skippy the bush kangaroo

Friday, June 25, 2004

why doesn't msnbc start worrying about tv news being factual? part 2

one of, if not the only, talking point the repubbbs are screaming about concerining f911 (including ms. lisa meyer, the msnbc "fact checker" - see post above), is the idea that michael moore "says" that the white house allowed members of the bin laden family to fly out of the country on the morning of sept. 11.

it turns out, they say, that the flights were vetted by none other than richard clarke, main opponent to awol's terrorism policies. ergo, if the guy who hates the white house said ok, let the saudi's go, michael moore must be a liar! right?

except, of course, they themselves are lying. first, let's deal with the point that moore claims the saudi's left on 9/11. chris lehane, on scarborough's dead intern (sorry, we mean, "country") says about the film:

first of all, we do not say that flights took off when federal airspace was closed… we make very clear that the flights didn‘t take off until after september 13, which is when federal airspace was opened.

and the saudis that michael is talking about, there were 140 saudis on those flights, 142. only 30 of them were interviewed in a way that was completely inconsistent with usual fbi and justice department protocol. in fact, even in the 9/11 commission report that michael is referring to, it raises some issues about the length of those interviews and the fact that the vast majority of folks who left the country after this terrible tragedy were not interviewed.

there‘s an fbi agent in the movie who personally talks about the fact that this was not consistent with the practices that should have been employed.

of course, that's not good enough for scarborough and michael isikoff, who is one of the main proponents of the "moore is lying about the time frame so he's a nutjob neener neener neener" argument. they insisted because chris wouldn't provide them with an entire transcript of the film he was lying!!! who needs to address the facts when you can obsfucate with minutae?

secondly, as to the point that clarke vetted the flights. chris penny at efilmcritic takes on chris hitchens about this:

it's true that clarke says he authorized the saudi planes to leave us airspace. but clarke worked not for the fbi, who desperately wanted to interview those family members (as interviews with agents in f9/11 point out), rather he worked for george bush's white house. as for the 9/11 commission having nothing to complain about in that respect, hitchens might be better served to note that the commission has said that their only mandate is to investigate the cause of 9/11 - not the subsequent actions that may have helped capture (or free) the organizers of the attack. that means that such questions are outside their arena of interest and are a waste of their time.

but then, to admit such wouldn't serve hitchens' real point here - that michael moore is on the other side of the political spectrum from he and that means he must be smeared at all costs, so that republicans can point to hitchens' article and say "see? the movie is all crap! it's lies! lies, i tell you!"

and, vanity fair, last september, discusses craig "don't call me felix" unger's interview with clarke for his book house of bush, house of saud:

the saudis’ planes took off from or landed in los angeles, washington, d.c., houston, cleveland, orlando, tampa, lexington, kentucky—and newark and boston, both of which had been points of origin for the september 11 attacks. “we were in the midst of the worst terrorist act in history,” tom kinton, director of aviation at boston’s logan airport, tells unger, “and here we were seeing an evacuation of the bin ladens! . . . i wanted to go to the highest authorities in washington. this was a call for them. but this was not just some mystery flight dropping into logan. it had been to three major airports already, and we were the last stop. it was known. the federal authorities knew what it was doing. and we were told to let it come.”

“i asked [the f.b.i.] to make sure that no one inappropriate was leaving,” clarke tells unger. clarke assumed the f.b.i. had vetted the bin ladens prior to september 11. “i have no idea if they did a good job. i’m not in any position to second-guess the f.b.i.”

so, though moore never said what the right is saying he said, and though lisa myers or joe "is that dead body out of my office yet" scarborough never actually addresses the fact that clarke was the cog in the gears turning wildly on 911 (some how it's ok that awol ignored several memos about bin laden, but since clarke said, "let 'em go if you talked to them," he's the guy responsible...sure) then moore is obviously a liar, do you hear! he lies! the movie lies! it's all lies!

lisa myers did not actually "check" any "facts." again.

posted by skippy at 2:40 PM |