[new yorker 77]

I'm flabbergasted," said Michael Massing, a media critic whose writings dissected the largely unquestioning U.S. news reporting on the Bush administration's shaky WMD claims in 2002-03.

"This finding just has to cause despair among those of us who hope for an informed public able to draw reasonable conclusions based on evidence," Massing said.

[Enchante]

Gee whiz, I wonder if Massing has troubled himself to "dissect" all the Clintonista assertions about Saddam and WMDs in 1998-2002 as the leading Demagogues all fell over each other to denounce Saddam and demand an official US policy of "regime change" in Iraq......... a policy which was written into the LAW of the land under President Bill Clinton and VP Algore.........

Of course, since the AP writer is shilling for the infamous charlatan Scott Ritter, the article is surely reliable:

"These are not stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction," said Scott Ritter, the ex-Marine who was a U.N. inspector in the 1990s. "They weren't deliberately withheld from inspectors by the Iraqis."