Okay "liberal bloggers" - 'fess up

By Libby
Udated below

The usual Bush loyalists in Blogtopia are all going orgasmic over
John Bresnahan's piece in the Politico, which has quickly become the home of unsourced gossip masquerading as news.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid called Marine Gen. Peter Pace, the outgoing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, "incompetent" during an interview Tuesday with a group of liberal bloggers, a comment that was never reported.

Reid made similar disparaging remarks about Army Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, said several sources familiar with the interview.

Since the sources are unidentified, we have no way of judging the credibility of the gossip, but Breshnahan plods on for another three pages of hints and innuendo, carefully avoiding putting the alleged remarks in context. For all we know Reid was talking about their ability to tie a good Windsor knot. This is the closest he gets.

Reid, who was bashed by Republicans for suggesting earlier this year that the Iraq war was "lost," is lashing out at top commanders while putting the finishing touches on a plan to force a series of votes on Iraq designed exclusively to make Republicans up for reelection in 2008 go on record in favor of continuing an unpopular war.

Am I the only one that remembers when anonymous sources were a rarity instead of the rule? I'm sick to death of "news" accounts based on unnamed sources. Who are the sources and what possible reason could there be to keep them anonymous? I understand, with the documented danger of making honest statements about the administration, that White House whistleblowers can't be identified but we're talking about a bunch of bloggers, whom Breshnahan accuses of withholding information, but also fails to identify.

Who are these "liberal bloggers" that rate a conference call with Reid? Considering Breshnahan just made a serious smear on their integrity, they should step forward and put the remarks into some kind of context, since clearly Breshnahan either can't or won't.

Furthermore, leaving Breshnahan aside, I thought the whole point of Blogtopia was supposed to be to bring transparency to the political processes. Keeping the Democrat's blogger's list secret feels uncomfortably close to what we're supposed to fighting against to me. So step up A-listers and announce your affiliation. I, for one, would love to know.

Update: Well that didn't take long. Via Talk Left, McJoan at Kos reveals the bloggers: Um, me, Barb, Kagro, The Americablog guys, Bob Geiger, Jonathon Singer.

And Bob Geiger puts the remark in better context.

Rather, Reid was talking informally about George W. Bush's refusal to dump Alberto Gonzales and told us what he said to Pace in a private meeting before Bush tossed aside the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff like a rotting fish.
Here's exactly what Reid said:

"I guess the president, uh, he's gotten rid of Pace because he could not get him confirmed here in the Senate… Pace is also a yes-man for the president and I told him to his face, I laid it out to him last time he came to see me, I told him what an incompetent man I thought he was."

So, did Reid utter the word "incompetent" in the same sentence with General Pace's name on the conference call? Yes, he did.

As Geiger notes, taken in context it was hardly the "lashing out" that Breshnahan claims. It was an aside, an personal anecdote of an encounter Reid had with Pace and didn't merit a Drudge style coverage that the Politico is so fond of.

So, we know the bloggers and there's no surprises there. All of them disclosed their affliation with the Democratic party a long time ago. So we're left to wonder, who are these unnamed sources? The bloggers have stepped forward, so it's time for Breshnahan to come clean or retract his gossip mongering as prominiently as he displayed it.

Don't hold your breath waiting. Breshnahan suffers from the same malady all well-connected Beltway media elites are afflicted with - a conflict of interest between their insider status on the cocktail party circuit and their journalistic responsibility.