Official Washington’s “conventional wisdom” is a pernicious fact of life in the U.S. capital as various presumed realities reverberate through the echo chamber of policymakers and journalists. Conventional wisdom is especially dangerous when what-everybody-knows-is-true isn’t, as ex-CIA analyst Paul R.…
Category: Right Wing
The Almost Scoop on Nixon’s ‘Treason’
From the Archive: Former Vietnam War correspondent Beverly Deepe Keever has just published a memoir, Death Zones & Darling Spies, in which she addresses her almost scoop on Richard Nixon’s 1968 sabotage of the Vietnam peace talks, a story that…
The Right’s Re-Branding, 1860 to 1776
Exclusive: A new poll says 44 percent of Republicans believe “an armed revolution” may be needed in the next few years “to protect liberties,” proof of the Right’s success in re-branding itself with Revolutionary War symbols and fueling paranoia about the elected…
Pushing for War with Syria
Exclusive: The dam holding back pressure for U.S. war in Syria is giving way with President Obama like the little Dutch boy with his finger in the dike seeming unable to stop the inevitable. Cheering on the impending flood are…
Ignoring the Whys of Terrorism
For years Americans have been warned that George W. Bush’s brutal “war on terror” and his invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan would spur more anti-U.S. terrorism. But when such events occur as in Boston last month anyone who observes that…
A Political Edge from Guantanamo
Though many of today’s domestic and international crises date back to George W. Bush’s presidency, Republicans see a political edge in frustrating President Obama’s efforts to solve them, reveling in a new narrative about Obama’s “weakness.” The Guantanamo mess is…
Blindness to Blowback
After a terrorist attack, if anyone dares suggest that the killings represent blowback from U.S. military violence abroad, that person can expect furious denunciations even though the point is almost surely true, a paradox that William Blum confronts in this…
Gun Madness v. Gun Sanity
As the gun carnage continues across the United States, the Right won’t stop peddling its bogus historical claims about the Second Amendment and rallying its gullible supporters to fight even modest safety laws. But victims of gun violence are finally…
Howard Kurtz’s Belated Comeuppance
Exclusive: Media critic Howard Kurtz has lost his job as Washington bureau chief for Newsweek/Daily Beast after a blog post in which he falsely accused basketball player Jason Collins of hiding his past engagement to a woman while coming out…
The Long Shadow of Auschwitz
Before his execution by hanging in 1947, Auschwitz commander Rudolf Hoess confessed to his role in the industrialized slaughter of millions of Jews and other “enemies” of Hitler’s Third Reich. But Hoess’s guilt while extraordinary in its numbers extends to…