DANIEL SCHORR'S BIG LIE

National Public Radio's "Small Things Considered," which is supported in part by your tax dollars, features leftist propagandist Daniel Schorr as its "Senior News Analyst." What Schorr provides, however, is not analysis, but a "big lie" attack on the Bush Administration that would have been worthy of his fellow leftist propagandist Joseph Goebbels.

During the April 4, 2007, program, Schorr offered the advice that during the Easter break, the President use some of his "downtime"

to reflect on Elisabetta Burba and her version of what helped propel him into a bloddy, seemingly endless war in Iraq. Burba is a reporter for an Italian newsmagazine who provided the American embassy in Rome with one of the forged documents that the President relied on in 2003 to assert that Iraq was buying uranium from the African country of Niger, although she didn't believe the claims herself.

Schorr is already lying.

The President never said that Iraq was buying uranium in Africa. The word "uranium" appears in the 2003 State of the Union address only once, in this sentence:

The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.

And before we go any further, let me remind you that the President's statement was absolutely true in 2003, and it remains absolutely true today. The Senate Intelligence Committee determined that British intelligence did in fact believe that Saddam was trying to buy uranium in Africa, and British intelligence believes that to be the case today. Lord Butler's committee also reported to the House of Commons that the President's statement was absolutely correct.

But let's turn back to a lying liar and his lies. Daniel Schorr continued that Italian reporter Burba's

detailed story is contained in a book titled "The Italian Letter: How the Bush Administration used a fake letter to build the case for war in Iraq." From this book, excerpted in the Washington Post, it appears that the President had every reason to doubt the authenticity of the documents when he, in the State of the Union Address, asserted that Iraq was buying significant quantitites of uranium from the African country of Niger.

I reproduced the only use of the word "uranium" in the 2003 SOTU Address above. Let's look at it again:

The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.

Did the President mention a letter? Did the President mention any intelligence developed by the CIA? Did the President say that Iraq was "buying" uranium? Did the President say that Saddam had bought or was buying significant quantities of uranium from the African country of Niger?

No, he didn't. He said nothing of the kind. What he said was:

The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.

Schorr is perpetrating a big lie of his own. He is attacking the President for a statement that the President never made. This is how the lying left advances their self-deluded view of history. They feel they are completely justified to hate Bush because he used a forged document to justify the war in Iraq -- but in fact, he never did that. They hate Bush for all manner of things that he did only in their own fevered imaginations.

Another thing Schorr doesn't mention, is that the author of the book, Peter Eisner, is a Washington Post reporter, and that the Post is thereby allowing him to use its own news columns to excerpt and promote his book.

Schorr goes on to complain that the forged letters were used to promote war by "the President and his ideological team, bent on regime change in Iraq."

What Schorr doesn't mention, of course, is that "regime change in Iraq" had been the official policy of the American government since Congress passed and President Clinton signed the Iraq Liberation Act (US Public Law Public Law 105-338, codified in 22 USCS § 2151) in 1998. By omission this time, another leftist lie.

Schorr goes on to continue his version of the story:

Former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, sent to Niger, he concluded, as Burba had, that the documents were fakes.

Another outright lie. Joe Wilson admitted many times (although he later implied that his peregrinations in Niger had something to do with the Italian-sourced letter) that his trip antedated the delivery of the letter to US intelligence. According to Peter Eisner's book, Burba brought the letter to the attention of the US government in October, 2002. Lying liar Joe Wilson made his trip to Niger in February 2002. His trip had nothing to do with the letter that Burba provided.

Moreover, the Senate Intelligence Committee recognized that the information Joe Wilson provided (that a high-level Iraqi trade delegation had visited a country whose only export is yellowcake uranium) was taken by the CIA as evidence that the determination by British Intelligence was in fact completely correct. Joe Wilson lied in his op-eds about the real significance of his findings.

So when Daniel Schorr concludes:

Was Mr. Bush conned, or was he the con man?

he is lying again. Daniel Schorr is the con man, promoting an outright lie to attack the Administration, subvert the war effort, and help deliver Western civilization into the hands of tyrants and terrorists.

Reliapundit adds: More on the difference between "sought" and "bought" HERE.