The Bush crowd’s brazen Big Lie technique was much in evidence in Donald Rumsfeld’s “Meet the Press” appearance this past Sunday. When Tim Russert began to ask the Defense Secretary about the “bombing of Baghdad,” Rummy interrupted him and exploded. “We were not bombing Baghdad,” insisted the man running the war, but “greater Baghdad” and military installations around the city’s periphery.
Rummy’s propaganda fantasy was immediately refuted in the next segment, when Russert cut to a live interview with Peter Arnett from the Iraqi capital. The former CNN star in Gulf War I, who heard the Rummy interview in his earpiece, told Russert that “while you were talking” to Rumsfeld, several jets had flown overhead, immediately followed by explosions — Arnett said pointedly — “in Baghdad.” But Russert didn’t bother to point out the obvious contradiction between the live report and Rummy’s Orwellian assertion.
From TomPaine.com. (I can’t remember what blog I found this on, maybe the Agonist …)
