There must be something about being in the news business that
destroys intelligence. It’s the only explanation I can think of for
the delighted discovery by Tim Russert — not, you would have
thought, a stupid man — on Meet the Press of a
contradiction within the administration over the links between Iraq
and al-Qaeda. “Vice President Cheney was on this program last
week,” he said to William Safire of the New York Times and
other journalistic guests on his show, “and let me show you the
question I asked him and his answer.
“‘The Washington Post asked the American people about
Saddam Hussein, and this is what they said: 69 percent said he was
involved in the September 11 attacks. Are you surprised by
that?’
“Cheney answered: ‘No. I think it’s not surprising that people
make that connection.’
“‘But is there a connection?’
“‘We don’t know.’
“George Bush, the president, this week, came out, a few days
later, and said this: ‘We’ve had no evidence that Saddam Hussein
was involved with September the 11th.’
“What happened?”
Well, of course nothing happened. Duh! The two
statements are the same. “We don’t know,” and “we have no evidence”
are practical equivalents, yet Russert clearly thinks the one
amounts to a disavowal of the other. Is he just an idiot? Then,
when Safire said that Cheney was quite right to say, “We don’t
know,” Russert asked him, “Then why did the president say something
different?” As noted, he didn’t say something different at all.
Nevertheless, Safire replied: “The president abandoned that
position and said, ‘We have no evidence on it.’”
“Why?” Russert persisted.
“I don’t know,” replied Safire.
So whatever stupid-virus had infected Russert had also infected
Safire — and presumably all the other high-powered reporters
sitting around the Meet the Press table who raised no
objection to the host’s mistaken inference. Moreover, it may have
started with the New York Times itself, which had
published an editorial two days earlier claiming that Bush’s “no
evidence” comment meant that he had “finally got around to
acknowledging that there was no connection between Saddam Hussein
and the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.”
Excuse me once again, but saying that we don’t have any evidence
of a connection is not the same as saying that there was
no connection. “White House aides will tell you that Mr. Bush never
made that charge directly. And that is so. But polls show that lots
of Americans believe in the link. That is at least in part because
the president’s aides have left the implication burning.” But why
should they not leave the implication “burning” (if that is what
implications do) when there were several unconfirmed reports of
such a “link” — including that of Czech intelligence on the
meeting between Mohammed Atta and an Iraqi official in Prague —
that did not amount to hard evidence? Why should they give Saddam
the benefit of the doubt?
Yet the eagerness of the Times to take Bush’s “no
evidence” as a concession to his critics was that of someone who
has caught his enemy in the act of prevarication. This will now no
doubt go into the catalogue along with the rest of the “lies” of
which the anti-Bush left is continually accusing the President.
President Bush himself [the Times continued] drew a
dotted line from the 9/11 attack in declaring the end of
hostilities in Iraq. “The battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on
terror that began on Sept. 11, 2001, and still goes on,” Mr. Bush
said. He continued the theme in his last major speech on the
war.
But on Sunday, Vice President Dick Cheney went too far. He
said it was “not surprising” that many Americans drew a link
between Mr. Hussein and 9/11. Asked if there was a connection, he
replied, “We don’t know.”
But the administration does know, and Mr. Bush was forced to
acknowledge it on Wednesday.
They wish! To say “we have no evidence” does not mean
that the administration “does know.” It means that it
doesn’t.
But logic is no bar to the all-important imperative, if you are
a journalist, of picking apart the administration’s words in search
of contradictions — or anything that may for a moment plausibly be
thought to be a contradiction. It all comes from the culture of
mistrust that the reigning orthodoxy of those who call themselves
“the journalistic community” thinks is healthy for a democracy. But
the falseness and injustice of such reckless accusations cannot be
healthy for anybody.
