Janeane Garofalo spot on analysis 3 years ago

[sirio11]

In Paul Phillips blog , he posted an excerpt from the book The Best War Ever that I found quite interesting and worthy of discussion in this forum:

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... the antiwar voices that appeared in the media consisted of protesters at rallies and Hollywood celebrities such as Sean Penn, Susan Sarandon, or Janeane Garofalo. These programming choices delivered an implicit message that only scruffy radicals and Hollywood celebrities opposed the war.

Even so, it is instructive in retrospect to see what those voices said then and how well it stacks up against what everyone now knows to be the truth. Here, for example, is an excerpt from an interview that Tony Snow did with Jeneane Garofalo on Fox News in February 2003, less than a month before the invasion began:

SNOW: Do you think [Saddam Hussein] is eager to obtain weapons of mass destruction?
GAROFALO: Yes, I think lots of people are eager to obtain weapons of mass destruction. But there's no evidence that he has weapons of mass destruction. There's been no evidence of him testing nuclear weapons. We have people that are in our face with nuclear weapons. We've got Iran and North Korea. We've got a problem with Pakistan... There's a whole lot of people that are going nuclear. And I think that Saddam Hussein is actually, with the evidence, the least able to use nuclear weapons and the least obvious offender in that area at the moment... But I also resent Rick -- you know, Senator Santorum's assertions that this won't be particularly costly or lengthy. This is going to be economically devastating for us. And also, the assertion that inaction breeds terrorist strikes, that is ridiculous. Action in Iraq will make us decidedly less safe.

How is it that Janeane Garofalo had a better analysis of Iraq's weapons program -- and of the likelihood of a protracted occupation -- than the combined forces of the White House, U.S. intelligence agencies, and leading U.S. news media?

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Of course some of us agreed with all of this at the time; but we were in the minority then. I wonder if there was somebody in the administration who agreed with this analysis at the time. My guess is nobody, since doing that was equivalent to admit you were a radical leftist and not even by the administration standards, even by the news media standards. I'm pretty sure when history will review all the events around the Iraq war; the U.S. news media involvement will be a shameful and disgraceful chapter.

[candyman718]

Methinks that the US intelligence services knew a lot of those things too. But the White didn't care. They cherry picked the bits of intelligence that backed the conclusions they were hoping for.

[Magic Man]

Its Pretty Simple....

GW Bush is a genius.

Advisor: "Mr Prez, there is a fire in the west wing, what should we do?!?!?"

GW "Why ya bothering me with that stuff, I am on vacation"

Advisor "But you're the Prez"

GW "Oh yeah, in that case....call smokey the bear, he'll fix everything so I can get back to vacation"

The reason that an Actress knew more of what was going on...is because just about every person is smarter than the prez

[WillMagic]

I'm still just awestruck at how RIGHT she was about this. I mean, this is seriously about as spot on as you can get. She was right about Saddam's WMD capability. She was right when she tore apart the administration's argument that the war would be quick and clean.

I'll add this to my "I'll vote for democrats if..." list. I'll vote for dems if they promise to make Janeane Garofalo the head of the NSA.

[candyman718]

Even though I am stridently anti-Bush, I would recommend for you to check out how accurate she was about the first Gulf War and our bombing of Serbia/Kosovo before you promote her to the position of Prophet.

[Troy Smith]

Even a broken watch is right twice a day.

[AlexM]

It was never about Iraq being the "best" target so much as the most justifiable target as they had been violating their sanctions for so long. They were chosen as an easy sell and nothing more.

[Utah]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm still just awestruck at how RIGHT she was about this. I mean, this is seriously about as spot on as you can get. She was right about Saddam's WMD capability. She was right when she tore apart the administration's argument that the war would be quick and clean.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yet there wasn't a straight-to-video role that she could turn down. So, she could accurately predict international events but somehow couldnt see that Duane Hopwood was going to open for $2,500 dollars when they offered her the role?

When I saw this title, "Janeane Garofalo spot on analysis 3 years ago". I was expecting to open the thread and see "My career will be completely over" [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[Utah]

[ QUOTE ]
This is going to be economically devastating for us.

[/ QUOTE ]That of course turned out not to be true. Certainly it has been costly. However, the economy has flourished during the war and we have added something like 5 million jobs since it started.

For accuracy:
Her prediction that Iraq would devastate our economy = her prediction that the movie "Stay" wouldn't be a total bomb when she accepted the role

[Magic Man]

Bush isnt even as good as a broken watch then