This should mark the beginning of the end for Kofi at the UN. If these investigations are allowed to play out, he is a goner. The world will be better off.
Annan ‘surprised’ at son’s link to oil-for-food scandal
30 November 2004
The United Nations has revealed that the son of the secretary general, Kofi
Annan, worked for a company being investigated in the Iraqi oil-for-food scandal
for four years longer than he first admitted.Mr Annan said last night he was “very disappointed and surprised” that his
son Kojo had not told him the full story of his links to Cotecna in
Geneva.
This week our guest was NZ Bear, creator of the Blogsphere Ecosystem and the man behind Truth Laid Bear. We had a lot of fun discussing the Ecosystem, the role of blogs, what the future holds for them and what role they played in the removal of Dan Rather from CBS Evening News. We also discussed the Spirit of America Challenge, yet another blog driven charitable effort that is well worth your support.
This Week in Blogs
On Pundit Review Radio this weekend we took a tour of the blogsphere and highlighted some of the best work that we read during the week. Some of the topics discussed included outsourcing, the Clinton & Nixon presidential libraries, an interesting Gallup poll, the nasty tone of political rhetoric coming from the left, and president Bush’s personal security.
Among the sites mentioned, Powerline, AndrewSullivan, Buzz Machine, Town Hall, Conservative and Right.
Does CBS even care about its credibility anymore? Why on earth would they have Joseph Ellis on Face the Nation as a guest historian/pundit?
The weekend of Dan Ratherâ??s resignation, still caught up in the â??investigationâ?? into the bogus documents, CBS News is putting on its Sunday morning talk show a man who lied enthusiastically for twenty years about his military service in Vietnam, claiming incredible experiences at key battles even though he never left these shores.
What is particularly galling for me is that he taught history at West Point and lied to all of those young men who were really willing to go off to foreign places and do those brave, courageous deeds. I have read and enjoyed several of his books and he is an excellent writer. That is meaningless in terms of his personal credibility. He has none.
I find it hard to believe that the pool of available historians/pundits for Sunday morning TV is so small that someone like Joseph Ellis would be an acceptable guest? Someone at CBS should have been asking, Is Joseph Ellis the kind of person we want to have on the air as an expert? The obvious answer is no. Does CBS think there is some statue of limitations on what he did? What makes it ok now? Maybe their position is that his transgressions weren’t that bad. I’d like to hear an explanation of how they justify having this guy on.
Wasnâ??t Doris Kearns Goodwin available? All she did was copy a few passages from another author. I find it insulting that they put a guy like this on their news broadcasts, especially given all that is happening at CBS News. They must have stopped caring about their reputation.
THE HISTORY LESSON OF JOSEPH ELLIS
by Dennis Loy Johnson
Joseph Ellis’ list of whoppers was pretty amazing. During the war in Vietnam, he
said, he wasn’t just a soldier assigned to some obscure Army base â?? he saw
action “clearing out” the area around My Lai. He wasn’t just a grunt, either â??
he was commander of a platoon of combat paratroopers from the legendary 101st
Airborne. In fact, he was such a good leader that he was elevated to the staff
of American commander General William Westmoreland.Not a word of it was true, of course â?? Ellis never left the States during Vietnam.
But what happened after the news broke made him a far less sympathetic character. Refusing to talk to the press, Ellis’ issued a brief, four-sentence statement,
saying “Even in the best of lives, mistakes are made. I deeply regret having let
stand and later confirming the assumption that I went to Vietnam. For this and
any other distortions about my personal life, I want to apologize to my family,
friends, colleagues and students. Beyond that circle, however, I shall have no
further comment.”In other words, as the last sentence implies, it’s the press’
fault. And he regrets not *lying,* but “having let stand” an assumption, and
some vague “distortions.” Nor does he feel the need to apologize to anyone
beyond his immediate circle â?? say, the men and women who really served in
Vietnam, or marched in the peace movement, or were harassed by cops in civil
rightsâ??era Mississippi.
We hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving.
This Saturday at noon EST on Pundit Review Radio will be broadcasting what may be our last show on WBIX in Boston. The reason has nothing to do with the show, in fact the feedback has been highly supportive. The problem lies with the station owner and involves a twenty year lie that has come apart in recent weeks. If you are interested in the backstory involving fraud, cheated investors, ponzi schemes, retirees having their life savings stolen, the SEC, FBI, FCC, layoffs, suicide and court appearences, click here.
This week we are very happy to have on as our guest, NZ Bear from the blog Truth Laid Bear. In addition to having a terrific blog, NZ is the creator and keeper of The Blogsphere Ecosystem, which ranks blogs by traffic and links.
Pundit Review Radio
Saturday at noon EST on www.wbix.com
Phone number for questions is 877-711-1060.
Social security reform promises to be one of President Bush’s top domestic priorities in the second term.
This week we spoke this week with Mr. Charles Jarvis, Chairman and Chief Executive of USA Next and United Seniors Association (USA).
Mr. Jarvis’ political career includes stints as a senior executive in the administrations of Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush, including Deputy Undersecretary of the Interior. He also served as Legislative Director for U.S. Senator Charles Grassley, Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee.
His organization, United Seniors Association, is a 1.5 million-plus national network of grassroots activists dedicated to Uniting the Generations for Americaâ??s FutureTM. USA works intensively to expand Economic Freedom, Health Freedom and Retirement and Investment Freedom for all Americans at every age and every stage in life.
We discussed President Bush’s vision for an ownership society including his plans for individual voluntary retirement accounts in which American workers could invest a percentage of their social security payroll tax into the stock market. It was a very interesting discussion and we hope to have Mr. Jarvis back on the show soon to go into greater detail on this important topic.
This week we talked about the opening of the Clinton Library and highlighted the work of some of the best blog posts that we enjoyed during the week.
We talked about many, many subjects including Iraq, Fallujah and the Marine caught on tape incident, Condi as Sec. of State, Europe’s decline and resentment, a new taxpayer subsidized Mosque being built in Boston and we even talked about the $15 billion boondoggle known as the Big Dig (aka Big Pig)
Some of the blogs we highlighted during this segment include Powerline, The American Thinker, Marlowe’s Shade and The Black Republican. We had a great time and hope you enjoy this segment.