One Piece of Good News ... Chas Freeman OUT

In case you have not been following this story, one Charles (Chas) Freeman was just an abominable choice for chairman of the National Intelligence Council. A former US Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, he is known for being a Saudi apologist and has spent his post diplomatic career on the Saudi payroll. He is also considered to be quite hostile to Israel is a blame the victim type (us) when it came to 9/11,

I don't want to rehash all of the problems with serious problems about this guy here, but feel free to look it up.

Chas Freeman will not be chairman of the National Intelligence Council.

Statement by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence
Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair announced today that Ambassador Charles W. Freeman Jr. has requested that his selection to be Chairman of the National Intelligence Council not proceed. Director Blair accepted Ambassador Freeman’s decision with regret.

Andy McCarthy sez:

Great. But there remains the fact that the top intelligence official in the U.S., Dennis Blair, brought Freeman in, figuring he'd be a perfect fit to head the National Intelligence Council. Freeman is gone, but Blair will be with us for years to come. The problems with Freeman were far from hidden. What is it about Blair's worldview that inspired him to think Freeman was a good choice to be shaping intelligence estimates and framing the information consumed by the president?

Mark Steyn's take:

Don't read all about it! [Mark Steyn]

I'm glad to see the back of the Saudi shill Chas Freeman, but I wonder what Mr and Mrs America will make of it tomorrow morning, reading for the very first time how the "Outspoken Former Ambassador" (as the AP's headline has it) was scuttled by a controversy their newspaper saw fit not to mention a word about.

As far as I can tell, the only papers in America to so much as mention the Freeman story were The Wall Street Journal, Investors' Business Daily, The Washington Times, The New York Post, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, The Augusta Chronicle, and The Press Enterprise of Riverside, California.

But if you rely for your news on The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Detroit News, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Miami Herald, or The Minneapolis Star-Tribune - just to name a random selection of American dailies currently sliding off the cliff - the end of the story will be the first time you've heard of it.

The US newspaper has deluded itself that it's been killed by technology. But there are two elements to a newspaper: news and paper. The paper is certainly a problem, but so is the news, or lack of it. If you're interested in news, the somnolent US monodaily is the last place to look for it.