The delusional, dinkeldorf editors at Vanity Fair just don’t get it….
In this post about Vice President Dick Cheney’s interview with ABC news, I said two days ago regarding the Vanity Fair article by David Rose:
“I’m disapointed in my fellow Neo-Cons that they have seemingly chosen to abandon the President and his policies.
But knowing the press and Vanity Fair in particular as I do, I don’t doubt that this hit piece on the president twisted the words of the Neo-Cons and they are using this article (which will no doubt be trumped up as loudly as possible over the next three days) as an attempt to sway the voters right before the election.”
The Vanity fair editors and their cohorts who are guilty of Media crimes just do NOT get it.
The world has changed. No more will they be able to sway elections with an October surprise, November surprise, or last minute saturday night live sketches intended to sway people in that last minute vote.
Real people in Iraq are dying, both the citizens being slaughtered by the insurgents and the Coalition forces.
With the new media available largely for free to anyone who bothers to get online and read, immediate responses like those posted on Drudge almost the second the vanity fair piece hit the public were written and submitted by Pearl and Co:
On NRO:
Vanity Unfair
A response to Vanity Fair.
David Frum:
“Vanity Fair then set my words in its own context in its press release. They added words outside the quote marks to change the plain meaning of quotations.”
“In short, Vanity Fair transformed a Washington debate over “how to correct course and win the war” to advance obsessions all their own.
How was this done?
The author of the piece touted by the press release is David Rose, a British journalist well known as a critic of the Saddam Hussein regime and supporter of the Iraq war. (See here and here for just two instances out of a lengthy bibliography.)
Rose has earned a reputation as a truth teller. The same unfortunately cannot be said for the editors and publicists at Vanity Fair. They have repackaged truths that a war-fighting country needs to hear into lies intended to achieve a shabby partisan purpose.”
Frank Gaffney:
“As with others, I find myself being quoted not only out of context but making remarks that have — albeit in more fulsome ways — been said by me many times before. As with their remarks, mine have been part of the texture of the debate about Iraq for years. They do not reflect remorse about effort to help free the long-suffering people of that country, and others under Islamofascist assault, let alone a so-called “neo-culpa.”
For the record, I remain convinced that the liberation of Iraq was a necessary and laudable measure to prevent a megalomaniac from handing off to terrorists weapons of mass destruction for the purpose of attacking us and our allies. Contrary to popular belief, the U.S. government has proof that Saddam Hussein had precisely such plans ready to implement. In fact, such evidence was actually documented in the Iraq Survey Group’s final report released last year with much obscuring fanfare about the absence of recovered WMDs.”
Michael Ledeen:
“So it is totally misleading for Vanity Fair to suggest that I have had second thoughts about our Iraq policy. But then one shouldn’t be surprised. No one ever bothered to check any of the lies in the first screed, and obviously no fact-checker was involved in the latest “promotion.” I actually wrote to David Rose, the author of the article-to-come, a person for whom I have considerable respect. He confirmed that words attributed to me in the promo had been taken out of context.”
Richard Perle:
“Vanity Fair has rushed to publish a few sound bites from a lengthy discussion with David Rose. Concerned that anything I might say could be used to influence the public debate on Iraq just prior to Tuesday’s election, I had been promised that my remarks would not be published before the election.”
“I should have known better than to trust the editors at Vanity Fair who lied to me and to others who spoke with Mr. Rose. Moreover, in condensing and characterizing my views for their own partisan political purposes, they have distorted my opinion about the situation in Iraq and what I believe to be in the best interest of our country.
I believe it would be a catastrophic mistake to leave Iraq, as some are demanding, before the Iraqis are able to defend their elected government. As I told Mr. Rose, the terrorist threat to our country, which is real, would be made much worse if we were to make an ignominious withdrawal from Iraq.
I told Mr. Rose that as a nation we had waited too long before dealing with Osama bin Laden. We could have destroyed his operation in Afghanistan before 9/11.
I believed we should not repeat that mistake with Saddam Hussein, that we could not responsibly ignore the threat that he might make weapons of mass destruction available to terrorists who would use them to kill Americans. I favored removing his regime. And despite the current difficulties, I believed, and told Mr. Rose, that “if we had left Saddam in place, and he had shared nerve gas with al Qaeda, or some other terrorist organization, how would we compare what we’re experiencing now with that?”
I believe the president is now doing what he can to help the Iraqis get to the point where we can honorably leave. We are on the right path.”
Michael Rubin:
“Some people interviewed for the piece are annoyed because they granted interviews on the condition that the article not appear before the election. Vanity Fair is spinning a series of long interviews detailing the introspection and debate that occurs among responsible policymakers every day into a pre-election hit job. Who doesn’t constantly question and reassess? Vanity Fair’s agenda was a pre-election hit job, and I guess some of us quoted are at fault for believing too much in integrity.”
“I absolutely stand by what I said. Too many people in Washington treat foreign policy as a game. Many Washington-types who speak about Iraq care not about the U.S. servicemen or about the Iraqis, but rather focus on U.S. electoral politics. I am a Republican, but whether the Republicans or Democrats are in power, Washington’s word must mean something. Leadership is about responsibility, not just politics. We cannot go around the world betraying our allies — in this case Iraqis who believed in us or allied with us — just because of short-term political expediency.
This is not just about Iraq: If we abandon Iraq, we will not only prove correct all of Osama Bin Laden’s rhetoric about the US being a paper tiger, but we will also demonstrate — as James Baker and George H. W. Bush did in 1991 — that listening to the White House and alliance with the United States is a fool’s decision. We can expect no allies anywhere, be they in Asia, Africa, or Latin America, if we continue to sacrifice principles to short-term realist calculations. It’s not enough to have an attention span of two years, when the rest of the world thinks in decades if not centuries.”
Do you morons in the media understand that you have BLOOD on your hands?
Do you understand that you are making it more likely that we will be hit by nut job terrorists?
Do you realize that you are behaving like spoiled brats with no thought for the future, but just the immediate gratification of your own selfish Vanity?
Oh, wait, you make a game of Vanity. It is something to be trumped and lauded and praised…right?
Is it some sort of prideful delusion, that makes you certain people will choose to vote based on what your own vanity says is right, even if it is no closer to the truth than Clinton waving his finger yelling that he did not have sex with that woman?
Look, we cannot be manipulated, ever again. The second you post your virulent lies and distortions you will be exposed.
So, I’ll give you a little piece of friendly advice. Give it up. Either get honest or consign yourselves to the dung heap of liberal nothingness. Go back to your porn and your lattes and your humanistic nothings and realize that the grownups in our society have had enough.
Jenny Hatch
Proud NeoCon
Natural Family Blog 🌹 Jenny Hatch 