...that visible light doesn't penetrate the depths. Have another latte Dana and calm the fuck down:
From Fromkin:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/10/02/BL2007100201080_pf.htmlSlime the Messenger
By Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
Tuesday, October 2, 2007; 12:58 PM
White House Press Secretary Dana Perino yesterday cast aspersions on investigative reporter Seymour M. Hersh and his anonymous sources -- but refused to respond to any of the specific claims Hersh made in this week's New Yorker about White House support for a new path to war with Iran.
All Perino would say was that President Bush is seeking a diplomatic solution -- precisely what the White House claimed as it set the Iraq war in motion in late 2002 and early 2003.
Hersh, who has a history of well-sourced, groundbreaking reporting (he won a Pulitzer Prize in 1970 for his uncovering of the My Lai massacre in Vietnam), writes that Bush is seriously considering limited strikes against Iran, ostensibly in defense of American troops in Iraq. The real attraction of such an approach, Hersh writes, is that Bush and Cheney believe it could be readily sold to the American people.
Plans for broad bombing targeting Iran's suspected nuclear facilities are being replaced with plans for a more limited attack, Hersh writes, after Bush and his aides "concluded that their campaign to convince the American public that Iran poses an imminent nuclear threat has failed (unlike a similar campaign before the Iraq war), and that as a result there is not enough popular support for a major bombing campaign."
At yesterday's press briefing, Perino was dismissive of questions about Hersh's piece from CNN's Ed Henry and CBS's Bill Plante:
Perino: "Look, you know, I'm glad you brought it up. Every two months or so, Sy Hersh writes an article in The New Yorker magazine, and CNN provides him a forum in which to talk about his article and all the anonymous sources that are quoted in it."
Henry: "So the President --"
Perino: "The President has said that he believes that there is a diplomatic solution that we can use to solve the Iranian problem. And that's why we're working with our allies to get there."
Plante: "That's what he said before we went to Iraq, too."
Henry: "But what's the -- can you answer actually on the substance of whether or not the White House asked -- I mean, if it's not true, then you can say Sy Hersh is wrong and CNN was wrong to air it. You could say that, but --"
Perino: "We don't discuss such things, Ed."
Henry: " -- what about the substance of whether we --"
Perino: "We don't discuss such things. What we have said and what we are working towards is a diplomatic solution in Iran. What the President has also said is that as a President, as a Commander-in-Chief -- and any Commander-in-Chief -- would not take any option off the table. But the option that we are pursuing right now is diplomacy."
Henry: "But the article very specifically said that this summer in a video conference -- secure video conference with Ambassador Crocker, the President said that he was thinking about 'hitting Iran' and also --"
Perino: "I'm not going to comment on -- one, I don't know. I wouldn't have been at any -- at that type of a meeting. I don't know. I'm not going to comment on any possible -- any possible scenario that an anonymous source, you know, continues to feed into Sy Hersh. I'm just not going the do it."
Plante: "Why should anybody believe that the President wants diplomatic solutions? He said that before going into Iraq."
Perino: "The President sought a diplomatic solution in Iraq and Saddam Hussein defied the U.N. Security Council 17 times."
Plante: "Some of the history we've learned since suggests otherwise."
Perino: "That the President didn't -- that Saddam Hussein defied 17 U.N. Security Council resolutions?"
Plante: "No, that the President was intent on going to war in Iraq in any case."
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