Greg Palast on the real AWOL story

Palast's latest is preaching to the choir for those of us who follow progressive issues online. I think it's still a helpful reframe of the whole damned AWOL issue now that the whole thing has morphed into a Rather-centric feeding frenzy. Funny how that has happened. And the Dubya AWOL story has gone AWOL once again.

This is not a story about Dan Rather. The white millionaire celebrity can defend himself without my help. This is really a story about fear, the fear that stops other reporters in the US from following the evidence about this Administration to where it leads. American news guys and news gals, practicing their smiles, adjusting their hairspray levels, bleaching their teeth and performing all the other activities that are at the heart of US TV journalism, will look to the treatment of Dan Rather and say, "Not me, babe." No questions will be asked, as Dan predicted, lest they risk necklacing and their careers as news actors burnt to death.