Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Gonzales Mess, AP Misrepresents

A big point during Gonzales' testimony Tuesday was his visit to Ashcroft while in the hospital. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) asked about how Gonzales' said there was no dissent about the Terrorist Surveillance Program (TSP) but now we hear about all this dissent and people willing to resign rather than support the program. Gonzales was saying the dissent was about another program. Schumer was questioning this because he thought it contradicted previous testimony (which would be a crime), I'm not so sure.

Anyway, now the AP reports Documents contradict Gonzales' testimony. That may be but I object to this in the article. They write:

"The dissent related to other intelligence activities," Gonzales testified at Tuesday's hearing. "The dissent was not about the terrorist surveillance program." "Not the TSP?" responded Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y. "Come on. If you say it's about other, that implies not. Now say it or not." "It was not," Gonzales answered. "It was about other intelligence activities."

That's not really how it went. Gonzales kinda misspoke on the last "it was not" and didn't really say that. In fact, if they went on with the quote, Schumer tried at least 3 times to get Gonzales to say it was not the TSP program and all he would say was the phrase "it was about other intelligence activities". That's why Schumer said "Come on. If you say it's about other, that implies not. Now say it or not." Still Gonzales would not say it and Schumer moved on. This would be obvious to anyone who watched or heard the testimony. "Lara Jakes Jordan, Associated Press Writer" either didn't watch or deliberately is misleading her readers, much as Gonzales was misleading the senators.

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