Columnists Frank Rich of The New York Times and Jon Spitz of the Mendocino County Observer comment on the Mukasey confirmation

From New York City (population 8,214,426) to Laytonville, California (population 1,301), the confirmation of Judge Michael Mukasey as our 81st Attorney General has our best columnists hopping mad.

Most of you know Frank Rich. Jon Spitz (photo) isn’t quite so well known, but I’m working on it. My first of what I hope are many posts featuring Jon’s columns appeared on October 23rd.

You may have already read Rich’s column, "The Coup at Home." He links Musharaff’s arrest of judges, lawyers, and human rights activists in Pakistan last week to Mukasey’s confirmation:

"Constitutional corners were cut in Washington in impressive synchronicity with General Musharraf’s crackdown in Islamabad."

You won’t read what Jon says about it unless you happen to buy The Mendocino County Observer this Thursday in Laytonville or go here. Titled “Truth or Dare,” Jon describes the awkward position Mukasey found himself in when asked if waterboarding is torture. His inability to answer this straightforward question didn’t bother six Democrats, who joined with the Republicans to confirm Mukasey last Friday.

There’s a lot more to Jon's column, and it’s as interesting and as well written as Frank Rich’s.

Is the New York Times leading us to (another) war?

The most important article I read yesterday was by Glenn Greenwald, commenting on the New York Times article, Michael Gordon trains his stenographer weapons on Iran. Late in the day, Greenwald updated his post to report that Gordon's article had been substantially edited, undoubtedly due to Greenwald’s comments.

In yesterday's post, Greenwald refers to a “Camp Victory Press Release,” which is described in a previous post, Our rotted press corps - a division of Camp Victory.

Bottom line: The New York Times is stating as fact what the military is telling it without checking or verifying the information. Greenwald describes Gordon’s article, U.S. Ties Iran to Deadly Iraq Attack, “…[T]he most war-fueling article yet with regard to Iran.”

We’ve been here before. This is what the New York Times did to build public support for attacking Iraq. If Glenn Greenwald and other bloggers continue to challenge the media’s unsubstantiated and unverified reporting of the military’s position that Iran is directly involved in “killing our soldiers” in Iraq, there’s a chance we won’t attack Iran.

Sidebar: Earlier today I posted What do skateboarding and blogging have in common?. I thought I ought to check out on blogging for the reasons I stated in my post, but my friend Janie Sheppard encouraged me to at least point to articles that I find worthwhile.

(photo: The Heretik)