The template of what appeared to be an emerging media strategy blossomed into full display on CNN's Talk Back Live on Wednesday.
The looming media game plan could be neatly summed up as follows: Portray the outbreak of Anthrax as purely 'home-grown' -- the product, not of foreign Islamic extremists nor state-sponsored terrorism, but of domestic "right wing" hate groups.
Ah, yes, the Old Vast, Right Wing Conspiracy canard yet again. Yep, that's the ticket.
Host Bobbie Battista slipped into spasms of delight as one of her guests took political demagoguery to new heights (or new lows) in suggesting a partisan whiff behind the flare-up of Anthrax cases.
Why -- notice who the victims are: Liberal media icons and Democrat politicians, he said (or words to the effect).
Gee, what about the case of New York Governor George Pataki? Last time I checked, he was still a Republican.
Well, never mind that one, we are told -- Pataki is only an aberration, a pesky anomaly, don'tchaknow?
Yeah, sure.
Or what about Republican House Speaker Denny Hastert? Move on, nothing to see here...
The disclosure yesterday of the written contents contained in the letters sent to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle and NBC anchorman Tom Brokaw -- both letters were laced with Anthrax -- put the final kabash to the Vast, right wing conspiracy theory.
Sorry, Hillary: This dog won't hunt -- not this time.
Both letters used strikingly similar language -- and writing style. Both were postmarked September 18, and both were mailed from Trenton, New Jersey.
The letter to Sen. Daschle's office -- written in block-letters -- said the following:
"09-11-01
You can not stop us.
We have this anthrax.
You die now.
Are you afraid?
Death to America
Death to Israel.
Allah is great."
And the letter to NBC's Tom Brokaw was almost identical:
"09-11-01
This is next.
Take penacilin now.
Death to America
Death to Israel.
Allah is great."
In both, the wacko closes by praising Allah, God in the Koran.
In both, the same chilling phrases 'Death to America, death to Israel' are used, in the same sequence, no less.
Moreover, it is rather apparent from both letters that English is not the writer's first language.
In short, as far as culprit(s) go, the overwhelming evidence strongly points in the direction of foreign, Islamic extremist(s) -- rather than 'home-grown', "right wing" hate groups, as the media obviously prefers.
However, let me make one thing abundantly clear: This is not in any way to excuse the odious neo-Nazis, Arryian Nation-types, Skinheads and their ilk. These screwballs have praised the hijackers and lauded the bloodbath they wrought on September 11th.
They, like Osama Bin Laden himself, are to me the lowest scum of the earth.
No, the point here is to show how a crafty, PC media trial balloon to artfully shift blame for the outbreak of Anthrax onto 'home-grown' elements of the political "right" has blown up in their faces.
(Incidentally, all neo-Nazi groups, like the Hitler figure they worship, share a virulent hatred for free-market capitalism -- hardly the political portraiture one would associate with followers of Edmund Burke, media swill to the contrary notwithstanding.)
Psst! Psst! I guess we were all supposed to ignore or conveniently forget all about reports of another one of these suspicious packages, this one recieved at a Microsoft licensing subsidiary in Reno, Nevada.
Place of origin? Malaysia, an Al-Qaeda bastion.
Special note to residents of Palm Beach County Florida: Malaysia is not a dreaded disease, but a country nestled in southeast Asia.
While the C.D.C. announced on Monday that follow-up tests had come back negative for Anthrax (after initial 'positives'), the results are in no way conclusive. More tests are in the works.
But the (now defunct) *blame-the-right-for-Anthrax* maneuver had another cynical purpose beyond merely politicizing the Anthrax phenomenon.
Like Osama Bin Laden, the press never even remotely imagined the man they routinely mocked as a drooling buffoon would handle the gravest crisis confronting our nation in generations with such deftness, steadiness and aplomb.
They are mortified by polls consistently giving the President astronomically high marks, both in overall job performance and his handling of the 9-11 aftermath.
As for the flags, the patriotism, the bonding and unprecedented national unity, the flustered media presstitutes wonder if there is any end in sight.
They hate all of it with a passion.
In fact, the clowns at Taliban TV...er, CNN, are falling all over themselves to "win" the "ultimate" "get": A fawning exclusive "interview" with Osama Bin Laden, the network's new folk hero.
Evidence in any way pointing towards Baghdad as the source for the onslaught of the deadly bacteria would -- to put it mildly -- have enormous implications, politically and militarily. It would immediately suggest a broadening of the war on terrorism -- and prolongation of the media's agony.
Hence, the press' pooh-poohing the possibility -- even in the face of growing evidence -- of Saddam's involvement.
From whence emerged the now discredited strategy to blame the VRWC for Anthrax.
To hear the media tell it, the highly refined, airborne spores shipped to Daschle and Brokaw can be readily purchased at virtually any friendly neighborhood convenient store.
Yep, just take a short walk to your local Pigly-Wigly, and right there on the shelf you'll find a wide selecton of state-of-the-art Anthrax spores.
Preposterous? Of course it is.
But listening to Judy Woodruff spouting off her latest vast, right wing conspiracy clap-trap you would never know it.
But equally ridiculous is the notion that Al-Qaeda Mullahs brewed the deadly spores from caves in Afghanistan.
Here's a little datum the media would rather Americans forget: Mohamed Atta - chief hijacker -- met not once but twice with senior Iraqi intelligence officers in Prague, Czech Republic.
The first meeting, according to U.S. and Czech intelligence sources, occurred last Autumn and involved a high-level emissary of Iraqi intelligence, a man by the name of Ahmed Samir al-Ahani.
The second, follow-up meeting reportedly took place in the spring, this time with a former director of Saddam Hussein's external secret services, a Mr. Farouk Hijazi (currently Iraqi Ambassador to Turkey), who personally met with Osama Bin Laden.
Now, what does the media suppose was the main topic of discussion?
Were Mohamed and his Iraqi buddy-buddies playfully exchanging the latest cookie recipes? Or perhaps they were bantering about the weather -- or, would you believe they were flapping their jaws about the New York Yankees?
Gee, I wonder, wonder, wonder, don't you?
Only a drooling moron would countenance these secret encounters as anything other than strategy sessions, perhaps even more than that.
Without question, Iraq is technologically capable of producing a whole range of weapons of mass destruction, including Anthrax.
Just ask former chief U.N. weapons inspector, Richard Butler.
He strongly suspects Iraqi involvement, and points to high-ranking Egyptian officials who are convinced Atta was given some Anthrax during those meetings, as well as false identification papers.
To believe the hijackers and their accomplices were not in possession of biological and/or chemical weapons leaves utterly inexplicable a couple of incidents involving Mohamed Atta at an airstrip in Belle Glade, Florida.
James Lester, a mechanic at the airstrip, said Atta on two separate occasions had visited, strongly wanting to buy a crop-dusting plane from the company. He recalled Atta peppering him with specific questions relating to the plane's capacities, its fuel requirements, its load capacity, etc.
Now, why do you supposed this murderous scumbag so suddenly took such a keen interest in crop-dusters? To take his fellow hijackers on little joy rides, perhaps? Or to glimpse the beautiful landscape from on-high, or to cruise over the gorgeous Florida beaches -- ah, yeah, that's it!
I got quite a chuckle the other night while watching one of these silly cable talking head shows. An "expert" insisted there was no way one could logically deduce any linkage between the hijackers and weapons of mass destruction from the crop-duster episodes.
His "reasoning"?
Are you ready for this? Why -- it is technologically impractical for Crop-Dusters to serve as delivery agents of chemical and/or biological weapons.
Well, Duh -- that may very well be the case, but the dim-wit missed the point entirely!!
The point? Why in the heck would the hijackers even be interested in Crop-Dusters unless they in fact possessed biological and/or chemical weapons?
And let's not forget another tell-tale piece of damning evidence: Atta and some of the hijackers lived only a mile from American Media Incorporated (AMI), site of the first reported cases of Anthrax.
Just another coincidence, eh?
But here's yet another: AMI publishes the National Enquirer which ran a story about an American prostitute who mocked the size of Bin Laden's genitalia.
Ah -- I could already hear the Iraqi apologists now: It's only about sex...move on, nothing to see here, move on...
My two cents...
"JohnHuang2"
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And is it your contention that without a significant and realistic threat of military action, Iraq will not allow the investigations to begin again, beyond just the monitoring that's already going on? 
world wants to rid Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, as the world has said they want to do in accordance with the Security Council's resolution, then we're headed down the wrong path. We're not going to succeed if we continue to move in this direction. And by resigning in such a public fashion, I hope to expose the fallacies of this administration's policies and encourage a debate in which this administration might recognize that they are, in fact, heading in the wrong path, and seek to find ways to get us out of this mess, to turn the policy around, and get Iraq moving towards effective disarmament in accordance with the resolutions passed by the Security Council.