This is the complete conversation:

From the December 9, 2001 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 Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the United States, just five months before the synchronized hijackings and mass killings were carried out.' And this from James Woolsey, former CIA director: 'We know that at Salman Pak, on the southern edge of Baghdad, five different eyewitnesses -- three Iraqi defectors and two American U.N. inspectors have said, and now there are aerial photographs to show it -- a Boeing 707 that was used for training of hijackers, including non-Iraqi hijackers trained very secretly to take over airplanes with knives.' And we have photographs. As you can see that little white speck -- and there it is, the plane on the ground in Iraq used to train non-Iraqi hijackers. Do you still believe there's 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 -- 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 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."

Olbermann condenses this conversation to:

CHENEY: "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."

Honesty check - is the sound byte selected by Olbermann a true reflection of the gist of that conversation?? I certainly don't think it is.

From the September 8, 2002 Meet the Press:
   
RUSSERT: "One year ago when you were on Meet the Press just five days after September 11, I asked you a specific question about Iraq and Saddam Hussein. Let's watch:"
   
RUSSERT on the September 16, 2001 Meet the Press: "Do we have any evidence linking Saddam Hussein or Iraqis to this operation?"
   
CHENEY: "No."
   
RUSSERT: "Has anything changed, in your mind?"
   
CHENEY: "Well, I want to be very careful about how I say this. I'm not here today to make a specific allegation that Iraq was somehow responsible for 9/11. I can't say that. On the other hand, since we did that interview, new information has come to light. And we spent time looking at that relationship between Iraq, on the one hand, and the al-Qaeda organization on the other. And there has been reporting that suggests that there have been a number of contacts over the years. We've seen in connection with the hijackers, of course, MOHAMED ATTA, WHO WAS THE LEAD HIJACKER, DID APPARENTLY TRAVEL TO PRAGUE ON A NUMBER OF OCCASIONS. AND ON AT LEAST ONE OCCASION, WE HAVE REPORTING THAT PLACES HIM IN PRAGUE WITH A SENIOR IRAQI INTELLIGENCE OFFICIAL A FEW MONTHS BEFORE THE ATTACK ON THE WORLD TRADE CENTER. The debates about, you know, was he there or wasn't he there, again, it's the intelligence business."
   
RUSSERT: "What does the CIA say about that? Is it credible?"
   
CHENEY: "It's credible. But, you know, I think a way to put it would be IT'S UNCONFIRMED AT THIS POINT."

This gets condensed by Olbermann to:

CHENEY: "Mohammed Atta, who was the lead hijacker, did apparently travel to Prague on a number of occasions, and on at least one occasion, we have reporting that places him in Prague with a senior Iraqi intelligence official a few months before the attack on the World Trade Center."

Now Arne Langsetmo might consider the above to be an accurate summation of what was said during those two conversations - I certainly wouldn't.

The sound-bytes were selected by the media, Olbermann or by the Producer, certainly not by the Vice-President or by anyone in the Bush Administration. So who was putting the spin into the equation? Who was determining how the public would react? Not the Vice-President or anyone in the Bush Administration - they after all had no editorial control so it could not have been them.