It always amazes when the MSM congeals an entire presidential administration into a form that posits that every member of that administration is the president. Like when they claim that "Bush Lied" about the faulty intelligence that led to the presentation to the UN to garner support for the action in Iraq given by then Secretary of State Colin Powell. Yet, when the MSM wants to exonerate a single member of any particular administration, suddenly the President is forgotten as a part of the discussion and the individual administration official the press is currently in love with is held as a man responsible for his own decisions and exonerated on that basis.
This week's new media darling is former CIA chief George Tenet, one of the worst directors of the CIA we've seen in decades. The MSM have suddenly found him to be an honorable and serious man because of his newly published Bush bashing tell-all.
Remember the calls that "Bush lied" about WMDs and that he "embarrassed" Powell by forcing him to present "lies" to the UN? It was all Bush's fault, of course and the entire administration knew ahead of time that there were no WMDs, according to this line of thinking. Granted, the buck does stop with the president and if any claims were incorrect he bears the ultimate responsibility for that error. But, shouldn't he ALSO get the credit if it were proven that he was right by all known information at the time?
Not according to ABC, apparently. Only Tenet gets credit for not presenting lies in a recent interview with Charles Gibson. The President is mysteriously not part of the discussion.
Starting their report reiterating that the WMD claims were untrue, ABC gives Tenet the chance to say how he "regrets" the Powell incident.
Former CIA director George Tenet told Charles Gibson he feels "great regret" when he looks back at the photos of Colin Powell at the United Nations, which were taken as the former secretary of state made the case for an Iraq invasion in 2003 and claimed Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.
...Powell's Feb. 6, 2003, U.N. speech, which led to the Iraq invasion, was based on what turned out to be false information from a fraudulent source regarding the existence of WMDs in Saddam Hussein's arsenal.
Of course, we all know that the WMD claim was NOT the sole reason given by the Bush administration as the reason to oust Saddam, but, hey, who needs truth when you've got what you think is a "good story"?
But, later they revisit the "Bush lied" scenario with Tenet.
...Tenet refutes accusations that he knew the data was false.
"That's just repugnant to me, I would never let the secretary of state … someone who I was very close to, who represented the United States of America, in front of the eyes of the world, go out there and make a false statement. Never," Tenet said.
..."It's really serious for someone to say the director and the deputy director, essentially, cooked the books to go make the case for war and didn't tell the secretary of state. There's no way on this God's green Earth that that would ever happen, none."
Well, there you have it. The Bush administration did not "lie" about Saddam's WMDs. They acted on intelligence that may have been faulty, yes, but they did not act on "lies".
As Tenet says, "We wrote what we believed, we stayed true to it."
But, as ABC gives Tenet the room to tell his story, the focus is on Tenet and not on the Administration like it was during the many "Bush lied" stories. And that is because they wish to present Tenet as the "honest" guy who was ignored by the President.... even though he wasn't.
So, on one hand "Bush lied" about WMDs, yet on the other Tenet acted on the best known info available at the time.
Well, it seems to make perfect sense that if Tenet was acting on information that they were all sure was quite correct at the time, then Bush did not "lie" when using that very same information.
Right?
Tell it to ABC.



















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Tenet - No Surprise
May 1, 2007 - 07:23 ET by JimboOn one level, I blame President Bush for this Tenet-run-amuck mess we now find ourselves in. As Warner points out, Tenet was one of the worst CIA directors to ever come down the pike. No surprise, really, since he presided over the Clinton years. The reason I blame the President, however, is for agreeing to allow him to stay on. He should have seen the writing on the wall with this one, and knew that that ass covering and back stabbing were traits of Tenet’s. The President should have done his homework and gotten some back channel and confidential feedback on him from another former Director of the CIA – his father.
Jimbo says - "There is a fine line between freedom of speech and treason"
Blame
May 1, 2007 - 07:37 ET by allanfA president shoulders responsibility for failings in his Administration. However the gleeful and mostly unsubtantiated attacks on President Bush from news media are the real issue.
For example during the "60 Minutes" interview with Tenet, Scott Pele said in a voice over that Joe Wilson had debunked the yellow cake story. That was said as fact, without attribution or mention of the Senate report which contradicts Wilson. He then turned to an "enraged" Tenet who criticized outing of his agents (Which it turns out was done by an acceptable and protected member of the MSM, Richard Armitage).
This kind of pseudo journalism is nothing more than propaganda. It makes the intelligent exchange ideas difficult. It is no wonder that liberals tend to get emotional in arguments. They listen to this garbage. Yet when the smoke clears, the pseudo journalists have not cited a single fact or reliable source.
Home to Roost
May 1, 2007 - 07:43 ET by JimboI agree that the relentless MSM attacks on the President are more than problematic.
However, specific to Tenet, the President should have seen him as a sub-par CIA Director, and that if push ever came to shove (which it probably would since he was sub-par), that Tenet’s allegiances were not with President Bush. There was enough information available to him to reach that conclusion if he wanted it.
Therefore, in my opinion, Tenet should not have lasted much longer than President Bush’s first inauguration. What is happening now is a poor decision by President Bush coming home to roost.
Jimbo says - "There is a fine line between freedom of speech and treason"
Jimbo, You are 100% right
May 1, 2007 - 07:51 ET by Warner Todd HustonJimbo,
You are 100% right and the long tenure that Bush allowed Tenet made me mad then and still does today. Bush should have fired his rear end as soon as he took office.
Tenet nearly destroyed the CIA with his multicultural BS and is responsible for the dearth of ability the CIA evinced as 9/11 was gearing up.
Tenet was a disaster for the CIA and the safety of this country.
But, BOY does the MSM love him.
Can't Win
May 1, 2007 - 08:58 ET by JimboObviously I agree completely, but having thought this through some more I don’t see how a Republican can ever win in a situation like this. Had President Bush fired Tenet immediately, (which he certainly should have done), 9/11 would still have happened 9 months later. And Tenet would still be hawking his book saying “I told Bush 9/11 was going to happen and he fired me for it!”
Sickening.
Jimbo says - "There is a fine line between freedom of speech and treason"
Why Tenet Stayed
May 1, 2007 - 10:16 ET by allanfThere is an interesting sidelight on why Tenet may have stayed on so long. As you my recall, President Bush's father was CIA Directory under President Ford. When Jimmy Carter took office he ended a long standing tradition and replaced CIA Directory Bush with Stansfield Turner.
The older Bush was hurt and perhaps President Bush was trying to make the position once again non-political.
AllanF – I suppose anything
May 1, 2007 - 10:26 ET by JimboAllanF – I suppose anything is possible when theorizing about what happens behind the scenes. If your theory is in fact what happened, I believe my previous comments about this being a poor choice by GWB are even more relevant. If he knowingly kept a sub par CIA Director on board to “make the position non political” then it was an awful decision making process and an even bigger mistake.
That said, I do not believe this is what happened. I don’t think President Bush saw Tenet for what he was, and thought there may be value in keeping an incumbent in the position.
What I truly do not understand is that the first President Bush admittedly still has many contacts within the CIA who I am certain were informing him of the disembowelment of the agency. Why Sr. did not pass that on to Jr. is beyond me.
Jimbo says - "There is a fine line between freedom of speech and treason"
Ingratiate
May 1, 2007 - 10:34 ET by allanfOften men like Tenet posess an exceptional ability to ingratiate themselves with people in power.
You point to one of Bush's
May 1, 2007 - 10:27 ET by MightyMouthYou point to one of Bush's strengths as well as his weakness. He genuinely places what is best for his country first, and politics second (or third). Problem is, he is dealing with a manical-ego-driven and political hungry group of Democrats who put politics above all else!
"There are two types of people in this country; those who provide freedom and those who enjoy it." MM says...
In a rare moment of weakness,
May 1, 2007 - 09:30 ET by Dee BunkIn a rare moment of weakness, I watched this stupid interview. Gibson is even more stupid than I thought. His questions lacked substance, had no probative value and showed a complete lack of understanding of the issues. I’m really glad I quit watching this junk.
The most egregious thing to me was the handling of the Iraq connection to terrorists. Gibson asked Tenet if their was a connection and Tenet said there was no ‘operational” control. There were two or three times that Tenet had to clarify when Gibson talked of no terror connection saying that there was no operational control. Gibson saw nothing in that distinction and didn’t feel the need to ask what he meant by “operational control” and didn’t think the audience deserved to know either. Now Tenet is covered when anyone throws evidence in his face (be assured it won’t be anyone in the MSM). He can say, “I said operational control”.
No operational control is far from being no connection. Operational control means that Iraq would have been giving the terrorists missions and/or directly participating in them. It doesn’t mean they didn’t give aide and comfort or support. The President never claimed that there was an operational relationship and even said it wasn’t likely that Hussein knew the details of the Sept 11 plot.
Giving safe haven is a connection (Zarqowi, Abas, Adal and others including Ansar al Islam group), giving money is a connection (suicide bombers families), having a truce because of a common enemy is a connection (stated in an Iraqi newspaper pre- Sept 11), having terrorist training camps is a connection (Solmon Pak), providing weapons or intent to provide them in the future is a connection. Those are a lot of connections none of which would be considered “operational”
The MSM were happy to report on all of these non-connections before they made the jump from the reasonable left to the far left. We saw pictures of the Salmon Pak training camps complete with airplane fuselage, we heard stories about Ansar Al Islam and their common purpose with Saddam against the Kurds, We heard about the various famous terrorists expelled from places like Syria and Libya but given safe haven in Iraq. Now all the sudden, mum is the word on those stories because they are not examples of “operational” control. Examples were never given by the Press or the President of operational control so why is it an issue now?
Operational Contol
May 1, 2007 - 09:37 ET by JimboIt’s an issue now because the liberal and MSM’s position until recently was that there was no link to terrorism in Iraq. Now that it is known that the connections you describe did in fact exist, the liberals and the MSM can do one of two things. They can a) abandon the idea of trying to advance the idea that there was no connection (which would require them to admit they were wrong), or b) morph their previous talking point to be “operational control” which allows them to continue to hammer away on the point without most people ever knowing the difference.
Jimbo says - "There is a fine line between freedom of speech and treason"
BOY WHO CRIED "WOLF" TELLS TRUTH!
May 1, 2007 - 11:08 ET by fenderteleWASHINGTON, D.C.(Reuters)-- In a surprise move today, the boy who has repeatedly cried "wolf" over the tenure of his appointment as sheepherder, has allegedly finally told the truth. The truth however, was obfuscated by the inordinate amount of lying the boy has done over the past six-plus years. In fact, the boy's lies have been so outlandish during this time, it cannot be certain he has told the truth at all.
His sheep contend that he has kept them safe for the entire time, although they seem to ignore the thousands of their flock who have been not only killed, but maimed and injured for life as well. One of them commented: "Many of us have been killed, but isn't that an occupational hazard of being a sheep? The boy has kept us safe and as long as I'm alive that's all I care about". Other shepards have been appalled at the boy's lack of experience an knowledge dealing with circumstances like these and are starting to take steps to limit his ability to lead his flock into these fatal situations.
fendertele...Great article on
May 1, 2007 - 11:12 ET by Clear thinkerfendertele...
Great article on Harry Reid.
Thanks!
The liberal MSM has become an enemy of the USA.
Fendertele is sick - implying
May 1, 2007 - 11:16 ET by Dee BunkFendertele is sick - implying that 9/11 victims were sheep is shameless. They can't help it that the previous administration told them that terrorists could be handled with law enforcement alone. It had not hit home yet so it was completely understandable how they were led into a false security. The sheep who still believe - well that is a different story.
Lambs
May 1, 2007 - 11:19 ET by JimboActually, wasn’t it the 9/11 terrorists themselves that called the victims lambs for slaughter?
Jimbo says - "There is a fine line between freedom of speech and treason"
Right Jimbo and I guess they
May 1, 2007 - 12:00 ET by Dee BunkRight Jimbo and I guess they do know some things because they also said we wouldn't be able to sustain casualties and would cower and leave. That is exactly what the dems are trying to do. Act like sheep again. They are so easily herded because they don't like being bit at the ankles. If they were smart they would realize that they could put up with a little pain and trample the dogs. Instead they go right where they are told and wait for the next directive.
Huh?
May 1, 2007 - 11:12 ET by JimboAm I mistaken or is this a tedious and long winded way of saying “Bush Lied & People Died”?
Jimbo says - "There is a fine line between freedom of speech and treason"
Jimbo - no it's his way of sa
May 1, 2007 - 11:18 ET by Dee BunkJimbo - no it's his way of saying that Clinton Lied People Died.
Mmmmmm. Maimed sheep.... On t
May 1, 2007 - 14:22 ET by Roger the ShrubberMmmmmm. Maimed sheep.... On the grill... Yummy.
If indeed Mr. Tenant was &quo
May 1, 2007 - 14:16 ET by j. frank wilsonIf indeed Mr. Tenant was "one of the worst CIA directors we've seen in decades" (1.) Why did President Bush hire him? (2.) Why didn't President Bush fire him? and (3.) Why did President Bush present him with the Presidential Medal of Freedom?
1) Bush didn't hire him, goog
May 1, 2007 - 14:36 ET by Ruths husband Ben1) Bush didn't hire him, google it yourself. 2) don't know, maybe he was under the impression that the one who hired him knew what he was doing (apparently mistaken, heh?). 3) now this is a real mystery.
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