Davids Medienkritik: Saddam's WMD: Fake but Accurate?

The discussion surrounding the CBS forgery scandal has taken another interesting turn. In light of the overwhelming evidence that the documents are indeed forgeries, they are hardly being contested, even by left-wing media. There have also been no attempts made to rescue the journalistic reputation of Dan Rather.

But in order to hold onto a shred of the original momentum of the CBS campaign against Bush, the claim is now being made that: The documents were indeed false, but their content was true. "Fake but accurate."

Let's apply this revolutionary "fake but accurate" concept to other areas of politics.

Like Saddam’s WMDs for example.

That could look a little something like this:

CBS:

Acknowledging questions raised about documents suggesting lapses in President Bush's fight against Iraq's WMD, CBS News promised a full-court effort to determine their authenticity while standing by its story.
"We will keep an open mind and we will continue to report credible evidence and responsible points of view as we try to answer the questions raised ...," CBS News Anchor Dan Rather said on 60 Minutes on Wednesday.

But Rather said CBS' critics have never attacked the thrust of the network's story: that Saddam had tried to acquire WMD in the past and had used chemical weapons against Iraqi people and in the war against Iran.

"If we uncover any information to the contrary, rest assured we shall report that also," the embattled anchor said.

CBS:

The editorial content of the report was not based solely on the physical documents, but also on numerous credible sources who supported what the documents said.
Through all of the frenzied debate of the past week, the basic content of the 60 MINUTES Wednesday report - that Saddam had tried to acquire nuclear material in the past and had used chemical weapons against Iraqi people and in the war against Iran — has not been substantially challenged.

Washington Post:

CBS News President Andrew Heyward defended the work that went into the WMD story. "I feel that we did a tremendous amount of reporting before the story went on the air or we wouldn't have put it on the air," Heyward said last night. "But we want to get to the bottom of these unresolved issues," .... "There's such a ferocious debate about these documents."

New York Times:

Memos on Saddam's WMD Are Fake but Accurate, Typist Says
The secretary for Saddam Hussein said Tuesday that she never typed the documents and believed that they are fakes.

But she also said they accurately reflect the thoughts of Saddam Hussein, and other memorandums she typed for him about WMD.

SPIEGEL ONLINE:

The documents were supposed to expose Saddam once and for all as a mass murderer. Now, however, there are increasing signs that they were as amateurishly forged as once the Hitler diaries. …what is fading away into the darkness is the fact that the accusations remain true at their core.

(quotes in italics were added to the original reports)

Of course, you'll never see - and never have seen - any such reports in the world of left-wing media. It just wouldn't happen: Acknowledging that Saddam Hussein was a danger to the world who needed to be contained, and that any inaccuracies or mishaps or even fakes in presenting the case against Saddam are completely of miniscule importance, compared to the monstrosities of his system.

The "fake but accurate" argument will be used by the media once and only once: as a desperate attempt to save the smoldering remains of an anti-Bush campaign that exploded in the face of biased journalism.

(Translation by Ray D.)

Comments

BUSTED!!!!!!!!!!!

Check out Drudge.

Not only fake - but NOT accurate

We were misled.

Chalk a biggie up for the American blogosphere.

Posted by: Sandy P | September 20, 2004 at 08:43 AM

Has anyone found proove that Saddam owned WMD at the time of the invasion ?

Posted by: Junge | September 20, 2004 at 12:09 PM

Junge,

Small amounts.

There is proof he had a dormant nuclear weapons program.

There are suggestions a lot of WMDs were shipped across the border into Syria in the months before the invasion.

For a number of links on this, see Fishkite, a blog dedicated to this. If you look at the right sidebar under "What We've Found" there are a number of links that lead to articles covering this.

Posted by: a guy in pajamas | September 20, 2004 at 03:44 PM

Now CBS is spinning the document scandal as just another example of the evil doings of the "vast right wing conspiracy." Ahaah! One of the persons who first noticed the documents were fake may have had Republican connections! Sooo!

According to CBS' latest gambit, "An Internet writer considered the first to accuse CBS News of using fake documents in its report on President Bush's National Guard service is an Atlanta lawyer with strong ties to Republican causes, a newspaper reported Saturday."

I see. Evidently the logic here is, if a Republican notices that documents are forged, than they must actually be real, because, as we all know, all Republicans are evil. I certainly hope that Einstein and Planck didn't have previously unknown ties to the Republican Party. It would call the Theory of Relativity and Quantum Mechanics into question.

Later in the article we read, "The revelation could fuel speculation among Democrats that Republicans have orchestrated efforts to debunk the CBS News story." Right, all CBS is trying to do is inform the American people about the content of "speculation among Democrats." They themselves are completely disinterested in the matter. These people are like the Paris fashions. They revel in ridicule.

I understand CBS is preparing another of its famous "statements" on the scandal. Perhaps they've finally realized the stonewall is not going to work. I predict they and the rest of the leftist "usual suspects" will continue to try to fob it all off as a "Republican dirty trick." It won't fly. CBS rushed to report on unauthenticated documents they hoped would hurt Bush and the Republicans, then tried to stonewall when the documents were exposed as fakes. Those are the facts, and they will remain the facts even if it turns out the documents were planted by UFO aliens.

Posted by: helian | September 20, 2004 at 03:52 PM

Junge --

We know without a shadow of a doubt that Saddam _had_ chemical weapns, because he has used them in the past -- on his own people, no less. Beyond that, he had shown intent to maintain his weapons programs, and gave no reason to believe that he had gotten rid of them. (If he had demonstrated to the UN that he had gotten rid of them, he would probably still be in power.)

All this is beside the point of the article, except to say that, if anything, there was _strong evidence_ that he had them, but CBS's reporting on the matter was mysteriously somwhat different than now, when there is (at the least) _strong evidence_ that the memos are fake.

Posted by: Strider | September 20, 2004 at 04:36 PM

The stated reasons for war where WMD were concerned, was not that he had them, but could have them and was willing to use them.
If memory serves the WMD issue was minor compared to the assistance, training, and funding of terror networks.
It was whipped up by anti-war groups to be the big issue, even though it was not the big issue to the US.

Posted by: Joe N. | September 20, 2004 at 05:56 PM

CBS finally caves on Memogate. Furthermore, they identify Democrat Party activist Bill Burkett as the source.

There is surely a lesson here for Europeans who have ever taken seriously the spin in Germany and elsewhere that the US mass media are "right wing" or "in lock-step with the Bush Administration." CBS News, one of the biggest networks in the US, received documents from a man they knew to be a Democratic Party activist. They knew these documents, if genuine, would severely hurt the President in his bid for reelection. They still published them, without making any serious attempt to authenticate them. When they were quickly revealed as forgeries by numerous bloggers, CBS stonewalled for over a week. They continued stonewalling, pretending there was still a "question" about the authenticity of the documents, long after it had become virtually certain that the documents were forgeries. The other major US networks and newspapers, with a few outstanding exceptions, were slow to challenge CBS, or to independently attempt to investigate the story.

In a word, the claim that the US media are "right wing" or "pro-Bush" does not constitute "objective criticism," nor does it correspond even remotely with reality. It is a statement of ideology rather than a statement of fact.

Chalk up a big one for the blogosphere.

Posted by: helian | September 20, 2004 at 07:07 PM

dan rather just came clean with his own memo saying he, not bush is an idiot and documents were indeed a forgery.
re: WMD- it was up to saddam to PROVE that HE did NOT have them.
The WMD are throughout the region, as exposed thru dr kahn, Libya, syria. Now for anyone to even think that Iran (being a few months away from it's own nuke capability), was not matched in other WMD methods by the ahole hussein living next door in iraq, is nuts. It would be like saddam hanging out watching his fellow freak sheiks developing these weapons via Kahn and others- and than NOT sitting on any himself.
you would then have to be foolish to think saddam did not ship off HIS stockpile to others in the region. No one can tell me saddam, Uday and friends simply buried, burnt or snorted the 20 tons of anthrax the UN *spit* said they possesed and which inspectors had seen. Hmm, maybe it was shipped to syria, or no, perhaps it was Iran as Iran was given all iraqi jets during first gulf war... maybe it is in a special, hidden 1000s of meters below the ground deutsch-made bunker?
we'll all find out soon enough.
Who among the press will then be shamed for what they have done over the last 2.5 years with their sophmoric writings?
BBC down by verdict
NYT down by verdict and resignations
CBS down by own admission now
Dan Rather retires by this friday.
Whose next?

Posted by: Pato | September 20, 2004 at 08:10 PM

..now germany's newest friend (for the world stage view)the damn intellectually crippled and backwards french is seen as having some influence on the existence of iraq "wmd" purchases..
http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/09/19/wniger19.xml

Posted by: Pato | September 20, 2004 at 08:25 PM

Burkett's the go-between.

With his history out there since 97-98 if not before, he cannot be considered the "unimpeachable" source.

His atty "theoretically" admitted to same. See powerline, allahpundit, indc journal ratherbiased and other sites.

Patsy.

Fall guy.

Stay tuned.

Posted by: Sandy P | September 20, 2004 at 08:36 PM

@ Sandy P

If Rather meant Burkett when he used the term "unimpeachable source", then he is even more stupid than all this makes him look.

And therefore I think you are right, he is not that stupid and hence he did not mean Burkett. There must have been someone else who vouched for the docs' authenticity, someone who Rather thought was "unimpeachable".

That would also explain his stonewalling this past week and might mean that we have as yet only seen the proverbial tip of the iceberg.

Posted by: HM | September 20, 2004 at 09:14 PM

“There are a number of serious questions that remain unanswered and they need to be answered. Bill Burkett, who CBS now says was their source, is not an unimpeachable sources, as CBS claimed. There are news reports of Burkett having senior level contact with the kerry campaign. That raises questions. What were those contacts and what was discussed? Who is the original source of the documents? Who is responsible for forging the documents?”

Scott McLellan, White House Press Secretary

Posted by: HM | September 20, 2004 at 09:18 PM

Brilliant analysis!!!

Posted by: Blue | September 20, 2004 at 11:53 PM

Spot on dude(s)!

Another twist - Authenic, but false; John Kerry's self-written reports (authenic naval documents)that led to two medals and two Purple Hearts (the third PH isn't disputed, only questioned in light of the other fairy tales).

Posted by: MaDr | September 21, 2004 at 12:27 AM

Dan done fessed up. A day late and a dollar short.

Posted by: Joe Rousé | September 21, 2004 at 03:23 AM

Document Dan didn't really fess up, that was no apology.

He might think it was, but Killian's son wants an apology.

It's not over, it's moving up the Skerry foodchain.

Posted by: Sandy P | September 21, 2004 at 08:29 AM

'unimpeachable'? Of course he's unimpeachable. He doesn't hold federal office, therefor cannot be impeached!

Posted by: Don | September 21, 2004 at 11:45 PM

Startling proof today that the editors of SPON are pulling the strings at CNN. A CNN headline reads, "Kerry says Bush has lost credibility." It happens I've been keeping a "Bush Glaubwuerdigkeitsmesser" based on SPON's reporting for some time now. It turns out that SPON has recorded Bush's "total loss of credibility" 179 times in the last four years. I suppose it's just a "coincidence" that now CNN has also discovered the "credibility" gap. Does the "vast left wing conspiracy" seem so ridiculous now, my friends, hmmmm? The astounding thing in all this is how fast Bush's credibility seems to grow back. A few days after SPON reports its "total loss," voila!, it's there again, like the proverbial cat, and SPON again informs its readers of its "total loss," and so on. The dizzying Bush "credibility cycle" repeats itself again.

Posted by: Helian | September 22, 2004 at 12:07 PM

Posted by: | June 10, 2005 at 12:44 PM

Posted by: | June 10, 2005 at 01:26 PM

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