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As most of you have read or seen by now, a journalist and NBC/MSNBC media consultant named William “Bill” Arkin has created quite a stir by viciously insulting American soldiers in Iraq. He wrote at his Washington Post blog, “Early Warning: William M. Arkin on National and Homeland Security” column (1/30/07), that “… this NBC (Nightly News) report is just an ugly reminder of the price we pay for a mercenary - oops sorry, volunteer force that thinks it is doing the dirty work” re Iraq. The “report,” according to Arkin, featured “a number of soldiers (who) expressed frustration with...

It's called "Left, Right and Center," which claims to be a "civilized yet provocative antidote to the screaming talking heads that dominate political debate." But there's not a whole lot of truth in advertising for KCRW Santa Monica's radio program, which is also podcasted on the Internet. The show normally features Robert Scheer, editor of the left-wing investigative Web site Truthdig.com and a former Los Angeles Times columnist, representing the left. Matt Miller, a former Clintonista and senior fellow at the left-wing Center for American Progress represents the so-called center. And former Washington Times editorial page editor and visiting senior...

In blind retaliation, we wreaked havoc on Iraq and continue to slaughter peasants in Afghanistan. What if eight years ago the World Trade Center had been leveled by a small nuclear bomb that took out most of lower Manhattan, as well? How many millions of innocent civilians would we have killed in retaliation? Would we still be a free society, or would then-Vice President Dick Cheney have attained the power of a demented king, having moved on from snooping on our phone calls and outing honest CIA agents to destroying the last vestiges of the rule of law? As assaults...

This is not change we can believe in. Not if Robert Rubin or his protégé, Lawrence Summers, get to call the shots on the economy in President-elect Barack Obama's incoming administration. Both Clinton-era treasury secretaries deserve a great deal of the blame for the radical deregulation of the financial industry that has derailed the world economy. They both should, along with former Federal Reserve chief Alan Greenspan, perform rites of contrition and be kept at a safe distance from the leadership of our nation. Yet Rubin and Summers are highly visible in the Obama transition team, with Summers widely touted...

I am not a conventionally religious man, or even a very superstitious one, but I do wish George W. Bush would stop asking God to bless America. Every time he does, we seem to be visited with another plague, suggesting divine wrath over our president's evil ways. How else to explain the persistent calamity that has marked this administration: a pointless but very costly war over nonexistent Iraqi WMD, the destruction by flood of New Orleans, the betrayal of the nation by the moneychangers - from Enron to Goldman Sachs - who Bush welcomed into the temple of the White...

Bush is such a liar. Or is he just out to lunch on the most important issue that he faces? In October, he charged that Iran's nuclear weapons program was bringing the world to the precipice of WWIII, even though the White House had been informed at least a month earlier that Iran had no such program and had stopped efforts to develop one back in 2003.

Chuck Hagel for president By ROBERT SCHEER Published Sunday, January 21, 2007 Chuck Hagel for president! If it ever narrows down to a choice between him and some Democratic hack who hasn’t the guts to fundamentally challenge the president on Iraq, then the conservative Republican from Nebraska will have my vote. Yes, the war is that important, and the fact that Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York, the leading Democratic candidate, still can’t or won’t take a clear stand on the occupation is insulting to the vast majority of voters who have. Hagel is a decorated Vietnam War vet who...

YOU WOULD think that a consensus report from all 16 U.S. intelligence services concluding that he has blown the "war on terror" would be a really big deal to the president. But that assumes that George W. Bush values intelligence. Clearly, he does not. So the news that a 2006 National Intelligence Estimate concludes the threat of terror against the United States has increased since 9/11, largely thanks to his irrational invasion of Iraq, has not disturbed Bush's branded "what, me worry'' countenance. Instead, predictably, the administration's response to the leaked conclusions of the shared assessments of both civilian and...

Robert Scheer: Top Spy’s Story on Prewar Intel Is Finally Told http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20060425_prewar_intel_iraq_iran/ Posted on Apr. 25, 2006 By Robert Scheer “The policy was set. The war in Iraq was coming and they were looking for intelligence to fit into the policy.” —Tyler Drumheller, formerly CIA’s top spy in Europe Confession time: In fall 2004, during a crucial presidential election campaign, I made the mistake of playing by corporate media rules that amount to self-censorship. Specifically, I joined other journalists in denying the public the right to learn of a definitive investigative report by CBS’ “60 Minutes” on President Bush’s disregard...

Bad news tonight for Tribune Company shareholders: Shares in Tribune Co. tumbled Thursday after the media company reported a 6.1% drop in revenue last month on declines in both its newspaper and television businesses. Tribune, whose holdings include 26 television stations, 11 urban U.S. dailies and Spanish-language Hoy, said December revenue fell to $539 million from $574 million a year earlier. The company's stock fell $1.01, or 3.2%, to $30.80 in afternoon trading on the New York Stock Exchange. Tribune shares sank 28% in 2005. Advertising revenue in the publishing division fell 4.5%to $333 million, down from $349 million. The...

City JournalBarbra’s DictionaryWhat’s a lefty celebrity to do?!Stefan Kanfer 3 January 2006 Poor Barbra Streisand. In her long career, she has sung on Broadway and in films, recorded hit albums, made gazillions. She even has her own website, where she kind of blogs from time to time. But has all this brought happiness? She wanted Gray Davis to be governor, for example, and that awful Arnold won. Then there was the two-part miniseries about Ronald Reagan, disavowed by CBS after the network underwrote it—just because of a storm of protest from conservative radio programs and outraged bloggers. All that...

NEW YORK A delegation of progressive Los Angeles Times readers angry with last month's firing of columnist Robert Scheer met Dec. 13 with Times editors -- and have devised an "inside-outside" protest strategy. That's according to an LAObserved.com report linked Tuesday on Jim Romenesko's media blog at Poynter.org. The delegation -- which said it met for 90 minutes with Times Editorial Page Editor Andres Martinez and Op-Ed Editor Nicholas Goldberg -- wants more liberal voices in the Times to balance conservative columnists such as Max Boot and the Tribune Media Services-syndicated Jonah Goldberg. Martinez and Goldberg said the Times does...

Anatomy of a left-wing cause Last week a delegation of progressives met with the top opinion editors at the L.A. Times to complain about the axing of Robert Scheer's column and push for more anti-war voices on the op-ed page. In a report to their supporters, the delegation recounts details of the meeting, claims some success and describes an "inside/outside strategy" to pressure the paper that includes subscribing for three months as a "contingency subscriber" and pestering editors: Commit to writing at least one letter a month, affirming or challenging LA Times content, paying special attention to columnists such as...

Streisand Cancels LA Times Subscription 2 hours, 52 minutes ago LOS ANGELES - Barbra Streisand has canceled her subscription to the Los Angeles Times over the firing of the paper's liberal columnist. The newspaper dropped Robert Scheer and several other columnists last month; Scheer speculated he was let go because the Times had tired of his politics. Perhaps the most liberal voice on the paper's opinion pages, Scheer had been a Times columnist for 12 years. He was a reporter for the newspaper for 17 years before that. "Robert Scheer's column, with its often singular voice of dissent and groundbreaking...

Ms Streisand is dropping her subscription to the Los Angeles Times, out of loyalty to Robert Scheer and revulsion at Jonah Goldberg. You can’t make this stuff up...

This is the original letter I wrote to the LA Times regarding their firing of Robert Scheer: November 18, 2005 Andres Martinez Editorial Page Editor Los Angeles Times 202 W. 1st St. Los Angeles, CA 90012 Dear Mr. Martinez, This letter is to inform you that I am canceling my subscription to the LA Times, and here is the reason why: The greater Southern California community is one that not only proudly embraces its diversity but demands it. Your publisher's decision to fire Robert Scheer is a great disservice to the spirit of our community. I'm almost embarrassed for you...

<p>LOS ANGELES (AP) - The Los Angeles Times is changing the look and content of its opinion-editorial pages, a plan that includes dropping Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist Michael Ramirez and longtime columnist Robert Scheer.</p> <p>The changes come three months after former political commentator and columnist Michael Kinsley resigned as the paper's editorial and opinion editor. Kinsley spent 15 months at the Times and was replaced by Martinez.</p>

By J. Michael Kennedy and Rong-Gong Lin II Times Staff Writers November 11, 2005 In a major shake-up of its editorial pages, the Los Angeles Times announced Thursday that it was discontinuing one of its most liberal columnists as well as its conservative editorial cartoonist. Editorial Page Editor Andrés Martinez said that Robert Scheer, a Times reporter for 17 years before he began writing a column on the Op-Ed pages in 1993, will be dropped. Cartoonist Michael Ramirez, The Times' cartoonist since 1997, will leave the paper at the end of the year and will not be replaced. Martinez, who...

New York, May. 25, 2005 (CNA) - Los Angeles Times op-ed writer Robert Scheer has distorted the truth about the Catholic Church and homosexuals, says Catholic League president William Donohue.In his recent column, Scheer says the Catholic Church is “one of the most sexually repressed institutions in human history” that is responsible for a “horrific drumbeat of child molestation revelations” led by a new Pope who is “a longtime leader of vicious church attacks on ‘evil’ gays.” Scheer also accuses Pope Benedict XVI of scapegoating the media. “Scheer is wrong on all counts,” says Donohue.“It is not the Catholic Church’s...