Whenever a reporter cornered in an interview drops the ‘how dare you ask me, I have a Pulitzer, you know’, it’s game over. Risen venting bile and umbrage on his inferiors in the blogosphere who called bs on his non-story of Afghanistan’s vast mineral wealth a mini Rorschach.
“Bloggers should do their own reporting instead of sitting around in their pajamas,” Risen said.
“The thing that amazes me is that the blogosphere thinks they can deconstruct other people’s stories,” Risen told Yahoo! News during an increasingly hostile interview, which he called back to apologize for almost immediately after it ended. “Do you even know anything about me? Maybe you were still in school when I broke the NSA story, I don’t know. It was back when you were in kindergarten, I think.” (Risen and fellow Times reporter Eric Lichtblau shared a 2006 Pulitzer Prize for their reporting on the Bush administration’s secret wiretapping program; this reporter was 33 years old at the time.)
Priceless. We didn’t bother mentioning the original Risen piece because it was old news. The Chinese already signed an almost $100 billion deal to begin mining operations a while ago, and so on. Recycled news. To learn Milt Bearden helped launch the whole NYT recycling charade icing on the cake. Fact checking and editing at the Times understandably cut back to help subsidize the forthcoming pay wall and new, revised and marginally useful iPad app.
Was the Times story positioned before the Petreaus hearings this week as some allege? It follows the NYT’s time honored role of AgitProp leak platform from the last Administration. Risen denies it. Doesn’t matter. Petreaus collapsing on camera put short shrift to that ‘framing’ in any event.
Dr Leo Strauss says
@Comment
Yeah, that was Dan Burton. David Bossie was his Committee investigator IIRC. He was hard to predict – he now and then dug in pursuing bureaucratic bs and deception from the Bureau and State on a variety of issues. We used to work closely with Burton’s Committee CoS on a range of issues back in the day.
Oddly Burton in some ways was more effective than Tom Davis, who never bothered even trying to conduct any oversight and opened the bordello for industry. Davis couldn’t afford to stray far given the loathing from Delay, Armey and Hastert’s people as well as Rove et al. (Same went for David Dreier at Rules).
Comment says
Btw – we just recalled who the congressman was who was conducting that bizarre ‘investigation’ into those outrageous accusations/smears against HRC – Dan Burton. The fact that he admitted such strange doings is , in some ways, worse than what he did firing into the pumpkins. Anyway, he was too dim to know he was being used when he was denouncing other peoples history.
IMO – Present day Turks should not be blamed for what took place in the past any more than John McCain should be blamed for his great great grandpa owning slaves in Mississippi. People just want respect and recognition of their history.
Comment says
It’s sort of sad that history is just a bargaining position – The the cynicism is really sad because of the nature of the issue it hand. It’s not just some pork barrel project. Hey – here Sanger of supersoaker status showing he isn’t afraid to point to Obama pushing people around.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/18/us/18assess.html?hpw
re: Armenia – we actually though the shift would be more subtle and it would take place over time –
Dr Leo Strauss says
@Comment
Yes, indeed you did call this Armenian denouement at the outset. A good feel for the times.
Comment says
Leo – did we not predict this a while ago? Just a few years ago people at the NY Sun (while it existed) were heaping scorn on the very validity of the genocide. That dummy congressman who shot pumpkins in his basement to investigate HRC’s hit on Vince Foster said the genocide did not happen. NRO mocked recognition. Times change:
http://www.frumforum.com/congress-might-support-armenian-genocide-resolution
Comment says
That was a devastating piece showing Risen thin-skinned arrogant with arrogant Timesean presumption. He sincerely may have not known about McClatchy et al – After all, who ARE they?
We were suspicious of that story because we heard years ago that satellite imaging had helped to illuminate prior intel from the former Sovs and others that there were immense deposits hidden deep within.
So we figured any on ground wandering was really just to find what was already pretty much found with technical means.
Risen’s narrative sounded funny – just a bunch of crazy coincidences and hunches and good ‘ol American pluck …