Heads Up On The Media’s Latest Big Lie

By Lorie Byrd ~ October 6th, 2004 @ 2:51 pm

Look for the main topic of discussion on Hardball and the other Democrat sympathizing chat shows tonight to be the clip of Dick Cheney on Meet the Press supposedly saying Iraq was responsible for 9/11. Listen to the clip closely and you will realize that Cheney did not say that, but rather the statement was completely misinterpreted. The statement was straightforward enough, yet Brian Williams presented it as evidence that Cheney’s response in the debate was a lie. Chris Matthews has been close to hysterical at times when doing stories on this subject over the past year. He always gets it wrong and when he has people on his show that say anything other than what he has already determined to be the truth, he completely ignores everything they say. This is why it is no big shock to me, although it is a disappointment, that this kind of shoddy journalism would continue.

Here is the statement of Cheney from the debate:

CHENEY: The senator has got his facts wrong. I have not suggested there’s a connection between Iraq and 9/11, but there’s clearly an established Iraqi track record with terror.

And the point is that that’s the place where you’re most likely to see the terrorists come together with weapons of mass destruction, the deadly technologies that Saddam Hussein had developed and used over the years.

The transcript of the MSNBC post debate discussion of the Meet the Press clip that was shown has not yet been posted, but the September 14, 2003 Meet the Press quote that Brian Williams and Chris Matthews and everyone else in the main stream media, and their brethren in the Democrat party, claim shows Cheney to be a liar follows in the highlighted portion only. I excerpted the whole quote to put it into proper context:

VICE PRES. CHENEY: Tim, we can do what we have to do to prevail in this conflict. Failure’s not an option. And go back again and think about what’s involved here. This is not just about Iraq or just about the difficulties we might encounter in any one part of the country in terms of restoring security and stability. This is about a continuing operation on the war on terror. And it’s very, very important we get it right. If we’re successful in Iraq, if we can stand up a good representative government in Iraq, that secures the region so that it never again becomes a threat to its neighbors or to the United States, so it’s not pursuing weapons of mass destruction, so that it’s not a safe haven for terrorists, now we will have struck a major blow right at the heart of the base, if you will, the geographic base of the terrorists who have had us under assault now for many years, but most especially on 9/11. They understand what’s at stake here. That’s one of the reasons they’re putting up as much of a struggle as they have, is because they know if we succeed here, that that’s going to strike a major blow at their capabilities.

MR. RUSSERT: So the resistance in Iraq is coming from those who were responsible for 9/11?

VICE PRES. CHENEY: No, I was careful not to say that. With respect to 9/11, 9/11, as I said at the beginning of the show, changed everything. And one of the things it changed is we recognized that time was not on our side, that in this part of the world, in particular, given the problems we’ve encountered in Afghanistan, which forced us to go in and take action there, as well as in Iraq, that we, in fact, had to move on it. The relevance for 9/11 is that what 9/11 marked was the beginning of a struggle in which the terrorists come at us and strike us here on our home territory. And it’s a global operation. It doesn’t know national boundaries or national borders.

It is true that on more than one occassion, Dick Cheney has answered questions about a possible connection between Iraq and 9/11 by saying that there is some evidence, but nothing that has been authenticated or that has proved any connection. This Meet the Press statement does not say Iraq or Saddam was connected to 9/11. It says Iraq is at the “heart of the… geographic base of the terrorists who have had us under assault now for many years, but most especially on 9/11.” For those in the MSM who are so blinded by their hatred of Dick Cheney that they cannot comprehend such a clear and simple statement, I will help you. The geographic base referred to is the Middle East, and (newsflash) that is where the terrorists, including the 9/11 hijackers, have originated. Iraq is located in the heart of the Middle East. Is that clear enough?

There was never any suggestion by anyone in the administration that the War in Iraq was retribution for 9/11. It was stated many times, however, and rightly so, that the Iraq War had EVERYTHING to do with 9/11. As I have said many times, Iraq was not about 9/11/2001 as much as it was about a potential 9/11/2005 or 2006 or 2007 and about us not failing to connect the dots and ignore those in the world who have shown themselves by their words and deeds to be threats to the security of the U.S. Is that really such a hard concept for those in the Old Media to grasp?

UPDATE: Polipundit reader, Joe, supplied this link in the comments section to a post that says almost the same thing that I did, but much more clearly and concisely. (I get really long winded when I get started on media behavior as glaringly dishonest as this is.) I focused my post much more on Chris Matthews, than Tim Russert, however, because of Matthews’ past refusal to report this topic honestly as shown in the links I provide to posts regarding several Hardball episodes.