This morning on MSNBC's
First Look, there was the all too usual report on the violence in Iraq. Noting that more than 80 people had been killed over the weekend, the anchor went to correspondent Jane Arraf for the latest news:
Already this morning an attack in a town south of Baghdad, car bombs have killed 10 people and wounded 15 and that death toll is likely to rise. That caps what's been a particularly bloody weekend...
Arraf went on to describe the weekend; suicide bombings, an attack near a girl's school, the continuing sectarian violence. And then the anchor asked an amazingly stupid question:
So Jane, is this just a continuation of that sectarian violence that you just talked about or is this just an isolated weekend of extreme violence that happened there?
Picking my jaw off of the floor, I asked myself, what planet is this woman living on? Perhaps we are so overwhelmed by the daily dose of the big lies that the small idiocies fly under the radar. Let's take a look at some of these from this past weekend...
This weekend there were a number of newsmakers who seemed to be living in an alternate universe, but
let's begin with the MSNBC anchor's ridiculous question on whether this weekend was "just an isolated weekend of violence."
* Killed - weekend of October 7th: 122 Iraqis, 10 U.S. soldiers
* Killed - weekend of September 30th: 91 Iraqis, 9 U.S. soldiers
* Killed - weekend of September 23rd: 81 Iraqis, 7 U.S. soldiers
You get the idea. So no, this weekend was not just some isolated weekend of violence. Not only does the anchor not report the news well, apparently she doesn't watch it either.
Then there was Senator Chuck Hagel's appearance on CNN Late Edition:
The American people are not going to continue to support, sustain a policy that puts American troops in the middle of a civil war.
Continue? Apparently it has escaped Senator Hagel's attention that the American people have long stopped supporting this administration's Iraq policy.
Despite a recent speaking tour aimed at bolstering support for the conflict, only 32 percent told pollsters they approve of Bush's management of the war. And support for the war itself slipped to 38 percent, down from 40 percent in a CNN poll last week.
And much has been made about John Warner's sudden realization that things may not be going very well in Iraq, but during his appearance on Face The Nation, Warner gave an extraordinary reason why we can't begin an immediate pullout from Iraq:
It would be wrong to do that and unfair to the Iraqi people to let their oil become the cash cow for international terrorism.
As hundreds of thousands of Iraqis flee their homes to escape the fate of the unknown tens of thousands that have already died, it must be a relief for them to know that the United States wants to be fair...to their oil.
And here is some news for the men and women of the Army, Navy and Marine Corps. According to George Bush:
Victory in this war depends on the one thing that has not changed since the founding of the Air Force six decades ago -- the courage of the men and women who wear the Air Force blue.
I'm sure that the 120,000+ members of the other military branches in Iraq will be surprised to learn that their service isn't really needed for victory in this war.
And then there was this bit of idiocy from Dick Cheney during his weekend trip to New Orleans:
But I'm impressed with what they've done. It looks like the levee system is back basically to pre-Katrina levels, in some cases, even better than that.
Considering what happened to the levees during Katrina, what exactly is impressive about being back to those very same levels? Dick Cheney being impressed will be cold comfort to the people of New Orleans when the next hurricane hits.
And I'll end with the ultimate in 'what planet are you living on'...from Joe Lieberman:
I have a record of standing up for what I think is right.
If he had only added, "for me," he wouldn't have made it into this diary.