Flush twice... it's a long way to Sally Quinn's place!

Pundit Pap for July 13, 2003
A Little Defensive Today?
By the Pundit Pap Team
Morrie Friendly • Steve Young

July 13, 2003 -- WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (apj.us)

Introduction: "The CIA did it... yeah, that's the ticket!"
Steve Young spells it out: Bush Realizes That Jon Lovitz Had The Right Idea

In light of the recent announcements by many in the Bush administration that "the president should not have used that piece of intelligence [Iraq's alleged attempt to buy uranium from Niger] in his State of the Union address," and in hopes of clearing his legacy completely, former President Bill Clinton has issued a statement: "I should not have had sex with that woman, Monica Lewinsky."

Well, that should clear that up.

An absurd supposition?

Why?

If a sitting president can wipe the slate clean at a time when he was trying to convince the American people that invading Iraq was in our national security interests and misleading the country into a war in which our men and women as well as thousands of Iraqi civilians would die, certainly an admission of having sex should put an end to the diatribe that still fills the AM dial.

It seems like the entire administration is in lockstep over this little "oversight."

Donald Rumsfeld testified in front of a congressional hearing last week saying that he just found out about the Niger report being false in the last couple days. And he said it with a straight face.

	White House Chief of Staff Jon Lovitz... yeah... that's the ticket!

Is Saturday Night Live alum Jon Lovitz running this administration?

"Yeah, I, uh, didn't know about the forgery until just this week. I, uh, was out of the office and forgot to read any CIA reports or newspapers over the past year.

"Yeah, that's the ticket."

Then on this ABC's Sunday morning "This Week," Rumsfeld said that he meant he had heard about it a few weeks ago.

Pressed, he said the weeks actually add up to four months.

"Four weeks, yeah, that's what I meant. Y'see, in the Defense Department, saying 'couple' means, um, 'four' and 'days' means 'months.'

"Yeah, that's what I meant."

This comedy bit gets even better.

National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice -- who first said that the President using the statement, "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa," was a mistake -- followed it up a day later by saying, "The statement that he made was indeed accurate."

"Yeah, when I said 'mistake,' I was saying that it was, uh, an 'accurate mistake1' You're allowed to do that when you're a president because, uh, all the Presidents are doing it.
"Yeah, that's what I meant!"

Being that it is the British who are saying that the statement is true, Rice was asked whether she or her colleagues in the administration had seen additional British evidence. To that Rice said, "The British have reasons, because of the arrangements that they made, apparently, in receiving those sources, that they cannot share them with us. We have every reason to believe that the British services are quite reliable."

Yuh. President Bush shares all the security-privileged information that lead Blair and the English to become our warring comrades in Iraq, and when the Bush administration becomes embroiled in as large a potential scandal as this has become, Blair refuses to share the information that would clear up the matter for his bud tout de suite because of his country's "arrangements".

Even Lovitz would have a hard time waxing that's the ticket on this one.

And the jokes keep on keepin' on.

Rice does Harry Truman proud when she passes the righteous buck saying that it was the CIA that cleared Bush's State of the Union speech in its entirety, including a sentence alleging that Iraq was seeking to buy nuclear material from Africa.

"If the CIA -- the director of central intelligence -- had said take this out of the speech -- it would have been gone," Rice said. "We have a high standard for the president's speeches."

Rice also added, "I'm not blaming anyone here."

Well, I'm sure CIA Director George Tenet is breathing a sigh of relief. Now all he has to do is to come up with a Lovitz-inspired rationale for missing that small detail.

"My, uh, dog ate the speech. Yeah, that's it. I forgot to feed him that day and he's really fond of misinformation.

"Yeah -- that's the ticket!"

Another one of the administration's "Whose Lie... um, Line Is It Anyway" wannabes is Secretary of State Colin Powell, who only eight days after the State of the Union, when addressing the United Nations, deliberately left out any reference to Iraqi attempts to buy uranium from Africa. "There was no effort or attempt on the part of the president or anyone else in the Administration to mislead or to deceive the American people," said Powell. "I didn't use the uranium at that point because I didn't think that was sufficiently strong as evidence to present before the world."

"Yeah, that's it. I didn't tell it to the world because the world is, uh, a lot more important than the citizens of the United States.

"Yeah, that's the ticket."

Powell said he also read the State of the Union speech before it was delivered and understood it had been seen and cleared by the intelligence community

CIA officials say they warned members of the president's National Security Council staff that the intelligence was not good enough to make the flat statement that Iraq tried to buy uranium from Africa. Even so, Tenet has an extenuating excuse, er, um, circumstance too. Intelligence officials say Tenet never saw the final draft of the State of the Union.

"Yeah, I heard of it. But, uh, I was really busy with the, uh, spy, Bond thing. Y'know. Tenet, George Tenet."

"Yeah, that's the ticket."

And finally, what of the star of this hilarious sketch?

Besides throwing the blame on the CIA and Tenet, President Bush said, "There's going to be, you know, a lot of attempts to try to rewrite history, and I can understand that. But I'm absolutely confident in the decision I made."

"Rewrite history?" Who's doing the rewriting? Isn't "rewriting history" something someone does when he takes the truth and twists it until it comes out sounding like whatever he needs to accomplish his own objective?

Yeah, that's the ticket.

-- Steve Young

This Week
Players: boy wonder George "Steph" Stephanopoulos; War Secretary Don "Rummy" Rumsfeld; former NATO Supreme Commander Gen. (Ret.) Wesley Clark

At the very top of TW, Steph went easy on Rummy, allowing him some leeway to promote "Operation Ivory Serpent", the latest attempt to put down troublesome resistance in Iraq that continues to take the lives of young Americans. Rummy pretty much conceded that there is in fact organized resistance even as he tried to cast doubts on the notion.

Steph: "Isn't this guerilla war?"
Rummy: "I dunno."

"I dunno"? American soldiers are getting ambushed in major Iraqi cities? Tommy Franks acknowledges that our forces are getting fired on about 25 times a day? "I dunno?"

To divert attention from what he must have realized was a really, really stupid answer, Rummy began riffing on all the anti-Saddam spin points (as if the world didn't know he was a murderer, tyrant, criminal and reprobate) while talking up the "terrorism" in Iraq. (Funny how that terrorism does not seem to be coming from the Wahabi-inspired militant stateless thugs who attacked America on Sept. 11, 2001 -- but it doesn't make any difference to Rummy. He wants you to keep think Saddam is Osama and vice-versa.)

Steph turned to that niggling matter of the bad intelligence out of Niger concerning Saddam's attempt to obtain uranium -- not!! What, Steph asked, did Rummy know? I don't know what more was said, the words were technically correct.

(Yes, that is their official answer: the words were technically correct. British intelligence had evidence that Saddam was trying to get uranium yellowcake from Niger. Never mind the documents on which the information was base were crude forgeries. Never mind that British intelligence has become a laughingstock.)

S: But the CIA saw it was bogus.
R: It's not known it was inaccurate.

(See above concerning crude forgeries.)

Rummy had to admit he had not seen the bogus documents that the Brits had (in other words, he is in fact out of the loop -- or maybe does not want to see them, as it would demolish anything resembling plausible deniability) and then tried to dismiss the scandal. But when Steph brought up an October 1992 speech in which a comment on the Saddam-Niger connection had been struck at the behest of the CIA, Rummy sloughed the matter off on Tenet -- in other words, Rummy is trying to wash his hands of the scandal and (mis-) place the blame on the CIA Director for not being insistent enough. Rummy also seemed to try to pin some responsibility on his intelligence briefer for supposedly not telling him the intelligence was faulty until March (we don't buy that claim for one minute).

So the case is closed? "I don't know if there's anything else to say." (What a riot -- he must not have realized that Carl Levin, Wesley Clark, Dick Shelby and John Kerry were all going to weigh in to say, "Case not closed!") Steph asked Rummy if he no longer doubts British Intelligence -- and Rummy said the only thing he could under the circumstances: "They're great."

Steph turned to the broader question of WMDs -- specifically, their failure to turn up. Steph played footage of Rummy saying the WMDs were around Tikrit. In response to having his nose rubbed in that video bite, Rummy changed his story, claiming that the DOD knew where they were and that they may have been there -- followed by the requisite mention of Saddam's sample centrifuge parts buried under an Iraqi scientist's rose bushes. (The arrogance was breathtaking."May have been there." And may not have been there.) So they haven't found weapons? Rummy insisted, "They've found things." Unfortunately, Rummy was forced to admit the things are either not WMD evidence or dual-use. Rummy also said, "They can be moved." (Yep -- they can be moved in from Fort Hood, planted, and set up for a photo-op so Rummy can say, "Golly, look what we found.")

Steph then suggested that Rummy and the DOD had failed to secure key sites where WMD evidence may have been. You could see the tension build in Rummy's face and practically see steam coming out from his ears. Rummy tried to dismiss the charge, talking about "ready-to-use" chemical suits "were they to use these weapons." (Or defend themselves against such weapons.)

And Rummy pushed another backpedaling spin point: "We never said they had nuclear weapons, we said they had a nuclear program." (Never mind that Misadministration officials claimed that Saddam had between 100 and 500 tons of chemical and/or biological weapons.)

Steph quoted a New Republic article that summarizes the factors that may have led Saddam to destroy his WMDs and conceal the fact that he'd destroyed them so as not to show weakness. Rummy instead turned to the concealment of parts and documents related to WMD programs. Rummy also tried to argue that he must have had WMDs because he was making so much money on oil -- and why would he "give away billions and billions of dollars" (i.e. give up WMDs)?

So, there you have it -- Rummy trying to say that the Crawford Creep's use of bogus intelligence and Tenet's taking responsibility is "no big deal," replete with weak counterspin about all those WMDs that our military have failed to locate. It's disturbing that Steph failed to confront Rummy more vigorously on a key question: just who in Smirk's Inner Circle insisted that the bogus uranium claim go in the SOTU? And why did it go in despite the fact that Tenet and the CIA had objected to the inclusion of the data? Steph was similarly weak on the other Junior Junta spin point -- that British Intelligence officially "still believes" intelligence that looks to have been debunked. By that standard, it would be just fine if George the Lesser still believes in such discredited concepts as the tooth fairy, the Easter bunny, supply-side economic theory and privatization.

And Steph did not confront Rummy about something that Fareed Zakaria would later underscore during the usually useless round table segment: this is a crass politicization of intelligence data, particularly spurious intelligence, so that His Royal Shrubness could ram a war down the world's throat..

Steph then eased up on Rummy -- sort of -- by recounting a series of guidelines that he had issued in March about the costs of Iraq war, guidelines that Steph said underestimated the financial and human cost.

This would be the other big stumbling point for the Smirk Team on the Sunday talk shows: costs of Junior's Big Iraq Adventure are turning out to be more than double the estimates that Rummy's own people had been bandying about. First, Rummy tried to say that none of the "bad things" such as massive sabotage happened. (Really? What about that bombing of an oil pipeline? And what about the failure to get the power grid back up in Iraq's cities? Hiding something, Rummy?) When Steph tried to go over the numbers and the "burn rate" (spending rate), Rummy interrupted him, shouting, "No! No! No!" in a vain attempt to divert attention from the gross underestimation of the cost of the Iraq feud and its aftermath.

Steph said that Congress and the public feel that intelligence was "exaggerated" -- and Rummy said again that that is "factually not true" (okay, it wasn't an exaggeration, it was an outright lie). Steph then cited Sen. Kent Conrad for having blasted the DOD's lowball cost estimates and refusal to give straight answers. Rummy, clearly in a corner, kept falling back on the "We don't know what it'll cost six months from now" excuse.

And there was a great exchange during which Rummy feigned ignorance about how many troops would be needed in Iraq after the war was over, citing the 140,000 over there -- and Steph dared to point out that one prewar estimate had put the number at a mere 60,000. Rummy was left falling back on the now-debunked spin point of removing Saddam's weapons of mass destruction and a claim that the US is "not bogged down." Rummy sounded whiny and testy as he talked about all of our Iraq allies (gee, how many of them have sent tens of thousands of troops to Iraq? none?) and the inability to come up with an exact cost of the entire Iraq mess.

Steph never came out and said it explicitly, but it was clear during the last phase of the interview that he was suggesting that Rummy had in effect deceived Congress not only on the matter of short-term and long-term costs of Smirk's Big Iraq Adventure but the number of soldiers that would be needed to keep Iraq"liberated".

Will the press pick up on this latest suggestion of more lies from Prince George's team?

We'll see -- but we're not optimistic.

Steph's next guest: Gen. (Ret.) Wesley Clark. Steph asked what Clark would do if Tenet's data landed on your desk before the SOTU; Clark said that leadership comes from the top, and Team George used 9-11 as a means of manufacturing consent for an attack on Saddam Hussein -- problem is, he could not connect the dots between WMDs and Saddam! Saddam, continued Clark, lived in a rough neighborhood and surely wanted that deterrent, but he cannot see the urgency for going after Saddam -- particularly as a component of the war against terrorists. The issue remains Saddam's program being a direct threat to the US -- and there's no there there, said Clark.

Steph asked if there were enough troops on the ground in Iraq, and Clark said that if more forces have to go in, there has to be a rotation plan and probably a need to call up Army Reserve forces.

Are we stretched too thin? We could probably handle a Korea crisis if necessary -- but it would be a stretch without calling up reserves, and the present situation is putting a stress on the families of our troops. (This is an interesting point, one which Democrats should seize upon to show where GOP "family values" actually are when it comes to our men and women in uniform).

Will Clark run? Clark said he is undecided, and will decide in the next month.

-- Morrie Friendly

George S. did not follow up when Rumsfeld said US forces could not have secured ALL the locations we knew WMDs were supposedly on March 30.

I would have loved for George to ask "Then, how many of the locations did you secure that had these weapons?"

Rumsfeld said Iraq had protective "suits" one would wear in order to use bioweapons --just as we had! George should have said, "Perhaps they had them to protect themselves from us! After all, that's why we had the suits."

Rumsfeld also said that while he had only found out in the last couple days about the gaffe in W's speech, he had really meant 4 months. HYSTERICAL!

And he also said there were "pieces" of cooperation between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. HA! Pieces? That was our proof to go in?

If there were a thread running through Rumsfeld's This Week interview, it would be,"I DON'T KNOW." He said that a dozen times. How did he (and we) know certain facts before the war -- and NOW he doesn't?

I have not seen Rummy this shaky -- nor have I seen Steph so insistent. Fun!

-- Steve Young

FAUX News Sunday
Tony Snow stands by his man -- Smirk!
Players: Tony Snow, National Security Dissembler Condi Rice

Smirk "stands by his man". Dems "blast President Bush for spreading bogus claims" about Saddam's WMDs. Tenet took the fall -- "but does the buck really stop there?"

We stuck around for Tony's interview of Condi Rice, before which Tony framed the "debate" as being about a "single sentence" in the 2003 SOTU (as if that were the only lie Chimpy and his Crappy Warrior Junta have foisted in the world), and the question about whether the sentence was untrue. Condi's two points: it is "ludicrous" to say that Smirk went to war over the uranium (no kidding -- it's about the oil, and we all know it), and the "statement [that British intelligence was claiming something that turned out to be wrong] was accurate." But Condi had to admit the sources were "called into question." And Condi herself sounded ludicrous when she asserted that there was a "higher standard" (she said this a number of times) and that there was a "clearance process."

(Yep -- and it worked in October of 2002 when the comment about Saddam seeking uranium from Niger was struck from a speech. It might have been nice if Tony asked her how the system broke down at SOTU time -- and who authorized the "single sentence.")

Tony gave Condi a wide-open ticket to speculate that Saddam was looking for uranium in Africa (she cited unspecified reports about such a claim in countries other than Niger). Condi also put up cover with the claim that she does not have access to certain British intelligence (an assertion that does not pass the smell test with us, and, we're sure, with most thinking viewers). Condi claimed that there was evidence that aluminum tubes obtained by Saddam could have been used in gas centrifuges -- but had to acknowledge the claim is spurious. Condi also did her best to divert from the fact that Saddam had no nukes, and the effort to "reconstitute" the program looks to have been moribund.

Tony kept framing the questions in a manner that allowed Condi to push PR point after PR point on behalf of her boss. But the fact remained -- even Tony's questioning implied a White House on the defensive and out to hide what really happened in January.

Tony turned to more idle and weak speculation on whether or not David Kaye has evidence that Saddam had a reconstituted WMD program -- and the possibility that scientists don't want to talk unless Saddam is definitely dead.

Does Saddam have any role in attacks on US forces? Condi said she didn't know, then went into the predictable refrain of "Saddam is evil and has oppressive henchmen." (Unfortunately for Condi, many of those henchmen -- the ones that survived the war -- are in US custody.)

Tony then mentioned the WaPo story about Tenet striking the reference to uranium in an October 2002 speech -- and Condi tried to frame that particular edit as being in a certain context, and the SOTU being in a broader context (in other words, it's OK to "exaggerate" if you're talking to the world). Tony actually dared to suggest that the uranium story was discredited -- and Condi again talked about clearance and "what could be said."

It's worth noting that Condi, like others in the administration, is putting everything in the passive voice: "what could be said... what is given to the speechwriters... once something is written it is cleared by the agencies." Come on, Condi -- you keep talking about a higher standard and Tenet's standards without saying WHO is doing the writing and WHO is giving the OK for certain points to be put in the speech on the white House side.

You're covering for someone, Condi.

You? Rummy? Dick Cheney? Paul Wolfowitz? Dicky Perle? PNAC?

There was a little back-and-forth about Liberia -- Chimpy, said the hapless Condi, is "committed to bringing some stability to Liberia" and Charles Taylor has been indicted as a war criminal. (This is typical structure for a Condi comment: make a broad, lofty and vague statement of policy, then state an obvious fact that is only somewhat related to the matter -- we all know Taylor's a thug, but what about other factions in the nation, and what about a comprehensive international solution to the chaos?). How will the Chinese help us on the Pyongyang crisis? All Condi would say they would help. Is Iran the biggest handicap to Mideast peace? They are "a big obstacle to Mideast peace" and a "rejection"state dedicated to Israel's destruction and supportive of "rejectionist" groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah.

-- Morrie Friendly

In a later segment, California Congressman and Republican Governor candidate Darrell Issa (R-seize power!) told Tony that "People aren't coming to California a couple seconds after saying that the population has increased 20%." Geesh!

And even Tony Snow said he's perplexed that if the claim that the British had the good on Saddam trying to get uranium from Africa is "true" (as they're now saying), why are they also saying it was a mistake putting it in the SOTU? Is this Alice in Wonderland

-- Steve Young

Craptacular Gang

Today's show featured the full compliment of pundits, Mark Shields, Al Hunt, Bob Novakula, and the always charming, always lovely, Kate O'Beirne. The guest was "Democratic" senator John Breaux of Louisiana.

Right out of the box, they jumped into the first issue to have gained a bit of traction against Bush, the blatant lies told to drag us into a foolish war. Whether the White House can squash this story remains to be seen, but it's out there, and is certainly getting coverage. The only shame is that all the many, many other egregious lies and scandalous behavior and actions of the White House have been swept under the rug to this point. When faced with a choice of literally hundreds of stories that would shame and damage the Bush administration, it's curious that this issue is the one that manages to get its head above water.

I'm not looking a gift horse in the mouth, so to speak, but I certainly hope that this story emboldens the press to dip into the grab bag of horrors and tell the moron Americans just what their heroes in DC have been up to.

Clips were shown of the stunningly stupid and clueless looking "president" making equally stupid and clueless statements in Africa, a continent that he is on record referring to as a "country."

Novak, slimy but independent, played it down the middle. He took the stance that Bush was blameless in all this, but opined that the White House had handled the issue terribly and should have come clean right away.

Al Hunt, as is his wont, flirted with the truth while not going the whole 9 yards. He correctly noted the fact that George Tenet, CIA chief, was dutifully falling on his sword as he was ordered to do by the Bush gang. He also said that the benign excuses offered by the right are simply wrong, and also brought up the aluminum tubes story much ballyhooed by the Chimpster and his winged monkey henchmen that was also a bunch of baloney. He also laid the true story out for us briefly.

Everyone in the administration and the CIA knew the report about Iraq acquiring uranium from Africa was flat out false. But Cheney/Wolfowitz/Rumsfeld et.al. wanted it into the SOTU speech badly. They wanted to throw in every piece of bullshit available to try to drive the uninformed, easily swayed public into war frenzy. The second part to the story is that the CIA told the White House this story was false. Hmmm. The Bush monkeys were confronted by something they don't like. Something or somebody that tells them they can't have their way. Well, that wouldn't fly. So they thought they'd be cute and have the Bush dummy say that British intelligence had found out that Iraq was getting enriched uranium from Africa. This of course passes the buck. It is also a lie. A lie by any other name is still a lie. They KNEW that this report was false.

So Cheney's office and the White House came up with the dodge of attributing it to British intelligence and, under extreme pressure, Tenet and the CIA crumbled and bought this flimsy and slimy trick and signed off on it. The CIA wouldn't approve it straight, so the White House suggested a slimy sleight of hand and pressured the CIA to go along.

Now it's blowback time, and of course, since the chiseled in stone, iron-clad, written in blood rule of the White House, Cheney et. al. is that they never --- and I mean NEVER --- admit mistakes, Tenet was ordered to be the fall guy for something he was duped into by the same people that are now throwing him to the wolves. Compassionate conservatism in action. Prop up the Chimp at all costs. This is one reason that I dream of at least ONE scandal, preferably dozens, to start being reported and actually investigated. The more Bush gets hammered, the more extreme and psycho his handlers will become in trying to make it go away. THIS, the arrogance and belief that they can manipulate their way out of anything, probably more than the scandals themselves, will be the undoing of the house of cards that is the Bush "presidency." There is no limit to how far they will go to prop up Bush, which means that if pushed, they will go far enough to expose themselves as they are, lying manipulators with contempt for the American people, democracy, and the constitution.

Kate O'Beirne, an always dependable pipeline for the official Republican spin on any given issue, started out with a shaky defense. Right out of the box, she used a preferred right wing tactic. Blame the accusers! She said that the facts were being ignored and called the entire scandal a "hysterical reaction to the 16 words in the president's speech." (Look to hear the phrase "16 words" at least 100,000 times in the coming weeks.)

She then blathered on depending on the unproven assertion that Iraq was pretty far along with a program for building nuclear weapons. So --- Kate's reaction to the overwhelming evidence, both before and now after the misadventure in Iraq, that they were nowhere NEAR acquiring nuclear weapons, were nowhere close to even having a program to do so, and never had the capacity to hit the US with them even if they had them is to --- just ignore all that and stick with the administration's myth. Pitiful.

Then came John Breaux, the walking, talking example of why the Democratic Party should abandon its foolish article of faith that to be elected, a candidate has to move far to the right. If that policy is continued to be followed and believed, we will end up with congress full of John Breauxs.

I can't knock Breaux for being a Democrat in name only. It's probably only a survival tactic to please his conservative constituency. OK for him. If that's what it takes to stay in office, then so be it. Better a conservative Dem than no Dem at all I suppose.

But this guy is painful to listen to. He literally goes with the Republican positions more than the Democrats! There are Republicans that are less dependable than John Breaux to the Republicans. The guy makes Barry Goldwater look like a flaming liberal.

You will NEVER hear a breath of criticism of Bush pass Breaux's lips. No matter what. For this reason alone, he's a hindrance to the party at best.

Watching Breaux is like going to Wonderland. You sit and watch him and listen to him and just marvel at the fact that he's supposedly a Democrat. For this reason, as well as the fact that the guy just strikes me as dishonest --- I sure wouldn't buy a used car from him --- I dislike him a lot.

Breaux, good Republican that he is, echoed the White House line and called for Tenet's head. How disgusting. He actually suggested that Bush isn't being tough ENOUGH on Tenet, saying that, rather than praising him, as Bush did, he should be asking Tenet to step down! Hey, way to attack Bush. Sheesh. Breaux is actually anxious to let Bush to slip the blame. Disgusting.

Breaux blustered and railed about how for the CIA to give the president information for use in the SOTU speech that they knew "AT THAT TIME" was false, is "UNACEPTABLE!" He was in full fury. Only one little problem. THE DAMN WHITE HOUSE KNEW IT WAS FALSE AT THAT TIME TOO!! But Breaux, good Republican that he is, is all too willing to ignore that little detail. And as if that wasn't doing enough for Bush, he then added that he didn't think that Sadaam's supposed nuclear capability was a very big reason for the war anyway --- just a small one. Bush was still completely justified to invade a non-belligerent country.

So, let's recap. Fire Tenet, place ALL the blame on him for simply providing intelligence, which the CIA itself told the White House was false, and for then AGREEING, under intense pressure from Cheney, et. al. to allow it into the speech because it was attributed to British intelligence. The ONLY reason it was in the speech was because the White House insisted that it be, despite the CIA telling them it was false information. Secondly, even if someone at the White House DID lie, it wasn't about anything too important anyway, and the war was a fine thing no matter what.

And the DLC wants Dem candidates to all be like this? This is how they think Democrats have to be to be "credible"? You've got to be joking!

Novak then tried to suggest that it's "chaos" preparing a SOTU speech, trying to argue that it must have just fallen into the speech without anyone really noticing. Bull.

Hunt recited more facts about the timing of all this that simply proves that the White House knew this was a lie and repeated it anyway.

This caused an explosion from Novak. In full salivating splutter, he roared at Hunt asking him if he was actually accusing Bush of LYING. "You're not accusing the president of LYING are you?! You wouldn't suggest that! Of course you're not!!"

In other words, that's the way it's become. You PROVE Bush is lying, and the right jumps into a frenzy and points it's finger at you and DARES you to say Bush is lying. Why does this work? Because NO pundit has the guts to stand up and state flat out what they know to be true, that yes, Bush IS lying, and has repeatedly.

Of course, presented this opportunity to stand up for what he'd just proven, Hunt instead chickened out, saying, "Don't tell me what I think. Are you going to let me answer? Or are you just going to ask and answer the question yourself. I guess you already did, so there's nothing more to say", then smiled.

So. He lays it out proving Bush lied willingly, then tells Novak not to tell him what to think, then sticks his tail between his legs and agrees that, no, he wasn't saying Bush lied. He just can't do it.

The Great White Dope's trip to Africa was topic two.

Hunt praised the trip, inexplicably, as it was about as big a waste of time and tax dollars as you can dream of. Nothing was accomplished, and Bush in Africa is about as credible as Gary Bauer in South Central.

Novak, showing his "good" side, railed that the trip was totally unproductive; saying that he knew slavery was bad without having Dim Son going to Africa to tell us.

Breaux, continued his nauseating performance by saying "I think the trip was productive and I think it was a very important one to make", then continued, describing Smirky's speech on slavery as "very eloquent, I thought he was very passionate, I thought it was a good speech ---" Ewwwww! It makes my head AND my stomach spin.

The next segment delved into the congressional effort on providing prescription drug coverage to seniors.

Incredibly, a crawl went past at this point reading: "FMR PRES CLINTON STILL HAS FOES; (gee, that's news!) GROUPS TRYING TO FUND ‘COUNTER-CLINTON' LIBRARIES IN LITTLE ROCK & DC TO MOCK CLINTON PRESIDENCY"

Hey, that sounds like a great use for a few hundred thousand dollars, eh? No wonder these cretins want a tax break. They're rich enough to spend an average worker's yearly pay just to continue, even after 12 years, to make a former president look bad. But damn it, they NEED a huge cut in taxes or they just can't go on.

Some new Dem ads hitting the Republican sham plan were shown. Then Mark went to Kate to tell us just how horrible trying to provide prescription drugs for needy seniors really is. She said it was an "unpopular, hugely expensive" bill. Gee, sounds like a certain war we could mention, only about 60,000 times less expensive and more popular.

This is a tough bill, because it's opposed by liberals for not going nearly far enough, and by the right for, well, for providing ANYTHING at all for needy citizens.

Breaux predicts a bill will get passed, Novak says it might be a 50/50 vote in the senate. The consensus seemed to be that the Senate bill was flawed, but a "good start," in other words, lousy, and the House version is even worse.

The second half's "Newsmaker of the Week" was --- hold on to your hats --- former president Gerald Ford. It was as boring as you'd imagine.

After a break, they returned to kick around Clinton's trip to Africa, though why that is of much relevance is beyond me. Guess they figure any time they can get the Clintons onto the screen, they know it will generate interest. (As I pointed out a couple weeks back, the press loves the Clintons; they're certain ratings boosters, yet the right suggests that it's just the Clintons that keep striving to get on TV. Sheer lunacy.)

The following segment featured Des Moines Register political correspondent David Yepsen, discussing the political landscape in Iowa. In general, it was pretty much like the real Iowa landscape… pretty flat mostly, but sprinkled with some hills and valleys.

The guy on everyone's lips seems to be Howard Dean, with his new-found surge in campaign cash and profile. Yepsen confirmed that Dean was the hot ticket in Iowa these days, and suggested that his appeal stems from being a "fresh face." Conversely, he said that Richard Gephardt was doing much poorer than expected because he was so familiar to people and represented something "old." He can't spark people's interest because he's been around Iowa so many times for so many years. I think he can't spark interest because he can't spark interest. Yes, that's kind of zen-like, but let's face it. Dick Gephardt, as hard working, earnest, right on issues, and sincere as he may be, just doesn't exactly set a room on fire. "Dynamic" does not spring to mind when you think of him.

However, Gephardt is currently polling at the top of the Dem heap, edging out Dean by a single percentage point with 21% to Dean's 20%. Gephardt has a lock on union support, which counts for a lot in this region. Unions have a long established and well-organized get out the vote mechanism and are motivated and able to really bring in the votes. But Yepsen believes that Dean enjoys even stronger support than the polls indicate.

The other main theme noted by Yepsen is that in Iowa, as across the nation, the Dems top concern is "electability." This will probably be the prime bugaboo in the Dem primary race, with Dems trying to second guess themselves and casting votes for who they think has the best real chance to beat Bush, rather than voting for which candidate best represents their views and positions on issues. Yepsen says he's never seen Democrats so motivated to beat a candidate and so concerned about candidates "electability."

He notes that the typical Iowa caucus goer is pretty left of center. This leads to Iowa pulling the candidates to the left, which then works against them in the general election, ala McGovern and says that many Dems are concerned about this factor.

Bottom line, Dean's on fire and coming on strong, Gephardt is fading because people have heard it all before. Stay tuned.

Then the Outrages of the Week.

Shields focused on the phoniness of Bush's "No Child Left Behind" policy. He points to the fact that Bush has long held up the Texas example of success with their schools. Smirk brought Rod Paige, Secretary of Education, from Texas. Paige has made a big deal out of expecting the highest of standards in education. Well, it seems that it's come out that the Texas board of education has been cooking the books on performance and testing statistics and essentially lying about their success. Houston schools did not count 5,500 high school dropouts in their figures. "Looks a little like Enron cooking of the books down there in Houston."

Novak has his undies in a knot over the fact that some recently discovered documents show a passage where Harry Truman noted that Jews were, " - very selfish. The Jews have no sense of proportion. Nor do they have any judgment on world affairs" and compared the Jews to Hitler and Stalin in cruelty to underdogs. This has Novak steamed not so much because they reflect a negative view of the Jews, but because much was made of Nixon's anti-Semitic remarks, yet Novak whines, Truman isn't getting as much heat.

O'Beirne's beef is with those nasty judges that make rulings the right doesn't like. Twice Nevadans have passed referendums requiring a 2/3 majority for passing tax increases. The Nevada Supreme Court struck down the measures as unconstitutional, and Kate thinks that shows how judges have no regard for voters.

Hunt's outrage was a gem. He noted that the U.S. demanded prior to the Iraqi invasion that it be allowed to interrogate Iraqi scientist alone. They loudly condemned Iraq for wanting "minders" present, saying it would amount to intimidation and refused to accept their presence.

But now, with a committee tasked to investigate security preparations prior to 9-11 wants to interview administration officials, the White House is refusing to allow the committee to interview low or mid-level managers without a White House political handler being present!

"When any institution tries to impede legitimate investigations, usually it's because someone's trying to hide something."

Blob Novak instinctively jumped to condemn Hunt for trying to compare Iraq and the U.S., despite Hunt having specifically said that he was not doing so. (Though he easily could have in many areas.)

Hunt responded that he wasn't comparing the two, so Novak shot back, "you brought it up!" See there. It's now offensive to even BRING UP anything that exposes the hypocrisy and lying of the Smirk administration.

Hunt shot back by asking Novak if he thought it was correct to have political minders present while they're questioned by a committee. Novak was silent as a tomb. Hunt tried to get him to answer to no avail, until O'Beirne finally rescued him by saying, "What about Bob's outrage? Let's talk about that."

And with that example of how the left is right and the right is wrong, the show drew to a close.

-- Dash Riprock

Meet the Press

We had a family function to attend this morning -- but we caught a quick video clip of Florida Senator and Democratic presidential candidate Bob Graham savaging Big Time in the early afternoon. Graham said that Cheney must have been given a report on the investigation by the man who made waves last week on the Sunday political talk circuit, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, who concluded that Niger had not agreed to sell uranium to Saddam following a trip to that country last year.

As for a claim by the Smirk White House that they had no knowledge of Wilson's report, Graham said, "That stretches belief."

Translation: Dick Cheney has some 'splaining to do!

-- Morrie Friendly

MIA

Where's Dick Cheney?

-- Steve Young

Steve Young is an award-winning television writer, director/writer of "My Dinner With Ovitz"", and author of "Great Failures of the Extremely Successful" (Tallfellow Press -- check out the web site at http://www.greatfailure.com). He writes a regular column for Jewish World Review".

Dash Riprock is a free-lance smart aleck based in Moline, IL. Don't be the last one on your block to write him at dashriprockapj@hotmail.com.

Morrie Friendly gave up a career as a political consultant to become a management consultant and pseudonymous travel guide author. He retains close ties to top players in both the Democratic and Republican parties and lives with his dog in Georgetown.