The Washington Post has sunk to this level.
Photo: a kingdom for a donkey

It's no big secret that the Washington Post has been a corrupt, partisan, rightist, unpatriotic, and unreliable news source for some time, especially when it comes to the lies of wealthy and powerful Republicans.

However, a 12/3/10 editorial by this propaganda rag attacking the movie "Fair Game" which explores the crimes committed by the Bush regime against Valerie Plame and Joe Wilson took things to astonishing extremes.

The only grudging admiration I can offer the Post's editorial board was its efficiency. They managed to pack so many lies into such short sections of text with a ruthless efficiency that the paper seldom devotes to actual new reporting.

Lies (3):

The movie portrays Ms. Plame as having cultivated a group of Iraqi scientists and arranged for them to leave the country, and it suggests that once her cover was blown, the operation was aborted and the scientists were abandoned. This is simply false. In reality, as The Post's Walter Pincus and Richard Leiby reported, Ms. Plame did not work directly on the program, and it was not shut down because of her identification.

Facts:

1) Ms. Plame did work directly on the program.

2) There was no claim that the entire program was shut down. The claim was that CIA front company that Plame was involved with was shut down.

3) That company was shut down, and the lives of its employees were endangered.

Lies (7):

The movie portrays Mr. Wilson as a whistle-blower who debunked a Bush administration claim that Iraq had tried to purchase uranium from the African country of Niger. In fact, an investigation by the Senate intelligence committee found that Mr. Wilson's reporting did not affect the intelligence community's view on the matter, and an official British investigation found that President George W. Bush's statement in a State of the Union address that Britain believed that Iraq had sought uranium in Niger was well-founded.

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Facts:

1) Joseph Wilson was a whitle-blower.

2) He debunked the claim that Iraq had tried to buy uranium from Niger.

3) The entire US intelligence community knew that the claim was false.

4) George W. Bush and the rest of his administration deliberately lied when they made the claim.

5) The Senate intelligence committee's "investigation" was a fraudulent, partisan, GOP sham.

6) The British "investigation" was a white wash designed to protect Tony Blair from political scrutiny and criminal prosecution.

7) The Downing Street Memos prove beyond any shadow of a doubt that both the US and British Government knew that there was no Iraqi nuclear program.

Lies (4):

"Fair Game" also resells the couple's story that Ms. Plame's exposure was the result of a White House conspiracy. A lengthy and wasteful investigation by a special prosecutor found no such conspiracy - but it did confirm that the prime source of a newspaper column identifying Ms. Plame was a State Department official, not a White House political operative.

Facts:

1) The supposed "investigation" was conducted by Patrick Fitzgerald, a highly partisan and politically connected Republican who took Bush regime claims at face value rather than running a real investigation.

2) It is physically impossible for a newspaper column to be the prime source of information on this. Insider information was needed for Robert Novak to make his treasonous revelations.

3) The sources of the leak were in the Bush regime.

4) The leaks were coordinated by Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, and probably other Bush regime officials.

Lies (2):

Though it was long ago established that Mr. Wilson himself was not telling the truth - not about his mission to Niger and not about his wife - the myth endures.

Facts:

1) Joe Wilson did tell the truth about the war.

2) Joe Wilson did tell the truth about his wife.

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The Washington Post really is trying to out Moonie the Moonie owned Washington Times.

I should note that the facts I have pointed out have been widely and publicly known for several years for now. There is no possible way that the Washington Post could not be aware of them.

The dishonesty is yet another example of the corporate media's Judith Miller style approach to "journalism." "Reporters," pundits, and editorial boards act as stenographers for the lies of the wealthy and the powerful, especially when those lies get our country into illegal, corrupt, and genocidal wars. I can't imagine why anyone would subscribe to the Washington Post. Why pay to be lied to in a way that only serves to insult one's intelligence?