I just sat down to watch a few minutes of the alternative fact universe that is the Fox News Channel. And it’s really quite bracing to see the ridiculousness up close, even from folks who should know better like Mort Kondracke or even Mara Liasson. I’ve always been curious what sort of brainwashing they give these otherwise good people before they take up regular gigs at that place.
To hear them tell it, the most likely time the explosives disappeared was before the war started. No one knows otherwise, including the current Iraqi officials, who say they have no way of knowing when the stuff disappeared. For all those reasons, Kerry’s in big trouble. And also the NYT-CBS-IAEA anti-Bush conspiracy, did we mention that?
The collapse of the only purported evidence that the explosives were snaked away under Saddam’s rule doesn’t seem to have gotten their attention. What’s more, only a few hours ago former weapons inspector David Kay said he found it highly implausible that the materials could have been carted away in a big fleet of trucks during the brief window of time between the last IAEA inspection and the arrival of American troops less than four weeks later. That’s in contrast to the Fox panel that says it’s the most likely scenario, despite the absence of any evidence.
And the Iraqis? They say they don’t know when the stuff disappeared either? That must be breaking news because the guy in charge there now said today that he has specific knowledge that the explosives were taken after fall of the old government. Perhaps he’s part of the anti-Bush conspiracy too but at least we can do this hopeless dead-ender the courtesy of accurately reflecting his public statements.
To the White House, and thus to Fox, no one can talk about this because we still don’t know precisely what happened to the stuff — which is of course a bit of a side-effect to leaving the place abandoned for a year and a half and never mounting any sort of investigation into what happened. For them, the administration’s incompetence and cluelessness amounts to their silver bullet.
