Nuclear Annihilation

Again a service for our readers in a hurry, Speed Coulter...

Title: Nuclear Annihilation Can't Be Confined to the Outer Boroughs
Complains about the New York Times quoting people opposed to Iraq invasion (with disgusting slur on people who live in Manhattan).
Quotes polls showing most people support an invasion.
Confuses John Kerry with Bob Kerrey.
Accuses Times of supporting Baghdad.

Now if you still feel the need to read more, here it is:

Nuclear Annihilation Can't Be Confined to the Outer Boroughs
by Ann Coulter
August 8, 2002

HOW IS IT that the New York Times managed to locate the only eight people in America opposed to attacking Iraq? (By "America," I obviously mean to exclude newsrooms, college campuses, Manhattan and Los Angeles).

Sadly, Coulter has some points (and unlike her, I will admit when my opponent makes a good point). Polls do show general support for an invasion of Iraq. The New York Times article of a few days ago suggested otherwise by using man-on-the-street interviews. This is lazy reporting far too typical of all journalists, the Times included. Interviewing people to prove your point when polls say something else is deceptive journalism. Of course, Coulter is suggesting that support for an invasion is universal when her own numbers, quoted below, show that many Americans oppose an invasion.

More nastily, her swipe at Manhattanites hits below the belt. I am a Manhattanite. I saw the clouds of smoke swirling up from downtown on the day. I watched as my fire department raced trucks south in a screaming cavalcade of sirens and red lights, brave men riding to their deaths. I cry every time I think of this, right now as I write these words tears stream down my face. And Coulter has the nerve to say we aren't Americans. Amid my tears I am trembling with rage. I don't know how to respond without profanity, something I've promised myself not to stoop to on this site. The disrespect for our lost souls is immense, and despicable.

Enough, I'll move on.

Americans have been repeatedly polled on the question of using military force to depose Saddam Hussein. Within the last six months, the ABC News-Washington Post Poll showed 72 percent supporting a U.S. invasion of Iraq. The FOX News-Opinion Dynamics Poll also has 72 percent supporting it. The Newsweek poll shows 68 percent in favor. The least support for an attack comes from an NBC News-Wall Street Journal Poll showing only 57 percent in favor of attacking Iraq.

But according to a July 17 Christian Science Monitor (hardly a liberal paper) article, this support, while it exists, is shaky. Closer questioning revealed that only a minority supported an invasion if it did not have the support of our allies. Support also dropped for a full-scale invasion (Desert Storm style) as opposed to an Afghanistan-style air and commando invasion.

Yet the Times' man-on-the-street article--in Arizona, no less--did not manage to ferret out a single American supporting an attack on Iraq. Instead, the Times stumbled upon eight citizens, manifestly not at random, every single one of them opposed to war with Iraq. This allowed the Times to run an aggressively dishonest headline describing Americans as backing Bush--"but not into Iraq."

Read slower Ann, read slower. While it's true most of the quotes came from those opposing an Iraqi invasion, the Times also quoted from Arizonan Jan Phares, who supports an invasion: " 'We should have done this a long time ago,' said Jan Phares." So "every single one of them" is either lazy reading or blatant lying. (I guess "every single one" just sounded better than "almost all".)

Intriguingly, the interviewees included a "lifelong Republican" living in "solid Bush country" who "worked on Barry Goldwater's presidential campaign in 1964." (It's amazing we didn't win that election with all the former Goldwater girls constantly popping out of the woodwork, such as Senators Hillary Clinton and John Kerry.)

The parenthetical aside is odd, even for Coulter. Referring to Clinton and Kerry as Goldwater "girls" is clearly meant as a typical Coulter dig at two people she doesn't like. For a girl, Coulter is remarkably hostile towards girls. People she doesn't like get called "girly-boys" or "girly-girls" or just plain "girls." Is being a girl that bad, Ann? As for the substance of the aside, she misses the boat. Yes, Hillary was once a Goldwater supporter (as was my mom, to my embarrassment). But John Kerry? Nope, lifetime liberal. Now, ex-senator Bob Kerrey was a Goldwater supporter, but he runs the New School in New York now. Sorry Ann, you've gone and confused your hated liberals. (And why exactly does it matter if any of these people supported Goldwater back in 1964?)

Even during the 1984 presidential campaign, the Times miraculously produced a poll showing Walter Mondale in the lead. Approximately three months before Reagan would win 49 states in the largest electoral landslide in history, readers of the Times were informed that Mondale "led President Reagan in a recent Gallup Newsweek poll, 48 to 46 percent."

The Times did not "produce" a poll. (Is Coulter suggesting they faked it?) A lot can happen in 3 months. The race was close at first and then a series of Mondale missteps sank him. Coulter overemphasizes Mondale's drubbing (and it was a drubbing) by focussing on the electoral landslide. Looking at the popular vote, it was Reagan 58% to Mondale 40%; bad but not as bad as 49 to 1. Keep in mind, polls are notoriously inaccurate. After all, Bush was leading in most polls before the 2000 election, but then Gore surprised everyone by winning the popular vote. Of course, Bush won the election, but that's another story.

So it's pretty pathetic when the Times can't even cite some phony Newsweek poll corresponding with its own evident desire to keep Saddam Hussein in power. In a manly editorial that ought to have been titled, "SURRENDER NOW, GREAT SATAN!" the Times proposed patient suasion with the harmless and misunderstood Saddam Hussein. Demanding that "every available diplomatic option" be tried, the Times urged waiting until a "future link between Iraq and terrorism" can be established.

And why does the Times want to keep Hussein in power? Oh, I see: It just makes Coulter seem tough and smart to say something provocative.

In the breezy style the Times uses for all its crackpot ideas, it explained that America need only "ensure that Iraq is disarmed of all unconventional weapons." The same editorial warned against invading Iraq on the grounds that "there may be no way to deter Iraq from using unconventional weapons against American forces." Wait a minute! Weren't we easily disarming Saddam of unconventional weapons a couple paragraphs back?

The Times also assured its readers that there is "no reliable evidence" that Saddam is connected to the Sept. 11 attack or to al-Qaida. What liberals mean by "no evidence" is always that there is lots of evidence, but arguably not enough to convince an O.J. jury.

No reliable evidence means exactly that. Hussein is a nasty dictator with a penchant for murdering his own people and invading his neighbors, but that does not mean he had anything to do with Sept 11. In fact, Hussein's style of cult-of-personality Arab nationalism has little in common with Al Qaida's Islamic fundamentalism.

Accepting for purposes of argument the ludicrous idea that Saddam's weapons of mass destruction are no threat to America unless Bush can also produce cell phone records connecting Saddam to Mohamed Atta, there is at least some evidence of a connection. Czech intelligence claims that five months before his monstrous attack, Atta met with an Iraqi agent in Prague.

And the reliability of this one report has been repeatedly questioned and thrown into doubt. I mean, with all the money flowing from Bin Laden and his Saudi buddies, why exactly would the plotters need Hussein's help?

In addition, the Times cheerfully announced that there "appears to be no evidence" (no evidence!) "so far that Baghdad means to share its deadly arsenal with others." Well, that's a relief. So the only guy with the deadly arsenal is a madman who gassed his own people, murdered his family members and passionately yearns for the total annihilation of the United States.

Murdered family members: true. Gassed his own people: true. Yearns for the total annihilation of the United States: maybe in his dreams, which I guess he must be sharing with Coulter on the sly.

Days before the Times' "SURRENDER NOW" editorial ran, Khidir Hamza, a former member of Iraq's weapons-building program, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that Saddam is actively developing weapons of mass destruction and will have accumulated enough enriched uranium to have three nuclear bombs by 2005.

The Times did not report Hamza's testimony. Sworn statements given to a Senate committee by a former member of Saddam's government presumably constitute "no evidence." It will take Manhattan and Washington being nuked before satisfying the exacting threshold of "evidence" demanded at the Baghdad Times.

"Baghdad Times," gosh, that's a knee-slapper. Boy, that Coulter sure is clever.

It is as if the Times operates on Islamic holy logic--what should be true, on grounds of faith, must be taken as true, and hard evidence establishing the contrary can be dismissed as mere fact. There's a reason that reading the New York Times these days is like reading a newspaper published in Saudi Arabia.

Liberals are panicked at the idea that America might defend itself by attacking Iraq, but are perfectly copacetic about living in a radioactive world. They seem not to understand that--unlike their other insane policies, such as school busing--their heartfelt desire to keep Saddam Hussein in power will affect their children, too. Nuclear annihilation cannot be safely confined to the outer boroughs.

Doubting the sense of an invasion of Iraq is not the same has wanting to keep Hussein in power. There are lots of slimy types out there, and some of them have nukes. (The fact that China and Pakistan have working nuclear missiles scares the hell out of me, not to mention those sneaky French.) But we can't invade everyone who scares us. Right now, I honestly am ambivalent about what to do about Iraq, but I want far more debate than has gone on so far. And I want a Congressional declaration of war, as is required by the American Constitution. And by the way, it's not just liberals who have their doubts about an invasion of Iraq. Pundit Pat Buchanan, not noted for his liberal views, has repeatedly questioned the sense of an invasion. Here's just one article, if you're interested.

©2002 Carl Skutsch. All rights reserved.
All opinions expressed herein are those of the author unless otherwise noted
(and it goes without saying that they make more sense than Coulter's opinions.)

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