Wanna hear it? It’s a dandy. George Bush and the Democrats have conspired to hide the fact that we really did find Iraq’s WMD! Honest Native American, I’m not making that up. It’s not a Vast Right Wing Conspiracy, nor a Vast Left Wing Conspiracy, so let’s just call it the Grand Unifying Theory of Idiocy, shall we (details courtesy of Glenn Greenwald).
Melanie Phillips is a British neoconservative who has devoted herself to warning England that Muslims are taking over and destroying its culture. Her book, oh-so-cleverly titled Londonistan, warns of “the collapse of traditional British identity and accommodation of a particularly virulent form of multiculturalism.”
She has described James Baker and Jimmy Carter as “the kept creatures of the Arab world” who “are intent on smoothing the path to Israel’s destruction.” She thinks global warming is a “con-trick” because everything is “well within the normal cyclical fluctuations in temperature from century to century.” And on and on and on. Needless to say, she is a deeply admired figure in the world of Fox News and right-wing blogs.
But all of that is rendered moderate, restrained, sober and even sane by a new article she wrote for the British magazine, The Spectator (headline: I Found Saddam’s WMD Bunkers), which claims that: (a) WMDs really were found in Iraq after the invasion, (b) they were located in vast underground bunkers (c) which contained “nuclear, chemical and biological materials”, but (d) the U.S., through negligence, failed to secure those sites and, as a result, (e) the WMDs were stolen by The Terrorists and/or Syrian agents, who now have them and are actively plotting (along with China, Russia and North Korea) to use them against the West, but —
(f) because the Bush administration is so embarrassed by their failure to prevent the theft of all these dastardly weapons, and because Democrats are embarrassed by this discovery because it proves that Saddam really did have WMDs all along, they have all jointly created a vast conspiracy where they conceal the discovery of WMDs in order to cover up for their negligence.
Oh Georgy Boy, how low you have fallen in the esteem of your former and most loyal comrades! Those who are commenting on Ms. Phillip’s screed favorably (or otherwise promoting this “story) include many of the glitterati of the right wing blogosphere:
(cont.)
Instapundit (i.e., Glenn Reynolds)
Powerline
Michelle Malkin
Pajamas Media
David Horowitz
And they are hardly the only ones to herald this pile of manure as God’s Own Truth. It’s become a cause celebre on the right wing blogs. In fact, if a wingnut blog hasn’t yet commented on it, that likely means the proprietor is either hospitalized and in a coma or dead.
I won’t bore you with the myriad ways this tale of a joint venture between Bush and the Democrats to deceive the American public is incredibly stupid and deranged, as you can read Glenn’s analysis on this topic for yourself, if you wish. Or go read the Melanie Phillips’ original article in the Spectator if you like. It’s almost the equivalent of a satirical piece you might find at The Onion, so I suppose there is some amusement value to reading it for that reason, if nothing else.
But doesn’t the fact that so many of our conservative “blog buddies” have jumped on this inane conspiracy theory tell us something about how truly desperate they are to find their lost pony in Iraq, even if it means taking down their former idol? I know the Bush administration and Fox News, Limbaugh etc. are fond of creating new realities (i.e., propaganda) for us to examine. However, like that Play Station television ad, it seems most of the wingnuts have chosen not just to play in them, but to live in them as well, no matter how nutty and contrived those realities may appear to the rest of us. I guess the truth that they were cheerleaders for the single largest foreign policy mistake in our nation’s history is just too hard face.
By the way, Phillips’ theory posits that John Negroponte is a secret Chinese Government mole dedicated to helping China and Russia help Islamic countries obtain the Bomb to use against the West.
John “Death Squads” Negroponte a Red Chinese agent?
Muh-wah-ha-ha-ha-ha!
Link to the Negroponte claim: LINK
This is just tooo much, a “Red Team” and a “Blue Team” in the intelligence community??!!! Here’s the Blue Team agenda:
But, just to make sure they hit all the right fear buttons, this is all in service of the development of an Islamic Bomb. Someone must be keeping this part a secret from North Korea and China. (shhhh)
What I don’t understand why she didn’t work Osama into the mix? I mean, perhaps Osama and Negroponte have been having secret communications over the past 6 years. Maybe that’s intended for a forthcoming article?
But that would make Osama a member of the Red Team – does that work? I’m sooo confused. Which is the one that “hates us for our freedoms”?? That’s the one Osama belongs on, right?
OMG, this may be the stupidist thing I’ve heard … oh let’s say this year.
Has Hitch signed on yet? This seems to me just the thing for him to latch onto.
Imagine the desperation of somebody who thinks that endorsing such a concoction would be a way of restoring his or her credibility.
Has everyone seen the movie “Syriana”? Everyone knows a CIA agent wrote the books it’s based on, right?
Without giving away plot details, has everyone seen the demonstration of what DECLASSIFIED US surveillance satellite technology could do in the movie “Syriana”? What you see demonstrated in the movie Syriana is what US satellite tech could do two decades ago. That’s what the OLD stuff could do.
Does everyone understand that two decades ago, nothing bigger than a house cat could move in the deserts of the Middle East without some intel agency bureaucrat in the DC suburbs watching it happen live on a TV monitor in his choice of standard spectrum or infra red?
Lord only knows what the state of the art intel satellite tech can do.
At the Horowitz link in the diary is an interview with this guy Gaubatz, who claims he found the WMD stockpiles. But this part gave me the creeps:
Interesting euphemism: his activities were deterred.
I have no idea how credible this guy is, but doesn’t he seem to be making himself out to be a sort of US super-spy?
Credible?? I’m not much of an expert on the intelligence community – but I think one of the definitions of “super-spy” for them definitely does NOT include giving interviews and speeches at public forums on your activities.
Will this be another one of those “two ton feathers” in the caps of the obviously deranged right wingnut wackosphere? lol
Conservative talking heads share this common character trait with conservatives. When reality and their second reality based upon their ideology collide, then reality must be destroyed so that their fantastical construction of the world of the mind can remain intact. So, rather than having to admit that Saddam didn’t have WMD, that he actually destroyed them but didn’t want the world, especially Iran, to know that he had, this conservative idiot has to create a fantasy world. Hey, our President does the same thing. The only difference is that Melanie doesn’t have a military to abuse, emasculate, and sacrifice on the altar of her ego.