How Russert et al Planted the Seeds for War

[kpete]

How Russert et al Planted the Seeds for War
By Sam Husseini on June 16, 2008 1:52 AM |

I really don't have any interest in speaking ill of the dead. But what of the dead who never get talked about on our TV screens?

It's become liberal orthodoxy that George W. Bush promulgated lies about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and the media echoed those claims, building the case for war.

Were it that simple.

The survivors of those killed in the U.S.'s war in Iraq since the 2003 invasion cannot simply blame Bush. Under the guise of "tough journalism" Russert and others disseminated lies and built the case for invasion even before Bush got to the White House.

A letter I sent to Russert tells a slice of the story:

read the whole thing here:
http://husseini.org/2008/06/how-russert-et-al-planted-the.html

Snippets

How Tim Russert Helped Plant the Seeds for Iraq War

December 19, 1999: With Al Gore as guest, Tim Russert says on Meet the Press: “One year ago Saddam Hussein threw out all the inspectors who could find his chemical or nuclear capability.” Russert asks Gore what he’s going to do about this.

Soon afterward: Sam Husseini leaves a message on Russert’s answering machine, and speaks to two of his assistants, telling them the inspectors were withdrawn by the UN at the request of the United States.

January 2, 2000: With Madeleine Albright as guest, Tim Russert repeats the error on Meet the Press: “One year ago, the inspectors were told, ‘Get out,’ by Saddam Hussein.” Russert asks Albright what she’s going to do about this.

January 21, 2000: Sam Husseini writes a letter to Russert, again laying out the facts, and requests a correction.

January 22, 2000-March 19, 2003: Russert never corrects his error.

March 19, 2003-present: Hundreds of thousands of people die in Iraq War. Russert dies, not in Iraq War. Official Washington weeps copious tears for Russert and his Extraordinary Journalistic Standards. http://thismodernworld.com/4354

[calimary]

1. Again, another SCORE! kpete - you just absolutely ROCK!!!

Thank you for this!

RIP Tim Russert, and may he be forgiven. But we must NOT EVER FORGET what he did, what role he played, and how he contributed - by very carefully-considered CHOICE - to all that's gone so horribly wrong in this country.

He was one of the biggest lead dogs in front of the dog sled.

[theboss]

21. Except the whole premise is based on nonsense.

Hussein did force the inspectors out in '98. The Clinton Adminstration made such a big deal out of it that we bombed the damn country. And the inspectors were still not back at the time of the Gore interview.

What should he have asked instead?

[rhett o rick]

26. I can think of hundreds of things he should have asked. Like "what does the security report say?"

Why do we think that habeas corpus needs to be eliminated?
Why do we need to spy on our own people without any oversite?
Who is profiting from this war?
How will we pay for this war?
How many Iraqi children should die for one so called terrorist death?
Does free trade mean no bid contracts for Halliburton and Blackwater?
Do you think that American citizens should be arrested and tortured?
Do you think we should be sending people to Syria for torture?
How much debit to communist China??

I could go on.

He didnt ask any of these questions.

The few times he asked hard questions, he let his republicant guests off with out any follow up.

[theboss]

27. He should have asked those questions to Al Gore in 1999? Why?

Like the article suggests.

I'm just sticking to the facts here.

[BonnieJW]

47. Right.

Many times the White House press corps said that if they asked the "wrong" questions, they wouldn't be called on. Tim Russert didn't need to worry about this at all. Who wouldn't appear on his show??? If they wouldn't come on, it would have been political suicide. All he would need to say was, "We wanted to ask Karl Rove about his knowledge of the Valerie Plame case, but he refused our invitation to appear."

[Gabi Hayes]

32. you bought the M$M Bullshit about the inspectors, I see. here:

http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1123

compare and contrast what happened at the time with what the M$M LIARS made up four years later. see which sources seem reliable. pretty damn obvious

nice try, though

you might want to get ahold of Richard Butler and see on whose order they left:

"This is the second time in a month that UNSCOM has pulled out in the face of a possible U.S.-led attack. But this time there may be no turning back. Weapons inspectors packed up their personal belongings and loaded up equipment at U.N. headquarters after a predawn evacuation order. In a matter of hours, they were gone, more than 120 of them headed for a flight to Bahrain."

--Jane Arraf, CNN, 12/16/98


"What Mr. Bush is being urged to do by many advisers is focus on the simple fact that Saddam Hussein signed a piece of paper at the end of the Persian Gulf War, promising that the United Nations could have unfettered weapons inspections in Iraq. It has now been several years since those inspectors were kicked out."

--John King, CNN, 8/18/02




"Russian Ambassador Sergei Lavrov criticized Butler for evacuating inspectors from Iraq Wednesday morning without seeking permission from the Security Council."

--USA Today, 12/17/98


"Saddam expelled U.N. weapons inspectors in 1998, accusing some of being U.S. spies."

--USA Today, 9/4/02

[theboss]

43. I'm buying Clinton Administration BS, if it is BS

"Six weeks ago, Saddam Hussein announced that he would no longer cooperate with the United Nations weapons inspectors called UNSCOM. They are highly professional experts from dozens of countries. Their job is to oversee the elimination of Iraq's capability to retain, create and use weapons of mass destruction, and to verify that Iraq does not attempt to rebuild that capability."

Bill Clinton
December 16, 1998

[frylock]

52. hussein DID NOT force inspectors out..

that is straight up propaganda. clinton pulled them out before he started the bombing. do your damn homework.

[stray cat]

2. actually the Iraq war is my fault - I didn't vote in 2000

[rhett o rick]

61. Oh yeah, well I did vote. For Nader. Before I get flamed, my state went for Gore in spite of my

vote.

[UTUSN]

3. K&R big #5!1 n/t

[proud2BlibKansan]

4. Thank you kpete

The canonization of this man needs to stop, especially here on DU.

[underpants]

5. and the oddest irony is how successful "Operation Desert Fox" was

In "Fiasco" Thomas Ricks states that the so nicknamed "Operation Wag the Dog" actually did for all practical purposes end all of the WMD plans and minimal infrustrature that was still hidden. Scientists have told the US military that those hits knocked out what little they did have and basically it wasn't worth trying to rebuild it. The intel on that operation was either good or really lucky and the result was very effective.

Okay this is from wikipedia but you get the gist of it
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Desert_Fox
According to Thomas E. Ricks, author of Fiasco: The American Military Adventure In Iraq, Desert Fox was successful in largely persuading Iraq to abandon WMD programs. U.S. intelligence, he contends, was just not aware of its success until after the 2003 invasion. However, the Duelfer Report concluded that "Iraq's WMD program was essentially destroyed in 1991 and Saddam ended Iraq's nuclear program after the 1991 Gulf War."

[Reterr]

6. k&r.eom

[Captain Hilts]

7. Well done. He paved the way for the election of GWB by...

ridiculing and trivializing Bill Clinton and Al Gore.

[jpertello]

8. Another way to look at it

is-
the Bush Admin disseminated false information through intermediaries and the media picked it up out of naivete, laziness or sheer stupidity. And if it happened before 2000, don't put it past the Clinton folks to have done the same thing for entirely different reasons (keeping the Saddam paranoia alive and on the back burner just in case).

I wrote Hillary a series of letters in 2002 ands 2003 asking her why she was voting for the IWR and then to ask her why she is so gullible and easily duped when I, a private citizen, am not? She answered with the usual Bush talking points almost word for word. It was like she was sent back to Central Command and reprogrammed. Thereafter I lost all respect for her. And I realize that at the time she was just wetting her finger and sticking it up in the wind.

[grassfed]

9. A million dead Iraqis, millions more maimed, traumatized, lives ruined forever

5 million refugees in the tiny countries of Jordan and Syria, professional classes reduced to begging and prostitution to punish and intimidate the region. An impoverished and devastated Iraq (plus Iran, Syria, Lebanon and even more if at all possible) was not unexpected but was the whole point. Cheney, Pearle, Wolfowitz, Kristol, Krauthammer, Pipes, Gaffney, they all had comprehensive Israeli data on intricate alliances and feuds in the region down to tiny neighborhood blocks. They knew the outcome, wished for it ardently, but brazenly appear on MTP etc and express misgivings. If you get caught up in "how did the democracy project go wrong?" you're already lost.

Russert legitimized these people.

[jpertello]

10. as for the refugees

in Jordan. A lot of them are Palestinians. The Defense Dept. insiders had personal reasons to further destabilize the region.

[grassfed]

13. the whole war is personal to DOD insiders

There have been Palestinian refugees in Jordan for 60 years. There are an estimated 5 million Iraqi refugees in Syria and Jordan.

[Name removed]

11. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[burythehatchet]

18. deleting you is the only possible reply

[stillcool]

19. how could anyone run out of Bush material?

I want to say something else, but I won't.

[samsingh]

12. yes he did.

[eppur_se_muova]

14. But he gave candy to children! What difference does a million war dead make?

I mean, let's keep a sense of proportion, people!

[mmm413]

15. Russert may have been a good guy but he wasn't a journalist.

I've been storing things on my computer since 2004. And I'm now cleaning it up. And I ran across an article about Russert's interview w/rPres. Bush. Russert never followed up on any questions he asked of Bush when Bush gave an outrageous answer. Russert was a good ol' boy from PA or NY or wherever and he was in awe of the position of power he somehow ascended to. And he was afraid to challenge anyone who might have fought back and who may have threatened his status. Except for Democrats. He had no problem going after Democrats. I'm glad this weekend is over so we can quit giving Russert the accolades he doesn't and has never deserved.

[ayak9]

53. Russert was bought and paid for by Jack Welch

I thought I remembered reading about how Russert was called into Jack Welch's office and told how it was gonna be. This blog on Kos from two years ago spells it out pretty clearly.


How Tim Russert became Karl Rove's bitch.
by kant

Mon May 08, 2006

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/5/8/13191/83603

(from the blog)

a web article by David Podvin and Carolyn Kay called DEMOCRACY, GENERAL ELECTRIC STYLE that lays out that " Welch believed that it was his responsibility to operate in the best interest of GE shareholders, and that now meant using the full power of the world's biggest corporation to get Bush into the White House." Now I don't know anything about Podvin and Kay, and I have no idea who their sources are, but they paint a compelling case for how consent is manufactured at GE/NBC by process similar to the way a jet engine turbine is manufactured.

In the article, Podvin and Kay assert that...


Shortly after George W. Bush declared his candidacy for president in June of 1999, General Electric Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Jack Welch was contacted by Bush political advisor Karl Rove. Welch later informed associates that Rove told him a Bush administration would initiate comprehensive deregulation of the broadcast industry. Rove guaranteed that deregulation would be implemented in a way that would create phenomenal profits for conglomerates with significant media holdings, like GE. Rove forcefully argued that General Electric and the other media giants had a compelling financial interest to see Bush become president.
They continue...


The philosopher Ayn Rand wrote, "The actual performance of men in society is a constant, fierce, undefined struggle between the genius and the parasite..."
To Welch, although George W. Bush might not be a genius, his policies would encourage those who were geniuses to be even more innovative and productive. Fewer government regulations and lower corporate taxes would create technological advancement, thereby benefiting society more than all of the do-gooder social programs combined ever could. The country would be run for the benefit of the "A" people who achieved great things, not the "C" people who merely existed. In such a laissez faire environment, the powerful would be unshackled to become even more powerful, and no corporation in the world was more powerful than General Electric.

By contrast, Welch viewed Al Gore as the candidate of the parasites. Gore voters were not the generators of wealth; they were the consumers of taxes. Welch privately described the typical Gore voter as "someone who needs all these goddamned social programs because she's too goddamned dumb to keep her legs crossed and too goddamned lazy to get an abortion."

This view of the world led Welch to implore associates at GE that doing whatever it took to get George W. Bush into the presidency was not only good for General Electric, it was good for America.

And here is the genius of Welch, because unlike Rupert Murdoch, he is not obvious...


Welch was absolutely determined to make his employees at NBC News finally genuflect to the most sacred words in his vocabulary: GE bottom line.
He perceived that there was a widely believed American myth of well-intended journalists selflessly seeking the truth, and that there would be hell to pay if a business leader like him were to overtly force reporters to be good corporate soldiers. So, being a very bright guy, he largely left the journalists at NBC alone.

Publicly.

In private, Welch was proud to have personally cultivated Tim Russert from a "lefty" to a responsible representative of GE interests. Welch sincerely believed that all liberals were phonies. He took great pleasure in "buying their leftist souls", watching in satisfaction as former Democrats like Russert and MSNBC's Chris Matthews eagerly discarded the baggage of their former progressive beliefs in exchange for cold hard GE cash. Russert was now an especially obedient and model employee in whom the company could take pride.

[Warren Stupidity]

16. Error: You've already recommended that thread. nt.

[mmm413]

17. And let us not forget.

He apparently had enough clout at NBC/MSNBC to ban Arianna Huffington from the network(s).

[theboss]

20. Methinks Husseini is hung up on a technicality

Hussein stopped cooperating the inspectors in August of 1998 and accuses them of being spies.
In December, Clinton bombs Iraq in response.

We may have pulled the inspectors out, but clearly did so under protest.

[Major Hogwash]

48. No, we pulled our inspectors out because we were about to bomb them.

And if you think there are 2 inches of daylight between Bubba and Bush junior, then you need to look at all the comments Bubba made from 2003 to 2005 telling Democrats, liberals, progressives, and anyone else who was against the war "to stop criticizng the President".

It was an amazing display of his own attitude supporting the Iraq War.

[indepat]

22. Those who shill for mass killings will gain their rewards in the hereafter if there is a just God in

heaven. :D

[Jakes Progress]

23. But how can you complain?

I mean, he was famous man. I mean he was, you know, famous. He had famous friends and famous time on the tv. So how could he be bad. He was just so famous. Besides he hated Hilalry, so how could anything he ever did be bad. You must be crazy man, Didn't you know he was famous? I just heard Keith say so.

[Sam Ervin jret]

24. Just a couple of points and questions. Wasn't it the obligation of the respondent to point out any

misconceptions that Russert may have made?

Tweety made a good point the other night.

(He often does, which is why I get more angry with him than with someone like Billo who is stupid and hopeless. Because he is capable of intelligent thought, even though he is a sexist idiot at times, I expect more of him. But I digress)

When the Bush administration went to sell the Iraq war to the American people they knew the "magic words" that would get to the "every man." Just as they got to Tim Russert who Tweety said fell for the line as well.

When Tweety asked Russert how he could fall for this war the response was, "it's the nuclear thing." Russert fell, as many Americans, did for the lies purposely promulgated by this administration. This criminal administration new that the way to get the American people to agree to this war would be frightened them into this war by the idea of Hussain having nuclear weapons. They used this fear to get the war they wanted. They used it even thought they NEW, not thought but new the truth that there were no nuclear weapons.

Gore and Albright had the ability to point out to the American people the truth. Did they?

[stillcool]

25. Tim etal were doing the jobs they ..

are paid the big bucks to do..lie for empire. Way back when I was under the impression that it was their job to ask the questions of the politicians..I guess it's now the politicians job to ask questions of the 'media'.

[bjobotts]

28. A small slice of the big pie he presented with his neocon agenda.

[AZ Criminal JD]

29. Another hate filled post

It is amazing how many people have such petty lives that they feel they have to post hatred towards others to make themselves feel bigger. Hows your mothers basement looking today?

[Gabi Hayes]

33. WTF are you TALKING about, with your "hate'' BS?

because he disagrees with your delusional view of a huckster for GE?

where is anything in that OP that remotely resembles hatred? you sound EXACTLY like the lunatics who anyone who profoundly disagrees with the course this illegal regime has set for our country

dissent does NOT equal hatred, you....never mind....I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, just stop using heavy handed language designed to cloud the issues.

I don't hate Russert; I don't even hate Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Rove, etal. I HATE what they've done to the country, the world, and the planet. If you don't, then there's something seriously wrong with you.

I wonder why you love to use the H word so inappropriately

[TiredTexan]

46. Bad manners.............

During Stalin's reign of terror in the Ukraine, Russian troops rounded up all of the livestock owned by the populace, and burned all of the crops. Millions starved to death. During the same time period, Stalin invited a group of journalists to tour the same area to dispel rumors of genocide. Reporters from the UK, the US and various other nations were shepherded around to various fake villages and shown happy people living there. The whole scheme was revealed when a single brave reporter from the UK sneaked off the train, and took pictures of the devastation and starving people.

Instead of being haled as a hero, this reporter was uniformly attacked by the other journalists and in the media. He had broken his word, and been rude.

In other words, manners were more important than truth.

And that is the whole crux of your argument.

All the adulation of Russert obscures an important truth. The media assisted the administration in pushing a war of choice onto us. Millions are dead, many more are refugees, and thousands of babies are being born with deformities due to our use of depleted uranium. Continued adulation of someone who assisted in pushing this narrative simply encourages the continuation of the same narrative. Remaining silent in the face of false adulation allows a false narrative to take root and grow.

There is simply no way to be polite about war, death, and the gutting of the Constitution. Truth is just far more important than anyone's mistaken notions of good manners.

[Reterr]

59. An excellent post-more people should read it

Kicking

[frylock]

51. how's your rectum look today?

fuck your tender sensibilties.

[AZ Criminal JD]

60. I don't look at rectums

But I'm sure you specialize in that.

[Quantess]

30. Tim Russert was an average anchor man who did what he was paid to do.

If it wasn't going to be Tim Russert selling the lies, it would have been a different guy.

Tim Russert was a cog in the wheel, but he was infinitely replaceable. So don't blame Tim Russert! Blame the masters of his puppet strings.

I don't understand why this thread has gotten such a huge amount of recommendations.

[Gabi Hayes]

34. he was a HUGE cog in the wheel, attached to the driveshaft. not just a little

guy, underling, whatever. he was an OPINION leader, one of the judas goats, who drove the herd in the direction that President Cheney wanted the M$M to go

you know Cathie Martin, right? you know what she said about Meet the Press, yes?

your argument fails at that point. I agree that he was replaceable....they all are. the point is that he's the one who was there, and it was HIS CHOICE to be used. by your logic you'd be surprised that Goerring/Goebbels/Himmler, etal were/would have been put on trial at Nuremburg (the ones that didn't off themselves) because, if not them, then somebody else.....

he didn't have to do what he did

he could have done what Robert Parry did when he worked for the AP, but he didn't. his pal Jack Welch knew his value, and paid him commensurately, for which Russert was only too happy to stand and deliver, on command

[Quantess]

35. Okay, I have more research to do. Thanks for that.

And no, I'm happy to say that I don't actually know a lot about Tim Russert.

[Gabi Hayes]

37. heh.....time for me to take a break. I didn't know that much either, other than

what I remember from the Clinton inquisition. just had an instinctual loathing for that puffy, florid visage, and the seemingly bottomless joy he took in cornering (mostly dem) guests with the killer followup quote, carefully prepared in advance, guaranteed to bodyslam the unsuspecting prey

here's my impression from about 10 years ago:

[Quantess]

38. Wow. See, my problem is that I actively ignored politics until late 2002 / early 2003

Everything during the Clinton presidency seemed agreeable to me, so I just did not pay attention.

Even when Bush became our dubiously elected "president", I was too busy with my social life to even care. So, I am late to the party.

[Gabi Hayes]

40. I came and went, over a long period of time.

welcome to the funhouse

[Quantess]

41. If we only knew our price for not caring enough, most of us would have fought harder.

I was blissfully naive, and did not think, first of all, that America would ever elect a Bush again. I never liked the idea of another Bush in the White House. But sadly, I was complacent when I should have been proactive. We're all f*****.

[defendandprotect]

55. THIS is important commentary . . . and alerting the public to its stake

in government and that basically "politics effects your life every moment of your life" --

if it doesn't begin at home should certainly be introduced by our schools --- and not

much of that is happening any more --- and it is an ESSENTIAL and presumed role of our

"free press."

We are still underusing the internet, IMO, in that regard ---

because when the "free press" is truly working as it should, it includes visions of a

better future.

Anyone see anything about the future in our corporate-press -- other than more "drilling"

and more Soldier's COFFINS being hidden away and more bankrupting of our taxpayeers/Treasury???


With the flooding of the Mid-West last week and reports over the weekend ---

did anyone see any programming on Global Warming and its great threat to humanity

and the planet? Anything about food and water supplies?

[defendandprotect]

54. If you've come to understand . . .

Global Warming and the seriousness of it, you understand it ain't gonna be much of a "party" . . .

[meowomon]

31. This may be true

But many here have been showing such disrespect to those who personally knew him at MSNBC. They knew him as a friend. My father is a staunch right wing ass but I love him anyway. Your friend is your friend. They were mourning a person, not a TV personality or reporter or whatever other tag he might have. These are people who knew his wife and kid.

So many on this board have been down right cruel. I thought that the progressives were better than that. The time to begin the smearing or truth telling, what ever you want to call it, of a dead man is after his funeral. That is the
tradition. Anything else is just uncivil.

[Gabi Hayes]

36. talk about smearing! WTF are you doing comparing Bush and Bundy?

how do you think poor Ted's family feels?

for shame!

[lebkuchen]

39. Almost any prime-time "news" person would be found guilty of promoting the war

Chris Matthews or Wolf Blitzer could keel over tomorrow, and your post would apply to them as well, though with different misstatements.

The war was an obvious boondoggle from the get-go, and the media's top three stoked the fires every chance they got.

We're all gonna die. Russert is lucky to get the allocades he's received, albeit from his colleagues. Reminds me of all the awards ceremonies movie stars hold for themselves to self-promote.

[defendandprotect]

56. Good comments . . . and basically I'm wondering if NBC didn't use the

five day mourning period --- or was it more? -- to kind of block out the reality of

Mid-West flood and the questions that should be raising re Global Warming ---

Water and our food supplies --- ???


We're all gonna die. Russert is lucky to get the allocades he's received, albeit from his colleagues. Reminds me of all the awards ceremonies movie stars hold for themselves to self-promote.

[SwiperFox]

42. K&R

Very true! Recommended!

[raccoon]

44. Once again, Kpete hits one out of the ball park. K&R. nt

[rhett o rick]

63. Yeah, yeah, big deal. It's what we have come to expect. And what kind of name is raccon anyways.nm

[Name removed]

45. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[truebrit71]

49. Whilst everyone is falling over themselves to worship this "journalist" they gloss over his enabling

..of the WMD lie...the fact that he was part of the outing of an under-cover CIA operative and the favourite chat show for Cheney and Rice to spew their outright GODDAMNED lies without so much as a pretense of holding them accountable, or asking them a REAL question.

So pardon me if I don't fall to the floor in a sobbing pile of grief-stricken emotion wondering how I can possibly continue without Timmah on the TeeVee, because as far as I'm concerned he was part of the fucking problem...

[defendandprotect]

57. Right re Russert and Plame . . .

While his telephone call or non-telephone call with Scooter Libby still seems to be in question

it does seem clear that Russert was reluctant to even testify at all ---

But also I'm wondering if anyone watching ever heard him question the whole Plame affair

and push the administration for information --- ??

[rhett o rick]

64. Hey man, I totally agree. nm

[Phred42]

50. Russert wasn't a Journalist -

Unless you have some Orwellian definition of Journalism

He was a Reich wing ENABLER

We only know this publicly because he was FORCED to testify under oath. Is there more?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Washington Journalism on Trial -http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007 /...

...snip...

For Russert, yesterday's testimony was the second source of trial-related embarrassment in less than two weeks. The first came when Cathie Martin, Cheney's former communications director, testified that the vice president's office saw going on Russert's "Meet the Press" as a way to go public but "control message."

In other words: Sure, there might be a tough question or two, but Russert could be counted on not to knock the veep off his talking points -- and, in that way, give him just the sort of platform he was looking for.

and.....


Tim Russert, at the Lewis Libby Trial, February, 2007 (recounted by The Washington Post's Dan Froomkin)
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/04/24/halbe ... /

If you're a journalist, and a very senior White House official calls you up on the phone, what do you do? Do you try to get the official to address issues of urgent concern so that you can then relate that information to the public?

Not if you're NBC Washington bureau chief Tim Russert. . .

When then-vice presidential chief of staff Scooter Libby called Russert on July 10, 2003, to complain that his name was being unfairly bandied about by MSNBC host Chris Matthews, Russert apparently asked him nothing.

And get this: According to Russert's testimony yesterday at Libby's trial, when any senior government official calls him, they are presumptively off the record.

That's not reporting, that's enabling.

That's how you treat your friends when you're having an innocent chat, not the people you're supposed to be holding accountable. . .

For Russert, yesterday's testimony was the second source of trial-related embarrassment in less than two weeks. The first came when Cathie Martin, Cheney's former communications director, testified that the vice president's office saw going on Russert's "Meet the Press" as a way to go public but "control message."

In other words: Sure, there might be a tough question or two, but Russert could be counted on not to knock the veep off his talking points -- and, in that way, give him just the sort of platform he was looking for.

Russert's description of how he does business with government officials came when prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald asked him whether there were "any explicit ground rules" for his conversation with Libby.

According to someone taking meticulous notes at the courthouse yesterday, Russert replied: "Specifically, no. But when I talk to senior government officials on the phone, it's my own policy our conversations are confidential. If I want to use anything from that conversation, then I will ask permission."

[rhett o rick]

62. Well said. nm

[chill_wind]

58. I hope Husseini will get after "et al" Snarl himself and ABC, too.

November 29,2001

Interview of Vice President Cheney with Diane Sawyer of ABC

(long transcript...)

SAWYER Saddam. As we know, the president just said basically that there will be consequences if he does not let the United Nations, the UNSCOM group in to inspect. His answer is we will not permit it. Going on, an Iraqi spokesman said anyone who thinks Iraq can accept an, an arrogant and unilateral will of this party or that is mistaken. So the lines have been drawn, and the Germans, at the very least, have said wait a minute, don't go there, and the exact quote I believe for the foreign minister is: "All European nations would view a widening of the conflict with greater skepticism and that's putting it diplomatically." My question is will the United States go in and blast Saddam Hussein if he does not let inspection groups in, and will we do it alone, and so what is the rest of the allies say no?

CHENEY The president was very clear, the other day, Diane, when he was asked about Saddam, that we believe he should in fact allow inspectors back in. That's what the U.N. Security Council has called for. He kicked 'em out about three years ago. The Clinton administration basically didn't respond at that point. There's several things to keep in mind about Iraq and about the Iraqis. We know that he was developing nuclear weapons, and that in 1981, for example, when the Israelis struck the Osirik reactor they dealt a major blow to his program. We know, in 1991, at the time of the Gulf War, that he also was getting close, once again, to acquiring nuclear weapons. We know he has developed biological and chemical agents. He's used them, not only on his own people but also on the Iranians during the Iran-Iraq War. That thousands and thousands of people have died at the hands of Saddam Hussein and his weapons of mass destruction already. That's history. There's every reason to believe, since he kicked out the inspectors, that he did that specifically because he wanted to develop further his capabilities in this area, so-called biological, chemical agents and nuclear weapons.The reason those inspectors were called for in the first place, and he agreed to them at the end of the Gulf War, that was one of the conditions for moving forward, was to make certain, to reassure the world that he was not developing these kinds of capabilities again. Now I don't think it takes a genius to figure out that this guy is clearly, continues to be a significant potential problem for the region, for the United States, for everybody with, with interests in the area, and for the president to say that he thinks those inspectors should be readmitted, I think is a perfectly reasonable policy statement for him to make.

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http://www.whitehouse.gov/vicepresident/news-speeches/speeches/vp20011129.html