So, when are you going to bring us the pictures for "Abu Ghraib, The Musical", Brian...???
Hersh didn't break the story, the Army did. And the only thing de Palma and Haggis are really complaining about is that Iraq hasn't granted them the stage that Vietnam did for self-righteous pontificating.
Barnett acts as if it is the role of journalists was to stop the war.
The questions were asked. They (particularly Helen Thomas) didn't like the answers, but they had no firm basis on which to question them outside of innuendo and the presumption of guilt. There's only so much that can be told to reporters that doesn't tip off those opposing U.S. forces on the battlefield.
"I think American journalism generally agrees its own press was supine, and it is fair to say that Hollywood, perhaps a little belatedly, is picking up the baton."
Funny how the reporter couldn't find an American journalist to say that.
Maybe that's because the abuses were "few and far between." Ever think of that, bloke?
In what universe you liar? The NY Times ran stories about the frat boy hijinks at Abu Ghraib on its front page at least five hundred times. By contrast, it didn't even mention the posthumous Medal of Honor for a Long Island native and Navy Seal. If Hollywood were really interested in telling the untold stories of Iraq or Afghanistan, they'd make a movie about the self-sacrifice of our heroes. Instead they slime them with lying swill like "Valley of Elah".
About which, by the way, I choked on my corn flakes the other day to read a quote from anti-American Canadian Paul Haggis ascribing the writers strike to "corporate greed". This bastard makes millions slandering our country and has the nerve to call somebody else greedy. He ought to be deported, on a rail, wearing tar and feathers. Grrr.