McGovern
is also a co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals
for Sanity, which regularly states that Israel is manipulating
our foreign policy. As documented by Frontpagemag.com,
McGovern spoke to Rep. John Conyers mock hearing last June
that foreshadowed genuine impeachment hearings he will
hold if the Democrats win control of the House this November. "In
McGovern's view," wrote Jacob Laksin, "the sinister motivations
for the war could be explained by the axiom O.I.L.: "O
for Oil, I for Israel, and L for leveraging our land bases."
What
mattered to the media, of course, was that he was a Rumsfeld
critic, and Rumsfeld is a popular media target these days.
NBC and CBS led off their May 4 evening news shows with
a report about the heckling of Rumsfeld. MSNBC led with
it, and ABC ran it second. In addition to McGovern, who
pressed Rumsfeld about missing weapons of mass destruction
in Iraq, protesters shouted out that Rumsfeld was a liar
and a war criminal, and one stood in silence wearing a
sign calling for President Bush's impeachment.
Why is
it the lead news story when a handful of people protest
the war? Clearly the nation is divided on the issue. But
it was a chance for the media to keep the pressure on,
creating a sense that the Bush Administration is under
siege. It was reported in the context of the six former
military generals who have recently called for Rumsfeld
to be fired or to step down, though clearly the real target
is President Bush.
On NBC,
Pentagon correspondent Jim Miklaszewski said that McGovern
challenged Rumsfeld's claim that Saddam had prior links
to al Qaeda. Then it showed McGovern, asking Rumsfeld from
the audience, "Was that a lie, or were you misled?" The
report showed Rumsfeld responding by saying that al Zarqawi
had been in Baghdad prior to the war. Al Zarqawi is of
course the al Qaeda terrorist leading the attacks against
the U.S. and its allied forces in Iraq. There was a lot
more that Rumsfeld could have pointed to proving the links
between Saddam and al Qaeda, some of which I reiterated
in a column last
December.
McGovern
also asked Rumsfeld, "Why did you lie to get us into a
war that was not necessary, that has caused these kinds
of casualties?"
"Well
first of all, I haven't lied; I did not lie," replied Rumsfeld. "Colin
Powell didn't lie. He spent weeks and weeks with the Central
Intelligence Agency and prepared a presentation that I
know he believed was accurate. And he presented that to
the United Nations…The President spent weeks and weeks
with the Central Intelligence Agency, and he went to the
American people and made the presentation," he continued. "They
gave the world their honest opinion."
McGovern
has been making this claim for a long time. Last June he
was making the case that the so-called Downing Street Memos
proved that the Bush Administration had manipulated the
evidence to help make the case to go to war. He debated this
on the Lehrer NewsHour last June with former CIA officer
Reuel Gerecht, now with the American Enterprise Institute.
Opting
for the dramatic soundbites, all of the networks not only
overlooked the bizarre views of Ray McGovern but the substance
of Rumsfeld's speech,
in which he talked about progress in the war in Iraq and
the global war on terrorism.
Rumsfeld
emphasized the stakes, saying, "We are free people
who believe in freedom and how important it is for you
to be able to get up in the morning and say what you want,
go where you wish, vote as you wish, and know that it is
exactly that—that that threat from extremists is determined
to terrorize and to alter our behavior in a fundamental
way. It is that which we must not allow to happen."
That
freedom includes freedom of the press. It's just too bad
we don't have a free press that exercises more responsibility.
The name
of their game is obvious: get Rumsfeld. And after that,
get Bush. CRO
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