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--- Begin Message ----Caveat Lector- FUNNY YOU SHOULD ASK Newsday Sept. 25, 2003 Section: Viewpoints Headline: EPA's Non-Scandal By: Susan MoellerHow can a scandalous report be released without triggering a scandal? There's a case study before us now. The recent report by the inspector general of the Environmental Protection Agency should by all rights have New Yorkers - and others concerned about whether their government is capable of lying about public health and safety - out in the streets. Yet the report has not generated the media coverage and public attention it deserves. Why? Certainly the allegations in the report are scandalous: They detail the White House's deliberate manipulation of the information that was released about the air quality in Manhattan and Brooklyn in the aftermath of the collapse of the World Trade Center. "The White House Council on Environmental Quality," said the report, "influenced ... the information that EPA communicated to the public through its early press releases when it convinced the EPA to add reassuring statements and delete cautionary ones." Certainly, some are trying to keep the issue out there. Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) is threatening to block a full Senate vote to confirm the Bush nominee to head the EPA until the White House divulges more information about its alterations of the press releases. But the story about the administration's distorting the health risks for those living and working near Ground Zero is remaining, at best, on the inside pages of the newspapers. One reason that the politically motivated calculations of the Bush administration have not made more of an impact than they have is because the White House knows how to take advantage of the way news cycles work. Even without overt stage-handling, not all the news that deserves major attention manages to get it. Most stories break, get a day or two of play at best, and then have their denouements off-screen. The truly big stories become so either because they are cataclysmic - a space shuttle blows up, a blackout blankets the Northeast - or because someone with power works tirelessly to get a message out. How was the war in Iraq sold, for instance? President George W. Bush, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice - all were ubiquitous on air, in print and on message that Saddam Hussein was an imminent threat to Americans. And just as administration officials know how to generate attention, they know how to release information that has to be made public but that they'd rather no one pay any attention to: Release the bad news while everyone is already focused on a major story, break the news on Friday or Saturday when fewer people are tuning in to the media, and wait until everyone's on vacation. August, for instance, is a good month to slip bad news out. Guess what? The EPA report was released on a Friday in August, when much attention - especially from New Yorkers - was fixed on the worst blackout in American history. Of course, this White House isn't the only one that has understood news cycles. Other administrations and politicians on both sides of the aisle have played the media in attempts to surreptitiously release bad news. The strategy doesn't always work. Why has it this time? Why hasn't the EPA's unveiling of the 9/11 disinformation campaign become the current cause c�lPbre? It's not just that the Bush administration is effective at managing the news; it is that the media have also been distracted by other stories: the governor's race in California, Gen. Wesley Clark's candidacy for president, the reinvolvement of the United Nations in Iraq. And there have been other hot political issues to cover - the rollback of the Clean Air Act, the change in the way hospital emergency rooms will admit patients without insurance, the mounting death toll in Iraq. But none of that entirely explains why the public isn't itself crying scandal. One might have thought that the EPA story would be the straw breaking the back of Americans' trust and credulity. After all, the revelations that emerged in the EPA report were not the first time Americans were made aware that the Bush administration has at times descended to deliberately distorting information. In Iraq, the hunt for the so-called imminent threat - those weapons of mass destruction - continues. And recall the stories in July that disclosed that Bush included in his State of the Union address a claim that the CIA discredited. Americans remain asleep to the consequences of having a government they can't trust even to tell them whether they are personally in danger. That is, perhaps, the most distressing scandal of all. Without outrage, there is no incentive for the media to better track the administration's "misstatements" and no pressure on the administration to come clean. ===== MOTHRA-NYC.org advocates for full disclosure about the risks from WTC toxins and exposes the extent and effects of Environmental Protection Agency's failed outreach. for more bulletins see: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/911_HealthAlerts/join Mothra-NYC is fully funded by a grant from Unitech Operations, Inc. ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> Buy Ink Cartridges or Refill Kits for your HP, Epson, Canon or Lexmark Printer at MyInks.com. Free s/h on orders $50 or more to the US & Canada. http://www.c1tracking.com/l.asp?cid=5511 http://us.click.yahoo.com/mOAaAA/3exGAA/qnsNAA/KlSolB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ www.ctrl.org DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. ======================================================================== Archives Available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ <A HREF="http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/">ctrl</A> ======================================================================== To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
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