"People get exercised over the strangest things."
And some people get exercised in defending the indefensable.
Here's a decent example of liberal bias in the media. It has false & misleading statements regarding President Bush & the war in Iraq..........
The Making of A Conspiracy Theory
By Richard Cohen
Tuesday, December 23, 2003; Page A21
Princess Di was killed because she was preggers with the child of Dodi Fayed. John F. Kennedy was killed by the Mafia. Israel's intelligence service, the Mossad, pulled off the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and, as we all know, the media are controlled by liberals -- or maybe it's the Jews. Being both, I ought to know, but the answer eludes me -- or maybe I'm not telling.
Conspiracy theories can sometimes be funny and sometimes inconsequential -- except when they're not. It's not funny that a 2002 Gallup Poll conducted in nine Islamic countries found that 61 percent of those surveyed thought that Muslims had nothing to do with the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Such sentiments not only complicate the war on terrorism but make it seem that the war in Afghanistan was conducted for some other reason -- not in retaliation for what Osama bin Laden, sheltered by the ruling Taliban, had done.
Now we come to the latest and maybe most serious conspiracy theory: George Bush was given advance word by the Saudis of the Sept. 11 attacks. There is no evidence of this and you can only recall how Bush appeared after the attacks -- shaken to his core -- to see for yourself that he had no idea of what was coming. Still, the theory persists and it was, unbelievably, given a smidgen of credence by none other than Howard Dean.
Appearing on a radio show earlier this month, Dean was asked why the president might be suppressing information about what the government knew before the terrorist attacks. Here is what he said:
"The most interesting theory that I have heard so far, which is nothing more than a theory, I can't think -- it can't be proved -- is that he was warned ahead of time by the Saudis. Now, who knows what the real situation is?"
In subsequent days Dean retracted, amended, explained and otherwise said he did not mean to suggest that Bush knew in advance that an attack was coming -- all to no avail. He was roundly, and rightly, lambasted for what he said, suggesting once again that about the only thing that stands between him and the Democratic presidential nomination is his tongue.
There is no excusing what Dean said. But providing a context is a different matter entirely. As Dean himself said, the Bush administration has been very stingy about revealing just what it knew about terrorist activities before Sept. 11. Couple that with the fact that no weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq -- nor a link between Saddam and al Qaeda proved -- and you have the requisite ingredients for a conspiracy theory: Something here doesn't add up.
Conspiracy theories represent more than an attempt to explain the inexplicable. They are also an indictment of democracy, which is itself reliant on transparency -- on the people's knowing what is going on. Conspiracy theories say you don't know what's going on. Something or someone is making things happen -- and that something or someone is hidden.
Inadvertently, the Bush administration is encouraging that sort of thinking. Not only has it been reluctant to divulge what the government knew before Sept. 11 but it has resolutely attempted to ignore the fact that its stated reasons for going to war in Iraq have not yet materialized.
Bush likes to skip over that awkward fact. When he was repeatedly asked by Diane Sawyer if, in fact, the administration had exaggerated its case against Saddam Hussein, the president kept ducking the question. Finally, in a nanny-nanny-boo-boo response, he said, "Well, you can keep asking the question. And my answer's gonna be the same. Saddam was a danger. And the world is better off because we got rid of him."
Maybe so. But our democracy is weaker. About half the American people believe Bush hyped the case for war. Some of those people are almost certainly going to concoct purportedly real reasons for the war -- maybe oil, maybe the Israel lobby, maybe who knows what. The persistent opaqueness of the Bush administration on this score -- its adamant refusal to admit a mistake or to walk us through its thinking process -- only encourages others to invent alternative reasons.
It was Howard Dean's obligation to dismiss -- not entertain -- the pernicious theory about Sept. 11. But Bush has an even more solemn obligation to give us all the facts about how Sept. 11 happened and why he was so wrong about Iraq's WMD program. The more he refuses to explain, the more others will concoct explanations for him. Nothing dispels a conspiracy theory faster than candor. Bush ought to try it.
cohenr@washpost.com
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