Dick Morris continued to dismiss sectarian violence as Iraqi-style "negotiation"
On Hannity & Colmes, Fox News political analyst Dick Morris called the sectarian violence in Iraq "negotiation, Iraqi style," and said that it is "basically a financial negotiation." Morris further stated that the violence between warring Iraqi factions is merely "part of the democratic process going on."
On the March 16 edition of Hannity & Colmes, Fox News political analyst Dick Morris, in a discussion about the Iraq war with co-host Alan Colmes, called the sectarian violence in Iraq "negotiation, Iraqi style" and said that it is "basically a financial negotiation." Morris further stated that the violence between warring Iraqi factions is merely "part of the democratic process going on."
As Media Matters for America noted, Dick Morris also claimed on the March 13 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor that there is no civil war coming to Iraq because "when Iraqi politicians negotiate over the coalition of their cabinet, they bomb each other's mosques."
From the March 16 edition of Fox News' Hannity & Colmes:
COLMES: You call the bombings of mosques; you call the targeting of civilians by some of the Shiites; you call the corpses being dragged through the street -- you call that a negotiation?
MORRIS: Yep. I sure do, Alan. I didn't invent the Iraqi style. You know, they say divorce, Italian style? This is negotiation, Iraqi style. What's going on right now is the Shiites and the Sunnis are trying to get the upper hand militarily in the street so as to get the upper hand in the coalition government.
COLMES: Was the North vs. South in America a negotiation back in the last century? Two centuries ago?
MORRIS: No.
COLMES: No?
MORRIS: No, but Kansas was before it. And what's going on now is they're fighting over oil revenues. The whole deal is the Shiites want all of the oil revenues and the Sunnis want their piece of the oil revenues but the Sunni region doesn't produce a lot of oil. And what's going on now is basically a financial negotiation, but they're an immature democracy. They're not used to the ways of the world and whereas Americans threaten censure and impeachment and shut the government down, the Iraqis blow up mosques.
COLMES: Well, let's hope that this doesn't go on much longer, but if it does --
MORRIS: But this is part of the democratic process going on.
Morris's reference to Kansas is presumably a reference to the 1850s debate over whether Kansas would be allowed to permit slavery, spurred by a controversial 1854 law that allowed Kansas residents to decide on the matter. Clashes between pro-slavery and anti-slavery factions resulted in the burning of the town of Lawrence, Kansas, by pro-slavery settlers, the killing of slavery sympathizers by abolitionist John Brown and his supporters, and the beating of anti-slavery Sen. Charles Sumner on the Senate floor by a pro-slavery member of Congress after Sumner gave a speech asserting that senators who supported the law, thus opening up the possibility of slavery in another state, were committing a "crime against Kansas."
what can one say?
just a wish dream that dick could be air-lifted via "operation Swarmer" to where the action is, so he could get in on the "negotiations."
"But this is part of the democratic process going on."
I must have overlooked the alternate definition of democratic, the one that says "negotiation by means rampant street violence".
"They're not used to the ways of the world."
Wow, maybe Morris should have let the Bush administration in on this brilliant piece of intel before the all the lives lost and the billions wasted. Before Dubya, Rummy, Cheney, Colin and Leeza began fillng our heads with dreams of a military cakewalk, Iraqi's dancing in the streets, and oil revenue falling from the sky.
Morris and Fox are trying to lower American expectations in Iraq by trying to convince Americans that the fighting over there is normal for Iraqis so don't be alarmed. In other words, Morris is saying "that is the nature of those people".
We should just leave and let them "negotiate" to their hearts content.
A ride to where the war is real to some might de-ignite his fire
just on larry king. said it's no good to look back and do recriminations. time to "look ahead". exactly wrong. look at everything, all the soft soap, this administration put out and hold them accountable at the polls. don't like the democrats? i don't like everything they do either, but voting republican is not a choice. it's an exercise in masochism. simpson also tried to minimize the number of dead. but many are surviving what would have been lethal in past wars, if you can call it surviving.
Of course we look back and judge. We are not animals that just die and wither away. We write history of humankind.
i would love to negotiate with this guy.
A white guy in a suit, visibly well fed, likening the civil war in a remote country to "a financial negocitation", to "the democratic process going on", and smiling all along in this I'm-so-happy-with-himself attitude...
Exactly which historic period are we back to, right now?
At first I thought it felt very 19th century, but after all, I'm not sure:
They could re-shoot the same interview with this guy in a toga, a few slaves behind him feeding him a grape from time to time, and it would feel about right.
Fox, the peplum TV?
If civil war is the Iraqi's style of being diplomatic, then perhaps the bombings is Washington's way of being diplomatic.
That would make the Bush whitehouse one of the most diplomatic administrations in history!
They're not used to the ways of the world
What a reeking pile of condescending, ignorant, snide, rude, bigoted claptrap.
He is a true pig.
The Republicans just keep him around because he's willing to trash Hillary and is so eager to please. He's the definition of a media whore.
The GOP talking point that Iraqis are better off now than under Saddam is starting to wear thin. If you're dead, you're dead, whether you were killed by Saddam's henchmen or an American bomb. Who's to say which is better?