Scrapbook
Scrapbook Return of the Saddam Apologist When former U.N. weapons inspector Scott Ritter first surfaced after the September 11 attacks, he sought to persuade America that Saddam Hussein's Iraq...
...A Critic for All Seasons Tom Shales, television critic for the Washington Post, gave the president's speech a surprisingly warm review, comparing Bush's smiling visage to the million-dollar grin of Paul Newman and the president's easy manner to the made-for-TV style of Dick Cavett (and likening Ted Kennedy to the Nickelodeon channel's cult cartoon hero SpongeBob SquarePants...
...And so I don't know what the value is...
...Himself, perhaps...
...They needed a lot of training, especially physical training...
...And the gushing did not stop there...
...We can go to the American people on the issue of winning this war," Rove said, and "not just because of the inspiring leadership of our president since September 11...
...Because Americans "understand two things," he said...
...Lost in the hullabaloo was how many of the themes underneath the partisan spin made it into the president's address...
...Democrats fumed over this, insisting Rove was making the war a partisan issue...
...America laughed, made a mental note that Ritter had recently taken $400,000 from a Hussein sympathizer to produce a pro-Saddam documentary, and shrugged off his delusional happy talk about the lack of nuclear, biological, and chemical threats from Iraq (see Stephen F. Hayes's "Saddam Hussein's American Apologist," in our November 19, 2001, issue...
...Historically Speaking, Everybody Does It Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, moments before the president's State of the Union address last week, describing for NewsHour viewers the usefulness of recycling phrases from earlier works: GWEN IFILL: "Doris, I want to ask you this, and also Roger, because you both have worked in White Houses...
...ALBRIGHT: "Absolutely...
...In recent weeks, the New York Times, Vanity Fair, and others have reported on the goings-on at Salman Pak, a training camp in Iraq for both Iraqi and non-Iraqi terrorists...
...In fact, I remember one time a funny column where the columnist was able to show similar phrases in about three different presidential State of the Unions, because you look back and you get that sense of history...
...But enough...
...Rogue Secretaries of State Was that former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright we saw on the Today show, getting all snippy with Matt Lauer over Bush's phrase "axis of evil...
...This was mere weeks after the president was impeached, a sad day perhaps for First Fan Shales, which might just excuse this memorably fawning closer: "The star of the show was in full tele-glittery glory...
...So long as terrorists don't self-identify as al Qaeda, apparently, they're not a threat...
...We were repeatedly told this...
...GOODWIN: "Oh, I think there's no question that the speechwriters go back and look at other speeches and other State of the Unions...
...Not surprisingly, Ritter is skeptical...
...Truth in labeling has never been her strong point...
...He laces his article with quotation marks insinuating that the defectors are providing bad "information," and doing so at the direction of the Defense Department...
...This is not really much of a concession, though, since U.N...
...Their information comes directly from two former highranking Iraqi military officers who helped run the camp...
...Now Ritter is back selling the same rug to the Christian Science Monitor— which on January 23 published his oped, "Iraq: The Phantom Threat...
...Why...
...Albright was the one who tried to stamp out use of the phrase "rogue states" by U.S...
...One is they know "much is yet to be done" in combating terrorism and rogue nations with weapons of mass destruction...
...Its use as an al Qaeda training camp is unsubstantiated," he argues (emphasis added...
...The facility at Salman Pak does exist," Ritter ruefully concedes, in a head-fake towards the truth...
...But our favorite part was his brush-off of old what's-his-name—you know, the guy who was president between the two Bushes...
...As for Bush's predecessor in the White House, he is not missed when it's time for a speech, even though his smooth delivery and bouncy energy were much admired in his day...
...As someone once said, it's time to move on, which Shales deserves credit for finally doing...
...In Clinton's day, reviewing those endless State of the Union marathons, Shales did sometimes sound like he was writing annual reports for the Bubba Fan Club...
...In what was either an unfortunate accident or a case of instantaneous divine retribution, The Scrapbook in the process identified Lanny Frattare, the Pittsburgh pirates broadcaster who bungled the James Earl issue, as Larry Frattare...
...We were training these people to attack installations important to the United States...
...While he spent much of the piece regurgitating his old arguments, he went further in order to respond to recent developments...
...And—because we know that they are not supportive of what we are doing in Iraq, or Iran or North Korea...
...An item on this page two weeks ago mocked people who confuse James Earl Ray with James Earl Jones...
...Karl Rove, Leading Indicator What turns out to have been the most accurate preview of Bush's State of the Union speech...
...The party-boy grin would be unseemly now, and not the sort of thing one wears to a war on terrorism...
...These Islamic radicals were a scruffy lot," said a second defector...
...But from speaking with them it was clear they came from a variety of countries, including Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Algeria, Egypt and Morocco...
...No, she wouldn't...
...Clinton seemed "a man . . . determined to overcome perhaps the greatest adversity of all: his own weakness as a human being...
...Among their revelations: the existence of a Boeing 707 airplane used to train non-Iraqi "Islamic radicals" in the practice of hijacking...
...weapons inspector Scott Ritter first surfaced after the September 11 attacks, he sought to persuade America that Saddam Hussein's Iraq "presents a threat to no one...
...Why then...
...officials to describe the North Koreas of the world...
...We are duly chagrined...
...weapons inspectors visited the camp in 1995, and satellite photos by Space Imaging confirm its existence...
...Lest they take offense...
...We could see them train around the fuselage," one of the defectors, a five-year veteran of the camp, told the New York Times...
...We could see them practice taking over the plane...
...His eyelash-batting 1999 review noted Clinton's "infectious and good-natured" ad-libbing and said the president looked "boyishly enthusiastic" and "fearlessly confident...
...The other is "they trust the Republican party to do a better job of protecting and strengthening America's military might and thereby protecting America...
...LAUER: "He used the term 'axis of evil' in referring to North Korea, Iran and Iraq...
...How important is it to the White House to take a long historical look at how one presents a message like this, what priorities one puts in the speech, how one pulls it together...
...All true and well said, though THE Scrapbook wonders which of Clinton's admirers the Post critic had in mind...
...The Gulf War never ended for Saddam Hussein...
...Glass Houses Dept...
...Does he run the risk of alienating some of our allies by making statements like that...
...She dubbed them "states of concern...
...He is at war with the United States...
...Nonetheless, he's unconcerned by the fact that Saddam is training terrorists...
...Karl Rove's widely criticized (for crass partisanship) speech last month to the Republican National Committee...
Vol. 7 • February 2002 • No. 21
