On the June 16 edition of MSNBC’s Jansing and Co., guest host Craig Melvin channeled far-left anti-war opinion in his questioning of Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.). While the left has been persistent in their arguments that the Iraq War was the ultimate cause of the current conflict, Melvin was willing to take things a step further.
Melvin posed quite the loaded question to Whitehouse: “Senator, is what we’re seeing unfold right now in Iraq, is it–is it sort of chickens coming home to roost? I mean, is this a failure of U.S. policy in Iraq? Is that what we’re seeing bear out?” [MP3 audio here; video below]
The Rhode Island Senator offered a rather predictable response, arguing that “the original sin was going in there in the first place...based on bad evidence about weapons of mass destruction and, frankly, a lot of propaganda about how Saddam Hussein was supporting Al-Qaeda.”
Of course, one may point out that Melvin was simply asking a question of Senator Whitehouse. However, it is revealing that Melvin’s line of questioning has a distinctly left-wing slant, based on the supposition that America–specifically, President Bush’s decision to go to war in Iraq–is ultimately to blame for Iraq’s unfolding collapse.
Rather than analyzing the multitude of factors that could explain the rise of ISIS in Iraq–premature American withdrawal, the incompetence from the Nouri Al-Maliki led Iraqi government, among other things–the Jansing and Co. guest host seemingly sought confirmation of the idea that America is to blame for the current developments in Iraq. Unsurprisingly, Melvin failed to note that President Obama’s insistence upon a hasty exit from Iraq may have played a critical role in destabilizing the region.
The relevant portion of the transcript is below:
MSNBC
Jansing and Co.
June 16, 2014
10:36 a.m. Eastern
CRAIG MELVIN, host: Senator, is what we're seeing unfold right now in Iraq, is it–is it sort of chickens coming home to roost? I mean, is this a failure of U.S. policy in Iraq? Is that what we're seeing bear out?SHELDON WHITEHOUSE (D-R.I.): Well, the original sin was going in there in the first place, and then there was some very poor judgments made about disassembling the Iraqi army and the Ba’ath government which basically stripped it of virtually all of the governmental structure, and into those vacancies came a lot of violence and we had to put that down. So this the end of a long story. But it began with, really, I think our original sin which was going in in the first place based on bad evidence about weapons of mass destruction and, frankly, a lot of propaganda about how Saddam Hussein was supporting Al-Qaeda, which was exactly the opposite from true.
