Helen Thomas vs. Ari Fleischer

[joanna bujes]

At 03:19 PM 01/08/2003 -0500, you wrote:
>I watched Don Rumsfield and some Pentagon press aide stumble badly -- 
>almost to the point of complete collapse of composure -- on CSPAN last 
>night.  The question that gave them so much trouble was very simple.  Why, 
>a reporter queried, was the US going to war over a potential threat of 
>WMDs in Iraq while it was only calling for talks over actually existing 
>WDMs in North Korea?  Now one would think that this would be included in 
>the short-list of questions to be prepared to answer.  Instead, Don took a 
>couple weak stabs before descending into a stuttering, jacket tugging, 
>paper shuffling, glasses-pressing heap of confusion.  Then the aide 
>offered to bail him out with equally comic effect.
>
>Then they both thanked everyone and ran out the door.
>
>You could almost hear the screech of wheels after the door slammed shut.
>
>I suspect one could create such conceptual confusion on any number of 
>administration policies.  "Double taxation" comes immediately to mind.

The pundits may step in and teach them how to do it. Saw an op-ed in the 
Washington Post(?) a couple of days ago. Headline "USA only attacks weak 
countries" or something like that. Read further...it explained that 
"deterrence works" hence we must be diplomatic with NK cause they can cause 
harm to SK or Japan. On the other hand, we should bomb the shit out of Iraq 
so that in the future, they won't become another NK. Note that this 
argument concludes that we should bomb precisely because Iraq doesn't have 
WMD now.

It's as sleazy and nuts as it gets...

Joanna