No Balance Here
Reported by Eleanor - August 17, 2004 -
On Fox & Friends (Aug. 17, 7:00 a.m.) Bill Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard, and a Fox regular, spoke of Iraqi politics as "working" and kept the Swift Boat issue alive. Our Fox friends also gave us their talking points of the day, this time about "new evidence" that Sadam moved banned weapons into Syria before the war.
Iraqi Politics - Kristol indicated that the political process unfolding in Iraq could be a big victory for Allawi. (The fly in the ointment is al Sadr.) Al Sadr was called the "teflon sheik." Kristol said that we backed off in Fallujah when we should have taken Fallujah. Ultimately, we'll have to use force.
Swift Boat Story - The conversation switched to the swift boat controversy and the question, "Did Kerry serve with courage?" Kristol emphasized that at first he was skeptical about the story, but now he thinks that Kerry has "misrepresented" what he did during those four months. He said, "Read the book. There are genuine questions." The "outrage is the mainstream media" that looked at Bush's service, but has not reported that Kerry "retracted" his statement about Cambodia. The NY Times (and others) did not report that he "misrepresented" what he did. "What is the truth?"
Comment: What I found especially interesting about this conversation is that Kristol said he read the book, and he took the one issue of Kerry's whereabouts on one night, whether he was inside or outside of Cambodia, and generalized it to Kerry "misrepresenting" what he did in Viet Nam, and gave it as the answer to the question about whether or not he "served with courage." The Kerry camp has already said he was near, and not inside Cambodia, but a casual listener would get from this exchange that Kerry lied about his Viet Nam service, did not serve with courage, and the "main stream media" is not reporting Kerry's retraction. The whole truth is not important. Just the suggestions, the questions, the innuendo, and most of all, the discussion itself that keeps the story alive. The Bush camp should only wish that the questions about Bush's service revolved around whether or not he was inside or outside of the Cambodian border in 1968.
Sadam's Missing Weapons - In an interview with Rowan Scarborough, author of "Rumsfeld's War," Scarborough said that Sadam had a "secret system" of transporting banned weapons into Syria before the war. (The latest support for Bush's WMD story.) Sadam would send his "secret security service" to the border and allow trucks to cross into Syria, but "we can't prove it because we don't have good intelligence in Syria." (But we're reporting it anyway.) They were not stockpiles, but components, that Syria could use themselves. Two scientists were assassinated. David Kay said that concealed weapons were sent to Syria. "We know they were there. Where did they go? How do we get Syria to cooperate? Syria does not want us to succeed in Iraq. Economic sanctions did not cause them to budge one inch.
