Isikoff and Eschaton

Newsweek journalist Michael Isikoff is currently the subject of a two-minute hate on Eschaton for reviewing Clinton's book and summoning latent Democratic ire from back when Isikoff would publish reports harmful to Clinton's image, and shortly thereafter getting some facts wrong in a review of Michael Moore's new movie, Fahrenheit 9/11.

Michael Isikoff has written too many reports too critical of the Bush administration for me to believe the line that he's a Republican partisan. His record includes:

• Spreading the rumour that Bush took campaign money from Al Qaeda (link long since vanished, but it was a Periscope column on April 1, 2002)
• Reporting that the CIA had briefed Bush on Al Qaeda's plans to attack the US back when the Administration maintained they had no reason to suspect anyone might conduct an attack
• Reporting on the importance of the August 6th briefing
• Reporting on Bush's appointment of anti-Clinton fabricator Jean Lewis as the Inspector General of the Department of Defense (this seems to have been purged from msnbc's files)
• Reporting that Chalabi's INC propaganda operation was directly hooked up to Dick Cheney's office
• Attacking the Feith "Case Closed" memo

While I don't know enough about the facts to comment on the veracity of Isikoff's reports regarding Clinton, it seems clear to me that he isn't a Republican Party shill, but he does owe Craig Unger an apology for misquoting him (unstable link).

Posted by Warrior Tang at June 23, 2004 09:34 PM

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