Gary Webb, reporter who exposed CIA, dies

Seattle Post ^ | 12/13/04

[af_vet_rr]

Uh-oh... get ready for the stampede of conspiracists...

As long as there wasn't a grassy knoll nearby or he didn't commit suicide by shooting himself multiple times in the back of the head, hopefully they'll stay away.

[Alexander Nevsky]

"Thus one can imagine my delight on the evening of July 17, [1995] a week after publication of the August Spectator, when the president entered the dining room of Washington's Jockey Club. I was seated a few feet away...

[snip]

"`And so we meet," I said. ... I espied an increasingly uneasy Hillary. Time might be running out. Her eyes put me in mind of a snake about to strike. Quickly I made my move for the White House's official response to the L.D. Brown-Mena story. ...

[snip]

"He [President Clinton] denied that he had read the piece. He said I should be `ashamed' of publishing it. `Lies, lies,' he intoned indignantly. The flunkies stiffened. The president's next charges were curiously familiar. He called Brown a `pathological liar' who had tried to destroy his own family. Those were precisely the lines that the White House's operatives had employed months before against Brown to kill ABC's interview with him.

"`I replied that the president's hometown paper, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, had just described Brown as a very credible witness who had never yet been caught in a lie. The president began reiterating his charges. I mentioned that it seemed to me he had read our piece. He continued with his charges and showed no sign of breaking off what was becoming an increasingly uncomfortable conversation."

R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr., Boy Clinton: The Political Biography (Washington, DC; Regnery Publishing; 1996), 22-24

[Alexander Nevsky]

"What resulted [from trumped-up criminal charges leveled against the American Spectator] was a long and expensive ordeal, a federal investigation that began in June 1998 and lasted fourteen months. A dozen of us were either called in with our lawyers before a Fort Smith, Arkansas, grand jury or before a government inquiry in Washington. Frankly, I found the experience not unrewarding. I had always said the evil of Bill Clinton was not so much his dancing libido but the Clintons' willingness to abuse power. With their attempt to prosecute us I found my claims against them once again vindicated.

"Yet the ordeal almost bankrupted the American Spectator, badly hurt some utterly blameless citizens, and further coarsened American political life, to say nothing of weakening the First Amendment. With almost no other news sources other than the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Times objecting, the precedent had been set to harass writers and publications that print unfavorable news about government. ... [T]he practice of criminally investigating opposition journalists has now been established -- at least for aggrieved Democrats."

R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. with Mark W. Davis, Madame Hillary: The Dark Road to the White House (Washington, DC; Regnery Publishing; 2004), 198-99

[Alexander Nevsky]

"We must indeed all hang together, or most assuredly we will all hang separately."

Benjamin Franklin

[snopercod]

comments?

[Snapple]

This story was probably enemy propaganda. It was discredited but I forget the details.

[Do not dub me shapka broham]

Alexander Cockburn:

Another nefarious CIA/COINTELPRO plot, no doubt! Just as I'm a raving lunatic Scotsman, I sez this shalt be found a conspiracie!

[snopercod]

For your files, Sandi. http://www.alamo-girl.com/102.htm and probably some other places.

[snopercod]

...get ready for the stampede of conspiracists

They must have all been banned, I think.

[Conspiracy Guy]

How many times did he shoot himself in the head?

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!

[Ciexyz]

bump with no comment

[Alamo-Girl]

Volley bump!

[newzjunkey]

1996? I was sure that CIA funneling crack cocaine into black communities urban myth started well before 1996.

The worst part, as someone else mentioned, is that such a tale is believed by too many urban Americans.

[Alexander Nevsky]

"Soros Alert: Is the CIA on Our Side? (My Title)"

Gregory R. Copley, "Special Report: US State Dept., CIA War Against Pentagon Breaks Into the Open With Profound Impact on Strategic Policy," Defense & Foreign Affairs Daily, 30 June 2003, Vol. XXI, No. 102

[Semper Paratus]

Major parts of Webb's reporting were later discredited by other newspaper investigations. An investigation by the Los Angeles Police Department found no evidence of a connection between the CIA and the drug traffickers.

Lefties like you oh so wanted this to be true.