This is amazing:
On Thursday in Cincinnati, Ohio, Cheney described Saddam as a “man who provided safe harbor and sanctuary to terrorists for years” and who “provided safe harbor and sanctuary as well for al Qaeda.”
In Wisconsin on Friday, he said the “al Qaeda organization had a relationship with the Iraqis.”
“The bottom line is that we’re [in Iraq] for the safety and security of the nation, and our friends and allies around the world,” Cheney said.
Not only is there no evidence of an Iraq/al Qaeda connection, but all available evidence indicates that the two were enemies. Cognitive dissonance is no longer a plausible explanation — it can no longer be doubted by anyone that Bush and Cheney are simply lying.
The worst part, I think, is that so much of the press continues to treat this as if it’s simply a difference in opinion — Vice President Cheney holds the opinion that Iraq was responsible for September 11th, and that is treated as valid as the opinion of flat-earthers or holocaust deniers. Organizations like Columbia Journalism Review have condemned the media for their spinelessness on this and similar matters writing, in part:
Why, Campaign Desk wonders, would editors at two of America’s most prominent newspapers let this pass? Maybe they’re part of that 50 percent of Americans who still labor under the same illusion as Cheney — final reports of the 9/11 Commission and the Senate Intelligence Committee notwithstanding. Somehow we doubt it. But we don’t doubt that this kind of lazy reporting and dozing-at-the-wheel editing is part of the reason that so many Americans do continue to think that Iraq had something to do with bin Laden’s plot.
I couldn’t agree more.