Truth - Al Franken [22]
The 9/11 theme didn’t mean that Madison Square Garden’s men’s room attendants would be breaking out the Osama bin Laden urinal cakes. No, this new-and-improved 9/11 theme would not pin the blame on one specific man or group. Instead, the Republican Convention would revolve around the epic, historic clash between the enemies of freedom on the one hand and George W. Bush on the other.
For three days, a parade of inspiring speakers invoked the painful memories of the attacks that had occurred only blocks away. They celebrated the President’s decisive leadership in attacking people who had nothing to do with the attacks, and warned of impending terrorist strikes on our homeland that could only be prevented by electing the President to a second term.
Critics would later claim that the name “Osama bin Laden” was not uttered by a single speaker at the RNC. This is a lie as despicable as any falsehood foisted upon the American people by a war-hungry, unelected child of privilege. As an equal opportunity debunker, I see it as my job to expose the lies of lying liars on either side of America’s blue-red political divide. In fact, Osama bin Laden was mentioned. Twice. Once by Republican up-and-comer Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert on August 30 at approximately 11:23 A.M., and once by Republican down-and-outer New York Governor George Pataki on September 2 at 9:44 P.M.
Because neither was broadcast on network television, it’s possible that some Americans may have missed their denunciations of America’s most deadly nemesis. But fortunately, they would get to listen to the next best thing. Denunciations of the man whom Bush had successfully apprehended.
In books like this one, too often cases are made on the basis of anecdotes and generalities. For example, in Bernard Goldberg’s biased Bias, the author relies on a story about a colleague calling Gary Bauer “a little nut from the Christian group” as proof of a media-wide anti-Christian, anti–short people, anti-nut conspiracy. See? I started this paragraph with a generality and tried to prove it with an anecdote. That kind of sloppiness doesn’t cut it here.
I don’t want you to take my word for it that the major Republican National Convention speakers systematically conflated 9/11 with Iraq. No, I want to prove it to you. Using not soft, disputable words, but cold, hard numbers. Numbers that, admittedly, represent the use of words, but numbers all the same. Because numbers, unlike words, can never be “spun.” Especially when those numbers are collected and presented in strict accordance with the Scientific Method.
Hypothesis. Major speakers at the 2004 Republican National Convention mentioned Saddam Hussein, Iraq, terrorism, terrorists, terror, and/or 9/11 (hereafter referred to as “conflation words”) more frequently than they mentioned Osama bin Laden.
Null hypothesis. The speakers used conflation words the same number of times as they mentioned Osama bin Laden.
Methodology. Major speeches from the Republican National Convention were analyzed by a team of one researcher (Ben), who tracked iterations of key words.
Results. See Fig. 1. All numbers have been rounded to the nearest integer.
Figure 1: Word Frequency in Major Republican National Convention Speeches
Analysis. Major speakers at the 2004 Republican National Convention used conflation words 17,800 percent more frequently than they mentioned Osama bin Laden. The statistical likelihood of this occurring by chance is less than 0.0000000008331 percent. A lot less.
Case study. Here’s a passage from the beginning of Rudolph Giuliani’s address on the first night of the convention. As you’ll see, the former New York City mayor is a master conflater. Watch how skillfully he gives the false impression that Iraq had been involved in 9/11:
It was here in 2001 in lower Manhattan that President George W. Bush stood amid the fallen towers of the World Trade Center and said to the barbaric terrorists who attacked us, “They will hear