Lies & the Lying Liars Who Tell Them_ A Fair & Balanced Look at the Right - Al Franken [134]
“You and your ricin!” Thomasin shouted. “How are they going to weaponize it, butthead?! An aerosol? I’m telling you, it’s a highly infectious virus, such as Lassa, white pox, or any number of the hemorrhagic fevers. There are eight million delivery systems right here in New York.”
“Everybody! Hello!” I broke in. “This is a family meeting to decide whether Daddy should speak at a Clear Channel rally for a cause he’s not sure he really believes in.”
“It’s all about you, Dad, isn’t it? It’s always about you,” Thomasin said, her voice dripping with the sort of sarcasm I’ve used italics to indicate throughout this book.
I faked a sneeze, sending her fleeing to her bedroom, where she slammed the door and wedged a wet towel in the crack under it.
“That’s not going to save you!” her brother taunted maliciously.
“Okay, focus. What about the speech?” I asked.
“You know you’re going to do it, Al. You’ve already made up your mind.” Franni said. “Why are we even having this meeting? You always do this. Do you want me to say I think you should do the speech? Fine, I think you should do the speech.”
“Ladies, gentlemen, SportsRadio 640 WGST contest winners, and Lee Greenwood—welcome to Clear Channel’s ‘Let’s Iraq ’n’ Roll’ rally! A special thanks to retired Air Force Major Dave Cranepool for his flyover in that vintage F-102 Delta Dagger. Wow!
“Today we are not just SportsRadio 640 WGST listeners, or listeners of WKNR, the channel for classic rock, or Hot 92.7 fans, or inmates of the Morning Asylum with Dave and the Donut Lover. No, today we’re all Americans. (Cheers, applause) Except for NPR listeners, who always seemed a little French to me. (Laughter, boos). Lee Greenwood liked that one.
“If I could just be serious for a minute. I know your prayers are with our men and women fighting in Iraq, who are there protecting us from Saddam Hussein and his weapons of mass destruction.
(Mix of boos and cheers for Saddam and troops, respectively)
“You know who really honks me off? Hans Blix. (Boos) Hans Blix says he can’t find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Well, after Saddam Hussein nukes the U.N., it’s going to be pretty hard to find Hans Blix! Right, Lee?
“Hey. Did you hear the Dixie Chicks changed their name? They’re now the Blixie Chicks! (Huge cheers) Am I right? (Laughter, applause)”
It was not my proudest moment. And not just because it wasn’t my A-material. (Although TeamFranken is great at crunching budget numbers, they’re not so hot with the Dixie Chicks jokes.) No, my shame was that I had allowed fear to cloud my normally robust skepticism regarding the veracity of the Bush administration.
Many of the things they had told us about weapons of mass destruction had turned out not to be so true. The uranium from Niger, the aluminum tubes for atomic weapons that Colin Powell told the U.N. about, Bush’s references to a nonexistent International Atomic Energy Agency report saying Iraq was six months from having a nuke. All the compelling arguments that Iraq posed an imminent threat to the Frankens. All lies.
Remember the fleet of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles Saddam was building? Bush told us, “We are concerned that Iraq is exploring ways of using these UAV’s for missions targeting the United States.” This turned out to be about as plausible as the Malawi space program, which consists of a bucket and one man’s dreams.
As of this writing no weapons of mass destruction have been found. What has been discovered is that the Bush administration made its case to the American public on the basis of selectively chosen evidence that they knew was shaky. Or worse. In the case of the Niger uranium, for example, the CIA had been telling the White House for a year that the evidence was an obvious forgery.
Nevertheless, as I write this, 34 percent of Americans believe that we have already found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. I wish I were among this 34 percent. Then I wouldn’t feel so guilty about whoring myself out to Clear Channel.
Perhaps so many Americans believe this because they