Day: September 9, 2006

Senate Confirms that Saddam Opposed al Qaeda, Had No Connection to 9/11

Jon Ponder
Another tragedy is that so many Americans can be so easily fooled by such an obvious huckster.

Nothing, not even a bipartisan finding by the U.S. Senate, will ever convince about 40 percent of Americans that there was no connection between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda — or especially that there was no connection between Hussein and 9/11. Nonetheless, it is so:

Saddam Hussein rejected overtures from al-Qaida and believed Islamic extremists were a threat to his regime, a reverse portrait of an Iraq allied with Osama bin Laden painted by the Bush White House, a Senate panel has found.

The administration’s version was based in part on intelligence that White House officials knew was flawed, according to Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee, citing newly declassified documents released by the panel.

The report, released Friday, discloses for the first time an October 2005 CIA assessment that prior to the war Saddam’s government “did not have a relationship, harbor or turn a blind eye toward” al-Qaida operative Abu Musab al-Zarqawi or his associates.

President Bush’s misadventure in Iraq has been a tragic waste of blood and treasure. Another tragedy is that so many Americans can be so easily fooled by such an obvious huckster.

The Path to Scaife

Jon Ponder

Richard Mellon Scaife (right) and David Horowitz

Who Paid for ABC’s $40 Million Crocudrama?

If you are among the millions whose eyes have been opened over the past six years to the true depravity of Republican malfeasance, you probably won’t be surprised to learn that the skullduggery didn’t start at George W. Bush’s inauguration. Not hardly.

Max Blumenthal’s expose at HuffPo on the rightwing cabal behind ABC’s controversial miniseries, “The Path to 9/11,” is a must-read. According to Blumenthal, the show’s producer, director and writer are part of a conservative insurgency within Hollywood. They have connections to David Horowitz, the often-disgraced rightwing media critic who is based in Los Angeles.

The connection into the conservative power grid that may be the most interesting, however, is the production’s ties to Richard Mellon Scaife:

Since the inauguration of Bill Clinton in 1992, Horowitz has labored to create a network of politically active conservatives in Hollywood. His Hollywood nest centers around his Wednesday Morning Club, a weekly meet-and-greet session for Left Coast conservatives that has been graced with speeches by the likes of Newt Gingrich, Victor Davis Hanson and Christopher Hitchens. The group’s headquarters are at the offices of Horowitz’s Center for the Study of Popular Culture, a “think tank” bankrolled for years with millions by right-wing sugardaddies like eccentric far right billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife. (Scaife financed the Arkansas Project, a $2.3 million dirty tricks operation that included paying sources for negative stories about Bill Clinton that turned out to be false.)

Secretive people usually have something to hide, and “secretive” is among the first words that come to mind regarding Mr. Scaife, who is an heir to the Mellon fortune and lives in Pittsburgh where he publishes a daily newspaper known for its rightwing slant. (The other word most-often associatied with him is “eccentric.”)

If you are among the millions whose eyes have been opened over the past six years to the true depravity of Republican malfeasance, you probably won’t be surprised to learn that the skullduggery didn’t start at George W. Bush’s inauguration. Not hardly.

[…]