Keith Olbermann's Edward R. Murrow^* moment: A Textbook Definition of Cowardice. MSNBC's host excoriates Bush, FOX News host Chris Wallace, and the media for its response to former president Clinton's "tantrum" [still being discussed here]. Note: Don't just read the transcript. Watch the video, because Olbermann's use of visuals adds greatly to the power of his presentation. No matter which side of the red/blue-state divide you're on, students of politics and media will be reviewing this clip for years to come as a little cultural watershed -- if only a consummate example of "Democrat" anger^TM.
posted on Sep 26, 2006 - View this thread

Osama threatens attacks, offers truce Now THIS should be interesting. Do we deal with terrorists or take a chance of another 9/11?
posted on Jan 19, 2006 - View this thread

Osama bin Laden, littérateur and new-media star. A thought-provoking analysis of bin Laden's adept use of Koranic language and the Internet by Bruce B. Lawrence, an Islamic scholar at Duke who edited a new anthology of bin Laden's public statements called Messages to the World. The Western media -- says the millionaire mass-murderer formerly trained as a useful ally by the CIA via Pakistan's ISI -- "implants fear and helplessness in the psyche of the people of Europe and the United States. It means that what the enemies of the United States cannot do, its media are doing!" Know thy enemy. [via Arts and Letters Daily.]
posted on Nov 3, 2005 - View this thread

Taking Stock of the Forever War. "A terrorist leader four years ago, Osama bin Laden is now an ideology as well — and a viral movement. Terrorist attacks worldwide are on the rise. Iraq could well end up a 'failed' state. Maybe it's time to stop fighting on their terms." Also, Osama bin Laden: Lost at Tora Bora. (bugmenot)
posted on Sep 10, 2005 - View this thread

Osama bin Laden: missed opportunities The question for the 9/11 commission: If the CIA was able to get that close to bin Laden before 9/11, why wasn’t he captured or killed? The videotape has remained secret until now.
posted on Mar 16, 2004 - View this thread

An excellent piece of media analysis by Michael Wolff in New York Magazine looking at the current summer-movie-plot version of Al Qaeda being artfully constructed by the NY Times ...
Then, perhaps most disconcertingly, the overall narrative itself is patently a dumbed-down rehash. It's Cold War stuff. There is the ubiquitous and yet unknown and unknowable enemy. There's the international jihad, which, with only minor adjustments, replaces the international communist conspiracy. There's the sudden purported hegemony of the Muslim world -- a new Soviet-bloc-style ideological monolith. There is the otherworldly dedication of operatives bent on overthrowing the West. There are the cells. There is the myth of superhuman discipline. There is now, even, the developing Kremlinology of the next tier of men who replace Osama. And at the center of the story, of course, is the bomb. Whether in massive retaliatory form or as a dirty-bomb package, it serves the same effect.
(link cribbed from Altercation)
posted on Jul 1, 2002 - View this thread

From a piece in the NYTimes today, Home Front Is Minefield for President: "The lesson we're learning," one administration official said today, "is that you can bomb the wrong place in Afghanistan and not take much heat for it. But don't mess up at the post office."

Leave it to the White House to come away with exactly the wrong interpretation. But the facts are there, too -- most Americans are more concerned about the (relatively slight) risk of getting Anthrax than the rather significant risk that, if we screw up in Afghanistan, we might lose the current coalition against terrorism, Bin Laden, and any hope for "homeland security" for a long time to come....
posted on Oct 25, 2001 - View this thread

US to give detailed evidence of Bin Laden's Involvement. Apparently the US government does have enough evidence to hang Osama, but they're not telling just anyone ... you have to be part of NATO or the Pakistan government to get in on the info.
posted on Oct 3, 2001 - View this thread

"Umm, hi, Mum, I'm not going to be able to make lunch today..."
More evidence that Bin Laden is indeed the guilty party. (NYT link)
posted on Oct 2, 2001 - View this thread

Cancer, and Carcinogens "This event is not an isolated instance of violence. This is not an 'act of war.' It is one symptom of a cancer that threatens to metastasize."
posted on Sep 13, 2001 - View this thread