...CNN Headline News invited me on to talk about our campaign on the weapons of mass destruction and the new "Misleader" TV ad.News organizations are in the credibility business. This works against us when the CW is completely at loggerheads with reality, and no one is willing to break with the pack, but at this point, for CNN to proffer lame excuses that the Administration itself isn't peddling, seems positively suicidal. What can the Moron-American FOX News demographic offer that's worth this kind of self-degradation?
...Rudi Bakhtiar was the anchorwoman, and as the clock ticked toward nine, she gave a preview of what was ahead. After a short clip from our ad, Ms. Bakhtiar gave a synopsis of the scandal over the President's State of the Union claim that Iraq was trying to buy uranium from Niger -- a claim now known to be based on fraudulent evidence which even the White House knew was untenable. Ms. Bakhtiar pondered whether there was going to be political fallout from Bush's "slip of the tongue," and then invited viewers to stay tuned.
...In the commercial break before I went live, I asked the producer of the show about the "slip of the tongue" comment. She explained that it had been written for Rudi beforehand -- Rudi was just reading her script.
As I went on air, Ms. Bakhtiar greeted me and asked me about the ad. I laid out the basic case -- the President isn't being forthcoming about this, and we need to know what happened so that we can avoid it next time. Then things started to get really weird: Bakhtiar responded by spending about 30 seconds on air chiding me about how Saddam Hussein was a murderer, how he defied the UN, and how he attacked other countries.
I explained that everyone agrees that Saddam's a bad guy, the question is whether the President misled us about his capacity to do harm. Bakhtiar wasn't satisfied: "Don't you think you're betraying the troops in service by airing ads like that?" she asked. (Unfortunately, we were unable to get a transcript from CNN to verify the exact question. This is a paraphrase to the best of my recollection.) I responded that the opposite was true: one of the petition signers whose comment I had caught was an active-duty military person who was worried that he was putting his life on the line for a lie. I said we needed to find out what really happened so that these folks know that they're risking their lives for something important.
Then the interview ended. I walked out to greet a friend who had come with me. She was shocked -- for most of the interview, rather than showing me, they had shown footage of Saddam Hussein waving guns.
Meanwhile, you know what to do. Click here.