Teribus:

On Wednesday night MSNBC's Chris Matthews refused to concede that he had distorted Dick Cheney's comments about a 9/11 link to Iraq and MSNBC's Keith Olbermann set out to prove that Cheney had drawn such a connection, but Olbermann selectively edited a series of Cheney remarks, leaving out Cheney's specific rejection of any such connection.

One flaw in this "logic", Teribus (and I've already pointed it out, but you either ignored it or missed it zipping 10Km above your head):

The maladministration is not logically required to be consistent. They can indeed talk out of both sides of their mouth (and frequently have done so). When we say they have made a "link" of Saddam and al Qaeda, or insinuated a link between Saddam and 9/11, or engaged in a propaganda campaign to stoke up sentiment for an attack on Iraq by tying Saddam in the public mind to the 9/11 attacks, this in no way precludes them from saying on other occasions (and different venues, to different and perhaps more sceptical audiences) that there were no definite ties, no clear evidence, etc. Your claim that they didn't make such a link is immediately refuted by a single quote where they did so, even if they said something else at some other time. And propaganda has no requirement for logical consistency to be effective. As I and others have noted, the propaganda was effective; majorities of the U.S. public thought that Saddam was involved in 9/11 and an alarming number thought that WoMD were found (or even used by Saddam) during the war.

We shouldn't have to have a preznit whose words require a careful and minute parsing in order to glean the truth from what they say. If what's being said is seriously slanted, and what is being implied or insinuated is outright false, they are doing us a disservice and are a bit behind the game in the honesty department. I understand that a detailed disquisition of the evidence "fer and agin" a proposition may not be appropriate in a public speech, but surely the uncertainties and caveats known to exist should have been indicated. Nonetheless, the Dubya maladministration was certain in its pronouncements despite the horribly bad quality of the 'intelligence' behind these pronouncements (i.e., Rummy's "we know where" the WoMD are, Powell's detailing of the various prohibited weaponry before the U.N. complete with 8X10 colour glossies, Dubya's "absolutely", Cheney's "it's been pretty well confirmed, etc.). If nothing else, this certainty constitutes a horrible malfeasance if not a lie.

We know now (with far greater certainty than I had before the war when I thought it a pile'o'crap) that the 'intelligence' was "garbage, garbage, and more garbage" and just outright wrong (which I beg to remind the readers here was the original subject of this thread). We're also finding out more evry day about how even people in the gummint knew that this stuff was shoddy, and that there was far more uncertainty than the maladministration portrayed even in the run up to the war. Top that off with the new information coming in from the U.N. inspectors from the ground, based on checking out the specifics of this 'intelligence', that the 'intellignece' was seriously flawed and that there was little if any chance of there actually being any significant WoMD, the dcision to rush into war at that point based on a rationale of protecting from WoMD simply constitutes criminal malfeasance.

Say, Teribus, what's the source for that huge ol' "clip'n'paste" of yours?...

But I do like this part:

Olbermann then played a series of four Cheney clips:
   
#1: Cheney, from September 14, 2003 Meet the Press: "We will have struck a major blow right at the heart of the base, if you will, the geographic base of the terrorists who've had us under assault now for many years, but most especially on 9/11."
   
#2: Cheney, from September 8, 2002 Meet the Press: "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."
   
#3: Cheney, from March 24, 2002 Meet the Press: "One of the lead hijackers, Mohammed Atta, had, in fact, met with Iraqi intelligence in Prague."
   
#4: Cheney, from December 9, 2001 Meet the Press: "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."

As I said before, saying that Cheney denied an explicit tie at any other time (even if that is indeed true) still does nothing to disprove the fact that these quotes do show Cheney making an explicit Saddam/9-11 tie ... repeatedly.

On #2, Olbermann left out how Cheney emphasized that "I'm not here today to make a specific allegation that Iraq was somehow responsible for 9/11. I can't say that," and how Cheney described as "unconfirmed" reports of an Atta meeting with Iraqi intelligence.

So it was a weasely, non-specific insinuation, based on "unconfirmed" (but shoddy and later disproven) 'evidence'.

More Cheney from the (apparntly MRC) article:

With respect to the connections to al-Qaeda, we haven't been able to pin down any connection there. I read this report with interest after our interview last fall. We discovered, and it's since been public, the allegation that one of the lead hijackers, Mohamed Atta, had, in fact, met with Iraqi intelligence in Prague, but we've not been able yet from our perspective to nail down a close tie between the al-Qaeda organization and Saddam Hussein. We'll continue to look for it."

My emphasis there, instead of the MRC's.... He admits to some remanent uncertainties, but the thrust of Cheney's point is still there, quite clearly. This is a far cry from maintaning that there were in fact no ties (which, as I pointed out, would still not disprove that Cheney had at other times made such ties).

Now Ron, Arne - who was doing the editing of those clips? Cheney or MSNBC? Clear example of why you read and establish what was actually said, and the get the context in which remarks are made, rather than read what somebody else says was said.

You'll see my response to this claim of "selective editing" above....

Here's the start of your article:

On Wednesday night MSNBC's Chris Matthews refused to concede that he had distorted Dick Cheney's comments about a 9/11 link to Iraq and MSNBC's Keith Olbermann set out to prove that Cheney had drawn such a connection, but Olbermann selectively edited a series of Cheney remarks, leaving out Cheney's specific rejection of any such connection.

Nonsense. The full quotes don't show Cheney "specific[ally] reject[ing] ... any such connection". The full quotes simply qualify the certainty of the 'evidence', but leave such a "connection" as not only a disticnt possibility, but based on Cheney's inference about the supposedly 'known' meeting, a quite serious likelihood (I don't think that Cheney was suggesting that Atta met the Iraqi guy for tea and small talk). Cheney at the time may have been persuaded by this 'evidence', but in fat the evidence was wrong, and Cheney should have known that, or at least found that out, before making these insinuations.

This is what has been accomplished

1) It has been established that, counter to what you obviously believe, the US requires the authority from NOBODY to take steps to defend itself at its national interests....

Nope. The U.S. (and other countries) may take steps to defend itself if their national interests are in fact at stake. Simply doing so for the purpose of "defend[ing] ... national interests" is subject to a bit of a "reasonable person" standard, e.g., shooting at hallucinations is not "reasonable". It's a fact based determination.

... It has been established that Iraq's failure to comply with the terms of the Safwan Ceasefire Agreement was sufficient reason for military intervention in 1998, thereby setting the precedent....

Nonsense.

... If it was good enough for the US under Clinton it must be good enough for the US under Bush.

The "tu quuque" logical fallacy hardly works in a court of law. But there's a difference in scale between Tomahawk attacks and the invasion and occupation of another country, too.

By the bye, anyone who relies solely on reported sources as opposed to actual text has very little credibility to start with.

From someone who cut'n'paste quotes the MRC (apparently) at length. My, my, my, the hypocrisy....   ;-)

Cheers,