Sort of Fake, But Sort of Accurate
“An Oct. 7 article and the lead Page One headline incorrectly attributed a quotation to Charles A. Duelfer, the chief U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq. The statement, ‘We were almost all wrong,’ was made by Duelfer’s predecessor, David Kay, at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing Jan. 28.”
–Small-print, Page Two correction in the Washington Post, October 8
That Was Then
In a Washington Post op-ed piece that ran September 19, 2002, Senator John Edwards of North Carolina deliberately misled the American people about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction, and insisted that the United States be prepared to undertake unilateral, near-term military action against Iraq, even if it meant defying the U.N. Security Council and alienating our closest European allies.
That, at least, is how THE SCRAPBOOK figures Edwards would nowadays be heatedly denouncing his very own two-year old Post essay–if only someone from the Bush administration had signed it. THE SCRAPBOOK, by contrast, is firm. We don’t flip-flop. You know where we stand. Put simply: We liked Senator Edwards’s Post piece then . . .
Here’s what I believe the resolution should say. First and foremost, it should clearly endorse the use of all necessary means to eliminate the threat posed by Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction. Second, the resolution should call for an effort to rally the international community under a U.N. Security Council mandate. . . . [but] we must not tie our own hands by requiring Security Council action. Congress should authorize the United States to act with whatever allies will join us if the Security Council is prevented from supporting action to enforce the more than 16 resolutions against Iraq. . . .
Thousands of terrorist operatives around the world would pay anything to get their hands on Saddam Hussein’s arsenal and would stop at nothing to use it against us. America must act, and Congress must make clear to Hussein that he faces a united nation.
And we still like it.
Briefly Noted
“Documentary” filmmaker Michael Moore is currently embarked on a nationwide, 60-city “Slacker Uprising Tour” designed to encourage college students to vote. Provided, of course, that they attend a school willing to pay Moore his mandatory $27,500 speaking fee, in the absence of which he will naturally be forced to take his tour elsewhere. Don’t get us wrong, though: Fully-paid-up student bodies get more than their money’s worth. Specifically, Mr. Moore has lately been awarding those male members of his audience who promise to vote next month a package of Hanes-brand underpants (briefs, not boxers; you had to ask?), while distaff youngsters who take the same pledge for some reason get ramen noodles instead.
It remains unclear whether Mr. Moore’s disparate treatment of potential voting registrants represents an equal protection violation under the Supreme Court’s Bush v. Gore precedent. But the Michigan Republican party isn’t inclined to await the results of federal litigation on the question. They want Moore locked up lickety-split–and have asked four Michigan county prosecutors to investigate the possibility–for violating the vote-purchasing ban in their state’s election code.
Moore is defiant. “I intend to keep distributing a free, clean change of underwear to all slackers and college students who promise to vote in this election,” he says. “It’s ironic that Republicans have no problem with allowing assault weapons out on our streets, yet they don’t want to put clean underwear in the hands of our slacker youth.”
Course, if he just took a moment during his speeches to explain to the kids how to use a washing machine he’d probably save a lot of dough.
Network News Blues
The top anchors from all three of the nation’s broadcast television networks appeared together on October 2 at the New York Public Library for a panel discussion moderated by New Yorker media columnist Ken Auletta. CBS’s Dan Rather was twice asked for comment on his recent participation in an anti-Bush smear involving forged documents. He twice declined to respond, citing CBS’s ongoing “internal investigation.” The only Bush-related news-judgment error by CBS that Mr. Rather was prepared to concede was . . . he hadn’t been tough enough on the president about Iraq back when the whole thing might have been prevented. “I should have . . . had more courage,” Rather said. “It takes tremendous strength–strength I didn’t always have.”
Here, ABC’s Peter Jennings reluctantly agreed. “I know we weren’t as on the ball as we should have been” about the war, Jennings offered by way of apology. Warming up to this theme, Jennings also admitted that “we were not quick enough to say [the Swift Boat ads] are demonstrably false.” In other words, the regular network news divisions are, if anything, too favorably disposed towards George W. Bush. And anybody who tells you different is a crazy, right-wing liar. Lay off my friend Dan Rather, Jennings demanded; “I don’t think you ever judge a man by only one event in his career.”
Whereupon Dan Rather, “as his eyes visibly moistened, could be seen whispering, ‘Thank you, Peter,'” and the audience of 500 burst into loud, sustained applause.
“Now we know that this is a ‘Blue’ room,” Jennings observed into his microphone once the cheering had subsided, thereby inadvertently acknowledging that at this point, any support for Rather and CBS–including his own–is a de facto expression of loyalty to the Democratic party.
