This weekend I was in an almost empty office with my sys admin pal performing a routine upgrade to our software. To pass the dreary time I thought it might be nice to listen to the National Press Club podcast. A venerable institution that the intro video states was "...founded because in 1908 the bars in Washington closed at midnight." Befitting an institution founded on such a solid mission statement they chose to host Douglas Feith. After a short stint of dissembling logical syllogisms and revisionist histrionics things moved to Q and A and got interesting. Doug was politely taken to task by the crew until an old friend of ours reared his ugly chrome domed lex luthor wanna be head and tossed a slow pitch underhanded softball to Dougie 'not so fresh' Feith. That old friend was Jeff(James?)Gannon(Guckert?).
Yes you remember the T ball league pitcher from the white house press briefings the not so celebrity mole who was repeatedly passed day press passes for months despite not actually working for a news outlet of any repute whatsoever. While a freelance republican operative by day He was moonlighting as a male prostitute
The money shot quote occurs at 40:33
Jeff Gannon: I'm Jeff Gannon A Voice of the New Media and my question is you've challenged the accuracy of the conventional wisdom. Could you discuss uh who's responsible for that conventional wisdom, what their motivations might be and the role that the American media has played in that? Douglas Feith: I'm not sure that I could give you any kind of uh-definitive answers on that. I think that part of the answer is that a lot of this uh this conventional wisdom is the result of stories that people within the administration and this is a major topic of my book people within the administration who did not support the president's policies were putting out stories in you know in real time uh describing mis-describing the positions of their bureaucratic opponents. So people who were-who did not support the president's conclusion that we needed to take military action against Saddam um were telling journalists throughout these debates in 2002-2003 that uh that the people who did believe that military action was required had certain views: that they thought Iraq would be easy, or that they uh I I alluded in my earlier talk that they wanted to anoint Chalabi as the leader of Iraq, uh that they thought that we didn't need plans, uh all of those propositions are false but you can understand as a political matter if you don't like the people who are supporting the president those are very good things to say about them because it makes those people look foolish. So basically they were ascribing a lot of foolish views to people who supported the president. And and as I said I think that when the record is opened and people see the actual memoranda that were being developed that were being sent to the president that were the basis for the meetings and the actual records of the meetings and the deliberations you will see that those views that ascribed all these you know foolish and simple minded ideas to the president and his supporters within the administration are not accurate. But this was uh I mean those kinds of leaks and purported leaks um were part of the bureaucratic warfare that was going on inside the administration and um I think it's been very harmful to the country.
Jeff Gannon: I'm Jeff Gannon A Voice of the New Media and my question is you've challenged the accuracy of the conventional wisdom. Could you discuss uh who's responsible for that conventional wisdom, what their motivations might be and the role that the American media has played in that?
Douglas Feith: I'm not sure that I could give you any kind of uh-definitive answers on that. I think that part of the answer is that a lot of this uh this conventional wisdom is the result of stories that people within the administration and this is a major topic of my book people within the administration who did not support the president's policies were putting out stories in you know in real time uh describing mis-describing the positions of their bureaucratic opponents. So people who were-who did not support the president's conclusion that we needed to take military action against Saddam um were telling journalists throughout these debates in 2002-2003 that uh that the people who did believe that military action was required had certain views: that they thought Iraq would be easy, or that they uh I I alluded in my earlier talk that they wanted to anoint Chalabi as the leader of Iraq, uh that they thought that we didn't need plans, uh all of those propositions are false but you can understand as a political matter if you don't like the people who are supporting the president those are very good things to say about them because it makes those people look foolish. So basically they were ascribing a lot of foolish views to people who supported the president. And and as I said I think that when the record is opened and people see the actual memoranda that were being developed that were being sent to the president that were the basis for the meetings and the actual records of the meetings and the deliberations you will see that those views that ascribed all these you know foolish and simple minded ideas to the president and his supporters within the administration are not accurate. But this was uh I mean those kinds of leaks and purported leaks um were part of the bureaucratic warfare that was going on inside the administration and um I think it's been very harmful to the country.
Note: this was my transcription not NPC's.
I wont bother to debunk Dougie.
Now the question is how did he get in? Wouldn't the members of the Washington press corps who supposedly make it their business to report the news know who he was? So I took the direct route and called NPC and spoke to a very nice and professional young woman who told me that the general public is allowed in the luncheons as well as guests of the speaker. She also said that to be a member of the press club you had to have the recommendation of 2 current members and credentials from a media outlet and a writing sample.
So maybe it was a happy coincidence for Doug or maybe not. Things that make you go Hmmmm
UPDATE 8:50pm Saturday (EDT): Apparently he's been there before
Obviously as a guest of Darth Cheney Oh and that book the moderator mentioned? Not doin' so well