Salon Radio: Matthew Yglesias

Greenwald: I want to begin by talking about, somewhat briefly, the discussion that you and I were involved in together that concerned the coverage that a lot of campaign reporters give to the campaign and specifically to the McCain campaign. And it began when Marc Ambinder, former colleague of yours at The Atlantic, wrote a post in which he was essentially pondering why it is that the McCain campaign is able to disseminate one blatant lie after the next without any real repercussions. And you made the point, with which I wholeheartedly agree, that missing from his analysis was a discussion of the role that campaign reporters such as himself play in the McCain campaign's ability to do that.

...

Yglesias: I think that people who get into the campaign coverage business, and are well-intentioned, quickly find out that it's a rotten to the core enterprise, and wind up leaving, and the only people who make it to the top are, they're sociopaths of some kind. (Salon.com)

H/T: didactic

Glenn Greenwald on "military analyst" story blackout

The Pentagon has posted to its website the roughly 8,000 pages and audio tapes it was forced to provide to the New York Times regarding its "military analyst" program. Anyone who reads through them, as I've now done, can only be left with one conclusion (other than being extremely impressed with David Barstow's work in putting together this story): if this wasn't an example of an illegal, systematic "domestic propaganda campaign" by the Pentagon, then nothing is. Despite this, the truly extraordinary blackout by the major television and cable news networks -- which were complicit in this program -- continues. Howard Kurtz of CNN and The Washington Post previously called this blackout "pathetic", and yesterday, The Politico published a relatively impressive article further documenting the "deafening silence" from the networks at the center of this story. (Salon.com)