Molly Ivins makes her usual good points in a recent column:
According to a poll conducted by The New York Times and CBS, 42 percent of Americans believe that Saddam Hussein of Iraq was personally responsible for the attacks on the World Trade Center, something that has never even been claimed by the Bush administration.
According to a poll conducted by ABC, 55 percent believe that Saddam gives direct support to al Qaeda, a claim that has been made by the administration but for which no evidence has ever been presented. President Bush has lately modified the claim to “al Qaeda-type” organizations.
This is how well journalism has done its job in the months leading up to this war. A disgraceful performance.
Ambrose Bierce, the 19th-century cynic, once observed that war is God’s way of teaching Americans geography. Going to war with the people in such a state, not of ignorance but of misinformation, is truly terrifying.
Molly does a wonderful job of articulating a side of the story that the loud-mouthed, extremist right-wing pundits ignore. I only wish that she had the same huge audience they do… she’s just not EXTREME enough, dude! Totally!
A final note on matters journalistic: At his news conference last week, George W. Bush broke a 43-year tradition by failing to call on Helen Thomas, now of the Hearst Syndicate, who has been asking questions at presidential news conferences since 1960. Thomas is openly critical of this administration, and particularly of this war.
Afraid to take a question from an 82-year-old woman? Bush has no class. Equally disgusting was the White house press corps’ failure to respond to the insult. What makes that bunch of smug chumps think it won’t be done to any one of them?
Oh, I can’t resist. Here’s a few nuggets from her Sunday column:
A French journalist observed in horrified wonder Tuesday: “Mon Dieu, Bush has made Jacques Chirac into a hero. Jacques Chirac!” What a little miracle-man that George W. Bush is. He has that wonder-working power.
And:
Have you ever seen such amazing arrogance wedded to such awesome incompetence?
Chickens coming home to roost all around. Turns out the reason that some of the African nations are sticking with the French is because they get more in foreign aid from the French than they do from us. Thank you, Jesse Helms, for your many years of work destroying American aid programs.
