Yesterday, Glenn Greenwald tore apart a piece of stenographic PR that ran in the Washington Post. Titled "Obama Team Says Zazi Case Illustrates Balanced Approach to Terror Threat", Post reporter Anne Kornblut related the surprising, blockbuster news that the Obama White House thinks that they are doing a great job protecting the nation from terrorist threats -- thanks for pretending to have asked! You could literally obtain a more substantive scoop by trailing Bo on his daily walks with a plastic baggie.
Greenwald puts the most comedic aspect of Kornblut's story into stark relief:
Here are all of Kornblut's cited sources for the article -- every last one of them -- in the order she cites them:
Obama aides pointed . . . administration officials said . . . a senior administration official said . . . officials said . . . a senior administration official said . . . senior Obama officials stressed . . . a senior administration official said . . . aides said . . . officials said . . . one senior administration official said. . . . one senior official said. . . . The official said . . . a senior administration official said . . . a senior administration official said . . . administration officials said . . . . a senior official said.
An entire article that hangs on the ghostly whispers of unnamed sources? Wasn't this the sort of thing the Post was going to stop doing?
Greenwald does a fine job rebutting the White House's anonymous claims that they have successfully "turn[ed] the page on Bush-era anti-terrorism policies." I recommend that you hie thee to Salon to read about it in full. I'll only add that what the administration, by not signing their names to their own self-congratulatory outbursts, are following a familiar pattern, where White House officials ask to "receive credit for 'keeping America safe' without having to take responsibility for the means by which this supposed 'safety' was achieved." Hmmm. I wonder who else I've said that about?
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