Bloggasm

When I was conducting my interviews with liberal bloggers, one of the things I heard repeated over and over again is that right-wing blogs don’t create spin, they simply repeat the spin given to them.

Well, the Right Wing blogs are at it again. Many are pointing to a Brit Hume Special Report in which he highlighted a quote from General Zinni in a Meet the Press interview with Tim Russert:

“What bothered me … [was that] I was hearing a depiction of the intelligence that didn’t fit what I knew. There was no solid proof, that I ever saw, that Saddam had WMD.”

And then Hume put this next to another quote from Zinni, made in 2000 in front of Congress:

Iraq remains the most significant near-term threat to U.S. interests in the Arabian Gulf region,” adding, “Iraq probably is continuing clandestine nuclear research, [and] retains stocks of chemical and biological munitions … Even if Baghdad reversed its course and surrendered all WMD capabilities, it retains scientific, technical, and industrial infrastructure to replace agents and munitions within weeks or months.

To the average person watching Brit Hume, he or she would assume that when Zinni says “There was no solid proof, that I ever saw, that Saddam had WMD,” that he means he never saw proof that Saddam had WMDs back when he was a general (pre-2000).

Let’s ignore for a second his use of “solid proof” in the first quote and his use of the word “probably” in the second quote, and look at the actual transcript of the Tim Russert interview.

Said by Russert right before the quote highlighted by Brit Hume:

Though retired for nearly two years, Zinni says, he remained current on the intelligence through his consulting with the CIA and the military. ‘I did consulting work for the agency, right up to the beginning of the war. I never saw anything. I’d say to analysts, “Where’s the threat?”’ Their response, he recalls, was, ‘Silence.’

Gee whiz. Do you think since Tim Russert had JUST GOT DONE (must fight the urge to put the words “FUCKING” in between “JUST” and “DONE”) making reference to Zinni’s CIA consulting work leading up to the war, that Zinni in his RESPONSE TO RUSSERT, was referring to that consulting when he said “I was hearing a depiction of the intelligence that didn’t fit what I knew” instead of what his thoughts were all the way back in 2000?

Of course not! That would be, you know, practical or something!

But let’s go even further into how much the spin machines love to take things out of context. Said right after the quote Brit Hume mentioned:

Now, I’d be the first to say we had to assume he had WMD left over that wasn’t accounted for: artillery rounds, chemical rounds, a SCUD missile or two. But these things, over time, degrade.

As I put it in the comments thread of a right-wing blogger: Zinni, in the most recent quote, is referring to the lead-up to the Iraq War, post 9/11. Pre 9/11, Saddam Hussein probably was the most “significant near-term threat” at the time. That was before Osama Bin Laden. You know, that guy that the average American barely knew existed before 9/11? Pundits like to hee and haw and about pre and post 9/11 mindsets, but when it comes to what a general said in 2000 being confused with his views concerning the political climate of 2003, apparently 9/11 never happened!

This is besides the fact that you’ve ignored his use of the word “probably” in his 2000 quote and “solid proof” in his 2006 quote, but who’s taking notes? And for that matter, who cares if the administration’s cross-hairs would logically be more deeply focused on Iraq in 2003 than in 2000, and therefore be expected to be more accurate than a general assessment before a war is even on the table? Hell, before there was even an intense investigation into whether or not Iraq had WMD’s, which would have provided more accuracy to Zinni’s opinion?

Ok, I now await your usual rebuttal that I see commonly in this thread. Here, I’ll even start it for you: “Simon, u r a iDiot111. Liberals r stoopid.”