The Quiet Conservative January 27, 2008
Fact Checking Required
Bill O’Reilly is constantly stating on the air that the press is corrupt. Somewhere, some when,
they crossed the line between the editorial page and the news page. I’ve written about that before
myself. Americans are waking up to that fact now they have the ability to fact check the press.
Computers are a wonderful thing when any person with one and access to the internet can seek and
find alternative information sources. The problem is finding good sources. Fake news isn’t the only
problem anymore. Now there are fake sources. When Dan Rather ran the ’fake but accurate’
forged Texas Air National Guard reports in an effort to influence the presidential election, he was
caught before the broadcast even went off the air. But, since that time people with agendas have
increased in their sophistication.
On Wednesday January 23rd, the AP ran a story by Douglass K. Daniel about a study by “two
nonprofit journalism organizations” that found President Bush and top administration officials made
935 false statements in a two year period. This story hit the press everywhere. The left wing major
networks trumpeted the report and it headlined across the web staying on the front page of Yahoo
for most of the night. Yet it took only one day for Investors Business Daily to publish an editorial
showing the “two non profit journalism organizations” were actually Democratic front operations that
were connected to each other and funded by George Soros and the Heinz foundation controlled by
John Kerry’s wife Teresa Heinz.
Everyone read or saw the story about President Bush lying. Only those who are political junkies
on the web found out the truth behind the “organizations.” Which view will stick? Wasn’t it curious
that no one noticed that the “false statements” didn’t include any from a Democrat? None. The
study didn’t include Hillary Clinton’s statements. The study didn’t include any of the statements all
through the 1990’s by then President Clinton that justified the four day bombing campaign in 1998
using the same statements. It doesn’t include any statements from any other country that believed
that Saddam Hussein had the weapons of mass destruction. It simply was a hit piece and that was
enough for the people with an agenda. They never bothered to look at the source because they
already believed. Fake but accurate again.
In today’s Kansas City Star is an article about the upcoming CBS “60 Minutes” story about the
man who interrogated Saddam Hussein after his capture. It explains Hussein decision to keep up the
impression that he had the weapons of mass destruction because he thought Bush would only bomb
his country for four days like Clinton, and he could afford that. What he couldn’t afford was to
appear weak to the Iranians in case they decided to invade. Hussein wanted the US to believe he
had the weapons.
When you think about that statement it brings about Hussein’s fatal flaw. He didn’t understand the
difference in foreign policy between a Democratic President and a Republican one. President Clinton
was about the gesture, not substance. In the first gulf war President Bush the elder told Hussein he
would clean his clock and he did so. Then President Clinton took office and for eight years Hussein
bought off UN officials in the oil for food scandal and routinely shot at our aircraft patrolling the no
fly zone.
Meanwhile we stumbled into Somalia and after making sure our troops didn’t have tanks or the
rules of engagement to deal with the threats, got our hat handed to us by warlord led criminal gangs.
We tucked tail and left. We then stuck out toe into the Balkans and...well we’re still there. I wonder
what those “two non profit journalism organizations” made of the no bid Halliburton contract
President Clinton signed for that little war. When the far left crazies are demonstrating for
withdrawal I always look to see if it means Kosovo ten years later.
In between giving billions of dollars to North Korea to keep it down about their nuke programs and
pretending people weren’t killing millions in Africa, the Democrat era lived nicely off the profits of
the Reagan era economic boom. We appeared weak, lazy, bloated, and ineffectual to the world.
Osama Bin Laden formed that opinion of us after Somalia.
While Hussein was watching this on CNN and telling the network what stories they could
broadcast from Iraq, he failed to take into account that a Republican had once again assumed office.
One that wasn’t too pleased that 17 UN resolutions had been violated. One who, after seeing two
Manhattan sky scrapers turned to rubble, wasn’t too happy to have his military planes shot at while
at the same time the dictator was funding suicide bombers in Israel. So, against the vehement
opposition of the uber liberal press but with the blessings of scared Democrats not wanting to be seen
as weak on defense, the President took out Afghanistan and Iraq from the equation.
Right up until the floor dropped and the rope tightened, the former dictator was probably cursing
the media for not swaying the American people that America was the bad guy. But, in their defense
you couldn’t say the press didn’t try.
Oh, that story in today’s K.C. Star about the only person to interview Hussein? It was on page A-
20. The story that Bush lied? Page A-19: verbatim with no hint at the questionable sourcing or the
complete lack of statements by any Democrat either during Bush‘s terms or by the prior Democratic
administration. One would hope that the editor reviewing page A-19 wasn‘t the same one as the one
who reviewed A-20.
Fact check people. Use more than one source. We are trying to get The Quiet Conservative going
nationwide. On this forum the editorial page and the news page will have a bright and shining line
separating the two. Honesty in journalism is possible and obtainable if you want it. In the age of
computers the control of information is once again out of the hands of the few and into the hands of
the many. The freedom of the press is growing. Let’s help it along. Please, please, fact check!