Posted on 09/25/2006 6:09:05 PM PDT by Kaslin
Chris Wallace wasn't the only one interviewing Billy Jeff yesterday.
MR. RUSSERT: The second year of the Clinton Global Initiative. What did you achieve this year?
MR. RUSSERT: Do people keep their commitments?
MR. RUSSERT: And you focus on poverty, religious and ethnic conflict, energy and climate change, and global public health.
MR. RUSSERT: People make a commitment to invest in one of those programs...
MR. RUSSERT: ...somewhere in the world?
MR. RUSSERT: Time is important, almost as important as money.
MR. RUSSERT: Up 60 percent in one year.
MR. RUSSERT: If it worked in Afghanistan, you could roll it out around other countries.
MR. RUSSERT: As we sit here in September of 2006, what do you think is the biggest problem confronting our world? The biggest?
MR. RUSSERT: As you travel around the world, what do people say about the image of the United States?
MR. RUSSERT: What did you think when Colin Powell said, “The world is beginning to doubt the moral basis of our fight against terrorism”?
MR. RUSSERT: Would you outlaw waterboarding and sleep deprivation, loud music, all those kinds of tactics?
MR. RUSSERT: Two weeks ago, Vice President Cheney was on this program, and I said to him that we’ve spent $300 billion on Iraq. Now in hindsight, could that money, that $300 billion, been spent more effectively in other places?
MR. RUSSERT: You said the Iraq—Iraq was a mistake. Why?
MR. RUSSERT: You did.
MR. RUSSERT: You say, “We may have to decide it’s a lost cause.” How close are we to declaring it a lost cause?
MR. RUSSERT: After the 2002 midterm elections, you said that Democrats “failed to offer a convincing case that they could manage national security during difficult times.” Do you think the Democrats have made the case in 2006?
MR. RUSSERT: You said that you weren’t sure that if Hillary Clinton, Senator Clinton, ran for president, she’d win. I’m curious why you said that. And if she does run, are you, are your family ready for an intense, perhaps even negative campaign?
MR. RUSSERT: Would you be ready for an intense negative campaign again?
Now compare the questions Tim Russert asked Vice President Cheney on Meet The Press September 10, 2006
MR. RUSSERT: Mr. Vice President, today—tomorrow marks the fifth anniversary of September 11, and in many ways marks the beginning of the war on terrorism. Three years ago the secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld, wondered out loud, are we creating or recruiting more terrorists than we are killing? What do you think, five years later? Are there more terrorists now than there were five years ago?
MR. RUSSERT: It’s interesting. Here’s what the American people said in a recent poll. Is the U.S. involvement in Iraq or Afghanistan creating more terrorists or eliminating terrorists? And look at that. Overwhelmingly, 54 percent, clear majority, believe we are creating more terrorists.
TEXT:
U.S. INVOLVEMENT IN IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN
CREATING MORE TERRORISTS 54%
ELIMINATING TERRORISTS 15%
The New York Times CBS/Poll
MR. RUSSERT: But in Afghanistan, the—one of the British commanders there, Richards, said that 70 percent of the Afghan people are undecided, that we only have until the end of the year to secure that country, that the Taliban is back, that the opium crop has increased 60 percent. We have not secured Afghanistan.
MR. RUSSERT: Let me stay on Afghanistan, because the front page of The Washington Post today, bin Laden, the trail is stone cold, according to intelligence officials. Do you agree with that?
MR. RUSSERT: But this stuff here is real important. This article says that in 2002, the U.S. pulled its Special Operation forces out of Afghanistan and, and really did lower down the volume in seeking—in going after Osama, which is at the exact time that President Bush said, “I don’t spend much time on him,” talking about bin Laden.
MR. RUSSERT: Pakistan has now a peace pact with the terrorists in the area where we think bin Laden is, creating what Richard Clarke, the former White House adviser on terrorism, calls a “sanctuary.” And reports from the RAND Corporation that the Pakistan CIA, the ISI, are in...
MR. RUSSERT: Yeah, are in cahoots with the Taliban. So if the Pakistanis aren’t willing to seek bin Laden, and have a peace pact with the terrorists, where are we?
MR. RUSSERT: Many people look at Afghanistan and say, “Oh, we’re—if we had not been distracted by Iraq, we could have secured Afghanistan, we—it would not be a narco state,” which it, it’s on the verge of becoming, with 60 percent increase in opium, “and we took our eye off the ball.”
MR. RUSSERT: It is Iraq, however, that the president has said is the central front in the war on terror. This is what he said...
MR. RUSSERT: This is what he said on August 31, 2006. Let’s watch it for the record.
MR. RUSSERT: And yet if you ask the American people, is the war in Iraq a part of the war on terror, this is what they now say: 46 yes, 53 percent, a majority, say it is not part of the war on terror.
MR. RUSSERT: But Mr. Vice President, the primary rationale giving—given for the war in Iraq was Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. You—on August of 2002, this is what you told the VFW. Let’s just watch it.
MR. RUSSERT: In fact, there is grave doubt, because they did not exist along the lines that you described, the president described, and others described. Based on what you know now, that Saddam did not have the weapons of mass destruction that were described, would you still have gone into Iraq?
MR. RUSSERT: So if the CIA said to you at that time, “Saddam does not have weapons of mass destruction, his chemical and biological have been degraded, he has no nuclear program under way,” you’d still invade Iraq?
MR. RUSSERT: But the rationale was he had it. A growing threat. All the while, North Korea, which had one or two potential bombs in 2000 when you came into office, now has double or triple that amount. So again, you took your eye off of North Korea to focus on Iraq.
MR. RUSSERT: But let’s look at what you told me on that morning of September 16, 2001, when I asked you about Saddam Hussein. Let’s watch.
MR. RUSSERT: You said Saddam Hussein was bottled up.
MR. RUSSERT: And he was not linked in any way to September 11.
MR. RUSSERT: And now we have the Select Committee on Intelligence coming out with a report on Friday, it says here, “A declassified report released [Friday] by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence revealed that U.S. intelligence analysts were strongly disputing the alleged links between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda while senior Bush administration officials were publicly asserting those links to justify invading Iraq.”
You said here that it was pretty well confirmed that Atta may have had a meeting in Prague, that that was credible. All the while, according to the Senate Intelligence Committee in January and in June and in September, the CIA was saying that wasn’t the case. And then the president...
MR. RUSSERT: No, go ahead.
MR. RUSSERT: OK, but, but you said it was pretty well confirmed that it was credible and now the Senate Intelligence Committee says not true, The CIA was waving you off.
MR. RUSSERT: Any suggestion there was a meeting with Mohamed Atta, one of the hijackers, with Iraqi officials?
MR. RUSSERT: Well, I asked you, I said, “is there a connection between Saddam and 9/11 on September ‘03” and you said “we don’t know.”
MR. RUSSERT: So you raised that possibility.
MR. RUSSERT: All right. Now the president has been asked, “What did Iraq have to do with the attack on the World Trade Center?” and he said “nothing.” Do you agree with that?
MR. RUSSERT: So it’s case, case closed.
MR. RUSSERT: And the meeting with Atta did not occur?
MR. RUSSERT: Then why, in the lead-up to the war, was there the constant linkage between Iraq and al-Qaeda?
MR. RUSSERT: But the president said they were working in concert, giving the strong suggestion to the American people that they were involved in September 11th.
MR. RUSSERT: The committee said that there was no relationship. In fact...
MR. RUSSERT: But Mr. Vice President, the bottom line is...
MR. RUSSERT: The bottom line is, the rationale given the American people was that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and he could give those weapons of mass destruction to al-Qaeda and we could have another September 11. And now we read that there is no evidence, according to the Senate Intelligence Committee, of that relationship. You’ve said there’s no involvement. The president says there’s no involvement.
MR. RUSSERT: In September 11, OK. The CIA said, leading up to the war, that the possibility of Saddam using weapons of mass destruction was “low.” It appears that there was a deliberate attempt made by the administration to link al-Qaeda in Iraq in the minds of the American people and use it as a rationale to go into Iraq.
MR. RUSSERT: The American people have now pretty much made their views of the war known. We asked them, “The Iraq war, is it worth it?” And look at this: 39 percent say worth it, 59 percent—nearly six in 10--say not worth it. The president has said we will stay the course...
MR. RUSSERT: ...complete the mission, finish the job. How do you define victory? And why have the American people turned against the war?
MR. RUSSERT: But the alternative view is that this has been a fundamental set of misjudgment, there were no weapons of mass destruction, there was no linkage of Iraq to September 11 and that there’s a, there’s a disconnect between rhetoric and reality. I want to go back to May 30, 2005, when you said to the American people and to the world, “I think the level of activity [in Iraq] that we see today, from a military standpoint, I think will clearly decline. I think they’re in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency.”
MR. RUSSERT: Since that time, Mr. Vice President, look at this. Between the beginning of the war and May 30 when you made that statement, we had 1,656 deaths in Iraq. There are now a thousand more American servicemen. There are 7,500 more wounded and injured. There are 20,000 more dead Iraqis. Wasn’t it a flat-out mistake to say we were in the last throes of the insurgency?
MR. RUSSERT: Exactly the same thing?
MR. RUSSERT: Leading up to the war, three days before the war, you were on this program and I asked you a question.
MR. RUSSERT: And I asked you about an analysis of what could occur.
MR. RUSSERT: Let’s just watch, and we’ll talk about it.
MR. RUSSERT: If your analysis is not correct, and we’re not treated as liberators, but as conquerors, and the Iraqis begin to resist, particularly in Baghdad, do you think the American people are prepared for a long, costly and bloody battle with a—significant American casualties?
MR. RUSSERT: In fact, it did unfold that way. It has been a long, costly and bloody war.
MR. RUSSERT: And...
MR. RUSSERT: But again, wasn’t your judgment overly rosy? “Greeted as liberators.” Now we’re not...
MR. RUSSERT: But I said what about a long, costly, bloody battle, and you said it’s unlikely to unfold that way.
MR. RUSSERT: Mr. Vice President, Tommy Franks, when he landed in Iraq, had a meeting and said, “All right, stop making plans, we’re going down to 30,000 troops at the end of this year in 2003.” There was a view of the administration that you were going to walk in, topple the government, and that was it. And now, three and a half years later, we are in Iraq for a long, long time, with 2,500 deaths, 20,000 wounded and injured. There were some fundamental misjudgments made.
MR. RUSSERT: Three hundred billion dollars spent so far. The Congressional Budget Office says if we stay in Iraq through the end of 2009, it’ll be a half trillion dollars. In all candor, could that $300 billion we’ve spent so far in Iraq not have been better spent securing Afghanistan, improving airline security, having technology for gels and liquids so people can get on without being nervous? Our cargo in our ports. Could that $300 billion have not been better spent securing our nation against terrorists rather than in Iraq?
MR. RUSSERT: But could it have been better spent?
MR. RUSSERT: But the Commission on 9/11 says that we get D’s and F’s.
People with...
MR. RUSSERT: People with radios in police departments can’t—in D.C. cannot talk to Alexandria. Four-fifths of the mayors say they can’t communicate with their localities. People can’t carry toothpaste and shampoo on planes. The administration cut $6 million—or tried to—out of funding to screen those kind of things...
MR. RUSSERT: ...and—rather than spending the money in Iraq.
MR. RUSSERT: But ambassador—U.S. ambassador to Iraq said it’s not foreign terrorists that are the biggest threat in Iraq, it is a sectarian war, Sunnis killing Shiites, Shiites killing Sunnis. And we are now...
MR. RUSSERT: But...
MR. RUSSERT: But Mr. Vice President, the president of the United States said Hezbollah has killed more Americans than any other terrorist organization than al-Qaeda. The largest demonstration in favor of Hezbollah was in Iraq. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis on the street supporting Hezbollah. I asked the foreign minister of Iraq, “Is Hezbollah a terrorist organization?” He said, “I can’t make that judgment.”
The parliament, the speaker of the parliament, Dennis Hastert of Iraq, Tip O’Neill of Iraq, said it was the Jews that were causing the violence. What are we creating in Iraq? I ask you again, what is victory? What is staying the course? What is winning?
MR. RUSSERT: Have we, have we created a fundamentalist Islamic regime in Iraq?
MR. RUSSERT: The prime minister of Iraq is going where tomorrow? Iran.
MR. RUSSERT: If, if you go to southern Iran, Richard Engel, our correspondent, has been there for three years, they answer the phone in the hotels in Persian. Iran has built an airport in Najaf. They built a railroad in Najaf in Iraq. Who has more influence with Iraq? Iran or the U.S.?
MR. RUSSERT: But you’ve also lost—you’ve also lost a buffer to Iran, and that’s what I’m going to come back and talk about, if I could.
MR. RUSSERT: And we’re back with the vice president of the United States, Dick Cheney. Let me show you what Mr. Khatami from Iran, visiting the United States, had to say and read it to you and our viewers.
“Former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami warned that U.S. military action in the Middle East has backfired, producing greater terrorism, imperiling the future of Iraq and damaging America’s long-term interests.
“But the danger of even great instability in the region will ultimately prevent the U.S. from launching military strikes against Iran over disputes about its nuclear intentions, he predicted. ...
“America will not make the” same “mistake of attacking Iran. ... Iran is not Iraq.” Is he right?
MR. RUSSERT: How do you stop them?
MR. RUSSERT: Will we do anything to stop the Iranians from having a nuclear bomb?
MR. RUSSERT: Is there a problem with our country and the world if the president came forward and said, “I have intelligence which says Iran is this far advanced,” and people in the world and the people in the country say, “Is that the same intelligence that you had on Iraq, Mr. President?”
MR. RUSSERT: But you rejected their intelligence leading up to Iraq.
MR. RUSSERT: I asked you on this very program...
MR. RUSSERT: ...about ElBaradei and you said he’s wrong.
MR. RUSSERT: But he was right about Iraq.
MR. RUSSERT: Do we have the military wherewithal to take out the Iranian program?
MR. RUSSERT: What about North Korea? Do we have the military capability..
MR. RUSSERT: But their, but their potential has increased three- and fourfold. Our estimates are now they could build 12 nuclear bombs.
MR. RUSSERT: Let me turn back home, domestic politics, and talk about the whole situation involving Scooter Libby, your former chief of staff, who was indicted by Patrick Fitzgerald. This was a document that was released in the investigation. It’s a New York Times op-ed piece with your handwriting on it. And that handwriting says, “Or did his wife send him on a junket?” referring to Ambassador Joe Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame, who was a CIA, CIA agent. Did you, in any way, authorize Scooter Libby to release her name or her occupation to the press?
MR. RUSSERT: There was a story in the National Journal that Cheney authorized Libby to leak confidential information. Can you confirm or deny that?
MR. RUSSERT: Could you declassify Valerie Plame’s status as an operative?
MR. RUSSERT: Do you think the president should pardon Scooter Libby?
MR. RUSSERT: You wouldn’t support a pardon?
MR. RUSSERT: How about Richard Armitage, who’s come forward and said that he was the original source for Robert Novak some years ago?
MR. RUSSERT: Are you upset or concerned..
MR. RUSSERT: The New York Times today, “Cheney’s power no longer goes unquestioned,” suggesting that your support of issues regarding the treatment and prosecution of terror suspects, of the national NSA surveillance eavesdropping policy, has weakened your influence within the White House.
VICE PRES. CHENEY: Is that a question?MR. RUSSERT: Yes, sir. Has it?
MR. RUSSERT: Were you?
MR. RUSSERT: When you were on this program, you did talk about being on the dark side, that we’re going to have to get involved intelligence and do some things with shady characters and so forth. Is that what we’ve done the last five years?
MR. RUSSERT: But the Supreme Court did tell you you needed congressional authority.
MR. RUSSERT: But no regret over the treatment of, of the suspects:
waterboarding, some of the—loud music—some of the other techniques used?
MR. RUSSERT: Did they help in any...
MR. RUSSERT: Did it help in any way with the London terror plot?
MR. RUSSERT: Mm-hmm.
MR. RUSSERT: There is a report in the papers today that the Republican Campaign Committee of the House is going to spend $50 million between now and the midterm elections, and 90 percent of that money is on negative advertising against the Democratic opponents. Is that appropriate?
MR. RUSSERT: No fears?
MR. RUSSERT: No concerns?
MR. RUSSERT: And you’re fully confident you’ll maintain control of both Houses?
MR. RUSSERT: I don’t bet.
MR. RUSSERT: Have you been hunting since February 11, 2006?
MR. RUSSERT: No more hunting?
MR. RUSSERT: Will you go out and hunt again?
To read the entire transcripts Click here
and here
Notice the difference?
Good post!
Didn't Russert work for some Democrat or Democrats? In any event, he has no credibility with me, so as far as I'm concerned, his interviews are like wind out of a duck's behind.
Clinton was correct about bias. Russert did NOT ask Cheney about his response to the Cole bombing or the Embassy bombings. Yet Clinton gets asked those questions! Not by Russert, but...
Great post, the difference is shocking to see laid out.
Today, Rush did an audio clip of DBM-style Clinton questions... it was as if they were asking the stuff that you would a 10 yearold... or a mentally-challenged adult. It was astounding.
Russert work for some Democrat
Senator Moynihan, NY
And his understudy Chris Matthews worked for Tip ONeil and Jimmie Carter..............
WOW!!!! Great post!!! Please send it to russert and bj!!!!
I really get tired of these guys going straight from some Democrat's office to presenting us with "news". Stephenopoulos is another example. They're not journalists, they're political hacks, and I'm tired of it. I don't take any of them seriously.
My gosh, I'd think both Russert and NBC would go hide their faces in shame.
Some people have no shame, though.
I have not watched Meet The Depressed in years, but I wanted to watch it yesterday just to find out if he was going to ask Billy Jeff any hard questions or throw one softball question after another question in his way. I was not disappointed
I think he did, but I can't recall for whom. Perhaps other freepers are more informed
Thanks for putting this together - it really demonstrates Russert's bias. Last week I sent NBC an E mail advising them that if Meet the Press is ever cancelled, we would know that the DNC fax machine was broken down.
BUMP FOR LATER
Good one!
Ping
Is it fair to expect Russert to be as aggressive with an ex-president as with a sitting VP?
I second the motion that this should be copied and sent to Russert. He needs to know how unfair and unbalanced he really is, and that we are aware of it.
don't take any of them seriously.
Agreed, you can't. Scarborough too and he claims he's a Republican..........
More interesting the Dim so-called journalists like Russert, Steffy and Matthews never put their name on a ballot.
Think they might not be able to stand the scrutiny?
Even though I am not a 24/7 subscriber I sent it to Rush hoping that he might give it some air time. Rush noted some of the softball questions asked of Clinton by other interviewers but the comparison with Cheney's interview is staggering.
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