Permit me one more morsel from the Geoff Dickens basket of bias. Today's Matt Lauer interview with Tim Russert naturally followed Katie's space trip with Ramsey Clark. Amazingly, Matt said Clark's lawyering for Saddam was a problem for....Bush? What? Isn't Clark's lawyering an embarassment for Democrats? Doesn't his resume say he was an attorney general for a Democratic president, who ran as a Democrat for the U.S. Senate in 1974? Apparently, none of that matters when everything is Another Problem for Bush:
Lauer: "Let's talk about what Mr. Clark said. Interesting you know he said that the
U.S./>/> has tried to demonize Saddam Hussein. He says he doesn't recognize demons only human beings. You can do anything you want to a demon they have no rights. How much does Ramsey Clark complicate this issue for the administration?" Russert: "Well considerably Matt. The administration clearly wanted this to be a showcase trial to put Saddam out there and to charge him with all these various allegations about the behavior towards his own people and then to use that as a suggestion to rationalize in part the war in
Iraq/>/>. What Saddam did is kind of break out of that cast and try to take over the trial. And many Iraqis and many U.S./>/> officials were quite concerned that the judge in the trial wasn't being stern enough with Mr., Mr. Hussein." Lauer: "So how important is it for the administration that the trial at least appears to get back on track and that it's the court running the proceedings and not Saddam Hussein and his lawyers."
Russert: "Very. And the fact that Saddam Hussein has decided not to participate at this point is probably a net plus in terms of the administration because the trial can go forward without him and without his attempt to put forth 'propaganda,' quote, unquote as they've described it."
Isn't that nice? When America's officials speak (or make video news releases in federal agencies), it's propaganda, pure and simple. But when Saddam pounds the table, it's propaganda in distancing quote marks, as in suuure, that's the U.S. spin, if you want to accept that.
