Cursor's Media Patrol - June 17, 2005

Some extracts--Dictynna

In a "NewsHour" debate on the memos between former CIAers Reuel Gerecht and Ray McGovern, Gerecht says the Robb-Silverman commission concluded that the Bush administration "had not tried to distort the intelligence," but Robert Parry points out that each of the pre-war intelligence investigations was "barred ... from examining that issue."

At Thursday's White House press briefing, ABC's Terry Moran asked Scott McClellan seven different versions of: "is the insurgency in Iraq in its last throes?"

A fragging incident at Forward Operating Base Danger is "believed to be the first case of an American soldier in Iraq accused of killing his superiors," and a military spokesman says that "charges against additional soldiers could not be ruled out."

The Boston Globe finds Congress "using the military's budget to steer billions to pet projects," and reports that "the $80 billion war bill passed earlier this year" included $35 million for "a wastewater treatment plant in Desoto County, Miss."

Vanity Fair's London editor writes that watching U.S. TV news in hotel rooms over the last three years has been "like witnessing a time-lapse study of emasculation," as "Broadcasters have largely accepted that attacks on the White House can only harm America's interests, and when they don't they are bamboozled and vilified by the shrill voices of the right."