Political Cortex: Reckless Reporting? Point the finger at yourself, chump.

Reckless Reporting? Point the finger at yourself, chump.

By Onward Zapatista
04/12/2006 02:12:35 PM EST

So yesterday the Washington Post reported that the "mobile biological weapons" touted to have been found in Iraq, giving the country the illusion of Bush's legitimacy, were in fact proven not to be so even before the President asserted that "we have found the weapons of mass destruction."

Today, Bush has sent his minion McClellan out to chastize the news world for "reckless reporting."

But shouldn't the administration be pointing the finger at themselves?

Reckless reporting.

Now, as I define that, reckless reporting means making claims before one is positive that those claims are true.

Apparently, the Bush administration feels that reckless reporting means not mindlessly adhering to an unwritten gentlemans' agreement between the news media and the President.

Simply put: it was reckless reporting to claim the discovery of WMD's in Iraq when that evidence was still far from proven and debated within the Pentagon even before the independent commission's findings were sent in a preliminary report.

In a recent Reuters article, some intelligence minion was sent out to give his opinion "anonymously" :

"You don't change a report that has been coordinated in the (intelligence) community based on a field report," the official said. "It's a preliminary report. No matter how strongly the individual may feel about the subject matter."

This is just nonsense. Any rational person would understand that while official intelligence positions might not be reversed by the preliminary report, they should have nevertheless been questioned before the President made claims to the American public.

McClellan said the Post story was "nothing more than rehashing an old issue that was resolved long ago,"

Really? Then how come the public was never made aware of the report unanimously asserting that the trailers were not biological weapons labs, but in fact were simply stations producing hydrogen for weather balloons? The report was classified as soon as it hit the Pentagon. Now really, how necessary is it to classify a document that it both imperative the American public, and that in no way would affect ongoing military operations? Its a damn report about a meteorological station. The answer is purely political. It is easy to see this from McClellan's repsonse, who "angrily" blasted the report. Why respond in anger when you know you're right?