Define Conservatives vs. Liberals

Thursday, June 17, 2004

Bob Davis spreading Misinformation on AM 1500 

AM 1500's Bob Davis shouted down a caller in the 8 o'clock hour today by repeatedly stating that Richard Clarke ordered the plane flights that took Saudi nationals out of the country in the days after 9/11. While he said it with conviction, he was incorrect in his statement.

Here's the testimony Mr Davis was likely incorrectly referring to. Notice that Clarke played a role in the approval, but the request and final approval clearly came from higher up in the government. In reality, it simply makes NO SENSE to think that the responsibility for this decision was in Richard Clarke's hands.

Footnotes: Richard Clarke on Air Bin Laden: "MR. ROEMER: We don't know how many people were on a plane that flew out of this country. Who gave the final approval, then, to say 'Yes, you're clear to go, it's all right with the United States government to go to Saudi Arabia'?

MR. CLARKE: I believe after the FBI came back and said it was all right with them, we ran it through the decision process for all of these decisions that we were making in those hours, which was the interagency Crisis Management Group on the video conference. I was making -- or coordinating a lot of decisions on 9/11 in the days immediately after. And I would love to be able to tell you who did it, who brought this proposal to me, but I don't know. The two -- since you press me, the two possibilities that are most likely are either the Department of State of the White House Chief of Staff's Office. But I don't know. "

Also, notice how poorly Bob Davis' misinformed take on the events after 9/11 reconcile with the behavior of Prince Bandar and George W. Bush:

Boston.com / News / Boston Globe / Ideas / Unasked questions: "But some people desperately wanted to fly out of the country. That same day, Prince Bandar bin Sultan bin Abdul Aziz, the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the United States and a long-time friend of the Bush family, dropped by the White House. He and President George W. Bush went out to the Truman Balcony for a private conversation. We do not know everything they discussed, but the Saudis themselves say that Prince Bandar was trying to orchestrate the evacuation of scores of Saudis from the United States despite the lockdown on air travel."

Bob, please try to stick to fact based debating.