{"id":6672,"date":"2006-02-21T12:24:42","date_gmt":"2006-02-21T17:24:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=6672"},"modified":"2006-02-21T12:24:42","modified_gmt":"2006-02-21T17:24:42","slug":"orrin-hatch-shows-just-how-smart-he-is","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/orrin-hatch-shows-just-how-smart-he-is\/","title":{"rendered":"Orrin Hatch shows just how smart he is"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I find it hard to believe, nearly three years after the start of the war in Iraq, any serious person would try and use the Saddam-al Queda link to justify the invasion. Of course, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thespectrum.com\/apps\/pbcs.dll\/article?AID=\/20060219\/NEWS01\/602190310\/1002\">not a serious person<\/a>. (<a href=\"http:\/\/thinkprogress.org\/2006\/02\/21\/nobody-with-brains\">via ThinkProgres<\/a>)<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;[W]e&#8217;ve stopped a mass murderer in Saddam Hussein. Nobody denies that he was supporting al-Qaida.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>In a clear attack on Democrats, Hatch added, &#8220;Well, I shouldn&#8217;t say nobody. Nobody with brains.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>We&#8217;ve been through this, how many times? All available evidence suggests, at the <i>most<\/i>, there may have been <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tnr.com\/doc.mhtml?i=20051128&#038;s=trb112805\">low-level, episodic contact<\/a> between Iraq and al Qaeda. The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/articles\/A47812-2004Jun16.html\">9\/11 Commission concluded<\/a> that Saddam and Al Qaeda did not have a &#8220;collaborative operational relationship.&#8221; Saddam Hussein didn&#8217;t try and establish a connection to al Qaeda; he did <a href=\"http:\/\/www.americanprogress.org\/AccountTempFiles\/cf\/%7BE9245FE4-9A2B-43C7-A521-5D6FF2E06E03%7D\/PRIRAQCLAIMFACT1029.HTM\">the opposite<\/a>, warning his Iraqi supporters to be wary of the network.<\/p>\n<p>This isn&#8217;t complicated. And yet, Hatch thinks Dems are morons for disagreeing with his bogus claim?<\/p>\n<p>Every time a poll comes out showing confusion about Iraq, 9\/11, and al Queda, I tend to think Americans need to take responsibility for being better informed. But it&#8217;d be a lot easier for the electorate to know the facts if our leaders stopped trying to mislead people like this.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I find it hard to believe, nearly three years after the start of the war in Iraq, any serious person would try and use the Saddam-al Queda link to justify the invasion. Of course, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) is not a serious person. (via ThinkProgres) &#8220;[W]e&#8217;ve stopped a mass murderer in Saddam Hussein. Nobody denies [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6672","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6672","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6672"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6672\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}