Halliburton and the State of Journalism
Re “A Tough Job, and Halliburton Does It,” Commentary, Oct. 10: Unsurprisingly, David Lesar, chief executive of Halliburton, turned in an annoying bit of self-congratulatory puffery, absent any pesky facts. First, nearly half of the firm’s contracts are being reexamined because of overbilling, and it has already paid millions in fines.
Second, the neocons had planned this invasion when Dick Cheney was still president of Halliburton, which hardly qualifies as a surprise invasion necessitating the use of only one large firm. (In fact, Paul O’Neill, Richard Clarke and others testify that an invasion of Iraq was on the table from Day One and thus hardly came as a “classified” surprise to the inner circle.)
Third, Cheney delivered his umpteenth baldfaced lie during the debate when he called the Halliburton charges “a smoke screen,” and inadvertently referred us to factcheck.com, rather than factcheck.org. In fact, if one goes to factcheck.org, an Annenberg site, the evidence against Halliburton is carefully delineated and irrefutable. The list goes on and on. I’m not sure which is sadder, that such spin now serves as political discourse or that Bush/Cheney can count on the proposition that the average American is so dense as to buy it without bothering to do any homework.
Harry Shannon
Valley Glen
*
I cannot recall a more worthless Commentary page than that of Oct. 10. First we have Michael Ramirez, who along with Cheney and Bush, must be person No. 3 not to “get” Iraq, and then a free PR slot for Halliburton. And the guys they have are working so hard for our money!
Then Michael Kinsley wastes a third of the page explaining why a journalist (who incidentally helped fuel the war in the first place) should not be pressured or go to jail. I guess even in his passing poor Rodney Dangerfield couldn’t get any respect (“In a City Full of Beautiful People, Dangerfield Could Stop Traffic,” by Roseanne Barr, Commentary, Oct. 10). That much is obvious as to where it was placed [at the bottom of the page] alongside what has to pass for journalism these days.
Kerry Morse
Irvine