"Media Matters"; by Jamison Foser
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This Week: After Democrat won Virginia governorship, media suggested he ran as a Republican CNN's O'Brien downplays Alito violation of his sworn promise to recuse himself from Vanguard cases |
Quotes of the week
[I]f Al Qaeda comes in here and blows you [San Franciscans] up, we're not going to do anything about it. We're going to say, look, every other place in America is off limits to you, except San Francisco. You want to blow up the Coit Tower? Go ahead."
"I'd like to say to the good citizens of Dover [Pennsylvania]: If there is a disaster in your area, don't turn to God. You just rejected him from your city. ... God is tolerant and loving, but we can't keep sticking our finger in his eye forever. ... If they have future problems in Dover, I recommend they call on Charles Darwin. Maybe he can help them."
Media polls continue to show Americans don't trust Bush, but the media continue to ignore consequences
With every week bringing new indications that the American people don't approve of or trust their commander in chief, news organizations continue to turn a blind eye toward the obvious questions that this distrust raises.
The Associated Press reports: "Two crucial pillars of President Bush's public support -- perceptions of his honesty and faith in his ability to fight terrorism -- have slipped to their lowest point in the AP-Ipsos poll. ... [S]ix in 10 now say Bush is not honest, and a similar number say his administration does not have high ethical standards."
And, as we noted last week:
[T]he latest Washington Post/ABC News poll found that 55 percent of Americans think that "in making its case for war with Iraq," the Bush administration "intentionally misled the American public."
And the latest CBS News poll found that 64 percent of Americans think the Bush administration was "mostly lying" about or "hiding important elements" of what they knew about weapons of mass destruction.
And the latest CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll found that, by a margin of 53-45, most Americans think the Bush administration did "deliberately mislead the American public about whether Iraq has weapons of mass destruction."
And yet news organizations ignore, both in the polls they conduct and in the news reports they publish and broadcast, seemingly obvious follow-up questions about the effects of this widespread distrust of President Bush and of the belief that his administration was dishonest about the reasons for the Iraq war.
News organizations don't ask, for example, whether people are less likely to believe the administration if it argues that military action against another nation is necessary.
Instead, they treat public opinion about the Bush administration's honesty as a political challenge, as something with primarily partisan political effects. But when the majority of the American people think their president is dishonest and has already deliberately misled the nation into war once, that has profound national security implications that demand attention from the media. If, as a result of their belief that the administration was deliberately misleading about Iraq, people won't believe the administration in the future, that makes America less safe.
It wasn't long ago that some of America's leading news organizations thought that a president's deception was cause for resignation. The Chicago Tribune, for example, called for Bill Clinton's resignation in a September 15, 1998, editorial. One reason the Tribune gave was that Clinton's statements about the Monica Lewinsky matter would make it difficult to trust him in the future: "Who will know when he's telling the truth and when he's not, whether he's being sincere or play-acting, whether his word is his bond or just another artful dodge?"
That's a question news organizations should start asking again: "Who will know when he's telling the truth and when he's not?"
CBS reporter calls McClellan a "truth-teller"; justifies McClellan's failure to tell the truth by explaining, "He has got a mortgage"
Instead of asking who will know when Bush administration figures are telling the truth, some high-profile reporters are making excuses for their failure to do so.
As we noted last month, Washington Post reporter Dana Milbank recently described White House press secretary Scott McClellan as a "good and decent guy" -- even while conceding that McClellan was lying to the American people. Now, CBS reporter John Roberts has joined in, saying that -- though he hasn't told the truth about the Plame affair -- McClellan is a "truth-teller." Appearing on the November 6 edition of CNN's Reliable Sources, Roberts told host Howard Kurtz that McClellan was just doing his job when he passed on false information to the American people.
Incredibly, Roberts defended McClellan's decision not to come clean by saying that McClellan needs the "pretty good job" of White House press secretary because he has "a mortgage, he has got a wife, probably a family coming down the road at some point":
KURTZ: John Roberts, do you believe that Scott McClellan owes the press and the public an apology for his -- what turned out to be misleading denial in the CIA leak case?
ROBERTS: Well, you know, Howie, I may be one of the people in the minority, but I think that he's getting a really rough deal on this. You know, he doesn't go out and free-lance this stuff. He is given his talking points every morning. He is given his walking papers. And he goes out there, and he tries to faithfully articulate whatever it is that the White House tells him.
Obviously in October of 2003, he got some pretty bad information. Is it his fault that he conveyed that information? I don't think so. I think the people who are at fault are -- the ones at fault are the ones who gave him what now appears to be bad information.
Now, of course, McClellan could do what some people might think to be the honorable thing and say, "I'm not going to take this any more, I'm going to quit." But he has got a pretty good job, by and large. He has got a mortgage, he has got a wife, probably a family coming down the road at some point, and I don't think he wants to give up a lucrative job like that.
So I think that Scott -- you know, I have known him for a number of years now. I have got a pretty good working relationship with him. I think that he is a truth-teller. I think he is a stand-up guy. And I just think that he was just told to carry somebody else's water, and it just turned out that that water was foul.
Roberts's sympathy for McClellan's financial future is kind, but we suspect that whenever McClellan leaves the government payroll, he's in for a substantial increase in salary.
After Democrat won Virginia governorship, media suggested he ran as a Republican
In the wake of Democrat Timothy M. Kaine's election to be the next governor of Virginia -- a state George Bush carried in the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections -- Republicans have been furiously spinning, actually claiming Kaine's win points to problems in the Democratic party. And some news outlets are playing along.
The Washington Post, for example, concluded:
Democrats may also have to learn some of the lessons from Tuesday if they hope to capitalize on Bush's weakness and make themselves competitive in red states as well as blue states. In Virginia, victorious candidate Timothy M. Kaine ran a campaign at odds with the strategy of many traditional Democrats, one that focused on religion and values and that appealed as much to swing voters as to the party's base.
[...]
Kaine's campaign highlighted tensions within the Democratic Party over whether to pursue a strategy designed largely to energize its left-leaning, antiwar, grass-roots base or move to the center, emphasize cultural issues to neutralize the GOP's advantage there, and talk bread-and-butter issues such as education and economic growth.
The Post offered not a single example of a "traditional Democrat" who doesn't try to appeal to "swing voters." Nor did the Post explain how talking about education is inconsistent with efforts to "energize" the party's "left-leaning" base; education has been a key component of the left's agenda for as long as anyone can remember. Instead, the Post simply created broad caricatures of the "left" and "traditional Democrats" and "the center" in order to emphasize "tensions" between those caricatures.
The Post continued:
Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman said that Kaine adopted a strategy sharply at odds with the approach of leading national Democrats, including the one that was enunciated by Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean during his unsuccessful campaign for the party's 2004 presidential nomination.
Kaine "did not say, 'I represent the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party,' " Mehlman said, referring to language Dean used in his own campaign. "He said, 'I represent the Mark Warner wing of the Democratic Party.' Quite the opposite. ... The Potomac River divides a Democratic Party catering to the MoveOn wing versus a Democratic Party centered in the Mark Warner wing." Indeed, Kaine's success owed less to dissatisfaction with Bush and more to satisfaction with Warner's tenure as governor.
Curiously, the Post offered no support for its suggestion that Kaine's victory had little to do with dissatisfaction with Bush. In fact, just two days earlier -- before the results of the election were known -- the Post seemed to suggest just the opposite:
In jumping into the Virginia governor's race just 10 hours before polling booths open, President Bush put his credibility on the line last night and ensured that the results will be interpreted as a referendum on his troubled presidency.
[...]
Even in a traditionally Republican-leaning state such as Virginia, polls register disenchantment with Bush's leadership, and Kilgore has had trouble running against national headwinds.
[...]
That Virginia would come to figure so prominently for Bush underscores the depth of his political problems. A year after Bush won the state by nine percentage points, just 44 percent of Virginians surveyed by The Washington Post last month approved of his job performance, while 55 percent disapproved. Nearly half of Virginia voters said a Bush endorsement would make them less likely to vote for Kilgore, compared with a quarter who said it would make them more likely to support the Republican candidate.
David Albo, a Republican member of the Virginia House of Delegates who narrowly won his re-election campaign, certainly doesn't seem to agree with the Post's post-election spin that Kaine's win had little to do with Bush's unpopularity. The Washington Times reported on November 10:
President Bush's sinking popularity helped seal Democrat Timothy M. Kaine's victory in Virginia's gubernatorial election Tuesday, politicians and pollsters said yesterday.
"We know that George Bush is just killing us," said Delegate David B. Albo, a Republican who narrowly defeated his Democratic challenger in Fairfax County. "His popularity just brought the ticket down. There's no other way to explain it."
[...]
Scott Rasmussen, president of the New Jersey-based polling firm Rasmussen Reports, said the voters who made up their minds just before Election Day -- about 12 percent of voters -- favored Mr. Kaine by 15 percentage points.
That suggests some voters were turned off by a last-minute visit by Mr. Bush on Monday on Mr. Kilgore's behalf. A Rasmussen survey of Virginia voters found that 51 percent approved of the president's performance. Nationally, Mr. Bush has registered a 37 percent approval rating.
"It was not a good year to run as a Republican in Virginia," said Mark Rozell, a public policy professor at George Mason University, adding that the Bush visit "probably backfired" and spurred Democrats to get out the vote.
While the Post painted a bizarre picture of the Democratic Party in which talking about education and appealing to the "left-leaning" base are somehow inconsistent, two National Public Radio (NPR) reporters falsely described Kaine's position on abortion in order to suggest that Kaine is an atypical Democrat.
First, on the November 10 broadcast of NPR's Morning Edition, national political correspondent Mara Liasson described Kaine as "pro-life" -- an inexplicable and incorrect description of someone who has said abortion should be legal:
LIASSON: To get over those obstacles, Democrats say they'll be trying to apply some lessons of the off-year elections. In Virginia, Democrat Tim Kaine got a huge boost from the popularity of outgoing governor Mark Warner. But he also ran as a centrist, pro-life Democrat who could talk openly about his religious faith -- attributes that might help Democrats win in other red states.
The next day on Morning Edition, NPR religion correspondent Barbara Bradley Hagerty described Kaine as someone who "opposes abortion in a party that supports it." This wildly overstates the difference between Kaine, who does not personally like abortion but thinks it should be legal and most Democrats, who do not like abortion but think it should be legal.
As Media Matters explained:
[O]ne can simultaneously oppose abortion and support legal access to abortion procedures. By mischaracterizing Kaine's position, Liasson and Bradley falsely suggest that the two are irreconcilable. In fact, Kaine's articulation of his views of abortion echoes that of other prominent Democrats. As president, Bill Clinton famously declared that abortions should be "safe, legal, and rare." Speaking before NARAL Pro-Choice America on January 22, 1999, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) said: "I have met thousands and thousands of pro-choice men and women. I have never met anyone who is pro-abortion. Being pro-choice is not being pro-abortion."
We've previously noted The Hill's description of those who think abortion should be legal as "pro-abortion." The absurdity of Liasson's description of Kaine goes even further: if someone who thinks abortion should be legal is described as "pro-life," how would Liasson describe someone who thinks abortion should be illegal?
CNN's O'Brien downplays Alito violation of his sworn promise to recuse himself from Vanguard cases
While serving on the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, current Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito issued rulings in cases involving two financial companies with which he held accounts -- despite the fact that, during his confirmation hearings for the appeals court post, Alito promised the Senate that he would recuse himself from such cases.
During his 1990 confirmation, Alito told senators he would recuse himself from any cases involving mutual-fund operator Vanguard Group, brokerage Smith Barney Inc., and his sister's law firm. But Alito issued rulings in a 1996 case involving Smith Barney and a 2002 case involving Vanguard. At the time of the Vanguard ruling, Alito held at least $390,000 in Vanguard mutual funds, according to The Washington Post.
Alito's failure to recuse himself from the case not only means he issued rulings affecting companies with which he had hundreds of thousands of dollars in investments, it also constitutes a violation of the promise he made to the U.S. Senate -- the very body now considering his nomination to the Supreme Court.
But CNN host Soledad O'Brien missed the point entirely, ignoring the fact that Alito broke his promise to recuse himself from such cases and downplaying the size of his $390,000 investment in Vanguard mutual funds. On the November 11 edition of CNN's American Morning, O'Brien asked:
O'BRIEN: Doesn't it bode poorly for Democrats when you say this is the smoking gun you're coming up with, something over a relatively small investment in Vanguard, which legally, technically, he didn't have to recuse himself from anyway?
$390,000 is a "relatively small investment"?
The issue of abortion in the VA race is particularly interesting, and the subject of much apparent manipulation. Abortion appeared as a central issue in the race, with the recent debate, with KAINE focusing on the issue (which seemed odd, considering that VA is such a red state). Kaine pressed Kilgore on the issue of Roe v Wade , and stressed his support for the decision, while Kilgore was more evasive. I must admit that -- and I am not familiar with voters in VA, being disabled and living in MA -- I considered and wrote that for a DLC Democrat to highlight the abortion issue in such a close race in such a red state was fishy. Well, Kaine knew his state better than I and continued to gain in the polls. One person pointed out to me in a response to my discussion post on the subject at TPMCafe that it was Kilgore's disingenuousness on the issue that Kaine picked up on and successfully highlighted for voters.
But let us remember, as I have seen in at least one Op-Ed piece in The New York Times and as von Hoffman at the HUFFINGTON POST.com has been repeatedly putting out, the spin of a number of some of the ostensibly pro-choice commentariat is to claim that (a) it would be no big deal if Roe v Wade were overturned, something Ralph Nader said in 2000 and Karabell and others have been peddling now; and/or (b) that abortion is an "albatross" around the neck of the national Democratic Party.
Let's focus on that latter von Hoffman/Al From spin for a moment, the "albatross" spin: If supporting Roe v Wade in no uncertain terms in a neck and neck race AND MAKING THAT A SIGNIFICANT ISSUE IN THE CLOSING WEEKS OF THE CAMPAIGN is not only not fatal, but doesn't seem to have harmed a campaign in red VA, then it could hardly be considered much of an "albatross" electorally to the Democrats nationally!!! In NY, Repugs are in a hurry to distance themselves from the national party on that issue, leading some to the erroneous view that they are moderate Repugs, who then go and vote to approve the likes of Ashcroft for Atty Genl. So the "albatross" spin has been dealt a major blow in this VA election. Following the election, von Hoffman at Huffington Post runs a column about how, as in the PA elections, being pro-science is the great boon to Democrats, unlike issues of abortion where Democrats ['we just want to kill teeny weeny babies, just two or three cells ...'] are on the defensive. This was AFTER the Kaine victory and I had pointed out its importance on his thread. So there is a particular method to the madness of apparent mainstream media like NPR distorting the abortion issue in the VA campaign. It throws dust up in the air of the campaign to claim that the pro-choice position is somehow unpopular and should strategically not be a point of insistence for the Democrats.
Here's an interesting underground follow up, which suggests in a complex way some of what might indeed have been fishy.
I would also note that, dealing with (I know, "huh?" underground issues) regarding the election, where I donated to the Corzine and Kaine campaigns, and the latter was considered to be very close, the usual ONE-SIDED with the support of the Al From/Wiggletoesian Democrats use of election so-called mandates to dump on progressives was in full force. (This whole phenomenon is underground, so naturally describing it explicitly offends its practioners, frightens liberals, and confuses some, with ALL denying any knowledge whether they know or not about such things). In this instance, it was only inside-track access (to where I live in MA) peevish ball-breaking Bloomberg whose victory meant anything. But as with the manipulations surrounding the Kaine victory, there is indeed something fishy -- pushing the extreme example as harcoppery and a possible throwaway position if need be to protect less ridiculous uses (in their own terms) of the ratchet system of the electoral gambit.
But true to the pattern of such underground (always mechanically one-sidedly anti- authentic progressive, but ALWAYS palmed off as 'you can learn to play the game' real opportunity) matters, only the one issue, the foregone re-election of Bloomberg, mattered at all. Note that all these impositions or stakes are imposed ABSOLUTELY unilaterally, and when they point otherwise, as in the 1992 elections, there never is any payoff for authentic progressives in the ratus-sheiss, RatShit,ratchet system.
And of course, how they howl about candles and 'but clouds got in my way' etc etc etc or the real justice that is determined in response to these travesties. After all, we don't live in a polity of open debate and free sportsmanship where 'all you need is love'. We live in a machine where the elite eggplant at will, plus other things including the most extensive underground attainder in human history, with no genuine opportunity for accountability WHATSOEVER, only railroading and laundering, all pandered to by the house priests of the system. But when this is ever held accountable, OH THE PROTESTATIONS!
al qaeda, the international political action committee for the saudi royal family, claimed responsibility for the bombings of three hotels in Amman, Jordan.
they were very specific in their statement, as to claim that no saudis were used in this bombing, just iraqis; and went so far as to identify two of the four bombers as husband and wife: al ward cleaver, and his wife, al june.
the other two bombers were identified as their sons: al wally, and of course...
al jerry mathers as the beaver.
Your report on Judge Alito is factual but only partial. Even though he didn't have to legally recuse himself, he did promise that he would in the those like the Vanguard case. He, like most Judges, invests in mutual funds because that is the only way they "save for their future" without owning actual stock in a single company. Although he did render a decision, the defence brought to his attention the promise to congress and he agreed. Therefore, he refered the entire case to another panel of Judges who were not vested in Vanguard. They reconsidered the entire case over again and came to the same conculsion he did. Meaning, the decision of the second panel was the only valid decision and any subsequent losses of the parites involved where NOT from his ruling. It's not often a Judge who has ruled willing agrees with the defence that he made a mistake. And he rectified that mistake to assure an unbiased hearing and decision. Is there anyone who rather have the opposite sitting on the Supreme Court Judge?
As a side note. Leaving out facts like this in any media source is what I call "lying or deceiving via omission." Much like what you just accused Hume of doing on this very page today. Shame on you.
here's why bush v. gore was the biggest case of judicial activism of all time. bush was not a florida resident or voter. therefore he could show no "harm" under the 14th amendment's equal protection clause. there's nothing in the constitution that allowed such a claim. but they allowed that claim because different counties had different standards [as state law said each county could do]. but when they stopped the voting, they did not say the votes in palm beach, broward and miami-dade that had been manually counted already had to be thrown out. they accepted votes that they said shouldn't be counted. they also made the decision apply only to bush v. gore, a made to order judgement.
by mefirst - Saturday November 12, 2005 06:31:45 AM EST
Interesting legal theory on the Bush v Gore thing. Interesting, but completely wrong. The "harm" that you refer to was to the Florida voter, not Bush. Voters in some Florida counties had their ballots scrutinized for "intent" ( a particularly scary prospect when Democrats are judging intent) while some were not. Hence, the equal protection thing.
ciaoancora:
You say, "Interesting legal theory on the Bush v Gore thing. Interesting, but completely wrong. The "harm" that you refer to was to the Florida voter, not Bush. Voters in some Florida counties had their ballots scrutinized for "intent" ( a particularly scary prospect when Democrats are judging intent) while some were not. Hence, the equal protection thing."
RESPONSE: Tell us, please, WHO IT WAS that received "equal protection" as a result of the Bush v. Gore ruling?
It wasn't the Florida Voter. The Florida Voter had the RIGHT to have their vote counted, and the "clear intent" standard was FLORIDA LAW. Also part of FLORIDA LAW was the hand-counting of votes in the case of close elections.
As you may know, the 534 votes that Bush "won" by INCLUDED votes that had been "scrutinized for intent" already, and so the count he "won" by was unconstitutional in itself.
So I ask again, WHO WAS IT that received "equal protection"?
by tex - Monday November 14, 2005 08:38:00 AM EST
While I realize that you are always anxious, for some unknown reason, to debate long ago settled arguments, in the interest of helping you come into present day issues, I will assist.
This from [link to www.oyez.org]
Noting that the Equal Protection clause guarantees individuals that their ballots cannot be devalued by "later arbitrary and disparate treatment," the per curiam opinion held 7-2 that the Florida Supreme Court's scheme for recounting ballots was unconstitutional.
Hope this helps out!
ciaoancora:
Quoting from the Rhenquist 5's words in the horrendous Bush V Gore finding clears NOTHING up.
Sorry. Their words and intent in that ruling were self-serving, not based in any LAW, not based on the Constitution, was not signed, and created NO precedent.
In short, Bush v Gore was a travesty of justice. An embarrassment. Garbage.
So, you quote GARBAGE to me, and ask if is "clears anything up."
Short answer: NO. Longer answer: HELL NO.
Now, back to my question: Can you tell us ANYONE who received "equal protection" as a result of the SCOTUS Bush v Gore ruling? Who might that be?
ciao, just saw your post. so if the harm was to the florida voter, and i said bush was not a florida voter or resident, then he had no standing to bring the suit. read the 14th amendment. it refers to residents of states. that's what we're talking about. you can't just make a claim out of thin air. it must be based on something in the constitution. there is nothing to support bush's claim. by the way, the atlanta appeals court refused to hear bush v. gore. as for your iraq stuff, we went through all this yesterday under your name of dagweer. you threw in the towel.
mefirst:
The fact that Bush had "no standing" to bring suit is only one of HUNDREDS of travesties of justice surrounding Bush v Gore.
EVEN IF Bush had been a Florida resident, he made an "equal protection" claim. Supreme Court precendent under the conservative Rhenquist reign had developed a very high threshhold for such claims (because conservatives do not wish to apply "equal protection" ... because they feel it favors minorities and disadvantages their "chosen" people, the rich and the corporations). So, in order to qualify for an "equal protection" claim, you must specify a SPECIFIC harm, show that the HARM was brought by SPECIFIC PEOPLE, and that the harm was INTENDED.
What was Bush's equal protection claim? That he was being HARMED by THE VOTERS!!!!
Amid all that went on in the Watergate scandal, Time magazine printed a cover story in 1974 asking "Has the Press Gone Too Far?" Then the "smoking gun" tape surfaced -- and Nixon had no choice but to resign.
I'm not surprised that the Washington Post and CBS News continue to genuflect before the Bushies. After all, the Post has admitted it is a gov't mouthpiece and CBS is owned by a conglomerate whose chairman endorsed Bush for re-election.
Well, the RW is in retreat across the political chessboard UNLESS of course a new terrorist event occurs. This according to the sick minds of the Republican leadership is HOW the masses will rally to them as protectors of the Constitutional Republic they seem hell-bent on destroying. I am reminded of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's call to the American Citizenry in the wake of the Pearl Harbor attack some six decades ago.... "The only thing we have to FEAR is FEAR itself." Quite an astute observation for a politician. Not so in Bush world. They want us to cower in intimidation from the likes of a cave-dwelling wannabe CALIPH tethered to a dialysis machine. OH... and let's not forget terror-meister Al-Zarqarwi WHOSE phantom-like act would be the envy of any magician's shenanigans upon the stage. He seems to be in many places all at once YET never gets caught DEPITE the fact that we have enough Arab turncoats on the dole of the American Taxpayer to certainly flush him out if we wanted to.
So, sorry folks for the satrirical rant, BUT I'm getting a little worried, Ya know that fear thing. AND that worry is to what extent the 'Powers to Be' who are now being backed into a corner by one Federal indictment and many more to come, arrests for violations of Campaign Laws, to be followed by the Frist investigation INTO 'INSIDER TRADING'...... Well, that most destructive of all Human frailties, FEAR simply causes people to do things they never would consider otherwise. Fear is the catalyst for desperation WHICH psychologists equate with the irrational, psychotic and the induced propensity for Human beings to act accordingly. Fear has given us the War in Iraq, Abu Graib, Guantanamo, the Patriot Act.......all actions that in one way or another have violated OUR CONSCIENCES, OUR CONSTITUTION, OUR INTERNATIONAL TREATY OBLIGATIONS, THUS causing US to act in ways that if properly thought out in a rational contextual framework would have led to more insightful responses. My point is: FEAR removes from one's consideration the abilty to respond most effectively AND decisions made under a cloud of fear often result in that which is contrary to what you want to accomplish.
So, I for one will not swallow the bitter pill of a fear induced phobia by Republicans or anyone else.
I defer to FDR. Do you?????
This happens on both sides of the isle and will be used as a tool by any Dem elected President if he/she thinks folks will gobble it up. Just like the current baseless acusations the "bush lied us into war theory" it's just more of the same "throw it out there and see if it sticks politics."
apixie:
You say, "Just like the current baseless acusations the "bush lied us into war theory" it's just more of the same "throw it out there and see if it sticks politics."
BASELESS?
Bush told us Saddam had vast stockpiles of WMDs, ready to launch against the USA (on our shores!) on "any given day".
THIS WAS NOT TRUE.
Bush told us Saddam had a nuclear (nuCUlar) program which Condi said would produce a "mushroom cloud" in America.
THIS WAS NOT TRUE.
Bush told us Saddam was in cahoots with Bin Laden, and so was responsible for 9/11.
THIS WAS A FLAT OUT LIE.
These are not things "thrown out there", they are TRUE. And we KNOW that the truth "sticks", because the Bush Administration is finally being held responsible for their lies.
You people that think this "Lied into War" thing is much ado about nothing, are the same folks that IMPEACHED a president over a sexual affair. Do you really think you retain ANY credibility?
Actually, as far as the hoping for a terrorist attack thing, there has been a reported confidential memo circulating among top Repuglicans with that general tenor. The source, however, Capitol Hill Blue, is considered by some to be unreliable.
[link to www.capitolhillblue.com]