Tweety - Gillespie: ABC's NOTE gets it wrong!

[grasswire]

From ABC News' insider newsletter Friday morning:

"Of course, those tracking the run-up to the Gillespie coronation exclusively through cable TV will have also seen last night's "Hardball" confrontation, during which Mr. Matthews' Joe Wilson obsession (like his Juanita Broaddrick obsession, but without the frission of sexuality and violence) was smacked in the face by a record-clarifying incoming chairman."

How could they possibly think that Gillespie won that one? As I pointed out to them, watch the Adams apple. If the guy swallows when the hard question comes, you know he's deceiving. Gillespie swallowed.

In fact, I don't think Gillespie did as well as Racicot would do. Racicot is an accomplished liar.

[diplomats]

1. What was the question, grasswire?

eom

[grasswire]

3. the hard question?

Tweety threw a couple dozen hard questions at Gillespie. One particular question Tweety kept hammering several times. Gillespie swallowed and could barely summon up his nervous smile. (And I'm trying to recall which point Tweety was making at that moment.)

Maybe someone can find a transcript.

[RamboLiberal]

6. Transcript

MATTHEWS: No. You gave me a challenge here. I think it’s a good point. I want to challenge it right back to you.
I have checked this out with everyone. No one denies this in the White House. The various people I’ve been lucky enough to talk to in the White House have made it clear to me that the reason the CIA sent Mr.-former Ambassador Joe Wilson to Niger was because the vice president raised the question and they sought to answer it.
If you want to quibble about who sent him there, fine. But they sent that guy down there to answer his question. Do you deny that?
GILLESPIE: That I don’t know. I know that you said that...
MATTHEWS: That is what I’m saying.
GILLESPIE: Well, what you said was that the vice president dispatched Joe Wilson. He didn’t. That’s factually inaccurate. I want to make the record clear about that.
But I also want to make clear, too, by the way, that the vice president was not briefed about this in advance of the State of the Union speech. Neither was the chief of staff, Scooter Libby, and I just think your viewers have a right to know that. So I think it’s good that we clear the record on that.
MATTHEWS: Let’s go through this, now that you’re clearing the record out, I’d like you, Ed-I’m going to ask you a question. Now I’m going to put you on the spot.
GILLESPIE: Sure.
MATTHEWS: What was the connection between the vice president’s query about the Niger arms deal, the possibility of an arms deal regarding Iraq buying uranium from Niger and the trip by Joe Wilson? What was the connection?
GILLESPIE: I don’t know, Chris. I don’t have an intelligence clearance.
MATTHEWS: You don’t know?
GILLESPIE: I know this, though. I know that the British intelligence agency continues to stand by...
MATTHEWS: Right, they do.
GILLESPIE: ... its assessment that the Iraqis sought to purchase uranium from Niger, and that that is true, and I say it on your air tonight. It was true seven months ago when the president stated in the State of the Union address.
MATTHEWS: Why did the vice president, if you want to get into details here, why did the vice president exclude from his sit room, his situation room presentation before the State of the Union any reference of the Niger information, any reference with regard to the possibility of a uranium sale to Iraq, if he believed it was true?
And if he didn’t believe it was true, why did he sign off on that sentence of the president’s State of the Union address? It doesn’t square for me. That’s what I’m trying to figure out. Why would the vice president say it’s OK for the president to say something that he wasn’t willing to say himself? Explain that.
GILLESPIE: I’m not familiar with the reference you’re talking about, Chris. I do know...
MATTHEWS: It’s the 16 words we’re talking about. It’s the 16 words we’re talking about regarding a nuclear arms deal with Africa, the very thing that’s been an issue now for two and a half weeks.
I’m asking you how could the vice president know that something was wrong with that document, as you pointed out, and not alert the president, in fact sign off on his State of the Union and let him make an inaccurate statement?
GILLESPIE: I didn’t point out-I believe you’re misrepresenting what I said, Chris. I didn’t point out that the vice president knew that that was wrong.
In fact, my understanding is that the vice president was not briefed by Joe Wilson as you asserted on your air, was not aware of that before the fact and learned of this change or this assessment by Joe Wilson after the State of the Union speech in the spring, is what was-is what’s been put out by the White House in their briefing. And I believe them, and so if you don’t, we have a difference of opinion.
MATTHEWS: No, we don’t.
GILLESPIE: You are entitled to your opinion.
MATTHEWS: It’s not a question of opinions. The vice president gets all this information. To say he doesn’t is absurd because he has to sign off on these national security issues when he signs off on the State of the Union.
Go ahead.

More at: http://www.msnbc.com/news/944080.asp

[The Night Owl]

2. What are the people at ABC smoking?

Tweety destroyed Gillespie in that interview!

[TacticalPeek]

4. totally destroyed...agreed

he whupped on him so bad, and all Ed could shoot back were blanks.

so bad, in fact, tweety had to peck him on the cheek at the end, congratulating him for heading the "party of Lincoln".

the Note must be trying to buy a little access to the new RNC chief!

[Cocoa]

5. where is "the note" coming from on this?

are they calling the Wilson smear story a non-story?

[TacticalPeek]

7. and

they even managed to work in a Clinton dig! wassup?

i emailed the note just now with some "record-clarifying" of my own!

[grasswire]

8. thanks for that transcript

Gad, look at this brutal exchange.


MATTHEWS: Two large cases were made for the war. One was that it was somehow related to 9/11, that those people had something to do with attacking us. Do you buy that?
GILLESPIE: That...
MATTHEWS: That Iraq had something to do with attacking us on 9/11?
Did they have anything to do with attacking us 9/11? Yes or no?
GILLESPIE: I believe that they are fostering the terrorism activity.
Whether it...
MATTHEWS: Did they have anything to do-was it in any way payback?
GILLESPIE: The point was...
MATTHEWS: Was it payback in any way?
GILLESPIE: I think...
MATTHEWS: Because the country western thinking in this country was, “Do you remember how you felt?” There’s a lot of people who felt we were getting even when we went to Iraq. Do you believe we were getting even for what happened on 9/11?
GILLESPIE: I believe we were protecting our national security and we were securing our homeland, that we’re making sure the region would be stable and we would not be...
MATTHEWS: The region.
Let’s talk about our region in this country. Do you believe Saddam Hussein had incredible nuclear threat against us, the United States? Do you think it was accurate to suggest what the British reported in their intelligence as a way of scaring Americans into supporting the war? Do you think that was a fair statement by the president?
GILLESPIE: I believe that Saddam Hussein had a desire the develop a weapons of mass destruction program, including chemical, biological and possibly nuclear weapons. Yes, I do.
MATTHEWS: Let me ask you about the case next year.

[grasswire]

9. more stuff from The Note about Gillespie

The new chairman of the Republican Party Edward Gillespie talks about the future of his party today in a New York Post op-ed. LINK

"Fox and Friends" is part of the right-left anti-Saudi coalition, and that meant that incoming chair Gillespie was hounded beyond what he possibly could have expected this morning about the redactions in the 9/11 report pertaining to the House of Saud.

Of course, those tracking the run-up to the Gillespie coronation exclusively through cable TV will have also seen last night's "Hardball" confrontation, during which Mr. Matthews' Joe Wilson obsession (like his Juanita Broaddrick obsession, but without the frission of sexuality and violence) was smacked in the face by a record-clarifying incoming chairman.

The AP's Ron Fournier previews Gillepsie's acceptance speech, Noting the new chairman's disdain for gloomy Democrats. LINK

"'The contest for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination sometimes seems to be a contest to see who can be the most pessimistic, who can protest the most angrily and who can take their party further back in time,' Ed Gillespie said in a text of his address to the 165-member Republican National Committee."

The Washington Wire says: "Republicans boldly look to 2004, unfazed by Bush poll slippage. Republican National Committee members meeting in New York vow to build on innovations credited with historic 2002 election gains. Voter-turnout guru Blaise Hazelwood Saturday outlines changes in so-called '72-Hour Project' for election eve: fewer leaflets and more volunteers."

And more gurus, Miss Calmes might have added.

Fournier also look through Gillespie's memo yesterday to "assure rank-and-file activists that 'the sky is not falling' on President Bush's poll ratings." LINK

Gillespie pointed to the April analysis by senior Bush-Cheney campaign adviser Matt Dowd that "the sky is not falling." (Note Note: we endorsed this theory on July 9 (LINK).

Dowd asserted that President Bush's poll numbers would eventually settle, and even possibly fall behind possible Democratic candidates or simply a faceless "Democratic opponent," but that it wouldn't matter.

"Throughout 1995 President Clinton's re-elect hardly ever got above 40%," he wrote. And while Clinton's highest point was 43% in a December 1995 AP poll, he ended up winning anyway.

Bush, Gillespie argues, isn't even having those kinds of problems.

"To be clear, the president's poll numbers are essentially the same today as there (sic) were the day before Operation Iraqi Freedom commenced on March 17."

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/politics/TheNote/TheNote.html