Yesterday Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.), chairman of the House intelligence committee, and Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) gave a press conference and released declassified information about 500 shells of Saren and Mustard Gas that had previously been found buried in Iraq. The Intelligence community had been keeping this information close, and as Santorum remarked in an interview yesterday in so many words, “To get information out of Intelligence, you finally have to get around to asking the right question.” Translation: Our CIA isn’t giving Congress anything that they don’t specifically ask for, probably down to the correctly delineated parcel — as in, were any weapons found within 3 feet of lat. xxx and long. yyy?

Hugh Hewitt was all over this yesterday and had the Senator on his program — interview transcribed here on Radioblogger — and follows up today commenting on the WaPo and Boston Globe coverage. Michelle Malkin was also all over this and FoxNews went bonkers last night, with most of Hannity & Colmes devoted to a Left/Right free-for-all on the found WMDs.

Some of the more interesting questions that need answering are: What information is contained in the still classified sections of the documents released by Santorum, and why, if the administration knows that WMDs exist in Iraq, is Bush and Co. content to let the Democrats and their minions on the Looney Left constantly castigate them for not finding any WMDs? Hugh answers these like this:

First, that a political decision was made not to reveal the information until such time as the case could not be rebutted or disparaged except by the nutter fringe. That seems too cautious a move for the Administration.

The second reason is the fear that details of the discoveries would lead terrorists to similarly situated caches, endangering vast numbers of our troops and civilians.

So, in light of all this I settled down with my coffee this AM, itching to see what the Lost Angeles Times would have to say about all this — surely their take would get my blood hot and I’d scorch the keyboard with righteous invective. Uh, no — nothing on page one either above or below the fold. Wait a minute, nothing in the A section anywhere — but lots of coverage of the Seven Marines and a Navy medical corpsman arrested for murder and, of course, the latest GI death count in Iraq. No mention of the “found” WMDs, not a word about Senator Santorum, not even in a derogatory sense. What’s up with that?

Nothing in the Calendar (don’t snicker, for some reason they often post anti-war, anti-Bush rantings in that section.) Maybe it was just too much for their beleaguered staff yesterday and it would be online this AM? Nope — nada, nothin’! The last mention they made of WMD was in a Rosa Brooks commentary on the 16th. So, how about in the Op-Ed section? Hold on — there’s a shocker for ya! Kill Barbie by Patt Morrison.

IT’S TIME to kill off Barbie.
(…)
The study flooded me with endorphins. Around my house, Barbie was fair game. We used her as swords, for duels. But the best was Marie Antoinette Barbie. On a scaffold built of encyclopedias, we whacked off her head but good, tiara and all, over and over again. The last couple of times, after the game got old, we got out the ketchup for a good, gory, splashy finish.

This featured opinion piece was illustrated with three Barbie heads, stuck on skewers, floating in a fondue pot – Right across the page where letters to the editor were printed about the brutal slaughter of the two kidnapped soldiers earlier this week in Iraq (4 anti-war letters to 1 pro-soldier letter). So, when two of our finest, Pfc. Kristian Menchaca, 23, and Pfc. Thomas L. Tucker, 25, were beaten beyond recognition and then most likely beheaded, the LA Times thinks that this is an appropriate image to post opposite letters about the tragic event.

Oh, yeah — and nothing to say about 500 found weapons of mass destruction — that Bush surely must have lied about, no doubt. No wonder the rag is looking like the Jenny Craig poster child of print journalism! (db)

Technorati Tags: LA Times, Found WMDs, Senator Rick Santorum, 500 Chemical Weapons

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 22nd, 2006 at 10:05 am and is filed under Iraq War, Media Doin' It Wrong. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.  |   Print This Post  |   Email This Post

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