Why did the media ignore Mitt Romney's lie about Iraq

Why did the media ignore Mitt Romney's lie about Iraq

A graphic accompanying a June 6 Washington Post article about the previous night's Republican presidential debate asserted that the "Gaffe of the Night" was committed by former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who "incorrectly sa[id] [that] yesterday was Ronald Reagan's birthday." The graphic itself, however, contained a much more significant misstatement: former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney's erroneous account of the events leading up to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. Asked during the debate if it was "a mistake for us to invade Iraq," Romney replied, [W]e wouldn't be in the conflict we're in" if "Saddam Hussein had open[ed] up his country to IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] inspectors and they'd come in and they'd found that there were no weapons of mass destruction." In fact, Hussein did allow IAEA inspectors into Iraq before the invasion, and they "found no evidence or plausible indication of the revival of a nuclear weapons programme in Iraq." Saddam also allowed the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) into Iraq before the invasion, and its inspectors "did not find evidence of the continuation or resumption of programmes of weapons of mass destruction."

Giuliani's 9/11 Conspiracy Theory

Giuliani's 9/11 Conspiracy Theory

During a speech Monday at Pat Robertson's Regent University, former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani indirectly blamed President Clinton for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Echoing arguments offered frequently by Bush administration officials, Giuliani claimed that Clinton treated the 1993 World Trade Center bombing "as a criminal act instead of a terrorist attack," which "emboldened other strikes" on the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, Kenya, and Tanzania, and later on the USS Cole. "The United States government, then President Clinton, did not respond," Giuliani said. "Bin Laden declared war on us. We didn't hear it." The claim that Clinton "did not respond" to global terrorism during his administration is demonstrably and flagrantly false. (Giuliani himself knows this. Just last year, before he became a presidential candidate, he said, "The idea of trying to cast blame on Clinton [for the 9/11 attacks] is just wrong for many, many reasons, not the least of which is I don't think he deserves it.") Giuliani's fundamentally misguided approach to counterterrorism is evidenced not only by his dishonest smears of President Clinton, but by his embrace of the same national security strategy as President Bush, under whom global terrorism is rising, Osama bin Laden is resurgent, the Middle East is deeper in violent unrest, and the U.S. military is in the midst of a readiness crisis.


CLINTON'S TERRORISM RECORD: The Clinton administration's efforts to "thwart international terrorism and bin Laden's network were historic, unprecedented and, sadly, not followed up on." Richard Clarke, who served as counterterrorism czar for Bush I, Clinton, and Bush II, detailed Clinton's counterterrorism record after Vice President Cheney claimed in 2004 that the United States had "no great success in dealing with terrorists" during the 1990s: "It's possible that the vice president has spent so little time studying the terrorist phenomenon that he doesn't know about the successes in the 1990s," Clarke said. "There were many. The Clinton administration stopped Iraqi terrorism against the United States, through military intervention. It stopped Iranian terrorism against the United States, through covert action. It stopped the al-Qaida attempt to have a dominant influence in Bosnia. It stopped the terrorist attacks at the millennium. It stopped many other terrorist attacks, including on the U.S. embassy in Albania. And it began a lethal covert action program against al-Qaida," including military strikes against al Qaeda targets.

Fred Thompson is the Philip Morris candidate

Fred Thompson is the Philip Morris candidate

If Fred Thompson is elected president, he will be the first federally registered lobbyist to become Commander in Chief. Since his days as top minority counsel to the Senate Watergate Committee, Thompson has collected over $1 million in lobbying fees. In return, he has provided exceptional access to those in power.

Thompson's prospective presidential bid stands out in another respect: No campaign has been so dominated by staffers and advisers who have worked on behalf of Philip Morris, one of the world's leading tobacco conglomerates and a leading force in promoting cigarette smoking.

Undoing Bush: how to repair eight years of sabotage, bungling, and neglect

Undoing Bush: how to repair eight years of sabotage, bungling, and neglect

Look for the SignThe fallout from President Bush's signing-statement spree

Look for the SignThe fallout from President Bush's signing-statement spree

There are two ways President Bush likes to wage war on your civil liberties: He either asks you to surrender your rights directly—as he does when he strengthens and broadens provisions of the Patriot Act. Or he simply hoovers up new powers and hopes you won't find out—as he did when he granted himself authority to order warrantless wiretapping of American citizens. The former category seems more benign, and it's tempting to lump Bush's affinity for "presidential signing statements" in that camp. It's tempting to believe that with these statements he is merely asking that the courts take his legal views into account. But President Bush never asks anything of the courts; he doesn't think he has to. His signing statements are not aimed at persuading the courts, but at reinforcing his claim that both courts and Congress are irrelevant.

Find an exit soon

US Needs to Exit Iraq

Clashes between U.S. troops and insurgents throughout Iraq, political maneuvering in the United States over its presence there and the repercussions of that presence around the world leave no doubt that the Bush administration's hopes for a turnaround have been frustrated.

The recent American troop "surge" has only increased the grim statistics of military casualties, civilian deaths and overall devastation. The U.S Congress reluctantly approved funding for the continued troop presence without requiring a date for withdrawal. But despite claims of victory, media reports suggest that the Bush team understands its current Iraq policies have run their course.

The administration is reportedly considering a 50 per cent reduction of troops in Iraq next year, as well as changing their mandate from combat missions to support and training. There's renewed interest in the recommendations of the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group, brushed aside only a few months ago. The administration has begun consulting Iraq's neighbours, Iran and Syria.

So even those who like to persist in their mistakes and illusions are being forced to rethink or, at least repackage, their policies. But is this a real change for the better? Is there a light at the end of the tunnel?

No.

The key to understanding the situation - as it appears today and as it appeared one, two or three years ago, indeed as it appeared from Day One of the invasion - is simple. Iraq is occupied by U.S. forces.

That fact hasn't been changed by Iraq's creation of a parliament, the election of a new government or the establishment of relative quiet in some parts of the country. Millions of Iraqis perceive the occupation as a national humiliation. That fuels sectarian conflicts, civil strife and continuing instability.

New Studies Destroy the Last Objection to Medical Marijuana

New Studies Destroy the Last Objection to Medical Marijuana

wonderful symmetry

The Downsizing of the American Dream

Media Complicit in Pushing War

When Journalism Became Transcription and Reporting Disappeared

Bill Moyers' PBS special last night on the media's complicity in pushing America to war was so powerfully upsetting that I am forced to resort to using mid-1990s NBA metaphors to describe it, if only because describing it without a metaphoric buffer is just too depressing. This production was the documentary equivalent of Tom Chambers famously jumping over a screaming Mark Jackson and hammering down one of the greatest, most in-your-face slam dunks in history.To call the media's complicity in the Iraq War a conspiracy is an insult to conspiracies, because it wasn't hidden - as Moyers shows, it was all out there for everyone to see. The problem was, Beltway reporters didn't want to see it. As New York Times White House correspondent Elisabeth Bumiller famously admitted, in the lead up to war most self-respecting Washington journalists who wanted to stay on the White House Christmas card list refused to ask tough questions because "no one wanted to get into an argument with the president."

What's really disturbing, however, is not even what this documentary says about the past - but what it says about the state of journalism today.

In interview after interview after interview, we hear top journalists and opinionmakers declare that they believe journalism is no longer about basic, hard-scrabble reporting or getting scoops. As the Washington Post's Walter Pincus says, most reporters today actually try to avoid getting scroops because they "worry about sort of getting out ahead of something" and - gasp! - making their friends inside Official Washington mad at them. So rather than, say, do the real work of reporting news, journalism has become a profession that is almost entirely about PR, transcription and packaging Establishment spin for news copy. This is why, for example, many of the highest-profile political "journalists" like Joe Klein and David Broder never bother to actually report anything anymore - but instead spend most of their time pontificating on horse race polls and campaign gossip, expecting us to believe that's real "news."

John Gibson The Looney Wing-Nut From Fox

John Gibson put Media Matters "on notice," refuses to correct falsehood about funding

On the June 5 edition of his nationally syndicated radio program, Fox News host John Gibson said he was putting one of his "groups of enemies on notice" after receiving a "demand[] for a retraction" from Media Matters for America. Gibson said that "they are complaining that I said something about them which isn't true, which was that, basically, it was a front for [Sen.] Hillary [Rodham Clinton (D-NY)]." As Media Matters noted, Gibson falsely stated on his June 1 radio show that Media Matters was "invented" and "funded" by "the Hillary Clinton campaign."

Gibson, self-proclaimed "black man's best friend," launches false attack on Media Matters over "ooga booga fever" fallout

Gibson also believes that the tooth fairy still leaves quarters under his pillow at night.

light gothic version

Dick Cheney goes to Boys State Conference in Wyoming and Thinks He's in a Lying Contest and Decides He is Going to Win First Place.

light one

HISTORY LESSON: Bush, Korea and Endless War in Iraq

very fresh

Caging Voters-Karl Rove's Felony In The 2004 Election

This Monica revealed something hotter - much hotter - than a stained blue dress. In her opening testimony yesterday before the House Judiciary Committee, Monica Goodling, the blonde-ling underling to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and Department of Justice Liaison to the White House, dropped The Big One.... And the Committee members didn't even know it. Goodling testified that Gonzales' Chief of Staff, Kyle Sampson, perjured himself, lying to the committee in earlier testimony. The lie: Sampson denied Monica had told him about Tim Griffin's "involvement in 'caging' voters" in 2004.
Huh?? Tim Griffin? "Caging"???
The perplexed committee members hadn't a clue - and asked no substantive questions about it thereafter. Karl Rove is still smiling. If the members had gotten the clue, and asked the right questions, they would have found "the keys to the kingdom," they thought they were looking for. They dangled right in front of their perplexed faces.

The keys: the missing emails - and missing link - that could send Griffin and his boss, Rove, to the slammer for a long, long time.

Kingdom enough for ya'?
But what's 'caging' and why is it such a dreadful secret that lawyer Sampson put his license to practice and his freedom on the line to cover Tim Griffin's involvement in it? Because it's a felony. And a big one.

Our BBC team broke the story at the top of the nightly news everywhere on the planet - except the USA - only because America's news networks simply refused to cover this evidence of the electoral coup d'etat that chose our President in 2004.

Here's how caging worked, and along with Griffin's thoughtful emails themselves you'll understand it all in no time.

The Bush-Cheney operatives sent hundreds of thousands of letters marked "Do not forward" to voters' homes. Letters returned ("caged") were used as evidence to block these voters' right to cast a ballot on grounds they were registered at phony addresses. Who were the evil fakers? Homeless men, students on vacation and - you got to love this - American soldiers. Oh yeah: most of them are Black voters.

Why weren't these African-American voters home when the Republican letters arrived? The homeless men were on park benches, the students were on vacation - and the soldiers were overseas. Go to Baghdad, lose your vote. Mission Accomplished.

How do I know? I have the caging lists...

I have them because they are attached to the emails Rove insists can't be found. I have the emails. 500 of them - sent to our team at BBC after the Rove-bots accidentally sent them to a web domain owned by our friend John Wooden.

naked flower 88

Don't We Have a Constitution, Not a King?

As the nation focused on whether Congress would exercise its constitutional duty to cut funding for the war, Bush quietly issued an unconstitutional bombshell that went virtually unnoticed by the corporate media.

The National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive, signed on May 9, 2007, would place all governmental power in the hands of the President and effectively abolish the checks and balances in the Constitution.