MSNBC on Olbermann doctored the Helen Thomas question in a very important way.
I think it was also doctored on Hardball and they left out a critical element in what she said...
The full transcript of her question (from the White House website) with the portion MSNBC redacted highlighted in bold was:
Q I'd like to ask you, Mr. President, your decision to invade Iraq has caused the deaths of thousands of Americans and Iraqis, wounds of Americans and Iraqis for a lifetime. Every reason given, publicly at least, has turned out not to be true. My question is, why did you really want to go to war? From the moment you stepped into the White House, from your Cabinet -- your Cabinet officers, intelligence people, and so forth -- what was your real reason? You have said it wasn't oil -- quest for oil, it hasn't been Israel, or anything else. What was it?
As we all know, Helen was referring to Paul O'Neill's statement that the very first meeting of the National Security Council, in early 2001, before the 9/11 attack, was about invading Iraq and Richard Clarke related how immediately after 9/11, the first thing Rumsfeld wanted to do was bomb Iraq and the President pointedly pulled Clarke aside and demanded that he find evidence to link Iraq to the attack to justify an invasion. Not to mention the Downing Street minutes...and Bush's statement that he wanted to be a "war president" long before he was ever elected.
By leaving out that bolded portion of her question, MSNBC left out the most damning element; that Bush had wanted to go to war with Iraq BEFORE 9/11,
FROM THE MOMENT HE STEPPED INTO THE WHITEHOUSE. Bush's answer, in which he evaded her question, hinged on the idea that it was 9/11 which caused him to invade Iraq when the truth is something else altogether.
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