Home > Shame!

60 Minutes, the New York Times, and a manufactured October Surprise.

by John F. Tamburo, Editor in Chief, Publisher
Originally Posted: 10/26/2004

***Updated 10-26-2004 at 3:22PM CDT HOT NEWS:  From Matt Drudge’s report this morning: "News of missing explosives in Iraq -- first reported in April 2003 -- was being resurrected for a 60 MINUTES election eve broadcast designed to knock the Bush administration into a crisis mode..." It seems that 60 Minutes was planning to drop this election’s October Surprise, and here’s the kicker:  As reported on MSNBC last night, the explosives were gone long before the troops arrived at the depot in early April -- 2003!

This story is 18 1/2 months old, but is being deceptively resurrected.  According to Drudge, a producer named Jeff Fager was planning to break this on Halloween.  Mr. Fager is quoted as saying, "our plan was to run the story on October 31, but it was clear it wouldn’t hold.  So the decision was made for the Times to run it."  So the New York Times, apparently working cahoots with CBS and Fager was first to pull the trigger.  But, the NYT "exclusive" story was researched poorly.  Had the Times or CBS properly researched this story, they would have found out that NBC News had an embedded crew with the troops on April 10, 2003, when the empty depot was found.  April 10, 2003 was one day after Iraq’s liberation.  I remember this because April 9 is my birthday, and I considered the liberation to be the second great American victory on my birthday (On April 9, 1865, Lee surrendered to Grant at Appamatox).

It is therefore apparent that the explosives were either used or moved well before the troops got there.  We lost nothing.  Not a darned thing.  The bombs were gone long before we got there.  All 380 tons of them.  Therefore, this NYT story, which "scooped" 60 Minutes on, well, let’s say "nicely aged" information, is pure garbage.  The facts are totally and completely false.  Our President’s staff, when asked for comment this morning, could not resist a jab: "Darn, I want to see the forged documents to show how this was somehow covered up."  Had NYT and CBS bothered to research this for even 30 seconds, they would have found out about the NBC News embeds and perhaps tried to forge up a different story.  Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity have had a field day destroying this ridiculous lie.

John Kerry has already released an ad decrying the looting of the facility  -- can you say "prepackaged and co-ordinated?" Assuming for argument that it could be looted, to move 380 tons would take 100 people two weeks to do so.  This alleged incident is so unbelievable that it is hard to comprehend that it was the October Surprise that the the demos served up.  The name of the facility is pronounced AL-CAA-CAA.  How appropriate.  The story is pure Caa-Caa.  As it is backfiring today, we’ll have a hoot seeing how these hateful liars try to wipe this off their faces!

Can you say liberal desperation?  Whacked out liberatzis will stop at nothing to unseat our beloved President, because they know that their star is fading with the people.  They are on the verge of losing power for decades.  So, what do we do about this latest imploded pseudo-scandal?  We vote.  Vote a straight Republican ticket.  Make sure you help your friends vote.  Make sure everyone votes for our beloved president.  Let’s soundly repudiate this tactic and these America-hating nattering nabobs of negativity.

60 Minutes, New York Times, you both can join Dan Rather in our Hall of Shame.