Pajamas Media

Couric Bloviates on Iraq

PJM ROUNDUP: Speaking at the National Press Club Tuesday evening, CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric stated, "Everyone in this room would agree that people in this country were misled in terms of the rationale of this war," adding that it is "pretty much accepted" that the war in Iraq was a mistake. Blog reactions follow:

September 26, 2007

Support Pajamas Media; Visit Our Advertisers

Flopping Aces: “Its only ‘accepted’ by her cohorts in the liberal left. Iraqi’s don’t think it was a mistake, I can assure you. Neither do those fighting the war. Some leftists in our nations newspapers believe it was a mistake and now it’s ‘pretty much accepted.’ Puhlease.”

The Anchoress: “Well, if it’s ‘pretty much accepted,’ that the war was a mistake, that would be thanks in large part to the media machine that has done a great deal to help people forget why we went in there in the first place, a machine that has reported the things it has chosen to report, and left the rest to go unremarked upon. MUST we give a refresher to Ms. Couric?”

Ed Driscoll: “The Today Show, which Katie anchored for many years, is aired each morning by the National Broadcasting Corporation. I wonder if Katie is aware which nation its business name refers to?”

Vodkapundit: “Couric doesn’t want to call herself an American, but she also doesn’t want people to think she’s unpatriotic. What exactly are we supposed to think, Katie?”

Daily Kos: “Just who does Katie Couric think was going to swoop down from the skies and save her? Just who did she think were ‘the right people’ to challenge the march to war?”

Jawa Report: “Not only did CBS News anchor Katie Couric publicly confess her gross bias against the Bush administration, she implicated all the other ‘journalists’ at the National Press Club.”

NewsBusters: “Perhaps Katie was aiming to add gravitas by trying to sound like Peter Jennings, running down the Republican administration for not understanding foreign cultures and making bone-headed mistakes like disbanding Saddam Hussein’s army.”

Gateway Pundit: “Only a liberal could make this war look like a failure at the expense of the nation.”

PoliPundit: “I’m not sure what the big news is here nor am I shocked about the big reveal of her true feelings. But this one is a little disturbing; Katie agrees with Ahmadinejad.”

Scooter’s Report: “Katie Couric has certainly shown she deserves to be at the forefront of the mainline media, displaying the qualities needed to present today’s stories in an unbiased, objective matter.”

Pages: 12Next »

17 Comments

Slublog:

You have to admit, she’s got a great Pauline Kael impression.

Sep 26, 2007 - 1:14 pm Appalachian Conservative:

The same “right wingers” hired her that hired Dan Rather. Dan Rather was full of it and so is Katie Couric.

Katie Couric is not a shining example of brilliance, that’s for sure.

Sep 26, 2007 - 1:55 pm gcblues:

the more she speaks sillier she and those that think like her appear.

if the issue was so simple and easy,it would not be so divisive. one would think news would illustrate the divide, not take sides. however, intelligence and judgment never have been a long suite of the network’s news.

Sep 26, 2007 - 3:26 pm DemocracyRules:

IN WHAT WAY is it appropriate for a news reader who claims to be objective, fair and balanced, to then expound her personal left-wing opinions, expecting us to swallow them whole?

(1) She is a NEWS READER, dictating material from a teleprompter. She appears to have gotten the job because there is something wrong with her mouth. It makes her news reading rather unique, like watching a one-legged man ride a unicycle.

(2) Being a news reader does not make her an expert on anything. She has no credentials which qualify her as an expert on any element on the news. She fails to point this out, apparently hoping others will not notice.

(3) She wants to expound vague left-wing political opinions, while at the same time claiming to be fair and objective in her ‘reportage’, such as it is.

Couric needs to decide whether she is a voice with a crooked mouth, a reporter with objectivity, or an editor expressing weighty opinion. She certainly cannot ethically claim to be all three.

Judging from her ratings, I suggest that she is none of the above.

Sep 26, 2007 - 3:36 pm David Thomson:

“Judging from her ratings, I suggest that she is none of the above.”

Katie Couric ratings are considered poor in the milieu of national TV—but astronomically high for just about anywhere else. Her audience may be higher than those of Rush Limbaugh, Hugh Hewitt, and Dennis Praeger combined! This is what makes the “objective and balanced” members of the MSM so dangerous. They sense the end is near and are behaving like desperately wounded animals. Regrettably, a very high number of Americans still pay attention to them.

Sep 26, 2007 - 4:15 pm Looking Glass:

David Thomson,

Yes, they’re cornered, rabid rats. They can’t save themselves but show willingness to take others with them.

Slightly better forgeries and Dan Rather would have gotten away with it. With the support of the rest of the MSM he nearly got away with it despite the crudeness of the forgeries. Don’t think the MSM didn’t notice that.

How many would gladly go out like Dan if it meant electing Hillary as President?

Sep 26, 2007 - 4:28 pm David Thomson:

“How many would gladly go out like Dan if it meant electing Hillary as President?”

A very high number. Getting Hillary Clinton elected is perhaps their number one goal. They will do just about anything to help her. Currently, the MSM is starting the campaign to convince Americans that she is another Golda Meir or Margaret Thatcher. God help our nation if this con game is successful.

Sep 26, 2007 - 6:14 pm william jonas:

The next 13 months will be an avalanche of leftist/socialist drivel and propaganda the likes of which we have never seen. Katie is a committed leftist and is doing her part to insure that the scripted inevitability of Democratic victory is realized.
Their grasping desperation is at times pathetic and but it is frightening too. I don’t think our republic can survive another Clinton presidency.

Sep 26, 2007 - 6:17 pm John Blake:

Infantile-regressive, narcissistic, piddling attitudinizing– that’s our Katie. No doubt a dugong in her previous incarnation. Pauvre petite, why doesn’t she poll the mullah-dullahs as a cabdiver in Riyadh?

Sep 26, 2007 - 8:06 pm Looking Glass:

Katie overlooks that you can’t fake safety in a war zone. The areas of Iraq she visited without being shot at were pacified. There is no way to spin it otherwise, so she’s ignoring it.

william jonas: The “avalanche of leftist/socialist drivel and propaganda the likes of which we have never seen” in 2008 will leave the USA ungovernable no matter who is elected.

Sep 27, 2007 - 9:16 am Mohamed:

Step back, breath, think. Katie said it was a mistake. A mistake is when you believe something to be true or correct and later find out that it is in fact false or incorrect. We believed Iraq had WMD’s, that later proved to be false. Hence a mistake.

We also believed that taking the war to the terrorists in Iraq would make us safer. Do we know the answer to this yet? I admit that we don’t but ask yourself, how many times do our justifications have to be eroded before we admit that our great nation with all its great intentions may have made a mistake?

Sep 27, 2007 - 10:33 am Looking Glass:

The Anchoress takes the “mistake” myth apart in her post Couric and Kline on Iraq.

As for safer, the answer to that is obvious.

Sep 27, 2007 - 11:55 am Looking Glass:

Why the USA is in Iraq.

“My Iraq” by ChrisG.

“Like Millions Of Iraqis, I Made A Long Journey To The Nearest Polling Place Today” Jeff Simmermon, a self-proclaimed “terrifically loudmouthed critic of the Bush administration.”

Jeff’s courageous story needs more attention, especially these days. RTWT including comments and spread it around, please.

Sep 27, 2007 - 12:32 pm Looking Glass:

A space somehow got into one of the links. Trying again.

Like Millions Of Iraqis, I Made A Long Journey To The Nearest Polling Place Today by Jeff Simmermon.

Sep 27, 2007 - 1:15 pm william jonas:

Mohamad
Do you feel any safer now than those days following 9-11 ? I do. For awhile I could not sleep thinking about a nuclear attack on our homeland After the fall of the Taliban and the subsequent invasion of Iraq I felt we were taking the initiative against global terrorism. Like most I am disappointed that we did not find the WMD”s. But that does not mean they were not there. Saddam had plenty of time to dispose of them and he probably did. That doesn’t mean the invasion is a failure . It means only that objective was not met. Practically every objective has been met and now we are defeating Al Qaeda.
What you have is doubt. And that’s normal.Don’t beleve the Democrats spin. We are winning.

Sep 27, 2007 - 1:17 pm Looking Glass:

A space somehow got into the link in the post again. But there is a working link in my name in the previous post, and hopefully in this post as well.

Sep 27, 2007 - 1:25 pm DemocracyRules:

ABOUT THIS STRANGE DENIAL OF THE WMD…
Sept 2007 update by DemocracyRules
SADDAM’S 500 TONS OF URANIUM
New York Times May, 2004:
“The repository, at Tuwaitha, a centerpiece of Saddam Hussein’s nuclear weapons program until
it was largely shut down after the first Persian Gulf war in 1991, holds more than 500 tons of
uranium…” as well as, “some 1.8 tons…classified as low-enriched uranium.”
Saddam’s 500 tons of yellowcake Uranium Oxide that he had in storage when he was invaded
was enough raw material to make dozens of nuclear bombs. The low-enriched uranium could be
processed to make a single nuclear weapon.
San Diego Union Tribune:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20040522/news_1n22uranium.html
And:
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2005/7/17/171214.shtml
And:
http://www.americanthinker.com/2005/07/about_that_500_tons_of_yellow.html
So what’s that, bacon and eggs?
After the uranium story appeared, the MSM has simply ignored it. The MSM continues to lose
credibility because of erroneous and misleading reporting:
http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=348
All the uranium oxide (yellowcake) may not have been found. Since 1991, the 500 tons were
known to “insiders”. IAEA Records:
http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Booklets/Iraq/event.html
Saddam had most of these stockpiles since the first Iraq War. The yellowcake was logged and documented by UN weapons inspectors, and even tagged by them. Furthermore, there have been numerous reports since 1991 that Saddam was trying to buy more yellowcake, even up to time of
Iraq War 2, and his sons visited Niger. However, new shipments do not appear to have come
from Niger to Iraq.
“PlameGate” distracted from this evidence. Wilson’s interpretation of events were confused at best, and Plame actually outed herself, but these facts took a long time to become known.
http://justoneminute.typepad.com/main/2007/05/was_valerie_pla.html
However, it is probably those negotiations which make British intelligence certain that Iraq was trying to obtain yellowcake from Niger up until the second Iraq War.
2http://www.factcheck.org/bushs_16_words_on_iraq_uranium.html
The story gains importance in light of other context pieces. Saddam maintained a clear desire to
have nuclear weapons, as witnessed by his constantly asking sons, aides, advisers, and generals
about such weapons, and the preparations to produce them. Some or all of the development was
going on in Libya, paid for by Iraq. When Iraq was invaded, Libya gave up nuclear work, probably because they could not afford it without their Iraqi sponsors.
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/013581.php
Saddam maintained many parts and plans for nuclear weapons development, some as key physical components, others as hard copies of plans, and more as detailed information kept in the
memories of Iraqi scientists and engineers. As soon as inspectors were expelled, Saddam would
have been able to quickly re-start his nuclear weapons development programme. Iraq could have
nuclear weapons in as little as 18 months, as well as sell some to other states or organizations.
“Iraq had nuclear weapons plans so advanced and detailed that any country could have used
them.”
http://tks.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZTJjYzYzYmMwNjY3N2YwNWE5NDQ3ZTQzZDczZWU5N2Y=
The Bomb in My Garden:
http://www.amazon.com/Bomb-My-Garden-Secrets-Mastermind/dp/0471679658
The public has still not realized the implications of these events. There is compelling, documented evidence that Saddam possessed large nuclear stockpiles, complete with the
knowledge, technology, and motivation to use them on Americans.
Nevertheless, the ‘No WMD’ myth prevails, with a life of its own, passed around among
hundreds of millions of credulous Americans, who believe the MSM.
Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi (Democrat, California), Addressing the US Senate, October 10,
2002.
http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getpag
“I come to this debate, Mr. Speaker, as one at the end of 10 years in office on the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, where stopping the proliferation of weapons of mass
destruction was one of my top priorities. I applaud the President on focusing on this issue and on
taking the lead to disarm Saddam Hussein. … Others have talked about this threat that is posed
by Saddam Hussein. Yes, he has chemical weapons, he has biological weapons, he is trying to
get nuclear weapons.”
REFERENCE NOTES:
Quotations from IAEA reports:
October 4, 1991:”Dr. Blix reported that the sixth IAEA inspection team had obtained conclusive
documentary evidence that the Government of Iraq had a programme for developing nuclear
weapons. The IAEA inspection team obtained this information from classified Iraqi papers,
some of which had already been translated and analysed. These documents revealed that Iraq’s
nuclear weapons programme was supported by a broad-based international procurement effort.”
Nov 11-18, 1991: “Iraqi authorities went to great lengths to prevent the discovery of
procurement data. Most procurement related information had been removed and presumably
destroyed, the IAEA eighth inspection team reported. Even so, examination of data collected by
the inspection teams firmly identified the manufacturers of most equipment used or intended for
use in Iraqi efforts to establish a centrifuge production and operation capability.”
Source:
http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Booklets/Iraq/event.html
Other Iraqi WMD:
http://politicscentral.com/audio/2006/09/Iraq_NGIC_Unclassified_WMDs_083106.pdf