But shouldn't there be some standards governing what gets reported and what is held back? Particularly in a case like this -- which, for obvious reasons, has the potential to be quite inflammatory on a number of levels -- having the major media "report" completely false assertions as fact can be quite harmful. It's often the case that perceptions and judgments about stories like this solidify in the first few hours after one hears about it. The impact of subsequent corrections and clarifications pale in comparison to the impressions that are first formed. Despite that, one false and contradictory claim after the next was disseminated last night by the establishment media with regard to the core facts of the attack.

I'm obviously ambivalent about the issues of media responsibility raised by all of this. It's difficult to know exactly how the competing interests should be balanced -- between disclosing what one has heard in an evolving news story and ensuring some minimal level of reliability and accuracy. But whatever else is true, news outlets -- driven by competitive pressures in the age of instant "reporting" -- don't really seem to recognize the need for this balance at all. They're willing to pass on anything they hear without regard to reliability -- to the point where I automatically and studiously ignore the first day or so of news coverage on these events because, given how these things are "reported," it's simply impossible to know what is true and what isn't. In fact, following initial media coverage on these stories is more likely to leave one misled and confused than informed. Conversely, the best way to stay informed is to ignore it all -- or at least treat it all with extreme skepticism -- for at least a day. [my emphasis]

It is sadly amusing how much people do not want this to be about the man's religion or his Palestinian ancestry.

His relatives understandably want other Americans to believe that he was traumatized by listening to soldiers' stories about the wars. They certainly don't want people to think that there was anything about the atmosphere in his father's house that caused this man to reject the land of his birth and the obligations of his oath.

- He avoided other officers socially and professionally to the extent he could manage. He avoided women colleagues. He would not be photographed with a woman. He asked his prayer community to find him a wife. They did not do so. He had no visible sexual relationships.

- He was transferred to Hood to do what the Army had trained him to do. Inevitably the Army decided that it was his "turn in the barrel" and sent him orders to deploy to one of combat areas to practise his medical specialty.

- He told people that he did not want to participate in wars against Muslims in a non-Muslim army. He tried to get out of the Army. Not surprisingly, the Army would not hear of that. Security camera video in a convenience store in Killeen, Texas outside the gate of the post shows him wandering around wearing strange garb apparently intended to set him apart in that town full of soldiers, present and past.

- He is reported to have uttered "Allahu Akbar" before he opened fire on what he seems to have seen as God's enemies.

Ibrahim Hooper knows the drill.

When news first broke Thursday that a shooting at Fort Hood, Texas, killed and injured U.S. soldiers, the national communications director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations wrote a statement of condemnation.

He only sent it out later, when reports emerged that the alleged shooter's name was Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan.

"As soon as we saw what appeared to be a Muslim name, we issued our statement," Hooper said. "Until that time, we were praying that no Muslim would be involved."

That's the reality of crisis management for the Muslim-American community, said Hooper, who handles communications for the nation's largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy group.

Even without confirmation that the alleged gunman was Muslim -- there was no immediate determination of any religious affiliation for Hasan -- the mere reporting of a possible Muslim name required an immediate comment, he said.

"That's unfortunately the world we live in nowadays," Hooper said. "So often, Muslims are accused of not condemning these kind of acts."

JAMES GALBRAITH: ... you really have to think about, do you want to have a financial sector dominated by a small number of very large institutions, very difficult to manage, practically impossible to regulate, and ruled by, essentially, the same people and the same culture that caused the crisis in the first place.

BILL MOYERS: Well, that's what we're getting, because after all of the mergers, shakedowns, losses of the last year, you have five monster financial institutions really driving the system, right?

JAMES GALBRAITH: And they're highly profitable, and they are already paying, in some cases, extraordinary bonuses. And you have an enormous problem, as the public sees very clearly that a very small number of people really have been kept afloat by public action. And yet there is no visible benefit to people who are looking for jobs or people who are looking to try and save their houses or to somehow get out of a catastrophic personal debt situation that they're in. [my emphasis]

BILL MOYERS: So you can understand that anger on the streets, outside the American Bankers Association's meeting in Chicago this week.

JAMES GALBRAITH: Of course. It's entirely justified.

BILL MOYERS: Where do you think that anger might go? It could go either direction.

JAMES GALBRAITH: Well, of course. I mean, that's the great danger, is that if there is not a constructive program that people can identify with, there will be a destructive program that they will identify with. And it will come along quite soon. And what form it will take, and it's anybody's guess, but the result will be, very well could be disastrous.

BILL MOYERS: So we're not out of the woods yet.

JAMES GALBRAITH: No, not by any means. I think we're in an extremely dangerous period. And which, as I said, everybody can see that a few, very small number of people have come out of this. And they cannot see how this is bringing any benefit to their own lives. It's not saving their houses. It's not providing them with jobs.

While it's hard not to crack a smile at the Republicans' travails, a word of caution may be in order.

... when push came to shove and the regular people of 23rd, backed up by the GOP establishment, appeared poised to elect the pro-choice, pro-union [Republican Party candidate] Scozzafava, the Tea Party astroturf machine moved in, backing [Conservative Party candidate] Hoffman, who promised pro-business, anti-woman and anti-labor votes in Congress. ...

Although Hoffman's candidacy seemed to come out of nowhere, it was the endorsement of Armey, chairman of the astroturfing group FreedomWorks, who put him on the map. Then Palin signed on via this note on her Facebook page, putting Hoffman over the top ...

Stan shows that the conservatives are playing the long game and they know how to do it. They don't care that they might lose in the short run or that the ruling elites think they are kooky. What they care about is that when the electorate looks to change horses, as it always does, the Republican Party will be firmly in the hands of the conservatives and further to the right when they last checked in.

In the short run, this could be good for the Democrats.

But American politics is cyclical in nature. No victory is permanent. Sooner or later, voters tire of one side and elect the other.

As the Republican Party condenses to its most bitter strain, the poison is distilled. Chances are, that poison will be dispersed into the populace when voters at last tire of the Democrats. And that would be very bad for all of us.

This is not limited to teabagger activists or deeply conservative voting blocks. All over the country, the fiscal scolds have started their push, to fearmonger about the national debt and “runaway spending,” to stop Democrats from taking the necessary steps in the midst of a recession and a job-loss recovery, to call any effort at public investment reckless and wrong, to whip up concerns about debt. And there is virtually nobody from the Democratic side on the playing field to rebut these concerns. [my emphasis]

Bob McDonnell has concerns that Washington’s proposed reforms will drive the cost of health care up and jeopardize quality and access. Reforms being discussed in Washington could raise costs for those who already have insurance, harm small business owners and make it harder to create jobs, or shift millions of Virginians from their private insurance into a government run system, raise taxes and increase our deficit even further. Rather than centralizing control of health care at the federal level, or saddling Virginia businesses and workers with new mandates to pay for plans the government thinks they want, we should let individuals and families control their health care decisions.

The more rightists who win G.O.P. primaries, the greater the Democrats’ prospects next year. But the electoral math is less interesting than the pathology of this movement. Its antecedent can be found in the early 1960s, when radical-right hysteria carried some of the same traits we’re seeing now: seething rage, fear of minorities, maniacal contempt for government, and a Freudian tendency to mimic the excesses of political foes. Writing in 1964 of that era’s equivalent to today’s tea party cells, the historian Richard Hofstadter observed that the John Birch Society’s “ruthless prosecution” of its own ideological war often mimicked the tactics of its Communist enemies.

For all his buffoonish side, the president is secure in himself, disciplined, decisive, and crafty, and capable of concentrating on a few priorities. He has maintained control of a rag-tag Republican coalition, well described by Kevin Phillips ... as consisting of "Wall Street, Big Energy, multinational corporations, the Military-Industrial Complex, the Religious Right, the Market Extremist think-tanks, and the Rush Limbaugh Axis." All these groups agree in their strong support of their president, though they sharply disagree among themselves.

DIA: Do you think the media should strive for objectivity in its reporting?

Mr Froomkin: No. Journalists should strive for accuracy, and fairness. Objectivity is impossible, and is too often confused with balance. And the problem with balance is that we are not living in a balanced time. For instance, is it patently obvious that at this point in our history, the leading luminaries on one side of the American political spectrum are considerably less tethered to reality than those on the other side. Madly trying to split the difference, as so many of my mainstream-media colleagues feel impelled to do, does a disservice to the concept of the truth.

Only in the alternative universe of the far right is Obama a pariah and Palin the great white hope. It’s become a Beltway truism that the White House’s (mild) spat with Fox News is counterproductive because it drives up the network’s numbers. But if curious moderate and independent voters are now tempted to surf there and encounter Beck’s histrionics for the first time, the president's numbers will benefit as well. To the uninitiated, the tea party crowd comes across like the barflies in “Star Wars.”

La guerra es una realidad cruenta que no puede ni debe ser disimulada.

Nos referimos a la decisión del presidente Obama de recibir los cuerpos de los soldados muertos en Afganistán en la ceremonia de rutina que se realiza en la Base Area Dover. La imagen del mandatario en este momento solemne contrasta con la política de su predecesor. George W. Bush, a pesar de favorecer la estrategia militar, sobre otros medios, intentó esconder de los estadounidenses los costos psicológicos de la guerra, prohibiendo las fotos del arribo de ataúdes, y el monetario, aislando el precio del conflicto en presupuestos de emergencia.

Se quiso pintar una guerra ideal, sin muertos propios y sin aumentar el déficit, aunque lo cierto es todo lo contrario. La intención política de desligar este gigantesco costo de la realidad era deshonesto. [mi énfasis]

Any discussion that there's something untoward in the President greeting dead soldiers is wingnut revisionist crap. Kings and leaders have been doing this since time began. It's a sign of respect for the fallen and they do it publicly as gesture on behalf of the people . That these so-called patriots think there's now something wrong with that tells you everything you need to know about their sincerity

Why do they hate the troops so much?