Here is an exchange between ABC’s Diane Sawyer and Dan Harris on Saddam Hussein (as transcribed by the Media Research Center) on March 7:
Sawyer: “Well Dan, it’s very hard to look at those and think of his meetings as a laugh riot exactly over in Baghdad, but I read this morning that he’s also said the love that the Iraqis have for him is so much greater than anything Americans feel for their President because he’s been loved for 35 years, he says, the whole 35 years.”
Harris: “He is one to point out quite frequently that he is part of a historical trend in this country of restoring Iraq to its greatness, its historical greatness. He points out frequently that he was elected with a hundred percent margin recently.”
Like Fidel Castro? Observe how Sawyer and Harris chose to quote those particular statements of the dictator Hussein, yet choose not to present other relevant facts (the Iraqi elections were a farce–there was one candidate, who murders his relatives who oposse him, etc.) in the same context.
On Good Morning America Sawyer spoke with Alice Hoglan, a mother of one of the passengers on Flight 93, the plane which crashed in Pennsylvania:
Sawyer: “And as you hear about the prospect of war with Iraq, do you worry that it will distract from a concerted, concentrated approach to the war on terror with Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda?”
Hoglan: “I think that President Bush’s focus on Iraq is consistent with his focus on the war on terror….His actions are consistent. Iraq harbors criminals, harbors terrorists and represents a threat in its own right. I support President Bush and the others, Senator McCain and the others who have spoken out in favor of removing this despot from power.”
Busted.