Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post - L. Brent Bozell's Websites Take on "The Liberal Media"

host · 09-11-2006, 11:35 PM

Do any of you subscribe to this "vision"? Is there less "bias" in news reporting and a higher level of "quality" in other media offerings, because of this?:

Quote:

<a href="http://www.heritage.org/Research/PoliticalPhilosophy/HL380.cfm">Why Conservatives Should Be Optimistic About the Media</a>
by L. Brent Bozell, III
Heritage Lecture #380
January 21, 1992

......Indeed, I will go so far as to warrant that 90 percent of the stories in both the electronic and print media which deal with the political bias in the industry have their origins in the <a href="http://www.mrc.org">Media Research Center</a>.....

.......The conservative movement ushered in by Ronald Reagan is the driving cultural force on the American scene. Conservative organizations like the MRC have demonstrated the ability to neutralize the national media by exposing their agenda to an increasingly skeptical public. The explosive growth in cable television and conservative radio talk shows demonstrates that the public is willing to go elsewhere to receive a more balanced presentation of the news.

The media have no choice but to contend with this new reality........

.........Imagine, if you will, a future wherein the media willfully support the foreign policy objectives of the United States. A time when the left can no longer rely on the media to promote its socialist agenda to the public. A time when someone, somewhere in the media can be counted on to extol the virtues of morality without qualifications. When Betty Friedan no longer qualifies for "Person of the Week" honors. When Ronald Reagan is cited not as the "Man of the Year," but the "Man of the Century."

The news and entertainment media will continue to effect the cultural health of America. If we succeed in our mission to restore political balance to this institution, future generations win benefit and thank us. It's worth fighting for, now.....

I have become convinced that L Brent Bozell and his www.mrc.org , funded by
Richard Mellon Scaife and the Sarah Scaife Foundation, has....since at least 1990, been the most vocal, busy, and effective accuser and labeler of what is,
and isn't...."THE LIBERAL MEDIA".

IMO, a major reason that discussion of political issues and news events fails to reach it's potential, here on our politics threads, and in the "3D" US, is because, to a surprisingly great degree, L. Brent Bozell has succeeded in influencing much of the major news (and entertainment) media in the US to filter....or slant it's reporting, in the direction that he deems it should proceed towards, as well as the FCC's regulation of broadcast media.

IMO, some of us avoid receiving or reading news reporting from outlets labeled by Bozell's "campaigns", as "too liberal".

My premise here, is that to some degree, L. Brent Bozell via his "research", has succeeded in filtering nearly all of the news reporting that all of us in the US receive, in a direction that he perceives, is "less liberal".

I <a href="http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpost.php?p=2119022&postcount=25">posted</a> about the christian "specific". "message", evident in Bozell's "work".

In addition to examining, documenting, and discussing the scope and impact of Bozell's influence and the changes it's actual effect on our informations streams, and hence.....on our opinions, examples like the following are welcome, to defend or to counter what I think Bozell is doing to influence "what we know", and it follows....what we are able to discuss and persuade each other, of:

Here is the background that I provide, to a "blog entry" on a Bozell/mrc.org "affiliated" website, newsbusters.org :
The other day, in response to a thread started by roachboy;
<a href="http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthread.php?p=2118793#post2118793"> more proof of the reality of the "war on terror"</a>
I posted the following:

Quote:

http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...93&postcount=7
....I intend to take the key points of your OP article, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/08/AR2006090800777_pf.html"> Iraq's Alleged Al-Qaeda Ties Were Disputed Before War, Links Were Cited to Justify U.S. Invasion, Report Says</a>one by one, and present a trove of news reporting and "evidence" from the administration's own archives on the internet, that will make a defense of what the administration did to influence grassroots support for the "necessity" of it's invasion and occupation of Iraq, about as convincing as the "Saddam had WMD.....we just didn't find them", mantra......

Quote:

From the OP article:
.......A declassified report released yesterday by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence revealed that U.S. intelligence analysts were strongly disputing the alleged links between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda while senior Bush administration officials were publicly asserting those links to justify invading Iraq...........

Quote:

Threats and Responses: The Qaeda Connection
Section: A
Publication title: New York Times. (Late Edition (East Coast)). New York, N.Y.: Jun 18, 2004. pg. A.1
DAVID E. SANGER and ROBIN TONERl, David E. Sanger reported from New York for this article, and Robin Toner from Detroit.

President Bush and Vice President Cheney said yesterday that they remain convinced that Saddam Hussein's government had a long history of ties to Al Qaeda, a day after the commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks reported that its review of classified intelligence found no evidence of a ''collaborative relationship'' that linked Iraq to the terrorist organization.

Mr. Bush, responding to a reporter's question about the report after a White House cabinet meeting yesterday morning, said: ''The reason I keep insisting that there was a relationship between Iraq and Saddam and Al Qaeda'' is ''because there was a relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda.''

He said: ''This administration never said that the 9/11 attacks were orchestrated between Saddam and Al Qaeda. We did say there were numerous contacts between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda. For example, Iraqi intelligence officers met with bin Laden, the head of Al Qaeda, in the Sudan. There's numerous contacts between the two.''

He repeated that Mr. Hussein was ''a threat'' and ''a sworn enemy to the United States of America.''

Last night Mr. Cheney, who was the administration's most forceful advocate of the Qaeda-Hussein links, was more pointed, repeating in detail his case for those ties and saying that The New York Times's coverage yesterday of the commission's findings ''was outrageous.''

''They do a lot of outrageous things,'' Mr. Cheney, appearing on ''Capital Report'' on CNBC, said of The Times, referring specifically to a four-column front page headline that read ''Panel Finds No Qaeda-Iraq Tie.'' Mr. Cheney added, ''The press wants to run out and say there's a fundamental split here now between what the president said and what the commission said.''

He said that newspapers, including The Times, had confused the question of whether there was evidence of Iraqi participation in Sept. 11 with the issue of whether a relationship existed between Al Qaeda and Mr. Hussein's government.

Speaking of the commission, he said, ''They did not address the broader question of a relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda in other areas, in other ways.'' He said ''the evidence is overwhelming.'' He described the ties and cited numerous links back to the 1990's, including contacts between Osama bin Laden and Iraqi intelligence officials......

........Staff Report 15, released by the commission Wednesday, detailed how a senior Iraqi intelligence officer ''reportedly made three visits to Sudan'' and met with Mr. bin Laden in 1994. At that meeting, the report concluded, Mr. bin Laden sought permission to establish training camps in Iraq and help in obtaining weapons, ''but Iraq apparently never responded.''

''There have been reports that contacts between Iraq and Al Qaeda also occurred after bin Laden had returned to Afghanistan, but they do not appear to have resulted in a collaborative relationship,'' the report continued. ''Two senior bin Laden associates have adamantly denied that any ties existed between Al Qaeda and Iraq. We have no credible evidence that Iraq and Al Qaeda cooperated on attacks against the United States.''

The Times quoted that section of the report at length on Thursday, along with quotations from Mr. Bush's and Mr. Cheney's statements before and after the Iraq invasion on the questions of links and of evidence of Iraqi involvement in the Sept. 11 attacks. Those included Mr. Bush's Sept. 17, 2003, statement: ''No, we've had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with Sept. 11.''

Mr. Cheney expressed a slightly different view last night, saying, ''We have never been able to prove that there was a connection there on 9/11.'' He went on to cite a Czech intelligence service report that Mohamed Atta, one of the lead hijackers, met a senior Iraqi intelligence official in April 2001. ''That's never been proven,'' he said. ''It's never been refuted.''

The commission report released on Wednesday concluded: ''We do not believe that such a meeting occurred,'' citing phone records and other evidence that Mr. Atta was in Florida at that time, not Prague.

Mr. Cheney returned to the subject of The Times's coverage later in his appearance on CNBC when an anchor, Gloria Borger, began saying, ''But the press is making a distinction between 9/11 and -- -- ''

''No, they're not,'' Mr. Cheney said. ''The New York Times does not. 'The Panel Finds No Qaeda-Iraq Ties,''' he said, quoting the headline. ''That's what it says. That's the vaunted New York Times. Numerous -- I've watched a lot of the coverage on it and the fact of the matter is they don't make a distinction. They fuzz it up. Sometimes it's through ignorance. Sometimes its malicious. But you'll take a statement that's geared specifically to say there's no connection in relations to the 9/11 attack and then say, 'Well, obviously there's no case here.' And then jump over to challenge the president's credibility or my credibility.''

The article in The Times yesterday noted that the White House said Wednesday that it did not see the commission's report as a contradiction of past statements by Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney, and the article reported that the White House said the administration had always been careful not to suggest that it had proof of a tie between Mr. Hussein and Sept. 11. Dan Bartlett, the White House communications director, was quoted in the article reinforcing those points.

The Times's coverage of the Iraq-Al Qaeda issue was consistent with that of other large newspapers.
Comment inserted by "host": although this NY Times article provides points that support the excerpt above from [roachboy's] thread's OP article, the preceding paragraphs, highlighted in bold, do not seem reliable, in relation to the evidence of Cheney's public comments, posted in the following quote boxes......

Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney were not alone in responding yesterday to the commission's findings. Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, Republican of Illinois, also charged that the media had distorted the findings of the commission about links between Mr. bin Laden and Mr. Hussein. He sad the report showed the two men were ''developing a relationship.''

''That relationship could have led to dire consequences for the United States,'' Mr. Hastert said, adding that the two men ''are cut from the same cloth.''

Both Mr. Bush and Mr. Kerry had expected to focus on the economy yesterday, but the dispute over the 9/11 commission's report overshadowed that effort.

Speaking to reporters in Detroit, Mr. Kerry said that it was Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney who were muddying distinctions. ''The president and the vice president on a number of occasions have asserted very directly to the American people that the war against Al Qaeda is the war in Iraq. And on any number of occasions, the president has made it clear that the front line of the war against Al Qaeda is in Iraq.'' ....

Quote:

From the OP article:
.....Intelligence reports in June, July and September 2002 all cast doubts on a reported meeting in Prague between Iraqi intelligence agents and Sept. 11 hijacker Mohamed Atta. Yet, in a Sept. 8, 2002, appearance on NBC's "Meet The Press," Cheney said the CIA considered the reports on the meeting credible, Levin said.......

The following are the record of Cheney's comments and evidence of the recanting....to Gloria Borger, on June 17, 2004.... of his own record of statements with regard to Atta's "meeting" in Prague, which are available on the whitehouse.gov website:

Quote:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/vicepresid...p20011114.html
Interview of the Vice President
by CBS's 60 Minutes II
November 14, 2001

......Gloria Borger: Well, you know that Muhammad Atta the ringleader of the hijackers actually met with Iraqi intelligence.

Vice President Cheney: I know this. In Prague in April of this year as well as earlier. And that information has been made public. The Czechs made that public. Obviously that's an interesting piece of information.

Gloria Borger: Sounds like you have your suspicions?

Vice President Cheney: I can't operate on suspicions. The President and the rest of us who are involved in this effort have to make what we think are the right decisions for the United States and the national security arena and that's what we're doing. And it doesn't do a lot of good for us to speculate. We'd rather operate based on facts and make announcements when we've got announcements to make. .........

Quote:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/vicepresid...p20011209.html
December 9, 2001

The Vice President Appears on NBC's Meet the Press

.......RUSSERT: Let me turn to Iraq. When you were last on this program, September 16, five days after the attack on our country, I asked you whether there was any evidence that Iraq was involved in the attack and you said no.

Since that time, a couple of articles have appeared which I want to get you to react to. The first: The Czech interior minister said today that an Iraqi intelligence officer met with Mohammed Atta, one of the ringleaders of the September 11 terrorists attacks on the United States, just five months before the synchronized hijackings and mass killings were carried out..

........RUSSERT: The plane on the ground in Iraq used to train non-Iraqi hijackers.

Do you still believe there is no evidence that Iraq was involved in September 11?

CHENEY: Well, what we now have that's developed since you and I last talked, Tim, of course, was that report that's been pretty well confirmed, that he did go to Prague and he did meet with a senior official of the Iraqi intelligence service in Czechoslovakia last April, several months before the attack.

Now, what the purpose of that was, what transpired between them, we simply don't know at this point. But that's clearly an avenue that we want to pursue...........

Curiously, on June 17, 2004, VP Cheney seems to have denied his own Nov. and Dec., 2001, publicly televised, videotaped, and officially archived statements:

Quote:

http://www.drudgereportarchives.com/...404_flash3.htm
CHENEY: CLEAR LINKS BETWEEN SADDAM, AL-QAEDA; CALLS NY TIMES ARTICLE 'OUTRAGEOUS'
Thu Jun 17 2004 19:00:33 ET
...BORGER: Well, let's get to Mohammad Atta for a minute, because you mentioned him as well. You

have said in the past that it was, quote, "pretty well confirmed."

Vice Pres. CHENEY: No, I never said that.

BORGER: OK.

Vice Pres. CHENEY: Never said that. ......

......BORGER: Let me ask you what your response is to the Democratic presidential candidate,

John Kerry, who said upon looking at this 9/11 report that this administration, quote, "misled

America."

Vice Pres. CHENEY: In what respect? I haven't seen that.

BORGER: In terms of the relationship between al-Qaida and Iraq......

More evidence that the MSM press knew what Cheney said to make an intentionally contrived case for a Saddam-Qaeda connection, but feigned ignorance of the extent of the official deception:

Quote:

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIP...itroom.01.html
THE SITUATION ROOM
Aired December 15, 2005 - 16:00 ET

...... BUCHANAN: That's a race for the vice president.

BLITZER: We'll see what happens on that front. Yesterday, Paul Begala was standing where you were. He pointed out correctly that the vice president, Dick Cheney, did allege that there was a meeting in Prague between the CIA, between Mohamed Atta, the ringleader of 9/11, and somebody from the Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein.

I suggested, "Well, I don't know if the vice president said it as hard and fast as you're saying, Paul Begala." But lo and behold, one Web site Media Matters for America, points out there is a direct quote from the vice president to Gloria Borger saying, "I know this. In Prague in April of this year as well as earlier," and that information has been made public. Paul Begala was right. I was wrong.

BRAZILE: Paul Begala is always right. Wolf, you're always right. You're always right.

BLITZER: So is Bay Buchanan. Thanks to both of you for joining us. ........

Evidence to back the June 17, 2004 Cheney recant to Gloria Borger, of his earlier, deceptive statements, in 2001, about Atta's "meeting" in Prague:

Quote:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10036925/
'Hardball with Chris Matthews' for Nov. 11th
Updated: 10:08 a.m. ET Nov 14, 2005

......MATTHEWS: All this week we‘ve been examining the Bush administration‘s claims about Iraq that sold America on the war. We‘ve looked at claims that Saddam was a nuclear threat, that our troops would be greeted as liberators and that administration ally Ahmed Chalabi could be trusted.

All of those claims, of course, were false. Tonight, we offer you a closer look at another key White House argument. The alleged link between Iraq and 9/11. HARDBALL correspondent David Shuster reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID SHUSTER, HARDBALL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Just days after the 9/11 attack, Vice President Cheney on “Meet the Press” said the response should be aimed at Osama bin Laden‘s al Qaeda terror organization, not Saddam Hussein‘s Iraq.

DICK CHENEY, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Saddam Hussein is bottled up at this point, but clearly we continue to have fairly tough policy where the Iraqis are concerned.

TIM RUSSERT, NBC HOST: Do we have any evidence linking Saddam Hussein or Iraqis to this operation?

CHENEY: No.

SHUSTER: But during that same time period, according to Bob Woodward‘s book, “Bush at War,” Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was pushing for military strikes on Iraq. And during cabinet meetings, Cheney quote, expressed deep concern about Saddam and would not rule out going after Iraq at some point.

That point started to come 11 months later, just before 9/11‘s first anniversary. The president and vice president had decided to redirect their war on terror to Baghdad.

So, with the help of the newly-formed White House Iraq group, which consisted of top officials and strategists, the selling of a war on Iraq began and the administration‘s rhetoric about Saddam changed.

Not only did White House hawks tell The New York Times for a front-page Sunday exclusive that Saddam was building a nuclear weapon, and not only did five administration officials that day go on the Sunday television shows to repeat the charge.......

CHENEY: That he is in fact, actively and aggressively seeking to acquire nuclear weapons.

SHUSTER: But the White House started claiming that Iraq and the group responsible for 9/11 were one in the same.

BUSH: The war on terror—you can‘t distinguish between al Qaeda and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror.

We‘ve learned that Iraq has trained members in bomb-making and poisons and deadly gases.

He‘s a threat because he is dealing with al Qaeda.

SHUSTER: In pushing the Saddam/Iraq/9/11 connection, both the president and the vice president made two crucial claims.

First, they alleged there had been a 1994 meeting in Sudan between Osama bin Laden and an Iraqi intelligence official.

BUSH: We know that Iraq and al Qaeda have had high-level contacts that go back a decade.

SHUSTER: After the Iraq war began, however, the 9/11 Commission was formed and reported that while Osama bin Laden may have requested Iraqi help, quote, Iraq apparently never responded.

The other crucial pre-war White House claim was that 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta met in a senior Iraqi intelligence official in the Czech republic in April of 2001.

GLORIA BORGER, CNBC HOST: You have said in the past that it was quote, pretty well confirmed.

CHENEY: No, I never said that.

BORGER: OK, I think that is...

CHENEY: ... I never said that. That‘s absolutely not...

On Sunday, on NBC Meet the Press program, TIm Russert interviewed VP Dick Cheney again, on these very issues:

Quote:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea.../20060910.html
For Immediate Release
Office of the Vice President
September 10, 2006

Interview of the Vice President by Tim Russert, NBC News, Meet the Press
NBC Studios
.........Now, what Saddam represented was somebody who had for 12 years defied the International Community, violated 16 U.N. Security Council resolutions, started two wars, produced and used weapons of mass destruction, and was deemed by the intelligence community to have resumed his WMD programs when he kicked out the inspectors. Everybody believed it. Bill Clinton believed it. The CIA clearly believed it. And without question that was a major proposition.

But I also emphasize while they found no stock piles, there was no question in the minds of Mr. Duelfer and other in that survey group that Saddam did, in fact, have the capability, and that as soon as the sanctions were ended -- and they were badly eroded, he'd be back in business again.

Q But let's look at what you told me on that morning of September 16, 2001, when I asked you about Saddam Hussein. Let's watch.

(Video clip is played.)

THE VICE PRESIDENT: At this stage, the focus is over here on al Qaeda and the most recent events in New York. Saddam Hussein's bottled up at this point.

(Video clip concludes.)

Q Do we have any evidence linking Saddam Hussein or Iraqis to this operation?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: No.

Q You said Saddam Hussein was bottled up, and he was not linked in any way to September 11th.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: To 9/11.

Q And now we have the select committee on intelligence coming out with a report on Friday that says here:

"A declassified report released Friday by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence revealed that U.S. intelligence analysts were strongly disputing the alleged links between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda, while senior Bush administration officials were publicly asserting those links to justify invading Iraq."

You said here it was pretty well confirmed that Atta may have had a meeting in Prague -- that, that was credible. All the while, according to the Senate intelligence committee, in January and in June and in September, the CIA was saying that wasn't the case. And then the President --

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Let me on that. Well, go ahead.

Q Go ahead.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: No, I want a chance to jump on that.

Q Okay, but you said it was pretty well confirmed that it was credible. And now the Senate intelligence committee says, not true. The CIA was waving you off --

THE VICE PRESIDENT: No.

Q -- any suggestion there was a meeting with Mohamed Atta, one of the hijackers with officials Iraqi officials.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: No, the sequence, Tim, was when you and I talked that morning we had not received any reporting with respect for Mohamed Atta going to Prague. Just a few days after you and I did that show, the CIA -- the CIA -- produced an intelligence report from the Czech intelligence service that said Mohamed Atta, leader of the hijackers, had been in Prague in April of '01 and had met with a senior Iraqi intelligence official in Prague. That was the first report we had that he'd been to Prague and met with Iraqis.

Later on, some period of time after that, the CIA produced another report based on a photograph that was taken in Prague of a man they claimed 70 percent probability was Mohamed Atta on another occasion. This was the reporting we received from the CIA When I responded to your question and said it had been pretty well confirmed he had been in Prague. Later on, they were unable to confirm it. Later on they backed off of it. But what I told you was exactly what we were seeing at the time -- it never said -- and I don't believe I ever said specifically that it linked the Iraqis to 9/11. It specifically said he had been in Prague, Mohamed Atta had been in Prague. We didn't know --

Q Well, I asked you. I said, is there a connection between Saddam and 9/11 on September '03, and you said, we don't know.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: That's right.

Q So you raised that possibility.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: It was raised by the CIA who passed on from the report from the Czech intelligence service.

Q All right, now the President was asked what did Iraq have to do with the attack on the World Trade Center. And he said nothing. Do you agree with that?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I do.

Q So it's case closed?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: We've never been able to confirm any connection between Iraq and 9/11.

Q And the meeting with Atta did not occur?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: We don't know. We've never been able to link it. And the FBI and CIA have worked it aggressively. I would say at this point nobody has been able to confirm --

Q Then why in the lead-up to the war was there the constant linkage between Iraq and al Qaeda?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: That's a different issue. Now, there's a question of whether or not al Qaeda -- whether or not Iraq was involved in 9/11; separate and apart from that is the issue of whether or not there was a historic relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda. The basis for that is probably best captured in George Tenet's testimony before the Senate intel committee in open session, where he said specifically that there was a pattern, a relationship that went back at least a decade between Iraq and al Qaeda.

Q But the President said they were working in concert, giving the strong suggestion to the American people that they were involved in September 11th.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: No, they are -- there are two totally different propositions here. And people have consistently tried to confuse them. And it's important, I think -- there's a third proposition, as well, too, and that is Iraq's traditional position as a strong sponsor of terror.

So you've got Iraq and 9/11: no evidence that there's a connection. You've got Iraq and al Qaeda: testimony from the Director of CIA that there was, indeed, a relationship; Zarqawi in Baghdad, et cetera. Then the --

Q The committee said that there was no relationship. In fact, Saddam --

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, I haven't seen the report. I haven't had a chance to read it yet --

Q But, Mr. Vice President, the bottom line is --

THE VICE PRESIDENT: -- but the fact is, we know that Zarqawi, running a terrorist camp in Afghanistan prior to 9/11, after we went into 9/11 -- then fled and went to Baghdad and set up operations in Baghdad in the spring of '02, and was there from then basically until the time we launched into Iraq.

Q The bottom line is the rationale given to the American people was that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, and he could give those weapons of mass destruction to al Qaeda, and we could have another September 11th. And now we read that there is no evidence according to Senate intelligence committee of that relationship. You said there's no involvement. The President says there's no involvement --

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Tim, no involvement in what respect?

Q In September 11th, okay? And the CIA said leading up to the war that the possibility of Saddam using weapons of mass destruction was "low." It appears that there was a deliberate attempt made by the administration to link al Qaeda in Iraq in the minds of the American people and use it as a rationale to go into Iraq.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Tim, I guess -- I'm not sure what part you don't understand here. In 1990, the State Department designated Iraq as a state sponsor of terror. Abu Nidal, famous terrorist, had sanctuary in Baghdad for years. Zarqawi was in Baghdad after we took Afghanistan and before we went into Iraq. You had the facility up at Kermal, a poisons facility run by an Ansar al-Islam, an affiliate of al Qaeda. You had the fact that Saddam Hussein, for example, provided payments to the families of suicide bombers of $25,000 on a regular basis. This was a state sponsor of terror. He had a relationship with terror groups. No question about it. Nobody denies that.

The evidence we also had at the time was that he had a relationship with al Qaeda. And that was George Tenet's testimony, the Director of CIA, in front of the Senate intelligence committee. We also had knowledge of the fact that he had produced and used weapons of mass destruction. And we know, as well, that while he did not have any production under way at the time, that he clearly retained the capability. And the expectation from the experts was as soon as the sanctions were lifted, he'd be back in business again. Now, this was the place where probably there was a greater prospect of a connection between terrorists on the one hand and a terror-sponsoring state and weapons of mass destruction than anyplace else.

You talk about Iran, North Korea, they are problems, too. But they hadn't been through 12 years of sanctions and resolutions by the U.N. Security Council and ignored them with impunity.......

Here is the excerpted blog article on the newsbusters.org site, the <a href="http://newsbusters.org/node/91">masthead displays</a> L Brent Bozell as "publisher", and the article's author as an "authorized" writer:

Quote:

http://newsbusters.org/node/7526#comment
Tim Russert Plays Dirty Pool With VP Cheney's Old "Pretty Well Confirmed" Remark
Posted by Dave Pierre on September 10, 2006 - 19:45.

On <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14720480/">today's episode</a> of Meet the Press (Sunday, September 10, 2006), Tim Russert interviewed Vice President Cheney. In the interview, Russert took issue with the fact that the Vice President once stated on his show that it was <a href="http://www.themediareport.com/jul2004/wellconfirmed.htm">"pretty well confirmed"</a> that Mohammed Atta, one of the 9/11 hijackers, met with Iraqi intelligence in Prague in April 2001.

Here's the craftiness by Russert: Mr. Cheney made the "pretty well confirmed" remark in <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/vicepresident/news-speeches/speeches/vp20011209.html">a December 9, 2001, appearance</a>, over four-and-a-half years ago. Russert failed to inform his audience this morning when the remark was originally made. In addition, in three following appearances on Meet the Press (3/02, 9/02, and 9/03), when the Vice President breached the topic of the Atta-Prague allegation, he essentially told Russert that he "[didn't] know" if the visit occurred, that it was "unconfirmed," and that intelligence had been unable "to nail down a close tie between the al-Qaida organization and Saddam Hussein." The Vice President's stance on the issue was certainly modified from the one he originally aired in 2001.

In fact, in the very last appearance that the Vice President made on Meet the Press (in September 2003), Mr. Cheney specifically told Russert that "we just don't know" if such a meeting ever happened. And in his September 2002 appearance, the Vice President said almost the opposite of it being "pretty well confirmed"; he said the meeting was "unconfirmed"! Yet this morning Russert harked back to the original 2001 appearance over four-and-a-half years ago to try and hammer the Vice President for the "pretty well confirmed" words. Fairness, anyone? Not at all.

With links to the transcripts, here's the Vice President speaking on the issue in his three previous appearances on Meet the Press. Again, all three took place after his December 2001 appearance in which he made the "pretty well confirmed" remark...........

<a href="http://www.911injured.org/Media/News/washpost091503.htm">1. Mr. Cheney on Meet the Press, 9/14/03</a>.....

<a href="http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/bush/meet.htm">.... 2. Mr. Cheney on Meet the Press, 9/8/02</a>....."host" sez, to view the actual examples, go to newsbusters, cuz this post is way too long, already!

<a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/vicepresident/news-speeches/speeches/vp20020324.html">.... 3. Mr. Cheney on Meet the Press, 3/24/02</a>.....

....As you can see, as he learned more information on the matter, the Vice President significantly modified his position on the Atta-Prague issue since he uttered the "pretty well confirmed" words in December 2001. Yet Russert twice referenced those words on the show today (see transcript below).

(By the way, those who scream that the Bush administration was bent on finding a 9/11 - Saddam link ever since September 11 should take note of what Vice President Cheney said to Russert only five days after 9/11/2001 on Meet the Press:

RUSSERT: Do we have any evidence linking Saddam Hussein or Iraqis to this operation? [Sept. 11 attacks]

VICE PRES. CHENEY: No.

Pretty clear, isn't it?).....

......."Pretty well conformed"? Yes, it's pretty well confirmed that Russert set out to besmirch the Vice President.

(RELATED READING: Much of the detailed reporting on the Atta-Prague issue has come from a man named Edward Jay Epstein. The most recent article I found from him on this issue is from November 2005, "Atta in Prague? An Iraqi prisoner holds the answer to this 9/11 mystery." The bottom line: "[L]ike many other intelligence cases that become politicized, the Prague connection, and all that led up to it, [has been] consigned to a murky limbo.")

To start off, I welcome discussion of:
Is Brent Bozell promoting "fair and balanced" media, or ?
Does Brent Bozell have much influence in the "balance" of US media?
Is Bozell's "work" a main driver of the schism evident in our preferences for the links that we chose to post here, and even where we get our info?
Is the example of the defense of Cheney's history of statements about Atta's meeting in Prague with an official of Saddam's government, an accurate balancing effort to offset Tim Russert's sunday questioning of Cheney, or is it "out of synch" with the "facts" regarding the way Cheney and the Bush admin. distorted the Qaeda/Iraq "connection" and the history of Gloria Borger's (also on NBC) questioning...and Cheney's replies to her., i.e....does the newsbusters "4-1/2 years" justification, support the premise that Russert was "unfair" to Cheney, considering what the record is about "Atta" questions, with Russert, with Borgia, and in the media, over 4-1/2 years.....and....is Cheney truthful in his latest Atta "CYA" replies, and accurate when he said:

Quote:

.....Q Then why in the lead-up to the war was there the constant linkage between Iraq and al Qaeda?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: That's a different issue. Now, there's a question of whether or not al Qaeda -- whether or not Iraq was involved in 9/11; separate and apart from that is the issue of whether or not there was a historic relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda. The basis for that is probably best captured in George Tenet's testimony before the Senate intel committee in open session, where he said specifically that there was a pattern, a relationship that went back at least a decade between Iraq and al Qaeda......

........we know that Zarqawi, running a terrorist camp in Afghanistan prior to 9/11, after we went into 9/11 -- then fled and went to Baghdad and set up operations in Baghdad in the spring of '02......

.........Zarqawi was in Baghdad after we took Afghanistan and before we went into Iraq. You had the facility up at Kermal, a poisons facility run by an Ansar al-Islam, an affiliate of al Qaeda......