September 8, 2002 ... September 8, 2002 ... Hardball is catapulting the propaganda back over the White House walls OK, if you're looking for proof that this True Blue Liberal is less than a true blue American, then here's your proof, and my confession: I don't have access to cable or satellite television, so I can't see Chris Matthews on MSNBC; I don't even currently have a television, but after reading this entry by Arianna Huffington on Chris Matthews and the Power of Repetition, I almost want one (not really, but it is good to see that the tube is being used to catapult some propaganda back over the walls).

Sunday Sept. 8, 2002 was a red letter day in the White House Iraq Group’s efforts to market the war. That was the day the administration’s war salesmen scored one of their biggest propaganda coups.

That morning, the New York Times ran a front page story co-written by Judy Miller about how Saddam was trying to get a hold of aluminum tubes to be used in building nuclear weapons.

Perfectly timed to coincide with this planted (and bogus) info, the administration blanketed the Sunday shows with its big guns -- who all used the New York Times’ credibility to bolster their case against Saddam and scare the American people.

[...]
Over the last two weeks, Hardball’s Chris Matthews has been relentless in repeatedly bringing the significance of Sept. 8, 2002 -- and its larger implications -- home to his audience.

It’s been crusading journalism at its best. Making a crucial point by repeating the story -- and the facts -- again and again and again.

[...]
He is acting as a village explainer, using the dramatic example of Sept. 8, 2002 to simplify, clarify, and make memorable a very complex set of facts.

“Stories,” says Harvard professor Howard Gardner, “are the single most powerful weapon in a leader’s arsenal”. A journalist’s arsenal, too. Matthews should keep telling this one until the public takes it to heart -- and the White House war salesmen are forced to come clean.

The date in September 2002 that stands out in my mind is four days later, one day after the first anniversary of The September 11, when George W. Bush used that anniversary, in New York City, to desecrate the memory of those who died by going to the United Nations and calling for war against Iraq, based on the bogus intelligence that had been broadcast and amplified in the WHIG's media echo chamber on the previous weekend. As I said in my last entry, September 2002 is where all the real story is told. The outing of Ms. Plame Wilson in 2003 was just part of the cover-up.  ¶ 11/03/2005 10:31:00 PM