Two news stories today about the commonplace schemer whose fantasies were used by the Bush administration to gin up support for president Nice Job Brownie’s splendid little war. 

First, from the network that white washed the murder of Matthew Shepard, ABC News:

Curveball’s false tales became the centerpiece of then-Secretary of State Colin Powell’s speech before the United Nations in February 2003, even though he was considered an "unstable, immature and unreliable" source by some senior officials in the CIA. The CIA has since issued an official "burn notice" formally retracting more than 100 intelligence reports based on his information.

Notice, they’re not even doing their own reporting there on the source of the claim that Saddam had those mobile biological weapons labs. 

Now…from the people who actually did do some reporting…Der Spiegel:

Above all, however, the spymasters failed to do what is indispensable in the intelligence business: They did not sufficiently examine “Curveball’s” personal record. Perhaps they could have learned early on that, for a time, Rafed tried to make a go of manufacturing eye shadow. Later he stole 1.5 million dinar-worth of gear from the partially state-owned film and television company Babel TV, where he was responsible for equipment maintenance. A warrant for his arrest had been issued as a result — the real reason why he bolted from Iraq in 1998.

The BND would not even have had to go to Iraq to learn about Rafed’s real character — he remained true to form in Germany as well. Despite an explicit ban by BND authorities, Rafed worked for a time in a Chinese restaurant, and even behind the counter at a Burger King restaurant. He quickly attracted attention to himself. Several Iraqis described him to SPIEGEL as a "crackpot" and "con man."

Notice any difference?  Go read both of those and see if the difference doesn’t just leap out at you and laugh in your face.   The American News Network is tactfully refraining from holding its own government accountable for its behavior in that affair.  If anything, ABC News is suggesting that was all the fault of those wily Germans.  The German news magazine on the other hand, is almost blistering in holding its own government to account.

All through this goddamned war I’ve had to read European news sources to learn what’s going on over there.  For an American with just a shred of appreciation that there is, in fact, a world beyond our shores, that’s not necessarily surprising.  I’ve never once set foot outside of the continental United States, but many hours of my childhood were spent sitting raptly in front of a shortwave radio, listening to the BBC or Radio Netherlands and marveling at how much there was to know about the rest of the world that I simply didn’t get from the home grown broadcasts.  That a more complete picture of foreign events would come from foreign news sources is unsurprising.  What’s really pissing me off now is that I get a more complete picture of what my own government is up to from foreign news sources.