More Scheer myth-spreading

Spinsanity.org ^ | Aug 6, 2003 | Brendan Nyhan

[veronica]

In his column last week, Los Angeles Times columnist Robert Scheer, who created the myth that the Bush administration gave $43 million to the Taliban after misreading a New York Times story, spreads two more falsehoods now working their way through the media.

First, Scheer addresses the report of the Congressional committee set up to investigate the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, focusing on the portion dealing with Saudi Arabia. He writes that while Saudi Arabia has close ties to terror, "The report finds no such connections between Iraq and Al Qaeda terrorists," making it appear that Congressional investigators sought evidence of such connections but failed to find any. However, the widely publicized July 23 UPI article upon which Scheer apparently based this conclusion was retracted -- the corrected version published on July 25 specifically disowns the original finding:

Prior to the report's publication, a person who had read it told UPI that it showed U.S. intelligence agencies had no evidence linking Iraq to the 9-11 attacks or to al-Qaida. In fact, the issue is not addressed in the declassified sections of the report. One other person who has seen the classified version of the document told UPI subsequently that the Iraq issue is not addressed in the still-classified section, either. "They didn't ask that question," the person said. This correction ran on July 25, days before Scheer's column (which is also syndicated by Creators Syndicate) was published on the 29th. The Democratic Party, which had attacked Bush in an email to supporters based on the original UPI story, published a correction Friday in another email that included a link to the updated story. Scheer's column yesterday, however, did not include such a correction.

Scheer's July 29 column also claimed that the Bush administration "[allowed] members of the large Bin Laden family who were in this country to be spirited home on their government's aircraft before they could be questioned" after Sept. 11. However, this myth (popularized by filmmaker/author Michael Moore) has been debunked by the urban legends website Snopes.com, which shows that "nearly every news account of these flights mentions that the FBI questioned the departing Saudis, grounded their planes, and supervised their departures." National Review's Byron York and others have argued that the questioning -- which took place "at the airport as they were about to leave," according to an FBI spokesman -- may not have been sufficient. But the Bin Ladens were questioned, directly contradicting Scheer's claim.

It is unacceptable for a major national columnist to repeatedly make factually inaccurate claims. Yet Robert Scheer continues to create and disseminate falsehoods by basing his columns on incomplete or untrue reports when accurate information is available. He needs to stop.

[veronica]

FYI.

[dirtboy]

It is unacceptable for a major national columnist to repeatedly make factually inaccurate claims. Yet Robert Scheer continues to create and disseminate falsehoods by basing his columns on incomplete or untrue reports when accurate information is available. He needs to stop.

Columnists attempt to pull this crap all the time. But it is up to the newspapers who carry the columns to demand some core level of integrity. Unfortunately, that doesn't happen very often any more.

[onyx]

"Myth-spreading" & "falsehoods" are too temperate to describe the VISCIOUS LIES, written by the viscious left wing liar.

[Catalonia]

Sheer is a crypto-Communist, and I mean that in the strictest sense of the term, to wit:

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Printable.asp?ID=1051

Everything he writes is B.S., and I do mean EVERYTHING. You couldn't find a less reliable source in all the media (with apologies to Jayson Blair, of course).

[17th Miss Regt]

Case in point: New York Times...

[Sabertooth]

Robert Scheer is the Walter Duranty of our time.

[DPB101]

A Free Republic exclusive: "Terilyn" transcribed a speech Robert Scheer gave in 1968 at a rally for the "Oakland 7" Transcript is here:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/916074/posts?page=38#38

Scroll to the top of the thread to hear Scheer on streaming Real Audio straight from the Pacifica Radio Archives at UC Berkeley (Bobby Seale and Soviet sympathizer Bettina Apthecker are also on the tape).

[lowbridge]

bump

[LibertyAndJusticeForAll]

He gets away with it because of his connections, of that I'm convinced. As I recall, his wife is currently a senior editor of the San Francisco Chronicle and was once at the L.A. Times.

[Richard Axtell]

Welcome back. And I heartily agree, if Scheer were alive in the 1930's, he would be spreading the "Big Lie" about Stalin like some sort of lefty evangelist. He deserves the same discredit and infamous ignominity Duranty now receives. May they both spend eternity in the lower reaches of hell's Gulag.

[Just mythoughts]

Thanks, so do these people write their own speeches? The same theme of "fear" mongering is like the recent one given by Hillary, comparing President Bush to Hoover.

Now there for a time while fighting tax cuts it seemed to be an attempt to try and create "fear" with the Hoover mantra and we all know who follow Hoover and how much Hillary loves the mrs. R.

I could not help thinking that this bunch was planning something "Hoover" like for us so she Hillary could come in and save us.

[DPB101]

Think William Jennings Bryan gets the credit for starting it. His class warfare, Cross of Gold speech and ranting about "New York Bankers" poisoned political discourse for good it seems.

Only change in Rat rhetoric is they used to quote the Bible to reinforce their demagogic rants . Now they hiss and scamper away like vampires when God is mentioned.

[Just mythoughts]

"when God is mentioned" that is because of the new age - communism they are "gods" now.

I agree that Rat rhetoric does mock the Bible, however, note how many "Church" leaders and their ideology agree with the goals of the liberal mind. More like a web of deceit to snare the unknowing and unlearned with a "good" deal. Kind like revisiting the Tower of Babel.

[DPB101]

Karl Marx was the last Old Testament prophet. There is no doubt that liberalism, socialism and the rest arose out of Christianity. By ending paganism, Christainity took God(s) out of the mundane world. The sucess of Christainity created space for fake religions such as marxism to thrive.