IT HAD EVERYTHING TO DO WITH HIS DIRECT-TO-CABLE FILM.
"I CAN'T BELIEVE SHE GOT ALL THE GOOD ANGLES!" HE HISSED POINTING ACROSS THE HALL.
So the Iraqi Parliament drags their feet and they aren't the only ones. At
yesterday's
public hearing of the Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and
Afghanistan, it was learned that the Defense Department had still not
submitted all the plans for the draw-down that's supposed to be on the
verge of taking place. Not only have they not submitted all of their
own plans, they're supervision of KBR is so lax that KBR's been allowed
to skip submitting a plan. As noted in
yesterday's snapshot,
Commissioner Robert Henke attempted to get an answer from the
Pentagon's Lee Hamilton to this question: "If the president announces
on February 27, 2009 the draw-down plan and we're on November 2nd, is
it possible that the contractor hasn't provided you any plan to adjust
staff accordingly?" Despite attempting to walk Hamilton through slowly
(after Hamilton rambled on with a non-answer reply) and despite asking,
"How is that possible?", Henke never got anything that would pass for
an answer to his questions.
This morning
Jen Dimascio (Politico -- link has text and audio) reports:
KBR,
the largest contractor in Iraq, is pulling out of that country so
slowly that it could end up costing American taxpayers $193 million
more than expected, according to a new Pentagon audit.Furthermore,
during a hearing Monday by the Commission on Wartime Contracting, a
legislative body set up to study contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan,
Commissioner Charles Tiefer said the company's plodding exit from Iraq
could cost even more -- up to $300 million.As noted
in yesterday's snapshot, that's only one portion of the story. Dimascio
notes a quote from Commissioner Dov Zakheim and you can see yesterday's
snapshot for that full exchange. From last night,
Kat's "
Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan"
covers the hearing and she shares some impression on Commissioner Chris
Shays hearing performance. But Dimascio covers one aspect of the big
news from yesterday's hearings -- and we did consider skipping it but
fortunately didn't because the Commission actually had their act
together yesterday (we is
Kat,
Ava,
Wally and myself) -- the other big news was the lack of completed plans.
For
the Pentagon, that's especially appalling and it's either an issue of
insubordination or the White House isn't really serious about a
draw-down. For the Pentagon, the refusal to submit their own plans or
demand that KBR draw up their own is appalling. Thompson declared in
the hearing that he visited with KBR most recently on September 25th or
26th and they still had no plans -- and Thompson was neither surprised
nor worried about the lack of planning.
In the US, Noor Faleh Almaleki has died. The 20-year-old Iraqi woman was intentionally run over October 20th (see the
October 21st snapshot)
while she and Amal Edan Khalaf were running errands (the latter is the
mother of Noor's boyfriend and she was left injured in the assault).
Police suspected Noor's father, Faleh Hassan Almaleki, of the assault
and stated the probable motive was that he felt Noor had become "too
westernized." As noted in the
October 30th snapshot,
Faleh Hassan Almaleki was finally arrested after going on the lamb --
first to Mexico, then flying to London where British authorities
refused him entry and he was sent back to the US and arrested in
Atlanta.
Karan Olson and CNN note that the judge has set the man's bail at $5 million.
Philippe Naughton (Times of London) adds,
"Noor died yesterday, having failed to recover consciousness after the
attack. The other woman, Amal Khalaf, was also seriously injured but is
expected to survive. "
Rachel Stockman and 12 News (link has text and video) supply this timeline:
October 20th -Around 2 p.m. Police say Faleh Almaleki ran down his daughter, friend. -Around 5 p.m. Nlets Alert with Almaleki's license plate and vehicle description goes out October 23rd -U.S. Customs and Border Protection notified. Addressing
the timeline, Rachel Stockman reports, "They allowed the suspect to
cross the border into Mexico so we wanted to know where the
communication broke down. What we found? Nlets, the system Peoria
police use to notify other authorities is not something US Customs
always checks."
Dustin Gardiner (Arizona Republic) quotes:
prosecutor Stephanie Low stating of the father, "By his own admission,
this was an intentional act and the reason was that his daughter had
brought shame on him and his family. This was an attempt at an honor
killing." Iraqi American
Romina Korkes offered her thoughts on the so-called 'honor' killing last week in a column for the
Arizona Republic.
Women
are attacked daily around the world. The attacks are dismissed. A large
number of men seem to think it's okay -- and a significant number of
women must agree since we're not in the streets marching -- and that
goes a long way towards explaining
Rory O'Connor's post at Media Channel -- a site not known for its 'inclusive' view of humanity (to put it mildly). Noting
Alissa J. Rubin's opinion piece from Sunday's New York Times (we noted it in
Friday's snapshot),
O'Connor goes on to rip her apart. Now let's be clear, Alissa J. Rubin
being a woman doesn't mean she can't be ripped apart nor are we
concerned about tone. She's never been good with math (we've called her
"teen queen" at this site) and she's been so wack that she's even been
called "crack whore" here. But what have we done that Rory O'Connor
doesn't? We've praised her, yes. She's earned a lot of praise over the
years here. But that's not it. He doesn't have to praise her and,
indeed, he may not find anything worth praising in her writing. That is
his opinion.
But where there's a problem
is that Alissa J. Rubin was never the paper's problem. On her bad days,
she jumbled the numbers and was too quick to believe things she
shouldn't have (such as the "Awakenings" being universally embraced in
areas they 'patrolled' or 'terrorized'). Her worst day never found her
as bad as John F. Burns or Dexter Filkins. I'm not seeing their names
mentioned by Rory. Those are the two worst offenders for what he's
demanding (truth). But they don't get called out. It's really strange
that so few women have worked in Baghdad for the New York Times
(others include Cara Buckley, Sabrina Tavernise, Erica Goode and, of
course, Judith Miller) but they're always the ones being ripped apart.
Not the males. The issue isn't that he called Rubin out. He's allowed
to. He can loathe her and rip her apart. The issue is that we haven't
seen that same standard applied to men.
This is the Judith Miller effect,
the bash the bitch craze,
we've long documented here. Judith Miller did not start a war. Judith
Miller was not responsible for the entire media landscape. She did not
twist the arms of PBS and NBC and Oprah to get air time. Those people
wanted her on their shows. She did not twist arms at the paper to land
on the front page, the paper wanted her on the front page. Judith
Miller was so WRONG about the Iraq War but she wasn't a liar -- at
least not on the big issue. She honestly believed their were WMD in
Iraq, that's why she commandeered a squadron while stationed in Iraq.
She's a lousy reporter, her 'facts' do not hold up. She needs to be
held accountable. But she often had co-writers -- such as Michael R.
Gordon who remains at the paper and who spent the second Bush term
advocating for war on Iran. Judith Miller was a reporter for one of the
top three papers in the country (at that time). If you saw her on TV,
she was invited on. If you heard her on radio, she was invited on. If
you read her in another paper, a decision was made to print her
article. It took a lot of people echoing the government (not all of
whom believed the lies the way Miller did) to start the war on Iraq, to
lie to the people. Miller was one person. Hold her accountable, no
question, but what about all the others?
The
pleasing lie (pleasing to a lot of members of the press corps) is that
Judith Miller, all by herself, lied the nation into war. Judith Miller
and others like her helped the US get into Iraq but grasp that
Dexter Filkins and John F. Burns
kept the US in Iraq. There are some who will kiss Dexy's butt because
of those bad, BAD, college campus appearances where he talks about (and
has done this for several years now) about how the Iraq War is lost and
how they knew it then and blah, blah, blah. That might have mattered.
If he'd done it in real time. But in real time, he was lying. In real
time, he was taking orders from the military -- as
Molly Bingham
long ago explained, Dexy even cancelled a meeting with the Iraqi
resistance when US military brass frowned. In real time, Dexy let the
US military vet his copy. That's reality. His
award winning 'reporting'?
Vetted by the US military. Vetted and delayed while it was vetted which
is why the paper ran it so many days after it was written.
I
have no problem with Judith Miller being called out -- and I've called
her out myself. But, look through the archvies, we've called out women
and we've called out men. We haven't worried about tone but we've made
damn sure that people were treated fairly -- even if that just meant
that abuse was heaped on equally.
I'm glad that someone at Media Channel remembered there is a war in Iraq and I'm glad that
Rory O'Connor wrote with fire.
But I'm also aware that Alissa J. Rubin, graded on any scale, qualifies
as one of the better reporters the paper's had in Iraq. And I'm also
aware that MediaChannel is more than happy to go after Katie Couric or
any other woman but I find very little in efforts to praise women or to
link to them. (Until O'Connor's column, which I heard about from a
friend at the
Times, I haven't visited MediaChannel since the efforts to distort
Marcia's
writing.) And if Alissa J. Rubin was Alan J. Rubin, I have to wonder
whether or not MediaChannel would even be weighing in? Again, it's been
a long, long time since they've made it known that they're aware of the
Iraq War.
This isn't a minor issue -- not
the silence on Iraq or the attacks on women. And, repeating, it's not
about tone. It's about fairness. We've ridiculed many women here and
will do so again and again and again. But we don't go to town on a
woman and refuse to on men. Todd S. Purdum is a better writer at Vanity Fair than he was at the Times -- that has to do with the differing role, the fact that he can write longer at Van Fair
and the differences between the outlets. But we went to town on Todd
(who I know offline) and did so because his work was as appalling as
Elisabeth Bumiller's columns (run in the news section but they were
columns) at that time. (Bumiller's done some strong reporting in the
last few years.) We went to town on her, we went to town on Todd. And
the fact that I knew him didn't prevent that nor did the fact that he
was a man make me think, "I shouldn't criticize." But there's a real
locker room mentality among the online critics where a man gets a pass
and another one and another one and, okay, let's make it about the
work. But a woman gets ripped apart. The ripping apart doesn't bother
me . . . if it's applied to both.
We've linked to Rory before and we'll
link to his post today one more time.
But it's really past time that a lot of online critics took a look what
they were doing. I'm not suggesting anyone change their style or tone
or make nice. I am suggesting that they make sure they treat people the
same -- regardless of gender. I do not believe Alissa J. Rubin was
treated the same as a male reporter would have been. I could be wrong,
I often am. But I'm saying my call on that goes to pattern:
MediaChannel's emphasis and the climate online.
