How the New York Times blew its biggest story

WorldNetDaily.com ^ | Saturday, February 15, 2003 | Jack Cashill

[Archangelsk]

Shortly thereafter, amid all the tension of the day, George Stephanopolis said (and I'm paraphrasing).

I wouldn't believe that grandstanding SOB for all the tea in China.

[Don Corleone]

Someone in the White House is probably watching this unfold from the Situation Room. I remember when TWA800 was shot down and Clinton was in the Situation Room....

Did he actually say "Shot Down"?

[KS Flyover]

From the article The 'bombing' of TWA Flight 800:

They got away with it because our establishment media in the Clinton era had the bad habit of believing nearly everything government agencies told them, even if it was patently ridiculous. But now, a former White House official, George Stephanopoulos, who was a senior adviser to President Clinton, has made a statement on television that indicates that the claim that a fuel-tank explosion caused the TWA 800 crash was false. On September 11, the unforgettable day of disaster, Stephanopoulos, who is now an ABC News correspondent, was talking to ABC's Peter Jennings on camera about President Bush being flown to Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska and taken to the situation room on the base where he could keep in touch with Washington by teleconferencing.

Stephanopoulos, implying that this was unnecessary, made this surprising statement: "There are facilities in the White House, not the normal situation room, which everyone has seen in the past, has seen pictures of. There is a second situation room, behind the primary situation room, which has video conferencing capabilities. The director of the Pentagon, the defense chief, can speak from a national military command center at the Pentagon. The Secretary of State can speak from the State Department, the president from wherever he is, and they'll have this capability for video conferencing throughout this crisis. In my time at the White House it was used in the aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing, in the aftermath of the TWA Flight 800 bombing, and that would be the way they would stay in contact through the afternoon."

[Quilla]

It was either 'shot down' or 'bombing'. I've seen the actual quote on FR several times, but it has been quite a while. I'll search for it. He was certainly caught up in the horror of the moment; it was damning, and appeared to be a reflex (unrehearsed) comment.

[leadpenny]

That is what it seems to say here (NTSB). The inside story I had heard was that the pilots kept resetting the circuit breaker in the cockpit and eventually held it in, which allowed a lav motor to catch fire.

[leadpenny]

I'm sorry, I got off the topic of the thread.

[Archangelsk]

According to the CVR, they tried to reset the breakers but never held them in. The arcing and zapping may have been a contributing factor but NTSB never found the actual source of the fire.

You can read the CVR here.

[Stallone]

How on Earth can someone claim a missile struck TWA800?

The individual witness is unreliable. Society and the state are the arbiter of all truths. It is the Socialist way.

The very notion of a missile is preposterous. For example, the Clinton government says it didn't happen. An election year? Don't be so cynical. He said so.

Hey, and that's good enough for me.

We only require that which we are told we require.

Signed,

A Typical F@cking Democratic Traitorous Moron

[Quilla]

From: http://www.twa800.com/news/on-air.htm


September 11, 2001: Mr. George Stephanopoulos, former assistant to President Clinton, on ABC TV with Peter Jennings in mid afternoon talked about the two situation rooms in the White House.

Stephanopoulos: "There are facilities in the White House, not the normal situation room, which everyone has seen in the past, has seen pictures of. There is a second situation room, behind the primary situation room, which has video conferencing capabilities. The director of the Pentagon, the defense chief, can speak from a national military command center at the Pentagon. The Secretary of State can speak from the State Department, the President from wherever he is, and they'll have this capability for video conferencing throughout this crisis." "In my time at the White House it was used in the aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing, in the aftermath of the TWA Flight 800 bombing, and that would be the way they would stay in contact through the afternoon. "

Jennings: "Just a couple of short questions." (Asks if the president has any say about following Secret Service orders.)

(Editor's Note: The reference to "bombing" could have been a slip of the tongue, I am sure he meant to say shootdown.)
Transcript of ABC News 9-11-01

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

Dang, JH2! I had read nothing at the top of this post and dove right in. When I was no more than a third of the way through it, I said to myself. "This was posted by JohnHuang2."
I scrolled up to the top and there it was, your moniker.

You always post the most informative and well written posts. Kudos. Again.

[Archangelsk]

Likewise, I apologize.

[JohnHuang2]

Why, thank you, my friend. And a G'morning to ya.

[Free the USA]

http://www.freerepublic.com/perl/bump-list

[KC Burke]

Cashill bump for the KC crowd.

[Archangelsk]

Once again, we have a non-aviator/non-engineer (Stephanopoulos) making statements because his primitive brain can't grasp technical knowledge. Meanwhile, hundreds, if not thousands of professionals, toil anonymously to establish a baseline of data that is routinely ignored by ignoramuses.

I am not an advocate of higher taxes, but in this case, if I was in charge (thankfully, I'm not) I would create a special tax classification of know-nothing TV celebrities and pundits and tax their earnings at the 90% level.

[Quilla]

Yes, thankfully.

:)

[Archangelsk]

You don't want the job either. :-)

[genefromjersey]

Just to kick my 2 cents worth in, another FBI source ( in the Joint Terrorisn Taskforce ) stated unequivocally there was no explosive residue found on this aircraft.

The source also noted the Bureau spent 17 months investigation what they are convinced was an accidental explosion ; and that this tied up most of the JTTF staff at a time when 9-11 was being set up.

( Noting the fact this JTTF source was providing information after 9-11 , one must also consider the possibility the assertions were wholly self-serving. )

[jlogajan]

Sigh, another thread to draw in the conspiracy kooks.

[Marie Antoinette]

Think, maybe, a design flaw by the engineers could have put an electrical, or some other potential ignition source, close to that tank? Think, maybe, that erosion or some other wear and tear element might have exposed an empty tank, full of fumes, to that ignition source?

Think, maybe, that if one of these scenarios would have actually been the cause that the whole fleet would have been grounded?

Think, maybe, that hundreds of eyewitnesses saw a short-circuit hot enough to ignite jet fuel?

I really hate to be on the conspiratorial side here, but all the reading I've done on this incident points away from mechanical causes IMO. Especially the circumstantial evidence, like all the misdirection coming from the FBI, the radar images being unavailable, hundreds of eye-witness classified as "drunk," war vets flying other planes in the area that described "ordinance" as what they saw before the explosion, Clinton in the White House at the time when the media reported as "news" every press release....

I wish I still had the link to the debris field analysis article I read back then. It layed out in a fashion that precluded any possibility of the center wing tank failure being the cause. It was very damning evidence.

Mr.M