‘U.S. Government Uses Terrorism As It’s Excuse To Do Almost EVERYTHING’ says Glenn Greenwald

And he's totally correct, and it spans the two dominant parties controlling the country via their corporate ownership.

Gangster State US/UK

Paul Craig Roberts

Recently I wrote about how the US reversed roles with the USSR and became the tyrant that terrifies the world. We have now had further confirmation of that fact. It comes from two extraordinary actions by Washington’s British puppet state.

David Miranda, the Brazilian partner of Glenn Greenwald, who is reporting on the illegal and unconstitutional spying by the National Stasi Agency, was seized, no doubt on Washington’s orders, by the puppet British government from the international transit zone of a London airport. Miranda had not entered the UK, but he was seized by UK authorities.  Washington’s UK puppets simply kidnapped him, threatened him for nine hours, and stole his computer, phones, and all his electronic equipment. As a smug US official told the media, “the purpose was to send a message.”

You might remember that Edward Snowden was stuck for some weeks in the international transit zone of the Moscow airport. Obama;s Administration repeatedly browbeat Russia’s President Putin to violate the law and kidnap Snowden for Obama. Unlike the once proud and law-abiding British, Putin refused to place Washington’s desires above law and human rights.

The second extraordinary violation occurred almost simultaneously with UK authorities appearing at the Guardian newspaper and illegally destroying the hard drives on the newspaper’s computers with the vain intention of preventing the newspaper from reporting further Snowden revelations of US/UK high criminality.

It is fashionable in the US and UK governments and among their sycophants to speak of “gangster state Russia.” But we all know who the gangsters are. The worst criminals of our time are the US and UK governments. Both are devoid of all integrity, all honor, all mercy, all humanity. Many members of both governments would have made perfect functionaries in Stalinist Russia or Nazi Germany.

This is extraordinary. It was the English who originated liberty. True, in 1215 it was the freedom of the barons’ rights from the king’s infringement, not the freedom of the commoner. But once the principle was established it spread into the entire society. By 1680 the legal revolution was complete. The king and the government were subject to law. The king and his government were no longer the law and above the law.

In the 13 colonies the Englishmen who populated them inherited this English achievement. When King George’s government refused the colonies the Rights of Englishmen, the colonists revolted, and the United States was born.

The descendants of these colonists now live in an America where their Constitutional protections have been overthrown by a tyrannical government that claims it is above the law. This raw fact has not stopped the US government or its puppets from continuing to cloak the war crime of military aggression in the faux language of “bringing freedom and democracy.” If the Obama and Cameron governments were in the dock at Nuremberg, the entirety of both governments would be convicted.

The question is: are there sufficient brainwashed people in both countries to sustain the US/UK myth that “freedom and democracy” are attained via war crimes?

There is no shortage of brainwashed Americans who love to be told that they are “indispensable” and “exceptional,” and therefore entitled to work their will on the world. It is difficult to discern in these clueless Americans much hope for the revival of liberty. But there is some indication that the British, who did not inherit liberty but had to fight for it for five centuries, might be more determined.

The British Home Affairs Committee, chaired by Keith Vaz, is demanding an explanation from Obama’s lap dog, the British prime minister. Also, Britain’s watchman over anti-terrorism enforcement, David Anderson, is demanding that the UK Home Office and police explain the illegal use of anti-terrorism laws against Miranda, who is not a terrorist or connected to terrorism in any way.

Brazil’s foreign minister has joined the fray, demanding that London explain why the UK violated its own law and abused a Brazilian citizen.

Of course, everyone knows that Washington forced its UK puppet to violate law in order to serve Washington. One wonders if the British will ever decide that they would be better off as a sovereign country.

The White House denied involvement in Miranda’s kidnapping, but refused to condemn the illegal action of its puppet.

As for the UK’s destruction of press freedom, the White House supports that, too. It is already happening here.

Meanwhile, get accustomed to the police state.

Tearing Apart the Propaganda Driving the Insane Push for War With Iran

There are similarities in the run up to the Iraq war, but there is also a key difference -- this time, the driving force for the push for war with Iran isn't Washington.
By Joshua Holland, AlterNet
Posted on March 6, 2012

Iran is diplomatically isolated, has a weak and antiquated military relative to Israel and the United States, and its economy is being squeezed hard by international sanctions. The consensus among both American and Israeli intelligence agencies is that an attack on the country would be disastrous, and might lead to a regional nuclear arms race.

But that view seems to have a limited impact on the mainstream discourse surrounding Iran. Last week, Glenn Greenwald, writing on Salon, noted that for months, “Americans have been subjected to this continuous, coordinated, repetitive messaging from israeli officials, amplified through the US media.”

This is generally how the establishment American media conducts the debate over whether to attack Iran: here are Israeli officials explaining why an attack is urgent and why the US must conduct it. Now here are American officials explaining why an attack can wait a little while longer but that it will happen if necessary to stop Iran from having a nuclear weapon.

Greenwald appeared on this week's AlterNet Radio Hour to discuss the push for war with Iran. The transcript of his interview has been lightly edited for print.

Joshua Holland: Are we seeing the same kind of run-up to war with Iran as we saw in 2003 during the lead-up to our attack on Iraq?



Glenn Greenwald: There are obvious similarities. The claims basically are the same. The principal claim in the lead-up to the war in Iraq was that Iraq was developing weapons of mass destruction, specifically nuclear weapons. This was the claim that probably made the most number of people willing to support it. That is the same claim being made about Iran -- that they are too developing nuclear weapons, even though American intelligence agencies and virtually everybody else, including Israeli intelligence, says there is no evidence that Iran has actually decided to build a nuclear weapon.

It’s their nuclear program that is causing the concern. I think the core similarity is that we are talking about a nation that hasn’t attacked any other nation and that isn’t threatening to attack any other nation. So it’s not a preemptive war; it’s actually a preventative war. That's what the Iraq war was, and the Iran war would be.

I think the big difference though is that the run-up to the attack on Iraq was really driven by the US government. The Bush administration conceived this war, decided they wanted to do it, and then pushed for it, whereas I think the Obama administration is clearly pretty reluctant about involving itself in a war with Iran, and is instead being led by Israel and various neo-conservative factions in the US to push the US government into this war. That’s a pretty big difference. The US government is not in the lead in disseminating this; in beating the war drum.

JH: Now just to establish a baseline of reality, Iran is a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and the IAEA has suspended its right to process uranium, but only pending certain inquiries that they have. There are unsettled issues. Can you unpack the status today?

GG: It is true that Iran is a signatory to the NPT, and one of the core provisions of that treaty that induced so many non-nuclear power states to sign on was that they have the absolute right to develop nuclear programs for energy and civilian purposes. Part of the obligation of the treaty members is that they subject themselves to inspections by the IAEA to make sure that whatever nuclear research they have is not being geared toward weapons development.

Now that is the most important fact about Iran. Iran has completely opened up all of its nuclear facilities to the IAEA. There are inspectors on the ground at each of its nuclear facilities, and it’s impossible for Iran to develop a nuclear weapon without it being immediately known to the inspection regime that’s on the ground. The IAEA is doing a careful job in making sure there are certain processes that aren’t being invoked in terms of uranium and plutonium enrichment that would be a signal that Iran is going in the direction of weaponizing their nuclear power. They do have some questions, but the IAEA has never concluded that there’s evidence that Iran is building a nuclear weapon. It is true that the IAEA has expressed concerns, it’s their job to express concerns, but there’s no definitive conclusion.

JH: I want to also talk about the likely outcome of an attack on Iran, whether it was from the Israeli Air Force or with the assistance of the United States. I feel like in our discourse it’s assumed, given our technological superiority and Israel’s technological superiority, they could simply wipe out their nuclear capacity like they did in Iraq in 1981.

Ephraim Halevy, Mossad director until 2002, said, “An attack on Iran could affect not only Israel but the entire region for 100 years.” He said that while Iran should certainly be prevented from becoming a nuclear power, its capabilities are, “far from an existential threat.” His successor, Meir Dagan said, “A military attack will give the Iranians the best excuse to pursue the nuclear race.” He called possibility of an Air Force attack on the Iranian nuclear facilities, “the stupidest thing I have ever heard.”

Isn’t there this huge disconnect between these opinions and our media’s portrayal of the likely outcomes? Are we being given an idea of what is at risk here?

GG: One of the things that traditionally happens in American political discourse about war is that it is often depicted as this very clinical, clean and easy mission. The reason it’s able to be sold that way is because such a small portion of the population actually has any experience with war because American wars are fought with such a tiny fraction of the population actually anywhere near the scene of the combat. I do think Americans have this image of war being something where you send drone planes, or even manned aircraft, over Iran and drop a few bombs and their nuclear program is destroyed. The reality is much different as those quotes you just read from those Mossad officials indicate.

I think there is an even broader point. There’s an interesting op-ed in the Washington Post from Colin Kahl (here), who is a former Pentagon official under the Obama administration, who explained that the Israeli attack in 1981 on a nuclear facility in Iraq -- which at the time Iraqis said was only for civilian purposes but the Israelis said it was going to be used to build a bomb -- actually completely backfired. It turned out that in 1981, when the Israelis attacked Iraq and dropped bombs on that Iraqi facility, Saddam was nowhere close to building a bomb, and it was that attack that made him realize that the only way he would ever get respect on the world stage was by developing a nuclear weapon. In 1991 when the Americans were able to overrun Iraq and drive them out of Kuwait they were able to get access to some of those labs and were shocked to discover just how close Iraq was to actually building a nuclear weapon. This is really what we’re doing. Through this aggression, through these constant threats, we’re making the motivation very high for these states to develop nuclear weapons.

The task that the Israelis had in 1981 was extremely difficult: to fly to Iraq and destroy that nuclear facility. The task of doing that to Iran is infinitely more difficult. There’s a far greater distance; it stretches the refueling ability of Israeli jets. There are numerous nuclear facilities, not just one, dispersed throughout the country. Some of them are very far under mountainous regions, embedded into mountains that would require extreme levels of explosives to get to. The outcome is completely unpredictable, which is what those military planners and Mossad officials are afraid of. Iran has a much greater retaliatory capability than the Iraqis had. So what you’re talking about is a major, major attack that would probably involve lots of ground activity as well as air activity, and that very well may not set back the Iranian nuclear program at all. It may have the opposite effect of accelerating it.

JH: I think it would also unify the country around the Iranian regime, wouldn’t it?

GG: That’s probably the worst reason to do it. The reality is a lot of times in the American media discussion we like to depict the Iranian opposition as this pro-Western, liberalized political faction, and to some extent they are. But the reality is that all political factions are staunchly in favor of continuing with the nuclear program on the grounds that Iran has the absolute right to develop a nuclear energy program, and governments around the world agree with Iran on that.

If you look at what happened with the September 11th attack, which was a one-day attack by non-state actors, the entire country, including huge numbers of people who had previously strongly disliked George Bush and the Republican Party, unified around the government and around its leader, which was George Bush and Dick Cheney and the Republican Party. That’s what happens whenever a nation is attacked by an external force. So nothing could be better for the hard-line conservative mullahs and ruling elite in Iran then for it to be attacked by some combination of Israel and the United States. It would completely save them from the rising citizen discontent over the economy and other factors by unifying them behind those conservative leaders. Not just in Iran but in the entire Arab world.

JH: The consensus in the intelligence community in both the United States and Israel is that Iran is not trying to produce nuclear weapons. Most analysts believe that they are trying to reach so-called “breakout capacity” where they can produce a nuclear weapon if they choose. Yet I’ve seen dozens of news stories in the American media that take it as a given that Iran is pursing nuclear weapons and not just trying to achieve that breakout capacity.

I want to talk a little bit about this idea. You quote a New York Times article by Israeli journalist Roland Bergman in January. In his lead, he wrote, “The Iranians are, after all, a nation whose leaders have set themselves a strategic goal of wiping Israel out.” This seems to be a central part of the propaganda push. It’s the idea that whereas deterrence was enough to prevent nuclear armageddon during the Cold War when we were facing off with the Soviet Union (which had equal capacity, or at least some semblance of parity), mutually assured destruction would not be an effective deterrent with these “mad mullahs” because they don’t mind being martyrs and hanging out with 71 virgins in the case of a retaliatory attack from Israel.

Tell me about this assumption that they’re somehow beyond human concern for their own lives and the lives of their citizens.

GG: Think about how incredibly deceitful this is in such obvious ways. For one thing, if the Iranians were this regime that wanted to exterminate Jews, and didn’t care what the repercussions were, there’s a very easy way for them to get a really good start on that which is to take the 25,000 Iranian Jews who are living quite peacefully and prosperously inside of Iran and simply round them up and kill them. Yet that doesn’t happen. I don’t want to depict this in this incredibly romanticized way, but there’s an Iranian Jew in Iran’s Parliament, they have freedom of religion in that country, and they exercise most of the civic rights of citizenship. So if Iran were some sort of second coming of the Nazis, none of that would be true.

More to the point, if you want to posit that a country is essentially suicidal, let’s be very clear: if Iran were to use nuclear weapons against Israel or the United States its obliteration as a country would basically be guaranteed. Israel has a second strike capability. You could launch nuclear weapons at Israel and they have all kinds of devices that are guaranteed to destroy whatever country had done it. The United States would certainly be involved in that as well. So you’re talking about literally positing the idea, if you don’t believe containment is possible of a nuclear-armed Iran, that they are literally suicidal and are willing to risk the complete destruction and annihilation of their country.

If that were true, one would presumably see evidence of that at some point in the last 31 years since the Iranian Revolution installed these mullahs in power. Yet there’s none of that. Iran has not during that time even invaded another country, unlike Israel and the United States which has invaded and bombed many. They have been very shrewd and calculating about cultivating alliances around the world with China, Russia and other countries like Venezuela. They’ve been very calculated and very cunning about holding onto power. These are leaders who have demonstrated repeatedly that they care about the things that typically political leaders care about, which is maximizing their power and ensuring their own continuation. That’s the ultimately rational mentality that the Iranian leaders have displayed.

JH: Continuing on this theme, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad certainly makes some explosive statements. I think he’s a right-wing religious fanatic. I think right-wing religious fundamentalists are inherently dangerous, whatever their religion and culture. But it’s important for people to understand that he doesn’t have control over the Iranian military, does he?


GG: No. The person who runs all of Iran, especially its foreign and military policies, has the title Supreme Leader. I think that title is self-explanatory. Ahmadinejad may be the third or fourth most powerful person in the country, if that. In fact there were just elections [last weekend] in which most of his allies were defeated at the polls, including his own sister who was running for Iranian Parliament. He’s been weakened by rivals in all kinds of ways.

Let’s just take a step back and look at the broader context. Oftentimes much is made of the comment “we want to see Israel wiped off the map.” If you look at some of the United States’ closest allies in that region, the ones we arm, fund and help prop up, bolster and protect, those countries are run by far-right-wing religious fanatics -- countries like Saudi Arabia and others as well.

If you go to the Web site of the United Arab Emirates, one of the closest American allies for quite some time, you will see on their immigration page a statement that no Israeli immigrants are permitted, and the word “Israelis” is in quotes, because they don’t recognize the right of that country to exist. They believe that the right map of the world is one that excludes Israel. This is true for many countries in that region.

So Ahmadinejad, although he tends to be more flamboyant, obnoxious and offensive in his political rhetoric -- it's just the kind of politician that he is -- is basically reciting what is standard political doctrine among many of these extremist Muslim states. Which is that Israel is not a legitimate state and that the policy goal of these Muslim states is to remove it from that map, to eliminate it.

But that is universes away from suggesting that they would militarily attack Israel in order to eradicate it, and it’s even more universes away from the idea that they would be able to do so without destroying themselves. So one of the things that a smart, civilized and strong power does is it looks at the political rhetoric and decides what it needs to take seriously and what it doesn’t. The idea that simply because Iran doesn’t believe in Israel’s right to exist means that they need to attack, or that there’s an existential threat to Israel is absurd, given how common that sentiment is in that part of the world.


JH: I certainly don’t want to defend Ahmadinejad, but Juan Cole, a Middle East scholar, does say that this was a quote from Ayatollah Khomeini. That it was something he said in the '70s and it was taken out of context.

I want to talk a little about the US position. You wrote this week that in his interview with Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg, Barack Obama, “issued his most absolute and inflexible threat yet to attack Iran — not if Iran attacks or is about to attack another country, but merely if it appears to be developing a nuclear weapon.” I wonder isn’t that quite a bit of difference? A significant difference from the Israeli position, which is that the attempt to reach breakout capacity is itself unacceptable? Here we have Obama saying that only when they attempt to make a weapon will the US find that that’s a red line that’s being crossed.

GG: Well, there have been some mixed signals on this from the Obama administration in terms of what the “red line” is, which means basically the point beyond which Iran cannot go without prompting a US attack. There have been statements from Hillary Clinton and others in the administration that have used the Israeli formulation that it is “unacceptable for Iran to develop a nuclear weapons capability,” meaning the ability to develop a nuclear weapon in some short period of time, the breakout capacity that you have talked about.

President Obama, however, has been careful to define the red line as being the pursuit of a nuclear weapon. The decision to build a nuclear weapon, and then the action taken toward its construction. Now that’s the reason that Israel and the United States are currently at loggerheads. It’s because Israel is arguing that if a certain point in time passes it will then become impossible for them to attack Iran themselves any longer, because Iran will have the capability to develop a nuclear weapon and will be sufficiently fortified from Israeli military capabilities to prevent an Israeli attack. They would essentially be dependent on the United States, and Israel is saying we don’t want to be in a position where we’re dependent upon the United States to do this for us. We don’t want to wait.

And Obama is saying you shouldn’t be worried about that because I’m giving you my absolute word, I’m issuing this threat, that if Iran ever starts developing a nuclear weapon we will attack. In that interview with Jeffrey Goldberg, he said, "I think I’ve proven that as president I don’t bluff."

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CNN anchors attack the scourge of anonymity

BY GLENN GREENWALD |  SATURDAY, JUL 24, 2010 (updated below - Update II)

CNN's Kyra Phillips and John Roberts spent a good five minutes yesterday expressing serious concern over what they called "the dark side" of the Internet:  the plague of "anonymous bloggers" who are "a bunch of cowards" for not putting their names on what they say, and who use this anonymity to spread "conspiracy," "lunacy," "extremism" and false accusations (video below).   The segment included excerpts from an interview with Andrew Keene, author of Cult of the Amateur:  How Today's Internet is Killing our Culture, who explained that the Real Media must serve as "gatekeepers" to safeguard the public against the dangers of anonymity on the Internet.  Roberts demanded that bloggers should "have the courage at the very least to put your name on it," while Phillips announced:  "something is going to have to be done legally. . . . these people have to be held accountable, they're a bunch of cowards."

These CNN journalists have a very good point, of course:  it was, after all, Internet bloggers -- using the scourge of anonymity -- who convinced the nation of a slew of harmful conspiracy theories:  Saddam had WMD,an alliance with Al Qaeda, and responsibility for the anthrax mailings.  Anonymity is also what allowed bloggers to smear Richard Jewell, Wen Ho Lee, and Steven Hatfill with totally false accusations that destroyed their lives and reputation, and it's what enabled bloggers to lie to the nation about Jessica Lynch's heroic firefight, countless U.S. airstrikes, and a whole litany of ongoing lies about our current wars.  And remember when anonymous bloggers spewed all sorts of nasty, unaccountable bile about Sonia Sotomayor's intellect and temperament?  Just as Roberts lamented, blogs -- as a result of anonymity -- are the "Wild West of the Internet . . . . like a giant world-wide bathroom wall where you can write anything about anyone."

Indeed, what's especially noble about establishment media journalists such as those on CNN, what vests them with so much deserved Credibility, is how much they hate anonymity because of how cowardly and unaccountable it is.  There are several examples from the last 24 hours alone which demonstrate these high journalistic standards.  Here is a Washington Post article from yesterday by Philip Rucker on the criticisms of the Obama administration from the Left:

"As a party, we respect the role that people like [Markos Moulitsas] and his blog play and understand that their role is to try to push the envelope further than it might be pushed otherwise," said a senior Democratic official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "This has been the busiest and most successful Congress since the Great Depression and it's been accomplished with big majorities. I don't think anyone can argue that it would be better if Democrats are in the minority or have smaller majorities."

So there, the Post granted anonymity to a "senior Democratic official" in order to reveal how great the Democratic Party is and how vital it is that they win as many seats as possible in the election.  Then there's this U.S. News & World Report article from yesterday on Newt Gingrich's presidential run:

Conservatives we talked to said that Gingrich is on to a good political issue should he run for the presidency. "Newt is going to be a very strong candidate," said one supporter, a Washington political strategist and fundraiser.

There, U.S. News granted anonymity to a supporter of Gingrich to say what a strong candidate Gingrich is.  And then there's this extremely important and probing article from The New York Times today on the hurt feelings which many friends of Bill and Hillary Clinton (i.e., their large donors) are experiencing as a result of not having been invited to Chelsea's wedding:

"I'm good enough to borrow a plane from, but not good enough to be invited to the wedding?” complained one Clinton friend, who remembered the times he handed over his jet and his pilot to take Bill Clinton around the country but had not landed a coveted invitation to Chelsea Clinton’s nuptials. . . . "I'm sure there are some people who are lobbying discreetly," said someone who has known the Clintons for decades. "If they're on the list, they will ballyhoo it quietly, and if they’re not on the list, their noses will be out of joint. I know some people whose noses are out of joint." (Like most F.O.B.'s -- Friends of Bill -- the person did not want to be quoted by name, swearing by the wedding’s code of silence.) . . . "It's not a political rally, it's not a state affair," said one longtime Clinton supporter who was not invited but was still nervous about upsetting the former president. 

Click here to see but one of countless examples of how much CNN itself hates cowardly anonymity.  The catty, harmful insults in the 2004 campaign that John Kerry "looks French" and John Edwards is the "Breck Girl" were introduced to the public by The New York Times' Adam Nagourney, quoting an anonymous Bush aide.  And, of course, pick any random Politico article from any day which shapes cable news coverage and Washington chatter for the week, and it's certain to be based in this formula:  one anonymous person said X and another anonymous person denied this.

At least anonymous bloggers are very clear and truthful about what they are:  often citizens whose jobs or other interests prevent them from attaching their names to their political expression.  By stark contrast, all of these establishment media outlets perpetrate a total fraud on the public by pretending that they have standards for when anonymity will be used even though, as these examples from the last 24 hours alone prove, they routinely violate those alleged standards for absolutely no reason.  It just never ceases to amaze how much establishment journalists like Roberts and Phillips love to rail against the Evils of Internet Anonymity when reckless, cowardly anonymity -- for purposes ranging from catty, trivial gossip to pernicious propaganda and everything in between -- is a central tool of their "profession" and of the political class they cover.

[The most noteworthy part of this segment might actually have come toward the end, when Roberts -- out of absolutely nowhere -- volunteered this creepy confession: "I always caution young people: never post a naked photograph of yourself on the Internet"; if there's anything needing greater attention, it might be Roberts' bizarre propensity for walking around starting conversations with "young people" about that].

UPDATE:  As several commenters noted, this is the same Kyra Phillips responsible for one of the more disgusting television moments of the last decade.  In April, 2003, she interviewed the doctor treating Ali Abbas, a 12-year-old Iraqi boy who had just lost 15 relatives, including his father, pregnant mother and three siblings, as well as both of his arms, in an errant American missile strike on the Baghdad suburb where he lived.  While this child had burns all over his body, some of them infected, putting him in constant pain, Phillips asked his doctor this question:

Doctor, does he understand why this war took place? Has he talked about Operation Iraqi Freedom and the meaning? Does he understand it?

As Joan Walsh put it at the time:  Phillips asked this "question" after the doctor explained that Ali said he hopes no other "children in the war will suffer like what he suffered"; "Phillips seemed shocked by Ali's apparent inability to understand we were only trying to help him."  Walsh wrote that the boy's physician had "to explain [to Phillips] that the doctors were more interested in treating the boy than indoctrinating him:  'Actually, we don't discuss this issue with him because he is -- the burn cases, and the type of injury, he's in very bad psychological trauma'."  I have no doubt that Kyra "Operation Iraqi Freedom" Phillips would be eager to explain to you how she -- unlike those hordes of wretched, anonymous, partisan Internet bloggers -- is an Objective Journalist who doesn't allow any opinions to infect her "reporting."  Of course, since the opinions she expresses are the Right Ones, she -- unlike Octavia Nasr -- still has a job on CNN, crusading for High Journalistic Standards.

UPDATE II:  Jim Henley notes the other strange aspect of this whole episode:  Phillips and Roberts used the fraudulent Shirley Sherrod video as their jumping off point to attack "anonymous bloggers," but, as Henley says:  "Andrew Breitbart is a lot of things, but 'anonymous' is none of them. The Sherrod lie got as far as it did because, in CNN-spokesmodel circles, Breitbart is a celebrity. A trusted brand. That's why everyone from the Emm Ess Emm to the Obama administration jumped on the lie so quickly."  Indeed, the Sherrod episode negates rather than bolsters the point about anonymity which the CNN readers thought they were making, since the primary culprit in that fraud used his real name.

People spill a lot of ink on complex explanations for the profound flaws of the establishment media, but often, the proximate cause is simply the pure denseness of media stars (though they are chosen to be media stars by the corporations that own them because of, not despite, this denseness, which leads back to the more complex questions about what establishment media outlets are and the functions they intend to fulfill).