It Looks Like This (sorry, no ice cream) 

Fair and balanced

You all realize, of course (if, in fact, there is anybody out there reading any of this) that I strive to offer fair and balanced commentary at all times.

Holding them accountable

During his Wednesday press conference, President Bush was asked if he could offer some definitive evidence of the alleged link between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda that the Bush administration offered up last fall and winter to justify the invasion of Iraq. He responded that it would take time to "gather the evidence and analyze the mounds of evidence." An interesting and revealing response. What it acknowledges is that during the time that Bush, Cheney, Powell, and Rice were telling the country that there was no doubt that there was a link between 9/11 and Iraq, they in fact had no evidence of it. Not only that, but they still don't have any evidence of it now, at least none that they know of. There may be some in those "mounds of evidence" that they need to analyze, but they just don't know yet.

This is really no surprise. The administration has already acknowledged that the intelligence it was relying on to assert that Iraq had a chemical weapons program was five years old. More and more light is being shed on the administrations manipulation of intelligence data to assert the existence of a nuclear weapons program in Iraq that was far more of a hope for Saddam than a reality.

The administration declared that there was a 9/11-Saddam connection, an active Iraqi chemical weapons program, and an Iraqi Nuclear weapons development program with such vigor and conviction that Congress and the American people believed it all must be true, that there must have been substantial evidence to support these claims. In fact, there was no evidence, merely a belief. We owe it not merely to ourselves, but to the world we profess to lead and which, like it or not, bears the brunt of our mistakes, to demand more from our leaders. We the people must hold Bush and his minions accountable for tales they have told and the turmoil they have created, for we are ultimately responsible.

State of the Union and missing Uranium

Okay folks, let's all take a deep breath, take a step back, and review what we think we know about Mr. Bush's State of the Union Address and Iraqi attempts to purchase uranium in Africa. We know that Ambassador Wilson was sent to Africa early last year to check out allegations that Saddam Hussein had tried to purchase uranium from Niger. Wilson reported back to the CIA that such a purchase would be highly doubtful, that uranium from Niger was strictly controlled. We also know that the documents that turned up later in the year that purportedly showed Iraq attempting to purchase Nigerian uranium were, all together now, "crude forgeries." And we know that all of this was known to the United States' intelligence community and should have been known by the White House before the State of the Union Address. So we know that when Bush said that British Intelligence had learned of Iraqi attempts to purchase uranium from an African nation that he knew that this was not true; that Bush was lying. We know that, right? Well, let's not bet the rent money on that just yet.

Maybe it would be a good idea to do what nobody in our press seems to have thought of doing. Maybe we ought to see just what it is that British Intelligence learned. Speaking to Parliament on September 24, 2002, Tony Blair said, "We know Saddam has been trying to buy significant quantities of uranium from Africa, though we do not know whether he has been successful." The following day, the Times of London and the Guardian both indicated that Mr. Blair's reference was to Iraqi attempts to procure uranium in the Congo. Now, it may be that nobody in the Bush White House knows that Niger and the Congo are two entirely separate African nations (Condoleeza Rice doesn't seem to know who Stephen Hadley is). But it seems that in this case, painful as it is for me to admit it, Mr. Bush actually may have been "technically correct" in the State of the Union address.

Bush has told enough whoppers that have real meat on them that the press, and those of us who would like nothing better than to see old George hanging from a sour apple tree (figuratively speaking, only, of course), might do well to back off this particular item and focus on some of the others. How about them aluminum tubes? Maybe the White House's blowing the cover of Ambassador Wilson's wife? Launching a war based on five year old data on Iraq's chemical weapons program? The hits just keep on coming. Let's leave this one alone now, okay?

Where was Dick in all of this?

It was Dick Cheney who requested that the CIA investigate the rumors of uranium sales from Africa to Iraq. It was based on that request that Joseph Wilson went to Africa. Are we to believe that Cheney never followed up on that request (silly me, of course we are supposed to believe that)? Actually, we have every reason to believe that Cheney received Wilson's report, indicating Niger would not be providing Iraq with uranium. So are we to believe that Cheney has no role in preparing, or at least in reviewing the State of the Union address? What a pack of lying thieves we have in place there. Probably unparalleled in our nation's history.

And yet more lies...

Somebody went to the trouble to breakdown the lies in Mr. Bush's State of the Union Address. I can't add much to it, so I'll just lead you there:

http://www.buzzflash.com/contributors/03/07/22_sotu.html

In a tight race, the liar of the week

Just got home from vacation and found this week's Newsweek in the mailbox, with an inset picture of Condi Rice, labeled "The Future" (Governor?). Hmmm...It seems to me that the most frequently heard complaint about Gray Davis is that he lied last summer and fall about the size of the state's budget deficit. Considering Ms. Rice's own recently revealed apparently tenuous connection with the truth, I'm not sure she would be such a acceptable alternative. The media have always been infatuated with her because she is black, attractive, and, until recently, widely regarded as brilliant. If she is in fact as brilliant as she has been portrayed to be, all the sadder that, having been give a seat at the table of power, she will have squandered that brilliance, and whatever credibility it has up until now earned her, by lying for her boss (and possibly to cover up her own apparent ineptitude) to keep that seat.

No losers?

What are we to make of this Michael Savage brouhaha? Is it possible that anybody didn't see this coming? Is it possible that MSNBC somehow didn't anticipate this happening? I don't think so. I think they anticipated, maybe even hoped for something like this all along. And it's worked out well for them.

They hired Savage back in March, at the same time they were firing Phil Donahue. War fever was in the air, and MSNBC wanted to position itself with the "patriots." Savage was their man. They got a lot of ink, most negative, but ink nonetheless, free advertising for what was then and remains now a minor cable network. Savage's ratings never caught fire, drawing just a fraction of his radio audience.

You get the feeling that with a show that was essentially a flop on their hands, the network suits were just waiting for Savage to do what he did. They had to know it was coming. He says similar things and worse on his radio show all the time. He says worse things to his staff, on the air, than he did to the caller.

So the network, at the first chance, fired him. And they come out looking good, because they showed that they are sensitive to the wishes of groups like GLAAD. From a business standpoint they win because they dumped a loser of a show. GLAAD and the other actvist groups that nattered for Savage's removal come out feeling like winners because Savage is off the air and they think they can take credit for it. The caller that Savage cut lose on? He was a publicity hound. He struck gold. And Savage? Let's face it, he never belonged on TV in the first place. He has a uniquely untelegenic face; he was lucky to ever have had a TV show in the first place. He is a con man pretending to be a right wing wacko who has extended his fifteen minutes of fame far longer than he had any right to expect he could. Every day he still has a job is a good day for him.

More Lies

And now we have George Tenet, the scapegoat and liar du jour. He now says that the CIA had no knowledge at the time of the State of the Union speech that the yellowcakegate documents had been forged. This despite the fact that a report detailing this had by that time been circulating from within his agency for months.

Do these people think that the American people are collectively dumber than a box of rocks? Are they right?

AIDS in Africa

So, Mr Bush goes to Africa, where he visits an AIDS clinic and says, "You know, it's one thing to hear about the ravages of AIDS, or to read about them, another thing to see them firsthand." Apparently we haven't enough AIDS patients in America to have allowed Mr. Bush's exposure to the ravages of the disease before now.

A dead horse, I know

Now we hear from Donald Rumsfeld that he found out "just the other day" that the documents purporting to show that Iraq attempted to purchase uranium from a central african country were not authentic. How can this be? With my meager resources I knew this in March. The man is either incompetent or a liar and in either case has to go.