Just when you thought the Washington Post might be waking up to the new progressive era we find that they are hiring a former Wall Street Journal editor to succeed Leonard Downie, Jr.  

Everyone's favorate media hack, Howie Kurtz, writes:

Marcus Brauchli has been named executive editor of The Washington Post, returning him to the top ranks of American journalism less than three months after Rupert Murdoch forced him out as the Wall Street Journal's top editor.

I like Obama as our candidate and believe that he will be a good President.  The alternative is too terrible to think about.  However, there have been some stances that Obama has taken that has caused consternation from the DK crowd.  I am afraid his support for merit pay for teachers is another one of those issues.

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama on Saturday thanked the National Education Association for its endorsement but also made it clear that he continues to support merit pay for teachers.

Education has always been an important issue with me, and I think merit pay is something that needs to be explored in depth before it is implemented on a national scale.  I freely admit that I am a skeptic and do not support merit pay, but am willing to listen to arguments for it.    

The Iraq War has never been about anything but oil.  We know it, but so far the traditional media has all but ignored the lies that the Bush administration used to get us into the war.  Of course the media was Bush's biggest enabler, so they don't want to draw attention to their part in the debacle.

Recently I wrote a diary about the Bush administration's part in negotiating no-bid contracts for big oil.  (People weren't very interested).  A quote from the NY Times sums it up:

A group of American advisers led by a small State Department team played an integral part in drawing up contracts between the Iraqi government and five major Western oil companies to develop some of the largest fields in Iraq, American officials say.

No Blood for Oil was the catch phrase of us anti-war demonstrators during the leadup to the Iraq War.  There were so many in the media back then who dismissed or ignored our great concern over the rush to war. They bought the propaganda coming out of the White House that the war was over Saddam Husseins threat to the United States.  A third world despot was such a monsterous scary thing that the worlds greatest military power had to attack his country in order to be safe?

But the first paragraph of an article in the NYT explains a lot about the Iraq War.

I just read that Obama will have a rally in Prince William County, Virginia today.  Yay for all those who live in Northern Virginia for this historic chance to see the kick off of his general election campaign.  However, I lived in Prince William for 10 years and this article in the Washington Post is not exaggerating about the logistics of getting to Nissan Pavilion.

The Washington Post does live chats every week day to discuss everything from politics to American Idol.  After a very big win by Obama in North Carolina and a close loss in Indiana who do you think the Washington Post recruited to discuss the results?  What independent minded and non-partisan pundit would be the best person to discuss with the public his take on the nomination process?

I have read several thoughtful diaries about Obama's chances in PA.  As with other state's primaries, the predictions are all over the place.  There is the  pessimistic and the hopeful as well as the action oriented.

I have been optomistic because of all the wonderful diaries about the Obama rally in Philadelphia but after reading an article in the Washington Post today, I think I am going to have to side with the more pessimistic predictions.

Tonight I went to an organizational meeting for Obama in Raleigh, NC here.  I was alerted to this event through a diary here on Dailykos.  After checking out the link in the diary I wrote the address down and told myself I should go.  So after work I drove to the address and found a place to park in the parking deck.  I only had an address and didn't realize the place I was looking for was a restaurant.  So I just started following the many other people walking in that direction.

I read a recent diary about facebook that got me worried and sent the link to my three 20 something children who have used facebook almost since its inception.  My youngest wanted to write a response so she registered then realized she couldn't post for 24 hours.  I told her I would post it for her and here it is in its entirety.  Whether we agree or disagree I think it is important to hear what young people are thinking.

A new Osama Bin Ladin tape is being breathlessly reported on CNN and MSNBC under "Breaking News" banners.

CNN reports:

I hope by now that everyone here at Dailykos knows about ABC's fake terrorism expert Alexis Debat. He was caught only after a story in a French publication with Debat's byline was based on a fabricated interview with Barack Obama.  It snowballed from there.  Many articles pushing war on Iran have been sourced by Debat including the chilling "three day blitz" on Iran story written by Sarah Baxter for the Times Online.  That particular story was picked up and quoted everywhere including many alarmist diaries here on Dailykos.  Everyone from the AP to the BBC seems to have been taken in by this guy.  Is that why the traditional media wants this story buried?   There is more...

Two years ago the blogging community gave a collective thumbs down to the
NY Times decision to hide it's most read columnists behind a subscription.  $50 a year!  No way!  For a while various websites posted the hidden columns, but even that was shut down when those sites were threatened with lawsuits.

I have been following the developments in the case of Alexis Debat, an ABC terrorism consultant who has been outed as a fake.  This story was originally broken at Rue89 and has since been investigated by foreign affairs expert Laura Rozen.  I have lamanted the lack of traditional media attention, although the NY Times has reported on it in the business section.  For those who are following the story I thought I would add a few more links that you may be interested in.

I am a little puzzled why this story has not gotten more play but I would like to again bring it up for discussion.  I wrote about the outing of fake terrorism expert Alexis Debat here.  I hope everyone will take a look and check out the links.  Howard Kurtz at the Washington Post wrote:

Alexis Debat, a former French defense official who now works at the Nixon Center, published the interview in the French magazine Politique Internationale. He said he had hired a freelance journalist to conduct the interview, in which the Democratic presidential candidate supposedly said that Iraq was "already a defeat for America" that has "wasted thousands of lives." Debat said he had been unable to locate the intermediary, and the Obama campaign says no such interview took place.

I am not a great diarist so I hope I can do this subject justice.  I first read about it from a link on Buzzflash.  

Alexis Debat, ABC Terrorism expert and Nixon Center Fellow has been exposed as a fake. His downfall seems to have been precipitated by Debat writing an article on Obama based on an interview that never took place. The facts are slowly trickling in but a number of blogs are digging and Howard Kurtz at the Washington Post wrote about it today.  

Alexis Debat, a former French defense official who now works at the Nixon Center, published the interview in the French magazine Politique Internationale. He said he had hired a freelance journalist to conduct the interview, in which the Democratic presidential candidate supposedly said that Iraq was "already a defeat for America" that has "wasted thousands of lives." Debat said he had been unable to locate the intermediary, and the Obama campaign says no such interview took place.

Short diary but I thought it was something that people should hear about.  I will put up a link as soon as I see one on the CNN website.

Nuclear warheads were in the air over the united states for 3 1/2 hours last Thursday.

Update:  MSNBC has a video of the story up, but no text so far.

Update 2:  (h/t Oreo) Here is the link to the Army Times article.

CNN is reporting that the Fed is making the rare move of cutting the discount rate for banks to 5.75.  

I just need to get this out and maybe others feel the same way.  So here is another open thread about Va Tech and thoughts for the families in this time of tragedy.

Update 1 - Shooter was just confirmed to have graduated from Westfield, my daughters highschool.  Two of the victims were also Westfield grads. What a terrible day for Westfield.  Tragic.