Did you catch the Safire column today?

Hold on to your ass, this one's a doosy. I think the man has finally lost his mind.

Sarin? What Sarin?
By WILLIAM SAFIRE

Published: May 19, 2004


You probably missed the news because it didn't get much play, but a small, crude weapon of mass destruction may have been used by Saddam's terrorists in Iraq this week.

The apparent weapon was sarin gas, a highly toxic nerve agent that causes victims to choke to death. Developed by the Nazis, it has been used in the past by terrorists in Japan to kill a dozen subway riders and panic thousands, and by Saddam Hussein, who produced tons of it to kill Iraqi Kurds.

<snip>

You never saw such a rush to dismiss this as not news. U.N. weapons inspectors whose reputations rest on denial of Saddam's W.M.D. pooh-poohed the report. "It doesn't strike me as a big deal," said David Kay.

"Sarin Bomb Is Likely a Leftover From the 80's" was USA Today's Page 10 brushoff; maybe the terrorists didn't know their shell was loaded with sarin. Besides, say our lionized apostles of defeat, a poison-gas bomb does not a "stockpile" make. Even the Defense Department, on the defensive, strained not to appear alarmist, saying confirmation was needed for the field tests.

In this rush to misjudgment, we can see an example of the "Four Noes" that have become the defeatists' platform.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/19/opinion/19SAFI.html

And used by "Saddam's terrorists" no less.

They're really grasping at straws aren't they?

Range several yards. Some Weapon of Mass Destruction! Unreal....

WHAT?!?!

The gas traces did not even hospitalize two guys standing next to it...

here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x1625977

and don't miss Josh Marshall's comments:

www.talkingpointsmemo.com

hilarious!

My exact thougts.

Imagine that the DA acuses Joe Smith of murder. "We have a smoking gun wth fingerprints, we have photographs, we have witnesses," says the DA.

So the case goes to court. No smoking gun. *No gun at all!* No photographs. Witnesses were coached. A clear frame up case. Further, several police officers come fourth and say that the DA pressured them into manafacturing evidence.

How would William Safire cover this trial?

"Well, those apologists for murder, just you wait when we do uncover evidence. Then you'll be sorry you let this town down."

Yes, Mr. Safire. Usually one argues on evidence, not on hypothetical evidence.

(Safire is probably the most dishonest main-stream punidit, incidently. He knows he is lying.)

who does he mean?

Robert Byrd?

Howard Dean?

Ralph Nader?

Ted Kennedy?

Hans Blix?

I don't think any of these fine anti-war folks have been "lionized" by the war issue, at least when you compare them to the GWB's and Colin Powell's and Dr. Rices's and Wolfowitz's and Bremer's. It is the pro-war folks who have enjoyed the lion's share of the lionization.

If Dean is so lionized, then how did he lose the primaries? If Nader is so lionized, how come he only pulls down 5% in the polling? Could more than 10% of the American public even identify Hans Blix in a line-up? Where is this "lionization" to which Mr. Safire refers?

I knew Safire's politics were bad, but I thought he always prided himself on use of the language. I am not sure there is any reason to read him anymore.

kill lots of people :nuke:.

Anything that just nauseates you for a couple of hours doesn't really qualify -- even if the actual intent were somewhat more hostile than the effect.

And I'm rather afraid, Bill, that if we started using "nausea-producing" as our criterion for identifying WMDs, we'd find threats all over the place: anyway, I know that a lot of the nonsense I've heard in the last two or three years makes me gag.

Someone in contact with several soldiers said this was not made a big deal of because the weapon was made in the USA!

Here is the direct quote:

NEWSFLASH


SARIN GAS SHELL FOUND IN IRAQ MADE IN USA


I just got this info from some high ranking military buddies ( 4 independent and seperate sources) this is the reason bremer kimmet and others are downplaying the issue. The soldiers don't take these things lightly so do everything to spread the real deal by word of mouth. The military buzz in iraq is that the shell did not explode or injure anyone but was detonated with C4(high explosive) to hide its embarassing origin, this is why our guys on the ground are not worried, if this were not the case the men would have insisted on safe deployment implementation.
Bottom line is the guys on the fireing line do not completely trust their chain of command so have set up their own independent information sharing.... how sad the politicization of our military has become, that the grunts see their top C.O.s as politically motivated so less than trustworthy

ANYONE WITH TIES TO THE KERRY CAMPAIGN PLEASE PASS ON THE INFO the sources are good

It is buried on a thread in the Kerry blog. Those things fill up with hundreds of posts in a few hours, and it was a few days ago. I only have it because I copied it and emailed it to someone.

given the Reagan administration's cuddling with Saddam.

as the label of choice to describe those who dare to criticise bush and his henchmen.

It is sad to see a good word perverted by those criminals.

Edit for typo.

He has that addled, derailed train of thought of a long-time boozer who forgot years ago what it's like not to be drunk. When he goes on about Hillary Clinton, he turns into a positive ranter. Worse than that other pickled herring, Dick Morris.

It exploded and killed exactly zero people. That's a pretty extravagant exageration - they're really getting desperate.

Other WMD's have harder signatures to fake and are more reliably lethal, even more uncontrollable. It could be the beginning of a set up where a sarin "stockpile" may be found later. Not right away of course, but the groundwork is laid.

The mileage gotten from this pathetic, nearly deliberately safe bomb attack is a test. If it comforts the Bush masses they can expect a bigger show to come.

I would even go out on a limb and guarantee a "find" of a stash of newly minted sarin pumped into confiscated Iraqi missiles. All of that would take time and careful planning. Here's hoping their planning does not become unusually competent.

The next thing would be a test of a terrorism attack on US or US based interest, probably heroically and efficiently thwarted. They would check and see how the propaganda machine could thwart the "Madrid effect". If successful in at least restoring credibility they would need a big one to follow. These things seem to fit nicely with desperately needed tailored scenarios. Probably just another timely coincidence.

But I am sure the stunned response of the majority of people to this "theory" would be "How can you say that? That's crazy."

David Kay was not just a UN weapons inspector; he was the Bush crony who was told to head the U.S. weapons search after the real inspectors were pushed out. He did not hinge his reputation on the absence of WMD; quite the opposite in fact.

As has been pointed out numerous times by even Kay himself, Donald Rumsfeld himself is the "pooh pooh-er" in chief on the issue of this "sarin." He has repeatedly urged caution. THis is a non-issue. After all the page one "WMD finds" and last-page retractions, the media SHOULD be leery about reporting a find.

Logic itself would seem to suggest that this sarin is degraded, and hence from the 1980s. Colin Powell at the U.N. told us a small vial was enough to kill thousands of people. The two soldiers who were exposed to a paintbucket-full did not come away with any more than a cold, however.

Excellent analysis... scroll down.

www.talkingpointsmemo.com

Excerpt:

Frequently, when I read a column by Bill Safire, I have to think to myself: who was the editor on this piece? And what must he or she have thought when they were editing this stuff?

<snip>

Then there's the about-to-be-found caches of biological weapons. For a few months after the war, Safire and similar folks claimed that we weren't finding the goods because scientists were still afraid Saddam might make a come back -- after all, he and other high-value targets were still on the loose. Never a very probable theory -- and one pretty well disproved by the deaths of Saddam's sons and Saddam's eventual capture.

Now Safire has a new theory. "In a sovereign and free Iraq, when germ-warfare scientists are fearful of being tried as prewar criminals, their impetus will be to sing — and point to caches of anthrax and other mass killers."

To use a much-overused line, you can't make this stuff up. It transcends self-parody.

Conservatives hunting for media-bias in the Times often pick on its more liberal columnists. In fact, if there's bias to be found, it's in Safire. Only lack of interest and respect for conservative opinion can fully explain Safire's continued presence on the page.

I really need to learn to save the opinion page for later in the day. I hate getting so incensed so early in the day.