Mitt Romney hasn't said much of anything about the savage activities about Blackwater USA and he has a good reason not to. His counter-terrorism chief, Cofer Black works for them as Vice Chairman. Just a little conflict of interest if you know what I'm saying. Now why won't the news media talk about this side story?
From Media Matters:
In a September 17 article, the Associated Press reported that Iraq's Interior Ministry "ordered Blackwater USA, the security firm that protects U.S. diplomats, to stop work and leave the country after the fatal shooting of eight Iraqi civilians following a car bomb attack against a State Department convoy." The article noted that "vice chairman Cofer Black, a former director of the CIA's counterterrorism center, declined to comment when reached at his Virginia home." But there was no mention in the article that Black was named the head of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's counterterrorism policy advisory group on September 13, according to a press release that day from the Romney campaign. Similarly, in their coverage of Blackwater USA, none of the networks -- ABC, NBC, or CBS -- reported Romney's connections to Black during the nightly news broadcasts on September 17. Additionally, neither ABC's Good Morning America nor NBC's Today noted the connection in their reports during the broadcasts on September 18. The September 18 edition of CBS' The Early Show did not report on Blackwater USA at all.
The Romney campaign press release, which was noted by a September 13 Boston Globe article, quoted Black saying, "Governor Romney recognizes the threats before us and has already laid out the policies needed to give our men and women the tools they need to protect our country."
A September 17 Kansas City Star article reported on Romney's hiring of Black, but did not note Black's role as vice chairman of Blackwater USA.
As MM continues, only Ana Marie Cox mentioned it on her Time Magazine blog. A simple search on Google or Lexis-Nexis can bring up that interesting piece of Presidential campaigning news, yet everyone is stunningly silent. Maybe if Keith Olbermann mentions it, we can hear some echoes in the lame-stream media.
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