More Bits
Bush’s case for WMD in Iraq continues to crumble. Bush & Co. have already been trying to downgrade the requirements for proving their claim (from “WMD” to “WMD-related program activities”) while trying desperately to maintain the fiction that there really were WMD in Iraq, and that (a) they went to Syria, (b) they’re cleverly hidden in someone’s garage, or (c) they were so completely and thoroughly destroyed that not a trace remains of either the weapons or the effort to destroy them.
Today, David Kay, the Bush administration’s own point-man on the campaign of deception, has dealt another blow–he says that he now believes that WMD do not exist, and that none have been produced since 1991. That’s one hell of an admission, and may show up the frustration this man feels at having been the front man for such a massive deception. While Kay blames the intelligence community, evidence points rather to Bush and Blair for “sexing up” the intelligence, being highly selective in what intelligence to listen to and what not to listen to. Bush’s choice of sources for the Niger yellowcake, for example–he ignored his own people’s reports that the claims were false, and instead chose to quote foreign intelligence sources. What leader would ignore his own people and instead report on foreign sources which contradicts his own best intelligence? It is very clear that Bush was being selective, and there is no reason not to believe that this selectiveness was widespread in order to sell a war that could not have been sold otherwise.
It seems that Howard Dean is making a comeback, and is now close on the tail of John Kerry, with 28% to Kerry’s 31% Clark has dropped to 13%, and that would be easy to understand if people were watching the national news. It seems every time I see a broadcast, Clark’s exposure is either cut down to a minimum or is completely absent. One bit I saw just a few minutes ago gave a fair amount of air time to Kerry, Dean, Edwards and Lieberman, but Clark was limited to a small sentence of coverage while we heard him say, “We’re gonna go!” to a crowd cheering “Go Clark, Go!” Not exactly balanced. He seems to be getting ignored lately, even worse than being dissed. We can only hope that New Hampshire voters will overturn expectations like the Iowans did….
Okay, reality check. Just saw a promo clip on CNN where the Pope waved congenially to a performing break dancer. Huh?
In positive news, the Mars rovers’ stories continue to get better and better. Opportunity, by great fortune, happened to land inside a small, 30-foot crates with desirable mineral deposits and ideal rock outcroppings. And, as always, the photos are tantalizing–you can keep track of them all on the rover image page, which includes smaller raw images and all the press release images–but this page offers full-size images, so if you don’t like the limited, selective postage-stamp images on the news services, come to these pages to check out the real deal.
It seems every time I see a broadcast, Clark’s exposure is either cut down to a minimum or is completely absent.
My biggest concern with Clark since the very beginning is that he simply waited too long to get into the race. This cost him the chance to compete in Iowa, where there was a very sudden shift in front-runners. Having Kerry vault into the top spot was the last thing Clark needed.
Not exactly balanced.
Well, I wouldn’t blame it on biased reporting so much as bad luck.
Lieberman? Well, maybe the media felt obliged to throw him a bone. He’s been campaigning a lot longer for this moment than Clark has.
Well, more and more it seems like Clark is imploding anyway, sad to say–he doesn’t seem to have the built-in fact-checker required for politicians on the road who have to speak off the cuff for hours and hours a day. Analysts also point to the fact that each of the other candidates have the qualities that Clark embodies–Kerry has military service and electability, Dean has the outsider thing, Edwards is from the South. I would still like to see more of Clark, but if he comes out third or lower in New Hampshire primary, we can probably write him off, save for a highly unlikely course of events.
I would still like to see more of Clark, but if he comes out third or lower in New Hampshire primary, we can probably write him off, save for a highly unlikely course of events.
I would like to see more of him, too, but I really wish he had hitched his resume to someone else’s ticket. Dean/Clark, Kerry/Clark, Edwards/Clark–any one of these would have been a winner, I bet.
Perhaps there’s still hope for something like this to happen, but you’re right: it’s looking less and less likely that Clark will be on any ticket.
While Kay blames the intelligence community, evidence points rather to Bush and Blair for “sexing up” the intelligence, being highly selective in what intelligence to listen to and what not to listen to.
He must be under pressure from the administration, or else just not be entirely aware of what’s been going on. Sure, intelligence from Iraq was sketchy before the war, but the intelligence community did the best they could with the resources available. Consider that there was no embassy and the inspectors had left, ironically, because of impending war plans. So sources of intelligence had dwindled to practically nothing.
On the other hand, the White House had set up the Office of Special Plans and had been “cherry-picking” the intelligence which supported their pre-existing beliefs.
Kenneth Pollack has noted that any intelligence which
contradicted these beliefs was challenged beyond the limits of reason (i.e. prove this, prove that) while information coming from the Iraqi National Congress was passed along to Bush as the gospel, but unverified.
http://schadenfreude.cogitox.com/archives/000243.html
…a good read for anyone who thinks the administration lied, does not apply legal principle to it’s decisions, or just likes interesting and well researched discussion…
Maybe we are wrong about the WMD business after all…