Fast and Loose With the Facts: How Two Leading Journalists Played the Public to Help * Sell His War

[Echo In Light]

Fast and Loose With the Facts
How Two Leading Journalists Played the Public to Help Bush Sell His War
By Spencer Ackerman 03/19/2008

"The danger," said President George W. Bush on Sept. 25, 2002, "is that Al Qaeda becomes an extension of Saddam's madness and his hatred and his capacity to extend weapons of mass destruction around the world." He proceeded to build on a lie that finally died last week -- but only after nearly 4,000 U.S. troops and perhaps hundreds of thousands of Iraqis did as well. "The war on terror," Bush said, "you can't distinguish between Al Qaeda and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror."

Only if you're a liar. For the CIA knew that Saddam Hussein had no ties of any significance to Al Qaeda. Richard A. Clarke, the long-time counterterrorism director at the National Security Council, knew that Saddam Hussein had no ties of any significance to Al Qaeda. Michael Scheuer, the CIA's original bin Laden analyst, knew that Saddam Hussein had no ties of any significance to Al Qaeda. Eventually, the 9/11 Commission would know that Saddam Hussein had no ties of any significance to Al Qaeda.

But by the time the U.S. invaded Iraq, five years ago today, much of the public thought that Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda were tightly allied to strike the United States. And the public believed this because the Bush administration constantly intimated it in order to launch its long-desired war.

http://www.washingtonindependent.com/view/fast-an-loose-with

[Mnemosyne]

1. KnR. n/t

[proud2BlibKansan]

2. What they have done to our media

is their greatest crime, IMO.

[Echo In Light]

7. Our media has always covered for the sins and crimes of the favored state..however...

The crimes and scandals have been of such magnitude since the 2000 coup that the need to Lie Big was required, and naturally the perps and their media lap dogs end up giving themselves away for what they truly are and represent.

[Supersedeas]

3. accomplices from the word go

[FreakinDJ]

4. Yet another example of why we need Media Regulation

[struggle4progress]

8. What we need is limits on media concentration and more independent sources

[GreatCaesarsGhost]

5. Heroic Cheney Shill Will Write Heroic Cheney Biography

http://wonkette.com/politics/cheney/heroic-cheney-shill-will-write-heroic-cheney-biography-197144.php

Cheney-enabling fearmonger Stephen Hayes will take some time off from writing White House propaganda for the Weekly Standard to write Dick Cheney?s ?biography,? according to U.S. News & World Report.

Cheney's bio will presumably be as full of VP propaganda and disinformation as another Hayes? book, "The Connection: How al Qaeda's Collaboration with Saddam Hussein Has Endangered America."

The relationship works like this: Cheney releases "intelligence" to a friendly coconspirator, said coconspirator types it up for the Standard or WSJ or (in Judith's case) the New York Times, and Cheney then quotes the article in question as justification for whatever batshit evil scheme he?s currently cooking up.

That?s exactly how it went down in November 2003, when Cheney needed to push the fictional "Saddam/Osama partnership" story in order to spook people who were starting to notice the Iraq occupation wasn?t exactly the promised cakewalk.

[UTUSN]

6. So the 2 "journalists" ARE: Jeffrey GOLDBERG & Stephen F. HAYES

"The elite media was no exception -- and played a major role in convincing less-expert journalists that the administration was on to something. Two writers in particular, though very different, stand out: Jeffrey Goldberg, then of The New Yorker and now of The Atlantic, and Stephen F. Hayes, of the neoconservative Weekly Standard."