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What's the Difference Between Dan Bartlett, Brian Williams and David Gregory? A Lot Less Than You Think
There's a difference between lying and dissembling. Dan Bartlett lied on Wednesday. Brian Williams and David Gregory merely dissembled. Yet the statements of all three are discredited by the same smoking gun, the one that has been hiding in plain sight for more than five years, and has been subject to a virtual news blackout at NBC News. This White House is beyond redemption. But it's time for NBC and other major networks to come clean.
The White House Lie:
"The fact of the matter was the weapons of mass destruction weren't there. The intelligence was wrong. But that doesn't make people out to be liars or manipulators or propagandists. It makes them wrong." Dan Bartlett on CNN, May 28, 2008
The Smoking Gun: Anyone who read the newspapers with an ounce of common sense could figure out that the case for WMD was a sham. On March 7, 2003, 11 days before Bush invaded, the nuclear weapons inspectors reported that there was zero evidence that Saddam had ever done anything to develop nuclear weapons since losing the Gulf War in 1991. Muhamed ElBaradei and the International Atomic Energy Agency went far beyond offering an alternative analysis of the notorious aluminum tubes or those "documents" from Niger. He categorically said that they found no evidence. The Bush administration's response: Nothing, or at least nothing substantive. (ElBaradei's findings were subsequently validated by Bush's own inspections team, headed up by Charles Deufler.)
ElBaradei's report put the world on notice that the case for nuclear WMD was fatally flawed. When Dan Bartlett, John McCain, and everyone else at the White House refused to acknowledge that the U.N. inspectors had punctured their case for war, they became, to use Bartlett's words, "liars or manipulators or propagandists."
The Smoking Gun That Discredits NBC: Because ElBaradei's report struck at the heart of the case for war, any reputable news organization would consider its substance to be extremely important. That evening, NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw reported nothing about ElBaradei's findings. On CNBC, The News with Brian Williams also reported nothing. NBC's virtual blackout of the story persisted, and thereby skewed its coverage of almost everything relating to WMD and the decision to go to war. (The most notable pre-war exceptions to the blackout were Tim Russert's defamatory smears against the nuclear inspectors.)
There are countless examples where NBC's reporting and commentary sidestepped the full import of ElBaradei's pre-war disclosure. Chris Matthews' remarks are typical:
"I mean, that was a critical part of a lot of people who supported this war -- regular people, journalists, et cetera, said, I don't like the idea of going to war, but if they've got nuclear weapons, I guess we have to. And that was a successful trump card and it was a deal maker for a lot of people who supported the war, middle of the road people." Chris Matthews on Hardball, October 19, 2005
NBC's blackout continues to this day, thereby extending Dan Bartlett a veneer of plausibility, and enabling Brian Williams and David Gregory to dissemble so freely, as they did on Wednesday:
"I think he [Scott McClellan] is wrong...I think the questions were asked. I think we pushed. I think we prodded. I think we challenged the president. I think not only those of us in the White House press corps did that, but others in the rest of the landscape of the media did that. If there wasn't a debate in this country, then maybe the American people should think about, why not? Where was Congress? Where was the House? Where was the Senate? Where was public opinion about the war? What did the former president believe about the pre-war intelligence? He agreed that -- in fact, Bill Clinton agreed that Saddam had WMD. "The right questions were asked. I think there's a lot of critics -- and I guess we can count Scott McClellan as one -- who thinks that, if we did not debate the president, debate the policy in our role as journalists, if we did not stand up and say, this is bogus, and you're a liar, and why are you doing this, that we didn't do our job. And I respectfully disagree" David Gregory on Hardball, May 28, 2008 .
(Gregory's allusion to Bill Clinton is a standard smoke-and-mirrors ploy used by the right wing. Bill Clinton never believed that the pre-war intelligence was sufficiently reliable to support military action. Both he and Senator Clinton advocated the use of continued inspections instead of military action.)
"I've always put it this way. In Katrina, the evidence was right next to us. Sadly, we saw fellow Americans, in some cases, floating past face down. We knew what had just happened. We weren't allowed that kind of proximity with the weapons inspectors. I was in Kuwait for the buildup of the war. And yes, we heard from the Pentagon on my cell phone the minute they heard us report something that they didn't like. The tone of that time was quite extraordinary". Brian Williams on The Today Show, May 28, 2008
Andrea Mitchell was in the room when El Baradei gave his report to the U.N. and to the world. "We weren't allowed that kind of proximity with the weapons inspectors," is Williams' way of throwing sand in the face of NBC's viewers.
Here's the bottom line: Anyone (e.g. Colin Powell, George Tenet, Dan Bartlett) who says, "We relied on flawed intelligence," is speaking in bad faith, because after March 7, 2003 he acted in bad faith. And any journalist who accepts that rationalization at face value is not doing his job. For over 20 years, David has been a banker covering the energy industry for several global banks in New York. Currently, he is working on several journalism projects dealing with corporate and political corruption that, so far, have escaped serious scrutiny by mainstream media.
© 2008 Huffington Post
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20 Comments so far
Show AllCommentary on NBC, CNBC or MSNBC should include brief background on
the General Electric military industries. GE who owns these media outlets and uses them to sell WAR.
Howcum Americans and their media were alone in their ignorance of the true state of WMD in Saddam's Iraq? I cannot understand why this argument is still raging in the US.
With Hans Blix's second report, the rest of the world was satisfied that Iraq had no WMD. World leaders were satisfied even before that--which is why none of the allies (except stupid Tony Blair) would sign on to the "coalition of the willing."
Every time that footage from Colin Powell's presentation appears on TV, it's quite clear from the faces of those listening to him that no one is buying his presentation. Yet Americans and their journalists have been convinced by their lying politicians that "everyone with a credible intelligence agency believed that Saddam had WMD."
When are you Americans gonna wake up?!
These guys on TV don't make up this stuff. They just like their fat paychecks and their ego trip. If just incidentally they are complicit in treason, they apparently consider it the price of doing business.
Spend $3 trillion make $21 trillion. Pretty good deall!
They don't give a shit about the 4000 dead peons!
They don't care about the slaves.
The best part is, Ms.Couric answers her own question. It is implicit that, when threatened with loss of access, the press backs down. THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT McCLELLAN IS TALKING ABOUT.
I say every one of those reporters is a bold faced liar-- they are now busily covering their a---s, because their lies, manipulations, dissembling, cover ups etc are being exposed. The sad thing is that the average American is so trusting and has such poor critical thinking skills that when a natty little fellow in an expensive suit tells them sincerely that the sky is falling, they'll believe it and run for cover.
And the most obvious LIE that "Saddam wouldn't let the inspectors in" that I saw Bush say at least twice on the broadcast networks a year or so after he attacked Iraq? Never challenged by those same networks!
In May of 2001 our Daughter attended the demonstration in Quebec against the FTAA.
Because she was there I decided to see if there was any information online about what was occurring.
I found on all news organizations websites live feeds from Quebec.
I then watched the evening news.
What I had seen online from their own live feeds was nothing like what they reported.
Our Daughter had told me for a number of years that we were not receiving accurate information from the news media but being a child of the 50's, living through Walter Cronkite and others, I was sure she was mistaken.
With that one experience I opened my eyes to the reality of today.
I don't know why it took me so long. After JFK was killed and Oswald was supposedly the only one involved. I began to question the reality of what we were being told.
While I do still watch some news, the evening news only. I get most of my news from the internet.
If I had access to the BBC I might watch that, but I still feel more comfortable getting most of my news off the internet.
The lies or omissions of the corporate news media are so prevalent that I think most people have very little faith in anything they say anymore.
Real reporters are few and far between.
If you want the truth watch Amy Goodman and Link TV...Link TV shows the ugly truth
Media whores instinctively know how to smile and lie at the same time. It's a survival feature that allows them to evolve. Their ratings determine their value and the ones we see on TV are the best at it. They have learned a lot from the political whores and the corporate whores who pimp them. Their reward is to be on TV. If they do their job well they can become another Dan Rather. He'll be a member of the media whore Hall of Fame some day, if he keeps his mouth shut.
Hoa binh
I wonder how all of these people feel when they look in the mirror and realize they may have/probably did help to send US. Military Personnel to their deaths and for some untold misery and suffering for the rest of their lives as well as creating a nightmare, of immeasureable proportions, for the Iraqi people that will take an untold number of years to heal if ever.
"I think the questions were asked. I think we pushed. I think we prodded. I think we challenged the president. I think not only those of us in the White House press corps did that, but others in the rest of the landscape of the media did that."
That's kind of like the losing pitcher in a game five years ago saying "I think we scored more runs."
Let's go to the tape.
Mass media and therefore much of the US have not squarely faced the fact they are being lead by a bunch of stinking war criminals who deserve the same fate as Saddam Hussein. As in criminal law, if the crime goes unpunished, the future results will be more of the same. Failure to detain and prosecute means complicity on the part of the lawyers and population. The US population can either admit complicity, in which case every US citizen is dammed in the eyes of the world, or it can try and extirpate its demons by due process. Since law in the US seems irrevocably twisted on behalf of the rich, the political judicial processes are in a state of abject complicity and damnation. Only an international court might have sufficient distance from involvement in the events of war profiteering. An international arrest warrant might keep the war criminals locked away as untouchables in their nuclear fortress. At the very least, the US should be stripped of its major veto powers at the UN. The US has proved itself to be a frequent violator most of the principles that are supposed to be at the core of the UN treaties and organization. It has declared itself as a principle to be unaccountable to international justice principles. It has therefore declared that power is the only legitimacy. The only answer to this is collective reprisal and action.
It is a well documented fact, and was well before the invasion of Iraq in 2003, that since the 1991 invasion Iraq had become one of the most militarily impotent countries on the planet and that any WMD they had previously possessed were well known to the White House insiders behind the 2003 invasion, because they were the very same people who had sold Hussein those weapons and technologies. The idea that Iraq had a nuclear weapons program is laughable and was thoroughly discredited well before the invasion as propaganda from inside the White House and 10 Downing Street. Of course, nothing could be done by the public to stop the juggernaut of war, which was planned years in advance by our government and their financial controllers. Similarly, it has now become common knowledge among the citizenry of the world that 911 was in fact an inside job and all the evidence is there to prove it in a court of law and convict those responsible, but alas, nothing will be done about it since this same rogue criminal cabal controls the infrastructure of the entire planet and are content to murder any who purposely stand or accidentally get in their way.
hedology May 31st, 2008 says:
"Mass media and therefore much of the US have not squarely faced the fact they are being lead by a bunch of stinking war criminals who deserve the same fate as Saddam Hussein".
No, but it's sinking in, and they are moving towards that conclusion inexorably.
"An international arrest warrant might keep the war criminals locked away as untouchables in their nuclear fortress."
That's a real possibility, IMO
"At the very least, the US should be stripped of its major veto powers at the UN."
I agree !!
The US has proved itself to be a (frequent) violator of most of the principles that are supposed to be at the core of the UN treaties and organization. It has declared itself to be unaccountable to international justice . It has declared that power is the only legitimacy."
That is well put - except that the word "frequent" needs to be replaced by the word "constant".
"The only answer to this is collective reprisal and action."
YES !!
Glad to see the flaw already pointed out, RichM.
Didn't Hillary vote for military action in Iraq. If she didn't believe in it, why vote for it? Oh yea. Democratic sell out.
It seems so obvious.
Maybe the whole issue should have been stated differently to begin with, as foreign observers noticed.
The US Gov't should have said: We have collapsing infrastructure, increasing poverty, failed health care system etc etc - we simply need to get out of expensive Middle East meddling.
How would the relevant domestic political forces have responded? Just ask yourself that question before you continue to debate WMD endlessly (which neocons admitted was one of the false claims).
David Gregory is just as much of a tool and a whore as any of the impersonators on FOX. He could just as easily be the next White House Spokesperson after Dana Perino finally succumbs to a spell of conciousness and insight. We all remember him joyously "dancing" with Carl Rove.
Brian Williams simply reports what people say, and he is certainly not a journalist. His contribution to US propaganda is well documented, afterall he was trained by Tom Brokaw -- the biggest promoter and glorifier of MILITARISM wehave. Morrow, Huntley-Brinkley are rolling in their graves. At least they weren't propagandists ALL the time. Mass media journalism is DEAD. Alternative media is our only hope. There are many sources.
Stop paying half your Federal taxes (that go to the Military)
Go off Grid.
Simplify your life.
Ask your kids' forgiveness for our immorality - for they will pay the $Trillion+ bill.
Pray God forgives us.