Reply #60: Muddle

[Lithos]

You are right in saying that LaRouche is a bigot and a fascist.

And yes, EIR is indeed a highly biased publication and one where study must be made of each article's context and veracity. However, there is some editorial process which does keep out the more fanatical views of LaRouche. You can see the following statement concerning EIR as published in the Columbia Journalism Review.

http://archives.cjr.org/year/93/3/spooky.asp

Another major source of conspiracy theories are the LaRouchians -- followers of former presidential candidate Lyndon LaRouche, presently serving a jail term for mail fraud and tax evasion. The LaRouchians are perhaps best known for their theory that Great Britain's political leaders are basically puppets of Jewish banking families and that Queen Elizabeth and others are in league with these families to control the smuggling of drugs into the U.S.

Back in the early days of the Reagan administration, the LaRouche information-gathering operation received a tribute from the National Security Council's senior director of international affairs, Dr. Norman Bailey, who called it "one of the best private intelligence services in the world." (The La Rouchians' links to the NSC's staff were terminated after producer Pat Lynch exposed the relationship in a 1984 segment of NBC's short-lived First Camera news program. LaROuche sued NBC, including Lynch and correspondent Mark Nykanen; free-lancer Dennis King; this author; and the Anti-Defamation League of B'Nai B'Rith for defamation. A jury ruled that characterizing LaRouche as an anti-Semite, "small-time Hitler," cult-leader, and crook was not defamation.)

Several journalists who published early Iran-contra stories say that the LaRouchians were important players in the traditional Capitol press corps game of trading tips and theories and sometimes swapping sources and documents. Herb Quinde, an intelligence policy analyst for the LaRouchians, confirms that he and other LaRouchian investigators were then, and are now, in constant touch with journalists and researchers across the political spectrum. The LaRouchains' Executive Intelligence Review even gets a footnote acknowledgment from Ben Bradlee, Jr., in his Guts and Glory: The Rise and Fall of Oliver North. There he acknowledges the help of EIR in decoding the short-hand used by North in his notebooks.

Because this is a book review and an actual interview, the only discussion that can be made here is whether the quotes were taken out of context or the person being interviewed is somehow unqualified or heavily biased/extreme in their own viewpoints. I didn't see it being rejected on this basis.