Nukes and Spooks

"I think the questions were asked. It was just a drumbeat of support from the administration. It is not our job to debate them. It is our job to ask the questions.”

That's Charles Gibson speaking in response to the revelations contained in Scott McClellan's book.

It could be almost any US journalist of the period however.

Except for Jonathan S. Landay, Warren P. Strobel, Nancy Youssef and other journalists at what was then the Knight Ridder Washington Bureau which is now the McClatchy Washington Bureau.

Landay, Strobel and Youssef run a blog called "Nukes and Spooks" where they tear a strip or two off the national US media for their past and present complicity with the Bush administration and link to many of their stories of the pre-war time. I read them daily during that time and tried to point many others toward them.

It's good to be reminded today that there were some real journalists working then who weren't content to merely ask questions and transcribe answers but actively went out and dug for what was really going on.

I daresay the McClatchy Washington Bureau is likely to be the most reliable source of news out of DC during the upcoming election campaign as well. Bookmark them and go there first.

Landay, Strobel, Youssef and the other journalists working the Washington Bureau at the time of the buildup prior to the Iraq war deserve respect because they did the job journalists are supposed to do. They deserve Pulitzers and Nobels. Almost the entirety of the rest of the US media merely asked questions and transcribed answers.

Today, in Canada, we need some journalists like Landay, Strobel and Youssef.

Journalists who will not merely ask the questions and transcribe the answers even while they shake their heads in disbelief at the non-answers but who will put in the time and effort to dig for the story and follow wherever it leads.

In the meantime get drunk and stay drunk.

ps - They're on Bill Moyers Journal tonite.