I am more convinced than ever that Chi Trib’s Mark Silva (and AP) and I do not see eye to eye on what’s news and what isn’t when I see his “Bush acknowledges secret CIA prisons” story in today’s late-edition web site.  He heard more of Bush’s talk today than I did, true; but I heard the part where he ran through the domino effect of getting this captured guy to talk, then this guy, then this, one leading to another, all of it leading to thwarted schemes to blow some of us up, including Silva and me.

President Bush, calling on Congress to quickly authorize trials of suspected terrorists with military tribunals, acknowledged for the first time today that the Central Intelligence Agency has subjected dozens to “tough” interrogation at secret prisons abroad and the remaining 14 have been transferred to Guantanamo Bay to await trial.

is his lede.  Lower down, he adds:

Bush, allowing that suspects have been subject to “tough” interrogation, maintains it has stopped short of torture.

He maintains it, yes.  But it’s hard to take him seriously when “Bush lied, thousands [millions?] died” is uppermost in your mind.  Especially when he’s giving “a dramatically staged speech.” 

Silva does get to the nub, finally, in the 9th and 10th (of 23) ‘grafs:

In his address, the president offered unusually explicit details about how the interrogation of Abu Zabudayah at first offered the CIA invaluable information about Al Qaeda. But Bush said only later—after Zabudayah was subjected to tougher CIA interrogation—did he provide information that ultimately led to the capture of Khalid Sheik Mohammed and other operatives and the foiling of plots.

“This program has helped us to take potential mass murderers off the streets before they were able to kill,” Bush said. “Were it not for this program, our intelligence community believes that Al Qaeda and its allies would have succeeded in launching another attack against the American homeland.”

Oh my, that doesn’t capture it, I’m afraid.  Bush ticked off the list of interrogated in a delivery that was dramatic, whether staged that way or not.  Anyhow, this should have gone much farther up, and where’s the part about voice-recognition, with its obvious reference to NSA-intercepted calls? 

Sorry, Silva, there have been desk men who would have cut and pasted your hard copy (before screens, in the days of multi-carbon “books” and overhead conveyor belts) and made it right. 

So what?  Bush “hasn’t divulged much detail about the operation or locations of the secret CIA facilities first disclosed earlier this year by The Washington Post,” and that’s what we are fixated on?  Never mind attacks thwarted? 

Nonetheless, truth will out, as in Silva’s 14th to 16th ‘grafs:

The interrogation of these suspects has led to extensive information about other suspects captured and plots thwarted, officials say, and in sum has provided about 50 percent of the U.S. government’s knowledge of the workings of Al Qaeda, its members, its travel routes, safe houses and means of communication.

“The most important source of information on where the terrorists are hiding and what they are planning is the terrorists themselves,” Bush said in his East Room address. “Captured terrorists have unique knowledge about how terrorist networks operate. They have knowledge of where the operatives are deployed, and knowledge about what plots are under way.

“This is intelligence that cannot be found any other place, and our security depends on getting this kind of information,” Bush said. “To win the war on terror, we must be able to detain, question, and when appropriate, prosecute terrorists captured here in America and on the battlefields around the world.”

Add to this a lot of sourced stuff presenting the administration side in the Final Five ‘grafs, and you do have a fair, if not great, idea of what Bush said.  So go to the end of a Silva story, and you may find good stuff — not exactly buried, but shall we say, misplaced?

What Did Fitzgerald Know and When Did He Know It? is James Taranto’s question based on a NY Times story that “hints at the possibility of prosecutorial misconduct in the Valerie Plame” case.  He quotes:

An enduring mystery of the C.I.A. leak case has been solved in recent days, but with a new twist: Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the prosecutor, knew the identity of the leaker from his very first day in the special counsel’s chair, but kept the inquiry open for nearly two more years before indicting I. Lewis Libby Jr., Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff, on obstruction charges.

This national story is of keen interest here in Chicago, where Fitzgerald has been wielding a mighty swift sword of Justice Dept. anti-corruption activity.  Now, says NYT, there is “rich debate” about how he handled the Plame-leak business. 

Some say he “behaved much as did the independent counsels of the 1980’s and 1990’s who often failed to bring down their quarry on official misconduct charges but pursued highly nuanced accusations of a cover-up,” says NYT.

Armitage the Leaker would have resigned when he saw the Novak column that set things percolating, knowing he had goofed, but didn’t because it would have blown his cover.  He didn’t even tell Bush, after huddling with Colin Powell and the head State Dept. lawyer with the historic name of William H. (my guess it’s for Howard) Taft IV.

He kept Bush in the dark “because [Fitzgerald] asked him not to divulge it,” says NYT, blind-sourcing.  Taranto is not pleased:

It seems that Fitzgerald and the State Department covered up a noncrime, and the effect was to keep alive the illusion that it was a crime. We won’t speculate about the prosecutor’s motives, but the more we hear about the case, the clearer it is that the whole thing stinks.

Question one for Jim Ritter after reading his “Muslims see a growing media bias” story, interview with Ibrahim Hooper of Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR): Do you not know that Ann Coulter lost her gig with National Review Online after her post-9/11 call for forced conversion of muslims?  If so, why allow Hooper to get away with his allegation that before 9/11 she “would have faced swift repudiation from her colleagues.  Now it’s accepted as legitimate commentary”?  If not, why not?

Question two: Why do you quote (selectively) only one of the allegedly “virulent” web sites, Jihad Watch, which is chock-full of news items from around the world, but not others, such as Anti-CAIR, which quotes Sen. Durbin — “[CAIR is] unusual in its extreme rhetoric and its associations with groups that are suspect” — and Sen. Charles Schumer — “we know [CAIR] has ties to terrorism” and “intimate links with Hamas” — and the prolific, learned, pointed Daniel Pipes?  Hooper gave you Jihad Watch (and the incriminating quote?) and then you routinely got routine denial and/or explanation by its proprietor, parenthesizing it?

One is tempted to think that when Hooper said bend over, you asked how far.  Sorry, but this is pitiful reportage, sloppy and unresearched, and on page 3, entire left-hand column at that.  Your editors are part of the problem too, let it be noted.

“Perils darken a shadow economy: Illegal immigrant workers, the health-care system and taxpayers all pay a steep price” is over-reported, for one thing, as my city editor used to tell me.  Some very eager social-science researchers masquerading as newspaper reporters spent a lot of hard time with injured migrants and we get the results in today’s 2nd installment, which is more of the same hitting over the head with hard-luck stories.  How many readers not given to self-flagellation can stay with such an account? 

This is less a news article than an editorial, sans punchline, which impinges on its honesty, since editorials are upfront about what they want.  These writers, aided and abetted by various editors, have a point of view over which they trip with every vivid sentence and heart-rending description: in a journalistic version of a primal scream, they tell us with their presentation that they HATE our immigration laws, HATE its application, HATE the crackdowns that have come helter-skelter in the wake of mass protests.

Another thing about an editorial: good ones make an argument, presenting the other side which they wish to discredit.  This series nowhere takes a detached moment to do that.  Its writers don’t have the time.  Nowhere do they describe the dilemma we face about open borders or not, respect for law or flouting it.  Once again, Chi Trib blows it, succumbing to emotion and giving us rant when we deserve to hear both sides.

Turning to one of my most trusted sources of news, Power Line, this a.m., I find this, which announces or discusses the distinct possibility that Al Queda is a goner in Iraq.

Unavoidably glancing at one of my least trusted sources, Chi Trib, I find on front page this propaganda from La Raza telling me to pity the poor immigrant:

Throwaway lives: While fewer Americans are killed on the job, that’s not so for Latinos. [with bit front-page color pic and caption:] Antonio Cabrera shattered his leg.

I know this story is long and involved and dishonest and tear-jerker — a weeper — and so I hold off reading it until I have composed myself with worship of the God of my choice in the church of same.  More later.

Later: It’s long if you consider there’s more to come, which there is: “Monday: The cost of being injured,” says my hard copy.

It’s not involved; in fact, my head is sore from being hit with the same simple story: illegals know they are outside the law and so do not get medical care they need.  So do employers who put them to work doing what “none of us want to do,” to quote the mantra in support of ignoring their illegality. 

As for dishonesty, the story has no context, and writers dishonestly write without reference to the political position they are shamelessly shoring up, namely that our immigration laws suck. 

As for the weeper factor, my tears go for the journalism involved for reasons just given.  What they are doing in that regard speaks so loudly, I cannot work up an appropriate response to the plight of the poor devils getting hurt on the job.

It’s a variation of the Oscar Wilde response to a pathetic scene in The Old Curiosity Shop, at which he remarked memorably:

One must have a heart of stone to read the death of little Nell without laughing.

Maybe mind of mush in this case.

Nice Democrat talking points on Chi Trib front page today. One has biggest billing:

Democrats return fire over Iraq: Officials seize on Pentagon report, respond to administration rhetoric, By Stephen J. Hedges, Washington Bureau:

In a wave of statements, Democratic Party leaders targeted Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld for casting the Iraq war as part of a broader war on terrorism.

“The Pentagon’s new report today indicates that President Bush, Vice President Cheney and Secretary Rumsfeld’s speeches are increasingly disconnected from the facts on the ground in Iraq,” Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said in a statement.

It’s a neat summary of what Dingy Harry and friends want us to hear. There’s Rahm Emmanuel, our machine-tooled congressperson, on Rumsfeld: House Democrats are considering staging a no-confidence vote, reports Hedges. There’s Howlin’ Howard Dean: “You can’t trust Republicans to defend America.” Way down in the story, there’s this about the political nature of the criticisms:

The charges and counter-charges over Iraq have more to do with political than military strategy. With the Nov. 7 elections more than two months away and poll numbers suggesting Democrats could overturn the GOP majority in the House, the role of U.S. troops overseas has become a primary focus.

And wayyy down, at the end, in fact, there’s this that should have gone much higher up, even in the lede, if in shortened form:

Rumsfeld spokesman Eric Ruff said there was nothing political in the defense secretary’s comments.

“He was not accusing anybody of being soft on terrorism,” Ruff said. “What he’s saying is that terrorist networks pose a threat to the United States and the free world. The questions he’s raising are questions that all Americans ought to be addressing. He linked that to those very clear lessons in history, and history tells us that you just can’t ignore a problem.”

Late Friday, Rumsfeld wrote top Democrats in Congress saying his recent remarks in Salt Lake City were misrepresented by the media, The Associated Press reported. Rumsfeld said he was “concerned” with the reaction of Democrats.

“I know you agree that with America under attack and U.S. troops in the field, our national debate on this should be constructive,” he wrote.

Elsewhere, several letters are quite good. “Measured perspective,” from G.R. Paterson in Wilmette, puts William Neikirk on notice about his near-hysterical reaction to Abu Ghraib and other GI abuses. Neikirk concedes good reasons why the American public is not in full cry about them, says Paterson:

Most Americans recognize that these are not the actions of the typical GI, that they are not a reflection of American policy, that every war produces its atrocity stories, and that the unrelenting stresses placed on our troops can drive some over the edge.

But he misses

what is perhaps the biggest reason to take a measured perspective on these sad events, and that is the astonishing atrocities that Iraqis themselves are committing against their fellow countrymen every single day. While our troops risk their lives to enforce order, each day brings a new report of 30 or 50 or 75 ordinary Iraqis blown up or gunned down at a market, a mosque, or a roadside by their fellow Iraqis (with some help from Iranians and Syrians, to be sure). As the victims of these Iraqi mass murders mount from the hundreds to the thousands, does it really make sense to treat alleged GI abuses of a handful as the bigger story?

Excellent point here. It’s the compared-to-what? issue. Neikirk wrote (last Sunday) in the Perspective section, but he could use some. His

fretting that the public hasn’t used the charges against a few troops as a reason to rise in massive outrage against our entire military seems more than a little unbalanced,

concludes Paterson.

Another good letter, “Lack of leadership,” from Neil Gaffney in the city, notes:

It is easy to overlook the critical roadblock preventing reconstruction of many areas of New Orleans: the total lack of a city reconstruction plan now one year on. Easier to point at the empty homes and shattered neighborhoods and point the finger at the federal government.

Give this a look-see as indictment of McCain-Feingold, which muzzles free speech about candidates, except what you can persuade media writers and editors to say, from Labor Day to the November election.  It’s more proof that liberalism ain’t liberal; it’s statist.

John Leo discussed lawyerly violation of non-discrimination laws in June, including the ABA’s coercion of law schools in the matter of racial-preference admission policies.  He notes tellingly:

[M]any of the people involved [mayors, city attorneys, judges] have a personal history of activism and see their current posts as opportunities to promote their causes. They often have romantic views of lawbreaking derived from the civil rights movement and the in-your-face activism of the 1960s.

Traditionally, officeholders are expected to resign if they cannot bring themselves to obey the law. The resisters don’t feel that way. Often they see themselves as prophetic figures working against sluggish majorities to produce a better future. Save us from visionaries who think they are entitled to break the law.

Oh to be a prophet, now that armageddon is near!