Lies & the Lying Liars Who Tell Them_ A Fair & Balanced Look at the Right - Al Franken [135]
HANNITY: I think the weapons of mass destruction will be found. I don’t think we have any doubt about that. What are we to make . . .
COLMES: None whatsoever, Sean.
HANNITY: What are we to make of the reports that they’ve discovered these large concentrations of cyanide agent, mustard agents in the Euphrates, and the fact that our Marines have found these boxes of suspicious white powder, nerve agent, antidote, Arabic documents on how to engage in chemical warfare?
FOX MILITARY ANALYST LIEUTENANT COLONEL BILL COWAN: Sean, I’m right there with you. No surprises whatsoever that all these things are being found, maybe even no surprises that the U.N. inspection team, Hans Blix and company, had been into some of these places and not found anything . . .
COLMES: Colonel, senior defense officials are telling Fox News at this hour that that white substance found in an industrial plant near Baghdad is not a chemical weapon.
There was tons of this. Every time I watched Hannity and Colmes, Sean was certain they had just found the smoking gun. And then someone, in this case, an unusually feisty Colmes, would update the story with the information that what had, in fact, been found was a box of Tide.
Or maybe Americans got the impression that we’d already found weapons of mass destruction because they’d heard it from a high-ranking source in the White House, namely the President. On May 29 of this year, President Bush said on national television, “We found the weapons of mass destruction.”
It was on Polish national television. The President was in Poland to thank them for joining Eritrea, Tonga, and the Solomon Islands in the Coalition of the Willing. If it turns out that the administration deliberately misled Americans and the rest of the world, next time countries like Tonga might not be so willing lend their support.
There are serious questions about the possible deceptions used to win public support for the war. It is increasingly clear that the disinformation campaign, particularly regarding the much-hyped uranium from Niger, emanated from the highest reaches of the government. The question must be asked: What did the President know? And, if not, why didn’t he know it? If, as may be the case, the President did not understand his intelligence briefings, why didn’t he ask to have them explained to him? And did he know that he didn’t understand them?
When President Clinton left office, America enjoyed tremendous respect and admiration around the world. As a candidate, Bush repeatedly emphasized the need for humility in the conduct of our foreign affairs. What would he have done differently in Kosovo? Been more humble. How would he approach the Middle East? With humility.
But as soon as he became president, Bush managed to spend Clinton’s surplus of international goodwill in astonishingly short order. He ditched Kyoto, the anti-ballistic missile treaty, the germ warfare protocol to the Biological Weapons Convention, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, the International Criminal Court, and the land mine treaty.
And did it all with a decided lack of humility. He didn’t say, “We hope you don’t mind, we’re very sorry, but we have to withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol. I feel terrible that we’re not able to live up to our responsibility to take a leadership role in addressing the impending global warming crisis.” Or something like that. I’m no diplomat. But there must have been some way to be nicer about it.
No. He had to go piss the world off. Not once. But twice.
You see, the day after 9/11, we got the world back on our side. All over the planet, there were spontaneous outpourings of sympathy, support, and genuine affection for the United States. It was a terrible way for