Excellent Charlie Rose show tonight with Vanity Fair Journalists

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

from the "Path to War" article. Roundtable discussion, comprehensive, on the propaganda runup to invasion, intelligence cooking, pressure from Cheney, the role of Powell etc. Completely honest and straight discussion that we NEVER see on TV.

Basically the panel made no bones about the fact that the WMD rationale was a total fake just for propaganda value. One of the panelists was asked about whether shrubco BELIEVED that there were WMD when they were selling this and he simply said no.

Pointed out that shrubco fought hard against even letting the TITLE of the Aug 6 2001 intel brief become known (something like "Bin Laden Wants to strike within the U.S.") because it was so embarassing to them. And it's still not clear whether they will declassify that. We need to get the drumbeat going on that.

This was a really, really, good and lengthy discussion. I wish I could get a copy of the tape and transcript, and I wish at least some prime time network or cable news was like this.

[Bozita]

1. totally agree -- this might be MUST SEE TV

starting now on many PBS stations

[Lexingtonian]

2. absolutely

For a change Charlie gave up entirely on defending the neocon party line. The journalists played him entirely correctly- very modestly and factually- and he ventured forth onto The Side of The Light for a change.

I think he's not a hurry to book Wolfowitz, Perle, and the rest of the bunch that was just one endless parade for the past year or two again anytime soon. (Not that they're making any public appearances, either, given that every single one of their claims about Iraq proved a lie, wrong outright, or a con job somewhere along the line.)