Sunday Morning Talk Show Thread 19 February 2006

Various big media television networks ^ | 19 February 2006 | Various Self-Serving Politicians and Big Media Screaming Faces

[Alas Babylon!]

The Talk Shows

Sunday, February 19th, 2006

Guests to be interviewed today on major television talk shows:

FOX NEWS SUNDAY (Fox Network): Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Evan Bayh, D-Ind.; former Sen. Alan Simpson, R-Wyo.

MEET THE PRESS (NBC): Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff

FACE THE NATION (CBS): Sens. Bill Frist, R-Tenn., and Barbara Boxer, D-Calif.

THIS WEEK (ABC): Chertoff; Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., and Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va.; basketball player Shaquille O'Neal.

LATE EDITION (CNN) : Chertoff; British ambassador to the United States David Manning, German ambassador to the U.S. Wolfgang Ischinger and French ambassador to the U.S. Jean-David Levitte; retired Army Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton, formerly in charge of Iraqi army training.

[FreedomNeocon]

Sadaam's WMD Dissappearing Act

• In December 2002, former Russian intelligence chief Yevgeni Primakov, a KGB general with long-standing ties to Saddam, came to Iraq and stayed until just before the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003;

• Primakov supervised the execution of long-standing secret agreements, signed between Iraqi intelligence and the Russian GRU (military intelligence), that provided for clean-up operations to be conducted by Russian and Iraqi military personnel to remove WMDs, production materials and technical documentation from Iraq, so the regime could announce that Iraq was "WMD free."

• Shaw said that this type GRU operation, known as "Sarandar," or "emergency exit," has long been familiar to U.S. intelligence officials from Soviet-bloc defectors as standard GRU practice;

• In addition to the truck convoys, which carried Iraqi WMD to Syria and Lebanon in February and March 2003 "two Russian ships set sail from the (Iraqi) port of Umm Qasr headed for the Indian Ocean," where Shaw believes they "deep-sixed" additional stockpiles of Iraqi WMD from flooded bunkers in southern Iraq that were later discovered by U.S. military intelligence personnel;

• The Russian "clean-up" operation was entrusted to a combination of GRU and Spetsnaz troops and Russian military and civilian personnel in Iraq "under the command of two experienced ex-Soviet generals, Colonel-General Vladislav Achatov and Colonel-General Igor Maltsev, both retired and psing as civilian commercial consultants."

• Washington Times reporter Bill Gertz reported on Oct. 30, 2004, that Achatov and Maltsev had been photographed receiving medals from Iraqi Defense Minister Sultan Hashim Ahmed in a Baghdad building bombed by U.S. cruise missiles during the first U.S. air raids in early March 2003.

• Shaw says he leaked the information about the two Russian generals and the clean-up operation to Gertz in October 2004 in an effort to "push back" against claims by Democrats that were orchestrated with CBS News to embarrass President Bush just one week before the November 2004 presidential election. The press sprang bogus claims that 377 tons of high explosives of use to Iraq's nuclear weapons program had "gone missing" after the U.S.-led liberation of Iraq, while ignoring intelligence of the Russian-orchestrated evacuation of Iraqi WMDs;

• The two Russian generals "had visited Baghdad no fewer than 20 times in the preceding five to six years," Shaw revealed. U.S. intelligence knew "the identity and strength of the various Spetsnaz units, their dates of entry and exit in Iraq, and the fact that the effort (to clean up Iraq's WMD stockpiles) with a planning conference in Baku from which they flew to Baghdad."

• The Baku conference, chaired by Russian Minister of Emergency Situations Sergei Shoigu, "laid out the plans for the Sarandar clean-up effort so that Shoigu could leave after the keynote speech for Baghdad to orchestrate the planning for the disposal of the WMD."

• Subsequent intelligence reports showed that Russian Spetsnaz operatives "were now changing to civilian clothes from military/GRU garb," Shaw said. "The Russian denial of my revelations in late October 2004 included the statement that "only Russian civilians remained in Baghdad." That was the "only true statement" the Russians made, Shaw ironized.

[Right_in_Virginia]

The DNC slogs ahead with its Culture of Conniption.

Good one!

[Peach]

The hypocrisy of the left:

They got abortion passed based on privacy issues. So it's presumably an important issue to them.

Until it comes to medical privacy issues around the friend of a Republican who has been accidentally shot, that is.

[snugs]

Good for Alan Simpson

[Miss Marple]

Brit says that reporters need to be careful of their behavior, because acting like a pack of jackals almost always turns sympathy towards those being questioned.

Kristol offers his "expertese" and has now turned his sarcasm towards the White House press, even though they had nothing to do with this.

Kristol stirring up trouble again, per his usual modus operandi.

[Laverne]

Maura has an interesting take -- blaming the legs of this story on the late night humor guys (leno, et al). Trying to take the pressure off the raging press. Too funny. Brit gave Juan the old "oh please!" comment regarding Juan's take on the super secret presidency and imperialism democratic talking points. Juan looks a fool making these kind of statements, Maura's attempt to turn the story from media rage to late night humor as giving it legs is also humorous. Wallace snickers at CNN, without calling out CNN, and Cafferty's assanine comments.

[Bahbah]

If you can stand it, watch Mo Dowd on MTP if only for the looks on the faces of Matalin and Gigot.

[beyond the sea]

Not a single one of these scheduled people have anything to say that I want to hear.

Alan Simpson will do VERY well on the Cheney matter on "The F-word Network".

[old_sage_says]

Is it just me or does anyone else think MoDo's hair looks like it's been rinsed with rust?

Yeah, I know. I switched channels, again.

[snugs]

This is a must to DVD tonight.

[mathluv]

'I guess Gregory agrees with that awful guy on News Watch'

Neal Gabler is a complete idiot. I don't understand how people can 'think' like that. It is more like they don't think.

[beyond the sea]

YEP!

[Peach]

Brit: I thought there would be more criticism of Cheney choosing FNC, frankly. The last thing he needed was a soft interview. I thought that I'd had interviews with Cheney when he wasn't forthcoming.

So my job was to walk through this episode with him and ask relevant questions. He was ready to talk and get it over with. This is over.

---

I have a question for the leftists: Exactly what question would you have asked the Vice President that Brit Hume didn't ask?

[Seattle Conservative]

I just wanted to slap Maureen Dowd,

Blowing off the freedoms of democracy - Mary just did it for me and now she's working on David....

[beyond the sea]

PotatoBoy need a pie in his face.

[Peach]

David Gregory is on MTP Roundtable!

[beyond the sea]

RIGHT...... he's correct and he's humorous also.

[Right_in_Virginia]

Is it true no other network showed the Cheney interview, or is this rumor?

[eeevil conservative]

I like Mary- but that "BUSH" on her blouse is a bit "over-doing" it.

[Peach]

Mary Matlin: You went on a jihad David for four days! LOL