Tony Snow's Blizzard of Bullshit

Hey there, thehim from Reload here. A huge thanks to the General for letting me post up here this week. I hope to bring more attention to the great bloggers out here in the northwest. I blog mostly about the drug war and Iraq, and I'm looking forward to the day when both wars are over.

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Tony Snow from Fox News broke out the heavy duty bullshit at last Friday Night's taping of Real Time with Bill Maher. It was so bad that even the token reality-based comic relief (Billy Connelly) was getting annoyed. Here's the rundown:

"Scooter Libby has now been indicted on charges of speaking to reporters."

Actually, he was charged with obstructing justice, perjury and lying. It's possible that Snow may have meant this as a joke. If so, he should probably leave the joke telling to the host.

"The prosecutor never said 'you know what, it was illegal to mention Valerie Plame's name' because it wasn't."

Nope. Actually two lies there. One that it wasn't illegal, and another that Fitzgerald didn't say it.

"I'm not aware of anyone saying that perjury doesn't matter."

Bill Maher reminded him of a certain Senator from Texas.

When pressed again on Libby's charges, he expands on his previous bullshit.

"You know what each of those counts involve? Speaking to reporters."

Uh, no. Again, this has nothing to do with what he said to reporters. It has to do with what he said to the Grand Jury.

"The wife is the one who arranged for Joe Wilson to go over to Niger."

Actually, his wife was not the one who arranged for him to go. She was only asked for a recommendation.

"The people who really smeared Joe Wilson were the people who looked into his charges, the Senate Intelligence Committe, who said 'All the stuff you said in the New York Times was lies. You were wrong.'"

This is completely incorrect. The Senate Intelligence Committee says right here that Wilson's assessment didn't change anyone's opinion and that the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) drew an opposite conclusion from the Senate Intelligence Committee. If Wilson was wrong in his report, how come the INR got it right?

"What they said is that Joe Wilson's account in the New York Times of his trip to Niger sipping spiced tea and trying to investigate charges of yellowcake uranium sales on the part of Niger, basically his account was misleading. That he did in fact find evidence. That the report that he filed with the CIA, later forwarded to the White House indicated that such sales exist."

Again, if his account was misleading, then how come the State Department's reading of the document was completely accurate with what Wilson wrote in the Times. Idiots.

"Valerie Plame was not in fact an active spy, and she hadn't been for more than five years. If she had been, and then you'd have a serious charge."

Actually, right there in the indictments, it says Plame was classified.

Bill: "Her neighbors didn't know."
Tony: "I hate to tell you, but I think that's probably BS."

I hate to tell you Tony, but you're full of shit.

"I actually read the indictment."

Based on everything else, I'm assuming this is bullshit too.

But even after the topic at hand moved on to other things, Snow's bullshit kept flowing. On the oil companies record profits this quarter:

Tony: "Have you seen Microsoft's profits are? Have you looked at profits in the"
Bill: "They're not this high"
Tony: "Oh yeah"
Bill: "No, they're not"

Exxon's last quarterly profit: $9.9 billion.

Microsoft's last quarterly profit: $3.14 billion.

Bill: "They were talking about the oil situation and they blamed it on Katrina"
Tony: "They didn't blame that on Katrina"

As if I even have to post something, here's a Fox News article which says that the high prices were a result of Katrina.

And finally, a head-spinner on Iraq...

"You didn't have girls in school when Saddam Hussein was there."

Now that's some high grade bullshit. Before the war, 68 percent of Iraqi's girls attended school, and the only reason it was so low was because sanctions made it too expensive for many families. Before the first gulf war, the number was 92 percent.