hardball's david shuster is full of --it

[originally posted friday evening, further edited saturday morning]

during this veterans' day edition of Hardball with Chris Matthews, David Shuster attempts to reveal the Bush administration actively linking 9/11 and IRAQ.

let's go bogus-point-by-bogus-point:

- strangely, Shuster opens with Cheney denying a 9/11-Iraq link on Meet the Press

Just days after the 9/11 attacks, 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.

beginning with an instance directly refuting your point is not a good start...

- then Shuster immediately moves on to a Donald Rumsfeld suggestion which was disregarded

[A]cording to Bob Woodward's book, Bush At War, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was pushing for military strikes on Iraq

Shuster apparently forgets that Iraq wasn't dealt with at that time, but 18 months later...to put it in perspective, 18 months ago Terrell Owens and the Philadelphia Eagles were happy with each other...

- apparently during those same cabinet meetings, Woodward relates Cheney "express[ing] deep concern about Saddam and wouldn't rule out going after Iraq at some point."
Shuster forgets iraqi regime change was passed the House by a 360-38 and Unanimous Consent in the Senate, then made official policy of the United States when Bill Clinton signed it in 1998

- Shuster then includes something that has makes no claim about a Iraq-9/11 connection:

On September 8, 2002, not only did White House hawks tell The New York Times for a front page exclusive that Saddam was building a nuclear weapon, five administration officials also went on the Sunday television shows that day to repeat the charge.
"He is, in fact actively and aggressively seeking to acquire nuclear weapons," Cheney told Tim Russert on “Meet The Press".

and this has to do with the administration linking iraq and 9/11 how...?

- Shuster proceeds to pull a Maureen...Dowd editing job:

But the White House started claiming that Iraq and the group responsible for 9/11 were one in the same.
"The war on terror, you can't distinguish between al Qaeda and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror," said Bush on September 25, 2002.

for the rest of the story, check the Meet the Press transcript

Q [by Tim Russert] Mr. President, do you believe that Saddam Hussein is a bigger threat to the United States than al Qaeda?

PRESIDENT BUSH: That's a -- that is an interesting question....They're both risks, they're both dangerous. The difference, of course, is that al Qaeda likes to hijack governments. Saddam Hussein is a dictator of a government. Al Qaeda hides, Saddam doesn't, but the danger is, is that they work in concert. The danger is, is that al Qaeda becomes an extension of Saddam's madness and his hatred and his capacity to extend weapons of mass destruction around the world.
Both of them need to be dealt with. The war on terror, you can't distinguish between al Qaeda and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror. And so it's a comparison that is -- I can't make because I can't distinguish between the two, because they're both equally as bad, and equally as evil, and equally as destructive.

- after taking that quote outta context, shuster makes another point that has nothing to do with an iraq-9/11 connection. but he's gotta fill his airtime somehow...

"We've learned that Iraq has trained al Qaeda members in bomb-making and poisons and deadly gases," said Bush a few days later on October 7. "He's a threat because he is dealing with Al-Qaeda."

this has absolutely nothing to do with 9/11. apparently shuster doesn't realize that no "bomb-making and poisons and deadly gases" were used during 9/11.

- NewsBusters effectively deals other portion of the report that remotely dealing with the administration linking 9/11 and iraq. but i'll note that the two instances appear to be attempts to link 9/11 and al qaeda more than 9/11 specifically. however, Shuster again pulls another Maureen...Dowd special by selectively quoting

Cheney stated, "It's been pretty well confirmed that he did go to Prague and he did meet with a Senior official of the Iraqi intelligence service."

consulting the Meet the Press transcript

RUSSERT: 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.

Shuster concludes: "Nonetheless, the White House strategy worked."
which one...? the strategy shuster and his partner-in-crime chris matthews imagined and constructed in there heads?

after more than 4 years after 9/11, these 'hardball' guys fail to see that al qaeda does not only mean 9/11, but rather a network of terrorist groups that committed many terrorist acts. if this is the best Shuster and Matthews can do, they should go back to wall-to-wall coverage of the scooter libby indictment

¶ - nitish @ 10:28 AM