(Thanks to Chet for sharing. Transcript provided below)
Finally, as promised, a special Comment about the President’s cataclysmic deceptions about Iran.
There are few choices more terrifying than the one Mr. Bush has left us with tonight.
We have either a president who is too dishonest to restrain himself from invoking World War Three about Iran at least six weeks after he had to have known that the analogy would be fantastic, irresponsible hyperbole — or we have a president too transcendently stupid not to have asked — at what now appears to have been a series of opportunities to do so — whether the fairy tales he either created or was fed, were still even remotely plausible.A pathological presidential liar, or an idiot-in-chief. It is the nightmare scenario of political science fiction: A critical juncture in our history and, contained in either answer, a president manifestly unfit to serve, and behind him in the vice presidency: an unapologetic warmonger who has long been seeing a world visible only to himself.
After Ms Perino’s announcement that the White House last night, that the timeline is inescapable and clear now, in August the President was told by his hand-picked Major Domo of intelligence, Mike McConnell, a flinty, high-strung-looking, worrying warrior who will always see more clouds than silver linings, that what “everybody thought” about Iran might in essence be crap.
Yet on October 17th the President said of Iran and its president Ahmadinejad:
“I’ve told people that if you’re interested in avoiding World War Three, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them from have (sic) the knowledge to make a nuclear weapon.”
And as he said that, Mr. Bush knew that at bare minimum, there was a strong chance that his rhetoric was nothing more than words with which to scare the Iranians.Or was it, Sir, to scare the Americans?
Does Iran not really fit in the equation here? Have you just scribbled it into the fill-in-the-blank on the same template you used, to scare us about Iraq?
In August, any commander-in-chief still able-minded or uncorrupted or both, Sir, would have invoked the quality the job most requires: mental flexibility.
A bright man, or an honest man, would have realized no later than the McConnell briefing, that the only true danger about Iran was the damage that could be done by an unhinged, irrational Chicken Little of a president, shooting his mouth off, backed up by only his own hysteria and his own delusions of omniscience.
Not Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Mr. Bush.
The Chicken Little of presidents is the one, Sir, that you see in the mirror.And the mind reels at the thought of a Vice President fully briefed on the revised Intel as long as two weeks ago — briefed on the fact that Iran abandoned its pursuit of this imminent threat four years ago — A Vice President who never bothered to mention it to his boss.
It is nearly forgotten today, but throughout much of Ronald Reagan’s presidency it was widely believed that he was little more than a front-man for some never-viewed, behind-the-scenes, string-puller.
Today, as evidenced by this latest remarkable, historic malfeasance, it is inescapable, that Dick Cheney is either this president’s evil ventriloquist, or he thinks he is.
What servant of any of the 42 previous presidents could possibly withhold information of this urgency and this gravity, and wind up back at his desk the next morning, instead of winding up before a Congressional investigation — or a criminal one?Mr. Bush, if you can still hear us — if you did not previously agree to this scenario in which Dick Cheney is the actual detective and you’re the Remington Steele — you must disenthrall yourself: Mr. Cheney has usurped your constitutional powers, cut you out of the information loop, and led you down the path to an unprecedented presidency in which the facts have becomed optional, the Intel is valued less than the hunch, and the assistant runs the store.
The problem is, Sir, your assistant is robbing you and your country blind. Not merely in monetary terms, Mr. Bush, but more importantly robbing you of the traditions and righteousness for which we have stood, at great risk, for centuries: Honesty, Law, Moral Force.
Mr. Cheney has helped, Sir, to make your Administration into the kind our ancestors saw in the 1860’s and 1870’s and 1880’s — the ones that abandoned reconstruction, and sent this country marching backwards into the pit of American Apartheid.Grant, Hayes, Garfield, Arthur, Cleveland…
Presidents who will be remembered only in a blur of failure, Mr. Bush. Presidents who will be remembered only as functions only of those who opposed them the opponents who history proved right.
Grant, Hayes, Garfield, Arthur, Cleveland… Bush.Would that we could let this President off the hook by seeing him only as marionette or moron. But a study of the mutation of his language about Iran proves that though he may not be very good at it, he is, himself, still a manipulative, Machiavellian, snake-oil salesman.
The Bushian etymology was tracked by Dan Froomkin at the Washington Post’s website and it is staggering.March 31st: “Iran is trying to develop a nuclear weapon…”
June 5th: Iran’s “pursuit of nuclear weapons…”
June 19th: “consequences to the Iranian government if they continue to pursue a nuclear weapon…”
July 12th: “the same regime in Iran that is pursuing nuclear weapons…”
August 6th: “this is a government that has proclaimed its desire to build a nuclear weapon…”Notice a pattern? Trying to develop, build or pursue a nuclear weapon.
Then, sometime between August 6th and August 9th, those terms are suddenly swapped out, so subtly that only in retrospect can we see that somebody has warned the President, not only that he has gone out too far on the limb of terror — but that there may not even be a tree there. McConnell, or someone, must have briefed him then.
August 9th: “They have expressed their desire to be able to enrich uranium, which we believe is a step toward having a nuclear weapons program…”
August 28th: “Iran’s active pursuit of technology that could lead to nuclear weapons…”
October 4th: “you should not have the know-how on how to make a (nuclear) weapon…”
October 17th: “until they suspend and/or make it clear that they, that their statements aren’t real, yeah, I believe they want to have the capacity, the knowledge, in order to make a nuclear weapon.”
Before August 9th, it is: Trying to develop, build or pursue a nuclear weapon.After August 9th, it’s: Desire, pursuit, want… Knowledge, technology know-how to enrich uranium.
And we are to believe, Mr.. Bush, that the National Intelligence Estimate this week talks of the Iranians suspending their nuclear weapons program in 2003, and you talked of the Iranians suspending their nuclear weapons program on October 17th…
And that’s just a coincidence?
And we are to believe, Mr.. Bush, that nobody told you any of this until last week?Your insistence that you were not briefed on the NIE until last week might be legally true — something like “what the definition of “is” is — but with the subject matter being not interns but the threat of nuclear war.
Legally, this might save you from some war crimes trial… but ethically, it is a lie. It is indefensible. You have been yelling threats into a phone for nearly four months, after the guy on the other end had already hung up.You, Mr. Bush, are a bald-faced liar. And moreover, you must have realized that John Bolton, and Norman Podhoretz, and the Wall Street Journal Editorial board, are now also bald-faced liars.
We are to believe that the Intel Community, or maybe the State Department, cooked the raw intelligence about Iran, falsely diminished the Iranian nuclear threat, to make you look bad? And you proceeded to let them make you look bad?
You not only knew all of this about Iran, in early August, but you also knew it was all accurate. And instead of sharing this good news with the people you have obviously forgotten you represent. You merely fine-tuned your terrorizing of those people, to legally cover your own backside.
While you filled the factual gap with sadistic visions of — as you phrased it on August 28th: a quote “nuclear holocaust” — and, as you phrased it on October 17th, quote: “World War Three.”My comments, Mr. Bush, are often dismissed as simple repetitions of the phrase “George Bush has no business being president.”
Well, guess what? Tonight, hanged by your own words and convicted by your own deliberate lies.You, sir, have no business being president.
Good night, and good luck.
The Sphinx
Officially declared by wingnuts. Click 
As much as I dislike Bush, I’ll admit that sometimes Mr. Olbermann stretches his accusations a bit too far, or at least he barely provides enough to back them up (not that it isn’t out there, but if you let this piece stand on it’s own, you’d wonder why he was going on a rant about Cheney, for example).
It is kinda neat how he refers to him as “Sir” though.
It would’ve been nice if he’d have elaborated on the Cheney point, but the main point of posting this is to point out that either the intelligence was wrong, or Bush was. Both equally dangerous alternatives to a political blunder, the magnitude of which we have already seen when both were combined (*cough coughiraqcough*)
Olbermann is off his rocker, and here is what I find to be the most ironic…
The intelligence community was wrong about Iraq having WMDs. Yet somehow it is ‘gospel’ that now Iran stopped its nuclear weapons program – despite massive evidence to the contrary – because an already discredited agency says so?
There is no logic in that thinking whatsoever.
Bush a ‘bald-faced liar’? This has not been proven by the NIE report, and Olbermann should be ashamed of himself for resorting to hysterics.
No, in fact you should see it the other way round.
The Bush administration was wrong about the fairy tale on Iraqi WMDs, and yet you consider it Gospel that Iran _does_ have a nuclear weapons program, even though there was NO evidence to this program even existing?
And please.. What kind of “Massive evidence” are you talking about? All the speculations, accusations and fears thrown around relentlessly by your government and media? Your own gut feeling because you simply hate Iran? A threat that was uttered by their president, that wasn’t really a threat, but a mistranslation?
Scientifically – and you can take my word on this – all this has absolutely zero value in terms of “evidence”, and this is something you should be very aware of after the terrible mistake of pinning WMD accusations on Saddam (to which I’m sure you also said there was “massive evidence” before time proved you wrong) and trusting a president who was either clueless, or lying through his teeth. So who is to be discredited? A man who dragged entire nations to war based on a lie he had spread? Or an intelligence agency that’s providing what they know despite all the propaganda?
In fact, the evidence is growing that no such nuclear program exists anymore. So who should be ashamed to resorting to hysterics, when – looked at with a balanced point of view – this entire Iranian crisis was caused by one single uproar and a bunch of hysterical guesses?
So either Iran is seeking nuclear weapons, which means your intelligence agencies are rubbish, or they’re not, which means your president is lying again. They can’t be both right at the same time, so one carries the blame, and right now it doesn’t look too good for Bush.
Iran has repeatedly spoken of wiping another nation off the map and arms, trains, and funds jihadists in Iraq. They arm, train, and fund Hizballah, a terror organization with a goal of Final Solution of Jews worldwide (and which is responsible for bombing the Jewish Community Center and Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires – far from Israel – as a showing of their worldwide ambitions).
This nation now is openly enriching uranium. The ‘intelligence report’ from the NIE only said that Iran stopped its covert program of building a nuclear bomb. But it is quite easy to build a bomb once there is a nuclear power plant. In fact, that is how India did it. So what exactly did the report say? Nothing of any use. There is no evidence, based on that report, that Iran is not a serious threat. Nuclear power plant = easy capability for nuclear bombs.
Given the repeated elliminationist rhetoric (and actions) being spewed from the Iranian regime, I see no evidence of a lack of a desire to turn the nuclear energy into a bomb. Where in the NIE report did it say that Iran stopped its nuclear ambitions? Nowhere.
And remember: Iran has openly admit it is enriching uranium.
The NIE report did NOT render a ‘liar.’ But Olbermann was rendered a mouth foaming hysteric.
One needs only look at the source of this bile to know it is just that, contrived bile.
Olbermann can bite me…
British spy chief believes that the US intelligences agencies have been hoodwinked by Iran:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/12/09/wiran109.xml
Just the mistranslation I was talking about. How many times however have Israel and the US threatened to wipe Iran off the map? Who has been saying all this time that war is already inevitable, and somebody will have to take them out ASAP?
Or is it “Free threats for me, not for thee?”
A key point you’re completely missing is that Iran has signed the non-proliferation treaty, that explicitly allows it to enrich uranium for civil purposes, and even ENTITLES it to the technical aid from the other nations that have signed, in order to strive after a civilian nuclear program. So there is no reason why Iran should NOT enrich uranium, and if you think the agreement is void, then you might as well tear the damn thing up and let everyone build nukes as they please. That’s the alternative to not sticking with the treaty, which gives Iran the Goddamn right to enrich Uranium. Read up a bit on that.
And you can safely believe that it is _not_ easy to build a nuclear bomb. The IAEA has stated many times that Iran is still years away from actually building one, if they were actively working on a bomb as we speak. As the reports say that they’re not, it would most certainly take them even longer than a few years.
If anybody decides to bomb Iran just for enriching uranium, then they are in violation of the treaty. Oh I remember, Israel didn’t even sign the treaty, is sitting on a pile of nuclear warheads, and is capable of nuking any Middle Eastern country in the region, and that includes Iran. So concerning a nuclear threat, we should be worrying less about Iran than about Israel.
Or do you believe in “Free nukes for me, not for thee”? Disarm every nation of nukes first, including the US, before dictating who doesn’t get to have any. The idea of nuclear bombs is perverse anyway, and if you think otherwise, then I don’t see any reason in continuing this discussion.
Erm.. I thought the NIE report stated just that??? Get out of denial mode, please. It’s not making this any more fun.
And it’s a bit rich to refer to Olbermann as a “mouth foaming hysteric”, when you’re an avid reader of Little Green Footballs. That’s what that place consists of, and barely anything else.
And TRM, maybe you want to elaborate on your stance rather than just write the video off as bile?
Back to this funny little article of yours:
Like any spying agency would only rely on what people are saying on the phone. What about the “wireless taps”, “Iranian defector”, “human sources”,.. ? Where’s the proof that they gave misinformation? And how could they prove that the Iranians were lying over the phone? Did they hear them sniggering and making up stuff while they were talking?
Just another bunch of speculations, that prove absolutely zilch.
I call BS on this.
It seems to me as if Western powers are just trying to save their butts from a severe embarrassment over this whole story. Can’t blame them really, because it’s evolving into a scandal already.
The truth is all in the middle. The intel is bad for starters.The disorganized and discredited intel on Iraq as well as the post 9/11 fallout are good indicators of that. Bush has but the intel to go on. That’s sad. Bush acts on what he’s got to know is possible trash and put’s his neck ut unnecessarily. That’s stupid. Iran is clearly looking at nuclear energy and is likely a nation that would lateral that tech into defensive/deterrent weaponry if for regional diplomacy alone.
Sphinx, stop living in a world of willful ignorance. I already demolished your ‘arguments’ re: the echo chamber of Juan Cole’s mistranslation of Ahmadinejad.
We all know what Ahmadinejad meant when he said that he wanted Israel wiped off the map. We all have seen the Death to America/Death to Israel rallies. We all have read Nasrallah speak to dreams of killing every Jew on earth. We all know about what happened in Buenos Aires. We all know what happens in Iraq – funded and armed by Iran – on a daily basis.
Why do you seem to be unable to grasp what the rest of the world knows as fact?
(As an aside, the NIE did not say Iran stopped enriching uranium – it said that Iran stopped its covert weapons program – two totally different things. It did nto say Iran no longer has any ambitions to become nuclear in the future – only right now. Read the report again if you do not believe me.)
If anybody decides to bomb Iran just for enriching uranium, then they are in violation of the treaty. Oh I remember, Israel didn’t even sign the treaty, is sitting on a pile of nuclear warheads, and is capable of nuking any Middle Eastern country in the region, and that includes Iran. So concerning a nuclear threat, we should be worrying less about Iran than about Israel.
False moral equivalence not worthy of even being addressed. Only one nation speaks of wiping others off the map and has already done what it can to achieve these goals.
Hint: it ain’t Israel.
I don’t know what you consider demolishing somebody’s arguments, but if it involves persistently clinging to somebody every time he writes anything about politics or religion and just saying: “NO!!” in a matter that would make every troll blush, then no, that doesn’t really qualify as demolishing anything. You also didn’t demolish the fact that the Persian reporter did a word-to-word translation of Ahmedinejad’s speech (where he was quoting Ayatollah Al Khomeini by the way), and that turned out to mean something completely different than “wiping off the map”.
(As an aside, the NIE did not say Iran stopped enriching uranium – it said that Iran stopped its covert weapons program – two totally different things. It did nto say Iran no longer has any ambitions to become nuclear in the future – only right now. Read the report again if you do not believe me.)
You don’t need to tell me what’s in the report. And Iran is enriching Uranium. So what? Under international law it has the solid right to enrich Uranium for peaceful purposes and receive all the help it requires from other signees of the treaty.
Our local on-campus reactor has highly enriched Uranium that can be used in bombs. So what? As long as they keep it safe and running for neutron research, so damn what? And if Iran wants to conduct scientific research, or use nuclear energy as a cleaner alternative to Oil, two processes requiring enriched Uranium, then SO. DAMN. WHAT?
Go yell at whoever drafted the treaty saying it’s not ok for anyone to enrich Uranium because they might be making bombs with it. In the meantime go shut down all your nuclear reactors and dismantle all your bombs as well, then think of other ways how to power some of your cities and threaten to destroy other nations.
How about you dropping that automatic moral superiority of yours? Your government bombed two countries without justification and wants to bomb a third. Iran hasn’t. Israel is actively starving the entirety of Gaza, which qualifies as collective punishment, a war crime under international law. And then you throw the hysterical claim through the air that Iran is the second Nazi Germany bent on slaughtering every Jew on Earth. But gee, I wonder where else in the Middle East Jews are leading normal lives and happy where they are other than Israel?
I swear to God if this discussion doesn’t end soon enough, then I’m ending it, myself. You have to come in terms with the fact that you’re not budging me any inch from my position, no matter how hard you try, nor have you ever succeeded in doing so. And I’ve had it with wasting your and my time over discussions that spiral over the same stories all over again whether or not they have something to do with the topic or not, and it’s something I have to notice every *§$/ing post that has remotely ANYTHING to do with politics or religion I write here. And it’s always in the pattern of: “NO, you’re WRONG because.. uhh.. because Israel is good!”. You can be glad I didn’t ban you long ago for exactly this reason.
Why don’t you post whatever you feel like telling me on your own blog, and bringing up whatever evidence you consider fit to “demolish” my viewpoint? It’ll surely make things more peaceful around here.
Are you joking? Afghanistan not justified? The Taliban was actively involved in arming and training al queda fighters, and had harbored Bin Laden. No justification??? I agree that Iraq might not have been justified – but even that was a war fought because Saddam was violating UN resolutions and harboring terrorists. (Zarqawi, most famously)
You know, it’s interesting you speak about Iranian Jews. Have you met any? I doubt it. I, on the other hand, am actively friends with an Iranian Jew who left Iran only a few years ago, and whose family is living in Iran as we speak. He spoke of the antisemitism in the media and schools. The discrimination. The second class treatment. The Iranian Jews executed with no due process because they were ‘allegedly’ spies for Israel. Iranian Jews can only live in Iran because the Iranian PEOPLE, as distinct from the government, are tolerant and would not tolerate their Jews being systematically destroyed. But that is no evidence of the greatness of the Iranian GOVERNMENT.
You insist that somehow Ahmadinejad has no ill will towards Israel – no desire to destroy a nation that is no threat to him at all. But then why is such an oil rich nation deciding to enrich uranium? Why the funding/arming/support for Hizballah/Hamas/Mahdi Army/etc? Hamas and Hizballah have goals of Jew annhilation – armed/funded by Iran. Why would they do that if they have no ill will towards Israel and are so peaceful? Why would they hold Death to America/Israel rallies? Why would their media be filled with such hate and lies towards Jews and the West?
What possible justification is there for any of this?
And why do you censor me whenever I point this out, which I am doing quite civilly, might I add?
Let me add that Gaza is an area that is actively attacking Israel. The Gaza citizens are not being starved – they are getting UN subsidies. But they have to pay for the actions of terrorists who, on a daily basis, attack Israel indiscriminately.
Why should Israel stand by as its nation has rockets rain down upon it? If it did, it would abdicate its duty to protect the citizens of its country.
The US is bombing Iraq. Bomb the entire US. (Your logic, not mine)
LMAO! Liar! Everybody who has been to Gaza (and I know a handful) would be appalled about what kind of parallel reality you’re living in.
Just for the fun: Go over to Haitham Sabbah’s blog and tell him that. I DARE you.
Aaaand that we call a violation of the Geneva Conventions and a War Crime.
The people in Gaza are just as responsible for whoever is firing rockets from wherever, just as you are responsible for the terrorists and war criminals that are running your government. So you either take the responsibility for your own atrocities, or admit that you’re talking rubbish.
So in the end, you’re a liar, and cheering on war crimes and disproportionate use of force. And yet you still ask me why I don’t want you here. Any comparisons with Charles Johnson will fall on deaf ears, because while he is happily banning people who search for previously banned users, expose his most psychotic minions, or whoever doesn’t echo his ideas with the rest of the group while harbouring swivel-eyed lunatics and genocidal maniacs that will proudly support war crimes against Middle Eastern countries, just as you’re doing, and letting them stay, despite all bogus threats to ban whoever advocates violence in that already-crawling-with-violent-sentiment dump of his.
I don’t want any of that here. It’s enough that I have to put up with all the logically-backwards stuff you constantly bring here, but when you think that atrocities like what Israel is doing in Gaza are good and dandy, that is where I draw the line. You claimed to be pro-Palestinian, well now I know that you don’t mind their civilians suffering or losing their futures or lives for something most of them aren’t involved in anyway and have no control over.
So off you go. Come back when you’re willing to admit that you were wrong. Thank God for comment moderation.
*point to one lie*
That is all I ask. You are libeling me on your blog. Point to a single lie.
You said Gazans aren’t being starved. That’s a fully fledged lie, and you’re spreading it. Go to Gaza and take a look for yourself if you’re so convinced that you’re right.
There goes your last chance. Farewell.
*corrected*. Now be gone and leave me alone.
Whoever this Olberman is- assuming he’s an American citizen – it’s comforting to know he can make these accusations, and hold his president accountable.
So, Bush is a liar ? what else is new ? Does that make mr. Ahmadinejad one bit more truthful ? And where are the Iranians who say things like this to him ? yes, you guessed it. They’re anywhere _but_ in Iran.
Yes, “we” in the West are told all kinds of terrible things about Iran. I can’t help but wonder what Iranians are told about “us”
Mr Sphinx and Ms. Tulips: you are one lovely couple
Is it all about winning the argument or winning each others hearts ?
Sorry, couldn’t resist..
Thanks Halalhippie! XD
I was just telling him the same thing yesterday.. That he and Red T. would really make a lovely couple.
*let’s just hope that he won’t ban us for saying that*
I’ll take my revenge on the both of you soon enough.. Well maybe not Halalhippie out of geographical reasons, but Nadia, wait till I get my hands on you when I’m back home
Don’t worry, I’ll be miiiles away!
Boy, you guys really get into it. Most of the guys that gave the WMD Intel are no longer there. Also, this report has gone through 16 different departments – I think it’s safe to say it’s pretty accurate. Lastly, it was Bush/Cheney’s decision to bend the facts of the original Intel about Iraq that got us in trouble.