George Will is a habitual liar

First up is George Will, who went after [Wes] Clark in his Washington Post column on Sunday. Will cites apparent Clark GÇ£confusionGÇ¥ about attempts to tie Iraq to the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11.

Will wrote, GÇ£[Clark] compounds the confusion that began when he said on June 15 that on 9/11 GÇÿI got a call at my homeGÇÖ saying that when he was to appear on CNN, GÇÿYouGÇÖve got to say this is connectedGÇÖ to Iraq. GÇÿIt came from the White House, it came from people around the White House. It came from all over.GÇÖGÇ¥ Will goes on to quote a subsequent clarification, in which Clark said a month later, GÇ£No one from the White House asked me to link Saddam Hussein to Sept. 11.GÇ¥ . . .

To hear Will ... explain it, ClarkGÇÖs comments sound potentially damaging ... point[ing] to apparent quotations in which Clark said that he was asked by White House officials to assert IraqGÇÖs connection to 9/11. Do[es] Will have something here? No. TheyGÇÖre both deceptively playing fast and loose with the transcript.

LetGÇÖs look at exactly what Clark said on Meet the Press.

Clark: I think there was a certain amount of hype in the intelligence [about Iraq], and I think the information thatGÇÖs come out thus far does indicate that there was a sort of selective reading of the intelligence.

Russert: Hyped by whom?

Clark: Well, IGǪ

Russert: CIA, or the president or vice president? Secretary of Defense, who?

Clark: I think it was an effort to convince the American people to do something, and I think there was an immediate determination right after 9/11 that Saddam Hussein was one of the keys to winning the war on terror. Whether it was the need just to strike out or whether he was a linchpin in this, there was a concerted effort during the fall of 2001 starting immediately after 9/11 to pin 9/11 and the terrorism problem on Saddam Hussein.

Russert: By who? Who did that?

Clark: Well, it came from the White House, it came from people around the White House. It came from all over. I got a call on 9/11. I was on CNN, and I got a call at my home saying, GÇ£You got to say this is connected. This is state-sponsored terrorism. This has to be connected to Saddam Hussein.GÇ¥ I said, GÇ£But GÇö IGÇÖm willing to say it but whatGÇÖs your evidence?GÇ¥ And I never got any evidence. And these were people who had GÇö Middle East think tanks and people like this and it was a lot of pressure to connect this and there were a lot of assumptions made. But I never personally saw the evidence and didnGÇÖt talk to anybody who had the evidence to make that connection.

This transcript conveys a very different message from the one Will . . . would have us believe. When Clark said GÇ£it came from the White House,GÇ¥ he was talking about the effort on the part of the administration to convince America to wage war in Iraq. Later, Clark talked about getting a call while working for CNN about connecting Iraq and 9/11, but he certainly never said he was contacted by Bush administration officials. . . .

[L]ook again at the way George Will put this. His column quotes Clark, but takes different sentences and rearranges them to convey a different message. The result is Will making Clark sound like he said calls GÇ£came from the White HouseGÇ¥ to say Iraq was connected to 9/11, though the transcript shows that isnGÇÖt what was said at all.

By reversing the order of ClarkGÇÖs comments, Will has shamelessly misled his readers, even more than usual.

IGÇÖve certainly never been a fan of Will, but even I am surprised heGÇÖd stoop to amateur hackery like this. This is outrageous and the Post, if it had any gumption at all, would punish Will for this kind of deception.

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