The series, “Buried Secrets, Brutal Truths,” stands as a sterling piece of investigative journalism, and with its rich, smart storytelling, it seems certain to be a Pulitzer Prize finalist come next spring. Yet, to date, the remarkable effort has received relatively little pickup in the mainstream American press. Internationally, it has gotten enormous play.

Some major metro dailies, such as the Miami Herald, Boston Globe and Washington Post, have run truncated wire stories about the Tiger Force series. And the Knoxville News Sentinel was among the only newspapers to run the Blade’s first Tiger Force installment, in condensed form, on Page One. “I think it’s a heck of a news story,” says Knoxville editor Jack McElroy.

Noticeably absent, though, has been the New York Times, which, according to an electronic search, has never even referenced the Blade series or its historic findings in its print pages. Asked about the omission, a Times spokeswoman did not return calls by deadline.

The Times’ peculiar silence has raised eyebrows in some journalistic circles. “I’m appalled the New York Times hasn’t run anything,” says investigative journalist Seymour Hersh. “Not even a wire story?” Additionally, for three weeks none of the network news operations or all-news cable channels picked up the Blade’s report.

Asked if he’s surprised by the lack of media pickup, Hersh answers, “I’m enraged, are you kidding?” Hersh, who won a Pulitzer for uncovering the 1968 My Lai massacre, where U.S. troops killed hundreds of Vietnamese civilians, suggests the Blade’s work has been ignored because of a chill that’s in the media air today, with troops on the ground in Iraq, and the White House claiming too much attention is being paid to bad news.

“There’s an enormous amount of self-censorship involved and that freezes people,” he says. “I sense there’s something more at stake with this [Blade] story, something more important. There’s a basic truth about what’s going on in our profession, and this story — and the way it’s been ignored — says something about where we are, and it’s not very comfortable. It’s the high fast one we’re not swinging at anymore. We’re not engaged the way we should be.”

Last week Hersh, a staff writer for the New Yorker magazine, wrote a short article about the Blade series and the lack of follow-up coverage. The story caught the eye of ABC News anchor Peter Jennings, a former Vietnam War correspondent, and within days ABC dispatched a film crew to Toledo, as well as to Vietnam, for “World News Tonight” and “Nightline” reports on Tiger Force, both of which air Wednesday night.

Nonetheless, Joseph Nevins, author of the upcoming “A Not-So-Distant Horror: Making and Accounting for Mass Violence in East Timor,” says the immediate press reaction to “Buried Secrets, Brutal Truths” should not have come as a surprise. “The Toledo Blade did a great job uncovering the story. But there’s a tendency, when the United States is directly involved in war crimes against humanity, to give it short shift, to treat atrocities like ancient history.”

From his perch, Blade executive editor Ron Royhab suggests elitism may be at work in how media outlets choose to cover the Blade’s revelations. “My feeling is they didn’t do it because of an attitude — ‘It’s a Midwestern paper, and what do they know?’” Despite its modest, 150,000 circulation, the Blade is no stranger to the Pulitzers; the paper was a finalist in 1999 for its 22-month investigation into the dangers of beryllium, a metal that’s critical to the production of nuclear weapons but causes a rare disease among workers.

As for the idea that the ongoing war in Iraq may have caused others to hesitate on the Tiger Force story, “I think there’s a possibility that could have gone through people’s minds,” says the editor. “It went through our minds. We need to be sensitive to the fact we are at war. We need to respect that.”

“It’s not a popular story to run during a war,” adds Blade reporter Michael Sallah, a key player in the “Buried Secrets, Brutal Truths” team. “Networks are a little freaked out about running something like this. But you’d think people would care a little more about what happened, given the fact our government covered it up and some of the same people are in power today, like Donald Rumsfeld, who was secretary of defense in 1975 when the [Tiger Force] investigation was killed.”

The story the Blade cataloged over four days and 15 pages in October is a gruesome one. It detailed the deadly 1967 rampage of Tiger Force. Trained to spy on and ambush the enemy in the Central Highlands of South Vietnam, members instead torched villages, executed prisoners, and slaughtered hundreds of unarmed civilians.

As their commanders turned a blind eye, Tiger Force troops dropped grenades into underground bunkers where women and children were hiding, creating mass graves. They shot unarmed civilians who often begged for their lives. They tortured and shot prisoners, severing ears and scalps for souvenirs.

In a interview with the newspaper, a former Tiger Force sergeant recalled the mind-set: “We were living day to day. We didn’t expect to live. Nobody out there with any brains expected to live. So you did any goddamn thing you felt like doing — especially to stay alive. The way to live is to kill because you don’t have to worry about anybody who’s dead.”

Eventually the Army investigated the platoon, and concluded that 18 members of Tiger Force had committed war crimes, including murder and assault. In the early and mid-’70s, the case reached the highest levels of the Pentagon and the Nixon and Ford administrations. But in the end, no one was prosecuted and the case was buried in the archives for three decades. Until the Blade got a tip.

The newspaper spent eight months researching the story, going through thousands of Army documents, and traveling to California, Virginia and Washington state to track down Tiger Force members who recounted graphic killing tales. Blade reporters and photographers also traveled to South Vietnam to interview local eyewitnesses.

The completed “Buried Secrets, Brutal Truths” series “reminds us of what this business is supposed to be about,” says Hersh. “They did it the way you’d want it to be done. You could take the series and teach it” in journalism school.

But first, it ought to get wider play by the national media. Thanks to Hersh and the New Yorker, that might be about to happen.

Not surprisingly, one-time vice-presidential candidate and short-term Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin disagrees. She tweeted at about 2 pm ET:

Show photo as warning to others seeking America’s destruction. No pussy-footing around, no politicking, no drama;it’s part of the mission (sic)

Who does Palin think is “pussy-footing” around? The president? Navy SEALs? In what world does the quitter from Wasilla get to determine “it’s part of the mission”? No world we live in, thank God.

Releasing the photos won’t silence the right-wing fringe that makes up Palin’s base. Let’s all remember: If not for the successful bin Laden operation, we’d likely still be trying to swat down lunatic claims that the president’s long-form birth certificate was a forgery. Obama silenced those doubters (for now, anyway) by decisively changing the subject on Sunday. The ultra-right fringe that’s committed to believing the president is illegitimate — in every way; aided and abetted by Palin — can’t be satisfied by proof.

We still have people who don’t believe Flight 93 went down in Shanksville, Pa., on 9/11, and who say the twin towers came down due to an explosion, not the two planes flown like missiles into their upper floors. As Obama joked Saturday night, people still believe the 1969 moon landing was faked, and that Biggie and/or Tupac are still alive. At the same time, a graphic photo of a dead bin Laden immediately creates an image of martyrdom for his longtime followers — and maybe some new ones. People have argued that the U.S. showed proof of the death of Saddam Hussein and his sons, as well as other al-Qaida leaders and functionaries who’ve been killed. But the face of bin Laden is iconic, his creepy charisma part of his recruiting power. There’s no reason to hand his supporters a ready-made protest sign.

Of course, there are transparency reasons for eventually releasing the bin Laden photos and other photographic evidence of controversial U.S. operations that have resulted in casualties on our many foreign battlefields. And it’s possible that human rights groups will eventually succeed in making such photos public, including those of bin Laden. That’s a different argument. For now, under pressure by even some in his adminstration who think a photo might put to rest doubts that bin Laden is dead, Obama is making the right choice.

Meanwhile, this is funny: Donald Rumsfeld has flip-flopped on torture! Monday he told Newsmax (a site of no credibility, but Rumsfeld didn’t deny giving the interview):

 First of all, no one was waterboarded at Guantanamo Bay. That’s a myth that’s been perpetrated around the country by critics. The United States Department of Defense did not do waterboarding for interrogation purposes to anyone. It is true that some information that came from normal interrogation approaches at Guantanamo did lead to information that was beneficial in this instance. But it was not harsh treatment and it was not waterboarding.

But Monday night he told buddy Sean Hannity:

I’m told there was some confusion today on some programs…suggesting that I indicated that no one who was waterboarded at Guantanamo provided any information on this. That’s just not true. What I said was no one was waterboarded at Guantanamo by the U.S. military…Three people were waterboarded by the CIA…and then later brought to Guantanamo. In fact, as you point out, the information that came from those individuals was critically important.

Rumsfeld also agreed with Hannity that “if he [Obama] had had his way, and Democrats had their way, we wouldn’t have had this intelligence.” Stay classy, guys!

(An early version of this post conflated President Obama’s quotes with a commentator’s.)

On MSNBC’s Hardball today we discussed the president’s decision on the bin Laden photos:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

“America has won the war on terror,” Bush shouts. “Tonight, I am proud to say, Osama bin Laden is in hell.” The president explains that the terrorist mastermind was “taken out” by American forces in Afghanistan, along with the entire senior leadership of al-Qaida. Crowds spontaneously gather in celebration outside the White House, with handmade signs (“THESE COLORS DON’T RUN,” “LET’S ROLL”) in plain view of cable news cameras set up beforehand according to a White House communications office suggestion. A professional-quality sound system blares Lee Greenwood. Then, fireworks.

Thrilling night-vision footage of a daring firefight in a labyrinthine cave is immediately provided to news channels. All of them air it, without noting that the video was edited by the Pentagon prior to release, and its contents unconfirmed.

In background briefings to national security journalists, the Pentagon credits the kill to one lone unnamed but slightly Schwarzeneggerian special forces officer acting on intelligence procured by one lone unnamed but remarkably Jack Bauer-like CIA officer who personally “interrogated” the al-Qaida courier until he revealed bin Laden’s whereabouts.

One senior administration official speaking on deep background reveals the courier was interrogated instead of monitored and trailed because of credible intelligence indicating an imminent attack — possibly biological or nuclear — on an unknown American landmark.

Files on bin Laden’s captured cellphone reveal him to have been in constant communication with al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, according to a Pentagon source.

Editorial writers at most major U.S. newspaper proclaim a second moment of harmony to rival the first one directly after 9/11. Once again, there are no Republicans and Democrats, just Americans.

The following day, the president flies to New York where he gleefully models a profane anti-Osama T-shirt sold by a ground zero-area vendor. The photo makes the front page of the New York Post under the headline “LAST LAUGH.” Bush proclaims a “National Day of Celebration” and gives everyone the following Monday off from work.

The Guardian notes that British Ministry of Defense officials cannot confirm any details of the Pentagon’s story.

Newsweek magazine puts Donald Rumsfeld on the cover, naming him “Washington’s King of the Comeback.” (Time goes with a write-around feature on the American Commando.) To combat Rumsfeld’s sudden popular resurgence, Condoleezza Rice aide Jim Wilkinson instructs Washington Times editorial page editor Tony Blankley to ask Secretary Rice whether the death of bin Laden makes her more likely to mount a presidential run in 2008. Rice’s demurrals do nothing to end gleeful cable news speculation that she’ll run against Hillary (and win) in 2008. Chris Matthews can barely contain himself.

Mainstream journalists join a chorus of Republicans and right-wing commentators in jeering and mocking liberals casting doubt on the official story of bin Laden’s death. Those with reservations, based on actual evidence, about the official story are compared to Truthers by Richard Cohen, Joe Klein, Michelle Malkin, Andrew Sullivan, Mickey Kaus and just about everyone else.

A month later, a BBC investigation reveals that bin Laden’s death cannot be confirmed and the entire story as presented to the American media was most likely false. The American press, reluctant to “politicize” the death of bin Laden in the face of overwhelming national support for the president, is very cautious in reporting “new information” out of Afghanistan.

Well after the 2006 midterm elections, leaked memos prove that high-ranking U.S. military commanders warned the White House that the story that OBL had died in a U.S. raid was false and the rumors of his death elsewhere were still unconfirmable.

The next year, a book reveals that the crowd outside the White House the day of the announcement was made up mostly of off-duty Republican congressional aides, lobbyists and political consultants. (None of the firefighters present were from New York.)

In 2007, the Washington Post’s ombudsman and managing editor agree that printing the inaccurate story provided to them by administration officials was the right thing to do. “Each piece had multiple, credible sources,” the M.E. explains, naming none of them.

“We may never know the full truth about the ‘death’ of Osama bin Laden,” Time magazine writes shortly after a Senate committee investigation into the administration’s exaggerations and falsehoods is unable to issue a final report due to a partisan split. While “it seems certain that media accounts of the mission were distorted,” the liberal bloggers and foreign news outlets that exposed the distortions are almost certainly “guilty of exaggeration themselves,” with their claims that the Pentagon “manipulated information.”

President Bush wins a third term.

Rumsfeld’s memoir has come in for plenty of criticism, but Woodward, a writer and Beltway player known for deference to the powerful, eviscerates it. He calls “Known and Unknown” “one big clean-up job, a brazen effort to shift blame to others — including President Bush — distort history, ignore the record or simply avoid discussing matters that cannot be airbrushed away. It is a travesty, and I think the rewrite job won’t wash.”

By mid-afternoon, Rumsfeld had replied: Not in an Op-Ed, or a statement to reporters — but on his own Facebook page, à la Sarah Palin.

Mr. Woodward has demonstrated a regrettable tendency to put his storyline ahead of the facts….Woodward has been repeatedly accused of “tilting the facts,” “misleading remarks,” “disingenuous statements,” and placing “book sales above journalism.”

The well known story about Bob Woodward is that he practices what is derided as “access journalism,” whereby he favors those who provide him with information and gossip and leak against their colleagues. Those who refuse to play along, such as Donald Rumsfeld, then pay the price.

Snap!

Fairness requires that I give one point to Rumsfeld: Woodward is indeed notorious for “access journalism,” as well as coming down on the side of the likely winners in any story. In his first Bush book, “Bush at War,” the president and his Cabinet were depicted as decisive, disciplined and principled. By the final installment in the Bush trilogy, “State of Denial” — published when the Iraq war was going disastrously, Secretary of State Colin Powell had departed, and there was known (and unknown) infighting and finger-pointing around the White House — Woodward told a tale of dysfunction. But he told it well, and he marshaled his facts in Foreign Policy today to unravel Rumsfeld’s claims of distance from the Iraq debacle.

“The record shows that it was Rumsfeld stoking the Iraq fires — facts he has completely left out of his memoir,” Woodward reports. He turns to an account from his second book, “Plan of Attack,” in which Rumsfeld is captured as early as Sept. 11, 2001, musing about whether the U.S. “should hit S.H. [Saddam Hussein] at the same time” as Osama bin Laden, the attack’s mastermind. National Security Council notes show Rumsfeld raised the question again Sept. 12. When Woodward asked the defense secretary about it during a 2002 interview, he first “blew up,” denying that he’d suggested taking out the Iraq dictator. Later, in what seems to have been an off-the-record conversation, he confessed, but said he’d made the suggestion in the interest of making sure the NSC hadn’t “missed” anything. “It was a fair question,” he told Woodward. (It should be noted that Woodward left the exchange out of his next book, “Plan of Attack.”)

Rumsfeld also insists in his book that he wasn’t sure Bush had made the decision to go to war until he actually told the country March 19, 2003, but Woodward interviewed Rumsfeld in October 2003, and was told that Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney informed Saudi Prince Bandar Jan. 11 “you can count on this. In other words at some point we had had enough of a signal from the president that we were able to look a foreign dignitary in the eye and say you can take that to the bank this is going to happen.”

There’s been tension between Woodward and Rumsfeld since at least 2002, when the defense secretary questioned why Bush administration officials agreed to work with the Washington Post reporter, and criticized his work as marked by “a great many inadequacies.” There’s no doubt Rumsfeld is the villain of “State of Denial.”  I can still remember Woodward writing about the way Rumsfeld “snowflaked” internal memos with unsigned Post-it notes — granular and annoying for staff, but ultimately deniable for the boss — a symbol of the defense secretary’s buck-passing pettiness.

Rumsfeld’s Facebook note is a little bit like a snowflake: It’s short, he can take it down, he can edit it. He signed this one, but it has a certain kind of Post-it-like impermanence. Like Palin, Rumsfeld is known for holding grudges and settling scores, so it makes sense they’d both take to Facebook. But it makes them both look a little bit like vindictive high schoolers; I’d have to give this round to Woodward.

This is an edited version of the interview, as uploaded by Louis C.K.:

It is definitely worth a listen. Rumsfeld never once denies that he is a lizard person from outer space.

C.K. is referencing the theories of former sportscaster and internationally renowned conspiracy researcher David Icke, who has worked for years now to expose the shape-shifting reptilian Anunnaki gods from the constellation Draco. Disguised as humans, they secretly rule the world. For more, seek out Jon Ronson’s documentary about Icke, which is is available on YouTube. (Also you can just watch videos made by the people who believe these things.)

Part One

Part Two

Part Three