Liza
> From: "Jeet Heer" <jeet at sturdynet.com>
> Reply-To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> Date: Sun, 9 May 2004 21:31:40 -0400
> To: <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org>
> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Hersch an (unwitting) mouthpiece?
>
>>
>> Why indeed does this story get out, so copiously photographed and
>> videotaped?
>>
>> -Brad Mayer
>
>
> Holy cow -- do we really need this sort of conspircy thinking? What is the
> suggestion here, that Seymour Hersh is a CIA agent? (By the way, its Hersh,
> not Hersch).
>
> Look, if you read between the lines, it is clear that Hersh's source for
> this story are the families of the soldiers being sentenced. The families
> think their kids are being rail-roaded for something ordered on from high --
> so, they've given over photos and documents to various media outlets,
> including Hersh.
>
> Now, it is true that Hersh does rely on government sources, usually
> mid-level CIA agents and military bureacrats. But that's because these are
> the people who know where the bodies are buried, and often have a greivance
> against the cover-ups of those on high.
>
> Scott Sherman has a nice quote on this in a profile he did of Hersh for the
> Columbia Journalism Review:
>
> "I don't go around getting my stories from nice old Lefties or the
> Weathermen or the America-with-a-k boys," he told Rolling Stone in 1975. "I
> get them from good old-fashioned constitutionalists. I learned a long time
> ago that you can't go around making judgments on the basis of people's
> politics. The essential thing is: Do they have integrity or not?"
>
> There has been some accusation that Hersh has gone soft on the CIA in recent
> years -- but Sherman shows that its more a matter of Hersh now criticizing
> the CIA for incompetence, rather than simple evil. Sherman's whole
> discussion of Hersh's career is very balanced and nicely textured -- its
> worth reading in full. It can be found in
>
> http://www.cjr.org/issues/2003/4/hersh-sherman.asp
>
> I have to say though that for all his flaws Seymour Hersh is the best
> journalist in America. From My Lai to Abu Graib, he has constantly gotten
> the goods.
>
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