changed news culture has let several important investigative stories slip through the cracks.

IN AN E-MAIL uncovered and released by the House Judiciary Committee last month, Tim Griffin, once Karl Rove's right-hand man, gloated that "no [U.S.] national press picked up" a BBC Television story reporting that the Rove team had developed an elaborate scheme to challenge the votes of thousands of African Americans in the 2004 election.

Griffin wasn't exactly right. The Los Angeles Times did run a follow-up article a few days later in which it reported the findings. But he was essentially right. Most of the major U.S. newspapers and the vast majority of television news programs ignored the story even though it came at a critical moment just weeks before the election.

According to Griffin (who has since been dispatched to Arkansas to replace one of the U.S. attorneys fired by the Justice Department), the mainstream media rejected the story because it was wrong.

"That guy is a British reporter who accepted some false allegations and made a story up," he said.
[]
Again and again, I see this pattern repeated. Until there is some official investigation or allegation made by a politician, there is no story.
[]
Are there still aggressive, talented investigative reporters in the U.S.? There are hundreds. I'll mention two: Seymour Hersh, formerly of the New York Times, and Robert Parry, formerly of the Associated Press, who uncovered the Iran-Contra scandal. The operative word here is "formerly." Parry tells me that he can no longer do this kind of investigative work within the confines of a U.S. daily newsroom.
[]
I've long argued that Britain needs a 1st Amendment right to press freedom. It could, of course, borrow ours. We don't use it.

* jonathon:

"Michael Scheuer, the CIA's former main bin Laden guy, is an interesting character. He combines a left-wing analysis of al Qaeda's motivations with a right-wing willingness to kill! kill! kill!*"

* glenn: Scott Horton is "particularly skillful and knowledgeable"
couldn't agree more.