Washington Post, Associated Press Let Bush Skate With Phony Claim That He Learned Iran Nuke Threat Was Bogus "Last Week"
December 4, 2007 -- 3:52 PM EST // //
Hmmm -- at this point, it's fair to say that something seriously bizarre is going on with the editors at The Washington Post. As we've been documenting here, the paper simply refuses to tell its readers that GOP falsehoods are what they are -- i.e., false. They did this last week with the bogus Obama Muslim smear, and more recently with Karl Rove's false claim that President Bush didn't push for an Iraq War vote in 2002.
Well, today brings yet another egregious example of this. Specifically, the paper was so reluctant to subject Bush's claims to any real scrutiny that today it actually ignored its own reporting from only a day ago basically contradicting what the President said this morning at a press conference. The presser was about the new NIE saying Iran shuttered its nuke program years ago.
Bush, who's kept up the Iran war whooping of late, today he denied that he'd known about the NIE's findings until very recently. Here's how WaPo's piece today reported on this:
He denied that he knew about the new assessment before his Oct. 17 remarks, saying he was briefed on the latest NIE only last week. He said the director of national intelligence, John M. McConnell, informed him in August that the intelligence community had "some new information" about Iran's program. "He didn't tell me what the information was. He did tell me it was going to take a while to analyze."So Bush said here that all he knew about until last week was that there was "some new information" about Iran. He wasn't told what it was. WaPo didn't say anything to refute these claims. But here's what WaPo itself reported just yesterday in its story on the NIE:
The assessment, under preparation for more than 18 months, was completed on Tuesday and President Bush and Vice President Cheney were briefed on Wednesday, intelligence officials said. Hadley said Bush first learned in August or September about intelligence indicating Iran had halted its weapons program and was advised it would take time to evaluate.So WaPo yesterday reported that Bush senior adviser Stephen Hadley told reporters on the record that Bush learned in August or September that the new intel indicated that Iran had halted its weapons program. But in today's WaPo write-up of the Bush presser, there was no mention of any of this info. Bush was allowed to skate -- even though the paper's own reporting yesterday suggests that his "last week" claim was false.
The Associated Press, too, appears ready to let Bush skate on this. Their piece today also included his claim that he'd only learned about the substance of the new intel last week. But AP, too, declined to tell its readers what Hadley said only yesterday.
On a separate note, it's pretty bizarre that both WaPo and the AP are downplaying the "last week" claim; both news orgs bury this deep in their stories. It's tough to fathom why this assertion -- and the fact that it seems to be contradicted by his own advisers -- isn't getting a heavier focus from these news orgs here. After all, given that this President already lied us into one war -- and given that Bush has been talking trash towards Iran relentlessly of late -- the question of whether Bush was telling the truth today about what he knew about the bogus Iran nuke threat and when is kind of an important one.
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