February 07, 2007
Yellowcake And Yellow Journalism
Printer FriendlyBy: Ann Coulter
To see how liberal history is created, you need to tune into the nut-cable stations and watch their coverage of the Scooter Libby trial. On MSNBC they're covering the trial like it's the Normandy Invasion, starring Elvis Presley, as told by Joseph Goebbels.
MSNBC's "reportage" consists of endless repetition of arbitrary assertions, half-truths and thoroughly debunked canards. No one else cares about the trial — except presumably Scooter Libby — so the passionate left is allowed to invent a liberal fable without correction.
Night after night, it is blithely asserted on "Hardball" that Wilson's trip to Niger debunked the claim that Saddam Hussein had been seeking enriched uranium from Niger.
As David Shuster reported last week: "Wilson goes and finds out that the claim that Iraq was seeking uranium from Niger is not accurate."
There have been massive investigations into this particular claim of "Ambassador" Joe Wilson, both here and in Britain. Nearly three years ago, a bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee concluded that this was not merely untrue, it was the opposite of the truth: Wilson's report actually bolstered the belief that Saddam was seeking uranium from Niger.
"The panel found," as The Washington Post reported on July 10, "that Wilson's report, rather than debunking intelligence about purported uranium sales to Iraq, as he has said, bolstered the case for most intelligence analysts." So you can see how a seasoned newsman like David Shuster might come to the exact opposite conclusion and then repeat this false conclusion on TV every night.
Wilson's unwritten "report" to a few CIA agents supported the suspicion that Saddam was seeking enriched uranium from Niger because, according to Wilson, the former prime minister of Niger told him that in 1999 Saddam had sent a delegation to discuss "expanding commercial relations" with Niger. The only thing Niger has to trade is yellowcake. If Saddam was seeking to expand commercial relations with Niger, we can be fairly certain he wasn't trying to buy designer jeans, ready-to-assemble furniture or commemorative plates. He was seeking enriched uranium.
But Wilson simply accepted the assurances of the former prime minister of Niger that selling yellowcake to Saddam was the farthest thing from his mind. I give you my word as an African head of state.
Chris Matthews also repeatedly says that Bush's famous "16 words" in his 2003 State of the Union address — which liberals say was a LIE! a LIE! a despicable LIE! — consisted of the claim that British intelligence said there was a "deal" for Saddam Hussein to buy enriched uranium from Niger.
Matthews huffily wonders aloud why Wilson's incorrect report didn't get into Bush's State of the Union address "rather than the president's claim of British intelligence that said there was a deal to buy uranium, which of course became one of the underpinnings of this administration's argument that we had to go to war with Iraq."
Considering how hysterical liberals were about Bush's "16 words," you'd think they'd have a vague recollection of what those words were and that they did not include the word "deal." What Bush said was: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."
Even if the British had been wrong, what Bush said was factually correct: In 2003, the British government believed that Saddam sought yellowcake from Niger. (Not "MSNBC factual," mind you. I mean "real factual.")
But in fact, the British were right and Wilson was wrong. By now, everyone believes Saddam was seeking yellowcake from Niger — the CIA, the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee, Lord Butler's report in Britain, even the French believe it.
But at MSNBC, it's not even an open question: That network alone has determined that Saddam Hussein was not trying to acquire enriched uranium from Niger. Actually one other person may still agree with MSNBC: a discredited, washed-up State Department hack who used his CIA flunky wife's petty influence to scrape up pity assignments. But even he won't say it on TV anymore.
Shuster excitedly reported: "We've already gotten testimony that, in fact, that Joe Wilson's trip to Niger was based on forgeries that were so obvious that they were forgeries that officials said it would have only taken a few days for anybody to realize they were forgeries."
This is so wrong it's not even wrong. It's not 180 degrees off the truth — it's more like 3 times 8, carry the 2, 540 degrees from the truth. Shuster has twisted Wilson's original lie into some Frankenstein monster lie you'd need Ross Perot with a handful of flow charts to map out in full.
During Wilson's massive media tour, he began telling reporters that he knew Saddam was not seeking yellowcake from Niger because the documents allegedly proving a deal were obvious forgeries.
Again, thanks to endless investigations, we now know that Wilson was lying: He never saw the forged documents. (Not only that, but Bush's statement was not based on the forged documents because no one ever believed them.)
The bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee report notes that Wilson was asked how he "could have come to the conclusion that the 'dates were wrong and the names were wrong' when he had never seen the CIA reports and had no knowledge of what names and dates were in the reports." Indeed, the United States didn't even receive the "obviously forged" documents until eight months after Wilson's trip to Niger!
Wilson admitted to the committee that he had "misspoken" to reporters about having seen the forged documents. Similarly, Cain "misspoke" when God inquired as to the whereabouts of his dead brother, Abel.
But on "Hardball," the forged documents that no one in the U.S. government saw until eight months after Wilson's trip now form the very impetus for the trip. A perfectly plausible theory, provided you have a working time machine at your disposal.
If you wonder how it came to be generally acknowledged "fact," accepted by all men of good will, that Joe McCarthy was a monster, that Alger Hiss was innocent, that mankind is causing global warming and that we're losing the war in Iraq, try watching the rewriting of history nightly on MSNBC. Don't forget to bring your time machine.
Posted by redguy at February 7, 2007 08:43 PM
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Comments
Ann:
Hate to say it, Doll, but you are preaching to the choir. Most of us, your loyal fans and admirers, are well aware of Joe Wilson’s aversion to truth and conventional hairstyles as well as anything purported on MS/LSD particularly on Chris Matthew’s “Screwball.”
That said, of equal if not more import, was the coverage of Tim “Mr. Potatohead” Russert’s lame (sorry for the pun) (pun? what pun?) (he was on crutches) (oh, sorry) testimony and lamer still coverage.
One would be excused for thinking that Russert simultaneously divulged the DaVinci Code, Grand Unified Theory as well as the recipe for Coco-Cola by the LSM’s coverage of his "interrogation" at the Libby Show Trial. He was made to look like the #1 stand-up guy (yes, pun) by the way the media fawned over his erudite and Solomaic responses.
But, the Liberatzi must have run out of ink when it came to the cross-examination. For some odd reason, the media did not report that Russert’s responses under cross were not as well scripted as his primary testimony. In fact in some circles it is reported that he folded like a cheap suit and could have brought to his knees faster than an intern in the Clinton Administration.
(Yes, it is true, we conservatives can not leave Clinton alone. Yes, we blame him for much of the world’s ills. We will forgive him and leave him and his domestic partner alone when he apologizes for all that he did during his presidency and then only after sentencing Jimmah Cahhtah to the gulag. Sorry, grouchy this AM. But, I mean it.)
It will be interesting to see how this plays out in the media. But, sadly, in most peoples eyes it is a mere footnote compared to Nancy Pelosi’s demand for a huge jet, the psychonaut in Florida and the Yankees trying to fill out their starting rotation.
God Bless and God Speed
John
Posted by: Jaksavin
at February 8, 2007 07:57 AM
Another bulls-eye, Ann!
This is typical of liberal Democrats and their spin-meisters in the liberal main stream media. Repeatedly tell a lie or distort the truth and it will eventually become the truth.
There is no such thing as “reporting the news” anymore. It has become “distorting the news”.
The liberal main stream media has turned their “news” broadcasts into the equivalent of “Ripley’s Believe It or Not” episodes where you have to determine reality and truth for yourself.
And, as usual, conservative Republicans are no where to be seen to refute this nonsense and set the record straight.
Why are we trying Scooter Libby for a faulty memory? If faulty memory is now an offense, shouldn’t we try BJ Clinton for his voluntarily faulty memory? And, how about trying “Shrillary” for her voluntarily faulty memory?
Why are we wasting tax-payer money for this garbage? First, Patrick Fitzgerald wasted tax-payer money on a two-year investigation that should have been over in two weeks (for those that don’t remember - Fitzgerald was well aware of who “outed” Valerie Plame in the first two weeks of his investigation).
And again, for those who don’t remember, Valerie Plame was never a covert or classified agent. She only handled classified material. Her own neighbors knew she worked for the CIA. You can’t “out” someone who’s already “out”! And, she had no authority to send her husband to Niger or anywhere else regarding any official U.S. government business.
Now, we have a trial for what? To prove the expense of the original investigation was justified?
Conservative Republicans need to stop allowing themselves and other issues to be defined and controlled by liberal Democrats. As many times as liberal Democrats distort and lie about anything, conservative Republicans need to refute them and set the record straight.
The problem is that conservative Republicans think that once they’ve set the record straight and got the message out that that is the end of the issue. What conservative Republicans can’t seem to fathom is that liberal Democrats believe in endlessly recycling everything, even lies – with the exception of the Clinton scandals, of course.
Posted by: LynnJG
at February 8, 2007 10:39 AM
Great column and comments from my two favorite posters this cold morning! One thing we "conservatives" can do is what I did...I wrote to the president to stop this trial...or if he could not, then to pardon Mr. Libby as soon as it is over. Of course, what good that will do is questionable. This is a political lynching, pure and simple!
Once again, Lynn you have beat me to the punch with your well-expressed thoughts. Mr. Fitzgerald should be removed from his position - he KNEW it was Armitage and still kept up his witch hunt. If that action isn't grounds for letting him rejoin the civilian workforce, I don't know what is! And when I read that Armitage had told the higherups in the State Dept that he was it...and Colin Powell did NOT inform the president or someone at Justice to stop his "search" right then and there, he is definitely a 'persona non grata' in my opinion!
Posted by: CapeConservative
at February 8, 2007 11:18 AM
I'm very glad, Ms. Coulter, that you are here. You're credible and believable. You forcefully demonstrate the news media's hard-leftiness in a ways irrefutable. Your words collectively cut into formerly unchecked leftist dogma like an ax. You point up the falseness of the formerly unchallanged leftist mythicysm that has for decades been served up--unabashedly, by low wretches like Dan Rather--as truth. You even illustrated the religionism in leftism, exposing it as a decidedly hysterical, faith-based belief system, not a political philosophy. You're a hero and a champion to right-thinking human beings everywhere. Don't stop writing, ever.
Posted by: Florida Cane
at February 8, 2007 05:11 PM
Yup...Ann, as always, is right on the money. Unfortunately, most of "Lemming America" doesn't read Ann. True to form, the pussy-liberals in that abound in the mainstream media know that if they tell the lie enough it will become the truth...and that's what they do. What are the liberals screaming about? THAT is EXACTLY what they themselves are doing! Works every time!! And they're GOOD at it? Why are they good at it? Because they've had decades of practice by now with almost zero opposition IN THE MAINSTREAM. And that is also why they want to shut down the true patriot pundits on the right...because they show the lies told by the pussy-liberals. Ann and other patriots like her pull the curtain back to reveal "the wizard" working the paddles and handles and cords.
Posted by: Ziggy Spaz
at February 8, 2007 11:25 PM
The always entertaining and purveyor of the term “pussy-liberal” Ziggy synthesizes one of the major issues that may face any of the true sons and daughters of liberty.
Not content to control the majority of the print and television media they are now gunning for the last remaining bastion for widespread dissemination of information, radio.
Such eminent luminaries as Dennis Kucinich and Bernie Sanders as well as dimmer bulbs are staunch supporters of the so-called “Fairness Doctrine.” As I had suggested before, this is something about which we all ought to be very conversant. In a nutshell, if enforced, this would demand that any viewpoint aired on the radio would predicate a response by the viewpoint opposite. Ergo: If Rush speaks, Franken can/must answer.
Gee, that sounds like fun!
Like Ziggy and others have said, the repeating of a lie often enough makes it true in the liberal mind. Having the solace of radio for an opportunity to get the truth from the myriad of right-wing or right-leaning commentators is something we cherish and something for which liberals have a deathly fear.
Ought the baby-killing, illegal-welcoming, pro-terrorist, God-hating, anti-American lefties get their way not only could that be the death knell of talk radio as we know it, but, what is next? The internet?
(Read up on this travesty. For the record, the Fairness Doctrine is NOT a law but FCC policy. Yet, it was challenged and upheld in a Supreme Court Decision.)
I wonder, however, if Skare Amerika were successful would the lefties be considering this tactic?
God Bless and God Speed
John
Posted by: Jaksavin
at February 9, 2007 07:47 AM
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