Daniel Kells

I love Arianna Huffington and her http://www.huffingtonpost.com/.  Sometimes a bit spinny, on occasion too celebrity-obsessed, but for the most part her site gets it.  It’s generally the first or second site I go to when I get on-line.  It’s a quick way to see what’s happening in the world.

Arianna did a blog post today on the recently-released National Intelligence Estimate.  And, she sort of nails it.  Here’s a link to the entire post, as it’s well-worth a read, but if you only have a few seconds, here are a few highlights:

Here we go again. Another devastating report being spun as a mixed bag — with the spin dutifully echoed by the media. Another administration brain tumor being “offset” by shiny hair.

This time it’s the new National Intelligence Estimate report on the threat of terrorist violence against America that is being given the utterly ludicrous “on the one hand… and on the other hand” treatment.

A prime example of this came on AC 360, where Anderson Cooper reported that “both sides in the Iraq debate are spinning [the NIE] to support their case.” To prove his point, he rolled a video clip of Bush making the case for staying the course in Iraq. Back on camera, he said, “The Democrats, of course, see it differently.”

“Of course” they do. Not because there are always two sides to every issue, but because the facts are different than Bush claims they are.

There are such things as facts. There is such a thing as reality. And refusing to see those facts and report that reality — undiluted by an “on the other hand” mixer — isn’t a sign of objectivity, it’s a sign of intellectual laziness and journalistic muddled thinking.

The NIE report represents the consensus view of all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies and is a stark and unambiguous repudiation of the Bush administration’s counterterrorism strategy and its contention that the war in Iraq has made us safer.

Indeed, the report suggests that it’s just the opposite — that the war in Iraq has fueled a growing hatred of America, spread Islamic extremism, and spawned an expanding crop of newly inspired jihadists around the globe. And it eviscerates the Bushies’ bedrock notion that we are fighting them over there so we don’t have to fight them over here. It turns out that the odds of us having to fight them over here have greatly increased precisely because we are fighting them over there.

 Also worth mentioning is the mention of CNN’s Iraq Bureau Chief Michael Ware. 

Up first was the always bracing Michael Ware, beamed in via satellite from Iraq, where he has spent most of the war. Ware took a cudgel to the White House spin machine, beating down the administration’s attempt to portray the war as a fight between America and al-Qaeda by reporting that “al-Qaeda would be lucky to make up 3 percent of the insurgency.” Ware’s verdict on the White House: “They’re trying to play the American public.”

I cannot tell I lie.  I totally have a crush on Michael Ware.  It’s not just his crooked nose and slightly boozey way of delivering the news, it’s his no-bullshit attitude and crazy eyes.