The mother of all lies

By Creature

Since I'm picking through yesterday's talking head transcripts, here's another one for you that should get some attention. The show is Hardball, the topic is Iraq, and the lie comes from Republican shill Kate O'Beirne. Thankfully, the much maligned Bob Shrum was quick to put an end to the spin:

O‘BEIRNE: .... But al-Zarqawi was in Iraq before the invasion, as a representative of al Qaeda.

SHRUM: As you know, Kate—wait a minute, Kate, as you know, every commission that has studied this, everybody except the fantasists Dick Cheney says there is no connection between 9/11 and Iraq.

O‘BEIRNE: I didn‘t say there was. I said al-Zarqawi was in Iraq before the invasion.

SHRUM: You just tried to leave that little impression because it promotes the administration‘s case. If this country had believed that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 and had no weapons on mass destruction, we never would have been in this war.

It's the most dangerous lie the Republicans have used to date. It got us into a war, it kept Bush president, and now it's being used to keep us on a steady course of stay-and-pay in Iraq. Shrum cut off O'Beirne when she begin the spin, and every Democrat, every pundit, every talking head should take Shrum's lead and stop the GOP in their tracks the moment they try to slip this mother-of-all-lies in as truth.

(Cross-posted at State of the Day.)