Joe Scarborough v Cindy Sheehan

I like Joe Scarborough. He may not get very good ratings, but he is a Conservative with his own program and I usually agree with what he says. Also, he isn't afraid to criticize Bush/Republicans when they are doing the wrong policy.

That being said, he really dropped the ball when he interviewed Cindy Sheehan the other night (3/16/2006) on his program. The transcript can be found here. The video of the interview is up on his homepage here; it's the first thing listed at the top of the page. In any case, he let Sheehan get away with numerous distortions and falsehoods throughout the program. Below is a copy of the email I sent to Joe:

Joe,

I like your show, try to catch it whenever I can, and generally agree with you on most issues (die-hard Republican), but your interview with Cindy Sheehan was just terrible. You let her just spin, distort, and lie with any tough follow up questions. I'm going to go through the whole transcript of the interview and show you how it should have been done. THe bold parts are my comments....

SCARBOROUGH: And I want to ask you about your son, Casey. Do you think—obviously there‘s been a split in your family over your activities. Do you think your son, Casey would agree with what you‘re doing?

"SHEEHAN: I know Casey would agree with what I‘m doing. He didn‘t want to go to Iraq, he did it out of a sense of duty. He did it because his buddies were going...."

Oh really? He didn't want to go to Iraq, yet he voluntarily re-enlisted after his time was up. And it's good to see that your son is so much of a independent thinker that he decides to re-enlist because "his buddies are doing it" Isn't that the excuse that like 15, 16 year olds use in high school for why they drink or do drugs. Because my friends are doing it???

SHEEHAN: "Well, his definition of a terrorist is someone who kills innocent men, women and children. And we know by a study taken last November, that - in November of 2004, that 100,000 innocent Iraqis have been killed...."

That is completely false. The study was completely useless and it had a 95% Confidence Interval between 8000 - 194000 deaths. Thus, it took 100,000 as the midpoint and claimed that it was the accurate estimate. For further information on how the study is not accurate http://www.slate.com/id/2108887/

SHEEHAN: "And just because someone is an elected leader of a country doesn‘t give them the right to do that."

Well, it actually does give them the right to do that after Congress gives them authorization (which it did 77-23).

SHEEHAN: "The war was based on lies. "

Wrong again...the following article pretty much breaks that down responding to a column Frank Rich wrote (since him and Sheehan are on the same page). http://www.nysun.com/article/23556?access=454877

SHEEHAN: "But Osama bin Laden and 16 Saudi Arabians that went through—a lot of them went through Dubai to get to America, they‘re the ones that perpetrated that crime against America, not the people of Afghanistan and not the people of Iraq....And I think you go after the criminals, you don‘t go after innocent people."

And where did bil Laden and those 16 Saudi's train and live and practice hijacking planes and taking hostages??? In Afghanistan!!! We weren't attacking the "people of Afghanistan"; we were attacking the government of the country otherwise known as the Taliban which offered assistance to bin Laden and the 16 Saudi's.

SHEEHAN: "..And if you look at the history, World War II happened because of World War I and the suppression and sanctions against the people of World War I...."

Yep Cindy, Japan attacked the US & China because of the sanctions we put on them after World War I. You nailed it.

Keep up the good work Joe. Everybody has an off day.

Thanks
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