Shuster v. Russert v. Dean v. The Truth

it's a Texas Steel Cage Death Match and the truth takes a beating at the hands of MSNBC reporter David Shuster, NBC maven Tim Russert, and DNC Chair Howard Dean.

Let's start with Seixon, who is debunking a report by David Shuster which includes the following claim:

SHUSTER: But the White House started claiming that Iraq and the group responsible for 9/11 were one in the same.

The text version of the Shuster story concludes as follows:

The brutal irony is that while implications, innuendo, or false claims if you will about a 9/11 connection helped take us into Iraq.

So the White House was linking Saddam to 9/11?  In addition to Seixon's rebuttal, we can wave in... Tim Russert, who, unlike Mr. Shuster, evidently attends the editorial meetings where coffee is served.  Here are Messrs. Russert and Dean on Meet The Press:

MR. RUSSERT:  What [pre-war intelligence] did [Bush] withhold?

DR. DEAN:  He withheld--he knew, he knew that there was no connection between Saddam and 9/11 and he insisted on trying to make that case to the American people.

MR. RUSSERT:  But he never said Saddam was involved in September 11.

DR. DEAN:  He never actually came out and said just that.  But in every speech he gave during the campaign and afterwards, he left the impression.  He left the impression with 65 percent of the American people, who agreed that Saddam had something to do with 9/11.  It made that--it was dishonest, what he did.

For those scoring at home, it is now Russert versus Shuster and Dean.  Yes, Russert has them outnumbered, but let's send him some reinforcements from (wonders never cease) the NY Times.  Here they are from June 2004 (click for the pop-up graphic which has excerpts from Rice, Rumsfeld, Powell, Cheney, and Bush):

Critics of the Bush Administration argue that it falsely created a link between Saddam Hussein and the 9/11 attacks to help justify the war. Last week, the administration countered that it had never made such an assertion - only that there were ties, however murky, between Iraq and Al Qaeda. A survey of past public comments seems to bear that out - although whether there was a deliberate campaign to create guilt by association is difficult to say.

"Difficult to say"?  Not if you are Howard "I Will Say Anything" Dean!

So does Mr. Russert emerge the hero?  Hardly.  Sweetness and Light captures Tim operating a Dowdifier without a license, presenting shortened, misleading quotes that mislead the unwary.  Here is the set-up, as Russert spoke with Ken Mehlman of the RNC:

SEC'Y COLIN POWELL (State Department):  My colleagues, every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources.  These are not assertions.  What we're giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence.

(End videotape)

MR. RUSSERT:  "On solid intelligence."  And then 15 months later, the secretary of state came on this program and said this.

(Videotape, May 16, 2004):

SEC'Y POWELL:  But it turned out that the sourcing was inaccurate and wrong, and in some cases, deliberately misleading.  And for that, I am disappointed, and I regret it.

(End videotape)

MR. RUSSERT:  "Deliberately misleading."  That's the secretary of state. So why can't Democrats now say that the administration deliberately misled the American people?

Sweetness has the answer.

And for folks inclined to look for deeper connections, we have this old post in which Josh Marshall unwittingly explains to Paul Krugman the connection between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein.  I had even more fun letting John Kerry explain the linkages.  Oh, well, that was back in the barrel-fishing days...

Comments

[Syl]

Dean recited a poll number giveing the percent of Americans who believed Saddam had something to do with 9/11. Others have done that too. Dana Milbank had an entire article on it.

The only way Americans could come to that conclusion, of course ::rolling eyes::, was because Bush subliminally made Americans believe it. Milbank pulled some Bush quotes which he speculated were responsible.

Yes, there's a WaPo poll often cited (the one from 6/03/2003) that DOES show that 72% of Americans believed it likely that Saddam had something to do with 9/11.

But...

A similar WaPo poll taken on 9/13/01 shows 78%!!

I wonder where Americans got the idea that Saddam was such a bad guy that 78% of 'em thought he had something to do with 9/11? Couldn't have been the Democrats and Clinton?

Nah.

[Syl]

DR. DEAN: He never actually came out and said just that. But in every speech he gave during the campaign and afterwards, he left the impression. He left the impression with 65 percent of the American people, who agreed that Saddam had something to do with 9/11. It made that--it was dishonest, what he did.

Yeah. Like exactly who is the dishonest one here?

This is why the whole Bush Lied meme is so egregious.

[JM Hanes]

Syl -
Bless you for putting that one to rest!

I've been meaning to search Time's archive for an absolutely amazing stat they cited a few years back on how many Americans believe that beef is a manufactured product. Fortunately, that misconception preceeded the Bush Presidency -- although I'm sure there or those who would claim the rumor got its start somewhere in Texas.

[Seixon]

Hehe, thanks for the link Tom. I was going to deconstruct the Dean and Mehlman interviews as well, but then that pesky thing called sleep got in my way.

I thought especially Russert's dancing with Powell's quotes was downright ridiculous. He made it appear as if Powell was saying the administration mislead, when in reality he was talking about their sources, such as Chalabi and the INC.

I enjoyed watching Dean squirm on his show though, making stuff up on the fly when Russert dropped a truth bomb on him. Unfortunately Russert didn't go for the final blow with a, "well, polls right after 9/11 showed that people thought Saddam did it, even before Bush said that Osama was behind it". Poor Dean would have cried his way off the set.

[kim]

I'm not sure Russert can be deliberately misled. One has to be capable of direction before one can be misled.
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[kim]

Syl, the forgetfullness and hypocrisy is monumental. What I don't understand is that they now seem to be defending Saddam. It is politically insane for a major party to be misled by a psychotic wing. Saddam had a WMD, it's just selective for liberal principles.
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[Kate]

David Schuster's reporting is questionable at best. I forced myself to watch Hardball the week before the single indictment was announced. Of course, that was when there were rumors of multiple indictments of high ranking Bush officials on conspiracy etc.

Schuster ran a report that Fitzgerald went to Rome to review the forged documents and that his indictments will include manipulating pre-war intelligence.

Matthews was extremely excited and his little panel was getting equally spun up. Finally, the WAPO guy must have realized his corporate logo was behind him and tried to distance himself from Schuster's reporting. Then the other panelists followed suit.

Just the other night, Matthews was saying what great work Schuster was doing on another story. In a reputable show, he'd be fired.

[kim]

The lovely little irony here is the MSM deliberately misleading over the deliberately misleading meme.
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[p.lukasiak]

Wow! talk about rewriting history!

Did the Bush administration tie Iraq to Al Qaeda at every opportunity? Yes.

Did the Bush administration claim that Iraq hosted a terrorist training camp -- one that included an empty passenger jet? Yes.

Did the Bush administration circulate the allegation about Atta meeting with the Czechs? Yes

Did it do so long after no responsible person would have continued to try to assert that there was any credible evidence the meeting took place? Yes

You folks need to realize something. The lies that you tell yourselves are not going to convince the American people of anything.

[Cecil Turner]

Did it do so long after no responsible person would have continued to try to assert that there was any credible evidence the meeting took place? Yes

Sorry, but the contention that meeting has been conclusively disproven is not on. This Slate piece is about as definitive an answer as we're likely to get (which is . . . "not very").

[kim]

1. Yes, wouldn't you. There were links, as Clarke et good ol' al would tell you.

2. Saddam paid the families of Palestinian suicide bombers with Oil for Food money. There is little overall question that Saddam supported terroism wherever his sneaky little mind could project his power. A mind much like bin Laden, but less predictable. Both with great holes in their paradigms of reality.

3. See Cecil and Slate.

OK, quiz in the AM. You MUST know your history. You will both remember my words and regret your memory if you don't.
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[boris]

I'd wager most who are skeptical of Iraq-Al Qaeda connections are somewhat less skeptical about global warming. An argument used against skepticism in that debate is the "precautionary principle", or "better safe than sorry".

Back at 'em.

[kim]

Now that they are safe, they are not sorry. It is cowardly, and describes Joe Wilson to a T.
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[kim]

You should hear me rave about the Carbon Liberation Wars. I think it prudent to release as much carbon as we can, while we can, in a last ditch attempt to prevent the permanent sequestration of it from the biosphere. Much is probably irretrievably gone. We're only releasing what is 'economic' to use.
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[kim]

Better safe than sorry, and when is the next intelligent beast going to come along capable of finding and oxidizing all those hydrocarbons? Granted, a minute percentage is returned naturally to the environment, but the existence of stores argues for progressive sequestration. If Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere promotes warming, what is the consequence of hiding it all underground? Ice Ages? Recent Ones?

One of the persisting scientific questions for me is how the earth has managed to maintain an internal milieu stable enough to allow the development of chemical complexities, which require immense periods of time to make the evolutionist's expectations to be realized. Where else has there been basically billions of years of stability in such highly reactive compounds as we have in abundance here?

That, really, to me, is more miraculous than the designs which apparently manifest high intelligence.
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[kim]

I know, water expanding as it cools near freezing and the sudden increase in volume at phase change have a little to do with it.

How come that little eddy out of the mainstream of physical laws?
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[kim]

Jeez, I almost forgot.

Bush Lied, People Died.
Say it again, louder, louder.
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[p.lukasiak]

This Slate piece is about as definitive an answer as we're likely to get (which is . . . "not very").

the investigation by the FBI concluded that Atta was in Virginia Beach and Florida at the time the meeting took place. So unless you want to start saying that the FBI is part of some massive pro-Saddam plot, one really has to face the fact that it wasn't Atta, and no responsible government official would ever be claiming it might have been Atta.

[Gary Maxwell]

Puke

No the FBI concluded his cell phone was used in the USA at the time. Now if his cell phone was superglued to his hand, that is conclusive. If the entirely more likely scenario is that the cell phone could have been say left on the night stand or even given to a like minded associate ( since most US cell phones only work as door stops in Europe!) while he had a small Chech vacation....

[Patrick R. Sullivan]

Tim rewrote a little himself Sunday:

' MR. RUSSERT: And prior to that, he had said that we had gotten uranium from Africa.'

And he repeated that lie later in the program.

[Syl]

BTW I tried to send this link to Russert MTP. But my browser wouldn't let me do it. I fiddled my security settings and everything and still couldn't get it sent :(

So if someone wants to let Russert know about the poll (so he can tell Schuster) be my guest. Please.

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p.luk.

Your protestations are meaningless since the number of people who believed Saddam had something to do with 9/11 fell, rather than increased, during the whole Iraq war run-up.

[p.lukasiak]

Your protestations are meaningless since the number of people who believed Saddam had something to do with 9/11 fell, rather than increased, during the whole Iraq war run-up.

that's true, but its not meaningless.

See, the people who still believed that lie tended to vote for Bush in 2004, while those that realized it was a lie voted mostly for Kerry.

(And, not surprisingly, the people who still believed in the lie watched a lot of Fox News....)

[Gary Maxwell]

Man which of my meters is higher the condenscension meter or the arrogance meter? Looks like they are both reading "extremely high" in the last post.

[kim]

Don't worry, Chalabi is busily printing the documents to prove that lie true.
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[boris]

One should not attribute to condenscension or arrogance what can best be explained by stuck on stoopid.

[Syl]

p.luk

See, the people who still believed that lie tended to vote for Bush in 2004, while those that realized it was a lie voted mostly for Kerry.

By Nov 2004 nobody cared whether Saddam had anything to with 9/11 or not. Nice try though.

[boris]

More people believed in the "lie" that was never spoken before it had ever been unsaid by nobody nohow.

[kim]

No, Boris, nobody never done tole me nuthin 'bout nuthin, nowhere, nohow. No, I can't defend my vote, but give me your money and I'll make sure you're not poor. Let me control your doctor, and I'll make sure you don't think you are sick. And give me your youth so you'll never feel old and useless. Let me teach your children and I'll make sure they can't defend themselves.
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[Jeff]

There is a noteworthy difference between what you say and what you are doing in saying it, and the Bush administration understands that and understands that it provides you with plausible deniability, especially when you have momentarily naive smart righties willing to play along (for a long moment). So the Bush administration does not flat out assert that Saddam was linked to 9-11. Yet the Bush administration says so many things -- including using 9-11 and Saddam or Iraq in the same sentence innumerable times -- that are designed to leave the impression in people's minds that Saddam and 9-11 are somehow connected. Do you seriously deny that the Bush administration offered implications and innuendo that there was a 9-11 connection on the part of Saddam? Do you deny that the Bush administration said many things aimed at getting people to affiliate 9-11 and Saddam together in their minds?

[kim]

So please explain how after all that innuendo and 'subliminal promotion' fewer people connected Saddam with al Qaeda right before the war than right after 9/11?
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[Slartibartfast]

I'm thinking it was really poorly executed subliminal instruction to believe the connection, and then lie about it on polls. I mean, if you think going that far out on a limb is safe, what's a few more inches?

[kim]

These Dems are so wily they remind of a coyote.
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