<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> <HTML><HEAD> <META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> <META content="MSHTML 6.00.2800.1141" name=GENERATOR> <STYLE></STYLE> </HEAD> <BODY bgColor=#ffffff> <DIV> (An amusing bit from today's Daily Howler -- DP) BEING WRONG KEEPS YOU ON: All hail Brian Lamb for having Scott Ritter on Washington Journal last Friday! Ritter did a full thirty minutes on the program, answering questions about WMDs. And wouldn’t you know it? Brian’s first caller, from Philadelphia, asked Scott a very good question: <BLOCKQUOTE>CALLER: Yes, Mr. Ritter. I remember you being interviewed on all the late night cable talk shows and what I remember is you were the only one prior to the war who said that there’s no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. In other words, you’re the only one who was accurate. Why have you all of a sudden disappeared from all these shows? Gosh, for the last year, I’ve wondered what ever happened to Scott Ritter, the only guy who seemed to know what was going on? I’m just wondering whether you were silenced in this regard? Have the networks blacklisted you? Or is there a reason why your opinions aren’t getting proper airplay?</BLOCKQUOTE>Good question! After all, if one observer turns out to be right—and everyone else turns out to be wrong—you’d almost imagine that major news orgs would want to talk to that first guy! But that’s not how it works in this “press corps!” Just so you’ll know, here’s Scott’s answer: <BLOCKQUOTE>RITTER: Well, it’s probably a question best posed to the producers and the bookers at the various television shows and radio talk shows. I’ve always been confident that I’m saying things that are factually sound, based upon the truth, that I’m not spinning them for anyone’s benefit. Unfortunately, I don’t believe the mainstream media acted responsibly in regard to Iraq. Back in the fall of 2002, I was belittled, I was called a traitor, I was called crazy—Paula Zahn of CNN accused me of drinking Saddam Hussein’s Kool-Aid for making accurate statements in response to aluminum tubes and uranium allegedly coming from Niger. I think we have a problem here in that the media is culpable for the misleading of the American public. They bought into the Bush administration’s rhetoric and war fervor, they sold the war to the American public, and now they have to deal with the fact that they’re the ones that were out there beating the war drums and you have this guy, Scott Ritter, who was saying something different and—maybe they just don’t know how to deal with me. I think, though, the facts are on the table and the people who stuck to the facts are the ones who have credibility and hopefully people will realize that, on the issue of Iraq, I have enormous credibility.</BLOCKQUOTE>Say what? Paula Zahn said something like that? Paula Zahn, paid millions to look-good-faking-news? In whose mouth table spread wouldn’t melt? To his great credit, Lamb returned to this question moments later. What shows have you been on in recent weeks? Brian asked. Ritter mentioned a spot with Anderson Cooper, and an earlier CNBC gig. But time out! We decided to do a HOWLER fact-check. How many shows has Ritter been on? You know? Scott Ritter, the guy who got the facts right! According to the Nexis archives, here is Ritter’s total oeuvre over the past six months: <OL> <LI type=1>Wolf Blitzer Reports, CNN, 1/30/04 (the night of Ritter’s C-SPAN appearance) <LI type=1>Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees, CNN, 1/8/04 <LI type=1>Capital Report, CNBC, 9/30/03 </LI></OL>That’s it! You can see how hard your “press corps” has pushed to figure out the real facts on Iraq! Readers, Ritter’s been dumped because he was right. Within this hopeless, Potemkin “press corps,” you only get to stay on the air if you’re conventionally wrong! The people “who stuck to the facts” may have credibility—but they surely aren’t going to get any air time! And by the way, just how will such people get treated when they do end up on TV? It wasn’t just Zahn who was trashing Scott Ritter. Incredibly, here’s the way Gloria Borger previewed that Capital Report session. Words fail when one sees work like this: <BLOCKQUOTE>BORGER (9/30/03): And later: Scott Ritter, the last man in America to defend Saddam Hussein. Why he’s more insistent than ever that there were never any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Stay with us. You’re watching Capital Report on CNBC.</BLOCKQUOTE>Astonishing, isn’t it? But so it goes in this fake, slimy “press corps.” If you’re right, you’re even more of a traitor, and slimy people like Gloria Borger will slime your decency on TV. (By the way: Anyone who has watched Borger’s decline in the past five years will find this comment all too typical.) Faced with this, we pose one question: How long will we, the American people, accept people like Borger at the head of our discourse? How long will we let the Zahns and the Borgers sing the praises of those who were wrong?</DIV></BODY></HTML>