I live in Los Angeles and work at night. My ride home consists of navigating the freeway from downtown and takes about forty minutes. My entertainment consists of fliping around the radio dial trying to avoid the huge blocks of commericials that dominate the airwaves, regardless of the type of programming. The pickings are really dreary and occasionally I've resorted to listening to KFI 640 which is the Rush-Dr. Laura propaganda flagship station. From seven to ten the station features someone named John Ziegler, an insufferable zealot who fortunately is not syndicated and cannot be heard outside of southern California. His show on Tuesday precipitated an email exchange that was brief in nature but quite revelatory. More on that below.
Many of you may have heard of Ziegler but don't realize it. He was the subject of a lengthy profile in Atlantic Monthly Magazine about the business of talk radio. The editors probably selected Ziegler not so much for any distinctive talent but because he is typical of the generic, politically conservative individuals who dominate the airwaves. Like most of these folks, Ziegler has a pet issue that he harps on repeatedly. With Rush, it's the Clintons, with O'Reilly, it's the imagined war on Christianity, with Hannity, it's faux patriotism. For John Ziegler it's Iraq. He not only is a fervent supporter of the war as it is being conducted he also vilifies Americans as not being stong enough to stand up to terrorism and unable to understand the true threat we are facing. There is no subtlety as to who or what we are fighting in Iraq. The entire insurgency is lumped in with "Al-Qaeda" and "Al-Qaeda" is everywhere. A pretty typical extreme right wing position but bandied about with abrasive scorn and disdain for those who don't agree. So obnoxious that I can only stand it for a matter of seconds before trying to find something less grating.
On Tuesday (9/11) his discussion with his female sidekick was proceding along predictable lines when he started in on a long diatribe about how ridiculous it was that anyone would not understand the connection between 9/11 Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. My ears pricked up, interested to hear how he would explain a position so discredited that not even the Bush administration would try and maintain this as truthful or accurate. Ziegler began talking on in a manner that indicated that such a connection was not even debatable and then said something that at the time sounded like "Hell, you can google on the internet and find all sorts of mentions of this connection."
I kept that in mind as I pulled in the driveway, intent on researching what I believed to be blatant dishonesty. Although I looked for a while I must have had poor phrasing because I didn't find much of anything, only this comical nonsense written by some obviously confused soul.
http://www.esotericastrologer.org/...
I sent Ziegler the following email. I've occasionally done this with various other newspapers or media figures but I've always found it an exercise in futility. I've never heard back from anybody
"Dear John,
I listen to your program on my way home from work. Usually, when you go on your tiresome Iraq rants I merely switch the channel. Last night, though, I kept listening because your information about al qaeda and connections to Saddam were so patently ridiculous that I wanted to see how far you would go with these distortions. Your best comment by far was your asssertion that you could read all about a Saddam-Osama connection if you merely googled Osama Bin Laden and iraq. I can't emember your exact phrasing but I did plug it in when I got home. the result was one hit that purported to be an analysis of ties of terrorism to Saddam Hussein (posted in 2003, I believe) It contained footnoted assertions concerning meetings between Atta in Prague with Iraqi intelligence, anthrax attacks supposedly by Iraq post 9/11. All since completely discredited. This post then went on an analysis based on some bizarre astrological charting. Clearly the work of a mental defective. This is typical of folks like you who figure that 99% of your audience will never bother to check out your assertions. Justifiable since, for the majority of your audience, facts don't matter, anyway. If you have any internet sites that ARE CREDIBLE that assert and even offer any proof that Saddam offered Bin Laden aid, asylum or assistance, please forward them to me at this email address. I won't hold my breath.
I won't bother discrediting the rest of your bombast other than asking you the question that fanatics like you never ask: How are you going to continue to pay for this fabulous "War on Terror". . Are you going to raise taxes or will you continue to further erode the economic and domestic security of this country by selling more Treasury bonds to Red China and Saudi Arabia? You don't have any other options since Bush and congress are fighting over discretionary spending that totals no more than fifty billion in an environment where Iraq will eat up hundreds of billions of additional dollars, especially if you continue to post 150,000 troops to continue to try and "win", whatever that means. Good luck with a program that by definition can only appeal to about 27% of the American people."
I bolded the words "are credible" for the purpose of this diary. I was kind of shocked when my inbox generated the following response:
"Before you go claiming I am not telling the truth, shouldn't you at least bother to get the "google" correct? Amazing.
JZ"
I wasn't sure what he meant by that and he certainly hadn't provided any links so I he figured he was trying to change the subject or dodge the question. I responded:
"Still waiting for your alleged website. Nice try."
Almost immediately Ziegler got back to me with the following. Guess the guy has some time on his hands:
"Yo nitwit, try this:
http://edition.cnn.com/...
As I clicked on the link, I was more than a little curious and also kind of surprised that Ziegler would engage in language more suited to a third grader. I shouldn't have been. When I was trying to find out if he was local or national I found out information about an altercation that Ziegler had with one of his co-workers, literally one of the hosts of the "John and Ken Show" (their mantra is a practically obsessive-compulsive discussion of "illegal immigration, although to be fair they are pretty even handed in dumping all over politicians of every stripe, especially folks like Mark Foley and Larry Craig) The topic was Iraq and it literally got Ziegler suspended for a couple of days. You can read about it here, scroll down to "controversies":
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
Apparently, Ziegler is not only abrasive and juvenile to his listenrs, he is also considered insufferable by his fellow talk radio right wingers.
After reading the CNN screen shot I was really surprised until I read it a few times. I also remembered what he had specifically said on the air. He said that you could google Saddam and Bin Laden and even read about their connection "on CNN" That cleared up what he meant by his first email I sent Ziegler the following response:
"Proves that you who know very little little about Saddam's MO in dealing with his enemies. If this report is true, which it is merely an unattributed CNN aside, can you tell me whether or not Osama took him up on his offer? Obviously not as Osama would be smart enough to realize that he would be murdered like the countless other fundamentalist jihadis that Saddam lured to Iraq and then liquidated
By the way, why would you use CNN, a news organization that you constantly vilify as nothing more than biased, left wing media, to bolster your specious claims about an Osama-Saddam connection? A bit intellectually dishonest, eh?"
I wasn't particularly happy with that email. Immediately after I sent it, it came to me that I really missed the major flaw in this story. Based on the date, the other statements by the Taliban (that turned out to be nonsensical) and the totally unattributed nature of this comment, this story is not only ridiculous it would tend to reflect poorly on anyone citing it as evidence of anything. Oh well, so much for that exchange.
Surprisingly, Ziegler responded again and after reading his email I almost fell out of my chair, for several reasons:
"Are you a complete dimwit (apprently so)? I used CNN because EVEN the PRO Saddam liberal CNN reported it. If I had used Fox you would have said it wasn't true. You are an idiot.
BTW, where is the apology for saying I wasn't telling truth about the google?
JZ"
Truly remarkable that a major American radio station would employ someone so eloquent. Did you ever wonder if people like Karl Rove or Tony Snow even really believe some of the stuff that they spew, no matter how dishonest? What dawned on me about Ziegler is that he's not dishonest, he's crazy. "The PRO Saddam liberal CNN". CNN is a subsidiary of Time-Warner, one of the largest American corporations in the world with a five per cent interest controlled by the Saudi royal family. Glenn Beck has a show on CNN. Liberal bias in the media is a standard right canard which even Tony Snow was resorting to this week but "PRO Saddam"? That borders on delusional paranoia. I was glad to get another opportunity to respond:
"Interesting that you failed to notice that everything in this story turned out to be patently absurd. An unnamed source claims Bin laden has left Afghanistan, yet within a short period of time Bin laden would plan and carry out the 9/11 attacks from Kandahar. An official of the Taliban government would attempt to assert that Bin Laden is not welcome in Afghanistan, yet the Taliban would not only continue to harbor Bin laden, they would refuse to give him up under pain of international attack. From this context evolves the unsubstantiated claim that Saddam offered asylum to Bin Laden.
Again, since analytics doesn't seem to be your strong suit the meer (sic) invitation to Bin Laden of asylum by Saddam does not indicate a working relationship. Saddam offered asylum to many people. Some of the more unfortunate, like Abu Nidal or Saddam's ex-son-in-laws, took him up on his offer.
Your complete distortion of a laughable CNN screen shot that seven years later appears to be comicaly inaccurate only indicates how dishonest you are. Why didn't you read the rather brief story on the air in its entirety to underline your argument that Saddam was in league with Bin Laden? Because the entire story is garbage and you know it.
Any attempt to infer or assert a connection betwen Saddam, Bin Laden and 9/11 is fundamentally a lie that not even Dick Cheney would attempt. At least Cheney only said that "we couldn't rule it out". You can try and justify this disaster in Iraq with that nonsense all you want. You merely make yourself look foolish."
I started to wonder how Ziegler, who is long on bluster and unsubstantiated opinion, would have found or have been aware of a story about Bin Laden that was from 1999. I plugged the sentence about Saddam offering asylum into google. What I got were mostly countless repetitions of the same CNN story, especially on right wing blogs like Red State. That's where he found it. That's how the mindset works. Somebody posts this story on Red State. John Ziegler takes one sentence with no substantiation and from that justifies the Iraq invasion by citing an Osama-Saddam connection. I guess I should apologize to Ziegler, he's not dishonest, he's bonkers.