Helen & Harry Highwater's cranky weblog of news and opinion.
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"News that's not known, or not known enough." Helen & Harry Highwater's cranky weblog of news and opinion. |
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We receive an endless trickle of 'letters to the editor' from folks tipping us off to 'important news', as reported by Wayne Madsen. Picture our eyes rolling. Madsen is a free-lance writer whose reports are hyped at numerous websites, read and believed by many readers, and occasionally quoted by otherwise reasonable voices on talk radio, but we're just plain un-impressed by Mr Madsen's work (see the list of 'news' he's gotten wrong, and bear in mind that the list is almost certainly incomplete). And you can take our opinion for whatever you think it's worth We've posted this page so we can simply send readers this link whenever Madsen reports startling 'news', instead of explaining again (and again and again) why his 'news' isn't included among our website's headlines. Helen & Harry, Unknown News
Wayne Madsen is reporting that Dick Cheney's name appears on the list of customers of the DC Madam's "escort services". This is awfully big news, and I'm surprised that your website hasn’t mentioned it.
We haven't mentioned it because we don't believe it. We don't believe the claim is credible, until it comes from someone more reliable than Wayne Madsen. He's the only reporter reporting this, so let's look at ...
• Madsen reported that the Saudis and Enron funded the rigging of the 2004 election. But as of 2007, I don't think anyone else has reported this, and I don't think it's true.Regarding this latest alleged scoop, reported only at Wayne Madsen's website, that Cheney was a customer of the DC Madam: I've read Madsen's report, but in my quick and admittedly skeptical perusal, I don't see any sources willing to go on the record, so the only evidence that Cheney was a hooker's customer is Wayne Madsen's say-so. But based on Madsen's track record, we don't believe he's a credible source, so his say-so means nothing to us. His reports are so wrong so often that we can't take this as anything more than a rumor, and our website doesn't traffic in rumors. I will add, though, that it's a perfectly plausible rumor. Dick Cheney might have been a customer of the DC Madam, and I wouldn't have much difficulty believing it. But rumor-mongering is not journalism
After publishing the above email, we received these messages from DanD, an old friend. We've intersperced his notes with our replies:Now, I don't know who Cat Angelo is, but I do know at least a little bit about Wayne Madson from his significant volumes of readily assessable archives. Wayne Madson is a first-class reporter, with just a small and very modified yellow-journalism streak in him. As far as I'm concerned, his personally flavored style at least lets me know that I may be reading something composed by a human. One characteristic about Madson's comparatively insipid yellow-journalism however, is that it is not terribly sensationalized, especially if we are using Billy Clinton's Monicafest as a backdrop. Another thing is, by her own stated admissions, Cat Angelo doesn't have any proof that Madson is talkin' shit, which is also an admission that she doesn't particularly know if Madson's reporting on the issues she has with him is inaccurate or otherwise not true. Okay, so Wayne likes slummin' down at NI (National Inquirer) alley sometimes. If he does though, chances are that he has a "higher-road" reason for it. In the meantime, if the examples given by CA is all she's got to declare Wayne Madson "not trustworthy," then as far as I'm concerned, Cat Angelo can't be trusted to make responsible decisions about what effective journalism is, or how that brand of journalism is allowed to be accomplished. At least Wayne Madson ain't no Geraldo Rivera, and he's also a lot more honest than Dan Rather.
Well, if Wayne Madson has consistently and agregiously reported so wrongly, could you show me at least a few (more than one I hope) examples of where his reporting has been proved so obviously flawed or wrong? Lack of corroboration should not elicit a "probably" wrong verdict ... and devoid of other corroborating evidence, at its harshest should only produce a "possibly wrong" assessment. I'm sorry to have so apparently misjudged Cat. This is maybe because (well, we all have excuses) I had hurriedly glanced over what seemed to me to be a hatchet job and couldn't ever imagine H&H as the source. So, you're the real perp, huh? From how I see it, WM has some pretty deep-cover sources, and a whole lot of what he puts out has been right on the money. Quite a bit, I view him as a more accurate and steady Joe Vialls (rest his soul). And when I say "deep cover," I'm talkin' about people who would probably get "suicided" by the big pigs involved were they ever even suspected of being the source of some of Madson's more tawdry revelations. As Madson's sources apparently even transcend national boundaries, I could understand how he would want to protect them, even at his own expense. While I do realize that Madson may be a little bit on the "low-rent" side of journalism's ethical divide, if you really want to get the dirt on the dirtiest of them, your investigator almost invariably has to be at least a little dusty himself, even as a virgin can never convincingly discuss or otherwise truly understand the ecstasies of doing the nasty. I mean, just look at that duo who undid Nixon ... they now seem to be not as "white-knight" as all had imagined. What do you think now of that popular movie's "above and beyond" portrayal? Personally, I kinda' wonder if Redford has kicked himself a couple of times because of it ~ Oh well, I still love ya --
While drifting in and out of sleep last night (getting old makes your bladder cranky) I also remembered something else about Wayne Madson's reporting style. Have you ever noticed that some of the most vile people targeted by Madson for his seemingly "slanderous" revelations have never committed the direct conduct of calling him a liar? Madson declares that the mass murderer Cheney is also a whoremonger. absolute silence. He also reveals that the boyfriend murderer, Pickles, is having severe marital disruptions produced between her own squeeze (think pimple on ass) and the serial war-liar, Condum None have ever turned such seemingly Sun-or-National Inquirer-esque "untruths" into courtroom claims. Now, there are only two reasons I can really for this circumstance. ONE, they don't have the money to finance a suit (huh?), or TWO, the "allegations" that Madson puts out are fundamentally true, and even by them just calling WM a liar makes it a court-actionable for slander by Madson. I well understand this brand of journalism because I had used a version of it against The Lords of City Hall in Pasadena, CA back during the middle 90s. All you have to make sure about is that your allegation(s) are true and that you can produce confirmation about some critical element. I ALWAYS made sure that all my ducks were in a row concerning sufficient evidence, and I never got sued! Because of this fact, people back then started to enjoy my little newsletter and believing what I wrote. I also affected some effective City Hall change. Think of it, the most powerful people on Earth (TM, Dubya) refuse to sue an ostensibly two-bit blogger for what seems to be blatant slander? These ARE NOT the kind of people who ignore such things like this just in order to make them go away. As we had been force-fed during the previous President's administration, they don't pursue the crooks for the worst that they've done, instead, they pander to the "low-rentiest" of us all by chasing those sultry moral issues. Successful impeachment could-well be "last-straw" legitimized among the ditto-head crowd by the otherwise dismissable conduct of Cheney getting his crank lubed by a prostitute. Hell, Billy got his knob-jobs done by an otherwise respectable little Jewish princess and they chased his ass all through the sewer! Even Michael Rivero has given print to LB's successful boyfriend murder plot (along with WM), and everybody knows about Cheney's attempted slaughter of a lawyer while supposedly hunting pheasant. Apparently, W Madson just has better "secret" evidence and a sufficiently advertised "deadman's switch." Again I state, absence of evidence does not mean a lack of it. My proof of this is that the Bush-regime's perps don't even take the time to call him a liar.
Okay, let's delve a little bit into what you consider those five instances: • Madsen reported that the Saudis and Enron funded the rigging of the 2004 election. But as of 2007, I don't think anyone else has reported this, and I don't think it's true.Who do you think "funded" the rigging of 2004? I'm pretty certain that you don't believe that the 2004 elections WERE NOT rigged. Certainly, no one IN America would be stupid enough to chance leaving any kind of money trail. I'm also certain that Zionland had a significant hand in the matter ... but just like the U.S., Saudi Arabia also has a lot of shills for Zionland strategically sleeping throughout its government, and population. These are people who really don't even realize that they are being "controlled" as a Zionland Katsa. Also, why hasn't the Saudi Arabians used their extensive wealth to sue Wayne Madson for slander? Is it because perhaps its much better to let sleeping dogs lie? Again, lack of evidence doesn't mean that there is no evidence. Lack of a denial however is evidence of something else. • In 2006, Madsen reported that Karl Rove was about to be indicted. But Rove wasn't indicted, or if he was indicted it remains a secret (shhh) even years later.Personally, from all the other things I was reading, I also thought that Rove was going to be indicted. Do you feel that there is "insufficient" evidence to indict that wormy little man? Okay, so this one didn't pan out for Madson ... perhaps he was lied to or otherwise snookered. Is a perfect batting average a mandatory requirement in cyber-Journalism? America's neo-con government has billions of dollars at its disposal to invest in maintaining its infrastructure of lies, Wayne Madson may operate on 100,000 dollars (or less) a year. Failure happens only when you don't even try. At least WM (as is also UN) is trying. On the flip side, Wayne Madson does in fact go much deeper than most others ... and he does produce quite unique and extremely valuable revelations. • Madsen once reported that First Lady Laura Bush was so furious about President Bush's long, ongoing affair with Condoleezza Rice that Mrs Bush had packed a suitcase and moved out of the White House. But I've read no other reporters' account of this alleged affair, nor seen any evidence that there's anything to it beyond a rumor. Nor have I seen any reliable reports that Mrs Bush no longer lives at the White House. And as sloppy as mainstream reporting has gotten, I still believe either item would be pretty dang newsworthy to the Washington Post or Associated Press.The Washington Post or AP could have the nastiest pictures of a Condi-Shrub love affair, and they would only burn them ... you seem to forget that BOTH of these MSM organizations are ruled over by Dubya's "bottom-dollar" bosses, Global Corporatism. Yet again, where's your proof that Madson is lying? • Madsen reported that President George W. Bush had an affair with a male member of his cabinet. But no names were named. Nobody else has yet reported this. There is, near as I can tell, no basis for believing it, unless you're willing to believe each and every word typed by Wayne Madsen.Yep, this is scandal-mongering ... kinda' like McCain's secretly fathered black baby. It was also rumored in the past by others besides Madson that Dubya was a serious switch-hitter while in the Guard. While I was in the Air Force, as far as I was concerned, most of the Officer Corps were as queer as a three dollar bill. But, then again, that's a general non-Commissioned prejudice. Even so, Dubya did like stuffing firecrackers up the asses of frogs and blasting away ~ • While the Mark Foley-page scandal was big news, Madsen broke the news that House Speaker Dennis Hastert is "gay and has a small penis". But again, this was 'news' only Madsen and his readers took seriously. Hastert might be gay, but not just because Madsen says he's gay. And some people might be fascinated by conjecture about the size of a Congressman's penis, but to me that's not hard news.Hastert was actively running interference for a Congressional perv who was flagrantly molesting male pages. Haven't you ever heard of the phrase "Protecting your own?" While being gay doesn't particularly mean that you're a sexual pervert, I feel that the circumstance of pedophilia certainly can't be any less severe among gays than it is throughout the hetero world. As far as the little peter story? Well, yeah, that was kinda' gratuitous Again, unlike the more disinfected side of the Web's UN-preferred cyber news force, Madson does go slummin' quite a bit more than the "acceptable" average ... does this mean everything Madson highlights must be written off? Wayne Madson has produced hundreds of investigative reports. You have listed five (sic), and have implied that perhaps as much as a couple of dozen others are sufficiently questionable. Tell me, what do you think a safe failure rate is? As far as I see it, Wayne Madson's Report is also an excellent gauge against the hypocrisy of new reporting. So his tactics of "gettin' the news out" ain't quite your cup of tea ... how do you define "tolerance?" As long as he stays away from the two-headed babies from the flying saucer armageddon crowd, he just can't be all that bad ... .
And immediately, even after we thought we'd said everything we could say about Madsen, there was this from Marshall C.:So what's your thing with Wayne Madson? So he gets things wrong once in a while? So you don't ever make mistakes? So you don't think it's possible Dick Cheney could be a prostitute's customer? You think someone would fuck that monster if she wasn't being paid?
And that's where the situation sits, even months later, as we continue receiving late-breaking bulletins from Wayne Madsen. If you're reading this, chances are it's because we sent you this link, after you sent us some 'news' from Madsen. So we say again: Read what you want, believe what you like, but please don't send us news from Wayne Madsen. Helen & Harry, Unknown News
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