[QUOTE=zamboniracer]
Russert and other journalists who didn’t ask enough tough questions leading up to the war are not at fault for the war, unless they also happened to be holding executive governmental office, such as President, Veep, Sec Defense, Sec of State, Nat’L Sec.Advisor, etc., at the same time. The ones who told the lies, or who relied on egregiously wrong intelligence, are the ones at fault.
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They most certainly failed in their duty as journalists. They failed America and the American people. Now, Bush and Cheney DUPED America and the American people, and are much more at fault. But it was damn easy with the Washington press corps eating out of their hands, except for Barbara Thomas.
[QUOTE=Marley23]
It’s an error, and if it makes no difference, it’s still worth remembering that at the time, it was often cited as part of the whole “He’s not complying, we don’t know what he’s hiding” thing.
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Well…he wasn’t complying was he? We didn’t know what he might have been hiding.
As for asking the tough question … where do the elected Dems fit into that puzzle? There lack of doing so may have influenced all of those darn reporters.
[QUOTE=What the … !!!]
Well…he wasn’t complying was he? We didn’t know what he might have been hiding.
As for asking the tough question … where do the elected Dems fit into that puzzle? There lack of doing so may have influenced all of those darn reporters.
[/QUOTE]
The elected Dems were excoriated for their cowardice and complicity at the time by opponents of the Iraq invasion on this board.
[QUOTE=What the … !!!]
Well…he wasn’t complying was he? We didn’t know what he might have been hiding.
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He gave the inspectors free reign in 2003. Once it started becoming clear he didn’t have shit, Bush yanked the inspectors out before his whole casus belli could become unravelled.
[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic]
I can independently verify it. I saw the show with Al Gore where Russert said that and I saw follow up shws where he repeated it. Maybe the first time was an error, but the repeats were lies. What is your point with this? Do you think that Russert never really said this stuff?
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So, Russert stated things that were untrue and he knew them to be untrue at the time? Wow. Of course, you have some proof for him knowing The Truth and lying to us.
[QUOTE=magellan01]
So, Russert stated things that were untrue and he knew them to be untrue at the time? Wow. Of course, you have some proof for him knowing The Truth and lying to us.
I’ll wait.
[/QUOTE]
Did you read the link? Sam Husseini pointed out his mistatements when Gore was on the show, and then he repeated them a month later when Albright was on the show. Plenty of time to set the record straight, which he did not do.
[QUOTE=John Mace]
At what time? When the AUMF was passed, he was not in compliance because he would not let the inspectors in.
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I know. And I couldn’t have less interest in re-fighting this whole deal. But as a part of that broader argument, “Saddam kicked the inspectors out” is faulty.
Depends on what “we” means. If “we” means you, I guess not. If “we” includes me, it’s a different story. It also depends on what “complying” means. If you mean following the rules to the letter, I doubt he was complying. On the other hand, if you mean that he was providing enough information that a reasonable person would have concluded nothing was being hidden, again, we might have to agree to disagree.
Great Dave, we don’t know if Russert ever heard what Husseini was saying, so the argument that he lied on purpose is a nonstarter. Husseini says he left a message on Russert’s voicemail, but we don’t know if he actually had Russert’s voicemail, for example.
I posted this to see if there was anything to it, not be because I’m taking Schwarz and Husseini’s position as my own. It does seem a little bit of a stretch to say that Russert was helping to spread the lies with this as your only example. I thought maybe the SDMB could find something better, or refute Schwarz convincingly.
[QUOTE=Great Dave]
I posted this to see if there was anything to it, not be because I’m taking Schwarz and Husseini’s position as my own. It does seem a little bit of a stretch to say that Russert was helping to spread the lies with this as your only example. I thought maybe the SDMB could find something better, or refute Schwarz convincingly.
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Well, look at the responses you have gotten. There is so much political spin and rhetoric tied up in the question that it’s going to depend on one’s perspective. To me it’s a stretch to say that Russert’s statement had a huge influence on the lead up to the war. Hell, I think it’s a nitpick to call it wrong as it depends on what exact time frame he meant and one’s definition of ‘kicked out’. Even if the statement was ‘faulty’, it wasn’t a huge mischaracterization as the situation was complex and the events confused and confusing, leading to such mis-statements.
Why didn’t he retract what he said, or clarify it? Maybe he didn’t think the distinction was all that important exept to nitpickers who are trying to parse what happened with a scalpel for political spin?
If this was such a big deal, and if Russert was wrong, why didn’t Gore or Albright just correct him? I read the transcript from the Albright interview, and she didn’t do so. If even they didint care to correct this “lie”, then I think it’s fair to assume it wasn’t a lie in the first place.
[QUOTE=Great Dave]
Did you read the link? Sam Husseini pointed out his mistatements when Gore was on the show, and then he repeated them a month later when Albright was on the show. Plenty of time to set the record straight, which he did not do.
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Yes, I did. Did you read Mace’s long post providing the timeline. You’re grasping at straws and clinging onto a meaningless technicality.
[QUOTE=Mr. Moto]
Not to mention the fact that they left because they had nothing to do - the Hussein government had suspended all cooperation with the teams.
Look, you can play games with what Russert said or didn’t say - it doesn’t change the fact one bit that Iraq wasn’t in compliance with their obligations under the UN resolutions and the cease-fire.
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Well, the reason that Saddam gave for not complying with the inspectors at the time was that they were being by the Americans to spy on Iraq. This may have been widely viewed as a pretext at the time until it later came to light that, in fact, this was true. Since I don’t believe that the UN inspectors were supposed to be spying on what were presumably some high-value military sites for foreign governments, I would say there was more than one party not in compliance.
(By the way, one thing that Hans Blix says is that in the 2003 inspections, he was determined to keep the inspections professional and not allow it to degenerate into a spying operation as it had before.)
Just so. Trouble is, they are not in the business of reporting news, but selling news. How long would Tim have lasted he started to appear “unpatriotic”?
[QUOTE=elucidator]
Just so. Trouble is, they are not in the business of reporting news, but selling news. How long would Tim have lasted he started to appear “unpatriotic”?
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Did you read the cite?
No one shut down those newspapers for being “unpatriotic”.
Maybe Bush just didn’t want to get Clinton in trouble for screwing up the inspections.
Seriously, though, it is S.O.P for any administration to deny or have “no comment” about allegations of spying.
[QUOTE=John Mace]
No one shut down those newspapers for being “unpatriotic”.
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I don’t see any implication by elucidator that they were shut down…just that they want to sell newspapers and thus did not want to start raising controversial issues regarding the march to war.
And, yes, at one point the media did actually do their job. But, when the chips were on the line, they ignored their previous reporting in order not to go against the drumbeat of war.
Probably so…At any rate, I wouldn’t expect the Bush Administration to reveal any information that undermined their propaganda efforts. In fact, Bush even tried to rewrite history after we had gone to war by at some point claiming that Saddam didn’t let the inspectors in before we went to war! (Even the U.S. media, thankfully, by that time wouldn’t let that whopper go unchallenged.)
However, I would expect the media to do a better job.
[QUOTE=jshore]
I don’t see any implication by elucidator that they were shut down…just that they want to sell newspapers and thus did not want to start raising controversial issues regarding the march to war.
[/quote]
They were afraid to refrence their own articles? Something anyone could look up in an archive on the internet? Sounds very dubious to me.
I dunno. That link looked more like a complaint that the newspapers weren’t reporting things the way that organization wanted them to. Hey, I wish the newspapers would report things exactly the way I want, too! I don’t buy into the idea that just because a paper reported a story a certain way 3 years ago, they are obligated to reference that report every time new developments occur.