Posted on 01/30/2004 7:03:53 AM PST by Tumbleweed_Connection
Allegations leveled during last night's debate by Gov. Howard Dean and Sen. John Kerry that Vice President Dick Cheney "berated" CIA analysts to get them to exaggerate Iraq war intelligence are false, NBC's Washington correspondent Andrea Mitchell said Friday. "It's absolutely not true," Mitchell told radio host Don Imus. "The vice president went over to the CIA on a couple of Saturdays, you know, more than once . . but he did not, by anybody's account, berate the analysts." Mitchell noted that former CIA analysts Ray McGovern and Larry Johnson, who were not present during the Cheney meetings, have said mid-level employees may have felt "pressured" by Cheney's presence. But she quickly added, "For outsiders to say that anonymous people felt pressured is a far cry from . . Howard Dean saying in the debate that they, quote, berated the analysts." In response to a question from debate moderator Tom Brokaw about chief weapons inspector David Kay's contention that there was no pressure from the White House on Iraq war intelligence, Dean complained: "What we now find out is that Vice President Dick Cheney went to the CIA on at least one occasion, and maybe more, sat with middle-level CIA operatives and berated them because he didn't like their intelligence reports." In the next breath number two Democrat in the presidential race continued: "It seems to me that the vice president of the United States therefore influenced the very reports that the president then used to decide to go to war and to ask Congress for permission to go to war." Asked by Brokaw about Dean's charge that Cheney had "berated" CIA analysts, Democratic presidential front-runner John Kerry lent credence to the wild-eyed allegation, saying, "There is a very legitimate question, Tom, about what the vice president of the United States was doing at the CIA. There's an enormous question about the exaggeration by this administration."
The strtegery here on the dim's part is to just wear the public down so that even those who would vote for Bush will not because they just want to hear the bitching stop.
It's like having an employee that does a great job, but half the staff won't do their jobs because they are too busy trying to get him fired. Eventually even the management which likes the employee will fire him or her anyway just to keep the peace.
Bump with two minor points:
1. Dean is forcing Kerry's image to the left. His voting record is to the left of Ted Kennedy's, but the lamestream press has given him cover as a "moderate" Democrat with foreign policy "gravitas." Hopefully, Dean (the "Potemkin Candidate" at this point) can prop his candidacy up long enough to force Kerry to go really hard-core left during the primaries, giving the public a look at what really lies behind the facade.
2. For the longest time, Democrats were running around telling us how dumb George W. Bush is. Well, if he is so dumb, how stupid does Kerry have to be to have been "misled" by the president into voting for the war resolution?
This was done in a on-air conversation on Imus this morning where everybody was beating up Bush about WMD. It was one positive statement amidst torrent of criticism and mockery. I'd like to see Mitchell try to do this consistently on the NBC Nightly News. Wouldn't you?
Is it just me, or is he a blatant metrosexual? Between the Botox, and the prissy way he eats a Philly cheesesteak (with provolone cheese, no less); not to mention that he appeared to have never seen a hot dog before, much less eaten one, that's the only conclusion I can reach. I think he will be out of the closet very soon.
It also plays into the urban legend mentality of some voters. What is striking is how black leaders continually sell their constituents down the river and Intercoastal Waterway ( ref. South Carolina and the Myrtle Beach connection via the NAACP).
Black bikers are increasingly unwelcome on Memorial Day at Myrtle Beach.
Hillary can't allow Dean and now Kerry to get too much traction so the word is out to the press to lighten up on the Bush Administration. Similar actions from Peter Jennings and Matt Lauer in the past few days bear out this trend.
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