Gene Lyons on what went awry

[mooseandsquirrel]

snip

All these events happened amid a uniquely American version of George Orwell’s “Two Minutes Hate,” with restaurant owners pouring French wine into gutters, french fries dubbed “freedom fries” and country singers in cowboy hats denouncing the Dixie Chicks for displaying insufficient reverence for Bush. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten, because you haven’t.

snip

http://moose-and-squirrel.com/gene/gene.html

[Martin Eden]

1. Saddam wouldn't let the inspectors in

quote from Gene Lyons:

Once again, however, most of the White House press gave Bush a free pass, exactly as they did in July 2003, the first time he made the false claim about Saddam stiffing U. N. inspectors. Reporters appear to fear being shunned like Thomas.

and here's a GREAT commentary about the July 2003 denial:

by John V. Whitbeck

On July 25, President George W. Bush made a truly staggering statement to the press after a meeting with UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan:
“The fundamental question is, did Saddam Hussein have a weapons program? And the answer is, absolutely. And we gave him a chance to allow inspectors in, and he wouldn’t let them in. And therefore, after a reasonable request, we decided to remove him from power, along with other nations, so as to make sure he was not a threat to the United States and our friends and allies in the region.”

This statement is worth reading carefully. The president of the United States has stated, in a public forum, that he invaded Iraq because Saddam Hussein would not allow weapons inspectors back into his country. So far as I am aware, this statement has not been the subject of any serious critical analysis in the mainstream American media. I will therefore provide my own brief analysis. Assuming, as seems reasonable, that the president of the United States was neither drunk nor on LSD, there can be only two possible explanations for this statement:

Explanation 1: The president of the United States believed what he said. In this case, he is so dim-witted and/or totally divorced from reality as to be mentally unfit to hold his current job — or, indeed, any job — and should be taken into medical care.

Explanation 2: The president did not believe what he said but, rather, believes (unfortunately not without compelling post-Sept.11 evidence) that the vast majority of the American people are so dim-witted and/or uninformed and the vast majority of the American media is so sycophantic and/or terrified of being branded “unpatriotic” (or simply losing White House “access”) that he can now tell any lie, no matter how obvious and outrageous, and get away with it. In this case, he is morally unfit to hold his current job and should, by constitutional means, be forced to relinquish it as soon as possible.

Either explanation should scare the wits out of anyone who is not comatose.

Do NOT miss the final comments at:
http://www.arabnews.com/?article=30536