Although this is proximally about Iraq I'm not really breaking my new rule, since what I really want to talk about here is the good Senator Santorum and the vagaries of talk radio and partisan commentators. It just so happens that I today heard Senator Santorum on the Sean Hannity show. Yes, that's right. I listen to the Sean Hannity Show. Deal with it.
Santorum's appearance was billed as a "shocking new development" in the Iraq WMD story. Instead, they presented a campaign sandwich, slapping a good 3 minutes of Santorum for Senate on either side of the juicy Iraqi WMD meat. Hannity really pumped for the campaign, doing his all to turn out supporters, contributions, and votes. The meat was Santorum going on about the "500 WMD shells" that have been found in Iraq, directly implying but never unambiguously stating that these are the weapons that justify the 2003 invasion. In reality, of course, these shells are the ones that we probably have receipts for somewhere in the DoD. These are shells from the Iraq-Iran border, where they laid buried and forgotten under tons of sand for nearly 2 decades since the Iraq-Iran War. The remnants of the fluid they contained isn't exactly safe to drink, but they certainly are no longer weapons in the sense that they can no longer be used. That certainly bars them from being considered WMD. To suggest they justify the war in Iraq is a lie.
Santorum was pitching a new "development" - a document apparently written after the war, but written by one of the dissidents that operated against Saddam during his rule. It is billed as an affidavit stating that 50 trucks were transferred out of Iraq and into Syrian Intelligence hands in Lebanon. The author doesn't know what was in the trucks, but of course suspicion abounds.
The interesting thing about the interview, beyond Santorum's manifest electoral desperation in hawking such a dishonest story, was Hannity's reaction to the story. Certainly, Hannity treated the information itself without a hint of skepticism, but he did address the glaring logical contradictions in the story. First, Hannity questioned Santorum about the motives of the White House in keeping this apparently exculpatory evidence secret. "Why wouldn't they emphasize the discovery of these shells instead of keeping it so secret?" he asked. The answer Santorum gave was that the White House wanted to "look forward" rather than looking back. According the Santorum, the Karl Rove White House is just to big to attempt to score political points at their opponent's expense. Hannity really pressed him on this, saying that people had accused the President of lying, and that his legacy was on the line.
I think Hannity's tactic here is interesting. The emphatic, and at times ferocious questioning really made Hannity look good. He looked like the bulldog reporter sniffing out a contradiction in the public statements of a politician. Given that this emphatic questioning was directed against a Republican, it makes Hannity look like someone who questions everyone toughly, even his allies. This is a ruse, of course.
The second logical contradiction Sean questioned concerned the fact that not all WMD sites have even been inspected, much less collected and quarantined. "Why wouldn't the Army go and collect all the other weapons? Why leave them in the ground?" Santorum's response was that "this is a very good question, and one that [he] had asked." He said he received a resonse but that he wasn't "at liberty to discuss" the answer. This is further deception on Rick's part, since the reason he isn't at liberty to discuss the answer is that it would tear to shreds his entire narrative. We don't collect the shells for one very good reason - they aren't a threat to anyone, and our men are too busy trying not to get blown up to go chase down every piece of discarded munition from the 80's.
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