Thiessen's Disaster -- Wash. Post columnist's anti-Obama book filled with falsehoods

[bridgit]

In his book, Courting Disaster, Washington Post's Marc Thiessen relies on numerous falsehoods to make his case that "America is in greater danger" than it had been during the Bush administration because of President Obama's anti-terrorism policies. Thiessen's falsehoods repeatedly overstate the effectiveness of Bush administration's interrogation and detention policies and downplay the abuses that took place.

Thiessen's claim: There were no terrorist attacks on U.S. soil since 9-11

Thiessen falsely claimed that there had been no terrorist attacks on U.S. soil since 9-11. In Courting Disaster: How the CIA Kept America Safe and How Barack Obama Is Inviting the Next Attack, Thiessen falsely claimed that no terrorist attacks occurred on U.S. soil since 9-11 during President Bush's term in office. On page 376, Thiessen writes: "When President Bush left office, America marked 2,688 days without another terrorist attack on its soil. It was an achievement few thought possible in the days after September 11, 2001."

Reality: There have been terrorist attacks on U.S. soil

2001 anthrax attacks. A March 2004 State Department report on "Significant Terrorist Incidents, 1961-2003" quotes then-Attorney General John Ashcroft saying of the letters containing anthrax mailed to various targets: "When people send anthrax through the mail to hurt people and invoke terror, it's a terrorist act." Five people were killed as a result of those letters in the autumn of 2001.

http://mediamatters.org/research/201004020037

[RC]

1. Whenever anyone says

"There were no terrorist attacks on U.S. soil since 9-11", they are discounting 9/11 as a terrorist attack.

The fact is the Bush Administration knew and planed for it. They knew because the outgoing Clinton Administration gave the incoming Bush Administration a report that had the date of the attack to with in less than a week. They just didn't know where. Richard Bruce Cheney shelved the report and did his own. Condoleezza Rice was to have had a press conference on 9/12/2001. For some reason it never happened and the contents were never made public.

[NJmaverick]

4. They are also lying because the anthrax terrorists attacks happened after 9/11

[KharmaTrain]

2. Say A Lie Long Enough...

A standard rushpublican and right wing trick...you deny facts, make up your own history, peddle it endlessly in the corporate media, it soon becomes "conventional wisdom" and the sheeple are convinced the lie is true. It's how Raygun was turned into a diety and the memes that the GOOP is the party of "fiscal responsibility" (despite never running a surplus since Eisenhower) and "family values" (John Ensign anyone???) but those memes still pervade the corporate media and spread far and wide by hate radio.

There's a competition in the GOOP hive as to who can be the best revisionist...where you can't justify torture, wars for profit and the fleecing of the treasury, you blame it on others...Democrats in specific. Stroke the right party egos and you get a bonus...a nice "think tank" gig for a six figure salary and your face on the teevee.

The GOOP's best hope in November is people are so short-sighted and gullible that they'll forget who created the messes this Administration continues to dig this country out of.

[SpiralHawk]

3. Typical Republicon

Typical pack of Republicon lies.

[Bluerthanblue]

5. problem is, those who feed on this kind of stuff don't care if it's true-

and won't listen when it's shown to be wrong.